It was bittersweet.

When Tara had been announced as the winner in her most recent XWF escapade against Atara Themis, Tara felt…mixed. She wore a wry smile. The two had become fast friends, but there was that lingering question that had to be answered: which one of them was better? Which one of them was The Goddess? Bad Medicine was the night that they were supposed to put everything to rest; they were supposed to finally answer that question, but the problem was that there is a lingering thought in the back of Tara’s mind: she did not get the best of the best out of Atara Themis. She did not get the prepared Atara Themis. She got the shadow.

Tara sneered at the mere thought of it, and brushed her hand through her hair letting the iconic blue hair flow between her fingers before she reached the tips; she held the ends over her shoulder before raising her head in a sense of optimism, and a sense of moving forward. It’s what she knew she had to do: she had to move forward…there would be no rematch. Not here, not now. There was someone new that she had to set her sights on, and prepare herself for: Jenny Myst. And so she sat with her finger gliding across the screen on the tablet that was set on her kitchen bar in her Hartford home. She let out an exhausted sigh while letting her eyes falter from the tablet and just looked toward the ceiling to get lost in her thoughts for a mere moment. She raised her coffee mug from the bar and sipped slowly.

“Why are you up so early?” A voice called from behind, and Tara glanced over her shoulder to see Angel walking toward her.

She couldn’t help but smile when she laid eyes on him; a smile she couldn’t erase despite everything that he had done to her. He had taken custody of their son away from her years prior, but there was just something about him that drew her in… Something she could not escape from. The two had rekindled their feelings near the end of November, but because of their history, they had kept a secret for as long as they could. It was at a recent show at another organization where it had to come out. There were some that were happy for them; their son, even Angel’s son and Tara’s stepson, but Tara’s own son and sister were not as accommodating over the situation. She felt herself lean back into him when he wrapped an arm around her, and he gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead before she tilted her head back and he gave her a second kiss now on the lips. He took a gander at the tablet to see the dozens of tabs open but one name that was in common for all of them: “Jenny Myst versus…”.

“Couldn’t sleep.” Tara answered, and let out a sigh as she pressed her hand against her collar. She adjusted in the barstool, and put her elbow down on the bar then rested her head against the palm of her hand before tapping to hit play on the video that she was focusing on.

“You are worrying yourself too much. You need to relax…” Angel had tried to reassure her, but Tara scrunched her face slightly; the expression had told him all he needed to know.

“It’s not that,” Tara had interrupted him between his break, “I just had a bad dream is all. And was a little nauseous this morning. But it seems to have gone away.” Tara said while trying to shake it off. Angel gave her a lingering stare as if he were searching for an indication; the silence was rather unsettling and Tara heard her stomach beginning to growl. “Hey, can you make me some eggs…?” Tara asked and leaned back a second time. Her eyes looked bluer than usual as her hands gripped the bar to keep herself from falling all the way backward, “And… hashbrowns?” Tara’s lips curled into a smile. Angel shook his head subtly. “And bring me the peanut butter… please?” Tara asked again while tapping her hands back against the bar.

Angel didn’t argue with her and got the peanut butter from the cupboard for her before returning to the cabinets and starting to pull out a few pans. Tara had tried to re-focus on the tablet in front of her before more commotion brought the house to life.

“Dad,” another voice called out and in walked Dean Harper, the eldest son of Angel; as he walked in, he shifted his attention over to Tara and said in a rather pleasant tone, “Mother,” he said as a greeting. He patted her shoulder while walking past her, “Dad,” he repeated, “Let me take care of that."

As if on cue, more commotion filled the house as two children ran into the kitchen while squealing and trying to play with each other. Edward and Damian; Tara’s and Angel's youngest son, and step-grandson, Dean’s son. The season seemed to excite them; they knew that there were gifts littered under the Christmas tree for them. Their excitement had them already running around the house.

“Go play outside!” Dean said.

Angel was the first to reach the backdoor and swung it outward, as the two children ran past him and into the backyard. Angel stood at the balcony and just stood watching over the children playing while Dean grabbed a sack of potatoes and began cutting them one by one, and finally dicing them up. He put them onto a pan and put it over the stove.

“You okay?” Dean asked as he turned toward Tara, and gave his stepmother a glance while looking through the spice rack.

