BB and Joei stepped towards one another, lead arms connecting back-to-back. Grinning wide and pumped for the duel, Joei said, “Alright! Let’s have a good fi-!”
However, she did not get to finish that sentence, as BB immediately battered her lead arm away and decked her square in the face.
The judoka went stumbling back, nearly toppling over. Her entire skull ached, and there was no denying the familiar sensation of blood trickling down from her nostrils, especially when it dipped into her mouth as it gasped for air a moment later.
Joei stood there, several feet from where she’d been struck, temporarily paralyzed as her brain tried to turn back on as quickly as possible.
Whoa…! That… that was the hardest punch I’ve ever taken…! She thought to herself. Even my legs’re shakin’…
She looked over at BB, finding her narrow-eyed glare awaiting her.
The guys weren’t kiddin’… This really is a crazy-strong chick…! Licking away some of the blood from her lips, Joei spat it down onto the asphalt, and broke out into an even bigger smile. She’s…she’s perfect! Finally, someone I can go all-out with…!
“Better back down now, ya little brat,” BB said, rolling her shoulders. “While yer still breathin’.”
A full-body, head-to-toe shake seemingly had Joei back online. “Haha, no way! Not after a punch like that! Gimme more! I wanna feel everything ya got!”
This little fuggin’ weirdo, BB thought to herself, face contorting into a snarl. “Fine, ya wanna get yer ass beat that bad?! Come and get it!”
The two women dashed towards one another, though BB was clearly faster, closing the gap much closer on the judoka’s end. Bravado aside, Joei was still a bit shaken by the initial punch as well, which became painfully clear as she immediately found herself too slow to properly block BB’s incoming barrage of punches.
Two jabs to the nose, a right hook to the cheek, a duck beneath the attempted counterpunch, and a straight to the gut, all in the blink of an eye had Joei gasping and grunting with pain and stumbling backward. Though grappling was more of her expertise, she was absolutely no slouch when it came to striking, but BB was clearly on another level. Even if she hadn’t been rocked by that initial punch, she doubted she could match her opponent.
Joei did manage to get her guard up to properly block the next hook, but either BB had predicted the maneuver or was just that damn fast, as she quickly transitioned into a sweep kick to the back of Joei’s legs, sending her falling onto her ass. And that fall was immediately followed by a chopping right that blasted Joei’s skull into the pavement, opening a little head-sized crater in the concrete below.
BB took a step back, flicking blood from her knuckles. Oh, shit, I didn’t kill her, did I…?! She paused, eyes frantically scanning over her opponent’s unmoving body.
And in that moment of hesitation, Joei pounced, more out of instinct than thought, given that her brain was still scrambled from that last punch. Her arms sprung up, and her hands locked tightly to the lapel of BB’s jacket. “Gotcha…!”
“Hey, what the-?!” BB tried to rip the judoka’s hands from her, but she found them locked onto her clothes like the teeth of a shark buried deep into the flesh of its prey. And even as she tried to twist around to put pressure on Joei’s arms, the judoka held firm, even from the ground. Fuck! I can’t break her grip!
With far more physical strength than BB thought possible for the shorter woman to conjure up, Joei forced herself off of the ground and launched BB up high into the air in a wide throw in one motion, with no means of escape or countering.
BB struck the ground. Hard. Actually, it was more accurate to say that Joei drove her through the ground. The impact of the throw created a massive crater that dwarfed the one Joei’s head had birthed, sending chunks of asphalt flying in all directions, and burying BB a few feet below the rest of the lot in the process. Some of the debris shot out from the ground so hard they were practically bullets, ripping through both women’s clothes and leaving cuts along the skin of their torsos and arms.
Not that BB would have been able to even register the pain of those bullet rock wounds, as the wind and soul had been knocked right out of her, along with thick streams of saliva and blood.
She blacked out for some time, and even when she came to, she wasn’t quite “there”. It was as if she were deep in the ocean, sinking into the pitch-black night time sea, unable to command her body to swim back to the surface. Hell, she couldn’t even blink or breathe. She simply sank deeper and deeper, watching as the moonlight disappeared and ice-cold blackness overtook her.
But in time, that drowning feeling passed, and she returned properly to the land of the living, no longer at sea, but buried in the asphalt of the parking lot. Every muscle in her back stung from the pain of the judo throw, and her organs weren’t fairing better, lungs coughing and spewing out blood as if it were seawater.
“…all ya got?” Joei’s voice faded in slowly as BB’s ears started working properly again. “C’mon, I know you ain’t done y-!”
“SHUT UP!” BB barked, throwing her fist up into Joei’s taunting face. The judoka went flying back away from the crater, giving BB enough time to scramble to her feet. Though she was able to assume a fighting pose, she could feel her entire skeleton still aching, body heavy from being drenched in nonexistent water. Goddammit… all this from one fuckin’ throw? Better end this shit fast…!
She stepped in towards Joei and though her movements were more sluggish than earlier, she still had the speed and dexterity advantage over her opponent, easily maneuvering around Joei’s guard and landing biting little jabs and crosses, pawing away at the shark dwelling just beneath the water’s surface with her tiger claws.
