legionworld | Let's Get Down To Business

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Let's Get Down To Business

Who| Wash, Dipper, and Pidge
What| Hand to hand training specifically tailored for the height challenged, or Wash really wants these two kids to be equipped for the next fight that comes their way.
Where| The training gym, because I guess Wash lives there now
When| Before Tinker Tailor Hero Spy
Warnings/Notes| None?

As far as Wash was concerned, having weapons or powers wasn't enough, because there was no guarantee you'd get to keep either of them for the duration of a fight. You needed to be able to defend yourself even if you were disarmed, and that went double for the people who probably shouldn't have been in a fight in the first place.

Which meant training was in order.

It had been almost embarrassingly easy to convince Dipper to join in. He'd had to strike a deal with Pidge, but she'd eventually agreed as well. He'd put them through warmups and had them run a couple laps - because that is how things are done and stamina is important - and waited for them to get back and catch their collective breath before getting started on what they were actually there for.

"How much combat experience do you two have?"

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Well, now she knows what to do if she's in a hold at least.

OK, she needs a new tactic. Going straight for the ankles didn't work so maybe she needs to do some misdirection. She keeps her eyes trained on his chest as she advances. She's after his chin, as may become apparent as she leaps and kicks upwards for it.

It's a fairly straightforward rush that turns into a fairly straightforward front kick. That's the problem - Pidge is thinking in straight lines and fighting like she's bigger than she actually is, both of which will get her killed in a real fight. For now, Wash just sidesteps enough for the kick to miss him and waits. No retaliation - he wants to see how she recovers and what she does next.

Pidge's landing is just fine and she takes a few steps back to reassess. Wash isn't really fighting back so there's no way for her to go on the defensive.

...Can she get behind him and jump on his back? She moves back and forth and then she runs. If she can't move fast enough to get around behind him, then she's sliding straight through his legs.

For a moment, Wash is absolutely certain she's going after his balls again, and he's caught between disappointment that she'd repeat the same trick and outright paranoia for damn good reason.

But no, she's trying to get behind him. He waits for her to get through and drives his elbow backwards and down with enough force to make a point but not enough to actually break anything. If he's judging this correctly, the blow should land in Pidge's solar plexus and not her forehead. Again.

She knows better than to try the same thing twice, but if she knew she'd given him that fright she'd definitely have used it. Darn him and his poker face.

She notices his elbow just in time to remember how hard it hurt the last time, but at least she wasn't risking a concussion this time. With a "oof!" she was down flat on her back.

Yeah, that's kind of what he'd thought would happen. Wash takes a step away and offers Pidge a hand up. He's got a good enough idea of her fighting style to work with. "I'm good if you are."

Of course, part of him is still tensed, prepared for her to attempt to pull him to the mat. He's not about to put anything past her.

"Yeah...yeah, I'm done."

No tricks this time. Whatever Wash thinks of her fighting style, she's pretty sure he's gotten a handle on it already. Also, ow.

She takes his hand and lets him help her up, rubbing the spot where he nailed her and trying to catch her breath. "OK...what's next?"

Simple enough. "Now we talk." He glances over his shoulder at their audience. "Dipper, c'mere."

Dipper got up and walked over, looking slightly confused. He'd expected his own little bout of flailing (and failing). Pidge hadn't lasted all that long but it was still better than what Dipper knew he could do. There was no way he'd do as well.

"Do I have to attack you now? Am I allowed prep time or improvised weaponry? Technically, you didn't actually say that couldn't be a thing."

...said the small teenager looking around the room thoughtfully and considering possible improvised shivs or bludgeons.

Dipper's a little behind the conversational curve; then again, Dipper recently had his memory turned inside out, so Wash can't really be impatient with him. "Hand to hand, Dipper. No weapons. And if I wanted to spar with you, I'd tell you. Right now, we're just going to talk."

He waits for Dipper to get closer between looking from one (pre)teen to the other. "So. What did you notice? What stood out to you, good and bad?"

"Just for reference, these are my hands," he said, flapping his small hands at Wash, and the way he did it made them unintentionally look as bitty and delicate as kitten paws. "You can't blame me for trying to find a way around the not-having-something-actually-useful-in-them part when they have to go against other hands -- rules were made to be broken, man. But okay, okay, stuff I learned."

Dipper thought back to the fight, rewinding it in his head and trying to figure out if he'd learned anything. He briefly chewed on his lip, because saying what he'd have done differently felt a little bit like criticizing Pidge for not doing it, and he didn't really want to alienate someone else his age before he'd even had a chance to try to be friends.

Buuuut he felt like some of what he'd done was wrong, and he'd lost in the end, right? Criticism missiles away!

"I would've waited for you to attack me or tried to attack in a way that provoked you into throwing yourself at me, which isn't that hard to do when someone is small. We're low to the ground--"

He held a hand out near his own head and then near Pidge's head, and then stood on tiptoe to try to get his hand up to Wash's height to show the height difference. (And failed, because he couldn't reach that high.)

