Old Friends Make Great Fights

Cassie's escape had always been jujitsu. Before her work out, her mind was a cluttered mess. It seemed like her whole life was in disarray, and she was made very uneasy by chaos.

Her best friend and role model, her hero in wrestling had suddenly and unexpectedly quit. Then Taylor got married and she lost her roommate as well. She was happy for her, of course, but the changes were pushing her. She wasn't comfortable in her apartment. It was the first time she'd ever lived alone.

Her crushing and humiliating defeat at the hands of her former colleague, if you could call her that, Megumi Mutoh, and the circumstances around it, had floored her. She felt gutted after losing so badly, and so quickly, to someone that'd she'd always fought to prove was on the same level as her. She felt ridiculous, like she was wrong all along. The idols, Megumi, Chigusa, and Tomomi, had accepted her when she was managed by Drake, but they had never really accepted her. They were just too nice to tell her what they really thought. Maybe she was just being silly, but she always felt like she was second rate, sort of an unwelcome intruder.

She felt bad for thinking that, though. They were all so nice. They were her friends, of course, because what are friends, really? Didn't they qualify? They didn't hang out or anything, but they were on speaking terms, although she hadn't spoken to Megumi since the loss... or any of them. It was complicated.

Dark Angel didn't help matters. The masked girl was angry and violent and mean, but she wasn't skilled. Not like Cassie, she was sure of it, and yet she'd handed Cassie her most brutal loss. The match against Megumi was quick and painful. Dark Angel, though Cassie thought that she fought hard and nearly had her beat more than once, had given Cassie things to remember her by. Her arm still hurt, and every time it tweaked she thought of that mask. She had to fight her again.

But she had to put all of that out of her mind. During her training, her mind was clear. Grappling was for the empty mind, it was a meditative state, and she always found peace in it, but when it was over all the thoughts came back. For the time being, she had to forget about Angel and worry about her next match. She'd just got the call from Mamouru before her work out.

Tomomi.

She showered and got dressed in jeans and sparkly silver Uggs boots and a yellow t-shirt with a round, cartoon porcupine standing on it's hind legs with it's arms out offering a hug and the caption "HUG ME!". With her short orange hair still damp, she shouldered her gym bag and went off to the other end of the building. Eclipse had their own private training facility and dressing rooms. They brought in a lot of money for the company. If Tomomi was in the building, and she was sure she was, she knew where to find her.

She knocked on the door and waited.

Tomomi hadn't been wrestling a lot lately. With both her sempais in the spotlight over Avalanche and the surrounding preparations, settling various rivalries and taking part in highly anticipated matches, the junior member had been sidelined in the wrestling part of their careers. She wasn't idle though, as the responsibilities of being an idol group got shoved onto her. She became the main face of Eclipse for the past few months, taking part in many promotional events and solo performances, keeping the fans happy by being the face they associated with. Her popularity had soared during this time. But now her vacation from wrestling was over. She was brought back in, Drake having set up a few highly anticipated matches. One of those was against Cassie.

Tomomi knew Cassie decently well from her time at Starlight Productions. Even though the fiesty Canadian redhead hadn't been put on stage much, Tomomi still talked to her the most out of all the people there. The girl was kind to a fault, which surprised Tomomi considering how good she was at wrestling. Cassie could probably outmaneuver her any day with her fast and well-practiced grapples. She seemed too kind for proper wrestling though, where people got hurt.

Given what Cassie had been through since she left Drake's care, Tomomi wasn't too sure how she was going to take this fight. Megumi beat up Cassie with little mercy, and the girl hadn't talked to any members of Eclipse since. Tomomi wanted to see how she was doing, but it always felt awkward. And now she was going to fight her. The idol wondered if she could, and whether fighting her was the right thing to do considering how innocent she was.

All those thoughts swam through her mind as she sat in front of the big dressing mirror, looking slightly blankly at her reflection. Her cute face, framed by her short pink hair, gazed back, her big green eyes looking intently at her reflection. She couldn't make a decision. Things were moving so fast, and she wasn't sure if anything that was going on was right. Her popularity, and the return to wrestling; she wondered if it was all ok.

Suddenly she heard a knock at the door. "Coming!" Tomomi said. She quickly got up to put some more clothes on over her underwear. She pulled on a blue t-shirt, same color as most of her wrestling costume, and a pair of tight-fitting yoga pants. Slipping her feet into a pair of ballet flats, she made her way to the door and threw it open.

