Fifty Shades of Red

It was starting to get late in the Underground, a quaint little dive bar near the Friction arena and Carmen's chosen hiding spot for the night. She'd only swung by on a whim, and she wasn't exactly dressed for action - just her jeans, her favorite red Tapout shirt, her sandals and her mussed up black hair. Pretty ratty look, probably not helping her chances. She took another sip from her beer and checked the clock again - heading fast towards midnight. About an hour to closing time. People were starting to file out, collecting money from their little pool games, making calls to get picked up, arguing about who would be the designated driver, a few lucky guys and girls heading home with a date in their arms. Carmen had vaguely hoped she might get a little lucky, too, but unless something big happened and happened soon, the odds weren't looking too good.

The funny thing was that this bar wasn't even one of her usual haunts in Japan. Typically, if she was doing any barhopping at all, it would be near the Tension building. The only reason she was on this side of the country was because she caught a live episode of Friction. She didn't have a Tension match this week, seemed like a good way to blow some time, and it did turn out to be really entertaining. Lots of young, nubile girls tussling around the ring. Various sexual acts, some more disturbing than others. A rather weird but entertaining match with whipped cream and enough banana pudding to feed a third-world country. The sort of action you would never find anywhere near Puerto Rico, but barely warranted a batting eyelash around Japan.

She'd had a good time, but watching it all made her a little listless. No matter how well she did in Tension, there was still a part of her - an annoying, whiny part that needed slapping - that still wished she was making her bones in Friction.

Carmen loved her Tension fights, everyone of them had been solid so far. Good guys, great competition, lots of fine battles. She was starting to make a real name for herself there, turning a few heads, and she had no intention of leaving anytime soon. But the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence...and hotter. And sexier. And freakier. As much as she wanted to prove herself as a serious competitor, she still had the urge to just throw it all out every now and then. Have a fun, sexy match, like the one with Kurohime. Let it all out and set a few wild oats on fire. Just once in a while.

But that was a neat little dream. Reality didn't give much of a damn. Reality would have her, at best, hooking up with some pretty little thing for the night, if she could even manage that much before closing time. She finished off the beer and took a lazy gaze around...

Bar hopping was on the agenda for Sig tonight. With her move to AFW finally being finalized, she decided to try out all the bars around the area. It wasn't her routine to go out and drinking a lot, but she did that from time to time, especially when something good like this happened. She was dressed in her favorite black military jacket that covered her black crop top with a silver cross symbol in the middle of it, along with a dark gray hot pants and a pair of casual shoes. Her light blonde hair was done with a pony tail on the side like usual, although by now it's already a bit messy.

Sig had been drinking moderately so far, only one or two glasses top at each bar she visited. All those drink stacked up, though, and she didn't really remember how many bars she had visited within the last few hours. Maybe the next one could be the last. It's getting late after all. The blonde didn't really look at the name of the bar she entered. Under- something. At this stage she probably wouldn't really remember which bar was good and which one wasn't. She waltzed in casually and headed straight to the barstool.

"One... umm... ah, a beer would just do. One beer, please. DAB if you have~," she ordered.

The accent was what drew Carmen's attention before anything else.

Since her time in the Summer Olympics, she'd come across quite a few different voices. She was hardly an expert, but she could tell many of the major ones right off the bat, and that German flavor stood out. Certainly not a usual sort of voice for this side of Japan. Or any side of Japan, for that matter. Or the Asian continent.

Carmen looked at the newcomer out of the corner of her eye, trying not to be too obvious about it. The girl was curiously dressed. A rough sort of outfit that would have looked normal on a much bigger and bulkier sort of woman, but she wore it well all the same. Young. Blonde. Cute.

She hesitated for a moment, stroking the rim of her glass, thinking it over for a few seconds before she just shrugged it off. It couldn't hurt to try and strike up a conversation, see what might happen. Carmen was too curious not to.

"DAB?" She turned to the woman in full, spinning on the stool as the bartender went to check. "That's a new one, haven't tried it before. It's good?"

"Oh come on now, did you just start drinking yesterday, dear?" Sig replied casually as she turned around to face whoever it was that gave the question. "No beer beats a German beer. None. Especially Dortmunder," she gave a smug smirk. "Hey, mister?" the blonde called to the bartender. "Make it two glasses, would you?" she requested before turning back to the girl. "Try it yourself, greenhorn. I'm sure you wouldn't want another beer~"

It's just the drinker in her who talked, probably. Didn't help that she looked a little drunk herself. When it came to beers, Sig already made her choice by just drinking ones from her country. She had tasted various brands, but like she just said, nothing beat German beers. Small talks like this were common in a bar, so she didn't really pay attention to whoever it was talking to her until she turned to the girl the second time.

Certainly not a local, she could tell that much. A Hispanic? Sig took her time to eye the ratty looking girl from tip to toe and back to tip again. This one didn't really look like she went to a bar to get a companion, or so her initial assessment said. The beers came just in time, distracting her from any further thought about the newbie drinker.

