Author Topic: ... The Colloquial Comeback ....  (Read 852 times)

Offline DistortedAngel

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... The Colloquial Comeback ....
« on: November 25, 2022, 10:49:56 AM »
“You ever f**k Susan here?” she said, her face almost touching mine.
“I’m impressed,” I said. “The question is intrusive, annoying, coarse, and voyeuristic. That’s quite a lot to get into a simple question.”
― Robert B. Parker, Hush Money





Undisclosed Fairgrounds
Blue Ridge, GA
02.12.2005
4:41pm



“Are you out of your fucking mind, Bambi?!”

Something akin to teenage indignation overwhelmed the petite redhead as she recoiled slightly, she’d expected resistance… to a degree, however this hadn’t been quite the reaction she’d anticipated. Swallowing her immediate retort, discretion in this case being the only remaining form of valour, she watched as Grizz paused as the flush in his cheeks began to dissipate at the edges.
Swallowing the rest of his sentence, he watched as the flicker at the corner of the redhead's mouth seemed to vanish as quickly as it had materialised, normally it would have been a warning sign. A flashing neon effigy for no more than a split second before the venom would start to fly- however there was no venom, no fire and fury and so, he too, attempted to temper the sharper edges of his tongue.

If only for now at least.

Peace never lasted long, not when these airs flashed with red.

Granted he hadn’t really meant for his tone to be so harsh, the words forceful as though a shield raised in the face of adversity. Perhaps it was the fatherly instinct he’d assumed over the young redhead regurgitating automatically before the words ever crossed the periphery of his mind.
She wasn’t really his, but that had never mattered.
Close enough for government work, he’d mused in those first passing weeks, as he’d silently sworn to himself that he’d watch over her like she was.
It’d been almost three and a half years now, and not a second went by that he didn’t worry for the day he might finally lose her for good.

Amber and Cassidy, his own daughter, had become as close as sisters. As thick as thieves. They’d been as good for each other as they had been bad- perhaps luckily for him, Cassidy was with her mother for these holidays. Heaven knows he doubted he could stand against the both of them, if they’d really been determined, surely his heart wouldn’t take it.
No. One against one - as if they were even remotely fair odds, granted Grizz doubted the conversation in question would have ever gotten this far if they were.

He knew it had been coming, still he’d found himself woefully unprepared in the moment.

It started with an accident. It always was with Amber.
Unfortunate and avoidable, and yet somehow those were always the ones that seemed to slip through the cracks- the easy and the mundane were always the most dangerous. Grizz doubted Amber even noticed at first, as though that immediate sense of shock completely numbed the senses. It no doubt helped that her seemingly inhuman grit and willpower to continually spite the universe through determinable impassiveness served only to bolster her refusal to accept that she’d quite obviously broken her arm.

Nothing serious. She’d said she was fine, as though the vaguely misaligned angle through the middle of her forearm had always been there.
Another risk taken with a little too much trust in the universe and perhaps a little top caution thrown to the prevailing winds headed in the wrong direction. Grizz had come to learn over the years that her furiously determined nature came with a side of expected immortality- however it seemed that living life as though you were 10 feet tall and bulletproof only worked if you were taller than 5’4 and a half.

That had been a little over five weeks ago.

Forcing down a pensive smile that threatened to ruin the concerned parental figure facade, Grizz recalled that even just a week earlier confronting Amber about how her cast had mysteriously ‘fallen off’ and how he’d found it poorly concealed, stuffed in an overflowing recycling bin.
Amber, in her usual precocious manner, had simply smiled sweetly and claimed that it had come loose, that her arm had slipped from its confines and how the cast obviously no longer fulfilled its intended purpose.
Such a shame, she’d added with a cocky little smirk, that she’d been growing accustomed to it and was sorry to see it go.

