Chaah with a Pander on it!

“Hehe…well, youâ€re missing out!” Amanda giggled, plopping a few into her mouth. Then she lowered one in front of Roâ€s mouth, leaning over Ro whilst still on her shoulders. Ro wordlessly opened her mouth and Amanda popped a blue Jelly Baby inside. Ro smiled and chewed on it happily. “And donâ€t forget to brush your teath!” Amanda giggled.

Meanwhile, John and Taylor weâ€re still figuring things out. “Uhm…no I donâ€t…actually wait, there were a bunch of people saying that there was only one girl there when I came back to the school a second time, did you come after Taylor?” John shook his head a bit, “Nope, I would have recognized you by now. I saw Taylor there, I remember her hair was cool, but no Cassie and me werenâ€t together….aaand Ro and Amanda trained there, but BEFORE I joined the Army so my guess is they were right before you.”

“So, hold on wait a second…all five of us trained in the same state, in the same city, in the same GYM as each other? You and Johnwere both together? Is AFW like…a Midtown magnet? Like, if you become a wrestler in Manhattan do you just end up here by magic?”

"Taylor's face is redder than Johnny and Ro's hair." Amanda helpfully pointed out

Cassie and Taylor both raised their eyebrows in surprise. Had they really all trained at the same gym, then separately all found their way here?

"Wow," said Cassie.

"I was here first," said Taylor. "Posers."

"I don't remember you from the gym. I... think I would've remembered if you were there." Cassie said to John.

Taylor looked up at Amanda. "If you think I can't reach you all the way up there, you clearly have no idea who I am." She rubbed the back of her neck with one hand, while her face continued to be warm and red. "Um..." She began to explain. "So like, John never mentioned me, right? I hope? I had... anger issues."

She glanced at Cassie. Her watchful green eyes were on her, but she stayed quiet and let her speak. She didn't give up any kind of reaction. "I may have been a liiiiiiittle fuckin' crazy, like, picking fights with two hundred pound guys because one of them, like, laughed at me when I fucked up. When I think about it now, I'm lucky I didn't really get my ass beat there. It doesn't matter how ready to go you are, a skinny, hundred and fifteen pound teenaged newbie probably looks like a noisy chihuahua to those guys."

She sighed, and then quickly added "But I'm way better now! Right? Like, I mean... Ro had a pretty freaking rough match with Johnny. My Johnny. Jun-Bug. And I know that they're cool and everything and that's the job, but... Part of me still wants to get fuckin' right up in your face and give you an ass kicking your friends back in New York won't even believe." She stared right at Ro for a moment with one finger up in the air. "But I haven't done that! I'm totally cool right now, and it's hard, but we're cool."

Taylor stopped and looked at Cassie who was suppressing and inscrutable little smile, and then blushed again and looked back at the floor. "Anyway..."

"You're such a good girl, Taylor," Cassie chimed in, in a cheerful, sing-song voice.

"Shaddap."

“Nothing is redder than our hair.”
“Nothing is redder than our hair.”

Ro and John both spoke in unison, looking towards Amanda with a slight scowl, before the conversation was allowed to continue. Amanda spoke up next, though she looked distracted and was absent mindedly playing with Roâ€s hair. “I know who you are. I looked you up. You donâ€t do hentai matches.” Amanda said, still paying attention to playing with her hair, responding to what Taylor had said about not knowing who she was.

John smiled a teeny bit as Taylor began to talk about her days in the wrestling gym. Yeah, the more he thought about it, the more he remembered how hot headed she was, “Yeaah…we actually had words a few times, but I definitely didnâ€t tell stories about you. I hope you donâ€t take this the wrong way, but I sorta forgot about you. Not that youâ€re not memorable, I just had a lot on my plate back then. But, uh…yeah, we had words. ‘Nuff said.”

Taylor continued to go on about how she was angry with Ro, and all three of the Trio exchanged glances. It was well that Taylor hadnâ€t tried to attack Ro, for the whole Trio would have jumped on Taylor. John shuffled his shoes-- his most obvious tell when he was nervous. Amanda looked up from what she was doing…as for Ro, she actually looked a little sad about what she heard. Her previously smiling and giddy face looked down now.

Thankfully, Cassie added some levity that made the whole group chuckle. Ro still needed to talk, though. “Look, uh, I hope we donâ€t have a problem, I donâ€t wana be..uh…well you know…” Amanda interrupted, ”Aggressive. Adversarial.” Ro nodded briskly, “Yeah! Adversarial, I donâ€t want us to be adversarial. I mean, like if you wana have a go in the ring, that sounds fun, but I was hoping weâ€d get along outside it.”

