Post by djurdjevic on Jun 28, 2019 9:03:39 GMT -5
The Domain That Lies Ahead
The Following is the tale of the woman who has yet to realize the scope of her destiny. ---------------------------------------------------
Chapter One - Those Beyond Ordinary
Chapter Two - His Name is Djurdjevic
Chapter Three - By Any Means Necessary
Chapter Four - The Shape of This League
Chapter Two - His Name is Djurdjevic
Chapter Three - By Any Means Necessary
Chapter Four - The Shape of This League
Kings are meant to be existences of unparalleled heights.
They feast on the lion’s share of the glory, while others are left to scrounge and nibble for any little piece they can get.
As King of the UnYielding, Danny Rizzo had Katya Djurdjevic’s respect. It was a respect for someone you see in a similar position to yourself and was at a really high standard.
But the build-up to their blockbuster battles at the Quag Cup and Rite of Kings, in all its mudslinging ugliness, put an end to that very quickly.
Balancing atop the steel cage railings, Rizzo and Djurdjevic trade blows, mirror images of resolve hardened like diamonds, fighting with bludgeoning ferocity. Passion, spirit, energy, pain and glory. They were all on display in their pursuit for that Quag Cup quarter final spot.
Sweat streaming into her eyes, Katya huffs as she backs up a step from Danny. My muscles are screeching, she ruminates.
When muscles exceed their limits, they become iron hard and screech. I've felt this many times before. Once that happens, I don't feel pain. Sounds and smells disappear, and feelings disappear from my body.
It's as though my will alone pushes me forward. My body obeys without a single millimeter of error. I become the pure embodiment of athleticism.
I become a perfectly honed spear. It's strong... but it means...
...the end is near.
Unleashing a fierce boxing combo, Katya almost sends Danny clattering off the railings, but to Katya’s disbelief, the American retains his balance somehow. Katya’s eyes are clouding over and her legs are getting wobbly.
I have to finish this, she knew.
Steeling herself for the kill, Katya darts at the UnYielding Champion for a Yakuza Kick, but Rizzo deftly ducks the outstretched leg. She turns, but it’s too late. Without warning, Katya eats the full force of Rizzo’s devastating running knee - The Warrior’s Call!
The girl went backward off the cage into empty air. There was nothing to grab on to. The ring canvas rushed up to meet her.
Katya shivers as she reopens her eyes, breaking out of her vivid reverie. With a splash, she jackknifes upright, hyperventilating, her heart thudding in her chest.
No, she realises.
She wasn’t duking it out with Danny Rizzo.
It is Monday, June 24, 2019. The location is a local hotel in Cusco, Peru. The time is eight o’clock in the morning.
She had been in the quiet, undistracting hotel swimming pool, drifting along tranquilly on her back.
With a sigh, Katya settles back into the pool’s caressing touch, reflecting, regretting. She’d lost before, but there was something that made losing to Danny a pill too jagged to swallow. Venus told her some losses sting more than others, but this...
She’d never say it, but that weekend ended in neigh complete defeat for Katya Djurdjevic. It was a thumping loss to Rizzo in the Quag Cup. And the champion killed her shot at revenge the night after, ruthlessly crowning Katya with a steel chair at Rite of Kings, bloodying her, and disqualifying himself - losing the battle, but winning the war.
What’s worse, in the days following that weekend, she couldn’t shrug it off like she’d done in her previous losses.
Rizzo’s scathing remarks were like a knife, and had bitten deeper than he wished to confess.. Especially coming from him, someone she admired. And that admiration had doubled when he had defended her from a mocking Spiral a few weeks prior.
But she hasn't let outcomes cloud preparations. The silver lining of this dark cloud was that she qualified for the semifinals of the SouthSide Classic...
… and remained undefeated in Valor Pro. But she didn’t feel like a winner. In fact, it almost felt like being 4-0 mocked her when she left Rite of Kings empty handed. It was almost the cherry on top of Danny’s belief that Valor coddled her:
Damien had underestimated her far too much. Roxi was struggling. Caroline made her tap just a second too late. And now she beat Danny who had willingly forced the disqualification. Whilst Katya was undefeated, Rizzo came out the winner that weekend.
It was as though a sudden blackness came over her, dousing her good spirits like sand on fire. Doubt and uncertainty clouded the mind and a wrestler could afford neither… but was there a shard of truth in Danny’s words? Under Valor’s banner at least, Katya hadn’t achieved a decisive victory over an in form opponent.
This thought plagued her for some days.
But Katya was strong, both in obvious, and secret, ways. She was always one with a taste for the foolishness of life. A thoughtless delight in just being alive, accidentally and clownishly and for no reason alive—the kind of delight you take as a child when you first learn to play a tune with a comb and toilet paper.
Joy swims in the air around her, and she can’t help it. She didn’t fluctuate with the wind. She always returned to her centre. She knew there was value in her victories. Even the DQ against Rizzo. She still fought on equal grounds with the UnYielding Champion. And when she signed her contract, who would have believed she’d be only the third person to go 4-0 in Valor’s history?
