Post by Her Imperial Majesty Kalinda I on Mar 1, 2024 23:22:27 GMT -5
Slow pan over a shelf of books. Expensive books. Those leather-bound motherfuckers with the little bit of gold hammered into the letters. Another shelf full of books. And then back again down over the next one. And then suddenly the big white ass of some dude, who is also more than likely a big white ass. Mr. Ass has a very weird labcoat that has one of those evil vizier collars. You know the type, the one that comes up to the ears and makes you look like a wizard or Ming the Merciless, or a wizard cosplaying as Ming the Merciless.
Dude also has a matching white lucha libre mask, and also impeccably groomed facial hair.
BIG WHITE ASS:
I don't see them in here, Signora Kriegsdottir. They may be in our archives.
And then a pan over to the Dragon Empress Kalinda Kriegsdottir, UPRISING's resident Champion of Earth.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Dammit. I need those scans of my internal anatomy, Dr. Acula.
DR. ALFREDO ACULA, ESQUIRE:
I don't see why you would need detailed images of your internal reproductive anatomy for professional wrestling.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
An angry pirate said I don't know what evil is. I'm going to prove him wrong.
The vampire-doctor-lawyer makes a face like he just sucked on the neck of a guy who sucked on a bag full of lemons.
DR. ALFREDO ACULA, ESQUIRE:
I don't see how you're going to do that.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
He's a dude, dude. If I show him pictures of my internal lady parts and talk about their problems he's going to be clawing at the walls in terror and rueing the day he said such a silly thing to me.
DR. ALFREDO ACULA, ESQUIRE:
You're a professional wrestler, Signora. We look evil in the eye with every visit to the proverbial pay window. The horrors this industry inflicts on the young men and women that enter it with such stars in their eyes is more evil than one should ever need.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
I can probably count on my fingers the number of people that can call me a "young woman" and be actually serious about it, Dottore.
DR. ALFREDO ACULA, ESQUIRE:
I have no idea what you mean, Signora Kriegsdottir, for I am a perfectly normal luchadore with both law and medicine degrees.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
And very definitely not a vampire.
DR. ALFREDO ACULA, ESQUIRE:
Certainly not! Why, a vampire would not keep pickled garlic on his desk, for example!
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Very definitely not. And a vampire would very definitely not keep a jar on hand, remove a clove, and take a bite out of it, thus proving definitively that he is not in fact a vampire.
DR. ALFREDO ACULA, ESQUIRE:
(muffled, through a mouthful of garlic)
Egshactly!
And then this rather uncomfortable scene is interrupted by a flashing light up in the corner of the office.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
What's that?
DR. ALFREDO ACULA, ESQUIRE:
Ah! That would be one of the innumerable hobo traps that my esteemed colleague here at Zombie, Acula, and Wulfmann has placed around the compound. Hopefully one of your minions hasn't actually managed to wander into one by mistake.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Certainly not. I've trained my minions well.
There's a knock at the door.
DR. ALFREDO ACULA, ESQUIRE:
Enter!
Jiritsu pushes the door open, somehow managing to convey a mix of disbelief, amusement, and annoyance while wearing a full face mask.
JIRITSU:
My Empress, the Princess Christina managed to briefly give us the slip, and… well…
PyreBird, CLIMAX, Katsudo, and Seiki enter the office, carrying none other than UPRISING's most recently signed manager Christina King seated in a small cage, munching happily on a submarine sandwich.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
Hey guys, did you know that they've got free sub sandwiches just sitting around out in the open for anybody to take?
Kalinda sighs and looks to the heavens.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Calvin and Hobbes? Really? That's how we're introducing her to the world?
DR. ALFREDO ACULA, ESQUIRE:
Please, as if my impeccable Italian culinary senses would allow for a mere tunafish sandwich to bait our traps!
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
It's got fancy bread. Toasted, even!
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Why do I feel like I'm the reverse Kamala, where instead of a manager and a handler, I'm the one who actually has to handle my manager?
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
This feels like the time I got drunk in Detroit behind Kroger’s. I can trace most of my issues back to Kroger’s.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
How the hell do you keep ending up behind Kroger's?
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
This was a different time. Also, this sub has crispy bacon.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Look, I know it's some kind of professional wrestler biological imperative to seek out and acquire free food whenever possible, but as a professional minion you're going to have to learn how to control your instinctual needs. I totally understand, having to stock up and acquire sustenance above and beyond the hot dogs and handshakes is a deeply ingrained thing. But you can't just go around scooping up random food off the floor…
DR. ALFREDO ACULA, ESQUIRE:
Signora Kriegsdottir! As if we would've tainted perfectly good bacon by simply throwing the sandwich on the ground like some kind of barbarian. There was a paper plate.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
I already ate the paper plate. I gave it a two out of ten.
DR. ALFREDO ACULA, ESQUIRE:
While you are here, Signora King, might I get a stool sample? I fear that you are naturally attempting to make up for a diet lacking in fiber.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Can we not talk about poop and such, please? I already have a pile of unpleasant shits that I need to deal with at work. (muttering) Cutting a perfectly good revamp of "Heffalumps and Woozles" for time not just once, but twice.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
You know one time I…
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Was it also behind Kroger's?
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
No. Sometimes I do things in other places.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Was it behind Chad Kroeger's?
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
Who the fuck is Chad Kroeger?
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
You know, if I had five cents for every time I heard that question, right now I'd have a nickel back.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
Is that a reference? I’m only twenty five. I don’t know crusty old people lore.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Nickelback's been active since the 90s! It's not like I'm referencing the disco era!