"--annnd to attack us if we're not throwing ourselves right at you, you'd have to get lower to the ground and lunge. Which works better for us in two ways: one, it's easier to use the momentum of someone bigger than you against them than to try to move them yourself, and two, that would make you bend over more when you have a higher center of gravity, which would make it easier to topple you over."

He drew in a little breath as if he was done...and then continued nitpicking.

"Also, I wouldn't have tried to just punch you because I have the upper body strength of a toddler, so I would've probably done one of those upward palm strikes to the nose that are on those self defense episodes of the afternoon talk shows my mom watches?"

Another pause.

"Or I would've kicked you in your knee, ankle, or instep because the first two are load-bearing joints and the third hurts a lot."

Yep, he was still going.

"Then if you caught my arm anyway and got me into an arm lock like that, I -- actually, I would've still kicked you in the same place. That, I would've done the same." Another pause. "Except a lot harder."

Yep.

"And if that didn't work, I would've turned around enough to try to bite something, because that's worked before. And if that did't work, I would've turned in towards you, since turning the other way would've put more tension on the arm lock and turning towards you would've put less tension on it, and I would've tried to elbow you in the solar plexus or kick something -- again, maybe in a load-bearing joint -- and --"

Okay, he was getting really detailed with this, maybe too detailed. He suddenly stopped.

"But, good things! I was supposed to point out good things, too! Uh, Pidge -- that's your name, right? -- Pidge fell...really...good?"

Wait, that was not the way he wanted to say it! He meant to say that Pidge recovered well from falls, and did good rolls, and bounced back with a lot of momentum, but it came out all awkward.

Edited 2016-08-24 02:30 (UTC)

It was "self defense episodes of the afternoon talk shows my mom watches" that put Pidge over the edge. And then he just kept going. She really, really tried not to get defensive, honestly, she knows it's just good-natured criticism but Dipper's list of hypothetical things that he clearly doesn't really know how to do...It picks at her already raw pride.

She stepped to the side and motioned toward Wash, as if he was a prize in a game show. You just instigated your own humiliation, Dipper, come on down!

"So, go ahead and do all that, if you can. If you know for sure you can bait him into an attack and bite and palm strike and everything. I'm serious, go ahead!"

Pidge did feel like she learned a lot, but her blood is just too hot to say it.

Wash honestly isn't expecting a blow-by-blow recap of the match - usually the only people to pick apart combat that thoroughly are AI or team leaders, and he's pretty sure Dipper is neither. But it's extensive, and it's thorough, and Pidge's reaction isn't exactly unexpected.

"Pidge, stand down." Though that's not completely fair, because intentionally or not, Dipper did just tear her apart. "Dipper, she's absolutely right. It's easy to say what you would do in a fight and a lot harder to actually do it." Of course, there's probably an easier way to make that point and have it stick. "Pidge." He points towards the track. "Two laps. Go cool off." It's only after she's out of earshot (after protesting, of course) that he turns to Dipper and drops into a ready stance. "Dipper, put your money where your mouth is." After that little argument, having Pidge watch Dipper try to spar might affect what Dipper does; it's better to put him through his paces while she's not watching, at least for now.

Dipper immediately looked awkward and embarrassed. The know-it-all smartypants routine had bitten him in the butt more than once, but he eternally had trouble not accidentally falling into it again. He hadn't meant to embarrass Pidge; mostly, he'd been hoping that being thorough would impress Wash.

Instead he'd done one of the things that made it so kids rolled their eyes at him in class sometimes and that he sometimes drove Mabel nuts with. Of course.

"I just meant -- those are things I would've tried to do," he said timidly, briefly eyeing Pidge, worried that he'd embarrass himself in front of a peer. Even with Pidge doing laps, it wouldn't guarantee that Pidge would miss everything. "Like that's what my brain would want to do, that doesn't mean I can get my body to play along."

He was smart enough to know that just being smart wasn't enough.

But he obediently dropped into a ready stance, too, like Karate Kid and Umbra had taught them in their classes and held up his fists. He could do that part right at least. Grunkle Stan had taught him the right way to make a fist long before he'd wound up in the Legion's universe.

Edited 2016-08-28 07:43 (UTC)

Wash raises an eyebrow at that admission. Dipper is smart, yeah, but he's just this side of 'too smart for his own good,' and that can be all sorts of fun to deal with. But he's willing to learn, and that's a good start.

"Sounds like you learned the lesson already." A beat. "But that's not going to get you out of this."

He notes the ready stance and the fists - it looks like this isn't Dipper's first training session - and moves in, aiming an open-handed blow to the middle of Dipper's chest. It's slower than he'd normally go and doesn't have a lot of force behind it; it'll hurt if it connects, and it should knock Dipper down, but it shouldn't break anything.

