DTW DeathTube #3, Kalinda RP 1/1: Sky Blue and the Seven Dorks

I can't stop smiling.

I was trapped in a dumpster filled with barbed wire that had become so entangled and embedded in my clothes that I had to leave a goodly portion of them behind. Not that they weren't ruined to begin with, as a good deal of my opponent's blood had splattered all over them.

The dumb bald bastard had dragged us both into my goddamned dumpster full of barbed wire. Me being so much heavier and falling in first, I pretty much sank to the bottom. Him being merely mortal and not virtually indestructible, he managed to actually get the barbed lodged in his flesh rather than just his clothing.

We both required several men with bolt cutters to get us out.

Riddick went to the hospital, while I pulled my Coat of Holding out of thin air, put it on, and walked to the back.

It's the most fun I'd had in a wrestling match in a long time. Hell, it might be my favorite wrestling match I've ever taken part in period.

Goddess, when was the last time I'd been satisfied with an opponent, satisfied with the circumstances, and hadn't had the match ruined by outside interference, bullshit stipulations, or some empty suit abusing his power and making my life unpleasant because of it?

I'm sure there has to be another match like this SOMEWHERE in my three year career. But I can't really remember one off hand.

Beating the fuck out of Lenore Price-Mason twice in a row had been deeply cathartic, but it was after months of interference and harassment. The feeling of satisfaction was not worth the months of frustration that I had to deal with of having her interfere in each and every one of my matches, and the ULW corporate staff doing precisely fuck all about it.

I push the thoughts of past employers out of my head. They don't need to be here. They can't ruin things for me anymore unless I let them. They're nothing more than memories and ghosts at this point, and as a necromancer I am perfectly capable of making virtually any wayward spirit my own personal bitch.

And seemingly summoned by the thought of unpleasant specters, I smell something in the air. Well, not exactly smell. But it's the closest sensation I have to describe the way a dragon can sense magic. Part smell, part taste. Maybe the way a snake scents things by flicking out its tongue might be appropriate, but I've never had the developed Jacobson's organs to actually try it out.

Perhaps something to try in the future once I get back to a land of proper magic.

With an beast totem-focused enchantress as your best friend you end up experiencing what it's like to have a lot of different animal bits. We just hadn't run into a situation where something snakey would come in handy.

I think it's on the Evil Overlord list somewhere: "I will not transform myself into a giant snake. It never helps."

We usually ended up using various prehistoric creatures, mainly mammalian megafauna and dinosaurs, as they weren't really understood by much of anyone. Fossils had a nasty habit of being reanimated by necromancers to create powerful minions, and thus end up getting destroyed rather than intricately studied and placed in museums.

It was one of the few bits of our world that we managed to learn more about from the pieces of others that ended up on Tatheon, rather than knowledge gained through our own study.

And my own study of the various "scents" of magic over the years told me that what I was dealing with was some sort of hellspawn in disguise. A demon or devil in a very, very good disguise.

It was a scent I'd been picking up faintly every so often in DTW, and it had been strongest on the yacht during the little shindig my employer had thrown just before the first show.

I'd managed to come in second in the chicken wing eating contest, did rather well in the strongman competition, had my swim trunks stolen by a masked Japanese pervert who thought he'd grabbed a backpack full of clothes in the hopes that he'd have some panties to wank over, and beaten up two people.

That had been a rather fun day.

I slid out of my tub of ice water, which rapidly accelerated my healing process, and pulled some simple covering clothes from my coat's warehouse of pockets. A simple spandex top and pair of shorts.

I was no longer smiling.

I'd had problems with demons involved in professional wrestling before, and I'd had the occasional infernal hit squad sent after me every so often. If this demon was no longer stalking around the edges, and instead getting closer to look for an opening to get at me, I wasn't about to let it strike first.

Depending on their power, supernatural beings like that might actually be capable of causing me lasting injury without the use of fire.

I absentmindedly rubbed at the shiny, pink discolorations on my cerulean hide where Riddick's fiery offense had actually left marks. There weren't bad, especially compared to what I'd had the LAST two times wrestlers had used fire against me. I wouldn't need a Phantom of the Opera mask to cover these up, or borrowed a fire-absorbing gauntlet that housed a soul-devouring composite being.

