Unleash Carnage

In the AFW arena, a cage hung over the ring. The crowd murmured in anticipation, confusion, excitement. Something big was going to go down, but no one knew with whom. No one except a young girl sitting backstage, with hair bleached white and eyes tinted red. She held a half-face gas mask in her hands, a reminder of who she wanted to be, of what she would become. Her fingers traced the knobs and contours of the mask, and her eyes darted around as she once again admired its features. For now, she was just a scrawny, curled up under dressed young woman, but when she closed her eyes and donned her mask, a beast awoke inside of her. Carnage was about to be unleashed to the world for the first time. All there was now was to wait for her prey, her symbols, women she never met but held her admiration and hatred both. She'd give them a moment to wallow in their confusion before bringing down the full weight of their sins, and the sins of everyone around her.

And then it was time to get this party started.

Jessica was lurking. She had a wonderful propensity to do that. In bars, in the gym, here. There always seemed to be trouble on the horizon, and when there wasn't she was sure as hell happy to stir it up. Earlier she had found a note stuffed in her locker to show up tonight along with a host of other undecipherable things, but she tore it to shreds. It was better not to bother with things she did not understand, she thought. Especially with something like that, which would have taken a whole heck of a lot of understanding to skim the surface of actual meaning.

So she waited. What for, she wasn't entirely sure. Maybe an argument that she could make worse, maybe someone lifting weights to warm up that she could make fun of. Or it could be something entirely out of the blue from the mundane, quotidian sorts of activities all the worker bees and wannabe headliners around here did, day in and day out. The Violent Violet was sitting on top of an equipment crate, lazily scanning the throngs of people coming in and out, looking for anything interesting. It was the typical crowd of bubbling jobbers, violent psychopaths, and lunatics of all sorts. Nothing special.

The Violent Violet was ostensibly wearing a black t-shirt and jeans, but her red wrestling boots hinted at a darker secret. Under that, she was wearing her wrestling outfit. A long time ago she recognized that she should always be ready for a match, especially here. Her boots made thuds against the side of the wooden crate as they landed on the wood, only for her to kick her legs out again.

Jessica turned to River. "Hey, want to go intimidate the guy at the concessions stand into giving us free beer?"

River, by contrast, was wearing a black t-shirt with an upside cross, a little something she’d picked up (or, to be more accurate, stole) from a concert for Blasphemy, her favorite Japanese metal band. Unlike Jessica, she wasn’t wearing anything underneath her clothes except her birthday suit. That was the great thing about wrestling in jeans and a shirt: you were always ready for a match. She never understood why more wrestlers didn’t rock the look.

So, there she was, leaning a wall next to her lover/partner/best friend/only friend, Jessica. She’d gotten the note asking her to show up, too. She wasn’t sure why, though it could’ve realistically been from any of the dozens and dozens of women she’d pissed off since joining. And while she wasn’t a detective, her deductive skills sussed out that, whatever was going, it was probably no coincidence that someone had arranged for cage to be over the ring.

Which, if it was all connected, was fine with her. She’d been in a sour mood every since she found out that Silver Ace was getting a shot at the hardcore title - her title, despite the fact that Adrian held it. River Styx was in a mood to do grievous damage unto someone.

She’d been lost in thought when Jessica called to her, though it only took a moment to snap back to reality. ”Hm?” She looked Jessica’s way from the corners of her eyes. ”Later, maybe. Don’t want to start too much shit until we figure out what the note was about.”

Wouldn’t have mind the beer, though. Waiting made her thirsty. And angry. Not a good combination. ”Any idea what this is about?”

The crowd was getting antsy, it had been an unusually long time since anyone had entered or left the ring, and disquieted murmurs filled the stadium. A few fans began to leave their seats, disquieted, when a slow, grating drawl pushed out of the speakers and into their ears.. At first it started quietly, building up in volume as the lithe, shambling figure of a young woman scuttled down the ramp. Behind her, a wooden baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire near the end scraped against the ground, until she lifted it and began clashing it against anything in reach.

Clang, clang clang. Clang, clang, clang, clang. Clang. Her rythm seemed nonexistent, her pattern erratic, but she somehow moved with a purpose. As she approached the ring, she rolled her weapon inside, and began digging underneath, tossing all sorts of heavy and dangerous objects up over (or through) the ropes and into the ring. Chairs, chains, nightsticks and another baseball bat, Even a ladder and wooden table made their way ringside. By the time she was done, the canvas was a veritable minefield, a playground for the sadistic. She climbed in after and grabbed a microphone from the nearest AFW official, tapping it to check that it was working.

"Styx? Jessica?" Her voice was quiet and sultry, filtered through her gas mask like a voice over a radio, but her tone seemed concerned, almost vulnerable. "Did you get my letter? You.... you two, you've FUCKED up a lot so far... but why don't you come over here, and we'll talk, okay?" She set the microphone down slowly in the center of the ring, and climbed one of the tunrbuckles, curling up with the bat wrapped over her shins as she patiently waited.

Jessica shrugged. "This may not terribly surprise you, but I reckon I have figured it out." The Violent Violet gestured in the general direction of the ring, and subsequently the skinny girl currently occupying the middle of the ring. Her voice did not seem to project the image she wanted to portray, but the bat over her shoulder seemed to carry all of the malintent she had in her. Jessica had a bat, fairly similar to that one. Maybe after she was done kicking her ass, Jessica could take it from her.

The Violent Violet jumped off the crate and stripped her t-shirt off. "Whaddya say, wanna head down there and bust some girl's head in?" Jessica yanked her pants off in one solid motion and chucked it behind her. Her outfit was practically glowing in the dim light of the hallway.

