Post by Gem on Jul 27, 2015 13:38:01 GMT -5
Father, I know what this meant to you.
I know that things have changed since you were the King of the Mountain here in PCW. It's been years since you delivered your last speech and left to the adoration of the masses, hoping that one day they'd still love you. I know that you thought it was all gone when you and Grant battled off the Black Hand to no avail, and that you were pleasantly surprised to find this was a false assumption at the Icey's. I know that moment of hearing them cheer for you brought back memories that I can't begin to imagine.
I'm here because of you, whether I like it or not. The reason that I was able to get in at such a young age was because of you, despite me not knowing it at the time because you wanted to protect me. No matter what happens, I'm always going to be connected to you, and that's not always a good thing. I'm 19-years-old, heading into my first singles shot at the world championship, the belt you held three times, and the focus isn't going to be on me getting my shot, although it'll be tainted once again by the presence of another. It'll be on comparing me to you.
"Will Gem be a disappointment to her father?" "Will Gem always live in her father's shadow?" "Will Gem ever be able to live up to her father's reputation?" Father, I love you. You're a Hall-of-Famer, and you deserve to be.
But I am not you. I never will be you. I'm not the daunting, blue-haired, sword-wielding Elven Warrior. I'm not imposing in height, challenging in strength, nor intimidating in sheer appearance. I had to hone my craft on the art of presence and subtlety; on heart and determination. The art of being an assassin relies on being silent and invisible, and while that's virtually impossible in the arena, the instincts don't go away. I have to make the decision every single time I'm in the ring with someone to not kill them. Do you have any idea what that's like? Do you have any idea what it's like to lose to someone that you know you could've eliminated from the planet with a simple strike? Do you even realize this isn't the biggest thing on my mind right now?
It should be. We both know it should be. But I can't break your heart again. I feel it would be bad enough if I let you down at Return to Glory, but to let you know what your best friend is? What she did to your daughter? The games she's playing with that? The fact that your friend Grant doesn't believe me? I can't let you suffer that burden. I don't know what I can do about it, but I know you. I know you too well. It'll destroy you, and just when you were beginning to come back out of your shell, too. You'll go from the possibility of making a few special appearances in the one place you loved more than any other in which you competed... to hiding back in the basement, never talking to anyone, and letting everyone think you've disappeared again. For your sake, and for the sake of the many who still love you... Trust me, I heard that reaction when Sadistic backed into you... I cannot tell you the truth.
...
She was there. I could hear her.
The familiar clacking of her leather boots echoed throughout the corridor, announcing their presence like an uninvited Prom date. Slowly, she trailed through the hallway, almost as if to tempt me into confronting her. She had no idea what was going to happen.
Here it was, the days counting down until my match with Sadistic, and all I could do was concentrate on one thing, one person... someone who needed to go. All the years I was trained to dispose of people, and this one would be the most difficult, and the most deserving.
Endless nights had been spent waking up every hour, paranoid her hands were on me again. My insides were torn, still bleeding at times, and the feeling of penetration drove through me like an internal dagger. She'd violated the untouched, destroyed my haven, and completely transposed every sense of normalcy I'd ever had.
I could remember when I thought she was the only thing keeping my father and I in check. She'd saved me one time, carrying me up a set of stairs early in my PCW career when I couldn't get up. She consoled me, took care of me, and tricked me into believing that she loved me. Now I knew the truth.
Who knows how many times this had happened before? Was it only by luck that I regained consciousness? Had this not been the first time, as I'd believed it to be? What kind of sick, demented fuck drugs and rapes their own niece? The kind of sick fuck who needed to be taken care of.
Grant was of no use; his Hall-of-Fame induction and growing distance from me had been duly noted. Never wanting to focus on anything that was serious, he'd disappeared like my father accidentally walking in on a social party. I couldn't break the spirit of my father and let him know he'd been betrayed again by the deceiving harlot, so I walked into this alone, the only way I could. I was supposed to be focusing on wrestling, yet here I was, with an ancient artifact from my Father's past, ready to take matters into my own hands again.
It wasn't even the innocence she had stolen from me that angered me the most. It was the trust; something I struggled so hard to find in my life, and she removed it with every thrust of her bony hips, with every lick of her spiky tongue, and with every cackle that haunted every minute of my existence, she'd earned what was coming to her. I couldn't sleep, think straight, or let anyone touch me outside of the wrestling ring. Every time someone's skin touched mine, it sent forth an electric jolt of paranoid consciousness, worried that I'd somehow been trapped yet again in her elaborate rouse.
