The RubyWay Chronicles Part 2: Shake It Out
May 26, 2016 19:58:38 GMT -5
Post by Ruby Tyler on May 26, 2016 19:58:38 GMT -5
May 22, 2016
The sound of “The Imperial March” rang out from her pocket and Ruby picked up with a wry grin.
“College Park Morgue, you kill ‘em we chill ‘em,” she answered brightly, picturing her mother’s eyes rolling on the end of the line.
“I will never understand your sense of humor.”
“That's okay. What's up, Mom?”
“The boys said that you and your partner haven't been on television in awhile and so I wanted to make sure that you were really okay and that this wasn't covering up something serious.”
Ruby could hear the concern in her mother’s voice and her stomach dropped. No matter how many times she wished that her mother would just focus on her family life back in California, it never seemed to happen.
“Just the way the cookie crumbled, I promise. Got a few bumps and bruises but nothing to write home about.”
“Or call, or email, or text apparently…”
“Mom, come on. You know I'm busy, and I don't want to interrupt your time with what's his name and the grandkids and all that…”
“Greg. You know his name perfectly well, Ruby. And he’s actually part of the reason I called you.”
“So it wasn’t just about the wrestling stuff?” Something like relief flooded Ruby’s body as she sat on the edge of her bed, fidgeting with her comforter as her mother took a deep breath.
“No honey, it wasn’t. I also wanted to call to tell you… Greg proposed to me. Last night. And I accepted. We don’t have a date set for the wedding yet -“
Ruby’s grip on her comforter turned white-knuckle and something inside her twisted uncomfortably. Greg was a perfectly nice guy. Had it not been for the fact that her mother’s affair with him had lead directly to her parents splitting up for good, Ruby might have even been able to like him and his family. He had three girls, and Ruby had always wanted sisters. But the idea of her mother marrying the guy she’d cheated on her husband with was too much for Ruby to deal with.
“You know what, Mom? I think someone just knocked on the door, that’s probably that pizza I ordered. I gotta go, I’m sorry.”
“Ruby, don’t do this. I can hear it in your voice, I know you’re upset, but if you would just talk to me for a minute-”
“Mom, please just let me go. I can’t do this right now.”
“Ruby Theresa Tyler, don’t you dare -”
“Sorry Mom. Bye!”
As she hung up the phone with a sigh, Ruby looked over at the top of her dresser, where she kept her half of the White Lion Wrestling tag belts and the accompanying Infinity Gauntlet. The gauntlet, which normally stood upright with its fingers clenched into a fist, now had the middle finger sticking up prominently and Ruby rolled her eyes, exhaling loudly through gritted teeth. Shoving her phone into the front pocket of her jeans, Ruby slammed the door to her bedroom as she left and made her way through the house, stopping in the kitchen to grab an apple off the counter. And when she saw Hardaway sitting on her couch watching a baseball game, she hurled the apple at his head.
“Did you really need to go into my bedroom just to make the gauntlet flip me off? You couldn’t have just done that yourself? Really?”
He immediately ducks as the apple is thrown at him. It still connects at his head, although if he didn’t block it, it would have connected dead set on his temple. He smirks and chuckles, but then tries to regain his composure at her.
“I...umm...maybe?”
She shrugs her shoulders and throws her arms in the air and back down, almost in a giving up nature as Hardaway grabs the apple and throws it back at her. Not in the fastball nature that she did, but more of in a giving nature.
She grabs the apple and just looks at him with dumbfoundedness. How in the unholy hell as she learnt to even deal with the kind of person that Kevin is, is beyond any words she can comprehend but lo and behold, there she is...looking at him watching baseball on the TV instead of at his own house. It’s...it’s weird, really.
“I thought we had this conversation. I accept the fact that you’ve apparently been banned from every sports bar in the area and that you somehow don’t want to watch this stuff at your place, but you stay the fuck out of my personal space, got it?”
He throws his hands up in the air, almost like in a truce-fashion and smiles.
“Scouts’ honor, sug!”
Because of course he has to throw that in for good measure.
“...You had to do that, didn’t you?”
