The Next Step

Sometimes people came into the gym that recognized her. Taylor could tell by that momentary confusion, after they saw her but before they pieced together who she was, and then that surprised smile. There was always a second when they weighed the possibility of approaching her, but they never did. Taylor wasn't the most inviting person when she was at the gym, and even less lately. The only person she didn't mind talking to was Naoko, the owner. He was cool, and he mostly left her alone. They never exchanged more than a few words each day.

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OycIjK5feDw:1eayp6ug]Her headphones[/url:1eayp6ug] drowned out any potential conversation anyway. She needed a lot of extra motivation these days, so her music only got louder. She was dragging. After the injury, fighting to recover only to drop her forth straight loss, to Chigusa no less, and their conversation afterward, she was on the ropes. She knew she couldn't afford to slack off and get depressed and let things go, so she didn't. She kept working hard, but her heart just wasn't in it. She felt like she'd lost her... what did Chigusa call it? Her spirit.

That wasn't completely true, though, she had plenty of spirit left. It was just the part at the very middle of her that was broken down. Sometimes she felt like the whirring treadmill beneath her feet was the only thing holding her upright. She wondered if the greats ever had these problems, or if Taylor really was the most emotionally unstable professional wrestler in the world. She successfully muted any further reflection on the matter with copious amounts of grueling workouts and medicated herself with the healthiest possible food. Her lunches, when she ate them at the gym, often got her strange looks from other gym rats who were used to eating large amounts of meat and eggs and protein supplements. Taylor's container of brown rice and black beans with peppers and squash and whatever other vegetables were in her fridge, cooked together and stuck on top of big, dark green leaves of kale, were an oddity, but her food made her feel good. She felt lighter, like everything was just easier. Screw everyone else's opinions on food anyway.

She sat, sweaty but recently toweled off, her damp blue hair in a pony tail and her black tank top plastered to her back and chest, on a bench toward the entrance. She held her chopsticks in one hand and her lunch in the other, and balancing against her leg was a bag of almonds and dried fruit and other things that she ate as a snack. She felt exhausted, but she still had another circuit to do. She'd do it, of course. If nothing else, she'd found out lately that she was very bad at quitting, regardless of how badly she wanted to.

She wondered what the AFW would do with her next. She was still technically in the top 10 in Friction, but she'd done nothing to deserve it lately. She wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they dropped her back to fighting rookies. Or fired her. Well, they couldn't do that, could they. People still cheered for her, at least for now. Eventually she was sure they'd get sick of her sucking and find someone else to cheer for. Then the money would dry up and Lukretia would give her the axe, or at least send someone to do it. She shook her head. She didn't need to think like that. She focused on just eating her food, and looked around the gym while she did.

Mercedes Wrenn was quite good at doing grunt work. She had mastered filing, noting pleasantly how well she had taken care of Aurelia's stacks of disorganized papers. She had defeated gophering. Coffee was always prompt and waiting and there was nary a desk that wasn't supplied and a paper that was not clipped. She was even quite good at client contact. However, her skills at it belied her lack of enthusiasm for this part of her work. The worst part of the legal profession, and as she had come to learn, clerical professions in general, was dealing with people. At least as a lawyer she only had one client to deal with and they were so eager to not have their ass thrown in jail that they listened better than an obedient dog.

Yes. Mercy loved that part. But she was currently int he wrestling business where people made a living about being bothersomely defiant and unique. Trouble was their business and they fought for their paychecks. Mercy hated fighting. Mercy had made a career out of avoiding it and now was surrounded by it. It was even creeping into her personal life. As she passed through the doors of the gym, she let out a sigh. She had diligently found where Taylor Parker was holed up. She had done her research and even watched her matches. Why did she go to such great lengths? Because she was good. That was how a true professional acted and once she was able to scrape up some cash to get back to New York and pass the bar exam, then she could finally be in position where she could act like a TRUE professional and order other people to do her work for her.

Mercy had been frustrated when she called Taylor's phone and there was no answer. Didn't these divas know anything about how to participate in the chain of command/ Well, Taylor didn't seem like the diva type, really. She looked like she might beat Mercy up for giving her the wrong look. But then again, she was holed up in this grungy gym. Probably thought she was too cool to use the AFW's expensive equipment they so generously allowed their employes to use. Not the white collar staff, of course. Mercy grumbled at the thought of having to work out in a different gym as well. Not this one though. A nice one. One where they only had ladies. She had yet to find such a gym and had been reduced to using late night infomercials to exercise. She sighed at the thought. She wasn't sleeping good anyway. They tired her out, sort of.

