Silence Is Golden No More

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D-Day Has Arrived

Off Camera

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New Age has come and gone and yet another show in which Karen McBride has been left unbooked, unscheduled, nothing to do.  It’s become very frustrating for Karen, especially after her massive campaign to try and get on the Extreme Fury pay per view card went completely unnoticed, ignored, and turned into a complete failure.

Karen doesn’t want people to think that she’s some kind of an ego-maniac when she demands to be booked.  But she is a former SWWC X Division Champion and GCW International Champion.  She isn’t some kind of inexperienced rookie.  She knows how to win gold and she feels she should not have been left off of the pay per view card.  Besides, she is a wrestler.  She is a competitor.  She wants to perform.  She wants to compete and be the best.

Thankfully New Age will be the last time she is left off the cards, as she is being scheduled to compete in a ten person tag on Riot with Mya Denton, Jessica Wilde, Tina Valentine, and Chris Davids as her tag team partners.  Their opponents?  None other than Abigail Lindsey, Katelyn Buehler, Cassidy Cage, X-Class Champion Kathryn Pearson, and none other than the former IWC World Champion herself Taylor Chase.

This isn’t Karen’s fight.  She truthfully has no issues with any of these other women and, to be honest, she doesn’t really particularly like any of her tag team partners.  She does feel some pity towards Tina Valentina but that’s only because she has gone through much of what Tina is going through.  In a way she feels like she can connect to Tina.  The others are just there, just like Karen feels as if she is just there.

Victory in this match will mean nothing to Karen.  It’s just a chance to get back on the card, get noticed once again, and to maybe move on to bigger and better things.  After all, Karen still has an ace up her sleeve, a trump card she has prepared, a card she has had tucked away just for this one singular moment in time where she can  use it, play it, and make the single biggest impact that anyone in IWC has ever made.  A move that will send shockwaves throughout the company.

No more will people ignore Karen McBride.  No more will people mock her.  Once this bombshell is dropped, the name McBride will be feared by one and all in the Independent Wrestling Cartel.

Karen already tried to have a meeting with Desmond Drake again tonight at New Age but was brushed off.  She’s tired of being brushed off by him and he will learn the error of his ways soon enough.  Thoughts of how she will make him pay are going through her mind as she marches down the halls of the slowly emptying arena in blue jeans, an IWC t-shirt, and a black jacket.  Her long dark hair is pulled into a ponytail in the back.

Karen is approaching another female standing off in the distance near the door the leads to the parking lot area.  This female happens to be Melanie McBride, Karen’s younger sister.

“Melanie!”

“Huh?” Melanie looks up and smiles upon seeing her older sibling approaching. “Oh, hi Kare-Bear!”

Karen approaches Melanie and smiles. “Are you ready to leave?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“Good…but before you, what did you think of New Age tonight?”

“I have to admit, Kare-Bear, IWC is very…” Melanie McBride pauses as she thinks hard, trying to find the right words “…interesting.”

“Interesting, is it?” Karen smirks knowingly. “Is that a nice way of saying you hate it?”

Karen and Melanie are sisters but Karen was adopted so they do not share the same bloodline, but nevertheless they are still as close as true sisters if not closer than that.  The two women laugh like the best of friends would at a good joke.

“I’m sorry, Kare-Bear.  It isn’t that I hate it it’s just that…” once again Melanie pauses to think of the right wording but shrugs her shoulders as she comes up empty once again “…I just don’t know.”

“You’re disappointed in it, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, maybe disappointed is the right word.”

Melanie has been traveling with her older sibling Karen McBride all over the world ever since Karen got involved with professional wrestling.  Karen at first tried to discourage her.  Like an overprotective parent she didn’t want Melanie to get caught up in this industry, fearing that Melanie just did not have the cutthroat, take no prisoner type instincts to survive in the business.  Wrestling is a dirty industry, Karen knows this and believes that her street smarts from her days as a streetwalker prostitute just trying to survive to keep herself and her family alive has helped her not only succeed in the corporate world but to also survive in the cutthroat wrestling industry as well.  But does Melanie, someone who was born into wealth and riches and not taken in like Karen, have that knowledge?  Highly unlikely.

Much to Karen’s surprise, Melanie has proven herself to be quite formidable and durable during all sorts of trouble that has come her way during their travels with the Southeastern Women’s Wrestling Conference, Global Division of Wrestling, Global Championship Wrestling, and now here with the Independent Wrestling Cartel.  Melanie has learned the hard way, through trials and tribulations, about whom she can and cannot trust.  She has also developed her own sense of right and wrong, which for the most part coincides with Karen’s but has some differences.

“What is it that I always say about wrestling?”

Melanie rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I know, it’s such a cutthroat industry…”

“Well it is.” Karen sighs. “I’ve fought for my life, Mel.  On the streets I had to be a prostitute, not that I wanted to, I had to in order to keep my own brothers and mother alive, and there were nights that I physically had to fight for my life, for my very survival.  In the corporate world I had to fight a mental war for my corporate survival.  The corporate fat cats are just as mean, just as vicious, if not more so than the bastards on the streets.  You know it.”

