Entropy and Enemies and Sentimentality

Taylor laughed out loud. "Is that all I've got?" She shouted back. "For real? Damn, yeah I talk, because there's so much time to talk. No one ever shows up to fight! Look at you, you came all the way down here to tell me that you aren't going to fight. Holy shit, man, I'm shaking in my boots."

Try as she might, she couldn't stop herself from getting angry at Adrian's implication that she couldn't back up her talk. "I've seen your matches, Princess Peach. Do you honestly think that anyone in the world would watch the two of us side by side and choose to fight me over you? Damn, you haven't had a convincing fucking win in your whole career!

"If you want to see what I've got, then challenge me. Let's get a match together. Oh, wait!" She stopped herself with a flourish. "WE ALREADY DID THAT! My talky-talk must've reaaally done a number on you. Wow, I'm more dangerous than I THOUGHT if I can PUT PEOPLE... IN THE HOSPITAL... by TALKING at them. I've got some new sympathy for you, man, you must be TERRIFIED. And, well, look at you. That looks about right, doesn't it."

Taylor grit her teeth and glared intensely at Adrian. She wasn't scared. Not yet. The adrenaline was making her hands a little shaky, though, so she relaxed, and swung the mic back down to her waist. She strolled a few steps back, and then brushed Lia out of the way so she had a clear path to Adrian.

"Alright, here's the difference. We both kind of talk a bunch. When it comes time to fight, though, I FIGHT. You just keep talking, cry a little, run away. I have what it takes to be here. Do you really think that you do?"

Honestly, Taylor was a little upset with herself that she let Adrian get her so riled up. She really thought she'd put Adrian behind her. But there she was, just like old times, losing her temper.

Thinking about smoothing things over with Taylor, or at least not cursing the ground she walked on was all well and good for initial plan. But something about Taylor caused all plans to crumble around her, any notion of playing nice disintegrated and all that was left was the rage of old scars. And that old thing, about who deserved to be here, no matter what she said about her words not effecting her, it still pissed her off. "I'M NOT THE ONE WHO QUIT!" she yelled out, getting right in Taylor's face.

"Yeah, I remember that match, you know what else I remember about it. I WON. I'm still undefeated. Where as you have 3 losses to your name and it's all because you were too much of a wimp. Your first match: you, tapped, out. Second match, well we all saw how badly you were made to look like a bitch. Third loss was to me."

"You had me right where you wanted me, you could have done anything you wanted, re-enact the aftermath of the second match, just rip my face off like you did to my hand? It was all kosher. But you quit. You couldn't break me and you wimped out. I may have woken up in the hospital bed but I proved why I belong here that night, even if it took till just recently to figure it out. I deserve to be here because I wont quit. You don't deserve it because you're a quitter Taylor, and everyone knows it."

Lia looked Taylor up and down as Taylor did her. Taylor was lean, quick, but she had power. Lia was bigger but... Lia glanced at herself. Am I really getting that fat? No way. It can't be! Lia barely had time to react when Taylor had swatted her mints out of her hand. "Hey! Jerk!" She hissed. Still, Taylor was fast off the draw, probably even faster than Lia was.

Lia was snapped out of her reverie, however, by the sudden flare of music. "Finally," Lia muttered off mic. Adrian had arrived. Lia stood aside, letting Adrian address Taylor directly. This feud was just too entertaining to pass up. Though she did chime in, "Girl TOTALLY has a rabbit fetish. Get a couple drinks in her and whoo boy..." Lia leaned on the railing, nudging a nearby audience member in the shoulder as if he knew anything about what Lia was saying. "Am I right?"

As the girls sniped at each other, Lia stayed out of their way. Taylor was not going anywhere. She would have plenty of opportunities to kick the stuffing out of her. But a catfight like this? That was something worth seeing. Plus, Adrian really did have much more a legitimate claim to a title shot than Lia. Enough time with Lukretia's GM meetings had given Lia a bit of awareness for the ratings-seeking half of the craft. Plus, having not had a belt herself, she did not really see what the big deal was. Lia relegated herself to mumbling a few "Oh snap!"s and "Burns!" quietly into the mic. "Did she really quit?" Lia asked the audience members around her with mock ignorance, "Wooow."

Taylor was all business until Adrian opened her mouth again. Her eyes widened, and for a moment she was stunned by the words. As Adrian went on, Taylor seethed, her face gradually turning bright red, and Lia certainly wasn't helping over there on the side.

