Pentiti, scellerato! - Cassie and Serona (Completed)

[ [url=http://afwrpg.informe.com/forum/the-ring-f8/blossom-vs-serona-if-at-first-you-don-t-succeed-t10091.html:ojvd6gu9]Plot Background: Blossom vs. Serona[/url:ojvd6gu9] ]

After the match contra Blossom, some of the medical staff on-site had given Ser the once-over, fearing a concussion. Her vision, her hearing, sensation, reflex--it was all fine. The headache stayed with her, but she wasn't dumping money on an MRI for that. They didn't talk much during the examinations, though, and none after they were done. The girls backstage didn't have much to say either. It was usual enough, Ser understood, for a wrestler to get treated to a few drinks by the gang after her debut match, but she was happy to skip over that. She went home, fell on her bed, and woke up cold as soon as she closed her eyes. The sun poured in her apartment window, lighting on a pile of crosswords and sudoku on her desk drawer. She lay in her bedsheets for a while longer.

Well, they'd certainly remember her.

At the gym, Serona huffed while she lay in push-up position over two thick, coal-black dumbbells. It wasn't quite the woman of the match: she was similar, but plainer. Outside the ring, she left the leather and the zebra-pattern behind and stuck to the simple boots, red skirt and red top.

She lifted one of the weights, twisted around, held it straight up in the air, and returned to position. It wasn't, she realized, the best routine. Upper body strength was important to maintain, but it was her technique that was lacking. She couldn't strike with any kind of technical competence; her overconfidence in aerial, acrobatic maneuvers had just about killed her the other night.

But how was she supposed to train something like that? Probably by finding someone at the AFW with the necessary skills and the willingness to help her out. Yeah, she'd want to find someone like that in striking, at least. Eventually.

Up--lift--hold--down, slow and controlled. Breathe.

On the plus side, at least this helped her relax.

Cassie recognized the girl, even from behind, dressed down and face down in her pushup position, the moment she laid eyes on her. How could she not?

She had seen the match. She had seen Blossom before that, and while she wasn't particularly good she seemed like a nice person. Cassie always appreciated seeing people in the ring who just wanted to compete. The way the match ended, though, turned her stomach. In her lifetime of involvement in submission grappling, she'd seen injuries happen, bones break, but few as horrifying as that. The way she screamed, the way she writhed in agony, the way no one could just take it away and comfort her, stayed in her mind. So did the way her opponent seemed to not care at all. If anything, she was proud.

Serona was her name. Cassie looked her up on the AFW website. She was brand new. The way she dressed actually reminded her a little of Taylor, but there was nothing redeeming about her. Thoughts of meeting her in the ring raced through Cassie's mind all night.

Seeing the girl now, in the gym, going about her business, made her pause. Cassie was barefoot, with workout shorts and a t-shirt with a big yellow ducky on the front and a water bottle in her hand. She stood perfectly still, like an animal who had just spotted a potential predator, or potential prey, until someone tapped her on the shoulder to get her to move out of the way.

She took a step so that she was no longer blocking the doorway. Then she took another, this time toward the brunette. She picked up speed, emboldened by each step, until she was standing right next to her.

"Hi," she said, clutching her water bottle tightly. "...Are you new?"

lift--hold...

"Hi...Are you new?"

--slow--SLOW--And controlled... Breathe.

Serona rolled over without getting up--and smiled like she was back in it with Blossom when she saw the duck. There had to be a persona to go with something that silly--some overcute bit of fluff like Sarah Cottontail or Betty Snookums. Maybe she brought beanie babies or--Hell, why not--rubber duckies ringside with her for the moral support.

...But she was the first person to show anything approaching interest in Ser since the match; deep down, that was something that made her feel almost soft for duck-girl. Well, that, and the way she seemed nervous enough to swallow her tongue, clutching her bottle at her chest.

"Relax, doll, you're fine. In fact, I'm glad you came by. Yeah, I'm new--Serona Oni's the name." Ser stood and stretched out her arms behind her neck, her eyes never quite reaching Cassie's. "And you? Been here a while, ah... 'duckie,' is it?"

"Cassie," she corrected. She stood in perfect contrast to the brunette, tense while she was relaxed, diminutive while she was... ridiculously tall. Cassie had to crane her neck to look her in the eye, but while Serona never quite made eye contact, Cassie never dropped it.

"I was just wondering..." She said. "I need a training partner, and I was wondering if you'd like to work out with me? I was going to work on some submissions." She realized that she was very conspicuously unsmiling, and attempted to compensate. She pushed the corners of her mouth upward in something like a smile, but the rest of her face remained exactly as it was.

You didn't answer my question, Duckie...

"You know, I just came into the market for sparring partners!" Serona put on her friendly face, with her arms behind her head and her face alight in laughing smile. "Shall we now? We should now."

