The fluorescent lights buzzed like dying insects as Remi pushed open the battered gym door. She'd received a text at six in the morning from Lionel’s phone: Dress comfortably. Everything else will be provided.

She should have ignored it.

A massive whiteboard dominated the far wall. Across the top, written in thick red marker and underlined four times with little stars around it like a teenager's diary entry: HOW TO BECOME JENNY MYST. Beneath it sat a checklist. Look Like Jenny. Talk Like Jenny. Think Like Jenny. Become Jenny. Defeat Jenny.

Remi stopped in the doorway. "Nope."

Pennyfarthing looked up from arranging index cards in a semi-circle on the floor. He wore a floor-length victorian coat. "Oh, wonderful! You're early."

"I'm leaving."

"No." He hurried over, placing both hands on her shoulders before she could pivot. "You've already committed."

"I never committed."

"You replied with a thumbs-up."

"That is not legally binding!"

"It is spiritually."

From the corner came a familiar voice. "I'd argue legally too."

Korvayne sat sprawled in a folding chair, feet propped on another, energy drink in hand, scrolling her phone. Without looking up: "You really should've read the fine print."

"There wasn't any fine print. Why are you here?"

Kor shrugged. "I was promised entertainment."

The side door opened. Samael Dyson walked in carrying two cardboard boxes. He dumped the boxes on a table.

Pennyfarthing clapped. "Excellent. The supplies have arrived."

"I don't like that sentence," Remi muttered.

"You will."

"No, I won't."

"You absolutely will."

Dyson opened the first box. Inside sat a blonde wig with pigtails tied off in black bows, fading to pink ends.

"What the fuck’s that?" Remi asked.

"Hair," Pennyfarthing said.

"I know it's hair!"

Dyson reached into the second box. A makeup case. He opened it with the reverence of a man about to do something he would relish. Inside: every shade of pink, every shade of black, enough glitter to constitute a war crime.

Remi backed away. "No. Absolutely not."

"But how else will you become Jenny?"

"I'm not trying to become Jenny!"

Kor finally looked up. "I'd like that entered into the record. Tell Penn."

"Resistance." Pennyfarthing uncapped a marker. Under the checklist he wrote: Subject is resisting the process.

Dyson picked up the wig. "Hold still."

"No."

"Bitch, stop making this fucking difficult."

"Fuck you."

He nodded thoughtfully. "...Fuck you too." Then he walked over and placed the wig on her head.

Remi yanked it off. "No!"

Pennyfarthing gasped. "She removed the Jenny."

Kor snorted into her drink.

Five increasingly ridiculous minutes later, Pennyfarthing and Dyson had cornered and wrestled Remi into sitting down. Dyson slapped the wig on her then began working with the focus of a surgeon and the delicacy of a bricklayer. Black eyeliner became a philosophical concept instead of a cosmetic one. Eyeshadow was applied with a trowel. By the time he reached the blush, Remi looked like she had survived a paintball attack.

Dyson stepped back and produced a championship belt from behind the whiteboard. It was made of cardboard. The center plate had been colored with yellow marker. Across it, in uneven handwriting: XTREME CHAMPIONSHIP. He set it on the table.

"Now," Pennyfarthing announced, consulting his index cards, handing a pile to Remi. "Lesson One: The Monologue."

He struck a pose, chin lifted, eyes distant. "The future... is now. And now... is the future. Because... the future... continues... to become... the present. Which proves... everything."

He turned to her, expectant.

"What?" Remi said.

"Your turn."

"I'm not doing that."

"You must. The monologuing is the foundation of character."

"It's not even words! It's just... noises with pauses!"

"Precisely. Jenny Myst speaks without ever arriving. She circles the point so endlessly that the audience forgets there was a point. By the end, they are exhausted, confused, and somehow possibly convinced she has said something profound."

"That's not profound. That's nothing."

"Nothing is the point, Remi. Nothing is everything."

Kor raised her hand. "Can I be excused? I think I'm getting stupider by proximity."

"Stay," Pennyfarthing commanded. "You may learn something."

"I doubt it."

He turned back to Remi. "Again. And remember: no coherence. Coherence is the enemy."

"I don't know how to be incoherent on purpose."

"Critical flaw," Pennyfarthing muttered, writing on the board. ‘Subject demonstrates coherent thought’.

Remi tries, looking at an index card. “I’m the greatest because I’m…. the greatest.”

