[Eiley]

OFF CAMERA
Location: Kaneohe, Hawaii
Date: April 29, 2024
 

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Eiley carefully adjusts her tank top and simple pair of spandex shorts as she stands outside of Mikah’s gym in Kaneohe, Hawaii. She takes a breath before gaining some confidence before cautiously walking through the front doors of the gym. She looks around the gym, only standing in the entrance to the gym and she could see that the upstairs work out area was  buzzing with activity and then her eyes move to rings that were set up in the main level of the gym. She could see that Mikah was in the ring, working with Kendall and maybe a new student or two, she didn’t really know. The place was buzzing with activity and Eiley was for the most part, going unnoticed.

Eiley jumps back as three kids run in from outside and nearly knock her over.

••eiley•• “Hey!”

Two of the kids mostly ignored Eiley but the youngest, Myles, turns back at her. She watches the frown on the four and a half year old’s face before the look of realization hits him. Eiley watches as he stops to look at her before giving her a cheeky grin and then running off to follow his siblings through the gym. Eiley just stands there for a moment, trying to think thoroughly about her next step. She doesn’t have a lot of time to think as she has seemingly gathered Mikah’s attention.

Eiley watches as a few different emotions seem to run over Mikah’s face before Mikah seems to gather control of her emotions and returns to a neutral state. Eiley sighs as she moves towards the ring, walking slowly as she does as she wasn’t sure what sort of reaction Mikah would have towards her. Mikah steps out of the ring and Eiley sort of shrinks back as she sees the slightly angry look on her face. She wasn’t sure what to expect from Mikah but she didn’t expect that Mikah would be this angry.

;;MIKAH “You have some nerve..”

Eiley just swallows, hard as she moves to stand her ground, not wanting to back up from Mikah. She wanted to show that she wasn’t scared of the Hall of Famer and that she was confident enough to stand her ground.

••eiley•• “Uh…”

She barely has any time to think about what was going to happen next or even contemplate what she was going to say because Mikah cuts her off.

;;MIKAH “Do you know how long you’ve been out of reach? Do you know how many times somebody in this building has tried to contact you? Or do you even care?”

Eiley just looks at Mikah with a deer in the headlights sort of look as she tries to think quickly of an excuse for her absence. But it is clearly not something that she has thought too much about as she struggles to come up with a reason or an excuse. Mikah was still looking at her as if she was waiting for a proper response and Eiley continues to struggle with a proper reasoning.

••eiley•• “I’m sorry! I just…needed some space.”

The look on Mikah’s face did not scream that she was impressed with the reasoning that Eiley had given her. Eiley shifts her weight a little uncomfortably under Mikah’s stare as it doesn’t seem to waiver at all, staring at Eiley as if she was waiting for the actual truth and not just something that Eiley was saying to save face.

;;MIKAH “Space? As if the ocean isn’t enough space for you to be able to collect whatever feelings that you were feeling? I’m pretty sure Hawaii would have given you enough space to sort through whatever shit you needed to without disappearing on everybody.”

Eiley just looks at her for a moment, processing what Mikah was saying. But it was almost as if Mikah didn’t have that much patience for Eiley anymore. Eiley couldn’t understand why Mikah didn’t understand where she was coming from.

••eiley•• “You wouldn’t understand. And how could you? When you were in SCW, you always had a following and you had run the division for so long. You never needed to have space to think.”

The words that spill from the young woman’s mouth do not even seem to phase Mikah that much as she holds her own ground. The look on her face was emotionless for the most part except for the fact that Eiley knew that Mikah was upset with her.

;;MIKAH “Did you ever stop for one moment to think about how your absence has affected those around you?”

Eiley had noticed how Mikah had completely disregarded what she had said and Eiley boldly rolls her eyes in front of Mikah, not bothering to hide the motion.

••eiley•• “Why do I have to think about how my decisions affect other people? Nobody has ever thought about how their decisions affected me. So why do I have to be the one to think about how my decisions affect other people. I doubt you’ve ever thought about anybody other than yourself. Until recently, that is.”

The tension between the two was thick as Eiley hadn’t ever really stood up to Mikah before. The look on Mikah’s face, however, said it all as she looks at the twenty-one year old with a dirty look on her face that soon morphs into a smirk.

