Light in the Darkness vs. The Vision

[Wisteria Waltz]

OOC: Timeline-wise, this takes place sometime during the post-RTG break and before the 10/1 Breakdown.
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Rise to Greatness had been an incredible night of wrestling that put on full display the kind of top-tier company SCW truly was.

It had also been a very important weekend for one couple in particular.

A lot of people would be talking about what they saw of The Light In The Darkness that weekend in Detroit: how Luz had outwrestled Glory Braddock, how Amelia had fought off her inner demons and stepped back into the light, how Amelia and Deanna had put on an incredible match in the main event of SCW's biggest show of the year despite Amelia losing the World Title, how Luz had given her all in trying to help Selena keep that match clean regardless of how Gavin Taylor wanted to spin it at the very end, maybe even how Amelia had still come out of that weekend with two awards to her name that made it clear the fans did believe in her... even when she struggled to believe in herself and lost her way.

It truly was a night that neither woman would ever forget... but it was what nobody else had gotten to see that truly defined the weekend for the two of them.

Prior to even the pre-show happening, Amelia and Luz had endured arguably the most difficult battle they'd ever had to face in their entire lives. Months of Amelia secretly pulling a page out of Luz's playbook in a desperate ploy that required her to scar herself permanently just to uphold a facade she hated, weeks of planning, the uncertainty of whether or not they would even make it to the ring to compete on that all-important Sunday night... it had all culminated in their final showdown with the religious lunatic who was so lost in his delusions of grandeur that he never once believed his reckoning would ever come.

What was supposed to be an exchange that would see Luz willingly join the cult that had tormented them even before they knew of their existence while Amelia was returned to their found family (albeit with the intention of literally backstabbing them) had turned into the very foundation The Empire had been built on crumbling before their very eyes. Caleb White, brilliant and manipulative as he was, had found himself beaten at his own game, too arrogant to realize for even a second that Amelia wasn't as brainwashed by his supposed 'divinity' as he'd believed. Luz's efforts to try and pull Amelia out of the darkness that was the New Order were just as much a fight to understand and believe in the sacrifice her wife had made to finally give them a chance at checkmate in this never-ending chess game they were both tired of playing.

Caleb had watched his Empire fall on that fateful day... Amelia slipping Luz valuable information before she had returned to Caleb's flock had exposed the hideout of the cult and allowed the NCA to perform a full-scale raid on Castle Blythe that effectively destroyed any plans the deranged zealot had for his 'brighter future for humanity.' His so-called Elites had been taken down by their loved ones in a furious display of love and protectiveness, with the only downside being that some of them had managed to escape before being properly arrested.

As for Caleb himself?

He had a meeting with Death to learn the hard way that he was never getting into Heaven, no matter how much he believed otherwise as per his so-called divine right he'd convinced himself of.

Rise to Greatness itself could have been an utter catastrophe for Amelia Nevado and La Pequeña Luz, but they still would have considered it one of the most important weekends of their lives... purely because of the fact that they were finally free of Caleb White and The Empire at long last.

They hadn't come out of the ordeal unscathed, however, and it made this post-RTG break period all the more important before SCW picked back up.

Amelia was currently in the couple's trophy room, embracing the fact that they hadn't truly been home in a good while to do a little bit of redecorating. After all, there were some new additions that belonged here: a third replica U.S. Title belt to represent Luz's third reign, a fourth set of replica Tag Title belts (even if that reign hadn't been very long), a replica of the Underground Title (despite Amelia's reign with it being even shorter), a replica of the World Title bearing Amelia's name that could finally hang upon the wall, and the addition of Amelia's two newest awards to join the trophy case: the Story of the Year for her journey to the top of the mountain, and Female Wrestler of the Year.

Amelia wanted to be proud of these new additions to the room devoted to everything she and Luz had accomplished throughout their careers that was all their own, not just because of the legacies they came from... but her smile was bittersweet as she gazed upon the new hardware bearing her name.

