Season 1, Episode 5 - The Boxtops IX - "The Phrasing"
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Later that evening. Not content with just the normal trainings after school, many Rddhi users - especially those partaking in the Combat Simulation on Saturday - spent the evening with another practice session.
Down in the basement of the Support Building, in an isolated training cell, Isaac breathed deeply, then struck with the force of a raised heart and a tempered mind. His strike blew away several planks of wood arrayed in front of him – his fist plunged through eight in total.
Isaac eyed the remaining two planks of wood. “Isn’t it funny?” he supposed, grabbing a drink of water from his canteen. “Over a month ago, it took everything in me to break through four planks of wood out of five. And now I can break through eight out of ten no sweat. But not being able to get through the whole thing...it almost makes me feel like I’m back where I started.”
His erstwhile training companion, Ryan Leekman, nodded at that. “I see what you mean. It’s good to be striving for the next goal, but don’t forget to enjoy your accomplishments as they arrive, too.”
Isaac set up more planks of wood. “Guess the only thing I can do is keep going.”
After punching through another eight, both students heard on a knock on the metal cell door. Leekman peered through the glass window and recognized the knocker, letting him inside.
Isaac himself didn’t recognize this man. He looked tall and wore a brown bomber jacket, with light stubble on his chin. He looked aged, with a few scars on his face, a youthful smile standing in contrast with both.
“This is Osip,” Leekman introduced. “Osip, this is Isaac.”
The two shook hands. Isaac noticed how strong Osip’s grip was.
“I used to be a wingman for Leekman’s older cousin, back in our days here,” Osip explained, smiling at the memory. “It never worked, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.”
Isaac’s eyes widened. “You went to school here?”
Osip nodded. “Fifteen years ago, the Academy starts construction. Fourteen years ago, Academy opens up for business, and in my small town, I discover I can make fire in my palms. Twelve years ago, I graduated. Four years ago, my conscription period ended, and I went back to work under Chairman Stockham’s payroll as a military advisor in the Congo. One year ago, Stockham had me guarding his casino. And one month ago, he called me back to service here in the Pond.”
“Wow, that was a succinct summary!” Isaac exclaimed. Visions of adventure and travel danced around Isaac’s head as he thought of having a career like that.
“Osip knows a thing or two about fighting,” Leekman explained. “And since he was in the neighborhood, I figured I’d have him give you some last minute pointers before the Combat Simulation.”
Osip grinned. “I heard you have some girl trouble.”
Isaac rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, I sparred against a friend of mine last month, and I couldn’t even get a single hit on her.”
“I heard she’s a Class 3, and a Reed at that,” Osip said.
Isaac thought about it. A Reed. Could it really be?
He shook his head. “That’s not important. She’s just Reed to me.”
Osip nodded. “Good man. When you’re facing down an opponent, it’s just you and them. Names and such don’t matter. All that matters is effort and resolve.”
“I see,” Isaac said, making mental notes in his head. “Uh...could you translate that into something more understandable?”
Osip laughed. “Down to business, I like it. Give me a quick rundown of your fights, Isaac.”
Isaac recalled all the fights he had been in – victory against Alfie, victory with Audrey against Jackson, victory with Alfie against Harriet, loss against Reed. He decided not to mention beating up an illegal microwave.
“First off, don’t sell yourself short,” Osip explained. “It’s good to stay humble and acknowledge you fought with others, but don’t forget your own contributions. The way you say it, you’re downplaying your own achievements.”
“I know,” Isaac admitted. “I just can’t help it. I like fighting with my friends. But I want to win on my own.”
“The time will come.” Osip crossed his arms. “But based on what I’ve heard, it seems like you’re getting better with the why behind fighting. Fighting on a conceptual level, the mixture of heart and mind, that your opponent will carry a motive with them in their soul. That’s good. Someone who fights only a technical level, without the spirit, will eventually lose.”
Osip paced around the room, clearly enjoying this teaching moment. Isaac had a mixed relationships with teachers. Shokahu was a good guy, but he was also a pretty boring teacher. Isaac knew Shokahu tried his best and cared for his students, but he spoke with such a mellow tone that Isaac always needed to fight as hard as he could to avoid falling asleep, especially on days where the school cafeteria gave out pasta with alfredo sauce for lunch (Isaac enjoyed his pasta) and the heat in the classroom was on too high.
But Osip - Isaac only just met him, but he could tell, Osip didn't hold back any of his passion when spoke.
