Post by Helena Sawyer on Apr 22, 2018 20:45:35 GMT
"We did it, Shelly!" The voice cut through the silence, and Michelle winced involuntarily, shaking her head as she looked up to see Helena bouncing on the reflection of her hotel room bed. "We did it! We're going to the Iron Maiden! I'm so proud of us!"
Michelle sat down on the bed, checking her temples and cracking her neck. "Can it. We were sloppy out there. If Crystal didn't suffer from a terminal inability to pull her head out of her ass, we might've been on a flight back home."
Helena springs up one more time, landing cross-legged with a pout on the reflected bed. "You're so negative. Why not celebrate the positives in life? You're healthy, you're happy, you won your first match back in six months, that's one hell of a list of things to be thankful for." Helena pauses. "You ARE...happy, right?"
Michelle threw her hands up. "I don't know. I'm still apparently crazy, or possessed, or haunted, or whatever the fuck you're doing to me. Every time I come back to this place, it seems like something bad happens to try to undo all the good it brings me."
"Now THAT'S negativity talking." Helena wagged her finger sternly at Michelle. "And you know my policy on negativity: Just. Say. No."
"Nancy Reagan's dead." Michelle snarked back at the reflection, rubbing her neck. "This is the Iron Maiden, Hel. This isn't just kicking Kate Steele around. Five of the nastiest, most vicious women in the company, all out to take us out and secure a shot at the big one, on the biggest stage."
"Yeah, what else is new?" Helena retorted. "Look, I've always wanted to go to Vegas. It's Sin City, after all."
"Always? What do you mean, always?! How old are you?!" Michelle blurted out in confusion.
Helena waved her hand dismissively. "Doesn't matter. Point is, if we could survive the Dragon's Den, we can survive this. Hell, none of these women have the body count of Eternity, and you weren't nearly as worried about walking into the cage with her. What's different?"
Michelle pauses, sarcastically replying. "Oh, I don't know, maybe the fact that the last time I got into it with the Pack, my girlfriend got kidnapped? There is that small detail."
"You can't let that be an excuse forever, Shelly." Helena shook her head, rocking forward onto her knees and pointing at Michelle again. "You need to step up. Get on the same page with me. Trust your girl. I seriously doubt Grace is unprepared after all this time. She's too smart a cookie for that. After all, she tracked us down. I think you need to stop treating her like some delicate porcelain doll."
"And I think you need to stop giving me relationship advice, asshole." Michelle replied, forcing herself to her feet. She opened one of the drawers in the TV stand, pulling out a spare sheet, and flicked it out, unfolding the sheet. "Matter of fact, I think you need a little timeout. I don't know if this'll work, but I'm sure going to try it out."
With that, she draped the sheet over the mirror, and Helena's outburst of protest found itself muffled as the sheet fell across the surface. She continued to shout, the sheet gusting forward slightly. "Hey! You can't do this! I have just as much a right to talk as you do! Take this stupid thing down!"
"Alright, Helena." Michelle waved dismissively, walking towards the door. "I'll be back later. Either you can get your act together, or the sheet stays up. Your choice."
A muffled thumping noise sounds from behind the sheet, joining the sound of Helena's angry shouting, and Michelle pauses for a moment before turning and continuing her walk. She opens the door to the hotel room, stepping into the hallway, and lets the door swing shut behind her. As soon as the door clicks shut, Helena falls silent, the sheet settling into stillness again. We hold on the eerie quiet of the room for a moment before fading out.
The lights come up on Helena Sawyer, kneeling on a stone platform in the middle of what looks to be a medieval torture chamber. Iron cuffs are fastened around her ankles and wrists, and a similar iron collar is locked firmly around her neck. Helena stares out into the distance, painted visage illuminated by the flicker of torchlight. She cracks a smile, bloodied teeth revealed as her lips part. "It's just torture, isn't it? Having to wait to escape, knowing that your destiny is out of your hands? It's not fate, but it's the closest our lives ever get. I hate waiting, and I hate the idea that someone else can choose my future...but we're all bound, aren't we? Our bonds define us, hold us back, set us apart...each in our own way."
Helena tries to stand up, forcing a leg underneath her, and as the chain attached to her left foot jostles, a torch springs to life in one corner of the room, revealing a laboratory setup that wouldn't have been out of place in the depths of Castle Frankenstein. "Some of us are bound by duty. Maxine, you owe your life to the Pack, don't you? You were adrift before they came for you, before Rowan shattered you and built you back up into her obedient sentinel. You're obligated to them, aren't you? You feel like you owe them...so you'll go out there and try to destroy anyone that threatens your precious little Women's Champion. Like a good guard dog, straining at the end of your chain."
