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Evening: Port of Los Angeles.
Freight containers lay stacked in their thousands, row upon row - the dingy boxes coloured red, dark green, grey, yellow.
A lone Mercedes drove slowly through the paths between rows, headlights on. Danielle Harris sat in the passenger seat, a black trenchcoat cinched shut over her purple bikini.
"Are we getting close?" Dani asked. They'd been driving for the better part of an hour.
Shannen Doherty smiled. The kids always talked like they wanted the boxcar, but when it came time to do the dance, they all got the same butterflies.
"Yeah," Shannen smirked. "Almost there."
* * *
A red freight box lay in a small clearing amidst towering walls of stacked containers. Two cars were parked out front: people milled about, waiting. Shannen and Dani got out of the Mercedes, approached the scene - Harris stepping carefully, her bare feet cold on concrete.
Shiri Appleby stood fully dressed, her arm in a canvas sling. She smiled coldly at Dani. "Hey, D," She said quietly, voice dripping venom. Behind her, a couple of CW girls looked Dani over with disapproving glares. 'Bytches', Dani thought. She recognized their faces; couldn't recall their names.
SHIRI APPLEBY
"What the hell?" Harris asked, nodding at Shiri's arm.
"I'm hurt," Shiri shrugged. "Can't go. But don't worry, I brought a girl from the CW with me. You know: if you still want to."
Dani thought it over. She'd beaten Shiri every time they'd faced each other, and the thought of extinguishing Appleby's ambitions in a box-car bout had been intoxicating. They hated each other as hotly as Portman hated Gellar, or Laura hated Serinda, though few in the press had ever mentioned their rivalry in those terms. So as scary as the box-car bouts were, Shiri had seemed to want to take that next step, and Dani hadn't disappointed her. It hadn't even occurred to Harris that Shiri might pull out without so much as a phonecall.
"Well?" Shannen said. Her voice was irritated, bored: half the time, the fights never went off. She seemed ready to pull the plug on the whole thing.
"I'll do it," Dani heard herself saying, her eyes locked with Shiri's. Appleby pursed her lips in an attempt to dismiss Dani's bravery. 'Score one for me', Dani thought. 'She didn't think I'd go through with it.'
"Okay," Shannen said while clicking a pen and flattening a contract upon the hood of the mercedes. "The FCBA will fine you, and will disavow any foreknowledge of the bout taking place, but they will 'grudgingly' allow the result to count on your permanent record. Sign here, and initial here."
"What's the initial for?" Dani asked, squinting to read the fine-printed document in the lamplit darkness.
"There's a wide-angle lens camera mounted in the ceiling: by initialing, you authorize the use of your image and forfeit all rights to any proceeds that may accrue through electronic media yadda yadda yadda. We're getting the fight on tape and that's ok with you, basically."
"Ok," Dani said, scowling slightly.
"Here," Doherty handed her a small chit with two numbers on it.
"What's this?"
"Put it in your suit. There's a combination lock on the door with four numbers: you've got the first two numbers; your opponent has the last two. You fight until you can take the numbers off her and let yourself out. Loser spends a night in the box."
Dani repressed a shudder; told herself it was the chill sea air. She didn't want to spend a night in that thing - alone, beat up, cold. She could see why box car bouts were notoriously hard fought affairs. She slipped the chit into the back of her swimsuit bottoms, wondering how badly she'd need to be beaten before an opponent could get that paper. How badly would the other girl have to be beaten? Dani guessed that would depend upon who the other girl was.
"One other thing," Shannen said, tossing something else onto the hood of the car. Dani squinted at two small black items she quickly recognized as weight lifting gloves without the fingers.
"What're those?" Dani asked. She knew what they were, but she didn't know why Shannen had produced them.
"Those're your gloves, sweetie," Shannen grinned. Dani swallowed hard, and made sure Shiri couldn't see her eyes at that particular moment - just in case.
