A Ten Minute Test

[deezcastforms]

When Tiki explained what she was doing, the pure dissatisfaction was clear as day on Nico's face. The rookie felt like a fraud. Like she hadn't earned and didn't deserve what she was being given. She probably felt like she was being pitied. She wanted to fight. She was begging Tiki to allow her to keep on going. "Nico, I don't want to hur-"

And then Nico attacked. Desperate to prove she wasn't done, to prove that she was worthy. Though Tiki wasn't certain if Nico was trying to prove herself to herself, or if Nico still thought she had to prove herself to Tiki. But what Tiki was certain of, was that Nico was again risking her health doing it. The look in her eyes, the off way that her body moved, she wasn't all there anymore. Nico was out of it, probably burning through the energy that was keeping her awake at this point.

Tiki refused to fight back, she simply defended. She was not going to hurt Nico more than she already had. Though it wasn't her focus, Tiki did notice the benefits of Nico's fighting stance now. While it's weakness were exposed when Nico's mobility was limited, when she had the freedom of movement to hide her exposed midsection, Nico made herself a difficult target to get a clean strike on.

Then Nico acted as if Tiki had thrown a punch at her, even though the veteran hadn't even faked as if she would. Is she seeing things? Tiki thought. Did my piledriver concuss her? Normally, Tiki would have moved for some kind of counterattack before opponents could turn pressure on her guard into some kind of mix-up, but with her focus purely on defending herself and Nico's health, Tiki was completely unready for Nico's sweep. And soon the rookie was on top of her.

Then the scream. A scream of sheer agony came out of Nico as she threw a fist that had all the pain she had endured, concentrated into a single strike. Tiki quickly crossed her arms over her face, genuine worried what would happen if Nico's punch connected. But it never came, instead thudding against the mat next to Tiki's ear. Then Nico finally passed out. "You did great Nico. And I'll make sure to tell you that again when you wake up."

[RedShinigami]

Nico woke up, several hours later, looking at the ceiling of a white room.
"Huh..."
A doctor came in, goodlooking, pink hair.

Spoiler

"Oh, you are awake. That is good. Miss Lowell pummeled you good it seems.", the man said in a southern accent Nico had to listen closely to understand the bumbling Southerner said.
"Where...is Tiki...", she asked softly.
"Did I made it? Did I made her proud?"
The doc sighed and went to the door.
"Miss Lowell, the patient can see you now. And may I say what an honor it is to be in such shining presence as yours!", he added nervously and took a few steps back to let Tiki enter.

[deezcastforms]

Tiki had taken Nico to a LAW hospital adjacent to the LAW gym after she had passed out, and had explained that the rookie's condition was the result of the veteran going all out on her in a sparring match. To Tiki's great relief, the doctors had largely good news. Nico was obviously dinged up, but had avoided any serious injury. And the best news of all was that Nico's actions that Tiki had feared were the result of a concussion and head trauma was instead most likely caused by her extreme fatigue and exhaustion at the end of the spar.

Upon being invited in, Tiki immediately sat down next to Nico and gently hugged her. "I'm so sorry I beat you up so badly. I went way too far for the sake of the exercise, and I should've stopped far sooner," said Tiki. "I said this after you passed out, and I'm going to say it again. You did good, Nico. I will take you on as my student." Tiki pulled out the paperwork she had shown Nico at the start of the day, only this time with Tiki's name on it as well.

Figuring Nico would probably want to think more about training than her injuries, Tiki decided to shift gears. "We'll start in two weeks. I want you to be fully recovered by the first time we train, so I'm giving you some time," Tiki said as she began to pull out a notebook. "But in the meantime, I do want to get some light practice in while you're waiting for the two weeks to be up. When your body's feeling up to moving around, I want you to go to this address and pick up this order. I've already paid for it, and it's yours."

"It's a top quality training dummy, the same as I use," Tiki began to explain. "It's has the same height, weight, feel, flexibility, and whatever else of the average middleweight. The only things it doesn't do are bleed, scream, or fight back." Then Tiki flip to another page of the notebook. "Then once you have it, I want you to use it to learn and practice these moves," Tiki's list had the following moves on it: Lotus Lock, Triangle Choke (From ground and from standing), Grapevine, and Leg Stepover Hold. "I figured your legs would be your strongest asset as a soccer player and dancer, so I decided to give you leg based moves."

"Then," continued Tiki. "Once you've learned how to perform these and we're training together, we'll practice these further and I'll help you perfect them. Unique moves that fans will know you by are one of the things that sets apart the average from the special in wrestling, so I want to get you started on that right away. Do you think you can do this Nico?" asked Tiki.

[RedShinigami]

Nico looked still a little weak but when Tiki in her face lit up and a smile crept onto her face!
"Maestra!", she smiled and threw her arms around her.
"Ah, ouch, aiaiai...still hurts...", she mumbled and gritted her teeth but refused to let go of her trainer. The cery affectionate girl did'nt had a hug since her mother accompanied her to the airport.
And it felt good. Tikis arms were strong and her body felt warm and inviting.
If they had remained like this, Nico could have fallen asleep on her trainers shoulder but Tiki had something to say. And the nerdy girl with the big glasses listened.
And with every word her smile grew bigger and bigger.
"Si, Si! Ho tinc, Maestra, I understand!"
She was very excited and just needed to hug her trainer again.
"Si! I will! I will train like I never train before...", she said while tears ran down her cheek.
"Sorry...Tiki...", she said and just cried into her shoulder. It was all too much at once.
"Sniff...sniff...in a year...from now...", she said and wiped her tears away with one quick move before grinning at Tiki.
"I will make the 10 minutes!"

[deezcastforms]

Tiki was grateful that Nico was still on board to train under her. She knew that with how determined the rookie was with this, that it probably wasn't something that she actually needed to worry about. But it still chewed in the back of Tiki's head when she thought about just how much she had pushed and beaten Nico in her test.

"Careful, careful," said Tiki as she gently rubbed her hand on Nico's back. This girl had the guts to go far, that much was certain. Now it came to see how much else could be set into place. "A year? You're underestimating either yourself or my training if you think it'll take a whole year to get you up to that level. In that much time, you might even be strong enough to give a fight that'll make me actually sweat a bit," said Tiki. "Now rest up Nico. You gotta be healthy if you want to be able to train, Nico. I'll see you in two weeks time. Tiki walked out of the room with a smile on her face. This was going to be a fun experience, she could feel it.