Perhaps it was his amusement towards the brazenness of it all- or simply because he knew there was nothing he could do about it, however he neglected to mention the jagged, roughly torn edges where the cast had appeared to have been attacked by a pair of wire cutters nor the several oddly shaped cuts and scratched that had mysteriously appeared down the edge of Amber’s forearm about the same time.
Cassidy, of course, had agreed with Amber… been an eyewitness, despite having actively been absent.

“What do you mean- you said---”

“I didn’t say anything and you know--”

“--- when I got the cast off---”

“Amber, those weren’t my words.”

“--- that you would let me back in the ring---”

“You said that, not me.”

With a matter-of-fact look, Amber lifted up her right arm and wiggled her fingers as though it proved anything more than the fact she had functionality in her fingers.

“--- and look at that, no cast.”

Grizz sighed thoughtfully, placing a heavy hand on Amber’s opposite shoulder.

“Bambi---”

“No. Uh-uh…”

Stepping back offendedly, Amber’s teenage sass flared once more.

“You don’t get to ‘Bambi’ me… We made a deal.”

Firmly, Grizz straightened up as the tone seemed to shift.

“No, you tried to make a deal and I told you that we would see how things went.”

He couldn’t help but admire her persistence, even if it might have been the death of them both.
She’d never admit that she knew it wasn’t that easy. Her defiance wasn’t born from ignorance, but an underlying fear that she might lose her grip on something that had otherwise given her a possibility of life. Wrestling didn’t love her, it didn’t have the capacity to love anything within itself, Grizz had explained from the start- but it was addicting, challenging. It took everything you knew about yourself and made you prove that you were worth everything you gave it.
Self-preservation was an untold myth- the idea of risk and reward so deeply intertwined that one didn’t exist in any meaningful capacity without the other. Amber didn’t need wrestling to love her back, but that never meant she didn’t need it at all.

At 16 years old, she’d found a sense of purpose… and she’d give anything not to let it slip away.

“That's not fair.”

Those words hit hard, like an emotional truck driven through the heart of the matter before reversing back over it for good measure, leaving tire marks of good intentions across everything that was left.

“What else do I have to do to prove myself to you…”

With a lingering air of tension and disappointment, Amber turned on her heel and stormed away in hopes no one might see the welling tears of anger beginning to cloud her vision nor the quiver in her lip that threatened to split and spill with septic hurt.
Grizz opened his mouth to respond, to try and cross a gap where the bridge had exploded into flames, however the words didn’t make it out in time- a stuttered gasp aimed towards the space where Amber had been mere moments before.

He wanted to tell her that it wasn’t like that at all, that she never had to prove anything to anyone… that he believed in her, and that he cared. In the silence that remained, as the static in the air grew still, all he could do was hope that she might no do anything stupid… or if… no, when… she did, that the universe might show mercy and understanding.

She was still a child after all… how could she possibly understand?






******



“Admit it.

You missed me.

You missed me like the stars miss a sunny day. You missed me like blue skies miss hurricanes. You missed me like drowning men crave the taste of water in their lungs and the gallows miss a weight at the end of their rope.

Hell, I’m like the kick in the teeth you never knew you were longing for.

Honestly though, don’t go tripping over yourselves needlessly in your overwhelming eagerness to welcome me back. Save the ticker tape parades for those you can appreciate the grandiosity of someone else cleaning up after them. Don’t worry though, balloons and confetti aren’t necessary mostly for the fact that people seem to find them a little offensive at a funeral.
Just go ahead and form yourselves a nice, orderly line and I’ll surely get to putting you all back in your fucking places one by one.

Oops, not even back a full night and things already got morbid real quick.

See, the thing is- I walk through the door and there gets to be this tension in the air, the faint lingering stench of a collective locker room shitting themselves at the prospect that they are once again about to be held accountable for their determination to coast.
I rebuilt this fucking place in hopes of setting a higher standard, I took that bar and I lifted it on my own back cause the shuffling of feet doing the absolutely bare minimum to remain employed got on my nerves for a little too long. I raised the standard when everyone else was happy enough to sit back and accept their mediocrity like they weren’t getting paid for better.

