Lay of the Land Part One (Veronica Strader AD Promo)
Jan 14, 2022 18:46:40 GMT -5
Marcus Welsh likes this
Post by Veronica Strader on Jan 14, 2022 18:46:40 GMT -5
Detroit, Michigan USA
January 9th, 2022
Sunday Evening
The wind off the Detroit River always grips the city within its icy clutches and this winter was no different for the transient-border-town. Cara used to ramble on about her childhood in Windsor (while Veronica was stuck in Victoria's psyche) and how her parents, the same parents that bought Cara from their grandfather, had eventually moved back to London because of the death and decay of the Motor City and the way it had been infecting the Canadian border city. Veronica remembers not being able to do anything about it back then but that certainly wasn't the case anymore.
That was part of the curse aspect to the affliction within the Rivers family bloodline that flowed through her father, The Raven, cousin Queenie Machine, and OCW’s own Supreme Machine. However, they were all different. Knox’s affliction, The Raven, appeared in his mind taking the form of his dead mother. Queenie is connected to Jennifer Rivers, who can make Jenny do whatever she wants. Then there is the Supreme Machine; sweet Thomas Rivers who struggles to keep the monster at bay while the monster keeps the predators away. Veronica was different; she had been aware since Victoria took her first breath and had been waiting for the moment she could take over. She tried to take over when they were young, but Cara stopped it. She never told anyone about it either. After all, they were nine years old when it happened. One of those 'kids say the strangest things' moments.
Veronica remembered waking up in control after over a decade later when Victoria was abducted during OCW's Masters of Macabre event in England. A motley crew of her family, an ex-lover and a former soldier turned OCW CFO showed up to help, but Veronica couldn’t take all the credit for that as it was Victoria that was able to get the guard’s cell phone and reach out for help. It was too late, though; Veronica had started to gain her power and took full control just days before she dominated at OCW’s event, Death March. She couldn’t let the chance of Victoria chickening out from becoming hated for doing what was best for her career.
It is past midnight and the wind is blowing off the Detroit River making the dampness sink into someone's bones and giving a chill to the night air. She stands on the sidewalk on a block of abandoned houses that had sheltered families at one time until the fall of the Motor City and has now turned into crack dens for the most part. Wearing a purple Canada Goose winter jacket, purple jeans, purple winter Uggs and a Red Wings toque covers her blonde hair. She stands looking over the homes and making sure her Glock was accessible as she readjusted her winter coat as this was Detroit after dark after all. She was here to get some recon to give herself the upper advantage. Her in-ring capabilities were excellent, but she was still very much a rookie, but that didn’t mean she should be underestimated. Veronica could and would make that the individual regret that, and one big reason is that she does her homework.
As she walks down the abandoned block of homes that will be used for ACCESS DENIED to see if she could get a feel for the setting, she would have to find the upper hand against a highly-skilled former Craze Champion like Dylan Thomas. The New Year could be huge for Veronica, but she has to show she can defend a title and walk her path in OCW first before getting too far ahead of herself. She knows that. Taking a right she walks up to the house’s front porch.
“Hello, anybody home?”
Ronnie peeks through the front window and sees a set of stairs to the left and to the right a living room area. She can see three men making Crack in the kitchen because of a giant hole in the divider wall. She quietly steps away and heads back down to the street. Her phone vibrates so she pulls it out from the inside of her coat. The pretty face of The Head Mistress appears on the contact card screen of her iPhone 13 Pro, illuminating her rosy red cheeks. She hits silent, not send to voicemail, as Marcy could be sensitive.
“Later, Marcy. I feel a promo coming on."
She shakes her head as she sees the family cameraman railing prescription opiates in the blacked out Cadillac Escalade rental on top of the centre console. Veronica yells out to him.
“Harold, get that line up your nose and grab the camera,” she says to the opiate junkie. He was the best in the business however so she kept him high and laid. Not by her you cretins, but by ladies of the evening. She was starting to have an affectionate attitude towards Roxxie and Marcy so she wouldn’t ask them to take Harold for a ride. They already have shown her they will shoot where she points and has no need to further test their loyalty in that regard.
