Post by Caroline Machado on Oct 14, 2024 4:32:10 GMT
October 11, 2024 -- 12:25 PM
Inside Caroline Machado's Arlington residence...
We find Caroline Machado stretching her arms before taking out a chocolate-flavored meal replacement shake from her kitchen's fridge. In recent weeks, her mind had been preoccupied by a minor car accident and, most recently, allegations from a former Playboy writer that she took several nude modeling photos with several high-profile names in the field. She didn't know what hurt her the most: the $2500 repair bill for the damage to her vehicle or the attack on her supposedly squeaky-clean image. Regardless, it was supposed to be just another random day in her life.
That was, until she heard a knock at the front door.
Caroline placed her drink on the kitchen's bar area and answered the knock. To her great surprise and shock, she found herself face-to-face with R.A. Marshall -- and it felt like a ghost from her own past.
RAM eked out a slight grin on his face, looking at the Brazilian squarely in the eyes.
"Well, well…"
The two stared at each other rather awkwardly for a minute or two, perhaps trying to figure out who was going to say the next word. And then...
"...hi."
RAM shook his head and feigned disgust, not expecting the sheepishly tepid greeting.
"Good Lord, I feel like I just called Thunder Sid a chicken-shit, and all you can say is 'hi?!'"
The Brazilian laughed out loud.
"RAM...you and your senso de humor fraco."
"What about you?! You and your overbearing Barbie doll cheerfulness…"
Caroline chuckled slightly, perhaps bemused at the comment, before allowing RAM inside her home. On cue, her voice took on a more serious tone.
"After everything you've done, why have you come here...?"
"'Cause someone I once knew was in trouble -- in more ways than one."
He showed the Brazilian a printout of the Awesome Stick Labor nude photo story along with a picture of the busted left-front headlight from Machado's Ford Maverick after her fender-bender several weeks ago.
"Same-same for you!!"
RAM scowled at the TMZ story printout that she held up.
"Look, I don't want--"
"--to talk about it, I know. It is your perogative."
He sighed, perhaps realizing that the dam he built inside of his mind was about to break.
"Honestly...you're the only one I want to talk about it with. I can't trust no one else in this stinkin' world."
"What about your classmate, Tommy Figgins?"
"Pffft, he's a doofus. He'll open his mouth to anybody that'll listen."
Caroline watched as RAM plunked himself down on her living room sofa. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, waiting for this moment for weeks on end.
"What has happened to you...?"
He bowed his head solemnly, his lips quivering as the tone of his voice changed to a more soft-spoken registry.
"Here's the truth: I've been messed up for a long, long time. I had a girlfriend in high school named Rydia. Tough nut, damn good computer programmer. She once created a virus that crashed my school district's entire mainframe -- one that I wound up helping rebuild."
As Caroline sat down next to him, RAM pulled up a picture of Rydia smiling in front of the Texas Giant roller coaster at Six Flags Over Texas, taken prior to the 2020 Covid pandemic.
"Ahh...parece muito fofo!"
"Yeah. She was damn cute, too…"
A tear flowed down from RAM's right eye.
"...so...very gentle…"
His voice broke, his body trembled from head to toe, and even more tears feel down as Caroline did all she could to console and comfort him.
"Rydia was murdered, December 2021. The guy who did it was my school's star jock. Protected by mommy and daddy. Thought he was invincible. And i...I couldn't figure out how to live without her."
A pause ensued as RAM struggled to keep his composure.
"Docs put me on depression meds to help try and dull the pain. Couple that with prescription painkillers from bein' in a ring, you've got yourself quite the cocktail of trouble. Trouble that nearly sent me teetering over a balcony at my room in Tokyo..."
Caroline's eyes widened in shock as she heard what came next.
"You...what?!"
"Yeah, I did -- I tried to take my own damn life."
At that moment, whatever composure RAM had tried to maintain was gone. Soon, he was on the floor, head bowed and eyes closed.
"You don't know, Caroline...I wasn't strong enough to protect her! I wasn't good enough to keep my uncle's voice out of my goddamn head...as I was teeting on that hotel room balcony…I wanted to fucking DIE and hurt as many people as I could...!!"
Another pause. This time, Caroline was also crying and holding him as tightly as she could.
"That's the reason why I didn't jump off that ladder to hurt Nick Danger. 'Cause in that moment, I was reminded of that night in that hotel room..."
The Brazilian squeezed RAM as lovingly and tightly as she could. She was crying for him -- but knowing that he was still alive gave her tears of a joyous relief.
