TWELVE YEARS AGO

Amara’s finger slipped. Just barely.

The piano key rang wrong.

A jolt of pain lanced her leg.

“Wrong key,” Gertrude, her private music teacher, wagged the discipline stick. “Again.”

Amara was already accustomed to the punishment, even at ten-years-old. She flexed her blood-sore fingers and whisked them across the piano for the hundredth time in another 3-hour session.

She stared at the keys, refusing to look at her hands. If she didn’t look, they didn’t hurt.

That was the rule.

*CRACK*

Another swat made her breath hitch despite efforts to muffle it. Crying only made things worse. It meant more strikes.

“No stalling. Play.” The wrinkles time had carved into Gertrude’s face scrunched tight as she raised the stick once more.

Amara paused, hands trembling as she wrung them. “Miss Gertrude,” she said carefully, “I’m sorry but… may I please take a break? My fingers hurt. And I have acting class later.”

Gertrude’s bushy brows lifted. “Do you wanna win?”

Amara blinked. “At what?" There weren’t any upcoming competitions she knew about.

“Everything,” Gertrude growled. “Acting. Music. LIFE.”

“Yes!” Amara replied quickly.

Gertrude grabbed her into a face-to-face.

“Then listen, she snarled, “Winning isn’t loyal to you. It doesn’t care about you. It doesn’t give a damn how sore you are, or how much sleep you get, or how hard you work. Sometimes others won’t outwork you and they’ll still win. It isn’t fair. Winning requires all of you and more but promises you nothing. It’s a master at creating doubt and causes setback after setback. You must be willing to sprint when you don’t know how far you’re running.”

Amara’s young eyes grew wide, overwhelmed by something she shouldn’t have been forced to understand yet.

“.....then why chase it, ma’am?”

Gertrude leaned closer. The smell of spaetzle lingered on her breath. “Because the only guarantee in life is that if you don’t chase it….you lose.” She pressed the baton under Amara’s chin and forced her face back toward the piano.

The music sheet before her was advanced, far beyond what most students her age would touch.

Gertrude raised the stick again.

“Play.”

…

The piano sat untouched.

Amara was no longer ten years old. She was now twenty-two in the leading month of 2026. She turned away from the piano tucked into the corner of her penthouse loft in downtown Los Angeles and contemplated, like many times before, whether to keep it or toss it.

“One day I’ll decide." Amara marched across the marble floor to the wall-length flatscreen displaying video images from R.L. Edgar’s career. Her eyes fixated on Edgar gripping Whyte Spyder’s chin a moment before he bitch-slapped him and hurled him through the glass wall at Snow Job ‘21, netting him the Hart Championship.

Her body shuddered. She could feel the shards in her and she wasn’t even there. Ripping her eyes away from the scene, Amara directed them to the spent notebook on the table. Pages were full of training notes she’d worked her fingers to the bone compiling while studying Edgar. Figuring out the way he flinches. What side is his head on when he tries to clinch? What’s his favorite setups? Does he telegraph his CYN signature or hide the tell?

“Ugh! The only reason I signed up was the free trip to Antarctica. It’s the only place in America I haven’t visited yet.” 

She paced, ignorant of her geographical snafu. Her eyes hurt with the strain of film study. Much of her body ached from training. She’d never get used to this. "Wrestling SUCKS!”

She took a consoling sip from her iced white chocolate mocha made with blonde espresso, oat milk, vanilla sweet cream cold foam, and a dash of caramel drizzle, while her sleekly dressed personal assistant, Vivian Cross, sat on an Italian sectional, nose dutifully buried in her high-tech tablet, adjusting itineraries. 

“Why didn’t they just book me against the midget?”

Vivian Cross didn’t look up from her tablet.

“Dick Lichter?” Vivian asked. “He’s a general manager. Not a wrestler.”

Amara whirled, platinum curls bouncing. “Not him. The illegal with the stupid mask.”

Vivian blinked once. Slowly. “The Bit Luchador?”

“Yes!” Amara snapped her fingers.

“I don’t believe he’s undocumented, Ms. Vale. The Trillionaires would’ve had ICE on him already if that were true.”

“Yeah-yeah whatever.” Amara resumed pacing. “I would’ve totally kicked his ass. This is my debut. They could’ve given me a jabroni. Instead they’re tossing me to the wolves with that veteran who’s too stupid to spell and pronounce his own name so he sticks with the initials.”

