Post by Death Incarnate on Oct 29, 2016 17:52:34 GMT -6
Her flowing black skirt sways with every motion, her steps heavy thanks to the thick-soled black boots that offer her slight frame another inch into the air. In contrast to the swishing black material, her champagne-colored top is tailored to her measurements, showing off her subtle yet alluring curves. But to any who think that Death herself would dress in such a way to acquire the attention of others… those sorts simply don’t know the World Visionary Champion as well as they purport. There are no subtle glances around to spot staring eyes nor attempts to shame those who leer. Emma, her dark hair hanging loose about her shoulders, is seemingly oblivious to anything or anyone around her at that moment.
At that moment populating one of the many boutiques that litter the city of Malibu, Emma is sifting through a rack of clothing with a careful eye. She’ll pick up the occasional piece and hold it up, first before her and then against her. But her empty bag tells the tale of her selectiveness. From time to time her lips move and sometimes she’s heard, though at first glance that appears to just be her talking to herself. Death sweeps a mass of dark locks behind her ear at one point and shows that such an idea is to the contrary; a Bluetooth earpiece is nestled into her ear as she browses. As the view draws in more tightly, some of that back-and-forth is heard.
”...no, her exact words were to the effect of the next show being her last because she couldn’t be happy in a society like this. Yes, I reacted in the same way,” Emma says quietly, not eager to have her vocal interplay put on blast for the gawkers. ”In a sense I do not fault her. The landscape as it stands is a pile of refuse, the haves and have-nots constantly warring through words instead of action. And they wonder why things are as they are,” her disgust shows as she holds a striking black cocktail dress up against herself and, inexplicably, puts it into the bag. ”We warned them from the start, did we not?”
The voice on the other end unmistakably belongs to Eleanor Merriweather, the woman once known as Doll.
”From the first moments, though where it comes to Joanna this seems to have been brewing for some time… even from before she faced Soloke the last couple of times,” Eleanor replies, sounded more concerned than Emma about the whole thing. ”It begs the question: what are your own plans? The company is closing with you on top, barely into your reign as champion. That, forgive me for presuming, cannot sit well with you, Vic.”
”I should be rather nonplussed and extremely agitated, shouldn’t I?”
Emma smiles thinly as she leaves the rack behind, taking the bag with her deeper into the establishment, perusing more of the wares for sale leisurely. Eyeing the selection of leather, in terms of belts, gloves and footwear, she pauses to browse again, expanding on her response.
”But in truth, exactly why should I be upset that this place is sinking before I’ve truly had a run with the championship? Exactly who is left who could challenge me? All I see when I look at Twitter or at the locker room is a collection of fresh fish speaking as if they’re sharks,” chuckling quietly, Emma selects a pair of studded leather gloves from the rack and tries them on, flexing her fingers in the tight confines with a faint smile. ”They’d rather squabble on social media than attempt to reach the upper echelons in the ring, putting their energy into finite pursuits and goals rather than seeing the big picture. And all the sacred cows this place came to rely on, much to its detriment and imminent fall, are already gone,” she continues, removing the gloves and placing them in the bag along with a belt to match. ”Without hyperbole, who is left in this company who could rightly challenge me? Were things to proceed apace, I’d be digging through the dreck, battering children who have no business breathing my air much less sharing the ring with me as anything other than animated tackling dummies.”
”It’s true. So… what, then? There was that one piece of business you mentioned…”
”That will be spoken of directly at Breakthrough. Speaking of…”
”Rayne Draven-Omega. You’ve had an encounter or two with her in the ring and out of it. Rumor is that she specifically requested this match against you.”
A small snort of a chuckle emits from Emma as she moves along the racks again, pausing to add various items to the bag, though most of it is masked by the stands themselves; the woman moves like a shadow. Aside from those who stare from a distance, most of the other customers don’t notice her presence until she’s already close enough to grab hold of them. And even then they don’t notice until she’s already passed them by. When she finally responds to Eleanor, her voice betrays amusement.
”So she has a death wish… figuratively and literally. I see no reason not to indulge her, though. I’ve stomped the hell out of every other Orphanage member I’ve faced, so why not move a little closer to completing the set before VoW gives up the ghost?”
”...and then?”
En route to the register at the back of the store, Emma stops in her tracks. The one question she hadn’t considered was now staring her in the face. What now, indeed. Joanna was taking her leave it seemed and with VoW closing, Emma was quite suddenly faced with having no place to ply her trade. People moved past her… indeed, the world continued to revolve despite her momentary detachment from it. It took Eleanor speaking again…
”Victoria?”
...to shake Death out of her momentary torpor. She adjusted her sunglasses, keeping her striking blue eyes hidden, and continued up to the counter.
”I don’t know yet.”
Fade to black.
On the other end of the line, Eleanor hangs up her cell phone, leaning back in her leather chair and looking around the office in which she sat. Placing the device on the desk, she pushed up to her feet and walked across the carpeted floor, taking in the environment for a moment. It had a modern flair with lots of dark colors and polished surfaces, but there were splashes of color as well in the form of lush plants and a painting or two. It wasn’t what Eleanor was used to, preferring her classically-styled office back in Coventry, but for her time in the states it was suitable. The latter was designed with an eye toward the classics not only in terms of style but attitude and outlook as well.
