ML – 2021.001
“Apart, Together”

 

Magdalena Marie Lockheart was where she had always been since returning from the hospital months ago. The old, decrepit farmhouse that she once visited somehow became a place to call her own. To her, this place didn’t feel like it was hers. It was hardly familiar. Even as she rested on the bed in the first-floor study; it still felt crazy to look around and think that all of the books on the shelves, the draft-laden windows, and the century-dated wallpaper coverings were all included in the paperwork that put this house and the acres it sat on in her name.

She had said her goodbyes to Morrie. Before he left, he offered to help out as much as he could, yet the nature of his business called him elsewhere. Amber Caldwell was, for all intents-and-purposes, stuck in New York. Mac Bane wasn’t calling as much as he used to; in fact, he wasn’t calling at all lately. For some time it was just Maggie and her thoughts, and a few ghosts in the halls – should one believe in such things.

Yes, the showers and baths were as long as they were hot. Perhaps because the list of chores never seemed to get any shorter, and for a while, there was no one here to share them with. For these past few months, Maggie’s number one priority was to stay here and rest and get herself better before she’d be willing to entertain thoughts of what her future might be. But even resting grows tiresome over a long enough time. She had to find something to take her mind off of all of this nothingness.

Everything about the house spoke of the previous owners’ tastes. What wasn’t broken or rundown served only as a sort of time-capsule, but the memories inside it weren’t familiar to Maggie in the slightest. It only made the feeling of not being in sync with her identity grow. It was because of this, she reasoned, that it was okay to take risks with setbacks on her physical well-being to protect something even more valuable.

One of the previous owners was never going to come back to this place, not in this lifetime, she thought. The other? They’d never be allowed to leave.

So it didn’t matter what they would think about her fixing up the place. If she could make it into her own, she thought, then she might find a bit of herself in the process. Because the one thing Maggie obsessed over, more than anything else, was to find the missing puzzle pieces that made her feel like her.

Her patience waned as she waited. She knew it wasn’t going to be easy. Any answer that was worth it wouldn’t be. But it was another lonely night in a string of similar nights, surrounded by volumes of texts flanked by a blank television screen that could do her no more good. Her seemingly glowing ‘mako’ green eyes chose, instead, to stare at a midpoint distance directed at the nicotine-stained ceiling above and just reflect about the point (or points) in her life where everything went wrong. As she laid there, she thought about all of the things she wished she would be doing instead and about the people that she missed dearly. Every avenue back toward happiness seemed like a dead end. For a brief moment, tomorrow seemed about as unchangeable as yesterday, and she was convinced that there would be no more surprises left to be had.

That was until her phone rang.

 

 

 

The Next Morning
(Off-Camera)

It was the first time in months that Maggie had set an alarm.

The list goes on.

It was the first time that she woke up with real, impassioned enthusiasm. It was the first time since living here in the backwoods of Maryland that she unpacked her travel bag. It was the first time that she wore her jewelry, applied lipstick, and slipped on her favorite pair of high-heeled boots. It was the first time that she enjoyed the breakfast she made for herself. The first time that she sat around for the clock on her phone to reach a specific time before it would be alright to call.

When that moment came, she was ready. Her eyes were trained on it. She knew when the time had reached 6:30 because she had been counting it down by the second. An itchy trigger finger couldn’t wait to smash the green call button. Her nervous teeth nibbled on an anxious bottom lip. The phone rang once, twice, three times before the call was picked up and a sleepy voice came through from the other end.

“Maggie? My… you’re up early.” Amber Caldwell, now a manager at The Paper Street Tattoo Company, said as she answered only after checking the caller ID. Coming off as a bit woozy, she sat up in her bed over 200 miles away. “Everything alright?”

“Everything’s fine, Am,” Maggie replied as she tapped her fingernail on the kitchen table. “You’re just never going to guess who called last-“

“Hmm. Was it Cherie?”

“How did you-?”

Maggie heard what sounded like rustling on the other end.

