Kicking Queens

Once Jesse said she was ready, Gabbie stepped to the mats and then bowed. She wasn't going to need a ring for what they would be doing. Once she bowed, she stepped forward and grabbed her hands against Jesse's hips. Her thumbs traced along Jesse's abdominal muscles and she carefully scrutinized the them with her eyes as she pressed her thumbs against them.

"You know how devastating a kick to the head can be but any fool that throws a kick isn't likely to knock you out. Alicia knows how and you do too, or should." She said as she removed her hands and patted Jesse's stomach. "This is the more important thing to protect and strengthen. No amount of training is going to strengthen your jaw but we can definitely do something about this."

Gabbie stepped back, leaned in and put her arms around Jesse's neck. "Brace yourself." She then drove her knee up as hard as she could into Jesse's gut with only the briefest word of warning.

When Gabbie bowed, Jesse bowed right back then awaited further instruction. Only a loose t-shirt and baggy shorts covering her, and she blinked in mild confusion as the hands of her new mentor started running over her hips and abs. She didn’t take Gabbie to be someone to cop a feel, though the thought did make her blush ever so slightly for the briefest of moments.

Gabbie’s words brought Jesse right back and her blush faded as quickly as it had appeared, now that she knew the smaller girl was merely observing her muscles before they’d work on strengthening them. She nodded to Gabbie, then when the girl put her arms around Jesse’s neck, she brought up her arms as she always would in this sort of clinch...or at least, she started to, but Gabbie’s knee hammered right into her stomach before she’d even finished getting into position!

“Ugh!!” Jesse gasped at the impact. She was fortunate Gabbie was several inches smaller and about 40 lbs lighter than Alicia had been. Still, it hurt like a bitch and blasted a considerable amount of wind out of Jesse. But she hang in there and braced herself for more.

Gabbie held firmly onto Jesse's neck and kept the clinch on. "You've got to be able to take more than one knee! If your core is tight, then you can have the luxury of working on technique! The first lesson is, if you're not strong enough to survive, you die!"

Gabbie snorted as their cheeks mashed together. Her blush was deep, but she was in her element. The contact was all part of teaching the older Rogers girl. "Everyone's got heart, but a good fighter doesn't care about your heart. A good fighter can make your body give in even if your mind isn't ready to. Do you understand that much at least?"

Gabbie shoved Jesse away and snapped a kick at the girl's head that she stopped just before it made hard contact, resting her foot at the base of Jesse's neck. "I don't need to be as big or as strong as Alicia. I just dropped you." Gabbie said with confidence. She retracted her foot and straightened up. "To prevent the kick, you need to be able to handle the knee, understand? If you can withstand the knee, you can be focused enough to dodge, block or counter the kick."

A low growl rumbled through Jesse’s lips. She wanted to protest that she wasn’t ready, but in her mind she knew such an argument was invalid. Once you step into the ring - or on the mats in this case, you always have to be ready. No excuses. Besides, Gabbie told her to brace herself. Jesse had just been too slow on the uptake.

Jesse tightened up and braced herself, expecting another knee to follow Gabbie’s words. But instead she was shoved back, blinked, and suddenly the girl’s foot was resting right by her neck. She grunted in frustration at herself, but held her temper and her tongue.

“I got it,” she said with a small nod, taking a huffing breath while she could. But Jesse remained focused and determined. She’d been slow in getting herself in gear, but that didn’t discourage her. As they say, if at first you don’t succeed...

“Lets go again,” Jesse said, feeling ready to give it another try.

Gabbie nodded and backed away. She looked over Jesse and then bowed again and put her fists up. "Why don't you come at me?" She said. "See if you can get a knee strike and then see if you can follow up. You're bigger than me and weigh more, so you have the advantage the same way Alicia did. All I have is my speed and technique, so the spar should end the same way your match did, right?"

Gabbie began to bounce lightly on her heels and motioned for Jesse to come at her with a tight guard.

Jesse bowed back again and got ready for another clinch with Gabbie. But instead, the rules were switched up, and now Jesse was on offense instead of defense. Despite the comparison being made, she was certainly not Alicia Wells - the size difference was about the only similarity here. Nonetheless, there were instructions to follow and important lessons to learn from them.

