An Understanding

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March 30, 2017

SCW House Show

Off Camera

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We open backstage at a House Show for Supreme Championship Wrestling.  The event was held in the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul Minnesota where Angelica Jones is spotted, still in her wrestling gear which consists of tight black leather pants, black wrestling boots, and a matching black flame print top.  Her long lovely gorgeous red hair hangs unrestrained to below shoulder length.  She just had a match that night and was making her way to the back.  The staff, officials, and other wrestlers she passes by on her way to her dressing room seem to ignore her.  Angelica, for her part, ignores them.  Her mind is elsewhere.

Her mind is on her family situation; specifically the problem she has with her own sister, Kayla Jones.

Angelica and her sister Kayla have had disagreements before.  They have even had some pretty heated arguments before.  None of them however, measured up to the level of tension that now exists between them and it all centers around Angelica’s latest love interest, a woman named Aphrodite Noel.

The Jones siblings both know Aphrodite from their time in Global Championship Wrestling.  She was an enemy of The Sisterhood, or at least it appeared so.  But it seemed as if the very moment that Angelica’s marriage to Lindsey Carter came to an end, Aphrodite Noel was right there to step into Lindsey’s former spot as the holder of Angelica’s heart…

…and Kayla Jones is not pleased; not pleased at all.

Kayla has voiced her displeasure quite frequently and quite loudly ever since she learned of the relationship.  Angelica argues that it’s none of Kayla’s business who she dates, but in Kayla’s defense, she has good reason to be wary of this relationship.

For starters, the elder Jones sibling has not had a great track record when it comes to relationships.  Her first real relationship, with Sean Williams, ended violently when she put a bullet through his head.  The next several relationships, all with wrestlers (Sean McBride, Brittany Lohan, Andreas Lasiewicz), ended with them dumping her.

Lindsey Carter was next and that relationship, Kayla knew, was doomed from the start.  Kayla knew it was doomed to fail due to the fact that it was built upon a lie.  Angelica tricked Lindsey into marrying her, and then tricked her into signing the prenuptial agreement that gave Angelica’s friend Meagan control of Carter Industries in the event the marriage ended.  Thus Angelica either got Lindsey forever or Meagan got the company.

Kayla remained silent about what her sister had done.  She chose to let her sister make her own mistakes and pay the consequences.  But after seeing how depressed she was over Lindsey’s disappearance, Kayla swore she wouldn’t stay silent again.  At the very least, she would speak up if the situation presented itself.

That situation came in the form of Aphrodite Noel who, in the eyes of the concerned if not outright judgmental Kayla, like a thief in the night snuck in to take Lindsey’s place as soon as Lindsey was gone.  The timing combined with Aphrodite’s history of playing mind games to accomplish her goals made Kayla question Aphrodite’s sincerity.  Needless to say, Kayla did not want to see Angelica hurt again so soon after being hurt by the Lindsey Carter incident.

Angelica did not see her younger sister’s voice of displeasure as being well-meaning or good intentioned.  Angelica just saw her as being judgmental and called her out on it.  Now perhaps Angelica and Kayla could have been more understanding of one another, perhaps they could have listened to one another…

…but unfortunately, that did not happen.  The argument has escalated ever since that point and neither sister has given an inch.

As far as Angelica is concerned, she’s quite surprised that they managed to still win the SCW World Tag Team Championship with the tension that exists between the two.  Kayla herself has said that this relationship is all business now.  This was about winning the tag team titles and they did just that.  Now it’s about retaining the tag team titles, especially with Broken Beliefs coming up in just over a week and The Sisterhood defending in a rematch against Honor Code.

Normally Angelica and Kayla would be quite confident going into this title defense.  The Sisterhood has won tag titles in every company they’ve been in and have been against the toughest competition Supreme Championship Wrestling has had to offer on their way to becoming two time SCW World Tag Team Champions.  Facing Honor Code again shouldn’t faze them one iota.

Yet Angelica is feeling the nerves as she walks back towards her dressing room, her SCW World Tag Team Championship belt draped over her right shoulder.  She carries it with her and holds it tightly, because she feels as if Broken Beliefs could be the end of her and Kayla’s reign.

Angelica knows that she and Kayla are not on the same page, she knows that there is some deep tension there.  If they cannot resolve that tension soon, then it may be academic.

Normally she would talk to her sister about situations like this, but who does she talk to when the problem is with her sister?  Kayla herself even said that she wouldn’t be here tonight at the House Show to support Angelica.  That in and of itself should speak of the issues they are having with one another.

