vs. Alexis Quinne vs. Maddy Steward

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Scene 1

Off Camera

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Billy Breakdown, Bill Barnhart, The Gothfather, and now Lailoken Da Vinci have all fallen before me.  I have been extremely successful in Supreme Championship Wrestling ever since returning to my proper place in life; possessed by my true Mistress, her divine Lady Quinn Murray, the incarnation of Athena herself.  She’s promised strength, wisdom, and power to me in exchange for my undying loyalty to her.  It is a good sacrifice that I make, a sacrifice that is just about to pay dividends.  I face Alexis Quinne and Maddy Steward in a triple threat television title eliminator.  If I win I get a shot at the SCW Television Championship.  Things are finally looking up for me, and of course that’s when the ground falls out from beneath my feet.

I think about the situation I find myself in as I stare blankly ahead in my room…

Prison cell.

I thought I told you to shut up?

I don’t care what you told me to do.  It’s a prison cell, barely six feet by four. The walls are a thick grey stone, but instead of a wide window with a flower box there was a mean barred opening with thick metal bars and no glass.  And don’t you smell it?  Don’t you smell the stench of festering sewage?  The temperature is reduced to near freezing.  It was no brighter inside than the gathering gloom of dusk, even at midday.  The bed is a plank of wood on legs, no mattress, no cushioning, and only one thin blanket. It is suffocatingly quiet.

On that last part I do agree with you.  It is too quiet because I have to deal with you in my head otherwise!

I am you.

Wrong, you don’t exist.

Yes, I’ve developed a split personality.  Lucky me!  And it’s all thanks to my idiot sister-in-law Ashley O’Brian, Mark’s wife.  She came to visit me at a recent episode of Breakdown and she spoke volumes to me.  And whatever it is she said triggered something within me that I didn’t think existed any longer.  Unknown to her, she brought back a part of myself that I thought long dead.

If I have my way, it’ll stay dead and buried deep down in my subconscious.  This is my weak-willed personality. This is the personality that I am certain has cost me match, after match all this past year since joining Supreme Championship Wrestling. This is the personality my Mistress Quinn Murray has been working with me so hard to kill.  The fact that it has come back with such a vengeance right at this very moment has me nervous.  Will its influence cost me everything Mistress and I have worked so hard to obtain?

She’s not Mistress, she’s not a goddess either, and she’s not Athena.  She’s just a normal human being.  A very deluded human being with clear mental health issues if she actually thinks she is the goddess Athena.

Leave me alone.  I will not allow you to ruin this for me.  You are nothing but a weak safety blanket I created to protect myself from my abusive father.  That’s what you are.  I’m grown now and I don’t need you anymore.  I have Mistress.

You think you need her but you do not.  Look at what she’s doing to you.  She’s treating you like an animal.  I tug gently yet firmly at the chain around neck (our neck) that is attached to the wall.  Dogs are chained up, not humans.  She’s treating us like an animal.

No.  You’re the safety blanket I created to deal with my father.  I created this front of being a stoic, emotionless, sociopath in order to deal with the abuse I had to put up with as a child.  I’m the real Sophie O’Brian.

LIES!

I’m interrupted when the door opens.  I look up and one of Quinn’s butlers is standing there.  He places a bowl of mashed up food that almost looks like potted meat in front of me.  The butler says nothing as he makes his exit.

It’s probably dog food.  Looks like dog food.

No, it looks like potted meat.  In any event, I put my head into the bowl and start eating.

Dog food or potted meat either way, she’s feeding you like an animal!  And yet you think she cares about you?

Silence.

You’re justifying it.  Ever since we arrived here, ever since we declared our loyalty to her, you have been justifying every horrible thing she’s done to you, including this latest piece of humiliation.

It’s worth it.  I get wisdom and power and…

At what cost?!  Even Ian McKinnon is getting treated better like this.  He gets treated like a human being.  You’re literally her pet.  And all for power and knowledge?  At what point do we leave?  When do we achieve this power and knowledge you seek, because that’s when we leave, right?

That voice is once again lost as the door reopens.  I half-expect the butler, who hadn’t been gone long.  But as I look up I see Quinn Murray entering the room.  She walks over and pats me on the head.

“There’s my good girl, my pet.  Are you enjoying your lunch?”

“Of course, my Mistress.”

“Good, and I hate to disrupt your meal, but we have to talk.”

She reaches into her pocket and produces a key. She puts it into the lock around my collar around my neck and unhooks the chain.  She casts the chain aside and takes me by my hand, helping me to my feet.

“Follow me, my pet.”

