Lucy had never owned a pet, but she’d wanted a dog for as long as she could remember. She hadn’t pulled the trigger on it because she didn’t want to subject the poor thing to the rigors and the schedule that a lifestyle such as hers brought to the table.

That didn’t mean she didn’t yearn for a set of fluffy ears and a wagging tail to greet her each evening when she came back home. It didn’t mean that she sometimes wished for a friend that couldn’t talk back, and couldn’t mock her for her decisions regarding her personal life. A set of big, friendly eyes that would love her and support her no matter what she did.

She sighed as she looked around the room she stood in, surrounded not by dogs, but by a barrage of cats… Big ones, fuzzy ones, angry looking ones.. Cats were nice. They purred at the very least.

But she wasn’t here to adopt one. No, someone with much more patience and adoration for these malicious looking creatures would have to take up that mantle.

As she knelt down to pet one of the more friendly residents of this cat shelter, she heard the door open behind her, along with a couple of familiar footfalls.

“So.. Things are more dire than we originally thought.”

The voice of Gabriel Baal comes through and Lucy shakes her head as she continues petting the small black and white cat as it rubs up against the leg of her not-so-black anymore pants.

“I’m not becoming a crazy cat lady.. For fucks sake.”

Lucy replies, rolling her eyes.

“If you’re truly that lonely, dear… I could call–”

“Don’t.”

She says, standing up and turning around to face the good doctor, a less than amused smirk on her lips.

“How many times do I have to tell you and your lovely wife that I’m fine before you two believe me?”

Gabriel shrugs his shoulders, a mischievous look in his eyes.

“We’re only trying to look out for you, my dear. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Right. So you just want me to be happy.”

“Exactly.”

Lucy chuckles and shakes her head as she turns her attention back to the feline residents of the room, moving closer to one of the angrier looking ones as it sits watching the two of them, perched on what looks like what used to be intact carpet. She couldn’t understand how the cats managed such destruction… But she wasn’t exactly put off by it either.

Sometimes she wished she could just lay around all day and shred things when the mood hit – without consequences or repercussions.

“You two have a funny way of showing it.”

She replies, her voice honeyed as she turns her head and gives Gabriel a brief smirk.

“I’m here because what Eden said earlier gave me a mild inspiration.”

“This… Is a mild inspiration? I would be both interested and worried to see what a major inspiration looks like..”

“That was last week.”

Lucy replies, referring to the inspiration that the now former Chaos champion had given her as she approached their match for the aforementioned championship. She stopped in front of the angry cat, watching its khaki colored ears raise and lower as it eyed her up suspiciously.

She couldn’t really blame the cat for being suspicious. She could only imagine what being pent up in a shelter like this does to an animal. Who really knows where this cat came from, what happened to it before it found its way into this safe, albeit lonely space. As she knelt down in front of it, their eyes level with one another – She heard Gabriel draw in a sharp breath.

“I wouldn’t-”

“Oh, it’s fine…”

Lucy said, slowly extending a hand towards kitties head, hoping that she wouldn’t regret it in a few moments. That and give Gabriel another reason to think that she’s any less than completely and utterly content with her life at the moment. As her hand gets closer, she watches the cats mannerisms closely, and while it doesn’t look thrilled that she’s trying to pet it – It’s not running away either, which gives Lucy confidence as her hand finally makes contact with its unbelievably soft head.

“See?”

As if a light-switch flipped, her new feline friend begun purring – its eyes closed as if it were finally able to relax. Lucy couldn’t help but smile.

“Kinda like Edie if you ask me… Angry and bitter exterior with a soft, needy interior. But you’d know better than anyone.”

Lucy mused to herself as she heard what she originally thought was a snicker coming from behind her.

“And she wouldn’t want me telling anyone, even if that were the case.”

“It’ll be our little secret.”

She replies, running her hand down the cat’s back, all the way to the tip of it’s furry little tail. With her attention solely on her new friend, Gabriel clears his throat as he steps in beside her, his eyes petting the cats from a distance, if one could even go that far.

“So..”

“So.”

Lucy replied, her voice seemingly far away as she turned her attention to another cat that had approached her from the side.

“You asked me here and I assumed you wanted something more than for me to share this cathartic experience with you.”

Lucy nods her head.

“Yeah, I was just wondering if you’d found out anything else about, you know.”

The smile fades from her lips, if only slightly as she references the situation that’s been on the back of her mind for months now. Gabriel nods his head, even if the only living things in the room that can see him do it are eight to ten cute, demonic creatures.

“Ah, yes. Well on that front, I have uncovered some more information.”

Lucy’s eyebrows raise but those words don’t do anything to pull her focus away from the cats in front of her, allowing her to love on them for the moment. It’s almost as if she wants to be distracted from whatever Gabriel is going to say.