“She called a few days ago,” Amber explained while trying to maintain her calm demeanor. “She wanted to make sure it was okay with me before she talked to you. I’m not sure why… it’s not like we’re still-“

“Oh, right.” Maggie paused briefly to process this. “Yeah, that was real kind of her to do that, all things considered.”

“Real kind for someone trying to exploit you.” Amber snapped back. “If we’re being completely honest, anyway.”

Amber grunted as she pulled over the covers and pushed herself up out of the bed. Leaving it, she found, was getting more difficult with each passing morning. Responsibilities piled up like dirty clothes in a hamper, if the washing machine was broken and all of the local laundromats were shut down.

Maggie didn’t offer much in the terms of a response. But Amber could sense her tensions through the phone.

“So, what? Are you considering going back, or-?” Am shook her head. “Nevermind. You wouldn’t be calling me if you weren’t.”

“It’s a real big opportunity for me, Am.” Maggie pleaded. “I can just do a one-off. An exhibition match. Just to see if I still got it before I call it a career for good.”

“…and what? You’re expecting me to say no?”

“I’m not expecting you to understand.”

“I don’t understand.” Amber cut back with the sharpness and strength of a cleaver. “I get that you don’t feel like yourself, that you haven’t since the attack. And I get that, for some reason, this CJ guy meant a lot to you. But don’t you think it’s strange that he gives you his house?”

“Well, yeah. But it’s not like he had any kids though. So I guess not.”

Amber buried her forehead in the palm of her hand.

“Just because he gave it to you, didn’t mean that you had to make that place your life. I understood staying there while you couldn’t travel. But even though you’re… struggling, you have friends here. You have a family here. You have a life-“

“Maggie had a life.”

Amber sighed.

“I’m not going to argue with you. If you really think that putting yourself back in harm’s way is what’s best for you, who am I to stop you?”

The words cut through Maggie at the speed of sound. No shield or barrier could have stopped them, much less softened the blow.

Even though most of her memories before the attack felt familiar only in the same way that recurring dreams do, it didn’t change the fact that she had since reestablished a closeness to Amber in the days, weeks, months that followed. Amber was there with her every step of the way. That was until a while ago when Amber received a message that her parents weren’t doing well on their own and that they needed her presence in upstate New York to get through the rigors of the ongoing global pandemic. Maggie was not yet cleared to fly, and with her head injury being as it was, riding such a distance wasn’t without its own set of risks.

It was a tough call to make. With an emergency on one hand and the stress of dealing with Maggie and her condition on another, the tough choice that Amber had to make ended up doing more damage than either of them would have wanted it to.

Amber pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. “Have you at least spoken to Mac about it? Ask him what he thinks?”

“I haven’t heard from Mac in over a week,” Maggie replied, her voice chattering. “I’m not sure if I said anything I shouldn’t have or what. I don’t know.”

“Well then, I don’t know what to tell you Mags. Are you one-hundred percent sure that you feel up to this?”

“I… I think so.”

“Because if you get hurt again, you know that I won’t be able to be there for you this time.”

Maggie tried her best to hide the verbal signs that came along with the tears that were welling up in her eyes.

“I know Amb.”

“You just… do what you think is best for yourself, alright? I’ve got to go. Just think it over, really think about it before you make a decision, okay?”

“I will.”

“I’ll text you later and let you know when we can talk again. Please take care of yourself. I love you. Bye.”

“Bye.”

As Maggie hung up the phone, her hands shook worse than they had in a long time. Her makeup was ruined by the tears she let flow.

Then she saw him standing in the doorway.

 

 

“So how is Amber doing?”

Later that same day, Maggie had taken an Uber to perhaps the strangest of places. Cherie Von Allen, known to most people as the daughter of Marcus Von Allen (Dr. Winn), had invited her not to the Carnage Network offices, but her home.

By now Maggie had fixed her makeup. By fixed, Maggie had decided it was best to just remove it altogether and start over with something much more minimal in its conception. Most of the jewelry was gone, too. Despite the silvery hair, the simple black shirt, and the tight faded blue jeans, the only part she kept that stood out in this Magdalena Lockheart costume was the high-heeled boots that in her mind weren’t worth the effort of peeling off in the first place.