;;MIKAH “I get it, you’ve had a hard life, Eiley but things are different around here for you, now. And they have been for over a year now. You can’t walk in here like you haven’t been gone for months and act as if your absence hasn’t affected anybody. Things aren’t like they were in your childhood.”

Eiley was growing frustrated with the way that Mikah was avoiding some of the things that she had been saying to her and only picking and choosing things to respond to. She takes a moment to try to organize her thoughts before she responds to Mikah again. Eiley stands there for a few moments and Mikah just raises an eyebrow at her as she too waits for Eiley’s response. There could be sounds heard throughout the gym of people working in the ring and up above in the weight area of the gym.

;;MIKAH “Don’t worry, I have all the time to wait, Eiley.”

••eiley•• “Oh, what? You’re not chasing after your heathens that run around thinking they can control everything?”

The words had slipped out of her mouth before she could stop them. She knew that the kids were the one subject that Mikah would be defensive over and Eiley could see the mood within Mikah change.

;;MIKAH “Those heathens can run around this gym and do whatever they want, it is their second home. Kristopher and I want them to feel safe here. And don’t worry, every single person who steps into this gym through those front doors knows not to lay a hand on them or discipline them. And you will follow suit.”

Eiley just clenches her jaw for a moment, trying to keep calm and to try to gather a stronger hold on what she allowed to slip out. Eiley knew that she had to be calculated on how to talk with Mikah and she knew that Mikah had a quick reaction as well. She also knew that people liked to call Mikah dumb but she was well aware that Mikah was anything but dumb and that she just let people make up their own assumptions about her.

••eiley•• “I just think it’s unfair that I’m expected to think about how my own decisions will affect other people when it’s not the same the other way around. It’s kind of hypocritical, if you ask me.”

The smug look didn’t seem to leave Eiley’s face and Mikah just shakes her head. She stops for a moment, hearing a scream and Eiley listens as well. She watches Mikah’s face and then takes a moment to recollect her thoughts. Mikah soon turns her attention back to Eiley after determining that the scream was nothing to be really concerned about.

;;MIKAH “Well, I didn’t ask you if you thought it was hypocritical, Eiley. You should be taking some sort of accountability for your actions. You’re acting as if you’ve only been gone a couple weeks and not since the middle of January, which was nearly four months ago.”

Eiley lets out an exasperated noise as she looks around, trying not to throw her hands up in the air and just walk out of the gym. She knew that Mikah was pushing her and trying to get her to admit that she was in the wrong.

••eiley•• “I know how long I have been gone, Mikah. I know when I left to get some space and to think. I realize it has been a long time but I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to come back! And right now? I’m regretting that I even stepped through those doors. I just thought that maybe I could step back in that ring and try to work on whatever skills I need to improve on.”

Eiley watches Mikah for a moment and can see her switching gears and she was fully ready for a new sort of tactic to come from Mikah.

;;MIKAH “What about Oz? You didn’t think about him? Or coming back to him? Or for him? Hell, you haven’t even sent him a message and he’s also been gone for a while, looking for you. I had thought that if there was one person that you would have told your location to, it would have been him.”

A blank look crosses over Eiley’s face as Mikah mentions Oz. It wasn’t the tactic that Eiley thought that Mikah would use. She blinks a few times, trying to think of an answer for Mikah.

••eiley•• “I-don’t…I…it’s….I tried to, I just couldn’t bring myself to…text Oz.”

She had stumbled and stammered over her words. She curses at herself in her mind, hoping that it didn’t give anything away. She should have known that Oz was going to be brought up in the conversation; he was just as important to this gym as she was. She watches as a smirk crosses Mikah’s face and that cold, determined look is now in the Hall of Famer’s eyes; a look that many of Mikah’s opponents had seen before when she had figured something out in the ring.

;;MIKAH “You know, I knew that you would show back up. I told Kristopher that you’d be walking through those doors after I heard your name being called and then being paired with Mark Cross at Blaze of Glory for the Blast From the Past tournament.”

Eiley lets out a breath that she hadn’t known she had been holding as Mikah switches the subject from Oz.

••eiley•• “I…thought it would be nice to finally come back and try to win the tournament. I had hoped that Oz was going to be in the tournament so that we could be paired together randomly. But apparently, he wasn’t entered in the tournament.”

Mikah shakes her head at Eiley.

