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Descriptions of blood and violence
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"Oops. I almost forgot!" said Party Girl. She reached into her pocket and tossed something onto the ramp. Something metallic, judging from the sound as it bounced and clinked to a stop a few feet away from the uncrowned champion. Alicia forced her eyes to focus. The small, silvery blur sharpened into a recognizable shape.
It was a key.
"Thanks for just handing my servants your gym bag with all your stuff inside, by the way," giggled Party Girl. "And people call me dumb." She helped herself to a chortle as she posed with the chair and the championship belt for the camera, seemingly oblivious or immune to the withering tide of boos and outrage pouring from the stands.
"You broke into my place?" slurred Alicia. "You killed your own cat?"
"What?! Oh. My. God. No! My fwuffy widdle presh-presh?" Party Girl planted a fist on her hip, aghast at the suggestion. "I made Janice do it." Party Girl shrugged.
“What is wrong with you?” Alicia stammered.
"What? I'll get another. And this isn't a conversation. It's a unilogue." She turned and shouted into the stands, "Hey everyone, check out who's holding the belt, just like I pinky promised! And I'm holding onto this until next week when we make it official. You didn't do a very good job taking care of it," she said, nuzzling the bloodstained championship gold on her shoulder. She turned to leave through the curtain. "Play my hype video! You guys are totally going to love it."
The arena lights dimmed as the WarMachine flickered and hummed to life while medical personnel prepared Sabrina for the stretcher. Boos continued to soak the arena, but the crowd could only vent their anger at the 2,000-square foot video board.
The video opened on Party Girl flashing the Look in close-up before widening out to show her wearing a puffy pink coat standing in front of her literal club-house. "Wasssssssssssssup to all my Party Animals! Woop-woop! I know you all missed me while I was away, but I want to show you what I was working on. Come on, follow me! It's off the chizz-ain!" Alicia winced. Not because of the fishhook lodged in her palm.
The camera panned in a wide shot over to the playground in the front yard. Alicia recognized the equipment, except she didn't.
Party Girl leaned sideways into shot. "Welcome to the Playground of Dreams, where all my dreams come true!" Close up. "Not so good news about yours, though." The star swung out of shot, dramatically revealing the macabre parody of childhood whimsy her imagination had wrought. She bounded from one pink monstrosity to the next as she led the guided tour. "Isn't it just the cutest? Pink thumbtack swings, barbed-wire pair swing, steel-plated rocking horses, a misery-go-round…"
The camera cut to a pair of rocking horses in the middle of the playground, zooming in on the blond steel "hair" on one side of its head and the rows of pink barbed wire bolted to the other. The misery-go-round certainly earned its name, with each section a different unpleasant surface for a landing: thumbtacks, fluorescent light tubes, and broken glass. Floodlights surrounded the playground, and a runway had been constructed leading from the driveway to the wood chips near the gazebo. The scene transitioned with an animated pink heart growing out of the center of the screen--a heart wipe.
Sabrina rolled through the curtain on a stretcher as another team of paramedics surrounded Alicia and prepared her for a similar exit.
"Don't forget the jungle jail!" cried Party Girl with unfaked cheer. Everything, from the monkey bars with broken glass underneath to the parallel bars to the fireman’s pole, had been wrapped--woven, really--in a hostile, tangled excess of barbed wire, with a thick net of the stuff haphazardly stretched from one piece of climbing equipment to the next, encircling the structure. She lowered her voice and held a hand to the side of her mouth. "Wouldn't want to get caught in there!"
Heart wipe.
Medical personnel surrounded Alicia, chattering behind her as they readied the stretcher. Were they EMTs or paramedics? She could never remember. "One, two, three. Lift!"
The shot opened once again on the Look in extreme close-up. "Of course, I saved the best for last. This is seriously tight, you guys," said Party Girl, mugging to camera one last time before the big reveal. "My castle!"
Alicia stared in wide-eyed disbelief as the hot pink monument to pain came into focus. "Oh buttons."
Every railing of the two-story gazebo was wrapped in barbed wire, and the structure had been lined top to bottom with exposed rivets every twelve inches or so. The second floor of the gazebo could only be accessed by a ladder and exited to a bouncy bridge covered in fluorescent light tubes leading to a standalone tower.
"Chiggity-check it! I love this part!" shouted Party Girl as she waved the cameraperson over. The only way down from the tower was a slide wide enough for two covered in sandpaper. "Sandpaper slide!" Heart wipe.
"And because I'm the Queen, look! A thorn room! Get it?!" The giddy socialite stepped aside from the gazebo’s first-story doorway and pointed the camera at her masterpiece. A thumbtack mosaic adorned every inch of the interior, and at the center of the room sat a diabolical throne wrapped--practically encrusted--in barbed wire. Party Girl pointed the camera at her face, briefly revealing the runway behind her. "What do you think? Amazing, isn't it? It's all mine, and I'm sharing it with you! Best day of your life." Heart wipe.
Back Party Girl in front of the Playground of Dreams in wide shot. "So that's my Queen'z Decree, with a zed. My place. Your title. Playground of Dreams. 'I Quit' match. See you there! Mwa! PEACE!"
