Cry Wolf

“What..what are you doing?!”

Ugh…

“Stop! Stop! Please! Please don’t!”

Ugh…

“AH! I...I can’t...don’t…please…”

Ugh…

Yuki wasn’t enjoying herself right now.

From the outside, you wouldn’t notice it. She was just standing with her back against the wall, her arms folded and eyes low, shifting them between being half-opened and fully closed as the minutes ticked by. Such a relaxed composure evoked the complete opposite of a foul mood if anything. And, when things started out, that was more or less the case. It wasn’t the first time she was made to stand idle in a hallway, given the singular task of admonishing the occasional passerby with a hard glare. Her days could get less exciting, honestly.

“Please! Dont, I...I don’t want to! I don’t..dont. Don’t! Dont’!”

No. The problem came when those minutes started to pile up. One became two. Two became four. Four became thirty. Thirty became one hundred and nine. And the worst part of it all? It could have been done in less than one.

“I can’t…” She whimpered. “I can’t feel it. You...why...”

This was supposed to be a normal day. Why couldn’t it just be a normal day? Every now and then, the Wolf Mother had them going out to catch a look at the new blood of the federation. Test the waters. Shake the nest. Leave a footprint for others to find and think on for a good, long while. Today just so happened to be a bit...special for her compatriot. Fumika had decided to take this round for herself. She caught some of the action at ringside on one of her days off and noticed the woman with her now had an excellent pair of lungs and an exceptionally strong legs thanks to some Muay Thai bullshit neither of them could stop talking about. But, if her performance yesterday was anything to go by, this woman wasn’t entirely joking either. Fumika wanted to put her to the test personally. Fine. Whatever.

But the silver-tongued She-Wolf always had to play with her food. Another shriek worked it way out from behind the closed door, making Yuki wince from the pitch of it alone. Suppose that was the one reason she wasn’t of a mind to just waltz in there and end this herself. Fumika, for all her prattling, got results. Interrupting her would be no better than interrupting Picasso at his canvas. Just made things worse in the end. Sometimes it was better to do nothing.

So that’s what Yuki did. She stood there, tapping her finger against her bicep as she closed her eyes in an attempt to nod off for what felt like the fourth time now. Didn't help they were in their ring gear either. They must have been cranking the A/C today. Just letting Fumika have her fun. Letting the seconds drip by. Letting time wind on. Letting herself get older. All up until...

...she heard nothing, and the door unlocked. Finally.

The blue-eyed beauty stepped out of the room, closing it behind her as she turned to Yuki and grew a warm smile, cocking her head slightly as she looked up at her. She knew what she was doing.

“A very promising talent, I would say if I were in any position to judge. Her success wasn’t unfounded.” She crossed her arms behind her back. “Are we ready to leave?”

Yuki scoffed. “Dunno. I kinda like this hallway. Plaster has character.”

“I knew you two would get along.” She giggled, placing a hand on Yuki’s shoulder as she passed and began to walk down the hallway. The bleached blonde merely watched her for a few seconds with narrowed eyes. She should have just brought Kaede. Kid needs to get out more anyway. Yuki let out a slight huff as she joined her compatriot in the long walk down towards the double doors on the opposite end of the hall.

She let her eyes drift as the two walked side by side, steering clear of the worker ants moving tables and coordinating with the technical crews. The backbone of AFW went on in these hallways, watching these little drones move around one corner and reappear around another, enter through one door and exit the next over. What Manami saw in this place, Yuki had no clue.

This was going to be a time of firsts for Valley Doll.

Her belt had been stolen for the first time a few weeks ago, that was a new thing. Taken by a woman named Manami Kuroda, the leader of the Dire Pack, and apparently one of the bigger threats to drop on the Friction roster in some time. Three women, skilled and dangerous, with a ruthless penchant for tearing apart anyone and everything that got in her way.  All interesting tidbits, none of which she’d known before Manami sat down for a little chat with her in the park. Had she been privy to it, she would’ve given the woman a much wider berth. But she didn’t, and that was what lead to another first.

