Post by LACKLAN on Apr 19, 2018 14:44:21 GMT -5
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
We here at the Circle Television Network documentary team have had the great pleasure over the last month to bring you a variety of in-depth looks into the life and mind of the United Global Wrestling Coalition professional wrestler known as Le Bord de Dieu. Part I of our series brought us in interview with her personal assistant, Mike “Jet” Corino, as well as a visit to a “tent city” and homeless shelter in Bangor, Maine. Part II took us to Cincinnati and into the heart of her Lingerie Football career, where we learned she is looking to change how women both compete and are perceived in that realm, as well as a return to the homeless shelter in Maine, where a fire had ripped through the makeshift buildings. And Part III treated us to a live Dear Bordy broadcast, as well as the official “Ten WORST ways to cut a promo,” which no doubt triggered half of the people who watched the video.
All month long, we have promised that Part IV would not only feature the first ever sit-down interview with the so-called Edge and Blade of God, but it would answer the question that has bothered all three people who pay attention to these presentations: Is she who she claims to be? Is she the wife of the departed Jean-Paul Lacklan?
Unfortunately, as much as we would like to break down the how’s and what’s of her claim, as much as we would like to produce the convoluted and low-rated Netflix Original that Jet Somers wishes to see, we have to pause for a moment before we can conduct an interview. You see, dear viewers, as we were preparing to conduct the interview between Bordy and a special guest you just have to see to believe, a certain masked man with great sex appeal, an CTN documentary HOFer, Generic Heel, made some unavoidable plans known:
Apparently, before we could get to our interview, some “team building” was going to occur…
Bonjour, Monsieur.
Please allow me, if I may, to violate my own joke from last week. Allow me, if I may, to engage in the fifth worst way to speak to your opponent, that of the voice-over against the backdrop of darkness or heavily-edited tape. Allow me to, if I may, speak to you in this intimate way so that you and I cannot, in any form, walk away from No Holds Barred with any misconceptions.
I know who you are.
Yes yes, burned man wearing a mask. We all get that. And as odd as this may sound, you are at least the THIRD person on the totem pole of life which fits that description. And even when you factor in being the head of your own city or town, you are STILL quiet low in the level of importance. While you no doubt expected your position of “large scary man with power” to overwhelm the senses of this world, the truth of the matter is that not only have we all seen you before, we have seen better versions of you.
Far better.
A sad reality of you is that, once you boil down your endless monologues to their core, you have really only produced one theme for which to inspire fear or awe into the company:
You are bigger than me.
I get that. Truly, I do. You stand at an amazing height and are in possession of unrivaled strength. You are no doubt as powerful as a steam engine, as impregnable as the Louvre, and with such a forceful personality that I may as well fall to my knees immediately in awe and adoration. That is, after all, what you told Maggie and Mizore, yes? That they had no hope against you because you were a monster of a man and they were just tiny women? That the only hope they had was to work together and form into some kind of creature like in a Japanese cartoon show? That the only hope they had of surviving your strikes and blows was to lay upon the ground to avoid them and then stay there so that you could be declared the victor?
Silly, that.
Monsieur, I had not intended on bringing up last week, but some petulant child already has, so I might as well. You defamed me in your opening salvo last week for “losing” to Maggie in the triple threat, to claim that my potential is forever wasted. And then, after boasting of your own victory which would be gained with the ease akin to that of swatting flies, you, yourself, “lost” in a triple threat with her. Tell me, oh glorious harvester:
How do you reconcile that without sounding the fool?
The answer is, of course, that you cannot. Oh, I am sure that you will tell some tale about how I interfered and cost you the loss, but all I did was walk on the entrance ramp while Amy Lee sang. It is not my fault that your little obsession for me overrode your warrior sense. Really, Monsieur, as I told you in the beginning, not only am I happily married, the position of Annoying and Unwanted Suitor is already filled by our creative director, and he is far more entertaining than you.
So where does that bring us? Face to mask in the middle of a ring surrounded by hot coals and our hands prepared for Taiwan. Truth be told, I think that you getting this match is a little silly, since all you have done is “won” your “victories” by attacked people after they had beat the holy hell out of one another and then losing in your debut, but I suppose Hastings has his reasons. No doubt he wishes to eliminate the contenders for my heart by having me murder them on Pay-Per-View.
