Chaah with a Pander on it!

“Uhm…I had enough fun, but…well I like tension better.” Ro said, “Sheâ€s very serious.”

When asked about Clyde, John had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. But when asked about Heather, everyone shifted awkwardly a bit. “Only I know Clyde, and Iâ€ve only met Heather once.” Ro chuckled, then looked to Amanda, “I, uh,…met Heather once out of the ring and once in. And….haha yeah I knew Heather, Iâ€ll leave it at that.” Finally, all eyes turned to Amanda. Amanda, though, didnâ€t waste time with euphemisms. “I lost track of how many times I smothered Heather.” She said, not taking her eyes off of her food. She acted like she was talking about a mundane and boring subject, while Ro and John broke into barley suppressed snorts and chuckles.

“Enough Heather, no Heather right now.” John said, still chuckling, but sensing the conversation was getting a bit negative. When Cassie brought up Dark Angel, everyone got quite. “Youâ€re gonna get her, though.” John spoke up, putting his food down for a second. “I still donâ€t fucking understand this, Iâ€ve seen it on the television, itâ€s just insane. I mean…if you donâ€t wana talk about it, itâ€s fine, but what the fuck does she got against you?”

Cassie's eyes got huge and her mouth shrank, but Taylor didn't hold back. She burst out in a fit of hilarious, infectious laughter. Her crowing quickly disappeared when she caught Cassie's eye, and took John's prompting to change the subject. She settled down and suppressed her grin while a low rolling giggle escaped her.

Her smile vanished entirely when Cassie spoke. Her intense blue eyes flashed at John and she shook her head to tell him as clearly as possible: drop it.

Cassie breathed a tiny little laugh and forced an insincere smile. "I'm sure she has her reasons." She stared down at her food, but didn't want to eat anything. "We were friends for a little bit. She did some bad things, and..." She shook her head. "I don't really want to talk about it, if that's okay."

Taylor reached out and put her arm around her and pulled her in tight. "It's okay, Bear. It'll be over soon," she said quietly, like she was only talking to Cassie. "Eggplant?" She held a piece in her chopsticks up to Cassie's mouth, and after a brief hesitation, Cassie bit it.

Taylor gave Cassie's arm a little rub and looked back up at the rest. "So what's your deal, Thunder Ryoko?" She said to Amanda. "What do you do when you're not sitting on ol' Donut's face?"

Amanda and Ro both chuckled with Taylor, but after Taylor began to quiet down, they also quitted down as well. But, of course, everyone fell silent as Cassie began to talk.

John quickly nodded back, very slightly. In fact, it was almost unnoticeable, but if Taylor was watching for it sheâ€d probably see it. He got the message, he wasnâ€t going to ask any more about it. It only took a quick glance from John to Ro and Amanda, after clearing his throat slightly, for them to get the message. At least for them to know that heâ€d explain latter, anyway. All of them listened to Cassie as she spoke, but nodded when she said she didnâ€t want to talk about it. “Perfectly understandable, Cass.” John said. Fortunately, Taylor offered a subject change.

“Me? Well…you know, I do a lot of sitting.” Amanda chuckled, laughing at the reference. “I donâ€t know, uhmmm…I hang out with those two, I sorta…well I used to work, actually, at the Communist Party building downtown…but we had differences, Iâ€m much more of a socialist.” Amanda looked around a bit, she was sure she was going to get questions on that, “Well, anyway itâ€s all political stuff. Uhhhmmm…Johnny taught me how to shoot, I LOVE that, I like to go to the range he works at. Even competed!” John chuckled, “And you did pretty well for your first time out.” John said with a chuckle. “Your being nice…” Amanda smiled, then narrowed her eyes. “Well…only a little…” he said with a nervous chuckle.

Taylor looked at Amanda with a mixture of concern and confusion, but Cassie just nodded. "Oh, okay." She scratched her head and combed her short red hair with her fingers. "So you're really political, eh? I think I had an uncle who liked guns. I dunno. I've never even touched one."

"But you're a wrestler, though, right?" Taylor asked, just to be sure. If she came from the same gym as everyone else, she assumed she would be. Why else would she be halfway around the world where she doesn't speak the language? She quickly ate another helping of chicken and vegetables while Cassie cautiously chewed her yakitori.

"Okay, so," Taylor stretched her arms out in front. "I'm going to lay down for a minute, than I'm going to put in a workout, unless you guys have other plans."

“Hey, if you two wana learn I work at a rifle and pistol range a little bit outside the city. You can use one of my guns, Iâ€d give you the lessons free. Youâ€d just have to buy ammo, thatâ€s like 20% of what youâ€d normally pay.” John didnâ€t realize that the idea of learning how to fire a gun might be intimidating, heâ€d been around guns for almost a third of his life, certainly for his entire adult life, and he actually DID compete. In fact, were they to ask him about it theyâ€d probably find he was quite a bit moderate left in terms his views of gun control (by American standards), mostly because of how many accidents heâ€d seen over the years.