Vivian finally looked up from her tablet. “May I propose a theory?”

Amara stopped. One hand on a hip. Permission granted with a nod.

“Perhaps,” Vivian said evenly, “the Trillionaires are displeased that you vanished after WarGames. No appearances. No media. No bookings. They financed your grandiose debut segment, including the flying throne, which, by the way, cost them one hundred thousand dollars. Not to mention the lucrative contract they signed you to.”

Amara’s cherry red kissers slipped into a guilty pout.

“They expected reciprocity.” Vivian continued. “You disappeared.”

“Oh my God,” the Blondest Bombshell scoffed. “Like.. whatever. I’m Amara Vale! I decide when I put my body on the line.”

“Of course,” Vivian agreed instantly. “You decide when. They decide against whom.”

Amara collapsed dramatically into her lavish chair, clutching the Starbucks cup against her chest protectively.

“Thank you,” she muttered, “Captain Obvious.”

“I didn’t mean t–”

“No,” Amara lifted a hand. “I was bitchy. Sorry.”

That surprised Vivian enough to still her.

Amara stared at her drink and took a long, indulgent sip, then another one, deeper.

“I’m scared, Vivian,” she said suddenly. “Okay? I’m scared.” Amara drew a breath. “Like, I had it all planned out. I’d wrestle nobodies for a while. I’d look good. I’d win pretty. I’d ease into it. Then I’d do the serious stuff. But now they're throwing me in there with someone who’s hella good.”

Vivian’s brows raised with accusation. “That’s a roundabout way of saying you wanted to do the bare minimum but reap the benefits.”

“Uh, yeeeah,” Amara confirmed with a ‘duh’ nod, “By the time I dipped my toes into serious waters, it would be time for filming to begin. I would’ve fulfilled this ridiculous wrestling mandate that the legend put into the movie contract. Ugh, I still can’t believe the doofus producer agreed to this ‘method-acting’ clause. I’m literally a prodigy. I excel at acting. I literally won awards. I literally have a star on Hollywood Boulevard. I sing. I dance. I play the piano–”

“You wrestle now,” Vivian interjected. “Maybe you’ll be a prodigy at that, too.”

Amara shot her a warning glance.

“Not the point! Women like me shouldn’t be rolling around on a mat with sleazeballs in their underwear and half-naked women. People such as me should have, like, a universal rule forbidding it, like, some kind of evolutionary trait or something.”

“Absolutely.” Vivian agreed. “Yet here you are. A professional wrestler. Ms. Vale, you pay me to keep it real with you, and the reality is, nobody put a gun to your head and made you agree to this.”

The Blondest Bombshell sank lower into her chair, wanting to hide from the truth bullets firing from her assistant’s mouth.

“And you gotta take the good with the bad.”

“I don’t wanna look stupid out there.”

“You won’t,” Vivian assured her. “Even in loss, you’ll look dramatic. You’ll look wronged. You’ll look like the victim of poor booking decisions.”

Victim. That repulsive word. It spurred Amara. She trimmed the fear that’d pinned her to the chair and she rose to her feet, tossing the Starbucks cup into the trash with authority.

“I. Am. Not. A. Victim. Anymore. I spent the last several years recovering from being a victim. I won’t play that card. I don’t give a hoot about those wrestling fans and don’t want their sympathy.”

Amara adjusted the pearl-white charmeuse robe around her body and stomped over to the floor-to-ceiling windows. Vivian followed her at a distance. It was healthy for Amara to vent.

“What card are you gonna play then?”

The Starlet pondered the question as she stared down at the array of headlights, billboards, and bodies packed together at rooftop parties. “Villainy.” She said at last.

Vivian stiffened slightly.

Amara tightened the robe’s sash, chin lifting.  “They want a sob story, tears, and courage porn that those disgusting fatbodies can clap for and forget. I won’t give them that.”

“Understood. If that’s what you really want. Though I think you’re a goldmine of babyface-hero upswing, especially with your victory over addiction. You’d be an inspiration for-”

Amara snorted derisively. “I’ve seen what the trashlings cheer for. No thanks.” Her captivating blue eyes shifted with thought. “Speaking of villains and heroes, what’s the common denominator in the main event?”

