“It never works that way. Once that ugliness has been forced into you, it becomes part of your blood, dilutes it, races through your heart and back out again, staining everything as it goes. The ugliness never goes away, never comes out, no matter what you do. Anyone who thinks otherwise is naive. All you can do is hope to control it.”
― Dennis Lehane, A Drink Before the War




Part #4: The Interloper



Carnage Heights
Sin City
8:41pm
01.11.2020



It all felt oddly like deja vu.

A desolate rooftop. A redhead with feet dangling perilously like at any given moment she might simply disappear into the knowing abyss- maybe the fall would be beautiful, memorable and etched eternally into more than just the pavement as the unfortunate splatter seeped between the cracks in the concrete.
Besides, someone around here needed to keep the street cleaners busy these days.
In a chaotic world, few things were consistent and reliable- even the idea of a sunrise or sunset seemed to be in question as days and nights melded into something far more perpetual- a confused cycle of limbo in a place already trying to find a place beyond the mire to stand.

Heroes were the bad guys, the bad guys were worse and the worst… Well, that was always yet to come.

Red kicked her heels against the buildings side lazily, worn soles bouncing off a crumbling facade while watching a world fall deeper into the chaos it refused to admit it cultivated, that it nurtured, that it turned out on the world when it could no longer control it.
Must have been really easy for the good guys to cast blame, easier than ever to deny their wrong doings in the face of a ‘far greater evil’, except it wasn’t… It was trite and overrated. It was hyperbolic nothings designed to bolster reputations and deter from digging in those real sore spots that Heroes loves to avoid.

She’d been told a war was raging on the streets- that an Interloper to the crown had crawled out from the depths and wrapped a hand around the cities throat. Maybe they had, but only because the fucking Heroes let it…
Show the world there's something to fear and then vanquish it- the cliches of the righteous were innumerable and yet so over-wrought it would have brought a tear of dismay to Red’s eye had she not been so devoid of caring. A usurper to the throne never stacked up against the original, a facsimile would only ever be as such- you can try to capture lightning as many times as you like, but it's never quite as shocking after the first million volts.

To think, Red mused silently as the virulent cries of battle roared beneath, that the sacrifice of the Saccharine Songbird would end up being for nought- how little it would mean simply because a shinier, easier to break toy demanded attention. It was almost worth sympathizing that the Songbirds fall from grace would never nearly measure up to the loyalty she'd devoted to the Heroes cause…
After all, there were far more pressing matters at hand- and doing the fucking right thing didn't rank nearly as highly when there wasn’t a cheering audience to spectate it.
Out of sight out of mind, you know, until they needed a reason to be pissed about something and justify their shitty decision making.

Gang wars around here were insignificant at best and minorly irritating at worst- gangs squaring up like calling yourself the biggest badass still meant something. Groups of delinquents that otherwise had nothing going for them combining their venom into something vaguely potent to those without an immunity- or an easy target for some Heroes to wipe out and a cheap media pop.
From her vantage point, she could see the Hero and her harem of hapless sidekicks amid the throng like a red streak in a sea of beige- standing out only because everything else around them was so fucking bland. Such a waste really- of resources, faces getting scraped off the pavement… but most importantly time.

Mostly Red’s.

She wondered if this was deliberate- a slight towards her like she wasn't the greatest threat, a distraction to prove that she didn't own a pretty little corner of the Heroes mind. A show put on for a knowing watchers vantage point, a display to prove something not yet seen in their confrontations- perhaps if the Hero had shown this much vigor in previous outings, none of those involved would have found themselves in this situation to begin with.

Hindsight kiddies, 20/20 only in the rearview.

Hero and Interloper… It was almost comical how they were supposed to match up, like equals, like apples and oranges being compared- except in this case it was more like oranges and trash.
This wasn’t a swipe at the throne not earned- but a cut into a dance designed for two, granted there was nothing to stop Red from getting involved and the pang of rage and jealousy resonating through her ribs, the frustration playing xylophone down the inside of her spine tended to agree…
However, this wasn’t her fight- just in the same way that the Interloper had chosen to take up this mantle not yet laid to rest, feasting like a pretty little vulture before the lions were done with their share. It would have been real easy to step in, to lay waste to all involved like a hurricane was designed to do… However there was no thrill in that, no gain to be had in taking unnecessary punishment when those involved seemed quite enough content to punch each other stupid before the real heavy hitter stepped up to take her swing.

Red had inadvertently become a spectator to a life no longer hers, a fight she’d earned and relinquished without ever actually doing so. No longer the singular focus for a Heroes rage and defiance, she’d become second fiddle and an afterthought in the wake of something a little easier to swallow.
New toys lost their shine real quick though, no longer fun to play with when they stopped twitching under the boot. It wouldn’t take long for the Hero to move on, to decide that a renewed focus meant anything except a short attention span- plenty of other small fry would clamber for the chance to tangle with a hero, as though just avoiding Red might somehow make her vanish into dust from sheer willpower.

Some things were always worth waiting for and Red wasn’t the type to let up the pressure on a victim's throat just cause they were turning an ugly shade of blue. Reluctantly, Red dragged her legs back onto the rooftop, slipping quietly to her feet- growing bored of the charade below, the pantomime would have it's consequences only to be swept under the rug at the first sign of negative repercussion.

Another menace off the streets.

Another win for the good guys.

God, Red wanted to be sick.

With a sideways glance and twitch of disgust in her lip, Red left the quarrelling masses to their games… Of course there was a choice to be made, however not making one at all would prove to be a far greater message in the long run. Rubberized footsteps padded across the concrete as Red’s thick tresses of crimson cascaded around her face, the momentary twitch of her lip dying on the edge of a wry smile.

Evil was a lot of things- but mostly, it was subjective. So many thought themselves to be the greatest of it- like that was something to be admired instead of a target for the next edgelord looking to rub one out to their own self-serving misery.
Perhaps one day they’d all understand that indifference in the face of choice was a far greater evil than anything this fucking place could ever muster.

Indifference in the face of choice was a far greater evil than anything this fucking place could muster.



******



“I’m a firm believer in things like balance and karma.

Even in a place like this- between all the debaucherous and narcissistic personalities trying to lord over a place that don’t happen to believe in true democracy, there lies a carefully weighted scale of lawful good and chaotic evil.
Unseen and yet ever-adapting if only so that a certain equilibrium might continue to be upheld- every action must have it's equal and opposite reaction, every personality from the brash and outspoken to the mild-mannered and meek of heart having it's negative form to keep this place on an even keel.

Two sides. One coin.

Heroes in arms like dancing hurricanes stained in scarlet. Seems like for the longest time Hero, we’ve been acknowledged as opposites of a tumbling, albeit useless currency like pennies on the dollar. If anything, it's actually become quite poetic  when you take the time to consider our trajectories to this moment and how we manage to differ so much in our sameness.
Deny as you might, everyone else out there sees it except you… that many people can’t surely be wrong, although as soon as we square up for one last time I’m sure to be proven wrong. I mean- you gotta figure Hero… when you’re the only common denominator to every shitty thing happening in your life, you have to start considering that you might just be the issue.

Of course you’ll be the first in line to tell any listening soul that I’m full of shit, that you can't possibly be anything like me cause I’m the fucking anti-thesis of everything good and decent, of everything pure and worth saving in this cesspool you lord so freely over. Of everything you STILL try to claim you represent- go and pull the other leg Hero, cause you’re the only one left believing that spiel.
Time and time again you’ve failed to uphold those ethical guidelines of yours like a proper hypocrite, busy walking around calling everyone else out on their shit while you seemingly forgot to tuck a few skeletons back in your closet.

Keep ducking and weaving though, distract yourself with something a little softer on your knuckles and less likely to cut to the bone with a well placed truth. I’m sure there's a barely sentient yeast infection out there desperately trying to get your attention- and for once I’m not referring to your wife.
Anything to keep your mind off me right?

A welcome distraction, a little something on the side to take the edge off, to make you still feel as sharp as you ever have while all those around you blunt those edges to keep you kiddie friendly. Thing is, you let a plague rat breed instead of just crushing it's skull when you first had the chance- now you’re wondering why there's a goddamn pandemic.

I mean feel free to blame me, granted the bandwagons getting a little full but for you, sweet Hero, I’ll always make a space. Thing is, there's something about this that's getting me a little sore… and I can assure you, it's not the idea of how much hand sanitizer it's going to take to feel clean after watching you tangle with a a bag of dicks trying to play the ‘big bad wolf… No, it's the fact you keep letting this stupid fucking idea that you’re somehow the good guy interfere with just doing what needs to be done…

All of this, everything… Me, standing here right now, probably outside your house cause you sure as hell aren't going to stop me… It could have been avoided, you could have changed the timeline and instead you get tangled in this web of goodness that only applies when there's someone to hold you accountable. When the lights aren't shining, you’ll level every piece of shit like they’re condemned buildings, you’ll get on your soapbox and declare that you’re making a difference. No filters, no social media proofing, no pretending to be decent when you’d much rather tear that rats head from it's soft, shitty little body. No excuses.

Where the fuck is that Hero?

What do I have to do to find that Hero in the dark?

How many people do you think that Hero could have saved from this Interloper, this dime store angel of death marked for clearance cause lets face it- Red just ain’t a colour you can properly replicate on a budget. How many of those you hold so near could have been spared if you stopped caring more about your image than the fact that everything you claim to care about was falling into cinder.
You think you look cool stepping through those ashes, flecks of everything you love sweeping up around your cheap cape so you can capture that whirlwind of chaos in tragic slow motion- yeah, and you say you aren’t a damn thing like me…

Heroes are supposed to save people, but you’ve hurt far more than that ridiculous Interloper and her never-weres could even fantasize about- and you have the gall to deny, to keep dragging more and more people into this black hole of dissent.
Did any of them deserve this Hero? A fate you’ve passed on cause sympathy never goes out of style.

Were they ever more than just pawns, more than collateral damage to be used and discarded?

I’m more than a nasty infection somewhere unmentionable, the reason you get up during the night and complain that it stings when you pee and it takes more than a hefty dose of antibiotics and a strong stomach for the retch of ammonia to clean up the mess I’m willing to create in the wake of your continued ignorance.
I’ve slipped between the sinews and synapses- taken up residence rent-free in that dark corner of your mind that you always kept ready, just in case.

Maybe the Interloper was a little bit of fun for a while but I’m always going to be your main, try to play me as a side piece and I’ll blow you away. It's bad enough you don’t bother respecting me- but I won’t stand by and remain second priority, staring longing through a window while you snuggle with your new demons while I contemplate just how many pieces I might break everything into.

I’ll always have your eyes- only now, I’ve decided that I no longer want to share.

Oh, by the way...
 
Your little boy, he really is quite delightful. You should be so very proud.

… It’s just a shame that he’s running out of parents fast.”




******



Part #5: The Prizefighter



The Succubi’s Cup
Sin City
01.11.2020
8:52pm



“Hey, ‘nother one?”

To think, with almost a shit eating grin, that this was the closest thing to verbal acknowledgement Red had received since walking into the bar. A curt nod returned, and the glass in front of her seemingly magically refilled as it had continued to do- the haphazard pile of notes strewn across the surface became a few less as the bartender picked through it with a smirk.
Were the drinks incredibly overpriced? Probably.
Was the atmosphere akin to a funeral where all the attendees despised the deceased- absolutely.
Did she care about any of that outside of the fact that her glass remained full of a home brew swill that might peel paint from the walls should she even breathe in their direction- not at all.
Maybe that's why she liked this place- unlike Sin City, no one cared who you were outside their walls, they didn’t gather and exchange tragic life stories while sobbing into fruity cocktails… All that mattered was that you paid your bill and kept your head down.

In this case though, Red’s eyes weren’t fixed to the floor- although she was sure that might massively help with the wavering of her equilibrium and the faint metallic taste on the back of her tongue, instead she was fixated on a television plagued with lines of flickering static cutting through an already poor quality picture.
A news report, as though that were unusual- places like this kept the antiquated forms of media in business far longer than they should have, newspaper stands on the corner prospered in the face of uncertainty and television stations made a killing on the conga line of tragedy that seemed to weave through the streets.
Cutting from a generic news room floor and middle aged universally handsome anchor, the image changed into the haze of a public rally- as though the deja vu didn't do anything more than make her feel further ill.

At it's head, speaking into a microphone with a thinly veiled arrogance that made Red want to instinctively put her fist through the fucking screen, a woman… Very pretty, well dressed and with the proper kind of posture you know must be practised day in and day out for moments like these- golden blonde tendrils fell around her shoulders and her gaze seemed to permeate through the captivated- if not just bored- crowd of presumed supports.
Elections were commonplace here, challenger after challenger came after the proverbial throne as though entitlement made then any more relatable, spewing diatribe about the fact THEY would be the only ones to make real CHANGE in this place.
Diatribe after intelligence insulting diatribe whipped the crowd into a frenzy as though the place didn’t need more ineffectual vigilantes and wanna be bad guys looking for a cheap thrill only to be left wishing for universal healthcare instead.

It wasn’t the candidate that really captured Reds attention- but a figure in the front row, back to the film crew with a shock of crimson trailing down her back. Funny, really how Heroes always found themselves drawn to people they couldn’t better and things they couldn't change- determined but entirely foolish to consider that anyone might just simply stop and listen to occasional reasonable but otherwise hare-brained schemes. Of course the Hero was there- there wasn’t a single way she could avoid getting involved, just like with everything else.
Heaven forbid that the Hero, as delightful and successful as she might have been, not be included in some important happenings within the city borders, forget confidential information cause the need to know was more of a ‘I’m the hero so just go along with it’ kinda stance.

It certainly didn’t help that the Prizefighter was also the wife of the Hero, even the best makeup artists couldn’t cover the blooming bruises and scrapes from the street scrap with the Interloper, if you looked hard enough for them of course. Side by side, lovers in arms against the evils of the world- if it wasn’t so nauseating and cliche, Red might have managed to appreciate it as much as she appreciated the burn of terrible liquor before, that too, made her want to dry wretch into a dumpster behind the building.

God, it could be easy. Public, plenty of cover, a thousand witnesses with no one seeing a damn thing. Stupidly easy. Red wondered how the Hero might react- would she rise to the occasion in a fiery vengeance or collapse beneath the weight of grief, would she come back stronger and greater like Red had always hoped she would or wallow in the self-loathing knowing that, this too, was something that she could have prevented if she just fucking acted.
Silently, Red contemplated as the scratchy TV volume made the rally almost unintelligible at best and downright irritating at worst- really she didn't need to hear anything to know what was being said, blame passing like it was a parcel at a childs birthday, excuses out the fucking wazoo and misdirection with a fluttering of the eyes and wiggle of the hips.

Really though, it was just another big mouth trying to speak on something they weren’t equipped to understand, pointing the finger at the nearest evil poking its head out from behind a tree in hopes that the lynch mob would blindly follow and big-noting the little she'd achieved in hopes that the collective memory didn’t stretch as far back as her own.

Granted it’d be really fucking satisfying too...

Quick, albeit a little messy.

Red could see it now, watching tainted and misinformed words turn to blood and bile bubbling from her mouth like a macabre fountain dedicated to the god of ignorance and arrogance alike. Screams would echo through the streets, tears would flow as readily as blood into the gutters and the Hero, oh the darling Hero, she’d frozen in place with the realization that she’d failed… yet again… to save someone she cared about, and all because she simply refused to act when given the opportunity.
She’d been warned far too many times already- perhaps this is what it would take for the message to finally sink in.

Red swirled her drink in the glass trying to ignore the heavy fingerprint parks staining the rim, amber fluid kissed the edges of the glass as the acrid fumes burned at her eyes, the Prizefighter enraptured the crowds with a smile and the promise of hope, of a brighter future under her guidance…
It was astounding really, just how easy it was to lie to the masses, to sow the seeds of something that couldn’t possibly be executed…

It’d be easy.

Easy wasn’t worth it though. Easy wasn’t fulfilling or rewarding. Easy didn’t slake a bloodthirst or indulge the primal need for rampage and disorder. Easy was comfortable and expected- it held your hand, it guided the way down a well lit path to nowhere satisfying.
No, fuck doing anything easy.
Easy hadn’t gotten her this far- it hadn’t brought a Hero to her knees crawling through the mire and it hadn’t taken a city and forced it into the palms of Red’s bloodstained hands.
Maybe the Prizefighter, the challenger to the city's greatest crown, was indeed a prime target… A lasting shot at the heart of a Hero guarding her treasures like a misguided dragon valuing all the wrong things.

Self-sabotage. An overwhelming desire to prove herself worthy when she had no leg to stand on when the spotlight shined brightest. A mouth that spoke far greater volumes than her abilities and a penchant for doublespeak, half truths and victimization.
With a hard cringe, Red downed her drink in a searing mouthful- her senses overloaded in white hot acridity, blinded from the inside out until the harsh fluid traced down her throat like paint thinner made barely potable.
It was almost disappointing really, that Red would have to do absolutely nothing except watch the Prizefighter fail when it mattered the most.

No doubt, that alone would crush the Hero... her hopes riding on someone near and dear doing better, being better than an expectation that wasn’t theirs to strive for. Another fucking sidekick stepping out of their lane, wanting so badly to be a Hero without accepting that there were consequences to such foolish action.
Staring into the faintly staticed version of the back of the Heroes head, she could already envision the disappointment that would creep through her features- it was the same disappointed the Hero would have seen staring up from the cold pavement the first time she’d tangled with Red, the same disappointment that had been covered in blood and glitter when the Hero made the ill-advised decision to open up the playing field for collateral damage, the same disappointment that would be mirrored by everyone holding the Prizefighter to a standard that wasn’t hers to strive for…

Most importantly though, the same disappointment that Red would mirror once this whole thing was over and there would be nothing left to take from a fallen, dishonoured Hero.



******



“How much do you think a bucket of good intentions weighs?

Is it something akin to the weightlessness of hope and uplifting euphoria of true altruism, or does it remind you of concrete boots dragging you beneath the waves of just fucking being better. It's supposed to save you Hero, all that unconditional love and support is supposed to keep you buoyant and yet you’re struggling to keep your head above the rising waters… Too busy trying to hold up those that keep on dragging you down.
Must really suck being married to someone who can never live up to expectation- all that hard work cultivating this image, whispers in the right ears all for nought cause someone with such a big mouth who is in absolutely no position to speak her mind as much as she does keeps throwing it all down the garbage disposal cause her name doesn't get mentioned often enough.

See, your dutiful wife only seems to have your best interests at heart… Right after her own of course, right after using you to try to clean up her mess- the one she’d gladly palm off to any passer-by who looked at her the wrong way.
Accountability? Yeah, not a strong suit in your household is it, Hero…
She seems to think it's my fault that you’re in this position- like she has any right to talk about anything except over bleaching one's hair and calories. She can talk about knocking me the fuck out all she likes, but the last thing of relevance she knocked over was a stack of stale Big Macs.

Five second rule still applies when the consumer is far more cultured than the floor, right?

Bacterially, I mean.

She seems to have this notion that I’m to blame for you being driven to distraction Hero, that it's somehow my fault that you’d rather play with your food instead of smearing it across the cityscape cause that guano was all over her hands from the get go.
It's not my fault that you’d rather do anything else than listen to her squawk about another inevitable fuck up she’s made.

Between you and me, I’d tell you to cut the dead weight. Let those concrete boots fall to the bottom of the ocean rather than swallowing sea water so someone else can use that precious air to complain that their silicone assets are the worst flotation devices they ever invested in.
To tell you that you deserve better is to tell a person to keep breathing, it's incredibly obvious but the reminder never goes astray. I always believed you were holding back, that you were being held back Hero… So busy holding onto sentimental things and people that you forgot what truly mattered, too busy catering to those tugging on your cape that you couldn't see the brick wall you were flying head on into.

You’re trying to be something for everyone, spreading yourself so thin you don’t leave enough meat on the bones to make it worthwhile anymore.

It's really quite sad that it takes having to drag everyone down with us for you to start taking this a little more seriously…

To think, I’ve given you nothing but my full attention this whole time and you’d rather try multitasking like I’m just one of your chores to be completed, a check mark on a to-do list of mundanity and futile attempts to act normal in the face of the world demanding gallantry.
I thought this was special- and yet you’d rather prioritize everyone else's messes over the manifestation of your continued failures rising up to face you down, we are forever entwined Hero and I’m no longer contented to wait for my couple of minutes in the sun when you think you can just remember I exist.
Our dance with death, entwined to the point that the knots in our chests got caught on the hearts on our sleeves and we’ve got nothing left to do, but cut them off.

Was it not enough for you Hero?
Was I not enough for you?

Tell me truthfully, what is it I have to do to make you understand that I’m not just another conquest- that you can’t just swoop in when you have a minute and bat your eyelashes at me like I’m gonna melt into a puddle. I ask for respect, and you shrug me off cause you’re running behind on your errands and that subversive succubus you wed so readily can’t be trusted not to burn the place down in your absence.
There's a reason we childproof houses- but they didn’t take into account those who never mentally grew beyond selfish, conceited, entitled teenagers…
Personally, I fully endorse Darwinism- you know, survival of the fittest, and the ones who can go fifteen minutes without making their spouse regret every decision they ever made.

Just shed all those affiliations like you’re shedding your skin, I promise it's the only way you’ll ever step toe to toe with me and feel like you actually got anything accomplished besides leaving me all kinds of disappointed… again. Do you think any of them are running to your aid in the same way you’ve done for them? They all got what they wanted from you Hero- a goody two shoes to clean up all the mistakes and pat them on the back reassuringly, a savior in the dark when the night light has run out of batteries, a friend to the end… but only when it's convenient for them.
Hell if it's any consolation- I bet they’ll all say nice things at the funeral, right after they bitch and moan that they now have to find someone else to latch onto. Parasites don’t live long without a host, remember… They don’t stick around to mourn the loss, they move on and start all over again cause that's just their nature.

We can’t blame them for that, but it doesn’t make it sting any less.

All those people you swore to protect, the ones worth sacrificing everything for, the ones worth saving…

Where are they now, Hero?

And why is it I’m always the only one left…”



******



Part #6: The Hero



Undisclosed Location
Sin City
08.11.2020
4:36am



“I thought we were beyond using tricks and deception”

A Hero in the dark always looked more like a villain than any bad guy could manage, like the virtuous side of the coin seeking out their duplicitous mirror image. Shadows danced in empty streets as passing cars didn’t even dare slow for a moment for fear they might be consumed by an impending storm- stars swallowed one by one by a rolling wall of darkened clouds devouring an inky sky.
No doubt a storm was coming, inevitable and woefully unavoidable.

“Dragging people in that aren’t involved, using them like bait to try and draw me out”

Echoing in the void, the Hero’s voice sounded almost disembodied before disappearing entirely into the void of the concrete jungle. A game of cat and mouse although the roles were far more ambiguous than they were feline. Red watched the Hero pace determinedly- the perfect target, the perfect moment. It was as though the stars were aligning overhead even though the sky was being swallowed whole.

“This is between you and me”

It always had been, Red furrowed her brow as she shifted in the gloom as though subconsciously mimicking the Hero’s deliberate pacing. It was always supposed to be just them, however in typical fashion things had gotten out of hand- blame had been shifted as though the door hadn't initially been opened by another.
Red had only acted in accordance and yet somehow the record books were reflecting a truth that never happened- the Hero had been the first to involve outside parties, the first to accept assistance in a fight that wasn't theirs to be involved in, it was the fucking Hero who started all this and now had the audacity to stand in the open and declare otherwise.

This Hero, this fucking mistaken martyr buying into her own propaganda, this false saint of the Sin City…

She deserved everything she had coming.

Red slipped closer, she could almost heart the Hero’s pulse now- deafening in her veins. Hell, she could almost feel it as it fell into sync with her own.

“You know what Red? I think it's time this finally stops.”

Perhaps the Hero had found a backbone between the couch cushions, an ability to make a decision without filtering it through every one of the sycophants that crowded at her feet eagerly as though desperate to be the next one stood upon. Red couldn't help but smile, not because of her words… Those were empty and hollow as the threats of violence made by the Prizefighter before another inevitable failure. No, it was pride… the idea that perhaps, finally, the Hero would be willing to just do something. That she’d admit her hands were as sullied as any other, that the stain of blood didn’t wash away no matter how much she tried, that she’d FINALLY give Red everything she had instead of the watered down version of heroism she’d been drip fed till now.

“All the violence and bloodshed- it has to stop.”

It could have stopped long before now, Red mused as the dying lights fell just short of where she watched, it could have been over at any time if only the Hero hadn't dragged proceedings out. That was the problem with valor and valiance in this godforsaken place, it constantly needed to be fed, to be nurtured… There always had to be a dragon to slay and a princess to save, even if the dragon had never torched a village and the princess was a cu-

“No more games, no more tricks, no more innocent people getting hurt.”