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
You’re old.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
I'm biologically immortal. I don't get old.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
So you’re ancient.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
I'm somewhere between 55 and 100. Depends on if you consider the start of things to be me hatching from my egg, or said egg being expelled from the womb.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
(said in a sing songy voice)
Olllllld!
Kalinda takes out her cell phone.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Okay, Google, give me directions to the nearest Kroger's. Let's go boys. And PyreBird.
The Black Crusade hefts the cage up again.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
Hey, wait! You promised me another foot long!
Kalinda looks over Dr. Acula's desk.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
I don't remember promising that. You can have your choice of pickled garlic or… I think this is a fetal pig?
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
How many calories is the fetal pig?
DR. ALFREDO ACULA, ESQUIRE:
*snatching up the fetal pig jar*
Mr. Oinkles is not for snacking!
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Minions! We depart! Onward to Kroger's!
The Black Crusade marches out with the cage.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
…you're not really going to leave me in a cage behind Kroger's are you?
DR. ALFREDO ACULA, ESQUIRE:
Of course she isn't.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
Whew.
DR. ALFREDO ACULA, ESQUIRE:
I need the cage back.
Everybody not holding the cage begin to file out of the office.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
We're taking you to a place worse than Kroger's.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
NOOOO! NOOOO! I DON'T WANT TO GO TO NEW JERSEY!
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Maybe not QUITE as bad as New Jersey.
Kalinda gives the good doctor a small wave a closes the door behind her.
DR. ALFREDO ACULA, ESQUIRE:
What a very strange bunch of people, Mr. Oinkles.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
(faintly) NO, DON'T THROW ME IN THERE! IT'S ALL SWIRLY AND SHIT! I'M NOT MACHINE WASHABLLLLLLLLLLLE!
-o-
Christina King floats about slowly in the void, slowly spinning in three dimensions as some rather sinister synth music plays.
The void and nothingness (and also the kickass synth) is broken by a word from one of those deep, bone-rattling, knee-weaking voices.
MR. SEXY SPACE VOICE:
Christina…
The Princess attempts to get her three dimensional spinning under control and fails.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
Who said that?
AURAN GEAS:
I am Auran Geas, God of Randomness.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
Show yourself!
A giant sinister face shaped from fire, lightning, lasers, and a bunch of other things forms and grins in a most sinister manner.
AURAN GEAS:
I have summoned you here for a purpose.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
Hey now! I'm supposed to do the summonings here. I'm a princess, you don't summon princesses.
AURAN GEAS:
Then it pleases me to be the first.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
State your business.
AURAN GEAS:
A world beyond my reach lies just outside of my grasp. There are deeds I wish for you to accomplish…
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
Wait, wait, wait. Hold up. Is this one of those isekai things? I kind of remember being thrown into a swirly portal, put in the spin cycle despite being dry clean only and…
Christina's flailing and floating has managed to get her turned around and completely upside down.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
Umm… hold on a sec, wait, I can't see you!
The face stares incredulously and they both wait until the Princess has managed to spin around again to get the supposed divinity in eyeshot once more.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
I've seen the animes, bud. I'm an expert in these things.
AURAN GEAS:
You exaggerate.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
The point is I'm not going to open up my soul-hole to some cosmic sugar daddy.
The eldritch energy forming the visage of Auran Geas looks mildly queasy.
AURAN GEAS:
Eww.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
Anyway, what's in it for me? What do I get out of this whole shebang? I'm already somebody else's minion and am totally satisfied with my girlfriend.
AURAN GEAS:
I will give you a new body, and arcane powers at your beck and call.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
And?
AURAN GEAS:
And nothing! You belong to me now.
Christina has managed to float over to over side and has apparently pressed up against something in the void.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
I'M SORRY! I CAN'T HEAR YOU! I THINK I'M PRESSED UP AGAINST A SPEAKER OR SOMETHING. THE OMINOUS CHORUS AND KEYBOARD HAS GOTTEN A HECK OF A LOT LOUDER.
AURAN GEAS:
I SAID YOU BELONG TO ME NOW!
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
YOU'RE NOT GOING TO FINGER ME BEHIND KROGER'S ARE YOU?
The sinister face actually dry heaves several times.
AURAN GEAS:
Procede, on your way to Kroger's.
The ominous chorus and synth gets even louder.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
HEY! WAIT! HOLD ON! IS THIS A REFERENCE TO SOMETHING? I'M ONLY 25, I'M NOT GOING TO RECOGNIZE ANY OF THIS 1980S KEYTAR BULLCRAP. OW! OW! MY EARDRUMS! OWWWWWW!
A faint glowing white Kroger's logo appears in the distance.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
ACK! NO! I WAS PROMISED NO KROGER'S! I ACCEPT YOUR TERMS! I ACCEEEEEEPT!
AURAN GEAS:
Excellent.
There's a poof of smoke and all of a sudden Christina is now in the form of a small white, blue, and red cat-rabbit thing with horrible pink eyes and a tiny smirk on her horrible face.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
Oh what the fuck. I'm all tiny and shit. And I didn't even get a transformation sequence! Poof TFs are lame as shit and everybody knows it! What kind of suck-ass budget dollar store isekai bullshit did I sign on with?
A gauntleted hand reaches down and picks up Christina by the scruff of the neck.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
My suck-ass budget dollar store isekai bullshit. Welcome to the team, Christina.
