A package for Seraphim

Elena faced Seraphim, her arms folded, matching Seraphim's stare with that of a woman who would not be intimidated. Even in the face of Seraphim's deadly stare. Even in the face of Seraphim's icy words... She would not back down.

For a second, Elena paused... that look ... Seraphim's glare... that had to have been what Elena herself looked like that night years ago. Briefly, Elena's eyes lost their focus as painful memories stirred.

... but for what? Elena knew that look... it meant bloody murder... a woman driven to the brink... Had she really pushed Seraphim so far? ... No way. Not with just this exchange.

Elena didn't care. She was not going to be intimidated. Seraphim was underestimating her, this act, this little play, must have gotten Seraphim a lot of freedom from other people who annoyed her. Elena would not be so moved. After Seraphim finished, Elena raised her eyebrows, "Let me get this order of events straight. I introduce myself. You threaten me. I warn you about Phoebe. You threaten me. I REALLY warn you about Phoebe. You really threaten me. I get rightfully pissed off. You whine, insinuating that I'm some mobster and that it's all my fault and only natural that I evoke death threats from you."

"Finally, I threaten you, and ONLY NOW do you pull the apeshit, rabid dog act?" She huffed, pointing an accusatory finger at Seraphim, "Fuck you. If I wanted to cut you, that knife would've found your kidney. Get a hold of yourself, and go run to Phoebe, you psychotic little piss-ant. Tell her how big bad Elena made you cut yourself without even laying a finger on you. She REALLY loves the psychopaths. Oh ho, I can tell you that, cupcake."

She took a step back, still facing Seraphim, only to reach for a towel sitting on one of the benches. She would toss it at Seraphim's face, "And clean your hand up. You're making a mess." She was speaking of Seraphim's hand, still bloodied from smashing the locker door.

This woman was proving to once again be nothing but a coward. Only words, but no bite at all. Seraphim didn't care what she had to say, she wanted this woman to act, not to just speak out with her high and mighty little tone and try to peg herself as someone who was better than she was. The way Seraphim saw it, if you wanted to talk, you better be able to back it up, but so far, Elena had done no more than show she had to rely on a pitiful little knife that wouldn't even cut Seraphim if she tried.

"You are a fuckin' idiot." Seraphim said simlpy, not even moving from where she stood as she caught the towel, gripping it tightly in her bloody fist but deciding never to move. In fact, she stood there like a rooted tree, awaiting only for Elena to make the next move if she was not a coward enough to do so, and took a long, slow breath, the glare never being cast aside. "You're the one throwing knive's. Do you think I plan to turn around and walk away after that? I'm not as simpleminded as you are. You leave first, I'm not going anywhere."

What gall. Elena could not understand what Seraphim's problem was, so married she seemed to be to violence. "Simpleminded? No, my dear little dog, I'm thinking five moves ahead of you." She closed the distance between them, arms crossed, so that but a few inches separated the two of them, "It is taking every bit of restraint I have to resist kicking the everloving shit out of your pretty little face. It's apparently the only language you speak." She smiled, "But I can't. I'd like to think for the same reason you have yet to do the same to me, but I have yet to successfully underestimate you, so I shall spell it all out for you." She took a step back and gracefully sat down on the nearest bench, gesturing for Seraphim to take a seat next to her.

She wouldn't wait for her to actually sit to continue, "Phoebe, my dear. You see, I don't think she'd take too kindly to me smearing her precious little fucktoy across the locker rooms. In fact, she'd find it downright intolerable, one of the few lines I would rather not cross in our relationship."

An excited grin crossed her face as she pointed to the knife, "So go ahead. Pick that up. Stab me." She thrust her chest forward, as if inviting it, "Who knows, you might even kill me!" She laughed, "But, know this... you do that... if you make this relationship a choice between me and you..." Her laugh turned into a loud cackle, "Oh man, the only downside to all of this would be not being around to see the look on your face when she kicks you to the curb! Hell, if you actually manage to kill me, she'll probably... oh man... I'd almost say DEFINITELY kill you!"

