Seven Days for Evil's Sake

"Yeah, whatever." She said and looked away. It was too funny, though, and she could hold back no longer.

She burst out laughing and leapt to her feet, hopping over to Mamouru and giving him a tight squeeze. "Hi Mamouru! Do you like it?" She asked, referring to her outfit. "I wouldn't do this in the ring or anything, but it's a start, right?" She said and twirled around before going back to her seat.

"This is so fun! It's like I'm an actress in my own life, and I get to try on new outfits and act how I never get to act. Fun!" She folded her hands on the table and tried to look serious. "But now we have serious business to discuss. What should we talk about first, Mr Manager? What should I call myself? What's my angle? My... gimmick. What's my character? What do I wear? And... I guess the hardest one is how do I do things differently in the ring. I don't want to be mean, I just don't want to be so... helpful. I think. I know I can't be so friendly in a fight. So... You have the floor."

As she looked across the table at Mamouru, her eyes softened just a little. She liked Mamouru. He was nice and smart and easy to get along with. But she wasn't interested in him, not like that. He was just... easy to look at. Was that bad?

Mamouru's eyes narrowed curiously as Cassie blew him off. He was about to open his mouth when Cassie practically leaped over the table and hugged him. He smiled and let out an exhale as they hugged. He squeezed her back tightly and then let her go. "H-Hello, Cassie-san." He said and smiled at her.

He watched her as she did a twirl and flopped back down. Catching her full outfit, Mamouru blushed a little more. "Ah.. it's.. you look .. um... Well, I like it." He said finally. She looked great, amazing, even. He shook his head when she serioused up.

"Yes, let's get right to business. The name will be the most important thing. If we can come up with a good name, the rest of the persona will fall into place by itself. It's like the cover of a book. It is what people see and recognize first. It needs to be something that sicks with a person as well like Killer Kawalski or Hulk Hogan. No one will forget names like those." He paused. "You don't like what you have going on right now?" He then continued. "And you don't have to be mean, per se. But there are things you can do to help you be more of a heel. If there's a rope break, for example, just hold onto the submission until the ref makes you break. If you want to taunt an opponent, you don't need to insult them, just say how much better YOU are. You see? There are ways to um... 'Cassify' being a heel..."

Mamouru then took a sip of water. "There's a lot of choices for costumes, but I think for you, maybe going with a super villain look might work out. Right now, you remind me of um..." He thought for a moment. "Something like Sassy Cassie." He said. 'I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for." He smiled. "Even though you pull it off well, Cassie-san."

Cassie rested her cheek on her palm and nodded slowly while Mamouru talked. He had good ideas. They sounded like things Cassie could do, at least in theory.

"Sassy Cassie?" She repeated and blankly considered the name. She couldn't tell if it was as awful as she thought. "Well, I'm not very sassy. It'd be misleading. I could do Classy Cassie! We could say that I'm from the United States and call me Tallahassee Cassie. No one hates Canadians, I don't think they'd boo me for being from Canada."

"But thanks." She smiled. "I'm gonna be a super villain. That's pretty awesome. What do you think we should do with my suit? I wanna wear black. I never wear black. It'd help me get into character."

She grabbed a napkin from the table and took a pen from her pocket and sketched out a quick Cassie figure. She took an extra few seconds working on the hair. "So I need a name and an idea for a suit, I need to make the suit, and then we can practice! Okay, name... name... How about... Cassie... Elliot." She got a little embarrassed. "It's hard to come up with a good super villain name! That's why there aren't very many of them!"

She took a moment to regroup and squinted off into the distance while tapping her bottom lip with her finger. "Um... Well, my nickname back home is Cassiebear. But that's probably not very scary, is it. There's black bears, they're like the villains of the bear community. Maybe black something-else. Or my middle name is Grace, I could just use that. I dunno, I'm bad at this." She said and looked down at her napkin.

Mamouru chuckled at Cassie's words. "You were a little bit sassy a few moments ago." He pointed out. "But we can set that aside for now." He then considered her next words. "Well... classy doesn't really work for a heel... unless you're like Freddie Blassie and I don't think you really want to go around biting people..." He then chuckled softly. "We could just bill you from 'North America' and... you don't know Japanese fans too well. They'll certainly boo anyone, regardless of where they are from if they aren't from Japan." He shook his head a bit at how xenophobic Japan was, though it seemed to be less and less these days.

"I think you should wear black. You could probably keep the outfit the way it is except make it black. Maybe add red and make a little less trim on it. You also might want to ..." Mamouru turned his head slightly. "Um... welll.." He said. "N-nevermind About that. "Let's just stick with that for now. "Do you like red and black together? It's pretty menacing."

