Alleyne Mahoe was a big woman, but one with small needs. She had never had much use for living excessively, or the over abundance of possessing too many material possessions, in particular ones in which she had little to no need. She was not one of those women who would walk into a Target department store and walk out with one of those “Live, Laugh, Love” wall hangings on a whim. It was a trait she had learned from her parents, who were by no means poor, but with a family to raise in Honolulu, they were careful. And if you knew anything about visiting or especially living in this island paradise, it was that it cost a lot of money to be here.
Yet the children were not made to do without just because. They were indulged on occasion, but they were also taught to respect those indulgences. Taught not to take them for granted. So when Alleyne struck out on her own, like her siblings, she did not feel the need to go overboard with money and that taste of freedom, and the pending disaster that could have been the combination of the two. It was why Alleyne aka Tempest chose not to go big when she found an apartment in Las Vegas to live in while she first started her training at the GO Gym. She easily could have done so with the income she still pulled in as owner of Mahoe Bonds back in Hawaii, and the contract she netted once she had been signed as an SCW Bombshell. Unlike it was believed, she did not stay with the Stevens during her training, despite a previous offer. Alleyne had worked a dangerous career, apprehending even more so dangerous criminals. The gunshot and knife wound scars she still sported as “war wounds” were a testament to this, and her being near Gabriel and Odette’s children was simply not an ideal condition.
Her conclusion, not the Stevens.
So Odette had helped her find a place to call her own during her tenure in Las Vegas, one in which she could live comfortably. It was surprisingly easy, given her not being what would be considered ‘high maintenance.’
Maverick & Hidden Village Apartments
The front door opened to the one bedroom apartment, and the 6’3” Tempest set foot inside, the darkening evening sky seen behind her. She closed the door and locked it behind her, then turned around and dropped the keys into a small dish on the oval wooden coffee table in front of the cocoa brown sofa. As stated, there was little unnecessary decor, save for three small paintings and a “Welcome Home” carving, a gift from the Stevens. The paintings? Entirely her own. Just for a little color.
Here’s a small, fun fact about Tempest; she had an appreciation for art.
Back to our story! Tempest then walked across her living room and to the kitchen where she opened the fridge and fished out a bottle of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, a much desired drink to rest and relax after a hard day’s workout at the Stevens Gym facility. Tempest had indeed graduated from that very Gym in late 2020, but it was a belief of Gabriel and Odette that one never stopped being a student, nor stopped having the need to train, lest their in-ring skill atrophy. And now that she had a big match (literally as well as figuratively) against Bobbie Dahl in just a matter of days, the training would only intensify. With the exception of her being inside of the ring with one of the Icons of SCW in Samantha Marlowe many moons ago, this would be her biggest match to date. Again, literally as well as figuratively, as Bobbie Dahl was the only woman who came close to matching her in size and strength. Thus, she would need to be extra careful and fully prepared.
She had eaten dinner at the Gym, but was still hungry and - after placing an order for delivery from a Greek restaurant she had taken a liking to, she sat at the two-seater table against the wall with her beer to relax, when her phone went off. Sighing, the remainder of her evening now interrupted, she picked up her phone and immediately recognized the number. She clicked on it, answering…
“Hello Mama.” Yes, Tempest indeed was talking to her lovely mother back home in Hawaii, Nalani Mahoe. She pulled the beer bottle from her lips and frowned, “What are you still doing up?”
Her mother answered, “Sweetheart, it’s only just past six here. We’re three hours ahead of you in Las Vegas.”
Tempest cast a sidelong glance at the clock on the wall, reading it indeed was just after nine. She sighed and shook her head. “I keep getting the time differences mixed up. Is everything okay?”
“Yes, Alleyne, everything is fine.” Nalani said. “Your father and I were just wondering if everything was okay with you. You haven’t phoned in a few days.”
“I didn’t phone every day when I lived in Honolulu and you didn’t call to check on me.”