Crafty move, that.
And make no doubt about it, Monsieur, that I am fully capable of doing as such. People around here, particularly those who wear too little clothing and hide behind too much makeup, wish to avoid the subject of just how much damage I do in this ring, but it is not lost on me that, one month ago, I walked out of Milwaukee not only the new Champion of Chaos, but the most highly regarded and critically acclaimed fighter of the night. It is not lost on me that, over the last month, I have elevated the Champion of Chaos to well above the Cross-Hemisphere Championship. It is not lost on me that over the last four months, I have gone from the locker room looking at me and asking “What is the story?” to those same people opening their eyes wide in shock and horror when they see my name across from theirs on the booking sheet.
You see, Monsieur, I have shown in the last twelve cards held by this company that I can do virtually anything I desire and that defeating me is extremely difficult to do. I have shown that my offense is unpredictable and devastating. I have shown that my mettle is not something messed with easily.
And you?
All we have seen is a blowhard who enjoys the sound of his own voice.
Lo! Necron the blowhard!
Lo! Necron the overstated!
Lo! Necron, who invokes my name but does not understand it's gravity and why no one else uses it.
Here is the reality you must face, Monsieur: Yes, you are big. Yes, you are strong. Yes, you profess to be the warrior who stands alone on a mountain of riches and glory, beating his chest for all to hear. You are an undeniable and undefeatable monstrous giant whom we should all fear and cower before.
I prefered this story when I first read it in 1 Samuel, 17.
It only took one stone from the ground to end Goliath’s bravado. It only took the courage and conviction from one man, barely more than a boy, to cleave in his skull. It only took one small person to bring down the giant.
And believe you me, Monsieur, I am far greater than any David.
Just as Goliath barked his warnings to the line of Israelites, your offers have fallen to the ears of the deaf, your displays of power and influence performed in front of the eyes of the blind. For it is not that I have not heard or seen your offers of lust and partnership, it is that they mean nothing to me. You, Monsieur, mean nothing to me other than that you are the first person for me to make a successful Champion of Chaos title defense against. And while there are those within this company who will say that such things as championships, wins, and even brand loyalty do not mean anything, I can assure you that I am fully ready and capable of showing the world just how important being a champion within the Coalition means.
I said in the beginning that I knew who you were. And this? This is who you are. Just a cocksure giant from Gath who is three seconds away from his fantasies becoming dust and being crushed under the weight of God’s reality.
I wish to close, however, with a bit of benevolence. A month ago, I offered Mizore a piece of advice. I told her, a week before our battle at the Lord of Trios, that she would be better served to call in sick. She, and her dependent partner, would find a far higher quality of life if she did anything she could to avoid having to be in the ring with me in our Champion of Chaos match. She did not listen. And she personally felt the pain of the Embrace of God as I began my most holy of journeys of making the Champion of Chaos title be the most prestigious in the business. My benevolence is that I offer you the same bit of advice:
Call in sick, Monsieur. Stay home. Stay in your city of steel. Stay whole. Stay hale.
For if you DO show up in Detroit…
If you DO cross the burning coals with your long stride…
If you DO cover your arms with shards of glass…
I will make you BEG to be thrown into the dragon’s fire.
Bonne nuit.
“Everyone better have their character’s ready! Inspection starts in five minutes!”
The gluttonous hairy blob of sex appeal that was Generic Heel was an intimidating sight. The man in the generic red and blue mask sat on the massive throne that was guaranteed in his contract as the generic coach of the currently 0-2 LFL Cincy Hit Girls in a puffy black robe, opened at the chest so that his sweaty lard could be seen, deep within the bowels of the Hit Girl stadium in Cincinnati. The abysmal starting record of his team was the reason for today’s adventure, a team-building project of the utmost epic awesomeness that no one in the world could ever think of one better:
A night of Dungeons and Dragons.
“What ruleset are we, like, using? Please don’t tell me it’s, like, First or Second edition.”
“Ah too black ta play dis cracka shit.”
“I’m only half black and I’M too black to play this!”
“When do we get to explore one of the dumpsters?”
“I am pretty sure this is blasphemy, Monsieur.”
