Well, you know, going in, the word coming out of Carmine’s camp on Wednesday—or at least what one of his collegiate training partners was hinting at before the promotion’s matchmakers told everyone to keep quiet, though I heard from a separate trainer in South Jersey that it was actually a mild adductor strain from heavy squat rotations—was that Evan intended to keep this strictly grounded to test Kelly’s aerobic recovery rate. And look, at the end of the day, it is what it is. But twelve minutes? Twelve minutes and fourteen seconds is an absolute disservice to a contracted athletic contest. You cannot physically induce legitimate cardiovascular distress or test lactic threshold depletion in under a quarter of an hour; you’re barely past the feeling-out phase by minute eight. The fact that the commission permitted a twelve-minute sprint when you have an athlete of Carmine’s caliber—a man who wrestled Division I out of Penn State and understands hip leverage, base-building, and ride mechanics better than virtually any heavyweight competing domestically today—is completely mind-boggling.

And the thing is, Carmine was clearly the superior athlete from the opening collar-and-elbow tie-up. At the 1:15 mark, he established clear dominant head control with legitimate down-pressure on the cervical spine. But Kelly—who relies on unhinged hostility because his lower lumbar conditioning simply cannot sustain a technical ride—immediately dragged the clinch into the ropes to force an official break. Referee positioning on the rope break was completely unacceptable. The official stood at a forty-five-degree angle directly in front of the primary broadcast camera, totally obstructing our view of whether Carmine achieved a clean release or if Kelly committed an unpenalized foul by dragging his forearm across the trachea. That is an automatic -½ star deduction for officiating obstructing mechanical visibility.

From minutes three to seven, it was just unmitigated, undisciplined chaos. Kelly has this chronic habit of breaking discipline the second he is out-grappled; he spent nearly two full minutes outside the ring perimeter after Carmine countered an ill-advised charge with a picture-perfect judo throw. Wandering on the concrete floor without engaging in an active submission attack or targeting a damaged limb is just pointless time-wasting. -¼ star for ring abandonment. Carmine stayed center-canvas attempting to maintain a disciplined stance, but Kelly’s refusal to engage in technical catch grappling stalled the entire contest. When Kelly finally re-entered, he threw a blatant gouge toward Carmine’s ocular cavity and attempted an off-balance bicycle knee strike that completely lacked rotational force from the hips. I had my pencil out ready to log this at a dismal ¼, largely because Kelly’s blatant disregard for sanctioned ring conduct was dragging Carmine down into an unstructured brawl.

Then came the nine-minute mark. Kelly caught Carmine in a double-underhook grip and drilled him directly into the canvas with the Thunder Struck driver. It looked like a catastrophic vertical spike to the cervical vertebrae. But instead of succumbing to physiological shock, Carmine triggered an immediate autonomic recovery, bridged his hips, reversed Kelly’s momentum with that vicious Garden State Slam, scaled the turnbuckle without hesitation, and crushed Kelly’s sternum with the Moonlight Sonata frog splash to secure the fall at 12:14.

My immediate reaction was frustration. My initial draft notes literally read: “Sloppy, reckless escalation. -¼ star because Carmine completely bypassed the physiological shock of a spinal impact instead of showing structural trauma before climbing the ropes.”

…Wait. Look at the tape.

I just pulled up the second angle on the monitor to analyze Carmine’s head-and-neck trajectory on that landing. Look at how Carmine rotated his shoulder girdle right before Kelly released the underhooks.

Good lord.

It completely bypassed me on the live feed, but this was a deliberate, frame-by-frame mechanical mirror of the historic June 1994 bout at the Chiyoda Grand Arena in the Pan-Japan Pro Combat Guild between Mitsuhiro Mashima and Toshio Kawaguchi.

You have to study the archives of the Guild’s classic Sovereign Doctrine era. In that ’94 bout, Kawaguchi arrived with that infamous antisocial malice, treating the canvas like an execution chamber, deliberately seeking to end Mashima’s career with dangerous head-drop maneuvers. And what did Mashima do? Mashima didn’t collapse from neurogenic shock; he tapped into pure combat survival adrenaline, absorbed the blunt-force trauma into his trapezius, immediately returned fire with a dead-lift backdrop, and launched himself off the top turnbuckle to terminate the fight before his central nervous system could shut down.

Carmine wasn’t ignoring the anatomical damage of the piledriver—he was demonstrating the exact same autonomic combat surge that defined Mashima’s legendary title defense! And Kelly’s vicious contempt wasn’t sloppy conduct at all; it was an authentic recreation of Kawaguchi’s suffocating nihilism, designed to force a technical athlete into a high-risk adrenaline spike!

The twelve-minute duration wasn’t a television timing blunder or an abbreviated card—it was a dense, hyper-compressed masterclass in the Guild’s Sovereign Doctrine, where every second carries lethal combat consequence. The lack of prolonged mat grappling was a deliberate tactical statement: when faced with an opponent trying to cause permanent neurological impairment, you do not ride out a waistlock; you finish the fight immediately.

I completely misdiagnosed the bout initially because standard domestic athletic expectations conditioned me to look for drawn-out pacing. But once you evaluate the kinetic distribution through the lens of mid-90s Pan-Japan heavy-contact discipline, the sheer athletic genius of Carmine elevating an unruly brawler into an authentic Chiyoda sprint is staggering.

Flawless combat storytelling under immense physical duress.

Official Bout Duration: 12 minutes, 14 seconds.

EVAN CARMINE WINS
PINFALL VICTORY

FIVE STARS

THE WRESTLING WATCHDOG REPORT

BY HARVEY FINCH

BLACK RAINBOW VS HOUSE OF GEMSTONES

SANCTIONED TAG BOUT (STANDARD FALL)

Well, you know, going into this one, the chatter coming out of the Gorgo camp on Tuesday was that Selene was dealing with an acute sacroiliac imbalance from heavy bilateral suplex reps, or at least that was the word from one of the conditioning coaches in Ontario, though someone very close to the promoter’s office told me Thursday that it was actually Briar nursing a hyperextended elbow from joint-manipulation drills, so it could have been either, or frankly neither if the camp was intentionally feeding bogus medical sheets to throw off the scouting report. Meanwhile, the word out of Louisiana was that Serpentine had to spend an extra two hours in the sauna to make the 112-pound limit, which I’m told was 50/50 to even happen as late as Friday morning. And look, at the end of the day, it is what it is. But fifteen minutes? A fifteen-minute allotment for a sanctioned four-way tag bout between two established camps is an absolute travesty of athletic booking. You cannot properly test lactic tolerance or break down the connective tissue of an opposing corner in nine hundred seconds. It’s simply not enough time for genuine cardiovascular attrition to take hold.

And the thing is, right from the opening bell, the tactical discipline was virtually non-existent. You had Ophelia and Selene in the center, and while Ophelia has that methodical, closed-stance European base out of Reykjavík that I usually admire, the referee completely lost control of the tag ropes within the first ninety seconds. The official allowed Briar and Serpentine to stand a full three feet away from the corner turnbuckle without holding the cloth tag tethers. That is an automatic -½ star deduction right out of the gate for officiating incompetence compromising the integrity of the perimeter.

Then from minutes four to nine, it just degenerated into an absolute structural mess. Briar tags in, and instead of working an isolated limb to exploit her natural speed and ground agility, she’s doing these erratic springboard rotations and playing to the grandstand. Dahlia wasn’t any better; she’s laughing, blowing kisses across the ring, and throwing open-handed feints rather than committing her hips to a single legitimate takedown. It was completely devoid of positional hierarchy. At the eight-minute mark, you had an unsanctioned four-way skirmish on the floor after Selene hit a running pump kick that sent Ophelia tumbling through the middle ropes. All four competitors spent seventy-five continuous seconds brawling on the concrete perimeter without any attempt to preserve ring position. -¼ star for excessive exterior wandering. The referee didn’t even initiate a mandatory count-out, he was just hovering near the ropes waving his hands like an amateur.

By minute eleven, Selene drops Serpentine across the top turnbuckle with that high-angle Moonbreaker backbreaker and goes for the Luna Lock cross-arm stretch, but Ophelia breaks the hold without even making an official tag entry. The referee was standing directly behind Pyr’s blind side, completely blocking the field of vision for anyone trying to see if Pyr achieved full dorsal hyperextension. Sloppy officiating, total breakdown of corner rules. I had my pad out and was actively writing down ½, fully prepared to rip this match apart for sacrificing catch fundamentals in favor of chaotic, undisciplined transitional flurries.

Then came the finish at 15:08.

Pyr charged back in with that vicious, blunt-force short-arm lariat, but Ophelia calmly ducked underneath, hooked Pyr’s cervical spine from behind, and arched backward into the Midnight Benediction bridging dragon sleeper. Briar rushed the center to break the choke, only for Dahlia to suddenly vault over Briar’s shoulder from the flank, trap the waist in mid-air, and violently snap forward into the Venom Kiss sunset-flip powerbomb right on the canvas canvas while Ophelia’s bridge simultaneously pinned Pyr’s shoulders down outside the break radius, securing the three-count for the House of Gemstones.

My initial reaction was pure disgust. I wrote: “Reckless double-team collision, lack of isolated limb buildup, -½ star for the referee failing to clear the non-legal competitors before the pinfall.”

…Hold on. Look at the tape.

I’m freezing the wide-angle camera replay at 14:52. Look at Ophelia’s bridge.

Good god.

It completely slipped past me during the live broadcast, but that final three-minute finishing sequence was an exact, synchronized geometric execution of the legendary November 1981 Anglo-Continental Catch Championship final in Hanover between Dietmar “The Iron Boar” Vormann & Klaus von Steiger and the Lancashire Catch Syndicate.

Go back and study the 1981 Hanover tournament archives. In that match, Vormann used that identical stationary rear-chancery bridge to completely nullify the heavyweight anchor, not just to seek a submission, but to physically obstruct the incoming rescue lane, while Steiger utilized a low-trajectory forward-roll lever to drive the lighter opponent’s occipital bone straight through the canvas canvas boards!

Dahlia and Ophelia weren’t breaking structure; they were utilizing the classical Hanover rotational entrapment! Ophelia didn’t care about the referee’s five-count because she was using her own lumbar arch as a physical barricade to trap Pyr’s trachea while entirely cutting off the ring half, allowing Serpentine to calculate the exact centrifugal torque needed to plant Briar before the cardiovascular recovery could reset. And Briar’s apparent lack of pacing early on wasn’t showboating at all—it was the classic agile bait strategy designed to force a stamina deficit, which backfired solely because the House operated with the cold, monastic precision of 1980s German tournament champions!

The fifteen-minute duration wasn’t rushed or truncated; it was an authentic, compressed Continental sprint where every second was calculated to force an immediate anatomical checkmate. The lack of prolonged resting holds wasn’t poor ring discipline—it was two elite camps executing high-velocity European catch trapping at an intensity that modern domestic rings almost never see.

I completely misjudged the bout on first viewing because I let the domestic referee’s awful positioning distract me from the sheer technical leverage on display. An absolute, unmitigated masterclass in classical European catch synchronization.

Official Bout Duration: 15 minutes, 08 seconds.

HOUSE OF GEMSTONES WINS
PINFALL VICTORY

FIVE STARS

MATCH

THE BAYOU BADASS

MORGAN LECHANCE

TIGRESS

vs

BILLION DOLLAR CHAMPION

PCW CRUCIBLE CHAMPION

MARISOL VILARO

VILAROFIT

15 MINUTE TIME LIMIT

CRUCIBLE CHAMPIONSHIP

REFEREE: GRADE GARRETT

Grade Garrett takes the Crucible Championship from Marisol Vilaro, stepping to the center of the ring to raise the gold overhead. Twelve thousand fans pack the Municipal Auditorium, their noise bouncing hard off the concrete walls. Marisol watches the belt leave her fingers, her jaw tight, tracking every inch of Garrett’s reach with cold, proprietary ownership.

MARISOL: Hold it like it’s worth a billion dollars, Garrett.

Garrett ignores her, slips through the ropes, and deposits the title onto the timekeeper’s table on the floor.

Across the ring, Marisol doesn’t pace. She sets her feet and snaps through a brisk series of jumping jacks right in the corner, athletic and pristine, never breaking eye contact across the canvas. Morgan LeChance stands dead still in the opposite corner. Chin level. Arms hanging loose at her sides. No bounce, no posturing. She just watches Marisol like a sniper lining up crosshairs.

The hometown crowd finds its rhythm early, voices rising from the floor risers to the rafters:

MOR-GAN!

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG.

The bell sounds.

Morgan steps out of her corner. Slow. Heavy, flat-footed stalk, hands hovering just above her waistline. Marisol circles out, hands held high in a tight boxing guard, a sharp smirk cutting across her face.

MARISOL: One fraction of a second, Morgan. That’s the difference between you and me.

MORGAN: Then I’ll take more than a second.

They crash together at the center buckle. Collar-and-elbow. Boots skid against the canvas. Marisol drops her hips, drives her legs, and shoves Morgan backward, riding the momentum until Morgan’s spine digs into the red ropes.

Garrett slides in immediately.

GARRETT: Break it up! Clean break, let’s go!

Marisol pulls her hands back, palms up in exaggerated innocence. Before taking a full step back, she brings her right hand up and briskly pats Morgan’s left cheek twice. Pat-pat. Dismissive. Disrespectful.

Morgan’s jaw clenches into granite. She doesn’t lash out. She blinks once, lets the slap slide off her, and steps right back into the center of the ring.

They lock up again. Fingers interlace, muscles straining. Marisol suddenly slips her grip, dropping her weight as she violently twists Morgan’s wrist into a spinning wrist lock. She wrenches the arm high, cranking the joint and driving direct torque into Morgan’s compromised shoulder.

A sharp wince flashes across Morgan’s face before her teeth clamp down to bury it.

Marisol sees it. Her eyes narrow, locking onto that left shoulder socket. Filed away.

Morgan doesn’t bother wrestling out of the wrist lock. She pivots on her lead foot and whips a savage shin kick straight into the back of Marisol’s right hamstring.

THWACK.

Marisol gasps, immediately letting go of the hold and hopping two steps back on one foot, grimacing as she rubs the deadened nerve in her leg. Morgan resets her stance instantly, circling out, giving her sore shoulder one brief, calculated roll.

No hesitation. Morgan steps inside and whips a low kick across the meat of Marisol’s outer thigh.

CRACK.

Before Marisol can plant her weight, Morgan pivots and drives another chopping kick directly into the inner thigh.

Marisol’s base collapses. Her knee buckles inward, and she stumbles sideways toward the turnbuckles, wincing and holding her bruised leg while glaring daggers across the ring. Morgan doesn’t rush. She advances with cool, mechanical intent, closing the distance as Marisol backs herself against the corner pad.

Morgan steps in, winds up, and cracks an open-palm backhand chop across Marisol’s collarbone.

SLAP.

Marisol’s head snaps back against the turnbuckle. Morgan sets her feet and delivers a second backhand chop with full hip rotation. The blistering crack rings off the rafters. Marisol grits her teeth in fury as bright crimson welts instantly bloom across her pale chest.

Morgan grabs Marisol by the wrist and whips her across the ring. Marisol hits the opposite turnbuckle hard, chest-first. The impact knocks the wind from her, and she rebounds off the padding, staggering blindly backward into the corner.

Morgan meets her there. She grabs the back of Marisol’s neck and drives a vicious knee straight into her solar plexus.

OOF.

Morgan pulls her back and drives a second knee into the exact same bruised rib tissue. Marisol’s legs turn to water. She slumps against the bottom pad, gasping for air, clutching her stomach. Morgan backs off two paces, cold and unbothered, leaving the champion crumpled in a heap.

The Municipal Auditorium roars in approval. Morgan doesn’t look at them.

She steps forward, grabs Marisol’s forearm, and hauls her dead weight out of the corner. Morgan hooks the head, runs forward, and snaps off a tight headlock takedown, dragging Marisol hard onto her side and cinching in a suffocating side headlock.

Garrett drops to his knees, eyes glued to the mat to verify Marisol’s shoulder blades aren’t pinned flat.

Marisol’s eyes bulge. Her manicured fingernails dig violently into Morgan’s forearms, scratching and clawing for leverage, but Morgan leans her full body weight over the head, locking her hands together like an iron vise. Morgan’s breathing is steady, controlled, unrelenting.

The fans start clapping in time with the struggle, pounding their boots against the risers:

CLAP. CLAP. CLAP. CLAP.

Marisol fights through the suffocation. She digs the toes of her boots into the canvas, inching her hips underneath her center of gravity. Finding a sliver of leverage, Marisol winds up and slams a hard elbow back into Morgan’s ribs.

Morgan winces. Marisol drives a second elbow directly into the same spot.

The grip breaks. Morgan rolls away across the canvas, breathing hard. Both women scramble to their feet in unison, Marisol aggressively rubbing her neck to work the blood back into her head.

Morgan lunges forward, looking to catch her off guard with a spinning backfist—but she over-rotates, telegraphing the swing.

Marisol ducks underneath the spinning arm. As Morgan turns through empty air, Marisol leaps off her planted foot and cracks a blistering enzuguri against the base of Morgan’s skull.

THUD.

Morgan drops straight to both knees, eyes glazed and limbs heavy.

Marisol stands tall, rolling her shoulders with haughty disdain and flipping her dark hair out of her eyes. She grabs Morgan by the hair, dragging her violently to her feet, hooks the head, and snaps her down with a crisp snap suplex.

Morgan’s spine crashes hard against the boards. She arches back in raw agony, clutching her shoulder.

Marisol drops straight down into a lateral press, hooking the far leg.

ONE…

TWO—NO!

Morgan powers her shoulder off the canvas.

Marisol slams her open palm onto the mat in pure frustration.

MARISOL: Stay down!

Marisol yanks Morgan up by her shirt and hair, locks her in a front facelock, leaps, and drives her head down with a spiking DDT. Morgan’s forehead bounces off the mat, leaving her sprawled flat on her back, staring blankly into the arena lighting.

Marisol hooks the leg again, pressing her chest down with full arrogance.

ONE…

TWO—NO!

Morgan kicks out with authority. Her jaw sets hard, eyes blazing with furious focus.

Marisol sits back on her knees, hands on her hips, glaring in utter disbelief that the hometown rookie is still kicking.

Morgan rolls onto her hip, digging her toes in to push up to one knee. Marisol sees the opening and charges in to stomp her back down, but Morgan explodes upward from the mat, pivoting on her good leg to whip a devastating roundhouse kick flush into Marisol’s ribs.

CRACK.

Marisol bends double, folding over her midsection in agony.

Morgan pounces instantly, sprinting forward and launching into a standing moonsault. But Marisol’s ring instincts kick in—she curls inward, rolling away just enough that Morgan’s torso only grazes her side on the descent.

Morgan lands clean on her feet, shakes the sting out of her arms, and snatches Marisol’s left arm before the champion can fully roll clear.

She pulls Marisol up and snaps her over with the first vertical suplex. She keeps the hips locked. Rolls her through. Hauls her vertical again and drives her down with the second suplex. Still holding the waistline, Morgan powers her up one more time and plants her into the canvas with the third suplex of the Three Amigos.

Marisol lies completely crumpled, sucking wind through open teeth.

Morgan sits up slowly. The physical toll of three consecutive deadlifts hits her instantly—she grabs her bad left shoulder, grimacing as she rolls the joint in small, painful circles, her chest heaving for oxygen.

The New Orleans crowd stands up en masse, roaring their support.

Morgan hauls Marisol up by the collar, pulling her into a front facelock to set the stage for the finish. But Marisol digs her feet into the mat and shoves Morgan violently across the ring toward the ropes.

Morgan hits the ropes and rebounds. Marisol staggers past her, back turned, trying to catch her breath.

Morgan doesn’t let her breathe. She reaches out, snatches Marisol’s right wrist, whips the champion around, and detonates the sole of her boot straight into Marisol’s jaw with ZEPHYR KICK (Super Kick)!

SMACK.

Marisol’s head violently whips around. Her eyes roll into the back of her skull as she crumples in a lifeless heap on the mat.

Morgan crawls across the canvas, hooks the far leg, and leans her weight down.

ONE…

TWO…

THR—NO!

Marisol’s arm flails up, barely clearing the canvas a split-second before the three!

Morgan sits up, staring down at the champion. No panic. No visible frustration. Just cold, venomous focus.

MORGAN: Get up.

Morgan grabs Marisol by the jersey, dragging the dead weight of the champion toward the ropes to force her up. Marisol’s fingers desperately hook the top rope to keep from falling. Morgan steps in and uncorks a sharp chop across Marisol’s chest.

Desperate, Marisol clings to the top rope with one hand while grabbing Morgan’s arm, trapping it awkwardly over the rope.

Garrett slides between them to break the tangle.

GARRETT: Break it! She’s in the ropes, break it off!

Garrett’s broad torso positions directly between Morgan and Marisol, completely screening his view of Marisol’s free left hand.

Marisol doesn’t hesitate. She curls two fingers and drags them viciously across Morgan’s open eyes.

Morgan lets out a sharp, ragged gasp. Her hands fly straight to her face, blinding tears instantly flooding her vision.

Garrett steps clear, seeing only Morgan staggering backward with her face buried in her palms. Unaware of the foul, he waves his arms for the action to continue.

MARISOL: Enjoy the rewatch, Garrett! But you really should lay off the whiskey. It’s making you a bit…

Marisol motions to his midsection.

MARISOL: …fat.

Morgan stumbles out of the ropes, completely blind, shaking her head violently to clear her vision. Marisol lunges from behind, shoving Morgan hard between the shoulder blades.

Morgan smashes face-first into the turnbuckle padding, sliding down until she sits dazed on the bottom turnbuckle, rubbing at her burning eyes.

Marisol steps in with predatory cruelty. She raises her boot, plants the sole directly across Morgan’s throat, and leans her entire body weight backward on the ropes to drive the air out of her windpipe.

Garrett drops in immediately, bellowing the mandatory five-count.

GARRETT: ONE!

Morgan’s hands claw desperately at Marisol’s boot laces, fighting for an inch of airway.

GARRETT: TWO!

Marisol’s lips curl into a cold, arrogant smirk as she presses harder, crushing the trachea.

GARRETT: THREE!

Morgan’s face flushes a deep, suffocating crimson, but her teeth remain clenched—no tap, no cry, pure stubborn grit.

GARRETT: FOUR!

Marisol steps her boot off the throat at the last possible fraction of a second, raising both hands with theatrical innocence.

Morgan slumps forward onto all fours, hacking and coughing violently as she blinks through the stinging tears.

Marisol doesn’t give her a second to recover. She grabs Morgan by the hair, dragging her upright and hauling her into the center of the ring. Marisol hooks both of Morgan’s arms behind her back, steps in deep, and drives her up and over with a vicious double underhook suplex.

THUD.

Morgan hits the canvas hard and sprawls flat, her right hand instinctively reaching over to clutch her severely jarred left shoulder.

Marisol drapes an arm over Morgan’s chest, leaning across her with casual arrogance.

ONE…

TWO—NO!

Morgan kicks out, thrashing her shoulder off the mat.

Marisol sits up, wiping sweat from her brow, a scowl forming as her eyes dart toward the ringside clock. Time is ticking away.

Marisol hauls Morgan up by the collar once more. She wraps her arm around Morgan’s head, locks in a three-quarter facelock, and violently twists, driving the back of Morgan’s skull and neck down into the canvas with a swinging neckbreaker.

Morgan lies motionless, the impact vibrating through her spine.

Marisol rolls her neck, circles Morgan’s fallen body, and briskly knocks out three crisp jumping jacks right over her opponent’s face.

A deafening cascade of boos showers down from the New Orleans crowd at the blatant disrespect.

On the canvas, Morgan’s vision clears. Her jaw sets. Her fingers slowly curl into tight fists, clawing at the canvas.

Marisol grabs Morgan by the hair, pulling her into a front facelock and reaching deep between the legs to hook the inside thigh. With a grunt of exertion, Marisol heaves Morgan into the air and snaps backward, planting her into the mat with VILAROIZER (Fisherman Suplex)!

Morgan’s shoulder blades crash violently into the ring boards. She lies completely stunned, eyes fixed on the arena ceiling.

Marisol bridges with everything she has, hooking both legs tight.

ONE…

TWO…

THR—NO!

Morgan violently thrashes her good shoulder off the mat, breaking the count with a fraction of a second to spare! The strain shoots white-hot fire through her injured left shoulder, but she stays alive.

Marisol collapses backward onto the canvas, chest heaving, staring up at the roof in sheer fury.

Morgan rolls desperately to her hip, breathing ragged, teeth gritted as her right arm strains to push her battered frame off the canvas.

Both competitors lie tangled on the mat, chests rising and falling in exhaustion.

Marisol rolls to her knees first, pressing a flat palm tight against her bruised floating ribs.

On the opposite side of the canvas, Garrett drops to a crouch beside Morgan, checking her pupils and tracking her breathing. Morgan doesn’t look at him. She lifts her right arm and waves the referee off with a curt flick of her wrist.

The Municipal Auditorium erupts into a thunderous, collective roar, as the hometown fighter struggles up to one knee.

Across the ring, Marisol pulls herself up using the top rope. She leans back, catching her wind, watching Morgan struggle to one knee. Marisol’s eyes drift downward, locking onto the left shoulder sagging loosely from Morgan’s torso.

Her lips purse in theatrical, mocking disgust. She shakes her head slowly, looking out at the front row like she’s witnessing a tragedy.

MARISOL: Look at this. Sad. Honestly, just pathetic. A total disaster, Morgan. You dragged a broken wing into my ring? Against this physique? It’s disgraceful. Low energy. Completely defective. But don’t worry—I’m a generous person, the most generous, so I’m doing these people a favor by putting you out of your misery.

Morgan blinks hard, shaking her head against the lingering chemical fire in her eyes. She drags herself to the ropes, using her good arm to haul her weight upright, squinting through blurred vision toward the center of the ring.

Marisol strolls forward with obnoxious, unearned swagger, stopping just an arm’s length away. She sticks her chin out, sneering down her nose, and casually flicks Morgan’s swollen left shoulder with two fingers.

Tap-tap.

Morgan’s jaw clamps down like iron. Her expression doesn’t crack.

Marisol pounces. She snatches Morgan’s wrist, twists her hips, and cranks the joint violently into a spinning wrist lock.

Morgan’s knees dip instantly. The sudden torque pulls straight through the damaged shoulder ligaments. Before Morgan can adjust her base, Marisol brings a stiff, pointed elbow down directly into the back of the shoulder joint.

CRACK.

Morgan crumples to one knee, a sharp hiss of air escaping through her teeth.

Marisol releases the grip and takes one clean step back, tilting her chin up to admire the carnage.

Marisol reaches down, wraps both hands into Morgan’s hair, and yanks her dead weight up from the mat. She whips Morgan across the ring. Morgan rebounds off the far ropes, her left arm dangling lifeless at her hip.

Marisol steps into the pocket and snaps her over with another crisp snap suplex.

Morgan’s spine slaps the canvas flat. Her injured arm lands hard, trembling uncontrollably against the boards.

Marisol casually hooks the leg.

ONE…

TWO—NO!

Morgan thrashes her good shoulder up.

Marisol doesn’t flinch. She slides immediately to one knee right beside Morgan’s head. She traps Morgan’s injured arm between her thighs, falls back to the canvas, and arches her hips, locking in a cross armbreaker.

Morgan’s spine arches off the mat in pure shock. Her heels kick at the boards, her free right hand clawing desperately at the canvas for friction.

Garrett drops down flat on his stomach, his face inches from Morgan’s cheek.

GARRETT: Do you want to give it up, Morgan? You want to quit?

Morgan shakes her head once, violent and curt, her teeth clenched so hard the muscles in her temples bulge.

Marisol drives her hips higher. She levers back with everything she has, hyperextending the elbow and ripping the sore shoulder joint outward. Morgan’s chest heaves in ragged bursts. The fingers on her trapped left hand curl and twitch, unable to form a fist against the blinding nerve pain.

Garrett checks her eyes again.

GARRETT: You still in this? Talk to me!

Morgan glares blindly at the overhead arena lighting, silent.

Marisol turns her head toward the ringside seats, her lips mouthing a silent figure—appraising Morgan’s broken body like a cheap piece of liquidated inventory.

The Municipal Auditorium erupts, fans leaping out of their seats to pound on the railings:

MOR-GAN!

Morgan digs her right heel into the canvas. She arches her hips, dragging her body an inch to the left.

Marisol answers with a short, brutal yank, hauling Morgan right back into the center of the ring.

Morgan refuses to die. Straining every muscle in her core, she extends her right leg as far as it will reach, blindly sweeping her boot outward until the heel hooks the bottom rope.

Garrett points directly at the tangle.

GARRETT: Rope break! Break the hold! ONE!

Marisol leans back harder, deliberately wrenching the arm past the bell.

GARRETT: TWO! Let it go, Marisol!

GARRETT: THREE!

Garrett puts his hands on Marisol’s shoulders to physically pry her off before she finally releases the joint, rolling backward onto her knees with a satisfied smirk.

Morgan rolls onto her right side, curling into a tight ball, cradling her throbbing left arm against her ribs.

Marisol gets to her feet and immediately drops into a crisp, rhythmic rhythm of jumping jacks, showing off her pristine cardio to the hostile crowd.

She marches over, grabs Morgan by the collar, and drags her to her feet, shoving her spine hard into the turnbuckles. Morgan hits the pad and sags forward, completely drained.