“Not mom and dad.”

“No, not them, but just take one look at your brother and sister, Stan and Blaire.”

Melanie nods her head, knowingly, for Stan Lee McBride Jr. and Blaire McBride are the antithesis of their parents.  Their parents are good, caring individuals while Stan and Blaire are the stereotypical wealthy corporate fat cats that Karen is speaking of; they only care about themselves and will do anything to get ahead, they will step on anyone to get ahead.  Melanie responds the only way she knows how.

“They’re your brother and sister too…”

Karen shakes her head. “No, Melanie, they are NOT my siblings.”

Karen’s definitive no almost hurt Melanie’s feelings.  Almost.  As close as they are, Melanie sometimes has her doubts, she sometimes has her concerns that Karen feels she does not belong with the rest of the McBride family just because Karen was adopted.  Karen can see the downtrodden look on Melanie’s face and immediately feels bad.  She places a firm, comforting arm on her shoulder.

“Oh now don’t be that way, Mel.” Karen smiles warmly. “You know how I feel about Stan and Blaire.  They will never be my favorite people.  But you and I are a team, Mel.  We are BFFs.”

Melanie can’t help but giggle. “BFFs?”

“Yes and you are the only one who will ever hear me use that nonsensical phrase!  And remember that even though I do not consider Stan and Blaire to be siblings, I do consider myself a McBride and I do consider you to be my sister, the greatest sister anyone could ever ask for.”

Melanie leans in and embraces Karen. “Thanks, Kare-Bear!”

“Kare-Bear huh? Thank God you’re not that Care Bear, remind me to punch him in the face one good time.”

Melanie and Karen pull away from their embrace to greet the only charismatic figure who could pull off a  quip like that, the self proclaimed “Face of IWC”, William Mason. Donning a three piece suit, Mason walks over to Melanie, he extends his hand.

“Nice to finally meet you.”

“Nice to meet you!” Melanie responds cheerfully.

“Melanie here is a sweet girl.  Her brother and sister, though, are snakes whom I wish I could just sell to Porno Lad.”

Mason chuckles. “A fate then death.”

“Melanie here wants to get involved in the industry as well, William.  I was just educating her on how this industry can be quite nasty and cutthroat, very bloodthirsty.”

“And let me guess, she hasn’t removed her rose colored glasses yet? Sounds a lot like my sister, Cassie. And my brother Victor for that matter. My cousin Lenore is the only one who understands we’re not here to sing camp songs.”  

“I understand that this isn’t the friendliest of atmospheres, it’s just that…” Melanie sighs “...I just question some of your allegiances is all.  Like, Tina Valentina for instance?  She doesn’t seem like a good person you should be doing business with, Kare-Bear.”

“Tina is a special case.  Understand that she and I are a lot alike.  We have troubled pasts that we have had to overcome.  The difference is that I had your parents to take me in and adopt me and help me through it.  She’s still maturing.”

Mason shrugs. “That’s... one way of putting it. Tina is a loose cannon, under normal circumstances you avoid her like the plague. Just for one night, Melanie your sister has to, put up with the crazy. Not like Karen and Tina are going to pop champagne at the bar after the match is over.”

Melanie pauses to think things over again. “Well...what about Jessica Wilde?  Isn’t she part of Sinistry?  Or that fruit loop Mya Denton?  Seriously, Kare-Bear, I know you don’t like associating with these people, and you get booked to team with them after not being booked for so long?”

“I know,” the brunette nods her head “it isn’t exactly my first choice.”

“Then do something about it.” Melanie speaks in a hushed whisper so only Karen and William can hear her. “Play that trump card you told me about.”

“Next week is the perfect time, Sinistry is riding at an all time high. Karen, you need to strike now. Drop the atom bomb on this SIN farce. I want to personally see the look on Aiken’s face. Hate the guy. He screwed up my life. For once I want to look him in the eye and tell him, I won! You lose!”

Karen turns her back to Melanie and William.  She takes in a deep breath and lets it out as the memories flow through her mind and then become words that flow out of her mouth.

“Throughout my life I have experienced all sorts of scum.  I personally experienced the abuse young women would receive by men who think they rule the world.  Then in the corporate world I saw how fat cats used their power to destroy lives in ways that may not be as physical but are just as sadistic and harmful.  I made it a promise to myself that I too would ruin lives...lives of human pieces of crap like that.”

She turns around to face them with a determined look in her eyes. “Desmond Drake reminds me of those people.  People with a Napoleon complex, they take it out on those beneath them.  Drake, Aiken, and his associates will pay, William.  Trust me.  I am done being silent and I am going to hurt them just as they have hurt others.”

“I stand behind you one hundred and ten percent, Karen. I have complete faith in your ability to get the job done. This ten person tag team match is childsplay, what you have in store is much bigger. Let Jessica Wilde, Tina Valentine and whoever else is on your team deal with their grudges on the other side. Riot should be the night.”

Mason smirks.

“D-Day has arrived.”

