[ThePurpleVixen]

My knee hasn't really haunted me as badly as your back has. I've been in some bad leg locks, but everyone's used to leg locks fucking you up, so it's not surprising when I'm kinda hobbled after a Texas Cloverleaf or whatever shitty MMA kneebar the kids are using these days. No one thinks twice about it. And when I'm icing my knee down after a match, I do it in private. Announcers generally don't catch on - I do yoga, which helps. In fact, I've probably done it for at least as long as you, I just don't dare people to bend me in half all the fucking time to show off. And I do the Coldstream Guard calisthenics Squire taught us and the Kaientai Dojo stretches, each and every day. I run like a motherfucker every morning, hung over or not, and I don't think about how my knee makes little creaks after I hit a superkick or a Shining Wizard sometimes.

But as much time as I spend NOT thinking about my knee or my other aches and pains and scars I've gathered over the years, as much as I try to forget about the scars YOU left on me over the fucking years, as much as I gut through it and keep going ...

... y'know, it's fuckin' hard to forget old hurts when your ex gets an arm free of the ropes you were trying to break her back in and digs her fucking fingers into the knee she's been trying to pop loose all night.

First your hand just flails and finds and it squeeeeeezes, and I can't stop a snaking hiss of air through my teeth as I'm hung over you. My legs twitch just a little, sunk into your sides. It's the tiniest little thing. But there are no tiny moments of weakness with you, huh? I dig my fingers in hard under your jaw but your hand comes up and SLAMS down and your fingers DRILL into the swollen tissue, under the skewed bone cap, digging into the patellar nerves, twisting into the tendons. Your fingers bite into me like fangs, sinking in deep, and my head whiplashes, sweat and blood arcing off my twisted face.

"AARRRRRRHHHHH FUUUUUUCK!"

I try to hold on.

I really do.

I REALLY want to break you, and I know I was so fucking close. SO close.

But ... my quad isn't tensed so much as BUNCHED, spasming and cramping from the pressure of your claw digging into my busted knee.

For a moment we're hung in a perfect chao of torture, my hands locked under your jaw and thumbs drilled into your cheeks, my back arched and legs spear-straight over the middle rope, locked around you, quivering and jerking as you dig your fucking talons into my ravaged knee. You're bent so close to in half, your destroyed back spasming, your face dripping sweat, your busted lip bleeding down your chin.

I try to hold it.

But I can feel the tendon starting to go, and the pain is breaking my leverage, and my hands finally twitch just enough for you to jerk at my knee and break my grip. I topple backwards off you with a rough thud, using the chance to RIP my knee out of your grip as I hit the canvas. "NNNHHHRRRRRNNHHH!" I snarl, incoherent as I roll to the side, cradling my knee AGAIN. I'm so FUCKING furious that I slam my taped fist into the mat, again and again.

I had you. I HAD YOU. I FUCKING HAD YOU. I SHOULD HAVE SNAPPED YOUR BACK LIKE A GOD-DAMN TOOTHPICK.

"FUCK. FUUUUUUUUUCK YOU, YOU MASOCHISTIC LITTLE RICH GIRL!" I roar in wounded, twisted fury.

It feels like a lot of this bloody, brutal, viciously personal brawl has been about remembering what was. What we were. What we shared. What broke us apart. The moments that defined everything about us over the years, laid bare before the crowd and written in violence.

But the memories of what was don't come in moments like this.

They're all washed away in the cleansing fire of how much I fucking hate you.

LVK: And Rowan Chance BARELY escapes! Good LORD, that rope-hung Camel Clutch was absolutely VICIOUS.

RP: Goin' to the knee was smart. She's a smart chick. Kinda psychopathic for my tastes, but I can learn to live with that.

LVK: Do you really think she'd let you live, Rick?

RP: ... y'know, no matter which of these nutcases wins, I got no better'n 50-50 odds of gettin' out of France alive. And I wish it was the first time I'd had to say THAT.

LVK: Rowan Chance may have saved herself the match, but what's been the cost to her damaged spine? And can Megan Dow even STAND?

RP: Maybe they'll both end up crippled and I'll get away clean.

[Rowan Chance]

"Hurting people is easy."

Tantalus saying that. A dark room. Almost no lights. Just the sound of chains. The flicker of a candle. He's wearing his red jacket and his mask. Everything else is black.

"You just need two things. The knowledge of how to do it. And the will to do it."

The sound of his foot steps on the hard wood floor. He walks in a small circle.

"I've watched the matches you asked me to watch. Evaluated your...style."

The slight sound of chains again. And leather stretching.

"Flamboyant," he says, raising a finger. "But not effective."

He makes almost a full circle, back to where he started. There are no windows in this place. Only darkness, the candle, him, and the chains.

"I'm going to teach you how to hurt someone with the slightest of moves."

He steps forward, the candle lighting his eyes behind the mask.

"Is that what you want?"

The chains rattle. And my muffled voice makes a soft, whimpering sound.

"Very well," he says. "Let's begin."

* * *

Back in the ring, a few moments ago, you said the words.

""Rich girl."

They echo in my head. Along with my own voice. A sudden SLAP and my words.

"Don't you ever fucking call me a rich girl again. Or it'll be OVER between us."

There are a lot of echoes in my head. But right now, they're overshadowed by the pain.

I fall to the canvas, the impact making me cringe. Making my body freeze. My hands clench into fists and then claws and then fists again.

My toes are tingling. But I can move them. Yes, I can move them. I cough and it feels like I swallowed a poker that's been sitting in a winter fire all night. I check my side. Yeah. I've got a floating rib. I shake my head. Spit blood on the canvas. Try to move.

No, my body says. You don't get to do that yet.

I look at you. On the mat. Clutching your knee. Trying to wish it back to health. But that's not going to happen.

"You're not getting up any time soon, Megan Dow," I say, blood in my mouth.

