China Syndrome

Jocelyn hadn't been in a very good mood lately. She rarely was but the last few days had been especially bad. After she had fled from Allison's spa, running away from the encounter with her fellow countrywoman Lan, Jocelyn got really drunk that evening. The next afternoon she woke up in a haze to a wrecked apartment. She couldn't even remember what had happened. She had spent the next few days cleaning her apartment and thinking about what was going on. She wanted to know who that girl was. Why Allison had brought her to her spa. She felt like she was in the middle of a conspiracy and it was driving her crazy.

When she had gotten too stir crazy for her own good, she made her way to the AFW facility. She put out a grueling work out. It felt good to sweat away a lot of the frustration that had been building. After a long, relaxing sit in the sauna, she cleansed herself with a nice shower.

She came out of the whole process feeling surprisingly good and rejuvenated. She was feeling a little hungry and thought she might stop at the cafeteria for a bite, not wanting to go out of her way or return home just yet. She was wearing a nice pair of jeans and a black T-shirt that had some white Chinese scrawled down one of her breasts. Unusual garb compared to what she usually wore, but she just didn't want to get too fancied up. Not when all she was doing was walking around the AFW complex.

Yi Lan was still troubled by what had happened at the spa. It had been almost a week since the incident with Allison, Violate, and her countrywoman Jocelyn, and she still wasnâ€t quite sure what to think about the whole event. At first, things had been so calm, so warm, so pleasant…and then, abruptly, things changed. The gun. The confrontation with Jocelyn. The words of Allison which seemed to have the sole purpose of stoking a conflict between the two Chinese girls. Lan didnâ€t know what to make of it. She had never done well in social situations, and now she had fallen right in the middle of something incredibly delicate. She didnâ€t know what to do, whether she should go back to the spa or try to find Jocelyn or apologize to someone or everyone or no one…

All she really wanted to do was run away.

She couldnâ€t even do that, though, because one thing that Allison said towards the end had stuck in her craw. The blonde Briton had said that she was certainly not a fighter. Lan knew what it looked like, to someone who saw her and saw the way she acted. She was a shut-in, a hermit, a skinny, quiet, smart girl who was an intellectual heavyweight but who couldnâ€t knock out a toddler in a fistfight. That was not true at all. She was smart, sure, but she could be a fighter if she wanted to.

That was why she was here, at AFW. She had watched a lot of the leagueâ€s matches before, read up on their hiring process, wondering if she could cut it there. Allisonâ€s vote of no confidence spurred her to do something daring—one of the most daring things she had ever done. Lan had talked with an AFW talent manager on the phone, and then she had come into the AFW facility to check it out. No one was available to give her a tour, but she was free to go wherever she liked, they told her.

And she had gotten lost. Lan could kick herself for being so stupid. She had been looking for the on-site cafeteria, but, for the life of her, she couldnâ€t find it. The halls were labyrinthine. She felt like she was running around in circles. Her face lost a little color as she froze at the intersection of two long hallways, wondering which way was the right way to go.

Jocelyn felt her tummy rumble as she was about to turn the corner of the intersection. She frowned. She was hungry but she wasn't sure if this place had what she was after. Then again, she had become used to cafeteria food thanks to her father. A consulate sure was a nice place to raise a daughter. 'Thanks pops She thought silently while she sneered. At least embassy food was fancy. What about this place? Sure, the people in charge were stupid rich but there were a lot of people around here that might very well pass for homeless derelicts. Jocelyn could only imagine they were fed as such.

While the Chistralian pondered her situation, she stepped around the corner only to see an ashen haired girl standing around looking bewildered. She smirked at first, liking the thought of shoving the girl around a bit. Ever since her trip to Allison's spa, she had been itching for a good fight. To just pound someone stupid. But quickly the frame of the girl became familiar.

Jocelyn clenched her fists and turned her head, trying to make out who the girl was. It couldn't be her, could it? There was just no way. Jocelyn stiffened and darted behind the hallway she had just been in. She could wait until she heard footsteps and then follow the girl for a bit or see if it was her when she passed this way. If she turned down the hall that Jocelyn entered, she'd just have to think fast. If ti wasn't Lan, then ...

Jocelyn paused and pressed a finger to her lips. She'd just have to beat the shit out of the girl for dressing like that girl. Jocelyn's mind began to click and whirr as to the possibilities of this strange encounter. They all lead back to one thing. Allison was setting her up. The woman could just not let go of her devious torturing of the Chistralian. Jocelyn was furious and seethed from her hiding spot.

The soles of Cassie's fuzzy boots scuffed along the floors of the Friction building while she daydreamed away the long walk from the door to the cafe, the cafe to the locker room, the lockers to the gym. It was so everyday that she barely remembered the walk anymore. She watched the floor, waiting for her footpaths to become visible, worn into the sterile tile, but her soft, light brown boots, with three big buttons up the side of each, would never make a dent.

She wore blue jeans that tucked into her boots, and mid-length yellow winter coat. Her short orange hair stuck out from under her brown crocheted hat, with round bear ears sticking up on top. In her backpack was all of her gym stuff, shorts, tank top, sports bra, socks, sneakers, soap, shampoo, towel, hand wraps, mouth guard, bag gloves, comb, brush, a small makeup kit.

