Melissa Killgraves versus Goddrick Grimm

[thisisemerge]

DEADLINE 1 - 3,500 WORD LIMIT 2359 EST 15TH MARCH 2019

DEADLINE 2 - 750 WORD LIMIT SHOOT / SEG 2359 EST 17 MARCH 2019

GOOD LUCK

[Ruppy]

She wanted to call a win a win, but she was having a pretty hard time looking past what exactly had happened.

Melissa Killgraves wasn’t too far removed from the night she made not only her Emerge debut, but also her wrestling debut as a whole, and in retrospect, she was wishing it had gone a whole lot better. One could make the argument that she had nothing to be ashamed of in that situation, considering it was her very first opportunity to apply the training she’d been getting on top of the years of military conditioning and she was being thrown against a guy who, as she understood it, had been a staple of the British independent circuit for at least half a decade by this point. No matter how the guy presented himself, he’d proven just how much more suited he was to this environment compared to her when he essentially dominated the match and she’d found herself just doing whatever on impulse alone even if it didn’t fit any of the training she’d put in leading up to that point. Regardless, he still got overconfident in the face of her military grade iron will and allowed her to exploit that to end any momentum he was hoping to gain with the beginning of a little undefeated streak around the place.

She just couldn’t help but hate herself that this struggle was against someone acting like he was a wizard straight out of one of the best-selling fantasy series of all time.

That was probably one of the things that ground on her nerves the most about doing this, and that was all these people who were willing to try and portrays themselves as ‘characters’ more than be themselves for God knows what reason. Sure, it was probably entertaining to the fans and helped treat this as the entertainment spectacle it was often promoted as, but as someone who wasn’t really given the chance to properly enjoy growing up before her life was essentially decided for her, Melissa was having a very hard time seeing this in the same vein that most kids might looking at what they perceive as a ‘real-life cartoon’ of sorts. Maybe deep down there was a part of her that hoped someone would sympathize with her and cheer her on despite trying to be something ‘real’ amongst this kind of crowd, but she would never admit to this in any fashion. After all, to her, this was both a job to pay the rent and a way of potentially getting her father’s attention to show him exactly what all his forced training and attempts to make her into the future female equivalent of himself had truly done.

If her dad had watched the last Emerge show and come away disappointed, then she knew she needed to have a much better showing as she moved on from a man thinking he’s a wizard to a man thinking he’s an actual god of some kind.

Religion and the philosophies of deities, in general, was a very awkward subject for her to feel comfortable discussing. Her father considered himself a firm believer in the God that many of the Catholic faith worshipped, but that likely only really applied when he needed somebody to ‘talk to’ to help reassure himself in the trenches of war to guide him back home. He wasn’t a devoted church attendee, and he certainly couldn’t be considered a full-fledged man of faith considering how she came into the world. Hell, she doubted her mother really cared that much about religion considering how she had been working her way through life. She really didn’t find herself believing in anything in that department, but she at least understood how much it meant to some people if one thing she could always take away from living under her father’s regime was that it was an extremely easy topic to justify starting a war over out of the blue.

She was curious if Goddrick Grimm was such an individual, considering how highly he thought of himself.

Knowing she likely had a proverbial war on the horizon with this monster of a man and hellbent on being able to walk into her second match and actually battle on her terms and not find herself overwhelmed by how much different it was when it came time for the real deal, she steeled her resolve as she spent the day in the high-end training facility she found herself working out in quite frequently these days, alternating her arms as she curled some rather heavy dumbbells and felt the burn in her biceps, knowing they were truly going to get a workout from trying to get a proper chance to show off the strength she possessed against a figure that very much outsized her in every aspect. Normally, doing this task felt rather mundane outside of the typical rock music that blared out to help pump people up, but at least today she had something to keep her mind occupied while her body went on autopilot to do what it knew it needed to do… even if Melissa still found herself questioning why she’d even tagged along.

“OK, so I know you’re upset that it didn't go exactly the way you thought it would, but a win’s a win, right?”

“I keep trying to tell myself that Claire, but answer me this: would your father just accept some kind of victory if it didn’t exactly look like anything he could completely save face on afterward?”

