Post by distortedamber on Aug 14, 2022 20:34:53 GMT -5
… “Attention, attention ‘cause this ain’t a stunt
The judges are racist, the juries corrupt
The shelves are all empty, but the seats are all filled
You’re a shiny new penny, I’m a hundred dollar bill.”...
‘Attention, Attention’ - Shinedown
Predators in the wild were rarely to ever be approached without extreme caution, after all, many innocent wildebeest had been sacrificed across centuries of nature documentaries. Countless prey continually and consistently fed to all numbers of gnashing teeth- if only to prove why the food chain was designed to be wrapped around the throats of those unwilling to accept their position.
Never mind the fact that David Attenborough had an oddly loyal cult following in the prison ASMR community…
“Avalon, do I look stupid…”
Yeah, predators. Faced with an almost certainly fatal rhetoric, Avalon shook herself partially back to reality and out of the hazy requiem of the African savannahs where she had decided she’d much rather take her chances with a pride of starving lions, than toy the crooked smile of the redhead lazing uneasily into the sofa across from her.
In hopes she’d simply imagined the question, the younger woman didn’t respond immediately- after all, stupid games certainly won stupid prizes and Avalon hadn’t anticipated even getting through the door. Amber Ryan was a notoriously cagey character- some argued it was the only reason she’d survived this long, although others would be equally quick to argue it's why she hadn’t stayed dead either. Avalon suspected that Satan wasn’t quite ready to give up his thr---
“... of course I knew.”
As though a set of jaws closed like an unseen vice around her throat, Avalon’s reverie fell away abruptly leaving her with little more than jarring reality and a twinge in her stomach that she was sure must have been the combination of over-priced cream cheese and her Kraft sensibilities.
“Can you just repeat that, cause I swore I just smelt burnt toast… You didn’t just---”
Amber raised an eyebrow inquiringly, a gesture that Avalon had seen put grown men on their proverbial asses time and time again- generally helped by a vicious left hand admittedly, but the point still stood.
“Did we or did we not have an agree---”
Forced to her feet by the undying sense of indignation and the crushing realisation of what was intended- four years of her life, the end of her teenage years and the beginnings of her twenties spent malingering alongside those condemned by societies fluctuating taboos and trivialities. Many loudly proclaimed their innocence in hopes one day someone might believe them… whether true or otherwise.
“No, no, no, no… no. Hold the actual fuck up…”
An accusatory finger point filled Avalon with immediate regret, admonishing someone like Amber motherfucking Ryan in her sanctuary was akin to dancing naked before a parade of bears coming out of winter hibernation after bathing in offal for a week. Never EVER a good idea, yet somehow always more commonly practised than anticipated. Needless to say, Avalon had no intention of stopping either- regardless of what it might cost as four years of pent up fury and frustration bubbled over in a messy tirade of hurt and betrayal.
“You left me to ROT Red. You knew and you still let me walk in there surrounded by murders and thieves, you just let me wander off like a little lamb to the social slaughter. You knew I was innocent, and you still let everyone treat me like I was the biggest piece of shit going… you allowed everyone to believe I was guilty.
Hell, my fucking parents came to see me ONCE when I was in there- they were so uncomfortable with the idea that I had finally messed up that bad that they couldn’t bring themselves to come back.
YOU… Amber… YOU… Not even once, you know how many times I tried calling you? Everytime they offered me a pity phone call- it was your number I was dialling.
Hell, I thought I fucked it up the first few times it rang out- thought I was getting too excited, you know? Misdialed a number or something. I didn’t though… Did I?”
Something akin to molten lava trickled down Avalons cheek, cutting a swathe through her usual cocky demeanour. Four years of agony and loneliness manifesting in something so terribly heartfelt that her trademark arrogance had dissociated and was shaking its head in the corner of the room disappointedly. Wiping it away with the back of her hand, as though it wasn’t already blatantly visible to anyone within a 10 foot radius, Avalon forced a deep breath before locking eyes with the stony redhead.
“I bet you just looked at your phone every time it rang… and kept watching until it stopped. Until I stopped. Cause I did, I stopped calling after a while- thought about it a lot though. Kept telling myself that you were busy being Amber motherfucking Ryan, running this industry like some scarlet tyrant imposing her will upon the masses. Everyday bullshit, I suppose.”