Now, I walk back in and it's like a locker room of squatters and I’m about to start charging for rent. Turn the lights back on, and watch the cockroaches scatter back for their dark corners cause the spotlight just got a little brighter.
Did you get comfortable without me? Is that what happened…Did you just watch the standard fall when you realised there was no one left willing to stand up and accept the responsibility of making everyone else better around them.

Tell me, where were all the heroes, the legends, the bright sparks and go-getters?

Exactly.

You all might as well start calling me ‘magic’ cause I’m about to pull the rug out from under the supposed ‘best and brightest’ you’ve been left with.

Starting with the Roulette champion…

Now personally, I should be alot more enthused about this than I actually am- especially given the fact i’ve made it publicly known on Twitter that the Roulette title is the only one missing from my Grand Slam. I should be coming into this guns blazing, fucking hyped out of my skin for the opportunity against this shining ‘Angel’ making waves and beating…

Oh.

Well that's a bit anticlimactic.

Okay, let's be real here for just a moment. I don’t want everyone thinking I’m on some entitled bullshit, that the universe is going to bend over backwards just cause I poked my head back out of the mud- you know?
Full respect for getting yourself into this position Ariana, former champion to soon-to-be former champion… I mean, current champion. Yeah, that's what I meant.
I’m sure you have worked incredibly hard in making it appear far more difficult than any of it actually should have been to get where you are now, a long climb up a very small mountain. You’ve really earned all that sweat on your brow from tripping over your own feet to success in spite of your own best efforts.
It's impressive really, I haven’t seen this much ‘self-sabotage to infamy’ since Jessie Salco made a complete ass of herself trying to explain to the world why she’s so offended about being compared to vanilla ice cream.

It's literally the world's most popular flavour.

You should be proud to be so generic on such a global level.

Seriously though Ariana, you have done your damndest to make life difficult for yourself and still manage to achieve a modicum of self-respecting success… I mean that match with Jessie, honestly even you had me thinking that beating her convincingly four times in the last year was almost a crowning achievement.
No disrespect to the Roulette title and all, it's certainly something to be won… Hell, I haven’t won it yet. Mostly for the fact I spent a long time being World champion and found myself a little too busy with that to go dipping my toe in the kiddies pool…

That's not to say I’m not interested in the Grand Slam- one thing at a time kiddies, so breathe a little easier Ariana cause I don’t yet have a spare 10 seconds in my schedule to celebrate with the belt before I throw it back into the squabble. I need it for the achievement, I don’t want it though… if I wanted to go break a record, I’d start with my own, unless I’m feeling an extra little sassy and I start eyeing off the only Bombshells world title record I don’t already have… It's been awhile Mikah. I hope your ears are burning all the way out there in Hawaii.

I guess that's the thing that sets us apart though… You are good, don’t get me wrong. You might even be better than good, on your best days. However your aspirations are just… you’re a small scale short term kinda gal, maybe that's got a little to do with your attention span or a lot to do with the fact you’ve managed to surround yourself with greener rookies, has-beens and never-weres.
At every turn you have relied upon the ‘support system’ around you like a crutch, like you somehow need them to fulfil your potential- that's like asking an anchor to help you succeed in your attempts at buoyancy.
You’re asking goldfish about climbing trees, you’re sparring with literal children whose attitudes make me wanna go play in fucking traffic to cleanse my palate.

Ariana, you’re good… but you aren’t getting any better.

You’ve somehow managed to stagnate before you’ve ever gotten started. You’ve plateaued two feet off the fucking ground- and maybe it's not entirely your own fault… After all, you’re young and inexperienced, letting anyone with an opinion have a say about the way you conduct yourself.
Do yourself a favour and drop the dead weight, grow your own backbone and have an original opinion without filtering it through people who haven’t won a meaningful match that wasn’t against someone with a foot in the grave or already out the fucking door.

