#Stanurary 2020

[ramblesanddragons]

I Want To Learn To Fight

Needed a small break from A Man Made of Stone and here’s a little late entry or week four of @stanuary while I play with writing style. The theme was fight.

Warnings: Some violence but nothing graphic.

AO3 link!!

“Grunkle Stan, will you teach me how to box?” Dipper says after a few days back in the shack.

“I mean I can sure but why do you want to?” Stan peers over his paper at the kid, he’s grown since last summer but he’s still not built like a fighter. Of course, Ford wasn’t either.

“It looked like good exercise?”

“Nah, if I’m doing it, I need to know why,” Stan folds the paper and looks the kid in the eye, “I’m not gonna judge you. What’s up?”  

“You’re not going to judge me huh?”  

“With this? Nah.”

“Okay fine,” Dipper gets closer to whisper to his grunkle, “It’s my noodle arms. I’m just tired of being so I don’t know...noodley.”  

Okay Stan can buy that. He stands and heads upstairs. “Is that a yes?”

“Come on kid we’re headed to the mall.”

Stan knows that his gloves are still way too big for the kid so he buys him some gloves (and pockets a bit of new tape for their hands.) When they get back home, they find some sort of decent space to learn. Between the elder twins, the younger twins, Soos, Melody, and Soos’ Abuelita the shack was pretty full. Soos’ renovations have done a great job of giving everyone a space (and got rid of a lot of the triangles) but they end up having to set up shop in a part of the lab. If Ford minds, he doesn’t say and goes upstairs to find Mabel with a pat on Dipper’s head.

Dipper pulls on the gloves and swings wildly. “Alright I’m ready!”

“No, you’re not. Come here and I’ll teach you to wrap your hands.” Stan starts by doing his own and then has Dipper try and copy. The kid is sharp and has it right by his second hand.  

“When you get into a random fight you don’t have time to wrap your hands. What’s the point of it now?” Dipper asks trying to get used to the feel of the wraps.

“To make sure your hands are in one piece when you don’t have the time. You mess up your hands and wrists here you’re screwed out there. Why are you worried about random fights anyway?”

“Just an observation. Anyway, I’m ready to hit things!” He says with a fire behind his eyes.

Stan laughs, “Not the way you’re standing.”  

A gentle shove immediately puts Dipper off balance so they start with lessons on a grounded fighting stance and footwork. As to not disappoint the boy too much Stan does let him take swings at his gloved hands before they call it a night. Dipper’s out of breath by the end.

“Look kid, I know this isn’t what you were expecting but I’m tryin’ to teach ya right. If you want to stop, I’ll understand. If you want to keep going though, I think you could throw a decent punch.” Stan expects Dipper to be frustrated, which he is, but is surprised by the boy’s smile.

“I should have figured I need to know the basics first. It’s okay I want to keep going. This was fun and I want to learn.”

Stan smiles back.  

Over the next few weeks, the lessons continue. Foot drills, hand drills, basic punches. The kid has always been bright and he may not get the practice of it right at first, he gets the theory down. Stan changes up his teaching a bit, does some reading and tries things out with the kid. What worked for him doesn’t always work for Dipper and he tries to figure out a way that does. Dipper really starts to shine when Stan starts talking about reading a situation and analyzing an opponent.  

One day after a good session the boys head back upstairs to find kitchen the same way it has been during these sessions, covered in papers of art. Ford and Mabel spend most boxing times drawing together. Dipper talks about the lesson while she shows off her art (Dipper and Stan fighting a giant robot) and they head to bed.

“Sounds like it’s going well.” Ford’s smile is soft. He’s adding details to his drawing (Him and Mabel as cats per her request) and stops to observe his twin.

“It is. He’s good. He’s ready to start sparing but I’ve got 200 pounds and a couple of feet on the kid. I know how to pull my punches but I don’t want to hurt him by accident. By the way I’ve been meaning to ask ya if you ever figured what got this boxing thing in his head?” Stan unwraps his hands and leans back in the chair.  

“Well he does admire you and I believe he wishes to strengthen his body for his own reasons.” Ford starts to talk while beginning a new sketch as Stan starts snoozing, missing most of what his brother says. Ford manages to talk his brother into actually going to bed and, afterwards, walks down to the lab inspired.  

“What the hell is this Sixer?” Stan gawks the next morning while Dipper laughs at it. In the lab is a 13-year-old sized robot made of gears and pillows.

“I made Dipper an adequate sparring partner. Programed with what I recall from our boxing lessons and it has an interface you can run much like one of Soos’ video games. After calling up Fiddleford for some input it should be ready.”

“AWESOME!” Dipper immediately goes to wrap his hands.  

“Heh. Thanks Ford.”

“You’re welcome.” Ford begins to walk up the stairs and chuckles as he hears Dipper say, “Hey, not the first time I’m fought a robot!”  

