murderbot (secunit) wrote in valloic, @ 2020-12-28 09:10:00 |
|
|||
I don’t know what you have against this ‘Chad'. I also don’t care. If a Chad that wronged you arrives here in Vallo I’ll rearrange his vertebrae.WARNINGS Some mild defense-type violence, language
The Samwell bros would forever have each other's backs, of course, and Murderbot usually dismantled threats before anyone was even aware that they were around, but Lardo still wanted to learn.
So learn she would. From the assassinating, security unit that the Haus had adopted as their collective friend.
“Okay, Murderbro, show me how to kick some ass,” Lardo said, as she held both of her hands up in fists. And because she’d taken a self-defense seminar and had watched enough movies, she knew not to tuck her fists. Progress! “But don’t kick my ass too badly, I have way too much to do for Jack’s equality bash and the wedding to be down for the count. Plus, I don’t want a black eye for the photos. Oh! Show me how to flip someone over my shoulder!” It was probably a matter of physics, but to 5’1” Larissa Duan, it was a matter of being boss ass.
Murderbot had already clocked the entrance and exit, sent out a drone to survey any apparent threats, and recalibrated his strength to a much smaller percentage so that he could be reasonably certain he would not accidentally hurt Lardo while teaching her how to kick some ass. All these actions looked remarkably like him just standing there, albeit he was standing there with his usual straight posture, darting eyes, and permanent resting bitch face.
“No,” he answered in return to her request, and then amended: “maybe later”. Maybe later was still no, but it was slightly less of an asshole no, and who knows, maybe Lardo would be a natural fighter. Her small size meant nothing if she had a good, stable core, and Murderbot always approved of humans who were interested in learning how to fight. It made his job easier when shit inevitably went down, although sometimes humans who thought they were good at fighting weren’t actually all that good at fighting and made larger messes than the ones cowering in a corner. Who knew. He hadn’t clocked Lardo for being one of the arrogant humans with a death wish, but if still waters ran deep, maybe loud waters did too.
Her fists were good. He nodded once in approval, and then mimicked her stance, meeting her eyes. “First things first - we’ll start with human foes. A lot of what I’m about to start with can be applied to other creatures as well, but with the shit that Vallo throws up who fucking knows what we’ll deal with. Let’s focus on people. There are four places on the human body you should hit, and two to try to avoid. What are the four to aim for, and what are the two to avoid?” And because he couldn’t resist giving her a hint: “Hollywood has lied to you in some cases, if that helps.”
“Definitely later, cool, bro,” she agreed, not oblivious to that first no, but deciding instead to look on the bright side! The side that involved flipping someone over her shoulder like she was a boss ass warrior queen with a fully developed backstory who absolutely passed the Bechdel Test and wore totally sensible shoes.
“Is that a Ms. Congeniality hint? Murderbro, you’re so well-rounded in your cinema, it’s sending me. Okay, so,” Lardo looked up at the ceiling in thought. “So my guess is you go for soft tissue, right? Because hitting bone probably only hurts you more, so I would just avoid the face entirely even though the eyes would be good, but you have to be precise for those. Throat, right? Dick, that’s pretty obvious. Avoid the chest because of bone again, abdomen? Big target. Arm, that seems useless. But does it also depend on the position too?”
Lardo had studied anatomy and figure drawing thanks to that art major, so she had a grasp of how the body moved and worked. So if you needed a decoupaged sculpture of two figures wrestling, entitled Friend Zone Doesn’t Exist Lardo was your girl. Hockey had also taught her about use of the butt bump, but that was best utilized by Jack, alas.