"Wha- Cassie!" Tomomi gasped, "What are you doing here?" She quickly took a look around to make sure she was alone, before ushering her inside.

Cassie was a little taken aback by just how shocked Tomomi was to see her. She wasn't quite sure how to feel about it. All the same, she stepped inside.

"Hi Tomomi." She said.

She milled awkwardly for a moment, unsure of whether she should stand still or sit down or... do something else or something. It was actually not weird to see Tomomi, but the impending conversation was inevitably going to be a little tricky.

She eventually strolled off into the middle of the room and fiddled with a couple things on Tomomi's table on the way. She stopped in front of a set of three floor length mirrors, angled so they all reflected the person standing in front of them. Normally, it would be an invitation to goofiness, but Cassie wasn't in a goofy mood.

She turned to face the idol and put on a smile. "How have you been?" She asked. "You're getting to be a pretty big star, er... bigger star, eh?"

Tomomi was really caught off guard by Cassie's sudden appearance, so much so that she was a little speechless. She was just thinking about Cassie, and yet suddenly she had nothing to say. The girl wandered inside and moved about awkwardly, while Tomomi quickly gathered her wits and went into hospitality mode.

"Ahh! What am I doing?" Tomomi said, "Cassie-san, please sit down! I'll bring you some refreshments." She quickly offered Cassie a seat on the couch while she went to the fridge to grab a few soft drinks, setting them on a small tray and bringing them over to the coffee table, setting it down in front of Cassie. She sat down next to the small girl. For a wrestler, Tomomi was already quite small. Cassie made her look big. She wondered what this girl was doing wrestling, and how she managed to get so good.

"Well, yeah I guess so," Tomomi said, smiling and blushing a little bit. Why was this so awkward? There wasn't anything bad between them, and they were only meeting in the ring for the first time. Maybe it was pre-match jitters? But the match was still a ways off.

"But not as much as you have Cassie-san!" Tomomi said, "You've been in a whole bunch of matches. I guess leaving was the right decision to make huh?" She immediately kicked herself for bringing that up.

Cassie smiled at Tomomi, and then her eyes wandered to the side and down as her mind went to her last two matches. Both of them she'd lost badly. She cringed inwardly at how patronizing Tomomi came off, though she was sure it wasn't intentional.

"I..." She hesitated. "I hope you didn't see those. Well, I'm sure you saw the match with Megumi, if you can call it that." She said with an ironic laugh. "Well... that's sort of what I wanted to talk to you about."

She stared down at the bottle and turned it over and over in her hands. She didn't look up at Tomomi as she spoke. "I know my last couple matches haven't gone my way." She said. "But... it's not because of Mamouru." She said, though that had nothing to do with what she really wanted to say. She started over.

"Are we friends?" She asked, and looked up at the pink haired idol. "Because... you know we're scheduled for a match, right?" With nothing else to do with her hands, she opened her bottle of orange something, but didn't drink.

Tomomi didn't understand why she was having trouble finding things to say now, or why the things she did say somehow came out so insensitively. She knew Cassie had been having a hard time, getting thrashed in both her matches after she left. Tomomi knew that Megumi disapproved greatly when Cassie went to Mamoru mainly because she didn't trust the guy one bit. And Tomomi had a bit of trouble trusting him as well. She wondered what Mamoru did to get Cassie to adamantly on his side. Even now she was defending him, when Tomomi thought Mamoru was the one in the wrong. Even this match was a mistake in her opinion.

"I know," Tomomi said, eyes looking down. "Look Cassie... I don't want to fight you. There are some people I fight because I don't like them, and some people who I'll fight for fun. You're neither." She reached her hand over and grabbed Cassie's palm tightly. "I want to be friends," Tomomi said, "And I don't want to see you hurt. Especially if it's because of me." Now that she told Cassie what was on her mind, Tomomi relaxed quite a bit. She wondered how Cassie would respond, hoping that it wouldn't be encouragement to fight.

"W-why not?" Cassie stuttered. Why didn't Tomomi want to fight her?

That much quickly became clear, though. Cassie found herself squeezing the bottle so that it nearly overflowed. Tomomi, like everyone else, Megumi, Chigusa, and Hitomi, thought that Cassie was just a little girl trying to play pro wrestler. No one took her seriously, and before she was serious, she didn't mind it as much, or maybe she didn't notice it. Now she was, though, she was determined to show everyone what she could do and people still didn't give her the slightest bit of respect.