I put my hands under me. Push myself to my knees. And I crawl.

That's right. I fucking crawl toward you. On my hands and knees. I bet you like that. In fact, I know you like that. Watching me crawl across the hotel room floor toward you. Your eyes shining so bright. Your lips wet with anticipation.

"Rich girl."

Those words sting my memory again. Not just sting. Lingering in there like a fucking scab you know you should't pick.

Every inch I move is agony. My chest. My spine. My whole core is gone. I know you've hurt my back. I know I'll be in the emergency room tonight. But you'll be there, too, bitch. I'll make fucking sure of it. There's no duct tape for you tonight. No cheap ass locker room remedy for what I'm going to do to you. You'll need fucking doctors. And I won't be the one making the call. You can argue with your goddamn wife about it. Be goddamn proud. Tell her to fuck off when she dials 911 because you can't fucking walk. Tell her that calling the doctor is tapping out. That admitting you aren't tough enough. And shame her for using a credit card to get you accepted into the emergency room.

I crawl. Right up behind you. And I use your goddamn shoulders to push myself up to my knees. Behind you. Using your body to keep myself up. I grab your loose purple hair and hold your neck in place. Remembering Thomas' words. Saying them out loud.

"Hurting people is easy."

I raise my right hand, holding your hair with my left.

And kneeling behind you, my right hand sharp, like a razor, the edge of my palm strikes right below the base of your skull, right at the top of your spine.

I watch your body jerk. It takes a moment after the impact. Your arms spread out and your fingers clench. Then, you fall face first. Flat onto the canvas. Flat. Motionless.


LVK: OHMYGOD. What was that?

RP: I've seen Rowan use that before. In Japan. Used to be the set up for... oh shit.

LVK: The Widow's Bite?

RP: Yeah. Shit. I gotta stop this.

(The sound of Rick's headphones hitting the table and a muffled conversation. Shouting between the two men.)

RP: You don't get it! She put Meg in a fucking COMA the last time she used that move!

LVK: We can't get involved, Rick!

RP: Maybe YOU can't get involved.

LVK: Remember last time? Remember?

(A long pause.)

RP: Yeah. I remember.

(The sound of headphones being picked up.)

LVK: Sorry, folks. We're back.

RP: Yeah, we're back.

LVK: Rowan looks seriously hurt. Barely able to stand. Even if she could lift Punky, I doubt she has the core strength to pull off the Widow's Bite.

RP: If she does, there's nothing stopping me from jumping in the ring. You understand that Van Keel?

LVK: Rick, don't force me to get security.

RP: I said NOTHING, Larry. NOTHING.



Lifting your prone body from the canvas takes everything I've got. You're limp now. But you're not limp enough for a three count. And fuck revenge. I want this to be OVER. If three seconds ends this--once and for all--then so be it.

I get you up to your knees. Your body heavy. Dead weight. Hook your head in a front face lock. Close my eyes. Breathe. Reach around your waist and fucking

LIIIIIIFFF--OHFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKGODFUCKINGDAMMIT!!!


LVK: Rowan is actually lifting and turning Punky's body...

RP: She's going for it.

LVK: Stay down, Rick. Stay down.

RP: She's going to paralyze her, Van Keel.

LVK: STAY DOWN!


The pain in my spine makes my legs quake. My knees nearly buckle. But I lift your body and twist it, turning it. The tombstone piledriver position. Lifting and turning until your legs are above my head. My arms tight around your waist. Your head just an inch below my knees.

I'm going to jump. And when I come down, I'm going to fall into a full splits. And your head is going to hit the canvas, shoving every last vertebrae against the one next to it. Cracking your skull. Jamming your neck.

That's what's going to end this war, once and for all, Megan. That's what's going to end you.

Once and for goddamn all.

[~Rox Erotique~]

Am I choking? I don't think I've taken a breath for minutes... I'm as pale as a porcelain vase and just as fragile as I teeter on the edge of sanity watching this horror show...

The Nevermore was a killer, just watching your legs tangled the wrong way as she hissed and poured bilious spite over you was as infuriating as it was soul crushing? Then I witnessed what I thought was your moment of triumph.

Can I even call it that? A fucking TRIUMPH?!?!

In what sick fucking universe is watching you maybe break another woman's back a triumph? No. I'm watching with pure trepidation. A part of me wants you to stop? to break the hold. Because I'm afraid. I'm afraid that if you do this? If you BREAK her? The Megan I love might never come back. That's a path to a dark place for ANY wrestler, let alone one as borderline as you.

But then moments later what I thought was terror turned out to be nothing but an entr?e to the nightmare feast that was to come?

I watch as she breaks your hold, both of you crumpled onto the canvas like a car crash? blood leaking from you like so much gasoline among the wreckage and strewn limbs.

Then she gets up

"No..." I gasp meekly, my heart pounding in my chest

She drags you up?

She flips you upside down, your body hanging there like dead weight?

"Oh god... Oh please no..." I croak, my words stuck in my throat as I start to tremble, sat there in my white wrap dress covered in my wife's blood, suddenly the thought of seeing her break Rowan's spine would have been a mercy to the horror about to come.

[ThePurpleVixen]

"You're not getting up any time soon, Megan Dow."

Always gotta talk like you're the fucking Spectre, don't you? Christ on a fucking crutch. And ME on a fucking crutch. I grit my teeth and snarl, my bloody cheek pressed to a canvas that is now splattered with the essence of both of us in a beautiful Pollock. I dig my thumbs and fingers into my seizing muscles and try to force my knee back into place. Doesn't have to stay there for long. I just need it long enough to finish kicking your ass and burying you in a shallow grave, and then I can spend a nice relaxing month rehabbing it with the help of Gemma's expensive doctors.

Know what the best part about all Gemma's money is? She earned all of it herself after starting off as poor and trashy as I was.

