An Ant, A Leopard and a Demon

Hilde was shuffling back and forth nervously in the back area of the facilities. She had witnessed two women beat the snot out of each other and now she was back in the clinic with them both as well. Akashi was sitting on a bench putting some pressure on her nose, a small pile of red medical gauss next to her. Her head was tilted back. Every few minutes or so a nurse would try and assist her only to be scared off by loud growls. Hilde swallowed hard. Akashi needed medical attention but was too stubborn to ask for it.

Hilde crossed her arms under her chest. As worried as she was about Akashi, Adrian needed her attention more. "Excuse me." She said and lowered her head. "I'll be right back."

"I'll go too."

"N-No!" Hilde shook her head. "I mean... Just rest for now. Please." She tried to look sternly at Akashi and briskly spun around to march to where Adrian was. She pushed open the door to Adrian's room. She'd needed a bed, or, Hilde insisted she had one. She'd been put in there under Hilde's request. She'd also requested that the girl not have her mask removed. The nurses seemed willing to pick a fight but Hilde was firm. Once she saw them leave, she barged past them and closed the door.

"Adrian!" She gasped and went over to her. She began to untie the mask and pull it off to check to see if she seriously injured her head. "Say something... please!" She pleaded.

Adrian didn't have much say in the medical arrangements for herself, pretty much carried from the moment they got through the curtain to her own private room, her eyes blinking open ...Not again... she mentally groaned as she saw the tell-tale florescent lights that told her she was back in the clinic. What did this make it? The fourth time she woke up in med bay?

Her train of random thought was subsequently broken when Hilde barged in with a panic and started to de-mask her. Her face was bruised and the right part of her hair was stained red with dried blood. Sometime in the match she must have been bashed open, her mask must have kept the area compressed. "...How did I do?" She asked weakly, taking a few deep pained breaths while trying to smile slightly. "I think... It went... kinda well...you?"

Hilde had to hold back tears as she smiled down at Adrian. She pressed her hand gently against Adrian's shoulder blade and the other against her cheek. She leaned over and hugged her gently, trying to put as little pressure on her as possible. 'You were amazing, Adrian." She said with a smile. Though she was distraught that Adrian had put herself through such a match. "Still... I can't believe Lukretia would approve this match!" She then paused. "No... I can definitely see her being interested in this kind of match..."

She she let out a deep sigh and patted Adrian's cheek. "Just give me one second." She stepped away and filled a clean bed pan with water and grabbed a dry one and some other supplies and brought them to Adrian. She set it next to the girl and began to gently wash Adrian's hair, getting the blood out and finding where her head wound might be. "Just... relax for now..." She said. "Hopefully this will feel good. I know there will be pain but a girl always loves getting attended to, doesn't she?" She asked with a modest and hopeful smile. "Where else are you feeling pain? Is there anything serious?" Her questions tugged with worry.

"Your sister for you... probably can't get off unless someone's in pain..." Adrian joked before wincing as Hilde tried her best to clear the blood out of her hair. Small "Ow!"s as another knot was gently pulled loose

"Let me try moving, then we'll GAH!" the cosplayer yelped as she sat up in bed, going rigid for a moment before sending a hand to try and rub the pain away. [size=85:1l8614d8]"Back hurts..." she whimpered before trying to shake herself out of it, she was tougher than this. It felt like she'd been through hell and she was fine! Back on her feet in no-time probably. "Kinda my fault for asking for it... not just Akashi, but... I asked the commis- Luk, for something No DQ." She admitted "I just... feel more comfortable doing stupid stuff like this and well... better this then hentai matches or me getting molested. To me! If you're cool with it that's cool!" She added just to make sure she wasn't offending her "But... I don't think I'll ever be very confidant in a match like that, at least with Hardcore matches: I've done stupid stuff that got me hurt, I've fallen out of trees, I've jumped off of lift things onto people... it's stuff I've done, stuff I'm more at home with. Even more than normal matches. Guess that makes me kinda crazy, huh?"

Hilde blushed at Adrian's comment about Lukretia. "Ah... well.. sometimes she can be gentle..." She muttered and let out a sigh. She knew from experience, unfortunately. Hilde's eyes widened as Adrian tried to move. "Ah! A-Adrian!" She said and pushed genetly on her shoulders. "H-Here... L-let me flip you over, ok?" She asked and bobbed and weaved around Adrian, trying to get a good position to get Adrian onto her stomach.

Hilde let out a sigh. "I'm not a pervert..." She whimpered. "I get enough of that at home that I.. ah... don't go looking for it..." She blushed deeply. She was a little bit of a pervert. She couldn't live in THAT house and not be. But, she had her dignity, shame and modesty in tact outside of the mansion.

