Making Peace

==========

Off Camera

==========

Most in my position would be quite disappointed, some would even go as far as to use the term ‘depressed’, considering the circumstances I find now myself in.  You see, I am a professional athlete, a wrestler, and I made my debut in Supreme Championship Wrestling in their Taking Hold of the Flame event.  To say I made an impact upon the troglodytes would be quite the understatement.  You could go as far as to say that I was ‘on fire’ in my SCW debut.

Or at least my opponents were, after I performed Scorched Earth Policy.

Ever since Taking Hold of the Flame, the SCW roster sat up and took notice that Sophie O’Brian was here, I had arrived, and that I meant business.  But in my Breakdown performances since the Taking Hold of the Flame event, my SCW career has been rather stalled and stagnant to say the least.

I lost to Tina Valentine.

My match against Gigi Steward never happened.

Now I have a match coming up against Jake Starr on the final Breakdown before Rise To Greatness.  Many consider this a must win for me in order to continue to remain relevant, in order to continue to be spoken of in the championship consideration.

Those who believe such nonsense are short-sighted individuals.  These individuals are thinking short term and not long term.  Long term thinking and planning will win you the day.  When the Visigoths lay siege to Rome, they knew they had the Romans right where they wanted them.  It was just a matter of waiting them out.  The hunger and pervading sickness eventually broke Roman Pride and they gave up and let the Visigoths in the city walls.

These individuals are also guilty of thinking in materialistic terms.  Carrying around a championship belt isn’t as important to me as what I really wish to do in Supreme Championship Wrestling and that is to use this place as my personal experiment.  SCW is my laboratory and my fellow wrestlers are my test subjects.  I wish to push them all to the limits of what the human mind can endure until they break; until they snap.

Everyone has a breaking point.  No one is pure as snow, no one is as innocent as a lamb.  Everyone has a dark side.  It’s just a matter of figuring out what will push each individual to that limit.  Some try to put on a bigger mask than others.  Those individuals would be your heroes, your people like Selena Frost, Kelcey Wallace, or Amy Chastaine.  They think they can be honest and pure but truthfully, if you were to push the right buttons at just the right time, they would become just as wicked as some of the ‘villains’ that the SCW fans revile; villains such as Regan Street, Vixen Cain, or Ethan Von Aaron.

It may be difficult to find what will push the SCW roster over the edge, but I am quite confident I can do just that.  Other members of the human race, however, are not quite as challenging or difficult to figure out…

…case in point, these disgusting slobs, the slime of humanity, who drunkenly made fools of themselves as they either get into fights over a game of billiards, failing miserably to pick up the latest attractive female to enter the establish, or a host of other foolish actions.

The bar curves into the dark barely lit room.  Through the windows, the diamonds of lead panes, trickles the sallow light of street-lamps.  The smell has changed over the years.  Once it was of cigarette smoke only, the perfume that clung to clothing, skin and furniture alike.  Now it is stale beer and body odor.  There are establishments that are more like restaurants now; all clean with waiting staff.

Not here.  It was always a den of debauchery, alcoholism and the great unwashed of the town.  It still is.  No one comes here with anything wholesome in mind.  This is why I truly do enjoy this singular tavern in my home of Belfast, Northern Ireland.  I can still come here and get a good microcosm of the truth of the human condition.

I find myself sitting on a stool at the bar.  I’m attired in a spaghetti strap v-neck backless bodycon geo-pattern mini-dress with sequins.  The dress extends to just above the knee.  My feet are encased in sexy peep toe sling black high heeled shoes.  My long black hair hangs unrestrained to shoulder length.  A half-empty glass of Guinness sits in front of me.

It’s just my first glass, I’m not drunk yet.  I know better than to do that in this kind of environment.  Besides, I have taken certain other precautions as well.  I expect to be the center of attention in a place like this wearing a dress like this.  It’s what I want, really.  Part of the games I play.  It’s sort of like fishing, really.  I’m just waiting for the first bite.

And here it comes.

“Uh, hey babe…”

The slurred male voice is enough to tell me that I have finally attracted some attention around here.  About time, too. It’s been a rather boring evening.  I do not even bother to turn to face this drunken buffoon.  I wait for him to continue digging his grave.

“Uh, hey,” he steps into my peripheral vision, sitting down on the bar stool next to me “you hear me, sexy?  I said hey…”

“I heard you, troglodyte.” I remark calmly and with a grin on my face. “But my name is not ‘sexy’, my name is Sophie.”

“Yeah but you are sexy, Sophie.” He says with a slur.

