Author Topic: Jump!  (Read 508 times)

Offline Courtney Pierce

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Jump!
« on: October 30, 2020, 11:52:19 PM »
JUMP!
Jet City South - SAN DIEGO
30 OCTOBER 2020
OFF-Camera



I knew that the conversation was coming, but I was honestly surprised that it took him more than a week to think over my offer. I had made myself available. Stayed within his eyeline. There was not a day that went by where I didn’t give him the opportunity to get his head out of his ass and decide that he actually had some balls. I mean, Coby was wasting away on Underground. I was offering him the lifeline of all lifelines. Why should he care about the reason behind it? It was a gift. The fact that he was taking so long to fall in line was almost offensive. That’s why I was relieved to see him practicing what he was going to say all day while I was getting myself ready for the biggest match of my return. It was almost cute that he was going to have to try and work up the nerve to come and talk to me. I must be a lot more intimidating than I ever thought. Once he finally worked up the courage, I pretended not to notice his approach so that he could have the satisfaction of kicking things off however he wanted to.

Coby: I apologize for underestimating you.

Well that was an understatement, but I wasn’t going to insult him after a compliment. After all, he was in good company.

Court: It’s alright. Most people make the same mistake that you did. So I assume that means that you’re in?

Of course he was. He wouldn’t have left me hanging this long just to walk up and tell me no. Either something that I said to him finally clicked, or watching Kris squirm so much finally caught his attention. No matter the reason, I already won.

Coby: I didn’t say that. I said I underestimated you. See, I thought that this joining The Black Sheep was just about you wanting to latch onto someone successful to get more eyes on you.

He wasn’t wrong, but his view was limited. Just because it was a reason didn’t mean it was the only reason. In the big picture it was really more of a perk than a source of motivation. If he wasn’t going to ask those questions though, I wasn’t going to volunteer any extra information.

Court: Who says it’s not?

I tried looking at him and smiling but maybe it was too much. I think he pretty much immediately saw through it.

Coby: So you only asked me because you really think it will help your chances of them saying yes?

Again, he wasn’t wrong. It was just awfully short-sighted. He was part of the plan, but as usual, was giving himself way too much credit. Besides, even if I didn’t know when he was going to cave, I always knew that he was going to. It was a matter of when, not if. He was still treating it like he hadn’t made the decision yet, but we both knew otherwise.

Court: I don’t ask any questions before I know what the answer is going to be.

The only thing he was really looking for was a way to rationalize saying yes. It was up to him what that reason would be. It didn’t really matter to me what it was.

Coby: Which is why you spent so much time twisting up Kris...

If almost getting the picture was a competition I would have to give him a gold medal. I can see why Kris has kept him around for so long. I don’t think it’s that he is stupid though. More that he is too good of a person to think through these kinds of games. I found comfort in that. He was a lifelong pawn.

Court: I don’t know wh--

He cut me off, which was more than I would have given him credit for up to this point. I thought he was too timid.

Coby: See, he said something the other day that got me thinking. You have him so tied up in knots that he doesn’t get it, but I do. It wasn’t about him.

That’s right. It was about me. It’s not like I could say that out loud though. IT is much harder to get people to do the things that you want them to do if you come right out with it. There was finesse required.

Court: Sure it was. He needed to be taught a lesson. He spends all of this time manipulating people, and playing games behind the scenes, and it was about time someone did that to him.

I stopped short of saying the rest, but the surprising part was that he picked up right where I left off.

Coby: ...and you needed to rope me into it so that I would watch it play out. You knew the only reason that I wouldn’t want to join up with Kris and Mikah was because the three of us don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye. I don’t like the underhanded things he tries to pull. So you gave me a front row seat to you doing it to him.

I tried to sound as innocent as possible, knowing that it had zero chance of actually working.

Court: And?

At the very least, he wasn’t going to feel like I was trying to be deceptive.

Coby: Why is it so important to you that I’m in?

