Post by Admin on Oct 2, 2022 1:22:55 GMT
“What in the hell is goin’ on?”
Tamika Strader, OCW’s greatest Craze Champion ever, sits on the Strader Family’s Private Jet, looking absolutely beyond annoyed. Her MacBook is open in front of her looking for all the documented breaches in cybersecurity as of late. Of course, nothing like this ever happened under her grandfather, father or sister, so she felt a heavy burden on her shoulders, not just from herself but the board of Strader Incorporated.
“The latest set of attacks appear to have come from… inside? No… that can’t be right.”
Her right palm slams down on the table beside her Mac, shaking her head with frustration. She picks up the telephone receiver built into her seat, punching in a Houston area code.
“Ok… pick up the phone, Harold. Harold! Finally! Yes, I got the email from R&D. We need to get this figured out. We keep getting hit like this, and stock prices will plummet. I’m not gonna be the Strader that kills the family business! No, no press conferences yet. Yes, fine. Take her to the cabin,” she says, hanging the phone up. “Man, he’s gonna make me go broke. He needs to get his hookers off the street again; these high-end escorts are killing my bottom line.”
The sound of an email coming in plays out over the Mac speakers. Using her mouse, she clicks open, and the sender is unknown and doesn’t display an IP address. Leaning back, a scoff escapes her lips.
“Did you think I was gone? Did you think you could escape me? One by one, all of you Strader women will fall. See you soon, Tamika. T.S.”
“T.S? Tamika Strader? No, why say it like that?”
A loud sigh grumbles out of her throat, taking a long sip of her scotch. Tamika picks up the telephone receiver to call up the pilot.
“Hey Hank, when do we land back in London?”
“Actually, ma’am, it’s a fill-in for Hank. My name is Phil. We will be landing within the hour, ma’am.”
“Right, Phil. Ok thank you. I hope Hank is feeling better soon.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The pilot puts down the receiver, smiling to himself when he glances at his open bag, the white torn mask of THE STALKER looking back at him.
Oncologist Wing of Victoria Hospital
London, Ontario
Meghan Strader has definitely seen better days. The former Matriarch could live pain and disease free in the alternate reality that Victoria travels to, but she feels guilty. Still, her toddler twin babies, husband, sister, brother and the whole family are here. Her raven black hair was pulled back into an uncharacteristic ponytail, with no bright crimson red lipstick but the natural pale pink of her naked lips and no makeup to accentuate her icy blue-coloured eyes.
“Meghan, did you hear me?” Dr. Furtado asks her, snapping Meghan out of her daze.
“Yeah doc, I heard you. I’ve advanced to stage four in my pancreatic cancer….” Meghan’s voice trails off, lost in the thought of her family, her children, her babes. “Blood and bone cancer is just about there.”
“That’s correct. Now, to move forward….”
The doctor’s voice fades as Meghan listens but finds herself lost in thought. Not much later, she walks towards her ‘77 black and gold Trans Am with the aid of her cane.
“Well, Meghan, now you get to go to your daughter’s and tell them you won’t even make it till Christmas. Son of a bitch,” she stops at the driver's side, dropping the keys she fished out of the dark grey jogging pants she managed to pull on to make this appointment. When Meghan stands back up, she doesn’t notice a reflection in the door window; THE STALKER.
The Elder Cowgirl sits in the driver seat slowly, closing the door and buckling herself up. Turning over the ignition, the old school Trans Am fires up and slowly pulls out of the hospital parking lot, THE STALKER following her with his eyes.
78 Eldorado Avenue
London, Ontario Canada
The headlight of Tamika’s Indian Scout motorcycle illuminates the quiet neighbourhood as she turns right onto Eldorado Avenue. She coasts in slowly, with a low grumble, so she doesn’t disturb the neighbours more so than the family already had. It wasn’t all that long ago that the current Craze Champion and his pseudo-father-figure showed up at the house looking for Tamika for a fight. Using her right hand Tamika unclasps her helmet, putting it on her lap as she turns into the driveway. A look of relief comes across her face when she sees Meghan’s ‘77 Trans Am parked in the carport. Kicking down her kickstand and turning the front wheel to her left, she turns off the bike, pocketing her keys; her snakeskin cowgirl clicks on the asphalt with each step. Almost a year ago, John had shot up the door to get inside to save their niece, Cara, so Tamika had a door installed with a key combo lock in case any of them lost their keys.
