EXHIBITION CHALLENGE - Lockheart vs. Lucy Wylde

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Lucy was nervous. As she stood inside the Carnage Wrestling ring amid an empty arena, her hands shook. She wasn’t sure why she’d agreed to this ‘challenge’. It wasn’t about a bit of sparring - That was simple enough. And if this can help her get over the slump she’s found herself in over in UGWC since returning there, she’s all too happy to do it.

Her nervousness didn't stem from being in a less-than-familiar location, or the fact that she was completely alone. It came from who she was about to spar with. Her ex-girlfriend. Her friend? She wasn’t even sure where she and Maggie stood anymore, not after Lockheart returned to Carnage all those months ago with her ex-husband CJ at her ‘side’. She wasn’t sure what she was going to be facing here today. For all she knew, it could have been a setup.

She could only hope it wasn’t going to be the same as it was back then.

Looking around the empty arena, she almost felt like she could hear a pin drop - if one were to drop, of course. She smoothed her hands over the material of her pants and paced around the ring, trying not to let her mind wander too far. Maybe that was her problem lately - Too many thoughts, not enough action. Letting out a sigh, she brought herself over to the far corner and sat facing the larger than life Tron-Screen - Staring at the screen in all it’s darkened glory.

And she waited.

Moments passed before the faint echo of footfalls pulsed through the steel and cinder block structure. The gait was best described as a steady walking pace, if not for a tick on the slow side. It was the unmistakable sound of wrestling practice flats and it served to heighten Lucy's anticipation as it grew louder. Lucy could tell that whoever was making these sounds was walking towards the ring, and being the savvy veteran that she is, took note that this person never hesitated, nor paused.

Cloaked in a black jacket with a pull-up hood, the trim and somewhat dainty figure entered the seating area by way of the floor along the side of the entry ramp. Wylde was quick to make out the locks of silver hair that were too long for the hood to contain. Knowing full well of Magdalena's penchant for theatrics and mind games, however, she was hesitant to fall into any sense of relief until she saw Maggie's face and was reassured that Lockheart didn't bring any hidden weapons or backup.

What gave Lucy an immediate pause was the fact that the woman had brought a small box with her and was carrying it in her hands. She walked right up to the ring, yet instead of climbing in, she chose to walk around the ringside area to the timekeeper's table where she placed the box for what could be defined in a loose sense as safekeeping.

With the box in place, the girl unzipped and peeled off her jacket to reveal that she was indeed Maggie, dressed in old ring gear from her pre-Carnage days in a developmental promotion. Her usual high-heeled boots were indeed switched out for standard wrestling flats, which she cleaned off on the ringside apron after climbing up onto the ring. For the first time in what was close to a half of a year, the two women shared glances as Maggie stepped into the ring.

“You’re looking… well,” Lucy said as she cautiously stepped forward, trying not to look as suspicious as she’s still feeling about this entire thing. She couldn’t help but glance around the empty arena once more, expecting something, or someone else to pop up out of nowhere. Finally, her eyes settled back onto her ‘opponent’ as she sighed softly. “How are you doing?”

Maggie rolled her neck to the sides, the tendons and bones popped and cracked. "Ahh well, looks can be deceiving. I'm alive if you care to call it that, and I made it back here. So all things considered I'm extremely lucky if what everyone is telling me is true."

Lucy nodded her head. “Yeah, I guess you never really recover fully from something like that..” She reached up and touched the scar on her neck from the aftermath of her own injury, “If recover is even the right word.”

"You pick up the pieces, and you build something new," Maggie replied as she took a stance across from Lucy at the center of the ring. "And you pray to whatever God or law of nature you believe in that you can gild whatever's left into something that's even remotely close to the original. But no one ever really can. I think that's why they tell people like us to start over."

“I’m tired of rebuilding,” Lucy replied, shaking out her arms. “So are we gonna do this or what? I’m not really in the mood to get philosophical. Figured we could ‘reminisce’ later if we still feel like it.”

"I thought this was reminiscing." Maggie clenched her fists and widened her stance. "But I guess we'll see. It's your move, Ms. Wylde."

Lucy nodded her head and almost immediately the two started circling each other as if the bell had just rung. They started in a simple lockup. Maggie's fingers had gripped Lucy's neck right at the point of her scar. But it wasn't but a split second later that Lucy had pulled Maggie down into a standing side headlock, where her forearm had contact with the side of Maggie's skull and the section of the scalp that was still missing hair from where her scar resides. With a shove-off, there's a brief moment of pause where the two women sense the potential danger for themselves and each other in this unsanctioned contest. But the moment was short-lived as they locked up again with Lockheart giving the side headlock that time. Lucy countered with a back suplex which was then countered with a backflip that had Maggie land on her feet behind Lucy. Lucy quickly threw a back elbow back that connected flush with Maggie's temple. Maggie staggered backward and clutched her head in pain. Lucy hesitated.