;;MIKAH “How can he enter a tournament when he’s been looking for you, Eiley? Did you not think about letting him know before you entered your name into the tournament? It might have encouraged him to enter his name.”

Eiley stumbles over a few things in her head, trying to think of something that would counter what Mikah had asked. She could see that Mikah was already feeling as if she had the upper hand and she probably did. Eiley could feel how she was slipping up and things weren’t making sense to Mikah and she could feel herself struggling to keep her head above the water.

••eiley•• “I didn’t know that Oz was looking for me…he n-never contacted me….”

A slightly sinister laugh spills from Mikah’s lips and it sort of surprises Eiley and she takes a step back. She didn’t like the calculated look that was now in Mikah’s eyes.

;;MIKAH “I just told you a few moments ago that he was looking for you, Eiley. This is the second time that I’ve mentioned it.”

The look on Eiley’s face falters just momentarily as she looks at Mikah, a bit surprised and she blinks a few times.

••eiley•• “But I didn’t…Oz didn’t…he didn’t get ahold of me. I would have told him that I was going to enter the tournament and come back.”

Mikah just shakes her head at Eiley and Eiley glances around her, feeling uneasy as her mentor looks annoyed with her.

;;MIKAH “I don’t believe that, Eiley. You know why?”

Eiley just shakes her head no and Mikah steps a little closer to her. Eiley sucks in a breath and holds it as she feels her heart beating fast inside her chest.

;;MIKAH “Because I know that Oz had tried texting and calling you a week or so after you left to get space. And I’m pretty sure or at least ninety-seven percent sure that he’s tried since then. So your little claim that Oz hasn’t tried to get in touch with you doesn’t sit well with me.”

Eiley chews on the inside of her cheek, sure that she was going to chew a piece of it off as she tries to calm her racing heart down. She tries her best to think about what to say next to Mikah but there wasn’t anything that she could think of that would appease Mikah.

••eiley•• “But how do you know it was me that he was texting? Maybe Oz just told you that he was trying to find me. Maybe he was lying to you to disappear too.”

Mikah laughs again, the noise sounding anything but joyous as Eiley feels that feeling of anxiety settling in. She takes another step backwards as she sees the sinister look in Mikah’s eyes.

;;MIKAH “While I’m not too friendly with one Oliver Zahn, I know that he was looking for you and texting you. The two of you? You don’t have many friends or people who you keep close. But you and Oz kept close to each other. So I know it was you that he went looking for when you never returned any of his text messages or phone calls. Don’t treat me like I’m stupid, Eiley, because I’m smarter than you.”

Eiley swallows hard as she feels the wrath that Mikah was easily portraying toward her. She glances around the gym, looking for anybody that she could hopefully use as an ally but she didn’t see anybody.

••eiley•• “Um…I…”

She stammers over her words but both of them are pulled away from their own train of thought as Kris walks into the gym, his phone in his hand and he stops when he sees Eiley and Mikah talking.

;;MIKAH “Exactly. You don’t have anything else to say to me. So I want you to get out of my gym, Eiley. And by the way….”

Mikah takes a step closer to Eiley and leans in, her lips next to Eiley’s ear.

;;MIKAH “You’ve never called Oz, Oz.”

The color drains from Eiley’s face as she realizes that she had slipped up and she just turns and walks out of the gym, not wanting to argue with Mikah anymore. She wasn’t sure where she was going to go, but she knew that she couldn’t stay there anymore. She looks up at the Hawaiian sun and takes a moment to think to herself before starting to walk in the direction of the highway. She pulls her phone out of her pocket to call for an Uber as she tries to think of what she wanted to do next. She needed to find somewhere to train and she knew now that Mikah’s gym was off limits and she couldn’t step foot in there again as she was now not welcome there any longer.

••eiley•• “Fuck.”

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ON CAMERA
Location: Normandy, France at the landing beaches..
Date: May 3, 2024.
 