Beep-beep-beep-beep
“Megz, you home?” Tamika walks inside, hanging her dark green leather jacket on the back of the side door. “Megz?”
“In the livin’ room, Auntie Tee! Mamabear is asleep in the recliner beside Ronnie,” the stoner Strader answers.
Tamika comes around the corner to see her niece cuddled up with her toddler siblings, fast asleep under her arms, their little heads snoring away on her chest.
“Help me put these Lil critters to bed? Got the backyard ready outback for a spliff and dun-dun-dunnnn HAMMER DARTS!!”
Tamika’s eyebrow goes up in a “whatchu talkin’ bout, Willis?” Shaking her head, she picks up her nephew taking him to the twins' room.
A while later…
The auntie-niece duo stands in the middle of the backyard looking at two round archery targets like in Friday the 13th. Still, instead of being armed with bows, they have hammers in hand. Cara has repositioned the outside light to shine on the targets, and the glow from the fire helps illuminate.
Tamika puts up a picture of York on one and Sahara on the other. Cara lights up one of the many cannons (massive joints) she always has on her. The light snores of little Lizzie echo through the baby monitor, intertwining with the sound of crackling burning wood.
“So, we just throw these hammers at the target?” a curious Tamika asks.
“Yepperz!! I see you have pictures on the targets.”
“Yeah, sometimes to hit a bullseye, you need to visualize a deserving target.”
Taking a big haul off the spliff, Cara passes it to Auntie Teebag, who surprisingly accepts it.
“I never thought I see the day Auntie Tee taking a hit off a spliff,” Cara points out while coughing on her toke.
“It’s the time of firsts, kiddo, *cough cough*,” Tamika says, passing the spliff back over. “Knifey shot me a text letting me know Massacre is gonna be live from downtown London at the JLC.”
“Budweiser Gardens,” Cara corrects. Tamika gives her an annoyed glance.
“It’ll only ever be the John Labatt Centre to me.”
“Ooo-tay, boomer.”
“I was born in 1989, ya little shit.”
“Hey now, don’t make me go find my safe spot,” Tamika hears in response, sharing a laugh.
“It’s crazy; I have never wrestled in front of hometown fans before, ya know?”
“What, ya never did any indy work here?”
“I started down south in the Bible Belt in Outlaw Pro Wrestling, the one that became SHOOT: Project. Your mamabear and I have wrestled in Toronto, Hamilton, Windsor and Kingston. A few times in Ottawa but never here in London. It’s too bad Megz won’t get that chance….”
Cara reaches over and squeezes Tamika’s hand, and passes her the joint.
“Ya know, Auntie Tee, you’re allowed to be vulnerable. You have done such a great job taking over for mamabear. She’s so proud of you. When she has the energy to rave about ya, she does. I think Vee and me got our closeness from yous both.”
“Thank you for saying that, but I’m ok. I am going to do something that I have control over, and that’s getting the TransAtlantic title off of Sahara. She doesn’t deserve that championship.”
“If anyone is gonna dethrone a paper champion, it’s you, Auntiest of the Teebags!.”
“I initially challenged that York schmuck because he was connected to Thad and Sahara through CCPE, but apparently, he’s no longer a part of that.”
“Yeah, Bert wasn’t happy about his buddy Donny joining up with them.”
“When is Bert ever happy?”
“When he’s smoking a fat bong rip and getting head and ordering pizza.”
Tamika chuckles, making her cough pretty hard. Passing the joint back to Cara, making the cut-throat motion, signalling she doesn’t want (or need, being the lightweight she is) any more.
