DEADLINE 1 - 1X 3,250 word limit RP, in whatever format you choose
FRIDAY 22ND FEBRUARY 2019 2359 EST
DEADLINE 2 - 1x 750 word limit SHOOT rp, to be used in the show. This rp must be sent to the EMERGE PM box before the deadline of SUNDAY 24TH FEBRUARY 2019 2359 EST
She wished she could simply hit the snooze button, or even just bring her fist down like a hammer and permanently silence the alarm clock, but she knew by now that wouldn’t happen. It was a routine she’d become all too familiar with by this point: wake up just before the crack of dawn and go out for a morning jog to prepare for the day ahead, no matter how late she was up the night before or how exhausted and aching she was. Even if it was an icy cold nightmare of a blizzard outside like it was this morning, she would simply make sure she had warmer clothing on and ignore any warnings to stay indoors to keep the routine going.
Melissa Killgraves hated this routine, but she hated how deeply it’d become ingrained into her psyche even more.
If nothing else, thinking about the reason why always got her blood boiling, which helped immensely as she made the ill-advised trip out the door of the apartment complex she was now staying in and began to jog through the building inches of snow, barreling through the arctic-esque landscape that had overtaken Bridgeport like a tank plowing through anything in its path. To anyone else, this might seem like a sight that would get someone to step outside just to tell her how insane she was, but here it was an all too familiar scene to anyone actually awake at this hour, and the only other person they would expect to see this from would be the man responsible for why she was even doing this in the first place.
With every breath of the frigid air she needed to take, Melissa would curse the name of Sgt. Brett Killgraves in the process.
For most of her life, Melissa was raised by her single father after he returned from his tour of duty serving his country, where he was honorably discharged after becoming a highly decorated soldier that made virtually the entire city praise his name as though he were God himself. Don’t get her wrong… her father was a great man with a big heart and more compassion than perhaps any human being she ever knew, which was the reason why he enlisted as a police officer to continue to serve and protect on a more local scale, but if there was one thing that was abundantly clear it’s that he was better suited to raising a platoon of new troops as opposed to a child. While it hadn’t been so bad at first, once she entered junior high he began to act more like a drill sergeant than a father, essentially deciding that the best way for her to go through life was the honorable path of the military he’d walked before her. Day and night when she wasn’t worrying about school and homework and he wasn’t out on patrol, he was putting her through drills, some maybe more appropriate for soldiers that were bigger, stronger and obviously more experienced than she was. While this resulted in a social life than almost exclusively remained in school, it became a good reason why she was essentially the ‘bodyguard bully’ to all the popular kids that she wouldn’t exactly call actual friends, but would keep her high on the proverbial totem pole because of the respect everyone had for her old man.
If it sounds rough, don’t feel bad… it’s not like her other option was any better.
Melissa never really knew her mom, and that was probably for the best. She’d gotten the full story finally during junior high when she showed the first signs of standing up to the way her father was ‘raising’ her, and it simply disgusted her. Before he was deployed for what would ultimately be his final tour of duty, Brett had a one night stand with a prostitute to ‘take care of those urges’ before he went back into the trenches of war, and months later this woman would ultimately bring Melissa into the world. She barely remembered those days outside of her mother rarely being home because she had ‘jobs’ to work, but the first clear memory she hadn’t blocked out of her mind was that the first chance she got when she’d heard her ‘military baby daddy’ was back in town, she practically forced the girl into his arms and told him Melissa was his child and that was the end of that. She didn’t know if the woman was even still alive and out living that lifestyle for whatever reasons she had, but she could care less at this point.
Now this young woman was twenty years old, and all her father’s training had essentially turned her into a battle-ready machine. One look at her was all you needed to know that she was not someone to mess with, and with her strength she could even break most grown men in half if she really wanted to. It was something her father would frown upon and went against every militaristic moral code he strictly abided by, but those were his rules, not hers. That was why she’d chosen to run away from home instead of enrolling into the military as he did or at least attend a college with military links: she believed she had the right to make her own decisions about her life that didn’t involve being forced to march to the same beat he did for most of his time on this earth. The man had a problem with taking no for an answer, and that military mindset had been forcefully ingrained into her as well. That was why she was risking her well-being on this frozen deathtrap of a day as the sun was just starting to show itself just to get a morning jog in, and why she would continue to do this almost every day of her life as long as she lived no matter how badly she despised it.