"I...I prayed for you. Wanted to know if you were okay. And...I louvado seja o Senhor Jesus Cristo -- now and forever -- because you have been granted a second chance to live!!"
RAM hugged Caroline back. Despite their differing points of view on life, they wanted to see each other as the brother-and-sister combination both of them never experienced growing up.
"Now the suicide note that I wrote on that night is in the hands of the mainstream media. And I...I've been…"
"Running away from it...?"
RAM nodded.
"...help me..."
Pause.
"...help me make it all go away…"
Caroline shook her head.
"...I cannot…"
They both pulled themselves back up on the sofa and looked into each other's eyes.
"The scars inside our minds, they can't be taken away with the wave of a magic wand. They are just as much a part of life as...rumores sujos e obscenos. If we simply wash away the things that challenge us, we lose ourselves."
She took a deep breath before pulling out the Jennie Fenix baseball-style card she had been taking with her for months.
"Losing to Jennie, those alleged modelping pictures you told me about. I cannot run away from the things that challenge me, that call me to battle."
RAM gently patted Caroline on the back before standing up. He slowly trudged towards her living room window and stared at the outside, a la Captain Jean-Luc Picard in his ready room.
"What do you know about this Richard Head person?"
"Not a damn thing, but I think I know somebody who does…"
Caroline raised her left brow, watching as RAM pulled up a rather awkward selfie he took with Fiona McFly several weeks ago -- that featured her sticking her tongue out at the camera. The Brazilian looked startled upon the direction RAM was taking this conversation.
"You don't say...?!"
"Yeah. I've heard rumblings that she's had prior dealings with him. Heard he got booted out of her house nine years ago or something like that 'cause he wanted her to do an interview with a nude spread."
"I like to think it was more of a comfort issue than anything else, but still...Fiona has been like a mother figure to both you and me. She brought us into the Imperial business, after all…"
Caroline cleared her throat.
"We can't just go in with phasers firing on stun! It'd be too easy for her to make a counter-move!!!"
RAM pondered for a moment.
"I know you're having reservations about it, but...you can't afford to hold anything back anymore."
Caroline stood beside RAM at the window, both of them staring out at the cars and trucks driving by.
"Look at me, Robert: this is not gonna be easy. If we're gonna confront Fiona about Richard Head, it's going to be a compromisso de longo prazo. Nothing will happen overnight -- we take this one game at a time, one step at a time."
RAM gave his sister-in-arms a look of determined confidence.
"Translation: we're in this for the long haul."
To be continued...
---
{ Several hours later, we find Caroline and RAM sharing a livestream together for the first time ever. She smiled before giving him a tap on the shoulder, allowing him to take the lead. }
"Well, well…
Who would've ever thought this match would get signed on the docket in the first place?! The angry computer nerd and the bubbly volleyball player takin' on Tytus Rost and Serenity Holmes in the same ring?! Shit, man...sign us both up for the action. Then again, you two just might be the perfect case of what it means for a woman to walk all over a big, strapping boy from Russia.
Speaking which…
You should be ashamed of yourself, Tytus. I thought you were this big monster that people feared. Instead...you've become a pussy, caving into the demands of the shit-show suits who edge-lord over this fucking circus. Did you even think that, after beatin' my favorite whipping boy Nick Danger to earn your contendership for the Invictus title, Serenity Holmes was gonna give you an honorable challenge?!
Nah.
You kknew it -- and you capitulated.
Lemme tell you something that almost everyone in this world automatically knows: the world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's about strength over weakness, spanky, and I don't care where you come from, the world is gonna beat you down PERMANENTLY if you let it. Truth is, instead of a bein' a powerful beast that I know you can be, you've made the choice to become second fiddle to your own tag-team partner. I see a lost little boy who's tryin' to jump through every hoop and over every hurdle before you realize that all you have to do...is break the system.
Think you and Serenity can just walk over us and not expect an ass-whipping in return?!
I have a message for you two: Caroline, you've got the floor."
{ RAM scowled before tagging Caroline in. }
"Hi, Ren-Ren!!
I normally don't like using nicknames during the course of a match unless if it's done with great respect -- like Charlie, for example. I get it that you hate that nickname, but the truth is, you can't stop yourself from getting angry over it. You often command respect from those who face you, but you don't show ANY of that to anyone else in return. The truth is, while I understand that you're a very passionate person who loves what you do in this life?!
Eu detesto tudo o que você representa.
I don't have time to get todo puto da vida because, to be very blunt, RAM and I have been struggling in recent weeks. You know it, Tytus knows it, EVERYBODY knows it...okay?! You have your good times, you have your bad times, but we do a lot better by learning from the losses! Yet we -- RAM and I -- have spent the past few years or so, watching as you become very insufferable to other people. And for WHAT, I might ask?!