Puffing out her cheeks briefly, Avalon drew down another sharp breath before lowering her hand gently.
“Day I got out- there wasn't anyone waiting. Not my Mom, not my Dad… Not my sisters. Sure as fuck you weren’t there either. I made excuses for you though- didn’t even bother doing it for family… I knew they weren’t gonna show. You though, I told myself you were busy… that you had something more important to do. A title to defend, a bitch to break- I don’t fucking know.
I spent every dollar I had, and about half of what I didn’t to get here in hopes you WOULDN’T be. How fucked up is that Red, I hoped that you wouldn’t even be here to justify the excuses I was trying to make for you…”
Trailing off, Avalon’s train of thought- long since derailed - finally came to a halt as a smouldering pile of twisted metal and good intentions written off the moment she opened her mouth. Adjusting in the leather chair, decidedly unmoved by Avalon’s verbal purge Amber cocked her head thoughtfully. No doubt the internal grind of gears as they turned between her ears would have filled the silence if it weren’t already so deafening.
“You didn’t let me finish.”
Coldly, to the point Avalon swore black and blue that the temperature dropped by 10 degrees as the syllables fell, Amber straightened up although remained seated. Hands pressed gently into the sofa seats beside her as though preparing to stand and face Avalons wrath, however the seconds passed and the redhead remained seated.
“Did we, Avalon, or did we not… have an agreement?”
Like a surgeon wielding words as a scalpel, Amber addressed Avalon clinically. Blue green steely stare cutting through whatever defences the younger woman might have found the nerve to throw up in defiance.
“Well yeah, but that's---”
Standing slowly, just the gesture was enough to cut Avalons thought off before fully formed.
“If I had bailed you out- what do you think would have happened? You’d have kept doing it, wouldn’t you?”
“No, I---”
“Avalon Blackthorn- shut the fuck up for two seconds and let me finish. You’d have kept going until you couldn’t- until there was a consequence. Until someone gave you a reason stop stop acting like you were untouchable.
It broke my fucking heart to see you go away for the one time you didn’t deserve it, but we made an agreement Avalon, I agreed to take you on as a student if you got your act together and stayed out of trouble---”
“... but it wasn’t my---”
“IT DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER!”
Exasperated, Amber’s cheeks flushed almost the same colour as her hair as her voice echoed in the intimate space.
“It doesn’t matter one bit, cause you didn’t listen, Avalon… You didn’t hold up your end of the agreement, and I couldn’t just break it cause I liked you. It was a lesson, one that still tears me up to have taught- but you’d never have learned otherwise and frankly? I’d much rather see you behind bars than in the ground.”
Avalon had rarely ever seen the redhead be this impassioned beyond ropes and canvas, a flair of something real behind the impassive facade that many thought left her concrete to the bone. As such, she found herself barely able to choke out a response… something meaningful that might bridge the gap between them and resurrect what had been razed.
“I’m sorry Red, I really am.”
Running a hand through the crimson tresses, Amber sighed loudly.
“It's not about being sorry anymore, Ava. You got to be sorry for four years. It's about learning- and you decided you were better than what I had to teach. You obviously know everything now… just like every 20 something does.”
“Amber…”
“Don’t you dare try and ‘Amber’ me, you terminated our arrangement, not me. It's not up to me to save you, never has been… In this fucked up world- the only person that will ever have your back, is yourself. Stand tall, but stand alone Avalon- that way no one can ever disappoint you.”
******
“First time is a fluke, the second time is a happy accident… Third time though, third time is always a charm.
Let's be real though, there are going to be those who put the fact that we got through down to sheer dumb luck and the fact our opponents were too busy trying to ruin each others day, than ours.
Those people, you see, are what are collectively known as ‘wrong’.
I can see where the mistake might be easy to make though, it's a logical process that's very easily mixed up with one's own fear and misgivings that- they too- will fail to measure up. All credit to Dane and Joe though, aside from spending just as much of the match contemplating kicking the shit out of each other as they were actively kicking the shit out of my partner, they brought their ‘A-game’ which unfortunately on this night amounted to butter knives in a gunfight.
Man, let me tell you… I’ve seen some butter knives fuck some people up too.