“Heheh, eh. Well, I guess Iâ€m political. Iâ€m like…the closest ideological leaning would be a revolutionary democratic socialist, I used to be like radically communist but Iâ€ve been really turned off to Leninist thought. Amanda continued to chew on her food, finishing it up as she spoke. She just assumed everyone knew what she was talking about. And yeah….yeah Iâ€m a wrestler, buuuut itâ€s not like Iâ€m huge here. Iâ€m sorta a back bencher, one must find something to do with ones time if you donâ€t get a lot of matches booked.” Ro chuckled a bit, “Thatâ€s because hentai wrestlers are a dime a dozen, Mandy.” Amanda thought about this, then responded decisively by giving Ro a kick. This only made Ro smirk.

“Ahhhh, sheâ€s got a point Mandy. Wrestling skill is becoming more and more important. Thereâ€s a reason only one hentai specialist entered the tournament. I havenâ€t even had a Hentai match.” John pointed out

All looked at Taylor as she said she was going to lie down. “Weeeel, I never got my work out this morning…”

John shook his head a bit, “I did, and I had my practice for now, thanks by the way, Taylor.” He said wit a chuckle.

"Fffuck that!" Taylor screwed up her eyebrows at John and waved a finger at him with her other hand on her hip. "Guns are for pussies. Why would anyone waste their time learning how to do that when you could learn to do this?" She gestured to the gym around them, and then flopped onto her back on the mats.

"Oh, um..." Cassie said quietly. "I... guess I could learn." She had not the slightest bit of interest in learning to shoot. But it was something. She paid attention to the conversation between the other three and nodded along. "Well, that's... actually kind of true. I don't keep up with Tension at all, because I don't like all the... you know. But I'd be happy to help you train! If you wanted to learn stuff."

"You're welcome," Taylor said to the ceiling from her place spread eagled on the mat. "But I hope you don't call that practice. I think I got more of a workout from eating lunch. Why don't you leave the girls with me or something and you two can take a walk and junk?"

John frowned as Taylor said that firearms were for pussies. “Why canâ€t one learn both? Marksmanship is a skill like any other. I donâ€t go around shooting people, obviously. But I do take pride in my performance in competition.”

Amanda thought about Cassieâ€s offer then quirked her head, “Maaaaaybe, depends what you wana teach.” Amanda said, though she wasnâ€t particularly enthused. Hard work didnâ€t go well with Amandaâ€s personality. Then again, she didnâ€t wana be the only one not doing anything.

John then replied directly to Taylor, “For now, keep in mind I spent the morning exercising before those two showed up.” John said, gesturing to Amanda and Ro as he picked up his trash and went over to the rubbish bins, separating the trash as he was meant to. “Last thing I wana do is twist an ankle or something before going for that belt.” He chuckled, “Well all right, you can work on Amanda while weâ€re gone. Get her to work out instead of taunting us while we do. Wana go anywhere in particular, Cass?” John asked.

Taylor held her middle finger straight up in the air, and pillowed her head on her other hand and closed her eyes. "Dork."

"Oh, um... I guess if you don't... if you're not interested in wrestling, then there's not much I can teach you," Cassie said with a nervous laugh. It wasn't like she could teach her anything about hentai matches... "But... I'm probably the best at what I do in AFW. I've seen other people who are really good, but they use different styles that... a lot of them just want to hurt people. I just want to win matches. I see a lot of people holding onto a submission hold for a long time and it hurts, but the other girl never taps, and that's just bad technique. I..."

Having just put three of her last 4 opponents in the hospital with a submission hold, she really didn't think that was anything to brag about. But then, if she didn't take any price in what she did, why was she even there? Honestly, she wasn't even sure.

"What? Oh, I dunno. I don't really know Kyoto very well, so... wherever you want, I guess."

John smirked back and stuck back up his own middle finger.

“All right, weâ€ll exercise. Both of us.” Ro said, looking over to Amanda, who just giggled. “Fiiiine…”

“Eh, if the other person doesnâ€t know when to tap then theyâ€re the incompetent ones. Thatâ€s what I think, anyway. After all, if you just lose you can fight again another day. If you get your stupid ass hurt, then thatâ€s a bit harder.” It didnâ€t occur to John that the way shhe phrased that might have had an effect on Cassie, in fact he wasnâ€t terribly aware that she felt bad for injuring people. Heknew it had happened but didnâ€t think all that much on it. Anyway, it was very clear that who he placed the blame on in regards to people that refused to taps.

“Come on Cass, I know a nice park.” John said as he left with her. He didnt realize either.