Must Win

It was another day, another defeat. Last night in London, she fought three hellcats in one of the most intense four way dances she had ever been part of. Her longtime friend, Emmanuelle, had been crowned a Queen by pinning her. Losses were beginning to pile up faster than ever before, still Lillie Saint tried to put a positive spin on it. It was a red eye flight coming up that was going to be the big test. Alone on that plane, despite being surrounded by those you love and love you, yet the thoughts would circulate. What could she have done differently? How could she get out of this funk? So many thoughts were going to be pouring through. It was happening more and more.

London, England
The Milestone Hotel
3:31 AM

She should have been sleeping, like any normal person did. After the exhaustion that she had gone through by facing the likes of Emmanuelle, YOKAI, and Seiya in one of the hardest hitting matches in her career, one would expect her to sleep so well. It didn’t happen. Sitting in an unfairly comfortable chair on the edge of the hotel room, she looked down at herself. Her green tank top and black pants would usually mean it was time to settle in for the night. She even glanced over at her beloved fiance, seeing him resting comfortably. God, she hated that feeling. How could someone sleep so nicely while she was stuck in thought?

Her phone was blowing up with text messages about how great the match was. How she should be so proud of herself. Even a message from Vie, stating ‘It’ll be okay. You can handle this, Lil.’ They were just two rooms away from each other, yet it felt like the other side of the Earth. She needed to escape for the moment. Not anywhere fancy, just a place to speak the truth. It was bottled up and ready to unleash in all the wrong ways, she thought. It was then she decided to stand up, not wanting to wake up Graupe. Sneaking past him to the door, she tried to go all secret agent and open the door quietly. It worked! Then..the door slammed shut.

“Crap.”

Regardless, she was going to do what she needed to do. Sneaking down the hall, she found a conference room to try and find refuge in. This was going to be a shit show, right? She wasn’t dressed up for a stream, very basic in fact. It needed to be said.

Twitch Stream: Live!

She adjusted her hair to the best of her ability for the moment, looking towards her phone. A forced smile escaped as people were joining the stream. She didn’t even advertise going on, but it was nice to see some support.

“Hey Lillie!”

“Love your shirt!”

“Great match last night!”

“Queen Lillie! Still saying it!”

Despite her terrible feeling, the forced smile had turned into a bit of a grin.

“Hey guys. Sorry to be doing this so late over here. It’s about 3:30 London time. I just needed to talk.”

“Are you okay?”

“What’s up, Queen?”

“You did awesome last night! Graupe is lucky!”

“Okay, well. First off, I’m not a queen. I guess, maybe I never will be. So be it. Can I just throw something out there? Have you guys noticed that I’ve been losing more and more lately? I feel like something is going wrong. I can’t put my finger on it, but things have been going very rough lately. I’ve been making weird decisions, something is missing. Please tell me I’m not the only one noticing it.”

“It’s not that bad. You’re doing amazing.”

“You’re still one of the best.”

“Don’t feel bad, you and Violet are incredible.”

“Thanks guys and gals. It’s really getting to me. It was losing those belts. Going into the year, Vie and I had the world watching us, loving our matches. February, we lost one of those titles. Then.. Death Sentence, we lost it all. I didn’t know how to reshuffle my focus. I’m feeling more paranoid and irritated by the day. Each morning when I wake up, I feel like a shell of what I was. I mean, who does that two years into their career? Did I peak too soon? I just don’t know. Wedding planning has sucked, so many places have been booked up for the rest of the year. My family is growing, but I’m not there yet. I rarely see my niece and nephew, but instead I’m constantly in the gym to try and get better inside of the ring. Drake Connors helped me quite a bit, but even then, I’m just.. Ugh… I don’t know!”

That frustration was beginning to set in. She moved her hand through her hair, catching the audience in the stream off guard.

“Lillie, your hair.”

“What was that?!”

“Holy shit, how did you do that?”

“Do what? I’m confused.”

She tried to use her phone to figure out what was going on. Did some hair fall out or something? She was frantically trying to find out what they were talking about.

“When you touched your hair, it turned blonde for a moment and then went back to red.”

“YOU WENT BLONDE!”

“What are you talking about? I went blonde? Okay, maybe we’re all tired. I don’t know what you’re talking about, but it’s fine. I just need to talk a little bit before I try and get a couple hours of sleep. So, I have this match coming up in Wrestleworld in a few days. I get to team with Vie, yay! I get to team with Stephanie Matsuda, that’s always a pleasure to share a ring with her. I get to team with Arata Asakura, not sure if he likes me or hates me at this point. Now then, I get to face Layne Driver, great. FUMIHIKO, fuck that guy. Then, Estrella and Yago.. FUCKING HELL. Okay, those are some tough wrestlers, not going to lie. But come on! I’ll get to them in a second. Could you find people that are more despicable than those four?

Like, I get that Claudia Michaels was bad. She was. I wanted to fight her so many times after everything she was putting Cloud, April, Nobi, Hana, Reno, and Alyssa through. Even then, she wasn’t THIS bad. There’s a horrible feeling all around with these guys.