She grits her teeth, leaning to one side and kicking her leg out. The chain strains against the kick, the edge of the cuff biting into Helena's flesh, leaving a streak of angry crimson. Undeterred, Helena kicks a second time, a third, and on the fourth the chain yanks from its bolted place in the wall, lashing through the laboratory equipment in a cacophonous explosion of shattering glass and volatile chemical reactions. Helena watches her handiwork with a smile, shaking her leg out. "Unlike you, Maxine, I'm not here to protect anything. I'm here to destroy, to take. You gave me plenty of reason to tear down your Pack and everything you stand for...and my revenge starts with you. Brooklyn will come soon enough, but in the confines of the Maiden, I get my chance to pay you back every bit of pain you inflicted on me and mine." Her eyes glint in the light, and she smiles again. "It'll be so much fun."
As Helena shifts, trying to kick her other leg free, another torch springs to life, revealing a stained-glass mural of two women. One is reaching up, hand enveloped in a bright light. The other stands below and to the side of her, gazing up at the light...her fists clenched by her side. "And Ciara O'Connor, bound by friendship. Bound by the inevitable fact that those she escorts will always be the ones to find glory, not her. The eternal bridesmaid. I weep for you, Ciara. I weep for what you could have been, what you could be. If you just...got the chance to be yourself, you could be something beautiful. But you hold to those who are content to sideline you, denying yourself for the sake of friendship. Trust me..." Helena rolls her eyes. "It's just not worth it."
Helena forces herself to stand on her free leg, kicking away again until the chain holding her right foot pulls free, ripping through the stained glass image and splintering the image of the two women into a million twinkling shards. Helena reaches down, rubbing her ankle. "Set yourself free. Chase your own ambitions. Be your own woman. Vivienne's so bright and shiny, all she'll ever do is drown you out in her light, leave you a muted secondary player. Pain reveals our true nature. What will you be when the pain of the Iron Maiden grows tightest? Will your bonds hold you back? Or will you break free?"
Helena stands up now, arms hanging by her side. She yanks at her left arm, lighting still a third corner. This one houses a trophy case, stocked to the brim with dusty trophies, faded photographs, and tarnished belts. "Some of us are bound by legacy. Rayne...it's been too long, Rayne. Not because I missed you, but because I expected you to be gone by now. You hang on, stubbon, bloody-minded, far beyond your time, because you refuse to accept your own mortality. We all have an expiration date, darling...yours is just creeping up on you sooner than you're willing to accept."
This time, Helena has just enough purchase to yank herself free with one mighty pull, almost throwing herself from the platform as she does so. The shackle, as it has twice now, crashes into the cabinet, sending it toppling forward. The glass panes shatter, sending the trophies and treasures clattering across the floor with a deafening metallic clang. Helena shakes her head, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Just one of these couldn't be clean, could it? Oh well. Change is difficult, change is painful...and accepting the truth more painful yet. Your works are complete, Rayne, your history finished. Is this to be your Silmarillion, your Thief and the Cobbler, that one last work you insist must be perfect but can never be? Take your bow. Ring down your curtain. The choir invisible is waiting..." Helena sketches a bow, grinning. "And they're just dying to have you."
With a resigned flick of the wrist, Helena tugs at the last chain around her wrist. The area that lights now is an altar, looked over by a detailed, ornate crucifix carved of cherrywood. Helena sneers, shaking her head. "The bonds of faith. The most superfluous, the most harmful...and the ones that seem to choke the hardest. Abigail Spencer professes her faith, time and again, professes that her guidance comes from above. God is a joke, Abby. The idea of a loving, caring God is a joke that's belied time and time again. If He's real, He has a sick sense of humor, and I don't find him particularly funny." Helena wipes her mouth with the back of her free hand, leaving a smear of blood from her teeth. "So why do you?"
"Not that your faith is a joke to you. It is to me, but you take it oh so deadly serious, Abby..." Helena yanks again, and this time the shackle's anchor explodes from the center of the crucifix, splintering it into four pieces that fly from the wall, clattering against the floor as Helena smirks. "Your God has led you astray for so long. He has failed you, Abigail. And if you think He is your salvation within the Iron Maiden, think again. Whenever times have been bloodiest, calling out to God for deliverance has brought death and destruction, not peace. This is no different. Kneel in prayer, and the Mother will receive you into her embrace...but I don't think you're ready for her Blessing. Not yet."