Vivian barely had a chance to reply before she was cut off. “Factions, Vivian. Those four are legends. If they need crews around them to survive, then I’ll need that too.”

It wasn’t something Vivan liked, but Amara had a point. “Gotcha. So, we’re putting out feelers about an entourage for you?”

“Yes!” Her reflection hovered over the city in the window, making it appear she was above it all, where she belonged. “And, hmmm…” She tapped her exquisitely shaped chin. “Contact Scoops McGee. He’s decades late to his appointment with the glue factory. He’s not winning the Big Gold. He’s fussing with Dickie. He’ll be dejected after the PPV and vulnerable. He’s got more experience than anyone in XWF, so I’ll need him. Offer him a spot with me, but dress up the position to make it more appealing. An advisor role.”

Vivian’s brow creased. “Advisor?”

“Exactly. Tell him he’ll be the Barristan Selmy to my Daenerys. The Dumbledore to my Harry. The Haymitch to my Katniss. The Duncan Idaho to my Paul Atreides.”

“He’s…old-school. Might not get the references.”

“The Merlin to my King Arthur then,” she huffed. “He’ll understand that one.”

Vivian folded her arms slowly. “So you see Scoops as… what? Your Knight? Your drunk prophet? Servant?’

Turning away from the window, Amara cocked her head. “More like my living archive. Someone who’s survived every mistake I haven’t made yet.”

---

The feed sparked to life in the simplicity of a small California parking lot bereft of vehicles, save for a 2026 Escalade complete with all the bells and whistles. On the hood, perched prettily with one leg crossed over the other, sat Amara. The lens gravitated to the legwear clinging to her succulent limbs so tightly that it looked virtually painted on.

“RL Edgar, I just said your name and it’s the only time I’ll say it. From now on, I’ll refer to you as ‘Eggie’ because scrambled eggs are what your brain is made of anymore.”

The Starlet showcased her fur-tipped Ugg boots because she simply couldn’t help herself, then slid off the hood and adjusted the L.A. Rams hoodie she proudly wore.  

“It sucks you didn’t get booked versus someone who has a chance against you on paper or someone you’ve had past issues with. Those would’ve moved the needle some. I kinda pissed-off the Trillionaires, so here we are.”

She shrugged adorably.

“You probably didn’t see my debut segment at WarGames, so in the words of Jay-Z, allow me to reintroduce myself.”

America’s Last Bombshell flourished a prim and proper curtsy.

“I’m Amara Vale.” Her voice came off so honeyed that one could sweeten their tea with it. “Silver screen teen sensation. Winner of the Young Hollywood Golden Halo, the Starlight Rising Actress Trophy, and the Global Youth Icon Award. That was before the flameout took my career and almost my life.

Lucky me, though. Here I am, six years later, with a chance to reclaim my Hollywood status. The only blockbuster role I can snag is a biopic of a legendary female wrestler who transcended the ring, with a condition in the movie contract stating I have to become a wrestler myself.

To live it as she did.

To learn how to ‘method act’ as a wrestler.

Yay me! Woohoo! “ The sarcasm hung on every syllable. 

“Most importantly to you, I'm the sum of all you oppose. I’m a liar. I’m a cheat. I’m vainglorious. I’m a villain. I spent the past year training for wrestling, and the Trillionaires signed me to a multimillion-dollar contract. I skipped the indies. I didn’t cut my teeth or earn my keep to secure that contract. I took a spot best reserved for someone cut from your cloth, someone who’s wrestled their way up, who ran the roads, who broke down and put up rings.

We’re genetically predisposed to hate each other, Eggie.

And yeah, you’re definitely gonna hate me. Really badly. Let me show you why.”

She tossed a nod to the cameraman, and he swung the tool of his trade away from her and settled the eye on a large construction site across the street from their quaint, empty lot. The site teemed with activity, many men coming and going, driving equipment and big trucks, laying bricks and carefully maneuvering along partially completed rooftops.

“Look at them, Eggie.” Amara’s tone was almost reverent as she appeared partially into the frame. “They work 12-16 hours per day in the best and worst weather. Their hands are calloused. They’re tough. They’re gritty. They form brotherhoods on these sites. They get into friendly fights over their favorite football teams. Some go home to lovely wives and kids. The single lads go to the bar.

By the time they’re 50, they won’t have knee cartilage, and they’ll need help getting out of bed.

