Who will it be, a new rival, a new student, a new friend, all together?

[skip-stop]

"More..." Charlotte said herself mentally.

Taking a step to the side, she continued to send punches into the punching bag. Left jab. Right cross. Left hook. Taking another step to the side, she abruptly turned around on her axis, sending a spinning back elbow strike into the punching bag. Along with this, several large drops of sweat flew off the pink-haired woman's body.

"More!" she repeated to herself.

Turning back to face the bag, she made a pendulum movement, as if dodging the incoming punch. Straightening up to her full height, she grabbed the punching bag and delivered three hard knee strikes. It was easy to see that Charlotte's breathing was very heavy. The reason for this was the fact that this training started much earlier than a few minutes ago.

Her muscles were filled with pain, and sweat could literally be squeezed out of her sports bra. Even her pink hair was wet. Charlotte felt pain in her chest because of the high tempo she was holding. And yet...

"More!!"

Her body refused to obey this order, but she forced herself to strain her legs as much as possible. Taking a step forward, she placed her right foot slightly to the left of her left foot, after which her body began to spin. The martial arts master swung her left leg, making an arc. A spinning heel kick caused the punching bag to shift a few meters to the side.

Workout outfit

When the Frenchwoman returned her foot to the mat, she leaned forward and put her hands on her knees. Gasping for air, she realized that this was her last attack. The young woman glanced at the fitness bracelet, then snorted with displeasure. Twenty-two minutes. Only thirty seconds more than the starting result.

"Merde..." she said aloud.

Taking a deep breath, Charlotte headed for the nearest bench. This was clearly not enough. This result did not suit her, which only meant that she still had a lot of work ahead of her. The defeat by the Lion shattered her self-confidence. She threw absolutely everything she had at that blonde, she kept the pace as high as possible all the match. But even that wasn't enough. As a result, Charlotte did not have a single drop of strength left, which was the reason for her defeat. That match lasted twenty-one minutes and thirty seconds. After drawing conclusions, she came to the decision that she needed to improve her stamina.

The pink-haired woman sat down on the bench and took a bottle of water. After taking a few short sips, she looked around her martial arts school. However, today it was just a gym, because she simply could not train students every day. Because of this, there were much fewer people here than usual, because there were a lot of gyms in the city and few people wanted to come exactly here. But Charlotte didn't care.

"I may need to talk to Lily..." she mused aloud.

She didn't know Lily well, despite the fact that they were both on Victoria's team, but she knew for sure that endurance was one of the best sides of this Englishwoman. She wasn't used to asking for help, but now wasn't the time to think about it. She didn't want to remember that match, but she just couldn't let it go. Charlotte was sure of only one thing. She must become stronger in order to defeat the Lion next time. The Frenchwoman closed her eyes for a few moments, trying to finally calm her heavy breathing.

[LawHell]

Today was an off day for the already for Jenner as she was packing her gym bag at home, she would put her tight booty shorts and sports bar on before she put her hoodie on, in her bag she would place her gloves, foot pads and white Gi with her dojo logo along with her black belt, she would soon zip it up, she soon made her way to her bed sitting down putting some leg warmers on with her flip-flops.

After being ready Jenner would head to her kitchen and soon grab her workout and her keys after making her drink. It was time to head to her gym 20 minutes away only to find it had been temporarily closed due to updates to the building.

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" she would shout as she got back into her car. She would text her manager Shego to find out the nearest place she could train.

She would soon get a text about a Martial arts school she could go to, Lucky for her it was only 10 minutes away, Jenner would soon arrive, pulling up to the place as she took a look at it with a small smile.

"This place looks nice..nicer than the other place, honestly." This seems to be the first positive thing all day to happen.

Jenner would soon get out and grab her bag heading into the gym, she would sign in, and greet the staff, and she would soon head into the gym finding the well-laid-out gym, she would make her way over towards the bags after taking her flip-flop walked now barefoot, she would place her bag down, opening it putting her flip-flops in before pulling out her Gi putting on then her belt tieing it up she would soon place her gloves and pads on before closing her bag.

A few moments would go by before she noticed Charlotte, Jenner would give a small wave and head nod in greeting before she would start to stretch and limber up, she would soon end up in a handstand pulling the splits before landing back on her feet ready.