A few more weeks go by. Its Gravity Falls so the supernatural is everywhere and the Pines family is right there in it all. There hasn’t been that many repeats of last summer’s nightmares and Stan is thankful for that. With his brother around it’s easy to keep the kids out of trouble or at least help fight it off. Of course, one night everything goes to hell and it had to be Pioneer day.

Stan and Ford find themselves at one end of the town square when the screaming starts. People run off or jump into their covered wagons. A horde of shambling zombies our pouring out of the graveyard.  

“Ahh Dipper I hope this one ain’t on you.” Stan mumbles as he pulls on the familiar brass knuckles. Ford pulls out his pistol.

“I don’t believe he would do this twice, he told me how badly things went last year. Something else is wrong.” Ford fires and takes the heads off of three zombies while Stan crushes a fourth.

(They’d later discover that a small rift had opened in the grave yard and was leaking out necrotic energy from a dying dimension. Rifts that came out of nowhere were as annoying and common place in Gravity Falls as deer causing problems in the roads after the events of the summer before. Easly fixed but annoying as hell.)

“It’s fine,” Stan says as he bashes two zombie heads together, “We’ll just sing them dead again although you’re singing this time. I hope you still have that zombie bite cure somewhere Sixer!”

“I do but the victims of the bites still need to be in one piece for it to work Stanley. We must find the kids before they’re torn apart!” Stan’s punching becomes a little more desperate and wilder as they make their way through the town. Ford has a theory and Stan thanks God his brother is right as they round a corner and see that all of the kids made their way to the local karaoke bar.  

It’s a hell of a site. Melody and Soos are trying to break down the door, Pacifica is trying to break a window with her heels while Mabel uses a knitting needle, Wendy has he axe to keep one half of the zombies away, and (to Stan’s utter horror and pride) Dipper is holding the other half off on his own. His stance is flawless and he’s using his smaller, quicker size to his advantage. The elder Pines twins reach the kids just as Dipper knocks the jaw off of one of the monsters. These things are mindless though and it’s hard to read an opponent that doesn’t think. Dipper almost takes a bite to the ear as a zombie lunges low but Stan catches it and tosses the thing across the road. Dipper and Stan stand back to back as Ford ushers Pacifica out of the way and blasts the window open with his fancy space gun. He crawls in with Mabel and pulls Pacifica in too. Soos halfway tosses Melody in the window screaming, “Sing for our lives my songbird!”

“Okay?!” Melody yells back.  

It takes agonizing seconds for Ford to get the power to the bar going as the rest fight off the zombies. Stan’s about to toss the rest of the kids into the window and block the way before one gets on his back.

“Get off my Grunkle!” Dipper screams and drags it off of Stan. He tosses the thing and manages to get it almost as far as Stan’s zombie.  

Suddenly the music starts behind the fighters and it takes a few verses for Stan to recognize it. “Big boat keep on burnin’! Proud Cary keep on turnin! Swimming! Swimming! Swimming down the river!” Melody, Mabel, and Ford are having the most terrifyingly fun time of their lives as the zombies start to explode.

By sunset the town is doing clean up and the “Never Mind All That” law will be in full effect by tomorrow. The Pines have found themselves back home. Everyone else gets cleaned up while Ford orders a ton of pizza. Dipper makes as far as the porch before flopping onto the couch. Stan joins him.

“Look Grunkle Stan it wasn’t me this time,” Dipper starts.  

“Yeah I know,” Stan pats Dipper’s head, “You were incredible out there today by the way. I know I’m still tough on ya...”

“You’ve taught me how to fight back,” Dipper says as he pulls himself to a sitting position.

“Last summer after the first zombie attack, I wanted to learn how to do what you did but I was so caught up in... well a lot of things and I kept meaning to ask you but things kept getting crazier.”  

Dipper kind of smiles and looks at his slime covered hands, “I realized that maybe I could be smart and strong and if anything bad like last summer happened ever again I wanted to be able to fight it.”  

“It’s best to out think than outfight most of the time kid if you can but I get that. But why me? Ford’s become some sort of nerd outlaw in the past 30 years. You could learn from him?” Stan knows the kids love him. (That was one of the first facts he knew after waking up from the memory wipe.) He doesn’t know if he deserves it but he’s happy that they do. Oh, he knows that Dipper relates more to his nerdy brother, which doesn’t hurt Stan’s feeling. It’s important for kids to have someone to relate too doesn’t matter who. He loves Dipper always.  

Dipper lets out a small tired laugh, “I’ve always admired how hard you fight for us and I want to be like that. To be able to fight for my family.”

Stan beams.  

“It’s totally not because I want to spend time with you too. No not at all,” Dipper finishes with a study but not hurtful jab to Stan’s stomach.  

“Yeah, yeah. Sure. I just figure I can teach ya something useful while I’m stuck with you little gremlins. Now come on get cleaned up. You gotta eat and then get some rest. You’ve proven you’re past all the baby stuff. Lessons are about to get a whole lot harder starting tomorrow. Ya up for it?”  

“Bring it on.”