She struggled to answer as she dragged her nail along the edge of the coffee mug that she had cradled in her hands.

“I guess you already know that she went back up to live with her parents,” Maggie said, though she had stammered a bit. “They weren’t doing too well until she was able to go up and help them.”

“Aww, I’m sorry to hear that honey.” Cherie came off with sincerity. “But I’m glad that she was able to get up there. New York was shut down for a while, wasn’t it?”

Maggie nodded her head.

“Yep.”

“I guess all this COVID stuff wasn’t too good for the parlor, either. Speaking of, have you heard from Nadette? How are the girls lately?”

“Well,” Maggie pulled the coffee cup to her lips. She struggled to take a sip. “I haven’t heard from her recently. So I assume everything’s alright. She usually calls me when things get bad, so… I’ve been sending money to help supplement payroll. I tried to make it so that she didn’t have to lay anyone off, but, there’s only so much I could do.”

Cherie brought her own mug of freshly made coffee over to the table and sat down.

“I told you that the iron-clad contract would pay off,” Cher said about a contract that Magdalena Lockheart had signed directly through the network, Carnage Wrestling’s parent company. “I mean, at least you’ve been taken care of through all of this. I have no doubt in my mind that Paper Street will be back on its feet once all this crap is over.”

Cherie smiled across the table at Maggie.

“Speaking of, when this is all over, have you considered maybe you and Amber opening up a second shop down here in Maryland or…?”

Maggie shook her head.

“Cher, I can’t hold a pencil to doodle anymore. I can’t even keep my fingers still when I try to play guitar. I seriously doubt that I’m in the condition to put permanent marks on anyone… or that I’d even remember how.”

“Bah. You know I’ve had access to all of your medical records, right? There’s nothing physically wrong with your hands. All that stuff is in your head.”

“What isn’t?”

Cherie pursed her lips and nodded her head.

“It’s stress. I get it. You’ve been through a lot this past year. A lot of us have. But if I know anything about you, I know that you can and will get through this. If anyone can make a comeback, it’s you.”

Maggie lowered her gaze to her shaking hands.

“If only it were that easy,” Maggie replied as she pulled the mug up for another sip. “But thank you, I do appreciate what you said. It’s just, I don’t know where I fit into all of this anymore.”

Cherie chuckled. Her jovial nature caught Magdalena off-guard for a second.

“You’ve always been a part of our family. The Carnage family. Like it or not,” she explained. “You don’t think that the two-time UltraViolent Champion and the winner of the second Monarchy of Anarchy tournament doesn’t carry a bit of weight with her name in the boardroom?”

Even if she remembered doing those things, it was just like every other memory. She could play along with it, sure, but it never made her feel any less like they were someone else’s achievements altogether.

“I thought that they would have moved on from me after that whole Jenova thing…”

“Pssh. Nonsense.” Cherie was quick to snap her retort. “I liked it. You know, other than getting tangled up with you-know-who, I felt like you and Lucy had some great chemistry.”

“Well, we did date at one point-“

The flashbacks. Adrenaline shots of pure memory. Hyper-sensitive deja vu with an instant migraine hangover.

“I remember-“ Cherie replied before noticing Maggie clutching the side of her head. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Maggie responded with gritted teeth. “It’s just, every once in a while I get these headaches. They come and they go.”

“Oh. Well if it gets too bad I’ll ride you straight to the doctor myself, okay?” Cherie blew on her coffee. “I know Am would kill me if didn’t take full care of you.”

Maggie nodded her head repeatedly as she waited for the sharp pain behind her eyeball to dissipate.

“Honestly I’m surprised she didn’t hop on the first flight back to kick my ass the moment that I called. But as I told Amber, we’re not exactly exempt from hard times ourselves, to be honest. The fed needs you back. It needs your veteran presence in all this chaos, no pun intended.”

Maggie glanced up at Cher.

“So what you’re saying is, that you are trying to exploit me.”

“No, no.” Cherie quickly clapped back, “What in the world would make you think that?”

Cherie gestured with her hands as she spoke, a clear sign that she was passionate and truthful with the message she had hoped to portray.