Cassie knew Tomomi. She knew what she could do. She remembered all the times in the gym when she held her tongue and tried to be nice and not run down the list of all the things that were wrong with Tomomi's technique. It was one thing to be looked down on by someone better than you, it was entirely another to be looked down on by someone that if anything should be your student.

"Tomomi...." She said softly. "I want us to be friends too. I think... we are friends, sort of, but... I just need to tell you that I'm not going to go easy in our match. It's competition, right? It's not friendly, but it's respectful. I hope that you will respect me enough to do your best, because otherwise I will have you tapping out so fast it'll make my match against Megumi look like an epic battle."

She squirmed a little in her seat. She hated being at odds with people like this. She just wanted to be able to meet people in the ring and test herself against them, to put her heart and soul into every match and together with her opponent make something special. She just wanted some respect, as much as she'd earned, and that always seemed like too much to ask.

She glanced down at her shirt. The huggy, cartoon porcupine on the front probably didn't help her case, but she wasn't going to apologize for the things she liked. Someone could wear cute shirts and still be a dangerous opponent.

"I guess we'll find out soon, right?" She asked, without looking at Tomomi. "How much respect I actually deserve."

Tomomi frowned when Cassie made her declaration. She looked angry, crushing the bottle she held. Her voice was barely controlled. It frightened Tomomi to see Cassie suddenly so worked up. She wanted Cassie to be friendly and certainly didn't want to antagonize her. She didn't expect Cassie to have the confidence to speak up like that either. Though before she always thought Cassie was too oblivious, instead of unconfident. It seemed she really had changed.

Though Cassie got the reason Tomomi was hesitant totally wrong. "Hey, that's not what I mean," Tomomi said, "I know you're scary. We sparred, remember? You can totally kick my ass! What I mean is... you know we haven't been on the best of terms after you left. I only fight when there's something I don't like, or if I think it'll be fun. With the way things are, I'm not sure it'll be either. I certainly don't want things to go bad. And I can't imagine it being fun."

She sounded almost sad after she finished saying that. "So, I dunno," Tomomi said, looking down. "I respect you a lot Cassie, and I like you. But I don't want a reason to fight you!"

Cassie drew her lips over to one side and tipped her head forward so her bangs hung down in front of her face. "Well..." She said. "We really haven't been on any terms." She did miss those girls, Tomomi and Chigusa most of all. She hadn't really realized it until just then, sitting next to her.

She took a drink of her fizzy orange whatever and her face scrunched up for a second. "Heh... sour." She said quietly. She looked over at Tomomi. "Well, fighting can be fun. This sort of thing is new to me, though. Jujitsu competition is so much cleaner, and it isn't so rough. People don't get hurt like they do here. But this, I think it's more about not having limits and not being afraid. It's... really neat. I like it, like I haven't really liked something before. I want to do something big, you know. I don't want to just be the cute little sister, for the first time I want to be something, I want to see how far I can and what I'm really made of. I can fight, too, and in my last match against that girl, I guess I realized what it takes."

She reached over and grabbed Tomomi's hand and looked her in the eye. "That probably sounds really stupid, eh?" She laughed. "But... for something like that, ya know... maybe it'd be a good thing to be in it with a friend?"

She smiled so sweetly and so genuinely that it was almost hard to imagine that they were talking about fighting. "So maybe the reason can be to see what's really inside us. I can help you if you help me, and I'll do it by trying as hard as I can to win."

Tomomi raised her eyebrow when Cassie finished. She really was surprised at the girl's spirit. It seemed totally new, considering how Cassie was in between oblivious and scared before. Maybe the little bit of real world exposure really made her grow up. "It's not stupid," Tomomi said, "Fighting a friend is much better. Much more fun, since there isn't any pressure." She sat back in her seat, looking at Cassie curiously, like she was just meeting her for the first time. In a way, she was. This Cassie was much different from the one she remembered.

"If you put it that way, I've got no choice," Tomomi said with a smile, "I'll help you out Cassie-chan, by giving you the toughest fight of your life!" Hopefully they could find something inside of them that was worth fighting for, but Tomomi kept that to herself, not wanting Cassie to know her own misgivings about keeping her wrestling career.