Popol Vuh

Hilde Von Creuzfeldt sat, as she often did, typing away at the keyboard in the small office that served as the antechamber to the Friction General Manager's office. While she spent her time mostly doing clerical things, as well as working on her own interests, it was also her duty to make sure that those with appointments were received.

Today was no different and an aspiring young rookie who went by Etzlicoatl in the ring had been served with an invitation to meet Friction's German GM. Hilde, a blonde German herself, hummed softly to herself as she waited for Etzlicoatl to make her way to the office. Her mood always seemed to be bright, and she liked to keep a smile and warm greeting waiting for those who came to Lukretia, knowing what was in store for them beyond the door behind her.

Hilde's quiet morning was about to get a whole lot less quiet, as a knock at the door disrupted the silence. Well...less of a knock, and more of an imperious banging, although the noise kind of died off as the door's sensors triggered and it swung open.

"Open! Open in the name of Our Flayed Lord, who has bestowed--oh, it's got an automatic thing. Oh."

Etzlicoatl was young and still finding out quite a few things about the world, and despite the fearsome persona she projected, there was a mountain of anxieties underneath it. So it was that, even as she strode forward into the antechamber and struck a martial pose before Hilde's desk, she couldn't help but sneak a quick look around and study the seat of power - true power, not the image she cultivated. It was...kind of minimalist, actually. Very tastefully decorated. Etzli was a bit disappointed, having not yet reached the point in life where one realizes that people who don't feel the need to show off their power are often the ones you have to watch out for.

Either way, here she was, volume turned all the way up and very excited indeed. "I bid you...dark greetings. A summons has been cast out, calling me here to conference with our blessed emperor. May I proceed further into her sanctum?"

Shock of shocks. Even when she was in character, Etzlicoatl could find a way to be polite after all. Perhaps she wasn't quite as dumb as she seemed.

"Huh?"

Hilde blinked at Etzl's boisterous greeting. The girl was, well, she was adorable to put it one way. Hilde just wanted to squeeze her tightly, but she remained seated. "Ahh, Ms. Ortega, Guten tag!" Hilde chirped, using the girl's real name, though it seemed like Etzl was going to keep her gimmick up no mater what. Hilde also found the dedication cute and tilted her head as she tried to mull over the rest of the words.

"Sanctum..." She muettered and turned and looked back. "Emperor?" She added and then stifled a soft giggle. Some might call her that. She thought that Lukretia would find it amusing too. "One moment, please!" Hilde said and lifted her finger. She pressed the intercom and a string a German came through her mouth. She then looked up at Etzle and nodded.

"Ms. Von Creuzfeldt will see you now, Ms. Ortega. Good luck!" She said as she motioned for the exuberant Mecian to go to Lukretia's office.

Etzlicoatl narrowed her eyes. Hilde's cheerful address - using her real name, and her matronymic, at that - had made her suspicious, and perhaps the tiniest bit offended. No matter how hard she tried, nobody was ever impressed with the whole routine. It had left her a little more rattled than she preferred to be.

"....Yes," the Nahuatl girl answered at last, stepping back from the desk. Her cheeks, despite herself, had reddened slightly. "As expected. All is moving in, uh, in accordance with...I will depart now."

With that, she beat a hasty retreat from the desk, pushing through the door and into the office proper. Having been a little embarrassed by the total non-reaction a few seconds ago, Etzli opted for a slightly less spectacular approach. Rather than the splayed, arms-wide pose she usually favored, she simply spread both hands in a vaguely sorcerous gesture. It wasn't that different from the norm, considering her character occasionally strayed from 'Aztec priestess' into 'crazed wizard'. Just a little more subdued.

"You invoked the name of Etzlicoatl. Here I stand."

There. That was...subtle enough.

Lukretia didn't even lift her head as Etzl came in. The German domme clacked away at her computer, letting the young girl stand there for an awkward moment before she lifted her head and looked over Etzl.

"Fräulein." Lukretia stood up and slipped around her desk. Though The German was shorter than Etzl, she always seemed ten feet tall. When she was close to Etzl and peered at the brunette.

"Do you know vhy I have summoned you?" She asked with a rueful smile.

In the span of about fifteen seconds, Etzlicoatl was reduced to nothingness.

The frosty silence that filled the air, broken only by the sounds of Lukretia's typing, was just long enough to let the luchadora reflect on her attempt at being impressive, and more importantly how terribly it had gone over. She was shifting nervously from foot to foot, her hands rubbing anxiously against each other at her waist, before her boss even bothered to stand up. And when Lukretia approached her, clearly entirely unimpressed and studying her under a cold eye, any hopes at putting up a front of extremely cool and good status went right out the window.