It was getting exciting now, almost real.

“I will finish this fight.”

Of course she would, Red contemplated with a disenchanted curl in her lip, just like every other fucking time she’d promised before.





******



“What a surprise, right?

Big talking Hero has something important to say- here to regale us all with tales of benevolence and telling us all how we can be better people, only part you’re forgetting my dear is the part where you tell everyone to disregard everything you say cause it's full of shit.
Come on and pull the other leg Hero- do you honestly believe that anyone sees you in that light anymore, that you’re still the white knight in a black light city, you’ve shown your hand and now the world is calling your bluff.

If it weren’t for you Hero- the Good Doctor, the Saccharine Songbird, the Prizefighter… Literally everyone else you happen to care about, they’d all be better off. They’d all have never witnessed the horrors nor suffered the consequences of your continued defiance of literally doing the one thing that would have saved them all.
If it weren't for you Hero, this whole place might be a little brighter- might function a little better instead of waiting for approval to do good by someone who lost sight of what was considered ‘good’ a long time ago.
Still, night after night you pull on that facade and make the whole world feel a little better about themselves until they realize they are far deeper in the muck than before.

Who the fuck else do I have to hurt to get you to understand- you wanna stop me so badly, oh Hero, then stop pretending like you’re any better than me simply cause you throw on a fucking cape and tell everyone how goddamn great everyone thinks you are.
You blew every chance I ever gave you, every opportunity handed to you in an effort to prove that maybe I was wrong- cause I truly wanted to be wrong, honestly. Part of me wanted to believe in your hype, to feel as though there was the chance that maybe- just maybe, I too, could be saved.

Lets be honest- I don't deserve half the chances this life has afforded me, I shouldn’t be here staring into the abyss begging a Hero to be just that. I am though, I am and I’m making everyone around me pay for it with every breath I take… and you let me.
Yet I’m the fucking villain. Right?
It's nature vs nurture Hero- you can’t breed out violence, you can’t completely tame the wild. A scorpion, despite all it's sweet talking and earnest swearing will always plunge it's stinger into a frogs back because it's a fucking scorpion.

I’m like a cancer Hero, I’m like gangrene in the limbs- and you let it spread. You could have cut it off at the fingers, but instead you chose to keep the pinky cause it just meant well… Now it's creeping into all the important spots and you’re still mourning the loss of that hand.
Maybe there's no cure, that you couldn’t have stopped me all along- but the world will see, will know that you barely tried. That in the moments when you could have proven yourself as everything you’re proclaimed to be, you shied away and turned the other cheek. I hope that's the way history remembers you Hero, I hope it's immortalized on every statue and plaque that ever bears your likeness- that you stand as a monument to what could have been, your path studied in the future as a cautionary tale.

Who knows, maybe in the end, I’m the hero after all.

I’m the one who has brought about change, the one exposing frauds and failures for what they are rather than celebrating mediocrity like it's honestly the best we can do. I’ve done more for this place in the last six months Hero, than you’ve managed in years… Change, real change, the kind that makes people sit up and pay attention- it's not actually that difficult, you just have to be willing to sacrifice… to let heads roll. What we’re willing to do for a cause defines us, defines the way we’re acknowledged- I’ve never claimed to do good, I never promised to make this place better…

But I did.

And I will.

I’m sick of walking around here pretending like it's utopia when we’re all pissing in the gutters, treading carefully cause the hopeless sprawl out in the streets among the dead. I shouldn’t have to be kicking down the door of a Hero to make them live up to their name, taking down person after god forsaken person cause they happen to think my choice of action is a little harsh.
I’m sick to death of everyone standing against me, when I seem to be the only person who actually thinks that we deserve better than below average- and if I have to kick the head off every stupid fucking person who thinks that their the next big vigilante on the block then so be it…

Let them come, let them fall.

You walk these streets like you own them Hero, but they no longer belong to you. Hope is but a buzzword and the praise is dying into whispers. You were once revered here, adulation heaped on you cause it had no where else to go… but the people, they start to believe in themselves now, cause theres no reason left to believe in you.
Maybe you finally falling from your pedestal is the best thing that could ever happen to this place.

Fact is Hero, this is my Sin City now. These are my streets, the crown may belong to another but truth be told, it's just a matter of time…
I hope you aren’t holding out for anyone to save you darling, I hope you don’t cry out into the night seeking solace from the dark- I have no solace for you, no mercy left to offer. I may have spared you twice, but what sets us apart is that I’ve learned from my mistakes and I’m no longer willing to leave anything to chance.
See, there's a storm coming Hero… a storm that will cleanse this city of it's Heroes, of it's martyrs, of it's false idols and failed stars, a storm that no longer cares what might be left in its wake- only that this place will have its first real chance in a very long time to rebuild without the influence of a vigilante nightmare determined to be remembered as something they no longer represent.

I want you to understand Hero…

I never wanted things to be this way.

... but I won't stand by like you and lie, saying I never expected it.”




******


Finale:




Sin City Underground
Sin City
22.11.2020
5:57pm



‘A heRo WiLL SAvE uS aLL’

Scrawled on the underground wall, a woman in a black hoodie watched a thick red drip, trace down the wall, following growing cracks that widened further by the day. No one else seemed to really pay much attention to the wall, nor the stationary woman, too busy hustling to get to nowhere in particular faster than the next commuter. A continued sublimated race towards a literal deadline.
Viscous in scarlet, the woman cocked her head slightly- the rest of the world would never appreciate these words, nor the cost they’d come at. To them, it wasn't art… it wasn't important. It was an eyesore, a nuisance without nuance.

She appreciated them though, even if it were simply acknowledgement that heroes still existed in the hearts of those willing to express themselves.

From amid the throng, separating from the mass of humanity shuffling towards the edge of their own mortal coils- an old man toddled up beside the woman. Maybe he didn’t mean to, maybe he just didn’t care. She could smell him before she caught him on the edge of her vision- faintly musty and wearing cologne that hadn’t been produced in 40 odd years, his pressed clothes wrinkled with the hunches in his posture while the clack of a walk stick fell silent as he sighed beside her.

“... What an absolute disgrace.”

Saying nothing, the woman nodded in acknowledgement. Sharing an almost special moment with a stranger, his gravity stricken features displayed a haughty scowl, eyes greyed and bloodshot behind glasses a little too big for his sunken face meanwhile while she remained almost pensive, staring through the red on the wall.
Shaking his head in dismay, the clacking resumed as he slowly disappeared back into the fast moving river of power suits and prowling tourists, soon swallowed back among them as though he’d never existed outside of it.

“Yeah, a travesty indeed.”

She knew he was referring to the graffiti and the sheer insolence of a human being to deface a wall with such... nothings. Public property stained with someone's incomplete thought process. However her own views were left a little more ambiguous if only by her rather impassive expression- brushing some crimson from her own face, a faint mark of red left a streak across her cheek. Thick, familiar and faintly translucent… Just like that, which dripped down the subway wall.

Red wondered how long it might take for the world to tell the difference, her bruised lip curling upwards into a knowing smirk. Blood had been used for centuries to send a message- it was the ability for the world to listen, to notice that had changed with the times.
No doubt the Hero would have been disappointed that the last of what she had left to give could be ignored so effortlessly by a society that had once fawned over their every word, her sacrifice just like all the others… meaningless in a grander scheme.

With a faint chuckle, almost masked entirely by the forced chatter of idle conversation around her- Red disappeared amid the crowd, waiting, watching for yet another fucking Hero to believe that they could be the one who could finally kill a hurricane painted Red.

“My father had taught me to be nice first, because you can always be mean later, but once you've been mean to someone, they won't believe the nice anymore. So be nice, be nice, until it's time to stop being nice, then destroy them.”
― Laurell K. Hamilton, A Stroke of Midnight




Undisclosed Fairgrounds
Somewhere in North Carolina
27.02.2007
4:12pm



It could have been argued that pickpocketing was an artform.

When done poorly it was clumsy and misguided, feeding into a public misconception that it was a gamble for the sly of hand and blunt of mind. Everyone always thought they’d be able to tell, that they’d have this innate awareness and they’d catch them triumphantly quite literally with their hand in the cookie jar.
Done well though- now that's was a whole other story, Amber mused leaning against the paint chipped and flimsy railing. Revellers lined up just behind her murmuring excitedly between themselves, watching the flailing metal arms toss paying customers about wildly like some crazy mechanical jaunt that was three years behind in its service schedule.

If she were so inclined, Amber would have said that Brendan “Sticky Fingers” Griffiths was one of the best she’d ever come across, however she absolutely wasn’t inclined mostly for the fact that he embodied being a massive scumbag. Shaggy, dirty blonde hair fell around his face like the destitute version of a 90’s boy band heartthrob and his thin lanky frame reminded Amber of a sentient coat rack once the personality had been sucked out. Even his faded baseball cap had been turned backwards, dark eyes somehow lighting a fire under anything with a pulse still figuring out their sexuality.
She’d watched him chatting up some girls for the previous 20 minutes… Young, easily impressionable, looking to rebel for the sake of rebellion, crushing hard on this older guy who seemed to just ‘get them’.

Amber wanted to vomit right then and there.

By now he’d gotten two of the three wallets and a watch off a particularly boisterous girl as though she were trying to lay her claim, she fluttered her eyelashes and pouted in such a way that girls barely out of school shouldn’t have known. If Ambere weren’t so disgusted with the show, she might have actually been impressed- the way he kept them all in a line, captivated and giddy, they never noticed when his hand grazed against their leg or the faint scrap of metal on skin as the watch disappeared beneath slippery fingers as his hand touched theirs.

Too busy trying to convince themselves that they can be the one to change him, that they could convince him to remain loyal, that they could be everything he’d ever want. They couldn’t be any of those things though, all they’d become to him was another literal notch in his belt and all he’d become to them was an embarrassing story about bad decision making.
Local sophomores, two blondes and a raven haired girl- not that it mattered to ‘Sticky’, he’d picked them as marks almost an hour earlier- sidling up beside Amber like a sleaze trying to whisper in her ear…


Even thinking of it now Amber recoiled violently, his voice reminded her of the sound of metal scraping on metal, metallic and sickly like it triggered every nerve simultaneously.


He had chuckled at her, like the sound of glass shards breaking under foot.


Swatting him away, she’d become like a conquest. An unattainable goal, a nut that just needed to be approached in just the right angle to crack under his supposed charm.


A sleazy wink and ‘Sticky’ left to go lick his wounds. Probably even practise sucking his own dick cause he’d be the only person that might go near it without a bottle of bleach and a bible.
Amber knew she could have stepped in, hell, she could have done a whole lot of other things too, however she felt it was akin to rubbernecking at a car crash- as macabre and disturbing as it might be, you’re still compelled to stare as you go by and do nothing.
Amber watched on with an unabashed disgust, she caught ‘Sticky’ making a sideways glance finding the stoic redhead amid the garish glow of fairy lights.

It was all a fucking game- like limbo but with human decency, he was trying to get a reaction, he wanted her to step in and kick him to the curb so that he might get within arms distance without being punched for 15 seconds. To be spoken to- even if it were a torrent of profanities and threats of violence.
Grizz, despite Amber’s best efforts, wouldn't get rid of him though…


Amber understood, money spoke volumes. It's what kept the lights on, the engines running and the wheels turning. Just because he was good at riling a crowd to check out his fucking shitty rigs, didn’t mean Amber had to tolerate him.
With a knowing shake of the head, Amber watched Sticky bid farewell to the girls with overly close embraces, deliberately handsy and downright disgusting as the last wallet lifted out of a less than secure back pocket. With a saunter, Sticky crossed the midway towards where Amber rolled her eyes, his stupid smile wide and triumphant.

“You owe me a tenner, sweetcheeks.”

Amber scoffed loudly, scuffing her shoe against the ground distractedly.

“Go fuck yourself Sticky. I told you before I wasn’t taking your fools bet.”

“Was that a compliment?”

“No, that's me telling you to go and jump.”

Sidling up beside Amber, his arm grazing hers before she could move out of the way, he readjusted his baseball cap to face the right way around, as though that changed anything.

“Come on now Red, stop fighting it. Only place I’m looking to jump is into your…”

Sticky trailed off, although for a second Amber wasn’t sure why. Perhaps the gods had finally taken a mercy upon her soul and taken his voice before he could say something that would likely get another tooth or two knocked out of his head.

“... Hey there, baby girl”

If Amber hadn’t wanted to vomit before, she could taste the bile now. Cassidy Parker, with her curls falling around her face and a spring in her step, gave Sticky a doe eyed look as though he’d suddenly grown a halo and some wings- ascending down a staircase of light.
Local girls were a different story, they weren’t Amber’s responsibility- however Cassidy… God, she was like Amber’s little sister, she was like blood and…
Sticky leaned down to give her what she presumed would be a kiss on the forehead- stale, dry and smelling like cheap menthol cigarettes, she’d seen him do it to maybe hundreds of girls before.

“Oh no, fuck no. This… This right here is absolutely not happening.”

Red had never realized she possessed a ‘Mom voice’ before now, but proceeded to wield it like she’d always known she could.

“Don’t you even dare Sticky, I swear to god…”

Cassidy seemed shell-shocked at first, then the pout developed. She must have been working on it in the mirror or something, soft eyes and dimples under the harsh glow of badly aged neon. Sticky had to have expected it though, backing off with his hands raised as though he’d been caught trying to break into a car… again.

“Fine. You do you Red, keep on being the buzzkill. I’ll see you lovely ladies around later I’m sure…”

With a mock bow, inclusive of sweeping off his cap with an over exaggerated flourish, Sticky gave them both a smirk before blowing a kiss in Cassidy’s direction- one which Amber was sure might have made the younger girl melt just a little more in the late afternoon sun.

“... Bye Brendan”

Meek to the point of almost giddy, Amber nearly didn’t catch Cassidy’s farewell over the chatter of the passing crowds and mechanical grinding of the ride behind them- however the moment Sticky had left their sight, Amber turned on Cassidy, grabbing her by the shoulders firmly.

“Brendan? Are you out of your goddamn mind. Him… Of all the people in all the shitholes, Cass… Him?”

Clearly annoyed at what sounded like the beginning of yet another lecture, Cassidy straightened up and brushed herself off slightly.

“It's none of your business Amber- I’m nearly 16. I can make my own choices, you know.”

Matter of factly, Cassidy shrugged Amber’s hands off. That typical teenage know-it-all stare practically boring a hole through Amber’s skull. Not that it had much of an effect on the redheads stance.

“It really is. I literally just watched him chat up three girls to snatch their wallets, what makes you think he’s gonna treat you any different? Hell, he tries to chat me up every time I have the misfortune of seeing him!”

“You don’t know him like I do Amber.”

This was all headed downhill fast, a cart of teenage hormones careening out of control. Cassidy was a damn sweet girl, just wanting to see the best in everyone, but she was so very blind to peoples nature… No doubt Josie probably had a hand in this, Amber mused silently as the staredown continued.

“Maybe he’s a bit rough around the edges, but so are you… You’d steal someone's wallet the moment you met them as well, so why is it okay for you and not him…”

A heavy sigh escaped Amber’s lips as she ran her fingers through her hair, she never thought she’d have to try and explain such things to a nearly 16 year old however things these days really did cease to surprise her.

“I’m not chatting them up before hand inviting them to give me a handy behind the ring toss. We all do what we feel like we have to do, but he has to take everything further Cass. He deliberately pushes the boundaries and wonders why there's blowback…
God, the only reason your Dad keeps him around is cause he knows how to lure marks and swindle them while they think they’re getting a good deal. If he couldn’t talk out of his ass he wouldn’t have a shred of talent to speak of.”

A wave of immediate regret crashed over Amber as she watched Cassidy’s expression sour, what she’d hoped might be conducive to a wake-up call had apparently had the opposite effect. She’d made her more determined, more obsessive. More…

“You don’t know anything Amber- you think you do, but you’re just as shit as the rest of them.”

With a huff, Cassidy went to storm off presumably to find Sticky somewhere along the midway- however before the growing swell of crowds swallowed her whole, Cassidy- with a couple of tears smearing mascara down her cheek- turned and gave the redhead a chilling dead eye stare.

“He loves me Amber… and I love him.”

Before sound could escape Amber’s mouth, the syllables dying half way in her throat, Cassidy was already gone. Leaving the 18 year old redhead perplexed and a little nauseous… Yeah, maybe she did need to be sick after all.




******



“You know, it goes without saying that too much of anything is toxic.

Good, bad and otherwise- it's just as unsafe to drink yourself into an oblivion or pump yourself full of heroin as it is to over hydrate with water or consume too many vitamins. Granted some of these things work much faster than others- the result is always the same.

Imminent, painful and probably lonely death.

So what about sugar. What about sugar and spice, and all things nice… Sweet, saccharine, cloying goodness- the kind that leaves you feeling like you might have just contracted diabetes through proximity.
It's no secret that it rots you from the inside out, blackens and decays everything to the point it starts to just fall away in chunks and you start to slowly implode- by the time you realize what's happening on the outside, you’re already halfway collapsed in and the rest is just an inevitability.

I like to think that the same goes for attitude- nothing is tenable long term, nothing can be maintained to the same level forever, eventually things have to change or they start to become stale, they start to fester and they become septic.
Thing is Candy, we don’t know each other all that well… You probably think I’m kind of an asshole cause you’re one of Team Hero’s many loyal, ardent lemmings straying towards a cliffs edge, and I think you’re a tremendous wrestler who also happens to be completely dense and I wonder why you haven’t switched from laces to velcro.

What I do know about you though, and what you tend to be most well known for, is your bubbly effervescent attitude. Your sweet as candy, pardon the pun, perspective on a word that just like to piss all over anything resembling goodness. A flickering candle being dragged into a black hole if you will…
I also think it's a terrible detriment to your career. I think your inability to perceive anything outside of ‘good’ and ‘really mean’ leaves you at a deficit and hampers your ability to climb the proverbial ladder of success. Essentially you’ve hit the glass ceiling just above head height, but you’re too fucking nice to bust through cause that might mean doing something untoward. You’d rather hover at the same level for risk of offending anyone around you.

I’m not sitting here saying that you need to become a piece of trash to succeed, far from it. However, like everything in this word, too much of a good thing becomes toxic and Candy… sweetheart… hate to be the one to tell you this, but you’re far more rotten on the inside than any of us.
Worst part is, you don’t even realize your career has gone terminal around you.
Roulette title? Long gone, hell you haven’t even had a sniff at anything close to accomplishment since… That match, if you can even call it that, with Sin? Luck. Pure fucking luck, Candy. She should have tore you limb from limb but she underestimated you- that's the only reason you survived.

I won’t take accomplishments from you, but you’re stagnant. You’ve put your career in park and are comfortable watching the traffic move by without you- not realizing you’re choking to death on your own niceties in the meantime.
You’re good, and that's literally it. That's everything you are as a person, as a wrestler, as a member of this bombshells division- arguably the most competitive in the company… Feel free to @ me if you don’t agree kiddies.
Everything that makes you special can be summed up in a word. In a syllable.

Thing is, you won’t even mind.

You’ll take it as a compliment and tell everyone I said something nice about you like I’m only capable of being a complete asshole. I can’t possibly be a complete asshole though, cause there happen to be several important pieces missing.

If anything, I’m actually a damn good person.

Stop laughing.

At every possible turn, I have taken the higher road. I’ve been upfront and honest about my intentions from the start- yet I’m the one who people seem to think is a piece of shit? I’ve done ALMOST everything by the book- I walked into this company and I challenged Roxi.
I didn’t lay a goddamn finger on her until the time came when I realized she wasn’t going to give me the respect that I was due as a competitor and a rival- I have played nice until it was no longer time to play nice anymore…

Even then it was strictly professional.

See, that's what people like me do Candy… What people like Alicia Lukas and Evie Jordan do. What successful competitors in a business designed to bring out the worst in people do night in and night out. We go out and we do what is necessary- it doesn’t matter if we like it or even if we like ourselves afterwards, it doesn’t matter what other people think. It's what has to be done- otherwise you have people like Jessie Salco, like Bea Barnhart, like Violet Holt and like yourself leading a division set to collapse under the weight of its own expectation.

You play nice until nice doesn’t get you any further Candy. Not until you’ve got nowhere left to go but down.

So yeah, I am a good person Candy.

It’s just that I happen to be a far better wrestler.”



******



Amber’s Apartment
Atlantic City, NJ
27.10.2020
7:31am




Amber had never expected to be concerned about smelling like she’d just crawled out of a bayou.

That being said, two days after Climax Control and she swore up and down she could still smell stagnant water and swamp grime in her pores. Normally she’d have opted to head straight back to Baltimore or stay in Vegas with Mac however things felt a little… well… different.
Maybe it was the fact they’d taken their first loss as an ‘official’ SCW team or maybe it's the fact that Mac had gotten down on a knee, poured his heart out and proposed… and Amber didn’t know what to say.

She hadn’t said no, well not really… but she hadn’t jumped for joy and said yes either.

It wasn’t as though she didn’t want to, but at the same time… ugh. Amber paused, a cigarette halfway pulled from an errant packet, she hadn’t even realized she’d gone for them- just an instinctive, reflexive gesture when her nerves were beyond shot.


There was nothing like being berated by one's own self-conscience while contemplating what works best to get swamp stench out of ring gear. Leaning back in her plastic chair with one foot on the wrought iron balcony railing, SAmber balanced herself precariously on those back two legs, complete with the knowledge that surely one day those legs would buckle and she’d be on her ass.
Like she had been alot recently it seemed.
Almost ironic really, she’d been so content in the knowledge that she’d become a fully fledged asshole for so long that the moment she tried to improve, the moment her perspective began to shift- the world around her seemed to fall entirely out of alignment.

Of course the loss to The Black Sheep sucked, she’d have been a liar if she wasn’t even the smallest bit disappointed. Maybe it was to be expected to a certain degree, they’d been teaming longer- and besides Texans weren’t exactly at home in swamps.
Still excuses were frivolous and so she avoided them like the plague- give a simple nod to the victors, leaving them with the thought that next time their number might well and truly be up, and be on our merry way.

It wasn’t as though it even left them in any worse of a position- Mac still had an upcoming title match at High Stakes, first supercard and he’d already earned his shot as she’d always expected he would and Amber…


To say a curveball might have been thrown into the equation would likely have been an insult to baseball, Sin and all her shenanigans had thrown off the balance that Amber had so carefully curated- Roxi’s focus was split, her priorities skewed and while that made her potentially an easier target it also left her with an excuse. A way out, a reason to question an inevitable result.
Amber twirled the unlit cigarette between her fingers distractedly, the weather in Atlantic City was turning- clouds heavier with rain loomed on a usually neon wasteland horizon, the Boardwalk usually full of tourists clad in loud shirts and skimpy shorts were replaced with the bundled and the cautious, no one wanting to be anywhere outside longer than they needed to be.

Fear was the world's great motivator and perhaps the only reason anything ever really changed.

Fight or flight created a domino effect, it forced action where it might otherwise have been ignored. To create fear was to create a ripple that one day might become a tsunami- it projected through society, capturing those not prepared in it's uptake and spitting them out on the other side harried but otherwise enlightened.
Sin considered herself the embodiment of fear, this dastardly evil determined to see… the end of the world? Amber shrugged to herself, as if anyone might see it, the thought almost comical that a supposed demon could be considered frightening in 2020.

No, Amber had built her career on that concept- the idea that her name could provoke such a fearsome reaction from anyone, that her reputation might precede something far more debilitating was to be considered a success.
To be fearless, was to be foolish.
Admittedly Amber, in her slightly more reckless youth, would have proclaimed to anyone daring to listen that she was fearless, that she couldn’t be scared by anything or anyone cause there was nothing that could be done that she hadn’t already been a part of.
Of course with time and experience- and having been apart of things that absolutely would be considered worse- she’d come to learn that being absent from fear wasn’t to be admired- that the declaration simply proved you had little understanding of how to harness emotion… how to use and abuse it.

To fear something is to have the ability to change it, to learn from it and to adapt around it- and Team Hero, for all their good were misguided paragons of this wayward thinking. Change is inevitable, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t going to be someone out there fighting against it.
Drumming her fingers against her thigh, the redhead sighed, it wasn’t hard to see why she might be considered the toxic one, after all, it wasn’t as though she’d gone out of her way to bake cookies and make friends with the locker room.


It’d been a long time since she’d been a  weapon wielded in someone else's fight, although it also correlated with creating some collateral damage in her own- so she found herself only mildly opposed to the idea. Seemed obvious really who Candy might have picked for Mercedes, almost as unsurprising that Amber and Candy had found themselves several matches higher on the card than their oppositions- of course, that was a matter of taste and quality but Amber knew better than to say such things allowed.

