Hellraven: Origins (Originally Posted for EWC KOTC Round 2)

[The Alpha Bitch]

I

Narita International Airport, Tokyo, Japan
November 15, 2000, 08.45AM

The arrivals terminal was busy, busier than any place she had ever been before. No matter where she looked, there seemed to be enough people to populate the entirety of the Western Village Mobile Home Park twice over – and unlike what had happened back in Des Moines, these people were all speaking a foreign language that the girl did not know more than maybe three words of.

Still, that did not deter her; she had made it this far, after all. It was not in her nature to give up on the first stumbling block – especially not when the future was this close at hand

That thought – the thought of a life away from her parents' trailer home, doing what she liked – spurned her on. Clutching the rucksack containing all of her most prized possessions tighter to her body, she power-walked down the aisle towards the airport exit, keeping an ear out for any traces of an American accent, or even simply someone speaking English. Luck, however, was not on her side; she heard snippets of several other languages, but none she could recognise enough to communicate in extensively.

As she approached Customs, she secretly hoped the officers would not see her passport for the fake it was. She had gotten through fine back in the States, but she was not sure how much stricter Japanese airport customs were when compared to those back home. (Then again, she thought, she did not really know much about Japan at all, other than that it was a hotbed for the particular trade she was looking to perfect. Which was why she had come here to begin with.)

Fortunately, the document she had procured from a friend of a friend the year before held up yet again, and a few moments later she was stepping out onto the piercing chill of a late Fall day in Tokyo. Silently praising herself for the shoplifting skills which had equipped her with a comfortable new down jacket, she stopped to retrieve her beanie hat and her favorite pair of fingerless gloves from inside her rucksack, sighing gratefully as the woolly fabric warmed up her chilly palms and forehead.

Only then did it occur to her that she would need a map. She had no idea how to get to the city center, and as far as taking a cab went, she was not sure it was a good idea for a teenage girl to get in a car with a random man, in a foreign country where she did not even speak the language. Besides, she would hardly be able to afford the cab fare anyway – that is, if the driver even took American dollars.

This seemed to trigger another realization, and the girl doubled over and walked back through the revolving doors into the Tokyo Narita International Airport. It did not take more than a quick glance to locate what she was looking for, and a few seconds later she was queueing up for the airport's currency exchange booth.

The stern-faced, middle-aged woman behind the counter gave her a suspicious look as she exchanged her currency, probably wondering what a young gaijin girl travelling to Japan by herself was doing with fifty dollars in cash. 'Go ask Johnny Burnout and the guys, you old bitch', the girl thought, returning her best glower. Johnny and the rest of her friends had surprised her with the lump sum a few days before, and she had not bothered to ask them where they had got it. She had a few ideas about where it might have come from, but Western Village operated on a strict 'don't ask, don't tell' policy. They had not told, so she had not asked, instead remarking, in as off-hand a way as possible, that the guys would be missing out on a significant number of 'fixes'.

'Chill, Raven', Johnny Burnout had said, flashing that goofy grin of his. 'Tommy owes me one. I ran some shit two towns over for him. He promised me a free hit. Besides', he had added with a wink, 'we're not gonna miss fifty bucks when we're headlining Ozzfest!'

'Yeah, right', she had laughed. 'You fucks need to get off the acid!' And that was all that had been said on the subject.

'Stop thinking about Johnny!', she scolded herself, as she walked away from the booth clutching her freshly-acquired yen. Even still, she allowed him to keep her company, in her thoughts, as she approached the information booth and fished for the crumpled piece of paper in her jeans. She carefully smoothed it out before sliding it under the glass partition separating her from the employee at the desk.

'Ah', the clerk exclaimed, in accented English. 'Yes. You go downstairs, take train. Any train. You get out at...' She wrote down the name of a station, in both Kanji and the Greek alphabet, and handed the paper back to the girl.

'How long?' The girl pointed to an imaginary watch on her wrist. 'Time?'

'One-hour-thirty', came the smiling answer.

'Holy shit, that's a long way!', she blurted out. Still, there was nothing to it – she had come this far, it was too late to turn back.

'Thank fuck I brought my tunes', she thought to herself, as she popped her earbuds in her ears and set off in search of the train.

II

Nakano Ward, Tokyo, Japan
November 15, 2000, 11AM

Two hours and as many trains later, a blonde gaijin girl stepped off the Japan Railways train at Nakano-Shimbashi Railway Station and strode rapidly towards the turnstiles, hoping against hope that there were either no security officers at the gate, or they were looking the other way. If she had to play chicken with one more ticket official, she would have no energy left for what she needed to do later.

