Cowgirls From Hell vs. Light in the Darkness

[Wisteria Waltz]

To say that Under Attack was not the night that Luz or Amelia had hoped for would be a massive understatement.

No one can deny that both women gave everything they had on the night of a pay-per-view that has arguably been one of their best, further fueled not just by what they could gain from winning their respective matches but also the fact that it had been one year to the day when they had tied the knot and joined each other in holy matrimony, not to mention it being the tail end of what Luz considered one of the most important holidays in her culture and for her especially. She had gone all out in paying homage to her legendary papá, she had felt his spirit with her as she threw everything she had into defending her United States Championship... heck, even Amelia swore she felt his spirit giving her strength as she fought through everything Syren had thrown her way.

Unfortunately, they had both fallen in battle on that night. Amelia had another loss in a major match to her name, and Luz's U.S. Title reign had been cut much shorter than she would have liked, especially after renewing her vow to Deanna to be the best champion she could possibly be as her successor.

It had been a bitter pill for the couple to swallow that night, and not even knowing that Gavin had technically screwed Luz over made her feel any better about that loss. In hindsight, they honestly owed their found family, as well as Dr. Celine Bolton, a huge thank you. Celine had proposed the suggestion that after Under Attack, the couple take a long overdue vacation, even finally go on their honeymoon they'd been putting off because of SCW obligations and fear of The Empire taking advantage. 'A show of defiance to prove they're not afraid of the cult anymore,' as Celine had so eloquently put it. That had been their original plan, at least until things at Under Attack had turned out so terribly. Thankfully, their friends and family, along with Celine chiming in over the phone despite it being early in the morning over in the UK at the time, had managed to convince the couple that throwing themselves right back into intense training for their next matches was not the answer, and the break would go a long way in really helping them to reset before they got back to work.

As if to truly make that clear, Celine had apparently taken what she'd learned from her first session with the couple and already planned ahead, reaching out to SCW officials on their behalf and negotiating that Luz and Amelia needed that first Breakdown off after both Under Attack and the 'Wholesome Family Event' show for a much-needed vacation. They had been surprised to hear that SCW had been more than willing to agree to it, apparently as a show of good faith to the fact that the couple had almost never asked for any time off and insisted on being present even when they weren't booked, just in case. They suspected part of it also had to do with the extra help they'd provided at times, albeit unnecessarily maybe, with security during certain incidents along with the fact that the two of them had become rather notorious workaholics to some degree.

Hard to argue not only with how much wrestling meant to them, but also as a much-needed distraction from The Empire.

Truth be told, Luz and Amelia had been present on KABLAMia during the show that was held there, though they had intentionally stayed away from the area where everything was set up and had instead settled for watching the show from the honeymoon villa they'd been provided. It felt a little weird actually taking Derek Adonis up on the offer he'd given them last year about doing their honeymoon at his island resort, but all in all the trip actually hadn't been as bad as they had worried about, and their loved ones certainly couldn't argue when the couple had touched down in New Orleans and met them at the hotel, considering the next Breakdown here would see the couple back in action again.

“You two definitely look much more relaxed than you did a few weeks ago,” Ivy nodded, smiling at the sight of Luz and Amelia looking like the weight of the world wasn't on their shoulders for the first time since probably the night they'd actually gotten married.

“Oh, I bet they did plenty of 'relaxing' while out at KABLAMia,” Marilyn snickered, though she regretted the comment when it earned her a smack to the back of the head from Camila and a conveniently-obtained flip-flop, drawing a few chuckles and an awed mumble from Gage about 'the power of la chancla.'

“I almost hate to say it, but we really did need the vacation,” Amelia admitted as she and Luz stretched out after setting their bags down. “And despite how he comes off around the locker room sometimes, Derek actually knows how to run an island resort.”

“And respect the power of consent,” Luz sagely nodded. “When we told him we didn't want to be featured among the roster members at KABLAMia just relaxing and not taking part in his show, he understood and he and SCW respected our wishes. They even didn't push when we turned down several offers to join in on certain activities.”

