The Dasher Challenge : Part 4 - A Vagrant Story

"InoBA!!!"..."InoBA!!"..."InoBA!!"

The echoing reception to Dasher Inoba's impending arrival had reached a heightened fever pitch the likes of which had not been seen before in any of Dasher's other headline grabbing appearances. What had started as a humble open challenge to any lady in the Tension locker room courageous enough to step into the ring with the burly world champion had garnered a certain level of hype and infamy after the results of the last challenge. Which ended with the golden-haired challenger being stretchered out and driven to the nearest medical facility without having been seen or heard of for several weeks before recently returning to social media. Controversy was now swirling as to whether the muscled grappler had gone too far with the hapless rookie who was clearly in over her head, so Dasher knew full well that all eyes would be centered on him now that his open challenge was returning, which provided him the perfect opportunity to settle some matters once and for all...

Once more the catchy and upbeat theme music of Takeshi Inoba announced his appearance at the top of the ramp, the burly Japanese native adorned in a pitch black and marble white fighter's robe with the Japanese caricatures for "Muscle" on it's broad back. All while being accompanied by his steadfast team of teenage pupils wearing similarly colored sweat pants and t-shirts. The echoing boos from his detractors mixing equally well with those chanting his name who either supported the grappling legends chauvinistic campaign or were mainly nostalgic fans of his earlier wrestling days in the pro leagues around Japan.

After entering the ring by means of climbing the stairs and slipping through the ropes, Dasher stoically waltzed around the ring in a power stride while observing the audience from the lofty rafters to the press photographers snapping pictures of him at ringside. His stern and humorlessness gaze uninterrupted by the referee handing him a microphone well after his theme had petered off before raising it upward to speak into it.

"...I knew, stepping into this arena for the first time, that by bringing down the hammer of truth upon these poor, misguided women of Tension, that it would one day lead to casualties. That my chivalrous, and noble campaign, to restore honor to this ring, would shed light upon a truth that some would rather not acknowledge. Which is that this...is a MAN's sport..and a MAN's ring." Dasher bellowed out bitterly while pointing down at the ring canvas. "SO...at the advice of my lawyers...and since I believe it is my chivalrous obligation...I will remind anyone who is considering walking down that ramp and into MY ring...that I will NOT...be held liable if you challenge me unprepared. If you do not have the talent, skills, or wrestling acumen...to challenge DASHER INOBA!!!!!.......than I suggest you stay home and work on finding a proper husband, and perhaps work on your...culinary, skills." A resounding boom of negativity came in response to his last few words before he continued.

"And one more thing...whoever you are backstage, who has been spreading these false allegations of me taking performance enhancing drugs...I want you to keep speaking. Because the more you talk, the faster I will find you...and the faster...I will break you..."  Dasher's beady eyes having an intensity that sent chills down some spines before turning his attention back to the top ramp.

"Now...with all of that settled...I hereby announce...The 4th Dasher Challenge!!!...and open the door to any lady backstage who still has the horribly misguided presumption that she can face The Mighty Inoba and reign victorious!!!"

She’d stared down the barrels of guns and dived through hails of bullets just a step ahead enough to beat them. She’d had explosions go off in front of her and nearly broken her back on crates sturdy enough to stop an elephant in its tracks. She’d dived off the edge and swam through countless miles of shark-infested waters more times than her mind cared to recall.

And none of it had gotten Tam’s blood rush quite as badly as this man’s voice.

While it may have been closer to her place of employment, the Tokyo venue was a bit too rich for her blood at the moment. As affordable as the gaijin housing options were, she didn’t want to have to deal with the inevitable hassle of getting her stuff stolen and, eventually, getting it back with interest. She was more of a country girl, anyway. Used to having the sky so close above her head and nothing but the sound of rolling winds and lapping waves in her ears. It was all far removed from the blaring lights and endless noise that always seemed to be around her ever since she arrived in this country.

That was probably how she ended up here in Kyoto. There was a train line that almost everyone in the federation used to get to and from Tension and Friction relatively quickly. Made cross-promotions and the like a lot more feasible and, hopefully, would give Tam a similar convenience once she found an apartment actually worth its selling point.

