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Roleplay Boards => Archived Roleplays => Climax Control Archives => Topic started by: Roux on October 16, 2020, 11:47:50 PM
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SAFER TOGETHER
JET CITY SOUTH - San Diego
14 OCTOBER 2020
OFF-Camera
I knew that I had Kris exactly where I wanted him, but that was only one part of what I had set out to do once making up my mind about my return. Everyone in Jet City was going to have a part to play, and Kris was just the first that I had to get to fall in line. In all honesty, it was because I figured that the rest of the bunch would be much easier to get through to. I thought about possibly making my way from the hardest to the least complicated, but there was no way that I could handle taking on Mikah since soon after having to deal with her partner. I figured I deserved to take it a little easier for once. There was only one of us that anyone thought of as a genuinely nice person, which meant that he wasn’t going to be able to brush me off as easily as Kris had for weeks.
Court: You know, the two of us have never really just hung out. Why is that?
I had to talk loud enough for him to hear me over the music blaring in his ears. The fastest man that I had ever seen up close in the ring dropped the weight that he was lifting, and pulled his headphones down off his head without looking back at me. His voice was flat, but not hostile.
Coby: ...what do you want, Court?
I knew that interrupting him while he was in the middle of his routine would start off rocky. Even back when we were both just trainees, he always took it more seriously than the rest of us. Coby was the hardest worker in all of Jet City, and everyone else knew it. But that’s also how I knew that I would find him here.
Court: I want to know why we aren’t better friends! I mean, we were two of the first to come through Jet City Sports Lab. We’ve seen most everyone else come and go but we are still here. You would think we would be closer.
I could tell that he wasn’t buying it, but that wouldn’t matter for long. This was going to be easy, but Coby wasn’t stupid. Some effort was going to be required.
Coby: I think that this is just an in for you to ask me for something that you want, so if we could just get to the point...
He had definitely been spending too much time with Kris. He was even starting to sound like it. Fortunately, that worked more in my favor than he probably expected.
Court: Everyone always says that you’re so nice, but I’m not seeing it.
He takes a deep breath and finally turns around to face me. There is a smile still plastered across his face, but I can tell that it is just from practice.
Coby: That’s your problem. You are taking me not playing your game for me not being nice. If you would just come out and tell me what you want, we could talk. Right now you’re just wasting my time trying to win me over before you come out with it.
I was a little surprised that he wasn’t going to play my game at all. Then again, I expect that he had gotten tired of it after doing so much traveling with both Kris and Mikah. It didn’t necessarily bother me that he was making things more difficult. If anything, it just proved that he was more valuable to me than I was willing to give him credit for. I was almost impressed.
Court: Do you not hear how cynical that sounds?
I didn’t mean it negatively, but I knew that he would take it that way.
Coby: You’ve been spending too much time with Kris, but you’re not quite as good at this little game as he is.
It got a little chuckle out of the fact that he probably didn’t even realize the hypocrisy in what he was saying. I decided it was probably better for my goals to keep that thought to myself though.
Court: I think you’re just determined to see me as a person that you couldn’t possibly get along with, so you choose to not waste your time.
He was still way too nice of a person to let a statement like that stand uncorrected.
Coby: Or maybe that is just you making excuses to not actually put any effort into actually trying to be friends. Like you said, we’ve been around all this time and you’ve never thought about this before. Thinking about it now just means that you want something from me.
He wasn’t wrong, but he shouldn’t be so mad about it. In a way, all I wanted to do was help the guy along.
Court: Or maybe I was just trying to look out for you.
He reached down into his pocket and paused the music playing through the headphones around his neck. He probably hadn’t thought that blowing me off would take this long, so it was a good sign that he was preparing to be here for a while.
Coby: Now you’re really trying too hard. You don’t look out for anyone other than yourself. That’s why this whole forced conversation is so amusing. If you are being nice, it’s because it benefits you. Like training with Kate.
