L.A.W. - League of Anime Wrestling

Makie still couldn't believe she was doing this.

All throughout her wrestling career, she had prided herself on her skills and abilities in the ring. She was fast, she was agile, she could pull off some incredible acrobatic stunts...and no one could deny, she had the willpower to keep fighting even when the going got tough. Ever since she had graduated from training, she had tried constantly to improve herself, to lean further into her already pretty great agility and striking power. True, she would train once in a while with Kyo, but they were so different in terms of their respective wrestling styles (and weight class, and strength levels) that it honestly felt like her brother had little that he could teach her, no matter how much he tried. No, for better or worse, she had always had to rely on herself. And for a while, that had worked out great for her.

Then she had come to LAW, and all of that good fortune had gone down the drain.

She reflexively tightened her grip on her water bottle. Since she had first come to LAW, she had endured loss after loss. First to Belinda Northman...which hadn't been so bad, because Belinda was a category of her own...but then also to Blaise Cameron, then to Tina Armstrong, then to Phoebe Duclair...the list was growing longer and longer. She had been in LAW longer than a year now, and outside of the times she had been tagging with Kyo, she had not had a single. Damn. Win. The closest she had managed was a draw against Peggy McIntyre-- a wrestler who was also near the bottom rankings. A draw.

Fans were starting to dismiss her as a lightweight, both in fighting ability as well as in weight class. And what was worse, she heard rumours that management would have dropped her by now if it weren't for the fact that she and Kyo made a great tag team.

Her arm quivered in barely contained frustration; she willed herself to calm down, and glanced up at the rest of the gym. So far, she wasn't drawing too much attention, in a simple white t-shirt and red gym shorts. The gym was packed today, but she didn't see any familiar faces. At least, not the friendly face she hoped to find.

Sighing, she searched in her phone for the contact that one wrestler had left her after their match, and look back at the message she had sent.

Hey Tina, its Makie. A while back you suggested we could train with each other, or do a rematch or even a tag bout. I'm a little sore right now to do either of the latter, but I'm down to train! How's Tuesday at the LAW gym work?

She glanced back at her surroundings. Was Tina Armstrong simply not in today?

Tina had been in a bit of a lul in LAW, her activity was slowed a slight bit but she had used the time to recover a bit. It was a breath of fresh air. She got a surprise message though that caught her interest from Makie, a woman she had wrestled against. Tina was always happy to train with someone. She remembered being 19 when she stepped into LAW back in 2017. She recalled how scary this place could be when you weren't proven to the bosses and fans.

Tina was in the locker room running late, hurriedly changing into a pair of black leggings and sports bra getting herself ready to go out into the gym. She burst out the door looking frantically about as she scanned the room. She felt bad for running late and of course her phone battery died because keeping it fully charged ever was just something Tina was horrible about.

That is when Tina saw Makie and waved. "Hey girl! Sorry I didn't text you back my phone was dead and the charger is back home, I need to get better about that..." She said as she approached. "I am sorry I am late, and whatever you want to work on I am game for." Tina said as she pat Makie on the back. "We also may have company later if that is all right. I text Allie but my phone died before she replied so I am not sure if she will be here or not." Tina said with a shrug. "So... wrestling aside how have ya been? What is good?"

Makie glanced up in surprise. Tina was approaching her, looking as tall and powerful here as she had when she'd faced her in the ring. She smiled at the British powerhouse's approach. She was still grateful that the blonde had offered to train with her even after absolutely clobbering her in the ring: not many opponents had given her that offer, and while initially she had been too stubborn to accept the help, at this point she was finally willing to acknowledge she needed it.

"No worries," Makie replied, trying to put the other woman at ease for her lateness. "I was mainly just killing time here anyway, and there was no rush." She paused, perking up a little as Tina mentioned 'Allie.' She couldn't mean...

She was brought back to reality by Tina's question. Aside from wrestling. Her misadventures-- and frustrations-- in the ring had been consuming so much of her life, it felt like, that she felt at a loss for words on what to say.

Well, my ex-girlfriend is back, and we had a shouting match not too long ago. Oh, and I've heard rumours that LAW is threatening to cut me if my performance doesn't go up, so my contract may be done soon...

"N-nothing much!" Makie said with nervous laugh. "I mean, I DID mean one of my idols recently; not only got her autograph, but we also did lunch together!" Admittedly, running into Valley Doll (Senior) at the infirmary had been the highlight of her week.

"So..." she paused then, and realized that while she wanted to get better, she had no idea HOW she wanted to get better. "So...you fought me, and you beat me in the ring. Um...be honest: what do you think I need to work on? How can I improve?" It felt more than a little embarrassing to have to ask that, but ask it she did.

Tina nodded and smiled. "Not much huh? Okay no worries than I get how it can be being busy. I don't think anyone in LAW has much for free time on their hands ya know?" She said as she looked around the gym.