No luck so far. After a conversation that went on for ten minutes longer than she cared for, Tam found herself walking inside of the Tension arena to blow off some steam. She’d been meaning to size the place up ever since her paperwork had finished. Get a feel for what the competition was like around here. She kept her bag close over her shoulder and was just about to turn the corner to the gym…

...when the most obnoxious, dated music she’d ever heard in her life met her ears. She turned and threw a glare at the television hooked up close to the ceiling of the hallway, watching the burly man staring back at her and hearing his lengthy diatribe. The words alone were enough to make her furrow her brows and tighten her grip, but the icing on top of it all was that last statement. His fourth? How does someone in Tension with that kind of attitude, with that kind of haircut, manage one spot on prime time let alone four? Were the wrestlers around here really that incapable? This Dasher Inoba, if she was reading that kanji at the bottom of the screen correctly, couldn’t have been anything but a joke. So why was he still here?

...whatever. Not her league, not her issue. She liked real competition. Not...whatever this was. No shortage of frothing women waiting to get their hands on this charmer, she’d bet. She just turned away, ready to get on with her day like she planned…




       “Shouldn’t you be with the kitchen crew?”





   
        “Nice catch, Tam. Mind cooking us up something?”








     “She can’t even shoot straight!”








     “She’s holding us back.”








CRACK!

The plaster chipped away and fell from her fist as Tam slowly removed it from the adjacent wall, letting her hand fall back to her side with bits of white still stuck to her knuckles. She gave the television one last sidelong glance, burning a hole into the muscular figure behind the screen before she walked down past the gym and into the locker room.

A restless atmosphere had started to take root amongst the waiting crowds, their patience wearing thin as they waited for a response that didn’t seem to come. Was this challenge going to end in an upset?

Tam Nguyen:

Theme Music:

“Chààààààààààààààààààoooooooooooooooo!” All at once, a wail of heavy guitars and drums filled the empty air. One great flash of yellow spotlights after another came with the heavy beats that pulsed from the entrance. A stocky figure dressed in her trusty gi walked out from behind the curtain, taking strong steps down the ramp without so much as a glance to the raving crowd at either side of her. They weren’t there as far as she was concerned. Her eyes burned with resolve as they focused on the ring, on the boisterous adversary that awaited just beyond the ropes. She grabbed onto the bottom rope, looking at Dasher for a brief second that went on as if it were thirty, before climbing up and ducking underneath the middle and bottom rope into the ring. She walked slowly to the center and stood for only a moment, one fist on her hip, the other holding the mic tightly at her side before she raised it slowly to her lips. “Stop. Talking. It's getting on my nerves.” She raised a hand between them and struck up one finger, pointing it skyward with a solemn glare. “First warning.”

After kicking off his infamous challenge with one bellowing proclamation, the burly bowl-cut aficianado backpedaled a few steps until he was back in the vicinity of his corner ringpost where his student trainees were huddled around. Unsurprisingly, as Dasher's annual provocation began ending with every challenger needing to be stretchered out of the ring, more lady wrestlers were beginning to think twice about their odds of not only winning, but simply walking away from this match without needing to see a chiropractor the next day about straightening out their spine. Therefore...it was beginning to take longer and longer for new challengers to heed his call.

So while Dasher Inoba and the entire audience of diehard wrestling enthusiasts waited patiently, the muscled brawler would limber up by hopping from one foot to the other while occasionally striding across the ring back and forth. Over a minute passing as the palpable anxiety of the moment seemed to drag on forever into the night.

The Tension executives had decided to set the time limit for anyone to answer Dasher's declaration at five minutes before he would have to rescind his challenge and let the show carry on, as they say. It was an outcome that Dasher had actually decided would be the day that his chauvinistic point would finally be proven and he could leave Tension with his bowl-cut head held high having officially conquered their entire female roster. It was a day he eagerly looks forward to with having prepared his most pretentious and bloviating speech yet for when the time comes, detailing how men have been, and always will be, the superior-...

