Hostage Situation

"She isn't! That's not the owner!"

The woman at the desk laughed. "Looking for Sarah, right? She's not here at the moment, but I can take a message for ya. I'm Dinah." She said as she took her feet off the desk and sat forward. "I'm looking for Sarah myself. I don't want to jump to conclusions, but I think she's avoiding me."

She studied the pair of girls for a moment with a faint smile before speaking again. "You two look a bit stressed. This is a spa, after all, why don't I help you girls relax? How about a stiff drink, yeah? Let's abscond to some place more comfortable than this stuffy office, we can talk about what you're after."

She stood up, and Jamie noticed just how large the woman was. She was nearly a foot taller than her, and obviously very fit. She was muscular, powerful-looking, with square shoulders and toned arms. Jamie couldn't help but take a step back from her, but Dinah's body language seemed to indicate that she wasn't willing to take no for an answer.

"Come on, follow me." She reached behind the desk and grabbed a random bottle of wine, probably something very expensive with an excellent vintage and all that nonsense that Sarah cared so much about. She grabbed a pair of stemmed glasses and set off for one of the rooms off the hall.

Jamie looked at Mercy for help. She didn't know what to do. Her instinct was to run, though a stay in a super expensive spa sounded nice... Free wine was a perk.

"Just through here, make yourselves comfortable and I'll go tell the staff to tell the police it was a false alarm." Dinah said, sounding in no way like a threat though that's exactly what it was.

"S-She's NOT!?" Mercy said as Jamie looked at her. She looked at Dinah and lifted up her glasses, squinted and let them fall back down onto her nose as if she could figure out who the woman was somehow.

"Now. That's not who I'm looking for wt all." Mercy said in a huffy voices as she crossed her arms. "I'm not looking for anyone!" She threw her hands up. This was becoming very complicated.

Mercy shook her head at Dinah's words. "Stressed!?" She clenched her fists in indignation. This woman did not know what stress was. But Dinah's direct commanding, yet subtly pleasant tone caused Mercy to become flabbergasted. "but I..." She let out a hot breath of anxiousness. "That.. sounds.. but..." She couldn't argue against a stiff drink for sure but her eyes darted towards the file cabinet. She stuck her hand out to paw in its direction but shrunk as Dinah stood up. "I just want my..."

She caught Jamie's eye as Dinah slid coolly past them, bottle and glasses in hand. The paralegal slid herself over to Jamie and leaned against her shoulder. "Just... be cool..." She whispered. "We'll settle things later. I guess... we should see what her deal is all about for now. I certainly need a drink after dealing with you all day!" She pulled away from Jamie and let out a deep sigh. Maybe this was the beginning of a new bit of good fortune? She hoped so. The thing about the police also made her do as Dinah commanded as she shuffled out of the office and after the bigger woman.

When she got into the room and was told to relax, she pulled at the edges of her suit coat and eyed Jamie. "How could I ever relax around you!" She said in a snippy tone. "What is going on here! She demanded. "What is this place?! Why would you put my contract here?! Why isn't the owner around and who is that big woman!? You're up to something! Spill the beans!" She said waggling a finger at Jamie despite still speaking in a hushed tones.

"Okay..." Said Jamie. "Okay. Okay... Okay." She wrung her hands nervously. She spoke in hushed tones, as though someone might overhear.

"So there's this chick, the one who owns this place, that I do things for sometimes. She pays me, mostly with food, and she's a wrestler too like everyone else, in AFW, a-and, and, when I got your stuff I brought it to her to see if she would give me anything for the contract, 'cause she's into that sort of thing, ya know, other people's stuff, and... Well, I kinda sold it to her, okay? And I thought maybe if I brought you to her too, that'd be worth something, because you're a lawyer and she likes stuff and... I dunno. I dunno! But she's not here, and I don't like the looks of this chick? What was her name?"

Jamie's eyes darted nervously around the room. Everything in it was exquisitely earthy, with lots of stone work. From somewhere there was the sound of a gently whistling breeze through little specially carved vents in the tops of the walls, and trickling water could be heard that ran in little canals around the walls in a sprawling pattern. The water ran down in four little rivers, one per wall of the room, and across the floor in channels too narrow to step in. It gathered in the center.