“Well you’re not in Hawaii right now, are you?” Nalani shot back, and doing so quite easily. Her mind as sharp as always. “Las Vegas is, what? Almost three thousand miles away? Plus a whole Pacific Ocean separating us.”
“Touche.” Tempest said after taking another sip from her bottle and setting it back down on her table. Somehow it seemed almost offensive to be drinking while speaking with her mother. “I’ve just been busy working out and getting prepared for this match on Sunday. You and Dad
are going to watch, right?”
Her mom answered, “We haven’t missed one of your matches yet. We’re not about to miss one now. Especially at such a grand event.” Tempest could not help but smile with pride, that both of her parents had invested such an interest in her new path in life. Then her mom said, “We’re just worried about you, that’s all.”
“Worried? About me?” Tempest frowned as her fingers wrapped again around the bottle which now was forming a wisp of condensation on the glass. “That Bobbie chick is not going to be able to beat me.”
“It’s not that, dear. It’s just … You're upsetting so many people.”
Tempest pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it as if it had just told the foulest joke that made little to no sense. She then resumed the discussion with her mom and said, “I didn't get involved in this sport to make friends, mom.”
“You keep calling it a sport.” Nalani countered. “It's totally barbaric! I never liked it. It’s why you and your brothers had to sneak behind my and your father’s backs to watch it when you were kids.”
“I didn’t have to sneak anything, Mom.” Tempest protested. “Dad
let us watch it.”
And now the shoe was on the other foot as it were, as the silence on the other end of this call was deafening. Tempest smiled, knowing she had just inadvertently thrown her lovely father under the bus and he would most likely be reprimanded by his strong-willed wife. For something that had happened almost thirty years ago.
But then her mom was back on the line, asking a question that Alleyne had heard so many times before. “Why DID you get involved in wrestling?”
“YOU'RE the one who wanted me to get away from my bonds business!”
Nalani said, “Of course I did, dear, but only because it was so dangerous! We almost lost you once when you got shot! I've seen what some of those wrestlers do to each other! Good lord, that Bobbie Dahl girl put you through a wall!”
“It was the barricade around the ring, Mom.” Tempest corrected her. “Not a wall.”
“My point remains the same.” She said. “You could have done so much more than putting yourself in harm’s way. Just in a different way.”
“LOOK at me Mother!” Tempest argued, her eyes now glistening as old memories that would always remain returned to the forefront of her mind. Her mom and dad always told her how lovely she was, but they were her doting parents. Their only daughter in a family of boys. They had to say that. “I can't exactly be a supermodel! My options are limited!”
Just then, before this could go any further and something that might be said between them, there was a knock on the door to her apartment. Saved by the bell! Or rather, the knock.
“Mom, I have to go.” She said hurriedly to sever this conversation before her Mom could simply repeat the same things she said to a teary-eyed teenage girl after another seemingly endless barrage of bullying and tormenting in school. “There’s someone at the door.”
“Alright, dear.” Nalani said. “Just don’t wait so long to phone us, alright?”
“Alright.” She said as she walked across the room, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “Love you.”
“I love you too.” Her mom said in that soothing way, just before she heard the click of the call being ended. Tempest quickly placed the phone on the coffee table, and for a brief moment, her eyes strayed to a framed photograph; one in which Alleyne herself was standing beside a rather handsome man in a military uniform; a Marine’s to be more precise. She seemed frozen, but for the briefest of seconds, before she reached the door ...
The GO GymThe lights remained dim above one of the multiple rings while the remainder of the Gym wax bathed in darkness, everything cloaked in shadow. And there, leaning against the ring ropes and staring outside of the ring was none other than the Amazon Bombshell; Tempest. Her forearms rested heavily against the top ring ropes and that stare bored heavily into the camera.
“Bobbie Dahl. Girl, you just couldn't leave well enough alone, could you? You just couldn't resist the temptation of trying to make your return actually mean something, when under normal circumstances, people couldn't care less. And how do you accomplish this? By playing the role of hero to the Bombshell division. Their savior. Paragon.”
