Thursday September 2, 2010
The Nest
Indianapolis, Indiana
3:34 PM Local Time
“Hey Theresa.”
Daniel Pollaski smiled as he shut the front door of the Nest behind him, and saw the little four-year old girl sitting in the adjacent family room, enthralled in watching whatever they stuck on Nickelodeon these days. The little girl gave an excited wave to him, but didn’t move from her perch on the sofa, apparently finding whatever was on television much more interesting than a visit from her favorite wrestling manager in the whole wide world.
“Hey, Dan,” Wendy Briese smiled as she walked into the living room as well, curious to see what had caused her front door to open and shut. She turned towards her daughter and frowned. “Terr, you’ve been sitting on that couch for almost two hours now. That’s enough TV.”
“But it’s the Fairly Odd-Parents!” Theresa insisted, shaking her head in denial at Wendy’s orders, and Wendy grimaced, having the sense that she was going to have to get strict.
“Have you seen Terrence?” Pollaski asked, temporarily curtailing the reprimand that was coming little Theresa’s way.
Wendy nodded. “He’s upstairs,” she said. “NOW, Theresa,” she demanded, turning back to her daughter. “Or it’ll be no TV for a week.”
Pollaski turned up the stairs, listening with half-amusement as Theresa’s complaint about it being ‘not fair’ echoed behind him. He reached the top of the stairs. The sound of fingers typing away on a keyboard led him to the computer room, at the end of the hallway. The door was open, and he entered, to find Terrence hunched over the keyboard. frowning at the computer screen.
“Hey-a” Pollaski said brightly, causing Terrence to raise his head from the screen. Looking closer, Pollaski saw that Terrence had been watching his match with Stephen Greer from the last Defiance Episode. “Still pissed about Eppy 6, are we?” He asked, grimacing sympathetically.
Terrence shrugged. “It is what it is.” he muttered, which Pollaski immediately interpreted to mean ‘yes.’ With a grimace, he shut the YouTube window, then turned towards the obese manager. “What’s the good word?”
“New lineup,” Pollaski said without any preamble, “You’re facing Heidi.”
“Shit,” Terrence said, grimacing even more.
Pollaski chuckled, the tone a mixture of sympathy and mockery. “You’re afraid of a girl?” he teased.
Terrence shot Daniel a dark look. “Fuck that,” he snapped, then sighed. “Not sure how Wendy’s going to take this, though.”
“Take what?” a feminine voice asked, followed by a soft *WUMPH* as Wendy dropped the full laundry basket she had been carrying, and stepped into the computer room to join her husband and manager.
For a second, neither man responded, surprised at the redhead’s suden appearance. This immediately seemed to clue Wendy in that it wasn’t the best of news. She arched an eyebrow, and stared at her husband, folding her arms across her chest. “Take, what, Terry?” she repeated.
“I face Heidi next week,” Terrence said.
There was a short pause, Wendy standing motionless, the expression on her face inscrutable. Finally she nodded, barely stirring apart from that. “That’s.. good, Terry.” she began, almost mechanically. “She’s a former CAL World Champion. It’ll be a big win for you.”
Terrence nodded, his eyes never leaving his wife. He could feel the nine-hundred pound gorilla in the room, standing in the corner, gleefully taking in the awkward scene. He took a glance at Pollaski, then shrugged. “You know the Season One finale’s going to be brought up..”
Not a person in the room could forget the finale of the First Season of Defiance, when the WhirlyBirdz, after a five year absence, had returned to claim the WWA Tag Titles. After a furious battle involving no less than fourteen people, several double crosses, and a few other surprises, Wendy had found herself alone in the ring, facing down what would later come to be known as the HYDRA all by herself. Held down by the future stable, Stephen Greer had practically threatened to rape her in the ring. The humiliating experience she had endured had been made all the more bizarre when Heidi Christenson, joining in on the taunting of Greer, Lightning, and Andrews, brushed Wendy’s cheek lightly with her hand, volunteering for the honors.
“Actually, it already has,” Pollaski corrected, shrugging. “I believe the phrase ‘Caged Heat’ was used,” he finished, breaking into a grin.
Wendy’s emerald eyes flashed angrily, and she fixated Pollaski with the full death glare that she had become famous for over the years. For his part, Pollaski merely grinned wider, and shrugged helplessly
“What? It was kinda hot...” he admitted.
Terrence absently nodded in agreement, then stopped himself the moment he realized what he was doing. Unfortunately for him, the gesture wasn’t unnoticed by his wife, who turned a horrified expression upon him. Grinning weakly, he shrugged. “I mean, it WOULD have been had you been consenting to it.”
Off to his side, he heard Pollaski making a whistling sound, growing steadily lower in pitch, ending with the mimicry of an explosion. At the same time, he slowly drove his palm, fingers first, into the top of the desk, an imitation of a nose-diving plane.
No survivors.
“You do realize that was one of the most humiliating moments of my life, right?” Wendy demanded,
Terrence nodded. “And you realize that it being brought back up was pretty damned inevitable the moment we signed up for Defiance, right?”
“*I* didn’t sign up for Defiance,” Wendy snapped in reply. “*YOU* did.”
“And I recall you offering your full support when I did,” Terrence rebutted. “Were you lying?”
Wendy opened her mouth to respond, but no sound came out, although Terrence couldn’t quite tell if it was because he had actually just smashed his wife in an argument, or if she was just getting insanely pissed at him.