I won’t tell you that this match makes me bored already but I just walked back in the door, haven’t even put my bags down yet and already I’ve rolled my eyes so hard the poor little backstage plebs thought I was having a stroke.
I mean I guess this is supposed to be a warm up match, but honestly that implies this thing is gonna have more heat than a shitty reheat- lukewarm 30 seconds in the microwave. Hell, my anticipation towards a legitimate contest is still frozen in the middle.

You’re feisty and determined, and I cannot discredit the fact that you’re the one with the belt and I’m still trying to convince doctors that wiggling the fingers on my left hand isn’t just some sort of shitty illusion. However, how about you come back and start barking up my tree again when you’ve got more than the perennial list of curtain jerkers filling out the most notable places on your dance card.
You’ve earned your place, but don’t think a strap on your shoulder somehow jumps you up the hierarchy- you’re still a rookie, you’re still greener at the gills than you realize. You’re still finding your feet so do yourself a favour and don’t step to the playground if you aren’t prepared to eat sand.

Despite it all, I know you all missed me…

I’m still the sunny day to your stars and the hurricane across your blue skies- I’ve never stopped being the water in your proverbial lungs and the gallows still looming large over the division.

You taste that?

Blood on your tongue.


That's your reminder. Your last warning and your reason to reconsider your life choices.

It’s the proverbial kick in the teeth that tells you that I’m … fucking … back…”






******



Dr Marion Clarke’s Office
Atlantic City, NJ
18.11.2022
2:07pm



There couldn’t possibly have been many porcelain cats the last time she’d visited.

Tiny, ugly little misshaped things they were. Amber quietly despised them, however she took a small solace in musing that Dr Clarke hated them even more.

Story was, apparently, that they’d been a ‘thank you’ gift from an elderly widow in the days that followed the passing of her long suffering husband- that she’d come to the office with a handkerchief tightly balled in one hand, and a small cardboard box in the other.
Expectant of gratitude, in the same way it had been expressed for her decision to ignore human decency for a families self-centredness, the widow had stood watching with withered hands clasped expectantly as the bubble wrap came away to reveal a series of cats cast with maligned features and an unrealistic colour palate.

That wasn't to say she hadn’t done her best, despite her better morality, to extend the life of someone who’d suffered for so long simply because their family wasn’t ready to let go.
Keeping someone alive who was better off dead seemed like such a waste of resources, all down to the selfishness of those who couldn’t come to grips and would rather prolong suffering than accept the temporary nature of their own.
In truth, the idea of ‘first do no harm’ was really ‘harm is relative to mortality and only those with lives to live get a say in someone else's’. In this case it had been months, five- maybe even six in the end, and perhaps now the archaic and dusty little figures multiplying on the desk were the karma that came with it.

It had become almost a joke now with colleagues, their sly smirks barely veiled as more families found these horrendous little atrocities and presented them with adoration and gratitude. It wasn’t that she was a bad doctor, however sometimes hard decisions left a taste in the mouth that even the cold coffee she’d lost track of earlier that day couldn’t quite wash down.

“You must think I'm some kind of bush leaguer, Ms Ryan.”

Dr Marion Clarke didn’t follow professional wrestling, at 53 years old with a complicated marriage to her work and little else to justify her existence beyond a few PhD’s on the wall, she wasn’t planning on starting either. Leaning across the desk slightly- her thin, wiry hair seemed to spring out from her tightly pulled bun as she adjusted the wire-rimmed glasses perched half way down the hooked slope of her nose.
She didn’t exactly epitomise the target audience, as thin lips pursed into a judgemental scowl that appeared almost painted on with a certain permanency and yet somehow their relationship- as loosely as the term could be applied, had spanned sporadically across years.

Perhaps that's why she could so readily address the redhead seated across from her with an unmistakable familiarity and frustration.

