Still got it.
It was never a welcome back.
It couldn’t be one of those, because she never left. Alicia Lukas was always around Wolfslair. As a senior instructor, it was her job to help. Some of the youngest students become the best that they could be transitioning them from students to members to bona fide stars. And also to support Austin James Mercer. The man that she had fallen in love with after so long of just being friends and stablemates.
But arriving at the gym today was different. On a normal day, she would arrive at around 6 am, greet some of the students who had been there earlier, and walk inside before drinking her coffee and going about her day. Praising and grading people's growth as wrestlers, filling out paperwork, and making sure anyone who wanted to come in had signed releases.
This was her life, and it was a pleasant one. She enjoyed it. She got to spend time with Alex and Sonia, she spent time with Austin, and then would be home in time to see her son come home from school and then spend time with them. But through it all, something was missing.
And today was the first day of her fight back to do what she loved. 4 am. That is when she arrived. She wanted to get a Headstart on everything that she was going to do. A coffee in her hand, a salad and egg wrap in the other. She unlocked the door, walking in to find no one else was there. She took a deep breath finished eating and drank her coffee before turning on the lights and looking around.
Wolfslair was eerie when it was empty.
A large warehouse, filled with a weight room and grappling mats and rings as well as punching bags and plenty of cardio equipment. But when no one else was there, when it was dark outside, it looked haunted. Alicia laughed to herself, shaking her head as she took off her black Hoody. She let it fall across one of the benches to the side and started stretching. Dressed in a pair of pink trainers, black yoga pants, and a pink and red top, she stretched and warned herself up.
She closed her eyes getting close to one of the practice rings. While she had been inside the rings and worked with some of the students this was the first time she was getting in with the sole purpose of getting in ring shape. Returning to do the thing that she had loved and missed. For over a year she had been doing this as her profession, not even thinking about returning to the company that took her in and helped her make strides in becoming a household name and a legend. But that was different now. She wanted it, she needed it. The hunger had returned.
Alicia pulled herself up onto the apron and ran her hand along the top rope before smiling and stepping in between them. She lightly jogged around the ring, feeling the movement of it, the plywood boards underneath her feet, the canvas moving as she stepped sideways. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before leaning against the ropes and running. She ran across the ring, hitting the ropes on the opposite side and picking up momentum. Each crossing getting faster and faster before she stopped and made a pivot crossing to the other side and back-and-forth.
It was not the same as being in one of SCW’s rings. They used traditional four-sided ones whereas SCW had the Mexican six-sided set up. But it didn’t matter. Right now? Alicia was home.
After about 45 seconds she stopped, slowing down as she took in deep breaths. She was unable to breathe, sweat already forming on her brow as her heart felt like it was going to leap out of her chest. ”What the fuck? I used to be able to do this for a few minutes.” She said it to herself, trying to motivate herself. And she was right, Alicia used to be able to run the ropes and change direction and keep doing it for well over three minutes. Running at full speed the entire time.
Had she gotten so out of shape?
She still looked like herself, she still had abs, she still had muscles, but as any real pro will tell you doing weights and cardio and keeping yourself in great shape is still no substitute for actually being in the ring and hitting those ropes.
”It takes time…”
Alex’s voice cut through the silence. He had walked in while Alicia was running, his arms folded over his chest as he shook his head and smiled at her. Stepping forward and moving closer to the ring. ”Getting it back…”
Alicia gave a small nod, sucking in deep breaths before looking over at Alex and leaning against the top rope. ”I know. Not the first time I’ve had time off.”
Alex chuckled and jumped up onto the apron standing next to her. ”Yeah. But it’s not the same.” Alex put his foot on the bottom rope and leaned across the top. Looking sideways at Alicia with a small smile. ”Anytime you’ve needed to step away because of an injury or because of time off with a company it’s been for a short amount of time and it’s been out of your control.” Alex paused, he gave a small shrug and then clasped his hands together. ”This was a choice. This is a year and a half of you taking time away because you needed it. So it is completely different.”
Alicia swallowed he was right. This was her choice. And even if Alex didn’t mean to do it, Alicia felt like she was being judged for taking time off. ”Yeah. I know.”
