Carnival Games/Monsters within our bloodline
Sept 19, 2021 18:31:04 GMT -5
Sara Pettis and Khaos like this
Post by Cerise on Sept 19, 2021 18:31:04 GMT -5
Time seemed to stand still. Katarina watched helplessly as Laura’s body collapsed to the ground. She had seen the bullet coming, knew that it had been meant for her. Katarina reacted out of instinct, grabbing Emmalynn and throwing her to the ground. They had, literally, dodged a bullet. Well, not all of them.
Katarina crawled towards Laura’s lifeless body, forgetting about the impending danger that surrounded them. Emmalynn lay on the grass, curled up into a ball, as Danny shook off the shock of what had happened and radioed for “back-up”. The sound of screeching tires made Katarina jump as she reached the side of her wounded guardian. She briefly glanced up, seeing a blue Honda speeding off in the distance, the barrel of a rifle being pulled back into the car. As the vehicle made its quick getaway, Danny’s security team arrived on the scene, surrounding him as if he were the President of the United States. They even looked the part, wearing black jackets, black pants, and having the clichéd wire connecting to the ear from their walkie-talkies. They checked on the status of their VIP as he tried to direct them towards Laura. Katarina twisted her fingers within Laura’s hand, her skin already cold to the touch; her mouth slightly open as her eyes stared lifeless up at the night sky.
“Mr. Starr, the threat appears to be cleared sir,” the lead Security officer informed Danny. “But I would advise you to take your family inside, just to be safe. We’ll comb through the perimeter and notify the authorities as soon as you are out of harm’s way.”
Danny looked to Laura and Katarina as one of the security guards pried Emmalynn off the ground. Slowly, her Uncle began walking towards her as Katarina kept her focus on her “mother”, cradling her head in her arms and trying to rouse her awake.
“Kat, we need to go,” Danny finally spoke up, placing his hand on her shoulder. “If they come back…”
Katarina glared up at him, tears streaming down her cheeks as she twisted her body free from his touch.
“Get the fuck away from me!” Katarina screamed. “I’m not leaving her…”
“She’s gone Kat,” Danny stated heartlessly, digging his fingers into her arm and pulling her to her feet. "There’s nothing you can do.”
“That’s what you're best at, isn’t it?” Katarina accused, ripping free once more. “Doing nothing!”
Katarina turned her gaze back to Laura, wishing that she would simply blink her eyes, take in a deep breath, rise up from the ground, and hold her in her arms once more. None of this came to pass, however. This nightmare was real.
“All she ever did was love me,” Katarina struggled to find the words. “She was the one that was there for me the night my Mom died. My Mom told me to call you, told me that you’d take care of me. But it ` was her; she was the one who stepped up when you couldn’t find the strength to do so. All these years, she protected me – from them… from you.”
“So you sit there and do nothing Uncle,” Katarina declared, wiping a tear from her cheek. “I will save Blaine. I will avenge Laura. I will ensure that what happened here tonight NEVER happens again.”
The sounds of sirens blaring in the background could be heard as the first responders began arriving on the scene. Odd how fast they had gotten here – almost like they had been warned of this impending assassination attempt in advance.
As the front lawn of her uncle’s mansion transformed into a crime scene before her eyes, Katarina sat somberly on the front steps, Emmalynn resting her head on her shoulder. The two had already been questioned by the authorities as to what had happened, but nothing the two women said seemed to spark any type of immediate action. This was all for show, Katarina knew it. Nothing would come of this “investigation”, it would all be filed away in some report, never to see the light of day again. Katarina watched as the white sheet was laid over Laura’s body, marking the death of a second mother-figure in her lifetime. Deciding she had seen enough, she stood up and stomped into the mansion. Her uncle wasn’t hard to find, sitting in his study with one hand on his temple, the other caressing a glass of some expensive bourbon. Upon hearing her enter, Danny moved to greet her.
“Sit… down!” Katarina commanded, pointing back to his chair.
Danny did as he was told, though a bit perplexed as to why he had acquiesced to his niece’s stern demand.
“You…” Katarina pointed again, this time at her Uncle. “You DID this!”
Danny opened his mouth to defend himself but Katarina was an unstoppable force at this point, not giving him a second to get a word in.