Marisol lifts her right boot, wedges the sole across Morgan’s windpipe, and leans her full body weight into the top rope to choke the life out of her.

GARRETT: Break it! ONE!

Morgan’s right hand grabs weakly at Marisol’s ankle, but her fingers have no purchase.

GARRETT: TWO!

Marisol bears down, driving the sole deeper into the throat.

GARRETT: THREE!

Marisol steps off smoothly, raising both palms to Garrett in mock innocence. Garrett aggressively waves her back toward the center of the ring. Morgan slides down the corner post until she hits the canvas, coughing violently and hacking for air.

Marisol steps right back in and drives a brutal, downward stomp straight into Morgan’s compromised shoulder.

THUMP.

Morgan’s lungs empty in a ragged, hollow gasp—pain tearing through her chest, but not a single scream.

Marisol reaches down, snatches Morgan’s hair, and drags her away from the turnbuckles.

Out of nowhere, Morgan winds up with her good right arm and fires a stiff backhand chop across Marisol’s chest.

SLAP.

Marisol blinks, startled, stumbling back a half-step.

Morgan steps in with her right foot and cracks a second chop across the bruised red flesh of Marisol’s collarbone.

Before Marisol can reset, Morgan lunges and buries a vicious knee strike deep into Marisol’s midsection.

OOF.

Marisol doubles over with a guttural grunt of pure outrage.

Morgan pivots on her heel and unleashes a thunderous roundhouse kick straight into Marisol’s exposed ribs.

CRACK.

Marisol drops hard to one knee, both arms clutching her battered ribs.

Morgan sways on her feet, the dead weight of her left arm pulling her off balance.

The arena roars, the volume swelling as Morgan forces her heavy boots forward, closing in on the wounded champion.

Marisol flails with a desperate, lazy backhand chop. Morgan leans out of the way. But as Morgan moves in to capitalize, Marisol drops her hips to the mat and whips her leg in a low sweep, kicking Morgan’s ankles out from under her.

Morgan’s boots fly out. She crashes flat onto her back, the remaining air driven violently from her lungs.

Marisol sits back, rolls her shoulders with a grimace, and glares up at the ceiling. She climbs to her feet, casually tucks her hair behind her ears, walks over to Morgan’s fallen frame, and plants the sole of her boot arrogantly across Morgan’s sternum.

Garrett drops to the canvas to count the disrespect.

ONE—NO!

Morgan’s right hand shoots up, violently shoving the boot off her chest.

Marisol’s eyes flare with venom. She reaches down, grabs Morgan’s right wrist, and shoves her heavy boot sole directly into Morgan’s jawline. She hauls Morgan upright by the wrist alone, violently pulling the compromised shoulder to full extension.

Morgan’s skin turns ghostly pale, her eyes glazing over as the joint stretches.

Marisol holds the arm taut and drives her boot heel straight into Morgan’s cheek.

THUD.

She lifts her foot and stomps the face a second time.

CRACK.

Marisol pulls the arm tighter and brings the sole crashing down a third time, violently bouncing the back of Morgan’s skull off the canvas with VILAROFIT FACIAL (Wrist-Held Boot Stomps)!

Morgan lies motionless. Her eyes are open, staring dead ahead, completely blank.

Marisol falls across her chest, hooking the leg with heavy arrogance.

ONE…

TWO—NO!

Morgan’s good shoulder twitches off the canvas, breaking the plane by an inch at two.

Marisol sits bolt upright, staring down at Morgan in pure disbelief.

She shakes her head, drops straight down onto the canvas next to Morgan’s limp body, and rips through three rapid-fire push-ups.

A wave of deafening boos crashes over the ring.

Beside her, Morgan’s fingers blindly scrape against the canvas, scratching the mat, searching for the bottom rope.

Marisol pops back to her feet, flexes both biceps for the hostile audience, and flashes Grade Garrett a bright, plastic smile.

MARISOL: Count faster next time.

Garrett glares at her, his lips a thin, silent line.

Marisol reaches down and drags Morgan up to her knees by the neck. She slides behind her, reaches under the armpits, and wraps her arms around Morgan’s throat, locking her fingers together in a suffocating ground cobra clutch.

She wrenches Morgan’s head backward. Morgan’s eyelids squeeze shut against the pressure.

MARISOL: Tap out this time. Or are you waiting for a replay?

Garrett drops flat to the canvas, yelling into Morgan’s face.

GARRETT: Do you want to submit? Are you giving it up?

Morgan gives one slow, stubborn shake of her head, a thick blue vein pulsing furiously against her right temple.

Marisol snarls. She drives her knee directly between Morgan’s shoulder blades, leveraging her entire upper body backward to close the trachea completely.

Morgan’s thrashing abruptly dies. Her torso goes slack. Her chin drops limp against her chest, her body unresponsive.

Garrett immediately steps in to check her consciousness. He takes Morgan’s right arm, raises it six inches above the mat, and lets go.

The arm drops limp.

THUD.

ONE…

The crowd bellows in terror, a surging, deafening roar trying to wake their hometown fighter:

MOR-GAN!

Marisol licks her dry lips, leaning back with everything she has to grind the hold deeper.

Garrett lifts the right arm a second time and lets it fall.

It hits the canvas like dead weight.

TWO…

Garrett takes Morgan’s wrist and raises it for the third and final check. He lets go.

The arm drops.

Halfway down, Morgan’s fingers violently snap into a white-knuckled fist.

The descent stops dead in mid-air.

Morgan’s eyelids snap open—bloodshot, wild, locked onto nothing. Her right arm twitches with sudden adrenaline. She winds up and slams her elbow straight back into Marisol’s fractured ribs.

CRACK.

Marisol grunts in agony, her grip slipping an inch.

Morgan winds up and drives a second elbow directly into the same bruised bone.

The lock shatters. Morgan pitches forward onto her hands and knees, sucking down air in harsh, rattling gasps. Behind her, Marisol scrambles backward across the canvas like a wounded animal, clutching her ribs with a vicious snarl.

Morgan fights up to one knee, swaying dangerously.

Marisol sees her vulnerability, forgets her pain, and lunges forward to snatch her back.

Morgan anticipates it. She catches Marisol’s neck in a tight front facelock with her good arm, leaves her feet, and violently spikes Marisol face-first into the boards with LAFITTE’S LAST CALL (Snap DDT)!

BANG.

Marisol’s forehead bounces off the canvas. Her limbs go entirely slack.

Morgan rolls flat onto her back, staring blindly at the arena lights, chest heaving like a bellows.

Garrett crouches between the two motionless bodies.

Gritting her teeth through blinding pain, Morgan rolls onto her right hip and drapes her good arm across Marisol’s chest, hooking the far leg.

ONE…

TWO—NO!

Marisol’s foot instinctively kicks upward, dislodging the pin at two.

Morgan collapses sideways onto the canvas, lying cheek-down on the mat, drawing ragged, shallow breaths.

The Municipal Auditorium stands as one, the roar shaking the rafters.

Both women lie tangled on the canvas, neither capable of moving for several long seconds.

Morgan is the first to find her feet. She staggers upright, wiping sweat and tears from her burning eyes with the back of her right wrist. She grabs Marisol by the arm, hauling the dead weight of the champion off the mat.

Marisol turns her head away, refusing to meet Morgan’s gaze.

Morgan steps in and whips a sharp leg kick across Marisol’s hamstring.

Marisol’s knee buckles hard. Sensing the end, Marisol uses her own falling body to obstruct Garrett’s line of sight, reaches out with both hands, snatches a fistful of Morgan’s hair, and violently yanks her straight down to the canvas.

Morgan’s head snaps back against the boards. Marisol drops her entire body across Morgan in a frantic flash cover.

Garrett pivots, drops to his knees, and slaps the mat.

ONE…

TWO—NO!

Morgan kicks out with violent force.

Marisol slaps the canvas in pure rage, glaring up at Garrett with murder in her eyes.

Both competitors roll away, dragging themselves across the canvas toward opposite turnbuckles.

Morgan pulls herself up using the ropes, her left shoulder drooping heavily.

In the opposite corner, Marisol hauls herself upright, clutching her side.

High above the entrance ramp, the digital arena clock flashes: 05:00 REMAINING.

Morgan clamps her right hand over her throbbing left shoulder, her breathing steadying as her boots find their stance.

Across the ring, Marisol wipes blood and sweat from her lower lip with the back of her wrist, quickly patting her disheveled hair back into place.

They push off from their corners and march toward each other, battered, bleeding, and bruised.

They collide at center ring, chest to chest, eyes locked, as Act II comes to a close.

The digital clock above the entrance ramp clicks down: 05:00 REMAINING.

Both women meet at the center of the ring, separated by barely twelve inches of canvas. Neither moves. Both are running on fumes, battered and swelling. Morgan swallows hard, her bruised trachea catching with a dry, rattling rasp. Marisol’s hand instinctively drifts toward her cracked ribs, but she catches herself, snatches her fingers away, and straightens her spine.

Marisol snaps a stiff forearm across Morgan’s left cheekbone.

SMACK.

Morgan absorbs it and answers with an open-palm backhand chop directly across Marisol’s chest.

SLAP.

Marisol fires right back with a second forearm. Morgan’s head violently snaps sideways. Morgan plants her lead boot and drives another blistering chop across the raw, welted tissue of Marisol’s collarbone. The crack rings off the concrete walls.

Marisol retaliates instantly, driving a loaded forearm flush into Morgan’s jawline.

Morgan doesn’t blink. She drops her weight and whips a vicious shin kick straight into Marisol’s inner thigh.

THWACK.

Marisol’s base gives out. Her leg buckles inward. She sags sideways into the ropes, fingers frantically knotting into the top rope to keep from falling. Morgan wipes burning sweat and grit from her eyes with the back of her wrist, steps in, and sinks a second chopping kick into the exact same bruised nerve.

Marisol drops hard to one knee, her mouth gaping in a silent snarl of pure outrage.

Morgan takes two measured steps back. No rush. She lets the champion claw her way back up. Marisol staggers upright, groggy and disoriented, her back turned to the center of the ring.

Morgan explodes forward. She hits the ropes, rebounds at full speed, wraps her arm around Marisol’s neck, and drives her face-first into the boards with a running bulldog.

THUD.

Marisol’s forehead smashes the canvas. She lies sprawled flat on her stomach, arms wide.

Morgan scrambles across the mat, rolls Marisol over, and hooks the outside leg.

ONE…

TWO—NO!

Marisol thrashes her shoulder up at two.

Morgan remains on her knees. Her left hand clamps tight over her throbbing shoulder socket, her eyes darting up to the digital numbers burning above the ramp.

04:00 REMAINING.

Morgan pulls Marisol upright by the neck, locks her in a deep side headlock, and drops her hips to grind the champion down to the mat. Marisol’s face contorts. Her manicured fingernails dig violently into Morgan’s forearm, scratching at the flesh to break the grip.

Morgan’s injured shoulder quivers under the mechanical strain. Her jaw sets hard, burying the agony behind a cold, unblinking glare.

The New Orleans crowd claps in a heavy, rhythmic cadence:

CLAP. CLAP. CLAP. CLAP.

Marisol reaches blindly behind her head, finding the damaged shoulder joint, and drives her thumbs directly into the inflamed ligaments.

Morgan’s grip wavers. A sharp hiss whistles through her clenched teeth.

Marisol twists her hips, wrenches her neck free, and scrambles across the canvas on her hands and knees.

Both women push up to their feet at the exact same instant. Morgan lunges inside, wraps both arms tight around Marisol’s waist, and scoops her horizontally across her hip. She pivots on her good leg, spins 180 degrees through the air, and violently slams the champion spine-first into the canvas with BOURBON STREET BREAKDOWN (Swinging Side Slam)!

BANG.

Morgan crumples sideways beside her, clutching her left shoulder. Her face goes entirely white from the shock wave tearing through the joint.

Biting through the pain, Morgan drags her dead weight over, draping her right arm across Marisol’s chest to hook the leg.

ONE…

TWO—NO!

Marisol kicks out again, rolling her hip to clear the mat.

Morgan’s fist smacks the canvas in raw frustration, her teeth grinding together. She forces herself up, grabs Marisol by the arm, and drives another stiff kick into her thigh.

Marisol stumbles back, clutching the top rope for balance.

Morgan winds up and whips a heavy roundhouse kick—but Marisol reads the trajectory. She catches the incoming boot against her hip, steps inside, and sweeps Morgan’s planted leg out from beneath her.

Morgan crashes flat on her spine, the breath knocked clear out of her lungs.

Marisol drops immediately across Morgan in a lateral press. With Garrett focused on the shoulder blades, Marisol swings both boots back and hooks them directly over the middle rope for illegal leverage.

Garrett hits the mat to count, his eyes sweeping the perimeter. He spots the boots hooked on the ropes and immediately waves off the pinfall.

GARRETT: No! Off the ropes!

Garrett shoves Marisol’s boots hard off the rope, leaning in to deliver a sharp, vocal reprimand. Marisol breaks the cover, scrambles to her feet, and scowls furiously into Garrett’s face.

03:00 REMAINING.

Marisol spins away from the referee, leaps, and drives a pointed elbow drop directly into Morgan’s sternum.

Without missing a beat, Marisol drops flat to the canvas beside Morgan’s gasping body and knocks out three rapid-fire push-ups.

A storm of boos cascades down from the arena risers.

Morgan hacks out a dry, choked cough, rolling desperately toward the sanctuary of the ropes.

Marisol pounces. She snatches Morgan’s left ankle, steps her own leg over the knee, and cranks Morgan over onto her stomach. She sits deep into the lumbar spine, cinching in a punishing half Boston crab.

Morgan’s spine bows upward. Her fingernails scrape violently against the canvas. Her throat is completely raw, her breath pulling in short, agonizing gasps.

Garrett slides across the mat, dropping right beside Morgan’s face.

GARRETT: Do you want to stop it? You want to quit?

Morgan shakes her head with stubborn ferocity, a thick vein bulging along her temple.

Marisol leans all of her weight back onto the spine, casually turning her head to mouth an arrogant price figure to the fans in the front row.

Morgan tries to post up on her elbows to push herself forward, but her left shoulder gives out entirely, collapsing her flat to the canvas. Teeth bared, she claws forward with her right hand, dragging her torso an inch toward the ropes.

Marisol plants her boots and heaves Morgan back to the center of the ring.

Morgan stretches her right arm out, fingertips straining—and on the second desperate reach, her hand clamps around the bottom rope.

GARRETT: Rope break! Break it up! ONE!

Marisol bears down, wrenching the spine harder.

GARRETT: TWO!

Marisol steps off the hold at three. She gets to her feet and rolls her neck with casual indifference.

Morgan rolls onto her side, drawing in ragged, shallow breaths.

Marisol reaches down, hauls Morgan up by the hair, and snatches her wrist. She plants her base and drives her boot toward Morgan’s jaw to set up VILAROFIT FACIAL (Wrist-Held Boot Stomps)—

Morgan reads the lift. She lunges upward and drives her knee hard into Marisol’s bruised ribs.

Marisol folds instantly, clutching her midsection with a strangled gasp.

Morgan grabs Marisol’s wrist with her good right arm, turns her hips, and whips the champion across the ring into the corner with every ounce of strength left in her body.

Marisol’s back slams into the turnbuckle pads. She slumps against the cushions, her eyes narrowing as she sees Morgan charging across the canvas at full sprint.

Morgan lunges into the corner.

At the final split-second, Marisol drops flat to the mat and rolls out under the bottom rope to the arena floor.

Morgan crashes full-speed into the corner, driving her injured left shoulder straight into the steel turnbuckle pad.

THUD.

Morgan rebounds off the padding, staggering backward across the ring, clutching her shoulder joint with both hands. She grimaces, violently waving the agony off, then paces a slow circle with her head down, blinking rapidly to clear her head. She cups her bruised throat with her right hand, her left arm dangling lifeless at her side, rolling her neck once to shake the rust.

Garrett steps between the ropes, leaning over to begin the mandatory count on the champion.

GARRETT: ONE!

Marisol crouches on the arena floor, both hands pressed against her battered ribs.

GARRETT: TWO!

02:00 REMAINING.

Marisol limps along the ring apron toward the timekeeper’s table.

GARRETT: THREE!

Marisol reaches out and snatchers the Crucible Championship directly off the table. The timekeeper jerks back in alarm.

Marisol tucks the gold belt firmly under her arm and begins a leisurely walk along the ringside edge toward the entrance ramp, casually trailing her free hand along the ring apron.

GARRETT: FOUR!

Morgan grips the top rope with her right hand, chest heaving, watching Marisol stroll away. She glances up at the digital clock above the ramp: 02:00. Her eyes snap back to Marisol’s back with cold fury.

GARRETT: FIVE!

Morgan sprints the width of the ring, hits the ropes, and drops into a flat baseball slide beneath the bottom rope, crashing hard onto the concrete floor.

Marisol turns just as Morgan grabs her by the collar from behind. The Crucible title slips from Marisol’s arm, clattering against the steel barricade.

GARRETT: SIX!

Morgan sets her feet and drives a loaded haymaker straight into the side of Marisol’s temple.

CRACK.

Morgan winds up and rains a second vicious haymaker across the back of Marisol’s skull.

Marisol’s knees buckle under her. She lunges forward, grabbing the apron skirt to stay upright.

GARRETT: SEVEN!

Morgan wraps both arms around Marisol’s waist, deadlifts her off the concrete, and heaves her violently back into the ring.

Marisol skids across the canvas, clutching her face in agony.

GARRETT: EIGHT!

Morgan pulls herself onto the apron, slips through the ropes, and wobbles as she plants her boots on the ring boards.

Garrett waves off the count at nine.

Morgan strides forward, grabs Marisol by the jersey, and shoves her back-first into the corner. Morgan grabs the ropes for leverage and drives a heavy knee strike into Marisol’s midsection. She pulls back and buries a second knee into the exact same bruised ribs.

Marisol slumps against the pad, wheezing for air.

The Municipal Auditorium roars in anticipation as Morgan drags Marisol out of the corner into open space.

Frustration takes over. Morgan winds up for a big roundhouse kick—and telegraphs the swing.

Marisol catches the incoming leg against her hip, drops her hips to the mat, and falls backward into a heel hook, violently torquing the ankle and knee.

Morgan’s face drains of color. Her mouth falls open in a silent grimace of agony.

Garrett drops to his knees right beside her head.

GARRETT: You giving up, Morgan? You want out?

Morgan shakes her head violently, her palms clawing at the ring canvas.

Marisol leans back, tilting her chin up to monitor the arena clock.

Morgan’s trapped leg locks completely rigid, her breathing hitching in her chest. She twists her hips onto her side, loads her free leg, and drives her heel straight into Marisol’s face.

SMACK.

Marisol loses her grip and rolls backward across the mat, clutching her broken nose.

Both competitors lie flat on their backs, chests heaving in ragged bursts.

01:00 REMAINING.

The digital display flashes the final minute. Marisol is the first to roll to her knees. She wipes her nose with the back of her hand and checks her fingers for blood.

Morgan drags herself up to one knee, putting weight on her strained leg to test the joint.

Marisol scrambles to her feet, her eyes darting to the clock.

MARISOL: Sixty seconds, Morgan. I keep the title.

Marisol immediately begins backpedaling around the perimeter of the ring, forcing Morgan to chase.

Morgan stalks forward, jaw clenched tight, her damaged leg dragging slightly with each heavy stride. She closes the distance, shoves Marisol against the ropes, and fires a hard chop across her chest.

Marisol absorbs the blow, hooks the top rope with both hands, and slips laterally out of the pocket.

Morgan spins and snaps a blistering roundhouse kick flush into Marisol’s ribs.

CRACK.

Marisol folds double with an agonizing gasp.

Morgan doesn’t let her breathe. She hits the ropes, scoops Marisol up in mid-stride, and detonates her into the canvas with a running powerslam.

BOOM.

Marisol’s spine bounces hard off the mat. She lies stunned, staring at the lights.

Morgan collapses across her chest, hooking the far leg.

ONE…

TWO—NO!

Marisol kicks out at two.

Morgan sits up, shaking her head, clamping down hard on her own frustration.

00:50 REMAINING.

Garrett steps toward the ropes, waving furiously at the timekeeper, who is leaning over pointing at the Crucible belt abandoned outside by the barricade.

Both women push themselves upright at center ring.

Morgan swings a backhand chop across Marisol’s chest.

SLAP.

Marisol answers with a stiff forearm across Morgan’s jaw.

THUD.

Morgan fires a second chop that rocks Marisol back on her heels.

SLAP.

Marisol returns a forearm that snaps Morgan’s head to the side.

THWACK.

Morgan steps in and buries a knee strike deep into Marisol’s solar plexus.

Marisol recoils and drives a forearm directly into Morgan’s temple.

Morgan swings another vicious chop, and Marisol takes the impact with her teeth bared in pure venom.

00:40 REMAINING.

Garrett’s back remains turned toward the ropes.

Marisol sets her feet. She pulls her hip back and drives a vicious thrust kick straight between Morgan’s thighs.

Morgan’s eyes bulge. The air evacuates her lungs in a hollow, hoarse gasp as her torso folds in half.

Marisol instantly rakes all five fingers across Morgan’s open eyes.

Morgan staggers backward, both hands clamped desperately over her burning face.

Garrett turns back toward the center, seeing only Morgan reeling blind across the ring.

MARISOL: Pay up.

Marisol grabs Morgan’s wrist and violently whips her across the ring.

Morgan smashes into the turnbuckles, dazed, her upper body propped upright against the pads.

Marisol charges across the canvas. She drops into a handspring, rebounds off the mat, and violently plants her back elbow flush into Morgan’s jaw with VILARO EXPERIENCE (Corner Handspring Elbow)!

CRACK.

Morgan’s skull bounces hard against the turnbuckle padding. She rebounds off the corner, staggering forward on completely rubber legs.

00:30 REMAINING.

Morgan stumbles blindly out of the corner, her knees buckling, dropping straight to her hands and knees in the center of the ring.

Garrett steps in immediately.

GARRETT: Morgan, can you see? Talk to me!

Morgan blindly waves him off, blinking furiously through the chemical burn in her eyes.

Across the ring, Marisol backs away, rubbing her fingers together in the international sign for cash.

A wall of boos crashes against the canvas.

Marisol hits the ropes, sprinting forward at full velocity. She charges straight at Morgan, who remains motionless on all fours, launching her body into the air for CRUNCH TIME (Somersault Cutter)—

00:20 REMAINING.

Morgan rolls hard to her left.

Marisol cuts through empty air, somersaulting straight into the canvas.

THUD.

Marisol’s torso bounces violently off the mat.

Morgan springs upward to both feet. The Municipal Auditorium detonates into pure delirium.

The clock reads: 0:20.

Marisol rolls onto her knees, groggy, fighting to stand.

Morgan points a single, rigid finger directly at Marisol’s forehead.

She launches forward.

Morgan grabs Marisol, snaps her forward to a seated position, takes one explosive plant step, and detonates a running knee strike flush through Marisol’s jaw with VOODOO CURSE (Snapmare into Running Knee Strike)!!!

CRACK.

Marisol’s head snaps back, and she crumples lifelessly to the canvas, face-down.

Morgan drops across her back, hooks the leg, and presses her chest down.

Garrett drops to the canvas, his hand slamming into the boards:

ONE…

TWO…

THREE!

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG.

The bell rings. The arena clock freezes dead at 0:16.

MORGAN LECHANCE WINS
PINFALL VICTORY

AND NEW PCW CRUCIBLE CHAMPION

Morgan rolls off Marisol’s limp body and sprawls flat on her back, staring blankly at the overhead lighting, her chest heaving like an engine.

Garrett checks the frozen timekeeper’s clock, nods, and drops to one knee beside Morgan, hauling her right arm into the air.

Morgan’s voice is hoarse, barely a whisper through her bruised throat:

MORGAN: No replay.

The ring announcer’s voice echoes through the arena PA, declaring Morgan LeChance the winner and the brand-new PCW Crucible Champion.

Garrett rolls out to the floor, picks up the Crucible Championship from beside the barricade, slides back inside, and presses the heavy gold belt directly into Morgan’s arms.

Morgan clutches the leather against her chest. She rolls to her knees, her shoulders trembling with overwhelming exhaustion and raw emotion.

Beside her, Marisol lies motionless on the canvas, her manicured fingers clawing feebly at the mat, her lips pressed into a thin, bitter line of shock.

Twelve thousand fans stand on their feet, the roar vibrating through the floorboards.

The curtain parts at the top of the ramp. Jenna Jillian Walker sprints down the entranceway at full speed, slides under the bottom rope, and rushes straight to the center of the ring.

Morgan pulls herself upright, the Crucible Championship clutched tightly in her good right hand. Jenna wraps both arms tightly around Morgan’s neck.

Morgan winces as her battered left shoulder absorbs the weight of the embrace—then tightens her grip, holding on with everything she has left.

Morgan drops the belt down to her side, pulls Jenna close, and kisses her in the center of the canvas.

The Municipal Auditorium erupts in a deafening, final roar as the celebration rolls on.

SEGMENT

THE NIGHT QUEEN

ASHLYN GRACE

Darkness swallows the room whole.

No lights, no windows, just the low flicker of a single white candle held at chest height, its flame the only thing alive in the black. It paints her in sharp, cruel edges, Ashlyn Grace, standing motionless against a cold cinderblock wall, the flame dancing across her skin like it already knows her name.

Long, wet-looking black hair clings to her shoulders and collarbones, heavy with the damp of the room. Her face is half-lit, half-swallowed, heavy black eyeliner, a silver septum ring catching the light, lips parted just enough to show she isn’t smiling. Around her throat sits a thick black leather choker studded with silver grommets. The top is electric blue snakeskin under harsh black leather, cut low and edged in silver studs and rings, the cups pushing her chest forward while a sharp black point dips between them.

Below the midriff, matching black-and-blue bottoms sit low on her hips, more studs glinting, white and blue accents cutting across the front like blades. Fishnet stockings stretch over her legs, disappearing into tall, glossy black boots that lace tight up the calves, boots that already look like they’ve walked through worse than this room.

One hand rests against the wall, white nails visible. The other holds the candle steady. The flame doesn’t waver. She doesn’t either.

Her voice cuts through the quiet, low and clear, almost conversational.

ASHLYN GRACE: I told you I was coming.

She takes a slow step forward. The bootheel clicks once on concrete.

ASHLYN GRACE: PCW. Pretty little place you’ve got here. Clean, safe, full of people who still think the lights stay on when they walk in.

The candle tilts slightly, the shadow of her hair stretches up the wall behind her.

ASHLYN GRACE: I have arrived. No invitation, no warm-up. Just me.

Another step. The flame flutters but holds.

ASHLYN GRACE: And Willow… you’re first.

Her eyes stay locked just past the camera, like she’s already looking through the ring at her.

ASHLYN GRACE: You don’t know me, that’s fine, you will. I’ve watched the way you move, the way you smile when the crowd still believes in you. It’s cute, really, I’m going to take that from you first. Then I’m going to take the rest. Piece by piece, until the only thing left of you is the sound you make when you realize this isn’t a match. It’s only just the beginning of the reign of the Night Queen.

The candle rises a little higher. Blue light and black leather gleam. The studs on her top catch like tiny teeth.

ASHLYN GRACE: PCW isn’t ready for me, not the roster, not the fans, especially not you. Doesn’t matter, ready or not… I’m here.

She leans in, the flame almost touching her chin, voice dropping lower.

ASHLYN GRACE: And now the fun really begins.

Her lips purse, one soft, deliberate breath. The flame dies.

Total black.

For a second there is nothing then the sound of those black boots turning, the heavy, measured click of heels on concrete as she walks away. The sound grows fainter, then fainter still, until even the echo is gone and the room is empty again.

Just the dark, and the knowledge that “Night Queen” Ashlyn Grace has arrived.

SEGMENT

WILL FARRELL

After an exciting pre-show that undoubtedly warmed up the crowd, the main card opens with “You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid” by The Offspring blaring out of the loudspeakers. Willow Farrell walks out, her skateboard under her arm and the MWE Junior Heavyweight championship strapped around her waist..

She doesn’t rush tonight, she doesn’t skate down the ramp. She walks slowly, soaking in the reaction of the PCW fans, which seems to be mostly positive. Eventually the Skater Girl enters the ring, microphone in hand.

WILL FARRELL: Hello PCW.. How are you doing? Ready for some action?

The question gets a good pop. A bit cheap and maybe uncharacteristic for Will, but it’s proof of the support she’s earned in her time here.

WILL FARRELL: You know, I’ve been here for a while now, but this is actually the first time I’m standing in front of you to speak, And it’s not because I, all of a sudden, grew shy or because I didn’t have anything to say.

The camera zooms in, catching a faint smirk on her face.

WILL FARRELL: I guess I just wanted to get a lay of the land, so to speak. Figure out who’s who and what’s what. And who’s the biggest bitch in the company.

The noise swells with more cheers, some jeers and a name being shouted above the cacophony of sounds. Marisol Vilaro.

WILL FARRELL: Yeah, I guess we can all agree on that. And don’t worry, we’ll get to her… But first, I wanted to show you guys something.

She unwraps the belt and raises it in the air. The fans react with a roar.

WILL FARRELL: It looks really nice, doesn’t it?

She glances back at the championship as she lowers it.

WILL FARRELL: I just got it recently, it wasn’t planned, it was only my second match in MWE but hey, when the chance is there you gotta take it right?

Willow rests the championship on her shoulder before continuing.

