Threaded Mode | Linear Mode

Jenny Myst · (11-26-2022)

Wet leaves crunched under bare feet.

Dew filled air filled her lungs, making breathing feel like shards of glass pushing in and out of her diaphragm.

She swore she could taste blood.

There were dogs in the distance, and loud voices coming together to form a wall of hateful words. There were small orange lights on the horizon, the torches burning their way through the wet forest as the mass of sound got agonizingly closer.

The rough terrain made it impossible to move effectively, every few feet was a sink hole or mud trap. Vines hidden under the mud to grab your ankles like arms extended from hell. Some even had thorns on them, as if the devil himself were trying to bring you home.

Her breath came in ragged gasps, small clouds of steam exiting her mouth on every exhale.

"WHORE!"

"HEATHEN!"

"WITCH!"

The accusations were always the same. Nobody could get over the fact that this woman had done things that no woman in her position had done before. People were jealous, and they were terrible to her. They didn't take her powers abilities seriously. Now, here she was, everyone chasing after her, trying to attack her and take everything she has away from her. Trying to steal her livelihood.

KERPLUNK!

Something hit the water next to her with great force. Surely, that could not be a fish.

Catapults. Did they have fucking catapults?

KERPLUNK!

WOOSH
WOOSH

Arrows?!

More shouting, and what sounded like dogs. Her dress caught on her legs.

SPLASH!

A rush of cold hit her as she was soaken wet from the dense earth. Rolling onto her back she looked up at the muddled sky. Somewhere up there was the moon and billions of stars, but on this night all she could see was the cloud cover.

"I THINK THE WITCH WENT THIS WAY"

Scrambling back to her feet, she questioned if it was worth it to continue to run. The trees rustled, their dead and barren branches clicking against each other in the gentle breeze.

Her body ached from the constant attacks but she had what she needed the most, and what they all coveted. She would put her body through the worst torment imaginable to keep it, too.

The small item tucked under her arm flew out when she tripped. She reached out for it when she heard a dog snarl.

They were close.

Reaching out she closed dirt stained fingers around her most prized possession and willed herself to get to her feet.

Pained lungs pushed forward with their open and closing acts, but she feared there would be no encore this time around. There was a tree line, she needed to reach it.

Desperately needed to reach it.

The forest brought its own challenges. Wild life that could and would kill a human, uneven terrain that would rip a bone out of its skin holster and joints and ligaments from their alignments. There were insects that carried disease and thorns that could rip the skin the shredded chunks.

Venomous spiders, but only venomous if they bite you.

She was willing to endure this hell for her most prized possession, but were her pursuers?

She dipped into the tree line and, hopefully, out of sight.

Then, as if she ran straight into the side of a barn, the hit the ground. The item went flying. When she opened her eyes she saw the man standing over her.

He had a beard and scruffy hair, with a smug sense of satisfaction on his face. His voice was a low grumble.

"That little prize of yours, m'lady, it is mine. If you hand it to me, I'll be on my way and will not be inclined to warn your little search party of your whereabouts."

She had heard of this man. The infamous bandit who thought he ruled the land, but honestly hadn't stolen a damn thing. He went by the name of GOTH around the land, and everyone knew him as a whiney pissant who would rather backstab and cheat then overwhelm and dominate.

Her voice was in ragged gasps. The cold air had worn her throat raw.

"Yer--"

She swallowed hard and it felt like she was deepthroating Excalibur.

"Yer....gonna have to kill me."

She spit on his dumb beard with as much saliva as her dry throat could produce.

All he could do was wipe it off his big dumb chin with a sheepish grin.

"That can be arranged, silly wench."

Just as he took a few steps forward, another man on horseback strode up to them. He was a bald fella, another bandit, with equally terrible success rates at being good at his role in society.

She felt the wet ground, soft under her hindquarters. She sunk slowly into the grass as this man halted the horse.

"What is going on here?!" he inquired, "why are you harassing this poor maiden?"

Poor maiden, if only he knew.

The bearded man turned aggressively towards the bald wonder on the horse. She made eye contact with the shiney headed man, and knew right away it was who she thunk. He went by the name VENOM, which was perhaps the biggest lie anyone could tell. This man was a good man, but wanted to badly to be a bad one.

The two wanna be scoundrels argued with each other as a third voice broke her concentration.

"HARK! THERE BE THE WITCH!"

She grabbed her possession and bolted to her feet. Her joints ached from running, but she pushed herself forward.