“Chààààààààààààààààààoooooooooooooooo!”

...Dasher was already mentally rehearsing his victory speech when obnoxious guitar riffs interrupted his concentration and dashed his hopes of conquering all of Tension this night. Instead he centered his beady-eyed gaze at the schlumpy tomboy traipsing down the ramp who at the very least was dressed like someone who could finally give him a proper challenge, her eagle-eyed intensity matched by Dasher's own as he followed her movements into the ring.  For now he reserved his final judgment until he heard what this young one had to say...which wasn't much. Dasher met her in the middle of the ring and briefly stroked his prodigious chin with a devious smirk before raising his own mic back up to his mouth.

"Good...you keep your words brief. I respect that. So...this time, so shall I. Your past two predecessors were incessantly squawking parrots whose mouths I had to silence. But it seems you've yet to fully appreciate the virtue of silence when in the presence of a real man. So allow me to warn you...that by the end of this...after I pummel that insolence right out of you and leave you humbled...you will learn respect. And just for the record. Just because you can be mistaken for a man...doesn't mean you can hit as hard as one." Dasher uttered with a menacing smirk before turning in place to march to his corner, decorative streamers tossed into the ring as part of puroresu tradition before they were steadfastly cleaned up for the match at hand. Dasher would remove his robe and hand it off to his trainees, performing some last minute arm stretches before returning to the center of the ring for the start of the match.

Despite his promise to keep things brief, Dasher evidently had plenty more on his mind that he wanted to let Tam, as well as everyone watching, know about how tonight was going to go down. At least, how he thought tonight was going to go. But the Vietnamese newcomer didn’t make her thoughts known. She stood with the same stoic composure as she entered with, letting him continue his diatribe, not allowing any of it get to her in the slightest.

Right up until the last moment. That was when the kinks in her seemingly impenetrable mental armor quickly became clear. At first, the audience likely wouldn’t have thought much of it. A simple raise of the eyebrows and a sudden surge in the diameter of her eyes. Then his comment fully set in, and her face began to take on a new look altogether. Her eyebrows clenched closer together, her cheeks slowly turned a crimson red as she bared and gritted her teeth, shaking slightly from the shoulders down. She raised the mic to her lips for a quick retort, shaking it in her grasp.

“Who do you think you-!” But Dasher’s bare back was more a powerful a statement than anything she had to offer. Curling back her bottom lip to hold back a snarl before raising her arm and throwing the microphone harshly to the ground. The referee jumped back from the delicate, expensive piece of equipment shattering next to her feet, its dying wail disappearing in an instant with its connection to the sound system was terminated.

Tam just made her way back to her corner, facing the ground the whole way. She grasped the ropes and got some last-minute squats and stretches in, finding it harder to concentrate with each passing second. Her mind couldn’t leave that quip, that damn joke she thought she heard the last of back home. It pissed her off, but probably not in the reason he expected. She couldn’t give a damn about how she looked, how far from womanly standards they might be. It definitely wouldn’t manner when she finally got to stomping his face in.

It was the implication and the snickers she caught outside her field of view that was making her muscles tense and her blood boil. He made her look like an idiot, and he was going to pay for it. Plain and simple. That second warning was gone, and he wasn’t getting any more. “You’re going to be the one begging, you goddamn fossil. Overweight piece of...” She muttered to herself, leaning down to stretch her legs out.

It wasn’t too long before the two were called back to the center, Tam taking slow, yet purposeful strides before her bare feet finally slapped firmly over the Tension logo beneath her soles. After a brief moment of anticipation and exchanged glares, the referee raised her hand and called for the official start of tonight’s main event.

For a second, the gi-clad challenger didn’t move. Standing firmly across from Dasher, her fists slowly curling and uncurling with her eyes still locked with the taller man’s, Tam’s razor-sharp gaze narrowed as she lowered herself down to a crouch and raised her hands for...a test of strength? A few in the audience tonight muttered to themselves, exchanging glances and by no means attempting to hide their surprise at the gesture. An admirable one, but surely foolish, wasn’t it?

