by Sarah Lin
"No, that... wasn't me." He almost said that his girlfriend did it, but wasn't quite comfortable with that. "But I did want one intact body. Does it have any use for you?"
"Not really. We can get the information and resources we need from all the others."
"Then is it possible to have it stuffed and mounted? Uh... wait, that isn't offensive, is it? I mainly wanted it as a joke for my sister."
Even Wemilat shrugged like it didn't matter, while Adsila leaned in to speak. "As it happens, we have a cousin who does taxidermy. She'd probably jump at the chance to do a real jackalope, so we wouldn't even charge you."
"Great, thanks." Since they'd finished their work, Rick got up, looked for somewhere to wipe his hands, and accepted a rag from Adsila. "Anyway, I'll be around periodically to work with Delsin, so there's no rush on anything. Maybe just have him tell me when it's ready?"
"Oh, we'll actually have something else for you." Adsila thumped the bin on its lid cheerfully. "The real reason we want these is to convert them into something useful. The lucrim would just pay you for exterminating them, but as a finder's fee we'd give you some of the result, too."
Rick considered that, not really sure what to think of it. "I don't know anything about processing lucrim-using animals. Would that be a useful substance to me? My knowledge of that kind of thing is pretty much limited to drinking serum or philosopher's elixir."
"Don't worry, it'd have value." Wemilat wiped off his hands as well and gave him a smile. "And this time we won't let you put it on Uncle Delsin's tab. We're not exactly big on the old ways, but you're due your share by rights."
"I can give you suggestions if you're not sure," Adsila said. "But first you need to give me a few days to process all of this stuff."
"Works for me." Rick shook hands with both of them and left with a smile. It was nice for an errand to go simply for once.
On his way out, Rick was just about to manifest his bike when his phone buzzed. Apparently they got reception out here, at least around the office. He noted that with mild interest until he saw that the call was from his old boss.
"Rick?" Jimmy sounded pissed. "Get the hell over here and talk to your damn sister. Now."
With that, he hung up, leaving Rick with only questions. He sighed and headed back.
Chapter 25: A Flame Burning Darker
Though Rick rushed to the House of the Cosmic Fist, expecting it to be on fire and Melissa arrested or something, he didn't see anything amiss. Melissa was sitting with her phone in one corner, apparently fine. When Rick entered, however, Jimmy immediately looked up and glowered at him.
"Talk some sense into her, or she's done."
"Oh, come on." Rick glanced briefly at Melissa, then back to his old boss. "Why are you bringing me into this? I'm not her guardian anymore, she's just an employee. What's the problem?"
"She can't work here if she upsets the customers. Just talk to her." Jimmy raised his magazine and resolutely refused to make eye contact.
It was useless trying to talk when his former boss was like that, so Rick headed over to the other side of the gym. He tried to see if anything was wrong with Melissa, but she only seemed a bit reserved. Not wanting to push, he decided to wait until she was ready. She smiled at him and grabbed her stuff before they headed out the door, still not speaking.
They'd walked for about a block before Melissa began scuffing her shoes on the pavement. "So... Jimmy really chewed me out today. It's a lot nastier than a teacher getting mad at you."
"He definitely sounded pissed when he called me. Something about you upsetting the customers?"
"Yeah, that probably has to do with the way I sensually moan every time they hit me."
"Melissa..." Rick gave his sister a flat look and saw the twinkle in her eye. It wasn't just the joke, it was something else. Jimmy was upset at her like she'd made a mistake, but it hadn't been an accident. "Oh, dammit... you're using your void flame on them, aren't you?"
"Just a bit!" The twinkling became a full-fledged grin and a skip appeared in Melissa's step, a far cry from the chastened expression in the gym. "It's not like I was really hurting anybody - I used it on that asshole Darin for weeks and he never noticed! But I guess I shouldn't have tried on this one woman who had a better eye on her lucrima. She complained and after that Jimmy figured it out, even though I didn't even see him look up from his magazine."