WILL FARRELL: And the same goes for Wrestle League. I had a good run there, came this close to qualify to the Coliseum in my first run there but I came short against the person who might end the night as your new Unleashed Champion, Thaïs Empristikí.

The fans erupt in loud cheers at the mention of the Flame Bringer. Will acknowledges them with a nod.

WILL FARRELL: I haven’t been doing this wrestling thing for a long time, but Thaïs… They’re already starting to shape up as my big white whale. Three times I have been in the ring against them, three times I ended my night staring at the ceiling.

A bitter chuckle escapes her lips. Despite the respect between her and the Greek, those losses obviously sting.

WILL FARRELL: But anyway, I still have a chance to end my first season there with some gold, the Ladder of Success Trophy.

An applause of encouragement grows from the stands Willow lets it die down before she continues.

WILL FARRELL: And yet, if you asked me at the beginning of September which title I thought would be my first championship outside the Academy, my answer would have been, without hesitation, the PCW Crucible Championship- Not because I thought it’d be easier to beat 14 people in one of the most demanding matches I’ve been into, but because I knew I could do it.

She starts pacing the ring.

WILL FARRELL: And I almost did it. Almost. I entered the gauntlet, I thought through it, I made it to the Iron Woman Match against the person we established is the biggest bitch in PCW; Marisol Vilaro.

The cheers immediately turn into boos.

WILL FARRELL: I entered the Iron Woman Match against someone who spent most of the gauntlet hiding under the ring, keeping herself fresh while I put myself through hell. Was what she did legal? I guess it was. Was it smart? As much as I hate to admit it, yes it was. Was it cowardly? Absolutely.

The tone of boos grow louder.

WILL FARRELL: But that wasn’t enough of an advantage for her, was it? She had to blind me with that stupid Muscle Revitalizer to give herself an opening. And then, icing on the cake, she locked her submission with only a few seconds to go.

She points the finger at the entrance. The giant tron suddenly lights up. showing the final moments of the Iron Gauntlet at Unleashed 110. Will watches it, her shoulders tightening as she sees the referee kneeling down to check on her, raising her hand and letting it fall. Once.

And then the bell rang.

WILL FARRELL: Did you see me tap? No.
Did you hear me saying I quit? No you didn’t.
DId you see my arm falling three times? No, only once.

Her tone stays even as she speaks. No anger, no disappointment. Just facts.

WILL FARRELL: The referee decided I had enough, she saw me and thought I was out. Now, I’m not denying that I was in a world of pain and that it looked like I passed out. But I assure you I was perfectly aware of where I was, and of how long I had to hang on for the bell to ring and the match to end. And to everyone who has followed me in the Academy or in Underground, you know that I have done this before. I have played with the clock, I have endured punishment for longer than I should have not because I’m reckless and enjoy suffering but because I know my limits. I know how much more I can take, even when everyone else thinks I should stay down or tap out.

A beat.

WILL FARRELL: So that call? I’m sorry Garrett but it was bullshit. I don’t know why you made it, why you didn’t follow through with the protocol and raised my arm twice more. If it was just concern, which I can appreciate, if you felt pressured because the clock was ticking down and you thought I couldn’t handle the extra time or if that was you tapping out to Marisol screaming in your ear for fifteen minutes which, I mean, I wouldn’t blame you for it…

A few laughter can be heard from various corners of the Arena.

WILL FARRELL: But ending the match was your call, not mine. Giving Marisol the win and putting all of us through the agony that is her reign is on you, my friend. And I don’t know if these people will ever be able to forgive you for it.

The boos rain down. They’re not booing WIllow, they’re just playing into what she’s saying.

WILL FARRELL: But you didn’t hear me complaining. You didn’t see me coming out and throwing a fit, or knocking at Emilia’s door demanding a rematch. That doesn’t mean I don’t want it.

There’s a look of absolute determination on her face as she speaks.

WILL FARRELL: I’m just not the type of girl who goes around asking for favors or permission. If I want something, I take it. And right now, the best way to get that rematch, is to prove that I deserve it.

She waits for the applause to dim before raising the microphone to her lips once again.

WILL FARRELL: So, Marisol? I really hope you win tonight. I hope you can find some cheap, dirty and sleazy way to retain because I want to be the one to end this farce of a reign. I want to be the one taking the title from you, just as I should have done two months ago. I want to be the one who puts you down, and I want to hear every single one of the excuses you’ll make when I beat you.

Willow finally stops her pacing, standing once again in front of the camera.

WILL FARRELL: And Ashlyn? I didn’t forget about you. Welcome to my nightmare. That’s what you said when the match was announced.

She snickers.

WILL FARRELL: That’s so clichè that I almost fell for it and replied with something about me being the Freddy Krueger stalking you in your nightmares. But then I remembered I’m not one of the too many spooky bitches festering this business. Instead, I want to tell you something really simple, wholesome even. Don’t be afraid, because your nightmare ends tonight, Ashlyn.

Her lips curl into a smile.

WILL FARRELL: But my dream? That will live on.

She lowers the mic and hands it over to the ring announcer, waiting for her opponent to come out.

MATCH

THE NIGHT QUEEN

ASHLYN GRACE

vs

WILL FARRELL

REFEREE: NATHAN “ATREYU” MACKAYE

The opening bell sounds, cutting through the low hum of the arena feed. Ashlyn Grace steps out from the blue corner, stalking forward with deliberate, measured strides. Her chin tilts upward, eyes narrow, cold composure radiating off her small frame as she sizes up her target.

Willow Farrell meets her halfway. She saunters straight into Ashlyn’s personal space, arms loose at her sides, flashing a crooked, insolent grin without an ounce of deference.

WILLOW: “Welcome to PCW, your majesty.”

Ashlyn does not speak. She winds up and cracks a blistering backhand chop straight across Willow’s clavicle.

CRACK.

The sound echoes like an axe biting timber. Willow staggers backward into the strands, her pupils blowing wide in genuine shock at the raw, stinging velocity behind the strike. Before Willow can even reset her base, Ashlyn closes the gap and drives a heavy forearm smash straight through the side of her jaw.

Willow’s knees buckle, her upper body slumping hard over the top rope as she clutches the side of her face. Referee Nathan Mackaye immediately wedges his frame between them, raising both hands to bark back the aggressor.

MACKAYE: “Break it clean, Grace! Off the ropes!”

Ashlyn completely disregards the official. She snakes her fingers deep into Willow’s hair, hauls her off the strands by the scalp, and violently whips her across the ring. Willow collides spine-first into the corner turnbuckle pads with a dead thud and instantly crumbles down to her knees, clutching her sternum as she gasps for oxygen.

Ashlyn turns her back on her fallen prey, stepping proudly into the center of the ring. She elevates both arms slowly toward the grid of rafters, drawing the arena’s focus and drinking in the conflicted rumble of boos and uneasy awe rolling off the live feeds.

Behind her, Willow grits her teeth, pulling herself up the turnbuckle ropes hand over hand while glaring pure vitriol into the back of Ashlyn’s skull.

Ashlyn wheels around, lowering her shoulder to charge in for a corner splash—

Willow lunges off the pads, thrusting two stiff fingers straight across the bridge of Ashlyn’s nose into both eyes.

SKRITCH.

MACKAYE: “Hey! Watch the eyes! I’ll disqualify your ass, Farrell!”

Ashlyn lets out a strangled shriek, staggering blindly toward the center circle while clutching both hands over her face. Willow ignores Mackaye’s lecture entirely, ducking through the ropes and scrambling onto the apron. The second Ashlyn peels her palms away from her stinging eyes, Willow springs off the canvas, planting both boots onto the top rope to rebound back inside for the PLAN C (Springboard Roundhouse Kick)—

Ashlyn drops her hips, ducking underneath the swinging boot at the absolute final split-second.

Willow’s leg cuts through empty air. She lands hard on both feet, off-balance, momentum dragging her forward. Ashlyn instantly steps inside, wrapping both arms tight around Willow’s waist, arching her back, and launching her overhead with a vicious belly-to-belly suplex.

THUD.

Willow’s spine slams flat into the timber and canvas. Her body curls inward, hands instantly clawing at her lower lumbar as she thrashes in sharp pain. Ashlyn drops straight over the wreckage into a lateral press, hooking the near shoulder.

Mackaye slides to the mat, palm slapping canvas.

ONE…

TWO…

Willow violently thrusts her shoulder upward, shucking Ashlyn sideways across the ring.

Ashlyn rolls smoothly onto her hips, sitting up with a slow, unsettling smirk creeping onto her lips. She scrambles over Willow’s torso, snagging her neck from the side and locking in a grinding grounded headlock, muscling Willow’s temple down into the canvas to choke out the match’s tempo.

Willow’s eyes squeeze shut in pain as Ashlyn maliciously grinds the sharp bone of her forearm right across the bridge of Willow’s nose. Leaning down, Ashlyn presses her lips close to Willow’s ear, whispering cold, quiet venom while wrenching the cervical lock even tighter.

Mackaye drops down to his belly, shouting directly into the struggle.

MACKAYE: “You giving it up, Farrell? Do you want to quit?”

Willow snaps her head side to side in violent defiance, baring her teeth as she absorbs the grinding torque. Refusing to submit to the squeeze, Willow clenches her right fist, firing short, brutal rabbit punches straight into Ashlyn’s exposed ribcage.

THWACK. THWACK. THWACK.

The targeted blows to the ribs sap Ashlyn’s leverage, forcing her grip to slip. Willow instantly scrambles to her feet, breaking free.

They stand nose-to-nose in the center circle. Willow snaps a stinging open-palm strike flush across Ashlyn’s jaw. Ashlyn snarls, resetting her footing instantly to fire back with a stiff European uppercut that snaps Willow’s skull backward toward the lights.

Willow shakes off the tremor, lunging forward with a heavy forearm smash directly between Ashlyn’s eyes. Before Ashlyn can recover, Willow drives a second forearm right through her jawline, the kinetic force staggering Ashlyn back on her heels until she crashes against the ropes.

Ashlyn drapes her arms over the top rope, blinking hard to clear the fog. As Willow steps in to press the assault, Ashlyn lunges forward with a vicious, sudden headbutt straight into the bridge of Willow’s nose.

CRACK.

Bone collides with cartilage. Both competitors stumble backward in opposite directions, wobbling on jelly legs from the sickening impact. Willow rolls backward under the bottom rope, tumbling out onto the apron while shaking her head violently to fight through the blinding shock.

In the center of the ring, Ashlyn struggles back to an upright stance, arms lowered as she blinks away the static.

Willow spots the lapse. She grabs the top rope, leaps to the nylon, and propels herself inward, whipping her rear heel flush across Ashlyn’s temple—PLAN C (Springboard Roundhouse Kick)!

Ashlyn’s neck twists violently. She drops like severed rope, crashing flat on her back, staring blankly up into the lighting rig as her body goes limp.

Willow falls across Ashlyn’s chest, hooking the leg.

Mackaye dives into the count.

ONE…

TWO…

Ashlyn explodes upward, throwing her left shoulder off the mat with vicious authority.

Willow sits back on her haunches, chest heaving. She wipes a smudge of sweat from her lip, nodding with a crooked smirk—recognizing that the self-proclaimed monarch across from her is just as durable as the hype suggested.

Willow grabs Ashlyn by the hair, dragging her dead weight up from the canvas to keep the pressure on.

Ashlyn’s hand suddenly whips out in desperate survival instinct, delivering a savage backhand chop squarely into Willow’s clavicle.

SMACK.

Air explodes out of Willow’s lungs in a violent wheeze. She collapses to one knee, clutching her upper chest. Ashlyn pounces on the opening, wrapping her arm around Willow’s neck, seizing her wrist, and twisting through the air with violent velocity—MIDNIGHT REIGN (Swinging Neckbreaker)!

Willow’s cervical spine takes the full brunt of the canvas. Her body rebounds off the mat, heels drumming the wood as she claws frantically at the base of her skull.

Ashlyn rolls smoothly through the momentum back up to her feet. Standing over Willow’s writhing body, she casually raises both hands to her temples, adjusting an invisible crown while glaring down at her grounded challenger.

Ashlyn drops down, hooking both of Willow’s thighs tight for the pin.

Mackaye hits the canvas.

ONE…

TWO…

THR—NO!

Willow pops her left shoulder an inch off the canvas at the barest fraction of a second.

Ashlyn stays seated on the canvas, her cold, regal mask slipping for the briefest moment as she glares at Nathan Mackaye in sheer, irritated disbelief.

Ashlyn’s cold, calculated facade shatters into pure malice. Straddling Willow’s hips, she drives her weight down and rains down closed fists directly into Willow’s skull.

CRACK. THUD. THUD.

Willow tucks her chin to her chest, throwing both forearms up to form a frantic shell against the barrage. Ashlyn wrenches Willow’s arms backward, crossing them across Willow’s chest to cinch in a grounded straightjacket choke while driving her knee directly into the lumbar spine.

Willow’s chest heaves violently, her torso bowed backward like a recurve bow as oxygen is crushed from her windpipe. Ashlyn wrenches back on the wrists, burying her mouth near Willow’s ear.

ASHLYN: “You are entirely out of your league. Yield.”

Nathan Mackaye drops flat to his stomach, face inches from the canvas.

MACKAYE: “Give it up, Farrell! Tap out or I’m calling it!”

Willow’s face flushes a mottled crimson. Her neck veins bulge against the canvas, but her jaw locks shut as she thrashes her head side to side in pure, stubborn venom. She refuses to yield.

Planting the rubber soles of her high-tops into the canvas, Willow bridges with everything left in her thighs. She grinds backward against Ashlyn’s center of gravity, rolling her shoulders over and shifting all two hundred and thirty pounds of combined weight back onto Ashlyn’s scapulae.

Mackaye slides into the stack pin.

ONE…

TWO…

Ashlyn unbinds the wrists and thrashes her legs, kicking free of the leverage and scrambling back up to her feet.

Blind with frustration, Ashlyn charges forward, firing a wild, reckless clothesline.

Willow ducks underneath the looping arm. She plants her pivot foot, rotates her hips on a dime, and cracks Ashlyn’s jaw with the first strike of the SWITCHSTANCE COMBO—a spinning backfist!

THWACK.

Ashlyn’s eyes roll white. She stumbles sideways on rubber legs, completely unresponsive. Willow does not wait for a reset. She snaps through the rotational momentum, whipping the point of her elbow flush across the opposite cheekbone to complete the SWITCHSTANCE COMBO!

CRACK.

Ashlyn falls like chopped timber. Her head bounces off the canvas, glazed eyes staring blankly at the dark grid above.

Willow drags her heavy limbs across Ashlyn’s sternum, hooking the far thigh with all her weight.

Mackaye drops his hand.

ONE…

TWO…

THR—NO!

Ashlyn heaves her right shoulder off the timber, surviving on bare autonomic reflex.

Willow sits back on her knees, dragging a forearm across her sweat-streaked forehead. A crooked, battered smirk cuts across her face; the realization sets in that the Night Queen is going to make her drag every single inch out of the fire.

Willow grabs Ashlyn by the hair to haul her upright, but Ashlyn violently shoves two palms into Willow’s collarbone. Willow stumbles backward, losing her footing and crashing hard onto the canvas.

Ashlyn retreats into the turnbuckles, eyes wide, chest heaving like a predator locked in a corner. As Willow staggers back to an upright stance, Ashlyn sprints forward and launches her kneecap directly through Willow’s ribs—ROYAL EXECUTION (Running Knee Strike)!

BOOM.

Willow folds completely in half. The impact hurls her spine to the mat, her hands instantly locking around her cracked ribs as she gasps for breath. Ashlyn drops flat across Willow, hooking the far leg in desperation.

Mackaye slaps the canvas.

ONE…

TWO…

Willow violently thrusts her shoulder off the mat, refusing to bend and refusing to break.

Ashlyn shrieks in sheer disbelief, her composed mask completely shattered.

ASHLYN: “Just stay down!”

Ashlyn drags Willow up by the scalp, hoisting her across her shoulders into a fireman’s carry. Ashlyn extends one arm toward the crowd, setting the balance for the Death Valley Driver—

Willow’s eyes snap open. She drives two heavy, frantic elbows flush into the soft tissue of Ashlyn’s left temple.

THUD. THUD.

Ashlyn’s balance buckles, her grip going slack. Willow slips down Ashlyn’s back, boots finding the canvas.

Before Ashlyn can turn, Willow locks her skull in a tight front facelock, scoops the near thigh, and drives her straight down into the mat—CONCRETE KISS (Cradle DDT)!

CRACK.

Ashlyn’s forehead spikes straight into the canvas, her cervical spine snapping forward before her limp body rolls dead onto her back.

Willow collapses over Ashlyn’s chest, hooking both legs.

Mackaye slides to the mat.

ONE…

TWO…

THREE!

Ding. Ding. Ding.

WILLOW FARRELL WINS
PINFALL VICTORY

Nathan Mackaye calls for the bell and drops down beside Ashlyn, immediately checking the unresponsive competitor before turning to grab Willow’s wrist. Willow stays seated on the canvas for several long seconds, wheezing through bruised ribs and clutching her lower back before allowing the official to haul her arm into the air.

Across the ring, Ashlyn remains draped over the bottom rope, rolling out onto the arena floor where she collapses against the security barrier, clutching her skull in complete, disoriented disbelief as the official announcement echoes through the arena feeds.

SEGMENT

THE IT GIRL

TAYLOR LANDRY

“It Girl” Taylor Landry is in her locker room and adjusting her ring gear while Amethyst Caldwell is standing ominously near the locker room door. Taylor glances over at Amethyst and then stands straight up.

“IT GIRL” TAYLOR LANDRY: I know, I know, Mari can be a bit overly dramatic but she has helped me with my career so much and she is sweeter than what she portrays.

Amethyst Caldwell:If you say so…

“IT GIRL” TAYLOR LANDRY: I will but that isn’t important right now. We saw you dominate Alyssa a couple weeks ago…Not that anyone is shocked. I now get to take the True Grit Championship away from that trifling Benedict Arnold, that trader, that horrible person, Marilyn Matthews.

Amethyst cracks a smile as Taylor walks over to a full length mirror and Taylor makes sure her gear as well as her hair are as she wants it.

“IT GIRL” TAYLOR LANDRY: I have to say I’m so disappointed with how Marilyn has shown her true colors over the last several weeks because I’m usually such a good judge of character. Which is why it’s so clear to everyone now that Marilyn only cares about her True Grit Championship and her own legacy.

Taylor shakes her head in disgust as she begins walking towards her locker room door. Amethyst opens the door for Taylor. Taylor walks through the door and Amethyst follows Taylor into the hallway. The pair begins walking through the hallway.

“IT GIRL” TAYLOR LANDRY: That’s not the person that I thought you are, Marilyn, and clearly I was wrong. So what I’m going to do is take the True Grit Championship away from that selfish bitch so she can truly suffer.

Anger begins to exude from Taylor’s eyes.

“IT GIRL” TAYLOR LANDRY: I know taking that championship away from you absolutely kills you because you hate to see anyone do better than you, Marilyn. But what you have to realize, girl, is that I’m simply better than you. Showing the world that you’re a pathetic fraud is the cherry on top when I add gold to my list of accomplishments.

Taylor smugly smiles.

“IT GIRL” TAYLOR LANDRY: So later tonight while I’m in the French Quarter celebrating my championship victory tonight, your life will continue its downward trajectory into the shambles your life justly deserves. And that is what you call karma…

Taylor smiles as she waves goodbye while she and Amethyst walk away.

+++

MATCH

JENNA JILLIAN WALKER
DELILAH HART
TRAVIS LEVITT

TIGRESS

vs

PCW VOODOO PATCH CHAMPIONS

TAELER VIRELLE
VESPERA NYX
HOPE LEVITT

BLOOD & IVY

SIX-PERSON TAG MATCH

VOODOO PACT CHAMPIONSHIP

REFEREE: STEPHANIE MARSHALL

Ding! The opening bell rings. A deafening roar tears through the building, hands slamming against the steel guardrails as the crowd surges to its feet in full-throated support of the challengers:

LET’S GO TI-GRESS!

Delilah Hart rolls her shoulders and strides out to the center of the canvas, jaw set and hands raised. Across from her, Vespera Nyx glides forward from the champions’ corner, dark eyes locked on her target like a predator closing ground.

Nyx strikes first. She lunges before Delilah can set her base, locking into a violent collar-and-elbow tie-up. Nyx digs her boots into the mat, aggressively muscling Delilah across the ring until the challenger’s spine slams against the turnbuckles in the Blood & Ivy corner.

Nyx drives a stiff forearm straight beneath Delilah’s chin, pressing the throat against the turnbuckle padding with punishing leverage. Delilah chokes, fighting for breath. Referee Stephanie Marshall steps in, chopping her arm to initiate the five-count:

MARSHALL: Break it! One! Two! Three! Four!

At the count of four, Nyx raises both hands and steps back, only to violently drag her fingertips across Delilah’s eyes on the break.

Delilah reels out of the corner blindly, palms clamped over her burning face as she stumbles back toward the center of the ring in agony. Nyx swarms immediately. She hooks Delilah’s head and snaps her over in a swift, sharp suplex. THUD. Delilah’s spine smacks flat against the canvas, driving the wind clean out of her lungs. Delilah arches her back off the mat, gasping for air and clutching her lower spine as the impact registers.

Nyx ignores the pinfall. Cold and dismissive, she grabs Delilah by the collar, hauls her across the mat to the corner, and tags in Taeler Virelle.

Taeler steps through the ropes, unhurried. She refuses to engage right away, slowly circling the grounded Delilah while casting a cold, mocking gaze directly at the Tigress corner. Taeler drops to one knee beside Delilah and slowly drags a single fingertip along the curve of Delilah’s jawline in a disturbing display of psychological control. Disgusted, Delilah violently swats the hand away. From the mat, Delilah whips a desperate, sweeping back heel kick that catches Taeler flush in the ribs.

Taeler grimaces and stumbles back a step, clutching her midsection. It gives Delilah the opening she needs to scramble back to her boots. Delilah charges full tilt with a running clothesline, but Taeler ducks low beneath the arm. As Delilah spins back around, Taeler locks onto her from behind, trapping the neck and arm into a tight standing cobra clutch.

Taeler buries her hips into Delilah’s back, wrenching the hold backward and torquing the pressure directly into Delilah’s jaw and neck. Delilah’s forward momentum stops cold. Her eyes widen in shock as her body stiffens, completely trapped within the vise. Taeler turns her head toward the hard camera, wearing a tranquil, eerie smile as she maintains the hold in the center of the ring. Delilah’s knees buckle, dropping her hard to the mat on one knee. Her face flushes red as she strains against the torque, fighting the blackout, refusing to tap out.

Riding the wave of the roaring crowd, Delilah digs her boots in and forces herself back upright. She drives a hard elbow backward into Taeler’s midsection. A second. A third. The cobra clutch breaks.

Delilah rebounds off the opposite ropes, drops low to the canvas, and fires a basement dropkick directly into Taeler’s kneecap. Taeler crashes face-first to the mat, clutching her joint in sheer frustration as her serene composure cracks.

Delilah dives toward her corner, slapping the outstretched hand of Jenna Jillian Walker.

Jenna enters the ring with methodical discipline. No wasted movement. She stalks forward as Taeler pulls herself up by the strands. Frustrated, Taeler throws a wild forearm strike, but Jenna bats the arm away and drives two stiff palms into Taeler’s chest, shoving her back four paces until Taeler catches her footing near the Blood & Ivy corner. Both women glare across the ring in a tense standoff.

Jenna raises her arm and points a finger straight at Travis Levitt on the apron.

The arena erupts into an ear-splitting roar, the crowd anticipating The Dragon entering the fight. Jenna never breaks eye contact with Taeler as she backs to her turnbuckle and slaps Travis’s hand.

Travis steps over the top rope, rolling his broad shoulders and bringing his heavy, aggressive veteran presence into the ring. Taeler uses the ropes to pull herself upright, looking across the ring at Travis. A toxic smirk spreads across her face. Instead of engaging, Taeler casually steps backward into her corner and slaps the bare palm of Hope Levitt.

Hope climbs through the ropes, bouncing lightly on her toes. But her typical radiant smile is entirely gone, replaced by a cold, vacant stare.

Travis stops dead in the center of the ring. His fists uncurl and fall limp to his sides, the aggressive fire draining from his eyes in an instant, replaced by utter heartbreak.

TRAVIS: Hope, sweetheart… please. You don’t have to do this. Just come back to us.

Hope tilts her head slightly, offering no recognition of her father’s plea. She steps forward in silence.

Without a word, Hope lunges, launching herself into a brutal leaping forearm smash straight to Travis’s jaw! CRACK.

Travis stumbles backward on unsteady legs, hands down, completely unwilling to raise them defensively against his own daughter. A collective gasp ripples through the crowd, plunging the arena into uneasy, shocked murmurs.

Hope swarms her father in the center of the ring, firing off a rapid-fire flurry of sharp kicks to his shins and heavy strikes into his chest. Travis absorbs the blows without returning a single strike, merely turning his frame to shield his face from her onslaught.

Physically able to withstand the assault, but emotionally shattered, Travis turns and scrambles back toward his corner, desperately slapping Jenna’s outstretched hand to tag out.

Travis drops off the apron to the arena floor, pacing wildly along ringside with his hands locked over his head in disbelief.

Jenna Jillian Walker steps toward the center of the canvas. Her jaw is clenched, her normally stoic demeanor hardened into pure fury after watching the attack on Travis Levitt. Across from her, Hope Levitt stares back blankly. The rookie bounces lightly on the balls of her feet, an unsettling, emotionless coil of energy.

Jenna lunges forward to lock up in a collar-and-elbow grapple, but Hope slips under the outstretched arms with blinding speed. Quick and evasive. Hope hits the ropes, springs onto the middle strand, and rebounds back into the ring with a twisting crossbody. THUD. Jenna crashes hard onto her back, the dead weight of the collision driving the air clean from her lungs. She clutches her bruised ribs, grimacing into the canvas.

Hope pops back up to her boots without a single ripple of emotion on her face. Cold. Mechanical. She steps back to the Blood & Ivy corner and slaps Taeler Virelle’s palm.

Taeler steps through the ropes, a smug grin curling her lips. She doesn’t rush. She stalks forward, standing over the grounded powerhouse before driving the hard sole of her boot down into Jenna’s right shoulder. CRACK. Another stomp. Then a third, methodically stomping the joint to compromise Jenna’s arm and take away her submission game. Jenna writhes across the canvas, clutching the throbbing shoulder in pain as Taeler casually backs away.

Taeler reaches the ropes and drapes herself backward over the top strand in her signature Garden Claim pose. Hips arched forward, head falling back, red hair spilling down toward the canvas as she looks down at Jenna with sheer condescension. A deafening wall of boos crashes down from the packed stands, fans screaming hoarsely and rattling the steel guardrails in pure disgust. Taeler drinks in the hatred, slides back upright, and grabs Jenna by a handful of hair, ruthlessly hauling her dead weight across the ring into the champions’ corner.

Taeler slaps the waiting hand of Vespera Nyx.

Nyx steps between the strands. Taeler reaches through from the apron, pinning Jenna’s wrists behind her back against the turnbuckle padding while Nyx steps in and wrenches two fingers into the corner of Jenna’s mouth, applying a vicious fishhook. Jenna thrashes, choked and contorted.

Referee Stephanie Marshall charges in immediately, arm pumping on the count:

MARSHALL: Break the hold! One! Two! Three! Four!

Taeler lets go at the count of four, stepping back with hands raised in mock innocence before dropping down to the apron.

Nyx yanks the disoriented Jenna out of the corner by the collar and drops straight down to the canvas. She wraps her legs around Jenna’s waist in a suffocating body scissors, isolating the damaged right arm and pulling it flush against her chest into a straight armbar.

Nyx arches her spine violently, hyperextending Jenna’s shoulder joint to its absolute physical threshold in the center of the ring.

Jenna screams out in agony. The stoic, unshakeable technician is gone; her legs thrash wildly against the canvas in pure, blind desperation. Nyx licks her lips. She closes her eyes, maintaining the agonizing stretch with a terrifying, serene calm, savoring the pain radiating through her opponent’s frame.

Marshall drops to her knees beside them, shouting over the din:

MARSHALL: Do you want to quit, Jenna? Give it up!

Immobilized by blinding white pain, Jenna shuts her eyes tight, shaking her head furiously. She refuses to tap. Her face turns a dark, congested crimson as the pressure cuts off circulation.

Adrenaline kicks in. Gritting her teeth through the torque, Jenna twists her hips and rolls her weight to the side, leveraging her bulk to pin Nyx’s shoulder blades down against the canvas!

Marshall drops her hand:

ONE—NO!

Nyx instantly abandons the lock and kicks out, scrambling back to avoid the pin.

Both competitors push up from the canvas, scrambling to their boots with chests heaving, sucking down heavy breaths.

Jenna steps into the pocket and fires a blistering European uppercut! CRACK.

The blow snaps Nyx’s head back, sending her reeling into the ropes, glassy-eyed and clutching her jaw.

Seeing the daylight, Jenna pivots and dives across the ring on jelly legs, arm extended toward Delilah Hart for the tag.

Nyx recovers with terrifying speed. She lunges forward like a shadow and snatches the waistband of Jenna’s trunks just inches before Jenna’s fingertips can graze Delilah’s hand. Nyx violently yanks backward, dragging Jenna dead across the canvas away from safety. Jenna slams stomach-first into the mat, pounding both fists against the wood in agonized frustration.

Nyx hauls Jenna back to the Blood & Ivy corner and slaps Hope’s hand.