Harold came shuffling forward, catching himself and looking up at her sheepishly before steadying the camera. She sees the green light on the camera light up and knows it is go-time. She unzips her winter jacket just enough to show she has the TA title on around her waist.
“Oh my OCW Faithful, it’s been a hell of a lead up to Access Denied but I have kept myself in ring shape, getting off my ass to challenge the roster and consistently showing I am the hardest working champion here. The fools outside of OCW… they think I am the bad guy. Why? Because I chose OCW. I chose to be Strong, and you better fucking believe it when I say how PROUD I am to be a part of this company. To be OCW Together & Forever is something some people only dream of. Not me, I don't just dream... I make it a reality.”
She pivots and starts walking down the sidewalk of abandoned homes she and Dylan will be ransacking in search of what’s around her waist come PPV event. She turns and looks over her left shoulder into the camera.
“I have shown that here. I have also demonstrated that I can take the heat and keep on busting my butt to show the world just exactly who I am. Well, I am here to tell you, my OCW Faithful, that I am Veronica Strader the Trans-Atlantic Champion, and not even Dylan Thomas can change that; try as he may.”
She stops and points to her right at a crack house. Turning around, she is now pointing to her left.
“I am scouting where I will be fighting all the while in search of my baby,” she says, placing her left hand on the front plate of Magnum TA. “Plus, I promised Victoria I would do right by her and part of doing right is retaining this beautiful title. No one needs to worry, everyone’s sweetheart will be ok; Mama Ronnie is looking after her now,” she says with a wink.
She starts walking up a barely shovelled walkway to one of the possible spots that could appear in the match at ACCESS DENIED. The house is a small two-storey unit; in through the front door, the stairs are on the immediate left after a small shitty closet that barely held a family’s worth of winter jackets. An small kitchen to the right and a narrow hallway that leads to the living/dining area. She stops just before the stairs to the decrepit boarded-up home, and she smiles as she turns around.
“Dylan, I know you are good, as I have watched your previous matches because I am smart enough to not write anyone off. You had a weird year of being the bad guy, but then the faithful started to cheer for you. What’s great about OCW fans is that they are loyal. They will cheer for you at one point or another because we return that same energy towards them by putting forth a product they can’t get anywhere else... WRESTLING. Also on top of the shenanigans this industry can put forth like Elephants named Gregory and a sponsorship deal with Chucky the TV series giving me Good Guy Security, but you knew that when you stole him from me. My OCW Faithfuls though? They love me and I absolutely adore them. The sky's the limit with them supporting me and chanting my name.”
She smiles and rubs her hands together with her slender smartphone gloves before pointing up at the house.
“At ACCESS DENIED, we will be dropped here, we’ll search for my belt, but spoiler alert: it will be me that finds it because make no mistake Dylan… you ain't walking out of this with MY Trans-Atlantic Championship. Looking up at that house I can't help but wonder if throwing you off the top will feel as good as it did tossing out the trash (Cara) a month back? Will it have the same level of satisfaction for it to be worth it? Will it be worth it? This belt, my first championship, will make risking your physical health more than worth it.”
“One might think Victoria is more dangerous than I but I know everything she knows about wrestling. While she was training, so was I. Learning as well. I know I have what it takes to win this match and retain my championship when the challenge arises. Maybe my opponents weren’t of the highest tier for me to knock off, but I am the only one around here to come out with back-to-back-to-back-to-back weeks of matches with wins because I respect this sport, and I am not going to disrespect it as you have by not even bothering to get yourself into ring shape.”
She begins walking down the pathway to the street.
“Let’s rewind back before Death March: you went on a crazy quest in the Orient to get a Mortal Kombat Sub-Zero costume that you could’ve just ordered on Amazon, and had it in your hands with one-day delivery with Prime! But nope, you end up in some weird Yakuza or some oriental-based gang chase. All so you could come back to North America, fly to the YUKON in THE GREAT NATION TO THE NORTH just too damn near freeze to death to be funny, ironic, or whatever, but one thing for sure about it: it was really stupid.”
