Post by Admin on Jan 29, 2023 1:59:38 GMT
Strader Residence
London, Ontario
Veronica didn’t miss hearing the beeps and whirring sounds of the hospital equipment that used to be in the master bedroom; Meghan requested Tamika to get rid of it as she refused to spend her last days in that environment. While sharing her AirPods with her mom and playing some of her favourite music with a very sick and slowly dying Meghan Strader, Veronica was lost in thought. Since diagnosis in July 2022, the once tough-as-nails matriarch of the Strader clan, had fought with everything she had to stay alive. Her children drove the fight; Victoria, Veronica, Cara, and the barely three-year-old twins Clay and Lizzie were what she focused on, what kept her fighting. If Meghan was honest with herself, she knew she had been sick for a long time, which was what drove her to get inside OCW. To get close to her daughter Veronica and get Victoria back. The end was near now, though, which made the family congregate to the eldest child of the late Scott Nash Strader.
Veronica had been curled up in the comfy chair that Cara helped her drag in. Leaning forward and looking up at her ‘mamabear’ as Cara had dubbed her, she smiled for the first time in a long time. Tamika had done Meghan’s raven hair, lightly shaded dark eyeshadow and bright red lipstick. Veronica could almost forget that time was dwindling for her mom. The loss kept happening to her; Outcast and now mom. Reaching out, she slid her hand under her mom’s, gently squeezing it as the tears rolled down her cheeks, proving her waterproof mascara was anything but.
“I wish there was something I could do for you, anything at all. Christian dying has been challenging, and I still haven’t adjusted, but how am I expected to be ok losing you?”
“You won’t. You'll have your sisters and me,” Tamika said gently as she walked into the room and sat on the arm of the comfy chair. Veronica embraced her Auntie Teebag, sniffling into her turtleneck in the signature green associated with the-now Strader Matriarch. “Shhh, it’s ok, sweetheart.” Tamika kisses the top of her niece’s head.
“You think she knows we are here?” Veronica looks at her mom through the tears, looking up at Tamika, who just smiled and ran her fingers through the thick wavy hair of hers. Meghan wasn’t comatose, but her sleeping hours could go on for days at a time.
“I do. Ya know, Ronnie, your mom, me and your Uncle Johnny, we didn’t have a great dad. You, Vee and Cara know that all too well. Still, me and Uncle Johnny were blessed to have our mother for the first sixteen years of our lives… your mom? Liz died giving birth. Your mom never really had any real parental influence, at least not in a beneficial way. The moment she had the twins and found out about you, mom mode kicked in full gear.” Tamika smiles, placing the tips of her fingers under her chin, and lifting her head to give Veronica a reassuring smile. “I truly believe my big sister was meant to be a mother. Life is so cruel to give her all of you to love and is now taking it away. As mean and crass as she is, the love that is in her heart for my son, me, John, and all of you? Is immense and plentiful. We’ll feel that love when she is gone until we take our last breaths. Then she will be the first to greet us in the afterlife.”
“How do you do that, Auntie Tee?”
“Do what?”
“Say the right things to make me feel better?”
Tamika smiled as a chuckle escaped her lips. She takes a moment to ponder a suitable answer.
“Definitely not the first time that question has been posed. If I had to guess, I would say it is from my mom. Your uncle says I am a lot like her, which is just the best compliment. Tell me, kiddo, you don’t plan on spending the whole day here, do you?”
“I don’t know, maybe. I didn’t know that October 30th, 2022, was going to be the last day I would ever spend with Christian before he was murdered and taken from me. Mom could go any day, and I don’t want to be away from her. I haven't always been the best daughter, but I want to be here for mom.”
Tamika let out a small sigh, squeezing Veronica tightly.
“You are a wonderful daughter, and your mom knows it. She loves you so much, and I know she is beyond thankful you came into her life.”
“Meeks is absolutely right, baby.”
The auntie-niece duo look over to see what has become a rare sight as of late: Meghan being awake and speaking. Veronica assumes it is the pain from the cancer in her voice, but Tamika knows that is exactly what is from a mile away. That was what made them such a highly successful and legendary tag team for a decade and a half, with the ability to know what they were feeling and thinking.
“Mom, you need rest.” Veronica breaks the embrace from her aunt to take Meghan’s hand in hers, leaning onto the bed. Veronica couldn’t help but get lost in the icy blue eyes that were dominant in the Strader genealogy. They were so cold yet could fill someone with warmth like they were doing right now.
“That’s all I have been *cough* doing, sweetness. Auntie Meeks was going to tell you to get away for a bit; I’ll be here for a while longer. You have a match to get ready for against Peter Vaughn.” Veronica looks down at her mom’s hand in hers, slowly looking back up. “I know it’s important to you, baby.”
