The Rivals

||Anita||
As we stood backstage all I could think of was Paul. This whole excuse of his sounded ridiculous. Barbra has an IQ of about twelve, what on earth could she have over Ace to make him pull something that crazy? I couldn’t focus as we walked out, but I did notice that Cody was giving me the strangest look I’d ever seen. Was he actually concerned for me? Cody had been such an ass this whole time, there was no way he had a real emotion, like say, sympathy. As we stood ringside I tried to focus on Quinn’s match, but Cody wouldn’t stop looking at me.
“Alright, I’ll bite, what is it?” I said finally, not taking my eyes off Quinn.
“You look so sad.”
“No shit Sherlock.” I snapped.
“I told you that you weren’t ready for all this stuff with Paul. I assume you heard his cover story.”
“The B.S. about Barbra blackmailing Ace?”
“Yep, I didn’t buy it either.” He said.
“Wait, how did you..?” I turned to him. “How do you know that?” Cody looked guilty.
“I may have overheard it.” He admitted. I didn’t know what to say, so I turned back to Quinn’s match. She was dominating, no surprise there, but when Camacho grabbed her leg I lunged, only to feel someone push me back. I watched as Cody went over and knocked his lights out. I went over to help but then I saw her.
Barbra was walking down to the ring. All I saw was red as I ran over and was about to knock her teeth out, but my back screamed out in pain and I had to stop. She smiled at me.
“Decide you didn’t want to hurt the girl Paul actually loves?”
“I’m going to rip your face off and shove it down your throat.” I growled. She smirked at me.
“No matter what you do, it won’t make Paul love you.”
“Paul loves me more than you can even imagine. At least I don’t have to blackmail my boss to get him to pretend to like me.” I snapped.
“Well, he still did it. And he didn’t tell you. Seems like something you’d let your girlfriend know about.” I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. Barbra was right, why wouldn’t Paul tell me that? I would have dropped my job in a second to keep her away from him.
Before I could knock Barbra’s teeth out Quinn came flying through the air and did it for me. I stood stunned and looked up at Quinn, who smiled at me. I looked down at Barbra as Cody ran up to me.
“Are you alright?”
“Physically? Yes. Mentally? Not so much.” I replied. Barbra was out cold and I was pretty sure her nose was broken.
“Kick her ass Bobbie!” I turned to see the fans cheering for me and smiled and gave the obviously K.O.’d Barbie a sharp kick to the gut and smiled.
Damn that felt good.
I looked up to see Quinn standing victorious and was about to slide in the ring to congratulate her when Eve flashed up on the titantron. Oh shit, now what? She held some papers in her hand and I felt my heart drop. I saw my name on them.
“Now Bobbie dear, we can’t have you rampaging through the place just because you’re angry about Justin cheating on you with Kelly. Not that I blame him.” A hush fell over the arena as I felt my eyes tear up.
“Why? Why are you doing this?!” I screamed. Eve just shrugged.
“Because it’s fun. Besides, Justin was way too good for you.” I was scared to ask what the papers were, but Eve caught me looking at them and smiled wickedly. “Curious Bobbie dear? This is your match for tonight.”
“What part of ‘medical leave’ do you people not understand?!” I demanded. “Let me spell it out for you. I. CAN’T. FIGHT.”
“Oh yes, you are. John cleared you to fight tonight.” I felt my stomach sinking. Laurinaitis would never risk me like that, the first time I’d assumed he was just being a dick. But now Justin’s excuse was starting to look more and more plausible.
“Alright, what’s my match?” I asked. Eve grinned.
“Well, I wanted to make it interesting, so you have a gauntlet match. Your three opponents are Jack Swagger, Dolph Ziggler and…” She paused for dramatic effect.
“Are you planning on waiting until I’m 100, or are you going to tell me?” I snapped. Eve was upset I’d taken the spotlight from her, but she let the snub go.
“Well, just for that, you don’t get to know who your final opponent is, but anyone who lets you win without trying their very hardest, will be fired.” I felt a sinking feeling as I guessed what she would say next. “And if you lose you and Quinn will be fired!” I looked to Quinn, who was as worried as I was. “Oh, and to make sure this is fair for your opponents, Quinn is banned from ringside.”
“You little….” I ground my teeth together to keep from calling her every cuss word known to man; Quinn looked worried, but was trying to hide it. But I didn’t blame her. Gauntlet matches are near impossible when you’re in the best shape of your career, but with an injury? I had no chance.
A gauntlet is when one person, me, has three opponents back to back, no rest, no stopping, and I had to pin all three of them to win.
I was fucked.
We cut to commercial and Cody and Quinn accompanied me backstage. Phil was there and carried Quinn off so it was just Cody and I. He seemed just as pissed off as I was.
“They can’t do this.” He muttered.
“Well, they just did.” I sighed, plopping down on a bench. “What did I do to her to make her hate me this much?” I asked the air in front of me. Cody sat down next to me.
“I want to know what they have on Johnny to make him agree to this insanity.”
“I know.” We both turned to see Paul standing there. I felt my heart shatter just looking at him. Cody shot up and immediately got in her face.
“Because you made up some shit to make Ani love you after you banged that little slut of a diva!” I got between then and pushed Cody back.
“Well, I’m not the one who teamed up with them so I could steal a girl from her boyfriend!” Paul snapped. I froze.
“You filthy-” Cody screamed. I turned to him.
“Is that true?” Cody stopped and looked down at me. He looked ashamed, but didn’t answer. “IS IT TRUE?!” I shrieked.