She turns and exits the room.  Obediently I follow her out of the room and down the hall.  I’ve been doing this hall before.  She’s taking me to her office.  We turn a corner and step through an already open door and into a huge room occupying the corner of the building with floor-to-ceiling windows giving views in two directions. The two remaining walls contained a door, a low bookshelf, and a single oil painting - a vase of flowers by Vincent van Gogh.  Quinn walks over to the black leather swivel chair at the immaculate mahogany desk with three drawers on the right hand side and a mac book pro.  Off to the side is a filling cabinet with paper work stacked on top and a water dispenser with no cups.

“Sit, my pet.”

I nod my head and sit down.  Quinn grins knowingly.  The wheels in her mind are turning.  I have no clue what she has on her mind.  I’m not sure I want to know.

“Obviously you made a statement this past Breakdown.  The way you laid waste to Lailoken Da Vinci sent the perfect message to David Helms and the rest of SCW.  Now they know not to mess with you and more importantly not to mess with me.”

Suddenly I feel light-headed.  My head rolls backward.  Quinn immediately takes note.

“Sophie!  Are you listening to me?!”

“Huh?” My head jerks forward and I look back at her. I nod my head. “Uh, yes…yes, of course.”

She frowns, glaring at me somewhat angrily. “Right, as I was saying, you have made the perfect statement.  You destroyed and ran Billy Breakdown out of town.  You annihilated Bill Barnhart.  You humbled The Gothfather. And now Lailoken Da Vinci has had to deal with the awesome power I have gifted you with.”

She reaches out and rubs my cheek with the back of her hand. “Isn’t it great to have such power?  Isn’t it great to humble those and put them beneath you where they belong?”

I pause as I stare deep into her eyes.  It’s easy to see how she is so enchanting with that almost hypnotic and beautiful stare.  After a few moments of no response she holds up her hand over my mouth to keep me silent.

“Hush now, no need to answer yet, my pet.  The best is yet to come because either this week’s Breakdown or next week’s you could become the SCW Television Champion.  You could win the SCW Television Championship for your goddess!”

“For…you?”

“Of course for me.  Who else would you win it for?  You do everything for me, my pet.  But I fear that your championship hopes and dreams are in jeopardy due to the involvement of your brother, Mark.”

“Mark?” I arch my brow curiously. “What is wrong with Mark?”

“Oh it isn’t Mark directly but more his wife.” She smirks nastily. “Yes, I know about how Ashley O’Brian approached you.”

“You do?” My voice starts to break.

“Yes, I do.  I don’t know what she said to you but I have no doubt that it couldn’t have been anything good. The fact that you haven’t been referring to me by my proper titles of Mistress or goddess the past few minutes is evidence of how she has most likely caused you to regress.”

She walks over to where I’m sitting and stands over me, towering over me in an intimidating fashion.

“I warned Mark not to get involved.  His wife getting involved is just as bad.  Thus he must be punished.”

“No, no please…” I shake my head as I realize what is coming next.

“I’m sorry, my pet, but you are no longer allowed to see Mark ever again!  Are we clear?” Tears start to flow down my cheek but she’s relentless. “I said, are we clear?!”

“I…understand...”

“Good, my pet.”

“BUT I DON’T CARE!”

I jump out of my seat and grab her by the throat and slam her down on her own desk.  I squeeze her as hard as I can and I start to scream right in her face.

“I AM NOT YOUR SLAVE ANYMORE!  I AM NOT YOUR TOY OR YOUR PET, EITHER!  I AM SOPHIE O’BRIAN!”

I roughly toss her to the ground. “Do you understand that…Bridgett?”

She gets up on her hands and knees and turns and glares at me. “You’re making a big mistake.”

“Maybe I am, but I don’t think so.  I’m leaving this place and you’d better not stop me.”

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Scene 2

Off Camera

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It’s raining outside.  It isn’t raining very heavily but it is raining fairly well and fairly consistently.  There are rumbles of thunder in the background as well as the occasional flash of lightning. This just isn’t a good day to be out in a thunder storm.

Is it ever a good time to be out in a thunderstorm, you lunatic?

I’m not a lunatic.

Yes, you are.  You abandoned the one chance we had at success, the one chance we had at power and wisdom!  You took what Mistress had to offer us and you threw it away right after you assaulted her!  Yes, you ARE a lunatic!

According to you I may be a lunatic.  Most rational observers would look at the decision I made as the most logical and most wise decision.  Any sane person would look at what Bridgett Kennedy was doing to you and see it for what it was; slavery.

Her name is Mistress Quinn Murray!  She is our goddess!  She is…

She is a fraud; a deluded, crazy, fraud who tried to ruin our lives.  But thanks to my family, thanks to my wonderful brother Mark and my beautiful sister-in-law Ashley, I have been liberated from that life of servitude.

My brother is a bone-headed dimwit Neanderthal and Ashley is a no-good whore who can’t keep her nose out of my business!

