TLM#9 - Ep. 11 - Triumph, and Something Else
Apr 19, 2024 8:52:54 GMT -6
FN'R, Cosmo Goldworthy, and 4 more like this
Post by Sally Talfourd on Apr 19, 2024 8:52:54 GMT -6
The camera opens on Sally Talfourd stood like a solitary statue amidst the bustling throng of Oxford Street, her gaze fixed on the misty horizon where the sky and cityscape melded into a seamless grey. The brisk drizzle of rain clung to her sleek leather jacket, accentuating the contours of her athletic frame, a subtle reminder of her dual identity as both a wrestler and a woman of magical allure. The London weather mirrored her mood, a sombre symphony of droplets that whispered melancholy secrets to the pavement. Sally's expression was a tapestry of conflicting emotions, her beauty tinged with resentment. She watched the hurried pedestrians lost in their trajectory. A sense of detachment settled upon her, a feeling of being adrift in a world that demanded too much and offered too little in return.
The future loomed before her, its boundaries undefined. Sally's thoughts wandered through the corridors of broken promises, the echoes of the past resonating within her like rolling thunder. But amidst the gloom, a flicker of defiance shimmered in her eyes, a stubborn resolve born from years of perseverance and upsets at her own hands. She straightened her posture, shoulders squared as if daring the rain to wash away her determination.
Her whole career had led to this point. EWC Undisputed Champion. She was not one to be defeated easily, not by the capricious whims of fate nor by the burdensome expectations of others and even less by the likes of Xavier Reid. As the drizzle continued, she took a deep breath, inhaling the damp scent of London's streets, and silently vowed to forge her path.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back,” Sally looked over her shoulder, catching the camera in the corner of her eye. Her profile cut a stark line against the dullness of the world, “Thank-you for joining me for Stranglemania. In a few days, some of you will be lucky enough to see my next performance in the vaunted main event of the show of shows. Alas, this next show has replaced magic with violence. A stage replaced with a cage. Wembley Stadium will become the home of unspeakable violence, an alter to sadistic horrors and vicious whims and dark desperations.”
With a determined stride, Sally stepped forward, her boots creating a rhythmic percussion against the wet pavement as she embraced the uncertain journey ahead. After some distance, she opened her arms in both directions, spinning to face the camera. With careful precision, she slowly walked backward as she continued to speak, “We’re stood here at the three-way intersection of Edgware Road, Bayswater Road and Oxford Street. Why, might you ask? Simple. Over there…”
Sally’s right arm lowers, her left pointing.
“…is triumph. And over there…”
Sally’s left arm lowers, her right now directs our attention.
“…is something else.”
Sally begins to walk to the right, towards triumph. We see quickly that she entering the shadow of John Nash's Marble Arch: A spectacle of triumph. Sally’s steps quickened, eager to confront the looming monument that stood as a symbol of grandeur and history. The arch's majestic presence loomed large, its intricate details a testament to the enduring legacy of those who came before, much like the title belt that will wrap around Sally’s waist. As she approached, Sally couldn't help but feel a surge of determination in the shadow of legacy, a silent promise to carve her name into the annals of greatness.
“Here we have a tribute to the past. A reminder of greatness. All around us are these silent reminders: Monuments, statues, championship belts,” Sally casts a sly grin towards the camera, “You’ve seen mine. The EWC Undisputed Championship. What I have done in the few weeks that Season 25 has been upon us is the purest form of greatness this company has ever seen. Everything I’ve touched has turned to triumph. I set out with a promise to remake EWC with Magic, and the Magic has done so through me.”
The Marble Arch now loomed over Sally, its massive stone pillars reaching toward the sky like ancient sentinels guarding the secrets of time. As she stood beneath its imposing presence, a sense of awe mingled with trepidation, as if the arch itself held the power to shape destinies, “My title is my triumph. My belt is my monument. Some of my last words in 2023 were God help EWC if I became champion. And dare I say it, God helps you now. A Magical God, in all her triumphal glory, performing miracle after miracle. Seven wins, a loss, and a draw this season so far. And each one of them bar one Matches of the Night. I have lifted EWC with the Magic against the full spectrum too. A title defence against Mercenary, a win over JoJo, and yet another win over none other than Xavier Reid. Compare that to the milquetoast 3-3 my esteemed opponent has racked up so far. No memorials for mediocrity, dare I say.”