"Come on, little girl," she taunted, "we both know you're here."
Clack. Clack. Clack.
"There's no sense in avoiding me. Nobody will ever believe you. This kind of thing only happens from men. Besides, who's going to believe a stupid little girl who can't even do her job?"
Clack. Clack. Clack.
"Your father will be so disappointed in you, again. It's just like when I was sleeping around on him, and he was too stupid to know. Yet he let me back in his life so many times, didn't he? Hell, here I still am, walking around him without any repercussion whatsoever, when I've taken his daughter for everything she's worth, and let's face it, that isn't much."
Clack. Clack. Stop.
"Come out, little Gem," she cooed once more. "Let's finish what we started. I won't even make you drink the pill first. You know you want it. You know you loved it. Every single inch of it. Come on, let the world know what a little slut exists beneath that fake innocent exterior."
Her legs were inches from me now. Whether she knew exactly where I was or not, it didn't matter. She didn't realize she had no hope of escape.
"Maybe I should ask your father to get back together with me," she continued. "You know he'd love that. Ever since I left his pathetic ass, he's held that candle for me and no other. This way, I can work my way even better back into his good graces, and completely destroy him in the end. I could do what nobody in PCW or anywhere else ever could; end the elf once and for all. It's all in the power of what's between your legs, little girl. Trust me, I know."
Slowly unsheathing. Clack. Clack.
"Once he's gone, I'll have you all to myself, and there's nothing you can do about it. You can't stop me. You'll never stop me. I'll have you whenever I want, and you'll like it, bitch."
The look in her eyes told me she never felt the blade.
...
So Father, I know that I enter into a match with what most believe is the most dangerous man on the PCW roster, the long-reigning World Champion, Billy Sadistic. The man who has done all he could to add me to the list of careers he has ended, but has failed. The man who has needed as many as four different people to help him preserve his precious title reign from who he thinks is an overachieving little girl, I will stand opposite ring corners from him. The man who believes he has no aid in success, despite every single time he's competed against me, he's had a different person to help him. The man who believes he has no aid in success, but even when I finally get a singles shot at him, the twist of a special referee who hates me is thrown in. That woman whe betrayed me, who tricked me into being vulnerable, who turned on me the first chance she got, and who truly resents me for getting as much attention as she did, that's the woman who will determine the fate of my first singles shot at the World Championship. In a competition where scales are supposed to be equal, they are stacked against me once again.
The worst part is, I'm walking into this match with the PCW championship and that son of a bitch Sadistic being the second things on my mind. I'm not used to not having singular focus, and it'll be detrimental to anything I hope to accomplish. I will have to rely on pure instinct, and as much as I want to win that championship, I sincerely hope that prevents me from killing someone. I used to kill by hire, not for personal vengeance, but when the stakes are at their highest, the emotion at its greatest, and the conscience removed from my actions, I don't know what will happen, and I can't even begin to conjure what would if I cross that line.
Father, in your eyes I will always be the innocent little girl who worked through a speech impediment, the one who had swinging pigtails and was adored by the locker room. I go into this PCW championship match with the single most deadly set of skills to ever grace a professional wrestling ring, and everyone else thinks that it's just a character, a gimmick, something I made up for intimidation.
It's not.
I was trained for years to eliminate targets with efficiency and a lack of empathy. Empathy is something I developed from learning that I was actually a teenage girl and not a Terminator, but for the first time as a professional wrestler, I will not have that. I shouldn't have any for Sadistic or his Black Hand hooligans, but I have... until now. My sense of empathy is so far buried in what has happened with someone who I once called Auntie, I will be on auto-pilot in the biggest match of my career.
The best part is, that's the absolute worst thing that could've ever happened to Billy Sadistic. Even if I don't end up killing him by mistake, the proverbial gloves are off, and I won't be holding back on him, or Eira if she gets in my way, or predictably interferes in the match like every single other shot I've had at Sadistic and the Hand. The gloves are off, and the sights are locked. The PCW Champion has been targeted, and the belt has long since needed to be removed from someone who can't accomplish anything whatsoever on his own.
The title belt needs another Gem.
Love, your daughter,
Emerald "Gem" Anduril
P.S. Please forgive me for what I had to do.
