Post by Kenzie Rydell on Jul 29, 2016 21:02:29 GMT -5
GROWING PAINS
"Just wait until your father gets home to hear about this."
And there it was, her mom's signature phrase that could send even the most rambunctious kids into prisoners pleading their case at their hearing. Truth be told, part of Kenzie hated her for it. She hated the fact that she was so subservient to him, never making a decision of her own unless it involved the trivial famous phrase 'I don't know, ask your father.' It was almost like she was a mindless zombie, mind controlled to do whatever her husband wished in the name of love, and they needed a wizard to break the spell.
"But Mom, I—"
"No. He'll be here any minute now, and you're going to tell him what happened. Understand?" she said sternly, sitting on her throne that appeared like it was a couch at first glance.
"Yes, Mom," Kenzie begrudgingly answered, watching as Megan stuck her tongue out at her, the three-year-old mocking the fact that her big sister got in trouble.
It didn't take long for the front door to swing open wide. Kenzie's heart pounded, sweat pouring down the back of her neck. Her mother gave her father an all knowing look. Immediately, he knew what was wrong. Brown eyes centered on his eldest daughter, and with a single gesture, she was instructed to put her coat on.
Complying without missing a beat, she hopped to her feet and zoomed towards the closet. The eight-year-old tugged her coat down and put her arms in the sleeves, flipping it over her head in one graceful movement she learned from another kid in her second-grade class. Once she was ready, she scurried in front of her father with a dutiful stance, feet together, back straight. She held a deep breath and gave her father as much respect as she could muster, hands at her side and eyes directly on his own.
"Let's go," Mr. Rydell thumbed the door behind him, leaving with Kenzie as his shadow. In the midst of the cold February night, Kenzie knew the routine like the back of her hand by now, following the strict rules to a tee without any debate this time.
"What did you do this time, Makenzie?" She winced at the sound of the name coming from his lips.
"I didn't do anything." Defiant as ever, Kenzie still continued to follow in his footsteps as they turned to walk the side of the street at a slow pace.
"Makenzie," he repeated, another equally as cringeworthy moments. This always happened when she was in trouble. "Do you want 6 laps instead?"
"No, I—" She stammered on her words, hearing his punishment loud and clear. "I took Megan's stupid stuffed elephant. I just don't understand why she needs it so bad. She's three years old, she—"
"Exactly," Blake interrupted sternly. "She's three years old. Let her do what she wants with Elly. You're not her parents." It was a more than suitable argument, but she couldn't fight the dread that was to come.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled, her small frame trekking step by step across the February snow, her breath an ice cold blue. The fog of the weather coated nearly everything in front of them, making the sight of the stop sign feel like an impossibility.
"Hey, don't say sorry to me. Say sorry to your sister when we get home. Oh, and Mrs. Applebee called," her father shot over his shoulder like a trick shot at the local gun range, brown eyes focused forward towards the next corner. "She said you've been acting out."
"'Acting out?'" Kenzie echoed the phrase, shock and anger embedded into the phrase. "I haven't done anything! The only thing close to 'acting up' I've done lately was yell at Frankie for cheating on my paper during that math test."
"You yelled at him? Kenz, how many times do I have to tell you? Stop concerning yourself with other people and start focusing on yourself, or nobody else will." Behind all the posturing and all the military rhetoric, her dad was trying to embed within her a sense of self-worth, a strengthened discipline beyond the vast majority of the civilians. "You're a big girl now, I get it. You're going to grow up to be an independent woman eventually, hopefully not too soon. And I just don't want to see you get hurt."
"I won't get hurt," she caught up with him. "I know you mean well. I get it. I just, sometimes I wish we could just be a normal family and I could just get sent to my room like any other kid."
"You're not any other kid," the father told his daughter with a grizzled soft smile. "You're my daughter, and you have a responsibility to live up to. Besides, what's sending you to your room going to do? You're just going to end up watching TV."
She couldn't help but stifle a laugh.
"You're a lot like her, you know."
"Like who?"
