L.A.W. - League of Anime Wrestling

Halloween Sonohara was ready for action. Dressed in her typical outfit, she’d had all her customary pre-match preparations. Got some stretches in, limbered up, nice and fit. Made sure to stop by the bathroom to handle some business, nullifying the chance for any unwanted mishaps in the ring. All of her makeup was on point, and she’d even gotten her in just the right style, with time to spare.

There was only one tiny, little, insignificant, minuscule, speck of a problem that she had to deal with. A fly in the ointment. It all stemmed from an important question.

”How the hell do I have a tag match?”

Halloween Sonohara

She had only been called in at the last minute, with management needing someone to fill in as an opponents for a debuting wrestler. Halloween was more than happy to fit the bill, but it was only now that she was hearing about who she was up against - Callie Ryker and Moira Pendragon. Two wrestlers. Dos.

She’d found one of the agents backstage, a portly girl in glasses with a name that she couldn't recall for the life of her, and she was in the process of airing her confusion as the woman looked at her like she was speaking Greek. ”This isn’t some handicap thing, is it? Because I’m not about to go out and have a threesome with two chicks I just met out of nowhere, that’s like-”

”No, no, it’s nothing like that.” The woman shook her head, sounding every bit as confused as Halloween was, if not more. ”It’ll be you and your partner.”

Halloween’s head tilted to the side, as if her brain needed to shift a bit so it could process that. ”Tag…partner?” Her eye twitched. ”I don’t have a-”

”Oh, weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeenie!”

”Dear God no.”

Halloween’s tanned face turned pale white as she spun around and saw a familiar blonde prancing her way down the hallway. That long, flowing hair, those roomy hips, those bright eyes, that shimmering smile. It had been a good while since she’d seen her, but she hadn't changed a bit in that time.

Hanako ‘Lovers’ Inose.

Hello, world.

Halloween stood, wide-eyed and slackjawed, as her ex-girlfriend came skipping over, hands on hips, bobbing from side to side. ”Hey, weenie! You ready for this? I’ve been aching to go all week long, let me tell you. I know it’s a little last minute, but I was thinking we could do a little thing where I go out first and then you come down, and we kind of dance around to the music - mine, not yours, since this is my first match in LAW and all. We could probably come up with a new tag theme later. I figured we could go a little upbeat for it, you know? Maybe some synthwave or house music, something with a really good beat. Or phonk! Always wanted to try coming out to that heavy bass stuff, like you see on the YouTube videos with-”

Halloween threw her arms forward and clapped, loud enough to make everyone in the gorilla position stand at attention. ”Lovers. Hanako. Focus. Look at me, look at me, look at me.” She pointed at her eyes and stared straight at her ex-girlfriend, making sure she had the woman’s undivided attention. That was super-important with her. ”Why. Are You. Here?”

”For the tag match, silly.”

Halloween blinked. ”Hanako. We are not a tag team. We have not been a tag team for six months, two weeks and three days. We broke up.” She leaned forward. ”You do remember that we broke up, right? Please tell me you remember that we broke up. It is of the utmost importance that you remember that we broke up.”

Lovers snickered and flipped her hair back in that lovely angelic way she did, practically radiating light. ”Um, yeah, of course, I remember. Kind of hard to forget that. You took my cat.”

”For the last time, Salem is my-” Halloween had a hard sigh and brought her hands up. Don’t get off topic. ”Fine, whatever. But if you remember us breaking up, that begs the question: Why are you here?”

”Because I’m your tag partner, silly.” She shrugged, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. ”Us breaking up doesn’t mean we’re not a tag team anymore.”

It took a solid ten seconds for Halloween to find the breath to speak again, and by the time she did, Lovers’

was playing. ”Ooo, that’s us! Come on, let’s gooooooooooo!” Lovers ran out through the curtain while Halloween stayed frozen in place, still trying to process the madness that had been thrust upon her.

