Look Who's Burnin' [Alex, Alastair]

Alex took a moment to rub his eyes, reeling himself back internally as he attempted to run through this situation again in his head. Nel would probably get mad at him if he just kicked the guy onto the beach, and while he didn't necessarily do things just because Nel liked it or disliked it, he knew she was both smarter and generally more morally upstanding between the two of them.

"It's not about fuckin' meeting my standards or whatever, I'm not some high and mighty judge here to test your worth. I've known plenty of other people like that, and they ended up dead. Me, I'm here to see if you've got it in you to keep people safe, the one way most of the degenerates out causing trouble are actually gonna be stopped by. And if you don't, then I'll know what the ground floor is that I'm pullin' you up from."

He certainly wasn't the sort to be nice about anything, but ultimately, Alex's intentions were generally helpful. He didn't have anything to gain by the Vandenreich being in a bad spot, after all.

"I'm glad to help out, but no offense, you wouldn't catch me dead actually joining you guys. Don't take it personal, I just hate taking orders. But I don't need to be in your club to help with some good old fashioned training, do I?"

Perhaps the months of setbacks and losses had whittled him down, or maybe he found Alex's attitude entirely unreasonable, but Alastair could not help but feel disheartened by that response. The patronising arrogance that clung to this man like he was their better and their saviour. Like the Vandenreich was an insignificance to him. Maybe he really was all that, such confidence as his was likely not entirely unfounded, but this was not a man that he could look up to with pride. So what was there left that he might teach him that Alastair would find genuinely beneficial? It was enough to light a few of those embers that burned in his chest, and he had to resist actually biting back at that flippant statement.

"I already know I have it in me. I have been doing so ever since I first put on the Vandenreich uniform, one more catastrophe does not change that. Certainly, there are monsters out there that I may not be able to best alone. But I am not alone."

Formality began to fade as an icy chill caught on the edge of Alastair's words. He was disappointed that he had let himself be backed into a corner like this, but it was likely his own fault for coming here with an open mind. For daring to think that his motivations would not come into question this day.

"If you have a burning desire to train your abilities, I can have suitable facilities allocated to you. The beach is hardly a proper location for such a thing, it is public and open. Especially after drinking."

"Might be all well and good to say you're not alone now, but when shit gets rough, you've gotta be ready to take everything on yourself. Sometimes, that's just the fuckin' breaks. Even if you're the weakest one around, somehow you're the last one standing, so it's all on you. Ain't about how much spirit you got, how much you wanna do it. I don't doubt you wanna do it. The question's if your body can keep up with what you want."

Alex had certainly been all too willing to leave other people to do the heavy lifting in a past life, but ever since that fateful day in Hawaii, it seemed like he'd always been going around being something of a hero. Personally, he didn't think it suited him, but he didn't like seeing people get hurt. Maybe that was all that mattered, who knew. He'd sure gone through the fuckin' wringer a few times just to keep people safe.

"Lotta people'd probably just start some shit to try and get you riled up to throw down. Make some threat or whatever. Not really my style, I don't like fuckin' over good people just to make a point, and I think a lot of the 'heroes' people talk about from these past few years have been some real shit people who'd do just that. We've seen how things went under them."

Alex wasn't nearly so dense as to fail to notice that Alastair had grown less cordial, but he didn't really care, either. He liked when things were more blunt anyway.

That did cut a little closer to home. Maybe closer than Alex thought, though perhaps Ninsianna kept him informed of Vandenreich operations for whatever reason. Alastair knew what it meant to be the last one standing, he knew what it felt like to reach the limits of his own body. Yet he had persisted then, he would continue to do so when that time came again. Each one had forced him to get stronger and made him a bit more of the man he was today.

"Heroes and villains are two sides of the same coin. Trying to make the world a better place will always be a matter of perspective, there is no singular perfect viewpoint. I have my own way, and because of that, I will strive to do what I can for those that come after me. To some, perhaps, that makes me a hero, others a villain, but that will not change my actions."

That was all there was to it, really. There was a nagging frustration in his chest that he could not shake. The feeling that all of this tension could have easily been avoided. But he was here and Alex was there, and so the pieces had fallen as they had. Another glance was cast to the ocean, enjoying the sight before he began to turn. This was awkward now.

"If you want to help me out in particular, I cannot refuse you. On the off-chance that it proves useful to my role in the Vandenreich. I will be training later this evening, you can find me then."

"Sure, it's a matter of perspective. But some people are wrong."

Alex didn't especially think Alastair was one of those people, nor did he think that of most people in the Vandenreich. Most of the people hje felt that way toward, admittedly, were dead now, but it was still a reminder to him that they did exist, that those people were very much out there and that more of them would almost surely crop up. He wasn't nearly so optimistic as to think everyone who showed up was out to make things better.

"Word. I'll be there."

