The Kyoto Welcoming Committee

”I’d like to reiterate how dumb of an idea this is.”

Makoto sighed as she kneeled behind her bike, making some adjustments on the engine, her face blocked off and keeping Stone from seeing just how annoyed she was at the moment. ”And I’d like to reiterate how little of a fuck I give.”

The two of them had been having some variation of this argument on and off for the past day or so, ever since she’d told her and Devine what she planned to do in the Tension  parking lot. The last thing she wanted was another remix, but it didn’t seem like she was going to get that, today. She hadn’t been getting a lot of things she wanted lately.

The three Valkyries had been hanging around the Tension employee parking lot for about fifteen or so minutes now, hanging around in one of the darker, dirtier corners, the type that people tended to avoid...unless they were fairly new or fairly stupid.

Which was good, because that was precisely the sort of person they were after today, and the main reason she’d dragged her two best lieutenants down here on a rainy Saturday afternoon. There was business to be done. If only she could get Stone out of her typical bitchy mood.

”I just don’t see how this is a plan.” Stone leaned against her Harley, her hefty body making it sway. She threw a quick glance to Devine, looking for support, but she was too busy fiddling on her phone while she straddled her bike, not caring all that much about things either way. Typical. ”Some random guy-”

”Or girl.”  Devine was quick to throw that little bit in. At least she was paying some attention.

”-or girl shows up, and we beat them up, and then what?”

Makoto finally stood up enough to bring her arms over the seat of her bike and lean forward, slouching over with her chest while she stared Stone’s way. ”What do you mean ‘and then what’?” She waved the wrench her way. ”This is not a complicated deal. You’re making it complicated.”

Stone just groaned and threw her head back. ”I’m trying to make it sensical. Someone has to think beyond steps one and two.”

”I am. Shit.” Makoto sighed, a long, drawn out groan of a noise. ”We’re here to get respect, right? We’re here to make noise. We want that to happen, we’ve got to start setting examples. They won’t give us the matches we want, so we’re taking things into our own hands.” She stood up and swung her leg over the seat, sitting on her bike proper. ”We leave a fucker lying in a pool of blood, tag him, people know they can’t fuck with the Valkyries, and that’ll start giving us sway backstage.”

”Or it might give us the kind of enemies we don’t want.” Stone crossed her arms, giving her that judging, irritating look she put on sometimes. If Makoto didn’t know any better, she would’ve sworn it was an imitation the way her own mother used to look. ”It’s like my Grandpa used to say-”

”’Alicia, get my diapers?’”

Stone just acknowledged Devine’s second interruption with a middle finger. ”If you kick the beehive , you have to deal with whatever comes out. The honey and the stingers.”

"Where the fuck do I park in this place? Qu'est-ce qui c'est?"

Johnny Flash cursed as he leaned back in the 1972 Ford Club Wagon’s driver seat. The Flash Van cruised slowly through the parking lot like an alligator wading through the murky waters of a swamp, with a vibe that was totally malevolent and off-putting. The vehicle really needed it’s own description. It’s a typical shitty old van stripped in the back with a small mattress replacing the back seats. It had been a close thing to home for as long as he'd been wrestling. You could spray paint “Free Candy” on it’s side and it couldn’t possibly add to the creep factor.

The Flash Van:

The inside of the van is a memento to his travels and the inner cab is displayed with all sorts of pictures. Pictures of a fresh faced, younger, and relatively-unscarred Flashy. Pictures of his old wrestling school buddy Megan Richards and his little brother, Ricky Flash. Pictures of his old tag team partner, Vannah Love, and himself, smiling and mugging for the camera on a dusty polaroid. A framed picture of his wedding. Medical x-rays, also framed, crudely screwed into the walls with a drill.

Next to the mattress there’s a duffel bag, angled and disjointed, filled with all sorts of odds and ends, no doubt. The kind of implements that could be used for all forms of home and mobile defense. When home and mobile are ubiquitous, it pays to be prepared.

“I’m so fuckin’ late.”

AFW’s resident Crazy Cajun is a little late on his trip to the arena and the dorms and needed to get everything in tip-top order before his first match.

“Think this is the right place..”

Flashy’s eyes darted from one corner of his windshield to the other. There aren’t too many parking spaces left, the large roster not too accommodating to newcomers. It takes a moment, but he did indeed find a space big enough for his van. It’s next to a pair of  motorcycles, two riders leaned against their bikes, all female, looking quite dangerous. Like a pair of wolves. An ordinary man would stay in his car. Maybe he should wait for them to disperse.