Her current environment? It was designed to be defensible and, with a little shift here or motion there, intimidating. The monochrome oeuvre of the room’s designer was on purpose, offering the illusion that there was only one choice or the other. The colors were Eleanor’s idea, to be placed before her arrival and removed on her departure. She was thankful for the additions even if they were merely to please her during her short stays at 3S. At any time in her absence, matters of life or death could be decided right where she stood and that unnerved her. She’d seen enough lives changed and lost in her short life.
Retrieving her phone, she began dialing as she left the office, putting the device to her ear as she made her way down the hall, every step clicking thanks to her high red heels. Red like her suit and the fiery hair streaming down her slender back. Finally she was back in her proper state again, healthy and vigorous.
”El? What’s up, sugar?”
Pandora’s voice answered almost immediately, over the sound of cracking gum, and it made Eleanor smile. The tech-head of 3S was about as close to a real-life Harley Quinn, Suicide Squad-style, as you could get without the crazy and the giant mallet.
”I’m on my way down. It looks like we were right; this jump in time frame was more than they expected,” Eleanor replies, checking her watch. ”Time to move plans forward. Can we be ready within two weeks?”
”Damn sure can. You want me to send Eve and Luca out to start putting together what we need? Both are off today but I doubt they’ll mind. Some of this stuff IS gonna be tricky to handle, after all.”
”Make it happen, dear. And I don’t need to tell you that Victoria and Joanna need to be kept out of the loop on this. If they get wind of it, it’ll never happen. We have to keep matters in our own hands and execute this to perfection. They may not like it, but they’ll see that it is for the best. Speaking of seeing, I’ll be seeing you shortly.”
”Will do, Phoenix.”
Eleanor smiled again upon hanging up. That little nickname from Pandora… not just due to her red hair but to her coming back from what she did months ago. Ordinarily she’d write it off as the silly reaction to Pandora being something of a pop culture nerd, but she found a lot of pleasure in the moniker these days. It gave her confidence. Stepping around the corner, she disappeared from sight and the scene goes to black.
It’s early evening by this point, the sun darkening as it lowers against its Pacific bed, but there’s more than enough light to catch both the polished gleam of the Impala on which Emma leans AND the gold draped over her shoulder. The orb of fiery orange and red reflects off the lenses of her sunglasses though she removes those and tosses the folded eyewear onto the driver’s seat. Hitching the title up just a bit, she turns her attention back to the sunset, lifting a hand to push some breeze-tossed hair aside. Despite current events, Death looks rather serene. And she explains why quite succinctly when given the off-camera signal that things are a go:
”We win.”
She laughs faintly, soaking in the satisfaction of those two words as the fingertips of her right hand play with the gold and leather.
”The false king has been sent scampering as his hodgepodge army tries to pick up the pieces and put on a brave face. The greatest warriors, representing both light and darkness, have stepped up en masse and been found wanting. Some followed the path of English, scurrying swiftly like rats from a sinking ship. Some to this very day persist in delaying the inevitable. They march like lemmings, following ages-old instinct without a care for the consequences, straight off the edge of a cliff and into the abyss… never knowing where, never asking why… straight into the maw of Chaos.
We… have won.”
Turning her attention fully upon the championship over her shoulder, Emma considers quietly for a few moments, speaking without returning her gaze to the camera.
”It isn’t the end, of course. VoW will rise again one day. Stronger, stabler, more befitting the survival of the fittest dogma that any warrior worth their salt would follow,” slowly she takes her focus from the title and puts it back on the camera. ”And it will rise with the memory of what led it to the light, of the Horsewomen who did what was necessary to end the pain and suffering that this place was stumbling blindly through. When the moment arrives that the resurrection takes place, we,” she gestures with the championship, ”will be there. But before the first ending comes, before the last nail is hammered into place and the last shovelful of dirt is heaped on the smooth pine coffin… there is business to settle,” a distasteful business if the wrenching of her expression is to be believed; Emma looks patently disgusted to put it mildly. ”If you could even call it that. Yes, Rayne Draven-Omega, I speak of you.”
Shaking her head in something resembling disbelief, Emma lifts her head a moment later and turns slightly to her right, a bit of her predatory smile coming back to bear as Joanna Thade steps into the frame and comes to stand at her side. The lovers’ eyes meet for a moment before a kiss is shared… heated, but simple… and Joanna turns to likewise lean against the Impala next to her partner. A tattered white top beneath form-fitting black mesh and similarly half-destroyed jeans over imposing, studded boots makes War look even more dangerous than usual. And Emma requires a few moments to admire her fiance as Joanna addresses Rayne.
”What was your thought process when you crawled to Sangue and Omega on your hands and knees, butch? Did you think that, after falling to the holiest of holies that you might have an easier time taking on Death herself?”
Joanna’s tone and expression tells the tale of her thoughts on the matter clearly. She laughs harshly as Emma looks on with what one could grudgingly call affection toward War. But grudgingly or otherwise, Joanna warms to that look.