The paramedics stabilized Alicia’s leg, but before they could fit the hobbled champion with a neck brace, she craned her head to watch as medical personnel struggled to lash the shrieking, thrashing Black Violet onto a stretcher. Screams overtook the audience as the Mother of Nightmares bit one of the medics and dove to the floor, slithering away on her forearms and knees into the stands and out of sight. On went the neck brace.
She was getting that belt back. Never say never in pro wrestling.
* * * * *
Sabrina greeted her visitor with a ragged half-smirk. "My health has taken a serious turn for the worse since we met, Alicia Winthrop." Her scarred lips had been busted open again in more than one spot, and she sported a shiner that swallowed the whole eye socket. The former wrestler’s forehead had been wrapped in bandages, and she looked uncomfortable with her neck restricted by a brace. She clutched her freshly re-cast arm tight to her side. "Wanna know what's funny? In my 29 years in the business, this is the worst I ever got hurt."
Alicia entered the hospital room still dressed in her bloody ring gear. She set aside her crutches and eased into her seat before reaching down to adjust to her knee brace. "That’s not funny." Her whole world blurred, and her voice started to break. "Sab, I am so sorry I got you into this-"
Genuine belly laughter rose from her mentor's stomach. "You are not gonna make it in this business if you cry every time someone you know gets sent to the hospital."
"I know, but you got hurt again because of me. I'm so sorry," Alicia re-apologized.
"Hey!" shouted Sabrina. "What did I tell you about taking credit? I don't want to hear you going around bragging you were responsible for putting Iron Maiden in the hospital, alright? That's not how it happened."
Alicia forced a chuckle. "Honestly, I'm still trying to wrap my head around everything that happened, but how are you doing? Are you okay?"
Sabrina examined her cast and curiously patted her bandaged head and neck brace. "No. I'm badly hurt. But if you're roundabout trying to ask if we're okay? Yeah. I'm not mad at you. I didn't belong on that side of the curtain. That's not my role here anymore." She reached up with one hand and physically waved off the conversation. "Hold on, hold on. That's my line. Are you okay? Party Girl-"
"-is insane. She lied to me for weeks. She broke into my house, or I guess had her assistant do it. You didn't see the hype video."
Sabrina shook her head in bewilderment. "Hold on. 'The hype video?'"
Alicia gave her the spiel. "I'm about to say a lot of insane things without explaining most of them, and I just need you to do your best to keep up because there's way too much to cover."
Sabrina considered the disclaimer for a moment. "You know I have a concussion, right?"
A pause hung between them as Alicia decided whether to continue. Another time, maybe. There were better things to talk about. "I don't know how I'm going to beat her. She's better than me. She's not injured. She has homefield advantage with her torture playground-"
"Her what?"
"Not now. I need a gameplan. I'm not going out there next week to try my best and lose gracefully, but I'm not beating her in a stand-up fight," said Alicia. "That belt doesn't belong to her. It's coming back with me."
Sabrina asked, "Do you have any ideas? Anything to work with?"
There was something. At least, Alicia thought it was something. "Maybe. She always protects her face."
* * * * *
Alicia had one stop before the Party Girl compound: Sportstravaganza. Of the many sporting goods stores inexplicably dotted throughout Beaver, it was the only one she avoided. They were far too committed to their theme. She didn't have to drive far, since Sportstravaganza deemed it necessary to have three locations within twenty miles of each other. She parked the car and walked on crutches through the automatic sliding doors painted like a soccer goal and into the shop. Store, really. Megastore, if she was honest.
Alicia hobbled across artificial turf floors past the other, lesser sports to the hockey section in the back. She picked up a puck, turned it over, and squeezed it like a melon. There we go.
The main eventer made her way to checkout lane 6, took her spot at the starting line, and placed her single item on the conveyor, or "treadmill," in the Sportstravaganza parlance. The "equipment manager" zapped the shrink-wrapped puck with his scanner thing shaped like a squirt bottle.
"$2.28."
Alicia reached for her purse. Where was it? "Um."
That wasn't good. Although she had double-checked to ensure she had her hockey stick and gym bag when she left the house, she did no such thing for her purse. Someone held a blowtorch to the back of her head.
The nervous, bearded fellow behind the counter lowered his voice and asked softly, "If you can't pay for it, can you please put it back? I'm sorry. I don't want to have to call my coach."
No time left to drive home. There went her plan's key ingredient. "Wait!" Back-left pocket. The emergency 20. When you think you don't need it, that's when you'll need it. Words to live by.
The receipt printer disgorged an excessive record of transaction that reached the floor. The equipment manager stepped out from behind the "goalposts." He picked the still-connected receipt off the floor and stood aside, holding it taut like a finish line. Alicia stepped through, causing it to detach at its perforation.
"Thank you for shopping at Sportstravaganza, where the customer is always a champion," said the clerk, soullessly. "Have a great play."
"Hope so," Alicia replied.
Miles flew by in silence. Apartments turned into houses, then mansions, and then manors. She turned off into a side street that led to a swooping cul de sac of bare, grassy lots ripe for development. Not another vehicle in sight. She refused to give Party Girl the privilege of wrecking her new-used car if she had to leave on a stretcher.
