DEFIANCE Wrestling

Title: First day of class
Featuring: Tom Sawyer
Date: Shortly after Untouchable
Location: Mechanicville, NY

“Ladies and gentlemen, line up please!”, Boston bellowed. For a deep-voiced,stern-faced, moustachio'd, intimidatingly bald Black guy, he sure could be intimidating from time to time. And so, the arranged motley crew(no umlaut) turned from their own individual conversations to face the Head Coach. Boston adjusted his spectacles, then looked down at the clipboard he had in his hand. His whole “Training Temple Head Coach” outfit screamed authority, all black fabric and crisp lines. With their attention so gathered, Boston looked up at the students.

“Alright, boys and girls. We're gonna do a quick roll call. Please save your questions for one another until after I am finished talking. Understood?” Boston glanced up, scanning the crowd. They murmured an agreement, and he nodded.

“Okay... In no particular order. Tom Sawyer.” And of course, despite the earlier warning, a general hubbub of mumbling arose. Tom cleared his throat, raising a hand over his head and waving it.

“Here, Coach.” All eyes were on Tom, and despite being involved in the [i]biz[/i] for a while, it was vaguely... uncomfortable, being in the center of the attention.

“Okay, good. Next up... Eugene Dewey.” Most of the others in the class already knew a wristlock from a wristwatch. Nobody in the room was a total newbie. But none had been on national TV like Tom and Eugene. Of course, all eyes went to the... Well, to be honest, fairly muscular, orange 'fro-ed dude.

“Here.” Under the weight of all those eyes, Eugene's voice cracked. Boston winced sympathetically, nodded, and kept on truckin'. No need to prolongue the staring.

“Omar Wise? Like I even need to ask.” Omar Wise nodded. He was built almost as broad as he was tall, a huge Black guy with a fadeaway buzzcut. His chest looked like a brick wall, and his shoulders looked like he was smuggling shoulderpads under that gray TRAINING TEMPLE tee-shirt. And he may not have been on televised TV, but some of the others murmured and mumbled at the voicing of his name.

“Chris Chaunierre?”, Boston asked. And this got a few snorts, a snicker, and a few shared elbows between Tom and Eugene.

"Chris Cannon.” The former DEFIANCE competitor tossed his hair flamboyantly, a cocksure smirk on his lips. Boston's eyebrows knit together a bit, and he opened his mouth to respond-

“No gimmick names, Chris.” Serbo sat on a pile of wrestling mats in the side of the room, reclining in a simple lotus pose. He had been watching the crew, silent until now. His eyes had been doing the work for him. Try as he might, the man knew fighting best of all. He was sizing up each and every one of the competitors in the gym. “We're not about that, here.”

“C'mon. I hate that name. It's so... So...” Cannon blinked a few times, realizing who he was talking to. And what he knew about Sergei Bogorovich, the owner of the entire Training Temple complex, the man who had put this whole hundred-acre property in the middle of the woods, turned it into the greatest physical fitness-and-training facility in the Northeastern United States, and was now deigning to teach these people just how to further improve their craft.

“Uh. French? Anyway. I'm here. Next person, man.” Cannon gestured with a hand, and Boston just snickered, moving on down the list.

“AJ Danton?” Boston looked up, and the guy who looked like he'd be happier playing basketball than wrestling waved his hand. The dude was lankier, more slender, but long in the leg, with big spider-monkey arms and a long torso. He was just stretched, like out of Willy Wonka's taffy-stretching machine.

“Here, coach. Thanks for having me.” Boston nodded vaguely, waving to the kid.

“Uh... Forgive me if I mess up the pronunciation. Kazunari... Tanaka?” There was only one Asian guy in the room, so it was obvious who he was. With his cheeks already flaming a bit from a blush, he ducked his head and waved.

“Uh, just “Kaz”. If that's cool. Y'know.” Kaz looked around briefly, then just tried to step back, out of the limelight.

"No problem, Kaz. Now... Rico Sando-... Sandoval?” Boston looked up. The guy in the black snap-up trackpants with the legs open up to the knee, the short guy with the fat, short mohawk and the pencil-thin moustache put both hands in the air, clenched 'em into fists, then brought them down by his sides fiercely.