“So it’s Ricky Rodriguez?”
“No, it is Casino Kid Justin York.”
“Who da fuck is that?”
Tamika reaches in her leather jacket, fishing around for her iPhone. Her face glows from the brightness of the phone’s screen while her finger taps on it and slides it up-down, left-right before smiling and showing Cara.
“Wait, Ricky Rodriguez isn’t that little cutie thot machine? He looks... different.”
“Put out the spliff, Cara; you have smoked yourself clueless. You’ll see and meet Justin when you both wrestle at TCM.”
It was quite the “pfft” that Cara responded with; Tamika felt it sitting a few feet away to her right side.
“Totally not fair, man. You got me to sign saying it was an autograph for Cara Delevingne when ya did that weird Tamikanator thing,” Cara says with a whine to her tone.
“That’ll teach ya. Never sign your name on anything with writing on it without reading. Next thing you know, you are on a flight to Okinawa, so you can shoot a commercial for ancient Japanese lady natural viagra infused Saké.”
Cara’s eyebrow goes up, giving a side glance.
“Oddly specific, but Jakey told me after your announcement and wrote it down. So, is he the guy talking shit on Twitter?”
“Wrestlers like him, they rely on constant beginners luck. OCW is the first place this guy has signed with since whatever promotion it was that he was a Television champion. Honestly, any place named after Tennessee can’t be real unless we are back in the territory days of the 70s. The element of surprise to someone’s abilities can pay off, but since his arrival here, it’s showing the cracks in his armour. He talks about classic matches, but no one corroborates that. He claimed he’s even won titles thinking anyone believes IIW actually matters. Unlike him, I did my homework on my opponent. I know what he is capable of, and from what I have been able to achieve after only ever being a tag team wrestler, I know I got this. You know me, Cara. I’m not one to tooter my own hooter, but not everyone who comes into OCW can do what your sister and I did or what your mom and I could’ve done in the tag division if she wasn’t filled with cancer.”
“So, what do ya think is gonna happen then?”
Tamika leans back and hurls the hammer at “Sahara,” catching her in the rack. Cara nods impressed.
“He’s going to go on a long rant in his little letter to me or whatever asshat thing he does; it will be incoherent; York will remove a rib so he can blow himself. Follow it up by contradicting himself. York’ll say he doesn’t want to be tied down to any one promotion. If they pay him a lot, he will sign long-term. He doesn’t know which way is up and which way is down. But I do, and I’m gonna put him down, 1-2-3. Even though he’s not connected to Thad and Sahara anymore through CCPE, he’s going to be an example I use to show Sahara that she’s not gonna be able to keep that strap away from me.”
The Strader Sneer comes alive as she throws another hammer, this one catching York’s picture in the head.
“Wrestlers like him are a dime a dozen, and I look forward to making him eat every last word on his blog since it’s 2007 again.”
Tamika’s phone starts to play “Dreamweaver” as she swipes her finger across the screen to answer the call and puts it on speaker as Cara throws her hammer. We can hear glass shattering in the darkness. Tamika just looks at Cara with a shake of her head.
“Zybala, what’s up?”
“I need you to help defend the tag titles on Monday.”
“You can always count on me, Mike. What’s going on? Where’s Grenier and Stranger?”
“TLS says he needs to focus on being the referee in Kali’s defence, and Grenier is missing.”
Tamika frowns, hearing the news about Bob. Throwing another hammer, it lands where York’s heart would be if he had one.
“Ok, well, I’ll fly up to Timmins. Might’ve smoked too many garbage bags full of weed and forgotten who he is. Either way, we’ll keep the titles in PTSD.”
“Thanks, Meeka. Also, before you go, are you gonna watch Dystopia?”
Tamika’s eyes go wide and quickly scrambles in her response.
“Sorry, Mike, going through a tunnel, can’t hear you.”
She breathes a sigh of relief.
“That was close!”