That remained to be seen. The instant their hands met, Tam would immediately raise one foot high, slamming it down and shaking the canvas with her step as her back arched and muscles flared. Tam would charge forward like a bull seeing red, going to push Dasher back with all her might to the ropes at his back. If he didn't accept by the time she decided to push forward, she was perfectly fine with simply shoving his pig-headed self to the opposite side, forcing her hands to his chest and pushing onward like a runaway freight train headed towards disaster.  All she cared about was showing Dash what he just set off.

The festive and multi-colored streamers being strewn around the ring did little to mask the palpable tension between the dashing brute and his tom-boyish adversary, the screeching pitch of the jettisoned microphone causing a few fans to wince and rub their ears from the ear-piercing spike. The scrambling ringside attendants swept up the bits of electronic scrap while collecting the streamers, with the referee wisely assuming now would not be the best of times to warn Tam that the cost of that microphone may be getting siphoned out of her next paycheck.

Dasher kept his cocky swagger intact as he approached his corner after disrespectfully leaving Tam with no one to retort to except the emblazoned lettering of his name on the back of his robe. After the incessant chatterbox that was his last opponent, the prospect of keeping matters brief and succinct was indeed an appealing one. Though he would never consider his words to be "trash-talking". He merely spoke the unvarnished truth, and as he saw it, was the only one brave enough to enlighten these deluded women in this wrestling league made up of of inept, wobbly-legged beta males. He honestly DID mistake Tam for a man from a distance and was about to deny him/her the chance at facing him until Tam's bust and still effeminate voice corrected him.

A dramatic unfurling of his robe revealed a matching colored towel wrapped around his neck that he also flung down to his ringside students, the alpha male kicking some lingering streamers out of the ring while limbering up himself. He nimbly hopped on the tips of his booted toes before going into whirling arm rotations, acknowledging Tam's judo-gi as being nothing more than her dressing the part of an actual martial artist. It was all merely a poorly devised ruse to trick gullible fools into believing that this scruffy haired tomboy could have achieved the rank of ninth, tenth...or even first or second dan. Exposing her trickery was going to be just as satisfying as making good on his humbling prediction of her.

Dasher answered the referee's call and returned to the center of the ring with his beady-eyed gaze never deviating from the faux martial artist playing pretend. He cracked his head from side to side while wiggling his fingers in heightened anticipation of getting his grappling hands on this short-tempered pushover. Though what he imagined was going to be an exercise in her playing a cat and mouse game of her scrambling to avoid being within arm's reach of him...was usurped by Tam standing her ground and actually presenting her hands for a test of strength?

The audience’s befuddlement was shared by Dasher himself as he glanced from side to side as if looking for someone to tell him that she couldn't possibly be serious. After sharing in a unified chuckle from the more chauvinistic section of the audience, Dasher saw no reason to kindly oblige Tam, and in the process end this match quicker than even he anticipated. He mockingly mimicked her stance while slowly interlocking their hands together...hardly putting in half strength, and even contemplating to jokingly pretend that she was actually push-

"WOHRAH!!!"

The ring shook and the chuckling audience was silenced from witnessing the burly giant be propelled backward to have him comically tripping off of his backpedaling feet until he stumbled into a seated position against the ropes. Dasher glared back up at Tam with infuriated astonishment as he scrambled back up to his feet, attempting not to appear as taken aback at her strength than he actually was. An astonished audience snapping pictures of the unheard scene of Dasher being out-muscled, now taking this match much more seriously. Dasher, as confused and bewildered as he was, knew he had an image to protect. So he attempted to play this off as no big deal...offering Tam a feigned smile of approval with a mocking golf clap...appearing approving and congenial...until he abruptly attempted to stampede forward and attempt to mow Tam down with a cocked back clothesline!!

Tam could deal with all the heckling. Wasn’t easy, but she could. That was, at best, a fraction of what was ticking her off right now.

