"WHO IS DE HIJO DE PUTA WHO IS CALLING UP, 'BABE'?" The sheer force put on the door as it was hurled open was enough to take a sizeable chunk out of the opening wall to the rehab clinic. Luckily there were no patients in the waiting room at that time, otherwise there would have been some severe disruption, however the sound of her presence could have been heard on Bug World.
"Ah, Lieutenant. It's good to see you again." Brenda didn't hide her slight smile as she looked up from behind the front desk. Taz stomped over to her and slammed her hands down on the top of the desk.
"Where. Is. Chloe." She spat, leaving even Brenda a little scared. Nevertheless, the nurse-come-receptionist just lowered her glasses to her nose and answered Taz calmly, giving her a knowing smirk in the process.
"In the gym." The Lieutenant was gone in two seconds, only leaving two massive dents in the walls behind.
Taz was taking strides nearly the entire length of her leg. With her death glare sending anyone who passed her back the way they came and running, she wondered what this inferno of rage would turn out as once she reached her destination. That is, she would have been wondering that, had the intense red cloud not seeped into her sense of the outside world. Her blood was boiling; her breath was coming out in almost snarls. She marched down the corridor and everyone looked terrified.
Except one.
"Hey Taz-" Her fist hit Peter's jaw with a satisfying crunch. She didn't even stop to look back but she heard the pathetic whining and distant calls of 'I'm bleeding' coming from his direction. Still she marched towards the gym, the sound her boots made echoing through the base they'd just docked back on. She took the final turning towards her destination and as she approached the doors she thought: prepare for hell, puta.
Oh dead-god he'd lost Taz. Again. She'd spent her remaining time on the Starship back to the base ignoring him. Well, ignoring everyone really. Up had passed her room hundreds of times but he'd thought it would be best not to disturb her, especially when he'd heard the sound of thick wood being snapped, followed by a loud bang and a combination of growling and Spanish words that he didn't know the exact meaning of, but knew what they were intended for.
He was terrified at first; he wondered if Taz was ever going to speak to him again after what he'd told her about Chloe. However he soon swallowed the fear, telling himself that he was Commander Up: the toughest son-of-a-bitch commander there was- that had ever been- in the Galactic League, and that he wasn't going to bow down because he couldn't face the woman he loved.
So now he was running. The only clue he had was that he'd seen Taz head in the direction of the Rehab Clinic as soon as she'd been allowed to leave the ship. He'd had to stay behind for a few more minutes, filling in more paperwork about the mission than anyone else in the crew, but as soon as he'd tapped in the last detail about the Megagirl unit's behaviour, he was off after her. He jogged down to the Rehab Clinic, swallowing as he opened the doors to the place he'd first realised he couldn't walk in, but strode in all the same, head held high.
"Commander Up, sir!" Squeaked a passing nurse. He nodded and she relaxed, adjusting the clipboard under her arm to speak to him, but still light pink in colour.
"Have you seen T-uh...Lieutenant Taz?" Up asked, remembering the rules about relationships between ranks. He thought he saw the small nurse try to hide a smile, but she shook her head and looked up at him.
"No I'm sorry. I've been trying to sort out some of the patients all morning; there was some loud disturbance just a while ago." She answered, and walked away before he could say anything else. He was about to leave through the double doors to try somewhere else, when he heard a small cough coming from the front desk of the large waiting room. He turned to find an older receptionist, who must have been a nurse too by her uniform, peering over the tall desk at him. Up walked over and raised an eyebrow at her, and she raised one back.
"Taz came in here five minutes ago." She said to him, pointing behind him. He gave her a confused look before turning around, and he saw two obvious dents in the wall where the doors had hit it. He turned back to the nurse, who's gone back to her computer.
"And?" He asked impatiently. She turned back to him with a slight smirk and Up suspected she knew something he didn't.