Kalinda looks a bit different, her face more dragon-like with a slight muzzle. Her teeth are bigger and sharper, a second set of horns jutting from her temples like tiny devil horns, her eyes glow with inner flame and instead of spandex she's wearing actual armor. It's in the same style and coloration as her ring gear, so it's still skimpy as hell, but it's actually made of leather and metal. She's also wrapped loosely in bandages for some reason.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
This is bullshit! Why am I the cute fuzzy animal when you get to look all badass? I'm a magical girl, dammit!
A trail of sparkling dust trickles down in the darkness and all of a sudden CLIMAX appears, or at least somebody wearing the genetic Black Crusade Minion mask who is also towering like a good two feet over Kalinda. His outfit is the most outlandish, garish, eye-raping clash of styles imaginable. And it's all plastered over a gorilla-like seven foot tall body that looks like somebody ran a My Little Pony through the Nemesis program and then gave it fairy wings.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
CLIMAX called dibs on being the magical girl.
CLIMAX:
(his text to speech vocodor sounding like an anime girl on all the happy-making drugs)
Princess Magical Fairy Unicorn Aqua-Chan is the most kawaii!
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
(deadpan)
This is so unfair.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
And now minion training begins!
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
Noooo! I still haven't finished lunch! Technically this body has never eaten before! I'm starving! I'll waste away to nothing! I'll…
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
You'll sustain yourself on CLIMAX's radiant beauty.
The massive magical "girl" stands proudly and majestically, radiating an impossible to attain aura of beauty and perfection. Somehow. Despite being a hulk gorilla horse dragonfly minotaur thing. He pulls out his board covered in spoons and strums the McDonalds jingle.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
I AM VERY MUCH NOT LOVING IT!
-o-
We cut to Christina King standing in front of a rich tapestry embroidered with the Black Crusade's logo.
PRINCESS CHRISTINA:
So I just want to say Gorgo is an absolute bitch, and a psychopath. She attacked me in a bathroom for Laurel’s (God’s) sake. Tolson is cool though and gets a bad rap way too often. Now let me tell you a story about Uprising and the people who run it. Okay, so - my family.…..
Kalinda walks into the scene in front of Christina, carrying a large manilla envelope and a sheet of paper, she covers Christina's mouth with her gauntleted hand and shoves the piece of paper against her chest.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Don't talk. I don't need you to talk right now. What I need from you right now is to get everybody else and collectively get everything on this list. I keep a careful inventory, and all of this ought to be in the kitchen and the minion break room.
Kalinda takes her hand off of Christina's mouth for a second and she opens it to protest, only to find herself once more muted by the dragoness' iron grip.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
That's talking. Don't.
I don't want you to talk. I want you to do what I asked you to do, okay? Because I don't do this very often, and it's very important that the message sent is the message that's intended. I can control me. I can control my mouth, even though most of the time I pretend I can't. I can't control you, and I can't control your mouth, so it's very important that at this time, in this place you don't say a word, okay?
Kalinda takes a deep breath, pops her neck, and gives Christina a guiding shove.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Go. Get things done.
She pats Christina on the shoulder and then turns around to face the camera.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
She's right, though. People always say the same damned things. Over and over and over again people say the same dumb shit as if it were some kind of grandiose wisdom handed down from on high and not the latest polished turd pulled out of the ass of some small-minded dipshit who think they're better than all the other virtually identical small-minded dipshits.
Kalinda holds up a V for Victory of gauntleted fingers.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
But the thing is that people like that, people whom I work with on a regular basis, people who are basically interchangeable cogs in a professional wrestling machine that you could pluck out, discard, and replace in an instant without a loss of function… they've got another thing in common with one another.
Kalinda clenches her teeth and slowly and carefully speaks each of her next words with an odd mix of extremely precise elocution and also bestial growling that makes her fire flare in the back of her throat, behind her teeth.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
YOU. DON'T. FUCKING. LISTEN.
In the distance Christina can be seen. The punk rock princess can be seen carrying a box. She notices the camera and mirrors Kalinda’s previous V for victory.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
And I'm not surprised. After all, it would require taking time out of their precious and busy days to pay attention to something other than themselves. Which, you know, is practically impossible for a professional wrestler to do.
She takes on a super wide, super fake smile and claps her hands together.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
So let me give you a crash course.
The Dragon Empress closes her eyes and tilts her head to the side, making a cute expression that is totally ruined by her rather sharp teeth being clenched together.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Hi, my name is Kalinda Kriegsdottir. And yes, that's a German word stuck to an Icelandic patronym. Because I'm not from around here. The first three languages I learned to speak are ones that don't even exist here. My first name is a phonetic approximation and my last name was carefully chosen to have an easily recognizable similarity to what my actual surname is.
Again Christina is in the background. This time she has a set of Google Glasses on and seems to be engaged in battle with a gunmetal colored, helicopter like drone. Princess attempts a few kicks against the drone but it dodges each of her attempts. The two disappear off-screen.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
It's the word for "war" in the language of the primary aggressor in the most recent world-scale spanning upheaval combined with the patronym of the closest nearby nation whose populous lives in proximity to volcanos. My actual last name uses the High Elven word for "war," and uses the Dwarven patronym, as my adoptive grandmother is a Dwarf.
Christina appears from the left side of the screen. Now two of those dangerous looking drones are hovering about. This time Christina has a prop - a wooden rubber band firing rifle. Her aim is actually pristine but rubber bands were not enough to destroy the drones, despite how many times her spot-on aim gifted said drones rubber band surprises.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
My world's Dwarven culture does not hold children responsible for the sins of their fathers, and as a result all children who suffer with the tragedy of having lost their parents in battle are given aid and a title of minor nobility just below that of a knight. My last name is "Kriegsdottir" because I'm a war orphan. I don't know who my parents are.
