Collateral Damage

“Hey. I’m Steven Heathen and this is the Heathen School of Wrestling . We are located deep in the heart of Visby, Sweden. Here you’ll learn what Swedish Strong Style is all about.” Steven says as he stands in the middle of his dank little corner of the world. Behind him is a ring where two young trainees have locked up. Whomever framed this shot needs to consider a new line of work because they didn’t see fit to have the bucket collecting drops of water from the hole in the ceiling moved two inches to the left.

Star wipe and Heathen in the ring with the two trainees. “Here at the Heathen School of Wrestling we focus on the physical part of wrestling as well as the mental. You can’t be out there fightin’ and not have brains! We know that. That’s what we teach. Come here and learn it.” Heathen said. He asked the cameraman how that take looked but we didn’t hear the answer as we cut to a new shot. Steven locked  up with one of the trainees and kept speaking. “Here we make superstars. Just ask Project: Honor wrestler Contessa Floran.” he said.

Another star wipe and hastily shot cellphone footage showed Contessa Floran in front of a brick wall and she seemed somewhat -- lubricated. “Yeah I trained there. Go there. Nice.” she said before seemingly dropping her phone causing the video to end.

We pull back and see that Contessa herself was watching all of this on a computer monitor in a library. She had to hock her laptop many moons ago and had not gotten around to getting a new one. She stopped the video and let out a long sigh. This just would not do.

-

“So what did you think?” a voice asked.

Contessa sat on the steps outside the library in Greensboro. A cigarette perched between her fingers and her cell phone held to her ear. “I really don’t appreciate you using that video. I was not -- feeling well when I recorded that for you. I think that we can do better…” she told him.

His signature scoff came through the line and Contessa rolled her eyes. It was fact that she still needed to sign the release to use her likeness but she figured that she would approach this in a diplomatic fashion. “Please don’t use it Steve. It’s not good.”

“Not good? It’s fuckin’ brilliant Cookie! People don’t care about the quality, it’s about you! You’re gonna bring more people into the school. It’s about results! I trained you didn’t I?” He asked. He always liked to claim that he trained her but that was far from reality.

“I mean you did and you didn’t.” She replied. She had never openly said that to him before. Maybe it was because she was tired or annoyed or both but entertaining Steven’s whole demeanor was starting to really wear on her.

“The fuck you talkin’ about I didn’t train you? You are only where you are because of me Cookie. You fuckin’ owe me so don’t start pulling your artistic license bullshit.” He said. He was firing up and typically people would back down when he got like this. Typically.

“I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to get so squirly. How bout this, you sit with it? You hang on to it and you call me back when you’ve had some time. That work for you Cookie?” Steven calmed down quickly. He knew that it was a lot harder to push her around when he was over four thousand miles away.

“I’ll call you tomorrow.” She said, suddenly very eager to get off the phone.

Before Steven could get another word out Contessa hung up. He always liked to leave conversations like this with some kind of hackneyed expression and she did not have the patience for such things today. Today was special.

-

Collateral damage.

That is what has become of me, that is how I am seen. At the last Proving Ground I was forced to team up with the most hated competitor in Project: Honor. Colton Saint. It was not a terrible pairing, we held our own in the main event of Proving Ground. Problem is that Saint had pissed off quite a few people and they all made their presence known at the end of the match. Without question they had an impact on the outcome and now I have suffered my second loss.

Through no fault of my own. I was collateral damage. A byproduct of the white knights of Project: Honor’s desire to teach Colton Saint a lesson. A girl could start to think that she’s not wanted. I understand that I perhaps have not many moves to ingratiate myself with the roster at large but what occurred last week…

Frankly, it was rude.

Rude not only because it cost me a victory, but because now I have to commit all of your names to memory. Zane, MYOJIN, John Nash Strader, Pat the Postman, Legion, Ace Sky, Sarah Roberts, Caliban, Alex Slayer, Lazarus Arjen, Josiah Andrew Scott, Colby Sol, Lil Petey, Yung Sauce, TJ Thompson, Indy Darling, Arik Holt, Elena DeDraca, Cecilia Ortiz, Alex Kincaid, Kallie Reznik , Dickie Watson and you Aiden Reynolds.

Welcome all of you to Contessa Floran’s Death Wish List. You made a choice and it will have consequences. I didn’t have an issue with any single one of you. Hell I even showed Zane respect after she defeated me a few months ago. But now, because of your reckless actions as a group I am going to pick you off one by one. I didn’t want it to be like this but thanks to your flagrant disregard for me, I’m going to kill you all.

Dead.

It is going to start with Aiden Reynolds. Congratulations on winning your debut and on it being a main event. I applaud you securing victory in such noble fashion. You should be very proud of this hollow accomplishment. But I will say Aiden that Aal shenanigans aside, you came into that match as you had advertised yourself. I didn’t believe that you were as good as you claimed, admittedly. I thought that you were just here to be Dickie’s eye candy. I was surprised, taken off guard even. I suppose that comes along with still being fairly new to this. Regardless, today I stand here having to eat my words.

They don’t taste great.

A lot like that loss tasted, to be honest.  But it doesn’t matter anymore because I have learned and I will grow. I knew that I would be alone in this game but my last match proved it. No one can be trusted. Everyone is just focussed on themselves and they do not care what destruction they cause along the way. I became a victim.

But I will not stay a victim.

Aiden Reynolds I challenged you because I want to beat you. It is as simple as that. I couldn’t call out Dickie for this Gladiator Contest so I chose you. I chose you because I didn’t get enough of you last week. Now that you are the first name on my Death Wish List, it will be different. Winning or losing is secondary to me now. I don’t care. I want to hurt you Aiden.

Badly.

And it’s not even because I dislike you as a person. It’s just because I need to cement myself as someone to be feared. If I was anyone else on the roster I probably wouldn’t fear me either. I have yet to firmly establish myself as someone who is not to be fucked with. Choking out Red Riot with a coil of barbed wire was a good start but clearly that was not enough for people to get the message.

This time there will be no millstone.

I am entering my first singles match in over a month. I only rely on myself in this contest and I will demonstrate what I have learned. I come into this match alone and with the sole purpose of making an example out of you Aiden. I will unleash all of the anger and hatred that I feel and I will scratch the first name off my list. Win, loss, or draw I am going to establish myself as something otherworldly. Or as Aiden would prefer that I say...something remarkable.

Nighty night.