Johnny Flash is not an ordinary man. The intimidation factor was nonexistent. If they’re wolves, he’s an alligator. The fact that they’re on the streets and not a ring means that they’re knee deep in water. What had he to fear but fear itself? He rolled down his window.

“Hey, Charlie's Hell's Angels! You two chicks know if I can park here? ”

”What the fuck is that?”

Makoto and Stone had been so into their little conversation that they’d stopped paying too much attention to the surrounding area, enough that Devine was the first one who spotted it. ‘It’ being the van from every 70s movie ever made, looking like the Mystery Machine without its paint job. It was the absolute last thing Makoto would ever expect to see in Kyoto at all, much less in the Tension parking lot, but there it was. Big, ugly, breaking all sorts of emission standards, looking like it might decide to fall apart at any moment.

As interesting as it was, the man who drove it was even more so. Makoto canted her head to the side as he rolled down the window and popped his head out. American, obviously, she could tell that from the hair alone. A guy, maybe in his early twenties from the look of it - too damn young to be driving that hunk of rust, for sure. She couldn’t see his body from where she stood, but he seemed a bit more built than the typical Tension man. A newbie, she’d bet, figuring there was no way a guy like this could’ve been in the company and stayed off his radar.

His accent was a puzzle, too, speaking in a weird way she’d never heard from Americans before, but that was nowhere near as batshit as what he had to say. He either had no idea who they were or he didn’t care, both of which were problems she knew how to rectify.

Makoto exchanged glances with Stone, smirked, then moved around her bike to approach the van. She held her skull helmet by her side and walked over his window, calm as you please.

”Sure, mister. You can park here all you like. Just have to pay the toll.” She opened up her hand. ”5,000 yen. Hand it over.”

"I'll say, that is a fantastic looking helmet."

Flashy laughed, reading the situation. It looked tense. He loved getting into tense situations. "5,000 yen eh, couyon? That's..what, like 45 american dollars?"

Flash's eyebrows raised as his eyes glaze over, much like a doll or a shark. He stares, quizzically, stifling a laugh before slowly turning to Stone and giving her a wink, his right hand not having left the steering wheel, his left arm draped out from the window giving them a bit of a view of the exposed skin, pockmarked and scarred with the remnants of all kinds of trouble. It should be getting clear to them that he's not just a random schlep, and won't be the easiest of targets. Something about him is distinctly...off.

"Your friend seems a little unnerved, chere. S'okay. 45 bucks? Hm. Let's see."

Flash held his hand out comically, smiling, seemingly stifling a giggle before clapping at his shirt pocket.

"Nope. Nothing there."

His hand moved down to his pants, checking both pockets as his eyes didn't leave the two.

"Passport. Hm. Wallet. Ah. This kinda seems like a shake down. Heh."

Johnny's stupid, but not street-stupid. He knew EXACTLY what this was. They're going to fight whether or not he pays them.

"Ah. I have my cash stash laying around. I'm going to check the back of the van. Mind waiting?"

The Flash Man's eyes narrowed as he looked back, briskly towards the duffle bag. There was a large set of steel pipe jutting out from under it. These two could be something to play with.

"I'll be back in a Flash. That's my name, by the way. Johnny Flash."

One thought went through Makoto’s mind as Johnny Flash - if, indeed, that was his real name - went about his whole bit. Through it all, she couldn’t help but wonder who was in charge of finding talent for this place, and why they insisted on picking up some many fucking weirdos.

She also got the distinct impression that she was being played with, and that was just not something she was going to suffer, especially when she was being flanked by two of her lieutenants. Johnny was treating this like a game, which meant he needed proper education on the matter and the situation he was in.

Makoto stared at him for a moment as he started to inch back, before throwing a quick glance to Stone, giving her an unspoken command. At six feet tall, she was an imposing woman, and she brought that aura with her as she came around them to stand between Johnny and the back of the van, blocking him with folded arms. ”No games, Cajun.”

”Yeah. No games.” She rubbed her chin, looking around Johnny’s van. She strongly doubted he had the money, or any money for that matter - this was not the van of a man who made solid life investments. Still…

’The wallet.” She tucked the helmet under her arm and opened up his hand. ”Let me see it.”

"Well if that's what you wanted, chere."

Arms extended, Johnny opened the door before he reached into one of the inner pockets of his jacket and removed his wallet. It was a shitty, faded leather thing that did actually have about 10,000 yen in it, jutting out comically like meat in an open faced sandwich. He'd been in Japan for a while and wrestled a few shows, enough to have a bit of a nest egg. The girls were going to take it anyway. Extending his hand, the Flashman gives Makoto the wallet.