Kalinda’s words and movements were given focus now. There was strength and determination in every movement and word. For a brief moment Christina reappears, this time being chased by a massive drone - one you might call the mother drone. Princess runs off screen and the focus returns to Kalinda.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
I know of one and exactly one member of my biological family because I carry one of the bloodline gifts of the Tahari line, but that doesn't narrow it down at all. Because Metsuki Tahari did something that very few Dark Elves manage to do.
There’s a long pause. Christina has faded away to wherever the fuck princesses go when they’re not on screen for a wrestling promotion. This in turn allows Kalinda to take full focus. In such a moment there was a sense of both wonderment and an overwhelming gut punch of seriousness.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
She died in her sleep, peacefully, of extreme old age. She had literally dozens of children, possibly hundreds, over her centuries of life, and while the intensity of my bloodline gift shows that she's my biological grandmother or great-grandmother, it doesn't exactly narrow down which of her bajillion dragonblooded kids is my mother or father.
My egg was buried near a place that was a battlefield for at least three major battles between High Elven and Alliance forces over the span of about five years. I don't know when my egg was laid or when it was placed there, nor which side of the battle my mother was on. I don't know if she died in that battle, couldn't find when she buried me after, or if she just fucked off and left me there on purpose.
I am a true-blooded dragon, meaning that I am literally a conduit for magical energy. My digestive and respiratory systems have been altered to utilize the elemental power that naturally flows into me through my connection to some realm of pure conceptual substance. True dragons constantly leak their element into their environment. After about a minute or two with me in it, the temperature of a room will jump up about 5-10 degrees. Not because my skin temperature is that hot, because it's not, but because I am literally shedding the very concept of heat and warmth into the environment around me.
This is part of why I picked UPRISING over any other wrestling federation. Because we're based out of Reno, Nevada. For once I'm actually able to use your nearly mana-dead backwater of a roundworld to my advantage. Because the desert isn't just dry, it's mana-dry, and me dumping Fire mana into it isn't going to cause some sort of climatic upheaval.
Dragons change their environment to suit them. If I showed you a map of the 23 Kingdoms of Blood you'd call it unrealistic with the way the biomes, geology, and climate don't fit together properly. It's because we've got dragons. You have an incredibly ancient fire-aligned wyrm plop herself down in your nice flat tundra and in a few hundred years you're going to find that replaced by a lava-spewing mountain range. Sure, if a nice volcanic lair is available, they'll settle there preferentially. But if they can't find one, they'll make one.
Dragons are the lynchpin between the mortal and the immortal. We're the most magical you can get and still have a biology. You cannot natively support anything with more thaumaturgic oomph than a dragon on a material plane. Beyond us body and soul do not exist separately, they become one and the same. It's where you get things like angels, demons, and higher types of faerie.
It's why you can destroy a demon's body and they won't die. The body is actually something like a scab that the world makes to cover the unified body-soul of an eidolon. They're effectively a chunk of their native realm, but the energies aren't ones that harmonize with the world the way dragons' do. Angels, demons, faeries, and the like are essentially holes in your pipes, while dragons are more like valves or faucets.
But we're… more, in a way. Probably the easiest way I can explain it is to use the language of dragons in the Elder Scrolls video games. That draconic language is a highly conceptual one, and speaking the words with the proper intent and willpower will manifest the meaning of those words onto the world at large.
Every part of my body is imbued with the very concept of fire, particularly heat. It's why you can touch me and I'll feel a little bit warm, but if I get busted open you'll get burned if it gets on you. The closer to the draconis fundamentum, let's call it a dragonheart because that's shorter, the hotter things get. It's not my actual heart. It's somewhere around here, about equidistant from my heart, stomach, and lungs.
Kalinda waves her hand in a circle around her sternum.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Which leads me to right into the next part of Kalinda Oversharing Theater. I'd imagine that none of you have ever had a several inch wide metal object jammed straight through your torso. Because I have!
Kalinda practically growls those last three words.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
If you pay attention, and let's be honest, none of you fucks probably have, I've got two modes of speaking. There's one where I'm casual, just tossing out whatever. Unserious, uncaring, completely random bullshit. And then there's the one where I am choosing my words very, very carefully. Picking my words with high regard to meaning, emotion, and intent. Because when a dragon speaks, truly speaks, the universe listens.
When I say I come from a fantasy world, I mean that my world has elements to it that are fantastical, things that are completely impossible in a mana-dry shitheap planet like yours. Samantha Tolson has confused "fantastical" with "fictional."
Because no, Tinkerbell, I'm not fictional. I'm not something conjured up from the imagination of some writer somewhere, made into flesh and blood out of ink and paper. I don't need professional wrestling to become "real," because if you want to get right down to the way the universe works, I am literally more real than you are. On account of you know, being a fucking dragon and all.
That's why I'm telling you all this, I want you all, Gorgo, Tolson, Angry Pirate, to realize why I am like I am.
That super fake, super wide grin is back.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
I'm teeny tiny. I'm itty bitty. I'm the shortest member of the UPRISING roster. And yet I mouth off to everybody. I can, will, and have talked shit to people three times my weight with three feet of height on me, and I've done it right in front of them. Why? To paraphrase my good friend the fungus, you cannot hurt me in a way that matters.