Nodding, Jesse put her fists up and started to bounce on the balls of her feet and observed Gabbie’s guard to check for holes in her defense. If there were any they weren’t obvious. And considering she’d been told specifically to go for a knee strike, it would be hard to avoid being predictable. But she had to try.

She moved in toward Gabbie, shifting her upper body slightly to try to keep the girl guessing as to where and when she’d attack. Then abruptly Jesse take a lunging step in and quickly try to throw her left knee up into Gabbie’s stomach, intending to follow it by throwing a right cross at her face right after.

Gabbie bounced on her heels as Jesse came at her. She was ready. She had been in this scenario hundreds of times and when Jesse came at her, the reaction of the young Nak Muay was undeniable. She didn't attack, letting Jesse show Gabbie what she had and when the knee came, the Canadian braced herself.

Her body turned but as the knee crashed into her, her mouth opened and she hissed, grunting in pain and feelign her eyes bulge. She could definitely feel the power behind the girl and the weight disadvantage she was at.

However, when she saw the follow up, Gabbie let the natural course of her body continue. She grabbed At Jesse's lower back, just at her buut and pressed her face against Jesse, nearly giving herself a face full of the girl's breasts. With a hot breath, she felt Jesse's arm thud against her head and then slid her hands up Jesse's back and around her neck. She then drove her knee up and around Jesse's leg and buried it into the older girl's side and shoved, backing away in one fluid motion.

Her mouth was open and she was panting, but she lifted her leg and aimed another kick at Jesse's face, only this time she wasn't going to stop and avoid outright kicking the cowgirl. If Jesse couldn't avoid it, she'd just have to eat it.

Jesse felt her knee strike against Gabbie with a pretty strong impact, though the girl had turned to minimize it somewhat. A good start, and her fist flew immediately after to follow it up. That, however, didn’t go quite as smoothly. Gabbie’s hands latched onto her toned rear and the girl’s face pushed against her breasts - not a terrible feeling, though now wasn’t an appropriate time to dwell on that.

Her arm pushed against Gabbie’s head, but her punch had missed. As a result, she felt her new mentor’s knee bury itself into her side. “Ngh!” Jesse grunted, tensing up as Gabbie shoved her. But she remembered what happened the last time Gabbie gave her a knee in the gut, and this time readied herself for it.

Sure enough, Gabbie’s foot came flying in. Jesse took a quick step back, just barely in time to avoid getting blasted in the face with the kick.

Gabbie spun around after her kick whiffed. She hopped backwards and put her fists up, looking past her guard at Jesse. "I think there's some hope." Gabbie said without a bit of condescension in her tone. "At least, you can learn." Gabbie then lowered her guard and looked at her "kouhai."

"So, what do you want?" Gabbie asked. "I can teach you all about kickboxing and boxing. I can show you how to clinch and how to keep what happened to you from happening again, but we're wrestlers, as much as I hate to admit it, so, what do you want?" She questioned further. "Did you come here to help out your sister or did you want to continue your own career? Even if I train your body, I can't train your head, you know." Maybe that's why she lost to Alica in the way she did? She honestly had no clue about Jesse or why she was here outside of the fact that she had familial obligations.

A compliment. Well, that was nice. Especially considering Gabbie seemed to be the type to hand them out almost as rarely as Jesse did herself. And when Gabbie lowered her guard, so did she.

Then came a very important question, one Jesse needed a moment to think about. Had it been asked before this impromptu spar had started, the answer would’ve been quick and easy: that she was just here to help her family. Now, her mind was thinking a bit differently. She’d fought hard in her debut, but had still been decisively defeated. Even if she wasn’t exactly the greatest superstar recruit AFW had ever signed, Jesse Rogers was still a proud fighter. And she damn sure didn’t want that pride to be hurt because she couldn’t handle the competition here.

“I do want to help my family,” she began. “But I also want to be the best I can be. I don’t expect you, or anyone else here for that matter to suddenly turn me into a perfect fighting machine. But I’ll gladly take any help you can give. And I’ll work hard to make sure it pays off.”