Hit or Miss

[LILLIAN WILSON]

Was there a sound more satisfying? Another thud, another blade sunk hilt-deep in it's target. No. The answer was no. Her fist shot into the air and she spun, celebrating yet another perfect throw. "Yes! Yes, yes, yes!" Of course, there had been five other victory dances before this, six targets lined up way on the other side of the tent. Each one had a small blade buried in it's heart, each one in varying degrees of dead-center-ness.

She knew she could do those. It was simple. Aim, throw. Aim, throw. But what was one thing she always wanted to do? A childhood memory that had stuck with her for years?

Robinhood split his own arrow. Hit dead center repeatedly, the same target. She could do that too, right? Certainly she could. It would mean sacrificing one of her knifes, but these were the practice ones anyway.

And if she could do it with a knife, she could certainly do it with a bow and arrow. She could show Alistair, or someone else, and they would totally give her a bow! How cool would that be?

She had to make this shot first though. The young blonde took a deep breath, brushing a loose strand of hair from her face, and then focused. It took only moments for her to find that zone, the chill space in her mind. Suddenly she was unaware of anything, the faintest smile on her lips. Right at the other handle. Her blade was going to split the other in half. Her eyes focused on the handle of the first blade and it became the only thing she saw. Her throwing arm tensed up, her body somehow knowing exactly how much strength she needed.

She could do it, so long as no one broke her concentration.

[THE BOXER AND THE BOT]

"Come on, Teeg. I already told you, you don't have to worry about it. It's a staged fight, you're not going to hurt me."

The soft thud of her metal foot on the hard packed sand was a sort of relief to Yu-Min as she released it from the tight stretch, little fizzles of electronic nerve information shooting behind the vision in her prosthetic eye. Her metal joints creaking allowed her a sense of silence for a moment, a calm before the storm, before she shifted into a slight crouch, hands raised. The dull metal of her fingers seemed to spark in the dim light of the circus tent as her thin lips parted into a manic grin, crinkling the scars around her right eye. "I just need to loosen up right now, so we don't have to do the full thing, jus' enough to oil my joints."

Cennetig bent sis enormous head downward, releasing a short displeased hum from sis motor as Yu-Min bounced back forth in from of sim. "YU-MIN, I HAVE ALREADY MADE MY PROGRAMMING KNOWN TO YOU. MY CODE SAYS I AM NOT TO ATTEMPT ANY FORM OF PHYSICAL COMBAT WITH A HUMAN LEST THEY THREATEN ANOTHER HUMAN OR MY WORK. I AM NOT SURE THAT I CAN DO THIS."
Sis enormous steel hooves shuffled against the floor, spooking one of the horses prancing nearby as se stood up fully, towering over Yu-Min but looking significantly more unsettled.

Rolling her eyes, she loosened her stance and slid upwards, arms dropping to her sides. "Are you serious, Teeg? You are literally six feet taller than me. I wouldn't be surprised if I opened up your chest cavity an' I climbed inside an' shit the doors behind me." Her feet kick up dust as she trots over behind the robot, running a hand along sis left leg. The grit hidden in the cracks of sis seams ground against Yu-Min's palm, hissing like a rattlesnake in the sand, and the robot shifted attempting to follow the line of her movement. ”Lemme show you how to stand. Ya’ll are stiff as a bamboo cutting board.” Her hands, their slick pseudo-steel plasma-plastic so much smoother than sis worn industrial steel, pulled his torso down by tugging on the very bottom of sis ribbing panel, and his vertebrae joints hissed with effort. ”Loosen your form out and try to stop relying so much on your automatic balance system.”

The robot nodded in a pseudo-human gesture, attempting to mimic her movements, but sis motor whirred aggressively every time sis went to crouch. ”I DO NOT BELIEVE IT IS POSSIBLE FOR ME TO CONTRADICT MY PROGRAMMED CENTER OF GRAVITY, YU-MIN.”

”Nonsense. I’ve seen bots do all kind of weird poses that go against their focus readers. Just allow your cable pulleys to stop working.”

”YU-MIN, PLEASE, IT WON’T-“

The succession of heavy metal crashes was like several large sets of cymbals rattling around in the back of a truck. Vibrations tickled up and down Cennetig’s body as the steel collided with the unforgiving earth. Sis appendages tumbled into sprawling positions of awkward unelegance, managing even to graze a few of the performers practicing nearby.