Your typical response might depend on what kind of woman you are.  Some may take that as a compliment.  Others may take that as offensive.  Still others would take that as an invention to intercourse.  I prefer none of those three tracks.  My choice of reaction is unique to myself and my own preferences.  I merely smile at him with a warm, inviting smile.  He may think he’s winning me over, but it’s just a ploy.  Nothing more.

“I would thank you for the compliment, but I have the strangest feeling that you’re coming onto me, which is not necessarily a problem, but I do not even know your name.”

The man, slightly drunk and raggedly looking as I finally turn to get a good look at him in full view, just stares as me quizzically.  It is clear that he had a problem following what I just said.

“Uh…”

“What is your name?”

“Oh!” It’s like a light bulb went off in his head as he finally figures it out. “Uh, Jake…”

Jake.  How appropriate.  I will be locked in combat with a man named Jake on the next edition of Breakdown.  I somewhat doubt that Jake Starr will be as inept and foolish as this Jake, but still, it is quite appropriate and quite ironic.

“Well nice to meet you, Jake.” I offer out my hand and he accepts the handshake.

“Want me to, uh…” his voice trails off as the drunkard named Jake tries to find the right words “…uh, want me to buy you a beer?”

A smirk spreads across my face.  I raise up my glass of half-empty Guinness to his face. “But I already have a drink, Jake.”

“Yeah, but I can get you another,” he motions to my glass “cause that one is, like, almost empty.”

A low chuckle escapes my throat. “Oh Jake, you need to try and be an optimist.  I don’t look at this glass as half-empty but instead as half-full.”

“Opti-what?”

The look of sheer confusion on his face combined with his slurred language as he struggles to figure out what he just heard from me is pure amusement.  I keep my amusement contained as I continue to play with him, like a cat playing with its food.

“Optimist, Jake; one who looks on the bright side of life.”I take a sip of my Guinness and set it back down on the bar.  I stare down at it and then gaze back up at Jake with a wicked grin on my face. “Or perhaps more devious thoughts are on your mind, sweet prince?”

“Huh?” The look of confusion on Jake’s face deepens, if that is even possible.

“Try and keep up, Jake, as hard as that may be for you in your inebriated condition.”

“Inebre-what?”

“Inebriated.  You’re drunk.”

“Oh…” he grins and nods his head “…well yeah…”

“Right, you’re drunk, and I think you want me to get drunk as well.” I hold my glass of Guinness. “This is just my first glass, only half-empty.  Now you already want me to down another so quickly?”

I shake my head and make a ‘tsk tsk’ sound. “Dear, Jake, you’re trying to get me drunk.”

“Uh…well…no…why would I do that?”

“Why, to get into my pants.”

He blinks furiously, quizzically. “Uh, you’re not wearing pants.”

“How observant of you, troglodyte.”

“What’s that?” He says slowly, his slurred voice becoming even more pronounced.

“A troglodyte, Jake,” I point a long slender carefully manicured finger at him “is you.”

“Oh, then, thanks for compliment, I guess.”

I laugh at his ignorance.  “Well then, you’re welcome…troglodyte.”

I grin knowingly.  This entire time I’ve been pushing him, trying to see how far and how much it will take to cause him to make the wrong move.  I believe I have reached that point.

“Thankssss,” he smirks “sexy…”

He leans over and kisses me on the cheek.  Big mistake.

“Oh Jake,” I chuckle lightly “it’s been nice knowing you.”

“Huh?” He is clearly confused, as usual, but before he can ask any further questions he is rushed by another figure, much bigger and far more muscular and built, wearing denim jeans, a black shirt with holes in it, and a black leather jacket.

My brother, Mark O’Brian.

He grabs Jake by the neck and throws him roughly off of the stool he was sitting on. “Get your damn hands off her, fuck face!”

“What the hell?!” Jake remarks in shock. “The hell are you, her boyfriend or somethin’?”

“Worse for you, scum.” Mark sneers. “I’m her brother.”

Jake pulls himself up slowly.  He looks at Mark and then he looks at me.  I grin knowingly and nod my head.  He then turns back at Mark and scowls.

“Incest?!  Sick!”

I roll my eyes, in awe at this man’s ignorance.  Mark is just offended as he rears back with his right hand and punches him in the face, knocking him down and out cold on the floor.  Immediately I hope up off of the stool and take my over-protective brother by the arm and tug gently just to get his attention.

“Come, Mark.  We should leave before the manager of this fine establishment decides to call authorities.”

