2013-02-12: Girl-Fight: Blondie vs. Blondie

Both the JLA and the Titans had their own gym facilities, and both were lightyears beyond what could be found in the average gym. But sometimes a girl just wanted to go out amongst the 'normal' people and get a workout. Sometimes one wanted to live for a while in their secret identity. And sometimes one wanted to work out without the special equipment which made her a 'superhero' in the first place!

So it was mid-day here at the local 'Buff Biff's Gymnasium and Boxing Arena' when Courtney Whitmore decided to attend. Hey, why not? They were offering one free day of trial for no cost! Plus they were giving away t-shirts. So Stargirl had doffed her uniform after finding the flyer and collapsed her staff back into her purse, and then entered. All her stuff was put in the complementary gym bag she'd been given and set off to the side on a bench. They'd looked at her a little funny when she'd put her address as 'Blue Valley, Nebraska' during her free trial signup.

That had been an hour ago. Now here in this place filled with equipment all over the place from treadmills to deadweights, the blonde-haired junior member of the Justice League of America, Courtney Whitmore was in the boxing ring, practicing her kickboxing against, as she put it, 'all comers'.

"YA! YA! YA! YA-YA!" Every syllable is punctuated with a kick to her opponents abdomen as she had him against the ropes, holding out one of his arms tightly in her fist for balance as she repeatedly lays her shin across his abs. The male is grunting with each impact until he finally slumps to the floor with a groan and tries to crawl out of the ring. Courtney, meanwhil, grins hugely and begins hopping around the ring after taking out her mouthguard.

"STILL THE UNDEFEATED CHAMPION OF BUFF BIFF'S! COOOOOOURTNEY WHITMOOOOOOORE!" Raising her gloved hands over her head, bouncing around the wring in a sports bra and stretchy shorts and sneakers, her hair held back in a ponytail which a few strands had managed to escape and hang around her sweating face, Courtney pants lightly as she makes a few shadow punches. Her opponent joins the other two men who were looking sore and sullen by the side of the ring while she tries to goad another opponent from the people standing near the ring.

"What about you, huh? You look strong. Or maybe your GIRLFRIEND should get in here FOR you!"

Cassie is not exactly a super-fighter. She has been getting lessons from Wonder Woman and all, but she's still not good at it. She mostly relies on her 'borrowed' powers. But what happens if she doesn't have those available, huh? What then!? So she decides maybe some actual working out might be a good idea. And even if she knows she's no good at boxing, she has to start SOMEWHERE right? Giving up before she even tries is not how Wonder Girl operates, and it's not how other heroes operate either!

...Not real ones anyway! So, here she is. In the same gym as Courtney. Having watched the other girl kicking butt while she tries her own hand at a free trial membership of a less showy variety. She is dressed similarly to Courtney, with clothing designed to help keep her from getting overheated and yet support her in all the right places. So when Courtney calls out that last taunt, Cassie decides maybe she should try. She raises a hand, a grin on her face, and says, "I'm nobody's girlfriend, but I'll give it a go if you're done kicking the butts of these guys!"

"Sh*t'chya!" Stargirl grins widely, showing off her braces amidst all that white, youthful smile. "Get some gloves and get in here! I won't go easy on you! Well... I might. A little." After all, she couldn't be as rough with Cassie as she could with these over-grown lugs. Probably. Unless the girl knew her stuff, and then it'd be on. Long before the rod that let her fly around and zap people from orbit, Courtney had had to rely on her fists and shooting stars to get the job done. So she remained rather proficient in hand-to-hand combat.

Because before the rod, Stargirl had been a scrapper-style hero.

She holds up the middle rope and steps down on the bottom rope so that the other blonde can more easily enter the ring. She gives Cass a once-over, noting their similar ages, builds, and tones. Heck, were it not for the location, Cass could have easily fit in as one of the girls on the Blue Valley High cheersquad right along with Court! But looks could be deceiving, too.

"So you kick-boxed before, blondie?"

