Don't Call It A Comeback!

There was a little confusion among the Friction crowd as Van Halen came in over the loudspeakers. It wasn't a song they were unfamiliar with. They knew who it belonged to. But Valley hadn't come out to that music for months now, ever since Summer Splash and her massacre of a match with Akashi.

The Valley Doll that came out wasn't the same one they'd seen since then, though, so the switch made more since. Her match with Silver Ace had finally gotten some people to start taking her seriously again, even if it was just a draw. There were still some boos in the audience, but there were quite a few cheers, too, coming from people willing and ready to give her a second chance before they slapped the heel label on her forehead or wrote her off as washed up. She had a new costume, too, one she'd debuted at her match with Ace.


It was a tight outfit, a little more outlandish than her last one to go with the bigger league she was wrestling in. At the same time, it was padded up in all the right places to give her some real comfort, and judging from a few approving looks she received from the audience, it was easy on the eyes. She missed her original suit, a heirloom handed down from her mother, but even if she could have gotten it fixed up after Morrigan trashed it, she wouldn't have. It was time she started living in the present instead of letting the past rule her. She had to shake off her mother's baggage, and while she would never forget where she'd come from, Slamazons was simply not a part of her life anymore.

Valley was a Friction girl. It was time for her to act like one.

She made her way down to the ring, waving out to the fans as she went, even smiling at the ones who frowned back her way. She grabbed a microphone and made her way to the center of the ring, waiting for the crowd to hush enough for her to speak.

"Ahem." She cleared her throat. "All right, apologies if I don't pronounce this right, but I think I have it down pat. Kon...ban...wa." She put her Japanese lessons to good use and pronounced the word for 'good evening'. Judging from the quick burst of cheers she got, Valley seemed to have nailed it. The pronunciation was always the hardest thing, too. Very proud of that.  "Good, good, okay, glad I made that sound decent. Now," She clapped. "On to business."

Valley made her way to the corner and leaned against it, getting comfortable with an easy-going smile on her face. "First off, I need to make some apologies. I'm a wrestler. My job is to wrestle for your entertainment, and the past few months, I haven't been doing that very well. Maybe some of you don't care. I know I'm not a big marquee name in this company, and maybe I never will be. Maybe I'll never be the main event or get two title shots in a row or stuff like that. That's fine. But that's no excuse not to do the best I can in every match, win or lose. You people pay good money to watch this show live, week after week, and you deserve the return on your investment with every match. I gave you less than the best I had to offer, and for that, I am really, truly sorry."

There were still a few boos out there, but Valley got a fresh round of applause to drown them out. Lovely to hear as she spoke from the heart. "With that said, there are two other reasons I came out here, and the first one has to do with a new face on the roster. Like me, she's an import from a defunct league. Unlike me, her organization was quite popular - the Wrestle Angels."

Now, that got some decent applause. Many of the AFW fans were fans of Wrestle Angels back in the day, and the idea of a new one on the roster was bound to turn heads. Valley let the suspense build for a moment before she pointed to the big screen to show none other than Haruka Date!


The crowd had a little frenzy at the prospect of seeing one of the more recognizable faces on the Wrestle Angels stable back in action. Valley didn't blame them. Back during her time with the Slamazons, Valley had cauguh a few of Haruka's matches and had been impressed every time. The woman had deadly strikes. Quick, powerful, deadly.

"Haruka Date, let me be the first to welcome you to AFW." She looked towards the entrance and held out her hand, like Haruka was there to shake it. "If you can, please come out to the ring. There's something important I want to discuss with you."

Haruka stood with one arm crossed over her chest and her head down. The role of wallflower was natural for her and she had been playing it well tonight. Not a lot of people had noticed her and fewer made an attempt to talk to her. All of the conversations had been stilted awkward affairs where no one really said anything. Her orange and white top adorned with peacock feathers had garnered her some attention from the gentlemen in the room, the kind of attention that Haruka had not really appreciated or wanted.