Here's where I think you might have gone wrong, gentlemen, if I could be so bold. You took one look at us and immediately saw yourselves in the finals and trying on some spiffy looking Power Gloves. You flashed forward while failing to realise your delusion was purely based on the concussion you received while I was ‘dancing on the blacktop’ so to speak.
You saw greatness and failed to realise it wasn’t just the mirror you were preaching to, you got lost in your own grandeur completely forgetting that sometimes being ‘good’ just isn't good enough. You wanted it, but not as much as you wanted to fluff your own resumes and pad those win-loss columns.
Don’t you worry though, we’ll make sure that your humiliation isn’t nearly as in vain as you might come to think… Speaking of vanity- you know your narcissism has reached critical levels when you’ve self-pronounced yourself as royalty without a single shred of irony or self-awareness about how stupid sovereignty is without achievement to justify it.
Really, what I’m asking is… who died and made you God?
Well, kind of.
Let's be real here- what have either of you done that even qualifies you to call yourselves anything other than schizophrenics who have replaced their meds with tabs of expired acid?
I mean there's ANOTHER Montouri acting like a teacup dog crammed in a fake Prada handbag, being wielded as a guard dog against a self-proclaimed queen of literally nothing and no one. Maybe I’m misremembering from school but I get the sneaking suspicion that the only place in the USA that functions under the idea of a monarchy might be your household.
Oh and literally every other pro-wrestler calling themselves ‘Royals’ cause originality died an agonising death of a thousand ironic cuts.
Maybe I’m a little too new in all this to ‘get it’ and maybe someone with a little more tenure that isn’t currently dosing on a ketamine cocktail so the voices tell them that it's absolutely a swell idea to marry a narcissistic sociopath with a princess complex can tell me otherwise but… Why is it that those who proclaim so loudly of their own greatness always seem to be the ones who have the least entitlement to bragging about anything other than how easily they are lulled into pyramid schemes and plastic surgery.
Don’t you worry Michelle, I’ll gladly help you justify yet ANOTHER poorly executed rhinoplasty in this case.
See, Shane and I aren’t ‘majestic’. We aren’t parading around throwing coins to the peasants or flitting our eyelashes as we look down upon those we don’t deem worth our time- mostly because we are those people undeserving of anyone's time.
Sure, we might have won our first match together- but we haven’t really EARNED anything yet, not really. Shane is, and he won’t mind me saying this, a terrible fucking human being that likely has no right to a contract and should be escorted out of the building the moment he arrives. Still, I make him look like a saint in comparison…I mean, I’ve had two matches in Level Up. Two matches and I’m wrestling in a tournament semi-final… There truly is no god, nor justice.
However- just cause we don’t deserve it. Not only in the eyes of many, but in ourselves… Doesn't mean we don’t belong here. We are here in this match BECAUSE we don’t deserve it, we are here IN SPITE of it. In spite of all logic, karma and sense…Shane Donovan and Avalon Blackthorn are in the Multiplayer Gauntlet semi-finals and I’ve got no doubt that it makes plenty of people sick to their stomachs.
We aren’t some charity cases though, we didn’t just slip slide on into this position- you can hate that we are here, you can hate how we got here. Hell, hate that we were given the chance to begin with. We have WORKED for this… we are the REDEMPTION ARC of this tournament. We are the ones who weren’t supposed to succeed and not only are we doing it, but we are doing it better than anyone else around us.
Royalty is inherited, it's inbred to the point that the blood gets thick and the mind a little hazy. You don;t become it, you just are- you don’t wake up one day and think that todays the day i put a crown on my head and call myself a princess. No sweetie, that's when your sugar daddy has a heart attack cause you mixed up his medications again- accidentally on purpose.
Royalty is passed down through war and famine, through hardship- the hardship shouldn’t have to be listening to you talking about why anyone should care about your stupid fucking wedding. No one cares, they didn’t to begin with and they sure as fuck don’t now. Please, just go fuck your brother uncle husband and keep those genes alive and badly mutating.
Maybe instead of worrying whether the Power Gloves are going to ruin your matching manicure and pastel nightmare colour schemes- worry about whether you can afford the plastic surgery it's going to take to put Humpty Dumpty back together again to such a point that they resemble something more humane than the smashed crabs you’re already sporting. Worry about your reputation becoming more of a joke than it already is, given your line of succession is just a teacup dog that sounds less threatening than Shane’s morning gas exchange with the bathroom.
