LK - Just A Little Letter - vs. Stephanie Matsuda, Chapter 8

"FUCK!"

A pile of crumpled up papers grows larger and larger next to a pretty-obviously-trashpicked desk that sits in the corner of Liz Karlson's meager bedroom. She crumples up the next one, throwing it into the pile, before removing another paper from the notebook in front of her and beginning to pen it once again.

"Dear Matsuda," Liz mouths as her pen scratches across the surface. "I'm honored by the chance that I get to face off with you and the opportunity to bash your fucking brains i--NO!" Liz crumples the next paper up and throws it into the pile, ripping another free and writing again. She gets roughly the same distance, her mouth lipping the words as she goes through it. She reads it back over, and crumples it up, throwing it back into the ever-growing mountain of paper-balls sitting next to her desk, accumulating faster than she had anticipated. She picks up her notebook, which has been greatly depleted of its paper supply, and throws it onto the pile, putting her head down on the desk for a moment.

"Fuckin' Wresteworld and their fuckin' profanity filters and their fuckin' honor among opponents. How the fuck am I supposed to send a message to an opponent without threatenin' to cut their fuckin' lungs out?" The silence fills the air for a moment, and, as if struck with a bolt of lightning, Liz grabs one more sheet of paper and begins writing, seemingly getting much further before this one, too, falls to irrelevancy and she crumples it up and throws it into the pile, slamming her chair into her desk and heading to the next room.

-



"Stephanie Matsuda."

The backdrop of this room is much calmer than the last, a thrifted chair with a mis-matched ottoman that Liz Karlson rests in, lounging back with her hands behind her head. She's dressed pretty simply, in a Nike tanktop and running shorts, with her feet tucked into socks. She looks to be resting, the usual intensity of her eyes dulled like dying coals as she stretches out, trying to maintain a brief sense of tranquility before her upcoming match against the War Queen at Chapter 8. Karlson's fingers tap against the armrests as she tries to put together a coherent thought going forward.

"First of all, I apologize for the informality of this conversation. I wanted to try somethin' a little different, givin' how much I'd been lookin' forward to this match, to finally lock horns with the War Queen herself. I've seen you 'round when I was tourin' with Graham Baker, when the two of us were walkin' the world lookin' for any company worth its salt to work for. I've watched your work from a distance, watched you slap motherfuckers up an' down, watched you over in Dystopia with that nasty sleeper o' yours, and all I could think of was gettin' the chance to finally lock up with you. Iron sharpens iron an' all that, and my iron's been a little dulled as of late. I've been losin' all up and down the continental United States, in an' out of the fuckin' country, and I've been lookin' to diversify my situation just a tiny bit. I've been lookin' for a new place to test my mettle-and you, Stephie, you've given me the greatest opportunity to do so."

Karlson cracks her knuckles as she leans forward, her hair falling out of a loose knot and around her head as she looks dead into the camera, the fire in her eyes starting to crackle to life once again.

"In the last calendar year, I won three championships. Freedom Pro Women's Champion, Freedom Pro Freedom Champion, NIKE Pro inaugural women's champion, I've been through it all. For a short little period there, I was drippin' in gold, and by December it had all fallen apart. Couldn't win a match in ALPHA, couldn't scrape a match together in Nike Pro, couldn't retain my title in FPW. I was left out in the cold, and it felt for a little while people had forgotten about who I was. They forgot that I came onto the scene like a bat outta hell, burnin' down every motherfucker who decided to get in my way, droppin' my heel through motherfuckers' skulls like it was my goddamn job-which it was. I left those outlets behind, said sayonara an' ripped my contracts up, and I made my way here. At first, it was just a debut with Harry Sterling, the opportunity to capture my first set o' Campeonatos de Parejas despite how long it'd taken me to get there, but now I see this as a gateway to so much more. I see this as a provin' ground, a dream match factory, a land of new opportunity to build up the Spitfires, to build up Harry, to build up myself. I see this as the pathway to everythin'...but my path starts through you."

Karlson's eyes light up as she leans in closer to the camera.

"You, Matsuda, are my gatekeeper. My shot to the throne, the key to my castle, a door I ain't yet opened but I'm frothin' at the mouth to get into. You, Matsuda, you might see me as a hyped up little dog, someone who's barkin' down the door waitin' to be let in, and you might be lookin' to kick me to the side of the road like i'm a yippin' puppy, but trust me, ol' girl, my bite is far worse than my bark. You cast me aside like you're tryin' to, you're gonna get nipped, an' if you're not careful, I might take a couple fuckin' fingers off when I do it. Don't you pity me for comin' in and causing a ruckus, actin' like i'm some child needin' to be disciplined, callin' me what you will while I get myself riled up. This might not be prison, but the same logic applies-if I want to make a name for myself, for Harry, for the fuckin' Spitfires-I gotta come for one of the big dogs, an' you're the first one who came to mind. You come into this match underestimatin' me, Matsuda, you're going to regret it when I've dragged you 'round the ring, dropped a nasty boot onto yer' skull, an' pinned your ass for the one, two, three. You're gonna regret it when I roll outta the ring, victorious, because you spent so much time thinkin' that this fire-mouthed little girl wasn't a goddamn thing to swing on ya."

Karlson cracks a half-smile as she leans back.

"Y'know, the more I think on it, the less the little letter woulda worked. I'm sure you woulda taken advantage of that thinkin' and thought i'd be starstruck when I got in the ring with ya, but I don't want you at no disadvantage. I want to be able to say I beat Stephanie Matsuda, the fuckin' War Queen down at her full strength, and when I move on to them ol' Parejas with Harry Sterling, I wanna make sure you know that you had the chance to keep me from gettin' there-but ya didn't." She winks at the camera.

"See ya in a couple days, Stephie. Lookin' forward to meetin' you for the first time."

Karlson leans back in her chair, exhaling as she does so, returning to a resting position...