Yankee Roses

Dixie nodded as she listened to Taylor rambling on, taking a moment to order a pitcher of beer when the waitress came by the table. She leaned back forward towards Taylor as she listened, the cowgirl turning her own faint shade of red when the punk started to heap on the praise, confessing her admiration of Dixie's body. It was weird, hearing someone gushing over her like this. Not even trying to really flatter her or anything, but just being so completely sincere about it.

She raised an arm, sheepishly rubbing at the back of her head as Taylor went on about her neck. "Yeeeah. Ah probably shouldn't have went after yer neck so hard like that. Ah got caught up in things a lil' too much, ah guess." She shrugged at Taylor. "Yer alright, right? Ain't hurting too bad?" She was starting to feel a little bit guilty. She had seen Taylor's match again Angel, and should have remembered how bad the Latina and Kelly had got her neck. Taylor was tough though. She would pull through.

At least, that's what the cowgirl thought, until Taylor mentioned wanting to be tougher. "Yer tough though, girl!" she laughed, shaking her head again. "Ya went up against me and kicked my ass, right? How many girls 'round here can claim that? 'Sides, yer young, and in good shape. Yer jes' gonna keep gettin' tougher, jes' so long as ya keep trainin' and keep fightin'."

She leaned back in her chair again, reaching up to brush an errant strand of hair out of her face as she continued. "And geez, girl. Don't be jealous of my body. Ya got a damn fine one yerself!" She leaned forward again, and reached across the table, grabbing Taylor's arm and giving her bicep a playful squeeze. "Ya might not be as...big as me, or as curvy, but that don't mean a single damn thing. Yer attractive in yer own way. Ain't gotta be all tits and ass to be sexy, you know."

She settled back into her chair, leaning against it, draping her arms over the back of it. "But...geez, all this praise from ya, girl. Gotta say ah never expected to hear all of this tonight."

"Eh," Taylor waved dismissively at Dixie. "You can do whatever you want. You didn't break the rules or anything. I just need to be better is all. And I know I'm attractive in mah own way! I'm perfectly happy with myself. I guess sometimes you just want it both ways."

But seriously, Dixie's ass was just like pow!

"I think I'm better off, really. Do you remember when you camel clutched Reiko so hard you broke your vest? That shit doesn't happen to me," she said with a lopsided grin. She folded her arms on the table and leaned against it while her ankles bounced tirelessly on the floor. "But really, when I was in high school getting my ass kicked, I used to watch you guys on TV. Candy Cane is the one that really made me realize, wait, I can do that! But I always wanted to be like Reiko, ya know, her style. Only... with more of an edge. With some of me in it."

She stared off toward the ceiling while she recalled all the time she had spent at the TV with the volume down low, secretly clenching her fists and biting her lip while she watched Reiko and Dixie and the others. "What was that like, though? Like, compared to AFW. Were people just as batshit crazy? It seems like... Maybe the best girls in AFW are better than the best ones in Rumble Roses, but there are way more girls in AFW that just suck."

Dixie waved back at Taylor in her own dismissive sort of way. "Ah can do whatever ah what? Ah'm gonna remember those words, next time we've in the ring together and ah'm tryin' to rip yer head off!"

The waitress soon returned, bringing a pitcher and a pair of mugs with her, sitting them on the table. Dixie eagerly grabbed for a mug and filled it up, then after a moment's thought slid it across the table to Taylor, before filling up the other for herself. She sat back, taking a long drink from her mug as she listened to Taylor, turning a furious red as the girl brought up her vest popping open.

"That don't happen much! It was one time!" she fired back, glancing away with a bit of an embarrassed look on her face. She took another long drink from her mug and then looked back at Taylor again, thinking for a moment on her question.

"Those girls in the Rumble Roses were just as crazy. You had a ninja wannabe, and Candy runnin' off at the mouth to everyone, and that nutcase nurse sneaking about. We weren't ever as big as AFW, but we had more then our fair share of crazy."

The cowgirl then locked eyes with Taylor, staring at with her a hint of an aggressive grin on her face. "Well...ya can say that the best girls in AFW are better then the best Roses, but yer lookin' at the best Rose of all right now, and trust me girl, ah know ah'm better then most of the girls 'round here. Ah'm jes'...you know. Waitin' fer my big chance to come, ah guess."

