Chapter 25: A Flame Burning Darker

Though Rick rushed to the House of the Cosmic Fist, expecting it to be on fire and Melissa arrested or something, he didn't see anything amiss. Melissa was sitting with her phone in one corner, apparently fine. When Rick entered, however, Jimmy immediately looked up and glowered at him.

"Talk some sense into her, or she's done."

"Oh, come on." Rick glanced briefly at Melissa, then back to his old boss. "Why are you bringing me into this? I'm not her guardian anymore, she's just an employee. What's the problem?"

"She can't work here if she upsets the customers. Just talk to her." Jimmy raised his magazine and resolutely refused to make eye contact.

It was useless trying to talk when his former boss was like that, so Rick headed over to the other side of the gym. He tried to see if anything was wrong with Melissa, but she only seemed a bit reserved. Not wanting to push, he decided to wait until she was ready. She smiled at him and grabbed her stuff before they headed out the door, still not speaking.

They'd walked for about a block before Melissa began scuffing her shoes on the pavement. "So... Jimmy really chewed me out today. It's a lot nastier than a teacher getting mad at you."

"He definitely sounded pissed when he called me. Something about you upsetting the customers?"

"Yeah, that probably has to do with the way I sensually moan every time they hit me."

"Melissa..." Rick gave his sister a flat look and saw the twinkle in her eye. It wasn't just the joke, it was something else. Jimmy was upset at her like she'd made a mistake, but it hadn't been an accident. "Oh, dammit... you're using your void flame on them, aren't you?"

"Just a bit!" The twinkling became a full-fledged grin and a skip appeared in Melissa's step, a far cry from the chastened expression in the gym. "It's not like I was really hurting anybody - I used it on that asshole Darin for weeks and he never noticed! But I guess I shouldn't have tried on this one woman who had a better eye on her lucrima. She complained and after that Jimmy figured it out, even though I didn't even see him look up from his magazine."

Rick rubbed his eyes roughly. "That's not great, sis. I'm guessing you lied, or he'd have fired you."

"I told him it was a mistake and I didn't have it completely under control. Which is true, it's just not the reason in this case. Getting to taste different kinds of lucrim has been really helpful for me."

"I'm not going to tell you what you should do about your condition, but are you sure this is a good idea? Not to point fingers, but you've been impulsive in the past."

"Impulsive? How dare you - I'll kill you!"

"Melissa, I'm serious about this." He stopped walking and grabbed her shoulders. Not hard enough to pin her in place, but when she saw his expression her grin vanished. Rick was distracted by how her shoulders still felt thin and frail, but forced himself to continue. "There must be a reason that the normal medical solution for your condition is to get rid of the void. I haven't looked at the medical app in months, but I'd bet that the aura flame is getting stronger. Are you sure you can contain it?"

She put her hand over one of his and met his gaze seriously. "Rick, I know you're just concerned. But please give me some credit. I've been doing a lot of research about my condition, probably more than you. I'm not doing this randomly."

"Okay." He took his hands away and managed to give her a smile. "But at least let me know what you're thinking."

"There's so much to say, I almost don't know where to start." Melissa turned away and began walking down the street, her steps slow and uncertain. "Did you know that in the past, or even today in some places, people like me were killed at birth? We were viewed as cursed or soulless."

"That's awful, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Do you... wish that I'd tried to save up for an aura spark transplant instead?"

"What? No!" Melissa turned on him abruptly, shock blurring into an odd smile. "Rick, it's the opposite of that. I know that my condition put a lot of hardship on you, but... I don't view it as a disease anymore. The void flame is part of me, in the same way that your aura spark is part of you. Yes, it was burning me alive, but there are all kinds of lucrima soul conditions where an aura spark can go wrong and harm someone."

Melissa went on to talk about them, getting more cheerful as she did so. It was obvious that she'd done a lot of research, some of it mirroring what he knew from when he'd been trying to help her, some of it completely new to him. He actually hadn't known about most of the ways that lucrima souls could get twisted. Though he'd heard about "cancerous lucrim" and "lucrima necrosis" it was horrifying to learn about how they actually worked.

