Post by INFINITE PRO. on Aug 30, 2022 19:20:20 GMT
There's that all-too-familiar living room setting. Armchair, coffee table, secondhand couch. Atop the coffee table, two championships sit.
"There's levels to this shit, you know, Ana."
Karlson splays herself across the couch, her hands tucked behind her head, arms folded at an angle. She’s dressed in exercise clothes, but her mind seems to be wandering a bit from the training grounds.
"I know you know that, because not long ago, the script would be flipped. You'd be above me, I'd be looking up haplessly from the ground, praying I could get my shoulder up just in enough time for you to not end my existence, praying that I could recover just fast enough to avoid being hunted, to avoid being peeled from the match and sent from the world of the waking to the world of sleep without even a second's protest. At a time-a long time ago, mind you, when my hair was more blue and my attitude was more green-you were better than me, I won't deny. You bested me contest after contest, you took the first belt I ever won a mere month after I won it. You held that shit high and taunted me with it for months, months I could chase you but never get it back, months wherein someone else slipped in under your arms and ripped that shit from your fetid, cold fucking grasp.
That was a long time ago, though.
Now, I've conquered my own lands. I don't have to chase you anymore, don't have to pursue you like a pair of caged rats fighting for the last scrap of food that's fallen between the bars and gotten into our enclosure. I found my own fucking success everywhere I went, and even if I haven't claimed it yet i've gotten goddamned close. I was nearly the winner of the Clash of the Titans, I was nearly Women's World Champion, and I AM the fucking Ace of APEX. I'm a forced to be fucking reckoned with, my name is on the mouths of everyone who's been watching this corner of the world for the past year, and even if you think this high-ride will be ending soon...
...you're gonna have to think again.
You see, I know you're domineering, I know you're a juggernaut, I know you beat your goddamned girlfriend half to death, and if you could do that to someone you loved, what hope does someone you hated have against you? I know that you've still run your corners of this fucking gamut we call sport, that you've found all of the violence you can muster and you keep your eyes on the prize and your head held high, because you CRUSH everyone who comes to your corner and FUCKS AROUND. You can call it supremacy, you can call it strength, and in a way it is that, but not entirely in the way you'd think. You see, when you stay in a small pond for a long fucking while, you grow big enough to choke everyone else out, to stunt the growth of threats before they can become that. You did it with Sara Daniels, you did it with that new fuck-toy you had around for a cup of coffee, and you tried to do it with me.
I had the sense to watch out, though. It was Graham's greatest gift in training, more valuable than any hold or hit-to fuck off when things seemed like they'd get too iffy, too hairy. When I felt you blotting out my goddamned sun, I ran elsewhere. I carved out new lands, I got stronger. I was able to breathe again out from your shadow, and while you kept dominating the same crop, kept stagnating in the same standing water you'd gone into so fucking long ago, I pushed myself to the LIMIT against the best and brightest. I kept growing, I kept getting stronger, I kept getting BETTER. Every single match was a battle for survival, and I fucking SURVIVED.
And the minute I knew I’d made it, Ana, was the fucking moment I put Jacob Senn in the ground. The moment I’d withstood every stomp and strike and punch and piledriver he ould throw at me, I knew that things would never be the same again. The moment I claimed my first World Fucking Championship, I thought back to you, I thought to you cutting me down in my fucking prime, I thought to you hoisting that Pro Combat Championship above your fucking head, and I realized that I could never let anyone do that to me, ever FUCKING again.
Fate has a funny way of making you keep your promises, eh?”
Liz chuckles.
“Truth be told, though, it didn’t matter if it was you making me face down my own narrative, Jacob Senn coming in for round two, or some other random newbie standing across the ring from me, because you all would meet the same goddamned fate. The Infinite Pro Championship is coming home with me after this is all said and done, right next to my APEX strap, right next to my BFG Tags, and soon-to-be-joined by some Ascension to the Heavens cases. You can make you case, scream all you want, and sprinkle in your historical narratives and lack of survival…but at the end of the day, Ana, this isn’t just about fate, not just about destiny…
…it’s about righting a long-standing wrong.