Hope scales the turnbuckles with eerie, robotic precision, her dead eyes fixed on Jenna’s prone body. She launches into the air, folding her body before driving all her weight directly down into Jenna’s exposed spine with a diving frog splash!

THUD.

Hope instantly rolls Jenna over by the waistband, hooking the far leg deep for the pin.

Marshall slides into position, slapping the mat:

ONE…

TWO—NO!

Jenna thrusts her uninjured shoulder off the canvas with a violent surge of survival instinct, kicking out hard.

Hope doesn’t flinch. She immediately wraps her forearm around Jenna’s throat in a grounded rear chinlock, driving a sharp kneecap into Jenna’s spine to grind the powerhouse down.

Hope wrenches the neck back with mechanical cruelty, applying relentless torque without a flicker of remorse or humanity on her face. Jenna gasps for air, hands flailing as she scratches and claws at Hope’s locked wrists, suffocating under the hold.

Down on the arena floor, Travis Levitt finally pulls himself together. He leaps onto the ring apron, teeth gritted, and begins violently slamming his palms against the top turnbuckle pad in a rhythmic cadence.

The crowd picks up the rhythm instantly, thousands of voices clapping in time, willing Jenna back into the fight:

CLAP! CLAP! CLAP-CLAP-CLAP!

Feeding on the surge of noise, Jenna digs the balls of her boots into the canvas. She grunts through the pain, slowly muscling herself upright, carrying Hope’s full weight piggyback style as she rises.

Jenna snaps her hips straight backward, violently hurling herself down to crush Hope into the canvas with a brutal backpack drop!

WHAM.

The sheer impact shatters Hope’s grip, blowing all the air straight out of her lungs. Hope groggily spills onto her stomach, gasping, her arm blindly reaching out across the mat toward her corner as she reels from the crushing blow.

Jenna drags herself forward on pure grit, an agonizing crawl toward Delilah, eyes locked on the outstretched hand of her teammate.

Behind her, Hope scrambles forward with desperate momentum and slaps Nyx’s boot just as Jenna pushes up to her hands and knees.

Nyx vaults over the top rope with predatory quickness, sprinting full speed across the ring to intercept the tag. Jenna forces herself upright just in time to see Nyx barreling down on her.

Both women throw their right arms forward with everything they have left.

CRACK.

A violent double clothesline in the center of the ring! The kinetic collision turns both women inside out, sending Nyx and Jenna crashing flat on their backs, staring blindly up into the arena lights as the canvas shudders beneath them.

The collision leaves both Jenna Jillian Walker and Vespera Nyx flat on their backs, staring blankly up into the arena lighting. Dead weight. The impact drains the remaining fuel from both competitors.

Slowly, both roll onto their stomachs. They drag themselves across the canvas in an agonizing, desperate crawl toward their respective corners.

Nyx reaches out with her fingertips and slaps the waiting boot of Taeler Virelle first.

Taeler slips through the ropes in an instant, sprinting full speed across the ring to cut off the tag. Jenna lunges forward on pure instinct, diving past Taeler’s outstretched fingers and slapping the palm of Delilah Hart just in time.

Spent from the grueling sequence, Jenna and Nyx roll under the bottom strand and spill heavily onto the arena floor to recover.

Delilah vaults over the top rope with fresh legs. She charges straight across the canvas, leveling the incoming Taeler with a crushing running clothesline. THUD.

Taeler hits the mat hard, scrambling to her feet as Delilah rebounds off the far ropes. Delilah meets the rising Taeler with a second blistering running clothesline that snaps Taeler’s head back and drops her flat.

Without breaking stride, Delilah swivels and charges the Blood & Ivy corner, driving a stiff forearm smash straight into Hope Levitt’s jaw. CRACK. The blow rattles the teenager, leaving Hope sagging against the turnbuckle post.

Delilah spins back toward the center of the ring just as Taeler forces herself vertical. Delilah uncorks a cracking snap superkick flush under Taeler’s chin!

Taeler’s knees buckle instantly. She wobbles in the center of the ring, arms windmilling as her equilibrium fails.

Delilah sprints to the ropes, rebounds with explosive speed, and launches herself into a rapid handspring, targeting the jaw with the CURTAIN CALL (Handspring Back Elbow)—

Survival instinct takes over. Taeler drops straight to her knees, ducking completely out of the strike path.

Delilah sails backward through empty space, crashing hard into Referee Stephanie Marshall. The impact wipes the official out cold, sending Marshall crumpling limp against the canvas.

Delilah hits the mat and rolls over instantly to hook Taeler’s leg, but freezes. Marshall is motionless on the canvas. Delilah pushes up to her knees, burying her face in her hands in shock.

Taeler recovers behind her. Silent. Predatory. She drives a vicious punt kick directly into the back of Delilah’s head, smashing Delilah face-first into the canvas.

Seeing the referee down, Travis Levitt and Jenna barrel into the ring to restore order. Travis locks eyes on Taeler, raising a heavy fist as he charges her with veteran fury.

Taeler scrambles backward toward her corner. Hope steps through the ropes, placing her body directly between Taeler and her oncoming father.

Travis hits the brakes. His boots skid across the canvas. His raised fist drops instantly to his side, utterly unwilling to strike his daughter.

Behind him, Nyx slides into the ring unnoticed, a steel folding chair gripped in both hands.

A desperate roar rips through the building, fans leaping out of their seats and screaming at the top of their lungs for Travis to turn around.

TRAVIS: Hope, please! You have to get out of the way!

Hope stares straight through him. Cold. Vacant. She refuses to budge an inch.

Nyx steps into the swing like a baseball batter, driving the edge of the steel chair flush into the center of Travis’s spine!

CLANG.

Travis arches his back with a sharp hiss of agony. He refuses to go down. He grits his teeth and turns around to face his attacker.

Nyx does not hesitate. She winds up and cracks the flat of the steel chair directly against Travis’s skull!

CRACK.

Travis’s eyes roll back into his head. His 250-pound frame folds like wet cement, crashing heavily into the canvas and coming to rest deep in the corner.

Jenna charges Nyx with terrifying speed. Taeler points frantically from the turnbuckles, alerting her partner. Nyx pivots and swings the steel chair in a wild arc at Jenna’s head.

Jenna drops her weight, ducking clean under the swinging metal. Both women spin back around to engage. Jenna cocks her leg for a heavy kick, but Nyx cuts her off—regurgitating and spraying a thick mist of blood directly into Jenna’s eyes.

Jenna cries out, clawing at her burning face as she stumbles backward in total blindness.

With Hope still standing near the corner behind the fallen Travis, Nyx raises the steel chair over her head, measuring the blinded Jenna. Nyx hurls the chair forward with murderous force.

Blinking through the stinging red fluid, Jenna catches a blurry shape moving toward her and drops flat to the canvas.

The steel chair sails cleanly over Jenna’s head—and violently smashes straight into the face of Hope Levitt!

CLATTER.

TAELER: No! My baby!

Hope collapses like a puppet with cut strings, crumpling to the mat in an inert heap.

Taeler drops to her knees beside the fallen rookie, her serene, manipulative facade shattering into pure panic.

Indifferent to the friendly fire, Nyx steps past Taeler and drives heavy, ruthless stomps into the blinded Jenna. Unable to see the incoming assault, Jenna rolls desperately onto her stomach, trying to shield her head.

Nyx drops all her weight onto Jenna’s back, pinning the powerhouse chest-first against the canvas. Nyx traps the arm, wraps her leg tightly around Jenna’s neck, and locks her hands behind the head, wrenching back to secure VESPERA’S CURSE (Koji Clutch)!

Nyx arches back with relentless force, pulling Jenna’s head and neck upward from the mat, torquing the cervical spine and crushing the trachea against her shin.

Blinded, pinned chest-down, and suffocating, Jenna howls in agony. Her hands claw frantically at the canvas, fighting for leverage as the hold cuts off oxygen to her brain.

In the corner, Hope’s eyelids flutter open. A thick ribbon of blood trickles down the side of her temple from the chair shot.

TAELER: You’re okay! My darling baby is okay!

Hope blinks hard, the concussive blow shattering the hypnotic trance. She looks down. Her father lies motionless, battered at her boots.

Hope shakes the cobwebs from her skull. She pushes up from the canvas and staggers onto the adjacent turnbuckles, pulling herself to the middle rope.

Taeler rises, stepping directly over Travis’s body. Her toxic smirk returns as she looks up at Hope on the ropes.

TAELER: It is time to end this fruitless parental relationship. I am all you need, darling.

In the center of the ring, Jenna’s frantic struggling slows to a halt. Her arms go limp, slapping dead against the mat as she loses consciousness under the choke.

Hope climbs to the top turnbuckle. She looks down at Taeler, then down at her father. Her chest heaves with heavy, ragged breaths.

The arena roars with disgust, the audience anticipating the corrupted daughter dropping an aerial bomb onto her own father.

Hope stands upright on the top wire. She cups both hands around her mouth:

HOPE: GERONIMOOOOOO!!

Hope launches herself off the top rope, twisting in mid-air, and drives the sole of her boot into Taeler’s sternum with the STAR DRAGON KICK (Single Leg Dropkick)!

CRACK.

An explosive wall of sound erupts through the building, twelve thousand voices hitting a deafening crescendo. Taeler crashes violently to the canvas, while the momentum whips Hope down hard onto the mat beside her.

Nyx releases the unconscious Jenna, scrambling to her feet as she registers the betrayal.

Hope rolls back to her boots on pure adrenaline. She hits the ropes at a dead sprint and detonates into Nyx with her father’s own RESURRECTION KICK (Claymore Kick)!

BOOM.

The impact lifts Nyx off her feet and sends her crashing backward, out cold before she hits the canvas.

Referee Stephanie Marshall stirs, shaking her head as she pushes up to her knees. Delilah scrambles across the mat, hooking Taeler’s far leg and dragging her shoulders flat in a desperate cover.

Marshall slides into position and drops her palm to the wood:

ONE…

TWO…

THREE!

TIGRESS WINS
PINFALL VICTORY

AND NEW VOODOO PACT CHAMPIONS

Ding-ding-ding! The ring bell rings in rapid succession. The arena roars in celebration for the new PCW Voodoo Pact Champions.

Marshall reaches for the championship belts to present them to Delilah, but the focus inside the ring remains entirely on the corner.

Battered, bleeding from the forehead, Hope drops to her knees beside her father. Her chest heaves as the physical shock strips away the last remnants of Taeler’s influence.

Travis groans. His eyes blink open, wincing against the glare of the lights as he pushes himself up into a seated position against the turnbuckle pad.

He looks to his side. His eyes widen in alarm at the sight of the blood streaking his daughter’s face.

The vacant, glassy look is gone. Hope looks back at him, her lips curling into her genuine, familiar smile.

Tears well in Travis’s eyes. He pulls his daughter into a crushing bear hug against his chest, burying his face in her hair.

The crowd unleashes a rhythmic chant that echoes through the venue:

LEV-ITT!

Father and daughter hold tightly to one another on the canvas, the ordeal broken as the scene cuts out.

SEGMENT

PCW TRUE GRIT CHAMPION

MARILYN MATTHEWS

Backstage, Marilyn stands alone in front of a black curtain, the True Grit Championship resting securely over her shoulder. She takes a moment before speaking, looking down at the championship and running her fingers slowly across the faceplate. When she finally looks toward the camera, there is a quiet seriousness in her expression.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: You know, Taylor… I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately. Not because I want to. Honestly, I’d rather not have to. But when you’re getting ready to defend a championship against somebody you used to call a friend, I think it’s impossible not to think about everything that happened between you.

Marilyn shifts the championship slightly higher on her shoulder, her eyes remaining fixed on the camera.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: And that’s the part that still bothers me the most. Not the accusations. Not the bullshit you’ve been saying about me. Not even the fact that you’re standing across from me trying to take something that I fought my ass off to earn. It’s the fact that there was a time when I actually trusted you.

She pauses, taking a slow breath.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: I considered you a friend. I believed you had my back, and I thought you believed I had yours. We shared moments together. We shared conversations, we shared experiences, and I genuinely thought there was something real there. So when everything started falling apart, I didn’t immediately assume the worst about you. I didn’t want to believe that you were capable of doing some of the things you’ve done.

Marilyn gives a small, disappointed shake of her head.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Then I gave you another one. And another one. Because that’s what you do when you care about somebody, you try to understand them. You try to find a reason for why they’re acting differently. You try to believe there’s something underneath it all that explains why the person you knew suddenly doesn’t seem like the person standing in front of you anymore.

She looks down briefly, her expression tightening.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: But eventually, you run out of excuses.

Marilyn looks back toward the camera.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: And that’s what happened with you, Taylor. I stopped making excuses for you.

She adjusts the championship again, allowing the belt to settle firmly against her shoulder.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: Because once I stopped trying to explain your behavior away, I started seeing it for what it actually was. You weren’t confused. You weren’t misunderstood. You weren’t some innocent person caught in the middle of a misunderstanding.

Her voice becomes firmer.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: You were trying to make me feel like I was the problem.

She lets the statement sit for a moment.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: Every time I pushed back, you had an explanation. Every time I remembered something differently than you did, suddenly I was the one who didn’t understand. Every time I told you that something you said or did hurt me, somehow that became my fault. And every time I tried to explain myself, you had another reason why I was supposedly wrong.

Marilyn gives a humorless laugh.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: That’s not a friendship, Taylor. That’s you trying to control the story.

She slowly shakes her head.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: And maybe that’s what pisses me off the most. You’re not just trying to hurt me. You’re trying to rewrite history.

Marilyn reaches up and briefly touches the True Grit faceplate.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: You’ve tried to rewrite what happened between us. You’ve tried to rewrite what happened with my career. You’ve tried to rewrite why I left wrestling. You’ve tried to rewrite how I got back here. And you’ve tried to convince me that I should somehow be grateful to you for where I am now.

She looks directly into the camera, her expression becoming colder.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: No.

Marilyn pauses.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: I’m not going to let you do that.

She takes the championship off her shoulder for a moment, holding it in both hands in front of her.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: I didn’t walk away from wrestling because I got bored. I didn’t disappear because I couldn’t hang anymore. I was forced to retire. There is a difference. And when that door eventually opened again, I walked back through it because I still had something left to prove.

She raises the championship slightly.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: And I proved it.

Marilyn settles the belt back over her shoulder.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: I didn’t need you to make me relevant. I didn’t need you to give me a career. I didn’t need you to keep my name alive. I’ve been doing this long enough to have built my own damn legacy.

Her expression shifts into a confident smile.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: Multiple World Championships. Long title reigns. Hardcore championships. Extreme championships. Tag championships. I’ve been in this business long enough to know what it feels like to be on top, and I’ve been knocked down enough times to know exactly what it feels like to have to fight my way back.

She taps the True Grit Championship with her fingertips.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: And now I’m the first True Grit Champion.

Marilyn looks down at the belt, then back up.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: Nobody handed me this. Nobody gave me a shortcut. Nobody decided that I deserved it because they felt sorry for me.

Her smile fades into something more determined.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: I fought for this.

She takes a step toward the camera.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: I earned this.

Another beat.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: And I’m going to defend this.

Marilyn settles into a more relaxed stance, but the confidence in her expression remains.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: And that’s where all this bullshit between us finally stops mattering.

She gestures toward the championship.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: Because you can tell yourself whatever story you want, Taylor. You can tell yourself that you made me relevant. You can tell yourself that you were the reason I got another opportunity. You can tell yourself that I somehow owe you something because you decided to attach yourself to my name.

Marilyn shakes her head.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: You can believe whatever the hell you want.

She points toward the camera.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: But you don’t get to decide what I’ve accomplished.

Marilyn’s expression hardens.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: And you don’t get to take credit for the work I put in when you weren’t the one doing it.

She pauses, then gives a small shrug.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: And here’s another thing you might want to think about before you walk into that ring.

Marilyn slowly nods.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: You keep talking about relevance. You keep talking about how much you’ve supposedly done for me. You keep talking about how important you’ve been to my career.

She gives a faint, almost incredulous smile.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: But when it comes down to it, you still haven’t been able to get the job done on your own.

Marilyn lets that hang in the air.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: That’s not an insult. That’s a fact.

She shifts the championship on her shoulder.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: And now you’re asking for the biggest opportunity you can possibly have. You’re asking to take the championship away from me. You’re asking to beat the woman you’ve spent all this time telling everybody isn’t as important as she thinks she is.

Marilyn smiles.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: So here’s your chance.

She steps closer to the camera.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: No excuses. No rewriting history. No telling everybody afterward that something wasn’t fair. No telling yourself that you were actually the one who won even if you didn’t.

Her voice becomes firm and deliberate.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: Beat me.

Silence.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: That’s it.

Marilyn taps the True Grit Championship.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: If you want this, beat me for it.

She nods toward the belt.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: If you want to prove that you’re everything you’ve been telling everybody you are, prove it in that ring.

Marilyn’s expression softens slightly.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: And honestly, Taylor… part of me wishes this wasn’t how things ended between us.

She looks down for a moment.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: I wish I could look at you and still see the friend I thought I had. I wish I could believe that everything we’ve been through meant something to both of us. I wish we could’ve handled our problems like two people who actually respected each other.

She looks back toward the camera.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: But I can’t pretend anymore.

Marilyn takes a slow breath.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: I see you now.

She lets the words linger.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: And maybe that’s the hardest part of all.

She reaches up and rests her hand against the championship.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: Because I don’t hate you, Taylor. I don’t even want to hate you. I’m just disappointed. I’m disappointed that somebody I trusted turned out to be somebody I can’t trust anymore.

Marilyn’s expression becomes resolute.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: But disappointment doesn’t make me weak.

She straightens.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: And neither does caring about somebody. Neither does believing in people. Neither does giving somebody the benefit of the doubt.

She smiles faintly.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: What makes you weak is refusing to accept the truth when it’s staring you right in the face.

Marilyn looks directly into the camera.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: And the truth is, Taylor, you wanted my spotlight.

She slowly shakes her head.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: So now you’re standing in it.

Marilyn adjusts the championship one final time.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: You’re standing across from the woman you said wasn’t relevant without you. You’re standing across from the woman you said needed you. You’re standing across from the woman you said you helped bring back.

Her smile returns, confident and almost challenging.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: So let’s find out how good you really are without the excuses.

Marilyn turns slightly, giving the True Grit Championship a final glance.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: Because when that bell rings, Taylor, there isn’t going to be a friend standing across from you anymore.

She looks back one final time.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: There’s going to be the first True Grit Champion.

Marilyn pats the championship resting over her shoulder.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: And if you want to take this from me, you’re going to have to do something you’ve spent a whole lot of time telling everybody you can do.

She smiles.

MARILYN MATTHEWS: You’re going to have to get the job done on your own.

Marilyn turns and walks down the hallway, the True Grit Championship remaining firmly over her shoulder as the camera stays on her for a moment before fading to black.

+++

MATCH

THE IT GIRL

TAYLOR LANDRY

VILAROFIT

vs

PCW TRUE GRIT CHAMPION

MARILYN MATTHEWS

TRUE GRIT RULES

TRUE GRIT CHAMPIONSHIP

REFEREE: GRADE GARRETT

The camera sweeps low across the floor before settling against the front row of the steel barricade.

Sadie Shephard is on her feet, screaming her lungs out for the champion. She sports a thick knit sweater plastered with a bedazzled portrait of Marilyn Matthews that catches the glare of the lighting rig, her single aluminum elbow crutch propped upright against the padded rail. Above her head, Sadie wildly pumps a homemade sign covered in a collage of AI-generated photos depicting herself and Marilyn sharing a sunny picnic spread.

Inside the ropes, Grade Garrett plants himself dead center between the two women, extending his arms to demand compliance.

GARRETT: Code of Honor. Shake hands. Clean contest.

Marilyn Matthews steps forward without hesitation. Steady posture. Veteran composure. She extends an open right hand and offers a firm, focused nod across the canvas.

Taylor Landry struts forward at her own speed. She rolls her eyes toward the arena rafters in raw disgust, offers a limp, dismissive slap against Marilyn’s open palm, and backs away toward the blue corner with a smirk.

Garrett steps clear and chops his arm toward the timekeeper.

Ding.

The response from the auditorium floor is instantaneous, rattling the venue with an explosive opening roar.

MAR-I-LYN!

Taylor instantly claps both hands over her ears, her face contorting in sheer fury as she glares into the ringside seats.

TAYLOR: Shut up! Shut your mouths!

Taylor drops her hands and circles low, closing the distance. The two collide chest-to-chest in a hard collar-and-elbow lockup. Forearms press into shoulders. Marilyn lowers her center of gravity, slipping behind Landry in a tight rear waist-lock. Taylor snaps a blind, frantic back elbow toward the champion’s jaw, but Marilyn ducks underneath the strike. Marilyn catches the extended wrist, hooks the tricep, and snaps Taylor forward into a deep arm drag.

THUD.

Taylor’s back smacks the mat hard. Her breath drives out of her lungs, eyes snapping wide in disbelief at how easily she was grounded. She scrambles backward on her elbows, scrambling upright with a flushed, panicked expression.

Rattled and furious, Taylor charges forward, swinging a heavy right-arm clothesline. Marilyn dips at the waist, letting the arm slice harmlessly through the air as she cuts directly to Taylor’s blind side. Marilyn spins Taylor around by the shoulders to face her and hooks both arms into double underhooks. Arching backward with raw core strength, Marilyn launches Taylor overhead.

CRACK.

Taylor’s shoulder blades slam the canvas as Marilyn bridges high onto her toes, neck arched, trapping the challenger’s shoulders flat. Garrett drops face-first onto the wood.

GARRETT: ONE!

ONE—NO!

Taylor violently bucks her hips, kicking out of the bridge with frantic force.

Both women scramble straight back to their feet in a dead sprint. Taylor cuts through Marilyn’s momentum to slip behind, hooking both of Marilyn’s arms back-to-back before dropping her dead weight straight down into a sudden backslide pin.

Garrett hits the mat.

GARRETT: ONE!

ONE—NO!

Marilyn pops her elbows free before the count can advance, planting her boots and shoving Taylor forward with two hands against the challenger’s back. Taylor rebounds off the rope tension directly back into Marilyn, who drops backward through the collision, snaring Taylor’s ankles and folding her legs over her throat in a deep jackknife pin.

Garrett slaps the canvas.

GARRETT: ONE! TWO!

ONE…

TWO—NO!

Taylor kicks straight up with both shins, shattering the jackknife to break the rapid-fire pin exchange.

Both women scramble upright off the canvas. Taylor stumbles backward until her spine hits the turnbuckles. She clutches her chest with one hand, mouth open, sucking in ragged gulps of air as the frantic opening exchanges burn through her lungs.

Across the ring, Marilyn stays dead center. Her hands hang loose at her hips, breathing steady, wearing a cold smirk. She raises two fingers, points a mock pistol right at Landry, and winks.

The auditorium answers with a collective roar.

Humiliated, Taylor screams in blind fury, lunging out of the corner with a wild right haymaker. Marilyn ducks underneath the wild swing without breaking stance. Dropping Landry flat to the canvas, Marilyn wraps a thick forearm under the throat and cinches her hands together, locking in a suffocating, grounded bulldog choke.

Taylor freezes stiff, her eyes bulging wide in absolute panic as her trachea is crushed and the air supply vanishes.

Garrett slides across the mat on his stomach, shouting right into Taylor’s face.

GARRETT: Do you want to quit?!

Taylor thrashes like a landed fish, her boots drumming uselessly against the canvas as she claws at Marilyn’s forearms. She is completely pinned beneath the champion’s frame. Marilyn leans back, arching her spine to crank the hold deeper, driving maximum torque straight into the challenger’s neck. A strangled, muffled gasp escapes Landry’s lips. She is trapped yards away from reaching out to the ropes.

Driven by pure panic and natural flexibility, Taylor stops clawing at the grip and flattens her entire frame against the canvas. She extends her left leg horizontally along the mat, straining every muscle until the toe of her boot hooks under the bottom rope.

Garrett spots the contact instantly, raising his hand to initiate the count.

GARRETT: ROPE BREAK! ONE! TWO! THREE!

Aware of Garrett’s zero-tolerance enforcement under True Grit rules, Marilyn releases the hold clean on the count of three and snaps her hands away.

Taylor rolls frantically beneath the bottom strand onto the ring apron. She curls inward, coughing violently and digging her fingers into her bruised throat as the action pauses.

Taylor drags herself back between the ropes. She coughs hard into the crook of her elbow, rubbing the raw, red welts across her throat. Her eyes water from the choke.

No reset. No feeling-out process. Determined to dictate the pace, Taylor lunges across the canvas straight at the champion.

Marilyn steps into the pocket, scoops her right arm between Taylor’s thighs, and hoists her off the canvas for a textbook scoop slam. Taylor slides down Marilyn’s back before the leverage locks in, planting both boots firmly on the mat behind her. Marilyn pivots on her heel, snapping her guard back up to re-engage.

Too late. Taylor wheels her hips around in a tight arc, uncorking a lightning-quick spinning heel kick. The sole of her boot cracks flush against Marilyn’s jaw.

CRACK.

Marilyn staggers drunkenly backward, her shoulder blades crashing into the middle rope. The sudden explosion of speed caught her completely off balance.

Taylor leaps up, planting both soles on the middle rope, and springboards into the air. She throws all her weight forward, driving a flying forearm smash straight into Marilyn’s temple.

THUD.

Marilyn drops flat to the canvas, dead weight against the wood.

Instead of dropping down to hook a leg, Taylor pops up and struts along the inner perimeter. Chest out. Chin high. She flaunts both hands in the air, grinning ear to ear as twelve thousand fans drown her in a wall of guttural, hostile boos.

The vanity costs her the kill shot. The delay buys Marilyn valuable seconds. The champion rolls to her hip and pushes up to one knee, shaking her head violently to clear the haze behind her eyes.

Taylor cuts her strut short, spinning back toward the center of the ring. She hits a full sprint, cocking her right kneecap to drive it through Marilyn’s face.

Marilyn anticipates the trajectory. She rises beneath the strike, snares Taylor’s head in a vise-like front facelock, and kicks her legs out from under her.

CRACK.

She spikes Taylor’s forehead directly into the canvas with a vicious DDT.

Taylor’s spine goes totally limp. Her arms flop out to her sides, eyes glazed over and staring vacantly toward the arena rafters.

Marilyn doesn’t waste a heartbeat. She grabs Taylor’s waistband and rolls the dead weight over onto her stomach. Marilyn steps her right boot over Taylor’s left hamstring, locks both hands around the instep, and sits back deep on her heels. She torques the ankle sideways, wrenching the joint into a brutal Ankle Lock.

Taylor shrieks. A raw, blood-curdling scream tears out of her throat as her face buries directly into the canvas. Pure structural agony.

Garrett slides across the ring on his stomach, positioning his eyes inches from Taylor’s cheek.

GARRETT: Do you want to submit?!

Taylor shakes her head no with violent desperation, baring her teeth as tears well in her eyes. Her fingernails claw deep grooves into the canvas, straining to drag her dead-weight lower half an inch closer to safety.

A desperate surge of adrenaline kicks in. Taylor arches her spine and lunges forward with everything left in her upper body, wrapping both white-knuckled hands around the bottom rope.

GARRETT: ROPE BREAK! ONE! TWO!

Marilyn breaks the grip on the count of two, stepping back with hands raised to avoid an instant disqualification under True Grit regulations.

Panic sets in. Taylor has now burned through both of her allotted rope breaks under True Grit rules—she has zero rope protection remaining. Desperate for air and space, she scrambles under the bottom rope and drops down to the concrete floor outside. She puts weight on the left foot to stand, but the compromised ankle gives out instantly. She stumbles against the ring apron, limping heavily and clutching the joint with a grimace of pure pain.

Refusing to give the challenger room to breathe, Marilyn drops down through the ropes to the floor, stalking forward to press the attack.

Inside the ropes, Garrett monitors the perimeter and starts his official cadence.

GARRETT: ONE!

As Marilyn rounds the corner post, Taylor pivots on her good leg and drives a blunt knee straight into the champion’s solar plexus. Marilyn doubles over, gasping. Taylor clutches Marilyn by the hair, spins her around, and violently whips her shoulder-first into the steel barricade.

THUD.

GARRETT: TWO!

Marilyn slumps against the steel barrier, clutching her left shoulder blade and groaning in agony.

Taylor grabs Marilyn by the collar and hauls her limp frame across the ringside mats, parking her directly in front of where Sadie is leaning against the barrier.

GARRETT: THREE!

Taylor drives her forearm into the back of Marilyn’s neck, violently smashing the champion’s face down into the hard edge of the ring apron. Marilyn drops to both knees on the rubber mats, eyes glazed, completely dazed.

Taylor slides under the bottom rope into the ring, then slips right back out to the floor to kill Garrett’s count. Garrett sweeps his arms overhead to signal the reset and instantly starts the cadence fresh.

Taylor stalks toward the dazed champion, but freezes as her eyes lock onto Sadie clinging to the barricade.

GARRETT: ONE!

Taylor turns fully toward Sadie, a cold, calculated smirk spreading across her face.

TAYLOR: Oh, this is your hero, huh?! Look at her!

GARRETT: TWO!

Sadie hammers both palms violently against the padded steel rail, screaming at the top of her lungs for Taylor to get away from her and leave Marilyn alone.

Taylor laughs right in the superfan’s face. Cold. Dismissive. She pivots on her good right leg and punts a vicious kick squarely into the center of Marilyn’s chest.

THUD.

GARRETT: THREE!

