L.A.W. - League of Anime Wrestling

Astrid had had enough.

Ever since she had won the LAW Heavyweight Championship, she had sworn to be a model champion, doing all she could to raise the profile of LAW as a promotion and professional wrestling as a sport. She carried that through in the effort she put into every one of her matches, never giving up or backing down, and in how she conducted herself with honor, dignity, and sportsmanship even when the cameras weren't running. Being a champion wasn't just an honor to Astrid, but a responsibility as well. She knew she had an image to uphold, and although the Heavyweight Championship was a more recent creation, Astrid wanted to make every wrestler who had held a championship in their time - including her father - proud to have her following in their footsteps.

Rose Gold, the Lightweight Champion, couldn't be further from that if she tried.

Astrid had reviewed the tape of Rose's matches leading up to the event, and she was quick to notice that, although her fellow champion had undeniable potential, she was far from deserving her title on her own merits. Often, she had to resort to dirty tricks, finding herself easily thrown around by more skillful opponents without them. When Astrid saw how Rose handled herself in the ring, she was sickened. She seemed to embody everything Astrid scorned - a wrestler who took the easy route, squandering what she was truly capable of doing and being in favor of bending the rules to her advantage, and holding the title of the best in her division away from those who warranted it more.

But even more disgraceful than her skill was Rose's personality. She was vain, egotistical, gloating; she talked down to her opponents no matter how much they strived for success or how much they threw themselves into their efforts to win. She went so far as to claim that no one in LAW could stand on her level, in the lightweight division or in any other. She had no respect for LAW, for wrestling, or for the belt, Astrid realized - she was only in the business for herself.

But when, on her recurring Midas Touch segment, Rose had taken on Meiyun Lai - an eager member of the Young Lioness Program and someone Astrid herself had trained - and taken her apart in front of everyone, leaving her battered, stripped, and humiliated for all to see, Astrid knew she had gone too far. Rose had gone too long taking on opponents who stood no chance of defeating her, the Norsewoman thought. She had gone too long seeing everyone she faced as another hopeless sod to be trodden upon and to lord over. If Rose was that determined to fight unfair battles, it was time she got a taste of her own medicine.

"The following contest is scheduled for one fall! Coming first to the ring, from Stavanger, Norway! At 6'1 and 188 pounds, she is the reigning LAW Heavyweight Champion - AAAASTRID OSTBERG!!"

Spoiler

The arena erupted in cheers as sparks burst forth from the pyrotechnics system, and Astrid stepped out onto the entrance ramp, her muscular body wreathed in a furry robe that was open to display the Heavyweight Championship around her waist. She struck a confident pose, planting her feet apart and her hands on her hips, and lifting her chin skyward while she puffed out her chest to greet the awe of the fans. Astrid waved to the crowd as she made her way to the ring, but she had no time to slap high-fives or pose for pictures. She was here to send a message, and she needed Rose to know she was serious.

Once at the ring, Astrid climbed through the ropes, slipping off her robe and undoing her belt before holding it high over her head - a sight that won her another cheer from the crowd. Even if Astrid's belt wasn't on the line tonight, there was just as much that was. Tonight, Astrid was defending the integrity of wrestling itself. If she couldn't put Rose in her place, the question of whether or not she could live up to the duties she placed on herself would be called into check. And Astrid had no intention of letting anyone down.

Anticipation filled the arena as this contest drew near. There was no greater stage for such an occasion. The spectacle of the first and only, possibly last Champion vs Champion match at LAW drew the eyes and attention of far more than just a few fans.

The outcome of the match and how it would play out, the motivations of each individual wrestler representing their weight class as champions, these were all about to collide and come to a head!

