Giovanni Aries & Cid Turner vs. Selena Frost & Deanna Frost**

[SnowQueenSCW]

Where it is caught by a pale hand, the camera catching sight of a familiar platinum-blonde. Thank you, dear. Selena Frost smiles as she stands in the ring amidst the arctic blue and white lights, sapphire eyes gazing at the crumpled paper in her hand. But speaking of falling… if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it… did it actually make a sound? Gracefully, she tosses the paper out of the ring and out if sight and adjusts the leather jacket she wears over her maroon t-shirt and black jeans, the SCW World title resting over her shoulder.

It’s an old riddle, but it’s a rather effective one. It symbolizes the power of a message – the power of words – as only being powerful if it has an audience that hears it. And therein lies the situation for the four of us, but moreso between me and you, Giovanni.

A content smile graces Selena’s features as she gestures towards the camera before her with her free hand. You finally got your wish, GiGi. I’m finally talking about you. And isn’t that what you’ve wanted for oh so long now? My attention? For months, at least once a week, sometimes more!, on Twitter you would go, like the proverbial troll, typing your short sentences directed at me. Throwing shade, discrediting me, insulting everything about me… on and on you went… with no one but a bitter Kimberly to keep you company. Even Holly Adams wouldn’t waste her time with your messages!

A small laugh escapes her. I loved it, Giovanni. I loved watching you get more and more desperate to try and get my attention. It was like watching a cartoon character, an Elmer Fudd or Daffy Duck, get madder and madder and I could just imagine your face turning red… of steam just shooting out of your ears – to the point where you just couldn’t take it anymore! You ran out on Breakdown, declaring up and down that “I beat Selena! I’m the only one of the Brand that’s beaten Selena!”. Which isn’t true, but it was fun as hell to watch you go off like that.

Licking her lips, Selena tilts her head in contemplation. Because you would think that someone with ‘nirvana’, with ‘inner peace’ wouldn’t be so hot under the collar when it came to me. Wouldn’t be so bothered by a simple Snow Queen and her beloved redhead. What happened to all that calm, Gio? What good is huffing all that sage if you can’t go a week without crying about me on Twitter? Is that inner peace? she leans forward a little as she asks.

Or, is it that for the first time ever, I am the one that’s in your head? she points to the camera.

Yes, I’ll bet that’s what it is, ‘GiGi’. You were all calm and full of yourself when you were in my head all those years ago. You were all confident when you beat me and I was frustrated over that interference that handed you the victory. You were the untouchable when I was arguing with you on Twitter and you just kept laughing your head off… but like that proverbial tree, once I walked away - once I left you and ignored you and your message and just did what I vowed I would do and be the world champion that you could never be… Once I lead by action – inspiring thousands of True Believers - and I let you just run your mouth like some false-prophet I’ve seen on the streets of New York – suddenly, all that calm, all that confidence… poof! she snaps her fingers with a smile. Gone.

And just like that, Giovanni Aries was no longer a mastermind or some mystical shaman or whatever you’re calling yourself these days. No longer was Giovanni possessing all the answers. No! The mystique has been shattered and all this “new GiGi” is at the end of the day is just another entitled crybaby whining for a title shot because he won one match. A crybaby the same vein as Kimberly, Kandis, and so many others. Wanting a handout. Wanting a shortcut. And all I had to do to make that happen was ignore you and let YOUR true colors show.

Another chuckle escapes the world champion. Funny how that is. All this time of the Brand declaring me a fraud and ‘hiding my true colors’ and you’re the one that shows theirs at long last.

Because it came down to one reality: and that’s the fact that I don’t have a thing to prove to you, Gio. I don’t. I don’t have to defend my marriage to you. I don’t have to explain my relationship with my wife to you. I don’t have to defend my actions as the SCW World Champion to you or to Cid. And that’s what you’ve been trying to get me to do. That’s what Cid keeps trying to get me to do. Shift the truth, change the perspective…

I beat Holly Adams so I MUST have paid off the official.
I beat Cid Turner, so I MUST have used witchcraft.
I don’t reply to your antics so I MUST be hiding from the truth.

Over and over again, trying to act like I owe you something and the truth is… I don’t. I don’t because I don’t answer to sleazy salesmen like you two. I don’t answer to The Brand, or the Positive State or the Haus of Nirvana. I answer to the SCW Universe. The millions of True Believers that want to see integrity in the world title, want to see integrity as the new standard of SCW and know that I am fighting with all I am, all I have, to make that happen.

Slowly, Selena takes a deep breath, her calm on display. You see what I’m doing there, Giovanni. This. This is calm. This is true peace. This is what happens when you’re not occupying space in my head and it is SO liberating! It doesn’t happen to me often with my opponents, but with you – dealing with you? It comes so easily. Because you, just like The Brand, keep trying so desperately to paint me a certain way. Paint the House of Frost a certain way and it’s gotten to a point where the SCW Universe… we just ignore you. We ignore you because, like declaring the world is flat in this day and age, some people just won’t accept the reality – and that’s you and Cid and Holly.