I'd spent a few weeks with the entity known as Legion lurking in my brain meats, and it hadn't been particularly pleasant while I purged the flame mana from my system by slowly feeding it to the creature.

It hadn't laid a finger on my soul, and I suspected the only reason it hadn't was because I had another soul-devouring conglomerate spirit in my head that had laid claim to that particular portion of my existence. And that one had was a weakened goddess, rather than a spiritual Frankenstein's Monster, if ol Frankie Junior had been made up of parts from various superheroes and archvillains.

I track the scent deeper into the arena, down into the utility corridors. The creature is leading me on a bit of a chase. She's picked up speed. I can tell it's a she because she's wearing perfume and Lady Speed Stick.

I increase my pace, round a corner, and almost have me head caved in by one of those Japanese iron clubs. Kanabo, I think they're called.

My armor clad left hand darts up, seemingly with a will of its own, grabbing the weapon and halting it in mid air.

There's actually nothing seemingly about it. The Hand of Arimus does in fact have a will of its own, and with its centuries of experience and ability to do complex math calculations involving speed and angles and shit in an instant, it can move my hand to block basically anything up to and including bullets.

"Cute. Really adds to the whole Oni vibe." I say dispassionately.

My attacker is shorter than me, which isn't surprising, just about all women are. She's got kind of an exotic look to her, and on top of that has added silver anime-esque hair and a pair of lavender contacts. She's got somewhat Japanese features mixed with something else that would make her seem similarly exotic to someone dwelling in Japan.

She looks like a stripper that somehow had dressed up for a role as an action movie heroine heading right into the action. She throws off an aura of plastic surgery and artificial augmentation. Good distraction, look like a smoking hot bimbo and people will think you've got the brains to match.

"The fake boobs are a nice touch. Most shapeshifters give themselves away by making everything look absolutely perfect."

"What do you want, dragon?" she growls, trying to pull her club away from me. But it stays precisely where it is in my grip. It hasn't moved an inch.

"I want to know why you're stalking me. Seems to be a big infestation of you creepy, panty-sniffer types around here." I say with a snort of disgust.

"I'm not stalking you, idiot." she growls, "I work here. Same as you."

"Haven't seen you on the roster. Miss…?"

"Veronica Cheney." she says with faux sugary sweetness. "And you wouldn't. I'm Mr. Yamashi's head of security for… shall we say extreme measures. Like magical freaks that shouldn't be on this side of the dimensional veil."

"Got summoned. Can't be unsummoned. Would be absolutely thrilled to go back to my homeworld. But I'm stuck on this stupid ball-shaped planet."

She blinks. "Ball-shaped planet? You're..." she stares at me like I've grown another head. And yes, I actually know what that precise stare looks like. Though it wasn't me growing the second head. Fucking hydrabloods. You can never tell until you decapitate 'em.

"From another realm completely. That should not be possible."

"Friend of mine who hears narration and does his own bodyweight in drugs on a regular basis says I fell in through a plot hole."

"Riiiiight." she says, adding a stare like I've grown a third head on top of the second one.

"So I take it that you're just hanging around and doing your job, and not trying to take me out like some of your other infernal brethren?"

"My what?" she says, seemingly confused and slightly offended.

"Silver hair, smells like Hell, usage of a solid iron weapon, name that's a pun based on a horror movie actor coupled with the Lich King of the Capital. Kyton." I say naming off her race, commonly known as Chain Devils. They're pretty much the inspiration behind those things from the Hellraiser movies.

She hisses and twists the base of her club, drawing a dagger and trying to stab me with it. She's fast, but I'm faster. I grab her wrist as the blade descends, give just the right twist and pressure to make her drop the damned thing, give enough of a yank to spin her around, and then grab her by her metallic mane and smash her face first into the wall.

"You bitch, you broke my nose!" she growls as I press my weight against her, keeping her trapped against the concrete.

"Oh don't give me that. It's going to heal completely in all of two minutes and you're probably aroused because of it."

"Shut up."

"That's what people say when they don't have a logical argument and lack the wit necessary to make a properly pithy comeback."

"Shut up!" she says again.