Helena moves to step from the platform, but the chain around her neck yanks taut, stopping her short. Helena pauses, briefly looking offended, but then chuckles, nodding. "How could I forget...the strongest bonds of all. The bonds of blood." Helena jerks her head forward, looking for a moment more like a death metal musician than a wrestler or a torture victim, and the last fire lights, revealing a menacing portrait of Spike Kane glaring down over the room. The inscription at the base of the portrait reads "PATER NOSTER", and Helena chuckles. "Dawn...ever since you found out what you were, you've been all too happy to be the Daughter of Extreme. Nothing like your poor brother Warren. Oh well. At least Spike loves one of his living children, right?"
Helena turns, wrapping her hands around the chain, and doubles the chain up about her fists, voice dropping to a growl. "You call yourself the Iron Maiden, Dawn. This should be your match, right? Yours to claim, yours to conquer, tear us open and leave us raining blood, like a lacerated sky, making Daddy so proud. I don't think so. There is no such thing as birthright, Dawn. There is only the battle, day by vicious, unforgiving day. If you think you're entitled to immortality by blood, I will bleed you of every single drop of delusion, until your veins run dry and you see the truth." Helena grins, yanking experimentally, but the chain stays taut. "Like I said. Strongest bonds of all. But I know the price of immortality. I know the cost of eternity so much better than you do, Dawn...and I hail none but the Dark Mother, the greatest teacher, the Lady of Pain."
With one more pull, Helena yanks down the portrait, snapping the chain in her hands as the portrait drops onto the torch beneath it. As it catches fire, Helena casts the shattered links in her hands aside, flexing her fingers and smiling as the fire dances before her. "I was called back to this place for this purpose. The Iron Maiden. Night of the Immortals. Revenge, absolution, fire and blood...the things that give my life meaning. Each of you are bound in your own way, choked by the strings of your weaknesses, unable to take the actions that will set you free. But me?" Helena looks around herself at the ruins and destruction, laughing as she steps off the platform. "There are no strings on me." With that, Helena walks out of the room, whistling to herself, dissonantly serene among the destruction. Her whistling gradually melts into deranged laughter, echoing as the flames slowly snuff themselves out and plunge the room into blackness once more.
Michelle sat down on the bed, checking her temples and cracking her neck. "Can it. We were sloppy out there. If Crystal didn't suffer from a terminal inability to pull her head out of her ass, we might've been on a flight back home."
Helena springs up one more time, landing cross-legged with a pout on the reflected bed. "You're so negative. Why not celebrate the positives in life? You're healthy, you're happy, you won your first match back in six months, that's one hell of a list of things to be thankful for." Helena pauses. "You ARE...happy, right?"
Michelle threw her hands up. "I don't know. I'm still apparently crazy, or possessed, or haunted, or whatever the fuck you're doing to me. Every time I come back to this place, it seems like something bad happens to try to undo all the good it brings me."
"Now THAT'S negativity talking." Helena wagged her finger sternly at Michelle. "And you know my policy on negativity: Just. Say. No."
"Nancy Reagan's dead." Michelle snarked back at the reflection, rubbing her neck. "This is the Iron Maiden, Hel. This isn't just kicking Kate Steele around. Five of the nastiest, most vicious women in the company, all out to take us out and secure a shot at the big one, on the biggest stage."
"Yeah, what else is new?" Helena retorted. "Look, I've always wanted to go to Vegas. It's Sin City, after all."
"Always? What do you mean, always?! How old are you?!" Michelle blurted out in confusion.
Helena waved her hand dismissively. "Doesn't matter. Point is, if we could survive the Dragon's Den, we can survive this. Hell, none of these women have the body count of Eternity, and you weren't nearly as worried about walking into the cage with her. What's different?"
Michelle pauses, sarcastically replying. "Oh, I don't know, maybe the fact that the last time I got into it with the Pack, my girlfriend got kidnapped? There is that small detail."
"You can't let that be an excuse forever, Shelly." Helena shook her head, rocking forward onto her knees and pointing at Michelle again. "You need to step up. Get on the same page with me. Trust your girl. I seriously doubt Grace is unprepared after all this time. She's too smart a cookie for that. After all, she tracked us down. I think you need to stop treating her like some delicate porcelain doll."