If she could get Adrian onto her stomach, she would run her hands down Adrian's back. "Where does it hurt?" She asked. "And... We're probably going to need to get you out of that outfit. I can get you some scrubs for now and get you some clothes later. You don't mind, right? Please don't think I'm being weird!" Hilde said nervously. She then let out a sigh and slumped over. "Adrian... why do you feel the need to be so self destructive?" She shivered a bit. "How many times am I going to have to drag you back here? I don't understand. It hurts to watch... you know..." She said quietly.

Adrian winced as she tried to get herself laying on her belly, pressing her face into the pillow. Her outfit had gotten a bit tattered in the match, a few tears where the wood had scraped away the stretchy material of her bodysuit, it's own little story of that match.

"Sorry..." She said, muffled by the pillows before she turned her head to the side so the german could hear her. "Bit lower..." she instructed as Hilde's hands ran over her before a jolt of electricity shot through the cosplayer, that was where it hurt. "I-it's not strange!" She said quickly "I mean, I need my mask to get out of here but I should probably get my back seriously looked at and all and they can't do that with the outfit on. Right?" she said, trying to reassure the secretary.

"I...I dunno why..." She said sadly "Maybe it's because doing all that stupid stuff was actually getting me close to winning." She mused, would she had gotten anywhere near the amount of offense on Akashi if she didn't play it safe? "...I thought it might get the crowd to like me a bit, but I kinda messed up...raking her in the eyes, gah... the whole point of this stupid costume was to try and get past cheating without people instantly assuming I was gonna cheat." She groaned before trying to completely cover up her face so Hilde didn't see any tears. There were plenty of other reasons for her high-risk style, but the fact she was seriously worried about her made them seem insignificant, it made her think of her other friends, they'd probably panic if they knew it was her who crashed through the table. She was kinda lucky that the one who did know hadn't come charging down, demanding to see if she was okay or not.

Adrian wanted to be able to hold her head high about her match with Akashi. Be proud of how she fought even if it looked hopeless at many points. No-one thought she had a chance of winning, but even in defeat she made her own little chance. She could take the punishment... but not if it made everyone else scared instead of her.

Hilde nodded and began to remove Adrian's outfit as slowly and carefully as she could, looking over Adrian to see where she might be bruised. She blushed while she did it, she'd done this plenty of times before but rarely for reasons that weren't sexual.

Hilde listened to Adrian's words. She pushed her hands up Adrian's shoulders once the outfit was removed and gave them a gentle squeeze. "You know, Adrian.' She said. "That's not a bad answer. I was afraid that you maybe had some kind of self destructive personality. Like... uh... subconsciously or something... I'm around that a lot." She paused and turned her head and let out a sigh.

"Tell me if this feels good." She said and began to gently rub Adrian's shoulders. "This might take away any knots you have. I'll try not to be too rough with the hurty spots, ok?"

She would then resume her words about Adrian. "If you just want to win at any costs, that sounds a lot better. And if you want people to like you, that's also good." She paused to think for a moment. "But... People don't really LIKE girls that cheat. Look at Ms. Gatt. She's not very popular." She then frowned. "Or... Lukretia. She's proud to use any tactic she can and well... The crowd isn't very fond of her either..."

Hilde let out a soft sigh. "You're a good girl, Adrian. I believe that. If you like to cheat because you think that's a good way to win or it's a gimmick you like, then I guess that's fine. But you're clearly bothered by it otherwise you wouldn't dress up in an Ant costume." She then smiled. "Ok, well maybe YOU would, but you know what I mean. Adrian..." She said softly. "You've had a good career being a bit dubious. You're record is nearly perfect. So... then why are you still so down? Why are you still struggling so much with yourself? Please... let me... or someone... help you get right." She lifted up her hand and ran it through Adrian's hair softly. "Maybe there is something deeper going on? That even you don't know about?"

"That feels nice..." Adrian said as Hilde managed to get the top part of her outfit off the costumed cosplayer and began to massage her, the bandages and tape still preserving her dignity to some extent.

"Sarah gets cheers..." She grumbled as the German retold her stuff she already knew, no-one liked a cheater: with exceptions "she's a total bitch who I want to hit with a hammer until she can't walk for what her and her bitch crew do but she gets cheers." Adrian muttered to herself. People bitchier and more assholish getting much more popular was always a sore spot with her. They often cheered when poor defensless Kawaiis got beaten down by someone much stronger and more experienced, but never when she tried to bend the rules without malice, just because she needed an edge.