“Don’t even try and save yourself here, Danny…” Katarina practically screamed, slamming her hands down on his desk. “You were supposed to protect Blaine and where is he, huh? Where is MY brother, Uncle!?”
Danny swallowed hard as he weighed his options on answering the question or not.
“You know exactly where he is,” Katarina snapped, baring her teeth. “He’s in the clutches of the same people who killed our Father! The same people who run half this fucking country! And who put him there, Uncle!?”
“That’s not fair,” Danny finally interjected, trying to save face. “There was no way I could save your Father…”
“Just like you couldn’t save my Mother?” Katarina hissed. “Or how you couldn’t save my Brother? Or how about Laura…”
“Hey!” Danny yelled, throwing his crystalline glass against the wall, shattering it in the process. “Who are YOU to judge ME!?”
“Who am I?” Katarina scoffed. “Who am I!? I’m YOUR family, Uncle… or did you forget that?”
The fire of his sister lived on within her, Danny saw that now. His face began to twist into remorse as a result of his inactions all these years as Katarina shook her head, unable to pity the man who had been absent most of her life.
“And now, thanks to you,” Katarina continued, turning on her heel and walking towards the door. “It looks like we’re all either of us have left.”
Katarina walked out of her Uncle’s study, slamming the door behind her in the process.
Despite the blindfold over her eyes, Cerise still kept her eyes closed, per his instructions. Normally she likes surprises, but this one was taking FOREVER. She had finally stopped asking “are we there yet” when he smacked her upside the back of her head. It hadn’t really hurt, but Cerise got the message none-the-less. As she walked through the unfamiliar terrain, her senses were alive around her. She smelt stale peanuts, wet hay, and something that smelled an awful lot like manure. This last fact was confirmed when she felt her boot sink into something very squishy and most definitely unclean. The wind died down around them as she heard her footsteps echoing off the hardwood floors. After a few more minutes, Damien finally removed the scarf and let her see just where their adventure had brought them. The two stood amidst the center of a room, dozens of mirrors surrounding them.
“Well…” Damien began, intently watching her face so as to better gauge her reaction. “What do you think?”
She scrunched her nose at the unpleasant odors and the grotesque textures surrounding them, turning and looking up at Damien with a fake smile; trying not to seem too disappointed in this “surprise” he had planned.
“It’s... really… something...” Cerise replied, satirically looking around. “There are no people here, what kind of weird mirror hell is this place?”
Cerise leaned in close to a nearby mirror, adjusting her makeup. At that moment, the sound of rolling thunder could be heard in the distance as the lights flickered, the images in the glass becoming distorted each time darkness took hold.
“Mirror hell is exactly what I’d describe this as,” Damien snickered, a grin coming across his face. “Welcome to Remembrance!”
He lifted his arms up as the lights flared up in response, illuminating the room in a blinding luminescent glow. Cerise did her best to shield her eyes but it seemed to swallow her whole. As the darkness enveloped her, she turned to run only to see a single reflection looking back at her. Only, it wasn’t her own…
Jumping at the startling sight, Cerise calmed her nerves, slowly approaching the mirror that stood before her. As she got closer, she studied every inch of her image, trying to understand just what was transpiring. Her eyes and brain couldn't comprehend that the reflection was no longer of her with her natural pink and blue pony tailed self; instead, her gorgeous locks were replaced by ones that were now short and dark. She pulled at her skirt; only these, too, had been replaced by a pair of simple sweatpants and a plain t-shirt in the mirror’s image.
“Am I… Sora Weaver…?” Cerise asked, confused. “Wait… Remembrance!? The rumble!”
Cerise eyed herself up suspiciously, not really liking what she was seeing.
“Sora…” Cerise repeatedly, starting to giggle at how HIS body reacted to HER movements. “I don't really know too much about him, except for the fact that his name sounds about as scary as one of those ‘Final Fantasy’ games.”
At the mention of one of the most popular video game franchises EVER, the thunder noises ceased, instead giving away to a booming orchestral version of “One Winged Angel” – the villainous theme of Final Fantasy 7’s main antagonist, Sephiroth. Cerise covered her ears as Damien snapped his fingers, the volume instantly dropping in decibel.
“Sorry,” Damien cringed, appearing briefly behind her in the shadows before fading away to obscurity. “Still trying to get a handle on this whole ‘hall of horrors’ thing. The Nightshades made it look much easier when they were doing it. Anyway… you were saying…?”
