In a Different Light

Talia calmly typed on her computer. She had somehow made it halfway through the first week of her new job. Even though she was still technically in the AFW, now she was a simple salaried worker in their IT department. Even though she felt she was finished with wrestling, so much of her hardwork and dedication had gone into this business. She didn't want to just abandon it all. Even though things were much calmer now, they weren't any less stressful. Most tension and friction wrestlers didn't even manage their own twitter and facebooks so it was up to her department to do it for them. And of those who did, most routinely broke, lost, or otherwise locked themselves out of their devices. It was amusing sometimes. And annoying most of the time.

She pulled out her cellphone and thumbed through her contact list. No one knew she was back in town yet and she was a little worried about telling people about it. Quite frankly, she wanted to stay off everyone's radar as long as possible. Most of the people she knew didn't like her. But there were a few that probably deserved to know. And one she really wanted to see. She slowly looked around to see if anyone was looking and quickly hammered out a text to Cassie Elliot. "Hey, I'm back in town, want to get lunch someday?" She then quickly shoved it back into her pocket and resumed working on her computer. Any given moment a wrestler could walk in with a problem and she didn't want them to think she was texting on the job.

‘GOOD MORNING, CAPTAINâ€

“No….” John pulled the battery and the phone restarted again. He managed to have it working for a good ten minutes before…

‘GOOD MORNING, CAPTAINâ€

The screen went black and those words appeared on the screen in green. “What the actual fuck!” John pulled the battery and put it back in, the phone restarted. “Iâ€M NOT A CAPTAIN!” The people on the street looked at John like he was insane as he shouted that. Fifteen minutes latter…

‘GOOD MORNING, CAPTAINâ€

Now John was with Ro. “You had this phone for ten minutes. What could you possibly have done to it in ten minutes?” John said as he finally uninstalled the last non-market malware app Ro had installed.

‘GOOD MORNING, CAPTAINâ€


Now John was in the Tension cafeteria. “HOOOOWS THAT POSIIIBIIIILE?! HOOOOWS THAT POSSIIBBIILLEE?” People began to stare at John while Amanda, who was sitting opposite of him, laughed hysterically. “Just factory reset it!” Amamda laughed, “You canâ€t fix this.”

John glared at her suddenly while the phone restarted. [color=green] “Yes I can…” As he said that, and before he could even draw his pattern to unlock the phone…

‘GOOD MORNING, CAPTAINâ€

Three more times, three more ‘GOOD MORNING, CAPTAINs.†Now he couldnâ€t factory reset it even if he wanted to.



So, that little chaos is what found John walking into the IT department. He came in, wearing jeans, black sneakers, a tee shirt, and his old Army combat uniform jacket (which he found very comfortable). He came towards the desk and looked down towards the woman on her computer.

“Um….hi, Iâ€ve got a staff phone here and one of the other wrestlers sorta…sabotaged it with malware.” He looked down again and took the Samsung smart phone out of his pocket.

“It doesnâ€t…..” He was about to go on and explain the problem, when the wheals in his head suddenly finished turning and he realized he knew this woman. “Talia?”

Talia put on a smile as the door opened. She looked up ready to be positive. Even though he was the last person she had seen before heading to Canada, Talia still needed to think about who John was. She remembered being bitter with him, but that may simply had been because of his association with Cassie. Now things felt different. Hopefully he thought that way too. "Hello Mr. Mitchell," she said rather formally. "What can I do for you?"

Unlike the last time they met, she was wearing a semi-formal business outfit and glasses instead of her usual contacts. Her hair was back to its natural orange and tied to the side. And even if John couldn't tell because of the clothing, she had lost some weight. Not training for so long had a way of thinning muscles.

Talia had also learned about his status as Tension champion. It felt kinda silly that she hadn't known that the first time but then again she never cared about it either. It was something that she both respected and disliked about him. But that was all something she wanted to leave in the past. She wasn't a professional wrestler anymore, so it seemed stupid to hold any grudges or resentment towards anyone for any reason justified or not. "How've you been?"

John bore no hard feelings about how someone, at the end of their career and after recovering from an incredibly stressful situation, was slightly terse with him. Well, she may have been a little rude, but he had a thick skin. Anyway, right now she was sorta doing her job-lady thing.

She looked quite different, too, dressed very profesinally and formal. Her glasses made her look a bit more like an office worker than a displaced wrestler, and her hair accented that appearance. John was much less formal, he looked like he hadnâ€t put a comb through his somewhat short and red hair, mostly because he had been having such a cross day. His muscles hadnâ€t thinned, if anything he looked a little more tonned.

“Iâ€ve been pretty good, actually, except that my phone is tootled. Surprised to see you here, youâ€re working IT now?” As the words came out of his mouth, John shook his head a bit, “That was my obvious question for the day.” He chuckled.

Talia nodded as he spoke. She'd always had this radically negative opinion of male tension wrestlers. They always seemed exactly the same. But something about John was different. He seemed...normal...in a good way. "Yea I'm in IT now," she repeated back to him. "9-5, weekdays," just a typical job. "I'm kinda done with wrestling for now...too many bad things I'd rather just forget and move on from..." She suddenly felt like she was repeating an old conversation. "Anyways...want me to look at it for you?" She asked gesturing to his phone. She took it and casually plugged it into her computer.

