Chapter 9: Passing the Cosmic Fist

Punches were flying toward Rick's face and he was doing his best to pay attention to them. His client was launching an all out assault and it just didn't seem that interesting. Yet he needed to pay attention, because if the man connected too hard with a blow, he might injure himself on Rick's defensive core. Though he knew his Lucores weren't anything extraordinary, they had been developed too far for this little gym.

He managed to focus on the fight for a while, guarding against the blows and letting his client blow off steam without injuring himself. Fighting at this level just wasn't a challenge anymore, though. It had built up his fighting instincts and his defenses, but he was growing beyond the position.

Was that another fact pushing him toward attempting to take the job with the CSLA? Rick realized that his mind was wandering again and forced himself to stay focused on the fight until the end of the session. Despite the circumstances, the client seemed happy, so Rick had done his job for another day. In fact, he was carrying the House of the Cosmic Fist often these days.

During his break, Rick headed back to his pile of things. He saw a message from Melissa and for a moment he flashed back to his old instincts, fearing that her condition had acted up and her life was at risk. But instead, she had just texted asking if she could come visit him at work.

Rick texted back "sure" and she immediately replied with "that's good cuz i'm on my way". Though he wondered just what she was up to, he had to admit that he wouldn't mind the distraction. In addition to the fighting being less interesting, the job itself was getting more boring. His coworker Henry had been a terrible friend, but he had at least been good for conversation, unlike Jimmy.

A few minutes later Melissa entered the door and put her hands on her hips. "Hello there! I would like to purchase some of your finest punching, please!"

"Hnh." Jimmy barely glanced up at her, then looked back to his magazine. "Rick, you'd better be on task if any walk-ins come."

Rick gave a vague answer before walking to greet Melissa. He smiled, but he was still a bit suspicious about her arrival. After they walked to the opposite side of the gym, he finally asked. "What's this about?"

"What, I can't visit my brother?"

"I'd have been home in an hour anyway. Besides, I just generally assume you're up to something."

"Good policy." Melissa gave him a sneaky grin. "See, I was talking to Lisa, and she said that to develop I really should be getting exposed to many different lucrima souls. I was thinking that since you're considering leaving sometime soon..."

He'd already suspected what she was going for and groaned. "You don't want to work here, sis. Even aside from getting beaten up all day, it's a terrible job."

"I don't plan to work here for years, just as a part time thing before the CLAT. Be honest, where else would I get a chance to spar with so many people? Or to get more used to being attacked? I don't want to go into the test unprepared."

As much as he disliked the idea, Rick had to admit that she had a point. "If that's what you think is best, you're not obligated to get my approval. But I'm guessing you came while I was working for a specific reason?"

"I was thinking we should spar. As a job interview." Melissa shot him another grin. "I know your boss is going to be skeptical, but if he sees that I can take care of myself a little, that might get me off on the right foot."

Accepting that she wasn't going to be swayed, Rick headed out onto the mat and gestured for her to follow. Melissa did so eagerly, taking off her glasses and putting them to the side with her phone. Actually, it might be interesting to spar in a better environment than their cramped home or a public park. But when Melissa came to stand opposite him and bowed, Jimmy abruptly spoke up from across the room.

"If you're going to use an employee during working hours, you need to pay the usual fee."

"What," Melissa asked, "don't I get a 'friends and family' discount?"

"I'll give you 10% off a yearly membership."

She rolled her eyes and dug into her pocket for a few bills, then chucked them ineffectually in the direction of the counter. "There ya go. Okay, can we do this?"

In response, Rick put up his fists. Melissa grinned and moved to face off with him.

His sister took a wild swing at him and he immediately punished her for it, grabbing her arm and throwing her onto her back. Melissa lay there a moment, stunned more by the sudden movement than any amount of force, then hopped back up. The next time, she came at him much more cautiously.

Though Rick didn't put any lucrim into his blows, he attacked without mercy. Melissa's eyes widened as she realized how aggressively he was attacking and started to defend, retreating around the gym as he battered her defenses. Soon she was doing nothing but trying to block, and that wasn't enough. Every time he connected with a blow he just tapped her lucrima instead of landing a hard body blow, but he knew it took a toll.

Melissa looked startled at first, but didn't contemplate giving up for even a moment. If she was serious about proving that she could do the job, then what she needed to do was endure a beating. Rick decided to let her prove that and kept up his assault.

It was more than that, though. At first it was just an instinct, then a conscious choice: he was trying to strike at the solid shell around the ether void inside her. If she had been an opponent, that would have been a good way to target a weak point, since her outer defenses couldn't keep him out. But because she was his sister, he had a larger concern.

Rick felt a growing sense of pride as his sister's Steel Lucore held up. She had made good progress on her combat core, but she hadn't lost track of what was most important. The shell that kept the void from consuming her was unshakable, not even threatening to crack under his assault. He'd have needed to endanger her life to see it break.

