The Princess And The Punk

[Type in first paragraph es no bueno.]

Taylor felt great. It seemed to her like it had been a long, long time since she'd felt this way, relaxed, happy, carefree. She felt like she could just relax and be herself, and it was due in no small part to her adoring boyfriend, her wonderful sister, and the love and support she'd been receiving from both the fans and the AFW machine.

She had been sort of given a little share of the spotlight since winning the little Entropy title. It was no big deal to her, but to the AFW marketing people it gave them another face to sell to people, and that was fine. She wasn't going to flip out over it or anything. An undeniable part of it was also due to her relationship with Akashi, her best friend, her sister, and her tag partner, and their successful foray into the tag division.

There was a part of her that thought that she herself had nothing to do with the attention she was getting, that she was just some chick who happened to be in the right place at the right time, but she didn't worry about that. The fans seemed to be into her, they were always super nice and sweet when she met them, and the AFW had certainly been taking care of her. She felt like maybe she was someone that people liked to watch and would maybe like to be around. It was kind of a new feeling. She'd spent most of her life convinced that everyone was out to get her.

She was happy.

She was sitting draped over a plush chair in a lounge area, waiting for the photographers to come grab her for a promotional photoshoot. She was dressed in flirty punk regalia, a short plaid miniskirt with a studded black belt, tall black boots with big chunky heels, a short, clingy, white t-shirt with a big red cartoon fist on the front that showed her tight, defined midriff, a choker necklace with a flying bird pendant, and countless random bracelets on each wrist, including the KAZE bracelet from Akashi. On the side of the base of her neck, toward the back, was tattooed the kanji "IMOUTO", or "little sister". She even had in her tiny gold stud in the left side of her nose, and a small, matching ring in her right eyebrow. Her makeup was done professionally, with bold, dramatic eyes.

She felt a little overdone, but she thought of it as sort of 'stage makeup'. It'd probably look good in print, after it was airbrushed up and everything. She honestly didn't know what they did with these things, but she was just happy to be there, working with cool people who seemed to like her. She'd spent her time since getting there joking around with the staff.

All that joking around and having fun was making her hungry, though. She poked her head around the corner and asked a staff member "Hey, is there food?"

He directed her to a table in a room adjacent the lounge area that had a table stacked with catered food. Her eyes lit up. "Man, how many people are you expecting?"

"We're working with several of the talent throughout the day... Natalia The Dream should be here any time."

"Oh. Okay." Taylor was taken aback by the news. It wasn't a bad thing... She didn't have any idea how Natalia felt about her, though. She might show up and try to kill Taylor right there, or they might end up BFF's by the end of the day. Well, she was going to do her best not to worry about it, and if she saw Natalia she'd do her best not to let her mood go to waste.

It was cool. But... she was still worried. She began loading up a plate with all sorts of food that she didn't exactly know the names for.

Natalia felt awesome... or she thought she should be feeling awesome. Her first full feature movie was out and although it had been panned by the critics it seemed to be doing great on the box. The audiences loved it at least. The studio had already called her to sign a contract for a sequel and they were even planning on making a video game about it. She had been offered to pose for several magazines from fashion to 'gentlemen' ones; named the sexiest woman alive by the 'specialized literature', her own lingerie line and perfume. she was so much in demand that she was having trouble finding time to train, which she much needed since she had been booked for the incoming AFW seasonal PPV again, to fight for a title and this time against nobody else but who was probably the number one wrestler of the company and former World Champion: Akashi. She was famous, a world celebrity; this was what she had always wanted, there was no reason not to feel awesome. Yet she didn't.

Sitting in the back of the limousine that was taking her to yet another photo shooting, Natalia looked at her own lovely face in the pink heart-shaped purse mirror she held with one hand. The reflection didn't lied, she was sad. It was not like she didn't enjoyed everything she had accomplished, everything she was being given, she loved it. She loved wrestling against the best; she loved the photo-shoots, the video clips and the movie; she loved having clothes made for her; she loved having her name everywhere. Her name.... Everybody knows my name now..." she told to the reflection in the mirror.