I gave him a shrug, and the easiest of all possible explanations. He was already dragging this out to the limit of my patience.

Court: You were never going to join if you thought that Kris was masterminding the whole thing so I needed to drop him down a few pegs. Now that you know he’s not invincible, you shouldn’t be so hesitant to say yes.

If that was what he needed to hear to make it worth caving in then so be it. I wasn’t above giving people what they wanted.

Coby: No, now I just need to keep an eye on you too. You don’t prove anything by being just as bad as he is. If it’s the games I don’t like, I’m not going to be impressed that you won one of them.

Trying to turn things around on me wasn’t going to work, and if he wasn’t impressed then he wouldn’t be here right now. There was no way he was ever going to admit as much though. At least not to me. Coby wouldn’t want to be responsible for the ensuing ego boost.

Court: I wanted to prove to you that joining doesn’t mean that you’re subject to whatever they want. There is such a thing as being part of a collective and still being your own person. The four of us on the same team is more beneficial than going it alone. I was just trying to erase some of your fears about it.

Stubbornly, he stood his ground.

Coby: ...but you’re still assuming that I’m going to say yes.

This was starting to get exhausting.

Court: Correct.

Coby: Why?

I was done trying to talk in circles around the point.

Court: ...because you’re here. It means that you already want to say yes. And despite the fact that you don’t like the games, you have to have enjoyed watching Kris lose one. Now, I have the big guy in check, and the two of us can step into Sin City with some real eyes on us and all the momentum that this team is already carrying.

It was still just part of the truth, but if he needed it spoon fed to him, I guess I would have to sink to that level.

Coby: I just don’t see myself supporting all the things you three are going to try and get into.

And there it was. We finally boiled it down to the real problem that he had with us. Luckily, I wouldn’t have started this all in motion without having an answer for him from the jump.

Court: Then don’t. Stay on Underground and hope that someone will eventually notice your existence. Sprint around backstage all night wondering when your luck is going to run out. Continue fighting the good fight and getting your ass handed to you for it. Whatever. I mean, I’m not going to twist your arm or put a gun to your head. All I am offering is the opportunity. It is you that has to actually jump.

Something about it made him laugh, which wasn’t exactly what I had been expecting in response.

Coby: Jump?

If that is what he was laughing about, it was over my head. I had been around Jet City and everyone involved with them for long enough to pick up on most things. Coby wasn’t exactly someone I knew well though.

Court: Something funny about that.

He nodded, but didn’t seem interested in giving me more than that.

Coby: Yeah, kinda.

The way he said it was just smug enough to get under my skin. I should have let it go, especially because he was on the brink of caving in. I had to ask though.

Court: Are you going to enlighten me, or just leave me hanging?

He shook his head with a smile on his face.

Coby: No, I don’t think I will.

Ugh! I could see how he can Kris managed to co-exist for so long. Hell, it was even pretty clear that he and Mikah could tolerate one another too. It’s possible that he is just the perfect antithesis of the two of them, and that’s how their friend works. Polar opposites attract and whatnot.

Court: You’re almost as intolerable as Kris in your own way, you know that?

The fact didn’t seem to bother him though.

Coby: That’s what’s up!

Even worse. The words send a literal chill down my spine and immediately make me feel dirty.

Court: Don’t catchphrase me! There aren’t any cameras here. No fans.

Now he wasn’t just laughing, he was laughing at me.

Coby: That’s the problem for people like you and Kris. You think there’s a difference between when you’re out there or you’re out in the world. There’s not. People think you are the person that you are in front of the camera. They assume that’s you. That’s the problem. You three don’t have a moral compass out there. I do.

Granted, his condescending rant did give me an opening, so maybe it was worth sitting through.

Court: So join up and be ours. We’ll watch your back. You’ll keep us in line.

I got up to my feet. I wasn’t going anywhere, but he needed to feel like my attention wasn’t unlimited otherwise he would just keep me here forever until he eventually got all the information that he could drag out of me.

