It’s a work
She’d been distant. Even more distant than normal. But with everything going on it seems as if Alicia had slipped through the cracks. The day to day operations at Wolfslair went on as they would normally. People arrived, they trained, they would go off to various events, they would return. Like clockwork everything went on as normal. And even though she was now mentally stronger, a better version of the woman she always wanted to be, she was disturbed.
For months she lied to herself. She went to a room and talked through her own issues in a delusion. She watched her marriage fall apart, she bent down and picked up the pieces. And as those pieces got put back together, as her life started to come back to where she needed it to be and she rose like a phoenix from the ashes, the delusion cracked, crumbled and became the lie she could now see clearly.
Ironic, now everything tasted sweeter, the air was clearer, everything seemed calm.
But now the real work was ready to begin. She was in contact with her family, being a daughter, sister and mother. But her career needed saving. She had been going through ther motions. Letting her emotions get the better of her. Every week it was the same thing, it was the same ride. And the problem with rides, is that eventually they get boring.
So now, she knew what needed to happen.
She swallowed hard looking over at Alex’s office. It had been so long since she had a one on one with the owner and head trainer of Wolfslair New York, so long since she had just sat down and shot the shit. She pushed the door open, Alex smiled and gave her a nod to let her know to come in. Alicia moved around sitting across his desk, sliding her hands into the pockets of her black and red Wolfslair hoodie. Alex looked over a piece of paper, sliding it into the pile on his right before moving the pile on his left to the edge of his desk.
He looked up with a smirk and shrugged. ”What can I do for you?”
”Well, I’m just wondering what the plan is for Wolfslair?”
There was a small silence, Alex raised his eyebrows. Almost surprised Alicia would ask him and be interested in this. ”Well, we are continuing to grow and show visibility. Orlando is growing too and soon Austin is going to take a trip out there to train with a few of the talents they have, some interesting prospects I might get Mark and Chris to have a look at too.”
Now it was Alicia that was surprised, she twisted her lips into a pout, moving her hands forward onto the desk with a laugh under her breath. ”Not the gym…the group?”
”The what?”
Alicia rolled her eyes before sitting back in the chair and throwing her hands in the air. ”The group, in SCW. You, Austin, Me, Johanna…” Alex just blinked a few times, Alicia sat forward getting closer. ”Ring a bell?”
Alex cleared his throat and shook his head. ”Alicia. The group is done…” Silence. Alex stared ahead, Alicia narrowed her eyes and laughed shaking her head in a dismissive way. ”I’m serious. I don’t know when I’ll be back competing. I’m hurt Ali.”
She scoffed and rolled her eyes again. ”I know you’re working everyone Alex and I-”
”No I’m not…this is legit…” He paused again, Alicia shook her head almost refusing to believe it. Alex pushed to his feet, wincing as he did moving around the office nowhere near as freely as you’d expect. ”I haven’t even been training. Austin has been doing alot of it…but with…with what he’s been through I….look…my focus is the gym..”
Alicia looked away and let out a small sigh before moving next to him. ”Well, I guess I should talk to Johanna..she and I will work something out….I need backup to makesure Diamonds gem hoes don’t get in my way…”
Alex shook his head and looked out the window to Johanna, she was standing next to Kalisto Reznik, the two chatting away about a few things. ”Johanna didn’t sign a new contract….she’s no longer in SCW…”
”WHAT?...y’all mother fuckers have a team meeting without me to decide this shit?” Alex turned away and moved back to the desk, obviously done with Alicias shit, Alicia closed her fists and turned back to him. ”Look, I’ve been a little distracted lately, I can see that. But still, Austin is barely here, you’re hurt, Johanna bounced, suddenly I’m alone and I just picked a fight with a bitch who is going to bring her whole crew after me..” Alex looked unimpressed. ”I could take out one or two..but all of them at once?..I’m good Alex but I’m not that good.”
Alex laughed to himself and looked down with a sigh. ”Well…I suppose you better make ther plans…I’m sure you’ll think of something..”
Alicia growled and waved her hand lightly to signal she got it. She moved out from the office closing the door behind her. She moved along the mats and passed Johanna and Kallie giving them a small nod, she moved out into the locker room, grabbing her phone from her bag she stepped outside unlocking it, her thumb hovered over the call icon for what seemed like an eternity. ”Ahhh fuck it…”
RING RING
RING RING
”Hey…..I got an employment opportunity….I need you to be in Cali….Sunday morning…”
All according to plan
”I suppose some of you are expecting me to offer up some kind of apology for what I said on Climax Control right?”
