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The Measure of Things
The upper corridors of the Martial Hall were empty at this hour, and Aspara walked through them at a pace that looked unhurried and cost her more than it should have. The shaking in her legs had mostly stopped. Her left knee still ached, a low steady complaint that would be there tomorrow and... -
The Measure of Things
Broc crossed the chamber and shut down the generators. The weight vanished, all of it, at once. Aspara swayed where she stood and the absence of the pressure was almost worse than the pressure had been, because her body had been bracing against something for so long that removing it left her... -
The Measure of Things
Her fingers pressed into the stone and her palms followed, and she pushed. Her arms shook from the wrists to the shoulders and the gravity bore down on her spine and she kept pushing, shaking, pushing. She got her chest off the floor by an inch, and then two, and the weight pressed her back... -
The Measure of Things
The stone was cold against her forehead and her cheek and the scar along her jaw, and the gravity pressed her flat, and the generators hummed, and she was still breathing. Her body had quit on every other front, but her lungs kept pulling air and her heart kept pushing blood, and neither of... -
The Vibrations In My Fists
The bruises on her arms were from a boy with a Power Level under four hundred. The crack in her replacement armor's shoulder guard was from the stone he'd blown apart beneath her feet. Aspara knew what those marks meant, and the number he'd just told her didn't change what they meant. He'd... -
The Measure of Things
Her legs stopped holding her and she went down. Both knees hit stone and her hands followed, palms flat against the floor, and the gravity bore down across her back and shoulders with the full weight of whatever the generators were putting out. She was on all fours in the Crucible and the... -
The Measure of Things
Her left knee buckled without warning and dropped her six inches before she caught it. One hand hit stone, palm flat, and the impact drove straight up through her wrist and into her shoulder. She locked the arm and forced herself back upright before the gravity could press her any lower, and she... -
The Vibrations In My Fists
Aspara watched him eat. She didn't take anything from the table, and she didn't look away while he did. "If I wanted a rematch, I wouldn't have waited for you to wake up," she said. "I'd have thrown you over my shoulder and dropped you in the Martial Hall. You don't get to be unconscious on... -
The Vibrations In My Fists
He'd misunderstood her, and that was irritating enough that she corrected him. "I said I walked through it. That's the opposite of too weak." Her voice was flat and unhurried. "If it were too weak I would have stood there and let it hit me. I had to push through yours. Learn the difference."... -
The Vibrations In My Fists
Aspara had changed her armor. The replacement was the same model, because she owned three, and it fit the way good armor always did. The damaged set was already packed away for repair. Her arms were bare below the shoulder guards and the bruises from the courtyard blast were visible along both... -
The Measure of Things
Time had stopped being reliable at some point and she hadn't noticed when. The generators hummed at a pitch that had become the only constant in the room, and the gravity kept climbing, and Aspara kept standing because that was what she was here to do. Her legs had started to shake. Fine... -
The Measure of Things
The drones went dark and retracted into their housings, and the generators kept climbing. Aspara widened her stance and set herself for what was coming. The combat stage had taken something out of her and this next part would not give it back. The gravity stepped up in increments, each one... -
The Vibrations In My Fists
The ground blew apart under her and Aspara went up with it. Stone and heat and red light swallowed everything. The blast caught her from below, through her boots and into her legs, and for one disorienting second she was airborne with nothing under her feet but fire and rubble. Chunks of the... -
The Measure of Things
The first drone came from her left and she put it down with an open palm before it finished closing the distance. The second came high and fast behind it, already firing, and she rolled under the blast and drove her elbow through its casing on the way up, clean and finished before the debris hit... -
The Vibrations In My Fists
The wave hit her and Aspara leaned into it. Both palms forward, feet grinding furrows into the cracked stone as the Blackroot Cannon broke against her guard and split around her arms in forking streams of deep red. The heat of it baked through her gloves and the force pushed her back half a... -
The Vibrations In My Fists
The blast hit her square in the stomach and the world went white. For one full second, Aspara felt nothing but heat and pressure and the shriek of Ki against armor. The impact lifted her off her feet and drove her backward through the air, and when she hit the ground she hit it sliding, one... -
The Vibrations In My Fists
She heard them before she felt them. A high, thin whine cutting through the noise of the crowd, the pitch shifting as the orbs reversed and came screaming back. Aspara turned her head just enough to confirm what she already knew. Two spinning masses of red Ki, tight and fast, aimed at the space... -
The Measure of Things
The stairs beneath the Martial Hall went deeper than most Saiyans ever needed to go. Aspara descended without hurrying, chin up, her tail wound tight at her waist. The Crucible was old and it had broken people and she had chosen it for both reasons. The chamber opened at the bottom, circular...
