2020-11-24: To see the spider sit and spin - Parker's LONE Tryout
| To see the spider sit and spin - Parker's LONE Tryout | |
|---|---|
| Parker meets with Terri about LONE | |
| IC Date | November 24th, 2020 |
| IC Time | Morning |
| Players | Parker and Terri |
Having recently heard about LONE, the all-woman's fighting organization, Parker called up their offices and asked if she could have a meeting to discuss the possibility of participating.
Today, the 24th of November, she's headed off on her motorcycle to the location of the meeting in Coronado. Under her riding leathers she's wearing a pair of black leggings with an integral, asymmetrical skirt of green and black plaid with a semi-opaque shirt of dark green with a black sports bra that shows though the shirt every slightly. On her arrival, she removes the leathers and stows them in her saddlebags and heads into the location she was told to go to for the meeting.
As she's known in the wrestling circuit, "Gutter Trash" Terri Thompson is somewhere in the sprawling wrestling academy known as 4WA; The Wealthy Walter Washington Wrestling Academy. It is named after famous wrestler "Wealthy" Walter Washington. The building itself looks as if it was an old warehouse, restored and renovated to hold multiple wrestling rings, gym equipment, offices, locker room and even a cafeteria! As one enters, they'll see wrestling memorabilia from talent like The Joker's Wild; a stable consisting of The Emerald Drew Stevenson, Platinum Scotty Addams, The Revolutionary Turncoat Frank Washington, and Legendary Frankie Cocheese. There's a shrine now, it seems, of wrestlers and fans donating flowers and money and cards to pictures of The Glorious One Lisa Robertson; a Memorial to a wrestling great who recently passed. She was beloved. Parker can hear the sounds of slamming on a mat. It looks like what's called a bump drill is going on, lead by Terri. Everyone is wearing heather grey shirts and tank tops sporting the LONE logo, and gym shorts/pants. "Good. Good." Terri comments after each one. "Watch your head. You don't wanna do that because you could really mess yourself up hitting your head like that. Try it again. Good."
Having done a little research after being told that she'd be meeting with Terri "Gutter Trash" Thompson, Parker recognizes the woman running the training session and walks over towards the mats but stops a few feet away as she hasn't been invited onto them. She nods at the advice given, recognizing that it is sound and proper information to impart to the lesser-skilled. She seems utterly unconcerned with her outfit not matching the attire of those around her as she watches t-shirt and tank top wearing women wrestling.
After a few more bumps being taken, Terri lets everyone know they can go ahead and take a break. Some, gladly so, start to exit the ring and head for the showers while others start talking with each other or heading to ther equipment to continue more cardio/lifting/etc. Terri glances towards Parker, stepping through the ropes and hopping off the apron to the floor mat. "Hey there, you talked to Jack yeah? You're my nine o'clock?" She offers her hand to shake. She doesn't look like she broke a sweat at all. Then again, she was doing mostly guiding and training and not any actual bumps or movement. At least with what Parker saw. "I'm Terri. It's nice to meet you!"
Parker nods to acknowledge the question. "Yeah," she says and introduces herself with a choppy, "Parker." She glances around and says, "Jack said you were the woman to talk to about this. But as I've never thought about joining such an organization before I'm not really sure how to approach this sort of thing. Glad to have an expert to work with."
Terri has her hand out to offer to shake, nodding at Parker's words and smiling. "Yeah, I'm one who teaches a lot of classes to help people break into the industry. You wanna sit down somewhere?" She gestures to an office nearby; a door and a little window about the length of the door to its right to where you can see inside. There's a desk with two office chairs; one on each side. Just a generic little place where some can talk privately if needed. She moves to open the door and offers for her to step inside first.
Terri adds in, "Thank you, by the way. I've been in the business for about... nine years now I want to say. Wow, time flies!"
Parker shakes the offered hand. "Sure," she says about sitting as she glances around and then asks, "Where's the best place for that here?" seeing more exercise stations than anything else to sit on. "Nine years?" she says in reaction to the comment with the thanks (which she smiles slightly and inclines her head to acknowledge). "I can't imagine having done anything for nine years actually," the young woman observes and then quickly adds, "Other than school, of course!"
Terri shakes her hand gently, and then smiles and giggles for a moment, "Yeah, school. Man, I'm so glad to be outta there!" She gestures to the office when Parker asks for the best place and then holds the door open for her. When the two enter she closes the door quietly behind them and moves to sit behind the oak desk, offering for Parker to sit in the office chair in front of it. When Terri sits in the office chair, she sinks into it, dipping back. "Oooh! Sorry, this seat is so comfortable and I need it right now." She giggles, then takes a moment to sit up straight. "Sorry. We gotta get down to business and all. What brings you here?"