Pondering over the life she’d lived up to this point and why it pissed her off so much at least motivated her to speed this up, her jog slowly becoming more of a sprint as she made the last turn on her normal path that led her back to the apartment building. As she closed the distance to the door, she suddenly found herself having to come to a screeching halt as she heard the all-too-familiar sound of sirens not far behind where she stood. Cursing her luck, she turned to find one of those heavier duty police vehicles slowly stopping along the sidewalk before an officer stepped out. She at least breathed a sigh of relief it wasn’t her dad, but she still wasn’t in the mood to really deal with this right now.
“Good morning ma’am. You are aware that the city’s in a state of emergency right now because of this weather, correct?”
“I know all too well sir, but as much as I would like to still be sleeping right now I can’t just break routine even over something like this.”
“I can understand the need to stay in shape, but risking your health in this isn’t the way to do it.”
“Tell that to my father. I’m sure he’s out in this somewhere right now before he has to throw on that uniform for whatever he’s working today.”
This comment got the officer to raise an eyebrow, and when something began to click in his brain he took a closer look at the woman’s face. The darker-colored skin and hardened facial features despite their feminine shape certainly looked familiar to him, but he couldn’t quite place it. He was about to simply write it off and continue the business at hand, but as her comment burrowed deeper into his brain it finally dawned on him exactly who this was, and he almost bowed his head in apology.
“F-forgive me Melissa. I should have guessed you’d be out even in this horrible weather despite how ill-advised it is. The Sergeant was never one to listen to those either, given he’s probably worked out in far harsher environments than this.”
“Believe me, I don’t want to spend my morning doing this, but my dad basically hardwired me to this thing now whether I like it or not.”
“Well… I should be arresting you because nobody should be out in this aside from officers of the law and emergency crews trying to get the roads cleared up for when this dies down, but I don’t think he’d appreciate me cuffing his daughter for doing the same thing he likely is right now, so I’ll let you off with a warning. Still, you should get back inside as soon as possible… and give your father my regards.”
He nodded to her before returning to his vehicle, with Melissa only responding after he was starting to pull away.
“Sure thing… asshole.”
With her running momentum broken and the cold finally starting to settle in, Melissa trudged through the snow and back into her apartment, making her way up the stairs to the one that belonged to her. Every step she took had the familiar thud of army boots that made her want to rip her hair out if they didn’t belong to her, but while the heavy stomps were doing a good job of clearing the excess snow from her boots, it was also likely waking up some of her neighbors. She could care less though… if she had to suffer through something she didn’t want to do but did anyway all because of how deeply her father made sure it was a part of her, then she would make them suffer just as much.
It’s only fair, right?
‘Fair’ was a word that gained a twisted meaning in Melissa’s mind as a side effect of the strained relationship she developed with her father, and she couldn’t help but give it some thought as she opened the door to her apartment, grabbing the previous day’s mail that had been forgotten about in the process. To her father, she was the prodigal daughter that was going to step right into his boots and continue his camo-covered legacy in serving the United States when necessary, protecting the weak and innocent from the scum of the earth and anyone who dared to threaten the safety of their great nation. She never wanted any part of that, however, and the more it was forced down her throat the more bitter she became as the mere hint of such ‘human decency.’ From her own experience simply being raised as such instead of being raised like any other girl her age, the only real point to becoming a soldier was to be turned into a cold-blooded killing machine programmed for the sole purpose of defending your country without remorse and with the greatest sense of patriotism humanly possible. She may not really know what she wants out of life yet, but she knows that’s not it, and if the world thought it was fair that she was forced to try and become just that all because they would gladly kiss her father’s ass and praise his heroics until the day he dies, then maybe it was just as fair if she was allowed to do as she damn well pleased without regard to consequences.
No one would think that sounds right, but no one would ever truly believe what I’ve been going through.
With the jog out of the way and no plans on doing any further working out today (especially since she’d made sure to get more than enough in the day before to avoid any further trips out into the winter abyss that had swallowed the city whole overnight), she settled in and began to skim through the mail she’d mentally shoved aside from the previous day for that very reason. Most of it was typical junk mail that ended up in the trash, aside from one that really stood out to her because it was the rent statement for the month that had been slipped into her box. She wanted to tear it to shreds but spat out a sigh and set it aside, knowing that she couldn’t keep living like this forever unless she caught a break somewhere. She knew she’d been too hasty in simply going out on her own into the world even if she never left the city where she was born and raised, and the clock was now ticking to avoid having to return to her father’s care and resume the hell she wanted so badly to be free of forever, even if he never looked at it that way.