The past few years they had been inseparable.  But not anymore.

She walks forward and to a dressing room door.  She turns the knob and pushes the door open.  The dressing room is actually quite roomy; wooden benches line two of the walls while blue lockers line the other two walls.  An SCW Broken Beliefs pay per view poster is hanging on one of the walls and the floor is a plain concrete one.

That’s when she spots her.

“Hey Angelica…”

It’s Kayla Jones, sitting on a bench in the back of the room.  The younger Jones sibling was not expected tonight, which causes Angelica’s eyes to grow wide with a surprised look etched across her face.  The redhead is wearing an ankle length maxi skirt, flip flops, and a black “SCW” t-shirt.  Her long red hair hangs unrestrained to shoulder length.

“Kayla, I…uh…”

“You looked good out there.”

Kayla seemingly ignores the obvious elephant in the room, the tension between the two.  That’s been the status quo for quite awhile now.  Angelica should’ve expected that, but then again, she definitely did not expect her to show up tonight; not after the tension in the air and considering she already said she would not be showing up.

“Thanks, Kay, but…uh…I’m confused…”

“Confused, eh?”

Kayla chuckles.

“I take it you’re wondering why I’m here?”

The younger Jones scoots over a little on the bench, making more room for her sister. Kayla motions for Angelica to join her on the bench by patting an empty section of the bench next to her.

“Come over and sit.  I think it’s high time we talk.”

Angelica shakes away the cobwebs and confusion and just nods her head.

“You’re right.  It’s way past time we talked.”

Angelica walks over and sits down next to her sister.  The elder sister stares at Kayla with arms crossed.  Over the past several weeks since the relationship between her and Aphrodite came out into the open Kayla has been extremely judgmental.  Angelica, for her part, is tired of taking it.  She’s standing up for herself here and now. She feels Kayla owes her an explanation at the very least if not an outright apology.

“Ok…let’s talk.”

Kayla sighs.

“First of all, I know I told you that this relationship between you and I was going to be just business.  I told you that as far as I was concerned I was done with you and I was just in this to help The Sisterhood retain these…”

She taps the SCW World Tag Team Championship title belt that Angelica has now left resting upon her lap.

“…the tag team titles.”

“Yeah, I remember you saying that.  Do you have any idea how much that hurt me?”

Kayla sighs and nods her head.

“I have an idea…”

“I don’t think you do!”

Angelica’s anger bubbles up into damn near a rage.

“I have damn near lost you so many times that I lost count.  And when I say ‘lost’ I mean literally lost as in one of us nearly died as well as figuratively lost in the sense that we get so angry at one another over something stupid and we refuse to talk to each other…”

She pats her own chest furiously.

“…and I’ve always blamed myself!  I would work myself into emotional fits, worrying about how I would fix things and get you back!  There were times I’d sink into deep depressions to the extent that I’ve attempted suicide over the thought of losing you…because…”

Tears well up in Angelica’s eyes.

“…because when mom died, and we were separated, I did not know where you were,  if you were even alive, but I resolved that if I found you alive that I would make sure what we had would last forever, because we no longer had mom, and we couldn’t trust dad considering he was the one who separated us…”

She points at Kayla and then at herself.

“…we only had each other!”

“I know…”

“Do you?!”

Angelica shakes her head.

“I don’t think you know it, Kayla, but I do!  I know it because I tried to keep what we had together and I blamed myself whenever we had problems!  I thought we had finally put all of our problems behind us several years ago when we reunited as The Sisterhood in GDW.  We ended up winning the GDW World Tag Team Titles, a few tag titles in GCW, and the SCW World Tag Team titles twice…we were unstoppable…”

Angelica stops to wipe some tears out of her eyes.

“…then you come at me furiously, angry over my relationship with Aphrodite...”

Kayla nods her head.

“I know, but let me explain…”

“…NO!  It’s my time to talk!”

Angelica angrily points a finger at her sister.

“YOU were angry and judgmental over my relationship with Aphrodite and I blamed myself when you walked out on me.  And do you realize how bad I felt when you told me this was just going to be a business relationship from now on?”

“No, Angelica, can’t say that I do.”

“Well let me tell you!  I fell back into that dark place again!”

Angelica shakes her head.

“But then I said ‘no’; I told myself that this was not my fault.  It isn’t my fault that you cannot accept my choice.”

She pokes Kayla in her chest.

“This is your fault.”