“Okay, I brought the lube and Twister. Let’s get this game night going!”
All eyes turned to the buxom blonde of plastic known as Roxy Cotton. The bubblegum entrepreneur did indeed have Twister in its box in one hand and quite possibly the world’s biggest container of lube this side of a Court circle jerk in the other. Generic Heel, AKA GH the Great, AKA the Great GH, AKA The Star of Your Wet Dreams and Mine, could do nothing but shake his head.
“No, no, no. This is NOT game night. This is about bringing the team together through roleplay!”
Roxy’s eyes widen in understanding.
"Oh! Okay. Am I on a job interview or need to get a good grade on my test?"
“No! Not THAT kind of roleplaying! There will be NO venmo payments here!”
He gestures to the long table where many of Roxy’s Hit Girl teammates were gathered, each with some sort of paperwork before them.
“I need, like, the seat next to me for my, you know, my companion books.”
“Gonna cap a cracka if this takes all damn night.”
“Please don’t tell me you actually have a gun on you.”
“You can sit next to me, Roxy! Sers Bobby and Alex would love to move over!”
“Lies like this make Baby Jesus cry.”
Roxy shrugs her shoulders, lets her game and lube fall to the floor, and makes her way over to the table. She sits down next to the legendary Leggy Blonde of Canda (its a thing) and looks around the table. The single greatest villain of all time, Generic Heel, takes this chance to take stock and inventory of his assembled players.
- Milisandre Crowthorne, who thrives on being unemployed and owing an embarrassing amount of back rent to Sidney Grey for her time basically on the Grey-Lacklan teet, had a pile of books in front of and around her. Her perpetually bored face was filled with rare light and excitement as she proudly displayed the character sheet before her, for a character named BLQMFS, Priestess to the Unspeakable God, which she had spent the better part of the week preparing. Mostly because she was, as is well documented, unemployed and not actually DOING anything outside of planning her upcoming wedding to Bruce, a Lacklanlandian (is that right?) guard well known to the UGWC audience.
- Cartier, who seemingly spends all of her time not wrestling in SAP by constantly hitting on GH the Great, has a single piece of paper in front of her that is covered in rap lyrics and poetry written about Beyonce’s behind. The name of the character is, apparently “too black” and has a class of “fo dis shit.” Apparently, she is using one of the generic homebrew rules.
- Kenzi Grey-Lacklan, the braided starlet of just about every media known to man, has several pieces of paper in front of her which are filled with writing in red ink that is clearly in the Comic Sans font. Her character is Thespina the Bard and, apparently, she is “susceptible to the totes legit hawtness of the Great Albino Vampire Queen of the North East.” Yeah, something tells us that she had a little help from an outside source in preparing for this game…
- Dear, sweet Angelica Vaughn is joined by her kitties. The look on her face is purely ignorance but there is a light of excitement in her eyes. Her character sheet breaks down that she is a druid who stands at 5’10” (obvs) with a whole litter of the cutest kitties in the world as her familiar, as well as “totes turn into a cat” under special abilities. Let us hope that we do not see a repeat of THAT piece of erotica…
- Bordy, the Frenchwoman whose arrogance is so thick that you can smell it like perfume, sits with a dress so high up to her neck that you would think she might as well wear a mask like the GM. That’s Generic Master, for those who haven’t figured out the gimmick. The paper in front of her is for Merovingian the Righteous, a paladin. Because, of course.
“Where is your character sheet, Roxy?”
“My what?”
“Your character sheet! The thing that tells us what you can do! What class are you?”
“I literally don’t understand a word out of your mouth, bb. Does anyone?”
“Can we, like, get started? I don’t want to be late for hosting the Hentai Hour on the #CoolTube app.”
“I don get a thang you crackas say.”
“Why is ‘hits on every blonde she sees but is totes not into girls’ written on my paper?”
“Why is it even called ‘Dumpsters and Dragons, anyway? It would make totes more sense to call it, like, Caves and Dragons. Or Jails and Dragons.”
The Great GH shakes his mighty head in consternation. After letting out a sigh that makes the world sad, he claps his hands twice.
“Hey Sav! Grab my book of characters.”
