The Heroic Promo Shoot Night

[Jaystar]

"This can't be true... I never get lost!"

Tonight was far from a regular one for Starboy. The Lonely Superhero had just attended his first official event as a wrestler part of LAW's roster - his first promo photoshoot. Now, posing for the camera felt always a little awkward to the asipiring hero, but it had felt even more so when he was told to do it clad in his hero attire, take up some fancy, combative poses (alone, without an opponent in sight), and knowing fully well that those photos were not going to end up in some private album - they were going to be all out in the public for the millions of viewers to see. Sure, he enjoyed posing in his hero-gimmick, and sure, he wanted to be a wrestler in this league... But some tasks were just of the nature that he was probably never going to get used to.

Another irregular, unfamiliar and awkward feeling that Star was having now was one of being lost. It was a rare, very rare event for the Lonely Superhero to not know where he was at or where he was going, but he must had taken some critical turn wrong earlier when leaving the promo shoot. In his mind, it should have been just a short stroll across the LAW campus complex, short enough not to even bother covering up his hero attire for the way, and be back at his apartment in 5 to 10 minutes or so...

Starboy - The Lonely Superhero

Now it had been at least a good 20 minutes since he had left the studio, and he was still stuck in something that looked like some kind of a maintenance crew area hallway, wandering around in his rather skimpy wrestling attire. He was lucky that it was already rather late, and the hallways were mostly deserted. But he still had to find his way home, and seemed to be at a loss with ideas on how exactly to do so!

Spotting a heavy door that looked like some kind of a fire exit, Star could see a bit more brightly-lit hallway behind the window. Opening it, the hero entered the hallway - and immediately spotted a figure some distance to his right. "Ahh shit, there's some girl..." Getting a bit cold feet due to still wearing his hero attire, Star tried to quickly turn around and return to the other side of the door, when-...

*CLANG!* "Ouch..."

The heavy door had suddenly shut locked, and the hero banged his head to it in the process of trying to re-enter the previous hallway, causing an abrupt and loud sound that was surely immediately catching anyone's attention, and leaving the hero shaking and holding his head.

How awkward.

[Crossedes]

Flo liked this whole tabletop roleplaying business. She had always heard of it and even watched some shows, but she had never thought to try it. With all the other stuff that went on in her life between wrestling prep, sessions, photoshoots, the whole nine yards, she thought it made for a nice change of pace, something for her to get her creativity bubbling and forget about responsibilities for a while... not that she ever thought much about her responsibilities. But Junie had her doing something that felt way too close to work, even if it took all of about five minutes out of Flo's day. She had already blown a raspberry in exhaustion by the time she hit the bottom floor of the apartment building to finish up with her task, and that was after she had spent, oh, most of the day procrastinating before even getting started.

"Better give me a hot magic item for this, blondie," the Brit muttered to herself, as she slapped the final flyer on the corkboard there and stuck a tack in it. She might stick a tack in June's chair and therefore, her butt, the next time they met for a session. Yeah, Flo understood the point - the more in their group, the merrier - but she still didn't care to do the legwork for any recruiting. Flo didn't know how to recruit much of anyone for anything. Most of the time she just threw a few pictures up online, and clients flocked to sign up for her available times.

Whatever the case, the session girl had finished, and she brushed off her hands and started to head back to the staircase when she heard a clang behind her, so sudden and so loud that she shrieked and jumped. With no grace, the session girl spun, balanced on a foot, and let her back hitting the wall help keep her upright. She had heard a door creak but sure as hell hadn't thought anything of it until SCO19 or whoever had decided to break that same door down, and her arms flew high to defend herself.

From... a guy. Standing at the door rubbing his head in basically his unmentionables. Spangly unmentionables. Flo's arms dropped, and she stared at him, her confusion written plainly on her face. She didn't say anything until she saw his eyes turning her way. "Holy shit. That's a choice," she blurted, the Derbyshire coming on strong, as she pointed at his little speedo-thing. Even she wouldn't walk around town in something that tiny. Actually, who would walk around an apartment building - from down that otherwise empty hallway - in something that tiny? She squinted at him.