So, Layne Driver. I have to start with him because honestly, it’ll be the nicest. Layne.. If you came up to me in the locker room, I’d probably still have no idea who you are. It’s nothing personal, but Vie and I rarely see you around. I guess we need to just watch the monitor because you somehow wind up in nearly every segment of the event. Whatever, Joe Smith was good to you. I guess you could call yourself the prime example of what Wrestleworld wants to become. Rather than showcasing a bunch of people who work their asses off to bring the best matches and entertainment to the audience, they get to see Layne Driver instead. Sorry Layne, I don’t get you, nor do I want to.

That was easy..

How about FUMIHIKO.. I want the world to know what that man is. FUMIHIKO was in the same training class as me. He was quiet. He was a guy who didn’t take to understanding wrestling from the start. He didn’t talk, but when he did, it was just short sentences. Now, you could excuse him for possibly not knowing English since he literally had only been in the country for a few weeks at that point. I trained with Theodor too, but look at what he has become. This guy never evolved past that. He never bothered to learn how to converse with people in English, and why is that? He never bothered to learn how to fundamentally wrestle to the best of his ability, again, why is that? Then all of a sudden, he develops this dark persona where he just drops people on his head. He is reckless as shit in the ring, has no interest in being in the profession that has made him money. Instead, he just picks people up and throws them on their head like it’s fun for him. Nicholas Gabriel is the guy responsible for him being here, no idea how. He doesn’t belong in this place either, they are a damn plague. They will never be good people because of those they surround themselves with. Nicholas Gabriel is a trust fund bitch and FUMIHIKO is his untrained jack off of an enforcer. Sorry to be so crass, but those guys are shit. Just shit human beings, and I truly hope Arata gets his hands on those guys and humbles them.

Of course, we move onto the guys who think they are the Men of the Hour. That’s right, you idiots sign your letters to me as ‘hombres de la hora’. Like you’re so important. You guys beat us to become Campeonatos De Parejas. You had the nerve to send me a letter to BEG for a rematch? You sent the same thing to Vie. You know what she did? She threw it into a fire. I wish I did the same, but you know what? It’s on my desk at home. Sitting nicely in a drawer because I am going to make sure that when we win those titles back, I will shove it right down your throats.

To beg? No. We don’t beg. Vie and I have fought too hard and for too long to be pushed away like that. You wanted a wager? You wanted us to take the thing that meant the most to us? That’s where you weren’t paying attention. You know what means the most to Vie and I that we could wager? To team together. To be Crimson Bouquet. To be the people who go across the world and bring our best to everyone we face. I know you thought you were going to get that, but this offer was too enticing, wasn’t it? You got something you guys weren’t ready for, our ‘allegiance’. Remember the quotation marks. Remember what happened when you guys had us cornered. You’ll learn that we are that much more dangerous when cornered. That’s how we won the damn titles to begin with.”

It didn’t take long for people to react on the stream. The fight was evident in the eyes of Lillie Saint, but far more aggressive with her words than they were before. She was finally able to catch a breath. Simply put, she had enough.

“Okay, now let’s talk about our teammates. Cloud, I’m just going to say this about you. If it wasn’t for you, the Crimson Bouquet wouldn’t exist. You saw something in us as a team and told Violet that it would be good for her to team with me when we got drafted to DOMINION. You made that choice and I can’t thank you enough for that. With that said, you know that Vie and I have a lot on the line going forward, we want to be Campeonatos De Parejas again. We want that opportunity to be the best tag team in Wrestleworld history. We aren’t yet, but we want to be. The only way we get there is by shutting these guys up. We look to you the same way we always have, as the leader and most trusted resource we’ll ever have in this business. Please, Cloud, know we have your back. We know you have ours.

Asakura. Look, we haven’t seen eye to eye much. In fact, we don’t really say anything to each other. I know what you’ve been going through, and that Golden Crown title is nice. It’s beautiful, but we need to fight. I’m asking you, not as a friend, but as a competitor in this company who are on their last legs against the toughest threat we’ve seen yet.. Please work with us. The belt means the world, I know, but we need to do this as a team on Chapter 46. If we don’t.. I don’t know what’ll happen. Just, please. Trust us in the way that we’ll trust you. See us in the same light that we see in you. You’re the Champion, we need you. Plus… If I give you 100 bucks, can you drop FUMIHIKO on his head? I don’t feel like I’ll get a chance to.

Alright, so there we have it. I needed to really get this off of my chest, guys. We have our work cut out for us, but we have to put these guys down and win the thing. If you believe in one thing about me, please know it’s that I’m not going to back down for a single soul. We’re here to fight, and we’re here to win. We got this, right? Anyways, have a good day everyone, I’m going to try and get a little bit of rest before we fly out. Love you guys.”

She gave a calming wave to the audience on the stream before logging off of the stream. To her, the days of Crimson Bouquet would never end, why should it? To be part of the Ghost Organization.. Skin crawling..


Let’s make shit happen.