Size Matters

The pedestrians on the Kyoto sidewalk turned to stare at the most unusual sight. A giant was among them, roaming the street with phone in hand, looking up every now and then to peer into the various windows and inspect the posters that littered the street, pausing to turn to a smaller figure scurrying behind her. "You sure it's around here?"

"It's a gym! It shouldn't be that hard to find!" Adrian Kytes insisted, breaking past the giantess to get a better view. "Umm..." the smaller woman let out, she struggled enough in Tokyo to find much beyond the few streets she knew, in Kyoto she was flying blind... with a gps at least. "It should be riiight... here!" she declared, pushing open a door and walking confidently in to what she was relieved to find was a indeed a gym. "Helllooooo!"

"Carmen? You around here?" The giantess Rebecca asked, ducking through the doorway.

Spoiler:

Rodriguez Gym was, in fact, a gym. A very active gym, as it turned out. All three of the rings were busy with sparring sessions, and you could scarcely find a punching bag or machine that wasn't being used or needed a good scrubbing. Since Carmen won the 24/7 Championship, Tension had been more aggressively advertising her. That meant, by extension, they were advertising her gym, and being advertised by the biggest wrestling company in the world was good for business. Maybe too good.

Carmen herself was by the middle ring, watching a spar with Suzy Q, one of her best pupils, and a new girl. She wore black sweat pants and a workout bra she desperately wanted to change out of. She'd been in it all day, going through four sessions already. Three weeks ago, the most she'd done in a single day was two. Add her usual training to that, marketing meetings, and the photo shoots that were apparently required by her AFW contract, and it all equaled to a woman who was seriously tired and trying hard not to show it.

She brought her hand up to cover a yawn and forced herself to stare straight as she watched the sparring match. Had to stay alert. She promised her student that she'd give the. The best training they could get in Japan, and she couldn't do that if she kept fading out. Carmen had to give them helpful advice, like telling them never to get distracted by what was going on outside the ring. Like both of her students were currently doing, glancing towards the entrance in between punches. Carmen was about to chastise them for taking their eyes off the fight, but then she caught sight of what they were actually looking at. She couldn't blame them anymore - after all, few things were more distracting than Rebecca Tomko.

"Holy shit." Carmen said her curse for the day, then turned back and pointed at her girls. "Keep going, keep going. Suzy, stop coming straight on. Stance wide, I want to see some footwork.". She clapped her hands."Box!"

Caremn sauntered over and waved to Rebecca and Adrian as she neared, glad to see them both and glad to see them together. She didn't watch that much Friction these days, but she knew enough to say that they'd both been through some rough times and still had more to come. "Hey guys, great seeing you!" She look up, way up, at Rebecca's hair, even got on the tips of her toes for a better inspection. "I love your hair natural. Looks sweet."

Yup, definitely a gym. Adrian's navigational skills were unmatched! As long as where she needed to go to a place that was easily accessible, advertised in multiple places and had a big name on the outside. "Heeey Carmen!" The cosplayer called out to the Puerto Rican pugilist "Sorry if we're interrupting stuff but we wanted to see you before I head off to Mexico."

Rebecca was used to being the center of attention at this point. Carmen was a big woman but she made the boxer look small in comparison, it would be hard not to look at the giantess but to the trainee's credit: they were sticking it out despite getting glimpses as their coach stood up to meet them. "Yeah, been letting it grow for a bit... kinda like it this way now after keeping it short and dyed for so long. Time for a change, you know?" The amazon idly chatted as Adrian bounced around, looking at all the people training, "So how've you been holding up? Getting jumped by everyone getting old yet?"

Carmen rolled her eyes and groaned. "They would have to find me, first, and I'm on the move a lot these days. I did get attacked by a fan who didn't get that it's only open to actual wrestlers, though. That was fun." She gave Rebecca a small smile, and reached up to give her a little tap on the chest. "You ever get in the mood, though, let me know. I'll make time."

Rebecca was easily the center of attention in Rodriguez Gym at the moment - in fact, there was probably only one person in the whole gym who wasn't giving her at least the occasional glance, and that was because he was so wrapped up in his world that he barely noticed anything else. Army was nearby with his back turned, hammering away at a punching bag while his wireless headphones blared loud enough to cause hearing damage. There was a tablet on a chair close by playing an episode of Kill La Kill - between that and his training, he was in a different zone.

Carmen looked his way over her shoulder for a tic, as a little idea started to form. She wouldn't bring it out just yet, though. "And yeah," She watched Adrian bounce and bobbed her head to keep up with the hyperactive hardcore wrestler. "I heard about your match. Wish I could come with and view it live, but..." She spread her hands out and sighed. "...all of this."

"Ha!" Rebecca laughed as she imagined some poor sap off the street trying to jump Carmen Rodriguez. "So did he get lucky and security got him or did you get to land a punch first?" The amazon asked, fans jumping at wrestlers never really worked well for the fan involved.

"Like the first time a fan groped you?" Adrian asked the big woman, who's smile quickly vacated the premises. "Long story short, Becks knocked him out with a slap. It was really funny,"

"Wasn't funny for me, I almost ended in jail for that." The ebony amazon complained "Asshole jumps the rail, grabs me, and I'm the one who nearly gets busted for it..." she moaned, shaking her head at one of the earliest wrestling memories.

