Phantom Menaces

The morning after Avalanche was almost as bad as the event itself for Angel.

First thing in the morning, before she had even woken up, they decided to move Angel to the hospital. They wanted to get a closer look at her leg, and a closer look at the former champion overall. Just an extra check-up to make sure she was okay and wouldn't have any lasting injuries or problems. But there was a problem.

Angel hated hospitals.

It had been a great long time since she had been in a hospital, not since she had faced off with Heather two years prior. She had luckily managed to avoid getting stuck in one again, but here she was now, stuck in a bed with nowhere to go. The worst part was, her mind kept going back to the night before. She couldn't stop thinking about her match with Taylor, and it was driving her crazy, it was eating her alive.

She wanted to talk to someone. She wanted to talk to ANYBODY. She could wanted to have a conversation and get her mind off of everything. She turned her head to the side, glancing to her phone, lying on the bedside table. It hadn't rung yet. No calls, no messages. It wasn't like she knew a lot of people who would send her a message, but she had at least expected something from Akashi. Anything from her supposed lover would have been nice. She couldn't help but feel a little hurt, and a little disappointed.

Angel sighed, and turned her head away from the phone, looking up towards the ceiling of her room. She hoped she wouldn't be here for long. This was awful.

Ace sighed as she stood in the hallway, outside the open door to Angel's room, the nurse having shown her the way. Even with the blood cleaned off, her eyebrow glued shut and bandaged, she still looked a mess. A shiner under one eye, bruises over her face and her body, though thankfully her Ronnie James Dio shirt and sweatpants covered them enough to prevent people from staring.

Honestly, she wasn't sure she wanted to be here. The entire night since her match ended, she had felt terrible, like a complete and utter failure, despite the circumstances, and was certain she had let her idol down.

Taking a deep breath, she walked through the doorway, knocking on the door.

"...h-Hey Angel...."

The sound of Ace's knocking caught Angel's ears, and she perked up, turning her head towards the door in surprise. She hadn't been expecting any kind of visitor, so seeing Ace was a pleasant surprise.

Angel took a moment to glance over Ace before calling back out to her, forcing a smile onto her face. Ace didn't look good, and from the way she was acting, the Latina could only imagine how he match had turned out.

"Hey, chica. Come on in..."

Ace nodded and walked in, rubbing her arm awkwardly, the absence of her title belt alone all the evidence needed of the result of her match.


Grabbing a chair, she pulled it up next to the bed and sat down.

"How you feeling?"

She asked, blushing a little at the rather stupid question.

Angel watched Ace walk in, then settled back into her bed, lying her head back on her pillow and closing her eyes. She forced herself to grin, and raised her shoulders up into a half-hearted shrug.

"Oh, you know. Beaten. Bruised. Tired. I feel like my leg is never going to stop hurting." She opened one eye and glanced towards Ace, trying to put a teasing sound into her voice. "Might even have to amputate it. Sparkster fucked it up pretty good last night."

She closed her eye again and let out a sigh. "How about you, chica? You kicked some ass last night, right?"

Ace started to nod...then shrugged, one hand rubbing her arm awkwardly.

"...I fought...really hard. I gave everything I had in me and more...I was better than her. I am better...but she had help...4...I dunno, servants or something...and this 5th girl, gave her some kind of....I dunno...a glove that had some chemical that drugged me or something and..."

Ace sniffed, trying hard to avoid crying.

"...She beat me. That fucking bitch beat me. Tossed me right off the top and took the belt...and all I could do was just lay there and watch...like some pathetic..."

She stopped, taking a couple moments to collect herself, before letting out a deep breath.

"I'm uh...going back to Japan on a flight later tonight. I got a call this morning, apparently there's this post avalanche autograph signing going on and they wanted somebody from the show to make it...and since everybody else is staying in the hospital for a bit, I drew the short straw..."

Angel nodded, listening to Ace's story, but when Ace mentioned getting drugged, the Latina's face suddenly grew hard, her expression serious. She knew what it was like to lose to something like that, and she wasn't happy at all that it had happened to Ace.

"Come here," Angel called over to Ace when the girl finished talking, lifting a hand to gesture her towards the bed. She pushed herself up into a straighter sitting position, and waved towards Ace. "Come here for a second, alright?"

Ace nodded and did what she was told, standing up and moving closer to the now sitting up Angel, leaning down to get closer to her.

"Y-Yeah?"

Once Ace drew close enough to her, Angel reached up, wrapping her arms tight around the girl, pulling her into a warm, close hug. She wasn't sure what else to say or do. She had never needed to comfort someone else like this, but she was damn sure going to try. She liked Ace, and she didn't want to see her feeling so bad after such an awful, cheap loss.

"Don't get upset, chica," she whispered to her, keeping her held tightly against herself. "It's going to be okay. There wasn't anything you could have done, you know? If you went in six-on-one like that and the bitch still had to cheat to take you down, then that says a lot about how good you really are, right?"

Ace took a deep breath, closing her eyes as Angel hugged her, slowly relaxing in the comforting hug. She would have hugged back, but she was concerned about possibly hurting Angel, given her condition.

After a few minutes, though it felt far longer, Ace backed out of the hug and sat back down. She released a deep breath, calm again before looking back up at Angel.

"..Thank you...I really, really needed that."