"Your grandmother," he smiled, walking side by side now. "She was just as stubborn as you, always getting herself into trouble for speaking her mind. And that tenacity, that drive... If you pointed all your energy towards a worthy cause, your grandma used to think you could achieve anything."
"Really? She said that?"
"She did. She would have loved to see you grow up," he sighed, looking down at his boots colliding with the snow with each step he made.
"What else was she like?"
"She had your eyes, for one - hazel colored with specks of green around the edges. And your laugh," he chuckled, time seemingly quickening as they neared the next corner already, their heavy coats keeping them protected from the elements. Kenzie smiled.
"Have you given it much thought what you'd want to do when you grow up?" her dad suddenly asked her, Kenzie's eyes opening wide.
"After what happened a couple years ago in New York, I was kinda thinking about joining the military like you and Uncle Morty."
Her dad didn't look happy.
"No," he simply told her, stern as he's ever been. Taking a few strides ahead of her, he turned the second corner and looked over his shoulder.
"What? No? What do you mean no?"
"We'll talk about it later."
"No! Why no? I thought you loved working for the Army, Dad. I thought—"
"No," he answered yet again, harsher than the last time as he stopped in his tracks and turned around. "Do you know what I do all day? Paperwork. Computer documents. Software optimizations. I'm a logistician. I make sure the troops overseas have everything they need to go to war with the people who killed almost 3,000 innocent American civilians. I make sure they have the vehicles, the weapons, the repair parts they need, and your uncle? He died, Kenzie. His truck drove over an explosive mine. Is that the kind of life you want to live? You want to either sit at a desk job or get killed by a freak accident overseas? Is that what you want?!"
"No," he continued, oblivious to the tears that rolled down the little girl's cheeks. "No. No daughter of mine is joining the military. Let the troops handle Iraq. Support them all you like, but know that going over there isn't like a movie. It isn't playing hero. It's life or death, and that's not where you're going to end up, got it?"
Kenzie didn't know what to say, the eight-year-old just staring at him bewildered with his mother's eyes. Shaking his head and angry at himself for the outburst, he lets out a big sigh.
"C'mon, let's go. I'll make it four laps instead. Is that better?" Reaching into his pocket, he grabbed a flask and downed the liquids, trying to keep warm.
__________
"I'm not powerless. And don't call me babydoll," Kenzie hissed once the video began, standing in front of the screen Spencer dubbed the 'PromoTron 5000.' It was a working title, a substitute until he thought of something better, but in truth, it was just a large television plugged into a laptop behind the camera that showed images on the fly.
Upstairs in the Nashville branch of The Trench, this was the promo room, specially designed for people in the Spencer run independant federation downstairs to record their thoughts and feelings. Those promos were usually either posted online on YouTube for promotional material or aired during the show. Regardless, it was regularly available for Kenzie's disposal, Spencer himself hunched over a laptop with headphones on to make sure it all the technical aspects worked correctly. It was mostly to ensure she didn't break it, regardless everything else was a Kenzie original.
"See, I get what you're doing, Jack. You're new to this place, so you think that capitalizing on my mistake is the best option you have, right? You want to catch me off guard, make me miserable, make me feel insignificant compared to the 'oh-so-powerful' Jack Diamond. Let me let you in on a little secret, Jack. That's not going to happen," she crossed her arms, standing in front of an orange striped background.
"You're going to walk out to that ring with the knowledge that you're going to fight some poor defenseless girl and make her bend to your will, but if you want someone defenseless to focus all your hate, go ahead. Pekelo Kimo's right there for your twisted pleasure. Go nuts. I'm sure that'll entertain you while it lasts, no?"
A drawing by Spencer of Pekelo Kimo playing rugby appears on the screen beside her. It's monochrome, its shadows meticulously shaded with artistic scribbles with a face that looked surprisingly accurate. He was catching a ball, the equivalent of a wide receiver while eleven men with different colored jerseys neared him with angry faces, ready to tackle him down to the turf.
