Hitting the Books

Even though she was almost as new as it was possible to get hereabouts, Alicia was still one of AFW’s wrestlers and – as such – she rated a locker room all to herself. Well, kind of, because ‘room’ was probably being a bit generous. ‘Closet’ was a bit more like it, certainly compared to the bigger names in the promotion. She didn’t mind, really. It was her space, even if there wasn’t very much of it. There was a locker with enough space for her gear and her bag, a bench to sit on and a shower. That was about all she needed; certainly she was used to worse, having been used to sharing a single locker room with all the other girls doing MMA or kickboxing.

She’d actually been kind of surprised to get one though she supposed it made sense. Not that there was much to make it hers either aside from her wrestling gear, just a couple of old posters and a stack of books on Roman history tucked into the open locker. It was clean and, small or not, it was hers.

Dressed in an old but comfy UCL sweatshirt and short-shorts, the redhead herself was perched on the bench, her purple eyes intently focused on the match currently unfolding on her laptop’s screen. A notebook sat open to one side, a pen twirling unconsciously between her fingers. Unlike her history research, she didn’t actually need to take notes on this but it was a habit she’d got into and never quite managed to shake. It was easier if she had something to go back to, although part of her suspected she’d happily rewatch more than one of the matches she’d been binge-watching for research purposes.

Though she’d gone into her fight with Valley thinking she’d be able to get away with the skills she had, that spar had proved her to be pretty much wrong. There were skills she needed to prosper here and she’d have to learn them the hard way. That meant training but it also meant time watching matches so she could see them used in proper matches by experts. That wasn’t to say she wanted to transform herself into a submission wizard or a high flying type or whatever, but Alicia needed to understand how those moves could be used against her and how to counter.

Throws too, definitely throws – she knew some, but could stand to improve.

And just the way people used the ring itself, the ropes, the turnbuckles. It might not be as much fun as getting in a ring and throwing down with someone but she’d been enjoying it a lot more than she’d thought she would.

Having started off with a couple of Valley’s matches – planning to ask the blonde about them sometime – she’d since moved on to a selection of others featuring wrestlers she’d never met. Not that it bothered her.

Currently, she was on her second viewing of Cecilia Northman versus Misaki Toyoda and it was distinctly fascinating for more reasons than one. She could take or leave the posturing before things kicked off. Bit of a waste of time in her mind, she always preferred to let her moves do her talking for her. Boasting about it… Eh. No thanks. Maybe it was what the fans wanted to see but she could care less what the fans wanted. She was there for her own reasons, not to be their favourite.

But once they stopped talking and started fighting? Impressive stuff. Alicia might be new to the whole thing but the rapid exchange of whichever suplex variant the two women were using was… pretty wow. Neither Misaki nor Cecilia really used anything resembling her own style but she was certainly getting an idea of what she might face if she ended up against someone with a similar gimmick in the ring.

And Cecilia Northman was just a little fascinating to watch. Big, powerful and clearly knew exactly what she was doing – and seemed to enjoy it as well. She could relate.

”Wouldn’t mind meeting you sometime,” She observed to the screen, watching the match playing towards its inevitable conclusion. Cecilia had Misaki in one of her finishers – Alicia flicked back a page in her notebook, consulting the notes she’d scribbled.

”The Järngreiper, that’s right.”

The smaller brunette went crashing down with a ring-shaking impact and Northman went for a distinctly dominant pin – clearly, Misaki was basically out of it and going nowhere. That said, while Alicia didn’t do pins as a rule, she was definitely doing it that way if she ever needed to pin someone.

Were pin-only matches a thing here? Well, so long as they weren’t a regular thing…

Lost in her research, the big redhead hadn’t realised that the door to her locker room wasn’t as shut as perhaps it could be.

Dressed in tight fitting black lycra shorts and a red tank top, black and red running shoes with a used towel slung over her left shoulder and the strap of her duffel bag over her right shoulder, the blond long hair tied into a long pony tail as the sweat covered body of the voluptuous and well toned Cecilia Northman walked down the hallway. Having just finished a long workout session here in the AFW complex, she was making her way towards her locker room, looking around a bit from left and right as she walked past locker room after locker room.

All she needed now was a hot shower, then perhaps go off and grab a bite to eat maybe ? She had just finished a very good workout and was planning to enjoy herself for the rest of the day, or well...maybe do something fun for a short while and then go back to training. She kinda of needed to keep herself in shape with the way that everything was unfolding for her here.

As she walked down the hallways though, someone calling out something very familiar to the blond beauty caught her attention. The name of her finisher ? What ? That was odd, the Swede looked around a bit as she heard the noise of a crowd ? But not a real crowd, like a crowd that sounded as if they came out of speakers ? The blond beauty stepped out up towards the source of the sound, a half opened door was the cause...Cecilia would poke in and look on at the woman who sat there looking at the laptop screen.