With a fleeting glance of admiration at the Marble Arch, Sally turned away, her resolve strengthened by the silent promise of greatness that lingered in the air, “Luckily for us all, our monument to you, Xavier, is a short walk away.”
Sally navigated the bustling crowd and dodged the flow of traffic, her determination unwavering as she made her way from Marble Arch to a nearby traffic island which was the forgettable home to a plaque honouring the Site of the Tyburn Tree. The cacophony of city sounds surrounded her, a chaotic symphony mirroring her tumultuous journey. As she reached the lowly traffic island she remarked, “Fitting, I suppose. This was a place once feared, the public execution grounds for over 650 years. Alas, it is now reduced to a mere footnote, the living transformation of terror into trivia, the physical reminder of the impermanence of power and the fleeting nature of human legacies. All this strikes a chord, right Xavier?”
“Excuse me!” A hurried pedestrian brushed past Sally, their rushed steps a stark reminder of the relentless pace of city life. In their passage, they step on the plaque on the floor.
“Hey!” Sally screams after the man, noticing his step across the plaque, “Have some respect for the past!”
The man, not stopped, looks to Sally over his shoulder, “What are you talking about!?”
“This is the…” Sally stops herself, stopping to think, “Actually, he’s right. He’s right to forget and move on from the past. He’s right to walk all over history. The past is dead, and if I have my way your hopes and dreams and legacy will be too, Xavier. Let me be crystal clear here: I hate you because you represent everything the recent EWC represents. Mediocre talent handed up opportunity after opportunity without truly deserving it. A ticker-box wrestler who seems to be playing a perpetual game of bingo with his career. You’ve had your mid-card titles and your top-tier titles. You’ve had your moments in the spotlight and your career-defining moments. Problem is, even ‘shit’ has a definition in the dictionary.”
Sally now stands directly atop the plaque and, in a moment of disgust, wipes her feet on it, “Xavier, you’re not here because you won or achieved or succeeded. It’s not even fair to call you the Narumi Tsutsumi of THIS match. At least she successfully defended her title to get herself injected into our WrestleFest match. You didn’t successfully defend squat. You drew with Mercenary. You didn’t win, you drew! If Narumi was a technicality at WrestleFest, you’re a mistake of the highest order; the accident between two teenagers in a red-state where there’s no easy access to condoms and so ‘We’ll make it work’ becomes the family’s motto. Problem is, in 2024, you’re not working.”
Sally tenses her shoulders up, standing upright, “So what have you done to warrant even a ticket to Stranglemania, much less a God-damned main event match with me? You started the year strong getting beat clean by your’s truly…and I gave you every advantage you needed. Hell, I even begged you to win for the sake of this very match. Then you swanned on back to Brawl just to remind them of the bullet they dodged when you left, and beat…who? Antoni Malietoa? Then on your home ground, my Shinijoshi went and beat your Love Club clean and proper. Again, you had all the advantage and none of the planned finish.”
“At Paramount 41, you got the first win anyone here probably paid attention to: You beat Jason Anderson,” Sally holds a hand up, rage in her eyes, “Hold your horses, resident number-cruncher. Before you throw back that I could only draw with Jason, let’s not delude ourselves into thinking Jason Anderson is the benchmark of success. Sure, he’s had a run of it, but I’d have got the same result as you if I hadn’t been carrying EWC all the while leading into that match. And besides, a win over Jason would mean a hell of a lot more if you didn’t get pushed to the limits by Emmanuelle the next Brawl, then come into our match having got beat by the three-match-wonder Apollo Polamalu. Remind me again why you deserve this match with me?”