“How do you think he got to be your bodyguard when Teddy knows how much you hate him?” Paul said.
“Ani, I had to-” He started. But I held up my hands and he stopped.
“Don’t speak to me.” I heard Paul chuckle and spun around and shoved him. “You either.” I felt my eyes sting with tears. “I never want to see either of you ever again.” And I ran off to the woman’s locker room, slamming the door to see Quinn, standing with Nattie, Beth, Sarona, and A.J. Quinn looked at me, more than a little concerned, but I gave her a look that said ‘don’t say a word’ so she just put up her hands in self defense. “What are you all doing here?” I asked, grabbing my ring gear and starting to change.
“What Eve and Barbra are doing is sick, so we’re going to be ringside with you.” Beth answered.
“I might be banned, but they’re not.” Quinn finished. I blinked a few times, not believing what I was hearing. They could all get in serious trouble for this, maybe even get fired, but they wanted to help me? I was overcome with emotion and hugged all of them.
“Thank you.” I whispered through the tears. I didn’t know how much they’d actually be able to help, but I would happily take what I could get.
They all changed into their ring gear and accompanied me out to my music. The crowd went crazy, cheering for me like they never had before. I felt like I was going to cry again as I slid into the ring and did a back flip of the ropes to let the audience know my back was better. Well, better than it had been, but this would still take a miracle. I rolled my neck as Jake (Jack) strolled out, acting like the arrogant idiot he is. He got in the ring and smiled at me.
“Try not to let me pin you too easily.” He whispered. Great. Nick (Dolph) and Jake hated Paul, and Cody for that matter, so there would be no love loss here. We locked up and he immediately overpowered me, tossing me back first into the corner post. It felt like a steel bat being taken to my spine. But I dropped to the floor when Jake lunged so he went face first into the corner post. I would need all my speed to beat him, so I wasted no time. I pulled him up and dove at his legs, sending his face right back into the post. I then, with some difficulty, climbed up and wrapped my legs around his neck and tried to roll him down so he’d hit the mat, but he was so much bigger than me that he just chuckled and flopped onto his back, crushing me under him and going straight for an ankle lock.
I couldn’t breathe, Jake was smothering me and I was going to pass out if I didn’t get out of this. So I did what I do best, I took my free foot and smashed Jake right in his manhood with it. He dropped like a hotcake, clutching his crotch as every guy in the arena winced. I pulled him to his feet and hit a hurricanrana and went for the pin. He shoved me off of him sending me flying and almost landing outside the ring. I leapt back to my feet and stared him down. I was already tired, I didn’t know if I could finish him off and beat two more people. He was a little slow getting back to his feet and I saw an opportunity. I did a back flip and pushed of and hit him square in the jaw. He stumbled into the ropes where A.J. and Beth pulled his legs out from under him so he landed straight on his face. They flipped him over and I raced to the top rope and hit a 450 splash, and pinning Jake. Finally, after what seemed like forever, I heard the magic word “three” and rolled off Jake. My back already hurt like a train had hit it. I used the ropes to get back up and waited as Nick’s music hit and he sauntered down to the ring. It reminded me so much of Cody that it pulled my heartstrings. How could he team up with Eve and Barbra? I knew he was an asshole, but if he really cared about me why would he hurt me like that?
My rage sent adrenaline rushing through my body light lightning as I met Nick in the center of the ring. He smirked at me before we locked up.
“So I heard your single now. You know, once you lose your job, you’re going to need a sugar daddy-” I didn’t let him finish as I gave him a giant right hook to the jaw. It dropped him straight to the mat and I went for the pin, but he flipped me over and tried to pin me. I kicked him in the face and got my shoulder up while he went reeling backwards. My back was not thanking me for that one. While he was stumbling backwards cradling what I was pretty sure was a busted nose I gave him a nice leaping roundhouse to the face. His hand took a lot of the hit, but he was in a lot of pain. I could tell his nose was definitely broken and I felt a little bad, but then I remembered my job was on the line, I could apologize later.
I got him in a choke hold and he tapped within three seconds.
Pansy.
I rolled my shoulders, utterly exhausted and in a world of hurt. How in the hell could I take on another superstar? I leaned on the ropes, unable to hide my fatigue. The girls were getting the crowd behind me, but I knew that I would need an honest to God miracle to beat this damned “mystery opponent” As the stadium held its breath we waited as Eve came on the titantron again.
“Well, well, well. Miss Bobbie, I wasn’t expecting you to make it this far!”
“As usual, you underestimated me.” I shot back.
“But you don’t look like you’re doing too good. Maybe I should let your little girlfriend Quinn fight this next guy for you.”
“Lesbian jokes? Don’t even get me started on that one Eve. You and Kelly spend more time together than most married couples.” Eve turned bright pink and squirmed. I wondered for a second if it was true as Eve snarled at me.
“We’ll see if you’re still so cocky when you don’t have a job! But don’t worry, I’m sure the local New Orleans inbred brothel can pick you up!” I felt anger ignite a passion in me. No one trash talks my city. ever.
“If anyone works in a brothel, it’s the Queen Hoeski herself! So why don’t you come down here and say that to my face!” Eve sneered, not a good look for her.
“Don’t worry, your last opponent can do that for me!” Then she was gone. I felt my heart race as we waited. Then I heard his music.
No, this wasn’t possible. I couldn’t hurt him!
I watched in horror as Paul walked down to the ring.