“Huh. Well it’s probably nothing good.”

She manages to reply after a few moments, and after she’s seated herself on the floor – One arm extended above her to the ‘Eden-esque’ cat on the scratching post, and the other arm wrapped around a white ball of fluff that’s taken up residence on her lap.

Gabriel looks on, nonplussed.

“It seems that our friend Michael was the second in command for an organization that deals in the acquisition and trafficking of…”

His voice trails off and for a few moments, Lucy doesn’t notice. She just sits there, playing with the cats until after a few moments of silence (except for the soft purring on her lap) she looks up to realize that Gabriel is simply standing in front of her, staring down at her.

“…Of what?”

She finally asks, unsure that she actually wants to hear the answer. Gabriel sighs and shakes his head.

“… People, Lucy. Of people.”

He speaks the final word in a near whisper, Lucy’s eyes widening at the realization that this entire thing was much, much worse than she’d imagined. All her life, she just thought her father was an abusive piece of trash, who never wanted two daughters, and everything that happened since only affirmed that thought in Lucy’s mind.

That is, until now.

“Wow…”

That’s all Lucy can manage as she lets her arms fall to her sides, the cats looking at her confused at her sudden distance from them. One by one they moved away from her, to other parts of the room.

“People?”

Lucy asks, her eyes conveying a sense of disgust and bewilderment as she stares up at her friend who can only look at her with regret and possibly a tinge of pity. It takes Lucy a few more minutes to process what Gabriel said. She closes her eyes, and when she opens them the look of bewilderment is gone and only repulsion remains.

She moves to get up from the ground and Gabriel extends a hand, which Lucy grabs and he helps her back to her feet.

“You said, ‘second in command’… So does that mean–”

Gabriel nods his head.

“My father was the head of a.. Fuck, I can’t even say it. Jesus…”

Lucy turns her gaze away from Gabriel, again looking at this room filled with cats. Cats in a cage. Locked in day after day with no family, no home, no one to love them and in that instant she feels like one of them.

What she came from isn’t much different, locked up – wondering what she did to deserve the life she’d been given. Wondering if anyone would ever love her enough to take her away from the pain and the suffering… Wondering if she even deserved it to begin with. And while she knows she’s okay now. She’s fine for lack of a better word… In moments like this one, those negative feelings come flooding back in like a dam had just been opened.

“Lucy… Are you okay?”

She hears Gabriel’s voice above the thoughts in her head and she turns her head towards him, forcing a smile onto her lips.

“Yeah, yeah. It’s just… Thank you. Thank you for helping me figure this out. It’s a small answer, but it’s something.”

Laying a hand on her shoulder, he returns her smile with a subtle grin.

“And you say we have a funny way of showing you we just want you to be happy.”

She shakes her head.

“I mean this is kinda fucked up, isn’t it? But yeah.. It’s just, it’s a small piece of the puzzle but it opens up so many more questions…”

“It does, and I’ll keep digging – If that’s what you’d like me to do.”

Gabriel offers and Lucy nods her head almost immediately.

“If you don’t mind.”

“Of course not.”

“Thank you”

Gabriel nods his head once more, letting his arm fall back to his side once he checks the watch on his wrist.

“This was… fun, Lucy but I’m afraid I have to leave you to your inspiration.”

He motions to the cats and shakes his head.

“Take care of yourself Lucy.. And if you need any assistance, I’d be more than happy to talk to Rog–”

“Lemme stop you right there, hotshot. I don’t need any help in that department. If you haven’t noticed, I’m trying to get my head right and I’d like to think I’m doing a pretty good job considering. Plus, Rogan is my friend.. You know what those are right?”

She chuckles softly as Gabriel moves to the door.

“A vague idea, yes.”

“Besides, why would I subject Rogan to that? You did break his leg after all.. You know, when you decided to take out all my friends…”

She tilts her head to the side as Gabriel shakes his head.

“All’s fair in love and war, my dear.”

“Shithead.”

He opens the door and slips out, but not before giving her the same mischievous grin he’d given her earlier. The door closes behind him and Lucy stands in the middle of the room staring at it for a few seconds before chuckling to herself and turning back to the cats, to which some of them are staring back at her.

“You don’t wanna know…”

 

In a small, nondescript shopping center in the Baltimore Highlands just off of East Lombard Street sat the main branch of the Chesapeake Bank. From the front it looks like any other bank, serving the hard-working, blue collar people of Baltimore for the last thirty one years.

People bring their hard earned paychecks to this place and entrust the people behind the counter to safe-guard their money and not a single one of them would be any the wiser that this place of business is simply a front for something, for a business that’s much more sinister.

Unbeknownst to the majority of the population of this small subset of Baltimore City, behind the scenes of the Chesapeake Bank lies a business that deals in the lives and freedoms of people. An organization that put their own financial gain over the basic liberties that are supposed to be afforded to everyone.