For that matter, *I* have money these days. I have a club in Portland, a promotional company that runs shows from Vancouver BC to San Francisco, and I'm a partner in Suplex Apparel. I have royalties from my merch line, my video downloads (including the SUPER popular Punky by Night apartment series, which Sadie got me into), and a Japanese video game appearance. *I* could afford to pay some elegantly manicured guy with really excellent skin and a sober haircut to tell me what titanium parts he'll need to put my knee back together.

But here's the thing, Rowan: I don't fucking CARE about all that. That's FUTURE MEGAN'S problems, and I've never really given a flying fuck about that bitch.

I just need to crush you and break you and rend you apart and leave you in the fucking dust of yesterday NOW. If I just had a roll of fucking duct tape ...

... and then your hand crashes into my neck as I'm on the mat, and everything goes swimmy.

It's not black-out dark. It's not even grayed out like I was after you fucked me up on the outside. It's almost like being really, really drunk - in the "Scene Missing" stage of the evening, the time of night when you do things that you'll always regret and never remember. Normally I love that part of the night. Right now it's kinda fucking inconvenient.

Blood runs down my face, thick but slow, mingling with the sweat. Painting my features in a different kind of death mask than the candy skull I started the night with, one Poe would have favored. My eyes are half-lidded, lips parted softly with the slightest silver trickle of silvery drool cobwebbed between them as I unroll to the mat. My loose purple hair, stained with my blood and ripped loose from its battle tails, strewn around my head in sweaty coils. What's left of my ring attire clings to me like a second skin, crumpled and soaked in sweat.

I can feel myself getting dragged up in a vague sort of way, and I know it's something to be alarmed about, but mostly it's a relief to have you taking my weight. Like when we used to help each other to the back after a hard match. Remember that, Ro? Like in Chicago. Or that night the Carolinas. Or Baltimore, Philly, Fort Myers, Chattanooga ... we were always holding each other up.

Until we both let go.

Of course the relief is kind of mitigated, ya might say, by the fact that you're hauling me upside down.

Even with chop to the neck blitzing my nerves and sending tingles down to my fingertips, that sets off alarm bells.

I can hear Rick's voice over the sound system. I made sure the announcers were piped in through the Zenith's pretty excellent speakers because I always fuckign hated going to wrestling shows and having to go watch them online afterwards to hear the announcing.

RP: You don't get it! She put Meg in a fucking COMA the last time she used that move!

Fun fact: it was not a coma.

I was just off the grid.

Losing to you really fucked with my head, Rowan. And not just because you spiked it into a fucking steel stage and sat on my face. So after I recovered and got out of the hospital, I left the scene, stopped taking bookings ran my business interests from a distance, and stayed up on a farm in the San Juan islands north of Washington, raising dwarf goats.

I'd probably still be there today, on my way to becoming one of those old lesbians that you find up in the Northwest, with long silver braids and little round Mrs. Claus glasses and hand-knit sweaters ...

... if a certain British madwoman hadn't gotten angry about me ignoring her calls and emails and flown and ferried and cycled out to find me. I was glad to see her. She was determined to drag me back to the mainland by force if necessary. My reunion with Gemma was emotionally intense, physically brutal, and destroyed most of my little farm as we beat the holy hell out of each other around it. She was in top fighting shape, but I'd been working out like Rocky in Russia out on the little island farm just to burn off my anger and energy every day. It's hard to say who won, because we both ended up stripped bare, bloody, soaked in sweat and having extensive and furious sex in the garden while the goats looked on amazed. To this day, the smell of nasturtiums and spring onions turns me on way too much. After more talk, a few more brawls, and a long night of drinking where I realized I was falling in love again, she got me out of the San Juans, and back to work - to join up with her and with Calli Quinn and Red and Emily Layne and Tiffany and a handful of other legends and lionesses of the scene to premiere FTW.

Y'know, it was Gemma's idea to invite you there, Ro. And we all know what followed after.

Funny, isn't it?

Maybe not funny. But you've gotta laugh or you'll die.

... it occurs to me that as Joey Ramone said, my brain is hanging upside-down.

RP: If she does, there's nothing stopping me from jumping in the ring. You understand that Van Keel?

LVK: Rick, don't force me to get security.

RP: I said NOTHING, Larry. NOTHING.

Well FUCK.

Even as I make a note to send my boy Rick a ticket to Amsterdam and a token for the House of Blue Lights, I realize you're about to spike my fucking head into the mat.

And that AIN'T happening.

My right hand slides up, taped palm rasping over your hip, black nails gleaming dark against the creaking leather of your little shorts. I dig my fingers in to the waistband and SHOVE, pushing your shorts down a bit over your hip, flaunting your stupid fucking tattoo as I kick my left leg HARD, just POUNDING my thigh tattooed with the big cameo of the Victorian zombie girl against your face, then snake my left leg to drag over your face and get it next to my right, so both my red Docs hang over your right shoulder, breaking your balance.

With a snarl, I grab at your halter in my left hand and DRAG myself back as I push with my right hand, yanking myself up your body, tits mashing into yours as I force myself out of your grip, letting my long legs hang behind you to DRAG me back over your shoulder and LANDING on the mat behind you, taking almost all my weight on my left leg and STILL snarling in pain at the jolt to my right knee. "NNNNH!"

I act on wrestling instinct, not bothering with conscious thought since right now my conscious thought seems to be a lot of monologues and flashbacks.

Hobbled on my left foot, I cinch my arms behind yours, hooking my forearms inside your elbows and locking my fingers at the center of your agonized back. "Three seconds 's good enough for you, you fuckin' floozy," I growl through the blood on my face, tensing both arms - and with a grit of my teeth against the pain that's gonna make my dentist very happy, I plant both my boots and lean forward - only to snarl and HAUL you up!

LVK: SHE GOT OUT! Punky escapes the Widow's Bite! GOOD lord ...

RP: Chrrrrrrist, I'm gettin' too old for - HOLY HELL!

