[Mercedes Vargas]

L O S A N G E L E S, C A L I F O R N I A

T'was the night before Halloween, the spookiest night of the year. Four souls stumble blindy, under a moonlight clear. After what seemed like hours, it was a sad sight, four souls were sitting  in a pumpkin patch in the middle of the night.

Mercedes: 'Join us!', they said. 'It will be fun!', they said. I'd rather be trick-or-treating.

Irma: We've been here for hours. I'm beginning to think this wasn't such a great idea. Of all the nights, did you had to pick this one?

Hugo: They say if you're very quiet The Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch and flies through the air. Relax, he'll come, I just know it.

Tomas: What he said.

Mercedes: We're doing this again? You're wasting your time. The Great Pumpkin isn't real.

While their ambition was noted, it proved to be no match, as they continued their search in a pumpkin patch. Their only sane reason, the reason they cared in hopes that The Great Pumpkin soon would be there.

Hugo: I'm telling you, when the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch, we'll be here to see him. We'll just sit here in this pumpkin patch and you'll see the Great Pumpkin with your own eyes.

As they waited, Irma tells him something.

Irma: We didn't see him last year, or the year before that. What makes it different?

Hugo: Because this is the most sincere pumpkin patch and he respects sincerity.

Mercedes: You sure you didn't read this review of Yelp?

They hear some rustling, which surprises them.

Irma: What was that?

Mercedes: I don't know.

Hugo: It's him! I HEAR THE GREAT PUMPKIN!

The rustling noise gets louder and louder, until a silhouette appears, which Hugo thinks is the Great Pumpkin

Hugo: There he is. There he is! It's the Great Pumpkin! He's rising up out of the pumpkin patch!

Hugo suddenly faints, but the dark silhouette just turns out to be Ricardo rising out of the pumpkin patch

After awhile, Hugo wakes up to everyone staring at him.

Hugo: What happened?

Mercedes starts to get mad at Hugo for what happened.

Hugo: Did I faint? What did he leave us? Did he leave us any toys?

Mercedes waves her fists in anger, and starts shouting

Mercedes: How could I have been so stupid!

Hugo gets up and Mercedes continues shouting over what happened.

Mercedes: I wasted the whole night waiting for the Great Pumpkin, when I could've been out for tricks or treats! You kept me up all night waiting for the Great Pumpkin, and all that came was a Ricardo.

Mercedes grabs Hugo by his shirt and shakes him angrily.

Mercedes: YOU OWE ME RESTITUTION!

Mercedes then walks angrily away from Hugo, as he gets shocked over what happened, and then he talks to Ricardo and Thomas.

Hugo: Like a woman scorned, huh?

Tomas: What he said.