She began typing stuff on her computer to look through all the files. Talia asked, "How's your champion reign been?" As she did so, the phone suddenly came alive and said "GOOD MORNING, CAPTAIN." She gave first the phone a weird look, and then John an even weirder look. "I won't ask." She typed away at more things and then asked "Do you have any important programs or files you want to save? Usually the best thing to do is simply copy all the contacts, pictures, videos over and reset the phone. Then we'd transfer all the backed up stuff back onto your phone so you wouldn't lose anything important. Would that be alright?"

“IT…huh, well that could be interesting.” Unfortunately, John was not a very good liar. He hadnâ€t made it a practice to lie and so his attempt rather faltered. Lying is a skill, after all, and like an other skill, maintaining a level of excellence requires practice. John nodded and passed her his telephone, then chuckled at the reaction it got.

“I didnâ€t do it! My friend put some malware on it. Non-market Android apps, ‘free home screen layouts,†et cetera.” He said with a laugh, “I think itâ€s a game that keeps trying to launch.” John knew where this is going. It was ALWAYS the same suggestion for a smart phone whenever a tech support person looked. He braced himself for it.

Factory reset.

John let out a long sigh “Yeeeeeah, I figured that. The pictures and files are all automatically cloud synched, but if you could back up the contacts that would be great.” He said, having resigned himself to his phones fate.

Talia nodded and typed on her keyboard rather quickly to carry out the procedure. "Alright, we'll do that." She felt a little odd being so formal with him. She still thought about that time in Kyoto when he tried to reach out to her. At the time, it felt like too little too late...but after her trip to Canada she was more open to that sort of thing. Help was always in reach. She just had to ask for it. "So..." Talia started as the phone turned off to reset. "What umm...how's Tension been...and stuff?" She pulled off her glasses and smiled, trying not to be an awkward turtle.

"I hear you're still champion!"

“Tensionâ€s going well, actually.” John said as he watched Talia mess about with the keyboard and the telephone. When she took off her glasses, John smiled back. This was a welcome change from the hostile and standoffish girl whom he had met before. She seamed genuinely interested in socializing with John, and being a rather gregarious person himself, he was pleased.

“Yup, itâ€s been quite an experience. May not be for long, the girl Iâ€m meant to be fighting in the PPV looks to be a tough competitor with a real shot against me. Iâ€m glad, too, I think itâ€s going to be quite the enjoyable challenge win or loose.”

"So how've you been keeping up? How was Canada?

Talia nodded as John spoke. The more she thought about it, the more she realized just how different he was from other tension wrestlers. He didn't look at it as a means to touch women...or hurt them. He seemed genuinely interested in the spirit of the competition. A lot like Cassie. She managed to smile earnestly. "Oh...Canada was fun." She wasn't sure what he had been told about her trip. She assumed Cassie and he were good friends so she had to assume everything. Which wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

"And things have been alright. I get a new apartment in Yokohama. It's a bit of a commute...but it's cheaper and well...kinda far from people ya know?" She hoped he understood what she was implying. She didn't want to say out loud that she didn't want to be around the people she knew. "It's...less stressful overall. Less things to constantly worry about." A message popped up on Talia's monitor informing her the transfer and reset was done.

The redhead put her glasses back on. "There we go...let me just re-add your contacts." She typed a few things on the computer. Her eyes drifted upward to John as she typed and she couldn't help but smile. Her thoughts drifted to their little mini-tour of Kyoto's Tō-ji. In the previous life, she would've discarded practically everything he said. But now she wanted to make something of it. Cassie seemed to like him. How bad could he be? She added the name "Talia" to his contacts with "Call me " title="Smile" /> " as the last name. "All finished." She unplugged the phone and handed it to John. "You're all set, Mr. Mitchell. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

Cassie and John were friends…to some extent. They were very recent friends, so in fact he had only touched base with her a little bit since she got back. He wasnâ€t sure at all how the trip went, but he had gotten the general impression that everything was okay. John nodded, listening with attentiveness as she spoke.

“Ah…yeah, I could see why you might want a break from things…but thatâ€s practically in Tokyo.” He said, quirking his head. “But, hey, if it helps you, then more power to you. Whatever it takes, you know?”

John watched as she worked her magic on the computer. He shook his head a bit. “I probably could have started the phone in safe mode and done this myself, but itâ€s a company phone, you know? I donâ€t wana mess it up worse than it allready was….thanks a lot, by the way.” John said….while he watched, he also thought about their initial meeting. She was a lot different than that woman she had met back then. Definitely, she still had the slight anti social tendency, but she definitely wasnâ€t full of anger and resentment like she had been.

He was so busy thinking that he was nearly startled when he handed the phone back. “Oh…thank you.” He said with his usual big smile, he was nothing if not cheerful. “I hope I run into you again, Iâ€ll keep an eye out.” John figured he didnâ€t want to push his luck with her, last time she made it super clear she wanted to be left alone and he didnâ€t want to make her uncomfortable. John smiled once more and made his way outside.



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It wasnâ€t until about 5ish that day that he noticed the number in his phone. John smiled when he saw it. He suspected she might be more open to some sort of friendship, and this was a clever way to do it.

John hit the contact and dialed the number.