Recovery (Limen)

Limen’s eyes opened slowly, adjusting dully to the simple ceiling above her. Her mind was still half asleep, but she was aware enough to know that this was not where she’d been knocked out. Her first thought was, shit, I’ve died. Now I’m going to have to make due on my promise and go haunt Gil’s ass. The truth, she would find as she came back into the world of the living, was much worse.

For one, she was still alive. She could tell because her chest ached like hell. She failed her first attempt to sit up, flinching and clenching her side where Gil had... actually, she could only sort of remember the strike. She remembered a lot of pain - a lot of pain - then him calling her weak. And then she’d passed out.

This in itself wasn’t too usual. She normally ended fights before they got to the point where she got KOed via a timely exit through a window, but this was far from the first time she’d stuck around until the end. The real problem was she had no idea where she was. It was a nice place and all, but she didn’t recognize the simple and empty walls nor the sounds of outside. This was not anywhere in the docks.

She could figure by the logic of Occam's razor that this was probably Gil’s place. He’s probably carried her here after he’d so kindly helped her catch up on her sleep, bandaged her - that was nice of him - and- She realized something.

All her stuff was gone. And she’d had quite a number of things on her person: the generator, with wires trailing down into her sleeves, her quiver, filled with at least fifty arrows of varying types, her pair of brass knuckles, made of actual brass and lined with leather around the fingers, and an apple watch that, if turned on, would look nothing like the normal interface of such a watch and a lot more like a confusing jumble of lettered icons and settings menus. If he’d bothered to grab her bow, it’d be completely totaled; those things are not supposed to be kicked. Because she’d walked, she’d also had her backpack with her. In that, most notably, was a laptop that was password, fingerprint, and anti-hacking protected so that without means of passing both tests the user would be unable to make it past the login screen. Attached to this laptop was a device that looked akin to a wireless receiver. The backpack also contained several smoke bombs, a pair of leather gloves, the keys to her motorcycle, a can of campbell's ravioli, a thermus half full of long cooled coffee, a small first aid kit, a set of lockpicks, a couple miscellaneous wires, cords and tools, an empty contacts case, some rope, and, at the bottom, a mess of bent and crumpled papers, instant coffee packets, and a handful of writing utensils.

She sat up swiftly, throwing aside bedding and immediately regretting it as her chest and side gave their fervent disapproval. More slowly this time, she scrambled onto her knees and looked around. Nothing. None of her stuff was here save for the set of clothes she’d been wearing.

That meant he’d seen it. He knew. Gil wasn’t stupid; he could probably piece it together from the generator alone.

Panic was beginning to settle in her chest. No, she told herself, it was okay. She could come up with something else, some other explanation; say the electricity was all a diversion to keep her archery super powers a secret. She wasn’t screwed just yet. She just had to play this right.

Limen sat down, cross-legged, and took several deep breaths. She’d done this before, she could do it again. Getting to her feet slowly, she slipped on her shorts and black t-shirt, and ran her hand a couple of times through her hair. When she didn’t have it back in a ponytail, her long hair didn’t look dissimilar to a hime cut. Fitting for a place like this, she guessed. Her sweatshirt was in worse shape than her, with a rip that confirmed with pretty solid certainty that Gil had seen her generator, and she didn’t see the need for the shoes.

She Slung her felled sweatshirt over her forearm and picked up her shoes by their backs. Her bare feet were almost silent on the floor as she paced to the one exit of the room. Also fitting to the place, she could smell incense coming from the other side.

Limen slid open the door. She was only mildly surprised to see Gil sitting there, fitting right into the setting. The guy was committed to this atmosphere, wasn’t he? Her eyes flicked to the pile of her stuff set behind him. She made a quick log of all the things she’d been carrying with her. All of it was there.

Stepping out, she slid the door closed behind her and smiled at the pandaemonium. “Gil!” She greeted, like nothing was wrong. “Oh good, and here I was thinking I’d been robbed.” She looked around at what seemed like a central room. “Nice place you’ve got here.”