Ricardo: This night can't get any better.

~~~

L O S A N G E L E S • C A L I F O R N I A

It's Not Whether You Win or Lose: Gatekeeper the 21st: Mentiras, Malditas Mentiras (Lies, Damned Lies..., Part VI)

[REC•]

The camera warms up on Mercedes sitting cross-legged on a beanbag chair, slightly pensive to the events of the past few weeks, and for the weeks to come.

"Some things are better left unsaid, but you can bet I'm going to say it anyway. I can't help being who I am.

"Usually, I like to start my promos off slow. I introduce myself to my opponent. Sometimes I offer a little interesting fact about them or a little history lesson that can be hit or miss. Could be a witty quote I overheard one day.

"But I don't think I'll need to do that with who I'm up against this week thanks to Candy. Bless her heart. We don't deserve her. No, see, with Roxi Johnson, there's a lot of history between us. We both debuted in Sin City Wrestling in the same year. We've won the world championship multiple times. We're both Hall of Famers, although in my case, this company seems to forget that part. Yeah, it grinds my gears a little, but if you're going to heap praise on my opponent, the very least you can afford to do is offer the same thing to me.

"Anyway, so me and Roxi. We've known each other for the better part of a decade, that's a long time. And even then, you can sense - literally, figuratively, emotionally - that there's a lot of tension. Not the sexual tension she and Amber seem to have when they're around each other. No, this tension is raw, unfiltered, unadulterated. We just plain don't like each other and if given the chance we'd probably avoid having to pass each other in the hallway altogether. Hi-and-bye won't cut it. Sometimes during shows depending on the venue, the Bombshells are cramped in one room designated as a dressing room. Putting us in the same room alone would likely see a double homicide CSI investigation.

"I guess where I'm going with this is a match like this has been a long time coming. No, I get that Roxi and I have crossed paths before, but in all that time, the seven, eight years we've been with this company, we have never gone one-on-one before.

Until now.

"A match like this, between two Hall of Famers who have combined to win 19 overall championships, five world championships, 11 year-end awards nominations, eight year-end award wins, and are one and two in most career wins in the company should be main-event worthy. Instead it's placed early in the show while someone not even contracted to the company gets to headline against someone who's going to embarrass and humiliate her just like she did to her mother. Tell me how does this make sense? In any event, I was snubbed.

"Seems to be a common theme with me lately. I'm one of the most winningest women in the company, but some only see what I've done lately. I mean, I get that this is a results-oriented business and all, I get that. If the typical fan  - as fickle as they are sometimes - just started watching SCW, they might see me as a jobber, which completely flies in the face of all the hard work I've done in my career.

If anything, I'm not a jobber, far from it. I'm a fucking legend goddammit and I should be treated as such.

"In a women's locker room that often sees competitors come and go within a couple years, if that, I've been the most stable presence. After all, 80 percent of success is showing up. Or, the best ability is availability. Same difference. How many people can say they've wrestled more than 100 matches and perform regularly on TV?  Answer: You can count them on one hand. I've been such a constant presence for the past seven, eight years now that it's almost easy to forget about my successes. I'm practically the Roger Dangerfield of the women's division, maybe even the entire company.

"I'm going to come out and say it. I'm not happy. I'm not happy about what happened in my last match. I'm not happy about this losing streak I'm on. I'm not happy how this year has gone. Maybe this is too on the nose, maybe there's some frustration in there, but it's the truth."

Nothing else needed to be said. The look on her face told the story. She divides her attention between the ground and the camera.

"Kudos to Kiera, she went out there and proved the critics wrong. Am I surprised that she won? I am. I'm not going to lie. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good, and I'm sure Keira won't let me hear the end of it at the next show. Mark my words. But let's get this where it should be. I'm facing her better half and I already know I'm getting a focused Roxi this weekend and I wouldn't have it any other way. A focused Roxi is a dangerous Roxi.

"Well, I, too, like to live dangerously. Here I get a rare chance to cut loose without so much as worrying about the outcome."

Mercedes pauses, smirks a while. She knows where she was going with this.

"Roxi and I are headed on a collision course and I didn't even need to ask for this match. Thanks to Candy, I get Roxi all to myself, an opportunity I was robbed of some seven years in a promotion that you don't really need to know the name of, but these are the matches you circle the calendar for.

"No title on the line here, no off chance that SCW is going under just days before an event. Murphy's Law isn't going to mess this up for me because this is a match years in the making. With all that's been going on, you're probably thinking that I don't even care about my match, that my mind is elsewhere, that I'm distracted, but dot, dot, dot...you're wrong."

Mercedes produced a clipboard and turns it towards the camera where a check box next to, yup, you guessed it, Roxi's name is written in red marker. As her cellphone goes off, Mercedes' holds up her index finger in a wait a minute gesture, bringing the phone to her ear.

"Hello? Yes. Who is this? How did you get this number!? I told you I DON'T WANT ANYTHING FROM YOU! STOP STALKING ME!"

Closing her phone, Mercedes turns back to the camera, a pleasant smile on her face.

"Sorry, credit card companies. Can't live with them, can't live without them. Where was I? Oh, right. I've been counting them down, Roxi. The hours. The minutes. The seconds until the day we meet at Climax Control. You know you have your sights set on Amber at High Stakes, but before you get your hands on Red, you have to get through me first. Simple, right?"

Mercedes pauses, shaking her index finger at the camera.

"Not so simple, but you know what they say: what kills you make you stronger. And I like to play to my strengths. No hero puns this time, I'm not in the mood."

Mercedes offers an nonchalant shrug while mouthing the word "sorry" before continuing. The offer was non-negotiable.

"For me, where I am on the show has never mattered too much. I go out there and I give it everything I got every time I'm booked and week will be no different."

Mercedes swipes a hand over face. The once proud smile she had has transformed into a serious expression.

"The holiday season is just around the corner, but people like me know better because things really get going by the time Halloween rolls around. So now the pumpkins and the treasure trove of candy is already bought, the Thanksgiving turkeys are already in stock. And we can't about Christmas. Well, this match is Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas rolled up into the one.

"And it couldn't have happened to a nicer person."

For a moment the smile returns to her face while running her fingers through her hair.

"Hope for the best, prepare for the worse and may the odds be ever in your favor."

***Fade***