The jeers and snickers were nothing new. She’d been dealing with them her entire life, and most didn’t have the courtesy of having a line of barricades and a security team between them and her. Nobody ever took her seriously. It was just the way her life was going to be, as far as she was concerned. Tonight was no different, and, like all the others, it wouldn’t matter in the end. In about two seconds, they were all going to be thankful that those safety precautions were there. Picturing their shocked and stupid faces was more than enough to put all the doubters in the back of her mind.

They were far from her mind by the time she left her corner and made it to the center of the ring. The real problem, for her, was Dasher. No, she hadn’t expected him to exactly be humbled by her opening gambit, but there just seemed to be more to it than that. There was an aura about him that her body was reacting to, like his machismo formed an imaginary, irritating mental armor around him. It got her blood going, made her hairs stand up and end and her teeth grit together ever so subtly. It was like he’d made an art out of making punchable faces.

It only got worse when things finally got underway, when the bell rang out and she raised her hands for the lock-up. Couldn’t just be cordial about it. Couldn’t forget the audience and just focus on the match. Tam furrowed her brows together, keeping her eyes up and her hands out as the older veteran made his amusement at the situation abundantly clear. She could feel from the outset he was barely even going half-pedal on this.

Big mistake.

Tam slammed her foot down and breathed a hot, heavy breath through her nostrils as she pressed forward, full-steam ahead, tightening her grip on Dasher’s meaty hands to crushing amounts of pressure as she forced him at a breakneck pace to the other side of the ring. She stepped back, wiping the underside of her nose with a quick brush of her thumb, scowling at Dasher the whole way as he quickly recovered from his little stumble.

The slightest hint of a smile wormed its way onto her face, a combination of the notable rambling making its way around the arena and the vexation that had fallen on Dasher’s rugged countenance. Tam folded her arms, watching and waiting as he scrambled back to his feet. She was just about to unfold them and fall back into a guard, seeing as the match would pick up again, but only raised an eyebrow at her bowl-cut adversary. Was he...clapping? Impressed? She might have been more doubtful of the gesture if it weren’t for a couple whistles and scattered cheers that caught her attention from the audience. Her eyes quickly dashed to the left and to the right before focusing back on Dasher. An actual acknowledgment of her strength? There was a faint, distant glimmer of hope in Tam’s eyes that she’d be in for a match without any antics for once, at least any that weren’t at her expense.

She was getting soft, clearly. By the time she’d seen the clothesline coming, it was already too late. Her eyes shot wide and her arms unfolded, coming together in a haphazard forearm guard that may as well have been wet paper against Dasher’s bulk. In the blink of an eye, Tam went horizontal and slapped the side of her head against the floor. Her mind teetered and tottered as she rolled back onto all fours, the mist giving way to a simmering heat underneath.

She’d been duped. Taken off guard and played like a goddamn idiot. Not gonna happen again. She looked up at Dasher with eyes blazing crimson fury. She resolved to try and stand back up, knowing her opponent no doubt would object to that.

A momentary misjudgment coupled with what was so obviously curved indentation in the ring canvas from years of prolonged overuse. Dasher's myriad of explanations as to how he was just seemingly out-muscled by the vagrant martial artist were already coming in droves and being rehearsed in his head for his post-match press conference. He knew the damage control would be extensive if he didn't find a way to logically explain such a feat so as not to leave a shred of doubt in their minds. The astonishing imagery of a man of his prodigiously muscled mass being out-bullied by a decidedly less bulky woman would most assuredly be the defining take away from this match, and one that Dasher was supremely confident would have not have even occurred if he were taking their lock-up seriously.

Dasher knew that even if he were to manhandle the churlish tomboy for the nest 10-15 minutes of match-time, her opening gambit may be what gains the most notoriety and sports headlines...and it was an eventuality Dasher was now going to work twice as hard to curtail. Hiding her true strength beneath all that flabby judo gi was a deceptive ploy that he should have come to expect from the feeble and subpar wrestling talent known as the Tension female roster. All of whom were grasping at straws in some lowly and desperate attempt to gain even the slightest advantage against a man of his superior grappling aptitude. Therefore, he saw no reason not to use their own duplicitous tactics against them. The dashing chauvinist perhaps putting on his best acting chops when it came to seemingly offering Tam some well-deserved praise from proving the burly brute wrong. The audience's much more honest round of applause playing into his deceptive rouse perfectly as well before his wound back clothesline showed her what he really thought of Tam's achievement.