”Why are you coming back?” Alicia swallowed, she was going to choose her words carefully, but before she could answer Alex interrupted himself. ”Wait…before you answer that….let me tell you why I haven’t….” Alicia looked over, surprised that Alex wanted to share why he had never returned to wrestling ”I have thought about it. Seems to be a myth that I haven’t. But I have. And the reason why I never returned and pulled the trigger is because when I ask myself if I want to or what the reason is there’s doubt. And you can’t have doubt in this.”
”That’s just it…” Alicia laughed to herself, stepping back closer to the center of the ring as she noticed that behind Alex other members of the gym had started to filter in. ”I asked myself, is it time? And every single time I asked myself that question for about a week I came up with the same answer. Yes. There was no doubt.”
Alex smiled warmly, tapping the top rope before jumping down and backing away from Alicia as some of the students watched. ”Then you’ll be fine…you’re doing it for the right reasons…...”
Entitled
” Normally I love this show…but right now? I need focus not fun.”
Alicia is sitting alone in her cabin. The blinds are drawn across her glass doors that lead out to her balcony. Only a few lines of light can escape into The otherwise dark room. She leans forward, a hooded sweatshirt over her upper body with the hood up.
”My return was successful. I knew it was going to be. There was never any question or doubt in my mind. The second I saw who I was facing. I knew that I was going to win and start off my return in a positive way. People have forgotten what I’m capable of. Sometimes you need to walk away and let people forget so when you come back the memory becomes so much better. It’s like when you stop going to a favorite restaurant, ordering your favorite dish, and you have just that right amount of time where you have happy memories but you forget the flavor.”
“I am that flavor. I came to Sin City wrestling just after it had come back from a hiatus. This division was in a complete mess. No one in the company was a real star that could take the bombshell division to an acceptable level. The champion was Danielle Weston. I want that to sink in for all of you. She was the champion. The world champion of this company and the bombshells division.”
“Are you kidding?”
“As good as she thought she was she got a rude awakening when I came into this company. I was already a double champion in another company that SinCity had merged with or bought out depending on who you asked. Christian and Mark, two men who are a hell of a lot smarter than people give them credit for you the kind of person that they were getting when they brought me in. They knew exactly what they were doing. Christian even told me one time that he was disappointed the other times they tried to lure me away from honor or WWH to come to Sin City wrestling.”
She laughed at herself and shook her head. Staying forward letting some of her blonde strains of hair slow down in front of her face.
”But, I still got here. And when I did it did not take very long for me to unify all those championships into one. People tend to forget that the Bombshells championship in this company also carries the lineage of the honor wrestling women’s championship as well as the honor wrestling legacy women’s championship. All three of those titles are together because of me because I came to this company. After all, I made the division mean something.”
“And being able to beat Seleana again makes me happy. It gives me life. But it also proves something very important to people like Harper. I still have it. I never lost it. I have been at home relaxing and every single little injury that I picked up over the 10+ years before that had healed. I am in better shape now than I have been for years and that means something very horrible not just for Harper Mason but for the rest of the division.”
“But, to start my climb back up which I wanted to do from the bottom because I believe the people should earn things I’m going after Harper Mason. And again I want to preface that and I want to make sure you all know what I mean..”
“I have earned everything that I have ever been given. Every single opportunity at a championship. Every single match against a legend and every single main event and award I’ve ever gotten I’ve been able to get through earning it and through hard work and dedication to professional wrestling. And I understand that not everybody has the same drive and dedication that I do. But they should. And someone like Harper Mason doesn’t deserve to be in the position that they are in.”
Alicia stands up, throwing her arms in the air she paces back and forth across the room.
”I told you the reasons why I came after you when I came back, Harper. And you haven’t listened. You haven’t taken it on board and learned a goddamn lesson. So now I’m going to go deeper into this. Before I was able to get a contract in this company, I traveled the goddamn world. I went from America to Japan and I followed in my father’s footsteps. My father had a career in Japan. They didn’t see people who were over 7 feet tall and could move like him.”
“I trained, I thought, I scratched and I Claude for everything. And after years of working my way up through the Japanese system I came back to the United States and had to start from square one at a different company. I started in honor wrestling. And I had to drag myself up through there as well. I did the same thing at WWH. Every single company that I have ever joined, I have started from the bottom and I’ve worked my way up. Never trading on my father‘s name, never trading on any of the connections that I’ve made in this business. Even in this company, the only reason I got a world title shot at the beginning was because I was coming in as a champion.”