“I know...it’s been awhile since I called you that. You think I forgot, didn’t you?”
Crossing her arms over her chest, Ruby leaned against the armchair next to her and just rolled her eyes at her tag partner.
“I was hoping. It’s the worst nickname anyone’s ever given me. And I’ve had some bad ones over the years, trust me. Anyway, what’s with having the gauntlet flip me off? I mean, I know I ran your ass ragged earlier but given what we’ve got coming up the next couple of months, I personally think it’s warranted. Especially since we haven’t been in the ring since the start of this tournament.”
Maybe it didn’t matter as much to him. He’d been doing this almost twenty years, but her career was still beginning. And given what she had been through since the closure of their previous company, Ruby felt she had more to prove than ever before.
Kevin just sighs and puts his hands in his head.
“Okay, two reasons… one, I was looking for you and I stumbled upon your room, and...well, come on, you know who you’re talking to. Two, I don’t know...maybe this training session was just a bit rougher on my head than I was expecting. I’m just going to come out and say it. I know it’s not because we haven’t even been in that ring in god knows how long. I should expect your toughness when we train and I should expect it isn’t going to be a walk in the park whenever me and you battle it out, but...you just seem a little more vicious as of late. Which is weird on my behalf, because I thought we had this talk after I gave you a Vietnam war flashback on the time I almost broke your neck, but...shit, I don’t fucking know. I know you’re trying to get me to toughen up so that I can deal with this, but you already know how tough I am. We should be on the same page by now.”
He lifts his head up to look at her now, her arms still crossed against her chest.
“Maybe that’s why I had the gauntlet flip you off. Because I wanted to get a laugh out of you. Just so I feel like there’s some tension lifted. Like I said, I don’t know.”
Ruby nodded quietly. She had opened her mouth several times to say something, but every time he just kept talking, so she waited a few moments to make sure that he was actually finished. A small smile crept onto her face when he mentioned wanting to ease the tension and she gave him a soft laugh.
“Right, you wouldn’t actually know this about me. I can be… kind of a perfectionist when it comes to big matches. I put a lot of pressure on myself to succeed, and I guess that’s come out in our training sessions lately. It’s not that I don’t think you’re tough or that you don’t know what you’re doing. You do, probably better than I do given all your experience. It’s just that I want this, probably more than I’ve wanted anything before in my career. So yeah, when I get into this kind of situation, I get kind of crazy. Which I probably should’ve told you earlier so that you’d know to expect it, but with finals and everything on top of this tournament it didn’t really occur to me. But now you know that I’m just the tiniest bit neurotic. Congratulations. I think we can officially upgrade you to friendship level two.”
Kevin smiles and waves around his finger in a spinning motion.
“Yay. You know, all you had to do was say something and I could’ve clearly just told you, “yeah, you’re being kind of a madball.” but...I’m okay with that. I’ve never been one to judge, I mean… look at me. You’ve known who you’ve been dealing with for almost a year now, so...I guess I’ve earned having someone be a complete maniac to me.”
She looks at him weirdly.
“I know, this is creeping me out as well. We’re having a civil discussion. Punch me or throw a piece of paper at me again. Something...anything. This is driving me up the wall.”
She immediately gets up and runs off to her study, as she comes back to her armchair with something in her hands as she sits back down. Kevin has his eyes glued back to the ball game and doesn’t notice her grabbing a piece of paper and crumbling it up into a ball as she chucks it at him with a feather touch right at his temple. A few moments of silence airs out in the room but then Kevin just smiles and a soft laugh escaped his mouth as he looks down and picks up the balled up paper and looks back at her.
“Thanks. I appreciate that.”
“Happy to oblige.”
As much as she hated to admit it, she was getting used to his presence in her life. It was like having a part-time roommate, given how often he was over to watch baseball games and eat her food. And when they could manage to stop bickering for a few minutes, they got along surprisingly well. They were doing better as a tag team than they were as friends, but so long as he wasn’t trying to kill her anymore, she’d take what she could get.
“By the way? I was having a ball tweeting with Kane and Ragnal the other night. I got to find out so much about you. Absolutely fascinating.”