"Ooriyah!!"

Dasher bellowed out from the lariat that had him studder step a little bit forward before he stopped his own momentum with a braking stomp. An unwritten wrestling rule when facing Dasher was that whenever you were in the cross hairs of one of his clotheslines, you either countered, dodged, or took the blow and became intimately familiar with the ring canvas. Choosing to block and plan to somehow still remain standing was simply not an option. A small tidbit of helpful info that Tam was probably not going to forget anytime soon as the grappling bowlcut circled back around her with a winding rotation of the arm he mowed her down with. He glowered down at her when he caught that wrathful look in her eyes...an expression he was quite familiar with considering he saw that same spiteful glare in the eyes of two of his previous opponent's, the obstinate shark woman Mako and the bald brawler Carmen. Dasher let out a hardy *harumph* before proceeding to stomp and stamp down on her to crush her intentions of getting back to her own feet anytime soon. Once she was sufficiently placated, he would use her lower spine as a stepping stone to come to her other side before bending down and wrapping both of his brawny arms around her waist. A few steps than taken with a dangling martial artist in his arms before attempting a heaving chuck backward in a gutwrench suplex.

...did somebody just snicker out there? Tam couldn’t have been entirely sure from her position on the ground, but she was fairly certain she’d picked up on some sort of cackling going on not far from behind her. Seems like somebody in the audience got more than their fair share of enjoyment out of Dahser’s “masterfully” executed feint.

In the back of her mind, she knew she couldn't entirely blame them. She was mad at herself more than anything else. Being caught off guard like that was a rookie mistake. Anyone have seen it coming. Clearly, she’d gotten softer in her time away from the swashbuckling seas. If she were the one sitting in those cheap recliners, watching some dauntless nitwit getting plowed by that cannon mistaken for a fifty-year-old man’s arm, she’d have gotten a kick out of it too. But she wasn’t. She was the one getting decked. She was the one on the floor. She was the one getting laughed at it.

Which she’d really like to stop now.

Cranking her head to the opposite side as she went to stand back up, Tam’s eyes left Dasher’s for only the briefest of seconds, maintaining their intensity as she ran her pupils up and down the rows of onlookers. Lots of smiles, but there were just a couple that tried to hide them a bit too quickly. She’d have to remember those faces for later.

Right now, she had bigger problems to deal with, as she quickly discovered once she brought her fiery gaze back to the heavyweight veteran. The next time the Viet tomboy let her eyes drift upward, she’d no longer see Dasher’s insufferable, smirking mug, but the underside of a hard boot raised high over her head. Whatever effort she was making to rise back to her feet were all for naught as Dasher’s weighty boot stomped and stamped her back down to the canvas face first.

Far from the most pleasant experience she’d ever been through, to say the least. The rough soles pulled at her hairs with each stomp, sending an irritating sensation across her scalp that did little to soothe her anger. Even worse was how familiar the whole situation was, reminding her a bit of her childhood. Good way to piss her off, that. Tam reached up, going to block the last stomp with her palm before she found another stomp cake her lower back. Her head shot up, gritting her teeth and scowling over her shoulder as Dasher stepped over her like so much trash. “Get...your fucking foot-”

-off? Wish granted.

Before she even had a chance to voice her protest, Tam felt a pair of rough arms wrap around her waist, lifting her sideways like an unruly child for a few seconds. A few seconds that she filled with spiteful punches to Dasher’s thigh, but it was also just long enough for him to get properly situated, flipping her like a flapjack before landing with a hard slap on her back. Tam clenched her teeth together, frothing and arching her back as she killed a shriek trying to get out of her throat. She wasn’t letting that happen. Not with this prick.