“Just because we were on vacation and finally had some alone time with each other doesn't mean we're just completely comfortable with being too open in certain respects all of a sudden,” Amelia added.

“That's very admirable of you, girls,” Camila nodded, ignoring the annoyed glare Marilyn shot her over the chancla attack. “And I'm glad to hear that Mr. Adonis respected your boundaries and didn't push for you to do anything you truly weren't comfortable with.”

“Still think you two could've lived a little bit...” Marilyn mumbled, but she held up her hands when Camila glared at her once more. “I'm joking! Jeez, Cami, lighten up a little bit!”

“Can you blame her?” Avery shot from where they were sitting with Darius and Evie, trying to figure out what The Empire's next move was. “What mom wants to think of their child doing the kinds of things you're trying to tease about?”

“I... don't think I want to know whatever you guys are going on about,” Henry admitted, earning a few looks that reminded him of just how sheltered he'd been being raised by the deranged religious zealot who supposedly had 'big plans' for him right alongside Amelia and Luz. “Still, it's good to hear you two had fun, and I'm sure you're both eager to kick some Cowgirl butt this week.”

Henry seemingly had more he'd wanted to say, but a sharp elbow from Ivy stopped him from continuing. He looked at her in confusion for a moment before looking to Gage, who just shook his head.

“Dude, we really need to work on your social cues,” he sighed. “Do you really want to see them recklessly dive headfirst into training this soon when they just flew in?”

“Nah, we're good actually,” Luz shrugged, which earned her and Amelia a few stunned glances. “What? Gage had a point, and it's something Ames and I really talked about while we were on our honeymoon.”

“We know we've been pushing ourselves way too hard lately and it hasn't been doing us any favors,” Amelia admitted. “Not like that's anything new, but actually making ourselves take a good, long break from it really put into perspective just how much we'd become consumed by everything. Some of the more negative criticisms began taking over, wrestling became less of a thing we love as much as each other and more of a necessary escape...”

“Yeah, both of us losing at Under Attack really sucked,” Luz shook her head. “But we know now the answer isn't just working ourselves to the bone acting like nothing else matters beyond trying to pay Meghan back for taking my title at Under Attack, tainted win or otherwise. That's just going to push us into another defeat and the spiral's only going to get worse.”

Everyone who had gathered around the couple in the hotel's lobby exchanged glances, almost as if they couldn't believe what they were hearing. It wasn't a bad thing, by any means... in fact, it was the result everyone had ideally been hoping for, but actually getting it felt surreal all the same.

“OK, who are you two and what have you done with Amelia and Luz?” Marilyn asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No offense,” Valentina carefully added, “but it's just... a little weird hearing you two not be so gung ho about wanting to get back to work.”

“Seems like Celine is already doing wonders for the both of you,” Darius nodded in admiration from where he sat.

“Don't get us wrong,” Amelia started, “I don't think we'll be able to fully relax until The Empire falls for good, but Celine had a point about letting them feel like they had power over us and taking that away from them.”

“I don't care where they're hiding or what they're up to now,” Luz added, “because we're just as ready to kick their butts and stop whatever crazy plans Caleb's cooking up as we are to show the Straders a thing or two about thinking we're going to be 'too nice' and let them off the hook that easily.”

“UNHAND ME, YOU DREADFUL DEVIANTS!”

All eyes turned towards the front doors of the hotel, and before anyone could stop them, Amelia and Luz were bolting outside to see what all the commotion was. Naturally, this led to everyone following, with Avery, Darius and Evie in particular on high alert. The first thing they all saw was a nondescript white van parked not too far away along the curb, the back doors having already been thrown open. That alone would've been a red flag under any circumstances when combined with a cry for help, but it was the rest of the picture that had everyone ready for war in an instant.

Paul, the fan who had occasionally followed SCW on its tour and had bumped into Luz and Amelia every now and then, was struggling to pull free of two Empire members trying to haul him into the back of the van while a third was already in the back, arms wrapping around Paul's neck and trying to perhaps choke him out if it meant making him quiet.