Jenner would square up to the bag before starting with a few light kicks and punches, soon she is letting some full-force combos out hitting the bag causing it to echo out across the gym as she tests the durability of the bag.

About 10 minutes would go by before Jenner would stop picking up her water bottle, walking back and forth around the bag, and taking some sips of it, this is as she would take a few moments more to rest.

[skip-stop]

Charlotte was lost in her own thoughts. In fact, she's been doing it so often lately that she's even earned herself a headache. But she couldn't help herself. Even Astrid and Nerissa thought she was worrying too much about her recent defeat, especially considering that so far it was her only defeat in LAW career. However, the Frenchwoman was unshakable about her principles. And her principles stated that defeat was unacceptable. Charlotte just couldn't help being strict with herself.

She reviewed the recording of that match over and over again. She analyzed every second, looking for the mistakes she had made. Some might say that she was just trying to find all of the Lion's weaknesses, but that wasn't the case. Charlotte did not try to prepare for a one single opponent, because she could have made the same mistakes in any other match. She was really able to understand that in several moments she should have done differently and used other attacks. But her biggest drawback was still her stamina.

"Merde..." she muttered, opening her eyes.

While Charlotte was digging into her own memory, there was one more person in the gym. In any other situation, the pink-haired woman would not have paid attention to this, since most of the visitors to this place were very ordinary people and did not attract any attention. But the blonde who appeared was a clear exception.

Charlotte raised an eyebrow slightly when she saw that instead of using the locker room, the blonde simply put her bag on the bench and began to get equipment. Although even this was not the most remarkable. The most remarkable thing was that this woman took out and put on a Gi. This surprised Charlotte a lot more than anything else, especially considering that this woman's Gi had a logo that clearly corresponded to some martial arts school or dojo.

Suddenly, after the blonde finished with the preparations, she waved to Charlotte, greeting her. This, of course, was not too surprising and it was probably just a gesture of politeness. But still, even in this there was something a little strange, because there were other people around, but for some reason the blonde decided to greet exactly Charlotte. The pink-haired woman nodded back, returning the courtesy.

Charlotte has not finished resting yet, besides, the blonde intrigued her to some extent. So she decided to watch her, trying not to stare too much, because it would be rude. At first, the blonde decided to warm up, which was not too interesting, but everything changed when she started working with a punching bag.

"Hmm... not a bad technique..." the Frenchwoman thought. "She knows both punches and kicks... although... the kicks seem somehow too basic..."

This blonde definitely had good speed and strength, which was best reflected in the loud sounds with which her fists crashed into the punching bag. Charlotte had a wealth of experience in martial arts, otherwise she would not have opened this school and would not have joined LAW. She was able to notice that this blonde confidently owns punches, but her legs make too few movements. It was as if something was stopping her. Maybe she was trying to expand her kicking skills, but so far she couldn't do it to the full. Charlotte first mastered boxing, then taekwondo, and only then Muay Thai to fully coordinate her arms and legs. But if you try to master boxing or taekwondo after Muay Thai, the result will be about the same as this blonde showed.

After finishing the ten-minute work with the punching bag, the woman went to her bag and took a bottle of water. For certain reasons, Charlotte was not one of those who seek to make new acquaintances. And even now, in fact, she didn't have a lot of reasons to say anything to this woman. But the fact that she was a martial arts master played the biggest role here, because Charlotte tried to help everyone who visited the walls of her school. Therefore...

"Your stance, if you want to use your legs more effectively, you should change it, move the attacking leg another inch to the side, so it will be much easier to lift your leg to kick, besides, you will be firmer on your feet in case of a sudden counterattack." She said, turning her head to the blonde. And immediately after that, Charlotte realized that she had made a rude mistake that should have been corrected. "Charlotte Ravel'." She introduced herself.

[LawHell]

Jenner continue to hydrate as she walks back and forth to get in there of a woman for a moment, the quiet was broken by the French accent of the instructor which caused the Judo fighter to turn towards the source of the voice, Once more she will give a nod towards the other person before speaking in her British accent.

“Hmm, I still have a long way to go with my kicks. I think it's been a long time since I've worked on them. Generally, the right hook drops them, and then I entangle them and get the win with my ground game.”

