Title: Leave it in the Ring, Chapter 1: One of Mine

Author: Illyria Lives

Rating: T

Summary: After the Zeus/Atom fight, Tak Mashido and Farra Lemkova find themselves without future, without help. How can they pick up the pieces of a shattered empire? Character study.

Disclaimer: I do not claim ownership of Real Steel, or any characters.

Tak Mashido leaned idly against the wall outside of Sergei Lemvoka's office and listened to the loud crashing of Russian speech from inside. He had never bothered to learn any Russian; all business between him and the Lemkovas, mostly Farra, was covered in rough English. Farra had made it clear to him that her learning Japanese was out of the question from day one, and he figured that two could play at that game.

And so the genius stood, arms crossed, and waited, not knowing what direction the argument inside was following.

With a short guttural word that Tak could only guess as an obscenity, Farra Lemkova burst out of her father's office. Tak stood up straight as she passed, the smallest bit shaken by her appearance.

Ever since day one, Farra had struck Tak as a woman who knew exactly what her appearance did to men. From her skin-tight, curve-hugging mini dresses to the shadow sharpening her already glowing eyes, she dressed to impress, to control. But now, her hair was feathering out of her tight ponytail, her eyeliner was smudged, and she seemed to have ignored how the seams of her acid green dress had twisted on the axis, ruining how the diamond-shaped cutouts brought attention to her hips.

Farra Lemkova was falling apart as she walked past him, and he reached out to her before he knew what was happening.

"Farra." He said, and she stopped, her wrist held lightly in his hand. "What was that?"

He saw her shoulders tense, and she turned on him, eyes blazing. "You." She pointed a finger at his chest. "Vy plokhaya stavka!"

He didn't ask her to elaborate on whatever she had called him. She turned and began to walk down that hall in her four-inch gold stilettos. Tak followed along behind and asked loudly, "What is your father's decision?"

She stopped, now in the main room of the Zeus suite. Unlike most days after a fight, it was devoid of people. The fans had not arrived, even those with passes, and Sergei had forced all reporters out, a first for the image-obsessed Zeus CEO.

"We are finished," she said, voice shaking but not sad. She was angry. Furious, even. "There is nothing now. All the stock has dropped. The PR department has written us off. We will be lucky to remain in the league, even as an undercard." She turned to Tak, and he could see how much she hated him. They had not had a great working relationship, his cold aloofness keeping her at bay, and her haughtiness not endearing herself to him. When collaborating over the Zeus project, he had tried to shake off her ideas, and she had proved to him why her father trusted her with all of his business: she was unstoppable.

From day one, he had witnessed how Farra Lemkova managed to dominate every medium she turned to. While he had labored over schematics and blueprints for Zeus, she would look at the sketches and already be bringing together intimidating color pallets, moving through proposed advertisements, apparel, the "image" that they would base their campaign around, taking elements to the design that Tak would never have dreamed of. He wouldn't admit it, but there was something incredible about how she could look at an opponent and move into action not only in the ring, but outside, fighting mind against matter to psych out the competition. When that didn't work, buy-outs from backdoor corporations always kept her ahead of the game. She was a master of monopoly.

But now, after one match-up, an underdog, a rusted, junkyard dog of a match-up, she was losing everything.

Because of him.

"Why did you do it?" she asked, and didn't wait for an answer that she knew wasn't coming. "Tell me why you needed that piece of scrap Atom. You could have had any other bot in the league, any other sparring bot in the world, but you wanted him. Why? Why?" he had never seen her so furious; her accent was growing with each word, and he expected her at any moment to lapse into Russian.

Tak didn't know what to say. He had only casually dropped how useful the robot Atom would be for training Zeus, and she had given him a look and a nod. He hadn't thought that she would go so far as to actually contact Charles Kenton and his pint-sized son. But she had. And it blew up in her face.

So, he gave her the truth. She deserved that.

"Because he is one of mine."

Someone had once asked how Farra had managed to lure the reclusive engineering genius that was Tak Mashido from his comfortable, easy retirement. They had not answered in words, but there had been a glance from Farra in his direction that not many had caught. And even then, they hadn't understood the gravity of it.