Since arriving in Atlantic City in 2015,  Dr Clarke had been Amber’s primary physician- the one somehow unlucky enough to be saddled with her apparent death wish tendencies, absurdist medical records and the stacks of paperwork that seemingly went along with it.
Even now, with hawk-like eyes examining the 34 year old currently rolling one of the newer additions to the burgeoning collection between her gnarled fingers, Dr Clarke couldn’t begin to comprehend why the woman seated in front of her had such an intent to…

“If I thought that Doc, I wouldn’t be here. Only the best and all that nonsense…”

Blasé and blunt. Par for the course perhaps. Radiating disinterest so hard it might have been terminal, Amber didn’t even look up from the cat figurine as she ran a thumb across a misshapen- what she presumed to be an - ear. Maybe.
Whether Dr Clarke was the best or not was in fact irrelevant to the redhead- what had mattered was that she had been reliable, steadfast in her no-nonsense attitude and as professional as anyone could expect to be given the circumstances she usually found herself consulting under. What mattered was that she spoke honestly, didn’t put up with Amber’s bullshit and most importantly… understood that a career was worth sacrificing for.

“... and if you thought I wasn't simply prepared to sign you off to get you out of my office and save me an afternoon of needless bureaucratic bullshit, then I doubt you’d have bothered showing up.”

The word ‘bullshit' rolled off her tongue unnaturally, a distasteful flicker at the edge of her mouth confirmed the foreign nature of the term. By now there was no need to manoeuvre around banal small talk, killing time before cutting to the chase five minutes too late cause it was pay by the hour, and be damned if the redhead wasn’t getting away with not paying for the privilege of inconvenience.
Amber smiled thoughtfully, perhaps wondering just how hard she might have to squeeze to shatter the tiny abomination.

“That being said though- I took an oath when I became a physician.”

“Here we fucking go…”

Amber murmured not so subtly under her breath, predictable as it was painful to sit through. Concentrating her effort into understanding why so many of these ugly little porcelain cats seemed to even exist to begin with, she knew what was coming, but refrained from speaking it aloud.

“In all good conscience and decidedly professionalism Ms Ryan, you have to understand that while I've been willing to accept your choices - albeit reluctantly - I cannot condone what is otherwise something that directly contradicts the ethical promises that I have made simply, so you might go and get yourself maimed. Again.”

Dr Clarke cleared her throat authoritatively, feeling the vague crackle in her spine as her posture corrected and she seemingly grew an inch and a half in the chair she’d assumed.

“There are limits to what I can reasonably allow before I am unable to call myself a medical professional, and despite my better judgement I have crossed that line for you more times than I dare admit. If not for anything more than an understanding, and the fact I’d have no doubt you’d gleefully wander into a chop shop for a tetanus shot.”

Gently, almost deliberately so, Amber placed the approximation of a pastel green and neon-esque pink cat back onto the desk, slightly askew from where she’d picked it up from. With gaze travelling from the technicolour attempt at collective art back towards the doctor, who had somehow managed to find and insert her entire backbone whilst remaining seated- Amber leaned back lazily into her own chair, trying to ignore the hard edges of the wooden frame digging between her vertebrae.

“So that's it then…”

If Amber were more impassive, she might have been dead. A slight furrow in her brow in vague contemplation and curiosity, a crinkle in the bridge of her nose that suggested a sense of amusement- but otherwise nothing.

“Ms Ryan, I would be going against everything I know and everything I swore when I chose this life, should I clear you for ‘competition’.”

There was a clear derision in the word ‘competition’ as though she failed, or simply refused to believe that the correlation was one worth noting. Those outside the industry would never understand, Amber instinctively knew, they’d never quite comprehend the allure of planting one's sneaker through someone else's face- nor the satisfaction that came with the crunch of a cheekbone or eye socket that usually followed.
Competition was one thing… addiction, now that was a whole other scenario.