“What is this?”
The last letter in the stack had caught her attention as she carefully opened it, mostly because of who it was from. While she’d never met the man named Joseph Bishop in person, she trusted him if only because he was hired by one of the extremely few popular kids from those days in school that actually cared for Melissa and what she was dealing with even when she had no reason to concern herself with any of it. When she read through the letter, her eyes begin to light up with the first sign of hope since the day she’d left her father and his army drills behind, and what was attached to the letter would prove why.
It was a contract for Emerge Wrestling.
While it might seem like an odd thing for someone like her to want to get involved with, Melissa was a desperate woman who would do anything, except the same path her mother adored, to get the money necessary to be able to stay away from her father’s regime. She remembered an old conversation she had months ago with Claire, the aforementioned friend, about considering it because the pay would at least allow her to make rent every month to fulfill just that. While Claire had thought it was a silly idea, she still pitched in to try and make it work, not only getting Melissa in touch with several high-quality trainers to help turn her force-fed military might into something she could use between the ropes, but also hiring Mr. Bishop as he was an agent who supposedly had a lot of pull in the sports and entertainment worlds, both of which wrestling fell into depending on your point of view about the business. Despite the two never meeting face-to-face and only having whatever Claire told him and the words of her trainers to go off of, he’s somehow managed to get her a contract to sign for what was considered just a step below the biggest wrestling organization on the planet right now, and all she needed was to read and sign before sending it off to the corporate office herself.
“Claire was right after all… he really does have quite a bit of pull. I’ll need to call her later and thank her.”
She could only grin as she read through to make sure everything was in order before grabbing the nearest pen and signing her name on every blank line that needed it. Once she could mail it off without being harassed by the police again for ‘needlessly risking her life,’ she would soon be able to take the first step into a world where she could use what her father taught her in her own way…
Not to protect and serve, but to rip everything away from those who believed in such nonsense as a fair trade for every last agonizing stretch of her struggle just to try and even get the chance to forge her own path in life.
And better still, her father would simply have to sit back and watch as this ride was just getting started.
“Let me ask you guys something… how many of you can honestly tell me that you have absolutely no control of your life? How many will claim they’re chained to this destiny that was decided for them and no matter how badly they would rather do anything else, hey just have to grin and bear it?
Here’s a better question: how many of you even understand what it truly means to have your whole life laid out for you with the only way out being to stand up against everything you were forced to be?
I’m willing to stand here and bet that not a single one of you can actually be honest about any of that, but a good amount will still raise their hands anyway and spin their sob stories. After all, it makes a hell of a way to introduce you to whatever you want people to think you are in order to gain sympathy over events that probably didn’t even happen. Everyone wants to be the hero to their own little fairytale after all.
Believe me when I say that I’m not here to indulge in any of that fantasy bullshit.
It’s obvious that not a single one of you knows who Melissa Killgraves is, and just listening to me speak is probably making several of you regret trying to think you had any idea of what to expect from me. Let me be upfront with you all right now then: I’m not here to make friends or play nice, I’m here to take every last hope and dream of every ‘good little boy and girl’ and crush them beneath my boot, just like my own dreams were crushed several times over because I’ll be damned if I actually get a say in who I’m supposed to be.
At least I was raised to be something real, unlike the man standing across the ring from me as I make my Emerge debut.
Sourial Slytherin sounds like a name we all should be afraid of, and I bet he’s flying high on his broomstick over Hogwarts right now because he won his Emerge debut. Unfortunately, my own debut is going to become the reality check this guy needs to see that no amount of preaching whatever ‘magical’ heroics are going to make him the hero of his kind or however he wants to spin this story into his favor is actually going to do him any good. Believe in his tricks if you want, but no amount of magic will ever compare to spending most of your life being molded into a combat-ready soldier even if you never want to see the frontlines in your life.
But please Sourial, humor me. Bring every trick in your spellbook, wave your wand as much as you like, come up with any number of magic words that are supposed to make me ‘beware’ something who thinks he’s all-powerful. Because when I’m done showing you what real power looks like?
You’re going to wish you were nothing more than a character in a popular fantasy series when this ‘Muggle’ gives you a Dishonorable Discharge from my climb up the mountain.
At least you’ll always have your own debut win to reflect on to comfort yourself to sleep at night.”
![[Image: yC0vuyj.png]](https://i.imgur.com/yC0vuyj.png)