THE OPPONENT REVEALED
Posted by simguy on 12/17/2010, 11:35 am
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Dani noticed three things when the side door of the red railcar was slid to the side:
Bright white light emanating from a single bare bulb in the ceiling of the railcar;
A plywood sheet that had been laid down upon the metal floor of the container;
Sophia Bush standing to one side of the container, looking curvy, cute and smug.
SOPHIA BUSH
Harris entered the car, never taking her eyes from her opponent as the door slid shut behind her. She heard the key-notes of the electronic combination lock; felt the outlines of the chit against her right glute. The rail car was cool inside, though not as chilly as outside. The plywood against her bare feet was a small blessing.
"Danielle Harris," Sophia grinned, playing with the wrist strap of her left-hand fingerless glove. Dani could hear the velcro meshing and unmeshing.
"Sophia," Dani said, keeping her voice level.
"You know Hayden couldn't take my punches, right? You do know that? I'm still up on that bytch 2-1 lifetime because she's scared of my punching power."
"Whatever," Dani shrugged nonchalant, but she'd heard Hayden talk about Sophia's heavy hands after those punishing losses. It had taken Panettiere three attempts to finally get a win over Bush, and Harris had to respect that. Alone in a railcar with Sophia, Dani felt small and undergunned: Bush had fought much of her career at bantam, and was taller than Dani to boot. But the door was locked: no point in second-guessing now.
"'Whatever'. I mention that because if Hayden couldn't take my punches, what are you supposed to do? Gonna come into a railcar and swap dukes with the girl who broke Hayden Panettiere?" Sophia paused for a moment, cocking her head to one side. "You're like Hayden's BFF, right?"
"Yeah, that's right."
"Good. This is for her, then. I'm gonna beat those bottoms right off-a you. Once you're asleep, I'm gonna beat your face into putty, and email the pics to Hayden's phone. Then I'm gonna leave you in here like a hobo. How's that feel?"
Dani swallowed, eyes fierce. She clenched her fists and said nothing, for fear her voice might betray her nerves.
"You're cute," Sophia continued, leaning her back against the side of the car; crossing her arms. "Old - but cute. Seems like you could have been something, instead of Hayden's handmaiden, or slipper-servant, or whatever the hell you are. By the way, you know there's nothing wrong with Shiri's arm, right?"
"I figured," Dani said. She hadn't known exactly, but she'd suspected. Foxfire's scouts would have known if Appleby had come up lame in any sparring session.
"So why'd you accept the bout? Hey? Why'd you step in here?" Sophia was staring at Dani with uncomfortable intensity. Harris kept her face impassive: she knew Sophia had done time with HISC, and that those girls had keen eyes for doubt or weakness of any kind. Bush had been in a room with Dushku, Danes and Williams - not to mention that little rat Kreuk: Sophia had had to develop razor-sharp survival instincts in that viper pit.
Sophia smiled. "Oh. My. God. It's Hayden, isn't it? She would never do this - would never be ALLOWED to do this. Sarah wouldn't, Laura wouldn't...you're trying to prove something to yourself, is that it? This is the thing that will set you apart; this is little Dani Harris' special thing, right? That is ADORABLE! So tuff!"
"Shut up," Dani said, then silently cursed herself. She couldn't afford to let Sophia get to her in here.
Doherty's voice came crackling over the intercom in the ceiling: "Okay ladies - you know the drill. When you hear the horn, round starts; when you hear it again, round's over. Back off when the round's over. If you keep at it, we stop the fight, capice? You'll have plenty of opportunity to hurt one another: savour it; don't be piggy. Your object is to retrieve the numbers that are inside your opponent's suit: do whatever you have to do, to get them. If you want to give up, just surrender your numbers and get comfy: it's going to be a long, cold night. OK girls, first round starts right away - have fun, and remember: don't do anything I wouldn't do!"
An obnoxiously loud freon horn blared, and suddenly, Danielle Harris was locked in combat with Sophia Bush...
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