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The scene opens up to the landing beaches  and gets a shot of the ocean before the camera moves to get a view of what has been set up on the beach. For the time being, the beach is pretty much empty but a few rows of chairs have been set up, facing the ocean. There wasn’t anybody sitting in the chairs, but there was a distinct aisle in between the sets. While there weren’t people in the chairs, there was something sitting in a few of the chairs.  A minute goes by before a figure can be seen in a black dress with a head drawn over their head, shielding their face. The figure is looking down at the sandy beach  as they walk the aisle toward the ocean. The person is holding something in her right hand but is sort of dragging it behind her, tracing a line in the sand with it. The camera zooms in closer to see that the object that the woman is dragging behind her is a sledgehammer. The woman stops at one of the chairs that holds an item on it and the camera zooms in to see a picture of Eiley’s pinned tweet printed out and put in a frame. The woman carefully grabs the sledgehammer and lifts both hands before slamming it down onto the frame, shattering the glass and destroying the frame.

“There comes a time when all good things must come to an end so that a new era can begin…”

The voice is low and almost disguised as the sentence was said slowly and the person was enunciating every world so that each word would not be mistaken for something else. She rips the hood from her head, a disgruntled and angry look on her face as it is revealed to be Eiley.

“And on Sunday? The road to that new era is going to begin for me…”

She sets the sledgehammer back down behind her and drags it to the next row, where a replica of the cruise ship that SCW hosts fans for a week on and then has a show on sits. She raises the sledgehammer up once more and brings it down on the mini replica of the ship and smashes it into many pieces.

“There will be no living in the past for me….”

She lets her gaze linger on the broken pieces of the mini replica of the cruise ship, the sledgehammer sitting on the ruins.

“The last time that you saw my face on a SCW screen was in January when I lost to Kayla Richards on an irrelevant Climax Control, who ironically is the Bombshell Champion right now.”

She takes a moment to let the words sink in for a moment. But the moment doesn’t last as she holds the camera’s gaze, appearing more confident in herself than she used to look. There was something different in her eyes that the camera couldn’t quite differentiate from anything else.

“The date of that Climax Control is irrelevant and that match is irrelevant in itself. But it is the last time that anybody has seen me step foot in a SCW ring or a wrestling ring in general. It is almost as if I disappeared off of the face of the Earth and it may have seemed like I was never going to be seen again.”

She pulls the hood back up to cover half of her face again, indicating the disappearance. She pushes it back down and fixes her blonde hair to keep it out of her face. She turns to face the ocean, her eyes scanning the horizon as she places the sledgehammer back down in the sand behind her and begins to drag it forward once more, making the line behind her longer. She stops at another chair to look down to see a replica of a tag team championship belt sitting on it.

“And this is what was important to me at that time; fighting for a championship belt that I only got half credit for….”

She takes a breath as she stares at the championship belt. The look of disgust is soon written all over her face and she raises the sledgehammer up and over her head before smashing it down on the fake replica of the belt. She does it a few more times, mangling the item into practically nothing.

“But that’s not going to be what happens anymore. Not this time, not this new era.”

She lets the sledgehammer fall down in the sand before she walks to the front of the rows of chairs and she chooses one to sit in. She is quiet for a moment, staring out at the ocean as she lets her words resonate for a moment.

“That’s why I entered the Blast From the Past tournament. I didn’t enter it for giggles or to see who I would be teamed up with. I entered the tournament for the right to choose to challenge for the Bombshell Championship once the winners of the tournament have been crowned.”

She leans back and crosses one leg over the other. She doesn’t seem rushed to talk again as she takes in the view of the ocean. There’s some sort of calm about her as she watches the waves crash onto the sandy beach.

“On June 6, 1944, the allied forces launched the largest amphibious invasion in the history of warfare. The Allied landings on the beaches of Normandy marked the start of a long and costly campaign to liberate north-west Europe from Nazi occupation. This is also known as D-Day or the beginning of the end of the Second World War in Europe.”

The little history lesson was not something that Eiley had planned, but she had come across it when she was doing her research on the landing beaches of Normandy, and she couldn’t help but use it to her advantage.

“That’s what it feels like returning to SCW for this tournament. Or at least, it feels like the beginning of the end of a lot of things.”

She bites her tongue, not wanting to overstep and completely miss on what she was supposed to be talking about. She wanted to leave it vague and that’s what she was going to do.

“In the past, I’ve been compared to Mikah and I’ve been called a miniature version of her and not my own person. I’ve also been given compliments from J2H on a few occasions that people hate to be reminded of. But there’s also a lot of things that I’ve done wrong that don’t seem to get as much credit for. But that’s not what the future is going to be for me.”

She shrugs.

