Dangerous (Prequel)
Mar 3, 2016 18:36:58 GMT -5
Post by Fujiko Mine on Mar 3, 2016 18:36:58 GMT -5
What a difference a year can make, huh Danny?
Think about where we both were this time last year. You were on the tail end of torturing both Noelle Smith and myself over the Mid Atlantic Legacy championship. I was the holder of that championship, and you, through the mask of Mirage, were my secondary antagonist.
Now, here we are, facing off against each other for the first time, one on one. The Relentless Fujiko Mine versus the Rubik’s Cube, Danny Diamond.
I respect that you make no apologies about who you are and what you do, Danny Diamond, but you’ll have to understand that I am not going to let you do to me what you did to Annie Zellor and Savannah Taylor. Placing my ego aside, I know you saw this match and licked your metaphorical chops once you realized what a victory here would mean. Let’s be honest, Danny...I just had one of the greatest matches of my career, and I managed to beat former FGA champion Jimmy Page in that very match. So you getting a win over me, after that performance, would mean amazing things for you, right?
I mean, you told my good friend Nero Darling yourself: “You don’t like to lose.”
You may not like to lose, but I can’t just let you vulture my hard earnings. I know that vulturing is exactly what you do, taking what you can regardless of the cost, and regardless of the circumstances. I know you’re willing to do it, and I know exactly what you’re willing to do to win...because I was there.
Like I said: What a difference a year can make.
I’m past that now, just like I’m past the petty nonsense that made the most of my 2015 so unenjoyable. I’m in a brand new place now, and I have learned first hand that doing exactly what you’ve been doing only gets you so far.
I won’t sit here and drone on and on about your methods, Danny. I’m sure you simply don’t care to hear it; you don’t care to learn my motivations. You just care if your efforts bear the fruit of victory. You’ve said the very same thing not too long ago, so there’s no point in disputing it.
I honestly think that’s part of why you are going to fail in a few days, Danny. Just like Jimmy Page, I truly doubt you understand me, and understand the motivation I have; the drive that will push me to beat you in a few days. You’ll just see me as an obstacle in your way, and that’s doing me a major disservice.
I’ve become more than just an obstacle, to you or to anyone. I have become a force here in Frontier Grappling Arts, whether you want to admit it or not. I have gone from someone who was casually dismissed to someone who is a threat every time she steps into the ring. So with that in mind, Danny…
...know that I am treating this match just as seriously as I did my match against JImmy Page. I refuse to act as if this match against you is going to be any easier, because it won’t. With everything I’ve just stated, it wouldn’t surprise me if this match wasn’t a little bit harder. Why?
Because I know you feel like you have something to prove, beyond just getting a victory here. Like I did, you want to pull yourself out of the fires of the forgotten and make your name a golden word here. You want to convert this opportunity into one that would see you in line for an opportunity at some gold. That’s fine, but this is one opportunity that your boasting ultimately will amount to emptiness.
So yes, I know exactly who you are, and I know what to expect of you. As for you? You should take a look at what Jimmy Page went through should be an indicator of what you should expect.
At this point, Danny? I am like a lioness trying to defend her newly gained territory. I will not give it up just because you feel like you can take it. You and anyone else who thinks that I will be some easy victory to achieve from here on out will only have to look at Canadian Stampede, and this match against you to understand that I am playing for keeps.
Give me your best puzzle, Danny. In the end, you are not going to be the first to see my position and pine for it. You are not going to be the first to tell me that what I have is not enough to overtake you.
And you will not be the first, nor the last to fail.
Danny, I’m looking forward to this match against you. Not because of any sort of desire to face you, but because beating you once again will further my points.
It doesn’t matter to me how long you’ve been in the business, Danny. The length of your stay doesn’t afford you anything except the experience of being here that long. Just because you’ve been wrestling a long time doesn’t mean you deserve anything in the way of victories. And yeah, you’ve been fairly successful, but all of that is still going to amount to you pulling an ‘L’ out of the hat at the end of the night on Saturday, dude. Because I’m sure you’re going to come at me with the same level of arrogance you hit Savannah and Noelle with. They might have been blindsided by the old ‘Diamond charm’, but trust me when I say I more than see it coming. And while you may have a kick aimed right for my throat, I’ve got a faster one centered right on that lovely chin of yours.
One might ask why I harbor so much hostility towards Danny. That’s easy, if you’ve been paying attention: Whether he calls himself Danny Diamond, or Mirage, or Danny Mirage, or The Diamond Cretin, it doesn’t change the fact that he is exactly what I’m trying to combat here in FGA. So for him to be proud of that, and to try and use me to propel himself.
