Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2021 11:51:56 GMT -5
Aftermath (off-cam)[/u]
January 10th 2021 - - - 03:43am
Rivers Residence
Reno, Nevada
It’s night. The pale moonlight of the clear winter sky glares down through the drapes on the bedroom of Jennifer Rivers. She is tossing and turning in her sleep, occasionally scratching her face that still bore residue of the mist spat on her face just a handful of hours ago. Her dreams are heavy as unconsciously she knew that the events of Revolution would not go down well with her brother, the man known simply as Supreme Machine. She had been surprised that he had come with her so easily after the match and not remained to raise hell or slipped into the night.
But still, she wasn’t sleeping well. And her shallow sleep was suddenly interrupted by a loud bang that resonated on the very structure of the walls. She bolted upright with a shocked look on her face and stopped to listen. She could hear muffled shouting and banging two floors down… from the basement.
Her blood chilling she stood up and wrapped her lithe frame in a silken robe and made her way down to the first floor and towards the basement. As she neared the stairway down to the depths, she realized she was barely breathing. The sounds were becoming more and more intense as she neared, a constant banging and the thudding of flesh against concrete and the inhuman screaming of a man in agony. Part of her knew what was going on down below, but another part was terrified it was something else.
She quietly opened the door and slipped into the stairwell, careful not to make a single sound as she descended and finally saw what was causing all the ruckus. And she was both relieved and terrified.
The scene was grim. The massive man that was her brother was bleeding all over his body, repeatedly hammering his fists into the concrete walls of the basement and hitting himself with a strap of some sort, all the while screaming to himself. His knuckles were covered in his own blood and his chest had deep cuts, probably from his own nails. Jenny stared in awe as she witnessed how her brother dealt with defeat.
“WEAKLING!” he shouted as he slammed his fist into the wall again, causing a noticeable crack in the concrete. “YOU MADE US LOSE!”
He slaps himself in the face, the smack echoing from the bare walls. “YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO TAKE OVER! YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO INTERFERE! WE HAD THAT MATCH UNTIL YOU TOOK OVER!” SuMa screamed as he yanked a handful of hair from his own head in a violet motion.
“YOU SHOULD STAY BURIED! YOU ARE USELESS!” The man threw himself against the wall, his head cracking against the concrete with a sickening thud and a stream of blood dribbling down from his temple. Finally exhaustion took SuMa and he crashed to the ground, breathing heavily as he leaned against the wall. Reduced into a bloody mess, the monster glanced upwards and stared directly at Jennys direction.
“We know you’re there Jenny. We could hear your steps a mile away and your breath before you even opened the door. No use in hiding.” SuMa’s voice was tired. It had its usual growly roughness to it, but the intimidating calm that permeated it was nowhere to be heard.
“Like what you see Jenny? This is what happens when the weakling tries to assert himself… All because you got spat on. I had to spend so much energy to prevent him from rushing to your aid that we lost our focus and got cinched in. This… is his punishment.” SuMa’s words sent a chill down Jenny’s spine but like a fly to a spider, she found herself drawn towards the man. She stepped out of the darkness, every fiber of her body fighting off the urge to rush to his aid and tend his wounds.
“You’re hurt the both of you… Is that wise?” Jenny spoke, struggling to keep her voice from quivering as she approached the physically spent monster. “You both share that body… His pain is your pain.” She knelt next to SuMa, keeping an eye on his movements, but for some reason the monster barely reacted to her proximity.
“His pain is greater than mine. We are one yet we are different. He spent years putting all the pain away by giving it to me… ever since I took over he has been suffering thousandfold.” The monster winced slightly as Jenny pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and began to tend the wounds on him, but didn’t react otherwise. Jenny looked up to the monsters face, meeting that cold, dead gaze of his coal-like eyes.
“If Tom is such a burden… why don’t you just get rid of him? Without him you could be the force of nature you clearly want to be. So why not shed yourself of the last shred of humanity within?” Jenny spoke the question that had been bothering her for years. Ever since she saw a glimpse of her brother within the monster that he had become, she had wondered why.
A gurgling laughter emanated from the throat of the man, ending up in a coughing fit as he began spitting out blood. He wiped the bloody goo from his mouth and spoke. “I can’t. We are one. I exist only because of him. We are tied together in ways you could never understand. His death would be my death. My death would be his death. The weakling gave birth to me… and keeps me alive. But it’s not like you can understand. Nobody can”
Jenny fell silent as she kept trying to clean up the wounds. She thought back to the last time she herself fought in the ring. That fateful time when she went after Kaitlynn due to a misguided desire to win back her former husband. And more specifically, the voice that had urged her on. “I might understand better than you think…” she whispered quietly.