"Whoa, hold on. Don't tell me you were waitin' in that weird hallway just for a hottie to pass by so you could jump out in that. 'Cause that would be weird. This the part where you flash me?"

Spoiler

[Jaystar]

Yes, hitting your head to the door hurt. But maybe still not as much as the attention that followed towards Starboy's shenanigans... Yes, he heard the shriek, painfully loud and clear, and had to shoot his hand towards its source accompanied by an embarrassed "Sorry, sorry...", which was meant as a way to buy more time until he could get the door opened again... Which he couldn't, despite several efforts at yanking the handle. It was locked.

And Starboy was now stuck in this situation.

Letting out a deep sigh, he turned to face the source of the shriek, only to be greeted by her astonished, yet most likely very apt comments about his attire. Sure, Starboy had been expecting to provoke some comments with his outfit should he had run into some oncomers, but this specific context was leaving also himself rather speechless.

Turned out, he didn't even need to say anything, before the girl already had much more to say.

"Uhh, I..." was the only thing the hero managed to stutter before he was faced with the onslaught of accusations. Potentially rightful ones based again on the context, but still ones that totally caught Star off guard, and left him flustered and confused.

"Wh-what?!?" was the only thing the Lonely Superhero managed to immediately respond to Flo's accusations. But after a brief yet extremely awkward pause, he managed to start explaining himself instead. "No, no! I-... I'm not..." he began his efforts, only for to be interrupted by his mind inventing completely inappropriately for the moment the tidbit that "The Flash" could also make for a fancy superhero -name or gimmick, before managing to carry on... "I wasn't waiting for anything! I'm just..." his brain now telling him to avoid the admission of being lost, "...finding my way home." he managed to conclude, before realizing that his explanation was falling way short of covering all that he needed to explain. "I was just... I just had a promo shoot, and... I was just... Trying to go back home a bit unnoticed." he then managed to say, turning somewhat red in the process. "Obviously, seems like I failed." Star then concluded accompanied by frustrated hand gestures, trying to avoid eye contact with the girl he was facing...

Really, the hero would have just wanted to escape this situation as fast as possible, but the main barrier keeping him from doing so was that he was so unsure of which way to go. His instincts were recommending the direction where the girl was standing in, but he wasn't exactly keen on approaching her any further after her righteous accusations.

Still very, very awkward.

[Crossedes]

Yep, Flo could visualize it already. He would whip those spangly little nothings down, probably do some dance, then run out of the building never to be seen again after having planned this scheme for months already. It didn't seem worth it to her, but then, she didn't hide in hallways in her skivvies and wait for hot girls to walk past the door. Also, she didn't know what he packed down there, so maybe he was extremely proud. Maybe she would be extremely impressed. She could only wait with bated breath.

But her overactive imagination had conjured something that didn't come close to happening. No, he just tried to speak, mostly slack-jawed, as she waited with wild, challenging eyes for him to prove her accusations true. He didn't, though. No, he actually had a great excuse as excuses went. It took him an age to get through it all, which raised her suspicions, but ultimately, she bought it all well enough that her tense body eased, her raised haunches dropped, and she stopped wondering if she could hit him in the head with her little box of tacks so it exploded all over him.

"Guess that makes sense," she finally admitted, but she looked down at his crotch again, unabashed. "That's some getup for wrestlin' or promoin', though. You a sex wrestler? You don't look like one." And Flo would know better than most. She might not have done the outright sex bit that often, but she ran with that crowd.

"And you live here and got that lost? That's a weird hallway to end up getting lost in." All her defenses having lowered, she strolled toward him, leaning past him to peer through the little narrow window. "Gotta be a killer janitor down there who records himself in those weird chloroform fetish videos."

[Jaystar]

There was one foolproof way to make this situation even more awkward for Starboy, and that was if the girl in front of him wasn't going to buy any of what he was saying. But as the first lucky bit that had occurred to him today, she actually did. Even if his explanation was rarther confusing, and potentially omitting some key details, he could see from her body language that the message was getting through, and probably even believed as well. And most importantly, it didn't appear that she was going to be mad at him about it at all...

