Villainess

A warm evening breeze lifted strands of blonde hair, blue-tipped, carrying with it no hint of late September, as she stood at the edge of Navy Pier and gazed across the frothy water. The tide rose as if in greeting, waves lapping at the toes of Bonnie’s designer shoes to welcome home the #DeepBlueSea. It was here, in Chicago, she had come into her own.

Here, where she revived the limp and lifeless shell of a career shot down too young, stopped the bleeding and sewed deep wounds shut. Here, where she built a mighty faction up from the dust of a ruined foundation, led her Guardians to prominence and dominance. Here, where she seized twice the Intercontinental Title, three times the Tag Titles, and in one glorious moment the World Heavyweight Championship; wrested from the grasp of a tyrant king.

Here, where she and her Guardians had stood firm against the corruption of David Sanchez, when he sought to bring all of Chicago under his jackbooted rule.

Here, where once she had loved -- and lost it all when the company to which she’d given everything, heart and soul, blood and tears, folded after only a year.

Chicago was bad news, but Bonnie loved it all the same; loved it for the reminiscences. The lessons learned. The wisdom gained. For all that she had lost, it was Chicago that had made her who she was.

A sanguine smile lit crimson lips as an arm slipped around her waist, and John Rabid -- longtime rival, hated enemy, now beloved husband -- lightly kissed her neck, sending a shiver of delight up her spine.

“Did you ever think you’d see this place again?” he asked, soft-voiced and aware of her reflective mood.

Bonnie shook her head.

“It’s not the same, anyway,” she replied. “I’m not seeing it again. I’m seeing it fresh. With new eyes, ya might say.”

“Do you miss it?”

“What? Wrestling? I mean, now and again, I reckon. But I did everything I set out to do. Proved what needed provin’; achieved all that I wanted, an’ walked away with more than I could have imagined.”

“You defeated Odin Balfore. You claimed the WCF World Title. What more could you have imagined?”

“I never figured on you, John. The way things were between us, back then…”

The Serpent turned his bride to face him, looking deeply into her sea-blue eyes.

“You were too caught up in the whole dichotomy -- black and white, good and evil -- to see what was there between us. And I, well… Family. Duty. Responsibility.”

“You loved them, John. You still do. And even if I had realized how I felt, I wasn’t about to come between a man and his wife. Even so, I wish things coulda been different.”

“So do I,” he whispered, casting his own distant gaze out over the waves.

Bonnie knew what he was thinking. Not for her sake, but theirs. His wife, his son; he’d loved them, done everything for them, but he hadn’t been the husband, the father, they’d deserved. He hadn’t been capable of loving that way. Words would be useless just now, no matter how she wanted to ease the trouble in his dark soul. Instead, Bonnie reached up, and pulled him close for a tender, lingering kiss.

At last, he pulled back, looking at her with a half-smile on his lips.

“That’s enough sentimentality. We’re the bad guys, remember?”

Dust swirls beneath the thousand or so watts of a dozen lights, shining from an overhead rig down onto worn, stained canvas. An old apron with the UCI logo on it surrounds the ring. It would all be replaced within hours, but for now, the original trappings of that final edition of Overload set the stage. Amid the dust and memories, alone in the center of the ring, stands Bonnie Blue; former leader of the Guardians; the Time Witch herself, a cold smile playing across her ever-youthful face. Pointed fangs, a double pair, gleam ivory in the light. She doesn’t hide who she is, she flaunts it.

Bonnie Blue: I know what you’re thinkin’. What they’re all thinkin’. Alex Richards done said it often enough. That I betrayed my beloved Guardians. That I turned my back on everything I ever stood for. That I traded my soul, my humanity, for one more taste of gold. The gold I’d wanted since before I ever inked my first contract with the Dub.

That’s how they always saw me, y’know? All y’all, but especially the ones I considered my friends. They held me up to this standard, the essence of purity; now fouled and corrupted by the touch of darkness. Ha.

But y’all are so wrong. I was never so innocent, even in the beginnin’. And it’s John Rabid I have to thank for my first, up close and personal introduction to real darkness -- an’ true heroism. It ain’t a contradiction in terms. In every villain beats the heart of a hero, an’ in every hero lies a seed of that darkness; some flourish best in the night. Look at me, for example.

Sweet, innocent Bonnie Blue never woulda cut it in the Dub.

But here? I learned brutality at the hands of men like the “Brixton Brawler” Stevie Corah, or David Sanchez, or Zombie McMorris. Perfected it at WCF when I faced Leon Hayze and embraced HorrorKore under ZMAC’s tutelage to strip that Hardcore Title from around that dumb stoner’s waist. Honed my skills when I dug ol’ Dave Sanchez outta some shithole motel in South America, minutes away from a relapse, and brought his ass back home to take them WCF tag titles because -- why? Why did I need Sanchez?

Oh, right -- because my Guardians abandoned me!

And who do I have to thank for that?

Bonnie’s smile fades as she looks pointedly into the camera.