Fortunately, this time around, she was in luck; a blond passenger also happened to be exiting at the same station, and it did not take much effort for her to catch up to him and whisper 'pretend I'm with you.' Though somewhat puzzled, he had complied, and she had been able to slink through the turnstiles and exit the station. Once outside, she broke into a run just in case, dashing around a couple of corners to make sure she was safely out of reach to station officials before stopping to once again consult the piece of paper in her back pocket.

'I should have asked that dude!', she chastised herself as she looked around for a likely source of help. She did not want to ask a policeman – just in case they liaised with the train people and she walked into a trap – and she did not speak Japanese, which meant she would have to find a fellow foreigner who was somehow more knowledgeable about the area than herself. Or a Japanese person who spoke English.

'Basically, I'm fucked', she muttered, with a dry chuckle. Not for the first time, the madness of travelling to a foreign country on a whim, by yourself, and not speaking the language struck her; and not for the first time, she quashed it through sheer force of will. She had made it this far, she told herself, she could make it all the way. She was a survivor, the most badass bitch in her neck of the woods. She could do this.

At least she hoped she could...

III

Nakano Ward, Tokyo, Japan
November 15, 2000, 12AM

It had taken her close to an hour, and several increasingly agitated exchanges with English-speaking locals, but the blonde teenage girl finally found herself walking briskly down the street mentioned in the now-grubby piece of paper in her hand. It turned out to be, not the large avenue she had imagined, but rather a narrow side street, almost an alley, with only a few nondescript doors littered along its length. Behind one of these doors – number 46, to be precise – lay her destiny.

Halfway down the street, the girl stopped to get her bearings, only to find there were none. The buildings around her were all perfectly nondescript, and many of them did not have numbers, or at least none that she could see.

'Dammit!', she hissed, casting another quick glance around her. This time, her eyes fell on a potential lifeline, in the form of a boy around her own age. He was standing outside one of the buildings, clad in a parka and board shorts, and smoking what the girl immediately recognised as a marijuana cigarette. It was this last detail that steeled her resolve – no one who smoked weed could be an entirely bad person, she reasoned. She pressed a button to mute the soothing sounds of Slayer in her ears, put her Discman back inside her rucksack, and paced quickly towards him.

'Hey, excuse me', she called out. 'You know where there's a wrestling school around here?'

He did not reply right away, instead taking a moment to cast a long and unmistakably mocking look over her. Only then did he speak – and even then, only to say a single word:

'Gaijin.'

'Yes, I know I'm a fucking foreigner!', she groaned. 'That's all anyone keeps calling me. Do you know where this fucking wrestling place is or not?'

He nodded. 'Hai. Puroresu here.' He pointed to the building directly behind him. The girl took a grateful step forward.

'Thanks, dude, I was really fucking lost he--'

'Puroresu here', he repeated, cutting her off. 'But you no good. You gaijin.'

'What's that supposed to mean?', she growled, stepping towards him this time.

He shrugged. 'You gaijin. Puroresu for Japanese. No gaijin.'

She stared at him open-mouthed, refusing to believe those words had just come out of his mouth. A dozen replies, ranging from sarcastic to flat-out angry, crossed her brain in quick succession, but she found herself unable to articulate anything more coherent than: 'Fuck you, dude.'

She struck him with one final glare before turning around and stalking through the slightly ajar door in front of her. She climbed the grubby, worn-down flight of steps to the first-floor landing, and found herself staring at a plain, whitewashed wooden door, from the other side of which came the unmistakable sound of people working out. This had to be the place.

'This is it, bitch', she told herself. 'You're here. Time to rock'n'roll.'[/color]

She drew in a deep breath, adjusted the rucksack on her shoulder, and pushed open the door.

IV

Toukon Puroresuakademi-
Nakano Ward, Tokyo, Japan
November 15, 2000, 12AM

The training room was grubby, almost as grubby as the landing she had just left. Training equipment, in varying states of decay, lined the walls leading to and around the room's centrepiece, a twenty-foot by twenty-foot wrestling ring, inside which a half-dozen students – all of them male, and all of them Japanese – engaged in a battle royal.

Her arrival put an end to this, as all six boys forgot their training match and turned to look towards her. She felt extremely uncomfortable being gawked at like that by guys her own age – she surmised the oldest to be in his early 20s, the youngest barely into his teens – and instinctively adopted the only defence mechanism she knew: she raised both her middle fingers in a double-bird salute.

