Bent but not Broken

[Perello]

[OFF CAMERA]

Cindy Parker was never one who bothered to read the pro wrestling dirtsheets or anything the internet wrestling community had to say about her. To her, all the news, rumors and gossip spewed by the internet fans were simply things they wanted to see, or things that they hoped would happen but next to never had any truth to them. For example, over a year back, Cyn read something about her being jealous of Cordy’s success in FGA and how she hated the fact that she came there. But what people seemed to have forgotten was that Cindy played a significant role in Cordy choosing FGA. 

For example, Cordy debuted in FGA during the Dynamic Duos tournament with Cyn. The two had even planned on reuniting Sex Sells permanently before Cordy’s latest injury, and still planned to one day reform Sex Sells to try and capture the FGA World Tag Team championships. Obviously that plan had to be put on hold for now, but it was still something both ladies intended on going forward with whenever the time came.

Not only was she happy that Cordy came to FGA, but she was also proud of everything Cordy managed to accomplish in such a short period of time. To Cyn, the internet wrestling community just didn’t like or understand genuine friendships. They wanted drama that was followed by more drama, and ended with even more drama.

“Seriously, wrestling fans are so weird. At least the internet ones. It’s like nothing is ever good enough for them. No friendships are real. Everyone wants to stab everyone in the back and it’s not possible for wrestler A to be happy for wrestler B. That’s just wrong to them and wrestlers are not allowed to have friends!”

Cyn sat in the comfort of her living room with her HP laptop resting on her lap, and a cup of hot cocoa in her hand. With her was her cousin Kim, who had her eyes glued to the television while Cyn continued to vent.

“I guarantee you that if I look at one of those wrestling news site thingies right now - those people are already saying that I’m gonna stab Zero in the back at Vertigo! Either that or Zero’s gonna stab me in the back.”

Cyn glanced down at her laptop screen, looking as if she were ready to visit one of those websites to see what they were saying.

“Like why does every single wrestler out there have to have this… mentality that says only they’re allowed to succeed?! It doesn’t make any sense, Kim! Obviously there’s people like that in the wrestling world, but I’m not one of them! I’ve never been one of them! But people seem to always think that I’m up to something. That I’m this devious little demon who’s capable of stabbing someone in the back just so I get what I want! I’ve never stabbed anyone in the back!”

Cyn paused, but only for a moment, as she remembered back to the six person tag team match that featured the Infinite Empire taking on Cyn, Cordelia Stevenson and Dan Herrera.

“Okay, that’s a lie. I stabbed someone in the back once, but I had my reasons for it! Heck, I hated Dan much more than I hated the Infinite Empire. I didn’t give two hoots about the Infinite Crapire! To me, they were just the newest buttheads who came into the company looking to takeover, and I knew that they were just entitled brats who were used to getting everything that they wanted. But right as soon as the going got tough… POOF!”

She made an explosion gesture with her hands.

“They’d be gone! The not so tough would get going and look what happened!”

Cyn threw her free hand over her face and split her fingers open to keep an eye on Kim.

“Are you listening to me, woman?”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure, Cyn. Me too.”

Cyn slammed her hand against the couch, frustrated that Kim was paying no attention to her words.

“Ugh. I don’t know why I try talking to you. You never listen to anything unless I’m talking about you!”

Setting the cup of hot cocoa on the end table next to her couch, Cyn picked her laptop off of her lap and stormed into her kitchen. She set the laptop on the kitchen table, then moved over toward her pantry where she pulled out a party sized bag of barbecue Fritos.

“Surprised that fatty didn’t eat these yet.”

Cyn sneered, looking in the direction of the living room where Kim was. She walked around the kitchen table and took a seat directly in front of her laptop, tapping her finger against the area next to the mouse.

“I’m totally going to regret it if I check what the IWC is saying. I know I am…”

She continued tapping her finger next to the mouse until she ripped open the bag of Fritos and dug her hand inside.

“Not checking. I’m not frigging doing it!”

She pulled out a handful of chips and shoved them into her mouth, wiping her hand off of her Buzz Lightyear pajama pants. She crunched down on the chips and swallowed them down with a hard gulp, her focus still on the laptop screen.

“Baaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!”

She exclaimed, moving her hand to the mouse to turn the laptop screen on.

“I’m just gonna check what they’re saying really, really fast and go to bed. I just---”

Typing in her password, Cyn waited for her laptop to load up before she clicked on the Mozilla Firefox icon and typed google.com into the address bar.

“-- wanna see what these peoples are saying now. That, and I wanna see if anyone out there actually thinks I can beat Zero at Canadian Stampede.”

Once google was loaded up and ready to go, Cyn typed in ‘wrestling news sites’ and waited for the next page to pop up. She scrolled down a bit until she saw a website called ‘FGANews.net’ and immediately clicked on it.