“Yeah. You see, when I tell you that I’m old, this is what I meant by it. I didn’t get to chime in because I was having a movie night with the kiddo. But yeah, now you know that I was an absolute asshole back in the day as well. Probably more-so. It was like last year...I don’t know what came over me when I decided to douse a man’s girlfriend with alcohol because she was straight edge, but...here we are. Eight years later and me and those two finally get to show each other what we’ve been missing.”
[continued over in Kevin's RP...]
The sound of “The Imperial March” rang out from her pocket and Ruby picked up with a wry grin.
“College Park Morgue, you kill ‘em we chill ‘em,” she answered brightly, picturing her mother’s eyes rolling on the end of the line.
“I will never understand your sense of humor.”
“That's okay. What's up, Mom?”
“The boys said that you and your partner haven't been on television in awhile and so I wanted to make sure that you were really okay and that this wasn't covering up something serious.”
Ruby could hear the concern in her mother’s voice and her stomach dropped. No matter how many times she wished that her mother would just focus on her family life back in California, it never seemed to happen.
“Just the way the cookie crumbled, I promise. Got a few bumps and bruises but nothing to write home about.”
“Or call, or email, or text apparently…”
“Mom, come on. You know I'm busy, and I don't want to interrupt your time with what's his name and the grandkids and all that…”
“Greg. You know his name perfectly well, Ruby. And he’s actually part of the reason I called you.”
“So it wasn’t just about the wrestling stuff?” Something like relief flooded Ruby’s body as she sat on the edge of her bed, fidgeting with her comforter as her mother took a deep breath.
“No honey, it wasn’t. I also wanted to call to tell you… Greg proposed to me. Last night. And I accepted. We don’t have a date set for the wedding yet -“
Ruby’s grip on her comforter turned white-knuckle and something inside her twisted uncomfortably. Greg was a perfectly nice guy. Had it not been for the fact that her mother’s affair with him had lead directly to her parents splitting up for good, Ruby might have even been able to like him and his family. He had three girls, and Ruby had always wanted sisters. But the idea of her mother marrying the guy she’d cheated on her husband with was too much for Ruby to deal with.
“You know what, Mom? I think someone just knocked on the door, that’s probably that pizza I ordered. I gotta go, I’m sorry.”
“Ruby, don’t do this. I can hear it in your voice, I know you’re upset, but if you would just talk to me for a minute-”
“Mom, please just let me go. I can’t do this right now.”
“Ruby Theresa Tyler, don’t you dare -”
“Sorry Mom. Bye!”
As she hung up the phone with a sigh, Ruby looked over at the top of her dresser, where she kept her half of the White Lion Wrestling tag belts and the accompanying Infinity Gauntlet. The gauntlet, which normally stood upright with its fingers clenched into a fist, now had the middle finger sticking up prominently and Ruby rolled her eyes, exhaling loudly through gritted teeth. Shoving her phone into the front pocket of her jeans, Ruby slammed the door to her bedroom as she left and made her way through the house, stopping in the kitchen to grab an apple off the counter. And when she saw Hardaway sitting on her couch watching a baseball game, she hurled the apple at his head.
“Did you really need to go into my bedroom just to make the gauntlet flip me off? You couldn’t have just done that yourself? Really?”
He immediately ducks as the apple is thrown at him. It still connects at his head, although if he didn’t block it, it would have connected dead set on his temple. He smirks and chuckles, but then tries to regain his composure at her.
“I...umm...maybe?”
She shrugs her shoulders and throws her arms in the air and back down, almost in a giving up nature as Hardaway grabs the apple and throws it back at her. Not in the fastball nature that she did, but more of in a giving nature.
She grabs the apple and just looks at him with dumbfoundedness. How in the unholy hell as she learnt to even deal with the kind of person that Kevin is, is beyond any words she can comprehend but lo and behold, there she is...looking at him watching baseball on the TV instead of at his own house. It’s...it’s weird, really.
“I thought we had this conversation. I accept the fact that you’ve apparently been banned from every sports bar in the area and that you somehow don’t want to watch this stuff at your place, but you stay the fuck out of my personal space, got it?”