“I was saying,” Cerise began, pausing every so often in-between words, half-expecting to be interrupted again. “I’m not too worried about him. I think the best I’ve seen him do recently is fight to a ‘no-contest’. Which, if you think about it, is really just the equivalent of being called a ‘loser’, only without someone actually having the decency of doing it to your face. Don’t worry; I won’t hurt your ‘wittle Weaver’ feelings; I’ll just hurt you and send you ‘Sora-ing’ over that top rope.”
As she spoke of her opponent, the image in the mirror changed to show the real Sora now cowering before Cerise as she raised her Left Hand in victory.
“Don’t take anyone lightly,” Damien recommended. “You two have a history, albeit a brief one. I doubt he’s going to care about your ‘undercover work’ within the Left Hand. He hated them just as much as everyone else. So he may come for you; that whole ‘guilty by association’ thing. Now keep your focus, who’s next…?”
The mirror sparked to life once more, this time swirling around them like shooting stars in a far-off galaxy. When the room finally stopped spinning, Cerise looked at the likeness within.
“Oh, this one I recognize right away,” Cerise grunted, parting the long black hair out of her face. “Ol’ ‘Cheap-Shot’ Payne, I like to call her. She calls herself ‘The Huntress’, please… I have known one ‘Huntress’ in my lifetime and, I assure you, Amber Payne isn’t her. I still have a score to settle with her after our last encounter. If you hadn’t shown up when you did Damien, who knows what she would’ve done...”
Cerise rubbed her neck, still remembering the pain of the “Soul Eater” submission hold.
“Doesn’t matter though,” Cerise continued. “I’d say that we get to settle our score at Remembrance but you, my dear, drew #2 in our ‘Scramble to Remembrance’ match at ReBirth. And with me sitting pretty as the second-to-last entrant, my guess is that you’ll be long gone before I even get a chance to exact a measure of revenge against you. No worries though Amber, I’ll deal with you in due time.”
Cerise threw her hands down, imitating a ‘drop the mic’ motion as the carousel of glass began spinning around her once more.
“This is all so very exciting,” Damien’s voice rang out from the darkness. “I wonder who you got next…”
“This is actually kind of fun,” Cerise chirped excitedly, emphatically clapping her hands.
The mirror cleared for the great reveal as the clouds faded away and Cerise could now see an overweight, bearded man, wearing a cut-off tank top. Any enthusiasm she had felt was immediately washed away by the sight of this waste of space.
“Of course,” Cerise rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Montana’s very own trailer trash king, Jason Ryan.”
Cerise stared directly into the reflection, as if she were looking into the very eyes of the man himself.
“For someone with such a big ego and condescending nature, you think you’d have something more to show for it,” Cerise berated. “But nope; you’re just another wrestler who thrives on ignominious tactics so as to keep on ‘winning’ or ‘defending’ that belt of yours. You weren’t even ‘man enough’ to stick around and raise your own flesh-and-blood. You really think a ‘coward’ like yourself is going to outlast everyone else in this thing? I will say this; I do hope you make it to the end. I would love nothing more than to be the one that dumps you over the top rope like the piece of shit that you are.”
Thunder roared inside the enshrined pavilion as lightning danced its way across the crystal shards of the glass. The sound and sight was so overwhelming, Cerise had no choice but to close her eyes and cover her ears. When all seemed to subside, she finally peered out through the smoky haze, her eyes going wide at the sight before her.
“Now who the hell is THIS supposed to be!?” Cerise called out to Damien, confused.
“You look sort of like a…” Damien started to say, before the actual words temporarily caught in his throat. “… Revo-mal?”
She was, in fact, not a Revo-mal; far from it. Encircled within the miasma, Cerise looked her new appearance up and down, groaning as she realized that her “Pikachu-form” could only mean one thing.
“I’m Sara *pika* Cross… aren’t I?” Cerise whined, looking at her lightning bolt of a tail. “Why she chooses to pride herself on such a childish concept is beyond me. I mean, if you’re going to pick an anime to obsess over, it should be something like ‘Ninja Scroll’ or ‘Fullmetal Alchemist’, am I right?”
Damien’s mouth dropped open in shock that she even knew what those shows were.