She shouldn’t go out there. She shouldn’t do this. She should let Lovers wrestle by herself. She should let her get demolished in the ring, and maybe that would knock some sense into her. Halloween knew this woman better than anyone. If she went out there and went through with this tag team match, she would never get the concept in her head. The two of them would be tethered for her entire LAW career, and there would be no escaping from her. Yes, Lovers would get beat up, and that was sad, but it would be worth it for her sanity. This was her one chance to escape, her one chance to be free. All she had to do was walk away.

And she did, Halloween sighed, shook her head, and walked away from the gorilla position.

Only for her to turn around five seconds later and head back to the curtain. ”Fuck, fuck, fuck, hijo de puta…”

By the time she made her way out, Lovers was already in the ring, blowing kisses to the adoring fans and bathing in the attention. Halloween was notably less cheery - she simply stormed down the ramp, hopped up on the apron, and made her way over to their corner. She leaned up against the turnbuckle as Lovers’ music died down, practicing some breathing exercises to illicit calm.

This was going to be a long night.

"Oh."

Morgan would suddenly blurt aloud to herself but it was meant to catch the attention of her partner, Callie, who was warming up nearby. It was strange to think of someone as her partner other than her parents. She had been running a solo act in Vegas for a little while before it got rather boring. Rehearsed routines always were so not knowing what was going to happen was fun. Especially when she realized she had made a mistake already and gotten an unexpected outcome.

"What?"

Callie had paused her stretching to glance over at Morgan. She had to admit, it was rather fortunate that she'd score someone with name recognition to side skirt the time it would normally take for an unassuming wrestler in an indie circuit to rise up to a premier league. It was so far away from home that Callie hadn't really adjusted at all. It was that damned time change, still cursing her on the adjustment. If her road shows away from home would mess up her sleep, traveling to the other side of the world certainly would.

Morgan's expression slumped into something guilty. "Oh, it is nothing, but..." She giggled, growing a little red in the cheeks as she held out the paper she had been reading. Callie eyed it and recognized it as the matching listing for tonight but she was still confused, opting to not read it. "What?" The blue-haired indie asked again, a little more sternly as she dropped her stretch to give the blonde another look.

"Soooo... remember how we were supposed to come up with a team name and you didn't have one that I liked. Well, I just put TBD on the form and then we probably got sidetracked with the food arriving and ended up not coming back to deciding I name? So guess what our tag team name is~"

Callie froze as she put it all together. Morgan's guilty smile peaked, slinking her head down like a dog hiding from a scolding. There was a pause long enough that you could feel it until Callie finally managed to confirm what they both already knew.

"So we are TBD?"

"Uh~huh~"

"TBD."

"Well technically, The TBDs, so it sounds like we actually planned it, but yeah!"

Callie rose a hand to her forehead. It was too late to change it for tonight. They were set to go on any minute, in fact, Morgan had the staff that had fetched them, provide a match listing. It was a little embarrassing, but some of the more memorable wrestlers she watched growing up had names with just the initials so maybe it wouldn't be too bad. This only confirmed what, Callie, had known, Morgan was a ditz. At least she acted like it far too convincingly.

"That's... Callie began but then she heard a familiar track:

Saved by the bell.

Not the way Callie would have started but so be it. She was representing the TBDs. At least it was her music they were going out on.

Callie Ryker

Callie walked out to the ramp, feeling a little nervous. She paused, rolling her shoulders, bouncing lightly on her feet, closing her eyes and letting the music fill her. This was no different than her indie circuit. There were just a lot more people and...

BOOM.BOOM.

Callie jumped at the explosive sounds coming from either side. Dark blue flares were followed by light blue ones, fireworks for their entrance? Morgan was right next to Callie and gave her that same damned guilty smile and no doubt she was giggling to herself at the surprise. She had them use fireworks for their entrance? This was so unlike her indie circuit...

Morgan couldn't help but love the display and applause. All the music and stimulation was terrific in building her own hype. Poor Callie looked like she was nervous so Morgan helped her partner out by grabbing her hand and leading them down the ramp, throwing their collective hands up once they were moving. Morgan broke away to run over to fans and high-five them, stopping to give a little girl a hug. She broke away and ran up to the ring apron and mounted it, giving a showman's wave to the crowd before she entered all decked out in her ring gear.