"Go ahead, you vandals. Take all you can. Heh. All of it."

The Flashman backed a bit more towards the door, his body sliding along the shell of the van like a black widow spider on a rusty charcoal grill. He's outnumbered and outgunned so he would require a move with grace. A move delicate and subtle. Calculated and measured like a move in a well-played game of chess.

Just Kidding. His face still plastered with that dumb grin, Flashy started giggling.

"Heh...heh...heheheh..."

After a few seconds, full blown laughter.

"HA! Stupid little couyons! All three of you are fucked! FUCKED!"

Johnny roared, laughing, before lashing out at Makota. The leader of the Valkyries had one hand on his wallet, and one hand on her helmet. With he hands occupied, he would try and go for just a straight right hand to her mush, trying to drill her with a hard shot and buy himself an opportunity to focus on Stone, who he had a feeling would be the biggest threat.

As Mako laid on the hard floor, with a bloody nose and an aching skull, she tried to put the pieces together.

When she’d approached Johnny Flash - if that was his real name - and started this all up, she’d had a very good idea of how this was all going to go. She would get the money, beat the shit out of him with Stone, and have Devine record it on her phone. From there, she’d post it online and let the example spread, to send a clear message: When the Valkyries come around, you either run away or submit.

It would be safe to say that nowhere in her mind did she see it going down quite like this.

She had taken the wallet and started to thumb through it, and that was when Flash started going crazy...more than he’d been up to that point, anyway. The laughing should’ve been a bad sign, but she and the other Valkyries were too taken back by the response to really process it. Not until it was too late.

The guy wasn’t quite as fast as his name implied, but he had surprise on his side, and that could make up for a lot. The punch came out of nowhere, solid and strong, jerking Mako’s head back and dropping the Valkyrie leader in an instant.

Stone was in motion almost before Mako hit the ground. While she was as taken off guard as Mako and the currently gawking Devine, she was a soldier, accustomed to reacting quickly with decisive force. She came at Johnny Flash from behind and raised her leg up, high and fast, attempting to hit him square in the face with a Big Boot.

Johnny mutters to himself, smirking at his handiwork as Mako's crumpled in a heap.

"Fun, now. We're gonna have some fun, chere. You, and me, and your frie-"

If you've got time to monologue to yourself, you have time to focus on the other threats. Stupid, stupid Johnny. Stone had come rushing in like a cruise missile, the lightning bruiser traipsing quite a few feet of distance before her boot cracked hard against the Flashman's eye socket.

THWACK!!!

The empty parking lot echoes as he collapses hard against the side of the van itself, the crowd of his head slamming against the body of the vehicle, the aluminum siding taking a hard indent from the back of his head as he lies against it, slowly sliding down like a cartoon or a noodle thrown against a fridge.

Flashy lies on the concrete, sitting against the van, gurgling softly, his hands jutting out gripping for something that isn't there before lying on the cold asphalt.

”Son of a cocksucking whore!”

Needless to say, Mako was not a happy camper. Aside from being mad at herself for getting caught off guard by a guy named Johnny Flash, she was pissed off in general, growing more and more angry as her senses returned to her. Fortunately, when she sat up, she saw something that did wonders for her mood.

She shook her head and rolled to her feet as Johnny slid to the ground, reeling from whatever Stone had done to him. This was more like it - a perfect chance for them to have a teachable moment with Tension’s newest piece of meat.

”Cheap-shooting fucker…” She moved in as Stone took a step back, keeping close but giving the initiative to Mako. ”Devine, you getting this?”

”Streaming live.” Devine had finally moved off her bike and brought up her cell phone, getting the whole scene into frame.

”Good.” Mako gave her a quick nod, then focused back on Johnny, throwing a hard kick into his rib cage. ”Get up, bitch!”

As he sat on the asphalt, his head feeling like a jaguar was chewing on it, the crack about his mother resonated deep in his psyche. His mother was a damn saint. That just means Makato dies bad. Just bought her a little more pain than most. She wasn't getting to him. He saw her leg arch back and he braced himself.

"Nnnnh-M-MAKE IT COUNT!"

Mako's boot cracked into Johnny's ribs as he let out a sharp, animalistic howl, reaching out and gripping her knee as the foot is buried against his guts, up to the toe.

"GAAAH!!"

He said, the words spitting out of his mouth venomously as his previously dead eyes looked up to Makato, staring daggers. Unaware of being filmed, he groaned up at her, unleashing obscenities under battered breath.