“I am sure that there are a lot of expectations that people in SCW are holding for me and that there are a lot of assumptions that are being made about me, and that’s fine. Everybody can say or think about whatever they want about me because they will no matter what I do in the ring to prove them wrong or what I say in order to try to prove them wrong. I was always in the shadow of my mentor and people weren’t going to take me seriously when it came to wrestling. They never believed that I was going to be anything more than a rip off of what Mikah was in the ring. And I guess I sort of cracked under the pressure and walked away when it didn’t go my way.”

She shrugs her shoulders, letting the movement easily move through her body. She doesn’t move her eyes from the ocean.

“But that’s not today, that’s not how it’s going to be moving forward. I’m going to be just … Eiley. And prove that I can stand on my own two feet without the help of Mikah and her little gym.”

A flash of anger passes through Eiley’s eyes but as quick as it was there, it’s gone even quicker.

“And I’m going to start with using Melissa as an example this Sunday. And I’m sure Melissa is an alright person and I’m sure that a lot of people are picking her to win because it’s just me. The bombshell who clearly has had some fluke wins in her past. There’s no possible way that I can win on Sunday against Melissa. However, my last couple of losses? They were mistakes. Mistakes that shouldn’t have been made and I’ve been working on cleaning those mistakes up. But…”

She smirks a little to herself at the thought.

“This time, there will be no mistakes made when it comes to stepping into the ring against Melissa. I’ll be brutally honest with you.”

She leans forward just a little, placing her elbows on her knees.

“I don’t know a thing about Melissa or who she is or what she can do in the ring. I tried to do my homework and I got bored watching your old promos. But the one thing I can say about you is that you have been trained by decent people. Goth is a SCW Hall of Famer, so at least we have comparable backgrounds in training when it comes to who SCW deems to be important. And Whisper is well known throughout the wrestling community as well, so you’ve had training by people who have their own following and know what needs to be done in the ring.”

She doesn’t seem to hold much emotion on her face as she stares at the ocean for a moment before glancing at the camera, her lips turning up in a grin.

“But being trained by legends can only get you so far, Melissa. And I would know as I’ve had a small amount of success here in SCW. I’ve been one half of the Mixed Tag Team Champions, a division that Oz and I carried for a long time because the two irrelevants took over, who have completely ruined the division because I don’t even know the last time they defended them. But that’s not the point that I’m trying to make. I had success and I wanted to make my success be reliant on what Mikah had taught me in the ring, but she could only teach me so much. Which, is the same for you. Goth and Whisper can only teach you so much before you have to learn some things on your own.”

A smirk stretches across her face as she looks at the camera.

“Sunday is only two days away and only two days until I make my in-ring return for SCW. This time, however, I will not be teaming with Oz but instead Mark ‘The Dragon’ Cross, which is controversial in its own right. He has a reputation in this company and I’ve been told he can be a loud mouth and maybe a little annoying, but he does seem to know how to win this tournament, so for me? That’s a plus. Because I too want to win this tournament.”

The confidence in her eyes is different than before and maybe this time, it was something she actually believed.

“He has the experience in this tournament to know what it takes to win. And I don’t even care if I’m piggy backing off of his success because I know what I want. I also know that he’s perfectly capable of taking care of Aiden Reynolds and I won’t have to worry about some wannabe Finn Whelan wannabe.”

A small glint passes through her eyes before she refocuses and replaces the look with a blank look instead.

“I don’t care what I have to do to win on Sunday, either. I know that I am going to do whatever it takes to beat Melissa and be the better competitor in the ring. Melissa might think she is the better competitor and that she has the upper hand, but she’s going to be proven wrong on Sunday. I know I might be a little rusty in the ring, but I’m going to do everything in my power to ensure that I walk away with the win.”

She smirks again.

“Because this time around?”

She pauses for the dramatic effect.

“I’m not here for the Mixed Tag Team Championship, I’m here to fight for the right to challenge for the Bombshell Championship. Whoever that champion may be when it comes time.”

She shrugs one shoulder up as she looks at the camera.

“It’s nothing personal, it’s just business.”

She winks at the camera for a moment.

“And it’s going to start at the bottom, with Melissa. Hope everybody’s ready to watch it happen.”

She stands up and kicks the chair over with her foot.

“Because it’s going to happen whether you’re ready or not.”

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