Parker follows Terri into the office and sits down in the offered chair, even such a simple act showing her innate grace. "I participated in multiple athletic programs though school," she says. "I want to get involved in something again and having seen you gals on the internet adds a few weeks ago I was intrigued. Maybe something I could get involved in I thought."
Terri starts to perk up at that, already finding something she can relate to her with. "That's wonderful! I did the same thing through school." She folds her hands on the desk now, leaning forward and smiling. "That's great! There are so many avenues you could go through. We've got classes for so many different things. If you want to be on the roster, or a manager, or even backstage stuff whether on or off camera, we've got classes for it! We could always use... well... anything! Would working in the ring be something you'd want to be involved in?"
"I'm more of a brawler than a wrestler so its a different style of fighting, but that is what I was hoping to get involved in," Parker says. "Managing and backstage stuff doesn't sound very athletic to me," she adds.
Terri nods faintly, "True. So you've done like... MMA type of stuff? We've got those types here. That could be something we could work into your gimmick or something. You'd learn everything you'd need to know with how to work it all into the program and in the ring. Having MMA training will make things easier, that's for sure!" She beams now.
Parker nods, the motion possibly caling attention to the torc worn around her neck despite the high collar of her shirt. "Exactly," she says confirming the question about MMA 'type of stuff', "Although I've not been able to do much practicing to keep the skills honed lately so I might be a bit rusty." She returns the beaming smile with a faint and fleeting one of her own.
Terri squints her eyes, trying to take notice of what's around her neck there. "That looks neat." She gestures towards it. "But yeah! Training with us would help shake off that rust, and keep you on your feet and in shape. If you want and when the staff thinks you're ready, we could start introducing you on shows and stuff. It takes a while for most, but I've seen some come up pretty quickly!"
Parker nods with a tilt of her head towards the right. "That sounds good," she says, "It would be nice to do more than jumps and climbs... You've heard of free running I assume?"
Terri nods faintly, "Mmhmm! You mean like parkour and stuff! Yeah, that stuff is pretty good! I like to run, but I've never tried any of that parkour stuff. Could be fun. I don't know if I personally would do that now, what with my career and all, but if you've got that stuff under your belt, it would certainly help you here!"
A fleeting smile crosses Parker's features as she remembers a recent session of street acrobatics. She says, "That's good to hear, its much more challenging then performing gymnastics on a flat floor or standard apparatuses. If you wanted I could show you some moves."
Terri looks intrigued by this, nodding her head and starting to rise from her seat, "Sure let's go! We can use one of the rings!" She rounds the desk and then opens the door, holding it open for Parker before following her back out to the rings and closing the door behind her. "We can use some of the dummies we have around here if you want." There are plastic training mannequins littered around some of the rings that are used for high flying spots and to jump off the top rope onto. "Anything else you might need, y'think?" She asks, really wanting to see this!
Parker steps out of the office and looks at the rings and, seeing one with a couple of mannequins and folding chairs leaning against one of the posts at its corners, grins and points. "That'll do," she says as she heads towards it and rolls up onto it, under the lower rope and then straight up onto her feet. Once standing she grabs the chairs and sets them up half way from the corners to the center and suggests, "Perhaps an inner square defined by these and the dummies to give some obstacles to work around and with?"
Terri starts to look around the ring after joining her by running and sliding under the bottom rope before getting to her feet. She nods her head and starts to help her make a square with the dummies and folding chairs. Whenever it's set up, she steps back and leans into one of the corners and just watches her for whenever Parker's ready.
Parker removes her boots and drops them out of the ring. She wriggles her toes and stretches her back for a few moments with a few repeated motions. "So," she asks, "Want me to show off first or teach you something relatively simple first?" as she finishes some stretches that involve twisting her torso side to side while pulling one arm across her chest by holding its elbow with her opposite hand.
Terri watches her go through her stretching exercises and thinks for a moment on her question, "Ooo... I think teaching me something would be interesting! But yeah, whatever you feel comfortable with. If teaching me something is simple, yeah, we can go with that!" Terri decides to use the bottom turnbuckle to hop up a bit and start sitting on the top one now.
