Writing: Jade + "isn't this illegal?"

    Hey, look who actually has something to post. It's from several weeks ago, granted, but at least it's something.

    You have no idea how long I agonized over that fight scene. And how many martial arts gifs I looked at on Pinterest, trying to figure out what moves to have Jade pull. And then how on earth to write said moves. So I'm sorry if it's ultra wonky and weirdly paced. I'm just thankful that I got it down.

   Um. Yeah. Writing has been slow. I did scribble a little something in the car, but it's disjointed. The writing ability has dulled again and it's hard to kick it back in gear. Le sigh.

    But this is deviant verse, post the Ruusan kidnapping arc. Jade showing off her mad skillz and being weird. As normal. And Charles being awesome.

    Someone remind me to hit the ground running with Dax/whatever I'm going to name him and (oh, what about Dackson?) start writing something for him. 

    Charles stepped into the warehouse after the sentry let him through with only a small monetary donation and a mention of his good friend Jade. He was pretty sure the guard had shown some approval in response to her name and had to wonder what Jade had gotten herself into this time.
    The action was happening several hundred feet away once he stepped through the heavy, metal door but it was still like being hit in the face with a tidal wave of voices, noise, and blinding white light.
    The contact had to stop and regain his bearings, adjusting to the extreme light variance and then trying to decide just what he was looking at. A rather large group of people stood in a frenzied cluster around the main attraction of the night, and even though what that was was out of his vision for the moment, but it wasn't difficult to draw conclusions. Dead of night, out of the way location, guardsmen starting several miles out, and now, high-powered lighting on an activity that was being betted on. Charles didn't frequent illegal fighting rings, but the few he had stopped in at had been very similar to this.
    And it had to be a human versus human fight, because there was no equipment for dogs or any other creature hanging around in the fringes of the warehouse, plus the fact that Jade would have no purpose at any of those sort of places.
    It was nicer than some he’d been to—at least it was in a warehouse, and not an hour out of the city in a barn with nothing but hales of bay and outdated lamps to light the space.
    But still.
    He sighed and stuffed his hands into his pockets. She was going to be right in the middle of the crowd, probably one of the fighters. Which was news to him, as this had never come up in the nonexistent “Jade Digest” as a pastime of hers, but neither was Charles surprised. 
    There was no way he could condone this habit, but she was more than capable of participating in and surviving any sort of unlawful fights she could buy her way into, seeing as her day job was made up of many similar components. Plus, she was a big girl. She could make her own choices.
    Resigning himself to his fate, he started making his way around the crowd in a subtle manner in an attempt to find a break in the mass that he could see through to spot his longtime friend.
    Jade, Jade, Jade, you well accomplished, but possibly over confident, oddball. Only you would come to one of these places for fun.
    Keen eyes surveyed the feverish audience, looking for a break in the wall of bodies.
    Finally.
    There was a small gap that he headed towards, preparing himself for the crush of people. Nothing put him out of his comfort zone like being surrounded by bigger, burlier men who were out to enjoy a blood sport and who could crush someone like him just by not looking where they were stepping.
    Putting his skills to work—Charles had not spent half his life learning to be unnoticeable and honing the ability to slip through a crowd with ease to let them go to waste now—he eased his way towards the front, ears ringing.
    The combined voices of the spectators was a fearsome thing. He could scarce tell one shout from another, but could make out the difference in tones, knowing who was cheering and who was jeering. One man Charles ducked under the arm of hurled a vitriol string of curses, no doubt being on the losing end of a considerably large bet.
    Charles took a quick step back before another of the onlookers could clip him in the chin and put him out of commission for the rest of the fight, before he’d even laid eyes on his goal.
    Jade owed him for this. So owed him for this.
    The things I do for you, dearest.
    With one final movement, in which he sidestepped and tucked himself through a narrow gap between two more shouting observers of the fight, the contact found himself a mere two feet from the ring. It was cordoned off by pulsing blue cords, which, by the look of them, would deliver a stinging bite to whoever touched it, keeping the brawlers in and the spectators well away.