Kayla stares tensely at Angelica for a few moments before sighing and nodding her head.

“You’re right, Angelica.  It is partially my fault.”

Angelica arches her brow.

“Partially?”

“Ok, maybe a great deal of it is my fault, but Angelica, may I just ask you one question?”

“Shoot.”

“Tell me, why do you love Aphrodite?”

Angelica rolls her eyes.

“For starters, I do not know if I love Aphrodite.  I don’t know that yet.  Aphrodite and I are just dating.  This is just to see if there IS something there.  We’re dating to see if there is a spark of love there.  BUT if you’re asking me what do I see in her…”

Angelica’s voice trails off as a dreamy expression washes away the angry look that was on her face.

“…Aphrodite makes me feel happy.  She makes me feel good about myself.”

Kayla reaches out and grasps her sister’s hands tightly.

“Angelica, don’t take this the wrong way.  I love you and that is why I say things like this, things that seem judgmental to you.  But Angelica, you’ve been in so many relationships; there was Sean Williams, Andreas Lasiewicz, Sean McBride, Brittany Lohan, and most recently Lindsey Carter.  Each and every one of them made you feel good about yourself.  Each and every one of them made you feel happy.”

Kayla shakes her head.

“Each and every one of them left you heartbroken.”

“And you think Aphrodite will do the same?”

“Yes, to be honest with you.  I do think she will.  But…”

Kayla sighs and nods.

“…but I was wrong to tell you that this was just business from now on, because you’re right…”

Now it is Kayla who has tears welling up in her eyes.

“…you are absolutely right, at the end of the day we have one another.  That’s it.  We almost lost one another before, and I am not going to be the one who ends The Sisterhood.  And as much as I may distrust her, as much as I may question your judgment, I have to give Aphrodite a chance.”

Angelica’s face suddenly lights up bright as a Christmas tree.

“Really?!”

  “Yes, really.  I have to accept that you and I are sister, that I am NOT mom.  I have to let you be your own person and that includes sometimes making decisions that I may not agree with. So yes, I will give Aphrodite a chance.”

“Thank you, Kay!”

Angelica leans over and embraces Kayla in a tight hug.

“You have no idea what it means to me to hear you say that!”

“I can only imagine.  But make no mistake about it, sis, I still do not trust her, and believe me when I say that if she does end up hurting you, if I am proven right, I will go through with the threat I made to her…I will kick her teeth right down her throat…”

Angelica half-smirks.

“If she does hurt me, I would HELP you…”

Kayla chuckles.

“Excellent.  But I do have one more question.  Are we good?”

“If you mean are we ok for the tag team title match at Broken Beliefs,  I think it is safe to say that yes, the elephant in the room has been taken care of.”

Kayla shakes her head.

“No, I don’t mean about that.  I mean you and I, our relationship, is that good?  That’s more important to me than the tag team titles, Angelica.  I mean that.  I want to get that straightened out first and foremost because I would give these titles back if it meant fixing this problem you and I have.”

“You don’t have to worry about doing that…”

Angelica kisses her on the cheek.

“…we’re fine.  In fact, we’re great, and I’m ready to defend these titles against Cruze and Helms.”

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On Camera

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It’s a matter of trust.  Trust is at the core of the great tag teams.  That’s the one quality above anything and everything else that makes us one of the best.  No, not our experience in this sport, not my ability to wrestle any and every style depending on what the situation dictates, and not even my sister Kayla’s ability to strike better than just about anyone in the business…

Hey!  I am a GREAT striker…

I never said you weren’t.  I just said it wasn’t the number one quality that makes us among the best.

Oh…well carry on then.

Right, as I was saying, TRUST is the number one quality that makes us among the best tag teams in the sport.  Angelica and I may not agree all the time.  I won’t deny it, there have been times that we had some pretty big disagreements.  But we always worked things out before things escalated, before things went too far.  We would always settle the issue, put it behind us, and move forward, because we value our friendship, our sisterhood…pardon the pun…more than anything else.

Hell, I’d even go as far as to say that we value our sisterhood more than the tag team titles.  That’s why we are always solid each and every time we step through those ropes and into the ring.  We always make certain that we trust each other and that we will never ever lose it.

I’d like to think AJ Helms and Shaun Cruze have that going for them as well.  And perhaps that’s what makes us so evenly matched?  You could talk all day about our individual accomplishments as well as our accomplishments as tag teams, but at the end of the day we trust our tag team partners as if they were family.  In my case it is a very literal reality but AJ and Shaun, you truly see yourselves as brothers in arms as you fight to win back the tag team championships, gold that you feel you lost due in large part to interference from Lexi Von Aaron.

