Harmless [Keys to the Kingdom RP]

[Sloane Taylor]

Considering the events at Synergy, to say the last few days had been a total drag was an understatement. Sloane and her roommate-slash-bestie, Sebastian Everett-Bryce (the Third), had spent every one of those days either blatantly avoiding one another even while sitting in the same room together or finding some other place to be as soon as the other entered. Neither of them, it seemed, had any pressing desire to amend things between them which wasn’t a surprise considering Sloane had chosen this as her particular hill to die on. Seb could be as confident and arrogant as he wanted to be about their coming match at Keeper of the Keys, she expected it to a degree, but to act like she didn’t have a chance against him and refuse to back down from that?

And so when Sloane returned to find the apartment empty and quiet, she’d sighed and slumped against the door, relieved that the ever-growing tension between them would be absent as long as he was. And then came the guilt and a groan along with it. She’d stomped into the apartment, thrown her things on the couch… and immediately her gaze drifted to the package Shawn Warstein had delivered, as promised, last week.

Three pink gummies lay in a clear baggy, the black writing on the bag proclaiming them “Strawberry Banana”. Those were definitely for her, and thankfully, it was a small amount this time. Surely she couldn’t get into trouble with just three of them? Along with the gummies was a pack of chocolates, and in case she hadn’t already figured out who the chocolates were for, a note told her.

Sloane and Seb--

Enjoy.

Shawn.

Sloane had dropped the note and the chocolates back into the small box and then picked up the baggy with its three ice-pink gummies with a grin.

A couple of hours later, Sloane heaved a disappointed sigh. When after thirty minutes she hadn’t felt anything, she’d eaten one more gummy, and then thirty minutes after that, she’d eaten the third, and now two hours after the first? Nothing.

Sloane tsked to herself, shrugged her shoulders, and then forced herself off the bed to-- what had she been about to do? She paused for a moment, trying to think of whatever it was she’d thought of while lying down. She even tried to retrace the steps of her thoughts, but what was usually fairly easy was difficult in the extreme, and she found herself with the same feeling Hansel and Gretel surely had when they looked back for their carefully laid breadcrumbs only to find them eaten and gone.

None of which explained why she was suddenly out in the hallway of her apartment building, turning as if she were only just discovering the walls. Seb appeared, stepping off the elevator, his brow furrowing when he saw her standing there.

“Sloane?” he made her name a question, but before she could respond he was suddenly… away from her as the hallway seemed to stretch, the walls cracking and aging as vines and foliage seemed to overtake them, turning the hallways into a hedge maze.

Sloane looked around herself, blinking in confusion. She moved forward, leaves and grass crunching underfoot.

“Am I in a Doctor Who episode? I feel like this is the first few minutes of one where the basically anonymous person gets killed by the space creature the Doctor has to defeat this episode,” she said to herself, though she realized that was just because she’d been watching a Doctor Who marathon on TV. Nothing about this really felt like a Doctor Who episode. Thankfully.

Sloane continued to explore the hallways of her apartment building that had suddenly become far more green friendly. She didn’t panic or freak out, rather looked at it as an opportunity for a different kind of stroll. That is, until she came to the dead end, the path that led her there disappearing behind her.

There was no choice but to move forward and through.

---

Sloane had heard the commotion long before she actually saw anything, and even when she did see something at first, it was just one of those temporary folding tables people put up for parties, the lighter plastic kind, not the wooden kind the roster went through on a more routine than was comforting basis. Except this table was loooooong. It stretched on and on with no end in sight, which was odd, because Sloane knew she’d made at least three turns… and then she saw it.

The head of the table sat just before a dead end, utter chaos breaking loose all around her. For a moment, Sloane turned back to get away from the cacophony of violence, but the path behind her, as well as the snakelike tail end of the tabe, had disappeared into nothing.

“Well… fudge…” she said with feeling, a screeching laugh from the table setting her nerves on edge. “Guess I’m going through,” she muttered before squaring her shoulders and turning back to the scene before her.