That was the heart of it, why she cheated: she had gotten too used to having that edge, to be one step ahead at most times, to always have a backup plan if things went wrong. But if she clung to that edge she'd never get what she wanted "I...I wanted to be respected." She said solemly "Everyone just treats me like a kid out of her depth when it comes to fighting... or everything ever. I thought that if I just won a lot, won gold, people wouldn't be able to look down on me. I'm not saying you do! It's just, I get the feeling no-one really takes me seriously, even if I just did away the goofy costumes. All they see is either someone who is a coward for relying on cheap tricks, or the dorky little sister that needs to be saved a lot. I like to mess around yeah, but I can still hold my own... Sometimes, I don't think people see that."

"And then... I get scared, I want to prove myself, but I get too caught up in what happens if I fail. If I just end up proving that I do need to be looked after 24/7 while the serious fighters do the serious fighting, so I either end up cheating or cry a lot when I lost... like against Yasha, I wanted to use it as a starting point, prove to myself that I was more than cheap tricks and that I could win without people taking me easy... didn't really work out as I hoped. At least against Akashi I knew before hand that I wasn't going to win, even if mid-air I did kind of think it... it made it slightly less painful I guess. emotionally! Yasha may have grabbed my boob and humiliated me in front of a lot of people but at least I could still walk by myself." She tried to joke at the end, but she didn't really put her heart in it. Explaining stuff sucked.

"Those aren't cheers, Adrian." Hilde said reassuringly. "People like my sister cheer for people like Sarah. Those are howls. Sadistic howls because people who aren't content with their own lives can only revel in schadenfreude." She said her carefully hewn away accent becoming apparent as she said the German words. "You don't want someone cheering for you because you're hurting someone else to the point where they might not recover or might be hospitalized. Hilde continued to rub Adrian's back, trying to relieve her of any superficial soreness. She wasn't as good as their gardener Violate but Hilde would never allow Adrian to meet that woman if she could help it.

Hilde then listened quietly to Adrian's words. She let out a gentle sigh and ran her figners through Adrian's hair affectionately. "People don't respect a cheater, Adrian. I'll bet you if you oput out the kind of effort you showed today..." She paused. "Aside from that little bit at the end... and never won another match, that you would be more respected and more liked than if you never lost and had to cheat every match. People like hard work. People like guts and those who are brave. People... are attracted to things that they aren't, whether those things are good or bad. People like nasty girls because they wish they had the guts to do those nasty things, but they don't respect those people, those people fill a hole of bad emotions. People also like those who refuse to back down, and who are courageous because they wish they could be the same. In the face of adversity, most people.... Most people don't stand up for themselves..." Hilde let out a hard sigh. That was true for her quite a bit.

She took a moment and rested her head on Adrian's back and silently panted as she thought about her own words.

After a moment she lifted her head up. 'Everyone... needs support, Adrian. No... woman is an island. Even Lukretia or Akashi need it, even if they don't admit it. I don't think you're a child but you have built a shell around you that makes it very hard for people to com in. That... must be lonely for you..."

Just at that moment there was a loud pounding on the door.

"Let me in!" Came the slightly muffled sound on the other side. It sounded like Akashi and there were quieter voices, probably nurses making fretting sounds.

"I guess..." She grumbled, it kinda made sense. She knew fans like that back in Philly, although they didn't attach themselves to one wrestler. They were called 'vampires' because they went to events to see some blood. And in a small indy federation there were a lot of ways to get it, she'd seen some very disgusting things done to other men whenever she stepped outside of her trainer's federation. Everyone trying to compete to be the next "EXTREME" or something. Maybe she didn't want that kind of support. And even if she got it it would only last until she fucked up something high risk to a "you fucked up" chant. Maybe Japan was more respectful but still, principle was the same.

But there was still something that didn't sit right with her about the whole respect thing. It wasn't so much what Hilde said that was wrong... but something else. "What if..." she began "what if you could make a lot of people safer, save your friends... but to do it you'd have to really be a bitch to get anywhere. Risk every bit of respect you could get just so you could sleep better at night. What then?" She asked

"I get lots of support... I mean if it wasn't for Becks I probably wouldn't have a wrestling career, if it wasn't for Cec I'd probably still be living in my tiny apartment, if it wasn't for Nat...to begin with, I probably would have given up the company a lot sooner... if it wasn't for you... well, I'd probably be a lot more hurt and a lot more upset. Do you really think I'm developing a shell kinda?" The cosplayer asked: she was generally very bad at hiding her emotions, enough prodding and she would open up about just about anything, was she really shutting people out?

"oh crap!" She let out as she shot right up, a mistake she instantly regretted. "Mask... mask!" She said through a pained expression, trying to reach out for her only way to protect her identity. She didn't want Akashi of all people finding out who she was so quickly. And it wasn't as if the nurses were going to be able to stop her when she set her mind on entering.