Sunshine and Chipmunks

Adrian could do this, she'd faced worse things before, technically. She'd been through hellatious matches, dared to do what few others did in the ring and had the scars across her hand and other places to prove it. She'd even conquered what she'd thought would be her biggest hurdle and won a match clean against Chigusa Yuuki, who was a fairly big deal, cementing her place in the top 10 of AFW.

Why then was it so hard to go to the gym on her own?

Maybe it was because this was where it all had gone wrong for her last time, meeting Taylor under the circumstances, this time she swore that there would be no goofing off, no breaks, she'd work out for however long it took for her to no longer feel any of her limbs then walk home. Even if it had taken weeks to work herself up to actually do it, she'd been here with Cecilia so she could be here by herself.

What to do she thought, thinking about all the different sets of equipment and what they were for. well I have no upper body strength so maybe weights? the otaku wrestler suggested to herself, changing into a white tank top and navy blue bike shorts she set out to see how little she could actually lift.

Cassie was all smiles. It was a good day. The weather wasn't very nice, and she didn't sleep very well with Ash practicing her bass in her bedroom late at night, and once she woke up Sininen she tended to stay awake, and that meant Cassie would have to be awake too. She wasn't well rested, but it was still a good day, she just needed to put her best foot forward and go work hard at the gym.

She jogged her usual route to the gym with a change of clothes and some gear in her backpack, wearing running shoes and short black fight shorts and purple t-shirt with a big yellow daisy on the front. It was a little earlier than she usually made it to the gym, and she usually came pretty early, but since she wasn't going to get much sleeping done she figured she'd get a head start on the day. The gym was open 24 hours, after all.

When she arrived, it was mostly empty. Not many people came so early, and only a couple were actually working out. As she began warming up, hoping in place and from foot to foot, she looked around at the other girls. One of them didn't look familiar at all, and how nice would it be to go introduce herself and make her feel welcome. That would brighten both of their days.

Cassie marched up to Adrian while she deliberated by the free weights. "Hi!" She said brightly with a wave. "I'm Cassie, are you new? I can show you around if you are, and if you're not I guess we just haven't met before. What's your name?" Her heavy Canadian accent was easy to spot.

She couldn't help but notice that this girl looked a bit out of sorts, now that she was up close. She hoped she could help.

Adrian still hadn't decided how much she was going to start with, they all felt really heavy, even the smaller ones would be hard to lift for her. As such she was lost in thought making the Canadian's introduction a surprise.

"I HAVE PEPPER SPRAY!" She yelled out defensively, spinning around and ready to preemptively stop any verbal abuse she would recieve, only to see a small smiling Cassie in front of her "Oh... sorry...hi!" She quickly tried to cover her initial outburst "I'm...uh...I'm Adrian. I-I I've been here a while, I'm not exactly new its just...well... yeah."

"Oh... okay." Cassie eyes drifted toward the floor for a moment, but the she renewed her smile. "Whatcha doin'? Weights? I should do more weights, really. I need grappling strength! You do too, I think." She said, and reached out to pinch Adrian's arm.

"What do you do, anyway? Adrian? I don't think I... ohh..." She suddenly remembered Adrian from Taylor's last match. That one got ugly. She felt so bad for both of them she almost cried. By the time the match was over she had been white as a sheet. She decided not to mention the match, though. "I mean, like, what's your style, eh? You look like a... striker, or something. I don't know. Tell me!"

"H-hey!" Adrian flinched when Cassie reached out to pinch her arm. This wasn't different at all! Now she was being picked on for her lack of muscle instead, but... Cassie seemed a bit different, it wasn't as though she was trying to be a confrontational jerk her rival was. Maybe this was the Canadian's way of breaking the ice, or something. "Come on... I know I gotta get stronger, I can barely lift 100lbs on a good day..." she grumbled, looking down at the floor.

Her head picked up when the Canadian stumbled for words, what did she know? Come to think of it she did seem somewhat familiar, but kinda blurry in the cosplayer's memory. "I uh... I'm kind of a high flyer but I can do a lot of other stuff too... if I don't have to lift people up with my arms." She said nervously

"My favorite!" Cassie exclaimed. It was true, she loved all the pro wrestling acrobatics that were common among smaller guys and athletic girls. Her friend from pro wrestling school was way better at it than her, though. "Do you, uh, can you show me?" She asked with a hint of apprehension.

She looked over at the empty practice ring and then gave Adrian a big grin. She couldn't help it, she had to hug her, and she threw her arms around her and gave her a big squeeze. "C'mon!" She took off for the ring and rolled up under the bottom rope. "I'll teach you stuff too, it'll be great!"

"Uh..." Adrian murmerred aprehensivley. She didn't really know much about Cassie apart from the initial beam of sunshine and chipmunks which had only lasted a while. She seemed fairly eager to practice, looked to be in very good shape... atheletically. "You sure, I mean some of the fancier stuff needs you to either stay still or get a crash mat but I..." she trailed off before the Canadian hugged her "Ah!"

Is this... what other people think of me as like? She wondered: Cassie had a stream of energy, very much pro-hugs and fairly enthusaistic about wrestling in general. Kind of like how Adrian was when she first started. "Okay! I'll show you a bit of what I can do, but you'll have to let me go unless you want to see my super awesome bearhug counter [size=85:2s63d7dm]which may or may not be a DDT." the cosplayer said, trying to move towards the ring if Cassie would let go.

"Ooh, I like DDT's, especially all the flippy, crazy ones like the Mexicans use and stuff. My friend does a crazy good one that's like a shooting star DDT. Now come on, let see what you've got!" Cassie challenged cheerfully. She spread her feet and raised her fists, twisting playfully from side to side from her place up in the practice ring.

Cassie loved to see what other people did. She had grown up around martial arts in her dad's jujitsu school, and her very favorite thing was when visiting people would come train to prepare for competition. Even within the realm of jujitsu, there was so much variety, so much fresh perspective, and with pro wrestling there was so much more. Friction was full of weird and interesting and awesome different fighters.

"Really? He or she go anywhere big?" She asked, setting up on the apron to stretch herself out. Testing the ropes before jumping up to the top, springboarding off to do what looked like a swanton bomb only to roll through at the last moment "Fuck yeah!" The cosplayer shouted as she jumped back up to standing "Made it!" she said, getting the adrenaline flowing in preparation.

"Okay so now... how do we start this?" She asked, bouncing up and down on the spot.

"She's doing really good, she's in... wrestling... places..." Maybe she should just not mention Taylor at all. She ooh'd at Adrian's acrobatics. "I can pretty much just roll. And cartwheel." She said, and turned a quick cartwheel and presented herself at the end. "See? My friend took gymnastics for a while, but she didn't like it. I think the other girls were just mean to her."

Right, so how would a little friendly sparring go with a high flyer without anyone getting hurt? "Okay, so, I'll show you what I'm good at." She marched over to Adrian and took a low wrestling stance. Then with well practiced precision, without telegraphing at all, she shot in low, wrapped her arms around one of Adrian's legs, pulled her back to get her off balance, and stepped behind to try to trip her down to the mat.