Jungle of the Times

Mercy remained sturdy and stone faced while Lan soldiered on with the interview. It was pretty painful to watch from Mercy's end and when the Chinese girl was finally finished. "Well, I hope you're not planning on doing any promos any time soon. The audience isn't interested in watching a girl spend five minutes trying to speak one sentence. If you can't even do it in front of me, I shudder to think what will happen in front of thousands of people and millions of eyes watching you at home." Mercy said, unable to contain a a little smirk as she teased Lan a bit.

"Well, ok." Mercy said. "You can certainly quit anytime you want once you figure out those other wrestlers duped you into joining." She said bluntly. "I'm pretty sure they just wanted you to join so they could either kick your butt for some personal reason or schedule matches against you so they could get free wins and boost their careers."

Mercy reached over and grabbed one of Lan's hands and patted it with her other. "But, it's ok. I'm sure you're serious. But, I'll make sure that you don't get put up against anyone too scary now." Mercy said, clearly patronizing the girl at this point as she smiled with fake sweetness at Lan.

Lan blushed and held a hand to her cheek as Mercy teased her. The secretary wasnâ€t exactly being mean, but what she was saying didnâ€t exactly make Lan feel very good about herself, either. “Well…English i-is m-my second language, you know,” she said, trying to partially justify her labored style of speech. “And I do, uh, s-s-stutter a little…b-because I get nervous. But, uh, when I f-feel comfortable…I do better. R-really.”

She bit her lip, sitting quietly and listened as Mercy laid out several different theoretical scenarios for why the wrestlers Lan had encountered had wanted her to join AFW. If Lan was a more forward sort of girl, she might have informed Mercy right then that she was incorrect, and that they had scarcely even mentioned the wrestling league during her encounter with them—but Lan would just stay quiet and wait for Mercy to finish before speaking up again. That last comment sort of got to Lan. Sure, she was timid, and she wasnâ€t a native speaker, but the condescension in the secretaryâ€s voice still came across loud and clear.

“R-really, I have training,” she said. “My dad taught me…I can f-fight. Y-you donâ€t need to d-do anything…anything different for me, than f-for anyone else.”

Mercy watched Lan as she continued to stutter her way through their conversation. "Sure, but I;m learning Japanese and it's not like I stutter when I speak that. "W-w-w-watashi was!" She was mocking Lan's stutter but she was actually being less patronizing before. "How can you be nervous around me? She asked. "I don't have B.O." She said, wrinkling her nose. "I'm not even your boss, really." She turned her head. "I mean, I could get you fired but that's not really the point." Mercy pushed herself up off her chair a bit and leaned forward.

"What I'm trying to say is if you're getting nervous around me then you better pray nice and hard that you never have to meet Lukretia. She'll eat you alive without a second thought." Mercy sat back in her chair and leaned back a little. 'But, she wouldn't have any qualms about giving you tough matches either. She'd probably put you in some kind of cage match of death vs. two 6 feet tall girls just for a couple of yucks."

Mercy sighed. "Well, I don't know what's different. Or what makes you comfortable. It's not really my job to coddle you. How do I know if you're going to get nervous or not?"

Lanâ€s cheeks got redder as Mercy mocked her again. “Okay…” she sighed, resigning herself to the fact that her pink-haired interviewer was probably going to keep making fun of her for as long as this appointment lasted. She could handle it. She had been handling this sort of mean-spirited humor at her expense for a long time.

“Iâ€m just…it takes me a, uh, a little time to…s-settle in,” Lan explained, when Mercy asked her how she could possibly be nervous. “Thatâ€s all, really.” Then Mercy told her about Lukretia, and Lan couldnâ€t help but become a little scared, her throat tightening as the secretary described this menacing, mysterious, malicious woman. Lan certainly would pray that she never had to meet Lukretia. She didnâ€t sound like the sort of person who would understand the sort of crippling shyness which Lan experienced. She sounded like Allison, or Violate, only three times worse, and actually wielding the power to make Lanâ€s life miserable.

The mention of Lukretia intrigued her, though, in that it brought to mind something which Lan had been curious about ever since she applied to join AFW. “So…she chooses all of our matches? I…was, uh, wondering about that…whether we, uh, got to choose, sometimes, maybe, or if w-we were just always told…told to show up for a fight…”

Mercy sighed at Lan. The girl was just too much. Too much of a squeaky mouse. She just decided to ignore it for now. What was curious was what she was asking about matches. "Hm?" Mercy said and tilted her head. She adjusted her glasses and stared at Lan. "Well, Lukretia has the final approval if she desires and does make most of the matches. But my boss, Rally, makes them as well. I can make them too and even Lukretia's secretary Hilde as well. I mean, technically our boss, all of our boss, Cassandra Sellers could make them as well but she doesn't really get that involved."

Mercy scratched her head and then looked at her computer screen. "Do you want a match? Let me guess, one of your best friends that got you into this league?" She asked. "I'm sure they'd love that. Who do you want a match with?" Mercy asked. She was getting a little curious.

“Oh,” Lan intoned quietly, nodding her head along with Mercyâ€s words as the secretary explained the method by which matches were set up at AFW. It sounded complicated from a bureaucratic standpoint, but from the perspective of a wrestler, it seemed like it would be a lot simpler. No matter which one of them—Lukretia, Rally, Hilde, Mercy, or Cassandra—decided the contestants and the stipulations of a match, the wrestlers would just receive notice and have to be ready to go, no matter what. Lan could handle that. She always had felt more comfortable being told what to do than having to make decisions for herself. Her father was the sort of man who really valued obedience in his children, and Lan, more than any of her sisters, had conformed to her fatherâ€s expectations.