Tempest sat at the head of the table with a gaming headset on, the table splattered with different shades of paint, although Sloane had the feeling that the red that was beginning to take over wasn’t paint at all. Montague Cervantes was a few chairs down wearing a headset that comically managed to go over the top of his black hat that seemed altogether taller and larger than usual. Behind them stood Daedalus, his back to a dark shape that Sloane could just imagine was a door to continue through, and between them sat Ragdoll, though “sat” was a far looser word for what she was doing as the deranged dollie leapt from her seat repeatedly and practically threw herself across the table, laughing loudly and spewing random utterances of violence and threats along with saliva. Or, how Ragdoll communicates normally. She’s positively feral.

Montague continued to speak into his headset even as Ragdoll continued her antics, sometimes pulling her back into her seat between him and Tempest, others being the elbow that nudged her and shot her forward at their entertainment.

Tempest just looked over at her with an expression that was at times blank and at others thoughtful, the blue glow of his headset setting off his facepaint.

It wasn’t hard to see what they were all focusing on, not as Sloane had to duck to keep from getting hit with a claymation steel chair, which she had the sneaking suspicion would have felt like the real thing had it hit her. No, situated before them was a ring, with bodies, body parts, and more of that super sus red paint strewn about all over, a sign proclaiming this “UGWC Celebrity Deathmatch: Keeper of the Keys Edition” swung haphazardly over everything, and if it had been absolutely quiet, Sloane suspected she’d have heard the cables holding it up creaking and warning of a coming snap.

Inside the ring, a claymation Donovan Hastings, who somehow had even more animated eyebrows, stared horrified as Rogan MacLean, who closely resembled Davy Jones just now, bore down on him while Angie picked bright yellow daisies that magically continually sprouted from the canvas. Her serene, blood-splattered expression was oddly more eerie and threatening than the hundreds of tentacles currently calling Rogan’s face their home.

“Fucking do something bitch! Ya scared? You’re not good at this, you’re--”

“That’s enough of that,” Sloane said, moving around the table behind Ragdoll and plucking the headset from her head. She could have sworn she saw Daedalus smirk out of the corner of her eye, but Sloane had no time to focus on him as Ragdoll whirled on her, her mad eyes wide with so much of the white showing.

“I’m gonna fucking hurt you, bitch! You must not have heard who the fuck I am!” she screeched before pulling out a switchblade and flicking it to reveal the stabby end. Yes, the stabby end.

“A broken record?” Sloane quipped and then rolled her eyes, dropping the headset down over her own head, pleased when the lighted color switched to pink as soon as it made contact. “And I think this is just for the announce team, so I guess you have to go do something else now. Shoo,” Sloane said, wagging her fingers at Ragdoll, hoping she was right or she suspected she was about to lose some digits.

The switchblade Ragdoll held flashed in and out as if to exemplify a lightbulb going on and off in her brain. She looked to Montague who shrugged and then to Tempest who nodded.

“The Final Girl has the headset. It was always hers,” he said and then turned back to watch the action.

Ragdoll fairly snarled as Sloane slipped around her boldly and took her seat between Tempest and Montague.

“Hey, mind getting me something to drink? I’m a little thirsty after I walked through a weird hedge maze in my apartment,” Sloane said in dismissal, though part of her waited to feel the press of the blade at her throat.

Nothing. Instead, Ragdoll walked away.

Sloane grinned, although that faded as soon as she saw what claymation Rogan was doing to Donovan. She winced, holding a hand over her eyes even as Montague gleefully called the action.

“Guess this won’t be the Road to Hastings after all,” she muttered, sputtering when Ragdoll returned and squeezed the bottle of water she held out right in Sloane’s face. Sloane’s jaw set, and she pushed up from the table with both hands, leaning across so she was nearly nose to nose with the demented clown.

