Post by Admin on Jun 30, 2023 5:16:12 GMT
Strader Estate-Compound, Veronica’s Ranch
Houston, Texas USA
June 24th, 2023
“Oh baby girl, it’s so good to have your daddy home.”
Veronica held her and Outcast’s little girl in her arms, feeding her a bottle of formula and looking at the ring he had given her when he asked for her hand in marriage. Veronica never thought happiness was in the cards for her. She had spent the first twenty years of her life locked away in the psyche of Victoria Strader. The Affliction, which plagues the Rivers bloodline from her father, The Raven, and her cousins, Supreme Machine and Queen Machine Jenny, began its manipulation.
It led Victoria into what is infamously remembered as the OCW Portal-Potty. It gave Veronica her own body, and a life to live on her own, without being trapped inside a psyche-built-prison. Veronica and Victoria were now free of the Affliction, free to lead their own lives and be happy.
That happiness, though, didn’t come without cost. It was only November last year when she found the bloated corpse of Christian Cain being held by his bastard psychotic son, Solomon Cain. She never expected he would come back into her life. Then a knock came at her door a month ago.
Peter Vaughn.
“It’s about Christian.”
The two were never what you could call friends. Veronica sensed the sincerity in Vaughn’s voice and gave him what he needed to bring Outcast back. A picture of their daughter, named after him and his youngest son, Victor Micheal. She wanted to come with Vaughn and his crew, but he stopped her and she knew he was right in doing that.
She wanted to find him after he came back and went straight to his farm in Florida while he went to her Ranch on the Estate-Compound. It had once belonged to her mother, the late Meghan Strader. When she arrived at the farm, she was greeted not by Christian, but by the ethereal spirit form of her mother that came with a warning: Christian, well redeemed, still had a demon on his tail.
Veronica didn’t hesitate for a minute. Maybe it was courage and bravery, or maybe it was grandiose stupidity, but either way, she made her way to Hell.
“What are we going to do today, little one? Hmm?”
Veronica rubs her nose against Christian-Michelle’s, and the mother/daughter giggles together. The little hands reach out, grabbing her shortened hair, but gently.
“I know! We are going to plan the wedding. Yes, we are. Daddy will be back this afternoon, and we can surprise him. I remember the first time I laid eyes on your daddy in person. Now, don’t judge him too harshly, but he was a bit of a fuckup. He was the OCW World Champion, and he showed up at the Christmas party all messed up on painkillers, alcohol and easy women on his arms.”
The mother and daughter sit down in the rocking chair beside the couch in the living room area. The little one moves her head away from the bottle and mom puts it down, sitting her up, tapping her back to help Christin-Michelle burp.
“Momma isn’t proud, but it was a bottle of pills that I gave him that had him call me, but I don’t regret it. He got clean on the island that Marcus Welsh got us stuck on, but the silver lining was I got to become myself, and your daddy got clean, which led to you being conceived. The lead up to everything, as hard as it was… we wouldn’t change a thing because if we did, you might not be with us, and we would give up everything for you.”
“You have become quite the mom. Meghan would be extremely proud of who you have become.”
Veronica has turned white, hearing the voice of her grandfather, and the man she delivered a bullet to his head. She looks side to side, no sign of him.
“Over here, kid. The mirror.”
She places the baby in a bassinet beside the rocking chair and slowly walks towards the mirror above the fireplace next to the Samsung 4K 65 inch television set. Veronica slowly, filled with apprehension, looks into the mirror and is met with the icy blue eyes that her mom and Uncle John had inherited. It was her dead grandfather, Scott Nash Strader.
“What is this? Am I finally losing my mind?”
The image of her grandfather smiles and laughs. He shakes his head as Veronica stares at the reflection with suspicion.
“Naw, kid, you ain’t losing your mind. As you left Hell, that bastard demon you defeated to save Christian attached my soul to yours. I don’t know why, but you can see me in reflections. Whether that’s a mirror, or the shiny clear coat on your car or bike, I will be there.”
“Why? Why me?”
“Pay the price for getting involved in the battle for your old man’s soul.”
Veronica shakes her head, the sneer coming across her face.
“This is the last thing I need. Why is it when everything looks to turn around, something stupid happens?”