So she tucked away those feelings of hurt, biding them for when she and Danny clashed again. There wasn’t much to it, she realised. All she had to do was earn her shot at the UnYielding title again.
And winning her next match, her first Valor main event, would go a long way in doing that. It’s why she was training now. One does not simply beat Brodie and Chris Callum in a tag team match.
Katya cuts an impressive figure in the pool, her favourite red swimsuit looking like nothing more than paint on her skin, she backstrokes through its crystal clear waters with a soft, sedated smile.
She loved swimming in the morning like this. It let her retract from the harsh, noisy, electronic, argumentative world.
She’d tell anyone who’d listen that swimming is a wonderful exercise. She only knew one or two wrestlers who felt the same. And as it turns out, one of them was her partner for the week.
And that’s when The Woman Recognized by The Apex was joined by her tag partner.
KATYA’S MINDSCAPE
Go. Run. Live. On the battlefield, where many words echo and many lives end, exists a roaring, frothing bloodlust.
The pressure is stifling. It's getting hotter and hotter. Heavier and heavier. It’s hard to breathe properly.
Is it because of this mist of blood? Or the undeniable reek of battle that assaults the nose? The stench of shit, piss and guts all mixed together.
Completely bare of any cities or forts, the landscape is host to a far denser forest than one would imagine by their own prerogative.
A hill rears over all else, its immense presence towering in its majesty. It's huge. It's more like a mountain than a hill… and from the ground, to The Apex, is where the bulk of the fighting is contained.
The sound of people killing each other is echoing in the bottom of everyone's stomach.
A trivial three thousand corpses are being pecked to pieces by crows and visible already is one figure who bears some responsibility.
Fighting without hesitation, her fangs cut through the battlefield. Without even time to catch their breath, her opponents are slaughtered.
Her sword brings about destruction, death, waste, and despair, devastating all that stands in her way with unmatched power.
Fighting with fury at her back, a red rage that burned to destroy and kill, The Submission Machine Brodie. Truly UnYielding. Her home is the battlefield.
The voice of Katya Djurdjevic narrates over the scene.
“There is no doubt that Valor Pro will be rising further and further upwards. We are constantly entrenched in this blaze of battle, seeking glory, and its produced a show that draws a crowd like nothing else. Many called Rite of Kings the company’s most successful supershow yet. And… even the UnYielding title I’m chasing had another record broken with Rizzo’s fourth “defence”. And after Brodie’s dominance, the UnYielding Crown is a prize highly sought after in the wrestling world. Those two, along with its past champions and contenders, have done much for the UnYielding Championship.
But that is still not enough. The fact that it's not enough... simply means that it is not yet time. Valor Pro is still young... The UnYielding division still has not.... completely finished ripening. But that does not mean that our actions have been for naught. If anything, it is to us that falls a most vital of roles. Herding this division towards that moment of maturity.
Not many have felt the full weight of the UnYielding Title’s ambition. That for many, many long months, that crown... has been waiting for that fateful day where it has fully matured. But achieving that is easier said than done... exceedingly so. Still, one day, when the time is ripe, that chance will come. And if that opportunity were to end in failure... then perhaps this division will remain a distant second to The Apex. Never knowing its true worth.”
Brodie's face was murder itself, her features scarred and bloody. She carries a fearsome longsword taller than she is.
No, that thing was too big to be called a sword. Too big, too thick, too heavy and too rough. It was more like a large hunk of iron. A thick slab of iron in tune with the violent personality of its wielder.
Ordinarily... Brodie enjoys nothing more than visiting unspeakable agony to her victims before they are granted the peace of death. But right now, she no longer seeks to be UnYielding. She has another goal. Looking skywards to the hill’s peak, she moves up for the only thing in her sights: The Apex.
In a crude ritual, Brodie slashes her sword across her palm, smearing the blood across her face as she chants canticles of death and bloodshed.
Far higher up the hill, from a safe vantage point, Katya Djurdjevic shivered at the sight of her, seeing only death in her heavy-lidded eye, the other bearing an eyepatch, and Katya wondered what terrible thoughts must fill Brodie’s skull.
Whoever she was off to face next, Katya did not envy them the prospect of fighting such a living avatar of blood and death.
Having just recovered consciousness, Katya had realised she was defeated by her last opponent. She too had challenged for the UnYielding Crown, but the champion was gone, going down the well-trodden path, fighting in the shadow of The Apex. She is hurt, but it is not a mortal wound. She takes the time to observe her surroundings.
One man’s arrival was spectacular. In his hands, an immense two-handed sword span in blurring arcs, rising and falling, stabbing and carving. People tumbled away from him, some of them screaming, all of them falling to pieces in his wake.
He killed and killed and killed, never missing a lethal strike, never slowing in his advance. Beneath his feet, the ground ran red – the beginnings of a sick river, sourced by blood. A carpet of corpses lay at his feet, and his path to the Apex was clear.
