"She struggles against hookers"

In my mind, I've just been hit by a wave that's left me lying perfectly still on the beach. My head was flooded by that little line repeating itself over and over, first as a whisper but progressively getting louder and louder until it became a deafening scream with booming echoes. Something in me failed as I realized that despite how terrifyingly stupid it sounded to acknowledge it, the answer to my problem was in a dead meme.

The clip played in my mind. Land Shark, years ago, looking no different than she does today in the slightest. The interviewer, wrapping it up with the comments her teammates had made about her. The anticipation built by the title of the video. The promise that something said in those last few seconds would make the heroine walk out cursing and calling for heads to be delivered to her. The denials that came after the fact about ever acquiring the services of sex workers. The mention about how it was meant 'in an archaic sense of the word'. The way I was one of the many that propped up the theory about that being exactly the case hours before it was confirmed.

A smile formed in my face. I was down on the ground. Land Shark had gotten at least one more blow on me and I had been too immersed in my thoughts to have registered it until this moment. She was knelt next to me and had her one of her hands holding down my wrist, seconds away from snatching the ring from me with the other one. As I looked right into her eyes, I saw that she was surprised to feel me stopping her with my own free hand. She must have really believed that her job was over.

"Did you ever learn how to deal with hookers?" I asked, teasing her with my most obnoxious smile.

The sound she made betrayed the pure panic she felt, even if it was not necessarily from fear about what I would to her. To me it felt more among the lines of an worker who had felt like they'd been assigned an easy task to be completed in a matter of minutes, only for an unexpected problem to transpire and threaten them with hours that would most likely extend into mandatory overtime. Her face, which was often intentionally unreadable, conveyed how doomed she now felt after being so confident on her prospects of victory just a moment ago. Under a different context, I would have felt like a terrible villain to have caused someone to feel like that. But, well, under a different context, I wouldn't have had to be fighting someone who was meant to be a fellow heroine, now would I?

"What that face you're making right now tells me, is that you're fucked. Word of advice here, you won't try to struggle if you want to keep your hands attached to your wrists." I stood up, forcefully dragging her up with me by grabbing onto both of her wrists and pulling her upwards. To her credit, even if she couldn't figure out anything to respond to me with, she was aware enough to follow orders when her health was at risk.

Honestly, it was quite weird that she still hadn't said anything to me yet, or that her face still looked like she couldn't comprehend what was happening at all. It was almost like she had just... been woken- Oh heavens!

"You're not the same Land Shark that attacked me, are you?" I could feel the bravado leaving my voice as I was washed over by the realization. Even if I should have been proud of figuring out a way to shake her off from the mind control (though it was unlikely to be anything but temporary), I still had to admit that it was to my chagrin when she nodded in affirmation.

"The one that attacked me was the fake personality created by the mind control, right? And you're the real one, the heroine that got trapped in your shared mind?" She was baffled as to how I knew about those details, which was fair as she only knew that I had taken out Friendly Paws and not that I had learned about that stuff from her, but she still remembered to nod after a short wait.

There were a thousands things I should ask her, but my mind **** me to choose the next question in the hopes it might help me with other heroines from the 12 in the future. "What brought you out?"

"What you said." She responded, a quick reply that conveyed less than she thought she did.

"What thing I said?" I went further.

Annoyance. Frustration. Resignation. I saw all three in her eyes before she parted with it. "The thing about the hookers. I hate that. I absolutely hate that being mentioned. And while I had tried so hard in the beginning to break out from her control, I just could never found the energy. But then you mentioned that and it was like a sudden burst and then I was out but the other me was still out and we were both terrified and you threatened us and she ran back into the mind and then-"

"Breathe." I put my hands on her shoulders as soon as I realized that she was hyperventilating. I knew nothing about how to handle a panic attack, but I would try anything that might seem like it would work. Not only because I didn't want one of my heroes to suffer at a **** time, but also because Land Shark might have been at greater risk of being taken over again. Then, hearing that thought in my mind that was sure that touching someone during a panic attack was actually a bad idea, I let her go completely.

Land Shark smiled at me, wordlessly thankful.

And then that smile turned awful as she jumped at me, tackling me not only trough the ground but straight trough it.

The 'Phony Shark' made a gamble and it payed off for her. She took advantage of my good nature.

Thankfully, if that **** sound was any indication, then karma had already arrived to our destination.

Hooker. A wrestler with strong legitimate mat-wrestling abilities and an array of match-ending (or in **** cases, career ending) holds known as "hooks", hence the name.

Because even if that tackle surprised me, I still had more than enough time once we were being drilled straight underground to put my arm around her neck and put her in a guillotine ****. What I lacked in skillfulness with the technique, I more than made up by applying my super strength against her.

The little Regina in my shoulder told me that if I really wanted to make sure she passed out, I should make my boobs bigger at this very moment. The logic being that with larger breasts, Shark's head might get surrounded on all angles: the dirt in front of it, my torso and my bicep to its sides, and the big tit on the back.

I would almost say that I was tempted to try it.