Wednesday
Two Days Post Synergy

“What are you fixing?” Rogan asked, the smell of whatever his girlfriend was fixing permeating the rest of the apartment and drawing him away from what he had been doing.

Lucy glanced up to see Rogan standing in the doorway of the kitchen and she shrugged and continued mixing whatever she had in the bowl in front of her. “Crab cakes.”

Rogan watched her for a few seconds, his curiosity piqued as he stepped forward and took a seat across from where Lucy stood, mixing furiously. If he didn’t already know she was incredibly frustrated to start with, he’d think it was cute how focused she was on the task at hand.

Finally, he stood back up, just enough to lean over and take a look in the bowl. “What inspired this choice?”

“What, you don’t want any?” Lucy inquired, glancing up at Rogan momentarily.

“That’s not what I was implying, Lass,” Rogan spoke as he sat back down, leaning against the counter between them, “I just haven’t seen ya fixing anything like this before.”

Lucy stopped mixing and grabbed a bottle that was placed beside the bowl and took a healthy swig.

“Is that Sherry?”

Lucy nodded. “Oh yeah, making a Lady Baltimore cake too.” She said, pointing behind her at the oven. It was then that Rogan had seen the full extent of the mess that was strewn around Lucy at the time.

“And the Sherry goes in the cake?”

“Among other things…”

Lucy put the cap back onto the bottle and moved onto the next phase of crab cake production. She began shaping the mixture in the bowl into… well, crab cakes and laid them on a tray.

“To answer your question, it’s been a long time since I’ve had a Maryland crab cake… and I just want one.”

“You wanna talk about it, Lass?”

They’d not talked much since Synergy on Monday, and that was two days ago. It didn’t seem like Lucy wanted to talk about it, even now, but once she finished pulling the cake out of the oven and replacing that with the crab cakes, she let out a hard sigh.

“I don’t know what to say.”

 

Monday
Synergy

She ripped her gloves off of her hands as she entered backstage, and promptly threw them into the nearest wall. Rogan stood by, knowing full well what was awaiting him, especially after watching her and Dave beat on each other until they bloodied and bruised one another.

But what he didn’t expect was for Lucy to stop and wait by the curtain.

“Lucy?”

She was wiping the sweat off of her face as she stared intently at the curtain. It appeared she either didn’t hear Rogan, or she was ignoring him. So he moved towards her, but when she sensed his presence there, she turned her gaze at him momentarily.

“Either I’m gonna apologize to Dave or I’m going to kill Konrad.”

Her words were succinct and to the point and there wasn’t any hint of her moving anytime soon – well, at least until one of the two people she was looking for made their way back to where she stood. Rogan didn’t bother trying to move her, he was well aware of how stubborn Lucy Wylde was, especially when she was angry.

But she took a few moments to cool off, eventually she bent down and grabbed her gloves and began walking towards her locker room.

“You alright, Lass?”

“I think I broke his nose.” Lucy said simply, neither confirming or denying whether she was okay. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I’m fairly certain he meant to blacken that eye of yours there, Lass.”

Lucy shrugged. The truth was, she wouldn’t really feel it until she woke up the next day. But by then, it would just be a memory clouded by the other things that were on her mind.

“Probably.”

“As for his nose… That wouldn’t be the first thing you’ve broken lately, yeah?” Rogan didn’t know if that fact would make any difference, but when Lucy looked at him from where she stood – Looking at her face in the mirror, he figured maybe it wasn’t as helpful as he’d hoped.

Lucy poked at her swollen eye a bit as she thought about what he’d said. Finally she turned around and made her way to the bench where she began to untie her boots. “You’re right. But Dave isn’t my brother or McNamera. He’s an asshole, but a different kind of asshole.”

Lucy tilted her head to the side and a subtle smirk crossed her lips. “But maybe I’d of liked to have broken more than his nose, anyway.”

Rogan smirked to himself, but not because it made him happy. He was still concerned with Lucy’s current mental state – but the way she worded things, it was always an adventure in grammar. Rogan let out a sigh of his own and wrapped an arm around Lucy’s shoulder.

“It’s okay, Lucy.”

He hoped to comfort her, but it wasn’t his fault that she wasn’t comforted. She was still upset and angry and all she wanted to do was scream. But she didn’t. She just kept right on, taking her boots off so she could get out of there before she did something else.  Her entire body vibrated with frustration, and her hands shook as she removed one boot, and then the other.  

She just didn’t have the words.  

 

Wednesday
Two Days Post Synergy

“You don’t know what to say, or you still don’t want to talk about it?”

Lucy shook her head in response to Rogan’s inquiry. “It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Then what is it?” Rogan pressed on. He knew Lucy well enough to know that sometimes she needed to be pressed a bit when something was troubling her. And if worse came to worst? She’d be even more upset.

“I didn’t want the Chaos title match.”

Her response surprised Rogan. “You didn’t?”

“No!” She bellowed, immediately reigning herself back in. “Sorry. But no, I didn’t. It feels like a God damned consolation prize, and I know Seb means well. That’s why I’m just doing it, you know? But the Chaos title doesn’t mean the same to me as it does him.”

She finished her thought and put her head down into her hands.

“It’s insulting. And I hate that I feel insulted.”

“Why didn’t you tell him that, Lass?”

Lucy looked up into Rogan’s eyes and sighed.

“You know damn well why I didn’t. Oh, hey Seb… I don’t want the shot to the title that you hold just as highly as the world title because I don’t see it that way and I know I’m better than that.’” She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that would go over like a lead balloon.”