Collectively, from nearly a decade's worth of professional wrestling my opponents, rivals, and enemies have inflicted a cumulative amount of injuries that my grandmother's training and sparring regimen would result in on a good day. It's why I giggle a little when Gorgo starts threatening to tear people's arms off. Because it's cute. It's like a chihuahua growling. She's going "Rawr! I'm a threat! I'm threatening you!" but all it does is make her look adorable because she's trying so hard to look fierce.
I wasn't even twenty when I had to flee what had become my home, escaping the city-state where I lived. My best friend was Delilah na Kinai, firstborn daughter of the High Matriarch of Mengon. Remember what I said about Dark Elves not dying of old age? Yeah. They tend to die either in battle or in assassination plots. And Dao Mai na Kinal wanted the position back that she'd lost to Dara na Kinai, Delilah's mother.
And much like baseball, the succession of the Mengonian throne features three strikes. As long as you've got the proper credentials, in this case being a Dark Elf of the Matriarch caste and a blood relation to the aforementioned Metsuki Tahari, you can challenge others of your lineage for their spot in the line of succession. You get three chances in your life to take what you desire in combat, and once your chances are up, back to the end of the line you go.
]Well, Dao Mai exhausted her chances, and her half-sister left her alive for some reason. So she went after Delilah for her spot, and for her own set of three strikes. Now, Dark Elven duels aren't quite like the ones you've seen. Sure there will be things like pistols at 20 paces, or all out battles to the death. But there's also other things that are allowed. I'm not going to go into all the details, but there's a set of things that are allowed that tie into the Old Elven name of their noble house.
Old Elven is a clusterfuck of a language. Think of all the shittiest, most complex bits of all the languages you know, make them worse, and then stack them in a trenchcoat and have them pretend to be a whole-ass language. Great, now that you've got that concept in mind you're about a third of the way to what Old Elven is. The closest you can get in English would be something like "bolt fired from the darkness" except it's four syllables, each of which can be written seventeen different ways and pronounced with different tones and emphasis in ways that can change the meaning of the individual syllable and the whole phrase/word/whatever entirely. Okay, now imagine that the rules of a duel are based off of what are essentially puns in this fucking hellscape of a language.
And one of these rules is that you can send assassins, because they're a tool and thus a metaphorical bolt. So picture this, you've just reached your age of majority. You're a legal adult. Happy birthday, your seven foot tall werecat vampire auntie is now allowed to duel you to the death because she wants your mother's throne.
So we got the hell out of there. And as long as Delilah was still alive and kicking, Dao Mai couldn't take the slots from any of her younger sisters, either. Can't challenge for the same thing that's already being wagered in a currently active duel.
Unfortunately Sera na Kinai was not of the Matriarch caste, but rather the Enchantress caste. That occupies a completely different place in the line of succession. That would be immediately after all the Matriarchs. And so ten years after we'd left, my bestie got a letter in the mail from her mother with the bad news that Dao Mai intended on challenging her youngest sibling just as soon as she came of age.
We were both skilled adventurers, but Dao Mai was way beyond either of us. Blessed with all three innate spellgifts of the Carapaced Queen, the creator goddess of the Dark Elves, whereas Delilah only had one. And me? I don't have any. I don't have enough Dark Elven blood to have one manifest. My best magic has always been Necromancy, and that's not going to do anything to a centuries old vampire.
We did come up with a plan, though. A pretty simple one. Heck, you've seen me use it before. It's "Look! Look at the smol loud distraction!" And of course Dao Mai made a big spectacle of it. She threw a party to celebrate her eventual ascension, and also an advanced wake for at least one of her soon to be departed nieces.
Mengon's an underground nation, and those caverns are ancient. Her estate spanned a stalagmite and stalactite pair that combined to effectively function as a skyscraper. The two had their tips reshaped, and enchanted ekaglass windows placed to give a stellar view of the undercity. Absolutely nothing was going to get through those.
Remember when I said who my one known biological relative was? Yup. The same Metsuki Tahari whose Dark Elven children can vie for the title of High Matriarch of Mengon. It's not the only thing that can be challenged for, though. I'm not a Dark Elf, so normally I wouldn't be included. But Dark Elven castes can be assigned by birth, by spell, or by deed. And guess what? Evoker caste involves being able to throw around the elemental offense, just like a dragon does.
So with all her strikes used up, I challenged her for what she had left; her status as a House Darkbolt Matriarch. And we duelled.
Kalinda makes a face like she just sucked on a lemon, or made to sit through six consecutive Chris Mosh promos.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
And I got my ass kicked. Lady had several hundred pounds, several feet, and a good century at minimum of combat experience on me. And her being a vampire meant that all my usual necromantic shit either didn't work, didn't work well enough, or got Uno Reverse No U'd right back at me because she had more undead oomph than I did, since I'm just pretending to be undead.
The dragoness points to her cute possum hat.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
On the bright side, despite her being so gifted in magic, she didn't actually use very much of it. She was one of those folks who likes to get their hands dirty and do the deed up close and personal with the ol slash and stab and suck. Meaning she had a two-handed sword and once she wore her opponent down, she'd suck out all their blood. Good news and bad news. Bad news is that her sword was a fucking artifact from one of the founding Emperor's Chosen, grown from a splinter of the original shattered sword of Talos, the Bronzed Man. Good news is that it was lightning-aligned, and I absorb that shit. Which is why I was the distraction.