He had a point, but he was still missing the big picture.
Court: That doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t benefit you as well!
His eyes widened, and the smile on his face became much more genuine as soon as the words were out of my mouth.
Coby: So now we’re getting somewhere. You admit that there is something that you want. Now can you just spit it out so that we can both get on with our day, please?
Maybe I should have given him a whole lot more credit than I had, but at least now I had him on the hook. It wasn’t exactly what I had planned, but I have always been adaptable.
Court: I should have known better than attempting to bullshit you.
He shrugged his shoulders, and took it a step further.
Coby: You should also know better than to attempt to flatter me.
If nothing else was going to work, I was going to have to be direct now that I actually had his attention.
Court: You remember the Sweete twins?
I could see from the confusion on his fact that all of a sudden he lost all faith that he knew what I wanted from him. That was a good thing for me. It meant that he couldn’t shut me down before I came around to blindside him with what I actually wanted.
Coby: ....oh. Not exactly where I thought you were going to go with this, but yeah. They came to Jet City and SCW after competing overseas. Won the tag titles in some company after they left Sin City. They stayed up in Seattle with Jason and JCSL.
True enough, but it wasn’t what I was looking for.
Court: Yeah, but I mean in SCW specifically. Like, when they showed up.
He sighed, looking like he was trying his best to piece together the sequence of events from memory.
Coby: Yeah, they recruited my wife… I couldn’t really help but to notice. The twins showed up and basically stalked Mikah, Kris, Crystal and Chelsea until they agreed to form a big group of champions and take over the roster.
It was a start, but he hadn’t taken it as far as I was hoping that he would go. I had to walk him to the answer that I wanted.
Court: ...and what happened?
He rolled his eyes, obviously he wasn’t planning on being the duo’s biographer anytime soon. Since he wasn’t following me anymore, he had started to lose interest.
Coby: They all won a bunch of titles, well except the twins themselves, and then created The Black Sheep to watch each other’s backs.
That was the point that I needed him to get to.
Court: So it was never supposed to just be Mikah and Kris as a duo? It was always meant to be a group?
And just like I thought he would, he managed to put half of the picture together immediately.
Coby: I guess. Why, are you going to try and push your way into the group with them? It might not be the worst idea. You’re not the best at making friends.
Then it was time to actually get what I wanted from him.
Court: That’s kind of what I was thinking, but you know… not just me.
There was no hesitation in his answer at all, just a simple shake of his head before reaching back to pull his headphones back up onto his ears.
Coby: No.
I held up my hands to stop him, and starting talking quickly, hoping that he would at least hear me out.
Court: Oh, come on! Why not? It’s not like you’re doing a whole lot in Underground right now. Maybe it is time you stop being such a pussy and make the jump back to the big time.
Instead of jumping on the insult and steering the conversation towards a debate, he put together the rest of what I wanted, and called me out on it.
Coby: So your whole goal here was to get me supporting your bid to join The Black Sheep?
Except, after weeks and weeks of thinking about this conversation, I already had the perfect answer.
Court: If it was good enough for your wife, why isn’t it good enough for you?
His head pulled back like the words had physically slapped him across the face. He followed that up by shaking his head a few times and stuttering his way through a retraction.
Coby: I… I didn’t say... It’s not that... I had never really thought about it. It’s not that it’s not good enough fo--
I cut him off before he could get out another word, and happily clapped my hands together excitedly.
Court: So you’re in! Good! That’s all I needed to hear. I’ll make it happen.
He held up a hand and tried to find the words to stop me, but I had already turned around, and started to briskly walk away.
Coby: Wait! That’s not what I….. ah nevermind.
I pretended not to hear him, but I knew that he wasn’t going to follow me while he was in the middle of his workout. Even if he wasn’t totally sold right now, I succeeded in putting the idea in his head. He would probably talk it over with Chelsea, and test the waters with Kris and Mikah before coming around to the idea. That is what made all of it so easy. It almost seemed silly that I spent so much time on Kris, when it all could have gone this smoothly from the start. It didn’t matter though. Things were coming along nicely, and it was all downhill from here.