Murderbot inclined his head in a motion that he had seen human professors do in serial dramas when they wanted to appear to be all-knowing yet humble. “You aren’t completely wrong,” he said (his encouragement could probably use some practice), “and you’re correct on some things. You’re right - chest is a non-starter. It’s a solid spot and if you don’t have super-strength or something sharp, you’ll just tire yourself out and give them an opening to grab your wrists to subdue you. The other place to avoid is the knee.” He leaned forward and gave her kneecap a light nudge with his foot. “You’ll see a lot of people kick out the knee in movies because it makes bad guys stumble, but it’s narrow and it’s harder to estimate where to kick than you’d think. Worst case scenario is you miss and lose your sense of balance.”
“So we’re going to focus on the four places you should try to fuck up on a human opponent: the eyes, the nose, the throat, and the genitals.” Because Murderbot did not give a single fuck about human genitals, he wasn’t the least flustered or embarrassed when he said as much. Humans were so weird about their reproductive organs. “We’ll start with the nose, because if you break that, your opponent is going to struggle to breathe, and that’s no fun for them.”
He mimed raising his arm, elbow out to the side, and flexed his wrist, before jabbing it upwards with a flat palm. “Hit the bottom of the nose and punch up. Alternatively, strike the ear - if you hit it hard enough, you’ll fuck up their sense of equilibrium. The point here is to stagger so that you can escape, not stand in a sea of innards. Try the upwards motion, and then we’ll practice on me.”
“A sea of innards is some boss ass visualization, bro, but definitely not something I’m here for,” Lardo agreed. Her lip hardly curled up at the image too! It wasn’t good broship to instinctively curl away at your friend’s interests, even though they were things like murder and assassination. “Escaping sounds best, for sure.” That sounded like advice she’d heard at the one self-defense seminar, at least, so good to know they were teaching people the right thing!
She followed suit right along with the gesture, trying things like a completely flat hand versus curled fingers. “Hey, I was thinking, do you want us to keep calling you Murderbot? I mean, your name is your name, you have the right to be called how you identify, but, y’know, if you wanted a different name because you’re not murderbotting it up right now, we could call you something different. Except Chad,” and Lardo’s lip might not have curled at the image of a sea of intestines, but it sure did at Chad. “We’d have to have words if that was the case.”
Not that it really mattered, of course, Murderbro was Murderbro, if that was how he chose to identify, it was cool with her. But maybe he’d never been presented the option before!
“Good.” He watched as she moved, clinically checking the angle to make sure she was doing it correctly, grateful that he didn’t have a wannabe hero-type on his hands. Heroes were the worst.
So focused was he on her physical motions that her question caught him completely by surprise. Human minds frequently left him confused as to how they could possibly have landed on any one thought from the previous one. He indicated that she quit punching the air temporarily, as he didn’t want her motions to wander with the conversation, and considered his reply carefully.
“I don’t know what you have against this ‘Chad’,” he finally said, and added: “I also don’t care. If a Chad that wronged you arrives here in Vallo I’ll rearrange his vertebrae. My name is Murderbot. I named myself that in secret back home. I didn’t have a name there - my clients referred to me as Sec Unit, if they bothered talking to me at all. I started calling myself Murderbot inside my head as a joke. When I was purchased from The Company and given my independence, a select few of my--” Friends, urged some annoying part of his software; Murderbot ignored it, “companions were allowed to use Murderbot as my name. When I arrived here, I went by Murderbot because I wanted a fresh start.”
“To be fair, I shouldn’t be prejudiced against a name, but Chads just come to represent all like, douchebag dude bros, kinda how Karens have come to represent big ‘speak to your manager’ energy,” Lardo explained, because that probably needed to be explained. Language was weird. Look at the slang the Samwell bros threw around left and right that made no sense to anyone else. Maybe that would be Lardo’s next piece of artwork, once the animation for Jack’s equality bash happened and she finished off the cookbook as their gift. And she took like, a week’s worth of vacation literally just vegging with Shitty.
She bounced on the balls of her feet. “Okay, so now I hit you? And I’m not going to like, break anything?” Probably not, given the whole assassin bit, but she didn’t know! “Also, good to know about the name, you own your story bro! Just didn’t want to keep using something if it wasn’t what you wanted, that’s all. Respect.” Lardo thrust up with that flat hand again, pulling just short of actually hitting Murderbot...well. Because that seemed like the right thing to do. “Hey, what if the person is way taller? Do I just say fuck it, don’t aim for the face at all?”