I’d wish you luck, Danny...but to be honest?
I wouldn’t mean it.
Fujiko winced as another coughing fit racked her chest. She placed her hand just above her breastbone in a feeble attempt to calm the pain. There was no such luck.
"Damn girl, it’s been like three days! You ain’t feeling any better?" Fujiko weakly shook her head, her cheeks flush from effort and exertion. It had taken all the energy that her body would afford her to sit up on the couch and try to be something of a human being around Kayden. Kayden was nice enough to keep her company, but she would rather get better in time for her third match in three weeks.
"I’ll be fine in a few days. Plenty of time for the ma-" She heaved forward, more coughs expelling from her and forcing her to squeeze her eyes shut in pain. Kayden looked on, a concern look on her face as her dear friend suffered in front of her. After a few moments of listening to Fujiko hack up a lung, she put her hand on Fujiko’s shoulder.
"Fujicakes...number one...we probably need to get you in to see a doctor...and number two, I bet you did this to yourself with all that stress you put on your shoulders the past couple of weeks." Fujiko looked at her with exasperation as she made the accusation. "I’ve been relaxing! I didn’t push myself too hard when I faced off against Becky, and I got the win there." Kayden looked like she was prepared to object, but Fujiko snapped off a quick couple of sneezes. Kayden winched and covered her face as Fujiko stared off in the distance, still reeling from her bodies’ violent response.
"Man, Fujiko...you gotta cover yo damn mouth!" Fujiko’s initial response was to sniffle, trying to keep herself from looking any more gross than she already had been. She blinked her irritated eyes and searched the table in front of her for a tissue. "Ugh, sorry." Fujiko offered, reaching to the far end of the table and pulling out a fresh tissue. She blew her nose into it, the rosy nub of her pert little nose rubbing into the tissue as she did so. Kayden squinted for a moment, as if she was studying Fujiko’s face. It wasn’t an expression she enjoyed seeing on Kayden’s face. It means she was about to yell at her about something. Fujiko pushed herself further back in the couch, it being the only escape she could provide herself.
"You know, Fujiko...I been wondering something…" She trailed off, a suspicious tone highlighting the beginning of her comment. Fujiko wished she could push herself into the couch completely, or at best: cure her ailment enough to make a hasty exit. She masked a test of her joints by pretending as if she was adjusting her seat on the couch. Her ailing joints told her the story she wasn’t ready to hear. She was going to have to face whatever Kayden was about to bring up, and chances were high she wasn’t going to like it.
"You ain’t gone hunting for more shit on your parents, have you?"
The arrow had hit so close to bullseye that it’d shocked Fujiko. Her normal defenses already down, and her secondary ones ruined by her illness, she made a surprised face and couldn’t mask it. Kayden read her like there were subtitles in the air around them.
"Mhm. Thought as much. The last time you were this stressed out about something, we ended up sending you and Hiro into the middle of fucking nowhere to rescue a woman you ain’t even on speaking terms with right now, girl. So why, when things are going good, do you insist on torturing yourself?!" Fujiko didn’t even give thought to her reply. Something bubbled out of her, and for once it wasn’t something covered in mucus or saliva.
"I know you can’t understand, Kayden! You had a mom who was around. Yeah, she was crap, but at least she cared enough to be in your life, okay?! Mine left to save herself, and my dad wasn’t even freaking around long enough to see me born! You have no mystery! The puzzle isn’t there for you like it is for me!" She choked out the tail end, coughing heavily into her hands as her lungs couldn’t supply the desired amount of air to her. Kayden’s eyes bored into her. Fujiko knew she’d hit a nerve, but she didn’t want to back down. Perhaps she’d pushed too far, knowing that the Jones’ and the subject of their parentage was always a sore subject. Still, the cocktail of virus, counteracting medication, and overboiling stress caused her to not care. A small part of her rationalized that she should stop while she was behind, but it was trampled quickly.
"I need to know who he was, Kayden. I need to know where I came from, and why I was left behind so I-" "SO YOU CAN WHAT?!" Kayden exploded, raising her voice at Fujiko. She went wide eyed as Kayden spit acid at her. "It ain’t gonna change SHIT, Fujiko! You already a grown ass woman! That fucker, whoever the hell he is and whether or not he is still walking on the face of this planet right now gave you up damn near THREE DECADES AGO! His reasons ain’t gonna change the fact that he let ANOTHER MAN raise his damn child! His reasons ain’t gonna change the fact that the woman who he had the baby wit wasn’t much better! You keep concerning yourself with the ideas of people who in the grand scheme of things DON’T MEAN SHIT!"
