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#Post#: 1324--------------------------------------------------
Girls Night, Gone Wrong
By: RampageSports Date: March 22, 2015, 10:50 pm
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Author's Note: I decided I wanted to do a little story that took
things out of the gym and away from the UMMA universe. So I
did, and this happened...
This is actually set back in early January, though the specific
timing is not all that important.
[hr]
Girls Night, Gone Wrong
It was five-thirty on a Friday night, and the RSI facility was
basically empty. With the Open Fight Event behind us, the UMMA
was in a bit of a lull as the new year got going. I had just
finished submitting the medical clearances for the upcoming team
event, and I was seriously questioning what I'd been thinking in
starting up a third RSI team. The per fighter paperwork load
for each UMMA event was enormous, and the team events were
second only to the tournaments as far as the number of fighters
participating. With the introduction of The Aly Cats, I had
increased the workload by fifty percent.
This is the sh*t you don't think about.
The only other person in the building was Danni. What she was
doing, I knew not... but that's not exactly new.
Danni normally handled her teammates by feel... sensing almost
by magic what needed to be done to keep the gears moving. I
think I'm pretty good at reading people, but I have no trouble
admitting I'm a little jealous of Danni's touch. So, I had a
bad feeling about how things would work out when Steph McMahon
took on the role of fighter development coordinator for RSI.
Steph certainly knows what she's doing, but she brought with her
a complicated system of metrics that supposedly tracks each
fighter's progress. It was almost the polar opposite of Danni's
usual approach, and it seemed destined to rub her the wrong way.
Of course, I was wrong. As usual.
If anything, the system gave Danni more to go on as she looked
for potential problems. She would quickly notice when one of
the girls was falling off, which gave her a head start on
figuring out why.
Did I mention I picked Danni as team leader based purely on a
hunch? Yeah... I wish I had hunches like that more often.
I grabbed my coat as I clicked off the light, stepped around the
few inches of wall between my door and Danni's and gave a knock.
"You up for dinner?" I asked.
"Always," she said. "What'd you have in mind?"
"I'm thinking Chinese," I answered.
"Mmm," she said. "Little Szechuan?"
"Of course."
She glanced at the time and said, "It's gonna be packed."
"I called ahead," I said.
She raised an eyebrow.
"How did you know I'd say 'yes?'"
I raised an eyebrow right back at her.
"Yeah," she said, "you're right. Silly question."
She shut down her computer and snatched her coat from the hook.
The frigid winter temperatures had forced her to shelve her
trademark leather in favor of something considerably warmer.
The replacement was a black down jacket with a hood lined in tan
faux fur. With the hood down, the trim seemed to frame her head
in an almost regal manner. Overall, the coat was attractive and
wholly appropriate for the season. But it lacked the cool,
confident look the leather usually gave her.
Ah, well. Just another reason to look forward to spring.
The Little Szechuan sits on a corner in the middle of the main
drag through Oceanport. It's housed in a single story
commercial building, painted the plainest white color I've ever
seen. It shared the space with a bagel shop, a nail salon and a
tailor, with the restaurant positioned so that it fronted the
corner. The side street at the intersection comes in at an
angle, giving the corner a triangular shape. The contractor
who'd erected the building had tapered that end so that it
mirrored the corner... intent on making use of every inch of
space that was available. The result fell just short of a total
abomination. In fact, I was convinced that the ugliness of the
structure had influenced the paint choice... as if the building
had simply been deemed unworthy of a more interesting color. On
the whole, it was bland, aged and totally forgettable. It gave
the restaurant just the cover it needed to be the area's best
kept secret. Too bad the secret got out over a decade ago.
Just try coming here after six o'clock on a Friday without
calling ahead, and you'll see what I mean.
The parking lot runs along the back and side of the building,
and I had to wait to make the turn as a pair of young men
crossed the driveway apron. They had the size and look of a
pair of high school football players, and they walked with a
swagger that suggested they started for the varsity team. They
seemed to deliberately slow down once they realized I was
waiting, and one of them shot me a look that said "you'll
f*cking wait and you'll like it, b*tch."
I gave serious consideration to committing vehicular homicide,
but decided it wasn't worth the paperwork that would follow.
Danni caught a glimpse of the look on my face.
"Easy there, killer," she said. "You were young once, too."
"Yeah, but was I an obnoxious little sh*t?" I asked. "I don't
think I was."
I made my turn and added, "And I'm still young,
thank-you-very-much."
"Sure you are."
I nosed the car head-in toward the restaurant.
"I keep telling you," I said, "you're only a few years younger
than I am."
"'Younger' being the operative word," she replied.
I rolled my eyes as I undid my seat belt and climbed out.
