Dance? Dance?!? REVOLUTION!!!!

[AshCandor]

Stronger than yesterday 

Now it’s nothing but my way 

My loneliness ain’t killing me no more 

I’m stronger 

‘Stronger’ – Britney Spears 

[OFF CAMERA]

Salem drew a heavy breath. Even with her eyes closed and her body silent barring the rasp of air in her lungs and the beating of her heart thumping in her chest, she could hear the crowd noise and the clicks of camera flash. She knelt on one knee, her fingertips pressed to the cold ground which flew in contrast to the humid stickiness in the air. She’d been going at this a long time; she was sore and sweaty. Her stomach knotted, she was hungry both figuratively and literally now. It wasn’t a glamourous position she was in, nor was it supposed to be. She’d been finding new ways to stack odds in front of her, perils to overcome. Even though the regular routine was one hell of a workout, she needed to change things up from time to time. This could be based on environment, the opponent she was facing at the time, or even just her mood in general.

Get up – The little voice said. Was it in her head, somewhere in her vicinity, or just a recollection from a dream? It didn’t matter. She just had to reach down and pull herself up, whether she had the energy to or not. She didn’t allow herself options. Not right now. She repeated it like a mantra in her head over and over: get up…. get up… up.

Then the clock counted down and the buzzer went off, the roar of the crowd went higher and the music went blaringly loud. Salem leapt to her feet with a flourish and looked down, then forward…making sure of her position. Crashing cymbals, throbbing bass, the hyper-jittery electronica pop as the song started up and Salem threw herself into it: her feet moving and stomping in time. Her body contorted and whipped, spun around as her arms flew out for balance. Her feet stabbed at each appropriate part of the podium. All the lights and music created a sort of fever dream state and Salem almost felt herself looking down and viewing herself in a sort of out of body experience. Finally the buzzer went off and Salem collapsed back against the safety rail. She looked up at the high score.

“Damn it all.”

The voice came from the figure leaning against the side of the Dance Dance Revolution game. It was Salem’s wife, Artemis.

“You beat my high score again, witch.”

Salem wiped her sweaty hair back from her forehead and looked at Artemis with side eyes. She laughed and shook her head.

“We can’t let the demons take over now can we? Not even the dancing variety, Arty. Plus my dance routine was PG, unlike your expletive-laden R-rated number. Earmuffs off, Lukas…”

She looked to the side to wear their adopted son lowered his hands from his ears with a big grin.

“Mommy Arty can help build a new wing to the luxurious Cartier estate with all her swear jar contributions, right kiddo?”

Lukas snickered looking back and forth between them. Salem walked over and pulled them in for a family hug.

“Mommy Sal, you’re stinky…”

Right from the mouths of babes, really put it all in perspective didn’t it? She ruffled his hair and gave Artemis a polite peck on the cheek.

“Thanks for that Lukas. Wasn’t it funny seeing Arty’s little legs flail around like that?”

Salem giggled and Lukas covered his mouth. Artemis flushed a tad crimson before punching Salem in the arm.

“My feet both touch the ground, that’s all that matters, you big bully!”

Salem winked at Artemis, putting arms around her and Lukas hugging them tight.

“This is fun, we all needed a good night out, right?”

Just then a finger tapped Salem on the shoulder, and she turned.

“Another warrior has entered the dojo. Prepare to die… by dance.”

Salem looked up to see Nina Stokes there with her arms folded, a smirk on her face. Just to her side, Ryan LeCavelier face-palmed and shook her head.

“Yeah yeah, Nina… what we really need is a sing-off. They got Rock Band? We can really shut this place down with your *ahem* I mean our screeching howls.”

Salem turned to walk to another area of the game room, but ran nose first into a glass wall partition. It was spotless and nearly invisible in the low light of the room. Salem put her hand on it and looked at it, and amid all the uproar it gave her a moment to pause and reflect. She turned to look at the others and shrugged. Nina just looked at her with mock disgust but couldn’t keep a straight face and they all began to laugh. It was a much needed evening to let off some steam with a meal and games at Dave n’ Busters. It had been too long since they’d all hung out.



-

She's so lucky, she's a star

‘Lucky’ – Britney Spears

[ON CAMERA]

The setting was the same as earlier, the game room of Dave n’ Busters restaurant. The sounds and lights in the background framed the scene as a moment full of activity that assaulted the senses. As the camera caught her, Salem flipped a switch inside herself and went to another level. She wore a bowler hat and carried a cane, white gloves on her hands. She twirled around with a flourish and dropped to a knee, arms extended out and a bright smile on her face.

“Ta-da! There you go, that’s entertainment, folks. I’m a jazz hands expert from way back.”

She twirled the cane in her hand then gave it a fling exit stage left. She flipped the bowler hat from the back so it fell into her hands at her waist, tosses it into the air and kicked it off screen exit stage right.

“Worst comes to worst, I can always be entertaining. But there’s more to it than that isn’t there? A whole hell of a lot more.”

She paces around, white gloved fingers laced together; deep in thought. She points a finger at the camera.

