Pokemon and Pain recovery 2: electric boogaloo

"...minecraft?..." Natalia asked, not sure what Adrian was talking about. It sounded like a game, but not one Natalia had heard about before. "...I don't think so... But... Probably can get it!" The Dream said with a smile. ^_^

And then a bell rang.
"Ohhh. Food is here..." Natalia said cheerful, standing up and heading out of the room. "Don't worry about eating...you won't get fat will all the trainning you'll do..."

"Training?" Adrian asked, not liking the sound of that, she wasn't in any hurry to get anywhere near a ring "uh... shouldn't I be... recovering?"

"After you recover, silly Adrian..." Natalia said as she searched in her purse for money. "You are now in the rankings... And if you don't want to be dropped...you'll have to train extra hard..." The Dream said quite cheerful about the idea and then she left for the door, returning after a few minutes with a breakfast tray for Adrian and six bags full of food.

"Ugh... so much stuff to do..." Adrian groaned "Gotta demand a raise, gotta train a lot, gotta rise through the ranks, gotta fight a war... who else got added to the rankings and how far below you am i?" she asked, looking towards the bags of food "Uh..." she stuttered "How are we gonna eat all this?"

"War?" Natalia asked as she pulled containers with food from the bag and passed them to Adrian for inspection. The selection of words had seem odd, but then again Adrian had a very odd, and fast, way of speaking, so Natalia didn't paid much attention to it as Adrian changed subjects.

"I think I am fifth...or fourth? she said trying to remember but the rankings had moved so much lately.

"And I have no idea what we are going to do with all this food..." Natalia added with a pout, realizing that once again she had more food than she could eat. Natalia looked down depressed and feeling horribly guilty.

When Natalia had passed the food, what the higher ranked wrestler, Adrian's Sempai... sorta... had picked up on made Adrian freeze in place for a second. "Uh... it's, it's nothing... isn't really a war right now it's just... you know what, forget I ever said it!" Adrian said quickly once, again digging herself deepen by covering for herself. Even as Natalia looked dejected.

"Hey! We can put what we don't eat in the fridge and re-heat it in the morning or something, can't we?" She suggested. "And you're still miles above me, I think the reason I'm so low despite my record is that all my wins have been pretty BS... I mean, you and Cec kinda went easy on me and I cheated everyone else so... yeah... guess I gotta convince the number two girl to give me a match then really work hard and cheat for it if I want any hope of getting a title shot..." she sighed, hoping the talk about titles was distracting Natalia from the whole "War thing".

Natalia noticed how Adrian tried to avoid the 'war' thing and that only picked her interest even more, but since she didn't felt like this was a good time to pressure her friend to confess whatever crazy thing she was planning, Natalia decided to let it go.

"Oh don't be so hard on yourself..." Natalia said as she passed on food to Adrian. "A win is a win, no matter what... Although I do agree you'll get a better response from the crowd if you were to play nice once in a while..." The Dream added giggling as she took a bowl with fried rice and a pair of chopsticks, sitting in lotus position besides Adrian.

"Although I must say it is not uncommon for cheaters to get huge crowds... I guess if you piss the fans enough they will be willing to pay a lot of money to watch someone shut your mouth..." Natalia said trying to confort her friend but quickly regreting her words, she shouldn't be encouraging Adrian to go down that road, she thought.

"They'd still boo me... they don't like me at all Sempai..." She said, accepting the bowl and using the chopsticks as though she was born with them in her hand. Don't think too closely about that metaphor "Yeah, gotten better at using chopsticks..." she said in passsing, lost in thought. "What if I stopped cheating, but was still a complete jerk to the crowd so they'd still boo me. It would be easier to make friends because I'm not cheating and I wouldn't have to worry about ruining my long-built rep."

"Maybe I should just focus on winning matches and not hoping people go easy on me but... I don't wanna go anywhere near a ring..." Adrian said sadly

"Ehum... Don't call me sempai, please..." Natalia said blushing. She wasn't sure why, and prefered not to delve into it too much, but it made her very unconfortable to be called like that.

"I don't think being a jerk but not cheating would improve things... You are not particularly a jerk... Plus, see how that combo has worked for Taylor... I think people hate her more than they hate you..." Natalia said between bits of lacquered duck.

The Dream then left her chopsticks in her bowl and gently caressed Adrian's head. She knew very well that sensation of never wanting to get in a fight again after a particularly bad beating, although in her case those feelings rarely lasted more than a couple of days, she was conditioned such that she couldn't conceive a fighter not wanting to fight again. "You just need to rest Adrian-chan...everything is going to be alright. Trust me..."

"Man... and I thought I was improving my Japanese. Why does everyone disaprove when I use honorifics?" Adrian asked... "And I mean jerk to the crowd, not people. I could still be nice just tease the crowd a lot..."

"I just... I don't want to think about it." The cosplayer said, looking sadly into her duck. "Even if I did win it just means that she's a better person to hold back before killing someone and she can just beat me even if she wasn't... I can't win without cheating somehow or someone going easy and throwing the match for me... I suck..."