Taylor dances around Glory Girl

But Glory Girl paid her sister no mind, and she zoomed at me, racing across the hallway without her feet ever touching the ground.

“You shoulda stayed down, bitch!”

She swung at me again with a fist that could shatter concrete. It was reflex more than intention that moved my body, and I ducked under her blow; she zipped overhead without even skimming me. Then, as I straightened to face her, she stopped just as suddenly as she started and turned back around to face me, too.

The expression on her face was livid.

The inexplicable terror sharpened and grew, and I felt a cold sweat break out on my brow. I had no idea what my face looked like, if it reflected the fear inside of me, but with a supreme effort of will, I shoved that fear away. I had faced Lung, after all. I couldn’t let myself be intimidated by Glory Girl. I couldn’t let myself be cowed by her. I couldn’t let myself roll over and let her do as she pleased.

The feeling tugging on the inside of my chest told me that I wasn’t allowed to run away.

Glory Girl rocketed towards me, again, and I braced my legs, one forward, one back, and waited for her to come close. It was going to take expert timing, because there wasn’t much room for error, here, but I was finally putting these skills to use.

At what felt like the last possible moment, I leapt upwards, tucking my legs into my chest, and passed over her arm, missing her by about two inches. Like a gymnast, I stuck the landing on the balls of my feet.

Leaping Over a Blow.

I squashed the curl of excitement that whirled in my belly. I was doing it. I was using Aife’s martial arts for the first time in an actual fight, and they were working.

“Damn it!” Glory Girl spun around again and came after me without stopping. “Stay still and let me hit you!”

From behind her, I met Lisa’s eyes briefly. It was only a scant second, a fleeting moment, passing so quickly that I doubted anyone saw it, except Lisa herself. I hoped that I’d managed to convey my thoughts to her.

What are you waiting for? Get out of here!

I had to keep fighting. For as long as it took to make good her escape, I had to keep Glory Girl distracted and busy. Yes, because it would be a betrayal of my oath to let her get caught when Coil had influence in the PRT. I held onto that thought: I couldn’t run away, I had to fight, at least until Lisa escaped.

I kicked the ground. One step became twelve feet, and though I hadn’t mastered it, the Vantage of Swiftness carried me towards my opponent. I dropped and let myself slide; the toe of one of Glory Girl’s shoes nearly brushed my nose as I skidded across the floor beneath her.

I came up with what felt like an expert pivot of my ankle, and Glory Girl was already turning, fist raised, looking even angrier than before.

In spite of myself, I felt almost like bantering. Maybe if I’d been more like the heroes were on the cartoons, I would’ve done it, too.

Unlike the last few times, however, Glory Girl didn’t rush me. Instead, her lips pulled into a tight line, and she dropped to the floor, like she actually meant to get up close and personal. I had no idea what she was doing or what she was planning, but I readied myself anyway.

She was almost too fast.

Suddenly, she was flying again, low and just off of the ground, and she accelerated from zero to speeding car almost instantly — I had no time to build up the momentum for either of the other feats I’d already used.

But I’d already mastered all of the basic stuff. The Thunder Feat and the other, more complicated skills, they were still beyond me, still stuff I had to learn. The basics, though, were completely mine.

I leapt straight up, curling myself into a ball so I didn’t hit my head on the ceiling. As I flipped around in midair, I felt my toes brush up against the top of the hallway, and my hair whipped about my head so that all I could see were the dark locks I’d inherited from my mother.

Hero’s Salmon Leap.

I landed back on the balls of my feet, and I felt more than heard Glory Girl’s fist coming back around for me. Continuing with the motion of my landing, I let myself fold in half so that the blow passed over the back of my head. I could feel the wind moving in the wake of her hand.

Folding of the Noble Chariot Fighter.

I felt invincible.

