Catalina's Insane Grudge(Greatest Hits)

“Welcome back to Super Smash Cat: Champion Edition!”



Catalina Cortes spoke and her breath gave life to a Twitch stream, a Just Chatting note, and a few dozen viewers. ZedHotleysWeiner antagonized the chat as always, but Cat left him alive and unbanned for sentimental reasons.



She adjusted her tank top, covered in the rhinestone-bedazzled likeness of Christopher Marlowe, a custom and unreplicatable piece. The blood on the hairline stones was barely noticeable. Her pink cat-eared headphones were as obvious as they were obnoxious. The Carnage World Championship sat strapped around the headrest of her chair, slightly askew, to the opposite side of her ponytail. The brown roots did their usual pre-supershow creep in, destined to be banished by bleach before the kick-off.



“Sound off if you’re psyched for Incursion,” Cat demanded.



“Lol no,” said ZedHotleysWeiner, before a banning. Cat’s show of power made the rest of the chat more agreeable, transforming them into a chorus of yeses and excitement gifs and exclamation points.



She unstrapped her championship and sat it in her lap, stroking it like some gilded pet. “Me too! Not only am I overwhelmed, I’m extra-whelmed to headline a huge crossover show, even if they declined my stipulation to melt the loser’s title down and pour the molten gold on them like Khal Drogo did to Viserys Targaryen in that show nobody wants to talk about anymore. There need to be stakes! Sloane Taylor and Catalina Cortes both enter Ohio, but only one leaves. The other one has to get a job in Ohio’s historically strong insurance industry. And speaking of insurance and masterful segueways, I hope yours is paid up, Sloane. Because even if I’m not allowed to kill you, I’m going to kill you.” Cat hit a key and the screen flashed.





“A lot of you are probably thinking,” Cat said, preparing to correct a hypothetical and nonexistent strawman. “Catalina Cortes and Sloane Taylor have never faced off before, this is some epic-ass shit. How can I show support for Cat during this trying time by speaking with my dollar?” Another key, another flash, Cat pointed to the link as she continued.





“Definitely, without a doubt, one-hundred percent epic-ass shit. But you are wrong about one thing, uninformed person. Catalina Cortes and Sloane Taylor HAVE met before. Allow me to set the stage. Act of Defiance 2020. The Ultraviolent Battle Royal. Three people won or tied or whatever. I was the runner-up. And guess who eliminated me.” The feed of Cat slid into one corner, the bulk of the screen cutting to footage of Act of Defiance 2020 and the battle royal, a chaotic melee of weapons and brutality. Sloane Taylor flew off a chair, catching Catalina with a Skyfall Stunner, enough to send her over the top rope and score an elimination. The footage stopped there, with Cat again dominating the screen, staring directly into her webcam. “Okay, so full disclosure, that’s what all the Samuel L. Jackson staring gifs on Twitter were about. I understand how this looks. A person might review this information and be inclined to think that, because of this one moment, I am holding some sort of insane grudge against Sloane Taylor. But that’s ridiculous. There’s no way. None.”



She shook her head to further emphasize the point. “Nope."




Back to the feed, Cat’s tone changed. It was more apologetic, conciliatory, persuasive even. “Look at this from my point of view. I made my debut at Chaos 86, less than a month before.” Another cut followed, to Catalina from a year earlier, scoring a win over Jimmy Allen following a Blaze Kick. Her hair is more perfectly bleached, her ring attire a half-ice, half-fire theme echoing Shoto Todoroki and her own parents. “Who is that adorable baby with the pinchable cheeks and the deadly kicks? Side note, if anyone pinches my cheeks, I will kick them to death.”



“See, Sloaney-Baloney,” Cat continued, the footage transitioning back to a slow motion recap of her tragic topple over the top rope during the battle royal. Hugging her Carnage World Championship, Cat sulked. “My master plan was to win a title my first month in the company and then… Profit, I guess. Cluster-fudges are the absolute worst though, because they just let everyone in, nobody cares if anything gets broken, and then the people who work here have to clean up after. But I’m a grown-up and I handled it very maturely.”



