Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2018 20:31:00 GMT -5
OOC: Sorry I posted this on the wrong board. I fixed it now. #EndOOC
“...I...don’t...I...”
Kem’s vocabulary was failing her as she listened to Ingrid and Jennifer - a.k.a. Io and Venus - explain Melaina’s grand scheme to build a cult army out of followers by convincing them that Ingrid was the Supreme Being, Io-Matua-Kore, with Jennifer as her messenger angel, a Mareikuna. To be fair, it was a lot to take in. Of all the people involved, Kem was particularly unaware of Melaina - a.k.a. her Aunt Clara, assumed to be dead since childhood but now a “Keyser Soze”-esque ghost story of a mob boss - and the limitlessness of both her psychopathic ambition and the resources to carry it out.
“...I just...this is NOT at all what I was expecting to walk into when I came to New Zealand to find you.” Kem had pretty much had a singular focus towards the profession of pro wrestling since September 23rd, 2007 when the longest-running OWF World Heavyweight championship reign was ended by Alexis Cage, the first time in the then-decade-long history of the company that a woman broke the glass ceiling of the gender barrier. Frankly, it was difficult for Kem to fathom becoming a Goddess on Earth any other way than becoming a long-running World Champion, especially in UGWC, the highest-grossing active promotion in the world. It was difficult to envision having followers beyond her Twitter account, devoted fans besides the young girls inspired by her to someday become the next generation of femme fatales. Even as her career ran headlong into what is euphemistically referred to in hindsight as “paying your dues”, it never occurred to Kem to do anything else with her life, her quest’s fulfillment was always found in a Hall of Fame induction speech (or three, her dad had set the family bar at two) in which she could reference the lengthy amount of time she was a World champion and headline attraction.
In fact, as anyone who knew her could infer, that’s why she was here.
Ever since giving up on her dads’ divergent failures at getting her career off the ground and moving forward on her own, well, she was never on her own. Her aces in the hole had always been her childhood best friend, Io, and her unearthed diamond, Venus. She won the “Making The Tag” reality competition by turning Io into “The Human Lawn Dart”, a way-outside-the-box innovation of daredevil offense and Io’s personal physical awkwardness for which none of her competition had an answer. When it was time to fight more experienced fighters, she turned to Venus, an amateur wrestling state champion and a super-sized woman with the explosiveness and body control to do a Shooting Star Press, whichever you find more impressive. Combined, the trio of Shakedown were an exciting conglomerate of everything the wrestling industry was looking for.
And then Kem made the mistake to break them up.
She just HAD to take a shot at winning the same OWF title she’d watched Alexis Cage win. So while her partners cashed in on Kem’s WrestleStock win to score their own UGWC contracts, she left for what she assumed would be greener pastures. But, as it would turn out, while OWF was happy to take credit for her WrestleStock trophy, it was less interested in Kem becoming their champion. Whoops. Two years of relentless travel across the globe wrestling anywhere she could came up empty as it turned out that "Dynamo" was a name that rang hollow in the wrestling world five years removed from the last time that surname was engraved onto the plates of a world title.
The wrestling world was turning its back on Kem Dynamo, but she still had cards to play.
"What are you doing here, Kem?" Jennifer stepped up to demand an answer and turn the interrogation back towards the outsider of this whole Maori charade. "We were doing just fine here. Better than fine! Those people out there WORSHIP us!"
As Kem turned towards Venus to respond, she couldn't help but notice the look Ingrid made. Kem quickly realized that Io had been hidden away for so long that she was not used to having to conceal her feelings. She continued to read Ingrid's truth-telling facial expressions from her peripheral vision as she answered. "First of all, they don’t worship YOU, Venus. At best, they bow to you because you are a proxy for the God they ACTUALLY revere. As for you, Io, you could literally walk out in the open and no one would say anything because those people out there don’t worship a 22-year-old girl. I don’t know what the endgame of this whole spectacle is, but neither do the two of you. Unless your whole idea was to spend the rest of your life the same way you’ve always done: staying inside all alone while Jennifer lives life for you.”
Kem didn’t regret a single word even as she watched them cut her best friend to the bone. As a kid, Ingrid never left the house unless Kem asked for her, needing Io to pretend to be Eclipse so Kem could pretend to be Alexis Cage. As a teenager, Ingrid never left her house after Kem left to pursue her wrestling dreams. Even after Shakedown was formed, when IPW said they only had room for a tag team instead of a trio, Ingrid stayed in their apartment while Kem and Venus went out and performed. It wasn’t hard to figure out that whatever was going on with this Supreme Being bullshit, Ingrid had been played; after all, what does it really matter that she was getting to be a Goddess if part of the role was to never be seen by another human being ever again?
Meanwhile, Venus had apparently heard enough. It was an odd juxtaposition; two years ago, it was Venus who let negative comments roll off her back while Io was the quickest to step forward and get in the face of dissenters. Nevertheless, when Venus raised her arm up, Kem was ready. Whether Venus was planning to strike or just use some feisty gesticulation was irrelevant; in an instantaneous flash of efficient limb control, the arm had become wrapped in a hammerlock that had Venus bent over at the waist. Both Venus and Io’s eyes widened: they knew that the next progression from here would be for Kem to lift Venus into a cradle position and then fall backwards, the crown of Venus’ head the only point of impact Kem’s “Lights Out” permits.
All three of them also knew from experience that, despite Venus’ size, Kem could do it, too. Kem was ridiculously efficient with her strength and movement: the hammerlock not only reduced the opponent’s ability to counter the DDT, but it made clear to their fight-or-flight response mechanism that their arms couldn’t break the fall so their own body betrayed them and supported Kem’s effort to carry them on her meaty thighs, and from there the momentum and pull of gravity were all the power Kem needed. “STOP!” Ingrid cried out with the desperate hope of a child pleading to be spared from being given a spanking. Kem held Venus in her helpless position and continued. “Second of all, you asked what I was doing here. UGWC recently finished up their Lord of Trios tournament and its success has their powers-that-be wanting to put a renewed focus on their Co-operative Division, which reminded them of that feisty group of three unique young women they’d really thought highly of back in 2016 and wondering what they were up to.”
A quick read of Ingrid’s face indicated that Kem could release her grip on Jennifer’s wrist. Io was beaming; she was trying to hide it, but, again, she was sorely lacking in practice at hiding her feelings on her face. Kem saw Venus look over at Io as she clutched her now-free wrist and it was clear she'd reached the same conclusion. "Thankfully, it took me long enough to find the two of you here in the middle of freakin' nowhere that the trios tournament has already passed, because you two are CLEARLY out of practice. Nevertheless, we have been given an in; and after six LOOOOOONG years of getting chewed up and spit out by this business, I'm not gonna let this opportunity pass. Shakedown is coming back to UGWC."
"Why?" Venus offered a challenge. She probably wanted it to look more like skepticism and less like a desperate calling of hopefully a bluff. "The fans showed us how they felt about us at In Your Hands 2016, and nobody at UGWC was grabbing our arm to stop us when Melaina bought out our contracts."
An expert might have noticed the split-second look of confusion Kem gave. It was easy to forget that she was somehow outside the seemingly global influence of Shakedown's former "manager". But Kem knew she had their resistance on the ropes and wasn't about to let a digression allow for them a mental rope-break. "Fuck the fans, Venus. They didn't show you anything except that they are easily manipulated. OF COURSE they were gonna pick the "mystery opponent"! You want people to love you? Come back with me to the REAL FUCKING WORLD and let's go kick the shit out of everyone. The fans will cheer in due time because all they want is for someone to get their asses kicked by someone else. Even if they don't, I know better than to buy the bullshit that you give a DAMN what they think."
Kem knew she had them. Jennifer was trying her best to come up with a retort but she had nothing. Ingrid, meanwhile, just wanted to get out of this place. She never said no when Kem asked her to come be Eclipse, and she was certainly not going to tell her no now. "Look, I don't really know what the fuck situation y'all have here, but if you can get us out of here without starting some kind of holy war, I have 3 tickets from Wellington to Detroit. It's time for us to get back to the real world.” As Kem started to walk towards the exit, expecting her partners to follow her, it didn't even dawn on her that "the real world" and "the pro wrestling business" had become synonymous by now. It didn't even occur to her that her inability to comprehend what Venus and Io had been doing in New Zealand had nothing to do with how outlandish the Maori-inspired scenario was, but how the two of them thought they could find happiness anywhere but inside a wrestling ring. Hell, maybe they could, but Kem couldn't.
“But what about Melaina?” Ingrid blurted.
Kem stopped and look back at her. “Who the fuck is Melaina?” Venus and Io looked at each other, in shock and disbelief.
Shock and disbelief...
...yeah, that about sums it up. I was in shock and disbelief when I watched the Prison Break match. I wasn't surprised at how well Angie Vaughn performed, as she's proven repeatedly that she is the driving force of the Cool Kids. I wasn't surprised to see The Court lose, either. Alan Wallace, Rogan MacLean and Jase Ingalls are all great competitors, and from the little I've seen of Jessica Mathis, she could certainly hold her own as a champion. What shocked me was how much luck absolutely determined the winner and loser of the match. Let's just run down the list, shall we? If Eden Morgan wasn't a narcissistic moron who was too busy replicating one of Roxy's webcam shows...if Ro-Ro Mac has ONE OUNCE of situational awareness and tosses the keys that don't work ANYWHERE except right on top of his opponents...if the key that had landed on Eden Morgan had been the key to your pod...if Alan Wallace had had the wherewithal to realize that, if he took TWO DAMN SECONDS to drop Angie and step onto the ramp THEN go try to burn Eden Morgan alive...