Glory Girl was so ridiculously out of my league, normally. Getting into a fist fight with a girl who could bench press a cement mixer wasn’t a very good idea, and if she could hit me, she’d probably hit like a truck. Come to think of it, she was probably the one behind that crash that had brought Lisa and I out of that office — maybe she’d thrown one of Bitch’s dogs into a table or something? I didn’t know.

But even if she could hurt me pretty badly, she had to actually hit me first, didn’t she?

I put one foot forward, spun on my heel, and stepped out of Glory Girl’s reach, so that I was facing her again. She had an odd expression, somewhere between frustration and grudging respect.

“Fuck,” she said. “What are you, a ballerina?”

“Vicky!” Amy shouted. “Stop!”

“Stay out of this, Ames!” Glory Girl hollered back. She turned to me again with that glare. “So, what’s your deal? You with them?”

She tossed her head in the direction of the black fog, but never took her eyes off of me. I glanced in the same direction, but Lisa had long since vanished. I doubted she’d escaped yet, though. The fog would disappear when she and her team left, because I couldn’t imagine whoever was making it had the range to keep it up until they made it all the way back to their base in the Docks.

“No,” I said simply.

Glory Girl snarled and stomped forward with one foot. I thought I might have seen a few cracks spread from the point of impact. “Then why were you manhandling my sister?”

“I just saw the fire extinguisher,” I said, “not who was swinging it.”

“So…what? Are you trying to tell me you reacted without thinking?”

“Basically, yeah.”

Glory Girl grunted. For a moment, I thought she might actually stop fighting me, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do if she did leave me to go after Lisa’s team. Did I get in her way and invalidate everything I just said? Could I not, if it would mean betraying my oath?

She took the decision out of my hands.

“See, there’s just one problem with that.” She raced forward in a passable imitation of my own technique. “I don’t believe you!”

She led with her right fist. I spun around the side, whirling out of the way, ironically, like a ballerina. I ducked beneath it in another Folding, stepping under her arm and back around her. She spun and swiped at me like she was swatting a fly; I leaned backwards, then stepped out of range, again.

“If you’re gonna lie, make it believable!” she said.

“It wasn’t a lie,” I replied, for lack of anything better to say.

She swung again, I sidestepped into her guard. She tried to wrap her arms around me and pin me, I ducked under them and stepped back again.

“I saw you come back out here with that blonde bitch!” said Glory Girl. “If you think I’m gonna let one of their accomplices escape just because you’re in civvies, you’re delusional!”

She flew up and tried to tackle me again; I threw myself out of the way. She turned on a dime and came back around.

“New Wave is about accountability!” she told me. “That means I take villains down, mask or no mask!”

You can try.

I knew better than to say that, but I found myself smiling a little all the same. For all her talk, she still hadn’t landed a hit on me. All of those lessons, all of that practice, all of those weekends coming home drenched in sweat and with arms and legs that felt like noodles, it was all paying off. I’d started this fight just intending to stall for as much time as I could, but could it actually be that I could win?

Was this enough to push me up to B-Rank? I didn’t know. I’d never checked my progress outside of tracking it with Aife’s Noble Phantasm Included, so I didn’t know how quickly I’d reach mastery if I employed them without her Include. Hell, I didn’t know if using them in an actual fight made me progress faster than just practicing all by my lonesome.

But it felt like it must have. The kind of flawless execution I was doing here was mind-boggling. I’d even managed to pull off the starting stages of the Vantage of Swiftness.

I Folded under another punch.

Then…was I finally ready? Could I start now on the harder parts, on the skills and Feats that were so incredible and so difficult that they couldn’t be learned until you were B-Rank or higher?

Hell yes.

At the very least, I was ready to try.

As Glory Girl whirled back around and came zooming for me again, I didn’t try to dodge. Instead, I wound my fist back and gathered all of my strength to it. Cuchulainn performed this with a sling and a heavy stone in the myth, but the purest form was that of a punch.

Glory Girl’s fist came around. I swung my fist forward to meet it.