How To Save The World

"No one starts at the top," Taylor echoed. Sometimes when she looked back at everything she had been through while clawing her way toward the top, it seemed like it must all have happened to someone else. She was still only twenty three years old, and her scant lifespan so far seemed too meager a vessel for the experiences she had fit into it. She had always believed in living her life to the fullest extent, holding nothing back, stopping at nothing. She wondered what her memories would be if she had gone to a community college and taken an office job, safely slogging through her routine every day for a little paycheck every Friday. The pain and suffering she had endured as a pro wrestler didn't seem so bad by comparison.

Her mind drifted to memories of Lukretia, on their first official meeting. She couldn't help but laugh. "So, do you remember when I told you that you have no business fighting anything but an eating disorder?" She asked. "How much of an ass would I have been if you really had one? Like, that doesn't seem like you, but I would never have been able to live it down. And do you remember the time you headbutted me in the face? Good times."

She could feel her excitement building inside the closer they got to their destination, but for the interview, and to be able to set foot on New York soil again. It was like the moon-landing, only better. She wanted to go to Ferrara's and get canoli. She wanted to eat pizza and see a movie and walk the streets late at night and just to be another New Yorker blending in with the crowd. She felt an ache in her chest, and tears sprung to her eyes, but she carried on like they weren't there.

"Man, like, we could do some really good stuff together," she remarked. "Like, I'm sure I'd end up kicking your ass and trying to save the world from your evil schemes, but... I dunno. I think I'm just really emotional right now. I'm trying to remember that you're an evil bitch that gets off on fucking with everyone, but all I can see is someone who dealt with shit and came through it well enough to care about other people, enough to do something about it. And... you were there when I was coming up and everything. Did..." It was a silly question. She asked it anyway. "Do you think you grew at all, like as a person? Like... was it good for you too?"

"Vaguely..." Lukretia said, wondering what Taylor might be getting at. Lukretia shook her head. "If I vas ze sort to have a problem like zat, zen I probably vouldn't be able to handle any of your attempts to get under meine skin. Vords... are somezing zat I vill never be hurt by." She said truthfully. "Anyone who can get heated over vords must believe zem to hold some truth. Even if zat is ze case, I am confident enough in meineself to know zat truth is not somezing to run from. I think you know it as vell." Lukretia grinned.

"Zough I have seen zat you do have buttons zat can be pressed." She teased. Taylor was the kind of girl who could take her own medicine but every once in a while someone could get creative and rankle her. Lukretia did not find fault in that though. For many girls, that pushed them to do even better.

"Oh?" Lukretia pursed her lips and smiled at Taylor's words. "It very vell could be an amusing proposition, Ms. Parker. But you are right. I think eventually meine methods vould get to be too much. Ah vell." Lukretia shrugged. As much as she liked Taylor, she didn't really want to spend extended periods of time around the girl anyway. Maybe they saw each other in ways that others didn't, or couldn't see them, but that didn't mean they were best friends. Lukretia's blood may not have bled completely black and maybe Taylor was much less of a punk than she told the world she was, but they were still worlds apart as far as the common things that bound people together. The details of life, the wants and desires and interests.

"Vhat an interesting question." Lukretia said finally. "But, I do not believe zat it is meine to answer. I could think many things und be blinded by ze forest of trees. I think so. Ve all must grow. I am not ze same voman who entered ze league as an employee, zat is for sure. But, I think it is for others to judge. Vhat do you think, Ms. Parker?'

Taylor didn't answer right away. She was thinking back to the way everyone used to be... when Cassie was an unblemished little girl who couldn't be more excited, when Johnny was one girlfriend away from finding his confidence and showing Mamouru once and for all, when Akashi was the reigning queen of AFW. When Taylor was young and scared and hellbent on proving herself, to herself. When her hair was blue and she left no fight unpicked. When she still had a deadbeat father.

She shrugged, and breathed a heavy sigh like a wave eroding her away as if she were nothing but a sandcastle, in a perpetual state of building up or tearing down. "I dunno. I didn't know you then. I don't know you now, really. All I really know about you are the things you did to make my life hell. Like having me defend my title," she snorted at the term, Entropy hardly seemed like her title, "against a dirty bitch while I had broken ribs. I think everyone knew that I wasn't going to win that match, but I had 'em all going for a while. After that, though... things got dark. It broke me down. But I learned that I'm not the kind of person to stay down.

"I think a lot about fire. I feel like I have it in me, and like, maybe it lights me up, but maybe it also burns me down, like with Brittany. But every time, when I'm just a pile of ashes, I get back up. That's who I am, and I think maybe... you helped me figure that out. So... thanks."