At the head of that organization, and currently in the basement beneath the bank is Michael Krauss, seated on a fine leather sofa, cigar in his mouth as he glares across the room at another man. The other man runs his hands over his head and lets out an exasperated sigh.

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you, Michael.”

Krauss shifts his position in his seat, crossing his legs as an uncomfortable silence settles between the two men.

“I think you know exactly what to tell me. Another two, Thomas? That’s simply unacceptable.”

“What am I supposed to do?!”

Thomas raises his voice, throwing his hands in the air – his face growing redder by the second. The look on Michaels face is unchanging as he takes another drag off of the cigar.

“Those bitches are our business, Thomas. They might be simply women, but without them, how can we keep doing what we are doing? You had one God damned job, to keep them alive until their child-bearing years are through and you can’t even do that well, can you?”

Thomas’ eyes widen in shock.

“They get food, they get water, hell they even have a place to sleep most nights. I–”

“Enough!”

Michael finally raises his voice and sits up in his seat, resting the cigar in the ashtray that sits on the table between him and Thomas, a look of disgust on his face.

“I don’t care about your excuses. We’ve lost enough these past few years and I’m tired of your negligence losing us even more money. You live a fairly comfortable life, Tom… Don’t you?”

Thomas shrugs his shoulders.

“Yeah, yeah.. I guess so. But what does that have to do wit–”

“I can take that from you with a single word, a single look for that matter. I can put you into one of those cages with the women you’ve held captive, the same ones you’ve forced to raise children.. The same ones you’ve ripped those same children from in order to sell to the highest bidder. I can throw you in there and throw away the key… And if they kill you? So be it.”

His jaw drops open, as if he can’t believe his boss is speaking to him this way. But he doesn’t speak. He doesn’t dare contradict Michael, especially when he’s angry.

“I don’t want to do that to you, Thomas. You’ve been here for a very, very long time – Garrison always spoke very highly of you. But I’m not Garrison. Do better. Or else. Now, get out of my sight.”

Without another word, Michael grabs the cigar once more, sitting back into the lush upholstery of the sofa while Thomas rises from his chair and hurries from the room. Michael watches him leave, a satisfied grin on his lips.

“What you don’t know… We’ll recoup some of those losses very, very soon…”

 

“Team-Jelly Bean Toes reunite, am I right?”

Lucy says as she sits cross-legged on the ground in the center of a room, a torn up couch at her back and an equally torn up rug underneath her. Surrounding the UGWC Chaos Champion is approximately six adorable, loveable (most of the time), and occasionally homicidal cats.

The occasionally homicidal part is an assumption based on how many of these cats have perfected the art of an Eden Morgan style bitch face.

Lucy chuckles as one of the cats walks up to the camera, putting its curious little face directly into the line of sight. A shuffle can be heard along with a soft ‘meow’ before suddenly the offending cat is picked up and carried back to the center of the room where Lucy sits down with it, placing it on her lap.

“I mean, technically that’s completely right. At least one-half of the illustrious team known as ‘Team Jelly-Bean Toes’ will be reuniting inside the ring on Monday night. Unfortunately for us though, Ang… We’re not fighting on the same side anymore.”

Lucy shrugs her shoulders as the cat on her lap hops down and moves to her side, investigating the UGWC Chaos Championship that the champ has not so intelligently brought into this room full of unpredictable furballs with sharp claws and teeth.

“Hey, hey, Agatha – That’s a no-go.”

She shoo’s the cat, aptly named Agatha away before she turns her attention back to the camera, and Angie.

“Anyway. You know, I’d like to sit here and think that this match is gonna be a nice, clean match – But we both know what the Chaos division is, Angie. We both know what we’re supposed to do out there in the name of Chaos – And frankly, a year or two ago, that thought would have soured my stomach. It would’ve made me question why I’m here, doing what I’m doing because hardcore wrestling never really was my scene.”

She shrugs her shoulders as a few cats begin playing with one another behind her.

“But changes come, as the late, great CJ Wylde always said – And after my match with Tempest last week, I gotta say… It ain’t so bad. Sure, I still hate the sight of my own blood, but damn did I like pinging good old Tempy in the head with that trash can lid. There’s something eerily… satisfying about being able to take out your frustrations on someone… But there’s something even more satisfying about doing it with tables and chairs and whatever else you can find laying around at ringside.”

Another cat begins subtly playing with the strap of the title belt as Lucy continues.

“I mean, I’m not the only one that feels that way, right? I know you’re literally the nicest chick in the world, Ang but haven’t you just had one of those days when you’d like to smack someone upside the head with whatever you can get your hands on? Maybe not. I don’t know. But I bet there’s a bit of a mean streak inside you somewhere… There’s gotta be.”