But, evidently, that wasnâ€t quite the end of Mercyâ€s explanation. Apparently, wrestlers did have a say in who they got to wrestle. And Mercy had seen rather easily through Lanâ€s ruse. If it had been a ruse. Even the Chinese girl herself wasnâ€t quite sure whether or not she had been thinking about Jocelyn when she asked that question. Sure, her countrywoman was often on her mind—after the sorts of encounters that they had had, how could she not be?—but Lan could have just as easily been asking a harmless question. Did Lanâ€s body language betray emotions that she couldnâ€t even admit to herself that she was feeling?

No matter what the truth was, Lan quickly put her hands up and waved them a little frantically, trying to dispel any ideas that Mercy may have. “N-no, itâ€s, uh…not anyone,” the Chinese girl explained. “I was just…just wondering. I wanted to know just for…the future. But th-thereâ€s…” She paused, her mouth hanging open a bit, a faint red blush appearing on her cheeks, before she finished: “…no one. No one.” She shook her head.

Mercy went from being annoyed by Lan to suddenly being intrigued by her. Gossip. Now there was something she could really get into! Lan was clearly hiding something. Mercy was pretty good at reading people. At least, she thought she was. Lan seemed even easier than most. What a ripe young fruit ready to be plucked.

Mercy leaned in and smiled at Lan. She had a bright, cheerful smile on her face. "Ohhh, is that so?" She asked, twirling a piece of pink hair in her finger. Mercy chuckled. "We're both girls. You can tell me. Why did you really join? Do you have a little girlfriend who's being a bit too naughty? Do you have to teach her a lesson by joining the league?" Mercy's eyes picked up. "Oh!" She said sitting up, raising her finger in the air. "Maybe you have a crush and the only way you can confess is in the heat of battle." Mercy clasped her fingers together and pressed them against her cheek. "How romantic." She sighed happily. After settling down, she beamed at Lan. "Do you need some help? If it's true love, I must do my part!" She said, pounding her fist into her palm.

Mercy's eyes sparkled. "So... who's the lucky girl!?" She asked, pressing herself forward again.

Lan was already embarrassed. Mercyâ€s mocking had taken something of a toll on her, though it was the sort of thing that Lan was quite used to enduring. She hadnâ€t been expecting the secretary to make an abrupt about-face and begin excitedly asking her about whether she had a crush on anyone. That radical shift utterly shocked the Chinese girl, and her cheeks turned as red as the skin of a ripe apple. She bit her lip hard enough to make an indentation in the skin as Mercy continued to assail her with queries and recommendations.

“I…itâ€s not like youâ€re s-saying,” Lan tried to explain, turning her head to the side so that she didnâ€t have to look Mercy in the eyes. If she did, she certainly would not be able to get all of her thoughts verbalized, and the pink-haired secretary would probably take that as affirmation of her ideas and an invitation to play matchmaker. “The girls who I m-met…who made me w-want to join AFW…m-m-maybe there was one th-that I thought might…might be fun to wrestle. But…maybe not.” She shrugged. “I-it would probably be better just to, ah, f-fight someone I donâ€t know, r-r-right? Itâ€s…easier th-that way, r-right? Nothing…weird, like d-doing it with a friend…or…” She trailed off, realizing that she had lost track of what she was trying to get at. She glanced up at Mercy, wondering what the secretary was thinking about all of this.

Mercy raised an eyebrow at Lan. Actually, the girl was kind of cute now that she got a look at her red, embarrassed face. She held her smile in place as if Lan trying to deny it only made it more true. "Well, would she or wouldn't she?" Mercy said, peering at Lan. She then closed her eyes, lifted up her index finger and wagged it at Lan. "You're not going to be able to keep that shy act up around me. Who is it? Who's the lucky girl, huh?" She asked.

"Tell me!" She said, her eyes gleaming as she stared at Lan. "Is it someone really strong? Is it someone super famous? Is that it? Are you afraid that if you get involved with her, it could be scandalous?!" That thought made her heart race. She loved it. "Is it forbidden love?" She asked, tilting her head. "If your family sees you, then they'll disown you!? Oooh! It's too good!" She squealed. "Tellme tellme tellme!"

Lan realized that the façade she had tried to throw up was not exactly the most convincing. Mercy saw through it as if it were glass. As it shattered, the Chinese girl was left fumbling for another excuse, coming up empty each time she reached for one. At this point, she might as well tell the secretary the truth—well, at least as far as she could be certain it was the truth. Lan still couldnâ€t quite put into words what her feelings were towards Jocelyn, so she would just leave that part out for the time being.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay.” She paused, trying to translate the eloquent evasion she had thought up in Mandarin to English. “She really is just, ah, a friend…or really just s-someone I know,” Lan began. Her blush faded a little. “I met her…twice. The reason I want to, maybe, wrestle her…itâ€s because weâ€re both Chinese. I thought it might be…uh…interesting. Her name is Lu Jiao.” It occurred to Lan that Jocelyn was not quite super famous, the way Mercy had suggested—at least as far as she knew. The Chinese girl hoped that the secretary wasnâ€t too disappointed by her revelation.