Dyson slammed the table. "No! No! No!"

Remi jumped. "What?!"

"You're doing it all wrong!"

"I'm reading the cards!"

"You're reading them like a person!"

"I am a person!"

"Not today you're not!" Dyson grabbed her so hard the wig went crooked, one pigtail higher than the other. "You're Jenny Myst! The most egotistical, self-absorbed, delusional person in the history of this sport! You don't read lines. You proclaim them! You don't speak. You declare!"

He spun her toward the mirror. The reflection was absurd. The crooked wig. The smeared makeup.
"Look at yourself!" Dyson commanded. "What do you see?"

"A mistake." Remi said.

"Wrong! You see perfection! You see the face of a woman who has never been told no! A woman who hears criticism and processes it as jealousy! A woman who could lose a match, blame the referee, the lighting, the audience, the alignment of the stars, and still sleep like a baby!"

He grabbed her shoulders, shaking her hard. "Again," he said. "From the top. And this time, mean it."

Remi looked at the cue card. She took a breath. She puffed out her chest. She raised her chin.
"I am the greatest," she read, trying to inject something resembling confidence. "There has never been anyone like me. There will never be anyone like me. I am the beginning and the end of this company. I am-"

"Terrible," Kor said from her corner.

"Thank you," Remi snapped.

"Just being honest."

"Your honesty is not helpful!"

"It's extremely helpful," Pennyfarthing said, making another note. "Subject responds to criticism with hostility. Very Jenny."

Dyson rubbed his temples. "Okay. New approach." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone. He tapped at it for a moment, then turned it toward her. On the screen, a video played. A Jenny Myst imitator, in full gear, standing in the middle of a ring, holding a microphone.

"I am the greatest," Jenny said, her voice dripping with a sincerity so pure it bordered on madness. "There has never been anyone like me. There will never be anyone like me. I am the beginning and the end of this division. I am the sun around which this entire galaxy revolves. You are all merely planets, and I am the gravity that keeps you in orbit. Without me, you would float into the void. Without me, you would be nothing."

She paused. The crowd booed. She smiled, absorbing it like sunlight.

"Thank you for your jealousy," she said. "It only makes me stronger."

The video ended. Dyson put the phone away.

"That's what we're looking for," he said. "That level of commitment that she’s amazing. She believes it. Or if she doesn't believe it, she's so committed to pretending that the difference is academic."

"This is ridiculous," Remi said.

Pennyfarthing reached beneath the table and produced an even larger stack of cue cards.

Remi's shoulders slumped. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me..."

The next card read: MENTION YOURSELF AGAIN

Then: SAY THE SAME THING DIFFERENTLY

Then: REPEAT IT

Then: REPEAT THE REPEAT

{Later}

The classroom had descended into complete chaos. Cue cards littered the floor like fallen soldiers. The fake championship sat upside down on a folding chair, its cardboard center plate bent. Pink glitter had somehow migrated everywhere. Pennyfarthing took one long look around the room before clapping his hands together. "Excellent."

Remi stared at him looking like accident victim. She still wore the crooked wig, one pigtail dangling lower than the other. Lipstick smeared across her cheek."...Excellent?"

"You're ready for Lesson Two."

She groaned, the sound coming from somewhere deep and defeated. "There's more?"

"There must be."

He scrawled on the whiteboard. LESSON TWO. Below it, in even larger letters: THE DISAPPEARING ACT.

Remi frowned. "...The what?"

Pennyfarthing pointed dramatically to a calendar taped to the board. April. Two dates were circled in red. Each simply read: Appear. Then... Nothing. May had two.. June. Blank. Half of July. Blank.

Remi blinked. "...You forgot to finish it."

"I most certainly did not." He tapped the empty month proudly "This…is Jenny.”

Kor looked over from her chair, phone finally forgotten in her lap. "I think it's called unemployment."

Pennyfarthing ignored her. "Observe." He pointed to the first circled day. "You appear." His finger slid across the completely empty month, hovering over the blank space like a magician revealing nothing. "Then..." He whispered reverently, leaning close enough that Remi could smell his cologne, something sharp and outdated. "...you disappear."

Remi waited. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Somewhere, a clock ticked. "...Why?"

"Because..." He spread his arms dramatically, his coat sleeves flapping like wings. "...Jenny."