"I mean running ropes is usually my go-to for starters but endurance isn't your problem. You have good technique too. Sometimes I think ya get goaded into wrestling outside your comfort zone. You try to do something different from what you are really good at. It can be fun to surprise the crowd and rally them though so I get it." Tina said. "Lets go to the bags and have ya strike hard, strike fast and go for a couple minutes straight each round." Tina said. "Lets get ya to sharpen what you got then we can work on something to fit your 'surprise' arsenal." Tina said with a grin.

Makie blinked. In her time here, no one had actually praised her skills as a wrestler so far. Sure, plenty of people commented on her stubborn, indomitable fighting spirit, but aside from Kyo, no one had actually praised her technique. No one, that was, except for Valley Doll III. And, now, Tina Armstrong, someone whom she had actually fought in the ring. To hear Tina saying outright that she had good technique already made Makie feel much, much better about herself.

"I..." she started, genuinely at a loss for words. "I mean, I step out of my comfort zone a lot because I have to show everyone, you know? I'm only going to get more and better matches if I take risks, and take on anyone, no matter their size or skill." Could that be part of the problem? she wondered to herself. Do I keep losing because I keep fighting people above my skill level and weight class? Maybe I should stop being so angry with myself, then...

As Tina suggested they go to the bags, Makie nodded. "Um...yeah, good idea!" she replied. Truth to be told, she was in a mood to hit something...

"Okay, I get that. I do." Tina said thinking back to her younger days in LAW. Now? People knew what she could do and had expectation saddled on. Right now though this was about helping Makie find her way in that ring. "All right you know strikes, I am gonna steady the thing and keep hitting as hard as you can until I tell ya to stop. You are gonna be gassed but that is the point. We are gonna do a few rounds of this to get ya tired out." Tina said.

"So what else is going on? Ya seem like you are a lady with something on your mind." Tina said trying to see if she could get Makie to talk a bit. An inside look at her mind set would do Tina good in figuring out more of what to train.

As Tina set up the bag, Makie took a deep breath, and allowed her muscles to loosen. Then, as Tina told her to start hitting the bag as hard as she could, Makie thought back to how she had been utterly humiliated in the ring by Danica Donelle. How she and Peggy had brawled to an unsuccessful standstill. To her argument with Mako. To the fact that no matter what, she always seemed to be in her brother's shadow.

And with that, she began to unleash a furious series of punches, jabs, chops and kicks into the bag. Anyone observing would have been able to tell that Makie wasn't simply striking because Tina had told her to: there was a lot of anger in her strikes.

"I'm fine," Makie growled in response to Tina as she assaulted the bag. "I just...need...to get better...if I'm going to have a future at LAW, that's all!"

"We have all been there, and I get where you are coming from." Tina said as she braced, letting Makie keep going. Tina held until it was time for a breather. "All right! Give it a rest and we'll be back for round two in a moment." Tina said as the timer went off. She watched Makie whose hits were hard, fast and precise. She was a striker for sure.

"Okay so do ya want to tell me what is really going on? Ya look angry which I get but there is no focus to it like you are being pulled in ten different directions." Tina said. "What gives?"

Makie's fists and bare feet smacked again and again against the back, rebounding with an enraged fury that she could not contain. The more she thought about how she'd been humiliated in the ring, the more angry-- at her opponents, but more importantly, at herself-- she got; that was, until Tina finally stopped holding the bag up. Makie was about to protest, but Tina told her, quite firmly, to take a breather; Makie only now realized how much her chest was rising and falling, and she gingerly nodded before slumping down onto her butt, grabbing her water both for a quick refresher.

As Makie cooled down, Tina asked her a direct question that made Makie raise her eyebrow. At first, Makie wanted to protest that nothing was wrong, and that Tina should just mind her own business; she stopped herself, though, when she remember that she had come here asking for Tina's help, and the last thing she needed was to fight with her on this.

"I...don't know if you saw this, but not long ago, I had a match," she finally said. "I was up against a larger girl named Danica Donelle. Not only did she beat me, she demolished me, humiliated me in the middle of the ring, taunted me in the middle of the ring..." Makie's fist clenched. "And all the while, I was too weak and powerless to do anything about it!"

Tina listened as Makie took a breath. She knew that frustration well. Her own start back in the UK. Her post-title slump here in LAW. She knew the feeling of the words even if the exact circumstances were different. "I know how it feels to put so much effort into something only to just feel completely like ya can't do anything about anything. It is like why bother? I have been there Makie trust me. It sucks. There is also no easy way out. There isn't a switch that flips when you magically do enough to level up or something. You just need to keep doing your best and things will click together." Tina said. "If ya quit or stop trying so hard then you are doomed for sure. If someone else beats ya that is life just don't beat yourself." Tina said as she watched the clock, soon ready for Makie to begin round two on the bag.