Syren vs. Selena Frost vs. Amelia Nevado vs. Gavin Taylor

[Wisteria Waltz]

We open up in what looks like a locker room, though it's one that doesn't appear to have been used for quite some time. Given the wear and tear we can see along the walls and the rust on the lockers, we can perhaps assume whatever gym this locker room might belong to has been out of service for a very long time, though it's admittedly a little hard to see when the lighting is not only so dim, but also occasionally flickering in the areas that are more illuminated. It's here that we find Amelia Nevado, which feels like a stark contrast compared to the elaborate and elegant room she occupied back during Retribution. She's dressed to compete, with her singlet and boots on and her wrists taped, though she seems to be fixated on her left wrist in particular, as if the tape is hiding something we're not supposed to see. Whatever it may be, she looks to be deep in thought, unfazed by the poor conditions around her or the flicker of the lights that could give anybody else a headache. In an odd sort of way, it almost feels... fitting.

“Go ahead... tell me I don't belong here.”

She slowly lifts her head at this point, a fire in her eyes despite the lack of emotion she's presenting otherwise. It strikes a rather frightening balance between focus and fury, especially as she folds her hands tightly in her lap, looking both like a proper young lady but also like someone who knows her hands could soon cause great harm to other human beings.

“You don't need to sugarcoat it... I've heard those words far too often in my life for them to affect me anymore. Selena can throw it in my face because she's so desperate to prove that she, and she alone, is the only one around here who deserves to call herself your SCW World Champion. Gavin can butter me up to try and hide the fact that he's putting me down to satisfy his own ego. Syren can try to pull this two-faced act of telling me otherwise while taking issue with the fact that I 'sold my soul' to be here. Maybe those words haunted me once upon a time... but that time has passed.

I've told you all a lot about my parents, and those who know the Blythe name know how highly they thought of themselves. To them, our family name only meant greatness, and I was born into this world for the sole purpose of being the single greatest pure wrestler alive as decreed by God himself... at least, that's what I was told. And yet, no matter how much I busted my butt, so matter how how I climbed, it was never enough. Success that any of you three would have been proud to flaunt in front of the entire world just meant that things were 'too easy' for me, so the goalposts were moved. Whenever I was closing in on championship gold to cement their claims, mom and dad claimed I should have been aiming for more prestigious gold. I started my career off undefeated for a full calendar year against the very best that all of Europe had to offer... but I was told I shouldn't have even let any of those opponents get a single shred of offense in.

It's funny, looking back on all of it... my parents thought that if they broke and reforged me over and over again, eventually I would truly become the perfect wrestler. A machine the likes of which Gavin, Syren, even Selena could never hope to hold a candle to. That's why they kept dangling their love like a carrot over my head and telling me I just needed to reach a little higher. I say it's funny because it feels like that's exactly how things have been going for me here in SCW, except replace my parents with CHBK and the likes of all of you. As Selena has been more than happy to point out, my singles record is far from desirable and I've had more setbacks than I would've liked... but we've all been there. You can't tell me that Selena Frost or Syren have always been these perfect, unstoppable wrestlers from the day they first set foot in the ring. They've lost, they've picked themselves back up, they worked out the kinks in their game and came back stronger than ever.

So why is it that I can find myself in that same position and be brushed aside when everyone has always been more than happy to give the two of them the benefit of the doubt? Why is it that Syren, Selena, even Gavin can just get shot after shot, even when they've had their setbacks and failures, but it took me over three years to even be given a proper opportunity to earn something on my own once again?”

Amelia voice raises and strains as it becomes painfully clear how much this fact has bothered her, especially considering how hard she's worked in those three years only to be brushed aside and overlooked no matter how hard she pushes herself, no matter how much she fought to try and carry the weight of the world on her back when no one asked her to. We hear her knuckles crack in her lap as her glare becomes more furious.

“That's why I compared CHBK to my abusive parents, because it didn't matter how hard I pushed myself, how much I scratched and clawed and fought tooth and nail to prove anything, I was passed over time and time again by people who had failed where I was succeeding and were still being rewarded for their persistence. Whenever we talk about my persistence, it's always thrown back in my face that I lost this match or that match and don't deserve it. Gavin Taylor can lose the majority of his matches, at least one or two of them to me, and be rewarded with a World Title shot just because he got one win over Syren with help. Syren can be locked out of the World Title picture until she clears a certain goal because of her own Hubris, but she still found herself with opportunities at just about every other title even when she was struggling to find her confidence once again. Even Selena can be shown she's not the all-conquering world beater she thinks she is, but she's allowed to brush it off and keep herself attached to the World Title picture even at the expense of the people who were closest to her because she's Selena Frost, and we're just supposed to accept that?

