John v Lucy

"John will spar with you," Guilherme said.

Lucy's eyebrows went up. She took the mask from Verona.

"No guns," Guilherme told John.

"Of course not."

"And for the sake of fairness, no guns for you either," he told Lucy.

"I didn't think that was an option."

"John wouldn't die from gunshots, but it changes the fight if you have the option and he doesn't."

Lucy nodded. Her hair had a different weight, her ponytail drawn out large, framed in glowing pink highlights. She wore the pink fox mask with the bright eyes and she drew out her pen, flicking it out into spear form.

"You're almost out of power for that," John observed.

"Probably."

He drew his combat knife.

Which, Lucy thought, was a good reminder of the lessons her mom had been trying to instill in her before. To run away, call for help. In a real fight, both people got hurt or, very often, it would be the disadvantaged party that got hurt. The smaller person, or the girl, or the minority. Sometimes the hurt wouldn't be obvious or immediate. If Lucy fought with a classmate, like she had with Logan not that long before 'the talk', her reputation would suffer more than his, whether she won or lost, because she was black.

That talk had been when Paul was still around. A bit of a loss of innocence. A time she'd started to really see the world as something else. She'd laid a lot of that at Paul's feet, but it wasn't all him.

She sighed, rolling her shoulders a bit. She was still stiff from the earlier sparring.

"Lucy?" Guilherme stated.

"Hm?"

"You still have glamour on your hands and feet. This territory is painted up as yours. It's paying attention to you."

Before she could process that, John was moving, striding toward her.

She almost defaulted to her earlier habits. Holding back, spear ready.

But she didn't want to do that or be that. She'd felt guilty doing it for the Hungry Choir night, with Avery jumping into the fray while Lucy hung back. She wanted to be able to protect her friends, to handle stuff instead of being scared.

She felt her heart skip a beat as her brain touched on another memory. John coming at her, grabbing her, and putting a gun to her head.

Now he came at her again. She stepped forward, and twirled the pen. Turning it into a whip.

She flicked it, her whole arm moving with the motion. John tried to catch it and failed. She struck out again, aiming low, where he couldn't grab it. Then again-

He seized it out of the air.

She twirled the pen, making it a spear, to match how far John was from her. She poked, more to keep him from advancing any further, and he swiped.

Pen cut in half, spear destroyed.

She shifted footing, moving to the side. Could she pick up a stone, or-

She grabbed a rusty sword out of the ground, then a stone.

John lunged, picking up in speed all of a sudden, and she turned the rock into a mace, flanged, like a fleur-de-lis. She swung, and he met it with his palm, wincing a bit. He stabbed, and she brought the sword into the way.

"Easy, John!" Verona called out, with a note of anxiousness in her voice.

He was way stronger than Lucy, and she had to adapt. She let go of her weapons, stumbled back, and then fell.

"Don't hurt my friend," Verona added.

Another bit of shale rock, another stone mace, same style.

The rock behind Lucy was sloped down and away, and it made it hard to get herself propped up or back to a standing position.

She needed a handhold-

She still had glamour on her hand. A swift hand motion- she raised up a bit of rock, to grab, prop herself up, and help push herself to the side as John bent down to grab her.

To some limited, fragile degree, she could play with the rules here. She made a more general motion, like she had when she'd created the warm breeze, to push-

John's boot scuffed the rock, kicking little flecks of shale and grit at her. She winced, squinting, and flopped back down, landing hard. He bent down, and she swung the mace. Again, he caught it, backhanded this time. Again, he winced. But he was free to bring the knife down toward her, probably to hold it at her throat.

Her heart skipped again. She didn't want to be at his mercy again. Not like when they'd met at his place. She drew a sword out of the ground where there'd been none, and met the knife blade with the sword blade.

He pressed, and the blade shattered like glass, but she was able to pull out another weapon, using the weapon ring. A knife, this time. She brought the point out toward John, and struck at the combat knife, caught the handle-guard, and knocked it from his grip. He was willing to abandon the weapon to avoid getting cut.

"You were almost out of power, and after several uses of the ring and hot lead, you're still almost out of power," Guilherme said. "Why?"

Because I'm being more me. There's more Self to draw on. Feeding the battery with a bit of hot lead, a bit of Lucy.

She'd declared the knives on awakening. Blade. Edge. Offense. She scraped her fingers against the ground, and pulled up another weapon using glamour. She had, with Guilherme's help, decorated this battlefield with blades. It was easy to just believe that there were weapons scattered around, waiting to be scooped up. She found the handle and it came out of the ground as a knife.

She didn't want to cede ground.

He backed away a few steps and she leaped, and turned while moving her hand through the air, like she'd tried to do before. To create that wind, to help augment her movement.

Belief played into glamour and she had to wholeheartedly buy into what she was doing, for this to work. Covering more distance, knives aimed at John, hair billowing and beautiful behind her, her face that of a glaring fox.

John caught the knife blades, letting them sink into his palms. His fingers wrapped around to the backs of her hands.

"I gave you this," he told her. "It was mine originally, I earned its power, and I'll take some of that power now."

She looked. His fingertips grazed the hot lead. His eyes glowed a faint orange.

She felt the pull against her Self as the weapon ring began drinking other power. She still had the glamour rock, but-

There was a lurch.

Then they fell.

They landed in water, her atop John. His hand, bloody from a knife wound, cupped her head, which wasn't positioned to be cushioned by his body. She felt the force of it hitting the rocky riverbed. Warm water splashed her.

He pushed her over, into the water, and for a moment, she couldn't breathe. He lifted her out.

The glamour had been washed away. He'd thrown the two of them into the shallow river for just that purpose. Leaving her with a drained weapon ring, with him right beside her.

"Kay," she said, by way of surrender. "Alright."

He pulled back, sitting in the water, and then stood. He extended a hand for her. The wound was already closing up.

She accepted it, standing, dripping wet.

"Did you get hurt in the fall?"

"Not really."

"Good."

"Frig," Lucy muttered. Water dripped off of her. It looked like the battlefield, her mask, and the minor alterations to the colors of her clothes had been lost in the splash.

"John can match me in serious confrontation," Guilherme said. "And you lasted considerably longer than four seconds against him there."

- Leaving a Mark 4.8