Coby: You really are persistent.

I shrugged. Even if he wasn’t ready to admit it to me, he had already admitted it to himself. He was in. We were finally ready to go.

Court: You still haven’t ever said no.

I gave him a wink and walked away, acting like I had more of my routine to get through until he finally gave up and went about his day. It was a win for me. This time Sunday everything would be coming together. Then all I had to worry about was stepping into the ring with Evie for a third time.


==========================================================



>People forget history way too fast these days. I mean, two years isn’t a lot of time. Yet, somehow something that has haunted me for the last 800 days has already slipped from the minds of the people that matter.

Instead of throwing the camera into its flight pattern as she normally would, it is already airborne and circling her. The newly returned Bombshell is seated in the center of Jet City South’s six-sided ring.

The roll that I was on when I came into this company was awesome. Fenris and I walked through the first couple of rounds of Blast from the Past without a lot of trouble. I mean, that is before we got Evie’s attention. Things were still good. As she put it though, ”even the greatest runs can turn on you, and come to an end…” And then she made that her goal. Evie had only come back for the tournament. She had no intention of getting back in the ring one-on-one with anyone until she saw it through, but then the magic happened. Despite being saddled with a vertically-challenged partner that has spent a lifetime coming up a little short, her team kept advancing. Yet, they weren’t the story. They weren’t the focus. The focus was on two rookies that nobody had ever heard of. The ones that might go on to win the whole thing. Evie couldn’t let that happen. So she put herself in my way so that she could be the one to take all of my momentum and flip it on its head to gain some kind of advantage headed into the Blast from the Past Finals.

Court laughs. At the very least, she got to kick all of this off by talking about the high point of her very short career. The time before the wheels started to come off. There was a point where everything was looking up, and she couldn’t keep the smile on her face when talking about it, despite everything that has happened since. There was no setback that could take the success away from her, and it was only a matter of time until she got back to where she wanted to be.

I had her beaten… more than once. Think about that. I was a rookie just a few matches into the business, and nearly did something that Alicia Lukas struggles to get done most days. And I would have beaten her without the intervention of her pint-sized partner getting involved. She would have gone down as the legend that lost to a rookie, but she was helped to victory. And of course, me saying that would just be speculation if not for the fact that once the finals rolled around, without anyone there to cause a distraction or steal them a win, Evie’s team failed. Straight up, I beat her. More importantly, she can’t say the same thing.

Court spoke the words like they were the only thing that got her through the years worth of attempts at getting back into the ring. Although, the Sin City that she left behind in 2018 wasn’t the same one that she returned to a few weeks ago.

...but look how much the times have changed since then. Her plan to derail Fenris and I on our way to being rookie Blast from the Past Winners failed. Her plan to win back-to-back years failed. She walked out of the company and said that she was going to retire. I remember, because I bragged about being the one to put the very last loss on her record. I was the one that sent her off to an early retirement. But, it ended up being one of several mini-retirements acts before she would come back to rise to a championship. Once I was injured and no longer a threat to her, she came back to take on the whimsical violence of the Roulette Division. She succeeded in beating another rookie, but this time walked away with another championship to add to her resume. But, despite all of her efforts, that’s the most impressive thing that she pulled for for the majority of the time I was gone. It wasn’t until she won the tournament again this year and cashed in her chance at the Bombshell Championship that she got back to the top. It must have been nice. I wouldn’t know what that’s like. Not that it lasted very long. She could only beat Alicia so many times before losing one. Then what does she do? Plays like she is going back home. Like she does every time.

She makes no attempt to veil the disgust that she felt. The fact that Evie would willfully throw something away that Court would have given anything to have was untenable.