"Are you okay?"

Maggie shook out the cobwebs.

"I thought we said we weren't going to stop."

"No, that's what you said. But if that's the way you want it-"

Lucy charged forward and they locked up again. This time Lucy used her momentum and shoved Maggie back into the corner. She drilled Maggie with a succession of hard forearm shots to her jawline. Irish whip to the far ropes was intended to be followed up by a clothesline, but Maggie grabbed the top rope and vaulted herself up, over, and behind the charging Lucy who ran full steam into the turnbuckles instead. Maggie followed up with a kick to the small of Lucy's back and quickly spun through the ropes to the apron where she connected with a rope-assisted gamengiri kick to Lucy's forehead. Lucy backed up a few steps, which gave Maggie the perfect opportunity to test if she still had the physical capability to springboard herself to the top rope. She did, but as she came flying back into the ring Lucy caught her with a swift kick to the midsection that was then followed up with a spine-cracking snap vertical suplex that had Maggie rolling around on the canvas both in pain and trying to catch her breath.

Go for the pin that probably wouldn't have mattered? No. Lucy knew that under normal circumstances it would have been too early anyway. Her instincts wanted her to stomp down on the side of Maggie's head but there was another hesitation before Lucy decided to stomp down on Maggie's stomach instead, to further drive the energy from her body by forcing the air out of her lungs. Lucy pulled Maggie back to a vertical base before drilling her in the midsection with successive knee lifts. She once more shoved Maggie back into a corner and she mudhole stomped Lockheart down to the canvas. Lucy used her grip on the top rope to leverage the force necessary to shove Maggie out to the ringside floor with her boot, Lockheart smacking the thinly-padded concrete with a thud. Lucy sighed as she waited for Lockheart to pull herself back to her feet. When she did, Lucy bounced off of the ropes and did a handstand cartwheel straight into a corkscrew tope con hilo that she calls the Meteor Strike. Maggie moved out of the way but Lucy possessed the precision and agility to land on the padding on her own two feet. Yet she could not expect the quick dropkick to the small of her back that sent her forcefully chest first into the surrounding metal barricade.

The desperation move bought Lockheart much needed time to catch her breath. Lucy was slow to get back to a vertical base as she shielded and checked her windpipe after that near-disastrous close call. By the time Wylde turned, she walked right into a knife-edge chop. Maggie followed with forearm shivs of her own before grabbing Lucy by the back of her head and forcing her back into the ring. Magdalena briefly glanced over at the box on the timekeeper's table before pulling herself back up onto the apron. As she stepped through the ropes Lucy kicked the middle rope upwards into Lockheart's stomach, stunning her just enough to deliver a rope-hung ddt. Maggie rolled around on the canvas and clutched the sides of her head with both hands, and appeared to be in a considerable amount of sharp pain. Lucy's instincts kicked in, and she went for a cover, bobbing her head with what would have been a normal referee's count, and had a genuine bit of surprise when Lockheart kicked out at two. Wylde pulled her hair back and pursed her lips.

Lucy's viciousness and discontent came through as she transitioned cleanly into a series of mounted punches. She punched Maggie in the side of the head until her guard fell down and then switched over to hard downward forearm strikes to the jaw. Lockheart again favored her head. Lucy stood up and waited for Maggie to crawl her way back up to all fours. She bounced off of the rope and caught Maggie in the back of the skull with a leaping spinning buzzsaw kick that she calls the fury brand. Hoping that now she could prove that there was a reason for this to be over, she pinned Maggie again and once more Magdalena somehow kicked out at what would have been two, despite the pain. Lucy could feel her frustration building if for no other reason than having several of these close calls recently in UGWC without the winning record to show for it in 2020. But this time as Lucy went to pull Maggie back to her feet, Maggie caught her with a surprise jawbreaker, snapping Lucy's head and neck backward.

Maggie forced herself up and ran into a baseball slide sweep kick that took Wylde's legs out from under her and sent her crashing down to the mat on her back. Maggie followed up with a quick standing moonsault where instead of pinning she immediately pulled herself and Wylde back to their feet before she copied one of Lucy's moves and drove her down into the canvas with an impressive fisherman's buster. Maggie kept the leg hooked for a pinning combination, but would only get an imaginary two herself. When Lucy pulled herself back to one knee Maggie hit her with a calf-kick and buzzsaw kick one-two combo that she calls the Beat Rush. Another cover, another near fall, and by this point both of them knew that they were fighting for a victory that did not matter as if the world title were on the line.

