Smoke and Mildew
Word Count: 2479 (1761 Faustite / 718 Umber)
Faustite waited stiffly, in the way that one often does when encountering a first hurt. Leading a cushioned life left Faustite no opportunities for learning how to disguise new pains. He slouched at the dinner table to accommodate his aching abdominals and his parents roused the idea amongst themselves of a schoolyard fight. They called Azure Valley, interrogated every supervisor and coordinator they encountered, and convinced themselves that his school knew nothing of the goings-on between the attending students. Elex let the matter lie, perhaps in poor judgment, and allowed his parents to think what they would of his new school. So long as they knew nothing of his alter ego, they could think ill of Azure Valley.
The girl who attacked him did so out of faulty logic, he knew. She acted on the better part of belief over truth. Umber's warnings about the opposition held true there - that the enemy will form suppositions about him based on uniform alone, and his words and actions would hold no weight in swaying that opinion. Death by categorization, his father liked to call it. Elex often hoped it was a myth. Hope led him to an immensely sore stomach, legs, and an understanding that the people in this war would kill him for wearing dark clothes.
Faustite could not yet consider the matter in such straightforward terms, however. Umber's cautions proved fairly reliable at this point, but Chrysocolla offered another view of his commanding officer that demanded consideration. Chrysocolla found no love or trust for Umber, a man who stood as her peer in most respects. And perhaps Chrysocolla played her own angle - Faustite could not deny the selfish nature of man in these instances - she may find some personal gain in stacking Umber's subordinates against him. Faustite doubted, however, that her suppositions were completely unwarranted. So often men misstepped, and Umber struck him as more soldier than man. Those missteps may number into the dozens, if not hundreds.
Faustite's wait came to a close shortly before noon, and the figure of the general apparated from nowhere. All browns and lean muscle, Umber cut a figure not of a vicious supersoldier. No, he looked similar to a throwback from a primitive, dead culture. Faustite still struggled to adjust to the non-standard uniforms worn by the Negaverse and their complete lack of formality. "Hello, Umber," he greeted quietly.
Umber offered no immediate greeting himself. Often his tidings with other agents felt like one long, sustained interaction with no beginning or end in sight - a cyclical presentation of input and output that formed a constant drain on his energy and resources. In this, he preferred to execute his corruptions and then transfer the officer to another general - one friendlier, more lenient, and more patient than he. Faustite was an exception in this matter. Often Umber questioned his decision in the matter. Perhaps Faustite would have performed better with someone less militant, like a Negaverse senshi.
No, no Negaverse senshi. He had quite enough of those.
"You're injured." Umber spoke the phrase matter-of-factly as he approached, only stopping when he stood a few feet before the seated lieutenant. While Umber made clear his disdain for formalities, he similarly telegraphed the need of learning them for interactions with other officers. "Stand." He would learn to work around the pain.
And stand he did, though Faustite grimaced in straightening up. His core muscles groaned with protest when stretched taut. "A girl attacked me the other night. She was looking for an officer that was pulling starseeds in the area. She couldn't find the perpetrator, so I became the scapegoat." Faustite provided no further explanations; speech bothered his diaphragm and Umber never looked terribly keen on Faustite's insights.
"My parents were getting suspicious, too. They think someone attacked me at my school. If I'm going to balance both lives like this, then I need to learn how to fight and I need to get good at it fast. Can you help me?" He looked on at his general pleadingly, though his gaze was met with indifference toward his troubles. Faustite expected as much.
'Umber's kind of a d**k, and I don't trust him with Lieutenants. I didn't train under him, but there's just… something about him I don't trust.' But doesn't it sound just as undesirable to damn someone for their personality traits? Another case of death by categorization. How easy it is to think the worst of everyone. With Umber, maybe those thoughts are justified.
