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Supercard Archives / Re: ALICIA LUKAS (c) v ALEXANDRA CALAWAY - BOMBSHELL ROULETTE TITLE
« Last post by Alicia Lukas on January 07, 2026, 04:52:19 AM »Preperation
The barbell settled into Alicia’s hands with a familiar heaviness, knurling biting gently into her palms as she lifted it from the rack. She didn’t rush. Never did anymore. The old instinct, to explode, to prove something with speed, had softened into something more deliberate. She stepped back, feet shoulder-width apart, posture precise, breath measured.
Down.
Up.
The mirrors caught her movement, clean and controlled. No wasted motion. No audience. Just effort. It was always like this now. The gym didn’t demand perfection, only honesty. The weight never lied to her. It didn’t care about her name, her past, or the things people whispered when they thought she couldn’t hear. It only responded to what she gave it. As she lowered the bar again, her thoughts slipped, not forward, not outward, but back.
The smell came first.
Not rubber mats or disinfectant, but incense, faint and stubborn, clinging to the air no matter how many windows were opened. Old wood floors polished smooth by decades of bare feet and falls. The sharp snap of bodies hitting canvas. Japanese voices she barely understood then, clipped and precise, cutting through her uncertainty like blades. She exhaled as she lifted.
Japan.
The dojo hadn’t looked like much the first time she saw it. No glamour. No banners announcing greatness. Just a low building tucked away from the city, quiet in a way that felt deliberate. Sacred, almost. Alicia had stood at the entrance with her bag slung over her shoulder, heart racing, convincing herself that nerves were excitement.
She’d been wrong.
Inside, everything felt bigger. Not physically, but spiritually. The walls carried history. Every scuff mark on the floor felt earned. And standing there, a young woman thousands of miles from home, Alicia had never felt smaller. She racked the bar and wiped sweat from her forehead, chest rising and falling as the memory sharpened. Back then, she’d been sure of only one thing: she didn’t belong. She remembered the way she bowed too stiffly, unsure if she was doing it right. The way her accent tangled around the language, how she nodded more than she spoke, afraid of saying the wrong thing. She remembered being watched—not unkindly, but critically. As if the room itself was assessing her worth.
She had followed her father’s footsteps across an ocean, carrying his legacy like armor, believing it would protect her. It hadn’t. The trainers hadn’t cared who her father was. The women she trained with certainly hadn’t. Respect wasn’t inherited here. It was extracted—slowly, painfully, rep by rep, fall by fall. Alicia picked up a pair of dumbbells now, arms burning as she moved through controlled curls. The pain was familiar, grounding. It anchored her to the present even as the past unfolded.
She remembered her first week.
How her body screamed every morning. How she woke before dawn, muscles stiff, bruises blooming along her arms and ribs like unwanted flowers. She remembered sitting on the edge of her futon, staring at her hands, wondering if everyone else felt this broken, or if she was just weak. She had never been the strongest. Never the fastest. Never the most naturally gifted. And she had known it. That knowledge had followed her like a shadow. Every drill. Every critique. Every time she was corrected…again, while someone else moved on. Alicia had learned quickly that Japan didn’t coddle insecurity. If you hesitated, you were left behind.
So she learned not to hesitate. But confidence didn’t come with that lesson. Only fear. She finished the set and leaned forward, hands on her knees, breathing hard. A younger Alicia flickered in her reflection, eyes wide, jaw tight, trying desperately not to cry in front of people who expected toughness, not tears. She had cried anyway. Just not where anyone could see. The showers had been her sanctuary. Hot water masking the sound. Steam hiding the tremble in her shoulders. She’d press her forehead to the tile and ask herself the same question over and over.
Why am I not good enough?
At the time, she thought the question would motivate her. That if she could just figure out what was missing, she could fix it. She didn’t understand yet how dangerous that mindset was—how it carved worth into something conditional. She loaded plates onto the leg press now, heavier than before. Her legs trembled as she pushed, thighs burning as the weight moved.
Push.
In Japan, pushing had been everything.
She pushed through exhaustion until her vision blurred. Through language barriers and loneliness. Through the humiliation of being corrected publicly, through the silent disappointment she imagined every time she fell short. She pushed because stopping felt like failure, and failure felt like erasure. But there were moments, small ones, when something else crept in. A nod from a trainer after a clean sequence. A quiet “ii desu” muttered under someone’s breath. The first time she wasn’t the slowest to get back up. The first time someone trusted her to take them through a drill without hesitation.
