La Pequena Luz & Deanna Frost vs. The European Fiery Nation (Theron/Erikson)

[Wisteria Waltz]

Everything seemed so much simpler when La Pequeña Luz first began her wrestling career.

It was all about the competition, the stories you could tell in the ring, what kind of figure she would be seen as in her country's very culture. At worst, if things ever escalated between you and another competitor, it would result in things such as masks, hair, even careers being put on the line, a sign of the ultimate stakes of winner takes all. Through it all, though, everything was ultimately settled in the ring, no matter how those stories ended.

Now, Luz knew that life was never as simple as the wrestling business often made it look. After all, she'd been bullied growing up simply for being 'weird' in the eyes of her peers, not to mention she watched her father lose his life in a tragic in-ring accident... only to learn years later just how deep the effort was to orchestrate that nightmare and how many more people ultimately got hurt because of it. Still, if you had asked her if she would find herself in this position several years after she finally made her wrestling debut, she might've assumed you were messing with her just to see how she'd react.

First of all, she had assumed that with Deanna Frost finally back once more, her and Asher Hayes having a unification match over the United States Championship would've been it as far as Rise to Greatness went, and she would've actually been fine with that. True, she technically still had her rematch she'd never used from when Asher had beaten her for the interim belt, but she had been willing to wait until the title finally had an undisputed champion before trying to throw her hat back into that ring. The fact that Deanna would've preferred that she get her rematch first and Asher had no problem with her being part of a triple threat to unify the titles had certainly stunned her, but if they wanted her involved in such a significant match, then who was she to argue?

In her opinion, the only real anomaly was Jordan Majors, who certainly did not deserve to be included in this match at all for everything she'd done, especially after both Luz and Asher had made it clear through in-ring results that she was not the 'rightful champion' she claimed to be. Still, if it either made Jordan finally put her money where her mouth was or humbled her once and for all, then it was a wrestling problem solved in a wrestling ring, exactly as Luz preferred it to be. The fact that Jordan had drugged and stranded Asher somewhere in her home country just to claim the interim U.S. Title belt had infuriated her, and watching the stunt she tried to pull to cost Asher the main event against Selena tonight just made her sick.

Granted, all the other involvement in that match bothered her as well, as did the fact that Glory had caused a distraction that allowed her to secure the win over Ryan last week. At least Amelia could claim to have beaten Ryan completely fair and square... it was just frustrating thinking about how she was just trying to prove herself fair and square and very few people seemed to even care about “doing things the right way” anymore so long as they got the satisfaction of the last laugh at the end of the day.

Breakdown in Cleveland for Luz hadn't been too eventful beyond at least making an attempt to try and convince Jordan to reconsider her entitled attitude, though she had been a bit surprised to meet Deanna at her locker room door with Asher having accompanied her back. That interaction hadn't gone beyond just a respectful exchange of nods, but no words were really needed, and Deanna had remained with Luz and Amelia for the rest of the night watching the show. Perhaps the only other match on the card aside from the main event and the chaos it had devolved into near the end had been the World Tag Title match, mostly because The Light In The Darkness wasn't simply going to ignore the division they had helped rebuild even if they seemed to be branching out more into seeing what they could accomplish on their own, and eventually, they would aim to earn their way back to that point and make title reign number four together a reality.

Once Breakdown was in the books, however, the trio had wasted no time in making sure they had everything before setting off in search of Selena, who was likely going to be in a bit of a sour mood after everything that happened, and Luz honestly couldn't blame her. A small part of her knew that Selena brought this upon herself, but that was a thought that left a bad taste in her mouth and would go unspoken... mostly because she knew full well the difference between Selena Frost the 'villain SCW needs' and Selena Frost the woman who had smiled almost as brightly as Luz herself at her and Amelia's wedding. Once they did find Selena, Luz and Amelia hung back, which caught Deanna's attention. Their presence also did catch Selena's gaze.

“If you need anything, even just someone to talk to, don't hesitate to call us,” Luz smiled to Deanna, nodding down at the phone they had given Deanna earlier.

“And that goes for Selena as well,” Amelia said, loud enough that she knew Selena could hear it, but the nods from both Deanna and Selena before the former joined up with the latter were all that needed to be said in response.

As Luz and Amelia walked away, it was clear on both of their faces that they could feel some sort of unspoken tension in the air being around both Frosts together right now, but given that they may be the only ones outside of their family who had even a bit more insight into whatever was going on than most, it was almost a silent acknowledgment between the four women... a peace offering of sorts from Luz and Amelia that they were going to respect boundaries and not pry any deeper, but would gladly be open to being sounding boards for either Frost if they needed it.

“So,” Amelia finally broke the silence as the two stepped outside and began loading up their car. “I saw that Jordan doesn't seem interested in just trying to prove she still has the skills to back up all her talk fair and square.”