Sliding back into her usual self, Limen laughed at Gil’s naming statement. “I will do no such thing!” She leaned against the wall, her arms crossed and her weight on the foot of her less injured side. “As much as I appreciate you helping me out, I don’t do not-nicknames.” She said, her head tilted to the side and her eyebrow raised. “You’ve gotta earn that from me.”

She felt like there were several elephants in the room. It was raising her nerves. She found herself glancing to the side, looking for a door.

Limen inhaled and brought herself back to focus. This was just like aiming at a foe while they ran at her - she knew she could focus, stay calm and normal, and she would do so. She’d done so for years. She’d done so in worse.

She renewed her smile. “But see, you’ve got several good ones from me. Gil, friend, Hero King; take your pick or chose your own.” Stepping away from the wall with a small swing, she said, “As for my sudden appearance out in the middle of who knows where, I don’t know. You wanted to help out someone you’d beat up like a normal person? Aren’t you kind.”

Gil it was, then. Limen only raised her head to maintain eye contact as he stood, otherwise remaining as she was. He was a good bit taller than her short 5’3” and of much wider build, and he had this look to him like he was trying to stare into her soul or something. He probably thought he was intimidating. Neither Limen’s relaxed posture or grin faltered. Yes, he’d beaten her in a fist fight, but just because she’s discovered getting into a melee fight with Gil was a pastime likely to result in her passing out didn’t mean she was scared of him. The air she had towards him was no different now than it had been when she’d first spoken to him outside of the theater, besides that she was now favoring one side and her movements were slower, more careful so as to avoid stretching certain muscles. And she was trying to keep her eyes off the generator behind him.

When Gil asked his question and his gaze drifted over her stuff, her eyes did not follow his. Instead, she kept her sights locked on him. “Seems you’ve seen through my little ploy.” Limen simply sighed and shrugged. “So yeah, the whole ‘electricity’ thing is a lie.” She crossed her arms to match his and leaned back against the wall. “Most supers have these fancy abilities of elemental manipulation, or illusion creation, or otherwise something that can level buildings or people in their way. You wake up one day at fifteen and bam! Suddenly you’ve got fire shooting from your hands and you’re the strongest person you know. We like to think of gaining super powers as like suddenly becoming a demi-god or something because of the sheer amount of power gained in such a short amount of time.” Though she was speaking casually and fairly jovially, her voice almost had a bitterness to it. “You want to know what my power is? Minor device manipulation. I can pick up weapons I’ve never touched before and quickly learn how to wield them effectively, or I can screw with someone’s electrical lighting system, or I can make your phone decide it’s going to be the one to start the tech revolution and refuse to answer to you. Stupefying, right? It really makes me sound like a threat.”

Limen sighed and made a gesture with her hands out to the side. “I got screwed over by our friendly super power giving god and got this bs power that does little more than help me cook eggs in the morning and beat the police in a quick draw contest. I tell people I’ve got electricity power because, I don’t know,” her voice quieted, and for the first time she broke eye contact, her gaze drifting back out into the room, “I want to be taken seriously? Because, when everyone else is creating this spectacle, it makes me sound like more than just someone who can shoot a gun well?”

She looked back at Gil, her face expressionless. “You say it wasn’t out of kindness, but thanks for getting me out of there and helping me with my injuries. Most people would’ve just left me.”

She didn’t try to hide the relief that came into her smile. It seemed he’d accepted her explanation, even if he had returned it with an odd statement that had contained both a compliment and an insult.

Limen put a hand to her chin, her grin becoming teasing. “Far too weak, you say? We had a fist fight, Gil, and I told you, I’m an archer. I may not have your fancy super stone skin, which... are you even hurt anymore?” If there was any power she was most jealous of, it was self-healing. She had to heal her wounds with time and bandages, and given how often she got injured, she couldn’t think of a more convenient power. She shook her head and got back on topic. “But give me a gun or a bow and I’ll beat you at any contest with those.” She goaded, almost habitually. Though it was probably a bad call to put out any kind of challenge in her current state, she couldn’t let such a comment go unresponded to.