Some statements just needed to be left to breathe in order to be further appreciated after all.

Amber and Mercedes had already fought to a draw once, so maybe she should have expected it… An expression of respect? Perhaps. An almost guaranteed opportunity to leave her High Stakes opponent far worse off than she’d be cause she was aware of the differences in moral codes between prospective opponents? Yeah. That seemed far more likely in this case.
Amber knew her name carried weight backstage, she’d been there only a few months and already people couldn’t keep her name out of their mouths- it would only be a matter of time before they wished that they’d never spoken her name.

Not that Candy would care, too busy brushing glitter off the ass of a unicorn probably…

*bzzzrt*

A phone vibration in her pocket had never been a more welcome distraction to the mental image forming in her head- too much pink, too much glitter, too much baby talk and far too much enthusiasm for life from someone very obviously not snorting cocaine in an out-of-order bathroom stall. Digging around in her jeans, the smell of incoming rain and salt laden humidity carried on a welcome breeze across her balcony while her phones cracked screen trying to catch on presumably every denim fibre on the way out.
She’d eventually get that replaced. Sometime.

*One new message from Mac Bane*

Of course it was. Although she couldn’t quite understand why she hesitated for a moment to open it, part of her expected the worst if only because the worst always seemed like the most logical solution- like a pessimist's Occam's Razor. A more realistic part of her knew the truth- that he was most likely checking in, probably complaining that the wretched stench of the bayou really got stuck in everything and they’d likely both ignore the proverbial elephant in the room and everything would be…

… “Hey Red, call me when you see this.” …






******



“Have you ever considered what the role of the sidekick is?

An integral trope in the superhero genre, a lynchpin in storytelling because friendship with those perceived as lesser and/or weaker makes a protagonist seem more relatable instead of elitist scum undermining everyone around them for a potential reputational benefit.
A good guy can’t possibly be all that good unless they have someone beside them going ‘Gee golly, that's some mighty fine hero-ing you’re doing Hero’ and everyone smiles cause it's quirky and adorable. They need someone to save, someone to have grow and explore other such indeterminable cliches like ‘validity of violence and causing harm to people who happen to disagree with your outlook’ and ‘when is it romance vs when is it blatant sexual harassment’.

Needless to say, none of those are what the sidekick role is really for.

You know though, don’t you Roxi?

You know, and you’re still gonna let Candy prance on into this match against me like she isn’t just another paper doll in a fucking hurricane. You’re letting her step in against me, and you’re not gonna do a thing about it cause you understand how this is supposed to work…

Sidekicks are collateral damage.

Simply enough, if you create enough emotional investment in them and then you kill them off, all of a sudden the hero has lost something, they have something to fight for cause a sidekick… Give them two issues to grieve and they’ll have a brand new one on their doorstep, begging for a cape before you’ve even had a chance to wash the blood out of the last one.
A dime a dozen and worth half as much- quirky, adorable and entirely replaceable.
Of course you’re okay with it Roxi, cause you know it's just a part of the cycle- we’ve both done this for long enough to see where this is going… Candy, well you think she;d have already learned after the whole Sin thing however we both know that some of us learn a little slower than others.

It's okay though, I’ll make it quick. Maybe if you’re lucky and have the right mortician available- you might even be able to have an open casket… Cause you gotta milk all those fucking sympathy points while you have the chance.
I’d beg you Candy, I’d urge you to reconsider… Not for Roxi’s sake cause fuck her, she had her chance to do better, but for you and all you try to stand for.

Step away from the Heroes.

You think they really care?

You think them checking up on you at shows is love and protection? No, it's guilt. It's remorse cause they all should know better- you’re continually put in these situations of harm and they do nothing until you’re a bloody, crying mess cause prevention doesn’t rack up those twitter likes as quickly as false remorse.
If they cared half as much as you think they do, Sin would never have gotten close to you. Mercedes would never have locked you in a closet and you wouldn’t be preparing to step into the ring with someone who really just wants to go out there and prove she’s not fucking around…
You’re an asset to Team Hero, a disposable pawn on their chessboard. I guarantee you walk away and they’ve got someone just like you practically pissing themselves for the chance to be exactly where you are now.

Tell me Candy, do you think Marcus wants you in this match? You think Fluffy wants to see you go out there and get absolutely wrecked… What about Keira, huh, or is she too worried about cleaning up her mess to worry that her precious little Candy is a lamb led to slaughter. What about Roxi… Too busy worrying about her own skin and how much of it she's prepared to lose stepping up against me again.
Let me be blunt, like the force trauma instead of another adjective for your IQ, you love and respect Team Hero far more than they respect you.

You’re bait. You’re roadkill. You’re collateral damage in fights that you should never have been dragged into. You’re a number on a tally and a strike in a column- most importantly though..

You deserve better, but you absolutely won’t get it from them.

All this goodness, this saccharine facade. You’re attracted to shiny but utterly worthless things which explains why the Roulette title is the best that you could get- oops, that was a bit low… I’d apologize, but anyone who hates ice-cream that much kinda deserves everything they get... but all that glitters sure ain’t gold, you just like the way it looks in your hands.
So sure, glitter might be all shiny and pretty, an allusion to innocent and fragile nature you might try to fool everyone with- but it's entirely useless, just like you’ve been made to seem recently. Glitter, like blood, means almost nothing until it's in your eyes…

Maybe you’re more than I give you credit for, maybe you’ll fail to live up to my expectation- you might very well be the darling of Sin City Wrestling, but your song and dance doesn’t captivate like it used to and everyones learned all the steps by now.
You’re a victim of expectation, following a predetermined cycle cause anything else just doesn’t fulfil those same primal urges to be undermined- your reputation is faltering and the rotting stench of Team Hero is starting to linger on you like glitter.

Unlike them though, I’m willing to offer you something more… Eternal, glorious infamy.

Come Climax Control, you could very well be my Black Dahlia cause lets face it… it's far better to be remembered as a victim than nothing at all.”




******



Federal Correctional Institution
Phoenix, AZ
30.10.2020
3:19pm




Finding ‘Sticky’ hadn’t been all that difficult in consideration.

Put a name through enough databases and something eventually has to trigger- sometimes it's a hit in a medium security prison in Arizona and sometimes it's half of the FBI showing up on your doorstep and seizing your computer cause grammar and punctuation are key.
Either way, Amber hadn’t exactly been surprised as the Arizona humidity fogged up the edges of her visor as she rolled her 2012 Suzuki Hayabusa across the parking lot. Perhaps it would have been far easier to fly, however the 4 hour ride from Vegas had given a bit of a chance to clear her head a little knowing she was probably about to hate every second of this.

Killing the engine, Amber shed her heavy riding jacket and helmet as though something in the faint breeze might have done anything to make her feel less… well…


With a shake of the head and the realization of word play gone badly, Amber crossed the near empty parking lot trying to maintain her composure and some form of professionalism, She didn’t want to be here, she didn’t want to speak to him- but she made a dead man's promise and somehow that notion of loyalty had tipped the scales ever so slightly.
Inside the blast of cooled, faintly sterile air was a welcome change despite a metallic twang in the back of her throat. It’d been years since she’d gone through the motions, and only a couple more on top of that since she was briefly on the other side- perhaps the system had gotten at least one thing right… Juvenile records being sealed when they became of age.

A process to be followed, an almost bored looking guard running through a spiel that must have been burned into his subconscious like an automatic reflex the moment someone said ‘hello’. No one else had a visitor on this day, a small relief if nothing else cause the walls had enough ears as it were and the idea that a nosy wife or girlfriend might somehow become interested in her business was enough to make her cringe openly.

A little too openly perhaps as the guard sized her up, entering the visitors room.

“You alright, Miss Ryan?”

Amber hoped a feigned sweet smile would be enough of a deterrent, or at the very least seem disconcerting enough that he might no longer want to ask questions.

“Fine... it's just been a long time, you know?”

Whether he did or didn’t was apparently irrelevant, a simple nod of the head and Amber was left to face a perspex wall, knowing what would soon emerge on the other side.


Scraping the chair across the concrete floor, Amber leaned back to wait for the emergence of…

“Well, ain’t this a sweet surprise...”

Two seconds in and the wave of regret hit her like a god damn train, ‘Sticky’ in a khaki jumpsuit about a size and a half two big shuffled down to her window with a gleeful sneer. Amber never thought he could look more emaciated, but his face had become a little more sunken and the dark rings around his eyes seemed almost hypnotic- tunnelling down into a deep nothing.
If he’d made the effort for Amber’s visit, it hadn’t shown as some messy, dirty blonde hair fell into his face like it hadn’t been washed or combed in days, shaking it out of his eyes, he leaned towards the perspex slightly with a wink.

“Or it would be if it were a surprise…”

Sticky watched her as she tried to avoid shifting uncomfortably, looking to the guard on his own side before leaning in a little further so that his breath might fog the perspex and that his voice could drop to a harsh whisper.

“Didn’t know it was possible for you to get more beautiful, and no ring on your finger means you’re still fair game… Maybe when I get out of here we can rent a cheap hotel room and you can whisper all those dirty things I love hearing in my ear.”

Amber cleared her throat, returning his sneer with one of her own.

“While I’d love to tell you all the ways you could politely, and not so politely, go fuck yourself… I’m taken, you know, by someone who has standards- all of them… especially hygiene.”

A toothy grin revealed a couple more missing teeth, while the remaining ones seemed to rot further into his head as they spoke. Leaning back cockily, Sticky chuckled to himself.

“No ring means still fair game. Could be just like old times…”

“There are no old times between us.”

“Wasn’t referring to you, sweetcheeks… although if you wanna rectify that absolute travesty I’d be more than willing to forgive your transgressions, you can get on your knees and pray to me in whatever manner you see fit.”

Had Mac been there, Amber had no doubt he’d have torn the perspex down and preemptively used it to bisect Sticky before he’d gotten the first crude sentence out of his mouth. Part of her wished he was, if only cause she could have really used a hand to squeeze…

“Charming as ever, I’d ask if you kiss your mother with that mouth- but that poor woman knew from day one what you were and even she wouldn’t touch you with a ten foot pole.”

Sticky scoffed, trying to get the guard to laugh along with him to no avail. Resting his arms on the bench, he cocked his head to the side with a more serious smile… the sneer fading into something more sinister perhaps.

“Maybe you’re right… Although Cass would tend to disagree.”

He was baiting her, and she knew it… but it didn’t stop her biting.

“You’re a liar.”

She knew he wasn’t, however in disagreeing she had hoped that he might spill something he might not have chosen to say otherwise- goading him right back with her own sarcastic chuckle.

“What the fuck would she want to do with a cockroach like you.”

A raised eyebrow was enough of an indicator that he didn’t buy the bluff.

“You say that, but here you are… I doubt you came all the way here just to tell me I’m a piece of shit, and rebuff me despite the fact you very honestly just want to know what all that hype was always about. You ain’t dumb Red, you never were, but you forget that things changed when you left… people changed.”

Sticky paused contemplatively for a moment.

“Well, some people changed. Cassidy didn’t, did you know that? Same sweet girl, same hopeful smile especially when she…”

“Cut the crap. All I wanna know is where I can find her- after that, you can rot here for all I care…”

“Is that how you convince someone to cooperate? My, my Red... your negotiation skills have most certainly deteriorated… Or is it perhaps desperation, my guess is that time isn’t on your side whereas right now? I have all the time in the world.”

Amber narrowed her eyes, trying to force the rising bile back down her throat.

“She told me you’d come looking, you know? Although I doubt she realized it would be this soon… You were always very good at this, just a shame it's not useful for anything aside from assailing your own guilt.”

She felt downright sick now, and Sticky was only picking up more momentum.

“You hurt her so badly when you left. You promised her you’d never leave and you did… The moment you got a chance, you walked straight out of her life without even a second thought. Not that you ever worried but it was my arms she ran into, I stayed when you decided you were far too good for the rest of us.
Now you wanna come here and act like you have her best interests at heart…”

Shaking her head, it was Amber’s turn to lean forward, her voice like the hiss of a snake absolutely fed up with being trodden on.

“You haven’t the faintest clue, do you?
Everyone thinks I walked out when she was the one who told me to go, she encouraged it and then I get all this crap from you of all people that I was the fucking bad guy… You took advantage of a situation and of a girl who just didn’t know better, who thought she was head over heels with a guy who couldn’t keep his hands to himself.
Maybe I fucked up by leaving, but you did worse by staying. Even now, you’re like this goddamn splinter, burying yourself so deep it’d take more effort to dig you out than you’re worth… and I guarantee you now if you dropped dead tomorrow sweetheart, she’d be far better off.”

By now it had become a lost cause, everything she’d forced herself to hold down had spewed in a spray of venom and guilt. People had told her that Cassidy had changed when she left, that she’d lost a part of herself- however she was the one who told Amber it was okay to leave… that a life outside of their shitty carny existence was worth chasing.
God, it was all such a fucking mess.
Sticky, in spite of the torrent, smiled almost sweetly.

“There’s the Red I know… Still hating the world and everything in it, doesn't seem to matter how good things get, there's always gonna be that part of you…
Tell you what, come back this time next week and maybe, just maybe I might have something to offer…”

“Or you can tell me now and stop wasting my time…”

Sticky tutted at her before the last syllable could trail off.

“If I tell you now, sweetcheeks, you’ll never come and see me again. Of course, once I get out I could stop by and introduce myself to all your new friends- but for now… Well, I’m a guy who likes to get the most bang for his proverbial buck.”

Putting his hand against the perspex, Sticky gave her a sickening half smile.

“See you next week”

Violently, Amber rose out of her chair, sending it tumbling backwards with a loud crash that caused both guards to startle and immediately go for their weapons- however both of them slowed when they realized which side of the perspex the noise came from and instead glared as the redhead stared down the still seated prisoner.

“... Pinky swear.”

Maybe it was the playful mirth in his voice or simply the last straw that broke the camels back- either way, it didn’t matter as Amber stormed from the room trying to not to choke on her own virulent disgust.

“Something about her is so tempting to look at. Her anger has a childish aura as if she isn’t made of real evil; just a bratty princess playing with her toy fangs.”
― Cameron Jace, Snow White Sorrow


Amber’s Apartment
Atlantic City, NJ
12.10.2020
3:17am



“... Couldn’t sleep?”

Perhaps the footsteps should have given it away, Amber could do little to disguise the sleepy albeit knowing smile as Mac Bane rested a hand on her shoulder. Part of her wanted to freely admit that she hadn’t actually gone to bed yet- coming up on 36 hours awake, she knew the crash would be inevitable however sleep was a fickle mistress and kept that sweet relief just outside the redheads reach.
Still, there could have been alot worse places in the world to watch the nights pass. Atlantic City had been the closest thing to home she’d had in years- the temptation to simply up and move for the sake of it quelled by her travel schedule and straight up procrastination. Just a few more weeks stuck on repeat anytime she started to feel guilty about the growing attachment to a place where she’d almost memorized the hairline cracks in the walls and the way the countertop always seemed almost  imperceptibly on a lean but could never quite prove it.

“Something like that.”

A small reassuring squeeze on her shoulder followed before Mac settled into the plastic chair beside hers- his much newer and far less broken, she’d made the joke that it was their first serious purchase as a couple. They’d found the concept far funnier than the middle aged couple nearby, studiously studying outdoor furniture between intermittent stares and whispers at the seemingly odd couple.
After all, you couldn’t imagine it was everyday that a 5’8 redhead and a 6’6 cowboy strolled into a WalMart with similar skull face masks and discussed the pros and cons of a plastic chair…

“... so, work or something else”

She hated the fact he knew, the predictability and self-assurance in his voice was infuriating only made worse by the fact she likely knew that he already knew the answer. There was something about catching up with Josie that left an aftertaste, statements that stuck in her craw and body language that Amber could have sworn was trying to hide something.
Mac watched her intently, the proverbial gears mechanically grinding in the quiet night air as Atlantic City sprawled like a garish neon lit ghost town, normally they’d have stayed in Vegas or Baltimore however both their work lives had become increasingly erratic recently and so Atlantic City seemed just far enough away from it all to kinda reset.

“Something about that talk with Josie isn’t sitting right with me.”

Mac didn’t respond immediately, his silence somehow inviting for thoughts to escape.

“I dunno, she was never a good liar when we were younger. Not saying she’s lying now but-”

Amber trailed off quietly, running her fingers through the thick, messy mane of crimson that fell around her shoulders. She’d long prided herself on her intuition, her ability to read body language like it was a billboard on an empty highway but something about all of this… the recollections, the tone of voice… It made her feel a little sick.

“You think she knows something she’s not saying?”

With a frustrated sigh, Amber picked at her fingernails idly.

“I mean maybe? I don’t even know if it's that though, just something doesn’t sit right. What she told me, I feel like there's something important I’m missing, like I should know and it should be obvious but I can’t see it.”

Mac chuckled beside her, resting a hand on her thigh. A mischievous glint sparkling in his eye.

“... what?”

“Pretty sure that's how most other people feel looking at you.”

Maybe it was the indecision between reluctance and eagerness to see Amber, the frosty reception despite there being little more reason than it being inconvenient on a weekday afternoon. Granted they hadn’t been as close as Amber and Cassidy were, but that didn’t make them any less friendly…

… “Why, is she in trouble… God, what the hell has she done this time?”...

Why would she have thought there was trouble? Law enforcement perhaps, a couple of unpaid parking tickets forgotten in the doldrums of everyday existence or some speeding fines cause Cassidy had more than once proven her foot was made of something akin to lead.
There was no surprise in her voice, an expectancy that consequences had finally come calling for their pound of flesh.

... “She went off the rails a bit, like you were the only thing keeping her in line”...

“No sarcastic comeback? Must be serious then…”

Amber scoffed slightly, trying to find the words. Perhaps there was part of her that wanted it all to just be easy- that Cassidy had settled down, found herself a good man and a little place in the suburbs complete with a minivan, semi-well behaved children because of karma and a white picket fence. Part of her wanted what it was presumed she was supposed to want, that when her wrestling career finally came to a close- that perhaps an option like that might exist for Amber too.

“I feel like I’m overthinking it. Like there's a reasonable explanation and I’m just too…”

“Stubborn”

“Determined”

Amber corrected him with a smirk.

“… to see the worst in everything. I think for once in my life Mac…”

Maybe the city was winking at her or maybe she was starting to hallucinate, Amber couldn’t quite decipher it either way- all she knew was that she’d never been quite so unsure of her own instincts in her life. So little made sense at the moment and only the illogical held any reason.

“... I actually hope I’m completely wrong about all of this.”



******


“Fewer things in the world are more insincere than gas station roses.

A staple of the guilty, the lazy and the essentially oblivious- they could be considered the closest thing one could get to making a concerted effort while still managing to be downright offensive. You know the type, right?
A day or two past their best, sure they might look alright from 10 feet away especially through some beer goggles but take a closer look and their leaves are yellowed and sickly on the edges, the stems cracked and slowly starting to bend sullenly and the petals- despite their vibrancy- have started to crumble and fall away under the crushing weight of the disillusionary connotation they carry.

How fitting really, that disappointment never looked so tacky and worthless.

I mean don’t get me wrong, I know all about letting people down- hell there are plenty of people on the roster already shitting themselves cause my name is on the card, wishing I might suddenly just drop dead so that they don’t have to deal with me once I wash the best parts of you off my hands. I’ve spent my career letting people down, not living up to expectation- however the difference here is that I set the bar so high to begin with that it's a wonder my feet ever touch the ground while you, darling, you’re still trying not to trip over yourself in front of a foot high hurdle.

Christina, I get the idea beyond pseudonyms but I think you’re taking the piss now. I mean Roxi is a supposed hero and even shes got a limit of how many names she goes by, fuck I’m worried if I start talking about obscure pop culture or name a new organism that I might actually stumble on another identity.
Dissociative identities is a real issue- you’re just being fucking painful, I mean every time you take a major loss some poor bastard is stuck in the SCW offices under a ton of paperwork trying to white out over the ten previous versions of your name.

It's a lot of pressure being the least successful part of an already uninspired marriage though, isn’t it? I mean at least Seleana tries, you know?
I mean she's still only a step above someone like Ice-cream sammich Salco in terms of the requirement for a personality transplant, but you know what your wife owns that shit and if that isn’t worth commending then I don’t know what is.
You though, Christina, never cease to amaze me… How someone can come across so outwardly desperate for a shred of attention and yet so determined that she doesn’t need it when it's offered is really something else.

Is it supposed to be calculated?

Sucking up to the perceived good guys for just long enough that you get a bit of a rub off their shine- I mean you can’t honestly tell me you run in the same circles as Roxi and Keira when you barely make awkward conversation with them over social media, trying to be ‘supportive’ in matters that literally do not concern you.
I have no doubt you’ve known them long enough to make the case, but I bet you’ve also tried turning  on them more times than a thirst trap on Twitter posts scantily clad nothings with irrelevant captions. I get it though, I mean lingering on the outskirts of someone else's 15 minutes will only keep you warm for so long, and once your fingers start turning blue you have to think there's a problem.

How long has it been since that spotlight was yours though? After all, nostalgia is a cruel mistress who can’t help but rear her head when all you want is to bury the past. Too long maybe, going from a division headlined by those willing to stick around cause loyalty will get you only so far- to being almost a joke and a side note in one of the most stacked rosters this industry might have ever seen.
Funny really, you never notice how far the fall is until you can’t see the top anymore…

Each step down, each bump in the road and that summit grows a little further away. You can see people start passing you on their way up and maybe some of them fall back down just as quickly- but you… You don’t seem to ascend. You just make space for those with forward momentum and hope to stay out of the path of those proven not enough and hope you don’t end up being cleaned up on their way through.
It's thin air at the top here Christina, so it's no wonder you get a little speechless when people start to question why you aren’t making up any ground.

I’m sure you can just tell them it's a phase, after all there ain’t no harm in slumming it for awhile is there?
Peaks and valleys, you can tell them. Every career has them- we dip and fly like a roller coaster but it's easy to forget the lack of viability in such things when they’re only aimed 140 feet straight down. Perhaps the worst part is that isn’t even ‘go to hell’ numbers, you can’t even manage to fail hard enough to be sent into the inferno, lingering in purgatory in hopes someone might remember one of your sixteen names cause if you have enough someone might utter it accidentally in conversation.

That's alright though, stick around long enough and someone will throw you a bone, seems to be the pattern around here. Show up and hold your hand out, maybe a complain a little for good measure or just big note the best of the pathetic accomplishments you’ve recently made and the head honchos might take a little pity.
Bit sad really when you think about it, that being recognized for a title shot these days isn’t about what you’ve done or where you’re headed... but the fact they literally feel guilty watching how far you’ve fallen.

I mean if fucking Jessie Salco can get a goddamn title shot, if Violet Holt can get a fucking title shot- one has to think theres a sliver of hope for you yet.
Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not saying you aren’t ‘good’... It's just that when the best you’re bringing to the table is slightl;y below average, it's difficult to then complain that you’re spinning your wheels.

See there are so many women on this roster now… Women like Alicia, like Evie, like Andrea, like Johanna, like Myra- the list absolutely goes on… Fuck it, even someone like Roxi who makes me wanna swallow a cactus rather than give her a shred of credit… 
None of them settle, they don’t wait to be given an opportunity cause they think their name still holds value with terminally ill children who can relate to the status of your career...

Someone like me Christina, who would rather be the most hated person on this fucking roster than smile and wave, pretending like I’m happy for every silly bitch who thinks they deserve a chance over me.
Making friends will only get you so far- either commit to being a decent person or don’t cause frankly I think you’re one of the most disingenuous people on this roster and you can be assured I’ll be standing by with an ‘I told you so’ when you get fed up of being ‘overlooked’ again. Stab them in the back and take what you think is yours, or just keep playing goody-two shoes third choice sidekick and fade further into irrelevance.

Maybe you think there's an advantage to teaming with Roxi, that she might offer you up some salvation cause she always seems to have some to spare for every wrestling charity case she comes across- truth is, it just paints a nice target on your back, makes you more noticeable than you’ve been in months really… Until I decide to take everything that makes you special, crumple it between my hands and throw it back in Roxi’s face.

You’re as valuable to her as I am, she’ll toss you aside in a heartbeat if I even mention I might be thinking about laying hands on literally anyone else- so before you think about getting all super-uppity cause Roxi is so great and she's gonna carry you back to a brief spotlight…
I promise you, not all attention is good attention- when push comes to shove, she will leave you laying just as quickly and easily as I would.