...
It was just like Father had told me about Narenwyn, so many years ago. It was just like Neovan had gotten me here. It was just like everything it was supposed to be.
Father's sword plunged into her heart, and she disappeared. I'd sent her to the place from which I'd come, and given the condition she'd likely be in, she wouldn't be coming back. Devon Drake, finally, had no more ways to escape death. It'd be waiting for her there, where she'd relive that moment every single night in an infinite loop of soul-piercing pain.
Unfortunately, Father's sword went with her, which truly meant that the both of us were stuck here, permanently.
I could never return to the place where I'd trained, and he could never bury himself in memories of a false representation of his lost love. There were no more escapes, and hiding from the real world was no longer an option.
Here I stood, the remnants of broken dreams cracking deep into the skin of my soul, about to embark on a journey he successfully completed three times, and the look in her eyes would be my driving force. Everything I had would be delivered through a series of intentional deadly strikes against the man who'd sought to end me in a different way than she had, with the friend who betrayed me in charge of making the decision.
None of that mattered now. She was gone, permanently. Knowing full well that the memories and nightmares would never fade, however, I knew I needed to protect myself. I had to go into auto-pilot to let the wounds heal rather than fester. Father always explained that the Elves were most vulnerable to crippling emotional pain, and my life would be at stake if I'd held out much longer. In order to survive, I had to eliminate Devon Drake, the rapist who called herself an Auntie and spent years planning to kill my father, and he would never be able to know.
Sadistic, I thrust all of this frustration and pain onto you. Someone without a conscience will never have to suffer these burdens, so I will import the pain into you where it matters. Every ounce of pain I've had to feel, and every drop of blood my father spilt in the name of that vile woman, you will feel in every strike I land, every kick that meets, and every slap of the mat that Eira is forced to count for the sake of her career. When that moment ends, you will know all the pain and suffering you've caused, because it will be imprinted in that blank area that passes for a soul to those who know you.
Your hand may have always been black, but nothing will prepare you for the black void in which your mind will soon exist. I will take everything from you and leave you with it. I won't have to eliminate you, because you'll have no desire to fight ti any longer. Consider that confrontation with the two Andurils the warning shot in the final battle of the war you started.
I will make the Black Hand hold a White Flag.
I know that things have changed since you were the King of the Mountain here in PCW. It's been years since you delivered your last speech and left to the adoration of the masses, hoping that one day they'd still love you. I know that you thought it was all gone when you and Grant battled off the Black Hand to no avail, and that you were pleasantly surprised to find this was a false assumption at the Icey's. I know that moment of hearing them cheer for you brought back memories that I can't begin to imagine.
I'm here because of you, whether I like it or not. The reason that I was able to get in at such a young age was because of you, despite me not knowing it at the time because you wanted to protect me. No matter what happens, I'm always going to be connected to you, and that's not always a good thing. I'm 19-years-old, heading into my first singles shot at the world championship, the belt you held three times, and the focus isn't going to be on me getting my shot, although it'll be tainted once again by the presence of another. It'll be on comparing me to you.
"Will Gem be a disappointment to her father?" "Will Gem always live in her father's shadow?" "Will Gem ever be able to live up to her father's reputation?" Father, I love you. You're a Hall-of-Famer, and you deserve to be.
But I am not you. I never will be you. I'm not the daunting, blue-haired, sword-wielding Elven Warrior. I'm not imposing in height, challenging in strength, nor intimidating in sheer appearance. I had to hone my craft on the art of presence and subtlety; on heart and determination. The art of being an assassin relies on being silent and invisible, and while that's virtually impossible in the arena, the instincts don't go away. I have to make the decision every single time I'm in the ring with someone to not kill them. Do you have any idea what that's like? Do you have any idea what it's like to lose to someone that you know you could've eliminated from the planet with a simple strike? Do you even realize this isn't the biggest thing on my mind right now?
It should be. We both know it should be. But I can't break your heart again. I feel it would be bad enough if I let you down at Return to Glory, but to let you know what your best friend is? What she did to your daughter? The games she's playing with that? The fact that your friend Grant doesn't believe me? I can't let you suffer that burden. I don't know what I can do about it, but I know you. I know you too well. It'll destroy you, and just when you were beginning to come back out of your shell, too. You'll go from the possibility of making a few special appearances in the one place you loved more than any other in which you competed... to hiding back in the basement, never talking to anyone, and letting everyone think you've disappeared again. For your sake, and for the sake of the many who still love you... Trust me, I heard that reaction when Sadistic backed into you... I cannot tell you the truth.