Sally looks down once more at the plaque and with all the disdain and hatred she can muster, she spits on it. Not content, she spits again, before looking at the camera and dabbing the corners of her lips, “Go and look in a God damned mirror Xavier and ask yourself: Is that the kind of record an Undisputed Champion has? Only playing in your front yard because you’re too scared to go out the gate and play with the bigger kids? You make me sick. Everything about this match disgusts me. You have no right being here, and you’ve made. No effort to deserve it. There was once a Xavier Reid who would agree with me, too. Many moons ago, as you were finishing off Scorpio in your only true title defence at Rumble XVII, you screamed out for all to hear:
Now is where you look away from that mirror, buddy, and into my eyes. I’m what an Undisputed Champion looks like. Look at what I’ve done since getting my hands on this belt. I dare you to try and even fathom what I have brought to EWC. The Magic is ever-so-slowly washing over this company, cleansing it from its sins. I have taken my belt to Brawl, Rampage, Paramount, and Prime not because I particularly want to, but because I need to. I go where the Magic is needed.”
Sally stood over the plaque, her anger simmering beneath the surface, her gaze burning holes into the insignificance of the marker, “By tucking your tail, running to Paramount, and hiding out there with your Club, you’re showing your true colours. You’re showing what we’re in for if you become champion again. It’ll be the Dark Ages all over again,” Sally gestures to the plaque, memorialising the death of countless people, “Only this time it’ll be because no one’s turned the lights on because no one’s watching! Love me or hate me, the people have come from far and wide just to let their emotions out.”
Sally's gaze drifted back down the street towards the Marble Arch, an urge filling her heart as she reminisced about the moments of determination and hope that had propelled her forward, though still with intensity in her eyes, “There’s heat and there’s love. There’s adoration and animosity. But you, Xavier, are just plumbing the crowds for a new reaction: Silence. You make them not care and so they don’t. That’s not me saying you’re not a good wrestler: You can be at times. It’s not me saying you don’t have a chance at winning at Stranglemania: You do. But it’s me saying if I fail to do my job against you then and there, then I’ve failed in making EWC a better place. Love or hate what I did, people watched. People reacted. EWC responded. Find me someone who didn’t take the bait…who didn’t react…who didn’t come after me. Hell, you reacted. The ice-cold Xavier Reid. Then again, look what it took to even get a rise from you. I called in lawyers, said anything and everything, literally beat you in the ring…and only then did you manage to show any signs of life. I’ve felt like Dr. Frankenstein since the season started, having to deal with your corpse and trying to bring it to life so that we might just get a solid 20, 30 minutes of something more than the usual flailing and grunting that gets confused for the last time you laid down with Saturday night’s Mrs. Reid.”
As if guided by unseen forces, Sally felt an irresistible pull drawing her back towards the Marble Arch that stirred a sense of purpose within her soul, “So I am left to wonder: Why? Why are you hiding? What are you so afraid of? What is it that took a guy who was OK for a mid-carder down to the status you currently occupy? I searched for answers. Eventually, though, I found the answer by looking at my belt.”
Sally finally steps off the island, not looking left nor right, utterly devoted to the Magic. No car takes her out, no danger to her life, “You know you’re a failure. You know you don’t deserve any of this. Three times you’ve had the chance to carve out a reputation fit for a champion. Three times you’ve failed. 48 days and one defence, 85 days and one defense-which-wasn’t-really-a-defense-it-was-a-draw-and-no-one-understands-why-you’re-here…anyway, you get the picture, right? You’ve had two chances to define yourself…and when the opportunity presented itself the first time, you were too scared to fly too near to the sun. The second time, even more scared. You are a coward, unable to muster the courage and the tenacity and the guts to succeed. You’re so afraid of being someone that you end up being no one. In the few times you’ve managed to forget that fear you’ve done alright. But it is so deeply embedded into the very fibre of your being now that you can’t escape it.”
Sally is once again walking the footpath towards the Marble Arch, towards her place in the new history of EWC, “Look at how you won the title last time. You weren’t someone, you were just the last one. Then when you had the chance to defend it against Mercenary you only managed a draw. Again, your fear stopped you from doing what I did on Rampage’s season opener. And WrestleFest hardly needs re-treading, does it? You walked out twenty-pounds lighter and not a shred of credibility.”