Realizing she was thoroughly outboxed, Joei instead opted to dash back, creating space and adjusting her stance to prepare to throw muay thai-trained kicks instead. But BB was even ready for those, slipping past them and delivering a hook to Joei’s cheek and staining the lot with more of her blood.
She’s so quick…! Joei’s mind rang as her eyes rolled around in her skull. I can’t hit her at all…!
As BB stepped in to throw a finishing punch, Joei abandoned striking entirely and instead reached out for BB’s jacket, rising through the water. As her fingers found their mark, they locked in tight, and there was no hope of escape for the tiger.
BB grit her teeth and immediately stepped and leaned back. There was no breaking Joei’s grip, but she could at least keep the girl’s second hand from grabbing her as well to shut down her better throws.
Joei also realized a one-handed maneuver would have to do, but that was no problem to her. Digging her teeth deeper into her foe’s flesh, she planted her feet and twisted around, and with a heavy grunt, she flung BB across the mall parking lot with the ease of throwing a baseball.
And BB bounced off of a parked truck like one, too, denting the passenger-side door before hitting the hard ground. Her momentum didn’t stop there, however, as she realized that with a second bounce off of the asphalt, she would be on track to return to Joei’s waiting clutches in the next instant.
The only thing that saved her was quickly transforming her fall into a shoulder and backspin via her breakdancing experience, and using that to push herself up and onto her feet, just outside of Joei’s attempted grab range.
“Oh, crap!” Joei blurted as she suddenly found herself lunging forward beside a now-standing BB. With her hands extended in mid-grab-attempt, there was no time for her to put up a defense.
“EAT SHIT!” BB nailed Joei beneath her chin with a low-angled uppercut that sent her head snapping back, blood, sweat, and spit spraying into the sky to punctuate. The rest of Joei’s body followed soon after, rising up a dozen feet vertically, before it returned back to Earth with a loud, heavy thud!
“Ngh…nice…m…moves…” Joei barely managed to say before finally going limp.
With the fight seemingly over, BB felt all of the tension in her muscles deplete in an instant, hunching over as the pain her body had been holding back broke down the gates and stormed the castle. She hacked up a wad of saliva and blood, spitting it onto the ground and turning away. Meugh…What a pain in the balls…
There were some cars and mall goers in the lot staring in the girls’ direction now, having been drawn by the commotion. That had BB’s cheeks reddening. She dusted herself off and straightened her suit as best she could, only just now realizing how dirty, ripped, and torn it was, with splotches of red staining the button-up beneath as well.
She turned back to the mall. Dammit, I don’t even wanna go shoppin’ anymore, but… Her hand moved down to her stomach as her guts rumbled. I’m starvin’ now…
Pushing through the embarrassment, she stuffed her hands into her pockets and hurried towards the mall, ignoring the eyes of the onlookers. Well, most of them. As she passed by a senior woman craning her head around her car and squinting her wrinkled eyes to get a better look at the wreck the girls had caused, BB snarled and half-lunged towards her. “Tch. Whaddaya lookin’ at, ya old bag?!”
BB was no stranger to being watched in the mall, though it was usually under the ego-boosting context of people ogling her bouncing ass and tits as she walked past, not the shame-triggering context of limping around wearing a dirty-ass suit covered in asphalt and spit.
But she soldiered on to the food court and ordered some beef broccoli from the Chinese place, desperately in need of a meaty recharge after that bout. While the thought of leaving the mall with her food and eating elsewhere crossed her mind, her back and legs didn’t seem keen on walking more just yet, so she instead sat her ass down at a table tucked away in the corner of the food court to eat in as much peace and quiet as she could muster.
And she succeeded, for a few minutes at least, enjoying the food and feeling some of her embarrassment fade away. But just before she could fully settle down comfortably, someone else slipped into the chair on the opposite side of her table, sliding a tray of jambalaya onto the surface, ready to chow down. While she prepared to curse the stranger out, when she found herself face-to-face with Joei, all she could do was choke on her own food in shock.
“Whatcha got there?” Joei asked with a big smile, seemingly unbothered or unaware of the blood staining half of her teeth and drizzling down her chin. “Beef broccoli? Not bad, not bad!”
BB coughed her way through finishing the food in her mouth “Eh?! The fuck’re you doin’ here?!”
“What? Ya gotta eat after a good fight, yeah?” Joei said, scooping up some of her own food. Her hand was shaky as it held her spoon aloft, but again, she didn’t seem concerned by it. “‘Sides, we oughta get started on our friendship ASAP, yeah?!”
“‘F-Friendship’?! What are you babblin’ about?!”
“‘Course!” She seemed so caught up in her excitement that she didn’t even bother swallowing her bite of food as she continued. “You just gave me the best fight of my life! So now we’re rivals, and best buds!” She did have to take a moment to bury her face in the crook of her arm to cough, wincing as she did. “Oh man, just thinkin’ about how awesome our next fight’s gonna be is gettin’ me all amped up!”
The thought of battering the bowl of jambalaya away crossed BB’s mind, and she absolutely would have done it, were it not for both of her arms whining at the thought of having to do anything that strenuous at the moment. “We ain’t friends, and we ain’t fightin’ again, ya weirdo! So beat it!”