...that is an amazing amount of luck...
...and it still would have all been for nothing if not for your anomaly of a bodyguard. Money well spent, I guess. You get to parade around as the weaker half of the UGWC Cooperative Champions, and after enough time passes, history will eventually forget that Roxy Cotton was LITERALLY AND METAPHORICALLY carried to victory by Maxine and Angie Vaughn, respectively. I'm sure you've already been hard at work convincing yourself that you were just as important as your partner in that victory. I'm sure you've already edited out in your mind how hard Vaughn worked just to get you free from the pod, and then, once you escaped the pod, how easily an exhausted Jase Ingalls completely incapacitated you. I'm sure in your head Angie just absolutely couldn't have done it without you.
Here's your chance to prove it.
Prove me wrong, Cottontail. I fucking dare you. Prove to me and the whole UGWC that you deserve to be a champion, because from where I'm standing, the Cooperative Champions are Angelica Vaughn and Maxine. At first, I thought you were the third-best member of the Cool Kids, but I guess I should drop you down to fourth. If it was Angelica Vaughn in this match, I'd be concerned about my chances. If it was Maxine, I'd definitely have to bring my A-game.
But it's not. It's just you, a worthless partner who has spent more time watching Angie succeed than actually participating. Every single time the Cool Kids had a match, at the very end, when the Lord of Trios tournament was at stake, then the Cooperative Titles at No Holds Barred, it has been Vaughn and NOT YOU that has been there for the final shot. Win or lose, your partner clearly didn't trust you when the match was on the line.
Let me say that again, Cottontail, because it bears repeating:
Your partner...DOES...NOT...TRUST...YOU!
Io couldn’t trust her anymore.
Too late to intercede, Ingrid watched as the tribesmen descended upon Kem. This "circle of death" wasn't anything new. When Kem and Io had washed ashore on this island and run into this group of villagers, they seemed to do this very ritual most nights. There would be dancing and eating and then two warriors would be surrounded by a circle of onlookers and would grapple. Kem was so desperate for anything that felt like wrestling that she jumped right into the mix, and whatever they said about her in their language that they still didn't understand, they had otherwise welcomed the two outsiders and seen Kem's fighting prowess as a thing to respect rather than fear.
They would fear her after this day.
Ingrid had noticed that her partner was growing increasingly antsy as the days - presumably weeks really, both of them had given up on counting - had gone by. From the moment they survived the plane crash, all Kem had wanted was to find a way back. She didn't know that her plane was one of over a thousand that crashed simultaneously. She didn’t know that the civilization she was desperate to reenter was still reeling from a global HEMP attack - sorry, High-Altitude Electro-Magnetic Pulse. We’re close enough to 4/20 that I should specify - so massive and unexpected that there wasn’t even a science-fiction movie to wrap our heads around its potential damage.
Ingrid knew though. Hell, Ingrid probably caused it.
Only three human beings had access to the nuclear missiles that could unleash “Naufragium”, as the event would inevitably be named. Melaina was one, of course, having somehow gotten ahold not only of the materials to make nuclear warheads but also a series of underground launch sites strategically placed such that when they launched in synchronicity would literally encapsulate the planet in EMP.
The other two people were Ingrid and Venus. Venus, in love with Io, though even Ingrid knew that her “love” was the product of Melaina’s reprogramming, and demanded that she choose between her and Kem. Ingrid responded by channeling her “Supreme Being” self one last time...and holding Kem at gunpoint and forcing her aboard that plane. It wouldn’t surprise Io to find out that Venus set in motion the death of over a million people because she was hoping the two of them were among the casualties. That left Ingrid with two truths. One, the love of her life was on this island with her and however Kem felt about being kidnapped seemed to be replaced with an acknowledgement that Io might be the last English-speaking person she’ll ever see. Two, she had no idea what the world looked like past the ocean that imprisoned them.
The situation started out great. Ingrid knew Kem sought comfort in her only because there was nothing else here but she didn’t care; Kem was with her and that was all that mattered. But Kem’s true soulmate - the squared circle - called her sirenicly outside of their shelter, out to the beach, off to find something, ANYTHING that could become a makeshift vessel, and finally into stumbling upon the warrior tribe. Ingrid hoped that getting to tussle with the villagers would satiate Kem, and it seemed like maybe it had.
Until tonight.
Kem shot up in bed early that evening. Io knew she’d been having nightmares, so she didn't really think anything of it, even when Kem got up and walked out of the hut. Usually she'd walk to the beach, look out into the infinite expanse of the ocean, realize there was nothing she could do, and then give up and come back to Ingrid's waiting cuddles. But tonight, she never came back. There wasn't really any sense of time at this point, but Ingrid knew it had been longer than usual, so she went out searching for her, barely remembering to put on the tattered remains of the clothes she'd been wearing when the plane crashed however long ago that was. She went to the beach and saw no sign of Kem, until she heard a scream. It was in the distance, but loud enough to carry all the way to the shore. The scream was audible words...
...GIVE ME A BOAT!
As soon as Io heard it, she literally fell over in terror. She had never heard such a tone of unhinged fury from her partner, and was frankly terrified to head toward the village to find her. As she got closer, she heard the scream repeated, again and again. Kem had completely lost it; it didn't matter how crazy she sounded, nor was she processing that the tribespeople didn't seem to understand what she was saying anyway. So used to the stranger coming and grappling, they didn't even think to be afraid or to process her cries as madness. Io reached the village right as they were circling Kem. Like she'd seen scores of times, a villager broke the circle to step in and challenge Kem to a seemingly friendly wrestling match. As he approached, Kem lunged forward, grabbed him,
...and snapped his neck.
Io froze. She couldn't move. She couldn't breathe until after a few minutes, her body broke through her panic enough to ventilate. Even then, she was paralyzed as she watched the rest of the circle, finally realizing that this was NOT like the times before, charge Kem. Kem responded by charging one of them and hitting a running enziguiri, the strike enough to drop the warrior off his feet but also - and more importantly - the momentum of the aerial move propelled Kem's body through the spot in the circle where the warrior's torso had been when he was upright, springing her from the circle. She grabbed a log from the bonfire and turned around to pitch it towards the nearest tribesman, hitting him and setting his garb on fire before he could react to dodge. The momentary lapse in concentration that came from the villagers watching in shock as their brother burned gave Kem enough time to gather a palm-sized stone for her right hand and a spear for her left. The warriors looked up to see Kem, completely broken from reality, lunging her spear at the nearest heart and striking with the stone the nearest head. It should not have been that easy for Kem to murder the eight warriors that had encircled her, but such apparently is what happens when the element of surprise combines with a complete loss of humanity.
Only after processing that none of the warriors were moving did Kem look up at Io, who was even whiter than normal, and still unable to move or do anything except fear that she was next. Kem then started to walk up to her, still holding her weapons, but as badly as Io wanted to run, her fear continued to be like roots that kept her in that exact spot. Once Kem was close enough to thrust the spear directly into Ingrid's heart, she dropped both weapons.
"I...need...OFF...this...island..." It was Kem's voice but it still felt to Io like seeing her partner possessed by a violent spirit. Even as Kem walked past her, presumably to the hut to sleep off the mass murder, Ingrid was still unable to move. She couldn't bear to look at the corpses in front of her. She couldn't bear to return home. The person that she had loved was not in that hut...
...right? That wasn't Kem. It couldn't be. Kem was still the wrestling-obsessed but generally otherwise good person, right?
Ingrid stood there for about an hour before her legs finally gave out and she laid there, too terrified to sleep for fear that her dreams would be just a re-living of this moment...
...this moment when Kem, the love of her entire life, had become a monster.
Kem had become a monster.
Sure, she had been pushy since the temple in Hawke's Bay. Sure, she had pretty much established herself as the alpha even back when the group was first formed. But she had NEVER been like this, and it was enough to REALLY ruffle Venus' feathers. Shakedown had ALWAYS been a trio, a group of three girls set to conquer the wrestling world, or something like that. This version, however, was not the same. It started with Kem's insistence that her personal Twitter account, which had more followers if for nothing else but she had spent the past 2 years wrestling while her and Io were...you know, doing OTHER STUFF, be the one Shakedown used to connect with their fans. Seemingly it was nothing to get worked up over, but things snowballed fast. By the time this UGWC Chill show had released its lineup, it was official:
Shakedown wasn't a trio anymore. It was "Kem Dynamo, featuring these other bitches".
It was BULLSHIT! It wasn't Kem Dynamo's name recognition that got them this second chance with UGWC, it was hers AND the work Venus and Io had put in after Kem left. But yet, here was the show. After Kem had done the "Welcome" interview with UGWC management - BEFORE COMING TO GET US, OF COURSE - suddenly the first UGWC Chill show featured Kem Dynamo vs Roxy Cotton. Not "Shakedown vs #CoolKids", no. Suddenly this was a one-on-one match, and for all Kem's efforts to reunite the group, it appeared to Venus to have been for backup rather than for anything else.