“Not as important as you are, mamabear." The word mamabear always made Meghan smile, as it was Cara, her ‘mini-me’ that called her that the most.
“I appreciate you more than you will ever know, but please, it would do my *coughcoughcough* heart good to know you were preparing to do something you love and are better at than any of us with the last name Strader.” Mamabear enjoyed watching her daughters grow in the ring and do the things she wasn’t able to in her career. Meghan pushes aside the searing pain ravaging her insides to stop Veronica from responding. “No, I don’t want to hear it; you are going to get out of this room and go for a drive or something.”
“But mom- - -”
“But nothing. Go. I love you, baby girl.”
Veronica hugged her mom gently, and for just a few seconds, Meghan felt no pain as she hugged back as tight as she could. Tamika looked over to her sister once Veronica had left and saw the tears in Meghan’s eyes. She sits on the bed with her, putting her arm around big sister.
“Look after her… look after all of them, Meeks.”
Tamika kisses Meghan on top of her raven hair head and pulls her gently into an embrace.
“For as long as I walk this earth, Megz.”
I-90 Express-West/I-94 West to US41-N
Illinois, America
Veronica wasn’t the biggest fan of flying, so if she could drive instead, she would do precisely that. Visiting Christian Cain’s tombstone at the Graceland Cemetery in Chicago was only six and a half hours away. Plus, it gave a pair of sisters that hadn’t been seeing eye to eye since June of last year, do some bonding. Veronica’s ‘85 all-black and chrome grill and wheeled Dodge D-100 was cruising down the Interstate firmly in Overdrive towards the capital of Illinois. A Gen-Z who can drive a stick, who’d a thunk it? Veronica leaned her head in her left hand, propped on the inside door panel against the pane of glass. With her right-hand steering and fingers tapping the wheel, she listens to WCHI 95.5 playing ‘My Friend of Misery’ by Metallica. Victoria snaps her out of the trance from the road.
“Think we could listen to something a little more….”
Veronica doesn’t look away from the road as the rising in the east reflects in the rearview mirror.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Basic rules of the road.” Veronica looks over at her twin sister, sharing the bench seat in the single cab pickup. “Driver picks the station. Dems da rulez.”
“(scoff) Ok there, Billy Loomis.”
“Ugh, Stu Macher. Mom and Auntie Tee would be very disappointed.”
“Slasher flicks is all you and Carebear. I’ll stick to action, comedy, and rom-coms, thank you very much.”
Veronica gave a side glance and a smirk. Shaking her head, Victoria looks over at her, her brow lifted.
“What?”
“Just… who would’ve thought we’d be going on a six-hour drive to Chicago… together?”
Victoria leans back into the corner of her seat, nodding with her brow raised in agreement. Vee sighs and looks at her sister; she never believed she’d be separated from Veronica, let alone be in their own bodies. The family and others couldn’t understand it; it was something out of a science fiction novel, but they could because they lived it.
“I’m sorry I kept him from you, Ronnie. I was - - -”
“Manipulated by those that wanted to use you. I know, I get it, and I have forgiven you. We have done a lot of bad stuff to each other over the last couple of years. By the grace of God, as Christian would say, we somehow get to live our own lives now… as sisters.”
Veronica’s phone beeps, catching Victoria’s attention.
“Our exit is coming up.”
Christian Cain’s Tombstone
Graceland Cemetery
Chicago, Illinois
The unmistakable crunch of snow announces Veronica’s arrival at the black granite headstone. Her black and warm Uggs match her black jeans, black fancy long winter jacket and signature purple coloured toque covering her ears. Under her right arm are two separate bunches of black roses. She leans a dozen against the headstone that belongs to Victor Michael Cain and the other in front of the black granite headstone she had custom-made for Christian Alexander Cain. Veronica slowly kneels down on both knees and sits back against her heels. Tears roll down her cheeks as she reaches out, running her index finger along his chiselled name in the stone.
“Hey Lover, sorry I haven’t been by since January; mom isn’t too well… I think you might see her soon. It’s been hard watching her deteriorate in front of our eyes. Especially Tamika, ya know? Auntie Tee puts up a good front for Cara, Clay and Lizzie, but me and Vee see it’s destroying her on the inside.”
“Vee actually came for the drive with me, but she’s up at the front in the truck. She seems to carry tremendous guilt for what she did to us. And yes, it’s the same truck you taught me how to drive stick in; I am the envy of all my friends.”
Veronica laughed at herself silly joke, wiping a few tears with the sleeve of her stylish black and thick winter jacket.
“I know, I know… I don’t have friends outside Carebear and Vee, but do sisters count? Auntie Tee would say yes, so I guess I can too. Listen, I know you are busy catching up on lost time with your little boy, but I need to ask a favour.”