“Anyway, let me speak to you in a way that you’ll understand sweetie,” Cerise taunted, lightning beginning to surge throughout her body. “I’m like Kagero; I’m beautiful, I’m deadly, and one kiss from me and you’ll taste that sweet, intoxicating, poison that flows within my veins. I’m like Riza Hawkeye; the epitome of a perfect soldier, willing to do whatever it takes – even if it means I need to get my hands ‘dirty’ to do so. You may be the final entrant in the Remembrance Battle Royal, but that simply means you’re the last person I need to eliminate to win this whole thing. So Sara Cross… I choose you! Come and step into the ring with the ‘Psychotic Paradox’ and let’s put your skills to the test; I promise, in the end, you’ll be calling me ‘Master’.”
Electrical energy roared out of Cerise then, striking the nearby mirrors and shattering them to pieces. The darkness lifted, the room returned to normal, and Damien and Cerise were left standing amidst the wreckage, surveying the damage.
“Huh,” Damien finally spoke up, impressed. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me,” Cerise responded, forcing a wink at him so as to disguise the hurt inside. “I’m sure I’m not at the top of anyone’s list to win. My track record here hasn’t exactly been anything to write home about. But this is one of those ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ opportunities for me, Damien you know? This is a chance for me to recapture a piece of my family’s glory; a chance for me to cement MY legacy.”
Cerise knelt down, grabbing one of the glass shards and holding it in her hand. She twisted it this way and that, allowing the light to refract off of it, like a prism of endless possibilities.
“I don’t care who I have to go through,” Cerise firmly declared. “My time in the Left Hand has given me insight into the warped mind of Daniel Dream; he won’t be a problem. The Overbaker is more concerned about his recipes than actually winning; he’ll be like the à la Mode to my triumph. Alex Kincaid believes he’s the ‘King of the North’; well I’ll go full Targaryen on his ass if he gets in the way of MY ‘Iron Throne’. Let’s see what Aphrodite IX brings to the table when she realizes that every chance she goes to the top rope for one of her ‘suicidal’ maneuvers, she runs the risk of being ejected from the ring and out of the match. I dare ‘Miss Horrorcore’ to go toe-to-toe with me, let’s find out – once and for all – who the ‘baddest bish’ really is.”
Cerise dropped the shard, letting it fracture into a dozen pieces.
“This match can splinter into so many different directions,” Cerise nodded, contemplating all the possible outcomes. “But the only ‘fate’ I choose to acknowledge is the one in which I am the Last Woman Standing.”
Katarina crawled towards Laura’s lifeless body, forgetting about the impending danger that surrounded them. Emmalynn lay on the grass, curled up into a ball, as Danny shook off the shock of what had happened and radioed for “back-up”. The sound of screeching tires made Katarina jump as she reached the side of her wounded guardian. She briefly glanced up, seeing a blue Honda speeding off in the distance, the barrel of a rifle being pulled back into the car. As the vehicle made its quick getaway, Danny’s security team arrived on the scene, surrounding him as if he were the President of the United States. They even looked the part, wearing black jackets, black pants, and having the clichéd wire connecting to the ear from their walkie-talkies. They checked on the status of their VIP as he tried to direct them towards Laura. Katarina twisted her fingers within Laura’s hand, her skin already cold to the touch; her mouth slightly open as her eyes stared lifeless up at the night sky.
“Mr. Starr, the threat appears to be cleared sir,” the lead Security officer informed Danny. “But I would advise you to take your family inside, just to be safe. We’ll comb through the perimeter and notify the authorities as soon as you are out of harm’s way.”
Danny looked to Laura and Katarina as one of the security guards pried Emmalynn off the ground. Slowly, her Uncle began walking towards her as Katarina kept her focus on her “mother”, cradling her head in her arms and trying to rouse her awake.
“Kat, we need to go,” Danny finally spoke up, placing his hand on her shoulder. “If they come back…”
Katarina glared up at him, tears streaming down her cheeks as she twisted her body free from his touch.
“Get the fuck away from me!” Katarina screamed. “I’m not leaving her…”
“She’s gone Kat,” Danny stated heartlessly, digging his fingers into her arm and pulling her to her feet. "There’s nothing you can do.”
“That’s what you're best at, isn’t it?” Katarina accused, ripping free once more. “Doing nothing!”
Katarina turned her gaze back to Laura, wishing that she would simply blink her eyes, take in a deep breath, rise up from the ground, and hold her in her arms once more. None of this came to pass, however. This nightmare was real.