“Plus if you and Ro fight, weâ€ll never get lunch ordered.”

Taylor shook back her two pigtails and brushed her bangs out of her eyes. "Yeah, well... we don't have a problem. I do. This dude knows how this would've gone if we'd met a few years ago, but... things are different now."

Then it was Cassie's turn to be sad. Things definitely were different, and while they were changing for the better for Taylor, Cassie felt like her entire life was circling the drain. She hardly talked to her family anymore, and before she called them almost every day. She just couldn't face them to own up to all the things that had happened. She knew that her dad would just tell her to get on the first plane back to Canada if he had any idea what was going on with Dark Angel. With Talia. And the friends she had, she found herself pushing them away.

"A lot's changed, right?" Taylor remarked with a hint of a smile as she zippered off her thin black jacket and tossed it on her gym bag. She was left in a bright red racerback tanktop that clung tightly to her skin and fell just to her belly button, leaving a couple inches of bare skin around her midsection before her black spandex workout pants. The definition in her feminine muscular body, from her proud, squared shoulders to her rippling abs to her sleek, powerful thighs, was impressive, to say the least. In New York, she'd been a skinny teenaged girl with brightly colored hair and an attitude problem. Now she was fiercely athletic, an elite athlete at the top of her game. With an attitude problem.

"Bear, what do you want to eat? I kinda want to work up a sweat. Don't get me wrong!" She raised a hand up to Ro. "There's nothing I'd love than to get you in the ring right now, but I think maybe I'll get it out of my system the safe way. Do you guys want to go with Cassie to get food?"

She quickly perked up. "Ooh! Yakitori and takoyaki and rice and ramen!" Nothing could ever quite cheer Cassie up as consistently as good food.

"So like, whoever can workout with me if you want, or go with Bear so she doesn't get more food than she can carry. Oh, and take my card, okay? In the end pocket of my bag. I got this one."

“Yes, yes it has.” John said in response to Taylor as she took her jacket off. “Well, um, Iâ€m glad I guess…and one day, hopefully after we get to know each other better, Iâ€ll pop over to Friction. Youâ€d be a fun opponent.” Ro ONLY had fun with tough opponents. While it may not have been clear, it was a compliment.

Soon, Amanda had another outburst.

“OH MY GIDDY AUNT! FOOD ON A STICK, YUM YUM!” Amanda giggled, though she accidentally pulled hard on Roâ€s hair. Ro winced then finally gave up on this. Ro looke dup and glared. <Several choice Spanish curse words.> . Amanda giggled loudly, “Yo tambien te amoooooooo <<Love you toooooo.>>” Amanda giggled, also speaking in Spanish, though Amanda was clearly far more fluent. Amanda knew many languages, and John knew a few. Ro only knew High School Spanish, but Amanda and John kept her practiced. Mostly so they could insult people in Japan. Ro looked up the curses, naturally.

Ro bent down and let Amanda slide off. “I think, weâ€re going to lunch. Thanks Taylor,” Ro said, nodding slightly and smiling. “Yes! Your gracious offer fills us with….the gratitude.” Amanda said, being her usual ridiculous self.

John laughed loudly, still leaning back against the table. “Oh my word…Cassie, congratulations. Youâ€re going to have lunch with a mad woman. Ro, keep Amanda from eating Cassie.” John chuckled again.

“Will do, General John!” Ro chuckled, giving John a sloppy fake salute and making John roll his eyes. Amanda scooped up her bag, and took the Panda off the chair. She hugged the Panda close with one arm as she and Ro got on either side of Cassie. “Are we getting street food on a stick or a restaurant?” Amanda didnâ€t let Cassie answer, though. “You look like poo. Put real clothes on.” Ro didnâ€t respond, she just flipped Amanda off. Exercise clothes would do, Ro doesnâ€t give a shit.


While the two of them began to leave, John waived and then turned to Taylor. “I was supposed to be exercising anyway, not arm wrestling.” He chuckled. “So…it has been a while…”

"Okay... Neat." Cassie quietly watched which the girls carried on. She was sure everything would be okay.

"Hey, you guys get whatever you want, okay? Seriously."

"Kobe beef and lobster!"

"Go for it."

Cassie walked with her hands in her jacket pockets alongside the other girls toward the door, and with every step she took away from Taylor she became more afraid that something terrible would happen. She imagined that they two girls had seen her matches, and had seen the things that... had happened to her opponents, and that their opinions of her would be based on the horrible things she'd done. They'd think she was a monster. But she wasn't a monster!