“Someone help me!” Paul cried out, the 'me' sounding a bit strained as his airwaves were finally constricted.

“No one's coming to help you,” one of the Empire goons said from behind his plague doctor mask, “but if you just tell us what we want to know, maybe we'll let you go.”

“And we're not 'deviants'!” another one said indignantly. “We're trying to carry out the will of the Lord for the day of-”

“You can kindly shut up about whatever false God-fearing rhetoric Caleb brainwashed you into spouting,” Evie cut in as she, Avery and Darius stepped forward, hands moving towards the guns that had been hidden at their sides, “because you three are under arrest for attempted kidnapping, and that's just for starters.”

Paul tried to say something, but he could only gag as he continued to be choked out as the three white-clad goons pulled him further into the truck, trying to ignore the three NCA agents bearing down on them.

“My partner said to let him go, so I suggest complying before we're forced to get physical,” Darius warned. “Also, an unmarked white van? You really had to pick a getaway vehicle normally associated with a different kind of disgusting sort of individual?”

“You all can leave us alone and forget you saw anything,” the Empire member choking out Paul said. “Our orders were to leave you all alone for now because this guy's got valuable intel Lord Caleb wants, and-”

“Hey, what on earth are you doing?” one of the other Empire members cut off his accomplice as Amelia suddenly ran towards them before skidding to a stop that put her on all fours right in front of them. Avery opened their mouth to ask a similar question, but cut themselves off when Luz bolted past them as well, and the Empire members recognized the setup a little too late as Luz used her wife like a stepping stone, elevating her into the air enough to catch the two goons not in the back of the van yet with a double dropkick, the soles of her shoes smashing the beaks of their plague doctor masks and sending them tumbling into the back of the van the hard way.

“Hey, what the heck!?” the Empire member still trying to choke out Paul cried out, her words behind the mask carrying a tone of absolute disbelief that sounded completely out of place in this situation. “We were ordered to leave you alone, so why are you attacking us!?”

Luz kipped up before flashing her a cheesy grin that felt just as out of place in this serious situation, but no one could argue that it was a very Luz response. “You really think we're going to just watch you abduct somebody and get away with it?”

“Not after what your cult has done to everyone else we've known that you've taken!” Amelia called out before she was hopping into the van, wasting no time in slipping an arm underneath the Empire member's to pry it off. While Paul fell to his knees, with Luz catching him before he faceplanted on the pavement, Amelia quickly wrenched the cultist's arm before pulling her into a standing crossface chickenwing, knocking her mask off in the process. She tried to pull away, but Amelia was not budging.

“We're not a cult!” she tried to claim. “We're the good guys here! We're setting the stage for the day God cleanses humanity and leaves only the truly worthy behind to inherit a new world!”

“The more I hear this kind of stuff from them, the more weirded out I get,” Luz admitted as Paul caught his breath.

“Maybe you can tell us why Caleb's choosing to leave us alone?” Amelia grilled the Empire member in her clutches. “Forgive me if it seems a little suspicious after he's spent the better part of the past two years desperately trying to ensnare us in his lies.”

As the Empire member struggled in vain and adamantly kept her mouth shut, the other two were starting to get their bearings and were looking about ready to pounce. That was immediately neutralized when Avery and Evie jumped into the van and made sure they were staring down the barrels of their guns, leaving them no choice but to raise their hands in surrender.

“I can take her from here, Amelia,” Darius told her before taking over with the crossface chickenwing, using it for leverage to handcuff the Empire member as her cohorts were also cuffed. “We'll let the NOPD know we need to borrow some of their facilities for a bit... and they have a van to impound.”

“That was also rather reckless of you two,” Avery noted. “I know you probably want these guys stopped more than anybody, but we also told you dealing with them is why the three of us are here in the first place.”

“Lo siento,” Luz apologized with a sigh. “We just really couldn't stand the thought of someone else getting taken by these creeps when we had a chance to stop it... not after they've already killed Ryan and Jacob and almost killed our respective families.”