Cecilia would knock hard on the now open door as she'd basically follow it up by barging in right next to the girl and looking over her shoulder onto the lap top. Letting out a low whistle as she would see her match against Misaki having just finished on the screen. " Haha, that was a pretty fun match. Ending Misaki with Järngreiper was super fun." Cecilia spoke out as she'd then look on at the girl, her sweaty and beautiful frame rather close to the girl as her head was perched over her shoulder.

Absorbed as she’d been in watching the final moments of the match play out on screen, Alicia hadn’t heard the knock with anything like enough time to do anything about it. Sat with her back to the door, all the redhead managed to do was look up as the sound registered with her before she was suddenly very conscious that there was a woman looking right over her shoulder. Fortunately, she didn’t jump – given the way they were positioned, that would have slammed her shoulder right into her visitor’s jaw. Not the best way to welcome even an uninvited guest, definitely not the best way to meet one of her coworkers.

Twisting as best she could, she found herself faced (actually, practically nose to nose) with the red-eyed blonde she’d just been watching dominate on the mats – as if her comment about how much fun she’d been having hadn’t given that away already. Not to mention definitely pushed her up a few points in Alicia’s esteem. She’d been pretty sure, watching how Cecilia fought, that she’d been having an absolute blast competing with Misaki but having it confirmed just cemented her opinion.

”You totally ended her,” The redhead agreed with a grin, ”Could probably have got a ten count out of that if you wanted. Not my style, but it looked like you got a real kick out of it.”

She paused for a moment. ”Great pin.”

A bit pointless but a measure of just how devastating the combination of the move and the big blonde’s obvious power could be. It was pretty easy to see why she’d got enough of a reputation that even a newbie like Alicia had picked up on it from poking around the internet to learn about the women whose matches she was watching.

Scooting along the bench a little so there was some space between them, she immediately noticed that the other woman had been working out from the sweat covering her impressive form. Utterly unphased by it, the muscular kickboxer extended a hand towards the stunning Valkyrie.

”Alicia. It’s an honour to meet you.”

Anyone who could fight like that was someone she wanted to know. And, well, she had just been thinking that she wanted to meet Cecilia – why look a gift horse in the mouth?

Cecilia nodded her head as she heard the rather excited and happy tone of the grinning redhead, it seemed as if she enjoyed seeing the finish of Cecilia match, though hearing that a knock-out victory or well, pin by knocking Misaki out with her finisher was not the style of this spunky young girl caused Cecilia to nod her head...so submissions then ? she thought to herself as she would start to straighten up as she watched the pin of the match...

" Thanks, I try." Cecilia answered with a cocky grin as she would place her hands on her hips, pushing out her mighty chest a bit as she let out a light huff of air. Cecilia didn't think it was very strange for the redhead to watch her matches...she was one of the more famous and accomplished wrestler in AFW, lauded for her skill and power.

Watching the girl scoot away a bit on the bench to provide Cecilia with enough room to sit the blond would step over the bench and crash down with her rear onto the bench. Turning her head to the girl she'd offer her right hand over to Alicia and offer a handshake to the woman. " Cecilia." She answered simply and with a confident tone of voice.

As far as Alicia was concerned, it seemed like Cecilia had succeeded in that match at least and, judging by her attitude, probably didn’t have to try that hard in a lot of her matches. That wasn’t how she liked to play it personally, but she could still respect the skill that went into being able to pull it off. Skill which Cecilia definitely seemed to have, judging by the match she’d just watched. And if she clearly knew it…

Well, like she’d talked about with Kyoko – if you’d got it, flaunt it.

Now that the two were sat side by side, it was clear to Alicia that there wasn’t much difference between them in height or size, Cecilia being the taller but not by much. The blonde was bustier but, equally, Alicia was hardly flat chested herself.

On a professional level, she was way more curious about those thick, powerful thighs, hence her glance down at Cecilia’s lower body. Hey, she was a kick and scissor specialist – she couldn’t help being nosy about how the Valkyrie’s compared to hers.

”Doing research,” She explained, dragging her eyes back up to nod at the laptop before flourishing her book of notes, ”A lot of this ring stuff is new to me, and I want to get my head around it before my first proper match.”

Alicia shrugged. ”Hence pins not being my style. I’m more a knockout kind of girl. Well, submissions are good too but knockouts are more fun.”

Cecilia would raise an eyebrow as she caught those not so subtle glimpses of the redheaded girl checking her out, watching that strong and at the moment sweaty frame of Cecilia's, her strong glistening muscles being on display for the lovely newcomer.

When she started to hear what the girl was up to though, the blond pulled her left hand back and ran it through her own long blond hair a bit, pushing a bit of hair back behind her ear and letting out a light sight. Nodding her head a bit before she'd let out a light chuckle. " hah, I see I see. Well you picked a good person to look into this stuff about. Though instead of just watching videos and stuff, how about you just like ask me stuff ? I'm here and all." Cecilia let out a light chuckle after her words, she'd shrug her shoulders a little.