Astrid made her entrance to sounds of roars of approval from the crowd! Fans all over the arena cheered as the announcer called the mighty Norsewoman's name! There was no doubt that more than a few of Ostberg's acquaintances and fellow wrestlers of hers were looking on from monitors backstage. From her quest to do right by LAW and the wrestling industry by being a reputable and upstanding champion to her desire to avenge Meiyun, Astrid had every righteous motivation one could ask from a model champion going into this match. And yet, if you were to ask her opponent tonight and any of the multitude of supporters, all of that amounted to exactly nil.

"Attention! May I have your attention, please!" A voice called out from behind the entrance ramp/area as one perky, green-haired acolyte made her way into the arena to the sound of no music, and rightfully so.


Lexy Alan was there to make way for the lightweight champion. She entered the arena with her hand raised high to call attention to herself.

"Please allow me to introduce the woman headlining your TRUE main event of We Are LAW 5!" Alan began. Lexy's introduction of Rose Gold to the ring had become customary for her big PPV matches and this one was no exception.

"The woman in the ring may be your heavyweight champion, but the star of the show is not the prodigal daughter of a has-been wrestler! It's not the nameless, talentless trainee from the Young Lioness program that she raced to defend! No, not at all!"

As Lexy's voice grew more spirited and impassioned, she walked the width of the entrance ramp. From one side the other she traversed before finally pointing towards the sky and the rafters of the arena!

The lights went out. A single, bright white spotlight beamed down from above.

"Tokyo, Japan please join me in welcoming to the ring! The Venomous Vixen! The Sinister Siren! Your LAW Lightweight Division Champion! Your Goddess and Mine!"

"The very Heartbeat and Ace of this company! God-Queen ROOOOOSE GOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLD!!!!"

Lexy put her all into this introduction. Her enthusiasm and her makeup hid the wear and tear well. With the gravity and star power in the match that was about to take place, no one would guess that the longtime LAW interviewer and hostess was having a very trying We Are LAW experience tonight.

No, her focus was on giving her mistress the welcoming she deserved! Lexy would clap with her hands and encourage the audience to do the same as The Lightweight Champion made her bold and ostentatious entrance by descending from the light above! From the very heavens!

The lights in the arena went out. And for a moment there was silence. Empty, lonely silence. Astrid was swallowed by the shadows. The crowd murmured and stirred in the discomfort of the uncertain.

And then the music the world was waiting for began to play!

Theme

(Start at 1:21 for replays)

The sudden pounding of music brought with it the familiar flaring of lights at the base of the stage. Every pump of bass brought on another flicker of gold stage lighting. But the woman that accompanied the cues was nowhere to be seen. The stage was empty.

And when the beat dropped! And with it, the golden spotlight reappeared upon the ceiling of the Tokyo Dome! Gold confetti reflected the light around the silhouette of a woman suspended in mid-air. Her figure was adorned in a white gown. Wings of pure white stretched out behind her, playing as a canvas for the glittering gold sparkles to play upon.

A great white pathway fell down before her. Stretching to the center of the ring. A heavenly road.

Her figure turned upside down. A leg outstretched. Graceful as she danced in the sky amidst the pounding bass of the music. Backlit by gold and pomp. And she began to descend from the heavens. Slow at first. Until suddenly-

She unfurled in a chaotic spiral! A fluttering of wings and a scattering of feathers! A chaotic freefall!

Spoiler

That ended feet above the ring! The woman in white right-side-up and still suspended above the ring, still above the Earth and those who occupied it. She descended in a slow rotation. The silks that held her were bound to her winged gown. With her crown of golden hair and cherubic face, she looked every bit the divinity she believed herself to be. An angel descending from heaven to save this piteous world from the consequences of its' own actions.

Her boots touched the ring and she released the fabric that had carried her from Heaven. She spread her arms and stepped forward, leaving her facade behind as the dress separated from her body. It was still connected to the silks as they began to retract towards the roof.

She stood before Astrid no longer adorned in white but wearing attire as black as her heart. Cut sharply against her body and tempting the eyes of man to explore her curves. To dare to dream about the scant amount of her they couldn't see. The angel fled back to heaven and left in its place the Devil.