Sativa Nevaeh, of ECWF fame, walks into frame with one of GH’s books. The slender brunette has, like, six joints in her mouth, because the Extreme champ is a badass like that, and has been instrumental in getting the game organized throughout the week. She wanted to play, but GH didn’t want someone to dominate the way she would have, so she settled on being his assistant for the night, instead.
“Thanks, sweet cheeks.”
GH flips through his book of pre-rolled characters.
“Alright, blondie. How about a succubus?”
“Um...that sounds like bad guy, coach.”
“Man, I hate you, Ang. Okay, how about Roxy plays a Chaotic Evil thief?”
“Um...still sounds like a bad guy, tee-bee aitch.”
“You kids sound ridiculous when you talk like that. Okay, how about a necromancer who raises the dead?”
“Ew! No!”
“Hey, how come all of the characters you want me to play are bad guys?”
GH the Greatest looks up from his book and looks at Roxy. He tries to hold back the smolder, but his naturally sexiness is too strong for that feat.
“Because you’re a bad guy?”
Roxy’s face falls, well, as much as it CAN with all the botox, in a truly genuine way. GH clears his throat and looks down at his book.
“Hey, how about this barbarian? He’s chaotic but not evil?”
She takes the sheet with a silent nod, the awkwardness palpable. GH clears his throat again and addresses the entire table.
“Alright, girls. We’re here tonight because our record stinks. Don’t argue with me! We’re 0-2! And the only bright side to our play is how well our punter has done! That Millie girl sure is sweet. Anyway, it is clear to me, as your coach, that we need to figure out how to work as a team. So, we have this. The six of you will come together to defeat the evil dragon, Necronium the Long-Winded, or die trying. Understood?!”
Six hands shot up as questions were asked. GH the Greater ignored them all and immediately broke into a dramatic reading of his 27-page backstory for the campaign world which he was sure EVERYONE had read ahead of time, as they had been instructed. What followed was, in true D&D form, seven hours of maddeningly bad roleplaying fueled by pizza, soda, and WAY too many Monty Python quotes. While the adventures of The Adventurous Six, who weren’t exactly going to win any awards for original team names, were many and varied, here are the important points which would eventually find themselves immortalized in song and rhyme by bards forever more:
~~How To Slay a Dragon in FiveSIX Easy Steps~~
After a number of adventures, the group finally found themselves seeking out the Great and Powerful Wizard CAPTAIN. CAPTAIN changed his appearance by donning different magical hats, each time proclaiming “I am the CAPTAIN now!” and hit on Merovingian whenever possible in new and more creative ways, no matter how many times the paladin told him that she was happily married. And in a moment that made Cartier nearly walk away from the game, CAPTAIN answered the question of “How do we slay Necronium the Long-Winded?” by breaking out into song.
And dance.
Like, literally a song and dance number in the middle of their quest. Villagers showed up to perform choreography. A band materialized and Thespina joined in (Ken rolled a 1 on her saving throw to resist the compulsion to jam). By the end of the song, CAPTAIN was riding on top of a camel...which was, itself, riding on top of an elephant. Who was doing the cha-cha.
It was pretty epic.
Throughout the song, CAPTAIN laid down what the group needed to do to an R&B backbeat that was in NO WAY a rip-off of that absolutely terrible Brian McKnight hit from ‘99, “Back at One,” which secretly gets all UP in the Great GH’s feels.
🎼
🎤 One: Wear your armor!
🎤 Two: Put your shield up!
🎤 Three: Get him monologuing, cause we all know how he likes to ta-alllllk!
🎤 Four: Repeat steps one through three!
🎤 Five: Pray to the elder god THAC0
🎤 Six: Cut his damned head off!
~~Always look on the bright side of Ni!~~
Lets be honest here: Everyone expects the first person to die to be either Roxy or Cartier, right?
Wrong.
At some point in time, Angie figured out how to use her wild shape ability to turn herself into a giant animal. Now, everyone was worried that we WOULD see a repeat of her “accidentally” leaked cat-themed erotica, but the Vaughnamous One surprised the whole group by, instead of a cat, turning into a giant bunny, which drew a teary “Ahhhhhh!” from Kenzi, as she had obviously been inspired by the greatest albino dwarf bunny in the world, Hasenpfeffer ‘Little Has’ Grey-Lacklan.
