Bek didn’t have much. It lunged directly into a front kick from Penelope which left a considerable dent in what passed for its face. It then tried to swing one of its arms at its opponent. Penelope caught the arm and, using the newly created footing in its face as leverage, ripped the arm out of its socket.

In a normal fight she would have pressed her advantage and continued to dismantle the opponent. Bek, however, clearly didn’t require any more damage. Sparks sputtered from the socket and the frame teetered backwards until the whirring sound slowly died down and it collapsed in the sand. After a few seconds the various lights and indicators shut off and the frame sat motionless.

The crowd didn’t erupt into cheers but after a couple moments of disbelief they did break into furious conversation between themselves. Penelope tossed the arm on the ground with the rest of the bot and walked over to the Tinsne show runner.

“I can’t really tell if they enjoyed that or not.” She called up to him.

“Are you blind? They’re practically rioting. I’ve never seen them so engaged!”

“Generally, there’s a lot more noise and movement but I guess I shouldn’t expect the same kind of reaction as a human would give.”

“Your people fight frames for entertainment regularly?”

“Not frames.”

He almost hated to ask the obvious.

“… you fight each other?” he offered slowly, hoping she’d correct him.

“Oh yea, nothing like a good boxing match or MMA tournament.”

“I… how can you just throw your lives away like that?”

Penelope had to take a second at the comment.

“Lives? We don’t fight to the death or anything. There are rules,” she pointed back at the broken frame being towed away, “If I was fighting another person for fun, I wouldn’t try and rip their arm off or anything. I couldn’t if I wanted to actually, it takes way too much force to rip a human’s arm off.”

“How do you…” he looked at the human’s muscled shoulder, “never mind. What about injury?”

"Rules for that too. Nothing that would cause permanent injury."

"Permanent injury..."

“So, how about another?” Penelope asked.

“I… suppose it would be okay. You certainly made your point with that fight. The crowd is going crazy.” He looked down at his console.

There’d been more betting this night than he’d seen in a while.

“Excellent.”

Pen cracked her neck as she turned and took her place. Her next opponent would be the bot that was supposed to fight Bek. To its credit, it lasted longer than the Bek did. Sadly, it too lost an arm. All three in fact, with the last finding itself speared down into the main body of the frame.

Three more frames came and went as the showrunner narrated the fights in disbelief. All of the frames had the same general issue. Weak materials made them relatively frail by human standards. The final bot was sizable but lightweight despite that. Penelope lifted the thing in its entirety and drove it into one of the walls. She then began driving her hands through its “armor” and just kept ripping things out until it stopped moving.

“A fifth is down!” The show runner’s voice echoed through the room.

The fights were enough to work up a sweat, but it wasn’t enough to divert her attention. Through it all she couldn’t stop thinking of her dreams. Her friend’s words kept repeating over and over.

“Tell me you’ve got something tougher.” She ran her fingers through her hair as she walked back to the show runner.

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“That’s… that’s all the bots we had for today… I…” he was speechless.

Never before had he seen a living creature so effortlessly dismantle a frame. Granted, it’s not like they were built for combat but that shouldn’t matter. Not only that but five fights in a row without rest was ludicrous.

“Really?”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“I might be if they’d put up more of a fight. That’s really it?”

“Yea I don’t have an-” he was interrupted by two sets of four metallic feet walking up to him.

Two glass tanks of a green shimmering liquid carried by robotic legs had walked up and begun speaking. Their speech sounded like two magnets smacking together and issued from devices attached to the tanks. The translator still did its job though.

“We have a unique frame we’d like for the human to fight. If possible.”

The Tinsne looked down to Penelope who only shrugged.

"What is," he mimicked the shrug, “what does that mean?” he asked.

“Oh… right. It means I don’t know but I’m interested. Can it put up a better fight than the last ones?”

“Oh, most certainly. You see, we’ve actually built this frame to mimic Terrans. Made of durable materials and a very sophisticated operating system. The original designs required remote control, but reaction times and other issues arose. As such this model can act independently. Our issue now is learning. The machine can learn but it doesn’t have much to learn from. You present a unique opportunity to measure its performance against its inspiration.”

“Interesting. Are you trying to train it for combat?”

“Not specifically but if its future purpose is defense then such data would be useful. Really just having it interact with you in any capacity would be excellent. It only just mastered movement on two human legs, a surprisingly difficult feat. The main goal is for it to gather data on efficient movement, so a physical altercation is the perfect setting.”

“And you’re fine with damage? Cause I’m here to fight not teach.”

“Oh absolutely, destroy the unit entirely if you can. Any data will be stored and used when it is repaired or remade.”

Penelope shrugged again. If they didn’t care, she didn’t either. One more punching bag was fine with her.

“Fine, I guess.”

“If both parties are amenable, I am as well.”

“Excellent! Thank you, human Penelope.” The two tank bound creatures turned and moved to one of the ramps that led down into the arena.

The Tinsne’s voice came over the room.

“Fine people! We are so grateful to have hosted you this day, and what a show it has been. Certainly not what I expected! We do, however, have one more surprise for you it would seem. A pair of Ot roboticists have requested to pit their Terran inspired frame against our impromptu champion!”

As he spoke the ramp door opened and, true to their word, a large frame stepped onto the sand. Terran inspired was almost an understatement. The frame mimicked a humans form down to minute details. It had two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head. It even had eyes where eyes should be, though the rest of the face was smooth and featureless.

As it walked forward Penelope noticed it even had toes and hands that sported opposable thumbs. It stopped a few feet from her, standing only a few centimeters below her height.

As it looked her over it met her gaze. She turned her head to the side, and it mimicked the motion. She turned her head to the other side, and it followed suit.

“Huh… you talk too?”

No sound issued from it.

She held her fists up and took a fighting stance and again it mimicked her, adopting the same stance. It continued this routine as she threw a few jabs at the air.

“Well, it seems a little bit early to throw you into a fight like this, but they said any data is good data. Sorry about this buddy.”

“And the fight begins with the human on the attack!”

Penelope pushed in quickly and threw a right punch at the frame’s face. Her fist met air. The frame had dropped under her punch and before her surprise could wear off it had sent three jabs up into her stomach. Surprise struck her as much as the blows did because they delivered far more force than any of the other frames had been capable of. They were forceful enough to take her breath.

“Oh my!” the show runners voice sounded.

Even the crowd seemed surprised at the interaction.

Instinct kicked in and she pushed off of her forward leg and threw herself back and away from her opponent.

“Okay… not as harmless as you look then. Good. You might be worth my while.” She found herself grinning.

The crowd sat with bated breath as Penelope moved back in, this time more prepared. Now was the time to test it.

Where are your limits.

She threw a few jabs with her left but didn’t commit to them. It reacted to them with speed. None connected but it stuttered for a moment. She could tell it had been about to respond with a punch but decided against it and continued to move back.

“Oh no. Come on. Throw a punch of your own.”

It seemed to react to her words as it stopped back peddling and made to throw a right hook. The fist never came, though. Instead, Penelope found herself blocking its right leg as it came in for a kick to the side. She’d seen through the faint and met its kick with her forearms. As she pushed it away with her left arm her right came in and down. The punch failed to connect unfortunately, as the frame fell back into a roll away from Penelope. It came out of the roll right back onto its feet and into its fighting stance a meter or so from her.

“Just mastered walking my ass.” Penelope chuckled.

She rolled her shoulders and tightened up her relaxed stance. She smiled. She shook a jitter from her spine as she felt her heart beating in her own ear. This frame had promise.

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