Haruka bounced backwards and forward, her pants flowing back and forth. Her attention was on the TV where a pretty woman with a white and pink outfit began to recount her history. While Haruka had wrestled in the Wrestle Angels, she had paid attention to AFW, and saw this woman in a few matches. Haruka thought she wrestled well even if she wasn't some behemoth in the ring. And she never really saw her intimidated or scared. Which she respected even more.

Her ears perked up when she heard her old company get mentioned. And there it was...she was called out. She grabbed a mike and made her way to the entrance ramp. Haruka's entrance theme began as she made her way down to the ring. The applause was more polite than it was anything else and the cheers were few and far between. Haruka understood; she was a newcomer here and had yet to prove herself. Well, this was her chance. As she walked down she didn't pay attention to the crowd. Her eyes were on Valley and Valley alone.

She hopped up to the mat and slipped between the ropes. A few steps saw the distance between them become nothing more than a few feet. Haruka held the mike up to her mouth. "You would have words with me." Her voice was quiet.

Valley was a little nervous. Just a little.

There was always the chance that Haruka wouldn't come out, and she'd be stuck standing in the middle of the ring like an idiot - that was always the risk you ran with these call out deals. She had made sure that Haruka was in the building before coming out, but that didn't guarantee her arrival.

So she was more than a little relieved when Haruka's music came on and the violet vixen came out from the back, taking qa quick stroll to the ring while the crowd mildly applauded. She didn't even seem to notice it. There was a calm focus in her eyes that you didn't typically see in  the squared circle. In a sport known for bombastic and boisterous personalities, Haruka was oddly reserved. It was off-putting. Maybe that was the whole point.

"Yes, just a few." She nodded and walked out of the corner, meeting Haruka in the middle. "I'll keep this plain and simple - I need a match. I've been slumming for a while, had a bad run of things, but I think I'm better now. I'm over it. I want to prove that to myself and this audience and the entire world..." She pointed at Haruka. "But I need your help. I want you to come at me as hard as you can and give me everything you've got. 100%. If I win, I win, if I lose, I lose, but I don't want there to be any questions when it's all over."

She lowered the mike a little and looked Haruka straight in the eyes. She kept it soft, didn't want her to look like she was being a bully...but she was serious about this, too. Her face showed it. "Can you give me that?"

Haruka bowed. "To do less than my best would be a disservice." Haruka had always found pointing to be incredibly rude but she didn't detect any malice from the woman. The full house at the arena was deathly quiet, ready to hear every little word the women between the ropes said. "So yes. I accept your challenge." So here was her debut. Fighting against Valley Doll after she was called out.

She lowered her own mike and made eye contact. "Will we have our bout now?" Her question was in straight monotone, more of a statement than it was a query. Every time she entered the arena, she was stretched and ready to go. Haruka was always on her guard like that. A few feet was all that separated them. Haruka might have been able to swing in a kick once the bell rang...

But Haruka held on to the mike. This woman was trying to come back from a bad spell. She wasn't a bully that challenges people recklessly, nor was she some monster of combat. Haruka did her best to hide the emotions surging through her. She was nervous, as this was her debut and she was excited, as this was her debut. There wasn't any need to strike up her stance just yet. Her face was stone like a statue as she waited for Valley's reply.

Valley's smile only brightened as Haruka accepted the challenge and seemed more than willing to have a match right on the spot. She was going to have the match she'd needed for so long, a bout against someone who wasn't a sociopath, a jerk, or a living British stereotype. Just good, wholesome wrestling without overblown personal drama to wreck it. While she still wasn't certain why Haruka seemed so reserved, especially when this was her big debut in the AFW, she decided not to press the matter. The only important thing was whether or not she could deliver in the ring, and on that note...

"That works fine for me." Valley nodded, barely hearing Haruka’s voice over the booming crowd. If he shyness was all a ruse, she was putting way too much effort into it. She tossed the microphone away, just as the starting bell rang...

Continued here...