Heart to Heart

Valley had known some wrestlers back in her Slamazons days who never went back and watched matches they didn’t compete in. That hadn’t really changed with the AFW, and she never got the mentality. Granted, she didn’t watch every single match that came on Friction - many of them didn’t even qualify as matches, in her book - but she generally tried to keep up with the more promising wrestlers, see what they were doing. Given the way upper management seemed to like pitting random people against each other at the drop of a hat, it seemed prudent.

Besides, she liked watching new talent. With that in mind, she’d been watching the match with Gallium Heart and Alicia Wells

Part of her interest stemmed from Gallium, being a pupil of Valley’s girlfriend, Silver Ace. But she’d wanted to see Alicia in action, too. After their little sparring match, she was curious to see what the fiery young talent could do in a real match.

The results were...not exactly unexpected. Not exactly.

While she didn’t doubt Ace’s teaching abilities, the fact was that Alicia was bigger and stronger than Gallium. While she was new to the wrestling ring, her MMA training would more than make up for that against someone who was new to all rings. On paper, this was destined to be a lopsided affair.

Valley didn’t expect it to be quite as bad as she witnessed, though. And she really didn’t expect Alicia to choke the poor girl out.

She’d been watching backstage, and now that Alicia was making her way over to the entrance, she sighed, knowing what she’d have to do. While she had a match later on and was dressed to compete, she still had a little time left. Enough to set Alicia straight on a few things.

Valley took a moment to straighten her hair out, then turned away from the monitor and started searching through the backstage area, hoping to intercept Alicia before she got to the locker rooms.

While Alicia was still not best pleased about how the match had gone, her dissatisfaction with how it had gone had begun to fade as she made her way backstage. Alright, fine, that had been a complete waste of her time. There’d been none of the excitement or the challenge of her sparring sessions with Kyoko or Valley Doll, none at all, but maybe her impressive showing against the ridiculously named Gallium Heart would at least mean that her next match would be against someone who knew what they were doing. That had to be how it worked around here, surely.

Or that’s what she was hoping at least. While the little idiot had thoroughly deserved to be choked out, Alicia did not really want to spend her days demolishing every last rookie without a prayer in this place – she wanted a real fight. She wanted to be pushed, to test her limits, and if that meant she lost, hell, she lost. A hard fought loss to her was far better than a dominating win.

She’d heard what Silver Ace said to her as she left, and normally she’d have stuck around to argue, but she’d had enough at that point. All she’d wanted to do was get back to her locker room, shower and go curl up with a good book so she could forget about this mess. But what Ace had thought Gallium was going to learn from that… The redhead didn’t actually shake her head but the sentiment was definitely there.

If she’d gone all out the first time, she’d have had a tap from that first bodyscissors. And what would she have learnt from that except not to have a rematch with Alicia?

Even then, for all Gallium had taken her down and got a few points in her book for that, she’d then blundered right into her own defeat.

Alicia took a deep breath and shook the thoughts away, combing her fingers through her sweaty mop of hair, doing her best to calm herself before she worked herself back into a tizzy.

It was done, over, she’d made her point and she’d keep making her point so long as the match-makers kept throwing walkovers like Gallium at her.

It wasn’t nice but neither was she and she was damn justified in it. Now. Shower. Book. Nice cup of tea. Then she’d feel a lot better.

Except, just then, she caught sight of a familiar mop of blonde hair headed her way and Alicia decided she felt a lot better already. Turning, she grinned widely and raised a hand in greeting. The veteran wrestler was dressed to compete, making her wonder why the blonde was back here instead of getting ready for her match. But it was still good to see her.

”Hey Valley,” she called out, ”How’s it going?”

It was easy to find Alicia right away - after all, tall redheads were a bit of a rarity, even in a diverse environment like the AFW. The only thing that took Valley by surprise was Alicia’s expression - after the display in the ring, when it looked liked she and Ace might even come to blows, she figured the MMA maven would still be fuming. But no - when Valley spotted her, she seemed calm, cool, even happy to see her.

