Post by sayla on May 20, 2023 3:30:16 GMT
The gymnasium was empty, as well it should be, considering the time on the large clock hanging above the wall read 5:57AM. Normally, she wouldn't get up this early in the morning, but she had something that she wanted to prove to herself. Standing at the corner of the long floor mat, dressed in Deku-themed green and black yoga pants, with a matching sports bra, Roxie Greatheart looked out ahead of her and shook her head.
"Just like ridin' a bike."
She said to herself softly, even though nobody was around to hear her. She closed her eyes and began to remember back before the accident forced her to give up her dream of competing for Olypmic gold. Roxie imagined the silence hitting the gym as the music selected for her routine began to play. Roxie raises her arms up to pose for the non-existent audience before pushing forward into a run. She takes two, three, four steps before leaning down, hitting the mat with her hands and flipping into a cartwheel.
She kicks off the mat, flips again, barely touching her hands to the mat before flipping and kicking off again, pushing with all her strength as she springs into the air, corkscrewing, twisting her body til she lands at the opposite corner of the mat, facing back at where she started. Roxie raises her hands up, arcing her back back as far as it can go before she steps forwards, gyrates her hips a bit in rhythm to the music playing in her head before jumping up with a spin and kicks out, landing in a splits position before quickly hitting the mat with her hands and spinning back up to a standing position in one fluid motion.
Roxie then rushes forward cartwheeling forward twice and kicking off into the air again, flipping into two rotations , spinning around and as she lands flipping forwards. She then feigns falling back onto her shoulders, only to immediately kip up and into another cartwheel, but as she does her hand slips and Roxie stumbles into a seated position, causing the memory playing in her head to come to a sudden stop.
“Fuck…” She says to herself, hitting the mat. She then shrugs her shoulders and lets out a sigh. “Honestly surprised that I remembered that much of the routine…”
Roxie says before pushing herself back up to a standing position. She moves over to a small tower of stackable risers where she had placed her bag and takes a drink of water before speaking.
“I ain’t gonna lie, I ain’t really too sure why I even came out here this mornin’ to try and remember a routine from fuck… ovah a decade ago? But here we are, in a gymnasium at six in the goddamned mornin’. I guess I wanted to see if I could still remembah it, and obviously as you can see… I ain’t quite got it back up to snuff. But yeah, maybe I did fuckup about halfway through, but… at least I gave it a shot ya know?” Roxie says with a small chuckle. “Sounds like my wrestlin’ career don’t it? Start off strong, only for somethin’ to cut my run short before I even get a chance to get goin’. It’s happened to me more times than I can remembah, from RIOT and ALPHA to Victory Pro and HPWF. I always manage to either fuck up, get hurt, or have the rug get pulled out from underneath me… I was afraid it was gonna happen with IPW, but then I got the call to work this Sunday at DISCOVERY.”
Roxie pauses for a second as she thinks of her time in those promotions, after a second she shakes her head and continues.
“I think… that may be why I’m here, honestly. This match will be the first one that I’ve had since Gods Amongst Men back in December, when I fell short of my chance at the National Openweight Championship. I figure if I could remembah my old routine, then I’d have no reason to have any hesitation gettin’ back into the ring aftah almost half a year…”
She pauses.
“Fuck, who knows. Either way… both gymnastics and wrestlin’ are like ridin’ a bicycle. Once ya learn how to properly do it, ya ain’t ever gonna forget.”
Roxie says before turning around, putting her hands on the risers and springing to a seated position on top of them. She starts to kick her feet as she begins to speak again.
“At least that’s the case for me… but then again, I’m a once-in-a-generation kind of athlete… or at least that’s what I like to think I am to keep me gettin’ back into the gym every mornin’… Hopefully that’s the case for the rest of you guys. Cause I totally get all of ya reasons for wantin’ this match to go in yar favor. I get Jimi’s decision to step away from everything for a while, in order to figure things out, to find yaself and to get back in touch with ya roots before comin’ back as a whole new you. I know I needed to after I had to deal with my first evah concussion scare, and I get C’s desire to course correct his strange ass goal to purify the business, and to fix whatevah mistakes he may think that he made ovah the past year since APEX kicked the bucket. Fuck y’all, I even get Bea’s petty ass reason to force the world to make her it’s centah, and how much it eats at her, cuz she has to climb from square one, yet again in order to do it instead of bein’ handed it like she’s had her entire life. But the thing is, you can have whatever intention goin’ into this re-debut, y’all can take as much time to plan, to hype yourself up… to push yaself to get back on the horse that you got knocked off of… to make that first leap… if you don’t stick the landin’, and fall flat on yer ass… it all fades away.”
Roxie’s face goes somber for a second.
“Thing is, to be honest with ya’ll I don’t give an ever lovin’ fuck whatevah reason any of y’all decided to come back to IPW, and I ain’t give a fuck if y’all are in this match to win a shot at the National Openweight Championship, the World Openweight Championship, or the shot against either later in the year… it doesn’t mattah to me. Cuz the three of you want to win one of the three title shots… Roxie Greatheart needs to. Time and time again, I have had opportunity aftah opportunity taken from me. Three times now, I’ve had promotions die just as soon as I started to get any kind of momentum. I’ve had my career forced to be put on hold because of injuries… to the point that there are companies that won’t even fuckin’ hire me because I’ve been labeled as a fuckin’ liability!
“And there’ve been times when I believed that I really am only a dangah to myself and others when I step into that ring… and that I should just give up, go back to bein’ a cute lil’ cosplayer at conventions and make an OnlyFans account… but… IPW offered me a chance at proving myself that I wasn’t just some flavor of the month, who burned too bright, and too fast. For you three, this is just anothah match in anothah promotion… but that’s the thing… I don’t have that luxury.”
“I am well aware that if I slip up in this match, if I make one mistake… a single mistake… This could be my last shot. If any of you miss your footing and fall back on your ass, that’s fine… Bea you can go tell people to Be Like Bea in any fucking company, all ya'd hafta do is unbutton yet shirt a bit, and if that isn't enough, you can open your bank account and y’all are golden. Jimi, I can tell that yer the kinda guy who is able to roll with the punches no matter what, kinda like my boyfriend… when you falls off yer horse, you can just get back up and eat that horse. C let's be honest no matter what happens to you, you can keep Real Sadboy Hours going by just pointin’ and cryin’ at whoevah ya think is makin’ this business even more of a fuckin’ circus act than it already is and you’ll be fine. Am I overreactin’? Fuck, maybe… but what's so frustrating is that I know that I can beat alla y’all I know I’m that good… I’ve got two world championships to prove it… but the world ain’t see that anymore. The world sees a goblin girl who’s only good for doing stupid shit and getting injured. I know I am more than that, and I am gonna prove it...”