L.A.W. - League of Anime Wrestling

Confusion at best. Derision at worst. Did Kimberly care? Not at all.

She knew that many full-time wrestlers would look at her, a reporter with no fighting background, training among them to get in the ring, and think - who does she think she is? Little did they know, but that was her point, in part. Kimberly looked to make waves. Pave new avenues. Build new bridges, and all the other cliches. She wanted to prove that someone could think her way into the wrestling ring, and if she did, the clout (and the book deal) would not trail far behind. But clout alone did not solely motivate her. It also sounded glamorous and fun.

With the advice she had been given, Kimberly tried to plan her way through smarter training. She was already in good shape, and she did not plan to rely much on her strength - a career in bodybuilding had already passed her by years ago. As long as she maintained her cardio, she should focus on what she lacked... fighting prowess. Especially the striking stuff. At the side of the gym, she pounded on a punching bag, doing her best to look focused and intense to shoot down all of her doubters even if all the punching and kicking had made her knuckles and shins start to hurt. This was why she liked submission holds.

She wailed on the bag another time before stepping back. And groaning, quietly. She unwrapped her hand and stretched her sore and stiffened fingers to make sure all the ligaments remained in place before sidling over to her water bottle and towel to take a drink and dab off. "How do people do that much hitting for that long without wanting to chop their arms off at the elbow?" she muttered to herself.

With earbuds in and her back turned Kimberly failed to notice she had earned the undivided attention of another soul in the gym, and she started whispering indistinguishable lyrics to herself.

Spoiler

Indeed she would garner attention from one particular individual. A man who had plenty of experience fighting (even before joining LAW), as well as skills in...other areas when it came to interactions with the opposite sex, he noticed this fit, ample and curvy young woman going at it with a punching bag; only to show signs of it not working so well for her. Clearly she had a side of determination within her, but perhaps not the experience or discipline for what she was aiming for. This man, who was Jack, knew that he could have some real fun teaching plenty of moves to this gal.

Spoiler

This time around, he was donning a black muscle shirt and black shorts and runners. He was busy doing weights until this woman caught his attention when she was going at the punching bag. He observed this woman carefully and noticed her checking her hands and knees afterwards. He knew exactly what to do in order to break the ice with her.

Finishing off the weights, Jack would walk towards this woman. He noted she had her earbuds in and listening to music. To look natural he walked up to the punching bag, examined it and gave it a couple of punches and elbow strikes. This time, instead of being just fast, there was wight to these blows as he delivered solid strikes to knock the bag back. This was to hopefully catch the woman's attention and spark interest in how he was able to strike the punching with hard blows.

He would check if the woman was coming back to the punching bag. If she did, Jack would say, "I'm sorry. Were you still using this?"

Kimberly downed another gulp of water and checked her phone. Technically, she swore to herself - even as a neurotic social media follower, a side effect of her job - that she wouldn't allow herself to read anything on her phone while she worked out, but her hands needed a longer break. After reading a couple of headlines, she tossed it back into her bag, lazily bounce-danced in place while she rubbed her knuckles one final time, and finally willed herself to turn back to the punching bag. Maybe this time, the bag would surrender.

But it already was surrendering. Her music proved just loud enough to drown out the sound of a man beating it like Kimberly's grandmother beat chewy flank steaks. Kimberly's shock rapidly turned deadpan. She rocked on her heels and watched him for several seconds, wishing she could hit that quickly and efficiently and not come out with bruises. In seconds his onslaught ended, and she could not read the face that turned toward her to just whether he was being spiteful or mischievous or whether he genuinely thought she had finished with the bag. Some of the wrestlers in here would probably try to steal it from her.

Kimberly didn't know him at first glance, though, and for that reason, so she would give him the benefit of the doubt. That he looked like someone to know helped soothed her, even if her haunches were already raised from all the doubters. She slowly pulled the headphones out of her ears. "Is that a real sorry, or more of a 'sorry, not sorry'?", she asked, giving the ol' squinted eye and hand on her hip even if her rich voice lacked hostility. "If it's the former, you'll have to cut me some slack for being suspicious. You'd be one of the five people in the room who don't think I'm wasting my time."

That was an exaggeration, but sometimes, exaggeration was best.

Jack noted the response he got from this woman. While her voice lacked hostility, he could tell based on the comments, and her eyes squinting at him, that she was not thrilled about being possibly shown up like that with the punching bag. She would be a little tricky, but Jack could work with this, as he turned to focus his attention on the woman; while also getting a view of her and her being able to se him.

"It was a real apology." Jack responded, "Though I guess if you've received some unsavory comments already, I guess you would be right to be suspicious. I know that feeling. But again, I do apologize, miss..." It was here that he would attempt to get to know the woman's name, so that way it would help with easing things up further.

While he did keep eye contact with the woman, he did inspect her form a bit. Both for getting an idea of what fighting style she may go for and second because he was thinking how attractive she was.

