OOC NOTES: Everything in RED is visible to public cameras and ears (if they were close enough). Everything in ashen grey is not.
The crowd around the ring roars in anticipation, feeling like they are witnessing something special. KALI ascends the turnbuckle forward, looking behind her at the prone EMERGE Champion as she does. All she can hear is the crowd around her. All she feels is the adrenaline coursing through her veins. This was it. This was going to be the moment she hit immortality. KALI smiles and jumps, twisting around in a corkscrew moonsault. Time seems to slow down as she lingers upside down. But it was not to be… she looks down to see Willow rolling out of the way avoiding being contacted by KALI’s double-stomp. Still, the twisted challenger manages to land on her feet, rolling on the canvas before springing to her feet. It’s then, as she regains her balance, that Willow strikes forward, clasping her hand across KALI’s face with Willow’s Wisp. KALI fights against the hold, trying to pull Willow’s hand away from her, but Willow’s hold is too strong. She feels her body going limp as she struggles against the hold…
Then blackness.
KALI’s eyes open, and she finds herself lost on a plane that she couldn’t understand. Looking down, her ring gear had been replaced, leaving her barefoot in a black dress. Her war wounds were invisible, leaving her without the scars of a lifetime of self-punishment. She was standing alone in an eternal void.
“Hello?” she hollers off into the distance, only hearing an echo as response. She walks around, wondering where she was, how she got there. Was this purgatory? Hell? KALI had often imagined that her personal hell would be something completely removed from contact for anyone else. She walked, every footstep leaving an indelible mark behind her. Every step feels like an eternity as she goes along. Wondering if the rhetoric from Jason King, from Cindy Todd, was correct, she looked around with greater urgency.
Finally, she spots another body.
“Hello! I’m KALI, and I’m…” she rushes over to the person, who turns to face her. KALI stops in her tracks, her face widening into an expression never before expressed for anyone in public. Her bottom lip begins to quiver as she slows her approach. “Mama?”
The other woman reacts to KALI’s realization with a warm and welcoming smile. A stunning figure of youth, the woman’s hair flows down her back in it’s natural light brown, her facial features untouched by makeup in this, not remarkable yet somehow beautiful.
“Hello, baby,” she says in a soft, endearing manner, extending her arms. KALI, unafraid of her uncertain surroundings, rushes towards the woman – her mother – and embraces her, hugging her tightly. For the first time in a long time, KALI felt safe… vulnerable, even.
“What are you doing here?” she asked confused. For all KALI knew, “she” was laying lifeless inside a wrestling ring, smote at the hands (or hand) of Willow Wilkes. “What is this place? Am I…?”
KALI mouths the word “dead”, unable to verbalize the thought. Her mother laughs, shaking her head. “No, baby. You’re still very much alive.”
KALI breathed out a sigh – not certain if it was relief or disappointment. Not quite able to comprehend her state, she continues looking around. “What is this place then?”
“This?” her mother smiles in a bemused manner. “This is anything you want it to be.”
“But it’s all empty,” KALI responds. She looks out, her eyes focusing only on whiteness. Her mother laughs.
“That’s because you haven’t decided what it is yet, baby,” she says. “This can be a place where you feel most at home… most comfortable. I imagine that’s why I’m here… so just think… think about where you want to be. Think about where you would feel most comfortable.”
KALI nods, closing her eyes to imagine where she wants to be more than anything else. When she opens them, she is amazed at what she sees: A small house, soft carpet between her toes, a colour TV, and a peaceful atmosphere. This wasn’t her upbringing. This wasn’t anything that Damian Angel’s movement afforded her. This was something pure… something KALI imagined was completely unattainable for someone of her proclivities. She looks around.
“Is that good, mama?” she asks, seeking approval. Her mother nods.
“Yes, baby,” she responds. “It’s very good.”
KALI basks in her mother’s approval, smiling contentedly. But while satisfied with her work, there is still sadness in her heart. She looks to her mother with sad eyes. “I missed you, mama.”
“I know, baby,” her mother says sympathetically. There is a tinge of heartbreak in her voice. “But you don’t need to worry about me. After the accident, I…”
Her mother stops talking. KALI knows what was coming next. She had replayed the accident in her mind so many times… how her father “accidentally” shot, thinking her mother was an intruder. How the paramedics tried to save her and failed. How she was stuck with a grief-stricken man who, like her, didn’t know how to express himself. It was then that KALI started having to fend for herself. It was then that she was susceptible to the influence of Damian Angel, changing the course of her entire life. Losing her mother fundamentally changed KALI at her core, and it was something she never really dealt with. A tear rolls down her cheek.
“Is she going to kill me?” KALI’s mother is taken aback by the question. Speechless, all that’s left is for KALI to explain. “I’m here. You’re here. This should be impossible, unless Willow was going to end my life now. Is she?”
With an almost-despondent look on her face, KALI’s mother shakes her head “no”. “She isn’t, baby,” she says, verbalizing the motion.
“But why?”
“Because,” her mother begins. “She and those like her believe you’re more trouble to them dead than you are alive. They don’t want to kill you because they think they can handle you.”
KALI is almost offended by this thought. Why should she be seen as more trouble dead than alive. Didn’t Willow appreciate how dangerous she was? Didn’t she look at KALI and see just how similar they are? How KALI’s damage put her in the same league as Willow? Didn’t Cindy Todd do her research and learn everything there was to know about KALI? Why, then, was she seen as “more trouble dead than alive”?
“They’re wrong…” she says, shaking her head.
“Baby, I…” her mother begins before KALI speaks up again, cutting her off.
“No, mama, you don’t understand,” she responds in defiance, living out the teenage life she never had the opportunity to for real. “They don’t want me around… they want me to be LESSER than them… to be a reminder of THEIR power. They don’t know what I’m REALLY capable of… I can show them! I have to show them!”
Her mother nods, smiling. “You do…”
DING!
The first bell tolls. KALI looks around, frantically trying to figure out the source of the bell. “What’s that?”
“The bell,” her mother says. “The match is over… the referee is calling it for Willow.”
“But,” KALI looks to her mother with wide eyes. “What will happen to you?”
“Baby, I’m always here with you,” her mother says, stepping forward and wrapping KALI in her arms. “Whatever you do, wherever you go, I go with you. And I am so darned proud of you, baby.”
DING!
Tears again form in KALI’s eyes as she feels her mother holding her close. “But I can’t do this without you… not anymore.”
“Yes you can,” her mother says, seeking to reassure KALI of her place. “You have so much to offer still… and you have to go out there. Go out there and show them all… prove to them what I already know. That you are the most dangerous woman to cross. That you are more than capable of tearing them apart. I want you to fulfill everything you have in front of you… and show them all… you can do it…”
DING!
“I love you, mama…” KALI says, her head nestled into her mother’s chest. She feels a rush, and her mother’s arms wrapped around her collapse into her. Her dream world falls into itself… KALI screams out…
KALI’s eyes open up. She sees the referee handing Willow Wilkes the EMERGE Championship as her best friend, Aubrianna Powers, slides into the ring, intent on pulling her out of danger before Jason King and Cindy Todd exercise their ill-intent. As KALI slides from the ring, gaining ground underneath of her feet. Aubrianna helps her make her way up the ramp, and KALI weakly exclaims…
“No,” she says, turning back towards the ring and looking… first at Cindy, then at Jason, finally… at Willow. She glares as she continues being pulled back. “I have to show them… I have to prove that I’m what I say…”
“You will, KALI,” Aubrey says, though whether she believed it or was merely placating her friend was unknown at this time. “You will…”
She pulls KALI back behind the curtain…
The scene goes black.