“I’m not looking to exploit you. I can’t speak for the Network as a whole, but it is a business and you know that. With that being said, however, I’m perfectly fine if you say no. I’ll be sad if you are done-done. But it’s not like it’s going to stop those checks from coming in. Do you feel pressured? Because I can assure you, it was not my intention to make you feel any pressure at all. And you know, I wouldn’t even have asked if you weren’t already fully cleared by the doctor. If I truly thought that stepping back in the ring would make anything worse off for you then that offer would have never hit the edge of the table and you know that. I-“

Maggie put her hands up.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa… relax, Cher.” Maggie blinked a few times. “I wasn’t insinuating anything about you. I know this is a business like you said.”

“Yeah, but have you thought that maybe stepping back in the ring and getting back to what you’re good at might just be the medicine that you need?”

Maggie nodded her head. She traced her finger around the rim of the mug.

“That’s… why I’m here.”

“Absolutely, by all means.” Cherie clapped with excitement. “You can pick the day, the time, and hell, you can pick whatever opponent you want, too. It’s an open challenge. You just say the words, and I’ll make sure our arena will be all yours.”

 

 

…everything that follows is a result of what you see here…

 

The Carnage Arena
(On Camera)


The Carnage Arena stood in all of its glory, a structure dedicated to the memory of an ideal.

But her halls were hollow. The lines of folding chairs stood empty. To cut costs, the flow of electricity had been cut off at the panel in the very back. There was nothing to occupy the vast amounts of space between her walls except the occasional echo that would bounce off of them. Even the rodents that scattered about hadn’t seen such lifelessness since the period between when this old factory shut down its doors for good as a steel mill and the moment that ultraviolence had become its chief manufactured product.

It was the holiday break of 2020, and this was just another shutdown in a year all too familiar with the phrase and those similar. Everyone’s belts had been pulled a bit tighter. The arena itself felt a few degrees colder. Maggie knew from the moment that she first stepped in that the ground itself missed the worship of the Carnage Legion in its full, unadulterated glory. And she felt a bit of a connection there as if she wasn’t the only entity in this ungodly year that was feeling disjointed or disconnected with their primary essence. Empathically, she could feel the hurt that these grounds were going through.

They were lonely.

There was no presence to stop her from entering from the rampway. Nobody to tell her that she couldn’t play “Look What You Made Me Do” by Taylor Swift over her phone’s speaker to see if the act wouldn’t spark something, anything, that she could recall. She wasn’t donning her ring gear, instead, was still wearing her fluffy black coat with faux-fur around the sleeves and the hood. The inside of the building was just as cold as the streets were outside, but with about half of the bite from December’s unforgiving winds, particularly along the bay.

Maggie climbed the frozen steel steps and stepped through the ropes that had been left dangling at full slack. Once in the ring, she put her hands back into her coat pockets and glanced around. One set of turnbuckles, two, three, four. Many memories tried to push their way through much in the same way a devastating flood tries to push itself through the cracks in the dam. Hell, Maggie even partially remembered the attack. But it was nothing, no memory stood out and said ‘this is it, here I am, this is who you used to be’.

Maggie glanced up at the cameraman, who stood on-level with the ring about a few rows back. As the camera panned in, she could do nothing but shake her head.

“You know, Lucy, that I know… that you’ve been wondering since the very moment that I issued the challenge. You’ve been asking yourself, why, of all people, you would be the one I’d choose. Why would I, with all of our history, challenge you to a match in what will be this empty arena, where no one will watch except through a screen, the two of us battle it out for one more time with absolutely nothing on the line. You’ve been wondering, and that’s why I’ve come here today.”

Maggie walked to the near ropes.

“I want to dispel all of that. While I thank you graciously for accepting the challenge, I’d be remiss if we didn’t step into this arena in a few days with a clear mind and a clear conscience. You see, I’m not at luxury to make this message as… intimate… as I’d like to. But I do take pride in the fact that I’ve always known the type of person that you are, or that’s what I care to believe, at the very least.”

