Challenge Accepted

Posted on Sat Jul 25th, 2020 @ 11:44pm by Civilian Xiulan Song & Black Market Arturo Rosso

Mission: This Week's Special
Location: Song-Russo Dojo
Timeline: Current

The workers had finally finished putting in the wood flooring! It was an unusual addition to a space like this, but a necessary one; part of Xiulan’s skill as a fighter was being able to hear when someone was shifting their weight, and while she could do that without wood flooring, the additional sound cues from the wood would make it easier for her to identify poor form in her students. The workers had done an excellent job, it was so smooth that Xiulan indulged in a rather childish display of laying on the floor simply because she could. After some prodding and jests from Arturo, Xiulan got up and helped him lay down the mats made of rushes. This had been another detail that Xiulan had insisted on, preferring the smell of fresh mats and the feel of them under her bare feet as opposed to vinyl mats stuffed with padding. Arturo could do whatever the hell he wanted to do with the rest of the space, but the floors were her baby!

“Oh yeah, this is nice…” Xiulan said as she walked the space, her simple cloth shoes in her hands. Arturo may not have been able to hear much of anything, but she could and she was mapping the sounds of room with each step. “I still kinda can’t believe this is all coming together like this! I mean, I know we ain’t got any students yet, but this is so cool!” she said with excitement.

Arturo smiled. Xiulan in her own special way was so wonderful to be around, sometimes even when she snarked off at him, that his spirits soared in her presence. Of course, too harsh a word from her brought him crashing to the ground, but sometimes that was a good thing, too.

“Yes, Orchidea Aggraziata,” he said. “It is very, very cool. Thank you, once again, for inviting me to join you in this venture. That you did means a great deal to me. I will not forget this gesture.”

“I’d say ‘anytime’, but it’s not like I’m gonna go around the ‘Verse opening martial arts schools,” Xiulan said with a snicker. Then she started with a few kick maneuvers to test the grip between the floor and the mats. “So, where do you want to place the bags and dummies?” she asked in between stances. “I was thinking along the far wall so they’re out of the way?”

“I agree,” Arturo replied. “We can divide the students up into groups, one of which can work with the dummies while the other is taught on the floor. And thank you for making room for the heavy bag and the speed bag. It’s valuable training for my students.” Arturo frowned. “In truth, I’m a bit nervous. In the past, I taught students back on Osiris, but usually under the supervision of a Provost or a Magister.”

“Yeah, I’m kinda in the same boat,” Xiulan said as she stilled her movement, satisfied that the mats weren’t going to slip and slide around. “I’ve taught students alone, but just knowing that my dad was nearby to help if I needed it, that really gave me confidence. It’s gonna be really weird doing this without him…”

“Orchidea,” Arturo said, walking up to her. Facing her, he took both of her hands in his. “You are wise beyond your years. I have every confidence that you will succeed, and, if I follow your lead, I have every confidence that we can succeed together.”

Xiulan nodded. “Just don’t sell yourself short. I know you’re nervous and I understand why you were never advanced any higher in rank, but I think running this school with me, I think it’ll smooth out the shortcomings your father saw and make him proud, even if he is pissed that you’re stuck as a ‘servant class’ or whatever…” Then Xiulan grimaced. “Sorry, that sounded better in my head. I’m not very good at this ‘pep talk’ kind of thing, but the intent was well meaning,” she offered with a shrug.

Arturo chuckled. “You did fine, Orchidea,” he said. It gave the young man great pleasure to use that nickname for Xiulan, whose name translated into English as “Graceful Orchid” or “Orchidea Aggraziata” in Italian. “Away from the class structure of Osiris, I am… finding myself, discovering who I am and who I can become. I am trying to be a better person than I was before I came here.” He laughed, a little bitterness creeping in. “I suppose that sounds strange for someone who works for the likes of Nikolai Udinov. If it had been my choice, and if I knew then what I know now, and knew the workings of this Plex, I would have asked, no, begged to be indentured to Sasha Petrovich.”