The English woman would head over and probably greet the instructor with a handshake. Her grip was strong as expected from such a fighter. On closer inspection, the woman's body could be seen to be stocky with a much muscular tone to it. This also was showing that she had strengthened their body for endurance and hard-hitting power by the size of her legs and arm.

“Hello, I'm Jenner Sky, honor to meet you, I apologize for intruding on your Academy it appears my gym is closed currently and my Dojo is being reworked, I am the leader of the wolf Dojo, and we Specialized in Judo and jiu-jitsu, I currently have some basic kickboxing also still learning Taekwondo to improve my overall fighting ability.”


The woman would explain to the other instructor what they were doing there and felt it would be rude not to explain themself a small bit especially with this not being their gym or dojo for that fact she does not want to be seen as disrespectful towards Charlotte, as they talked Jenner would look over the other woman working out that she was the striker type based on the advice she has given and her build.

“Are you the owner of this place? It's very nice and well laid out.”

The woman would complement the gym as she took another glance around with her genuine tone before looking towards Charlotte with a warm smile as they both would stand there before her phone would go off in her bag, causing Jenner to frown for a moment before it would stop going off giving her action back to Charlotte.

[skip-stop]

Charlotte slightly raised her left eyebrow when the brunette literally told in detail about the tactics she was using. Of course, it wasn't about a potential fight or at least a sparring. However, according to the experience of the Frenchwoman, few fighters are ready to talk about their styles so openly. Especially considering they didn't know each other.

However, it also showed that this woman was quite friendly. And it became even more obvious when the brunette stepped up to Charlotte, offering a handshake. The pink-haired woman got up from the bench. But before she accepted the handshake, she clenched her right fist and pressed it against her straightened left palm. The martial arts master bowed to the brunette, because her code required it. And only after that she accepted the handshake, feeling the strong grip of this woman.

"The honor is all mine, Jenner Sky," she said. "A dojo leader? That's a great achievement at such a young age. Anyway, my school is open to everyone, so there's no need in apologies for the intrusion."

Charlotte understood why Jenner decided to explain her arrival. In most cases, any martial arts school considered it unacceptable to let people from other schools in. This was especially true of Japanese martial arts schools. Charlotte did not share these views. Therefore, as she just said, her school was open to everyone. In any case, today the place worked as a gym, not as a school.

"Oh, you guessed it quickly," the Frenchwoman said slightly sarcastically.

The reason for this was that there was a sign above the entrance with the inscription "Charlotte Ravel's Martial Arts School". Of course, the pink-haired woman did not want to offend the brunette, so she hurried to smile.

"But thank you, I won't hide that I put a lot of effort into this place," she admitted. "I studied martial arts all over the world and after I decided to stay in Japan, it seemed to me that it would be fair to pass on my knowledge to those who sincerely want to become the best version of themselves, because this is the essence of martial arts."

The Frenchwoman looked at Jenner's bag when she heard the vibration of the phone. She was sure that the brunette would answer the call now. But for some reason this did not happen. Therefore, Charlotte's left eyebrow rose slightly again.

"Maybe something important?" she asked, not wanting to be the reason Jenner missed the call.

[LawHell]

Jenner would smile watching the woman as they would speak together, at the same time the Judo fighter would continue to consume the water thinking about the two having a friendly match or a fun spar, Jenner wanted to learn from a skilled fighter who knew the fighting form much better than herself.

Jenner would be caught guard by the level of respect shown by french woman only causing her to react the same way as she knew it would be the right thing to do as she would place down the bottle on the ground before standing up right moving her arms to the sides on her body and would bow deeply offering the same level of respect between the fighters.

Jenner would stand back up right looking to Charlotte "I think most of mine was luck if i'm truly honest, but i am thankful of your school been open, my landlord has a spontaneous mind, and wanted to do some work on my dojo..." Jenner would rub her head clearly frustrated thinking about it.

Jenner would tile her head with a slight hmm to her voice for a moment. "i meant no disrespect." she would comment with a a slight smile as she would trying to recover her composer as not to give any other disrespect.