“I have had just about enough of your attitude and ridiculous threats. Are you actually going to shoot me outside of the ring? No. There’s a limit, and you know it. We aren’t claymation characters, this isn’t how things work in the real world, and that’s a world you’re very much a part of, whether you like it or not!” Sloane said, the lights on her headset blinking comically. “Contrary to what you seem to think, I didn’t get involved in your match to screw you over, I got involved because I’m just coming back from what was nearly a career-ending injury, and I didn’t want to see someone else potentially go through what I did. You--” she pushed a finger into Ragdoll’s shoulder. “-- were cheating. You were going to hit Centurion with the chair which would have caused a DQ in the match and you’d have retained the Gabriel Baal way. Maybe if you hadn’t been so focused on being whatever this is --” Sloane gestured vaguely at Ragdoll “-- and focused on the match rather than your aesthetic, you’d still be Conquest Champion. But you’re not, and instead of putting the blame right where it goes, which is on yourself, you’ve chosen me as your scapegoat.”

Ragdoll opened her mouth to start screaming, likely some kind of violent threats or trying to pretend she’d won when she hadn’t, you know, the usual, but Sloane sat, indicating she was done listening which only enraged Jacky more, sending her into an animated fit. Sloane watched and shook her head.

“I don’t care who you are. I’ve seen darkness, I’ve been in the middle of it, and it doesn’t make wild threats or Peewee Herman jokes on Twitter. I became the Final Girl in that darkness, what you represent has no power over me,” Sloane said, a ghost of a smile tugging at one side of Tempest’s mouth. Just then, one of Rogan’s tentacles lashed out, gripping Ragdoll around the ankle, dragging her toward the ring. At the same time, a jalapeno pepper plant was snaking its way around her other ankle, Angie watching with pride the fruition her labor had wrought. As each flower had grown, she’d plucked it and made a nice bouquet while also planting pepper seeds behind. Donovan was truly in a bind between the tentacles and the voracious pepper plants, so much so that Ragdoll was being drawn to her own destruction in a sort of macabre side quest. Her fingers gripped the announce table, trying to stop from being pulled into the fray.

“I’ll gut you bitch, I’ll bathe in your blood, I’ll--” she threatened as she stared daggers at Sloane.

Sloane rolled her eyes.

“On behalf of everyone, just shut up,” she said, walking her fingers across the tabletop in a cutesy manner before thumping Ragdoll’s knuckles hard and making her release the table to be dragged to her doom.

Sloane sighed.

“I get that she’s like the Sherri Moon to your Rob Zombie enterprises, but that’s not really a compliment,” Sloane said to Tempest, squeezing his shoulder before she put the headset down, not wanting to see the carnage unfold. Instead, she turned back to see a grinning Daedalus had stepped aside to reveal the door she’d suspected was there.

“Thank you,” she said sweetly as she passed on through.

“You’re quite welcome,” he returned, his words nearly drowned out by the whimper and scream that came from Ragdoll.

---

The hedge maze continued on, and while it had been fun at first, the novelty was already beginning to wear off for Sloane. She was tired and just wanted to get a nap, but here she was traipsing through halls that would make Poison Ivy proud. That is, until she came upon another apparent dead end, not even bothering to turn this time to see if the path behind her had disappeared, already knowing it had. Instead, before her was a lifesize game board, and Andy Cortinovis, better known as Centurion, sat at the beginning of it atop a pewter sandwich game piece.

“Finally!” he exclaimed.

“Finally?” Sloane asked. “Were you waiting for me?”

“In a way. I guess I’m always waiting here for someone to use me in some other gameplay-slash-gameboard reference. I don’t know why playing chess and games is something I became known for, but here we are,” Centurion said. “But I can’t play with myself, you know, boring and all that, so I wait for someone to play with me. You know, that’s sort of tragic.”

“Yeah, that’s a lot tragic, Cent. I probably didn’t help matters when I brought over all those classic board games when we teamed up that one time,” Sloane said, looking around at the other game pieces. There was a throne that was so suspiciously similar to Donovan's… her eyes narrowed and she gave it a wide berth, likewise passing a game piece that looked like a toothless piranha. Instead, she climbed on top of what appeared to be a wooden bat, claiming it as her own.

“You also glitterbombed me and left me with a Shawn Warstein pic and autograph,” he complained.

“It was framed,” Sloane said defensively, as if that made a difference.

It didn’t, by the way.

