Punking the Ace (For Blue)

Haley parked herself on the street in front of a house she had never been to before. It had been a couple of weeks since Avalanche, and her defeat in her debut match. While it hadn't taken more than a week for her to be fully healed, she had gone back to her usual workout schedule.

Her manager however, had been busy it seemed, calling her up to tell her he might have had a big match set up for her. It was to be against a girl he said was an old friend of his, a veteran of Friction named Taylor who was quite popular and a former Entropy Champion. Interesting as that was, the real catch was when he told her that this girl had faced and actually defeated Iron Maiden! Ace had been under the impression that Iron Maiden was an unbeatable powerhouse, but knowing somebody had actually gotten a pinfall victory over the beast encouraged her, and made her eager to meet this girl.

According to Tai, she was to meet Taylor at this house, owned by Taylor's manager, who was also a member of her family to have a friendly discussion. It seemed like, judging by the size of the house's rather large garage, that Taylor's manager knew what she was doing and had main some coin. Ace hoped she didn't look like some wannabe, dressed in exercise pants, tennis shoes, and a tank top. It didn't exactly scream "I'm a tough fighter", but she wore it for comfort and ease of movement when working out, not to impress. She had however, dyed her hair silver and her eyes red for this meeting. Taylor was expecting to meet Silver Ace after all, not some civilian shmuck.

Walking up the driveway, Ace stopped at the front step, looking nervous. Tai hadn't really told her much about Taylor or her manager, apart from that she was talented and that her manager had groped him, apparently now allowed to tell her more, and couldn't come with her either, telling her he "wasn't allowed to be any part of this" which, in all honesty, made her a bit nervous about who she was about to meet, since she was alone on the girls front step without her manager to even back her up. Hopefully Taylor wasn't some bitch who would trick Ace into some attack of some kind, just so she could have a laugh at the rookie.

Shaking such thoughts out of her head, she signed and rang the doorbell.

The doorbell rang in the gym as well as the house. Taylor toweled off the sheen of sweat she'd worked up on her way to answer the door, and then slung the towel around her neck. She was in a great mood, for a few reasons, and one of them had just rung her doorbell. She was excited to meet her.

The moment she walked through the door from the gym to the house, she was racked by a big, tingly shiver. It wasn't as warm in there, or at least it didn't feel like it. She got cold fast once she stopped working out, especially when still damp with sweat. It didn't help matters that she wore only a tight red tanktop, racerback and cropped to her waist so that some of her taught, defined midsection was left bare, a pair of short black spandex shorts with no real inseam, leaving her legs bare, and a pair of very minimal black-and-purple running shoes and no-show socks. If she balled up all her clothes, she could probably fit them in a soda can.

She adjusted the ponytail that held her bright blonde hair as she passed her redheaded personal assistant in the living room. "Hey Morg, have you seen my sweatshirt?" She asked. She always lost stuff at Junko's house. She couldn't figure it out.

She pulled open the door, and there was Silver Ace, just like she'd seen on her DVR. She was taller in person, probably because she wasn't standing next to some seven-foot giant.

"Hey!" She grinned brightly. "What's up, dude? I'm Taylor. Come in, c'mon, it's frickin' freezing." Another violent shiver momentarily took over her body. "Welcome to my mom-in-law's house." She laughed.

Ace looked up, surprised as the door opened to reveal a stunningly attractive blonde girl, having clearly been working out given her outfit and appearance, who quickly revealed herself to be the girl she was supposed to meet. While she certainly looked like a fighter, Ace was a little surprised to see her. She had been expecting some kind of intimidating approach, not such a friendly one. Plus, Taylor was a tiny bit shorter than her, which didn't matter, but was still surprising.

Entering the house, she closed the door and looked around while extending her hand to her host.

"H-Hi...I'm Silver Ace....I go by Ace though."

She said, smiling at Taylor.

"So your the girl I'm supposed to meet right? Tai told me I was supposed to meet an old friend of his here, but he didn't say much other than that. He spoke very highly of you though, saying I could learn a lot from you!"

Ace chuckled, rubbing the back of her head. She hoped she wasn't coming off as awkward, though since Taylor appeared to be friendly, she started feeling a bit more at ease.

"Yeah, that's me. He said that, huh?" Maybe 'old friend' was pushing it a little, but she didn't mind.

She strode back into the living room and shifted from foot to foot, unsure of where she actually wanted to go. She glanced at her assistant and then back at Ace. "Oh, this is Morgan. She's cool. Can I get you some water? Did you want to do lunch? We can order out and put in some time in the gym while we wait."

She shivered again. It was annoying at that point. That was the price she paid for being thin with not much excess fat. If she wasn't active, she was cold, and she hated bundling up though at least pants would have been a wise decision. She bounced in place, back and forth in an idle little dance and hummed a little tune.

"I saw your match," she said.

Ace offered a polite wave to Taylor's assistant before replying.

"Yeah, he said he's known you for a couple years and that you really helped him out during a tough spot once."

