Chaos 75 – Lockout
Post Street Fight

 

I felt like I’ve just been through literal hell on the literal streets of Baltimore. Which is typical… I guess. Wouldn’t be my life and an evening in Charm City wrapped up into one tidy little package if it wasn’t…

The match had just ended. I was picking myself up, or rather pushing myself up through the pain that only these mean streets know how to inflict. For a moment there, I found myself in a daze. I was actually patting Sebastian Steel on his chest as I pushed off of it to stand. A feint ‘good game’ slipped from behind my smirking lips, apparently; unexpectedly. I guess I’m nice like that.

(I really did mean it though.)

Through it all, Sebastian Steel was one tough cookie, and it was just… that night I found a way to make him crumble before he could find a way to do even worse things to me. Sure, keeping him down had something to do with a windshield of a moving car, or the bottom of my foot against the back of his head – or maybe it was all just luck. However it happened, it did… and in my heart of hearts I know that I must give ‘young’ Steel the credit that he’s been sorely lacking and in this instance very, very due. I’ve never seen anyone get up after being hit by a car like that. Sebastian Steel not only stood back up from that, he stood with his head held high and fists clenched ready for more.

For that… and for what it’s worth… he has earned my respect as a competitor.

Anyway, I eventually got back to my feet and the referee raised my hand in victory. It felt… weird. Maybe it was the scenery… the open night sky above us. Or maybe it was the cars, the ones still swerving and swirling around us, honking as they cut sharply to pass the carnage that lay in the middle of their road.. Or maybe it felt weird because part of this didn’t feel much like a victory at all. It felt more like survival.

Behind me were the fans… the Legion… chanting in screaming in unintelligible tongues. They loved it, every bit of it. For once they’re calling out my name for beating a man half to death instead of just staring at my ass… uhh… assets. Thankfully though they were being held back by the small army of security that Jason Bridges amassed specifically for this particularly peculiar event. Because let’s face it, it’s obvious that common sense alone wouldn’t work to keep these idiots out of a busy street in the middle of the night.

…

…

Moving on.

So maybe accepting this match wasn’t the brightest thing I’ve ever done. For this crazy night at least, it felt good to know that my grit, my determination, my heart was strong enough… and I even got the result I wanted to prove it. Maybe this little skirmish between Sebastian and I will go down as the catalyst to the momentum swing that I sorely need. Indeed it does feel good to get back to my winning ways. It feels even better that we did this in spite of the best efforts of the FBI. I can’t believe that that was a real thought… we rocked the house despite the lack of a ring or an arena and in spite of the actual… fucking… FBI.

Didn’t they have anything better to do? Don’t they all have a raid at Area 51 to stop? Jesus.

Alien lives matter too, ya know.

The only part of my body that didn’t hurt in that moment was my pride… and that’s everything to me. I got to walk away with my pride toward the direction of the nearest bar. No ambulances or makeshift medical tents for me. I’ve had enough of these ultraviolent matches to know what’s worthy of a few stitches or staples and what can be fixed with a tiny dab of superglue. I’m tough like that. Tougher than a lot of people think. So I had no problem pushing past the mob even though I was tempted to take a swing at the ‘fans’ reaching over security trying to put their filthy hands on me. Yet I couldn’t blame security for their failings. I was walking in the opposite direction of where they were telling me I should go.

But when I made it through the crowd, I saw one woman standing there staring at me with her arms folded across her chest. She wasn’t trying to rush me; wasn’t trying to touch me or beg me for a hand slap or an autograph. She just… stared… beneath the moonlight. Stared at me as if she had known me her whole life. I didn’t recognize her, at first anyway. Her presence and statue-like demeanor made me uneasy. I could have pushed right through her if I wanted to. Or I could have yielded. There was little else on the sidewalk keeping me from where I wanted to go.

Instead I scoffed at her. The adrenaline was still flowing. I was still pumped up by pain and the focus that it takes to go on an ultraviolent rampage.

“You need something honey?” I asked while still gasping for breath.

She shrugged her shoulders and sighed. “Nope. Just in awe that you’re not splattered all over the street right now.”

At first I thought it was a simple sentiment from a fan of Sebastian. I hated to admit it, but I was in awe, too. I really could have been killed out there. The gravity of that struck me and her comment did make me stop and take closer notice. Who was this woman? On second glance she didn’t seem like the wrestling fangirl type. I started to think FBI… undercover maybe? Judging by her long dark hair, her relative young age, the tight black clothing and those skinny arms donning sleeve tattoos I was probably just being a bit paranoid. Couldn’t blame myself. I was whisked away to a dark van by a few thugs less than an hour earlier.