She leaned just a hint to the side with hand raised, palm up, and gave a WTF expression on her face as she added one more word to the equation.
“Hypocrite.”
She leaned her head toward the right, as if confused or perplexed. She gave a slight shake of her head, the modest earrings dangling lightly on her earlobes.
“What's the matter, Bobbie? Didn’t see that coming? Did you think I wouldn't have known, or done my own research? You know what I’m talking about, girl. Did you think it was so long ago that you hoped the past would stay buried and people would -- oh I don't know. Forgive and forget? Well let me remind you. And apparently remind everyone else who decided to ignore history and instead hit rewind and erase.”
She held up a hand and counted off a number of names from her fingers.
“Dani Weston. Odette Stevens. Alicia Lukas. Mercedes Vargas. All women you attacked brutally. All women you attacked without a justifiable cause. Oh, wait…”
She held up her hands, eyes closed with a smile and nodded.
“Forgive me. You DID have a justifiable cause - at least in your own head. It was “just business.” Just. Business. Even when one of those victims was a woman you claimed as a friend. That's what getting ahead in this business meant to you, to have your name on the tips of everyone's tongues; to turn your back on a friend. A friend who was recovering from an injury and you put her right back there on the injured list and who has not set foot inside of the ring since! All because of you, Bobbie. And yet there you stand, staring me down in judgement and accusing me of being some sort of heinous monster, when by comparison, you’ve done more. And worse. And did you notice? Two of those names, namely Dani and the GO Gyms matriarch, Odette? Both representatives of the same facility. It's almost as if you held some grudge with the Gym, or at least the female representation. Why? Maybe because every one - every single one - has accomplished more than you ever have or ever will.”
“You are just DAMN lucky that I wasn’t around back then girl, because the biggest mistake you had made was when you escalated things by attacking Odette Stevens! Remember that? Or is that selective memory of yours acting up again? I can't say I’d be surprised, especially considering that one act was going one too far. Not even I inspired a gang attack like the one that you suffered through! How many women met you in the hall when you got the mass beat down that you deserved? All of the above. You even drew in the ladies from London Underground AND lured Devona back just for that one momentous occasion! And had it not been for Roxi Johnson, a woman you TRIED to attack and failed miserably, you would have gotten worse!”
“Now why in God's name Fenris is going around, still treating you like gold when you've done so much wrong on people he was or IS close to, is beyond me. But I'm not here to judge who that boy calls friend. It's not my right to judge his poor taste in friends. Just treasure it girlfriend because it seems to be the only friendship that you’ve developed that you haven’t found a way to throw aside. Yet.”
“Now as for me? Samantha Marlowe. Bella Madison. Violet Amelia Holt. Courtney Pierce. Unlike you, I went after two at a time, not one like you, knowing I had them outmatched in size. Oh, and Artie. Let’s not forget him.”
Tempest winked into the camera with a smile.
“How is that little darling doing, anyway? How’s his head? Oh, enough about immaterial people. This is about so much more, Bobbie. This is about just you and I. But come on Bobbie! Everything I’ve done? Every one of those attacks that you’ve been going on about? It was ‘just business.’ Isn't that what you said for months to excuse what you did?”
Tempest looked upward and shook her head, biting at her lower lip.
“My god. You even have Amber Ryan blinded with fun Bobbie, having her believe me to be a villain and you some heroic figure. You have her saying she hates bullies, not knowing that you were the biggest of them all! Now I get it, girl. I understand just why you did what you did. But right there lies the difference between us. You wanted people to think you were something you're not; a legitimate bad ass. A threat. Someone to fear and be intimidated by. And me? I did it to make a statement and remind everyone that I am all of that, and everything that you're not.”
“Sunday is all the time I need to send you packing back to wherever it is that you came from.”