It was a cold morning at the start of the winter. Natalia stumbled through the snow covered streets being dragged by the hand by one of the orphanage's clerks. The furry winter coat she was wearing was too big for a little girl like her and let a lot of the chilly air to sneak in. She couldn't keep up the pace, only the firm grip on her arm prevented her from falling; it was too tight, it hurt. They suddenly stopped in front of a black car. An extremely tall blonde woman with an eye-patch got down the car and looked at Natalia. The stare of that single eye scared the little girl so much. "Yes. That's the girl. The one with the blue eyes." The woman said as she took Natalia's arm from the clerk. Her hand was so cold it send shivers all over Natalia's spine "Here. This is what I promised" The woman told to the clerk giving him a small package and then she yanked Natalia's arm violently, pulling her inside the car. "Come on, girl. It is a long trip." "My name is..." "Quiet. It is not important"

"It is important..." Natalia told the mirror frowning cutely. She noticed the hints of tears beginning to form in her beautiful blue yes.

"This is everything you are. This is everything you will ever be. There is nothing more than this" The tall blonde woman with the eye-patch told them as she walked from side to side in front of them, cracking a riding crop against her hand between each sentence. The young girls sitting on the floor in different states of undress looked at her in a mix of terror and awe. "There is nothing outside for you. This is were you belong.This is your home. This is the only place you have... if you win." Natalia tried hard not to cry, her teenage body hurt like hell. She was barely starting to catch on the shapely figure of the curvaceous woman she was bound to become and her fair skin was already badly bruised. She had taken a particularly vicious beating at the hands of another girl last night, and she had been defeated. "If you lose..." the tall woman said looking directly at Natalia with her cyclopean eye. "There is no place for you here. There is no place for you anywhere. You are nothing." The woman's high heels clacked loudly on the wooden floor as she moved closer to Natalia. "Nobody will remember you once you have died."

"They will remember me...." Natalia told the mirror, moving one hand to her face quickly to stop a tear from rolling down her cheek and ruining her eyeliner and make up. The limousine began to stop, they were arriving at the place of the photo-shoot and Natalia could see that there were a lot of fans outside. She looked at her eyes in the mirror again, they were a bit sore and tearful. 'God bless sunglasses' Natalia thought as she left the limousine, putting on her best smile to greet the multitude. She waved at the fans and blew them kisses in her typical sexy-playful style, then she hurried inside the building never removing the dark glasses hiding her eyes.

Natalia was wearing a blue and white summer dress that ended with very short pleated skirt. The dress hung by a thin thread from around her neck, thus leaving her shoulders and most of her back bare. A pair of open blue high-heels and a matching blue designer purse completed her attire. She didn't needed more, her stuff had surely already arrived beforehand, so there should be already plenty of clothes, swim suits, bikinis and wrestling gear for her to pick for this photo-shoot. All she needed was some time to calm down and fix her make-up and she would be ready.

Say 'hi' and smile to the photographers; follow the assistant around to see where the changing rooms are; check on the set and lights; be introduced to the rest of the crew; follow the assistant to the food table to grab a snack, and.... "Taylor..." Natalia said coldly as she saw the punky girl sitting there. Despite the big sunglasses her cute eyebrows could be seen frowning over them. Definitively not the person which whom Natalia wanted to share a photoset...or a food table. "What are you doing here?" she asked, crossing her arms under her bosom as she looked annoyed at the blue-haired girl. Natalia was in the mood for throwing a tantrum.

Taylor took a seat and hungrily eyed her plate of free food, ready to demolish it. It seemed like every time she tried to eat anything outside of her apartment, or lunch with Akashi after training, someone came along and ruined it for her. It was nearly impossible for her to eat around people she wasn't comfortable with. But not today! Nothing was going to stop her from enjoying her shumai, or... gyoza... whatever they were.

She bit into the first delicious dumpling and closed her eyes to enjoy it, until she was interrupted. She opened her eyes to find Natalia staring her down, looking like she was going to start a fight or start crying or something, all while looking like she just stepped off the cover of some ritzy fashion magazine. She choked.

Seconds passed and she couldn't breathe. Her eyes widened, she flailed her hands frantically and tried punching herself in the stomach and eventually coughed and gasped in a big breath of air. She looked back up at Natalia and blushed a little, noted that her plate of food was all over the floor, and then took a nonchalant pose on her chair and tried to start over.

Okay, now be nice... "What's up, Fingercuffs?" She said, and looked she newly-turned movie star over. "You know there's no sun in doors. Too cool for school, huh?" She looked down at her fallen food, and then longingly back at the catering table. She was just as hungry as before, but she knew she'd never be able to eat now. She was too much on edge.

"So... How's it going?"