With Lucy still down, Maggie eyed her up for the finish, a curb stomp that she calls the Lacrimosa. She leaped into the air but at the last moment Lucy rolled out of the way and Maggie caught nothing but mat with the flat bottom of her wrestling shoe. Maggie's momentum pulled her forward but as she turned to charge Wylde she was met with a devastating spear. The damage from earlier crept back into the late stages as once more Lockheart found herself completely out of breath. Lucy crawled to the far corner and used it to pull herself up. She saw Maggie in position and for a moment, considered hitting her with the Keep Your Chin Up running punt kick to the side of the head, knowing all too well that the maneuver could injure anyone much less someone with a recent history of head trauma. But Lucy charged at Maggie anyway, ran at full force, and stuck her boot out intending to connect with Lockheart's jaw. But Lockheart pulled herself out of the way. Lucy kicked the bottom turnbuckle at full force and yelled out. As she turned Lockheart jumped up and grabbed Wylde by the neck and hit her with her very own Wylde Liberation cutter! The finishing move was shared by both Lucy and her ex-husband CJ. Maggie rolled Lucy over and went for the cover:


One!


Two!


Th-no! Lucy threw her shoulder up refusing to go out that way.

Lockheart, having had little left in the tank and now feeling some clear signs of ring rust in the form of a decline in her late match conditioning, knew that she had to go for it all now. She pulled Lucy back up to her feet just to knee her in the gut to double her over. Maggie called for the end as she springboarded off of the middle rope going for the ultimate version of her curb stomp, the Final Heaven. But Lucy twisted her body and caught Lockheart in mid-air, driving her to the mat with her own Wylde Liberation out of nowhere. Lucy thought about going for the cover for a moment but then decided to climb to the top rope instead. With Lockheart still down, Lucy looked back one final time before she jumped and spun herself through the air, driving down on Lockheart's body with perhaps one of the most perfect and fluid double-rotation moonsaults ever caught on film... the infamous Calamity from the Skies. After hitting the true finisher that she has never missed with and that has always won with, Lucy pressed Maggie's shoulders down to the mat and held them there for the inevitable.


One.


Two.


Three.

Lucy sat back on her heels and sighed.

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After what ended up being minutes of catching their breath, and specifically Lucy checking on Maggie to make sure she was okay, the two women sat sprawled in the center of the ring at the center of that empty arena. They both were clutching their water bottles, licking their wounds, and were generally too exhausted to converse at the time. They both knew that they needed a shower and to head home but neither one of them was in any hurry to leave.

And there was still the little matter of the box at ringside.

"So that's what that feels like," Lucy quipped, a tongue-in-cheek response to being able to at least end a miserable year with a hollow unsanctioned and uncounted pinfall victory. "But hey, don't look down. You just proved that you still got this."

Maggie offered a smile that pushed through her exhaustion. "Hey, it might sound a little crazy, but I'm on cloud nine right now. You don't have to worry about me."

Lucy chuckled, “Doesn’t sound crazy at all. I get it.”

Maggie smirked as best she could, her sopping wet hair sticking to the sides of her face. "Yeah, I'd go into more detail but I don't want to get all philosophical about it."

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Bite me."

"I would, but you're engaged."

Lucy sighed loudly and obnoxiously. “Funny.”

Maggie flopped back onto the canvas, having allowed her arms to fall out and spread wide. She stared up at the lights in the warehouse ceiling high above.

"You know something - I've never felt better after just having my ass kicked. It's a bit hard to explain but I haven't felt like myself for a while. But during that match, it was kinda like I knew who I was for a little while. That's the first time I've felt that way in a long time."

Lucy sat up, pulled her knees up to her chest, and nodded her head. “I’m glad. I really am.”

"But if I may say, busting out the 'Calamity' in a sparring match? That's ice cold."

Lucy glanced over at Maggie apologetically only to find the silver-haired girl had been grinning wide.

"Oh really? What's with using my other move on me, huh?" Lucy asked in kind. "I guess CJ must've taught you his version of the 'Liberation'."

Maggie's gaze went back to the lights.

"I mean, he showed me old clips of him doing it from different angles. But he wasn't exactly able to physically train me to do anything. So I guess it's both a yes and a no."

“It’s a damn shame you didn’t learn it the way I did.” Lucy replied thoughtfully, “But either way... It worked.”

"You think so? Cause I could say that there's at least one person out there that can teach me how to do it right. But the last time I asked her... ehhh it didn't work out all too well."

Lucy shook her head. “I wonder why.. But I haven’t taken one of those in a while and yeah... I’d say it did its job.”

Maggie scoffs. "Well, you kicked out, so... did it, though?"

Lucy shrugged. “Next time, keep your grip further down at the neckline - That way you can keep their head firmly against your shoulder when you go down.”

"Ahh." Lockheart sighed toward the heavens. "Fuckin' finally... now you decide to help."

“On second thought… Keep doing it the way you did it.” For the first time the entire night, Lucy cracked a genuine smile. For a moment she reflected on the match and everything that led up to this moment, and at least at that moment, it seemed as if everything was at peace.