Giving Alastair a wave, Alex set off toward Ninsianna's place, figuring he probably ought to give a little heads up about how this whole little thing had gone, and the fact that he was about to throw down in the training grounds, all that. But that was quick, relatively speaking, and it gave him some other time to actually get ready.

Not that 'ready' looked all too different from how he usually looked. The same oddly fashionable attire, the same confident gait and hair allowed to hang over one eye, the typical devil may care attitude as he walked into the training grounds in the evening.

"Yo."

Alastair, for his part, had changed into a training uniform. His personal clothes had been left behind at his apartment after offering Reida a little update on how things had gone. It was more of a courtesy update than something he was particularly bothered by, but it had ever so loosely involved her that he felt obligated to let her know that he was now going to be training with Inanna's adoptive father.

He was already practising his marksmanship when Alex arrived, bolts of orange energy flying across the length of the room and striking at targets with impressive precision. Launching one more arrow, the target against the far wall shattered under the impact and then he turned to greet Alex. It had been a matter of hours, and yet Alastair did wonder if this would be any different. Orange eyes burned with a quiet intensity as they wandered from the broken target to Alex, the bow dropping down to his side for a moment before dispersing in a flash of brilliant light.

"Good evening. How do you want to proceed?"

The man had come here - there was little doubt in his mind that this would come down to a brawl. But maybe there were things he wanted to go over first. Alastair had already acquiesced to his request for such a thing, and Alex had been all too ready to throw down on the beach, but perhaps temperatures had changed now that the day was heading towards its close.

"Well, I'm not really one for doin' neat little drills or anything like that. 'Sides, I don't think it's worth doing stuff like that when you've got a training partner. I heard you've got some fire on hand, that works out."

Breathing in once, Alex focused on the solid, heavy flames of the Riot of the Blood, a purple burning aura that moved over his skin and through his flesh. In a way, it wasn't terribly different from Blut, though he didn't know much about that. He'd just gotten real tough over the years, and he'd figured out a few ways to get even tougher.

"Hit me with your best and hottest. Don't hold back on me."

Alex didn't actually think this guy was quite the sort to jump right to violence, and he half expected that he'd scoff at good honest man's training like this. But hey, it wasn't like he was pushing for an all-out beat down right from the get go. Sometimes you needed to focus in a little.

"I would not say that fire was my primary method of attack, rather it is just an element I have a particular affinity with. But very well."

Alastair was able to handle flames better than most and found it far easier to manipulate heat with his Reishi than his peers, but the aura that Alex was suddenly exuding was enough to be felt across the room. Enough that even with a distance between he could feel his skin growing drier by the second. But that was not something so unfamiliar to him, in fact, he found it strangely comforting for now.

At the invitation to attack, he summoned another Heilig Pfeil and took aim at Alex himself. There was a sturdiness to him that gave him the confidence to fire without needing to hold back, though he did not aim for any potential vital spots and instead focused on the centre of his mass. Wordlessly, he launched the arrow and focused his energy upon it in one simultaneous attack. The tip of the arrow began to glow with white light as it was superheated into his most dangerous single attack possible short of entering into the Vollstandig State. This light would explode in a blinding flash upon impact, briefly illuminating both men, as Alastair judged how it had been received.

Alex was definitely glad that he'd made a point to further reinforce himself as the arrow slammed into him, the bright explosion only making the impact more impressive. He was pretty sure trying to take that totally raw would've actually been a real injury, even with as tough as he was. Maybe that wasn't true, though. He didn't quite run himself through damage testing or anything like that.


"Damn, that's not bad at all. Felt that one right in the bones."

Cracking his knuckles and rubbing the scorch mark on his chest from the impact, Alex thought about how to angle this. Honestly, he'd expected a little less. Sure, it wasn't like the guy was blasting him clear through the chest or anything, but a shot like that probably woulda killed pretty much anyone else.

"How quick can you do shots like that? Way I see it, those'll make you a fuckin' menace."

Alastair wondered if he should be frustrated that Alex was still standing after his attack, still looking relatively unscathed too. But it seemed to have made the grade, to some extent anyway, so maybe it was more a testament to Alex's resistive capabilities than his own lacking. He had poured a lot of his energy into that attack, as had been requested, but his strength was as much his efficiency as it was his ability.

"It takes me a few moments to focus my energy on the Reishi, a few more to properly aim and account for difficulties. But, by drastically reducing my rate of fire, I could fire off perhaps half a dozen in succession depending on the density of the local area. After that, it would be a matter of relocating to a different angle of attack to then do the same again."

His assessment was entirely practical, having pushed himself to that limit many times before during training. In an actual fight, he had never had the opportunity to go about such a strategy undisturbed. When spared the chaos of the battlefield, he supposed it would appear quite dangerous. But even an extra half second to prepare was a rare luxury in the dangerous engagements that he often found himself in.