Post by "Ginger Ninja" Molly Hatchet on Dec 17, 2022 11:59:06 GMT -5
12/3/2022-Reno-Nevada
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It ate at Molly Hatchet, the pain of the loss. Stitched and bruised, she walks this familiar street in Reno, thinking about those final moments of the last Uprising Revolution of 2022. She remembers leaping and spining in mid air, catching Griffin’s head and smacking it on the mat… making the cover. 1-2-3, new Uprising World Champion.
She clutches her arms tight to herself, fighting tears. It was a proud moment for her, standing in that ring with her arm raised by her best friend. The two of them went to war for the gold and somehow, by some miracle of fate, she’d managed to beat him. Then suddenly, they were torn apart, attacked by vultures in the waiting.
Molly had forgotten about the enemies she made on her way to the top and as she was held in a choke hold, powerless to stop, she watched them destroy Griffin. By the time she’d broken free, it was too late. He was down and out. Such was her concern that she ignored them to check on him only to hear something even nastier. The bell rings as Chris Mosh cashes in his title shot.
The rage consumed her, but after the battle she’d just fought and the assault that had been endured, it was not enough to keep her going. Blackness consumed her and when she awoke in the trainer’s office, she was no longer Uprising World Champion. She wanted to scream, but instead grabbed a camera and made a declaration towards the new “champion” and posted it on youtube for the world to see.
Molly smiles as she remembers it: uprisingfed.boards.net/thread/819/bannockburn-on
Rain began to fall as people pass her by, her hoodie pulled up in a way that kept her identity largely unknown to them. She stops as she realizes where she stands. Fizzy’s Liquors on 5th street, a place she once frequented anytime she came to Reno before sobering up. Molly reaches into her pocket and pulls out her sobriety coin chain, looking at it with sadness. The young yet old in spirit Ginger wanted a drink so badly to numb her pain. One bottle of whisky would do it, surely. Molly enters the store.
She strolls down the isles, shivering slightly as the temptation is so very overwhelming. So many bottles of spirits, cheap, tacky, and potent as well as beautiful, expensive, and richly colored. Molly settles for the middle ground, a bottle of Jameson as big as her calf and almost the length of her forearm, filled with a dark, heavy whisky that’s popular the world over. She places the bottle on the counter with a thud.
“Brown bag it please,” She asks the clerk.
The old man nods and asks, “Rough night, young lady?”
“Aye… very,” Molly says as she produces her card.
He studies the card, stops, and looks at her face. Her eyes are downcast with shame.
“It’s been a long time, Ms. Hatchet,” he says with a small smile, passing it back.
“That it has.”
She never knew his name, only caring for what he peddled. Her eyes slowly look up and make contact with his gaze. There was no judgment, no sanctimony, just a little sympathy.
“They robbed you of that championship you know,” he says as he bags her bottle and sets it down.
“What do I owe, sir?” She asks.
“Nothing. It’s on the house. Just don’t wake up with the bottle empty, ok?”
Molly nods and sighs. Pity. That was the last thing she needed. Reaching into her pocket, she slams a twenty on the counter, swipes the bottle, and storms out of the store. Her anger had been reawakened. Maybe the shopkeeper was being kind? Even if that’s so, she was too pissed off to recognize it.
In her travel on foot, she finds one of her old haunts, the Amarillo Apartment complex, long abandoned but somehow still standing all these years later. She’d parkour and get drunk with friends here for hours at a time back in the day. Tonight she climbs the fence alone and makes her way up the fire escape to the roof. It had such a great view of Reno. There she sits. Finally alone with no one around, she pulls her sobriety coins out of her pocket and sets them down beside her.
“Goodbye sobriety,” she says softly as she twists the cap on the Jameson.
The alcohol only touches her lips for a second before it’s violently removed from her hand. In fact, it wasn’t just removed, it was kicked and sent flying off to crash on the streets below.
“You stupid little bitch,” says a deep, modulated voice to her right.
Molly turns, wild eyed as a boot comes straight for her face at high speed, followed by a loud smack and blackness. She dreams in this state of unconsciousness. It’s not a long dream, but she lays on what feels like a white cloud, looking up to see an angel descending upon her.
“Oi… am I dead?” she asks the winged specter, silhouetted by light and her own blurred vision.
As it draws closer, features become clearer until the angel hovers above her and it’s then that she sees the face of Valkyrja, her freckled face framed in red and looking back at Molly with great sadness in her eyes.
“Jag är besviken på dig, älskare…” she says softly, pecking a soft kiss upon her lips before all turns black.
Molly sits up, shouting, “VAL! WAIT!!!”
She reaches up with hands that are cuffed, finding herself in the passenger seat of a rather fancy, high-tech vehicle. The Ginger Ninja suddenly realizes that it’s traveling at an incredible amount of speed, surrounded completely by darkness and streaks of light in a myriad of dizzying colors.
“We’re almost there,” came that modulated, dark voice again.