And i’ll do so with Full Fucking Force.”
"There's levels to this shit, you know, Ana."
Karlson splays herself across the couch, her hands tucked behind her head, arms folded at an angle. She’s dressed in exercise clothes, but her mind seems to be wandering a bit from the training grounds.
"I know you know that, because not long ago, the script would be flipped. You'd be above me, I'd be looking up haplessly from the ground, praying I could get my shoulder up just in enough time for you to not end my existence, praying that I could recover just fast enough to avoid being hunted, to avoid being peeled from the match and sent from the world of the waking to the world of sleep without even a second's protest. At a time-a long time ago, mind you, when my hair was more blue and my attitude was more green-you were better than me, I won't deny. You bested me contest after contest, you took the first belt I ever won a mere month after I won it. You held that shit high and taunted me with it for months, months I could chase you but never get it back, months wherein someone else slipped in under your arms and ripped that shit from your fetid, cold fucking grasp.
That was a long time ago, though.
Now, I've conquered my own lands. I don't have to chase you anymore, don't have to pursue you like a pair of caged rats fighting for the last scrap of food that's fallen between the bars and gotten into our enclosure. I found my own fucking success everywhere I went, and even if I haven't claimed it yet i've gotten goddamned close. I was nearly the winner of the Clash of the Titans, I was nearly Women's World Champion, and I AM the fucking Ace of APEX. I'm a forced to be fucking reckoned with, my name is on the mouths of everyone who's been watching this corner of the world for the past year, and even if you think this high-ride will be ending soon...
...you're gonna have to think again.
You see, I know you're domineering, I know you're a juggernaut, I know you beat your goddamned girlfriend half to death, and if you could do that to someone you loved, what hope does someone you hated have against you? I know that you've still run your corners of this fucking gamut we call sport, that you've found all of the violence you can muster and you keep your eyes on the prize and your head held high, because you CRUSH everyone who comes to your corner and FUCKS AROUND. You can call it supremacy, you can call it strength, and in a way it is that, but not entirely in the way you'd think. You see, when you stay in a small pond for a long fucking while, you grow big enough to choke everyone else out, to stunt the growth of threats before they can become that. You did it with Sara Daniels, you did it with that new fuck-toy you had around for a cup of coffee, and you tried to do it with me.
I had the sense to watch out, though. It was Graham's greatest gift in training, more valuable than any hold or hit-to fuck off when things seemed like they'd get too iffy, too hairy. When I felt you blotting out my goddamned sun, I ran elsewhere. I carved out new lands, I got stronger. I was able to breathe again out from your shadow, and while you kept dominating the same crop, kept stagnating in the same standing water you'd gone into so fucking long ago, I pushed myself to the LIMIT against the best and brightest. I kept growing, I kept getting stronger, I kept getting BETTER. Every single match was a battle for survival, and I fucking SURVIVED.
And the minute I knew I’d made it, Ana, was the fucking moment I put Jacob Senn in the ground. The moment I’d withstood every stomp and strike and punch and piledriver he ould throw at me, I knew that things would never be the same again. The moment I claimed my first World Fucking Championship, I thought back to you, I thought to you cutting me down in my fucking prime, I thought to you hoisting that Pro Combat Championship above your fucking head, and I realized that I could never let anyone do that to me, ever FUCKING again.
Fate has a funny way of making you keep your promises, eh?”
Liz chuckles.
“Truth be told, though, it didn’t matter if it was you making me face down my own narrative, Jacob Senn coming in for round two, or some other random newbie standing across the ring from me, because you all would meet the same goddamned fate. The Infinite Pro Championship is coming home with me after this is all said and done, right next to my APEX strap, right next to my BFG Tags, and soon-to-be-joined by some Ascension to the Heavens cases. You can make you case, scream all you want, and sprinkle in your historical narratives and lack of survival…but at the end of the day, Ana, this isn’t just about fate, not just about destiny…
…it’s about righting a long-standing wrong.
And i’ll do so with Full Fucking Force.”