“Well, I suppose that settles it then.”

As conclusively and abruptly as she might have managed from her slouched position, Amber steadied herself upright with a half-hearted smile. Dr Clarke paused tensely- waiting for the other shoe to drop,waiting for the reaction, waiting for an indication that she understood what was being said.

“I trust you heard me correctly, Ms Ryan. I’m not willing to clear you at this juncture… You understand that, right?”

With a suggestive eyebrow raise, Amber chuckled softly and in such a way it felt as though the walls themselves brought into the untold joke.

“Of course. You aren’t clearing me… so what's the point of wasting more of either of our time?”

With a knowing shrug, Amber pushed the chair aside slightly before making her way towards the door- a tension hanging heavy that neither chose to outrightly acknowledge and an unspoken apprehension of what might become of the consequences.
Beyond the door- making double sure that it was firmly closed in her wake, just hard enough to know that the PhD’s rattled uncomfortably- Amber reflexively dug into her front pocket for her phone. Before even clearing reception, the phone was ringing and up against her ear as the familiar smirk known far and wide for its mischievous and menacing undertone…

“Dr Baal… Yeah, I was right.”

A pause as the response elicited a further crack in the facade and a sly glimmer in the corners of an eye.

“Might I be so bold as to assume that you may know someone that could organise a medical clearance on short notice…?”





******



“Masque.

Don’t pretend like you aren’t listening, you’re hanging on my every word. There are those that are going to think you’re gonna come out and save the little ‘Angel’ perched up high on her tree- but we both know you won’t. You won’t cause it doesn’t fit your plans, your path…
Words are meaningless. You said it yourself. Yet no action… it's almost as though you’ve been a liar all along.

Once again though, this isn’t about you- although soon enough you wish it won’t ever be.

Now truth be told, I’d call everything that's occurred in the last little while the proverbial ‘elephant in the room’, but that would simply be giving the devil her due- and truth be told, she’s gone a little quiet since I decided that I wasn’t quite done with my death wish yet.
Give her time I suppose- the cat might have her tongue, but the bitch knows that her supposed Rapture means almost nothing without me.

I won’t sit here and pretend though like she didn’t do a damn good job. I spent five months on the shelf- wondering, contemplating, trying to make sense of what a life without wrestling might look like.
It looked bleak, it looked bland, it looked colourless as though the technicolour nightmare had soaked through with bleach and bad intentions.
I spent five months telling myself that staying away was the right thing to do- for the sake of the division and those I cared about, I damn near convinced myself I was doing everyone a favour.

Turns out, even I'm not quite that good of a liar.

I told myself I didn’t want to come back, that I wouldn’t be the same person I was before. I told myself that I buried a former world champion in the backyard and swore I wouldn’t go digging in myself looking for a reason to exhume. I told myself that I could be happy without this, without the constant nagging pains and the mental toll of beating your head against metaphorical brick walls trying to explain logic and reason of winning and losing to those who refused to pull their heads from between their legs.
I came out here and told the world I was making a decision that I truly believed was what was best…

Behind closed doors I told myself that I would never be that person again. Unfortunately for everyone else- and as per fucking usual, as though we’re surprised- I was right.

That's the thing about an injury that leaves you on the shelf for a while- you get a lot of time to think about things you’d change, the mistakes you made and how hindsight makes an absolute mockery of our best intentions. Five fucking months I spent contemplating everything that had brought me to this point- about who I was, about how I was…

How I allowed the World title to consume me, to become my everything.

Don’t get me wrong, it still is… but at least I can admit it now.

I broke down and I rebuilt from the ground up, I took the rubble of who I was and I recreated it into something that I might one day be able to look back and be proud of.