That time of her life was something she had tried to bury, to forget. She had lost everything. Her life had been upended in ways she wasn’t prepared for. She had been alone and scared. And she had heard a voice from in her head. A soothing voice speaking of vengeance and of retribution. Urging her to go and claim what was hers. To punish those who had hurt her.
She had almost succumbed to the voice. Almost became the “Queen Machine” that she had been dubbed. She had gone from “The Queen” Jennifer Stryfe to “Queen Machine” Jenny. And for a spell she had been no different from her brother. But she had resisted the temptation. She had pushed the voice away. She had stepped out of the ring and extracted herself from the world that had hurt her so bad. And finally she had managed to return to her own self. She had put the ghost of Jennifer Stryfe and the demon that was Queen Machine behind her and become just Jennifer Rivers.
And she had hoped she could help her brother to do the same. To put the beast within to rest and become Thomas Rivers once again. But now as she stared at the bloody mess that he had become by his own hand she realized there was little hope for that. He was too far gone. The beast had taken over too completely. All she could do was try to contain his destruction.
SuMa had watched her as she was in thought, as she absentmindedly tended to him. And suddenly he began chuckling again. “You heard it too then.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement and the monster let out a roaring laughter. “Who would have thought that little miss high and mighty was no better than we are.”
The laughter sent chills down Jenny’s spine but she tried her best to suppress it. She knew that he was trying to intimidate her, to get a mental upper hand. But she wasn’t prepared when SuMa grabbed her hand and yanked it up, forcing her to meet his gaze again. And when he spoke his voice was icy cold, yet curious. “Tell us Jenny. Do you still hear it? Is that why you are so worried about us? Is that why you asked me if I could get rid of the weakling? Because you’re scared of what’s in your head… because you must find a way to exorcise the demon in your head?”
Jenny’s face hardens. She knows she can’t show weakness to him. “No. I have it under control. It is still there but it has no hold over me. And I have no intention of letting it out again. That is something you cannot change so whatever thought has gotten into your deranged head you can just squash it.” She stared him right back. A battle of wills was going on in the basement.
And it was SuMa who buckled. Not because he couldn’t win but because he didn’t want to. He was chuckling again. “That explains the spine you found Jenny… maybe you aren’t a lost cause after all. I can tell you this much… the weakling is scared for you. Desperate to get out. To console you. Me? I am intrigued.”
He stood up on shaky legs and pushed Jenny not so gently away. “Now go. These wounds will heal. We’ll talk more at some point. The weakling and I need to have a little chat now that he’s been punished…”
Jenny stumbled backwards and after a split seconds hesitation nodded. “Just don’t start another ruckus again. I need to sleep.” She needed the last word, she didn’t know why but she did. With that she turned around and ascended the staircase, hearing a familiar thud as SuMa plopped himself to the ground.
She made her way back to her bedroom and slipped beneath the covers. Thoughts raced through her head. She had kept that part of her life a total secret from everyone for so long and just like that he had deduced it from a few cryptic words. She always forgot just how terrifyingly intelligent SuMa was. Beneath that monstrous appearance lay not a mindless beast. And now her secret was out. How would their relationship develop from here?
She tossed and turned for a long time before finally falling to a restless sleep. And beneath her raged a different kind of a struggle.
After Jenny left the basement, SuMa hunched in a corner, staring into the mirror placed on the wall. “Interesting indeed… don’t you agree weakling?” he muttered to himself, staring into the mirror as his reflection responded in a shaky, scared voice.
“Wh...what are you planning? Please leave her alone… She can’t go through what I have gone. The last thing she needs is to become like us.” Tom tried to plead with his dark side, despite knowing that it was a vain endeavour. Ever since losing control to SuMa, all he had managed to accomplish had been accomplished because SuMa allowed it. Tom had grown stronger over the years, mostly through SuMa’s desire to give him false hope, to torture him by putting salvation within arms reach only to yank it away and putting him in his place at the last moment. But now, Tom felt determination like never before. He wouldn’t let SuMa hurt Jenny. No matter what.
“Oh you’ll see… I’ve seen her as nothing more than a nuisance for so long… a convenient tool at best… but now… now she might turn out to be a potential ally. We only need to unleash the demon that resides within her. I can’t believe I never saw it before. The signs were all there now that I think about it… This is simply brilliant…”
The manic laughter that was the trademark of the man echoed in the bare walls as the night changed into day and his body fell into a deep sleep.