Elena shook her head, her laughter fading into hissing breaths, the jovial facade fading into a snarling glare of rage, "So come on then. Do it. You were clearly too fucking stupid to realize that this relationship you're trying to foster involved MORE than just what you wanted, you whiny little bitch. So, go on. You want to kill me. I see it in your eyes. I know that look!" The tempo and volume of her voice was gradually rising to a furious crescendo. "So go ahead. Give in to your baser instincts. Hell, you probably don't have any others! Everything in Seraphim-land can be solved with murder and threats of such, huh? That's probably why you were the prison bitch, right? They knew an animal when they saw one."

She stood up and stormed up to Seraphim, so that one could barely fit a sheet of paper between the two of them. Her eyes wide and furious, "Come on then, you little slut! I can't take any more of your mouth-breathing neanderthal bullshit. I've had two lifetimes full of that shit, but I am not going to sink to your level. So, come on, stab me. Right now! Show me, show Phoebe, show the WORLD what a mindless brute you are." She spat, right in Seraphim's face. "But take that tape with you when you go. That's the Phoebe you want. Not the one out there."

It was strange, every word that came from Elena's lips... it sounded like nothing but white noise to Seraphim. She never seemed to budge, even when Elena was shouting in Seraphim's face, merely an inch from her own face as she just stood there like a gargoyle statue, never even breathing as she took on the onslaught of verbal abuse from this woman, no flinching, no movement from her whatsoever.

Elena's words were nothing but the wind to Seraphim, if this girl revolved around trying to be taint Seraphim's mind with this sort of bombardment in mental trauma, then Seraphim would not give her the benefit of it. Instead, the girl just relied on an old method to keep herself calm, counting backwards from ten in her mind, slowly, adamant, and letting it flush away her anger.

Sadly, it didn't work too well, but it was enough to keep Seraphim as strong as stone, and she just stared right back at Elena, the flare in her single eye starting to fade a bit. And then finally, she let out a long sigh, shaking her head like she knew her answer. "I've got enough blood on my hands, and your's just isn't worth spilling." Her words were slow, somewhat meloncholy now as her anger was slipping away, trying to put herself in a mental bastion as she allowed Elena to yell, deciding not to stop her. "Besides, I could kill you with my bare hands; that's how I killed my first. But that is not who I am anymore."

Though Seraphim didn't move, she seemed dissmissive, like she was done speaking with Elena, and had no more reason to be here. She wasn't going to leave until Elena departed, and right now, Seraphim didn't plan on going anywhere. No, she'd stay right here until Elena ran out of oxygen from yelling so much if she had to.

"You act like you know so much about me... but you have no idea the life I lived. Just like I don't know yours either. But I do know one thing; I won't be the one who's going to kill you, in fact, when someone else does, I won't even pity you."

Having gotten that off her chest, Elena felt relieved. She smiled again. That was a waste of breath, indeed, but she felt much more at peace with the fact that this girl was just a complete waste of time. She shrugged her shoulders as she bent down to pick up the knife and slide it back into her boot. "Yeah, yeah, this is the part where we each try to undercut the other. Oh, you're so pathetic and worthless and not worth my time. No, you are even lower than dirt, completely unworthy of the syllables I would have to expend to explain how pathetic you are... blah blah blah. You think you're actually someone special?" She smiled. "I've dealt with dozens of stupid mewling little bitches like you." She said as she stood up and stretched.

Brushing past Seraphim, she began to walk out the door, "We could've made an excellent team, you know. Pity you were so thickheaded. Now, it just comes down to who gets more of a hold of Phoebe, because we won't be able to share her. And I already have a headstart of several years." She spun around at the door, smiling and waving at Seraphim, "Toodles, dearie. Best of luck."