You can try to save her, to be the precocious little wanna be hero role model that children settle for when no other action figure is available…

I guess that's the issue with people like you though, people like Roxi with their goody-two shoes tied together- you think everything is worth saving, that everyone is redeemable and just need a chance… But you’re wrong.

Roxi. Christina.

You can’t save everything.

Especially gas station roses.”


******


Undisclosed Fight Gym
Atlantic City, NJ
17.10.2020
8:41am



Jab. Jab. Cross. Right feint. Left hook.

Amber’s left arm jarred as the hook didn’t quite land flush on the bag, she knew her balance was slightly off leaving the usually vivacious strike grazing ripstop when it should have rippled through the surface.
Everything professional had felt off recently, it was no secret that the loss at Violent Conduct had stung more than she’d anticipated, swallowing a little bit of pride with a razorblade and lemon juice cocktail chaser it seemed.

Sweat traced down the edge of her face and down the side of her neck, a glistening trail over fading bruises and wounded ego. Perhaps it wasn’t the loss that hurt the most, but the fact she’d ignored the warning signs that Roxi would accept help, that she’d allow for anyone else to get swept up in their chaotic maelstrom. After all, Roxi should have known better… Amber had banked on her knowing better and instead found herself covered in fucking glitter on a Las Vegas footpath trying to figure out where everything went so awry.

It was supposed to be between them, their fight alone struggling for control over the others perception of the world- and Roxi had betrayed their unspoken promise. Even now, weeks removed Amber could still feel her blood simmering in her veins at the thought of it- most would mock and laugh, the ‘evil’ villain losing in almost comical fashion.
They’d buy further into Roxi’s precious skewed narrative, feeding the delusion that she was morally superior simply cause she kept her demons behind lock and key long enough to sucker everyone into thinking they didn’t exist.

With a loud creak, the heavy bag stopped swaying as though begging for another combination to be launched, taunting that she couldn’t possibly continue living up to the standard she’d set so high from the get go. If anyone else were there, they’d likely stare and whisper… her reputation starting to fray and tatter at the edges, the promises made somehow not quite as potent and vitriolic as they’d previously been.
Thankfully the gym had been closed for a few weeks and Amber had come to an arrangement with the owner- she could wallow and loathe in as much silence as she would allow, and all for a reasonable price as thud after angry thud echoed in a space so used to the clanging of sound and chatter of humanity, it now languished in it's disuse.

Jab. Jab. Cross. Right feint. Left hook.

Something had to give.

Jab. Jab. Cross. Right feint. Left hook.

Something had to change.

Jab. Jab. Cross. Right feint. Left hook.

… and if Roxi were indeed choosing to play her hand like this, well then consequences be damned. With a visceral grunt Amber threw a hard kick into the side of the heavy bag, forcing it to rock back and forth on it's straining chain, a dent in it's side where her shin and foot had made connection with the rough, heavily beaten surface. It was easy, at least during times like this, to forget what brought you to the dance, the reason you’d gotten as far as you had.
A striker first and foremost, devastating in accuracy in spite of her size- years she’d spent putting down opponents far greater, surprising people with the sheer tenacity she brought and the unrelenting spite that had kept her alive in the face of a world who’d considered her better off dead.

… ‘You hit to end the fight in one shot, every shot needs to be potentially the one to finish it- anything less in an opportunity to get beaten.’ ...

Caught up in the whirlwind of fury and disappointment, those words had become secondary- the idea of finishing a fight almost supplementary to sending a message. A message people refused to heed, a statement falling amid the ignorant and deluded- somehow the idea of being the best became an afterthought to showing that moral superiority was little more than snake oil for the determinedly dull and willfully vacant.

… ‘Take all that hate, all that self-loathing, all that anger and all that evil you’re so determined to hold onto- ball it up tight in your fist and throw it at someone else’ …

Amber had been holding onto it, all of it, for most of her career. She doubted she’d ever made it nearly this far without hate driving her forward and her body might have shut down a decade earlier if it weren’t primarily fuelled by a distinct rage that burned like an white hot ember somewhere between her ribs.
Those like Roxi, like Christina, like those who’d followed them so fucking blindly it's a wonder Darwinism hadn’t taken them off our hands…

They were the reason Amber couldn’t stop, couldn’t rest, couldn't sleep without waking up in a cold sweat cause reality seemed just a little less harsh than the demons crawling under her skin. They were the reason spite ran thicker than blood, viscous and heavy in her system like she was constantly under the threat of drowning in her own contempt.
While people like them spread their misinformation and tainted gaslit positive reinforcements- Amber fought to keep her head above the rising waters of false support, trying to kick off the cinderblock boots of expectation and ill-informed opinion.

Jab. Jab. Cross. Right feint. Left hook.

One match. One week. They’d never get it, but it could be a start… A moment of clarity in the haze of disillusionment. A loss was always far more eye-opening than a win, a learning experience and a place to start sowing the seeds of doubt, seeds that would eventually bloom into a beautiful bouquet of ‘I fucking told you so’.
Losses meant you had something to prove and Amber already had that in spades, momentum was key but a single match could do little to derail when the light at the end of the tunnel was closing in on them so very fast.

Amber took a deep breath, the musty air clinging in the back of her throat as she watched the heavy bag teeter to a halt once more. Silence deafening in a space designed to amplify, a ripstop bag of sawdust was little to be an analog of flesh and bone nor did it convey the malevolence of someone perhaps fighting for their existence- it would do for now though, standing foolishly in defiance of an ill-intentioned redhead with a broken moral compass.

Inhale.

Exhale.

It never got any easier.

Jab. Jab. Cross. Right feint. Rising knee. Left hook.

Just more well practiced.



******



“You know, you’d think I’d be more pissed about Violent Conduct.

Promises made and broken, wins and losses exchanged. Roxi and I are one for one now- a little too perfect for a universe that feeds of chaos and violence like it were college girls and cheap shots at a sleazy bar. There would be those that argue that I should have done better, I should have done more… that now I’m on the back foot coming into the main event of Climax Control.

How do we ever find ourselves so mistaken so often?


Do you finally get it yet Roxi?

Has it sunk in yet, soaked through layers upon layers of arrogance and determination that your black and white moral compass somehow makes you better than literally anyone else, cause you see from where I’m standing you’re playing coy and telling everyone that you do… That there's a method to madness and you’ve got me all figured out.

Except, as has become the norm around these parts- you’re dead wrong.

Hilariously so, I might add.

You think this is just about violence, about who can be ‘badder’ and who is simply better. Trust a hero to over simplify for the sake of their followers, it's really quite cute but the deadened masses do love to cling to basic understandable concepts. Gotta keep all those heroic monologues to two syllables per word otherwise you’re gonna lose them first paragraph in…

You have this preconceived notion that I’m playing with you, and perhaps you were right- to start with it was a game… I wanted you to see the world from my perspective, to give in to all those dark shadows on your soul and show everyone you were far more capable than you allowed yourself to be.
I tried to better you, but because you’re determined to be a paragon of ultimate virtue- you can’t possibly put a foot wrong, even if it leaves you in a better place.

So you resist, which I expected.

What I didn’t expect was how much you’d allow me to get under your skin before you try and dig my influence back out. See, I’m septic by nature, fucking toxic if you’ll allow me.
I have a way and it's not the nicest but you can;t argue it's effectiveness, I bring out the very worst in people and leave them a better person than when they started- but you Roxi, you already think you’re better.

Better than me, better than your friends. Better than your family, your loved ones… You think you’re doing them all a favour and ‘lowering yourself to their level’ to be relatable but really you were on par all along.
Your entitlement is so ingrained you can’t even see it, your dullard wife is so easily manipulated she let fucking demons run amok and only decided it might be an issue when it started targeting you. You have her wrapped so tight around your little finger it's a wonder you have circulation- and she has no idea…
Friends, they flock to you in hopes that you might raise their worth purely by proximity, brushing by greatness even if greatness pretends it's simply humble.

I won’t sit here and shit on everything you’ve done- I have no doubt you earned your place. However you’ve done so by gaming the system, by gaslighting literally everyone around you into thinking you’re somehow a distant relation to Mother Theresas thresh of pubic hair.

At first I thought maybe I was doing you a favour… but I’ve come to realize that's not the case. Now this is for everyone else's sake, to show that your demons are just as prominent as mine. That you stand as a different side of the same coin, a facsimile of the Distorted Angel, a dime store angel of death masquerading in a dollar store super hero cape.

So no, Roxi.

This isn’t a game, not anymore. You brought others into this, you let them step into my crosshairs… I want you to remember that when I start systematically putting down everyone you ever manipulated, all those you ever made to feel they were only bettered by you.
Everyone you love, you care about… fucking family, friends, casual aquaintances- that random guy at the grocery store whose name you can’t remember.

They are all targets now.

Twice now, you had the opportunity to stop me Roxi. Twice you’ve disappointed me beyond recognition- first time you decided to play dead, but I don’t stop hitting till the blood stops running, till theres no pulse thundering under my fists. Second time you thought you were simply ‘playing the game’ and now you’ve dragged civilians in the path of a raging hurricane and expect them to simply withstand it on your behalf.

See, the difference between us Roxi is that I change… I adapt. I’m willing to admit when I’m not good enough, when I need to switch things up to remain effective- but you’re addicted to the same old song and dance, gotta keep everyone onboard that bandwagon right?
Hate to fucking let anyone see theres anything behind the mask, that you might be anything less than the charade you commit to vitriolically to.
You can’t please everyone Roxi, but don’t you worry cause by the time that I’m done… You won’t have to worry about any of them, there will be no cheer squad roaring your name, no virulent social media wanna be lovers vying for your momentary adoration and predictable hashtags.

By the time I’m done with you Roxi, I want you to understand what you’ve done. I want you to understand that you could have avoided all of this, that all the blood I plan on spilling is squarely splattered across your psyche.
You had your chance to stop me… twice now and you fucked up. That's your choice and your consequence.

Come Climax Control though- I can trust Andrea to take care of business, I don’t have to look over my shoulder wondering if shes gonna stab me for the shits and giggs, I don’t have to concern myself with fangirling and fawning for attention in hopes of being reminded what infamy actually looks like...

Cause she’s not a sycophant. Not a fangirl. Not an arrogant wannabe. Not a proclaimed hero.

Just another woman really fucking good at her job...”



******

(Apologies in advance, this had to be a bit of a rush job cause things IRL have just been all over the place recently, will try to be around in the next week but please don't be too surprised if I'm a little bit absent for at least the next few days.
Thanks for understanding and all that- I promise you'll get better from me as things calm down a bit

<3 Jazz)





“Something about her is so tempting to look at. Her anger has a childish aura as if she isn’t made of real evil; just a bratty princess playing with her toy fangs.”
― Cameron Jace, Snow White Sorrow




Local Fairgrounds
Monterey, IN
23.02.2006
7:04pm



“Why’d you leave?”

Amber’s guitar string twanged noisily, silently she cursed the stupid thing for never staying in tune, trying to ignore the vaguely persistent tone in Cassidy’s voice. Busking was an easy way of making a little extra money around the carnival, admittedly less profitable than freeing someone's wallet from their back pocket and relieving them of their extra cash- it was safer for the state of ones fingers negotiating blisters versus losing them entirely.

Of course, busking also worked far better when there wasn’t a 14 year old hanging around and blocking her open guitar case.

“Cass, you know I love you and all but this really isn’t the time…”

A forced pout came over the younger girls features, her boundless blonde curls struggling to free themselves from the hair tie holding them in a low, messy ponytail that fell in spiraling tendrils between her shoulder blades.

“It's never the time.”

She was right although Amber would never admit it aloud, curiosity was indeed known to kill cats however the redhead silently wondered if that could also be applied to bratty, entitled teenagers. With fingers lightly curled around the fretboard of the beaten up acoustic, the 17 year old Amber Ryan plucked away at a couple of strings in hopes that the one out of tune didn’t sound as obvious as she first thought.

“You’re right, it isn’t. Now, unless you plan on throwing me a few coins I’m gonna need you to move out of the way.”

Amber did her best to ignore the disappointment in Cassidy’s eyes as she relented, shuffling in typical sulky teenage fashion to sit just behind the redhead to the left on an upturned milk crate. One day perhaps she’d understand, Amber mused, that not every question required an answer…
How the hell could she explain that to a 14 year old anyway, especially when her father, ‘Grizzly’ Parker was just the same way- relentless and frustratingly determined to a goddamn fault.
Hell, Amber could barely restrain the chuckle as she recalled the first time she kissed a local boy behind the Gravitron hoping silently that she wouldn’t accidentally step too close in her temporary euphoria- someone had told Grizz and he had hounded her for four days straight it seemed for details that she could barely recall outside how the guy smelled like Axe Body spray and tasted like cheap cotton candy.

Eventually she made up some nothingness if only to get him off her back…

“Dad told me it was cause you were in trouble with the law.”

Amber scoffed as her fingers fell still- someone aimlessly threw a couple of coins in the general vicinity of the guitar case with only half actually landing inside as Amber gave them a cursory wave they likely didn’t see before turning her attention to Cassidy sitting almost smugly on her shitty little milk crate.

“Well, why are you asking me then?”

Amber called her bluff bluntly, Cassidy was fishing and doing it poorly as though she might somehow trigger the older girl into slipping up with a wrong word- however she seemed to forget that Amber had made a decent enough living in the carnivals by messing with people's minds while removing them from their monetary possessions.
Leaning over the guitar, Amber brushed some errant dust off the front of her jeans as a few more coins landed in the dirt nearby… she’d grab them later if she remembered, not before liberating some crisp notes from those stingy motherfuckers first though.

“I mean if he already told you that then you obviously have no use hearing it from me.”

“So it's true then?”

“If that's what you wanna believe Cass, then sure… Robbed a bank at gunpoint, stole a car and drove it off a cliff Thelma and Louise style before parachuting into the middle of goddamn nowhere and meeting your Dad. Is that exciting enough for you?”

Cassidy screwed her nose up in annoyance, those warm brown eyes giving away the level of frustration about being figuratively shrugged off. Amber returned to her guitar, contemplating maybe one day if she could get into wrestling properly she might be able to buy a new one… One that didn’t have a string permanently out of tune or a crack along the back cause she got a little heated and launched the case into the side of a trailer that one time…

A wry smile crept across young Amber’s features, ones not yet haunted and scarred in places form wars to come. Eyes not yet hollowed and a tongue not yet drenched in venom, fuelled by spite.
Kryptonite by Three Doors down came easily to her muscle memory while the familiar riff was easily digestible to the masses- people liked things they could recognize, familiar and safe even if the alternative was far more interesting.

“Why do you have to be such a bitch about everything?”

It was easy to forget that Cassidy was still at an age where calling someone a bitch actually felt like it meant something and wasn’t just a colloquial terms used alongside other profanities as adjectives rather than insults. If the 14 year old knew how to scowl effectively, Amber was sure she would have but instead had the closest approximation etched into her skin.
Amber said nothing at first, she’d found her groove as such and contentedly played away- while she knew all the lyrics off the top of her head and likely backwards, she didn’t have it in her to sing anywhere outside of a car or shower.

Maybe Cassidy was right again though, Amber contemplated thoughtfully as the chorus fell into the away into comfortable repetition again, right but not in the way she had intended she supposed. A family lingered nearby as she played, capturing her attention almost subconsciously- the mother pointing out the girl playing guitar to a son and daughter nervously crowding around their parents feet trying to avoid eye contact, while the father tapped his foot knowingly as though urging the children to do the same.

Something inside her chest tightened and if she’d been singing perhaps she would have momentarily forgotten the lyrics- they seemed so content, unknowing of how easily everything could change. So very suburban and Amber craved that more than she dared admit- she wanted that mediocrity, that boredom that came with comfort and a sense of knowing and belonging that didn’t come from being considered among outliers and outsiders.
Family. This was the closest she’d had in a long time and standing less than 10 feet away was perhaps what could have been… what should have been… what might have been if only things were different.

“Do you miss them?”

Cassidy’s demeanour had changed even though Amber still had her back to her, a softness in her tone replacing that bratty whine she’d adopted to little effect. Perhaps she’d seen the way Amber twitched upon making eye contact, or heard the sudden uptick in ferocity that her fingers danced across strings- she more than likely didn’t understand it but that didn’t make it any less noticeable.
It was a question Amber hadn’t expected as the daughter approached nervously, the trepidation written as though in neon across her small forehead- she couldn’t have been more than seven years old in a disney princess dress and brown hair that fell well past her shoulders accentuating her tiny frame.

Pausing before the guitar case, she shot a look of uncertainty back across her shoulder although Amber doubted if she knew what she were doing beyond reflexively seeking validation, her fist clenched tight around a couple of coins.
In that moment Amber wished she had something poignant to say, that her ten or so extra years of life could give this little girl something to cherish and remember… However before Amber could even find the words, the coins trickled into the bottom of the guitar case with tinkling thuds and she was gone running back to her parents.

“Sometimes. Some days more than others…”

A pause fell between them as the strings fell silent, Amber's hand gently falling away from the fret board as her fingers ached.

“So why run? Why leave if you didn’t want to go...”

Some moments the world has a way of falling silent even when it seems so noisy and crowded, moments where a room stops and takes a collective breath that lasts for seconds longer than it has any right to.
Amber waited as the family disappeared into the growing crowd, perhaps silently hoping they might look back one last time, that the endorphin rush wasn’t just a figment of her imagination and that she’d made some kind of connection where one previously hadn’t existed.

Except they didn’t turn around, perhaps starstruck by harsh flashing lights and pumping rock music that disguised the mechanical creaking of rides that desperately needed an overhaul… or perhaps that connection hadn’t struck them in the same way it had done with the redhead.
Pensively Aber sighed, turning her attention back to Cassidy- a twitch in her curious smile betraying something a little deeper although Amber couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was.

“Things just… I never really wanted to but we don't get that choice sometimes and just... you know what Cass, sometimes we don’t run for the sake of running though that may seem like what it is. We aren’t fleeing to or from anyone… Sometimes we run and we hide cause we just don’t want to be found.”



******



“Let me be blunt…

You know, as if I’m not already so much so they may as well have made my middle and last names ‘force trauma’ for the sake of it.

You don’t really know who I am Tallyn, more likely than not you don’t care either and if I’m honest I actually don’t blame you. It’s a big roster and not everyone can be champion, not everyone can be the star of the show- in order for there to be people on the top, there has to be those scratching and clawing beneath to make their position feel far more important.
Being on top only means something if there are people to beat below you, climbing the ladder only means something if you can be ahead of someone else and winning doesn’t mean shit if someone else doesn’t lose.

Right now- you’re one step off the floor and talking shit like you’ve got a title shot headed your way. I mean obvious kudos for the level of balls and all that, I mean it's a brave thing to act like you’re actually someone when you’ve done literally nothing of note.
I suppose this is the point where you get all shitty and ask just who I am to judge you- who am I to declare your worth among a stacked roster of women who all should be champions at any given time… Except Jessie Salco of course cause ice-cream really doesn’t do well under pressure it seems.

Hell, even Roxi deserves a nice belt sometimes cause something has to make me beating her again just that little sweeter...

See, this is the point darling, where you tell me who you think you are and why you’re better than me. Rattle off your reasons cause I’ve got nothing but time- run your mouth while you have the opportunity cause if I’m honest I’ve had a really rough couple of weeks and I could go for just belting the ever-loving fuck out of some smarmy know-it-all rookie who thinks her worth on a roster like this is based off the people who trained her.

Tell me all about where you’ve come from and what you’ve done to get here- all the fucking ‘hardships’ that you’ve endured to make it to a stage as grand as this and I ill take every one of those stupid words falling out of your face and I’ll ball them up in my fist so that when I knock your jaw around the other side of your head I can tell you how I was able to make you eat your words.
Oh, that's right… You’re trained really hard, you’ve overcome obstacles and now you just wanna be better right?

Cue up the alligator tears and give me a sob story that’ll make me keel over in laughter.

I’ve been at this far too long Tallyn, I’ve seen girls like you say the same daft things more times than I dare recall for fear I might give myself a goddamn aneurysm. You get this swell of confidence after a win and think you’re well on your merry way- then you hit a few roadblocks, you lose a few matches and disappear back off the face of the earth cropping up in the next company where you promise it’ll be different this time… That you won’t disappoint everyone anymore.

I’m well acquainted with disappointment, I’ve been letting people down my whole fucking career if only cause I have the absolute audacity to keep breathing.
I show up to shows and can practically hear eyes rolling and muttered sighs of annoyance that I haven’t simply chain smoked my lungs out of my chest yet or drunkenly fallen off my apartment balcony in a self-imposed rage about something insignificant.
That’d be too easy and I doubt many would want to garner a win over me like that- especially Roxi cause Queen Passive Aggressive in the corner there can’t fucking decide if she wants to scold me or knock my head off my shoulders.

We both know the answer and we also know that you just don’t have it in you right now, Hero.

That doesn’t make you better than me, just deluded into thinking that getting a little pissed off somehow gives you an edge.

Perhaps I should finally properly introduce myself to you then Tallyn, you know since I’ve already threatened certain death and dismemberment towards you on multiple occasions already.
I’m everything wrong and right with professional wrestling, deathmatch legend if only in my own mind and frankly what constitutes the nightmares of rookies like you…Technically proficient enough to pull your limbs off then sick enough to beat you to a bloody pulp with them. Hell, I’d just roll out my resume but there's so much blood on it you might mistake it for a red carpet to walk all over…

I’m a woman who doesn’t need to be in a stupid fucking battle royal to make her intentions very clear towards the gold- see, theres a reason people like you and I don’t get put in these things… Cause they are fucking terrified that we might win.
Only difference is they’re worried a champion will slaughter you, while they worry about not having a champion to bury if I get my hands on them…

Maybe I seem a little edgy but truth is, I am. I’m beyond on edge, I’m a little red writhing 5 foot 8 pile of bad intentions and franky even worse attitude, I am a beaten and broken former champion on the warpath towards something that maybe I don’t even deserve but I need all the same.
What you are Tallyn, is bait… They wanna feed the animal, sacrifice one for the sake of many while making my win loss record look a little more spiffy for the effort. They wanna see what I’m capable of when motivated, when pissed the fuck off and when I’ve got nothing left tethering me to the thin threads of sanity that hadn’t quite frayed through yet.

This isn’t an exhibition or an opportunity sweetheart, this is a message to Roxi Johnson, a message to whoever the Bombshells champion is following Climax Control and it's a message to management.

If you thought this was just fun and games before, that I had shown you the full hand I’m playing with… Don’t blink, don’t breathe, don’t move. Just sit, watch and hope that life insurance still pays out when the remains have to be scraped into a fucking mason jar.

So Tallyn. Roxi. Hell, any other bombshells who think now is the perfect time to start squaring up let it be known loud and clear...

… Lets just say I’m done playing.”



******



Jack Michaels House
Las Vegas, ND
23.08.2020
5:08am



Sunrise in Vegas used to feel like it meant more.

That first light peeking over a dusty horizon with a dull orange glow, Amber always far preferred this to the garish neon and forced facade of importance that the place usually carried- no, it was moment of peace among the distant chaos that resonated the deepest.
No doubt her adopted father would be milling around soon enough, he too, a career insomniac with a body clock so far out of whack it was a wonder they saw daylight at all… Amber however has forgone coffee and small talk, instead finding a solace in the gnarled branches of a large tree in the sprawling land stretching into the near distance.

As a child she had used to climb trees, get lost among the thick twisting arms and nestling into spaces designed for creatures far smaller and more agile- no one could reach her here, no one could find her if she didn’t want them to. Part of her, somewhere deep inside where she refused to admit stille existed- she was a child, a child denied a childhood, a child who chose to grow up quicker than she needed to cause the alternative left her feeling more hollow and alone.
Snaking between thick boughs, Amber maneuvered her body as best she could with bruises blooming in angry purples and blacks, her right sneaker untied and hanging loosely cause her ankle was so swollen she couldn’t get her high-tops over it…

It had been a rough couple of weeks for the redhead no doubt, the stitches in her face and the ones healing along the back of her head like a constant painful reminder- some might have argued it might have been karma, that she deserved everything she’d been given and the hands that she had been dealt were a mere consequence.
Of course, those people only ever had half of the story cause anything else would skew their perfect narrative in a factual direction…

No, Baltimore hadn’t exactly been kind to her recently.

Vegas at least still held some hope.