”Or is this some kind of errand for your Paper King? From afar he sends his dogs to do the task that he could not. Yes, that seems about his game,” Joanna says as Emma hides an amused chuckle behind a gloved hand. War herself grins evilly at the thought. ”All he did was ensure that you’d be coming back to him in a box. Hopefully we can find all the pieces once my Golden Death Princess is finished hacking you apart.”
”You’re the hanger-on, Rayne, and the world knows it. You roll back into VoW acting as though the world should bow and mash their lips to your boots, riding a wave of misdirection and disloyalty. Everything, I should note, that we are not. You may fault the Horsewomen for much, but you will never call us dishonest without proving yourself a liar into the bargain,” those words are delivered fiercely by Death, still leaning upon the car and now leaned upon by Joanna. A silk-clad arm snakes around War’s shoulders and not for a moment does Emma lose her focus. ”Is it truly as War intones? Are you seeking to save face after your losses to Reya Serra by attempting to impose your will on me? Or is English still stinging from having his mortality shoved down his throat but lacking possession of enough guts to challenge me face to face? After three losses in a row I wouldn’t blame him but to send someone like you… how far the presumed-to-be mighty fallen.”
”The poor dear has a selective memory, as does the former champion, thinking such a route would avail them in regaining their lost status,” comes a sultry voice from Emma’s left. Death tilts her head back and in that direction slightly, offering a smirk of satisfaction toward the speaker: Strife herself, Katalina Star. ”Sorry to bust your bubble, dear, but both your knowledge of history and your grasp upon reality is simply… lacking. Your focus is non-existent. Of course, if you were willing I could assist you in working through those shortcomings…”
Leather trousers, a red silk blouse and stiletto heels comprise the attire of the Horsewomen’s resident domina, the sound of a slap of the business end of her riding crop into her palm sharp enough to make onlookers wince.
”But you don’t have the stomach to find out what you’re really made of. Hiding behind false bravado, that mask of confidence fused to your pretty face… but I see through such things. And more importantly,” Katalina pauses as she comes to stand on Emma’s other side, taking Death’s offered hand and kissing the back of it before looking to the camera herself. ”Death sees through it as well.”
”Did you forget how well our last encounter worked out for you? You made your presence known with the attempt to save your precious lay’s championship by assaulting me at Heatstroke. But neither you nor Animal Instinct could stop me. And you in particular, Rayne, ended up tasting steel when I bored of your pitiful interference,” Emma, from the sound of it, rather enjoys revisiting that particular memory. ”How did it feel, Rayne? All that preparation, all the late-night planning sessions building to that pivotal moment where you would ensure that Casanova’s misbegotten reign would continue until the end of VoW’s time… only for you to be left lying, watching from your back, which I’m certain you’re quite used to,” she adds that last part acidly, ”as your man was revealed to be nothing but a boy. You’re the groupie, Rayne. The sorority pledge trying to please her sisters and willing to stoop to any level to earn their praise. Pathetic… disgusting… worthless!
Against the Orphanage, Rayne, I am unstoppable. Not one of you has had the power to slow me down, much less stop me. Three times I sent English down like a beaten animal and left his carcass for the scavengers. Twice I put Winter Pine on her back and made her scream in ways Matt Robinson could never manage. And your so-called deity? Seth Iser isn't worthy to breathe the same air as me,” she states, her tone fully dares argument, especially from the man in question. On either side of her, Joanna and Katalina alternately grin and nod in the same moment. ”So you... who do you think you are? Forsaken by the man you bonded with, sent as an errand girl for another exile demanding reverence from afar, deluded into thinking that this is for your own satisfaction and necessity. You buck up to the World Visionary Champion, the End of All Things, and dare to entertain the distant dream of survival, much less victory? At least Stacy Jones had purity of intentions and the power to give me pause,” she says before a brief pause, pushing her bangs back to show the wound given by the Glampire at Armed & Dangerous… something she seems to show off with a sense of satisfaction. ”I ask again: who the HELL do you think YOU are to challenge ME?!”
"The pompous, last-ditch effort to restore glory to a fallen empire? No, you're the symbolic beheading of the old guard as we shut the doors on your putrid and destroyed kingdom," Joanna adds, rising from Emma’s shoulder and staring at the camera with arms folded. ”And the best part? Your so-called kingdom knows full well how futile this is, whether they admit it or not.”
"The leavings of an angel pushed to wrath. A never-was masquerading as a has-been. The personal ball-washer of Casanova English. You're a disgusting, fetid waste of flesh and meat, Rayne Draven-Omega, and I will be doing not only wrestling but life itself a favor by leaving you as a stinking puddle in the middle of that ring. I wonder," Death pauses for effect, grinning sardonically as she stares straight at the camera, ”if that lot will come to save you as you came to the aid of your fallen king? Inquiring minds and all that.”
"The whole of this effort, be it for the sake of personal satisfaction or the colder, less focused concept of revenge, is pathetic at best, abysmal at worst,” states Strife as she points the crop in her hand threateningly at the camera, at Draven-Omega. ”You represent the reason why we’ve done what we've done, that being giving a lethal injection to VoW so that in death it might be purified and given life free of the taint of you and your ilk.”