“That’s the way it goes sometimes.” I replied with a sigh. “Some days you’re the windshield. Others you’re… well.” I really do hate cliches, even if I am stuck on them. “Disappointed?”

“Well…” she replied, stepping forward. “I mean I heard you were fucking crazy but that kinda takes the cake, hun. I just had to come see it for myself.”

I chuckle.

“So that’s what they’re saying now.” I give the woman a brief, sarcastic nod. “Okay. Well, I hope you enjoyed the show. In two weeks we should be back inside that building right over there. Make sure you get your Carnage Wrestling tickets in advance! Should be some still available in… the back… row… somewhere. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

The woman’s eyebrows immediately perked as I moved to go past. The next thing she said stopped me dead in my tracks.

“I didn’t come for the show… I came to see you.”

“That’s great.” I grumbled. My patience wearing thin. “A lot of people do.”

“That attitude? It doesn’t suit you.. And thanks for the tip but I think I can figure out the art of buying tickets. Now if you’ll excuse me…”

“Just tell your boss that I meant what I said. I’m done answering questions and the next one is coming out of his paycheck.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

“You people just don’t know when to quit, do ya?” I say as I can feel the anger start seeping through my pores. At this point I’m convinced that she’s just another FBI agent sent to spy on me. Cute disguise, but I wasn’t about to confess to a crime to the first tall, tatted and sexy girl that came along. “Your disguise isn’t even that impressive. Just when I thought the FBI couldn’t reach a new low.”

Maybe I had nothing to do with Paragon’s attack but at that moment I really wished that I had a time machine. At least then I could travel back and don a mask myself. It would spare me the pain of being hounded; accused of yet another thing that I couldn’t have possibly done.

“I shouldn’t be surprised that you don’t recognize me but I hate to tell you, I’m not some agent spying on your every move. We’ve met, maybe you remember.. you know, new years eve. The night your shop burned down?”

It was like a flashbulb went off inside my mind. Immediately I was lost in a flashback. The burning fire. The searing heat. The rippling flames. The sounds of glass breaking and a platoon of firefighters and other first responders working in tandem to douse the blaze. It was the third day of my life where life as I knew it stopped on a dime and ceased to be for good. There were so many people shouting and barking orders at each other. People who were there for me that day that I have never seen since.

And this girl was one of them.

“You… you’re, you’re…” I blinked my eyes frantically, trying to refresh my vision and bring my consciousness back to the present time. “…Amber?”

“Yep.”

She replied calmly… and in all this time she had not once moved from her original position. I was ashamed that I did not immediately recognize her – but she was one of the new hires. Just came on board as a tattoo artist for the Paper Street Tattoo Company weeks before the old shop burned down.

I guess my time in the joint affected me more than I thought.

“Wh-what are you doing here?” I manage to ask while my brain turns to mush. The thoughts rearranging themselves… how did I not remember her? Why couldn’t I see it? Had I distanced myself from my old life that much?

“Apparently watching you nearly get pancaked in the middle of the street. Oh and being accused of working for the feds… I gotta give it to you, that’s a new one for me.”

“I’m sorry, it’s been the craziest day.” I try to reconcile. “No I mean what are you doing here? Last I heard, you had moved on to working the new shop with Nadette still.”

“Well yeah, that’s still a thing. Gotta make a living somehow.”

Why is she avoiding the question? I’ve asked twice now and still can’t get a straight answer from her. But then it occurs to me, she was a spy after all. I was just mixed up with who she was spying for.

“So Nadette sent you?” I nod my head again. I keep my eyes down low, don’t want any of Nadette’s shop girls running back to her to tell her how angry and miserable I really am. “That’s fine. Tell her… well… tell her that she was right about what she said. Message received loud and clear.”

“Nadette doesn’t know I’m here. And maybe… maybe that’s something you should tell her yourself. Not really my place to say so but.. I did keep y’all from duking it out so…”

Bullshit. That didn’t make sense. None of this was making sense. And nothing she said answered my question. It was only leaving me with more questions.

“Well I ain’t going back. Not this time. Tried it once… see what happened? Paper Street’s been doing just fine without me. I think it’s better off for everyone involved if this time I just stay gone for good.”

“Hey, you do you. I ain’t here to judge.” Amber clapped back, almost stoic in her delivery. “She’s rebuilding the shop exactly like you had it, you know. Don’t underestimate your importance. I haven’t even been there a year and I know that.. but hey, I’ll see you in two weeks… in that building over there, right? Back row.”

