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Climax Control Archives / ECHO 02 ★ ARTIFICIAL
« Last post by Amelia Reynolds on June 26, 2025, 11:12:31 PM »echo 02 ★ artificial
The very second the curtain swung closed behind her, the roar of the crowd dulled intensely, becoming more of a quiet hum. The second wave of adrenaline hit her as she brushed her hair behind her ear, walking past the producers, a few of which high fived her. It wasn’t the explosive kind that made her fly, but the kind that made her chest tighten. Made her knees suddenly feel weightless, like a delayed crash. She said her thank yous, taking three breathless steps and bouncing up into a slight run. Her boots were off balance, her laces half untied now, chest still heaving from rotation of the corkscrew, flippy-flip splash.
She laughed a little to herself, her breath caught upon the edge of it. Not joy, not disbelief, but a sort of gasping giggle that really meant I did it.
I freakin’ did it!
She was sure there was a bruise forming from where Joanne had her locked in a sharpshooter, and maybe one from being flung into the ring posts. None of it really mattered though. Not when she saw him.
Dickie.
He was leaning against the wall like he didn’t have a care in the world, arms crossed, a half-smile of pride tucked at the corner of his mouth. A backstage visitor pass had been clipped to the strange little pocket of his black skinnies, and his boots clunked against the ground as he pushed himself off the wall. It was like he knew the result regardless of the actuality of it, regardless of the fact that she knew he’d likely been pacing for the last fifteen minutes, from the second the bell rang, and may have likely threatened the camera guy with bodily harm for merely trying to crowd the monitor.
(He did. There was a cease and desist served a few days later).
The second she saw him, her pace faltered for a second. Not from hesitation, but pure gravity. A relief sitting behind her chest, like everything that made her body hurt had lifted. Her feet were moving again before she realized it. Faster. No pretense, no poise. She collided into him with a force that was not at all reflective of her regular grace. Her arms locked around his neck and her legs dangled a couple of inches off the ground as he wrapped an arm about her waist, while the other immediately tangled in the strands at the nape of her neck, threading through her sweat-damp hair.
There was no flinch from Dickie; he caught her like he always did. Didn’t matter if he was out the door the next morning for his own matches. Tonight was about her, and her success. She buried her nose into his neck, her breath still sharp against his skin. Grounding. Calming. Whatever scent of sandalwood and cedar and maybe a hint of her own grapefruit shampoo because he constantly forgot to buy his own.
“Hey,” he murmured, voice low. The Magness Arena thrumed with energy, but she didn’t hear or feel any of it. She didn’t answer right away, just held him tighter, her eyes open and staring at the brick wall behind him. A beat passed, and she murmured into his neck.
“I didn’t fall.”
His responding chuckle was soft as she felt his mouth press softly to the back of her head.
“Nope. Definitely flew.” Dickie’s thumb brushed the curve of her hairline, a comforting gesture to calm her speeding heart. “Effective corkscrew four-fifty splash, like you’ve been doing it for a million years.”
“I’ve seen it a million times.” Amelia’s voice was shaky with disbelief. She’d jokingly said she was going to add his finisher to her repertoire. Practiced it. Never completely intended it.
“That you have.” He laughed again. She pulled away from him for a moment, settling herself back on the floor. She laughed a little – not really the pretty kind, the giggle that gamer girls thought guys wanted to hear, but raw and uneven, like her body hadn’t quite caught up with her heart. He kissed her forehead. She let herself lean there, eyes fluttering closed for a second.
But it didn’t really last. Not when the shift happened. She felt it at first, a flicker of motion in her peripheral, a hush in the hallway. Looks exchanged between crew members who were too often too busy running their mouths about the wrestlers, even though they could never do the same.
“...he just went off. Backdate, to Amanda. Like a full on meltdown made of hicksville Australian. What do they call that?”
“Bogan, I think.”
Her breath caught in her throat and she pulled back just enough to look at the passers by and then up to meet Dickie’s hazel-brown eyes. His expression had already shifted. Still steady. Still calm. But a little sharper now. Edges resurfacing the second he heard someone talk shit about his best friend, his brother from another country, his hetero-life-mate.