That was the kind of question that almost immediately made the point loud and clear to Claire Prescott, one of the very few friends Melissa still had now that school and the social pecking order that tends to come with it were no longer a thing. Claire was a girl that always baffled Melissa and to this day she was still trying to figure out why the girl considered her a friend even now. While Claire often had her own gripes about her family, her upbringing was the exact opposite of everything Melissa had to endure. Claire came from one of the wealthiest families in the entire state of Connecticut, mostly due to her father being a giant in the business world and a genius of the stock market, and because of this she actually led a rather sheltered life. While the wealth and a good portion of her attitude fit your stereotypical popular rich brat, Claire always desired to explore beyond the walls of her status and learn more about the parts of the physical and social world her father tended to look down on, which was one of the biggest reasons why she’d somehow managed to convince him to let her attend public school as opposed to any expensive and exclusive private school where someone like her would feel more at home naturally. This made her one of the kinder, albeit more naive, popular kids and the only one willing to venture outside of that circle to willingly engage with others no matter their status. Clearly, she treasured these interactions as she somehow maintained a friendship with everyone she made contact with throughout the school years, including Miranda who had been more than ready to let it go just as she had any of the other ‘friendships’ she had at that time.

“Alright, point taken. Even I’ve been told time and time again how important presentation and appearances are. At least you certainly looked intimidating enough in that attire I got custom made for you.”

“Thanks for that, by the way… and getting that Bishop guy to secure this contract for me as well as all the people that helped train me to make the transition. You know you didn’t have to do any of this for me.”

“Being honest for a moment? I’d have actually preferred if you’d taken me up on my first offer so you didn’t have to go through any of this to begin with, but it’s still the least I can do to help a friend. Guess that’s one of those things that’s stuck with me all these years with how long I’ve had Janine as a friend.”

Melissa let out a low growl at the sound of the name of the former classmate she couldn’t help but feel the most hostile towards. Janine was certainly a nice girl and always willing to lend a hand when necessary, but that was the kind of thing that clashed with Melissa’s warped view of her father’s military-born teachings that only the strong and willing to fight will ever get what they want in the end. Not to mention she was never a fan of how much that friendship bothered her just by going against the typical social norms of school life, especially when she could swear there always seemed to be something more there hiding beneath the surface that never fully seemed to manifest even after all these years. Still, she couldn’t hate Claire when she was right, even if she remembered back to how much she had to talk the diva down about letting her simply crash at her mansion since that defeated the whole point of why she’d stormed away from her own dad in the first place.

“I know it isn’t the way you want to think, and I know how much of a hardass your father would be over it, but you still didn’t do too bad for someone ‘getting their first taste of actual war’ as he would put it against someone who’s been doing this for far longer.”

As Melissa dropped the dumbbells to the floor with a deafening thud, both girls’ attention was diverted to the new voice entering into their conversation. Standing not that far away with his burly arms folded across his chest and dressed in what looked like his own cross between the familiar military fatigues and traditional wrestling gear was a man by the official name of Gen. Matt Rayle, though most in the wrestling business likely knew him better by the name of General Merciless back in the day as not only was his own military experience very real but he also operated in the ring with a stiff, no-nonsense, brutal style that befit someone who acted like a ruthless machine focused only on tearing an opponent apart. In reality, he was nowhere close to being that heartless, but he understood better than anyone how callous some with that kind of background can become depending on their experiences, which made him the ideal first choice Melissa accepted when it came to wrestling trainers Claire had managed to set up an offer with to train her for in-ring competition. It also didn’t hurt that he had actually served above her father in the same platoon on several of his own deployments, so he knew the man firsthand and had no problem opposing what he’d done to his own daughter.

“No offense Matt, but I’m having a hard time seeing how I ‘didn’t do too bad.’ Even if I can just ignore the fact this guy was pretending to be a wizard of all things, the fact of the matter is I completely lost track of what I was even planning to do once he tried to break my ankle.”

“I could talk all day about the grit you showed in fighting through that, but I know you already know how much of a tough young woman you’ve become. Trust me when I say that what you experienced is perfectly normal. Most people completely new to the ring have a hard time holding up when they go from practice to the real thing, just like a soldier going from the training barracks to an actual battlefield. The fact that you were both still able to fight back through that and the damage to your ankle and have the presence of mind to catch him while he was busy being far too full of himself is, if nothing else, proof that you certainly can do this if you keep at it. How is the ankle, by the way?”

“I’m walking on it, aren’t I?”

Matt couldn’t help but let out a chuckle as she literally marched over towards the ring where he knew they were going to spar for a bit, especially so he could get her used to what he knew she’d face in her upcoming match. Despite his age, he was still in remarkable shape and had no problem keeping up with someone almost half a century younger than him. Before he could get too far, though, he found himself stopping when he felt Claire’s hand on his shoulder.

“I don’t mean to intrude sir, but… are you sure she’s…?”

