Just Like You (Aegle)

Garbed in her brace once again, Aegle climbed the many stairs that lead up to the administrative heart of Vale's Beacon Academy. Compared with the sparse practicality of most Atlesian constructions, Beacon's proclivity for placing people of importance as high off the ground as possible was a bit onerous, especially given that she was not quite used to moving around after a week and a half abed. Her finger tips were tingling by the time she mounted the final step and strolled creakily out into the landing upon which the vice-headmaster and the headmaster's offices opened. Aegle had been urged against any especially demanding physical activity, at least until her body grew used to more strenuous use once again, but she hadn't thought climbing a few stairs would count as demanding.

Pausing at the door, the small girl waited for her heart beat to subside into something less akin to a marching beat, then raised her hand, once again wrapped in bandages to forestall the trembling and hide the ugly scars and twisted bones, and knocked thrice upon the door. Aegle didn't wait for an answer, but instead opened the door and stepped through, the whir of her brace accompanying every movement more loudly than it had the night she'd first met Malinov. It would be some time yet before she could turn its intensity back down.
"Yo~" she chirped, by way of announcing herself, as she slipped through the crack in the door and shut it behind her. If she spoke a tiny bit louder to conceal the aching whine of her brace's motors, she did not mean to.
Aegle paused by the door, eyes to the light in the Vice-Headmaster's windowless office, then put on a broad grin as the big man's big frame came into focus behind his cluttered desk.

It wasn't quite the haunt she'd been expecting from a man she'd seen drunk half the time she'd seen him, one populated more with papers and books than the sottish paraphernalia she might have expected. There was a noticeable aroma of alcohol in the air however, suggesting to Aegle that Malinov might well have some libations hidden throughout his well appointed office. With forceful alacrity, as if to make up for her brief hesitation, Aegle limped up to the desk, just as though she'd been invited in, and looked quizzically upon the many papers arrayed across it.
"What'cha doin'?" she asked blithely, with the appearance of every right to stand where she was standing, balanced on her tip toes to peer across the tall desk.

Aegle puffed out her cheeks, blowing a dismissive sound at Malinov's answer.
"My dad has a lot of that." She said mildly, whirring and clicking quietly around the desk to examine the capacious bookcase beside, scanning the titles without any real interest. "Always seemed like he'd rather be doin' somethin' else."
Her eyes settled on a book on the Grimm of Mantle and, with one crooked finger, she hooked it out of the tight fit betwixt its neighbors. She nearly fumbled it, finding the book a bit heavier than she'd been expecting, but finally got it turned with its cover facing up.
"Seems like a lot of people live their lives doin' stuff they'd rather not," She mused, thumbing the pages idly, in search if illustrations, "Glad I ain't ever gonna need t'worry 'bout that."

"My brother says the best way to learn is t'do and t'fail." Aegle said, an inelegant riposte, as she turned and plunked the heavy book down on the corner of Malinov's desk, right atop a couple of blotched pieces of paper. She had it open to a polar ursa, one of many Grimm adapted to the inhospitable climes of the north, set apart from regular ursa by iron hard plates of ice across its bulking form.
"Though, I don't reckon ya'd do much 'do'ing after failin' t'somethin' like this."
Aegle traced the scratchy illustration with one finger, poking out from the bindings on her hand, and donned a slight grin, as if to answer the sorrowful look on the big man's face.
"I ain't ever gonna be a huntress. You and I both know it," Aegle glanced up at Malinov, "And even if I were one, we both know I wouldn't be one for very long." Her grin broadened a little, and she pulled a fist, knocking knuckles playfully on the drawn ursa's jaw.
"Can y'imagine?" She asked, "Me, fightin' one of these?" A missy giggle-snort escaped her at the thought.
"Like I said," Aegle's eyes tracked back down to the open book, and she started flipping through it once more, "Won't need t'worry 'bout anythin' like that."

Aegle regarded Malinov impassively as he moved to his safe, demonstrating only marginally more interest as he took to putting in the combination. Her emerald eyes followed him, until he finally turned back around with a huge metal glove in hand. He demonstrated its usage to her, and Aegle felt her own fingers twitch.
"S'all well and good f'you, I s'pose," She said quietly, her grin supplanted by a quizzical frown, "But I ain't as big as you, and definitely ain't as strong." It was all well and good for him to go tying what amounted to a morning star to his knuckles and start clobbering Grimm with it. Aegle would have less success with such an armament though, assuming she could even hold her arms up while wearing it.
Looking down at her scarred and crooked hands, it was hard not to see the worth in armoring up a little bit, but she would need something more than steel weight to make up for her rather significant short comings. She wondered if he really expected her to put on metal gloves and hit things, or if he had some other reason for showing her his preferred weapon.