“I think it has, my friend.  D-Day has arrived…”

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Silent No More

On Camera

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The old saying is that silence is golden.  Ask any school teacher and they will agree with you that silence is what they want out of their classroom.  They want their classroom full of snot-nosed brats to just shut up, keep their heads in the book, and leave them alone until the end of the day.  That would be an ideal workday for a teacher.  Silence is golden is also a motto that spies live by.  Spies have to keep secrets and anytime you have to keep a secret, being silent is an important quality.  They train military personnel to be able to stay silent during intense interrogations from enemies.

Truth be told, anyone who has a secret to keep tries to stay silent about it.  And to keep a secret you really need to make sure few people know your dirty little secret.  The fewer people that know, the less likely your secret will get out.  It’s as simple as that.

Someone in IWC has a dirty little secret.  Someone with authority in IWC has a dirty little secret and I know that secret.  I know that secret and I have remained silent as part of an agreement.  But while silence was golden for this person, it has ceased to be golden for me.  I have remained silent on the matter and what have I gotten for my loyalty?

I have been left off damn near every Riot and New Age card from Invictus to Extreme Fury.  Now I finally get booked and when I do I am just match filler.  I know I am match filler because I have no personal issue with Abigail Lindsey.  Hell, we barely knew each other back in our GDW days.

I have nothing against you either, Kateyln Buehler.  Kick Ethan’s ass and Sinistry’s while you’re at it.  Have yourself a time!

Cassidy Cage, in many ways, is a kindred spirit.  And she knows exactly why we are kindred spirits.  I have nothing but respect for her and for what she’s been through.  Just as I have nothing but respect for the current X-Class Champion Kathryn Pearson and the former World Heavyweight Champion Taylor Chase.

As for my tag team partners?  Chris Davids Who?  The nutty as hell Mya Denton?  Jessica Wilde and her Sinistry nonsense?  None of them matter to me.  The only one who matters to me at all in any way is Tina Valentine.  Tina, like Cassidy earlier, I feel as if I can connect with her.  I feel, in a strange way, we are like kindred spirits.

Chase, Lindsey, Buehler, Pearson, and Cage all have a purpose behind this, a common desire to beat the hell out of Tina Valentine if nothing else.  Taylor will no doubt want a piece of Jessica Wilde simply for her Sinistry association since Sinistry took her world title.  Kateyln will also want a piece of Jessica for her Sinistry involvement.

Each one of these individuals is personally involved in this match for some reason but me?  Not at all.  Not one bit.  Not one iota.  As you can see, I have no personal involvement in this tag team match.  None whatsoever.  Whoever is doing the booking now, I’m guessing Sinistry, just threw me in there as match filler.

Or maybe…just maybe…someone wants to shut me up.  Maybe someone heard my complaining, my ranting about not being booked, and they threw me into this ten person clusterfuck hoping it will appease me.

Here’s a newsflash to the people running this company, a newsflash to the person whose dirty little secret I know…

…I am not appeased.  If anything you’ve pissed me off even further.

Now don’t get me wrong, I will wrestle and I will pour my heart and soul into that match.  I am a wrestler and it’s what I do.  I go to that ring each and every week in order to compete and to try and be the very best I can be.  I am not going to walk away from any match period.  End of story.  I will show up and I will give you the very best of Karen McBride.  You can bet your ass on that.

But to think that you can ignore me for an entire pay per view cycle and then insult me by just randomly throwing me into a match as filler?  That’s the last straw.  The very last straw.  I will come to Riot, I will fight and I will put on a hell of a show, but that night is the night that I will break my silence.

Silence is golden no more.

Pearson may be a champion, Chase may be the former world champion, Buehler may have the heart and the desire, Cage and Lindsey both may be sadistic, but me?  I hold the trump card.  I have an ace up my sleeve that will wipe all of you off the map.  I have an atomic bomb ready to drop that will rock IWC’s very foundation and when I drop that bomb no one will be talking about Buehler’s feud with Jessica Wilde, Taylor Chase’s quest to regain the world title, or Tina Valentine’s feud with everyone on the other team…

…no, the world will be talking about Karen McBride.

So to my nine fellow combatants on Riot, come prepared, come ready for the shock of your lives.  Whether you believe it or not, the fact is that I am going to be the biggest impact player in that match.  The fact is that I am in the driver’s seat and you are all about to go on McBride’s Ride.  For some of you that will be a good thing but for most, it won’t be very good.  It will be bad.  Very, very bad.

According to scripture, the name of God is so holy that it is not supposed to be pronounced.  And yet, according to Jewish legend, Adam’s first wife, a woman by the name of Lilith…that should strike a chord with you, eh, Abigail?...got pissed off with Adam and God and just decided to hell with it all.  She decided to speak the unspeakable.

Lilith spoke the name of God.

Creation was never the same again.  According to the myth, the history of womankind was forever altered as a result of her refusing to say silent.

Now it’s my turn.  I am going to become the new Lilith as I speak the unspeakable and destroy everything that you thought you knew.  I am going to take what some of these people in this ten person tag team match, I’m going to take what they believed to be true and reveal it to be nothing but lies.  In the process, the history of IWC will be forever altered.