“Aiden?” She whispered the question.
Dickie nodded once, confirmatively. “The interview’s making rounds. He’s pissed. Like– proper, the-women-offa-Snapped pissed. Not performative.”
Her stomach twisted. That debut rush, the thrill of the win, the roar of the crowd, the afterglow of success completely and utterly fractured. She blinked once, trying to hold on to the moment, but guilt ended up pulling at her ribs like a thread had been attached and already yanked too tight. “...I remember hearing his voice as I was getting ready, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I was nervous. I...I….he’s not going to hate me, is he?”
“Melia,” he lowered his voice, trying to assuage her panic. “He stood next to me until the pin. He cheered the whole time, had his hands wrapped around my neck when she had you in that sharpshooter. Whooped when you bashed her in the face with his running knee move. He’s not mad. Not at you.”
She chewed on her lower lip, not really completely satisfied with that answer. “We can talk to him later, if you want. But not back here,” he added, “not with backstage cameramen eavesdropping to see if they can get in some exclusive content.”
“That’s my Mellie!” Aiden’s Australian cadence echoed from down the hall, almost as if on cue to arrive. He was still dressed in the jeans and singlet top from earlier in the production. Not wrestling clothes. Not prepared to wrestle just in case. “Dressed up in all that glitter and rhinestones and still kickin’ ass. Proud of you.”
He hugged her. Picked her up off the ground slightly. Set her down. Walked off, finger gunning back at her and continuing to walk. Like he hadn’t exploded. Like he hadn’t blown up. But strained. His usual joy didn’t shine in his eyes and he didn’t smile as wide as possible.
Amelia nodded, watching him walk away. They stood quietly for a second, before she breathed slowly out her nose and looked up at him. “He’s just always the one that’s holdin’ everyone else up. I wanna make sure he knows we support him too.”
“Like an underwire.” He cracked the joke, in typical Aiden fashion. She cackled, but in her mind, her win faded into the background, and Aiden became the priority.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★
The planetarium housed in the University of Colorado Boulder Campus was rotating the night sky above, glimmering like a cathedral. It was nestled in the natural sciences complex like a known secret, hidden by an exterior academic structure that matched the rest of the buildings. Modern and beige, brick and glass. Inside, it was far more ethereal, the air always cooler in the dome itself, hushed like a library, and carrying the faint hum of machinery that whirred ever-endlessly. There were rows of sloped seats circling the lecture stage, angled upwards to view the night ceiling above.
With her foot propped on the back of the seat before her, Amelia Reynolds sat with muted defiance. Smiling, but not completely. Her long, silver-blonde hair was pulled up into a high ponytail, little trailing curls around her face. Her lip ring, slight as it was, glimmered in the low light as it flashed past her. This week, she wore a shirt with her brother’s face on it, and a pair of jeans with far too many holes to constitute as pants. Her converse dug into the back of the chair before her easy.
“I’m still comin’ down from it. You know, the match itself. Days later, it’s still settlin’ in my stomach like I’ve done this great feat and now I can kinda just go home and leave out my merry days. They say nothin’ compares to your first win. I’m thinkin’ they’re prob right, but…also thinkin’ that even regardless of the limp and the whole absolute bastardly crashin’ into the turnbuckles, I still won. Joanne Canelli wasn’t like…a warm up or some person with some deets on page. She made me earn every inch of the match. She was kinda a bitch, but I respect her for it.
But, like, I also held my ground. Yeah? I flew when it counted, landed when it hurt, and pulled off the first success I’ve ever had. On Sunday, in front of Denver, I hit Echo Drive from the top rope. I didn’t just luck into it, and I didn’t have muscle memory. It was calculation. Skill that I didn’t know I had. Timing and control. That move…it was the last thing I practiced. The last thing I worked on. It’s his move, and I wanted to make sure that I could recognize his pride when I’m in that ring.
I know that you all just would love to pin a win like mine on something like legacy. Like it’s borrowed. I mean, look at the circle that I have. I’m a member of Wolfslair that has like, what…thirty-three title reigns in this company alone? So it’s easy to sit there and say I pulled someone else’s highlight reel and stitched it over my own match.