Worry that you’re another footnote, another asterisk in the beginning pages of a story to be foretold…
Worry that you already had your chance- you have had every option and opportunity to take the gifts society has blessed you with, the fortunes you have been born into, the status that you declare so proudly… Every advantage, every chance, every ability- and that you’ve managed to do absolutely nothing with it except use it as a fucking crutch.
Shane and I, we are lepers. We are outcasts. We don’t get the second chances, we don’t get the ‘try and try agains’- there will always be another shot at these power gloves for people like you.
… and if that doesn’t depress the fuck out of anyone with two brain cells to rub together, then perhaps you might wanna get that checked.
Perhaps as an expert I can be allowed to say this with certainty- you both just… ugh. You both just disappoint the fuck out of me. See, the thing is- if you lose this match, there are no consequences for you except for another notch in a fast growing tally of marks that you so blissfully choose not to acknowledge. You walk away from this match and you go on with your lives and pretend like this was just a ‘bad night’.
We don’t get bad nights. We don’t get to turn the other cheek to our failures- those shortcomings are held up to the light and examined through a microscope before we’ve done anything wrong. We get one fucking shot to do right in this tournament… One shot before we’re relegated to catering waiting for the AI to input our names into the jobber shuffle again.
I dunno, maybe I just expected a better quality of opponent, ones who actually want to win… to represent… to be the fucking best- but I guess I’m coming to realise real quick that if we want better… we have to be the ones to create it.
… and we will.
One set of broken teeth at a time.”
“... and then, BOOM, curbstomp like a boss.”
Perhaps the only thing more impressive than Avalon’s euphoric hyper-paced recount to Shane of the match they competed in mere hours earlier, was the fact that her excitable hand flourish didn’t immediately clear their cramped high table full of glasses like a terribly performed magic trick. A brief chink of glasses as they tumbled into each other, but no major casualties- not that Avalon noticed as the beer bottle inctinctively found it's way to her lips again despite there being little more than a dribble left to run down throat.
“1…2…"
“Avalon, I was there. Remember?”
Sheepishly, Avalon shrugged off the reminder- never allowing the truth to get in the way of a good story. It still hadn’t sunk in really yet, their confidence had always been sky high- even when they’d had no reason and little hope of doing anything more than putting on a good show.
They did more than that though, they won… they actually won. They were more than just black sheep making up numbers, more than throwaway cannon fodder for the ‘big names’ to get an easy draw against. More than anything anyone else bargained for- especially Avalon herself.
“I mean, yeah… I suppose. It's just…man, we were so damn good, you know!?
Everyone on that roster, everyone sitting behind desks tapping names on screens, everyone writing names on checks and contracts… They all know who the fuck we are now.”
Avalon quietly knew that it wasn’t all good attention, it put a target on their backs. Underdogs always found themselves under heavier fire cause flukes were never full of enough holes, there would always be that ‘big name’ looking to snuff out a wildfire while it was still an errant spark.
Inevitability was undoubtedly against them- but for the here and the now… They were still here. They deserved to be here.
“That's gotta be worth something.”
“You’re misreading the situation, they already knew who you were. Now they know why they should be afraid of you. You showed them you’re not some wet behind the ears rookie, but an actual threat.”
“We did. Plural.”
Avalon corrected with a crooked smile, the empty bottle eventually nestled between the hollowed carcasses of its prior brethren.
“Anyone who isn’t a moron already knew it about me. You though? They’re going to learn real quick just how fucking good Avalon Blackthorn is. Keep that up and you’re going to start keeping people awake at night. You should be damn proud of what you did out there, I know I am.”
Proud?
Perhaps looking real stupid in doing so, Avalon found herself frozen- as though she’d pressed pause on the world and was somehow the only one who’d stopped.
Why was that so jarring?
Why did it make her fingertips tingle and stomach do a backflip - perhaps the room temperature beer could have been blamed - however the more simple answer was just…she couldn’t recall the last time anyone had said it.
Huh.
Maybe Red was wrong after all.