“Okay, this one should have what I’m looking for.”

As the page loaded up, Cyn couldn’t help but read some of the news titles:

Dom Harter and Cyncity truly not at odds?

Tony Carmine’s pimp days coming to an end?

Johnny Cannon lies about his age? IS REALLY 70?!

Jimmy Page’s chin REALLY is psycho! Click here to view pics of a non-bearded Jimmy Page!

“... I KNEW IT! I ALWAYS FREAKING KNEW JOHNNY CANNON WAS OLDER! NOBODY HAS THAT MANY WRINKLES AT THE AGE OF THIRTY-FIVE OR HOWEVER OLD HE IS!”

As she continued scrolling down, Cyn finally stopped on something that caught her attention.

@notsrymsparker set to return before FGA’s Canadian Stampede? News on Cyncity’s plans to screw Zero over before Canadian Stampede.

“Um… what?”

Cyn clicked the link and read the article stating that the nicey nice act of hers was just a scheme to catch Zero slipping. She was going to continue acting like the Cyncity the FGA fans knew and loved until it was time for her to revert back to how she was before she took her extended hiatus from FGA.

“Now that Cyncity has finally received what she’s waited on for two long years, there’s nothing that the 2016 fan favorite of the year won’t do to capture the one thing that’s been eluding her throughout her entire career… and that includes screwing over someone she considers a ‘friend.’”

Right after reading the last line, Cyn immediately shut her laptop closed and ran back into the living room. She looked around and then pushed Kim to her side, reaching for something underneath her.

“Ow, Cyn! What the hell are you doing?!”

“Your fat butt is sitting on my phone!”

Pulling the phone out from underneath Kim by the charger, Cyn immediately started tapping on the screen to call Zero. She ripped the charger out of the port and stomped her feet back toward the kitchen, waiting for Zero to answer.

“ZERO! I need to talk to you!”

~*~

The scene cuts onto Zero McHannon as he sat around his house in New York. Gambino sat with him on the couch as he flipped through the television, still dazed off as he watched the screen on some painkillers, and unable to talk. As he scrolled through the channels, they came across a commercial that hyped up the next FGA pay per view, Canadian Stampede.

“And in our main event, it will be the long time chasing, Cindy Parker, going up against the newly crowned FGA World Heavyweight Champion, Zero McHannon, in a match for the ages. Make sure you order now so you won’t miss out on all the action! Will friends prevail, or will new enemies be born? Only on Frontier Grappling Arts…”

The commercial continued in the background as Gambino stared at the screen with his head rested on his arm. Zero shook his head at the television and looked over to the FGA World Championship that hung from the corner of his couch.

“They sound just like everyone else. Makes me wonder if anyone actually REALLY listens, Beeno.” McHannon sighed and seen that his phone started to vibrate next to him. He picked it up to see that it was Cindy. At first, he hesitated before he answered, then pulled it up to his ear.

He didn’t even get a word out before Cindy could be heard on the other end. Gambino looked over to Zero from the couch, then shook his head before he turned back to the television in an uninterested manner. McHannon listened to Cindy on the other side and replied back to her.

“Tell me about it.”

Paused.

“Trust me, Cyn, I know this already. You have to learn to quit reading that shit.”

Paused.

“That’s a pretty good idea. I’m down. See you tomorrow afternoon then.”

Zero hung up the phone and tossed it down on the couch next to Gambino. Beeno, who still looked high out of his mind, looked over to McHannon and raised an eyebrow to let him know that he wanted to hear what Cindy had to say.

“I guess she has been reading some of the dirtsheets on the internet and pissed herself off. I’ve been saying for weeks about how what I’ve said gets completely ignored. What Cindy has been saying has just been shrugged off like it’s not even important. We talk about how we don’t want to be like everyone else and drive a wedge between our friendship, while everyone on the internet wants nothing more than to see up rip apart.” McHannon shook his head as he leaned back on the couch and looked back over to the television while Gambino nodded his head in agreement.

It was times like this where Zero wished that his manager had his vocals back underneath him again. He knew that Gambino listened, but the room felt even lonelier when there wasn’t a reply back. Zero assumed that it just warmed him up to the road that he had to walk alone while Gambino pulled his health back together.

“Me and your brother, Brandon, might be going through some shit right now, but he has the right idea on one thing… it’s so much easier to get along with animals. Bowser never wants to see people turn on each other just for the sake of a wrestling match, World Championship or not. Life is just easier that way.” Zero sighed, this time he turned on the couch and laid down.

