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The Syndicate was the weirdest organization Niki had ever been a part of. She didn’t have to do anything. There were no orders, there was no chain of command, there wasn’t anything that resembled any sort of thing she had been in. That was the whole point of the Syndicate, but it still was a shock.
When she burned the l’mantree she thought she was exiling herself. She thought that she would have to fend for herself and run from people seeking revenge. Instead Technoblade and Philza welcomed her with open arms and so did Ranboo when he joined.
They gave her protection, they gave her a home, they gave her friendship. They didn’t ask for anything in return. Which is why Niki was hesitating outside of Technoblade’s house.
She needed to know how to protect herself better. She couldn’t rely on the Syndicate’s protection, mainly the threat of having Technoblade on her side, forever. If she was going to learn to fight, who better to learn from then the Blood God himself. Well it was him or Phil because no one else would train her and Ranboo could probably use a few lessons himself.
Either way Technoblade was the best option to learn from, but she had to ask first. He had given her so much without anything in return, she felt bad asking for more.
Before she could knock the door swung open. Technoblade stood in front of her, “Are you going to stand out in the cold forever?”
Niki shrugged, “I was just thinking”
“Well come do your thinking inside, where you won’t get hypothermia.” They went inside and Techno sat on one of the couches, picking up a well worn book. “Phil’s gonna be stopping by later, if you need to talk to him.”
“Actually I was hoping to talk to you about something,” Technoblade didn’t say anything, but he put his book back down, so Niki thought she had his attention. “Will you train me to fight?” She blurted out.
“Is that what you were standing outside so long for?” When she nodded he continued to speak, “You’re a fine fighter as it is, but if you want more training, I’d be happy to. I should probably have Ranboo do some training but that’s irrelevant.”
“Thank you, I want to be able to protect myself more.”
“You don’t need to be able to protect yourself, we can protect you just fine.”
“I can’t rely on your protection forever.”
“True, you do realize you’re probably going to be fighting your friends?”
“I don’t have to kill them to be able to protect myself right?”
“You don’t,” Technoblade laughed lightly, “I don’t usually go the incapacitate route, the voices prefer killing, but it certainly is possible.”
“Then I’d like to learn.” Niki spoke with as much conviction as she could.
Technoblade nodded, “Come over tomorrow morning, and bring your gear.”
The next morning Niki walked over to Technoblades house in full gear. She never went anywhere without full armor, that was practically painting a target on your back. Technoblade was outside when she approached the house, swinging an axe side to side.
“Hello Technoblade!” She jogged over, and jumped back when his axe came swinging her way, stopping less than a foot away from her.
“Oh it’s you, you scared me, thought you were trying to kill me or something.” He lowered his axe.
“Would I try to kill you?”
“Nearly everyone on the continent wants me dead, it’s not a bad assumption to have.”
Niki laughed, “Same I think, we have a lot of enemies here don’t we.”
“I think that if we all combine we can cover everyone as an enemy. But that’s what you’re here for, to hopefully survive any assassination attempts and the potential war we might have started.”
“That's the plan, so what are we doing now?”
“I’m going to teach you sword fighting first, it's a bit easier to learn than the axe. Can I see your sword?” When she handed her sword over he asked, “Did you make this yourself?”
“Yeah, upgrading it to netherite was a pain though.”
Technoblade handed her sword back, “Good, it’s always better to use a sword you made yourself. Same with your axe I assume?”
She pulled out her axe, “Yep, though it’s in better condition from less use.”
“Okay so first off your stance, in any situation you want to get into a good stance as fast as possible.” He showed her a series of stances, “Depending on what the situation is, how good your opponent is, and whether you’re going offensive or defensive, you want to get in one of these stances.”
Technoblade walked her through all the stances and explained when to use each one. One was specifically for being ambushed on three sides in an open area. There was a separate one for wooded areas. When she asked why there were so many he said, “Anything that gets you an edge over your enemy should be used, the right stance can be the difference between life and death.”
They spent the entire morning practicing her stance, which meant Technoblade trying to knock her down time after time. Until Phil yelled at them from his and Technoblade’s joint cabins, “Get in here and eat something before both of you starve to death.”
“You’re such a dad,” Technoblade said as they walked inside.
Phil gestured at them, “You have a mentee yourself, it's the first step to collecting children.”
“He’s only a few years older than me, you know.” She chimed in.
“I wasn’t referring to you as the children,” Phil explained, “I meant separate children, mentoring someone is the first step to starting the collection.”
“Phil, you need to stop referring to it as collecting children, it makes you sound crazy.” Technoblade said.
“Shut up and eat your food.”
Phil made really good food she discovered. There was a surprising amount of potatoes in the meal, but it was still really good.
After they finished eating, and another argument about how Phil shouldn’t say collecting children, they went back out to continue training.
“Before we start with striking, how far are you willing to go?” Technoblade asked.
“What do you mean?” She said.
“You said you don’t want to kill your friends right?” She nodded and he continued, “So how far are you willing to go? Like chopping off limbs? Or just enough for them to stop?”
“No chopping off limbs please, I don’t think that’s much better than killing them.”
“If you say so. The first thing I do is go for the neck, heart, vital organs, or spine, so if you do need to resort to killing, that's where to aim. But for incapacitating you want to aim for their legs or dominant arm.” He demonstrated a few swings, gently tapping her where she was supposed to aim for.
After she got a few swings down he mentioned, “If you go for their dominant arm, hope they can’t also fight with their other arm.”
She swung towards his knees, “Can you fight with both hands?”
“Of course I can,” He blocked her swing again, “It's a useful skill to learn, I can teach you once you have one hand down.”
She didn’t manage to hit him the entire day, but he said that she was improving. He also said, “If you can hit me on your first day I would need some practice myself.” So she thought she was doing pretty well.
She went to Technoblade’s almost every day. Sometimes they wouldn’t even train, just sit together and talk. He gave her a lot of advice, which ranged from actually good advice on moving villagers and farming, to kill anyone who gets in your way.
Phil never stopped teasing Technoblade on the start of his “collection” but Niki was proud to call Technoblade her mentor. She had learned a lot and he was a great mentor, and an even better friend.