Probably both
“Here’s the thing hon,” Terrence said, cutting off another attempt by Wendy to respond. “You could have signed your name on that contract at any time in the past two months, walked into the Defiance ring, and demanded a match against Heidi. You haven’t done that. I know your reasons why, and they’re noble ones, but that was your decision. I didn’t ask for this match. Dane, or Goldman, or whoever the fuck is running things right now made it. Don’t blame me because I’m facing her, and you’re not.”
Wendy’s expression softened slightly, but not completely. She did however, take a step back, which did, to Terrence’s relief, move her out of the optimal range from which to smack him. Nevertheless, he wasn’t done.
“Beside’s this match isn’t going to be about that anyways.”
“It’s not?” Both Pollaski and Wendy said, almost surprised.
“Nope,” Terrence said. “Last I checked, you’re a damn good wrestler yourself. You don’t need me to avenge you against Greer, Heidi, Mandrake, or fucking anyone, and you’d take it as an insult if I even tried. If you want a crack at them, Pollaski’s got another copy of that contract sitting back at his appartment. This match is going to be about ME, and making MY way up that ladder.”
Terrence abruptly stood up, and headed for the door, brushing by his still-stunned wife. “The real reason this is so hard on you, is because you hate standing on the sidelines. I told you a month ago that you had a choice to make, hon. It’s still there.”
With that, Terrence kissed his wife on the cheek, and left the room, the soft thud of him bounding down the stairs heard in the background.
Alone in the room with her manager, Wendy sighed, and turned to Dan. “She touched my cheek. Why would you even think that was hot?”
“That in itself wasn’t so hot,” Pollaski confessed, with a shrug. “It was more the implications of what it meant. Y’know...”
“I get it,” Wendy said quickly, turning on her heel, and walking out of the room.
======================================
“Ronnie Long”
[Downstairs we go, later that evening, in the living room. Terrence Thompson’s on the couch, the camera mounted a few feet away on a tripod. Terrence sits relaxed, although there is a definite aura of annoyance about him...]
“You’re just determined to piss off the entire world, aren’t you?”
[Eyebrow arch]
“See, Ronnie. I can emphasize with how you’ve felt. Six months ago, you were betrayed by your best friend. You’ve dealt with quite a bit of shit since then, from winning the WWA World title back in May, only to lose it all, and the alliance itself in June. You’re an angry man, Ronnie, and you have every right to be.”
[Shrug]
“But whatever you do to the Hydra, or anyone else in this roster, do it on your own time. See, that match, last week, that was a match that was a long time in coming. That was a match that had been over five years in the making. And just when I was ready to stun Greer with another Sparkstarter to his jaw, you ran in and mucked it all up.”
[Terrence sits up a little straighter, and criks his neck just a second. His hands, one resting on the couch’s armrest, the other in his lap, both clench involuntarily.]
“Your business is your business, Ronnie, and however you choose to deal with it, well, it ain’t my place to say. But at Episode 6, you got involved in my business. And that doesn’t sit well with me.”
[Pause]
“At all.”
[Another shrug.]
“If you want to take out the Hydra, more power to you. Leave Greer lying in a puddle of blood, smash Andrew’s face in. Fuck, even castrate Bronson Box for all I care. But don’t do it during my matches, and don’t get me disqualified. I understand you’re running high on emotion, and I’m willing to forgive your last transgression, But you fuck with my match again, and you’re just going to be adding one more name to your list of problems. I don’t think you’re going to be able to handle much more, Ronnie.”
[Actually, before this is all over, everyone’s gonna probably be amazed at how many people Ronnie’s actually managed to piss off. Or render comatose.]
“So after my unfortunate loss to Greer, I now move into a match with his stablemate Heidi Christenson. On paper, well, this looks like a hell of a dream match. A former WWA World Champion against a former CAL World Champion. And I’m sure everybody is buzzing about that ugly little incident between Heidi and my wife that ended Defiance’s first season.”
[Terrence shakes his head, half-amused, and scoffs.]
“Honestly, that means little to me now. It upset the hell out of Wendy, that’s for sure, and I know she wanted a crack at Heidi, especially during the Summer Games tournament. But then Heidi ran away from the inevitable ass-whipping she was going to get, and my wife went on to outlast every single member of the Hydra, and finish third, while Heidi hid in some undisclosed location, sucking her thumb.”
“Or various other parts of the human anatomy.”
[Ba-zing?]
“In fact, despite that one incident, and her reputation she’s carried over from the CAL, what exactly has Heidi even done? Last two shows, she hasn’t even QUALIFIED for the main cards, instead being forced into the untelevised live events, her matches broadcast to the world via the stellar pirate radio announce team of Angus Skaaland and Kevin... or Satan.. or whatever he goes by.”
[Terrence relaxes again, just a bit, tapping the armrest of the couch a couple of times as he leans back.]
“So I think its safe to say that Heidi’s taking a bit of a step up from her barn-burning matches against Ripper Longshanks and Roscoe Shame, while I’ve taken a bit of a step back.”
[A disgusted shake of the head.]
“I don’t like going backwards. Especially when the goal I came into this company with- to have the Defiance World Title around my waist, isn’t anywhere even remotely close to being fulfilled. So if I have to pound in Heidi’s pretty face in order to get the train rolling uphill again, well, then so be it.”
“But Wednesday night, in Chicago, it’s not going to be about anything else but me and Heidi. It’s going to be about me getting another quality win under my belt. It’s going to be about me turning heads. It’s going to be about me establishing myself as a legitimate player in Defiance.”
[Small smirk]
“And there’s nothing that Miss Christenson could possibly do to stop me.”
[Fade]
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