Pushing all those thoughts aside, Mercy flipped though her MP3 player until she [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mVg0sI74io&hd=1:3eq7l13v]found something[/url:3eq7l13v] to calm her down. After standing in the front door, bobbing her head like an idiot for a few minutes, she caught the look of the guy at the front desk and quickly shoved her way through the door. "Hi, um.. yes! Konnichiwa!" She said and nodded her head a few times. Damn these Japanese and their customs. She was dressed in a full suit, completely inappropriate for such a place. The man spoke back to her in Japanese and Mercy sighed.

"Taylor Parker!" She said in response. She pulled a professional head shot of Taylor and pointed at it. "Her! I know she's here! My sources are very good!" Mercy shook her head as more Japanese came out from the bewildered man. "No... I don't want a membership! I didn't come here to have guys stare at my cute butt!" Of course she had to qualify it. And of course they would stare at it. Pigs. Mercy let out a frustrated sigh. "No.. err.. ie!" Mercy waved her hands. "I'm pretty sure that whatever you're saying I can have you sued for harassment!" She added as she waved a finger at the man.

Taylor quietly watched the little suit-girl from her post adjacent the door. She wasn't visible to anyone walking in unless they turned around, and she had a full view of the rest of the gym. It was the sort of perch she always picked out. Sometimes she thought of herself as a bird, always watching, always ready to go at a moment's notice. She found she liked birds, but she had a hard time thinking of herself as a killer bird, like a hawk or something. She felt more like a swallow. Or a swift.

She kept eating while the pink haired girl apparently managed to be offended by the owner, despite not speaking the same language. Taylor spoke very little Japanese, but she understood enough to get by.

"Hey!" She called out to get her attention. "He asked if you're a wrestler too. I think he doesn't think that you look like a wrestler." She thought about it for a moment. Was she from the AFW? She got a sinking feeling in her stomach, but the performer in her was also awakened at the same time. She flashed her killer smile. "You're not, right? There's only room in here for one of us."

Mercy jumped when she heard the loud "Hey!" echo from Taylor's spot in the gym. She shivered and turned her head, seeing the face of the picture she was holding up. That bright smile in stereo although one was very much more vibrant more... three dimensional. Mercy looked around nervously and stuffed the Head Shot back into her suit jacket. She adjusted her glasses and stood up straight, trying her best to look cool around the blue haired girl.

"That is definitely the aura i am trying to emanate, thank you." Damn yoga. She tried it once and it got too hippie on her so she ditched it. All the other paralegals said it was the new thing but she never liked the idea of just waving parts of your body in the air while on a mat. Even SHE felt like it was something that was a little too... fake. Even still, some of the new age stuff shone through every once in a while.

"I would like to be as far away from the wrestling ring as a position in the wrestling industry will allow, though I can..." Mercy clenched her fists and begrudgingly spoke the next word. "technically wrestle, if I want. Which I, of course do not. No, no no, Miss Parker, Taylor." She said in a more friendly manner. She wasn't representing Taylor in any legal fashion and Rally's enthusiasm for informality was also rubbing off on her. An idea she disliked thoroughly.

"I do represent AFW management, however." Mercy pulled a card out of her jacket and handed it to Taylor. The side she offered said "Mercy Wrenn, Paralegal. Personal Assistant to Rally Fortuna, Friction's Chief Manager of Talent Relations." She cursed Rally's ridiculously long title. It made the business card look crowded and disorganized. Mercy hated that. Unfortunately she was too cheap to get a new set of business cards and on the back it said Mercy Wrenn. Paralegal and Personal Assistant to Margaret Roderick Sinclair. Margaret's name was crossed off with a pen and Lukretia Von Creuzfelt was written in its place with Lukretia also being crossed off and Hilde scribbled on the side.

[align=center:9hubwdpw][/align:9hubwdpw]

"Rally and I wanted to have a talk with you about your career here at AFW." Mercy said the words offhandedly, not realizing they may sound omnibus. Certainly not realizing she might have not know what she was supposed to talk to Taylor about. "You're surprisingly hard to find for someone with such obviously unique appearances and stature." Coming from the girl with blinding cotton candy colored hair.

"Oh yeah?" Taylor said to Mercy's ridiculously miniscule boast, if you could call it that. More like an admission, that was probably more accurate. "Wanna show me some stuff?" She asked, with a nod toward an area with wrestling mats and padded walls.

