Post by alycestarchylde on Jun 15, 2017 15:33:28 GMT -5
THEN
Family Services was able to find the child's name and history mostly thanks to the police on the scene of the accident. Their search of the car had turned up the child's name, Alyce Rothchild. Her parents, Adam and Elena Rothchild were both artists and citizens of England...but they had spent several years living in the states. Alyce, herself, was an American citizen because she had been born here.
Upon her being taken into custody, Family Services launched a great search for Alyce's family and found...nothing. No Rothchilds in England claimed her. Adam's parents were both deceased, as was Elena's mom. Elena's father was still alive in a hospice where he was cared for very well indeed, but due to his sever Alzheimer's no longer remembered his daughter and, truth be told, may not have ever realized he had a grand daughter. Further family members simply did not exist. No brothers, sisters, aunts or uncles or great cousins. The family simply ended and so it was with some reluctance that Family Services set about trying to adopt out the young girl.
She was originally sent to live with a Resource Family (what at one time might have been called a Foster Family) in California Wine Country. The Resource Family consisted of Johnny Carrera and his wife Rose. Now, it is quite true they did not love their charges but neither did they hate them. The Carrera's love was reserved for two children who died in a fire long before...however, they believed in honoring those children's memories and so they fostered the troubled children and those who were abruptly orphaned. They believed in chores and every child did their part but meals were large, hot and always served on time. Birthdays and holidays were celebrated with gifts and traditions, even if a little coldly. The truest thing that could be said of a child raised with the Carrera's is that they were well cared for...but they lacked love.
Her 'brothers' and 'sisters' were almost constantly changing with the exception of Hank Little, who, at 15 was the oldest of the adoptees and had anger issues which prevented his permanent adoption (a problem the Carrera's handled by giving him lots and lots of physical work which kept him too exhausted to do much raging) and 13 year old Carol Louise who had screaming fits if she ever stepped foot off the farm.
It was here Alyce came as a toddler and was much enamored because the property was full of rabbits, particularly the large white kind she could never seem to get enough of. She chased them, caught them, kept them, freed them and chased the next one she saw. (This got her spanked more than once as her 'hunts' took her away for long periods of time and the Carrera's lost track of her).
And time and again, she would be sent off to a Resource Family they believed would adopt her and weeks or months later she would return as the family in question felt she was somehow 'wrong'. That she did not quite fit in with them or warm up to them. Again and again, Alyce was sent into the world looking for a 'forever family' only to be returned as they discovered that it just wasn't a good fit. The good people at Family Services cursed her bad luck and even took her into classes to teach her the basics of being social, just in case it was autism...but she passed the classes with flying colors only to not be adopted the next time around.
And so it was that Alyce grew on the Carrera's farm...never a part of their family, but never a part of any other either.
However, she did make her first real friend there. When she was eight years old another eight year old little girl came to the farm. Rumor (which was rife among the orphans of the farm) had it that the young girl was the illegitimate daughter of a rock and roll superstar and money had paved the way for her to enter the adoption system of the state. When she finally made her appearance, the girl in question turned out to be almost as tall as an average 13 year old with quite the capacity for casual violence. Alyce was the first of the farm kids to approach her.
"The name's Alyce," she said, "wanna fight?" The two girls brawled for several minutes (broken up at the last minute by the other children who knew everyone would get punished if the two young girls were found 'roughhousing' because such things were discourage for 'young women' at the Carrera farm) and afterwards became fast friends and were never far from one another's company...unless they happened to be adopted at the time.
The girl's name was Thena Allgood and she had pale skin, blonde hair cut short, and a cheerful rough-and-tumble disposition. Like Alyce she was adopted often and also like Alyce she was always returned because she didn't fit in. To each other, they were the whole world and they began a friendship that would last them their entire lives.
NOW
The tall leggy blonde wore a t-shirt with a picture of a cat and next to the cat was the word ‘Power’. She had short blonde hair spiked up on the top of her head and carried an old, tan rucksack on her back. She also carried a sign that read ‘Stop Domestic Violence!” Well, maybe carried was the wrong word. She swung it like a battle axe at a guy with a reddish-blonde beard, a red baseball cap and a tan jacket. Hanging from her arm was a somewhat younger looking version of the woman that had fought against Lunatic in a losing effort at Living a Legacy 9.
“Thena, stop,” Alyce yelled at her still taller friend.
“Not on your life,” Thena roared like a lusty viking, “did you see what this son of a bitch did to Carrie?”
Carrie had been one of their friends during the short amount of college the two attended together. Together, the three worked a domestic violence hotline and had just learned that Carrie did so only because she very recently got out of an abusive relationship with a gentleman name Don Elbert.
Last night, Alyce and Thena had not worked the hotline because they were going to be part of the following day’s rally against domestic violence. So Donald had waited for Carrie to come out of the call center and gave her a beating so savage that she wound up in the hospital. And it seemed Thena Allgood had made it her business to pay Donald back in spades.