”And your suffering has only just begun.”
All three heads turn, as does the camera, taking in what is at first simply a tall silhouette in the near distance. But the voice is unmistakable as is the poise; Talon, who had left the group and VoW some months ago, strides into view to join her sisters. Each wear similar looks of satisfaction and eagerness, but none more so than Emma herself. Talon likewise returns the smile, thinly, as the tower of darkness himself, Sentinel, comes to stand at his wife’s side.
”And the family is as it should be once again.”
”Welcome back, sister. You’ve been missed.”
”By all of us.”
Emma replies, stepping from the car and over to Talon, the two briefly embracing as Talon’s gaze drops to the championship. A brief grin turns up her blood-red lips.
”Wish I’d been there to see that. But… I’m here now. The end won’t come without all four of us present, at least not properly. You see,” Talon says, putting the smile aside and turning her acid-green eyes on the camera, ”your compatriots are well aware of your weakness, Rayne, and we are fully aware of their proclivities toward getting involved in the business of others, whether it concerns them or not. We expect that they’ll make an appearance to save what passes for your hide. Likewise, they should expect to be met in force should they interfere. So it was when our sister took the crown,” Talon continues as she looks to Emma, settling against the Impala on the other side of Katalina, ”so it shall be when she continues her complete dominance over you.”
It’s quite the sight, seeing all four Horsewomen together again… more so in the twilight of VoW’s lfiespan. Sentinel keeps himself out of the sight save for his brief appearance, leaving Fury, Strife, War and Death framed by the encroaching darkness past sunset.
”No longer is the Orphanage the power that controls the destiny of VoW. That has been ripped from your hands by the Horsewomen of Chaos. But we know full well that there are many who won’t accept singular dominance over each of you as satisfactory. There are yet fancy-minded sorts who clamor for something a little more, shall we say, definitive. And you know, sisters, some of those petulant sorts may be on to something.”
All three nod knowingly at Emma’s words; Katalina licking her lips and tracing her fingers along her crop, Talon cracking her knuckles audibly with a twisted gleam in her eye and Joanna biting her lip in a look equal parts threatening and eager. Emma looks to them and gives a nod, simultaneous reciprocated by the others.
”They want one last apocalyptic battle with all the pieces on the board, one more bloody battle that, in their minds, will define who the true power was in VoW… and who will remain such when it rises again. Of course, the four of us already know the answer,” she adds with no small amount of amusement, a feeling shared by her sisters, ”but perhaps we could show a little… charity. That is, if the Orphanage has the gumption to walk into the jaws of the beast still fresh with the scent of their former leader’s blood on its breath…”
Hitching up the title a little, dusting it off with the back of her hand, Emma is followed by the rest of the Horsewomen as the view adjusts to accommodate the lot of them.
”But first things first, Rayne: I’m going to destroy you. And when your cohorts come to collect the remains, the challenge will be made. Once and for all, before the eyes of all that exist… the Horsewomen versus the Orphanage. At Darkest Hour, where we made our formal entrance into this place, we shall exit with a pile of bodies strewn in our wake and perhaps… something more.”
What that ‘more’ might be is left to the imagination. Emma does not elaborate on such things, instead taking her focus right back to Draven-Omega.
”But after they see what I do to you, they may reconsider the sudden burst of fire and rage that my words have instilled in them. Make no mistake, Rayne: my threats toward you, my hyperbole concerning past conquests… is not merely an artful description of what might be. It is etched in stone, forever a part of history. The best and the brightest have fallen at my feet despite their best efforts. You are neither,” Emma says with finality, lifting the title from her shoulder and holding it up for Rayne and her fellow Orphans to see. ”You’re broken, battered and beaten. But through that, your body remembers what I’m capable of, how your from-behind assault on my already-battered form did about as much damage as a wet breeze over hot garbage. You can feel flesh and bone colliding with steel and see me standing over you, drenched in the blood of your fallen monarch moments before I took his crown.
Ask yourself one more time… if you think you’re ready to face that head-to-head without the benefit of my not seeing you coming… without the help of your fellow Orphans to pick you up and shove you between the ropes while you put on a front of false courage,” she states, turning to and kissing the gold medallion held before her as she had after that Heatstroke match. ”I drank the blood of Casanova English and took his power. I did the same to Stacy Jones at Heatstroke. I keep what I kill, and grow ever stronger. You’re not a challenge. You’re barely an obstacle. You’re just another bump in the road, another brick in the wall. And I will prove that at Breakthrough 53.”
The rest step forward, standing at the side of Death.
”War is the wave of blood and chaos that changes the world.”
”Strife is the questioning of standards that forces change.”
”Fury is the fire within that pushes the strong to new heights.”
”Death is the end that purifies in anticipation of a new beginning.”
There’s a brief moment of silence as Emma puts the title back over her shoulder.
”We came, we saw, we conquered… and now we bring about the end so desperately needed. Rayne, your time comes at Breakthrough. And for the Orphanage as a whole? We’ll see whether or not you’ve the fire in your guts to meet us on the final battleground: Darkest Hour. Declare or be declared. Fight… or DIE.”