“Fights happen all the time here.” Mark scoffs. “He never calls.”

“Better to be safe.” I respond as I give his arm another tug. “Now come along.”

Mark sighs and finally relents, turning and following me away from the bar and towards the exit.  Before leaving, I reach into Mark’s pocket, produce some cash, and slap it down on the bar.  I look up at the bartender a grin knowingly.

“A little extra,” I wink “for all the trouble we caused.  Never let it be said that my brother and I do not clean up after our messes…or at least pay for them, anyway.”

That being said, we head back towards the door and I quickly push open the door marked ‘exit’ and step outside, with my brother Mark by my side, out into the busy streets of Belfast.  Once outside I can feel my brother’s eyes staring a hole right through me.  It isn’t long before I hear his voice, as well.

“Why the hell do you always feel the need to make a scene?”

“Me make a scene?” I ask, feigning innocence as we walk past other pedestrians, all of whom ignore our very presence, all of whom are completely unaware of what just happened. “I wasn’t the one who punched Jake’s lights out.”

“You’re pinning that on me?!” He exclaims. Mark points an accusatory finger at me. “You provoked the bloke!”

“Perhaps I did,” I say with a chuckle “but you reacted.  And maybe you reacted improperly.”

I shrug my shoulders. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, really.  You just proved my point about humanity.”

“You know I hate that.” Mark says with a low growl. “I hate being a part of your silly fucking experiments.”

“They are not silly.  I’m merely trying to make a point.”

“A point about what?” He demands. “Are you just trying to prove you’re better than everyone else?”

Absolutely not.” I retort. “I am just as fallen, dark, and flawed as you or anyone else with the human condition.  My point isn’t that I am better but that the human condition itself is a flawed state, that all are fallen, that no one is pure and good.  That is why I do what I do, my dear brother, and proving it day in and day out by torturing the heroes of society gives me great joy.”

Mark looks over at me with a frown. “You’re sick.”

“I completely agree.”

Immediately Mark and I share a hearty laugh.  I knew Mark would leap to my protection in that bar.  He knew he would too.  It’s part of the flaw of the human condition.  In this case his flaw is being overprotective of me.  Though I understand why.  He was protective of me when we were growing up together, brother and sister, under the ruthless care of our abusive drunk of a father.  Father would routinely beat me, and Mark would always be there to defend me.  That’s why, to this day, I do enjoy torturing drunks at bars the way I did today.  That’s why I enjoy luring them into traps, traps that will typically include the drunk getting his ass kicked by my enraged brother.

There are times when we squabble and argue, fuss and fight, but we are close, closer than most siblings, and we always have each other’s back.  When one is in danger, the other will always be there to back them up.  That is why I brought Mark with me to Supreme Championship Wrestling.  I want him there by my side, watching my back.

“Yeah, well, as sick as you are, it will take more than the cheap mind games and tricks you pulled in that dive in order to beat Jake Starr on Breakdown.”

“Ah yes, the OTHER Jake.”

Jake Starr is a superstar in Supreme Championship Wrestling in the truest sense of the term, as he has held multiple championships in the course of his SCW career.  What impresses me about him is that he has never pretended to be any different than the person he really and truly is.

An asshole, specifically one who will do anything to get what he wants.  His use of the steel chair against the opposition has not gone unnoticed by me during my research for this match.  He never pretended to be saint or a hero.  He just is who he is.

I respect that.

“How you gonna handle him, sis?”

“That depends on what you mean.” I begin with a grin on my face. “If you mean how will I wrestle him, then I will do what I always do, and that is to be the technically sound submission expert I know myself to be.  I will wear him down, focus on a body part, and try to tap him out.”

Mark shakes his head. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“I thought as much.” I snicker. “He’s an interesting case because he isn’t like Tina Valentine, someone who falsely believes in the unrealistic notion of redemption, falsely believes that she can change.”

I shake my head. “That may be Tina Valentine but it isn’t Jake Starr.”

“Well, who is Jake Starr?”

“Jake Starr,” I begin with a confident smirk on my face “is quite possibly the best example of the true human condition that Mr. D and Supreme Championship Wrestling could have provided for me.  Oh and trust me, Mark, I will exploit it, I will exploit it to my heart’s desire.”

“I don’t get you, Sophie.” Mark says, shaking his head in disbelief. “Maybe I never will.”

“You don’t have to understand me, dear brother, you just have to be supportive.  That’s all I ask.”

“You know how supportive I am.” Mark says, almost in a defensive tone. “I am very supportive, sometimes more supportive than I should be.”