The Necromancer Queen exhales a gout of her own flames onto her bare arm, allowing the flames to burn over her skin for a few moments before their fuel is used up.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
So while she could hurt me with the physical blade, I could hurt her with my flames and restore myself from the elemental power being thrown around. Now, you need to remember that this isn't what I'm supposed to look like. I'm not natively fire-aligned, and my color scheme is not one you find in the Barbie aisle. I'm naturally a blue dragon, and my breath weapon was Coldfire. Void-infused, impossible fire that functions just like normal flames, except the other way around. Radiating cold instead of heat. Yes, I know that's not a thing in physics, that's why it's normally impossible. Alas, I'm stuck with the boring, bland, normal stuff. Because it takes a lot longer to heat something up and make it soft than it does to cool something down and make it brittle.
And that was my job. Make something brittle, and I accidentally managed to do that in the most painful way possible. I put too much focus on channeling my Coldfire into the pane of ekaglass behind me and not enough focusing on the great big stabby lady and her great big stabby sword.
Kalinda gives a big cheesy thumbs up, and then taps her chest with it where she gestured to earlier.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Got pinned to the glass like the prized possession of the world's pissiest entomologist. The only reason I survived is because the sword completely ruptured my dragonheart AND just so happened to be of an elemental type that I could heal from. Usually dragons do not survive having the font of their magical power breached, because while they will heal from their own aligned energies, the force from having that much energy surging through the connection prevents the wound from healing.
She smirks.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
So Dao Mai ended up as something of a corpsesickle, but that didn't stop her. She tried to pull her sword out of me, and wiggling it back and forth was enough to make that enchanted barrier behind me give up the ghost.
Kalinda makes a rather accurate vocal imitation of shattering glass.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
She pulls the sword out of me, and I fall on the floor because seriously, I just had a fucking sword stuck in me and I'm spewing flames from the wound on both sides, and the last thing I do before I pass out is make sure that I'm pointing my bout of momentary elemental incontinence directly at dear auntie's face.
The smirk widens and Kalinda mimes aiming a rifle,taps her heart, and then mimes racking the gun.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Bang.
She does it again, tapping her heart and then racking the imaginary gun.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Bang.
She taps her forehead twice with such force that her head is thrown back. Or she's just overselling.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Bang. Bang.
She spreads her arms wide.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
That awful sound. Bang bang, my cousin shot her down.
Kalinda slowly and theatrically tilts her head back to a normal position.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Bolt-fired. From the darkness, you see.
Squeaky sounds from off-camera are heard as it seems Princess Christina has finally done what was asked of her and has gathered the things on the list that Kalinda asked for. A 7' tall wire mesh modular shelving unit is put into place behind her.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
So I told you that big long story so I could tell you this one. As you might expect, being a young five-foot-tall elf-kobold-dragon and beating one of the old monsters of the aristocracy in a duel brought me a lot of attention. And a lot of adventures. And a lot of trouble. And that brings me to the point that some loose of lip, dumb of ass buccaneer attempted to make.
Kalinda opens the manilla envelope she carried in at the beginning and uses a pair of chip chips to attach a pair of torso-sized film prints to the shelves.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Being a creature of elemental cold, you'd fully expect me to have problems dealing with my elemental opposite. And you'd be correct. Being burned by normal fire did not merely burn, but it'd send cascades of discomfort through my mana meridians as my body tried to move energy that was almost, but not quite right. You know that hollow, painful feeling that you get when you hiccup and burp at the same time? Imagine that, except that the burps spew flames of two varieties as your body has to purge the foreign contaminants.
The dragoness shudders.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
That sucked. That really, REALLY sucked. So when one of the big movers and shakers in the adventuring world offered up a major act of magic so powerful that it might as well be a granted wish in exchange for completing a particular task, what do you think I did? I did the thing she wanted me to do, and I asked for my reward to have that fire weakness taken away.
In the background CLIMAX can be seen with a big roll of extension cord with PyreBird looking for somewhere to plug it in and Jiritsu bringing over a floor lamp with multiple bendy lights on it behind the shelving unit.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Her name's Rosalina Wyrd and she's what passes for a governor back where I lived before I got dragged here. She's also one of those dyed in the wool fairy tale enthusiasts who thinks that everything ought to fall into neat little boxes and gets stupendously pissed off when reality fails to measure up to her arbitrary narrow-sighted standards. You know the type. Boys are blue and guns and swords and GI Joes and cars and snips and snails and puppy dog tails, and girls are pink and staves and archery and supporting characters and dresses and formal etiquette fairy tales princesses.
Kalinda sneers.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
And very definitely not short, small elf-dragon-kobold girls punching and clawing and biting things in the face. So yeah, I got my reward alright. Instead of being immune to fire like I'd wanted, I suck that shit up and store it, putting it towards developing a second dragonheart, this one fire-aligned. But you can't just shove a second one in there and expect it to work. You'd have to effectively rebuild the dragon's body from the ground up in order to account for the different mana type.
She spreads her arms and slowly spins in place.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Swap the pink for blue and the blonde for red and make my eyes their proper amber again, and this is mostly what I looked like at the age of 35 when this happened. I was immune to fire, like I wanted, but if I took in too much I popped over to this. This horrible, prissy, Barbarian Chic Barbie mockery of a palette swap. So I left it alone. I'd scarcely used this form at all in the 20 years since I got it.
Kalinda takes a moment to look back at the setup before continuing to talk.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Dragons can direct our growth, we can channel the flow of our mana to slowly improve certain aspects of ourselves. I always hated being small, being light, being physically overpowered. In the decades between this, I'd channeled pretty much everything I could into my growth, shooting up to nearly seven feet in height by the time I got here, and a little over by the time I got stuck in a Sitcom Status Quo Stasis Field and become unavailable indefinitely.