While she could give a pass to the Underground Title given the nature of that match and the fact that she hadn't fully fallen yet, the rest left a bit of a sour taste in her mouth. Those had all come as the result of her time with the New Order, when she had the CEO directly in her corner putting her on a pedestal as SCW's greatest wrestler, bar none. The journey that had earned her Story of the Year was not the kind of story she'd been hoping to tell, the fourth run as World Tag Team Champions had started with the most humiliating stipulation she and Luz had ever had to endure and ended because her own hubris from the mindset of Amelia Blythe had finally become the noose that hanged her. As for the World Title?

Selena had been right... Amelia hadn't been ready, and it had nothing to do with her abilities.

She thought back to the words the veritable hall-of-famer had left her with... the acknowledgment that she always had the talent and ability to reach the top of the mountain, that her becoming World Champion never truly was a matter of if, but when. Once she finally got there, however, she had allowed the championship to consume her, the fact that she could finally call herself the best opened doors she thought she'd closed forever within her mind, and the machinations of Frank Delatosso had only pulled her further and further back into the blight on her life that her parents' perfectionist, holier-than-thou mindset had always been.

She had criticized Selena for being selfish, for letting the sheer need to be World Champion once again consume her so thoroughly that she'd become the very thing she once stood against in the business... and yet, by the end of it all, she had become indistinguishable from the devil that Selena claimed she'd become.

“I will get back there someday...” Amelia told herself as she gently ran her fingers along the replica World Title belt. “But this time, I'm going to do it right. When that day comes... I will be ready to be a World Champion everyone can truly be proud of.”

“I believe, mi amor.”

Amelia turned to the open doorway to find that silly grin she loved so much. It never truly dawned on Amelia just how much she would miss such small and simple things like the brilliant smile of La Pequeña Luz until she had to separate herself from it for months while enduring attempts to religiously brainwash her into believing such feelings towards another woman were vile and disgusting.

“And I know I'm not alone,” Luz pointed out as she stepped into the room and slowly closed the distance. “Your siblings believe, mi mamá y mi hermana believe, everyone who we've come to know on this journey together believes in you. And yes, before your brain even thinks otherwise, that does include both Deanna and Selena.”

Amelia opened her mouth to argue that her brain wasn't going to disagree, but she stopped herself from vocalizing the thought. Other Amelia may have been silent ever since Caleb had finally fallen, but she knew better than to assume it meant that part of her was truly gone forever. She wouldn't exactly call herself completely stable just yet, and Luz made it clear she wasn't expecting her to be, and that was perfectly alright.

“Gracias, querida,” Amelia ultimately replied. “I... I don't hear her up in there, trying to insert her two cents into our conversation, but I made the mistake once before of assuming I was fully free of everything my parents tried to drill into my skull and she made the last half-a-year a living mental hell.”

“I'm sorry that I didn't try harder to-” Luz attempted to apologize for the damage Other Amelia had done, but her wife was having none of it.

“It's not your fault at all, Lulu,” she insisted. “I'm the one who was so adamant on hiding it from you, and not wanting to burden you with my struggle when you'd already helped me once before just played right into her hands. You couldn't have known how bad it truly was...”

“I can still blame myself, anyways,” Luz noted, to Amelia's shock. “I'm your wife, Ames. I knew what I was signing up for from the very beginning... I saw how badly you were beating yourself up after I made you taste defeat for the first time in your career, how much pressure was crushing you. I should have been more attentive to what was going on in your head even when I didn't have the full story... but, just like you let Delatosso get into your head with promises of guiding you to the top, I let everyone else get into my head with all this talk of my own future World Champion potential or being possibly the best U.S. Champion of this day and age.”

“We both got a little too caught up in where things were heading that we let the business start to drive a wedge between us without fully realizing it,” Amelia admitted. “Should I call Ravyn and let her have the 'she was right' satisfaction? Pretty sure I still have her number she insisted on giving me.”

“Nah,” Luz waved off the idea. “We managed to figure it out in the end, even if it wasn't pretty... and definitely could've been solved a lot sooner if we didn't have a much bigger headache to deal with.”