Murderbot filed away the information about Chad and Karen’s personality programming for later reference, as slang often left him grappling for clarity.
He shook his head about her hurting him, as he’d turned down his pain receptors before he’d stepped foot onto the mat. Given that he’d been hit by a literal spaceship and lived, he wasn’t too worried about Lardo being a punching prodigy enough to actually cause permanent damage.
“It’s true,” he said, eyeing her short stature. “Your height is on the low side of average for a human woman of your ethnicity and home-country.” He was 5’10, so not particularly massive in height himself. “For tall hostiles, I recommend that you neglect the eyes and nose, and either punch the throat - it’s a similar punch, watch this - or go for the groin.” He demonstrated both movements. “Copy these, I’ll evaluate your performance, and then we’ll move onto something even more important - dodging.”
“You don’t know, in my universe I could be a giant among ants,” Lardo quipped, although Murderbot’s assessment was much more accurate. There was a reason Lardo sat on Holster’s shoulders during concerts, after all. Hint, it was because she was 5’1”.
She nodded along, already trying the modified punch before asking, “Okay so for the groin, do I go with the knee? That would make sense, right, but I’m also thinking of balance so I’d just go with the standard--” grabbing Murderbot by the shoulders, she pulled him in and went up with her knee and then darted back.
“That’s right? That’s what I typically see, but I just want to make sure. Also, since I’m asking questions, do you like getting invited to things? I know you don’t like going, which is totally cool bro, honestly, no pressure ever. To me it’s just saying, hey, we want you around, but if it’s obnoxious I’ll stop.” All of the Samwell bros subscribed to the tenant of respect--chirping was meant all in good fun, for example, but if someone said it went too far, that was it, they immediately backed off.
“That’s right,” he agreed, “but you’ll want to do it when the attacker is either focused on something else or injured. Otherwise you run the risk of them getting ahold of your arms and preventing you from escaping. So-- upward hit on the nose or throat, then groin kick.”
Once again he was trying to adjust his focus on her questions. It was a very human thing, wasn’t it? Multitasking? He was ass at it, he knew that much; conversation left him a little off-balance on the best of days, and with a sigh and a glare that didn’t have any heat in it he pointed to the side of the mat where she’d left her water.
“Water break,” he declared, and sat down on the edge of the mat, pulling up an 80s training montage video on his interior feed to keep himself pumped up as he tried to sort out how he felt about her question, and how to reply to it.
“I like being remembered,” he finally said, because that was nice. “I hate large gatherings. Small ones are kind of uncomfortable but okay. But big ones, with all the people and the music and the yelling just fuck me right up. But--” he handed her her water bottle, “I really like being remembered. That wasn’t always the case; a lot of clients treated me like furniture back home. How did you fall into friendship with all of those people?” Because if she could ask questions, so could he. Probably.
Drinking water was probably a decent idea, Lardo realized, considering the mountain of energy drink cans surrounding her spot on the couch. The movie was totally going to be worth it, however, so she didn’t mind. Would it make Bitty and probably Shitty cry? Absolutely. But would it make the golden goose himself, Jack Zimmermann, cry? ...Maybe. Maybe.
She sat down, legs splayed out in front of her in a wide V, and then Lardo folded herself over, touching the ground. Literally everything cracked, but that was probably thanks to her couch drawing sessions. “Well, we’ll remember you,” she promised, her voice muffled from her face being so close to the ground. “It’s okay to say no, but you’re definitely not furniture, because what the hell? That’s a douchebag thing.”
