StV: Blackhand vs. Jade, part five

"Keep your armor up," Blackhand warned, and Jade nodded behind her green-and-white helm. She raised sword and shield, and he stepped in, bracing his right wrist with his left hand and then shoving a lance of his power out and down to pin her foot to the ground. 

It was a new move; he'd never tried anything like it before, and he didn't know whether Jade could match his reach or not. If she could, she didn't manage it fast enough. Her armor held, but her foot was still pinned and she stumbled, stamping with her right foot to catch her balance. It was exactly what Blackhand had hoped for. 

He withdrew the lance and formed armor as he sprang, pushing her sword and shield aside so he could catch her torso, sweep her right leg, and drop her onto her back. She grunted as she landed -- surprise or pain, he couldn't tell -- and let both sword and shield withdraw as she converted her armor to be covered in spikes. 

It wasn't enough to get through his black skin, and with his power active he was stronger than she was. He slid around, less smoothly than he was used to, and managed to position himself for an arm lock. Her armor might absorb the impact of hitting the floor, but he was betting it wouldn't prevent him from dislocating her arm.  

Still, he was absolutely shocked when she reached up and tapped out, fingers impacting firmly on his thigh.

"There you go," she said, sounding pleased. "That would have taken me out, or at least reduced my effectiveness."

Blackhand let go of her arm, scooted back, and sat up. "Could I actually have dislocated your arm?"

"I think so. I haven't had to work on preventing that sort of thing, and you caught me off-guard, so yeah: if it had come down to it, that would've worked."

"Holy shit," he said. 

"Yeah," said Jade. "I didn't expect that at all. I should have known better than to underestimate anybody who could survive Harbinger." She hesitated. "If you're looking for work, I could use you on Team Phoenix."

"...You're serious."

"As a heart attack, as my gram used to say." Jade was sitting up as well. 

"You don't think our powers are too similar?"

Jade shook her head. "You can spot other Anomalies. I don't think anybody else on the team can except maybe Shunt, and he won't always think to look. And Team Phoenix is... I mean, we train for combat, obviously, but we're we're much more of an investigative, exploratory team. So yeah, I think we could use you. Plus, I like the way you think."

"That's... You know I'm part of DAAT, right?"

Jade nodded. "I know. And if that's a problem for you, you can always say No and I won't push it. Wouldn't want you on the team if you didn't want to be there."

Blackhand fought down a moment of panic. Mongrel would rip his heart out of his chest if he defected... but Mongrel was dead, along with his mother and a lot more of the upper leadership that had shaped DAAT into what it was. The old guard just didn't have the grip it once did on the Program.  "That's... I've got to think about that."

Jade nodded. "Just let me know." 

StV: Blackhand vs. Jade, part four

Fuck me, Blackhand thought, after their third pass. Jade was holding back, being careful, letting him experiment. She had her armor up, and his power couldn't get through it. If he kept himself fully armored, he had no reach and couldn't get past her sword and shield -- but at least she couldn't really hurt him either. If he shifted his power to form a blade, he could at least attack her effectively -- but if she connected with him, she'd cut him in half.

By the time their fourth pass started, he found himself drenched in sweat and switching back and forth as quickly as he could: blade-strike-parry-slide-shield-blade-armor-claws-grasp-miss-blade, until all his focus was on coordinating his power with the movements he needed. Jade's training wasn't flawless, but it was every bit as good as his. 

He fell back, panting, and Jade raised a hand. "Catch your breath," she said. 

"This is... I can't..." 

Jade shrugged. "We're not all evenly matched, but that isn't the point of this. You're already doing things I bet you never tried before."

Blackhand sagged, let himself relax and breathe. She was right, he realized. It didn't make him feel particularly better, but she was right. He'd trained to fight with claws, or with his power concentrated to form a blade. Switching back and forth between them was new; switching between either of those and his full armor was newer still. "Yeah. Okay. Good point." He took a minute or so to get his breathing under control. Jade, to his irritation, didn't even look winded -- though he suspected that she was at least sweating under her armor. "If I could make contact, I could weaken you and strengthen myself, but..." He shook his head. "That armor of yours is something else."

"Do you want to stop here, or keep going?" Jade's voice was gentle; she wouldn't judge him either way. 

"One more," he said after a moment. "Maybe two. I've got a couple of things I'd like to try if I can manage them."

"All right," Jade drawled. "As soon as you're ready. 

StV: Blackhand vs. Jade, part three

"I can spot Anomalies," Blackhand said quietly. "That's the big thing. That's why they recruited me. But the reason I'm an Alpha Hound..." he shook his hand out, then encased it in that strange black tissue that turned everything from his wrists to his fingers into oversized claws.

Jade studied him for a long moment, then nodded. "That, and you're trained to do violence with those."