Tara was focused on the tablet that was playing some of the previous matches while pushing a spoon into the jar of peanut butter. She gave Dean a second glance, and just had the most bewildered look on her face indicating that she had not even heard him. “Hmm?” She finally answered in a questioning fashion.

“Are you okay?” Dean repeated.

“Yeah,” Tara said with a nod, “just trying to find out a little more about this girl…”

Dean walked to Tara and looked over her shoulder; he nodded his head a few times and cocked his head to the side. “Jenny Myst? She’s a tiny little thing.” Dean finished with a chuckle before walking back to the oven.

“She’s a tiny thing, but so are you compared to some of the people that you’ve been in the ring with. Even for as long as I’ve been doing this, I was usually always the smaller person in the ring… That’s not something that we could discredit her on.” Tara insisted.

Dean chuckled under his breath but nodded his head. “You’re right,” he finally muttered.

“She does have a decent record,” Tara said while beginning to glance over some of the people that Jenny had previously fought. There were definitely names in there that she was more familiar with, the likes of James Raven, Thaddeus, Betsy, and of course Atara whom Tara had her most recent XWF victory over.

“Have you seen yours?” Dean asked in an attempt to get Tara not to undersell herself.

Tara finally had a spoonful of peanut butter, but kind of shrugged her shoulders over the comment made by Dean. “I know, but this is still a new territory for me. I’ve won one, and lost one.” It was a mixed emotion that Tara felt; she did sneer slightly at the mentioning of the loss, but what could she do?

“We’ve lost count of your overall record, but since coming back, we’re still counting your losses on one hand! And the number of belts you’ve held just in this year alone. The success of your cruise. That’s not something to shrug off.” Dean encouraged Tara to remain positive. “Just do what you do best… and prepare for the next challenger.” Dean said as a final word for encouragement.

---

Tara’s piercing blue eyes were fixated on the camera in front of her, and she had her head cocked to the side. Of course, she had that traditional smirk that reeked of confidence every time she got on camera. The silence ensued for several seconds to follow to allow an anticipation to build but it was eventually broken by Tara clicking her tongue, and finally snickering before beginning with her proper introduction to her upcoming opponent, Jenny Myst.

“I suppose that I should say: welcome back, Jenny!” she said with a smile that appeared to be absolutely sincere, “Welcome back, and let me just say that I sincerely hope that your return goes a lot better…after this week. I hope you have the same amount of success that I’ve had since I returned to the industry just over one year ago, but unfortunately, I do have to break the news to you that you are not going to walk out with this victory. You are not going to have the same return that I had when I came back to the industry. Yours is not going to be triumphant. Yours is not going to be glorious. Yours is not going to be something you want to remember. The former longest-reigning Bombshell Champion, the former X-Treme Champion, the former longest-reigning Shooting Star Champion, is going to be sorely disappointed on Christmas Day when she doesn’t have her arm raised. The tiny little thing with so much spunk that I highly doubt you’ve completely come to understand just who it is that you’re stepping into the ring with. You probably have that lingering question: who are you?” The puzzled expression stuck for a couple of seconds.

“Honey, let me go ahead and introduce myself to you…” Tara said with a wide smile, and spread her arms out, “I’m Tara Fenix, and I’ve been doing this shit for a long time.” She said in such a way that made her sound like she wasn’t overly concerned with who that she was stepping into the ring with; she had done her research, she had prepared herself for the competition as she would anybody else, and she was confident that she could earn another “W” in the XWF column.

“When I look at you, Jenny, I’m not going to lie: I see a lot of similarities between us. While I’m not as small as you, I’m used to being the smaller fighter. Your attitude; you’re not afraid to play the seduction game to get what you want, and while that was something that people used to frown upon and it caused me to get called every name in the book…it was effective. Neither one of us has the desire to be viewed as anything less. Neither one of us are content with being second place! That doesn’t work for people like us. The list can go on, honey. The list can go on for every area we are similar. But there is one–” she said while pinching her fingers together, “--itty bitty problem.” She took a momentary pause and adjusted back to a proper stance.

“I’m more experienced, and I…damn well do it better.” Tara said with a smirk. She quickly did wave off some of the interaction.