You knew you were struggling, so you decided to train with Roberto Verona. Congratulations, you became Invictus Champion!! That name, in Latin, means 'unbreakable,' but as each day passes?! The cracks in your armor begin showing themselves. You choose to make things worse by surrounding yourself with protection?!
What for, so Tytus just can't jump you from behind!!!
That's not how the REAL world works, Ren-Ren, and you're better than that!!! Not everybody in this life gets to afford the kinds of perks you have right now! You think you can just walk over someone like RAM because, let's be real, his head hasn't been in the game for a long-long time!?! It only tells us two things: one, you don't care about anybody else except for your OWN ass!
And two!?!
Você NÃO é tão bom quanto você PENSA que é!!!"
{ Caroline tags RAM back in, who raises his brows after not seeing an English translation pop on the screen. }
"Did she just...?!
I guess certain colorful metaphors ain't programmed into the universal translator.
That's beside the point, Serenity. Last week, you got DAMN lucky that I was all screwed up inside my mind. This time around, you ain't gonna be so fortunate. I said it last week, but I ain't bullshittin' you when I say it again: I don't hold NOTHIN' back! I'm mean, nasty, and tired of watching you insult the intelligence of this stinkin' joint by thinkin' of yourself as invincible.
Welcome to our world, bitch.
You ain't invincible or unbeatable.
As for you, Tytus -- the Russian BETA male?! I hope you and Serenity kick the shit out of each other. If you were the honorable alpha you so claim to be, you'd put your fist into her mouth right there and there, in that very ring. Problem is, you're afraid of winning -- you're afraid of standing up to the jocks and clowns that run the place into the ground. And unless you've got the balls to go out there and prove us wrong?!
Don't come crying to Randon Haynes when Caroline and I BOTH bash your dick in the dirt.
'Cause let's be real...I don't think you have the mental capacity to realize what you're getting into. You might think that a cheerful Barbie doll and a general pain-in-the-ass teamin' together might be easy pickings for you and Serenity, but you don't know a GODDAMN thing about us. You hide our talents behind our own struggles, thinking that you two are gonna have an easy day at the office.
Come Odyssey?!
We're gonna make you wish you've never met us."
Inside Caroline Machado's Arlington residence...
We find Caroline Machado stretching her arms before taking out a chocolate-flavored meal replacement shake from her kitchen's fridge. In recent weeks, her mind had been preoccupied by a minor car accident and, most recently, allegations from a former Playboy writer that she took several nude modeling photos with several high-profile names in the field. She didn't know what hurt her the most: the $2500 repair bill for the damage to her vehicle or the attack on her supposedly squeaky-clean image. Regardless, it was supposed to be just another random day in her life.
That was, until she heard a knock at the front door.
Caroline placed her drink on the kitchen's bar area and answered the knock. To her great surprise and shock, she found herself face-to-face with R.A. Marshall -- and it felt like a ghost from her own past.
RAM eked out a slight grin on his face, looking at the Brazilian squarely in the eyes.
"Well, well…"
The two stared at each other rather awkwardly for a minute or two, perhaps trying to figure out who was going to say the next word. And then...
"...hi."
RAM shook his head and feigned disgust, not expecting the sheepishly tepid greeting.
"Good Lord, I feel like I just called Thunder Sid a chicken-shit, and all you can say is 'hi?!'"
The Brazilian laughed out loud.
"RAM...you and your senso de humor fraco."
"What about you?! You and your overbearing Barbie doll cheerfulness…"
Caroline chuckled slightly, perhaps bemused at the comment, before allowing RAM inside her home. On cue, her voice took on a more serious tone.
"After everything you've done, why have you come here...?"
"'Cause someone I once knew was in trouble -- in more ways than one."
He showed the Brazilian a printout of the Awesome Stick Labor nude photo story along with a picture of the busted left-front headlight from Machado's Ford Maverick after her fender-bender several weeks ago.
"Same-same for you!!"
RAM scowled at the TMZ story printout that she held up.
"Look, I don't want--"
"--to talk about it, I know. It is your perogative."
He sighed, perhaps realizing that the dam he built inside of his mind was about to break.
"Honestly...you're the only one I want to talk about it with. I can't trust no one else in this stinkin' world."
"What about your classmate, Tommy Figgins?"
"Pffft, he's a doofus. He'll open his mouth to anybody that'll listen."
Caroline watched as RAM plunked himself down on her living room sofa. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, waiting for this moment for weeks on end.