"And I think you need to stop giving me relationship advice, asshole." Michelle replied, forcing herself to her feet. She opened one of the drawers in the TV stand, pulling out a spare sheet, and flicked it out, unfolding the sheet. "Matter of fact, I think you need a little timeout. I don't know if this'll work, but I'm sure going to try it out."
With that, she draped the sheet over the mirror, and Helena's outburst of protest found itself muffled as the sheet fell across the surface. She continued to shout, the sheet gusting forward slightly. "Hey! You can't do this! I have just as much a right to talk as you do! Take this stupid thing down!"
"Alright, Helena." Michelle waved dismissively, walking towards the door. "I'll be back later. Either you can get your act together, or the sheet stays up. Your choice."
A muffled thumping noise sounds from behind the sheet, joining the sound of Helena's angry shouting, and Michelle pauses for a moment before turning and continuing her walk. She opens the door to the hotel room, stepping into the hallway, and lets the door swing shut behind her. As soon as the door clicks shut, Helena falls silent, the sheet settling into stillness again. We hold on the eerie quiet of the room for a moment before fading out.
The lights come up on Helena Sawyer, kneeling on a stone platform in the middle of what looks to be a medieval torture chamber. Iron cuffs are fastened around her ankles and wrists, and a similar iron collar is locked firmly around her neck. Helena stares out into the distance, painted visage illuminated by the flicker of torchlight. She cracks a smile, bloodied teeth revealed as her lips part. "It's just torture, isn't it? Having to wait to escape, knowing that your destiny is out of your hands? It's not fate, but it's the closest our lives ever get. I hate waiting, and I hate the idea that someone else can choose my future...but we're all bound, aren't we? Our bonds define us, hold us back, set us apart...each in our own way."
Helena tries to stand up, forcing a leg underneath her, and as the chain attached to her left foot jostles, a torch springs to life in one corner of the room, revealing a laboratory setup that wouldn't have been out of place in the depths of Castle Frankenstein. "Some of us are bound by duty. Maxine, you owe your life to the Pack, don't you? You were adrift before they came for you, before Rowan shattered you and built you back up into her obedient sentinel. You're obligated to them, aren't you? You feel like you owe them...so you'll go out there and try to destroy anyone that threatens your precious little Women's Champion. Like a good guard dog, straining at the end of your chain."
She grits her teeth, leaning to one side and kicking her leg out. The chain strains against the kick, the edge of the cuff biting into Helena's flesh, leaving a streak of angry crimson. Undeterred, Helena kicks a second time, a third, and on the fourth the chain yanks from its bolted place in the wall, lashing through the laboratory equipment in a cacophonous explosion of shattering glass and volatile chemical reactions. Helena watches her handiwork with a smile, shaking her leg out. "Unlike you, Maxine, I'm not here to protect anything. I'm here to destroy, to take. You gave me plenty of reason to tear down your Pack and everything you stand for...and my revenge starts with you. Brooklyn will come soon enough, but in the confines of the Maiden, I get my chance to pay you back every bit of pain you inflicted on me and mine." Her eyes glint in the light, and she smiles again. "It'll be so much fun."
As Helena shifts, trying to kick her other leg free, another torch springs to life, revealing a stained-glass mural of two women. One is reaching up, hand enveloped in a bright light. The other stands below and to the side of her, gazing up at the light...her fists clenched by her side. "And Ciara O'Connor, bound by friendship. Bound by the inevitable fact that those she escorts will always be the ones to find glory, not her. The eternal bridesmaid. I weep for you, Ciara. I weep for what you could have been, what you could be. If you just...got the chance to be yourself, you could be something beautiful. But you hold to those who are content to sideline you, denying yourself for the sake of friendship. Trust me..." Helena rolls her eyes. "It's just not worth it."
Helena forces herself to stand on her free leg, kicking away again until the chain holding her right foot pulls free, ripping through the stained glass image and splintering the image of the two women into a million twinkling shards. Helena reaches down, rubbing her ankle. "Set yourself free. Chase your own ambitions. Be your own woman. Vivienne's so bright and shiny, all she'll ever do is drown you out in her light, leave you a muted secondary player. Pain reveals our true nature. What will you be when the pain of the Iron Maiden grows tightest? Will your bonds hold you back? Or will you break free?"