“God Dammit, Thena,” Alyce yelled, “violence never settles anything!”
“Tell that to the people of Carthage,” Thena roared as she kicked Donald in the man eggs dropping him to the ground.
Alyce finally managed to get in between Thena and Donald.
“We have to be better,” Alyce yelled. Thena raised her sign once more as if to cleave Alyce. Finally she dropped the sign and hugged Alyce fiercely with tears in her eyes. The two friends hugged. Finally, Alyce pushed her only lifelong friend back and asked, ‘Better?” Thena nodded in response.
Suddenly, Alyce felt a hand close around her ankle and was yanked to the ground.
“Fuckin’ bish,” Donald managed from a bloody mouth with at least one shattered tooth, “I’ll show you what happens when you lay hands on a man!”
And suddenly, Alyce snapped. Both feet lashed out and smashed Donald in the face. His nose exploded like an over-ripe tomato. As he flopped over backwards, she was standing now kicking him once, twice, three times in the crotch as he howled in falsetto voice. She dropped on top of him and began to pepper his face with rights and lefts. Suddenly it was Thena trying to pull her friend off of the asshole and she wasn’t up to the task.
"I thought violence never solved anything," Thena yelled, tugging on Alyce.
"Explain that to the Dodo," Alyce cried in response.
"We have to be better," Thena shouted.
"I am better," Alyce roared in anger, “And he's gonna get a better ass whippin'! Call me a bitch! Go ahead! I dare you! I double dare you!”
Donald was past any sort of shape to call her anything.
Donald wound up in a different hospital than Carrie under police guard because he was under arrest for assaulting Carrie. He had two black eyes, a broken nose, three broken teeth, two broken ribs, a ruptured testicle and a broken femur. Donald spent the rest of his days hating blondes.
Meanwhile at a holding cell somewhere near the local college, Alyce and Thena sat injury free.
“I swear,” Thena said, “The trouble you always get me in.”
“You started it,” Alyce said pouting.
The two girls giggled, hugged and waited for their peer counselor to bring them their things so they could afford to bond out. They rather felt that this should cement a solid semester in Women’s Studies. The police wished that these two crazy blondes would stop winding up in their holding cell...and not for the last time.
Welcome to Wonderland
Alyce stands with her back to the camera, a bat over her shoulders as she stares at the wall. She turns, faces the camera and begins to speak.
“Congratulations to Lunatic. Or perhaps, Congratulations to the Good Doctor. Whatever the case, all my research on Lunatic went out the window in that match. He’s better than he has any right to be. Still, sooner or later we WILL meet again...and this time, I know what I am up against...I will not lose a second time. With that out of the way, we move on to this week. This...Battlebowl.
I get it. It’s hard to book a show. So many people, so many potential matches...we could book a show...or we could take the lazy way out and throw everything together on the fly. Management continues to impress. That, for those watching at home, and for those in the corporate office...was sarcasm. I swear, you all have the IQ of donuts. Speaking of donuts, they resemble fat zeroes...and fat zeroes is probably as good a description as any of most of the folks I will wind up facing in this so-called competition. A great many of you have zero chance and should not only reconsider your entry...but hang up your wrestling boots. Sorry, you just aren’t good enough.
For the few of you that are like Dorothy and the Scarecrow rolled into one (you know, you have talent AND a brain...did I REALLY need to explain that for some of you dopes out there), well let me let you in on some basic things about myself that are going to be important in a situation like this.
We are promised a situation where it could be friend versus friend. In this business, I got no friends. What I have are obstacles, obstacles that I will climb and conquer to hold the Battle Bowl trophy. That’s all any of you are to me. No matter how good or talented you think you are, I have it in me to be that much better. This is an occasion and as such it needs someone to rise to it. That would be me.
Most of you are like pebbles in my path...you will not only be overcome, but stepped on, a minor irritation at best. A few of you will be boulders...if you can’t be shifted you can be circumvented. One or two of you might be mountains...and mountains can be climbed.
Let me make something else ridiculously clear. Those of you who saw my match at Living a Legacy know I can take an obscene amount of punishment. Ob-scene. And while history shows I will tap, it takes a lot to get me there. After the match I just had...I am ready for this boys...and I don’t fear any of you. There is not a man in this competition that puts fear in my heart. I can trade punches with the best of them, if I can’t hit them with the Rainbow Cataclysm, there is always the Unicorn Stampede.
Your best shot of beating me? Probably hoping we are in tag matches...that way you can beat my partner...and if that happens, I cant promise that PCW won’t be down a performer.
The thing is, kids, this is my chance to shine. This is my chance to make an impression on every performer of note in this company. This is my chance to let the fans know once and for all that I am every bit the star they need...that my candle burns a billion times brighter than theirs and there is a reason that I am here, in this ring and they are watching me.
So, individually and collectively, I welcome you to Wonderland. It’s not the place you remember...and it gets a hell of a lot darker from here.”