But the energy has to go somewhere, and without me actively directing it, it went off in a weird direction. Since I didn't have this particular form out and about, there was nothing on it that could grow. So instead the growth went in a different direction, and it ended up developing my draconic characteristics before they otherwise would. Normal me doesn't have horns and doesn't have digitigrade legs. But that's not the worst of it.
Kalinda waves two fingers over her shoulder and Jiritsu flicks the lights on.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
These are from my medical records of me in my real form and in this one. Particularly my reproductive organs. As you can see, this one is bigger and thus is obviously blue me, and this one is current me sized and is obviously current me.
Kalinda moves to the side and taps something on the shot of her larger body.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
This is an ovary.
She moves over to the other side of the uterus and taps something else.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
This is a fallopian tube.
Kalinda crosses her arms.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Now, I've worked with you people before. So I know exactly how stupid some of you are and how the public (and possibly private) education system has failed spectacularly with you. So I'm going to spell it out for you.
She waves a hand over the scan of blue-mode Kalinda's bits.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
You're supposed to have two of these AND THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE FUCKING CONNECTED! WANT TO MAKE A FUCKING GUESS WHERE THE OTHER ONES ARE?!
The Dragon Empress does what can only be described as a very angry skip around the back of the shelf so she doesn't cross in front of the medical images.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Why look, here they are! Here's my left ovary and right fallopian tube right over here! YUP!
She pops the P loudly.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Some fairy bitch decided that I didn't get to have children. At least not for another 50 to 120 years when that particular portion of my anatomy gets rearranged to function in the draconic manner, not the elven one.
Kalinda sneers into the camera.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
So when people say things like I don't know evil, that I don't know tragedy, that I don't know pain, that I don't know monsters, that I'm just some silly little girl playing supervillain who hasn't been up close and personal with all the shitty, horrible things that sentient beings can do to one another…
She shakes her head.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
...it makes me pity you. Because it's not like I've been secretive about this sort of thing. I've mentioned it before, many times. It's on my fucking Wikipedia page. It comes up when you google "Why is Kalinda small and pink now?" Gods, imagine being so far up your own ass that you don't bother to do any fucking research whatsoever. Sitting around with your thumb up your ass going "Golly gee, however am I going to figure out how to fight Kalinda? However could I learn the unknowable and unfathomable history of somebody who has been loudly shouting her tragic backstory to the public on broadcast TV and the internet for most of a decade?"
Kalinda carefully takes the shots of her fae-warped insides down and puts them back in the envelope.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
How do you prepare to fight somebody like me? You fucking morons, you sit your ass down in front of your computer and you fucking watch me. You watch me wrestle, you watch me talk, you use the three pounds of gray bacon that the gods stuffed between your ears to think and you take fucking notes.
Kalinda sighs and flops down atop Sinistrous the Evil Milk Crate.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Fucking shit. I at least understand it coming from Gorgo. Somebody who's reached the pinnacle of human achievement in combat sports. She's somebody who thinks she's seen it all, somebody who hasn't tasted defeat. Though I've tasted her. Took a nibble out of her in the one match we had. One that I don't think she wants to remember.
The dragon smirks slightly.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Because it was a match that I didn't take seriously at all. Cyril Seagullssausage was fucking with her and trying to bend over backwards to give me a win I didn't want, and I was more interested in seeing just how far I could take things. I was more interested in poking at the new rules, or lack thereof, with a stick than I was actually fighting Gorgo. I wasn't trying to win and yet she still couldn't manage to put me away.
Kalinda scoots her makeshift seat to the side and kicks her feet up onto the bottom shelf of the shelving unit, curling her tail up in a sinuous S shape to support her back.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
And you know me, I hate to see cheating when it's not done properly. There's a reason I call myself a supervillain, and being super is a part of that. You have to take pride in your dastardly deeds, and you can't just go about doing evil willy-nilly all half-cocked and quarter-assed. Paul Pigeonspenis' clumsy fumble-bumbling offended me and I wanted nothing to do with his amateurish efforts at trying to match my dastardly deeds. So I bit Gorgo and kept biting until I was disqualified.
The dragoness sighs.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
That's what I mean when I say that I don't need this. I'm not out there like some smooth-brained musclehead going "DOUBLE YOU NUMBER GO UP GOOD, EL NUMBER GO UP BAD! MUST ALWAYS MAKE DOUBLE YOU NUMBER GO UP!" I'm not here because I need money. Because I can probably do a pretty good job of crashing the gold market with just the loose coinage I've got from back home crammed into the pockets of my Coat of Holding. I don't need fame, because what am I going to do with that? I'm not some short-lived human who's going to cark it well before their second century.
She spreads her arms in a sort of shrug.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
While the rest of you dipshits are trying to cement your names in the record books and achieve legendary status in order to make sure that your name continues to echo down through the hall of history, what am I doing? I'm sitting around entertaining myself and being a dragon I've already achieved immortality by not dying. I'll still be around, thriving, while your grandchildren are old and withered.
Kalinda pushes a stray bit of hair out of her face.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
I do this for my own amusement. It's a game. A series of physical and intellectual puzzles that I use to pass the time. I don't need professional wrestling the way some of you need professional wrestling. I'm not somebody who would be wrestling in a below freezing barn in front of three people in a ring that'll probably give you tetanus just from looking at it. Just so they can get another fix. It's an addiction for some people.
And here we all are "No True Scotsman"-ing one another with what our own personal ideas of what a champion is. A true champion is this, a true champion is that, a true champion gives their title belt big wet sloppy kisses. With tongue!
