"Random" Encounters

Let out a little squeal of excitement. She slipped her arm through the band of the goggles, using her now free hand to comb back her hair, trying to fix it up a bit. She wanted to make sure she was presentable. As The Black Fang stepped up next to her she leaned it, outstretching her phone. She tilted it slightly, getting them both into frame. " Perfect!" She followed suit, grinning wide and free as she threw up a peace sign to, side by side her heroes'.

"Say... sushi on three!" She counted to three in her head before. "Sushiiiiii!" Her beams proudly taking her phone and holding down the screen. after a moment the phone took several pic pictures back to back. When she learned her phone could do this it saved her a lot of heartache from taking bad pictures. Surely one of them was the perfect one, where neither woman was blinking or caught unawares.

Pictures in her possession. The signed gift under arm. She could die happy. Except for dying right now would be pretty tragic. She would hold off on that for now. She spared the woman a hug, she had already taken the time to speak to her. She didn't want to be one of those people, who just kept making demands of famous people. Even if they wore masks, they had lives to live too. Stepping away from The Black Mask, she bowed graciously again, the incorrect way. "Thank you for your time. Please have a good night. maybe in the future we'll have another match, where I'm not pretending to be somebody I'm not." She kept her head bowed respectfully, tilting her head just slightly to peek up at her hero.

”SUUUUUUUUUUUSSSSSSSSSSSSSHIIIIII!”

Ryoko kept her smile up for several seconds, letting the camera get as many pics as AJ wanted and trying not to look any goofier than she was naturally feeling at the moment. She made a mental note to ask her friend to send her the pics, but then remembered who she was talking about. AJ would have them sent before she even reached the locker room, most likely.

On that note, she needed to be going to change, hoping she could meet up with AJ with her alter ego before she left. Not before courtesies, though, as they bowed and said their goodbyes. The two of them would have to work on getting that posture right, too. A little note for the future.

”Domo arigato, AJ-san.” She nodded, slow and sage, as she stood straight up. ”I look forward to fighting the real AJ Shay. Take care of yourself, until then.”

A few minutes later, anyone trying to get into the women’s lockerroom would find it strangely locked at the moment, which was odd, considering it didn’t have a physical lock on it. No, instead, there was a chair propped up against it on the inside, preventing anyone from budging it an inch. It had already sent two women stomping off in a huff, muttering as they made their way to the second lockerroom, and they probably wouldn’t be the last.

The Black Fang - Ryoko hated to hog the dressing room like this, knew how annoying it was, and would’ve glad changed out of her costume in the janitor’s closet, like she usually did after a match. This time, though, she had to change faster, which meant that she needed the locker room near the gorilla position.

It wasn’t the easiest task, since her body was still aching from the match itself. She was still surprised how much of a wallop AJ could be pack, how she’d surprised her several time. Even with the gimmick and the clothes slowing her down, she still managed to be a constant, consistent threat. The woman was so determined to put on a good show and give the audience something they could enjoy, Ryoko was bursting to get out there and tell her how awesome she was. If she could just get this stupid boot unlaced!

A couple minutes later, Ryoko emerged from the lockerroom with a gym bag slung over her shoulders. With her red hoodie and her sweat pants, she looked like she had just came in from the gym - which was good, she would need that explanation to account for the copious amounts of sweat all over her body.

Wow. It was so much easier to keep a secret identity when she didn’t know anyone who would’ve cared.

Ryoko hurried about the halls, asking around, trying to get a read on where AJ went off to...

Alexa had made her way to the other locker room, she had purposely set up show there to keep her disguise a secret while she had put it together. She had a confident spring in her step, gushing to passerbys she had just gotten her goggles signed by The Black Fang and had a picture to boot. She took their nonplussed reactions as if they wished they were lucky enough to fill her role. She awkwardly snapped another text to Ryoko, again letting her know she was running late. Ducking into the locker room she changed back into her, shedding what remained of her evil alter ego int a brown grocery bag she had carried it all here inside of.

When she emerged all that was left of her former self was the vague outline around her face from where the goggles had been, though it was nearly faded completely. She was feeling a bit better now, between having time to recover and hanging, briefly, with The Black Fang in the halls. Things were looking up. She was dressed pretty simply some old worn jeans and her usual walk around red and white sneakers. As was usual for her, the only real unique thing that changed often was her shirts. Today she was sporting a Voltron one the original Voltron. While she wasn't intimately familiar with it, she could get behind any team of heroes who cut things in half with a giant robot and made it all explode. Especially in the name of saving their planet. Over it all was a beaten brown jacket, the cuffs visibly frayed and the once deep green cloth hood attached to it had faded to the point it was more grey than green. It was an old thing she had from back home, a hand me down item that was more or less her security blanket these days.

Finding her as she made her way towards the back door of the arena wouldn't be hard. Enough people had run into her on her way to go change and could easily recount the raving loony gabbing on about The Black Fang. She'd send Ryoko another text to let her know she was on her way out, specifically to the parking lot to meet up with her accompanied by an impressive amount of smilie faces and cheering hand emojis. If she wan't head off in the building itself, she would slip outside to head towards her intend destination to wait on her friend, filled to the brim with excitement to share her experience with her.