“Now, onto practical matters. It sounds like your current strategy is throwing yourself against your opponent, sending either yourself or clones to simply punch them.” Osip eyed Isaac’s left arm. “I think that’s why you’re still a Class 1, with that left arm of yours still blocked. You still think one-dimensional, with one arm.”
He raised a finger. “You have to be more fluid. Approach from the side, never head-on. Use your opponent’s momentum against them, instead of just relying on your own. And get creative with your clones, too. It sounds like you trained on keeping your clones up for longer. Why not get your opponent overconfident by having your first clones disappear far before they actually need to? That way, your opponent can’t tell the requirements to make a clone actually disappear.
Osip kept thinking. “You just told me that, on your way to the dojo, you realized your powers only involved clones and punching things. So, it's good you expanded your arsenal to include some finesse."
"Girls don't want the whole fist. Sometimes, they just want a finger."
Osip looked at him sideways.
Isaac sighed, feeling a little bit foolish. "Alright, alright, that's the last time I'll make a fist-related joke."
"...anyways, don't forget, you got a lot of power stored away in here, too.” He tapped on Isaac’s forehead. “You've done a good job of using the brain to temper the heart's passions. But the brain has its own weapons it can use. Don’t just rely on the body’s ability to punch. You can also use the brain to create some outside-the-box uses for your powers.”
Isaac planted his fist into his palm, raring to go. “I get it! Like, I can make a ladder out of my clones or something! Or have my clones make clones of their own! And maybe I can ever incorporate the fact I can stick my leg behind my head!”
“That’s the spirit,” Osip encouraged. “I got some spare time. If it’s not overstaying my welcome, I can watch a little of your training.”
“Let’s do it!” Isaac spun around and smacked through the last two planks of wood, ready to seize the moment.
Osip shared a grin with Leekman. “Keep this up,” the soldier said, “And you’ll get that left arm of yours working in no time.”
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An hour later, their training session finished for the night. Osip, Isaac, and Leekman arrived outside the Support Building, jackets and hats on as the cold autumn night settled in.
“Take it easy tomorrow,” Osip said as they parted, “And kick some ass on Saturday.”
“You know it!” Isaac answered. He and Leekman waved as they separated, the two students heading across the courtyard, debating on where to eat dinner.
As for Osip himself, he let out an amused sigh.
Kids these days. I attended the Academy right after the war. Things were a lot more somber then.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
He sat on one of the courtyard’s benches, enjoying the sight of the twelve stars above him. He reached into a jacket pocket and produced a pack of Boston Accent cigarettes, that particular brand important to him due to none other than the Academy itself. Or rather, someone who worked at that Academy.
He whittled down a second cigarette to almost the snub when that particular someone left the Support Building. He glanced back and smiled at that sight of her.
“Get lost,” Ms. Essex called out to him.
Osip grinned and stood up from the bench. Essex gave him an amused smile as the two stood there until the white lights of the Academy’s courtyard, a cluster of trees rustling in the breeze behind them.
Osip cocked his head. “I haven’t seen you in four years and this is how you greet me?”
Essex held her hand out; Osip let her take the last of the cigarette snub. After a long drag from it, she chuckled. “Don’t tell me you smoke Boston Accents just because I do.”
Osip shrugged. “Someone at the Academy certainly inspired me, I’ll tell you that much.”
“You shouldn’t pick up a habit like this,” Essex reminded him, smoke trailing from the cigarette in her hands. “It’s bad for your health.”
“You’ve been telling me that for the past fourteen years,” Osip supposed. “Maybe one day it’ll work.”
They first met at the Academy, when Osip was a student and Essex actually taught science at the school in addition to running the Rddhi research program. Six years apart in age, Essex took his cigarettes when she caught him smoking after practice. Osip found himself volunteering more and more to work for the Rddhi research program, attending extra lessons for Essex’s science classes as well. Essex felt amused about the whole thing and didn’t let anything progress beyond getting him to do a whole boatload of work for her.
Fourteen years had passed since then. Seeing each other gave both of them a rare reminder of the passage of time, something they barely concerned themselves with. Osip carried scars from fighting in wars abroad; Essex’s eyes possessed rings below them from long years of work.
“I heard Stockham is having you guard Stefano at the Cabot Shopping Complex,” Essex recalled, referring to the Second Restorationist drug dealer they caught when they busted the smuggling ring.