And they’ll be ok with that, because their wife and kids are taken care of, set up for success. They’ll have a roof over their head and memories to live off of.

They’re the common man.

They’re the everyman.

Ring a bell, Eggie?

They’re you.

These types of men build stuff that gives memories. The house where you had your first night of intimacy with Marie. The venue you took Marie to on the first date.  The place you asked Marie to marry you. The hospital where you held each of your five children for the first time.

Memories similar to the ones you’ve created for many in your heroic moments. Think about how many kids went to school and finally knocked out their bully the night after you overcame your own personal bully in Ned Kaye. Think of the fans who pulled extra shifts at work for a ticket to see you fight the good fight in person, to live vicariously through you, to push aside suicidal thoughts just a little longer.

They’re everyman.

You’re the everyman.

You’re good men.

Backed by good women and kids.”

She gestured at pop-up lunch benches where men sat eating meals brought to them by their ladies. Some of the food came from home, cooked slowly and packed with love. Other meals were wrapped in fast-food paper, grabbed in haste between errands and school pickups. 

Nearby, their children wobbled around wearing oversized hard hats that slipped down over their eyes, laughing as they used tape measures like toys, snapping them back and forth. One little boy paraded around wearing a tool belt far too big for him.

“But then there’s me.” She checked her diamond-bezeled Cartier wristwatch and turned her head left, then right, searching. “And I’m not a good person.” Her expression turned expectant.

*SKREEECH-THUD-THUD-THUD!*

A swarm of black SUVs blitzed the construction site area like piranhas in a frenzy. Armed men in tactical gear bearing the name ICE dismounted and gave chase to the chaos of fleeing men.

The workers were good men. But undocumented men. Mostly.

While the bedlam continued across the site, Amara slipped her hands into the pockets of her hoodie and observed from the insulated quiet of the adjacent lot.

“No, Eggie. I’m not an undercover ICE agent. Hollywood employs plenty of illegals to build sets. I’ve even hired some for small jobs in the past.”

Cuffs came out. Good men resisted.

“It’s how I knew to find them here.”

OC spray erupted in hissing arcs. Order enforced. Good men went down.

“It’s how I alerted ICE and orchestrated this.”

Men who harbor the same unyielding spine as Edgar fought harder than others, refusing to fold to the sudden shitstorm their life had spun into.

*BLAM! BLAM-BLAM-BLAM!*

Less-than-lethal bullets slammed into them, knocking some over like shot rabbits. Hurt but not dead.

Several men escaped the dragnet in their vehicles, but an ICE helicopter overhead would see to it that they were followed until arrest.

In the midst of the pandemonium, wives stumbled. Children were knocked from unsteady feet. No one meant to hurt them, but no one stopped it either. 

Above the shouting, the orders, the boots and batons, one sound reigned supreme.

The screaming.

Not from good men in pain, but from good men realizing, all at once, what had been taken. They wouldn’t tuck their children in again. They wouldn’t argue over bills or laugh with friends or wake up to the California sun.

“Look at them, Eggie,” Amara said, neither with spite nor jubilance, “those good men are failures.”

An armored ICE vehicle stopped next to her.

“Ring a bell, Eggie? Good men who’re failures? It’s you.”

The Starlet strode forward to meet the disembarking agents. The cameraman, being a man of culture, briefly leveled the camera onto Amara’s glutes, capturing the obligatory “ass shot” as her mesmerizing buns jiggled with each step.

“There she is!” Hopping out to meet her was a grinning man built like something from a lab. Tall, strong, Gigi-Chad jawline, uniform barely clinging onto him from the absurdity of muscles threatening to bust free. He couldn’t be more American if his first name were America.

He extended a fist.

Amara dapped him up.

“I’m Captain Morris. Zack Morris. You spoke with my agents on the phone. And yes, before you ask, I was named after Zack from Saved by the Bell.”

They broke into laughter. She clapped.

“Your parents are absolutely amazing!” Her hand draped her heart, and she smiled the prettiest smile.

“And you're one damn good model American! It’s nice to have someone from the Hollywood sector on our side for once. Thanks for the alert and for helping us.” He motioned across the construction site that’d turned into a battlefield.

“An honor! Is it safe to do what I asked about when I contacted you guys?”

“Absolutely!” He barked orders, flung hand signals. “Area’s secure. Some agents will escort you through, but don’t worry, we won’t get in your video shots. Go get your promo on.”