I had just closed my door when a woman's anguished cry echoed
from the entrance area around the corner. Before I could even
figure out what I'd heard, Danni was moving.
"Danni, WAIT!"
I ran around behind the car, but she was out of sight by the
time I cleared the bumper. I turned the corner in time to see
her tackling one of the obnoxious little sh*ts to the pavement.
The other one was standing about a foot away, playing tug-of-war
with a young blond woman, each pulling viciously on the woman's
purse strap. He didn't seem to know what to make of Danni
knocking his 200-plus pound buddy off his feet, and he decided
not to stick around and figure it out. He released the purse
and ran off down the street, leaving his cohort to fend for
himself.
Whatever happened to honor among thieves?
Danni came up astride her target... pinning him down as she
pummeled his face with her fists. He started to squirm
frantically, a mixture of surprise and terror on his face. One
minute, he and his cohort were seconds away from an easy pay
day. Next thing he knew, he was on the ground and a 125 pound
woman was beating the sh*t out of him. Odds were good that
events were not unfolding in quite the matter he had planned.
Just as I ran up on them, he figured a way to make use of his
weight advantage. He rocked Danni to one side and managed to
free one of this hands. He pushed her off of him, scrambled
back like a crab and kicked her away. She landed on her ass
right at my feet. The dazed and bleeding thief then pressed
himself off the pavement and ran after his cowardly friend.
"You OK?" I said to Danni.
"Yeah, yeah... just go!"
I turned to the young woman. "You alright?"
She nodded, just as confused by what had happened as her
attackers had been.
She seemed vaguely familiar to me, but I quickly pushed the
thought aside as I jogged off behind the two varsity losers.
"Don't do anything stupid!" Danni called out.
"Wouldn't dream of it," I said, thinking we were going to have a
serious conversation about what qualified as stupid when I got
back.
The Oceanport business district consists of about ten
businesses, all contained in an area barely three blocks long.
The two young men ran off down a nearby side street and into the
surrounding neighborhood. I took my time, following a few
seconds behind. I had no intentions of being a hero. In fact,
I had no desire to engage the attackers in any way. I just
wanted to make sure we knew where they went.
My plan was partially foiled when they climbed into a dark
colored sedan parked a couple of blocks away.
An honest-to-god getaway car. Clearly, they had pulled this
kind of thing before.
Luckily, the vehicle was pointed in the same direction we'd been
running. I slowed to a casual walk, biding my time as they
started it up. As the driver slipped it into gear, I sprinted
up to the rear of the car behind them... close enough to see the
license plate, but leaving some space for me to beat a hasty
retreat if I was spotted. They never looked back, likely
focused on making their escape to regroup for another day. They
drove off, and I pulled out my phone to record the plate number
before jogging my way back to the restaurant.
When I returned, I found the police were already on-scene. As I
approached, I saw Danni and the young woman talking with a pair
of uniformed officers... one slightly taller than the other and
clearly the senior of the two. He was the one doing the
questioning, while his younger partner took notes.
Standing off to the side was an anxious-looking blond woman I
knew quite well.
It was RSI's own Alyson Michalka.
"Aly?" I said. "What the hell are you doing here?"
She didn't seem surprised to see me, likely because Danni had
told her I was involved.
She gestured toward the victim just as my earlier recognition
clicked with a name.
"Richelle, this is..."
"AJ," I said with a smile.
The woman who'd been attacked was Aly's sister, Amanda. I
wasn't sure if I'd recognized her earlier because of her obvious
physical similarity to Aly, or if I remembered her as half of
the sororal musical group known as "Aly and AJ." Probably a
little of both. I was pretty sure the two still performed
together, though they had shed the eponymous label for something
they felt sounded more mature.
As for Amanda, I didn't know what her middle name was, but I was
willing to go out on a limb and say it started with a "J."
AJ looked to me with a tepid smile... happy to be recognized,
but mildly uncomfortable with the fact that she had no clue who
I was.
"This is Richelle," Aly said.
"Oh yeah," AJ said. "You're the gym owner."
Gym owner? SERIOUSLY?
I nodded and gave her a tepid smile of my own.
Our introduction was cut short as the officers recognized my
name.
"Miss Winterfeld," the senior officer acknowledged. "Miss
Harris tells us you attempted to chase the suspects. Not a very
smart thing to do."
"Well," I said as I gestured toward Danni, "we're not know for
our brains."
"Mmm," he said. "She also mentioned your penchant for
flippancy."
I held my arms out in front of me, as if waiting to be
handcuffed, and said, "Guilty as charged."
Then, I looked back to Danni and added, "Takes one to know one,
by the way."
She gave a little shrug.