“It was something else we really talked about while on our honeymoon,” Amelia added. The Empire members were all trying to complain about one thing or another, but everyone else was just ignoring them, much to their frustration. “We don't want them to think they have any power over us anymore, that we're afraid of them. We don't know what kind of game Caleb's trying to pull by acting like we're suddenly not of any interest to him, but we're not buying it for a second.”

“Thank you ladies,” Paul coughed out as Luz helped him up to his feet. “These fine folk may not appreciate what you've done here today, but you may have very well saved my life.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Amelia caught the bristle Paul's words caused with the NCA agents, but thankfully the sound of police sirens became their primary concern as NOPD cars rolled up to take the Empire members into custody and discuss the situation with them.

“Are you sure you don't know what they want from you?” Luz couldn't help but ask.

“Yeah, that seems like something we should know if it'll help us understand why they suddenly want you more than these two... or any of us, for that matter,” Henry chimed in as he and the others moved closer now, though he kept himself behind Ivy and Gage. It wasn't a matter of protection since he had been trained to be The Empire's 'Golden Prodigy' under his deranged and devoted uncle for almost all his life, but something about Paul just... wasn't clicking with him, and he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He wanted to say it was just because this guy shared the same name as the father he never got to know, but he'd met plenty of other Pauls out there and none of them gave the same off feeling this guy did.

“I'm afraid I truly don't know,” Paul insisted. “There's nothing special about me as far as I know, unless being an SCW fan counts, but I doubt just supporting The Light In The Darkness at every show makes me more valuable than anybody else who does the same. This is the third time in the past two weeks alone they've tried to capture me, on top of the one attempt Luz and... Lily, I believe it was, thwarted some time back.”

“Well, we're going to have to figure out why Caleb and his cult want you so damn badly,” Marilyn sneered, mostly because of the mention of the one man that all of them wished would just stay the heck out of their lives for good already. “Seems like they almost got you today, but you were lucky we just so happened to be in the area.”

“Maybe... he could come with us?” Luz openly pondered. “I mean, we've all been watching each other's backs for years at this point, and we know he's a fan of ours who definitely doesn't deserve to end up another Empire victim.”

“Luz...” Amelia nervously started to say before she pulled her wife off to the side a bit, leaving Paul to try and strike up a conversation with the others, though they could tell it was getting fairly awkward fairly quickly. “Are you sure about this?”

“What's wrong, Ames?” Luz asked. “I mean, the guy would be safe with us. Yeah, maybe it would get Caleb actively targeting us again, but we can-”

“I'm actually not worried about that,” Amelia admitted, to Luz's surprise. “It's just... we've talked about some of the weird stuff he's said to us the few other times we saw him, and there's just this weird feeling I get being near him. You're right that he doesn't deserve to be captured by them, and you know I love that big heart of yours, but... are you sure?”

Luz glanced over at Paul for a moment, who's attention had turned towards the NCA agents as they now seemed to be picking his brain on why Caleb would possibly be interested in him. The man seemed a bit nervous, but he was nearly kidnapped so his nerves still had to be a little shot.

“I'm willing to give him a chance,” Luz confirmed, sealing it with a kiss on Amelia's lips. “And if I am making a mistake here... well, I really hope I'm not, but one of us will surely catch something if I am, right?”

“I hope so, querida,” Amelia admitted before returning Luz's kiss.

“One more for the found family!” Luz exclaimed, leaving Amelia to just shake her head and chuckle at her wife's infectious enthusiasm. There was a part of her deep down that was really worried Luz was setting herself up for something painful, but if that did end up being the case, then she would be right by her side to pick her back up and make anyone who dared to take advantage of Luz's kind-hearted nature regret it, both in and out of the ring.

Everyone was so focused on trying to figure out exactly what The Empire's new goal was and how to shut it down before it went anywhere on their way back into the hotel, though, that none of them noticed the smirk Paul couldn't resist flashing himself in the window along the way, because now... he was in.