Venus sighed. There wasn't anything her throwing a mental temper tantrum could do about it. And who knows?, she thought to herself. Maybe she was just jumping to conclusions. Maybe Kem beats Roxy, which because #WrestlingLogic means Shakedown is a contender for the Cool Kids’ freshly won straps. UGWC jumps at the chance for a fresh Co-Op feud, so then next week they do something like Io vs Vaughn but the other two Kids come down and the whole thing becomes a giant brawl, and it sets up a title match for Massive Melee or whatever the next Pay-per-view is going to be. Maybe Kem's singles win was gonna propel her and a partner of her choice - which would OBVIOUSLY be her because Io, hot as she is, is still the greenest of the trio BY FAR - to a big Cooperative Division match.
It wasn’t that hard for her to believe. After all, this press conference was the reintroduction to the UGWC of Shakedown. The last time they were here they were standing up to the Engine of Chaos, so why not the Coolkids? If Angelica Vaughn and Roxy Cotton can win-by-losing their way to the top of the Co-Op Division, then actually winning-by-winning oughta get Kem and her title shots by the end of the year.
Past that, it shouldn’t take long for Venus to get herself back in the Chaos Division hunt either. She could still vividly remember the seething words she had for Rogan MacLean, checks she never got a chance to cash. The UGWC would be nuts not to at least spend a Synergy rekindling those old flames, and as long as V made a go of it, she’d be back on the map. Le Bord was notoriously not a fan of naughty behavior, so Venus being Venus oughta get her goat for sure. Io going all “Human Lawn Dart” on Le Bord would be a great match for the go-home show.
The more Venus dove into a daydream of her future success in UGWC, the easier it was to believe that it would all come to fruition. The trio - yes, that’s right, TRIO - of Shakedown was finally going to get the chance to be the three-woman wrecking crew it was meant to be, and nothing was getting in their way anymore. NSFW’s closing, IPW’s lack of tag division, OWF’s siren call, the whole Hawke’s Bay thing...all those roadblocks were in the past and it was now their time to finally show the world what they could do.
"Okay, girls. Remember, this is MY match. Y'all are going to be out there, and I'll talk about you as much as I need to, but this is about me and Roxy, so let me do the talking. Got it? Good. Let's do it!"
Kemberly Anderson, Venus thought, you are SUCH a bitch...
“Roxy is SUCH a bitch...”
Kem’s unexpected candor catches my colleagues off guard; the laughter from the room full of pro wrestling press proving the initial answer to the question “What do you think about your opponent, Roxy Cotton?” had served as a solid icebreaker. “But seriously,” Kem continued over the dying-down laughter, “she seems to be a very fortunate woman. Angie Vaughn still sees her as a worthwhile partner, and she's damn lucky for that. She found Maxine, if nothing else a rare physical specimen that seems to be okay with her career ceiling being a personal bodyguard, and she's damn lucky for that. Finally, the UGWC declared her a co-recipient of the Co-Operative Championships even though she contributed the least of the three Cool Kids involved, and she's DAMN lucky for that. It's only a matter of time before the random luck that has carried her just as much as her partners begins to regress to the mean. Her BABIP is unsustainable, and she'll be exposed quickly as the talentless coattail rider that I know she is."
"BABIP?" someone blurted out. "It's a baseball term that basically means how lucky a hitter has been based on things he doesn't have control over."
I don't wanna say I was impressed, but it certainly wasn't an expected response. "What? You didn't expect me to have knowledge of the word outside pro wrestling? You guys, this may be my first match as a UGWC roster member, but I've done my homework. I know that these press conferences tend to include some questions that...we'll just call them 'off-topic'...so bring 'em on. I am prepared for EVERYTHING. I am prepared for Roxy Cotton. I am prepared to deal with her frenemies and her bodyguard. And I can't call myself prepared for anything and everything if I can't handle questions about 'spam vs potted meat' and such. So just spare me the hesitation and let me have it. I know the whole point is to try and throw me off track so give me your worst, just like the Cool Kids did by sending Roxy to Chill instead of Angie or Crowthorne."
I quickly flipped to the back of my notepad. It looked like the hacks in the front were unprepared, so I figured this was my best chance to jump in. "Okay hotshot. Who was the better villain: Skeletor or Hordak?" A lot of the other "journalists" look back at me standing in the back of this conference room; a couple even wearing the tilted "confused puppy" face. Hacks, the lot of 'em. These pop-up "wrestling websites" will hire anyone willing to work for peanuts, I guess, but I would have expected UGWC to be a little less loose with the press passes. I don't see anyone I recognize from even last year; seems like Kem and I are the only ones in the room who actually know about Dave Rydell legitimately being asked "spam or potted meat". I can’t help but wonder if she’s gonna handle herself better than he did.
“Obviously, Skeletor. You have to grade villains of those days on a curve, of course. Generation-Xers had a tough time handling how generally bad they were at...damn near everything, so most of the time villains were written off as foolish and incompetent because it made them feel better. But Skeletor outsmarted Hodrak in the beginning, and most importantly, Skeletor was RELEVANT.
That’s really what I want for myself. Everyone says they want titles and accolades, but that’s stupid. Eden Morgan and Gabriel Baal just lost the titles, but you all know that in no time at all they’ve have another opportunity to either reclaim the Co-Op titles or to pursue singles gold like they’ve each worn before. They are RELEVANT. Titles matches are a crapshoot, and if you don’t believe me, watch the Prison Break again. This isn’t a Gen-X cartoon; this is UGWC. If I get as many opportunities as Skeletor got, I WILL topple whoever represents He-Man at the time. If nothing else, I have MUCH better minions.”
I couldn’t help but notice the glare the bigger one - Venus, right? - gave Kem at the “minion” comment.
“Both of you are known for being a part of a group of wrestlers. How does your mindset change as a part of this one-on-one matchup?” The guy from Cageside Seats shoots his shot before I can. Whatever. If the whole point is to see if we can get her off-balance, why not mix the shitty “real” questions these bozos brought with what I have. OOH! WAIT! THAT’S a good one! What was the guy’s name from that Blue Clues show?
“What an amazing...” Kem seems to hold this out for a moment. “...-ly LAZY question! Whoever you are, you need to be fired, and whatever site you work for should just stick to MMA from now on. How about I respond to your question with one of my own. This match at Chill will be the seventh time one of the three of us have been on UGWC television. Guess, yes GUESS because I know you don’t have the answer, so GUESS how many of those six matches before were tag team matches?” No one seems to realize Kem wasn’t being rhetorical until she points directly at the poor sap who asked her that question in the first place. “I’M TALKING TO YOU! Put your damn big-boy pants on and give me your most UN-educated guess! NOW! This press conference doesn’t move forward until you answer me, and I know you all have somewhere to be, like a bathroom stall “researching” Roxy’s latest tanning bed selfie. COME ON!”
“Uhh...half?” The kid - I know these girls are early twenties but the reporter-in-question looks younger - looks totally ashamed. I bet he’d rather be ANYWHERE right now, poor guy. But at least he mumbled out something. Good for him. He’ll do well on his site’s new MMA section. Hehehe.
“ONE! That’s it! One out of six, and that match was against MacLean and Baal. Are you gonna ask THEM if THEY are ready for one-on-one competition? Jesus Christ! (sigh) We three have ALWAYS been able to work either cohesively as a team of either two or three OR as singles competitors. Venus and Io may have lost that tag match, but the Cool Kids ‘earned’ a title shot by losing to Baal and Morgan, so I guess that makes us number one contenders! But those other five matches? We went 4-1, the loss being a battle royal. That’s right. UGWC has yet to watch a member of this group get pinned in singles competition. Mil Vidas, Jr couldn’t do it, Travis Pierce couldn’t do it, but little miss Cottontail is gonna succeed where UGWC World Champions have failed?
If anything you should ask HER that question. Angie Vaughn is a paltry 2-4 in UGWC singles competition but even if you discard how she’s carried the Cool Kids to where they are, you can’t deny she can hold her own. Cottontail meanwhile has NEVER NOT ONCE fought by herself in UGWC. I guess she did some stuff in some indy leagues but that means jack crap in the big leagues. The past couple years I’ve spent cruising the independent scene were useful for honing my craft and maintaining my skillset, but if you give a crap about the Insert-Random-Two-Letters-and-a-W titles Cottontail brags about, then you’re lying and you just want to keep her talking so you can stare at her saline bags. Since stepping up to the big leagues, she’s hidden behind Angie Vaughn and Maxine, poking her head out to hit her signature offense when they’re distracted or softened up.
That girl loves to expose herself. Well be sure to watch Chill because I’ll expose her plenty, expose her talent as imaginary, her indy titles as worthless, and Angie Vaughn as an amazing athlete for winning the Co-Op titles despite having a worthless bag of salt water for a partner.”
The mood has definitely darkened with her angry tone. Time for a little levity. "Hey Kem, do you think Steve got a raw deal when he was allegedly forced off of Blue's Clues?"