Unfortunately for the group, the sudden appearance of a badass rabbit in a game of D&D made Mil start busting out with lines like “Well, that’s no ordinary rabbit!” and “Mangy Scots git!” This lead to Sativa interjecting and stating that Holy Grail was WAY overrated and Life of Brian was the true wonder of Monty Python. The two brunettes, normally quite chummy with one another, then got into a shouting match while not noticing that the Generic Master had sprung a random encounter on the group and attacked.
Mil’s ranger was killed by a brownie.
~~The THWACK of God~~
So...yeah...this happened when a princess the group had just rescued accidentally stepped on Cartier’s Puma:
“Bitch, I use my gun on this ho"
"Sigh...we’ve been through this, Cartier. You don’t have a gun. This is a fantasy sett-"
"Fuck I don’t!"
Cartier then layed a gun on the table.
“I cap the ho! Steppin on a black woman’s shoes…”
Enraged, the GM then tossed all of his dice onto the table, like Jesus flipping the money-changing tables in the house of God, and declares that Cartier’s character does that much damage multiplied by his sexiness.
Cartier dies by the “THWACK of God.”
~~”Where ARE these dumpsters?!”~~
Confused by why the game is called “Dumpsters and Dragons” where there hasn’t been a SINGLE dumpster, and crashing from having WAY too much candy throughout the night, Angie passes out at the table.
~~Is Evil Good an alignment?~~
We’re not exactly sure if Bordy understands the point of the game, but everywhere the Adventurous Six came to a new town, Merovingian the Righteous would demand that everyone be interrogated and “the infidels BURNED AT THE STAKE!” The amount of times that other members of the Six would have to push the paladin away would fill a companion book on their own, and certainly leaves us to question whether or not any form of correctly played paladin is actually “good.”
~~The Ballad of Thespina~~
Kenzi had zero clue as to what she was doing, as this “white person stuff” was usually reserved for conversations between her wife and Manny when talking Skyrim, but she did her best, as she knew that the team needed to come together, and it was her job as quarterback to make it happen. She did well overall, using her legitimate musical and acting skills to portray her character correctly and come up with creative ways to help and lead her team in a variety of combat and social situations, but three major things occurred that knocked her from the game:
1). She somehow became a werewolf.
2). She rolled ANOTHER 1 on a saving throw, this time when trying to avoid the rapture of the Albino Vampire Queen. She became her thrall.
3). When facing the dreaded dragon, Necronium the Long-Winded, she was hit and killed by a powerful strike from the spiked tail when the paladin didn’t quite get her shield up in time in order to block the blow for the relatively frail rogue class.
“You missed ANOTHER block, Bordy?!”
“God works in mysterious ways, child!”
~~The Righteous shall overcome~~
The epic battle of the Adventurous Six, minus the dead ranger, sleeping druid, and THWACKed...um….whatever Cartier was...with Necrodium the Long-Winded was as epic as could ever be in the annals of epicdom. And while morale was low after the death of Thespina, Merovingian the Righteous was able to win the day by remembering the instructions (one could even say tutorial) provided by CAPTAIN.
One: She had her armor on.
Two: She had her shield up.
Three: She got him monologing, in which he fell into a recollection of how he had been in every battle that there had ever been and you would be an idiot to ever think that anything you could ever do could ever hurt him because he’s the extremist of the extreme.
Four: Due to zoning out in sheer boredom of hearing the lengthy speech, Bordy had to have her paladin repeat steps one through three. Armor...check! Shield...check! Still monologuing...check!
Five: She looked up into the heavens and prayed a prayer of hope to the great and never forgotten god, THAC0.
Six: She took her blade and stroke true! With one swooop, she cut off the head of Necronium the Long-Winded
The peasants rejoice.
~~Aftermath~~
Roxy’s barbarian (named “bb” of course) walked from the cave with Angie’s sleeping druid slung over her shoulder, having survived the great ordeal, much to the surprise of everyone in the room.
Bordy’s paladin, Merovingian the Righteous, walked out of the cave with the head of the dreaded dragon Necronium the Long-Winded, patriarch of Clan Blowhard, dragging across the ground in her hand.