Dipper swept around in a parry the way Karate Kid had taught him and and swept an arm up for a block. Not a direct one, one meant to cause Wash's blow to slide off to the side -- a direct block just would've hurt his arms and knocked him back.

Since the parry brought him closer, with his other hand, he aimed a fist at Wash's side in a sharp little blow. It didn't have much force behind it but that was the sad reality of all of Dipper's punches. The best he could do was try to aim for weak points like Wash's gut, or try to use his momentum to throw him, and hope the damage accumulated over time.

Yep, this is definitely not Dipper's first training session. Wash is honestly impressed that Dipper got the block up in time; then again, anyone who could survive the apocalypse probably had pretty quick reflexes.

But Dipper's mistake is the same as Pidge's: getting in close to someone much bigger and stronger without a plan or an exit strategy. Wash takes the hit just below his ribs and breaks the block, driving his elbow down. It's still slower and with far less force than normal; it's also the move that dropped Pidge earlier, though Wash has to get a bit lower to aim for Dipper's solar plexus. Time to see just how quickly Dipper learns.

Dipper took the hit and it hurt, but after the wheezing outtake of breath, he twirled around, using the momentum from the blow to keep moving, stumbling back instead of falling and turning it into another parry. A lot of his movements were circular, rooted in some of the softer martial arts moves Karate Kid had taught him, and while that meant that his mistakes caused him to take hits he really couldn't afford to take, he could at least recover instead of going down.

The twirling parry turned into a kick this time, aimed at Wash's knee.

On the one hand, Dipper seems to have a bit more than the basics down. On the other hand, he's still fighting like he's bigger than he actually is, and just like Pidge, that'll get him dropped quicker than just about anything else.

Wash had stayed low after Dipper had stumbled backwards; it makes the kick that much easier to block. He sweeps a forearm downwards into a block, and then sweeps it back up, aiming to throw Dipper's leg upwards and knock him on his back.

And it did. Whump.

"Ow."

Between the blow to the gut he still hadn't recovered from and the way he clonked his head on the mat, he was already almost down for the count, but he rolled back over his own shoulder to at least get on his knees.

With his pulse pounding in his ears and his hackles raised, he...well, treated this like life or death. Which was probably not the best thing to do but he didn't even really realize he was doing it. His brain just said "this is what you have to do to ~~survive~~ get a hit in" and then he did it.

"Owwwww," he whimpered, holding both hands and wincing like he was actually a lot more hurt than he was.

All that training and Dipper hadn't learned how to fall? Wash makes a note to talk with Karate Kid about his curriculum, and-

And evidently he'd hurt Dipper. He feels a pang of guilt and pushes it down. Damage control first; guilt later. "Okay, that's enough for today," he says, dropping to a knee in front of Dipper. "Dipper, are you okay?"

Vulnerable. ~~Weak.~~

Fight. Hurt.

Dipper barely heard Wash saying it was enough for the day. He heard the words but it didn't quite register.

When Wash was close enough, he suddenly sprang up with a punch aimed at Wash's face. His expression was vaguely triumphant but also wild-eyed. Almost feral. For just a moment, his brain had gone into "do whatever it takes" mode, something not entirely thoughtless but still mostly on automatic.

Nope. Definitely not okay.

Wash jerks back, bringing up his arms to block Dipper's punch and pushing back against him, trying to knock him back a bit. "Dipper! That's enough. We're done" His tone is firm, but he can't keep the edge out of it entirely. Evidently sparring with a still-recovering kid is a good way to push fight-or-flight response. Good to know.

That led to flailing and hitting and attempted scratching, the kind of fighting someone did when they were desperate and fighting for their lives--

--and finally Dipper scrambling away, teeth bared, his telekinetic aura flaring unconsciously when it registered that Wash was pushing but not grabbing, meaning he could get away if he tried to move back instead of forward.

And then he blinked as he registered where he was and who was actually in front of him. Wash. Wash was a friend. And Pidge was a teammate and he was just in the gym. No one was trying to hurt him or break things or eat him.

The anger and heart-pounding fear faded away -- and then there was just guilt and him wanting to sink through the floorboards in embarrassment.

"Oh man. Oh man. I'm sorry. I didn't -- I didn't mean to --"

The only way it could've been worse was if he'd twigged out in a sparring match with Pidge. At least Wash understood why he'd twigged out and was hard to hurt.

There's a good amount of blocking and dodging on Wash's part, always either moving away from Dipper or moving Dipper away from him. He can take a hit just fine, so long as he keeps Dipper away from his face. He talks to him all the while, low and steady, like he's trying to coax a frightened cat out from underneath a car: "Dipper, we're fine. It's okay. You're safe."

At least Pidge has the good sense not to get involved, without Wash having to say anything. She's got a good head on her shoulders.

Dipper finally gets out of his own head and Wash breathes a sigh of relief. Good. The last thing he wanted to do was drag Dipper back up to the infirmary and explain what had happened. "It's okay. It happens."

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