After gloving herself, Cassie makes her way into the ring with the help of her soon-to-be opponent. They do look pretty similar! ...In a general sense! Cassie shakes her head once she's in the wrong. "Not even once, other-blondie," she teases back. "I can't promise I'll be any better than those guys, but you seem to know what you're doing, and I tend to learn best by doing. Maybe I'll pick something up before you're done with me." She looks Courtney over, the deceptively-powerful frame telling her extremely-basic powers of analyzing things (which isn't really a power) telling her she's probably going to get thrashed, but deciding to do her best anyway. She says, "...Yeah, I think I'm definitely going to learn something here. My name's Cassie, by the way!"

"Courtney!" The older blonde calls out as they bump gloves. "Okay, kick-boxing one-oh-one!" She might as well teach the other girl a thing or two rather than just kick her to the curb, after all. She took great pleasure in taking out the males because they'd made fun of her when she'd informed them she was 'next' in the ring. They'd all been so haughty and full of themselves, and at least semi-trained. So taking them down five or six notches at the hands of a teen girl was, in Court's vocab: awesome.

Trying to beat up an untrained girl no older or bigger than herself would not be.

"Bend at the knees and keep moving." Courtney instructs as she begins circling. "Keep kind of crouched over so you can protect your thighs and stomach. Keep your gloves up so you can guard your chest, head, and throat." The lycra-wearing blonde demonstrates, bouncing on her toes and the balls of her feet in a partiall-hunched over posture, her gloved fists held up and in front of her face.

"When your opponent jabs, block. When they throw a cross, dodge!" And with that Courtney takes two large steps forward, coming in swinging! At least she gave some forewarning as her left hand shoots forward in a jab towards Cassie's nose. No sooner is that hand retracted a split-second later than it's followed up with a wide right cross aimed at her jaw, the punches coming in quick enough to land within a single second of each other.

Cassie bounces as per Courtney's instructions, trying to keep her gloves ready, moving back and forth, wiggling, weaving, whatever she's supposed to be doing. Surprisingly -- at least to Cass herself -- she actually managed to block that first jab. But the cross comes in so fast she has no time to dodge OR block (even if blocking a cross would have been against instructions). What's more surprising, however, is that she doesn't immediately stagger backwards. She takes the painful, jarring blow to the jaw, and tries to punch back. Hey, maybe she was only told how to defend, not to attack. But she's not the type to just sit still and get beat on either! The punch may not necessarily be boxing-material, but it shows she at least knows how to throw one.

She probably doesn't have time to do a second punch before her opponent responds though, and her jaw is numb where she got hit. Even so... She's clearly tougher than she looks! ...But so is her 'teacher'. Damn.

The older blonde is smiling as Cassie counters her attack, though she was briefly concerned when she didn't duck. But then Court isn't really holding back on speed and strength, just on her technique. So when that return-punch comes at her, she just dips to the side like she'd been expecting it all along. She'd been moderatly surprised when Cassie didn't go down after that solid connection of her hit. Even though she didn't have enhanced strength without her special belt, Courtney was reasonably sure she could knock any cheerleader out with minimal effort. Provided the cheerleader in question wasn't her evil doppleganger.

As she ducks low and to the side, her gaze homes in on the other blonde's abs... and she takes advantage of the opening. Her gloved hand comes out and around and under, aiming a vicious side upper cut for Cassie's ribs, withdrawing the hand, and then striking out at those ribs in exactly the same manner again!

"Drop your elbow and move to the side to keep your torso covered!" Maybe she coulda called that out before taking advantage, but... She had to learn sometime! And maybe, just maybe Court wanted to see how much she could take. "Pretty tough for a cheerleader, Cass!"

"Ow! Ow!" Cassie gets punched twice in the ribs. She tried to dodge the second one, but it was no good! She drops her elbow as instructed and decides to hold off on countering anything for now until she knows more about what she's doing. She's learning here, not trying to win. "Man, you sure do pack a whallop! Hehe, I'm trying to be tougher anyway. That's why I'm here!" Bleep, her ribs hurt. Minor toughening-up from training and crime-fighting or not, Cassie can still feel pain just fine.

