Post by Boardwalk Angels on Oct 7, 2017 20:20:08 GMT -5
"I was going to let it stand as it was. Frankly, when Sylvia didn’t show up immediately with chaos and flame to try and debunk every word of truth I spewed I thought… maybe she gets it. For once, what little of her brain isn’t addled by playing the part of crazy, and I emphasize the word playing, told her that she was better off sticking to silence. There are people in life you don’t screw with and I’m near the top of that list. But now? Sylvia, it was just about beating you before. Now? Get ready for the dark side of Heaven, bitch.”
* October 7th, 2017, late-evening *
* Somewhere in Minnesota... *
Out of Darkness, Undying Flame
* October 7th, 2017, late-evening *
* Somewhere in Minnesota... *
Out of Darkness, Undying Flame
The visual is taking some time to put together. However, the audio is very clear: the familiar fumbling of unfamiliar hands upon a portable camera, a muttered word or two of frustration in Italian and several sharp intakes of breath and impatient exhales. Finally, a quiet voice speaks up from the unseen darkness.
”You do realize she’s speaking out of her rear, don’t you?”
The familiar tones of Zoey Madigan-Star, harried by the insistent needs of her friend and partner, compounded by her inability to deal with this newfangled camera. Farrah speaks much more calmly. TOO calmly. A sure warning sign.
”An ass that will soon house my foot, then her head. Is the audio on, at least?”
”Let me check…”
A few clicks and turns of dials… or at least that’s what we can assume is going on.
”...yeah, it is. If you want to-”
”I do.”
So… we’re still stuck with perfect blackness, having to let our imaginations wonder where they are and what’s going on. All we can be certain of is that Farrah Cornett got an ears and eyes full of Lopez’s rant… and she means to retort in short order. Again, her voice is very smooth, very calm… the level of anger past that of fiery rage.
”Lopez, you should have left well enough alone. Every time you speak you prove just what an idiot you can be. I knew you’d eventually get around to making a retort, but I didn’t think that you’d take the limiters off and just let every random thought rattling around in your skull amongst the rocks and spiders fly free. Before you took to the airwaves and made your case before the LAW fans, and everyone who’s a part of the company, I would have been content to just beat the hell out of you and leave whatever was left for Stacy to rip apart in a steel cage next weekend. Would have been. Content.”
There’s another pause and another irritated Italian exclamation from Zoey, but still no picture. We do hear the sounds of water, though… perhaps a river, creek or pond. Maybe a lake. Minnesota is smack-dab in the middle of the Land of 10,000 Lakes after all, right? Maybe the Angels decided to take a late-night sojourn a Great one…
”Not anymore. But you probably already figured that out, eh? Good on you if you did. Then again, I’m not a creature who hides what she feels or shies away from the truth. So how about a little more of that, hm? Because I want you to know that if I happen to cut you open somehow in our match, maybe break a couple bones or teeth… I want NO doubt in ANYONE’S mind that you had it coming. I want everyone, especially YOU, perfectly cognizant of the fact that you DESERVE this.”
Her emphasis on words stops short of being yelling, but the growl behind them says plenty more than volume could. The picture finally activates, but it’s a bit fuzzy; that might be due to lack of light or just a few missing adjustments. We aren’t sure. Farrah is crouched on the bank of some body of water, her fingertips sweeping through the dark water. The city is close enough, whichever one it may be, to where we can hear traffic in the near distance. But there’s little light and no skyline to go by for recognition’s sake.
”No one is without dark secrets, Sylvia. Not you, not me… not even Zoey. There’s a reason why she has nightmares lately and finds herself sleeping even less, letting out more of her harder emotions than usual. It’s because those dark secrets are coming to the fore. But she’s not on the level of you or I in that regard. No… not even close. The only person she’s ever hurt is herself. It’ll probably be that way till the day she pasess on. But you and I? How did they say it in the Avengers movie? There’s a lot of red on our ledgers.”
”Farrah…”
”NO.”
She turns slightly, enough to point a finger back toward Zoey. As the moments pass, the view coalesces, becomes clearer and sharper. Farrah, in jeans and a light jacket from what we can see, aside from black boots, is indeed on the bank of a river. And we don’t have to see Zoey to know that she’s taken aback by the sharp retort cutting her off.
”Just record. Don’t try to talk me out of how I feel. Don’t attempt to calm me down. You remember the Homecoming game in our junior year? Remember the shit that went down that night?”
”I could never forget.”
The magician’s voice trembles as she speaks. Farrah turns back to the river and Zoey speaks up again, a bit of shock in her voice.
”Farrah, no. Absolutely not! You don’t get to go to THAT place!”
”Too late. Record.”