Maggie pulled her hands out of her coat pockets and placed them on the loose rope.

“I can’t tell you in good faith that I made the right call, but I can tell you that it was easy. Easier than it should have been. Of all of the memories that I hold near and dear to my heart, perhaps the most vivid among them are the memories of idolizing you as a child. Granted, I know things happened and a lot is different now… a lot has changed. But deep down in my heart of hearts, I know why I sought you out. I fully understand the motivations and the feelings I felt when I slid on your Jenova mask. But I also know that the vast majority of people around here do not understand the significance of your legacy just like I don’t understand your current choice of a life partner in general. If there ever was a close second on my list of memories, it’d be all the pain and anguish shared between myself and that chucklefuck you’ve been dragging along on your coattails. And it still saddens me deeply that he’ll ride the train of your wedding dress down the aisle in what I assume is the not-too-distant future.”

Maggie shook her head in disgust.

“As much as I love to dwell on mistakes… and to dwell on professional wrestling’s embodiment of a bad take… I no longer wish to waste my energy on failures. And I, too, have had plenty. More than I’d care to count sometimes.”

“What I’m getting at here is exactly the why in why I wanted to challenge you. Because I did fail. Lucy. I failed myself, I failed this federation, I failed the Legion, but in a special place in my heart, I failed you. I failed your legacy, more accurately, and I know the type of person you are. You might have given my past and yours a second glance in the days that followed. But a part of me knows that you’ve moved on already. Forgiveness has rarely been a struggle for you. Yet selfishly, I couldn’t reconcile this with the same grace that you possess.”

“If I’m to know if I still have it, or if I shouldn’t come back at all, I needed someone that I could trust that would lay these questions to rest. I could have challenged anyone. I could have picked a big scary monster. A Lord Raab or a Lab Rat King, for instance, the types that would fuck me up in an instant and go on about their day as if nothing important happened. I could have challenged a whole group of people for that matter. But at the end of the day, and you and I both know this, there’s nothing in it for them. At least here, and now, between the two of us – I’ve watched you struggle through the past few months – we know that there’s a certain magic that you only feel only in those certain moments when the lights are at their brightest. But it never was about the lights, was it? It was about standing toe to toe with the best.”

Maggie held her arms out as she stepped back into the center of the ring.

“And I know that’s you. At least, one of. And at one point in my life, maybe I had a right to say that about myself too. But I invited you, Lucy, to this ring, to give me everything that you have to bring. Consider this the last Christmas present that you’ll ever have to feel obligated to give me, Luce. I need your best. I need you to want to beat me.”

Maggie threw her arms down to her sides and sighed.

“But I can’t make you want it. I can’t make you not want to take it easy on me. I can’t offer you any assurance that you won’t ultimately hurt me so badly that I may never wrestle again. And I won’t be able to fix any guilt you might feel.”

“What I can assure you, though, is this. We don’t need a referee. We don’t need any trainers. We don’t need anything that can be remotely construed as a safety net. All I’m offering you is a moment. A moment with which to do something a little bit different to what you’ve grown accustomed to lately. I can promise you that when you show up and lace up your boots that I will be standing opposite you in this ring and I won’t be holding back. We can fight each other until either one of us or neither of us can fight anymore. And by the end of that session, whenever it may be, there will be no reason for any hard feelings between us. It can be a thrill for the sake of being thrilled. A brief moment in our lives where it feels like we’re the only two people in the entire world who knows what it feels like to be in complete control and have no control at all at the same time.”

Maggie stuffed her hands back into her pockets.

“So, what do you say, Lucy? Let’s battle it out once more if nothing else for old times’ sake. Either way, I’ll get my answer… and you’ll remain a woman of your word. Whatever changes may be in store for us, I say let them come. But let us find the truth together. I challenge you because I don’t need a monster. I needed a monster killer. I know deep down that you have just as many questions as I do. Your missing pieces remind me of the pieces that I can’t seem to fit together. Fight me, and let’s figure this out. Fight me, and let the broken parts of us find the answers in the only way we know how. Let us be as we were always meant to be. Together.”

“Even if we are… apart.”