After Vanessa's Beatdown...

With an angry shout, Vanessa weakly punched at one of the lockers in the locker room. She was exhausted, tired, broken....all thanks to that FUCKING Sarah Gatt and her cronies!

"Damnit!" She yelled, shaking her head slowly. She was tired of Sarah and her bullshit, tired of dealing with her and her followers, tired of it all. She had to come up with something to take her out, once and for all.

With a sigh, she dropped onto a bench, shaking her head slowly. "Bitch..." She'd whisper under her breath, images of Sarah stuck in her mind now, the redhead unable to get them out of her head...

Over the last half hour, Taylor had bounced back and forth between anger and nausea. She sat on a folding chair in the back of a lounge in the Friction building, watching the nights matches on an expensive looking TV on the wall. Vanessa Vandar, whoever the hell that was, was taking her sweet time having her ass handed to her by the other two thirds of the threesome.

Nha and Sha, the dumbest names ever for the dumbest looking dumbest skanks she's ever met, were brutalizing Vanessa so badly it was hard to watch. Taylor fought the urge to jump up and run out there and help her. She wasn't sure why, what was the worst that could happen? She wasn't allowed, but should that really stop her? She didn't know Vanessa anyway, and she'd only recently got out of the hospital herself. There were limits to how much she'd risk her life in one month.

Then, inevitably, Sarah Gatt showed up. The sight of her made Taylor so angry that she found herself on her feet, fists clenched, and shaking. She settled down, though, scowling in her chair with her arms folded across her chest. She couldn't hear the audio well enough to tell what they were talking about. She wanted to know where the hell security was, and why they weren't doing jack to help this stupid girl and keep her from getting killed. Ridiculous. Maybe Lukretia Von Fancypants kept it that way. Bitch.

By the time it was all done, she was pacing back and forth in the lounge, making the couple other girls uncomfortable while she tried her best to control her anger. She didn't know if she wanted to go kill Sarah right then and there or go help Vanessa... somehow. She was a little late for that. Akashi would've helped, but Taylor didn't. But... Akashi didn't help. She couldn't be everywhere at once, though. Taylor was just being silly. And cowardly. Was that it? The thought of it made her want to kill someone even more, but Sarah, the utter waste of life that she was, was buddy buddy with Akashi. She was untouchable for Taylor.

She found her way through the halls to the locker room, pushed her way past a few idle girls and looked around until she found her. She looked like hell. She was facing away as Taylor approached, sitting there on the bench. Taylor hesitated for a moment before she said anything.

"Hey." She started. "Um... Vanessa, right? Vanessa with the stupid last name? I, uh... I saw your, uh... hey." Taylor walked around to stand in front of Vanessa. "You, uh, are you okay and stuff? You look like... dying." She cringed a little looking at the mess that Threesome had made of this girl. Worse, that's probably how she looked afterward too against them. She hated them so much.

"It's not right, man. It's so just not right. I mean... yeah."

Vanessa turned to Taylor with a blank stare on her face. She wasn't in the mood for this, not at all.

"Y'know, it's not a good idea to insult someone you don't even know. Maybe you should learn to keep your mouth shut, huh?"

And with that, she would turn her head back away, looking back at the floor blankly.

"I... didn't?" When did she insult her? She didn't remember insulting her. "Look, man, maybe you also shouldn't try to tough talk someone when you look like you just got hit by a bus. The only way you'd be scary right now is if you were a zombie."

She scrunched up her brow, looking sympathetically down at the girl. "So, like, what's your deal with ol' Threesome? And, uh... why were you in a match against two people? Especially when you knew that there'd be a third crawling around eventually? They don't do fair fights, dude, they can't. They all suck."

Maybe she didn't mean it like that, but Vanessa had definately felt insulted when Taylor had told her she had a stupid last name.

"Meh. How was I supposed to know those dumbass twins had Sarah lurking backstage? I didn't know those fuckers had anything to do with her."

She sighed, shaking her head slightly. "Whatever. I could have taken either of them alone, and they know it, stupid bitches..."

"Yeah, probably..." Taylor said quietly. Vanessa should've done her homework about the twins before charging off into a match against both of them. Obviously Sarah Gatt would be there. When is she ever not there? "So why did you agree to a match against both of them? Not that it would've mattered. The other one would've followed her down to the ring, and yadda yadda you're in a handicap match again! Ridiculous."

"So... did you not know who Sarah was? I watched the match back there..." She pointed off vaguely in a random direction. "I couldn't hear it, though. She's a ginormous ho-bag. I can't stand her. I guess you know now that she cheats, and all she wants to do is hurt people to make herself feel like less of a bastard child of trailer park land. Um... do you need anything? You really look like, ya know... Uh. Can I do anything? I don't know... Um..."

Vanessa let a light growl past her lips. "Trust me, little girl, I know all about Sarah, far more than you'll ever know."

She paused a moment, wincing slightly. "Nn...I just need some time to recover and shake off these wounds, that's all."

Taylor gave Vanessa a queer look. "Okay... how did you get to know that much about Sarah? Why wouldn't I be able to know the same things? Is your mutant power that you're able to know super-special things about Sarah Gatt? That's cool. I wish I was super-special like you, ya know, so I could say things like 'trust me darlin', I know more about getting my ass kicked than you ever will'." She said, using her best impression of a deep, raspy, tough guy voice and with enough apparent sarcasm that Vanessa would know that she was making fun of her.

"Okay, well, heal up. You'll need to be up and around for the next time you bump into your buddy. Um..." She paused, then started again without the mocking tone. "If... you ever need any help with that, ya know. Gimme a ring... somehow. Fire up the bat signal or something."

Taylor looked over Vanessa for a moment before backing up a few steps and turning to leave. That was somewhat less than productive, she thought. Maybe Vanessa was just a wanna-be Gatt. Either way, she didn't want to see Sarah just running over people like that, unchecked. Maybe she wanted to help people when they needed it, or maybe she really just wanted to punish Sarah and beat her face in. Or... maybe her pride just hadn't fully recovered from her loss to Sarah. And Nha and Sha. Taylor shook her head on her way out of the locker room.

Vanessa looked up at Taylor as she began to go. She sighed to herself, then called out to the girl.

"Hey you! If you want to help, I guess you can get me a damn ice pack or something..."

"I know your name, chick." She said, a little annoyed that she seemed to know everyone and no one seemed to know her. "And I think you need more than an ice pack, genius. Do you want me to draw you a map to the infirmary? Should I carry you there? I'd much rather do it while you're alive than have you die of internal bleeding or something and have to drag your body out the door. You look heavy."

"Besides, can't you just tough talk your bruises into healing? Things like 'I ain't got time to bleed'." She said in her tough guy navy seal voice.