My Generation

[BlackAkuma]

Another day in the gym with Valerie Dolores-Cotes Welles. In other words, it was a day that ended in ‘Y’.

Okay, that was a bit of an exaggeration, she wasn’t in the gym every single day. She would, occasionally, take a day off for her matches, or when she had to do something important but boring life thing that couldn't be done on treadmill, but for pretty much every other day, it would be inevitable that you would, at some point, find Valerie in the gym. Either working on the heavy bags, practicing techniques in the ring, or, as she was today, hitting the weights.

”Three…four..”

And she was hitting those weights today, knocking out the bench press, one rep at a time. It was good therapy, really, a way to clear her mind. When you were on the weights, it was easier to focus on things. Her body went into overdrive and dedicated itself to the effort, which made it easier for her mind to process things that were bothering her. Surprise, surprise, she had quite a few things to process, even more than usual for a 21 year old female wrestler.

”Five…six…”

The big thing on her mind these days was her career as a professional wrestler. She’d had some decent success so far, tangling with a couple of big names and even scoring some notable wins over the likes of Kyo Akamatsu and El Rey de Ceilo, but that had yet to translate into her getting into the title picture. Unlike a lot of wrestlers in LAW, she was limited in her aims - the Hentai and LAWless titles were off the table as far as she was concerned, so she had to focus on the Middleweight and Openweight Championships, both of which had crowded fields.

”Seven…eight…”

So what was her play? What was her move? She was still a rookie, she knew she shouldn’t be rushing into things with her career, but she didn't want to be stagnant, either. She needed direction, she needed ideas, she needed…

”Nine…te…te”

…crud, she needed a spotter.

Maybe she put on too much weight, maybe she’d burned herself out without proper pacing, but whatever the reason, she could not get the bar up for the final rep, leaving her stuck on the weight bench, the metal bar precariously held above her and getting lower with each passing second.

”Uh…” She spoke through her grunts as the bar dropped lower and lower, inching towards her chest. She was working out fairly late, but there were still people around, one of them had to hear her. ”Can…anyone…anyone help? I…I need…”

[kerfine]

The LAW arena gym was surprisingly quiet for a place where this many muscleheads got together, perhaps they were cautious of getting jumped to show up at this time of day to give the powerhouse any help. With one exception currently dashing in to save the day: "I gotcha!" Adrian grunted as she grasped a hold of the slowly sinking bar, keeping it from falling down on the blonde's chest "Come on. You got this under control." She continued, relying more on Valley's own strength to finish the set than her own, she just needed to be enough to start getting it back up and onto the rack nice and safely.

"Whew! Haven't done that in a while," the latest of LAW's managers let out as she shook her arms loose from the sudden strain "You doing okay-?" She asked, still unsure of who she'd just saved.

[BlackAkuma]

Valerie could almost hear her old wrestling coach giving her crap about this. He’d always warned her about going too hard without a spotter and said it would bite her in the butt one day, but no, she had to be stubborn about this sort of thing. While it wasn’t like she was friendless in LAW, finding people you could depend on for routine workouts was a pain, far too much of a hassle.

A hassle she was now wishing she’d bothered with.

Gritting her teeth, she was just about to make another effort to push it off when a kind soul finally came around and gave her the support she was asking for. It wasn’t a huge amount, but a huge amount wasn’t what Valerie needed. Just enough to get it all the way up and onto the bar.

The moment that the weight abated, Valerie let out a long, hard sigh of relief and let her arms fall to the side. ”Oh, god, thank you.” She hissed and rubbed her arms as she sat back up, then turned to get a good look at her savior. ”Yeah, I’m okay, thanks, I just-”

Valerie paused and blinked as she saw through the haze and registered who she was talking to. She’d seen this woman’s promo just the other day, but even without it, she would’ve known who she was talking to, as any student of wrestler would.

”Adrian-san!” She stood up and gave the woman a polite bow - maybe a little fast, it nearly made her stumble with dizziness. ”Thank you so much, I appreciate it. It’s an honor to meet you, ma’am.”

[kerfine]

Accident prevented, Adrian stuck around for a bit, nominally just to make sure she hadn't pulled anything on that last set but in truth there were... other reasons for her to stay with the blonde "Not a problem, it happens but its usually a good sign to call it here on the strength work, hit the treadmill or something instead if you're still up for it." She waved off, putting a reassuring hand on Valley's shoulder that bench press wobbles were just one of those things that happened before the wrestler realised just who this Good Samaritan was.

The retired vet wasn't expecting the bow but she was more than appreciative of the level of respect this young woman was showing her, no-one had given her that much when she was still wrestling herself "Good to find someone who does watch the show to see what's going on," she nodded "You can drop the honorifics for the most part," Adrian addressed Valley casually as she slid her still slightly sore hands comfortably into her pockets "And your name is? Sorry, I'm used to people trying to work out in monogrammed gear rather than actual workout attire."

[BlackAkuma]

Valerie actually did have monogrammed clothing she could’ve worn, stuff that her mother had made her and wanted her to wear, but she frankly rarely used the stuff. She stood out enough by being a nearly six foot tall blonde woman in Japan, she didn’t need to draw even more attention by branding herself.

”Hai, no honoriffics, Ms. Kytes.” She blinked. ”Adrian.” It always felt weird addressing senior wrestlers by their first names, but she forced her way through it.