“Eh, done is done, and we’ll figure out how to free you from servitude,” Xiulan assured him with a grin. “Until then, what else do you think the school needs? At my family’s temple, we had a board with tablets hanging from pegs, and the tablets were engraved with the names of the students attending. I think something like that would be cool!”

Suddenly the door burst open. Arturo spun around to find five men entering the dojo. Four were dressed like the thugs they were. Rough, displaying their ‘colors’ and symbols to announce that they were Axe Tong. One, the leader, wore a suit. The suit was probably expensive, but it was also garish, designed to show off his success.

“Which one of you owns this place?” he asked.

Arturo knew a gangster when he saw one. Before he met Xiulan, he might have answered that he did, leaving Xiulan out of it. But Arturo was learning quickly that women did not need to be treated as damsels in distress. So…

“We do,” Arturo said. “Together. We’re partners.”

“Really?” the man said, leering at Xiulan. “Partners. I am sure you are. Anyway, the Plex can be a dangerous place--” one of the thugs kicked over a barrel with cane sized sticks in it. One of them rolled to stop at Arturo’s feet. “--but don’t worry. My friends and I can keep you safe… for a small fee. Call it insurance.”

“Uh, are you high? ‘Cause if you are, I want some of whatever you’re on,” Xiulan said with a smirk. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this is a martial arts establishment; we’re more than capable of keeping ourselves safe.”

Arturo was actually a bit confused. Sasha Petrovich controlled this part of the Plex. In fact, Xiulan and Arturo actually paid a small “membership” fee for the right to operate in his territory. Petrovich had been generous and let them have some time to get their operation going, and then there would be regular payments. The payments weren’t excessive, the price of doing business, really. But those payments were supposed to protect them from this kind of thing.

“Sir,” Arturo said. “You are aware that this is Sasha Petrovich’s turf, right? We already pay him.”

“We don’t care, èrbǎiwǔ!” the leader said. “You can tell Petrovich to gǔnkāi! You tell him Zhou Longwei of Axe Tong said so! You’re going to pay us, now!”

Arturo sighed. “That is not going to happen,” he said. He turned to Xiulan. “Would you like to go first, or shall I?”

“Oh, I thought you’d never ask!” Xiulan said in an exaggerated tone. She then dropped her shoes and spun into a roundhouse kick, instantly taking down the thug nearest to her with a dislocated jaw. “Last chance to rethink this shake down, chun lu,” Xiulan offered the boss as she stood over the unconscious thug.

“Kill that chòubī!” Longwei shouted. “And this èrbī, too!”

The other thugs pulled hatchets out of their jackets and started moving towards Xiulan and Arturo.

“Be careful, Orchidea!” Arturo said. “The three lackeys are each wielding a pair of hatchets. One is coming for you and two for me.” For his part, Arturo, using his foot, flipped the stick that had rolled to a stop near him up into his hand and went for the one approaching on his right. Using his stick, Arturo lunged, driving the point of the stick into the man’s throat. The thug, quite surprised, suddenly found himself on the floor, gagging and choking. That he might have killed the man was a thought that briefly passed through Arturo’s mind, but he immediately filed it away for later consideration. The other axe wielding thug that went for him moved more cautiously, trying to find an opening.

Xiulan likewise found a stick with her foot and flipped it up to block a swing from her opponent's axes. Jabbing her knee into the thug’s side as he tried to force the stick from her hands, Xiulan then used his moment of breathlessness to offset his balance, tumbling back onto the mats so as to throw him over her. She rolled with him, landing on his chest with her knees on each shoulder, rendering his arms all but useless with pressure points. The stick still in her hands was now pressed against his neck, the man’s axes still locked with the stick on either side of his neck. A feeble attempt was made to free the axes, but with his hands going numb, the effort was fruitless, plus with the added pressure on his neck, air suddenly became more important than his axes.