Not getting beat up, mind you. That had happened to her before. Quite often during her earlier years in Slamazons, even. It wasn’t even the first time such a beating had put her in the hospital. No, what was new about this experience was the severity. The Dire Pack had mauled her, leaving her with a litany of injuries that put her out for a solid month. Concussions? Yes. Broken ribs? Yes. Neck damage? Yes. The AFW’s resident doctor called it some of the worst damage he’d ever seen, and told her she was lucky to be standing, much less getting back into fighting shape.

But she did. Somehow, by some miracle, she was ready to go again after a month and a half. She was cleared, her career was intact, and a rational woman would’ve taken this as a sign to stay away from the Dire Pack.

At the moment, however, and after weeks of stewing, Valley was anything but rational, which lead to her final first: she’d come to the Friction arena tonight, not looking for a match, but for a fight. She was here to hunt wolves.

It had taken a some planning, timing, and just good luck to work to this moment. It wasn’t like the Dire Pack put their schedule out for everyone to see, and since most of the backstage crew didn’t want to be near them if they could help it, figuring out their position through the grapevine was a small challenge by itself. It took some cajolling, but she was able to learn that they were in the Friction building, up to something in the back, right around the time a show was set to air. If she was going to do this, it had to be now. Right now.

Valley made her way through the halls, wearing black jogging shorts with a pink trim, and a workout bra that matched - not exactly the stealthiest option, but it was the best she had in her wardrobe. She stuck to the backways and the shadows, doing her best to not see the Dire Pack before they saw her, and her efforts bore fruit. Sure enough, she spotted Yuki and Fumika strutting down the hall. Side by side. No sign of their leader.

The two women who’d ripped her to shreds. The two women who’d do it again if she messed this up.

Don’t think. Just act.

Valley took a few quick breaths, psyched herself up, and moved in behind them. She stayed low and quiet, careful not to make a sound, until she was just close enough, and that was the moment she sprung. She took a giant step forward, leaped up, and wrapped her thighs around Fumika’s neck from behind in one deft move, sitting on her shoulders for a single, golden moment.

In that moment, Valley leaned forward and curled up, enough for them to meet eye to eye, making sure she saw the smile. Just for an instant.

”Hi.”

With one violent jerk, she pulled back, yanked her legs up hard, and attempted to bring Fumika up, over, and down, driving her skull into the tiled floor with a reverse Frankensteiner.

Something was wrong here.

The underground could be a terrifying place to the unprepared. The backwater and malcontents of the country all swarmed in one place. Tight-lipped and unsteady people that’d bring a knife to your throat for so much as walking past them in the wrong way. Ambushes and the like were far too common to breathe easy for even a second while roaming the sludge-ridden halls.

Fumika was a rare breed. She was perfectly content with walking on eggshells for the rest of her days with her eyes only set on her prey and her prey alone. For all her wit and capacity for violence, her instincts were always subpar at best. Her mind could be a million miles away when it needed to be in the here and now.

But Yuki could sense it. It was a feeling that crept up on her bit by bit, inch by inch. Yuki could smell it in the air, feel it in the draft sweeping through the hallway. It raised the hackles on the back of her neck. It was something she hadn’t felt since coming to this place. People were too green around here. Too soft. Knew to keep to themselves.

She just kept looking forward, trying to get a read on it. What was it she was feeling? Where did this tension come from?

Something...somebody was close. Too close.

The moment she thought to turn around was the moment that Fumika found a pair of powerful legs wrapped around her head, taking on immense pressure. Her eyes shot to twice their size as their eyes met, giving her that cheeky smile, all before her body was thrown backward and her head was brought crashing down onto the hard floor. The She-Wolf laid there, seemingly lifeless at first, but stirring ever so subtly between the two of them.

Yuki hadn’t so much as flinched from seeing Fumika hit the floor. Her eyes trailed from her partner’s prone state to the person responsible. It all happened so fast, the motion so fluid and quick, that the blonde She-Wolf had only caught a glimpse of their aggressor before her fellow wolf went down. Although, she already had a few ideas of the truth her eyes were about to tell her. It wasn’t some rookie out for vengeance, or another group attempting to assert their claim. It was just someone that clearly hadn’t learned their lesson.

“Should have stayed dead.”

Yuki lunged forward. She wasn’t one for the fancy, roundabout shit like Valley just pulled. She stormed right towards the Californian, reeled her fist back, and threw a hard hook straight at the champion to floor her on the tiles in the blink of an eye.