She lifted the mic to fire back at her. "Hey, look... I..." She faltered. Fuck. It only took a moment for it to catch up with her, she began to wonder if there was some truth to what she said. She did quit, even though she could've stuck it out and done what she needed to win. Adrian was undefeated, and she was clearly willing to do anything to win... Did that mean that she was better than Taylor, regardless of how bad Taylor could beat her in a fair fight? Did Taylor lack a killer instinct? In a big moment, when everything was on the line, would she choke again?

Why on earth did she let up on Adrian in that match. She knew what she thought at the time. She had won the match, and since the officials weren't going to call it done she had to. She had to! She wasn't a killer, like Sarah or Karina or whatever. She was a fighter. She looked at Adrian, her inner turmoil written on her face, and for the first time wondered if she was less than her.

She raised the mic to her lips again. She felt like crying, which made her feel even worse. After coming such a long way, here she was falling into the same old traps. Who cared what Adrian thought? Unless... there was a part of Taylor that thought it too.

"...Unfair." She said finally. "Man, you were down, like... You were, and I... I couldn't..." She felt herself falling apart.

"Fuck it." She dropped the mic, shoved Adrian back hard, and dropped her shoulder down as she lunged after her to bury it in Adrian's midsection.

Clashes of egos like this always seemed to make no sense from the outside. Lia had seen enough and been in enough to know. She did not really see the point of this specific one, but it seemed to follow a similar pattern. Taylor picks a fight with someone. They bitch at each other for a while. Then Taylor cries.

Taylor crying was one of those things that really should have been the most satisfying thing in the world, but when you actually saw her doing it, it never felt anything but draining. Lia rolled her eyes when Taylor returned to those old familiar patterns. The stumbling over words, and then, yes, the unprovoked attack. Switching off her microphone just in time to avoid catching the crowd's sudden wave of excitement, Lia merely smiled.

Walking back down toward the ring, Lia reached under it, coming up with a steel chair. "Excellent," she muttered. Chair in tow, she sauntered lazily back up the ramp and set the chair down, kicking the seat to fold it out, Lia would plop down atop it and watch the girls with rapt attention. She really had no dog in this fight. She liked Adrian a lot more, but unless Adrian really asked to be bailed out, Lia had no intention of stepping in to this little argument.

This was supposed to be a victory, Adrian's last outburst shut Taylor up, made her stumble over her words: so why wasn't she feeling any better about it? Maybe it's because she'd had things like this thrown at her and knew just how much it hurt, even if Taylor was the one who threw them at her. Maybe the two were alike in that way too, both had parts of them that niggled away at their self-confidence, something that agreed with whatever anyone said to bring them down.

She opened her mouth, trying to think that maybe she should apologize. A thought that vaporized when Taylor shoved her then tackled her to the ground. "Wha-UGGH!" She grunted, the cosplayer's head snapping back against the ramp, stunning her before she could mount any form of defense from the blue haired punk's assault.

After flooring Adrian, Taylor immediately straddled her. She'd finally shut this bitch up, and with adrenaline in full swing she had no intention of holding back. She could erase all of her doubts of her own ability to pull the trigger by murdering Adrian right there.

She roughly seized Adrian's hair with one hand and yanked her head up off the ground a few inches, and then began savagely hammering away with her right hand at Adrian's stupid face.

"THIS is where YOU belong, mothaFUCKER!"

"GAH!" Adrian cried out as Taylor's fist impacted into her cheek, rocking her but her head was held in place with her other hand pulling at her hair. "What's the matt-UGH!" She tried to say before another punch stopped her from finishing "Truth hurt?"

Ever since her last training session with Cec, she had tried not to see Taylor as an enemy to be broken but someone to be overcome, but a challenge to be overcome. But the way the blue haired punk was, she couldn't help it. She needed to be hurt before she seriously hurt anyone else, fully justifying her choice of reaching up to gouge out Taylor's eyes with her hands. "I don't belong under you! No-one does!" She yelled out.

"Gah! Aaagh!" Taylor screamed out of both pain and frustration. She turned her head away from Adrian's claws and squeezed her eyes shut. They began watering almost immediately, making it look like she was crying. She wasn't.

Taylor didn't shy away from getting hurt. She couldn't see, but she still had a hold of Adrian's hair. She reared back and then bashed her forehead down into Adrian's face before sitting upright to try to rub her eyes and try to clear them.

"What are you going to do next, blow green shit in my face? Pussy." She snarled.

"GAH!" She yelped again as Taylor's forehead smashed hers back down, once more bouncing off the ramp. This time didn't hurt as bad, it still hurt like a bitch but she wasn't stunned, as the punk snarled down at her she shot her fist, looking punch her nose to force her off, so she could then rise up and headbutt her. "Don't need it to kick your ass!" She yelled out.