Morgan Pendragon

Callie completed her trek up to the ring and slid in. She was almost invisible next to Morgan's demand for attention but that suited her. Morgan would offer two flat palms, gesturing into the ring and allowing Callie to start first. It was their plan since Morgan was still rather green outside of training. She hadn't even had a proper match yet, so Callie expected to do some carrying. She hoped it wouldn't be a lot, but there were a few things that the blonde had that while Callie didn't quite hold in high regard, would work out.

"So." Callie called out as the music died down. "Who wants to go first over there?"

"Callie! That's not trash talk! You gotta really nail them!" Morgan hollered and pointed at Lovers. "Hey! White! Your hair wings! I love them!" Morgan giggled, leaning entirely on the top rope.

"But that..." Callie turned, shaking her head. "...Wasn't even close to trash talk."

Morgan shrugged.

Callie sighed. It was going to be a long night.

Okay. Halloween was here. She was doing this. Stupid and silly as it was, she was in a tag match with her crazy ex-girlfriend, so she might as well roll with it. She didn’t want any more losses on her record, even if it was from a tag match. She needed to lock in, focus, and get. This. Done.

She had just finished exhaling when their opponent’s music started up, heralding the approach of…the TBDs? Interesting name choice. Must’ve been some sort of meta-joke thing, she was never good with those. The women seemed pleasant enough, though, with the blonde of their team bouncing all over the place and doling out high-fives. A promising sign, really - this was going to be enough of a pain in her side with Lovers alone, no need to make it more complicated than it already was.

The blonde was a small fry -still taller than her and Lovers, sure, but not that much taller, she could tell.

The bluenette was the tallest one in this match by at least half a foot, but she wasn’t some bulky brawler, couldn't have weighed over 140, tops.

She nodded as they made their way into the ring, feeling some confidence return. ”Maybe we can do this…”

Halloween was just about to confer with Lovers on who’d be starting this shindig, when Big Blue got their attention. Nice and direct this one. ”I’ll be-”

She was interrupted as the blonde called out their way, with the least trashy trash talk Halloween had ever heard. And, naturally, it was aimed at Lovers, who quickly chirped back her way. ”Thanks! I like your butt!” Subtle as a brick to the face, nothing much had changed.

Halloween grimaced and blinked, letting that moment of silliness wash over her, before she swung back around to Lovers. ”Know what? You start. Been a hot minute since I saw you in action.”

”Okay! Get ready for a show.” She sauntered on over to the middle of the ring as Halloween retreated to the apron, making sure to put some extra swing in her hips as she head towards her opponents. She blew a quick kiss Morgan’s way and winked at Callie, making sure to spread the love around.

”All right, you two.” Lovers pointed dual finger guns at them both. ”Who’s gonna be my Valentine today, huh?”

Callie wasn't sure what her reaction would be. This reminded her of the time someone thought screeching would be a good gimmick, dressed up in feathers, and always looked for the top turnbuckle for the big flashy move. A loud screech would come from her mouth whenever she perched up there right before the jump. It made it painfully easy to predict when it would come and the screech was grating enough that it awoke Callie from whatever daze she may have been in. At least enough to roll away and negate any advantage that the would-be owl had. Lovers was bringing that all back. She even had the feathers. Not the screeching, but close.
 
"Hear that, Callie, I've got a nice butt~" Morgan giggled, swaying by the ropes as she beamed energy.

Callie raised her hands, dipping her head to shake in disbelief. The absolute wrong choice was to put in Morgan at the start. She'd rush off in a full sprint where an opponent would just have to stick an arm out and the blonde would likely clothesline herself on it.

"Yeah, great. Now take a moment and focus." Callie tried coaching but Morgan was far too wound up. She always had such energy in her shows, all eyes on her. She had to be animated, it felt wrong not to. Plus she had so many exciting things to try and tricks to pull. How could she not sit still, despite Callie always trying to coach her.