“Even my sister who Harper has brought up many times had to earn her stripes in this company. She got her contract because Christian and Mark saw the work that she had done in other companies and brought her here. I did nothing for her. I didn’t get her a contract. I didn’t talk to either of them. I waited until they found her”
“But you?”
“What did you do?”
“Before Sin City wrestling where were you? Did you win any championships in other companies or the independent scene? And that we would hear about or not? Have you done anything outside of this company to earn your spot? I can answer that. You haven’t. You got handed a contract as a favor from your cousin to come to this company and start your career. That is a slap in the face to everyone who has ever had to work their way to get here. It’s a slap in the face to me. It’s a slap in the face to Zoe. It’s a slap in the face to Bella Madison who never had to trade on her mother‘s name to get to where she is.”
Alicia is getting worked up and angry as her hands ball up into fists and her body language starts to stiffen.
”You have not had to do anything. And when I saw you go out there and start running your mouth like you were actually a star it ate me up. So I went out there and I told you exactly what I thought. I didn’t say it behind your back, I didn’t try and undercut you, I went out and I said it to your face. I told you exactly what I thought and I told you exactly what I meant. And what did you do Harper? Did you simply take my criticisms? No, you ignored me and then talk shit on social media.”
“So I came after you to prove a point. You then decided to mess with me and tried to get in my head by being on commentary and when my opponent ended up getting run into you, you took exception to it and jumped me. And at that moment it was war. It changed from me trying to teach you something and me trying to get you to realize that being an entitled weekly is not going to get you anywhere to me wanting to destroy you. Because believe it or not Harper when all of this started I wanted to teach you and I wanted to show you how to be the person that you want to be”
“But you couldn’t get past your own ego.”
“And hey I know I have an ego. But the difference between us is that I’ve earned mine. I earned mine by winning all of those awards. I earned mine by being one of the longest-reigning bombshells champions of all time and I earned mine by beating some of the best this company has had to offer. But you have not had the right to earn an ego. You have not paid your dues you have done nothing to earn your spot so I’m gonna make you earn it.”
She chuckles and calms herself down.
”Summer Xxxtreme 12. An almost yearly extravaganza where we all packed together on a cruise ship and entertain the fans and meet them face-to-face. One of the biggest supercars of the year. I’m going to do you a favor and teach you a lesson. But instead of trying to teach you a lesson by throwing the fact that you’re an entitled bitch in your face, I’m going to teach you a lesson by beating the hell out of you and making you earn your position.”
“And I can do it anywhere on the boat that I choose. Yes, the match will start in the ring Harper. But it’s not going to end there. I’m gonna drag you out of that ring and I am going to walk you all around the boat I am going to beat the hell out of you and every single cabin, smash your face into every single one of the bars, I’m gonna take you to the casino and I’m gonna throw you across the goddamn rule at table. And when all is said and done. When you are looking at me and begging for me to get off of you, I’m going to keep going because I’m going to drag you into deepwater. After all, I want to see what you’re made of.”
“Cause if I had to guess? You aren’t made of anything. You’re weak, and you will break. And I’ll show you why entitled sycophantic bitches should not come to this company.”[/color
I thought we were done with this.
She was sore. She hadn’t been this sore in a very long time. Then again, she hadn’t been in the ring for a very long time. Alicia opened her eyes, getting hit with the bright light from outside. She groaned and shook her head sitting up. The pain in her back shot straight up through her shoulders and the back of her neck.
It was her first day off in a week. The last five days Alicia had done nothing but train. And not just train the younger members of the gym, she trained herself. Hitting the ropes, doing grappling training, heavyweights, cardio. Everything that Alicia would need to make her come back.
She stood up, walking across her bedroom with a stretch before looking back with a smile. For the first time in what seemed like forever, she felt alive.
She made her way out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, there was no one there. The boys were at school, and Austin was at the gym. This was her day. Her day to recover and relax. To enjoy herself and let her body heal and her mind get refocused on the goal ahead. She walked over to the coffee machine, turning it on, and got everything ready. The second she was done she pulled the mug to her face giving it a smell.
She let out a deep breath of happiness and relaxation. Turning and moving across to the kitchen counter, feeling content with everything that was going on in her life.
