Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?

To say Adrian had done her homework on the Gatt Attack was a huge understatement. She could have put all her work together and used it as a PHD coursework with the amount she had done. Every foible and flaw, she knew about. The pinpoint details of their styles, she could exploit. She knew where they lived, how they functioned, the twin's ties to the Era of Hell as well as Sarah's brief leadership. She knew it all.

With a few exceptions.

There was one name which came up early in Sarah Gatt's career, Matt Floyd, who had some connection with the red-head. If she was looking for him, she went to the wrong place by joining an all girl league... but it was something to put aside as a "look out for this" disclaimer. Secondly: Josey was a newcomer, seemingly fairly simple: liked beating people up, messing with people with a gun, being cruel etc. but she didn't know anymore than that she was a brawler. The outlaw would have to have a few matches before she could pinpoint her weaknesses.

And finally there was a rumor she'd heard mentioned around Gatt. How one woman had fought her to a standstill and wasn't seen around for a year, while her apparent partner, a sumo, had done a similar thing to Akashi. A bit of discovery had to be done, a bit of asking around and nosing in the roster archives brought up the only person who fit the description of Gatt's opponent then. "The She-Wolf" Ciara Austerlitz.

The cosplayer was dressed in her quaipo, her hair long and green as she waited in the appropriate location to meet her. And if any of the Gatt Attack felt like they had an easy target, she was fully prepared with mist capsules, flash paper and a loaded elbow pad. And Rebecca Tomoko nearby just in case. Now all she had to do was wait.

"To hell with this, you tosser, I told you this was none of your concern. Gary, John, and the boys don't have to be here, and YOU have a piss-poor view of how to let me enjoy my R&R."

"And I told you that I couldn't damned care less. Lysandra and the boss made it clear that no chances are to be taken. The more we push back Zakhaev's forces, the more Kingfish and other Ultra-N's abroad are going to focus on where they AREN'T being pressured. Asia provides anywhere from 20-50% of the enemy's trafficking revenue at present, and we still don't have a bloody clue regarding how much of that is established in Japan."

"I picked the location, you bastard. I'm not about to get into a firefight with Makarov while talking to this girl."

"No exceptions, Sledge. The first reports since you came back have been less than promising, and if there's even a fraction of a percent chance that we might have to put another name in that bloody tower, even if you ARE just going for a bloody stroll and a chat, we're not having any of it."

"Whatever. You just stay on the horn. And tell whoever you sent to shadow me to calm the hell down. Worse comes to worse, it'll just end up being a decent scrap. I don't need the rest of my potential opponents scared off because of rumors that I set SpecOps traps for whoever I meet with..."

"I'll keep that under consideration. Don't keep your girlfriends waiting."

"How much time are you giving me? Half-an-hour? More?"

"Forty. Get going."

"Holding you to that, Baseplate."

"No promises, Sledge."

Ciara was in a hell of a pout when she slammed the door on the Audi. Even in a lighter, safer place, even when trying to have some fun and find her way around the AFW, she was still being reminded of that damned war. Now she had to keep an eye out for her own "security detail," to make sure these men didn't stride in too close and spook her new acquaintances. That went double if Baseplate had thrown in Gary or John. God help her if it was both.

Ciara had gone for a black A-shirt, forest green camo pants, and a jet-black sweatshirt that now wrapped around her waist for this outing. She had almost opted to take along her gauntlets, but she had decided that it would be taken the wrong way if she had come to a simple meeting armed. Still, the combat knife in the sheath tied to the inside of her pocket and the panic button installed in her watch made sure she had her bases covered, particularly since she had chosen a small unoccupied park only a few blocks away from Lysandra's ICEPS building.

As for the subject matter, Ciara was fairly well in the dark, only knowing that it concerned the Gatt bitch in some way or another. She had some pretty severe orders from her higher-up concerning the matter, but the least she could do was hear this girl out, even if all she got was some information to report to Lysandra. As the cosplayer gradually entered her line of sight, Ciara mentally shrugged. She'd find out soon enough.