It was odd, though, that her preparations seemed so routine for a match that was anything but.

At first she walked right past Lan. She nearly walked into her, but noticed her just in time, and only after she passed did she notice that the girl looked confused. Her first instinct was to keep her head down and keep moving, she didn't need any more trouble than she already had and who knows what you're really getting yourself into talking to any given Friction girl. She quickly relented, and stopped. She turned around and stepped meekly back to Yi Lan.

"Hi," she said. "Do you need help?" She asked with a sweetly shy smile.

Jocelyn shifted nervously and poked her head as inconspicuously from the corner when she heard a sudden voice. It seemed familiar and her body tensed against the wall. Everything was just too familiar these days. What kind of world was she living in? One that seemed perpetually out to get her. She hated it. So when she saw one of the girls she especially hated talking with Lan, her body froze. That girl who humiliated her at Summer Splash. Jocelyn pulled back against the wall and began to tightly ring her hands together.

She was panting softly and she felt that her cheeks were flushed and hot as she thought about what the two could possibly be doing together. Now that she thought about it, it DID seem like Lan was waiting for someone. If it wasn't Allison, then who? It MUST have been Cassie. Did they know each other? How could they? Jocelyn pressed her hand against her chest. Cassie stole her dignity and now she was trying to steal away her countryfolk. It was too much!

The Chistralian shook her head. Even SHE could begin to see that she was letting her own paranoid thoughts grip her. She pricked her ear and tilted her head. f she could just listen to their conversation then everything would come into place.

Lan was frozen in place for almost a minute, turning her head slowly to the left, then to the right, then peeking back over her shoulder in the direction she had come. She silently cursed whoever had designed the building and neglected to include enough maps inset into the walls to let those unfamiliar with its floor plan properly navigate their way around. She really had no hope of logically finding her way to this rumored cafeteria. Blind wandering was seeming to be her best bet.

She didnâ€t notice the pretty orange-haired girl at first, and, even when she did realize that she had found someone else in this labyrinth, she shied away from contact, meekly allowing the seemingly busy wrester to pass by her and go about her business. The girl seemed more than happy to do just that. It surprised Lan when she turned around and addressed her, asking the lost Chinese girl if she needed any help in a calm, sweet voice. Lan blushed a little as her eyes met those of this mysterious woman.

“Oh,” she started, glancing down at her feet. “I, uh, I was just looking for the cafeteria. I guess I was a l-little lost…I, ah, Iâ€m not really used to this building or anything.” She put a hand up, waving it back and forth, as if trying to minimize the direness of her predicament.

"Oh, okay." Cassie nodded, peering up at the taller girl. The mutual shy awkwardness between the two made for quite a sight. She noted that the girl was tall for being Chinese, and wondered if the whole world conspired to make Cassie feel short.

"Um, I can show you, if you want. It's no problem. I was just... I... work here. So. Follow me!" She gave Yi Lan's sleeve a tug and started off down the hall. "So, you're new here? What do you do?"

Lan looked down at the slightly-shorter girl, still blushing a little. She was shocked to find that this ginger cutie seemed to be almost as shy as she was. It made for quite an awkward conversation, but for once, Lan did not feel like she was completely missing out on some higher level of interaction that she couldnâ€t quite grasp. She didnâ€t feel judged or looked down upon. She silently wished that there were a lot of girls like this one here at AFW.

“Oh,” she replied monosyllabically, as Cassie grabbed onto her sleeve and began dragging her down the hall. “Th-that would be great! Thanks! Iâ€m just…I was thinking I might join AFW, so I w-wanted to take a look around first…but I got lost.”

"You're thinking of joining... as a wrestler?" Cassie looked up at Lan.

No, that couldn't be. The girl looked even less like a fighter than Cassie did. She thought that maybe if she was representing AFW talent to Lan, then she should start acting like a wrestler and less like a schoolgirl. She thought back to the days when she wasn't so closed off and apprehensive about everything after leaving her house, and they seemed so far away. She wondered if she'd ever be herself again after everything was over.

"I'm Cassie, by the way. So is this your first time here? I was just going to the gym, but I can show you around if you want. I really only ever go to the gym and the cafeteria, though, heh. I guess that's all anyone really does."

Lan winced as her orange-haired benefactor seemed incredulous at the notion of Lan joining AFW as a wrestler. “Y-yes! W-why do you have to say it like that!?” the Chinese girl stammered. She glanced down at herself, her lithe body covered with a plain purple shirt and a black wool coat, and wondered whether she really looked as weak as everyoneâ€s reactions to her seemed to suggest.

She glanced back to the orange-haired girl, thankful that she decided to change the subject. “Itâ€s n-nice to meet you, Cassie. Iâ€m Lan. Yeah, itâ€s…itâ€s my first time here, and I just was not able to figure out which way was the right way to go. Itâ€s really…really nice of you to help me out, but if youâ€re going to the gym, I donâ€t mean to, uh, hold you up or anything…”