As they spoke, Rick began to accept that he wasn't going to reprimand Melissa for what she'd done. Maybe it was a mistake, but it wasn't a stupid or careless one. Eventually when a lull opened in the conversation, he cleared his throat and broke in.

"Alright, I can see that you've put a lot of thought into this. Then I just have one question, sis: are you sure that you're doing this in a smart way?"

"I figured this was the best way to test it. Clients at the gym are expecting to get a lucrima workout anyway, and people won't take much offense if I say it was just a mistake while they were hitting me. And I've never planned to stay in this job for long, so it doesn't matter if I mess up too bad and get fired. I thought this was the safest time to experiment."

He had to admit, she seemed to have thought it through. Maybe it was irresponsible for him not to object, but he didn't really care about Jimmy's business and now that Lisa wasn't there, he didn't care about any of the gym's clients. To his surprise, Melissa was watching him with an awkward expression.

"Uh... so just to check, you're not mad?

Rick abruptly realized that he had an opportunity. "I'm very angry with you now. I'm not going to give you the stuffed jackalope that I definitely for real got you."

"Oh no!" Melissa mimed falling into a faint. "Whatever will I do without the stuffed jackalope I've pined so long for?"

"It's too late to complain now! I'm not going to give you one because you've been bad, not because I forgot about it."

"How cruel, brother! To consign the poor beast to the trash heap, even after its death..." She stopped feigning sadness and grinned at him. "Really, bro, if you ever looked at me like I was broken, that would mess me up. It means a lot that you're willing to carry a flame from me... by the way, did you get to use it in your perilous fight against the bunbuns?

"Nah, an opportunity never came up, since it's better against strong opponents. So I let it flicker out..." Yet even as he said it, Rick found himself searching inside his lucrima soul again. Was there...? Melissa had stopped walking and turned to him with a strange expression on her face.

"It's very faint, but I think the flame is still there."

"You're right." Rick frowned, checking himself to see how much damage had been done, yet it didn't seem to have burned through his lucrim. "I expected it to do more damage..."

Melissa closed her eyes and reached out toward his heart, her fingers not quite touching him. After a long moment, she opened her eyes and smiled. "I wasn't even trying for this, so I can't believe it. You're not burned because I didn't want it to burn you."

"Is that possible? I mean, apparently it is, I just..."

"This is good, I just need to figure out exactly how. But whatever, that's on me. Do you want me to rejuvenate it again in case you need to punch somebody? Extra special punch somebody, I mean."

"Well... yeah, I guess. Probably better safe than sorry." It was strange that accepting a void flame into his body was "safe" but that was how his life was. He prepared to form a shell like usual, but to his surprise Melissa merely clapped her hands dramatically.

Within him, the aura flame flared to life. It was contained by the shell, but that shell had deteriorated a bit over time. Rick hastily rebuilt it firmly, keeping the flame in place. He decided not to point out the realization that this meant that if Melissa could do that, she could cause horrible damage inside him by making the flame burn hotter. Though he didn't fear she would ever intentionally hurt him, he'd need to be careful to check that it couldn't be used against them in some way.

"There you go." Melissa nodded in satisfaction and went back to walking. "Ideally I'd like you to use it on an asshole, but I suppose it's fine if you need to punch some moral support into a bear or dragon or something. You pretty much fight wild animals every day, right?"

"That's right. I spend so long fighting animals that I barely have any time to wander around aimlessly repeating the surveying technique."

"Lalala I can't hear you! Let me keep my exciting vision of your job!"

"You know what's really thrilling? The TPS Reports I get to file after every single lucrim anomaly I find. You would not believe the beautiful kerning on the header..."

"Nooo!" Melissa spun away with her arms up, then spun back to him with a grin. "If everything is okay now, can we ride back? You've been biking so much, but I've only gotten to ride once."

Rick nodded and pulled the chip from his pocket, though he glanced at her speculatively. "You know, you should consider getting one of your own, then we could ride together."

"Maybe, but I need to decide what I'll be doing next. Come on, let's go!"

Once the bike manifested and Melissa hopped on behind him, Rick turned the gears up as high as he could manage and sped down the street. Hearing her laughter, it was worth it.