Axar
Member
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2026
- Messages
- 35
The Gravitron Facility smelled like scorched metal and recycled air. Axar walked in from the market corridor, already reading the room: four other users on the floor, none worth attention, gravity set to a standard 1.5 G. Manageable. He'd been pushing twice that on his own.
He found 64 the same way he'd found her the first time. His Ki sense didn't even have to reach. She had a signature that registered differently than the rest — denser, more deliberate, like a coiled mechanism.
He crossed the room without stopping.
"You've been at the ISM for a while." Not a question. He already knew the answer. "I've been watching your Ki output when we share this floor. You're getting cleaner." His tail completed a single slow arc and stopped. "Faster too, probably."
He let that land. The assessment, not the compliment.
"I'm pushing my ceiling this quarter and I'm running out of targets that cost me anything. You do." His posture was open, arms loose at his sides — combat-ready, though he wasn't starting anything. "Spar with me. Full training session, Gravitron conditions, we each take something out of it. You've got those construct techniques I haven't seen anyone else throw. I want to work against them under load."
Specific terms. He'd learned from the last negotiation: she responded to precision.
The polycarbonate crest caught the facility lights. Restricted Form — deliberately calibrated, same as their first session. He hadn't touched True Form since the crater. 64 had already seen it. He wasn't offering her a repeat viewing.
What he didn't say: that he'd thought about the crater. That he'd been aware of her Gehn-shaped company in a way he hadn't resolved and still hadn't named. That showing up here was the only answer he had to a question neither of them had asked out loud.
He was here. She could read whatever she wanted into that.
"Well?"
He found 64 the same way he'd found her the first time. His Ki sense didn't even have to reach. She had a signature that registered differently than the rest — denser, more deliberate, like a coiled mechanism.
He crossed the room without stopping.
"You've been at the ISM for a while." Not a question. He already knew the answer. "I've been watching your Ki output when we share this floor. You're getting cleaner." His tail completed a single slow arc and stopped. "Faster too, probably."
He let that land. The assessment, not the compliment.
"I'm pushing my ceiling this quarter and I'm running out of targets that cost me anything. You do." His posture was open, arms loose at his sides — combat-ready, though he wasn't starting anything. "Spar with me. Full training session, Gravitron conditions, we each take something out of it. You've got those construct techniques I haven't seen anyone else throw. I want to work against them under load."
Specific terms. He'd learned from the last negotiation: she responded to precision.
The polycarbonate crest caught the facility lights. Restricted Form — deliberately calibrated, same as their first session. He hadn't touched True Form since the crater. 64 had already seen it. He wasn't offering her a repeat viewing.
What he didn't say: that he'd thought about the crater. That he'd been aware of her Gehn-shaped company in a way he hadn't resolved and still hadn't named. That showing up here was the only answer he had to a question neither of them had asked out loud.
He was here. She could read whatever she wanted into that.
"Well?"
