Ultraviolet Way : Behind A Vacant Image : Psalm Seven

[Silver Eagle]

Oh sugar, don't you cry
Oh child, wipe the tears from your eyes
You know I need you to be strong
And the day is as dark as the night is long
Feel like trash, you make me feel clean
I'm in the black, can't see or be seen

The fire was burning brilliantly at this point, mounds of dry logs and wrinkled leaves providing fuel for the raging flames, a million and one little fireflies dancing in the night sky. She was at her most peaceful staring into the controlled inferno, the warmness of the flames tingled her, it’s heat hugged her heart and it’s light brought her life. She could stare forever and a day into the heat of the fire, could lose herself in its purity and forget about the entire world around her. She often came out to the vast, snowy garden they had in their home, the thick white blanket not bringing cold but only being a canvas for her flames to be the centrepiece of. She sat on a little deckchair, green and blue like her eyes, and poked and prodded the red and orange and yellow lights with a forked stick. Sophie was the same with her artistry, and was creating a new masterpiece in her drawing room. She often loved to sit and watch her magnificent brushstrokes, her vivid imagination and wild slashes paint in all their glory, the way she swayed to the music in her headphones as she became one with the canvas. It was like physical poetry in motion, sitting there gazing at the most beautiful woman she had ever seen creating beauty out of her own beauty. Her heartbeat always quickened, her legs always shook, her palms sweated and it was like she was receiving the most intoxicating lapdance imaginable, an exotic routine that captivated her soul and rocked her entire world. Which was when she usually pounced.

“Mmmm,” she audibly muttered, the mere thought of her wife exciting her, just like the first time she witnessed her make her entrance to the sounds of Kavinsky. But Sophie was working on a particularly important piece, very dear to her heart, and whilst the prospect of what moments like these would lead to, Anastasia knew that she had to give her time to work on this particular masterpiece. Heaven could wait, and she would have heaven for the rest of her life, they both vowed it and so it would be so. Trying to drag her mind away from her wife’s curvaceous form and the curl of her lips when she was in ecstasy was a challenge, and only the flames would guide her mind away from it all. So here she was, in the middle of their vast garden, their own paradise on Paradise Island, fanning the fires of life in front of her as her mind wandered. “Baby, baby, baby… light my way.” she sang in the sweetest of voices, undertones of jazz and rhythm, subtle power emitting from her vocal cords as she sung her lullaby like a religious hymn.

The wrestling world had become such a funny, frustrating place. Anastasia was fastly becoming one of the centrepieces of the eVolve Networks wrestling schedule, working her way to being a key figure in three of the stations premier broadcasts, Hard Knox Underground, Shooting Star Wrestling Alliance and Phoenix Wrestling. Within the Underground, she shocked the world with a clean pinfall over the nigh on indestructible phenom Alexa Corra, and put her long time rival CruZe on the injured list with a dominant performance. In SSWA, she was inches away from claiming her first official World Title if it wasn’t for the uninvited interference of the disgruntled and jealous former champion, Selena King, who seemed hell bent on taking everyone else’s accomplishments and making them her own. There was always complications in those two places, always roadblocks and obstacles put her way that seemed impossible to overcome, last minute forks in the road, rules changing and breaking, faces turning from angelic to devilish and knives always at the ready to plunge in her back when everything she ever wanted was in reach. And in the Underground, her father’s words were ever in her ear, his presence shrouded by shadow and motives more mysterious still.

“Here is the man who tortured you, both physically and mentally. Do what no other could do. Do what no other thinks you are capable of doing. End him. Finish him. Don’t run him out, run him through and have no mercy. This is what I require. This is what you require. This is what your next step is, and that step will crush everything in your path.” His words echoed in her fragile mind, and gave her the most unpleasant shiver, like a serpent slithering down her spine, it’s rattling tail in her ear and coiled around her throat as she struggled to breathe. Was it right? Was it wrong? He was her Papa… and yet he pretended to be someone else to the whole of existence. Where the lie begin and the truth end, and vice versa forever and ever. Amen.