Sighing, knowing already that there’s no talking the Crimson Angel out of it, the Sorcerous Angel falls silent and continues her task.
”I guess you decided to spill your guts because you wanted to justify yourself somehow. You wanted the world to know about your crimes, Sylvia, not for sympathy or empathy, but because you think it gives you a right to harangue everyone you see, to call them out as being sluts or whores or something else. Because your mother disappointed you and you couldn’t deal with it, now you see her in everyone. That’s not justification, Sylvia; that’s karma. You will never NOT see your mother in the eyes of every other woman you come across. And that’s because you know you were wrong for doing what you did. You will never escape the look in her eyes and the blood will never wash off your hands. You are marked, and make no mistake, Sylvia: you’re going to hell.
Worse yet? You’re going there while you’re still living and breathing. And you’re going to do it knowing that everyone in the crowd and most of the people in the locker room are going to enjoy watching you squirm and scream as I beat you into the canvas. I know you, though: you don’t care that this is coming to you. You think you’re invincible. That you’re beyond feeling anything that you don’t want to feel. Moreover, this isn’t going to shut you up even for a moment. Even if I kick you in the face so hard that they have to wire your jaw shut it will only be temporary silence. You’ll be right back, spewing the same psychotic propaganda, condemning everyone but the one person who deserves it most, just like you always have. You’re going to keep that up until you can’t anymore. I know your type, Sylvia. More than you think.”
Hands out of the water, Farrah stares down at them. There’s a dim light overhead offering some small amount of illumination and Zoey, after figuring out how, turns on the camera’s own light at a dim level to keep the glare away. Farrah stares at her palms and spread fingers for some time, watching the liquid drip from them one drop at a time.
”And I hold to my dimestore diagnosis of you not being crazy. You’re just mad with guilt and can’t pull the bloody veil from over your eyes that has you seeing everyone in some state of sin or suffering. You don’t know how to separate yourself from your pain. In another life and time, I might pity you. I might even extend a hand to help you. But the only hand coming your way will be the one that throws you down and beats on you until you cannot answer a referee’s count. That’s why, despite everything that you said about me, my family, my friends… I still don’t consider this personal. There’s still a logical, rational part of my own mind that tells me not to let this become a vendetta. I’ve titles to defend, a business to help run, a family to support. Even a fraction of that is more important to me than destroying you would ever be. Zoey...”
”Yes?”
Farrah turns, not so much looking over her shoulder as looking off into the distance. Peripherally, her attention is on Zoey.
”Toss my bag over here.”
”...a-all right.”
A simple black knapsack is thrown at Farrah’s feet. From within after a moment’s digging about, she draws out a tack hammer. It is old but well-kept, untouched by rust, wood unsplintered. Farrah hefts the tool, tossing it into the air and catching it, then turning with it back to the water. When she speaks, her voice is slightly softer.
”As you said and I confirmed, I do have a dark secret. Unlike you, I’m not so starved for attention and justification that I feel the need to tell you about it. You thought you were punishing a sinner; I was defending myself against a predator. You took pride in ending the life of someone for a crime comparatively minor in today’s world; I did what I had to do and the consequences almost destroyed me. Are you seeing the differences yet, Sylvia? Do you get it? You’ve been a monster ever since that hammer first collided with your dead mother’s skull. You’ll always be a monster, too. Not because you can’t be redeemed, but because you don’t want to be. And what does any of this have to do with wrestling? Nothing. That’s the sad part.”
Standing up straight for the first time, Farrah brings a hand to her face but with her back to the camera still we are unaware of why.
”Success in the business obviously doesn’t matter to you, only your red-stained, ill-conceived crusade. Titles, glory, being written up in the history books for future generations to read about and revere? You don’t care. I would not go so far as to call myself a purist but I am keenly aware of the nature of the wrestling business. One day, I want people looking back on my career and thinking well of me, not just for in-ring exploits but all around. Doesn’t really jibe with my angry bitch image, though, does it?”
She chuckles dryly.
”Wrestling matters to me, though. That’s one big reason out of several that I’m not letting this be personal, Sylvia. There’s no sense in going the road that so many others before me have gone and ruining my future for present gratification. Beating you will have to do. Destroying you is in the hands of powers beyond me. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to hurt you, maybe bust you open and possibly send you to Tampa for your cage match with Stacy at HYBRID Wrestling's Conviction pay-per-view with a limp, though. It just means that you WILL survive and you WILL go on, much to the chagrin of everyone who ever has to share a locker room with you.
That probably doesn’t worry you even a little bit, Sylvia. You, very much like Cottonmouth, tried your utmost to get a rise out of me by disparaging my family, my friends and so much more. I didn’t get pissed at that glammed-up caricature of a woman, either. Do you know why? Because neither of you are worth it. If I let my temper flare and got super-violent every time someone tossed shade in the direction of my family, I’d have a heart attack by 35 out of pure stress. Once upon a time, though? Yeah… talk like that would get you put in the hospital. Not unlike Yolanda Burke back in high school… right, Zoey?”