He throws his hands up in the air, almost like in a truce-fashion and smiles.
“Scouts’ honor, sug!”
Because of course he has to throw that in for good measure.
“...You had to do that, didn’t you?”
“I know...it’s been awhile since I called you that. You think I forgot, didn’t you?”
Crossing her arms over her chest, Ruby leaned against the armchair next to her and just rolled her eyes at her tag partner.
“I was hoping. It’s the worst nickname anyone’s ever given me. And I’ve had some bad ones over the years, trust me. Anyway, what’s with having the gauntlet flip me off? I mean, I know I ran your ass ragged earlier but given what we’ve got coming up the next couple of months, I personally think it’s warranted. Especially since we haven’t been in the ring since the start of this tournament.”
Maybe it didn’t matter as much to him. He’d been doing this almost twenty years, but her career was still beginning. And given what she had been through since the closure of their previous company, Ruby felt she had more to prove than ever before.
Kevin just sighs and puts his hands in his head.
“Okay, two reasons… one, I was looking for you and I stumbled upon your room, and...well, come on, you know who you’re talking to. Two, I don’t know...maybe this training session was just a bit rougher on my head than I was expecting. I’m just going to come out and say it. I know it’s not because we haven’t even been in that ring in god knows how long. I should expect your toughness when we train and I should expect it isn’t going to be a walk in the park whenever me and you battle it out, but...you just seem a little more vicious as of late. Which is weird on my behalf, because I thought we had this talk after I gave you a Vietnam war flashback on the time I almost broke your neck, but...shit, I don’t fucking know. I know you’re trying to get me to toughen up so that I can deal with this, but you already know how tough I am. We should be on the same page by now.”
He lifts his head up to look at her now, her arms still crossed against her chest.
“Maybe that’s why I had the gauntlet flip you off. Because I wanted to get a laugh out of you. Just so I feel like there’s some tension lifted. Like I said, I don’t know.”
Ruby nodded quietly. She had opened her mouth several times to say something, but every time he just kept talking, so she waited a few moments to make sure that he was actually finished. A small smile crept onto her face when he mentioned wanting to ease the tension and she gave him a soft laugh.
“Right, you wouldn’t actually know this about me. I can be… kind of a perfectionist when it comes to big matches. I put a lot of pressure on myself to succeed, and I guess that’s come out in our training sessions lately. It’s not that I don’t think you’re tough or that you don’t know what you’re doing. You do, probably better than I do given all your experience. It’s just that I want this, probably more than I’ve wanted anything before in my career. So yeah, when I get into this kind of situation, I get kind of crazy. Which I probably should’ve told you earlier so that you’d know to expect it, but with finals and everything on top of this tournament it didn’t really occur to me. But now you know that I’m just the tiniest bit neurotic. Congratulations. I think we can officially upgrade you to friendship level two.”
Kevin smiles and waves around his finger in a spinning motion.
“Yay. You know, all you had to do was say something and I could’ve clearly just told you, “yeah, you’re being kind of a madball.” but...I’m okay with that. I’ve never been one to judge, I mean… look at me. You’ve known who you’ve been dealing with for almost a year now, so...I guess I’ve earned having someone be a complete maniac to me.”
She looks at him weirdly.
“I know, this is creeping me out as well. We’re having a civil discussion. Punch me or throw a piece of paper at me again. Something...anything. This is driving me up the wall.”
She immediately gets up and runs off to her study, as she comes back to her armchair with something in her hands as she sits back down. Kevin has his eyes glued back to the ball game and doesn’t notice her grabbing a piece of paper and crumbling it up into a ball as she chucks it at him with a feather touch right at his temple. A few moments of silence airs out in the room but then Kevin just smiles and a soft laugh escaped his mouth as he looks down and picks up the balled up paper and looks back at her.
“Thanks. I appreciate that.”
“Happy to oblige.”
As much as she hated to admit it, she was getting used to his presence in her life. It was like having a part-time roommate, given how often he was over to watch baseball games and eat her food. And when they could manage to stop bickering for a few minutes, they got along surprisingly well. They were doing better as a tag team than they were as friends, but so long as he wasn’t trying to kill her anymore, she’d take what she could get.