Obviously, Star's outfit was the next logical point of discussion. By that he wasn't surprised at all... But the take she had on it certainly caught him off guard. "A... A sex wrestler? Uhh... You mean like a... One of those Hentai ones?" he began his response to the curious blonde, confusion evident overall his tone. "No... No! I'm not like that..." he then remembered to add, as the response was going to be the same regardless of the answer to his initial question. "I'm actually..." he began trying to explain his attire, but then got stopped by his brain getting stuck again on a detail. The girl's question had definitely been conflicting... Why did she think he was a "sex wrestler", if he didn't look like one? And how exactly did sex wrestlers look like to her, and why did he not look like one? Should he had been somehow offended by this, or simply just grateful for the comment?

"How do they look like-..." Star had the time to only start his question, but not finish it before the blonde had already begun making her way towards him, and was peeking over to the hallway. And she was making the remark of him having gotten lost. That was unacceptable! This was something that Starboy definitely had to talk himself out of again! Luckily though, she then made the comment about a "killer janitor" potentially hiding in the hallway, which gave Starboy an idea... While effortlessly ignoring the stranger part regarding some "chloroform fetish" videos, whatever they were...

Besides, it was high time for Starboy to actually start owning his role and gimmick with the girl - he was dressed in his hero attire after all! "Oh, no, no... I wasn't lost...." he began explaining to the - admittedly rather curvy, now that he had the chance to pay attention to it - girl beside him. "I'm a superhero, you know... So it is my duty after all to observe these grounds, and to make sure that there are no villains in hiding anywhere around here!" He actually tried to sound a bit stoic and heroic now, while still hoping that the girl would catch the drift that he wasn't being dead serious with his words... Even though he was certainly trying to add some credibility for his choice of attire, and reason for wandering around the hallways in the basement!

[Crossedes]

"Guess if you're having to ask, that's a good way to say no, huh?"

And he really didn't look like one. Though it sounded like he didn't know what she meant. Flo twisted her mouth as if she thought it was obvious and that he had asked a silly question indeed. "You know." She gestured wordlessly at him for several seconds as if she could get him to understand with nothing but those gestures, but she finally finished her explanation by gesturing at herself. "Oiled up and..." She rubbed circles in the air around her body. "...like they've taken about twenty viagra and..." She made a phallus in front of her hips with two fingers. "...I dunno. Like they're going to the same barber as Draco Malfoy." What was it about that hairstyle?

She started to ponder it, but she realized she didn't actually care. But she also didn't think he had any ill intent for her, and given he appeared to be a little on the sheepish side, she didn't see much of a threat from him. She almost bumped hips with him at the door, but once she decided she couldn't find the janitor she described, the doll stood up again beside him. She had like three inches on him with the little heel popping out of her boots, and that certainly helped with the idea that he hadn't come down here to start jumping wrestlers. Almost all of the women here were as big as he was.

But he did sound like he was full of shit. "Not lost?", she asked. As he continued to explain, her scrutiny became more thoughtful than intense, and she stepped back to look at him in all his glory again, tapping on her chin. "Oh, so the spangly is a Superman thing? Good thing you didn't put an S on your crotch then. Don't think you could pass that off as hope. Maybe snake." She grinned, signaling that the interrogation had ended.

Oh... oh wait. Her eyes lit up. "Wait... so you kind of wrestle-roleplay as a superhero?" The Brit retreated, grabbing the flyer she had just pinned from the bulletin board and sending the tack flying into the opposite wall. She walked back up and all but shoved it in his face. "Do you play Dungeons and Dragons, then? Would save me a lot of trouble if you do."

[Jaystar]

Granted, being confused over sex wrestling was maybe a tad odd in a place like LAW, but to Starboy's credit, he really wasn't one to really star in those. No, his niche was more like heroic quests and adventures... Although sure, in the back of his mind he knew that any misadventures could have potentially brought some spicier elements with them. But that was the price to pay for being a hero in a place like LAW... And so far, he hadn't really starred in any scenarios of those sorts.