Molly looks at the driver. He or she? She couldn’t tell their gender as they dressed completely in black leather with a red-visored motorcycle helmet. There is an almost unnerving quality to the person that set her ill at ease.
“Tha’ fuck is goin’ on?!” she asks.
“We’re taking a trip to the future, Molly, one where you don’t finish that bottle and made the best choice…” The stranger finally says.
“Tha’ hell we are! This is madness! Take me back ya’ fucker or so help me I’ll rip yer gizzards out and feed ‘em to ye’ one by one!”
There is a mechanical chuckle from the driver. Molly reaches for their throat, only to get zapped by some sort of electric shock.
“Just sit back, shut the fuck up, and enjoy the ride.”
“FUCK YOU!!!” Molly starts kicking at the door violently, trying to break it open.
“Will you stop making an idiot out of yourself?”
“This is kidnapping, fucker!”
“This is an intervention, one that you’ve desperately needed for a long time coming.”
Suddenly the rainbow starfield breaks and with a shudder the car re-enters reality on a long open highway. At first, it looks like the long stretch of highway between Reno and Las Vegas. Molly’s clearly disappointed in what she sees.
“This is tha’ future, yeah? Looks like tha’ fuckin’ desert and same old stretch of road that’s always been here. Tha’ fuck is yer game, future man? Ya’ gonna’ take me to a ‘spaceship’ next and try ta’ ‘probe me’ then dump me dead carcass in a ditch? I’ll cut yer nuts off and feed ‘em to ye!”
The figure just shakes their head.
“I can’t fuck you and if I wanted you dead, then you’d be so and this whole thing would be pointless.”
It’s then that Molly notices subtle differences. The street lights look different, more angular with much brighter lights. As they pass billboards, the advertisements are backlit screens peddling various products and services. Cars on the road look different as well, many of them looking either extremely simplified or a style she could only describe as retro-futuristic. Older vehicles sport heavy modifications that involve tubes, circuit lines, and boxes decorating them as if they were some sort of radical conversion.
Then she sees Las Vegas on the horizon, looking even brighter and more neon lit than ever before…
Massive holographic projectors paint the town with advertisements, beautiful visions of art, logos, and the like. As they roll into town, Molly can’t help but be mesmerized by it all. She forgets that she’s a kidnapping victim and gets lost in the wonder and spectacle, pressing her hands against the glass.
“It’s… this is beautiful,” she says softly.
“It’s Vegas circa 2050,” the driver replies flatly.
“How can you be bored of this?”
“Underneath the gold and glitz is a hive of scum and villainy. When we stop, I’m going to let you out, but you’re going to have to stay close and not diverge from the path I take you on.”
Molly glares with dagger eyes at the stranger.
“Fuck you, I’ll turn ye’ in to the authorities!”
The driver slips a hand under the sleeve of their jacket and presses a small button on a device, the cuffs vanishing from Molly’s hands. She blinks several times, then looks at the figure in black.
“Do that and you’ll never get home again, Molly. I have the keys to this AXT Griff and there are no spares.”
“Tha’ AXT Griff! I was competin’ fer one of these!”
“Yes you were. There was a second one slated for destruction after some contest where an idiot traded it for some supremely useless prize. I chose to take it for myself rather than let this second prototype go to waste.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m from the future. Duh. Now let’s go.”
It was then that Molly noticed that they had parked in an alleyway behind what she quickly figured out was the Sands Expo center, but heavily renovated and reconstructed. The stranger motions for Molly to follow and the two walk up to a backdoor with a rather high-tech lock, multiple cameras, and some sort of scanner that Molly couldn’t tell anything about. The figure in black holds up their left arm and with a flex of the hand, power cuts to all of the devices and the door opens.
“What’d ya do?”
“I hacked their systems. We have 30 minutes before they figure out that the cameras and scanners are now stuck on looping feedback.”
“Damn future, ye’ be scary.”
The two enter the building, pulling the door shut behind them, and Molly could hear the familiar sound of crowds cheering through the walls. Apparently there was some massive event going on here. They walk the halls, dropping behind the cover of boxes, wall insets, and even into a closet or two to avoid guards. It was almost as if the stranger knew where each and every person was.
“I’ve ta’ ask ye’ somethin’” Molly asks in a whisper as they duck into a closet, waiting for a guard to go by.
“What is it now?” the stranger replied, their modulated voice volume cut just low enough for only Molly to hear.
“Why are ye’ doin’ this? Won’t showin’ me tha’ future cause paradoxes and such?”
“Time is fluid. If you go to the past or the future, it becomes your present. Time fractures and splinters. Think MCU but even more complicated.”
“Ah, so if I did somethin’ that changed tha’ future or past, it’d just make a splinter timeline and mine would be fine?”
“Yes, unless you alter things so significantly that the timeline and universe around it are broken. The future is much more malleable than the past, however.”
“Then how are ye’ showin’ me this if it’s not written?”
“Alternate timelines are a fun way to look at potential outcomes if you know how to traverse to them. The AXT Griff was the only way I could do that.”