"Um." She had a few inches on Lukretia, but for whatever reason, Etzlicoatl felt absolutely tiny under the exec's gaze. With a valiant effort, she fumbled for an appropriately brash answer. "Naturally, to praise my...ah, my glorious victory at the Horde Match, wh-which all the masses beheld in all its..." She gulped audibly. "...splendor?"

There was no need to voice her actual answer, as it had grown arms, climbed up Etzli's side, scampered onto her shoulder, and screamed "SHE'S GONNA FIRE YOU" into her ear. Irrational, sure, but Etzlicoatl perpetually assumed the worst about herself and others. It was a pretty easy leap to make.

"Mmmm..."

Lukretia's smile spread a lil more and she lifted up her hand and pressed her fingers against Etzl's cheek, as she leaned very close. So close their faces were nearly touching. "How very astute, fraulein." She said and let her hand slip down the soft cheek a bit. "It vas indeed a rather spirited victory. I do not zhink zere vere many who vould have expected you to pull through against your opponent. It vas an ingenius vay to pull off ze victory." She said.

Lukretia removed her fingers and then stepped around to look at the young wrestler from behind. "Do you zhink zat you may deserve some kind of revard for your efforts?" Lukretia asked from behind Etzl.

In theory, holding your breath is supposed to make you stay perfectly still. People in horror movies hold their breath all the time and don't get noticed by monsters watching for moment. In reality, though, it isn't quite as effective as one might think, and despite holding her breath until she turned slightly bluish under all the flushing, Etzlicoatl still noticeably trembled under Lukretia's fingertips.

Still, things alleviated themselves after a few seconds, as all the nervous tension began to abate very slightly. The praise made Etzli relax a tiny bit (enough to start breathing again, at any rate), although she was clearly expecting the other shoe to drop at any second. Without her persona as a shield, she was clearly quite timid, and the enormous amount of power hanging over her head like the sword of Damocles wasn't doing her any favors.

"Um," she stammered, fighting the urge to turn and try to bolt (not that it would've worked, as the icy German was now behind her and she knew better than to turn around and follow). "....Y-yes?"

The truth was, she did believe it, but her answer sounded more like a question than an assertion of fact.

"Oh my!" Lukretia chirped as Etzl stuttered. She could practically see the girl shaking and it delighted Lukretia to know end. She slipped around towards the girl's front once more and lifted a finger, touching the girl's chin.

"Vell, you are in luck. I do like to revard zose who can overcome in ze ring, you see." Lukretia's finger slipped off of Etzl's shin and then dropped down to the girl's collar and traced downward as she kept her fierce blue eyes fixated on Etzl's.

"You may have heard zat I am some kind of monster, das Ungeheuer." Lukretia smiled and let her finger continue to slide until it reached the slope of Etzl's modest breast. "I assure you, I am not. Zose vith ze vill und ability to succeed vill find me quite benevolent." She pulled her finger away and then turned, walking back towards her desk.

"I do not usually do zis, but, I zhink zhat vith your performance, it vould be quite fine to allow you an opportunity to truly prove your vorth. How vould you like a shot at ze Entropy title?" Lukreta asked with a gleam in her eye and a cruel grin on her face.

She was not by any means out of the woods yet, but there were a few growing possibilities that Etzli had not, in fact, been called in to get fired or beaten senseless or put in a crate and shipped back to Mexico. The increasingly promising nature of the conversation bolstered her confidence, and that bolstering promptly disappeared a half second later when Lukretia's finger began wandering over her cheek, down her neck, all the way to her neckline. "Uh." She seemed to have turned rather the color of a wet sheet, and the Mexican girl glanced down for a split second in disbelief before realizing that was even worse and hastily raising her deer-in-the-headlights eyes again to meet her boss's.

Her expression was the closest approximation to "O_O" that a human being could possibly achieve. Oh god, they'd always told her this would happen if she left home. "You're too young to do this stuff on your own, people will take advantage of you, blah blah blah." Fuuuuuuuuuck---

But just like that, the moment of terror was over and Lukretia had retreated back to her desk - with an inquiry about the Entropy title, at that! Etzli's heart leaped in her chest. This was huge, potentially. She'd known she would raise some interest when she stole the victory at Avalanche, but she'd never thought her ruthlessness and go-get-em attitude could result in something like this...

"R-really?!" she blurted, totally forgetting to stay in character in the shock of the moment. "But...I thought the Entropy champion had to choose their challenger, it wasn't just something you could get in line for--"

A pause.

"Uh, I mean..."

There was a chagrined silence. Etzlicoatl was now very red-cheeked indeed.