Now don’t get me wrong, Angelica and I know how good we are and we know that with or without Lexi getting her stupid ass involved in our business, we would’ve won that match.  Either way you slice it, that night was going to be our night, we were going to walk out the new SCW World Tag Team Champions.

That’s why we have no problem granting you this rematch; not only is it the right thing to do, but now you’ve beaten us once, we’ve beaten you once, and we’re going to have the rubber match at Broken Beliefs and I know that The Sisterhood will not only retain but prove that Breakdown was not a fluke, that the victory over you was legitimate.

I trust my sister Kayla, and we both trust Honor Code.  Cruze, Helms, I would hope that you trust us to know that we’ll keep things on the up and up just as we trust you to keep things on the up and up.  But there is one thing we do not trust...

…the promise of Lexi Von Aaron.

No one can trust the word of a Von Aaron.  You can’t trust any of them.  And to be honest, I’m surprised that you two do trust her when she said she would not get involved.  I don’t care how obsessed she is with you, AJ.  She’ll get involved because she thinks she’s helping you.

She cannot help herself.  Lexi will be there; you know it, we know it, and the world knows it.  That’s why Kayla and I are preparing for Lexi’s inevitable involvement.  There’s no way around it.  She’ll be there.  She’ll be involved.

Now supposedly the rule is, if Lexi even shows her face at ringside then Honor Code is disqualified and Sisterhood retains the tag team titles.  Is that it?  Now that seems like it should be enough of a guarantee to make Angelica and I happy, right?  It should be enough to make us feel safe at ringside to focus just on you two…

…I’m sorry, but I’ve been around this business far too long to just accept that as the reality.  Lexi knows that if she shows her face at ringside then you two will get disqualified but Angelica and I  have been around long enough to know that anything is possible in this sport if you are obsessed enough and clever enough and as much as I may hate that crazy bitch, she has thus far been clever enough to keep herself involved in YOUR business…

…which now makes it our business to take care of her. 

Oh but don’t worry, if Lexi tries something then we’ll take care of it.  Kayla and I will ready for her and we’ll take her out ourselves.  If she breaks her promise…or rather, WHEN she breaks her promise…then Kayla and I will personally eliminate her from the equation.  Because we want her stupid ass out of this equation.  We want to face you one on one and we want to beat you one on one.

We damn sure do not want to retain the championship just because Lexi decided to show up at ringside.  Lexi should know better anyway.  She’s already cost you guys twice.  She cost you the tag titles…she cost you, AJ, a match against me…and now, if she does show up at ringside at Broken Beliefs, then she’ll cost you the tag team titles a second time.

Lexi is a liability, a liability that hopefully has been taken care of.  But Kayla and I are prepared for anything.  We will not be taken by surprise at Broken Beliefs.

And with Lexi taken out of the equation, either on her own volition or by Angelica and I taking her out ourselves, that also eliminates any and all possibility for making excuses, because then it would be down to just The Sisterhood and Honor Code to see which team is the best tag team in Supreme Championship Wrestling.

It’s also an opportunity to re-introduce that value of HONOR you claim to be fighting for; the reason for your very existence is to bring HONOR back to wrestling, correct?

That’s what Angelica and I tried to do from the first day we introduced The Sisterhood to the SCW universe.  The HONOR CODE isn’t unique to you.  The name may be, but the value and principle is something we fought for from day one.

Now we admit that we made a mistake when we reacted in a negative way to what we felt was unfair treatment; but we eventually did the honorable thing and admitted our mistake and we turned over a new leaf and we’ve been fighting honorably ever since then.

The big difference between you two and The Sisterhood, is that we do not make a big deal over what we do.  We just go out there to that ring and we do what we do best and we leave it all in the ring.  If we win, great; if we don’t win, fine, we’ll move on to the next great challenge.

But you…at least one of you…has stood in judgment of us in the past.  That’s not a gripe, a complaint, or bitching, because quite frankly, there have been many who have stood in judgment of us.  People stand in judgment all the time.

It is said that ‘he who is without sin, cast the first stone’ and that has been a phrase interpreted for centuries.  The way I look at it is, simply put, to look in the mirror and ask yourself if what you see is a perfect human being.  If you do see a perfect human being then get a different mirror because no one is perfect.