"Nah. If you were anywhere near as good at your job as you are at your disguise, you'd know that I am pathologically incapable of shutting up. It is woven into the very fiber of my soul to be as snarky and mouthy as possible."

"I'll rip the soul right out of yo..." she pauses in the middle of her threat and goes completely still.

Devils don't need to breath, eat, or sleep. They're perfectly self contained vessels able to exist on their own for infinities. So when she goes completely still it's statue still.

"What in the hells is that?"

I turn my head to where my clown-colored minion has appeared, seated placidly on a heating duct and looking on at the two of us as if she'd been watching our encounter since it began. Which she had been. "That's Claudia. She's my minion. And also my science project for the Spring semester last year."

"I started out as a baking soda volcano, but things just kept getting more complicated!" Claudia says pleasantly.

"It is an abomination that should not be permitted to live!" Veronica snarls. "It needs to die!"

"I think technically she's already considered to be dead. And also still alive."

"Or both simultaneously if you put me in a box with a poison capsule."

"It is an eldritch horror whose presence on this side of the veil should be impossible!"

"Yeah? And yer mum's an eldritch whore who wears army boots!" Claudia says, sticking out her tongue.

I roll my eyes and give Veronica a shove. "Get out of here. Stay away from me, and leave Claudia alone. Or I'll inflict pains upon you that you are utterly incapable of enjoying."

The kyton in disguise looks smug, "I doubt that you have the capacity to..."

"Ice cream headache." I state matter of factly. She shudders, stopping to pick up the two parts of her club. "Judy Bagwell on a Pole Match."

"Ok, ok, I'm going. No need to get nasty." she says.

The moment she's out of sight I let loose with a blast of coldfire, coating the floor in a thin layer of ice.

"Claudia, I'm heading home. I need you to grab my shit and meet me there." I say through clenched teeth.

"Why? What's up boss lady?"

"The bitch broke my hand, and the gauntlet can't keep numbing the pain without starting to draw on magic."

"...Aaaand you don't cast anymore because you can't trust the thing to keep the spells limited to the effects you say you want done."

"Yup." I say, craddling my shattered hand. "I'm going to need to keep this damned thing packed in ice for a fucking week to fix it."

"Good thing it's three weeks to the next show, boss lady."

"Yeah. Good thing." I say, connected the frosty floor to the tub of water I have back at my apartment that I keep perpetually full for just such an occasion.

For just a moment the icy chill of the void in between spaces numbs the pain of my injured hand.

Fucking chain devils and their fucking stupid-ass punny names and their stupid-ass enchanted iron weapons.

My smile is gone and I'm not sure when it will be coming back.

-o-

Great. Lovely. Fantastic.

Here I am, once again, crammed into that bastion of lazy booking everywhere. The one night tournament where the matchups aren't planned in advance, everybody's name is just thrown into a hat, and the competitors are forced into a tag team situation at some point.

Excuse my lack of enthusiasm, but these fucking sorts of things have never, ever gone well from me. I've had one happen in every single company I've been employed in, and they've all been disgusting goddamned dumpster fires.

IWC? Ethan von Aaron got an eyelash in his eye and couldn't compete, so he sent his lovestruck pet moron slash personal sex slave to compete on his behalf, and then when he managed to get the eyelash back into place, joined in on the fucking thing as well, resulting in my elimination. Even though he, you know, gave up his place in the goddamn thing in the first place. That's what a fucking substitute is, a replacement for the original entrant. A substitute teacher doesn't mean that you have your normal teacher there in the classroom trying to instruct you all about abstinence-only sexual education, and then have another fuckin' teacher there too about how condoms cause AIDS and how getting vaccinated makes you a slut and an open invitation for any male to use your genitals any way they desire at any time.

After there being just about fuck-all for ambient magic, and you bastards only having one sentient species on the planet, the fact that y'all got some serious hangups where sex is concerned is probably my least favorite thing about this place.

I mean most Americans are basically absolutely terrified of penises is something I find absolutely hilarious. You've decided that cuddling up to your big, black, metal, bullet-spewing deathcocks is perfectly fine. To the point where actually computerizing the database of gun owners and ownership records is FUCKING ILLEGAL AT A FEDERAL LEVEL, and you've decided as a nation that having some maniac or two gun down somewhere between three and a dozen people every is an acceptable price to pay to be armed to the motherfucking teeth. But my god, the way you people react when you see one bare, flaccid dong just flapping about in the breeze. And if it's on somebody who has a pair of tits as well, it's like you're staring down a goddamn werewolf or something.