Glancing over her shoulder at her sisters, Emma nods and the three disperse, each taking a seat in the Impala convertible, Sentinel included. Emma takes her place in the driver’s seat, the title draped over the seat between herself and Joanna at her side. The engine turns over with a roar and the four tear off down the strip along the beach, the taillights the last thing visible as the scene draws to a final close.
At that moment populating one of the many boutiques that litter the city of Malibu, Emma is sifting through a rack of clothing with a careful eye. She’ll pick up the occasional piece and hold it up, first before her and then against her. But her empty bag tells the tale of her selectiveness. From time to time her lips move and sometimes she’s heard, though at first glance that appears to just be her talking to herself. Death sweeps a mass of dark locks behind her ear at one point and shows that such an idea is to the contrary; a Bluetooth earpiece is nestled into her ear as she browses. As the view draws in more tightly, some of that back-and-forth is heard.
”...no, her exact words were to the effect of the next show being her last because she couldn’t be happy in a society like this. Yes, I reacted in the same way,” Emma says quietly, not eager to have her vocal interplay put on blast for the gawkers. ”In a sense I do not fault her. The landscape as it stands is a pile of refuse, the haves and have-nots constantly warring through words instead of action. And they wonder why things are as they are,” her disgust shows as she holds a striking black cocktail dress up against herself and, inexplicably, puts it into the bag. ”We warned them from the start, did we not?”
The voice on the other end unmistakably belongs to Eleanor Merriweather, the woman once known as Doll.
”From the first moments, though where it comes to Joanna this seems to have been brewing for some time… even from before she faced Soloke the last couple of times,” Eleanor replies, sounded more concerned than Emma about the whole thing. ”It begs the question: what are your own plans? The company is closing with you on top, barely into your reign as champion. That, forgive me for presuming, cannot sit well with you, Vic.”
”I should be rather nonplussed and extremely agitated, shouldn’t I?”
Emma smiles thinly as she leaves the rack behind, taking the bag with her deeper into the establishment, perusing more of the wares for sale leisurely. Eyeing the selection of leather, in terms of belts, gloves and footwear, she pauses to browse again, expanding on her response.
”But in truth, exactly why should I be upset that this place is sinking before I’ve truly had a run with the championship? Exactly who is left who could challenge me? All I see when I look at Twitter or at the locker room is a collection of fresh fish speaking as if they’re sharks,” chuckling quietly, Emma selects a pair of studded leather gloves from the rack and tries them on, flexing her fingers in the tight confines with a faint smile. ”They’d rather squabble on social media than attempt to reach the upper echelons in the ring, putting their energy into finite pursuits and goals rather than seeing the big picture. And all the sacred cows this place came to rely on, much to its detriment and imminent fall, are already gone,” she continues, removing the gloves and placing them in the bag along with a belt to match. ”Without hyperbole, who is left in this company who could rightly challenge me? Were things to proceed apace, I’d be digging through the dreck, battering children who have no business breathing my air much less sharing the ring with me as anything other than animated tackling dummies.”
”It’s true. So… what, then? There was that one piece of business you mentioned…”
”That will be spoken of directly at Breakthrough. Speaking of…”
”Rayne Draven-Omega. You’ve had an encounter or two with her in the ring and out of it. Rumor is that she specifically requested this match against you.”
A small snort of a chuckle emits from Emma as she moves along the racks again, pausing to add various items to the bag, though most of it is masked by the stands themselves; the woman moves like a shadow. Aside from those who stare from a distance, most of the other customers don’t notice her presence until she’s already close enough to grab hold of them. And even then they don’t notice until she’s already passed them by. When she finally responds to Eleanor, her voice betrays amusement.
”So she has a death wish… figuratively and literally. I see no reason not to indulge her, though. I’ve stomped the hell out of every other Orphanage member I’ve faced, so why not move a little closer to completing the set before VoW gives up the ghost?”
”...and then?”
En route to the register at the back of the store, Emma stops in her tracks. The one question she hadn’t considered was now staring her in the face. What now, indeed. Joanna was taking her leave it seemed and with VoW closing, Emma was quite suddenly faced with having no place to ply her trade. People moved past her… indeed, the world continued to revolve despite her momentary detachment from it. It took Eleanor speaking again…
”Victoria?”
...to shake Death out of her momentary torpor. She adjusted her sunglasses, keeping her striking blue eyes hidden, and continued up to the counter.
”I don’t know yet.”
Fade to black.
~*~
On the other end of the line, Eleanor hangs up her cell phone, leaning back in her leather chair and looking around the office in which she sat. Placing the device on the desk, she pushed up to her feet and walked across the carpeted floor, taking in the environment for a moment. It had a modern flair with lots of dark colors and polished surfaces, but there were splashes of color as well in the form of lush plants and a painting or two. It wasn’t what Eleanor was used to, preferring her classically-styled office back in Coventry, but for her time in the states it was suitable. The latter was designed with an eye toward the classics not only in terms of style but attitude and outlook as well.