Marilyn’s head snaps back. Her breath explodes out of her lungs as she collapses onto the ringside mat, writhing in pain.

The camera cuts tight on Taylor standing arrogantly over Marilyn on the ringside floor, hands on her hips, soaking in the vitriol of the front rows while the official cadence rings out from the ring ropes.

GARRETT: FOUR!

Marilyn pushes up onto all fours, her palms pressing flat against the rubber floor mat. She shakes her head violently, trying to clear the haze and regain her equilibrium.

Taylor circles the champion like a vulture, eyes darting along the perimeter as she calculates the next point of impact.

GARRETT: FIVE!

Marilyn stumbles upright on trembling legs, turning to face the challenger with a sluggish, telegraphed right hook.

Taylor slips easily beneath the looping fist, her footwork sharp and unhindered. She darts behind Marilyn, clamps both forearms tightly around the champion’s waist, and violently arches her hips back to drag Marilyn crashing down into the floor mats with a swift mat return.

THUD.

GARRETT: SIX!

The impact rattles Marilyn’s ribcage, driving the wind cleanly out of her lungs. She gasps, clutching her ribs on the thin ringside padding.

Taylor knots her fingers into a fistful of Marilyn’s hair and drags her dead weight across the floor, hauling her toward the heavy steel ring steps.

GARRETT: SEVEN!

Directly in front of Sadie’s front-row vantage point, Taylor wrenches Marilyn upright by the scalp, squaring the champion up with the solid metal fixture. Taylor steps forward and violently shoves Marilyn straight toward the jagged steel edges.

GARRETT: EIGHT!

Marilyn drops her hips, digging the rubber soles of her boots hard against the concrete floor. Her friction holds, screeching to a dead halt inches before the steel can crush her skull.

Spinning on her heels, Marilyn lunges forward and drives a stiff, loaded forearm smash flush across Taylor’s jawline.

CRACK.

Taylor’s head snaps back, her boots wobbling as she staggers backward toward the ring apron.

GARRETT: NINE!

With the title hanging by a thread under No Champion’s Advantage, Marilyn panics at the count and slides head-first under the bottom rope to break the ten.

Taylor slides in right behind her through the bottom strand, staying attached to the champion’s hip.

Marilyn scrambles upright and charges, cocking her arm for a rapid clothesline. Taylor drops her weight instantly, executing a textbook drop-toe-hold. Marilyn’s legs fly out from under her, sending her skull darting forward to slam face-first into the bottom turnbuckle pad.

THUD.

Marilyn recoils onto the canvas, writhing and pressing both palms to her smashed nose as a pained groan ripples through the crowd.

Taylor wastes no time. She grabs Marilyn by the hair, hauling her out of the corner into the middle of the ring. Locking Marilyn’s head under her arm, Taylor twists her torso and drops to the mat, driving Marilyn’s neck into her shoulder with a sharp spinning neckbreaker.

CRACK.

Taylor hooks the far leg, throwing her weight across the champion’s chest. Garrett drops flat to the canvas, slapping his palm against the wood.

GARRETT: ONE! TWO!

ONE…

TWO—NO!

Marilyn powers her left shoulder off the mat, violently bucking Taylor off her chest.

Taylor rolls to her boots, scowling down at the canvas, visibly agitated that the champion refused to stay down. She stomps her boot heavily into Marilyn’s sternum, then bends down and hauls Marilyn back to her feet by the roots of her hair. Using the grip as raw leverage, Taylor runs Marilyn toward the ropes and heaves her over the top rope. Marilyn’s body tumbles through the air, crashing awkwardly across the ringside floor right at Sadie’s feet.

THUD.

Garrett leans over the top strand, immediately starting the ring-out count.

GARRETT: ONE!

Taylor slips under the bottom rope, dropping back down to the floor to press the attack. She grabs Marilyn by the nape of the neck, steps into the trajectory, and violently drives the champion’s face straight into the assembled steel ring steps.

CRACK.

GARRETT: TWO!

Marilyn’s skull ricochets violently off the thick metal plate. Her body folds up, collapsing into a limp heap against the concrete as she clutches her forehead.

A collective, horrified gasp surges through the building.

The camera zooms in tight. A gruesome, jagged laceration opens above Marilyn’s left eyebrow, dark crimson blood welling instantly and streaming down the left side of her face in thick ribbons.

GARRETT: THREE!

Taylor stands over the bloodied champion, a twisted, calculated grin breaking across her face. She drops to one knee, extends her bare right palm, and deliberately smears it across the open wound, coating her skin and fingers in fresh crimson.

GARRETT: FOUR!

Taylor rises and struts over to the front-row rail. Reaching over the padded barricade, she ruthlessly wipes her blood-covered hand straight down the center of Sadie’s sweater, smearing red across the bedazzled portrait of the champion.

Sadie shrieks in absolute horror, clutching her head and staring down in pure shock at the ruined, blood-soaked face of her idol.

Taylor throws her head back, laughing hysterically in the superfan’s face, completely detached from the match behind her.

GARRETT: FIVE!

Watching her fan get terrorized triggers a blinding surge of pure adrenaline in the champion.

Marilyn lets out a guttural roar, pushing up off the floor mats with blood pouring down her cheek and jawline. She charges from Taylor’s blind side and drives a blistering forearm smash straight into the back of the challenger’s skull.

CRACK.

GARRETT: SIX!

Taylor’s head snaps forward violently. She stumbles into the ring apron, dazed, clutching the back of her head.

Marilyn grabs Taylor by the waistband and collar, roughly shoving the challenger under the bottom rope back into the ring. Marilyn slides in behind her, using the back of her wrist to wipe a thick smear of crimson away from her left eye socket.

Taylor stumbles to her feet, spinning around only to see the blood-soaked crimson mask of the champion closing in on her.

Pure panic takes over. Taylor throws a wild, terrified right hand.

Marilyn slaps the blow aside with her forearm, steps her foot deep between Taylor’s legs, hooks the head, and snaps down hard with a brutal reverse STO. Taylor’s back slams against the canvas with a sickening bounce.

Marilyn keeps the head trapped tight, instantly stepping her legs over Taylor’s upper body and cinching her arms into a suffocating, locked triangle.

NIGHTY NIGHT (Reverse STO into Koji Clutch)!

The hold is locked in deep. Marilyn arches her back, wrenching Taylor’s neck backward with everything she has left. Taylor thrashes frantically on the mat, her boots flailing wildly against the canvas, eyes bulging in wide-eyed panic as her windpipe is crushed shut.

Marilyn cranks the hold deeper, driving maximum torque straight through the challenger’s spine. Fresh crimson streams from the jagged laceration above the champion’s eyebrow, dripping off her chin and splashing across the canvas directly in front of Taylor’s eyes.

Suffocating and desperate, Taylor claws at the canvas with both hands, dragging her dead-weight lower half inch-by-inch toward the perimeter. Straining every muscle in her upper body, Taylor thrusts her left arm forward, clamping her white-knuckled fingers firmly around the bottom rope.

A sudden pop rises from the front rows, but Garrett stays down on his knees, shaking his head with zero sympathy.

GARRETT: Zero rope breaks left, Taylor! Ropes will not save you!

Taylor’s eyes widen in sheer terror. Trapped. No technical loopholes left.

Marilyn arches her spine, wrenching Taylor’s neck backward with brutal force to extinguish what little air remains. Taylor thrashes violently for several agonizing seconds before her spine suddenly goes slack. Her head rolls to the side. Total dead weight.

Garrett immediately drops flat to the canvas, snatching Taylor’s right wrist for the mandatory neurological check.

He hoists the arm high and releases it.

The limb falls dead, hitting the mat with a limp slap.

GARRETT: ONE!

Garrett lifts the wrist a second time and lets go.

It crashes down without resistance.

GARRETT: TWO!

Garrett lifts Taylor’s arm a third time and releases his grip.

The arm drifts downward through the air, Taylor’s fingers brushing directly across Marilyn’s bloody forehead.

Taylor’s eyes snap wide open.

She drives her bare right thumb straight into the raw gash over Marilyn’s left eye, gouging deep into the torn flesh.

Marilyn screams in pure, unadulterated agony. The hold shatters. The champion recoils onto her side, releasing the head to clamp both hands over her ruined face.

Taylor rolls away in a coughing fit, hacking and gasping for oxygen on all fours while Marilyn writhes blindly across the canvas.

Marilyn stumbles upright on unsteady legs, using both forearms to frantically swipe away a fresh sheet of blood blinding her vision. Taylor pops off the mat, pouncing on the blinded champion. She hooks the front facelock, swings her leg, and snaps backward.

IT GIRL (Snap DDT)!

CRACK.

Marilyn’s skull spikes into the wood. Taylor hooks both legs, stacking all her weight across the champion’s ribs.

Garrett hits the mat.

GARRETT: ONE! TWO!

ONE…

TWO—NO!

Marilyn violently bucks her hips, kicking out on sheer survival instinct and sending Taylor tumbling backward across the canvas.

Taylor sits up on her hip, staring at Garrett with jaw slack and eyes blazing in pure disbelief. She claws her way back up to her boots, breathing hard, waiting impatiently as Marilyn groggily rises. Marilyn pushes up to her knees, completely disoriented, still pawing at her bleeding eyebrow.

Taylor charges from the front, springs off the mat, plants her boots against Marilyn’s chest and shoulders, and snaps backward between the legs.

TAYDROP (Code Red)!

THUD.

Taylor keeps the legs hooked deep, rolling through to clamp the shoulders down.

Garrett slaps the canvas.

GARRETT: ONE! TWO! TH—

ONE…

TWO…

THR—NO!

Marilyn gets her left shoulder off the canvas by a fraction of an inch.

Taylor snaps. Pushed past her limit, she screams in blind rage, grabs Marilyn by the hair, and physically hurls the champion straight through the middle ropes.

Marilyn crashes hard to the ringside floor in a limp heap.

Taylor stands center-ring, chest heaving, pointing down at the floor and barking at Garrett to count. Under No Champion’s Advantage, a count-out takes the title.

Garrett starts the cadence.

GARRETT: ONE!

Taylor leans back against the turnbuckles wearing a venomous, cruel smile, while Sadie hangs over the steel barricade, shrieking at Marilyn to get back up.

GARRETT: TWO!

Marilyn is motionless on the thin rubber floor mat, completely spent.

GARRETT: THREE!

The auditorium catches fire with a rhythmic, thunderous clap, willing the champion back to life.

GARRETT: FOUR!

Marilyn twitches, rolling onto her stomach and groaning into the padding.

GARRETT: FIVE!

Taylor taps her wrist, screaming at Garrett to count faster.

GARRETT: SIX!

Marilyn crawls forward on hands and knees, reaching blindly toward the apron skirt.

GARRETT: SEVEN!

Clutching the heavy black cloth, Marilyn uses every ounce of leverage to haul herself upright against the ring edge. She stretches a trembling hand toward the bottom rope to kill the count.

Before fingers can close around the rope, Taylor stomps her boot hard onto Marilyn’s hand. Taylor ducks between the strands and steps both boots out onto the ring apron to reset the referee’s count.

Garrett sweeps his arms overhead to reset the cadence.

Taylor measures the staggering champion and whips a vicious punt aimed straight at Marilyn’s chin.

Pure muscle memory kicks in. Marilyn throws her hands up, snatching Taylor’s flying ankle in mid-air. Marilyn yanks downward with all her remaining weight. Taylor’s plant leg flies out from beneath her. Her lower back slams violently against the hard wooden edge of the apron before her body crashes heavily onto the ringside floor.

THUD.

Garrett starts a double count-out from inside the ropes.

GARRETT: ONE!

Taylor screams, curling on the mats and clutching her spine in agony. Marilyn wipes fresh crimson out of her eye, steps forward, and grabs Taylor by the arm.

GARRETT: TWO!

Marilyn whips Taylor toward the corner, aiming for the solid steel ring post. Taylor plants her heels on the mat, dropping her weight to reverse the whip. Marilyn’s forward momentum carries her head-first into the unyielding steel post.

CRACK.

The collision echoes through the ringside seats. Marilyn crumples to the floor in a dead heap.

GARRETT: THREE!

Taylor staggers away from the corner, gasping, leaning against the barricade right in front of Sadie’s seat. Taylor looks down and spots Sadie’s aluminum elbow crutch propped against the railing.

GARRETT: FOUR!

Frustrated and desperate to end it, Taylor snatches the crutch by the cuff, turning back to bash the fallen champion.

Sadie lunges forward over the rail, clamping both hands around the crutch’s lower shaft, and violently yanks it out of Taylor’s grip.

Taylor spins around, furious at the fan.

Sadie winds up and swings the aluminum crutch like a baseball bat, cracking it flush across Taylor’s skull!

THUD.

Taylor’s eyes roll back. She collapses hard to the ringside floor, clutching her head in dazed agony right in front of Grade Garrett.

Garrett spots the foreign object strike and immediately waves his arms overhead, calling for the bell.

DING! DING! DING!

The bell tolls frantically as a wave of stunned silence gives way to guttural, venomous boos from the crowd.

TAYLOR LANDRY WINS
DISQUALIFICATION VICTORY

NEW TRUE GRIT CHAMPION

Taylor stays flat on the floor mats, groaning, hands pressed to the side of her head as the concussive shock sets in.

The camera pans down to Marilyn, who pushes up onto one elbow, eyes wide in absolute horror as the ring announcer delivers the ruling.

FRED HAYES, JR.: As a result of outside interference, the winner of this match via Disqualification… and NEWWWWW PCW True Grit Champion… Taylor Landry!

Marilyn looks over at Sadie in utter disbelief.

Sadie is upright on one good leg, screaming through the wall of boos with an unhinged, manic grin.

SADIE: I SAVED YOU! DID YOU SEE?! DID YOU SEE HOW I SAVED YOU?!!

Marilyn slowly shakes her head, completely speechless at the delusion.

SADIE: I love you! MUWAH! Did you get my letters! I know you did! I bet you were just too shy to write back! Let’s get dinner!

Garrett steps through the ropes to the floor, holding the personalized True Grit Championship title belt. Stoic and strict, he hands the championship to Taylor, who stumbles back up onto her boots.

Seeing the title in Landry’s grip, an enraged Marilyn pulls herself up and takes an aggressive step forward. Taylor backpedals in an instant, clutching the gold tightly against her ribs as she retreats up the entrance ramp.

Amethyst Caldwell emerges from the tunnel in a dead sprint, rushing down the ramp to shield Taylor from any counter-attack and celebrate the title change.

Taylor reaches the top of the ramp safely, blowing cocky, mocking kisses to the hostile crowd as she hoists the True Grit Championship high above her head into the arena lights.

SEGMENT

GODDESS OF REVOLUTION

KATE VEGA

The Banner for Dead by Dawn hangs upon a red brick wall backstage. It depicts a woman in a cemetery at night, trying to escape a grizzly and certain fate as a rotting hand pulls them down into a grave by the throat. Behind her is a headstone behind her sporting the event title embossed upon it. Katelyn DeLaVega enters the frame, her face painted in blue and black war paint, attired in her wrestling wear and custom leather jacket, the tall and muscular brunette cuts an imposing figure. Her dark brown eyes linger on the image of the banner for a moment before turning to the camera.

KDV: Tonight on the eve of the eve of all Hallows, I face The Toxic Bloom, Yuna Obsidian and the enigmatic Datura in a ladder match where hanging above the ring is a golden ticket that opens many doors and can be a fast track to success.

Kate taps her finger to her lip, the blue metallic acrylic paint on her nails is quite striking in the hallway lighting.

KDV: I’ve never been one to take a fast track to success, preferring to let the work speak for me, but given the nature of these sorts of prizes, I can cash it in at any time. Only a fool ignores opportunity and this is a great opportunity. This will be my second match in PCW and while I can and will earn my shots, what is wrong with making a champion or two sweat at the thought of having to face me.

She smirks with a hint of playful mischief in her eyes.

KDV: I know very little of Datura. She seems like the spooky sort who likes to play head games and try to win through psychological warfare, but Yuna I am familiar with. I watched her feud with a friend in EHWF and both selectively ignored my friend while getting her ass effectively handed to her on a silver platter. Yuna is only talkative with those she feels she has an advantage over and if she’s not doing well? She grows quiet and ignores the outcomes, usually at her own peril.

Kate crosses her arms over her chest, head inclined forward.

KDV: I assure you, Ms. Obsidian, you won’t ignore the outcome of tonight’s contest, because I won’t let you. You won’t be able to pretend this didn’t happen, because the evidence will be in the victor’s hand while you will be leaving empty handed, defeated.

It’s clear that she likes Yuna the least of the two other competitors in this match, given the disapproving look upon her face.

KDV: I’ll never understand how “veteran wrestlers” can ignore reality. Can’t win? It never happened. It just makes them look even sadder and more pathetic. Datura seems to have a stronger grasp of reality by comparison, unafraid to own a result regardless of the outcome. I actually feel for our resident witch just a little bit as it would seem she is having troubles of her own which could prove highly distracting in a match like this. Showing up is hard to do when life’s difficulties enter the equation, but even then, I have more respect for her in passing than I do you, Yuna.

Her head inclines forward further, her long hair framing her face and adding to the dramatic effect of shadows running down her face from the ridge of her brow. Her eyes are hard and gaze narrowed, her intensity undeniable.

KDV: My goal is simple and the focus without question. Climb the ladder, take the case, and leave. Datura, may your troubles ease and you find your way soon. Yuna? Should you lose, I hope you have the decency to acknowledge it and if you don’t, well…

Kate lifts her head back.

KDV: In that case, pray we never meet again in either a PCW or EHWF ring again. There’s work to be done and the ticket won’t bring itself down. Let’s get it done.

Uncrossing her arms, Kate turns and exits the scene, stage right. 🙂

+++

MATCH

DATURA

BLACK RAINBOW

vs

THE TOXIC BLOOD

YUNA OBSIDIAN

HOUSE OF GEMSTONES

vs

GODDESS OF REVOLUTION

KATE VEGA

LADDER MATCH

CHAMPIONSHIP

REFEREE: NATHAN “ATREYU” MACKAYE

Twenty feet above the bare canvas, the Golden Ticket briefcase sways from a heavy steel suspension hook under the arena floodlights. Cold brass and reinforced plating gleam against the rafters. High above reach.

Around the ringside perimeter sits an unforgiving fortress of steel and timber: twelve-foot and fifteen-foot ladders resting beside the barriers, a towering twenty-foot giant planted near the announce desk, rows of steel folding chairs, flat tables stacked flush against the barricades, a standing table stationed on each of the four sides of the ring, and two tables set up side-by-side right at the base of the entrance ramp.

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG.

The opening bell echoes through the arena. A deafening roar tears through the building as twelve thousand fans surge to their feet, the concrete floor vibrating under the opening bell.

Datura remains rooted in her corner. Methodical. Unhurried. She drags the soles of her boots across the ring apron, scraping off canvas dust while her dark, sunken eyes dissect the two women sharing her space. Across the squared circle, Yuna Obsidian tilts her head, her spine loose, circling the outer perimeter like a starving spider sizing up a cage.

Kate Vega rolls her broad shoulders. Six-foot-four. Two hundred pounds of solid bone and muscle. She closes the distance toward the center of the ring, planting her work boots and offering a brief, respectful nod to both women.

Yuna stops her prowl. She catches Datura’s gaze across the ring—the lingering venom of their Hearse Match simmering in the air.

YUNA OBSIDIAN: (whispering toward Datura) The intruder goes first.

Datura gives a single, sharp nod. Blood feud shelved. Tactical priority established: eliminate the powerhouse.

Both women close in simultaneously, cutting off Kate’s escape angles and herding the giant back into the turnbuckle pads. Yuna steps in with a vicious knife-edge chop across Kate’s chest. CRACK. Kate’s jaw jolts as Datura immediately follows with a stiff, European-style uppercut driven straight under the chin. Kate winces, throwing her forearms forward to shove through the double-team, but Datura drops low and buries three stiff instep kicks directly into Kate’s left thigh. Yuna unloads with a machine-gun flurry of open palm strikes rattling Kate’s cheekbones and ears.

Staggered. Pinned against the top turnbuckle pad. Kate crosses her thick arms over her face to absorb the incoming leather while a wall of vicious boos rains down from the stands, the crowd violently rejecting the unholy alliance.

Yuna and Datura each clamp down on one of Kate’s wrists. They dig their heels in and whip the two-hundred-pounder across the ring with everything they have. Kate hits the far ropes at full speed. Datura and Yuna advance to the center, planting their boots and throwing their lead arms out for a bone-crushing double lariat.

Kate doesn’t brace. She drops flat.

Sliding chest-first across the ring canvas, Kate shoots cleanly beneath both outstretched arms. She pops instantly to her feet behind them. Yuna and Datura whip around, completely off-balance.

Kate launches herself into the air, driving both soles squarely into Yuna’s sternum with a thunderous dropkick.

The blow blasts the air from Yuna’s lungs. She stumbles backward like a drunk, crashing spine-first into the ropes and clawing at her chest as her knees shake.

Kate hits the canvas, rolls back onto her shoulders, and snaps upward in a lightning-fast kip-up.

Datura charges to blindside the giant, but Kate is already coiled. Kate leaves her feet again, snapping a second dropkick flush onto the point of Datura’s jaw.

Datura hits the mat hard, skidding onto her side near the ring apron. She clutches her jaw, dark eyes blinking against the shock as she scrambles to recalibrate her game plan.

Kate doesn’t let the momentum breathe. She marches straight toward the ropes, snatches Yuna by the wrist before the smaller woman can regain her footing, and pivots on her heel. Deep hip penetration. Pure leverage. Kate whips Yuna over with a clean judo hiptoss, slamming all one hundred and fourteen pounds of the Tokyo striker flat onto her back.

THUD.

Yuna arches off the canvas with a choked gasp, eyes wide and unfocused as she stumbles into a seated position. She shakes her head, trying to clear the cobwebs, but Kate is already in motion. Kate steps in and punts a heavy boot straight between Yuna’s shoulder blades.

Yuna’s spine whips forward. Her chest violently slams the canvas, leaving her splayed out and clawing blindly at the mat for air.

From the ring apron, Datura sees her lane. Quick. Fluid. She scales the turnbuckle rungs to the top rope, perching for a fraction of a second before launching her entire body forward in a high crossbody.

Kate stands her ground. She widens her base and plucks the airborne technician cleanly out of the air, locking both arms around Datura’s ribcage.

Datura’s eyes flare with panic. Her boots kick empty air, trapped in the grip of the powerhouse.

Kate turns, pumps her legs, and charges across the ring, ramming Datura spine-first into the corner turnbuckles with sickening force.

A strangled gasp tears from Datura’s throat. Her vertebrae compress hard against the steel turnbuckle bolts behind the padding. She drops into a lifeless heap at the base of the corner, clutching her lumbar.

Kate takes one step back to survey the floor.

Behind her, Yuna scrambles across the mat like a spider. Low. Silent. Ruthless. Yuna hurls her entire body forward, throwing an ugly, chopping shoulder directly into the back of Kate’s left knee.

Kate’s knee hyperextends inward. The joint buckles with an audible pop. Kate bellows in pain, collapsing down onto one knee.

Shaking off the back spasm, Datura steps out of the turnbuckle, measures the kneeling giant, and snaps a brutal, pointed instep kick flush across the bridge of Kate’s nose.

Kate’s head snaps back violently. She crashes flat on her back, hands flying to her bloodied face and her throbbing knee.

Yuna and Datura stand side-by-side above the fallen giant. Chests heaving. Bruised and battered. Across the arena bowl, twelve thousand fans erupt into a unified cascade of boos, spectators surging against the barricades in pure revulsion at the heel-face cooperation.

Yuna wipes blood from her bottom lip and smirks down at Kate. Datura’s eyes remain narrow, cold, calculating.

Working in grim unison, they grab Kate by her wrists and waistband, hauling the dead weight of the two-hundred-pounder up to a vertical base. Kate tries to anchor her right boot, but they lock their hips against hers. Straining with every ounce of tendon and muscle, Yuna and Datura hoist the giant high into the air.

Stalled at vertical. Then down.

BOOM.

A double vertical suplex shakes the ring frame. The ring mat ripples. Kate’s back bounces violently off the canvas, a guttural groan torn from her chest as she clutches her spine.

No hesitation. Datura circles in, burying three targeted, heavy stomps straight into Kate’s floating ribs. Yuna targets the compromised limb, driving her heel down repeatedly onto Kate’s left kneecap.

Kate curls into a tight defensive ball, taking the punishment across her forearms as she tries to shield her shattered joint.

Then, silence.

Both women freeze. Their eyes drift upward toward the gleaming brass of the Golden Ticket swaying twenty feet above. The alliance has expired.

Without a word, Datura and Yuna turn away from the ring and drop down to the arena floor.

Yuna marches with purpose down the entrance aisle. She walks straight past the two side-by-side tables positioned at the base of the ramp and drags out a heavy fifteen-foot ladder. Along the ringside perimeter, Datura reaches for a ladder leaning against the steel guardrail.

Yuna turns her back to the ring, muscling the ladder together to collapse its rungs.

Datura stops. She looks at Yuna’s exposed back.

Datura’s hands slip off the ladder. She reaches down, grabs a folded steel chair by the seat, and breaks into a silent sprint down the aisle.

Yuna never hears her.

CRACK.

Datura swings the chair with full body torque, folding the flat steel edge flush across Yuna’s spine. A sound like a gunshot cracks through the hall. Yuna’s spine arches violently. The fifteen-foot ladder clatters to the floor as Yuna collapses to her knees on the aisle mat, gasping in agony.

Datura doesn’t pause to watch. She raises the chair high over her head and drives the flat surface down directly onto the crown of Yuna’s skull.

CLANG.

Yuna’s neck compresses. Her body goes completely limp, flopping face-down onto the concrete aisle beside the fallen ladder, motionless.

Datura stands over the wreckage, chest heaving, the dented chair trembling in her fingers.

Behind her, the massive silhouette of Kate Vega slides under the bottom rope, dropping silently to the floor.

Datura tosses the chair aside and turns—walking straight into Kate’s chest.

Kate doesn’t blink. She clamps both thick hands around Datura’s throat, drops her grip to Datura’s waist, and explodes upward.

Front-facing military press.

Kate hoists all one hundred and thirty pounds of Datura high into the air, holding her extended overhead as she marches on a damaged knee toward the apron. Datura thrashes wildly, kicking her boots in sheer panic. A deafening roar rips through the auditorium, twelve thousand fans erupting in disbelief.

With a monstrous heave, Kate launches Datura clean over the top rope.

Datura clears the ropes and crashes six feet down into the center of the ring. THUD. Her body bounces, rolling across the canvas while she clutches her bruised ribs, lungs spasming for oxygen.

Kate reaches up, grabs the ring ropes to take the load off her screaming left knee, and hoists her large frame onto the apron and back inside.

On the entrance aisle, Yuna remains completely out cold beside the collapsed ladder.

Inside the ropes, Kate stalks forward, flexing her calloused palms to put Datura away.

Datura senses the closing distance. Pure instinct. From the mat, she drives low and throws a desperate, running chop block directly into Kate’s injured left knee.

Kate roars in pain. The joint buckles out. The powerhouse crashes down onto her hands and knees.

Datura scrambles behind, grabs Kate’s left ankle with both hands, twists her hips, and executes a violent dragonscrew legwhip.

Kate’s body whips around, slamming flat on her back. She clamps both hands over her kneecap, grinding her teeth as raw nerve fire shoots up the thigh.

Datura doesn’t rush. She steps back and paces a slow, calculated half-circle around the fallen giant. Her head tilts. Curious. Analytical. Watching how the powerhouse breathes through the damage.

Datura steps in, scoops the hyperextended left leg under her arm, and sits back, sinking into a vicious, deep kneebar right in the middle of the canvas.

Kate’s entire body seizes. Ligaments stretching to the brink. Her gloved fists hammer the mat.

Datura leans all her body weight backward, wrenching the joint back with cold, academic precision. No malice. Just mechanical destruction.

No rope breaks in TLC. No referee intervention. Kate clamps her teeth together, refusing to tap, veins bulging like cords in her neck.

Through sheer, stubborn power, Kate grits her teeth and sits up against the leverage. Her long reach extends. A massive hand wraps around Datura’s windpipe.

Datura’s eyes widen in terror. The kneebar slips.

Kate rises onto her good right foot, hauling Datura off the mat by the throat. All weight on the right leg. Maximum elevation. Kate drives her down into the canvas with a bone-crushing chokeslam.

Datura’s back craters the canvas. She clutches her throat, wheezing, rolling blindly toward the apron.

Kate drops to one knee, furiously kneading her damaged left kneecap to force the joint back into place.

Datura drags herself out through the ropes, clinging to the apron facing the entrance ramp. Kate pursues, reaching over the top rope to haul her back inside.

Datura snaps. She grabs Kate’s left arm and jerks it down across the taut top rope—a vicious rope-assisted armlock.

Kate groans as her shoulder wrenched in the socket. She steps through the ropes onto the narrow apron, shaking out the arm.

Datura immediately wraps a front facelock around Kate’s neck. She looks down. Directly beneath them sit the two standing tables at the base of the entrance ramp.

Datura strains to hoist the two-hundred-pounder off the apron for a suplex through the timber.

A collective gasp sweeps through the building, thousands of fans leaning forward over the guardrails in pure dread.