He nodded. "I really only had to once. Domestic violence situation, and the wife turned her husband in as a... an Anomaly. He freaked out when we showed up at the door, tried to kill his wife. I had to cut him up pretty badly to get him to stop, and by then he'd broken a bunch of her ribs and both her arms. Fucking wonder her spine was intact."

"She lived, though?" Jade asked quietly. 

Blackhand sighed. "I don't know. They don't tell me anything. Official word was yes, job well done, dangerous deviant now in captivity, but..."

Jade nodded. "You don't know."

"I don't know," he repeated. "Anyway, when Harbinger tried to kill me I probably protected myself like this." He called the black growth out, covered himself in it, and stood there, faceless, for a long moment. Then he let it pull back in. 

"Lucky," said Jade. "I'm glad you made it. Okay, so now you know you can use it for armor, not just to make claws or blades."

Blackhand nodded. "But I'm pushing my limits, and if I cover myself with it I don't have enough left to make proper claws, let alone blades."

Jade considered that. "Well, we're all working with our own limitations," she said. "Here." She covered himself in a milky green armor, equipped with sword and shield, and stood facing him, shield first. "Can you form it into a sword?"

StV: Blackhand vs. Jade, part two

Blackhand looked around curiously. Despite the plaque above the door, this was very definitely not a pickleball court. He hadn't expected it to be, not after what Jade had told him outside the door, but...

"Wait a minute. Jade? Like, the one we captured -- or kidnapped?"

She turned back, smiled, and nodded. "The very same. I was still inside the medical wing, waiting to keep you from coming in and killing everyone, or else we'd have met earlier."

Did Harbinger just send me to the captain of Team Phoenix for training??? Apparently he had. "Um," he said, suddenly uncomfortable. "Is that going to be a problem?"

"Was it your idea to kidnap us?" she asked. 

Blackhand shook his head. "None of us even knew you were there. It was just a breakout, all hands on deck to suppress it, go here and assist."

Jade studied him for a long moment. "And then your hunter died."

Blackhand squeezed his eyes closed, resisted the urge to step back. "Let's not talk about that."

"Harbinger told me," Jade said quietly. "He feels bad about it. I think that's part of why he's trying to help you. I'm... sorry for your loss." 

Blackhand hesitated, then reached past his pain. "Whatever we were about to do to you was probably worse," he said. "Let's just... let's just leave that part behind, if we can. If you don't mind."

Jade nodded. "Sure." She glanced up at an armored window. "Ms. Brigham, are you ready?"

There was a soft click, and a voice said, "Ready."

"Okay," said Jade. "Harbinger didn't give me a lot of detail. Can you show me what you do normally, and then whatever else you discovered?" 

StV: Blackhand vs. Jade, part one

"Hey there," said the tall, athletic girl with the short brown hair as she joined him beside the door. He'd had no idea that this basement under the gymnasium even existed until he'd been invited to come down for a practice. "You ready to do this?"

Blackhand eyed her warily. She was an Anomaly, of course; he felt the shiver of recognition that filled him every time he checked anyone at Saint Vincent's School for Exceptional Youth. Well, anyone except the music teacher, which had startled him so much that he'd checked four times before giving up. "Do what, exactly?" 

"They didn't explain?" asked the girl, stopping far enough back that she didn't loom over him, then shaking her head with a sigh. "Possibly I wasn't clear enough. All right, well... you recently got a better handle on your power, right?"

"How did you know that?" Blackhand blurted. "Sorry. I just... didn't expect..."

"Harbinger told me about it, when he was asking me to help you explore it further."

"Ah," said Blackhand. "Okay, that makes more sense." Seeing as Harbinger had been the one who'd helped him figure it out, at least... And Harbinger really did seem to want to prove that he was a friend, or at least not an enemy.

"...Annnd, he didn't mention this to you either. Okay, then." She shook her head again. "Anyway, I talked to Ms. Brigham, and she set up a training time and sent the invitations. She'll be overseeing us. So if you don't want to do this, it's okay. Nobody's forcing you."

"Saint Vincent's is offering to help me improve my power, and you think nobody's forcing me?" He chuckled. "Hearne would never forgive me if I passed this up. Hell, I'd never forgive myself."

"All right," Jade said, and smiled. The expression was relaxed and easy on her face, and she tapped a code into the pad beside the door. "Come on inside, and let's take a look. I'm Jade."

"Blackhand," he said automatically, and followed her through the door. 

Music: Alibi

Dessa:

Week of Mondays...

So, somewhere in here -- hopefully today -- we're supposed to be getting some replacement equipment which I'll need to provision and get into place as quickly as possible. It should have come in yesterday -- Tuesday would have been better in some ways, worse in others -- but it didn't. So I'm kind of on hold, working on other things while waiting for this massive pile of work to drop on my desk. I'm also trying to catch up on some non-work things from back before Christmas, but progress has been... erratic. 

Current events are making me crazy; I need to stop looking at the news for a bit.  

Writing is keeping me sane.  

That's all for now.