DEADLINE 1 - 1X 3,250 word limit RP, in whatever format you choose FRIDAY 5TH APRIL 2019 2359 GMT
DEADLINE 2 - 1x 750 word limit SHOOT / SEGMENT rp, to be used in the show. This rp must be sent to the EMERGE PM box before the deadline of SUNDAY 7TH APRIL 2019 2359 EST
Melissa couldn’t help but say that to herself with a grin once she’d gotten back through the curtain at Invasion: London after picking up her second win in Emerge, and she had every right to be happy with herself. Maybe her first outing didn’t go as well as she’d wanted, but this one certainly sent a very clear message not only to the entire roster, but also to her father who was, with any luck, starting to understand exactly what kind of monster he’d made. After all, not only had she virtually concussed and slowly broken down Goddrick Grimm without remorse, but now she could claim to be the reason why the so-called ‘god’ was no longer a part of the Emerge roster.
If she could do that to a man twice her size, then one could only imagine what else she was capable of.
She couldn’t help but feel the confidence building once she got back home, knowing that this could only lead to bigger things for her and eventually the idea of being in trouble financially would be an afterthought. The money she’d made from this show already had her set on rent for a little while, which afforded her the luxury of being able to turn her complete and undivided attention toward what awaited on the horizon… kind of literally in one sense. After all, the announcement of a two day Invasion event taking place aboard a cruise ship with the first of those shows determining title challengers meant that she needed to stay on her A-game if she was going to not only secure a place in one of those matches, but also put down the competition en route to a title win, and a bigger pay day, the following show.
To stay the course, that meant doing her damndest to stay undefeated going in, which was something she doubted Beard was going to simply allow to happen.
She’d been pouring a ton of extra time into her training regiment since returning to Bridgeport, to the point where the irony of feeling like she was living with her father and going through his daily training rigors all over again wasn’t lost on her. Needless to say, the thought didn’t sit well with her at all, especially when she still couldn’t shake off the effects of her old man’s mental hardwiring to simply skip certain parts of her everyday routine to focus on the things she actually wanted to tackle, be they in her workouts or simply trying to relax and cool down afterwards. Perhaps it wasn’t necessary, but Melissa wasn’t going to take any chances. After all, despite what she’d heard about the kind of attitude he carried that made him seem like the kind of clown she’d deck back in school just because he’d annoy her, she was still going up against someone who had competed on and off again for SCW and even challenged for a few of its titles, making this easily her toughest test to date purely from a wrestling standpoint.
It hadn’t taken long for that confidence she’d just gained to become a double-edged sword that now bore the burden of the pressure she was putting on herself to go 3-0.
As Emerge #21 crept closer, the intensity only escalated in her training, and today was no exception. She currently found herself hammering away at a heavy bag like a woman possessed, feeling like this was the perfect way to both blow off some steam and make up for lost time. She’d spent the better part of this week so far trying to train with Matt to be prepared for whatever Beard would throw at her, but in her mind it hadn’t gone as well as she’d hope once she realized there was a lot he could unleash in their match and trying to prepare to counter anything specifically was going to cause her to get caught by something, especially when there were some things Matt simply wasn’t able to replicate without help he didn’t have access to at the present. To that end, she figured the best way to deal with Beard’s more balanced approach was to simply plan on overwhelming him with what she knew best: her own surprising strength and straight-up fighting skills combined with another display of her iron will.
Just because she couldn’t predict him didn’t mean she was walking into a war she couldn’t win, after all. Or at least, that’s what she reasoned.
This thought made her grit her teeth in annoyance as her strikes seemed to gain more impact behind them. One thing she’d picked up on when looking back at how she addressed her first two opponents was the fact that military concepts were coming up fairly frequently. She wasn’t talking like she was in a lineup responding to a question or order from a drill sergeant, but the fact that it was even coming up at all bothered her. Even the attire Claire had paid to get custom made for her, while fitting, brought up flashes that sent mixed signals that maybe she wasn’t trying as hard as she thought to escape her father’s influence. The more she tried to fight it and steer herself in a direction that truly felt like it was her, the more she seemed to come full circle back to the starting line and it was beginning to drive her up a wall.