Her laughs are disarming as they were sweet-sounding but it still didn’t indicate how far she was willing to go. When her laughter subsides, she begins walking back to the Escalade as Harold walks backwards to continue filming her.
“So for whatever reason you are getting a shot at my Trans-Atlantic Championship. Marcus is nothing if at all else fair, but to be honest I am left scratching my head concerning this one. Maybe it's because there was no one else to fill the spot, or maybe it was to be unpredictable but the one thing I can’t deny is your skill, Dylan, and that’s why I didn’t blow a gasket when the match was announced. Someone with an actual skill set that I can use to measure just how far I have come. You know I am not going to sell you short, but I'm not selling myself short either. Our back and forth should've told you that I definitely do not take you lightly."
Snowflakes fall from the sky, and our Ronnie looks up, catching a few snowflakes with the tip of her rosy pink tongue.
“When January 30th, 2022 rolls around, be sure to wear thermal undergarments under your gear because it would be a shame to see you falling short AGAIN because you didn’t take this seriously... AGAIN,” she remarks with a devilish grin. “But you aren’t getting my strap. Come Carpe Noctem; it will be me defending this championship, not you. But maybe if you put on a good showing you'll get another shot against Ed Houston or whoever the Craze champion is by then as Erin Gordon or The Lost Stranger could very well choose my Trans-Atlantic Championship over the Craze Championship. Anything is possible Dylan but there is one thing that definitely won't change: and that's me as champion.”
She smiles once more before it turns into a sneer.
“Remember Dylan… God forgives. I don’t."
Harold hits stop on the camera and starts back toward the Escalade as well. She hops into the driver’s seat after and waits for Harold to get in the passenger seat. Luckily it’s been running for a bit.
“That was good, Miss Strader. You remind me of your grandpa. He wasn’t always the best human being, but he was good to me, just like you are,” he says quietly, embarrassed he let that much out.
"I owe Scott Nash Strader a thank you for waking up Victoria's need for me. All those horrible things Dio tried to do because of his brother, that asshole...”
“Knox?”
Vee bites her tongue and looks over at Harold who realized his mistake that instant.
“I’ll just pretend that I didn’t hear that, Harold.”
The Escalade disappears into the night.
OOC: 2229 words
January 9th, 2022
Sunday Evening
The wind off the Detroit River always grips the city within its icy clutches and this winter was no different for the transient-border-town. Cara used to ramble on about her childhood in Windsor (while Veronica was stuck in Victoria's psyche) and how her parents, the same parents that bought Cara from their grandfather, had eventually moved back to London because of the death and decay of the Motor City and the way it had been infecting the Canadian border city. Veronica remembers not being able to do anything about it back then but that certainly wasn't the case anymore.
That was part of the curse aspect to the affliction within the Rivers family bloodline that flowed through her father, The Raven, cousin Queenie Machine, and OCW’s own Supreme Machine. However, they were all different. Knox’s affliction, The Raven, appeared in his mind taking the form of his dead mother. Queenie is connected to Jennifer Rivers, who can make Jenny do whatever she wants. Then there is the Supreme Machine; sweet Thomas Rivers who struggles to keep the monster at bay while the monster keeps the predators away. Veronica was different; she had been aware since Victoria took her first breath and had been waiting for the moment she could take over. She tried to take over when they were young, but Cara stopped it. She never told anyone about it either. After all, they were nine years old when it happened. One of those 'kids say the strangest things' moments.
Veronica remembered waking up in control after over a decade later when Victoria was abducted during OCW's Masters of Macabre event in England. A motley crew of her family, an ex-lover and a former soldier turned OCW CFO showed up to help, but Veronica couldn’t take all the credit for that as it was Victoria that was able to get the guard’s cell phone and reach out for help. It was too late, though; Veronica had started to gain her power and took full control just days before she dominated at OCW’s event, Death March. She couldn’t let the chance of Victoria chickening out from becoming hated for doing what was best for her career.