Dyson nodded once from his corner. He hadn't moved in twenty minutes. "Makes sense."

Remi looked at him. "No it doesn't."

"It does."

"No."

"Fucking does."

She sighed, the wig shifting with the movement. "So... your advice is to stop showing up?"

Penny looked offended, hand pressed to his chest. "Not stop."

" Dramatically cease existing," Kor muttered making it sound inspirational.

Pennyfarthing fetched a red theater curtain mounted to a rolling clothing rack, the kind used in community theaters and questionable magic shows. He wheeled it into the middle of the room with a squeak of rusty casters.

Remi stared. He pulled the curtain open with a swish of velvet. "You." He pointed inside to the narrow space between fabric and rack. "Disappear."

Remi sighed and stepped behind it. The curtain fell closed. Five seconds passed. She poked her head back out, the crooked wig first, then her eyes. "...Can I come out now?"

Pennyfarthing gasped so loudly it echoed off the warehouse walls. "NO!"

She jumped, nearly losing the wig entirely. "What?!"

"You've only been gone five seconds!"

"So?"

"Far too soon."

Kor glanced at her bare wrist, checking an imaginary watch. "You're back about four weeks early."

Remi rolled her eyes. She disappeared again. Three seconds later her voice floated around the side of the curtain, muffled and bored. "I'm bored."

Pennyfarthing scribbled furiously on his clipboard. SUBJECT LACKS COMMITMENT TO VANISHING.

A minute later he dramatically flung the curtain open. Empty. He smiled proudly, showing too many teeth. "Outstanding."

A voice came from directly behind him. "I went to the bathroom."

Pennyfarthing spun around, coat billowing. Remi stood there holding a bottle of water from the hallway vending machine. He actually applauded, hands coming together in sharp claps. "Method acting!"

"I wasn't acting!” Remi buried her face in her hands.

Pennyfarthing snapped his fingers. "Excellent!" He wheeled the curtain away, already reaching for his clipboard. “Now… the final.”

Remi looked horrified. "...There's a final?"

"There always is."

Dyson disappeared through another door. Moments later he returned pushing something almost as tall as he was. Covered with a sheet.

Pennyfarthing clasped his hands together. "The masterpiece."

With one dramatic flourish he yanked the sheet away.

A giant XWF March Madness poster.

Remi groaned "...It's just a poster."

Pennyfarthing looked genuinely scandalized. "It is THE poster."

He pointed to a strip of tape on the floor. "Stand here. Championship on your shoulder. Admire the Jenny. For you are the Jenny. The Jenny is you."

Remi looked from the tape... to the poster... back to Lionel. She sighed theatrically before stepping onto the mark, the cardboard championship slung over her shoulder. "I am wonderful. Happy?"

"Not yet." Pennyfarthing leaned in. "More narcissism."

Remi rolled her eyes before striking the most exaggerated pose she could manage. "Oh wow..." she deadpanned. "Look how amazing I am."

"Perfect."

Without another word, Dyson quietly wandered into place behind her. Remi never noticed.
Pennyfarthing smiled. Sam suddenly reached forward and grabbed the back of her head.

Remi instantly jerked free. "HEY!"

Sam frowned. "...Jenny didn't do that." He looked genuinely confused. "You're supposed to lean into this shit."

Remi stared at him in disbelief. "I'm supposed to what?"

"Let me smash your face into the poster."

"Uh...No?"

Sam glanced at Pennyfarthing. "I don't think she's taking the lesson seriously."

Pennyfarthing sighed and made a note on his clipboard. "Subject continues displaying alarming levels of self-preservation."

Remi threw both hands into the air. "ALARMING?!"

He nodded gravely. "It is making it extraordinarily difficult to make you Jenny Myst."

Kor pushed herself out of her chair and wandered over. She looked at the clipboard. Then at Remi. Then at Dyson. "...Have we considered that maybe the goal shouldn't be recreating one of the dumbest losses in company history?"

Pennyfarthing blinked.

Dyson shook his head.

Remi pointed at Kor. "THANK YOU!"

Kor shrugged. "I didn't say I was on your side."

Pennyfarthing slowly walked over until he was standing directly in front of Remi. He looked genuinely heartbroken.

"I have failed."

Remi blinked. "...What?"

"I believed anyone..." He sighed dramatically. "...could become Jenny." He looked down at his clipboard. Then back at her. "But you..." He sniffled. "...you possess qualities I cannot train away."