Lovers approached and caught both of their attention. Who was first. Just like in their strategy meeting, Callie would go first to gauge the opponent and let Morgan visualize the flow of the match. Spot weaknesses, things to do. She needed every bit of advantage she could get since she had zero experience. Morgan, meanwhile, reached out and caught the blown kiss and stuffed it into her chest.

"Oh! Callie! Let me go first! I'm getting a good vibe so me-first!" Morgan bounced on her feet. She loved high energy people and Lovers was just oozing energy. She'd probably find the antics that Morgan would try in the ring to be fun, not cheating.

Callie rubbed her temple. Sending Morgan out there would probably end this match immediately and Callie wouldn't even get to wrestle.
"No, I'm first like we talked about. Watch the match and get ready for the tag. I should be able to set you up, alright?"

Morgan pouted, extending her lips and crossing her arms. "Fine, but don't make it too boring out there. I'll be waaaaiting~" Morgan carried her voice there at the end, offering her own blown kiss towards Lovers as she slipped out of the ring.

Callie steadied, bouncing on her feet. Game time. She needed to represent and get off to a good start. Facing Lovers, she readied herself for the bell. Lovers looked like the type to be aggressive. Blitz right out of the gate with a flurry of attacks. It was in her costume for goodness sake. The Hermes wings strewn about the motiff like she'd run fast in a foot race. Faster than Callie? Yea, maybe, but you didn't need speed when you were prepared for it.

"Alright so let's see if my hunch is right about you, Shortie." Callie called out, ready.

Lovers bounced from heel to heel, so ready, so eager, so hyped for this match. It had been a good little while since she’d been in the ring, and while she’d been training nonstop for her redebut and doing sparring matches and the like, that was nothing compared to the real thing. She needed to get in there, get her hands dirty, and this was the perfect way to do it.

Granted, she would’ve preferred to do it with the cute blonde. She didn’t know much about either of these two women, but she’d already pegged Morgan as the more fun one to deal with. Younger, vibrant, energetic, her kind of girl, enough to make her wish this was one of those hentai matches. And, oh boy, was she looking forward to getting into one of those. She’d done some, shall we say, ‘research’ into hentai wrestling, extensively, and she couldn't wait to get that particular cherry popped in the ring. Maybe make it an experience with Halloween, if she stopped acting weird about the whole tag team thing. Did they do tag team hentai matches? If they did, would she have to get orgasms from both of her opponents or just one of them? She figured it would be for both opponents, like a process of elimination thing. It would be kind of a waste to wrestle two women and only have some fun with one of them, right? She could probably ask her agent about it the next time they met, or possibly-

”Huh?”

Lovers snapped back to attention as Callie called out to her, sounding like she was ready to rumble. She quirked an eyebrow at the woman’s words and smirked. ”Hunch? Oh, pretty lady, now you got me curious. What was the hunch?”

As the bell rang, Lovers picked up the pace with her footwork, raising her fists and shifting from foot to foot with an increasing tempo. Left, right, left, right, left, right, she fell into a rhythm, trying to train Callie’s eyes and make her think she had the pattern down pat, only to break out of it without warning with a burst of unexpected speed.

Lovers rushed in, brought her leg up, and swung it low and quick throwing a low sweep at her opponent’s shins, trying to trip her up. Instead of bringing the leg down, she chambered it, raised it high, and threw a roundhouse at Callie’s side, before she leaped away to create some distance once more.

The bell rung and Callie noted Lovers immediately change of stance. Fast footwork. The indie veteran felt vindicated. If someone had wings on their outfit, they liked to boast about their speed every time. There was a pattern to it, that Callie was lightly reflecting her own stance to match the tempo and trying to feel out the rhythm.

"Yeah, a hunch."

Callie replied plainly. She was waiting for it since the bell. The energetic dart-in because that's the high energy types liked to do. Morgan always did it in practice, though, her execution was bad. If only-! There!