There was no music to herald their entrance, no great fanfare to explain to the crowd what was about to happen. Her arrival onto the scene was met with a chorus of boos, and Jessica flipped them off as a thank you for their hostile greeting. Jessica then turned her focus to the woman standing in the ring. Tonight had become quite exciting.

Styx was confused, but it was a good kind of confused.

She figured that the two of them had been called down because someone had a deathwish, and while that still might have been the case, this wasn’t quite how she pictured it in her head. Her vision was of some preppy newcomer with dew in her eyes and an empty skull, a wannabe hero. Whoever this woman was, she sure as hell wasn’t that.

Styx came out beside Jessica, looking up at the mysterious figure with a quizzical glare. She seemed to have the whole goth look going. The mask. The hood. The leather, if Styx’s eyes were correct. The kind of girl you could find stomping her big boots in many a dance club, with heavy electronica and strobe lights. One thing she wasn’t, though, was big. Nowhere close to their size.

But she’d filled the ring with such nice toys. So inviting. Styx couldn’t resist.

She gave Jessica a nudge, motioning for her to follow, and made her way down to the ring, slipping in under the bottom rope. She picked up a nice length of chain along the way and let it rest on her shoulders, cocking her head to the side as she stared at…

”Who the fuck are you?” There was some malice in her voice, but that was practically Styx’s default. Really, she was more amused than anything. ”Nice look, by the way. Too big to pull off the mask thing, myself.”

As the accused made their way into the arena, the young girl sat on her perch like a vulture in wait, her eyes darting back and forth between the two of them as if she expected them to pounce at any moment. She slowly climbed down as Styx addressed her, while the cage slowly closed down around them as if on cue. She looked down at the microphone on the floor as she was spoken to with an annoyed glare, turning it up towards both women before slowly scooping up the tool she had so generously left for them. "Well... before we get to that, let's start with you. WAR, right? That... th-that is you, isn't it? The fuckheads who promised to turn this place into a pit of violence?" She paced around them, keeping enough distance that no one could try anything just yet, while she dragged her barbed bat across the bars of the cage, ringing them loudly with each hit. "You promised to do all of that and yet NOTHING HAS FUCKING CHANGED!" her tone rose to a full-on scream, leaning over to properly belt into the microphone. "...Well, I guess some things did. Sure, you lost something important... but you got me out here." She had fully circled around by this point, face to face with both women once again, the microphone almost pressed up against her mask. "Don't worry about who I am. It's the what that counts. That 'what' being the very Carnage that rests in the heart of this place, ready to FUCKING EXPLODE!"

Jessica was standing astride River now, arms crossed, looking as menacing as she possibly could. And given how thick Jessica's muscles were, that was pretty damned intimidating. She was gazing into the girl with the gasmask with an impatient, mocking expression. Jessica did not appreciate getting called out by anyone, let alone this twerp of a woman who could not fight her way out of a paper bag.

When the masked woman got done with her little spiel, Jessica rolled her eyes and clapped sardonically. It was nothing she had not heard before, and Jessica was frankly getting tired of it. Mostly, because it was true. She came to Japan to tear the whole continent a new one. While her record was beyond impressive and the wake of broken girls behind her was a mile long, she had not changed the world. Magazine articles were fine, t-shirt sales were fine, win after win was fine. But not having a belt, not causing a stir, not being at the top of every last card was not fine. All of her self-doubt could have come crashing down on her, right then and there, but the dark tide abated. That was obvious from the way she was grinning with her mouth and glaring with her eyes.

"Oh yeah, this shit. Go to the fucking hospital ward, sweetie, and you will see all the girls that we have changed. You're talking a whole lot of crap about us, but who the fuck are you? You are too scared to even show your face with that gas mask on. Don't worry though, I can still fucking break your nose through that shit." Jessica shouted.

Styx was quiet a little after the woman - she was guessing ‘Carnage’ was what she was going by - said her peace. Partly because Jessica was talking, and she didn’t want to break in while her partner was talking. But also because, much as she hated to admit it, she wasn’t wrong.

Things hadn’t been perfect since WAR set down. After Abattoir left, they lost some of their momentum. Styx had some prospects for new members, but finding like-minded women in Japan - ones who could fight worth a shit - was depressingly hard. She needed more, and the volume was in desperate need of cranking.

That being said, she wasn’t about to take shit on it from some slip of a girl she didn’t even know.

”The main reason I’m not already caving your face in is because I’m more curious than pissed off. Marginally.” Her voice was calm, melancholy, but there was an unmistakable edge to it, as she folded her arms and leaned forward. ”You should get to the point before that changes.”

The young woman's eyes refused to keep still, darting from Jessica, to Styx, to the floor, back to both women, back to the floor, her line of vision dancing around their feet. Her gaze was fierce and piercing, but not angry. More like she was focused, like every word they threw out was filling her mind with a million new thoughts and ideas. For a moment she just stood there, breathing loudly through her mask, before she rose the microphone again, almost as if out of reflex. "Alright. Okay, alright... alright. This is a good start. Yeah, there's going to be plenty of breaking, and caving, and SCRAPING AND SMASHING... even if I have to make you do it." She thought about it for a moment, before adding, "No, no, it's a bad start. We're still just talking."

She began to pace back and forth in front of both women, barely making eye contact. She didn't seem to so much avoid it as almost barely seem to notice their presence. "You ladies... you wanted a war, and I waited to see one happen. Now you're without soldiers, and prize, and THE THINGS THAT FUCKING MATTER! ...And I'm done waiting. I'm dragging this place into hell, and war is coming... so this is your last chance to be ready. Prove that you're strong enough to survive."