Osip chuckled. “I heard that guy is a bit of a rat bastard – pardon my language. Slimy, but a valuable source of information. They’ve had the MPs guarding him, but with the raid, I guess Stockham wants people directly loyal to him in charge. Whether it be an alumni like me, or well-paid mercenaries.”
“I seem to recall that you’re well-paid as well,” Essex said.
“Doesn’t hurt,” Osip admitted. “But, you know, I really do like the Academy. The people there, too.”
Essex raised an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah?”
“I just got out of training one of your users here,” Osip explained. “A kid named Isaac. Boy, can that kid talk. But he packs one hell of a punch.” Osip realized something. “Oh, I see. Just then, you wanted me to talk about how I like you, right?”
“If that’s your prerogative,” Essex answered, her voice containing that usual mixture of amusement and dryness. But she mixed them in such a way that Osip couldn’t help but fall for her again, right then and there.
Essex saw the look on his face. “Don’t kid yourself, Osip. You’re too young for me and I’m too busy for you.”
Osip waved those concerns away. “Both of those are up to interpretation. I’m twenty-eight, and you’re thirty...I mean, not a day over twenty.”
Essex had to laugh at that. She laughed in a contained way, as if she held it down, but it sounded like music to Osip's ears.
“How about dinner?” Osip suggested. “Saturday night, Highmoon Tavern of the Eight-Heaven Archway down in Palmer Beach?”
“Sounds exotic.”
“I saw good reviews in a Kendall Bridge newsletter,” Osip explained. “Just a nice little corner shop. Perfect for idle conversation.”
Essex finished the cigarette. She held it up in the air, looking at it against the backdrop of the half-empty crescent moon in the sky.
“I’m not getting any younger,” she supposed. She smirked and handed the snub back to him. “I have to work late, so you can pick me up right from here. I’ll be expecting you.”
Osip thought that cigarette was the happiest-looking snub he’d ever seen.
Essex fixed the collars of her long coat and headed off down the courtyard. She stopped next to the oak tree.
“I heard you’re looking to be a teacher here.”
Osip nodded. “Shokahu left me know there's an opening here. Rddhi Theory, 2-B. I’ve never taught before, so I’ve been hounding Stockham to let me at some substitute roles. Once things with Stefano and the transition from Military Police to Free Corps settles down, I'll be teaching at the Voc.”
Essex didn’t look back at him, keeping her eyes on the exit to the Academy’s courtyard. “You know why I stopped teaching, right?”
Osip grinned. “Because you got tired of dealing with trouble-makers like me?”
“Because we’ll be sending most of this generation off to die in the next war.”
“...oh.”
“It’s worth it, though,” Essex admitted, or perhaps reminding herself. “That’s why I head the Support department as a researcher. We need these kids to achieve peace. But treating them as research subjects rather than students helps me sleep better at night.”
She looked back at him. “Remember that every time you arrive at the gates of this Academy or the Voc. Every time a student is excited to enter your classroom.”
Essex headed off, exiting through the gates, leaving Osip to ponder all that.
Teaching Isaac down there...will he really just die in the end?
No, there’s more to life than that. Teaching kids will help them live and survive.
But the reality of trench warfare and destroyed villages in Central Africa came to him.
Maybe all these lessons will at least give their deaths some meaning. A meaningful death, that’s the only way to go. And I can at least help them with that, now that I’m back here.
He sat back down on the bench and resumed looking at the twelve stars above him.
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“Feel it!” Hanai shouted to the high heavens. “You must feel the drive to win, deep within yourself! Only then can your true self reveal itself!”
Sending vines this way and that way, spinning in place, striking the targets one by one, Audrey shouted back in agreement. “V for Victory! A for Audrey! Know thy enemy and know thyself. In a hundred battles, you shall never be defeated!”
Hanai looked at his pocket watch. “Show me your war face, Audrey!”
“I’m gonna kick your ass!” Audrey exclaimed, unable to hide a cheerful element within it.
“I can’t hear you!”
“I’M GONNA KICK YOUR ASS!”
“AAAAH!”
“AAAAH!”
“Last one!” Hanai screamed. “MAKE IT COUNT!”
Audrey sent one last vine. It rocketed out of the seed in her palm and smashed through a cardboard cut-out of Frank Bully, a neighborhood delinquent who targeted the old and ladies and old ladies (the Academy provided the cut-outs for practice; Audrey provided the backstory).
“Congratulations,” Hanai said, handing over a canteen to a panting Audrey. “Frank Bully will no longer prey upon the elderly of our homeland!”