“You know what this place needs?” Xiulan said casually as the man struggled and writhed underneath her to free himself so he could breath. “A drink machine! Yeah, the Plexies can come here for a safe place to do their homework, get some tutoring, a free drink, maybe we can keep a basket of muffins or box of donuts from the bakery… Ya know, just a safe hangout haven, and I bet we could get a few of the Plexies as students that way!”

“An excellent suggestion, Orchidea!” Arturo said. “We should definitely do that!” He knocked one of his remaining opponent’s axes out of his hand, then grunted as the other axe hit his cane hard and got stuck. Arturo wrestled with the man for a moment, then disarmed him, losing his cane in the process. Undaunted, Arturo delivered a number of hard and fast punches to the man’s body and head, before hitting the man with a devastating uppercut that laid the man out flat. Arturo turned his attention to the remaining thug who made a move towards Xiulan. He glared at the man, causing the thug to hesitate. “Ah ah,” Arturo said. “Wait your turn.” He turned to Xiulan. “There is one left. Do you want him? If not, I will dispatch him for you. It would be my honor.”

“I wouldn’t want to be greedy,” Xiulan said in an open invitation. The thug under her had finally stopped struggling, going limp underneath her, so she stood, instantly releasing the pressure on his throat. “Although the boss is still here, so I guess I get to have some more fun after all,” she added cheerily as she picked up the thug’s axes and gave them a skilled twirl as she advanced on the boss.

The remaining thug charged Arturo, who caught the thug and used the miscreant’s momentum against him, picking him up and smashing him into the mats. He backed off and let the man get to his feet. When the thug charged again, Arturo repeated the process, then repeated it again. The last time, the man was slow to attempt to rise. “Bie dong (Stay down).” The thug hesitated then nodded and lay back down on the mat. Arturo turned to Xiulan. “Do you require assistance, Orchidea? Or may I continue to watch you execute poetry in motion?”

“Dunno,” Xiulan said as she raised an axe at the boss. “Am I going to require assistance?” she asked the boss, grinning wildly. “Of course, you could make things easy for us by pissing yourself and running.”

Zhao Longwei scowled. He no longer had the upper hand and he knew it. “Fine, unt zi,” he said. “I’ll go. But this isn’t over.” He turned and left with his goons.

Arturo let out a breath when they were gone. “Are you alright, Orchidea?” he said, going over to Xiulan and giving her a once over. “You’re not hurt?” He knew she wasn’t helpless, but nonetheless….

“Haha, there they go!” Xiulan cheered as the goons fled, not immediately noticing that Arturo was checking her over. “Huh, what? Oh hey, lookit, trophies to hang on the walls!” she declared to her partner as she held up the axes in hand, seemingly oblivious to his worry.

Having satisfied himself that Xiulan was unhurt, Arturo gently brushed her hair out of her face and, before he caught himself, placed a kiss on her forehead. “You were amazing,” he said. “As for the axes…” hanging the axes on the wall for all to see was essentially the same as daring Axe Tong to come and get them. On the other hand, men like Zhou Longwei were not known for giving up. He’d lost face and would likely take action against them to regain it, regardless of whether or not they hung their trophy axes on the walls. “Sure,” Arturo finished his thought. “It’s not like Zhou Longwei is going to get any less angry with us.”

“Yeah, though we should probably tell Petrovich about this; I don’t mind defending our school because it’s fun and you can’t pay for advertising that good, but we are paying dues and Petrovich should know when other gangs are trying to muscle in,” Xiulan said as she tossed the axes off to the side then meandered over to the barrel of canes to pick up the mess the thugs had made. “But that was fun! Is it bad that I can’t wait for that to happen again?” she asked as she picked up the sparring sticks.

“For you?” Arturo said as he helped pick up the sticks and canes and put them back in the barrel. “Not at all. I’m just hoping we don’t have to throw anyone through the front window. That could get expensive. In all seriousness, we should be careful for a while.” He grinned. “Which means I have plenty of excuses to spend time with you… for security purposes, of course. I mean, we’re partners. We have to wash… er… watch each other’s backs.”