"You'll still get hurt. Fighting better won't reduce injuries. You'll only be harder to kill." Sending Faustite out to alternate sources for training crossed his mind, and he complied with that thought for its breadth of different fighting styles, but now Faustite became insistent on impossible goals. Umber himself knew their importance, but Faustite lacked that intrinsic understanding for how such an urge shapes in itself an entire lifestyle. Faustite knew not that he looked at a life similar to Porsha's, which, from what Umber knew of the boy's life, he could not sustain. Too many other variables prohibited him from moving forward. "Are you in danger of discovery?"
"No. They don't suspect anything. They prefer to live in the realm of the mundane where all magic exists in dusty fantasy novels." Faustite felt confident of it.
"You will be. Your parents will recognize the nightly disappearances. They're not blind to you. The bruises will continue and they'll get worse. Your parents will look for other explanations. They'll ask other people for their advice. They'll ask the wrong person eventually. If your parents are the problem, move out or kill them." Umber saw no further reason to address such discourse.
.
Faustite snorted, a smirk forming on his boyish features. "So you'd have me kill my parents to stop them from noticing? The youngest of an affluent philanthropist snaps and murders his parents. What would that look like to the world? What would that look like to the enemy?" Would you be surprised at all that Chrysocolla finds you untrustworthy? You wouldn't have the justification to say 'yes'. " All eyes would fall on Elex Yorke. You'd have me ruin my reputation and the rest of my life, all over a secret little war."
If Umber felt anger at Faustite's challenges, he obscured it well. But from Faustite's angle, Umber simply held no capacity for anything beyond duty and interpersonal apathy. "Kill them, and you have control over how they die. No one can use them for bargaining against you. They can't discover or reveal your identity by accident. Parents are a liability in the war, Faustite. Parents will hold you back from being the best soldier you can be. Remove your weaknesses, and you can live in the Negaverse's barracks. They can set up an emancipation. If you're not willing to get serious about the war, then ask someone else."
Faustite breathed a long sigh through his nose. Slowly he rose to his feet and, while looking Umber in the eyes, spoke his request. "You haven't changed my mind. Teach me how to fight."
Umber's answer came not in the fashion that Faustite expected. Pain cracked immediately over his cheekbone and Faustite stumbled to the side, clutching his cheek. The spread was atrocious, and he felt half his palate aching in response to the strike. But Faustite found no time to react to his situation - to register what, precisely, happened before a second and a third blow erupted in stomach and knee. Faustite collapsed, and he struggled to recognize what was struck and where to register pain. The set of instances happened blindingly quick, and he knew his general stood over him in a matter of moments. Slowly he realized the vehement pain in his abdomen, how it arched up the left side of his chest into his collarbone in an attempt to reach the pain in his face. Faustite only managed a tentative, wet grunt in response. He tasted blood.
"Your first lesson: your enemies will not wait. They won't listen to you. Their job is to kill you and they will do it despite any differences in rank or ability. If you're weak, you're just an easy kill. Do you understand?" Umber waited, a hand thrust into a coat pocket.
"A girl in green reacted the same way... " Faustite paused to touch delicate fingers to his bloodied tongue. "She wanted to hurt me badly enough that I'd never power up again." A pause, then he smirked. "I understand."
Umber crouched and, upon extracting his hand from pocket, offered a gem to the battered lieutenant. "Eat this. It'll recover some of your injuries and impart energy. It's standard practice for Negaverse agents to carry them."
"That's a starseed," Faustite replied incredulously. Pain urged him to disregard moralistic logic. And he wanted to, badly - he wanted to set the lot of it aside and eat the gem as if it meant nothing more than supple fruit. Nagging cynicism reigned with it, and informed him of follies that he would inevitably follow. Umber would have him become a living charnel house. But how surprising is it that we have lives priced against pains? How many times has the rest of the world passed a street beggar, thinking nothing of him? How many times has one life been worth more than another based on past merits? Pragmatism's popularity is at an all-time-high these days. Can I really afford to be surprised?
"Eat it or you'll be in the hospital by the end of the day." Umber retired the starseed to the lieutenant's palm. "I sent you to a captain because we have a large gap between our skill sets. I can kill you without meaning to. If you're training with me, you need to get used to eating them or you'll spend a lot of time in the hospital. It isn't feasible any other way." He straightened then, and waited for his lieutenant to rise.