“What right… did he have… to try… and turn me… into a goddamn soldier!?”
The furious shout accompanied by the wicked haymaker that could easily pass for her patented Kill Shot summed up her frustrations perfectly: aimed primarily at herself and vented when she believed no one was around to pay it any mind. Of course, she refused to actually direct any of that aggression onto her own being for obvious reasons, but she was growing tired of looking back at the progress she’d made so far and still feeling like the boot prints of Sgt. Brett Killgraves were marching right alongside her own imprints in the proverbial sand. Surely there had to be a way to forge her own legacy and be well and truly rid of any influence he could’ve had, right? It was a question she thought would be easy to answer, but as she regulated her breathing before planning on another barrage towards the bag she was starting to feel like the real answer was the one she truly didn’t want. Every bead of sweat that dripped from her body, every slow gasp of air to catch her breath before starting anew… was this really any different from those days she’d put up with for so very long?
“Did you have to go as far as you did Melissa?”
Melissa felt her breath catch in her throat as she violently whipped around, but this only reminded her that she was all alone right now as Matt had gone to another part of the rather large gym for his own reasons. That was a voice she couldn’t forget or simply ignore, and yet the only place it could’ve come from was her own thoughts. She simply let out a low growl and resumed her stance, ready to bludgeon the bag some more no matter how much her arms were burning from how long she’d been at this today.
“Your attitude was uncalled for, young lady. That man didn’t deserve any of that assault.”
Her arm froze mid-punch, quivering almost in fear as she heard it again. Her eyes could only widen as she very slowly returned to her base stance, closing her eyes and shaking her head to try and shrug it off. As she opened them and went to try throwing the first punch again, she found herself unable to follow through once more, and this time it was a lot clearer why she froze… at least, in her vision. After all, it’s kind of hard to violently assault a defenseless heavy bag when in its place stands the burly, battle-hardened man responsible for everything she’d become.
“Do you not remember any of the virtues I taught you growing up?”
“Virtues? Dad, what the hell would I need virtues for!? That ring is no different than the war zones you’ve toured through, and I see no difference between what I did to Grimm and what you’ve done to so many people!”
“That man was simply competing against you, no matter how he tried to present it. There was no chance he was actually looking to intentionally kill you, warranting no reason for your actions.”
“Bullshit! Why should I care about whatever he was hoping to gain from that? You never cared about anything I wanted because you only saw a chance to extend your military legacy and nothing else!”
Deep down, Melissa wanted to feel like an idiot. With every blink of her eyes as they began to blur from a combination of her anger starting to boil over and clearly overexerting herself trying to prepare for this next match, she knew her father wasn’t there in any actual capacity and she was talking to an inanimate object. And yet, something about this just felt right to her, being able to talk back to her proverbial ‘commanding officer’ without fear of repercussions for once in her life, something she was barely able to do no back home no matter how many times she felt she’d reached her boiling point with being treated like a soldier as opposed to a daughter.
“I know that deep down within you exists the little girl I love, who knows full well that I was only trying to instill within her what it truly means to be-”
“A killing machine? A remorseless monster? A living weapon who only knows how to hurt people and claim I’m defending something? Don’t you dare try to justify to ME that you had MY best intentions in mind, you son of a bitch! This was never truly about me, only YOUR legacy and YOUR attempts to cover up what I really am so people can keep looking at you as a goddamn hero!”
“…I was trying to show you what it truly means to be all that you can be. No matter how you look at it sweetheart, I know there’s a part of you that actually understands this if you’re putting all this effort into trying to prove something to me. My opinion matters to you… like a soldier seeking satisfaction from his commanding officer and a daughter trying to prove herself to her parent.”
It was in that moment that Melissa finally heard enough and threw herself into the heavy bag like a feral animal, raining down an onslaught of pain that would have even MMA commentators begging for her to stop. Every punch was accompanied by unintelligible sounds of pure rage that were attempts to keep responding to the man she thought was her actual victim, and it wasn’t too much longer before she found herself being violently hauled off the damaged bag by Matt as he used the startling strength he still possessed for a man his age to restrain her. No amount of trying to throw him off of power out was getting her to go anywhere, but he said nothing and let her get it out of her system anyway before reality seemed to slowly return to her thought process. Matt carefully let her go and watched carefully as she looked down at the bag in disbelief before slowly dropping to her knees, tears slowly beginning to form in her eyes.