Her current environment? It was designed to be defensible and, with a little shift here or motion there, intimidating. The monochrome oeuvre of the room’s designer was on purpose, offering the illusion that there was only one choice or the other. The colors were Eleanor’s idea, to be placed before her arrival and removed on her departure. She was thankful for the additions even if they were merely to please her during her short stays at 3S. At any time in her absence, matters of life or death could be decided right where she stood and that unnerved her. She’d seen enough lives changed and lost in her short life.
Retrieving her phone, she began dialing as she left the office, putting the device to her ear as she made her way down the hall, every step clicking thanks to her high red heels. Red like her suit and the fiery hair streaming down her slender back. Finally she was back in her proper state again, healthy and vigorous.
”El? What’s up, sugar?”
Pandora’s voice answered almost immediately, over the sound of cracking gum, and it made Eleanor smile. The tech-head of 3S was about as close to a real-life Harley Quinn, Suicide Squad-style, as you could get without the crazy and the giant mallet.
”I’m on my way down. It looks like we were right; this jump in time frame was more than they expected,” Eleanor replies, checking her watch. ”Time to move plans forward. Can we be ready within two weeks?”
”Damn sure can. You want me to send Eve and Luca out to start putting together what we need? Both are off today but I doubt they’ll mind. Some of this stuff IS gonna be tricky to handle, after all.”
”Make it happen, dear. And I don’t need to tell you that Victoria and Joanna need to be kept out of the loop on this. If they get wind of it, it’ll never happen. We have to keep matters in our own hands and execute this to perfection. They may not like it, but they’ll see that it is for the best. Speaking of seeing, I’ll be seeing you shortly.”
”Will do, Phoenix.”
Eleanor smiled again upon hanging up. That little nickname from Pandora… not just due to her red hair but to her coming back from what she did months ago. Ordinarily she’d write it off as the silly reaction to Pandora being something of a pop culture nerd, but she found a lot of pleasure in the moniker these days. It gave her confidence. Stepping around the corner, she disappeared from sight and the scene goes to black.
~*~
It’s early evening by this point, the sun darkening as it lowers against its Pacific bed, but there’s more than enough light to catch both the polished gleam of the Impala on which Emma leans AND the gold draped over her shoulder. The orb of fiery orange and red reflects off the lenses of her sunglasses though she removes those and tosses the folded eyewear onto the driver’s seat. Hitching the title up just a bit, she turns her attention back to the sunset, lifting a hand to push some breeze-tossed hair aside. Despite current events, Death looks rather serene. And she explains why quite succinctly when given the off-camera signal that things are a go:
”We win.”
She laughs faintly, soaking in the satisfaction of those two words as the fingertips of her right hand play with the gold and leather.
”The false king has been sent scampering as his hodgepodge army tries to pick up the pieces and put on a brave face. The greatest warriors, representing both light and darkness, have stepped up en masse and been found wanting. Some followed the path of English, scurrying swiftly like rats from a sinking ship. Some to this very day persist in delaying the inevitable. They march like lemmings, following ages-old instinct without a care for the consequences, straight off the edge of a cliff and into the abyss… never knowing where, never asking why… straight into the maw of Chaos.
We… have won.”
Turning her attention fully upon the championship over her shoulder, Emma considers quietly for a few moments, speaking without returning her gaze to the camera.
”It isn’t the end, of course. VoW will rise again one day. Stronger, stabler, more befitting the survival of the fittest dogma that any warrior worth their salt would follow,” slowly she takes her focus from the title and puts it back on the camera. ”And it will rise with the memory of what led it to the light, of the Horsewomen who did what was necessary to end the pain and suffering that this place was stumbling blindly through. When the moment arrives that the resurrection takes place, we,” she gestures with the championship, ”will be there. But before the first ending comes, before the last nail is hammered into place and the last shovelful of dirt is heaped on the smooth pine coffin… there is business to settle,” a distasteful business if the wrenching of her expression is to be believed; Emma looks patently disgusted to put it mildly. ”If you could even call it that. Yes, Rayne Draven-Omega, I speak of you.”
Shaking her head in something resembling disbelief, Emma lifts her head a moment later and turns slightly to her right, a bit of her predatory smile coming back to bear as Joanna Thade steps into the frame and comes to stand at her side. The lovers’ eyes meet for a moment before a kiss is shared… heated, but simple… and Joanna turns to likewise lean against the Impala next to her partner. A tattered white top beneath form-fitting black mesh and similarly half-destroyed jeans over imposing, studded boots makes War look even more dangerous than usual. And Emma requires a few moments to admire her fiance as Joanna addresses Rayne.
”What was your thought process when you crawled to Sangue and Omega on your hands and knees, butch? Did you think that, after falling to the holiest of holies that you might have an easier time taking on Death herself?”
Joanna’s tone and expression tells the tale of her thoughts on the matter clearly. She laughs harshly as Emma looks on with what one could grudgingly call affection toward War. But grudgingly or otherwise, Joanna warms to that look.
”Or is this some kind of errand for your Paper King? From afar he sends his dogs to do the task that he could not. Yes, that seems about his game,” Joanna says as Emma hides an amused chuckle behind a gloved hand. War herself grins evilly at the thought. ”All he did was ensure that you’d be coming back to him in a box. Hopefully we can find all the pieces once my Golden Death Princess is finished hacking you apart.”