The Friction Arena was, unsurprisingly for a place that housed hundreds of wrestlers, a pretty big place, and it was all too easy to get lost, even if you were fairly familiar with the place like Ryoko was. It didn’t help that she was in such a hurry that she couldn’t get her mind right, and accidentally wound up glomping another redhead - a tall, lanky woman who just so happened to look a lot like AJ from behind. Her embarrassing moment of the day.

Lucky for her, the text message helped give her a general area, and it wasn’t too hard to lock her down from there. Sure enough, after a little digging and asking confused bystanders, she found AJ wandering about near the parking lot, looking every bit as bright and colorful as she left her.

She was tempted to run up and hug her from behind, but, well...she smelled, still in need of a bath, and she doubted AJ was much better. Besides, she was wearing a dark jacket and matching sweat pants to cover up her body and not tip her friend off. Given how they’d just spent ten or so minutes rolling around, there was a good chance AJ was quite familiar with how the Black Fang’s body felt.

”AJ!” Ryoko called out as she ran up to her friend behind, struggling to keep the gym bag on her shoulders as she came bouncing in. ”You were so awesome!”

Alexa was peering down at her phone, in the middle of sending another text to try and better describe her location when she heard a familiar voice. She quickly spun around, scampering over to Ryoko. While the other girl had reservation, she didn't not and tried to give her friend a huge hug. She'd never really done that before, but she was feeling to great not to share her good vibes. She owned her anyhow after the inspiring text speech and the compliment. "Really?! You think so?" the hug wouldn't last for long, just a quick big squeeze before she dropped back. "She is so much cooler in person than I thought from the videos! And really really nice too! You would love her, I know it."

She gripped the paper grocery bag tightly, grinning from ear to ear as she build up towards the surprise Ryoko already know about. "I hope you had some decent seats, the place looked pretty packed. I almost dyed just walking down the ramp with that many eyes on me."

Now came what had to be one of the weirdest experiences in any young superheroine’s life, the part that no one could train Ryoko for, but she knew would come sooner or later all the same: talking about herself and somehow managing to keep a straight face through it all.

It was made more difficult by the way AJ was so upbeat and bright and her infectious happiness about it all. ”I know so.” She reveled in the hug for as long as it lasted, before her friend let go and they were done exchanging scents. When was the last time she’d gotten a serious hug like that? Couldn’t remember. ”Why didn’t you tell me you were that damn good? You really had her on the ropes for a while, there.”

Not wanting to get in the way of traffic, Ryoko started walking to the side, ushering AJ to move along with her before somebody ran them over. Her fellow countrymen could be a little crazy behind the wheel. ”But yeah, I can’t imagine what that’s like, having the whole world looking at you. Me, I’m lucky if I get about a thousand subscribers on my dinky Youtube channel.”

Sad story, but true.

”I was in the cheap seats, so I couldn’t see much that wasn’t on the big screen. Still, got all the good angles.” Ryoko kicked away a can of soda that had dared to stand in her. ”You make an incredibly cute speck, by the way.”

"I don't have a whole lot of pr-" She glanced around as Ryoko ushered them away from potential disaster. continuing to speak on the move but looking around a bit more mindful of their surroundings. "I don't have a lot of practice against real people.... like, not spars I mean. I'm pretty sure she was going easy on me." She beamed with pride at the high praise from Ryoko, and it showed. The other girls opinions had come to mean a lot to her the few times they had chatted, tonight was no different.

"It's terrifying! Wait... you have a YouTube channel?" She gave Ryoko an appraising look, jogging ahead of her she turned, walking backwards as they spoke. "Why didn't I know this? What do you do on it?" Her sudden interest might be a bit overbearing, but this was some news to her. She didn't recall Ryoko mentioning this before. Maybe she could pass out flyers or business cards around the AFW arena to get her some followers. That would be nice. It would be like those bringing your kids cheapo candy bars to work for the fundraiser they were too lazy to go door to door for... except instead of chalky candy they got fun YouTube videos. Win/win.

She fumbled almost tripping on part of the walk, reconsidering her choice to backpedal as she dipped back up along Ryoko. "Man, that stinks, I'm sad you couldn't get anything better... I wonder if they do VIP passes or something. Maybe next time I can get you backstage or front row. Wouldn't that be awesome?" She blinked at the cute speck comment, grinning from ear to ear as she bumped shoulders with Ryoko. "Aw! Thanks. I can look pretty okay up close too." She went cross eyed for a moment, peering up at her bangs. Her hair, as it tended to be was in a state of disheveled unrest. "Just not tonight."

AJ was coming down way too hard on herself - Ryoko wouldn’t say she had gone all-out on the Friction newcomer, but there was a vast expanse between ‘fighting like your life depended on it’ and ‘ holding back’. Ryoko would feel fine in the morning, but she would be going to bed with more than a few aches.