Good God, that felt good from start to finish. Words simply could not describe how long Valley had been craving to do that for the past few weeks.

She wasn’t a vindictive woman by nature and she tried hard not to take ring-related matters too personally. It was all business, she told herself. Nothing personal, she told herself. But it was hard to maintain that opinion when she was dealing with women who’d taken sadistic glee from making her squeal, breaking her bones, and nearly putting her out from a long hiatus. The fact that they barely even knew her just made it all the more seering, like she was just an afterthought to them. A minor obstacle to be cast aside and forgotten about. Not worth worrying over.

She doubted they had that impression anymore. At least, not Fumika. Yuki was still up in the air.

The element of surprise was firmly on her side, but Valley had no illusions about what she was up against here. While she couldn’t find any footage of Yuki or Fumika’s matches on the AFW Network, she’d experienced enough of their strength in the park, and she could look at them and tell how formidable they were at a single glance. The woman who was between her legs at the moment had some of the strongest kicks and scissors she’d ever seen. The woman in front of her was a powerhouse, capable of throwing her around with ease.

Both of them merciless. Both a challenge. The last thing she wanted to do was make this an extended fight.

So, when she looked up, she was ready for Yuki to come barreling her way. The woman moved fast, closing in with hardly any pause. Valley did the same, moving towards her, and for a second it looked like she was going to eat a devastating hook. The punch came out, flew towards her face, sliced through the air, only inches away from impact.

She ducked. But she didn’t just duck. As she moved under Yuki’s arm, she grabbed hold of her shoulder and used it to swing around her back in one quick move, turning the momentum against her. In an instant, she was in the air, spinning about as she came to the bruiser’s other side. She started to fall down to her back, but not before she wrapped her arm around Yuki’s head and pulled her to the ground along with her, hammering her skull into the floor right beside Fumika.

A float-over DDT. It had been a while since she pulled that one out.

The next couple moments of her life were all a blur for Yuki Kitashima.

There she was, staring this waste of talent down with her own two eyes, dead center in the middle of a hallway and nowhere to run. All at once, the images from mere weeks ago were playing out in front of her. How they had this woman face down in the mud. How they kicked and choked and slammed and crushed every last bit of that champion spirit out of her. How they left her a broken heap on the ground for the sun and the vultures.

Now here the Californian was again. Trying her hand at the same strategy they employed not long ago. Looking so proud and defiant. Looking like she needed another lesson.

Yuki’s mind had already decided what it wanted to do, and her body responded without even a second of delay. Her fist cut through the air, just an inch away from Valley’s face, and then...she wasn’t really sure.

There wasn’t anything wrong with her punch, either. Good enough wind-up, a strong follow through, form didn’t slack as she carried her momentum. Didn’t look like her adversary was in much of a mood to back off, either. That made things ten times easier. The only thing left of Valley Doll should have been her splayed out husk of a body on the floor and a viscous pool of regret streaming from her head.Things definitely seemed to be headed that way.

Right up until the last moment.

Her eyes silently followed Valley as the woman ducked under her shoulder. Before she could turn herself around, the woman was all over, throwing herself over Yuki’s body like a spider monkey before coming back around. The wolf had a thought to catch her the moment she came back around, but, if anything, the hand she placed on Valley’s back only aided the punishment headed her way. Now she didn’t have anything to cushion her fall.

By the time she registered the arm around her neck, and the position Valley had put her into, where all that momentum was headed, she was already sailing face first into the ground. Her skull met the tiled floor with a sickening crash, her bouncing back from the force the moment it collided.

The blonde bruiser laid still for a moment beside her comrade on the floor. Then, pressing her forearm against the ground, she attempted to shakily rise. She only got a few inches off the ground, enough to reveal the chipped ceramic where her head had been, before she slumped back down with her head to the side, glaring up at the Entropy champion with clenched teeth and fierce scowl.