But I didn’t win because my last name is Reynolds. In fact, the other Reynolds in this business is getting shafted because some dumbfuck clown with a burial problem wanted to shit on someone and wants to sit in a corner actin’ like he didn’t do anythin’ wrong. Except he did, because he fucked over someone who loves this business probably more than his own kid. I said probs. Aiden got fucked over. Sorry. Not sorry.”
She lifted a hand and twirled a strand of her ponytail, looking up at the ceiling.
“But ya know, now I’ve gotten the first one out of the way, I’m kinda feelin’ my feet. I don’t think I feel like goin’ home and staying in bed and watchin’ reruns of Grey’s Anatomy with my super-fantastic-multi-time-champion boyfriend either. I mean, I would, but now I’m warmed up to the ring. And before ya tell me that I’m title-droppin’ tonight, let me tell ya why.
Because my opponents? Longevity in whole. Been here forever, it seems like. Kate Steele has been here since at least 2016. A Blast from the Past runner up, two time Bombshell Internet Champion, one time Bombshell Roulette Champion. Andrea has been here for five years at least as well, a two time Bombshell World Champion, one time Bombshell Internet Champion. Two phoenixes, both dressed in the fire of their damned failures. One tryin’ to prove she’s changed, and the other too busy lookin’ in the mirror to realize that she doesn’t fit.
Me?
I’m just tryna make a name for myself. Be worthy of sittin' in the same room that Whelan, Watson, Reynolds, Kasey, Phoenixes and Richards sit in. Be somethin’ for them, for myself. What are ya gonna say about me, hm? That I’m too stuck my friends? That I’m a little bit egotistical because they did it, so can I? That I won’t be able to face the two of them because they’re far superior than me? I put Joanne Canelli down on Sunday, the original Internet Champion. You would think I’d be scared. That I’m being thrown the freakin’ gauntlet and I have to figure out how to succeed while making sure my footwork is solid and I’m not gettin’ ahead of myself. Gotta calculate. Gotta figure it out.
Kinda funny though, how it falls. We’re all fliers. We all like to be up in the air. But out of all of us, I’m the one that no one knows, that no one has seen before. That’s kinda what sucks about being someone who is a staple in a company, right, Andrea? You have many, many months of promotional videos and feeds to comb though, thinkin’ that people are goin’ to never see what ya really have behind your eyes. Let’s start here…I know there’s always growth, but I think you’re really tryin’ to have camouflage. Or maybe gaslight us all into thinkin’ you’ve changed. You say you’re not angry anymore, Andrea, but you kinda sound like you are. Your delivery of everything you say makes it seem like you’re measured and calculating, but I can just hear the emphasis on words like you’re wanting us to see a point through gritted teeth.
You constantly are screamin’ at the locker room like we don’t know you, don’t see you. But then you spend the rest of your time tellin’ us to see you another. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t reject and rewrite a narrative just because you think that we don’t see your perception. Everythin’ is about perceptions, and perceptions can be powerful. You wanna be seen as evolved, and changed, stronge than you ever were. But the way you’ve kinda gone about it is shit.
You sat there last time and said that you’re tired of heaving to hear vapid, empty people actin’ as if they know you from front to back. But in the same vein, you talked about Necra being an outlet for you to take your anger out on. That everyone has just given ya bullshit. Three weeks prior? Sayin’ you’ve learned how to be resilient and sayin’ that you’re still learnin’ to not care about people and their opinions.
Honeybun, this whole business is about appearances and how you deal with them. Kayla split you apart at the end of the day because she’s a venomous bish with no heart and you’re still showin’ to everyone that you have a heart.
That’s a difference between us. I know I’ve got a heart. I wear it…”
She presses a hand over her heart, tapping it softly.
“...right here. On my sleeve sometimes. Not because I don’t know how to like…protect it, but because I’ve learned that feelin’ things makes you human. Not weak. It makes you honest. You wanna talk about how you want people to look at you, but maybe you should stop pretendin’ that none of it matters. You’re protective of your own ego. You’re not gonna get that from me. I’m gonna show that I care about my brother, my best friend in the whole world, and I don’t need to throw rhinestones or false poetry to disguise my damage, or build a castle out of cynicism just to look like I’ve made it.
