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Lacklan · (03-18-2023)

“And you swipe it just like this.”

Sarah Lacklan, freshly showered and changed into one of her unnecessarily fluffy dresses after the ending of the latest Weekend Warfare, stood before a door marked “CHAMPIONS LOUNGE, an overly expensive purse slung over her shoulder, a key card in one hand, and her SWEET Windows phone in the other. The eyeroll of the new Television Champion, Dolly Waters, through the SarTime app would have been massive enough to make the Marketing Genius proud, but Sarah was too busy demonstrating how to swipe the card.

“I know how it works, Sar.”

Sarah waves away Dolly’s drawling protestation as she again demonstrates the swiping of the card.

“Yes yes, but it’s been SO LONG since you were a champion that you’ve likely forgotten! It’s just a swift swipe and-”

*CLICK!*

The door opens slowly, bringing Sarah’s Billion $$$ Smile to her face.

“Come, come!”

Sarah sashays into the room with her usual dancing gait and waves the phone around, allowing Dolly a look inside. At a table towards the center, Angelica Vaughn sits with a plate containing a massive steak and potato…because Texas…and Team HSU’s successfully defended Taggie Team Championship belts resting alongside her. She waves wildly at her sister, which Sarah returns. Thankfully, Dolly’s barely stifled sigh and scowl is missed through the SarTime app.

“Mark’s not around…said something about needing to talk to Future Mark Flynn, whatever the hell THAT means…and John’s probably pleasuring himself to the sight of Tommy macking with my mumsie-in-law in some broom closet, which is the stuff of nightmares, obvs…and whatever you do, don’t let Robbie con you into ‘borrowing’ your card. The rules are the rules, Bobster! You lose your crown, you lose your card!”

“What about the Madness champions?”

Angie looks in deep thought at the question.

”Yeah, where are-?”

She’s cut off as Sarah and Dolly burst out laughing. Several moments go by as their laughter turns to outright guffaws before the end.

“Oh…oh Dolly…you slay me!”

Sarah removes her glasses to wipe away a few tears as she plops her #SquatBooty into the chair next to Angie. Angie’s genuine curiosity melts into a blank stare of disapproval as her sister and “niece” finish their laughter over their Mean Girl behavior. She narrows her eyes and then opens them wide in shocked surprise.

“Oh, wowsers! Is that Salsa, the Wrestling Bear?!”

Sarah turns in surprise, which allows Angie to quickly reach over and shut off the SarTime app. Dolly and Angie share a squinted eye scowl for one another.

Angie 1, Dolly 0

“Hey!”

Sarah’s squeaks as she turns back around, but Angie just “HMPHS!” as she turns back to her insanely-large steak and potato.

“Less cameos, more Team HSU, Sister! You can do ad reads and stuffsies on your own dang time!”

Sarah grumbles in agreement before looking down at her phone.

“Ugh…where IS my food? I ordered some chicken earlier…skinless, boneless, free-range, cage-free, triple certified organic, flown in from their native birthplace in Southeast Asian, obvs…but I haven’t gotten my order yet.”

Sarah places a finger to her pointed chin.

“I bet the order-taker is that penniless street urchin that was in the arena last time. While I appreciate that Vinnie is trying to help The Poor and all, I do wish that he would insist that they are bathed beforehand. And I’ll make sure to whip the scamp a time or two for being tardy, so as to teach her a lesson. After all, I have two shiny quarters for her next time if she’s on time!”

Angie’s fork clinks against her plate as she gives Sarah a scowl.

“Sar-Sar! That’s nabs nice. AND totes mean! And her name is Molly, or something!”

“The Poor don’t have names, Angelica, don’t be silly.”

“Sarah!”

“I kid, I kid!”

Sarah puts on a sweet smile which causes Angie to narrow her eyes in suspicion, but the Legendarily Leggy Blonde turns back to her insanely large medium rare grass-fed steak and homegrown taters. Sarah’s crossed fingers, stealthily hidden, spoke that Sarah was, indeed, totes not kidding. Nabs kidding, as it were.