Adrian saw the Audi pull up out of the corner of her eye, her heart pounding as her next potential partner stepped out. Waving hapily as she saw the special forces member walk towards her. Most people would have been slightly intimidated by her presence: taller than a lot of people in Japan in general as well as heavily muscled, but Adrian kept reminding herself that Rebecca was bigger and on standby.

Standby? Wow, she was really letting the whole spy business get to her head.

"Hey!!" She called out waiting for Ciara to get closer so they could actually begin speaking "Sorry for all the secrecy and surprise stuff I had to do to get to talk with you but I'm Adrian, kinda a big deal in AFW, ranked number 9 and I'm the ICW/ICWA Tri state TV champion." She gloated, still proud of the fact she managed to retain her ranking "so you're Ciara? Because if your not I'm gonna feel sooo stupid, and more than normal stupidity, I mean try to set up a computer to a TV when the TV has a remote through it stupid. So how are you?" the cosplayer asked, wishing that she hadn't drunk her can of Red Bull before meeting up. Her voice speed was back up to uncontrollable levels, something she felt she had cured.

Ciara blinked in mild surprise as Adrian shouted out her welcome. She was talking about secrecy and surprise while calling out at Ciara in the open? On second thought, this might be for the best, the soldier thought to herself, Whoever's trying to look after me can relax after hearing something like that. And damn, if I end up allying with her, I guess I don't have to worry about the girl running out of steam or anything...

Ciara pointedly held off on the conversation until she was closer and able to speak to this girl face-to-face. For one, if she had called back like Adrian had, she would have invited an endless amount of ribbing from her teammates. For another, Ciara wanted to quickly establish that she wasn't bubbly, nor was she innocent. "Yeah, this is she. Good to meet you, Adrian," Ciara greeted back, extending her hand to shake Adrian's. "I'm doing fine now that I've gotten here. Japan's a damn sight more peaceful than mainland Eurasia, that's for sure."

Ciara walked around Adrian a bit, soaking in the calm of the park and the city before leaning her shoulder against a nearby lamppost, subtly noting one of her (in her opinion, unnecessary) tailers. "So, I'm assuming I wasn't asked here because you wanted to show me your titles. What did you want to talk about?"

"O...kay..." Adrian said, unsure how to reply to the political standings of the Eastern Block and just went with a "Nice to meet you too!" with a big smile, not caring about Ciara's lack of bubblyness. She'd gone for too long without an extended period of bubbly and even though she was here to ask Ciara for her help, it wouldn't do that much to harm their potential relationship, right?

"Well you see..." The cosplayer started as the She-Wolf leaned against a lamp-post, looking for the right words. "It's kind of like I said in the message, it has to do with that bitch being... well, a bitch. And since you fought her and did really well until it... what did happen? Did you both do a cross counter thing and knock yourselves out or it get broken up or what? Well anyway, I have a lot of people who'd like to get that good at fighting her so... uh..." she stumbled for words. "How much do you know about Gatt anyway?" She asked, just to see how much her potential ally actually knew about the situation.

"I was doing fine technique-wise until I hit Sarah hard enough that she went completely bloody crazy," Ciara recounted, "and then it just turned into an all-out slugfest, give-and-take. It took Akashi, Katsumi, Rika, and my boss Ms. Tremaine to break us apart. If we kept going, we probably would have hospitalized each other or worse."

Ciara exhaled a bit. She didn't want to get worked up just talking about Sarah. "I know the tosser doesn't care about ranking, rules, or social norms in or out of the ring. She just cares about a good fight. Her manners and civility are nonexistent, even with her friends. I heard that while I was... away... that she gathered a group of relatively like-minded fighters and basically runs a little hit-squad slash fighters-for-hire group. And I figured that, since she had done all this, she had gained even more people that'd love to kick her arse across the ring than she would've normally."

Ciara looked Adrian in the eye and smirked. "Perhaps I shouldn't jump to conclusions after one fight that was a while ago, but Gatt really didn't respond swiftly to a sudden change in 'the mood'," the soldier girl chuckled as she held up her pointer and middle finger on her right hand, wiggling them suggestively, "I gave her a fair pumping in the middle of one of our lockups and she squirmed & blushed worse than a schoolgirl watching her first clip of porn. She got more than pissed off afterwards, though."

