Broken Clocks

Blossom's post-match injuries weren't quite as bad as she thought they'd be. Her side hurt from the kick and her back ached from the backbreaker, yes, but as much as they'd hurt at the time, she'd taken far worse in matches. Never so quick, mind you, but she could be resilient enough when she wanted to be. She'd be ready for action after a day. Two, tops. Physically, she'd be fine.

Mentally...

"Dude, you need to find a new job. Please. No one wants to see you get really hurt. Again."

It wasn't what Taylor said, so much. She'd heard similar things before,  typically heckles from fans on her way out from a match. The difference was, though, that Taylor really sounded like she meant it. And as Blossom sat in the locker room, drying off from a long, hot shower, she couldn't help but wonder how right she was.

Blossom wrapped the towel over her chest and stood up, facing the mirror on the far side of the wall and looking herself over. She had a good body. She'd worked hard for it in high school, training six days a week with her wrestling team, and she was training hard now, too. She'd even upped her training after the injury, adding about ten pounds to her frame in bulk. She was short, yes, but she teamed with muscle. If she'd been one of the taller girls in the league, maybe about six feet, she'd be a beast. That's the way she imagined it, anyway

But that was fantasy. In reality, height was pretty much the only thing that would never improve no matter how hard she trained. She would always be Blossom. Small, pint-sized, shrimpy Blossom. She was better now, but that wasn't translating into wins. Would it ever She thought she could overcome her obstacles and be the sort of wrestler she wanted to be, but now...

"Gah. So dumb." Blossom gave the mirror a little kick out of spite, then turned around and moved to her gym bag, fishing around for her street clothes. She was eager to get home after a day like this. Maybe some popcorn and a cheesy SyFy movie would help her clarity.

There was a bang as the locker room bolted open from the impact of a big back boot. Ashura entered trudging towards her locker, carrying the still stunned Sandalwood in her arms like she was cradling a baby. The walk back to the locker room had been quite a trek, partially because she was hefting an entire person after getting her stomach pounded, and partially because her balance was still off from the sucker kick she had received.

Taylor and Angel wouldn't bother them here, of course. Those bitches had their own executive dressing rooms with big stars on them, no doubt. Ashura cursed under her breath in Russian as she turned the corner towards her personal locker.

The short woman in the green singlet was there packing something. "Hey, flower-name girl. Help me with..." Ashura suddenly felt a flush of embarrassment, which didn't happen to her very often. What the hell was this woman's name? "this woman. She might have concussion. Put towels down or something."

Ashura motioned setting Sandalwood down on the bench and waited for Blossom to do something. She hadn't noticed that the rambunctious woman in her arms had started to stir.

Things had been kinda weird for Sandalwood. When she first got slammed in the face by Taylor's knees things went dark, black, quiet, y'know, normal unconscious things. Unaware of the flow of time and all that good stuff. She had started waking up a few minutes ago; she dimly remembered someone punching someone else or something--had someone stepped on her--and then she was moving or something, and then maybe there were some lights? And then she blinked, and blinked, and then things swam back into focus.

"Oy... oy. Wait, hold your horses, I'm fine!" Sandalwood said, loudly, then sat up. This turned out to be a mistake, because the whole locker room swam around like she it was just a hologram made out of jelly. She laid back down in a hurry, putting a hand over her eyes, blinking away the shadows. What had happened back there? She remembered some... girl in pigtails, yeah? Who wasn't supposed to be there. And they fought or something. And apparently she had not come up on top.

Sandalwood sat back up again. This time the world seemed like it was ready cooperate, and stayed firmly in place. Cooper looked to the left; the Russian who's body type could be described as 'basically a monstertruck which took human form'. She looked to the right; Flower Power. The Three Musketeers, it looked like. Except for that Eka chick.

"...So. Anyone got any water?" Sandalwood croaked, voice still hoarse from screaming in the microphone all night.

When Blossom saw Ashura enter the room, her first instinct was to panic and run. A little prejudiced? Maybe. It wasn't just how big the woman was - and, good Lord, was she big - but her overall aggressive demeanor. It could have been something that got lost in translation, but she seemed like a force of nature, ready and willing to crush anything and everything in her path. It would be her luck to have a day like this end up with her pancaked on the bathroom floor.

Though, as scared as she was, she had to admit - she'd been rooting for Ashura when she took on Angel. That was cool. It didn't end well, sure, but it was cool that she even did it.

She'd been so ready to bolt that she hadn't even noticed Ashura was carrying cargo until she mentioned it. "Oh! One sec, one sec, one sec." She popped up and rummaged through her bag, bringing out a few towels for Sandalwood to lay her battered skull on, just as she started to rouse up.

She backed off and sat on the edge of the bench, giving Cooper and Ashura as much space as she could. They looked like they needed it. "Here." She handed Cooper a bottle of water from out of her bag. Raspberry flavored. "And it's Blossom." She shot Ashura a mean look for a moment, but it quickly softened. She hadn't done anything wrong, no reason to throw hate her way. Blossom reached in the bag and offered her a bottle, too. Lemon-flavored. "Are you guys okay? You both took pretty nasty shots..."

She cringed at the pain in her back, her body reminding her that she hadn't come out unscathed, either.

Ashura nodded thankfully as Blossom mentioned the name and turned towards Sandalwood. "Blossom, I need you to follow my finger." she instructed Sandalwood as she mover her indexed finger back and forth. It was not a problem for the American. "Okay, both pupils are same size, no concussion."

She looked up at Blossom and shook her head dismissively, starting to walk away "I am fi..." which was the point that a wave of vertigo hit her. The remainder of her adrenaline was dying a slow death. Ashura quickly sat down. "I will be fine."