The feed cut to Chaos 88, to Catalina sitting in the upper deck of the Carnage arena. She pointed to the Carnage-Tron as it flashed CATALINA CORTES, and waved a sign that read BOO-LTIMORE. Back on Twitch, modern Catalina laughed. “I forgot how funny that sign was. Like, I took Baltimore and put boo in it. This is also back when I would never say my name, I would just point at the Carnage-Tron and then it would flash CATALINA CORTES. The Legion eventually learned to sing along. The post-ultraviolent mourning period was a difficult time, but I worked through it by not addressing my rage and redirecting it at people who were in no way responsible. What has two thumbs and loves mental health? This bitch right here!”



Her thumbs pointed back to herself, and the show continued to in-ring action from Chaos 89, with Catalina taking on Zed Hotley. “That’s Zed,” Cat explained, her voice oozing with disdain for the leopard print lummox. Past Cat uppercutted him in the groin and rolled him up with a magistral cradle, scoring a three-count. “And that’s me punching him in the nuts and winning. The best part. After this, he gets beaten up by a group called the Monstimals, but the footage is too graphic to-- Oh shit.”



The footage continued and the Monstimals did indeed beat up Zed Hotley, finishing the assault by dropping him neck first onto the steel railing outside the ring. Present Cat winced and paused it. “Okay, so nobody report that, please. Technically, you could argue that my match against Zed left him too weak to fight back. Which makes sense, because my offense is devastating and also I uppercutted his balls. See, Zed and Kieran Overton of the Monstimals were the Carnage Tag Team Champions. But since Zed is a gigantic dipshit, Kieran thought it would be ideal if he could share the titles with his actual teammates. With Zed shelved, then-company president JC had no choice but to let Overton pick his own replacement partner. He picked his bros, of course, and he almost got away with it. But then… A new challenger appeared.”



An anime portrait of Christopher Marlowe appeared. It was of mid-level DeviantArt quality. Hearts surrounded it, with a swooning cherub dubbing him Marlowe-simpai. Cat gazed dreamily at her work. “Maybe not new. Marlowe was Zed’s original partner, injured under mysterious circumstances. Spoiler alert, it was the Monstimals. Now Marlowe was out for revenge, for both Zed and himself, only he was suddenly partnerless. But then… A new-new challenger appeared!”



Then there was footage from Chaos 90. Catalina and Marlowe stood side-by-side in JC’s office. Marlowe begged for a chance to avenge his friend. Cat demanded a title opportunity from the president and a soy mocha from Marlowe, whom she thought was an intern. Present Cat put her elbows on her lap and interlocked her fingers beneath her chin. “This is the Kit-Kat Connection’s meet-cute. Were we ever that young? Also, I compared JC to King K. Rool here, which was a sick burn and should’ve taken off. He threw me and Marlowe into one of those odd-couple tag teams, so that we might be tasked with defeating the Monstimals and getting revenge for Zed. The revenge part I wasn’t super into, but the beating-the-tag-champs part was a sweet deal. But then! A new problem appeared!”



“A cluster-fudge,” Cat said, solemnly. Isolation 2020 came up, in the middle of the tag team gauntlet match. Cat and Marlowe entered in the penultimate spot to oppose Trent Steel and Mac Bane, who were already battered from fighting through two other teams. “Trivia time,” Cat interrupted. “There was a battle royal for a Baltimore City Title shot this same night and I thought about focusing on that and ditching Marlowe.”



The Twitch chat booed and Cat scoffed back. “I didn’t do it! I only considered it, but fortunately, I was guilt-tripped into doing the right thing. And man, did it work out.” The footage cut to Marlowe locking Overton into the Faustian Pact, as Cat did her own Silver Arrow off of a ladder onto both of them for maximum damage. They followed with a double Massacre in Paris to Overton’s partner, before both collapsing onto him for the pin fall. Past Catalina clutched her tag belt and handed Marlowe his own. Present Cat wiped away pretend tears. “Nothing like your first title win. Nevermind, I love cluster-fudges now. And speaking of cluster-fudges!”