Adrian blinked, Ciara just rattled off quite a lot of the stuff that she was going to tell her. Now there was no surprising info to be held, nothing she could really spring, except that thing, and then she wasn't even sure about it. Adrian was left with her jaw open, swiftly closing it to gain some composure, which went straight out the window when the She-Wolf mentioned that Sarah didn't react well to the not-so-rough-stuff. Adrian if anything was worse about it, a blush shot up on her face.

"Yeah... pretty much what we got..." She admitted "But we know a lot more of the details, who's in her gang and what everyone's strengths and weaknesses are, stuff like that..." She tried to save face. "And when I say 'we' it's mainly because I'm part of a group that wants to kick her and her stupid hit-squad's ass so...yeah."

"Way to kill my momentum..." she grumbled. Hanging her head. Now how was she supposed to get Ciara to help the Avengers? "Wait, when you were fighting her, did you notice anything on her shoulders?" She asked, thinking she may have one bit of info that the special ops girl didn't have that she was willing to share.

"Her shoulders? All she had on her upper body was a sports bra... and later nothing. The hell? What, does she usually go around beating people dressed in a cape and epaulettes?" Ciara cocked her head to one side, puzzled. To the soldier, she had no idea what answers that question was supposed to give Adrian.

But an anti-Gatt group? To Lysandra, this new twist could be a neutral factor or a problem. "A group, hmm?" Ciara asked with genuine interest. "How many girls you got? If your group's big enough, you could go after the Gatt Attack straightaway, couldnt you?"

Ciara stood up straight off of the lightpost, turned around, and looked Adrian straight in the eye. "More importantly, what are your specific goals when you decide to fight them? How far are you going to go if you get the upper hand? If you win?"

"We've got enough to make the numbers even but that's not a good thing. They've got more experience as working in a group and like to pick people off one at a time, not to mention that they all have retarded strength or something, they're a big problem. We try fighting them straight up and it's not going to be pretty... well it's not going to be pretty whichever way we do it, but it wont be pretty for us." Adrian tried to explain, noting that Ciara didn't know about the weights.

"Goals? Well a lot of people have revenge because they either got attacked or someone they cared about got attacked, past that we basically want her group gone. Not dead! Don't want anyone killed, but gone." She insisted "Sooo... feel like helping us?" She asked, putting on the puppy-dog eyes for best effect. It was the whole point of this, to figure out what she knew and to get her to help the Avengers. "Come on! It'll be awesome!"

Ciara took in Adrian's answers and invitation, sighing in regret and a bit of frustration. She hated it when conversations like this hit grey areas. "I'm not allowed to jump on the bandwagon on any other groups unless I've gotten explicit verbal and written permission from my boss," Ciara muttered, "but I can tell you two things."

Ciara deliberately kept her eyes on Adrian, as she was sure her next statements weren't going to get the best reaction out of the cosplayer. "One," she held up one finger, "even if I join, I can say for certain that Ms. Tremaine isn't going to let me accompany you muppets on the offensive. I'll only be able to do react and perform a defensive role should Sarah go on the attack or simply go out of control with whatever she does,."

"Second," Ciara asserted with a greater hint of steel in her voice, "Ms. Tremaine has plans that include Sarah Gatt. Plans that are bigger than a bunch of little pups organizing to get back at the bullies on the playground. Plans that will prevent a lot more than bruises and hurt feelings in the future. For one, that explains my first point: Gatt is far less likely to go along with what my boss offers if one of her known employees or affiliates participated in taking apart her group and denying her an extra source of income."

"Furthermore, and I apologize for this Adrian, if ANY group comes close to making the Queen Bitch or her Gatt Attack cease to exist within the AFW, Miss Tremaine will send in her own people to... prevent such a thing from being accomplished. And knowing boss Lysandra, 'her own people' is, in all likelihood, going to include me."

"Taking them out shouldn't be something to aim for, Adrian, not if all that's on the line is pride and past bruises. You should just aim to keep them under control. Sorry, but that's how it's going to be."