    Hazel eyes travelling, the next thing that caught his attention was the blood. It was splattered at odd angles across the cement floor, some of it smeared by what looked to be footprints, other portions untouched. But all pointed to a brutal fight.
    Initial assessment complete, Charles flicked his gaze to the two competitors, anxiety already tightening in his chest. The larger of the two fighters was everything he expected in a place like this—nothing but pure muscle and a face that could make his mother cry—and the other… 
    The brute turned his stance, following his opponent as the slight woman with a swipe of red across one cheek and a shadow of purple forming on the curve of her jaw took quick steps away from him.
    Apprehension swelled in Charles’ chest unbidden. He knew she could handle herself, had seen her do it, but that knowledge wasn’t helping.
    Jade dropped to sweep out with one leg, avoiding a heavy blow aimed for the side of her head by a narrow margin. She caught her adversary’s right leg behind her calf and yanked, misbalancing her opponent with the motion. He tottered and Jade was on him in a heartbeat, dark eyes intent and without a hint of pain as she went in to try and finish the fight. 
    Hair clinging to the back of her neck swung free with her violent surge of movement, lunging upwards from the ground, pressing her advantage. One arm came up hard to catch him in the solar plexus, the other in a firm defensive  position in case he caught his wits again before she expected it. Everyone in the crowd let out a low breath when the man expelled all the air in his lungs at the force of Jaydn’s wallop, his eyes bulging in his head.
    Charles had to force his hands to unclench, already tense after even the few brief moments he’d been standing there. Trying to tell himself that Jade is a grown woman who knows what she’s doing did nothing for him. He’d known her since she was nothing more than a gangly teen who distrusted the universe from day one in it and the last fifteen years of growing up didn’t make a lick of a different right then.
    She followed up her winding blow with an elbow strike to the jaw, form closed and tight, leaving no space for a mistake and yet with the fluid ease that came with years of training and hard-earned experience. The man’s head snapped to the side and he staggered away, making a feeble attempt to swing at Jade.
    The crowd’s roar spiked as they tried to urge him on—Charles had no illusions that there would be only a few betters to walk away with a fat wallet that night. Jade had the appearance of an underdog. She didn’t get bet on, didn’t get chosen first, because she didn’t come off as deadly or even intimidating, like the rest of her family did. Not unless she was aiming for it.
    As the contact watched, Jaydn danced out of reach, bare feet sliding across pocked concrete, and Charles was struck by the gracefulness of the movement. It was so unlike her usual fighting style, the one her whole family utilized. They fought like Gogamians; hitting hard, not aiming to draw the clash out, finishing the skirmish with as little effort as possible. This was an art unto itself, the type people made a legal, professional living off of.
    He had to wonder if any of these beefy onlookers had any idea about the show they were witnessing.
    Her opponent—a man to Charles’ left shouted move your feet, Thrace—lurched after her, regaining himself as he bellowed in anger, red in the face from exertion. They crossed the small area of the ring, Jade always just out of reach, light and easy, never taking a lifted step, sliding instead. Always grounded, always ready to dig in.
    Charles’ lungs felt like they’d contracted to half their size when his longtime friend neared the ring’s border. She skirted the edge of thrumming cordon, passing just feet from where he stood, unfazed by the painful burn that awaited a hair’s breadth from her skin. 
    Thrace followed, blinded by his rage, intent only on trying to land a blow. The fight would degenerate to the level of bar brawl if he got his hands on Jade, and judging by the spike in fervor, the audience knew it. Some jeered, others goaded on the lumbering man. Charles kept his hands deep in his pockets, silent, tracking every quick moment, trying to determine what Jade’s next play would be.     
    She was toying with Thrace, that much was obvious. Letting him get close enough to feel confident about taking a swing, then moving out of range in the next breath. Linger, retreat. Linger, retreat.
    Shifting from one foot to the other, he contemplated bailing to wait elsewhere until Jade had finished, because there was no way this could be good for his blood pressure. Illegal fighting rings weren’t places he frequented for a reason.
    The dance continued for what felt like an eternity. A quiet began to fall over the onlookers as they waited with baited breath for the final move, Charles among them. It was only a matter of time now, and they all knew it.
    One beat.
    Two beats.
    The panting breaths of the two fighters as they circled. Thrace had caught onto her game and had stopped falling for Jaydn’s baiting.