“Speaking of... how are you holding up?” Amelia asked, a more gentle and worried tone to her voice than before.

“I should be asking you that!” Luz exclaimed, almost sounding offended at the idea of her wife prioritizing her mental health over her own. “You're the one who actually 'joined' Caleb and had to endure months of his disgusting manipulative garbage just to give us a chance. You're... you're the one bearing the scars...”

Amelia knew what Luz was talking about as her gaze drifted down to her left wrist, where the symbol of The Empire was still permanently branded into her skin. She had grown so used to not seeing it because of taping her wrists before every match or wearing longer sleeves to hide it when she wasn't competing, or just flat-out ignoring it as a 'necessary cost' to do what needed to be done. None of those applied to this moment, as her wrist was bare and the scar was sitting there in plain sight, reminding her of the searing pain she had to endure just to deceive Caleb into thinking she was well and truly devoted to his cause.

“Physically? You're right,” she finally said after a moment. “Probably the only person he's scarred worse than me is his own nephew. But that doesn't mean I can't worry about you too, dummy.”

“I...” Luz started to reply, wanting to sweep it under the rug for right now, but she sighed as she knew that wasn't going to help either of them. “I know... I know we both made the decision and it had to be done. If it deserved to happen to anyone, then Caleb can take that crown straight to Hell with him.”

“It doesn't change the fact that we both took the life of another,” Amelia nodded, moving to gently embrace Luz. They both trembled in each other's arms, the memory of plunging the daggers straight through Caleb's black heart racking them with the difficult combination of guilt for ending his life and relief that he could no longer torment them. Amelia knew that Luz had struggled with believing she'd been responsible for the death of the Empire elite who had spawned their dangerous splinter cell when that atrocity had been committed by Caleb's hand, and Luz had a feeling Amelia had a similar struggle with the one cultist who, accidentally or intentionally, took his own life after Amelia had suplexed him to save Luz from taking the bullet.

There was no uncertainty here... they both had blood staining their souls, even if there had been no other choice. It was a decision they had both made, even without knowing beforehand the other was planning the exact same thing... they could have left it to the NCA agents, as they were trained to kill if there was no alternate path, but they knew it ultimately had to be them who sent Caleb to Hell for everything he'd done to them both.

It was their fight... had been their fight for most of their lives without even realizing it, and they had to be the ones to end it.

“Good thing we've got a break with Rise to Greatness in the books,” Luz breathed out. “We need the time to pull ourselves together so we can hit the ground running when things start back up again. You especially.”

“I... can't exactly deny that,” Amelia chuckled a bit, despite some lingering strain in her voice from wanting to disagree. “I don't know how people are going to react to me finally climbing back out of that pit, and I have a feeling Frank's contemplating petty revenge since I made it explicitly clear I'm done being his puppet and-”

Amelia wanted to continue her rant to get it out of her system, knowing full well from being his 'crown jewel' just how petty Frank Delatosso could be, but as she and Luz slowly separated, Amelia finally realized that Luz's hands and arms were covered in colored graphite powder.

“Cariño?” she suddenly asked. “What's up with your arms?”

“¿Qué?” Luz took a moment to look at her arms, and her mask couldn't hide the embarrassed blush that lit up her cheeks. “Oh! I, uh... might have been working on something...”

Before Amelia could question any further or Luz could even give her a hint as to what she'd been up to, the luchadora's phone chimed with an incoming text message and drew her attention.

“It's Avery,” Luz explained as she looked at the message. “They're at the door with Darius and Evie, wanting to be let in.”

“Then we shouldn't keep them waiting,” Amelia nodded, despite knowing there was still so much more the two of them needed to talk about. Recovering from everything that had happened so far this year wasn't going to be easy, by any means, but Luz and especially Amelia were determined not to let their struggles defeat and consume them, no matter how difficult that fight may be.