There would be those still condemning what she’d done to Roxi as though given the opportunity they wouldn’t have done it themselves, that they too had at one point thought about doing exactly as she had done. She’d made a promise before Summer XXXtreme and now it seemed people didn’t like the fact she was willing to keep it…
Maybe it was easy for people to forget why they were in this industry, why any of them stepped inside that ring and put their fucking bodies through hell- it wasn’t for the love of the sport, and sure the money might have been nice but even that lost it's lstre after awhile…

It was to make a difference- and if making a difference meant doing some heinous things, meant hurting people who may or may not have deserved it if only to prove the hypocrisy of someone who’s vision of the world was black and white with shades of red ambiguity in between.
Amber didn’t hate Roxi, she fucking cared more than people realized… she just wanted Roxi to admit, openly and freely that she wasn’t everything she claimed to be, that heroism wasn’t real and that she was just as self-serving and ruthless as anyone else out there.

Amber wanted to hear Roxi admit that she was just like the Distorted Angel… and that it was okay.

It wasn’t the slander or the insults that hurt Amber the worst, that drove her in the direction they had taken- but Roxi’s insistence that being anything like Amber was an insult, was something to be frowned upon and shamed as though she herself wasn’t part of the world that had created someone like her. Roxi could stand on that pedestal and tell everyone they were wrong however couldn’t admit within herself that she too housed that same visceral nothingness.

A branch beneath her cracked loudly, however didn’t bow beneath her shifting weight, although she didn’t dare linger in one place for too long for fear of a visit to her childhood and the emergency room. Wrestling reminded her of the branches of a tree- some could take the weight of the world upon them and no one would ever notice cause they act as expected, many cracked under a pressure far underestimated and subsequently fell away noisily and the rest… well it's a tree, what the fuck else could be expected?

One day she’d learn, although Amber doubted today would be it and she imagined tomorrow probably wasn’t promising either. Perhaps the more pertinent question would have been- what will it take for Roxi to understand.
No longer was this a simple mind game, perhaps it once was but things evolved faster than either of them could ever have prepared for. No longer was Amber simply interested in proving Roxi to be a fraud and a liar cause she’d done a far enough good a job of that herself.

No longer would she stand and be told she wasn’t good enough- when all she’d done since walking through the door was impress... A stacked rostered full of women wanted their shot- not at the titles but at the redhead with the big mouth and fists like concrete, they wanted to test their might against someone who didn’t care enough about anything to lose.
Of course- the bombshells title would be on the near horizon- though admittedly, Amber contemplated tearing a crunchy leaf from a nearby twig,it would be quite the shame to have to liberate it from someone she was quickly considering a firm friend in Evie Jordan.

When it came down to it though, and what many seemed to forget a little too easily these days was in any given match, they’d get Amber at her best.

Put a title on the line though, and they’d get absolutely everything…

‘Just a matter of time’ or so they said… Oh, how they’d come to regret it surely when the time came.

 Quick Note Reader: This is a parody/fantasy piece. Likeness used with permission I've done a couple before similar to this so it is a little different from my usual style but I hope you enjoy it all the same




“Why do people assume? If I hate you, I'll tell you. In this case, it's not hate. It's hurt. I'll lick my wounds, which only oozed because I gave a damn, and be over it before the sun rises.”
― Donna Lynn Hope




Prologue:

“I wanna tell you a story…

Just like every good story there is good and evil, the righteous and the immoral clashing in a proverbial joust of ethics. Philosophical lances crashing through the flimsy armour of the arguments each bears so proudly as though theirs is the only one with any legitimacy.
However unlike most stories your mother might have told you, should she have loved you enough to tuck you in before having it on with the maintenance guy three apartments along, these roles are subjective. They are undefined, fluid and open to interpretation- because in anything tat holds worth in this world, opinion rules all.

I won’t tell you who to cheer and boo, only that you should do either at your own peril. After all, the righteous can only be so because they have continually designated something as opposition, and the immoral are more often than not justified in their heinous actions.
No, I’m merely a guide on this choose your own adventure- your choices don’t affect the outcome by any means, however they may change the way you perceive not only the world, but those you surround yourself with in it.

So who the fuck am I…

I’m no protagonist, and to place any kind of stakes in me is to fall upon the first hurdle. I’m no hero in spite of my best efforts- no, that role belongs to someone else far more qualified than I, or so i thought when this all began. Nor could I be considered the antagonist, a villain lurking in the shadows with long fingers and hooked nose hatching a devious plan- many would like to paint me as such, but that negates a far more painful truth.
I’m simply a harbinger of chaos, for where I walk lies a path of absurdity and ruin.

You see, where I’m from my name stands as a legacy painted in the deepest shades of scarlet, the things I’ve brought to pass serving as warnings to the willful and campfire tales in under collapsing bridges. My name is the graffiti on the subway walls that never fades, the scars that don’t quite heal over and the monster that fuels a child's bedtime fears. No one ever really remembers me until I’ve cut through them and all they can wonder aloud is where all that blood is coming from before they’re just another notch in my belt…

Fuck, soon I might need a new belt.

Maybe who I am will be irrelevant before these words ever reach another. Sin City sending another bright spark supernova before the door has even closed behind them, that all of this will be lost among the rest of the tomes written about people like me cause the digital age moves far faster than we are able to document.
Maybe all this will simply end up as another false memory in the mind of an Alzheimer's patient as their insides scream cause they’ve finally forgotten how to breathe.

For the sake of a good story though, you can just call me Red.”



******




Part 1: The Color Red



Carnage Heights
Sin City
30.05.2020
9:13pm



It could have been so easy.

With legs dangling over the edge of the apartment building she’d recently come to call home, all she had to do was let herself go. Couldn’t have been more than seven storeys she imagined, hell if she caught a balcony at just the right angle on the way down she might not even notice the landing.
Clean up admittedly might have been a bit messy, but by that point it’d no longer be her problem, just another nameless nobody leaving their face on the pavement for some other poor bastard to pressure wash down the gutter.

Typical lazy millennials, right?

Her fingertips scraped the edge of the building, searching for purchase. Her fingernails were bitten low and raw- there were no diamonds on her fingers, only swollen knuckles bruised and bloodied from another night of fighting over what felt like nothing of importance.
Fighting simply for the sake of doing so, as proof to another desperate no one in particular that your brand of emptiness meant more than theirs- this was supposed to be a place for new beginnings, but man did old habits refuse to die quietly.

Thick tresses of crimson tumbled around her shoulders messily, occasionally getting caught in a cold gusting breeze while her oversized hoodie only served to make her lithe figure obscured and indistinct. She’d promised herself this time would be different and the lie came easier than she expected, days in though and already those voices were creeping back in, those itches flaring up just below her skin. Fight after fight with the only way seemingly out was with her last exhalation of breath, as though there were ever any other option.
After all, it wasn’t as though she’d died a thousand times before now… what was one more to add to the tally?

Yeah, she could do it now. No one would even care- few knew who she was… what she was, what baggage she carried like Atlas bearing the world upon his shoulders, the places she’d left in ruins simply because nature couldn’t be overcome with sheer brute force.
Sin City wasn’t supposed to be this cold in summer, she mused distractedly, watching those beneath trace around like ants looking for purpose but finding death and taxes instead- maybe that's what bothered her the most about this place already.

They just wanted to be ‘good people’. What an absolute load of… well, not everyone. Just enough to make up a full cast with back up roles filled beyond requirement, each of them buying into a narrative of contentment and moral wholesomeness in hopes that it might somehow make their eventual grave a little less desolate.
So many were determined to buy into the sick pantomime, desperate puppets feigning happiness while scissors snake menacingly between their strings. Red had been determined to try to fit in with these principled citizens- hell, she’d have been willing to seperate her vertebrae one by one if it mean she could be seen as a little more ‘upstanding’.

Even before she had started though, it felt like she’d already placed every step wrong.

She couldn’t feign the lack of substance behind their eyes, the insincerity of their friendly waves as they passed on the street and those forced greetings of small talk that made her want to eat her own frontal lobe just to make everything a little more comprehensible.
All glitter and garish neon on the surface and an empty tunnelling nowhere underneath. Just model citizens pulled off a production line, customizable on the surface but determinedly blank slates everywhere else that might have mattered.

It was all a carefully choreographed dance for those determined enough to want to be perceived as just like everyone else- and Red had untied shoelaces and two left feet. She’d tried to color within the lines but her indistinct watercolors didn’t quite mix with their acrylic Jackson Pollocks, she’d tripped and fallen more times than she’d cared to count… She remembered the way they flocked when she skinned a knee, whipped into a goddamn frenzy when they smelled blood and exhaust fumes- not because any of them cared, but because you damn sure weren’t supposed to bleed on the fucking pavement.

Red itched for a cigarette, however her last pack was back in the apartment downstairs and the building manager was patrolling the corridors, thoroughly back on his bullshit. Instead, she had to settle for idly scratching at some paint peeling away from the buildings poorly maintained facade.
Another heavy blow to the establishment and all that.
She could do it, take down as many of those ‘good people’ as she could with her for the effort- wondering if the rest of them would squirm as they tried to maintain their veneer of self-righteousness while managing to do nothing more than complain, as they stepped over the worst of the splatter on their way to another unnecessary meeting.

Love. Pride. A sense of self-worth. A sense that the world cared whether she was around. A determination to truly be better. It could have been any one of those things that brought Red back from that edge with a knowingly half smile- but it wasn’t…
It was something that sparked a crooked little in the glimmer of those blue-green eyes, something that had been there for her far longer than any person ever could, something that kept her alive a thousand times over when the world flagrantly proclaimed that she might just be better off dead.

Something that no one could ever take from her, even in a dying breath.

Spite.



******


“This is where it all begins… with a hero.

A perfect, morally incorruptible, ethically untainted hero.

A classic and timeless trope in our storytelling venture, the all conquering  and all knowing, the be-all-end-all that man and mythos are so delightfully enamoured with the idea of.

What a fucking joke.

You see, by nature man cannot simply do no wrong. It is built into us to be imperfect, to be flawed and at fault but in our stories that can’t possibly be the case can it? How can they save the day if the only thing they have to overcome is their own crippling insecurities, who can save the princess from the tower if they cannot drag themselves from their bed cause they’re just feeling rather flat.
No, heroes by nature cannot be flawed. They cannot be anything less than utmost excellence cause our society relies on this, they buy in whole heartedly under the illusion that maybe they themselves can overcome their nature and be that person who slays princesses and kisses dragons.

They don’t make mistakes like us, they don’t suffer consequences cause in fairytales those only exist to punish the anticipated wicked and immoral.

Yet in this place, everyone tells me there's a hero and all I wanna do is prove that they are no better than I am.

Revered as a demi-god but flesh and bone as we might be ourselves, this hero is given absolute and consequence free judgement over all simply because their moral compass happens to be a little less cracked than the rest of ours. Supposed decency being used as currency between those bereft of it and those wielding it as a weapon to bring everyone else down a peg, cause you know that pedestal doesn't look nearly quite as impressive when everyone else isn’t driven into the ground around it.
Selflessly selfish and celebrated simply for being something the rest of us are working on, the world is so busy adoring and admiring the glow the Hero casts to take a breath and realize that there’s nothing more than a dumpster fire at it's centre.

I won’t sit here and pretend like I didn’t want to be just like that. There was a part of me for a long time that wanted admiration and devotion, to be acknowledged as more than just a nuisance and more trouble than I was worth.
Heroes don’t let you forget that about yourself though, see that's the problem isn’t it… The more people on their level, the less special they seem, so they dull everyone with unrealistic expectations so that their light might shine that little brighter for a little longer. Leopards and their spots right? You can’t change who you are- you can’t be anyone else than who you’ve already been like somehow our mistakes make us incapable of redemption.

I tried to change those spots though, I helped little old ladies out of the way of car pile ups and saved kittens from forest fires in the middle of the cityscape- but the Hero, they look at someone like me and they don’t see the stitches of good intentions keeping me together, but the flawed and broken pieces they hold.
I did my damndest and get rebuked at every turn- I wanted to be that person so fucking badly that I was willing to change everything about who I was, came to a new place for a new start and got told it can’t happen cause you’re a liability. A loose cannon. A monster peeking from between the poorly sewn stitches of a human suit.

Eventually I started hating who I was, who trying to be this good person was making me… I wasn’t getting better, I was getting worse. More toxic from the inside out. I hated the person I was becoming even more than the one staring back in the mirror at me now.
Vague. Nebulous. Indecisive. Empty. Finite.
I guess I’d rather be among the dregs, the undesirables and the nefarious cause at least when they smile at me, I don’t feel hollow and empty as though I’m staring into a spiritual black hole.

That's not to say I wouldn’t change the things I’d done given the chance- but then on those nights when the booze didn’t quite sink deep enough to dull my last nerve and the cigarettes were running low, but I couldn’t get to the corner store cause the streets were bleeding again…

All I could do was wish I had done far more.”[/i]


******



Part 2: Keys To The Kingdom


Downtown
Sin City
21.06.2020
4:37pm



“Ah fuck”]

Red hadn’t quite realized that she’d stepped straight into the gutter, gurgling and murky, until her socks had become uncomfortably damp inside her worn out converses. Distractedly enthralled and disgusted in less than equal measures, her outburst drew furtive glances from some of the closest gathered crowd. None of them, much to Red’s disappointment, had mustered the fortitude to say thing instead choosing to glower in her general vicinity as though that might have more of an effect than just making them look kinda stupid.

With an annoyed scowl of her own, more to due the incessant squelching noise now emanating from shoes than anything else, she slipped between a pair of particularly loud middle aged aren’s debating whos angled bob brought more terror to the hearts of innocent retail managers towards a hastily built stage- as though the city needed yet another reminder about the temporary nature of all this pomp and circumstance.

Upon it, and pacing as though his jarring movements didn’t just induce a case of motion sickness to a stationary crowd, was one of the many social climbers probably looking for public support on a project projected as more farce than fact.
Wealthy beyond reasonable measure, he appeared to be late 50’s and aging far worse despite the obvious plastic surgeries trying to defy the rigors of gravity, age and a career in politics. Manicured eyebrows seemed permanently fixed in a constant state of partial surprise, while the harsh curl of his lip suggested unnatural means of keeping a hundred thousand dollar smile- cause you know those lawsuits get costly after awhile- set at its widest and most welcoming.

Nose job. Eye lift. Lip fillers. Cheekbone shaving. Fuck, Red was almost sure that Steve Jobs himself might have been able to build an early computer from the amount of silicon the speaker on stage had accumulated in his face alone.
Vanity couldn’t save his hairline though, despite it's best attempts to remain straight in a chilling, disruptive breeze snaking between the legs of a populous still determined to wear shorts and overly revealing skirts, as the poorly secured toupee shifted askew. Nor could the tailors disguise the way his lavish champagne lifestyle had piled up around his midsection- at least for now it seemed.

Red couldn’t recall his name, maybe she’d seen it plastered all over a digital billboard or written in vulgar neon- he was heavy into property and heavier into young, blonde secretaries with ambitions far out-weighing their standards in the face of the mighty dollar. Prettier than smart, perfect eye candy provided they didn’t try to nag like any of the four wives he’d kept in the lap of luxury in exchange for their time turning a blind eye to his fluctuating whimsies.

Talking into a microphone that no one had informed him wasn’t actually plugged in, the tinny whine of his voice straining to carry over any kind of distance, the crowd interest in his speech only seemed to extend as far as his proclamations might disseminate. Few outside of that limited range seemed to care much for the spectacle, simply finding it as something to do, boredom and agitation spreading like wildfire among the burgeoning crowd.

Orating over-loudly, he spoke as though the city were some utopia or oasis in a world that no longer believed these things to be viable, as though the bleak and oppressive cityscape wasn’t splashed with more shades of grey than even E.L James could imagine or that the unseasonal chill in the air, filtered through steel and concrete, wasn’t viscose and suffocating among the masses.
Somehow this was supposed to be meaningful and uplifting but he’d only succeeded in alienating an already disinterested crowd.

“... whose morality and ethical fortitude is a beacon of hope for the rest of us.”

Occasions like this were supposed to be weighty and significant, yet somehow his words felt trivial and demeaning. Maybe it would have been preferable to simply retire back to her shitty fifth floor apartment, she could curl up on the couch and pretend the place had heating while watching the ceiling corner growth of mould flourish undisturbed- watching on TV as news reporters gushed over the craftsmanship of the speakers suit as though it hadn’t had to go up three sizes in the past two months instead of dissecting how a man could take something so important and make everyone care significantly less.

“... without people like her, our wonderful city would surely fall into chaos and ruin…”

He referred to a woman to call her beautiful would be an understatement, a certain regality and grace in her movements suggested she’d done all this a thousand times before but her faint grimace subtly expressed that she still had the humility to hate it. Red had heard the term the name Hero tossed around, mostly followed by effusive praise, described as one with a moral superiority and exclusive rights towards enforcement and judgement over the populous.
All the cliches and platitudes would follow, everyone had a story they’d heard from a friend of a friends uncle about something the Hero did… All of them following a similar trajectory as though recycled from past experiences and anecdotes, never once heard from the person who had actually witnessed anything for themselves though.

“... it is with great honor and gratitude that I am able to present the key to the city…”

It was all symbolic, a show of histrionics and good faith. Everyone loved a good Hero, they loved them humble and gracious yet confident and willing to own a space when required as though they weren’t simply a walking oxymoronic cluster of demands from a society unable to deliver in any other way.
Cameras flashed on cue as the speaker took the Hero’s hand into a forceful handshake as though trying to express bravado and equality in a space where he was woefully outclassed. Blinding and harsh, even Red had trouble making out more than the Hero’s grandiose silhouette for a moment until everyone had done a thorough enough job wrecking everyone else's opportunity for a front page snap.

Red didn’t move as the crowd began to dissipate around her, embittered murmurs permeated by cheers and applause from the more raucous- in the meantime the Hero had continued to engage in some contrived small talk with the speaker, who had only now reluctantly released the Hero’s hand from his grasp. Like he might have been posing for a terrible caricature no one really wanted to draw, the speaker laughed riotously at something that likely wasn’t that funny, head thrown back as though someone might have snapped his neck should the city have been so lucky.

Something about all this- the dramatization of something so very banal and utterly trite and the overt need for public validation left Red feeling nauseous in a way she hadn’t expected, although she imagined the vortex of people headed nowhere swirling around her probably didn’t help much.
Drowning in the spaces between people, it was as though the expanse of the universe was spreading out between Red and the Hero despite the fact they were both standing still, the stoppage of all time and space as though a vacuum simply consumed them.

While the Hero seemed perfectly at home in this social chaos, Red was falling without ever leaving her feet.

In the briefest moment, in the time it might take for an eyelash to hit the floor- their eyes locked and everything rippled with an unseen electricity as the Hero mouthed five words that sent the pit of Red’s stomach straight through the fucking bitumen, her heart somehow falling from a hole burned through  chest by a Hero’s stare and flailing weakly on the floor waiting to be promptly stomped on.
A microcosm of everything and nothing that left Red more disillusioned than she ever could have imagined.

“I know what you are.”





******


“She looked just like me.

Pulled from a mirror and forced to walk among the world- or maybe I’m the cursed one, told to act normal in a place that I just don’t belong in.

I looked at her and I saw myself, and I couldn’t stand it. There she was, just standing there like she didn’t feel the same way, pretending like she wasn’t just a carbon copy who found an easier way to colour between the societal lines.
She walked like me, talked like me- hell I’d be willing to bet damn good money that she probably ate, shit and fucked like me too, but those things aren’t what really got to me.

What bothered me was looking at my reflection being venerated and celebrated for being ‘a good person’ and realizing I was the only damn person who saw something different, that the Hero wasn’t this deity of righteousness and dignity… She was just like the rest of us, and no one seemed to care that this was all just a fucking lie.

I’d rather have been tasered in that moment cause at least it would have made me feel something other than last night's whiskey and bile trying to tickle the back of my tonsils.
.
What I’d been asking myself most of all was- what did it truly mean to be a good person, under what criteria could someone be determined that way…
I mean I hadn’t killed anyone for at least a month maybe so did it make me worthy of city wide adoration?
I had refrained from sniffing lines of coke out of the asshole of a stripper so did that mean I was entitled to a gold sticker next to my name?
I didn’t punt the head of the neighbours crotch gremlin cause he took a dump on my doorstep again- so where in god's name was my ticker tape parade?

God my Mama would have been so proud, bless her ever-lasting soul.

Telling someone they were a good person was like offering them an ice cream cone after you licked all the best parts off- they have no choice but to be appreciative of the gift despite it's backhanded nature or otherwise renounce the title bequeathed.
Yet here we were… celebrating the greatest form of mediocrity known to man, the societal participation award for being slightly less shitty than the rest of us. That was what we were told to look up to, our youth to idolize and our nostalgia to misremember fondly.
Aim just a little higher than average, exceed the lowest of expectations cause clearly the rest of us weren’t capable of such things, the rest of us incapable of bettering ourselves in spite of past misgivings. Be better than who you were, but not enough that you can’t be buried beneath all your dirty laundry and skeletons playing checkers in your closet.

After all, heroes couldn’t possibly exist if they didn’t have anyone to be better than.

Wasn’t that the basis of their very existence?

If everyone did their good deed for the day, there might be no evil left in the world but then the world would fall into chaos cause heroes need something to oppose, despite their efforts to eradicate threats to the status quo- they would never succeed cause in doing so would have made them obsolete.
It's why people like me- chaotic neutrals, misfits and miscreants who just wanted to see how the world worked by pulling it apart, still existed in pockets of humanity where the light didn’t quite reach and our mothers didn’t hug us enough.

This supposed Hero, they could have single handedly wiped from this place every piece of shit human being who tried to atone for their sins and only found that it created more, every terrible judge of character who stepped from the footpath in search of something more than just what they were told they were supposed to be and every person who proudly owned their mistakes and were told to burn for their lies cause there was no pride to be had in being flawed.

I learned a long time ago that it took far less effort to look down than up, that gravity favoured those with the moral high ground and it was far easier to drive someone into the ground when the world already thought that you stood above them.
People needed something to believe in, that's was truest purpose of the hero today, to give people something to sink their teeth into cause reality was just the fucking worst. They wanted to know something better existed, even if they have to make it themselves, even if it wasn’t real.

That's the thing though- you tell someone who they are for long enough and eventually they begin to believe it.

Tell someone for years that they are simply the best person who ever existed, that everyone adores them and that they simply can do no wrong… They start to buy into it themselves, if only on a subconscious level, they start believing their hype and so you create a vicious cycle of validation and desperation to stay on that same level.
Belittle someone, tell them for years that they’re better off dead, that they have no place in a world they helped build with every shitty decision they’ve made, tell them that everything they’ve done to this point was a mistake and it makes them a god awful person with no hope of redemption despite their best efforts.

Tell someone for long enough that everything they’ve done makes them a monster…

You should no longer be surprised when they finally embrace being one.”



******



Part 3: Nature Of The Beast


Carnage Heights
Sin City
05.07.2020
3:08am



“Why are you doing this?!?”

Red never expected to be having a verbal discourse on philosophy and reason with a man dangling rather precariously from a rooftop edge, while he desperately sunk his fingernails into the flesh of her forearm.
New gouges bubbled with globules of red while her lip curled into something resembling a vague disgust at the discoloured and jagged edges like broken rats teeth scraping through her skin, new gashes forming beside those that had began to heal- their raw and angry edges straining to remain closed as gravity and desperation threatened to pull them asunder.

She could hear the toecaps of worn out sneakers scrambling against crumbling brickwork searching for a foothold that didn’t exit, sending a sizeable chunk careening into the alleyway below before shattering on impact with an audible crunch while the noise alone only served to fuel his panicked frenzy further.
Maybe if he didn’t squirm so bloody much, Red contemplated impatiently, then we wouldn’t be having this issue…

“What is it you want… I’ll give you anything, just for god's sake pull me up!”

He reminded her of vermin- angular features tapering into something grimy and guttural, his beady bloodshot eyes betrayed a lack of sleep while the patchy stubble that grew in unevenly around his chin reminded her of the singed edges of a rat's whiskers as they strayed a little too close to a beggars fire. Sunken cheekbones and a badly broken nose left his voice slightly nasally and irritating as he tried to claw against gravity when he was the only one of them making a concerted effort to hold on.

Red had found him in an alley somewhere in Carnage Heights- peddling poor quality false illicits and misinformation, his life worth less than the rats scraping through the dumpsters cause at least their work was honest. People like him didn’t deserve chances, squandered absolutely every fucking opportunity he’d been given- yet here he was pleading that his life now held worth if only because he now realized that it had an expiry date.

Just like all those before him.

Only the next of far too many, as her trail of ruination and bloody footsteps snaked through the depths- knee deep in the worst of society, through the concrete quagmires of a place that didn’t recognize the plights of martyrs.
Perhaps in a place like this- Red could have been considered a hero, a paragon of limited virtue or a nihilistic archetype…

“What I want… Now that's a damn good question. What I want is a cup of coffee that I don’t need to take a mortgage out to afford, what I want is eight hours of sleep without waking up and checking that I’m not imaging my own pulse… What I want, and judging by the job you’re doing on my forearms, is a rabies shot for good measure…”

Lowering her face closer to his she could practically smell the methylated spirits on his breath, while watching the way his thin lips seemed to peel back through mumbled heavy, frenetic breaths.