...and that’s what gets under my skin about Evie the most. It’s not how she tried to put words in my mouth two years ago. It’s not that she needed help and a liberal amount of rule bending to beat me one-on-one. It’s not that she ended my undefeated streak. What bothers me the most is the game of acting like she doesn’t want to be here doing this week after week. For the majority of the last two years I have sat at home, broken by one injury after another. I have been denied every opportunity to be here and in that ring, all while forced to watch her take it for granted. Being in this business is everything that I ever wanted. I entered Blast from the Past two years ago to see if I could hang with the best of the best and the answer was a resounding yes. I won an opportunity to go to the very top of this company within my first ten matches, and watched it all get painfully ripped away from me time and time again.

There was no defense for it, and Court wasn’t going to sugarcoat the truth of the situation. It wasn’t Evie’s fault, she was just the beneficiary of a world of random chances.

And Evie, the one that is supposed to be the best, wants to talk about going home? She wants to talk about retiring every time she has to take a step back and think of herself as less than indestructible. I could have done great things with the time that was taken from me. Instead I got to sit at home and watch as Evie pissed all that time away like it was nothing. I watched her sit back and evaluate her standing in this company. I listened to her complain, even recently, about rematches and a lack of treating her as she feels she deserves. When she threw herself into my path before, she lost. Yet, it feels like she has gotten everything that she could have asked for while I have been living in agony.

She was getting further and further away from the point, so she stops herself. One deep breath later, she was back on track.

...but life’s not fair. My problem last time around was that I expected it to be. I expected that if I worked hard enough, showed up, said the right things to the right people, and backed up what I said in the ring that everything would work out the way that it should. Thinking like that got me posted up on a couch while I watched a group of really talented Bombshells come and go through the locker room as they pleased. There are the rare few that stay, but for the most part, they show up for a little while and take a break. They pretend like they are going to walk away, and come back for opportunities that they shouldn’t be handed. Evie included, but not exclusively. There’s so many of you on the roster that are guilty.

Now wasn’t the time to run through the list of Bombshells that were on her shitlist, but they would all eventually get their opportunity. They weren’t the main focus right now.

I don’t blame anyone for the time that I had to sit at home. I don’t think it’s anyone else’s fault that I have spent more time rehabbing in the last two years than I have actually getting to live this dream that I am chasing. But I am sick and tired of watching everyone else treat being in this company like a bottom tier priority. I am tired of watching people say that Evie is one of the best this company has ever seen, only for her to shit all over the responsibility that comes with that. Maybe she has just been “the best” for too long. I don’t know. Because all I have wanted since winning that tournament was to compete in the SCW ring, and it doesn’t seem like being here is high on her list of priorities at all.

People weren’t going to like Court for saying it, but she didn’t care. She didn’t come back to get along with her competition, and she wasn’t going to take it easy on anyone, legend or not.

I have fought to be a part of this company since before the first time I signed my name on the bottom of a contract. I had to fight to get my foot in the door. I had to fight to find a gym to train me. I have had to fight to get myself back to a point where I am cleared to compete. I am used to it as this point. As I had to explain to people asking me why I would come back after so many injuries: I was made for this. Being in this business is the one thing that I have always wanted, and in my opinion, Sin City is the best place to do it. I have had roadblock after roadblock stacked in front of me. I have had so many people tell me that it wasn’t possible, or that I should give up. I have been broken, but I am still here. I am back, and nothing is going to stop me from moving forward.

She chuckles, but it seems like it is more out of agitation than enjoyment. Her words start coming more rapidly and her eyes are now locked on the camera, following with it as it circles around her.

Evie gets tired of being compared to others in the locker room both male and female so I’m going to do her a solid. The two of us are nothing alike. In fact, if you’ve been paying attention, you can see that we couldn’t be more different. Evie has been given every opportunity and still likes to act if she doesn’t know if she even wants to be here. On the other hand, I have been given every obstacle in the world to get around and I am still here. I fought my way back and now there isn’t going to be any getting rid of me. I have already lost so much time, and I don’t have any to waste on people that are one foot out the door.