With a battle roar, I DRAG your big black boots up off the mat, hauling your body over mine as I ARCH my back - you like that, Ro? You're not gonna do THAT for a few months - and swing you over me. My style in the ring is often pretty brawling and chaotic - but when I drill a suplex in, I'm a fucking machine.

With your arms jacketed behind you, I take your weight up and over with my face twisted in agony as my legs bear the weight, tucking my head and PLANTING you on your neck and shoulders and letting you feel that delicious jolt of ALL your fucking bodyweight run down your ravaged back and bent ribs - and I keep my fingers locked and my arms tensed, my sweaty purple head planted to the mat - and I try to go to my toes with my body arched to HOLD the bridge for a pin!

LVK: TIGER SUPLEX! MEGAN DOW WITH A BEAUTIFUL TIGER SUPLEX OUT OF NOWHERE!

RP: GET HER, KID! Damn, her fuckin' leg, though!

I'm not a kid, Rick, I'm well too far into my 30s to be doing this kind of mad shit. Bless your pervy old soul.

He's not wrong about my leg, though. With a throaty groan, my right leg collapses - so I try to hold the bridge with just my left leg, arms locked to underhook yours, keeping your shoulders to the mat with your body folded in half as my back arches me into a partly-collapsing bridge.

Yeah, I'm like a collapsing bridge, Rowan.

Fucking dangerous to cross.

[Rowan Chance]

I had you.

I fucking HAD YOU.

But you managed to squirm and take advantage of my back and slide away.

You learned that from me, bitch.

And suddenly, you're behind me. And so are my arms. And my feet are off the ground.

And as soon as that happens, all that pressure on my legs shifts to my shoulders. And that means pressure on my ribs. And that means I SCREAM. Even before I hit the mat.

And fuck, do I hit the mat.

The back of my head slams against the boards, almost scraping across the canvas. My shoulders ram down. My core shifts with the impact, meaning everything that's floating around in my chest jolts. That sends a waving torrent of agony through my chest. My body is upside down. My head ringing. I can't see.


RP: She hit the canvas like a bag of hammers!

LVK: Rowan's shoulders are DOWN! The referee counts! ONE! TWO!

[ThePurpleVixen]

"ONE!"

The elfin referee, with her pale eyes,

"TWO!"

Tolls the rhythm of your demise.

"STAY THE FUCK DOWN!"

I roar, the top of my head pressed to the mat, purple hair spread out in a halo around me, my bloody cheek pushed to the cracked curvature of your back, my arms cinched tight behind you, locking your elbows, trapping your arms against my body.

My body is arched, breasts offered to the arena lights in my sports bra, ripe sacrifices for the altar. My abs locked tight, traced in muscle, as tight as when you used to bring me to the edge and keep me there.

Remember that, Ro, the times we loved to wrap around each other and bury ourselves away from the world?

Remember that, Ro, how we broke each other apart, over and over?

Remember that, Ro, how we tried to pretend that being in love was enough to mortar over hurting so much?

Remember that, Ro, how we found what we loved most in each other and ripped it out of each other in big steaming bloody handfuls?

Remember that, Ro, how I had to get my skull driven into steel and my spine compressed by you and be driven right out of the world before I realized I still had a heart I could give to someone?

Remember that, Ro, how I just tried to break your back?

If you don't fucking stay down -

- I swear to every fucking god listening I will do what I have to do.

Whatever it takes to finally break away from you.

[Lil Tina]

Thanks for sharing you two; fantastic stuff!  Glad to see yer still around and active Meg

[Rowan Chance]

It isn't that you don't notice the count. It doesn't sneak by you.

It's trying to get your body to move before she hits the mat the third time. And with a spine that's ready to snap, floating ribs and at least two concussions, that's not an easy thing to do.

So when her hand goes down the second time, I'm screaming at my body to react. The pain sends noise through my nerves, preventing the signal to get through. Thoughts move faster than muscles. I was telling them to move for two seconds. I only hope they make it before...


LVK: CHANCE KICKS OUT! CHANCE KICKS OUT!

RP: holy shit

LVK: The match continues!

RP: i was kinda hopin' it wouldn't.



My body flips over and I land on my belly. You land on your back, still clutching at that knee, taking every opportunity to delude yourself into thinking the damage isn't permanent. I can see that through blurred vision. Watching you use your magic Mr. Miyagi tricks.

And with my face half against the canvas, I start to laugh.

"No, Meg," I say through bloody teeth. "Not this time."

And just beyond you...I see little Lisa Starr...

What are you doing here, little star? This isn't the place for you. I remember you. I remember being backstage in Minneapolis. It was something like 40 below outside and even with the heating in the building, it must have been only sixty degrees. Your beautiful pale skin was sweating, your gear stuck to your skin, leaving no room for imagination. Not that you were wearing enough to invoke imagination anyway. And you came backstage after your victory and I was there, still in my leathers, wearing a silk robe over my shoulders. And smiling.

"So...you're Lisa Starr," I said. "I like what I see."

You stopped cold. Pun intended. "H-hi, Rowan."

I stepped up close and put my finger in your hair, pushing a blonde and blue lock over your ear. "I like your repertoire. Could use a few more brutal moves, though. Something a bit more..." My finger in your hair twirls and the rest of the fingers grasp, pulling just a little hard. "...something more...painful."

I feel and see your body shudder. "Oh," you said, stammering your words. "Um...are you flirting with me?"

I nodded. "Baby, it's cold outside. And there's a suite at the top of Millennium." I stepped a bit closer, the heat of your body feeling so good at that moment. "It's bigger than most two bedroom apartments. I can order food and some wine. And the bathtub is like a Jacuzzi. For all your aching limbs." I run my hand down your arm and find your fingers. Lifting your hand to touch my leather corset. Your fingertips landing on the top of my breast.