Drawing nearer the Marble Arch, a palpable tension filled the air, a silent anticipation that seemed to echo the weight of history and the significance of her journey, “And if you somehow luck out a win again, what the fuck are you going to do? Take EWC back to the good ol’ days of last year when every man, woman, child and pet dog was looking at every other champion to rescue EWC? The AppleTV+ Broadcast Champion was the fucking face of EWC! Good ol’ days indeed! That’s what’s at stake for me. My sacrifices. The ratings, the buy rates, the uplift. I took outcasts and made Matches of the Night from them! What the fuck have you done for EWC besides leech off it like a parasite? You’re no better than the blow-in blow-out glory chasers. When it’s good for Reid it’s the right thing to do. To hell with what’s good for anyone else. So long as your ego gets stroked, your bank account grows, and your trophy cabinet fills, that’s all that matters you selfish fuck.”
Sally stepped into the shadows once more, the cool embrace of the Arch's towering form enveloping her like a familiar cloak, “That all needs to die. And so, we have to settle this in the very same home I discovered everything I needed to take hold of EWC: The Cage. Knowing how cheap the bureaucrats who run this company are, our Rage in the Cage is probably pieces of my Insanity Cage thrown together. The mayhem that will be unleashed there is fitting. I said earlier it’s time for someone to kill the past, and I will do that in our match. In this match, the cage isn’t to separate a winner from a loser, it’s to keep you from running from me. I’ve fought for over 20 years to headline the premier wrestling event the world sees year in, year out. I am not letting someone like you steal this moment of mine. I have a Lights Out for your back that Apollo left injured, an Either Or for your face that Emmanuelle and Jason softened up, and a High Hopes to finish you off because it worked so well at Paramount39. You beat happy-go-lucky Sally in 2022. You lost to resentful Sally in 2023. At Stranglemania 2024, you will lose to a pissed-off Sally.”
With unwavering focus, Sally looked up at the Arch, as if seeking confirmation from its timeless grandeur that she was on the true path. Her eyes darted from relief to relief.
“They approve,” From beneath the main archway, Ambrose emerges, exuding an air of enigmatic intrigue, “They hear it all, they see it all. They approve.”
Sally, still tense, begins to walk, “Who does?”
“Everyone,” Ambrose pulls in alongside Sally, placing a hand on her shoulder, “The Magic more than all.”
The two, side-by-side, continue down the sidewalk before seamlessly blending into the flow of pedestrians, both presences merging with the rhythm of the city as she disappeared into its bustling embrace. The camera slowly fades out on the hustle and the bustle, all flowing in one direction.
The future loomed before her, its boundaries undefined. Sally's thoughts wandered through the corridors of broken promises, the echoes of the past resonating within her like rolling thunder. But amidst the gloom, a flicker of defiance shimmered in her eyes, a stubborn resolve born from years of perseverance and upsets at her own hands. She straightened her posture, shoulders squared as if daring the rain to wash away her determination.
Her whole career had led to this point. EWC Undisputed Champion. She was not one to be defeated easily, not by the capricious whims of fate nor by the burdensome expectations of others and even less by the likes of Xavier Reid. As the drizzle continued, she took a deep breath, inhaling the damp scent of London's streets, and silently vowed to forge her path.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back,” Sally looked over her shoulder, catching the camera in the corner of her eye. Her profile cut a stark line against the dullness of the world, “Thank-you for joining me for Stranglemania. In a few days, some of you will be lucky enough to see my next performance in the vaunted main event of the show of shows. Alas, this next show has replaced magic with violence. A stage replaced with a cage. Wembley Stadium will become the home of unspeakable violence, an alter to sadistic horrors and vicious whims and dark desperations.”
With a determined stride, Sally stepped forward, her boots creating a rhythmic percussion against the wet pavement as she embraced the uncertain journey ahead. After some distance, she opened her arms in both directions, spinning to face the camera. With careful precision, she slowly walked backward as she continued to speak, “We’re stood here at the three-way intersection of Edgware Road, Bayswater Road and Oxford Street. Why, might you ask? Simple. Over there…”
Sally’s right arm lowers, her left pointing.
“…is triumph. And over there…”
Sally’s left arm lowers, her right now directs our attention.
