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Alicia goes out into the backyard to burn off some energy and Jack is there, sitting on one of the swings in the swing set.  "When I was a kid we used to have these big family gatherings at our house for the holidays.  The sounds of people happy, the smell of food.  Brings back a lot of memories."

Alicia starts. It's hard for someone to sneak up on her, but somehow she's not surprised this man is capable of it.

His presence here, though, is not a welcome surprise. Her nerves are buzzing, her muscles clenching and unclenching. Ironically, meeting Jack had given her the idea of sneaking out to the back yard and working the edge off with some shadow boxing, like she used to do back when...

She shuts off that train of thought. Not what she needs right now. And neither is having an audience.

She realizes she's just spent the last few seconds standing there, unresponsive.

Trying to make her voice sound casual, she drawls, "Yeah, well, family gatherings were never my thing. Most of my relatives didn't want much to do with me." She looks around, seeking some escape or alternate place of isolation. Crap, crap, crap.

Jack stand up slowly, his arms shift and his trench coat slips off in a motion that is as much practice as circumstance.  Or maybe just familiarity.  It's a fluid motion, and he strides towards her with a nonchalance.  "Where did you train?"  he says, and he doesn't wait for an answer, he's in her personal space with a lunge and her reflexes take over.  It's like something out of a Matrix movie for a few seconds as he moves and she moves in response, muscle memory.  Her body contorts and shifts, blocking incoming attacks, making her own that are blocked.  It's over in just a few seconds.  "Not bad, but you're out of practice."

The moment the old man stands up, she instinctively falls into a defensive stance. What the fu...?

She doesn't have a chance to finish the thought before she sees the blow coming in and reacts. The next few seconds are a blur, as she functions entirely by instinct, even as her mind whirls to grasp exactly what's going on.

He steps back, and Alicia manages to regain her center.

At Jack's comment, Alicia finds herself grinning. She slides off her shades and shimmies her coat off, tossing both out of the way.

"I just didn't want to tire you out too quickly, old man."

She cracks her neck as she slide-steps around him, staying just out of the invisible circle of engagement. Her ears catch the musicians beginning their practice. Her grin widens. Perfect.

Settling into a stance, she begins to sway in rhythm, her weight shifting between the balls of her feet. Jack recognizes the motion; she's using Brazilian capoeira.

"Let's dance."

Jack doesn't turn to watch her circle, but when she moves he's in motion.  He's not as fast as she is.  Her natural ability seems to give her an edge, but she realizes just as his open hand connects with her cheek that's not going to be enough.  They continue to move at combat speed.  She gets in plenty of licks, and he keeps doing the same thing, slapping her cheek.  They begin to move around the swing set, and suddenly it becomes a weapon.  Alicia's speed is about all that saves her from a swing in the back of the head.  A vault and she's over the rail and her foot is aimed right for his chest.  the world has shifted into the slow motion it goes into when things are perfect.  and he doesn't move to evade her, instead his hands come up, but not to block.  His open palms come outward, and her foot connects there first.  He begins to go down, it's a smooth motion, her momentum carrying through and taking him down, and then she realizes he's shifted his hands and has her ankle.  His back his the dirt, and he begins to roll with the energy of the blow, his knees coming up fluidly and then with a thud his shins connect with the back of her head, hard.  They continue to roll, and he still has her ankle.  And then it's like a train wreck as the momentum carries her forward, all that is there is the ground, and then splat!  Jack follows through with the roll and is suddenly sitting on her back, holding both her ankles.  "Earlier in the house you said something.  Ain't no winners or losers in a fight. Only survivors. You fight to survive. Nothing else matters.  The guy that trained you, you ppick that phrase up from him?  He would have said it a lot."

Alicia shakes her head, spitting out frozen grass. "Yeah, quite a few times. Then again, I'm still here, aren't I?"

Like a snake, she rears back, her back impossibly bending like a spring, her arms reaching back to box his ears, looking to get him to loosen his grip enough for her to slide away.

She concentrates on keeping her claws sheathed; that's a line she knows she's not to cross, yet.

She moves, and so does Jack.  She ripples like a wave and he rolls away, then handsprings to his feet, spinning in the air to land and face her, now also upright.  "I'm more interested in finding him."  But again he doesn't wait for her to answer, as they swing back into combat speed.  Alicia flows from one limb to the other, like a sort of pinwheel in a hurricane.  Her feet connect to his arms, his chest, his legs.  She has a fluid and fatal beauty to her.  A thing that has found it's perfect purpose.  It's meaning.  It's place in the world.  But violence is a place that is liquid and fleeting. 

Jack mirrors her style, albeit slower, but her too bounces from limb to limb like some sort of monkey.  He fights more slowly, and always when he connects it's with a slap to one of her cheeks.  He seems to read the liquid beauty of her motions and drifts into them like a blade of grass in the wind.  She makes contact, but he's in motion, the energy is lost.  She is on one arm, her legs thrown and headed for him, and he does it again.  His open hands move up, and her energy pushes him.  He throws his legs out from under himself, and they find her arm.  The pair tumble to the ground, and with a spin he's sitting on her back, holding her ankles again.  "It's not a common fighting style in this country."  It wouldn't be so annoying if he sounded like he was breathing hard.  "But he's not the tyoe to take a kid under his wing.  So tell me the tale."