"Uh...ordering out sounds good. You kinda look like you wanna get back to your workout. That's why I work out in pants, my legs sweat more, but it keeps some excess heat in. I hate having my legs get cold after a workout."

She adjusted her pants a bit, hopping on her feet a bit, liking the idea of seeing what kind of gym they had here. She responded to Taylor when she started moving again.

"Ah..you did huh? I fought hard, but I admit it wasn't exactly the kind of match I'd put in my resume..."

She shook her head, her right hand moving to rub her left arm. It wasn't sore anymore, but it was too soon for her to forget how useless the arm was near the end of her match.

"That...."woman" was too strong. I couldn't use my left arm for a week after the job she did. Took days before it stopped being numb."
"Stupid really. If my damn arm hadn't gone numb and limp on me, I could've held that triangle choke in. I think I would've been able to choke her out if it had held."

Ace suddenly looked up at Taylor, stepping a bit closer.

"I heard you actually managed to beat her though, for a 3 count and everything! How'd you do it!?"

"Nah, you did good," Taylor casually reassured her. "A bad match with that chick would've been way shorter."

Taylor took a step back in grinning surprise when Ace focused in on her victory over the giant. She seemed a little intense. "Easy. With a death valley bomb." She laughed. She put a hand to her lower back and her eyebrows did some self-sympathetic acrobatics. "Man, my throat was swollen for a week after that match, among other things, but I literally tweaked out my back when I picked her up. God damn, I tried not to let it show on camera, but I just wanted to lay down on the floor with an ice pack."

She looked at Ace like the really interesting part was "I can't do that in training. I've tried with Akashi, and without the adrenaline or whatever... can't do it. Not very well, anyway. Could be Akashi's fat ass just doesn't drape over the shoulders as well. Do you know Akashi? Tanikaze? She was champ for a long time, she's the best."

She waved for Ace to follow and headed back for the gym. "C'mon, let's go work up a sweat. I want to see what you've got." She paused on the way and leaned around the corner into the living room to face Morgan. "Morg, would you mind ordering lunch? Any requests, Ace?"

It still felt pretty weird to be able to ask Morgan, Morrigan, to do things for her. She was still sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop, and one day check her phone and find an incoming picture of Johnny tied up on railroad tracks with Morrigan standing next to him. Until that day came though...

The gym was an open expanse dominated by the full sized wrestling ring in the middle. There was a heavy bag, some weights, some basic equipment, but the most important part was front and center. Taylor rolled up into it, and leaned into the ropes.

"Damn...I can't believe you were able to lift her...Hmm? Yeah, I know of Akashi at least. Best champ AFW's ever had from what I've heard. Tai has a poster of her in his room. Maybe one day I'll get the honor of facing her in the ring....uhh...if she doesn't hentai me anyway...not really up for that stuff in the ring..."

Ace replied, following Taylor, pulling her wallet out as she turned to Morgan.

"Ummm....I've got about 12 bucks....perhaps an Asian Chicken Salad? Oh.....do they just consider that a standard chicken salad here? I'm kinda still in the whole "Eat nothing but Ramen or at Denny's" phase....Japan's harder to get used to then Mexico and America were.."

Once the lunch orders were taken care of, they finally went into the gym, Ace looking around with an impressed expression on her face.

"This is pretty impressive for just a garage gym. Your manager must be pretty good at what she does to be able to have all this set up in her home. No wonder Tai was raving about her....of course, that might of been because she groped him pretty well."

She chuckled a little, sliding into the ring and heading to the middle, hopping a bit and shaking her arms loose, getting a feel for the ring.

"Hey, I've got lunch. Don't worry about it. Anything else you need, too, a'right?"

She turned around in a circle and looked over the place. It was pretty impressive to have at home. Maybe unusual was a better term though. A certain kind of eccentricity that the news crews would cover in detail if Junko was ever arrested.

"Yeah, man. Junko's legit. She managed the Ice Dragons back in the day, and they were tag champs. And she managed Kirin Sumomo, and she was a champ too. She's been around for a long time so she- what?" What did she just say? She had to be joking.

But she couldn't let it go. "Tai groped my mom?"

"Wow, she does sound impre...ss.ive...uuummmm...."


Ace gulped, regretting bringing it up and hoping she hadn't just offended Taylor.

"Well....from what I heard, he did flirt with her, offered her dinner and some possible...after dinner activity...I've heard he's known for that...but apparently she's the one who groped him...before shooting him down. Heh...


Ace finished, backing up a couple steps, in case Taylor didn't take the news well.

Taylor tilted her head, as if Ace was clearly out of her damn mind. "Is that what Tai told you?" She asked skeptically. "I believe that's what Tai wished had happened. Junko's got taste, man, there's no way she'd get her hands dirty with some scrub like Tai. Er... no offense."

She's still have to talk to Junko about it ASAP.

"So anyway, I hear you want a rematch with brace-face?" She shook off the Junko issue and began to bounce in place on the balls of her feet. She always looked graceful in the air, the way she moved as if she weighed nothing at all. "Did you want to talk about that, or, like, put in a workout or what? I'm good to go for a while still, I didn't hit it too hard before you got here."