“Yeah... that didn't go how I'd hoped it would,” Luz sighed. “I had a feeling it wouldn't, but... you never know until you try. It worked back in St. Louis.”

“I still can't believe you did something so risky and actually got through to an Empire member who tried to assassinate me barely a week prior,” Amelia said in a neutral kind of tone that Luz couldn't fully decipher, but what was clear was that Amelia was still a little upset and worried over what she'd done. “We still need to talk about that, by the way.”

“No arguments from me,” Luz agreed as they got into the car and Luz began driving them back to their hotel in Cleveland. It might have sounded a bit nonchalant all things considered, but Amelia knew that Luz truly cared and sometimes her voice didn't fully communicate that.

It hadn't been a surprise to Luz back in St. Louis when she'd reunited with Amelia after Ivy had been discharged from the hospital and her wife had nearly broken her in half with the kind of hug she'd have expected from their best friend. Needless to say, Ivy had quite the scary look in her eyes as she demanded answers, having heard from Amelia about the little stunt Luz had pulled. As crazy as it was, especially when she did visit Andy the now-former Empire member a few times before traveling for SCW and even got a surprisingly remorseful apology from him for both Amelia and Ivy, it had not only yielded extremely valuable information to hopefully dismantle this more bloodthirsty splinter cell of The Empire and strike a huge blow to Caleb's cult as a whole, but also further confirmed a few details that had become more and more apparent the longer they all dealt with these lunatics:

Caleb saw anyone beneath him as expendable so long as he, above all else, accomplished his twisted goals of “saving” the human race and absolving his sins to guarantee a place in Heaven through “saving” Luz and Amelia. This included his supposed hand-picked elites, and his attitude of everyone beneath him being expendable seems to have trickled down to them and even had them willing to stab one another in the back for their own ends, regardless of whether they truly aligned with Caleb's “vision” or not.

There was a decent chance that most of the grunts that carried out The Empire's tasks were simply brainwashed by Caleb's silver tongue preying on them in their lowest moments and claiming they could find purpose through the “unity” he promised to bring to the world through the most insane logic imaginable. They had already seen it with Valentina, Henry, and even Roark and Kiki, the latter of whom had been so thoroughly destroyed by how Caleb manipulated people that it was truly heart-wrenching to see how far gone she was even when offered a way out. If there was any way to get that truth through to more of them with indisputable evidence... then maybe Caleb could lose his army altogether and most of this nonsense could finally stop.

Despite knowing that they needed to talk more about what had happened in St. Louis, Amelia still seemed hesitant to keep that conversation going even in the privacy of being alone together in their car. Luz couldn't blame her, considering the whole matter had started with someone from The Empire coming dangerously close to actually taking her life, and the fact that Ivy wasn't going to be sidelined from her own wrestling endeavors for very long because of how thankfully minor her wound was from saving Amelia's life was a miracle in and of itself.

“Hey,” Luz finally said as their car pulled to a stop in a line of traffic, her right hand leaving the steering wheel to gently thread her fingers through Amelia's. “You want to talk about something else first to help ease your nerves?”

“...maybe it would help...” Amelia mumbled in admission after a moment.

“OK... um... anything happen while I was trying to talk Jordan into changing her tune?” Luz asked after a moment of thinking.

“Well... I did get a visit from Chris Cannon...” Amelia replied before explaining what had happened during their brief conversation. While Luz was intrigued by the fact that Chris had sought her out to properly introduce himself and encourage her—especially since neither woman had really crossed paths with him during their first run before the injuries, nor the brief time he had resurfaced during this run trying to manage someone else—she couldn't help but smile at seeing Amelia relax as they talked about Chris's encouragement to her. It was more in the spirit of everything Luz had grown up desiring for her own wrestling career, and seeing more people besides Luz and their friends encouraging Amelia helped ease some of the pain lurking deep in the luchadora's thoughts over having her title match for Rise to Greatness while Amelia still had no idea what awaited her on that monumental night.

“I'm sorry,” Luz finally said as the conversation hit another lull. “I know what I did in St. Louis was dumb and a bit impulsive, even if I gave the idea quite a bit of thought before doing it. I should have said something to you sooner, seen how you felt about it, but... it hurt, knowing that you could've died or gotten seriously hurt, that Ivy did get hurt even if it was thankfully minor. My head was just so cluttered with thoughts about what I could've done, what I should've done, in that moment... I know most of those thoughts would've only made things worse if they'd actually happened, but... but...”

Luz took a shaky breath to try and steady herself as she pulled the car into a parking spot at the hotel.

“I just want this nightmare to end... and no one else to get hurt...”