Word’s couldn’t quite describe how relieved Valley was when her DDT landed with much of a hitch, slamming Yuki’s skull into the floor at high speeds. While she was the more experienced and agile woman between them, a lot of her fighting style revolved around using a ring to her advantage, moving about, staying mobile - things that wouldn’t work in a cramped hallway. Could she take Yuki straight up if she had to in this environment? Maybe, maybe not. But it would’ve taken a while either, possibly long enough for Fumika to recover and join her. Bad news. Bad, bad news.

Thankfully, she pulled the move off and down Yuki went, getting laid out beside her partner. Valley did a quick kip up, rising to her feet in a swift, graceful motion, then turned around to see…

”Hm?” Valley hopped back and raised a foot as Yuki started to rise, ready to kick her square in the face if need be, but that turned out to not be the case. She was laid out. Oh, she was still conscious and gave the look of a woman who wanted to straight up murder her, but she wasn’t moving. Good news. Good, good news.

”Not gone.” She gave the enraged wolf a little tap on the head with the tip of her foot. ”Just soft.”

There. That was off her chest. Valley straightened up and indulged in a long, deep sigh, easing up on the tension that had been building for a good while now. No, it wasn’t anything close to ‘evening the score’, but it was more than adequate to quench her thirsts. Besides, Yuki and Fumika weren’t the real problem here - they were attack dogs. The Slamazon’s focus needed to be on the one who had their leashes. So, onto business, then.

”Okay, so.” She squatted down near Yuki’s head and loomed over her, giving a calm smile to match her raging fury. ”When you’re done peeling yourself off the floor, go and tell your boss I’ll be waiting in the ring for her in about an hour. We need to have a little chat. A real chat.”

She gave Yuki a quick pat on the cheek, then popped up to her feet and strolled off, not bothering to give another look back, wasting little time. She had to get ready, after all.

An hour came and an hour went, and true to her word, Valley Doll was waiting in the ring when the time came, surrounded by thousands of fans chanting her name as her theme music faded. She sat in the middle of the ring on a steel chair, with her legs stretched out and a microphone on her lap, looking forward with a stern gaze, and outside of context this would’ve all looked weird. But word had spread on what happened to her in the past few weeks, about the altercation with the Dire Pack. Few in the audience didn’t know the connection, and those few were being filled in at this very moment.

It all pointed towards the Entropy Champion heading straight into conflict against one of the most dangerous women to ever grace the Friction ring, and if anyone had doubts on that, Valley dispeled them with the first words that came out of her mouth on the microphone. ”Manami Kuroda,” She gave her neck a good crack. ”Come on down.”

Here again, were we?

Things were moving than she’d anticipated. Some credit was due on Valley’s part for managing to remove herself from that hospital bed so quickly. Manami had given her well over a few months under the best medical supervision the federation could afford. From her view of things on the autograph table, the Entropy champion wouldn’t have been a champion much longer before the title was forcibly removed from her.

Silly her. Leaving a job half finished.

Now it seemed as though the ghost from the past had come to haunt her. Yuki and Fumika had told her as much. Or, Yuki had at the very least. The blue-eyed beauty was still far gone by the time Her Claw had informed her of the sudden...change in affairs.

If Valley was expecting her to be surprised, to come out shaking like a leaf at the sight of the champion still on her two feet, she was destined for disappointment. Impressed, would be a more accurate descriptor. She’d merely made an underestimation. If anything, she should be thrilled that such a sublime quarry had presented itself for slaughter. Something interesting was finally happening today.

When the lamb called, the wolf answered.

Her music came blaring in. From out behind the curtain stepped the Wolf Girl, a wide, twisted smirk spread across her face. The audience welcomed her with a wave of jeers, some of the most powerful she’d felt since arriving here. How fast anguish travels in this decrepit place.

The careful observer might just so happen to notice the Entropy belt sashed across her person. The gold buckle shone brilliantly against the many stage lights and camera flashes traveling across the arena. She kept one hand on her hip, the other gracing its illustrious surface as she walked. If anything, the gesture made the crowd roar all the harder, but she wasn't interested in their reactions. Manami made the derision clear in the fact that she’d brought the thing at all. But the way in which she caressed it, expressing her intimate ownership of the oversized medal, was only meant to cement those feelings.

She climbed up the ropes, stepping between the middle rung before bringing her whole body across. With a wide smile on her face, she took slow and careful steps forward before stopping just a few paces away with an upturned chin, looking down at the Slamazon as her smile broadened.