Kem shook her head, but I was able to catch the momentary smile she tried to hide from the rest of the press. She had a presentation of resentment and bitterness to project; even though she was human enough to appreciate a joke of a question, I get that she didn't want to show it. "You know he made the decision to leave on his own, right?" She waited, so I guess she wanted me to respond, and I didn't want to be verbally manhandled like the other guy. "The rumors were that he was forced out."
Kem pounced. "EXACTLY! The RUMORS said this. The RUMORS said that. I get it. Not everyone can be like me and soak up professional wrestling with every waking hour, so you guys gotta bring the sizzle to keep the casual fan that doesn't give a crap enough to actually get invested in our performance. So you spit out rumors. And man, when I walked away from WrestleStock without signing a UGWC deal, the rumors were flying. When Shakedown left shortly after In Your Hands, the rumors were flying. Let me set the records straight. Venus and Io had other projects they wanted to pursue. They knew the wrestling business would still be there and they had an opportunity they didn't want to pass up. UGWC recognized that employing people whose heart wasn't in it at the time was a foolish enterprise, and gave them their release. As for me? The OWF was NOT as forgiving about contracts, and their powers-that-be wanted to cash in on a second consecutive year of one of their roster members hijacking the WrestleStock Open trophy out from under a competitor's nose. I wrestled there not because I WANTED to, but because I didn't have a choice. Maybe I should have read the fine print of my contract a little better, but hey, I'm young and I learned a lesson about how crappy some people in power in this industry are.
Oh, and as for Steve, he left Blue's Clues because he was balding and wanted to shave his head. Next question."
"Well, since you brought it up, Kem, your last run in UGWC showed promise, but you ultimately left before that promise was fulfilled. Will this time around be different, and why?"
"Duh. I intend to waltz back into UGWC, talk some crap for a couple weeks, then leave the first time I lose or the first time someone sends me a not-nice tweet." She said that entire bit deadpan, which finally did impress me. For what it's worth, the kid who asked that question seemed to have a hard time figuring out she was being sarcastic. After a really long awkward pause some other reporter tries to chime in. " Are there any..."
"What kind of bullcrap, worse-than-the-tag-team-question-from-earlier lazy journalism is THAT? Don't even switch to MMA. Literally retire and never ask another question to anybody else as long as you live. EVER." After a vicious-looking eye roll, she says with a derp-dee-derp tone "Well, since I brought it up" to mock the guy for his question, she shakes her head and continues. "Venus, Io, and I have every intention of coming into UGWC and being the kind of consistent, excellent performers that cause us to be iconic to the UGWC name. I don't intend to stop until I'm in the UGWC Hall of Fame because that's where I feel my true talent level exists. Anyone who feels any less of themselves is a waste of my time. Anyone who truthfully IS less than that is a WASTE OF MY TIME. If I wanted to wrestle nobodies and who-gives-a-damns, I'd go back to San Diego and wrestle in my dad's company. Or wherever Roxy has titles in, since apparently the only qualification for their main event is cup size, making Venus and I NATURALLY GIFTED contenders to their worthless titles.
Anyways, sorry, I was rude. One of y'all was about to ask a question that hopefully was better than THAT one?"
Shit, this girl is bitter. I know she started young at like 15 or 16, but to see a youngster like her filled with that much contempt is a little unnerving.
“Are there any veterans in UGWC that you look up to, and are there any veterans within UGWC that you want to bring down a peg or two?” Kem pauses for a moment, but when she answers, she doesn’t lash out but is a lot more...I don’t know, thoughtful I guess.
“It’s public knowledge that my biological father was a wrestler. When I first tried to break into the business, he got me a job as a backstage sparring partner for the full-time wrestlers in that company. I got to meet and interact with both champions and enhancement talent, legends and lifetime lowcarders, and all of them had one thing in common...
...they were all TERRIBLE people. Like absolutely THE WORST. And I’m not even talking about being dismissive of me or getting mad when I didn’t do things just right. I was doing a job, performing a service, whatever. I’m talking about people sending phone calls from their wives and kids to voicemail. I’m talking about people hiring pharmacy technicians to research legal alternatives to the drugs they get tested for. I’m talking about people scheduling sparring sessions then privately cancelling them so they could use me as an alibi for affairs, or worse.
In other words, the next ‘veteran’ I meet who deserves to be looked up to...will be the first.
Likewise, who do I want to knock down a peg? ALL of them. Every single damn one of them. If you collect a paycheck to wrestle UGWC, you are IN OUR WAY. This week it’s Cottontail. No problem. I’m
not some tone-deaf rookie who thinks I get to jump the line. But that’s all the roster is to me, to us. I beat Roxy, they pick one or more of us and take on one or more of somebody else. Rinse and repeat until no one is left, then start all over again. That’s all I ever wanted. Give me a corner and watch me defend it. Give me an opponent and watch me destroy it. Give me a title shot and watch me convert it. You don’t like it? Try to do something about it and let me smack the disrespect out of your mouth for your troubles. ”
The aggressive belligerence back to the foreground, none of them seem to want to ask a question, but we still have time left. I’d offer to break the silence but I’m out of “good” questions.
Finally someone speaks up. “If you were to participate in the full-time Synergy roster, wh-”
“We are.”
“Excuse me?” Poor guy is walking into a bear trap. That’s what he gets for mindlessly reading questions off an index card. Damn amateur. “We ARE on the Synergy roster. I’m competing on Chill because I didn’t want to wait another minute before stepping into the UGWC squared circle. Whether or not Roxy is too scared to join her partner on the active roster is her business. So, now that you’ve proven how little you prepared for this press conference, did you have a question?”
Sheepishly, he finishes his question. “What title would you most hope to set your sights on?”
“I’m up for anything, and so are Venus and Io. If I have to give a firm answer, I’d say Cross-Hemisphere. I’ve beaten Travis Pierce before and if Dave Rydell is the best challenger they could find for him, then I must already be pretty close to the front of the line. Of course, after this week’s show, I could see Director Hastings eyeing us as Co-Op Championship challengers, and, seeing as how we come as a trio and Maxine the Bodyguard is more deserving of Cottontail’s half than she is, I’d welcome a trios match for the belts. At some point Angie has to roll the dice and risk her belts on Roxy’s worthless ass so it might as well be against us.[/color]
A member of the UGWC Public Relations staff walks in and whispers something to Kem. I’ve done enough of these to know he’s telling her something along the lines of “We’re almost out of time. Last question.”
“Hey! You in the back that actually almost earned your paycheck today! Give us another ‘gem’ why don’t you?”
What?
I wasn’t paying attention for a minute, and all of a sudden the three girls in front, and all the press sitting between me and them, are looking back at me. My brain catches up with what’s gone on and I realize she wants another “joke” question...even though I don’t have one.
Not wanting to disappoint or incite her angry face again, I just spit out the first thing that comes to my mind, God be with me. “What color do you relate to the most, and why?”
Kem laughs. I’m not sure how to feel about that. “That’s easy. The color ‘black’.
Every color is a combination of red, yellow, and blue. Think of red as ‘talent’, the God-given ability and athleticism that some people have and some people don’t. Think of yellow as ‘skill’, the techniques and quick-twitch instincts that make the performance of wrestling moves and sequences second nature. Think of Blue as ‘knowledge’, the brain part of the sport, knowing when to do what move, knowing multiple styles, knowing your opponent’s strength and weaknesses, etc.
This sport is my lifeblood. My DNA is a double-helix chain of every championship title I intend to win and defend from now until I breathe my last breath. I won’t rest until I have maximized my talent beyond what anyone has before, until I have maximized my skill until I can do any wrestling move ever innovated with the pitch-perfect precision of its innovator, until I have maximized my knowledge and learned more about every wrestler than they know about themselves. In other words, I will not stop until my color is full red, full yellow, full blue...BLACK.
Specifically to this week, Black is what I represent for Cottontail. Whatever happens once the bell rings, the end will be her world going black when I take all of her arrogance and self-absorption and go...
April 24, 2018
I can’t help but be excited to see her back on television, to see the dream starting to come true for her again.
But Jesus does it hurt to see what she’s become.
She’s up against the prototypical narcissistic meangirl, and yet it’s hard to tell who the fans are expected to boo. They have to root for someone, that’s Isaac Newton-level truth, but, as detestable as a girl resorting to fat-shaming and having a giant bodyguard is, my little girl is basically telling both the fans and the press, the two bodies of people you need to keep the wrestling business alive, to collectively go fuck themselves.
Why? What was she even expecting from me? I used to feel so guilty about not bringing her with me when I came back, but she wasn’t ready. She. Wasn’t. Ready. She thought she was, but I bet she thought she was when she was in diapers. Not that I’d know but whatever.
I wish she didn’t hate the past few years. She saw the world. She lived her dream. Wrestling is not glamorous. It’s a stupid amount of work that for most of us leads to nothing but being easily forgotten.
She told me once she wanted to follow in my footsteps. Well, guess what sweetie, it took me over 13 years to get a major World title. If it takes her until 2029 to get the belt around her waist, she’d probably consider herself a failure...
...when actually she’d be ahead of schedule.
