Each and Every Step

"A'right, ten seconds or else you start the whole thing over," Taylor said, and began counting in no particular hurry to reach ten. She didn't know for a fact that Adrian could hold a handstand for ten seconds when she wasn't tired, but that didn't matter at all.

"Eiiight... niiiine..." Just as she was about to finish, Taylor gave her a shove with her foot to knock her down. "Oh man, that sucks. Well, better luck next time. Get up!"

Despite her aching arms, after the first count Adrian was confident that she could hold herself upside down like this for as long as she needed, and since Taylor was seemingly taking 3 seconds for every count, that was probably a good thing... until Taylor shoved her over "Wah!" She let out, collapsing in an undignified heap. "Dick move." the cosplayer accused her trainer as she scrambled to her feet, she was probably going to have to do that all again now.

Taylor snapped her fingers at Adrian. "Come on, I don't pay you to stand around!" She said, and pushed Adrian back toward the open mats to wrangle her through the same circuit, though not quite as extensive as the first. Just enough to brutally wear her out, just before the edge of complete failure.

"Have you ever seen Natasha work out? She'd barely even be sweating right now. Are you going to let her win before you even make it to the ring?" Of course, Taylor hadn't really seen Natasha work out. She'd spent just enough time with her to know she had a massive chip on her shoulder and was the last person you'd want as a training partner. "Are you tiiiiiiiired? Are you gonna quiiiiiiiit? All you have to do is finish this shit and spend ten seconds upside down and you can hit the showers and we'll go out for pizza. I'm buyin'. You can do that, right?"

Not content with just forcing Adrian to start all over again, now her trainer decided that now would be a good time, while she was worn ragged, to taunt and mock her, despite this very thing breaking apart the last training session. But this time, it worked. Guess it was easier to fantasize about punching Taylor when she didn't actually have to follow through with it, and put her rage to more productive use. Her teeth were grit so hard her jaw felt like it was going to burst, her face was probably permanently etched into a scowl, but no matter how much her arms and legs hurt, she wasn't going to quit. And to finish it off, she dived into the ring, rolling over the bottom rope and dashed straight to a corner. Jumping off the bottom rope and grabbing the top she sent herself straight up, and held herself there, trying to get the ten second handstand in a place where Taylor couldn't just kick her off.

"HA! FUCK YOU!" She barked as she finished her top rope handstand, dropping to the ring apron and then jumping to the floor. "That all?" Adrian asked, still breathing really heavilly "Please, that was... that was nothing... it's just, hot in here... that's all." she said, trying to cover up just how much that took out of her and by the look of things, completely failing at it as the adrenaline seeped away.

"Huh." Taylor said, hands on her hips. She had apparently done a downright terrible job of wearing out Adrian. That was more than a little embarrassing.

Well, she wasn't lying. She could go for pizza, too, she hadn't had it in a long time. She shrugged.

"A'right, well, shower off, I guess. I'll go find my wallet." Her voice was a bit more irritable than she expected. She could probably figure out why, if she thought about it, but she left it alone. She didn't need to go out of her way to put herself in a bad mood. She took a quick shower and got dressed in her street clothes, a tight t-shirt and pair of jeans she'd brought.

"Wait, really?" Adrian asked, doubled over, not really expecting that to really be the end of the mid-day session. It was probably good seeing as she'd probably collapse if she had to do it a third time, but she kind of got the feeling that Taylor wasn't amused by her burst of rage induced stamina. It kinda sounded like she'd pissed her off instead. It was probably pest not to think about it as she staggered her way into the showers, hugging the wall to keep her upright at the cost of getting to feel just how much her arms and legs really fucking hated her.

As she stripped off and stepped into the shower she couldn't help but feel... frustrated by the lack of real feedback, she did everything Taylor asked of her, and went above and beyond when her trainer probably expected her to fall down and give up. A "good job" wouldn't go amiss, or maybe a "Well done." Heck she'd settle for "You didn't suck too hard" out of her. When did I start angling for her approval? she thought to herself, frowning as the water rushed down her. If she wanted positive re-enforcement she could have probably gone to anyone else for that, so why did she go to Taylor?

Taylor rolled her eyes at the way Adrian hobbled around. Really? Totally dramatic.

She laced up her black Chuck Taylors, stuffed her wallet in her back pocket and pushed her gym bag into her locker and locked it. "Place is only a few blocks," she said. "We can walk."