They share a laugh as Cara launches another hammer. More glass shatters, and an angry neighbour is heard.
Tamika Strader, OCW’s greatest Craze Champion ever, sits on the Strader Family’s Private Jet, looking absolutely beyond annoyed. Her MacBook is open in front of her looking for all the documented breaches in cybersecurity as of late. Of course, nothing like this ever happened under her grandfather, father or sister, so she felt a heavy burden on her shoulders, not just from herself but the board of Strader Incorporated.
“The latest set of attacks appear to have come from… inside? No… that can’t be right.”
Her right palm slams down on the table beside her Mac, shaking her head with frustration. She picks up the telephone receiver built into her seat, punching in a Houston area code.
“Ok… pick up the phone, Harold. Harold! Finally! Yes, I got the email from R&D. We need to get this figured out. We keep getting hit like this, and stock prices will plummet. I’m not gonna be the Strader that kills the family business! No, no press conferences yet. Yes, fine. Take her to the cabin,” she says, hanging the phone up. “Man, he’s gonna make me go broke. He needs to get his hookers off the street again; these high-end escorts are killing my bottom line.”
The sound of an email coming in plays out over the Mac speakers. Using her mouse, she clicks open, and the sender is unknown and doesn’t display an IP address. Leaning back, a scoff escapes her lips.
“Did you think I was gone? Did you think you could escape me? One by one, all of you Strader women will fall. See you soon, Tamika. T.S.”
“T.S? Tamika Strader? No, why say it like that?”
A loud sigh grumbles out of her throat, taking a long sip of her scotch. Tamika picks up the telephone receiver to call up the pilot.
“Hey Hank, when do we land back in London?”
“Actually, ma’am, it’s a fill-in for Hank. My name is Phil. We will be landing within the hour, ma’am.”
“Right, Phil. Ok thank you. I hope Hank is feeling better soon.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The pilot puts down the receiver, smiling to himself when he glances at his open bag, the white torn mask of THE STALKER looking back at him.
Oncologist Wing of Victoria Hospital
London, Ontario
Meghan Strader has definitely seen better days. The former Matriarch could live pain and disease free in the alternate reality that Victoria travels to, but she feels guilty. Still, her toddler twin babies, husband, sister, brother and the whole family are here. Her raven black hair was pulled back into an uncharacteristic ponytail, with no bright crimson red lipstick but the natural pale pink of her naked lips and no makeup to accentuate her icy blue-coloured eyes.
“Meghan, did you hear me?” Dr. Furtado asks her, snapping Meghan out of her daze.
“Yeah doc, I heard you. I’ve advanced to stage four in my pancreatic cancer….” Meghan’s voice trails off, lost in the thought of her family, her children, her babes. “Blood and bone cancer is just about there.”
“That’s correct. Now, to move forward….”
The doctor’s voice fades as Meghan listens but finds herself lost in thought. Not much later, she walks towards her ‘77 black and gold Trans Am with the aid of her cane.
“Well, Meghan, now you get to go to your daughter’s and tell them you won’t even make it till Christmas. Son of a bitch,” she stops at the driver's side, dropping the keys she fished out of the dark grey jogging pants she managed to pull on to make this appointment. When Meghan stands back up, she doesn’t notice a reflection in the door window; THE STALKER.
The Elder Cowgirl sits in the driver seat slowly, closing the door and buckling herself up. Turning over the ignition, the old school Trans Am fires up and slowly pulls out of the hospital parking lot, THE STALKER following her with his eyes.
78 Eldorado Avenue
London, Ontario Canada
The headlight of Tamika’s Indian Scout motorcycle illuminates the quiet neighbourhood as she turns right onto Eldorado Avenue. She coasts in slowly, with a low grumble, so she doesn’t disturb the neighbours more so than the family already had. It wasn’t all that long ago that the current Craze Champion and his pseudo-father-figure showed up at the house looking for Tamika for a fight. Using her right hand Tamika unclasps her helmet, putting it on her lap as she turns into the driveway. A look of relief comes across her face when she sees Meghan’s ‘77 Trans Am parked in the carport. Kicking down her kickstand and turning the front wheel to her left, she turns off the bike, pocketing her keys; her snakeskin cowgirl clicks on the asphalt with each step. Almost a year ago, John had shot up the door to get inside to save their niece, Cara, so Tamika had a door installed with a key combo lock in case any of them lost their keys.