"Cassie... bear...?" Mamouru said aloud as he thought about it. "The word for bear here is Kuma. and Black is Kuro. " He mentioned. "Um..." He tapped his fingers along the table. "Did you ever have any super heroes groing up? Did you watch things like Kamen Rider? Do they have that stuff in Canada? Superhero shows or cartoons? Maybe one of them has a villain you could work off of?" He then laughed. "Grace is a virtue.. we're trying to stay away from things that sound good. Mean things, angry things, scary things. Tough things. Those kinds of things. What's really tough? what's really scary ?"

"No no, it can be ironic!" Cassie said, waving a finger in the air. "Like, I dunno... Chastity. I guess that's mostly for... that kinda girl, but still, you said I should talk up how much better I am than anyone instead of insulting them, so a name that makes me holier-than-thou or something could be good."

She stopped to think for a moment. "Well, I remember Batman. Just the cartoon, I didn't like the movies. They were dumb. But I liked the cartoon... Harley Quinn was funny, and I liked Batman. He was tough and...commanding and manly and stuff." She said, dropping her voice to an imitation of a manly voice. "He was actually kinda scary, but scary like my dad, not scary like I was afraid of him." She started to put a hand to her lips, but consciously adjusted to a more slackery pose. She leaned back in her chair and put one hand behind her head and tousled her hair a bit.

"Um, I thought Black Mask was really scary. Because he was smart, and he always won even when it looked like he lost. Well, I guess he didn't always win, but it was like it didn't matter how much stronger Batman was, Black Mask was always a step ahead. And his head was a skull. He scared me a bit, yeah."

Without missing a beat, Cassie continued, tilting her head at a jaunty angle and giving Mamouru a look that almost looked sultry. "Were you going to say I should show skin? I already do that... But if I was a swimmer, I'd be showing even more, eh? Do you think that'd make me a better heel?" Not that she was actually considering it, but she thought she had Mamouru pegged from the moment he hesitated.

"Ahh.. Ahhh...' Mamouru said and blushed. He took a big gulp of his water and turned his head. "W-Why do you have to accuse me in that sort of pose, Cassie-san?" He said and then cleared his throat. Well. He was a professional. "Yes, well. 'showing skin' can be a provocative way of being a heel without actually having to DO anything. It makes a statement that you're both bold and confident, even risque." He turned his head and lifted his chin, closing his eyes ans speaking matter-of-factly. "It's not as if you don't have the assets for it."

He couldn't hide the blush on his face but he pressed on. "You could wear a Vee cut outfit or, if you preferred something a that is both more decent and yet more revealing, perhaps a small diamond cut out, here." Mamouru held up his hands and formed a diamond shape with his index fingers and thumbs and held it at roughly the position of Cassie's chest, though his hands were only about three quarters across the table. "Certainly it's your call. It's just another option to consider, Cassie-san."

Mamouru then stood up. "However, giving it a little bit of thought." He began as he casually stepped over to her. "The bear theme might work out exceptionally well. He grabbed her by the shoulders and then tilted his head, inspecting her. His hand went up and patted her on the head. "What about Black Bear Cassandra?" He suggested. "That hat, that you like so much, you could make or find a version in black." He ruffled her hair. "Give you black bear ears , or something."

He then stepped to her side. and leaned over to grab her hand and hold it. "Then, maybe some fake bear claws. Some fur around your boots, also detachable." He smiled down at her. "You'd be cute and scary." He admitted. "I think it might be the best way to play to your strengths. If you could look mean before hand, perhaps to a certain extent act as you did when you first walked in. Say that you're going to claw your opponents eyes out or something." Mamouru stopped and pressed his hand against her other shoulder. He knew she would be reluctant. "You don't need to actually do that. Just say it before the match." He said gently in her ear before stepping back and away, going round the table again to look at Cassie directly.

"I think that would be a pretty good idea and suitable enough for you to be menacing and have fun with. Inside the ring you can think of yourself as a bear., or, whatever you have to do. Picture a mother protecting her cubs and if you don't stop that other girl, your babies might get hurt." Mamouru was not able to hold a serious face any longer and he laughed. "Well... who knows, right? It's a start though! What do you think?"

Cassie's air of apathetic slackerdom was instantly cannonballed. She had the assets for it? Her face turned bright red and she shifted back to uptight, timid Cassie mode.

"Y-yeah, mmmmmmaybe." She said. Could she do something like that? Could she really pull it off?

Her dad would kill her.