“…is something else.”
Sally begins to walk to the right, towards triumph. We see quickly that she entering the shadow of John Nash's Marble Arch: A spectacle of triumph. Sally’s steps quickened, eager to confront the looming monument that stood as a symbol of grandeur and history. The arch's majestic presence loomed large, its intricate details a testament to the enduring legacy of those who came before, much like the title belt that will wrap around Sally’s waist. As she approached, Sally couldn't help but feel a surge of determination in the shadow of legacy, a silent promise to carve her name into the annals of greatness.
“Here we have a tribute to the past. A reminder of greatness. All around us are these silent reminders: Monuments, statues, championship belts,” Sally casts a sly grin towards the camera, “You’ve seen mine. The EWC Undisputed Championship. What I have done in the few weeks that Season 25 has been upon us is the purest form of greatness this company has ever seen. Everything I’ve touched has turned to triumph. I set out with a promise to remake EWC with Magic, and the Magic has done so through me.”
The Marble Arch now loomed over Sally, its massive stone pillars reaching toward the sky like ancient sentinels guarding the secrets of time. As she stood beneath its imposing presence, a sense of awe mingled with trepidation, as if the arch itself held the power to shape destinies, “My title is my triumph. My belt is my monument. Some of my last words in 2023 were God help EWC if I became champion. And dare I say it, God helps you now. A Magical God, in all her triumphal glory, performing miracle after miracle. Seven wins, a loss, and a draw this season so far. And each one of them bar one Matches of the Night. I have lifted EWC with the Magic against the full spectrum too. A title defence against Mercenary, a win over JoJo, and yet another win over none other than Xavier Reid. Compare that to the milquetoast 3-3 my esteemed opponent has racked up so far. No memorials for mediocrity, dare I say.”
With a fleeting glance of admiration at the Marble Arch, Sally turned away, her resolve strengthened by the silent promise of greatness that lingered in the air, “Luckily for us all, our monument to you, Xavier, is a short walk away.”
Sally navigated the bustling crowd and dodged the flow of traffic, her determination unwavering as she made her way from Marble Arch to a nearby traffic island which was the forgettable home to a plaque honouring the Site of the Tyburn Tree. The cacophony of city sounds surrounded her, a chaotic symphony mirroring her tumultuous journey. As she reached the lowly traffic island she remarked, “Fitting, I suppose. This was a place once feared, the public execution grounds for over 650 years. Alas, it is now reduced to a mere footnote, the living transformation of terror into trivia, the physical reminder of the impermanence of power and the fleeting nature of human legacies. All this strikes a chord, right Xavier?”
“Excuse me!” A hurried pedestrian brushed past Sally, their rushed steps a stark reminder of the relentless pace of city life. In their passage, they step on the plaque on the floor.
“Hey!” Sally screams after the man, noticing his step across the plaque, “Have some respect for the past!”
The man, not stopped, looks to Sally over his shoulder, “What are you talking about!?”
“This is the…” Sally stops herself, stopping to think, “Actually, he’s right. He’s right to forget and move on from the past. He’s right to walk all over history. The past is dead, and if I have my way your hopes and dreams and legacy will be too, Xavier. Let me be crystal clear here: I hate you because you represent everything the recent EWC represents. Mediocre talent handed up opportunity after opportunity without truly deserving it. A ticker-box wrestler who seems to be playing a perpetual game of bingo with his career. You’ve had your mid-card titles and your top-tier titles. You’ve had your moments in the spotlight and your career-defining moments. Problem is, even ‘shit’ has a definition in the dictionary.”
Sally now stands directly atop the plaque and, in a moment of disgust, wipes her feet on it, “Xavier, you’re not here because you won or achieved or succeeded. It’s not even fair to call you the Narumi Tsutsumi of THIS match. At least she successfully defended her title to get herself injected into our WrestleFest match. You didn’t successfully defend squat. You drew with Mercenary. You didn’t win, you drew! If Narumi was a technicality at WrestleFest, you’re a mistake of the highest order; the accident between two teenagers in a red-state where there’s no easy access to condoms and so ‘We’ll make it work’ becomes the family’s motto. Problem is, in 2024, you’re not working.”