What lived of the Adventurous Six had won the day.
In the halls of the Cincy Hit Girls, the hoped-for effect of the game had actually worked. Generic Heel, quite possibly the single greatest coach in the history of women’s underwear football, smiled through his mask as Roxy and Angie patched their relationship as they headed into the Prison Break match for the UGWC Cooperation Championship. Cartier didn’t exactly hate being near so many “white bread crackas,” as she so eloquently put it. Sativa and Mil had temporarily put aside their battle of Monty Python to crack open a few beers.
“This is all so silly.”
The voice of the Frenchwoman was quiet as she watched it all.
“Beneath you.”
She looked over her shoulder at the man in the odd mask who had joined her in the far corner of the room. She smiled at the sound of his muffled voice and then leaned back against him, enjoying the feel of his solid muscle against her back. He had been rock the last month and more, helping her remember who she was, helping her push away the madness that had so defined her the last few years. She felt him stiffen as they touched, but then felt her bodyguard relax and settle. He was strong. She like strong. She closed her eyes for a moment, getting lost in the feel of her rock, her mouth turning up into a smile. But then the clearing of a voice brought her back to reality.
“Um...we are ready for you, Madam.”
She opened her eyes to see a member of the CTN documentary team, someone she had seen much over the last month, and nodded. She had nearly forgotten about the sit-down interview she was to have after the silly game was ended. She gave the woman with the clipboard a nod.
“Lead the way.”
Through a few of the halls the three went, the CTN producer in front and Redmaine following his queen closely behind. Very closely. Bordy could feel the heat emanating from him, could feel how close he was. It was...unsettling...in a few ways.
“Right there here, Madam. Your interviewer is waiting.”
Bordy gave her a silent nod and went through the door. She immediately came to a halt and her breath caught in her throat.
Her interviewer sat at a table beside an empty chair.
A woman with skin the color of the moon, hair so bright it hurt the eye, and the beady red eyes of a rat shining through a haze of cigarette smoke.
L'Enfant Démon.
Sarah Selena Grey-Lacklan’s eyes blazed as she saw the two enter the room through the haze of her cigarette smoke. Her hands immediately started to quiver, the physical quirk that she had fought so hard to control in her therapy sessions, and she breathed in deeply to calm herself. Her hands still tremble a little, but it was far less than before, no longer threatening to send hot ash down onto her Firestarter dress. She turns her gaze from HER to the man next to her, the man in the mask with the large arms sticking out in the fur vest. Made from the animals from her own damned forest.
“That explains much,” she says to him. She takes a long drag on her cigarette, allows the smoke to fill her lungs with its sharp bite, and slowly pushes it out. ”A lot of pigeons have come back without delivering their payload.”
Redmaine stands by Ava’s side without saying a word. She had trusted this man, had trusted him to lead and train the Lacklanland security force just as her father had trusted him, and now he stood with the enemy. Now he stood with the interloper.
“Excuse us. This will be a private interview until it is released.”
Redmaine did not move a muscle. She mentally told herself to contact Bruce as soon as this thing was done, to make sure he was aware and ready of what might be coming. And then Ava turned her head to him and whispered something. With one last glaring look at her, the bald man left the room and closed the door behind him.
“A shame to see that you are still using the fake accent.”
Sarah bristled at both the words and tone of the mad Frenchwoman.
“I honor my mother.”
“Then it should be French, not Londoner.”
“YOU ARE NOT MY MOTHER!”
Sarah could not help her outburst. She tried to control herself, tried to maintain her composure, but Ava pressed her buttons so quickly and easily that she could not help it. And, infuriatingly, Ava just gave a small laugh at her outburst.
“Semantics, child.”
The woman made her way over and, with an amount of grace she absolutely did not possess just a few months ago, lightly dropped into the chair opposite Sarah. She met her eyes, dark eyes with a spot of emerald in the center, and had to bite down on her lip in order to keep her calm. If her legs would work right, she would lunge over the table and strangle her. But they did not. Not any more.
“So, is this what you do with your time now? Working as an interviewer for Circle Television?”
Sarah was able to give one of her characteristic Eye Rolls of Doom.
“I do a lot of things.”