“Just sick of it. Sick of people. Probably the one thing that has annoyed me the most since coming back to America. Everyone kissing someone’s ass just so they can look like a good person, or because so-and-so treats them nice, even though that person is trash. People wanting to see friendships shatter just because that’s what has become the normal routine for wrestling. Then there’s the people who talk so much shit that it’s coming out of their own ears. Like, some people will never give anyone else credit for ANYTHING. It’s just not the cool thing to do.” Zero spoke as he pulled the couch cushion to his chest and rolled over.

He looked back over his shoulder to Gambino. “Everyone is either overly nice to the point they seem fake, or a pure dickhead to where they seem delusional. Nothing in between anymore. Is this what I signed up for when I came back to wrestling? The people who get their ass kicked and pretend to like it? Or the people that pretend you never accomplished anything worth a fuck, but you clearly have? Oh, how this sport has changed…. and not for the better.”

McHannon continued to ramble at Gambino as he had his back turned to the T.V. He felt tired as he listened to the commercials that were basically trained to brainwash the customers, just like the people who participated in the business.

“Cindy wants to meet up tomorrow at the studio and run through everything together. She’s just as tired as I am about the people saying that we have to stop being friends before we can have a great match at Canadian Stampede. Since, you know, two people having respect for each other and their abilities is unheard of nowadays, and it’s not a proper world title match if we aren’t trying to put our foot up each others ass.” Zero pulled the blanket off the couch and then over his head.

Gambino looked in his direction with a shake of the head, but McHannon couldn’t see it. His manager turned to the next channel as the Canadian Stampede commercial hit the television again.

Will friends prevail, or will new enemies be born….. The final words of the commercial echoed through his ears as he bit down hard on his lip from underneath the covers.

Zero sat up on the couch and threw the blanket off himself as he turned towards Gambino.

“Fuck what they think. I’m sorry Chandler Scott had to talk shit about EVERYONE he faced, then tried to take credit that they actually challenged him after he won. I’m sorry that Tony Carmine never gives anyone credit for their accomplishments. He’d rather make it seem like he’s the only one to do anything worth a damn, like he’s the greatest Pride Champion ever… when in reality, he’s not even close. I’m sorry Johnny Cannon twists every single one of his words, and blantely lies to get ahead in this business.” He stook up and walked towards the hallway, but turned around to grabbed the FGA World Championship before he disappeared into the darkness.

“Obviously repeating myself isn’t good enough for everyone…. Me and Cindy don’t have to be like all those other people who starve for attention just to put on one of the best matches of the year. If her story of chasing this moment for years, and my story of not wanting to be a flop of a champion isn’t good enough…. then nothing will ever be good enough for these people.”

McHannon closed the door to his bedroom as the scene faded.

---

[ON CAMERA]

The scene fell into place and showed Zero McHannon and Cindy Parker in the recording studio with headphones attached to their ears. The ‘On Air’ light flicked on, and not realizing that Zero had already turned on the camera, Cyncity continued talking about whatever the duo was discussing before the camera started to roll.

“Seriously though, Zero. You do know I’m not gonna do anything during our tag team match at Vertigo, right? Like… you say that you know I’m better than that, but do you actually believe it? Because I’ve done some fudged up things before, but I swear on Santa Claus -- I have nothing planned this time! There’s a better chance of Cannon and Page turning on one another than there is me and you. I just…”

She paused, noticing that the camera inside the studio was set to record.

“WHAT THE CRAP!? I DIDN’T KNOW YOU TURNED THE CAMERA ON!”

Zero slowly turned to the camera and whispered under his breath to Cindy.

“I know, Cindy. You have my complete faith, believe that.”

McHannon smirked towards the camera as he pulled the FGA World Championship onto his shoulder, and sat proudly next to the number one contender.

“But ‘faith’ is a matter of concern, isn’t it, boys? The MAIN ingredient in this match is whether you’ll turn out to trust each other or not. Sure, we could go down the page on tag team basics 101 of who can operate as a tag team and who can’t… but let’s not. Let’s just look at the bare minimum of the the problem. Whenever I turn around, I have Cindy Parker to tag in. Whenever Johnny Cannon turns around… Well, he has Jimmy Page. A man known for never getting along with anyone. 

Now’s the time, Cannon… The expert in having to lie to make your words actually seem like they matter… Tell yourself that you and Page can operate as a team, and try not to cringe when the words come out of your mouth. Say it to yourself and let’s see if you even believe that. That’s not even tag team basics, it’s just facts. 

Can you walk through the match based off individual talent alone? Maybe, if it weren’t the World Champion and the number one contender standing across the ring from you. While everyone else might be looking forward to us giving each other the cold shoulder, me and Cindy’s friendship has always meant more than that. What better time to prove that than right now, against the pair of you? To show that win or lose, it’s going to take a bigger wrench to pull us apart. It’s going to take more than me stopping Page from getting his ass beat down by Cindy with another chair. It’s going to take more than any lie that Cannon can try to convince himself of.

