Finding the opposing tag team could help me do both

As a lover of books, I thought back to useful advice that a book had told me long ago: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles." Even if I couldn't learn to wrestle, maybe scoping out the enemy would give me some hint of a weakness that I could exploit if I happened to end up wrestling them? Furthermore, there could even be a few clues to the mystery of Desperado #1's attacker, if I got the chance to interrogate them. Once again, I found that deluding myself into thinking this was some sort of mystery helped me take my mind off the fact that I was about to enter a "two-on-one handicap match," as they say in the wrestling business.

I was in no hurry to interview every individual independent wrestler back-stage until I found out who had a match scheduled with me. Instead, I searched until I found a pamphlet showing the card for tonight's match. The one saving grace was that our match was near the very bottom, close to the last time slot.

I was extra lucky-- at least in this one moment, though certainly not overall-- to find that pictures had been provided, given that we were one of the marquee matches. The real Desperado... really didn't look much like me. She was short like me, but her breasts were good bit bigger, she was blond with a nice American tan, and her eyes were blue. The crowd would be in for a real disappointment when they found that not only was I not a busty foreigner, but also, I was a novice who'd never intently watched a wrestling match, let alone participated in one.

For now, the more important matter was the opponents: Hurricail and Makiu, under the tag team name of "the Heavy Storms." Their pictures made them look... pretty scary. Hurricail- wearing green, including a latex suit and mask- appeared to be pretty much man-sized, including her musculature. The other was similarly tall, much thinner, and dressed in blue. A bit lanky, honestly. The way Hurricail was flexing and Makiu was extending both hands in a grappler's stance and grinning beneath her luchador mask made me feel like they were both about to reach out of the pamphlet and hit me with a tag-team attack...

Hm... What was my tag team name with Princess, anyways?

"Guns Out?"

I-Is that... Is that a futa thing?

I found the dressing room for the challengers soon enough. Apparently, Desperado and Princess were the tag-team champions in this circuit, set for a defense. That meant that the Heavy Storms were probably plenty hungry for their shot at claiming the gold... I gulped, wondering if now was the time to go back home, dive under my sheets, and devote myself to searching for a convenience store job tomorrow.

No. I'd promised to give this job at least a day. I still have my integrity! I reached out one brown-gloved hand and knocked upon the door, extra quietly and respectfully. When no one came out immediately, I gave a sigh of relief and turned around. Time to go!

The door swung open quickly, following the silent footsteps of one of the competitors. "Yes?"

I nearly jumped out of my cowboy gear as I turned around. I blocked my face with both hands. They wouldn't hit a girl with glasses, right?!

"Ha ha! A Desperado fan, huh? You're at the wrong dressing room." I recognized the large, muscular woman as Hurricail, although she wasn't in her suit yet. Instead, she wore a crisp, white button-up with a long black tie and black slacks. Her hair was close-cut and black and her eyes were a soft, inviting brown color. She looked like... just the kind of senpai I'd wanted, in comparison to the cold, bratty princess! Why couldn't I have a nice fellow detective who dresses professionally, like this one?! Though, I wasn't sure how I felt about the muscle situation... If she was a futa, she was the type that nearly had a man's body to go along with the genitalia. The two of us couldn't look more different.

I stood up straight, then shook my head, regretting that I'd met such a consummate professional while dressed as a fetish version of an old west gunslinger. I removed my hat for politeness, then bowed, introducing myself as Katsumi Hojo... Then corrected myself: I'm Desperado #2, the tag team partner of the Princess for tonight.

"#2? Did something happen to Desperado?" Hurricail questioned, raising one eyebrow and stepping outside the dressing room. She allowed the door to swing shut behind her.

I told her frankly: I'd been brought in to replace Desperado due to an injury. The cause of the injury was still unknown.

"Yikes!" the other woman gasped, then scratched the back of her head with a pained frown. "Anything I can do to help?"

What a blessed person... This mountain of a woman was the first nice person I'd met all day, after the rigorous trials of Genkei and the Princess! Moved, I asked her if she could tell me of anyone who might have a stake in taking out the original Desperado... Perhaps someone who wanted the match called off or had a stake in their victory?

The big lady crossed her arms and smirked. "I hope you aren't talking about me. Makiu and I have been looking forward to putting the Princess in her place for a long time... We're going to get one of our trademark 'Rain Showers' out of this one. Our biggest yet!"

... You felt like you'd just heard something worrying, but you shook it out of your head for now. The woman seemed very prideful and furthermore, tough as nails. It was hard to imagine she'd pull a drive-by on the weak link. Even if she did, what good would it do to just take out Desperado #1? By the sounds of it, the Princess was the real star of the show, so much so that she'd effortlessly replaced her partner with dead weight who could tag her into the match.

"Say... You're really going to wrestle us later? I have to admit: I feel like you look more like an um... camera operator or a backstage interviewer. But you're really a wrestler?"

I sighed deeply, slouching both my shoulders and my head. No, Hurricail. I'm not a wrestler. I'm a detective! I'm from ODD: On-Demand Detectives! Ending up in a wrestling ring dressed in skimpy leather chaps was like something from a nightmare I'd never known I had.

The woman smiled warmly, then extended one over-sized hand towards me. "Desperado #2, it would be my pleasure to get you prepared for our match tonight. If you'd like to follow me into my dressing room, I'll show you the bare minimum you ought to know to entertain the crowd. A lot of people think that if all they want to do is get thrown around or job in a match, they can do that without any training... not so! You have to learn to work safe, most importantly, but beyond that, to be engaging. We still have a lot of time, if you'd like to run some drills?"

... Hurricail was being very nice to me. My detective's instinct wouldn't let me be happy with that; I instead felt suspicious of her. Would it really be in my best interest to surrender myself to this lady body-builder? Part of me wanted to politely excuse myself now, while part of me told me she was my last life-line in this dangerous place...