There were three chairs in the room, made from a combination of carved stone and hardwood, upholstered with handwoven cushions, each with a basin at the feet. Jamie took it all in and suddenly felt oddly like she was somewhere else, like on top of a tranquil mountain in Tibet or something, but with really luxurious furniture. She breathed deeply and the air smelled completely different than it did outside.

"Whoa. Weird." She shook her head. "Anyway, I don't have any idea where she would've put your thing. I assumed it'd be in the desk or something, because that's where you people put things. Why don't you just run over there and check before she gets back?"

Almost as if on cue, Dinah reappeared in the doorway. She smiled at the pair and closed the door behind her, taking a moment to lock it with a key from her pocket while she juggled the bottle and glasses in her other hand. "You haven't a thing to worry about, I've told them that you're no danger to anything here." She said, and put down the two glasses on a small table in between two of the chairs. She filled each glass and then kept the bottle for herself.

"Drink up. While you do you can tell me about how you know Sarah. I wouldn't want such expensive wine to go to waste without interesting conversation, eh?" Dinah said, and removed her black wool coat. Underneath she wore expensive-looking gray pants and an even more expensive looking white shirt with buttons down the front and no sleeves, showing her muscular shoulders. The snug fit of each article plainly showed her figure, with plenty of intimidating muscle and bold curves. Jamie couldn't help but notice the size of her breasts and wondered if they could possibly be real.

"Um..." Jamie said. She was usually quick with a story, but she looked to Mercy again for help. She didn't want to tell Dinah the truth, that they intended to steal from the owner and had no business being in here. She was afraid that they'd both end up in jail after all, and they'd have to share a cell and it'd be absolutely awful. "We, uh..."

Dinah took a swig from the bottle without taking her eyes off of them and folded her arms impatiently.

Mercy listened carefully to Jamie's explanation as she decided to finally be sensible for once in this whole ordeal. Her face twitched as Jamie said what she did with her contract. She... wasn't some slave! She couldn't be bought or sold like that! Despite the fact that in the legal profession, good lawyers, and good paralegals, were sought after and sometimes being in the legal profession FELT like slavery, Mercy wanted nothing to do with Jamie and her apparently sick and twisted circle of associates. Mercy had been around her previous employer, Margaret Sinclair and by association HER employer Lukretia Von Creuzfeldt long enough to know what a pack of depraved freaks were capable. Thankfully she hadn't been set upon like most of the others who had ventured into that den of iniquity but that was probably only because she had only been in Japan a short time. On a long enough timeline, the probably was almost certainly 100%.

"You have no authority to sell that contract!" Mercy said, going back into lawyer mode. It was her fall back first and foremost. Her tone was just as nervous as Jamie's though. "I don't know who this woman is!" Mercy said in a hushed tone. "This is your house of freaks, not mine!"

Mercy let out a sigh and adjusted her glasses. In the silence, she gazed around the room. It was very unique. She'd never really seen a spa like it, but then again, she'd not been to MANY spas in her time. Ms. Sinclair visited them but Mercy was not fortunate enough to be granted those perks yet. Someday. Someday she'd be able to walk into a place like this and they'd say "Right this way, Ms. Wrenn. As our valued guest, you will of course receive preferential treatment." Mercy smiled a little at the thought and sighed. She knew of luxury because of who she associated with, but she never got used to it. It still dangled in front of her like a carrot waiting to be seized.

Mercy was snapped out of her daze by Jamie. She furrowed her brow. "You do it! This is all your fault it's even here!" She whispered. But before the matter could be decided, Dinah came back in. Mercy's head snapped back and looked at the muscular woman. She glanced at Jamie. She looked a little thicker than Mercy, bigger thighs, fatter ass, broader shoulders. But she was shorter than her by a little bit. Mercy was skinny as a rail and hardly intimidating. The two of them probably couldn't take this hulking woman even if they had the element of surprise and Jamie cheated which Mercy assumed she would. Then, this woman locked the door on them and Mercy shuffled over to Jamie. She eyed her and then looked at Dinah, hoping Jamie knew that their only hope of escape was to stick together.