"You don't have a useful weapon. You won't for some time. You need to learn to fight in a manner that keeps you alive. Go for joints - hit the arms to keep them from attacking. Senshi often speak when using their magic, so aim for the throat. Kick at their knees to prevent them from pursuing you or running from you. End them when you can: they will keep pursuing you until you do." Knuckles cracked and Umber worked his muscles limber once more. He stood in a manner both loose and prepared. "Get in close, cripple them, and take their starseeds. It's the most efficient way. If they escape, you left them injured. They won't be a problem a second time.
"Master these and you'll come out on top. When you get a real weapon, you can factor that into your combat training. Until then, spar with other agents and work out as much as your body allows. Never patrol alone. Now attack me."
Chrysocolla offered me an option. Umber won't. The frigid reminder backed his reluctant intake of the starseed. The rock surface cracked beneath his teeth, and while he tasted nothing, a delirious rush of energy followed its fracture. Suddenly he felt charged, overly so, like he tested one of the drugs so warned about in school. Jittery, he staggered to his feet. His stomach, chest and face still ached terribly, but the humming energy in his body urged him to ignore it. Perhaps he could now.
Faustite fell into his best approximation of a fighter's stance. Feet stood apart, arms raised near the face, and back hunched while he felt awkward and unbalanced. Inwardly he laughed at his own revelation that, for all of mankind's propensity to go to war with itself, fistfighting was never an instinctive skill. Perhaps that was just his own deviation from the nature of mankind. There wasn't time to think of such matters, however, and Faustite prepared himself to attack his commanding officer.
And there was, at last, some use in disliking the man he faced. Seldom did he hesitate at the thought of punching Umber, or kicking him in the knee joint where he might cause permanent damage. In part, this disgusted him - treating Umber as little more than a bag of meat may reflect the man's views of other people, but doing so fell dangerously into the territory of perpetuating violence. That brought with it its own long criticisms of the war, and whether his rudimentary participation was even justifiable against his lust for magic and outstanding circumstance. He knew this wasn't how he wanted to play his part.
Still, Faustite struck out toward Umber's knee first, and found that the other officer pivoted fluidly and caught his leg at the calf. Immediately Faustite felt unbalanced and slipped toward the ground. Umber dropped him and beckoned for the lieutenant to rise to his feet. While Faustite did so, he felt some of his inclination slip. Each time he leveraged another shot at one of his CO's joints as instructed, he found another circumventing attack where his assaults would never connect. And how was he to learn anything about fighting if Umber would not allow for a single hit?
By the eighth attempt, the buzzing energy from the starseed began to fade. Faustite adapted his form somewhat and swapped to executing some feints before the real strike came about. He managed a single hit on his superior this way, though he found that Umber's stance moved seldom in response. A retaliatory shoulder check landed the lieutenant on his back in short order, which disrupted some earlier injuries. Umber urged a second starseed and further training.
At last, 3PM left the lieutenant severely beaten and starving. A schoolboy like himself lacked the stamina and personal training for such feats, he knew, and Umber had the sense to recognize when further training only proved detrimental. At last he straightened up and dusted his rumpled clothes of the blood and dirt from their rooftop engagements.
"Go home," Umber bade. The general stood a stark contrast to his subordinate in his lax pose. His breathing remained steady, whereas Faustite's breaths grew ragged. "Rest for a day, then meet me back here at sunset. Don't be late." Umber vanished without another word.
So that's it. Come back again and don't be late. Have you forgotten what it means to be new to this? Maybe you just don't care. Maybe knowing that they're suffering at your behest is just part of the appeal. Scraping himself back together, Faustite dropped his uniform in favor of the long walk home. Faustite couldn't catch the city bus like Elex could, and no opportunistic enemies could suss him out when he donned no uniform. But the road was made longer by pain, and Elex resigned himself to it.