"What has happened to you...?"
He bowed his head solemnly, his lips quivering as the tone of his voice changed to a more soft-spoken registry.
"Here's the truth: I've been messed up for a long, long time. I had a girlfriend in high school named Rydia. Tough nut, damn good computer programmer. She once created a virus that crashed my school district's entire mainframe -- one that I wound up helping rebuild."
As Caroline sat down next to him, RAM pulled up a picture of Rydia smiling in front of the Texas Giant roller coaster at Six Flags Over Texas, taken prior to the 2020 Covid pandemic.
"Ahh...parece muito fofo!"
"Yeah. She was damn cute, too…"
A tear flowed down from RAM's right eye.
"...so...very gentle…"
His voice broke, his body trembled from head to toe, and even more tears feel down as Caroline did all she could to console and comfort him.
"Rydia was murdered, December 2021. The guy who did it was my school's star jock. Protected by mommy and daddy. Thought he was invincible. And i...I couldn't figure out how to live without her."
A pause ensued as RAM struggled to keep his composure.
"Docs put me on depression meds to help try and dull the pain. Couple that with prescription painkillers from bein' in a ring, you've got yourself quite the cocktail of trouble. Trouble that nearly sent me teetering over a balcony at my room in Tokyo..."
Caroline's eyes widened in shock as she heard what came next.
"You...what?!"
"Yeah, I did -- I tried to take my own damn life."
At that moment, whatever composure RAM had tried to maintain was gone. Soon, he was on the floor, head bowed and eyes closed.
"You don't know, Caroline...I wasn't strong enough to protect her! I wasn't good enough to keep my uncle's voice out of my goddamn head...as I was teeting on that hotel room balcony…I wanted to fucking DIE and hurt as many people as I could...!!"
Another pause. This time, Caroline was also crying and holding him as tightly as she could.
"That's the reason why I didn't jump off that ladder to hurt Nick Danger. 'Cause in that moment, I was reminded of that night in that hotel room..."
The Brazilian squeezed RAM as lovingly and tightly as she could. She was crying for him -- but knowing that he was still alive gave her tears of a joyous relief.
"I...I prayed for you. Wanted to know if you were okay. And...I louvado seja o Senhor Jesus Cristo -- now and forever -- because you have been granted a second chance to live!!"
RAM hugged Caroline back. Despite their differing points of view on life, they wanted to see each other as the brother-and-sister combination both of them never experienced growing up.
"Now the suicide note that I wrote on that night is in the hands of the mainstream media. And I...I've been…"
"Running away from it...?"
RAM nodded.
"...help me..."
Pause.
"...help me make it all go away…"
Caroline shook her head.
"...I cannot…"
They both pulled themselves back up on the sofa and looked into each other's eyes.
"The scars inside our minds, they can't be taken away with the wave of a magic wand. They are just as much a part of life as...rumores sujos e obscenos. If we simply wash away the things that challenge us, we lose ourselves."
She took a deep breath before pulling out the Jennie Fenix baseball-style card she had been taking with her for months.
"Losing to Jennie, those alleged modelping pictures you told me about. I cannot run away from the things that challenge me, that call me to battle."
RAM gently patted Caroline on the back before standing up. He slowly trudged towards her living room window and stared at the outside, a la Captain Jean-Luc Picard in his ready room.
"What do you know about this Richard Head person?"
"Not a damn thing, but I think I know somebody who does…"
Caroline raised her left brow, watching as RAM pulled up a rather awkward selfie he took with Fiona McFly several weeks ago -- that featured her sticking her tongue out at the camera. The Brazilian looked startled upon the direction RAM was taking this conversation.
"You don't say...?!"
"Yeah. I've heard rumblings that she's had prior dealings with him. Heard he got booted out of her house nine years ago or something like that 'cause he wanted her to do an interview with a nude spread."
"I like to think it was more of a comfort issue than anything else, but still...Fiona has been like a mother figure to both you and me. She brought us into the Imperial business, after all…"
Caroline cleared her throat.
"We can't just go in with phasers firing on stun! It'd be too easy for her to make a counter-move!!!"
RAM pondered for a moment.
"I know you're having reservations about it, but...you can't afford to hold anything back anymore."
Caroline stood beside RAM at the window, both of them staring out at the cars and trucks driving by.
"Look at me, Robert: this is not gonna be easy. If we're gonna confront Fiona about Richard Head, it's going to be a compromisso de longo prazo. Nothing will happen overnight -- we take this one game at a time, one step at a time."