Present Day
“...I...don’t...I...”
Kem’s vocabulary was failing her as she listened to Ingrid and Jennifer - a.k.a. Io and Venus - explain Melaina’s grand scheme to build a cult army out of followers by convincing them that Ingrid was the Supreme Being, Io-Matua-Kore, with Jennifer as her messenger angel, a Mareikuna. To be fair, it was a lot to take in. Of all the people involved, Kem was particularly unaware of Melaina - a.k.a. her Aunt Clara, assumed to be dead since childhood but now a “Keyser Soze”-esque ghost story of a mob boss - and the limitlessness of both her psychopathic ambition and the resources to carry it out.
“...I just...this is NOT at all what I was expecting to walk into when I came to New Zealand to find you.” Kem had pretty much had a singular focus towards the profession of pro wrestling since September 23rd, 2007 when the longest-running OWF World Heavyweight championship reign was ended by Alexis Cage, the first time in the then-decade-long history of the company that a woman broke the glass ceiling of the gender barrier. Frankly, it was difficult for Kem to fathom becoming a Goddess on Earth any other way than becoming a long-running World Champion, especially in UGWC, the highest-grossing active promotion in the world. It was difficult to envision having followers beyond her Twitter account, devoted fans besides the young girls inspired by her to someday become the next generation of femme fatales. Even as her career ran headlong into what is euphemistically referred to in hindsight as “paying your dues”, it never occurred to Kem to do anything else with her life, her quest’s fulfillment was always found in a Hall of Fame induction speech (or three, her dad had set the family bar at two) in which she could reference the lengthy amount of time she was a World champion and headline attraction.
In fact, as anyone who knew her could infer, that’s why she was here.
Ever since giving up on her dads’ divergent failures at getting her career off the ground and moving forward on her own, well, she was never on her own. Her aces in the hole had always been her childhood best friend, Io, and her unearthed diamond, Venus. She won the “Making The Tag” reality competition by turning Io into “The Human Lawn Dart”, a way-outside-the-box innovation of daredevil offense and Io’s personal physical awkwardness for which none of her competition had an answer. When it was time to fight more experienced fighters, she turned to Venus, an amateur wrestling state champion and a super-sized woman with the explosiveness and body control to do a Shooting Star Press, whichever you find more impressive. Combined, the trio of Shakedown were an exciting conglomerate of everything the wrestling industry was looking for.
And then Kem made the mistake to break them up.
She just HAD to take a shot at winning the same OWF title she’d watched Alexis Cage win. So while her partners cashed in on Kem’s WrestleStock win to score their own UGWC contracts, she left for what she assumed would be greener pastures. But, as it would turn out, while OWF was happy to take credit for her WrestleStock trophy, it was less interested in Kem becoming their champion. Whoops. Two years of relentless travel across the globe wrestling anywhere she could came up empty as it turned out that "Dynamo" was a name that rang hollow in the wrestling world five years removed from the last time that surname was engraved onto the plates of a world title.
The wrestling world was turning its back on Kem Dynamo, but she still had cards to play.
"What are you doing here, Kem?" Jennifer stepped up to demand an answer and turn the interrogation back towards the outsider of this whole Maori charade. "We were doing just fine here. Better than fine! Those people out there WORSHIP us!"
As Kem turned towards Venus to respond, she couldn't help but notice the look Ingrid made. Kem quickly realized that Io had been hidden away for so long that she was not used to having to conceal her feelings. She continued to read Ingrid's truth-telling facial expressions from her peripheral vision as she answered. "First of all, they don’t worship YOU, Venus. At best, they bow to you because you are a proxy for the God they ACTUALLY revere. As for you, Io, you could literally walk out in the open and no one would say anything because those people out there don’t worship a 22-year-old girl. I don’t know what the endgame of this whole spectacle is, but neither do the two of you. Unless your whole idea was to spend the rest of your life the same way you’ve always done: staying inside all alone while Jennifer lives life for you.”
Kem didn’t regret a single word even as she watched them cut her best friend to the bone. As a kid, Ingrid never left the house unless Kem asked for her, needing Io to pretend to be Eclipse so Kem could pretend to be Alexis Cage. As a teenager, Ingrid never left her house after Kem left to pursue her wrestling dreams. Even after Shakedown was formed, when IPW said they only had room for a tag team instead of a trio, Ingrid stayed in their apartment while Kem and Venus went out and performed. It wasn’t hard to figure out that whatever was going on with this Supreme Being bullshit, Ingrid had been played; after all, what does it really matter that she was getting to be a Goddess if part of the role was to never be seen by another human being ever again?
Meanwhile, Venus had apparently heard enough. It was an odd juxtaposition; two years ago, it was Venus who let negative comments roll off her back while Io was the quickest to step forward and get in the face of dissenters. Nevertheless, when Venus raised her arm up, Kem was ready. Whether Venus was planning to strike or just use some feisty gesticulation was irrelevant; in an instantaneous flash of efficient limb control, the arm had become wrapped in a hammerlock that had Venus bent over at the waist. Both Venus and Io’s eyes widened: they knew that the next progression from here would be for Kem to lift Venus into a cradle position and then fall backwards, the crown of Venus’ head the only point of impact Kem’s “Lights Out” permits.
All three of them also knew from experience that, despite Venus’ size, Kem could do it, too. Kem was ridiculously efficient with her strength and movement: the hammerlock not only reduced the opponent’s ability to counter the DDT, but it made clear to their fight-or-flight response mechanism that their arms couldn’t break the fall so their own body betrayed them and supported Kem’s effort to carry them on her meaty thighs, and from there the momentum and pull of gravity were all the power Kem needed. “STOP!” Ingrid cried out with the desperate hope of a child pleading to be spared from being given a spanking. Kem held Venus in her helpless position and continued. “Second of all, you asked what I was doing here. UGWC recently finished up their Lord of Trios tournament and its success has their powers-that-be wanting to put a renewed focus on their Co-operative Division, which reminded them of that feisty group of three unique young women they’d really thought highly of back in 2016 and wondering what they were up to.”
A quick read of Ingrid’s face indicated that Kem could release her grip on Jennifer’s wrist. Io was beaming; she was trying to hide it, but, again, she was sorely lacking in practice at hiding her feelings on her face. Kem saw Venus look over at Io as she clutched her now-free wrist and it was clear she'd reached the same conclusion. "Thankfully, it took me long enough to find the two of you here in the middle of freakin' nowhere that the trios tournament has already passed, because you two are CLEARLY out of practice. Nevertheless, we have been given an in; and after six LOOOOOONG years of getting chewed up and spit out by this business, I'm not gonna let this opportunity pass. Shakedown is coming back to UGWC."
"Why?" Venus offered a challenge. She probably wanted it to look more like skepticism and less like a desperate calling of hopefully a bluff. "The fans showed us how they felt about us at In Your Hands 2016, and nobody at UGWC was grabbing our arm to stop us when Melaina bought out our contracts."
An expert might have noticed the split-second look of confusion Kem gave. It was easy to forget that she was somehow outside the seemingly global influence of Shakedown's former "manager". But Kem knew she had their resistance on the ropes and wasn't about to let a digression allow for them a mental rope-break. "Fuck the fans, Venus. They didn't show you anything except that they are easily manipulated. OF COURSE they were gonna pick the "mystery opponent"! You want people to love you? Come back with me to the REAL FUCKING WORLD and let's go kick the shit out of everyone. The fans will cheer in due time because all they want is for someone to get their asses kicked by someone else. Even if they don't, I know better than to buy the bullshit that you give a DAMN what they think."
Kem knew she had them. Jennifer was trying her best to come up with a retort but she had nothing. Ingrid, meanwhile, just wanted to get out of this place. She never said no when Kem asked her to come be Eclipse, and she was certainly not going to tell her no now. "Look, I don't really know what the fuck situation y'all have here, but if you can get us out of here without starting some kind of holy war, I have 3 tickets from Wellington to Detroit. It's time for us to get back to the real world.” As Kem started to walk towards the exit, expecting her partners to follow her, it didn't even dawn on her that "the real world" and "the pro wrestling business" had become synonymous by now. It didn't even occur to her that her inability to comprehend what Venus and Io had been doing in New Zealand had nothing to do with how outlandish the Maori-inspired scenario was, but how the two of them thought they could find happiness anywhere but inside a wrestling ring. Hell, maybe they could, but Kem couldn't.
“But what about Melaina?” Ingrid blurted.
Kem stopped and look back at her. “Who the fuck is Melaina?” Venus and Io looked at each other, in shock and disbelief.
—————-
Shock and disbelief...
...yeah, that about sums it up. I was in shock and disbelief when I watched the Prison Break match. I wasn't surprised at how well Angie Vaughn performed, as she's proven repeatedly that she is the driving force of the Cool Kids. I wasn't surprised to see The Court lose, either. Alan Wallace, Rogan MacLean and Jase Ingalls are all great competitors, and from the little I've seen of Jessica Mathis, she could certainly hold her own as a champion. What shocked me was how much luck absolutely determined the winner and loser of the match. Let's just run down the list, shall we? If Eden Morgan wasn't a narcissistic moron who was too busy replicating one of Roxy's webcam shows...if Ro-Ro Mac has ONE OUNCE of situational awareness and tosses the keys that don't work ANYWHERE except right on top of his opponents...if the key that had landed on Eden Morgan had been the key to your pod...if Alan Wallace had had the wherewithal to realize that, if he took TWO DAMN SECONDS to drop Angie and step onto the ramp THEN go try to burn Eden Morgan alive...