“You see… I came to FGA to prove a point to myself and to others. I just had to know what I was capable of. There’s a certain level of competition here that you don’t always get in other places. And what happened? I came out and I bubbled, bubbled, toiled and troubled. I was gangbusters, I was electric. I proved in three matches that a former FGA World Champion like Jimmy Page couldn’t put me away. I endured two draws with that force of nature, and when I finally beat him in our last encounter I have to say it was one of the most professionally satisfying victories I’ve EVER had in this business. And then I went and faced the Mid-Atlantic Legacy champion at the time, Izzy Anders. A match that was trying on many levels, mentally and emotionally. When someone who is a close friend of your wife basically wants to maim you in the ring and yo have to think about juggling so many things. But I let the match unfold and I never held a damn thing back. And if it hadn’t been for her cheater ways, Izzy knows in her heart she would’ve lost that MAL title a lot earlier than she actually did…to me. But that didn’t happen. Then I enter the Dynamic Duos tournament with Ryan LeCavelier… MagiCastle was ready to take FGA by storm and grab those tag team titles.

That. Didn’t. Happen.”

She walked along the glass wall, running her hand along it; looking through the glass at the people enjoying themselves on the other side. She looked down, clearing her throat.

“It’s like I’ve come to this point in a long journey, or for my fellow nerds out there… a stage of a video game; an area which you clearly need to enter to advance. But you can’t go forward, and there is no good thing that comes from going back. There’s this invisible wall that holds you in place as if by magic. Voices telling you that you haven’t done enough to advance yet, you must unlock something else. Frankly, in this last little while here I’ve felt bound and restricted. I want to roam far and wide and reap every benefit that this company can give to me. But lately, what is it? All these factors are swirling around. Partly me… I’m in a funk. I can’t get over the damn hump. The people I face, they want to cheat… they want to show their ass? You’re all a bunch of shortcut taking bitches. Does that mean I’m going to lower myself to your standards? Hell no. I’m going to beat you on my own terms. Because feeling like I can’t do everything I want? It sucks, plain and simple. Want me to just take my lumps and then say ‘please sir, may I have some more?’ Lumps are getting paid forward, lumps are getting turned back on their source. They say it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Well back home I’ve got a shelf stocked with all sorts of ingredients to cook up something magical. But one particular bag is empty. It’s high time I started collecting eyes around here.”

She peels one of the gloves off and tosses it away, crooking a finger toward the camera.

“Yun Gouen, you drew the unlucky first straw as my journey to unlock all the items I need to advance begins. I look at you, in all your pop star glory… makes me want to share a story with you all I never really talked about before. When I was eight years old, my mother took me to see Britney Spears in concert. My sister was ten at the time and complained the whole way. See, when I was eight I was enamored with Britney Spears. I thought she was the greatest thing in the world. I’m sure at one time you thought you were pretty much on top of the world too, right Yun? You had success in your music career. Hell, you’ve had success in your wrestling career. But then again, back to Britney I can also recall when I was about fifteen… Britney hit some strife; rough patches in her personal and business life. Had some sort of breakdown, flipped out, famously shaved her head even. Now I understand that entertainers, wrestlers… we’re all people. We aren’t characters in a video game. Everything is not always wine and roses. I just can’t help but wonder, what sort of strife caused you to flip out and turn your back on the fans, Yun? What occurred for you to be such a sort of arrogant, antagonistic bitch in this business? It seems obvious that even when things go bad for you, you don’t try and correct it. You lash out at people who had not a damn thing to do with you, or your problems. But then you create a whole new set of problems, because you don’t get to mess in my business and fly away scratch free.”

She started to peel the other glove off slowly, a finger at a time.

“Did you hit your own invisible wall, Yun? You just want to flip out, act out? Be sensational and radical so people will still want to talk about you, maybe they got tired of the goody good pop star routine? Because fast forward again, I just saw Britney Spears again. She was on the Billboard Awards, trotting out a medley of her greatest hits. I thought to myself, that’s a hell of a thing to be still so young and having to trot out your greatest hits so people can access that nostalgia portion of their brains to give a damn about you. Me? I don’t want to be a lounge act, trotting out the old trusted tried and true’s night after night. I haven’t made my masterpiece yet, not by a long shot. That doesn’t mean I stop going to the studio. I have to wonder Yun, are you still trying to be inventive or just hold onto that star you’ve created for yourself thus far? There’s a lyric where Britney, she goes on about… wishing away and dreaming and hoping that heroes truly existed, and that it might be a problem she had. I think it is a problem, to wish for others to be a certain way… hold people up to a certain standard. I say, be your own damn hero. I mean after all, I did eventually realize there was a ton better music than Britney Spears in this world. Did you finally realize that other stars shine brighter, Yun? The way I see it, you can spin your wheels in the mud, or burnout and do doughnuts on the faces of those that doubt you, try and hold you back. Yun, at All-Star Showdown… you won’t be holding me back. The part you’re playing in this invisible wall? I’m going to remove it, because I’m done feeling restricted. I’m going to extinguish the star that you think you are, even if in reality it is a fading twinkle. I’m going to free roam the hell out of this place… FGA is going to be a bit more wicked in its dark corners and in its spotlights.

I won’t just be going forward, I will keep rising up rung by rung until the view is immaculate. Because even though I like to entertain, I like to excel even more. I like to prove my point and make examples of those that think that treachery and unbecoming behavior gets to go unpunished, because your badness places you outside the law somehow. Some of you people are going to realize that when the Witch walks through, it’s not just for merry mirth and mayhem… it’s for blood. And the playing I do then, if you draw my ire?”

She throws the glove at the camera.

“It’s for keeps.”

She hiked her boot and kicked forward, shattering the glass.

“Prepare to get shattered, Yun. ‘Tis the Season.”