She took a sip of her coffee, smiling and closing her eyes. But being interrupted by a knock at the door. She got to her feet and moved through to the door, opening it up, tilting her head with a half smile and half look of confusion. ”Mom?!?” And sure enough standing in front of her was her mother. She stepped in past her daughter shaking her head as she did so going straight to the kitchen. Alicia tilted her head confused as to why she was here. ”Sure…come in…”
”What are you thinking?” She was annoyed about something, not just her words but also her body language showed it. Alicia shook her head and folded her arms over her chest not even bothering to ask why. She knew damn well that her mother was going to tell her. In great detail probably. ”Going back to wrestling? After you finally got out?” and there it was.
Alicia took a deep breath, pushed it out, and closed her eyes before trying to centre herself and opened them. She was going to try and stay calm. ”Yeah? That was always the plan. When I left, I never said I wasn’t going to go back. I always planned to. Time just got away from me.”
”Time got away from you?” That comment seemed to get under her skin. Alicia‘s mother took a deep breath and closed her eyes trying to do the same thing that Alicia did before opening them and speaking in a much more calm and mature voice. ”You spent years beating yourself up and doing the exact same thing that your father did. And then you find a man who loves you, you settle down and stop wrestling, you had it all you had financial security. Why are you doing this?”
Alicia groaned and rolled her eyes. This is the same attitude she always had. ”Is it really that hard for you to understand? That professional wrestling is something that’s ingrained in who I am? It’s the same with me and it’s the same with Zoey. This is what we do.”
Her mother stepped forward, folding her arms over her chest exactly like Alicia. ”I don’t understand you…. you have it all. You’ve got to live that dream, you made money, you got out of it.” She moved around Alicia, her arms moving as she went. ”Look at what happened to your father. He didn’t know when to stop and it destroyed his body. And he’s gone, I had to watch while you broke down. When he passed away, you’re miserable.”
Alicia shook her head, she understood where her mother was coming from but at the same time, the situations were not the same. She stepped forward, reaching out and grabbing her mother‘s hands. ”Is that what this is about?” She shook her head and sighed. ”Dad and I are not the same. Not only was he in his 50s and still wrestling, he was 7 feet tall and he drank like a fish. And never worked out. He didn’t even know what cardio meant.”
Alicia‘s mother couldn’t help but laugh. Even though they hadn’t been together in over 20 years, she was still devastated when Jason passed away. ”I know…I know….but, I just don’t want you to let yourself get broken down….I want you to have a good life.”
Alicia noted slowly, stepping back with a smile trying to sound as calm and kind as she possibly could. She understood where her mother was coming from. Especially since she had woken up this morning feeling so sore and beaten up. ”Mom….I do…”
I hate your face
”Relevance…”
Alicia takes in a deep breath and then pushes it out, standing on the top deck of the ship and looking down at the moving waves she tries to keep herself with a sense of calm and dignity. Something that is becoming increasingly harder and harder to do when dealing with fucking children.
”It’s hilarious that that’s where your mind went. Relevancy. Apparently, I have fallen so far that I’m no longer relevant because I decided to take time off and spend it with my children. I decided to go home and relax after years and years of hard work. Hard work that allowed people like you to benefit from it, Harper. Not that you give two shits about it.”
“I fought and I clawed over and over again week and week out to make sure that everybody was looking forward to the matches that I was in because I wanted people to be excited about women’s wrestling. I wanted people to be excited about all of it. I wanted to drag each and every woman that I got in the ring with up to my level because I knew that competition was going to make everything better. If I just stood there and ran through entire rosters of people then it quickly becomes boring, so I need people to be just as good as me and I need people to be held up to that same standard.”
“Relevant?”
“It looks to me like I’m more relevant now than I’ve ever been. All you have to do is look at people like Mercedes Vargas, or even your cousin Jesse Salo before she decided to take some time off. They stuck around and have been collecting a paycheck. They haven’t been trying to better themselves or better the others around them. All they’ve been doing is stinking up the place.”
She chuckles and rolls her eyes before turning around and folding her arms over her chest.
”For you to compare me to her as well just shows how little you know about the professional wrestling business. And just how much you still have to learn. You see most people in your position, real people, not just fake bitches like yourself, they would realize that this is an opportunity. You are standing there running me down saying that I’m no longer relevant. So if you happen to beat me then what have you done? You have just beaten an irrelevant old nobody. Congratulations. You’ve made any relevancy that you would’ve gotten from beating me mean nothing”
“Idiot..”