    Dark eyes glinted. Charles had a sudden vision of a cat on the verge of pouncing.
    He wasn’t far off.
    Jade took a half step back, then reversed direction and surged forward, towards Thrace, crossing the span between them in a matter of heartbeats. On her last stride, she pushed off with her back foot, kicking out with the same limb and using the momentum to scale Thrace, toes driving into the space where his thigh met his hip and give herself the foundation she needed to get to his shoulders. Hands gripping his head, digging into his hair, Jade swung herself up and around so she could lock her legs around his neck, still utilizing that forward impetus to jerk Thrace off balance. One more hard twist of her body, throwing her upper torso out to the side and they both went down, hard.
    Charles didn’t want to imagine the expanse of bruising Jade would be facing in a handful of hours, flinching as the duo went crashing to the concrete floor, Jaydn’s hip and shoulder taking the brunt of her impact.
    It didn’t disconcert the woman, though. Jade’s head came up in the moments after she and Thrace went sprawling, watching as his face reddened, then purpled, as the effect of her chokehold took hold. He made a paltry attempt to struggle, his unimpeded arm flailing out, but it was a doomed effort from the start.
    Counting down the seconds—five, four, three, two, one—Charles braced for the swell of noise as Thrace’s eyes rolled back into his head, unconsciousness taking him and declaring Jaydn the winner of the fight.
    The cacophony of voices rose and peaked. Bets would be collected and the loser dragged from the ring to be brought back around. Within the safety of the cordon, Jade rolled to her feet, fingers going to push back loose strands of her hair, a poorly repressed smile tugging at her mouth.
    She sought Charles out with her gaze, quirking a brow once she’d made eye contact, as if to ask what’d you think?
    His only response was an exasperated shake of his head, before he started to shift through the crowd to where he could see the supervisor of the fight was keying in the code to take down the electrified partition. Jade headed that way as well, stepping over Thrace, out cold, as she went. 
    “Some fight, champ,” the supervisor was saying as Charles reached him, lifting the deactivated fibrous cord that kept the fight separate from the crowd for her. 
    Jaydn ducked low to slip between the two upper cables, coming upright on the other side with a grin. “You did a good job by picking Thrace, Kashi. That wasn’t an easy win.” Her dark gaze flicked to Charles, smile widening further. “Hey, old man. Come out to see the show?”
    “Work, I’m afraid,” the contact responded, stepping in closer when someone whacked him in the shoulder with an elbow. Ignoring the spike of pain, he took a quick inventory of Jade’s injuries. 
    It was far easier to see the extent of the damage from her tussle when up close; the bloody nose, bruised jaw, and hair plastered to her forehead and neck from sweat. Nothing that wouldn’t wash away or heal. Her attention was already back on the third member of their trio, however.
    Kashi, the short, stocky enabler of the brutal display, slapped Jade on the back and used the placement of his hand to urge her into motion, good humor clear on craggy features. “Come on, Vance. I’ve got your stuff in the corner and your cut of the winnings, then you can head out.”
    A small jerk of her head told Charles to trail them as Kashi led the way through the crowd. Insults were thrown as often as, if not more than, compliments from the milling spectators. Thrace must’ve been something of a legend to this crowd, because having a woman bring him down wasn’t going over well.
    The sooner they got out of here, the better.
    It was darker in the corner of the warehouse, away from the temporary spotlights that had been installed in the rafters for tonight. No one made to follow them, though, and that put Charles more at ease. 
    “There you are. Safe, as promised,” Kashi announced, gesturing to a small pile of clothing and a bag on the ground.
    Jade nodded, going to snag a pair of slacks and shimmy into them, pulling them up over the capris she’d fought in. While Charles averted his gaze, the other man felt no such consideration, watching her disappearing curves with undisguised appreciation.
    “I assume you have my cut of the winnings?” The hunter prompted, and there was mild warning in her voice, enough that Kashi was quick to look to the side.
    “Yes. There’s the expected fee for, ah—“
    “Take whatever cut you usually do, Kashi. I’m not planning on coming again.”
    The snort was hard to stifle. Jade was in the midst of pulling on a loose shirt and couldn’t see the despairing look that crossed the fight supervisor’s face. He would lose a lot of potential money by her not coming back.
    Kashi was smart enough to know better than to argue, though. With a heavy breath, he conceded, “You got it. I’ll meet you by the exit.”
    There was a mumbled affirmation in Gogamian as Jade pulled her hair out from its tie to shake it out.