Mercy wasn't encouraged by Dinah's words, even if they no longer had to worry about the police, which Mercy felt they did not anyway. Mercy shuffled over tot he glasses and hunched over, eying Dinah the whole time she grabbed the glasses before quickly retreating backwards to Jami and shoving a glass at her. Mercy lifted up her own glass and practically drank it in one glug. She let out a heavy sigh after she was finished and licked her lips. It... was pretty darn good wine! She was by no means a connoisseur but she wasn't ignorant of what good wine was either.

"I don't... know who this Sarah girl is!" Mercy blurted out. Her eyes darted around the room. "I don't.. know anything about what's going on! Who are YOU!? Why ... why shouldn't we call the police on YOU!?" She tried her best to go into Lawyer mode, but her voice was quite nervous. With her coat removed, Dinah was even more intimidating.

"I just... want my contract back..." Mercy muttered in a defeated tone as she slouched over.

Dinah's smile became a sneer as she watched the two pathetic little girls cower in front of her. She didn't seem interested at all that Mercy didn't know Sarah.

She turned her eyes to Jamie. "What about you, runt? Don't tell me the two of you really do have no business being here."

Jamie kept looking around to find a way out, but again the only viable option was the door. It was the second time in an hour that she'd found herself locked in a room by a crazy person. "I, uh..." She stammered. "I don't know a Sarah, but I know the owner of this place, her name is Allison, and, um, she's my boss. I was coming to pick up something that she has for me in her office." It was a little true.

Dinah laughed. "Allison? God, what a fuckin' laugh. Allison is her middle name. The owner of this place is Sarah Allison Watson, my sister-in-law. I'd quite like to speak with her. If you're her employee, could you just give her a ring and ask her to drop by?"

Again, Jamie wrung her hands nervously. She looked at Mercy. "She has a phone! I don't! But... I don't have her phone number or anything." She stopped trying to explain herself and looked at Dinah fearfully. "What exactly are you doing?" She asked.

"Settle down, little mouse, you're quite alright with me. It's Sarah you should be worried about. All I'm trying to do is contact my dear sister."

"Oh yeah? Then how come you locked the door?"

Dinah smiled. "What? I didn't lock the door. Why on earth would I do such a thing?"

Jamie bounded to the door and pounced on the handle. It was locked. Dinah laughed hilariously. "Oh, now I remember. I did lock the door." She took another drink of wine. "Let me make this easy. You're either worth something to Sarah and you can help me find her, or you're not, and in that case you're of no use to me, either."

Another drink of wine. "But I suppose you can't help me with that, can you? That's a shame. Forget Sarah. It's been terribly boring waiting here for little Ms Watson to show her face. Let's liven things up a bit, yeah? Are you aware that Sarah fancies herself some sort of a wrestler? Quite ridiculous. I fancy myself something of a fighter, and I assure you it's not ridiculous at all. I love fighting. You can always tell who's the better woman after a fight, d'you know what I mean? It sorts people out."

She sat down in one of the chairs. "Who do you two think would win in a fight, eh? That's an interesting question. Tell you what, you can either fight each other here, right now, and the winner goes free, or you can fight me. Show me what you're made of, yeah?"

Jamie's heart sank into her stomach. What was this sociopath planning to do? She looked at Mercy and quickly sized her up as though she might fight her, and then turned her back on Dinah. She had to think. One of them had to, and all Mercy could do was think of very official sounding ways to complain. She stood shoulder to shoulder with Mercy and held up a hand as if she had a question, but she couldn't think of a way to summarize her confusion with this situation.

Mercy watched in quiet horror as things began to unfold before her. People had kept speaking of use and desire. Locked doors, fighting. This was madness! This was uncontrolled madness! Mercy was a creature of habit. She liked control, not chaos. when things did not go smoothly, her world shattered into a million pieces. Right now, she wondered if anything would ever go right again.

"I hate Japan!" She declared once she got a moment to speak. She was on the verge of hyperventilating but she tried to calm herself down. This was a spa. This was a place of relaxation. She fidgeted with her glasses as she tried to assess the situation. Come on, Mercy. You're better than this. You're better and smarter than these cretins! They don't hold a candle to your paralegal skills! Think of it like a tough case. You've been in these situations before. The problem here is no one is giving you a chance to figure out the solution to this problem.