Rick rubbed his eyes roughly. "That's not great, sis. I'm guessing you lied, or he'd have fired you."
"I told him it was a mistake and I didn't have it completely under control. Which is true, it's just not the reason in this case. Getting to taste different kinds of lucrim has been really helpful for me."
"I'm not going to tell you what you should do about your condition, but are you sure this is a good idea? Not to point fingers, but you've been impulsive in the past."
"Impulsive? How dare you - I'll kill you!"
"Melissa, I'm serious about this." He stopped walking and grabbed her shoulders. Not hard enough to pin her in place, but when she saw his expression her grin vanished. Rick was distracted by how her shoulders still felt thin and frail, but forced himself to continue. "There must be a reason that the normal medical solution for your condition is to get rid of the void. I haven't looked at the medical app in months, but I'd bet that the aura flame is getting stronger. Are you sure you can contain it?"
She put her hand over one of his and met his gaze seriously. "Rick, I know you're just concerned. But please give me some credit. I've been doing a lot of research about my condition, probably more than you. I'm not doing this randomly."
"Okay." He took his hands away and managed to give her a smile. "But at least let me know what you're thinking."
"There's so much to say, I almost don't know where to start." Melissa turned away and began walking down the street, her steps slow and uncertain. "Did you know that in the past, or even today in some places, people like me were killed at birth? We were viewed as cursed or soulless."
"That's awful, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Do you... wish that I'd tried to save up for an aura spark transplant instead?"
"What? No!" Melissa turned on him abruptly, shock blurring into an odd smile. "Rick, it's the opposite of that. I know that my condition put a lot of hardship on you, but... I don't view it as a disease anymore. The void flame is part of me, in the same way that your aura spark is part of you. Yes, it was burning me alive, but there are all kinds of lucrima soul conditions where an aura spark can go wrong and harm someone."
Melissa went on to talk about them, getting more cheerful as she did so. It was obvious that she'd done a lot of research, some of it mirroring what he knew from when he'd been trying to help her, some of it completely new to him. He actually hadn't known about most of the ways that lucrima souls could get twisted. Though he'd heard about "cancerous lucrim" and "lucrima necrosis" it was horrifying to learn about how they actually worked.
As they spoke, Rick began to accept that he wasn't going to reprimand Melissa for what she'd done. Maybe it was a mistake, but it wasn't a stupid or careless one. Eventually when a lull opened in the conversation, he cleared his throat and broke in.
"Alright, I can see that you've put a lot of thought into this. Then I just have one question, sis: are you sure that you're doing this in a smart way?"
"I figured this was the best way to test it. Clients at the gym are expecting to get a lucrima workout anyway, and people won't take much offense if I say it was just a mistake while they were hitting me. And I've never planned to stay in this job for long, so it doesn't matter if I mess up too bad and get fired. I thought this was the safest time to experiment."
He had to admit, she seemed to have thought it through. Maybe it was irresponsible for him not to object, but he didn't really care about Jimmy's business and now that Lisa wasn't there, he didn't care about any of the gym's clients. To his surprise, Melissa was watching him with an awkward expression.
"Uh... so just to chec
k, you're not mad?
Rick abruptly realized that he had an opportunity. "I'm very angry with you now. I'm not going to give you the stuffed jackalope that I definitely for real got you."
"Oh no!" Melissa mimed falling into a faint. "Whatever will I do without the stuffed jackalope I've pined so long for?"
"It's too late to complain now! I'm not going to give you one because you've been bad, not because I forgot about it."
"How cruel, brother! To consign the poor beast to the trash heap, even after its death..." She stopped feigning sadness and grinned at him. "Really, bro, if you ever looked at me like I was broken, that would mess me up. It means a lot that you're willing to carry a flame from me... by the way, did you get to use it in your perilous fight against the bunbuns?