I'd like to see what'd happen if you had a nation of Dark Elves dropped in your midst out of nowhere one day. Elven gender is weeeeeird. In general you've got about an 80 percent chance of finding a pair of hooters, an 80 percent chance of finding a cock and balls, and a 60 percent chance of finding a vagina.

Oh, and your average dark elven matriarch, a proper female, is about 6'2". You get a channeler with all their totemic enhancements from beasts and creatures of magic, and you're in the high six foot range. And heaven forbid you get a fuckin' Channeler Matriarch. The shortest one of those I've ever met is taller than I am. They can hit around 12 feet in height before it's just easier on the body to stop being humanoid.

Then in ULW they just handed out titles willy-nilly to whomever the fuck ever during a one night tournament, where it started out with tag teams. And of course they just HANDED the tag team titles to Willow Wilkes and the fucking horribly named Dr. Grace Morningwood. I mean for fuck's sake, Pussy Galore would call a name like that a bit insensitive. Why not just come out and call her Titboobs McCumdumpster while you're at it. My fucking god.

Pussy-Willow were the only tag champs ULW had during its year long run, and the belts were defended a number of times that Uncle Stumpy the Homemade Fireworks Specialist could count on one hand. One of them in a fucking singles match.

But what did I get? I got stuck with Priest. A refugee from the early to mid 2000's where everybody was about angst, pain, and misery, and thought they were the fucking devil. Ooooo, spooky, I can move really fast and get into place when the lights go out and roll my eyes back into my head and wear too much eyeliner. OooooOOOOOoooooo. Too spoopy for me.

So I "randomly" get paired with Priest, who is 1, a member of the faction that I was feuding with and singlehandedly kicking the shit out of, and 2, is basically the lowest you can get on the totem pole of pro wrestling talent before you start scraping the bottom of the barrel and coming up with the fetid mold growing there that's personified by people like the Dirty Wizard and Psycho Stalker.

I called them the Gatekeepers of Suck. Because if they can beat you, then you're pretty much such a goddamn awful wrestler that any match you're in becomes a piss break because it's such a foregone conclusion.

I had to drag his ass into the next round, win that round, and then go on to the battle royale finale. Where, like the other battle royal I'd been in, I was eliminated because some asshole who wasn't even in the match got involved.

That was the start of about three months worth of Lenore Price-Mason interfering in each and every one of my matches. We had a competitive match when I finally got ahold of her and neutralized her outside interference. Of which she took exception to and demanded to fight me again after she'd lost.

So I didn't even wait until the match began to eliminate her help that time, and basically left her a bloody lump of pain and agony in the middle of the ring. When all was said and done I'd laid waste to her, ran some steel something or other through her first bodyguard's hand to pin him to the ring barricade like a bug, smashed her mush-mouthed redneck husband-brother-cousin with a steel chair and german suplexed his inbred ass, knocked the teeth out of her Bruce Lee wannabe second bodyguard, and kicked a prepubescent boy that I presume she had inducted into sex slavery like some kind of perverse She-Lawler from the ring apron to the third row.

Because I mean exactly what I say, and when I say I'm going to treat everybody you bring with you to the ring as an enemy combatant, I don't care if you're got a nursing mother out their with a suckling babe. I'm going to chop the nipples clean off of her chest and spike that baby into the ground like I've just scored the winning touchdown of the Super Bowl.

Speaking of which, when do I get to fight Riddick's kid? I've already beaten the living fuck out of her grandma, I put her old man in the hospital, I figure hey, why the fuck not? Might as well round out the trifecta and see if I can beat my record for distance on kicking kids in the middle of the arena.

She's only five, the other one was twelve. I think with the lighter weight and smaller size, and thus less air resistance, I could definitely hit the fifth row. Hell, if I aim for the skinny side of an arena, I might be able to punt Riddick's darling little crotch dumpling into the first tier of elevated seating.