Lucy reached out for the ropes and pulled herself up off of the mat. As she did, she caught sight of the little box sitting just outside the ring. She walked over to where Maggie was sprawled out and she held out her hand for her.

"So, are you going to lay here all night counting the lights or are you going to get your ass up and start working towards your real re-debut?"

Maggie raised a limp arm only for it to fall back down to the mat before Lucy could catch it.

"I'm done sulking first. It's so unfair. The ref fast counted. She's biased. She clearly wanted you to win."

"Shut up, I bet I could pin you now and you'd still stay down for the three."

"Ooh, baby." Maggie laughed. "Don't make promises you can't keep."

"Yeah well if your girlfriend finds out you were talking to your ex like this-"

"We're not together right now," Maggie replied quickly. "Amber and I are... as they say... on break."

Lucy frowned. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

"It's alright. It's my fault anyway." Maggie raised her arm to her a second time, and this time allowed her ex to pull her back up to her feet. "She took care of me, around the clock, for months. Then some stuff happened with her parents, she had to go back to New York, and I... I guess I didn't really want to."

Maggie stumbled over to the top rope to fall over on it.

"I know that makes me sound like a complete ass. Because I do love her, and I do want to be with her. But with what's been going on in this fucked up head of mine and everything that's happened, I'm just... I've been terrified that if I quit out on all of this and just move back to New York that I'll never feel like myself again. I just can't keep going on each day looking in the mirror and not feeling one-hundred percent like I know that person. Most of the time anymore I still feel like I'm not her even though I know that I am. I feel like I'm someone else living Magdalena Lockheart's life. I truly feel like an impostor, and It kills what's left of me."

“That’s… Terrible.” Lucy replied softly, moving towards and leaning in beside Maggie. “I can’t begin to understand it, but sometimes you have to do what you feel is right in order to feel… whole again. Changes come, like CJ always says. And sometimes, no - Most of the time they’re necessary. You’ll get there, and only you can figure out what you need in order to get there.”

Maggie nodded her head as she looked out into the sea of empty chairs.

"Yeah, yeah," Maggie replied as she bumped her shoulder into Lucy's. "Now who's getting all philosophical? Jesus. You sound like CJ 2.0, the nicer, kinder version though."

Lucy chuckled. “I learned a lot from him. More than I realize a lot of the time. Like, there’s a time and a place for philosophical talk and before an ass-kicking isn’t one of em.”

"No, you beat their ass first. Then you get all preachy. Good talk, coach."

“Oh for fucks sake. Come on, let’s get out of here… And don’t forget your little box there..” She said as she dropped down and rolled out of the ring, motioning towards the box Maggie placed on the announce table earlier.

"Oh shit, the box-" Maggie's eyes lit up. She slid herself out of the ring and power-limped her way over to the announce table to grab it just so she could turn back toward Lucy and hand it to her right there on the ringside floor. "I was supposed to give this to you... CJ wanted me to give this to you."

Lucy looked down at it for a moment, and then back at Maggie - a confused look on her face. “..Why? What is it?”

"Open it. All I know is that it's for you."

She hesitated for a moment, looking down at the box and then to Maggie and back again. Lucy felt a bit nervous again but managed to carefully pull back the tape and pull open the flaps.

Resting at the bottom of the box was a black wedding band of an old-style, sitting on top of a handwritten note addressed quite clearly to Lucy, and only to Lucy.

Confused, Lucy pulled the ring and the note out of the box. She inspected each item followed by an exasperated sigh.

"I knew it. Damn it I just knew it-" She said so sure of her words that in that moment that she felt like no truer words had ever been spoken. In reality, she was also disappointed to have allowed herself into such a false sense of security. "I should have known the challenge was just another one of his little games. I'm sorry Maggie, but this had his fingerprints all over it!"

Lucy glanced up at Maggie to find Lockheart standing there with tears in her eyes. And for a moment Lucy couldn't comprehend why Magdalena Lockheart would be so upset.

But then it clicked.

The world stopped turning beneath their feet.

Lucy rushed her eyes back down to the note. Folded as it was, she pulled it open and hastily began to read. Her eyes started swelling up just as Maggies did. But each word she read cascaded the effect. Each syllable tore at her soul.

"No no no no no..." Lucy said, scanning the page as fast as she could before her vision was flooded and shattered shards of liquid glass dropped down and mixed with the ink on the page.

Lucy glanced back up at Maggie.

"CJ's dead?"

Maggie stood there, frozen and in shock, a statue that was only kept still by the rapid beating of its pulse. She was silent in the way as if something stole her voice. But to Lucy, her silence told the terrible truth that Maggie couldn't say and that she could not hear.

"I-I'm so sorry Luce-" Maggie finally replied using every ounce of willpower she could gather from the furthest fibers in her being. "I thought they told you."