It’s time I thank them, and beg their forgiveness.  I gaze up the walkway towards the home where my brother Mark and his wife Ashley live.  It’s hard to make out the details of the house in this rain, a rain that has since picked up.  Occasionally I get a glimpse of the high triangular roof and red bricks that make up this home when the lightning flashes.  This thunderstorm is getting pretty bad.

Then go inside, moron!

My darker half is correct.  I slowly trudge my way up the walkway to the front door.  I ring the doorbell and wait patiently for someone to answer.  I hear heavy footsteps approaching.  It must be my brother Mark.

“I don’t know who ya are at this time of night in this bloody weather but go away!  You’re not welcome!”

“Mark, please, open the door.”

“Sophie?” Immediately I hear the lock unlatching and then the door opens up. Mark is standing there inside with a shocked look on his face.  Needless to say, he was not expecting this. “Bloody hell, Sophie!”

“Happy to see me, darling brother?”

“Of course I am, of course.” He grabs me by the arm and pulls me inside.  “Get in out of the rain!”

He immediately slams the door and then turns to shout. “Ashley!  Sophie is here!”

“She is?!” It isn’t long before Ashley O’Brian emerges from down the hall. She stares with wide-eyed shock at me. “Sophie!  You made it!  You got out!”

“I did, I escaped Quinn Murray’s control.” I reply, nodding my head. “I just had to be reminded of who I was.”

“Yeah, you had to be reminded you were the nasty, Belfast bitch Sophie O’Brian, right?” Mark says with a smirk.

“No, sweetie, I had to be reminded that I was a human being worthy of human dignity.”

Sweetie?!  Don’t call that dumb piece of human garbage ‘sweetie’!

No, it’s your turn to SHUT UP.  You’ve been abusive to that sweet man for far too long, you monster.

“And I also needed to be reminded how important my family is to me.” I embrace Mark in a tight hug. “I love you, Mark.  All my life I counted on you to have my back and the way I repaid you was by treating you like garbage.  And yet you still stood by my side.”

After breaking the embrace I shake my head. “No longer is that the case.  I love you, Mark, and I will be the best sister I can be going forward.”

I think I’m going to be sick.

Silence.

“Ashley,” I turn to face Ashley who also has tears rolling down her cheek “I owe you my life, and you didn’t even owe me anything.  How can I repay you?”

“Don’t mention repayment!” Ashley embraces me in a tight hug. “We’re just glad to have you back!”

She’s right, of course.  I am back; the one true Sophie O’Brian is back.  Things are going to be different from now on.

Bullshit.  This isn’t over, you pathetic weakling.  This isn’t over.

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On Camera

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Sun Tzu says, “To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.”

You may wonder why I so often quote Sun Tzu.  The truth of the matter is that there is no one better when it comes to strategy and, dare I say, even wisdom itself than the great Sun Tzu.  His piece, The Art of War, can be applied not just to military tactics but to all aspects of life, from the business world and, yes, even professional wrestling.

What makes Sun Tzu and his Art of War so unique is that it never suggests rushing headlong into any conflict.  In some instances it is all a matter of using the weakness or strategy of the enemy against them.  Just look at what I’ve done in recent weeks to opponents such as Billy Breakdown, Bill Barnhart, The Gothfather, and most recently Lailoken Da Vinci.

I defeated them all, not because of brutish violence but because of master strategy.  I defeated them before the battles even began.  That is supreme excellence.

Now I want you meatheads in SCW to sit up and pay attention, because if you were involved in this triple threat match against Alexis Quinne and Maddy Steward you would just rush head long into the fight.

“Oh but it’s a triple threat match!”

“Triple threat matches are nothing but chaos!  It’s unavoidable!”

That’s what everyone wants you to believe.  That’s the lie the promotion wants you to believe. Chaos equals cash, or so they say.  But you don’t have to engage in chaos to win a triple threat.  Intelligence, wisdom, knowledge can help you through the mass chaos associated with a triple threat match.  A supreme master strategist can win a triple threat match.

Can I break Alexis Quinne’s resistance without fighting?  Can I break Maddy Steward’s resistance without fighting?  I can and I will.  How can I do it, you ask?  Sit and listen to further wisdom of the great Sun Tzu…

Sun Tzu says, “Those skilled in warfare made themselves invincible and then waited for the enemy to become vulnerable.”

I only need two weapons in order to win this triple threat match.  One weapon is named Alexis Quinne and the other weapon is named Maddy Steward.  They’ll destroy each other and then I will finish the job and claim my rightful spot as the next challenger to the SCW Television Championship.

And then one week from that day, the fun comes to an end.  The singing and laughter comes to an end.  One week from that day I will bring tears to the eyes of the Ikiro fans as I end him and end his reign as the SCW Television Champion.