"Uh..." you say, looking to the left and right. "Aren't you with Punky?" You bite your lip as your fingers touch my breast. Your eyes fluttering. "I...mean...she's..."

And that's when Punky's inked arms wrap around your waist from behind, her tongue tasting the sweat on your ear.

"What's the matter, Starr?" she asks. "You aren't interested in a handicap match?"

And that's when pretty little Lisa Starr just melts between us.

Minneapolis was a long time ago. And I see Lisa Starr out there. Melting. Again.



LVK: Both women are still on the canvas. Neither of them has moved. The referee is making the ten count, up to three!

RP: Maybe if they both stay down, this will be over. That would be nice.

LVK: But Rowan is pushing herself up. I don't know if Punky can even stand.

RP: Come on, Meg. Get up. Get the fuck up.



I use the ropes to pull myself up to my feet, trying to keep the screaming in my back to a minimum. All the while watching you. Watching you try to put weight on your leg and failing.

I limp over to you...not because of my knees or ankles, but because of my spine...and lift your left arm.

"That leg is done, Megan."

I twist your wrist and send a powerful KICK to that spot under your arm that I punched before. Not as powerful as I want: my back won't allow that.

"Now that the leg is done...it's time to start working on the rest of you."

I watch you fall on your back, clutching your arm. I grab the other one. Lift it straight up and send another kick in the same place. Just as I do, I see Red out in the crowd.

You've been talking a lot of crap, Red. A lot of crap.

I point down at Megan. "You picked the wrong horse, masked man!" I shout at you. "And because of that...I'm going to make you suffer. And the way I'm going to do that...is take her apart. Piece by goddamn piece. I'm going to fucking hurt her beyond the point she's ever been hurt before, Red."

I pause. Lean against the ropes. Lean out at you.

And I shout a name. You know the name. Then...

"...I broke Punky. Now, I'm going to break MEGAN."

I throw you a kiss.

"And there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it. Little boy."

Then, I turn back to the ruin and wreckage that is Megan Dow.

Time to finish this.

Pick up Megan by the hair.

Drag her up to her knees.

Grab her around the waist.

No escaping this time, Megan. Not this time.

And fucking LI--LI--LIFT!

Screaming like a slaughtered pig. Pulling you off your hands and knees. Dead lift.

But I'm going to put you in...



LVK: ROWAN IS GOING FOR THE WIDOW'S BITE AGAIN!

RP: That's a big mistake, Van Keel. Never go for the same move twice.



f-fuck. s-something...in...my...back...

ignore it. fucking ignore it.

finish this. finish HER.

do it.

DO IT!

[Vivianne]

A hand slaps the canvas...a feminine voice calls out in French..."Un!"

Gawd Rowan...kick out!

A second slap...a second call..."Deux!"

Come on Rowan...KICK OUT!!

The hand goes up again and I can't watch, closing my eyes and holding my breath.

LVK: CHANCE KICKS OUT! CHANCE KICKS OUT!

The call over the sound system causes my eyes to snap open. Causes my breathing to resume...and my heart to start again. Damn Rowan...that was too close...

More counting now..."Un!...Deux!...Trois!..."

More pleading now...Come on Rowan...get up! Get up!! GET UP!!!

She's up...

The kicks shock Punky though even from up here you can tell Rowan can't put everything into them...the way she limps is making my back hurt just watching.

The fury in her voice as she taunts the big guy in the mask. I'm not even sure I would do that from the other end of a shotgun, but that's Rowan.

Her back is fucked...everyone knows it...yet she is hauling Punky up again. Going for the finisher again? Her back twitches...that can't be good...her face snarls into a grimace of pain...but she pushes through it. I realize I am wringing my hands together, pressing Punky's clasp into my palms as I do. I can hardly watch...but there is nothing on Earth that could make me look away now.

Finish this Rowan! Finish HER! DO IT!!!

[RedEnforcer]

The French have a phrase for it. A Grand Guignol. And no, I am not pretentious or super high class. I came across that phrase from one of the best comic books of all time, James Robinson?s Starman. That book (and Magnum PI) helped shape my love for Hawaiian shirts. Yeah in South Carolina. I kinda stand out.

Anyway a Grand Guignol is a form of entertainment that is extreme and horrific. Figures a civilization that had a long history of wars would have a phrase like that.

That is what is going through my head right now as I see Rowan do as Rowan does and somehow survive defeat. It takes a lot to put her shoulders to the mat but this night, I shudder to think what is going to do the trick.  Neither one of them want to lose this, it means way too much to both of them.

And then I see Rowan rise. I have been in car accidents and looked in better shape than she does now as she shambles over to Megan. Megan herself looks to be just 8 seconds away from the ICU.

It was Concord. No it was Charleston. Wait it was both.  With Megan it was a crummy little Motel Six in Concord. With Rowan, I finally gave in to her request to be able to pick out the hotel in Charleston.  I did not expect a Marriot. And with her I could tell it still was not what she really wanted, but she did not want to show she had money. Which is fine. Grow up in a Mill town like me and go to school with sons and daughters of doctors and lawyers and you recognize money. I never cared because I could see she was a good person despite the money.


Anyways, I did with them something I do with all my special students. No, not that you perv.

I gave them my last Jedi master lesson.

Reddy, why that movie?. When you said War Games, I thought you meant the match.

War Games. An early 80s movie birthed from the fear of these new fangeled devices called computers meeting the oppressive atmosphere of the Cold War and nuclear annihilation. Perfect Date movie.

So we watch and those two both make fun of different things, well except they both said Matthew Broderick was better as Ferris Bueller, but then we got to the end. The big message of the film was that some battles can only end in mutually assured destruction.  I let that hang there and said nothing. My hope being that somehow that message gets through when they step in the ring and they are smart enough to realize the game board is tic tac toe and it is time to play a new game. 

I see that that lesson has been forgotten or worse ignored.

