There was once a time where I swore- quite emphatically, in front of a hundred classmates or so- that the next time Ajax Lionhart crossed my path in the street, only one of us was going to be walking away. He took it upon himself to dismantle me in my own gym the very next week in front of a crowd twice that size. It was his first time ever entering the most hallowed grounds of the capital’s next generation of martial artists. That his second comes at my side is an irony that doesn’t go unmissed amongst the locals. Or myself, for that matter.
There are murmurs from a group of runners stretching beneath the leaky awnings out front. Uncomprehending stares from the fistfighters chatting it up around the lobby. The day shift desker’s mouth hangs open when I swipe my JOY twice to pass Ajax through. Together, we duck under the too-low ceiling support that divides the lobby from the main floor of the gym and enter a scene of barely restrained martial chaos.
I take in a deep sniff of the muggy soup of humanity inside, let it out with a groan, and throw a shout back into the lobby for someone to go fix the climate control. Half a dozen freshmen scramble to be the first. Sighing at their enthusiasm, I return my attention to the sounds and sights of my second home as they roll over me. Retro music from forgotten fighting games programmed far before our age crackles out of shoddy speakers I chose precisely for their awful quality. Sandbags thump like suppressed gunshots. Rubber shoes squeak and burn as young brawlers leave younger bruises on their university peers across a dozen fighting squares simultaneously. It’s a whiplash flood of warm lights, flying limbs, and shouted attacks. Beautiful in a way that few other things in my world can match.
Last time Ajax ducked into this place, he acted as if it was as far beneath him as earth is heaven. Today he lingers at my side like a man in a foreign land. Drab and out of place in his borrowed hoodie and too-large sweatpants I found in a design studio down the street from the hospital. The sleeves hang past his hands, concealing the weakened twitching of his fingers. Even with his JOY activated, his exhaustion is obvious. His eyes look like he’s been up three nights straight. Latent soreness keeps his shoulders slumped and his eyelids half-lowered as he gazes over the sea of my people and silently judges them decidedly unimpressive.
We stand just inside the threshold and watch the battle atop the main stage, where a fencing kickboxer hammers it out against a freshman judo I vaguely remember seeing weeks ago. Awkward groups maneuver around us on their way past. All of the gymgoers know my face, and most stop to bump fists and exchange friendly greetings on their way by. The only ones who don’t are already activating secondary or tertiary classes while sprinting out to catch trains at the nearby metro station. And even they wave. My back starts to sting from the amount of people slapping it on their way by.
Ajax frowns at the action on the stage. “Does everyone here know you?”
“Yeah,” I say, before another martial artist from the club gets my attention. I shout back across the small sea of heads between us. “Ploy! Still working on that new spell?”
The brawler shrugs and jerks a thumb at a nearby trash can. “Couldn’t get it short enough to cast in a fight. What about you? Where’s Jolie?”
I laugh and shake my head. “Around.”
We knock knuckles before he’s carried away by the flow. I turn back to find Ajax covering his face after some slipup in the ring that earns the fencing girl a free ticket on the Supplex express. He glances back at Ploy’s already-gone silhouette.
“How did you meet all of them?”
“One at a time,” I reply. “Came with the territory. Captain of the martial arts club, second rank on campus, letting anyone challenge me if they want, part-time owner…”
“You own this place?”
“Jolie handles the paperwork, really. I just draw the crowds. Did you know it used to be a furniture outlet?”
Ajax’s nose wrinkles as he looks out over the entirety of the gym, its ragtag populace, and the rickety girders of spotlights that illuminate them. “It’s very… informal.”
“It’s a gym.”
“Yes, but people never approach me at my gym like this.”
“Because you don’t give them a chance,” I reply. A spark of an idea enters my head when a familiar head of icy blue hair attached to an outlandishly long pair of legs suddenly bobs into view amidst the crowd. “You said that no one would remember you, that being the best meant nothing in the end. But you couldn’t be further from the truth.” I rest an affectionate hand on his shoulder. “Anyone might be able to be the best, Ajax. But not everyone is you. You’ve given every single person in this gym a target to chase for four entire years. There’s not a single fighter on campus who hasn’t studied you down to the pixel. They want to remember you. All you need to do is remind them that they do.”
“That’s a very-”
“-Here, watch.” I cut him off and wave to the young woman working her way towards us through the crowd. Her eyes light up with surprise, then suspiciously optimistic curiosity when she sees Ajax and I standing side by side. It only takes her a moment to weave up to our side. People make room for the club’s co-captain, twice as fast when the captain himself is waiting.
Winter drifts into the hollow circle my presence merits like she owns it, swats me on the shoulder, and leans down to peck Ajax square on the cheek. A heated flush colors his cheeks as she pulls back.
“Hell itself must have frozen over,” she says, raising an eyebrow at the two of us. “There’s been talk around town about you two working out your differences on some sabbatical retreat. Right before the tournament, too! I said it was a load of crow. Seriously. Ajax and Mars, buddy-buddy at last? You’d have to get me shitfaced before I’d ever bet on that happening.” A wry smile flits across her lips. “Yet here you two are in the flesh. Butted heads enough times to figure out your differences, did you?”
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“Something like that,” Ajax mutters. He runs a hand through his hair. “There were extenuating circumstances.”
“Always are.”
I lean in conspiratorially beside Winter. “He swears no one would care if he went missing tomorrow. I was saying that there’s no one on campus who would pass up an opportunity to get coached by Ajax the Invincible himself.”