Amelia had only spared the trophy room one last lingering glance from the doorway before she and Luz left it to go let the NCA agents into their home. They weren't exactly surprised that the three of them looked a little more tired than they had before everyone had kind of parted ways a bit for this break period SCW allowed for. The trio had likely been running nonstop even after Caleb's demise to truly close the book on The Empire issue once and for all, wanting to be absolutely sure no one was going to take his place and that they had everything they need to deal with the massive influx of arrests they were making, potentially across the globe in cooperation with other governments at this point. All three looked almost relieved to be able to just sit down and relax for a moment as Amelia brewed some tea for everyone.

“How are you both doing?” Avery asked once everyone had a cup and was settled in, getting straight to business.

“Alright,” Luz admitted after exchanging glances with Amelia. “Not fully there yet after... everything, but we're getting there.”

“Trust me when I say we understand better than you think,” Evie replied after a long sip of her tea. “All three of us have been in this line of work for years and taken our fair share of lives when necessary to end a threat... we've all grown numb to what's required of us, but we've all been there with the fallout of our first kills.”

“Especially since you two should have never needed to be in that position in the first place,” Darius admonished them, sounding more firm than he actually was. His gaze ultimately settled on Amelia, in particular. “Especially you, Amelia. That was a very dangerous gambit you pulled that could have cost you your life.”

“I know,” Amelia admitted, glancing down into her tea before she looked over at Luz again. “But I don't regret taking that risk, especially when I know Luz would have done the same for me if I hadn't beaten her to the punch. Something had to be done to finally stop The Empire...”

“And it had to be us,” Luz added. “Caleb's entire plan of 'redeeming himself' so his soul could ascend relied on him 'saving' us... no one else could have done this as convincingly.”

Darius stared at the two for a long moment before he sighed. “I just hope that you never feel like you have to take such a life-threatening gamble ever again. And I've spoken with Dr. Bolton... her door is open for the two of you in whatever form that takes whenever you need it.”

“Especially you, Amelia,” Avery noted, their concern evident above all else. “Between this struggle with an old part of yourself and whatever you endured while in that cult...”

“I can't even begin to imagine how you're handling... that,” Evie added as she pointed at the Empire sigil branded into Amelia's wrist. “I still can't believe that lunatic resorted to branding his followers just so their loyalty could be absolute, and all because Darius and I had used their anonymity while they were out and about against them.”

“Yeah... that was as much a shock to learn as it was burning my flesh,” Amelia admitted, her thumb nervously rubbing along her cup even as she took a drink of tea to try and calm her nerves. “I knew I had a choice to make, though... and if I have to wear this for the rest of my life? It was worth it to finally end this nightmare once and for all.”

“But what if... you didn't have to?” Luz suddenly mused.

Amelia raised an eyebrow at her wife as Luz gave one of her trademark 'brilliant idea' grins before she ran off deeper into the house for a moment. Amelia had a feeling Luz's claims of needing to show her something were related to whatever she'd been working on earlier, and it seemed like she was finally going to have that question answered.

“I've been thinking a lot about this after everything settled down,” Luz claimed as she returned to the living room with a sketchbook in hand. “You don't have to just live with that scar for the rest of your life, Ames. It's your body, your life, and you deserve to be able to move on and finally put this all behind you, just like me. So, I've been thinking... maybe you can get it covered.”

“With what? A tattoo?” Amelia asked. “I mean... it would be one final 'screw you' to mom and dad as the cherry on top, but...”

Any objections Amelia may have harbored towards the idea died when Luz turned the sketchbook around. Even the NCA agents looked genuinely impressed with the colored sketch Luz was showing them: a gold and purple crescent moon inside of a sun, both with feminine faces exchanging loving looks that reminded Amelia a lot of the two of them, surrounding by a starry night sky and wisteria branches.

“It's... perfect...” Amelia couldn't keep from gasping out.

Luz could only smile at the response. She'd been working on this idea ever since Rise to Greatness had ended, feeling that Amelia didn't deserve to have to wake up every morning and see a reminder of the risk she took just so they could both be free. This way, she could hide that painful scar beneath a reminder of their enduring love and the strength it gave to both of them.

Especially since, unbeknownst to Amelia just yet... she wouldn't be getting this tattoo alone.