It’s going to take something that people just don’t have… Keep waiting, and hoping. We’ll be the first ones to disappoint you that our fight going into Canadian Stampede isn’t going to end up like the end of the match that Cannon and Page are likely to have. Because Cindy is right, there’s a hell of a better chance of them turning on each other, than us. And it’s not surprising either, two egos that can barely fit into one corner, while me and Cyn just want to survive.”

McHannon hiked the FGA World Championship higher onto his shoulder. 

“Now Cannon will have three people to share the ring with his jealousy, and someone in his corner that he can actually call a piece of shit and make it believable. Considering that man said I hadn’t accomplished anything worthwhile, and I’ve grown an ego… Says the man who didn’t walk away with anything from Final Frontier or any of the year end awards. He expects to come at my neck and just watch me lay down. Not today, Cannon. If standing up for myself is the new ‘ego’, then that’s just the way it is. At least if I have an ego, it’s well warranted. Yours? Not so much, but I guess beating you out for Newcomer of the Year can bring that behavior out of a man. 

You and Izzy Anders can have a pissing battle over it. I’ll even let you have the award if it will raise either of your spirits, because I have the best prize of them all, and now the jealousy becomes so much more clearer.”

Zero looked at the World Championship on his shoulder as he turned back to the camera with a smile.

“For someone who’s in a continuous love triangle of a triple threat for the Pride Championship, can’t say that I blame your frustration. But what’s wrong, Cannon? The Pride Championship has been your number one fallback since joining FGA. I mean, you talked your way right into those contender matches well enough, and were proven wrong on just about every word you said about the Pride division. Just like Fujiko proved you wrong again, when you said she was more tits than wrestling. Just another lie you had to tell yourself to get through the match. One that’s as overplayed as that Pride division broken record you have on repeat.”

McHannon looked over to Cindy and nodded.

“Well…” 

Cyn said with a chuckle.

“I guess I don’t really have to say anything about Cannon now, do I? But I didn’t really want to anyway, sooooo…”

The number one contender to the FGA World championship jumped forward and waved at the camera.

“Hi everybody! Today I’m gonna tell you a story about a boy who was once the KING OF THE WOOOOOOOOOOORLD!”

#JimmyPageVoice

“And now, he’s just a lonely little geezer who’s trying to find his way again. See, this boy? Everyone used to fear him. Heck, even I feared him! He didn’t have many friends, and he didn’t have a significant other - but he did have one thing that everyone wanted.”

Cyn nudged her head toward the FGA World championship that Zero was holding.

“But one day… just out of nowhere… everything that boy meant, and everything that boy built just blew up in his face! It took everyone by surprise to see how far the mighty had fallen, but to me? It was just karma finally catching up to him.”

Cyn’s cheerful expression turned into a scowl, her voice getting a wee-bit deeper.

“Obviously that boy is you, Jimmy. See, normally I’d feel bad talking smack about a person and mentioning how far they’ve fallen from what they once were, but with you? I don’t feel bad at all. Everyone who’s everyone knew that one day karma would catch up to you, but… for me? Karma’s not enough. Karma, as useful and as amazing as it could be, just can’t do to you what I want to do to you, Jimmy. I had my chance to get my revenge against you a few weeks back at Vertigo, but I let my emotions get the best of me -- which I knew would happen.

But, as wrong as some people think it might’ve been, me hitting you with the chair was one of the best things I’ve ever felt in my wrestling career. It was better than shaving Dom’s head and even better than winning the fan favorite of the year award. You wanna know why, Psycho Chin?”

She squinted her eyes, staring directly into the camera.

“Because the only thing I’ve waited for just as much as I’ve waited for a title match was getting my revenge on you. I don’t feel fulfilled yet, Jimbo. I still feel like putting a dent in your head like you did mine, and at Vertigo… I get another chance. WE…”

She pointed over at Zero and then back to herself.

“... get another chance Trust me, Jimmy, I’m not the only person in this company that wants to beat you until your BUTT turns blue! ZERO WANTS TO PUT A WHOOPING ON YOU TOO, BUT HE UNDERSTANDS THAT I’M GONNA BE THE ONE WHO BREAKS YOUR JAW!!!”

She paused, taking in a deep breath to calm herself.

“Trust me, Jimmy… One way or another, I’m going to make you feel the same way you made me feel. Helpless… worthless… and broken.”

McHannon looks back to the camera.

“Hopeless… just like the chance the pair of you have against the pair of us. It’s not a question of whether you can operate together. It’s whether you can beat us at the top of our game. Both, we already know the answers to.”

With that, the pair walked out of the picture but Cindy came back back to say:

“Byeeeeeeeeeeeee!”