Rowan shouting breaks me from my reverie and she is doing her taunting. Believing I have made my choice between the two. I have not. This hurts. Deeply. I feel like we are approaching the line where my patience is about to go away.

And then she says the name. My name.

I have kept my identity a closely guarded secret. In fact no one knows my whole name. And there are only three who know my true first name.

When Rowan says it, I know she is using it as a weapon. I clearly hear you.  Under my mask my skin goes white.

As she sets Megan up again, I feel myself moving.  Shoving people out of my way. Not towards the ring, no towards that Gaston LeRoux wannabe who created all of this.

?Tantalus, use whatever sway you have on Rowan right now to get her to stop! ?
I grab that leathery morherfucker by his collar as he ignores me.


?Tell her to stop or she is gonna kill Megan.?

[Lord Tantalus]

I have just four cold, empty words for you, Red, whispered so only you can hear them:

"I haven't chosen, either."

[ThePurpleVixen]

You barely break the bridge off the tiger suplex, the jerk of your body dragging my irritatingly useless right leg against the canvas. My knee is starting to darken above the sugar-skull adorned black Lycra stockingas blood rushes into it, deforming the grinning skulls on the stocking into monster faces. I hiss through my teeth, biting back another barrage of curses to save my breath for better things like cursing you for the vile cxnt you are, and push my palms into the broad slab of my quadricep, kneading my sweat-soaked thigh to try to open up the blood vessels a bit, to stop my knee from getting livid. I need to be able to move it, even if it hurts. Even if it's agony. Even if it feels like plunging my fucking leg into molten steel, I need to be able to move it enough to help finish my quest to fucking destroy you.

Whatever it takes.

I'm focused on my knee, fucking AGAIN, trying to drag myself up and snatching at the middle rope when my leg gives. I can hear the groans even over the sound of my own ragged cry. My purple hair is hanging in fucking blood-painted face, driving me crazy. I didn't just wear the punktails to create a brand and a distinctive merch-friendly look; I wore them because they kept my fucking hair out of my face. I wore them because bitches instinctively reached for them when they wanted to drag me up by the hair, which meant my scalp hurt less and I always knew where their hands were going. I wore them because Gemma likes to hold me by them when I go down on her.

I wore them because they were MINE, and that's all you want in your pathetic little controlled pain-slut life these days, isn't it, Rowan? What's MINE.

"That leg is done, Megan."

You take my wrist.

"At least I can still do a sit-up, you fuckinNNNHHHHHHH." I groan as your black boot drills into my side, crunching into the nerves under my arm with a bit less precision than your strike back in the first round. That arm jitters as I force my fist to curl shut, damping down the sizzling reaction as you take my right arm and drive another kick into that side. "NNNNGGGHHHH ..." I groan, jolted again, rolling to my back where I lay in a bloody faced sprawl, twitching arms sprawled to my sides for a moment and my aching right leg jutted off to the side. It's not a strong look for me.

Fortunately, you take the time to run your fucking mouth some more, and I have a moment to breathe. And I take it. And I listen.

The crowd is alight. The Zenith is completely full, and while a lot of our friends and enemies and wrestling luminaries are crowded into the colorful front few rows, the rest of the seats are taken up by people who are just here for blood. Sure, we each have fans out there, diehards and try-hards and marks who live and die for us, but mostly they just want blood. And they're getting it. Mostly from me, admittedly, but whatever. I've always had more heart than you anyway. Because I have a fucking heart.

Take away the faces (and masks) you know and love (and hate), and the crowd is just a vast animal. When you make your living in the ring, you have to learn to use the crowd. Feed off their hate, thrive off their love. I've done both often enough. It's funny; a crowd full of furious faces twisted in rage can get you just as fired up as an arena chanting your name. More, sometimes. But tonight neither of us has focused much on the crowd - except for a few people in it.

And in that moment of crowded, bloodthirsty stillness, I hear you spit Red's name.

Red is a veteran who gave us his time, and his knowledge, and his training. We've BOTH learned from him, we've both traveled with him. Fuck, we've both fought him, plenty of times - but we've also trusted him. We've shared secrets with him, and our hurts with him. He's the reason I was able to survive on my very first tour through the Southern territories. And he came here for BOTH of us, Rowan. It's not his fault you're such a maniacal cxnt that even he couldn't stand to keep watching it happen.

Fuck that.

You're not getting away with that. Spit on me all you fucking like, bitch, but you keep Reddy's name out of your whore mouth.

I force my arms to move, bullying my way past the shock to my nerves. I drag my right leg up and groan a hot bloody groan as I FORCE my knee to bend. And then you come swaggering over, getting a fistful of my blood-streaked purple hair, and drag me up as I snarl.

You wrap your arms around my waist, and my heart races in a way it hasn't at the feel of your touch since Vegas.

You REALLY want to hit the Widow's Bite again. Going after it with the single-minded determination of a fucking Terminator.

And I can't fucking let that happen.

I can't.

Losing to you once nearly ended my career after you ripped my fucking heart out and then went on to beat me in Viking Hall. The woman who'd told me I wasn't enough for her spiked my head into the steel stage and sat on my fucking face to pin me. Doing it twice?

I don't know what could bring me back from that.

So as you strain and scream to try to drag me up, I act out.

My legs push down and my boots press to the mat, drawing a low guttural roar of pain from me as my knee takes my weight. My left arm cinches around your slim waist and my right arm swings in a short vicious arc as my taped tattooed fist PISTONS into your ribs. Into your busted fucking rib. Hard to miss you cradling your side like that, babe. Let's see if I can push that shit into your lungs.

The sound from you is like a tortured animal in a PETA video, and your arms come loose. I stagger, swaying in agony to stay upright, but you're crumpling, folding around your tormented ribs. My swollen, battered cxnt aches and throbs with each movement and my face is awash in blood again, but I come upright, limping but grinning through the mask of the red death, and I YANK you into me by that black hair, pressing your head against my hip as I lace my arms under yours and pull them up behind your back, flaunting your ass to the crowd in your little shorts as I keep you bent over for them to enjoy like the showy little trash you are.