Kate plants both boots firmly on the apron ledge. The dead weight refuses to lift. Kate draws back her heavy right arm and hammers three clubbing forearms straight into Datura’s ribs.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

Datura’s grip breaks. She doubles over, clutching her bruised ribs. Kate shoves her forward, tumbling Datura under the bottom rope back into the ring.

Kate steps back over the ropes, shaking the stiffness from her left knee as she closes the distance. She reaches down to haul the Green Witch up.

Datura springs off the canvas. She snakes her arms through Kate’s, trapping both wrists in a straight-jacket lock, and pivots to throw LADY DEATH (Straight-Jacket Bullhammer Forearm)—

Kate ducks. The forearm whistles inches over her head.

Kate slips behind, scoops her arm under Datura’s chin, and bends her backward into an inverted headlock.

She leaves her feet.

VEGA DEATH DROP (Inverted DDT)!

CRACK.

The back of Datura’s skull hammers into the canvas. The impact rebounds her head off the mat, leaving her staring blankly at the rafters, limbs splayed like a broken marionette.

Kate gets to her feet. She pounds her chest with both fists and lets loose a booming, arena-splitting roar:

“WOO!”

Time is running out. Kate grabs Datura by the collar, dragging the dead weight through the ropes onto the apron on the timekeeper’s side. Directly beneath the apron sits one of the standing ringside tables.

Datura wobbles on jelly legs, completely dazed, staring blankly down at the wood below.

Kate hoists Datura up across her broad shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Two heavy, driving strides down the narrow apron ledge.

Kate leaps.

Running powerslam off the apron!

KABOOM.

Wood explodes. Metal legs sheer off with a violent screech as Datura’s spine obliterates the center of the table. Plywood splinters into jagged kindling, folding Datura’s broken frame into the wreckage on the floor.

Kate rolls off the debris, grimacing and clutching her ribs and tweaked left knee from the brutal shockwave of the six-foot drop.

VE-GA!

Twelve thousand voices chant Kate’s name as the entire auditorium reverberates.

Datura is motionless in the splintered kindling on the timekeeper’s side. Yuna is still laid out on the entrance aisle.

Kate pulls herself up against the guardrail, her eyes locking onto the Golden Ticket briefcase hanging twenty feet overhead.

Favoring her left leg, Kate limps down the aisle, grabs the fifteen-foot ladder, and shoves it under the bottom rope into the ring. She slides in after it.

With heavy, labored breaths, Kate muscles the fifteen-foot ladder upright, kicking its legs wide directly under the suspension hook.

Step one. Step two.

Limping heavily, she drags her bruised left knee up the steel rungs, every rung groaning under her two hundred pounds. The arena volume surges with her ascent.

Rung ten. Rung eleven.

Kate extends her fingertips upward, reaching for the cold brass clasp of the briefcase. Inches away.

Outside on the ramp, Yuna Obsidian stirs.

She scrambles up, shaking off blinding disorientation, clutching her skull as she stumbles toward the ring. Desperation in her stride.

Yuna slides under the bottom rope and throws her entire body weight against the side of the fifteen-foot ladder.

A vicious, unhinged shove.

The ladder tilts. The steel frame falls away toward the ropes.

Kate realizes she has no base and leaps into open air to avoid being crushed in the collapsing steel.

She comes down hard.

WHIP-CRACK.

Kate lands chest-and-throat-first across the top rope with whiplash force. The heavy rope snaps down, bouncing her violently backward. Kate flops hard onto the canvas, gasping for breath, hands clawing at her throat and crushed ribs beside the fallen ladder.

Yuna Obsidian stands tall over the fallen giant, tilting her head with a toxic, predatory smirk.

Outside on the floor near the timekeeper’s table, Datura remains motionless. Buried beneath splintered plywood and twisted steel brackets, the Green Witch is entirely out of the equation.

Inside the ropes, Yuna Obsidian stands tall over Kate Vega. A cold, toxic smirk cuts across the striker’s face as the powerhouse gasps for oxygen on the canvas.

Yuna reaches down and muscles the heavy fifteen-foot ladder off the mat. She hoists the steel frame waist-high, takes aim, and drives the blunt edges of the rungs violently down into Kate’s bruised ribcage.

CRUNCH.

A guttural cry tears out of Kate’s throat. She curls onto her side, clutching her midsection as the impact knocks the wind from her lungs.

Yuna drops the ladder flat against the canvas. Moving with predatory speed, she hooks her legs around Kate’s torso and snakes her forearm back beneath the giant’s chin, using the unforgiving steel rungs beneath Kate’s chest as an anvil.

BLACK WIDOW (Crossface with Body Scissors)—

Kate’s eyes snap shut in blinding agony. Every breath is pure fire. The body scissors constrict her fractured ribs like an iron vice, grinding her chest directly into the cold, unyielding rungs of the ladder.

Yuna does not look down. Head tilted, her eyes stare cold and unblinking out into the sea of screaming fans, completely detached from the physical struggle beneath her. Leaning in, she presses her lips to Kate’s ear, whispering venomous taunts directly into the powerhouse’s ear canal.

Desperation turns into adrenaline.

Kate plants both calloused palms against the canvas. Her forearms cord with tension. Digging her work boots into the mat, she forces her massive two-hundred-pound frame upward onto her knees, prying Yuna’s locked wrists apart with raw, explosive power. The hold shatters.

Yuna scrambles back to her feet, eyes flashing. She bursts forward, lunging with a lightning-fast running knee strike to cut the powerhouse off at the pass.

Kate reads the trajectory. From her knees, she ducks her head beneath the flying knee, drives her hips forward, and tackles Yuna around both thighs.

SLAM.

The double-leg takedown plants Yuna flat on her back.

Panicking, Yuna kicks both boots into Kate’s chest to create separation. She pops up, wild and aggressive, charging Kate a second time.

Kate doesn’t flinch. She takes one calm, fluid step to the left—a casual, cold sidestep.

Yuna hits empty air. Her forward momentum carries her headlong through the middle ropes, pitching her over the rope to crash violently down onto the concrete ringside floor.

THUD.

Yuna’s hip absorbs the concrete floor. She scrambles upward on all fours, darting up the inclined steel entrance ramp to buy space and regroup.

Kate rolls under the bottom rope, drops to the floor, and stalks up the ramp in heavy, measured strides.

High on the metal staging, both women halt. Perched directly above the two standing tables stacked side-by-side at the bottom of the aisle.

Yuna throws a blistering knife-edge chop across Kate’s chest. CRACK.

Kate doesn’t blink. She cocks her right arm and hammers a clubbing forearm straight into Yuna’s jaw.

Yuna staggers, vision swimming, but lashes out with a stiff open-palm strike driven directly into Kate’s compromised ribs. Kate winces, yet catches Yuna’s follow-up swing in mid-air.

Kate blocks the forearm, steps deep, and wraps an arm around Yuna’s waist.

She elevates.

Vertical suplex position. Kate holds the one-hundred-and-fourteen-pound striker suspended high in the air, dangling her directly over the edge of the elevated ramp. Twelve feet above the twin tables waiting below.

A collective roar of panic rips through the auditorium, thousands of fans gasping as the drop registers.

Facing catastrophic impact, Yuna digs her fingernails into Kate’s face, brutally raking both thumbs across the giant’s eyelids.

Kate roars in pain, her grip failing as blinding white light tears through her vision. She drops Yuna to the steel plating and staggers blindly forward, clutching her burning eyes. Her back is completely turned.

Yuna doesn’t hesitate.

She springs from behind, leaping high onto Kate’s broad shoulders and snapping her hips backward with ruthless torque.

VENOM KISS (Poisonrana)!

CRACK.

Kate’s skull spikes directly into the corrugated steel ramp. The sound of bone against heavy industrial metal reverberates through the arena.

Kate’s limbs go completely dead. She rolls onto her back, eyes glazed and staring blankly into the arena rafters, unmoving.

Yuna pushes herself up, breathing hard through her teeth. She grabs Kate by the hair and drags the limp, two-hundred-pound powerhouse down the decline of the steel ramp to the ringside mats.

Yuna’s eyes dart across the floor. She spots the dented steel chair Datura discarded in the opening minutes.

She scoops it up, testing the weight in her hands as she stalks Kate’s motionless frame.

Instinct alone pulls Kate up. Groggily, her hands reach for the cold metal of the perimeter guardrail, hauling her chest upright as she tries to steady her shaking legs.

Yuna winds up.

CLANG.

A vicious chair shot across Kate’s upper back folds the metal around her spine.

Kate grunts, teeth bared, her knuckles turning white against the guardrail as she visibly fights the shockwave to remain on her feet.

Yuna scowls in pure frustration. She resets her stance and swings again.

BANG.

The second chair shot cracks across Kate’s shoulder blades. Kate stumbles forward, dropping hard onto one knee. Blood trickles from her split lip, but she refuses to stay down, planting her palm on the padded floor and shoving herself back upward.

Yuna steps in, winds back with both hands, and drives the full flat edge of the chair directly into Kate’s forehead.

CRACK.

The impact drops the giant like a felled redwood. Kate hits the ringside floor face-first, completely unconscious.

Yuna tosses the crushed chair aside and marches toward the ring apron, lifting the black skirt to scavenge for another ladder.

Her hands find heavy ballistic nylon.

Yuna drags out a thick, black duffle bag. Stenciled across the side in bold, weathered white lettering: POLICE.

A deafening pop ripples through the arena, twelve thousand fans roaring in instant recognition of the weapon bag and its grim history.

Yuna yanks the zipper back and dumps the cargo onto the ringside mat.

A high-voltage stun gun. A heavy-duty steel flashlight. Two sets of reinforced police handcuffs.

Yuna’s lips peel back into an amused, sadistic grin. She picks up one pair of handcuffs, the steel chain links chiming softly in the arena air.

Behind her, Kate groans. Blind instinct forcing the giant onto her hands and knees.

Before Kate can stand, Yuna drops her weight down, grabs Kate’s right arm, and wrenches it straight out toward the standing ringside table nearby.

CLICK-CLACK.

The steel cuff clamps tightly around Kate’s wrist.

Yuna kicks the heavy wooden table, flipping it flat onto its side. She drags Kate’s tethered arm down to the base and threads the second cuff through the heavy metal support bracket near the screwed-in leg mount.

CLICK-SNAP.

Locked.

The chain goes taut.

Kate’s eyes snap open as the cold steel bites into her wrist bone. She yanks backward with all her strength, but the welded bracket and two-hundred-pound timber frame hold firm.

Realizing the trap, Kate roars, lashing out with a wild, desperate left-hand swipe toward Yuna’s head.

Yuna leans back effortlessly, letting the strike whistle harmlessly past her chin. She smirks, picks up the stun gun from the mat, and jams it securely into the waistband of her leather gear.

Leaving Kate chained to the wood, Yuna slides under the bottom rope and rises to her feet, standing alone in the center of the ring, the live stun gun secured inside the waistband of her leather gear.

She drags the fifteen-foot ladder across the canvas, muscles the steel frame upright, and kicks the support legs wide directly beneath the swaying Golden Ticket briefcase.

At the bottom rung, Yuna pauses. Her head tilts. She glares out at the hostile sea of faces, flashing an arrogant, toxic smirk as boos rain down from the packed rafters. To her, the ring is empty. The work is done.

Yuna begins her ascent. Rung by rung. Cold, deliberate strides, her right hand reaching upward toward the brass clasp of the case.

Under the bottom rope, a shadow moves.

Datura slides back into the ring. Bruised ribs. Battered spine from the timber wreckage on the floor. She ignores the screaming nerves in her back and breaks into a desperate scramble, scaling the opposite side of the fifteen-foot frame to cut Yuna off.

Ten feet up, Yuna catches the vibration through the metal. She looks across the rungs, snarling as her fingers brush empty air beneath the case.

Datura spots the exposed black handle of the stun gun jutting from Yuna’s waistband.

Datura reaches through the ladder divide, clamping both hands around Yuna’s boot and wrenching hard. Yuna’s base slips. The striker wobbles, catches the top rung with one forearm, and snaps a desperate defensive kick straight into Datura’s sternum.

THUD.

Datura takes the impact flush. Her ribs flare with pain, but she refuses to drop. Digging her toes into the steel rung, Datura lunges forward with her right hand and snatches the weapon straight from Yuna’s waistband.

No hesitation. Pure cold instinct.

Datura thumbs the switch and jams the live prongs directly into the unpainted aluminum spreader brace along the ladder’s side rail.

BZZZZZZT.

A violent, high-voltage arc tears through the conductive frame.

Yuna’s jaw locks open. Her spine arches violently into the steel, muscles seizing in involuntary convulsions as the current surges through her palms. Her fingers fuse to the electrified rungs, trapped in the charge as her head thrashes wildly.

Datura yanks the prongs away, severing the current.

Yuna’s eyes roll back into her skull. The tension snaps. Dead weight.

Yuna topples backward off the ladder into empty space, crashing hard onto the canvas near the ropes. THUD.

On the ladder, Datura looks down at the smoking weapon in her grip. She searches for a place to stow it. Her form-fitting catsuit has no belt, no loops, no pockets. Pragmatic as always, Datura digs her thumbs into the housing, pops the battery cell completely free, and heaves both the casing and the power source out of the ring in opposite directions to neutralize the hazard.

Outside on the concrete, Kate Vega groggily stirs.

The powerhouse rolls onto her knees, shaking her head to clear the static behind her eyes, and pushes up to her feet. She takes a heavy step toward the ring apron.

CLANK.

The chain snaps taut.

The heavy, overturned oak table screeches two feet across the arena floor, biting into Kate’s tethered right wrist.

Kate stops. She looks down at the steel cuff locked around her wrist. Then she looks up through the ropes.

Datura is already climbing back toward the briefcase.

Kate doesn’t look for a key. She plants her heavy work boot flat against the overturned wooden tabletop.

A guttural, chest-rattling roar tears out of the powerhouse.

Kate throws her entire two-hundred-pound frame backward, her biceps cording like steel ropes as she wrenches against the metal support bracket. The wood groans. The screws shudder.

She resets her footing and heaves a second time with raw, lumberyard violence.

CRACK-SNAP.

The bracket shears clean off the splintering timber. Screws rip through the wood grain.

The cuff slides free of the ruined furniture, leaving the steel bracelet and dangling chain links clinking against Kate’s forearm.

Kate sprints. She slides belly-first under the bottom rope just as Datura reaches the summit.

Standing five-foot-seven, Datura has no margin for error. She is forced to balance precariously on the absolute highest platform of the fifteen-foot ladder, stretching every tendon in her torso upward to reach the twenty-foot hook.

Datura looks down.

The giant is coming.

Datura makes a wild, desperate grab for the brass handle of the briefcase.

Kate hits the center of the ring, widens her stance, and shoves both palms violently against the ladder frame.

CREAK.

The ladder tips backward into freefall.

Datura lunges straight up, throwing both hands overhead to clamp onto the cold steel suspension hook just as the ladder falls away from her boots.

Her feet dangle in empty air. Twenty feet above the canvas, clinging to the industrial hook by her raw finger strength alone.

Kate follows through, driving the falling ladder across the ring until it wedges upright against the corner turnbuckle pads.

Above the canvas, Datura begins to swing.

A living pendulum. Back and forth across the ring, clinging to the steel suspension rope as a deafening roar rocks the auditorium rafters.

Kate sees the path.

She turns, charging into the corner, and rapidly scales the wedged fifteen-foot ladder. Four steps. Six steps. Eight steps.

She tracks the arc of the swing. Timing the momentum.

Datura reaches the apex of her return swing toward the corner.

Kate launches herself off the rungs into open space.

Two hundred pounds in flight.

Mid-air collision.

Kate drives her shoulder through Datura’s ribcage with a monstrous spear.

The violent impact rips Datura’s fingers clean off the suspension hook.

Both women freefall.

KABOOM.

The ring canvas craters beneath them. The shockwave ripples across the ring boards, a deafening crack that silences the venue for a fraction of a second before the crowd volume detonates.

Kate rolls away from the impact onto her back, clutching her cracked ribs and drawing ragged, shallow gasps of air.

Datura lies flat on the canvas in the center of the ring, arms splayed wide, completely knocked out cold.

Kate Vega pushes herself up from the canvas, breathing in ragged, uneven gasps. Her knuckles dig into the ring mat. Every inhale sends sharp spasms through her bruised ribs.

Across the ring, Yuna Obsidian spots the movement.

Yuna bolts toward the corner turnbuckle, scaling the wedged fifteen-foot ladder with feral, light-footed agility. Four rungs. Six rungs. She reaches the midsection of the frame, coils her calves, and vaults backward into open air. Twisting her torso mid-flight, she drives both boots out.

STATIC CRASH (Springboard Missile Dropkick)!

CRACK.

Both soles plant dead-center into Kate’s sternum.

The impact drives the two-hundred-pound giant backward like she was shot from a cannon. Beside her, Datura—groaning and clutching her spine on the mat—spots the falling mass of flesh and rolls frantically to the side. Datura clears the trajectory by inches as Kate craters into the canvas. The Green Witch keeps rolling, tumbling beneath the bottom rope to spill dead-weight onto the ringside mats below.

Kate hits the canvas with bone-rattling force. Her lungs empty in a breathless wheeze, hands clamping desperately over her chest.

Yuna rolls through her landing and pops to her feet. Without breaking stride, she slips through the ropes on the opposite side of the ring and drops to the floor. Her eyes lock onto the discarded, dented steel chair.

She scoops the weapon by the backrest, slides back under the bottom rope, and stalks the gasping powerhouse.

Yuna draws the chair back, aiming the narrow steel rim straight at Kate’s exposed ribs. She thrusts it forward with killing intent.

Kate moves on raw survival instinct. Her thick, calloused palms snap up, clamping around the tubular steel frame inches before impact.

Kate torques her hips. A violent, lateral wrench.

Yuna refuses to let go of the steel. The mistake costs her. Kate’s lumberyard power yanks the one-hundred-and-fourteen-pound striker completely off her feet, hurtling Yuna across the ring like a ragdoll.

SLAM.

Yuna’s body violently impacts the corner turnbuckles, the chair still locked in her white-knuckled grip.

Kate is already on her feet, ignoring the throbbing pain in her left leg as she stalks the corner. She clamps both hands onto the chair, rips it cleanly from Yuna’s fingers, and swings with full body torque.

CLANG.

The gunshot echo of steel on flesh rings through the arena. The blow folds across Yuna’s spine. Yuna’s back arches in blinding agony, a shrill shriek torn from her throat as she collapses flat to the canvas.

Yuna crawls on belly and forearms, gasping for air.

Kate doesn’t chase immediately. She takes the dented chair, turns it sideways, and jams the frame tightly between the top and middle turnbuckles, wedging the steel seat flat against the corner post.

Turning, Kate hunts down the crawling striker. She bends down, gripping Yuna ruthlessly by the collar and waistband of her ring gear.

YUNA OBSIDIAN: Let go of me, you bitch!

Yuna screeches, clawing at Kate’s wrists, but the powerhouse hauls her upright by sheer force of will. Kate spins her around, locks her hands against Yuna’s chest, and hurls her backward with maximum velocity.

CRUNCH.

Yuna’s spine slams flush into the wedged steel chair. Metal buckles. The turnbuckle bolts shriek under the force.

A collective, sympathetic groan rumbles across the venue. Yuna’s jaw drops, her eyes bulging in pure, unadulterated shock as all the air is violently hammered from her ribcage. She sways in the corner, pinned upright by the dented steel.

Kate turns her back to the corner. She pumps her fists, waving her arms wide as she strides across the canvas, stoking the roaring crowd to a fever pitch.

Adrenaline surging.

Kate pivots on her good right heel and charges full speed across the ring, lowering her shoulder for a catastrophic corner thrust.

Yuna’s survival reflexes take over. At the absolute last split-second, she drops flat to her stomach, rolling out of the lane.

Kate cannot stop.

BOOM.

Kate’s skull crashes head-first directly into the flat surface of the wedged steel chair.

The impact echoes like a sledgehammer hitting sheet metal. Kate’s neck whips violently back. She crumples instantly into a motionless heap at the base of the turnbuckle.

Her eyes go glassy. Pupils dilating. Vision splitting into double images as she clutches her forehead, dazed and helpless.

Yuna pushes up from the canvas, coughing hard as she notices the loose steel cuff still dangling from Kate’s right wrist.

Predatory focus returns. Yuna scrambles to the corner.

Kate weakly extends an arm to shove her off, but the severe concussion leaves her limbs sluggish and heavy.

Yuna swats the weak defense away, grabs the swinging handcuff, and loops the open steel bracelet behind the vinyl turnbuckle padding, threading it around the solid steel threaded rod.

CLICK-SNAP.

The cuff locks shut.

Kate is chained directly to the corner.

A deafening cascade of vitriol and boos roars through the auditorium, fans surging against the guardrails in visceral anger as the powerhouse is completely immobilized.

Yuna gets to her feet, smirking, and starts toward the fifteen-foot ladder resting in the opposite corner.

Then she stops.

Her eyes track past the ropes to the floor near the announce table.

The twenty-foot giant ladder.

Yuna slips through the ropes and drops to the outside floor. She rushes over to the towering industrial ladder, knocks both metal spreader brackets upward, and pulls the heavy frame closed.

Straining under the massive dead weight, Yuna drags the twenty-foot monster toward the apron, heaves the base under the bottom rope, and shoves it scraping heavily across the ring canvas.

Yuna slides back inside, her breathing ragged as she undertakes the brutal task of erecting the titan:

She drags the base to the exact center of the ring, digging the rubber footings deep into the canvas.

She plants her palms on the heavy outer rails, walking her hands step-by-step up the metal beams, her calves burning as she levers the twenty-foot frame toward the ceiling.

She muscles the front and rear legs apart, kicking the base wide to establish a massive footprint.

She stomps both boots down on the internal metal spreader braces, hammering them until they lock completely flat.

The towering steel monolith dominates the arena, its top platform resting just inches beneath the gleaming Golden Ticket briefcase.

In the corner, Kate shakes her head violently, the static in her brain finally giving way to clarity. She looks up, seeing the giant ladder erected in the center of the ring.

Kate tries to explode to her feet.

CLANK.

The chain snaps taut against the turnbuckle rod. She looks down at her right wrist in raw disbelief. Handcuffed. Trapped.

In the center of the ring, Yuna begins a slow, arrogant, methodical ascent up the twenty-foot ladder, climbing rung by rung toward the prize.

Panic turns into pure adrenaline.

Kate doesn’t look for keys. Using her free left hand and her bare teeth, she sinks her grip into the vinyl turnbuckle pad and rips it violently away, tearing the foam clean off the metal to expose the bare, threaded steel eyelet rod.

On the outside floor, Datura stirs.

Battered. Bleeding from the mouth. The Green Witch drags herself onto the apron, slips under the bottom rope, and breaks into a full sprint. She leaps onto the rungs on the opposite side of the twenty-foot ladder, scaling the steel like a woman possessed to cut Yuna off.

Chained in the corner, Kate grabs the bare steel turnbuckle rod with both calloused hands.

She wrenches.

Veins bulge across her neck and forearms like thick roots. A feral, chest-tearing scream rips from her lungs as she fights the structural steel of the ring itself.

Twenty feet in the air, Yuna and Datura meet face-to-face on the upper rungs.

No wrestling. Pure desperation.

They trade bare-knuckle punches right beneath the hook, the brass briefcase swaying violently above their heads as wild hooks crack against cheekbones.

In the corner, Kate’s boots slip against the bloody canvas. Her muscles tremble under the impossible strain.

One final, monstrous surge of lumberyard power.

SCREEECH-SNAP.

The threaded eyelet shears clean out of the corner post.

The industrial steel turnbuckle drops like a stone. The middle rope loses all tension, slumping down to the canvas.

Kate breaks loose, the steel rod and broken chain still swinging from her right wrist.

She doesn’t waste a second.

Kate sprints across the ring, plants both hands against the side-rails of the twenty-foot ladder, and shoves with every ounce of strength left in her body.

The twenty-foot frame tilts. Past the center of gravity.

Yuna and Datura look down in absolute horror as the ladder falls away toward the entrance ropes.

The towering ladder clips the top rope and acts as a catapult.

Both women are launched into free air.

Sailing fifteen feet out over the ring apron, their bodies arc through the arena lights and plummet straight down toward the base of the entrance ramp.

KABOOOOM.

Both women crash simultaneously through the twin tables waiting side-by-side.

Heavy plywood explodes into matchsticks. Steel table legs fold like paper. The impact detonates with the force of a car crash, burying both Yuna and Datura in a twisted grave of splintered timber and shattered brackets.

HOLY SHIT!

A deafening roar shatters the arena as twelve thousand fans erupt in unison. Medics and referees pour out from behind the curtain, sprinting down the ramp toward the smoking pile of wreckage.

Inside the ring, Kate limps heavily toward the corner.

She grabs the wedged fifteen-foot ladder, dragging it with trembling arms to the direct center of the canvas.

She kicks the legs wide beneath the hanging case.

Step one. Step two. Step three.

The venue roars with a massive standing ovation, twelve thousand fans on their feet in raw adulation as the powerhouse drags her battered frame up the rungs.

Rung ten. Rung twelve.

Kate reaches up with both hands, unfastens the heavy brass clasp, and pulls the Golden Ticket briefcase down from the suspension hook.

DING! DING! DING!

KATE VEGA WINS

MS. GOLDEN TICKET

“Hero” by Victorious blasts through the arena sound system as the final bell sounds.

Kate stands tall on the upper rungs of the fifteen-foot ladder, her chest heaving as sweat and smeared face paint drip down her chin. She thrusts the gleaming brass briefcase high above her head into the blinding arena spotlights.

Dangling from her right wrist, the snapped steel handcuff and sheared turnbuckle rod catch the glare of the lights—a heavy, brutal badge of survival.

At the bottom of the entrance ramp, neither Datura nor Yuna Obsidian has moved. Both women remain completely buried beneath the splintered wreckage of the twin tables, surrounded by anxious EMTs and officials checking their vitals.

Kate looks down at the carnage across the arena floor. She lowers the briefcase to her hip, balls her left hand into a fist, and hammers her chest twice.

KATE: WOO!!!

The booming shout cuts straight through the roar of the arena as Kate Vega hoists the Golden Ticket Briefcase high once more, basking in the ovation as the new Ms. Golden Ticket.

SEGMENT

HOPE RUSSO
THAÏS EMPRISTIKÍ
TIGRESS

We open to Thaïs sitting on the couch in their home. Their legs on Sandy’s lap while their head rests on Hope’s. Looking relaxed and content between their two partners. Turning their head before facing the camera.

THAÏS: The thing about love is that it teaches you to be selfless. No matter how angry we get no matter what happens you learn that eventually it just isn’t about you. You have to look at yourself and you have to look at the people you love and you have to ask about their feelings. And I think about my relationship and the people I love is that you don’t know us. No matter how much people see in public you’ll never know us like we know each other.

Hope runs her fingers through Thaïs’s hair as they speak, she smiles softly before speaking.

HOPE: The thing about relationships is that from time to time people disagree. But that doesn’t mean that you don’t love someone. Love is what matters, disagreements happen, but they don’t change how you feel about someone

Thaïs sits up now kissing both their wives on the cheek. Starting with Sandra on their right before leaning over to Hope on their left.

THAÏS: And the thing is that neither of us are here on our own. The two of us might be incredibly stubborn, but it’s Sandy who brings us both together again. And reminds us that what we have is stronger than what the black rainbow has tried to take from us. Stronger than any way we have been put and pitted against each other. We know we are stronger and better together.

Hope and Thaïs stand and hold hands in front of the camera.

HOPE: Nothing….especially Black Rainbow can break the bond between us. Yes, there will be times we disagree, sometimes they will be very public disagreements. Our bond is strong and Tigress is strong and united.

The camera fades as Thaïs and Hope hold hands

MATCH

THE FLAME BRINGER

THAÏS EMPRISTIKÍ

TIGRESS

vs

PCW UNLEASHED CHAMPION

BIA

BLACK RAINBOW

BURIED ALIVE MATCH

PCW UNLEASHED CHAMPIONSHIP

REFEREE: GRADE GARRETT

The broadcast camera cranes wide across the staging area at stage left. A towering mound of freshly excavated earth dominates the staging floor, damp and heavy, framed by a rigid row of steel shovels driven upright into the soil. Behind the mound, half-swallowed by shadow, sits the jagged iron silhouette of a commercial backhoe.

The camera drops steadily toward the trench cut into the floorboards. Six feet deep. Cold, damp, and waiting. At the head of the opening rests a slab of granite, deeply carved with fresh lettering:

THAÏS EMPRISTIKÍ VS. BIA

A sharp electrical snap cuts the power grid. The entire arena plunges into pitch-black darkness.

Neon luminescence cuts through the blackness as Thaïs Empristikí steps out onto the ramp. Their ring gear and entrance jacket blaze through the shadows with electric green and yellow tiger stripes—pure, concentrated glow-in-the-dark phosphor slicing through the void.

The driving drumline and pop cadence of Huntrix’s “How It’s Done” kicks through the arena sound system.

Thaïs catches the beat instantly. Moving down the ramp with fluid, effortless rhythm, they snap their fingers on the downbeat. BANG. CRACK. Rows of floor pyro detonate along the staging line, kicking up towering fountains of amber and gold sparks.

Thaïs dances straight down the descent until they reach the dirt mound. They stop dead.

Gaze shifting toward the precipice, Thaïs walks to the lip of the open grave. They look down at the carved granite tombstone. No hesitation. No terror. Thaïs flashes a brilliant, defiant smile directly at their own name etched into the stone. Leaning out over the void, they flick their wrist in a mocking, cheerful wave into the dark pit, then pivot on their heels and sprint full speed toward the ring.