...that is an amazing amount of luck...
...and it still would have all been for nothing if not for your anomaly of a bodyguard. Money well spent, I guess. You get to parade around as the weaker half of the UGWC Cooperative Champions, and after enough time passes, history will eventually forget that Roxy Cotton was LITERALLY AND METAPHORICALLY carried to victory by Maxine and Angie Vaughn, respectively. I'm sure you've already been hard at work convincing yourself that you were just as important as your partner in that victory. I'm sure you've already edited out in your mind how hard Vaughn worked just to get you free from the pod, and then, once you escaped the pod, how easily an exhausted Jase Ingalls completely incapacitated you. I'm sure in your head Angie just absolutely couldn't have done it without you.
Here's your chance to prove it.
Prove me wrong, Cottontail. I fucking dare you. Prove to me and the whole UGWC that you deserve to be a champion, because from where I'm standing, the Cooperative Champions are Angelica Vaughn and Maxine. At first, I thought you were the third-best member of the Cool Kids, but I guess I should drop you down to fourth. If it was Angelica Vaughn in this match, I'd be concerned about my chances. If it was Maxine, I'd definitely have to bring my A-game.
But it's not. It's just you, a worthless partner who has spent more time watching Angie succeed than actually participating. Every single time the Cool Kids had a match, at the very end, when the Lord of Trios tournament was at stake, then the Cooperative Titles at No Holds Barred, it has been Vaughn and NOT YOU that has been there for the final shot. Win or lose, your partner clearly didn't trust you when the match was on the line.
Let me say that again, Cottontail, because it bears repeating:
Your partner...DOES...NOT...TRUST...YOU!
----------
After Naufragium
After Naufragium
Io couldn’t trust her anymore.
Too late to intercede, Ingrid watched as the tribesmen descended upon Kem. This "circle of death" wasn't anything new. When Kem and Io had washed ashore on this island and run into this group of villagers, they seemed to do this very ritual most nights. There would be dancing and eating and then two warriors would be surrounded by a circle of onlookers and would grapple. Kem was so desperate for anything that felt like wrestling that she jumped right into the mix, and whatever they said about her in their language that they still didn't understand, they had otherwise welcomed the two outsiders and seen Kem's fighting prowess as a thing to respect rather than fear.
They would fear her after this day.
Ingrid had noticed that her partner was growing increasingly antsy as the days - presumably weeks really, both of them had given up on counting - had gone by. From the moment they survived the plane crash, all Kem had wanted was to find a way back. She didn't know that her plane was one of over a thousand that crashed simultaneously. She didn’t know that the civilization she was desperate to reenter was still reeling from a global HEMP attack - sorry, High-Altitude Electro-Magnetic Pulse. We’re close enough to 4/20 that I should specify - so massive and unexpected that there wasn’t even a science-fiction movie to wrap our heads around its potential damage.
Ingrid knew though. Hell, Ingrid probably caused it.
Only three human beings had access to the nuclear missiles that could unleash “Naufragium”, as the event would inevitably be named. Melaina was one, of course, having somehow gotten ahold not only of the materials to make nuclear warheads but also a series of underground launch sites strategically placed such that when they launched in synchronicity would literally encapsulate the planet in EMP.
The other two people were Ingrid and Venus. Venus, in love with Io, though even Ingrid knew that her “love” was the product of Melaina’s reprogramming, and demanded that she choose between her and Kem. Ingrid responded by channeling her “Supreme Being” self one last time...and holding Kem at gunpoint and forcing her aboard that plane. It wouldn’t surprise Io to find out that Venus set in motion the death of over a million people because she was hoping the two of them were among the casualties. That left Ingrid with two truths. One, the love of her life was on this island with her and however Kem felt about being kidnapped seemed to be replaced with an acknowledgement that Io might be the last English-speaking person she’ll ever see. Two, she had no idea what the world looked like past the ocean that imprisoned them.
The situation started out great. Ingrid knew Kem sought comfort in her only because there was nothing else here but she didn’t care; Kem was with her and that was all that mattered. But Kem’s true soulmate - the squared circle - called her sirenicly outside of their shelter, out to the beach, off to find something, ANYTHING that could become a makeshift vessel, and finally into stumbling upon the warrior tribe. Ingrid hoped that getting to tussle with the villagers would satiate Kem, and it seemed like maybe it had.
Until tonight.
Kem shot up in bed early that evening. Io knew she’d been having nightmares, so she didn't really think anything of it, even when Kem got up and walked out of the hut. Usually she'd walk to the beach, look out into the infinite expanse of the ocean, realize there was nothing she could do, and then give up and come back to Ingrid's waiting cuddles. But tonight, she never came back. There wasn't really any sense of time at this point, but Ingrid knew it had been longer than usual, so she went out searching for her, barely remembering to put on the tattered remains of the clothes she'd been wearing when the plane crashed however long ago that was. She went to the beach and saw no sign of Kem, until she heard a scream. It was in the distance, but loud enough to carry all the way to the shore. The scream was audible words...
...GIVE ME A BOAT!
As soon as Io heard it, she literally fell over in terror. She had never heard such a tone of unhinged fury from her partner, and was frankly terrified to head toward the village to find her. As she got closer, she heard the scream repeated, again and again. Kem had completely lost it; it didn't matter how crazy she sounded, nor was she processing that the tribespeople didn't seem to understand what she was saying anyway. So used to the stranger coming and grappling, they didn't even think to be afraid or to process her cries as madness. Io reached the village right as they were circling Kem. Like she'd seen scores of times, a villager broke the circle to step in and challenge Kem to a seemingly friendly wrestling match. As he approached, Kem lunged forward, grabbed him,
...and snapped his neck.
Io froze. She couldn't move. She couldn't breathe until after a few minutes, her body broke through her panic enough to ventilate. Even then, she was paralyzed as she watched the rest of the circle, finally realizing that this was NOT like the times before, charge Kem. Kem responded by charging one of them and hitting a running enziguiri, the strike enough to drop the warrior off his feet but also - and more importantly - the momentum of the aerial move propelled Kem's body through the spot in the circle where the warrior's torso had been when he was upright, springing her from the circle. She grabbed a log from the bonfire and turned around to pitch it towards the nearest tribesman, hitting him and setting his garb on fire before he could react to dodge. The momentary lapse in concentration that came from the villagers watching in shock as their brother burned gave Kem enough time to gather a palm-sized stone for her right hand and a spear for her left. The warriors looked up to see Kem, completely broken from reality, lunging her spear at the nearest heart and striking with the stone the nearest head. It should not have been that easy for Kem to murder the eight warriors that had encircled her, but such apparently is what happens when the element of surprise combines with a complete loss of humanity.
Only after processing that none of the warriors were moving did Kem look up at Io, who was even whiter than normal, and still unable to move or do anything except fear that she was next. Kem then started to walk up to her, still holding her weapons, but as badly as Io wanted to run, her fear continued to be like roots that kept her in that exact spot. Once Kem was close enough to thrust the spear directly into Ingrid's heart, she dropped both weapons.
"I...need...OFF...this...island..." It was Kem's voice but it still felt to Io like seeing her partner possessed by a violent spirit. Even as Kem walked past her, presumably to the hut to sleep off the mass murder, Ingrid was still unable to move. She couldn't bear to look at the corpses in front of her. She couldn't bear to return home. The person that she had loved was not in that hut...
...right? That wasn't Kem. It couldn't be. Kem was still the wrestling-obsessed but generally otherwise good person, right?
Ingrid stood there for about an hour before her legs finally gave out and she laid there, too terrified to sleep for fear that her dreams would be just a re-living of this moment...
...this moment when Kem, the love of her entire life, had become a monster.
----------
Present Day
Present Day
Kem had become a monster.
Sure, she had been pushy since the temple in Hawke's Bay. Sure, she had pretty much established herself as the alpha even back when the group was first formed. But she had NEVER been like this, and it was enough to REALLY ruffle Venus' feathers. Shakedown had ALWAYS been a trio, a group of three girls set to conquer the wrestling world, or something like that. This version, however, was not the same. It started with Kem's insistence that her personal Twitter account, which had more followers if for nothing else but she had spent the past 2 years wrestling while her and Io were...you know, doing OTHER STUFF, be the one Shakedown used to connect with their fans. Seemingly it was nothing to get worked up over, but things snowballed fast. By the time this UGWC Chill show had released its lineup, it was official:
Shakedown wasn't a trio anymore. It was "Kem Dynamo, featuring these other bitches".
It was BULLSHIT! It wasn't Kem Dynamo's name recognition that got them this second chance with UGWC, it was hers AND the work Venus and Io had put in after Kem left. But yet, here was the show. After Kem had done the "Welcome" interview with UGWC management - BEFORE COMING TO GET US, OF COURSE - suddenly the first UGWC Chill show featured Kem Dynamo vs Roxy Cotton. Not "Shakedown vs #CoolKids", no. Suddenly this was a one-on-one match, and for all Kem's efforts to reunite the group, it appeared to Venus to have been for backup rather than for anything else.
