EMERGE CHAMPIONSHIP CHALLENGE SEMI ONE

[Ruppy]

OOC: Looking back on the past few shows as well as my Thirteen effort for GoW, I think I've reached a point of understanding as to why Melissa seems to have faltered lately. In an effort to try and drum up some drama for her story, I've noticed in hindsight that I might have been trying to pack way too much into what the EMERGE word limit allows me without really giving anything room to breathe and develop. With this, I tried to fix that problem by focusing on one issue at a time, starting with the one that made the most sense in relation to the situation this match presents to her.

To say that Melissa was in a foul mood would be an understatement.

When it came to Emerge, she wasn’t so naive to think that the day where her RUSH Title reign would end would simply never come, not that she would ever admit that when the cameras were on, but that didn’t take away from the sting of her time ending much sooner than she would’ve liked. She certainly put forth a great effort and made Jennifer Helms work for it, but the fact that she couldn't make it through what was technically her first defense of the title successfully bothered her more than she was trying to let on. She knew Matt and Claire could see it, but the latter chose to leave it be unless she wished to discuss it and the former simply had any attempts to talk about it deflected in favor of the military maiden basically putting her nose to the grind perhaps more than usual.

It didn’t help that the new landscape of Emerge in its efforts to break away from SCW made the place feel less hospitable to her.

The truth of the matter was that she could care less about who the mysterious ‘Consortium’ ultimately turned out to be or how they conducted business that seemed off-putting to most others. Her issue was with this idea that she was supposed to pick a side and either endear herself to the chaos they were allowing with the likes of Sundown and Willow Wilkes or voice her opposition to it like Tommy Cook. She had her own reasons for being in the business and she just wanted to do nothing more than compete for that reason alone. Was there really an issue with wanting to just go about your own business and leave it at that? The fact that people were expecting her to pick a side almost felt like she was dealing with her father on another front, having decisions made for her without the ability to carve her own path.

She put up with that enough outside the ring on a regular basis, so if it was going to start invading her Emerge business now then maybe she was better off looking for employment elsewhere.

This was something that was running through her head as she jogged through the streets of Bridgeport, the hood of her hoodie allowing her to keep her eyes forward and not bother with the glances of anyone she passed. Considering what was before her now in the wake of the last Invasion, the idea of throwing it all away was one she certainly didn’t want to entertain, but the option was there if the powers that be kept trying to make their business hers as well. She believed it shouldn’t have to be anything more complicated than get along with two other people long enough to earn a crack at the Emerge Title and try to win it. Sure, one of those people was now Sundown since these games had Cook reassigned to a different match, and her other partner was basically pretending to be just like someone else, but if the endgame was the top title in the company than that was all this needed to be. She wasn’t a big fan of her partners just like she wasn’t a fan of the three standing across from them at the next show, but she could make it work just long enough.

She’d proven she could do that with Jennifer all for Claire’s sake, so there really wasn’t that much of a difference in her mind.

As Melissa rounded a corner, she found herself slowing down to a complete stop at the sight that greeted her eyes. Speaking of the red-haired ‘devil,’ Melissa had found herself in the part of town where her parents lived and her eyes had caught her out front of her house having a chat with her stepfather. This wasn’t anything special, even when you realize their mansion was in the same section of town where Claire’s family resided. That wasn’t because of her mom, who wasn’t really anything to write home about, but her stepfather was practically as much of a celebrity around these parts as her own old man because he was a world-renowned surgeon and a good amount of people from out of town, state and even country in some cases came to him when they needed a delicate surgery and couldn’t trust any doctor in their neck of the woods to get the job done right. Being that she was friends with the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in the country, this wasn’t something that particularly bothered her, and yet something about standing there and watching a woman she simply did not like having this perfectly normal interaction with a family member was making her blood boil. When the two of them embraced, that was then she pulled her hood down as far as she could before trying to resume her jog, though she couldn’t get herself back up to the same speed she’d been at prior to this distraction.

“Melissa?”

Once the voice she didn’t want to hear greeted her ears, Melissa’s body once again found itself coming to a halt. She silently cursed out every muscle in her body that was betraying her as she slowly turned her head to glare daggers at Jennifer, but despite flinching the author didn’t back away from the other side of the fence that separated the two of them.