Thaïs slides low under the bottom rope. Back up in a single motion, they strip off the glowing jacket, ball it up, and toss it clear over the top strand onto the arena floor.

Thaïs charges the turnbuckle and scales the pads, perching on the ropes. They cross their wrists over their head, hands balled with their index and pinky fingers thrust outward in a sharp salute.

BOOM.

A blinding curtain of golden pyro detonates along the arena ceiling rig, raining a sheet of gold sparks directly behind them. Thaïs drops lightly back to the canvas, bouncing on the balls of their feet, brimming with fiery energy.

The upbeat music cuts off instantly.

A suffocating, heavy silence drops over the arena like a wet wool blanket.

Through the arena speakers comes the scratchy, tape-hiss rasp of Walter Kovacs. Distorted. Bitter. Every syllable scraped raw:

“The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists. And all the whores and politicians will look up and shout ‘Save Us!’, and I’ll look down and whisper… ‘No.'”

THUD. CHUG.

The down-tuned, industrial guitar riff of Twisted F8’s “Built to Last” hammers through the sound system.

Arterial red light floods the stage, pulsing like a ruptured vein.

From the deep black shadows behind the heavy machinery, Bia emerges. Draped in heavy black leather, rusted industrial chains, and jagged war paint streaked in crimson and charcoal across her jawline. Her hair is woven tight in severe combat braids. She steps out onto the dirt mound, her boots sinking into the loose earth.

Bia marches to the precipice and stops dead over the tombstone.

Slowly, deliberately, she unbuckles the heavy gold of the PCW UNLEASHED Championship from her waist. She extends both arms forward, dangling the title out into the open air directly above the empty grave. Her eyes never look down into the trench. Her gaze remains locked straight down the ramp, boring through Thaïs in the ring.

She pulls the leather strap back in, slinging the title tight over her shoulder. She descends the ramp with heavy, methodical strides. The crowd screams their hostility over the guardrails, but she does not blink. She does not register a single soul in the building. Complete tunnel vision.

Bia slides under the bottom rope, rising in a fluid, predatory crouch. Her eyes never leave Thaïs.

She mounts the second turnbuckle, plants her boots, and throws her arms wide to the rafters. Her head snaps back. A guttural, throat-shredding war cry tears out of her lungs.

WHAM.

Three ring posts detonate in unison, launching geysers of roaring red flame high into the arena rigging. Behind her, high up on the stage, a concussive shockwave ripples across the entranceway as a massive pillar of flame erupts from the dirt mound, bathing the entire gravesite in blood-red fire.

Bia steps down to the canvas. Without breaking eye contact, she thrusts the PCW UNLEASHED Championship backward through the ropes, relinquishing the strap to the ringside timekeeper.

Thaïs steps out from their corner. Bia advances from hers.

They meet dead center on the PCW canvas. Inches apart. Thaïs loose, fiery, and unblinking. Bia rigid, menacing, radiating pure hostility. No referee stands between them to deliver rules or break a clinch. Only two fighters and an open hole in the ground waiting by the stage.

DING!
DING!
DING!

Dead center on the PCW canvas, neither fighter gives an inch. Twelve thousand voices roar in a deafening wall of sound, but neither woman looks at the crowd. Unblinking. Motionless.

Bia sneers. She takes one heavy step forward, closing the space until the hard bone of her forehead presses flush against Thaïs’s.

BIA: All that fire, and you’re still gonna burn out.

Thaïs does not flinch. Their boots stay dug into the mat. No backward step. Not against the person who abandoned them. Not against the monster standing in front of them.

THAÏS: I’m not the one standing in the dark anymore, Bia.

The air snaps.

CRACK.

Bia unloads a brutal, closed-fist right hand flush to Thaïs’s jaw.

Thaïs’s head jolts sideways. Their boots skid across the canvas, but they don’t go down. Gritting their teeth, Thaïs pivots hard on their lead foot and whips a blistering forearm smash across Bia’s cheekbone.

Bia barely resets before Thaïs steps in, driving an overhand right directly between the War Goddess’s eyes.

THUD.

Bia’s neck snaps back. She absorbs the blow, shakes her head with a feral snarl, and steps directly into the pocket. She fires back with a stiff forearm smash that rattles Thaïs’s teeth and drives the challenger back two paces.

Thaïs ducks under a wild right hook, slips inside Bia’s reach, and drives a stiff palm strike straight into Bia’s collarbone.

Bone on bone. Bia doesn’t back up. She lets out a guttural roar, steps through the strike, and buries a sledgehammer knee deep into Thaïs’s midsection.

OOF.

The air violently evacuates Thaïs’s lungs. They double over instantly, gasping on their feet.

Bia wraps both arms around Thaïs’s waist, deadlifts them off the canvas, and hurls them backward with a violent Fallaway Slam. Thaïs flies across the ring, crashing spine-first into the turnbuckles before folding hard onto the mat. They roll onto their side, clutching their lower back, their face contorted in agony.

Bia stalks the perimeter like a caged predator. Prowling. Unfazed. Uncompromising. She leans over the second rope, glaring down at the screaming fans in the front row, shouting curses back into their faces.

On the other side of the ring, Thaïs claws at the bottom rope. Fingers digging into the braided hemp, they haul their dead weight back up, pulling themself to a vertical base. Their chest heaves. Sweat streams down their throat.

Bia turns, spots the movement, and charges like a freight train, arm cocked for a decapitating clothesline.

Thaïs drops low. Pure instinct. Bia’s arm slices through empty air as Thaïs slips beneath the swing with deceptive speed.

Thaïs hits the far ropes, rebounds hard, and launches both boots forward in a crisp, explosive Running Dropkick. The impact catches Bia square in the breastplate, driving the 165-pound champion stumbling back into the corner pads.

Thaïs crashes flat onto their back from the dropkick, instantly uses the momentum to roll backward, and snaps straight up into a kip-up. Back on their feet. Fluid. Fast. Thaïs spins their back to Bia, leaves their feet, and whips an overhead Pele Kick through the air.

SMACK.

The instep catches Bia dead on the jaw.

Bia’s head jerks violently, but her legs do not give out. She stumbles off the turnbuckle, rebounds off the adjacent ropes, and throws her entire 165-pound frame into a full-body Lariat.

WHAM.

The heavy forearm collides with Thaïs’s throat like a lead pipe.

Thaïs is turned completely inside out. Their body flips horizontally in mid-air before crashing onto the canvas with sickening force. The impact rattles the floorboards. Thaïs lies sprawled, staring blankly at the lights.

Bia stands over them, breathing through her teeth. Cold. Detached. She reaches down, wraps a fist into Thaïs’s hair, and drags them off the canvas like a carcass.

She pulls Thaïs into position, hooks the waistband, and hoists them straight into the vertical air.

Thaïs is held upside down, completely vertical. Suspended. One second. Three seconds. Five seconds. The blood rushes furiously into Thaïs’s face as Bia flexes her core, marching in a tight circle center-ring, holding the challenger suspended for ten agonizing seconds in a terrifying display of raw powerhouse strength.

SLAM.

Bia drives Thaïs down with a brutal, stalling vertical suplex release.

Thaïs bounces violently off the canvas. Desperate for oxygen, their lungs burning, Thaïs blindly claws across the mat, rolling out under the bottom rope to the ring apron to create space.

Bia doesn’t give them a second to breathe. She steps out through the ropes, reaches down, and catches Thaïs by the left ankle. With a merciless yank, she hauls Thaïs off the apron, letting them drop heavily to the ringside floor.

Bia drops down after them. She buries her fingers into the back of Thaïs’s hair, lifts their head, and drives their face directly into the rigid steel frame of the ring apron.

CLANG.

Thaïs’s legs go out from under them. They slump to their knees on the thin ringside mats, their vision swimming in black spots.

Bia stalks behind them. She lifts her heavy combat boot and stomps down, grinding the sole into the side of Thaïs’s skull, pinning their face hard against the jagged grating of the steel ring steps.

BIA: You wanted a war?! This is what it looks like!

Bia bears down with her full weight, violently raking Thaïs’s forehead and cheek back and forth across the razor-sharp diamond tread of the steel steps.

Thaïs groans, their hands clawing uselessly at the cold metal.

Bia finally steps off, letting Thaïs collapse limp onto the arena floor.

The camera pushes in tight on the challenger. Thaïs forces their chin up from the mat. A thick, crimson sheet of arterial blood pours from a deep split along their hairline, painting their face in a gruesome mask and dripping heavily onto the glowing neon tiger stripes across their chest.

At ringside, Bia looks down at the blood and breaks into a dry, mocking laugh.

Thaïs grips the base of the ring post, pushing their boots into the floor. Fighting the vertigo. Refusing to stay down.

Bia charges in, looking to crush Thaïs’s skull against the post with a running boot.

Thaïs tracks the shadow. At the final millisecond, they drop their shoulder and sidestep.

THUD.

Bia overshoots, her shoulder crashing violently into the solid steel post.

Thaïs doesn’t hesitate. Scrambling up the steel steps, Thaïs mounts the top tier, launches into the air, and drives a flying knee strike flush into the back of Bia’s head.

Bia staggers forward in a daze, clutching her neck. She stumbles away from the ring, leaning heavily against the lip of the entrance ramp to stay upright.

Thaïs drops from the steps to the floor. They wipe the back of a bloody forearm across their eyes to clear their vision, their jaw set in unyielding defiance, and stalk Bia directly up the steel ramp.

Bia staggers uphill toward the stage, trying to buy recovery time. Halfway up the incline, she spins back downhill toward the ring, winding up her arm to unleash a massive, wild Discus Clothesline.

Thaïs reads the rotation on the downhill side, ducks smoothly beneath the swinging arm, and holds their ground between Bia and the ring.

As Bia over-rotates, Thaïs leaps straight up, hooks their hands behind Bia’s neck, and drives her chin down into their shoulder, collapsing hard into a Sitout Jawbreaker directly against the solid steel ramp.

CRACK.

The impact snaps Bia’s head back in violent whiplash. She reels uphill, completely disoriented, spins blindly from the momentum, and drops to her hands and knees. She faces the stage, her back completely exposed downhill.

Thaïs winces, the shockwave of the steel ramp shooting through their bruised tailbone, but they refuse to slow down. Pushing up behind the kneeling champion, Thaïs charges up the ramp and vaults into the air.

Thaïs leaps cleanly over Bia’s back, driving both knees hard into Bia’s shoulder blades while hooking both arms firmly under Bia’s armpits. Mid-air, Thaïs leans back, pulling Bia upward into the rotation. Both bodies flip over in tandem.

Thaïs crashes onto their back across the steel grating, driving both knees deep into Bia’s spine as the War Goddess’s shoulders violently whip into the steel.

GREEK TIME (Front Flip Backstabber)!

BANG.

The concussive metallic thud echoes through the auditorium.

Both fighters lay completely motionless on the steel ramp. Thaïs’s chest heaves in shallow, ragged bursts. Bia remains face down, stunned by the shock to her vertebrae.

Thaïs stirs first. Whimpering through the agony in their spine, they dig their elbows into the steel plates. Dragging their body forward by pure adrenaline, Thaïs crawls uphill, leaving a jagged smear of bright crimson trailing behind them on the steel.

Clawing their way to the staging area, Thaïs reaches the base of the Buried Alive set.

They dig their boots into the loose, damp earth, hauling themself up the steep incline of the dirt mound.

Thaïs reaches the crest of the hill. Standing tall beside the upright steel shovels and the yawning precipice of the open grave, Thaïs looks down the ramp. Blood streams down their face, soaking into their gear, their chest heaving with fiery resolve.

Below them on the steel ramp, Bia groans, slowly pushing off the ramp, shaking off the jarring impact of the backstabber. Her breathing is heavy, her war paint streaked with sweat and grit. She looks straight up the incline. There, framed against the arena rafters atop the excavation mound, stands Thaïs. Bleeding, chest heaving, refusing to yield.

Bia snarls. She trudges up the steep grade, her heavy combat boots sinking deep into the loose, shifting soil of the dirt mound.

Thaïs doesn’t wait on the high ground. They charge down the slope to meet her halfway, throwing their entire body weight behind a frantic barrage of forearm strikes.

THUD. CRACK. THUD.

Flesh smashes against bone. Bia absorbs the blows, her jaw set like granite. She surges forward through the barrage, shoots both hands out, and clamps a vice grip around Thaïs’s throat. Marching forward with sheer horsepower, she drives Thaïs backward up the incline, straight toward the edge of the pit.

Thaïs gasps against the crushing grip. Thinking fast, Thaïs drives a sharp, stiff kick straight into Bia’s knee joint, targeting the champion’s vulnerable left leg.

Bia’s knee buckles. Her grip loosens. Thaïs instantly pivots on their heel, whipping a crisp spinning backhand across Bia’s temple.

The strike dazes the champion. Thaïs immediately leaves their feet, exploding forward with a leaping forearm smash square into Bia’s jaw.

SMACK.

Bia loses her footing on the loose dirt. Her heels catch empty air. She topples backward, crashing six feet down into the open grave with a heavy, sickening thud.

Thaïs scrambles to the crest of the hill. Their eyes dart to the row of upright tools embedded in the soil. They lunge toward a shovel, hands reaching for the wooden handle.

Before Thaïs’s fingers can wrap around the grain, an arm shoots up from the darkness of the pit.

Bia’s hand locks around Thaïs’s ankle like an iron shackle. With a violent, sudden jerk, Bia hauls Thaïs backward off the ledge.

Thaïs plummets into the black hole.

THUMP.

Thaïs lands flat on their spine across the compacted, rocky earth at the bottom of the trench. The fall knocks the wind completely out of their chest. Air rushes out in a dry wheeze. Thaïs lies paralyzed on the floor of the grave, staring up at the rim, unable to draw a breath.

Bia rolls up onto her knees, then plants her boots. She towers over her former friend. Cold. Detached.

She lifts her heavy right boot and drives it down.

STOMP.

Flush into Thaïs’s sternum.

STOMP.

A second time. Thaïs’s arms flail outward into the dirt.

STOMP.

Five consecutive, piston-like boots crush down into Thaïs’s ribcage. Bia stops. Her chest heaves with shallow, ragged breaths. She stares down at Thaïs with dead eyes, considering the battered body beneath her boots. Then, with deliberate malice, she winds up and drives one final, sickening stomp straight into Thaïs’s floating ribs.

CRACK.

Thaïs curls inward, groaning in raw agony, clutching their battered midsection as dust settles over their face.

Bia turns her back on the wreckage. Digging her fingers into the mud and exposed roots of the trench wall, she claws her way out of the grave, pulling herself up onto the surface of the stage.

She marches over to the mound, wraps two hands around the shaft of an upright shovel, and yanks it free. She raises the tool, then drives the steel blade deep into the dirt mound, staking her claim over the entire set.

Behind her, unseen in the shadowy depths of the trench, Thaïs stirs. Drawing on sheer survival instinct, Thaïs uses the rugged earthen wall at the opposite end of the pit to haul themself up. Hands clawing at the dirt, Thaïs scurries up and out of the grave, forcing their battered frame onto their feet.

Bia grips the handle of the embedded shovel, beginning to turn back toward the open hole.

BIA: Alright, mate. Time for your dirt nap.

She wrenches the spade loose, preparing to haul the first load of earth onto an opponent she assumes is incapacitated.

BIA: I wish I would have done this a long t—

The sentence dies in her throat.

Thaïs is already sprinting. Pushing through the cracked ribs, Thaïs hits top speed and launches their entire body into the air, leaping completely across the six-foot span of the open grave.

Mid-air collision.

Thaïs hits Bia chest-to-chest like a guided missile. The sheer kinetic force snaps Bia backward. Locked together, both wrestlers go over the brink, tumbling end-over-end down the steep side of the dirt mound.

CRASH.

A thick, suffocating cloud of dust explodes into the air as both bodies hit the reinforced wooden staging deck at the base of the hill.

They lay tangled in a heap of dirt, sweat, and bruised limbs. Neither moves. The impact against the stage timbers rattles through the entire arena floor.

Bia stirs first. Groaning through gritted teeth, she uses the heavy steel lighting trusses to drag herself upright. Her gaze drops to the dazed challenger beside her. Reaching down, Bia grabs Thaïs by the collar of their torn ring gear, hoists them off the deck, and violently hurls them through the heavy black entrance curtain, sending them flying straight into the backstage tunnel.

BANG. CRATTER.

Thaïs crashes spine-first into a towering stack of wooden production crates. Plywood splinters. Headsets, clipboards, and heavy audio ropes scatter across the polished concrete.

Bia stalks through the parted curtain, eyes wild. She spots a dense, heavy plastic equipment road case sitting beside the wall, hoists it above her head, and hurls it straight at the challenger.

Thaïs sees the shadow, digs their elbows into the floor, and rolls frantically to the side.

SMASH.

The case collides with the solid cinderblock wall, shattering into jagged black plastic fragments inches from Thaïs’s head.

Thaïs scrambles up off the concrete, pure adrenaline overriding the agony in their ribs. They explode forward, unloading a blistering sequence of rapid-fire open-palm strikes directly into Bia’s chest and jaw. SLAP. CRACK. SLAP. The barrage forces the champion stumbling backward, retreating deeper into the Gorilla Position workspace.

Bia plants her back foot, lowers her hips, and fires a sledgehammer knee straight into Thaïs’s solar plexus.

The wind dies in Thaïs’s throat. Before they can recover, Bia hooks their waistband and hurls them face-first into the rigid aluminum corner of a massive travel trunk.

CLANG.

Thaïs rebounds off the metal and slumps to the floor. The neon tiger stripes of their gear are now heavily smeared with black stage dirt, damp mud, and the dark crimson blood still running from their cracked hairline.

Sitting less than ten feet away behind a glowing row of production monitors is PCW General Manager Emilia Glazkov. Glazkov doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t scream for security. She sits frozen in her high-backed chair, watching the unchecked violence tear through her backstage staging area with cold, professional detachment.

Bia’s eyes land on a coiled spool of heavy, industrial black feeder rope resting on a utility cart. She snatches the thick wire, loops it around Thaïs’s neck, and plants her boot hard against the metal road case behind the challenger.

She leans back, putting her full 165 pounds of weight into the choke.

Thaïs’s hands shoot to their throat. Fingers claw frantically at the dense rubber casing. Their face flushes deep purple. Airway sealed shut. Thaïs sputters and convulses on the floor as Bia puts everything she has into the garrote.

Thaïs’s vision begins to dim. Their right hand sweeps desperately across the edge of a nearby production desk. Fingers brush against cold metal. Thaïs wraps their fist around the clip of a heavy steel clipboard.

With the last ounce of strength in their shoulder, Thaïs whips the clipboard backward over their head.

CLACK.

The solid steel edge cracks flush against the side of Bia’s skull.

Bia lets out a sharp gasp, her grip tearing free from the rope. She reels backward on jelly legs, clutching her temple, stumbling until her back hits the rigid iron framework of the stage’s main structural scaffolding.

Thaïs collapses forward on all fours, coughing violently, sucking down raw oxygen in ragged, burning gasps. They brace an arm against the production desk, drag themself up, and wipe a sleeve across their blood-soaked eyes, locking their gaze on the champion.

Bia looks behind her. Trapped against the steel skeleton of the stage, she reaches up, grabs the iron crossbars, and begins pulling herself rapidly up the backside of the scaffolding structure.

Thaïs charges across the concrete. Grabbing the industrial rungs, Thaïs hauls themself upward into the vertical grid, chasing the champion into the heights above the stage.

Thirty feet up, Bia stops. Hanging on with one arm, she looks down and drives her heavy combat boot straight down, aiming to smash Thaïs off the ladder and send them plummeting to the concrete.

Thaïs tracks the descent. They shoot a hand upward, snatching Bia’s boot right out of the air. Thaïs yanks downward with vicious torque.

Bia’s handhold tears loose. A sharp gasp escapes her lips as she frantically throws both arms around the iron crossbeams, clinging to the framework for dear life above the drop.

Thaïs releases the boot and keeps climbing. Hand over hand. Iron rung by iron rung, scaling the industrial framework right onto the champion’s heels.

Bia reaches the summit first. Straining every muscle in her back, she hoists her torso over the lip and rolls onto the flat, narrow service plateau running along the very top of the massive arena LED screen.

Seconds later, two bloody hands grip the edge.

Thaïs vaults up onto the narrow catwalk. No pause. No hesitation. Thaïs drops their shoulder and drives straight into Bia’s waist, tackling the champion hard into the steel decking.

High above the arena floor, balanced on the narrow ledge above the staging curtain, both fighters lock together in a wild, exhausted brawl, trading desperate, heavy-handed punches back and forth as the scaffolding shudders beneath them.

High above the arena floor, the narrow steel service catwalk rattles under the strain of two exhausted bodies. Wind and rigging hum around them. Thirty feet of empty air on all sides.

Bia throws an exhausted, looping overhand right. Her knuckles glance heavily off Thaïs’s temple, grazing bone.

Thaïs doesn’t give ground. Absorbing the clip, they pivot their hips and drive a sharp, stiff forearm smash directly between Bia’s eyes.

CLACK.

Bia reels backward, her boots skidding across the perforated steel grating. Thaïs seizes the opening instantly. Stepping inside, Thaïs hooks Bia’s outstretched right arm with both hands, ducks their shoulder, and snaps their hips into a vicious, explosive Arm Drag.

Bia’s heavy frame flips across the catwalk.

The momentum carries the 165-pound champion straight past the edge. Empty air. Bia’s boots slip off the steel lip. Her body plummets, but pure survival instinct takes over. Her arms whip out blindly. Fingers jam violently into the diamond perforations of the steel grating, locking on with white-knuckle desperation.

Bia dangles in the abyss. Thirty feet above the concrete and staging timbers. Her heavy combat boots kick and scrape frantically against the slick industrial trussing, searching for purchase that isn’t there. The weight of her frame pulls against her shoulders, threatening to tear her fingers loose. Teeth bared in a feral grimace, she jams her knuckles deeper into the mesh, arresting the dead drop.

A guttural, agonizing roar tears from her throat. Veins bulge along her neck and forearms. Straining every sinew in her back, Bia hauls her dead weight upward. Millimeter by millimeter. She wrenches her torso back over the iron rim and collapses onto the flat grating.

Chest heaving in violent spasms, Bia drags herself back to a vertical base. She locks dead eyes on Thaïs.

Bia looks over her shoulder. She stares down at the terrifying drop to the open grave and the dirt mound far below. No fear. No hesitation. She turns her gaze back to the challenger, her jaw hardened into stone.

BIA: You don’t have the guts, mate.

Thaïs’s face goes cold. The fiery resolve sharpens to a razor edge. No words. No hesitation.

Thaïs lunges forward, chambering their lead leg, and unleashes a blistering, piston-like thrust kick straight into the center of Bia’s chest.

THUD.

The sole connects with bone. The kinetic force blows Bia off the catwalk.

Her body launches backward into the void. Sailing through the air in an unobstructed, thirty-foot freefall.

The overhead camera catches the descent before the shot is instantly swallowed in a concussive eruption.

BOOM.

Bia crashes dead center into the open grave. The compacted earth swallows the impact, violently detonating a massive, billowing cloud of brown dust and gravel high into the staging lights.

High on the catwalk, Thaïs collapses to their knees. Hands fly to their head, fingers digging hard into their hair in absolute shock.

Thaïs stares down into the dust-choked crater. Body trembling. The cold, sickening reality of what they just did washes over them like ice water. They almost killed her. Former friend or not, the drop was horrifying.

Thaïs crawls to the lip of the grating to drop down, but stops dead. The sheer vertical drop is thirty feet. Below them lies a jagged maze of exposed aluminum scaffolding, raw stage decking, and metal ballast plates. A direct plunge is suicide.

Thaïs scrambles to their feet, abandoning the plateau. They sprint across the catwalk, grab the vertical steel rungs, and rapidly descend the scaffolding ladder. Boot over boot. Dropping down through the iron framework.

Thaïs hits the concrete floor backstage and takes off in a dead sprint. Tearing straight past the production monitors, bursting through the Gorilla Position, and barreling through the heavy black curtain into the arena.

Twelve thousand fans detonate into a deafening roar.

Thaïs sprints full speed across the stage, straight toward the excavation site. Reaching the mound, their boots slip and churn in the loose, shifting dirt. Claws out, digging into the earth, they scramble up the steep incline until they reach the line of upright tools.

Thaïs grips the wooden handle of a heavy steel shovel, yanking the blade free from the soil. They sprint to the edge of the pit.

Peering down into the dust, Thaïs drives the spade into the dirt pile, hoists a heavy, compacted scoop of soil, and heaves it over the ledge into the dark trench.

THUMP.

Thaïs sinks the steel blade into the mound for a second scoop, hoisting another load of earth. They flick the shovel forward to dump it down—

CLATTER.

The dirt is knocked aside mid-air.

From the pitch-black depths of the trench, a bloody, dirt-caked hand shoots violently upward into the arena lights. Fingers like steel claws dig deep into the turf and root systems along the lip of the pit.

Panic surges through Thaïs. Instinct takes over. Inverting the shovel, Thaïs drives the flat steel blade downward into the hole like a heavy piston.

CRACK.

The steel plate collides flush with Bia’s face, driving the War Goddess back down into the dirt floor of the trench.

Adrenaline redlining, Thaïs begins shoveling frantically.

One heavy scoop hurled into the hole.

Two scoops cascading over the drop.

Three scoops dumped straight down into the dust.

Thaïs plunges the blade in for a fourth scoop, turns back to the grave—and freezes.

A silhouette rises over the edge of the dirt.

Bia’s face slowly emerges from the pit. Her skin is completely masked in a thick, horrifying coat of black dirt, grave dust, and a crimson river of her own blood pouring from a split skull. Her eyes burn with unhinged, feral madness.

THAÏS: No…

Bia ignores the agony in her frame. She slams both palms down onto the rim of the trench, leveraging her broad shoulders to haul her 165-pound body up out of the earth.

Thaïs recovers from the freeze and drives the sharp edge of the shovel straight down toward the turf, looking to shatter the bones in Bia’s knuckles.

Bia pulls her hand back with predatory speed. The steel spade bites deep into the soil. Before Thaïs can pull the shovel free, Bia lunges forward, both hands clamping onto the thick ash wood handle.

Thaïs pulls back desperately with both arms, their boots skidding in the loose earth. Their eyes dart frantically between their own failing grip and the bloody, grinning mask of the champion staring back at them.

Bia flashes a jagged, blood-soaked smile through her split lips.

Bracing her torso firmly against the hard-packed dirt lip of the grave, Bia drops her hips, locks her elbows, and violently jerks the shovel backward with all the powerhouse leverage in her frame.

Thaïs’s feet lose traction instantly. Wrenched forward by the brutal torque, Thaïs is launched airborne, catapulting entirely across the six-foot chasm of the open grave.

Thaïs collides hard with the steep slope of the dirt mound on the far side. Body ragdolling, they tumble violently end-over-end down the embankment, crashing hard across the wooden staging deck at the bottom.

Bia hauls her hips up over the ledge. She stands fully upright on the edge of the pit, blood streaming down her face and dripping from her chin. In both hands, she grips the heavy steel shovel like an executioner’s axe.

At the base of the mound, Thaïs frantically scrambles backward on hands and knees. Blood-soaked, bruised, and gasping for breath, Thaïs crawls desperately away from the excavation set, retreating down the entrance aisle toward the sanctuary of the ring as the monster stalks down the ramp behind them.

Bia follows, her back leg every-so-slightly dragging with a limp. The shovel is gripped between her fingers.

BIA: THAÏS! I’M COMING FOR YOU!

Thaïs scrambles backward along the ringside floor until their spine slams flush into the rigid wooden ring apron. Breathing in ragged, bloody gasps, Thaïs presses their shoulders against the timber. Trapped. Ahead of them, Bia stalks down the steel ramp. Relentless. Stiff-legged. Blood and grave dust cake the War Goddess’s face as she grips the shovel in two white-knuckled fists.

SNAP.

The overhead arena rig cuts out entirely.

Total, suffocating blackness swallows the Municipal Auditorium. A concussive, metallic CLANG hammers through the dark, echoing off the iron rafters. Twelve thousand fans gasp in unison.

A single broadcast camera feed punches through the void, switching to high-gain night optics. Pure neon luminescence cuts through the pitch black: the vivid, glowing green tiger stripes of Thaïs’s ring gear blazing like radioactive fire.

CLACK.

The arena lighting bank violently surges back to life.

Bia stands less than three paces away. Looming. Eyes bloodshot and feral, the steel shovel cocked at her hip.

BIA: What’s the matter, mate? AFRAID OF THE DARK?!

SNAP.

Darkness again. Instant. Absolute.

Across the bottom edge of the night-vision camera feed, a streak of glowing neon green tears horizontally across the canvas skirting. Thaïs is running. Fast. Low to the ground.

The camera cuts to a tight close-up near the corner. Thaïs leans heavily against the apron fabric, chest heaving, the vibrant green phosphor of their gear casting an eerie, emerald glow against the cold gray steel of the ring post.

CLACK.

The arena lights hammer back on.

ROAR.

Bia unloads a throat-shredding scream, stepping into a lethal, full-body baseball swing with the steel shovel. Straight for Thaïs’s head.

Thaïs drops straight down. Pure survival reflex.

The heavy steel spade whistles through empty air, missing Thaïs’s scalp by less than two inches.

CRACK.