*CLICK!*

“Finally, my food is-”

Sarah cuts off as the door swings open and Sidney Grey stumbles in. Martini glass in hand, the Anarchy Champion, and now Final Four competitor within the March Madness Tournament, lazily points at the table.

“Rat Eyes. Blondie.”

Angie’s smile is genuine at what she perceives to be a compliment, as Sarah’s face finds another scowl.

“Hi-hi, Sid-sid!”

“...Mumsie-in-Law…”

“We were totes just talking about you!”

“Is that right?”

Sidney stumbles her way towards their table, the ever-present drunkenness to her steps resulting in an odd shuffle, as Sarah rolls her eyes and goes back to her phone.

“I was thinking about you too, Child.”

Her drunken path makes its way towards Angie’s chair and she slumps her hands heavily down atop it, her drink spilling more.

“Did…did I ever tell you…about how you’re like a daughter to me?”

Sarah’s hands shake in a sudden fury as Angie smiles brightly.

“Wow! Thankies, Sid! Makes totes sense, since your daughter’s my sister-in-law! That makes you my…um…er…”

Angie’s face crunches as she tries to do some odd familial math, but she’s distracted by a sudden grunt of annoyance from Sarah.

“Something wrong, Sis? Toothache again?”

Sarah growls more as fingers move across her phone.

“Ugh, no…I don’t know…they said it would run faster now. But it seems that it’s being slowed by…oh dang, a bunch of messages just came in…looks like a backlog of several days.”

Sarah’s eyes scrunch…and then start to go wide….as she scans them.

“Ummmmm….Angelica?”

“Yeah, Sis?”

“...how far did your ranch get before you told them to turn around?”

“Before I what-what now?”

Sarah looks up from her phone and blinks.

“Before you told them to turn around. Because we Sherlock’d out that all the people screaming out Ned’s name were plants and members of his 4-headed fanclub…much in the way ol’ Narcoleptic Ned needs a hooker to have a woman scream out his name elsewhere…and that, no, the peeps of San Antonio didn’t turn on their hometown hero. You then called your mumsie and told her it was a giant mistake and to turn the choppers around…right?”

Angie’s face blanks…and then blanches.

“Errrrmmmm…..”

Sarah’s phone shakes in her hand as she glances down at the many, many messages she had missed and had piled up.

“....did…did you at least clear the move to Maine with Mother?”

“...yes, I cleared it with my mother…”

More shaking.

“.......not YOUR mother….MY mother….you did talk to her about this, right? You told her this was coming? And she gave you the go-ahead okay, right? RIGHT?”

“.................”

“................”

“I mean-”

🎶Don't cry to me, if you loved me
You would be here with me🎶

The sound of Amy Lee’s voice bursts from Sarah’s SWEET Windows Phone loud enough to make Team HSU squeak.

“....Angelica, I swear to Baby Jesus…”

“I MAAAAAAAAY have forgotten to-”

🎶You want me, come find me
Make up your mind🎶

Sarah takes a deep breath, answers her phone, and puts on her best Billion $$$ Smile.

“Mother! I was just about to-”

Sarah pulls her phone away from her ear, her face scrunching into pain, as a stream of angry words in French spill out. Sarah glares at Angie who offers up an apologetic smile. Taking a sip from her drink, Sidney couldn’t hide her smile. Even SHE thought Sarah’s mom was a bitch!

Who ever said #CoolTube is dead??

Angelica and Sarah were flying first class from Texas to Maine. While Angelica would’ve been perfectly fine flying coach, provided she got an aisle seat for extra ‘leg room’, Sarah had gotten literal tremors at the thought of being locked inside a cabin with not just one, but a whole BUNCH of Poors.

So the duo were sitting in their cozy seats, drinking fine champagne, when Angelica fired up the #CoolTube app. Sarah had offered to do it on her Windows Phone, but for “some reason” the app kept crashing. When her phone eventually became too hot to hold without risking a second degree burn, she had conceded.[/color]

Hi-hiiiiiiiii~!”Hi-hiiiiiiiiii~!”

