Fight Night

Tags: Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-Typical Behavior, secunit fight night, Theta is an asshole, Angst

Published: 03 October 2022

Word Count: 895

Summary

Whumptober 2022

No. 3 A HAIR’S BREADTH FROM DEATH
Gun to Temple | “Say goodbye.” | Impaled

Bored humans on long term mining contracts find ways to amuse themselves via SecUnit Fight Nights.

“Place your bets now, the fight will be starting in only a few minutes!”

I do my best to tune out the noise from the humans crowding around the bookie at the side of the makeshift combat arena. There’s nothing worth listening to over there - this isn’t the first fight night I’ve been involved in, and it likely won’t be the last.

Unless my opponent actually manages to do enough damage to destroy me outright this time. We’re not meant to, but it’s always a risk. I’ve seen it happen before. The humans just pay a fine for destroying company property, and then a few cycles later there’s a new unit to replace the old one, and things go on as they always have.

Finally all bets have been placed, or the bookie has decided they don’t want to take any more bets, or whatever. I don’t care about the particulars. It’s almost time for the fight to start. I’m standing on one side of the makeshift arena, and my opponent for this fight stands opposite me. We’re both without our armour or projectile weapons, wearing only our suit skins. The humans don’t want to bother with repairing our armour as well as us.

I recognise the other unit, and if I was prone to human body language I would probably wince. The humans have dubbed it Theta, and I’ve fought it before. It’s vicious, and nasty, and one of the humans’ favourite SecUnit fighters because of that. I hate fight nights in general, but I especially hate having to fight Theta. At least the rest of us try to end these fights as quickly and painlessly as possible. Theta however seems to enjoy them, and relishes drawing them out and making them unpleasantly painful, even with our pain sensors turned all the way down.

One of the humans at the edge of the arena blows a whistle, and the order comes through HubSystem. It’s time to fight, whether we want to or not.

Theta wants to, of course. It’s already charging across the arena towards me. I launch myself towards it as well, and we meet in the middle, and I have no time to think, only react. We’re a blur of motion as we punch and kick, block and counterattack, trying to get the upper hand on each other. Our physical dimensions and specs are exactly the same, so neither of us have the advantage of reach or strength over the other. The only real difference between us is how we choose to fight; what moves we use and how hard we push ourselves.

I manage to feint and draw Theta into overextending, and I take the opportunity to grab it and throw it across the arena. The crowd yells as it hits the ground and rolls, and I launch myself towards it again, not wanting to give it the chance to recover and regain its feet.

I’m not quite fast enough though, and as it comes back up I notice the section of broken, discarded rebar it’s grabbed off the ground a moment too late to react.

It launches itself to its feet and drives the metal bar straight through my midsection, my own momentum shoving it even deeper. I feel the metal punch through my internal systems and out of my back, blood and fluids starting to soak into my suit skin. Damage alerts flood my awareness even as the crowd roars its approval. For a moment, I’m unable to react, my systems frozen by shock.

Then Theta maliciously twists the rebar impaling me, sending hot spikes of agony through my torso and triggering another barrage of damage alerts. The pain’s not quite as bad as governor module shocks, but it’s bad enough.

And suddenly I’m furious.

My performance reliability is falling rapidly but that doesn’t stop me from punching Theta right in the face. I feel its nose break beneath the blow and it staggers back, unprepared for my assault. I don’t let it recover - I punch it again, and again, raining blows against its head, its torso, whatever parts of it I can reach. I ignore the rebar impaling me, ignore the yells and roars from the crowd, ignore the rising number of damage alerts. I feel parts of Theta crack and break beneath my fists; I feel my own fingers break as well, but I don’t care.

I’m not going to give this asshole the chance to hurt me again.

Finally Theta drops to the ground, limp and unresponsive, its face and torso a bloody, broken mess. My own fists aren’t much better - the organics are torn and bleeding, some bits outright falling off, and I’ve fractured or outright broken pretty much every inorganic bone in my fingers. I let my clenched fists drop to hang at my sides - I don’t think I can unclench them now, the joints locked into place.

The crowd surrounding the combat arena is howling its delight at the violence, and it makes me feel sick. I don’t have to suffer it long though, because my performance reliability is still dropping, and I feel my legs finally give out. Damage alerts inform me that my main power core has been breached.

I hit the ground beside Theta, jarring the broken metal rod still impaling me, and—

Performance Reliability catastrophic drop.

Emergency Shutdown Initiated.