She wasted no time making a beeline through the area. There was only one area that caught her eye, though. The staging area for the women and children who’d dropped by to enjoy their husbands and dads lunch break before the world went to hell.

They were hysterical. Tears. Shrieking. ICE agents milled around them. Talking. Nursing.

Amara kept a moderate distance out of necessity. Edgar needed to hear her words over the auditory ruckus around them.

“Look at them, Eggie.” Her words fired off quickly. “Those good men failed them. Those men put them in harm’s way today.” Amara jabbed a finger at the sobbing huddle.

“Just like you did many times to Marie and your five children. How many times did you find yourself strapped to a chair or kidnapped or implanted with a microchip or compromised in some new and dramatic way by goon platoons or mostly by your mommy-niece Misty? How many times did you put your then-wife and children in danger in the name of this trash sport?

And for what?

To fail in tags with your fugly booger-faced niece.

To fail at preventing Ned Kaye from taking your Hart Championship that you only ever borrowed from him.

To fail at toppling the big bad Page for the Big Gold.

To fail at being a husband, making Marie bail.

To be nothing more than a midcard, gatekeeping redneck leftist uncle, someone who can’t stay active for more than a few months before vanishing like a fart in the wind for years, the same man who let his ex-fiance stay in his house and bang another man in his own bed.

Joint winner of Best Dad Ever, my lily-white butt!

If justice ruled, your kids would've been taken away by CPS, and Marie would've been in jail for enabling mental and emotional child abuse.”

She rolled her shoulders and casually adjusted the cuff of her hoodie, eyes drifting to the sobbing families and flashing lights, before finally returning her gaze to the lens.

“And now you’re back.

Why?

The big baddies are gone. BR left. Dickie dethroned King. House of Hardcore is on top. They’re heroes.

You missed the Heroes Feast, Eggie.

Are you back because Dolly got trapped in SEER? Now you gotta wrestle in her stead to free her?

Wait, no, I got it… Dolly lost her smile… Awwww… and you’re helping her find it again through wrestling?

That’ll be a tear-jerker.

Did Misty kill you and make you Zombie Edgar?

Maybe since your head is stuck up your own ass so much, Misty ripped off your stomach and replaced it with a glass window so you can see where you’re going a lot better. That’d take years to adjust to.

Is Misty even alive?

I gotta admit, your family feuds and historical anomalies are more convoluted and dysfunctional than the Jackson Five. If your family issues were a scientific equation, Einstein himself couldn’t solve it. So it’s hard to keep track of.

Maybe you’re back because Betsy resurfaced? Perhaps you technically never left, but her time-portal booth took a wrong turn in Albuquerque, and you’ve been in time-dilation until now.

Perhaps you graduated from meditation school, fixed things with Marie, and are full of gusto again.

Heh.

The real question is, when will you leave again?”

Amara lifted a finger.

“And the answer is, when I tell you that you can leave.”

She jabbed her finger against her chest with emphasis.

“Despite your flaws, you’re a hero. A legit one. I’m a villain.

And I’m a sucker for a good story.

Congrats. You won the hero lottery.

I need a Superman for my Lex.

I need a hero who can fight back, who keeps getting up.

You’re it.

Our story will be legendary. I fired the first shot today. Preemptive of sorts. There’s a high probability I’ll fail in defeating you at Snow Pain, so if I can’t win there, I’ll get wins at your expense elsewhere. Like here.”

She turned her palm upward and swept it toward the lights, the agents, the arrestees. An open-handed presentation.

“They thought they were safe under sanctuary polices afforded by Newsom, much like you think our match is a safe booking. I showed them, and you, that I’ll do anything, cross any line, to win.

I needed to show you that no matter how good a man you are, it doesn’t exempt you from failure.

That people like me exist to exploit it in every way - people like me you shouldn’t underestimate in Antarctica.

Lest you forget, you once lost to a man named Big Puddin... and were famously eliminated by Barney Green in a First Blood Battle Royal.

Barney. 
Green.

Eggie, the chances of someone like me beating you in their debut are low…..

… but never zero.”

Amara turned away and accepted a customized ICE bomber jacket. She donned it and grinned sensationally as a classic black-and-white filter captured the fading scene of her surrounded by ICE agents who couldn’t hide their adulation for her.