Lucy notices the cat and pulls the Chaos title away from it, placing the belt in her lap as she again looks up at the camera.

“It’s been a long year for me. Went through a bit of a slump there to close out 2020 and came back in the new year with my sights set on getting back to doing what everyone and their brother knows I can do around here… Only to have the slump continue. God that fucking sucks, don’t it? But hey, that’s why it’s the past, huh? I’m here now, and for the first time in months… I finally feel like I’m back. Tempest got to experience that first hand last week when I took this from his ‘cold, dead hands’. Not really though, he’s still kickin and tweeting about dogs or some shit.”

She sighs and reaches out, petting another black and white kitty under it’s chin as she continues.

“The point is, I like you Angie. I really do, but that doesn’t really matter once we step into the ring. It doesn’t really matter when the bell rings and you try to put yourself into contention for this belt by beating me. Sometimes you have to destroy something beautiful in order to make sure you stay where you’re supposed to be – and Angie, on Monday night, I’m going to have to destroy you.”

Her eyes narrow as she glances back at the camera.

“It’s nothing personal. And I’m sure you get it because you want your name to be on the short list of people who are in line for this belt, just like every other fuck that’s on it right now… Topped by none other than the crazy fuck who credits himself for the destruction of my relationship with… Well, you know who. Sorry, wouldn’t want him tweeting at you, apologizing because my promo hit him a little too close to home.”

She rolls her eyes.

“I’m not stupid though, I know the bullseye is on my back along with everyone else who holds championship gold here in the UGWC, but Ang.. You’re gonna have to find some other schmuck to use as a stepping ladder to get to where you need to be because it ain’t going to be me. So if that means I gotta bloody you up and knock the glorified notion of decency out of your head, even if only for a few seconds – Honey, that’s all I need. You’re a decent person in an indecent business and if I gotta knock that pretty little head clean off your body in order to keep you from toppling over my ladder? So fucking be it.”

She looks around at the felines doing their own thing around her, shaking her head.

“I bet you’re wondering, why the cats? I know you love em, first off… And I figured distracting you a little with some cute little kitties would ease the sting of everything I needed to tell you here tonight. So, did it? Did the warm, fuzzy feelings of watching these adorable fuzzballs help you accept your fate, sweetie? I mean look at these faces… And those toes!”

She grabs the closest cat and holds it to her chest, pulling one of it’s precious little feet into view of the camera.

“Just fucking precious.  I named this one Covert Jay… Don’t ask me why.  Trust me, anything is better than Apple.  Who names a cat ‘apple’?  Anyway, he kinda looks like a ninja, doesn’t he?   It’s perfect, or at least perfect for my purposes here tonight…”

She winks at the camera as she looks at the cat more closely.

“Ooops, I think he’s a she… But what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her..  Isn’t that right?”

She shrugs her shoulders again, giving ‘Covert Jay’ a little snuggle before she turns her attention back to the lens, a more serious look covering her face.

“But unfortunately, the world isn’t all kittens and puppy dogs, Angie. I just hope you don’t walk into Synergy thinking that Lucy’s gonna take it easy on you because we once shared a team at Outlast, or because somehow you’ve managed to be a good person among so many shitbags. Or any other reason you think up in that cute little head of yours. I didn’t get to where I am by being nice. I used to think I did. I used to be like you, Angie but this world changed me. Living this life made me realize that I can have all the morals in the world, but that ain’t gonna mean a damn thing to someone who wants what I have. Sure, I’m not the worst person in the world, but I’m not blinded anymore by illusions of a world where we can all get along and the accolades and the accomplishments don’t mean anything because that’s all horseshit. The reality of the world we fight in is… That’s all that matters when we’re standing out there in the bright lights across from one another.. When one of us is at the top of the ladder and the other is at the very bottom… And all she needs to do is…”

Having released the cat, she grabs the Chaos championship and drapes it over her shoulder.

“Well, all she’s gotta do is beat the champ. Sounds simple enough, right? For you, definitely. You’re one of the best, Angie. You’ve proven yourself around here as someone who’s got what it takes to beat each and everyone of us – And I respect you for it, even if I look at you and wonder where the fuck the ‘me’ that thought like you went. I think we all know where she went. But you, you’re an anomaly, Angie. You’re like a flame that burns bright, regardless of the torrential downpour that’s threatening to put you out. But we’re on opposite sides now, Angie.. You’re the fire. You’re the bright light among all the rain clouds… And I’m the rain. I’ve gotta try to put you out, no matter how much I might wish I didn’t have to. So I’ll see you Monday. Bring your big guns, Ang.. You’re gonna need em.”

With that, Lucy smirks and winks at the camera before the feed cuts to static.

OOC: Gabriel Baal used with permission!