Donnie stands quietly in the shadows, watching, listening. There is just enough light to see the action, so he refrains from using the night vision. Both Jack and Alicia probably know he is there, unless the faceful of dirt and grass has distracted Alicia from her surrouondings.

An errant leaf tickles her ear, making her situation just that more unbearable. To top it off, she can hear breathing by the house, which means someone has been witnessing her humiliation.

Strangely, though, the thought doesn't fill her with the rage she'd expect it to. There is a rightness to this, the student and teacher matching steps, the calm instruction, the repetition, that fills her with a sense of comfortable familiarity. She realizes that the maelstrom of emotion that had been threatening to overwhelm her when she stepped out into the backyard is gone.

With a sigh, she slaps the ground next to her, not even sure why. "Hate to disappoint you, Sensei Jack, but I have no idea what you're talking about. I learned most of my moves the old-fashioned way: hours of Saturday Afternoon Hong Kong Theater."

"Well, you're not telling a fib.  But I know training when I see it.  This isn't something you picked up watching movies."  He gets up, turns and offers her his hand.  "Someone taught you.  Any head injuries, amnesia, drug or alcohol abuse, trauma?  Anything that might have effected you memory?"

She gladly takes his hand and flows to a standing position.

At his question, though, her face closes. She looks at him steadily, obviously weighing matters in her head.

In a flat voice, she answers, "I guess you'd find out eventually. Yeah, a mind f**ker's screwed with my memories. There's a chunk of my life missing, and from what little I have that's left, I'm pretty sure they weren't happy times. Thanks for asking."

Without another word, she brushes leaves and dirt from her pants and heads off to fetch her coat and sunglasses. On the way, she calls out, "Enjoy the show? I'm sure the old man wouldn't mind doing an encore on your pudgy butt."

"Hey!"  Jack yells.  "In a fight there is always at least one other person watching, and in a good fight, five or six.  You want to be prickly, take it out on me.  Do you hear him laughing?  He's been where you were just a minute ago.  Now you want help, or you want to pout?"

Alicia stops in the act of picking up her coat. She straightens to face Jack, one hand on her hip.

"Depends. Are you asking 'cause you've got something to teach me, or are you just into beating up little girls?"

"When you're serious I'll be in the garage listening to the band.  Because an answer like that is the knee jerk response of a punk kid who wants to be thought of as tough and street savvy.  Not a young woman who wants help."  Jack goes to get his trench coat.

Alicia's face twists with all the disdain a teen-ager can muster.

"F**k you, asshole," she mutters angrily as she picks up her own coat and heads inside to clean up.

Jack slides his trench coat on and goes towards the garage, stopping where Donnie is.  "where is your lovely and charming girlfriend Mr. Douglas?  I have sorely missed her verbal abuse."

"Evening, sensei. She is running late, and told me to ask you quote 'why you got outsourced while the other guy got to stay in the States' unquote. Oh and be sure to ask her why she is late. It will give you at least a couple weeks of fuel to use against her."

Donnie waits for Jack's response and looks towards the door where Alicia just escaped to. "She's seriously messed up about it. She chooses a couple lifelines and clings to them desperately, while snarling at anything else. Rhys has become her sex-lifeline, while Sammy has become her BFF lifeline. She's already hurt Sammy once when she went ballistic at Sylvia, remember? I told you about it last week after I was done softening up the training mat with my face for the hundredth time. I just hope she doesn't hurt Rhys too badly. I'm thinking it's just a matter of time."

Donnie sighs, finger blindly following the tracery of the bark patterns. "I need to own up to a great shame, Jack. I came to this party primarily to do just that. What I did to Elrod.."

"Outsourced?  Other guy?"  Jack shakes his head.  "She'll need to give me a play card for that conversation."

When Donnie talks about Alicia Jack just listens.  "She's had a hard life, and made choices that have hurt her."  The older man speaks softly.  "She's been used like a tool, and a toy.  But, on the bright side."  Jack puts a hand on Donnie's shoulder, "She has you guys to watch her back."


"If you're lucky you'll never forgive yourself for it.  You'll eventually come to realize that it wasn't your fault.  But reason and guilt will argue forever in your head.  If you'd had a stronger will, if you'd never learned to fight, if you'd never gotten involved in all this.  Eventually you'll go months without thinking about it, and then one day out of no where it will creep into your thoughts.  It will annoy you.  and if you're lucky, you'll never forgive yourself.  But Elrod might.  If you're really lucky."

"Great. Now Alicia and I have something in common." Donnie shakes his head. "I guess we should go listen to some music."

"You will spend your whole life finding you have a lot in common with people you'd never think you have anything in common with."  Jack puts an arm across Donnie's shoulder.  "Let's go listen to some jams and be thankful we have friends to enjoy them with."