"Nah, an opportunity never came up, since it's better against strong opponents. So I let it flicker out..." Yet even as he said it, Rick found himself searching inside his lucrima soul again. Was there...? Melissa had stopped walking and turned to him with a strange expression on her face.
"It's very faint, but I think the flame is still there."
"You're right." Rick frowned, checking himself to see how much damage had been done, yet it didn't seem to have burned through his lucrim. "I expected it to do more damage..."
Melissa closed her eyes and reached out toward his heart, her fingers not quite touching him. After a long moment, she opened her eyes and smiled. "I wasn't even trying for this, so I can't believe it. You're not burned because I didn't want it to burn you."
"Is that possible? I mean, apparently it is, I just..."
"This is good, I just need to figure out exactly how. But whatever, that's on me. Do you want me to rejuvenate it again in case you need to punch somebody? Extra special punch somebody, I mean."
"Well... yeah, I guess. Probably better safe than sorry." It was strange that accepting a void flame into his body was "safe" but that was how his life was. He prepared to form a shell like usual, but to his surprise Melissa merely clapped her hands dramatically.
Within him, the aura flame flared to life. It was contained by the shell, but that shell had deteriorated a bit over time. Rick hastily rebuilt it firmly, keeping the flame in place. He decided not to point out the realization that this meant that if Melissa could do that, she could cause horrible damage inside him by making the flame burn hotter. Though he didn't fear she would ever intentionally hurt him, he'd need to be careful to check that it couldn't be used against them in some way.
"There you go." Melissa nodded in satisfaction and went back to walking. "Ideally I'd like you to use it on an asshole, but I suppose it's fine if you need to punch some moral support into a bear or dragon or something. You pretty much fight wild animals every day, right?"
"That's right. I spend so long fighting animals that I barely have any time to wander around aimlessly repeating the surveying technique."
"Lalala I can't hear you! Let me keep my exciting vision of your job!"
"You know what's really thrilling? The TPS Reports I get to file after every single lucrim anomaly I find. You would not believe the beautiful kerning on the header..."
"Nooo!" Melissa spun away with her arms up, then spun back to him with a grin. "If everything is okay now, can we ride back? You've been biking so much, but I've only gotten to ride once."
Rick nodded and pulled the chip from his pocket, though he glanced at her speculatively. "You know, you should consider getting one of your own, then we could ride together."
"Maybe, but I need to decide what I'll be doing next. Come on, let's go!"
Once the bike manifested and Melissa hopped on behind him, Rick turned the gears up as high as he could manage and sped down the street. Hearing her laughter, it was worth it.
Chapter 26: Lucrim Dating
Rick felt like a cliche being more nervous about a date than all the dangerous fights he'd endured, but it was true. He had developed instincts to help him survive fights... when it came to dating he had no idea what he was doing. The consequences could be severe, too, with no defensive core capable of mending broken relationships. For so long his life had been dominated by immediate concerns... he was out of practice with this sort of thing.
As he approached the restaurant, he fiddled with his collar awkwardly. It was a mid-tier place judging from the site, nothing too fancy, but he suspected that he was still under-dressed. He'd sort of believed he owned some better clothes, but looking through his closet had proved him wrong. The best he could do was a button down shirt - he didn't even own a tie.
Though with his new relative wealth he could have bought clothes quickly, Rick didn't know much about style and was afraid it would look inauthentic. If Emily was dressed great and he looked like a homeless bum he'd feel bad, but stuffing himself into a bunch of brand new clothes would strike a worse note. Or so he desperately hoped.
If either one of them had picked the other up, he could have found out earlier, but apparently it had worked best for her schedule to meet at the restaurant. Rick shifted his weight outside the door, adjusting his collar yet again. The place looked nice and he did feel under-dressed, but the real question was Emily.
He had no idea how he'd react if she showed up in an evening dress or something. Interesting as that might be to see, it really wouldn't fit what he knew of her. Worse, it would make him look like an idiot. Not that she cared about the class difference between them, but he knew that small issues could-
"Hey."