She stood boldly in front of Astrid as the house lights came back to life. She represented everything Astrid wasn't. Cruel and confident, even her entrance had been an affront to wrestling tradition.

The Ace of LAW. Rose Gold, had arrived!

Spoiler

From the moment Lexy began to speak, Astrid's brows narrowed in disgust. It was clear from the beginning of the green-haired girl's speech that the two champions couldn't be less alike when it came to their goals. Astrid wanted to be a champion athlete. She wanted to prove herself capable of living up to the legacy of her family name, to show the potential she could achieve when she pushed her body to its limits, and to elevate her division and her sport through her commitment to honing her skills. She wanted to inspire others the same way that others had inspired her, and she wanted to be remembered for all she gave back to wrestling as a whole. She wasn't out to transcend wrestling, or to be better than it, or to put herself on a pedestal - she merely wanted to stand within the wrestling world as one of the best, and to be the best she could be.

Rose was different. For Rose, it wasn't about wrestling. She could have been anywhere else in the world, Astrid realized, and her attitude wouldn't change - not as long as she could style herself as the pinnacle of human achievement, and enjoy all the benefits and adoration that went along with it. Rose didn't want to be a champion - she wanted to be worshipped, and holding the title was just a means to that end for her. When the roof opened and the lights shone down, and the lightweight descended to the ring in a brilliant gown bathed in a heavenly glow, it was the perfect illustration of what Astrid knew all too well. Rose didn't care about being a wrestler - she wanted to be a goddess.

She needed to know her place. And if anyone was going to knock her down a peg...Astrid would have to do the job.

Clenching her teeth and balling a fist at her side, the Norsewoman stepped forward, closing the distance across the ring as she stormed toward Rose once she unhooked herself from her dress. She faced down at Rose with a glower on her face, the muscles in her arms rippling as she planted her hands on her hips.

"You want to be the star of the show, I know that. Your announcer told me as much," the heavyweight continued, barely keeping the anger from slipping out into the cold tone of her voice. "What you've overlooked is that I'm not here to be the star of any show. All the praise, all the press...at the end of the day, that isn't important to me. What's important is that I've gotten in this ring, I've done my best, I've proven what I can do - and I've made my father proud. As long as I've done that, that means more to me than hitting any fancy entrance ever could."

Astrid leaned down. She had to bend over at the waist to look her opponent in the eye, and only then could the fans truly see how starkly these women contrasted in terms of size. But no matter how much bigger Astrid was, Rose still had the larger-than-life presence to make up for it.

"You, though...you don't care about any of that, do you? You just want to show off. You want to feel superior, even if it means going the easy route. If you really deserved to be a champion, you wouldn't need to go after any 'nameless, talentless trainees from the Young Lioness program' to pad your record - and her name, by the way, is Meiyun Lai. What you are...is a fraud. A cheat. And tonight, we'll all see that you have no place calling yourself a champion. Not if you can't compare to a woman who's worked all her life to earn the belt around her waist, while you ran off anyone more deserving than you when they stood in your way, and left them helpless and crippled so they couldn't fight back."

With Astrid calling back to the main event of the previous We Are LAW - in which Rose had won the Lightweight Championship off Aoi Fukiwara, and inflicted a near career-ending injury on her in the process - a few of the fans cheered, wanting to see Rose get her comeuppance. But Astrid wouldn't be satisfied until Rose had paid for her deeds - and, as she clenched her teeth tighter, her body stiffened, leaning in closer still into the lightweight's face.

Rose Gold stood in a pool of radiant white lace. The gown she wore glittered beneath her feet as it refracted the brilliant lights of the arena. The only thing more luminous than her entrance regalia was her grin. Brilliant and wide and self-satisfied. Everything about the liliputian terror was confidence personified. She'd adopted the visage of a mythical being. And standing before the raging beast that was Astrid, she felt it. Or at least she appeared to.

