((Some recent CD that a few of you might be interested in. To recap, Sarah recently found out that her (non-spouse) BFF Angie Vaughn (featured in a few early XWF promos and co-staring in this Anarchy one RIGHT HERE) was, in fact, her half-sister. Angie had known about it for quite some time without telling her, and when the truth came out, Sar reacted...lets go with poorly...and "Fun Sar" basically died. Since then, the two have learned that they also may have a brother spawned by their cult leader father. If you feel anything for anyone in this, please feel for poor Kenzi. While she knew she was sticking her various body parts into crazy in the first place, there was no way should could have known Sarah would lead to THIS much crazy!!))



*KNOCK*

*KNOCK-KNOCK*

*KNOCK*

Blue eyes shine as the blonde looks up towards the noise outside the broom closet.

It had been difficult to change all of her leggy 5’10” frame in the small room, but Angie Vaughn needed the few moments of silence. Her body hurt from the match just an hour ago, in particular her joints from the assault of someone who refused to just have a “normal” match, but her head ached even worse from being attacked by a former friend and partner. She needed to be alone for a few minutes, to stay away from Roxy and Kenzi, to keep away from a particularly judging red-eyed stare, to breathe some fresh air away from the entire UGWC interview staff wanting her reaction to the first-ever #CoolKidsVs#CoolKids(yes that required an extra hashtag)CoOpMainEventMatch ending in a brawl involving what seemed like half the roster. She needed a break from everything, even if but for only a few minutes. Showered, and changed from her golden bodysuit to a pair of tasteful short-shorts and cutest kitty shirt...with turtleneck, obvs, because turtlenecks were hot as flame...she was ready to head to her hotel, but now the knock at the door.

Not just a knock.

The knock.

“...do you wanna build a snowman…”

She mouths the words silently and takes a deep breath as she stands.

“Come in!”

The door opens and what she both hoped and dreaded came through the door, the person who always knocked that way with her.

“Sister.”

Sarah Grey-Lacklan...UGWC World Heavyweight Champion...her sister...a teeny, tiny fact that she MAY have held onto a TINY ITTY BIT too long...stands before her, taking up the doorway. Well, the width of it, anyway. Their father had been tall, somewhere around 6’3”...though, anytime she asked Mom anything about Dad, all she ever got was little hearts in her eyes and a blush to her cheeks, so she wasn’t exactly sure...but apparently her older sister didn’t get any of that. Sarah was positively tiny in comparison to herself...which had often meant Angie getting things off a shelf for her on the days they had gone shopping...but her sheer presence dominated the small room. Sarah had also showered and changed out of her gear and was now as “Blood Princessy” as “Blood Princess” could get, with a black and red dress that trailed on the ground, and WAY too much makeup on.

“Hey, Sar-Sar.”

Angie couldn’t keep the slight tremble out of her voice. It had been BAD between them ever since that Halloween party at the compound in Maine. It was magical at first...Sar had literally LEAPT into her arms...but then she had changed drastically after the full truth came out. Her head still rang from being kicked by those wicked heels. And...sure...Sarah wasn’t promising DEATH to her anymore...but she was still promising to MAIM her. And that did NOT sound pleasant.

“I asked Ava about that letter you showed me.”

Angie holds her breath. It had been a risk to show Sarah that weirdo stalker letter about how they might have a brother, but she NEEDED the info to come from her! If there was ANOTHER of them, then maybe Sar wouldn’t be so MAD anymore! They could ALL be a happy family! They could-

“We have a brother.”

Angie keeps the breath. Sarah had said it flatly, and with no emotion.

“An older brother.”

Angie’s eyes widen at both that information and the sudden venom filling Sarah’s voice. Sarah was the Big Sister. She was the leader who not only planned every adventure, but OVER-planned every adventure. She didn’t sound pleased with this information.

“Ava has known for a while, from what I understand. And I punched her so hard in the face on Thanksgiving when I confronted her that her nose broke.”

Angie can’t help but feel a small tingle as Sarah’s lips curl into a smile. She missed seeing Sarah smile. They all did. But it fell back into that mask of severity that she had adopted lately, the one that she knew was driving Kenzi NUTS.

“He is Japanese, apparently. A fighter, like us. Like all of us. Lives in Tokyo. We...myself, my Beloved, and Step-Mumsie...are going to go meet him.”