She quieted down at the mention of The Management. She took Mercy's business card and flipped it back and forth, furrowed one eyebrow and looked back up at Mercy, unsure if the girl was actually representing anything other than being 16 and cheap.

The notion of discussing her career in the AFW put a lump of concrete in her stomach, and aside from a momentary fade in her smile she didn't show it. She put her foot flat on the bench next to her and leaned back, looking casual and relaxed, and looked Mercy over before she answered.

"Look man, if you want an autograph or something I'll do it, but maybe you should catch up on your Friction. I'm not really autograph-worthy, ya know?" She said, trying to sound modest without coming off as depressed and miserable. "And like... damn, dude, you look so uptight. Relax, you're making me nervous. Who the hell is Rally Fortuna? Did you make that up?"

"What am I going to show you wearing a suit!" Mercy blurted out as she preened herself to hide her blush, taking a length of pink hair in one hand and running the fingers of her other through it. Taylor would kick her ass up and down the practice pads with one arm tied behind her back if they switched clothes. Mercy certainly wasn't going to throw down with her, or anyone on Friction roster unless she was contractually obliged.

"I don't want your autograph! I'm certainly here on official business." Mercy pulled a lanyard with an official looking AFW pass on it with the same name as her business card. She flashed it and slide it back into her jacket and looked at Taylor, sighing.

With a quick assessment of the situation, Mercy was able to piece together something of what was going on. "I'm not... so sure about that." She said in a calmer manner. "Rally. Aurelia Fortuna. She's said she met you before. I think once. Briefly. She's... new... Kind of." Mercy tried to explain.

"I don't know why you're in this gym. The AFW has free facilities which are quite superior. It would save me the effort of trying to track you down. But..." Mercy tapped her finger to her lips. "I have seen your matches. I had to research you for Rally. For myself and..." Mercy bit her cheek and swallowed hard. She could really get punched for what she was about to say. "Rally's looking for top talent and you were first on her list. Clearly there is something more to you than what you have been showing lately! Rally is clearly a good judge of talent," since she hired Mercy, or course. "so she probably doesn't want you to be sulking around a gym moping over a couple of losses!"

Mercy fidgeted. She would have covered up her mouth at those words but she really was too anxious. "C'mon! There was interference in that cage fight! You were kicking that purple haired chick's ass! And like... it's pretty unfair for anyone to have to fight with broken ribs against someone who has their job on the line. I know what desperate people will do when the alternative is unemployment."

Mercy let out another sigh and brought her hand to her cheek to cover her blush. The last time she was threatened with unemployment she had gone dumpster diving, Batman ransoming and ended up in a position where she had to crack a wine bottle over the head of a girl twice her size while another crazy lady started pulling out guns and waving them around.

Mercy sat down next to Taylor and buried her face in her hands. "If I had those incredible abs of yours, then I think I would wish for the kinds of problems YOU have!" Mercy looked up and panted. "I've been so on edge lately that I've been... barhopping..." Mercy made a fast that clearly indicated she had done something she was not proud of and frowned at Taylor.

"Wha- oh." Ohhh, Aurelia. She remembered her perfectly well. She was like the good half of Lukretia.

Taylor curled her lip at Mercy's attempts at encouragement. "All that matters is who's standing at the end." She said, almost ruefully. "Fair doesn't count, and they don't raise your hand at the end for trying real hard. Look man, I don't fucking need to talk about why I can't cut it with some little shit, even if you can technically wrestle." Jesus. People tried to make people feel better but they didn't ever know shit. This was her job, kill or be killed, and while she was a clean fighter she'd be an idiot if she expected everyone else to. She wasn't going to cry about it. Not today, at least.

She was a little weirded out by the random compliment about her abs. It sort of took her by surprise. But she quickly caught on to Mercy having problems of her own. Taylor thought she'd be the last person anyone would try to talk to about their problems, but she didn't brush her off. She glanced over at her and then looked back down at her bowl.

"I think we've all been there, right? I used to do that, but I don't drink anymore. What'd you do, wake up next to Tai Kamiya?"

Mercy growled cutely at Taylor's words. The girl was less intimidating up close than she was when she was in the ring being bombastic even if Mercy was merely hiding her worry. She didn't exactly come here to give the girl a cheering up either. She just needed to "talk". And that was what hey were doing, wasn't it? "Talking"?