”You’re the hanger-on, Rayne, and the world knows it. You roll back into VoW acting as though the world should bow and mash their lips to your boots, riding a wave of misdirection and disloyalty. Everything, I should note, that we are not. You may fault the Horsewomen for much, but you will never call us dishonest without proving yourself a liar into the bargain,” those words are delivered fiercely by Death, still leaning upon the car and now leaned upon by Joanna. A silk-clad arm snakes around War’s shoulders and not for a moment does Emma lose her focus. ”Is it truly as War intones? Are you seeking to save face after your losses to Reya Serra by attempting to impose your will on me? Or is English still stinging from having his mortality shoved down his throat but lacking possession of enough guts to challenge me face to face? After three losses in a row I wouldn’t blame him but to send someone like you… how far the presumed-to-be mighty fallen.”
”The poor dear has a selective memory, as does the former champion, thinking such a route would avail them in regaining their lost status,” comes a sultry voice from Emma’s left. Death tilts her head back and in that direction slightly, offering a smirk of satisfaction toward the speaker: Strife herself, Katalina Star. ”Sorry to bust your bubble, dear, but both your knowledge of history and your grasp upon reality is simply… lacking. Your focus is non-existent. Of course, if you were willing I could assist you in working through those shortcomings…”
Leather trousers, a red silk blouse and stiletto heels comprise the attire of the Horsewomen’s resident domina, the sound of a slap of the business end of her riding crop into her palm sharp enough to make onlookers wince.
”But you don’t have the stomach to find out what you’re really made of. Hiding behind false bravado, that mask of confidence fused to your pretty face… but I see through such things. And more importantly,” Katalina pauses as she comes to stand on Emma’s other side, taking Death’s offered hand and kissing the back of it before looking to the camera herself. ”Death sees through it as well.”
”Did you forget how well our last encounter worked out for you? You made your presence known with the attempt to save your precious lay’s championship by assaulting me at Heatstroke. But neither you nor Animal Instinct could stop me. And you in particular, Rayne, ended up tasting steel when I bored of your pitiful interference,” Emma, from the sound of it, rather enjoys revisiting that particular memory. ”How did it feel, Rayne? All that preparation, all the late-night planning sessions building to that pivotal moment where you would ensure that Casanova’s misbegotten reign would continue until the end of VoW’s time… only for you to be left lying, watching from your back, which I’m certain you’re quite used to,” she adds that last part acidly, ”as your man was revealed to be nothing but a boy. You’re the groupie, Rayne. The sorority pledge trying to please her sisters and willing to stoop to any level to earn their praise. Pathetic… disgusting… worthless!
Against the Orphanage, Rayne, I am unstoppable. Not one of you has had the power to slow me down, much less stop me. Three times I sent English down like a beaten animal and left his carcass for the scavengers. Twice I put Winter Pine on her back and made her scream in ways Matt Robinson could never manage. And your so-called deity? Seth Iser isn't worthy to breathe the same air as me,” she states, her tone fully dares argument, especially from the man in question. On either side of her, Joanna and Katalina alternately grin and nod in the same moment. ”So you... who do you think you are? Forsaken by the man you bonded with, sent as an errand girl for another exile demanding reverence from afar, deluded into thinking that this is for your own satisfaction and necessity. You buck up to the World Visionary Champion, the End of All Things, and dare to entertain the distant dream of survival, much less victory? At least Stacy Jones had purity of intentions and the power to give me pause,” she says before a brief pause, pushing her bangs back to show the wound given by the Glampire at Armed & Dangerous… something she seems to show off with a sense of satisfaction. ”I ask again: who the HELL do you think YOU are to challenge ME?!”
"The pompous, last-ditch effort to restore glory to a fallen empire? No, you're the symbolic beheading of the old guard as we shut the doors on your putrid and destroyed kingdom," Joanna adds, rising from Emma’s shoulder and staring at the camera with arms folded. ”And the best part? Your so-called kingdom knows full well how futile this is, whether they admit it or not.”
"The leavings of an angel pushed to wrath. A never-was masquerading as a has-been. The personal ball-washer of Casanova English. You're a disgusting, fetid waste of flesh and meat, Rayne Draven-Omega, and I will be doing not only wrestling but life itself a favor by leaving you as a stinking puddle in the middle of that ring. I wonder," Death pauses for effect, grinning sardonically as she stares straight at the camera, ”if that lot will come to save you as you came to the aid of your fallen king? Inquiring minds and all that.”
"The whole of this effort, be it for the sake of personal satisfaction or the colder, less focused concept of revenge, is pathetic at best, abysmal at worst,” states Strife as she points the crop in her hand threateningly at the camera, at Draven-Omega. ”You represent the reason why we’ve done what we've done, that being giving a lethal injection to VoW so that in death it might be purified and given life free of the taint of you and your ilk.”
”And your suffering has only just begun.”
All three heads turn, as does the camera, taking in what is at first simply a tall silhouette in the near distance. But the voice is unmistakable as is the poise; Talon, who had left the group and VoW some months ago, strides into view to join her sisters. Each wear similar looks of satisfaction and eagerness, but none more so than Emma herself. Talon likewise returns the smile, thinly, as the tower of darkness himself, Sentinel, comes to stand at his wife’s side.
