Post by Kimitsu Zombie on Sept 19, 2017 21:43:26 GMT -5
The fire rises up to lick at his hands and Aokigahara Zombie whoops and hollers as he gets away. Kimitsu Zombie ignores him and stares at the ham that was almost ready in the barrel fire pit and she licks her lips in anticipation. Everything about her exudes hunger.
“How far did you say the liquor store was?”
“Just down the street a ways.”
“Fucking Tommy. I knew I should have taken care of this myself.”
“Relax. We’re taking care of this, here. You need to focus on relaxing now. You went pretty hard in there. So finish your story.”
“Oh I hated that girl. My group knew she was rich so we wanted to target her but she was untouchable at the school because she was so popular. So I knew that my only chance was at the Judo tournament. She was there with all her fans holding up banners and shit like this was the fucking Olympics. It was lucky that I drew her first. The match started and we circled each other and she winked at me. I still don’t know what the fuck that meant but I lost it. I got 1 point by taking her down then got DQed for kicking her in the head a few times. That was the last real competition I was in for years. Pretty good for a twelve year old.”
Aokigahara laughs and shakes his head. Kimitsu wipes the sweat off her face with a towel and lets down her hair. She takes off her hoodie and throws it on the ground leaving her in a sports bra. It makes a wet, sweaty thwop. She stretches and sits up. The fire, the cool night, and he lighting let us see the mist coming off of her. She takes on longing look at the ham as Aokigahara checks on it and focuses on the camera.
“Welcome to Uncle Aoki’s Bar Gym. We’re sat behind his establishment and we’re about to regain some calories and build some up for tomorrow. This is the recovery period after a hell of a workout. That’s to go with a hell of a schedule ahead of me including the build up to and realization of some championship matches. It seems I’ve done it again. This time the going was slow and steady. I guess I’m growing up but I’m making damn sure people know what it means when I do my job correctly. I come to a new organization and I either make the walls shake until the gold falls or crawl my way over the tops of limp bodies to grab it. Something always gets in the way of this. Everything crumbles before I do.”
She shrugs and tilts her head as Aokigahara cuts the ham with a large knife.
“I don’t want to say that I had a hand in taking these companies down but nobody can deny the effect I have on people. Whether it’s the cockiest cock of the walk, the most serious tryhard, or the joke without a punchline they are all pushed to their best when they fight me. I pull something out of people that they know they have but are afraid to use. It can be a sense of survival or a hidden pool of talent mixed with some malice. Most are pushed to the limit and can’t take it. Some surpass even their small expectations. It happened lately in Union Battleground with Xion. I showed the world the monster killer and he faced his demons and defeated me.. The shame of it is that it scared him. He wasn’t ready to become great. Xion retreated back to the happy life with the girl. He was not the man who defeated me when he faced Emery Layton. She is something special, however. Most of the time…”
Kimitsu reaches down and pulls up the pig’s skull out of a bag. She sets it up on her lap and strokes it staring right into the camera.
“Xion Ben-Judah was a disappointment to me and, more importantly, to himself. It seems my sacrifice was for shit. All that wasted potential makes me angry. It also makes me curious. Just who is Emery Layton? We are two very similar people. Our lives have been chaotic things full of overcoming struggles and all that hard growing up. Well… I have much less running away but that is more of her shit parent’s fault. Anyway she has become a formidable fighter and has the confidence to back that up. I know her first intent was to win the Union Battleground Championship and use that to establish herself but that didn’t work out. So she settled for the Trench War Championship. She settled in nice and deep. The difference with that is that she took that second tier title and gave it a name. It really has become the Emery Layton Championship and it is that quality that I want for myself.”
Kimitsu stands up and holds the skull at her midsection. We look at her from below behind the fire and the seared flesh.
“My aim in all of this when I was just training was to build up my name and be somebody. I am very envious of Emery Layton and her title and now that I’ve been given this chance to make it my own I will not waste it. Not like all the others. In this Zombie thing am the hunter of souls and I am hungry. I make my opponent meet my expectations by force. Look at my past here in Union Battleground and know that I raise the bar for what it means to fight here. With every opponent, win or lose, I add to the prestige. Emery has made this Trench War Title something very desireable for people like me. I don’t have to work to hard to make her look enticing. I just have to make her take this is serious as it is.