“Well now you have to play through this game and beat me at it if you want to go through,” Centurion said with a laugh as he started the game with a series of dice rolls to determine who went first. He won the dice roll which had him laughing again, his sandwich sliding along the places to the requisite number.

“Why is that funny? I mean, sure I’ve lost to you before when it counted, looking at you, Global Challenge, but look at what I did after that. Yeah, you got the key, but I went on from that to face Hide for the World Championship and beat him for it, and then I went on to defend at Outlast and got my own key. You’ve kinda just… floundered around since then. You basically announced your retirement, like, a week ago!”

“I’m the Conquest Champion!” Centurion shot back as Sloane rolled.

“Yeah, but only just! You’re welcome, by the way,” Sloane said. “I could have let her cave your head in.”

“That’s not who you are, though, and everyone knows it. You’re reliable in that way. Stupid or not, it’s refreshing--” Centurion began, interrupted by a wail from Sloane.

“Are we seriously playing Monopoly?! This is going to take FOREVER!” Sloane whined. “I’m never gonna get out of this stupid hedgemaze, at this rate, I’ll be stuck here until after the Keys to the Kingdom match!”

“Dramatic little thing, aren’t you? Why do you think I was laughing? You’ve got no chance, it’s a game that lasts forever, and you’re playing against me. You’ll die of boredom, or so I’ve been assured multiple times. I’m apparently very boring. And old, don’t forget old. And predictable. But that’s the beauty of this game. It, too, is boring, old, and predictable, but now it’s gotten something to spice it up, kind of like I now have the Conquest Champion—“

“I get it, Cent, you don’t have to keep harping over it.”

“I wasn’t finished. Like me with the Conquest Championship, this game has gotten a makeover to take it to the next level. This is UGWCopoly, a preview edition I stole from our World Champion,” Centurion said proudly.

Sloane grumbled, choosing not to address the last part.

“So it’s all UGWC themed, then?” She asked, looking around the board to see that the properties were, indeed, names she recognized. She frowned. “Weird. The Baal’s are purple, I’d have thought they’d be blue.”

“Yeah, weird,” Centurion muttered.

The two of them played for a time, each collecting properties and money until Sloane let out an exclamation.

“I’ve been around this board four times, and I haven’t seen one place for me! Not even the pink,” she said in confusion.

“Oh, that’s because this board is meant for the ones who make lasting memories, and you, well…” Centurion winced as if to say he sympathized, even though there was a Centurion Cul-de-sac right there in orange.

“How did you make it on the board and not me?!” Sloane protested.

“Ouch. Hurtful,” Centurion said, scowling as more of his money went flying to her when he yet again landed on one of her built up, low-income properties.

“I’m serious. I’ve at least built momentum, I’ve been a cooperative champion, a chaos champion, and a world champion who defended her title successfully at Outlast. I’ve won the WrestleStock Open. I like you, Cent, but all you’ve done is dance on and off with the same title since you’ve been here and then when things got a little rough for you, you either disappear to another company or start talking retirement. It was a toss up whether you’d even be in this match or not, you literally let it all hinge on whether you won a couple weeks back, as if that’s determined without your participation. So yeah, I’m kinda wondering why you’re here and I’m not,” Sloane snapped.

“Maybe you should think about that considering I supposedly have all these faults. What about you, Sloane?” Centurion asked.

They played in silence for a while, the game neck and neck as Sloane considered what he’d said, until finally, he made a bad throw and landed on one of her properties. Even with all of his properties going into mortgage, he still couldn’t pay her off.

“How about you forgive a loan just this once, hmm?” Centurion asked, even though Sloane had already forgiven him a couple times since they’d started playing.

“You know, I could have finished this game a few times already, but I continued on when I could have won just to be nice so you wouldn’t feel bad that you’d lost so easily,” Sloane said.

“Hey!” Centurion protested.

“But in doing that, I risked throwing away what I’d done for myself every time. And still I did it, didn’t even think about the consequences. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I think sometimes… sometimes, a little selfishness is in order. Especially when everyone around me is just as selfish if not moreso. I want my name here, I want to be remembered as a fierce competitor within UGWC, and the only one standing in the way of that… is me.”