Venus sighed. There wasn't anything her throwing a mental temper tantrum could do about it. And who knows?, she thought to herself. Maybe she was just jumping to conclusions. Maybe Kem beats Roxy, which because #WrestlingLogic means Shakedown is a contender for the Cool Kids’ freshly won straps. UGWC jumps at the chance for a fresh Co-Op feud, so then next week they do something like Io vs Vaughn but the other two Kids come down and the whole thing becomes a giant brawl, and it sets up a title match for Massive Melee or whatever the next Pay-per-view is going to be. Maybe Kem's singles win was gonna propel her and a partner of her choice - which would OBVIOUSLY be her because Io, hot as she is, is still the greenest of the trio BY FAR - to a big Cooperative Division match.
It wasn’t that hard for her to believe. After all, this press conference was the reintroduction to the UGWC of Shakedown. The last time they were here they were standing up to the Engine of Chaos, so why not the Coolkids? If Angelica Vaughn and Roxy Cotton can win-by-losing their way to the top of the Co-Op Division, then actually winning-by-winning oughta get Kem and her title shots by the end of the year.
Past that, it shouldn’t take long for Venus to get herself back in the Chaos Division hunt either. She could still vividly remember the seething words she had for Rogan MacLean, checks she never got a chance to cash. The UGWC would be nuts not to at least spend a Synergy rekindling those old flames, and as long as V made a go of it, she’d be back on the map. Le Bord was notoriously not a fan of naughty behavior, so Venus being Venus oughta get her goat for sure. Io going all “Human Lawn Dart” on Le Bord would be a great match for the go-home show.
The more Venus dove into a daydream of her future success in UGWC, the easier it was to believe that it would all come to fruition. The trio - yes, that’s right, TRIO - of Shakedown was finally going to get the chance to be the three-woman wrecking crew it was meant to be, and nothing was getting in their way anymore. NSFW’s closing, IPW’s lack of tag division, OWF’s siren call, the whole Hawke’s Bay thing...all those roadblocks were in the past and it was now their time to finally show the world what they could do.
"Okay, girls. Remember, this is MY match. Y'all are going to be out there, and I'll talk about you as much as I need to, but this is about me and Roxy, so let me do the talking. Got it? Good. Let's do it!"
Kemberly Anderson, Venus thought, you are SUCH a bitch...
----------
“Roxy is SUCH a bitch...”
Kem’s unexpected candor catches my colleagues off guard; the laughter from the room full of pro wrestling press proving the initial answer to the question “What do you think about your opponent, Roxy Cotton?” had served as a solid icebreaker. “But seriously,” Kem continued over the dying-down laughter, “she seems to be a very fortunate woman. Angie Vaughn still sees her as a worthwhile partner, and she's damn lucky for that. She found Maxine, if nothing else a rare physical specimen that seems to be okay with her career ceiling being a personal bodyguard, and she's damn lucky for that. Finally, the UGWC declared her a co-recipient of the Co-Operative Championships even though she contributed the least of the three Cool Kids involved, and she's DAMN lucky for that. It's only a matter of time before the random luck that has carried her just as much as her partners begins to regress to the mean. Her BABIP is unsustainable, and she'll be exposed quickly as the talentless coattail rider that I know she is."
"BABIP?" someone blurted out. "It's a baseball term that basically means how lucky a hitter has been based on things he doesn't have control over."
I don't wanna say I was impressed, but it certainly wasn't an expected response. "What? You didn't expect me to have knowledge of the word outside pro wrestling? You guys, this may be my first match as a UGWC roster member, but I've done my homework. I know that these press conferences tend to include some questions that...we'll just call them 'off-topic'...so bring 'em on. I am prepared for EVERYTHING. I am prepared for Roxy Cotton. I am prepared to deal with her frenemies and her bodyguard. And I can't call myself prepared for anything and everything if I can't handle questions about 'spam vs potted meat' and such. So just spare me the hesitation and let me have it. I know the whole point is to try and throw me off track so give me your worst, just like the Cool Kids did by sending Roxy to Chill instead of Angie or Crowthorne."
I quickly flipped to the back of my notepad. It looked like the hacks in the front were unprepared, so I figured this was my best chance to jump in. "Okay hotshot. Who was the better villain: Skeletor or Hordak?" A lot of the other "journalists" look back at me standing in the back of this conference room; a couple even wearing the tilted "confused puppy" face. Hacks, the lot of 'em. These pop-up "wrestling websites" will hire anyone willing to work for peanuts, I guess, but I would have expected UGWC to be a little less loose with the press passes. I don't see anyone I recognize from even last year; seems like Kem and I are the only ones in the room who actually know about Dave Rydell legitimately being asked "spam or potted meat". I can’t help but wonder if she’s gonna handle herself better than he did.
“Obviously, Skeletor. You have to grade villains of those days on a curve, of course. Generation-Xers had a tough time handling how generally bad they were at...damn near everything, so most of the time villains were written off as foolish and incompetent because it made them feel better. But Skeletor outsmarted Hodrak in the beginning, and most importantly, Skeletor was RELEVANT.
That’s really what I want for myself. Everyone says they want titles and accolades, but that’s stupid. Eden Morgan and Gabriel Baal just lost the titles, but you all know that in no time at all they’ve have another opportunity to either reclaim the Co-Op titles or to pursue singles gold like they’ve each worn before. They are RELEVANT. Titles matches are a crapshoot, and if you don’t believe me, watch the Prison Break again. This isn’t a Gen-X cartoon; this is UGWC. If I get as many opportunities as Skeletor got, I WILL topple whoever represents He-Man at the time. If nothing else, I have MUCH better minions.”
I couldn’t help but notice the glare the bigger one - Venus, right? - gave Kem at the “minion” comment.
“Both of you are known for being a part of a group of wrestlers. How does your mindset change as a part of this one-on-one matchup?” The guy from Cageside Seats shoots his shot before I can. Whatever. If the whole point is to see if we can get her off-balance, why not mix the shitty “real” questions these bozos brought with what I have. OOH! WAIT! THAT’S a good one! What was the guy’s name from that Blue Clues show?
“What an amazing...” Kem seems to hold this out for a moment. “...-ly LAZY question! Whoever you are, you need to be fired, and whatever site you work for should just stick to MMA from now on. How about I respond to your question with one of my own. This match at Chill will be the seventh time one of the three of us have been on UGWC television. Guess, yes GUESS because I know you don’t have the answer, so GUESS how many of those six matches before were tag team matches?” No one seems to realize Kem wasn’t being rhetorical until she points directly at the poor sap who asked her that question in the first place. “I’M TALKING TO YOU! Put your damn big-boy pants on and give me your most UN-educated guess! NOW! This press conference doesn’t move forward until you answer me, and I know you all have somewhere to be, like a bathroom stall “researching” Roxy’s latest tanning bed selfie. COME ON!”
“Uhh...half?” The kid - I know these girls are early twenties but the reporter-in-question looks younger - looks totally ashamed. I bet he’d rather be ANYWHERE right now, poor guy. But at least he mumbled out something. Good for him. He’ll do well on his site’s new MMA section. Hehehe.
“ONE! That’s it! One out of six, and that match was against MacLean and Baal. Are you gonna ask THEM if THEY are ready for one-on-one competition? Jesus Christ! (sigh) We three have ALWAYS been able to work either cohesively as a team of either two or three OR as singles competitors. Venus and Io may have lost that tag match, but the Cool Kids ‘earned’ a title shot by losing to Baal and Morgan, so I guess that makes us number one contenders! But those other five matches? We went 4-1, the loss being a battle royal. That’s right. UGWC has yet to watch a member of this group get pinned in singles competition. Mil Vidas, Jr couldn’t do it, Travis Pierce couldn’t do it, but little miss Cottontail is gonna succeed where UGWC World Champions have failed?
If anything you should ask HER that question. Angie Vaughn is a paltry 2-4 in UGWC singles competition but even if you discard how she’s carried the Cool Kids to where they are, you can’t deny she can hold her own. Cottontail meanwhile has NEVER NOT ONCE fought by herself in UGWC. I guess she did some stuff in some indy leagues but that means jack crap in the big leagues. The past couple years I’ve spent cruising the independent scene were useful for honing my craft and maintaining my skillset, but if you give a crap about the Insert-Random-Two-Letters-and-a-W titles Cottontail brags about, then you’re lying and you just want to keep her talking so you can stare at her saline bags. Since stepping up to the big leagues, she’s hidden behind Angie Vaughn and Maxine, poking her head out to hit her signature offense when they’re distracted or softened up.
That girl loves to expose herself. Well be sure to watch Chill because I’ll expose her plenty, expose her talent as imaginary, her indy titles as worthless, and Angie Vaughn as an amazing athlete for winning the Co-Op titles despite having a worthless bag of salt water for a partner.”
The mood has definitely darkened with her angry tone. Time for a little levity. "Hey Kem, do you think Steve got a raw deal when he was allegedly forced off of Blue's Clues?"