Those moments didn’t erase the doubt. They just punctured it. Alicia locked out the press and held it there, legs shaking, jaw clenched.
She had stayed in Japan longer than she planned. Not because she felt ready, but because leaving felt like admitting defeat. Somewhere along the way, though, survival turned into belonging. Not acceptance. Belonging came later. But survival was enough at the time. She released the weight and sat up slowly, heart pounding. Sweat dripped down her temples, her breathing loud in her ears. She smiled faintly. That scared, immature young woman hadn’t known what she was becoming. She’d thought greatness looked like fearlessness. Like never doubting. Like never hurting.
She knew better now. Alicia moved to the mat and stretched, muscles protesting as she eased into the movements. Her body didn’t recover like it used to. She felt that truth every morning. In the way old injuries whispered instead of screamed. In the extra time it took to warm up. In the patience she had learned, not by choice, but by necessity.
She wasn’t as good as she used to be.
The thought didn’t sting the way it once had. Because she was also more. More aware. More grounded. More capable of seeing the full picture instead of just the next obstacle. She had won world championships. Traveled the globe. Etched her name into history in ways that girl in Japan couldn’t have imagined without laughing at the audacity of it. And yet. What mattered most wasn’t what she had conquered. It was what she had endured without losing herself.
She sat there, stretching hamstrings that protested loudly, and allowed herself something she hadn’t in a long time. Grace. Not the performative kind. Not the kind granted by fans or headlines or legacy speeches. But the quiet kind you give yourself when you stop measuring your worth against who you used to be. She had chased perfection once. It had nearly broken her. Now, she chased presence. Alicia stood, gathering her things as the gym continued around her, oblivious to the journey she had just taken without ever leaving the room. The weight today hadn’t been on the bar. It had been in memory. In reconciliation.
She paused by the mirror one last time.
The woman staring back at her wasn’t fearless. She wasn’t invincible. She wasn’t the best version of herself she’d ever been.
She was real.
And she still had something to offer.
Alicia nodded once, to the reflection, to the past, to the girl in Japan who had stayed when leaving would’ve been easier.
Then she walked out, steady, grounded, carrying the kind of strength that didn’t need to be proven ever again.
Break
”You talk about ghosts like they chose you.”
Alicia can’t help but chuckle, she’s leaning against a wall one lake up with her foot flat against it, tight fitting black jeans and red and black converse give way to a black leather stud belt and a black crop top. Her long hair down except for a few parts on the side that are braided and dangling down.
“Like the walls whispered your name. Like the past reached forward, grabbed you by the wrist, and anointed you as something inevitable. That’s not destiny, Alexandra. That’s desperation dressed up as romance. You wandered through the Flamingo like a pilgrim looking for permission. You stared at reflections, listened to echoes, begged history to notice you. You spoke to dead men because the living ones already measured you, and found you wanting. You wrapped yourself in blood-soaked nostalgia because it’s easier than admitting the truth”
“You’re not chasing me. You’re chasing your failures.”
“You say I walk into this like it’s another photoshoot. Another headline. Another moment where the world tells me I’m untouchable. That’s cute. That’s convenient. That’s the version of me you need to exist, because the real one ruins your whole narrative. I didn’t get here because I look good under lights. I got here because when the lights hit, I perform.”
“You think grace means softness. You think composure means ignorance. You think confidence is vanity because you don’t understand what it feels like to stand in the center of the storm and not flinch. You call that superficial because you’ve never owned a moment, you’ve only survived them. You keep saying you need this. You need the title. You need validation. You need redemption. You need to rewrite losses that still live rent-free in your head. And you’re right about one thing: that does make you dangerous. Just not in the way you think.”
She pushes off the wall stepping forward as she moves toward the bright flashing lights of the Las Vegas strip
“It makes you reckless. It makes you emotional. It makes you predictable. I don’t need this match to mean anything more than it is. I don’t need to bleed for clarity. I don’t need to pace the floor replaying imaginary violence to convince myself I belong. I already know who I am. That’s the difference you keep tripping over. You confuse obsession with purpose. You confuse instability with honesty. You confuse suffering with strength. And worst of all, you confuse mythology with inevitability. You talk about Vegas like it decides who wins. Like this city crowns monsters and buries kings in the same breath. Like the Flamingo itself is some divine judge weighing souls and handing out verdicts soaked in neon and blood.”