After thinking it over, Mercy calmed herself down and looked over at Jamie. She then looked to Dinah, who seemed to be crazier than Jamie. She really MIGHT get raped by this hulking woman. She bit her lip at the thought.

"Certainly I would win in a fight." Mercy said boldly as she adjusted her glasses. "Without her fancy tricks, she's just a wimpy girly girl and I've been studying up on this... competitive grappling and pugilism you speak of. I think that in a proper setting I would be able to be victorious." She was still shaking, of course but looked at Dinah. "T-That's neither here nor there though. If you're going to have us fight here, then she'll use any dirty trick int he book! I'll stand no chance!"

Mercy leaned in and began to whisper in Jamie's ear. "Just follow my lead and we'll be out of here in no time."

"This ... Sarah... you speak of is currently in possession of my wrestling contract. If you truly wish to see who is the better competitor of the two of us, then all it requires is returning my contract to me. Then it can be settled properly in a ring." Mercy had no intention of setting up the match. She'd learned enough from Jamie about getting what she wanted and blowing off Dinah. "So... I guess, if you know this Sarah woman's number, I would be willing to call her and summon her here. You can do... whatever you want with her... I get my contract, Jamie gets her Batman and you can watch us fight each other in the squared circle. Everyone wins!"

Mercy beamed brightly and looked at Jamie nodding to get her to nod along and agree with her and her amazingly brilliant plan that had no chance of failure whatsoever.

Dinah was following along, disinterested, and was in mid-yawn when she thought she heard something about Batman. She wondered if she imagined it. Had she been so bored that she started daydreaming about Batman?

Once Mercy had finished, she burst out into boisterous laughter that was just a little too much to be completely genuine. "What would make you think your silly wrestling match would be worth five seconds of my time? You silly chav. Believe me when I tell you, I don't care about either of you two runts." She sauntered up to Mercy and stood just in front of her.

With a condescending sneer, she said "I don't know what contract you mean, or who you are, or what Batman has to do with anything, and I don't care. You're here. Probably no one even knows you're here. Sarah clearly does not." She placed a hand on Mercy's shoulder. "Be a good sport and don't cry about it, yeah? You're not going home today young lady."

Her powerful hand suddenly snapped to the back of Mercy's head and threw her sideways to smash her head into Jamie's face, which sent Jamie reeling and clutching at her face, and then she pulled Mercy's head down to bend her over and clubbed her viciously over the back with the wine bottle.

"Ahh! Owwwww!" Jamie cried, holding her nose. She couldn't see, and the pain made tears spring to her eyes. Drops of blood fell onto her shirt, similar to the wine that spilled over Mercy's jacket. Dinah took one last drink from the bottle and whipped it at Jamie, bouncing it off of her ribs and drawing another pained scream from the girl who shrunk away and tried to cover herself with her arms as best the could.

Dinah turned to leave, and in the process kicked her foot against something on the floor. She looked down and had to laugh at the little plastic Batman on the floor. She lifted up a foot and stomped on it, breaking it beyond repair. Jamie cringed again.

Without looking back, she pulled the key from her pocket. "I'll be back for you lot when it suits me. Useless though, so make yourselves comfortable, yeah? Relax. Enjoy a massage." She unlocked the door and stepped swiftly through it, closing and locking it behind her.

Jamie sunk to the floor and began to cry openly.

Mercy cringed at Dinah as she approached her, shrinking down as her shoulders rolled forward defensively. "But I... You said..." She tried to plead. This was exactly the reason why she was going to be a professional lawyer. In a court of law, this woman could be a hundred million feet tall and weigh a gazillion pounds and threaten her all day long, the roles would be reversed and SHE would be the one cowering before Mercy, afraid because Mercy's skilled tongue and knowledge of law held the key to her imprisonment. But now, in the real world that was far from the courtroom, she was a weakling who Dinah was bullying expertly.