The screen exploded into Fiverr-quality special effects, a message to any and all viewers who might indulge in sweets. A plate of cookies, topped with assorted nuts, topped with more chocolate chips, flew through space. It fired indiscriminately on chocolate chips, thin mints, oatmeal raisins, any confection it deemed unworthy to serve as sugar-coated gamer fuel. The screen melted away to an image of Chef Cat, a Jolteon apron over her wrestling gear. She graciously held a plate out, her eyes coveting the cluster-fudges atop it. The link flashed.





Cat’s voice returned, muffled as she chewed her latest creation. “Holy shit, these are good,” she said, the footage fast-forwarding as she ate. “We didn’t just gel overnight, though. We pulled off our first successful defense at Underground: Redemption against Insidious, a cult that I think wasn’t supposed to be a cult?” As she pondered, she took another cookie. “Zed designed us the worst shirts imaginable.”

Almost choking, Cat took a swallow of water. A confession caught in her throat. “Marlowe and I were the champs, and Zed was basically our hypeman, since he wasn’t medically cleared. I spent months thinking he was the third wheel of our gang, and man, was I wrong. But we’ll get there. Because next up we have our first big test as a tag team. Defending against Trent Steel and Zephyr Quinn. You guys know Trent. Won some belts, got some scars. Smells weird. Him and ZQ formed one of those veteran-teaches-up-and-comer teams, but right out of the gate they were gelling better than we were. And to further complicate matters, Zed brilliantly challenged them to a Falls Count Anywhere Match on our behalf. Darkness fell across the land, so I did what anyone would do. I grabbed my Master Sword and prepared to combat the forces of evil.” Another bite, another pause. “Okay, I forced Marlowe into cosplaying as gender-swap Link and Zelda.”



The WAR footage rolled, recapping the Kit-Kat Connection’s entrance. Marlowe was clad in white and purple with gold accents. Cat was dressed in green and brown, and Zed played a somehow even more annoying Navi in a glowing blue jacket with fairy wings. The entrance was complete with a treasure chest for the champions to pull their titles from. Cat watched and clapped like it was live. The chat gave it an average 6/10. “That treasure chest was a great call, because we locked Trent inside while we pinned Zephyr. Fun fact, this match also featured cameos from our next two challengers.”



Cat touched the plate again, but her hands found no more cluster-fudges. Dismayed, she pressed forward. “Chaos 100, the biggest Chaos ever, had us defending against another shouldn’t-have-chemistry-but-somehow-do duo. Silvio Leon, he’ll come up again later, might be a wrestle-psychic. Up to this point he and I were both unbeaten in Carnage(Battle royals don’t count, Sloan, look it up). One of our streaks was gonna end here. Silvio had to shuffle his proverbial deck and find a last minute replacement partner, which was good for us. But then he went and chose Carnage’s resident towering powerhouse super-mutant: Lab Rat King. For reference, King’s six-eight and nearly three-hundred pounds of raw muscle. Christopher Marlowe is five-and-a-half feet of Elizabethan fury and he’s got four inches on me because I’m basically a wrestle-Hobbit. When it comes to in-ring confidence, I typically fake it until I make it, but following this reveal I was not optimistic about our chances. Our big advantage was that we had way more experience as a team, so we leaned into that.”



“Then things got Shakespearean.” The footage jumped ahead to Zed Hotley, unsnapping his neck brace, and spitting into the face of Christopher Marlowe, who was about to leap from the top rope, onto a table holding Silvio Leon. Stunned, Marlowe was unprepared for the subsequent low blow from his former partner, before Hotley suplexed him off the top, to the outside, where he crashed through the table containing Silvio. Both men were left lying by Zed, who soaked up the hatred of the Legion as he abandoned the Kit-Kat Connection once and for all. Cat rewatched the betrayal sullenly. “So that sucked. The third wheel, turns out it was me. Zed and Marlowe had some relationship drama that I was oblivious to, and I got right in the middle when I tried to get Marlowe to pick me, his tag team partner, over Zed, his presumably-other-kind-of partner. Zed took his frustration out on Marlowe instead of me, which was not a great feeling, seeing as how I spent months being a jerk to him and I was partially responsible for his injury. Basically, I was the one who deserved to be suplexed through a table. We somehow squeaked out the victory here, after Marlowe hit Silvio with my finisher and I made the pin. We retained. I was the first person to pin Silvio Leon. Not that I felt like celebrating.”



