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Oct. 10th, 2012 11:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
3nanashiTrowa 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
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:
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Date: 2012-10-13 03:52 am (UTC)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?"
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Date: 2012-10-13 03:58 am (UTC)Something in her is saying this is your chance--
But not yet.
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Date: 2012-10-13 04:34 am (UTC)Yes. That.
Trowa waits, still and patient and wary.
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Date: 2012-10-13 04:47 am (UTC)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."
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Date: 2012-10-13 05:19 am (UTC)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?"
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Date: 2012-10-13 05:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-13 05:41 am (UTC)Tomorrow's not looking likely either.
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Date: 2012-10-13 08:00 pm (UTC)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."
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Date: 2012-10-13 10:44 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2012-10-14 04:16 am (UTC)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.
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Date: 2012-10-14 05:06 am (UTC)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.
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Date: 2012-10-14 06:07 am (UTC)That's what kept her alive all this time: knowing how quickly it could end.
She steps back, then back more, but doesn't run yet; meanwhile, the hellhound growls and snaps its jaws but it doesn't lunge.
Yet.
It won't listen to you.
It only listens to me.
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Date: 2012-10-14 06:24 am (UTC)Maybe it isn't, and Ava doesn't want him dead. (Maybe it isn't a canine at all, and there's no kind of animal mind there. It's hard to read the body language of something invisible, even if it is standing on you.) Maybe she's biding her time. Maybe she's at war with herself.
He has hypotheses, reshuffling themselves on a scale of probability, but in battle you have to rely on gut intuition to sort through them. Time for thinking out the intermediate steps comes before or after, if it's ever worth bothering with.
Trowa doesn't move. (If he has to move, he knows what leverage he has, and what he'll do. Maybe he won't have to.) "See?" he says to the maybe-dog, still level and calm. "I'm not going to hurt you."
Unless he has to. He will if he does. But with an animal, the tone of voice matters more than the words.
(Assuming he's speaking to an animal. There's another variable in the situation.)
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Date: 2012-10-14 06:52 am (UTC)"It doesn't get to do what it wants, Trowa," she says, low and hoarse.
"It doesn't matter."
The hound lunges.
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Date: 2012-10-14 07:06 am (UTC)Because right now, as soon as that first rasping sentence left Ava's mouth, Trowa is doing his Batgirl-trained best to fling the invisible maybe-canine to one side, as hard as he can, and roll away.
He's not working too hard to keep the knife in his hand away from it, either. But that's not his primary intention; the knife might cut, might miss, might go right through the thing, and if it cuts it has equal odds of scaring the animal or making it madder. Or, from what Ava says, having no effect at all.
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Date: 2012-10-14 07:48 am (UTC)Ava runs towards it. She can see the hound, of course-- she's not a mark, but she's not a normal either.
She aims to keep the thing between her and Trowa.
(The hound, presumably on its feet again, gives a warning growl.)
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Date: 2012-10-14 08:07 am (UTC)When you can't hold your own against the enemy, you retreat unless you have a more pressing reason to stay. Trowa doesn't; there's no one else to delay Ava for, no orders to leave no witnesses, no mission parameters that preclude a retreat.
And the intel he does have is a lot of close personal observation of the garage.
Trowa rolls to his feet and keeps going. There's a motorcycle one aisle over and ten yards down; he has no idea who it belongs to, but the keys are in the ignition. (He tested it months ago, when he first found it, and the engine started. Trowa believes in being prepared a lot more strongly than he believes in the sanctity of personal property.)
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Date: 2012-10-14 08:22 am (UTC)It's boring when they run.
Pressing a hand to her temple, she focuses in:
Go get him.
The hound barks, starting off at a run.
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Date: 2012-10-14 08:25 am (UTC)Because that's what's now happening.
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Date: 2012-10-14 08:31 am (UTC)For a moment, three sounds are commingled: the baying of the hound, the sound of the engine, and the dry hacking of Ava's sudden cough.
But as the coughing continues, and she drops to her knees, the hellhound noise seems to fade away.
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Date: 2012-10-14 08:41 am (UTC)And then it cuts off.
Because Trowa's at the elevators. He spins, back to the wall, his knife held at the ready, but the doors close without incident.
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Date: 2012-10-14 08:52 am (UTC)She doesn't move to get up for a long time.
(When she does, it's with a marked lack of concern, even for the slivers of glass that have dug their way into her palm.
She gets up turned away from the dent in the car, and from the chalk writing.)
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Date: 2012-10-14 08:53 am (UTC)So that could have gone better.