”Welcomies, #CoolFolk! Team HSU here, the XWF taggie team championes, as we prepare to face not ONE, but TWOOOO other teams! Michael, or is it Micheal? Graves… Or is it Gravy? I get confused. Anyhoo, he is teaming up with… a dude whose name sounds like he just stabbed Julius Caesar!”

Sarah’s eyes turned to slits as she got visibly annoyed by her sister’s lack of proper research into their opponents.

”And then there’s SAGA! Jason Ca$happ Young Billiunnaise… no wait, that’s a Bong Bing… or is it?”

At this point, Sarah was seething and foaming at the mouth.

”I SWEAR TO BABY JESUS, SISTER. Give me that phone! Did you learn nothing from Promo Class??”

Sarah snatches the phone from her sister's canonically boney fingers and holds it up to her face.

”Hey there, Baby Birds! I promise to keep this totes quick.”

Even she could feel Angie’s eyeroll.

”The reality of our match at March Madness, on March 26th in the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas…there, Kido, I covered it for you, so now you don’t have to repeat it seventeen times to fluff up your promo…is that Team HSU, YOUR Taggie Team Champions, are facing 3 out of 4 challengers who shouldn’t even be in this match!”

Sarah counts on her fingers.

”Gravy…who, I swear to Heaven Above, I’m pretty sure I legitimately killed during an Anarchy match…is the epitome of how being ‘interesting’ doesn’t mean ‘good.’ Sure, there are incel creeps who find themselves alone in a closet enjoying the sights and sounds of promotional videos filled with terrible special effects, unnecessary screaming, and the most outlandish ‘logic’ this side of a Snow incestfest, but the vast majority of not only our audience, but the industry, recognizes how idiotic and worthless it all is! And yes, yes, Ol’ Gravy has found himself carrying around more title belts than we have years on Earth combined, but what has it all meant? The totality of his quality and relevance has sunk so far into the negative that even Kris ‘THA HAMMA’ Von Bonn would look at it all with sadness in his eyes. And Cadryn?”

Sarah’s eyes roll as she counts another finger.

”Listen, I appreciate that he came from a time within the history of XWF where being racist meant that you were idolized by feckless morons, AND he’s the kind of dude who looked up to people who have since been shamed into falling into a wasteland of obscurity so vast that not even Daddy Duke would dare tread. But this is an XWF that has been changed by people like Angelica and I. This is an XWF where, if you’re going to claim to be the greatest of all time, as Cadryn does over and over again, you need to have the pedigree and success to back it up. Greatest of all time? When was the last time HE carried around our company’s top belt? Or ANY belt, for that matter? Oh yeah, it was THESE Taggie Team championships, alongside Gravy. But to do that? He had to beat ‘Give It To Me’ Peter Gilmore and Captain Dipship himself, Chris Chaos. And THOSE two dummies are at a level so below us that it would be like Big Phreesh and Job Guy trying to take on three or four Engineers! I appreciate Gravy trying to shake everything up by bringing in someone who comes and goes so often that the door is basically revolving…trust me, I know how that is…but at least it could have been someone who actually matters! Instead, it’s a dude who will drop a Hard N fifty-three times in ten minutes and consider it art! But that’s okay, because after March Madness on the 26th…there you go again, Kido…Cadryn will be back home on the beach hanging out with a wife who doesn’t act like any other woman in the history of forever, and Gravy will be back to trying to find another random piece of trash partner to lose alongside.

“And Cashe?!”

Sarah pulls a notepad from her bag.

”I’m going to write a strongly worded letter to Atticus about Cashe being in this match.”

Angelica finally pulled her phone back out of Sarah’s hands.

”...that could’ve been nicer…”

”Whatevz! Have some more champagne!”

Sarah grumbles, but takes it as she starts her letter to Atticus.

The STA Ranch
…Maine
On the outskirts of Lacklanland

It didn’t matter how. And at this point, it no longer mattered *why*. But the fact was that Angelica’s ranch had been moved, in totality, from Texas to Maine. The land. The house. The orchards. The barns. All of the animals. It was going to take a lot of them some time to get used to the humid continental climate, as opposed to the arid Texan heat, but Angelica was certain they were going to be just fine. Only the chickens might be in need of a winter coat, but that wasn’t going to be a problem.