My hands lace at the center of your back, my arms flexing hard, the nerve shots still sending tremors through them but moving on a course of pure adrenaline soaked rage.

"KISS THE FUCKING MAT, LADY DDT!"

I mentioned how much I love Mick Foley, right? How much I aspired to be like him? The first time I ever met him we talked for two hours, two hours sitting backstage at a New Jersey show, two hours of laughing and telling stories and comparing notes on the fine arts of crashing into people, and how I'd started training without graduating high school - and he ended up kindly but firmly telling me if I didn't get a college degree he'd make sure I was never booked on any show he was on. I went on to get my English degree from Reed College online, because of that. Not that I think I'm ever gonna end up as an English teacher - mostly my degree just gives me poems to think about when I'm concussed. But because Mick Foley said so.

But another thing I like about Mick Foley is his moveset. Intense. Brutal. And efficient. When he was working all scarred up and sore from the Japanese deathmatches, he needed a move that would take less of a toll on his body than diving off the apron with an elbowdrop. So he came up with a way to control someone swiftly and efficiently - and then break their fucking face.

The Double Arm DDT.

I JUMP off my left leg, swinging my lower body forwards with a pained snarl past your left hip like a furious and bloody kid on a swing, leaning to my left side and letting you take ALL my bodyweight on your doubled over, bound frame. No hands to save you, jerking you off your fucking boots so you drop facefirst, driven by me -

- to just SPIKE your face into the fucking mat. Viciously. Undefended. With over 240 pounds behind it.

I'm tired of having to think about how beautiful you used to be me to me, Rowan.

Let's make you as ugly outside as you are within.

[Rowan Chance]

That whole time I wore the Lady DDT mask, I never did the double-arm variant. The gimmick was already so stupid and I didn't want to disrespect the man who owned that move. Sorry Mick, you aren't just good.

It takes you a long time to set up the move. You're hurt. You can barely stand. Unfortunately, I can't stop you. There's no stopping you now. I think I spent all my reversals in the first fall and the beginning of this one. I don't know if I have any left. Before you grab my right arm, I'm struggling to keep it away from your grip, clutching my leather boy pants, as if that could keep you from pulling it into position. But you do, and I clench my right fist, ready for the impact.

So when you invoke the name and plunge my head toward the canvas, I taste the irony. But only for a moment. Because the next moment, my head SLAMS against the canvas, against the boards. Rocking my skull, my neck...

...and sending shards of pure pain through my spine.

I don't make a sound. I don't curl up or cup my head. I just fall.

My body landing on the canvas like a bag full of steaks. My left arm spread out to my side, my right arm bent, my hand just next to my lips. Legs spread, too. My olive skin not just moist, but wet.

Face down. Unmoving. My right hand might have blocked some of the blow. I don't really know right now.

That's when I taste the blood.


LVK: Rowan is busted open! Blood seething through the open wound!

RP: That's not a cut, Van Keel. That's a tear. She ripped Rowan's head open with the impact.

LVK: Both women are now bleeding, but while Megan's wound is...oh, good Lord. Rowan's forehead is GUSHING like a fountain.

RP: That's what happens when you go hard way, Van Keel. It's a rip, not a cut.


I can feel it. With every pulse of my heart, a beat of my blood floods from my forehead. A thin red line. Blood drooling from my forehead to the mat.

I'm now on a clock. Every heart beat is a tick toward oblivion.

[ThePurpleVixen]

We land with a BRUTAL jolt, and I bury my yowl of alley-cat agony when my knee shimmies from the impact under a lusty battle cry "FUCK you, Rowan!" Something to get the marks on their feet as much as to give me something to roar. My hair whips back as I sit up, panting. Licking my own blood from my lips. It's spread out now, painted with sweat more than tha running thick and fresh. The nasty gash over my eye is gonna be there, though. That's not going away.

None of this is.

But I want it. I want that scar so I can point to it when I'm talking to some wrestlers about our battles in a pub somewhere, showing each other where broke our arm or where we got skewered with broken table bits ... I wanna point to my eyebrow and say "I got this the night I fucking destroyed Rowan Chance."

That's the only thing I want from you now, Ro. The only gift you can give me.

You look like you fell out of a fucking plane - facedown on the mat, your left arm sprawled up, right fist tucked up by your head like you're all sleepy, your legs all sprawled out wide like you're waiting on the bed for Thomas to come home like a good little pup. I could maybe go for a pin here. But I have a feeling ...

... I have a feeling 3 seconds is gonna be an eternity tonight.

Neither of us can tolerate a loss to the other. That's the problem with a blood feud; it all ends in blood. Submission might work. One of us being forced to admit to the other that we can't take any more. But that means one of us would have to tap out, and it seems kinda obvious from how fucked up we both are right now that that's not gonna happen. Seems like we'll have to do something ...

... brutal.

LVK: What an absolutely VICIOUS DDT!

RP: Meg threw her whole body into that, Van Keel. But she kept the grip low, and was leanin' in like that because she wanted to HURT Chance, not just stun her. The impact was meant to mash her face, rip it against the canvas, not to jar her skull.

LVK: ... is modifying a DDT to maim someone instead of incapacitate them for a pin something they teach at wrestling school?

RP: Not really, Van Keel. They teach it after the wrestling classes let out and the good kids all go home and only the deviants are left. It's something you learn hanging out with bastards when you've got a head full of enough bad wiring to ask how to really fuck someone up.

LVK: So ...

RP: Yeah. I showed her.

Guess that's where we are, dollface.

We have to make it worse so it can come to an end.

I remember a movie Reddy showed me. It was back near the end of one of our tours, I think. Charlotte? No. Concord! That was it. Funny little 80s flick.