She looks down at the papers before her, a series of questions given to her by one of the producers of the documentary. They were the usual questions you would ask for something like this, questions about where Ava was born, how she got into wrestling, what her plans for the future were. But she didn’t care about any of that. Of course, she KNEW all of those answers already, but that was beside the point. The only one that really mattered...
“How did you escape?”
Ava’s eyes widened in what seemed to be genuine surprise.
“Straight to it, then? No coffee and croissants?”
Sarah didn’t respond and Ava seemed to take the hint.
“Fine. You and I have been playing this game for years, child, and I know that you think you had ‘checkmate’ when I mysteriously found myself locked away in that institution with drugs in my system every day. But it was only ‘check.’ There were people in that hospital who supported me, those who understand who the REAL Red Queen is. From the moment I was locked in, there were those who worked on getting the key. It took time...four YEARS of time...but I got that key. And when I learned that my husband had died-”
“He was NOT your husband!”
“-when I learned that MY HUSBAND had died, there was no stopping my escape!”
Ava stares at her, her eyes full of fury, and Sarah knows that her own must be the same. It felt like her eyes were on fire, that they truly were the windows leading into a furnace like people said that looked like.
“My father NEVER loved you, Ava. He didn’t love ANY of his whores! Not you! Not Nicole! Not Ariana! Not any of the others.”
“We were MARRIED, child!”
“You have NO proof of that!”
A small smile crept onto Ava’s lips.
“.......for now……”
Ava licked her lips before moving on.
“For four years, I plotted what I would do to you. For for years, I wrote down what you were. I said it. I chanted it. I wrote it on walls. I even wrote it on my skin.”
Sarah spares a glance at the sleeves of Ava’s dress, the fine Firestarter silk that was lined with many small slashes of color, each a representation of the scars running up and down her arms underneath her clothes.
“I will admit...the world I walked into was very different than the one I left. I was lost, both physically and mentally. It took me weeks to get my bearing, months to fully remember who I was. But through it all, I could always focus on one thing: Putting you in check for the failure you have become.”
Sarah could feel her eyes widen.
“Failure? Failure?! How am I a failure?! Since you have been gone, I have gone from valet to my father, to becoming a pro wrestler and winning important championships in my rookie year, to starting my own clothing line, to-”
“You have taken everything your father held dear and thrown it in the trash!”
Ava’s voice powers over Sarah’s and silences her.
“You have taken everything that God wants from you and set it on fire! You have taken the life and opportunity you had and just become another mindless SLUT! Married to a WOMAN! My God, child! Your father-”
“My father was WRONG!”
The full-armed slap from Ava caught her unaware and threw her head to the side. Tears welled in her eyes as she turned back and he side of her face stung and burned like fire, but the words she heard next chilled her to the marrow in her bones.
“Your father would be rolling over in his GRAVE if he saw what his daughter had become!”
Sarah did not remember much from November 7th. She remembered nothing of the accident and emergency surgery that saved her life but left her paralyzed for two months. She did not remember being in a coma for a week, did not have any consciousness like the stories said she might. She did not remember those moments in the after where she would wake and talk to Kenzi, or write her a note, and could barely believe the stories even after seeing the notes themselves. She did not remember much at all.
But she remembered that morning.
She remembered the fight she had had with Jacob, the life-long best friend who had turned into a monster.
She remembered the sting of the needle that he had jabbed into her neck, remembered the fire that was the venom spreading in her body.
She remembered that most intimate of friends screaming at her.
“Your father would be rolling over in his GRAVE if he saw what his daughter had become!”
“What…”
She took a deep breath and tried to make her voice more than a whisper. She failed.
“...what did you say?”
Ava’s face calms, going from the demon back to the angel, and she smiles.
“You want something on the record, child? CTV and UGWC want something on the record? How about this: I will not stop until I take from you the years you took from me. I will not rest until you lose the loved ones that I have lost. I will not die until you embrace me as your Queen Mother.”
She glances down at Sarah’s lap, at her legs, and giggles. When she looks up, her eyes are full of mischief and violence.
“Check.”
She straightens.
“Your move, demon child.”
She then turns and walks away with a glide in her step, her chin raised high, leaving Sarah to wonder.
~~LA FIN~~
x2
2013, '18, '23 
2013 