The bearded man tried to grab her, and she spun around, kicking him square in his mid section. He sucked in a harsh breath. The bald man was on his way off the horse but got caught in the stirrup, falling with a foot trapped. She gave him a passing glance as she ran by, her most prized possession, now slick from the elements, cold under her armpit.

Deeper and deeper into the dense woods she went, knowing that as long as she had what they wanted they would chase her.

It wasn't until she came to a clearing, them hard on her heels, that she noticed the sky had opened up. She could see the stars.

She smiled, and dropped to her knees.

Bringing her most prized possession to her face, she closed her eyes. Blowing her breath into it, it began to sparkle and glow. Her entire entity left her, her soul, bonding with it. The arrow hit her shoulder just as the item stopped glowing. She hit the grass below her, blood running from her arm with a smile.

They bound her hands and stood her up. Her sins had finally caught up to her, and the people she once loved and trusted, had turned their backs. She had pretended to be someone else in a letter she wrote that got posted to the community board in the center of town.

They hated her ever since.

An hour later, her hands still bound, she was strung to the large beam in the town center, the same one she posted the letter on. A collection of brush, kindling, and paper sat below her. A torch sat close by, for easy access.

She looked out at the community that once adored her.

Her eyes narrowed. Standing before her were some of her most recent attackers. There was a joker who had been banished from his palace and now lived in a hovel on the outskirts of town. He often smelled of urine and other bodily fluids. They named him Marf. Next to him was the bald man from the forest. There was the local creep, who had kidnapped several young girls from the village and had his way with them. The reason he wasn't killed? He was a bit, well, special. They called him Tommy. There was the town drunk, Charlie. He would do anything for a coin. Mr. Madison, who was a disgraced former pastor who had went off the rails. Then the old town doctor, who was more senile than anything else. These were the people who had tried to hard to best her, and she had thwarted them all. A motley crew, huh?

"Just know, heathen, you brought this on your self."

She spit on him. The town leader, his long dirty blonde hair flowing out from under his buckle hat.

"Ms. Sambuca, you have been accused of witchcraft and taking on the identity of someone else trying to earn goods and services. This is viewed as an act of treason. Do you have anything of which you wish to say?"

She looked up at the sky.

"Just light the damn thing, already."

Smoke billowed from the center of the town. There was a putrid smell of burning humanity. Piercing screams filled the otherwise silent night.

When the sun rose on the town center, they were dead.

Every.

Single.

One.

The charred remains of the witch stay strapped to the post, surrounded by the bodies of all of those that opposed her. Some of them twisted in gruesome ways.

On the outside of the square was her most prized possession. The doll with the silver belt.

A small child picked it up, looking at it with a smile. A breeze came through the square and the sun broke through the clouds.

YOU CANNOT KILL WHAT DOES NOT WISH TO PERISH.

2022

Sirens wailed, red and blue lights lit the air as far as the eye could see.

There had to be twenty police cars. An ambulance was on scene. Four firetrucks blocked the street and the driveway, their hoses going silent of their hiss. The house was a total loss. The roof had completely caved in and was stained black. All of the windows were blown out, and the siding was charred like a steak left on the grill too long.

Mark and Patricia stood on the lawn, tears in their eyes. Their life long savings, gone. They didn't even know how the fire had started. Nobody did. They weren't even home when it began, they had gotten a text from the neighbors. They raced home as fast as they could.

An officer approached them on the lawn, he had a doll in his hands. It seemed to be perfectly intact. It was the only thing that survived. A doll with a silver belt.

"I am sorry," the officer said. "This is the only thing that made it out. I assume it belongs to your daughter?"

The couple looked at each other. They didn't have a daughter.

The officer put the doll in Mark's hands and walked away. Staring at it, he gasped.

The doll stared back at him.

Then blinked.

[Image: 0PhjGuM.png]

"Welcome to hell, boys. I hope you packed a nice lunch. I step into the ring with two men on completely different paths, with completely different gimmicks--both have which have earned their right to lose to the Queen of X-Treme on Pay Per View. But....have they? Have they earned the right or is this a big card and our talent pool is more shallow than a Betta fish cup? I am taking the latter. The newbie and the nobody ready to be made famous by yours truly in yet another Pay Per View thriller. The Game of Throne's extra and Billy Corgan virgin 2.0. One calls himself "Venom", the other one looks like that guy from the Bar Rescue episode where everyone dresses up like pirates! For real, look it up! He looks like the pirate waiter that Taffer tried to make corporate......

