3nanashi | (no subject)

(no subject)

Trowa likes the garage. It's quiet, it's usually pretty empty of people, and it's got square kilometers full of fascinating machinery. Trowa is a mechanic at heart, and sometimes he privately misses the chance to get shoulder-deep in an engine. Milliways provides for that handily.

He's also Trowa, which means he also likes to explore it to make sure he has a clear and current mental map of all those square kilometers of deceptive and occasionally shifting geometry.

He rounds a corner, and --

. . .

That's new.

Trowa's eyes narrow slightly as he regards the wall. Its utilitarian concrete is covered with scratches and scrawled over with white chalk, delineating X-ed out circles and a single word:

S O L D I E R

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. . .

Uh huh.

Trowa's patient. (Categorically.) He watches in silence: Ava's distracted drifting motion, the glinting of the room's other lights off the shattered glass. Very localized devastation, as Trowa's standards go.

She can see the chalk writing from here. He's curious whether she will.

She spends a moment glancing down at the glass, then up at the light. Back to Trowa.

A quick look around at the parts of the garage that she's neglected to pay attention to, which she slows down by force of will.

(Take it easy.)

It's only at the end of this that she spots the writing.

Ava steps towards the wall, her awareness of Trowa a prickle tickling above her awareness of the demon, which is more of a friendly stab.

Crunch. Crunch crrrunch.

Here's hoping her soles are sturdy. They look it, though.

"Pretty interesting," Trowa says lightly, watching Ava's progress.

Comparisons can be deceptive; parallels will mislead you if you try to follow them too far. Trowa's conservative to a fault about that. It's important to see the patterns that are really there.

But all the same, he's reminded briefly of Une, back in the day.

Ava stops.

She turns her head to look at Trowa.

The expression on her fact isn't much different than before, but there's a flicker of something in it-- fear, maybe anger.

But it's distant.

Patient, even.

"That's not funny."

Mildly, "Never said it was."

Things Trowa does not have in his possession right now: chalk.

Her eyes narrow slightly.

Trowa's don't.

Without shifting, and without looking any less suspicious, she says, "Did you follow me?"

Her voice sounds slightly hoarse, as if she's getting a cold.

"No."

He's capable. And he's capable of lying about it.

But he's telling the truth, at the moment.

"I was just taking a walk."

He'd ask if she followed him, in turn, but he's pretty sure he'd've noticed. And the writing was already there.

"Kind of a weird coincidence."

Mild.

"Seeing that up on the walls ... running into you."

. . . Really, Ava?

"I was figuring that the same person who wrote that probably smashed the light."

Whether or not it's the same personality remains to be seen.

"How long have you been down here, Ava?"

The name use is deliberate.

Her lips curl down.

(The trouble is, she doesn't remember how long she's been down here.

And she doesn't realize that she should.)

"I didn't write that."

Trowa shrugs a little, (ostensibly) accepting that.

"Okay."

"Not bad about the light, though."

She's turned back to him now, not just with her head but her body, too. Her posture looks very relaxed, with an unselfconscious poise she doesn't usually have in her day-to-day of being Ava Wilson.

Zevran's probably seen it, though.

Trowa hasn't seen it from Ava -- except once, more subtly and just for a moment.

But he's seen it in other people a lot.

(In the mirror, every time he looks.)

Trowa doesn't look like he's tensing to move. But he is.

"Oh?"

"Mmhmm."

Something in her is saying this is your chance--

But not yet.

Guess they've got a mystery graffiti artist on their hands!

Yes. That.

Trowa waits, still and patient and wary.

Come to think of it, the something in her may be in her head. Maybe through her head.

That's the thing about letting demons up-- they want out, into this world of shape and matter and meat, and they want it all the time. They'd chew their way through if they could.

Ava exhales, lips quirking into a distant approximation of a smile. The air gets a little bit colder.

"Hey, Trowa."

The trouble is: Trowa knows a little about Ava's powers. As much as he's been able to piece together. But that's not a lot, and it's not enough to have any idea of limits.

And all he has is a small folding knife in one pocket, and a multi-tool in the other. And a lot of cars.

Plenty to take on a human, plenty to know how to fight them or retreat no matter how they're armed, but against Ava's powers? Hard to say.

"Yeah?"

"Wanna play a game?"

Lightly, "Not today."

Tomorrow's not looking likely either.

"That's a shame."

Another light smashes out.

Something rushes past the row of vehicles on Trowa's other side, too fast to be seen--

Or at least, it can't be seen. Regardless of how fast it is.

"I'm really good at this one."

The light smashes; Trowa moves.

Another flip, covering ground as much as it launches him upward -- to another truck, not to the concrete floor, but the next carries him down and towards Ava.

His folding knife isn't weighted for throwing. Too bad. You deal with what you have.

It's in his right hand, pulled out mid-flip and flicked open in the crouched instant between one jump and another, held horizontally with the blade along his forearm like a knife-fighter (which isn't inaccurate), but it's not his primary goal right now. Murder on the grounds of Milliways, even in self-defense and down in the garage, is more trouble than he wants.

A good solid (left-handed) uppercut to Ava's solar plexus would solve a lot of problems, though.

Trowa's pretty fast himself. And he goes for the throat.

Even watching him the whole way and controlling the demon at the speed of thought, he manages to get really close to her. Ava staggers back, nearly trips.

But something hits Trowa from the side before he reaches her, something that still can't be seen but which issues a perfectly audible snarl.

Its weight is pretty perceptible, too.

Damn it--

The snarl sounds canine. The weight feels canine, too. But there's nothing to see, and he doesn't know enough about Ava's world or Ava's powers.

"Hey there," Trowa says to it, low and calm, as if he's standing on a sidewalk speaking soothingly to a stranger's dog. As if he didn't jerk his right arm up across his throat, because he'd rather his forearm be mauled than his jugular; as if he isn't about to do his best to throw off the invisible maybe-dog if he can, unless it proves friendly after all.