And speaking of tiny females a fraction of my size with absolutely zero capacity to even begin to take me on in a proper fight, ever, that brings me to the THIRD time I've taken part in one of this darling little shit shows professing themselves to be some sort of random tournament.

Once again RANDOMNESS pairs me up not merely with the worst wrestler in the federation that you could actually call a wrestle and not a jobber, but once again one that's a member of a faction that I'm feuding with and ripping apart singlehandedly. But this time I'm not able to drag her ass kicking and screaming into following rounds. She eats the pin, and I lose the only opportunity that the UWA ever gave me for a legitimate title contendership.

I mean for fuck's sake I won the X-Limits contendership two months in and had the match four months after that. Which was the first fucking time the goddess-damned thing had been defended in the fed in the first place.

But hey, from what I'm hearing at least this time the tag team bullshit portion of the evening where I get saddled with the shittiest albatross of a partner the fed can provide, I can have at least a little bit of reassurance that they're not complete and total utter fucking trash. Because they'll have had to win at least one match to get that far.

Oh boy! I can't wait to be paired up with goddamn Purple AKI Man, who manages to make his way into the second round after forcing Psycho Stalker to do squats until he pukes. Or the olfactory experiences that I'll have to look forward to after sharing the same corner with Teiji Shintaro, after he spent five minutes standing on the apron with literal shit dribbling down his leg.

Then again, DTW doesn't actually seem to do the whole tagging thing from what I understand. And I guess I see the point, I mean if you're not the legal man and you hop into the ring to beat the fuck out of your opponent, what are they going to do, eh? Disqualify your ass?

If DTW had a legitimate tournament, there would be no fucking way on Earth that I'd lose the thing. Well, presuming a lack of shenanigans. But this whole thing? It just reeks of shenanigans.

Supposedly random match assignments, hell, maybe even supposedly random stipulations. Boy oh boy, aren't we all just chomping at the bit to see another glorious Coal Miner's Glove match. Say, maybe after Riddick lost a significant portion of his blood supply, he needs some little blue pills to get it up. Maybe we'll have a Viagra on a Pole match so we can appease the dark spirit of Vince Russo for a few months and not have anything overtly stupid occur on a DTW show.

But no, odds are what's going to happen is that I get passed the first round, and something bullshit happens that assures that one old hand and one new signee make their way into the finals, and that said new signee attempts to use me as a big blue stepping stone into DTW's main event scene.

Because that's what always happens. And we just had three big, beardy fucktards sign on with the company. And there's nothing that a bunch of white guys with great big bushy displays of obnoxious masculinity hate more than a woman that's more popular and has more respect with the fanbase than they do.

So, Baldy, Stinky, and Shouty, when are the rest of the Seven Dwarves going to show up, eh?

Ehh, now that I think about it, Riddick's a beardy white dude too. So Baldy, Stinky, Shouty, and Rapey.

What always ends up happening is that some greedy asshole doesn't want to go through all the trouble of earning respects from their peers, their employers, and the fans, and instead decide that they'll just sneak up behind someone popular during one of their matches, blindside them, and beat the fuck out of them.

Because nothing says "I'm totally a badass, you guys" like jumping someone unexpectedly and utterly ruining a sanctioned pro wrestling match that the company likely spent money promoting to get people to come to the shows to put butts in seats and get eyeballs watching the TV shows.

And they always go after the guy or gal that's most popular with the fans. Because who needs to build up their own following and get the viewership to make an emotional connection to them for good or for ill when you can just siphon off somebody else's hard work like the bloodsucking leeches most professional wrestlers are.

And often times if that place of power is held by a woman they will do it with cackling, mustache twirling glee. Because their are repugnant, misogynistic jackasses out there that don't think women wrestlers should ever compete in the same ring with a man. Even if said woman is seven feet tall, bright blue, and weighs about as much as three anorexic ex-models from the Triad's Bimbo Factory put together.

They'll just come out and piss all over everything that I've worked to build just because I don't happen to sport a Y chromosome and a gentleman's sausage between my legs.

So yeah, that could happen in the first round, but I don't think it will. It'll wait until the tag team phase or the finale or whatever. Because it'll get people's hopes up. They'll go "Yay, Kalinda might win a thing for once and that would make me so happy!" just before they come out and do their own Teiji the Terror act by shitting all over any prospects of me actually fucking winning any sort of contest, title opportunity, or chance for recognition above and beyond just being a good and popular wrestler.