Parker nods and says, "Alright, why don't you stand on that side of the ring and I'll show you what I think is a simple move that ends in a strike." After Terri moves out to the indicated side of the ring, Parker takes a position on the opposite side. She crouches into a fighting stance, as if in the middle of a fight, and then drops into a forward somersault from which she pops up into an attempted flying punch at one of the combat dummies, she flubs the punch though leading it to glide past the mannequin's head right over its shoulder and causing her to stumble slightly as she recovers from the missed punch.
"Dammit," Parker curses and then says, "I hope you saw what that was supposed to be... I was going for a punch in the middle of the face," explaining what was intended rather than the failed execution.
When Terri moves over to the other side of the ring, she pops up onto the top turnbuckle again and sits, watching and smiling. Yes, the punch was failed, but she comments, "You did really good with the summersault, though, and I can see what you're going for. I think if you started training here, you could do some pretty impressive stuff in the ring. Get the kinks worked out, as they say, y'know?"
Parker throws an angry punch at the dummy's head again, this time connecting solidly with it and causing its head to snap back - as designed - satisfactorily. She grins as she flexes her fingers. "Sounds good," she says and then asks, "Do you ever include any acrobatics like I did in your style or is it more grappling and such?"
Terri grins broadly watching Parker's fist connect with the dummy and she nods. "Oh yeah, definitely. A lot of us have some pretty acrobatic stuff. I think some of the most impressive acrobatic stuff I've seen with someone we've got here is Sister Catherine." She gestures towards the dummy. "If you want to slide that here, I could show you a shooting star press?"
Parker pushes the mannequin closer to Terri and, after a simple gesture from Terri to confirm the placement is right, steps back and hops up into one of the chairs, crouching in it towards the front keeping herself and the chair balanced with apparent ease.
Terri's gesture is a simple nod of her head, and when she's ready, she starts to stand up straight on the top turnbuckle. She exhales audibly, making sure to concentrate as she doesn't want to mess this up. It's a move that can be catastrophic for your career if done wrong. She hops off the turnbuckle, spinning her body forward but dipping her head back and flinging her feet over her head in a forward spinning back-flip until she lands stomach first onto the dummy. She stands up. "It's a pain in the ass to perfect that. One wrong move and you can land on your neck. Scary every time."
Parker claps happily at the exhibition of the move. "Shooting star press, huh?" she says. "Not very useful in a real fight, but it is quite showy," she observes and asks, "You have a nun in the group also or is that just the woman's stage name?" referencing Sister Catherine.
Terri smiles and leans back in the corner, propping her arms up along the top ropes. "Yeah. There's a lot of flashy stuff that we do. Oh Sister Catherine is an..." She pauses, as if trying to find the words, "Interesting character... She's a nun, yeah, but also a vampire!" She grins, "She dumped a bunch of blood on me and a bunch of others recently. Man, when she gets on the microphone she's... really captivating. She commands your attention."
Parker's attention is visibly captured by the mention of a vampire but she controls her reaction as she speaks. "That's her persona in LONE then is it?" she asks holding back the desire to interrogate Terri more strongly.
Terri nods her head swiftly, smiling brightly. "Yeah! And she's really good at it, too! I can't wait to work with her someday. I mean I already started. We just scratched the surface when she dumped blood on me and my tag partner!"
Parker nods and says, "I would like to meet this wrestler myself at some point," still balanced on the chair in a crouch without a sign of loosing a bit of balance even as she tilts her head to the side as she continues to speak. "I feel like this has been part audition and part interview," she observes and then asks, "Did you want me to show you anything more than I have already?"
Terri nods her head a little, "She keeps to herself a lot, but when you meet her, she's a delight to talk to!" She's still got that smile about her, giggling some, "Yeah, yeah that's... that's what it is sometimes heh heh. Err, sure! If you want to show me anything more, that'd be wonderful. Then later, we can go over classes and stuff and how much everything would cost, and do whatever works for you."
Parker jumps up from the seat of the chair and flips up into a handstand on the back of it from where she pushes off and flips again so that she lands with her legs around the neck of the dummy that hadn't yet been assaulted. After tightening her thighs she leans backward and flips backward pulling the dummy off its "feet" and she releases it, rolling away from it as it falls into place from her actions.
Standing afterward Parker says, "Something like that might work in the ring also... but well, it could look overly staged also."
Terri's tongue pokes her cheek as she watches, seeming impressed by her flipping and the leg scissors she has applied on the dummy with her thighs. She nods her head a bit. "Could work with a submission, that leg scissors you applied there." She smiles and pushes herself away from the turnbuckle, walking over to her. "So, you wanna go back to the office and talk joining up and all that?"
The two go back to the office and discuss the steps required for Parker to begin joining LONE.