Growth isn’t about how hard ya swing, or how much you sit there in a room and say you’ve grown while barin’ your teeth. It’s how steady you stay, how consistent, from day to day. How the times you sit there and don’t bare your teeth when the wolves come bitin’. Cause they’re always gonna come a-bitin’. And that’s when you snap and lose your brain.
Let’s look at ourselves, though. We’re both highflyin’. You’ve got years of skill and precision behind your movesets. There’s not chaos in your movements, just drilled confidence and focus. You’ve fine-tuned yourself, refusin’ to be hidden behind someone else. It’s a weapon.
Growth, if you will.
But Andrea, just because I’m new, it doesn’t make me instantly less than you. I’m unpredictable, alive. I have a drive to continue to light up the crowd and do things that I’ve never done before. Maybe it’s because I’ve learned from one of the best, or maybe it’s because I’ve watched how my brother is stubborn in his grounding, free in his flight. Maybe it’s because I’ve watched Dickie hit unpredicable and impossible angles just for the hell of it. I’m fast-footed because it’s smart, and I’m not rehearsed. You’re gettin’ lackadaisical, I think and that’s gonna cost ya with me. You pull back when you don’t feel like you’ve been heard or seen. I hear ya. I see ya. I’ma fly past ya.”
Amelia stretches her arms out by her sides, leaning further back into the chair.
“And Kate. I know you’ve been around forever. But let’s be truthful and honest with each other, right? You’re not back because you want to prove anythin’. You’re here because you need the noise and you can’t stand the silence. I listened to you talk about how pretty you are, talkin’ about how tan you are rather than your technique. You remind me of a girl cryin’ for attention on the corner of Colfax and Grant, right outside a 24/7 diner that’s a dive and only open because it’s a drug front. \
You’ve got a lot of insecurities, Kate. New hair, new hear, same insecurities that ya had a long time ago. Just because you’re dressin’ up for a tantrum doesn’t make it a transformation, doesn’t make ya new. You’re kinda like a walkin’ soundcloud tune that never reaches a streamin’ service because the sound is raw, but it isn’t good. Just bein’ loud isn’t the same thing as bein’ heard, because we can hear you. You’ve been talkin’ like you’re on another comeback like you haven’t already been handed like eighty and keep expectin’ to come back and be…somethin’.
Your hair is pretty, and your smile is nice, but the rest of you is kinda like ice…unfeelin’. Bland. You’re not complicated, you’re not Avril Lavigne circa the early two thousands. You’re just kinda loud, ya know? You wanna talk about attention like it’s a currency. You think you’ve got an unlimited balance, but in my opinion, you’re kinda overdrawn. You’re like Andrea, talkin’ about how you’ve evolved, how you’re a threat. How you’re finally you, but how many yous are there? Every bit of your words says noise and glitter, but it doesn’t tell me why I gotta worry about you in the ring.”
She raises a hand and fans herself.
“You kinda exhaust me. Always performin’, but underneath, it’s kinda like you don’t exactly believe in anythin’ you said. You said reinvented, but the Kate Steele I was told about had a look about her that screamed more confidence than boob jobs and blonde hair. It’s about growth. You’re dressin’ up like you think that’s gonna change who you are and how you’re perceived, but…at the end, you’re kinda just still…Kate.
Empty lyrics tangled in a nasally voice on a woman who probably should been in a conservatorship instead of Britney Spears with how many times you’ve disappeared.
And you’re good at disappearin’. Fast. I mean, your whole pop-star get up is speed and submission. Kinda slippery when you’ve got your own rhythm, but I mean…when that rhythm cracks, you’re shrieky and awful. I mean, I doi the same thing sometimes, just with less vocal chords. You know your same two holds and you apply them with skill, but really, do you know how easy it is to track that happenin’?
You don’t fight, though, Kate. You perform. Your whole performance clip is ridiculous and I’m kinda lowkey irritated that you came back for the thirtieth time. Nothin’s changed. Nothin’s different. Just the same story in better gear and prettier hair.”
Amelia tilted her head back, gaze fixed on the stars slowly turning overhead. Artificial, sure. But that was the crux, wasn’t it?