In a way, she was happy that this match was booked sooner rather than later. Everything that came before it was it’s own challenge, but stepping into the ring with Evie was something more than that. It was about closing a chapter that Court never wanted written. It was about finally putting all of it behind her so that it stopped holding her back.

When I saw that this match was booked, I said that it was going to be a whole lot more different than my last two matches. That may have rubbed Kate the wrong way, but it’s true. My match with Kate was basically the two of us taking our sparring outside of the gym. It was a way for me to experience the speed of being back inside the ring. It was a way of putting pressure on me, because there was no stopping or taking a break until one of the two of us was beaten. It was friendly, and despite my checkered past with Kate, I couldn’t be more appreciative of all of her help. She understands what it is like to want to be in Sin City day in and day out. She wanted to help me get back as much as a handful of the bombshells were hoping to never see me in the ring again. Most importantly, after so many years of setbacks, I needed to get in a ring and have nothing go wrong. A win or a loss wasn’t going to matter. Psychologically, I needed to clear the hurdle of being in a real match again. I needed that. Kate understood. We both put on a hell of a show, and I’ve never felt better about losing a match before.

The positive note in her voice only lasted until the thought of her last opponent replaced the sight of Kate in her mind.

Pandora was a different story altogether. She was someone already one foot out of this company. I wasn’t trying to get back up to speed. I was going into that match to see if I could still dismantle someone piece by piece. That is what Mikah and Jet City trained me to do. That is what got me through Blast from the Past two years ago. That was how I beat Evie, and that is how I dominated Pandora in my last match. By the time that poor girl tapped out in the center of that ring, there was nothing left of her and no naysayers left in attendance. I proved a point about how ready I was to be back in the ring. I was able to show everyone that I am more dangerous now than I was as the naive rookie. I wanted to show everyone that Courtney Pierce was really back. Not halfway. Not hedging her bets. Not one foot out the door. I’m here to stay, and anyone getting in my way is going to have to raise the bar a lot higher than Pandora was capable of.

It wasn’t much of a compliment for Evie that she was raising the bar from where Pandora left it. In fact, it may have been more insulting having mentioned them both in the same sentence.

Which is why this match won’t be anything like the others. The match with Kate wasn’t personal, this one is. The match with Pandora lacked competition, and this one won’t. Evie and I have already stepped into the ring against each other twice, and it wasn’t one-sided on either occasion. The two of us are going to try and take one another apart. That is just the way that things work. However, I just came out of my last match proving that I’m willing to do anything to make sure that I make my way to the top. The only thing Evie has convinced anyone of lately is that she doesn’t actually want to be here at all.

Maybe it was harsh, but it wasn’t a lie.

Here’s some free advice Evie, if your heart’s not really in it, being here is just a recipe for disaster. If you want to go home, you should. If you want to retire and take it easy, feel free. Because for every person like you that takes all of this for granted and can walk away so easily, there is someone like me who absolutely refuses to be pried away no matter what the risk or the cost. I want to be here, and I want to prove to the world that I belong here. Just like two years ago, it looks like the path to that goal goes through you. And just like two years ago I intend to walk down that path. If I have to go through you, I will. And if you’re not really focused on doing this anymore, then this match is just going to get you hurt. Trust me. I’ve been there.

In fact, it was the one subject that Court felt like she was actually an expert in.

It looks like everything that I want in life is on the other side of this match with you, and we have seen how good I am at overcoming obstacles. On one hand, I hope this half-assed Evie shows up because it is going to make my life a whole lot easier. On the other, I don’t need a repeat of the match with Pandora. I want the multi time former Bombshell Champion and Blast from the Past Tournament winner to step up and give me a real challenge. I’m just not sure that is the Evie that we currently have on the roster though. I guess we’ll find out in a couple days.

Court holds out her hand, and on command the camera dips from its circle and comes to a perfect landing in her hand. She raises it up and gives a wink to the lens.

Personally, I can’t wait.

With that, the camera fades out, and the feed cuts.