Lovers had moved swiftly, closing the gap fast. Callie's eyes widened but she had been looking for this. That lifted leg had prompted the Indie to slide a foot back, leaning back to take her weight and balance off of her lead foot. Was it a trip up? Callie watched for it but her opponent never began to dip, instead that leg cocked around and swung higher.

Her weight and balance already backwards, Callie bounced off of her lead foot in a backward motion to evade. The toe of her opponent's boot kicked up a wind as it passed just beyond Callie's torso, cooling her bare stomach. When the danger passed, Callie brought her weight and balance forward and it was her turn to try and push. Kicks sometimes left an opponent open as their balance was around that kick. Lovers moved with a practiced grace to recover, far too quick for her to be caught unbalanced, but that didn't stop Callie as she pursued.

Leveling an arm outward, Callie looked to use her momentum and throw it behind a clothesline, looking to pass by and cleave her opponent high to knock her off of her feet. The sooner her opponent was off of her feet, the easier it would be to control the tempo here. She dreaded the idea, but she'd have to tag in Morgan eventually and if she could soften Lovers up, then maybe Morgan wouldn't have too difficult of a time.

Halloween tapped her foot as Lovers began to dance around the ring, bobbing her head to a private song reverberating in her head. Despite the irritation of her current situation, she wasn’t too worried about Lovers holding her own in the ring. She had a few wires loose, sure, but the woman knew how to hold her own in a fight and could kick your head off if only given half a chance. She would be fine…

…for the first half of the match, anyway. Her mind tended to wander, and the longer this thing went on, the worse that would get. For now, though, it was under control, and all she had to do was sit back, keep a moderately watchful eye, and wait for her turn.

So far, so good. Lovers was doing a good job of kicking things off, putting those quick legs of her to close the distance and strike out. It didn’t quite work, Callie had some good reflexes, but Lovers wasn’t deterred - all smiles, all the way.

It was Callie’s turn to return fire, now, and she did so with a clothesline, rushing in and swing hard. The blow struck Lovers clean on the chest and knocked her flat. At least, that was how it looked to the untrained eye. But Halloween knew how her ex-girlfriend moved and the subtle way her weight had shifted on the impact. She’d throw herself back at it, rolling with the impact to take away the force.

As such, she had more than enough energy to throw her legs up and rise with a kip-up an instant later, getting a quick round of applause from the audience. Instead of turning about to face her opponent, Lovers fell back and let her foot swing through the air in an arch, attempting to nail her opponent with a Pele Kick.

Connection.

At least it felt like it as Callie's arm collided with Lovers' chest, but there was something wrong. With a clothesline, you'd expect to be batting against the other's full weight, a strong recoil in the arm as you shoved the other back. Unless Lovers had nothing but air in there, which given the initially impression of her being an air-head, seemed plausible. Instinct had the Indie feeling like she didn't quite get the success she was looking for, however, and when she slowed and turned abruptly, she caught the tail end of the Lovers' sudden rise and the starting pivot.

Again, Callie felt like she was at a disadvantage speedwise. Her reaction was molasses compared to leap and swung kick that looked to sought to cleave into the side of her head. Caught early enough, there was time but not enough to be clean.

"Shit-" She blurted reactively.

Callie's arms had been up at her chest height which saved the time she needed to lift one arm up vertically to guard her head while the other braced against the forearm in a block. It was raised just in time for Callie to brace, her forearm colliding with Lovers' ankle, blunting the full kick, but her arm was far to close to her head. The force pushed the toe of the boot to connect just above Callie's ear for an impact while she found her braced, balled-up fist being forced to back to smack against her temple.

It wasn't devastating, thank God, but it had knocked Callie into aside in a stagger, threatening to topple. Her focus lapsed for a second, snapping back after a faltering step in the direction Lovers had kicked. With her arms still lifted, Callie swung her arm out in Lovers' direction in case there was a follow-up, but already she was feeling on the backfoot.

Morgan had been previously drumming her fingers on the turnbuckle watched with barely contained enthusiasm. It looked like so much fun out there to be moving around. She thought Callie was really good but it looked like Lovers was, too! That didn't bother Morgan because she didn't quite grasp the skill required, but Lovers being able to flip back up like that was cool. Her partner couldn't even do that!