Alicia stood up out of the car and traded her crutches for her MVP game stick. The night air felt chilly rather than cold. The long, hard freeze had relented, but it would still make every impact hurt even worse. She locked the car door, then checked again to make sure.
Three blocks to the Party Girl compound, and she leaned heavily on her hockey stick with each step. Two blocks, and the dull throb turned into a persistent ache. There was 3rd and Artricanuse Circle. Christopher Michaels supposedly lived around here. One block, and Alicia’s knee begged her to stop. Ahead lay the pink wrought iron gate, thrown wide open to welcome in the production crew. She approached the front drive and tried to nonchalantly saunter past.
A man wearing a pink reflective vest called from the security booth, "Did they not send you a limo?"
Alicia shrugged. She may have received a call about a limo and hung up on it. Like she was falling for that.
Floodlights shone like day upon the Playground of Dreams. About 30 feet away, a stage with a commentary desk had been assembled for Helene to call the play-by-play. Allen was probably pulling double-duty at the Plunj running the commentary desk and backstage. Sabrina really did complete them.
Helene directed traffic from center-stage, dressed a red suit and crisp, white tailored shirt that stood out against the night sky. Her focused expression evaporated into a puzzled stare as Alicia approached. "I ordered you a limo. Did they not pick you up? Did you walk?"
"Um-" said the accidental pedestrian. "Oh." Helene waited, seeming to expect an explanation. Too bad about that. "Is the match starting soon?" Alicia asked.
"The lim-" Helene puffed a long, frustrated blast of air from her nose. She took the easier route. "They just rang the bell for the match before yours."
"Who's it between?"
"Jill McKill versus Hellion." She lifted a finger, asking for a moment as she listened to something over her earpiece. "It's over. Are you ready?"
Alicia answered confidently, "What?"
A droning, distant buzz overhead grew steadily louder as beacon lights drew closer. Of the many helicopters Alicia had seen, this one was by far the pinkest.
Helene tapped the champ on the shoulder to get her attention. "Goon, focus. Are you ready?"
"I'm ready," Alicia answered. She paused for a beat. "But can you announce me as something else?"
The co-owner and commentator rolled her eyes. "You're changing your name again? Please don't make this a thing."
"Last time, I promise. It's the one I've always wanted. Can you announce me as Alicia Goon? It's my middle name."
Helene quirked an eyebrow. "Really?"
Alicia shrugged. "It's wrestling."
An organized mob of staff and production crew converged on the stage and shooed Alicia aside. A tall, muscular crew member ushered her toward the runway. Too risky.
The expensive-looking sound system projected Helene's sharp, brassy voice into the night air despite the propeller noise. "Your main event for the evening is an 'I Quit' match scheduled for one fall-"
One fall! Alicia echoed back in her mind.
"-With no time limit. There are no rules, no count outs, and anything goes. The match can only be won by forcing your opponent to say 'I quit.'"
Now the cacophonous beating of helicopter blades drowned out Helene's introduction. "Hailing __om the pa___ capital of ___ world, __icago, Illinois-" A pink rope ladder tumbled out the open helicopter door. Party Girl climbed out and down several rungs as she descended from the sky, gliding to the ground with the misappropriated title belt slung over her shoulder. "_at __east _en _ounds ___ier than you__ ____ __. -award-deser_ing single, ke__ s_7_n's three-time ___lfriend, and has a gre__ deal on half _ __llion bottles __ _arty Perm at _ hu__ _iscount! She is PAAAAARRRRRRRTTTTYYYYYY GIIIIIIIRRRRRRRLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!"
The helicopter came in hot, slamming the millionaire into the wood chips hard enough to throw up a shower of debris and send the title belt clattering to the ground. Party Girl stumbled to her feet, still loopy from the impact, and snatched up her stolen prize.
Even from this distance, Alicia could read the malice on the star's face as she glared up at the pink chopper, but the crack in the mask mended itself by the time the camera light turned on. Party Girl posed while stylishly brushing the wood chips from her hair and pink tracksuit. The slender, gray-haired referee chased the TV Championship belt as the self-appointed champion sashayed around him, intent on keeping the belt out of his hands as long as possible. The din of helicopter blades at last subsided as a camera and one, lonely spotlight focused on Alicia as she walked on the grass parallel to the runway towards the Playground of Dreams.
"Her opponent, wrestling out of Longstat, Minnesota and weighing 193 pounds, she is the tooth collector. She is the one-woman power play. She is your Queens of War TV Champion. She is ALLLLIIIIIIIIICCCIIIIIIIAAAAAAA GOOOOOOOOONNNNN!!!"
Polite little wave.
Alicia unzipped the neon gym bag, pulled out a set of well-worn maroon and white hockey gloves, and put them on. Her eyes darted to the hockey puck inside as she dropped the bag at the end of the runway and stepped over the plastic retaining barrier and into the playground area. The rusty whine of a rocking horse pierced the night air as Party Girl creaked back and forth. Her face was frozen in that tabloid Look for the cameras, but there was hate and ecstasy in her eyes.
Ding!
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