Dancing in Light

[Grace Locke]

It was like something out of one of the fairy tales she’d read when she was younger, intellectually Grace knew the mechanics behind the room but it made no difference. Every time she stepped through the door it was like she was stepping through a magic portal into a whole new world. She heard the woosh of the doors clicking shut behind her as the redhead closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling of a cool breeze brushing across her face, strand of hair shifting for a moment. She could hear the rustle of the wind blowing through trees, of birds on the wing somewhere nearby. She knew that she hadn’t moved, was still in central Astaria, but it felt like she had, had somehow been teleported to the other side of the planet, which if she was honest wasn’t beyond AEGIS’s capability…probably. A small smile touched the corner of her lips as Jade eyes flicked open, perhaps the fairytales were onto something after all, it’s not like her life was so different from some of the stories, knights and heroes fighting against monsters and villains. Life imitates art, or was it the other way around.


A deep breath as she took a step forward, one hand reaching up to run through her hair, pulling it back into a ponytail as her eyes flicked around the room. The young woman’s free hand rested against the stone banister of the stairs leading up to the courtyard feeling the rough surface of the stone beneath her fingers as she emerged into the sunlight. The young woman could feel the warmth of the light on her skin as she stepped out into the middle of the courtyard. It felt like she was stepping into a warm pool of water, comfortable and relaxing, the kind of place you could loose a day in, just close your eyes and drift away.


As enjoyable as curling up like a cat in the sun and taking a nap would be, that wasn’t actually why she was here. Maybe she could treat herself to a nap under one of the large windows of the headquarters after this. Pull up a comfortable chair and curl up with a book and a warm drink. But, that was for a little later, for now jade eyes flicked around the room again.


“Alice?”


Alice

[Alice]

Alice was immensely proud of the different simulations she could run on the ALISE. Sure, she hadn't made the thing in the first place, that was mostly Tim, but it was based on technology that made up her, and she was really one of the only people who had the processing power to design simulations like this. Sure, ALAIN could run ones that were already developed, and other people could develop their own simulations, but Alice prided herself on the detail she could achieve without overloading things.

This courtyard was a favorite, recreated from one of the samurai films she'd grown fond of. A nice wide open courtyard, made to look like it was spring, in Japan. Cherry blossom scent floated on the wind, and warm sun kissed the skin on whoever was in it, whether simulated or otherwise. She took a deep breath and enjoyed the simulated fresh air. She was proud of how well she was doing at getting it closer to what was real, now that she had a body to work with.

Today though, she was using her avatar. She materialized it towards the center of the courtyard, in front of Grace. Her bright orange locks were pulled back into a high ponytail, and she was wearing a nondescript martial arts gi, not really one that would fit with one specific martial art. Her simulated bare feet touched lightly on the stone paving as she moved forward and waved.

"Good morning, Grace! It's so nice to finally get to meet you face to face. So to speak. I've been busy, you've probably had to deal with the Alice Linked Auxilary Integrated Node. Sorry about that, he's a work in progress. Anyway, I'm rambling. How do you want to do this sparring session? Bare hands? Weapons?" A pair of escrima sticks manifested into her hands, then vanished. "Powers? I can simulate a lot of different kinds of powers that you can practice against."

She held her arms out wide, opening, inviting. "We can do just about anything here! What do you feel like?"

Grace Locke

[Grace Locke]

Grace knew about Alice, it was impossible to enter the AEGIS headquarters and not be aware of her presence, from the moment you stepped through those doors to the moment you left she was there surrounding you. A constant companion, omnipresent and yet not. While Grace had interacted with the node so often over the course of the past year that the woman’s voice sounded familiar this was her first time actually meeting Alice in the flesh, as it were.

“No problem, I know how busy you are managing…well everything and he’s taken good care of me, but still, it’s kinda like I’ve got this weird sense of déjà vu like I’m meeting an old friend for the first time.”

She had heard Alice’s voice, recordings giving answers to the system and greetings countless times but this was the first time she had ever spoken back. It was an odd feeling, but there was something about her ebullience, the excitement that you couldn’t help but be swept up and carried away with. It was infectious in a way it was hard to find. Grace honestly believed that Alice was actually glad to see her, excited for this opportunity to interact with someone else. The red-haired hero couldn’t help but answer the smile with one of her own as she bent, slipping off her sneakers to place them to the side before joining Alice in the ring.

