Figuration

"Here it is, here it is, she's about to go in for the uppercut-"

"Lev."

"Wait for it... wait for it... Haa, there it is!" He's still rambling.

"Lev, we can see, we don't need a play-by-play," I say, a bit exasperated.

"Then, Aika, I really don't know why you invited me," Lev counters. I groan and Nevaeh's picked up the remote to pause the DVD playback. I'm surprised she's not chewing him out. Actually, hold on, is she smirking? I can't believe this.

"Lev," I turn in my chair to give him a serious look, "Technically speaking, you invited yourself to this training session."

"Well, yeah, I can't pass up an opportunity to see Evren in action."

"I want to see her fight as much as you do, but we're trying to focus on Gabriel right now. He's who I'm going to have to fight first." I glance at the television in the viewing room we've taken over at the gym. Nevaeh's rewinding frame by frame to replay the scene. I hear Lev grumble beside me but he seems to relent as Nevaeh presses play.

"Watch how he evades," she says.

We watch video after video of Gabriel's past NCC fights, including one against Evren. Lev was right, he's wicked fast and jumpy as hell. He seems to summon water out of nowhere, right when his opponent goes in for the attack. Being slapped in the face with water – his sweat... I shudder – can't be pleasant. My accuracy's already in need of some work. If I can't see...

I'm screwed. Nevaeh probably notices my rising panic at this realization, because the next moment she speaks up and suggests we take a break before finishing up with "a surprise." I try not to think too hard on what this 'surprise' could possibly be and drag Lev out to the front lobby.

"Man," Lev pipes up the moment we're out the door, stretching his arms above his head, "I thought that would never end. Couldn't you at least do some sparring? I wanna watch you kick a bunch of shit around." He starts trying to box with the air and I'm tempted to fall back and pretend I don't know him. "It's always so cool."

I smile and shake my head at him. "Thanks, Lev, but this is important too. I should know what I'm up against, so I can plan how to counter his figure. You were right, he's not the average competitor with a heights figure I've seen a million times."

Lev sighs and mutters to himself, although I don't hear what he says.

"Hey, Aika! How's it going?" the woman tending the front desk today, Tammy, greets me as we pass by. I smile and wave at her before Lev and I head to the water cooler a few metres away. I'm still thinking about how I'm going to tackle Gabriel when Lev pipes up again.

"You should compensate me with some ice cream later," he says. I stop mid-drink and stare at him, bewildered.

"Compensate you for what?" I ask.

"I didn't get to see any sweet sparring, so you should treat me to some sweet... sweets," he finishes. I keep myself from grabbing him by the collar and throwing him straight outside the gym. I can't let Tammy see me do that; she'll ban me for aggression against another patron. So I just gawk at my best friend – I feel like I do this every time I see him. Why am I friends with him again? – and, oh, now he's laughing at me. "All right, all right, how about my treat? For working hard at... your... mental training?" His tone rises at the end of his sentence in his typical upspeak. He knows I find it hopelessly endearing when he does that. Bastard.

"Let's do that, then," I cave. "But you are paying."

"Of course, of cou-"

"I'll make you sign a contract here and now if I have to-"

"Chill, Aika! I swear I'll treat! I'm just teasing; loosen up." He pats my shoulder and we walk back to the viewing room. "Don't be nervous. If I know Nevaeh, she's testing your confidence right now. Mental training, right? You've got this. You always do," he adds quietly as we pass through the door.

I take a steadying breath. There I go getting 'frenzied' again. I can do this. I've trained for forever and this is my dream. I can't get sidetracked by every opponent I go up against. My goal is the Commander of Space. Anyone before her is just a rung on the ladder up to the real stage.

"All right," Nevaeh claps her hands together when Lev and I are seated, which immediately tells me she's come up with something devious, "My surprise. I knew you'd need some serious pumping up before your match, Aika, so I did some digging in the online archives." I raise an eyebrow and Nevaeh points behind her at the black TV screen. "A little bird managed to grab me some footage of a match no one in the NCC has ever had privy to. This one, apparently – I haven't watched it myself yet – is a sparring match between The Collapser and the Commander of Space."

My jaw drops. "Nevaeh, where'd you get this?! Did you spy on them while they were training?!" Nevaeh holds up a hand and I quiet, waiting for her explanation.

"I would never stoop to spying," she clicks her tongue at me, "Where I got this doesn't matter, but I'm sure you're just as curious as I am to watch a match between our supposedly undefeated champ and her legendary coach."

"Holy shit!" Lev is yell-whispering: that weird combination of over-excited breathlessness and straining to keep himself together. "Put it on, put it on!" he waves his hands at Nevaeh, who complies with his request and pops a DVD into the disc drive.

"So, predictions?" Nevaeh asks as she waits for the menu to boot up.

"Evren's amazing, but no way would she have won against The Collapser. The Collapser!" Lev immediately responds. I start to wonder if I'll need to grab a cold towel for him, should he faint from fanboying.