Eventually Melissa exhausted her strength and sagged down to one knee. She held up one finger as if to ask him for a break, but what she said aloud was, "Keep going! I can take it!"

"Are you sure?" Rick asked. "You've taken a real beating."

"I'm good at that. Human punching bag, that's me."

Across the room, Jimmy put down his magazine and gave them a withering stare. "Enough posturing. What is this really about?"

"Glad you asked!" Melissa turned toward him, not even slightly ashamed about being called out. "I'm looking for a job now that I've graduated. Since you've been so good to my brother, I thought you might consider hiring me too!"

"No. Go away." With that, he returned to his magazine. Since his sister looked a bit taken aback at being shut down so quickly, Rick spoke up.

"Are you sure about that, boss? We're severely understaffed these days and not all clients want to work with me. You've already seen that she has what it takes and I'll definitely vouch for her."

Melissa shot him a grateful smile as they gravitated toward the desk, where against his will Jimmy was being drawn into conversation. She spoke in a quieter voice when they got close. "Those sound like good arguments. Why wouldn't you hire me?"

Jimmy grunted and refused to look at them, pretending to read even as he answered. "Your brother has been a pain in my ass, for one, always asking to change shifts or coming in beaten up."

"I don't see why that's such a big deal, since getting beaten up is the job. What's the real reason?"

"I own the place, I can have as many real or fake reasons as I want. But I don't like hiring girls."

"I... what?" Melissa stared at him, completely thrown off by his blunt response. Rick was a bit puzzled too, not having expected something like that from his boss. "Why would you just have a discriminatory hiring practice like that?"

"Not like that." Jimmy finally looked up at them with a flat expression. "I don't want to attract the kind of customer that might like beating up girls."

That set them both back and they glanced at each other silently while Jimmy went back to reading. Rick realized that if he said nothing, it wouldn't happen. Part of him wanted to keep Melissa safe at all costs, which meant keeping her out of the gym. Yet he realized that part of him was being irrational: trying to protect Melissa wouldn't be best for her. He trusted that Lisa was right that this would be good for her development, so maybe...

"What about this?" Rick leaned forward and put a hand down on his boss's magazine, pinning it to the counter. "Let her take on some of my clients, ones we know are reasonable. Some of the women would rather spar with another woman anyway. I'll take on new clients instead."

"Hnh." Jimmy considered that for a bit, then without warning flicked Rick's hand away and picked up his magazine again. "Alright, fine. We're a bit shorthanded anyway. You start next Monday."

Melissa almost clapped her hands, but restrained herself. "Oh, thank you!" She spoke to Jimmy, but her smile was directed at Rick. His boss - their boss - only grunted.

"Don't make me regret it."

With that resolved, Melissa hung around for the rest of his shift, watching him with his remaining clients. When he had extra time, he showed her a few tricks for avoiding or alleviating bruises. He hadn't caused any by striking at her lucrim instead of her body, but she wouldn't be as lucky with most clients. She picked up everything quickly and he began to feel that he might have made the right choice.

Once he finished and got cleaned up, they headed out of the House of the Cosmic Fist together. He had to take a moment to remember if this was the first time that had happened: Melissa had visited him occasionally, but usually just on her way to something else. That wasn't likely to change, either, since there was no way Jimmy would give them the same shifts. Still, it was nice.

"Thanks for making that happen, bro." Melissa walked beside him, not quite making eye contact, actually looking a bit shy the way she scuffed her shoes against the sidewalk. "I want to be supporting myself now, but I didn't want to take a fast food job or something."

"Melissa, I'd never resent you taking time to find a good job. Not for a second." He smiled over at her. "You've done well so far and you deserve a job that can really make use of your talents. One that can take you somewhere. This might be good for the short term, but only for a while."

"Yeah, I know. And I've been hunting hard for work every time you're not home. It's just..." Melissa stuck out her tongue at no one in particular. "Would you believe how many unpaid internships there are? Every time I read about some cool-sounding job that doesn't require a lot of experience, it turns out that they only pay in sect approval or college credit or something else useless."

Rick sighed, remembering that from after he'd graduated. "Oh, I believe it. Those are for people who are way richer than us and don't have to earn a living, or at least have parents to completely support them."

"Would you support me, though? If there was a really great internship?"

"Of course. Is there?"

"Just hypothetical." Melissa stared upward as they walked, eyes slowly drifting with the clouds. "A lot of them just seemed like being an aide to me. At best an aide with a couple lucrim-based skills. I'm not sure I bought that they were really a step forward."

"I think they can be, for certain career paths, but probably not us. You're much better off focusing on getting an excellent score on the CLAT."

"And hopefully this job will help with that."

Rick turned them in a different direction and Melissa followed, but glanced at him curiously. "If you don't mind, I want to stop by a store before we go home. I want to buy a lucrim bicycle."

"What, like a normal bicycle, just super reinforced with lucrim or something?"

"I guess we'll find out, won't we?"