Sally tenses her shoulders up, standing upright, “So what have you done to warrant even a ticket to Stranglemania, much less a God-damned main event match with me? You started the year strong getting beat clean by your’s truly…and I gave you every advantage you needed. Hell, I even begged you to win for the sake of this very match. Then you swanned on back to Brawl just to remind them of the bullet they dodged when you left, and beat…who? Antoni Malietoa? Then on your home ground, my Shinijoshi went and beat your Love Club clean and proper. Again, you had all the advantage and none of the planned finish.”
“At Paramount 41, you got the first win anyone here probably paid attention to: You beat Jason Anderson,” Sally holds a hand up, rage in her eyes, “Hold your horses, resident number-cruncher. Before you throw back that I could only draw with Jason, let’s not delude ourselves into thinking Jason Anderson is the benchmark of success. Sure, he’s had a run of it, but I’d have got the same result as you if I hadn’t been carrying EWC all the while leading into that match. And besides, a win over Jason would mean a hell of a lot more if you didn’t get pushed to the limits by Emmanuelle the next Brawl, then come into our match having got beat by the three-match-wonder Apollo Polamalu. Remind me again why you deserve this match with me?”
Sally looks down once more at the plaque and with all the disdain and hatred she can muster, she spits on it. Not content, she spits again, before looking at the camera and dabbing the corners of her lips, “Go and look in a God damned mirror Xavier and ask yourself: Is that the kind of record an Undisputed Champion has? Only playing in your front yard because you’re too scared to go out the gate and play with the bigger kids? You make me sick. Everything about this match disgusts me. You have no right being here, and you’ve made. No effort to deserve it. There was once a Xavier Reid who would agree with me, too. Many moons ago, as you were finishing off Scorpio in your only true title defence at Rumble XVII, you screamed out for all to hear:
“I’LL SHOW YOU WHAT A FUCKIN’ UNDISPUTED CHAMPION LOOKS LIKE!”
Now is where you look away from that mirror, buddy, and into my eyes. I’m what an Undisputed Champion looks like. Look at what I’ve done since getting my hands on this belt. I dare you to try and even fathom what I have brought to EWC. The Magic is ever-so-slowly washing over this company, cleansing it from its sins. I have taken my belt to Brawl, Rampage, Paramount, and Prime not because I particularly want to, but because I need to. I go where the Magic is needed.”
Sally stood over the plaque, her anger simmering beneath the surface, her gaze burning holes into the insignificance of the marker, “By tucking your tail, running to Paramount, and hiding out there with your Club, you’re showing your true colours. You’re showing what we’re in for if you become champion again. It’ll be the Dark Ages all over again,” Sally gestures to the plaque, memorialising the death of countless people, “Only this time it’ll be because no one’s turned the lights on because no one’s watching! Love me or hate me, the people have come from far and wide just to let their emotions out.”
Sally's gaze drifted back down the street towards the Marble Arch, an urge filling her heart as she reminisced about the moments of determination and hope that had propelled her forward, though still with intensity in her eyes, “There’s heat and there’s love. There’s adoration and animosity. But you, Xavier, are just plumbing the crowds for a new reaction: Silence. You make them not care and so they don’t. That’s not me saying you’re not a good wrestler: You can be at times. It’s not me saying you don’t have a chance at winning at Stranglemania: You do. But it’s me saying if I fail to do my job against you then and there, then I’ve failed in making EWC a better place. Love or hate what I did, people watched. People reacted. EWC responded. Find me someone who didn’t take the bait…who didn’t react…who didn’t come after me. Hell, you reacted. The ice-cold Xavier Reid. Then again, look what it took to even get a rise from you. I called in lawyers, said anything and everything, literally beat you in the ring…and only then did you manage to show any signs of life. I’ve felt like Dr. Frankenstein since the season started, having to deal with your corpse and trying to bring it to life so that we might just get a solid 20, 30 minutes of something more than the usual flailing and grunting that gets confused for the last time you laid down with Saturday night’s Mrs. Reid.”