Cassie's ears pricked up and she listened to Mamouru with a smile that grew into a grin. The laughter she held in brightened her eyes instead, until Mamouru laughed. Cassie laughed along with him. "You are so bad at names! I'm not going to do that! You can't put me in a skanky animal suit and expect good things to happen."

She sat up straight in her chair and thought for a moment. "I think the scariest thing about me is my Jiu Jitsu. I'm pretty good. I can do a lot of stuff, and I can catch people in submissions from a lot of positions. I'm not big, but I can still tap out bigger people, so that's something. Maybe we should look for what's scary about me, and go from there. What do you think?"

"What is wrong with that name!?" He said. "And I didn't say skank! That's your term. Not everyone who shows off their body a bit is a skank, Cassie-san. The word is provocative!" He laughed again. He let out a sigh and listened to Cassie speak.

"Well... if you could keep a straight face during the match, you could definitely be the stoic type. Focus really hard on that and just be a killing machine. The heelish thing to do in that situation is to show no mercy. Mamouru then looked at Cassie. "I think we're done with naming stuff for now. We have a whole week to get that in order. For now, think about your costume. I think no matter what, we can settle on red and black, right?" He looked over Cassie once more. "Consider the things we've talked about. Go embrace all things bad and terrible and wicked!" He said. "You're positive enough that I'm sure there will be no long term effects." He smiled softly at Cassie. "Tomorrow we can work on training."

He stood up. "For now, we need to get you in the mood. First, I figure we can go visit the zoo." He paused and raised his finger. "I know, but those big animals and those vicious predators. And then afterward, I think a horror movie might be good. It's all about getting you in the right frame of mind." That's exactly what it was. It was certainly nothing else at all. "What do you think?"

Cassie grinned. "I love the zoo! I love the tigers. And sometimes there's little baby animals! But... I can't watch scary movies! I... don't know if I've ever seen one. I haven't seen very many movies at all, actually. We didn't have a TV."

She sat and thought about things. That sounded like a nice day. It was certainly more than anything Drake ever did. If this is what a manager did, she didn't know how she ever made it without one! She almost started to get up, thinking about the zoo animals, but she caught herself and looked up at Mamouru.

"Oh! Did you want to eat or something? We're in a restaurant and all. And then onto the zoo. OH! What if I called myself Mercy? Ya know, it's ironic, and it's like, a human ideal and character trait and stuff, so it's symbolic enough to be a super villain name. Iconic, maybe. See, because I don't show any mercy. And my opponents would wish I did. Because... Jiu Jitsu."

She nodded and smiled off into space before bringing her eyes back to Mamouru. Her smile became warm for a moment, but then she shook it off and went back to her slacker pose.

"You couldn't have picked a better restaurant?"

Day 2- 2:08 pm

Mamouru Higurashi was sitting in the gym at the AFW Friction complex. He had come in around noon-is and had found a nice spot to check out the local fauna and after about a half hour of people watching, he had found a room where he could do some training alone. He warmed up and stretched and did his standard exercise routine. Unlike his brother, who was a workout freak, Mamouru took a lighter approach. He didn't do very much weight training at all and instead focused more on ring work. After he finished her sat down and took a drink from his water. He was waiting for Cassie to show up so they could begin their heel training. There was a good chance she was already in some other part doing whatever. He had told Cassie after they parted last night that she should probably keep her regular routine as best as she could. That's why he had her meet in the afternoon.

While he sat and waited, he thought about yesterday's events. It didn't seem entirely like a professional outing. They hit the zoo, which was very enjoyable. Even though he wanted to show her big cats and fierce predators, most of them were feeling quite lazy and e ended up getting pulled to all the things that Cassie wanted to see, even though they did spend a lot of time around the bear exhibits. That was fun and one Bear even got a bit surly.

Afterwards, they went to a movie. A horror film entitled Attack of the Killer Lizard. Mamouru tried not to laugh during it. It was so silly. Though everyone else seemed to be pretty frightened by the hissing lizard that stalked the shadows and gruesomely devoured its victims. He had tried to keep as much contact with Cassie as he could during the movie as well. He liked it and it was really relaxing. And that was all it was. The whole thing was juts professional and maybe a little friendly. They were friends now, they could do things like this, right?

He let out a sigh and poured some water over his head to cool himself off. He was wearing tight wrestling shorts that came down to mid thigh and a loose fitting shirt that had a ring of sweat at his neck. Things were going really good. He'd even managed to meet up with Hitomi after he left with Cassie. Though, he wondered if she was going to be stalking him again today. He glanced around seeing if he could spot either Cassie or Hitomi.