“I see we prefer sitting alone nowadays, Val.”

She stood before the woman with her arms crossed, sneering from ear to ear as she wrapped one arm around the belt draped over her shoulder.

”...I’m on the hunt, I’m after you…”

Valley didn’t think she would have to wait long for Manami to come, but she filled what little time there was with humming, trying to stay calm in the moment. She hadn’t just brought the chair for something to sit on - no, she had intentions for it that weren’t in the owner’s manual, in the event that Fumika and Yuki wouldn’t be content to just sit back and let their leader come out on her lonesome. That was always a possibility, and she was pretty much banking on Manami’s honor, a strange thing to do given what happened the last time they met.

Still, there was rhythm to these things. Whatever plan Manami had when she saw her wrecked in the park, Valley was willing to be that her return hadn’t been a big part of it. Which meant things were off-kilter, which meant the hands-on approach was warranted.

Manami, as expected, came out soon enough, wearing the belt on her shoulder and a look on her face that might’ve fooled someone into thinking it belonged to her. Maybe she really thought that, too. In which case, it was just one more thing that they desperately needed to have a chat about.

Valley didn’t move as she came in through the ropes, and she didn’t move when Manami stepped in front of her. When she spoke, though, Valley looked at her and then she moved, standing up to face this woman and really see her for the first time. Really. She was taller, but only slightly. An inch, maybe two. Valley was the slimmer woman, with a body built for speed and agility and flips and kicks, while the She-Wolf’s was more robust, sturdier and stronger. The kind that was more commonly found in an octagon, not a squared circle.

And she hadn’t seen her coming. Getting rusty.

”Something like that, yeah.” She folded her arms, mirroring Manami’s mannerisms. She kept their eyes locked, never wavering for a second, as she raised the microphone up between them. ”So, let’s not waste words - you wanted something when you sicced your pack on me. What was it, exactly?”

Manami didn’t move as the Entropy champion stood up from her seat. Not a muscle. Not even one twitch out of order. She watched with the same, bold stance and wicked smirk that she entered with, not letting a detail move out of orientation. There was something oddly amusing about how woefully stubborn this woman seemed to be. That glint comprising an odd mixture of determination and fury that Manami had caught when the Californian was still restrained within Yuki’s arms. It hadn’t been snuffed. Not in the slightest. It was all rather amusing, she had to admit.

She merely chuckled at the question. A brief, insincere amused little giggle at just how dimwitted the filth that littered this federation could truly be. There was more work to be done than she thought.

“You should already know the answer to that, Val.” She leaned forward slightly. “You gave it to me, after all.”

Manami grabbed the belt by its buckle and raised it slightly from her midsection, bringing it high enough not only for Valley to see it, but also enough for the cameras to catch the scrawling upon its face and project it to the rest of the audience in attendance. “From one pro to another!”, written upon its illustrious gold metal surface with a pitch-black marker. Gut-wrenching emoticon included. If Valley took the time to really look at the seemingly mocking gesture, she’d find it to be more than a simple joke. A champion should at the very least recognize her own penmanship, after all.

Fumika’s talents didn’t end at her masterful wordplay and unparalleled. Five hours to replicate five words without error. Everything down to the last detail, from the irreverent twitch to the pressure of the pen against the table was recorded now on the belt itself.

“Did you perhaps forget that minor detail in the middle of your recovery? You must love making an abject fool of yourself in the middle of the ring.”

“I was given the distinct impression that a champion is meant to be strong. That strength is meant to breed strength.” She said sardonically, giving a biting edge to her comments. “And yet, I smell nothing but infirmity and foregone talent. Let us recount. What’s transpired since you’re narrow ‘victory’ at Summer Splash? Where Ms. Welles had you soundly defeated before you bent the rules to bolster your lump of stagnation you call a career?"