Kayden pushed herself off the couch with heavy force, turning her back on Fujiko as she did so. Fujiko’s first instinct was to do the same, to be an active participant in the fight, but the heat that warmed her face was yet still a reminder of her condition. She went to speak up, her response not yet formed, but Kayden continued.
"You a few days from another fight on your hands, the third in three weeks no less, and you so concerned with shit that don’t concern it that you literally made yourself sick! You out here slowly killing yourself over the opinions of people who don’t care about you as a human." Kayden had turned around by now, gesturing with her hands as she flung each point at her friend. She paused momentarily, as if she was reloading a musket by hand for her next volley. She cocked back, and fired forth her next point.
"But look-"
"You know what I think went and fucked you last year? Not Noelle Smith’s comments, or what she started. Not them other bitches who ran their mouths and tried to use you and shit. I think YOU did it to yourself more than anyone else, Fujiko. You with this stupid ass concern for why your mom abandoned you. YOU KNOW WHY! You’ve always known why! Because she wasn’t woman enough to raise you! When she had the opportunity to try and be a damn adult and take you with her, to try and rescue you both, she left you stranded to save her own damn skin, and when she got the chance to apologize, she made EXCUSES! And here, you got all this family that stepped up, even though you weren’t blood, and raised you when they wouldn’t...took you in when you were in a building by yourself on the brink of demolition, and you honor us by telling us we ain’t enough, and that burns more than anything, Fujiko."
Fujiko could see that it wasn’t just anger spilling from her eyes and her words now, it was hurt and sorrow. She felt her own resolve weaken involuntarily.
"Tj and I could go off on motherfuckers like ‘Antonio’ for days bout the shit that they talk, but we keep our mouths shut for you. We let you handle your shit because we love you, and all you seem to care about is a bitch who wanna run your life and a motherfucker who wasn’t around for it. Fine then. Care about that shit if you gotta, but I ain’t gonna be around for it."
Kayden snatched her purse off the floor near the couch, and then headed for the door. She stopped right before yanking the door open long enough to look back at Fujiko before slamming the door behind her, disappearing into the night. Fujiko snapped her jaw shut, put her head in her hands...
...and after a moment of teetering on the edge, softly began to cry.
Think about where we both were this time last year. You were on the tail end of torturing both Noelle Smith and myself over the Mid Atlantic Legacy championship. I was the holder of that championship, and you, through the mask of Mirage, were my secondary antagonist.
Now, here we are, facing off against each other for the first time, one on one. The Relentless Fujiko Mine versus the Rubik’s Cube, Danny Diamond.
I respect that you make no apologies about who you are and what you do, Danny Diamond, but you’ll have to understand that I am not going to let you do to me what you did to Annie Zellor and Savannah Taylor. Placing my ego aside, I know you saw this match and licked your metaphorical chops once you realized what a victory here would mean. Let’s be honest, Danny...I just had one of the greatest matches of my career, and I managed to beat former FGA champion Jimmy Page in that very match. So you getting a win over me, after that performance, would mean amazing things for you, right?
I mean, you told my good friend Nero Darling yourself: “You don’t like to lose.”
You may not like to lose, but I can’t just let you vulture my hard earnings. I know that vulturing is exactly what you do, taking what you can regardless of the cost, and regardless of the circumstances. I know you’re willing to do it, and I know exactly what you’re willing to do to win...because I was there.
Like I said: What a difference a year can make.
I’m past that now, just like I’m past the petty nonsense that made the most of my 2015 so unenjoyable. I’m in a brand new place now, and I have learned first hand that doing exactly what you’ve been doing only gets you so far.
I won’t sit here and drone on and on about your methods, Danny. I’m sure you simply don’t care to hear it; you don’t care to learn my motivations. You just care if your efforts bear the fruit of victory. You’ve said the very same thing not too long ago, so there’s no point in disputing it.
I honestly think that’s part of why you are going to fail in a few days, Danny. Just like Jimmy Page, I truly doubt you understand me, and understand the motivation I have; the drive that will push me to beat you in a few days. You’ll just see me as an obstacle in your way, and that’s doing me a major disservice.
I’ve become more than just an obstacle, to you or to anyone. I have become a force here in Frontier Grappling Arts, whether you want to admit it or not. I have gone from someone who was casually dismissed to someone who is a threat every time she steps into the ring. So with that in mind, Danny…
...know that I am treating this match just as seriously as I did my match against JImmy Page. I refuse to act as if this match against you is going to be any easier, because it won’t. With everything I’ve just stated, it wouldn’t surprise me if this match wasn’t a little bit harder. Why?