Selena shakes her head. And the reality is, boys, is that you can point at our inexperience as a tag-team and you can blast me as the World Champion. But there’s a reason your boss failed despite YOUR best efforts to screw me out of the title. There’s a reason I beat her, and I beat you, Cid. And there’s a reason that Giovanni hasn’t gone a match with me in years without needing someone to hold his hand through it.

She smiles knowingly. It’s because, no matter how The Brand tries to stack the deck against me and against Deanna, we rise above. We continue to keep going. It’s because Deanna and I are operating at a new standard now. Every day, every match, we raise the bar just a little higher, doing all we can to bring integrity back into SCW, raising the standard of what it means to be S-C-W. And while many have come close to that standard, including both of you at some point, no one’s been able to match it and keep up with it, again including both of you! Which is the real reason I am still World Champion and why your boss failed THREE TIMES in trying to take this from me. And that terrifies the both of you, doesn’t it?

She gives a shrug. I mean, it terrified you so much, Cid, that you ran to the Adrenaline division and settled on the title there! Hell, these days you can’t even go a title defence without Cookie helping you.

What happened to you, man? Like you said, there WAS a time that you and I fought over who was the best in SCW. Where we would, indeed, bring out the best in each other. What happened to that guy that fought me with all he had and only by himself, Cid? What happened to that guy? I can’t say something like that to Giovanni because he was never like that – check the receipt: Xander, friends, Holly, he’s always needed someone when dealing with me, but you? What happened to you?

Asher got his balls in the divorce!

Casting her gaze up at the voice, Selena smiles at her guarding wife. Then what does Candi get?

I don’t want to know! Deanna responds.

But isn’t it funny? Cid’s gone from calling me evil, to calling me a manipulator and a cheater, to now – well, he still calls me all those things, including still being on that kick about me paying off officials – when he’s the one using Cookie to hand him his wins. When he’s the one that’s STILL attacking people with title belts over and over again like it’s 2021…

But he thinks he’s going to help me. He thinks he’s going to help the world champion.

Oh, well, maybe we should say ‘thank you’. Deanna rolls her eyes at that.

Hearing that, Selena tilts her head in good nature to Deanna before turning back to her own camera. You want to help me, Cid, huh? Like you helped Asher? That the kind of help you mean? Where you stick around as long as it benefits you to do so and then, when it doesn’t, you bail and pretend you had nothing to do with him? You wanna help me like you’re helping Cookie? Turning her into an addict of you and your teachings where all she has is you? Where she can’t act or think for herself because of you? Where she can’t even speak for herself without you there? You want to help me like you ‘helped’ Tommy Valentine in the Trios Tournament? Where you ran away when the match got ‘too tough’ for you? You want to help make me better like at the End of the Year, where you tried to have Cookie smash me in the head with the world title so Holly could win it? That the kind of help you want to give, Cid? How did all those times go, Cid? Deanna, do you know?

For an answer, the sound of a loud ‘raspberry’ is heard throughout the arena, causing a laugh to come from the Snow Queen.

See, that’s the difference between you and me, Cid. I’m not going to bury you under your twisted logic that makes zero sense. I’m not going to try and twist the narrative just so I can have a semblance of ‘fighting spirit’ or whatever you want to call it. I deal with reality. I deal with the real problems. I call it as it is, not how I ‘need it to be’ to appear a certain way. That’s called honesty, Cid, and if you truly had it, it would be you that wouldn’t be able to look in the mirror, wouldn’t it? It would be you that would hate your own reflection, wouldn’t it?

Holding her title, Selena paces a little in the ring. You want to know how I know that, Cid? Because after all this time, you still can’t admit that I beat you twice. You still can’t admit that I was better than you twice over. No, it’s all under your ‘grace’, isn’t it? You ‘letting it happen’, right? You ‘letting people win’ and how I ‘owe you for being where I am’, right? That the kind of business you think we’re in, Cid? That how fragile your ego is? S-C-W: we let people win, right? That’s what people are tuning in for? That’s what people are wanting to believe in…

But you want to help me. You want to raise me up, huh?

A sad smile appears on Selena’s face, her tone quieter but more pointed. Cid, how can you help me ‘be better’, when you can’t even make yourself better? How can you make me a better champion when you’re still a poor excuse for one? How can you help me be a more integrity-filled champion, when you don’t have any integrity at all?