I'd say they'd pick the best opportunity to be a tremendous cunt, but these sorts of people tend to lack the warmth and the depth of that particular portion of anatomy.

At this point in my career, I honestly don't give a fuck. I don't know exactly how the whole dart throwing thing is going to work, but considering I don't think a bunch of drunks in a bar are capable of throwing anything with pinpoint accuracy, it might as well be random.

And if the supposedly "random" selection process lands me with a complete and utter shitgibbon for a partner for the third time in a row, I'm not even going to bother proceeding with the charade that I give a fuck and putting up with the difficulty of having to carry them like a mentally deficient, inept millstone tied around my neck.

I'm just going to lariat them in the fucking face the first chance I get and beat the complete and utter fuck out of the other team by myself. Because if their ass is unconscious and immobile, then I'll have a pretty good idea of where their useless carcass is at all times, which gives me a better chance of being able to keep them from getting pinned than if they're up and about and trying to apply their shitty, shitty offense hither and yon all over the Hiroshima Sun Plaza.

Now this would be about the time you'd expect me to say a few words regarding each of the potential opponents I could end up facing tomorrow night.

But I'm not going to do that.

Because why the fuck should I put in the effort of thinking up shit to say about each and every member of the roster, when the powers that be decided that they didn't want to put in the effort of actually naming names and putting people in places and having a proper tournament that they could actually fucking advertize matches for, rather than have some drunken asshole that's so goddamn awful you can't even call him a has-been.

I'm not going to hop around all giddy and excited like an attention starved dog, seeking to win whatever meager little scraps of glory that I can. Because I've been kicked each and every time I've tried to be a good and loyal dog in the past.

Promoters don't want a loyal, grown up dog that knows not to chew on the furniture and piss on the carpets. All they want is their cute, new purebreed puppies from long established bloodlines pumped out by big name puppy mills run by fuckwits with political connections.

Maybe Goro is different. Maybe not.

At this point I don't fucking care.

I get to go out to the ring each and every show, I get to wrestle like I want to wrestle, I get to fight how I want to fight. That's more than I've ever gotten elsewhere, and I'm not going to get heartbroken again when I'm fucked over in yet another tournament for yet another opportunity that I'll probably never get to earn through no fault of my own.

I hope I'm wrong.

I hope this thing goes from start to finish with precisely zero bullshit occurring.

But each and every tournament I've taken part in has had outside interference that's caused me to get fucked out and eliminated from the goddamned thing.

So I'm going to go out there, I'm going to compete, and I'm going to be watching my ass all night long. That way when somebody comes to stick the metaphorical knife in my ribs it's not going hurt as much.

So fuck you, DTW.

Fuck your tournament.

You want specifics from me, you give me a specific opponent to fucking talk shit about.

It'd be kind of a stupid thing to do anyway. Professional wrestlers tend to be a bunch of thin-skinned egomaniacal dipshits with delusions of grandeur who can't believe that they're anything less than the goddamned paragon of perfection.

Who knows what the fuck some colossal hooting dickhole co-worker of mine will decide is a dire insult upon his honor that must be addressed by him coming out and ruining a perfectly good match that I'd been having.

Boo hoo, fucking hoo. You don't get a bumper crop of trash-talk and emotionally crippling put downs of the like that sent anorexic Triad Twitter-istas crying to the powers that be over how big of a meanie-face that horrible blue dragon is.

Besides, I need to save my best stuff for the inevitable revenge match that's going to come after whichever asshole decides to make a name for themselves by jumping me tomorrow night. It'll be more memorable when I spent five minutes describing exactly why Shouty Dwarf is some sort of Rob-Halford-esque leather daddy with a schizze fetish, as opposed to just the thirty seconds I'll just spend trying to run through the list of maladjusted rejects, mental defectives, bloated egos, and whatever the hell Teiji Shintaro is.

And hey, maybe next time I'll point out which of DTW's newly signed tattoed beardy blad dudes is Shouty, which one is Stinky, and which one is Baldy. So at least ya'll have that to look foward to.

Toodles!