She brought a finger to a chin, eyes glazing off to the side for a moment before coming back to Valley’s. “You allowed yourself to be swiftly removed from a championship match and left a once-promising rookie to fight a losing battle all on her own because you alone didn’t have the strength to finish it. You wandered off to a lesser arena for a once-off match just to beat some hapless no-name barley worth the effort so swiftly, so relentlessly, you forced him into retirement.” There was an intense edge to her glare now. An utter disgust radiating beneath the surface towards the woman across from her. “You lost - you submitted - to a little, disease-ridden wench with only half your experience, half your age, half who you are, because you allowed your base desires to overwhelm your ailing constitution. Here eyes narrowed. "Very champion-like qualities you possess.” Her grimace tightened, eyes narrowing as one twitched irrevocably as her gaze centered on Valley’s pupils. “I loathe the sight of someone like you being revered as strong. You’re an eyesore. A putrefying, festering parasite that’s too stubborn to learn when to simply wither away into nothing.” She paused for a moment, eyes fully opening for a moment as if she’d just received an epiphany. “What did I want?” She stepped forward, cocking her head slightly to the side as she gazed into the champion’s eyes. “I wanted you to learn your place. I wanted to teach you how to keel over and die, Slamazon.”

But, evidently, Valley wasn’t as quick a study as she was quick on her feet.

Manami, to no surprise, turned out to be quite loquacious with her reply. Not that Valley paid too much attention at the start of it, since her eyes were too busy catching the words that had been scribbled on the Entropy Title. They were hers, the same she’d written on that poster she gave to Manami, but was more than a little eerie was the detail that had gone into them. She hadn’t just copied what Valley had written, but she’d perfectly copied what Valley had written, to an insane degree of accuracy. She wouldn’t thought it was some kind of photocopy job, if not for the subtle smushes, here and there.

No, this had been done by hand. How? She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know, either.

She refocused in time to hear what Manami had to say, and no, she didn’t like one bit of it. The woman had a a way of cutting at things, putting matters in a blunt way, and Valley couldn’t help but notice that a few heads in the audience were nodding along with her.

That was the worst part of the whole speech: Manami wasn’t wholly wrong, and everyone knew it. Valley hadn’t been on a hot streak since Summer Splash. She still had the title, sure, but only because she hadn’t been formerly challenged for it. The tag match was a sore spot, and while she could say there were some extenuating circumstances around the loss to Kaylee, she didn’t want to lean on them.

Champions weren’t supposed to make excuses. Champions were supposed to win.

So she listened. Folded her arms. Waited for Manami to make her points, throw her insults, bark her way and get into her personal space. There was an intensity there, she had to admit, and the scattered claps in the audience spoke to it. The She-Wolf did not lack for energy. But if there was ever a time Valley would’ve backed down from this, it was long past.

”You’re not wrong, Manami.” She raised her finger and caressed her chin for a moment, giving it some deep thought. ”This year hasn’t been the best for me. Sure. Fine. Maybe I’m a has-been. But you?” She pointed that same finger back at her new ‘friend’, aiming right at her nose. ”You haven’t exactly set the world on fire. Oh, sure, you’re a terror in the back, and everyone’s afraid of getting ganged up on by you and your pack, but inside the ring?”

Valley started ticking it off with her fingers, going off memory. ”You beat some pink-haired kid. Congrats. You beat Yuki Onna, who’s a lot higher on the food chain, I’ll give you that, but then Alaina came along and planted you in the middle of the street with an Amabomb.” She smacked her hands together, giving a fairly accurate representation of that brutal moment. ”The same Alaina that I’ve beaten twice since I came to the AFW. So here’s what I think.”

Valley canted her head to the side, matching Manami’s angled gaze. They were close now, close enough to make a reasonable guess on what they’d both eaten for lunch. Ceasar salad, in Valley’s case. ”I think you have a ceiling. I think you know that, even if I’m going through a rough patch, you’re not good enough to beat me, and you’re not good enough to beat whoever could take this title away from me. I think you stole my belt because you realize that’s the only way you’ll ever get to hold gold in this company. I think, if we go head-to-head, you’ll end up like dozen other women I’ve beaten in the past three years - pinned, looking up at the sky, wondering what happened.”

It was Valley’s turn to move in now, as she leaned forward and pressed their foreheads together, getting physical with the wild woman. That was what you were supposed to do with a dangerous animal, right? Don’t run. No fear. Stand your ground. ”I’m willing to prove all that, too, so let’s get to the meat of thing. You and me. Avalanche. Name your match.”