It is past midnight and the wind is blowing off the Detroit River making the dampness sink into someone's bones and giving a chill to the night air. She stands on the sidewalk on a block of abandoned houses that had sheltered families at one time until the fall of the Motor City and has now turned into crack dens for the most part. Wearing a purple Canada Goose winter jacket, purple jeans, purple winter Uggs and a Red Wings toque covers her blonde hair. She stands looking over the homes and making sure her Glock was accessible as she readjusted her winter coat as this was Detroit after dark after all. She was here to get some recon to give herself the upper advantage. Her in-ring capabilities were excellent, but she was still very much a rookie, but that didn’t mean she should be underestimated. Veronica could and would make that the individual regret that, and one big reason is that she does her homework.
As she walks down the abandoned block of homes that will be used for ACCESS DENIED to see if she could get a feel for the setting, she would have to find the upper hand against a highly-skilled former Craze Champion like Dylan Thomas. The New Year could be huge for Veronica, but she has to show she can defend a title and walk her path in OCW first before getting too far ahead of herself. She knows that. Taking a right she walks up to the house’s front porch.
“Hello, anybody home?”
Ronnie peeks through the front window and sees a set of stairs to the left and to the right a living room area. She can see three men making Crack in the kitchen because of a giant hole in the divider wall. She quietly steps away and heads back down to the street. Her phone vibrates so she pulls it out from the inside of her coat. The pretty face of The Head Mistress appears on the contact card screen of her iPhone 13 Pro, illuminating her rosy red cheeks. She hits silent, not send to voicemail, as Marcy could be sensitive.
“Later, Marcy. I feel a promo coming on."
She shakes her head as she sees the family cameraman railing prescription opiates in the blacked out Cadillac Escalade rental on top of the centre console. Veronica yells out to him.
“Harold, get that line up your nose and grab the camera,” she says to the opiate junkie. He was the best in the business however so she kept him high and laid. Not by her you cretins, but by ladies of the evening. She was starting to have an affectionate attitude towards Roxxie and Marcy so she wouldn’t ask them to take Harold for a ride. They already have shown her they will shoot where she points and has no need to further test their loyalty in that regard.
Harold came shuffling forward, catching himself and looking up at her sheepishly before steadying the camera. She sees the green light on the camera light up and knows it is go-time. She unzips her winter jacket just enough to show she has the TA title on around her waist.
“Oh my OCW Faithful, it’s been a hell of a lead up to Access Denied but I have kept myself in ring shape, getting off my ass to challenge the roster and consistently showing I am the hardest working champion here. The fools outside of OCW… they think I am the bad guy. Why? Because I chose OCW. I chose to be Strong, and you better fucking believe it when I say how PROUD I am to be a part of this company. To be OCW Together & Forever is something some people only dream of. Not me, I don't just dream... I make it a reality.”
She pivots and starts walking down the sidewalk of abandoned homes she and Dylan will be ransacking in search of what’s around her waist come PPV event. She turns and looks over her left shoulder into the camera.
“I have shown that here. I have also demonstrated that I can take the heat and keep on busting my butt to show the world just exactly who I am. Well, I am here to tell you, my OCW Faithful, that I am Veronica Strader the Trans-Atlantic Champion, and not even Dylan Thomas can change that; try as he may.”
She stops and points to her right at a crack house. Turning around, she is now pointing to her left.
“I am scouting where I will be fighting all the while in search of my baby,” she says, placing her left hand on the front plate of Magnum TA. “Plus, I promised Victoria I would do right by her and part of doing right is retaining this beautiful title. No one needs to worry, everyone’s sweetheart will be ok; Mama Ronnie is looking after her now,” she says with a wink.
She starts walking up a barely shovelled walkway to one of the possible spots that could appear in the match at ACCESS DENIED. The house is a small two-storey unit; in through the front door, the stairs are on the immediate left after a small shitty closet that barely held a family’s worth of winter jackets. An small kitchen to the right and a narrow hallway that leads to the living/dining area. She stops just before the stairs to the decrepit boarded-up home, and she smiles as she turns around.
