MMP: Heart Breaker, Dream Maker, Belt Taker
Aug 19, 2022 18:36:27 GMT -5
PIC and Diana Watts like this
Post by handbaskets on Aug 19, 2022 18:36:27 GMT -5
Merrie Melodies Presents Heart Breaker, Dream Maker, Belt Taker
It’s like it knows that just enough light is all you need to see its suffocating power.
Running. Again. Through blackness. Flashes of light and the numbing, soul-crushing silence. Helena couldn’t even hear herself breathe even as she was hyperventilating.
All at once, she was six again, backed into a closet, that terrible silence broken by the screaming of her parents. Her mother Kealy was drunk again, and the man she had thought was her father was on something. While they were physically abusive, to this day Helena winced when people raised their voices. The shouting was mildly better than the silence, but she wished she could scream too. She wanted to leap up and scream at them to stop, and even as her lungs filled with the breath to do it, Helena knew she couldn’t. Through the fear was a small comforting hand on her back, the wavering sound of humming replacing the yelling.
Snap. Back to reality. Sleep paralysis. The young woman had suffered from it most of her life. Gravity gave way the blond fell out of her small trundle bed. A probable dozen girlfriends and she still found it untenable to do any actual sleeping in the presence of another. Helena shook her head, her body heavy and slow to react, feeling numb. Just as she wondered what was wrong, her eyes caught the digital clock and widened.
9:03 pm Monday, August 22TH
Feck! Second biggest match of her career and she was late. Panic. Again. Helena quickly grabbed her gear bag and boosted board, forcing her legs to pick up the race on a pell-mell sprint out of the flat. Racing out in the lobby of the building and it was filled with people, fans wearing shirts. Her girlfriends…Her father. Her *real* father. Knox had taken the time off to come see the match. Yet when she tried to get his attention he didn’t turn around. Helena tried again, clapping him square in the back.
Nothing. No reaction what’s so ever and it was there again, the urge to scream in the back of her mind. It was bubbling up through her belly, into her chest and it got stuck clawing at her throat. The scratching of a killer coming from within. Helena’s limbs felt heavy, as she realized she wasn’t just numb from the shock but sinking into the floor. The blond tried to struggle to whip her limbs around, snorting like a bull with effort. All around her the people just melted. They fell apart. Helena watched in watched silent horror.
Forced to attempt to fight out of the pit pulling her, as Nadia’s face fell, flesh slid off bone, blood stripping from the skin, skin peeling away, leaving in its wake ashen piles of bleached bone as if the place was hit with a nuke. Sinking too rapidly to do anything but fight fruitless, Helena reached up one more to catch a hand, that gripped firmly and pulled.
Helena was in the arena, limbs still feeling heavy, still breathing hard. Except now she’s on the entrance ramp, music playing overhead. Next to her was Lou? Except Lou was a literal giant weasel, complete with suit and tie, trilby and spectacles hanging off his snout. They stared at each other until the terrifying Pixar movie escapee picked a mic out of his pocket. Huh. Neat.
"I knew it, I knew it. There's been two of you troublemakers all along!”
Helena just kind of shrugged at the large mammal man, yes it was Helenas all along. He did in fact have a point. Not that she could say much about it. Too busy trying to see what was going on in the ring. There was a giant beam of light flinging something around.
In the ring, Helena was badly avoiding being flattened by what she presumed was Crash. He was a massive form of light, that was doing his best Incredible Hulk teaching Loki that he is a punny god impression with her face all over the mat.
“Oi, mate Ow!” Slam. “CRASH!” Bang. “FECK.” Boom. Over and into the mat again. With tweety birds flapping around her head. “JESUS CHRIST ON A CRABCAKE AND HE HATED SHELLFISH. STOP.”
From there it was many variants of to the moon Alice, Helena could not muster any kind of defense for Crash Rodriguez’s overwhelming power game. At least not this version of her. The Atomic Blond had a Canadian Goose-sized headache as the beam of Crash picked her up over what was probably the head she hoped and spun her like a battle top.