At that remark Elena gave, an innocent little laugh escaped Seraphim's lips, even managing to grow the tiniest of grins on her pale, soft lips, completely changed now from that deadly gaze she had only minutes ago when the knie was thrown towards her. Elena's statement was too true, this conversation was getting no where fast, and Seraphim didn't see any point of it any longer, it was all just a loop of bad statements, and underhanded, cutthroat words thrown at one another until they were out of breath. But seeing as how Elena was smart enough to make point of that, Seraphim just chuckled, watching Elena leave.

She never said she was someone special, and Hell, Seraphim didn't even enjoy her life, she hated herself just for living and breathing the air that someone else should have in her place, but it was people like Elena that gave her a reason to just want to go on, simply to put down people like her in their place. But for now, she wouldn't have that, in fact, she just let it slide, exhaling a long breath when Elena was leaving, feeling like she could just let it all go for now, and would prepare for an encounter with her another time.

Once Elena left, Seraphim finally budged, turning around slowly as her shoulders sunk and she returned back to the bench, clutching the towel now against her bloody fist, and briefly cleaning the small cut in her neck. They were nothing serious, but it was rather annoying, and she was thankful she wouldn't have a match for a few days now anyway. As a matter of fact... she had that tag-team match planned out where she would need Phoebe. But that all depended on what would happen when the girl arrived... if she even came to the Locker room.

So, Seraphim actually waited, sitting on the bench in front of her locker, smoothing out her feather-white locks, adjusting her eyepatch, and stopping the bleeding before grabbing a bandage from her locker. She waited, a solemn look in her crimson eye as she simply let time pass by, her thoughts all sorting out everything that had happened today as she hoped to see Phoebe...

"Your new fucktoy seems to be damaged goods, dear. You might want to check on her."

"Moreso than you?"

"More than both of us, I'd say. Go on, the locker room. You can't miss her."

Phoebe was somewhat perplexed as she made her way to the locker room. Seraphim and Elena were definitely rubbing each other the wrong way... Elena herself had been behaving in ways that Phoebe had never seen her before. When Elena hated someone, she ignored them, she dismissed them. Agitation, confrontation... that was what Elena did to people she liked.

One of the things that made Phoebe's and Elena's relationship work was how they were both, to borrow Elena's phrasing, "similarly socially stunted." Elena would never admit it, but love, anger, hatred, those were all the same end of the spectrum for her. It is what made her a successful mistress. If she didn't like someone, she displayed only disinterest.

So, Phoebe reasoned, Seraphim must either be striking some rare nerves with Elena, or she must have actually gotten on Elena's "good" side very, very quickly.

Of course, Phoebe herself was most definitely on Elena's "good" side, and they were both fairly certain in all seriousness that one of them would kill the other when the time came.

Time ran out for introspection as Phoebe opened the door to the locker room. She immediately found her target, "Seraphim, Elena told me some..." She trailed off as she noticed the hole in the locker and Seraphim's numerous wounds. She would quickly sit down next to her partner, "What happened?"

Sitting in silence, Seraphim had her head hung low, thinking heavily about all she had just experianced today. Honestly, Seraphim had too much to burdon already, so knowing there was this now as well was becoming too much to her. She wanted to just walk away and forget about it all, but the thought of Phoebe kept her staying on this road, hoping and knowing it would all be worth it in the end to her. It just had to be...

Her arm now bandages, leaving Seraphim with a total of four blood stained bandages now; her neck, her left thight, right forarm, and now her right fist, Seraphim looked horrible, and it would be some time before she would decided to take part in her fourth match, the same one she needed Phoebe to participate in. For now, she just needed a week. She needed to forget about all of the bullshit, to work on her goal in truly amassing and creating White Gale, and to give her body a rest, since the moment she joined, she hadn't given herself a real break, even after Megumi she gave herself barely a day, and now she was ready to take a vacation.