That made things a little awkward.

The two of them had gotten along reasonably well the last time they'd met, and Valley was forced to remember that as she neared her fellow kicking enthusiast.

”Hey,” Valley came over with her arms akimbo. She had a little smile for Alicia, but there was some frustration ”Nice seeing you, too. That was, ah.... Valley ran a hand through her hair and blew some of the pink tips out of her face. ”That was a good match.”

In all honesty, seeing Valley had just improved Alicia’s post-match mood no end. So far as she was concerned, it was almost certainly a coincidence and – maybe apart from Kyoko – Valley was one of the few people she could count as maybe even close to a friend in the roster right now. And seeing her was a great distraction from her disappointment at how awful the match had been, hence her cheery grin as the blonde approached.

Valley didn’t look as happy though, even if Alicia didn’t think it was at her. She looked more frustrated, maybe like she’d got a bad match coming up or whatever. But that was driven out of her head when the veteran spoke up.

”You were watching?” Alicia sounded surprised, because she was surprised – she hadn’t really thought that Valley might have been watching. Why would she? It wasn’t like they were that close. But she soon huffed a laugh at her own expense, realising how dumb a question that had been. ”Obviously you were watching. But good? That was boring as hell. I really don’t know who thought putting Pinkie up against me was a smart move…”

She shook her head with a little sneer, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

”Thanks though.” The redhead tacked on after a beat, remembering that had probably been meant as a compliment, even if she didn’t feel it was really deserved.

What Valley said, Valley meant - it had been a good match. One-sided, but that was hardly Alicia’s fault. Blowouts happened. ”You're welcome. You looked great out there.”

Valley let her arms fall and folded them in front of her chest, covering the heart cutout. She let out a sigh, then decided to move on.

”Sometimes management likes to have these uneven matches. Some people get their rocks off seeing a girl get beat around by another girl, so yeah, that's a thing that happens. You have a match, you go through it.” Valley shrugged it off. ”That being said, there's a line you don't have to cross, and you…”

Valley held out her hands and took a moment to hit the brakes. Didn't want to come off too hard. ”After the match. Putting Gallium to sleep. Was that really necessary?”

Well, Alicia brightened up a bit at being told she looked good out there. It might have been a rubbish match in her opinion, but Valley was the veteran here. If she thought Alicia’d looked good in the ring, the redhead was going to presume she knew what she was talking about.

But her lips peeled back in a nasty scowl as the blonde went on. Now that she certainly didn’t like. Oh, she’d go through with it, but only because it sounded like the only way she’d get to the matches she actually wanted. And she straightened up sharply as Valley trailed off.

Oh no. No, she didn’t…

Yes. Yes, she damn well did mean that.

”She deserved it,” Alicia shot back bluntly, folding her arms across her own chest to match Valley’s posture, ”She was pathetic. I get that she’s new but…” She shook her head angrily.

”She might as well have walked right into that backbreaker. She’s an idiot. She doesn’t belong in that ring.”

And this was the problem with being a veteran of one combat sport going into another with radically different standards and expectations. Sometimes, things were different.

While Alicia spoke, Valley rubbed her nose and tried her best to keep a calm, thoughtful demeanor. She liked Alicia. In fact, it was because she liked Alicia that they were even having this conversation. She certainly wouldn’t have came back to talk with any of the dozens of women who pulled far worse crap in the AFW on a daily basis.

On top of that, Valley was feeling far too much like her own mother in this situation.

”Look. Alicia.” Valley let some sterness seep into her voice. ”Maybe Gallium should be in the ring. Maybe she shouldn’t. It doesn’t really matter either way, because that’s not the problem here - the issue is what happened after the match.”

Valley stepped aside and let some of the crew pass by, as they worked on setting things up for her entrance. ”When the bell rings, the fight stops. Period. MMA, boxing, wrestling, all the same. This isn’t some underground fighting thing, you can’t go around choking your opponents out like that. If they give up, you break the hold.”