Helena stands up now, arms hanging by her side. She yanks at her left arm, lighting still a third corner. This one houses a trophy case, stocked to the brim with dusty trophies, faded photographs, and tarnished belts. "Some of us are bound by legacy. Rayne...it's been too long, Rayne. Not because I missed you, but because I expected you to be gone by now. You hang on, stubbon, bloody-minded, far beyond your time, because you refuse to accept your own mortality. We all have an expiration date, darling...yours is just creeping up on you sooner than you're willing to accept."
This time, Helena has just enough purchase to yank herself free with one mighty pull, almost throwing herself from the platform as she does so. The shackle, as it has twice now, crashes into the cabinet, sending it toppling forward. The glass panes shatter, sending the trophies and treasures clattering across the floor with a deafening metallic clang. Helena shakes her head, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Just one of these couldn't be clean, could it? Oh well. Change is difficult, change is painful...and accepting the truth more painful yet. Your works are complete, Rayne, your history finished. Is this to be your Silmarillion, your Thief and the Cobbler, that one last work you insist must be perfect but can never be? Take your bow. Ring down your curtain. The choir invisible is waiting..." Helena sketches a bow, grinning. "And they're just dying to have you."
With a resigned flick of the wrist, Helena tugs at the last chain around her wrist. The area that lights now is an altar, looked over by a detailed, ornate crucifix carved of cherrywood. Helena sneers, shaking her head. "The bonds of faith. The most superfluous, the most harmful...and the ones that seem to choke the hardest. Abigail Spencer professes her faith, time and again, professes that her guidance comes from above. God is a joke, Abby. The idea of a loving, caring God is a joke that's belied time and time again. If He's real, He has a sick sense of humor, and I don't find him particularly funny." Helena wipes her mouth with the back of her free hand, leaving a smear of blood from her teeth. "So why do you?"
"Not that your faith is a joke to you. It is to me, but you take it oh so deadly serious, Abby..." Helena yanks again, and this time the shackle's anchor explodes from the center of the crucifix, splintering it into four pieces that fly from the wall, clattering against the floor as Helena smirks. "Your God has led you astray for so long. He has failed you, Abigail. And if you think He is your salvation within the Iron Maiden, think again. Whenever times have been bloodiest, calling out to God for deliverance has brought death and destruction, not peace. This is no different. Kneel in prayer, and the Mother will receive you into her embrace...but I don't think you're ready for her Blessing. Not yet."
Helena moves to step from the platform, but the chain around her neck yanks taut, stopping her short. Helena pauses, briefly looking offended, but then chuckles, nodding. "How could I forget...the strongest bonds of all. The bonds of blood." Helena jerks her head forward, looking for a moment more like a death metal musician than a wrestler or a torture victim, and the last fire lights, revealing a menacing portrait of Spike Kane glaring down over the room. The inscription at the base of the portrait reads "PATER NOSTER", and Helena chuckles. "Dawn...ever since you found out what you were, you've been all too happy to be the Daughter of Extreme. Nothing like your poor brother Warren. Oh well. At least Spike loves one of his living children, right?"
Helena turns, wrapping her hands around the chain, and doubles the chain up about her fists, voice dropping to a growl. "You call yourself the Iron Maiden, Dawn. This should be your match, right? Yours to claim, yours to conquer, tear us open and leave us raining blood, like a lacerated sky, making Daddy so proud. I don't think so. There is no such thing as birthright, Dawn. There is only the battle, day by vicious, unforgiving day. If you think you're entitled to immortality by blood, I will bleed you of every single drop of delusion, until your veins run dry and you see the truth." Helena grins, yanking experimentally, but the chain stays taut. "Like I said. Strongest bonds of all. But I know the price of immortality. I know the cost of eternity so much better than you do, Dawn...and I hail none but the Dark Mother, the greatest teacher, the Lady of Pain."
With one more pull, Helena yanks down the portrait, snapping the chain in her hands as the portrait drops onto the torch beneath it. As it catches fire, Helena casts the shattered links in her hands aside, flexing her fingers and smiling as the fire dances before her. "I was called back to this place for this purpose. The Iron Maiden. Night of the Immortals. Revenge, absolution, fire and blood...the things that give my life meaning. Each of you are bound in your own way, choked by the strings of your weaknesses, unable to take the actions that will set you free. But me?" Helena looks around herself at the ruins and destruction, laughing as she steps off the platform. "There are no strings on me." With that, Helena walks out of the room, whistling to herself, dissonantly serene among the destruction. Her whistling gradually melts into deranged laughter, echoing as the flames slowly snuff themselves out and plunge the room into blackness once more.
Well howdy there pardner.