No sooner had those words left Luz's lips, she found herself grabbed by the shirt and pulled into a kiss loaded with so much passion that she swore her heart was going to burst right out of her chest. Any of those negative thoughts and voices swimming in the back of her mind suddenly disappeared as she felt her arm move of its own accord to pull Amelia in closer, their lips remaining locked for what felt like a solid minute until Amelia finally pulled away, but she kept her forehead resting against Luz's.

“You beautiful dork,” Amelia giggled. “Yeah, I wish you would've talked with me before going with Avery to try and interrogate that guy, even if it worked out. I was so worried that something could happen to you, just as you were for me. But I understand, Luna... and I'm glad you didn't do anything if it would've meant you would've taken that bullet meant for me. You're right, though... this needs to end, and with any luck, we're one step closer to finally having some peace at long last.”

“Eso espero,” Luz agreed as the two finally stepped out of their car, retrieving their bags and heading inside. It was a relatively quiet trip up to where their room was, figuring that all their found family were either asleep already or wanted to let them get their rest.

Just as they used their card key to unlock the door to their room and began to step inside, they heard footsteps on the hallway carpeting, turning in the doorway to see Avery approaching them.

“You girls got a minute?” they asked.

“Of course, Avery!” Luz replied with cheerful energy someone probably shouldn't have at this time of night, especially without the adrenaline rush of wrestling a match coursing through her veins tonight.

“You want to come inside?” Amelia offered.

“That would probably be preferred, yeah,” Avery replied.

They followed Luz and Amelia into the room and gave them a minute to set their bags aside as they double-checked a stack of papers they were holding, with the couple taking a seat on their bed and threading their fingers together once more.

“Any updates on what we learned from that Andy guy?” Luz couldn't resist asking.

“Yes, especially in regards to the name he gave us,” Avery revealed before handing over the papers, which Amelia took before carefully flipping through them. The front page had a small photo paperclipped to it, revealing a man who looked to be maybe a bit older than even Caleb himself wearing glasses with short white hair and a prominent mustache.

“This guy looks familiar...” Amelia murmured.

“You've probably heard of him,” Avery admitted. “That's Stephen Crane... he, or someone on his behalf, has done an impressively good job trying to scrub his existence clean to give the impression that he's been dead for years. Back when Caleb was still in the prime of his wrestling career, though, Stephen was both a composer and a conductor for several prominent orchestras throughout England, especially the London Symphony Orchestra.”

“Right! I remember now,” Amelia stated. “Whenever my parents played any classical music, they often raved about how he was the greatest conductor the LSO ever had and said it was a shame about 'what happened to him' but they refused to actually tell me what that was.”

“Did they even know?” Luz couldn't help but ask, which got Amelia to shrug in response.

“According to what we were able to dig up, apparently he had a complete breakdown after his final performance as a conductor before he retired,” Avery revealed, which Amelia and Luz found shortly after on one of the later pages of the report. “Said something about how he didn't want to retire but was being forced into it and tried to attack the woman who was meant to succeed him, complete with a whole misogynistic rant that's probably better lost to history. He managed to evade the police and completely disappeared after that, and as far as the public knew, he's been dead since you girls would've been maybe two years old.”

“So a former big shot classical musician wants us dead?” Luz couldn't help but ask.

“It would make sense...” Amelia begrudgingly admitted. “If he's got such an old-fashioned issue with women and merged that with any of Caleb's homophobic garbage, he probably feels we're the ultimate sin and Caleb shouldn't even be wasting time trying to 'save' us.”

“I wouldn't be surprised if he legit believes Eve was the root of all of humanity's evil according to that old Bible story,” Luz shook her head.

“Assuming this is the same person and not just someone using his name,” Avery noted, “then there's already an old precedent for how dangerous this man is, and given how easily he's seemed to be able to sway so many into following him into more aggressive tactics than believing in Caleb's plan, we can't afford to take this lightly.”

“So...” Luz said after a moment of burning the potential face of arguably the biggest threat from The Empire besides Caleb himself into her memory. “Now we have a name and a face... what's the next step?”

“Right now, we've made sure to tighten up our security everywhere we all go,” Avery revealed. “We've got men and women hunting for him, but that's easier said than done with anybody in The Empire unless they willingly reveal themselves.”

“Especially since they've suckered so many into their cause that are practically disposable,” Amelia sighed.

“We'll figure something out,” Luz added as she leaned over and kissed Amelia's cheek. “We always do.”

When she reflected on those words before falling asleep for the night, Luz knew she wasn't just talking about the situation with The Empire in any capacity, but for right now? Anything that was a step in the right direction, even a small one, was worth it to get the brighter future both in and out of the ring that she and Amelia were willing to fight tooth and nail for, not just for themselves, but for everyone around them who deserved it.