"You'd better be quick: she's headed for the gym. She's after that little trainer of yours." Oh dead-god. There's going to be murder in the gym. Up managed to stutter our a brief 'thank you' before running back the way he came, missing the turning for the starship dock and sprinting down the corridors towards the gym. It wasn't like he didn't want to see Chloe get what she deserved, but he didn't want to see Taz lose her job, and he knew she would kill or at least seriously harm the girl if she had a chance. Ignoring the tap-tap of a nurse's near-flat shoes behind him, he pushed his speed further, feeling grateful for the insane height difference and therefore leg-length difference between him and Taz.
Not too far from the gym he came across someone lying on the ground. Not wanting to stop, but feeling he ought to, Up stopped and crouched next the curled-over figure who was clutching his face.
"Are you alright, ranger?" He asked, but once the man took his hands away from his face and rolled over he regretted his sympathy.
"Oh, Commander!" Peter's sing-song voice was still as patronising, if not more, as it now had an added pain caused by the swelling bruise on his jaw. The blow had broken the skin and he also had a small cut over it. "Your so-called star Lieutenant just, like, broke my beautiful face!" He continued as he clambered to his feet. Up rolled his eyes, "Oh and I suppose you're going after her are you? Well I tell you now Commander, you really shouldn't go chasing after other women when you have a girlfriend." He finished by raising his eyebrows and putting his hands on his hips. Up huffed, knowing he was wasting time. However he couldn't let that one go.
"Peter." He started, prompting a 'yu-huh?' and a weird pose from the guy, "Listen to me. I am in no way," he stepped forward, making Peter step back, "whatsoever," he took another step and Peter was against the wall, "in a relationship with Chloe." He stepped away and started running again, barely aware that now Peter had started running after him too, calling out meaningless comments which consisted mostly of 'like, what?'.
He turned the final corner to the gym and stopped before he opened the doors, preparing himself for what he was about to witness inside.
Taz could spot her a mile off. The way Up had described her was 'fake, too flirty and pink', so when she saw a woman whose yellow-blonde hair was tied up in a ridiculously high ponytail, who was dressed in nothing but a tight pink vest and shorts which she really should've had the decency not to wear, and who was getting closer and closer to one of the lieutenants on the treadmills, she knew exactly where she was going.
It seemed like everyone apart from Chloe knew Taz was in the gym. Eyes followed her from all directions but she didn't care. She strode past the weights, round the other side of the sparring ring and up to the farthest treadmill. Taz made sure she was behind Chloe by a few metres before making her move.
"HEY! PUTA!" It was loud enough for everyone in the gym to turn round, if their eyes weren't already on her. Treadmills stopped, people dropped the weights, pairs stopped wrestling, and finally, the perra turned around.
"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, her voice too sickly-sweet to be true, "I don't speak alien, do you mind running that by me again?" Taz clenched her fists but kept a straight face. She was swearing obscenities at the girl in front of her, but only in her head- for now. Giving her the same overly-sweet tone back, so answered as coolly as she could for someone filled with a quiet white rage.
"Oh, that's just too sweet: you're too dumb to even be polite about someone's accent." She said, making the fake puta open her mouth and put her hand to where her heart would have been. Taz stepped towards her quietly, and the girl flipped her hair back and looked obviously down her nose at her. Taz looked around them once she was only a foot away from Chloe, and noticed that they'd drawn quite a crowd. Chloe didn't back away though; the girl had too much confidence for her own good.
"So what do you, like, want?" She asked, but continued before Taz had a chance to reply, "'Cause, if you, like, wanna get with Up? There's no way that's gonna happen." Taz swallowed. No matter how many times she was told that Up wasn't with Chloe, her words still stung. Nevertheless she held her chin up high, still only clenching her fists again when Chloe pushed off from the treadmill behind her and started circling her. "Because he's mine," Chloe whispered in Taz ear from behind her, sending a shiver of hatred down her spine. "And you left him all alone off on some mission when you knew how bad his condition was." The sickly-sweet voice was back, but with a stab of poison in it. It was taking every single tensed muscle in her body not to murder her right there and then, but, like always, Taz was waiting for her moment.