“Vegas doesn’t decide anything, The ring does.”
“History doesn’t swing first. I do. You want to frame this as survival versus vanity. As hunger versus entitlement. As monster versus muse. That’s not insight, that’s projection. You need me to be shallow so you can be deep. You need me to be unaware so you can feel enlightened. You need me to underestimate you because you already underestimate yourself. You don’t fight for the future. You fight to escape the past. Every word you spoke was about what you’ve lost. Every threat you made was about what you’re afraid to lose again.”
“You say you don’t sleep before moments like this. You pace. You plan. You replay bones hitting canvas until it feels like music. That’s not clarity. That’s fixation. That’s a mind stuck on one outcome because it doesn’t trust itself to adapt when things don’t go to plan. Champions sleep. Champions rest. Champions walk into matches knowing they can adjust, endure, and outlast. You’re wired because you’re scared of silence. Because in the quiet, all that’s left is the truth: you don’t know who you are without this title. You don’t know how to exist without something to claw for. You don’t know how to stand still without feeling irrelevant.”
She closes her eyes and starts to laugh, stopping as she gets to one of the streets going down the main Vegas strip. Crowds of people go by, Alicia simply folds her arms over her chest and continues, the different flashing lights casting a shadow on her face.
“So you call yourself a monster. Monsters are easy. Monsters roar. Monsters threaten. Monsters rely on fear because they can’t rely on consistency. Everyone already expects you to be unstable. Everyone already whispers about you backstage. Everyone already braces for chaos when your name is on the card. That’s not an advantage. That’s a warning label.”
“You think being unpredictable makes you dangerous, but unpredictability is just another pattern when it’s all you have. I don’t need to guess what you’ll do, I just need to wait for you to do too much. Because you always do. You say you’re not here to end my career, just my reign. That you’re here to take back what you believe is owed to you. Like the title wronged you. Like history owes you interest on past failures.”
“The title doesn’t owe you anything. It doesn’t belong to your pain. It doesn’t belong to your sacrifices. It doesn’t belong to your need. It belongs to the person who can carry it without letting it define them. And that’s not you. You call the Bombshell Roulette Championship a sacrifice. You talk about grabbing it like it owes you money. You talk about dragging me into the deep end and holding me there until panic sets in.”
Another chuckle and another shake of the head, her bright blue eyes shining as she puts up a single finger as if she’s admonishing Alexandra.
“Here’s the part you don’t understand.”
“I don’t panic. I don’t crack when things get uncomfortable. I don’t fold when the pressure shifts. I don’t need fear to feel honest. You think pressure comes from knowing everything wants to take something from you. You think you’re calm because you’ve made peace with the worst parts of yourself.”
“No.”
“You’re calm because you’ve accepted chaos as an excuse. I’m calm because I trust myself. I don’t need ghosts leaning in close to listen. I don’t need dead men nodding in approval. I don’t need to pretend I’m part of some violent lineage to feel legitimate. I’ve built my legacy in the present, against living, breathing opponents who thought the same things you do. You want to be remembered. I already am. You want to carve your name into history. I’m writing the future. You think this stops being a match and becomes a reckoning.”
“For you, maybe.”
Her mouth twists into an arrogant grin
“For me, it’s just another night where I step into the ring, assess the threat in front of me, and dismantle it piece by piece. No theatrics. No sacrifices. No mythology. Just execution. You can pray the ghosts like you. You can listen to walls that don’t talk. You can convince yourself that this city rewards monsters. But when the bell rings, none of that steps between the ropes with you.”
“” do.”
“And when it’s over, when you’re staring up at the lights, listening to the crowd you said didn’t matter, you won’t be thinking about Bugsy Siegel. You won’t be thinking about Vegas. You won’t be thinking about history or destiny or sacrifice. You’ll be thinking about the moment you realized the truth. That you didn’t lose because the city chose me. You didn’t lose because the ghosts turned on you. You didn’t lose because you weren’t dangerous enough. You lost because you needed this. And I didn’t. And that is why I am the Bombshell Roulette Champion.”