Remi frowned. "...Such as?"

He checked the list.

"Common sense." Check.

"Situational awareness." Check.

"The ability to resist being thrown into large pieces of printed media." Check.

Dyson added, "Self-preservation."

Pennyfarthing nodded solemnly. "Most importantly..." He looked her directly in the eye. "...competence."

Long silence.

Finally...

He slowly reached up. With trembling hands...

He crossed out the final checkbox.

☐ Become Jenny

A tear rolled down his cheek.

"I'm sorry."

Remi looked completely confused. "For what?"

"You've failed."

"I... failed?"

He nodded. "You'll never become Jenny Myst."

Remi stared at him. Then at the whiteboard. Then at the ridiculous wig still sitting crooked on her head. She slowly reached up...

Pulled it off...

Dropped it onto the floor.

Then untaped the cardboard championship and let it flop onto the table with a dull thunk.

She took one long breath. Looked Pennyfarthing dead in the eyes. And smiled.

"...Thank fuck."

Silence.

Pennyfarthing’s lip quivered.

Dyson removed his cap.

Korvayne folded her arms, already knowing what was coming.

Remi shrugged. "You know..." She gestured toward the checklist. "I think I finally understand."

Pennyfarthing's eyes lit up. "You do?"

She nodded thoughtfully. "The lesson was never about becoming Jenny."

His breathing caught.

"It’s to be absolutely incapable of being anything like her."

Penny let out a tiny gasp. A single tear escaped. Then another. His clipboard slipped from his hands.

"No..." His voice cracked. "...she's..."

Dyson's eyes widened. "...She got it."

Pennyfarthing dropped to one knee, openly sobbing into both hands. "She understood the curriculum..." He looked up through watery eyes, smiling proudly at Remi. "My work here..." He sniffed loudly. "...is complete."

Remi looked at Kor. "So... can I go home now?"

Kor smirked. "I think you've earned your diploma."

Dyson solemnly picked the wig up off the floor. He held it for a moment...

Then quietly placed it in the trash. Where Jenny belonged.

The classroom fell silent.

Training was over.



"I don’t think anybody expected Korvayne and me to click the way we did. Honestly, I don’t think we expected it either. But among all the WrestleBots, chaos, the ladders, and enough whoopee cushions to last a lifetime, we figured it out. Turns out we’re one hell of a team. One match together, my first tag in the company… and we climbed the ladder to become the Tag Team Champions. I’d say that’s a pretty good start to making our mark. But while Kor and I celebrate proving everybody wrong, I’ve got a piece of business to attend on my own. I got through one set of garishly painted clowns… and now I get to deal with one more in Jenny Myst.

You want to know what really makes me sick about you, Jenny? It's the desperation. The sheer, transparent, pathetic desperation dressed in pigtails and too much makeup. You walk around here like you're still the queen of this place, like everybody's supposed to bow down and remember when you mattered. I've never seen somebody so committed to convincing themselves they're the center of the universe. The funny thing is... the universe doesn't seem to agree.

I've seen solar eclipses more often than I've seen you in an XWF ring lately. You vanish for weeks and then stroll back through the curtain like everybody's been sitting around holding their breath waiting for your triumphant return. The show's been going on just fine without you, Jenny. It always does.

You spend more time elsewhere because you can't cut it in XWF anymore. That's the truth you don't want to face. The only thing more consistent than your schedule is your record. Not much to speak about over the months. A victory over Scoops, and let's be honest-that's not exactly a resume builder when the man hasn't been himself in months. A month and a half before that? Furry cut you off at the pass. And before that? You literally had to be thrown back into the ring with Dickie. Before that? Sparse at best.
You know what else I've noticed? You spend so much time trying to convince everybody you're unique that you've forgotten to actually be yourself. Every opponent gets a different Jenny Myst. Every match becomes another costume change, another personality, another desperate attempt to figure out which version of yourself people are finally going to care about. It's exhausting to watch because somewhere underneath all of it... I honestly don't think even you know who Jenny Myst is anymore. You're fake. Just a hollow creature trying to echo her betters. Prone to cracking if anybody so much as dares to breathe in your direction. Spewing words to try and confuse and stun instead of making a point.