"I'll sue!" She yipped. "I'll call the po-" She was roughly grabbed and let out a yelp as she was used to headbutt Jamie. "Ughh!' She was dazed but took less of the brunt of the impact than Jamie's nose thankfully. Unfortunately, the next thing she felt was her body being pushed down and the audible clunk of her head being smacked with a glass bottle. She dropped tot he floor in a heap and was unconscious while the rest of the scene unfolded.

She woke up about a minute later to Jamie's sobs and groggily looked at her. "Uhhhhh..." She scrunched and looked first at the fallen Batman. She found herself whispering a hushed and brief eulogy for the fallen hero before turning and looking at Jamie. "Hey..." She muttered as she winced and rubbed the back of her head. "owww..." She pulled her hand away and it was thick with blood.

"WHAT THE CRAP!" She said and crawled over to Jamie. She grabbed her by the shirt collar and looked at her. "I blame you for this! Everything you touch turns to crazy!" She then panted and slumped against Jamie. "Sorry... ugh.... Are we really stuck in here?" She asked, her tone sounding desperate and a little melancholic but not hysterical. "I can't ... be in here... with you..."

She said and flopped onto her back, her arms outstretched as she looked around. "I hate... Japan... she said as she curled up into a Mercyball and tried to fight back tears.

Mercy's verbal abuse only made Jamie wail and sob louder. She didn't care at all that Mercy was right there, watching her cry her eyes out. She felt like she'd lost everything all at once. She was in agony.

"SHUT UP!" She screamed. "I can't... I...Oh, god..." Sniff. "I-I don't like..." She struggled to talk through her constricted throat, but was overwhelmed by another round of sobs. "I can't be locked up like this! I just can't!" She cried pitifully. It wasn't that she was claustrophobic, she dealt with tight spaces all the time, but she absolutely could not deal with being locked up somewhere. It felt like death. Her freedom, her ability to run away from trouble is what kept her going. Now, shut in for the second time in a day, she felt like all she could do was wait to die.

"And... and..." She looked over at her broken Batman. It was so stupid, she felt like such a little kid, but what was she going to do at night now? If she ever saw another night outside. It was too much to deal with, and she only pressed her forehead against the floor and tried to quiet her sobs.

The sound of the running water and the air, the feel of the almost imperceptible breeze that seemed to pass through the place, did help calm Jamie once she was quiet enough to hear it. She stuck her fingers in one of the little water grooves in the floor and got her finger tips wet. The water was cold. She stopped crying and just splashed her fingers in the water while she began to think things over.

She reached over and put a hand on Mercy's back and gave her a shake. "Hey." She said quietly. "What are we gonna do? Huh? We could break that bottle and get some glass and stab the next person who walks through that door and run for it. That still might not work though. How old are you?" Jamie was perfectly serious about the stabbing, but it suddenly occurred to her that she had no idea how old Mercy was. It seemed important in the moment.

"Well, you have your phone, right? Can't you call someone? Like... someone?" She asked, while straining her ears to listen for noise on the other side of the door.

Felling the wetness on her back, and the sudden words of Jamie made Mercy flop over and look at the girl. "I'd prefer to commit as few crimes as possible while we're here." She said dryly before adjusting her glasses. "I'm twenty-three. I already know you're eighteen so ... well that's what you put in the records, I assume you're probably lying about that too." She let out a huff and sat up. She pushed her finger in the water lines too and looked at the drops that fell off her finger.

"Yeah, I still have my phone." She said and reached for her coat only to see it was missing. She crawled over to it and reached out for her jacket and fished through it. She noticed the Batman laying before her and scooped up the pieces. She crawled back to Jamie and set them before her and lowered her head. "I'm sorry." She said as she lowered her head for a moment. "Who am I going to call? The police? Any of my other contacts probably want nothing to do with me..."

She then let out a sigh and scrutinized Jamie for a moment. "Who is this Sarah Allison woman anyway? Isn't there a way to get a hold of her?" She then let out a huff. "Though from what I gather, the devil we do know may be better than the devil we don't at this juncture. I'm certainly not looking to see how fate's twisted sense of humor could put us in a worse predicament." She looked around and let out a flabbergasted sigh. "How are we even supposed to get massages around here with no one to do them for us?!"