“And you never will be.”
The barbell settled into Alicia’s hands with a familiar heaviness, knurling biting gently into her palms as she lifted it from the rack. She didn’t rush. Never did anymore. The old instinct, to explode, to prove something with speed, had softened into something more deliberate. She stepped back, feet shoulder-width apart, posture precise, breath measured.
Down.
Up.
The mirrors caught her movement, clean and controlled. No wasted motion. No audience. Just effort. It was always like this now. The gym didn’t demand perfection, only honesty. The weight never lied to her. It didn’t care about her name, her past, or the things people whispered when they thought she couldn’t hear. It only responded to what she gave it. As she lowered the bar again, her thoughts slipped, not forward, not outward, but back.
The smell came first.
Not rubber mats or disinfectant, but incense, faint and stubborn, clinging to the air no matter how many windows were opened. Old wood floors polished smooth by decades of bare feet and falls. The sharp snap of bodies hitting canvas. Japanese voices she barely understood then, clipped and precise, cutting through her uncertainty like blades. She exhaled as she lifted.
Japan.
The dojo hadn’t looked like much the first time she saw it. No glamour. No banners announcing greatness. Just a low building tucked away from the city, quiet in a way that felt deliberate. Sacred, almost. Alicia had stood at the entrance with her bag slung over her shoulder, heart racing, convincing herself that nerves were excitement.
She’d been wrong.
Inside, everything felt bigger. Not physically, but spiritually. The walls carried history. Every scuff mark on the floor felt earned. And standing there, a young woman thousands of miles from home, Alicia had never felt smaller. She racked the bar and wiped sweat from her forehead, chest rising and falling as the memory sharpened. Back then, she’d been sure of only one thing: she didn’t belong. She remembered the way she bowed too stiffly, unsure if she was doing it right. The way her accent tangled around the language, how she nodded more than she spoke, afraid of saying the wrong thing. She remembered being watched—not unkindly, but critically. As if the room itself was assessing her worth.
She had followed her father’s footsteps across an ocean, carrying his legacy like armor, believing it would protect her. It hadn’t. The trainers hadn’t cared who her father was. The women she trained with certainly hadn’t. Respect wasn’t inherited here. It was extracted—slowly, painfully, rep by rep, fall by fall. Alicia picked up a pair of dumbbells now, arms burning as she moved through controlled curls. The pain was familiar, grounding. It anchored her to the present even as the past unfolded.
She remembered her first week.
How her body screamed every morning. How she woke before dawn, muscles stiff, bruises blooming along her arms and ribs like unwanted flowers. She remembered sitting on the edge of her futon, staring at her hands, wondering if everyone else felt this broken, or if she was just weak. She had never been the strongest. Never the fastest. Never the most naturally gifted. And she had known it. That knowledge had followed her like a shadow. Every drill. Every critique. Every time she was corrected…again, while someone else moved on. Alicia had learned quickly that Japan didn’t coddle insecurity. If you hesitated, you were left behind.
So she learned not to hesitate. But confidence didn’t come with that lesson. Only fear. She finished the set and leaned forward, hands on her knees, breathing hard. A younger Alicia flickered in her reflection, eyes wide, jaw tight, trying desperately not to cry in front of people who expected toughness, not tears. She had cried anyway. Just not where anyone could see. The showers had been her sanctuary. Hot water masking the sound. Steam hiding the tremble in her shoulders. She’d press her forehead to the tile and ask herself the same question over and over.
Why am I not good enough?
At the time, she thought the question would motivate her. That if she could just figure out what was missing, she could fix it. She didn’t understand yet how dangerous that mindset was—how it carved worth into something conditional. She loaded plates onto the leg press now, heavier than before. Her legs trembled as she pushed, thighs burning as the weight moved.
Push.
In Japan, pushing had been everything.
She pushed through exhaustion until her vision blurred. Through language barriers and loneliness. Through the humiliation of being corrected publicly, through the silent disappointment she imagined every time she fell short. She pushed because stopping felt like failure, and failure felt like erasure. But there were moments, small ones, when something else crept in. A nod from a trainer after a clean sequence. A quiet “ii desu” muttered under someone’s breath. The first time she wasn’t the slowest to get back up. The first time someone trusted her to take them through a drill without hesitation.