“How’ve you been doing, after-”

“Don’t even bother saying it, I’m not in the mood.”

Not even the frown that graced Jennifer’s lips could have any impact on Melissa’s irritation. She remembered full well that the redhead had accompanied Claire to watch her wrestle and saw with her own two eyes the end of her RUSH Championship reign, and considering they still weren’t on good terms, at least in Melissa’s eyes, it wouldn’t surprise her if Jennifer began to rub salt in the wounds despite knowing a black eye would be in her immediate future if that happened.

“I- I know you’re upset about the match, but I was more referring to… well, what happened before that night.”

Melissa had to raise an eyebrow before she remembered what Jennifer was talking about. An attempt by Claire to not only bond with the redhead but also get her friend to relax a bit had been interrupted by her mom resurfacing, looking for a financial handout and/or someone to have a good time with and overall trying to insert herself back into her daughter’s life. That door had been slammed shut as far as she was concerned, though, when she practically blamed having her daughter in the first place as the reason why she was so ‘set back’ in her ‘job.’ That alone gave her every reason to want to do more than the simple aching wrist she let the woman off with, but something about the way she was bothering a woman she herself didn’t even like, by her own admission several times over, had been the trigger that got her to act in the first place.

“It’s not really worth talking about. I’ve long since acknowledged that everything my dad told me about my birth was true and my mom’s nothing more than a whore. It doesn’t mean I have to be happy with either one of those things, and the fact that I pretty much dragged her away from you was a coincidence.”

“Still…”

Before Jennifer could respond any further, she found her attention garnered by something behind Melissa. The military maiden turned her own head when she noticed this, and a low growl escaped her throat when she saw the police cruiser stopped across the street. The man inside wasn’t her father, but the fact that he was still directing his badge-wearing underlings to keep tabs on her as though she was a wanted criminal for trying to figure out her own life made her want nothing more than to say ‘screw the law’ and go smash the car’s window in so she could tell the officer to get lost. Once he realized he’d been spotted, that was when the car conveniently began to move along to resume its normal patrol of the city streets. Melissa just shook her head at this.

“It’s been almost a year since I left and he still feels the need to treat me like I’m under house arrest…”

She kicked at a rock that happened to be at her feet and watched it fly down the sidewalk before remembering that she was engaged in a conversation with someone she’d rather be as far away from as humanly possible. She really wanted to just resume her jog right then and there, but she found her head turning almost on its own back towards Jennifer, who looked pretty deep in thought about what she’d just witnessed. Seeing as how the author seemed content with just contemplating something, she figured she had her opening to just leave no matter how much her feet refused to listen to her, but she only took one step before her voice got her attention once more.

“I think I finally get it now…”

Melissa turned to face Jennifer, the looks in her eyes a mixture of confusion over what she was talking about and annoyance that this conversation was still going. Jennifer returned a stern look, doing her best to not back down to the glare of a woman she knew could break her in half if she really wanted to because she felt this really needed to be said.

“Get what?”

“Why you have such a problem with me… why, even in school when you would bully everyone around that wasn’t part of the popular clique, you always singled me out whenever you had the chance. Why you and Claire still stuck together even after we all graduated and went our separate ways. I had a feeling after hearing what you had to say for your title match, but now I’m certain… you hate me because of the family I have, don’t you?”

Melissa rolled her eyes at this and opened her mouth to begin a tirade of reminding her why she’d been a loser back in school and she hadn’t changed as far as the army brat was concerned, but she suddenly couldn’t find her voice. With a step backward and her mouth closing, she took a moment to mentally reflect on their past, trying to relive every single moment the two had engaged. She recalled that in the beginning it truly was nothing more than trying to enforce the difference between the popular girls and those who weren’t up to their level, but once Claire had started taking a liking to Jennifer and the two began using one another to learn more about their opposing lifestyles, she had begun to use what Claire filled her in about to start further tormenting the redhead without ever really giving it much thought. The feeling that ran through her when she kept trying to use Jennifer’s mother’s shortcomings in life to cut the girl down was almost identical to what she felt when she got the confirmation that Helms would be her challenger in Miami… it was a feeling she never really gave much thought to until now, considering she knew exactly why she felt the way she did and made sure Helms knew it before they threw down.