She didn't make eye contact with Adrian right away. She didn't want to come off like she was all upset or anything, both because she didn't want to spoil whatever progress the two had made but also because she didn't want to give Adrian the satisfaction of knowing how she could upset her.

She mulled over the reasons why while almost the entire first block passed in silence, turned them over in her mind until the feel of them spread to every part of her body. She jammed her hands in the pockets of her jeans to keep from fidgeting. The store fronts they passed were all captivating so long as they kept her eyes away from Adrian. She wondered, like she always did, if she was totally out of line, and if being upset at all just made her a little kid.

She sighed.

"So you've got to be up for a title shot soon, right? I guess you and Natasha are both steamrolling through everyone, so do you think maybe winner of this one might get a shot?" It was a loaded question. "At... who the fuck is the champ right now?"

"Well... probably not," Adrian confessed "I haven't won a match since November, lost my chance to go for any title at Avalanche, so I'm probably out of the running until next winter. Natasha, yeah. She'll probably get a title shot if she wins, or if she doesn't but puts 'a good showing' or some bullshit that allows them to just hand more stuff to her." She muttered bitterly, trying to keep up with Taylor's surprisingly fast walk.

"Uhhhh... I don't think anyone is. There's been no announcement of "Hey, this girl's champion now. Deal With It." or anything like that, so I thought maybe it's the first person who says they're champion will get it just 'cause they don't have anyone else and just go along with it for the sake of... stuff, isn't that how that Wells girl won the Entropy title? But... that didn't really work out." She alluded to her little moment before challenging Natasha to a rematch. Perhaps going out and declaring herself the 'Real World Champion' was not the best move in the history of moves, but at least it kinda got her a little bit of face time to the point where it looked like she'd end up right back to where she was before the Temple Games, which was pretty high up the ladder all things considered.

But she could feel it as she walked down the street, how Taylor looked in every store front even if it was something completely uninteresting while she talked and just looking straight ahead to avoid looking at anything reflective. Taylor was mad at her. Why? What had she done this time to piss her off? Okay, her stories about declaring herself champion out of the blue probably weren't winning any points with Little Miss Work Ethic, and perhaps screaming 'Fuck you' when she finished her morning training wasn't a good way to do things. But if it was just those things, she would have gotten at least some response. Even just a casual 'well fuck you too'. "So..." she began, trying to think of how to phrase this. "What did I do wrong?"

Taylor snorted. "Nothing, apparently," she said. "Didn't you already step up and say 'look at me, I'm the champ'? Just don't lose to Natasha and you should be up front on every poster in Japan." She said, with a hint of an edge.

She couldn't tell which was worse, Adrian being way above where Taylor ever was in her career even though she never seemed to have it, or when she came through and really seemed to have it. Once Taylor was convinced of the notion that Adrian was a failure waiting to fail who repeatedly came out on top, one-upping Taylor, whenever she saw Adrian do anything right it was like nails on a chalkboard.

She took a step back, mentally, and tried to see the big picture. Was she losing perspective? Or was she one of the few people who saw Adrian for what she was? Taylor had lived and breathed fighting and training and blood and sweat and all that bullshit. She gave up everything else, including the food she liked, just so she could hope to have a little bit of success. Adrian, on the other hand, was more committed to her fucking Gameboy.

Her face was slightly reddened when she slowed her pace and spoke again. "Adrian," she said. "How do you do it? I mean, dude, how the fuck do you do it?" She asked, looking directly at her and tightly holding her gaze.

Adrian looked down as Taylor snorted, she obviously saw her big deceleration and unveiling. "Well... kinda..." She mumbled."It didn't really work as everyone pretty much came out to say "You're full of shit," which I was but I kinda got it to work out before I got goaded into a rematch with Natasha. But nothing official got done so... I dunno what's going on. And I don't have the chest to be a poster girl, I mean, could you imagine? There'd be so much airbrushing..." She started to try and take the discussion off to random topics. The tension in the air between the two was obvious to anyone and eventually it reached Boiling point.

"W-what you mean? Do what?" Adrian asked nervously, she had a good idea as to what this was about. Taylor, despite her efforts, didn't seem to have that much success. She was the first Entropy champion and did manage to defend it until she got injured and she had quite a few higher profile matches. The I Quit match against Akashi was bigger than any match Adrian had ever had, but Taylor never seemed to think of herself as top tier in terms of success. Whereas Adrian had her winning streak, her own personal titles and always talked herself up whenever the cameras were on making it seem like she was a much bigger deal in comparison. "I... don't?" She tried to say, flinching away from Taylor's piercing gaze.