Her voice caught him off guard and he spun to find Emily... wearing exactly the same hoodie as usual. Either she'd repaired it or she had an identical spare. He thought she might be wearing some make-up, though he was bad with noticing the type that tried to look natural. But otherwise she looked like she could have rolled out of bed a few minutes ago, even wearing tennis shoes.
Seeing his glance made her smile. "You were worried about the dress code? Nah, I don't care about that sort of thing."
"Good." He glanced over at her again as they walked toward the entrance. "I really have no idea how places like this operate. I worried that they might have dress codes and not allow some people in, or something."
"The way I figure it, if anyone objects to what I'm wearing, I'm not powerful enough yet."
They cut off the conversation as they stepped inside. A waitress greeted them, noted their reservation, and led them to a table in the corner. The restaurant was dimly lit and subdued, but Rick thought that was what classy places looked like. In any case, that didn't really matter compared to his overwhelming relief that he hadn't screwed things up immediately.
After sitting down, they stayed silent. They'd worked together so smoothly fighting the jackalopes, yet now it seemed awkward again. Rick cleared his throat, regretted it, and desperately searched for a topic of conversation. Fortunately, Emily saved him with a simple question. "How are things at work?"
"They're okay. I'm having a hard time locating the last anomaly in the Refuge, and then after that I'll have to go back to finding them the old way."
"I don't think I can help with that," Emily said, "but if you run into anything that's interesting or life-threatening, I'm happy to come along."
"Oh, hopefully there won't be many threats like that. These are locations relatively close to Branton, after all." A moment later Rick realized that the larger threat was probably human, not animal. "Though there's actually one guy who worries me. Did I tell you about Jack?"
"Who?"
Before he could answer her question, they were interrupted by the arrival of their menus. He settled down to look over all the choices, but to his surprise Emily ordered before the waitress could even leave. Not wanting to hold things up, Rick went for a relatively cheap option that sounded good. Though he wasn't too familiar with real restaurants, he didn't think of himself as someone who took a long time, but clearly Emily preferred a faster experience.
"You've been here before?" he asked. She blinked back at him.
"No, I just don
't like to wait."
"Ah." Things lapsed into silence for a bit before he rallied. "Okay, let me tell you about how this guy tried to kill me..."
In between getting their drinks and eventually their food, he managed to tell the story of the attack and the fight. He tried not to dwell on how Jack's strength had seemed so out of proportion to his lucrim generation rate, but couldn't help but be a bit distracted. Fortunately, Emily didn't seem to mind, perking up as always when lucrim techniques were discussed.
Once the food arrived, Emily tore into her dish at first, fast enough that he wondered if she'd forgotten to eat again. He decided to play along and ate for a while too, enjoying the quality of the food. After a while, Emily took a sip of water, dabbed her mouth, and glanced up at him.
"I can tell you how he did it, if you don't mind talking about that sort of thing on a date."
Rick shrugged. "Hey, I already went on about some guy who has a vendetta against me. I think we're well outside good first date topics."
"Good." Emily carefully put a fork of food into her mouth, chewed it thoughtfully as if considering what she was about to say, then spoke. "We've actually spoken a little about how strength can't be accurately predicted from generation rate. What we didn't cover was how it's possible to have more invested in Lucores than your total generation rate. Basically, it all comes down to your foundation."
"Oh, I might have heard about that. Is it the M-type foundation thing?"
"No, that's different. This might be a bit remedial for you, but it's important to have the fundamentals right. Your basic foundation supports your life and lets you develop Lucores. You want it as compact and efficient as possible, because it doesn't do you a lot of good otherwise."
"Right. Those are basics."
"What's more advanced lucrim theory is that you don't have to build your foundation that way. If you have the resources and expertise, you can either build a much better foundation, or a secondary foundation that will allow for something greater. There are more scientific ways to categorize things, but to keep it simple... if you're featherweight or welterweight class, what matters more is building some good cores. But to get into middleweight, you really need a better foundation."