She took the bottle of water, ripped the cap off and began to chug the entire bottle down. Her eyes narrowed, since she had not bother to read the label, sour.

Sandalwood chugged the bottle, then wiped the water away with a flourish. She was feeling better already. "Alright, so, lemme try and piece this together. We were havin' our beat the clock challenge, nice and tidy as you can imagine, Ashura beat the stuffing out of Eka, then me and Blossom were getting all hyped up for our match, just ready to titillate the audience with like, high flying, high level moves, and then suddenly the frickin' champ bursts into the scene, and Lukrezcendork makes Blossom fight her? And then, like, I was all set up to wreck that chump, when that... pig tails came down the runway. Who was she, anyway?" Sandalwood rubs her head. "Havin' a little bit of trouble remembering what happened after that. Think I... think I might have not come out quite on top of that bout."

She turns towards Ashura. "How'd you get jacked up, anyway? I don't remember you takin' that many hits against our Greek friend..." she then tilts her head towards Blossom! "Thanks for the water, by the by! The name's Sandalwood Cooper, in case either of you two knuckleheads forgot! We've got, like, bonds forged in adversity now. We're tight, dogs."

Blossom couldn't help but chuckle at Cooper, and she was glad she had her own bottle of water - lime-flavored - to cover the laugh and not sound too insulting. Her fellow newbie was very...energetic? Yeah, that was the polite word for it.  Too much enthusiasm was way better than too little, though, so she could hardly complain.

"That," She took a quick gulp and sat back. "Was Taylor Parker. The girl with the pigtails. Former Entropy Champion, and she's been gunning real hard for the World Title, lately." Come to think of it, how did Cooper not know who Taylor was? She was a hard person to miss if you watched Friction at all. She didn't seem to know what she was getting into with the AFW. Not a 'think first, then act' sort of girl.

"I don't know..." She sighed and leaned forward, running a hand through her wet and matted hair. "It did seem like a neat set up, you know? Give the rookies a chance to shine, show what we can do to the whole world, friendly competition. Yay." She shook her head and looked between Ashura and Cooper, like they could make sense of it any better. "They used us. Like cannon fodder. I can't believe they did that. It's just so, so, so..."

She looked for the right word for a few moments, then gave up and shoved the bottle back in her mouth.

Ashura deigned not to answer Sandalwood's question, but it was good to put a name to a face. Her first name was something having to do with shoes. And her last name was also something having to do with shoes.

"Disrespectful!" the giant roared lifting her arm and crushing the empty water bottle in her hand. She seethed, almost trembling at the thought of the two wrestler's interference. "I will make them pay for their insolence. They will beg for my forgiveness. she hissed menacingly flinging the remains of the bottle as hard as she could into a nearby garbage bin.

"Yeah! That's the spirit!" Sandalwood started to hop up on her feet, then stumbled, the blood rushing to her head making her dizzy. She fell back down on her butt with a plop. "Yeah, the spirit. Shit, some of its starting to come back." She screwed up her eyes and stared at her hand, flexing it. What had happened? Let's see... she remembered flying sidekicking at this 'former champion', missing... then she got kicked in the face a few times. Huh. Something else was bothering her... what had happened that was making her want to grit her teeth and punch someone in the face?

Oh, yeah. That Taylor chick had ignored her!

"Disrespectful is right! All my opponent did was, like, make googoo eyes at her hate girlfriend! Jeeze, the nerve of her--if she's going to run in and, like, be a huuuuge drama queen and make the whole event about her and her dumb ~rival~, the least she can do is pay attention to me! I like to think I leave an impression on people! I leave an impression, right? Grargh, I want to just, dropkick her right in the face!" Sandalwood turns to Blossom. "And you! Hey, girl, between you and me? You could have totally taken that Angel scrub. Like, look." She grabs Blossom's arm and extends. "Just look at your arm. You're gorram muscle all the way through, girl! Like, Ashura, feel her arm. She's ripped." Sandalwood shakes her head. "The thing is, like, soon as she walked in, you psyched yourself out! I could see it on your face, you were like--" Sandalwood adopts a deep baritone tone. "Oh no, oh no, I'm gunna lose." "But you should've been like, 'oh, hell yeah, its punch time!' and then hit in the face with crazy arms. That probably woulda left an impression."

"Anyway. Uh. I think I pinpointed my weakness. My problem is, like, that when this Taylor chick kicked me, I got knocked out. Seems like I have a bit of a glass jaw, by AFW standards! Gotta work on that... you guys need help with anythin', fightin' style wise?"

Blossom nearly fell off the bench when Cooper popped up, and all the sudden she was acutely aware of just how little she was wearing. She'd gotten used to nudity in the ring, sure, but there was was still something awkward about wearing nothing but a towel around her chest while everyone else was dressed. Ashura was definitely showing more skin overall, but she had more skin to show.

"Eeeeeeeeh, I dunno." She bit her lip, hoping she wasn't dragging the other two ladies down. They were so pumped and into it and crazy, and here she was, being all down on herself. "I mean, I'm not like you two. Really not like you, Ash." She looked over at the poor, crushed water bottle that she'd sent to an early grave.

"I'm small,. Strong, but small. So I have a lot of trouble really closing in, and I get smacked along the way. I've had some good matches, really, had a few guys on the ropes, but I can never seal it. I've been here six months, about, and I haven't really won...at all. Just one after the other, loss after loss. Not even sure if I should be doing this." She groaned and rubbed her temples.

"But you!" She turned to Ashura with wide arms. "You were totally awesome out there. Angel didn't even know what to do with you, I could tell. You just have to watch out for those kicks, that's all. Angel's kicks really hurt." She rubbed her aching side. "Really."

And did her voice really sound that deep? She always thought it was more high-pitched...