Natalia felt particularly edgy for reasons she didn't wanted to explore; she was in that kind of mood where she was just looking for an excuse to vent out, and Taylor was just the perfect person to vent. Taylor was annoying, insulting and easy to insult, it rubbed Natalia the wrong way and as if that wasn't enough had costed Natalia her first chance at a title in AFW. The Dream had reasons to dislike the blue-haired girl and even want some revenge, and knowing how easy it was to pick fights with Taylor had had found the perfect victim for the tantrum she was planning to throw... until Taylor began to choke pathetically on her food, letting the plate of food fall on the floor and break loudly, immediately gathering the attention of everybody in the room. Natalia felt awkward, unsure if she should help the girl with whom she was trying to pick a fight just a second ago or not.

Finally Taylor managed to recover her ability to breathe and sat on her chair as if nothing had happened. Natalia was about to ask her if she was alright when Taylor began to speak. "Fingercuffs?!" Natalia repeated, raising a cute eyebrow over her sunglasses. Natalia had no idea what Taylor meant with that, she didn't even knew what fingercuffs were, but coming from Taylor it surely was some sort of insult, so Natalia decided to feel offended. Her cute face gained a bit of a blush from the anger in which she was letting her emotions to converge. Of course Taylor had noticed the sunglasses and had to make fun of that, but Natalia was not going to have any of it and didn't allowed Taylor to change the subject. "Shut up, punk! what are you doing here!?!"

Taylor was actually slightly taken aback by the violence of Natalia's reply. She blinked and looked away, swallowed, and then continued.

"Well... I'm working, man, I mean, it's not like I get all dolled up like this to go to the gym. Also, this isn't the gym. I dunno, man, I've got all this attention now, it's weird, and I guess they need pictures of me for stuff and they ask me questions, I dunno." She said, trying to explain herself.

"What are you doing here?" She said, trying to turn it around on Natalia and gain some momentum. "This isn't a movie premier, a porno set, or a Natalia Fan Club meeting, so why the hell are you here? It's probably not for the food, either, from the looks of it." She said, glancing down at Natalia's slim belly.

She sighed, and looked back at the floor. She really didn't want to let this turn into another fight. She was on such a roll and feeling good, she couldn't let Natalia rile her up. "Man, I was so hungry..." She said quietly. "What's your problem, anyway. Did you come here just to pick on me and stuff? Did Adrian send you?"

Natalia wasn't expecting such a non-confrontational Taylor. Much to The Dream's surprise the blue-haired girl was clearly trying to avoid a fight. Even Taylor's jabs back at her about the porno set sounded tame and this only made Natalia even more frustrated. The blue-eyed cutie frowned even more as she tried to think what she could say to deny Taylor, but the blue.haired girl had actually a very good sensible reason to be here; she was Entropy champion, at Natalia's expense, so it was just logical for her to be in an AFW photo-shoot. Natalia realized then she was starting to act like a bully and if she kept trying to pick a fight with Taylor she was going to look like a complete jerk. She took a couple of deep breathes trying to calm herself and then picked a sweet senbei from the table and bit it furiously as if trying to discharge her anger against the rice cracker.

"I am here for the photo shoot....[size=45:18ietzuo]jerk...." Natalia said without looking at Taylor, unable to avoid adding an insult between her teeth at the end of the sentence. "The company sent me....and leave Adrian out of this..." she added, turning to face Taylor again pointing at her in a accusatory manner with the rice cracker.

"Wow, sorry, I'm just trying to make conversation, a'right? Shit."

Taylor paused and looked up at Natalia. Something was weird about her. Maybe the move to bad movie-land was messing with her. Taylor stood up out of her chair and began picking up her fallen food, reloading it back on to the plate and then dumping it in a garbage can.

"Do we really need more pictures of you, though? Don't you spend like 12 hours a day getting your picture taken? Enough is enough, right? And you've still got to find time to train, though I guess not that much. I know you're up against Akashi soon, but since all you're actually going to do is have more kinky sex I guess you don't actually need to train much. Nothing you can't do at home with a vibrator." Taylor laughed, though a large part of her was disgusted. She held up her hand with the tips of her index finger and thumb pressed together and began moving it around like a bee. "Bzzzzzzzzzzzz..."

"Parker-san, we're ready for you." Called one of the photographers in the next room, just on the other side of a white screen.

"'Kay." Taylor called back. She gave Natalia a funny look. "What's up with you? I woulda thought all this attention would make you happy as a clam." She said and put on a grin and an attitude as she walked around the corner to find her photographer.

"Hey, how long is this gonna take?" She asked him.

The photographer just shrugged. "Do you have somewhere else to be?"

