trans_9 | "We are not re-enacting Rush Hour." [Closed to Zouichi]

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"We are not re-enacting Rush Hour." [Closed to Zouichi]

Secretly, Howard's been practicing people in the Sensoriums, seeing how realistic he can make them. It's all part of a plan, one that hopefully involves getting his business partner to never cross him again. And it's taken up quite a good deal of his spare time.

But today, Howard's in the Sensoriums lounging around as he waits for Zouichi. It's well-past time he got some basic self-defense training, and as much as he knows he's lost Zouichi's trust, he thinks he can still count on Zouichi to help him out. If that includes learning how to disarm people and break out of a hold, all the better.

Rather than using the Sensoriums to draw up food or much entertainment, Howard figures it's better to be ready for action and willing to drop what he's doing at a moment's notice. Zouichi should find Howard relaxing on a velvet beanbag chair, playing Solitaire and whistling to himself.

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Zouichi, for his part, has taken the time to rummage through Weapons and Possessions. His search turned up a few valuable finds, but the one most pertinent to today's activities was a standard .22 pistol. Unloaded, of course.

He finds Howard playing cards, of all things -- don't kids his age prefer video games? And is that a beanbag chair? How retro.

"You look relaxed," he says in greeting.

"And you look like you're carrying a gun," Howard observes, imagining away the beanbag chair and cards. He burned himself out on videogames in the first week here, when he first discovered the Sensorium. "Promise not to pound me too hard?"

"I'm always carrying a gun," Zouichi says. "And I don't think that will be necessary, at least not this time around."

"So. How much do you know about hand-to-hand fighting?"

"Yeah, but that one looks new."

Howard looks a bit abashed. "Mostly, 'try not to get hit'. I figure it's better for someone my size to use someone's own force against them, but all I know about that is to dodge out of the way and hope they're dumb enough to knock themselves over. So we're probably starting at the basics here."

Zouichi turned the pistol over in his hands, considering it, then placed it on the floor, sliding it away with one foot. "Yes; I've been considering carrying around some nonlethal firearms, but I'm not sure which would be best. At any rate, I thought we could practice disarming someone with a firearm."

"That's a good place to start, actually -- it's probably best to start out with no habits than bad ones. Would you mind making a fist for me?"

"That thing's unloaded, right?" He's seen one too many accidents in the FAYZ where some idiot kid touched a gun wrong and managed to set it off.

He makes a fist, thumb tucked under his fingers, and holds it out to Zouichi. Despite his part as a town bully back in the day, Howard never really learned how to fight - he just ran when he was younger, and relied on words and Orc when he was older. There are all sorts of things wrong with his positioning and posture.

"It is, don't worry." Zouichi hasn't seen many accidents, but he knows what can happen.

Howard wasn't joking about being a beginner. "Hmm. Well, for one thing..." Zouichi takes off his right glove, to help demonstrate a little better, curling his fingers into a fist of his own. "Don't curl your thumb under like that. If you punch someone, you could easily end up breaking it. Your knuckles should make a straight line, thumb on the outside. Like so."

"Saw the Healer put a kid's face back together once after he accidentally shot himself. Gruesome stuff." Not something Howard especially enjoyed watching. Gore was a part of life back there but Howard doesn't understand people who're intrigued by it. Maybe he's just desensitized from the fascination.

"Oh. Okay." He mimics Zouichi, frowning a bit as he tries to get that straight line with his knuckles. He figures it out soon enough. "How do you keep from catching your thumb on something? Seems like this fist would be easier to break."

He knows he shouldn't be second-guessing Zouichi, who probably was born knowing more than Howard does about combat, but his natural curiosity is kicking in.

"You actually don't want to stiffen up until the moment you hit your target," he says, bringing his fist forward in a striking motion and tensing to show Howard.

"And hit your opponent with the surface of your fingers between the first two knuckles. Your thumb shouldn't catch on any clothing, as long as it's angled right. The sensation might feel a little awkward or even weaker at first, but a little practice will make it feel natural. Also, believe me, doing it the easy way might seem more practical, but you'll change your mind if you ever pop your thumb out of joint. Just be sure to keep your wrist straight."

Howard nods, trying to remember how Orc did it back in the day. But that had always been a graceless act, simply whaling on people with all the power that came from being the biggest kid around. He shifts the weight on his feet a little, clearly unused to any of this.

"Would you know from experience?" Howard slow motions through the act of punching the air. "Would you believe I've never actually punched anyone before?"

He'd be more surprised if Zouichi didn't believe it.

"Never...? You've never punched anyone?"

Whoa.

"And no. But if you're really worried about catching on something, you can always strike with your palm. You want to use the exact same forward motion for either strike, really, so it's up to you."

He settles into a fighting stance, his left arm bent forward, fist in front of his face as a guard. "When you punch, bring your hand straight forward, like this. Aim to hit with the first three knuckles of your fist -- or the base of your palm, if you like -- and rotate your body into the hit. That way you're using your entire body, not just the force of your arms."

Zouichi demonstrates this once again, moving beside Howard to allow him to better mimic the action.

"With an arsenal like this, I never exactly went looking for fights," he says self-deprecatingly, making a sweeping motion over his body with his free hand. "I pulled someone's hair out over an edible-looking candle once, though. Completely not worth it. I think wax is indigestible."