Sarah pauses and Angie opens her mouth to say something, but Sarah’s hand flashes out of the billowing sleeve of her robe and holds up a finger to silence her. It works, in that odd way it always works with Sarah.

“I had Step-Mumsie secure four tickets. I would like for you to come with us.”

Angie’s eyes go wide.

“Sar, I-”

“You have earned it.”

Angie gives her an enthusiastic nod.

“Abs, I’ll go! I’d love to! Obvs. I mean, I’ll always want to go with you guys, and to meet our brother...wow, ya know?! It’s-”

Angie cuts off as Sarah suddenly lunges forward, covering the distance between them quickly. Angie nearly takes a step back, but holds true, and Sarah stands before her and looks up at her. Her odd red eyes looked tired, and Angie knew that was because she was still wearing those awful contacts, but they were full of fire.

“...promise me you haven’t known your whole life…”

Angie can feel her eyes mist up at the whisper, and Sarah’s were beginning to shine with wetness, too.

“...I promise you, Sar…”

Angie’s own voice has fallen to a whisper. She tries so speak louder, but only the whisper makes it out.

“...I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner...I should have...I’m so sorry...but I didn’t know…”

Sarah stares up at her, unmoving, unblinking, not even seeming to breathe.

“...I swear to God, Sister…”

The whisper is as full of malice now as it was when speaking of their older brother.

“...I swear to GOD...if I’m right...and you have always known…”

She looks down and shakes her head slowly. Angie’s hands twitch with a desire to through her arms around Sarah’s shoulder, to bring her in, to promise the world that she didn’t know until her mom told her last year.

“...you will NEVER take Kenzi from me…”

Angie blinks in confusion, uncertain of what she heard.

“W-what? I nabs heard you right. Wh-”

Sarah turns on her heel and walks to the doorway with heavy falls of her heels. At the doorway, she stops and turns her head.

“We fly out of LAX on Wednesday morning.”

She turns and walks away, leaving a confused, but determined, Angie behind her.

---

* * * * * * * * * *

---

Sarah growls as she stands in front of the temple.

Why couldn’t life be simple? Why couldn’t people just DO the things she KINDLY ASKED them to do? Why did they have to FIGHT her so much?! And DAMNIT her hand HURTS. Still! After ALL of that time!

Sarah sighs as she stands in front of the temple.

The plane ride had been hellish. Four members of the Lacklan family, two by blood and two by marriage, stuffed into one row. Sarah had intended on Kenzi having the window seat...bitches like window seats...but her darling, loving, understanding wife REFUSED to be anywhere NEAR Ava! Apparently...as she learned a couple of days ago...their relationship was NOT on the good grounds that she thought it was. They seemed to have gotten long SWIMMINGLY at Outlast! But...as Kenzi pointed out...that was NOT the case. So Sarah had to rearrange their seating so that Ava got the window, Sarah sat next to her, and then Angie next to HER (and her stupid sister’s stupid elbows on her stupid arms kept getting onto HER side of the armrest!), and finally Kenzi on the side. And that was all AFTER Kenzi caught her trying to convince the stewardess to move Angie’s seat to the cargo hold.

She had Kenzi had been fighting for what felt like weeks, with only small reprieves, and that included the plane right. Kenzi was very, VERY tired of how agitated Sarah had been with people lately, but Sarah had a right to be! Angelica, her (non-spouse) BEST FRIEND, and RIPPED OUT HER HEART WITH HER LIES, and now she was edgy and jumpy around EVERYONE. After all, if freakin’ ANGIE could be a lying thief who wanted to steal her life, just IMAGINE what everyone ELSE wanted! All of those WHORES who CONSTANTLY surrounded Kenzi, who was ALWAYS “Mrs. Tee Hee! I didn’t notice anyone flirting!” were probably trying to take her the same way ANGIE was!

Being in Japan wasn’t really any better. They usually enjoyed coming to the country, in part because that was where they had their honeymoon and also in part because of Kenzi’s MASSIVE case of Yellow Fever, but this had been difficult, given the circumstances. Sarah had noticed that neither Ava nor Angie had appropriate attire for where they were going, so she bought them both a kimono. Angie seemed to love hers...though, she no doubt would have preferred to STEAL SARAH’S rather than have HER OWN...and Ava tore the sleeves off so that her scarred arms were visible. Because crazy, of course.