"Haaaa!" Taylor laughed, and held up two fingers. "You mean second best. Or third. Maybe third best rose, after Reiko and Candy. Man, I don't even care if Candy, or... Rebecca, I guess, wasn't the best fighter or anything, I love her to death. She's just like Jenny from the block for me. She's like a girl from my neighborhood. And she was young, too, right? Like, not even twenty. Man. I just want to give her a hug."

Taylor poured a pint for herself and snagged a waitress to order food. She ordered a grilled chicken salad, a double order of steamed broccoli with no butter, and a bowl of chili. They didnt have sweet potatoes.

"She wasn't all that bad, right?" Taylor asked. "Like, she was probably a cool girl, right? And what do you mean waiting for your chance? You just had one! And you blew it!" She stuck out her tongue at the cowgirl.

"Haven't seen Candy in ages," Dixie mused, taking another sip from her beer. "Ah wonder what ever happened to her? She was a good kid. Rough around the edges, but a good kid. You remind me a lot of her, though ah'd say yer damn better then her in the ring."

When Taylor snagged the waitress, Dixie placed her own order, deciding that a big bowl was chili was exactly what she needed right now.

"Nah, she wasn't that bad. Like ah said, she was rough around the edges, but ah really think she was just playing it up, tryin' to act tougher then she really was."

Her shoulders slumped though, as Taylor stuck her tongue out at her, the cowgirl taking a quick swig from her mug, finishing the beer and reaching for the pitcher to fill it back up. "Yeah. Yer right. Ah guess that was my big chance, huh?" She set her mug down, and shrugged. "It's no big deal though. Ah'll get another. Jes' gotta keep at it and be patient, right?"

Taylor could only shake her head in disbelief. Better than Candy Cane? It wasn't that she didn't believe that she was better, she knew she was. But she could hardly believe that she had come to a point in her life where she was sitting across the table from Dixie Clemets, one of her old role models, listening to her say that she was better than her old idol, at the thing the girl had inspired her to do. The student had become the teacher, or something. She really wanted to know what Rebecca Walsh was up to these days.

"Patient? I dunno about that, man. I'd say that you should get back in the gym tomorrow, find new people to push you and train with you, work your ass off, improve your skills, fix your diet, study tape, write in a journal, and then get your ass back in the ring as soon as possible and win. I'm not real big on waiting around for stuff. If you want it, go get it. And..." She thought about Angel. "If you don't get it, then make yourself into the person that would. That's life, ya know?"

She took a long drink of her beer and stared off into space past Dixie while she thought. It was weird... Dixie had never been a favorite of hers, though she had to have a certain respect for her. She would never have dreamed that she would get along with her, well enough that she felt comfortable asking her for career advice.

"What do you think about Angel?" She asked, somewhat out of the blue, and focused her eyes directly on Dixie.

"Ah guess yer right, but...ah dunno. Ah took some time off, worked my ass off to get back into shape and get my head back in the game and...well, it didn't really go anywhere. Ah go out, ah kick ass and ah win, but it never really seems to matter. My last few matches have all been against new gals and low-card gals. Ah don't belong there, you know? Ah should be fightin' bigger and better gals. Ah should be fightin' gals like you more often." Siiiiiiip. "Hell, even my one pay-per-view match got ruined when my opponent didn't bother to show!" It still stung thinking about that, about how she would have been fighting at the very first Avalanche, but Tiffany didn't bother to show up. It still pissed her off, really.

Dixie perked up a little when Taylor brought up Angel, staring right back into her eyes. "Angel?" she thought for several long seconds, musing over the question a little bit. "Well...she's our champ, ain't she? Ah don't see why she kept gettin' so many title shots though. Weren't really fair to the rest of us. But...she's been kickin' a lot of ass lately, so ah guess she deserves it. If you ask me though, she needs to be defendin' the damn title more often. A match here and there every so often when you're champ jes' don't seem right to me."

She took another long drink out of her beer, then set her mug down, suddenly giving Taylor a wide, toothy grin. "Hell. Maybe ah'll go out there and call 'er out next week, see if ah can get me a match against her!" She laughed, shaking her head back and forth. "Couldn't hurt, and it would to be nice to see how ah stack up against her..."