The judges are racist, the juries corrupt
The shelves are all empty, but the seats are all filled
You’re a shiny new penny, I’m a hundred dollar bill.”...
‘Attention, Attention’ - Shinedown
Amber Ryan’s Apartment
Atlantic City, NJ
July 25th, 2021
Predators in the wild were rarely to ever be approached without extreme caution, after all, many innocent wildebeest had been sacrificed across centuries of nature documentaries. Countless prey continually and consistently fed to all numbers of gnashing teeth- if only to prove why the food chain was designed to be wrapped around the throats of those unwilling to accept their position.
Never mind the fact that David Attenborough had an oddly loyal cult following in the prison ASMR community…
“Avalon, do I look stupid…”
Yeah, predators. Faced with an almost certainly fatal rhetoric, Avalon shook herself partially back to reality and out of the hazy requiem of the African savannahs where she had decided she’d much rather take her chances with a pride of starving lions, than toy the crooked smile of the redhead lazing uneasily into the sofa across from her.
In hopes she’d simply imagined the question, the younger woman didn’t respond immediately- after all, stupid games certainly won stupid prizes and Avalon hadn’t anticipated even getting through the door. Amber Ryan was a notoriously cagey character- some argued it was the only reason she’d survived this long, although others would be equally quick to argue it's why she hadn’t stayed dead either. Avalon suspected that Satan wasn’t quite ready to give up his thr---
“... of course I knew.”
As though a set of jaws closed like an unseen vice around her throat, Avalon’s reverie fell away abruptly leaving her with little more than jarring reality and a twinge in her stomach that she was sure must have been the combination of over-priced cream cheese and her Kraft sensibilities.
“Can you just repeat that, cause I swore I just smelt burnt toast… You didn’t just---”
Amber raised an eyebrow inquiringly, a gesture that Avalon had seen put grown men on their proverbial asses time and time again- generally helped by a vicious left hand admittedly, but the point still stood.
“Did we or did we not have an agree---”
Forced to her feet by the undying sense of indignation and the crushing realisation of what was intended- four years of her life, the end of her teenage years and the beginnings of her twenties spent malingering alongside those condemned by societies fluctuating taboos and trivialities. Many loudly proclaimed their innocence in hopes one day someone might believe them… whether true or otherwise.
“No, no, no, no… no. Hold the actual fuck up…”
An accusatory finger point filled Avalon with immediate regret, admonishing someone like Amber motherfucking Ryan in her sanctuary was akin to dancing naked before a parade of bears coming out of winter hibernation after bathing in offal for a week. Never EVER a good idea, yet somehow always more commonly practised than anticipated. Needless to say, Avalon had no intention of stopping either- regardless of what it might cost as four years of pent up fury and frustration bubbled over in a messy tirade of hurt and betrayal.
“You left me to ROT Red. You knew and you still let me walk in there surrounded by murders and thieves, you just let me wander off like a little lamb to the social slaughter. You knew I was innocent, and you still let everyone treat me like I was the biggest piece of shit going… you allowed everyone to believe I was guilty.
Hell, my fucking parents came to see me ONCE when I was in there- they were so uncomfortable with the idea that I had finally messed up that bad that they couldn’t bring themselves to come back.
YOU… Amber… YOU… Not even once, you know how many times I tried calling you? Everytime they offered me a pity phone call- it was your number I was dialling.
Hell, I thought I fucked it up the first few times it rang out- thought I was getting too excited, you know? Misdialed a number or something. I didn’t though… Did I?”
Something akin to molten lava trickled down Avalons cheek, cutting a swathe through her usual cocky demeanour. Four years of agony and loneliness manifesting in something so terribly heartfelt that her trademark arrogance had dissociated and was shaking its head in the corner of the room disappointedly. Wiping it away with the back of her hand, as though it wasn’t already blatantly visible to anyone within a 10 foot radius, Avalon forced a deep breath before locking eyes with the stony redhead.
“I bet you just looked at your phone every time it rang… and kept watching until it stopped. Until I stopped. Cause I did, I stopped calling after a while- thought about it a lot though. Kept telling myself that you were busy being Amber motherfucking Ryan, running this industry like some scarlet tyrant imposing her will upon the masses. Everyday bullshit, I suppose.”