“You know what’s crazy about low points?” Cat continued. “When you think they can’t get lower and your life can’t possibly get worse, the universe lols. Two weeks later, Silvio broke my streak on Chaos 101.” The recap played, a Starry Wisdom Tornado DDT from the Oracle, driving Catalina’s head into the mat. A three-count followed.



Catalina sighed. The chat offered frowny faces, interspersed with tears-of-joy emojis from the trolls. Cat resisted her urge to ban. “Marlowe wouldn’t make another appearance on Chaos period, so I was all by my lonesome. That gave me plenty of time to get way too far into my head and make myself feel even worse. Technically, there were people I could’ve reached out to, but I needed some time to sulk like a big fucking baby. This was when I noticed that the Legion was giving me less jeers and more cheers.” The chat waited to react this time. “More cheers, goddammit.” Clapping emojis followed suit.



“Thanks, bros,” she said, the beat going on. “Marlowe made one more appearance at Ultimate Carnage 6, just in time for us to defend… And lose… Our tag belts.” The scene transitioned to a blurry recreation of the three-way ladder match from UC6, before fading to black with an error message in red.





Her voice became a monotone. “Oh no, an error, how terrible,” she said “But that was it for me and Marlowe. Our team, our title reign, our friendship. Professionally it was the worst night of my life by a mile. Personally, it’s up there with when my chameleon Mushu died and season two of Scream Queens. My first year in Carnage ended with a shitty whimper, and I felt like tucking my tale and running back home to California. Instead, I stuck around in freezy, rainy, crabby Baltimore. It was really starting to feel more like Boo-ltimore.” Cat frowned, and the screen distorted, her face turning white and ghostly in the transition, interrupted by more red text.





The feed came back upon two mannequins, one clad in a wrestling version of purple ninja garb. The other in an approximation of a white suit, complete with an obnoxious checkerboard scarf. Catalina looked back and forth between the two, sizing them up. “Goddammit,” she grumbled. “Do I go Mileena? Or do I go Kokichi Oma?” Her hands became scales, weighing each option.



“Mutant hybrid clone of Kitana or Ultimate Supreme Leader of Evil? Gotta have some thematic consistency for this show.” Cat stepped back, creating a box with her fingers to frame a visual of each costume. She hmmed to herself and took a yellow legal pad from her desk. The top page was already covered in scribbled notes.



“If Sloane and I were assassin ninja sisters from Outworld,” Cat said, thinking to herself. “She would definitely be the Kitana. I’ve got a history of lowkey evil, potentially demonic luchador blood, and I had to get braces. Maybe she’s more likable, but I’m definitely cooler and more badass. And I already own several pairs of sais.” She fumbled for a pen to accommodate her brainstorming. “Mention a last-minute fans versus sais stipulation, see if it gets any Twitter buzz. Also, setting up a Mileena-Kitana dynamic between me and Sloane opens up possibilities for Jade, Skarlet, and Khameleon later. Could ultimately prove problematic.”



Her jotting stopped, and she turned to the Kokichi costume. “Less obvious dynamic. I guess Sloane would be my Kaito. There’s an astronaut parallel for high-flying, and maybe she seems cool in a vacuum. Like space.” The jotting resumed. “Save that for the promo, that’s good. But comparatively, I’m great at talking, I’m short, and I was really into ska when I was fifteen. And even though I’m not evil, I feel like I could be a supreme leader of evil if I wanted to be. I should talk to dad about loaning me Necrosaur and Los Cerberos if I ever need henchmen. Not now, though. I’m the face of Carnage and I need to be a facey-face. Mileena is the obvious choice."


Cat nodded to herself and looked back and forth, to finalize her decision. Her eyes stopped on the Kokichi costume. “That checkerboard scarf, though.” Her pen tapped the notepad. “Mashup?”



She took a step forward and shut off the camera, the feed fading to black.