That everything was artificial.
“Maybe I don’t have the history yet. Maybe the accolades or the highlight reels aren’t there. I’ve got grit and timin’, and what’s most important: I’m real. I’m authentic. I’m not tryin’ to be anything other than what I am, unlike Andrea. I’m not tryin’ to be a performer, unlike Kate. I’m not tryin’ to put myself on a pedestal and tell everyone that you should look at me because of who my friends are. They don’t expect me to be perfect, but they have my back. I don’t need them by my side like Kate, or the absence of them like Andrea needs to feel powerful.
I don’t drown in the sound of my own echo. I’m not artificial. You guys can try to outshine me. Out-talk me. I don’t needta scream to be seen and I don’t need to be anythin’ other than me – the girl who feels like enough to shake the whole sky.
I just need three seconds.
And I know exactly how to count em.”
★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Wolfslair: Denver was very different than the New York Branch. Finn had chosen an industrial, modern gym with black walls, metallic accents and high-tech equipment. Still, it was a gym the same as any other, and it still smelled like disinfectant and rubber mats. A clean kind of newly worn. The afternoon sun filtered in through the windows as the clouds started to dissipate, and the faint echo of speed bag punches was in the background somewhere in the distance. It never really was silent, with metal clicking constantly.
The offices sat above the training floor on a mezzanine, so that the trainees could be observed and modified as often as possible. A constant watchful stance. Finn had his foot up on the glass railing, watching as one of the newbies to the gym took a heavy slam that echoed through the building. He had his bad arm still strapped in a brace across his torso, jet black and matte like the rest of his wardrobe. His expression wasn’t unkind, really. She’d learned that he didn’t really vacillate through emotions like the rest of the people in the world. Muted. Silent. Unless he needed to speak.
She knew he missed wrestling, but was content right now to just look over the gym he’d created. Still under the Wolfslair banner – for now, anyway. After the issues with Alex and Aaron nearly three months ago, she’d expected him to pull the name. But he didn’t. And he didn’t look up when he saw her approaching out of the corner of his eye. “You’re limping.”
“Flippy-flip splashes’ll do that,” she replied, light on the tone. “Or maybe it was Joanne’s suplex into the turnbuckle…I dunno, jury is still out and my back feels like I’ve aged ten years.”
Finn hummed a quiet response as she sat down next to him, lowering herself onto the floor with a wince while stretching her legs out and pressing her palms behind her. He didn’t say I saw your match, because he watched everyone. He’d never say he cared, but if they lived on his property, she learned he did. Greatly. As if they were his family and no one could say anything different. His attentiveness was never for show.
“Did you see Aiden’s segment?” She asked him. Dickie had given her some shit about Aiden picking himself up without intervention, but said he’d watch. Finn was always observant. Finn could give her probably a closer examination of the situation than even she could about her brother. She looked up at him as he tilted his head.
Didn’t answer right away.
But eventually…
“I did.” He confirmed. Nothing more. Quiet, neutral. But it carried more weight than a paragraph from someone else. She sighed, shifting her legs, restless with the weight of her brother’s woes.
“I didn’t hear it live. I was prepping myself for my match, I wasn’t even paying attention…heard his voice, but I wasn’t listenin’.”
Finn nodded. She caught the tightness in his jaw as he rolled the brace backwards, still trying movement that had been restricted since the first week of April.
“He was angry,” she added. “Wasn’t just pissed off, it was like he just…had it.”
Finn turned his head finally, looking directly at her. His expression wasn’t really unreadable, but more careful. Like he was trying to figure out if she wanted honest or she wanted placating. “
He’s been like that for a while, I noticed. Years, really. We joke about him being the comic relief, the tag guy, the dependable one. Were semi-shocked when he had a world championship, but still celebrated him all the same. He’s been eating losses that he hasn’t deserved and biting his tongue longer than most people would’ve.”
“I think…I think he likes to feel like he’s holdin’ all of us together. Dickie. Me. Kallie and Dax. He can’t feel like he’s failed because he’s got all this good in his life, and it’s like a switch happened. But I win my debut and he’s right there, huggin’ me and sayin’ he’s proud.”