“... What I really, really want though…”

Measured and barely above a hiss, the words almost fell from her lips as though each one tasted like poison to speak.

“... is for you to beg for a hero to save you.”

“Please you don’t have to do this”

“... Beg.”

“I promise I’ll change- ”

“I SAID BEG!”

There were always promises but his despondant pleas died in a whimper as her scathing outburst of frustration echoed vehemently, she could make out mumbled words- a constant ooze of sound resembling something pathetically remorseful, begging quietly under his breath as though now were the perfect moment to atone for all the things he’d done till now.
Like any of it really made a difference and this was his acceptance of fate- many of the others did the same, their previously vocal appeals and arguments failing into something resembling a scared childs mewling in the face of real consequence.

Others though, others sang like birds… like pigeons shitting all over everything, their begging efforts overdramatic and bordering on lewd in an inadequate attempt to be heard by anyone other than the stone deaf apathetic redhead.
They’d plead in the face of everything they’d done, things far worse than Red could comprehend and yet their consequence seemed far less harsh, merciful in a way compared to what their fates rightly should have been- hell, some of them even found religion in their struggle for leniency… Somehow remembering that maybe they believed in something else at one time, something that could save them in the same way they were asking for a hero to save them now.

“... Wanna know a little secret?”

More whimpering, though nothing resembling a definitive answer.

“You have to promise you won’t tell…”

Sickly sweet, her voice dripped like a honeyed venom he’d never appreciate- his hands were reaching the edge of her wrists, digging and clawing at something not designed to hold him.
Each moment somehow lasting a little longer than the last as she draws on a last reservoir of strength, one designed to instill hope as she lifts just enough to bring his face within inches of her own.

However she doesn’t get the words out before his hands fall away, outstretched and clutching for anything solid but finding only cold, thin air. Disenchanted with the anti-climax, Red propped herself onto her knees before picking a shred of yellowed fingernail from one of the bloody gouges in her arm- disgusted and yet bemused all at the same time, as the expected sickening crunch quickly dissipated into the silent evening air.

“... the thing is…”

Distractedly, Red tossed the fingernail shard over the edge after him.

“Heroes…Heroes aren’t actually real.”




******


“I once watched a man help an old lady across the road.

Not because he wanted anything but from the sheer goodness of his heart, he gave her his arm and they toddled across the street making small talk. It was honestly quite the heartwarming sight to see, everyone on the sidewalk around me is watching this happen as though it's this abnormality… and perhaps in a way it was.

Especially when they got the other side and the old lady pushed him out in front of a moving bus.

He ends up smeared 30 feet down the street, his wallet ends up on the curb just beside where he was standing, figure it must have been in his hand or pocket before he got smushed- and this little old lady picks up his wallet, rifles through it, takes everything of value and continues on her merry fucking way.
… and not a damn person did anything about it.

Not one.

See, we’re conditioned all wrong cause we all think that in that situation we’d be the guy helping the little old lady across the street, we’d be doing the good deed and karma gives us a ‘get out of jail free’ card for our efforts. We’d be the ones getting scraped off the bitumen cause karma is a cruel bitch and likes to have a little fun at our mortal expense.
In that moment, we imagine ourselves doing anything in our power to be good when the situation calls for it… When in reality we’re all just the pedestrians going on with the rest of our day pretending like we didn’t stand by and watch someone else be the person we should have…

We aren’t heroes any more than the guy getting super glued back together cause the family insists on an open casket, nor are we any better than the little old lady- just jealous that she happened to think of it first.
What we need to remember in our human absurdity is that nowhere else in nature, do heroes exist… It is a man made and manufactured concept that we have bought so deeply into that it's now subconsciously ingrained in our psyches to recognize it.

Nature doesn’t want heroes though, nature doesn’t want us to act with decency and morality- it wants us to be primal and savage, and while we might have evolved form the most basic form of this, we have never outgrown it. When it comes down to it, like electricity and black tar heroin, it's a mass-produced by-product of us trying to handle something we are woefully unequipped to deal with.
Heroism is in direct contrast to Darwinism, it's a deliberate affront to survival of the fittest in terms of putting yourself in an unsafe situation for the benefit of adoration and belief- it's why heroes have a short life expectancy, not because it's dangerous but because it's in defiance of the natural order.

Heroes create a void, a socio-black hole and nature… Nature abhors a vacuum.

It doesn’t want us to be the best, it doesn’t want us to be shiny beacons of excellence.

Just better. Just better than what we are now- and the concept of the hero stands in direct contrast because heroes need to feel special, they need to be snowflakes otherwise they become obsolete. It's like religion, without belief it has nothing to support it and eventually collapses under the weight of a carefully structured mythos they have created.
Everything they do must be documented, must be publicised and spotlighted or else it has no importance, if people don’t care then there's no point in doing it. That's the curious thing I suppose, they need so badly to be believed in that they’ll create a narrative around that need so it appears organic, that it appears to have simply occured in such a way that they are framed with perfect lighting and an action pose against a sunset.

Fifteen minutes stretched into fifteen years overnight it seems- thriving off an infamy that shouldn’t exist, their legacy built on a foundation of lies and sickening validation. Heroes don’t need churches and stained glass windows depicting their greatest hits, just a legacy in word of mouth and over-exaggeration of events presented in the most rose-tinted flattering light.
Humility and arrogance somehow twisted into something inorganic and deceptively ugly.

We get so swept up in this idea that there is someone out there who is better than us in all the best ways we’re willing to turn the other cheek when they’re less perfect than we imagined, only because it hurts our belief and be damned if we, as flawed imperfect humans, are proven any kind of wrong.
That is, after all, why the interwebs exist.
We’re trained like puppies to believe that we need this, that we need a hero in the same way that they need us- a symbiotic relationship full of gaslighting and emotional blackmail.

I won’t pretend like I didn’t believe, that I desperately wanted to be proven wrong and that everything I thought I saw was simply my paranoia and cynicism coming back to bite me squarely in the ass. I wanted this symbiotic relationship to make me better, cause that's what this is supposed to be… Mutual benefit.
All I got from it was a load-bearing neurosis where if you even touch that fucker, everythings comes down with it. I got a ten thousand volt taser straight into the depths of my sociopathy and most importantly… I got the startling revelation that I was right all along.

… and let me tell you, I really fucking hate being right literally all the time.

Heroes aren’t real, they don’t exist. It's a sycophantic sociological hallucination designed to inflate the importance of the only person who still somehow needs convincing that they’re real.

Heroes don’t exist in nature, but parasites definitely do.

… and no one ever said that parasites couldn’t be pretty.”





End Part #1.

 “She was the one who showed me all the dark wonders of life, the real life, the life I’d only seen flickering from the corner of my eye. Did I ever feel anything at all until she showed me what feeling meant? Pushing at the corners of her cramped world with curled fists, she showed me what it meant to live.”
― Megan Abbott, Dare Me




Undisclosed Location
Elizabethtown, NC
20.08.2005
4:36pm



“Come on Red, you can’t tell me this isn’t kinda cool…”

Amber kicked the shards of a brick across the rotten floorboards in protest, the thin powder of brick dust exploding like a pale rain around her worn converses. Derelict and decaying, the musty aroma mingled with something faintly coppery and alkaline as Amber tried to put from her mind how it reminded her of the taste of blood in the back of her throat.

“It's just like in movies, you know?”

Amber’s clear lack of enthusiasm did little to temper Cassidy Parker’s overt excitement at exploration, after all they’d been travelling for several days straight- cooped up in a van with adults far more invested in staring at the backs of their eyelids or too busy trying to talk over her head with stories of an illicit nature like she hadn’t heard them all only with far more slurring and the stain of whiskey on their breaths.
Truck stops did little to break the monotony- deep fried nothing and gasoline fumes, the magazines were all months out of date and even the newspapers seemed to curl at the edges as though trying to quietly disintegrate.

However when Cassidy spotted the abandoned house not far from the fairgrounds, she had immediately set to work pestering Amber about going exploring. Four days she’d managed to keep Cassidy at bay, four arduous days filled with excuses and avoidance, four days of being worn down by the sheer energy levels and eventually her patience wore so thin she knew she might not sleep a wink if she didn’t relent.

At 14 Cassidy was Amber’s junior by three years- somewhat akin to an annoying little sister with far too much energy and a startling charisma, thick blonde curls fell around her face and cascaded over her shoulders as warm brown eyes studied the world through a microscope.
Pale skin stretched over her sinewy form as she swept from room to room, her frame like that of a ballerina without the function muscle mass, like a praying mantis perhaps made of all limbs and earnestness.

“Yeah, and in those movies pretty little things like you end up looking like a sleeping bag full of cranberries that got run over with a tractor.”

Part of a floorboard crumbled beneath Amber’s foot as she caught herself, sweating profusely under her breath about the stupidity of this whole venture, Cassidy however seemed far more enamoured with some of the rough graffiti that had peeled away in places, her fingers traced over where the letters had faded- perhaps a proclamation of simply being there or the curving strokes of a short term relationship sprayed with a lustful and equally short term sincerity.
Amber appreciated the artform, when done well at least- which this had not- however it was the way the word forever seemed to be thrown around so freely, that it could be intended as something infinite and yet last only three days cause some people aren’t mentally equipped to handle monogamy.

Metallic and caustic gave way to something more acidic, an unmistakable tang of built up ammonia and perhaps bile if she really thought about it for long enough. She tried to avoid making eye contact with what she presumed was once a mattress, it's remains scattered and soiled by rats or something slightly larger, she couldn’t even begin to think of what it's use might have been before… and perhaps still.
Amber gagged slightly, bile tickling at the back of her tongue as though trying to negotiate for an exit. Even though the windows had been broken out, shards stuck and weathered in their decaying frames, fresh air still couldn’t permeate the space- an air lock of acrid malodor, the atmosphere so heavy that there wasn’t any room for oxygen to move.

“Hey Red, what if there's a dead body or something?”

“It smells like there already is…”

“Oh come on, it's not THAT bad.”

“I’d rather hang out in a truck stop toilet getting propositioned by lesbian truck drivers than breath in some dead person DNA. Come on Cass, let's just get out of here otherwise the next dead body might just be yours.”

Cassidy mockingly poked her tongue out, while Amber wrinkled her nose up so hard it was a wonder that it was still properly attached to her face.

“Jesus christ, put that thing back in your head before I rip it out and use it to clean my shoes.”

“No you won’t. You like me too much, and besides- who else would put up with your miserable ass?”

Cassidy ventured towards the front door, well where the front door used to be Amber had presumed, now only a set of hinges hung precariously as the wood seemed to fall apart around them.
It wasn’t the gasp that set Amber’s heart racing, nor even the fact she could see Cassidy frozen, partially silhouetted in the front door by the sinking afternoon sun.

It was the voices. Multiple. Angry.

Closing the gap, Amber could start making out words now- mostly curses mixed with the occasional accusation, a cacophony of sounds spewing with a determined vitriol. Female. Young, probably teen. A vicious whine like a hornet, only with far more hormones and a shittier attitude.

“... saw you carny slut. Think you can just get away with messing with me, you got another thing coming.”

“Fuck her up”

“Yeah, she’s got it coming”

Maybe they didn’t know Amber was there, maybe they just didn’t care but none of them reacted much when the redhead leaned almost leisurely on the door frame, trying to avoid having to get another tetanus shot in the process.

“Problem?”

Cassidy was the first to acknowledge Amber- the knowing look of guilt and realization plastered across her face. Amber hadn’t noticed how heavy the smattering of freckles across her nose was until now, framed by the glazed over deer-caught-in-headlights look in her eyes.
She was looking for hope, for validation perhaps, for something… Something that Amber wasn’t even sure she could provide.

“You wanna tell your girl here how you think you’re a clever little bitch, you didn’t think I’d remember your face after I caught your sticky fucking fingers in my bag last night?
Well, guess what…”

Amber tuned out slightly as the slurs continued to pour, groaning internally as Cassidy could do little more than give her something amounting to a sheepish affirmation of wrongdoing. It was Amber’s fault, she’d been teaching Cassidy how to pickpocket and more importantly… how not to get caught.
She wasn’t supposed to be going off by herself trying it, Amber swore loudly under her breath capturing the attention of the lead antagonist.

“Look, I’m sure theres some kind of misunderstanding or something… Cass, just apologize. Get it over with and then we can all move on, yeah?”

Operation peacemaker was in full swing, however it didn’t stop the redhead from sizing up the girls. All of them seemed built from the same familial stock, although maybe that was more a small town breeding issue rather than anything else- none of them particularly menacing despite their best efforts, the type of girls who’d tell everyone they smoked behind the bleachers and played truant when really it was mommy and daddy letting them have a day off and not keeping contraband out of reach.
Snickering became full blown laughter in a matter of moments, the girls looking to each other in comical disbelief.

“You think an apology fixes this, you think that's good enough? Nah, that's not how we do things around here.”

Amber presumed she was trying to square up, that she was trying to look intimidating however she was heavily flat footed, her fists curled awkwardly in a way that would break her thumbs if she threw a punch and her smile was… way too easy of a target. With a deliberately methodical pace, Amber drifted down the concrete steps allowing each thud to resonate for a moment before the next until the muffle of hard ground and dust tempered the noise.

“How you do things… Huh, well that's a bit of a problem in itself then, isn’t it?”

Without breaking eye contact, Amber placed herself between Cassidy and the group while allowing a sly half smile to cross her face. It was a few moments of awkward silence before Amber cleared her throat, trying to clear the last residue of mildew from her throat.

“Cassidy. Get out of here.”

“Amber I-”

“Go.”

Terse and commanding, the guilt only sunk deeper into the blonde as she sidled off to the side, at first a walk and then breaking into a run in the direction of the fairgrounds. One of the group made a move to follow, however Amber's hollow dead eyed gaze kept them all planted firmly in place.

“I dunno who you think you are standing up for her but-”

“No buts, your problem is with me now. Not her. Whatever she’s done, you take it up with me or you fuck right off and leave us the hell alone.”

Another few chuckles rumble through the girls as though they’re on the same wavelength, Amber presumed that since they likely didn’t have a lot of brain cells between them that it greatly reduced the difficulty.

“Her. You. Same difference really.”

Amber saw the punch coming before the girl even reared back, there was something so oddly satisfying about watching someone with no clue telegraph their shot while still thinking they had any element of surprise. Years of muay thai kept her on her toes, years of panantukan ept her footwork difficult to read… and years of just straight up fights forecast the outcome like standing outside and predicting the weather two minutes into the future.
Four versus one.
Shitty odds. Still didn’t stop Amber coming in and headbutting the lead antagonist between the eyes with a satisfying crunch, cartilage snapped beneath the pressure and Amber caught some of the first spurts of hot gushing blood as it poured from her nose.

Stumbling backwards, Amber knew she left herself open however the message had been sent. Wild fists with poor technique made contact, each not doing much but their sheer combined weight beat her down towards the ground- sometimes a lucky strike might connect with something more fragile like a liver or kidney.
Crumpling to the floor, Amber covered up as best as possible while still lashing out when opportunity arose, one girl stomped at her face and caught her in the nose, the viscous blood tricking into her mouth as she fought for a breath not contaminated by dust.
Metallic on her tongue, she wanted to be sick until an errant kick caught her in the stomach and forced a dry retch from her body. One girl got caught with a nasty kick to the thigh, stumbling backwards the obscenities were followed by a kick to the spine that sent a tingling down Amber’s arms.

She didn’t know how long they were at it for, huffing and puffing angrily above her with insults that failed to do more than wound their own intelligence. Playground nothings, threats of violence trying to look cool when their punches did little more than crack knuckles.
Eventually their contemptuous onslaught gave way, satisfied with their work they helped each other limp away as the leader, still cradling her face- everything below her crumpled nose bathed in thick, crimson blood and mucus, spat venomously at Amber as she tried to drag herself out of the dust.

“That’ll fucking teach you.”

It wouldn’t. She’d be over it in a couple of days, superficial wounds although her pride was only slightly more damaged as Amber wished she’d knocked a few teeth out to do with it.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry… I just- I’m...”

Despite Amber’s determined stance, Cassidy hadn’t gone far.  Kneeling in front of the redhead, she seemed momentarily lost for what to do, her shame and culpability reddened in her cheeks and sunken into the crevices of her grimace.
Amber quietly dusted herself off as she pushed herself up to sitting, she could still feel the trickle down the edge of her chin while trying to ignore the warmth trying to creep between her lips. Using her t-shirt, Amber tried to wipe away the worst of it, only succeeding in smearing it further as Cassidy tried to help her up- Amber waved her off though, unsteadily finding her feet as the younger girl tried to search for something meaningful to say.

“Amber, I’m so-”

Another dead eyed gaze cut her off abruptly.

“... They won’t bother you again.”



******



“You know, I’ve heard that possession is supposedly 9/10ths of the law but I can’t imagine whoever came up with it ever intended it for this context.

Curious, don’t you think?

A mechanism of protection in the same way that split personalities form and function like an emotional armour, protruding spikes around ones fragile psyche with the distinct intention of impaling everything within proximity. Mental illness certainly isn’t something to be joked about, as I’m sure a vast majority of our peers in this industry are either wired wrong, or pretend to be cause they think it makes them look cooler.

Really, the only voices those ones should be listening to are the ones telling them to fuck off out the door.

It's not a strength though, nor is it a weakness- it's just a part of you. Yin and yang, two halves to a whole even if the split is creeping into 80/20 territory. You might be the original, sure… but you aren’t in control, are you?
Some might compare you to Jekyll and Hyde but the truth is far more banal, theres no dramatic transformation by candlelight, no screams of disgust and terror as you morph into an uncontrollable killing machine.

Lights come on, and Melissa Aki switches off.

I wonder though, am I a threat to you?

Does someone like me bring out the worst, that darkness deep inside that's just begging for a chance to put the stupid big mouth redhead in her place. Does someone like me draw out something in you that you loathe, that leaves you feeling hollow in its wake and covered in someone else's blood… which certainly isn’t exactly sanitary in this pandemic.
See, this is the part where you do one of two things…
Your demon side will tell me that I’m no threat, that everything I’ve done up to this point is entirely irrelevant and that I can’t possibly be on your level when it comes to ultraviolence and generally being a piece of shit human being.

In which case I tell you that you’re one head twist away from being a poor mans Exorcist and that ya’ll really need some Jesus.

Or two… You’ll make it sound like this is a big deal to you, that you’ve either heard of me or seen my work and that you really respect me cause that's just what you do, you hope we’ll have a great match and in the end be respected rivals without having tried to bleed each other dry.

In which case I’ll still tell you that you’re one head twist away from being a poor mans Exorcist and that you most definitely need to invest in some serious Jesus.

I’m sensing a pattern here Maki.

I want to believe you are everything you’re made out to be- that your reputation of sheer carnage isn’t just because everyone else has been subpar and would consider a chair something of an exotic weapon… and I have no doubt that if you truly set your mind to it that you could absolutely splatter my future grandchildrens DNA all over your breakfast and still have an appetite for destruction.
All I’m getting though is that you wrestle a bit of deathmatch, talk a bit of cray-cray cause everyone loves a psycho till they start leaving body parts in their freezer and crawl on all fours cause it looks more animalistic and visceral, you know until you blow your knees and wrists out.

Might be the first person to do such things without having their head shoved under a table, so kudos on that I guess?

Still you feed into the cliche, a maligned and desperate cliche worn down to a painful nub on the middle finger of the wrestling industry and for what exactly?
A reaction, a cheap pop for some shock value- humans by nature are macabre creatures in that we abhor violence and yet are drawn to it like moths to a tyre fire. In one breath we refuse to condone acts of depravity, yet we turn on the television or shell out dollars for tickets to shows promising that someone will be hurt.
Somehow the greater the violence, the more attractive it becomes.

Fucking shock value Maki.

Ultraviolence isn’t just some kooky buzzword, it's not flavour of the month cause somehow blood is only barely thicker than a melting gelato. Deathmatches aren’t just some throwaway gimmicks proposed to get a few extra asses across seats- this isn’t a game for edgelords and emo’s desperately needing a haircut cause no one understands the pain of being them.
You wanna talk about pain Maki, about giving and receiving in kind like somehow stubbing your toe backstage is equivalent to digging shards out of your forearm weeks after a match cause you can feel it scraping against a bone, or comparing a paper cut to stitching yourself back together in a shitty hotel room cause the local nurses just think you’re taking the piss now.

You wanna preach destruction when in fact the only thing you’ve likely destroyed recently was a public toilet and the last shreds of dignity after an especially bad Taco Bell

We’re supposed to be better than this, but we aren’t… Maybe Seleana is our saving grace, that she might save this match from the quagmire it's becoming, but you’re just smoke and mirrors when I wanted you to be more. It's my fault though, I set the expectations to a level you could never have hoped to reach in that I admired your work only to realize it's just parlour games, smokescreens and a shaky hand for applying facepaint.

Demon Maki held some promise, regular Maki just wants to do good right?

She’s somehow pure and decent in comparison.

… which does absolutely nothing to stop me wanting to plant my converse sneaker through the back of your skull via the front door.
Ugh, I always forget how cringe this stuff sounds until I say it… Must make me sound like a big ole hypocrite right, deriding everyone else for their bullshit and then spraying venom like I’m marking my territory.
Hell, maybe I would be if I wasn’t just like the postman and always goddamn delivering. Win or lose kiddies, someone’s eating that canvas or the soles of my size 9’s. For you though, unlike the postman, I’ll even bring it on Sundays.

There are those that would compare us like we’re been cut from the same cloth- but you gotta think that's like trying to compare thousand thread count luxury with a square of used one ply. We’ll just try and ignore the brown stains this time, say it gives character.
Credit where recent credit is due- I mean you beat a former champion in your debut. Candy, you know, who happened to lose an inferno match recently, who lost her title recently. So, you beat a broken down, slightly charred version of someone who first walked into SCW thinking it was just a really violent My Little Pony convention.

Only reason she’s stayed this long is cause she’s still really determined to get Rainbow Brite’s hoofprint planted squarely between her eyes.

God, if that's not a deflating start to your tenure then I don’t really know what else to tell you…

Okay sure. You’ve got a demon inside of you… that's great. If you could just go over there and line up behind everyone else who walks into a company telling everyone they are, in fact, a badass… That’d be just lovely.
What you need to start comprehending real quick though, is that I’m a sick amalgamation of all the worst things Mother Nature herself could muster, and pre-packaged in a cage of skin and terrible decision making. You might summon power from the underworld, but I’m a dying star going supernova in slow motion determined to drag everyone down with me simply for being within the proximity.

By all means though, continue to make your empty threats and tell me all the ways I’m about to get scattered across that ring, the peculiar way you plan on using chunks of flesh for a terrible jigsaw and that my eyes might look nice in a jar overlooking the scenic barren hellscape.
It ain’t special, it certainly isn’t original- I mean I hear worse on a typical Tuesday and thats even before I get on social media- the best of your cutting verbal jabs wouldn’t even crack the top 10 on slow day of ‘You Mom’ jokes and poorly sexualised innuendos.

All I ask Maki, is that you give me something I can at least roll my eyes at cause I’ve still gotta prove that I haven't fallen asleep or just straight up dropped dead out of boredom from this grandiose show of imitation badassery and rampaging mediocrity.

Come Climax Control- it's the ever classic story of angels and demons… Hang on, someone call Dan Brown and tell him I’ve got a fantastic novel idea.

One he can massacre just like I’m about to during this stupid fucking triple threat match.





******



Carnage Arena
Baltimore, MD
22.06.2020
11:43pm




Amber hadn’t hurt like this for a long time.

As a veteran of ultraviolence, a delightful oxymoron if there ever was one, she’d endured far greater pain than most people should ever have had to endure- but this was different. This wasn’t shredded flesh oozing blood and muscle tissues twitching under bright lights, this wasn’t pulling shards of broken glass from skin nor retrieving an errant thumbtack from the underside of one's tongue.
Hell, this wasn’t even broken and splintered bones left to repair awkwardly cause the idea of someone else stepping into your place as you healed was a far more wounding prospect.

No, this was an ache that resonated from the inside of her bones. Radiating outwards as though nuclear fusion spontaneously erupted between the calcified layers of her 5’8” frame. It was fearsome, unending spasms that mimicked the thunderous pulse inside her chest- her forearms finding traction on the beige tiled wall in an effort to keep her semi-upright.
It was still being a goddamn fucking world champion. It was breaking a voodoo that had haunted her entire career, the anvil above her head falling around her like confetti instead of the usual crushing impact she’d grown to expect.