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People are expecting me to be mad about the fact that I came up a little short against Kate Steele back at Violent Conduct. They assume I will come into this match with Pandora with something to prove, or ranting and raving about how I should have won in my return. There are even more that will dismiss me as a failure simply because I wasn’t successful the first time out. They will say that I should take it as a sign that I am not meant to be in this company, or this business in general. I get it. I understand why people would think that. I’m not the most liked person in the locker room, and I have had a long history of injuries. I can see how people would add all that up and assume that they know everything that is going to come out of my mouth. The problem is, they’re wrong.
Violent Conduct wasn’t a loss for me. Sure, I didn’t have my hand raised at the end of the night, but that wasn’t exactly my goal. There was a reason that I accepted Kate’s challenge, and there was a reason that I trained with her leading up to that match and even now. Don’t forget, all of that was my choice. I knew that Kate would help me get back to where I needed to be before I turned my attention to the rest of the Bombshell roster. I knew that she wasn’t going to be the type of person to come into the match talking about maiming me and putting me back on the injured list. I knew that we wouldn’t have to exchange unpleasant barbs leading into the match, and that there wouldn’t be any hard feelings no matter who won. The thing is, I wasn’t exactly looking to make enemies my first night back on the job. There is no point in putting a target on your back before you’re ready for it to be there.
See, there is no amount of training or preparation you can do in order to really be ready for being back in the ring. It is something that you have to experience. Things move at a different pace. You have to make decisions on the fly, and move more on instinct than with a plan. You have to be constantly adapting to an ever-changing situation in between when the bells ring at the start and the end of matches. You can’t simulate that in a gym. A gym is a controlled environment. There is nothing controlled about what happens when it is for real, and that is what I needed. It had been years since I had actually competed in front of a crowd. My match with Kate was about getting back up to speed. It was about testing myself and making sure that I could handle being back without having another setback. The goal wasn’t to win. The goal was to sharpen my game, and looking at it that way, it’s hard not to see it as a win for me.
What I learned at Violent Conduct was that I need to trust myself a whole lot more than I did in the weeks building up to that match. I was good enough to win Blast from the Past without ever having stepped foot in a Sin City Wrestling ring before the tournament got underway. And I wasn’t carried through the tournament by a veteran of the sport like so many others have been, because Fenris was in the exact same boat that I was. The two of us exceeded every expectation set for us within our first handful of matches. People are quick to forget the history. People are quick to sweep it under the rug after a loss to someone as talented as Kate Steele. Just because they want to dismiss it, doesn’t make it disappear.
Pandora Barrett is exactly the type of person to make all of the mistakes that I have listed. She is the kind of person that talks a big game about maiming her opponents while appearing to have a hard time picking up any victories at all. She is one of those people that spreads herself across multiple companies only to struggle to stay relevant in any of them. She is someone that always has so much to say, but can never quite back it up inside our six-sided ring. Plainly put, she is everything that people try to say that I am. She fits perfectly inside the box that so many of the Bombshells on this roster have already drawn around me. That is why this time around, surviving is not going to be enough for me.
The goal at Climax Control isn’t to get back into the swing of things. This isn’t another tune up match between friends. No, this time I am going to need to go a little further. I am going to have to remind everyone exactly how good I can be inside that ring. I need everyone to remember the way that I put the entire roster on notice only a month into my career. Because it wasn’t any of them that beat me. No bombshell on this roster can take credit for my setbacks or injuries. There isn’t a single one of them that can step up and say that they took me out. I got one shot in this company and cashed in on every opportunity that I had until my time was cut short.
It’s long past time to pick up where I left off.
Pandora has the unfortunate luck of being the first real step on my path to what should have been mine two years ago.
I guess it’s SHOWTIME!