"I don't mind working submissions--not at all. They're actually a kind of what you'd call specialty with me. Funny story, I did my training with some Brazillians in Austria, of all places, but they were still fuckin' Brazillian, yanno? But anyway, so I'm good with that--but what I'm really looking to do is to improve my striking game. Maybe if I help you out here, you could help me out there? ...By the by, darling, what about your style? Where'd you train?"

And she still didn't make eye-contact--but she was watching, now. She scanned this Cassie over out of the corner of her eye while she talked, and they meandered ring-side, and she went on talking and watching. It wasn't so much that there was something off about Cassie; her discomfort was more on the level of the Spartan thief who let the fox eat out his stomach, except she didn't hide it so well. Ser started to suspect maybe this was someone with a point to prove. Maybe she was a fellow newbie looking to earn her chops by springing domination on the lowest girl on the totem pole.

(Or maybe she was one of Blossom's bosom buddies looking to break Ser's leg. She was the right height for it.)

Anyway, if Cassie had anything like that brewing, she was going to find an enemy more than willing to go deep in ladylike retaliation.

"Okay. Thanks."

Cassie awkwardly padded alongside her new friend to an open area on the wrestling mats. "Oh, I train with..." Don't mention the family jiujitsu school. Don't mention Brazilians. Or Russians. Especially not Cassie's superb record in amateur competition. Or her AFW friends-in-high-places-slash-training-partners. Maybe don't say anything at all. "Um... I'm from Canada. Eh?" She tried to laugh. "Heh..."

She went through a quick stretching routine to warm up her hips and limber up her back and shoulders, and then sat cross legged on the mat to wait for Serona. "I like submissions, and kickboxing..." That was true. "And I really like the high flying stuff I've seen, but I can't really do too much of it." That was true too.

She frowned. Even if she wasn't actually telling lies, she was still avoiding the truth and that was just as bad. Maybe worse, somehow. Maybe Serona needed to be taught a lesson, but that didn't mean that Cassie could just do whatever she wanted. Even if she was pretty angry.

"I'm really good at grappling," she stated as a matter of fact, if only to make amends with herself. "And... you're really tall."

"Yup. Really ruined my prom. But hey, it's a boon ringside, and I wouldn't trade that for much. I've been waiting a long time to be here."

And now you won't tell me where you did your training. Darling! Babydoll. Who do you think you're fooling?

Once Serona was in the ring, she took a moment to lean against the turnbuckle. Her arms crossed, she met Cassie's eyes for the first time. Oh, maybe she should go ahead and call her out.

Now we both know what's up here, miss...

There wouldn't be any shame in it, and maybe she'd get a real sparring partner, or at least avoid wasting time pretending to be civil.

So why don't we just say what's going on and treat this match like what it is?

...But then again, maybe Serona was in the mood for some games.

She assumed her guard and stepped into the middle of the ring.

"Whenever you're ready, hun."

Prom?

"Oh, I hardly trained in pro wrestling at all before I came here. It's actually pretty easy to get into AFW, it's just hard to stay..."

She thought about Dark Angel, Talia, and how by beating her Cassie had effectively shredded her Friction contract. Keeping your job wasn't just about working hard and winning. Sometimes it was about doing the right thing, because otherwise someone might show up and set you straight. And she felt bad about ending Talia's career, sort of, but she also knew that she was much better off without Friction. Maybe she could be happy now.

"Um, okay... So since you're so good at this stuff why don't we see who can get the first takedown? I bet I'll be hard for you to get down, since I'm so short." She stood almost straight up and paced up to Serona, almost like she wasn't sure how to prepare herself or didn't think she had to.

As Serona would be finding out very soon, there was a lot Cassie could do better than her. She could takedown, grapple, and kick. She could keep contracts and break them, make friends and dispose of enemies—and probably she even handled her inner demons with more vivre and ran her crosswords faster. But she was no where near Serona's level in the cloak-and-dagger contest, in wrestling or in life. All the ducky's helpless-lil-ol'-me ploy did was to convince Ser of one thing: Cass probably knew what she was doing.

So Ser descended on Cassie, aiming to grab one of her legs and bring her to the ground--standard stuff. Of course if her hunch on Cass was right, standard stuff wasn't about to cut it. Maybe she'd miss, maybe they'd grapple. Maybe Cassie'd even get her into a hold (though that was unlikely, of course).

But she had an inkling of how she might like to respond to just about any trick Cass would pull out.

Cassie easily went down without a fuss on Serona's first attempt. By force of habit, she immediately got her legs around the taller girl's waist to establish a loose guard, and wrapped an arm behind her head and the other under her shoulder to keep her upper body down low. She was going to let the girl work, she wanted to see what she really had, but she wasn't just going to give her all the space in the world to work with.

"Sooo, are you settling in okay?" She said, just to make small talk. Her mouth moved but her mind was clear and focused on the game. "Japan can be pretty tough to get used to. Friction can be bad, too..."