RAM gave his sister-in-arms a look of determined confidence.
"Translation: we're in this for the long haul."
To be continued...
---
{ Several hours later, we find Caroline and RAM sharing a livestream together for the first time ever. She smiled before giving him a tap on the shoulder, allowing him to take the lead. }
"Well, well…
Who would've ever thought this match would get signed on the docket in the first place?! The angry computer nerd and the bubbly volleyball player takin' on Tytus Rost and Serenity Holmes in the same ring?! Shit, man...sign us both up for the action. Then again, you two just might be the perfect case of what it means for a woman to walk all over a big, strapping boy from Russia.
Speaking which…
You should be ashamed of yourself, Tytus. I thought you were this big monster that people feared. Instead...you've become a pussy, caving into the demands of the shit-show suits who edge-lord over this fucking circus. Did you even think that, after beatin' my favorite whipping boy Nick Danger to earn your contendership for the Invictus title, Serenity Holmes was gonna give you an honorable challenge?!
Nah.
You kknew it -- and you capitulated.
Lemme tell you something that almost everyone in this world automatically knows: the world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's about strength over weakness, spanky, and I don't care where you come from, the world is gonna beat you down PERMANENTLY if you let it. Truth is, instead of a bein' a powerful beast that I know you can be, you've made the choice to become second fiddle to your own tag-team partner. I see a lost little boy who's tryin' to jump through every hoop and over every hurdle before you realize that all you have to do...is break the system.
Think you and Serenity can just walk over us and not expect an ass-whipping in return?!
I have a message for you two: Caroline, you've got the floor."
{ RAM scowled before tagging Caroline in. }
"Hi, Ren-Ren!!
I normally don't like using nicknames during the course of a match unless if it's done with great respect -- like Charlie, for example. I get it that you hate that nickname, but the truth is, you can't stop yourself from getting angry over it. You often command respect from those who face you, but you don't show ANY of that to anyone else in return. The truth is, while I understand that you're a very passionate person who loves what you do in this life?!
Eu detesto tudo o que você representa.
I don't have time to get todo puto da vida because, to be very blunt, RAM and I have been struggling in recent weeks. You know it, Tytus knows it, EVERYBODY knows it...okay?! You have your good times, you have your bad times, but we do a lot better by learning from the losses! Yet we -- RAM and I -- have spent the past few years or so, watching as you become very insufferable to other people. And for WHAT, I might ask?!
You knew you were struggling, so you decided to train with Roberto Verona. Congratulations, you became Invictus Champion!! That name, in Latin, means 'unbreakable,' but as each day passes?! The cracks in your armor begin showing themselves. You choose to make things worse by surrounding yourself with protection?!
What for, so Tytus just can't jump you from behind!!!
That's not how the REAL world works, Ren-Ren, and you're better than that!!! Not everybody in this life gets to afford the kinds of perks you have right now! You think you can just walk over someone like RAM because, let's be real, his head hasn't been in the game for a long-long time!?! It only tells us two things: one, you don't care about anybody else except for your OWN ass!
And two!?!
Você NÃO é tão bom quanto você PENSA que é!!!"
{ Caroline tags RAM back in, who raises his brows after not seeing an English translation pop on the screen. }
"Did she just...?!
I guess certain colorful metaphors ain't programmed into the universal translator.
That's beside the point, Serenity. Last week, you got DAMN lucky that I was all screwed up inside my mind. This time around, you ain't gonna be so fortunate. I said it last week, but I ain't bullshittin' you when I say it again: I don't hold NOTHIN' back! I'm mean, nasty, and tired of watching you insult the intelligence of this stinkin' joint by thinkin' of yourself as invincible.
Welcome to our world, bitch.
You ain't invincible or unbeatable.
As for you, Tytus -- the Russian BETA male?! I hope you and Serenity kick the shit out of each other. If you were the honorable alpha you so claim to be, you'd put your fist into her mouth right there and there, in that very ring. Problem is, you're afraid of winning -- you're afraid of standing up to the jocks and clowns that run the place into the ground. And unless you've got the balls to go out there and prove us wrong?!
Don't come crying to Randon Haynes when Caroline and I BOTH bash your dick in the dirt.
'Cause let's be real...I don't think you have the mental capacity to realize what you're getting into. You might think that a cheerful Barbie doll and a general pain-in-the-ass teamin' together might be easy pickings for you and Serenity, but you don't know a GODDAMN thing about us. You hide our talents behind our own struggles, thinking that you two are gonna have an easy day at the office.
Come Odyssey?!
We're gonna make you wish you've never met us."
Well howdy there pardner.