Kem shook her head, but I was able to catch the momentary smile she tried to hide from the rest of the press. She had a presentation of resentment and bitterness to project; even though she was human enough to appreciate a joke of a question, I get that she didn't want to show it. "You know he made the decision to leave on his own, right?" She waited, so I guess she wanted me to respond, and I didn't want to be verbally manhandled like the other guy. "The rumors were that he was forced out."
Kem pounced. "EXACTLY! The RUMORS said this. The RUMORS said that. I get it. Not everyone can be like me and soak up professional wrestling with every waking hour, so you guys gotta bring the sizzle to keep the casual fan that doesn't give a crap enough to actually get invested in our performance. So you spit out rumors. And man, when I walked away from WrestleStock without signing a UGWC deal, the rumors were flying. When Shakedown left shortly after In Your Hands, the rumors were flying. Let me set the records straight. Venus and Io had other projects they wanted to pursue. They knew the wrestling business would still be there and they had an opportunity they didn't want to pass up. UGWC recognized that employing people whose heart wasn't in it at the time was a foolish enterprise, and gave them their release. As for me? The OWF was NOT as forgiving about contracts, and their powers-that-be wanted to cash in on a second consecutive year of one of their roster members hijacking the WrestleStock Open trophy out from under a competitor's nose. I wrestled there not because I WANTED to, but because I didn't have a choice. Maybe I should have read the fine print of my contract a little better, but hey, I'm young and I learned a lesson about how crappy some people in power in this industry are.
Oh, and as for Steve, he left Blue's Clues because he was balding and wanted to shave his head. Next question."
"Well, since you brought it up, Kem, your last run in UGWC showed promise, but you ultimately left before that promise was fulfilled. Will this time around be different, and why?"
"Duh. I intend to waltz back into UGWC, talk some crap for a couple weeks, then leave the first time I lose or the first time someone sends me a not-nice tweet." She said that entire bit deadpan, which finally did impress me. For what it's worth, the kid who asked that question seemed to have a hard time figuring out she was being sarcastic. After a really long awkward pause some other reporter tries to chime in. " Are there any..."
"What kind of bullcrap, worse-than-the-tag-team-question-from-earlier lazy journalism is THAT? Don't even switch to MMA. Literally retire and never ask another question to anybody else as long as you live. EVER." After a vicious-looking eye roll, she says with a derp-dee-derp tone "Well, since I brought it up" to mock the guy for his question, she shakes her head and continues. "Venus, Io, and I have every intention of coming into UGWC and being the kind of consistent, excellent performers that cause us to be iconic to the UGWC name. I don't intend to stop until I'm in the UGWC Hall of Fame because that's where I feel my true talent level exists. Anyone who feels any less of themselves is a waste of my time. Anyone who truthfully IS less than that is a WASTE OF MY TIME. If I wanted to wrestle nobodies and who-gives-a-damns, I'd go back to San Diego and wrestle in my dad's company. Or wherever Roxy has titles in, since apparently the only qualification for their main event is cup size, making Venus and I NATURALLY GIFTED contenders to their worthless titles.
Anyways, sorry, I was rude. One of y'all was about to ask a question that hopefully was better than THAT one?"
Shit, this girl is bitter. I know she started young at like 15 or 16, but to see a youngster like her filled with that much contempt is a little unnerving.
“Are there any veterans in UGWC that you look up to, and are there any veterans within UGWC that you want to bring down a peg or two?” Kem pauses for a moment, but when she answers, she doesn’t lash out but is a lot more...I don’t know, thoughtful I guess.
“It’s public knowledge that my biological father was a wrestler. When I first tried to break into the business, he got me a job as a backstage sparring partner for the full-time wrestlers in that company. I got to meet and interact with both champions and enhancement talent, legends and lifetime lowcarders, and all of them had one thing in common...
...they were all TERRIBLE people. Like absolutely THE WORST. And I’m not even talking about being dismissive of me or getting mad when I didn’t do things just right. I was doing a job, performing a service, whatever. I’m talking about people sending phone calls from their wives and kids to voicemail. I’m talking about people hiring pharmacy technicians to research legal alternatives to the drugs they get tested for. I’m talking about people scheduling sparring sessions then privately cancelling them so they could use me as an alibi for affairs, or worse.
In other words, the next ‘veteran’ I meet who deserves to be looked up to...will be the first.
Likewise, who do I want to knock down a peg? ALL of them. Every single damn one of them. If you collect a paycheck to wrestle UGWC, you are IN OUR WAY. This week it’s Cottontail. No problem. I’m
not some tone-deaf rookie who thinks I get to jump the line. But that’s all the roster is to me, to us. I beat Roxy, they pick one or more of us and take on one or more of somebody else. Rinse and repeat until no one is left, then start all over again. That’s all I ever wanted. Give me a corner and watch me defend it. Give me an opponent and watch me destroy it. Give me a title shot and watch me convert it. You don’t like it? Try to do something about it and let me smack the disrespect out of your mouth for your troubles. ”
The aggressive belligerence back to the foreground, none of them seem to want to ask a question, but we still have time left. I’d offer to break the silence but I’m out of “good” questions.
Finally someone speaks up. “If you were to participate in the full-time Synergy roster, wh-”
“We are.”
“Excuse me?” Poor guy is walking into a bear trap. That’s what he gets for mindlessly reading questions off an index card. Damn amateur. “We ARE on the Synergy roster. I’m competing on Chill because I didn’t want to wait another minute before stepping into the UGWC squared circle. Whether or not Roxy is too scared to join her partner on the active roster is her business. So, now that you’ve proven how little you prepared for this press conference, did you have a question?”
Sheepishly, he finishes his question. “What title would you most hope to set your sights on?”
“I’m up for anything, and so are Venus and Io. If I have to give a firm answer, I’d say Cross-Hemisphere. I’ve beaten Travis Pierce before and if Dave Rydell is the best challenger they could find for him, then I must already be pretty close to the front of the line. Of course, after this week’s show, I could see Director Hastings eyeing us as Co-Op Championship challengers, and, seeing as how we come as a trio and Maxine the Bodyguard is more deserving of Cottontail’s half than she is, I’d welcome a trios match for the belts. At some point Angie has to roll the dice and risk her belts on Roxy’s worthless ass so it might as well be against us.[/color]
A member of the UGWC Public Relations staff walks in and whispers something to Kem. I’ve done enough of these to know he’s telling her something along the lines of “We’re almost out of time. Last question.”
“Hey! You in the back that actually almost earned your paycheck today! Give us another ‘gem’ why don’t you?”
What?
I wasn’t paying attention for a minute, and all of a sudden the three girls in front, and all the press sitting between me and them, are looking back at me. My brain catches up with what’s gone on and I realize she wants another “joke” question...even though I don’t have one.
Not wanting to disappoint or incite her angry face again, I just spit out the first thing that comes to my mind, God be with me. “What color do you relate to the most, and why?”
Kem laughs. I’m not sure how to feel about that. “That’s easy. The color ‘black’.
Every color is a combination of red, yellow, and blue. Think of red as ‘talent’, the God-given ability and athleticism that some people have and some people don’t. Think of yellow as ‘skill’, the techniques and quick-twitch instincts that make the performance of wrestling moves and sequences second nature. Think of Blue as ‘knowledge’, the brain part of the sport, knowing when to do what move, knowing multiple styles, knowing your opponent’s strength and weaknesses, etc.
This sport is my lifeblood. My DNA is a double-helix chain of every championship title I intend to win and defend from now until I breathe my last breath. I won’t rest until I have maximized my talent beyond what anyone has before, until I have maximized my skill until I can do any wrestling move ever innovated with the pitch-perfect precision of its innovator, until I have maximized my knowledge and learned more about every wrestler than they know about themselves. In other words, I will not stop until my color is full red, full yellow, full blue...BLACK.
Specifically to this week, Black is what I represent for Cottontail. Whatever happens once the bell rings, the end will be her world going black when I take all of her arrogance and self-absorption and go...
LIGHTS OUT!
—————
April 24, 2018
I can’t help but be excited to see her back on television, to see the dream starting to come true for her again.
But Jesus does it hurt to see what she’s become.
She’s up against the prototypical narcissistic meangirl, and yet it’s hard to tell who the fans are expected to boo. They have to root for someone, that’s Isaac Newton-level truth, but, as detestable as a girl resorting to fat-shaming and having a giant bodyguard is, my little girl is basically telling both the fans and the press, the two bodies of people you need to keep the wrestling business alive, to collectively go fuck themselves.
Why? What was she even expecting from me? I used to feel so guilty about not bringing her with me when I came back, but she wasn’t ready. She. Wasn’t. Ready. She thought she was, but I bet she thought she was when she was in diapers. Not that I’d know but whatever.
I wish she didn’t hate the past few years. She saw the world. She lived her dream. Wrestling is not glamorous. It’s a stupid amount of work that for most of us leads to nothing but being easily forgotten.
She told me once she wanted to follow in my footsteps. Well, guess what sweetie, it took me over 13 years to get a major World title. If it takes her until 2029 to get the belt around her waist, she’d probably consider herself a failure...
...when actually she’d be ahead of schedule.