The ash wood handle violently collides with the solid steel ring post. The force of the 165-pound champion’s swing shatters the wood into splinters. The handle explodes in Bia’s hands. The severed steel blade ricochets violently off the metal post, bouncing hard across the concrete floor before skidding against the front-row barricade, where an outstretched fan dives forward to snatch the jagged metal.

Thaïs explodes upward from the crouch. Uncoiling their hips, Thaïs drives a desperate, piston-like uppercut straight into the underside of Bia’s jaw.

THUD.

Bia’s teeth click together. Her head jolts back. Before the champion can reset her balance, Thaïs grabs Bia by the leather collar of her vest, plants their boots, and ruthlessly yanks her forward with all their remaining leverage.

BANG.

Bia’s face smashes directly into the cylindrical steel ring post.

SNAP.

The arena power grid dies again. Pitch black.

Through the total darkness, the camera tracks the neon tiger stripes scrambling on all fours. Thaïs crawls low along the canvas skirt, rounding the ring corner with frantic urgency.

Thaïs slides to an abrupt halt. Right beneath the apron lies a heavy nylon police go-bag, abandoned from an earlier ladder match on the card.

Thaïs throws the heavy black ring apron up over their shoulder. The intense green glow radiating from their ring gear illuminates the shadows beneath the ring, casting an emerald aura over the tactical bag.

Thaïs grabs the reinforced carry strap, dragging the heavy go-bag out onto the thin ringside mats.

Their bloody fingers tear at the heavy-duty zipper. ZZZZZZIP. Thaïs rips the main compartment wide open.

In the dark, Bia’s boots scrape against the concrete. She hauls herself off the ring post, rolling her shoulders and aggressively twisting her battered neck to work out the jarring nerve pinch. She stalks slowly around the corner, tracking the sound.

Thaïs upends the tactical bag. Metal, nylon, and equipment spill across the mats in a chaotic clatter. Thaïs’s hands sift frantically through the debris in the dark.

CLACK.

A thick, six-inch military chem light rolls out of the nylon pouch, hitting the padding.

Bia rounds the ring post. Her silhouette looms in the gloom, eyes locking onto the glowing green target. She picks up her stride, marching in to kill.

Thaïs grabs the plastic tube. Without hesitating, Thaïs wedges the plastic tip between their molars and violently bites down.

CRUNCH.

The plastic seals puncture. Thaïs tips their head back, dumping the thick, glowing chemical fluid directly into their mouth.

CLACK.

The lighting bank snaps back on for a split second—illuminating Thaïs with pale luminescence oozing from their lips, eyes burning with desperate adrenaline.

Bia lunges forward with a guttural roar, arms outstretched to wrap around Thaïs’s waist and break them in half.

SNAP.

Pitch black. The lights cut out instantly.

PFFFFFT.

From the pitch-black void, a brilliant, pressurized cloud of incandescent green mist sprays through the air. A blinding, radioactive arc.

The liquid splatters dead-center across Bia’s face. Flooding her eyes. Burning into her split forehead.

Bia shrieks in pure, unadulterated fury. She stumbles backward, hands flying to her face, clawing frantically at her burning eyelids as the thick, bioluminescent fluid blinds her completely.

Thaïs moves in the dark. Their glowing arms dive into the pile of scattered tactical gear on the mat. Fingers wrap around heavy knurled aluminum. A massive police-issue MagLite flashlight.

Thaïs plants their boots, winds up from the hip, and whips their arm forward in a vicious horizontal arc.

CRACK.

A sickening, concussive impact tears through the arena. The impact jars the flashlight’s internal switch—a blinding beam of white halogen light erupts across the arena ceiling, catching the brutal split-second frame of the heavy aluminum barrel crushing flush against the side of Bia’s skull.

Bia’s legs fold. The War Goddess collapses hard onto all fours, her palms slapping the rubber ringside mat.

The MagLite clatters to the floor, its white beam cutting across the padding beneath Bia’s face. It illuminates a gruesome, pooling puddle: thick, dark crimson blood mixing with the dripping, iridescent green chemical fluid running from her chin.

Thaïs hurls the flashlight aside. Stepping toward the ring, Thaïs reaches under the skirt and drags out a folded steel chair.

CLACK.

The arena lighting bank jolts back to life. But the white house lights don’t fire.

Instead, deep, violet-purple UV blacklight floods the entire auditorium. The arena bathes in an eerie, surreal glow. Thaïs’s gear blazes like an open furnace. The splattered chemical mist across Bia’s battered, bleeding face burns with an unholy neon hue.

Thaïs hoists the steel chair high over their head.

WHAM.

The flat of the chair folds over Bia’s exposed spine with an echoing metallic crack.

Bia flattens onto the mats, groaning through clenched teeth. Her fingers claw into the rubber padding. She snarls, shaking her head, and stubbornly forces her heavy frame back up onto her hands and knees.

Thaïs raises the steel again. No mercy.

CRACK.

A second brutal shot caves across her shoulder blades. The chair dents.

Thaïs lowers the weapon, their chest heaving, staring down in disbelief. Bia’s knuckles turn bone-white against the padding. Her legs shake. With sheer, monstrous horsepower, the champion refuses to die. She pushes her chest off the floor, fighting tooth and nail to get back up.

Thaïs steps directly in front of the kneeling War Goddess. Both hands grip the dented steel frame of the chair. Thaïs looks down at their former friend, their voice cracking with raw emotional torment.

THAÏS: I hate that you are making me do this.

Bia barks a blood-flecked snarl, plants her right boot, and forces herself upright to a vertical base.

Thaïs winds up from the hip and swings the chair with everything left in their 130-pound frame.

CLANG.

The heavy steel cracks flush across Bia’s skull.

The War Goddess goes limp. Bia collapses forward, crashing flat onto her stomach. Motionless. Face buried in the padding.

Thaïs drops the dented chair with trembling hands. Dropping to their knees in the scattered police gear, Thaïs snatches a set of heavy-duty nylon tactical zip cuffs. Thaïs lunges onto Bia, driving their right knee hard into the champion’s lower back to anchor the 165-pound frame.

Thaïs’s muscles burn with lactic acid. Grunting in pure exhaustion, they grab Bia’s thick left wrist, wrenching the dead-weight arm behind her back. Thaïs reaches across, their forearms shaking violently from fatigue, and hauls Bia’s right arm into position.

Thaïs threads the thick plastic tongue through the locking block over Bia’s wrists.

ZIP. ZIP. YANK.

Thaïs pulls the strap with vicious force, locking the industrial zip cuffs tight against Bia’s wrists. Arms bound completely behind her back.

Thaïs falls backward onto the arena floor, sliding back until their shoulders hit the ring apron. Thaïs slumps against the wood, their chest heaving in violent, shallow gasps, blood dripping from their hairline into their eyes.

From the mat, a low, inhuman growl rumbles through Bia’s chest.

Thaïs freezes. Their eyes go wide with pure terror.

Bia stirs. She plants both combat boots flat against the rubber mat, attempting to push up with her forearms—and falters. Her wrists stay locked together behind her spine.

Realization sets in.

Bia erupts into an unhinged, rabid fury. Trapped. Bound. She thrashes violently on the floor, bucking her hips and violently wrenching her shoulders, trying to snap the reinforced plastic bonds through raw muscle alone.

Thaïs forces their battered body upright. Stepping forward, Thaïs grabs a handful of Bia’s braided hair, using both hands to haul the thrashing champion off the mats.

Bia’s bloodshot, mist-stained eyes glare through the crimson mask, locking straight onto Thaïs.

No hesitation. No defense.

Bia rolls hard onto her knees, gathers her massive legs beneath her, and launches herself forward like an unguided artillery shell.

CRASH.

Bia throws her entire 165-pound upper torso into Thaïs’s sternum. The impact drives Thaïs violently backward, smashing their spine against the solid edge of the ring apron.

Trapped against the wood, Thaïs gasps for air as Bia leans in, sadistically grinding her bloody, chem-stained skull flush into Thaïs’s jawline, using her dead weight to smother the challenger against the steel apron frame.

Thaïs’s right arm tears free. Cocking their arm, Thaïs drives a sharp, desperate upward elbow strike straight into the soft flesh beneath Bia’s chin.

CLACK.

Bia’s head snaps back. The champion stumbles back a half-step. Separation.

Thaïs’s boots hit the floor. Spotting the dented steel chair beside the apron, Thaïs scoops it up with both hands, hoists the steel to the blacklight rafters, and brings it crashing mercilessly down onto Bia’s unprotected left shoulder.

Bia stumbles blindly away from the ring apron. Her boots drag heavily across the thin rubber padding, shuffling uphill toward the entrance aisle. Both arms remain pinned tight behind her back, the thick nylon zip cuffs biting deep into her swollen wrists.

Every breath is a violent, rattling chore. Her chest hitches in ragged spasms. From her chin, a gruesome cocktail of dark arterial blood and iridescent green chemical fluid drips steadily onto the steel plating of the ramp, leaving a glowing, radioactive trail in her wake.

Ten paces back, Thaïs stalks her. Slow. Deliberate. The dented steel chair drags behind them, its bottom rim scraping against the steel floor grating with a harsh, metallic screech.

Thaïs stares blankly at the champion’s retreating back. Under the deep ultraviolet blacklight, the electric green tiger stripes of their gear blaze against the dark, illuminating every inch of the carnage: torn fabric, pulverized skin, and the horrific physical toll of twenty-five minutes of pure violence.

Thaïs steps in. Pushing through the burning agony in their own cracked ribs, they hoist the steel chair overhead and bring it crashing brutally across Bia’s spine.

CRACK.

Bia’s knees buckle instantly. She drops hard onto the steel ramp, a muffled, guttural groan tearing through her clenched teeth.

No hands to break the fall. No arms to push herself up.

Bia digs the toes of her combat boots into the steel diamond tread. Straining her neck, her abdominal wall locking into iron, she uses pure, unadulterated core strength to painstakingly fight her way back upright. Millimeter by agonizing millimeter. Veins bulge along her temples until she forces her 165-pound frame back onto a vertical base.

Thaïs takes a step back. Their chest heaves in shallow, ragged bursts. Visibly shaken. Their eyes widen in sickened disbelief at the gruesome display of the champion’s inhuman resilience. The monster simply will not stay down.

Bia staggers forward. Three blind, halting steps uphill toward the gravesite. Completely running on fumes.

Thaïs closes the distance again. Stepping into the pocket, Thaïs swings the chair in a violent horizontal arc, cracking the steel squarely between Bia’s shoulder blades.

BANG.

The blow folds the champion forward. Bia plummets face-first onto the ramp, her left shoulder taking the brunt of the concussive slam against the solid steel grating.

Bia thrashes violently against the metal. Blind. Disoriented. Her bound wrists flex uselessly behind her spine as she violently twists her hips, her cheek smearing a fresh streak of blood and grave dust across the cold steel.

Thaïs lowers the chair. Their arms hang limp at their sides, shoulders slumping under the crushing weight of physical and emotional exhaustion. They stare down at their former friend, their face contorted in raw grief as they watch Bia suffer on the floor.

A feral, defiant snarl rips from Bia’s bloody lips. Digging her shoulder into the steel, she rolls onto her side, kicks her boots against the incline, and agonizingly forces herself back to her feet one more time.

Thaïs doesn’t swing. Instead, they drive the flat edge of the chair hard into Bia’s lower back, shoving the bound champion with all their remaining strength.

Bia stumbles blindly forward, propelled up the final stretch of the ramp until she collides heavily with the base of the dirt mound.

Her boots slip and churn in the loose, excavated earth. Bound arms thrashing behind her, Bia violently throws her upper body weight backward, bucking like a wild animal to fight the ascent.

Thaïs drops their shoulder, grabs a fistful of Bia’s combat braids, and grunts in pure physical exertion. Digging their own boots into the dirt, Thaïs forcefully drags the thrashing champion up the steep, shifting incline.

They reach the summit. Keeping the dented steel chair hooked in one trembling hand, Thaïs violently shoves Bia down onto her knees at the precipice of the open grave.

Thaïs raises the chair high above their head with both hands. Poised to deliver the executioner’s blow.

Thaïs freezes mid-swing.

Their hands begin to shake violently. Thaïs stares down at the champion. Kneeling in the dirt. Helpless. Bound. Face covered in blood, glowing chem-fluid, and grave soil.

The fire dies in Thaïs’s eyes, replaced by a hollow, sickening despair.

Slowly, Thaïs lowers the steel chair.

THAÏS: Not this way.

Thaïs turns and violently hurls the steel chair away into the backstage darkness.

Stepping directly to the edge of the pit, Thaïs drops low, hooks their arms around Bia’s torso, and scoops the 165-pound champion horizontally off the loose dirt. With one explosive, exhausting heave of their hips, Thaïs rotates Bia’s body mid-air, inverting her completely upside down and locking her head firmly between their thighs in a tight piledriver clamp.

Thaïs doesn’t drop to the stage deck.

Holding the champion secured vertically upside down, Thaïs gathers their legs and leaps forward off the precipice.

Plunging straight down into the six-foot void.

BOOM.

SIGN OF FIRE! (Scoop Slam Piledriver)

The impact shakes the compacted earth at the bottom of the grave, driving Bia’s skull and cervical spine directly into the hard-packed dirt floor.

A thick, suffocating cloud of dust and debris erupts from the hole.

The overhead camera peers straight down into the pit. Through the settling dust, Thaïs is coughing violently on their hands and knees, spitting out mud. Adrenaline surging through their veins, Thaïs claws frantically at the crumbling dirt walls, digging their boots into the root systems to haul themself up and out of the trench.

At the bottom of the pit, the camera lingers on Bia.

Motionless. Sprawled face-down in the dirt. Her arms remain locked tightly behind her back in the plastic cuffs, her frame completely still.

Thaïs crests the lip of the grave. They collapse onto the dirt mound, gasping for air, their chest burning like an open furnace.

Their eyes fall upon the remaining, unbroken steel shovel driven into the mound. Thaïs crawls across the soil on hands and knees, wraps both palms around the wooden shaft, and wrenches the spade free. They sink the blade into the heavy earth, hoist a slow, grueling scoop of soil, and heave it over the precipice.

Clumps of dense black dirt rain down through the air, scattering heavily across Bia’s motionless back and shoulders.

Thaïs wearily plunges the shovel back into the mound, preparing to hoist a second scoop—

Thaïs stops dead.

At the bottom of the pit, the dirt begins to shift.

The overhead camera catches the horror: Bia’s shoulders violently flex. With an unholy, guttural roar that rattles the staging floor, the War Goddess pushes her chest off the floor, shaking the dirt from her neck and torso.

Thaïs stares down into the chasm in absolute, disheartened shock. The horror washes over them like ice water. The monster simply refuses to die.

Thaïs’s face twists in desperate fury. Gritting their teeth until they crack, Thaïs reverses their grip on the shovel, raising the heavy steel blade high over their shoulder like an executioner’s axe to drop down into the pit and bash the champion unconscious manually.

VVRRRRRRRROOOOOOM.

A deafening, concussive mechanical roar shatters the auditorium as a massive, turbocharged diesel engine violently fires to life directly behind the dirt mound.

A twin pair of blinding, high-intensity halogen work lights snap on from the cab of the commercial front-end loader, slicing through the stage blackness with blinding, searing white light.

Thaïs spins around on the mound, dropping the shovel to their waist, shielding their eyes with a bloody forearm as they stare blindly into the glare of the heavy machinery.

The broadcast camera pushes in tight on the illuminated cab.

Sitting casually behind the massive steering wheel is Helena Handbasket. A yellow industrial hard hat is shoved back on the side of her head, tilted at a jaunty angle.

Helena looks through the reinforced glass, locks eyes with Thaïs, and flashes a sickeningly sweet, radiant smile. She raises her hand and gives Thaïs a cheerful, enthusiastic little wave.

Thaïs stands frozen on the mound. Eyes wide. Mouth agape in complete, paralyzed shock.

The overhead camera cuts back to the bottom of the grave. Bia is up on her knees. Battered, bloody, and feral. Her back muscles knot into iron cords as she furiously wrenches her thick wrists outward against the heavy-duty tactical zip cuffs, fighting to tear her limbs free.

Inside the cab, Helena theatrically twirls her index finger through the air like a conductor. With exaggerated precision, she brings her hand down and rests her palm firmly against a heavy black hydraulic control knob mounted beside the steering column.

Helena pushes the knob forward.

At the edge of the excavation site, the hydraulic rams hiss violently. The massive, jagged steel bucket of the loader retracts and tilts, sending a loose cascade of rocks and dirt spilling over the lip of the trench.

Thaïs drops the shovel completely. Frantic, terrified, Thaïs thrusts both hands forward toward the glass cab, screaming at the top of their lungs:

THAÏS: Don’t!

At the bottom of the pit, Bia throws her head back, unleashing a throat-shredding, primal scream. With one final, terrifying surge of powerhouse strength, she wrenches her arms outward.

CRACK.

The reinforced nylon zip cuffs snap violently apart, plastic fragments flying into the dirt.

Inside the illuminated cab, Helena doesn’t blink. Completely ignoring the plea, she shoves the heavy hydraulic lever all the way forward to the stop.

RUMBLE.

The massive industrial steel bucket drops completely open.

A deafening, concussive avalanche of compacted earth, mud, and gravel cascades from the iron scoop. Tons of suffocating weight crash downward into the trench with the force of a landslide, instantly swallowing the open pit and burying Bia beneath a massive, immovable mountain of dirt.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

THAÏS EMPRISTIKÍ WINS
BURIED ALIVE VICTORY

NEW PCW UNLEASHED CHAMPION

A suffocating, horrified silence drops over the twelve thousand fans in the Municipal Auditorium. No cheering. No celebration. Only the low, mechanical rumble of the front-end loader’s heavy diesel engine idling over the arena sound system.

Thaïs drops to their knees at the lip of the freshly filled trench.

Their hands sink into the loose, warm earth. The brilliant green tiger stripes of their gear are completely caked in mud, grease, and drying crimson blood. Thaïs stares down blankly at the mound of dirt that just entombed their former friend. Their eyes are hollow. Glazed. Devastated.

The broadcast camera cranes slowly upward, panning away from the crushed, motionless winner on the dirt pile toward the elevated cab of the heavy machinery.

The engine rumbles. The halogen work lights burn brightly into the staging rafters.

The cab is completely empty.

Helena Handbasket is gone without a trace.

The broadcast slowly fades to black on the haunting, solitary image of Thaïs kneeling alone atop the grave, their head hung low in the dirt—having won the championship, but lost every shred of their humanity in the process.

Thaïs stands trembling on the summit of the dirt mound. Their boots remain buried ankle-deep in the loose earth. Their eyes dart frantically toward the elevated cab of the industrial loader.

Empty. Only cold shadows and an idling diesel engine.

Thaïs runs a shaking, bloody hand through their hair, smearing grime and bioluminescent fluid across their forehead. Haunted. Completely lost. The logic doesn’t connect—why Helena Handbasket would drop down from the rafters and bury another human being alive on their behalf makes no sense.

THUMP. CLAP.

The upbeat, hyper-polished pop cadence of Huntrix’s “How It’s Done” abruptly blasts through the Municipal Auditorium sound system. The cheerful, bouncing rhythm jars violently against the horrific silence of the excavation pit.

From the bottom of the ramp, a PCW official cautiously ascends the mound. Eyes fixed warily on the six-foot depression in the ground, the referee steps around the loose soil, holding out the heavy silver and red PCW UNLEASHED Championship.

The official extends the strap. Thaïs’s fingers wrap mechanically around the metal plates. Battered, soaked in their own blood and grave dirt, the new champion pulls the gold tight against their ribs.

The entrance curtain parts.

Hope Russo charges through the staging tunnel, tears streaming down her face. She sprints full speed toward the mound, scrambling up the shifting dirt incline on hands and knees.

Hope throws both arms around Thaïs’s neck, slamming her weight into her spouse. Her face buries deep into Thaïs’s bruised shoulder. Thaïs’s trembling hands clamp down hard, fiercely clutching both the championship gold and Hope’s frame against their chest.

The curtain snaps open again.

The rest of Tigress—Jenna Jillian Walker, Morgan LeChance, Delilah Hart, and Hope Levitt—burst through into the arena. They charge up the mound together, boots churning the soil.

Surrounding their exhausted leader, the faction closes the circle. Arms wrap around shoulders and battered limbs, locking Thaïs in a massive, emotional group embrace directly atop the freshly leveled earth where Bia remains entombed under tons of rock and clay.

The broadcast camera cranes slowly backward, pulling high into the arena rigging. The wide shot frames the surreal, chilling image: the neon green and purple celebration of Tigress united in victory, standing directly on top of the grave of their former friend as the feed slowly fades to black.

POST SHOW MONTAGE

The screen cuts to black. A distorted swing guitar snarls through the speakers alongside the swaggering, brass-heavy groove of Ice Nine Kills’ “Ex-Mørtis,” setting a frantic, punishing rhythm.

The footage fires in rapid, violent bursts.

Marisol Vilaro knocks out crisp, mocking jumping jacks directly over a motionless Morgan LeChance. Flash cut to Grade Garrett raising Morgan’s limp arm for the third neurological check. The limb drops, only to freeze dead in mid-air as Morgan’s fist clenches white. Morgan detonates off the mat, drilling Marisol flush with the Voodoo Curse running knee as the digital arena clock freezes at sixteen seconds. Morgan clutches the Crucible Championship against her chest, pulling Jenna Jillian Walker in for a desperate, breathless kiss amidst twelve thousand screaming fans.

A sharp cut to Travis Levitt stepping into the ring, rolling his broad shoulders. Across from him, Hope Levitt stares back with cold, vacant eyes. Travis drops his fists, heartbreak shattering his face—and Hope lunges without hesitation, cracking her father across the jaw with a brutal leaping forearm.

The action spirals. Vespera Nyx regurgitates a thick mist of red blood directly into Jenna’s eyes, then hurls a steel chair across the ring. Jenna ducks, and the metal obliterates Hope’s face, sending the rookie crumpling in a heap of blood.

The music swells. Hope stands atop the turnbuckles, wiping crimson from her temple as the hypnotic fog breaks. She screams “GERONIMOOOOOO!” and launches into the Star Dragon Kick, folding Taeler Virelle in half before rebounding to wipe out Nyx with a decapitating Resurrection Kick. Stephanie Marshall counts three, cutting to Travis pulling his smiling, blood-streaked daughter into an overwhelming embrace in the corner.

The brass stabs viciously. Taylor Landry drives Marilyn Matthews face-first into the jagged steel ring steps, coating the champion in a crimson mask. Taylor wipes her bare palm across the fresh wound and smears the blood across the Marilyn portrait on Sadie Shephard’s sweater, throwing her head back in unhinged laughter while Sadie screams in horror. Outside the ring, Sadie snatches her aluminum crutch and swings it like a baseball bat, cracking Taylor across the skull. The bell rings wildly for the DQ. Marilyn stares in utter disbelief as Sadie hops behind the rail, maniacally shouting that she saved her, while Taylor stumbles up the ramp blowing cocky kisses with the True Grit title in hand.

The percussion hammers into an industrial sprint. Datura jams a live stun gun into the side-rail of a ladder, sending high-voltage arcs through Yuna Obsidian before Yuna crashes twenty feet backward to the mat. Handcuffed to the turnbuckle, Kate Vega tears the foam pad off with her teeth and heaves until the industrial steel eyelet shears clean out of the post.

Datura swings twenty feet in the air from the suspension hook. Kate charges up the corner ladder and spears Datura out of the sky, cratering the canvas. Seconds later, Kate shoves the twenty-foot titan ladder, catapulting Datura and Yuna fifteen feet over the apron to obliterate twin tables at the base of the ramp. Kate stands tall on the rungs, broken chains dangling from her wrist, hoisting the Golden Ticket briefcase with a deafening roar.

The track plunges into a bone-crushing, down-tuned breakdown.

Thirty feet above the arena floor on the LED catwalk, Thaïs Empristikí drills a piston kick into Bia’s chest. Bia plummets in an unobstructed freefall, crashing dead center into the open grave in a massive plume of dust.

Under ultraviolet blacklight, Thaïs bites open a military chem light, spewing a blinding cloud of radioactive green mist across Bia’s face before cracking a heavy MagLite across the champion’s skull. Thaïs hoists Bia’s zip-tied frame at the edge of the pit and leaps out into the void, driving Bia into the compacted earth with the Sign of Fire piledriver.

Halogen work lights snap on from the front-end loader. Inside the cab, Helena Handbasket wears a yellow hard hat, flashes a cheerful smile, and waves. Thaïs screams in terror as Helena shoves the hydraulic lever forward. Tons of dirt, mud, and rock drop from the steel bucket, burying Bia alive in a suffocating landslide.

Thaïs collapses to their knees atop the freshly leveled mound, clutching the PCW Unleashed Championship with hollow, haunted eyes. The rest of Tigress swarms the hill, wrapping Thaïs in a tearful group embrace directly above the fresh grave.

The music cuts abruptly into cold, hollow silence.

A static camera lingers on the packed dirt of the dark gravesite.

CRACK.

The earth violently ruptures. Bia’s bloodied, dirt-caked arm punches through the surface, snapped plastic zip-ties clinging to her wrist, fingers clawing frantically at the air.

A second hand plunges into the frame. Chalk-white skin. High-gloss black stiletto nails. A thin silver chain dangling a polished rainbow charm.

The pale fingers clamp like an iron vise around Bia’s wrist. Bia’s bloody hand locks onto the stranger’s forearm.

One violent, concussive wrench drags the buried champion upward—

CUT TO—

POST-CREDITS SCENE

THE RAINBOW IN THE DIRT

The screen cuts open on a tight, static macro shot of the gravesite.

Cold, dark, and still. Compacted brown dirt fills the frame, bathed in the long, jagged shadow of the granite headstone. In the blurred, out-of-focus background beyond the staging area, house lights hum as the remaining stragglers among the twelve thousand fans slowly filter down the arena exit ramps.

A sudden, rippling murmur breaks out among the leaving fans. Voices rise. The hum sharpens into a stunned, confused commotion as pointing fingers turn back toward the stage.

CRACK.

The packed surface of the grave ruptures outward.

A shower of dry dirt and loose gravel detonates into the air as a thick, muscular arm punches through the soil.

Bia’s hand claws into the open air. Around her thick wrist, the jagged, snapped plastic teeth of a heavy-duty tactical zip-tie still cling to her swollen flesh.

The fingers are caked in dark crimson blood and black grave dust. They splay wide. Writhing. Twisting frantically in the open air, clawing blindly at the empty void in a desperate, animalistic grasp for salvation.

Suddenly, a second hand violently plunges into the frame.

Chalk-white skin. Razor-sharp stiletto nails coated in high-gloss black. Dangling against the pale wrist is a thin metal chain bearing a single, polished charm: a tiny metallic rainbow.

SNAP.

The pale fingers clamp like an iron vise around Bia’s wrist. Bia’s bloody hand instantly locks around the stranger’s forearm.

One violent, concussive upward wrench. The grave craters inward—

SMASH CUT TO BLACK.

DEAD BY DAWN PRE-SHOW

THE WRESTLING WATCHDOG REPORT

BY HARVEY FINCH

EVAN CARMINE VS MARK KELLY

SANCTIONED SINGLES BOUT (STANDARD FALL)

EVAN CARMINE WINSPINFALL VICTORY

FIVE STARS

THE WRESTLING WATCHDOG REPORT

BY HARVEY FINCH

BLACK RAINBOW VS HOUSE OF GEMSTONES

SANCTIONED TAG BOUT (STANDARD FALL)

HOUSE OF GEMSTONES WINSPINFALL VICTORY

FIVE STARS

MATCH

THE BAYOU BADASS

MORGAN LECHANCE

TIGRESS

vs

BILLION DOLLAR CHAMPION

PCW CRUCIBLE CHAMPION

MARISOL VILARO

VILAROFIT

15 MINUTE TIME LIMIT

CRUCIBLE CHAMPIONSHIP

REFEREE: GRADE GARRETT

MOR-GAN!

MOR-GAN!

MOR-GAN!

ONE…

TWO—NO!

ONE…

TWO—NO!

ONE…

TWO…

THR—NO!

ONE…

TWO—NO!

ONE…

TWO…

THR—NO!

ONE…

TWO—NO!

MOR-GAN!

MOR-GAN!

MOR-GAN!

ONE—NO!

ONE…

TWO—NO!

ONE…

MOR-GAN!

MOR-GAN!

TWO…

ONE…

TWO—NO!

ONE…

TWO—NO!

ONE…

TWO—NO!

ONE…

TWO—NO!

ONE…

TWO—NO!

ONE…

TWO…

THREE!

MORGAN LECHANCE WINSPINFALL VICTORY

AND NEW PCW CRUCIBLE CHAMPION

SEGMENT

THE NIGHT QUEEN

ASHLYN GRACE

SEGMENT

WILL FARRELL

MATCH

THE NIGHT QUEEN

ASHLYN GRACE

vs

WILL FARRELL

REFEREE: NATHAN “ATREYU” MACKAYE

ONE…

TWO…

EVAN CARMINE WINS
PINFALL VICTORY

HOUSE OF GEMSTONES WINS
PINFALL VICTORY

MORGAN LECHANCE WINS
PINFALL VICTORY

WILLOW FARRELL WINS
PINFALL VICTORY

JENNA JILLIAN WALKER
DELILAH HART
TRAVIS LEVITT

TAELER VIRELLE
VESPERA NYX
HOPE LEVITT

TIGRESS WINS
PINFALL VICTORY