Puffing out her cheeks briefly, Avalon drew down another sharp breath before lowering her hand gently.
“Day I got out- there wasn't anyone waiting. Not my Mom, not my Dad… Not my sisters. Sure as fuck you weren’t there either. I made excuses for you though- didn’t even bother doing it for family… I knew they weren’t gonna show. You though, I told myself you were busy… that you had something more important to do. A title to defend, a bitch to break- I don’t fucking know.
I spent every dollar I had, and about half of what I didn’t to get here in hopes you WOULDN’T be. How fucked up is that Red, I hoped that you wouldn’t even be here to justify the excuses I was trying to make for you…”
Trailing off, Avalon’s train of thought- long since derailed - finally came to a halt as a smouldering pile of twisted metal and good intentions written off the moment she opened her mouth. Adjusting in the leather chair, decidedly unmoved by Avalon’s verbal purge Amber cocked her head thoughtfully. No doubt the internal grind of gears as they turned between her ears would have filled the silence if it weren’t already so deafening.
“You didn’t let me finish.”
Coldly, to the point Avalon swore black and blue that the temperature dropped by 10 degrees as the syllables fell, Amber straightened up although remained seated. Hands pressed gently into the sofa seats beside her as though preparing to stand and face Avalons wrath, however the seconds passed and the redhead remained seated.
“Did we, Avalon, or did we not… have an agreement?”
Like a surgeon wielding words as a scalpel, Amber addressed Avalon clinically. Blue green steely stare cutting through whatever defences the younger woman might have found the nerve to throw up in defiance.
“Well yeah, but that's---”
Standing slowly, just the gesture was enough to cut Avalons thought off before fully formed.
“If I had bailed you out- what do you think would have happened? You’d have kept doing it, wouldn’t you?”
“No, I---”
“Avalon Blackthorn- shut the fuck up for two seconds and let me finish. You’d have kept going until you couldn’t- until there was a consequence. Until someone gave you a reason stop stop acting like you were untouchable.
It broke my fucking heart to see you go away for the one time you didn’t deserve it, but we made an agreement Avalon, I agreed to take you on as a student if you got your act together and stayed out of trouble---”
“... but it wasn’t my---”
“IT DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER!”
Exasperated, Amber’s cheeks flushed almost the same colour as her hair as her voice echoed in the intimate space.
“It doesn’t matter one bit, cause you didn’t listen, Avalon… You didn’t hold up your end of the agreement, and I couldn’t just break it cause I liked you. It was a lesson, one that still tears me up to have taught- but you’d never have learned otherwise and frankly? I’d much rather see you behind bars than in the ground.”
Avalon had rarely ever seen the redhead be this impassioned beyond ropes and canvas, a flair of something real behind the impassive facade that many thought left her concrete to the bone. As such, she found herself barely able to choke out a response… something meaningful that might bridge the gap between them and resurrect what had been razed.
“I’m sorry Red, I really am.”
Running a hand through the crimson tresses, Amber sighed loudly.
“It's not about being sorry anymore, Ava. You got to be sorry for four years. It's about learning- and you decided you were better than what I had to teach. You obviously know everything now… just like every 20 something does.”
“Amber…”
“Don’t you dare try and ‘Amber’ me, you terminated our arrangement, not me. It's not up to me to save you, never has been… In this fucked up world- the only person that will ever have your back, is yourself. Stand tall, but stand alone Avalon- that way no one can ever disappoint you.”
******
“First time is a fluke, the second time is a happy accident… Third time though, third time is always a charm.
Let's be real though, there are going to be those who put the fact that we got through down to sheer dumb luck and the fact our opponents were too busy trying to ruin each others day, than ours.
Those people, you see, are what are collectively known as ‘wrong’.
I can see where the mistake might be easy to make though, it's a logical process that's very easily mixed up with one's own fear and misgivings that- they too- will fail to measure up. All credit to Dane and Joe though, aside from spending just as much of the match contemplating kicking the shit out of each other as they were actively kicking the shit out of my partner, they brought their ‘A-game’ which unfortunately on this night amounted to butter knives in a gunfight.
Man, let me tell you… I’ve seen some butter knives fuck some people up too.