//

    He didn’t speak until they’d left the warehouse and its inhabitants far behind. “So. Illegal fighting. Interesting pastime.”
    Jade took in a deep breath, hands in the pockets of her pants and head thrown back to take in the night air. “I don’t know how to explain it, Charles. Fighting gets my pulse racing in a way it doesn’t when I’m working. It—I guess that it drives away the demons for a little while."
    Charles could've sworn that the moon illuminated a smile that pulled at her features—and a true smile. Not just a quirk of the lips. He had to remind himself to keep pace with the hunter. It’d been a long time since he’d seen that smile. Months, if not years.
    "I get in that ring and there's nothing else but me and my opponent, Charles. I'm not tracking my siblings' positions. I'm not assessing possible threats. I'm not building a veritable library of criminals in my head. I can narrow in, block everything else out. There isn't time to think. I take a breath, and he’s coming at me again. Then the crowds are drowning out all the noise and the lights make it hard to see and he comes at me again and again until one of us goes down." Passion lent a foreign vibrancy to Jade's voice, bringing her words to life and transporting the contact back to the scene he'd witnessed to twenty minutes prior.
   Charles had to resist the urge to sigh. "You certainly have a knack for unusual pastimes, my love."
    Jade did snort, casting a smirk at him over her shoulder before she wiped blood from her nose with the back of her hand. "I can smell the disapproval on you."
    The contact raised his palms in a gesture of innocence. "I said no such thing."
    "Didn't have to." She spat off to the side to get blood out of her mouth, making a face. Which she really didn't need to because she already was a sight to be seen with the bruises already forming, visible even in the poor light.
    "Now I remember why you aren't the one who works cons," Charles commented, dry humor overtaking his tone as he ambled along at Jade's side.
    Something akin to a laugh bubbled out of her. "Is that a subtle way of telling me that my manner could be seen as offensive in some circles?"
    His grin was nothing short of cheeky. "Possibly."
    "I hate acting anyways, so it all works out well in the end. But shak, that was a serious work out. I may actually be sore tomorrow." Jade crossed her arm over her collarbone, using the other to stretch out the toned muscles in her limb.
    "Was that a subtle brag, Jaydn Vhander?" Charles didn't have to reach far for false outrage, but he did have to fight to maintain a suitable expression. After all, he had seen her bring down Thrace. If she’d been serious about the fight instead of out just to relieve stress, it would’ve been over long before he’d gotten there. 
    "Charles, please. You know that I am above bragging. We both are aware of the fact that my skills far outweigh most opponents I am faced with. I have no reason to brag when one well-placed punch can do it for me." Despite her mostly factual tone, there was a saucy sway to Jade's hips and a tilt to her lips that betrayed her.
    Grinning, he smacked her in the ribs, feeling no sympathy when she flinched at the light blow and strolled past while the hunter paused to catch her breath before jogging to overtake him again. "You have a ride, I assume?"
    Elbowing him in one quick strike and then throwing her shoulder into his to push him off balance, Jade jogged a few steps to be out of retaliation range before responding, "Of course. Half an hour walk away, at that privatized pad on the edge of Upper Westside's jurisdiction."
    Holding his side—Jaydn didn't know the meaning of playful jab and never really had, when he thought about it—Charles nodded, even if she couldn't see it. He wasn't going to ask where she’d gotten permission to touch down at a private landing pad. They all had those connections that made their lives easier. "That works. We can talk shop and then I can get a ride in to the spaceport from there."
    There was a grin on her voice when she shot back over her shoulder, her high ponytail swinging with the motion, "You up for a run, old man? I don't look this good because I walk everywhere."
    "Impudent brat. I'll meet you there. Take the long way around and maintain your amazing physique even better." Charles had to shake his head, partly because of exasperation but more in amusement.


    As always, thoughts, comments, or critiques are always welcome. I love feedback or just chatting. Both is good.

    Ad astra per aspera.
    To the stars, through difficulty.