Like I said, a message is only as powerful if it is heard. And while you spend every moment falling further and further from the world-class competitor that you once were, every month that passes, it’s been the House of Frost in this ring that has picked up the bar and raised it. It’s been the House of Frost, while you were all hiding behind your segments, followers, and dozens of vignettes, that the SCW Universe has believed in. The House of Frost that the thousands have cheered for, while they have booed your ‘Brand’ every step of the way. And every challenge the House of Frost turns back, every time I retain this world championship, every time Deanna proves herself in this ring, that message gets louder and louder. That belief in integrity gets stronger!

Slightly aloof, Selena leans back, shrugging her shoulders. You don’t believe me, boys? Watch Deanna and I prove it tonight. It’s going to be so simple! Like she said, this isn’t going to be a tag match where we show what we can do as a team. We’ve done this dance so many times that it’s not even funny. Hell, Cid, you just admitted that you’re bringing THREE extra people to the ring just to deal with us – though I wouldn’t be surprised if it was four…

And the reason this won’t be the main-event SCW deserves is because of you, Gio. Like Cid said, you’re the ‘new Asher’. Because just like with Asher, Cid is dangling the world title in front of you and making promises that he made so long ago to Asher – promises of becoming world champion right before stealing it from him. Yeah, go back to how Cid became world champion in the first place. Asher was actually a deserving contender for the world title before Cid took it all away from him.

The Face of SCW shakes her head. But you see, with such promises, and such numbers against us, that’s how Deanna and I know this match will be a mess! That’s how the SCW Universe knows it will be a mess. Because they know that if you were to lose – every claim you THINK you have against me disappears in a flash, Gio! Every insult you’ve thrown my way. Every thing you’ve claimed about me, hung your hat on, Giovanni,  RELIED upon for months… gone in a poof if Deanna and I beat you.

And we both know you’re both too much of a pair of cowards to risk that. I mean… if Josh Hudson and Asher Hayes – amazing athletes in their own right – spooked you both to the point you needed help, what does that mean for Selena and Deanna Frost?

So, let’s break this down to true expectations. Cid’s gonna try and hit one or both of us with his title and Giovanni will have Sammy or Clamydia or both save him the second he can’t go anymore – maybe all FIVE (or six, make it half a dozen) rush the ring to try and put a hurting on Deanna and I.

The Snow Queen winces a little at the thought of such an ambush before casting her eyes back at the camera. It’s gonna be ugly, it’s gonna be tainted, it’s going to be nothing that should define SCW… and I hate that I have to say that for a match involving the current world champion, a former world champion, a former THOTF royale winner and one of the fastest rising rookies in SCW today but it’s true. Any journalist worth his salt, any fan with a knowledge of this history will know that this match, the second it was put on paper, screams controversy, screams tainted finish, and is everything against what Deanna and I believe in for SCW and its standard.

Save for one thing… she holds up a finger to the camera. The part where Deanna and I get back up and keep fighting until we’ve kicked your asses.

See, much like the tree in the forest and ignoring “Troll-mode” Gio, if Deanna and I can take your cheap ploys and keep fighting. If we can take your henchmen and ‘belt-shots’ and keep fighting… then oh what will that say about The House of Frost?

I mean – Zenmaster Gio with his ‘perfect peace’, how perfect is it if he can’t beat us on his own? “God-mode” Cid Turner! How great is Gleebnorb if he needs a title and three other people at ringside to get the job done? Certainly not so great that they deserve X number of payments of – what was it? $29.99? – to share their secrets, am I right? she chuckles a little.

I said it before, Cid, and I’ll say it again. I didn’t become world champion because of you. I didn’t stay world champion because you ‘allowed it’. I stayed world champion IN SPITE of you. I kept fighting in spite of you and Giovanni and The Brand because that’s who I am. That’s who Deanna is. It’s because we are not afraid to do what you two preach and carry the hopes and dreams of millions on our shoulders and keep going – IN SPITE of you! she pauses for a moment, allowing her words to sink in.

One of you faced me, lost to me, and never recovered from it. The other is too afraid of that to make a genuine effort against us. And at the end of the day, like my wife said, a genuine effort is what The House of Frost is all about. We are united in that cause. We are driven by that cause. Integrity that redefines SCW from the con-artists and crap-sellers like the two of you. And tonight, when it comes time to prove our message, it will be your house, boys, that folds like a house of cards.

And it will be our house – The House of Frost – that the SCW Universe will hear loud and clear!

Selena takes a deep breath. Believe it, boys! Because no matter how much you hurt us! How much you screw with us, how much you outnumber us, how much you knock us down… The Brand, The Positive State, The Haus of Nirvana? It all goes silent! Drowned out by the two words you both hate more than anything…

”We Believe! We Believe!” rings Deanna’s voice.
”We Believe! We Believe!” comes Selena’s voice before a moment of silence, Selena’s voice dropping to barely a whisper as she glares into the camera before it fades to black.

We believe… We… Believe…