When they got to the place where they were going to meet this supposed brother of theirs, Kenzi had a small panic attack. They had gone to a gym owned and operated by “Xpress Fighting Systems,” which sounded like a stupid and lazy name to Sarah, and Kenzi seemed to be super, duper suspicious of everyone. She wouldn’t explain why she felt that way, though, because Kenzi NEVER shared stuff like that. Yeah, equality! They had been surprised to be greeted by a fellow American...though Ava fully considers herself to still be a French citizen...named Arnold, who was a short man carrying a tennis racket and who got super excited about everything. He took them to the back where they met-

-well-

HIM.

~~

The Mountain looked down with a face of stone at the four tiny women. Guarded by his sunglasses, the man’s eyes could not betray any inward feelings, which was proper. He gave a small bow of his head to the woman in the black kimono, the woman he had met in America, the woman who sat upon his father’s throne. She seemed different, now. Paler. Thinner. When he had met her half a year ago, she had seemed strong, filled with the strength of an oak. Now she seemed frail. Gnarly as a fig tree.

“Eyes on ME!”

The Mountain ignored the angry voice and took in a different woman wearing pink. This one was taller, though still small compared to him, with hair the color of gold. His own hair was platinum, one of the things that made him stand out so much growing up. A closer look at the woman showed eyes of blue that he knew, eyes of blue that-

“Hey! Pay attention to me!”

He passes over the source of the annoying voice again and takes in the third woman, this one wearing blue. She was black, an extreme rarity here, with a mass of braids that made him think of the day’s lunch of tako and rice. She had brown eyes and a strength in her stance that he recognized from his own training. They were all wrestlers, as he had been told, but this one was different. She had striking and ground training, too. A mixed martial artist, like himself.

“I SAID-”

He finally turns his head to take in the loud one. Very tiny, like the black woman, but as fiery in voice as her red kimono was. Her arms waved in the air as she spoke, but the thing that truly caught his attention was the platinum braid. The same shade as his. Eyes were different, though. They were red behind a pair of thick glasses. That was odd.

“-come DOWN here, you OAF!”

The Mountain cocks his head to the side, flinging his chin-length hair away from his sunglasses. An interesting challenge from one so small. Curious, he bends over at the waist, bringing his face to her level, so that they can be eye to eye. Or glasses to glasses, anyway.

“...did you get them, too?”

He cocks his head again in confusion at the whispered question.

“...I swear to God...if you got them, too…”

He pulls away from the odd little woman, and then finds himself seeing stars. The impact across his jaw snapped his entire head to the side, and he can feel his sunglasses flying off his face.

“OW! Oh, fuck ME in the goat ASS! What are you made out of? STONE?!”

He whips his head back to the tiny woman to see her holding her hand, her face contorted in pain. The unseen punch that had rocked him seemed to have done as much damage to her tiny bones as it did his face. After a moment of shaking out her hand, she looks up at him and scowls.

“You DO have his eyes! Why the FUCK did you ALL get them BUT ME! WHY NOT ME?!”

The Mountain’s face nearly breaks its stoicism. Ah, that is what she meant. Outside of his size...well over six feet in nearly 300 pounds of natural muscle...and his stark white hair, the Tokyo-born man also had bright blue, all gifts from the father he never met. It seemed that two of the women before him...his two half-sisters...split those gifts. One had height and a blend of blues in her eyes, but the albino had nothing but the hair.

In a flash, the woman in red spun on her heel and walked out of the room with heavy stomps. The black woman called out to her, and the blonde woman with half of his eyes seemed concerned, but the woman in black positioned herself in between them and his fleeing sister.

“Mes filles!” says the woman with a thick French accent. “S'il vous plaît! Meet your brother...Shinjiro!”

The Mountain...Shinjiro Nakama...folds his arms before his broad chest and stands proudly.

---

* * * * * * * * * *

---

Sarah seethes as she stands in front of the temple.

“I refuse,” she says to the door. “I refuse to be second. I refuse to be lesser. I REFUSE! I-”

“You have your father’s spirit.”