"Well..." Taylor wasn't immediately sure what to say, so she covered with a sip of beer. "I think you'd be more of a problem for her than me, honestly. She's just a bad matchup for me. I like to go hard right out of the gate and rock people before they can get comfortable, and keep pushing until they break. I did it against you, and Kelly, and Angel, and just about everyone else. But Angel is tough enough, and she stays calm enough that she can counter me even when I'm kicking her ass. I feel like she had my number by a few minutes into that match..."

She sighed, and sat back in her chair. Dixie didn't seem as cerebral about this sort of thing, which was weird, because Taylor didn't think of herself as "cerebral", of all things. But who knows, maybe she'd have something to say.

"I've thought about Angel every day. I know that whole match by heart. I have a picture of her stuck to my mirror and in my gym bag, just to make sure I don't relax. I'm going to fight her again, whether she has the title or not. I haven't been beaten the way she beat me in... a long, long time. I need to beat her. I feel like I can't breathe until I do. But..." She hesitated for a moment, and her blue eyes searched Dixie for some hint of sempai-wisdom. "What do you think? Do you think I'll beat her, or is she really just that tough?"

"Ah think yer right. Ah think ah could handle 'er pretty well," Dixie nodded at Taylor's words, giving the girl a chance to speak her mind. "Ah've never really heard of 'er fightin' powerhouses like me much. Well, 'cept the time she fought Akashi, and she got 'er ass handed to her there." The more Dixie thought about it, the more she was tempted to actually go and call Angel out. The idea of that particular match was starting to excite her a little. "Ah think if ah could jes' get my hands on 'er, jes' once, ah could take 'er down..."

This wasn't about her though, so the cowgirl shut up and let Taylor finish, before she spoke up again. "Listen," she began, keeping her words soft, her accented voice gentle as she stared back at Taylor, smiling at her. "She's tough, she's damn tough, but she ain't some kind of a wrestling goddess or nothin'. She might be the champ, and she's the champ for a damn good reason, but she's had her ass beat down jes' like the rest of us." This felt kind of weird. Dixie wasn't used to giving advice or anything like this. No one really came to her to talk about these kind of things.

It kind of felt nice.

"Yer a good girl, Taylor. Ya got drive. Yer focused, and that's the key. She beat ya, and from what ah know of 'er, she probably ain't even thinkin' about ya anymore. She seems like the kind of gal that finishes with someone and then moves on to the next." She took a long drink from her mug before she continued, wanting to make sure she said the right things. "She ain't gonna expect ya to come after her again. But you? Yer preparing for 'er. Yer gonna get in there, and come at 'er, and she ain't gonna know what the hell happened."

She set down her mug, and lifted her hands, suddenly slapping both of them together, the noise echoing through the room. "Boom. Yer gonna take 'er down, and walk out of that ring with yer head held high. Ah know ya can do it, but yer the one that's got to know ya can do it. Ya get it?"

She started to feel like she was rambling, so she drew her lil' speech to a close. "Yer doubtin' yerself. Ah can see it in yer eyes. No doubt, got it? When ya get back into that ring with 'er, ya gotta be confident. Ya can't doubt a single damn thing, and ya gotta know ya can beat 'er. Got it? As long as you ya get in there without any doubts, she won't stand a single damn chance."

"Yeah," Taylor nodded. She listened intently, not breaking off eye contact until Dixie was finished and she looked down at her beer, cradled between her palms. "Well..."

She breathed a sigh, and lifted her hands to gesture toward Dixie. "The first time, I was totally sure I was going to beat her ass down and walk away with the belt in record time. I knew all about her, and I really didn't see what made her so great. I was completely sure I was going to kill her. But then I didn't." She looked up over Dixie's shoulder with a pained expression. "Just... everything went so horribly wrong in that match, and I didn't see any of it coming. That's what bugs me so much, man, it's the stuff I don't see when I'm going over tape and thinking through different situations. It keeps me up at night, like, more than I've really told anyone. It's driving me kind of crazy."

She closed her mouth tight and pursed her lips. Maybe it was best to just change the subject. "So anyway, what's Reiko like? She seemed like she'd be nice, but kind of... too good for me. Like, I didn't think we'd ever get along. I gotta admit, I had like my own wannabe Reiko Hinomoto outfit back in the day. I wore it to the gym once in a while... Oh, and why the fuck can't she button her goddamn pants?"