Serious Training (for TheWamts)

Li connected again, smirking as she sat back up. "Come on... You're going to start making me think I'm good at this!" joked Dani. She then grabbed hold of Lotte and shoved her back up to a sitting position, her confidence really starting to show as she drove her knee into Lotte's back and then applied a chin lock. Another basic hold, but applied very well. The DJ smirked as she held back on the blonde's chin with both hands. Normally in her other training sessions, she was the one playing catch up. It was nice to be the one ahead this time though.

"Uurgh! Uaaagh!" Dani didn't give Lotte a break. Not that she was expecting one. Lifted up by the hair, Dani's knee dug against her spin and her hands locked underneath Lotte's chin. It hurt. A lot.

She flailed around a little bit, but not too much, and before long, the blonde was tapping out. Not because she was a quitter... at least not entirely. She also didn't want to be too behind for every round after this one.

Dani Li was looking confident as she continued to wrench on the hold. She opened her mouth to say something else to Lotte, but then she saw her tap out. The DJ was shocked and then loosened the hold, taking a moment to register the tap out before releasing the blonde entirely, looking baffled. "...Wait, that's it?"

The pink-haired girl gave Lotte a concerned look and asked, "Are you alright?" She was legitimately worried about her, thinking the Brit was definitely going to hold out for longer, or at least find a way out.

"Yeah, that's it, eheh..." Lotte said once she'd stopped groaning with pain - only a few seconds, really. "Didn't see a point to keeping it up, it'd just mean I'd be too tired for all the other rounds, right?" Lotte's nonchalant tone indicated that she was indeed perfectly fine, minus the sore spot on her back.

"Besides, it's not like we gotta take these practice fights super seriously or anything, right Miss Dani?"

Li looked a bit relieved when Lotte indicated she was fine. And even though she didn't entirely agree with her giving up like that, she did take issue with the blonde telling her they shouldn't take their sparring session seriously. When she said that, Dani gave her a look of disbelief before shaking her head clear and laughing lightly. "Uh... Okay. So I have a very busy schedule. And any time that I can get to do a training session like this is huge for me. And right now, it's crunch time for me. I need to really, really focus on training and get my stuff together so when I debut, I look really good for my image. So... yes, these practice fights are a little serious for me, because if I don't take it seriously, then my whole day is a bust. And I mean... you didn't even really try to fight out of that hold and..."

The DJ held up a hand, mostly to stop herself from rambling before giving Lotte a reassuring smile and putting her hands on her shoulders. "Can we try to take this seriously, Charlotte? This is really important to me." She tried to level with the girl and be friendly. She knew most people didn't really understand how precious her time was, but it was a big deal that Li even got the time to train like this. And she desperately didn't want to feel like she was wasting her day.

She didn't expect Li to break out into a mini-rant. But she had a point, her time was probably more metered than the cosplayer's. Nonetheless, she didn't like being lectured to, as polite as Dani was trying to be about it. "Eh? I mean, I'm still fighting properly, mostly. It's just like... exerting myself so much for just one round seems kinda... dumb." She said bluntly, not sure why she needed to explain herself in the middle of the gym.

"But uh... if you really care about it that much uh... I guess I could... not give up, I guess?"

"But it's not dumb!" blurted out Dani, putting a hand to her mouth. She took a deep breath and then stood up, extending her hand to her training partner to help her up. "Just... you know, in a real match, they're not just going to give up like that. They're going to try to fight out of it. That's just my point. But it's fine, it's fine. I'm not upset about it Charlotte. Let's just... do a great job now, alright? We'll teach other other a lot of stuff. It's going to be fun!"

She said the words reassuringly, possibly to convince herself more than Lotte of how she felt. She would then take a few steps back and adopt a fight stance, smiling at the blonde. "Let's go!" she yelled cheerily, waving her partner towards her.

"Eh... sure. Yeah, onto round two." Lotte accepted her hand, still a bit confused, but decided to go along with Dani for the moment, she was a busy person, that was probably all that it was.

Back on her feet, Lotte counted down three fingers, smiling at the DJ. Once the last finger went down, she would break out into a charge, starting off the new round with a dropkick out of the gate!

Dani excitedly watched Lotte count down and then proceeded to charge on the count of one as well. She was surprised to see Lotte leap in the air and froze for that moment before she got nailed in the chest with the move.

The DJ's body flopped as she landed on her back and then rolled onto her front. Like wasn't about to let that keep her down as she got back up after a split moment to collect herself before standing back up and running towards Lotte, jumping up and attempting a flying forearm. She wasn't used to her opponent's speed, but she was willing to see just how fast the Brit could be if she really tried.

Lotte's legs connected nicely with Dani, and she got back on her feet to widen the early advantage... but Dani had also gotten back up already. Wow, she really was tough, wasn't she?

The DJ flew at the slightly surprised blonde, who just barely managed to not-quite-avoid it, taking the edge of Dani's arm against her shoulder, causing her to wince. Could be a lot worse though.