“She is a pirate jester and she will be damned if she takes me for a joke. I am at the point in my career where they see me as a champion’s threat everywhere I go. I hope she hasn’t become complacent with her long reign. I hope that loss to my friends, The Outliers, or the cowardly incident with her partner at XWA isn’t weighing heavy on her mind. I want her to fill up with happy thoughts of title wins and defenses because that is what is going to raise the ghost of that championship here in Union Battleground. I will give it life because at Coup De Grâce that title will finally be changing hands.
“I’ve come a long way to get here and I have had my eyes on titles ever since my professional debut. I want to show the world that I am more than a street tough and rise above what my friends were and what my mother was. I crave records, accolades, and titles. That is how we measure greatness in our industry so that is what I want. I tried to claw and slash my way there before but now I know that what I needed to do was keep on destroying my opponents and making them remember me win or lose. I stand on the ruins and pedestals of great companies. This has made me the Terror in the PITT, the Stalker of EOW, the Dynamic Sentinel of AWE, and the Rising Star of 4CW. Here in Union Battleground I’ll be known as the Silent Conqueror. I am the one lying in wait watching all the others squabble and attack. My influence inspires chaos as others realize that I will come for them at some point. When I win the Trench War Title it will stop being everything’s second thought. It will be a focal point of anywhere I set foot and the real jackals will come flocking to the Battleground.”
She puts the skull on her head and manages to take on a regal demeanor even with her workout clothes. Aokigahara kneels in front of her.
“I am the Lady of Chaos. I work my will in wrestling and set people up to be great. The truth is, though, that I don’t give a shit about their feelings or how they do in the match. Emery Layton will be just like all the others. She will be a mouse for me to devour. A thing I fatten up with pride and respect until they become big enough to be tasty. Emery Layton is already halfway there. It doesn’t matter what wacky ways she chooses to talk about me. In the end she’ll write me off like always. Just like a happy go lucky fucker does. She will be shocked like most of you out there. The reality is that I want this more than anything else right now. It will validate my entire run in Union Battleground and in my whole career so far. My previous titles were almost consolation prizes. Now I’m hungry for something with a little meat and that title with its name and rising status is just the thing I need.”
It's quiet and we're in the midst of a small, claustrophobic little gathering of odd and colorful clothing, but mostly...hats! It's deathly silent to begin with- not often are there many customers this time of year- not for another month, really. This does not deter Emery Layton, however. Walking along in her usual beanie and black-leather jacket, she carries the Trench War Championship- strapped together and looped around her forearm like a hand-bag. It's here where the Worst of the Pavees notices us. She turns, surrounded by hats, elated.
EMERY LAYTON:
“Y'know what I really love? Hats. That was obvious too though, yeah?”
She picks up a clump of hats from the aisle, holding them out for us to see.
“I mean look at 'em! They're great! There's one for every occasion! With a colder new season coming in, I’m in the market for another one- a hat for all seasons. And the kinda hat you wear says a lot about you, too. Like, you wear a flat cap, you might be someone who's a bit easy-going or...I dunno, maybe a farmer but if you wear a trident and suddenly, hey, you're a swashbuckling pirate! Changes the way people look at you. They can define who you are, kinda. In a small way, though, not completely, that'd be silly.”
She takes a trident hat from the clump, turning it around...until she turns her nose up at it and puts it back on the rack, slowly.
“Ma never liked me wearing hats all the time- said it "isn't what Pavee girls do", which I always thought was a really daft thing to say. Nah, she didn't like me wearing hats and she didn't like me tryna tell jokes neither. But y'know what? Still did it, and still do it to this day, cos fuck her. Always keep doing you, nothing sets off people who don't like you more than just being yourself. Ooh!”
She drops the hats on the ground and picks up a royal court jester's cap to the side of her. She flicks a bell on the end of one of the ends. She smiles.
“Listen to that!”
Now she just violently shakes it and all the bells ring-a-ding-ding.
“Heheheh. Anyway, these days, I'm the wearer of many hats...ooh, new nickname, adding that one to the list. But when I come back here to Union, more often than not, I gotta grab a hard hat cos once again, I'm defending the Trench War Championship and I gotta keep doing what I do best and building a legacy for this title like no one else could.”
She begins to slowly spin the hat around in her hand as she speaks.