She shoves me away with a mocking groan. “Of course you would say that. You breathe attention more than you do oxygen.” Her eyes drift to Ajax. Despite the ice in her mane, Winter has a heart like the warm side of a pillow. She can sense the same ailment in him that I did even if she doesn’t know the cause. “Mars isn’t wrong, you know. If you ever wanted to feel as popular as he does, all it would take is going out on one little limb.” She glances around at the fifty-something martial artists doing their damndest to not start slavering at the thought of picking a fight with their most mortal foe. “Even here among enemies. Every one of these kids would die for a chance to have you critique them, Ajax. And believe me when I say the bumpkin brawlers can be rather charming once you get to know them.”
He ponders the idea for a long moment, still absorbed in watching the junior fencer being thrown about like a ragdoll on the stage.
“I suppose it couldn’t hurt.” His tired eyes meet mine in a cautionary glance. “But only once. I’ve never enjoyed public speaking.”
It isn’t just once. And I couldn’t be prouder of my peers.
When Ajax leaps to the edge of the main stage and rests his elbows over the ropes, the entire room ratchets to a standstill. A collective breath is drawn in. Both fighters immediately freeze mid-battle. All eyes dart first to Ajax, then to where I lean against a nearby pillar with arms crossed and a contented smirk on my face. The people waiting their turn on the stage surreptitiously clear the steps. Inside the rope boundary, the duelist lets her blade hang and stammers through asking Ajax if he’d like to fight.
He just nods to her opponent. “I’m here to teach. Do you want to learn?”
The girl looks to me, then back to him. She swallows nervously. Nods. And to the surprise of the entire gym, the weight of a young champion’s gaze falls on her shoulders alone.
I know from experience it’s a heavy burden to bear, and even heavier to dole out. That weight doesn’t come easily. I don’t envy her position as the first of today’s many victims. But I do enjoy the show that follows.
“Lesson one.” Ajax snaps his fingers at the judo who waits for the fight to continue. I nod my silent permission to the boy. He obeys without hesitation and clips the hapless fencer’s legs with a wicked sweep that leaves her gasping for air at Ajax’s feet.
My friend slips through the ropes and holds out a hand, lifting her back to her feet. His fingers close around the hilt of her swordhand. “Never let your blade hang, and never turn your back.”
One lesson opens the floodgates. As each new fighter takes to the stage, they realize that all eyes are on them like never before. Fighting to impress the strongest mind of our university inspires a fervor in them that not even I can summon. Ajax is a callous teacher. His voice whips where mine cajoles. Yet his comments always strike true, even if they do not strike often. He leaves each of our underclassmen with a precious gift of knowledge. Each bows in thanks in the old village way, a tradition adopted by martial artists in ages past. The sight of their clumsy bowing brings a wan smile to his face.
Soon every other fighting square has dried up. The line to the main stage stretches through the doors to the rain-streaked sidewalks outside. Everyone wants to get their chance with him. The gym goes wild when one brilliant first-year, a triple-classed arcanist who mixes martial arts with cardfighting, even manages to get a clap from Ajax.
Something changes in him while he teaches beneath the spotlights. The longing of a life cut short still haunts his eyes, but with every junior who crouches with him to ask his advice on a particular nuance or fault, I feel his soul flare a little brighter. His shoulders stand a little straighter. He finds pieces of his unfailing heart I’ve always envied, and as he gathers them, I think, I hope, he sees that he has changed more with his life than he ever knew.
That’s all I can ask for.
Midafternoon sees golden sunlight breaking through the clouds for the first time in two days. We stand together in the newborn rays, soaking them up as they splash across the gym’s front façade while music ramps up and chaos returns to the air behind us.
Ajax clutches the bladeless hilt of his heirloom katana while another fit of bloody coughing overtakes him. The rest of the weapon curls around his forearm like a serpentine tattoo. Nearby, rain drips and drizzles into slow-drying puddles across the sidewalks. Our gazes rise above them to the heart of the Electric Town; the arena we’ve both dreamed of conquering since we were children.
“I never told you why I went to the Vents that day,” Ajax says, attention drifting between the cityscape and a flock of doves roosting on a nearby radio tower. “Years ago, when I was given my first prognosis, I swore I would do something good before it took me. Something to be remembered for. I found nothing at all in that first year, of course. Until a chance morning in the city gardens, when I met a girl from the Vents who wanted to die and did my best to convince her she shouldn’t. I always wondered what happened to her. I would go down to the undercity day after day to volunteer after the fires, but I never saw her again. Not until that day, when I saw her rocketing past with a very determined look on her face, and she dragged me right into you.” A wistful smile curves his lips. “And here we are because of it. A pro fighter rescued and a good deed almost finished, and it’s one that will never be known.”
“No good deed escapes obscurity.”
His eyebrows arch in surprise. “So you can read.”
I shrug, leaning against the brick wall. “You inspired me.”
Another violent cough leaves his shoulders shuddering.
“I am glad for that,” he whispers. “I often feel the same.”
When the fit runs its course, Ajax straightens his shoulders and kicks back against the wall beside me, fixing his braid with renewed purpose.
“I still have one last chance to do good, Mars. There’s one strand yet to tie. And I have no plans of wasting what little time I have left.”
High above the city, even taller than the Metro Blockhouse, the ominous silhouette of Shimano Heavy Industries towers over the skyline. Ajax nods at it and begins cracking his knuckles one at a time.
“We must stop Vex and Prazen, together. While we still can.”