“When you live by the sword, kid….”
“Just when I get my opportunity to marry the man I love, give my baby girl a doting father and my chance to smash Jim Cadeus’ face into the mat, I get burdened with you.”
“Hey, I would rather not be attached to my granddaughter, especially to the one that put a bullet in my skull, but you can use me, kid.”
Veronica stares into the mirror at SNS.
“And how do I do that?”
“With me attached to your soul, you have every part of me. Some might see that as a detriment, but before you? I was the dominant Strader. Over thirty championships, single and tag, have my name etched into the history books. You can do the same, and in the meantime, you can draw what ya need from me. Use me, kid.”
Unknown Location
June 28th, 2023
~ START TRANSMISSION ~
“I doubt I have to tell you who I am, but I know you aren’t the sharpest knife in the block, Jim, and Lycana, I know you think a right hand is a left hand… I am “The Scorpion” Veronica Strader. Or the Baba Jaga, but more on that later.”
“You must’ve really pissed off Flash and James if you two have been booked against me and Jenny Myst.”
“Anyone that knows me will be surprised that I have joined a secondary promotion. Normally, I am a one company kinda gal. But I needed to get out of my comfort zone. So while I have a match against a hardcore legend like Allen Chaney in CU:LT this weekend, I am using it to prepare to step in the WGWF ring and take names on my way to becoming this company’s Intercontinental Champion.”
“But first, I get to teach Jim Cadeus a very hard lesson. You tried to kill my soulmate. The father of my baby girl after he fought his way out of Hell to get back to us. Much like friendship, a relationship like mine and Christian’s, means little when it’s convenient and we’ll always have one another’s back.”
Veronica looks down for a few seconds, composing herself as she can feel the anger building within.
“Your team got lucky. If I had been on that team, even with Bane and I not really liking one another, Cholo being on my radar as I hunt down the Intercontinental Championship, and me having a clean win over Vaughn, you wouldn’t have come out the winner. I would’ve taken what you threatened to inject Outcast with… and buried you on my family’s vast estate. I still could do that, and I don’t think my tag team partner would mind either.”
“A debut win over you two quote unquote ‘professional wrestlers’ would be extremely satisfying. I think little of Lycana, being how she can’t tell the difference between a right and left hand, and I think even less of you threatening to murder a man that went through literal Hell to come home to me and his baby girl.”
“Even before all of that, I have seen you before. From XWF to TPW… every time things don’t go your way, you tuck tail and run out the door. What so many people have a hard time grasping is that as much as one can win, like I have, people can also lose, like I have. Character is built by how we rebound from the losing side of things back into the winning. Look at the WGWF World Champion Peter Vaughn. He lost to me on a giant stage with everyone watching, but did he wallow in self pity? No, he corrected the course and won his next set of matches. That’s what professionals do, Cadeus. Maybe one day you will understand, but I am guessing… you probably won’t.”
Veronica’s face, flickering with the flame of the old oil lantern, looks to the hourglass, the sand dwindling down.
“The sand in this glass? Is but a mere echo of my patience, Jim and Lycana. I spoke earlier about how you can call me Baba Jaga. A popular set of movies calls a man the bogeyman the Baba Yaga. Yet, I’m not as arrogant as the man that my father calls his sorry fuckin’ excuse of a best friend. The actual definition of the Baba Jaga, in Slavic folklore, is an Ogress who steals, cooks, and eats HER victims, usually children… and I can’t think of a better definition for you two than children.”
“I have only been in this business a couple of years, and I set records in a promotion that people were purged from. When my tour of duty ended there, I moved onto Combat Unlimited Lethal Trials and became its reigning SNUFF champion. You two are my first steps to claiming the WGWF Intercontinental Championship and for once, the gods of fortune have smiled down upon me as I get to introduce the two of you to the ring canvas.”
The sand in the hourglass runs through, and the sneer on our antiheroine’s face burns bright.
“I have said this so many times one would think I wouldn’t have to anymore, but Jim… Lycana… you need to know just one thing….”
“God forgives.”
“I don’t.”
Holding the lantern to her face, the sneer turns into a wicked smile.
“One, two… the Baba Jaga is coming for you.”
The transmission cuts out as Veronica blows the lantern out.