.........and that is your problem, isn't it, Goth? You don't know who you truly are. Nothing about you screams "goth". I expected an emo kid, long greasy black bangs and 42 lip rings. Anti establishment! Not someone who looks like he lights his home by candlelight and reads Edgar Allan Poe to his cats in a brooding voice while sipping wine he calls "Vampire Blood" even though thats an oxy-fucking-moron.

Call me ignorant but I saw your headshot on the XWF website under "new hires", and I didn't even give you a second glance between the eye rolls.

But never judge a book by its cover, right? Ol' Khal Drogo started to rack up some W's and looked like maybe he could hang....until I saw this last Pay Per View.

First you lose to a fucking video game character, whose smaller than me, and then you fall flat on your face at Relentless. Then I looked at WHO you've beaten, and I realized that you're just as much of a fraud as you look like. LSM, check. Centurion? I climbed that mountain, check. Finn Kuhn? I've been kicking his ass for years. Ned Kaye? Washed up. You made Mercy tap? Whoopty. She only shows up once every couple of months and when she does she's...well…underwhelming. My point is all your signature wins are scribbles in my diary. This title has eluded you TWICE, and now you're a rat in my snake pit. You aren't even the image you call yourself. A 5 foot blonde with pink extensions is more goth than you are, and after Bad Medicine you're going to realize where you fit in the pecking order in MY kingdom. King of Kings? Please. Find a high bridge and some heavy cinder blocks.

You and Lux have the same problem. You want to brag about all of these accomplishments, your trials and tribulations in other feds. Make yourselves out to be deities, like you're untouchable in the wrestling world. Accolades upon accolades but when you get here, you're a ripple in the pond. A wrinkle in the dress shirt. A turd in the punchbowl.

AVERAGE.

Hell you'd think you were related to Barney Green the way you like to tell us about your previous accomplishments from over a decade ago. Even Xavier said in his entrance interview 'he has decided to join XWF and test his might against what many consider the best fed in the world with the best talent.' Winless at Pay Per Views, winless in title matches, but he is sure to point out all the great things he did in those other, 'lesser talent' feds.

Jesus jumping fucking Christ, is there something in the water? You both can't be this dense. Maybe Theo has to get off his ass and start vetting wrestlers before offering them contracts because the two of you bring this great company down a few pegs in the 'greatness' department every time you open your mouths. You may look in the mirror and see a success story, but when I look at you all I see is yet another victim of fetal alcohol syndrome. What you've done THERE, nobody cares. It is what you have done HERE that counts, and so far, neither of you are worthy of flushing my tampons,

Xavier Lux calls himself "Venom". Badass name, weak ass appearance. You'd think someone with the name Venom would strike fear in the hearts of their opponents, but Lux couldn't strike fear into a skittish cat. Xavier Lux looks like Christopher Meloni from Law and Order SVU if he was cast as a pedophile instead of the detective. You can't get down and dirty Lux, you are barely a cold much less an infection. Do you think you fit the mold of what an X-Treme champion is supposed to be? Do you think that you, of all people, fit the part? You look like one of those guys who holds a phone conversation on a Bluetooth earpiece and talks all condescending to the people working at Chipotle, not someone who has to almost kill another person on a nightly basis to be considered "successful".

You probably look at me and think the same, right? Tiny little thing, weighs next to nothing, shops for clothing in the kids isles....but I am used to it. I am used to being shit on, written off, counted out. I am used to being the underdog. I have had to scratch and claw my way into being respected, win the X-Treme title twice in as many weeks, and prove that I am one of the top competitors on this roster night in and night out. You had all you could handle from Buster Gloves. You aren't ready to do what you'd need to do to take this belt from me. You look like your social circle is only filled with “guildmates”, not like someone who can make me look up to the sky with blood spewing up internally and out of my mouth and make me wish for death. You look like one of those Make-A-Wish teenagers who doesn't even want a match just signed up so they could meet me in person. Personally, I'm rooting for the leukemia.

This belt doesn't just go on the wall as another trophy for giving it the old college try. No, this belt consumes you. It pushes you to the brink of your very own morality and then tackles you off the edge. There is no net to catch your fall, Lux, only concrete. You're gonna get knocked down, but when you hit that hard bottom are you going to be able to get back up again? I am going to rip your heart out at Bad Medicine, and there isn't a damn thing you can do to stop it. You or Quasi-mongoloid over there. Be prepared, because you're getting a master class in extreme, and the test is worth 100 percent of your grade.

Study up and tell me something I haven't heard before while you still have a tongue in your mouth."

Threaded Mode \| Linear Mode Queen Rising: Origins
Author	Message