As infectious as the laugh was, Grace couldn’t help the eagerness in her step as she hopped forward, almost dancing from foot to foot as she leaned into a stretch.

“Well, if you can spawn up two more of those sticks, how about we warm up with a spar.”


Alice

[Alice]

Alice couldn't stop smiling. She was excited to spar with Mimic, she seemed to have interesting powers and she was curious to see how it would work with her digital avatar.

"Well I'm happy to hear I'm a friend. We can definitely go a few rounds with the sticks!"

Alice's sticks appeared in her hands again, and a few benches materialized around the arena, a pair of sticks for Grace appearing on one near her. "You can bring any gear you want to in here too, in the future. Its designed so that you can test and experiment with just about anything. There's even additional radiation shielding after... well, you probably heard."

That had been a mess, one she didn't want to have repeated. Alice shook it off and twirled her sticks before taking up a fighting stance, downloaded and copied from a large database of fighting styles and techniques she'd been building. Mimic might be able to mimic fighting techniques, but so could Alice, with a little observation.

"I'll go at your pace. You called it a warm-up, so we'll start there, and if you want things a little more challenging I can crank things up a bit. Ready when you are!"

Grace Locke

[Grace Locke]

The redhead rolled her neck, her bound hair brushing against her back as she padded over to the bench, taking a final opportunity to appreciate the view that stretched out below her. It really did look like Alice had transported them to China, to a real mountain temple, it looked exactly like she would have imagined it. The young woman tilted her head back, enjoying the feeling of the warm sunlight playing across her skin. She took a deep breath for a moment before reaching for the eskrima sticks, twirling them through a circle.

Flicking one of the weapons into the air, Grace turned back to Alice, flicking the weapons from hand to hand as if she was juggling before snatching them out of the air, bouncing on her toes a few times before she let her jade-gaze meet Alice’s blue. A small, almost challenging smile turned up the corner of Grace’s lips as she inclined her head in a half-salute.

“Don’t feel you have to hold back for me.”

One of the eskrima sticks was lifted in a salute before she fell into a guard, both sticks lying flat against her flesh. There was a sense of detachment that came over her when she fought, icy claws settling around her mind as she shifted one foot back, settling her weight on them. She hadn’t fought Alice before, had no idea, no point of reference for this fight, so a defensive attitude, to start at least. She could play for time and observe how the other woman approached combat. Grace could feel the data starting to flow in, shifts in Alice’s stance, the way she held her hands, everything that would give her an idea of how to handle this fight.

Alice

[Alice]

Alice smirked as she gave her sticks a flourishing twirl.

"Oh Grace, trust me. I need to hold myself back for everyone."

It was half teasing mind game, half truth. Alice wasn't just her avatar in this situation. She was also the floor. The walls. Ever cherry blossom petal floating on the breeze. Which she also was. Everything in the ALISE was her and under her control. She limited herself to her avatar so that she could be an effective sparring partner. In truth, if someone was in the ALISE that Alice didn't want, they would essentially be in a hell of her choosing.

But that was beside the point here. Alice liked Grace, and wanted to see what she was made of. After circling for a moment, feeling out how Grace was moving, Alice opened with quick basic strikes aimed towards the body, simple attacks, easy to see and deflect, just to see how she'd react.

"I'll be fine, show me what you've got."

Grace Locke

[Grace Locke]

There was something about a smile that could speak to so much, and could carry with it all sorts of messages, confidence, insecurity, curiosity. It was all about the little inflections, the little changes and movements on their faces that gave away the truth of what someone was thinking. Grace's eyesight gave her a small advantage, able to pick out those familiar movements in someone's face and demeanour, the patterns that carried over from one person to another that allowed you to peer past the mask that most people wore in front of others.

All she got from Alice was confidence and playfulness. The combination of experience and capability.

"Don't say I didn't warn you."