She pivots to sit on the ground; the tail ending of her jacket acting as a guard from the cold ground along with her denim-covered derrière. Wrapping her arms around her shins, Veronica puts her chin on top of her knees, staring at his engraved name.
“I somehow ended up on the Janitor/Mechanic’s (or whatever he calls himself) list, and I accepted a match against him at the Denzel Porter Invitational.”
She chuckles through the sniffles and the dried tears.
“I know you have tangled with him in the past, and I really could use your advice. I believe in my abilities to win this match; it’s just that I was hoping you would be there, in spirit, for me… with me….”
Veronica stands up slowly, wiping her backside and knees with her gloved hands before removing one to kiss her index and middle fingers, pressing them to the top of Outcast’s headstone.
Unknown Location
~ START TRANSMISSION ~
Broken-down cars left to looters. We come on to a figure standing in the middle of the two-lane one-way street with their back to us. Purple Converse High-tops, black LuLu lemons and what appears to be an all-black hoodie with the hood up.
“This street is beyond filthy, isn’t it? Full of garbage, broken-down cars and far too many homeless living in cardboard boxes. Does anyone know a wealthy janitor and mechanic to clean this up?”
“Oh, wait….”
The figure lifts the hood up off of their head, turning her head and body, revealing the Strader Sneer on the face of Veronica Strader.
“Filthy, isn’t it? That’s what I see in the wrestling industry, you know? Nothing but filth everywhere. All these wrestlers hooking up with each other, sometimes with partners, sometimes with partners knowing and sometimes not. You have wrestlers cheating to win matches and championships and crying when they lose them when people choose to use the methods that were used against them.”
“It’s all very catch twenty-two, wouldn’t ya say?”
“Peter, you and I? We aren’t strangers. We were in OCW together for a minute and the same with TPW. Then I got the opportunity to buy 49% of TPW. I ended up paying half your paycheque, because as sweet as Terry Marshall is, he’s not exactly a whiz with money, and I became your boss. You weren’t a fan, and I mean, can I really blame you? If I was anyone else, I might not be a fan of a fuckin’ Strader sprinkled with Knox being my boss either.”
“But really, that’s something we also share in common, is an unbridled hatred sent our way, and for what reason? We win? Because we can count losses on one hand but need multiple to count the wins? The difference is that you went outside OCW on a wave of hatred that was sent that way. People gave you opportunities to excel and shine because you were the anti-OCW figurehead they all wanted. The company that made you, from Outsiders to Online… do you know what the face of a coward is? The back of his turncoat head.”
“That damn Purge. It pissed off more who weren’t in OCW than those that were actually purged. It was one of the many reasons that Marcus Welsh and I laughed about.”
Veronica continues to walk forward, the scene revealing the dirty landscape as we move back.
“I’m not gonna stand here and start rifling off the dredge between you and OCW. This is about you and me, and we all know I’m no longer a part of that company, just like you. Not after my sister fired my aunt and me.”
“You were the one that wanted this match. Your people approached mine, and I was only ever going to say yes, wasn’t I? ‘Cause let’s face it… I don’t need to win this match. People will always write me off because I am a fourth-generation Strader. I am a third-generation Knox. I get zero respect. See, you need to win this match. Why? I’m so glad you asked.”
Veronica grinned through the sneer, giving a sly wink to the viewers and Vaughn.
“One could argue how you came up from being a lowly old mechanic, janitor, whichever it was, but you went and had a successful year since leaving the evil OCW. Multiple championships and big-name companies (some that came from even air their shows on time) shed that stigma off you. You have reached the pinnacle of the business, and even though I set records in the first championship run, I haven’t since, but a coma played a part in that. I’m only in my second company with CU:LT, and while I have done well, it just doesn’t compare to you, does it?”
“That’s why you have to win, Pete. Multiple world champion, winner of a World Series of Wrestling (by an entity that thinks women and men should be in separate divisions) against lowly me.”
“See the thing about the Knox family and the Strader family? They always excel when they are the underdog and when everyone has counted them out. My dad, Matthew Knox, was the Valor World Champion for months, when he was always the odd man out to lose. My Auntie Tee? Never wrestled in a singles division and was Craze Champion for one hundred and twenty days.”
“My history and the lineage of my family shows that I excel when we are the underdog, and I know in my heart I have the spirit of Outcast with me. He taught me to believe in what I can do and that when people say it isn’t possible? You can become greater than anyone ever expected.”
“And if I lose?”
Veronica shrugs.
“Oh well, I will fight another day. Someone is gonna clean up this cesspool one day. We will walk out of the Denzel Porter Invitational with eyes on us when the show gets stolen. There is one thing you should know, Peter, and it’s something that everyone has learned the hard way so far….”
“God forgives.”
“I don’t.”