The Twitch feed blinked back to Cat in her chair, with a fresh plate of cookies. “So yeah, 2020 was a real emotional rollercoaster that ended by crashing into the goddamn ground. My heart did not exactly swell with optimism going into 2021, but I came back to work at Chaos 104 and I beat Jonathan Willis, one-half of the new tag champions. Then I find out at Chaos 105, I’m facing Trent Steel for a world title shot. Having wrestled Trent Steel’s corpse no less than fifty times in 2020, fighting him kinda felt like going home. Going home and kicking someone you’ve known for years in the face. This is where things circle back to you, Sloane.”



The feed cycled through snapshots from Act of Defiance 2021, with Cat oohing-and-aahing along. The was her Wario ring gear, Silvio again catching her with the Starry Wisdom, Cat catching him with a Cat’s cradle after blocking the Color Out of Space with her knees. The cycling continued to Cat finally hitting the Cata-Clysm on Silvio to win, and closed on her sobbing in the ring afterwards, clutching the Carnage World Championship. “Ugh,” Cat said. “I cry like a goblin. Sorry for the info-dump, Maca-Sloaney-and-Cheese. I wanted to contrast my Act of Defiance 2020 with 2021, and I thought you should know the path I took to get here.”



Cat sipped from a Bulbasaur mug, billows of steam rising from the soy mocha within. Her throat cleared, preparing to deliver her thesis statement. “Okay then, Righteous Gem-Sloanes. You may not see the connection, but I’m freshly caffeinated and happy to help. In 2020, you eliminated me from a battle royal early in my Carnage career. Ultimately, it was a loss I would recover from and not the sort of thing a normal person would fixate on. An early stumbling block on the way to success. A learning experience. But since we don’t know each other very well, I hope that by now, we’ve reached a point where you’re asking yourself one question.”



Another sip and Cat stroked her chin, pondering. “Is Catalina Cortes a normal person? Was this tale of triumph and failure, this journey through friendship and betrayal, these soul-crushing sadnesses and heart-stopping victories… was this all in the interest of full disclosure? Me letting you know my story, so that the two of us might connect? Not just as competitors, not just as champions, not just as rivals. The starcrossed figureheads of our companies, two new and untested champions, more alike than dislike, earning each other’s mutual respect and admiration in a historic contest that will shake both companies to their cores? That’s a very nice thought, Sloane.”



“Or,” Cat continued, holding up her index finger. “Perhaps there’s another possibility. Maybe Catalina Cortes isn’t a normal person. Maybe at Act of Defiance 2020, when you hit your Skyfall Stunner and threw her over the top rope, something inside her snapped. Ever since that night, she’s only been playing at normalcy, with her quirky cosplays and her time-displaced tag team partner. But in the darkest, cruelest recesses of her mind, she thought about one thing. Revenge. Revenge on the person who waltzed into HER company and disgraced her. Everything else has been a facade. Rest stops on the way to her true destination. But Catalina Cortes has finally arrived, Tomb-Sloane Pizza. Do you honestly think this is a coincidence? Are you blind to the fact that forces more powerful than either of us have foreseen, even orchestrated this confrontation, all at my behest? I beat a prophet to get to you, and that is but a fraction of my might. Are you prepared for me to unleash it all against you? Can you even comprehend my true form?”



Cat shook her head, almost sadly. A mournful frown crept across her face. “Oh, Sloane,” she said, her voice breaking. “What have you done?” She buried her face in her hands, to muffle her agonized weeping. It continued. Then continued some more. On and on, awkwardly, as Cat’s hands shook against the release of pent of emotion.



Then Cat peaked over her hands, the wail turning to a snicker. Her hands lowered, to reveal she was biting her bottom lip, an attempt to stifle her laughter. “Sloane, dude,” she said, chuckling. “I’m kidding. No way I’d hold a grudge that long. You’re being ridiculous. Don’t be ridiculous. We’re gonna laugh about this later. It’s all good.” Cat smiled. She offered a conciliatory thumbs up. Another alert flashed.





Her hands went up, a defensive posture, protecting her from a nonexistent argument. “It’s cool. We’re cool. Promise. Hugs!” Cats arms went up, hugging an invisible person, a hypothetical Sloane. Cat continued to glare at the camera, mouth smiling, eyes dead.



The staring and the smile continued. “See you soon, Sloaney!” Cat’s smile vanished a nanosecond before the Twitch stream cut. In its wake, only a single gif was left behind.