Kimberly had built a career on reading people, gleaning their honesty, biases, and interests all on ticks, tones, and stumbles, to produce the best interviews and stories. Those people skills told her that he didn't intend to antagonize her whether his apology was genuine or not, and that was enough to lower her haunches again. In fact, he offered her some courtesy. Kimberly supposed the circumstances - yes, some formulated out of thin air because she expected people to put down her attempt to jump-start an in-ring career - had her tense.

"Kulp. Kimberly Kulp. LAW Press and Media," she told him, the stock greeting. If she had ended it with Daily Planet, she might get accused of dating Superman. "And... good. I'll take one of those. And sorry to jump down your throat. I don't actually care about the bag that much."

She studied his face again. Handsome fellow, but there was no shortage of that here. She liked his hair. Certainly they had crossed paths a time or two backstage, but Kimberly supposed she was always rushed and didn't quite look the same when she wasn't wearing a pencil skirt and a pound of makeup for the cameras. Ever-keen, she also didn't fail to pick up on his "I know that feeling." It could have been empty empathy, but she couldn't stop the reporter in her from following up. "You having trouble with people too? Can't be because they see you as a pencil-pushing kiss-ass."

"Well, glad to make your acquaintance, Ms. Kulp. Name's Jack." Jack responded once he got Kimberly's name. He noted her inquisitive nature, but made sure he didn't share all the secrets.

"Well, let's just say I've had enough experience with that before coming to Law." Jack responded to Kimberly's question as they continued talking. As they interacted, Jack made note of the details with Kimberly.

"Now you mentioned about being a reporter before starting a gig with LAW." Jack mentioned having a bit of thought, "If I may ask, what's your experience with wrestling. Are you just starting?" He gave a look of genuine curiosity, making it look like there was no malice or discouragement in his question.

Jack. That didn't narrow down her familiarity at all. Jack had to be in the top twenty most popular boys' names in English-speaking countries. But looking up a list of baby names didn't interest her nearly as much as his mention about his struggles before LAW. She couldn't help it - digging deeper was in her blood, and she felt herself taking up that pose with folded arms. She wanted to hold her ground until she could summon some answers out of him. "Oh yeah? How's that?" she asked.

He was trying to turn the questions on her too. It sounded like he genuinely wasn't familiar with her, at that. No one would go to so much trouble to troll her by playing dumb, would they? She brushed aside her bushy ponytail as if she was worth a million bucks as a wrestler and planned to tell him so. "Well, I've spent three weeks training. And I can write a mean article about the mechanics of every submission hold except for some of the crazier MMA ones. Does that count? That could add a year to my three weeks of experience."

"Ah, you know," Jack responded in turn to Kimberly's questions, "The usual kind of crap that gets annoying." He could tell she was trying to get every bit of detail out of him. However, as something of a tease, he was not going to give all his secrets that easily.

"So you studied about it," Jack pondered in response to Kimberly's answer involving her knowing about submissions, "But how well can you apply is another question. Tell me, what is your overall fighting style?" That was more of him wondering how well she could apply these traits and less of downplaying her abilities; as well as finding out what her fighting style is. If he had to take a gander, she may have been wanting to apply some striker moves into her list of wrestling moves.

One side of Kimberly's mouth lifted in a smile. He wouldn't tell her anything. "That's politician degrees of vague." Warming up to the conversation, she left her water bottle with her bag and walked over to lean on the punching bag and study him more closely. "And if I didn't want the answers because I'm a reporter and was only looking to level with someone else who had struggled with doubters, you still wouldn't tell me?" That might put him on the spot.

What was her style? She had an answer for that at least. "Submissions holds make sense to me, so I've been relying a lot on those in training. I even made a couple of other trainees tap out." It was her one point to brag about, and she was going to call on it often until she had some genuine ring experience under her belt. "But I haven't exactly hit many people before." She tapped her fingers on the punching bag and studied it. "Jerks at bars. But hitting people that haven't pissed me off yet doesn't come naturally."

Jack smirked in response to Kimberly’s comment of being vague, as he responded, “Guess I’d make a good politician then if I’m that vague.” He noted her movement and leaning on the punching bag, indicating a show she of interest, plus the half smile was another tip. He continued the string this along.

“To be fair, would you give everything so quickly to someone you just met? Would ruin the mystery behind the story, right?” Jack jested before jokingly saying, “Besides, there’s always a chance for an exclusive later.”

To avoid outright flirting just yet, Jack responded to Kimberly’s comments on her fighting style, “We’ll see how well your submissions work out, but for your strikes…hmmm…while I can see a tough lass as yourself giving a lowlife quite the hit, I don’t think using this punching bag right now will help. Of the many things it can be used for, it’s used to build power. But that can only work if you can strike it properly with the right moves. Else you might as well be just hitting a brick wall. I’d suggest that we use something to get the strikes down first. Then, the punching bag can be used to build strength once you know how and where you want to the strikes to land.” He figure if he offered something that would help, but not watered down, that would peak her interest.