Beep-beep-beep-beep
“Megz, you home?” Tamika walks inside, hanging her dark green leather jacket on the back of the side door. “Megz?”
“In the livin’ room, Auntie Tee! Mamabear is asleep in the recliner beside Ronnie,” the stoner Strader answers.
Tamika comes around the corner to see her niece cuddled up with her toddler siblings, fast asleep under her arms, their little heads snoring away on her chest.
“Help me put these Lil critters to bed? Got the backyard ready outback for a spliff and dun-dun-dunnnn HAMMER DARTS!!”
Tamika’s eyebrow goes up in a “whatchu talkin’ bout, Willis?” Shaking her head, she picks up her nephew taking him to the twins' room.
A while later…
The auntie-niece duo stands in the middle of the backyard looking at two round archery targets like in Friday the 13th. Still, instead of being armed with bows, they have hammers in hand. Cara has repositioned the outside light to shine on the targets, and the glow from the fire helps illuminate.
Tamika puts up a picture of York on one and Sahara on the other. Cara lights up one of the many cannons (massive joints) she always has on her. The light snores of little Lizzie echo through the baby monitor, intertwining with the sound of crackling burning wood.
“So, we just throw these hammers at the target?” a curious Tamika asks.
“Yepperz!! I see you have pictures on the targets.”
“Yeah, sometimes to hit a bullseye, you need to visualize a deserving target.”
Taking a big haul off the spliff, Cara passes it to Auntie Teebag, who surprisingly accepts it.
“I never thought I see the day Auntie Tee taking a hit off a spliff,” Cara points out while coughing on her toke.
“It’s the time of firsts, kiddo, *cough cough*,” Tamika says, passing the spliff back over. “Knifey shot me a text letting me know Massacre is gonna be live from downtown London at the JLC.”
“Budweiser Gardens,” Cara corrects. Tamika gives her an annoyed glance.
“It’ll only ever be the John Labatt Centre to me.”
“Ooo-tay, boomer.”
“I was born in 1989, ya little shit.”
“Hey now, don’t make me go find my safe spot,” Tamika hears in response, sharing a laugh.
“It’s crazy; I have never wrestled in front of hometown fans before, ya know?”
“What, ya never did any indy work here?”
“I started down south in the Bible Belt in Outlaw Pro Wrestling, the one that became SHOOT: Project. Your mamabear and I have wrestled in Toronto, Hamilton, Windsor and Kingston. A few times in Ottawa but never here in London. It’s too bad Megz won’t get that chance….”
Cara reaches over and squeezes Tamika’s hand, and passes her the joint.
“Ya know, Auntie Tee, you’re allowed to be vulnerable. You have done such a great job taking over for mamabear. She’s so proud of you. When she has the energy to rave about ya, she does. I think Vee and me got our closeness from yous both.”
“Thank you for saying that, but I’m ok. I am going to do something that I have control over, and that’s getting the TransAtlantic title off of Sahara. She doesn’t deserve that championship.”
“If anyone is gonna dethrone a paper champion, it’s you, Auntiest of the Teebags!.”
“I initially challenged that York schmuck because he was connected to Thad and Sahara through CCPE, but apparently, he’s no longer a part of that.”
“Yeah, Bert wasn’t happy about his buddy Donny joining up with them.”
“When is Bert ever happy?”
“When he’s smoking a fat bong rip and getting head and ordering pizza.”
Tamika chuckles, making her cough pretty hard. Passing the joint back to Cara, making the cut-throat motion, signalling she doesn’t want (or need, being the lightweight she is) any more.