Rogan thought about it for a second before letting out a sigh of his own. “I don’t know, Lucy. Maybe you’re not giving him enough credit.”

“Or maybe I don’t wanna fuck up this friendship and–” She stopped herself as the smell of something burnt hit her nostrils. “Oh no.. The crab cakes…”

She turned away and rushed to the oven, opening it and coughing as the smoke billowed out. “Son of a bitch!”

Lucy pulled the cooking sheet out of the oven and slammed it down on the stove, sending the blackened cakes flying in every direction imaginable. Rogan got up and moved around the island, placing a hand softly on her shoulder.

“Hey..”

“I don’t want to be talked down, Rogan.”

“I’m just trying to help.” Rogan replied calmly, even as Lucy stood so tense beside him that he could practically feel the rage radiating off of her. “If this situation is bothering you this much, you really should–”

“No. I’ve already decided what I’m going to do, Rogan. I might not want this match, but I’m going to do it and I’m going to end Konrad once and for all. Might not have broken Dave’s nose on purpose, but everything that happens to Konrad will be completely intentional.”

There was a coldness to her words that sent a chill down Rogan’s spine.

Lucy pulled herself away from Rogan and began to clean up their ruined dinner as if she hadn’t just promised to end a man – And instead of pushing the issue further, Rogan bent down and picked up the remnants of a crab cake off of the floor.

“Well, at least we have cake for dinner…” Rogan mused, until he got up and saw Lucy staring at the cake that she’d cooked earlier. “What?”

Lucy motioned towards a bowl beside the stove that had spilled when she threw the cooking sheet down. “I forgot the fucking sugar and butter…”

Rogan looked back and forth between Lucy and the cake, which upon closer inspection did look flavorless. How a cake could look that way, who knows, but it did. Finally, after a few moments, he grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the kitchen.

“Pizza it is, then.”

 

Konrad, you just don’t know when to shut the fuck up sometimes. But that’s always been your thing, hasn’t it? Whole lot of talking, very little substance. Grandstanding and bitching without anything to back it up.

You claim to know what Chaos is.

You tell everyone that Sebastian just has to be the worst Chaos champion of all time because… why, exactly? Because he doesn’t fit what Konrad Raab thinks a Chaos champion should be? I’m just going to say one more thing about the former Chaos champion before I move on – He’s created a legacy for himself with his over 500 days as champ that you could only dream of.

Your legacy is one of talking some kind of talk, and stumbling immediately afterwards. You walk around like you’re a God among men, like you’re the ONLY motherfucker who could do the Chaos title any kind of justice when you’re surrounded by droves of motherfuckers who could do better in their God damned sleep.

Let’s face facts here, Konrad.. The only reason you don’t give a fuck about wins and losses is because wins are so fucking rare for you that you honestly don’t know what to do when one falls into your lap.

Case and point, Konrad. This match – You won to get here. Good job. What’s the first thing you do? You start running your mouth. Start promising this and that, start telling everyone that you ARE chaos and that you’re going to be the best Chaos champ the world has ever seen.

You start telling me that I’m fake, that I don’t have a place in Chaos, that Seb doesn’t have a place in Chaos… If you knew what was truly good for you, you’d have kept your mouth shut and maybe… Just maybe we would have had a decent match.

But now… Now you’ve done fucked up, boy.

And when I call you a boy, I mean it with as much insult as I can possibly muster. You’re a petulant child who has yet to learn his place in line, but no worries. I’ll make sure by the end of Monday night, that you’re well aware of where you stand.

Because this might be all about that shiny belt for you, but for me, I’m here to end you, Konrad. I’m here to shut you up once and for all, and send you crying back to your little therapist, looking for a way to fix the shit that’s wrong with you.

Be sure to let me know if they find the cure to stupid because you ain’t the only one in desperate need.

I’m a world title caliber talent and you’re barely a backyard groupie, Konrad.

I’m better than this and I’m sure as hell better than you.

I’m going to take your chance away from you, not because I need a second Chaos championship run but because in taking it away from you, I take away all your meaning in life. I take away that which you fight so hard for. Nothing will give me more joy than to watch the hope slowly die in your eyes after you lose on Monday.

Have your opinions about my motivations, Konrad.

I don’t give a shit. I’m not you, I’m not Seb..

And if I have to win the Chaos championship and start mowing motherfuckers down one after the other just because I can? So be it. I’m tired of motherfuckers like you trying to tell us what’s right and what’s not.

After all, doesn’t experience breed knowledge?

As far as I can tell, when it comes to this belt, or ANY of them… You ain’t got any.

So get the fuck out of the way, Konrad. Let this fake bitch put you down once and for all. Let me give you exactly what you’ve been after all along – A match where respect is out the door because there isn’t one fiber of my being that respects you, Konrad.

You tell me that I don’t care about this match because I refuse to jaw jack with you beforehand. You tell me that I should give a fuck about what you say because you’re my opponent and if I don’t listen to you than somehow I lack the passion for this match, therefore I’d be a bad champion.

Hmm.

It’s almost as if I did listen.

This is my life, Konrad. Wrestling is what I was born to do and ain’t no dipshit like you gonna tell me that I don’t care. I’m gonna take each and everyone of your words and I’m going to shove them so far up your ass that everything you say afterwards might actually make some modicum of sense.

You don’t need a therapist, Konrad.

You just need the ass whooping of a lifetime.

And I’m here to deliver.

Fuck you, Konrad.