Xiulan snickered. “You’re shameless,” she remarked, then raised her arms above her head for a long stretch as she considered the rest; being careful was boring, but he had a point, broken windows would be costly, and it wouldn’t do well for business for them to be perpetually causing problems for the Hub. “But you’re also right, we need to be careful, and look out for one another. And if you’re really insistent, I’ll go to the bath house with you and wash your back, but that’s all, I’m not sleeping with you!”

Arturo laughed. “One step at a time,” he said. “Be careful, because I will definitely take you up on that offer if it was even remotely serious. I wouldn’t want Axe Tong having you stabbed in the back while bathing. It would be bad for business if we let them get the drop on us.” Arturo stopped. “Orchidea,” he said. “Why have you never asked to ‘see’ me? With your hands, I mean?”

“Huh? Oh…” When she realized what Arturo meant, she pondered the thought. “I dunno,” Xiulan answered as honestly as she could, shrugging slightly. “I guess that sort of thing has never really been important to me; I know my dad’s face, Jiejie’s face, guess I never felt the need to get to know the faces of others… And from what I’ve heard from the people around us, I have this mental image of you, and I never really had a reason to challenge that image until you asked. Do you want me to know your face?”

“Yes,” Arturo said. “If you are willing,” he said. “It’s silly, I suppose. For the most part I enjoy the challenge of engaging you with in ways I don’t believe I ever really understood before meeting you, though it can be frustrating at times. For example, I forget you can’t see me and smile warmly at you, then realize you can’t see me and feel silly. That’s forced me to put my affection into my voice and my words, but also to learn how to use touch in a way that doesn’t cross the lines you’ve drawn. I’m not complaining. You challenge me in many ways and that interests and excites me. But, yes, if and when you’re willing, I would like you to know my face.”

Xiulan smiled slightly. “You don’t have to put your affection into your voice and words, I can hear it when you smile,” she said as she reached out with a calloused hand to touch his face. “The tamber of your voice changes ever so slightly when you smile. I can even hear your voice tighten when you frown, and I even know when you’re ‘making eyes’ at me because I can hear it in your breath,” she revealed as her fingers brushed over his cheek then journeyed up, her feather soft touch ghosting over his features. “I have no idea what ‘making eyes’ mean, it’s just what I’ve heard people say,” she confessed as her exploration led to his lips where she left a lingering caress with her thumb.

Xiulan’s soft touch was both exciting and soothing at the same time, and Arturo let himself enjoy it. Though he wanted Xiulan to know much more than his face, he reveled in this moment. When her thumb caressed his lips, a shiver went up and down his spine, as he remembered kissing her the other day, and how often since then he’d wanted to kiss her again.

Xiulan could feel the shiver that went through him and hear the catch in his breath as she explored, then her expression softened as she allowed her hand to linger on his cheek. “Why me?” she asked simply.

“Because you are strong,” Arturo said. “And independent. You’re fairly honest with both yourself and me. I didn’t realize how important that was until shortly before I met you. You’re fearless. You live life to the fullest. You are the most… alive person I have ever met.”

“I’m not… entirely without fear,” Xiulan confessed sheepishly, finally drawing her hand back. “I don’t- I mean, I…” she stammered as she tried to figure out her thoughts and feelings. Then she sighed, her shoulders slumping. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but I don’t really do ‘feelings’ and all that mushy crap. Sex I understand, but not all the relationship-y stuff, so I always avoided that part. So… maybe it’s alright if you take care of all the mushy feely stuff?”

Arturo took Xiulan’s face in his hands and kissed her, then rested his forehead against hers. “I can do that,” he said. He kissed her again. “I can certainly do that.”

There was a reticence within Xiulan as he kissed her, as though she wasn’t quite ready to face the fears within her, but she relaxed slightly with the second kiss, certain that she would figure things out as they went along. “Now don’t let this go to your head, I’m just giving this whole thing a trial period, so consider yourself on probation,” she cautioned him with a smirk; after all, she had to remain true to herself.

“Challenge accepted,” Arturo said, as he pulled Xiulan in for another kiss.

So much for not sleeping with him...