[LILLIAN WILSON]

Just as she was about to throw her blade, all hell broke loose. It sounded like someone dropped an 18-wheeler from the top of the tent. The young girl spun around, lightning in her eyes, but not an angry word came out. That wasn't who she was, and it looked like people had gotten hurt. People needed her help. She could be plenty mad later, when she was throwing blades at the back of her door.

She should probably get that fixed, before she got a roommate. Right now it kinda looked like a wild animal was kept in the room.

Lillian sighed. It was time to make friends anyway. She hadn't met Robot-and-Friend yet. She sheathed her knife, leaving the others to collect later. "Hey. Is everyone okay over here?" Besides Transformer eating dirt, of course. Did it feel pain? She would assume not, but who knew. This was Circo after all.

[THE BOXER AND THE BOT]

”Get your fat head offa me, you rusted out lug nut.” Yu-min pushed her way out from beneath the massive fallen robot’s jaw, wincing at the sound of scraping metal and cracked glass. The fall had managed to aim Teeg’s face perfectly, just so that it would land in the one position that would completely shatter one of the oculars set into his steely cheeks. It flickered its green light on and off as se rose up, twitching sis head in irritation in time with the broken eye’s flashes. Yu-min clucked disapprovingly in the back of her throat. ”And do you know how long it’s gonna take to find another usable ocular? The nine good goddesses, it’s like you know just which bit of yourself to break off to get under my skin the most.”
Teeg crouched back down onto sis haunches, shuffling sis hands beneath the remaining glass shards in order to pick them up. ”I APOLOGIZE, YU-MIN, BUT I DID WARN YOU THAT MY STABILIZERS WOULD NOT ALLOW ME TO MOVE IN SUCH A WAY AS YOU WERE DEMONSTRATING. I AM MADE FOR INFORMATION STORAGE, NOT CONTORTION.” Letting the glass debris trickle into sis other hand, se proceeded to brush the remaining dirt off of Yu-min’s shirt and wiped away some of the blood now pooling around a cut along her shoulder. ”AND I BELIEVE THIS HUMAN GIRL IS ADDRESSING US, SO BE POLITE AND REPLY.” The robot bowed sis head ever so slightly at the girl who had just approached, ignoring the crushed eye. ”HELLO, MA’AM.”
”Yea, yea, I heard her…” Muttering under her breath, Yu-Min pushed Teeg’s hand away and wiped the smudged blood off her skin in a jerky manner that was laughably nowhere near intimidating combined with her five foot height. ”Yea, we’re fine, friend. Bronze brain here just ain’t so good with tellin’ sis body what to do an’ when to do it. Hope we didn’t scare the skin offa you…” She leaned around the girl, glancing to where a few knives were stuck into targets. ”Though I’m kinda glad you didn’t stick us full of points when we decided to start a death metal band in the tent.”

[LILLIAN WILSON]

Oh, she liked her gift did she? Lilly instantly decided that she liked these people. "Nah, it's fine. I needed some distraction anyway. I was about to break some of my knifes. Do the Robinhood perfect aim and split the previous arrow thing. It probably wouldn't have worked so well with the knifes." And now she had that in her head. She wasn't going to be able to do it now. Great. Just great. But that was okay, it didn't matter. She could find someone who already had a bow and arrows and politely ask permission to play with them. Then she would impress everyone until she got her own set.

She smiled and drew her knife, tossing it in the air and having it land back in her hand perfectly. "This is kinda my gift. I can do all kinds of stuff with my body." Unlike the transformer. She looked at it for a moment. It was clear that it had intelligence, but to what degree? Was it self aware? Was she going to have to bow to the vending machines for now on or something? Back to the person though. "My name is Lilly. What's yours? And who's your Transformer friend?"

[THE BOXER AND THE BOT]

Before Yu-Min could answer, Cennetig thrust sis head over her shoulder concentrating the flicker green light of sis oculars on Lily. ”I AM NOT A TRANSFORMER, BUT A RECORD KEEPING UNIT WITH A BUILT IN AI.” Se kept sis eyes trained on the girls for a moment more, then examines the knife in her hand. ”SENSORS INDICATE YOUR KNIFE IS NOT BALANCED CORRECTLY FOR THROWING. WHAT FORM OF STABILIZING MECHANISM DO YOU UTILIZE FOR HITTING THE TARGET CORRECTLY?”