Her neck craned back so that she could meet Astrid's eyes with her own. 24kt orbs that bore into the Heavyweight Champion's own. They glittered with defiance. No... It was more than that. She was looking down at her from below. She let her have her words, but she consumed them with silent mockery. And when she was finished, she responded with a venom-tipped tongue.

"How convenient for you, to have no interest in praise or fanfare. I applaud you for finding a way to take pride in being exceptionally dull." She clicked her tongue dismissively. "But you're being dishonest, aren't you, Astrid?" One of her finely manicured eyebrows lofted questioningly at the champion.

"I think that it is -you- who wants to feel superior." She gave a flourish of her wrist, presenting her argument to the world. Reminding Astrid of the stage she was on. Of the eyes that were watching.

"After all, you're the one trying to validate her own messiah complex. Astrid Ostberg, the great Heavyweight Champion, declares that she is going to stomp down to the ring and punish -me- for all that I have done." She rolled her eyes.

"You're the one whose arrogance is laid bare! They're watching you know, the women you've called talentless. The women who put their pride on the line to make something better of themselves! Those women believed they had it in them to be the best. Ran them off? No, I gave them the chance to prove it. Every one of them was forgotten and lost, until I made them famous! Just like I did with the Lightweight Division!!" She raised her arms high and summoned the audience's reaction. And she'd get it. A chorus of mixed responses blended into a great din of noise. The boos and cheers were nearly indistinguishable. And Rose didn't know the difference anyway.

She lowered her arms then and stepped somehow closer to Astrid. "You think you're the only one who worked all of her life!?"

Her eyes smoldered with the embers of anger. Furious that Astrid, or anyone, would dare look down on her! "Self-important Astrid. Taking pride in the massive body given to her by God and the talent inherited from her father!"

She pressed even closer until their noses touched. "I was born with nothing and honed myself into the Goddess I am today! Hide behind your size, Heavyweight. Tonight, I'll prove to the world that Skill means more than Size! By any means necessary!"

"I'm going to tear it all down. You, God, and anything else in my way!"

She pressed her forehead against Astrid's daring her to make a move. "I don't need to -feel- superior. I -am- superior!"

The referee, for her part, stood beside them, pressing her hands against both of their torsos to separate them so the bell could ring.

Astrid's eyelid twitched as she stared back toward Rose, and her body grew tense, her fists balling into a white-knuckled grip at her sides as her fingertips pressed tighter against the palms of her hands. Even when she was looming over Rose, standing tall and puffing out her chest to flaunt her well-sculpted physique that made her opponent look even smaller by comparison, Rose was undeterred. The thought of putting herself to the test against an opponent as strong and as formidable as Astrid barely even seemed to worry her even in the slightest. At first, Astrid was struck by how conceited Rose was - how even when there seemed to be a clear advantage in this match, she went about acting like her abilities would make sure it meant nothing at all.

But if there was one thing that struck Astrid, it was when Rose called her arrogant. At that point, she went still, her eyes going wide. As much as Astrid wanted to convince herself that Rose couldn't be right - that she was just reflecting Astrid's accusations back on her in the name of finding something to feel superior about - she couldn't help but wonder one thing. What if Rose was right?

Astrid had her size and strength to boast of. She was already a renowned name by virtue of her father's legacy. Rose, meanwhile, had started from the bottom - a nobody - and had managed to claw her way to the top, by virtue of her own merits. She didn't have the leg up that the Norsewoman did, either in her access to training or the attention that was on her as she was starting her career before she had even won her first championship.

In all the matches Rose had defended her title, she had been the favored victor; it was her opponents - starkly and hopelessly outmatched, without the skill or the fame or the cruelty that Rose had - who were the underdogs facing insurmountable odds. Now, had the tables turned? Astrid had wanted to stand up for Meiyun, to pay Rose back for picking on those weaker than her. But for just a moment, she was able to put aside all the dirty tricks and treachery Rose had used, and consider how this must have looked to an outsider. Was Astrid, who had always championed fairness and sportsmanship, stooping to her lows?