It took an offer from Frank Delatosso to finally be given the opportunity I have earned several times over by now... and I claimed it with nothing more than my own two hands. Ask Kemal, ask Shaun, ask Glory... I beat them with nothing more than my bare hands. No help, no stolen contracts, no insisting that a rematch had to cut in on what someone else had rightfully earned instead of taking that shot at a different time.

But I don't deserve to be here, right?

That's what you really want to say to me, right Syren? You're trying to hide it beneath this helping hand that you've never offered to me before, not even when Ravyn was trying to undermine your desire to earn your way square by playing her head games with me. I bet the two of you have had a real good laugh watching things between Luz and I reach the same point they did between the two of you once upon a time, just as she predicted. Amelia gets to be lost in Luz's shadow just like Ravyn was lost in yours, right? Well, last I checked Syren, Ravyn eventually found her own way to the World Title, proved she was every bit your equal in the ring... so why can't I do the same?

Oh, right, it's because you think I made the same mistake you did once upon a time... and yet, I clearly recall how well that worked out for you.

I'm not going to sit here and shove Infamous back in your face, Syren, but considering how many times you rode the power CHBK had even back then to the very top, I hardly believe you're in any position to tell me I made the wrong decision listening to someone who's actually opening the path that others believe I don't belong on. You've always made such a big deal out of wanting to be seen as one of the very best wrestlers to ever walk this Earth, Syren, but that doesn't entitle you to play hypocrite when, even now, you take advantage of your status as a legend and a Hall of Famer to demand more, and more, and more. At what point is it enough, Syren? At what point do you finally stand aside, accept that you've held the top prize here more times than anybody else probably ever will, and happily support those who want to follow in your footsteps? For how much you try to tell the world that you've changed, that you've turned over a new leaf, you're still showing an awful lot of greed by insisting your time isn't over yet when people like me have been working so much harder than you but are held back because your name, your status, automatically gives you priority and entitlement over anybody else. Syren, aiming for your ninth World Championship... what about me, still carrying the future you abandoned while trying to get my first?”

Amelia lets her words linger for a moment, the shadows left by the dim and broken lighting making her look far more dangerous than she's perhaps ever looked before. Where once we could have expected a young woman who was broken and questioning herself, now sits a warrior who knows she's going to have to fight harder than she's ever fought in her life and is more than ready to give even more than that.

“Gavin Taylor... I want to make this clear right here and now: I am not in this match to help you. Up to this point, we have been allies of convenience, fighting to try and preserve the one-on-one match we were originally supposed to have here in Melbourne. We could have succeeded in this task if you had just listened to me, someone who can call herself a World Tag Team Champion and one-half of what everyone still says is the greatest tag team in SCW today, despite the rifts. But no... you had to march to the beat of your own drum, hope someone else would be able to bail you out when you got yourself in a jam, and come Hubris, we're now in a situation where you can have that to your heart's content.

I hope you don't think that's going to stop me.

The painful reality, Gavin, is that you have what I want. We could argue semantics for an eternity about how you earned it, but the fact of the matter is, you are the SCW World Champion. You have the title that is the key to finally ending this game I've been forced to play for my entire life, and now that I'm so close, I can't afford to let you keep living this delusion any longer. I don't care if you want to bury me beneath your entourage like you did to Syren, because I will find a way out. I don't care if you think I can do all your dirty work for you, because the second you are within arm's reach of me, I will not think twice about choking you out and raising that title high above my own head. Even if this had just been between you and me, this scenario wouldn't have changed... all it's done is give you more ways to try and slip away with something I don't believe you deserve more than I do. But it's not going to work, Gavin... not when I'm so close, not when I've become the version of me that I should have been all along, the version that can and will overcome your tricks to reach the top of the mountain, no matter what it takes.”

Again, the warning lingers for a moment as Amelia lowers her head, likely thinking about the only other person she hasn't addressed yet. Slowly, she stands, the flickering light above her finally shorting out to leave us in even more darkness than we were already experiencing. If anything, we can almost feel the temperature in this old locker room having dropped several degrees, a chill running up our spines as Amelia lifts her gaze to us once more.

“Selena Frost... once upon a time, I did believe. Even when I shouldn't have, I chose to believe, I chose to put my faith in you. When you and Deanna turned Luz and I back in our very first World Tag Title opportunity, I trusted in you to tell us when you believed we were ready, as a thank you for trusting in us to put everything going on at the time regarding ownership of SCW on the backburner and just competing. When Luz and I invited you to our wedding, even when we knew what people might think given your attitude and where things stood between you and Deanna at the time, it was because we believed you deserved to have one moment that wasn't about you for a change to reflect on where you were going and whether or not it was worth it. Even when we stood across the ring from one another in the finals of the Trios Tournament two years ago, I made it clear to you that I still believed...