Since she was already here and didn't have much to do today she figured maybe she could give this girl some pointers, it seemed only fair enough that she did, she'd taken the time out of her day to watch the blonds matches to learn about all this stuff after all.

Well, Cecilia had a great point there. Asking questions would definitely be more useful and, well, given the blonde clearly knew her way around a ring... She’d have to be an idiot not to try and take advantage of this opportunity.

Alicia rocked back and forth in thought for a moment. Coming up with questions off the top of her head had never been her strong suit – it was just as well she had ages to come up with a title for her thesis, ‘cause it’d suck otherwise. It’d be terrible.

”Well, I guess my problem is that I’m used to kickboxing and some MMA, plus a lot of fights at school. So, if I get the chance, I can kick someone’s head clean off and my scissor technique is killer, plus I’ve got a solid striking game.”

Her eyes rested on Cecilia’s, curious to see her reaction if she had one.

”But I’m not used to the whole rope-break thing, I’ve got no idea how to deal with all the crazy flipping off the turnbuckles and I’m not exactly great at things like suplexes or whatever. Or some of the weird submission stuff. So that’s what I’m trying to wrap my head around.”

The kickboxer nodded at the laptop again.

”So the binge watching, though that’s mostly because I can’t spar all the time and training isn’t going to solve this problem. If you’ve got any advice, I’ll take it - thanks, I really appreciate this.”

Cecilia raised an eyebrow at the girl's boasting words, part of her could see it as a possibility, though she wondered how well this girl would fare against some of the more experienced girls of AFW like herself, seeing as most people here could take some insane amounts of beating and dish out even more. Cecilia would let out a curious huff as she listened on to what Alicia was saying.

She did seem to have some genuine concerns about how different this was from normal MMA, and while she would probably have been a top contender in MMA, Alicia seemed to not be that used to wrestling. The blond would let out another huff of air, shrugging her shoulders a bit as she'd finally place her hands upon her own thighs and push herself up to a stand.

" There are three ways to solve your problems. Fight with your own style as best you can and slowly adapt things into it. Go out of your way to change it from the start and build up a new style....or I could show you the ropes I guess ? I mean I've got a lot of downtime now...so I could help show you how things are done, some basic training and instructions...sparring and such to help you get used to it all." The blond beauty spoke out as she'd place her hands on her hips, looking on at Alicia's reaction to see how she'd feel about this little proposal.

Alicia pursed her lips in thought, flicking a glance up at Cecilia before glancing back at her laptop and then back up at the blonde. Of the three options the veteran was outlining, she’d been essentially planning on the first – sticking to what she knew and building on it as she went along. It seemed the best, simplest solution when she had to deal with a whole lot of new information being dropped on her in rapid succession. Not to mention the way that seemed most likely to be the most fun.

Even if she was willing to put the hours in to build herself a completely new style, she’d be fighting against literally years of ingrained instincts. And she knew the way she fought at the moment worked for her. She’d not done that badly in her brief bout with Valley and, while she’d lost because she hadn’t had an answer to the stuff the blonde threw at her, Alicia thought that was a question of plugging gaps rather than needing to start from scratch. Or she hoped that was the case. She really didn’t like the idea of going all the way back to the basics.

While she didn’t mind learning at all, that wasn’t why she’d come to Friction.

Besides, while it wasn’t the same, she’d done other fight sports long enough to know that some stuff couldn’t be taught – it had to be beaten into you until it was instinct.

That still left the offer she’d just had thrown at her, which had caught her somewhat on the hop hence her taking a moment to think it through. Cecilia was clearly a veteran wrestler, someone who knew her way around a ring, and she could definitely teach her some useful stuff. Not to mention that the two women were of similar height and build so it’d be easy to apply. Plus it was actually a pretty generous offer.

She supposed she was just a bit curious what Cecilia got out of this. But, well, did it matter?

Mind made up, she stood with a grin and a nod, one hand closing the laptop before resting both on her own hips.

”Sounds like a blast. I’m in. And thanks a lot, by the way. I really appreciate this.”

Cecilia was usually not a person for any long plans of schemes.. and that wasn't the case now either. The blond beauty has no reason to try and do anything like that, she was a person who lived free and lived in the moment! The only times she ever planned anything was if she was going to settle a score which was so seldom that it happened.

Now that she saw Alica stand up like that and close the laptop, with both tall powerful looking women standing face to face with one another the mighty Swede would nod towards the redhead and give a wide grin as she'd offer her a handshake. " Well then, welcome on board to being trained by Cecilia Northman." The blond beauty would let out with a wide grin a kinda happy tone in her voice. If she was gonna teach Alica...she might as well do it right, and Alicia wasn't the first one who had wanted to be trained by the blond beauty...probably wouldn't be the last.