“By the way? I was having a ball tweeting with Kane and Ragnal the other night. I got to find out so much about you. Absolutely fascinating.”
“Yeah. You see, when I tell you that I’m old, this is what I meant by it. I didn’t get to chime in because I was having a movie night with the kiddo. But yeah, now you know that I was an absolute asshole back in the day as well. Probably more-so. It was like last year...I don’t know what came over me when I decided to douse a man’s girlfriend with alcohol because she was straight edge, but...here we are. Eight years later and me and those two finally get to show each other what we’ve been missing.”
[continued over in Kevin's RP...]
Since I lost a coin toss, here I am to introduce two FGA legends to the new team of Ruby Tyler and Kevin Hardaway. We're RubyWay, fodder for fanfiction authors for the last… God, almost a year now since Battle Without Honor or Humanity II. Time flies, I guess.
Now, both of you are accomplished wrestlers in your own rights, so facing off with you two is going to be an honor and a privilege. Dan, Cordy… you're something special. You brought down Team Nox and The Blood Brothers, two teams of young wrestlers looking for the right to say they beat you and ushered in a new era here in FGA. They tried, and you taught them all a lesson on why you two are considered among the best to have ever worked for this company. I heard the crowd when the returns were announced, and then each time you advanced to the next round in this tournament. They love you both, and rightly so. Hardaway and I are facing one hell of a challenge this week.
So that's why we've been making the most of our time off. Maybe we haven't been in the ring here, but we've been training and preparing for this match. In fact, the night after our first bye, we went on to beat fifteen other tag teams, featuring some of the greatest wrestlers in the industry today, for the right to call ourselves the inaugural White Lion Wrestling Tag Team Champions. And in fact, after this match against you two, we've got our first defense of those titles. So don't think we've been taking it easy. You two certainly haven't been, so why should we?
See, the key to being a hunter is being ready for anything and everything. You never know when you'll get the chance to take your shot and if you throw away an opportunity, you might not get another one. This match right here? This is our shot to prove that our win in WLW wasn’t just some fluke and that when we come up against the big dogs of FGA, we can get the job done. I’ve been doing pretty well for myself lately in singles. Annie’s the first person to pin me in over a year, so I think that’s a pretty good track record. Especially when you consider I spent the latter half of last year in hardcore matches.
But the thing is? I don’t actually like having to go to that extreme. I will if I have to, but I’d rather be showing off my technical abilities in the ring. And one thing I don’t think anyone’s expecting here is that I managed to teach some bloodthirsty old dog a couple of new tricks since I’ve been here in FGA.
Hey!
Listen, you said loser gets to do the promo. If you don’t like what I have to say then you should’ve maybe bet something else. Or thrown the toss.
Anyway.
I got myself a veteran on my side. What he’s done may not be fancy or pretty, but he got the job done. And yeah, maybe towards the end of his time here he got a little lost. He thought he found something out in San Diego, something that would make him stronger, more vicious… but in the end, what he found was me. I don’t have his years of experience in the ring, but I do have training that guys like Jackie Chan would kill for. I have drive, I have focus, I have discipline, and I have a killer sense of aim.
All of which I’ve been working with Hardaway on over the last few months and you know what? He’s better than he’s ever been.
And so am I.
The youngblood and the old veteran. It’s a story that’s been told many times, but we’re here to turn it on its head and do things our way.
A wise man once said, everyone out there’s got a bullet with their name on it and someone else is carrying it. You just have to hope you die of old age before it finds you.
Same kind of logic applies here.
We all want to get to the end of this tournament and be the ones with the chance at gold by the end of it. #RubyWay and Status Quo are carrying bullets for one another. So, Dan Herrera and Cordy Stevenson, my question is… are you gonna be the ones to do it? Or are you just carrying #RubyWay’s bullet for awhile?
We’re not here to change the world or anything like that. We just want to win a fight. But as both of you have seen…
We are not orthodox. We’re not good at following rules. We don’t keep the Status Quo.
We just do what it takes to get the job done. We stay alive and we give ‘em hell.
Let the hunt begin.