Holding up her hands, each one trembling slightly, Aegle tried to imagine wearing Malinov's glove, or a weapon something like it. So soon out of the hospital, it didn't take long for the shaking in her hands to grow unbearable, and she slowly lowered them back to her side, a faint frown returning to her face. She would require something considerably lighter than what the vice-headmaster used, despite what he might have thought. Perhaps if she didn't include the gun portion? The lack of any firing mechanism and onboard magazine would reduce the weight considerably. Maybe, if she ever did get any stronger, she could add such a function back in.
She smiled wanly to herself, "Quite the optimist, ain'tcha?" Aegle shook her head, and turned the somewhat sickly grin up at Malinov.
"Might work." She said. There was a hint of reluctance there, like she didn't want to get her hopes up, and it surprised Aegle. She'd been so resigned to the idea that she might not ever be able to use a weapon, that she was unwilling to fully accept this alternative, as it was presented to her. It was foolish, and she knew it, but it felt almost like she was setting apart something about herself that was unique and different, and conforming to the expectations of someone else. It would take a lot of self-reflection to really come to terms with those feelings, and she certainly didn't have the time right that moment to do so.
"Couldn't hurt to try." Aegle amended, almost forcibly, in lieu of actually mastering her own confusing emotions. She put on the biggest grin she could muster, and raised a shaking fist up beside the big man's armored hand.
"Mine'll need t'be smaller, though."

Aegle donned her cockiest smile. She wasn't going to let something like deeply ingrained self doubt and resignation get in the way of a good fire show.
"Yeah, sure~" She said, with the same forced enthusiasm as before, like she could somehow make this subject an enjoyable one, rather than let it remain a reminder of just how out of her depth she was, doing what she was trying to do.
"S'pretty early; Dunno what the gym will be like." She remarked, off-handedly, as she swung around for the door. A slight stagger brought her up short and, for just a moment, her head spun with the sudden movement. Hesitating, she blinked the dizziness away, then hopped towards the exit, pretending that nothing had happened.
"Come on, Come on." She called back to the big man, as she took the door's handle in both hands and wrenched it open, "Some of us ain't got all the time in the world."

Aegle had never been in the more advanced arenas that Beacon academy had to offer. She knew they were there, and was even aware of the projector suites that were set up to let a student practice with any number of artificial opponents, but the simple fact was that she didn't yet rate for such realistic training.
So, when Malinov booted up a training environment and donned his weapons, it was new to Aegle in more ways than one. She stood at the perimeter of the simulation, ignored by the few vaguely translucent beowulf it summoned in for the vice-headmaster. She wondered if these projections behave the way real beowulf might, or if they were just smart enough to know who their target was and not much else.
She grinned a little at his comment about Atlesian tech, and touched the wrist mount of her brace where it peeked out from her sleeve.
"Yeah," she agreed, "Sure is somethin'." What was more impressive, Aegle asked herself, making grimm out of thin air, or letting someone like her fight?

Malinov never gave the beowulf the chance to demonstrate anything more than the most rudimentary AI. Nearly as soon as the first one attacked, the big man had taken the whole pack down, all too quick for Aegle to get much more than the barest impression of his fighting style. That impression didn't surprise Aegle much though; It was what she'd already guessed just from looking at the vice-headmaster. He liked his big hits, and used his superior strength and size to his advantage. He'd done something with fire-dust when he'd whiffed a swing, but Aegle hadn't been able to get a good look at what; It had almost seemed like her baited the grimm into a trap, forced it to stand dead center in a ball of ignited dust. Aegle wondered why he hadn't just punched it, he'd been close enough, but then she figured he must have been showing off what his weapons could do. The rest of the fight was what she might have expected, full of sweeping strikes that threw his weight around. Except for the final blow, where he did something with earth dust to encase the last projection in stone. Again, it seemed like showing off; He could just as easily have punched it to pieces.

Something was off though. It had seemed for a moment like Malinov would get hit, but he'd hit two of his attackers without ever looking at them. Aegle wondered how he'd managed it; Was his situational awareness just that good? She thought back to the night she'd first met him, and had her doubts.
"S'pretty job, y'made of it." She allowed, not without admiration. It wouldn't do for her though. He was big and he was powerful. He'd taken one Grimm off it's feet before dispatching it, and his kicks were nearly as devastating as his punches. She wasn't heavy enough to go for trips, and Aegle couldn't kick. Even if she had been the right shape for it, losing her footing was tantamount to halving her stopping power, and she already had little enough of that.
Sidling in for a closer look, Aegle inspected the eerily lifelike statue that now stood where a hardlight beowulf had been a few moments prior. She tapped the stone, and heard a hollow 'tonk' from within. It's face was still creased by the heel of Malinov's huge shoe. Aegle touched the indent, wondering how close the hardlight was to the real thing, as she lost all four fingers in the hollow made by Malinov's blind kick.