"You did great in your opening match, Kimo. I'll give you that. You have more formal martial arts training than I do, a college wrestling record, you've played rugby. It's impressive, sure, but I've gotta say, you're the underdog here. You're going up against me and Jack Diamond. You're going up against an immovable object and an unstoppable force, and you're about to get run over," she tells the camera with a rather serious tone, a smirk suddenly showing across her face. "Sorry!"
"You know, come to think about it Jack, you and I actually agree on one thing: Things in NGW have been strange lately," she mentioned, the picture of Kimo vanishing. "You've got AoD trying to take down the quote unquote sinners of the company, you've got Devlin Scott playing favorites, Dead Eye's gone, Karin's gone, you've got a whole mess of a company that you just happened to find, but I've gotta tell ya," she laughed.
"If you think you're our savior, you obviously haven't heard everyone else in the world of wrestling throughout decades and decades of history claim the exact same thing only to fail miserably."
"I mean, c'mon. It's almost as tired as that whole 'we're going to take down the whole company' trope that's been going around for years," she pointed out, a drawing of Christum Furor from EXODUS Pro popping up in the background, followed by a slideshow of a few people and groups who tried the same thing.
"I'm pretty sure Boardwalk's going through a similar problem right now, come to think of it. So why not help out Boardwalk? Why not actually do something useful instead of just throwing around empty mission statements about what you're going to do and how you're one of the greatest wrestlers whose ever lived or whatever?"
"Oh, right. That might require some originality," she smirked deviously.
"And the 'higher power,' 'greater power' nickname? You're not God," she shook her head, mildly annoyed.
"Why does everyone think it's cute to use language like that? It just makes you look like one of those weird evangelist Bible humpers who think Pokémon are 'cyber demons' who are using Pokémon Go - which is obviously created by ISIS and Satan - as a way to target churches, spawn demons, and geolocate Christians just so they can kill them." A picture of the genius who came up with this theory, evangelical pastor Rick Wiles, showed up beside her as she spoke, more sarcasm dripping from her lips than ever.
"Yeah, that actually happened recently. Look it up. There's video of it and everything, it's hilarious," she chuckled.
"Much like you, Jack. I mean, sure, I'm not going to underestimate your abilities, but that ability you have to look at a camera for long stretches at a time and lack every twinge of levity that it takes to be classified as a human is pretty noteworthy," she nods. "I mean, you're always so deathly serious, huh? Funny. I'm starting to peg you as the type to transition into a whiny bitch the second you lose and that deluded sense of mighty self-importance flies asunder."
"But hey, you do you, Terminator. It's somewhat refreshing, seeing someone refer to wrestling with such urgency. It's just a shame you had to focus all that unkempt anger my way. That message of yours would have been so inspiring if it wasn't so deprecating."
"Something that stuck out to me was step four. 'Taking a moral inventory of self.' You take away the petty insults and accept it as real advice, and I'll tell you, you're not one hundred percent wrong," she admitted confidently, flashing her hazel eyes to the camera just like he asked her to.
"I'm not a perfect angel. I'm not a flawless creature. I'm not a supermodel, I'm not Mrs. Universe, and I'm sure I wasn't the first to say that I'm not the best role model either, based on recent events. And you know what? That's just fine by me. I accept my imperfections. And no offense to those of you out there who adamantly believe in God as an actual being and not just a great story like I do, but I don't need to ask God for the power to improve myself. I don't need to get down on my knees to beg for forgiveness. All I need to do is prove I have what it takes against pricks like you, Jack, and that's all that matters."
"Oh, but you're going to do that oh so predictable move where you treat me like I'm just a mosquito nipping at her arm. You're going to downplay my arsenal, pretend I haven't trained for hours at a time, and that's just going to be something everyone's okay with nowadays, right? It's just what wrestling's become these days, it's natural," she taunted, rolling her eyes.
"I'm not accepting it. 'Cause on TV, you might think I'm a 'weak little girl,' but when you're out there and I break your fucking jaw and give you a concussion you won't forget, you'll realize that what you see on TV doesn't always reflect the real thing, 'sweetheart!'" She shouted with more aggression than usual, glaring into the lens with hatred in her eyes. The term 'sweetheart' was simply a jab at all the nicknames he called her during his promotion and meant nothing more.