”And the family is as it should be once again.”
”Welcome back, sister. You’ve been missed.”
”By all of us.”
Emma replies, stepping from the car and over to Talon, the two briefly embracing as Talon’s gaze drops to the championship. A brief grin turns up her blood-red lips.
”Wish I’d been there to see that. But… I’m here now. The end won’t come without all four of us present, at least not properly. You see,” Talon says, putting the smile aside and turning her acid-green eyes on the camera, ”your compatriots are well aware of your weakness, Rayne, and we are fully aware of their proclivities toward getting involved in the business of others, whether it concerns them or not. We expect that they’ll make an appearance to save what passes for your hide. Likewise, they should expect to be met in force should they interfere. So it was when our sister took the crown,” Talon continues as she looks to Emma, settling against the Impala on the other side of Katalina, ”so it shall be when she continues her complete dominance over you.”
It’s quite the sight, seeing all four Horsewomen together again… more so in the twilight of VoW’s lfiespan. Sentinel keeps himself out of the sight save for his brief appearance, leaving Fury, Strife, War and Death framed by the encroaching darkness past sunset.
”No longer is the Orphanage the power that controls the destiny of VoW. That has been ripped from your hands by the Horsewomen of Chaos. But we know full well that there are many who won’t accept singular dominance over each of you as satisfactory. There are yet fancy-minded sorts who clamor for something a little more, shall we say, definitive. And you know, sisters, some of those petulant sorts may be on to something.”
All three nod knowingly at Emma’s words; Katalina licking her lips and tracing her fingers along her crop, Talon cracking her knuckles audibly with a twisted gleam in her eye and Joanna biting her lip in a look equal parts threatening and eager. Emma looks to them and gives a nod, simultaneous reciprocated by the others.
”They want one last apocalyptic battle with all the pieces on the board, one more bloody battle that, in their minds, will define who the true power was in VoW… and who will remain such when it rises again. Of course, the four of us already know the answer,” she adds with no small amount of amusement, a feeling shared by her sisters, ”but perhaps we could show a little… charity. That is, if the Orphanage has the gumption to walk into the jaws of the beast still fresh with the scent of their former leader’s blood on its breath…”
Hitching up the title a little, dusting it off with the back of her hand, Emma is followed by the rest of the Horsewomen as the view adjusts to accommodate the lot of them.
”But first things first, Rayne: I’m going to destroy you. And when your cohorts come to collect the remains, the challenge will be made. Once and for all, before the eyes of all that exist… the Horsewomen versus the Orphanage. At Darkest Hour, where we made our formal entrance into this place, we shall exit with a pile of bodies strewn in our wake and perhaps… something more.”
What that ‘more’ might be is left to the imagination. Emma does not elaborate on such things, instead taking her focus right back to Draven-Omega.
”But after they see what I do to you, they may reconsider the sudden burst of fire and rage that my words have instilled in them. Make no mistake, Rayne: my threats toward you, my hyperbole concerning past conquests… is not merely an artful description of what might be. It is etched in stone, forever a part of history. The best and the brightest have fallen at my feet despite their best efforts. You are neither,” Emma says with finality, lifting the title from her shoulder and holding it up for Rayne and her fellow Orphans to see. ”You’re broken, battered and beaten. But through that, your body remembers what I’m capable of, how your from-behind assault on my already-battered form did about as much damage as a wet breeze over hot garbage. You can feel flesh and bone colliding with steel and see me standing over you, drenched in the blood of your fallen monarch moments before I took his crown.
Ask yourself one more time… if you think you’re ready to face that head-to-head without the benefit of my not seeing you coming… without the help of your fellow Orphans to pick you up and shove you between the ropes while you put on a front of false courage,” she states, turning to and kissing the gold medallion held before her as she had after that Heatstroke match. ”I drank the blood of Casanova English and took his power. I did the same to Stacy Jones at Heatstroke. I keep what I kill, and grow ever stronger. You’re not a challenge. You’re barely an obstacle. You’re just another bump in the road, another brick in the wall. And I will prove that at Breakthrough 53.”
The rest step forward, standing at the side of Death.
”War is the wave of blood and chaos that changes the world.”
”Strife is the questioning of standards that forces change.”
”Fury is the fire within that pushes the strong to new heights.”
”Death is the end that purifies in anticipation of a new beginning.”
There’s a brief moment of silence as Emma puts the title back over her shoulder.
”We came, we saw, we conquered… and now we bring about the end so desperately needed. Rayne, your time comes at Breakthrough. And for the Orphanage as a whole? We’ll see whether or not you’ve the fire in your guts to meet us on the final battleground: Darkest Hour. Declare or be declared. Fight… or DIE.”
Glancing over her shoulder at her sisters, Emma nods and the three disperse, each taking a seat in the Impala convertible, Sentinel included. Emma takes her place in the driver’s seat, the title draped over the seat between herself and Joanna at her side. The engine turns over with a roar and the four tear off down the strip along the beach, the taillights the last thing visible as the scene draws to a final close.