As if guided by unseen forces, Sally felt an irresistible pull drawing her back towards the Marble Arch that stirred a sense of purpose within her soul, “So I am left to wonder: Why? Why are you hiding? What are you so afraid of? What is it that took a guy who was OK for a mid-carder down to the status you currently occupy? I searched for answers. Eventually, though, I found the answer by looking at my belt.”
Sally finally steps off the island, not looking left nor right, utterly devoted to the Magic. No car takes her out, no danger to her life, “You know you’re a failure. You know you don’t deserve any of this. Three times you’ve had the chance to carve out a reputation fit for a champion. Three times you’ve failed. 48 days and one defence, 85 days and one defense-which-wasn’t-really-a-defense-it-was-a-draw-and-no-one-understands-why-you’re-here…anyway, you get the picture, right? You’ve had two chances to define yourself…and when the opportunity presented itself the first time, you were too scared to fly too near to the sun. The second time, even more scared. You are a coward, unable to muster the courage and the tenacity and the guts to succeed. You’re so afraid of being someone that you end up being no one. In the few times you’ve managed to forget that fear you’ve done alright. But it is so deeply embedded into the very fibre of your being now that you can’t escape it.”
Sally is once again walking the footpath towards the Marble Arch, towards her place in the new history of EWC, “Look at how you won the title last time. You weren’t someone, you were just the last one. Then when you had the chance to defend it against Mercenary you only managed a draw. Again, your fear stopped you from doing what I did on Rampage’s season opener. And WrestleFest hardly needs re-treading, does it? You walked out twenty-pounds lighter and not a shred of credibility.”
Drawing nearer the Marble Arch, a palpable tension filled the air, a silent anticipation that seemed to echo the weight of history and the significance of her journey, “And if you somehow luck out a win again, what the fuck are you going to do? Take EWC back to the good ol’ days of last year when every man, woman, child and pet dog was looking at every other champion to rescue EWC? The AppleTV+ Broadcast Champion was the fucking face of EWC! Good ol’ days indeed! That’s what’s at stake for me. My sacrifices. The ratings, the buy rates, the uplift. I took outcasts and made Matches of the Night from them! What the fuck have you done for EWC besides leech off it like a parasite? You’re no better than the blow-in blow-out glory chasers. When it’s good for Reid it’s the right thing to do. To hell with what’s good for anyone else. So long as your ego gets stroked, your bank account grows, and your trophy cabinet fills, that’s all that matters you selfish fuck.”
Sally stepped into the shadows once more, the cool embrace of the Arch's towering form enveloping her like a familiar cloak, “That all needs to die. And so, we have to settle this in the very same home I discovered everything I needed to take hold of EWC: The Cage. Knowing how cheap the bureaucrats who run this company are, our Rage in the Cage is probably pieces of my Insanity Cage thrown together. The mayhem that will be unleashed there is fitting. I said earlier it’s time for someone to kill the past, and I will do that in our match. In this match, the cage isn’t to separate a winner from a loser, it’s to keep you from running from me. I’ve fought for over 20 years to headline the premier wrestling event the world sees year in, year out. I am not letting someone like you steal this moment of mine. I have a Lights Out for your back that Apollo left injured, an Either Or for your face that Emmanuelle and Jason softened up, and a High Hopes to finish you off because it worked so well at Paramount39. You beat happy-go-lucky Sally in 2022. You lost to resentful Sally in 2023. At Stranglemania 2024, you will lose to a pissed-off Sally.”
With unwavering focus, Sally looked up at the Arch, as if seeking confirmation from its timeless grandeur that she was on the true path. Her eyes darted from relief to relief.
“They approve,” From beneath the main archway, Ambrose emerges, exuding an air of enigmatic intrigue, “They hear it all, they see it all. They approve.”
Sally, still tense, begins to walk, “Who does?”
“Everyone,” Ambrose pulls in alongside Sally, placing a hand on her shoulder, “The Magic more than all.”
The two, side-by-side, continue down the sidewalk before seamlessly blending into the flow of pedestrians, both presences merging with the rhythm of the city as she disappeared into its bustling embrace. The camera slowly fades out on the hustle and the bustle, all flowing in one direction.