“You were practically living in poverty, your mom working long hours as a nurse but still making time for you in her life, a little brother who was a complete weirdo but would still go out of his way to help his big sister, close friends who stood by your side no matter what… and then you started trying to find your way into that ‘inner circle’ of popularity because Claire saw something in you that no one else wanted anything to do with. Even I barely had that… only because they realized they were better off being with me than against me and thought they could use a ‘bodyguard’ to help keep the riff-raff from bothering them. You had everything that I didn’t and still tried to have more…”

“It may not be anything compared to what I’ve heard you’ve gone through, but my life was far from a perfect fairy tale Melissa. You know my mom and dad divorced shortly after my brother was born and they weren’t too keen on me trying to connect with him anyway, just to get to know him. You remember when I was out of school for a while because my appendix ruptured and had my now-stepfather not gotten me into surgery when he did I wouldn’t even be here today. You heard when we were in Miami about what Darren pulled with me, not to mention that one point near the end of junior high when I was having suicidal thoughts because I just couldn’t take it anymore…”

These were all very valid points that only brought more memories to light in Melissa’s mind, and every single one of them made her visibly cringe.

“It was never my intention to make you feel that way, but trust me when I say this: as much as I know your life hasn’t been anything worth being proud of, mine’s not worth envying or hating me over. I mean… look at us now. I’m a best-selling author and you’re a champion wrestler. Pretty sure we both know who’s really the more successful out of the both of us there.”

That comment actually had Melissa trying her hardest to stifle a laugh, if only because there was some truth to it if you wanted to compare earnings and publicity. Still, there was a pained look in her eyes as she took another moment to reflect on things and realized Jennifer actually had a point. True, she had people who loved and cared about her, but given everything else she’d endured that Melissa had heartlessly swept under the rug when it felt the most convenient to her, would she really be any happier if they traded lives? Was having true friends and a family that actually treated you as a human being and not as a tool or extension of your own legacy worth enduring being stabbed in the back, the lowest point of depression and a legitimate near-death experience all in the span of roughly a year or so?

“Everything I’ve done to you… and you really still don’t hate my guts, huh?”

She looked genuinely confused about why this wouldn’t be the case, and more so when Jennifer shook her head in agreement. Maybe it was the military hard-wiring from her father, but the idea of not fighting back against someone who wronged you no matter how much they did to you just seemed silly in her eyes, and yet here she was dealing with a woman who was showing her such a feat was entirely possible.

“I could be as annoyed with it, like how you’re annoyed with me, but I can’t bring myself to hate you for any of it. If you felt threatened by the idea of me trying to take away something you actually had that I didn’t, why wouldn’t you do anything to keep me from doing so? It may not have necessarily been right, but at least I can understand that more than I understand why your mom and dad feel like you need to be treated the way you have been. Maybe not the same scenario, but as I said, I’ve been in that sinking boat before, feeling like there was no hope because of things beyond my control. It’s not pleasant no matter who you are.”

Melissa’s gaze turned to the pavement at her feet, feeling disgusted now that she’s looked back on everything and realized she’d been in the wrong for how she treated this girl no matter how much she justified otherwise to herself. It was one thing to try and fill a void you felt someone else was unnecessarily trying to further tear open, or try and make some kind of statement to someone else, but there were moments when Melissa honestly went too far and played it off like it was nothing. She never really fully understood why there were certain points where something she said or did towards Jennifer caused Claire to actually turn against her and support the lower-class loser, but now it was crystal clear and no amount of hatred towards what she was trying to fight against justified the way she treated someone who had nothing to do with it at all. It was almost like an innocent civilian getting caught in the crossfire of a war zone: you never really feel guilty about it until the chaos has subsided and it finally hits you like a ton of bricks what you’d done.

“You know something? After all these years, I think I finally understand why Claire seems to value having you in her life so much.”

Melissa put a hand on Jennifer’s shoulder, and the author gave her a smile that actually felt like it was warming some of the ice that her heart had been encased in for so long. There was no apology for anything done in the past, but Jennifer knew full well feelings like that weren’t the military maiden’s strong suit. It would come in time, just like things seemed like they may finally be getting better between these two.

As far as Melissa was concerned: if she could come to terms with the ghosts of her past and make peace with someone where the hatred was one-sided at best, then maybe she could put up with having to team with two people she wasn’t too fond of for the sake of a shot at the biggest prize Emerge had to offer any of them.