...
She was there. I could hear her.
The familiar clacking of her leather boots echoed throughout the corridor, announcing their presence like an uninvited Prom date. Slowly, she trailed through the hallway, almost as if to tempt me into confronting her. She had no idea what was going to happen.
Here it was, the days counting down until my match with Sadistic, and all I could do was concentrate on one thing, one person... someone who needed to go. All the years I was trained to dispose of people, and this one would be the most difficult, and the most deserving.
Endless nights had been spent waking up every hour, paranoid her hands were on me again. My insides were torn, still bleeding at times, and the feeling of penetration drove through me like an internal dagger. She'd violated the untouched, destroyed my haven, and completely transposed every sense of normalcy I'd ever had.
I could remember when I thought she was the only thing keeping my father and I in check. She'd saved me one time, carrying me up a set of stairs early in my PCW career when I couldn't get up. She consoled me, took care of me, and tricked me into believing that she loved me. Now I knew the truth.
Who knows how many times this had happened before? Was it only by luck that I regained consciousness? Had this not been the first time, as I'd believed it to be? What kind of sick, demented fuck drugs and rapes their own niece? The kind of sick fuck who needed to be taken care of.
Grant was of no use; his Hall-of-Fame induction and growing distance from me had been duly noted. Never wanting to focus on anything that was serious, he'd disappeared like my father accidentally walking in on a social party. I couldn't break the spirit of my father and let him know he'd been betrayed again by the deceiving harlot, so I walked into this alone, the only way I could. I was supposed to be focusing on wrestling, yet here I was, with an ancient artifact from my Father's past, ready to take matters into my own hands again.
It wasn't even the innocence she had stolen from me that angered me the most. It was the trust; something I struggled so hard to find in my life, and she removed it with every thrust of her bony hips, with every lick of her spiky tongue, and with every cackle that haunted every minute of my existence, she'd earned what was coming to her. I couldn't sleep, think straight, or let anyone touch me outside of the wrestling ring. Every time someone's skin touched mine, it sent forth an electric jolt of paranoid consciousness, worried that I'd somehow been trapped yet again in her elaborate rouse.
"Come on, little girl," she taunted, "we both know you're here."
Clack. Clack. Clack.
"There's no sense in avoiding me. Nobody will ever believe you. This kind of thing only happens from men. Besides, who's going to believe a stupid little girl who can't even do her job?"
Clack. Clack. Clack.
"Your father will be so disappointed in you, again. It's just like when I was sleeping around on him, and he was too stupid to know. Yet he let me back in his life so many times, didn't he? Hell, here I still am, walking around him without any repercussion whatsoever, when I've taken his daughter for everything she's worth, and let's face it, that isn't much."
Clack. Clack. Stop.
"Come out, little Gem," she cooed once more. "Let's finish what we started. I won't even make you drink the pill first. You know you want it. You know you loved it. Every single inch of it. Come on, let the world know what a little slut exists beneath that fake innocent exterior."
Her legs were inches from me now. Whether she knew exactly where I was or not, it didn't matter. She didn't realize she had no hope of escape.
"Maybe I should ask your father to get back together with me," she continued. "You know he'd love that. Ever since I left his pathetic ass, he's held that candle for me and no other. This way, I can work my way even better back into his good graces, and completely destroy him in the end. I could do what nobody in PCW or anywhere else ever could; end the elf once and for all. It's all in the power of what's between your legs, little girl. Trust me, I know."
Slowly unsheathing. Clack. Clack.
"Once he's gone, I'll have you all to myself, and there's nothing you can do about it. You can't stop me. You'll never stop me. I'll have you whenever I want, and you'll like it, bitch."
The look in her eyes told me she never felt the blade.
...
So Father, I know that I enter into a match with what most believe is the most dangerous man on the PCW roster, the long-reigning World Champion, Billy Sadistic. The man who has done all he could to add me to the list of careers he has ended, but has failed. The man who has needed as many as four different people to help him preserve his precious title reign from who he thinks is an overachieving little girl, I will stand opposite ring corners from him. The man who believes he has no aid in success, despite every single time he's competed against me, he's had a different person to help him. The man who believes he has no aid in success, but even when I finally get a singles shot at him, the twist of a special referee who hates me is thrown in. That woman whe betrayed me, who tricked me into being vulnerable, who turned on me the first chance she got, and who truly resents me for getting as much attention as she did, that's the woman who will determine the fate of my first singles shot at the World Championship. In a competition where scales are supposed to be equal, they are stacked against me once again.