January 10th 2021 - - - 03:43am
Rivers Residence
Reno, Nevada
It’s night. The pale moonlight of the clear winter sky glares down through the drapes on the bedroom of Jennifer Rivers. She is tossing and turning in her sleep, occasionally scratching her face that still bore residue of the mist spat on her face just a handful of hours ago. Her dreams are heavy as unconsciously she knew that the events of Revolution would not go down well with her brother, the man known simply as Supreme Machine. She had been surprised that he had come with her so easily after the match and not remained to raise hell or slipped into the night.
But still, she wasn’t sleeping well. And her shallow sleep was suddenly interrupted by a loud bang that resonated on the very structure of the walls. She bolted upright with a shocked look on her face and stopped to listen. She could hear muffled shouting and banging two floors down… from the basement.
Her blood chilling she stood up and wrapped her lithe frame in a silken robe and made her way down to the first floor and towards the basement. As she neared the stairway down to the depths, she realized she was barely breathing. The sounds were becoming more and more intense as she neared, a constant banging and the thudding of flesh against concrete and the inhuman screaming of a man in agony. Part of her knew what was going on down below, but another part was terrified it was something else.
She quietly opened the door and slipped into the stairwell, careful not to make a single sound as she descended and finally saw what was causing all the ruckus. And she was both relieved and terrified.
The scene was grim. The massive man that was her brother was bleeding all over his body, repeatedly hammering his fists into the concrete walls of the basement and hitting himself with a strap of some sort, all the while screaming to himself. His knuckles were covered in his own blood and his chest had deep cuts, probably from his own nails. Jenny stared in awe as she witnessed how her brother dealt with defeat.
“WEAKLING!” he shouted as he slammed his fist into the wall again, causing a noticeable crack in the concrete. “YOU MADE US LOSE!”
He slaps himself in the face, the smack echoing from the bare walls. “YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO TAKE OVER! YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO INTERFERE! WE HAD THAT MATCH UNTIL YOU TOOK OVER!” SuMa screamed as he yanked a handful of hair from his own head in a violet motion.
“YOU SHOULD STAY BURIED! YOU ARE USELESS!” The man threw himself against the wall, his head cracking against the concrete with a sickening thud and a stream of blood dribbling down from his temple. Finally exhaustion took SuMa and he crashed to the ground, breathing heavily as he leaned against the wall. Reduced into a bloody mess, the monster glanced upwards and stared directly at Jennys direction.
“We know you’re there Jenny. We could hear your steps a mile away and your breath before you even opened the door. No use in hiding.” SuMa’s voice was tired. It had its usual growly roughness to it, but the intimidating calm that permeated it was nowhere to be heard.
“Like what you see Jenny? This is what happens when the weakling tries to assert himself… All because you got spat on. I had to spend so much energy to prevent him from rushing to your aid that we lost our focus and got cinched in. This… is his punishment.” SuMa’s words sent a chill down Jenny’s spine but like a fly to a spider, she found herself drawn towards the man. She stepped out of the darkness, every fiber of her body fighting off the urge to rush to his aid and tend his wounds.
“You’re hurt the both of you… Is that wise?” Jenny spoke, struggling to keep her voice from quivering as she approached the physically spent monster. “You both share that body… His pain is your pain.” She knelt next to SuMa, keeping an eye on his movements, but for some reason the monster barely reacted to her proximity.
“His pain is greater than mine. We are one yet we are different. He spent years putting all the pain away by giving it to me… ever since I took over he has been suffering thousandfold.” The monster winced slightly as Jenny pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and began to tend the wounds on him, but didn’t react otherwise. Jenny looked up to the monsters face, meeting that cold, dead gaze of his coal-like eyes.
“If Tom is such a burden… why don’t you just get rid of him? Without him you could be the force of nature you clearly want to be. So why not shed yourself of the last shred of humanity within?” Jenny spoke the question that had been bothering her for years. Ever since she saw a glimpse of her brother within the monster that he had become, she had wondered why.
A gurgling laughter emanated from the throat of the man, ending up in a coughing fit as he began spitting out blood. He wiped the bloody goo from his mouth and spoke. “I can’t. We are one. I exist only because of him. We are tied together in ways you could never understand. His death would be my death. My death would be his death. The weakling gave birth to me… and keeps me alive. But it’s not like you can understand. Nobody can”
Jenny fell silent as she kept trying to clean up the wounds. She thought back to the last time she herself fought in the ring. That fateful time when she went after Kaitlynn due to a misguided desire to win back her former husband. And more specifically, the voice that had urged her on. “I might understand better than you think…” she whispered quietly.