‘Callum,’ said Katya watching above the carnage. She shook her head as she spoke the name. Unfeigned awe softened her voice.
”Chris Callum… he’s changed since the CWC days when he hired me. He was a great boss. Charming. Encouraging. Nowadays… he’s aggressive, irritable, combative toward everyone and obsessed with the past. He drags out the past again and again so he can take his anger out on others. But what can I say… At Rite of Kings, he took his shot and I didn’t. The rankings didn’t matter. Being “unbeaten” didn’t matter. In one night, he overtook me entirely.”
Walking with a predator’s slow grace, Callum too was moving up. Towards The Apex. Startled, upon considering her position, Katya realises she too is close to The Apex of the hill.
”Everyone really wants The Apex for themselves… for different reasons they want to prove they’re the best and right now, the Apex is inexplicably tied to Cosmo. Recoba wants to make him fall. Brodie wants him to fall. And Chris Callum especially wants him to fall. By taking The Apex, they can proclaim themselves to be the best.
And what about me? As the one who wants to become “The Greatest Champion Under the Heavens”, I’d end up just like them surely. Trying to unseat Cosmo from his throne.
But they still haven’t realized… that this landscape called Valor Pro is a bit peculiar. It’s pretty different from any other we’ve seen so far. If you look carefully, you can find “that”.
Even so, I don’t imagine it would be easy. But I’m aiming for “that”. And I must go now if I don’t want “that” to be stolen from me. From the beginning, I wasn’t aiming for “The Apex”. I’m aiming for what lies beyond “The Apex”! The Domain That Lies Ahead!”
“The path to get there is unbearably rough. In fact, it might even be unimaginable. Its a path that opens up new avenues of brilliant possibility. A path open only to the UnYielding Champion. Open only to one who would dare to upset the entire Valor battlefield in defiance by elevating the UnYielding crown to unseen heights -- standing on equal grounds with The Apex. Yes, a champion who is the symbol of UNYIELDING. And that is an opportunity... which doesn't come about easily. The further you travel down that path, the more you become swallowed up by the vast surrounding forest. Treacherous patches of bog abound. But… if there were a wrestler who was longing for this new domain that much… I’ll sure it’ll become a scenario we’ve never seen before!!”
But Katya… earnestly grasping for the path of a true and worthy champion... could see where it would come to.
In the distance is another summit that is more mountain than hill… one just as high as the hill for The Apex... Yet Another Champion's Battlefield.
But it was incredibly far. Unreasonably far. It might be a lie, an illusion, but it’s there... a dream within a dream.
It’ll get there, she decides. My sword will get there first.
Having observed the others, she knew. The other UnYielding Champions couldn’t see it. It's too far away. Recoba was too focused on becoming Grand Slam champion. Brodie had no interest in titles. Despite his success as champion, Rizzo is under the radar. He walked the path expected of him.
"So I must throw myself in where the fighting is thickest. If I want to take the Unyielding Championship on a road it's never been on, I must become someone capable of duking it out with Valor's best."
Whirling round, Katya finds the man they’re looking for at the summit of the hill.
Here stands the man that wears the mantle that symbolises Valor’s martial might. Sweating and breathing hard, Cosmo Copper steps away from the fallen body of Brennan Devlin, sweat lathering his body in gleaming sheets and his long blond hair slick with sweat.
Clad in an ancient suit of gladiatorial armour, Cosmo was like a warrior from some lost heroic age. He brandished an ornamented treasure sword, reflective of his distinguished career. With many wanting to boast of taking his head, he had been in the thick of it and made battle as graceful as a dance.
That’s when Callum laughs a quiet little laugh, marching right for Cooper. The smile – if it had been a smile – vanished from Callum’s face as though wiped away with a cloth.
On his face there was a certain surliness: he gave the impression that he could at any moment spit on the man he claims to have once made.
Tearing her eyes from what was sure to be a mighty clash between two great figures of renown, Katya eyes Brodie. Her eyes focused only on Cosmo. And suddenly, Katya knew who her next opponents would be.
It would be unthinkable for that girl to let this opportunity slip by. If she were to rise, she must prove herself. Any any rate, there is no greater ally she could hope to have by her side than Cosmo Cooper.
Clutching her sword, she hurls herself against the grimmest fighter in all of Valor. Brodie turns to Katya with threatening slowness.
“And who else can fulfil such a task but the Greatest Champion Under The Heavens? Which is why I must stand before Danny Rizzo again for the UnYielding Crown. If that means I have to up my game to duke it out with the best Valor has to offer, then so be it!
Could've, should've would've... they wrap around your heart and keep you from moving. They drag out heavy burdens and cloud your thoughts. In the domain ahead, you can't afford that. I want to be stronger. I want to beat them. It's incredible. I want to move forward. If I don't eliminate everything but those feelings, I can't reach the domain ahead!”
VERSUS: Chris Callum & Brodie SHOW: Blitz 17MATCH: Tag Team w/ Cosmo Cooper