Yu-Min rolled her eyes and pushed sis head off her shoulder. ”Bugger off it, Teeg. She ain’t a science experiment.” The robot stepped backwards slightly, propping simself on sis haunches, but still keeping sis eyes trained on Lily. Scowling, Yu-Min turned back to the girl. ”I’m Yu-Min, and this here’s Cennetig, but you can pretty much use any combination of metal and screws to address sim, cause that seems to be all that’s in his manners unit today, huh?” Her proceeding glare at Cennetig was enough to almost scorch sis metal, even in the eye that did not have a weak laser transmitter installed.

Teeg, now cowed and somewhat humbled in stature, bent his head in a show of apology. ”MY MISTAKE. DESPITE YU-MIN’S LESSONS, I STILL HAVE DIFFICULTIES INTERPERETING CORRECT HUMAN BEHEAVIOR.”

[LILLIAN WILSON]

Her knife wasn't what? It didn't matter that she didn't really understand what he said though. The moment he doubted her, she failed. She had been balancing the blade on her finger as easily as the girl before her took a breath. Then she suddenly felt it's weight change. She couldn't keep her balance, and the blade started to fall.

And she grabbed for it.

It dug into her hand and yet she felt no pain. As calm as if she had caught it by the handle, she simply took the handle with her other hand and clenched the hurt hand closed. Drops of ruby hit the hard packed sand. It actually looked pretty cool. "My gift, Transformer, is that I can make my body do anything I wish. Until I doubt myself." She was pretty sure she could fly too, if she could just believe in it. Join Peter off in Neverland maybe.

But now she wouldn't be able to use her knifes. It's comment would echo through her head every single time she went to throw. "And you just made my blades unuseable. Thank you."

It wasn't it's fault though. It didn't know about it. Most people didn't. And those who did, well, most weren't worth thinking about anymore. They abused the knowledge they were given.

"It's okay though, I forgive you." She looked back to Yu-Min. It would be easy to remember her name. Not everyone was missing most of their body like her. It would be easy to remember Cennetig too. There were absolutely no comparisons she could make for it. "Wanna head over to the first aide? I should probably wrap this up at least.

[THE BOXER AND THE BOT]

Cennetig’s flickering gaze remained on Lily as she spoke, and sis motor kicked into an irritated whirring when she once again called sim a Transformer. It sounded a bit like an ancient computer booting up, but in truth it was the robot’s AI as se attempted to refrain from correcting her once again. Sis programming told sim, not a Transformer, not a Transformer, not a Transformer, but Yu-Min had taught him that it was rude to repeatedly correct someone. Se sat in silence, the turmoil in sis processors make sis metal hot.

Yu-Min knew exactly what was going on in the robot’s head, but instead of saying anything, she just reached a hand back, entwining it around one of Cennetig’s enormous fingers. ”Eegh, sorry ‘bout that, friend. Sometimes se lets sis mouth get away from sim. I got some painkillers here somewhere…” Digging around in the deep pocket of her pants, she produced a couple of blue tablets. ”It’ll be easier to take some now if they have to stitch you up, else you’ll be sore as hell come morning.”

[LILLIAN WILSON]

Cennetig didn't really like being called a Transformer, did it? Then again, it wasn't really nice either. She would stop, for now. If only because she didn't want to make the poor robot explode or anything. And then Yu-Min was offering her some pain killers. Was that even allowed? She didn't think so. She really didn't think people were allowed to just walk around with drugs in their pocket. Then again, not all the oddities were missing most of their body. While it seemed like her mechanical parts were seamlessly a part of her, from what Lilly could see, she was sure that they truly caused a lot of pain.

But did she really want to take the pain killers. She opened the injured fist, looking at the cut with an almost strange fascination. "It doesn't really hurt. I've cut myself so many times that it doesn't really matter. Thank you though." She didn't want to take the medication. If the pain pills dulled her mind, than the thoughts would come back. She didn't want those thoughts in her head. She took a few steps back. "I'm gonna go wrap it up." And then she turned and ran off, her feet finding the spots just packed enough for her to build up enough speed to really run. She liked them, and didn't want them to leave while she was busy.

She wrapped her hand hastily when she found the first aide kit, quickly turning around to make sure they had stayed put.

[THE BOXER AND THE BOT]

"Teeg."

"YES, YU-MIN?"

"What've I told you about makin' unwanted comments?"