“Why…? Why can’t I just be rid of him and live my life the way I want to?”
The military general-turned-wrestler placed a comforting hand on Melissa’s shoulder as she silently wept, trying her best to make it seem like she was fighting back the tears but losing. He knew the highly vaunted hometown hero who had once served under him on several missions had really pushed the poor young woman to her limit and beyond in trying to accomplish whatever it was he was seeking out of a relationship that was clearly as far removed from that of a parent and their child as possible, but actually seeing Melissa’s outburst now truly gave him the greatest insight he wished he’d never come across. Sgt. Killgraves’ conditioning truly did cause some psychological damage within his own daughter, and the immense pressure she was putting on herself to find some way out of his shadow was going to destroy her if something didn’t change.
There was still plenty of time for the General to help Melissa past both this and the challenge Beard would pose… as well as plenty of time to form his plan of attack on how to truly bring this to the attention of her father so he was truly aware of the mess he’d created.
I made it explicitly clear to all of you that I was going to leave Invasion: London after showing you all exactly what I’m about, and in the process I erased everything you wanted to hold against me from my very first match against that godforsaken wizard. Kind of fitting I use that word considering I took a man who considered himself a god of sorts and basically left him lying in the ring wondering where he even was when all was set and done.
I told Grimm I was going to terminate his place on the Emerge roster, and I did just that even without his precious little muse claiming that they’d walk if he lost. Take one look into his eyes in the aftermath of our match and tell me that I didn’t take a man twice my size and literally break him down with the whole world watching? That was the kind of beating that leaves a man at the mercy of doctors telling him the smartest decision to make is to stay the hell away from the ring for his own good.
And that was only the second match of my entire career.
I could brag about this little 2-0 start, but I’m not going to call this a full-fledged undefeated streak just yet. Only the naive start to get big heads about something that’s still so small in the grand scheme of things, and I know I still have a ways to go before what awaits us on the horizon. After all, we all heard the announcement of the next Invasion event and the promise it holds. If you ignore the tag belts because I don’t do ‘teamwork,’ that leaves three titles with openings for a contender and I could care less about which one I slot my name into as long as I lock down my place in any one of those contendership scenarios and then go on to throw a champion out of their throne the very next day.
If I’m going to better my chances of even making it to the first stage of that plan, then I have to mow down a guy who’s a little too obsessed with his overgrown facial hair to better my chances.
As much as I can only assume you’re going to act like an overgrown man-child towards me just based on what I’ve seen, I’m not so stupid that I’d just ignore the fact that there was a point in time when you had some prominence in SCW, Beard. Beneath the sex jokes and desires to follow that Giovanni clown into his trippy land of make believe lies what I will admit is my biggest test to date. Sure, Grimm had a huge size and power advantage on me and that wizard kid had experience and speed, but you’ve had that big fight feel before and taken your shots at gold in the company many aspire to rise up to one day, and you’re arguably the most balanced and unpredictable guy I’ve had to face yet.
Don’t get too high on yourself though, because if I’ve proven anything up to this point it’s that I’m the last person on this roster you should ever overlook.
Every time I set foot in that ring, everyone gets a chance to understand who exactly I am just a little more. You’ve seen how tough I can be, you’ve seen how ruthless I am… now you just need to figure out what’s next and you might better your chances of derailing me. I wouldn’t count on it though Beard… god, I hate having to actually call you by that name… because if there’s one thing I will be nice enough to share with you right now, it’s this:
No matter how badly you want to win your Emerge debut, I will always want this far more than someone like you could ever hope to understand, and when all is set and done you’ll just have to find someone else to use as your stepping stone, because I refuse to be cannon fodder for anyone, especially someone like you looking to pick up on your glory days of the past at my expense.”
![[Image: yC0vuyj.png]](https://i.imgur.com/yC0vuyj.png)