xp_logs | Forge and Garrison - Tuesday Afternoon Fight Club

As requested, Garrison gives Forge a few pointers in the pugilistic arts. One of them spends a good portion of this log being thrown around and dropped on his head.

Forge cracked his knuckles as he paced around the mats laid out in the gym area. He'd always seen Kyle dressed in loose sweats and a tank top to work out on the heavy bag, so he'd come down dressed similarly. If he was going to learn to defend himself, he figured, there was probably going to be a lot of sweating involved.

He hated that part.

Kane finally appeared, padding on to the mats in a pair of University of Ottawa shorts and a Phantom Power tour t-shirt. He ignored Forge for a second as he walked over and tossed his bag ominiously under the first aid station. It wasn't until he'd pulled on a pair of fingerless, lightly padded gloves that he finally approached the younger man.

"So, you want to learn how to hit people, eh?"

"In a nutshell," Forge said by way of agreement, rolling his shoulders and trying to project an air of nonchalance despite the butterflies beating up a tempest in his gut. "I'm going through training so I don't become a liability in the field, and right now the moment anyone takes me hand-to-hand, I'm as useless as Stephen Hawking in a strip club. You're the guy whose power is basically enhanced thuggery - if I'm going to learn, I want to do it right."

"Enhanced thuggery? Wow, you got beaten up a lot in school, didn't you?" Kane said, looking Forge up and down. He didn't look to be in bad shape; skinny certainly, but there was a certain amount of muscle on his frame, and Garrison didn't imagine the man would build his prosthetics to be specifically understrengthed.

"Alright, like the girls say, if you want to do it, you have to start at the top. Hit me."

"Huh? No way," Forge protested. "You'll dump me on my ass, or... ah, okay." He suddenly realized that an ass-dumping was going to be inevitable, and he might as well trust the Mountie to know what he was doing.

Looking Garrison over, Forge figured that the Canadian easily had six inches and forty pounds of solid muscle over him, so if he was going to hit him, he'd better try and make it count. Winding up with his right arm, he tentatively swung at Garrison's midsection.

The Canadian didn't move, and barely seemed to flinch as the blow connected. There was something unexpected with punching another man in the stomach. It actually hurt his knuckles! Kane let out a breath and nodded.

"Alright, that's a start. Try it again, aim for my face."

Slightly incensed at the apparent lack of effect, Forge took a half-step back, then pivoted as he swung his left arm in a haymaker aimed at Garrison's chin, metal knuckles clenched tightly as he closed his eyes.

Kane simply leaned back, letting the punch swing harmlessly passed him and watching with no small enjoyment as Forge overbalanced and ended up turning an involuntary circle with the momentum of his swing. He sighed and put his hands back his back, clasping them lightly while Forge regained his balance.

"Well, you have no bad habits, but you also don't have any good ones either. That's not such a bad starting place. First we need to beat over fifteen years of bad movie fighting out of your head and we'll have a chance."

"I can hit a heavy bag without busting my knuckles, that's about the extent of it," Forge admitted, flexing his hands self-consciously. "And I tried to get Kyle to show me the basics, but, well..." he indicated the skeletal form of his left leg, protruding from below his shorts. "I'm all wrong for positioning, leverage, balance, all of it. It'd be like trying to drive a car with two flat tires. Except you... you have an advantage."

Forge smiled and tapped the back of his own neck. "That chip in your spine lets you adapt to people's motions and reflexes, right? That's why I figured that of all people, you could figure out what works and doesn't for me. So long as you're not going to ask me to meditate in some steam room or something."

"That's the part that you're actually wrong." Kane walked a slow circle around Forge. "There's no such thing as 'wrong' in terms of fighting. There's just 'different'. The entire point of learning is to find what works best with your own abilities. For example, my fighting style is based around the fact that I'm almost always going to have the advantage in speed and strength, and need to adapt to avoid creeping into lethal territory. Gibney, bless his useless Kung-Fu addled brain, still thinks that it's about landing the most blows."

"So what have I got?" Forge asked, a tinge of annoyance creeping into his voice as he glanced out the corner of his eye at Kane while the Mountie circled. "I'm one of the ten smartest people on the planet, but that does me dick-all when I'm getting punched in the face. Given a choice, I'd avoid conflict altogether. Except I'm not always given the choice, and..." He spread his arms in frustration. "So it's either resign myself to being utterly useless, or learn. So teach me."

"So learn." Kane kicked Forge's legs out from under him as he walked past not even pausing. "You're one of the ten smartest people in the world, eh? Then tell me what advantages counterbalance the disadvantages the cybernetics leave you with. What can they do that flesh and blood can't?"

The gym rotated around Forge as he tumbled hard, landing on his shoulders and gasping for breath. "Faster reaction time, lack of fatigue, adjustable nociception - that means I can turn off pain receptors," he rattled off like a salesman extolling the virtues of the company's latest model. Rocking back onto his shoulders, he kicked his legs around, awkwardly winding up in a low crouch and watching Garrison more intently. "I don't have anything like enhanced strength, that'd require reinforcing more of my body than I'm comfortable with. I'm not a combat machine, and I'm not about to turn myself into one. I know about cyberpsychosis and that's a road I'm not going down."