She wondered how good Gil was with a bow. She knew from her own experience that having skill with just one weapon can result in automatic or at least a semblance of skill with others, and Gil had no shortage of skill. In their fight, he had been clearly stronger than her. Quite a bit stronger, as, while she had dodged a number of his blows, she’d only managed to shock him. It’d taken him three attacks to knock her out - five hits, and she’d only lasted what amounted to a couple of minutes against him. The few times she’d done damage to him was as a counter to him doing damage to her, and while she did have a high endurance, she would bet the money she didn’t have that his was several notches higher at least. That kind of damage output would always result in her loss. If he could beat her so soundly in a fist fight, she wondered how he’d compare in archery or freerunning, her two fortes.

There was one other thing she’d been wondering at. “So, where are we? Your house, obviously, but we’re not at the docks anymore.” She asked. Desiring some kind of movement, Limen made to take several steps into the center of the hall, around Gil’s side and towards the direction of the door. The choice of direction was a subconscious one - she didn’t have any plans of running, but her mind had said the side that didn’t place the big guy with lots of muscles between her and the door was the better one.

“The lazy?” She was laughing, arms wrapped around her stomach because it hurt. “You’re calling me lazy? Oh, Gil.”

She waited for her laugher to die down and widened her stance, placing her feet firmly on the ground. a laughing smile remained on her face. “How do I explain this?” She crossed one arm over the other and a hand on her chin. “Most people get six to eight hours of sleep every night. I get three. Three hours of sleep and three mugs of coffee and I’m set for the day. So, that should be an extra four hours every day, right? Add in no work, no responsibilities, no anything except the things I want to do and I must have the most carefree, lazy schedule ever. Wrong. This is the big leagues, Gil. I’m fighting with and against people who can punch through buildings. Hell, you can probably punch through buildings, and I picked a fight with you because that’s a normal tuesday for me. Those hours aren’t spent sitting around on my butt or catching fish, they’re spent shooting arrow after arrow, then gathering up my arrows and doing it all again. Because, in battle, if I miss the wrong shot, or I don’t dodge the right blow, or I don’t run away fast enough, I’m dead. Just like that. No more Limen.” She was laughing loudly again. “Thanks bs power giving god for this ‘start’, I guess. But if I relied only on them, well, I probably wouldn’t have three years worth of scars. I’m not working my ass off for world domination, I’m doing it so I can live through a fight with people like you.”

“Oh,” Limen laughed, “is that a threat?”

Maybe she was in over her head. She’d wondered this before, during those nights where she’d practice for hours to see no improvement. Internet tutorials and time could only get her so far so fast - so far she’d been keeping up alright, but these supers, they were gaining powers at exponential rates. How much longer would it be before she was left entirely outclassed by even the most fledgling super?

She guessed when that time came, she’d be dead.

She wondered if Gil thought threatening her death scared her. His whole everything seemed to exude intimidation, actually; his threats, insults, the way he held himself, yet he seemed very cool-headed. Not much for emotions in that guy, save for anger. It was all very odd. Further, she wondered what he was going on with about those without the gifts to create their own powers. Wasn’t he a super? That seemed like a strange thing to say if one had powers.

“And here I was thinking supers weren’t supposed to kill other supers when dragons've got that job covered. So what, you want to pick on some poor super with less powers than you? You won’t get much status for taking out a minor device manipulator, I’ll tell you that now. ‘You killed someone who can turn on the blender from across the room? Oh, you must be terrifying’.” She teased.

Had she hit something? He was actually talking, in sentences with pauses in them. So he saw fighting, or specifically martial arts, as a tool of death? It wasn’t an unusual view, nor was she particularly surprised a guy like Gil held such an opinion. Obviously it wasn’t always to be used for death; the fact that she was still alive was proof of this. What did he thing of people who fought with end goals beside killing, she wondered? And why he hadn’t killed her? For all his talking about having not killed her, he hadn’t given more than a vague and cryptic reason as to “why”. Not that she wasn’t thankful he hadn’t, just curious as to why, if martial arts were the art of death and the master of it had bested her in a fight, the art hadn’t lived up to its title.

However, there was something he had hinted at that intrigued her more, and seemed almost central to her other questions. “Can’t disagree with you there,” she said casually, swinging her arms around behind her back, “but dedication? Hard work? Given your status on ‘lazy supers’, that’s a really funny thing for a fellow super to say.” Limen said innocently.