Post by Maxwell Conner on Nov 10, 2005 12:40:20 GMT
They were 15 and 14 respectively. They were training, martial arts. Both wore no padding, and had chosen jodo. But instead of sword verses stick, this time it was stick verses stick. The gym was effectively clear, save for a few other students standing back and watching. It was difficult time for the youths who were picked up three years ago and placed under guardian carers. Being turned into killing and hunting machines, being completely capable of espionage and all sorts of funky tricks.
Eric’s left hand slid back, pulling the stick with it, moving around in an arc with the aim to bring it cracking down over his opponent’s head. He missed, but only because the boy he was facing hand palmed his own Jo upwards in another symmetrical arc and cracked it out the way.
Eric let his body go with the movement, after all, tensing up and trying to stop a blow that strong only jarred muscles and left one open for a rather crippling blow. Leaning backwards Eric dodged a forward thrust from Max’s stick, twisting his body to move down onto his hands for support and brought his feet around to smash into the backs of Max’s knees, hopefully to bring him down. The other’s limbs buckled, but he arched his back around and turned it into a back flip, hands bearing the weight while he bounced back upright, now a good five feet between them as Eric regained his upright position fully.
They’d been sparring and training partners in all their subjects for the last year. Each trying to out do one another, but Max had that edge that Eric didn’t. Max wasn’t trying to impress anyone; he wasn’t trying to live up to expectations. He was a cooler head; the temper not quite so quick and Eric knew it. When they were wrestling Max would fling tiny little irritating slaps that didn’t hurt but were too quick to block, and fucking annoyed him. So Eric would get angry, lose form, and Max would inevitably step in with that one blow or move, and floor him.
Their Jo-do was loose too. Free form the instructors found it best to leave the boys to it, as they seemed to learn more and both had mastered the kata and the basic movements far too easily. It was more interesting to watch, although they should be wearing padding for some of the blows that landed. There had been cases of broken limbs between these two.
Eric was the taller of the two, hair cropped and curtained, although he was contemplating shaving it all off. Maxwell’s was much the same, although a few inches longer, long enough to be pulled into a tiny ponytail at the nape of his neck, a few loose stray strands falling into his face.
They both moved forwards, bringing their Jo’s up to touch end to end, eyes fixed on eyes in a brief moment of respect, before Max pulled his Jo back to the left, palming it forward in a horizontal arc that Eric blocked by slamming his own stick vertical right in the path, some what reminiscent of a fence post being smacked by a stick. Leaning his weight on it, Eric leapt, twisting his body all in the same moment up into a kick, the heel of his foot catching Max in the jaw and sending the other staggering backwards.
Eric landed, a smirk dancing across his lips. He’d landed the first blow, and that was a rare occurrence. He didn’t stop to revel in it though, right hand reaching over to left to gain purchase on the centre of his jo, pulling it around into a horizontal swipe that smacked into Max’s ribs. Max stumbled to his left, put threw out his left foot to regain balance and pushed off, darting suddenly to the right and running ahead of the kick that Eric was throwing.
As Eric regained his balance after being thrown off so widely, Max pulled his jo back once again and started to palm it out into an arc, strongly suspecting that Eric would do the same again. The move was blocked, and instead of standing still Max hauled his stick back, and suddenly brought it forward in a sever thrust that landed in the pit of Eric’s stomach.
Eric was winded, but thankfully due to the wall of muscle that was his abdomen, he wasn’t sick. Stumbling back be landed flat out on the matt’s, head reeling and feeling ever so slightly nauseous. Should’ve known Max wouldn’t fall for the same trick twice, especially if he’d instigated it.
But, no matter, it was all a learning process anyway.
Max’s head appeared in front of him for a moment, checking that he was still conscious before hauling the other upright and helping him silently into the medical room, where these two always ended up after a spar.
“Max?” Eric said softly, later that day as the two sat in the quiet study area bent over books.
“Hmm?” Came the reply, Max never one for talking terribly much and generally using sounds to contribute his half of the conversations he shared with Eric.
“Do you ever think about getting out of here? Away from Zeshia altogether?”
“All the time Eric.”
“How would you go about it?”
Silence. Eric thought for a moment he’d pushed too far, as limits were never clear with Max. Sometimes they were, and sometimes they weren’t. Eric had the feeling that his friend was a little wrong in the head, or had a soul much older than the body it resided in. It was eerie, it creeped Eric out to fuck man.
Max raised his head, dark eyes fixing onto green in a long drawn out moment, the slight inclination of a brow suggesting that he was surprised. Well, wasn’t that something new? Eric talking of something they were vastly encouraged not to.
“There’s two ways Eric. Either join the military and desert when on an operation abroad. Or destroy this system and bring it down, so that they have to change again and interact with the outside world. Zeshia couldn’t survive another collapse without help from Ionia or Cercia.”
They held that gaze for the longest of moments. More was said in silence than it was ever said in words, and neither of them new it then, but this would be the moment when they started to travel down their separate paths. The paths that lead to Stoneage and the DPS, the war between them and the complicated lives as they intertwined.
~X~
Max let out a long sigh, hands moving over his face. The hideout was empty. Fernn was away back at his apartment, Nathan was out shopping or acquiring new toys, and Kaida was away playing with the decoys. Silence was wonderful, and no-one in Max’s life had ever really understood it like Eric.
Getting up off his chair he stretched, back cracking a little in process. Hand curled through his hair snagging on a little tug and fingering it out. Eyes slipped shut and he sighed again, moving over to the furnace and throwing in a few more logs.
What was Eric up to now? He wondered. Eric’s was the one apartment that Max expressly forbid any surveillance upon, anyone even going near it was in serious, painful trouble if he found out. Eric was his own alone to torment, his alone to watch. Yes, Max hated him. Hated him for the way he’d tried to go the easy way out, the way he’d tried to join the military and then not had the guts to desert.
But there was a melancholy, one that he’d never express to anyone that lurked deep inside. This was a war. And in war, one leader or the other inevitably ended up dead. Max knew he could pull the trigger. He knew that Eric could do it too. But who would pull it first?
Part of Max hoped that it would be Eric.