"A smart goal, train our youth to be ready and better ways of themself,most my students training hard to get into tournaments or LAW, can be rough running work shifts and ensuring good training but i do that each week because its a joy to do so."She would look to her bag shaking her head before looking back to Charlotte. "A friend knowing she in trouble, Aka My landlord."

"Umm would you like to train together? i can offer you counters on people trying to put you to the mat for a ground game if you will train me in strikes?"She would kind of blurt out aiming to take her mind off the phone.

[skip-stop]

Charlotte's light smile became a little wider at the moment when Jenner responded to Charlotte's bow with her own bow, albeit in a different style. The Frenchwoman has never demanded that anyone observe such strict traditions. For the same reason, before the start of the match, she first she makes a bow to the opponent, and then offers a classic handshake. However, she couldn't deny that it was nice to get a bow from another fighter.

"I didn't mean that you were disrespectful," Charlotte said, then sighed. "It was just a bad joke, because my name is written on the sign above the entrance of the school."

She always had problems with humor, so in most cases Charlotte preferred sarcasm. Although it annoyed even those who were closest to her, including Victoria, Astrid and Nerissa. Not the least role in this was also played by the fact that Charlotte was not the most social person in the world. She's been trying to fix it, especially lately, but some things can't be fixed as quickly as we'd like.

"Oh?" both of the pink-haired woman's eyebrows rose slightly when Jenner started talking about her own students.

It was impossible to draw an unambiguous conclusion from the blonde's words. However, the fact that Jenner mentioned LAW gave Charlotte one simple idea. No matter what anyone says, but the world is very small. And you never know when you will meet a person who may be much closer to you than it may seem at first glance.

"Something tells me that you wouldn't be training students for LAW if you didn't have something to do with it," Charlotte said, slightly tilting her head to the side. "Are you a member of the federation?"

In addition, it did not escape Charlotte's attention that the blonde did not want to discuss the phone call she received. Instead, she offered to train together, as if trying to distract Charlotte. This was not necessary because the Frenchwoman was not going to continue this topic, respecting Jenner's personal space.

"Sure," she agreed. "Ring? Mats? Tatami? The choice is yours."

In fact, the pink-haired woman was not going to continue her training at an active pace, since she had been working at the limit of her capabilities for the last twenty minutes. She didn't want her body to suffer because of excessive exertion. But she couldn't deny herself the pleasure of seeing Jenner in action. At least for the simple reason that I haven't had to deal with another martial artist yet.

[LawHell]

Jenner would hold the bow out of respect for the time it was meant to be given to another member within the right environment, for her it was nice to meet someone who had observed them out of respect and tradition. “Please don't be sorry, I am not good with picking up jokes myself.” She would try to explain to the other fighter.

Jenner would nod toward the pink-haired woman before answering her question. “I am a fighter of LAW but about 60-65% of my students train for it and the others are there for personal training, it's good to help thoughts be ready for the dangers of the world, rather than have them skilled and not need it instead of having great need of it and not have the skills.” She would continue to explain.

She would hear the choices given to her and would think for a moment. “I would like it if we could use the ring, it's where I'm most at home, something about a ring canvas to the barefoot and the confined space forcing the fight to go on as it should though I have my fair share of defeats my last one was a tad rough, all I can do is to work to improve."

Once more the phone would go off as she took a deep breath looking at it as if she was about to lose her temper. “I'm really sorry I have to deal with this as they are the reasons my Dojo is closed, really sorry.” Jenner would answer the phone taking the call with a hushed tone but still, it could be told she was angry.

“Shego, you can't just start work on my dojo without asking! Next time I'm gonna kick you in, just get it fixed and you will be thankful that Charlotte was nice enough to allow me to train in their school!.” Soon Jenner would put her phone away looking at the picked-haired woman with a few more deep breaths. “Right now you can kick me in the head to help the headache I have. That would be great.” she would joke looking towards the woman.

“Let me grab my bag and I shall follow you, and if you like to ask anything please feel free to.”

[skip-stop]

"Respectable," Charlotte said when Jenner confirmed the Frenchwoman's guess that she is a LAW fighter.

The world is small. Of course, in the gym, the probability of meeting a fighter is much higher than in any other place. However, meeting a "colleague" is like finding a needle in a haystack. Most of the LAW fighters trained in federation gyms, others were rich enough to have their own gym. Therefore, the pink-haired woman was sure that today the stars came together in a very unusual combination, because the probability of meeting Jenner on any other day was extremely small.