Now, the SCW legion and everyone behind that curtain peeking out from between their fingers, is wondering whether I can still go…

It would be ridiculous to think there isn’t any ring rust or that I’m possibly even close to 100% fit. I scraped getting a medical clearance by sheer grit, determination and a good word. I’ve spent the last three and a half months rehabbing non-stop cause they wouldn’t let me even look at a gym before that.
If you look at this match purely on paper- there should be no way I would be able to hang with an up-and-coming high flyer at the very pinnacle of her very limited game. If you break it down on a physical aspect- I should be seeing a loss for the first time in a long time appear on my records.

Paper doesn’t get in that ring and go though, statistics and standards run through systems that can't compute what it takes to get to where I’ve been. I wasn't the Bombshells World Champion for 357 days cause I looked pretty and I didn’t defend that title successfully on twelve different occasions cause I was lucky or gifted.
There’s plenty of Bombshells who can do things I can’t, who have incredible physical capabilities that I simply cannot and will not match with- I won’t sit here and kid anyone into thinking that I’m gonna match strength and speed with someone like Ariana right now.
See, what's on a piece of paper didn’t get me here. What the doctors told me didn’t see me stay at the top for as long as I have.

I’m a former World Champion for a reason. The best stays the best because we adjust and we adapt, because we know that we aren’t destined to be there forever and so we have to keep evolving to outlive everything that tries to drag us back down.
I said it throughout my reign and it rings truer than ever now… I will go into that ring with anyone and I will always win, not cause I’m bigger, badder or better… but because I will always outlast. I’m a proverbial cockroach in the nuclear wastelands, I’m the mutt that keeps dodging a needle.
My heart doesn’t beat inside my chest, it can’t be pulled from me or broken conventionally, it's on the shoulder of someone who doesn’t deserve to know the way it pulses in time with the roar of a crowd. It’s plated in gold and is worth more than the life I’ve forfeited for the privilege.

Question me. Doubt me. This isn't an underdog story- there's no upset clause, no ‘David and Goliath’ cause that story has been proven a mistruth hundreds of times over. David was never the underdog because Goliath was damn near blind, stumbling around searching for a chance- just like you aren’t the Cinderella story you’d love to make this out to be, Ariana. If you believe hard enough, maybe you’ll trick yourself into believing the Converse sneaker stomping through the back of your head and out through your mouth is a glass slipper- and all those shards you’re scrambling to save aren’t just the remnants of your broken teeth scattered across the canvas.

Maybe you think this is my reputation against your reality.

Once in a while the fairytale has to come true, otherwise they’d never otherwise be told. No point sharing a good story if there isn’t reason to believe- only there is, cause you make it so. Close your eyes Ariana and think real hard about what it would be like to beat me, how good it might feel to have your hand raised in victory- something hard earned and well fought.
Yeah, it's not happening is it.
At least you tried, I suppose.
Fairytales aren’t meant for everyone, otherwise they’d never be worth retelling. Imagine if everyone got their happy ending right? How fucking meaningless life would so quickly become. So maybe I’ll be the villain, the evil queen questing for the heart of only the fairest among you all and finding only pathetic lumps of shame tossed haplessly to the floor. I’ll be the big bad wolf showing your defences to be as pitiful as your logic as to why I shouldn’t raze them to the ground from the get-go.

You might be the Roulette champion, you might even be the eventual future of this company- in which case, may Cthulhu have mercy upon our souls- however when it comes down to it?
You’re little more than collateral damage- another broken doll littered among the many that leads towards a final resolution, a final Rapture if you will.

You aren’t Masque, Ariana. However, if you try to invoke her name, as though saying it three times in a mirror might somehow protect you from what Sunday surely brings… Then expect that I will have no hesitation in treating you as though you were.

Abigayle. I’m waiting, patiently I might add, and I’d hate for you to get shy on me now…

After all, we’ve got so much more to show the world of the Rapture cause there really are so many things far worse than death…”


Record
SCW: 15 - 4 - 1
Uprising: 8 - 2 - 0
Life: 0 - 1 - 0</span>