Finn leaned forward, resting his good elbow on his knee. His voice, when it came, was low and measured.
“When people feel like they’re glue, they’re usually the last to admit when they’re cracking. He’s not going to say anything about it. Not when he’s spent years making movie references and putting paper plates on his face and yelling about the Great Cunthulu of twenty-twenty-two. You can’t always have chaos and grit at the same time.”
“He didn’t even look mad when he came to see me. Just…like he’d just taken a whole grenade to the chest and then wiped it off for my sake. Said he was proud. Smiled like he hadn’t just lost his mind twenty minutes earlier.”
“Sounds like Aiden.” Finn nodded again. “Does damage control for everyone else, but doesn’t leave anything for himself.”
Amelia pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them as she wrapped her arms around her shins. “Dickie said not to take it on. He’s not mad at me, just mad. That’s it.”
“Dickhead’s not wrong…but he’s tired too.”
Amelia looked sideways at him, a flicker of understanding crawling into her chest. She’d come here because he was snoring away on the couch, an ice pack on his head from getting drilled in the head with a chair by someone he didn’t quite like the night before.
“You think he’s next.” She murmured.
“Dickie’s always next,” Finn snorted, crossing his arms, albeit a little awkwardly, as he leaned backwards. “He’s taking on too much, in my opinion.”
Amelia narrowed her eyes and looked at him. He knew something. He always knew something. Whatever Dickie was getting himself into, whatever he wasn’t talking to her about, he knew. And she also knew he wasn’t about to break whatever confidence Dickie had in him.
She didn’t press him. Not yet. She wanted to, with every little fiber of her being, she wanted to pry it out of him and demand whatever thread of information he was holding in like it could protect them all if only she knew what it was. But that wasn’t how Finn worked. She was fairly certain even Kayla couldn’t pull anything from him. He’d tell her if it was her business.
She let it die behind her teeth. Instead, she tilted her head against the glass railing, staring up at the mezzanine lights.
“I hate feeling useless.”
“You’re not.” Pratical. Unemotional.
“I know. Logically…emotionally? It feels like I just started my own career and like…I joined too late? Aiden’s unravelling, Dickie’s hiding something…and you’re benched with your arm torn half off. Kayla’s still champion and I’m in her division and what if they throw me against her like, ever? I’m still just tryin’ to make sure I don’t trip out to the ring.”
“You,” Finn started seriously, leaning forward completely and looking at her in the face, “are not their shield, Amelia. You’re not built to catch them when they fall. That’s not your role, and it never should be. You’re built to stand beside them. That’s enough.”
It was always Finn that would break things to her, or anyone, without a thought of if they may hurt her. “But if I don’t…”
“If you don’t, they ungracefully learn how to land and survive it on their own. They need supports, not saviors.” He sat back too. “That’s love, too, you know.”
Amelia let the words settle in her soul like weight on her shoulders. Not heavier, but better distributed. Realigned. Her fingers gripped the fabric of her leggings, tips brushing across the microfiber as a grounding texture. In the quiet, she was able to calm herself easier. She chewed on her lip nervously again. Her ice-blue eyes looked up at Finn, who’d readjusted his brace a bit.
“I don’t wanna lose ‘em.”
Finn raised an eyebrow. “Dickie is hopelessly in love with you and Aiden is your blood. There is no loss that’s possible. Just be their constant. Support your brother. Stand by Dickie when he inevitably implodes.”
Amelia exhaled slowly, the kind that carried more than just air. Grief, worry, love, all stitched together in some form of semi-reassured, steadied breath. Finn didn’t often deal in comfort, but she came here to talk to him because he dealt in truth. And for now, that was all she really needed. She rose, joints machine still. She tapped his good shoulder with quiet gratitude.
“Thanks.”
He gave a small nod, gaze returning to the ring below. Continuing his watch like he was some stand in on Game of Thrones. She began to head for the stairwell. Finn’s voice echoed behind her, calling her name. She turned.
“Good job.” He told her, giving her a nod. He hesitated, before continuing his words, lowly. “Give Aaron my regards on your training.”
Amelia stared at him.
Her skin paled.
He knew.
