Jamie's Lucky Day

By the time Lucky reached checkout, Abattoir was there, and engaged in heated multilingual discourse with the clerk running her lane. It was easy enough to see the source of the problem: her cart was now piled with not just lighttubes, but several rolls of duct tape, three boxes of thumbtacks, and a staple gun. She'd been in line arguing for almost three full minutes.

"No, they are on sale," she snarled - and despite the lack of muffling from the mask, that rasp was very distinct indeed. "The sign says they're two for one. Do you know 'sale'? Is there--"

She glanced over her shoulder as Lucky pulled up, paused for a moment, and finally breathed out a sigh through her teeth. Well, time to bite the bullet and ask for help. Not really something she was fond of doing, but it beat getting arrested for mauling this fucking woman to death over a few hundred yen.

"Fine." The dark-haired girl cleared her throat. "Lucky, can you talk to her? We're..." She struggled to find a civil way to phrase it. "...having a failure to communicate here." Yeah. There. That was plenty civil.

"Uhhh..." She hadn't really thought about it like that.

She cocked an eyebrow at Lucky while the older woman went for the counter. It seemed too good to be true. No one just bought Jamie stuff without... something else.

But the moment her back was turned, Jamie grabbed whatever else was in reach and skated off to the front to dump the whole mess on the counter next to Abattoir's, sending cans of paint everywhere.

"Lucky!" She exclaimed. That was her name! Like a dog!

Lucky approached the counter with the strange woman yelling at the bewildered clerk in English. She was very persistent about getting every Yen's worth out of the good she was buying. Lucky managed a cursory glance in her cart and wondered what could be going on. Whatever the project, it was a rather unusual one indeed.

She didn't think anything of it and was content to let the gaijin tire herself out before she politely interjected. However, that never came and instead, almost casually, the girl turned and and addressed her.

"Ehhhh!?"

Lucky's eyes widened and she stared at Abattoir like she was an alien. She nearly jumped when Jamie said her name and she flashed a confused look at the blonde before turning back to Abattoir. "Ahhh, uhhh. G-gomen nasai... I mean... I'm sorry but... How do you know my name?" She said. At first she thought it must be a fan, but fans asked for autographs and pictures. They didn't ask for help in procuring goods.

There was a moment where Abattoir wondered if perhaps she actually had landed the Nail at the end of their match and gotten pulled into the stretch afterwards, and brain damage had caused some kind of delayed amnesia effect on Lucky. She opened her mouth to ask as much, probably in an incredibly unpleasant way, and then realization struck her, and she was the dumb one.

Of course. The mask. Lucky didn't recognize her. Benefits of anonymity.

Abattoir, who didn't interact with people often and didn't interact pleasantly with them ever, had to take a second to rephrase everything. She did, after all, want something here. And so, in the most deliberately inoffensive monotone possible, she replied:

"Abattoir. We, uh. We met the other day."

This was about as euphemistically polite as it could possibly be phrased.

Jamie's mouth closed and she took a step back. Her watchful eyes were back as she waited to see the connection between this crazy person and... Lucky.

'A..ba... ttoir...'

Lucky mouthed the name she was given and looked the girl over. Then, it clicked. "Oh? oooooh... Oh!" Lucky suddenly beamed and looked over the girl. She sheepishly turned her head. "Abattoir-san!" She beamed. "I hardly recognized you with your hair pulled up!" She chirped, a subtle indication that let Lucky take the blame for the misconnection, rather than the obvious lack of mask.

"Ahh, it's good to see you." Lucky said genuinely, scrutinizing Abattoir in a bit more thorough manner. She looked... interesting outside of the ring. Lucky might say cute, even. She had a bit of an attachment to strange things if her friendship to Macky and Jamie was any indication, though she wouldn't say the word aloud.

She turned and looked back at Jamie. "Jamie-san, this was my opponent in my last match. Abattoir-san." She said, hoping the words might reassure the skittish blonde. She looked back at Abattoir. "This is my friend, Jamie-san. We also wrestled, but I didn't fair as well in my match with her. She's very clever." Lucky said. "It's so nice to run into you outside of the arena!" She chirped and then looked over at the clerk. "oh!? But... you probably don't have time for small talk." Lucky bowed her head deeply. "G-gome.. er.. sorry.." She corrected.

Lucky turned and looked at the clerk. <Her items are on sale, please give her the proper discount.> Lucky said in Japanese, motioning to Abattoir. The clerk seemed thankful that a native had finally stepped up and dutifully began checking the prices.

"Mm."

Lucky really hadn't recognized her. So it was just a coincidence. Remarkable. Perhaps she shouldn't have been that surprised; people had a tendency to assume she was disfigured under the mask - the whole Darth Vader thing - and the small scar on her mouth didn't quite measure up to their expectations.

As the bluenette introduced her mutual acquaintances, Abattoir was greatly displeased. This girl had beaten Lucky? And she hadn't? She wasn't exactly a person with an excess of pride (exhibit a: she'd cut her losses and tapped in seconds rather than struggle futilely against the Ice Sculpture and risk injury), but the idea was mortifying.

"I have all the time in the world," she deadpanned, "just not for small talk." While Lucky headed over to talk to the clerk, Abattoir took the time to eye Jamie. "You beat her?" she repeated. "How, exactly?"

If nothing else, she could never be accused of dancing around whatever she was trying to say.

Jamie narrowed her eyes when she heard who the weirdo was, and then narrowed them even narrower when Abattoir spoke to her.

"How do you think?" She slipped the slender wrench in her sleeve down so the end sat in the palm of her hand, invisible, but ready for whatever this creepy nutball was thinking.

"I'm a ninja. Don't underestimate me, or I might surprise you."

Truthfully, given the things she'd seen in AFW so far, Abattoir was not totally sure how to take that statement. It might be literal. Unimposing as she was, the girl did look ready to throw down on the spot. Idly, she wondered: if they did exactly that, would cameras emerge from nowhere and broadcast it? Perhaps not a question worth exploring.

"....Mmhmm," she finally murmured, a healthy note of skepticism in her voice.

Before she could build on that, though, the small mountain of industrial gear she was bringing through started finally getting rung up. "Thanks," Abattoir said, nodding slightly to Lucky. "The language situation has been...inconvenient." 'A challenge' sounded a little too much like conceding a weakness (although the 'language situation' was exactly that).

Once everything was in order, Lucky turned back to look over Abattoir and Jamie with a smile. She had heard them talking but was paying attention to the clerk so had no clue what they were saying. Her eyes focused on Abattoir and she nodded.

"It's ok!" She chirped. "I understand how hard it could be to learn Japanese. You'll pick it up, though." Lucky said. "I could help you out with that... if you wanted?" Lucky offered, her natural inclination towards being friendly with people taking over. Though Abattoir had been a bit terse, she didn't think the girl was as prickly as she had been in the ring. Lucky would be frustrated too in Abattoir's situation.