The thought of it was enough to make Astrid pause. For what seemed an eternity she stared back at Rose, wide-eyed and silent. But she soon shook that thought out of her head. It didn't matter who was bigger, or stronger, or who had the more accomplished family name. There was no excusing what the Lightweight Champ had done. Rose had dishonored herself and the profession, and Astrid was here to set things right. She could never forget that.

*DING DING DING*

As soon as the bell rang, Astrid was ready to strike. She lowered herself into a stance as she clenched her teeth, leaning forward to take Rose in a lockup. Right from the beginning, her strength would be on display; she flexed her powerful muscles and shoved forward at her foe to close the gap between them as soon as the referee stepped out of their way. If all went according to plan, she'd force Rose onto her knees at the very least. Astrid would waste no time in trying to overpower Rose with everything she could!

She saw it. The thing she looked for in every one of her opponents. Self-doubt.

It was just embers, but Rose Gold intended to add kindling to her inner turmoil. She planned to have Astrid, the proud woman that she was, consumed by her own nerves. That was going to be her key to victory. She couldn't over power the woman... But she could out maneuver her! Or... At least she thought she could.

Unlike Astrid, Rose Gold was laser focused. Her entrance finery had been discarded. Her pretenses had been dropped. She was in the lions den and it made her heart race. She licked her painted black lips as the referees hand moved to signal the bell.

*Ding Ding Ding*

The bell set both women off! And Rose Gold moved at lightning speed!

The bell had signaled the start of their epic battle!

Or so Astrid had hoped!

Rose Gold shot backwards. She dipped low and rolled under the bottom rope, escaping the confines of the ring! As her boots touched the ground she looked back to the ring with a smirk.

"A little eager, aren't you honey?" She spoke as she examined her nails, showing disinterest in the bout and Astrid both.

Astrid knew enough about Rose Gold to have an idea of what she was in store for. She was prepared for the Lightweight Champion to resort to any trick she could think of to try and even the score with her larger opponent, and to ensure that her record would go unblemished. But Astrid wasn't counting on Rose starting with such tactics as soon as the bell rang. When the Norsewoman stepped forward it was with her hands raised, and her muscles tense and ready to exert their force. But she only managed to grab onto thin air, as Rose broke away at the last minute to roll backward and out of the ring!

At first, Astrid was puzzled. She skidded to a stop, looking up with a raised eyebrow as her hands hung in the air. "What-!?" But as her gaze wandered further down to rest on Rose, it narrowed into a glare as she lowered her hands to her hips. She could tell already that she was being mocked, and she didn't appreciate it!

"What's the matter, Champion?" Astrid shot back, trying to counter the lightweight's bravado. "Are you too afraid to face me head to head?"

"Hm? So demanding!" She looked up towards the ring as she settled down onto the timekeeper's lap. The oft-ignored bespectacled girl gave a start and a blush but otherwise remained quiet.

It wouldn't have mattered whether she'd made a sound or not, as Rose Gold didn't seem to notice the difference between the nerdy timekeeper's lap or the barely padded seat of the chair. The official, for her part, had wisely put her arms up in the air with her fingers spread! No touching! Clever girl. She merely waited red-faced and panting. A bundle of nerves! Or... Perhaps she was a super fan who'd just had her day made?

The referee watched the exchange and in her confusion had delayed the count. But her senses had returned. And she ran to the edge of the ropes and threw a finger up.

"1!" The count had begun. "2!" And it continued. And for all of the referee's urgency, Rose Gold seemed happy to settle into her human-throne and watch Astrid boil over.

Her lips pursed as she gently blew upon her nails. Then, they curled into a smirk as she looked up at Astrid. "Face you? I'm right here in front of you." She dramatically swung her other arm out in front of her. "If you want me so bad, come and get me." She presented her palm to Astrid as if it carried the notion in the center of it.

"3!"