I arch a brow as I stare at my brother. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Glenn.”

The one singular name means a great deal to both Mark and I.  He is referencing Glenn Braddock, the man who trained both of us, the man who rescued us from our terrible situation and helped us to make new lives for ourselves.  Immediately after uttering Glenn’s name we stop walking, and he stares down at me accusingly.  Clearly he is disappointed at me.

I have a sneaking suspicion about what this is all about.

“Why’d you have to assault him, Sophie?”

“I would hardly call a kick to the groin an assault…” I respond, rolling my eyes.

That eye roll was a mistake.

“Don’t you roll your eyes at me, Sophie!” He snaps at me angrily. It’s very rare that Mark ever loses his temper with me.  I fear very few things; Mark’s temper is one of them. “That man saved our bloody lives and you disrespect him by attacking him?!”

“Look, maybe I went a little too far by attacking him,” I say, backtracking just a little, “but look at his bloody children!  Look at Glory and Julia!  Julia has lost her damn fool mind and suffice it to say that Glory has slipped.  She is not the best in the world any longer.  She let the cheers and adulation of the fans get to her, she bought into her hype.”

I motion to myself. “I am taking up the mantle of the Braddock legacy, and one day Glenn will thank me.”

Mark shakes his head. “Fine, I get what you’re saying, especially about Julia.  She’s nuts.”

“That’s being mild.”

“Not gonna comment on Glory, but damn it Sophie, even if you are gonna take up the Braddock legacy and revive it as you claim, you should at least make peace with them.”

I stare at Mark closely and intensely.  As much as it pains me to admit it, he may be right to a degree.  I nod my head.

“Fine, I will reach out an olive branch of peace to the Braddock family.” I place a hand on Mark’s chest. “But only because you asked me to.”

“That’s all I ask.”

==========

On Camera

==========

You have Selena Frost ripping off the fans of the world with a cheap merchandising gimmick in which she tells her “True Believers” to “Believe it”…

You have people like Kennedy Street and Tina Valentine, both of whom are either lying to the world as they lull the idiots into a false sense of security, or they truly are stupid enough to believe that redemption is possible, that they have fooled themselves into believing that they can change…

You have Kelcey Wallace and Donovan Kayl, who participated in an orchestrated assault on another human being when they claimed they were above that and better than that…

…these are the reasons I chose to make my appearance in Supreme Championship Wrestling.  SCW is ripe with the flawed, the weak-willed, the corrupt…it is teeming with dark, vile individuals who are fooling themselves into thinking they are honorable.

It is my goal to unmask them all and prove to the world, or at least SCW on a smaller scale, that deep down inside, everyone is a sociopath.

Then there is Jake Starr.

You are different, Jake.  Unlike so many other frauds and con-men who run rampant in this company, you have never lied about who you were, you never fooled yourself into thinking you could change.  You are who you are and you don’t change and you don’t apologize for it.

I can respect that.  In fact, I would go as far as to say that I admire your work a great deal.

I am the ultimate student of the game, Jake.  I do my homework on my enemies, even old enemies who I believe could become enemies again.  I once had a big rivalry with The Sisterhood, Angelica and Kayla Jones.  They were thorns in your side too, if I remember correctly.

I know this because I watched Angelica and Kayla’s career in SCW.  I watched their feud with you.  And you had better believe that I enjoyed it.  Each and every time you took that steel chair and brought it down upon their back or head or rib cage, I cheered.  I smiled.  The violence brought tears to my eyes.

It truly was a thing of beauty.

That is who you are, Jake.  Most would make excuses for why they did that, most would argue that it was a different time, that they had changed.  But not you.  You embrace who you are and you make no apologies for who you are.

You are the embodiment of what I call the true human condition.  The peons and troglodytes in SCW, they are all just like you.  They just don’t want to admit it.  They do not want to admit they are like a violent, brutal, chair shot artist like you.

Just as they do not wish to admit that they are all like a sociopath…a sociopath like me…

You and I are a rare breed, Jake, and that is why it is my deepest honor and privilege to face you on Breakdown.  I will enjoy breaking you down, slowly but surely, until there is nothing left.  I will enjoy ripping and tearing at you until you succumb and you tap out.

Until you quit.

And you should know that I am capable of taking you apart just as I have described, because we are not all that different.  I care not for the well being of my fellow man and woman.  I enjoy seeing the pain and suffering.  You should know that I will do anything to bring that pain and that suffering to my opponents.

You just happen to be that opponent, Jake.

Sucks to be you.