'Got a staring problem, assholes?', she barked, acting somewhat more confident than she felt. 'Never seen a hot chick up close before? Bet you have - in magazines, when you're beating off to them!' She mimicked a masturbating motion, then let off a high laugh: 'Fucking perverts!'

This finally snapped the boys out of their reverie; the meaning of her words may have been unclear to them, but certain gestures are universal. Understanding they were being mocked, the six youths slipped out of the ring and promptly surrounded the somewhat smaller gaijin girl, closing their circle in a little too close for comfort. Alarm bells set off inside the girl's brain – the dangers of being brash finally beginning to dawn on her – but she did not drop her front; rather, she continued to mouth off to assorted members of the group, all the while steeling herself for a confrontation.

A long and agonizing moment later, one of the boys lunged forward and pushed her, effectively opening hostilities; the girl stumbled, but managed to stay on her feet.

'You done goofed, big guy', she quipped, even though she knew he wouldn't understand her. Then, in a rapid motion, she swung her torso forward, flung out her arm and thrust it towards the boy's face. She saw him try to dodge, but knew it would all be to no avail, knew her blow would connect, knew she was about to take the sexist idiot down...

'Mou ee!'

The voice boomed out across the training area, immediately scattering the circle of boys and sending them scurrying to the nearest corner, as far away from the gaijin girl as possible. The girl herself could not help but flinch; as tough of a person as she held herself to be, some voices just leave no room for argument. This was definitely one of them.

Still, there was one thing she could do. And she did, springing forward quickly and dashing for the safety of the door. She knew she only had a couple of seconds to get there, but she had a feeling whoever was behind her would have about fifty years and twice as many pounds on her. She was young, she was nimble, and she was used to evasive action. This should not be too hard. In fact, she could already see herself slipping through the door and back into the safety of the street. The handle was within reach now; all she needed to do was reach for it...grab it...and...

It was like a length of rope had coiled itself around her shoulders; she suddenly felt herself stumbling back, then being spun around roughly, away from the door. She had just enough time to compose her fighting face before she found herself face-to-face with...

...a Westerner. An American, even, if she had to guess. Curly hair, blue eyes, ginger stubble, rosy cheeks...the perfect picture of the all-american Midwest farmboy. She would not be surprised if he turned out to be from Iowa, too. At any rate, he was not Japanese – and neither were the words he was now blasting in her face:

'You have about thirty seconds to explain to me who the hell you are and why you're comin' in here rustlin' up my boys!'

'If they didn't start no shit, would'a been no shit', she spat, glowering at the nearest culprit. 'I just wanted to sign up for training.'

'Oh really? Sign up for training, huh?' He gave her a once-over which, while not malicious, she was still not comfortable with. 'You sure you're ready? You look like you just stepped off the plane ten minutes ago.'

'More like two hours', she muttered. 'But you bet your ass I'm ready! Look! I got money!' She began to fish in her rucksack for the wad of yen, but he stopped her with a firm hand.

'Hold up a minute, darlin'. Money ain't everything. If you're going to be trainin' here, I gotta make sure you're really ready.' His expression softened into a neutral look. 'First things first: you got a name?'

'Hellraven', she stated, not even hesitating to give her nickname instead of her real one. He laughed.

'I meant your real name, cupcake!'

'None o' your business!', she threw, glaring at him for good measure. To her dismay, he was unfazed.

'Well, Nonyer, I was gonna let you try out if you had a real person's name, but since you don't...' He began to turn away, and she realized he had her. She would have to capitulate, or her chance would go away. Possibly forever.

'It's....Jacqueline', she conceded, wincing. 'Jacqueline Monroe.'

'That's more like it!' He winked at her, grinning, and she decided she hated him. 'And I'm Lou. You got any gear?'

She started as she realized he had not asked her how old she was, but managed to roll with the punches. 'Yeah, I got gear.'

'Awesome. You up for showing me what you got?'

'Right now?!' Suddenly, she could not bring herself to hate him anymore. A tingle ran up her spine and spilled out onto a big goofy grin, which she was not quite quick enough to hide.

'No, cupcake, next week. Of course right now!' He pointed at a door a few feet further down. 'Dressing room's through there. Though...' He looked her over yet again. '...you might want to get changed in my office. Just in case.' He glowered at the still-cowering boys, and she decided she definitely did not hate him.

Hopefully, she thought as she made her way through the last door on the left and into Lou's office, he would not hate her either.