Because I know you feel like you have something to prove, beyond just getting a victory here. Like I did, you want to pull yourself out of the fires of the forgotten and make your name a golden word here. You want to convert this opportunity into one that would see you in line for an opportunity at some gold. That’s fine, but this is one opportunity that your boasting ultimately will amount to emptiness.
So yes, I know exactly who you are, and I know what to expect of you. As for you? You should take a look at what Jimmy Page went through should be an indicator of what you should expect.
At this point, Danny? I am like a lioness trying to defend her newly gained territory. I will not give it up just because you feel like you can take it. You and anyone else who thinks that I will be some easy victory to achieve from here on out will only have to look at Canadian Stampede, and this match against you to understand that I am playing for keeps.
Give me your best puzzle, Danny. In the end, you are not going to be the first to see my position and pine for it. You are not going to be the first to tell me that what I have is not enough to overtake you.
And you will not be the first, nor the last to fail.
Danny, I’m looking forward to this match against you. Not because of any sort of desire to face you, but because beating you once again will further my points.
It doesn’t matter to me how long you’ve been in the business, Danny. The length of your stay doesn’t afford you anything except the experience of being here that long. Just because you’ve been wrestling a long time doesn’t mean you deserve anything in the way of victories. And yeah, you’ve been fairly successful, but all of that is still going to amount to you pulling an ‘L’ out of the hat at the end of the night on Saturday, dude. Because I’m sure you’re going to come at me with the same level of arrogance you hit Savannah and Noelle with. They might have been blindsided by the old ‘Diamond charm’, but trust me when I say I more than see it coming. And while you may have a kick aimed right for my throat, I’ve got a faster one centered right on that lovely chin of yours.
One might ask why I harbor so much hostility towards Danny. That’s easy, if you’ve been paying attention: Whether he calls himself Danny Diamond, or Mirage, or Danny Mirage, or The Diamond Cretin, it doesn’t change the fact that he is exactly what I’m trying to combat here in FGA. So for him to be proud of that, and to try and use me to propel himself.
I’d wish you luck, Danny...but to be honest?
I wouldn’t mean it.
Fujiko winced as another coughing fit racked her chest. She placed her hand just above her breastbone in a feeble attempt to calm the pain. There was no such luck.
"Damn girl, it’s been like three days! You ain’t feeling any better?" Fujiko weakly shook her head, her cheeks flush from effort and exertion. It had taken all the energy that her body would afford her to sit up on the couch and try to be something of a human being around Kayden. Kayden was nice enough to keep her company, but she would rather get better in time for her third match in three weeks.
"I’ll be fine in a few days. Plenty of time for the ma-" She heaved forward, more coughs expelling from her and forcing her to squeeze her eyes shut in pain. Kayden looked on, a concern look on her face as her dear friend suffered in front of her. After a few moments of listening to Fujiko hack up a lung, she put her hand on Fujiko’s shoulder.
"Fujicakes...number one...we probably need to get you in to see a doctor...and number two, I bet you did this to yourself with all that stress you put on your shoulders the past couple of weeks." Fujiko looked at her with exasperation as she made the accusation. "I’ve been relaxing! I didn’t push myself too hard when I faced off against Becky, and I got the win there." Kayden looked like she was prepared to object, but Fujiko snapped off a quick couple of sneezes. Kayden winched and covered her face as Fujiko stared off in the distance, still reeling from her bodies’ violent response.
"Man, Fujiko...you gotta cover yo damn mouth!" Fujiko’s initial response was to sniffle, trying to keep herself from looking any more gross than she already had been. She blinked her irritated eyes and searched the table in front of her for a tissue. "Ugh, sorry." Fujiko offered, reaching to the far end of the table and pulling out a fresh tissue. She blew her nose into it, the rosy nub of her pert little nose rubbing into the tissue as she did so. Kayden squinted for a moment, as if she was studying Fujiko’s face. It wasn’t an expression she enjoyed seeing on Kayden’s face. It means she was about to yell at her about something. Fujiko pushed herself further back in the couch, it being the only escape she could provide herself.
"You know, Fujiko...I been wondering something…" She trailed off, a suspicious tone highlighting the beginning of her comment. Fujiko wished she could push herself into the couch completely, or at best: cure her ailment enough to make a hasty exit. She masked a test of her joints by pretending as if she was adjusting her seat on the couch. Her ailing joints told her the story she wasn’t ready to hear. She was going to have to face whatever Kayden was about to bring up, and chances were high she wasn’t going to like it.