“All she ever did was love me,” Katarina struggled to find the words. “She was the one that was there for me the night my Mom died. My Mom told me to call you, told me that you’d take care of me. But it ` was her; she was the one who stepped up when you couldn’t find the strength to do so. All these years, she protected me – from them… from you.”
“So you sit there and do nothing Uncle,” Katarina declared, wiping a tear from her cheek. “I will save Blaine. I will avenge Laura. I will ensure that what happened here tonight NEVER happens again.”
The sounds of sirens blaring in the background could be heard as the first responders began arriving on the scene. Odd how fast they had gotten here – almost like they had been warned of this impending assassination attempt in advance.
As the front lawn of her uncle’s mansion transformed into a crime scene before her eyes, Katarina sat somberly on the front steps, Emmalynn resting her head on her shoulder. The two had already been questioned by the authorities as to what had happened, but nothing the two women said seemed to spark any type of immediate action. This was all for show, Katarina knew it. Nothing would come of this “investigation”, it would all be filed away in some report, never to see the light of day again. Katarina watched as the white sheet was laid over Laura’s body, marking the death of a second mother-figure in her lifetime. Deciding she had seen enough, she stood up and stomped into the mansion. Her uncle wasn’t hard to find, sitting in his study with one hand on his temple, the other caressing a glass of some expensive bourbon. Upon hearing her enter, Danny moved to greet her.
“Sit… down!” Katarina commanded, pointing back to his chair.
Danny did as he was told, though a bit perplexed as to why he had acquiesced to his niece’s stern demand.
“You…” Katarina pointed again, this time at her Uncle. “You DID this!”
Danny opened his mouth to defend himself but Katarina was an unstoppable force at this point, not giving him a second to get a word in.
“Don’t even try and save yourself here, Danny…” Katarina practically screamed, slamming her hands down on his desk. “You were supposed to protect Blaine and where is he, huh? Where is MY brother, Uncle!?”
Danny swallowed hard as he weighed his options on answering the question or not.
“You know exactly where he is,” Katarina snapped, baring her teeth. “He’s in the clutches of the same people who killed our Father! The same people who run half this fucking country! And who put him there, Uncle!?”
“That’s not fair,” Danny finally interjected, trying to save face. “There was no way I could save your Father…”
“Just like you couldn’t save my Mother?” Katarina hissed. “Or how you couldn’t save my Brother? Or how about Laura…”
“Hey!” Danny yelled, throwing his crystalline glass against the wall, shattering it in the process. “Who are YOU to judge ME!?”
“Who am I?” Katarina scoffed. “Who am I!? I’m YOUR family, Uncle… or did you forget that?”
The fire of his sister lived on within her, Danny saw that now. His face began to twist into remorse as a result of his inactions all these years as Katarina shook her head, unable to pity the man who had been absent most of her life.
“And now, thanks to you,” Katarina continued, turning on her heel and walking towards the door. “It looks like we’re all either of us have left.”
Katarina walked out of her Uncle’s study, slamming the door behind her in the process.
Despite the blindfold over her eyes, Cerise still kept her eyes closed, per his instructions. Normally she likes surprises, but this one was taking FOREVER. She had finally stopped asking “are we there yet” when he smacked her upside the back of her head. It hadn’t really hurt, but Cerise got the message none-the-less. As she walked through the unfamiliar terrain, her senses were alive around her. She smelt stale peanuts, wet hay, and something that smelled an awful lot like manure. This last fact was confirmed when she felt her boot sink into something very squishy and most definitely unclean. The wind died down around them as she heard her footsteps echoing off the hardwood floors. After a few more minutes, Damien finally removed the scarf and let her see just where their adventure had brought them. The two stood amidst the center of a room, dozens of mirrors surrounding them.
“Well…” Damien began, intently watching her face so as to better gauge her reaction. “What do you think?”
She scrunched her nose at the unpleasant odors and the grotesque textures surrounding them, turning and looking up at Damien with a fake smile; trying not to seem too disappointed in this “surprise” he had planned.
“It’s... really… something...” Cerise replied, satirically looking around. “There are no people here, what kind of weird mirror hell is this place?”