"Where'd you learn to fight?" Cassie asks idly as she keeps her eyes on her opponent, practically dancing around the ring as she keeps on the move, putting distance between them but not TOO much. She looks at her opponent's own abs briefly, then back to her face. Nah. Not the right moment for that.

"Sorry!" Though from the grin on Courtney's face, made slightly goofy-looking from the mouthguard, she wasn't really sorry at all. "I must be tougher than I look!" As Cassie backs off, the older blonde bends her arms upwards in a flex and does a quick hopping spin in place, smacking her gloves together like she was clapping her hands. She's bouncing from foot-to-foot animatedly as she eyes the other girl.

"Well, you can sure take a hit, I'll give ya that. My step-dad taught me. Pat. I used to really hate him, but he's cool. A real whiz with mechanical stuff or some crap." She shrugs her shoulders. "So I took some lessons from him and a few other people and started beating up boys. The rest was history!"

She drops back into a fighting stance, pointing a glove at her right foot. "Last lesson!" She grins from ear-to-ear. "KICK-boxing involves kicking! There's three main places to kick at: legs, stomach, and head. Block leg-strikes by using your legs, just lift up and put your shin or calf in the way!" She demonstrates by lifting up a knee. "Block stomach strikes with your forearm, and dodge strikes to the head. Kicking the head leaves someone open, so it's a good time to counter!"

And with that, Courtney moves in again! She sets herself up to balance on her left leg as she strikes with her right at Cassie's outer knee, then retracts the leg and kicks with it again, right at her ribs, and then retracts and kicks AGAIN, like a move one would see in a martial-arts movie, for an attack at her head!

Cassie nods wisely -- or what she assumes is the manner in which a wise person nods. "Take lessons where you can get them and then show others what's what. Sounds like why I'm here." Wait, kicking? Oh, no! Cassie tries to remember all the instructions she's being given, but while she gets the first leg-block of a kick working right, the less-skilled of the blondes get it jumbled in her head and tries to just raise her leg higher to block the kick to her ribs. Oops. Wrong defense. She misses, gets kicked in the side of her leg and outer-thigh, AND tagged in the ribs, and then tries to block the one to her head while ducking and she gets sent staggering off to the side.

"Gaaah!" Cassie lets out as she straightens up and rubs her head with one gloved hand. "Okay, I think it's going to take me a bit longer to sort this all out in my head," she says with a laugh. "Let's keep going! I've got another few hours!" ...Wait, hours? Of getting her butt kicked!? Is she really that determined to learn kick-boxing or is she just waaaay too stubborn to give up even if she knows she's losing? At least she's not getting sullen about being outmatched and getting ouchies all over.

Courtney ALMOST feels bad as her second kick sort-of connects and then her third is a turned from a full-on-contact into a glancing blow. Well, at least she hadn't caught Cassie's face with the side of her foot or that might REALLY have been the end of the match! As far as she knew. This girl seemed to be far more solid than the blonde-haired cheerleader would have given her credit for just from appearances. Was she a mutant, or just really, really determined?

"Hours!?" Courtney has her answer. "I've already been at it for over an hour." The blonde laughs, one gloved hand pressed against her stomach as she breathes a little heavily from the exertion, the strands of hair that had worked loose from her ponytail plastered against her red and sweaty cheeks. She pulls out her mouthguard so she can talk easier without it, baring her braces in another grin.

"How about we go hit the showers, and then maybe get a bite to eat, and we can trade numbers and meet up for some more one-on-one later this week?" Courtney motions with her head off to the side of the ring, then holds open the ropes for her sparring companion again, leaving the boxing ring right after her. She gives the beaten men a wink and a grin as she picks up her gym bag, slings an arm around what she's decided is her new pal and student, and heads for the locker room to get changed.

"I live in Nebraska, but I commute all the way to Metropolis a lot, so maybe Saturday would be good for you?"