Post by Arcadia on Dec 17, 2011 18:42:41 GMT -4
Outside the Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, Washington, Action Packed Wrestling fans huddle together in line, shuffling from one foot to the other, blowing out cold puffs of air with every breath they take. The loyal masses don’t let thirty degree weather and a little rain keep them indoors, not with Christmas Chaos happening live in their home town just a few short hours from now. No, these APW faithful donned their thick coats, their warms gloves and scarves, and grabbed their umbrellas, migrating to the Arena in droves, knowing they would be standing online for a few hours yet, but not wanting to leave their houses a minute to late. At a live event, on time is late, and early is on time. The residents of Tacoma knew that, and prepared. Some of them watch talk to each other, about their seats, about the upcoming matches, about their favorite wrestlers and the last time they saw them. Some mill about looking at the outdoor vendors, never straying too far from their place in line, hoping the merchandise will be better inside though they know that the prices won’t be. Others just stare straight ahead waiting for the doors to open. A built in outdoor display screen at the Tacoma Dome is flashing advertisements for the show and for its sponsors with a few teasers for future events, before starting all over again.
Suddenly, all heads swivel as “When Worlds Collide” by Powerman 5000 blares over the outdoor Public Announcement system. One fan points and the crowd starts cheering as Katrina “Arcadia” Olivetti is pointed out walking through a side entrance and around the corner of the building, heading towards the fans. Many rush to greet her, vying to get autographs and high fives, pushing for a chance to get close to The Hardcora Luchadora, their places in line left abandoned without thought like a prom night dumpster baby.
The music plays out to the song’s end and Arcadia brings a microphone to her lips, projecting over the PA system. “Hey Tacoma! Enjoying the weather?”
The crowd cheers and hollers back at her, the way they always will when you mention their hometown. Katrina doesn’t wait for them to quiet and speaks again, over them. “No matter what I do or say to you people, you just go on cheering me anyway. And while I can’t understand it, I’ve decided to embrace it for the moment and share something special with you. This is my way of showing gratitude to you foolish idiots who come wait for a show to start 6 hours before its set time. After all, where would the rest of us be if we didn’t have you overeager, mentally prepubescent, violence mongers to laugh at and feel sorry for?” And for some reason still unknown to Arcadia, the crowd continues cheering. “So, just for all of you mindless drones who have braved the elements today, I have a World Premier Presentation for you. If you would all direct your attention to the display, please…”
All eyes turn obediently to the display screen as the advertisements suddenly blink out and a new image takes over. It’s the image of Damien Walker. The crowd gives an ever louder pop as they see the manager of the Red Shield Mafia on the screen. He is walking down the hall backstage with his signature silver whistle in his mouth, lightly whistling a tuneless “Jingle Bells” as he walks. He walks past the camera and the view takes up from behind him, following him down the hallway. Just before Damien is about to round a corner, he is laid out flat with a kendo stick to the face! Damien goes sprawling to the ground on screen and Arcadia smiles in the parking lot of the Tacoma Dome as the crowd lets out a collective “Ooh!” Back in the video, Katrina “Arcadia” Olivetti leaps out from the intersecting hallway and slams the kendo stick down again into Damien’s midsection. DW wheezes and grabs his stomach as all the air is knocked out of him in a woosh, curling up a little as he tries to avoid the blow, still disoriented from the shot to the face he never saw coming. Real time Arcadia’s smile gets wider as the crowd grimaces again, not tearing their eyes from the screen for a moment as they watch Damien try to sweep his attacker off her feet. She is expecting that, and has all her focus about her, unfortunately for the poor RSM manager who is nursing one hell of an on-setting headache at the moment, and she jumps his leg as easily as if it was a Skip-it, rewarding his attempt to unseat her with a swift kick to the groin. When the crowd hisses en masse, Katrina “Arcadia” Olivetti laughs out loud into the microphone, earning her a collectively hostile look from the watching fans.
She coughs lightly, “I’m so sorry for interrupting. Please continue.” Katrina puts on a serious face and tucks the microphone under one arm, resting her fingers over her chin and mouth, tapping one of them on her lip in an obvious mockery of the crowd’s concern.
Back on the screen, Damien Walker spits out a mouthful of blood onto the concrete floor with a splat. “You fucking bitch!” He says, to the onlookers’ cheers, “Didn’t you get enough last time you fucked with the RSM?” Katrina dances around him to his head and kicks him in the face.
“No. I didn’t get enough. I didn’t get anywhere near enough to satisfy me, Damien.” She picks up something shiny off the floor and we can see DW’s whistle, slightly bloody from the face shot he took. She jumps onto Damien’s torso and plants her kendo stick across his chest, just below his throat, pressing all of her body weight onto it. He coughs some more and grabs the ends of the kendo. The Hardcora Luchadora on the video doesn’t notice that he is bringing his feet up, but the crowd watching does and starts to cheer as Arcadia grumbles, “Of course this part gets a cheer.”
What is being said on screen goes unheard as Damien Walker nails Katrina in the back with his knees, making her cry out in pain, the crowd going wild. The fans quickly change their cheers to groans as Player One yanks on the kendo stick that Walker is still holding and gives him a vicious headbutt, the sickening sound echoing across the parking lot of the Tacoma Dome.