Those moments didn’t erase the doubt. They just punctured it. Alicia locked out the press and held it there, legs shaking, jaw clenched.
She had stayed in Japan longer than she planned. Not because she felt ready, but because leaving felt like admitting defeat. Somewhere along the way, though, survival turned into belonging. Not acceptance. Belonging came later. But survival was enough at the time. She released the weight and sat up slowly, heart pounding. Sweat dripped down her temples, her breathing loud in her ears. She smiled faintly. That scared, immature young woman hadn’t known what she was becoming. She’d thought greatness looked like fearlessness. Like never doubting. Like never hurting.
She knew better now. Alicia moved to the mat and stretched, muscles protesting as she eased into the movements. Her body didn’t recover like it used to. She felt that truth every morning. In the way old injuries whispered instead of screamed. In the extra time it took to warm up. In the patience she had learned, not by choice, but by necessity.
She wasn’t as good as she used to be.
The thought didn’t sting the way it once had. Because she was also more. More aware. More grounded. More capable of seeing the full picture instead of just the next obstacle. She had won world championships. Traveled the globe. Etched her name into history in ways that girl in Japan couldn’t have imagined without laughing at the audacity of it. And yet. What mattered most wasn’t what she had conquered. It was what she had endured without losing herself.
She sat there, stretching hamstrings that protested loudly, and allowed herself something she hadn’t in a long time. Grace. Not the performative kind. Not the kind granted by fans or headlines or legacy speeches. But the quiet kind you give yourself when you stop measuring your worth against who you used to be. She had chased perfection once. It had nearly broken her. Now, she chased presence. Alicia stood, gathering her things as the gym continued around her, oblivious to the journey she had just taken without ever leaving the room. The weight today hadn’t been on the bar. It had been in memory. In reconciliation.
She paused by the mirror one last time.
The woman staring back at her wasn’t fearless. She wasn’t invincible. She wasn’t the best version of herself she’d ever been.
She was real.
And she still had something to offer.
Alicia nodded once, to the reflection, to the past, to the girl in Japan who had stayed when leaving would’ve been easier.
Then she walked out, steady, grounded, carrying the kind of strength that didn’t need to be proven ever again.
Break
”You talk about ghosts like they chose you.”
Alicia can’t help but chuckle, she’s leaning against a wall one lake up with her foot flat against it, tight fitting black jeans and red and black converse give way to a black leather stud belt and a black crop top. Her long hair down except for a few parts on the side that are braided and dangling down.
“Like the walls whispered your name. Like the past reached forward, grabbed you by the wrist, and anointed you as something inevitable. That’s not destiny, Alexandra. That’s desperation dressed up as romance. You wandered through the Flamingo like a pilgrim looking for permission. You stared at reflections, listened to echoes, begged history to notice you. You spoke to dead men because the living ones already measured you, and found you wanting. You wrapped yourself in blood-soaked nostalgia because it’s easier than admitting the truth”
“You’re not chasing me. You’re chasing your failures.”
“You say I walk into this like it’s another photoshoot. Another headline. Another moment where the world tells me I’m untouchable. That’s cute. That’s convenient. That’s the version of me you need to exist, because the real one ruins your whole narrative. I didn’t get here because I look good under lights. I got here because when the lights hit, I perform.”
“You think grace means softness. You think composure means ignorance. You think confidence is vanity because you don’t understand what it feels like to stand in the center of the storm and not flinch. You call that superficial because you’ve never owned a moment, you’ve only survived them. You keep saying you need this. You need the title. You need validation. You need redemption. You need to rewrite losses that still live rent-free in your head. And you’re right about one thing: that does make you dangerous. Just not in the way you think.”
She pushes off the wall stepping forward as she moves toward the bright flashing lights of the Las Vegas strip
“It makes you reckless. It makes you emotional. It makes you predictable. I don’t need this match to mean anything more than it is. I don’t need to bleed for clarity. I don’t need to pace the floor replaying imaginary violence to convince myself I belong. I already know who I am. That’s the difference you keep tripping over. You confuse obsession with purpose. You confuse instability with honesty. You confuse suffering with strength. And worst of all, you confuse mythology with inevitability. You talk about Vegas like it decides who wins. Like this city crowns monsters and buries kings in the same breath. Like the Flamingo itself is some divine judge weighing souls and handing out verdicts soaked in neon and blood.”