“Dylan, I know you are good, as I have watched your previous matches because I am smart enough to not write anyone off. You had a weird year of being the bad guy, but then the faithful started to cheer for you. What’s great about OCW fans is that they are loyal. They will cheer for you at one point or another because we return that same energy towards them by putting forth a product they can’t get anywhere else... WRESTLING. Also on top of the shenanigans this industry can put forth like Elephants named Gregory and a sponsorship deal with Chucky the TV series giving me Good Guy Security, but you knew that when you stole him from me. My OCW Faithfuls though? They love me and I absolutely adore them. The sky's the limit with them supporting me and chanting my name.”
She smiles and rubs her hands together with her slender smartphone gloves before pointing up at the house.
“At ACCESS DENIED, we will be dropped here, we’ll search for my belt, but spoiler alert: it will be me that finds it because make no mistake Dylan… you ain't walking out of this with MY Trans-Atlantic Championship. Looking up at that house I can't help but wonder if throwing you off the top will feel as good as it did tossing out the trash (Cara) a month back? Will it have the same level of satisfaction for it to be worth it? Will it be worth it? This belt, my first championship, will make risking your physical health more than worth it.”
“One might think Victoria is more dangerous than I but I know everything she knows about wrestling. While she was training, so was I. Learning as well. I know I have what it takes to win this match and retain my championship when the challenge arises. Maybe my opponents weren’t of the highest tier for me to knock off, but I am the only one around here to come out with back-to-back-to-back-to-back weeks of matches with wins because I respect this sport, and I am not going to disrespect it as you have by not even bothering to get yourself into ring shape.”
She begins walking down the pathway to the street.
“Let’s rewind back before Death March: you went on a crazy quest in the Orient to get a Mortal Kombat Sub-Zero costume that you could’ve just ordered on Amazon, and had it in your hands with one-day delivery with Prime! But nope, you end up in some weird Yakuza or some oriental-based gang chase. All so you could come back to North America, fly to the YUKON in THE GREAT NATION TO THE NORTH just too damn near freeze to death to be funny, ironic, or whatever, but one thing for sure about it: it was really stupid.”
Her laughs are disarming as they were sweet-sounding but it still didn’t indicate how far she was willing to go. When her laughter subsides, she begins walking back to the Escalade as Harold walks backwards to continue filming her.
“So for whatever reason you are getting a shot at my Trans-Atlantic Championship. Marcus is nothing if at all else fair, but to be honest I am left scratching my head concerning this one. Maybe it's because there was no one else to fill the spot, or maybe it was to be unpredictable but the one thing I can’t deny is your skill, Dylan, and that’s why I didn’t blow a gasket when the match was announced. Someone with an actual skill set that I can use to measure just how far I have come. You know I am not going to sell you short, but I'm not selling myself short either. Our back and forth should've told you that I definitely do not take you lightly."
Snowflakes fall from the sky, and our Ronnie looks up, catching a few snowflakes with the tip of her rosy pink tongue.
“When January 30th, 2022 rolls around, be sure to wear thermal undergarments under your gear because it would be a shame to see you falling short AGAIN because you didn’t take this seriously... AGAIN,” she remarks with a devilish grin. “But you aren’t getting my strap. Come Carpe Noctem; it will be me defending this championship, not you. But maybe if you put on a good showing you'll get another shot against Ed Houston or whoever the Craze champion is by then as Erin Gordon or The Lost Stranger could very well choose my Trans-Atlantic Championship over the Craze Championship. Anything is possible Dylan but there is one thing that definitely won't change: and that's me as champion.”
She smiles once more before it turns into a sneer.
“Remember Dylan… God forgives. I don’t."
Harold hits stop on the camera and starts back toward the Escalade as well. She hops into the driver’s seat after and waits for Harold to get in the passenger seat. Luckily it’s been running for a bit.
“That was good, Miss Strader. You remind me of your grandpa. He wasn’t always the best human being, but he was good to me, just like you are,” he says quietly, embarrassed he let that much out.
"I owe Scott Nash Strader a thank you for waking up Victoria's need for me. All those horrible things Dio tried to do because of his brother, that asshole...”
“Knox?”
Vee bites her tongue and looks over at Harold who realized his mistake that instant.
“I’ll just pretend that I didn’t hear that, Harold.”
The Escalade disappears into the night.
OOC: 2229 words