“I'm ready for what you're gonna teach, Coach. Ho yeah!” Rico seemed... eager, to say the least.

“And Joey McClintock.” Boston looked up, and a fellow stepped out from behind Rico, where he couldn't be seen. Joey was... short. To say the least. The mostly-unshaved guy in the cheap boxing shorts and eggshell-blue “Howard's Flower Shop” tee-shirt looked like he had taken a left at Joe Dirt and gone straight into “Sideburns connected to moustache” territory. And his mullet was... mighty. Yep. He looked like a McClintock.

“'Ay.”, Joey offered, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“And that's it for the men. Now, as for the women... Katie Partridge?”

The redhead in the vinyl trashbag karate pants and black tanktop waved her hand, giving a sly grin. “I'd prefer Phoenix, but if we're going for a whole shoot thing here...”

“I think Katie'll work. Melissa Franklin?”

The girl with the blonde dreadlocks and the dreamy expression on her face waved her hand after a few moments' pause. Hey, she was operating a few seconds off, that was okay. Probably. “I'm here!”, she trilled.

“Uh... Good. Fran Mulberry?” Boston adjusted his eyeglasses, looking up to the crowd. He knew too well who she was, he had recruited her himself. The Black woman with the short, tightly curled hairdo waved to Boston, giving him a warm smile.

“Here.”, she flatly said.

“And Brittany Park.” The only person left in the room was a gorgeous, leggy blonde in yoga shorts and a tight UnderArmor tee-shirt. She waved with both hands, beaming at the head coach.

“Hiiii Boston. I'm here.” She even blew him a kiss. It was a wonder that she didn't expect to get the hell kicked out of her right there by the other students. But nobody threw that first kick, so the moment passed.

“Well, here's the first lesson that any of us three can tell you. You need cardio to be a wrestler, so it's time to do some laps. We're gonna go around this gym four times. That'll be two miles.” Boston plucked his whistle from the cord around his neck, tucked it between his lips, and blew a short blast!

Tom dutifully headed on over to the start line and Eugene, taking any opportunity he could to separate himself from the group around him, joined him as quickly as he could. The two broke into a jog and separated themselves slightly from the rest of the students. Already having been working with Serbo, they knew the importance of Cardio. Eugene had become forced friends with the ellipticals and arc trainers.

Once he was confident they were out of earshot of the rest Eugene muttered to the Canadian, “Hey Tom, What’s the deal with these guys?”

“Mmm... An interesting bunch. If it wasn't Boston, Lucas and Sergei running the class, I might not trust 'em. The big guy, Omar? He was a top bad guy in a startup wrestling company in California. And that Rico guy is lucha, spent two years in the second-biggest company down there. In fact, the only guy I don't recognise is...” Tom looked over his shoulder and pointed with his eyebrows to the tall fellow, AJ.

“...I don’t get how you know all that. Do you just watch a load of wrestling or are you a wizard or something?” As they ran, they picked up a decent amount of speed, falling into their typical pace. It was restrained, for Tom. It was a bit strenuous for Eugene. All in all, nobody was happy.

“Watching lots of wrestling. The redhead's dad was a big-time wrestler in a company in the South. The pretty one who looks like she's from California is from an American company partnered with a Japanese puro company, using their name and trademark. Basically...”

“What?”, Eugene asked, beginning to pant. Just a bit. Not the dying-whale puffing he used to make.

“Either they want to enrich the wrestling world, or they're forming a super-stable to invade somewhere and kick everyone's ass with all the styles.” That might just be Tom's wrestling-spastic-savante mind acting up again.

“Maybe we're gonna be fighting intergalactic wrestling matches.” Eugene joked, dryly. Tom's eyes got real wide at that one.

“You... You think so? I have a whole set of moves I've wanted to do, but can only happen in zero gravity or low gravity!” Tom's eyes simply sparkled with delight, his beaming grin so joyful, it broke Eugene's heart to be the bucket of cold water.

“Who knows? You'll have to ask Lucas.”

Tom took a couple minutes to think.

“If we do end up invading a fed, don't choke anyone by their necktie”, Tom warned. Eugene nodded sagely.

“Got it.”

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