"Then..." I bring my mind back to Nevaeh's question, "We might be about to see... Evren lose?" I stumble out. Nevaeh raises her eyebrows at me and says nothing, but I see her little grin. The room's suddenly filled with anticipation and I fold my hands together, watching the screen intently. This might be my ticket to the grand championship.

The recording playback begins. Evren and Santeri are standing across from each other on a raised circular platform. It looks like they chose a simple environment for their match. The NCC's been known to employ some weirdly shaped boxes and buildings before, but that's no doubt harder to film without the NCC's professional setup. I'm jealous they managed to find a simulator to do this, but that was probably easy to do between their combined clout. The person behind the camera yells over to Evren and her uncle. "All right, first one out – of the ring, or consciousness – is the loser. Winner gets bragging rights."

"Damn right!" I hear Evren call back. I'm slightly taken aback. I'm not used to an Evren who isn't all polite wittiness. It occurs to me that I've only really seen her speak in official spotlights. Santeri looks like he's chuckling.

"All right, on my mark, you two have at it. I've got the camera runnin' if we need to break a tie. Frame by frame should show which one of you keeled over first," the person behind the camera says again.

"Ooooh, get on with it!" a high-pitched voice whose source I can't determine yells from somewhere else behind the camera.

"All right, all right. It's go in three, two, one... mark!"

I blink and I miss it. Evren's suddenly crossed the twenty-metre space between her and her opponent and landed a roundhouse kick right into Santeri's headgear. He stumbles back a bit, before hooking his leg onto Evren's and shifting his weight. She falls, but rolls sideways to recover. Neither of them makes another move immediately; they just slowly circle each other.

"I love their fighting style," Lev says.

"Typical MMA but with a lot of Wing Chun," Nevaeh says.

"Wing Chun...?" I'm surprised Lev hasn't researched this part of the Grand Champions' lives. Though, maybe not actually. He's always been far more interested in their relationships.

"Yeah," I answer, not taking my eyes off the TV screen. Santeri barrels forward and throws a barrage of punches at Evren, who parries every single one before countering. Santeri also parries perfectly and lands a hard punch to Evren's solar plexus. Ouch. I wince on her behalf.

"Huh. I didn't expect that. Learning a Chinese martial art I mean." Ah, so he does know what Wing Chun is. "Neither side of Evren's family is even close to Chinese," Lev continues as I watch Evren back off, winded.

"You don't have to be Chinese to learn a martial art originating from China," I counter.

"No," he agrees, "But I just don't think most people have heard of it. I hear Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Kickboxing, before something like Wing Chun comes up."

"Well, it's basically a type of Kung Fu, and most people have heard that term before. It's all a matter of specificity. I'm almost certain you've seen it in movies," Nevaeh says. Lev makes a noise of deliberation and I turn my full attention back to the fight. I force my eyes to stay open and I watch for Evren to employ her infamous figure.

She takes a step back and I see it. Just for a moment. The space around her morphs slightly. Blurs. Bends a little. And suddenly Evren's not anywhere near where she was a second ago. She's appeared right under Santeri's nose. She brings an open hand to his throat, but before she can land her strike, I watch Santeri duck at superhuman speed. I know instantly that he's employed his falling figure. But Evren has more control over her body than Santeri does at this moment, and she circles her hand around and downward, as if she had planned to do so all along. She strikes at Santeri's arm.

He blocks her. Evren tries an axe kick. Santeri is forced to block. I cringe. Kicks hurt. Personally, I dodge them.

Evren and Santeri continue to exchange blows at close range. I can tell that Santeri is at an advantage here. Both he and Evren may excel at close range fighting styles, but Santeri is the senior. He is a more experienced fighter and it soon becomes clear that he will not back down, regardless of the fact that he's fighting his niece. I hear Lev exhale loudly beside me when Santeri lands a series of rapid punches to Evren's abdomen.

Nevaeh hasn't said a word, and I don't need to rip my attention away from this recording to know that she's taking in every second of this match. But just as the match reaches peak tension, it ends.

Evren is standing at the edge of the ring, her uncle's hand outside of it, out of bounds. I blink a few times, trying to process what just happened.

"What?" Lev croaks out, mirroring my thoughts.

"Nevaeh," I say, "Replay that last bit."

Without argument, Nevaeh rewinds until just after Evren was punched in the gut. She plays the recording at half speed. We watch Santeri go in for the final blow, to knock Evren out of the ring, but I see the familiar blur in the space around her. It disappears, and Santeri somehow misses his mark, even though Evren's in the exact same place as she was before. What just happened?

Evren takes advantage of her uncle's miss and grabs the back of his neck. She steps forward and wraps her leg around his shin, so as Santeri tries to employ his falling figure to escape her hands, he loses balance and spins onto his backside. He catches himself with the hand he's forced to place out of bounds. Nevaeh pauses the recording. I still don't understand what just happened. I look at Lev. He looks just as bewildered.

"You didn't catch it, Aika?" Nevaeh asks, in a tone reminding me of a high school teacher I had who loved to give us pop quizzes.