Besides, the girl seemed to have a little hard time explaining it herself as well. But Starboy could forgive her that. She probably wasn't the type to watch that kind of stuff, or be that familiar with it herself either.

He could also live with the fact of not looking like oiled up Draco Malfoy on Viagra.

He could not live with her still not buying that he wasn't lost. "No!" was the only thing he could come up as a response though, since he was quickly running out of excuses. Besides, she actually did get stuck on his excuse... Although not sounding like she was giving Starboy much credit as a superhero. Star could tell that the stuff about hope and snakes was probably some kind of an insult, but it went over his head. It was probably best just to introduce himself. "Oh, I'm actually-..."

He was cut short though by the girl's sudden question about him role-playing as a superhero, and finally she seemed to be getting his drift. "Yes, exactly! I wrestle as a superhero!" he confirmed, although the girl was suddenly more interested in some flyer than his response. And unfortunately, he wasn't all that familiar with what she was hoping for... Although he was also too kind to say outright no.

"Umm... Well, I've heard about it..." he began, trying to sound like he was a bit more familiar with it than he actually was. "But I mean... I guess I could try! Why... Are there villains on the loose that you'd need to have a superhero putting in their places?" he then concluded, trying to sound again a bit more stoic, and credible as a hero.

[Crossedes]

That got him perked up. Flo hadn't exactly followed at first, but apparently, he must have put a lot of stock in the whole superhero thing. The Brit found it sort of endearing, actually, that he would whip out his skivvies and claim to be a superhero. Most people didn't have the moxie to do that, and she gave him another look-over now that she stood closer to him with that more positive view in mind. Flo saw herself that way - she did whatever the hell she wanted if she found it fun and it didn't hurt anybody - so she could respect it.

And he was like, really into the hero and villain thing. "That's pretty much it," she agreed when he asked if that was the idea behind D&D. "'Cept it's not the comic superhero bit. It's like Aragorn and Lego-man kind of stuff." Of course, the doll didn't have a clue if he knew anything about that sort of stuff, either, but she pushed the flyer against his chest nonetheless so he could think about it. "Might be up your ally, but I'm not pushy. Just somethin' to think about to save a pretty girl like me from having to put up more flyers."

Of course, being Flo, she had to seal it with a tease and a grin - and the teasing didn't stop there. She actually wanted to know more about this guy, to be honest. She liked the cut of his jib, and she certainly didn't have any other way to entertain herself tonight. Making it clear she had settled in to chat with him, she leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "So you're all about taking down some villains, huh? Is it like a fetish sort of thing? 'Cause I've seen some of those videos too. The good guy ties up a really hot villainess because she's all mean and in tight latex and stuff like that. Or is it the same sort of stuff with other men?" She tilted her head up to think about how it would look with muscular men in their skivvies. "Not a bad thing to imagine."

[Jaystar]

Finally Starboy's words were beginning to go down better with the girl, as she bought his question over needing superheroes to take down villains well enough. And based on her answer, Star was even moderately interested - even if struggling to comprehend even on a most basic level what Aragorn and Lego-man could possibly have in common for them to come up in the same sentence. Sure, a part of his interest was stemming from the desire of not letting the girl down, and part from the fact that she was actually rather attractive, but roleplaying in general was also certainly something up Starboy's alley.

"Well, I guess heroes should always help damsels in distress..." Star attempted to offer a more light-hearted response to the girl's more teasing suggestion, hoping that it wouldn't irk the blonde the wrong way, while left with the flyer against his chest and cursing for not having any pockets to put it in. He would still surely look into it when he got home... Which apparently wasn't going to be just yet, since the lady seemed to settle down against the wall for a continued chat. And Star certainly didn't mind - provided that the delay wouldn't expose him to further awkward run-ins in his skimpy attire.

The girl's first sentence was fine, but the second got the hero immediately flustered. Fetishes certainly weren't a comfortable topic for the guy, regardless of whether they concerned his own, or any potential motivations for anyone to watch his matches. Her explanation of having seen some of those types of videos brought some relief to the increasingly red-faced guy, but it wasn't going to take away the need to somehow address her question. The conclusion of her question regarding a battle between two men helped him to gather his toughts a bit though, and provided a logical starting point for the hero's explanation.