Tak had been living after Noisy Boy's defeat in a posh, up-scale apartment, unlisted. He didn't know what he would find behind his door when he opened it on a gray Saturday afternoon, but it definitely wasn't Farra Lemkova.

Dressed in a steel gray mini dress that hugged the curve of her hips and brought attention to her chest with a square cutout, Farra looked like the eye of a hurricane; calm, composed, but aglow with unseen energy. Against the white background of his doorway, her caramel skin glowed, and her sleek ponytail didn't stir in the light, rain-laden breeze.

While he stared at her, unaware what her purpose was, she walked in on black leather wedges and gave him a closed-lip smile. "Mr. Mashido, I presume," she said in delicately accented English. He easily placed her accent as Russian, raising his confusion even more, although he kept his face neutral.

"I represent the Lemkova Corporation. We wish to purchase your services for our robot boxing branch."

Ah. The Lemkovas. Tak felt his hands move into fists, but he hid them in the pockets of his jacket. Luckily they had sent a woman instead of a man, otherwise the robot designer would not have thought twice about hitting him. Instead all could do was growl "Get out."

The Lemkovas had burst from the Russian underground with Rubicon, a boxing bot like nothing American soil had seen in years. Strong, fast, with all-new alloys that left Tak's ruling creation at the time, Noisy Boy, an obsolete piece of scrap that Tak had barely been able to sell for a foreign tour before taking his winnings and virtually disappearing.

The spokeswoman didn't leave. She leaned against one of the sleek leather couches in the living room and gave him a proud look from underneath her thick black eyelashes. "We at the Lemkova Corporation understand that you are a very sought-after engineer and designer, and are willing to offer more than our competition."

There was no competition. Everyone had been frightened to try and bring him back into the game of robot boxing. On one hand, his endorsement would bring in millions, even if the robot sparked dead in the ring. On the other, if the robot succeeded in true Tak Mashido style, there was no one else active in the World Robot Boxing League that could make a bot that could stand against him. They wanted him, but they did not want his bots. But Tak did not even hint at this. He simply stood by the open door and glared.

"They offer you money and fame for your robot designs, but only at the guarantee that they will improve upon past mistakes. Take from your previous victories. As head designer for the Lemkova Robot Boxing Corporation, we would not ask you for this. We would ask you for something new. Something… unique." Her voice purred.

Damn. She had him.

In retirement, that was what Tak hated the most. The modern reviews about the newer bots that had emerged in his absence. "Bringing us back to Noisy Boy," "Like a new-age Alloy," again and again he was the basis for what was right in a bot—or what was wrong. This anonymous woman was offering him a chance to shatter these conceptions of his work, give him a new face, a new identity. Not as the failed designer of Noisy Boy, not the foreigner with Alloy and Gamma at his heels, but a new man. Someone who could once again shock the world by creating things that had never been seen.

She read his silence correctly and stood, making her way to the door. "Should you come to agree with me," she said. He half expected the sultry woman to pull the business card from her cleavage, but instead she lifted up a small purse that he hadn't noticed before. The card she gave him simply read 'Lemkova' with a number to call.

She tilted her chin down, gave him a final closed-lip smile and drifted out his door.

With conviction, Tak took the card into his office. He had once made the mistake of throwing away the future in an attempt to conform. But now… now he would shock the world again.

Note: According to the World Robot Boxing League website, Tak Mashido made Noisy Boy, and the Lemkovas made Rubicon, who took the belt from him in 2016. Later he ended up working for them. The robots Alloy and Gamma were mentioned as having come from the Koma Club, where robot boxing started. Alloy has no known maker, so I gave him to Tak, but Gamma was designed by Raiden, co-owner and co-founder of the Koma Club.

When Farra yells at Tak in Russian, she is calling him an unlucky bet. Because really, I couldn't make her curse at him and it seemed a bit fitting with the subject of robot boxing slowly taking over her life. EDIT: After re-watching the movie today, I altered Farra's dialogue in Russian so that she calls Tak a bad bet, a la Finn to Charlie. It was too good of an inside joke to pass up.

Review, please. Chapter 2 coming soon.