The gym looked packed. Up opened the door expecting to be able to stride in and find Taz, but he was met with the backs of a crowd of rangers, nurses and gym-goers. Up heard the door creak again behind him and turned around to see the nurse from the rehab clinic and Peter looking rather out of breath. Rolling his eyes, he turned back around and tried to see over the crowd and what they were looking at, when he heard an all too familiar voice droning out from the space between the treadmills and the sparring ring.
"I was the only one who could look after him- who understood how he was feeling." She touched the space where her heart would be. It's not true. It's not true. It's not true. Don't listen to her. Don't listen to her. Don't listen to her. Taz still held her stance, keeping perfectly still while the girl circled her. "And where were you? You were off having fun while he was still struggling with his injury!" She doesn't know what she's talking about. Keep jour cool.
Up pushed his way through the crowds, which was fairly easy, considering that when people saw the expression on his face, they moved as far away as they could. Chloe's voice was getting louder and easier to hear, but he still couldn't see her. In fact, he couldn't hear Taz, though he was pretty sure she was with Chloe.
"I made sure that he was taken care of when you carelessly left him." Up heard Chloe's voice again through the crowd. She must've been talking to Taz. "And trust me: he was very well taken care of." Up shuddered, ignoring the whispers around him as he made his way towards the voice. Why wasn't Taz reacting? Why was she taking comments like that from Chloe?
Unfortunately Taz couldn't quite hide her emotions at Chloe's last comment. Her eyes wavered for a moment and her mouth showed signs of her gritting her teeth. The changes were subtle but the girl still noticed them.
"Oh, don't you like the thought of me and Up together? Are you...jealous?" Taz couldn't help it- she shifted uncomfortably as another shiver caused by the suppressed rage ran down her back. "You are aren't you? Oh this is just rich," the fake girl had started to fake laugh, but even though the laughs had less life in them than plastic, each one hit Taz like a zapper pew. "Ladies and gentlemen!" Chloe called out to the crowd, throwing her arms out for effect, "The girl who thinks she's in love with Commander Up." She turned back to Taz and looked down her nose at her again, "But the truth is everybody, she only thinks that because he feels sorry for her." Not true. Not true. Not true. Taz felt the rage boiling up inside her as Chloe got closer and closer, making her look taller and taller, she finally bent down, and her whisper could be heard through the whole of the silent gym, "Because. No one. Loves. Little. Ta-"
"YOU BITCH!" Up had reached the front of the crowd just in time to see Chloe start to deliver her final bitchy comment to Taz, but he looked around in surprise to find that, of all people, Peter had interrupted her. The crowds parted before him and he strutted into the small 'clearing' around Taz and Chloe. Chloe turned around and could only look at the slightly shorter man in confusion as he marched up to her, and not Taz. "You told me that you were going out with the Commander!" He shouted, and as Peter pointed at him Chloe turned and saw him. She suddenly looked very nervous.
"But, uh, I am." She insisted, flipping her hair and laughing nervously. Up shook his head and decided to make his move.
"There is no way in hell, Chloe," He started to move into the circle, "that I am ever," he saw Taz and shot her a quick smile, "going to 'go out' with you." Chloe's mouth fell open.
"B-but Up!" She stuttered, looking around at the crowd which she didn't own anymore, "I thought we had something!" Up snorted and looked down his nose at her, something she obviously didn't like at all.
"Chloe you are the sole reason the G.L.E.E almost lost two of its best rangers." He finished, and she looked down sheepishly. That was when Up saw Taz's expression out of the corner of his eye and could tell her rage was fit to burst. She was waiting for revenge.
However that puta just wouldn't stop. "Well I don't think it was my fault- if you hadn't gone and got yourself cut in half in the robot wars, then-"
"HEY! PUTA!" She just couldn't contain it any longer. Insult her? She could take that. But insult Up? No maldito way. Chloe turned around and raised her eyebrows at her with the same air of arrogance as before. Estupida maldita perra. "REMEMBER ME?" Taz yelled, and without warning, Chloe got a fist to the nose and was on the ground. Taz stepped over her and spat on her face, before starting to walk away. However before she did, she turned back, looked down at the fake girl who'd taken her Up away from her and realised she hadn't quite got rid of all the fire.
"Oh yeah, and dat word? It means bitch."