He shrugged and let his shoulders slump as Garrison walked by again. "I know I don't have the same natural assets as everyone else. So, I have to - cheat," he exclaimed suddenly, jabbing out his left hand in a strike at Kane's neck.

Kane snatched him by the wrist, stopping the blow immediately. He twisted his arm clockwise, forcing Forge to bend with it. "You're going to break your fingers punching like that."

Garrison let go of the wrist and stepped back, regarding Forge levelly. "It looks like the main problem that you're having is not so much the issues that the prosthetics bring to your balance and such. It's that you're trying to use a normal approach to this without taking them into account. Ever watch someone on normal artifical legs run? The motion of the body is completely different than when I do it. It's adapting to the physical reality of their movement. You, on the other hand, look like you're trying to find out how to fight like Kyle, or Scott, or Nate, and so on."

Frustrated, Forge stepped up and swung again at Garrison, grunting as each attempted punch was dodged almost nonchalantly. "That's the problem," he gasped between swings, "No one's ever really designed 'Fighting For Cripples', have they?"

"You've got two working arms, two working legs and you've got the balls to call yourself a cripple. Jesus." Garrison caught one of Forge's swing inside at the elbow joint and stepped in, snapping a forearm across his chest and sending the young man sprawling. "The day you're trying to learn how to use a two pronged hook to dress yourself, or you need to make sure the coffee shop is wheelchair accessible, you can call yourself a cripple. Until then, it's self-indulgent whining."

"Then tell me what I need to do!" Forge practically shouted, scrambling to his feet. "There's going to be a day you and the team need me out there, and I don't want to fuck everything up because I can't hold my own! This isn't easy for me, Kane. This goes against every single element of my thinking, but it's necessary. I am not going to be a liability to this team, even if I don't..."

A look of realization crossed his face, and he lunged forward again, pushing off with the artificial leg with greater speed and force than before. Quick swipes with his metal hand were avoided just as easily as before, but he noticed that this time the taller Canadian was dodging more than he was blocking. Nodding to Garrison, Forge stopped and took a step back. "Advantages. Okay, I've got them. Now show me how to use them."

"Good. Fighting isn't just about 'enhanced thuggery'. The only two ways to win are to be simply a hell of a lot stronger and faster than the other person, or you have to be smarter." Kane yanked Forge off balance again, using a palm strike to send him reeling back, clutching at his chest. "Most fights are solved in a couple of blows. It's about landing the right hit, and has fuck all to do with anything like boxing or martial arts you see. You've got little strength and with your balance issues, you're not going to be able to leverage the blow. But, you do have a metal hand, and can develop some speed."

Forge coughed, catching his breath and backpedaling to keep a few steps' distance between himself and Garrison. "Asymmetrical warfare," he commented. "One of the things Scott's had me studying. Pick an advantage you have that your enemy lacks, and capitalize on it. And you're right, I'm never going to be stronger, so I have to be smarter."

He stepped up again, trying for another direct punch at Garrison, only to find the room suddenly reoriented one hundred eighty degrees as he went head-over-heels from a quick swipe to the chest. However, he let the momentum carry him forward, both hands latching around Garrison's wrist as he fell, using the leverage to drag the larger man down to the mat as well. Any source of smug pride, however, was quickly extinguished by two quick chops to his solar plexus and shoulder.

"It's not enough to land the punch, Forge." Kane stood easily, literally hauling Forge up with him. "Get into grappling, and it's about strength again." Garrison pushed him back and pointed at his throat. "When you come close, you need to bring that person down immediately. Each blow has a plan for the next one if it's blocked or parried."

Forge nodded, giving Garrison his full attention and trying to tune out the feeling of bruises forming in places he didn't even know could be bruised. "So it's about finding a weakness and exploiting it. Okay. I think I get it. If I can't hit harder, I've got to hit smarter. Anatomy. Biology. Neurology. This much I can study, I just need to know how to apply it. I just.." His posture changed, shoulders dropping as one hand brushed sweat-soaked hair away from his eyes. "I don't want anyone getting hurt because they're stuck protecting my ass."

"Wrong mentality, Forge. If you go into the field, even with all the training in the world, someone could get hurt protecting you. Hell, people get hurt protecting Nate." Kane pushed at Forge's ankles with his toe, adjusting his stance. "You should be able to handle yourself in a fight. But don't be stupid about it. Guy who's supposed to be one of the ten smartest people in the world, should be able to build a few things that will even the odds. You bring those first, and when all that fails, this is what you've got left."

"Believe me, I have my equalizers," Forge said with a wry chuckle, "But point taken. It's about time I got over myself and learned this. All right, then. I'm ready to learn."

"Good." Kane's sharp jab caught Forge right on the point of the chin, sending him down to the mat hard. "Because this is the part that it gets fun."