As it stands, I've got enough self-respect to admit that I may have been believing in a fraud this whole time.

You took issue with the fact that my team only won Trios over yours because Blake Mason got involved... and because I was not proud of that, I chose to wait until I could prove that whatever I chose to use my contract on was something I had well and truly earned. When I finally cashed it in, confident that I could defeat Cid Turner and become World Champion, you interjected and destroyed that confidence, not because of anything to do with Trios, but because you had to be the one to dethrone Cid, you had to be the one I faced with the title on the line. You told me I should've waited until you got the title back... at a time where my Trios contract was going to expire if I waited any longer, because I know you wouldn't have settled for challenging him in the main event of a Breakdown for that title, you would've demanded it be on pay-per-view.

You, Selena Frost, have proven yourself to be the kind of self-centered egotistical bitch that gives my mom a run for her money, building me up just to tear me down. Let me ask you an honest question: say I did let my Trios contract lapse and gave you your World Title match with Cid. Would you have made it up to me by giving me a shot at it, or spat in my face because I made the mistake of trusting you and letting that contract go to waste? Or, here's a better question... you say I don't belong here, that I'm not ready. Were you truly ready when you first found yourself in the main event picture?

Was Syren?

Was Gavin?

You can shove my failures down my throat all you like Selena, but you are not responsible for the woman Amelia Nevado is today. I got to where I am in spite of you and everyone else. You didn't hold my hand and guide me to greatness, Syren didn't encourage me to become the best version of myself, Gavin sure as hell didn't put me on a pedestal and tell the world that I deserve far more than I've gotten. I took it upon myself to fill the void that all of you left behind, carrying this company on my back by putting on the best damn wrestling matches anybody has ever seen. Even Syren would be lying to herself and the world if she claimed she didn't have to dig down deep and remember who the hell she used to be just to survive our match back at Under Attack!

You, Selena... you've become no different than Gavin, than the person you claim Syren still is, than every single person you once took issue with because you proudly proclaimed they didn't make it to the top the right way like you always did and you would push yourself harder to fix that and give SCW a World Champion it could be proud of! You've become the very thing you once told me you hated more than anything else Selena... a hypocrite.

Just like Syren, who had to try and shove me out of the picture because her rematch was more important.

Just like Gavin, who had to rely on others to get him that very title.

I'm not here because someone interfered on my behalf and handed this to me, I'm not here because of a rematch that's far more important than the efforts of someone who fought to get here, and I'm certainly not in this match because I had to steal from someone else's hard work to validate my claims of being ignored and overlooked. I am the only person in this match who truly earned the right to be here, on nothing more than my own talents.

I'm also the only person in this match who hasn't been a World Champion before... and that, alone, is proof that I want this more than any of you could ever comprehend.

I'm not the same Amelia Nevado who let Syren get one over on her at a pivotal moment in my career, or let Selena walk all over me because whatever friendship and respect we once had never mattered to her in the first place, or put up with Gavin's nonsense just because I had to carry him across the finish line and make him feel like he mattered. You aren't going to find any nerves or crisis of faith of self-doubt when that bell rings on Sunday night. Not when I know, and have proven in the past, that I can defeat each and every one of you, and I've only gotten better since then. Hide behind whatever excuses you want to protect your fragile egos, because I'm coming to the Marvel Stadium as the wrestler I should've always been since day one... the woman who was put on this Earth for the sole purpose of proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I am the best wrestler alive today, period.

By the end of Sunday night, when Hubris goes off the air, Melbourne, Australia will bear witness to my ascension, and when all is said and done, these are the only words that will echo in every waking thought the three of you have for weeks and months to come.

Here is your winner... and new SCW World Champion... Amelia. Nevado.”

Amelia stands there for a moment, as if she's daring anybody to challenge that claim and make a liar out of her. There is no doubt, no nerves, no fear... just a woman who knows she belongs at the top and is finally going to seize her moment no matter what it takes. We briefly see her look down at her taped wrist once again, as if something beneath it might bring all the doubts back to the surface, but she audibly exhales through her nose, nostrils flaring, before nodding to herself, as if to confirm that this is the path she needs to take. With that, she turns and takes her leave, and we're left alone in the ruins of what was once a locker room, perhaps a visual indication of how far Amelia's willing to fall into darkness so long as she can become the light she was always destined to guide herself out on her own terms.