Chaah with a Pander on it!

“Ha ha ha ha…thunder thighs, I like that one haha.” John laughed as he managed to get in a really nice hold, having managed to successfully flip her over and get his legs wrapped around her neck.

John squeezed, just enough to make her uncomfortable. “If I go hard Iâ€ll make you tap.” He said with a smirk…but, Taylor had another trick up her sleave, one John wouldnâ€t expect. John had been shot (barley) and heâ€d had shrapnel and crap from an IED cut him up, he knew how to take pain…but this evil, unwarranted, and malevolent torture was something worse. John tried to keep his lips tight as he felt fingertips lightly feathering his feet. His toes clenched, and a small chuckle escaped. Then another.

“Fuck…heh…knock it off…heh heh.” John chuckled some more, his feet squirming. It didnâ€t help that it was just plain funny, which made him want to laugh even more. He REALLY didnâ€t want to let the hold go, he squeezed harder. He still wasnâ€t going at full match strength, but he hoped reminding her how tight the hold was locked in might make her let go…or else, he was probably going to have to get away before he laughed really loud and embarrassed himself.

He was ticklish.

But it wasn't working.

"Rrrrrgh, fuck off!" She growled. She grabbed hold of his two smallest toes on one foot like she was going to bend them back and break them off. "Fuck you and you're feet!" She bucked harder, and shoved as hard as she could at his legs, trying again to pry herself free and fueled by the indignation of being caught in a hold, and of having stooped to tickling the man.

The tickling stopped, he was really glad that she hadnâ€t kept that up, he may have let go. But now she had his toes. “STAAAAAHHHHHP!” John very nearly quacked out in a quirky, nasally voice, though he knew she could have gotten him into some kind of toe hold if she wanted. “Just tap,” Johnâ€s voice returned to normal, evidentially done doing stupid noises. “Iâ€m quite content to stay here all day,” John said as he kept his hold locked in, no longer distracted by tickling and, in fact, able to get the hold as well as when he started…providing she didnâ€t bend. He had to admit, that would hurt a lot even if she didnâ€t do it all the way.

Taylor's face twisted into a comically deep scowl. "Alright," she said, and narrowed her eyes. "Fine."

She wedged her hands under John's legs and braced herself for the long haul. There was no way she was going to tap to that. Eventually he'd get bored or something. Or maybe the food would come, then it'd be a matter of who was hungrier.

Taylor was pretty hungry, but she could wait. For a long, long time.


Cassie strolled along beside the two girls with her hands in her pockets. She had been mostly quiet, so far. She didn't have the heart to dive into conversation, but she felt bad not saying anything. She gave it a try.

"So... you guys know John from the gym?" She asked casually. "And Taylor too? And you all came over here? All five of us did. That's pretty weird, eh?"

“…seriously? Fine!” John said back, settling in a swell. Fuck food.

------------------------

“Yeah it is weird….well we didnâ€t meet Taylor, but it was the same gym.” Ro said as she continued to walk down the street, though at this point she was just following Amanda. Amanda supposedly knew where they were going.

“We always knew John…like we met him when we were so young, I donâ€t remember not knowing John….heh, I donâ€t remember not knowing Ro either.” Amanda laughed a bit, as she often did, and continued rushing ahead. Amandaâ€s movements were childish, as was the propeller cap that she was wearing. This was all very deceptive. She may act like a child, but she had a deviously adult intelligence. She was absolutely the deceitful heel of the group. She wasnâ€t evil, but she wasnâ€t good. She was like a mischievous imp.

“Yeeeaaaah…heâ€s older than us, but weâ€ve all been friends since we were like….fuck, I donâ€t even know, was it before middle school?” Ro asked quickly. Amanda just shrugged. None of them knew, their parents knew each other so that meant they had to be friends, obviously.

“HEY! Wait, hold on, I read that your meant to be Canadian. Howâ€d you end up at that gym?”

"Oh, ummm..." Cassie looked in the windows of a shop as they passed, with assorted neatly-shaped and brightly colored confections prominently displayed. "Well my dad runs a jujitsu school in London. Canada, that is, in Ontario. I grew up in the gym there, and I started learning it when I was three... And I was young for my grade in school, and I graduated high school a year early. My oldest brother Nicky was moving to New York to open another school..."

She paused. It seemed so long ago and so far away. She hadn't actually been with Nick in the flesh since the one time she visited home over a year ago. She missed them so much, but she missed the way things were before more. She knew they weren't the same now, thanks to her.