”Farrah, don’t-”
”What, don’t tell her? Don’t tell the world? Why? I mean, if we’re going to compare notches on our belts, let’s just have at it!”
”Because you’re dangerously close to bringing that up as if you’re trying to one-up Sylvia instead of just making a point! You are not in control right now!”
Turning, her eyes clearly reddened from… something… Farrah grips the hammer tightly in her right hand.
”She’s still breathing, isn’t she?!”
”She wouldn’t have been if I weren’t there!”
”You should have let me end the bitch once and for all, Zoey! I will NEVER understand that!”
The camera shakes a little. Now Zoey is the one barely holding back fury.
”Because I didn’t think you could handle having that happen twice, Farrah! It was barely a year after the incident and you were still finding your way back! I can take getting beaten up! I can take being called disgusting names and embarrassed in front of the entire school! I CAN’T take my best friend turning into a MONSTER!”
There’s silence for a few moments as Farrah, shaking, turns back to the water with her arms folded across her chest. The hammer sticks out from its place in her hand.
”You’re the only reason she’s still alive. And the only reason I’m not in prison for the rest of my natural life.”
Zoey releases the shaky breath she’d been holding. Farrah, looking over her shoulder toward the camera, smirks slightly.
”If you go back to that spot, even now almost ten years later, Sylvia? You can still see where I raked that bitch’s face across a chain-link fence. She and her little gang of ghetto bitches thought they’d have a little fun at Zoey’s expense at the aforementioned Homecoming game. No one else stepped in, so I did. Yolanda pulled a razor and tried to slash me and, well, I snapped. I grabbed Yolanda by her braid and bounced her face off the steel benches, then proceeded to rake it across the fence until I’d ripped half her face to shreds. Only the local authorities and school security were able to peel me off her before I took her life.
Once more I ask, Sylvia: do you see the difference? You tried to take the task of judgment from the hands of a higher power and took your own mother’s life as a result. I defended my friend and myself against someone and lost control. I almost became you. But I’m stronger than that and Zoey reminded me of this. You? You’re not strong. Not even a little. It takes no strength to deliver hate upon a dead woman and another who’s suffering for her past crimes while she tries to become more, to become better. You caved your mother’s skull in with glee and satisfaction. I ripped a sixteen-year-old’s face off because she ganged up on my best friend. She got what she had coming. Your mother did not. You’re going to get what YOU have coming, though. And somewhere in Heaven, your mother is going to smile… something you probably never brought to her face while she was alive.”
Another uncomfortable silence follows. After that, Farrah picks up her bag and puts the hammer back in, dropping it in the dew-soaked grass once more.
”Destiny would brush off your comments about her and her friends because she was, and still is, above that sort of bait. Jamilyn? She won’t say anything. She’ll just bide her time until she gets you in the ring, whereupon she’ll proceed to rezone your face for strip mining with the sole of her boot. If my children aren’t going to fire back at your base accusations, threats or insults, why should I? This… this isn’t firing back. This is telling you what the situation is and what it’s going to be at LAW #70. You’re going to lope your greasy hide down the ramp and between the ropes, rocking in the corner like a hobbyhorse… and then you’re going to hear “Run Like Hell”. And instead of heeding that chorus, you’re going to stand up and smile because you still think that even though I’m not determined to murder you in cold blood on live television that I won’t still decimate you. Then I’m going to strip off my jacket, crack my knuckles and make you scream louder than mommy ever did in her throes of death. You remember that time in minute detail, Sylvia. You’ve indicated as much. It’s time to revisit it. My hand will be the hammer and you’ll play the part of your poor mother. The difference is that you’ll live and you’ll have the chance to atone for your crimes… though we all know you won’t.”
”Farrah-”
”I know, I know… too much.”
Shaking her head, Farrah turns and glares into the camera once more.
”You’d better start fucking caring about who I am and what I’ve done, Sylvia, otherwise you’re going to look twice as stupid after I beat you. You’d better recognize who in the hell you’re fighting in Minneapolis tomorrow night, because your idea of success and notoriety are nothing but illusions. Angels, Lopez, don’t burn. I’m not going to be your Icarus, going up in flames by getting too close to the star you see yourself as. I’m going to snatch you from the sky and drive you into the dirt where you belong from above the clouds. See, it’s not about how good a game you can talk: it’s whether you can produce results. And you? You haven’t done that. Sneak attacks? Pseudo-creepy videos? Talk of fire and burning and companies ending by your hand? You’re no Emma Carlisle, bitch. Better get that through your dented skull.