As she said it, one of the closed-in walls around them faded away, revealing more of the path through the hedge maze. Sloane grinned.

Centurion sulked.

---

Seeing as she’d already encountered a claymation death match and a giant interactive UGWCopoly board, Sloane wasn’t sure what the rest of the hedge maze would entail, but she was ready to find out. With every twist and turn, she peeked around to see if this was the next “big thing” or dead end, only to find more and more walls stretching as far as she could see.

Was it any wonder she began to grow tired of the green?

As she walked, she became more and more introspective and less cognizant of her surroundings until she walked face first into something. Or someone.

“Ohmygod, I’m so sorry, are you o… kay?” She trailed off as she got a look at the man wearing a golden corn cob costume in front of her. At least she hoped it was a costume.

“It’s fine. No one notices me anyway unless it’s for…” he began before his face, surrounded by yellow corn and corn silk, reddened. “I’m Cornbread Cob,” he said by way of introduction.

Sloane’s eyes widened.

“Like… Konrad Raab?” She ventured.

Cornbread Cob snorted.

“What a dumb name,” he said, walking away and chuckling to himself. As he moved past her, Sloane caught a glimpse of others milling about as if it were perfectly acceptable to have a social gathering in the dead end of a hedge maze. And maybe it was.

There was a leggy blonde dressed like the late, great Steve Irwin, a lion padding along at her side; a dark and swarthy circus performer who was getting into animated conversation with Cornbread Cob who seemed very much like he’d quite like to be anywhere but there; a grunge rocker who looked intimidating at first, but there was something about him that screamed “more than meets the eye” and it wasn’t his hairspray or eye shadow.

Robby Rottin. Fontagoo Servanti. Angelique Verne. Luca Willard. Jenny Bonercrusher. The names swirled by her as she introduced herself to each, fighting back her amusement with each one. How could they be so wrong but be so right?

“Who is that over there?” Sloane asked Dirk De Stryer who was even now attempting to gather some of the group together for a tour. She looked over at a man standing by himself, staring sourly at the frivolity around him.

“Donal Hearthstrings,” the Amsterdam tour guide confirmed before walking away.

Sloane felt the anger build within her, her fists clenching at her sides despite the fact that this wasn’t the actual Donovan Hastings. Still… something told her it would be a mistake to focus on him when there were more pressing matters at hand.

Namely the man staring at a downed branch as though it had personally insulted him.

With difficulty, Sloane managed to turn away from the fake Donovan Hastings, burying her anger and desire for vengeance down deep to be exhumed at a later time. Instead, a more immediate anger sprang to the surface as she approached Sebastian Everett-Bryce.

The Second.

“I’d ask why you’re here, but I have a feeling this is just the accurate work of Pierce and his mysterious Research Department. Or the gummies. It’s a toss up at this point,” she said, taking a seat on the downed branch Seb’s father was glaring at. It placed her directly in his line of sight and had him looking down his nose at her, not that that would be any different if she were standing.

“I assure you, I don’t enjoy being here.”

She shrugged.

“Probably not, but then do you really enjoy anything?” She asked, not expecting an answer. “You know, Seb and I had a big fight a few days ago, at least I think it was a few days ago.”

“I don’t care.”

“No, but you don’t have anything else to do so you’re stuck listening to me,” Sloane said with a faux sugary smile, cocking her head to the side. “So we had this big fight because he completely dismissed any chance I have of winning Keys to the Kingdom.”

Seb’s father snorted derisively.

“As he should, considering.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sloane asked with narrowed eyes.

“The Sky Queen can’t fly,” he said darkly. “Tell me, when was the last time you went for one of your so-called runs? You’ve cancelled on anyone who’s tried to schedule with you, have you not?”

Sloane frowned.

“It’s my knee. I’m not ready—“

“And that’s why you won’t win the Keys to the Kingdom. That’s why you won’t get that match you so want. And that’s why your tenure as a World Champion will go down as a blip on the radar. No wonder Sebastian discounts you.”