"Well, I convinced my mom and dad to let me go with him and help, and I promised to take college courses too while I was there. But really I wanted to join a wrestling gym, and I knew that I could do that in New York. It... It was sort of my dream. I know it's stupid, because I'm so small, but... I've had a lot of success with my submissions. Most people are really bad at it, so it's not hard to get them, but it's been hard getting used to being beat up."

She glanced over at Ro with wide eyes. "And you beat Johnny?" She said, with a combination of awe and disappointment. "Johnny's my favorite, and I guess you know that he's married to Taylor. You must be really good."

“Wait, wait, are you British or Canadian? Ro began to ask, but Amanda interrupted her. “London is in Ontario, stoopit.” Ro just rolled her eyes as they walked along. They continued to listen as Cassie talked about her AFW experiences. Ro decided to comment, just as all of them turned a corner together. “You learn to take hits as you go…but uh…that only helps for the physical hits, if you know what I mean.” Clearly, Ro had seen at least some of Cassieâ€s matches. If Amanda had, she choose not to say anything. “Friends help with the other blows.” Ro said, and left it at that…until Cassie brought up Johnny.

“Heh, yeah I beat him. Class A competitor, LOVED fighting him. Always like a guy who can take it up to 11 without being a fucking dick, but, well….I dunno if you saw the match, but Johnny made a sort of bad decision and knocked himself out. I think I had a great shot without that, but if he hadnâ€t hurt himself I canâ€t honestly say I know I would have won. He got some nice hits in.” Amanda giggled a bit, “I liked the part where he threw the steps at you.”

"Oh... right." She said. So really, Ro just got lucky. That made her feel a little better. "I really like Johnny. He's a really good guy." Then she was silent, but the look on her face indicated that she was thinking. She just couldn't let go of what Ro said.

"I have friends," she said. "I have really good friends. But... they get hurt too. And sometimes... Well, you can't just let your friends get hurt. Um..." Her voice wavered a little. She debated saying anything at all. "When I hurt Jocelyn in the summer, it was because... Talia, Dark Angel, she attacked Mamouru from behind. She was choking him, but I knew that if I tried to help, Jocelyn could grab me from behind. So... I made it so that she couldn't. When I fought Dark Angel again, I asked for the... ambulance match, or whatever they called it. I didn't want her to keep hurting my friends. Or me. But I never wanted to hurt her." She breathed a heavy, defeated sigh. "I never wanted to hurt anybody."

“I mean, donâ€t get me wrong, we went at it for…I donâ€t know how long, me and Johnny had a LONG fight. We were pretty even the whole time till near the end, I mean you saw it right? We were a great match. Hung out after, had a good time, weâ€ll probably fight again soon.” Ro smiled “Me too, Iâ€m glad we became buds. Though you must know him way better than me.”

Ro stopped, though, as Cassie spoke. Eventually Amanda realized and stopped too. They both turned to face Cassie. Ro shuffled her feet slightly, it was an awkward situation. She didnâ€t know anything about Cassie, beyond having watched her matches on the television. She had no idea what to say, and in some ways preferred to say nothing. Amanda, though, felt a pressure to say something, anything, to the distraught woman.

“Look, uh, I know it probably doesnâ€t mean much now, but you, well you know…” Normally, Amanda was the well-spoken person with something to say, she was more educated than Ro, but this time it was Ro who spoke and came to Amanda's rescue. “Someone was going after you and yours; you did what you had to do, not what you wanted to do.” Ro said simply, and Amanda nodded deeply. “And that makes you brave, do you know what? It does. Not because you hurt someone, but because you did what you had to do when you didnâ€t want to.” Ro then looked down towards Cassie, “Especially if you donâ€t feel brave.” Ro waited, a little nervously, for Cassieâ€s response ‘That was either cheesy and presumptuous or it was good…dam, think it was cheesy.†Ro thought to herself, but still tried to look reassuring. It was hard to talk like this to someone you only knew from the television.

Cassie just gave Ro a sad smile and shrugged. She wondered how much farther it was to food.

"Sorry," she said. She didn't really mean to spoil things, but she wasn't much fun these days.


From somewhere in the gym came a cheerful bing! Taylor's ears immediately pricked up, but she didn't say anything. She was focused on keeping tight so that John's scissor-hold didn't get to her, but not so tight that she'd wear herself out. She was in for the long haul, but poised and ready to explode free of the hold the moment John let his guard down. If John decided to actually squeeze and try to choke her out, she'd have to make something else happen. Until then...

Bing!

"Okay, so, that's my phone," she said. "It's in my gym bag. And that means that Johnny is texting me. I wanna go see." It was true, of course. That ringtone was just for Johnny's texts. She didn't feel bad at all about weaponizing her relationship with him.