She gave an ironic smile and rolled her eyes as tears again welled up and threatened to embarrass her in front of the hardened German. She shook her head at her own emotional chaos. "I mean it," she said sincerely. "I think you did grow in the last three-and-a-half years, but I won't just tell you how. It's not mine to tell."

Lukretia listened to Taylor speak and once again get sentimental. If someone has emotion in one area, it only stands to reason that they would be emotional in everything they did. It seemed like that was the case for Taylor. "You have become a fine young voman. Zat is all ze thanks I desire, Ms. Parker. Ahhh... I vould much rather vatch you ladies grow zan to have children of meine own." Lukretia said and then sighed. She closed her eyes and let those thoughts drift away.

She let them come back to the Brittany match. "All you had to lose vas a title. She had her entire career on ze line. If you had von, zen she vould have deserved vhat she got. Now she's made something of herself, even if she's had a bit of help from time to time." Lukretia smiled. "Oh, I should thank you for taking in zat drowning rat of meine." Lukretia's smile spread wider. "I had thought her a lost cause but it seems zere is somezing in her yet. How vunderbar. Ze only shame is she vas quite excellent at her job. In zat respect, I vill miss her. However, I am glad zat I no longer have to look upon a face like hers any longer." She said as she looked down.

Taylor smiled and rolled her eyes about Brittany. She sure had made something of herself... Not that it was anything good.

But then her face tightened in annoyance. "What? What's wrong with Morgan?" Taylor said defensively. She knew perfectly well what was wrong, but Lukretia shouldn't be allowed to say it. "She's more than just a good servant, or whatever. She just needed a little help coming out of her shell, which you never gave her. You probably put her in the shell to begin with. She's a good friend. And there's nothing wrong with her face."

"Nothing is wrong vith her now." Lukretia corrected. "I suppose ze spotted leopard can change." She added. "But, perhaps you are right. However, I do not believe so in zis case. I believe she vas trapped in a shell of her own making. As such, it is not meine place to free her from it either. Nor could I if I had vanted to."

"Well, I definitely don't think you helped. Don't think I don't know about some of the shit that goes on at your place." Taylor's hard gaze lingered on Lukretia for a moment before her face was softened by a lopsided smile. "But then, all this talk about saving the world, maybe you've gone soft?"

She became quiet after that, as her attention was drawn to the buildings outside the window. She found herself unable to hold still, and she fidgeted with her hands and her legs squirmed restlessly. She just wanted to be there and get out of the car already. The last leg of the trip was sheer torture. Ludicrous visions ran through her head, about stepping out of the limo and getting some kind of hero's reception from New York, about her former trainers and partners being there, about the clouds parting and the sun shining down around her as she put her boots down on the sidewalk. Of her mom standing there waiting. Next to her dad. The two of them holding hands and smiling like they had never fallen out of love. Like they were both still alive. Like they both cared enough about Taylor to show up.

When her happy fantasies faded and were replaced by reality, the disappointment was so sharp that her face fell, her eyes became glued to the floor. She knew it was just her wild imagination, but there was nothing so appealing as the things she would never have.

Lukretia grinned like a child who had been caught doing something mischievous. It was no secret that her estate was a house of debauchery. Some people flocked to it like a temple of worship for that reason alone. It was just the way of things. "I vas not going to treat her any differently. I never forced her to be meine servant. Just as I did not force her to stop. She has been ze master of her own destiny zis whole time. As it should be."

She let the moment pass and began watching Taylor as she slipped into an ocean of her own design, swallowed by her hometown in ways that seemed both good and bad. Lukretia could practically see what was in Taylor's head. If not the specific visions, what they represented. When Taylor looked down at the floor, Lukretia smiled.

"Meine hometown is a raction of ze size of zis city." She said after a while. "But, I still get ze same feeling everytime I am able to go home. Japan is vhere I live. I have all but abandoned meine proper home." She said with sadness in her voice. "It is upkept and maintained und I can visit it if I need to, but even if it is closer zan New York is to you, I still have ze same feelings." Lukretia sighed. She missed Germany quite a bit.

"But! ve have nearly arrived. get all ze teary emotions out of your system, Fraulein." Lukretia said with an amused tone. "You vere talking about softness?" She said with an amused tone.

The limo slowly came to a stop in front of one of the large skyscrapers. Somewhere on one of the higher floors was an office that held representatives of the charity Lukretia represented and that Taylor would, with certainly, also represent once the day was finished. Lukretia turned and stepped out of the car.

"Come now, Ms. Parker, let us save ze vorld."