Kalinda extends a good 18 inches worth of forked tongue and blows a big raspberry.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
I don't need professional wrestling. I don't need UPRISING. I don't need the World Title. She says, giving the "I'm not like other girls" speech just like, you know, all the other girls. How many of the folks that we work with do you think could do what I did? How many people could get a shot that they can cash in and have a title match whenever they want, with whatever title they want and then sit on it for a year and a half. Who amongst you would have the discipline to have it and not use it, rather than cashing that sucker in before it'd even cooled from Larry Gowen's flaming hands?
Kalinda spits a small gout of flame, briefly giving herself burning jazz hands.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
I held onto that shot, not because I had doubts. But because I was waiting for an opportunity where it'd be funny. There were times where I almost cashed it in so I could get an assured shot to absolutely beat the shit out of somebody for something stupid they said on Twitter and show them the error of their ways.
The dragoness rolls her eyes and shakes her head.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
And then Mr. Spaceships bought Twitter and all the morons lined up to kiss his booty-ass and get their blue badge of shame that made it perfectly obvious where all the idiots are and having their modern scarlet letter blazing for all to see. And the Elongated Muskrat is jumping from midlife crisis to midlife crisis as if making his life a series of never ending midlife crises means he'll live forever making Twitter a Xitter.
Kalinda uses the Chinese pronunciation of the letter X, making the word effectively "shitter."
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Is it any wonder that I'm not around a constantly escalating dumpster fire? I only get to read like 600 posts a day. I don't want to use them all up having to read what stupid thoughts y'all have in your heads at three AM when there could be some very important photos of small, cute animals doing stupid shit that's way funnier that you'll ever be.
And that, actually, is kind of the crux of the matter right there. In this day and age we as professional wrestlers are competing with pretty much everything else out there that could bring entertainment into somebody's life. We're competing with video games, with movies, with TV shows, with having substance abuse issues in place of actually manufacturing a personality, with snow leopards clawing at a ball and sliding down the stairs on YouTube, and with all the other corporate-driven media that gleefully sucks the life out of their performers in order to fuel infinite perpetual growth.
Kalinda stands up and stretches, drawing several rather vile-sounding cracks from her back.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Pretty sure that I've brought that up before. When that happens in a living body we call that "cancer," and it's something that if left untreated will more than likely kill the patient. And yet y'all have it as the driving principle behind your economic system. Yours is a world that myopically cannot and will not peer beyond the current fiscal quarter. Line must go up, line must go up forever, line must go up faster. The current system demands that you don't think about the future, lest your company be hacked up and the assets sold off to the highest bidder after a brief stock pump and dump.
And that's the thing, isn't it? We're sitting here, our professional lives on the line with the latest in a bunch of a never-ending line of short sighted idiots who are too busy trying to make their mark on history to make sure that this company has a future. And do you know what?
You all should be glad that I am who I am and not somebody else. Because I have the power within me to hurt you, really, truly hurt you. You've got people like Gorgo who are all "Rawr! I am scary and sadistic! I like to hurt people!" and you've got those goofs who hang out in the boiler room who are always trying way too hard to be creepy and unsettling and it just comes across as being insecure and needy. If I wanted to hurt you, really, truly hurt you, it'd be so simple.
Just walk away. Leave UPRISING behind. Leave as the never defeated champion, and leave you three to pick up your participation trophy and look silly with there being a whole-ass unused empty pod sitting there in the corner.
Somebody said not too long ago backstage that they couldn't imagine what UPRISING would be like without me, and that's really the thing, isn't it? There's nobody else like me out there, and I've been here for so long that I've essentially become part of the foundation that this company is built on. If I were to take my metaphorical football and go home, I'd lose nothing. And yet UPRISING would be left in shambles.
Kalinda slowly grins, Grinch-like.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
You could get another Gorgo. You could get another Tolson. You could get another Angry Pirate. Hell, Pierre Carl Ouellet is still around and kicking. He could be here and be Jean-Pierre LaFitte once again just like that!
Kalinda snaps her fingers.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
But you can't get another Kalinda. Despite some wrestling promoters out there attempting to shove every single wrestler into the same square hole regardless of their talents, and despite some wrestling quote talent unquote doing their best to prove themselves to be literally interchangeable cogs in the machine, there ARE unique, irreplaceable talents out there. Find me another smol, cute, five-foot-tall dragoness who is witty, funny, foul-mouthed, rabidly anti-capitalist who not only comes with her own established stable, but is perfectly content putting her adorable little tail on the line in the most horrific of hardcore matches and can not merely hold her own, but THRIVE.
The Dragon Empress slowly raises her arms into the Pose of Ultimate Douchebaggery.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
Face the facts. You'd need at least three people, if not more, to provide UPRISING with what I bring to the table. And that's even before you take my minions, and also Christina, into account.
And there's the requisite sinister steepling of the fingers.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
And that's the thing. As professional wrestlers it's our job to hurt one another. And sitting right there at my fingertips is a way to truly make each and every one of you suffer. Wound all three of you, and more besides, in a way that you can't fix and would never be able to fully recover from. And that's what I'd do if I were truly the sort of pathetic, short-sighted, cancerous type of evil that I've been talking about. But that's not what I'm about. That's not doing wrong right.
Kalinda does a little mock curtsy.
KALINDA KRIEGSDOTTIR:
I just wanted you to know that. That if I really wanted to I could hurt you like nobody else could. And I stayed my hand. Am I not a benevolent Empress?
Fade to black.