”I’m Valley Doll, Valley Doll III.” She held up three fingers on reflex, never hurt to help avoid confusion. ”But you can call me Valerie. And yes, I do watch the show, it’s good for training.” She winched, then rubbed the back of her neck. ”The standard matches, anyway, I watch those. Not so much the sex stuff, I skip over that. So I usually watch about one-third of the show. But still.”

Awkward. She coughed.

”What brings you to the gym? I thought you weren’t actively wrestling anymore, just manager stuff.”

[kerfine]

Valley Doll? Now that was a name Adrian hadn't heard in a long time... and it referred to someone significantly less ripped than Valarie was "Three? There was a Valley Doll Two? Feel like I missed a step somewhere." Maybe it was a Tiger Mask situation and no-one talked about number Two for nebulous reasons, either way there was a connection here and that was probably how VDIII had gotten the good idea to be as polite as possible and not just because she'd saved her from an unfortunate accident. Looks like her predecessor (and her predecessor's girlfriend) hadn't given her the complete run down of what an ass Adrian had been.

And then the blonde explained her viewing habits, her study regime, and Adrian couldn't help but laugh in the awkward silence "S-sorry, sorry. I get it, really. Why do you think I avoided getting involved in those matches for my career? Grappling on the mat's one thing but that's something else, you know?" She covered up as best she could before the subject turned to safer topics "Well, a manager's not much use without wrestlers to manage is she? I know I put out the public offer earlier but a little recruitment drive never hurt anyone," That last part was probably not true, but the brunette wasn't looking in to find all the ways prospective managers had gotten tossed out for pressing their luck trying to snag a client so she just ignored the possibility "Gym's usually a good spot to find people hanging around with work on their mind who might need a hand, just happened to a bit more urgent."

"I'll cut to the chase: have you ever thought about hiring a manager?"

[BlackAkuma]

”Three.” Valerie nodded, confirming her place in the hierarchy. This was far from the first time she’d had to explain it. ”Baaba-” She paused and scrunched up her face. ”My grandmother was…is the first Valley Doll, back in old-old days. Mom’s the second. I’m the third.”

And probably the last, given her lovelife, but she didn’t want to get into that with a stranger. Though, come to think of it, she vaguely recalled her parents saying something about Adrian before. The specifics eluded her, but…

She was knocked out of her thoughts when Adrian threw a sudden curveball her way, taken aback but what seemed to be an offer. A manager would be pretty helpful, especially at this stage in her career, when she was still trying to navigate the sport's backstage politics. She could always call on her parents to pull strings, true, but she frankly hated pulling that card.

”I…” She scratched the back of her head, tussling up her ponytail in the process. ”I don’t know. I’m not sure I have the money to even afford one, for starters.”

[kerfine]

"Ooooh, right, full third generation deal. Gotcha." Adrian idly nodded along, clearing out one confusion and giving Adrian a new angle into stuff she might have been told but probably wasn't. Either way there were more important matters at hand.

The veteran had probably been a bit too forward with Valarie. Having nearly avoided a nasty accident was probably not the best time to be thinking business but Adrian pressed on "Come on, it's not that pricy. I mean, I'm not that pricy," She corrected herself, flicking a few stray brown hairs out the way as she tried to reassure her potential protégé "The big thing that would have cost you would be setting up contract negotiations in a federation through one and in LAW, I'm the rookie here so I'm not exactly going to hit you with the full sticker price someone trying to make a debut would've. And secondly... LAW's already paying me pretty decent just to show up and make the crowd whoop every now and then, money's not the key to this for me. Honest."

[BlackAkuma]

Being honest, Valerie was a little wary about how easy Adrian was being about all this, too. She didn’t think she was some superhot prospect, but even if she was, it didn’t seem like the woman was all that aware about her, if at all, so it was a little odd that she was so quick to offer her services.

The less humble side of her said she just had a good eye for talent.

The more sensible side of her said that Adrian was just desperate.

She decided the answer was somewhere in the middle. ”I could use some help with the negotiation stuff. I’ve been trying to get myself into the title scene, but it’s a little complicated at the moment.” She rubbed her shoulder, then perked up. ”And I need some help on the whole promo thing, too, if you could help with that. I’m not a very good talker. Speech skills weren’t something I really came into this ready for, you know?”

She could already tell that Adrian was good on the microphone, so that seemed like a reasonable ask.

[kerfine]

Being (somewhat) open about her desires was paying off as Valerie seemed to be coming round to the idea of the veteran acting as her manager regardless of what her parents would have thought, she was even thinking about extra ways that having Addy around was going to help VDIII become 'D' champ!

...They needed to workshop that.

"I get it I get it. Athletic competition and open mic nights give two very different forms of stage fright. Just because you've got one down doesn't mean the other comes easy, even before you factor in how much you have to do to get good," Adrian nodded along, not trying to reach up and pat the bigger woman's shoulder "I'm okay to do the heavy lifting with the mic while you build up your confidence, you can look menacing for a while, we start building up banter... take it slow and steady, it'll work out great. But circling back to the championship stuff. Does the ol' 'Wait for to the champ to run their mouth then come out from the back' strat not work here or something? Used to work all the time, although sometimes there's a queue to get out there with a live mic, ha!" The brunette cackled, mostly to herself. Yeah, things were going great. This partnership was just going to be the start of big things.