Speaking of, Callie was looking like she was in trouble. That wouldn't do for her partner to be in trouble and Morgan not doing anything to help so she leaned forward over the rope. Thankfully she had peaked at the combatant names before the match and it was clear who was in the ring right now.

"Hey! Lovers!" Morgan called out, cupping her hands around her mouth. "Look out behind you!"

It was silly and simple. The oldest trick in the book, really. Though Morgan always loved the classics.

Burritos.

After this match, Lovers would get Halloween some apology burritos. That had always worked out well when they were dating. She would mess up, Halloween would get upset, and Lovers would cook her some apology burritos, and then things would be good. They might even make out afterwards, which was fun. It was a little stereotypical since Halloween was Mexican, but it worked. She always wanted to act as if she didn’t like food from her own country, but Lovers never understood that. Mexican food was so spicy and flavorful, and she so rarely got to have it. Not too many Mexican restaurants in Japan, sadly. There were some Taco Bells, but she'd eaten at one of those and gotten sick, decided never to try them again. She got a Chalupa…or maybe a taco? The one with the hard shell. She supposed it was all kind of the same, in the end. It seemed to be just a matter of how you prepared it…

These thoughts - and a few others - went through Lover’s head as she flipped back, bringing her foot through the air in a wide arc that was meant to smack Callie in the face. It was hard to tell when she was upside down like this, but she did hit something, and the sound of the impact, it had done some real damage. Lovers came down on her shoulders, rolled forward, then popped back to her feet in a single, smooth motion, making some distance between them. She looked over her shoulders and smiled at the sight of Calle reeling on the ropes, nice and vulnerable.

Time to go to work, then. Lovers bounced off the ropes and came towards her opponent in a mad dash, closing the distance with quick strides, her hair flying out behind her. She reached halfway across the ring, reared back, and-

Stopped.

The stop came when she heard someone calling her name, and looked over to find that it was the little cutie from before, Morgan. She was confused for a second, but hey, there was no harm in being friendly, right? She waved back.

”Hanako! Hanako!” Halloween’s shrill shrieked filled the arena, making Lovers redirect her attention. ”Don’t stop! Attack, attack!”

Oh, right. Lovers snapped back, locked onto her target, and continued the rest of her sprint with hurried steps. The moment she was close enough, she leaped up, cycled through her legs, and tried to strike her opponent in the face with a Bicycle Kick.

Callie's stagger and sudden turn with the defensive forearm thrown out had met with air but it did back her into the ropes, facing the charging Lovers headed right for her!

"Dammit.." She cursed under her breath, thinking that she'd have to try to slide out of here before that-

Hey! Lovers!

Was that, Morgan? Callie didn't have time to look but Lovers had caught it too and came to a complete stop. Both in-ring combatants froze with Morgan capturing their attention. Callie hadn't really paid attention to the other thing she said, but was that intentional? Did she mean to stop Lovers or was that incidental? Ugh, her head hurt and probably just not from the kick as she tried to think of what her partner was doing. There was a lot they didn't really know about each other. Unfortunately, there wasn't time to dwell on that mystery before Lovers' partner had snapped her back to attention. Callie had to move but thankfully she wasn't so flat-footed with that break.

Lovers charged again.

It was going to be a kick.

She started with a kick, probably would follow with one. Call it another hunch. This one, Callie got ready for and as soon as Lovers committed, with a leap no less, the Indie dipped to the side, pressing forward as Lovers momentum carried her past. Callie's arms shot around Lovers' waist, trying to catch her before she could slip free. Then heaving backwards, she looked to throw her opponent back in a suplex.

Morgan had shifted her attention to Halloween. That particularly shrill shriek and revealed a lot, namely Lovers' more personal name. That would be useful. Not only that but it appears Hanako was quite the adorable ditz to fall for distraction. Morgan could do distraction. The blonde watched Halloween with a sharp grin and if her attention ever met hers, she'd wink mischievously. This was going to be so much~