On the outside of the ring, the self-made furry convention was staring daggers into her. Helena just stared in silence, letting that urge to roar, part in fury part in terror build in her lungs again as Louweasel rounded to launch a verbal assault.
“You cloned yourself or something? What could neither of you manage alone so you had to team up? That’s pathetic and yet you both persist in thinking that you’re going to take my clients title? Talk about a fantasy land. Face it kid, NEITHER OF YOU can cut it and you never will, you’re going to lose and run off like your pal Baumer. Just another cut rate circus act trying to easy money in the wrestle Biz.”
Weaslou was all her insecurities, every time the voice in Helena’s head had told her that she wasn’t good enough. Every time she had to get up off the mat, wanted to yell, but couldn’t. Every time the threatening silence became overwhelming. Helena wanted to respond, to speak, to say anything but knowing that would never happen, she tensed up to lunge.
Just then a form came barreling out of the air and hit the ground, rolling several yards to a stop.
“Did anyone get the number of that feckin orbital station that hit me?”
This time, Helena Handbasket reached out and pulled her double off the floor, the other young blond perfectly identical to her, wearing the usual odd mismatched ring gear. The blonde stood, huffed and dusted herself up. She looked around and took in the scene.
“They’re right, ya know. We can’t do this as us. We’ve always done this together, that’s how we have to do it. You go do you’re thing, leave this to me.”
Helena felt the grin tug at her face, that characteristic nose scrunching look. The Atomic Blond stepped forward, before a gentle hand caught her shoulder.
“Oi, gemme the coat. Stop with the look, just give me the coat. Why isn’t important? You want a show?, give her super girl her cape. In the words of Beetlejuice, it’s feckin SHOWTIME!”
Helena shrugged, and pulled the lapels of the white coat back, off her shoulders watching as the other flipped the garment up and slid it on, taking the mic out of Louweasel’s hand as she spread her arms and twirled down the ramp.
“You caught a point there, Poindexter. Two halves, and neither of us could do this without each other. Neither of us could hold ourselves together long enough to do anythin else. You got to admit, it's a helluva clever trick. What’s more? It feckin works. The Mustela among us only smelled a trick because the slime also pours off him like the rains in Africa. It’s not a fantasy weasel pants, I have become, Dream maker, heart breaker and belt taker. To a One. Unlike you, Badda Bing Badda Boom, and unlike your manager, I’m not all trick and I’m not all trouble.”
Helena hauled ass down the ramp and slid into the ring. Crash looked crazed, but he was also huffing and puffing. Big man had to fight twice tonight, and obviously his pride had kept him from letting Ball Ball handle everything. The Atomic Blond dropped under his running boot, rolling out of the way to pop up and sling shot off the ropes landing on his back. The Crooked Man bucked like a bull, reaching for her as she locked in a choke and a standing body scissors. Crazed boy started flailing, and fading.
"I’m just the right balance of both and the only thin pullin my rug did was make me stronger. It took you three years and just as many tries to win that belt, but me? I don’t wait in line. I make the opportunity and then I take it. I’m going to do that tonight, because this trick? This masterclass performance? It doesn’t hang around waiting for the scraps. I rocket up that feckin ladder. You’re a big angry rhino with a lot of heart and soul, BoomBoom and we’re goin to find out how many knees it takes to get the tootsie roll center of your face!”
Crash had drug himself over to the corner, slamming his back into the ring post as hard as he could as many times as he could. It dislodged Helena, who dropped again and stayed down as he tried for a running clothesline.
“Everythin Duke Weasltown pulled and it couldn’t get you up that hill any faster! Now look at you, double booked and gassed out. You can’t have it all, do you jump for the world title? Or do you put everything down right here? See, I don’t think you want to jump, you won, and you’re certainly not acting like you’ve got any more fire. Already a complacent champ, the dog who caught the car and doesn’t know what to do with it. You can’t be a champ and a dad, obviously as evidenced by last week. Me? Oh, I want that belt, I want the big stage, the hard fights, and all the feckin screen time. I'm aimin to help you out, Trainwreck. You want to be a good dad, and a good teammate. I sympathize. I'll remove that championship weight from those admittedly massive shoulders. Because what you’re goin to learn from me is that nothin is a war crime the first time and I’m goin to find what puts the car accident down! Ya know what GCMG stands for? God Calls Me God.”