Sarah’s mouth goes dry as she hears a voice behind her. So wrapped up in thinking about the difficulty of the past few days, from the revelation of a potential brother, to traveling with a family at odds, to meeting the hulking behemoth himself, that she did not hear the person behind her approach. Sarah slowly turns around and is greeted by a Japanese woman, a touch of grey in her hair and crows feet at her eyes to show her age, dressed in a simple dress of white, with a purple hakama and matching bow in her hair. She gives Sarah a small smile, and the albino feels a mixture of emotions within her that she has difficulty discerning.

“Do you-”

Her questions trails off as the woman walks by her and opens the door to the temple, seeming to ignore her existence any further. After the woman walks through the doors, Sarah stands still for a moment, watching her move into the temple with a graceful stride, and then follows her inward. Sarah’s eyes are immediately beset by the soft beauty of the temple, with gentle purples and whites along the tapestries to match the woman’s robe. Several mats line the floor, arranged in neat rows, situated before a life-sized statue of a man she knew all too well.

“What...what is this?”

She looks around the small temple, the place she was told to find this supposed mother of this supposed brother, and sees nothing but the gentleness of an old Shinto shrine. But in place of the imagery she expected among the odd mixture of soft curves and sharp angles, she finds the statue of the man who created so much chaos.

“What…”

The woman does not answer, instead slowly lowering herself to her knees onto a mat, her face facing the statue of the young man with a buzzed head and a strong jaw. Sarah chews on her lips for a moment, and then joins the woman, though she is unable to match her grace as she lowers herself to her knees next to her. The woman raises her arms up slowly, from her sides and into the air, then brings them together before her and places one hand inside the other. After a moment, Sarah mimics the motion, first up to her side, then above her head, and back down to her chest.

“What do you know of your father?”

The woman’s voice is gentle, though slightly touched by age, and instead of it sounding profane in the silence of the temple, it sounds as if it is but the pleasant sigh of the wind.

“Much.”

“What of his time here? In Japan.”

Sarah bites down on her lip.

“Little. He did not speak of it much. He said it was too painful for him.”

The woman next to her nods.

“Yes. His parents perished. Their plane...into the sea. He blamed himself. And so distraught was he that he had to leave. And that meant leaving love.”

Sarah turns her head to look at the woman.

“Are you…”

She gives a small nod of her head.

“We were in love, my child. As much as two so young can be. He trained here. Trained in the dojo to become a wrestler. They accepted him. He chose to live her, to train here, as if he were born here. He was no gaijin. And he was penitent. Visited this temple. Visited me.”

Sarah looks back to the statue and then back to her.

“You were a…”

Her eyes move rapidly back and forth behind her glasses as she searches for the word.

“...a miko? A priestess?”

She nods her head and gives a soft smile.

“Yes. But he brought change. He brought the Word. He was to be Daniel. To lead the world as a warrior king in the name of God. He would heal the world. But then the end of his parents. Of your grandparents. Of Shin’s grandparents.”

She turns her head from the statue and takes in Sarah with eyes as dark as jet.

“He did not know about my son. I did not know until weeks after he left. He pursued God and I played my role.”

Sarah’s eyes narrow in thought.

“You...what...couldn’t call him? Shoot him a text? An e-mail?”

The woman laughs softly.

“This was many years ago, child. My Shin is nearly 30 years old. Nearly as old as the final woman to hold his heart.”

Sarah looks away and again takes in the statue of her father.

“What have you been doing? For nearly 30 years? What did you do all that time? While Daddy wrestled and fought? While he had more ‘wives’ and children? While he...while he did...terrible things?”

“I have kept the faith.”

The woman looks at the statue.

“Your father was consumed by hate, child. Hate for the death of his parents. Hate for the burns that covered his body. Hate for so much. And it made him do and say those terrible things. But I have always known that he would return someday. Return to his love for God. Return for his vision of the world unified by glory and strength. Return to being the Daniel for the world.”

The woman places her hand on Sarah’s shoulder and gently tugs, forcing Sarah to look at her. The black eyes are soft, but they are also full of a look Sarah knows well. The look of fervent faith.

“I have kept the faith. What have YOU done?”

Sarah looks away from the woman, unable to keep her gaze, and returns it to the statue of her father.

What HAS she done for her faith?