"No," I answer truthfully, reluctantly. If this really is some sort of Nevaeh-approved mental training regimen, I'm failing bigtime.

"She didn't even move, how could he miss?!" Lev asks the same question I had.

"She did move," Nevaeh answers. She even sounds impressed. I shoot her a look of disbelief. "An inch! So slightly!" She rewinds the recording again and plays it at 25% speed. "Watch her feet," she says. I do.

And she's right. Just as Santeri goes in for the finishing blow, I see the space around Evren shift, like I noticed before. But once the blur vanishes, I notice that Evren's feet have moved the slightest bit closer to her oncoming uncle, and at a slightly different angle. Santeri overshoots his punch, and Evren is poised to go for a takedown. She does, and she wins.

She always wins.

I sit quietly in my chair as Nevaeh gets up to grab the DVD. I can hear Lev rambling about something beside me, but I'm not listening. All I can think about is the level of skill the Commander of Space truly has.

For the first time in a while, I believe that I might lose to her.

"So! Feeling more confident about taking on Gabriel? Instead of Evren?" Nevaeh suddenly asks me after shocking me out of my daydreaming with a firm poke. I can't believe her. How am I supposed to react to this? Oh, I'm laughing. Looks like I'm laughing.

I laugh for a while and Lev gives me a look like he fears for my mental soundness. Nevaeh just looks pleased. I think she wanted to intimidate me a bit so I'd feel more confident about fighting 'just Gabriel.'

It totally worked.

She shoos us out of the viewing room, her DVDs in hand, and tells me to come in tomorrow for a last training session before next week's match. I wave to Tammy as Lev and I head for the gym's doors.

We're walking down the pavement when Lev grabs me and we about-face. I'm confused until I remember that I promised Lev I'd go for ice cream after I finished training.

"Have a place in mind?" I ask.

"Yep, just down the street," he answers excitedly.

We walk into a Granite Slab. Of course he has to go and choose one of the more expensive chains. He knows he's treating, right? I'm about to remind him of this but he immediately starts ordering.

He does remember to pay, without me reminding him to, and we grab a corner table. It may not be winter outside yet, but it's still not warm enough today to convince me that I won't freeze my butt off out there. I'm enjoying a red velvet cheesecake mix, and Lev's got some crazy colourful crap that I'm 99% sure is pure processed sugar and food colouring.

"I wonder what Evren's figuration was like."

...That was not the topic of conversation I expected, and I just blurt out a "Wha-?!".

"You know," Lev continues in between licks of his ice cream, "How she got over her fear and developed her figure. Her whole Process. Like, for someone like me, with a regular ol' heights figure, my figuration was pretty simple. I just got my dad to take me cliff-diving."

"I... don't think that's a regular figuration either," I laugh. "I'm pretty sure most people face their fear of heights in a much... safer way. And some do it later than you or I did." Lev waves his hand at me dismissively.

"Whatever. My point is, I don't even really understand what Evren's fear could have been to give her a figure like that. Bending space? Basically teleportation? If I knew that to get a teleportation figure I'd have to have been deathly afraid of teleporting, I totally would have taken advantage of that." I'm about to point out to Lev that fears don't work that way, but he prattles on. "I'm so curious about it. There aren't many people with unusual figures. Their figurations must have been just as unusual, at least if you're any indication."

I pause in my devouring of my ice cream and think about it. "Hm, you're right," I say. My figuration was pretty convoluted in comparison to other people's. "Being afraid of fast-forwarding time doesn't make sense when I say it like that. But being afraid of not having enough time, of getting overwhelmed or rushed, of going too fast and hurting somebody, that's more understandable. Maybe it's something like that."

"I wonder if her best friend was run over by a car..." Lev muses. I pale and swat at him. What the hell?! "Hey! Don't worry, I'm over it! Besides, if you hadn't sprinted into me and pushed me into that car, we wouldn't be here having this fantastic frozen treat. And it did get you into the NCC." He's right. I hate that he's right and I'm grinding my teeth, looking for a part of his argument to counter, but I come up with nothing. I sigh, although it comes out partly as a growl. Lev leans away from me. "Hey, don't get any ideas. I'm pretty sure I'm only equipped for one miracle."

I'm tempted to throw my ice cream in his face, but I instead settle for closing the door on him on my way out. He bumps into the glass, having expected me to hold it open for him, and I laugh triumphantly. He swears at me, but my revenge is done so we fall right back into pace.

I can't help but think of what happened all those years ago. Me, sprinting full speed and not watching where I was going. Me, ramming into kid-Lev and pushing him into traffic. And, of course, many years later when I finally got over it and felt the figuration. The transformation. I still maintain that a snail-speed figure would have been way more useful. Slowing time down would be a lot better for my accuracy. Lev disagrees. But regardless, figures don't change. At least, not usually. I guess Lethal is an example of an exception, but his case was anything but normal.

As for Evren, my curiosity only grows. If I can figure out her figure – ha, I really should save that pun to tell Lev later – then maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to take her down.