Bonnie Blue: You, L Verez. It’s all on your shoulders, my girl. I left you in charge, entrusted my Guardians to you, because you assured me you could lead them through the muck an’ mire that is Action Wrestlin’. An’ how’d that work out? Huh?

She leaves the rhetorical question hanging for a moment, kicking up more dust as she begins to pace the ring with pent-up agitation.

Bonnie Blue: Yeah, worked out great, didn’t it? You ran the faction so well that Damian Kaine all but disappeared and Alex Richards was too embarrassed of what you tried to pass off to even show his face for months. It took me forever to convince him to return to the ring, an’ when he did -- which leader did he turn to?

Yeah, that’s right. Ya girl, Double B. Alex Richards came to the Dub, not the A-Dub. Because, I mean, look at you. Look what you did to my Guardians. Yeah, you ran the faction all right -- right into the ground. You dragged my Guardians through the mud. You made ‘em a laughingstock. I mean, you brought in Jaice motherfuckin’ Wilds, for fuck’s sake! The guy who ain’t had a championship since Saved By The Bell was in its first run!

You, L Verez, killed my legacy. Turned my Guardians into a joke. All because you just had to be in charge, because you couldn’t stand the idea of being accountable to anybody else. But hon, y’ain’t got what it takes. Y’ain’t got the heart. Y’ain’t got the skills. Y’ain’t got, frankly, jack shit goin’ for ya except this longstandin’ feud with Corey Black, and even that hasn’t gotten ya anywhere. An’ y’know why, L?

‘Cause in the long run, ya don’t care.

Ya don’t care about the Guardians. Ya don’t care about wrestlin’. Ya don’t give a damn about the Earth, or even the whole damn Milky Way Galaxy for that matter. Ya done made that plain enough, the way you talk about folks from here. Callin’ people “milk” like it’s an insult. Playin’ the hero, when in reality, all you got goin’ for ya is an overinflated sense of yourself.

A sneer curls the Serpentine’s lip, revealing again the sharp fangs beneath, as she shakes her head.

Bonnie Blue: An’ y’all got the nerve to try an’ shame me for the choices I made? At least I made ‘em ‘cause I care! Do you even know how many times me an’ John Rabid saved the world? Of course ya don’t -- ‘cause you weren’t here. Ya had better shit to do. Just like Polar Phantasm. Just like Jay Omega. Just like Alex Richards.

Y’know, Creepin’ Death once tried to take over the world with hordes of undead minions, killin’ off everybody, the ranks of his armies swellin’ every time one of ours died, and he claimed ‘em for his own. Who stopped the zombie apocalypse?

Me an’ John Rabid, that’s who. Where were you, L? Yeah, that’s right, ya didn’t even know where earth was yet, or what wrestlin’ was. You were too busy cruisin’ space bars for tail.

Y’know, he may be a scoundrel an’ a villain, but at least he’s someone I can count on. Always could, no matter what. Funny, ain’t it? Sometimes a hero ain’t enough to get the job done, and then you gotta turn to a villain. Or you step up and become one yourself. Because heroes are always too busy standin’ in the spotlight to care what happens to this world.

The only thing you ever cared about, L Verez, was your misguided an’ senseless feud against Corey Black -- an’ what’s the point of holdin’ a grudge against a washed up old man? How can ya be so proud of beatin’ up on a retiree who oughta be spendin’ his golden years golfing in Boca Raton instead of tryin’ to make some naive alien girl look like a professional? What honor is there in robbin’ a broken old man of the simple joys in what time remains to him?

What good does it do you, flittin’ from one promotion to the next, never achievin’ anything, never willing to commit, an’ only ever leavin’ the fans with a vague impression of mediocrity?

You were someone in UCI, yeah -- ‘cause the Guardians took ya in an’ propped you up; fueled a competitive nature ya seem to have lost in the intervenin’ years.

But me?

A smirk lifts one corner of Bonnie’s mouth.

Bonnie Blue: I only went out an’ did the impossible. I did the one thing they said I never could. That I wasn’t good enough to do.

I proved ‘em all wrong that night, at Aftermath. I crushed Odin Balfore and claimed my due -- the WCF World Championship! An’ I did it all without havin’ to stand on the legacy someone else built.

Ol’ Odin, he ain’t never been the same since. Just like Kevin Bishop. Just like a dozen others whose names are but the dust of history. Potential ground beneath my boot into nothin’ but forgotten dreams.

An’ you, L Verez -- you’re next on my list. When we step into that ring at the UCI Reunion show, you ain’t facin’ the Bonnie Blue you remember. I ain’t gonna be thinkin’ about how we used to be friends; I’mma be thinkin’ about how ya took the faction I built outta nothin’, into the most dominant faction in the wrestlin’ industry, and how ya turned my legacy into a joke so bad that Jaice Wilds was the punchline.

You wanted two outta three falls? Well that was a damn mistake. You won’t make it past the first.

You’re facin’ the wrath of the #DeepBlueSea, Sugar, an’ the tide is risin’!

Bonnie flips a two-finger salute at the camera as the scene fades to black.