Here's where I think you might have gone wrong, gentlemen, if I could be so bold. You took one look at us and immediately saw yourselves in the finals and trying on some spiffy looking Power Gloves. You flashed forward while failing to realise your delusion was purely based on the concussion you received while I was ‘dancing on the blacktop’ so to speak.
You saw greatness and failed to realise it wasn’t just the mirror you were preaching to, you got lost in your own grandeur completely forgetting that sometimes being ‘good’ just isn't good enough. You wanted it, but not as much as you wanted to fluff your own resumes and pad those win-loss columns.
Don’t you worry though, we’ll make sure that your humiliation isn’t nearly as in vain as you might come to think… Speaking of vanity- you know your narcissism has reached critical levels when you’ve self-pronounced yourself as royalty without a single shred of irony or self-awareness about how stupid sovereignty is without achievement to justify it.
Really, what I’m asking is… who died and made you God?
Well, kind of.
Let's be real here- what have either of you done that even qualifies you to call yourselves anything other than schizophrenics who have replaced their meds with tabs of expired acid?
I mean there's ANOTHER Montouri acting like a teacup dog crammed in a fake Prada handbag, being wielded as a guard dog against a self-proclaimed queen of literally nothing and no one. Maybe I’m misremembering from school but I get the sneaking suspicion that the only place in the USA that functions under the idea of a monarchy might be your household.
Oh and literally every other pro-wrestler calling themselves ‘Royals’ cause originality died an agonising death of a thousand ironic cuts.
Maybe I’m a little too new in all this to ‘get it’ and maybe someone with a little more tenure that isn’t currently dosing on a ketamine cocktail so the voices tell them that it's absolutely a swell idea to marry a narcissistic sociopath with a princess complex can tell me otherwise but… Why is it that those who proclaim so loudly of their own greatness always seem to be the ones who have the least entitlement to bragging about anything other than how easily they are lulled into pyramid schemes and plastic surgery.
Don’t you worry Michelle, I’ll gladly help you justify yet ANOTHER poorly executed rhinoplasty in this case.
See, Shane and I aren’t ‘majestic’. We aren’t parading around throwing coins to the peasants or flitting our eyelashes as we look down upon those we don’t deem worth our time- mostly because we are those people undeserving of anyone's time.
Sure, we might have won our first match together- but we haven’t really EARNED anything yet, not really. Shane is, and he won’t mind me saying this, a terrible fucking human being that likely has no right to a contract and should be escorted out of the building the moment he arrives. Still, I make him look like a saint in comparison…I mean, I’ve had two matches in Level Up. Two matches and I’m wrestling in a tournament semi-final… There truly is no god, nor justice.
However- just cause we don’t deserve it. Not only in the eyes of many, but in ourselves… Doesn't mean we don’t belong here. We are here in this match BECAUSE we don’t deserve it, we are here IN SPITE of it. In spite of all logic, karma and sense…Shane Donovan and Avalon Blackthorn are in the Multiplayer Gauntlet semi-finals and I’ve got no doubt that it makes plenty of people sick to their stomachs.
We aren’t some charity cases though, we didn’t just slip slide on into this position- you can hate that we are here, you can hate how we got here. Hell, hate that we were given the chance to begin with. We have WORKED for this… we are the REDEMPTION ARC of this tournament. We are the ones who weren’t supposed to succeed and not only are we doing it, but we are doing it better than anyone else around us.
Royalty is inherited, it's inbred to the point that the blood gets thick and the mind a little hazy. You don;t become it, you just are- you don’t wake up one day and think that todays the day i put a crown on my head and call myself a princess. No sweetie, that's when your sugar daddy has a heart attack cause you mixed up his medications again- accidentally on purpose.
Royalty is passed down through war and famine, through hardship- the hardship shouldn’t have to be listening to you talking about why anyone should care about your stupid fucking wedding. No one cares, they didn’t to begin with and they sure as fuck don’t now. Please, just go fuck your brother uncle husband and keep those genes alive and badly mutating.
Maybe instead of worrying whether the Power Gloves are going to ruin your matching manicure and pastel nightmare colour schemes- worry about whether you can afford the plastic surgery it's going to take to put Humpty Dumpty back together again to such a point that they resemble something more humane than the smashed crabs you’re already sporting. Worry about your reputation becoming more of a joke than it already is, given your line of succession is just a teacup dog that sounds less threatening than Shane’s morning gas exchange with the bathroom.