"Ah, a familiar feeling," the Frenchwoman slightly smiled when the blonde said that in the ring she felt as at home.

Charlotte really knew this feeling well. From the age of eighteen, martial arts became her life. And although at first she did not intend to build a professional career, now she could not imagine her life without LAW. The ring was the place where she could show what she had achieved through hard work on herself.

The martial arts master was going to head to the ring, but she didn't even have time to take one step, because the blonde's phone started vibrating again. And this time Jenner decided to answer the call. Charlotte raised her left eyebrow slightly at the British woman's words. Of course, she wasn't going to eavesdrop, but it was simply impossible not to hear it. It seems someone has caused Jenner and her Dojo trouble. However, this was not Charlotte's business, so she did not comment on it in any way.

The blonde looked annoyed after this short call, but still she joked about the kick in the head. Huh. It seems she had a much better sense of humor than Charlotte.

"Be careful what you wish for," she chuckled.

After waiting for Jenner to take the bag, Charlotte headed straight to the ring, walking one step ahead of the blonde. She still hasn't admitted that she is also a LAW fighter. It wasn't too much of a secret and the pink-haired woman herself didn't know why she didn't say it, because intrigue wasn't something she loved very much. Well, she'll have another chance.

"The rules, we need to discuss the rules, and I suggest the following," Charlotte said without turning her head. "Sparring, full contact, one fall, we allowed to use any techniques, victory by pinfall or submission." After that, she turned to look at Jenner. "Just like in a standard LAW match, but..." The Frenchwoman stopped in front of the ring. "Since this is a sparring, not a match, I suggest counting pinfall faster than usual, as well as the victory can be achieved if the submission hold is not broken in fifteen seconds." Turning to face Jenner, Charlotte once again smiled slightly. "This will allow us to speed things up and keep us from getting too carried away, you agree?"

With that, Charlotte would bend down and take off her sneakers. She didn't expect to have an opportunity to fight today, so she didn't bring her shin guards. However, in order to be on an equal footing with Jenner, she decided that she would fight barefoot. Besides, there was a certain charm in it. Leaving the sneakers aside, Charlotte rolled under the bottom rope and jumped to her feet. Wiggling her toes, she headed to the center of the ring, expecting Jenner to do the same.

[LawHell]

Jenner would look at Charlotte with a warm genuine smile to her I say we continue to converse. It honestly relaxed the Judo fighter quite a bit knowing that she was in a place of respect and like-mindedness with similar goals of achieving great skill.

“Wish for? Hell, I will pay you anytime dealing with that woman…” Jenner would let out a sigh and shake her head. “As mad as I wanna be…if it was not for her I would have very little or nothing at all…she helped me out during a dark time..though."

“They do say great minds do think alike haha, but honestly it would be nice to have a sparring partner whose goal is not to wrap me up in holds that…hmm.. don't matter right now.” the judo fighter had stopped herself as her face was somewhat blushing a bit as she would take a deep drink from her bottle “Let's just say I train with Shego and she is more of an X3 rated fighter, though she has the skill set for the fighting arts they don't interest her…” she would comment with somewhat a defeated sigh, she had picked up her bagged, soon following Charlotte.

They would get to the ring where Jenner would put her bag on the side looking towards Charlotte as she would listen to the rule set been offered to nod in agreement of them before she would unzip her bag pulling out her gloves and foot/shin guard, she would see Charlotte barefoot and gloveless before she would go into her bag pulling out a new pack of gloves and foot guards offering them to her. “Hey I have an extra set..call it a forced habit, but I always carry extra and they are an adjustable size too.” she comments, sliding the pack over towards Charlotte.

Jenner would soon get in the ring after taking a wet wipe to wash her feet ensuring they were clean along with her hands before putting her gloves off putting the used wipes in her bag soon dropping them to the floor as she would start to stretch and warm up getting ready looking over to Charlotte with a smile as she was looking forwards to the spar. “Oh also please don't worry if my nose bleeds I've been hit there a fair few times haha, of course, i will clean up after too!.”