"You ain’t gone hunting for more shit on your parents, have you?"
The arrow had hit so close to bullseye that it’d shocked Fujiko. Her normal defenses already down, and her secondary ones ruined by her illness, she made a surprised face and couldn’t mask it. Kayden read her like there were subtitles in the air around them.
"Mhm. Thought as much. The last time you were this stressed out about something, we ended up sending you and Hiro into the middle of fucking nowhere to rescue a woman you ain’t even on speaking terms with right now, girl. So why, when things are going good, do you insist on torturing yourself?!" Fujiko didn’t even give thought to her reply. Something bubbled out of her, and for once it wasn’t something covered in mucus or saliva.
"I know you can’t understand, Kayden! You had a mom who was around. Yeah, she was crap, but at least she cared enough to be in your life, okay?! Mine left to save herself, and my dad wasn’t even freaking around long enough to see me born! You have no mystery! The puzzle isn’t there for you like it is for me!" She choked out the tail end, coughing heavily into her hands as her lungs couldn’t supply the desired amount of air to her. Kayden’s eyes bored into her. Fujiko knew she’d hit a nerve, but she didn’t want to back down. Perhaps she’d pushed too far, knowing that the Jones’ and the subject of their parentage was always a sore subject. Still, the cocktail of virus, counteracting medication, and overboiling stress caused her to not care. A small part of her rationalized that she should stop while she was behind, but it was trampled quickly.
"I need to know who he was, Kayden. I need to know where I came from, and why I was left behind so I-" "SO YOU CAN WHAT?!" Kayden exploded, raising her voice at Fujiko. She went wide eyed as Kayden spit acid at her. "It ain’t gonna change SHIT, Fujiko! You already a grown ass woman! That fucker, whoever the hell he is and whether or not he is still walking on the face of this planet right now gave you up damn near THREE DECADES AGO! His reasons ain’t gonna change the fact that he let ANOTHER MAN raise his damn child! His reasons ain’t gonna change the fact that the woman who he had the baby wit wasn’t much better! You keep concerning yourself with the ideas of people who in the grand scheme of things DON’T MEAN SHIT!"
Kayden pushed herself off the couch with heavy force, turning her back on Fujiko as she did so. Fujiko’s first instinct was to do the same, to be an active participant in the fight, but the heat that warmed her face was yet still a reminder of her condition. She went to speak up, her response not yet formed, but Kayden continued.
"You a few days from another fight on your hands, the third in three weeks no less, and you so concerned with shit that don’t concern it that you literally made yourself sick! You out here slowly killing yourself over the opinions of people who don’t care about you as a human." Kayden had turned around by now, gesturing with her hands as she flung each point at her friend. She paused momentarily, as if she was reloading a musket by hand for her next volley. She cocked back, and fired forth her next point.
"But look-"
"You know what I think went and fucked you last year? Not Noelle Smith’s comments, or what she started. Not them other bitches who ran their mouths and tried to use you and shit. I think YOU did it to yourself more than anyone else, Fujiko. You with this stupid ass concern for why your mom abandoned you. YOU KNOW WHY! You’ve always known why! Because she wasn’t woman enough to raise you! When she had the opportunity to try and be a damn adult and take you with her, to try and rescue you both, she left you stranded to save her own damn skin, and when she got the chance to apologize, she made EXCUSES! And here, you got all this family that stepped up, even though you weren’t blood, and raised you when they wouldn’t...took you in when you were in a building by yourself on the brink of demolition, and you honor us by telling us we ain’t enough, and that burns more than anything, Fujiko."
Fujiko could see that it wasn’t just anger spilling from her eyes and her words now, it was hurt and sorrow. She felt her own resolve weaken involuntarily.
"Tj and I could go off on motherfuckers like ‘Antonio’ for days bout the shit that they talk, but we keep our mouths shut for you. We let you handle your shit because we love you, and all you seem to care about is a bitch who wanna run your life and a motherfucker who wasn’t around for it. Fine then. Care about that shit if you gotta, but I ain’t gonna be around for it."
Kayden snatched her purse off the floor near the couch, and then headed for the door. She stopped right before yanking the door open long enough to look back at Fujiko before slamming the door behind her, disappearing into the night. Fujiko snapped her jaw shut, put her head in her hands...
...and after a moment of teetering on the edge, softly began to cry.
