The Red Muscle ch7 progress 2 (Patreon)

hey everyone! ive been chipping away at pages in between work and ive got the next batch of pages thumbnailed out. on the last pages, flip flops tells scarlet that he's going to take scarlet on a tour of Ula's company building and that's where we pick up here.

scarlet is inside the entrance to ulala inc, flip flops telling her that its a bit extravagant but he likes it. the clerk at the front desk asks flip flops who his guest is and they introduce scarlet to her. the clerk is very friendly and offers scarlet a lemon candy, to which scarlet notes that she was expecting to get beat up so candy is a nice surprise. flip flops tells her theyre going to look at the offices.

flip flops takes scarlet to the center of the offices and he mentions this is where the magic happens. scarlet thinks she caught him describing ula's company doing dark magic but flip flops mentions its just market research ("which IS some dark stuff if you ask me"). as they talk, a fish notices them talking and comes to a realization. he walks up to scarlet and asks if she remembers him, hesitantly mentioning that he was part of the guppies that broke her apartment. he describes that after falling through the floor he regretted what he had taken part in and transferred to his current department, while many of his guppy brethren were still stuck as guppies that just have to do the job to make money. he never got the chance to apologize and says he doesnt have much to offer but wants to give scarlet his last favorite lemon candy. scarlet looks at him with annoyance thinking about the ordeal with her apartment, but she has a kind heart and accepts his candy offering. as she does this, some more curious fish walk by and ask if a tour is happening.

flip flops says he's giving scarlet a quick tour and the other fish i quick to offer to take her around to their respective departments. one offers to take her to the warehouse and offers his last lemon candy as an incentive (to which the others say thats not fair). scarlet declines and mentions she should probably head home and deal with her unfinished business, but it hits her that everyone has these lemon candies and asks if ula makes them at the company. one fish says they dont, but fish people just love the taste of citrus (as the fish in the back eats the candy that he was offering to scarlet). scarlet asks why flip flops doesnt have any candy, and he mentions hes not much of a citrus fish, hes more of a garlic and herb fish. one fish decides to asks scarlet about her outfit, and she sheepishly describes that it gives her some powers like a superhero. the fish love this and excitedly ask her if she has a hero name and to show them one of her moves.

scarlet cant say no to someone enthusiasm for something she cares about, so she mentions she did make up an intro for herself. they chant for scarlet to show them, and scarlet starts talking about being a hero with big muscles, a big heart, being cute, and kicking anyones ass. she strikes her "hero pose" and says that the red muscle is here, and right as she does this, ula walks in with her business associates (describing something about just backpaying their employees a year later, some sort of skeevy business decisions). they make eye contact and scarlet freezes up, knowing whats about to happen.

ula recognizes scarlet and immediately charges in, tackling her to the floor. she aggressively yells in scarlets face that she cant just waltz right in to her business and try to turn her employees against her by shaking her ass around at them. scarlet yells "get off me!" and throws ula through the cubicle wall right next to them.

ula climbs out, growling to herself, and charges in for a punch. scarlet dodges and grabs ula's arm, throwing her over her head to the floor, but ula counters immediately with a kick over her own head to knock scarlet backwards into the other cubicle wall as the fish run away in a panic.

scarlet yells "ow!! that hurt!!", not ready for how intense ula was about to be, and sees ula marching right up to her. she barely dodges ula's punch that breaks the wall, and runs in a panic into the cubicle, taking her stance again with a fish lost in his music still sitting at his desk. ula is furious and yells "don't fucking run from me you bitch!!"

scarlet makes a snarky comment about being faster than ula and gets kicked in the side, smashing into the fish's desk. the fish runs out of his cubicle to alert everyone still working to get out of the building. scarlet is climbing up from the desk and sees ula readying to strike, barely dodging out of the way of a kick that breaks everything on the desk.

the fight is really getting heated! ula's becoming blind to everything around her and just wants to destroy scarlet, thinking that scarlet has officially declared war between them. the fight between them will go on just a little bit longer before we check in with ricki and see what happens there. again, sorry these pages are slow to update but work has been very draining and ive been trying to really up my game in terms of choreographing and framing this fight. i hope that you see my hard work as an improvement over the previous times theyve fought!