You lost anything that made you worthwhile a long time ago. I don't know exactly when it happened. Maybe it was when you realized it was easier to talk about being great than to actually be great. Or maybe... maybe you were always hollow. Maybe the Jenny Myst everybody used to fear was just a costume you wore until it got too heavy. Either way, what's left now? Just a creature made of echoes. Trying to bounce off better wrestlers because you've got no sound of your own anymore. You just remain stagnant, thinking being loud makes you important, keeps you from being anything other than the easily forgettable nothing you actually have become.

You know who you remind me of? Bobby Bourbon. Because you're both trying to live off ghosts. Off moments that happened years ago. Off reputations built by versions of yourselves that actually backed the words up. You point at your history like it's supposed to excuse your present. Like we're all supposed to nod along and pretend you haven't been a complete disappointment for months now. But the truth is... nobody stole your spotlight. You lost it. You always expected it to still be waiting. It wasn't. Somebody else picked it up. And you were forgotten, gleefully to be honest… and then you come sneaking back like a disease the company can’t shake.

How about those plushies? I used to think that was just a gimmick. A cute little accessory thing to make you stand out. But you know what I realize now? They're not accessories. They're your only friends. Because nobody can stand you. Nobody in that locker room actually wants to be around you. Nobody's got your back when things get rough. Not even the damn Bastards. Just those stuffed animals. Just those silent, judgmentless little props that can't walk away no matter how insufferable you become. At least they don't interrupt. At least they can't roll their eyes every time another Jenny Myst monologue starts. Maybe that's why you like them so much. They're the perfect audience. They never ask you to prove anything. The rest of us do. And that's where everything starts falling apart.

If you whisper the name 'Jenny Myst' anywhere within fifty feet of her, she'll spend fifteen minutes talking about herself. Guaranteed. It's like a magic spell. Say it three times in a mirror and she appears like a curse to explain why she's the center of the wrestling universe. It's honestly impressive in the most pathetic way possible. Nobody promotes Jenny Myst harder than Jenny Myst. You could ask her what time it is and somehow the answer becomes her entire career history narrated by her own biggest fan. Herself. The irony is almost beautiful. The louder you get, the less there is underneath it.

You somehow manage to talk for ages without saying a damn thing. It's honestly impressive. I've never seen somebody use so many words to communicate absolutely nothing. You just keep circling the same point over and over until eventually you convince yourself you made multiple, that you’ve come in with a killshot. Meanwhile everyone else is standing there wondering when you're going to get to the part that actually matters. Spoiler alert: you never do. Because there isn't one. You don't build confidence. You perform confidence. There's a difference. Real confidence doesn't need to announce itself every thirty seconds. Real confidence walks into the ring, does its job, and lets everybody else talk about it afterward. You have to tell us. Constantly. Because if you stop talking... if you stop reminding everybody how amazing you think you are... you're scared somebody might notice the gap between the legend you're describing and the actual has been standing in front of them.

And let's not forget how you actually lost that championship. You didn't lose because somebody outsmarted you in a ring You didn't lose because they survived your best shot. You lost because you got distracted. By a poster. Staring at yourself. That's a mistake so perfectly on-brand for you that I almost have to applaud it. That tells everybody everything they need to know about Jenny Myst. How far you’ve fallen.

You remind me of what happens when somebody believes their own press for too long. When the performance becomes the person. When you spend so many years telling everybody you're the greatest that you forget you actually have to prove it. You're not a wrestler anymore, Jenny. You're a memory trying to convince everybody it still matters. A ghost haunting a place that's moved on without you. And every time you come back, every time you grab that microphone and start another  sermon about your own greatness, you prove it a little more.

You're just running the same scene on loop, hoping nobody notices the script hasn't changed in years. You've been reading the same page until the ink wore off. On Warfare, you can be the same. You can keep blustering. You can keep whispering your own name in dark rooms so you have an excuse to show up and explain why you're still relevant. Or you can prove it. One time. In the ring. Where it actually matters. Just you, me, and the truth that you've been running from for a long time now.

Because the truth is simple. You're not the main character. You're not the center of the universe. You're not even the best version of yourself anymore. You're just... loud. And loud isn't enough. Not here. Not against me. Not when the bell rings and there's nobody left to convince but the person standing across from you.

Me.

And believe me Jenny, I am far from convinced.

So show up with something that proves me wrong. Or don't. The show goes on either way. It always does. With or without Jenny Myst. And honestly?

Lately it's been better without."