That time of her life was something she had tried to bury, to forget. She had lost everything. Her life had been upended in ways she wasn’t prepared for. She had been alone and scared. And she had heard a voice from in her head. A soothing voice speaking of vengeance and of retribution. Urging her to go and claim what was hers. To punish those who had hurt her.
She had almost succumbed to the voice. Almost became the “Queen Machine” that she had been dubbed. She had gone from “The Queen” Jennifer Stryfe to “Queen Machine” Jenny. And for a spell she had been no different from her brother. But she had resisted the temptation. She had pushed the voice away. She had stepped out of the ring and extracted herself from the world that had hurt her so bad. And finally she had managed to return to her own self. She had put the ghost of Jennifer Stryfe and the demon that was Queen Machine behind her and become just Jennifer Rivers.
And she had hoped she could help her brother to do the same. To put the beast within to rest and become Thomas Rivers once again. But now as she stared at the bloody mess that he had become by his own hand she realized there was little hope for that. He was too far gone. The beast had taken over too completely. All she could do was try to contain his destruction.
SuMa had watched her as she was in thought, as she absentmindedly tended to him. And suddenly he began chuckling again. “You heard it too then.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement and the monster let out a roaring laughter. “Who would have thought that little miss high and mighty was no better than we are.”
The laughter sent chills down Jenny’s spine but she tried her best to suppress it. She knew that he was trying to intimidate her, to get a mental upper hand. But she wasn’t prepared when SuMa grabbed her hand and yanked it up, forcing her to meet his gaze again. And when he spoke his voice was icy cold, yet curious. “Tell us Jenny. Do you still hear it? Is that why you are so worried about us? Is that why you asked me if I could get rid of the weakling? Because you’re scared of what’s in your head… because you must find a way to exorcise the demon in your head?”
Jenny’s face hardens. She knows she can’t show weakness to him. “No. I have it under control. It is still there but it has no hold over me. And I have no intention of letting it out again. That is something you cannot change so whatever thought has gotten into your deranged head you can just squash it.” She stared him right back. A battle of wills was going on in the basement.
And it was SuMa who buckled. Not because he couldn’t win but because he didn’t want to. He was chuckling again. “That explains the spine you found Jenny… maybe you aren’t a lost cause after all. I can tell you this much… the weakling is scared for you. Desperate to get out. To console you. Me? I am intrigued.”
He stood up on shaky legs and pushed Jenny not so gently away. “Now go. These wounds will heal. We’ll talk more at some point. The weakling and I need to have a little chat now that he’s been punished…”
Jenny stumbled backwards and after a split seconds hesitation nodded. “Just don’t start another ruckus again. I need to sleep.” She needed the last word, she didn’t know why but she did. With that she turned around and ascended the staircase, hearing a familiar thud as SuMa plopped himself to the ground.
She made her way back to her bedroom and slipped beneath the covers. Thoughts raced through her head. She had kept that part of her life a total secret from everyone for so long and just like that he had deduced it from a few cryptic words. She always forgot just how terrifyingly intelligent SuMa was. Beneath that monstrous appearance lay not a mindless beast. And now her secret was out. How would their relationship develop from here?
She tossed and turned for a long time before finally falling to a restless sleep. And beneath her raged a different kind of a struggle.
After Jenny left the basement, SuMa hunched in a corner, staring into the mirror placed on the wall. “Interesting indeed… don’t you agree weakling?” he muttered to himself, staring into the mirror as his reflection responded in a shaky, scared voice.
“Wh...what are you planning? Please leave her alone… She can’t go through what I have gone. The last thing she needs is to become like us.” Tom tried to plead with his dark side, despite knowing that it was a vain endeavour. Ever since losing control to SuMa, all he had managed to accomplish had been accomplished because SuMa allowed it. Tom had grown stronger over the years, mostly through SuMa’s desire to give him false hope, to torture him by putting salvation within arms reach only to yank it away and putting him in his place at the last moment. But now, Tom felt determination like never before. He wouldn’t let SuMa hurt Jenny. No matter what.
“Oh you’ll see… I’ve seen her as nothing more than a nuisance for so long… a convenient tool at best… but now… now she might turn out to be a potential ally. We only need to unleash the demon that resides within her. I can’t believe I never saw it before. The signs were all there now that I think about it… This is simply brilliant…”
The manic laughter that was the trademark of the man echoed in the bare walls as the night changed into day and his body fell into a deep sleep.