Worry that you’re another footnote, another asterisk in the beginning pages of a story to be foretold…
Worry that you already had your chance- you have had every option and opportunity to take the gifts society has blessed you with, the fortunes you have been born into, the status that you declare so proudly… Every advantage, every chance, every ability- and that you’ve managed to do absolutely nothing with it except use it as a fucking crutch.
Shane and I, we are lepers. We are outcasts. We don’t get the second chances, we don’t get the ‘try and try agains’- there will always be another shot at these power gloves for people like you.
… and if that doesn’t depress the fuck out of anyone with two brain cells to rub together, then perhaps you might wanna get that checked.
Perhaps as an expert I can be allowed to say this with certainty- you both just… ugh. You both just disappoint the fuck out of me. See, the thing is- if you lose this match, there are no consequences for you except for another notch in a fast growing tally of marks that you so blissfully choose not to acknowledge. You walk away from this match and you go on with your lives and pretend like this was just a ‘bad night’.
We don’t get bad nights. We don’t get to turn the other cheek to our failures- those shortcomings are held up to the light and examined through a microscope before we’ve done anything wrong. We get one fucking shot to do right in this tournament… One shot before we’re relegated to catering waiting for the AI to input our names into the jobber shuffle again.
I dunno, maybe I just expected a better quality of opponent, ones who actually want to win… to represent… to be the fucking best- but I guess I’m coming to realise real quick that if we want better… we have to be the ones to create it.
… and we will.
One set of broken teeth at a time.”
Jerry’s Bar and Lounge
Milwaukee, WI
August 2nd, 2022
“... and then, BOOM, curbstomp like a boss.”
Perhaps the only thing more impressive than Avalon’s euphoric hyper-paced recount to Shane of the match they competed in mere hours earlier, was the fact that her excitable hand flourish didn’t immediately clear their cramped high table full of glasses like a terribly performed magic trick. A brief chink of glasses as they tumbled into each other, but no major casualties- not that Avalon noticed as the beer bottle inctinctively found it's way to her lips again despite there being little more than a dribble left to run down throat.
“1…2…"
“Avalon, I was there. Remember?”
Sheepishly, Avalon shrugged off the reminder- never allowing the truth to get in the way of a good story. It still hadn’t sunk in really yet, their confidence had always been sky high- even when they’d had no reason and little hope of doing anything more than putting on a good show.
They did more than that though, they won… they actually won. They were more than just black sheep making up numbers, more than throwaway cannon fodder for the ‘big names’ to get an easy draw against. More than anything anyone else bargained for- especially Avalon herself.
“I mean, yeah… I suppose. It's just…man, we were so damn good, you know!?
Everyone on that roster, everyone sitting behind desks tapping names on screens, everyone writing names on checks and contracts… They all know who the fuck we are now.”
Avalon quietly knew that it wasn’t all good attention, it put a target on their backs. Underdogs always found themselves under heavier fire cause flukes were never full of enough holes, there would always be that ‘big name’ looking to snuff out a wildfire while it was still an errant spark.
Inevitability was undoubtedly against them- but for the here and the now… They were still here. They deserved to be here.
“That's gotta be worth something.”
“You’re misreading the situation, they already knew who you were. Now they know why they should be afraid of you. You showed them you’re not some wet behind the ears rookie, but an actual threat.”
“We did. Plural.”
Avalon corrected with a crooked smile, the empty bottle eventually nestled between the hollowed carcasses of its prior brethren.
“Anyone who isn’t a moron already knew it about me. You though? They’re going to learn real quick just how fucking good Avalon Blackthorn is. Keep that up and you’re going to start keeping people awake at night. You should be damn proud of what you did out there, I know I am.”
Proud?
Perhaps looking real stupid in doing so, Avalon found herself frozen- as though she’d pressed pause on the world and was somehow the only one who’d stopped.
Why was that so jarring?
Why did it make her fingertips tingle and stomach do a backflip - perhaps the room temperature beer could have been blamed - however the more simple answer was just…she couldn’t recall the last time anyone had said it.
Huh.
Maybe Red was wrong after all.