“I could go ahead and list off all of my own accolades for you, but I think that you’ve been in this business long enough to understand that really–” Tara scrunched up her face and shrugged her shoulders, “--none of that seems to ever matter. That’s not to say that the past doesn’t matter, and I’ll get into that in just a moment, but what I am saying is that the main thing that matters is what we do with every next step we take. We can look back at this little slump that you’ve found yourself in, and y’know, I can only imagine that that was probably the reason you decided to take some time off…” Tara pondered a moment, “Reset. Get yourself centered. Find your zen.” She snickered, “I’ve been there a few times in my career. Take a month off here and there. Of course, I have two boys, so I’ve had to take a little extra time off. But what’s important is what you do when you come back, right? Reset. Every week: reset. It doesn’t matter that I lost my debut in XWF; it doesn’t matter that I bounced back to defeat Atara after we had a little bit of a spat, but I think we’re good now! It’s strange how that works, isn’t it? One day, we’re trying to kill each other; the next, we’re best friends. That’s not important,” she said while waving a hand as if to wave off the conversation from her focus.

“We focus on the now; we focus on not letting our past failures be what defines us inside of the ring, but those past failures are not behind everybody else. When you step into the ring with me, people are going to remember everything that I’ve ever accomplished, and if–” Tara gave a wry smile, and her tone came across as a mixture of confidence and cocky, “--and that’s a big if–” she said while wagging her finger at the audience, “--but if you can manage to walk out with a victory over me, the people are going to recognize that you would now hold a victory over a twenty-one-year veteran! But for me…” Tara snickered, “You don’t have the same history that I do, there’s literally no way that you can try to contest that…but in your short time, you’ve accomplished a fair amount in the XWF that a victory over you would probably turn a few heads and let everybody in the XWF know that I’m here, and I mean business.”

Her gaze averted from the camera momentarily, and she took a couple steps to her side. She did a brief sniffle before nodding her head and thinking more about what she has accomplished in this business, and the business she has with coming to XWF; it was something she had teased for several months before finally pulling the trigger… What was her purpose for being in the XWF?

“Business. Business. That’s all it is, right? It’s just business. In this business, there are some of us who have one thing set in our mind: be the best. Some of us have that mentality that we are going to be the best by staying put in our safe little walls, and all of the competition is going to come groveling at our feet to bless them with one match. Just–” Tara extended one of her fingers out, “--one match. Safe in the confines of a haven that would do anything to protect their greatest assets!” Tara scoffed at the mere thought of it.

“That’s not me. I don’t hide in a compound and proclaim myself to be the greatest. I leave that compound, and I conquer everything in my path! I sign my name on the dotted line at every place where I can leave my mark…I sign and extend my name, extend my legacy, and tell everyone why all eyes should be on me! I conquer. You can say anything you want about me, you can call me every name in the book, you can try to diminish everything that I’ve done because it wasn’t done under the XWF banner, but…” She takes one bold step forward, with her head held high, she puts her arms back out to put herself on a display or on her own imaginary pedestal.

“I’m here. I’ve already made a name for myself, but I’m not afraid to go out to my own uncharted territory and carry that name everywhere I go! I’m not afraid to find the greatest competition that this industry has to offer, which is another reason that I created the Tara Fenix Charity events; to bring the greatest competition together, and see them battle it out! What I did sparked a whole revolution! We’ve had many shows that came up…by my kickstarter. We have the Denzel Porter Invitational coming up, inspired by the Tara Fenix Charity events! That’s what I do: I conquer, I revolutionize, and–” Tara rolled her eyes up and moved her head side to side as if weighing the options, “--I give back. I’m a giver, Jenny. I want to see people prosper! I want to see people get elevated! But do you want to know a little truth to that…?”

Tara took a couple steps closer so the only angle the camera had was from her neck up.

“I like to elevate people because it’s so much more fun to watch them fall from a greater height. I like to make them believe that they can be something… just so I can tear them apart piece by piece, and they’ll know that they will never, ever, be on the same level that I’m at. I’ve said it so many times before, and I’m going to repeat it for you right here, and right now, darling: the ring is mine. The rest of you can go off spewing the crap of how you’re a queen, you’re a goddess, or whatever cliché you want to make, but there is one single truth that is, and always will be: the ring is mine. When I enter, I need you to accept that. I need you to understand that if you choose to fight, you are not leaving in one piece. The ring is mine. Come Savage…come Christmas: I’ll give you the gift of walking out on your own two feet. Merry Christmas.” Tara plants her kiss on the camera leaving lip marks on the camera as the scene ends.