“Yeah…” I reply only to watch her turn to walk away. “I’ll be seeing ya… back row…”

Fuck.

 

 

The Diary of Magdalena Lockheart
July 14th, 2019
Entry #2

 

Maybe I started off on the wrong foot.

A lot of you people don’t know who I am, and that’s okay. You don’t know that I didn’t come from a fighter’s background. That I’m not some second or third or fourth generation ‘somebody’. In reality, and for most of my life, I’ve been nobody at all.

I didn’t come from this life, but I came to it because of a choice I made a long time ago. Maybe you are someone who gets that this world can be a scary place sometimes. I didn’t want this life. I wanted to be an artist. But it’s hard to hold a paintbrush in one hand and a weapon in the other.

I wanted to feel safer. I wanted to feel more secure. Above all else, I wanted to prove that I was not helpless. I wanted my body to become my sword and my shield. And after a very short while of practicing what it takes to be a warrior I was flooded with a new kind of enemy. Self doubt, as it was, happened to be the least of my problems because the whole world doubted me too. But that’s okay. I’ve grown to appreciate all the little extra motivations. The naysayers are all too happy to tell me who I am and what I’m capable of.

Nothing makes me happier than when I go out there and prove them wrong.

Because a little girl can’t fight. That’s what they say. Growing up I knew that not to be the case. I sat cross-legged Indian-style in my Aunt’s living room many nights literally basking in the glow of a young Lucy Johnson coming through the tube. I loved her so much – heh, the idea of her I should say – that I’m still not-too-ashamed to admit that I had her poster on my bedroom wall… the only poster I would ever hang there, mind you. But she was the proof to me that somebody like me can do this. She was the litmus test and the anchor to my eventual decision about what I wanted to be when I grew up. When the worst possible thing ever happened to me and my life changed irrevocably because of that – day two of the three days from hell – I knew then that I understood the importance of standing up for myself. Lucy’s example was… poetic. It didn’t matter that I was shorter, skinnier, not as athletic as the rest.

I could learn how to fight.

I would learn how to fight.

And learn I did.

It is this, and more, that comes to mind when I look at the next opponent that Carnage Wrestling has set out for me to face. In some ways, it’s like I find myself staring across the marquee into a mirror. I see a lot of similarities, a lot of parallels in what little I know about her life as compared to mine. For once, experience is my advantage. I am hard-pressed to recall the last time I’ve faced an opponent in my fledgling career that has had less quality ring time under her belt than I.

But that is what makes this match special to me.

That is why the moment we’re about to share might truly matter.

Unlike Sebastian Steel I see someone who looks an awful lot like I did, sounds an awful lot like I did. The way she looks, the way she talks, the way she acts, and how she conducts her business.

Who am I to tell her the limit of what she can become?

She… reminds me… too much… of me.

On a road that only ends in tragedy.

Rule #2: Respect the Perspective

Somewhere deep in the heart of Dayon, Ohio – below the depths of that famous blue sky – was born the girl who some say could defy gravity. Years pass and not much is known. However, she would come to Baltimore and in a flash come to be our soon-to-be-favorite mystery… our simple paradox but with only one name attached to her resume:

Zaia.

The story of how Zaia came to be with us here in Carnage Wrestling is mysterious, albeit inconsequential. What’s important is that she is here now, brought to us by way of her manager, the petite, pristine Amelia Nixon; who promises Baby Icarus is not only here to change the landscape of our main-event scene, but she’s here to stay.

And I for one wish to welcome her with open arms.

I just… can’t…

Can’t shake this feeling that there’s something odd about it all.

The more I thought about it, there was only one thing that didn’t make sense about what little there is to know about Zaia. It’s not about who she is, or where she’s been. Or that I feel like I’m looking at a younger Maggie Lockheart in the flesh.

It’s Carnage Fucking Wrestling.

What the fuck is she doing here?

This is not the place where stars go to shine. This is not the light that she seeks. These starbursts… these… are simply put last bright gasps from those that fought, bled, suffered – long before the name Zaia was ever uttered from the parched tongue of a single Carnage Legionnaire. Shining bright here is not something that anyone of her age, of her talent, should ever aspire to do. What we see as some of our old heroes greatest moments before riding off into the sunset are actually the death throes of these dying stars. The ones that burst into supernovae; or those that sink into the black hole that they themselves have become.