Cerise leaned in close to a nearby mirror, adjusting her makeup. At that moment, the sound of rolling thunder could be heard in the distance as the lights flickered, the images in the glass becoming distorted each time darkness took hold.
“Mirror hell is exactly what I’d describe this as,” Damien snickered, a grin coming across his face. “Welcome to Remembrance!”
He lifted his arms up as the lights flared up in response, illuminating the room in a blinding luminescent glow. Cerise did her best to shield her eyes but it seemed to swallow her whole. As the darkness enveloped her, she turned to run only to see a single reflection looking back at her. Only, it wasn’t her own…
Jumping at the startling sight, Cerise calmed her nerves, slowly approaching the mirror that stood before her. As she got closer, she studied every inch of her image, trying to understand just what was transpiring. Her eyes and brain couldn't comprehend that the reflection was no longer of her with her natural pink and blue pony tailed self; instead, her gorgeous locks were replaced by ones that were now short and dark. She pulled at her skirt; only these, too, had been replaced by a pair of simple sweatpants and a plain t-shirt in the mirror’s image.
“Am I… Sora Weaver…?” Cerise asked, confused. “Wait… Remembrance!? The rumble!”
Cerise eyed herself up suspiciously, not really liking what she was seeing.
“Sora…” Cerise repeatedly, starting to giggle at how HIS body reacted to HER movements. “I don't really know too much about him, except for the fact that his name sounds about as scary as one of those ‘Final Fantasy’ games.”
At the mention of one of the most popular video game franchises EVER, the thunder noises ceased, instead giving away to a booming orchestral version of “One Winged Angel” – the villainous theme of Final Fantasy 7’s main antagonist, Sephiroth. Cerise covered her ears as Damien snapped his fingers, the volume instantly dropping in decibel.
“Sorry,” Damien cringed, appearing briefly behind her in the shadows before fading away to obscurity. “Still trying to get a handle on this whole ‘hall of horrors’ thing. The Nightshades made it look much easier when they were doing it. Anyway… you were saying…?”
“I was saying,” Cerise began, pausing every so often in-between words, half-expecting to be interrupted again. “I’m not too worried about him. I think the best I’ve seen him do recently is fight to a ‘no-contest’. Which, if you think about it, is really just the equivalent of being called a ‘loser’, only without someone actually having the decency of doing it to your face. Don’t worry; I won’t hurt your ‘wittle Weaver’ feelings; I’ll just hurt you and send you ‘Sora-ing’ over that top rope.”
As she spoke of her opponent, the image in the mirror changed to show the real Sora now cowering before Cerise as she raised her Left Hand in victory.
“Don’t take anyone lightly,” Damien recommended. “You two have a history, albeit a brief one. I doubt he’s going to care about your ‘undercover work’ within the Left Hand. He hated them just as much as everyone else. So he may come for you; that whole ‘guilty by association’ thing. Now keep your focus, who’s next…?”
The mirror sparked to life once more, this time swirling around them like shooting stars in a far-off galaxy. When the room finally stopped spinning, Cerise looked at the likeness within.
“Oh, this one I recognize right away,” Cerise grunted, parting the long black hair out of her face. “Ol’ ‘Cheap-Shot’ Payne, I like to call her. She calls herself ‘The Huntress’, please… I have known one ‘Huntress’ in my lifetime and, I assure you, Amber Payne isn’t her. I still have a score to settle with her after our last encounter. If you hadn’t shown up when you did Damien, who knows what she would’ve done...”
Cerise rubbed her neck, still remembering the pain of the “Soul Eater” submission hold.
“Doesn’t matter though,” Cerise continued. “I’d say that we get to settle our score at Remembrance but you, my dear, drew #2 in our ‘Scramble to Remembrance’ match at ReBirth. And with me sitting pretty as the second-to-last entrant, my guess is that you’ll be long gone before I even get a chance to exact a measure of revenge against you. No worries though Amber, I’ll deal with you in due time.”
Cerise threw her hands down, imitating a ‘drop the mic’ motion as the carousel of glass began spinning around her once more.
“This is all so very exciting,” Damien’s voice rang out from the darkness. “I wonder who you got next…”
“This is actually kind of fun,” Cerise chirped excitedly, emphatically clapping her hands.
The mirror cleared for the great reveal as the clouds faded away and Cerise could now see an overweight, bearded man, wearing a cut-off tank top. Any enthusiasm she had felt was immediately washed away by the sight of this waste of space.