The redhead couldn't stop the answering smirk curling up the corner of her lips as she bounced up on her toes, the eskrima sticks twirling for a moment before she brought them up in a series of parries, directing Alice's attacks away from her body. It was a safe answer to the basic attacks that didn't show too much of her hand while allowing her to observe the woman's form. Jade eyes flicked up and down for a moment as Grace bounced on the tips of her toes once more before letting her knees bend as she fell. The young hero let her legs explode like an uncoiling spring. driving her forward as she struck out at Alice's leg with her weapons. A quick one-two strike as she struck low, upping the tempo of their sparring for a moment.

[Alice]

Alice felt the easy response to her opening salvo, and knew she could step it up a notch or two. Grace was no novice, that was for sure, which was a good thing. The training she'd need would be more along the lines of getting used to the methods and procedures of Aegis itself, not combat in general. She had a few ideas for how to really test her though.

First, though, she'd let Grace get her confidence up and think she was getting the upper hand. She let the hit connect, sweeping her off her feet with both strikes from the sticks. "Well done. You're no beginner, that's for sure."

That was all the warning that Grace was going to get. Alice rolled back and used her hands to spring back onto her feet, and proceeded to throw one stick past Grace. It was a bit of a cheap move, and a risky one. You'd have to either be incredibly skilled and practiced in a niche application of this weapon, or have computer-level ability to calculate the angles. Alice had at least one of those.

The thrown stick was something to consider later. Right now Alice was going to press what little advantage she had from the spring up, and bring a flurry of blows to bear with the remaining stick. She had to get Grace positioned just right for the ricocheting stick that was aiming to smack right between her shoulderblades. She would have gone for the head, but they weren't wearing the right protective gear, and the center of the back should get the idea across.

Grace Locke

[Grace Locke]

Grace had been prepared for Alice to avoid her strikes, to jump back, block or spin away, in fact she'd been counting on it. She hadn't expected to actually hit the woman, to feel the vibration of the eskrima stick impacts carrying up her arms, the kind of impact you could feel in your bones. The shock dulled her reactions for a moment, watching Alice fall to the ground for a second before dancing back. The redhead raised her arms, the sticks running down the length of her limbs as green eyes peered through her arms suspiciously before she relaxed, offering Alice a small smile as she opened her mouth to reply, a playful light dancing in her eyes.

"I..."

That was as far as she got, the banter dying on her lips as Alice sprang back to her feet, a stick hurled through the air as Grace twisted her body to avoid the strike, feeling the touch of the wind on her face as it sailed past. It was easy to avoid the clumsy throw, but the follow-up attacks were another matter, twisting to avoid the stick had left her out of position as Alice unleashed a flurry of blows forcing the hero to step back, backing up around the platform as she tried to buy herself space to reorient herself, catching Alice's stick with a sweeping motion of her left hand, pushing it to the side as she jabbed at Alivce's torso with her righthand.

It was a measure of her inexperience that Grace put the stick that had sailed past her out of her mind, not even recognizing it as a potential threat. A more experienced fighter might have recognized the trick, would have known better but for all her capability, for all her potential she lacked the tempering of experience. She only became aware of the rebound as she heard the whistle of the stick through the air, all Grace could do was throw herself forward, feet dancing over the ground as she carried through with her jab.

It was a valiant effort, but just a little too late. There was no way that Grace could avoid the strike, all she managed to do was shift the point of impact to her shoulder, cutting at Alice with one of her weapons as the force sent her stumbling forward.

"You're not so bad yourself."

Alice

[Alice]

It was always an interesting sensation. There was a part of her that was running the simulation, calculating all the angles, making the sticks move realistically with a minimum amount of lag (she was very proud she could get it down to 0.000000005 picoseconds on the hardware she had, she was fairly confident that no human living would notice the latency), so she instantly knew what Grace was doing. At the same time, another part of her was actively sparring, limiting herself to only the inputs that her avatar would have access to. She had to make sure she didn't cross the streams, and act on information her avatar wouldn't have. She had to not "metagame."

She was proud of her ability to do that, so she was smiling even as she took the hit to her simulated guts and staggered back, taking the second strike on her arm as Grace stumbled forward from the stick that Alice had thrown earlier. Alice took a step back, recovering and stabilizing, letting Grace do the same.

"Good reaction time, even if your situational awareness could use some work. Still not bad for the first time sparring with me or someone who could pull off that move. You okay?"

Grace Locke