"BUT YU-MIN, I WAS MEERLY WORRIED-"

She stopped sim with a hand, choosing instead to throw her head back and swallow the painkillers she had offered Lily. Shaking her head like a dog with water in her ears, she wiped her hands on her pants and grimaced. "Yuck. Sorry, didn't wanna choke on those. I know your were worried, love, but the girl knows what she was doin', okay? You gotta learn to think before you just blurt stuff alright?" She rested a hand on sis elbow, which was the highest part of sis body that she could reach.

"I UNDERSTAND, SEOK YU-MIN. I APOLOGIZE."

She chuckled, running a hand through her hair and stretching out one of her legs. "Hey, don't apologize to me, bud. Lily's the one who gored her own hand open."

[LILLIAN WILSON]

Good, they hadn't left. She didn't know what she would have done if they had left. She couldn't play with her knifes anymore, not without real focus, and she didn't want to seem clingy and look for people to hand out with. She smiled and ran back to the robot and mostly-robot girl.

"Sorry for deserting you guys. I'm back now. So, what are you guys doing? Maybe I could help." She looked to the robot first. "I can do things with my body that shouldn't be possible. Maybe I could help you do the same. I mean, we're mostly the same, right? Both our minds tell us we can't do things."

[THE BOXER AND THE BOT]

Yu-Min released her stretch and examined Lily, eyes roving up and down the tall girl. Then her broad grin settled back onto her face, exposing the translucent blue chips that served as her canine teeth. "You wanna know what you can do for me, Tiger Lily? You can be my warm up partner." Flinging herself forward so the her palms lay flat against the ground, she winced at the sound of her own popping joints and the shuddering whine of her mechanical muscles. "Before I start hopping around after Teeg, I need to do a few exercises so the pressure pistons don't overheat. Usually I just have sim throw a few punches, but se can only come up with so many moves that won't crush me. So, if I fight with you, I won't have to worry 'bout being a robot grease spot, AND I get a new spar buddy."

Shifting into a defensive stance, Yu-Min raised her fists. Each was wrapped in thick strips of fabric. "Come on. Why don't you show me what you've got?"

Teeg sat in standby, a good ten defense programs running in sis system, every cord in sis body taught. Se didn't like seeing this kind of thing; people outside of simeself were not supposed to fight Yu-Min, scripted or not. The Lily girl was not programmed to prevent damage to Yu if even on accident, she had no parameters of how not to injure sis charge. What if one her kicks went astray? What if she made a mistake?

[LILLIAN WILSON]

She wanted to fight did she? Lilly laughed a little. She took a few steps back, easily dropping into a ready stance. Her mind began to become unfocused as she entered her working state. She looked like a professional fighter. Most of her weight was on her lead foot, her back heel was lifted, her knees were bent slightly, her arms loose and ready. "Is there anywhere I shouldn't hit?" Knowing her luck, she'd hit something to make the poor girl's arm pop off. "I don't want to break you." She'd get in trouble knowing her luck. Even if it was an accident.

[THE BOXER AND THE BOT]

Yu-Min cackled, her biomechanical eye flashing as it cycled through focus modes. "Hun, do you even know how well designed these limbs are? I designed them myself, practically built two of them once Pa finished one of them. And I added a few details in myself." Faster than should be possible, she launched her fist at the ground. It made a loud thundercrack as it hit the dirt, loud enough to fill the tent and cause Teeg to shift uncomfortably.

"See? I ain't made poorly." Where she withdrew her hand, four identical hole showed in the dirt, each about three inches deep. Holding up her hand, she flicked her fist and from each base knuckle sprung a spike, the tip sharpened like a thumbtack, the sides riddled with scratches. "I mean, I won't use the spikes when we fight, but think of how hard I had to punch to get 'em to go in the groud."

[LILLIAN WILSON]

Sure, she claimed that now. And then Lilly would hit the one spot that would make everything explode. But it was fine. If Yu-Min thought she was indestructible, so be it. Lilly would give her everything she had and more. She would destroy the poor partial cyborg just like she did every other opponent she ever faced. She'll be so wiped out and hurting she'll wish she had never met this particular tiger.

Of course, while Lilly was hopefully going to give Yu-Min a run for her money, it wasn't really likely that she was going to trash the girl. Not on the first spar at least. But Lillian had to pump herself up. Her mind went completely blank, and suddenly all she could see was Yu-Min. While her eyes did not catch every small movement, Lilly was ready to spar. Ready to block and hopefully throw a punch back as the cyborg was off balanced.

"Ready when you are love."