Summer Fun with Bitter Rivals (SSS Prelude)

[Vc0m]

A lot of stuff was coming up in the summer for Clara Gaster. The Lightweight tourney was about to get truly underway, a lot of new people have come up to LAW...

...and, in addition, she was going to partake in a Summer Submission Spectacle event, with competitors dressed in bikinis, with the only way to win being via submission. While the first part did make her blush, her submission game had been improving in recent weeks, to the point where she was absolutely confident she could win!

And, as she was "haunting" LAW arena's hallways (mostly waiting for tonight's show to start), wearing her mask, she noticed a worker, hurrying down going in the opposite direction to her, carrying a large stack of paper half his height as he ran...

...until a part of the stack fell down to the floor.

Nervously, the worker quickly dropped the remaining papers to the floor, keeping them in the tower formation, dropping to his knees to collect the dropped papers, with the masked Brit doing the same, quickly trying to collect the papers back to a stack to help the hurrying worker...

...and that's when a few of the papers caught the Shadow Lord's attention.

In particular, a flyer for Summer Submission Spectacle...

...and a match on it - "Raquel Masters vs "The Shadow Lord" GASTER"

The Brit gasped in shock.

Pausing for a moment, she gave the worker the flyers back, as he thanked her and ran off into the hallway, and into the lift...

Raquel Masters...She hadn't seen the girl since her birthday, and even then, she came only for Asuka, acting rather coldly towards her...like she always did. She didn't want to be the brunette's "rival" for Asuka's affection...but with the blonde streamer acting like she did with her, she couldn't help but be attracted to Raquel's love...

She felt the sting of guilt of doing that to Raquel. She knew the girl would still be cold to her, if not outright hate her for stealing her girlfriend's affection.

With a heavy heart of needing to face a girl she had very...very difficult relationship with, she took off for the locker room, needing to sit down, and process the information she just learnt about her upcoming match...

[Highfly]

Raquel was ready for her match, sporting a pink and twal.bikini, showing off her small but well defined body. She wanted to get some positive notoriety for.a change and this was her chance.

Bouncing around, the barely clad grapple had worked on her fledgling submission game to the point she was at least competent now. Besides, she had speed and strikes to help her soften up the competition to make holds easier to lock in!

As she strut through the hallway, swaying her hips in a flirty manner she saw a familiar.... and unwelcome face coming around the corner.

"Oh. Hello homewrecker." Raquel said coldly as she stepped in GASTERs way, crossing her arms across her chest.

[Vc0m]

Right as GASTER walked into visibility of the Locker room...she was welcomed by the second unpleasant surprise of her day - Raquel herself...

"R-RAQUEL?! Hmm...ah...h-how...are..you doing...?", she would nervously say, crossing her arms behind her back upon seeing the brunette, wondering if she knew about their upcoming match in a few weeks...

[Highfly]

Was GASTER serious? Raquel shook her head and stood with her hands on her hips, visibly unhappy. "Oh you know I am great! My girlfriend.... or I don't even know what to call her anymore... spends more time with you than me, shows you more affection than she shows me even though I live with her. Between you tearing her away and her treating me less like a girlfriend I am not sure which one of you drives me more crazy!" Raquel snapped, stepping forward at GASTER.

"Was that not the answer you were expecting? Do you want me to be happier while you and Asuka get closer all while I drift further away?" Raquel asked, her facial expressions growing more and more angry by the second.

[Vc0m]

"Oh, that's...", Clara attempted to reply at Raquel's things going great...

...before cutting the Brit off and digging into her with viciousness of a woman scorned the likes of which she had never seen before:

"She...", Clara attempted to speak again...but was cut off once more, Raquel getting stepping towards her:

"I...", she tried again, but again, Raquel simply continued berating the Shadow Lord for taking her girlfriend away from her, stepping closer and closer to Clara, while the Brit tried to step back...only to hit the wall next to the door.

Once Raquel stood nose to nose with the raven-haired girl, she asked Clara, point blank, her question, and continued looking at her with one of the angriest gazes Clara had seen on a person...and because of this, and the truth of Raquel's words, she didn't know what to say. She could've tried to say that Asuka was coming on to her...but, in her head, she knew she could've always said "no" at some point to the cute streamer, after realizing she had a girlfriend. She could've talked things out with Raquel...but the last time that happened, the brunette cut the conversation off, upset at Asuka outright lying to her.

Clara simply didn't know what she could say to justify herself to Raquel...all she could say was the truth of her feelings to the brunette:

"I...I am sorry things turned out like this Raquel...by the time I realized I fell in love with her, I didn't know you were dating...and after I learnt about you...", Clara paused. She wanted to clear the air between them as much as possible, but if she were to tell the truth on the matter, she knew she would make the worst enemy out of the brunette...

...but not speaking it would make things even more difficult in the future:

"I...I couldn't say no to her...I still can't. You will likely punch me for saying this...but I love her. Likely as much as you are. As selfish as it sounds...even though I want both you and Asuka to be happy together...I simply can't let go off her..."

[Highfly]

Raquel may as well have had steam coming out her ears as GASTER spoke. She loved Asuka. GASTER loved Asuka. Asuka was a couple with Raquel...... but spent far more time with GASTER.

Raquel felt like the third wheel in her own relationship. She had enough.

Her face trembled, her lip quivered and after staring GASTER in the eye she turned, storming away without saying a word. Right now she wouldn't know what to say to Asuka if she were here. The only thing she knew for sure was that she never wanted to see GASTER ever again. She seemed pleasant enough and had they met under different circumstances there probably would never be a problem between them. However that simply wasn't the case. Raquel just wanted to be alone.

[Vc0m]

Clara was fully expecting Raquel to rip her mask off her face, and beat the living hell out of her for her words...and, especially after saying them, Clara felt she was in the wrong. She was barging in on 2 people's quite serious relationship. There was no but or if about her being in the wrong in this situation...

The brunette, however, would simply turn away, looking as if she feared what she would say and do to the Shadow Lord if allowed to let loose, and would simply turn away from her and walk away...

...with Clara doing the same shortly afterwards...

The Summer Submission Spectacular would be more than a little awkward for her, needless to say...