"Um, well, I mean... Like I said, it's basically a wrestling gimmick..." he began, having to get out of his heroic role for a bit now. "So yeah, I roleplay as a superhero in matches. So usually I battle it out against some villainess in matches, yeah. But usually they've been pretty standard ones in the ring..." he explained, before recalling some details from the freshly-signed contract and discussions that he had with the LAW management. "But I mean, I'm really new here, and I think that when I signed the contract, they were talking something about wanting to go more into producing some hero vs villain -scenarios as well... You know, with the idea like that... Let's say a hero's task is to enter a villain's lair, like some kind of a dungeon, then wrestle it out there, and by the end either the hero or villain gets tied up or cuffed... Depending on how the wrestling goes." he then concluded, with a hint of red now reappearing on his cheeks, as he could certainly realize now that the described scenario certainly sounded like potential fetish material.

Trying to steer the discussion away from that again, Star then addressed the question over potential opponents. "But I mean, I'm part of the Intergender division, so I assume most of my opponents will be female." he began, then actually starting to wonder over the question if he could potentially be paired up against another male as well. "But I mean, I don't know how much they have matches with men fighting against each other here, so maybe that could happen as well..." he admitted, while also admitting to himself that he could certainly be regarded as an underdog against most other male wrestlers that he knew. But the girl clearly considered it to be a potential prospect, so he guessed he should have been flattered...

He was also curious to what exactly was the girl imagining now. "So, what do you think then? Who would you like to see Starboy being paired up against?" he queried with a curious tone, while slipping the name of his wrestling superhero persona in the process, something he forgot the girl hadn't even heard yet.

[Crossedes]

Oho, she had hit a button with mentioning the fetish thing. Flo made a career out of flustering people, and she could see the brief panic hit him, the reddening face. He might not admit to any sort of fetish, but something in his head or in his chest or down beneath his tiny bottoms got a kick out of what she had described. She nodded her head with exaggerated emphasis and gave him the old knowing pair of eyes when it became clear she had pushed a button, but she wouldn't tease him too much. Much as she liked to get people to admit to their desires - that was a part of her career, too - she certainly wouldn't judge.

He explained it all away anyway, and she had it right. The League seemed to think of all of it as a good idea, too, by the sound of it. Frankly, so did Flo. Hearing all that about entering a lair and battling it out there and one or the other person getting tied up by the end of it sort of did it for her, and Flo, like always, didn't do a thing to hide that interest. In fact, she emphasized it with long, curious mmhmm as he described it. Much as he might have been trying to explain the fetish part of it away, the session girl thought what he described sounded exactly like a fetish... and one that she on her recent roleplay kick found extremely enticing. She had actually been thinking about trying to track down someone around the League who could act, based on some things her fans had mentioned on her sales pages.

To be frank, Flo didn't know if they had that many matches with two men, either. "Dunno. Think they do it sometimes. Dunno who really does it, though, or how much the League books it. Think they figured out they want some curves like these in the match to get more eyes watching." She gestured at herself. "Don't know any villainsses-" She tried again on the word as she stumbled over it. Curse her years-gone lisp sometimes. "-villainesses - that's a lot of Ss - either, but-"

Wait. Had he just said "Starboy"? Was that the name he went by? "Starboy? Not Starman?", she asked. While the Brit herself didn't have any problem with it, she knew most guys preferred to be known as men more than boys. That trend she would never understand. Boy got the cute appeal, man got the hunky appeal. They both had their place depending on the person. "Not shooting it down, though. It's easy to remember, and it definitely lets people know about the whole superhero thing."

...In fact, the whole idea had Flo feeling mischievous. Realizing she hadn't said a word about who she was, she straightened up, put a hand on her hip. "And me, I'm clearly theeee..." "Baby Doll," her usual moniker online, sure didn't work. Who was afraid of a baby doll? "...theeeee... Devilish Doll." She stuck out a hand, grinned her cheekiest grin. "But you can call me Flo."