He drops his head back onto the floor with a crack holding the bridge of his nose which has exploded in blood. Arcadia wipes some of it off her mask and flicks it onto Damien’s chest. She takes the whistle and puts it in her mouth, regardless of the blood that is on it. She quickly brings herself to Damien’s ear and blows the whistle right next to it, as hard and as long as she possibly can, while Walker screams in agony, his already splitting skull made much more fragile by the pop of his eardrum. Arcadia lets off to see that Damien has passed out from the combination of the head injuries and the body’s defense mechanism when hearing in suddenly lost in such a manner. She spits out the whistle and stand up, stepping on Walker’s prone form as she gets to her feet. She walks off screen for a moment.
Back in the parking lot, Katrina “Arcadia” Olivetti looks at the hostile crowd. And points back at the screen, bringing the microphone to her lips. “It’s just getting to the good part! You really don’t want to miss this, guys. I promise you.” She beckons to the display and the crowd can’t help but look again as The Hardcora Luchadora returns to the view of the camera.
Pulling out a roll of duct tape, Katrina binds Damien Walker’s hands and feet. She puts a piece over his mouth for good measure, though he isn’t stirring. The little luchadora plants a foot under his ribcage and kicks, rolling him over onto his stomach. In the video, Arcadia pulls out her butterfly knife and starts shredding his red and black RSM shirt up the middle, talking to Walker rather conversationally.
“Over a year ago, you and your group nearly killed me.” The shirt rips under her hands. “You beat me, you burned me, you scarred me. You in particular, Damien,” Arcadia punctuates his name with another swift kick to the ribs, “drove me into a fucking WALL at 60 miles an hour.” The shirt rips more. “I spent months dreaming of revenge during the day, and waking up in a cold sweat, unable to breathe for the nightmare of still being stuck in that FUCKING TRUCK while it BURST INTO FLAMES!” More kicks to the ribs, and a punch to the back of his head for good measure. “Now I will have my chance for revenge, finally, and I will not waste one moment of it second guessing myself. You, darling Damien, will be my first message to the Red Sheild Mafia.” The shirt comes completely apart in her hands and Katrina “Arcadia” Olivetti takes the butterfly knife and starts carving, slowly, deeply, into the flesh of Damien Walker’s back.
The crowd in the parking lot of the Tacoma Dome looks on, disgusted but unable to turn away. The only one with a smile on her face is The Hardcora Luchadora herself, her eyes shining with a strange cold light, the most amount of emotion seen in them since her return. With every slice of her knife, the fans grow more pale and the blush in Arcadia’s cheeks heightens. When Arcadia in the video finally stands and closes her knife, the words “I’m coming for you. Love Arcadia” can be seen for only a few seconds on Damien Walker’s back before the blood pools and the letters become unreadable.
“An eye for an eye, Damien. Now you’ve got something to remember me by, as well.” Arcadia says, and the screen goes black.
Katrina “Arcadia” Olivetti looks on in satisfaction at the crowd that is finally not cheering for her, or booing her, but only standing there, looking at her in disgust, mistrust written all over each one of their faces. Mother’s hide their children’s eyes behind their hands and the silence is broken only by a little girl saying to her mother, “It’s not real, right? Don’t worry, Daddy, DW is just faking!” Arcadia smiles and says, “Sorry, but I don’t think he’s that good of an actor, sweetheart.”
“Yoko Misawa reminded me of something when he ran in on my match with Chris Cyrus at One Night in Hell. He reminded me of why I came back. It wasn’t to win a belt. It was to exact my revenge. And for that I thank him. Tonight, I took my first chance at that revenge and they are right.” Katrina takes a deep breath of the cold air. “It certainly does taste sweet. Damien had the honor of being my first message to the RSM, but he will not be the last. I will have the satisfaction of making Yoko Misawa my second message to them. If they are foolish enough to ignore the first, they certainly won’t make that mistake after our match tonight. Yoko Misawa make be known as an Immovable Giant, but I am a fucking Dragon Queen and I will tear him apart piece by piece. I have studied him. I know his weaknesses. I have already removed a piece of him, and he is left vulnerable to me now, whether he knows it or not.” Arcadia dangles Damien Walker’s whistle for the crowd to see, swaying it back and forth like a pendulum. “This is so much more than a title defense for me. This is extremely personal, and it doesn’t matter to me whether Yoko was a part of the Red Sheild Mafia or not when they changed my life forever, because he calls himself one of them now. Guilt by association. He has made himself a target of my revenge and I never miss a target. Understand that tonight, ladies and gentlemen, tonight you will all have the honor of witnessing me not just retain a title, but to keep my word. I give it to you now. Yoko Misawa will not walk out of that ring the victor. In fact, I promise you that he will not walk out of that ring at all.”
The fans look ready to tear Katrina apart and as the crowd swells forward, a single siren can be heard, breaking through the overwhelming din of the jeers. A Tacoma ambulance rushes from around the back of the building, and all at once the realization that Damien Walker is the man in the ambulance hits the angry crowd. In the precious moments that they all stop to stare at the speeding van rushing their beloved Walker to the hospital, Katrina Olivetti slips back into the building, untouched.