Angelica found her mother outside of the house. The day was dark, cloudy and cold. The lightest of drizzles sprinkled across the farm. Mary’s arms were crossed, huddled up in a thick coat. The wind wove her hair about, whipping across her face. But her gaze remained fixed on the skyline in the distance. One that she had bid farewell all of those years ago.

Angelica calmly approached her and put a hand on her shoulder. Mary flinched at the touch, snapping out of her daydream.

”Mom… Are you going to be okay?”

Mary sighed, but eventually nodded.

“It’s… fine.”

”You and I both know that translates to “It’s totes horbz and I couldn’t hate it more.” Come on now.”

“Well to be honest, sweetie, you pulled a fast one on me with all of… this.”

”You… *might* have been right when you said I was being a bit… dramatic. But what’s done is done, I suppose. There’s no going back. I just hope you’re not too weirded out.”

“I *am* weirded out. It’s odd to be back. I know you’ve been here plenty of times, but to me, this place still carries a lot of emotions. Love, sure. One I lost long ago. But after that? Mostly fear.”

Angelica bit her lip. She was afraid she might’ve underestimated her mother’s trauma, which clearly still lingered after decades. As hard as it was going to be to get Kenzi and Sidney to reconcile, she felt it was going to be even harder for Sarah and her mother to look each other in the eye. ‘The Demon Child’ is what her mother had always known Sarah as. And her wrath, or at least the potential threat of it, had been what had caused a pregnant Mary to flee Lacklanland all of those years ago. The eighteen years that followed hadn’t been easy on either of them.

”We’ll work it out. Trust me, you’ll see! We’re all going to be one big happy family in the end! You, me, Sarah, Bordy, Kenzi and Sidney! Maybe you and Sid should get together some time, have a drink or go to dinner. I’m sure she’ll appreciate that, and it’ll do you some good to get back out there.”

Mary smiled. She looked over at her daughter and stroked her cheek with the back of her hand.

“I’m so proud of you, you know that? Always trying to do what’s best for everyone, no matter how much you put yourself at risk doing so. Nothing ever truly dampens your spirits, does it?”

Angelica wondered.

”Nah. Plenty does. The fear of failure, most of all. And I know, I know. Can’t win them all. But I don't want to let anyone down. Not you. Not the fans. And not Sarah. We only just came off a big win over the Honorable Mentions, but I guess management felt a DQ win didn’t really count as a defense. And now we’re facing an even bigger challenge, against a guy neither of us can seem to beat in Raion Kido, and he’s teaming up with Cashe who’s pretty decent. And on top of that another team with two household names. It’s just a reminder that no matter how high up you are, one misstep can lead to everything you worked so hard for to completely collapse. And I don’t want to disappoint those who believe in me.”

“You never have, and you never will.”

A silence fell between them, until Angelica finally clapped her hands.

”Righty-roo, mumsie! Enough of this standing about! We have WORK to do! I need to go and lift. And then we need to change some crops. Onions, obvs, so we can have homegrown creamed onions year round, made with Bella’s and the other cows’ fresh cream! And blueberries! More potatoes! We can plant some maple trees, too, for syrup! And maybe we can expand into the sea, even! Harvest seaweed and scallops and clams and stuff. I see so much potential! We’re going to be bigger and better than ever! I can’t wait!”

“And eventually…”

Mary nodded towards the compound’s skyline in the distance. Dark clouds seemed to form over Lacklanland. Nothing ominous, just the weather. Right?

“Eventually we’ll have to go in there again. Both of us. Confronting your sister won’t be pleasant for either of us. And on top of that, I recall you saying Le Bord de Dieu was none too pleased when you plopped a few acres of ranch right on the doorstep of Lacklanland unannounced.”

”True. I still haven’t spoken to Bordy. Sar-sar’s over there right now, probs catching some heat for us. But if Aveline doesn’t like what we did, she can come over here and tell me herself!”

Mary anxiously shuffled her feet around.

“I have a feeling she will.”

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