Take a look around. Look at Will Prydor, no longer the phoenix rising from the ashes. A man whose career didn’t end in the glory that it deserved. All that’s left is an even more broken man than the Will Prydor who first walked through these doors. The list goes on: Look at JC and Lucy, and what has become of them. Look at the irreverent Jack Michaels, and the epic downfall he’s inexorably, and unapologetically working towards. I could go on and on, from the great Sinc Mercier and the UltraViolent Icon Tweeder all the way down to the modern era of your Melody Lennoxes and your Sabirus.

Nobody comes here by choice, it seems, myself included. Or perhaps ‘at least nobody should’ is more accurate.

It’s all about perspective.

Those who have it, and those who don’t.

And I’m not quite sure which side of the aisle I stand.

I can’t blame Amelia personally. Nor Zaia. What could they know? Amelia especially. A single glance tells me that she’s never had to lace up a pair of wrestling boots. But she’s not facing me. Who cares? Amelia doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

Or does she?

What thoughts does she put into Zaia’s head?

How much does her influence matter?

I get that she wishes to use her client change Carnage’s narrative. But a) You’ve already secured the one thing that matters most. And b) federations don’t change at the whim of a single pawn. A bike wheel that loses one spoke still turns just fine. Everyone of us who has tried it fight the system has failed.

Even the brightest, and most unique, of the shining stars among us.

Zaia is already getting paid to be Carnage Wrestling’s next top star, and maybe she’s the one that will dethrone the world champion. Maybe, she’ll be the one to take down Paragon. But it wouldn’t change the landscape as much as anyone thinks it might. And I don’t think I’m spilling any secrets to say that Amelia doesn’t really care. She’s thrown her lamb to the wolves. Shell get her high-end, top-dollar percentage of the slaughter.

Carnage will continue to be what it has always been.

Zaia however, will not.

Ms. Nixon should send her somewhere else. Anywhere else. Take her to UGWC, make her a ‘Cool Kid’.

Just not here.

Not Carnage.

Don’t send a once-in-a-lifetime talent to anywhere where Trent or Sebastian Steel might get a hold of her. For a reasonably smart manager she seems to have forgotten the most important thing about protecting her assets and covering her liabilities. Zaia can’t make you rich beyond your wildest dreams lying unconscious in a hospital bed. Carnage Wrestling is no place to learn this craft and it’s even less a place to play pretend in – as in pretending that she or your client have any idea in what they’ve gotten one of professional wrestling’s brightest young stars into.

Zaia’s experiences here will only change her in ways that neither of you could anticipate or expect, and not for the better.

Honestly, I couldn’t care less if Amelia Nixon takes a hard loss in her pocketbook and ends up broken and desperate… hell… even homeless. It would probably serve her right. But it pisses me off that it will eventually be at the expense of someone who truly has so much more to give to this industry.

Zaia can be someone who inspires the next generation of potential superstars.

But not if she can’t feel anything from the neck down. 

For as kind of a man as Jason Bridges can be, he can also come off as desperate… something I think none of the three of us can complain about. Super Zaia had better report for duty, which she is fully capable of doing, but she’s got to do it week in and week out. Although the paychecks are already coming in with those top-name, top-of-the-card big dollar signs it won’t take long for Mr. Bridges to want to cash in on that kind of investment. For all of Amelia’s bemoaning the fact that Zaia’s opponents weren’t as challenging as she would care for them to be, Zaia is about to face her first true test when she meets a multiple-championship/tournament-winning phenom in her own right.

I’m not walking into the Carnage Arena looking for blood or looking to soil Zaia’s reputation as a fighter. But I know when the chips are down that Zaia has never faced someone quite like me before. She may not be exactly what a younger version of myself would be, but she’s so close to it that it’s scary. And what scares me more is that I’ve already been through hell and the trials and tortures that Zaia has yet to face. I can make a claim that I deserve (hello Myra) to be in the Main Event more than Zaia does if for no other reason than I already know what it would take to survive it.

If that’s what this match means to Zaia or to Amelia Nixon then so be it.

What scares me the most is that I’m not going to back down. I’ll do whatever it takes, out of respect, to show you the truth in my words and that I mean them.

Zaia will fly high. She’ll smile and thank the fans just for being there.

She’s too innocent to have her face stomped into the mat. But I’m just a bitch sometimes.

I can be like that.

Take a lesson from my perspective, sweetie.

You can be Carnage’s future if your heart is truly in it.

But it takes pain and the feeling of desperation before you’ll ever hope to grow to be:

Magnificent.