"So..." She ventured to break the ice. "How long have you guys been in Japan?"

Taylor stretched her arms up over her head, tilting her hips to one side and then the other. Then she stretched her arms in front like a cat. "Yeah, man, long time. It's a'right, though... I don't really remember anything good about New York. I'm glad that's in the past, ya know, and I've got a really good thing going here."

She grabbed her ankles and stretched down, flattening her upper body against her legs, and then slid down into a split. She turned to one side and then the other to warm up her front splits and her side split. When she was done, she hopped nimbly back to her feet and grinned at John.

"Ready to do this? I wanna see what you got, now that we're all grown up." She put her hands on her hips and playfully cocked her hips to the side before taking off for the mats.

“Really? Thatâ€s a shame, itâ€s a very nice city. I loved growing up there.” John smiled a bit. It wasnâ€t exactly ideal in the early 90s, but wasnâ€t terrible and it had since become much nicer. John very much enjoyed visiting home whenever he could.

John watched as Taylor began to stretch, and John began to do the same. First he twisted his upper body clockwise, then counter clockwise, then stretched his back. John then bent all the way forward and stretched again. He let out a contented sigh, it felt good on his back to stretch out. After that, he lifted his left leg, bending it back and to the side and grabbed his foot with his arm, then he put it down and did the same with his right.

Once that was done, he shook himself out. “Heh…indeed, this should be quite the workout.” John said. Before he followed her, he inexplicably jumped and did a couple of jumping jacks, something he often did right before he began exercising. He followed her, stepping onto the mats and taking a stance.

"Ha. Indeed," Taylor said, trying to imitate John's deep voice.

She stepped onto the mats and took a deep breath. She shook out each leg and started bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet. The way she moved, quick and light on her feet, she looked nearly weightless. She began to settle down and square off with John, but then stepped away again.

"Well, the city is cool, I guess, but there's nothing there for me. My life is here now, and my family." She fell forward like a tree and caught herself on her hands, and silently counted off twenty pushups. When she was done, she kicked up into a handstand, walked a couple steps, and rolled back up to her feet.

"I hope I didn't, like, piss off that Ro chick or anything. She's just, like... a super hot chick that beat up my husband and now they hang out. Is that weird? Like... I dunno. I guess we're not normal people to begin with." She jumped up as high as she could several times and pulled her knees into her chest on every jump. She was able to jump high enough that she could likely jump onto her own shoulders without using her hands.

Finally she came back to John, and settled in. She stayed light on her feet, circling one way and the other, using little movements so that John could never predict what she was about to do. She was loose, relaxed, and though she didn't waste much energy she never stopped moving.

"A'right, bring it," she grinned.

John watched as Taylor fell, not sure what was happening until she began pushups. John grinned a bit, it wasnâ€t a bad warm up. Heâ€d already done some warmed up before he got distracted, so he watched for a while. After a moment or two, he got bored and did a few squats, but that was really it. “Ro isnâ€t easily offended, but I got the feeling she doesnâ€t want the wife of her new buddy mad at her. I think she was just worried.”

Johnâ€s eyes followed her completely as she jumped up and down, before she finally landed on the matt, telling him to bring it. “Very well.” He said with a slight smile.

John carefully followed Taylor with his eyes, before he finally made a move, venturing to make a bold start and came in to go at Taylor. He quickly charged in and tried to get one arm up on her right arm and the other on her left collar, while at the same time spinning his body towards the right to try and toss her. Sheâ€d probably counter, but he was sort of testing her out just as he suspected she was too.

Taylor stood her ground as John came in, and as he reached for her arm she envisioned throwing a left hook to counter, or jumping high with a right knee, ducking under and circling to his blind side before he knew what had happened. She felt the potential for each motion in her body, where the power would come from, the timing of them. Instead, John seized her arm and flung her head over heels onto the mat where she landed with a slap.

"Wheee!" She laughed, and hopped up to her feet with a smooth kip-up. "Nice. You're a strong dude! What else ya got, come on. You show me yours and I'll show you mine." She winked and cocked her hips to the side for a moment, and then settled right back down into a stance.

Part of her wanted to maul John. She'd pull her strikes, of course, but she just wanted to take him to school and show him what she could do now that she wasn't skinny little Taylor Sparks, and talk trash to him and point out his shortcomings while she was doing it. The more grown-up part of her, though, told her to be cool and relax and have fun. Sometimes it was hard.

"I don't think I'm as much fun as I used to be," she said with a thoughtful frown while she circled easily to one side.