Valley held her hands out and leaned forward, hopeful that her point was getting across. ”You get this. Please, tell me you get this.”

Alicia, for her part, wasn’t quite sure why they were having this conversation, particularly right now. Where she’d started off happy to see Valley, the blonde’s seeming determination to go into this was rapidly taking her back to the frankly terrible temper in which she’d stomped away from the ring. She didn’t want to talk about this, about the match or really even continue this conversation any further.

Part of that was because, deep down, she was fundamentally aware that Valley had a point. If she’d done that in a MMA match, she’d already be suspended. It wouldn’t even have crossed her mind, chiefly because she couldn’t remember a match being anywhere near as disastrously pathetic as the one she’d just suffered through. And if she had been less of a seething mess of disappointment and self-righteous fury, she’d probably have recognised Valley had a point.

All that said, the tone Valley chose to adopt didn’t help at all. And Alicia really, really was in no mood to explain herself. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to argue with the blonde; she just really didn’t see any use in it.

And she liked Valley too, when she wasn’t trying to play Jiminy Cricket or the angel on her shoulder.

Fine. Explanation it was.

”You want to know why I did it?” Alicia’s gaze was hooded now, intense. No smirk, no smile, just a thin-lipped almost-grimace peeling back her lips over her teeth.

”Because I want to be challenged. I want to be pushed. I don’t want to be thrown in the ring with pushovers like that and…”

She shrugged. Faux-casually.

”It made me angry. She made me angry.”

Alicia shifted her weight, about to walk away.

There was a reason Valley didn't often let people get off with calling her Valley Doll Jr., despite the term being 100% accurate. Aside from the fact that it was just annoying and clunky in a conversation, she didn't like the idea that she was inevitably following her mother’s footsteps. She wanted to be her own wrestler. Honor her mother, but forge her own legacy  at the same time.

And she really, really did not want to be picking up her mother’s habits, which was why this conversation was increasingly annoying her.

She folded her arms and stared hard at Alicia as she gave her ‘explanation’. She was mad. Valley could get that. Nobody wanted to have a lame match, especially when they were trying to debut.

Valley couldn’t see how any of that justified Alicia’s actions, though. She could tell, when they first met, that her sparring partner was the aggressive sort, but now it seemed way more than that. It was like Alicia had a fighting itch that needed scratching, and until it was satisfied, people would pay the price. Given the way management loved their squashes, Gallium wouldn’t be the last, either.

Valley was going to ask Alicia for this eventually, but she figured now would be a better time than most.

”You want a challenge?” Valley took a step forward and tapped a thumb against her chest. ”Take me on.”

Valley’s comment caught Alicia literally on the cusp of walking away, gaze already drifting past her towards the end of the corridor. She didn’t see any more point in continuing this than in keeping on making snarky comments at Silver Ace back at the ring. It didn’t really matter to her whether they agreed with her or didn’t agree with her. She’d rather have Valley as a friend but, if that meant putting up with this sort of nagging, she’d be rapidly changing her mind on that score.

And while Valley was clearly still going to be having a match tonight, Alicia had no idea when that’d be and she had no intentions of sticking around to be saved by the bell.

But her gaze snapped back to the blonde’s at the question, brows shooting up in surprise – an emotion that was only redoubled at the challenge, for so it was, that followed. But it only lasted for a heartbeat as Alicia rocked back on her heels.

She didn’t even need to think about it before her purple eyes gleamed with sudden interest, that grimace vanishing as her lips split apart in that vicious smirk she’d worn in the ring. Her reply followed almost as quickly.

”You’re on.”

Oh, the big redhead sounded eager now. She’d wanted a proper fight with Valley since their sparring match when she joined Friction. There wasn’t even an inch of reservation in her tone, just anticipation – now this would be a match she could sink her teeth into. And Valley had just handed it to her on a platter.