The worst part is, I'm walking into this match with the PCW championship and that son of a bitch Sadistic being the second things on my mind. I'm not used to not having singular focus, and it'll be detrimental to anything I hope to accomplish. I will have to rely on pure instinct, and as much as I want to win that championship, I sincerely hope that prevents me from killing someone. I used to kill by hire, not for personal vengeance, but when the stakes are at their highest, the emotion at its greatest, and the conscience removed from my actions, I don't know what will happen, and I can't even begin to conjure what would if I cross that line.
Father, in your eyes I will always be the innocent little girl who worked through a speech impediment, the one who had swinging pigtails and was adored by the locker room. I go into this PCW championship match with the single most deadly set of skills to ever grace a professional wrestling ring, and everyone else thinks that it's just a character, a gimmick, something I made up for intimidation.
It's not.
I was trained for years to eliminate targets with efficiency and a lack of empathy. Empathy is something I developed from learning that I was actually a teenage girl and not a Terminator, but for the first time as a professional wrestler, I will not have that. I shouldn't have any for Sadistic or his Black Hand hooligans, but I have... until now. My sense of empathy is so far buried in what has happened with someone who I once called Auntie, I will be on auto-pilot in the biggest match of my career.
The best part is, that's the absolute worst thing that could've ever happened to Billy Sadistic. Even if I don't end up killing him by mistake, the proverbial gloves are off, and I won't be holding back on him, or Eira if she gets in my way, or predictably interferes in the match like every single other shot I've had at Sadistic and the Hand. The gloves are off, and the sights are locked. The PCW Champion has been targeted, and the belt has long since needed to be removed from someone who can't accomplish anything whatsoever on his own.
The title belt needs another Gem.
Love, your daughter,
Emerald "Gem" Anduril
P.S. Please forgive me for what I had to do.
...
It was just like Father had told me about Narenwyn, so many years ago. It was just like Neovan had gotten me here. It was just like everything it was supposed to be.
Father's sword plunged into her heart, and she disappeared. I'd sent her to the place from which I'd come, and given the condition she'd likely be in, she wouldn't be coming back. Devon Drake, finally, had no more ways to escape death. It'd be waiting for her there, where she'd relive that moment every single night in an infinite loop of soul-piercing pain.
Unfortunately, Father's sword went with her, which truly meant that the both of us were stuck here, permanently.
I could never return to the place where I'd trained, and he could never bury himself in memories of a false representation of his lost love. There were no more escapes, and hiding from the real world was no longer an option.
Here I stood, the remnants of broken dreams cracking deep into the skin of my soul, about to embark on a journey he successfully completed three times, and the look in her eyes would be my driving force. Everything I had would be delivered through a series of intentional deadly strikes against the man who'd sought to end me in a different way than she had, with the friend who betrayed me in charge of making the decision.
None of that mattered now. She was gone, permanently. Knowing full well that the memories and nightmares would never fade, however, I knew I needed to protect myself. I had to go into auto-pilot to let the wounds heal rather than fester. Father always explained that the Elves were most vulnerable to crippling emotional pain, and my life would be at stake if I'd held out much longer. In order to survive, I had to eliminate Devon Drake, the rapist who called herself an Auntie and spent years planning to kill my father, and he would never be able to know.
Sadistic, I thrust all of this frustration and pain onto you. Someone without a conscience will never have to suffer these burdens, so I will import the pain into you where it matters. Every ounce of pain I've had to feel, and every drop of blood my father spilt in the name of that vile woman, you will feel in every strike I land, every kick that meets, and every slap of the mat that Eira is forced to count for the sake of her career. When that moment ends, you will know all the pain and suffering you've caused, because it will be imprinted in that blank area that passes for a soul to those who know you.
Your hand may have always been black, but nothing will prepare you for the black void in which your mind will soon exist. I will take everything from you and leave you with it. I won't have to eliminate you, because you'll have no desire to fight ti any longer. Consider that confrontation with the two Andurils the warning shot in the final battle of the war you started.
I will make the Black Hand hold a White Flag.