"Danke~" she thanked the bartender before pushing one of the glasses towards the Latina. "Here, my treat," said Sig with a smile before she drank her beer. "Ahh... wunderbar..."

"Greenhorn?" Carmen let out a full laugh at that one. This girl was bold, she'd give her that much. Way more than she would have expected a little lady like her to be. Maybe a German thing.

"Nope, not yesterday. Or the day before. I've been knocking them back for a good decade now. I can hold my own." She kept her smile up, but there was a competitive edge under the voice. Carmen would have offered to drink this girl under the table if it didn't look like she was already there.

"Gracias." She gladly accepted the girl's drink - even if things went downhill from here, she'd gotten a free brew out of the deal. She couldn't complain. And as much as she'd play it off, she wasn't exactly a beer specialist, so maybe...

She took a good swig of the DAB and jolted back for a hot second, quickly straightening up to save face. Strong stuff. Stronger than the stuff she usually dabbled in by a few miles. "Okay, rubia." She sniffed and took another mouthful, ready for the punch this time. "Not bad. Strong. If this stuff's what you've been knocking back, no wonder you look toasted. Poor little thing."

"Toasted? Me?" it's Sig's turn to laugh. "I might not look like it, but I can still kick your ass right now, dear."

That was bold considering she didn't know how much of a fighter the other girl was. Getting into bar fights wasn't a new thing for the blonde, although normally she was a harmless drunk. Maybe she did drink too much than usual tonight. The beer wasn't the only thing that she's been knocking back tonight. If she hadn't been moving from one bar to another, the bartender and other customers might be surprised at how much amount a relatively small girl like her could swallow. Or so she thought.

"I'd say you're the one looking toasted after just one sip of this," she tapped her glass, smirking at the other girl before taking another sip. "Maybe it's too much for a greenhorn after all, hee~"

Maybe it was just the alcohol talking, but this girl's taunting was one of the cutest things Carmen had ever heard. She chuckled under her breath and took another gulp, looking her over as she did. Her first instinct was not to take her too seriously on that, but she'd just got through watching matches where girls about her size kicked all kinds of ass. She knew better. It was hard to tell with the clothes she had on how solid she'd be in a fight, but she had the confidence. That was a good start.

Carmen leaned forward on the stool as her smile turned into a sly smirk. "Kick my ass? Really?" She let the glass dangle from her ring finger, sloshing about as she swayed it back and forth "I don't know about all that, I take down guys twice your size for a living. But it'd be fun to see you try."

She grasped the handle with all five fingers and started to lift it up towards her mouth. "You're a crazy little thing, though, I respect that. Got a name?"

"Really? I don't see what's so hard about it," Sig shrugged. "Kick their balls, down their goes. I've done it before during my school years."

Obviously it wouldn't go that smooth in a real fight, but she was just talking smack out of being drunk. She did beat some guys during her school days with that method, which resulted in her getting a detention. It was worth it considering those boys were just big fat jerks. Males in general disgusted her, even if she did meet a few nice ones.

At least she figured out that the other girl was a fighter, unless she's just talking smack from being drunk as well. She did look like a person who can beat up someone else. One can't always judge the book from its cover, but sometimes the cover did give essential informations about the content.

"You respect crazy people? Aren't you a weirdoo~" Sig giggled. "Call me Sig."

Sig. Just 'Sig'.

Carmen wasn't too familiar with German names, but she was fairly sure that 'Sig' wasn't a normal name - she had a hard time imagining any parent giving their child that name. Short for something, and her first guy would have been Siegfried with a boy. No clue what it could be with this one, but she made a note to ask later. If there was a later.

"Yeah, kicking them in the balls would be a bit too easy...and illegal in the ring. I'm with Tension, that stuff doesn't fly." She finished off the glass and sat up straight, raising her arms and stretching to give Sig a full view of her profile. Half playful intimidation, half just showing off. "And yeah, I respect crazy. Crazy is fun. I'll take crazy over boring, anytime, all the time."

She eased back down and held the glass out, motioning for the bartender to give her one more for the road. "Carmen Rodriguez. Nice meeting you...'Sig'."

"True, I guess. Those lucky pigs get that rule to protect them," she sighed. "Tension... that's the other brand, isn't it...?" the blonde seemed to talk to herself for a bit. "So you're... in the AFW as well. I'm in Friction."

As far as she remembered, Tension took place in another city. It wasn't that weird for someone to make a trip to another town just to drink, as Sig herself had done that with a couple of friend back then. Touring the country to check each town's best bar within their budget. Ah, she missed those times, a trip with a couple of drunk girls, getting lost in their way back to the motel after hours of drinking.

Watching as the Latina stretched herself, the blonde just smirked. The girl actually had a nice body, which she hoped wasn't just the alcohol playing tricks on her mind. She looked trained, and having just learned that the girl was a wrestler, Sig couldn't help but to think of stuffs that's best kept in private, to a stranger. At least the pink shades on her cheeks could be disguised as alcohol's effect.

"Fair point, Carmen..." she said. "Are you... Mexican?" the blonde took a guess.