As of late, it only seemed to be in Phoenix that she was free to fly like the bird she was, wings spread out wide and soaring. There was no knives from Brutus to Caesar here in Phoenix, there were no troubling words and questionable decisions like in the Underground. There were no cages, only freedom, with the ability to touch the sky itself like Icarus but never burning in the sun’s fires. She could be herself, she could be who she wanted to be.

But if only they gave her the opportunity to face who she wanted...

There was always something, but with her most prized physical possession, the Rising Phoenix title, there were certain requirements, certain rules to adhere to. This was besides the time limits, the madness and fury of the rulings. She had no choice. She faced who she faced with no say, no mind, no choice. She wasn’t as blessed as the Iron King, being able to handpick his opponents. Someone was chosen, she had to face them, she had to beat them. Show in, show out, show off. And thus there was another and another. Just another, who wanted to be so much more. She peered into the camera she had set up across from her, not recording as of yet, but the time would come. She added more fuel to the fire, wondering against wonders where all this would lead. She knew where she wanted to end up, whom she wanted to face, who she felt she deserved to face but would have to prove it. Earn it, as she always did. And if she had to prove it once again against the well spoken Leonicio De Soto she would. Phoenix was her place to shine, brighter and more brilliant than ever before. And with the brightness of the flames she made here, she would like the fire grow and grow until it spread across the whole wrestling landscape, creating the most ferocious fields of fire, the greatest fire the wrestling world had ever seen.

Her eyes danced crimson and gold in the reflection of her title, and her mind clouded with doubt once more. She was beginning to sound like her father in her head, and she was unsure whether that was a good thing, given his undoubted success, or whether it was the worst thing ever imaginable.

---

Another challenger emerges, like the one before and the one before them. Sometimes I wonder if there is an orderly queue waiting for opportunity, sometimes I wonder if these chances are thrown out at random, maybe for some it is a case of “they will do.” It’s easy enough to question, much more difficult to answer. I am quite well known for doing my homework, studying my opponent's every move, every match until I have their entire career’s instilled in my mind prior to battle. But when the bell rings, everything can change. The allure of taking a prize, of taking something that is not yours and stretching your name all over it forever brings something out of people. That something extra. That something more. I look at the person I have beaten twice already, Finn Whelan, and whether I like him or not I can not recall a match I watched, or a moment I witnessed that he was more fired up, that he was more determined, that he was more deadly than when he faced me. The Rising Phoenix title is like a catalyst, it’s the oxygen to the flame and adding it into the equation can turn the tiniest little flame into napalm death itself, a full blown firestorm which engulfs everything in it’s path. And so I expect the best and the worst from the best and the worst that face me for this title, and that thought will stay with me from this day till the end of days.

And Leonicio De Soto is the next name in line to attempt to take what is mine, and mine only away from me. He didn’t achieve this by traditional means, not by racking up victories, by laying down fist and foot and slam to have his arm raised in domination. His last achievement was being a victim, to be clocked around the back of the head by an outsider whose target was someone else, gifted a win like he was gifted this title match. He didn’t earn this match by earning it, by giving his flesh and blood and broken bone to the name of this sport and leaving it all out in the open. He didn’t roll the dice and take the chance to be something more than what he was, to climb the mountain and plunge his flag in the summit, roaring out to the world that this was his spot and this was his place and this was his world.

I did those things. I always do those things, and I have earned everything I have ever attained. Always have. Always will. De Soto, however, was gifted this match. They wrapped it up with a little bow, sprinkled it with glitter and placed it under the tree for Christmas morning, so he can awaken like a child and open it up to find the present inside. And that present? It’s a lump of coal that he will become, more fuel to throw upon the Rising Phoenix’s fire as she goes on to be the most dominant champion in Phoenix Wrestling.

Whether I think he has truly earned this or not is irrelevant though, and whether he rolls out the entertaining wordplay with that obvious charisma of his is irrelevant as well. But is he irrelevant? I guess he wouldn’t be if he was he, but he could be left as such once I am done with him. It doesn’t matter to me whether they are big or small, fast or powerful, giants or ants. If you face me, you get the same treatment. You’ll get the very best of Anastasia Starling, and the very best of Anastasia Starling is the very worst of times for you. Because this is my title. MINE. And there is nobody, absolutely nobody who will take this away from me again. You got this match out of sympathy, that much is clear… but you will not get any sympathy from me.