The vitriolic glare of Tam's promptly silenced any lingering hecklers at ringside who suddenly clammed up and didn’t find the judo girl's predicament funny in the slightest. But it did not have quite as polarizing an effect on the towering bowl-cut aficionado standing over her. Having seen those exact same piercing daggers in numerous wrestlers before her, Dasher came to view it as a sign that he was indeed doing his moral obligation. Which was to have reality come crashing down upon the deluded mindsets of these disillusioned women and show them how a true pro wrestler handles himself in the ring. He saw that look in their eyes as the first stage in many before finally accepting the folly of believing themselves to be on equal footing with the real men of the wrestling world...and not the noodle-armed beta males he sees infest the hallways of this wrestling federation.

Her temper tantrum seemed unwarranted anyway, considering she only had herself to blame for being so indefensibly gullible and so easily lowering her guard like that. Any seasoned wrestler worth his salt would have seen through the charade immediately, though he figured he shouldn't place too much blame on the scowling Vietnamese. A woman as feeble-minded as her was probably duped from the word go and couldn't comprehend the intricacies of his master plan before she was already getting mowed down to the ground. His next few stomps were delivered with muscled authority before he added some humiliating flair by using her as a squirming stepping stone. All doing a good job of showcasing where he believed she belonged as he adjusted his position in the ring and hauled her up like a whining infant.

The Dashing One showing that his muscles weren't all just for show as he collapsed backward and pitched the flailing judo girl clear across the ring...and even showcased some unnatural nimbleness as he managed a kip-up that had a wobbly landing but one that he stuck none the less. He proudly strolled over to the languishing martial artist and would escort the spiteful tomboy back to her feet by her scruffy hair and her white judo gi.

"Hmph...I suggest returning that judo gi and yellow belt wherever you bought it. In your hands it's nothing more than a waste of money and an insult to the sacred martial art..." Dasher remarked in his yanking ascension of Tam until she was vertical once more. If the smirking grin on his broad-chinned face didn't give away his intentions, than draping her arms over the top ropes would. The Dashing One rearing back his hand and attempting one hell of a an open-handed slap right down atop her perky chest, Dasher being infamous for leaving red-hot indentations of his massive hand whenever he delivered one of his signature chops.

Tam wasn’t used to being thrown around. A weird notion coming from someone clearly dressed like a prim-and-proper judoka, but it was true. She was never big on allowing herself to be on the losing end of certain spars or demonstrations. Owing to her resounding strength and a bit of natural-born stubbornness, it was quite a rare sight to see Tam of all people getting tossed around by individuals even twice her size. Even her own master had to fight her tooth-and-nail to coerce her into such a submissive state. She was a hard student like that.

But fine. Dasher threw her. Nothing new about that. Taking hard slaps was what she was used to. He threw a damn lot harder than anyone else she’d ever had the privilege of squaring off against, but it was nothing that would make or her break her either way. What she could without was all the bad mouthing that came along with it.

No, she wasn’t exactly expecting a warm reception tonight, but if he was looking to get a rise out of her by insulting her martial pride, he’d better find harder material than that. For Dasher’s sake, all Tam hoped was that he understood what he was getting into by poking this particular bull. The Viet wasn’t one to let people keep walking on, spewing their claptrap. She looked his way with a glare, somewhat surprised to see him up on his feet already. Nimble. Nimble asshole.

“Would if I could.” She said matter-of-factly just an instant before a pained groan left her mouth, gritting her teeth from another yank of her hair. In a quick second, she found herself upright with her arms quickly draped over the top ropes as Dasher wound up for something. Didn’t matter what. Even if the telegraph hadn’t come an hour in advance, she’d know how to deal with it.

As the chop came down, Tam would tighten her grip on the ropes, seemingly inviting the strike to reach her if anything. Just when it was close enough, however, she would suddenly leap up, shooting a fierce kick straight at Dasher’s arm. Once it connected, a sharp slap would echo across the ring as the meaty and tender flesh from the underside of Dasher’s arm was struck, deterring his strike. Once her feet came back down, Tam would use her grip on the rope to reel herself back and forth, back and forth, before shooting herself off at the older veteran, ramming into him with a runaway shoulder strike to send him tumbling.