Speed and timing. She just had to find an opening. Crash nailed her with a spine buster but she ate it on purpose, nailing him in the face with a knee on the way down. He pulled her up, racking up for the Crash Landing. Crash wanted this over. Helena kicked her feet, nailing him again in the head, he dropped her. Handbasket spun. SCREW U! Running to the drops she bounced off and followed it up with FECK OFF! CHAINED FINISHERS!
The big man fell. Helena dove for him…
“Here they come, Mrs Roose.”
“Doctor! They’re trying to come out side by and one of of them is a breach!”
“Push the breach back and try to pull the other out.”
“The umbilical cord’s wrapped around the neck. This one isn’t breathing.”
“Prep a bag and get a machine ready for a tracheostomy.”
Halsey and Bastila Roose had nearly been born at the exact same time on December 18th. Bastila had been born breach and had sustained neck injuries requiring a trach that had destroyed her voice box.
Someone rolling her over finally awoke Bastila. That someone was her twin sister. Halsey helped her sit up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.
“Ya know, I have GOT to fallin asleep with me legs curled up, and you, have got to stop sleepin face down on the couch. Sleep paralysis is a *bitcher* especially considerin we share this shite.”
They didn’t know why, but all they’re lives they were connected, sharing dreams, hearing each other's thoughts, and always knowing where the other was.
I’m sorry sis, I’m just-
“Worried? Yeah. I am too. It always feels like we’re just one jump ahead of the breadline. Just barely not failin here and there. OCW is a big deal cause everythin else is fallin off. The pressure is on. But we’ll never win if we can’t get some sleep.”
I think, I’m going to go join Nadia and Kayla, you know, so if I lapse into that again they can help.
“Good idea, I’m goin to go find Lyric and try to snooze while longer. We got this, together, we win together, we fail together. Even if we lose, we pick up and go on.”
Halsey patted her on the shoulder, and Bastila leaned into her, letting her calm glow trickling through their bond for a moment before got up and headed out of the living room.
It’s like it knows that just enough light is all you need to see its suffocating power.
Running. Again. Through blackness. Flashes of light and the numbing, soul-crushing silence. Helena couldn’t even hear herself breathe even as she was hyperventilating.
All at once, she was six again, backed into a closet, that terrible silence broken by the screaming of her parents. Her mother Kealy was drunk again, and the man she had thought was her father was on something. While they were physically abusive, to this day Helena winced when people raised their voices. The shouting was mildly better than the silence, but she wished she could scream too. She wanted to leap up and scream at them to stop, and even as her lungs filled with the breath to do it, Helena knew she couldn’t. Through the fear was a small comforting hand on her back, the wavering sound of humming replacing the yelling.
Snap. Back to reality. Sleep paralysis. The young woman had suffered from it most of her life. Gravity gave way the blond fell out of her small trundle bed. A probable dozen girlfriends and she still found it untenable to do any actual sleeping in the presence of another. Helena shook her head, her body heavy and slow to react, feeling numb. Just as she wondered what was wrong, her eyes caught the digital clock and widened.
9:03 pm Monday, August 22TH
Feck! Second biggest match of her career and she was late. Panic. Again. Helena quickly grabbed her gear bag and boosted board, forcing her legs to pick up the race on a pell-mell sprint out of the flat. Racing out in the lobby of the building and it was filled with people, fans wearing shirts. Her girlfriends…Her father. Her *real* father. Knox had taken the time off to come see the match. Yet when she tried to get his attention he didn’t turn around. Helena tried again, clapping him square in the back.
Nothing. No reaction what’s so ever and it was there again, the urge to scream in the back of her mind. It was bubbling up through her belly, into her chest and it got stuck clawing at her throat. The scratching of a killer coming from within. Helena’s limbs felt heavy, as she realized she wasn’t just numb from the shock but sinking into the floor. The blond tried to struggle to whip her limbs around, snorting like a bull with effort. All around her the people just melted. They fell apart. Helena watched in watched silent horror.