Until tonight, Amber Ryan had never successfully defended a world title.

In her nearly 13 years as a contracted professional, Amber Ryan had only ever been a world champion on three occasions. World class, but never enough for a shot at the best and constantly chased by the moniker of ‘one of the best never to be world champion’. So many people had wasted their breaths telling her how good they thought she was, but when the time came to put up or shut up- those same people changed their tunes cause people like her, people with a storied history in ultraviolence, with authority issues, with being a constant liability…

They looked great on a marquee, right next to a world title match. Right below a main event. Left of centre cause she couldn’t be trusted not to kill or be killed despite their insistence to just ‘be herself’.

Through gritted teeth, Amber arched her back further into the rushing water in hopes that the searing heat might somehow slough the skin from her bones, that piece by gruesome piece she might wash away every doubt and every insinuation ever made about her down the drain.
Bruises bloomed in sickly blacks and purples, scars blanched by the dull fluorescence- she’d worn every terrible decision she’d ever made like a macabre suit of armour, proud and flawed in equal measures.
Thick tresses of crimson hung lank around her face, the water dripping through as her hand fumbled for the tap- there was only one she’d needed to turn, after all many said there was plenty enough cold inside her that her shower wouldn’t require any assistance.

For a moment she watched the last splashes of water disappear around her feet, swirled with what remained of her self doubts and career uncertainties. In the locker room, she could hear the text notification go off- obnoxious and tinny as though it might somehow motivate her not to simply ignore it for fear of repetition.
It never worked though, and she’d never gotten around to changing it.
Grabbing her towel from the rail, she gingerly wrapped it around herself, the bruises protesting angrily as the material grated against her blossoming skin- no doubt the notification would be about an upcoming Sin City match, another opportunity many would have called it…
Opportunities though implied that they had direction- and right now… the redhead with a world of hype and reckless nature seemed to be adrift, grasping for something tangible that might prove she was worth what everyone said she was.

A win, a no contest and a loss.

Catching sight of herself in a fogged mirror, even her reflection seemed to disapprove. It wasn’t as though she expected to simply walk in and blitz the place, no that would be far more ignorant than even she’d stoop to- however she’d allowed herself to get sidetracked, driven to distraction more than she’d openly care to admit.
She had to admit, her life was becoming more and more like a circus- and she’d never learned quite how to juggle.

It was supposed to be a proving ground, a second chance at a first impression.

Jessie Salco had been a message. Myra Rivers had been a miscalculation. Mercedes Vargas a misdirection from someone else's abuse of power and determination to squeeze every drop of goodness from the ‘deranged mercenary’ type.
Running her hand through her still saturated tresses, water trickling down her arm and back, she tried to make out the woman who stared back at her- and how that woman couldn’t possibly be her. Reflections were cruel, highlighting and exposing everything about oneself that could be rightfully despised- self reflection was even fucking worse cause that mirror couldn’t be broken, nor did it have the capacity to be manipulated.

How many more missteps could she afford?

How many more times could she fail to live up to an expectation and still have people look at her in the same way?

Curling her toes reflexively against the cool tiles, Amber leaned closer to the mirror using the side of her fist to wipe away some of the fog but succeeded in smearing and smudging, leaving a trail of condensation and residue across the surface.
There was a cut on her lip, bottom to the right… Off symmetry... which bothered the redhead more than she preferred to admit, it seemed to have stopped bleeding though leaving little more than a raw graze between cracked and peeling lips.

No, her focus had been elsewhere.

Carnage, sure. Being a world champion had it's perks but also it's responsibilities and it was no secret that she’d had falters in her objectionable confidence in the lead up to her defense, that the missteps in Sin City had rattled her cage with the tremors reaching far deeper than she let on.
She was an animal with a natural disaster confined between her ribs that she was woefully ill-equipped to control, a desperate and arguably despicable human being whose moral compass was permanently stuck in the south cause it seemed to be the fastest way to hell.

There was something far more…

She couldn’t aptly describe it, even if she tried.

Roxi motherfucking Johnson.

Parallels. Constant and yet somehow always just a hair's breadth from collision. Years had been spent comparing and contrasting them, Amber had been more than once referred to as Roxi’s evil twin despite having been active in the industry for longer. Despite having an identity outside of being a tired daytime soap cliche.
Despite being the only one willing to truly embrace what they were capable of.
Roxi thought this all an illusion, but truth be told things likely had never been so real- that the threat Amber supposedly posed was far greater than the surface deep pipe dreams she’d so readily bought into.

Amber was presenting an opportunity, time and time again as though she herself hadn’t been acquainted with the true definition of insanity. Wasn’t that what the company was about, after all? Good fortune to those who earn it, a fighting chance to validate existences otherwise meaningless and trite.
Roxi was great, Amber had no doubt about that… but she was blind. Blind and determined that her point of view was the only authentic one, she took everything at face value despite the fact each layer of their interactions had been crafted as a journey of self-discovery.

Amber’s lip curled slightly- the blind could be led, but the willfully ignorant would never learn.

Bored of a reflection that didn’t feel like it belonged, an imitation of life that only served to mock and betray- Amber tore herself away, leaving waterlogged footprints in her immediate wake. Vapor dissipated around her as the thickness of the artificial humidity abated enough that she might steal a breath that didn’t feel like 70% water.
With the towel still tightly wound, Amber moved into the larger locker room space before fastidiously dropping down onto the wooden bench- her thick tresses pulled over one shoulder and dripping onto her open duffel bag.

Beside her, the cracked screen of her phone illuminated with missed calls, messages and notifications. Mostly congratulations from acquaintances trying to be friendly, the wave of social media crumbling the moment it reached its apex.
In 12 hours few of them would remember, and less would give a fuck even if they did.
Others were those closer, their messages more than polite small talk and generic good wishes crudely disguised into looking remotely original.
Mac had tried to call her multiple times, although those were more deliberately missed knowing how strongly he’d disagreed with her accepting the match to begin with- his concerns and affections borderline suffocating and yet strangely comforting.

Sure enough though, a notification stood out among the myriad.

Sin City Wrestling Climax Control 273.

She didn’t understand why her stomach seemed to fall through the floor, or why her heart nestled so deeply into the back of her throat she might have seen the pulsating edge if she looked hard enough just beyond her tonsils.
Amber wanted a cigarette, she wanted 5 shots of god awful tequila, 14 hours of an uninterrupted sleep so deep the rest of the world might think she was dead and coffee so strong it might make her heart explode inside her chest.

All she got though, was another second chance.





******


“Congratulations, right?

That's how these things are supposed to go, you’ll have to forgive me cause most of my social interactions usually end up with me insulting someone and then getting into a fight. Although if I’m honest, I don’t really see this ending any differently.

Congratulations to the new Bombshells Roulette champion- who absolutely did the bare minimum to qualify and then finally succeeded when she had absolutely no right to.
Whoops straight to the low hanging fruit we go…

You know what, let's mix this up a little. Lets save the real obvious argument for those who need it cause there are far deeper issues to poke and prod at, and if I get to upset the proverbial apple cart you know I’m all about it.
Been a pretty terrible 2020 right, Seleana? I mean aside from being married to Crystal Insert-Last-Name-Here-Depending-On-Whether-Mercury-Is-In-Retrograde-Or-Not… In which case, you have my total sympathies.

Seriously though, must have felt pretty damn good to break the voodoo right? A win on the board, a shiny new belt on your shoulder- really good times and veryones got your name on their tongues. All of a sudden, you’re relevant again… You’ve got a face, a name and something to work for. Everyones as happy as they can be for you give the kinda bleh circumstances and then…and then your wife sweeps in, steals the spotlight cause heaven forbid she isn’t the centre of attention for two minutes...

And you do absolutely nothing.

See that, that right there is what pisses me off most about all of this.

Between you and me, I actually couldn’t give a shit what title match she gifts you cause if you’re good enough to win it and you’re good enough to keep it then the circumstances become irrelevant. What bothers me is that you LET her, you stood aside with a belt on your shoulder and a stupid grin on your face as she took everything you had accomplished and shoved it aside to make room for her ego.
Winning the Roulette title is a goddamn safety net for your career Seleana, cause lets face it sweetheart- you were beyond the point of a freefall and we’d all lost hope that you’d do anything except become another bloody smear on a canvas.

You’re playing second fiddle to a woman with a personality disorder beyond the point of classification, a running joke that does nothing but drag your name down with it. She needs validation like everyone else needs oxygen and it sickens me to the depths of my stomach that you enable this shit so readily.
If you think that cause you’re suddenly a champion that people will take you seriously then you’re dumber than even I gave you credit for, that it earns you this modicum of respect that you just yeeted straight out the window.

My problem with you Seleana… You have no fire. No backbone. The only thing keeping you upright is your wife's hand between your perky little cheeks wiggling your tongue with words straight from her mouth.
Gone is the woman who won the Bombshells World title, gone is the woman who earned her place in the upper echelon irregardless of how shallow the talent pool might have been at the time- now all we’ve got is this pretty little blonde husks who says what she's told to say, acts the way shes told to act and smiles like a puppet when the adults are talking.

What you are is an aberration in the data, a vacuum of personality in place of something or someone far more meaningful. You’ve been filter fed this liquid diet of false confidence and now you’re stepping up against two women far more willing and capable of putting your pretty little face through the floor than you would ever dare to admit.
However aberrations don’t last and nature, well nature despises a vacuum.

Make no mistakes, I’m a firm believer in opportunity… mostly for the fact that I should never have gotten one. Everyones done their research, they know my background and all the reasons that by every moral and ethical right I have no fucking business being where I am today.
I didn’t learn in a school, I didn’t graduate classes perfecting wrist lock takedowns I would never use or learning all the ways to go tell someone to go and poltely fuck themselves without actually saying as much.
People like me, we thrive off opportunities and we scratch and claw to hold onto them cause the next one might never come… and then we come across people like you, with all this potential to be talented and charismatic taking the world by storm- and instead, you’re a wallflower. A conduit for someone else's message.

You have every gift this god awful industry can provide and you do nothing with them.

I have lived and died for wrestling, I’m a walking DOA trying to make sense of why I’m still here and you take this gift- and you let someone else walk all over it like it meant nothing. You had that Roulette championship for 10 seconds before you managed to devalue it beyond repair.
Don’t get me wrong, that title isn’t in my crosshairs however that doesn’t make me any less miffed about your casualness of holding it.
Forgive my bluntness, or don’t cause in reality it's not gonna change anything I’m about to say… But either fucking care or don’t.
Show me some fire beyond the burning sensation in your crotch from that carefully cultivated yeast infection your wife couldn’t possibly have given you- they have creams for that by the way. Over the counter. Very discreet.

You leave me so underwhelmed Seleana, that it makes me wanna throw myself into orbit and scream into the void. I mean, it's not like anything will hear me any better out there than they do here.
It’s just that I’m just so fucking sick of listening to everyone try and tell me that their name is worth something, that they have to give themselves a poorly rated TED talk before stepping out in front of me like it’ll change the fact they’re about to be hit by a bus.
Blonde. Beautiful. Utterly void of anything not garnered by osmosis from your wife- everything you have to say is generic bullshit spewing out of a mouth with far too many perfect teeth and your attempts at conviction and sincerity are being betrayed by the dribble of bodily fluids running down the inside of your leg.

Don’t be embarrassed though, you aren’t the first and you certainly won’t be the last… which oddly enough feels like the story of your career. A constant middling, average and uninspiring to the point that even being wildly predictable gives you some kind of personality edge.

Maki. Seleana.

What you are and what you aren’t doesn’t really matter, does it? Be it demon or dishwater alike- I’m making it known that I did my part, I played nice with shaking babies and kissing hands. I have given respect where it's due yet my patience has worn a little thin cause I’m on an uneven spectrum where my every move seems to be ugly and reprehensible simply because it doesn’t fit the preferred narrative.

I hope your happy Roxi, truly, cause what happens at Climax Control falls squarely on you. On your choices, on your perspective and on your ignorance.

See I’m beyond the point of visible light now, ultraviolent ultraviolence with a kick in the ass and one in the head for good measure. Fuck, come Climax Control kiddies, you’ll wanna be calling me ‘infrared’ cause frankly- neither of you will have any fucking idea what’s hit you.”




******



Amber’s Apartment
Atlantic City, NJ
02.07.2020
8:51am



Even two weeks afterwards, Amber's apartment still somehow smelled like goddamn roses.

It had been a really sweet gesture, albeit absurd and mildly infuriating as Mac had her apartment literally filled with roses for her 32nd birthday. She had smiled broadly to his face, while internally questioning the logistics of such a venture and how it might have been conceived as a ‘good idea’ to begin with. God, he looked so satisfied with himself that it almost pained her to have to almost force gratitude and praise- she wanted to be delighted but could only muse about the impracticality.

No one had ever done something like this for her before… Maybe this was why, she contemplated silently as she shifted the thick strap of her duffel bag so that it might not cut so deeply into her shoulder before allowing it to fall away onto the floor with a weighty thud. No doubt the downstairs neighbour would complain, but they also had a terrible taste in 4am music so the occasional petty shot would always be taken.
Trying to breathe deeply, Amber spluttered briefly as the saccharine odor clung thickly to the sides of her throat.

Baltimore to Atlantic City. Atlantic City to Las Vegas. Rinse and repeat as required for thorough exhaustion.

Amber had brought this all upon herself, trying to use wrestling to clear her head from the other pressing issue that snuck up on her consciousness. If she could just stay busy…

Red.

It was easily missed at first glance, small enough to be lost but large enough that the crimson hue stood out against the formica countertop. An envelope sealed and without signature- as if Amber needed one to recognize her dead man's errand deciding it didn’t want to simply be ignored.
Wracking her brain, Amber tried to recall the last time she’d seen one while idling twirling it between her fingers, procrastination and hesitation leaving her already frayed nerves angry and raw.

Boardwalk perhaps, she’d played mind games with people leaving notes and paint traps for those unsuspecting enough to fall from her good graces. Before that, she couldn’t even begin to fathom. Cassidy and Amber used to trade notes in these envelopes they’d fold, mostly idle nothings and trite teenage ciphers that always felt far more significant than they actually were.

First kisses and teenage flings. Crude codes and grievances about a world that just didn’t understand them. Dreams and fears scrawled and squirrelled away into obscurity.
God it used to feel so important- as they got older though the notes grew less and the girls grew steadily apart, their aspirations no longer cohesive nor their futures in the same direction.
When Amber finally left, mere weeks before her 20th birthday, Cassidy left her an envelope.

Maybe they knew it’d be their last.

Maybe that's why she left it empty.

Amber breathed deeply, Cassidy’s envelopes had always smelled faintly of cinnamon like she’d somehow dusted her hands with spice before determinedly folding each edge to a sharpened point. A sharp ache twanged in her chest like someone had used her heart as a guitar string plucking an unknown melody through her sternum.
Perhaps she should have been far more concerned with how the letter got into her apartment, how it hadn’t been there when she left and how nothing else had been touched- that time would eventually come, for now though Amber could only bring herself to inhale reflexively as her fingers shakily pried the envelope apart.

Small, white and folded neatly in half- Amber hesitated as the envelope fell away from the note inside. She couldn’t tell if it was her thunderous pulse in her ears or raging nervous system telling her how wrong everything about this was- that had her more on edge. Barely able to even manipulate her fingers, it was as though her fine motor skills were being remote controlled from three stories down- the envelope falling onto the countertop before Amber managed to unfold the white paper, generic and cheap as though taken from a hotel notepad and torn in two.

Something inside her sank through the floor while the bile rose in her throat. A single sentence, words recalled so vividly it was a wonder that they still existed in either of their psyches- Amber barely had time to make it to the bathroom before she doubled over and dry wretched into the sink, heartache and melancholy wrenching her battered frame.
Fluttering to the linoleum floor, the note landed partially opened- handwritten in a pen scrawl as though in a hurry to get a solitary thought onto paper before the moment was lost.


“‘We don’t run for the sake of running. We don’t run to or from anyone- sometimes we just don’t want to be found.’
You taught me that, remember?”

 “But remember, there are two ways to dehumanize someone: by dismissing them, and by idolizing them.”
― David Wong




Las Vegas Airport
Las Vegas, ND
26.05.2020
7:18am




Invisible in plain sight.

Amber remembered, with a faint cringe, the first time someone had referred to her in that way as if she had materialized in front of them instead of simply making her presence known. Perhaps that was the issue- differentiating those things instead of rolling them into a cliche and using that to explain everything not immediately understood.
Invisibility in its most well known form wasn’t real. It wasn’t viable- not outside the pages of a comic book or the technology of a movie studio, not outside an overactive imagination envisioning the world in simpler shades of grey.

Invisibility was for superheroes, and they weren’t real either.

Sure, when provided with the right stimulus an average person could be capable of extraordinary things. There were those born with abilities and endurances that seemed superhuman- deigned freaks and frauds alike, marvelled and disparaged simply based on their societal appropriateness.
A woman capable of setting her skin alight without suffering burns should have been awed and celebrated as someone in a cape who could jump higher and punch harder than they should- but the former is called a freak and the latter a superhero.

Yet people wondered why Amber was so goddamn cynical.

Normally she wouldn’t have chosen to sit out in the open, she felt like a sitting duck in these open spaces despite the fact she knew the paranoia was all in her head- that's why it was so potent, concentrated so deeply into an area that it starts to rot in saturation. No, Amber was firmy a creature of habit- she had to see the full breadth of the room, the exits and entries gauged and those who inhabited duly noted as though they were simply sentient furniture instead of people with thoughts and feelings about being compared to sentient furniture.
It was almost empty though- a bored female barista clearly questioning her life choices, not quite pretty enough to work the casinos but a little too much so for the streets, from a distance she seemed educated and hopeful but the spark was dulling further with every unicorn frappuccino. A navy suited and starched businessman enraptured either by the stock level changes or the funny pages, Amber liked to consider it as the latter if only to make him seem a little less generic.

And then there was Mac Bane…

Current Baltimore City Champion for Carnage Wrestling and all round pretty fucking decent guy- he’d made the trip for Climax Control with Amber, one of the few times recently it felt like they’d spent any real time together outside of Baltimore.
Were they dating? Amber wrinkled her nose at the thought of having to label it, they were consenting adults who really appreciated each other's company… in spite of the fact they had kicked the ever loving shit out of each other on more than one occasion in the ring.
He was her only singles loss since October, she had gotten her win back in March- but now she seemed to be slowly but surely losing the battle against his charm as well.

For the moment though there were more pressing matters at hand- like the fact he’d been entertaining fans for almost 20 minutes now… and he had her coffee.

At 6 foot 6 and 285lbs- he should have been quite the intimidating figure and yet he radiated a certain warmth and genuineness that Amber could never quite get her head around. He drew people in, made them feel like they were the only person that mattered and sent them back on their way with an easy smile that still sent tingles down her spine.
Didn’t change the fact, Amber silently mused, that her coffee was getting colder in his bear like hand with any second.

They were Carnage fans, animated and passionate. She wondered if they had spotted the redheaded world champion watching on with a wry smile in spite of her lack of caffeine- and whether they pretended not to. She had a reputation that seemed to permeate the space around her like a bubble, standoffish and acerbic she’d been called although she still wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or not. Fiery and freezing like the second cousin to a warm puddle.

It was easier to simply not be seen and let the easy going Mac deal with the ‘civic’ duties.

She barely noticed the ‘One Man Wrecking Crew’ drop into the chair beside her until he gently placed a cup of coffee down in front of her before proceeding to half drain one of his own. Even his presence seemed to put her at ease…

Two viable exits, although one might require a little redecoration to get there.

“How the hell do you do it?”

Mac’s grin seemed to reflect her own, albeit with far more sincerity as he watched the fans excitedly chatting between themselves before piling off in the opposite direction.

“Do what exactly… Be this astoundingly good looking? It's genetic, but I’m sure you’ll get there one day.”

Sarcasm was an easy defense mechanism, automatic and armour piercing. Mac scoffed slightly, not inclined to disagree but clearly seeing through the thinly veiled attempt at distraction.

“Right, sure. I’ll work on that. In the meantime I was actually referring to you just, you know, blend in everywhere.”

Amber took a pause, picking apart each syllable in hopes there was something she might grasp onto whilst taking a deep sip of coffee and allowing the caffeine to touch her soul. Black and bitter, cause she didn’t need sweetening. The joke itself had gotten old long ago but it never stopped her making it, and besides it sounded far more cute and entertaining than being lactose intolerant.

“Well not being over 6’3 and 250lbs certainly helps my cause.”

Another pause, this time more so for effect- and what little good it might do.

“I spent a long time in my career trying to get noticed- walking around like the world owed me something. Whether it did or not doesn’t matter- the more I tried to get seen, the less it worked. It's only when I stopped focusing on that people started noticing not what I was- but what I could do.”

Resting her feet on the duffel bag at her feet, she could feel the material sink beneath them until it hit something solid. Metallic. Valuable, at least to those who believed it was.

“Don’t get many first impressions these days- I’d rather mine be based on what I can do, rather than how people presume I am cause I act like I’m a some kind of badass…”

Mac rested a hand on her thigh, his knowing smile softening. God he was so… punchable when he was trying to be adorable.

“Good thing you ain’t a badass then...”

Amber allowed herself a small chuckle, she hated how he put her at ease. She wanted to feed off the vitriol and self-loathing just like she’d always done, throw up the walls and tell the world it could go fuck itself when it tried to force its way through the facade.

“Well shit, glad I can count on you to build my ego.”

“Yes ma’am”

Mac gave her a polite nod, the same kind he’d likely give to an old woman after helping her cross a busy street- complete with shit eating grin. If he were wearing a hat, he’d have likely tipped it before she tore it from his head and threw it across the room out of spite.

There was no way in hell she deserved this man.

Maybe there was something inside him determined to stitch together unseen wounds, to prove to the world that deep inside her chest wasn’t just a black hole threatening to consume everything that loved her… She wanted to tell him to fuck off in the same breath as stealing the air from his lungs with a kiss, to cut him loose before he too got crushed under the immense pressure of her jaded life perspective.

Maybe he saw something in her that she’d lost sight of in herself long before.

Maybe he just really liked dumpster fires.

“You think too much.”

He was blunt in a spectacularly Texan way, and she appreciated that. He wasn’t wrong though, Amber had plenty of times lost hours upon hours dissecting a sentence spoken off-handedly or piecing together the perfect comeback for an insult too clever to be thought up by those she wanted to use it against.  Instead of a witty retort, Amber sipped away at her coffee, trying to pretend as though she wasn’t slightly offended by how accurate his statement was.

“Never seen a woman care so much and so little for what people think of her at the same time.”

“It's not so much I don't care, I just find it oddly amusing.”

Maybe she cared a little more than she let on. Granted, she’d never really craved the spotlight, that was a mere side effect of being particularly ambitious. She’d never sought out being famous or admired and found the idea of being someone's role model rather heinous- respect though. That was something worth earning, worth craving.
Damn, now she really wanted a cigarette.

Seemed like she was always craving something harmful to her health these days.

“Logic is beyond comprehension when people think with their emotions. Hate is far easier to grasp than recognition, and more immediately satisfying cause it fulfils something visceral. People just wanna be justified in the way they feel- even if it entirely defies reason…”

Swirling the remains of her coffee in the takeaway cup, the sloshing sound seemed diminished in comparison to the silence that had fallen between them.

“Let me put it like this- imagine if you went up to that guy over there…”

Amber pointed out the businessman with the newspaper, she could tell even several tables over that he had his attention despite the fact his eyes never left the paper. He wasn’t reading now, just trying to appear preoccupied as he readjusted his glasses while occasionally shooting cautionary glances towards the mismatched pair.
Distractedly though, his eyes always returned to the paper… Must have been a real good day for the funny pages.

“... a total stranger, and you told him I was gonna walk up to his table like an asshole and spit in his coffee. Regardless whether I do it or not, the guy already has an opinion about me based solely around something that I haven’t even done.”

A muffled laugh echoed from where the barista was idling, occasionally cleaning already sanitary surfaces in hopes the hours might pass a little quicker if her hands stayed busy, her outburst stifled further with the realization of the distance the sound had managed to carry. Clearly distressed by the idea of a hypothetical loogie floating in his latte art, the business man made a small show of neatly folding down his newspaper as though it might turn attention away from his perturbed expression and the sudden paleness of his skin.
Nervously, and with more noise than was seemingly required he shifted across three tables as though the change in distance was a contributing factor to the likelihood of requiring a hepatitis shot.