“Without a shadow of a doubt Miss Prescott. Even ignoring everything her father did for reasons I wish I could still understand, she’s one tough cookie and determined as hell to prove herself to him in ways that even he can’t seem to see, no matter how much she says she’s against him. That can carry someone a long way in this business… you know, if you ever-”

“It’s tempting, believe me. But as much as I’d love to prove a thing or two to my own daddy, this is more Melissa’s kind of thing. I think because of how I grew up I won’t ever be cut out for anything physical, no matter how much I tried to tough out willingly going to summer camps instead of cruises for a few summers back in junior high.”

The general lightly laughed to himself, but nodded and accepted her answer for now before going to join Melissa in the ring. Maybe it was the fact that he never really had much of a family of his own left, but he felt a connection to these two young ladies that he would probably never be able to put into words and he truly wanted to see them both make the most of their own lives by their own hands. Maybe that’s why he took so much pride in being Melissa’s trainer and trying to see if he could goad Claire out of her own shell to give this a shot.

One thing he knew for sure though… the Melissa Killgraves that flew out to London would not be the same woman still finding her footing from the previous Emerge show, and Goddrick Grimm was in for a rude awakening if he made the same mistakes Sourial Slytherin had.

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“How many of you think you know who Melissa Killgraves is?

How many of you think you know what I’m capable of just because of how my first match in Emerge went down?

For those of you jumping to conclusions, I hope you enjoy the plunge from that cliff because none of you have any idea of what I’m truly capable of just yet.

I’ll begrudgingly give credit where credit’s due: I took Sourial a little lightly for what was essentially my first actual wrestling match and for the most part I paid for it. That admission, however, should make the fact that he still lost to me sting even more because he got too full of himself and even if I didn’t throw him around the ring like whatever dummy he likes to practice his magic spells on I still showed him and all of you that my toughness is legitimate military grade. He can bitch and moan all he wants about how he lost to a ‘muggle’ or whatever because if he wants to try his luck again he’ll find I’m not a woman who makes the same mistakes twice.

That’s something Goddrick Grimm is going to learn the hard way in London.

This may be the first time I’m competing internationally, and in only my second match no less, but it’s not the first time I’ve gotten to go overseas. I used to do it all the time on occasional vacations with friends, but out of all the things I appreciate the most about England, it’s the fact that they know how to create some tough fighters. You end up fighting someone from the UK and you know, most of the time anyway, that you’re not getting anything fancy but you are going to get a fight. Maybe Sourial was one of those few exceptions that put the flash before the substance, but the fact of the matter is I’m not walking into London to entertain or do anything fancy.

I’m invading to literally punch a so-called god out of his throne.

It’s not hard to see why Sourial thought way too highly of himself before I burst his bubble Goddrick. After all, it wasn’t that long before my debut that he had his own debut at your expense, and I’m sure he was flying high after he could claim he beat someone who thinks he’s an actual deity come from the heavens to grace us with his presence. I’m sure that being a stepping stone willing to elevate all the ‘lowly mortals’ isn’t the reason why you came here, but maybe that’s something you can take pride in at this point since that’s all you’ve been good for so far.

That said… I don’t need any claims beyond this night that whatever I become going forward had anything to do with beating you.

If I didn’t make it clear enough when I spoke the last time, I’m not exactly here to play games with people who ‘think’ they’re this or that or whatever. I’m here to make myself into whoever I feel I should be in life, and if that means crushing a few dreams and knocking the heads off some people who think they’re larger than life for one reason or another along the way, then that’s simply your fault for volunteering to stand in the way of a tank and thinking you won’t get ground into the dirt by the treads.

I’m not blind or stupid Goddrick… even ignoring your supposed ‘godhood’ you’re still far larger and stronger than I am. Chalk it up to whatever you believe in if you want, but I hope you don’t think that means I’m not looking to try my hand at showing you just what kind of power I happen to possess. Maybe you find that thought funny… and we’ll see how funny it is when I give you a Dishonorable Discharge from the ranks of the Emerge roster and make it clear to everyone that how big or tough or talented you are is irrelevant to me because at the end of the day I will stand tall by any means necessary.

I hope your ‘holy kingdom’ is well-fortified Goddrick because there’s a one-woman army marching toward your front gates, and I’m not going to stop until I’ve reduced the whole thing to a pile of rubble in the name of the future of Melissa Killgraves, the woman you will forever remember as the ‘mortal’ who gave you the biggest wake-up call of your entire ‘immortal’ existence by beating you at your own game and leaving you out cold on the mat as just another casualty.”