“Of course,” Cerise rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Montana’s very own trailer trash king, Jason Ryan.”
Cerise stared directly into the reflection, as if she were looking into the very eyes of the man himself.
“For someone with such a big ego and condescending nature, you think you’d have something more to show for it,” Cerise berated. “But nope; you’re just another wrestler who thrives on ignominious tactics so as to keep on ‘winning’ or ‘defending’ that belt of yours. You weren’t even ‘man enough’ to stick around and raise your own flesh-and-blood. You really think a ‘coward’ like yourself is going to outlast everyone else in this thing? I will say this; I do hope you make it to the end. I would love nothing more than to be the one that dumps you over the top rope like the piece of shit that you are.”
Thunder roared inside the enshrined pavilion as lightning danced its way across the crystal shards of the glass. The sound and sight was so overwhelming, Cerise had no choice but to close her eyes and cover her ears. When all seemed to subside, she finally peered out through the smoky haze, her eyes going wide at the sight before her.
“Now who the hell is THIS supposed to be!?” Cerise called out to Damien, confused.
“You look sort of like a…” Damien started to say, before the actual words temporarily caught in his throat. “… Revo-mal?”
She was, in fact, not a Revo-mal; far from it. Encircled within the miasma, Cerise looked her new appearance up and down, groaning as she realized that her “Pikachu-form” could only mean one thing.
“I’m Sara *pika* Cross… aren’t I?” Cerise whined, looking at her lightning bolt of a tail. “Why she chooses to pride herself on such a childish concept is beyond me. I mean, if you’re going to pick an anime to obsess over, it should be something like ‘Ninja Scroll’ or ‘Fullmetal Alchemist’, am I right?”
Damien’s mouth dropped open in shock that she even knew what those shows were.
“Anyway, let me speak to you in a way that you’ll understand sweetie,” Cerise taunted, lightning beginning to surge throughout her body. “I’m like Kagero; I’m beautiful, I’m deadly, and one kiss from me and you’ll taste that sweet, intoxicating, poison that flows within my veins. I’m like Riza Hawkeye; the epitome of a perfect soldier, willing to do whatever it takes – even if it means I need to get my hands ‘dirty’ to do so. You may be the final entrant in the Remembrance Battle Royal, but that simply means you’re the last person I need to eliminate to win this whole thing. So Sara Cross… I choose you! Come and step into the ring with the ‘Psychotic Paradox’ and let’s put your skills to the test; I promise, in the end, you’ll be calling me ‘Master’.”
Electrical energy roared out of Cerise then, striking the nearby mirrors and shattering them to pieces. The darkness lifted, the room returned to normal, and Damien and Cerise were left standing amidst the wreckage, surveying the damage.
“Huh,” Damien finally spoke up, impressed. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me,” Cerise responded, forcing a wink at him so as to disguise the hurt inside. “I’m sure I’m not at the top of anyone’s list to win. My track record here hasn’t exactly been anything to write home about. But this is one of those ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ opportunities for me, Damien you know? This is a chance for me to recapture a piece of my family’s glory; a chance for me to cement MY legacy.”
Cerise knelt down, grabbing one of the glass shards and holding it in her hand. She twisted it this way and that, allowing the light to refract off of it, like a prism of endless possibilities.
“I don’t care who I have to go through,” Cerise firmly declared. “My time in the Left Hand has given me insight into the warped mind of Daniel Dream; he won’t be a problem. The Overbaker is more concerned about his recipes than actually winning; he’ll be like the à la Mode to my triumph. Alex Kincaid believes he’s the ‘King of the North’; well I’ll go full Targaryen on his ass if he gets in the way of MY ‘Iron Throne’. Let’s see what Aphrodite IX brings to the table when she realizes that every chance she goes to the top rope for one of her ‘suicidal’ maneuvers, she runs the risk of being ejected from the ring and out of the match. I dare ‘Miss Horrorcore’ to go toe-to-toe with me, let’s find out – once and for all – who the ‘baddest bish’ really is.”
Cerise dropped the shard, letting it fracture into a dozen pieces.
“This match can splinter into so many different directions,” Cerise nodded, contemplating all the possible outcomes. “But the only ‘fate’ I choose to acknowledge is the one in which I am the Last Woman Standing.”