"Technicalities are all I can manage in the ring!" Mercy muttered. She would have to get back on point but Taylor addressed her own concerns and Mercy shook her head. "I have no idea who that is but... ugh!" Mercy deflated again. "I'm sure this guy was worse. Out of the million bars in Tokyo I had to find the one with this nasty yokel cowboy! I just thought... maybe if i was a bitch to him, he'd go away, but... he was totally into it! He even payed for everything! I mean... I couldn't just say NO, right? Ugh... No... I was so wasted. I couldn't remember much of it. But I certainly learned a valuable lesson. No more big girl drinks for Mercy Wrenn!" She nodded in affirmation. "Every once in a while, I'll make an Appletini. At home." She emphasized the point. "Just... to relax." Mercy shook her head. "Last thing I need is to wake up next to some smelly guy who thinks he's a cowboy. 'Dang ol, bust yer bronco,ya filly!'" Mercy mocked the cowboy. "Sheesh! I spent most of my childhood around farmers. They are so nasty! Give me New York any day!"

Mercy shook her head and looked at Taylor. "Sorry..." She muttered. "It's been ... rough lately and the one thing I NEED... just... went so horribly wrong!"

Mercy stood up and ran a hand down her suit. "I'm not bad looking! Why can't I find someone nice!" She left out the part that she hoped she could settle down with a nice girl. She didn't want to make things weirder and at that moment she was still sort of confused as to what her sexuality even WAS.

"Either way... Rally wanted me to talk to you. I have no clue about what..." She brought the point around full circle. "I can only guess it has to do with wrestling. You don't seem to be in... bad shape..." She said referring to Taylor's mental condition, though it was hard to tell that was what she was specifically saying. "So.. um... I guess... Tell me how you're feeling about moving forward in your career?"

Mercy nodded and looked over Taylor before raising her finger and opening her mouth. "Ooh! One sec!" Mercy then pulled out a tape recorder and held it in front of Taylor. "Ok!"

*click*

"Oh, shit!" Taylor laughed. She was sure she knew who it was that had got into Mercy's pants. That was hilarious. "Lady, don't you go startin' somethin' you ain't not gonna finish er nothin'! Ah ain't got shit to lose, lady!" She said in her very best Clyde impression.

Then she stopped laughing and her face brightened hopefully. "Wait, you're from the city?" She asked. With all the Americans in AFW, she had yet to meet another New Yorker. Well, whatever, it didn't matter. It wasn't like she had anything in common with this... whatever she was. Taylor just smiled and nodded at her and pulled her foot up onto the bench in front of her while she leaned back, so her knee was at her chest.

Taylor snorted. "I'll tell you what I-" She stopped short at the sight of the tape recorder, looked at Mercy, shrugged, and continued. "A'right, it doesn't really matter how I feel, right? You can fuckin' put Gatt, Angel and Natalia in the ring and I'll beat the shit out of all three of 'em. I'm not afraid of anyone that gives themselves really stupid nicknames, and I'm definitely not afraid of anyone who's ever had her ass kicked by Adrian "My Mom Says I'm Tough" Kytes. I get paid to kick ass, a'right, and that's what I do, everything else is up to you people."

*click*

The recorder went off instantly when Taylor started talking like Clyde. Her face went pale. There was no way that Taylor could know, but Mercy knew she knew. If there was anything about that guy it's that his ridiculous was unmistakable and Taylor had managed a more perfect interpretation that Mercy had!Her cheeks flushed and she turned her head. She went to click on the tap recorder but stopped again when Taylor mentioned new york. She stopped and was about to speak when Taylor spoke again. She quickly clicked the machine on and recorded what Taylor said. She really was full of grit and determination and all the cool stuff she talked about on stage. Mercy liked it... even if she didn't really care about it. Taylor was, in her mind, still straddling the fences between intimidating and friendly. Mercy would have to pick out the later.

She clicked off the tape recorder.

"Phew, well I think that's enough shop talk." She said dismissively. Like she had filled up her quota and was off the clock or like what she had done was really a lot of work. That button was kind of sticky. "You're from New York too?" She began instantly returning tot he previous conversation. "I was born in Montana, unfortunately." She muttered. "But I didn't call any place home until I moved to New York. It's just so..." She paused. What DID she like about it? "It is very absent of cow patties." She said matter-of-factly as though that was the shining jewel the Big apple had to offer. "I miss my apartment. I had just gotten a good one before my old boss dragged me to Japan!" Mercy huffed. She did not have the kind of thick accent that Taylor could lay on. Mercy really didn't want to be a complete New Yorker, even though she practiced in her bathroom sometimes... just to fit in.