During all of this, Mac had failed dismally in hiding his delight at Amber’s odd analogy- her observations and perspective were certainly an acquired taste that many failed to receive as more than offensive and impertinent. Amber failed to react outside of a polite indifference to the unrest she’d created, instead choosing to down the remainder of her barely lukewarm coffee.

Twitching her lip, the dregs lingered on the back of her tongue for far too long…

Bitter and tepid, just the same way many would have described her.

“You know, you say these things like it makes you a bad person for noticing.”

Mac squeezed her thigh gently in reassurance.

“Are you saying it doesn’t?”

It wasn’t really meant as a question, however she framed it as such anyway. First impressions were another pigeonholing tactic- an excuse to write someone off simply for being a circle peg in a world where square holes were preferred.

“I’m saying you’re a good person- whether you realize it or not.”

Amber scoffed internally, immediately hoping that somehow the sound might not pass her lips as she curled them into a half-smile trying to pass as something more sincere. Maybe he really belieevd that- fuck, that had to mean something surely.
Being a good person was relative to the situation though, trying to define it was like herding cats… Admirable and somehow justified yet entirely useless and impossible. How many people in this industry alone validated the awful things they’d done in their lives by a sliding greyscale of ethics, the answer was far too many and Amber had never denied her status as one of them.
At least she was honest about it being a continuing trend.

Integrity didn’t make her a world champion. Ethics played no part in recognition. Decency and justice certainly didn’t bring her back from death's sweet embrace. Morality was all fine and wonderful, however it meant absolutely nothing when there was no one watching.

Ultraviolence hadn’t made her a shitty person. Nature had. Nurture had. Society had.

“... A common misconception, darl.”





******


“Paragon.

Defined as ‘a person or thing regarded as a perfect example of a particular quality’ and, or if you would prefer, ‘a person or thing viewed as a model of excellence’.

Did you know that or do you spew it just to sound provocative and get a reaction from those who do.

See I thought I’d bring that up seeing as you are so fucking hung up on it, so determined to blame and demean something that you swore you put behind you- hang on, why does this feel like deja vu…
Seriously though, I was content to allow sleeping dogs to lie, but you wanna come around and kick up a bunch of dust- well, consider this a lesson.
Paragon, for those not so much in the know, is a stable in Carnage that I happen to be a large part of, fun fact is that I actually was one of the founders and now… Now I lead it.

You’d think by Myra’s words that Paragon is literally Satan. Made her life a living hell, drove her off of her little self made pedestal, made her feel like the smallest person on Earth and it's all somehow my fault.
Paragon started as a group wanting to make the industry better, we formed in Carnage cause the company was overrun with self-serving pieces of shit determined to make a name whether it killed the company or not. We formed to make a difference and a difference we have- some might think to call us selfish and at times, we were. We had to be, like anyone wanting to be on top, like anyone wanting to see change.

I won’t sit here though and pretend like we didn’t do terrible things, that we were somehow saints cause doing good sometimes means you have to do evil and get your hands a little dirty.
You think this would feed into your arguments, that I was just as awful as you make me out to be cause of my affiliation- however you are missing one very crucial detail which makes your arguments towards me borderline null and void.

For a vast majority of your time in Carnage, for almost all of the time you felt ‘victimised’- yes I used air quotes- for all the time that you would tell the world that Paragon was the bane of your exalted existence.

I wasn’t there.

I was injured, Myra. Spinal contusion put me on the shelf for months- personal issues kept me there for over a year and a half. I’ll admit it, I’m not proud of how I let my personal demons consume me, chew me up and spit me out over and over again like a piece of bubblegum in a homeless camp.
I wasn’t there for most of your Carnage run even though I wanted to be, if I thought for a second I could scrape my broken body off the floor I would have gotten into that ring in a heartbeat. If I thought I could stay sober long enough to get between the ropes and throw a punch worth something, I’d have done so in the blink of an eye. If I thought I could put myself in a position to go out there and tell you all the ways you could go fuck yourself- the same way I’m telling you now- I’d have done so without hesitation.

I couldn’t though… and I didn’t.

I told myself all that time I didn’t need it anymore the same way you’re telling yourself now, I pushed all my desires and dreams down inside of me in hopes I might just forget who I was. I was in a shitty place Myra, and I don’t expect you to care but you need to understand.
It took me far too long to get myself right, crawl out from under the rock I’d made myself content with and face a bright light of reality that told me I couldn’t do it anymore.
I shouldn’t have come back Myra, I should never have returned last October…

I shouldn’t have come back and returned to my rightful place at the top.

By that point you’d already made up your mind, packed all your toys and had one foot halfway out the fucking door.

Not that any of it matters to you- after all it doesn’t make your precious narrative read quite as nicely when you aren’t the plucky little protagonist standing up to the mighty assholes, but instead an entitled never-was pissed off that she wasn’t quite good enough to back up her mouth.

So don’t you dare sit there all high and fucking mighty and tell me who you think I am just because of the people I care about- what happened between you and them, that's not a reflection on me sweetheart… that's a reflection on you and your inability to move on.
I’m not defined by those around me, I’m defined by everything I’ve done to get where I am and by the people I’ve beaten to get here.

Lets face it- you don’t give a shit about my reputation. You’d just as readily pick it apart as you would dismiss it entirely. That's the issue though, isn’t it… That's the hypocrisy.
In one moment you manage to contradict yourself by saying that reputation doesn’t matter before proceeding to try and over-inflate your own. You wanna make yourself sound important but heaven forbid anyone else looking like they belong, right?
No, you don’t get to pick and choose… That's not how this little dance of ours works.

Either disregard me entirely or fucking commit to your own ignorance.

Just don’t half ass it Myra, cause that's far more insulting than anything you could ever say to me.

See, when it comes don to it you’re a tedious bore who thinks they are an edgy rebel, an empty charlatan who thinks they are an underappreciated artist. I mean you walk around and talk like you were the only person in this industry who has ever had something bad happen to them, that you are the only person told all their lives that they weren’t good enough…
That's what blows my shitty little mind the most.
You actually believe this drivel.
You believe every stupid fucking word that falls out of your head and you take your own opinion as gospel- ooooohhhhh you went through some hardship and people didn;t believe in you.

Are you kidding me.

I haven’t lived, breathed, bled and died for this industry to be told by some jumped up, washed out, try-hard clinging onto the edge of the pro-wrestling cliff by her fingertips cause it's the only profession that wouldn’t laugh her straight out the door.
Personally I’ll be happy to stomp on your fingers and watch you tumble back to Earth, hell I’ll even record the screams for mercy and use them as my goddamn ringtone…

Oh shit, there I go being predictable… Insert insult here. Insert threat there.
Am I doing it right- please do give me pointers cause I’m clearly not used to being this fucking obnoxious and overbearing…
I mean you got one thing right at least- throw enough shit at a wall and something has to stick- I am a cliche. Walking, talking, breathing, bullshitting and built from the ground up like I was specially designed for this. I’m every single awful thing this industry has to offer rolled up tight and wrapped up with a pretty red bow.

I don’t go out there telling everyone I’m gonna hurt people cause I need to feel validated or I’m pretending to be some edgelord- it's what brought me to the proverbial dance, it's why I’m top class and you’re struggling to pass as second rate.
It's fact, it's inevitable and it works- I’m not gonna pretend to wax poetic and talk about how I’m wiping people off the face of the Earth and leaving only the best genetic material splattered across my converses, nor will I proclaim loudly from whichever mountain I’ve made from a molehill and talk about destroying people like i’m a shitty supervillain about to get owned.

It's convoluted and a waste of time… Just like you.

This was supposed to be civil. It was supposed to be two women, staring into the void of their career twilight questioning who will be the first to take a step over the edge. Women with reputations built on hard work and harder hitting matches- and then you made the mistake of opening your mouth and flushing all that credibility straight down the gurgler. You too whatever goodwill you had earned and blew it straight out the back of your own head cause you couldn’t help but allow your arrogance to spill out of that bleached asshole in the middle of your face.

Now, I couldn’t give a fuck what you have to say to try and backtrack. Sweet girl you made a mistake and now you can’t step from the firing line… Cause you see I might just be another bitch, at least in your mind, but to everyone else… you know, those with opinions that haven't been fucked to hell- I’m a weapon breaking pretty little things like they owe me. I’m nothing special and yet entirely undeniable. I’m goddamn awful and been told that my whole life, better off dead more times than I care to count.
I’m far uglier on the inside and I own every fibre of that… I am literally everything you wish the world saw you as, but you’re none of those things and that's why you’ll never measure up.

‘You’re only as relevant as I make you’.

Please, that kinda hubris will get you turned into antimatter.

Besides, I’d rather be nothing than made of anything by you. You giving me ‘relevance’ is like asking a scholarship athlete if they want a terminal illness and being offended when they say no…

For someone so late into their career you really have no clue about, well, very much at all. Contradictory, arrogant, woefully self-centred it's a wonder you can fit through the door by the size of your head- that isn’t ego though, that's years of inbreeding coming to the surface. You demand respect but refuse to give it citing that what people say doesn’t matter and therefore they are just fodder for your burgeoning career.
Well, supposed to be burgeoning but you messed that up too before I even got in the door… blame it on me though, it's far easier that way and I know you’re a fan of the path of least resistance.

Maybe you don’t think I have what it takes to set the world alight anymore, that I’m no longer good enough to hang with the best… and maybe you. That I’m little more than the next bombshell on the conveyor belt, still shiny and new fresh from the proverbial hype machine.
How about you just be real honest with yourself here- hell you don’t even have to be public with it, take a moment and allow yourself this touch of clarity amid the fog of toxic delirium that you wallow so deeply within.
I might not be the best, I might not set the world alight the way I used to- but I’m more than enough to leave you in a pile of cinder. If i achieve nothing more than that- and of course beating you, because obviously- at Into The Void then color me contented…

See contrary to popular belief- I don’t need gold, I don’t need the bombshells world title… well at least not yet, I have my own world title with it's own prestige to satiate that appetite for now and I’ve only got so many shoulders for belts to rest upon. I don’t even need to get my hands on Roxi cause she's smart enough to understand that there is more to our gambol than simple violence- not smart enough to figure out how to end it without bloodshed but I’m sure she’ll get there… Or not. I’m okay with it either way.

I’m a woman of simple desires, Myra… I don’t need a lot of things to make me happy.

The Carnage World title, a well made cup of coffee in the cold morning light… and the respect and human decency of my peers not to try and fuck with me.

Milli Vanilli didn’t get it, I mean Jessie Salco… my bad, force of habit. She wanted to square up and play tough, act like she had big balls and a stick shoved somewhere rather unpleasant. What happened to her, well, I’m sure you saw it and probably ignored it cause that's just what you do...
You aren’t Jessie Salco though, are you, and don’t get me wrong I’m not dumb enough to try make that comparison cause you see jessie’s loss to me meant something… It wasn’t just words through a screen and posturing trying to be the next big bad wolf on the scene and jockeying for position on the food chain.

With Jessie, I can respect her in defeat. She knew she was just a statement of intent, a message to be carried from the ring through the locker room and into the psyches of those smart enough to realize that the bar just got raised.

With you? Nah, fuck all that noise.

This is just for my own amusement now.”

 “You have to decide who you are, little girl, she told me once. Once you know that, everyone else will too.”
― Megan Abbott, Queenpin



Amber's Apartment
Atlantic City, NJ
20.05.2020
6:24am



Rain seemed to fall differently in Atlantic City.

Amber had spent the last half an hour or so watching the darkening clouds roll in, trying to be threatening and ominous like a thinly veiled threat from a stranger on the interwebs. It was always the way though, the promise of a cleansing rain that might wash the after taste of poor mans Las vegas from the tip of the societal tongue- only to be left with downpours that felt more like the last dregs of water being squeezed from a dirty sponge, disappearing before they ever really made a noticeable difference and leaving a thin film of disappointment and residue on everything it touched.

Leaning back into the plastic chair, she felt it groan and protest beneath her but paid little heed- instead forcing it to balance on it's back legs while contemplating the survival odds of taking a nosedive off a fifth floor balcony if only because it was something to do.
In reality she had no intention of it, the easy half smile painted across her features allowing something darker beneath her skin to peep out from between the cracks in her facade of control.

She had a reputation. Or so she had been told...

Apparently she was vicious, destructive and dangerous. Apparently she could kill a man on the street and sleep just as soundly as if she had kissed them- of course that wasn’t true… Amber wasn’t at all fond of kissing strangers.
She’d always been told she was a lot of things- most of which consisted of four letters and negative connotations, they were crude and obscene because it took far less effort to spew vitriol than admit equality.
It wasn’t as though she ever made an attempt to hide or alter the perception of the horrific things she’d done to get to where she was, nor the heinous acts she’d committed to stay there.

Besides, even if she tried, the woman staring back at her in the mirror would surely never let her forget.

Years of reckless abandon and ultraviolence had taken their toll, and Amber wore those scars like armour against a world who just wanted her to be more… palatable. She wasn’t the prettiest flower in the proverbial garden, not the type to fish for likes with scantily clad photos on social media nor reeking of desperation to have her existence validated by men looking for a pair of nice tits to rub one out to. With thick tresses of crimson pulled away from her face into a messy ponytail and steely blue green eyes that never quite fell into one colour or the other- she couldn’t quite captivate a room with a single glance but could surely stop anyone dead in their tracks with a dead eyed gaze.
Her nose was faintly crooked if looked at from the right angle following too many breaks set in crappy hotel rooms and her cheekbones sat a little too high for conventional beauty standards but highlighted her mischievous trademark smirk that had set chaos into motion a thousand times over.

She favoured cargo pants and odd converses over leather and lace because comfort trumped wolf whistles and pockets held an unlimited amount of little carny secrets. Scars traced across exposed skin- some faded and dainty like thin gossamer webs, only seen in just the right light while others had healed angry and deep, the edges still slightly puckered around unnaturally smooth gouges.
Most of them she could hide with ease, beneath t-shirts and oversized hoodies few would ever see the true extent of damage- the way scar tissue far outweighed virgin skin, the knots and deformations in muscle when she moved certain ways and the days when she struggled to look in the mirror and accept the decisions written across her skin.

Amber could smell the rain now- that thick, heady aroma of rising humidity mixed with the saltiness of the ocean breeze and the cheap yet obnoxious waft of desperation for relevance. She wanted a tsunami to just flatten the place so that there might be the chance for a clean slate, however the tainted core would always be rebuilt over the cities rotting corpse while being milked for sympathy and those precious GoFundMe dollars…

All she wanted was a new beginning but would have to settle for dirty rain.

Rubbing her forearm reflexively, she was reminded that she was down to her last nicotine patch. In actuality she had managed to quit smoking months earlier however she’d found the patches helped to take the edge off her usually abrasive personality which seemed like a win-win situation for everyone. Being agitated and mildly paranoid were the norm for the redhead, perhaps a side effect of basically having been a piece of shit human being for so many years- however between the lockdown and infrequent bookings in Carnage, she’d found herself slowly becoming a seething and virulent caricature of herself.

Despite being the Carnage World champion- she still had this itch…

Not the kind you pay way too much for in a Thai massage parlour, but something more metaphysical. It was the kind of itch that seemed to sink deeper the more you tried to scratch it, the kind that begged to be torn at feverishly in search of momentary relief, the kind that forced you to dig with broken fingernails until you found bone then it sunk a little deeper still. Persistent and neurotic. Everpresent.
Everyone had always told her it was just in her head, to just pretend it didn’t exist cause realistically it didn’t and that with a little mind over matter it would just go away… Ignore that desperate need for self-destruction cause it's not real- except that it is.
They were right, cause they always were.
However exceedingly poor decision making was a classic Amber Ryan special and mind over matter didn’t mean all that much when it was the mind at fault.

When it came down to it, Amber needed something more to scratch the itch… To chase… To bring down to her level and smother with apathy and bitterness.

Sin City Wrestling.

It was trying to rain now.

Clean slates in this industry were hard to come by, simply walking through the door of a company and no one knowing who you were was becoming a scarcity, cause everyone wanted the world to know their name, their history and their fucking star sign as if being a Sagittarius cusp Capricorn made you any better of a professional wrestler.
No one wanted to be an underdog and the only ones  who embraced that status only did so cause they didn’t have anything else worth putting their name to. It was somehow a slight, degrading someone by telling them they hadn’t heard of them despite the fact they were likely studying their self-edited wikipedia two minutes earlier to perfect name pronunciation.

To Amber though, anonymity was more tempting than ever.

Being a world champion made that difficult on the best of days, and she had no doubt that even the mention of her name had already poisoned the well before she’d had the opportunity to slake her growing thirst.
Not that anyone would openly admit it, not without following it up with a lame insult at least.

Achievements held little value if they didn’t carry the right name and hauling around a big gold belt only served as a bullseye for the next wannabe Robin Hood trying to pad out their resume.
So quickly the masses would discredit because it wasn’t good publicity to put over another companies best- busy proclaiming superiority as though literally thousands of others weren’t doing the same fucking thing.
Besides, proclaiming yourself as the best kind of lost it's lustre when you realized you were just going through the motions like everyone else...

Many who knew her just wanted her to be content with what she’d done, just be happy for once instead of seeking out the next opportunity to crash and burn, allow herself this moment in the sun before the next asshole wanted their 15 minutes.
They didn’t get it though, the blood and sacrifice was only a small part of the journey and happiness was little more than a carrot to dangle in front of faces too caught up in the idea of a reward to see the strings attached.

It wasn’t as though she didn’t appreciate the gravity of what she’d done, she was just observant enough to see the strings.

Maybe that tsunami was a little too much to ask.

Easing the chair legs back to the ground, Amber quietly slipped off the chair and padded barefoot back into her apartment before the slick of dirty rain left the residue of a poor mans Las Vegas soaking into her pores. Releasing the sigh she had been holding, her easy smile softened into something more contemplative as her fingers found the cold metal edges of the Carnage World title laying on the kitchen bench.

There were a thousand words that they could have used to describe Amber however there was one that always seemed to be overlooked in favour of something more… flashy. Adjectives were thrown around this industry like cheap confetti and the masses vied for creativity and extravagance in equal measures.
The thing was- she wasn’t gifted with the most technical prowess nor could she take to the skies and innovate with body contortions as though gravity no longer applied, she wasn’t some beastly powerhouse throwing people around like paper dolls in a hurricane and she wasn’t known for cripplingly outlandish submissions that turned bone into splinters…

What Amber Ryan was though, and had been for almost 15 years, was very fucking successful.



******


“Do you like ice-cream?

Seems like a rather banal question to start off our impending confrontation, right? Maybe I should have started with a poorly worded insult designed to make you feel inconsequential, stripping away everything that makes you unique before exposing what is more than likely a rather generic core.
I could proceed to take everything you’ve done in your career and make a mockery of it, sniping every achievement off your proverbial shelf with a well placed rocket launcher.

I could do all those things and not blink an eye.

Instead, I rather know what your favourite ice-cream is.

To me Jessie, you strike me as a vanilla kinda gal… Sure there are variations but really it's the same thing dressed up with a fancy title masquerading as something far more important. In the end though, vanilla is exactly that.
It’s not really anyone's favourite but no one outright hates it either- you don’t go out of your way for it, but when presented with it then it's a perfectly acceptable option. A true neutral in terms of dairy dessert alignment.

Me? I’d call myself more of a boysenberry ripple if you will, although a dairy free version admittedly cause even someone like me has to have a couple of chinks in my proverbial armour… See, many have never tried it and therefore write it off as simply not liking it. It's niche yet highly acclaimed among those who can appreciate what it brings to the table. A chaotic neutral if only for the fact that it's a little out of left field and a lot to handle.

I guess this is the point where I’m expected to talk about why the fuck I think I’m so special, all the ways I’m going to make you look stupid in that ring and then my masterful evil plan to knock Roxi Johnson off her pedestal on my way to winning literally everything ever.

Or I could just not…

Granted I’ve never been the best about talking about myself in flattering terms, I’m not much of a self-promoter if you will cause I’ve found it's much more time efficient to just punch someone in the face than tell them all the ways they plan on punching them in the face…
Maybe that's my issue Jessie, I’m so quick to resort to violence instead of talking about my feelings and how I wasn’t hugged enough as a child.
Hell I’m so used to being called a piece of shit that I’m the first to admit it cause it makes people uncomfortable- whether I am or not at the time has become irrelevant.

Thing is, when it comes down to brass tacks… I’m actually not all that special, not at least in the usual spectrum. I can’t do anything that hasn’t been done before, I’m not going to go out there and impress the world with extraordinary feats of humanity cause that's just not my scene.
What I’ll do Jessie is exactly what has gotten me to where I am in this industry, it's the reason I’m considered top level and you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel looking for something to help keep your head above the fast rising waters.

I hurt people.

It's that simple.

I go into that ring, and I fucking hurt people. There's no magic formula, no illusions or carny tricks to keep the world guessing. I go out there night after night and I do the one thing I’m really, really good at.
See, I just have this rather unusual knack, if you will, for being able to outlast. I’m like a human crash test dummy, you can’t kill me cause lord knows greater men and women have certainly tried… Time after time, fialure after repeated failure. You know what I did to those people? I got up, I laughed at them, spat on their boots and then I drove their faces through the floor.

Maybe you’ll tell me I’m wrong, that this is SCW and that means it's different to anywhere I’ve ever been and you’re different to anyone I’ve ever faced- and between you and me… I kinda hope you’re right.
Honestly.
I mean, you won’t be because that's not how this works, but the idea is nice.

SCW isn’t different, and neither are you.

You pose as much threat as a blank piece of paper that's been laminated, just cause it's shiny doesn’t make it good. It's still fucking useless and it's still boring- I’d rather read the bible and throw up black bile cause lord knows I’m probably the goddamn anti-christ by now.
Hell, I’d compare you to a puddle of piss but in all honestly I find that there's more satisfaction in playing with that than throwing you around like a rag doll- and it’d likely give me the same amount of warm and fuzzies.

You aren’t a bad person though, you don’t deserve any of this.

Jessie Salco, nice girl with a great spirit.

Shit, that came across like a yelp review… 2 stars, wouldn’t recommend. Only reason it doesn’t get one star is cause there's a modicum of effort put in to be more competitive than the puddle of piss from earlier.
That's the thing though isn’t it- you have all this fire, this determination and guts to just go out there and do your best… people fucking love that.
I'd call it admirable if it didn’t make me wanna heave, although it's my fault for substituting food for coffee cause caffeine is a girl's best friend and I need to stay awake long enough so that whatever you say about me can put me to sleep.

Who knows, maybe I can get a solid eight hours and wake up to find they didn’t just put me against the first name drawn out of a hat… or even better, I can sleep through our match and find out I still managed to win because that's just the way the universe works.
Okay, so a little too much hyperbole but the point still stands- at the end of the day, people like you are here to make people like me look like animals because whether society admits it or not… they love a good bloodbath.
They love watching wildebeest getting tackled by lions, they love watching seals get thrown around by orcas, they love watching crocodiles drag down whatever poor beast steps too closer to their waters and most importantly… They love watching people like me kick the everloving shit out of people like you.

Hell, even David Attenboroughs never seen anything quite like this.

What you represent Jessie, is bait.

See, the powers that be… and likely all the other bombshells in the back… want to see what they are investing in, they want a preview if you will, a little taste to make sure that their judgement is still on point. They wanna draw me out like I’ve been hibernating for six months so they can watch me tear apart a rabbit caught in a snare.
Between you, me and the walls cause you know they have ears… I have no issue with you, my fight and reason to show up isn’t to make a scene and cause a ruckus in the wrestling world.

What happens at Climax Control is strictly professional- and as a professional I can promise you the quickest, cleanest loss of your career. Blink and you’ll miss it kinda schtick cause as far as I’m concerned- the bloodbaths, the violence, all the Amber Ryan trademarks…

That's all pay to play. I don’t get down and dirty just for exhibition matches and no great star blows their load during the foreplay, kiddies…
No, Climax Control is a formality- it's paperwork and punctuation, you know crossing I's and dotting t's. Don't call this a message cause that implies there is anything to be learned or gained from the experience for anyone- this is inevitability at it's worst- like a choose your own adventure where you know all the endings are the same…
When it comes down to it… You aren't an Evie Jordan, you aren't an Alicia Lukas, you aren't an Andrea Hernandez and you sure as fuck aren't a Roxi Johnson…You're the low woman on the totem pole trying to pass as an analog of someone much better.
Tick. Tick. Tick Jessie… Whoever called it 15 minutes of fame set the bar way too high cause you’ll be lucky if I give you a moment over 5. Really though, all I need is three seconds or about the same amount of time it takes me to ask you what your favourite ice cream is…

See you Sunday, sweetheart… and don’t forget to smile, cause you never know who is watching.”