“Now, I have already established exactly what I hope to get out of this match with you Harper. I told you that I wanted to test you to see if you earned that contract. I was allowing you to show me that you earned it and that you belong. I was allowing you to stand up for your generation against mine. When I went over to Japan and trained there I had my body destroyed and my mind broken. I had to get rebuilt back up.”
“I was ready to test myself in the United States and when I got here all I could see was a bunch of weaklings. Entitled weaklings. I step away from this business for a year and when I come back, that’s what I find again. I was giving you a chance to show me that I was wrong. And all you’ve done with stupid comments like that is prove that I’m right.”
Alicia throws her hands in the air, clearly frustrated and angry with the position that she finds herself in
”This business means everything to me. When I was a little girl, I wondered why my father was never around. And it was because of this business. Everything went through my teenagers and when I was a young adult, it all led me to want to pursue this. Because I wanted to see what this business was like and why it took my father away from me. And I fell in love with it.”
“I fell in love with everything. The travelling, the fans, the competition, the fact that I had this drive inside Me to try and be the best. And that drive, that fire, it never went away. I went home to spend time with my sons. I went home because I wanted to spend as much time with Austin as I could. I wanted life. But that desire, that need for competition, and that never went away. In fact, it got stronger.”
“And to be honest, I feel like I’m wasting my breath. I’m trying to teach you a lesson that you simply cannot fathom. You can’t understand it. You got given a contract when you graduated, and you say that you’ve tried to earn that, but you really haven’t. You turn up to work if you win a match you think it’s the greatest thing ever and if you lose you ignore it just like everyone else. Because you don’t learn anything.”
“So, I’m going to teach you”
“Just like I have been doing a Wolfslair. See, I’ve been teaching a whole bunch of young students coming through. I have a certain skill for it. But when it comes to me wanting to teach someone Harper, I don’t cuddle them and carry them and pat them on the head and tell them that everything is going to be alright. I beat my lessons into them. And they come out on the other side stronger, better, smarter, and ready to take on the world. But you? I don’t think you have it inside you to be in this business. I don’t think you have the same fire in the same drive that is needed to be at the top.”
Alicia moves along and looks over the opposite side toward the pool. She smiles as Austin plays with her sons as well as his children, Austin's sister and her son also enjoying the cruise and the time away from New York. This is what Alicia fights for.
”Your main argument against nepotism doesn’t really make a lot of sense either. People like you need to work harder. I know that because I knew I needed to work harder. Zoey knew she needed to work harder anyone who has relatives or friends who they’ve grown close to in this business needs to work harder when they have someone who would preceed them. But you took it one step closer. You want to assume that Christian and Mark had their eye on you when you were graduating Team Hero Academy? Really? We have so many young hungry stars sitting at Wolfslair…”
“You know how many of those young hungry kids have been signed by this company? Without any prior experience where they set other companies on fire or show what they could do? None. Zero. Because we don’t coddle them and bring them into a major company before they’re ready.”
“And that is from Wolfslair. A gym that has been responsible for some of the best this company has ever seen. Myself, Austin James Mercer, Alex Jones, Johanna Krieger, Sierra Williams, Miles Kasey, Finn Whelan, Lachlan Kane. The list goes on. And as much as you want to believe that Hero Academy is some great gym that produces legends and Schitt gold the truth is that it doesn’t. The only reason people care about that place is because Roxi and Keira run it…”
“But tell me Harper, who from that gym has ever done anything worthwhile? Go ahead bring some names oh wait.”
“You can’t. And you are trying to be the first one and that’s fine. I don’t like how you got here, I don’t like your attitude, and I don’t like that people seem to think you’re going to be something when you have shown nothing to anyone that proves it. And you’re making the same mistakes now. Sitting there talking about how you want to be a new hero in this company. How? You can’t even admit to yourself that maybe the way you got in here was a little bit shady. You can’t even admit to yourself that I’m still just as good as I’ve always been. Instead, you want to throw accusations at me like I’m the same as Mercedes Vargas. You want to tear people down instead of lift them up when I have done nothing but try and lift the division.”
“So, falls count anywhere, summer xxxtreme, you, the young hungry rookie who thinks they can do no wrong, Me the grizzled veteran who seems to have a stick up her ass. I know the role I have to play. I know that some people think that I’m a monster, but the truth is Harper? I’m a teacher and I’m trying to teach you a lesson. I just hope that the people around you haven’t poisoned your mind to the possibility of actually fucking learning something. So shut your mouth, take your lesson, and then thank me..”