Work Text:
Zanka planted one end of Lovely Assistaff and leaped to plant both feet in the raider’s chest. He kicked hard, knocking him back and away. He landed on his feet and bent, ignoring the twinging pain at his waist as he heaved his Assistaff over his head. She moved with him easily, almost eager to land a heavy two-handed blow before the raider could regain his feet.
The man gave one last heavy wheeze, and then stopped moving. Zanka paused, breath heaving, and took in his surroundings. All ten of the raiders who’d ambushed him were down, and his side was bleeding sluggishly through the bandage again. Besides the stab wound, he only had a handful of aches and none that would likely bruise. He frowned, annoyed that everything was over already. The fight hadn’t been easy of course - Cleaners weren’t in the habit of fighting people often so he didn’t get much practice these days, but Zanka wasn’t inexperienced, and his rusty skills were slowly coming back. He’d come out expecting to handle a baby trash beast, an hour-long fight at the minimum, and instead he’d walked into a raider ambush that was over in fifteen minutes.
Unless… it’d been a raider ambush the first time he fought him. And he’d been late to that; maybe he’d gotten turned around again?
It wouldn’t be right of him to leave if Jabber was on the way. Who knows how that guy would terrorize the nearby town if he didn’t get the fight he was looking for. Decision made, Zanka pressed one hand to the bandaged stab wound to staunch the blood flow and settled down to wait, position awkwardly sprawled to lessen the pain in his side. He felt quite pleased with himself, and then a creeping sense of unease poisoned the moment. Maybe more skilled Cleaners could afford to just sit around and wait for their enemies to find them, but he needed to be more proactive, more conscientious and tenacious.
With a determined clench of his jaw, Zanka used Assistaff to support him into standing and made his way over to the raider bodies lying haphazardly around. One by one, he prodded at each of them until he found a hand that was still warm. He crouched over the body, pulled that life-warm hand up to press the sides of the raider’s choker, and spoke firmly into the communicator.
“Jabber?”
A moment passed by, and then Zanka repeated himself.
“Jabber Wonger.”
His tone was frustrated and demanding, and this time he got a response.
“Man, stop bothering me, Yoru. I’m busy.”
Zanka huffed through his nose, and bit at his lip to try and stifle a small smile. It’d worked! Quickly, he leaned in to respond before the other man hung up for good.
“I’m not Yoru. Are you close to the fight?”
There was a long pause, and for a second, he feared he’d already lost Jabber. When the drawled response came it was somewhat muffled, as if Jabber was holding the choker as close to his mouth as possible.
“…Mr. Bad Attitude, is that you?!”
“M’name is Zanka. Yeah, it’s me. I just finished fightin’ these raiders, and it ended kinda fast so I was gonna leave. But you got lost on yer way to that other ambush so…”
Zanka trailed off, uncertain. Now that he was talking to the guy, calling him up for a guaranteed fight seemed like maybe a bad idea. On the other hand, the battle had sucked; if it had been a trash beast like the report said he could’ve at least gotten a work-out out of it, but instead it had been short and boring, and he still wanted a chance to face Jabber and win. He was brought out of his thoughts by the sounds of Jabber’s bright laughter coming through the choker.
“No way, man. You’re so like me it’s crazy! Don’t worry, Zanka; you and I will have our chance soon. I’m going to put Mankira right through you, and I bet it won’t stop you at all. You’ll just keep coming at me, and you’ll make it hurt too. I can’t wait. I can’t come fight you today, but I’ll see you soon, I swear. I gotta!”
Well. It wasn’t what he’d been hoping for, but at least he knew he’d have his fight eventually and that felt good. It gave him such a high that he gave in to the random impulse to steal the upper hand in the conversation back.
He blurted out, “I stabbed myself last night. With a shiv I made.”
Zanka heard Jabber’s laughter cut off with a sharp inhale and he grinned as he continued, “I knew I’d fight you again someday, and I figured I should start tryin' ta build up a tolerance to how it feels when you use Mankira on me. I even dipped it in a little poison. But it wasn’t the same – only one blade and the poison didn’t feel like your neurotoxin at all – honestly it kinda felt like a letdown, nothing like when you fight with her.”
Jabber’s muffled whimpers broke into a moan, but Zanka kept talking like he couldn’t hear him.
“I was so disappointed, I just wrapped it up and went to bed. Didn’t do a great job either; when I took all these raiders down it started bleeding again. And I’m grateful for that, since yer not here! None of these weaklings landed a good hit on me so it’s the only pain I had to fight through, and an average joe like myself needs all the practice I can get.”
“Where.” Jabber’s voice was shaking.
“Where? Mmm, are you asking where I am, or where I hurt myself?” Zanka heard his own tone go coy and teasing. If anyone else from HQ had overheard him, he would’ve combusted with embarrassment on the spot, but it was only Jabber and he definitely had no grounds to judge him.
“Both. Ya gotta tell me, man. How big was the blade? How deep didja put it? Do ya still have it, are you gonna try to stab me with it? What poison didja use? Where are you?”
“Jabber? Yer breakin’ up! I can hardly hear ya. I guess this dead guy’s getting’ too cold to keep the choker going. Ah, well. If I ever see you, I’m gonna beat the shit out of ya, okay? Bye!”
Feeling smug, Zanka let go of the raider’s hand and released their shared grip of the choker. Jabber’s cries of protest cut off as the call dropped and Zanka stood up, Lovely Assistaff propped on one shoulder. The town wasn’t in any danger of Jabber blowing through late and understimulated, and Zanka had a promise of a future fight. Due diligence done, he pressed his free hand to the side, just enough to feel the sting, and walked back to the rendezvous point to await Enjin and the car. He’d already decided to leave the call out of his report, but he’d probably end up telling Riyo later. She was going to give him such shit for it.