When Phoebe entered though, Seraphim hardly lifted her head to see Phoebe, barely observing what she was wearing, how she looked, not even the look on her face, just letting out a small sigh in the end as she tried to sort out her thoughts and toughen up. She couldn't stand being weak like this, whether it was mental or physical, it was still a pain to her. Still, she couldn't leave Phoebe in silence, she didn't deserve that. "I... lost my temper. I'll just take my medication.. it will be fine, don't worry." Seraphim replied back with a rather blunt tone, sounding like she was still semi-lost in her own thoughts as she sighed heavily.

((Damn. I guess I should write her wardrobe in. Too late to do it gracefully. I'll just have to take the hit.))

Phoebe looked up and down Seraphim, as usual without any real expression, but her eyes glancing about Seraphim's wounds gave away a small hint of concern. "Really? It looks like if you lose your temper again, you'll end up in the hospital." Her lips curled into a smile. "Wouldn't be a very useful partner from a guerney."

Phoebe's smiles, like most of her emotions, were understated. Given how stoic she tended to be, though, expressions that would be subtle on most people expressed volumes from Phoebe. She leaned in, brushing a lock of hair behind her face. Unlike Elena, Phoebe was wearing street clothes, long jeans, a black, long-sleeve shirt, and tennis shoes. It wasn't flashy, but it accentuated her features quite well.

She placed her hand on Seraphim's thigh, rubbing it softly, "Elena... told me you were here." She paused to swallow, considering her words carefully. Elena would never have been able to inflict these wounds on Seraphim without getting as good as she gave... nor was it really Elena's style to start a fight. She was surprisingly capable, but tended to view fights as needless if they weren't to break the will of a new... plaything.

Which means the hole in the locker... was probably inflicted by Seraphim.

Damaged goods... Elena must have really struck a nerve with Seraphim. Deep down... she had a suspicion of what she might have done. Elena only tried intimidation on people she knew she could make buckle. Elena had already made a point of it the first time she and Seraphim met.

Phoebe didn't know what to think, or what to say. Was calling her to the locker room an act of kindness, cruelty, or a spectator who just wanted to fast forward through the break in this drama?

After a few seconds, she finally spoke, trying a different tack... to coax an answer out of Seraphim with some lighter small talk, "So, I presume that locker door won't be talking crap about your mom any further?"

Seraphim slowly managed to look up when she heard that comment from Phoeve, even letting out a 'hmph' in an amused manner, just barely managing to give the smallest of grins. "Oh no, you got it wrong, three of the four were from past matches. I play rough; even if it's against girls with long fingernails or someone swinging a sword like a nutcase." Yea... she wasn't going to forget those. But that didn't help her from talking about it all like these wounds were nothing to her; Hell, she wore her wounds like a badge of honor, especially the one on her neck that Sharaiya inflicted on her; that girl was strong, but even as she dug her nails into Seraphim's throat... there was a respect for one another. And then the one along her arm and thigh... well that was violet, someone who seemed to have a similiar problem like Seraphim did where she lost control of herself. Only this one had a sword... lovely.

Shaking away those thoughts as she gave Phoebe the honest answer, she chose to leave the proccess of elimination up to Phoebe, her freshley applied, blood stained bandage upon her right fist and knuckles leaving it as an easy thing to see for Phoebe. Though she looked up finally at her partner, already feeling comforted somewhat by her presance as she felt her hand on her uninjured thigh, even finding the simple attire she was wearing to really fit her nicely, and it certainly did her figure well. The comfort though wasn't the same... after receiving that tape, she wasn't sure if she could look at Phoebe the same way again. In fact, she knew she couldn't, there was just something about killers like herself and Phoebe that was eternally lost, even if some were on purpose and others were as an accident.

Then at Phoebe's second comment, Seraphim's grin never vanished as there was another short chuckle, then admitting a cruel fact she couldn't help but enjoy, actually relishing the fact that she was insulting the one who gave birth to her. "Eh... if that was the reason, I'd be hugging it instead and agreeing whole-heartedly. Mother can rot in Hell for all I care, probably is for all I know." Just the thought of that was comforting. Even though she barely remembered what her mother looked like, it was still a sadisticly pleasing thought to feel that way.