“So it’s Ricky Rodriguez?”
“No, it is Casino Kid Justin York.”
“Who da fuck is that?”
Tamika reaches in her leather jacket, fishing around for her iPhone. Her face glows from the brightness of the phone’s screen while her finger taps on it and slides it up-down, left-right before smiling and showing Cara.
“Wait, Ricky Rodriguez isn’t that little cutie thot machine? He looks... different.”
“Put out the spliff, Cara; you have smoked yourself clueless. You’ll see and meet Justin when you both wrestle at TCM.”
It was quite the “pfft” that Cara responded with; Tamika felt it sitting a few feet away to her right side.
“Totally not fair, man. You got me to sign saying it was an autograph for Cara Delevingne when ya did that weird Tamikanator thing,” Cara says with a whine to her tone.
“That’ll teach ya. Never sign your name on anything with writing on it without reading. Next thing you know, you are on a flight to Okinawa, so you can shoot a commercial for ancient Japanese lady natural viagra infused Saké.”
Cara’s eyebrow goes up, giving a side glance.
“Oddly specific, but Jakey told me after your announcement and wrote it down. So, is he the guy talking shit on Twitter?”
“Wrestlers like him, they rely on constant beginners luck. OCW is the first place this guy has signed with since whatever promotion it was that he was a Television champion. Honestly, any place named after Tennessee can’t be real unless we are back in the territory days of the 70s. The element of surprise to someone’s abilities can pay off, but since his arrival here, it’s showing the cracks in his armour. He talks about classic matches, but no one corroborates that. He claimed he’s even won titles thinking anyone believes IIW actually matters. Unlike him, I did my homework on my opponent. I know what he is capable of, and from what I have been able to achieve after only ever being a tag team wrestler, I know I got this. You know me, Cara. I’m not one to tooter my own hooter, but not everyone who comes into OCW can do what your sister and I did or what your mom and I could’ve done in the tag division if she wasn’t filled with cancer.”
“So, what do ya think is gonna happen then?”
Tamika leans back and hurls the hammer at “Sahara,” catching her in the rack. Cara nods impressed.
“He’s going to go on a long rant in his little letter to me or whatever asshat thing he does; it will be incoherent; York will remove a rib so he can blow himself. Follow it up by contradicting himself. York’ll say he doesn’t want to be tied down to any one promotion. If they pay him a lot, he will sign long-term. He doesn’t know which way is up and which way is down. But I do, and I’m gonna put him down, 1-2-3. Even though he’s not connected to Thad and Sahara anymore through CCPE, he’s going to be an example I use to show Sahara that she’s not gonna be able to keep that strap away from me.”
The Strader Sneer comes alive as she throws another hammer, this one catching York’s picture in the head.
“Wrestlers like him are a dime a dozen, and I look forward to making him eat every last word on his blog since it’s 2007 again.”
Tamika’s phone starts to play “Dreamweaver” as she swipes her finger across the screen to answer the call and puts it on speaker as Cara throws her hammer. We can hear glass shattering in the darkness. Tamika just looks at Cara with a shake of her head.
“Zybala, what’s up?”
“I need you to help defend the tag titles on Monday.”
“You can always count on me, Mike. What’s going on? Where’s Grenier and Stranger?”
“TLS says he needs to focus on being the referee in Kali’s defence, and Grenier is missing.”
Tamika frowns, hearing the news about Bob. Throwing another hammer, it lands where York’s heart would be if he had one.
“Ok, well, I’ll fly up to Timmins. Might’ve smoked too many garbage bags full of weed and forgotten who he is. Either way, we’ll keep the titles in PTSD.”
“Thanks, Meeka. Also, before you go, are you gonna watch Dystopia?”
Tamika’s eyes go wide and quickly scrambles in her response.
“Sorry, Mike, going through a tunnel, can’t hear you.”
She breathes a sigh of relief.
“That was close!”
They share a laugh as Cara launches another hammer. More glass shatters, and an angry neighbour is heard.