“Vegas doesn’t decide anything, The ring does.”
“History doesn’t swing first. I do. You want to frame this as survival versus vanity. As hunger versus entitlement. As monster versus muse. That’s not insight, that’s projection. You need me to be shallow so you can be deep. You need me to be unaware so you can feel enlightened. You need me to underestimate you because you already underestimate yourself. You don’t fight for the future. You fight to escape the past. Every word you spoke was about what you’ve lost. Every threat you made was about what you’re afraid to lose again.”
“You say you don’t sleep before moments like this. You pace. You plan. You replay bones hitting canvas until it feels like music. That’s not clarity. That’s fixation. That’s a mind stuck on one outcome because it doesn’t trust itself to adapt when things don’t go to plan. Champions sleep. Champions rest. Champions walk into matches knowing they can adjust, endure, and outlast. You’re wired because you’re scared of silence. Because in the quiet, all that’s left is the truth: you don’t know who you are without this title. You don’t know how to exist without something to claw for. You don’t know how to stand still without feeling irrelevant.”
She closes her eyes and starts to laugh, stopping as she gets to one of the streets going down the main Vegas strip. Crowds of people go by, Alicia simply folds her arms over her chest and continues, the different flashing lights casting a shadow on her face.
“So you call yourself a monster. Monsters are easy. Monsters roar. Monsters threaten. Monsters rely on fear because they can’t rely on consistency. Everyone already expects you to be unstable. Everyone already whispers about you backstage. Everyone already braces for chaos when your name is on the card. That’s not an advantage. That’s a warning label.”
“You think being unpredictable makes you dangerous, but unpredictability is just another pattern when it’s all you have. I don’t need to guess what you’ll do, I just need to wait for you to do too much. Because you always do. You say you’re not here to end my career, just my reign. That you’re here to take back what you believe is owed to you. Like the title wronged you. Like history owes you interest on past failures.”
“The title doesn’t owe you anything. It doesn’t belong to your pain. It doesn’t belong to your sacrifices. It doesn’t belong to your need. It belongs to the person who can carry it without letting it define them. And that’s not you. You call the Bombshell Roulette Championship a sacrifice. You talk about grabbing it like it owes you money. You talk about dragging me into the deep end and holding me there until panic sets in.”
Another chuckle and another shake of the head, her bright blue eyes shining as she puts up a single finger as if she’s admonishing Alexandra.
“Here’s the part you don’t understand.”
“I don’t panic. I don’t crack when things get uncomfortable. I don’t fold when the pressure shifts. I don’t need fear to feel honest. You think pressure comes from knowing everything wants to take something from you. You think you’re calm because you’ve made peace with the worst parts of yourself.”
“No.”
“You’re calm because you’ve accepted chaos as an excuse. I’m calm because I trust myself. I don’t need ghosts leaning in close to listen. I don’t need dead men nodding in approval. I don’t need to pretend I’m part of some violent lineage to feel legitimate. I’ve built my legacy in the present, against living, breathing opponents who thought the same things you do. You want to be remembered. I already am. You want to carve your name into history. I’m writing the future. You think this stops being a match and becomes a reckoning.”
“For you, maybe.”
Her mouth twists into an arrogant grin
“For me, it’s just another night where I step into the ring, assess the threat in front of me, and dismantle it piece by piece. No theatrics. No sacrifices. No mythology. Just execution. You can pray the ghosts like you. You can listen to walls that don’t talk. You can convince yourself that this city rewards monsters. But when the bell rings, none of that steps between the ropes with you.”
“” do.”
“And when it’s over, when you’re staring up at the lights, listening to the crowd you said didn’t matter, you won’t be thinking about Bugsy Siegel. You won’t be thinking about Vegas. You won’t be thinking about history or destiny or sacrifice. You’ll be thinking about the moment you realized the truth. That you didn’t lose because the city chose me. You didn’t lose because the ghosts turned on you. You didn’t lose because you weren’t dangerous enough. You lost because you needed this. And I didn’t. And that is why I am the Bombshell Roulette Champion.”
“And you never will be.”