Forced to attempt to fight out of the pit pulling her, as Nadia’s face fell, flesh slid off bone, blood stripping from the skin, skin peeling away, leaving in its wake ashen piles of bleached bone as if the place was hit with a nuke. Sinking too rapidly to do anything but fight fruitless, Helena reached up one more to catch a hand, that gripped firmly and pulled.
Helena was in the arena, limbs still feeling heavy, still breathing hard. Except now she’s on the entrance ramp, music playing overhead. Next to her was Lou? Except Lou was a literal giant weasel, complete with suit and tie, trilby and spectacles hanging off his snout. They stared at each other until the terrifying Pixar movie escapee picked a mic out of his pocket. Huh. Neat.
"I knew it, I knew it. There's been two of you troublemakers all along!”
Helena just kind of shrugged at the large mammal man, yes it was Helenas all along. He did in fact have a point. Not that she could say much about it. Too busy trying to see what was going on in the ring. There was a giant beam of light flinging something around.
In the ring, Helena was badly avoiding being flattened by what she presumed was Crash. He was a massive form of light, that was doing his best Incredible Hulk teaching Loki that he is a punny god impression with her face all over the mat.
“Oi, mate Ow!” Slam. “CRASH!” Bang. “FECK.” Boom. Over and into the mat again. With tweety birds flapping around her head. “JESUS CHRIST ON A CRABCAKE AND HE HATED SHELLFISH. STOP.”
From there it was many variants of to the moon Alice, Helena could not muster any kind of defense for Crash Rodriguez’s overwhelming power game. At least not this version of her. The Atomic Blond had a Canadian Goose-sized headache as the beam of Crash picked her up over what was probably the head she hoped and spun her like a battle top.
On the outside of the ring, the self-made furry convention was staring daggers into her. Helena just stared in silence, letting that urge to roar, part in fury part in terror build in her lungs again as Louweasel rounded to launch a verbal assault.
“You cloned yourself or something? What could neither of you manage alone so you had to team up? That’s pathetic and yet you both persist in thinking that you’re going to take my clients title? Talk about a fantasy land. Face it kid, NEITHER OF YOU can cut it and you never will, you’re going to lose and run off like your pal Baumer. Just another cut rate circus act trying to easy money in the wrestle Biz.”
Weaslou was all her insecurities, every time the voice in Helena’s head had told her that she wasn’t good enough. Every time she had to get up off the mat, wanted to yell, but couldn’t. Every time the threatening silence became overwhelming. Helena wanted to respond, to speak, to say anything but knowing that would never happen, she tensed up to lunge.
Just then a form came barreling out of the air and hit the ground, rolling several yards to a stop.
“Did anyone get the number of that feckin orbital station that hit me?”
This time, Helena Handbasket reached out and pulled her double off the floor, the other young blond perfectly identical to her, wearing the usual odd mismatched ring gear. The blonde stood, huffed and dusted herself up. She looked around and took in the scene.
“They’re right, ya know. We can’t do this as us. We’ve always done this together, that’s how we have to do it. You go do you’re thing, leave this to me.”
Helena felt the grin tug at her face, that characteristic nose scrunching look. The Atomic Blond stepped forward, before a gentle hand caught her shoulder.
“Oi, gemme the coat. Stop with the look, just give me the coat. Why isn’t important? You want a show?, give her super girl her cape. In the words of Beetlejuice, it’s feckin SHOWTIME!”
Helena shrugged, and pulled the lapels of the white coat back, off her shoulders watching as the other flipped the garment up and slid it on, taking the mic out of Louweasel’s hand as she spread her arms and twirled down the ramp.
“You caught a point there, Poindexter. Two halves, and neither of us could do this without each other. Neither of us could hold ourselves together long enough to do anythin else. You got to admit, it's a helluva clever trick. What’s more? It feckin works. The Mustela among us only smelled a trick because the slime also pours off him like the rains in Africa. It’s not a fantasy weasel pants, I have become, Dream maker, heart breaker and belt taker. To a One. Unlike you, Badda Bing Badda Boom, and unlike your manager, I’m not all trick and I’m not all trouble.”