IV

Toukon Puroresuakademi-
Nakano Ward, Tokyo, Japan
November 15, 2000, 12.15AM

She came out of her makeshift dressing room to find Lou inside the ring with the smallest of the six boys. He could not have been much older than thirteen, and stood a good half-a-foot shorter than herself. Was this really all Lou thought she was worth?, she asked herself sullenly. If so, maybe she could bring herself to hate him.

'C'mon, Lou', she protested as she climbed the ring steps and entered the squared circle. 'Him? Who do I look like, fucking Snow White?'

'I'd watch your lip if I were you, missy. Remember who calls the shots here.' This sobered her up, and she went quiet as Lou continued. 'You're startin' off against Hiroshi here. You get through him, we'll see about you facin' some of them big boys. I ain't takin' no chances with a trial student.'

That was fair, she conceded privately, but her pride continued to nag at her. She'd be the laughing stock of Western Village if they knew she was facing off against some pipsqueak half her size! She found herself almost instinctively looking around for a more worthy opponent, and quickly spotted him – the little idiot who had made fun of her downstairs, in the street. He was just sitting there watching, with this smug smile on his face, as if he expected her to fail. She decided she possibly did not hate Lou, but she definitely hated him. Kicking his ass as part of her try-out would be more than a worthy challenge – it would be a pleasure.

She pointed in his direction. 'Him.'

Lou barked with laughter. 'Shinji? I don't think so, cupcake. He's an advanced student. Almost a Young Boy.'

'He's a jackass, is what he is', she grumbled, flipping him a for-his-eyes-only bird; he flipped one back. 'He may know advanced moves, but his mind's not advanced too far past kindergarten.' She glowered at him again, and Lou laughed:

'Watch out, we got a badass over here!' At that moment, she hated him again, and her hatred only intensified as he added: 'you're a little spitfire, aren't you?'

'Spitfire my ass!' She knew she was in all sorts of trouble at this point, but she did not care; if she was going to be running laps or whatever, might as well make it worthwhile. 'I'm a bitch. An Alpha Bitch. And that dude...I'm gonna make him my bitch.'

Lou nodded. 'Sure. And once you're done doin' that, you're gonna be stayin' behind and runnin' drills for mouthin' off to your instructor. Capeesh, cupcake?' He looked her straight in the eye as he said this, and she nodded. It was fair. The fact that she felt she was about to get what she wanted prevented her from blowing up any further, and after a moment, Lou nodded as well. 'Glad we understand each other.' He then motioned to her quarry, calling something out in Japanese. The boy called something back, but Lou barked another quick command, and the youth grudgingly made his way into the ring. The girl was happy to note that, while at first glance older than her, he was acting like a child whose mother had denied him a toy.

'You're mine, pretty boy', she thought, as Lou called for them to shake hands. This caused them both to glower at him, but he insisted on it, and she had no choice but to step forward and hold out her hand for him to grip.

Except he never did - instead, he went for a slap, catching her square across the cheek.

'Fucking idiot', she thought, as she took his arm and countered into an arm-wringer. She went to trip him, but got surprised by a brutal elbow shot to the nose, which sent her hurtling towards the ropes. She saw him come in with the lariat, sidestepped, and reversed into a suplex, throwing him over. She rolled over onto one knee and saw him pop to his feet and run at her again. Thinking on her feet, she slid in with a baseball slide, succeeding in tripping him up. She got to her feet, considered slapping on a submission, then thought better of it and simply stomped him in the back of the head. She relished in the ensuing crunch, and let the memory of the sound linger in her ears as she began to stomp all over him. Now she had him where she wanted him, she was going to make sure he paid for what he--

She felt two strong hands yank her away from him, as a voice barked in her ear:

'That's enough, cupcake!'

She thrashed and wriggled for a moment, trying to break free, but subsided when she noticed the jeers from the other boys were not directed at her, but at her opponent.

'That's right, assholes', she yelled, striking a dominant pose. 'Anyone else wanna piece of Raven?'

Nobody did, and so she was free to turn around and face the instructor. 'Well...?'

'Well, I think you need to control that there temper o' yours, cupcake.'

She decided she would test him. 'And if I don't?'

He shrugged. 'I hope you got a return plane ticket.'

She had already decided to yield even before he spoke, but shot him a glower for good measure; she could not just let him win. 'Fine. Whatever. I'll play ball.'

'Great!' His tone immediately became more jovial, a grin once again creasing his features. 'In that case, welcome to Toukon Pro Wrestling Academy.'