Or don’t. I couldn’t care less at this point. I’m going to step on you like the roach you are then scrape your remains off my boot onto the concrete. Then you’re going to pick yourself up and scuttle off into your hole to piece yourself back together again to make another go because, simply put, you don’t fucking get it. I’m doing that because that’s what I do better than anything else not involving a camera or a microphone in my hands. I bring mouthy bitches down to their proper level by showing them what a real woman can do in a wrestling ring. I do it in a lot of other places, too, but you don’t have the guts for a fight without rules against the Crimson Angel. You can be sure of that.”
She walks forward a bit and Zoey obligingly adjusts the focus of the camera to compensate.
”I take back what I said last time, though. One part of it, anyway. Don’t get ready to fly, Sylvia. No… prepare yourself for the Sudden Stop.”
She reaches out and closes her hand around the lens, ending the message.
* October 7th, 2017, late-evening *
* Park Tavern *
* Minneapolis, Minnesota *
Aftermath
The next we see of the Angels has them at Park Tavern in Minneapolis. Chances are they came here direction after Farrah’s address to Sylvia, more than likely looking for a relatively friendly-seeming place to take the edge off. Both sit at a back booth, across from one another, with several plates and glasses before them. Zoey, as per usual, has iced tea before her and a little bit of steak and potatoes remaining on her plate, next to it sitting an empty salad bowl. Farrah, on the other hand, still has half of a rather large hamburger and some fries left lying, though from the looks of the glasses she’s put down a good three or four lagers, working on the most recent one now. The friends and partners are silent for a few moments more before Zoey speaks.
”I’m sorry I got on your case back there. I knew as soon as I saw her speaking on the LAW website that this was going to happen. It should have been expected.”
Gulping down the rest of the glass, Farrah holds up a hand and shakes her head a little. Dabbing at her lips with a napkin, she locks eyes with her partner.
”I can’t be angry with you for following your nature any more than you can truly be upset with me for my reactions to things. Seriously, Zee… it’s cool. I’m cool.”
”I hope that that’s the case, F.J. That’s your fifth.”
The magician gestures with a fork speared into a chunk of medium-rare sirloin toward the now-empty beer glass that Farrah plunks down on the tabletop. A waiter comes over at that point and after a glance toward Farrah, he leans down to whisper to Zoey.
”Is she okay…?”
”She will be. Don’t worry… I’ll see her to her room safely. Thank you for your concern.”
Zoey takes a card from her wallet, slips it into the check binder and places it in the young waiter’s hand with a kind smile, sending him on his way. Farrah isn’t watching the situation before her; she’s constantly swirling a fry in a small pile of ketchup. Zoey snaps her from her reverie.
”Do what you have to do against Sylvia, F.J. No one in the world will fault you if things get out of hand. Like you said the other day: things are coming together very well at this point. Someone like her… doesn’t get to throw a wrench in that. I mean it.”
”No, they don’t.”
Exhaling, Farrah puts down the fry and grabs up the burger, taking a large bite from it. Smiling again, Zoey forks up the rest of her potato, effectively clearing her plate with that final bite put away. She swallows before speaking, of course. Manners and all that.
”This place is really good, isn’t it? It’s almost always the hometown places that have the best food.”
”I agree on that. We should come back with James and Katalina tomorrow before we leave.”
”Hopefully Stacy, Jen, Crystal and Seleana can come, too. Make a little evening of it.”
”Yeah. That sounds good…”
A few moments later, the two women are leaving the tavern, Zoey with her arm around Farrah’s shoulders and a large take-out bag in each woman’s hand. Leading her partner to the rental, Zoey makes sure Farrah gets into the passenger seat safely, then buckles her in before stowing the foot and climbing in herself.
”I thought for a moment you’d tell Sylvia about… you know.”
”No. I mean, I thought about it, but… no. There’s a reason only four people on the planet know about that, Zoey. Unlike Sylvia, I’m willing to pay for my mistakes and make amends. It's not something to be brought up in public for any reason.”
”The only person you need to apologize to is yourself for anything that happened in your past.”
”Look who’s talking.”
Checking the mirror, Zoey turns on the engine and smiles.
”Someone who’s trying to do just that, smarty-pants.”
”Let me know when you succeed so you can teach me how.”
Reaching over, Zoey puts a hand on Farrah’s. Farrah’s turns and squeezes that of her friend as she stares into Zoey’s two-color eyes.
”You’ve always been the strong one.”
”Only when I have to be and only because you give me the strength to be.”
Sharing a smile and that warm little moment for a bit longer, Zoey then puts both hands on the wheel and pulls out of the lot. Back to the hotel… to rest and to prepare. To get ready to fly.