“Awww, c’mon, don’t be like that, buddy!” Joei replied, the jovialness in her voice annoying BB. “I know ya felt the sparks flyin’ back then! Our chemistry’s insane! It’s like our bodies were made for each other, ya know?!”
A family passed by the table, staring at the girls as they heard Joei’s words loud and clear. BB turned away in shame, cheeks reddening as she hissed, “Q-quit sayin’ weird shit…!”
She let out a cute little yelp as Joei suddenly reached across the table, grabbing BB’s hand with both of her own. “Please! I need ya! There’s nobody else out there who’s made me feel as good as you did! And I promise, I’ll make ya feel better than anyone else has, too!”
“Sh-sh-shut the fuck up…!” BB whispered.
But Joei continued on, eyes already looking down at the hand she held between her own. “Even holdin’ yer hand like this feels amazin’! Yer so good with ‘em, I couldn’t even think straight when I felt ‘em on me earlier!” Her hands roamed even lower to BB’s forearm. “Yer in such good shape, too! No wonder you were so strong – yer body’s, like, perfect! Oh man, I could prolly learn so much just by watchin’ you by yers- Hey, where ya goin’?”
BB had managed to wrest her hand away, scooping up her food and shuffling away from the food court as fast as her injured legs could go. Unfortunately, Joei was right on her heels, hobbling along right behind her, munching on her own food as the girls walked through the mall.
“Whoa, check out those glutes!” she commented between bites. “Does that help ya generate more power in yer punches? Or’s it more for, like, balance or somethin’?”
“Gah, go away!” BB said, reaching out and palming Joei’s face, shoving her away.
That only seemed to make it worse, however, as the judoka laughed heartily and jogged back up to BB’s side. “Ahahaha! Hey, that’s a pretty good move! Ya prolly use that to move yer opponent’s head so you can throw a specific type of punch, yeah? Damn, I’m already learnin’ so much! Yer the best rival battle bud ever!”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!” BB screamed, practically holding back frustrated tears as she ran out of the mall as fast as her tired legs could take her.
“Ooh, runnin’! Good idea!” Joei said, hot on her heels. “You were definitely movin’ faster than me, so I’ve gotta catch up to ya quick! Ahaha!”
The shark followed the poor, tired, soaking-wet tiger as it floated back to the shore, exhausted and shivering. BB turned the corner into the alley leading to the entrance of GLYPH HQ, head down as Joei blabbed on and on about her plans for their future training and sparring sessions.
As they approached the front door, BB turned around and shoved Joei back again. “Oi! This is for GLYPH employees only, and I’m goin’ in, so beat it! I mean it, this time!” This was quite possibly the first time BB had ever looked forward to stepping foot inside that building.
Joei craned her head back, giving the entire building a look-over. “Huh. So this is GLYPH’s base? ‘s pretty big, but…kinda looks like a normal office buildin’ or somethin’. Whaddaya guys do in there, anyway?”
“None of yer fuckin’ business,” BB growled, heading for the door. “Go away.”
When the doors opened, however, it was not to allow BB entrance, but instead to allow the exit of Gabriele. “Oh, hello, BB,” the old woman greeted with her gentle smile before turning to Joei. “And who’s your friend here?”
“She ain’t my-!”
Joei skipped over, reaching out and grabbing Gabriele’s hand to shake it. “Hey! I’m Joei! I’m her rival and best bud!” She swiveled back over to BB. “Oh, so yer name’s ‘BB’ then? That’s pretty cool! I got so caught up I forgot to even ask ya! Ahaha! ”
As BB slammed her head against the wall, Gabriele giggled and bowed her own. “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Joei. From your gi, you look to be a judoka, no?”
“Uh huh!” Joei posed and looked down at her uniform, always eager to show it off. However, in its current state, covered in filth and holes, it wasn’t quite as spic and span as usual. “Oh, sorry ‘bout the mess! Me and BB were havin’ a crazy match earlier, haha!”
As she got a closer look at Gabriele, she paused, brow furrowing before a lightbulb went off in her head. “Whoa, hey, hey, hey! Are you…The Grey Gargoyle?! The wrestler?!”
Gabriele nodded. “I am. Or was, rather. I’m a bit surprised you recognize me; I’ve been retired for quite some time, and you look rather young.”
“Ah, my sensei’s a big fan of yers, and he showed me a buncha yer matches!” Her big blue eyes aimed back up at the HQ building. “Wow…My rival and best bud and The Grey Gargoyle?! I didn’t know there were so many great fighters here at GLYPH!”
“Indeed there are,” said Gabriele. “Are you interested in joining?”
“NOOOOOOOOOO!” BB squealed as she attempted to slide in between the two, but it was too late, as Joei, re-energized through her excitement, caught her and spun her around into a headlock.
“Whoa, that’s a genius idea!” the judoka said, giggling as she held BB’s head tight beneath her arm. “Then I’ll get to hang out with you and BB all the time, yeah?! Aww, this is gonna be the next step in my journey for sure!”