Helena hauled ass down the ramp and slid into the ring. Crash looked crazed, but he was also huffing and puffing. Big man had to fight twice tonight, and obviously his pride had kept him from letting Ball Ball handle everything. The Atomic Blond dropped under his running boot, rolling out of the way to pop up and sling shot off the ropes landing on his back. The Crooked Man bucked like a bull, reaching for her as she locked in a choke and a standing body scissors. Crazed boy started flailing, and fading.
"I’m just the right balance of both and the only thin pullin my rug did was make me stronger. It took you three years and just as many tries to win that belt, but me? I don’t wait in line. I make the opportunity and then I take it. I’m going to do that tonight, because this trick? This masterclass performance? It doesn’t hang around waiting for the scraps. I rocket up that feckin ladder. You’re a big angry rhino with a lot of heart and soul, BoomBoom and we’re goin to find out how many knees it takes to get the tootsie roll center of your face!”
Crash had drug himself over to the corner, slamming his back into the ring post as hard as he could as many times as he could. It dislodged Helena, who dropped again and stayed down as he tried for a running clothesline.
“Everythin Duke Weasltown pulled and it couldn’t get you up that hill any faster! Now look at you, double booked and gassed out. You can’t have it all, do you jump for the world title? Or do you put everything down right here? See, I don’t think you want to jump, you won, and you’re certainly not acting like you’ve got any more fire. Already a complacent champ, the dog who caught the car and doesn’t know what to do with it. You can’t be a champ and a dad, obviously as evidenced by last week. Me? Oh, I want that belt, I want the big stage, the hard fights, and all the feckin screen time. I'm aimin to help you out, Trainwreck. You want to be a good dad, and a good teammate. I sympathize. I'll remove that championship weight from those admittedly massive shoulders. Because what you’re goin to learn from me is that nothin is a war crime the first time and I’m goin to find what puts the car accident down! Ya know what GCMG stands for? God Calls Me God.”
Speed and timing. She just had to find an opening. Crash nailed her with a spine buster but she ate it on purpose, nailing him in the face with a knee on the way down. He pulled her up, racking up for the Crash Landing. Crash wanted this over. Helena kicked her feet, nailing him again in the head, he dropped her. Handbasket spun. SCREW U! Running to the drops she bounced off and followed it up with FECK OFF! CHAINED FINISHERS!
The big man fell. Helena dove for him…
“Here they come, Mrs Roose.”
“Doctor! They’re trying to come out side by and one of of them is a breach!”
“Push the breach back and try to pull the other out.”
“The umbilical cord’s wrapped around the neck. This one isn’t breathing.”
“Prep a bag and get a machine ready for a tracheostomy.”
Halsey and Bastila Roose had nearly been born at the exact same time on December 18th. Bastila had been born breach and had sustained neck injuries requiring a trach that had destroyed her voice box.
Someone rolling her over finally awoke Bastila. That someone was her twin sister. Halsey helped her sit up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.
“Ya know, I have GOT to fallin asleep with me legs curled up, and you, have got to stop sleepin face down on the couch. Sleep paralysis is a *bitcher* especially considerin we share this shite.”
They didn’t know why, but all they’re lives they were connected, sharing dreams, hearing each other's thoughts, and always knowing where the other was.
I’m sorry sis, I’m just-
“Worried? Yeah. I am too. It always feels like we’re just one jump ahead of the breadline. Just barely not failin here and there. OCW is a big deal cause everythin else is fallin off. The pressure is on. But we’ll never win if we can’t get some sleep.”
I think, I’m going to go join Nadia and Kayla, you know, so if I lapse into that again they can help.
“Good idea, I’m goin to go find Lyric and try to snooze while longer. We got this, together, we win together, we fail together. Even if we lose, we pick up and go on.”
Halsey patted her on the shoulder, and Bastila leaned into her, letting her calm glow trickling through their bond for a moment before got up and headed out of the living room.