“Hooray for helping!” Audrey exclaimed.
Down in the basement of the Support Building, not far off from Isaac and company, Audrey was also training with her personal tutor. Hanai worked hard and played hard; he didn’t expect Audrey to keep up (not that he would ever disparage anyone who tried their best), but Audrey never backed down, enjoying herself as she yelled alongside him the whole while. But she worked harder than he expected, and the results made themselves apparent by the end of this training session.
Her vines could grow longer, her trees could grow larger, and to top it all off, she could make a believable dummy version of herself using a mixture of arts and crafts and various seeds. All courtesy of long hours down below the Support Building, long laps around the Academy after dark, and long hours of meditation (okay, for Audrey, meditating involved long minutes rather than hours. But she did do a couple of minutes, at least).
Feeling hot from the exertion, Audrey untied her head band and wiped her face with a towel. Her long blonde hair felt damp now, but that was just proof of a good day’s work. Hanai trained her hard, but that’s because he believed in her. And Audrey believed in herself, too.
Hanai turned off his portable stereo that blasted out his personal cassette mixtape of 1980s Japanese city pop (which he originally made for another Adzinoki, but he never found the courage to actually deliver it to her. But at least it got good use now), signifying they were done for the evening.
Audrey retied her headband and breathed deeply. “I think I could take on the world, or at least a medium-sized continent!” she confidently declared, raising a fist into the air.
Hanai raised a hand of caution. “But what’s the most important lesson?”
Audrey raised her other fist. “It seems to me that a fit body does not by its own excellence ensure a good soul, but on the contrary it is a good soul which by its own excellence ensures that the body shall be as fit as possible! That’s Plato!”
“And that means...”
“It means my body is only as strong as my soul! And my soul could take on the world, or even a LARGE-sized continent!”
Hanai nodded in gruff approval. “Very good. I remember when you couldn’t even memorize the saying correctly. And look at you now. You even know what it means.”
Audrey flexed her arms. “That’s because I’m gonna seize life by its balls and never let go!”
“...that’s the spirit!”
The sudden rumbling of her stomach interrupted her zeal. Except it actually didn’t.
“I could eat a large-sized continent!” she exclaimed.
Hanai handed her coat to her. “Let’s grab some dinner then. There’s a burrito place down in the Cabot Shopping Center, if we leave now we can get there with time to spare.”
“Awesome possum!” Audrey threw her coat on. “And going there with me will be good practice for you and Esther!”
Hanai thought he heard a record scratch. He waved his hands. “Not so loud!” he Irish-whispered. “People can hear things down here.”
“Hanai, we agreed that you’d train me in the way of the Rddhi, and I’d train you in the way of love,” Audrey reminded him. “And you’re just dilly-dallying all over the place. You need to grab Esther by her balls, too! With her consent, of course!”
Hanai rubbed his head and adjusted his thick-framed glasses. “Um...maybe we can find a better way to phrase it.”
“But that’s the truth!” Audrey exclaimed. “When’s the last time you talked to her?”
Hanai remained quiet, instead gathering his portable stereo under a thick arm.
Audrey wouldn’t let fear get in the way of potential love. “What’s the worst she could say? I know Esther like a sister, because she is a sister! She’s a nice girl. What’s the worst she could say?”
His eyes hidden behind his glasses, Hanai looked away. “Why are you grabbing my balls, Hanai? That’s what she might say. And how can I answer that? I can’t just say I’m grabbing her balls because I love her. Admitting love before the first date? That’s blasphemy. I need to be smooth. But I’m not smooth, I’m Hanai! I explode with energy! And I’m afraid I might just get worked up too fast and explode all over her and fumble my words and make a great, big, ball-grabbing, exploding fool of myself!”
Audrey thought about it.
“Okay...you got a point about phrasing. But we can work on it!”
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Yep, all over Elizabeth Pond, the ten participants in the Combat Simulation were hard at work. Some trained below the Support Building, some trained out in the parks, some ran laps down winding streets, all of them working toward that final goal – victory, for both the team and the individual. Even Coleridge did push-ups under Dan’s direction in an empty lot, illuminated by the lights of the elevated rail station above it; even Babs, gloves taped to her hands, hit the speedbag in her gym below the Revere Arcade. Everyone wanted to improve themselves-
Reed yawned, laying in her bed, having not moved a muscle since getting home around five hours ago.
The walk home was my training for the day. Who the hell needs anymore than that?