Once I told Oceanport's finest I had the plate number, I was
granted a reprieve for my crimes. In fact, seeing as how I had
unknowingly provided the key to solving a rash of recent
grab-and-go robberies, the officers were suddenly downright
hospitable.
"We'll be in touch if we need anything," the older partner said
as they made their exit. "Though the plate number, along with
your various statements, should be enough to put this thing to
bed. Thanks, again."
"Happy to help, officers," I said.
Once they were gone, Danni and I turned back to the sisters.
"I can't thank you both enough," AJ said.
"Thank god you guys were here," Aly said.
"All in a day's work, ladies," Danni said.
Danni Harris, superhero.
I narrowed my eyes at her, and gave a little head shake that
said I thought the evening's heroine might want to get a grip on
herself.
I might have bought it if she was wearing the leather, though.
"We're just glad it all worked out," I said.
We exchanged hugs, and I noticed AJ looked pensive... like she
wanted to say something to me. She decided against it, though,
and I let it go.
"Let's go eat," I said, after they'd left.
"Yeah, I'm starving," Danni said.
We stepped inside and were immediately greeted by the owner. He
looked exactly like you'd expect the owner of a Chinese
restaurant to look. Short, slight-build, glasses, always
smiling. The smile was likely related to the joy of taking
other people's money. He was always pleasant and friendly,
though, which helped take the sting out of the expense.
His name was Peizhi, but he was known to his customers as Pete.
I never asked, but I've always assumed his reason for using the
Americanized moniker was that he was tired of having his name
mispronounced.
"So sorry," he said as he approached. His English was broken
and accented, but he had no trouble making himself understood.
"You miss reservation," he continued. "You table gone."
"Our table WHAT?" I said.
The restaurant was swirling with the scent of deliciousness, and
I could actually taste the stir-fried chicken and broccoli.
There was no way I was leaving without eating.
"Are you kidding me, Pete? We're out here solving crimes and
protecting the public from danger, and you gave away our table?"
His eyes softened as a small grin appeared at the corners of his
mouth.
"I make good joke," he said. "You fall for it."
"Not funny," I said, though I broke into a smile, anyway.
He gave a quick shrug. "Was for me," he said. "Come. I save
you table by window."
As he led us to the table, Danni leaned over to me and said,
"Protecting the public from danger, huh?"
"I was warming up to make a case for getting our table back," I
said defensively.
"Uh-huh," she said.
I shrugged.
"All in a day's work, ma'am."
[hr]
Character Reference
HTML https://aade768506dacb303a01a361d3dc0d27209a5ec4.googledrive.com/host/0Bz8YsEjMxOhMMXhVcF82aG5SXzA/Richelle_100x120.jpg
Name: Richelle Winterfeld
Nickname(s):
Background: Owner of the RSI stable, former underground fighter
HTML https://aade768506dacb303a01a361d3dc0d27209a5ec4.googledrive.com/host/0Bz8YsEjMxOhMMXhVcF82aG5SXzA/Danni_100x120.jpg
Name: Danneel Harris
Nickname(s): Danni
Background: RSI stable leader, reigning DEF welterweight
champion
HTML https://aade768506dacb303a01a361d3dc0d27209a5ec4.googledrive.com/host/0Bz8YsEjMxOhMMXhVcF82aG5SXzA/Aly_100x120.jpg
Name: Alyson Michalka
Nickname(s): Aly, Hellcat
Background: Team leader of The Aly Cats, FAC light heavyweight
contender
HTML https://aade768506dacb303a01a361d3dc0d27209a5ec4.googledrive.com/host/0Bz8YsEjMxOhMMXhVcF82aG5SXzA/AJ_100x120.jpg
Name: Amanda Michalka
Nickname(s): AJ
Background: Aly's sister
#Post#: 1359--------------------------------------------------
Re: Girls Night, Gone Wrong
By: Dragons Den Date: March 26, 2015, 5:19 am
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Haha, can't take you lot anywhere. :P
Of course, it's a good thing you were there to help poor AJ. You
and Danni ever consider the superhero scene? The general public
need you! :D
I liked Peizhi's joke, too. Classic!
Fantastic work as always, Richelle. It was a little more...
whimsical, than a lot of your other stories. I like whimsical.
It was a nice change of pace. Good to get out of the cage too.
And a nice view of the outside-of-UMMA relationship our new
superheroes share. :)
#Post#: 1360--------------------------------------------------
Re: Girls Night, Gone Wrong
By: RampageSports Date: March 26, 2015, 5:36 am
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You might not want to tempt me on the superhero thing. You
never know what crazy ideas might get in my head. [emoji14]
Thanks, as always, for the comments. :)
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