It didn't have as many explosions as I normally like in my movies, but I liked it. Plus Reddy made popcorn and I had bourbon in a motel water glass with a crazy straw he got for me at the Piggly-Wiggly in Laurinburg. And I remember it had a hook to it. The computer, Joshua, figured something out about war.

The whole bit about some wars being so destructive that the only winning move was not to play.

I bet this is killing Reddy. Not just seeing what we're doing to each other, but seeing what it's bringing out of us. All the dark, nasty horror that roils down inside us is all bubbling over, flooding the ring with ichor.

But it's too late, Reddy. The siloes are emptied. The birds are in the air. And Christopher Reeves is too dead to fly up into the sky and save us.

The only winning move is complete annihilation.

And so I sit up, taking your shoulder and shove you over onto your back. Your legs unfurl, your glistening thighs jolting softly from aftershocks, and your face thickly painted in blood from the ragged gash I ripped in your forehad, leaving a splatter on the canvas where you hit. Your right hand unfurled from the nerve-twitch fist it was locked in, your left arm almost limp. I glare down at you through the sweat-and-blood crimson glaze on my face, and shift my left leg over to straddle you, sliding over your taut bare belly. I snarl - no, I GROAN in pain as I drag my swollen right knee on the canvas. As much weight as possible is on my left knee, and on my ass planted on your belly, but every fucking twitch in my knee sends fucking DAGGERS through it. It's swollen, livid, brutalized. It feels ... uneven. It's FUCKED.

But I can live with that, Ro - as long as I can fuck you up worse.

For just a moment as I slide my left hand up your face, tape rasping on your skin, smearing your blood over your pretty dazed features and closed soft lips, I remember all the other times I straddled you, in hotel rooms and motel rooms and locker rooms and the backseats of taxis and once in the lobby of a dentist's office, shocking the nurse, not least of which because we were there so I could a broken tooth capped after it'd gotten cracked against the ringpost, so I had a mouth full of bloody gauze.

Good times.

I ball my right fist, and crank your head back with a fistful of bloody black hair.

"Wanna kiss, Ro?" I purr, low and throaty and rumbling through the snarl of pain as my knee throbs and my cxnt aches as it presses to your belly and my whole body hurts like I've been fucking run over - and then I begin to DRIVE my fist down into your forehead, over and over and over and over -

and over and over and over

- with a flurry of close, vicious pounding punches, each one aimed into the gash on your head. To rip you open. To rip you apart.

To do what I have to do.

[Rowan Chance]

Picture this.

I'm on the mat, on my back. Both arms out to my sides. Legs splayed out. My face covered with a red mess. Every other second, another gush from my forehead. And on my chest is the woman who I couldn't wait to see every day of my life. The fucking was incredible, but it was more than just that. I've got fuck buddies. She was something else. Someone incredible. The most important person in my life. And she's on my chest, one leg extended because she can't bend it because I've smashed her knee--possibly beyond repair. And her face is just about as bloody as mine. She's got my head held up by my long, raven blue-black hair, now matted with sweat and blood. Just enough to keep my shoulders off the mat. And with her right hand, she's pounding the gash she just made on my forehead with taped fists. Over and over again. My body barely responds. My mouth is open, but my eyes are shut. And every punch she delivers, my body just twitches.

"You want a kiss Rowan?" you scream, pulling my face up. Close enough to deliver that kiss.

And in my foggy brain, I remember what I'm supposed to do now.

* * *

"I trained with Scotty," you told me that first night we met, sitting on the ring apron, eating cheap hot dogs and drinking warm beer. You had a beer. I had water from the tap. "Who trained you?"

I took a bite from the hot dog, trying not to choke. And, for the first and only time in my life, I lied to you. That first night.

"Lance Storm's school," I said. "I wanted to be him so bad."

It was a lie I'd prepared. Practiced and rehearsed. You didn't notice. Or, if you did, you kept it to yourself. Or, you wanted me so bad, you just ignored it. But it never came up again.

I lied, Megan. The very night we met. I didn't learn from Lance Storm. I learned from another man.

A terrifying man. He beat the shit out of me every day for so many days, trying to make me quit. But I never did. He held me in holds that don't have names. They aren't complicated enough to have names. On the mat, moving my arm an inch. Just a fucking inch. Making me scream out loud. He'd slap my face and told me I sounded like a girl. Then, he'd go to work on my legs.

I never told you about my time with him because...I didn't ever want you to thin of me that way. Helpless and screaming, begging for my life. A man--a MAN--on top of me, brutalizing me. Not sexually. Never. He didn't want that nor did he need it. I paid him a lot of money to show me pain, to make me hurt in ways even Tantalus couldn't. And after eight months of brutal torture, I arrived at the little private dojo I bought for him. Yeah, I paid him. A whole fucking lot. More than you've ever seen in a year, Megan. I paid him to fuck me up and fuck me up hard. And after eight months, I sat in front of him, my body shaking, wracked with the pains of the day and month before, and he offered me tea.

Then, he taught me secrets.

* * *

"YOU WANT A KISS, CHANCE?" you shout again. Bringing my head up. Close enough that our bloody lips are almost touching. Close enough that the smell of my blood and the smell of your blood are distinct.

You didn't see it, did you? That moment before the double-arm DDT. When my right hand grabbed my trunks. You didn't see it.

You growl at me. Your teeth bloodstained. Lips dripping crimson.

You didn't see it, did you? After the DDT, my right hand by my mouth. You didn't see it.

"You don't get my kisses anymore," you hiss, spitting blood in my face. "SHE does."

That's when my eyes open. That's when my lips pucker. My cheeks expand.

You had Scotty, Megan.

I had Mutoh.


LVK: WHAT THE--? ROWAN JUST SPRAYED A...A...

RP: Purple!

LVK: A PURPLE MIST INTO PUNKY'S FACE!

RP: Oh fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.