“And that leads me to onto my new best pal, Kimitsu Zombie! Know what? If we're talking as, like, a wrestler...I like her. Comes from a super cool clan of fighter-people called the Zombies, which makes me think of that great song from the nineties by the Cranberries. Been watching her like I watch everybody in this place cos you never know who could come after my title next, you gotta be alert. You gotta know people. But unlike the rest of her clan she don't just fight people, goes through people like paper, this girl! All I ever ask from challengers to this title is that they're tough and they can bring it and make no mistake, Kimitsu Zombie is a tough, tough girl if truth be told. But here's where my problem lies, though- she said...about a week ago now? A week ago she said she wasn't just gonna try take this title away from me, but she was gonna "end the joke" for Emery Layton. Fair enough.”
She now puts the cap and bells back on the shelf, looking at it sadly for a few seconds before she turns to us, a more serious look on her face.
“Kim...'Imma call you Kim for the mo, is that okay? Gonna have to level with you here, Kim- now, yeah...I like to fool around with people a little bit. Course I do. That's me. Do I make jokes about people? Oh, absolutely. But does that mean I don't take you or this title seriously? Ooohh, if you only knew, girl. See that's how I get 'em. People like you always hear the things I say and it's the same story. You think I don't look at you and see you for the threat you are? Nah. Bad craic, girl. Bad craic. See this is just how I talk people into the building, cos then they think 'uh-oh, can Em actually win this one? Is she finally outta her depth?' and then...”
BANG! She claps loudly, her eyes wider and more wild as she holds her hands out.
“I got 'em in the palm of my hand. People like you, all serious with your tough upbringing, you like to sit there and talk about how tough you are and how you're this and that like nobody else ever went through bad times before you, like the world owes you stuff, like you deserve it just cos of all that, but me? Oh yeah, life's gimme lotsa lemons but I act the way I do cos the way I do cos I know it pisses people like you off that someone who talks like me holds a title like this, and does it bloody well, too.”
She continues moving back down the aisle as we follow her. She picks up a little tiara. A little, girly tiara that she eyes for a few seconds.
“Whatever you're gonna say, it's all gonna be about how you kill fuckers and I should be worried, probably. Well good for you, but I'll happily stand here and wax-lyrical about hats- that bit is for me- but when the bell rings, that person in the ring ain't gonna wanna share no jokes with no one. Especially you.”
As she continues to look at us, she puts the tiara on as she moves back. She still has her beanie on under it.
“I feel like you've written me off already. That's cool- everybody does. 'Here comes Emery Layton with another quip-filled rant, maybe a silly story about her Traveller life, maybe she'll even be drunk!', but every single time- be it any open tournament or title opportunity or defense, be a rich guy who thinks he the bestest of all the best people or some street urchin who's bitter about how life treated 'em, I walk out winner every single time. You think you're the only person who ever fought for something? Nah. I fight every day, and when I win- whether it's in a tournament or in a tag match at XWA or IYH or, fuck it, WARPED- I do it for this place cos I wanna show people not only what being Trench War Champion is all about and the level people who wanna take this from me are gonna have to reach, but whay Union Battleground is all about. "Rep where you step" is the name of the game here, and no matter where I step, I always 'rep' Union. That's the hat I wear every day, it fits nice and snug on my head, it's been that way for a long time now and I ain't gonna let you, Kim, or anyone else in this entire world take that away from me.”
She backs up, where she smacks into a wall and a load of hats fall. She holds her hand out to stop them where, falling into her hands is no little tiara…it’s a big, ol’ kings crown. She smiles and nods, placing it firmly on her head.
“Kimitsu Zombie, it's like I told ya when this whole thing got announced- Bring Your Best. Pick out a hat, find one that fits you and don't let your head get too big for it. But I kinda like the one I got right now, and I ain't giving it up for nobody.”
Suddenly-
EMPLOYEE:
"Okay, I'm sorry, if you're gonna be in here, you're gonna have to buy something."
She turns to the old, grumpy and tired-looking employee- towering over her- as she removes the crown. She feels around in her pocket.
EMERY LAYTON:
"Oh. Uuuhhh...I don't think I have any...hey, can I see that one? Sorry. Wrong end of five foot here, can't reach most things!"
Keeping the crown on her head, she points to the top shelf of the aisle to a really posh hat, and watches as the employee reaches…but then she puts the crown back on her head, swipes a random Centurion helmet and legs it!
EMPLOYEE:
"HEY!”
But she doesn't hear him. He’s too late. She runs past aliens, clowns, a horse’s back-side and giant chicken suit...escaping the confines of Washington’s best fancy-dress shop.
Coup De Grace beckons and Emery Layton approaches- a crown in one hand, a helmet in the other…and a title she’ll do anything to keep.