"Right, so this one guy gets escorted to the back, Becks is finishing up her match, all of the other wrestler guys there are waiting for like the cops to show or something, I dunno, then Becks comes back and she is really freaking mad at this guy, and the guys were all like 'you fucked uuuup'. So he stands up like he's gonna apologize and stuff and Becks just slaps the guy, open hand, and he goes flying! Straight into the wall, his feet off the ground and boom! Hits it and just collapses, and now everyone's like 'holy shit' and Becks except for the one old guy who was probably in his 50s and getting paid more than all of us who smiled and nodded because apparently that was how you dealt with fans back in the day." Adrian rambled on as Rebecca's cheeks grew redder and redder.

"Shut up..." She mumbled out, placing a firm hand on top of Adrian's head to stop her girlfriend from talking about any more embarrassing events from the indies.

"Wha-hey! Come on, it's a great story." The cosplayer whined as the amazon started to ruffle up her hair. 

"But yeah, I'm ready to throw down whenever you are chica. Haven't had a good match in a while." Rebecca said, trying to get the topic back on track "Or any matches really, no-one seems to want a piece of me anymore."

Carmen hadn't known Adrian all that long, certainly nowhere close to Rebecca, but she was familiar enough to know the drill by now: when the cosplayer started talking, it was best to just let her get it out of her system, no interruptions. She stood, folded her arms, and nodded all the way through it.

She gave Adrian a playful punch in the shoulder. Just hard enough to annoy but not enough to hurt. "It was a good story, I'll check it out live on Youtube later. But..." Carmen steepled her fingers and chewed on her lip, as she turned around and gave her brother a look over. She almost hated to do what she was considering, but it would be fun to watch, and he could use the challenge...

After a moment of thought, she spun back to Rebecca and looked back up her way. "As much as I'd love doing a second-gen Rodriguez/Tomko fight, I might have something better." She nodded over her shoulder as Army gave the heavy bag one last punishing right hook, then started to step away for a little break. "How are you on Tension matches?"

"Tension matches?" Rebecca repeated, keeping Adrian still despite her complaints about being unfairly double teamed, "I've done some before, they were thinking of bringing me to Kyoto full-time to have someone around to control that one asshole in a tiger mask. But it didn't pan out so well." The amazon explained, starting to get slightly suspicious at Carmen's line of questioning, and who she was moving towards. "I thought you were Tension as well, so wouldn't a second generation asskicking still be a Tension match?" While she had introduced Carmen to Adrian, the big woman hadn't been around Kyoto for long enough to get a proper introduction to the Rodriguez family, not seeing the family resemblance "So you want me to work over one of your trainees? He piss you off or something?"

"It's a contract thing." Carmen shrugged and rolled her hand around as she explained. "If I wrestle a Tension woman, it's under the Tension banner, but the couple of times I've wrestled with Friction women, they always make me come out to Tokyo and do it under Friction. Not sure on specifics, they're just picky that way."

Carmen thumbed over her shoulder as Army started to strip off the tape from his fists, still too deep in Anime Land to notice the scenery. "And that's my little brother, Armando, so...yeah, he pisses me off, but it's a sibling thing. If you start talking to him, I guarantee he'll want a match with you in less than one minute. Two, tops. And I remember him saying stuff about how your Dad couldn't handle my Dad without the referee babying him, which I don't necessarily disagree with, but if you'd like to discuss it with him a little more directly, I certainly wouldn't blame you..."

Carmen innocently whistled and let her eyes roll, hoping she could get some much-needed entertainment, here.

"I don't get it either really," Rebecca admitted, scratching the back of her head as Adrian burst free of the amazon's grip as the two big women kept talking, the amazon nodding along in agreement when it came to the matter of siblings "Brothers are like, hardwired to be a pain in the ass sometimes." but then she mentioned the age old argument that would stand the test of time.

My dad could beat up your dad. 

It didn't matter how little love Rebecca held for her own father, it was the instinctual "Bullshit." reaction that was the first thing to come to mind, and Adrian was only happy to keep pushing Rebecca on.

"Are you gonna take that Becks? Are you gonna let someone you don't know badmouth your family?"  The smaller of the pair asked, she had kind of figured out where Carmen was pushing this to go and was more than eager to join in on the fun, maybe she could get some popcorn made for the two to eat while Rebecca wiped the floor with this Armando guy, unless Carmen knew something she didn't and Armando was secretly a badass. Well... by the looks of him it wasn't that much of a secret and oh god stop staring! "Go get him!" She declared, pointing at Army as though she was going to be the one defending Rebecca's family honor.

While this was going on,, Army had finally gotten around to noticing Rebecca. It wasn't an easy thing to miss - people came in to talk to Carmen all the time, and typically he didn't pay them much mind. But these people were never a head taller than his sister. Hell, than he was. On top of that, he was a big fan of Friction, and while her hair was different than he remembered, it wasn't that hard to figure out who this was.

He was a little confused about why they were all staring at him, though. He looked left and right, making sure they weren't staring at anything behind them, then looked back at Rebecca with a raised eyebrow.

Carmen gave Rebecca a pat on the back and stepped behind her, joining Adrian in the shadow. "See that look in his eyes? That's fear." It was pretty obviously confusion, really, but close enough. "Look at him. You know you want to body slam him. And if you're trying to get back into things, there are a lot worse ways to do it than messing up one of the biggest guys in the league..."

Army just kept standing there. Staring. Wondering just how awkward this moment could get.