His words stung, and Sloane flinched, hating that she did it.

“No. You’re the reason Seb is like he is. You’ve put him down and made him feel less than his entire life, so he’s had to create all this arrogance and bravado as a failsafe and a cushion for himself. But really, deep down, he’s just as messed up for the father he had as I am for the one I didn’t. You did this. My failings are my own, and I’ll get past them. I always do. But your failings are on your son, and you’ll never wash that away.”

Sloane got to her feet, that spark that had been missing there in her eyes.

“I’ve been doubted before and I’ve made my doubters choke on it. I’ve been told I was going nowhere, that I’m a flash in the pan, but I’m still here. I’m still the Sky Queen, the Final Girl, and I’m going to show everyone. Ragdoll sees me as less than; Centurion for all his praise, sees me as less than; and Seb, probably the only one that hurts, sees me as less than, but that’s not because of my failings. He has to see me that way because he sees himself that way. And that’s on you,” she said heatedly.

And then there was suddenly a path beyond, a path away from the ones who weren’t quite right that led to something that just might be.

---

Sloane was nearing the end of the hedge maze, she wasn’t sure how she knew, but she did. A tension filled the air, a light mist swirling about her feet. The lush, green foliage on the walls had begun to wither and die, crunchy brown and yellow leaves dropping to the ground. It was after she’d seen a particularly crunchy leaf and had let out a little squeal in her eagerness to get to it and step on it that she noticed the statue before her.

It was a young woman, frozen in time, unmoving and staring helplessly at the wall before her, another dead end. Upon closer inspection, Sloane realized the young woman wasn’t just a faceless being… it was her.

Sloane moved around the statue, studying it before looking to the looming wall. Instinctively she knew her freedom was just on the other side. But what to do here.

And then it hit her. Sloane closed her eyes and sighed, unshed tears filling them as she blinked them back. Once she could trust her voice would remain steady, she spoke.

“… I forgive you.”

Three simple words, but there was a wealth of meaning there. She forgave herself for holding back when she should have been full throttle ahead. She forgave herself for missing the forest for the trees. She forgave herself for not being ready to take a leap even when she knew deep down she was fully capable. And she forgave herself for needing forgiveness in the first place.

“I’m not perfect and I never will be. And that’s okay,” she said.

And then the world shifted.

When Sloane awoke, it was with a groan. Her head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, her mouth even moreso. Pathetic little whimpering sounds emerged from her as she rubbed her eyes and blinked up at the light… of her living room?

She sat up, her elbows digging into the couch where she lay. But something was off, there were more legs and arms there than should have been…

Sebastian Everett-Bryce the Third leaned up in a similar fashion from the opposite end of the couch, his expression groggy as well, an empty pack of the chocolates beside him. He and Sloane stared blearily at each other as if trying to make sense of what they were seeing.

Sebastian wore a light pink tank top and pink athletic shorts with a white stripe down the side, which was oddly what Sloane had been wearing before the hedge maze and now she found herself in a white t-shirt and boxers.

Sloane and Seb stared at each other for a moment, the peculiarity of the situation striking them both.

And then they both fairly screamed and nearly flipped backward over their respective ends of the couch.

“Whyareyouwearingmyclothes?! I’m not wearing..” they spoke in unison while Lord Quilliam looked on from his pineapple bed.

[Sebastian Everett-Bryce]

I knew you'd won the moment I read this. And your reaction to it when you were finished bugged the shit out of me. Because it was fantastic. Well planned, well written, well executed. The pitches you chose, you did justice to, and the way you addressed your opponents was great.

I think you've had some trouble accepting success for Sloane, because Eden is on such a pedestal for you. But I think this week, having read the results and understanding the impact, you've finally started to see that just because she's not the same, and you don't write her the same doesn't mean she isn't deserving.

This was so well done - there's nothing to criticise. And that's hard to accomplish - it was funny, it was emotional and it hit every spot you'd need to hit to win a match like this. I knew you'd won the moment I read this - and I'm not disappointed to admit that.

Congratulations. You deserved the win.