“With the Samwell team?” Lardo asked. She pushed herself back up into a sitting position and then laid down on her back, pulling one knee up to her chest and then to the side. “Straight up I feel like someone should pull my arms and my feet until I’m all stretched out. Shitty and I became friends my frog year and when I needed a job, he helped me get the manager gig with the hockey team, then after that everything fell into place. They’re so legit, and I didn’t need to know much about hockey at the time, just had to be able to organize their asses.” She shrugged, as much as one could from her position. “Will chirp the shit out of you, but also defend you until the bitter end. You got friends you’re missing, Murderbro?”
Muderbot made sure she was actually drinking her water before joining her on the mat, folding his legs beneath him neatly in a show of casual flexibility that would likely make a gymnast envious. It didn’t surprise him that she’d kind of fallen into her position as team manager, not because she wasn’t organized and surprisingly intimidating when she wanted to be, but because the team had that casual easiness that came from everything fitting together organically. That type of human camaraderie was rare, Murderbot had observed, and unpredictable. You couldn’t just create that level of care with some code in a lab.
“I know what chirp means now,” he said, because he did! New vocabulary, always good. At her question, he looked away, cracking the knuckles in his hands because it gave him something else to do. A while ago, he would have objected to the people back home being under a ‘friends’ category, but there was simply no other word for them at this point. “Yes. Several. Dr. Mensah, particularly, but I also have a Samwell team. They’re just not hockey players, but scientists.” He made a face that was either a cringe or a smirk. “...and shockingly, they’re just as loud.”
Lardo snorted, switching legs. She wasn’t a hockey player, but of course she’d seen enough of the pregame rituals (both warming up and otherwise, good luck routines were sometimes really bizarre) to have learned some stretches that looked weird but were totally boss ass. “You think we’re loud because you haven’t met Ransom and Holster yet. And together, the two of them? Forget it. Best bros, though.”
She flipped over onto her stomach, which, given the wringer that these mats had probably been put through, maybe wasn’t the best idea to put her face so close to it. But eh, she was committed now. “Like a team because you work together on something?” That something was...murdering, most likely. Murderbro’s Tales of Murder always seemed to be in the name of protecting people, not because he actually liked violence. And Lardo for one would never forget that there was an actual nightmare hotel and Murderbro had checked in and insisted they stay back. So, eh, everyone had a past. “Do you miss them?”
Murderbot might have commented on the thriving bacterial life present on the mat had she been a client, but she seemed to know the risks, so he let it go. If she’d been a client, he might have lectured her. Human beings were so fragile. “They’re a research team of geologists, scientists, and archeologists that accidentally discovered a dump site on an abandoned planet several corporations wanted buried,” he explained. “I was hired to protect them from any creatures that might inhabit the planet, but my job morphed into protecting them from the goons the corporations sent.” He rolled his shoulder, feeling something catch there, and rolled it again - there. Already setting correctly. “Dr. Mensah bought my contract from The Company I worked for, so technically she’s my owner in the eyes of the Inner Rim, but I’m free to do whatever where I live. In the Outer.”
He didn’t answer her question directly - yes, he missed them. But Murderbot would rather eviscerate someone than talk about his feelings, and he didn’t like evisceration much. Noting her posture - and the way she was stretching, he got to his feet.
“All right. Let’s go over cool down exercises. Next time we meet, I want you to have practiced that stance I showed you.”
“Huh.” Lardo said, after a minute of piecing it all together--look, no matter how many times Murderbot said he was exactly what his name was, she thought of him as a ‘him’, their quirky friend who interspersed stories of, well, murdering, with tirades against needless animal death in movies. “So she basically let you go free? That’s boss. You shouldn’t be owned by anybody,” Lardo clarified, quickly, “But at least you get to go where you want, I guess.”
Sitting up cross-legged, Lardo rocked back and forth until she rolled herself up into a standing position. “Oh, we’re so not over yet bro,” she corrected, an eyebrow arched and her arms crossed over her chest. If she was going to do it, she was going to learn more than just how to throw a punch the first day. “Lardo online, kickass, engage.”