"No, it's not that, I just... nevermind, I'm cool. Let's do this."

The photographer got to work directing Taylor to stand in the right spot in the middle of the lights, stand a certain way, all the usual hassle. "Natalia, you're so weird, man." She called to the girl in the other room. "I mean, I'm from New York, Adrian's from Philly, I think, Akashi's from here, Gatt's from whatever trailer park, but I don't think anyone even knows where you're from. You're not Japanese, right?"

Natalia really wanted to rip someones head and Taylor seemed just so perfect to be the one, but the blue-eyed cutie was self-conscious enough to realize that her unstable mood was not Taylor's fault...although the punk was certainly not helping at all. She decided to try her fury on the sweet rice cracker she had in her hand and grab a few more of everything while she endured Taylor's taunts. Her face turning bright red from the contained anger as she heard Taylor make buzzing sounds. "Sex, like fighting, is an art, Taylor-chan" Natalia answered with an annoying patronizing tone. "It requires constant training to be done right... but you wouldn't know anything about that... nor your boyfriend..." she added with a snicker.

With a plate full of food Natalia followed Taylor to the set and found a chair nearby to sit and watch the punky girl as the photographer started to instruct her around. Natalia crossed one leg over the other and started to savor her food, acting as if she was directing the show; she indeed had a lot of experience in photoshoots. "No.. I am not Japanese...although I seem to have some Japanese blood in me..." she said to Taylor while looking at her up and down with a clinical eye. "Don't use a snoot flash, the hair light is too intense.You need something softer and smother. Use a grid or her blue hair is going to show lens flares in all the pics..." she said as if speaking to the photographer and lights crew that seemed a bit confused about what to do. "Actually I don't know from where I am... by best guess is Siberia though..." she continued, speaking again to Taylor, while giving the photographer a mean glare that, despite being partially hidden under the sunglasses, was enough to convince him to change the camera's flash from a snoot to a grid.

"Huh. That's pretty weird. See? Weirdo." Taylor said, while giving most of her attention to the photographer. She struck a cocky, punky pose with her punky grin, then another more sultry pose and laughed.

"Jeez. Watch out, guys, we've got an expert in the room." Taylor raised an eyebrow at Natalia's demands. "I guess she just wants to make sure I look as good as possible. Or she could be trying to sabotage me, but it doesn't matter. I always look good." She laughed. "And by the way, me and Johnny get plenty of practice." She said with a wink at the photographer as he resumed shooting, and stuck out her tongue.

She grabbed the ends of her pigtails and held them straight out to the sides like wings and made a goofy-serious face. "Hey, she's supposed to be here, right? She's not just here to check me out, is she?" She asked the photographer. "Anyway, you kind of dropped off the radar a while back, right?" She said to Natalia while still looking at the camera. "I guess you've been busy and stuff."

The photographer directed her to pose for a few action shots, and she wasn't sure what to do. "Oh, man, um..." She tried posing with a punch at the camera, then arced an elbow across and giggled. She felt so goofy. Her photographer did his best to help her relax with his somewhat limited English. She patted her knee and looked at him questioningly, and then backed up a couple steps and leapt up into the air and threw her knee out. It was fast, precise, her whole body went into the movement, and even without hitting anything it looked dangerous. She didn't try to keep it a secret that her knees were her best, most practiced weapon. The camera clicked away at the end of the knee, and the photographer smiled and asked her to do a few more.

"Wait, I'll do one of Natalia's moves." She said, and then held up two fingers to her mouth in a V and stuck her tongue through them. "Lalalalala..." She couldn't help but crack a smile when she caught Natalia's eye and broke down into a giggle fit. "Okay, okay. Okay. I'm a professional." She took a breath and got ready to try another knee.

"Actually... it is painful obvious how much of a rookie you are. You need help. A lot of help to look...acceptable...." Natalia said visibly irked by Taylor's taunts. She wished she could insult Taylor in some way or manner, but she couldn't think of any good comebacks, at least none that would not be way beyond the level of meanieness that she was willing to give Taylor...in public. "and no... you can't do one of my moves... stick to kicking and punching... you are no good for anything else" Natalia said almost wishing she could keep quiet, but she just couldn't let Taylor have the last word, even if it was stupid; and although she knew it would be much better to leave and mind her own business she wanted to stay if only to annoy Taylor a little bit.

"You need to slow the shutter speed...and more light to catch those fancy kicks she does..." she said aloud apparently speaking to the photographer again.