John Wesley once said that we should strive for perfection, but understand that we’ll never quite reach it.  When I hear that, I think about The Sisterhood and The Honor Code.  Me and Kayla, Cruze and Helms, we four are fighting for what is good in this sport, we are striving for perfection in this sport, and in that sense we are the same team.

Heh, perhaps it is no surprise that we ended up having this friendly rivalry?  Or at least, it could have been a friendly rivalry.  Could have been...

...past tense.  Because I'm tired of playing nice.  I have tried to be respectful, but God damn it is hard to be respectful when you have two self-absorbed high and mighty assholes twisting your words.

Shaun, Kayla and I do not fear anyone or anything.  We do not fear losing the tag team titles. I do have some age on me but with that age comes life experience and in my lifetime I have experienced things no one else should have to experience.  I won't go into the gory details, but suffice it to say, I will always value my sister...my family...my friendships...all of that and then some, I value it all over the tag team or any other championship!

You clearly value your own image and reputation.  Honor Code, right?  And yet you participated in an orchestrated gang assault, the same gang assaults that PUNK HAZARD were criticized for.

Oh and VERY nice cheap shot.  VERY nice low blow.  I can take cheap shots too, you know?  Fact is, you high and mighty son of a bitch, Kayla and I are going nowhere.  Win or lose at Broken Beliefs we are going NOWHERE!  Supreme Championship Wrestling is our home and we are proud to represent this great company as the tag team champions!

If we lose the titles, we'll just learn from our mistakes and move on.  We'll live to fight another day, and believe me there will be another day.  But we will never leave SCW, at least not until our career is over.  We wouldn't think of leaving SCW because SCW is the absolute best wrestling promotion in the world today bar none.

AJ Helms, I know damn well we won because of Lexi Von Aaron.  Angelica knows damn well she beat you because of Lexi Von Aaron.  We know this.  But us saying that we would have won even had she not gotten involved isn't delusion.  It's confidence on our part.  There is no way to know how either match was going to end.  Yes, you had the edge both times but even in your short career you should know by now that momentum can change in an instant.  So had Lexi not gotten involved, you may have beat us...or we may have still beat you...no one knows.  But we are confident that we WERE the better team that night.  That's not delusion.

And AJ, you call us boring.  So we're boring, now?  How about typical knee-jerk reaction from the losing side as "boring"?  When we lost to you and Shaun, you expected us to show respect and we admitted our fault and gave you that respect.  But when we beat you you and Shaun say we're boring, we're only pretending and putting on a charade, you say we're delusional...

...we are NOT delusional and I can tell you right here and right now that we are not putting on a damn charade!  We are not characters playing a role, we are real people.  You and the entire SCW universe, those who love us and those who hate us alike, will always get the REAL Kayla Jones and Angelica Jones each and every time we step into that ring!

If anyone is pretending anything, it's you two.  You put on the pretense of honor but refuse to show any class or respectability towards us.  You are the very definition of hypocrite.  I wanted this to be just a friendly rivalry.  But more and more that scenario seems less likely.

Friendly rivalry or not, it all boils down to the SCW World Tag Team Championship.  Everything got started over the tag team titles.  Honor Code versus The Sisterhood in a tournament to crown number one contenders to the tag team championship.  We were your first opponents.

We thought we could win quite handily due to AJ’s inexperience and your lack of tag team chemistry in general.  Yet you won that night and in the process you reminded us that we shouldn’t take any tag team lightly.  We learned that lesson very well.  We kept that memory in our mind and heart as we watched you climb up the tag team ranks and eventually become tag team champions.

Then we showed you exactly what we learned from that first encounter, we showed you and the rest of the wrestling world that we do learn from our mistakes, that even seasoned veterans can still mature and grow and learn; we did all of that by beating Honor Code for the SCW World Tag Team Championship on Breakdown.

Now it’s your turn.  Have you learned something about The Sisterhood?  Have you learned from any potential mistakes you have made?  Did you learn a thing or two about the character of The Sisterhood?  I hope you have, I truly do hope you have learned from the past, because Angelica and I are at the top of our game and we want you at the top of your game at Broken Beliefs, because we do not want there to be any excuses when that bell rings and the match is over.

We want to defeat the Honor Code at its very best, and we damn sure do not want to defeat The Honor Code because of Lexi Von Aaron’s dumb ass.

We want to defeat you.  No excuses.

And…?

And what?

You know what.

Do I have to?

YES!

Fine…and Cruze, Helms, we will kick your teeth, right down your throat!

WOOO!