One of those aches was bothering her right now, nagging her back as they walked, but she forced herself straight as they walked. She was blushing again, couldn’t be helped, shouldn’t have brought up the YouTube channel. ”It’s nothing fancy. Didn’t mention it because there’s not a whole lot to mention. Ryoko was quick to wave it off. ”You know, I just went through one of those phases that all young wrestling fans do, where I got it in my head that somebody actually cared what I thought about the matches at whatever big show was going on at the time.” She shrugged. ”It flopped. Haven’t updated it in like, three years.”

She neglected to mention that the reason for said lack of updates was because she got intense in her training, something she mentioned in her last video. Might have to edit that a bit when she got home, because, knowing AJ…

”That’s enough about me and my boring life.” She bumped shoulders back, knocking  AJ away before she scooted over and got close again. ”Let’s talk about you and your amazing life. What’s next for the great AJ Shay? How’re you doing your real debut?”

"Oh..." She walked a bit more pronounced, kicking her feet out as she trotting along beside Ryoko. She glanced sidelong at the girl, cracking a smile. "Well, I care what you have to say about matches. You turned me on to a few good ones. You also have a really good eye for detail. You pointed out a whole lot of things I hadn't noticed when we watched a few at my apartment that day. Maybe you should give it another go. I'm sure if enough people see how much you love it, your passion will carry over to them."

Alexa canted her head slightly, smile turning to a grin. She was actually pretty happy with how that had come out, almost inspiring. It was her turn to kick the soda can, the very same one from before. She gave it a bit more oomph, booting it a way down the path. She raised a hand to her forehead as if it were a visor to observe her handiwork in dramatic fashion, the paper back hanging from the crook of her elbow rustling.

She had to really try not to laugh at the amazing life part. Sure, today had been great, but overall she wasn't entirely sold on the new life she had been carving out for herself. The bright moments stood out to her, but most of those she had actually shared with Ryoko already. If not in person, than by proxy through text. She really felt she should have more to show for herself, more to speak on, but her week had been consumed by setting all this up. She supposed that was reasonable though. The effort showed, and went over well. If she could manage to impress The Black Fang enough that she remembered her name, she must be doing something right.

"I was thinking ice cream." She grinned sheepishly, looking to the sky. Not exactly ice cream weather in the winter, but her father always use to take her for the sweet treat after her wrestling rallies back in high school. She hadn't had a reason to celebrate recently, nor had she competed in an actual match in over a year. Now seemed like a good time to rekindle the tradition, especially in good company.

"I'm not sure about my real debut yet actually. I haven't decided if I really... want to be me?" She half shrugged, lips skewing a bit as she made a very noncommittal facial expression. "It's just, Who is AJ, ya'know? Just some girl. I want to be cool, someone people can look up to." Someone her father could be proud of. Her pace slowly a bit as her lips tugged at a frown. her general go to was self deprecating humor, which she had in spades. "I'm just so boooooring. I'm practically the mayor of Snoresville USA... That isn't a real place, by the way." She felt the need to clarify to the Japanese native, just in case.

She doesn't give them a chance to really delve into that topic though, intentionally cutting it off before they can deep dive into her self loathing. She taps her phone, flicking through the menus "Hey, check this out." Alexa offered her phone over to Ryoko, her selfie with The Black Fang prominently displayed on the screen. "Check out these two cool cats." She had already made one of the photos into her cell phone wallpaper, but who was surprised?

”Oh, you care what I have to say, huh?” She chuckled at that, but gave in. AJ had that effect on people. ”Well, I’m a little busy these days, but maybe if we both have a free Saturday, you can come over and we can do a thing. Would love to have that crazy Sien as a guest star sometime.”

She joked, but only half - that sounded like a fun way to spend a Saturday. AJ over, doing her crazy accent, playing it all up, maybe coming up with a script, throwing in some props…

Thoughts for another time. The mention of ice cream had a way of distracting her.

”Blue Seal.” She snapped her fingers. ”Best ice cream in Tokyo. Nearby. We can walk. I’m paying. We’re doing it.” She veered off to the side, motioning for AJ to follow, any debate already settled in her mind.

She was just about to tell the Mayor of Snoresville what she thought about her, when AJ went and whipped out the photo they’d taken a little while ago. It took  Ryoko half-a-second too long to remember that she was supposed to be surprised by this, but when it kicked in, she faked it well enough, mixing it with some genuine joy that her friend was so happy.

”Who is AJ Shay?” She pointed to her in the picture. ”AJ is the coolest new wrestler in Friction. Up-and-coming. Super-smart. Super-talented. Future champ? We will see.” Ryoko held up her fingers to frame her like a TV, imagining her with a belt on those shoulders. It wasn’t too hard. ”Give yourself more credit. You really had the Black Fang rolling, and you didn’t even really have on all that much to wrestle in. You’re good. I could see it all the way in the nosebleeds. Everyone could.”