"You wanna go and underestimate me? Fine. Do it. But when I have to clean my blood off my boot after every little insult you threw at me, I'll know you're just a walking, talking, bleeding stepping stone to base the restart of my career on," she smirked, a devious twinkle in her eyes.
"Question my moral standing, get on my knees and beg. Why don't you listen to your own advice, Jackass? Do you really think you're doing right thing egging me on right now? Do you really think it's the best idea to make me even more frustrated?" she spat, anger growing within her by the second.
"I have more pent up anger than I've ever had in my whole entire life, Jack. I'm ready to go out there and have the best match of my fucking life, but go ahead. Keep taking pot shots. It's really helping your cause."
"And to think, you almost had it easy. You almost fought Kimo one on one," she laughed. "We all know who would win that one, but guess what? Card subject to change. And when one of the fighters synomous with NGW as a whole today is the person who just so happens to be standing in that same ring as you, well, things just got real interesting, real fast, didn't they?"
"It's almost sad, in a way. You could've walked away with an easy win. Now you're going to have an extra loss on your record, just because Devlin decided to change a match. Funny how things work, isn't it?" She smirked again, filled to the brim with confidence again.
"But go ahead. Tell me more about how I need to be subserviant to you and the big man upstairs to get what I want. 'Cause the way I look at it, all I need to do is get past you and I'm far and beyond in a better spot than I've ever been here in NGW," she barked out her words, fists clenching at her sides.
"If you're even close to as good as you claim, this might just be a good match. Otherwise? Quite frankly?"
She laughed, crossing her arms over her chest again, a gif of a drawing of Jack Diamond falling off a cliff beside her.
"It's going to be a slaughter."
"What was that you said about checking my morals?" With that, she grinned wide as the video came to a satisfactory close. In the suggested videos, Gavin Grimes promo, Ashleigh Jericho trashing Judas, and the pastor Rick Wiles video about how Pokémon are cyber demons deployed by ISIS.
__________
Once the video ended, Kenzie glared at Spencer until suddenly bursting out into a little laugh.
"You called this thing the 'PromoTron 5000'? Really?" She gestured towards the screen that was behind her the whole time. "It's just a TV."
Spencer peeked over his laptop screen and took off his headset, approaching Kenzie with a smirk of his own.
"Just a TV? No. This is a Samsung 65 inch curved 4K Ultra HD smart TV, a state of the art piece of technology that projects every single thing that I do on this laptop over here via an HDMI port which—"
"So that means it deserved a name?" Kenzie interrupted, that goofy smile still on her face.
"Of course it did," Spencer answered simply. "It costed me enough money, it deserved a fucking name. Now quit criticizing me and go train downstairs. I hired someone you might be happy to see."
__________
"Right, I remember that night," Tom, the radio broadcaster told Kenzie with a smirk. "That was one of your better promos you've done since your debut. And it only got better from there, didn't it?"
"It did," a matured Kenzie tells him. "As the months went on, I trained more and more. I mastered my fighting style, added new tricks to my arsenal, and gained more confidence because of it. Before I knew it, I was able to head into a match without getting nervous, and I actually started to consider myself the favorite. It was insane!"
"For our listeners back home, can you explain why that's so 'insane'?"
"I mean, the way I see it, there's two different kinds of people in this world. Cliché, I know, but there's the people filled to the brim with confidence and breeze through life like it's easy, and then there's people like me who hope all those people burn in a fire," she chuckled, just joking around. "My point is, confidence never came easily to me early on. I had to big myself up before I walked out that curtain every single week. But the more and more wins I earned, the better I felt. I didn't have to big myself up anymore, I just automatically felt good about myself, felt like I could be considered one of the best in the company. It took a while, but once it happened, it changed my life for good, let me tell you."
"And you've never looked back," the broadcaster answered, nostalgic of the past. "Listen, we have to go to break, but when we come back, we'll hear more about Kenzie's unbelievable story and learn how she went from the lowest point of her life to becoming a household name. Sound good? Good. See you on the other side!"
__________