Sunshine and Chipmunks

"Well it's a hell of a weapon, seriously: you're like some prodigy and no-one else really knows much about it to begin with. And we do have submission defense! Just... not ground based submissions, got trained more to deal with both people standing up... I mean I can escape from an armbar... Don'tTestItOut! But yeah... got me good. I'm not really that strong so I normally have to rely on tricks or agility, even if I am super tall compared to quite a few people." Adrian rambled "So... now what, do I go back to lifting weights for a while or do we continue trying to train as long as you don't grab me by the neck... because I don't really have clue, but it is nice to just talk for a while..."

"Well... we can do whatever you want. I can teach you jujitsu or you can teach me your stuff, or we can just hang out or something."

Cassie beamed with a big, warm grin. She'd made a new friend! That always brightened her day, not that her day wasn't bright before. Now it was brighter. It was a shame that Taylor and Adrian had so much bad blood between them. Maybe Cassie could help with that too sometime.

"You are pretty tall. You're like a hundred feet taller than me. I don't know if I can even jump that high." She remarked, measuring their heights sitting down with her hand.

"I didn't use to feel this tall, kind of a good thing and a bad thing. Good thing because no-one asks me how old I am when trying to buy stuf, bad because everyone looks at me and thinks I can lift people up... which I can't... uh... as for stuff I know, I can do standing submissions, and lots of escapes so maybe we can try that?" She suggested, thinking of trying out something she learned in different sparring sessions.

"It'll be awesome, I can show how to turn a full nelson into an armbar."

"Noooo..." Cassie jumped to her feet. "No more grappling! I've done nothing but grapple for my whole life. I want to learn what YOU do! I want to learn pro wrestling stuff, high flying and throws and tricks and stuff. Teach me that!"

Cassie's excitement for learning pro wrestling hadn't waned at all since arriving in Japan. She probably should've spent more time at school before coming to AFW, but she didn't want to wait, and where better to learn than a place where you're constantly surrounded by top level wrestlers! That's what she had thought, at least, most of them were unwilling to teach her anything.

"Really? 'Cause well, I'm not really that great at it except pulling stuff out of places that half the time I don't know what's going on so... I'm not sure how to show off most of my stuff..." Adrian said, picking herself up, lost in thought. Compared to what Cassie had, what she could do wasn't that effective and was easily dodged but still, it was hard to say no to Cassie, and she had put up with her crazyness so...

"We're gonna need crash mats."

"I'll get 'em!" Cassie looked around the gym. "Where do we get those?"

While she was happy to be training, especially with someone else, and even happier about the prospect of learning new pro wrestling stuff, her mind was still stuck on Adrian and Taylor. She just couldn't let it go.

"So..." She began while making her way out of the ring. "You and Taylor really don't like each other? It was a really rough match, but... why, exactly? She doesn't... she seems nice to me! And so do you, so, why don't you get along? And if you don't get along so much, why don't you just leave each other be?"

"They should be around somewhere, I used to use them before I stopped coming here by myself." Adrian said, trying to think where she got the things the first time... "Uh... mat closet?" She suggested, picking two words that sounded right.

She winced when Cassie brought up the subject of Taylor again. "Well she's not." She said sulking, casting her face down. "Long before the match we ran into each other, she made fun of me so I tried to get back at her but that went bad... and yeah..." the cosplayer said, trying not to have details like the war of escelating treadmills or the fact her revenge plan involved shoving Taylor into a locker and mailing her to Alaska as well as causing her to puke. "We did kinda call a truce about it but... it didn't stick."

Cassie tried to look like she was more interested in finding the mats, but really she just wanted to talk. She put her hands on her hips and looked for something like a storage closet.

"What do you mean didn't stick?" She asked. "Why did things go bad? I know that- er, I've heard... like I've seen that Taylor can be... she says things sometimes that aren't nice, but she never means them. She seems really sweet to me... I can't imagine you two fighting like that! Except... for the match, I guess... But that's different."

Cassie rose-colored world view was periodically challenged by reality. She did her best to brush it off as quickly as possible. She watch Adrian closely, trying not to be obvious. She wanted to see how Adrian really felt about it. It just wouldn't do to have all this bad blood. Didn't they know they'd be so much happier if they just got along?

"Well... the match happened. Each of us thought the other one set it up and went back on the truce so..." Adrian tried to explain, she had a problem with spilling her life story to other people on a moment's notice.

"Cassie, I know you think I'm pretty much a good person even though I freaked out but...I'm not. And niether is she. It doesn't matter whether you mean it when you start insulting people, calling them fat and making them question whether they actually deserve to be wrestling at all after they've left everything behind just to be here just because she was on a high note and I wasn't. It still hurts. But I still did some really bad stuff to get back at her, to make sure she wouldn't think about trying it again but... it got out of hand and one bad thing led to another..." The cosplayer said, sniffing and sitting down towards the end. "I'm such an ass..."

Cassie went back to Adrian and sat down next to her. She put her head on Adrian's shoulder. "Well, maybe you both did some bad stuff. But you aren't fat and you obviously deserve to be here. On a different day, you could've won. Anyone can beat anyone on a different day. And maybe she just needs to say she's sorry for the things she did, and you need to say you're sorry for what you did, and then if you both mean it everything would be okay. And then you couldn't possibly be an ass."

It was a bulletproof plan. Maybe if Cassie was sneaky enough, she could engineer a way to get them together. Taylor certainly wouldn't be... the way she was sometimes if Cassie was there right?