Alicia shakes her head, a small smile on her lips as her bright blue eyes stare forward, unfeeling, uncaring, almost vacant of any emotion.
”You ain’t getting shit.”
“See, I wewnt out there and I said a whole bunch of shit I needed to get off my chest. Not everything, but just enough. For years I have had to deal with entitled weakling and morons who feel the need to tell us all how great they are when they don’t actually have any right being on the same card asd me, let alone the same company. I have heard Jessie Salco run her mouth for months and years about title shots and championships…”
“I’ve watched her go one and a hundred in title matches and still get opportunity after opportunity while then, in the same breath chastising me for taking an opportunity I earned.”
“I have been spat on and disrespected by everyone in this company, so when I heard what happened with Vargas and Steele, well I had to say something. And it speaks volumes that the men in charge of SCW not only allowed me to do it, actively encouraged me to.”
“I meant what I said, and I said what I meant.”
“So no, I’m not going to ap;ologise, in fact I’m going to double down. Everything I said was true. Everything I said was right, and I have a bigger issue with Diamond and her gemstones and at Climax control I will be confronting Diamond, and I will tell her to her goddamn face what I feel. But, before I can do what, well I have to get in the ring and face the other woman who got some of that verbal venom. And I hope to god that before she speaks she actually listens to what I said, and takes it into her head that the bosses are clearly as pissed off with her as I am..”
Alicia takes a moment, showing a little emotion now as she clears her throat and stands up straight.
”Oh Mercedes. What have you done huh? I’m going to sit here by the way and watch you try and explain away why you decided to dip on the company last week. I’m going to wait for you to try and justify it in any way that you can. I dunno, your aunt died? Youre neighbors cat needed a hysterectomy? You got your period?...oh..wait, that one you can’t yse. Menopause is a bitch huh?”
“But I will wait with baited breath for you to go through what I said on climax control and try asd pick it apart, maybe chastise me for making a comment about your age, I dunno. Truthfully, I hope I look as good as you when I’m sixty. But, Christian and Mark decided it would be a good idea to put us in the ring against each other. Possibly for me to teach you a lesson, I’m not sure.”
“Naybe, just maybe they’ll hope I can break your fingers.”
“Then we all wouldn’t have to watch you repost old SCW Climax controls on twitter as a way to relive your faded glory days and youth. Or to stop you from constantly retweeting shit about crappy New York sports teams. The rangers suck, the Giants suck, the jets suck and so sdo the fucking knocks and no one except you gives a shit about them, just stop.”
“But maybe I’m being too hard on you. I mean my mother hasn’t figured out how to use facebook yet, maybe that’s all this is, technology moving so fast can be scary Mercy..”
She chuckles and shakes her head.
”But here’s the thing, one criticism of me that I have taken to heart and I respect is that, maybe, just maybe I have been living in the past, reminding people what I’ve done constantly and you know, maybe they’re right. See, I don’t want to be like you Mercedes, where that is all I have. Where I am just sitting there and constantly retweeting old shows and mentioning history because that is all I have. I don’t want that, and I don;’t want to turn into you.”
“I have other names I need to get to but I have been placed in front of you fuirst and you have been named as a sacrifice to me. See, Chris and Mark are smart.”
“They know I am still money in professional wrestling. They know I am still a name and I can deliver. So they want me to go out there and beat the hell out of you, they want me to tear you down with everything from cheap jokes about age, to straight cuts about your living in the past, and if there is one person in this company who lives their glories more than me, it’s you.”
“But, that is the difference between us. I have recognised I need to look toward the future. You haven’t learned that lesson Mercy, you just keep going about the same shit over and over again. But, only the stuiff that suits you. See, I never hear you admitting to the factthat I have your number and always have.”
“I don’t hear you admitting to the fact I climbed the ladder in WWH when it meant something while you failed even as the company burned. I don’t hear you reminding people that in Honor wrestling I beat you in every way possible and I don’t hear you admitting to the fact in SCW I have been your fucking daddy since day one…”
Alicia gets animated now, filling herself with confidence and a smile.
”You need to learn Mercedes, without learning you don’t grow and you have been stagnant for years. You have been a great servant for this company and have done it all. And I told you last time we faced each other that you lacked passion, that you had become complacent. And I was right then and I’m right now because nothing has changed.”
“About the only nice thing I can say about you is that you’re still here..”
“No matter how much you lose, no matter how many times you fail to climb back to the top of the mountain you still stay in SCW out of loyalty. You don’t take your ball and go home like your name is Myra Rivers..no..Mercedes Vargas is SCW through and through. And that Vrgas, that I can respect…or atl;east I could…till ya pissed it all away..”
