Post by Coda on Jun 14, 2017 4:20:48 GMT -5
DATE: 07.22.16
LOCATION: The Trench @ Nashville, Tennesee
CAMERA STATUS: OFF
"Jack Napier is a fool," the pale number one contender told the ruckus Nashville crowd in the center of the cobbled together wrestling ring with a no-nonsense cadence to her voice. "In my match against Carnivore one week prior from today, our Nashville Champion has revealed himself to be a coward when he attacked me from behind — the match ending in a disqualification. While I technically won, I do not consider this a victory on my part."
The seats in the bleachers were lined with local wrestling fans in the nearby area who consistently bought tickets to the show not broadcasted on television. Insurgency Wrestling flags hung from the rafters as well as flags featuring the logo of the company Chuck Matthews himself created back in the day.
"Jack Napier has said I am a hero. This is untrue," she reminded everyone watching with a stoic expression as she held the microphone firmly in her hand. Her fingers stiffened around the handle, white knuckles contrasting with her black nail polish. "The word hero does not mean anything. It is pointless. It is assuming everything I have done is in an attempt to do good when I have done many bad things in my tenure here in The Trench. I have made opponents bleed. I have broken the rules to achieve a victory. This hero worship... This blind faith people have in me... It is incorrect."
Of course, the crowd responded by cheering for the mysterious woman in front of them with even more passion than before. It nearly made the entire venue shake.
"This is why Jack Napier is a fool," she spoke simply, voice louder this time,
"I am tired of waiting," Coda continued to the admiration of the fans. "I do not care about the Nashville Championship as much as I care about beating Napier to a bloody pulp for disrespecting me. It is simple. It is karma. It is the reason I fight."
Her words were slow and methodical, careful and blunt all at the same time. As she brushed her long blonde-dyed hair out of her dark black eyes, Coda glanced at every single person in the audience with one sweeping turn.
Suddenly, a generic rock anthem blasted throughout the small arena roughly the side of a high school gymnasium and Jack Napier stepped out from the curtain with the Nashville Championship over his shoulder.
"Coda... Did you not understood the message I tried to teach you last week? Are you so blinded by hate for me and the fact that I'm the champion that you would rather cash in your championship opportunity now when you're not even fully healed from the beatdown Carnivore and I gave you? We smacked you with chairs — repeatedly. We struck you in the head, probably gave you a concussion, and you're still ready to fight? I thought you were smarter than this, Coda. I thought—"
"Enough," Coda held up a palm to the delight of the small crowd. "This bravado will not be able to phase me. I will walk out with the top championship that The Trench has to offer around my shoulder and you will be unconscious. I challenge you for the championship tonight and should Mr. Walsh have any smarts as a booker, he will officially assure that this match happens."
Right on cue, Spencer Walsh makes his way out of the curtain and pushes Jack Napier aside. Walking all the way down the aisle, Mr. Walsh climbs the apron and makes his way into the ring. Coda gives her boss a threatening look until Spencer raises his arms defensively and backs away, making sure to keep space between him and the monster across from him.
"Are you sure about this, Coda? You're the number one contender. If you decide to fight for the Nashville Championship tonight and you aren't successful, you know you're headed straight to the bottom of the ladder, right?"
Coda stoically glared at Mr. Walsh with a look of calm confidence overcoming her.
"I am sure. Let us hope a Matthews Enterprises representative is watching. It will surely catch interest when I become the Nashville Champion."
As Mr. Walsh leans over the ropes and speaks with a referee without the microphone to catch the words he was telling him, the referee quickly scurries towards the bell ringer and the announcer herself. With a nod back and forth, Spencer glances back at Coda in the ring and down at Jack Napier still standing on the stage.
"It's official! Jack Napier versus Coda for the Nashville Championship will be tonight's main event!" The excited crowd is on their feet, whooping and hollering at the thought of these two bitter rivals meeting each other in the ring again.
As Coda and Jack leave the ring and head backstage, Spencer continues to speak with the crowd for a little while before the next match on the card is set to begin.
"I do not understand it, Mara," Yuri addresses her sister in the privacy of her locker room, dropping the Coda persona at the door. As the porcelain-skinned fighter paced back and forth before the championship match much later in the night, Mara put a hand on her sister's shoulder.
"What's bothering you?" Looking into her sister's softened black eyes, it caused Yuri to hesitantly look away. Mara almost forgot the trouble looking into Yuri's eyes caused her. Although some would consider it rude and offensive that Yuri couldn't even keep eye contact with her own sister, it was simply a part of her atypical neural network. Her mind was different than most people's and while she tried to hide the fact in front of the crowd, she always felt drained when she walked to the back.
As Mara pulled out an overused Ziplock bag, Mara watched as her sister removed her earplugs on instinct and shoved them in the baggie.
"I am no hero and yet the crowd cheers louder each week," Yuri told her sister while she looked vaguely at the wall right behind Mara herself. "Did they not hear what I have said?"
Mara sighed.
"They heard it. It was clear. I just think some of them mistook it to mean that you were being humble."
"Hm," Yuri began to mindlessly pace again. "I suppose I do not expect the crowd to understand something so intricate. Philosophers have been studying what makes someone good for ages, I am sure."
"Is it really so bad that the crowd accepts your ability as a wrestler? Maybe it's not as black and white as you believe," Mara explained the best she could. "They watch you insulting authority figures, watch as you battle against complete and utter assholes like Jack Napier... And they like it. They like to see you walk down to the ring and beat the hell out of people sometimes, y'know? You're their conduit into wrestling here. You're the person people relate to. You're not some hulking man-beast and you're not some super athletic gymnast. You're almost a mixture of both. You're something new. You're—"
"These people would not like to know that I am nothing like them," Yuri bluntly proclaimed, sitting down on the floor and leaning on the blank white wall. "I am different. I am strange. I am undesirable. Nobody truly understands the words I speak and nobody understands the troubles I have that others simply take for granted."
"Yuri. You're not—" Of course, Yuri was hardly listening. She was busy drumming her fingers along her bent knee.
"I am dependent on wearing earplugs to block out the overload of stimulus. Looking into people's eyes drains a tremendous amount of energy for me. I struggle with identifying and showing emotions. It is not easy living in a world where others do not accept you. It is not easy to differentiate when it is okay to be myself and when it is inappropriate. It is not easy to read other people's emotions in a conversation. I am no hero. I am something else entirely. I am... I do not know."
Mara looked at her younger sister with sympathy. She remembered when Yuri came home from school and mentioned that she was bullied for being so different. She remembered the teasing Yuri received for talking so formally growing up. It wasn't an act. That was real.
It was no surprise when Yuri decided to fight back.
"Just because you're different doesn't make you inferior. It just means you're different, that's all," Mara tried to calm Yuri down as she gently rocked back and forth against the wall. "You know more about the technical aspect of wrestling than anyone I know. Plus, your hearing is practically superhuman! You know how many times you asked me what a sound was and I couldn't hear it? You're more sensitive than anyone gives you credit for and hell, you're about to become the Nashville Champion later tonight! You're not excited?"
"I suppose I am," Yuri answered softly, standing back up. "It will be good to make Jack Napier fall in a puddle of his own blood." With a soft sincere smile, Yuri glanced at the door to see a man named Jenkins crack it open slightly. Informing her that the main event was up next made her body stiffen as she prepared to do the one thing she fully understood how to do properly — fight.