In a way, Howard feels like he has to prove how awful the FAYZ was to Zouichi, if only because maybe it would justify the whole drug-selling business.

"Palm just looks like it's asking for a broken wrist. I'll just stick to fist." He sidles up next to Zouichi and imitates. It's clearly not a motion he's ever really gone through before, but after a few repetitions he starts to pick it up relatively quickly, as he does most things. Still, Howard can't imagine actually hitting another person like this. Maybe smacking them and then sprinting as hastily as possible in the other direction.

Zouichi shrugs. "Children fight. I remember fighting with the others every once in a while." Especially Gou, before they'd finally figured out that they had bigger problems than how many times they could punch each other in the face before someone intervened.

'You're a real gentleman', Zouichi almost says in response to Howard's remark about the hair-pulling, but refrains from doing so. Howard obviously feels that what he did to survive in the FAYZ was justified. What Howard may never fully understand was that the mission -- protecting his charges, eliminating threats to their safety -- is and will probably always be more important to Zouichi than his own self-preservation.

He watches Howard practice the motion, noting the hesitation in his movements. "All right; now hit me. Exact same motion."

Howard winces a bit at the remark that children fight. He's been in those plenty of times, just almost entirely in one-sided ones, and on the receiving end.

"You want me to hit you? Seriously?" He looks incredulous and drops his hands to his sides. "I think I'd hurt myself," he says, only half-joking.

Unless Orc is involved, self-preservation is just how Howard rolls. He wouldn't even begrudge someone else for hurting him in an effort to save their own skin, well, at least not a serious grudge. Even if he could understand that that type of dedication is how Zouichi works, he'll never be able to empathize with it.

"I'm not going to hit you back, if that's what you're worried about," Zouichi says. "I just want you to get a feel for it."

Which is exactly what Zouichi suspects. But you don't need to understand self-sacrifice to know that unless you learn to defend yourself, your personal safety will always be at risk.

"I'm more worried about breaking my hand. You probably have abs of steel hidden under that plantsuit." Still he gets into his approximation of a fighting stance, but hesitates again. "Stacy's anti-violence stuff is off, right? I'd rather not get groped by the tentacles again."

Oh. Hmm. "You don't have brittle bones or anything, do you? And the ship allowed my duel with Hit Girl, earlier; I'm sure it'll be fine. This wouldn't even qualify as a practice match."

"Me? Probably not. Been getting plenty of calcium on Spacey Stacey." He exhales deeply and then punches Zouichi in the chest. It's not a powerful hit but it's not quite as weak as his hesitation would suggest.

"...Wait, her name is seriously Hit Girl?"

As promised, Zouichi does nothing to counter the hit, merely standing motionless to appraise Howard's form.

"No. I think it's her 'superhero name'. Do it again, and put some feeling into it. Remember, swing into the punch. You want to use your hips to add some power to it."

"That-" Howard punches again, harder this time. Still inhibited, but significantly harder. "-is a really, really stupid superhero name. Like calling you Motorcycle Man or something, but even worse."

Zouichi pauses. "...Don't call me that again."

"I didn't ask her about it, really, but I wouldn't say it was any worse than Wolverine."

"Also, stop holding back. I can tell, you know."

"Okay. Sorry. No offense, man." He puts his hands up in an apologetic motion.

Howard takes a deep breath and expels it harshly, visibly upset. "I'm trying, okay, Zou? I'm not trying to hold back. You think I like being this wimpy? Let's try it again." He hits Zouichi again, still better form than when he started but not very effectively.

He shrugs. "No offense taken."

"Really? You're not trying to hold back? Because from everything you've said, it sounds like that's the only thing you've ever done -- stand back and wait for other people to do your dirty work for you. Unless you're pulling someone's hair out, scrabbling around in the dirt for some useless piece of junk you can't even use, that is.

"Let me guess -- were they smaller than you? A little kid, maybe? Someone you thought even you'd be able to take? Or maybe you made Orc do that for you, too."

Howard's jaw drops a bit. As much as he's figured Zou probably thought some of these things, he always assumed it would take a lot more to get Zouichi angry enough to say them out loud. And much to Howard's surprise, for a kid who's grown a fairly thick skin over the years, it hurts. Enough that he doesn't immediately see what Zouichi's doing.

"What the hell, Zou? No, no, I never made Orc do anything, you have no idea what it was like back there! You think just because you spend two years riding a fancy bike shooting zombies with your gravity gun that that gives you a right to judge what I did to survive?" He asks shrilly, hands clenched into - proper - fists. "Or should I be like you and go looking for fights, is that how you think it should be? Because I took my beatings."

"Right. So how many kids did you push around to survive? How many lives did you ruin selling drugs to desperate children just to curry a little favor with the right people?"

"And please, let's not pretend Orc is any different from all the other people you stepped on to get what you wanted. You may not have been the one who got him into drinking, but you certainly didn't discourage him, did you? You probably even helped him along. And why not? It probably made him easier to control."

He laughs; it's a short, cynical sound. "You used him just like you use everyone else. The one exception being he was too dumb to ever catch on, and that's saying something. You couldn't even fool Albert."

"But now he's gone. So where does that leave you? Some small, scared walking stereotype who doesn't even have his big dumb drunk to push people around for him any more. Maybe you should just go back to scrounging around in the scrap, see if you can find yourself a conscience in there."

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