She took a step back, fell into mixed guard, and put two punches into the petrified beowulf's face. One, a jab to test her range, and the other a swift hook that caught the statue just to the side of it's blank, staring eye. Each time, it stopped her dead, the hollow beowulf didn't even budge. Aegle quirked a half smile, and slouched out of her guard, shaking her off hand to get the sting out. She looked at the wraps, and wasn't surprised to see a little bloom of blood on the grimy fabric.
"I don't reckon I could do any've that, even if I were wearin' your glove." She told the big man, bringing her injured hand up to suck some of the sting from her knuckle, "that trick, you punchin' and kickin' at the same time. Reckon that's where I'd have lost. Would have been swept aside by one, or not stopped t'other." S
Aegle planted her hands at her hips, and stopped just a stride away from Malinov, and even then she had to crane her crooked neck and twisted shoulders about as far back as they went to look him in the face. She envied him. He'd just taken on a pack of beowulf in as much time as it took her to tie her boots, and he wasn't even breathing hard. It wasn't hard to imagine what he could do if he really tried. Aegle smiled at him, trying to imagine the whirlwind of violence he must become, when had a mind to. The smile curdled, ever so slightly, when she realized her back had started to hurt. Sinking back into a slouch, Aegle rubbed her neck. All that power, all that effortless self-awareness and destructive ability, standing right in front of her, and her back was too sore to keep looking at it. She felt a faint spasm run up her spine, and massaged the aggrieved muscle.

He'd been trying to give her confidence, she thought, and all he'd done was show just how far above her he really was.
"Neh, I'm just the worst, yeah?" Aegle grumbled, "Y'do all that cool stuff and here I am gettin' jealous." She forced a smile into place, and looked back up at Malinov. "I bet y'bout as strong as him, y'know?" there was no need to say who 'him' might be. Aegle had only ever really fought one person.
"I reckon, if I could beat you..."
It was a good thing she hadn't been trying to beat Solomon Moon; It was a good thing she was too weak to really require his full strength. She'd been a real idiot, doing what she'd done; She'd known it before, even as she was doing it, and after as she was recovering. Now it really sank in how big a fool she'd been though.
"You could kill me, y'know?" Aegle didn't know what made her say it, but the words just sort of tumbled out, "I don't even reckon you'd need t'try. No more than y'did with these." She gestured dismissively at the floating motes of hardlight that were all that remained of Malinov's opponents. A smile stretched across her lips, one that showed off all her teeth, a jagged gash in her too-pale face. She thought about all those brave words she'd told the Lieutenant General, all those brave things she'd said to the Lord Commander, and she wanted to laugh. She chuckled a little.
"Y'know, comin' here, startin' late like I did..." She'd arrived at Beacon halfway through the first term; It had been that, or wait another year, and Aegle didn't have another year to spare, "S'easy enough t'say that I'm the weakest in my class."
She cocked her head to the side, leered up at Malinov with one eye, and smiled that laughing smile, "They're all stronger'n me, and why not, yeah? They've had three years of trainin' in some prep-academy, and then half a year besides. 'Course their stronger. And me, I spent the last four years not far from bed. Make's sense, y'know?"
A soft beep came from her wrist, a flash of red beneath the cuff of her sleeve, and Aegle realized she was getting worked up. She giggled quietly, and smothered her watch with her hand, and shook her head despite herself.
"I guess I figured I'd get stronger too, y'know? Maybe I wouldn't ever be as strong as any of them, but that was fine..." She shook her head again, "If I had to be at the back of the line, then I could at least keep up with them..."
Another lilting giggle trickled, unbidden from her lips, and she turned away from him. He was gonna think she was crazy, just like Roland and Lily and Vulcan and Mom. She couldn't stop smiling though.
"You're the goal, yeah? The finish line, y'know?"
It was a sobering realization, to know just how far away from her goal she really was, and here she was laughing at it. She giggled softly, her watch beeped again, and she giggled a little louder.
"You're what all of 'em wanna be, what they're all racin' for," Aegle's shoulders shook, her body trembling with fitful giggling.
"And me," She said, laughing the words, "I'm gonna try to keep up..." her watch beeped a third time, and Aegle lunged forward. She put an ugly, unsteady haymaker into the beowulf's stone forehead, right where Malinov's shoe had left it's mark, and then she shoved it with both hands, hard as she could. Straining, she forced it over onto it's side, where it fell with a dull, empty thud. Breathing heavily, still laughing, Aegle looked at it's empty eyes, it's gaping mouth, and the stone that covered it.
"What am I doin'?" She sighed mirthfully, asking nobody in particular, "I must really be crazy."