The stranger looks up and opens the closet door, the two heading back into the halls once again. It becomes more and more apparent that Molly’s future tour guide is preoccupied with something. They seem to be concentrating, as if trying to remember fine details. She notices an open door leading to a balcony, the crowd cheering loudly as announcers commentate on what could only be a wrestling match. As they seemed to stop, Molly slowly slips away and into the open door. What could a few minutes hurt?
The balcony is clearly some sort of VIP section, with several individuals dressed to the nines in wild fashions that made her stand out that much more for her plain attire. No one seems to notice her at first as she walks to the edge, looking down at a huge crowd watching a fight between a clearly cybernetically enhanced man and a heavily tattooed woman. Molly had to blink for a moment because she could swear she was watching a long, blond-haired Melinda Rhodes… but it wasn’t.
The woman moved much like her, but faster and hitting the borged up man with some surprisingly devastating lefts and rights. She ducks and weaves around the big man’s lumbering metal arm swings, suddenly leaping up and catching him with that infamous Shot through the Heart cutter! The impact is thunderous and impressive, the big man pops up and flops on his back, with the tall tattooed blond rolls him over and hooks the leg! One! Two! Three!
The announcer shouts to the crowd over a high tech mic, “AND THE WINNER OF THIS MATCH VIA PINFALL… LANA RRRRHHHHHOOOOODDDDEESSS!!!”
Molly blinked and broke into a smile, “Holy fuck, Lana grew up ta’ be like her mom! That’s wonderful!”
Suddenly a metal hand grips her shoulder and she’s spun around by a guard.
“Excuse me, but you don’t look like you belong here,” he states, then adds, “Where’s your ticket?”
Thinking fast, Molly fumbles with her pockets, trying to think fast.
“Oh fuck… I know it’s in one of these pockets…”
“Get that trash out of here!” a particularly gaudy looking woman with a wild haircut that Molly could only describe as being like a cross between a pompadour and flock of seagulls haircut, dressed in a nearly see-through plastic red dress lined with neon lights on the seams.
“Oi… ye’ look more like somethin’ in a trash bag than me, ya’ daft fuckwit!”
The guard is less than impressed by the comeback, as is the eccentric patron.
“Alright, let’s go,” he grabs Molly’s arm and the Ginger Ninja fights back to little avail, feeling as if she were landing punches and kicks on solid metal.
As they step into the hallway, the guard is attacked with a hard strike to the throat followed by his head being slammed into a wall with enough force to dent his forehead in. The stranger had returned.
“I told you not to stray!” they snap at Molly.
Before any more words can be exchanged, the guard swings at the stranger, who primarily relies on kicks and their left hand to block and strike. With a sudden flip over the big man while twisting in mid air, she takes his head and twists the neck with a snap accompanied by what sounds like grinding metal.
“Fucking idiot!” the driver says to Molly as they heft the large guard’s body up. They sling him into a janitor’s closet.
“Now the time-tables are off! We have to hurry!”
“Ye’ killed him!”
“Maybe, but he’d have done the same to both of us. Now let’s go!”
The two move at a quicker pace now. They happen upon a female guard who immediately pulls out an electric stun baton and attacks. The stranger ducks and weaves, blocking the hit with the left arm, a soft clink hurt on impact and following up with a vicious kick between the woman’s legs followed by a standing dropkick to the chest that sends her flailing back. The guard goes for their radio but is stopped by a swift running kick to her face! Molly knocks her clean out before she can call anyone. The stranger gathers up the body and hides them behind a stack of crates, injects something with their left finger into her neck, and covers her with a tarp.
“Ye’ kill her too?”
“No, she’ll wake up in an hour unaware of how she ever got there.”
“Why couldn’t ye’ do that for tha’ other guy?”
“Too much borg, not enough meat. He’d have shrugged a sedative off like it was nothing. We’re almost there now…”
The two quickly move along and step through a door out onto a service platform overlooking a huge crowd standing before a large stage that is laser lit with video walls and graphics playing across the stage floor itself. Front and center of the stage is a large podium with a small gold star trophy bearing the World Series of Wrestling 2050 logo! That same graphic plays across the screen. It seems that they’re in mid festivities. The stranger locks the door to the platform behind them with a device pulled out of their belt, then they pull a small device that unfolds into a visor. It’s then handed to Molly.
“Have a seat and watch the stage,” the stranger tells her.
Molly puts the visor on and sits on the edge of the platform, legs dangling from under the railing as she looks down at the stage. The visor instantly zooms in as we suddenly hear an old classic plays over the house sound system. Journey’s “Separate ways” plays to a cheering crowd as out steps a significantly older, white haired Griffin Hawkins, dressed in leather and denim, sporting a band shirt she’d never seen before. For such a high end gala event he was quite casually dressed in Molly’s opinion.
“LAS VEGGGGAAAAAASSS!!! WHAT IS UUUUUPPPP??!!!” Griffin shouts at the crowd as his music dies down.
He’s all smiles as he approaches the podium and sets the microphone in the rather fancy holder.
“It’s been a hell of a night and It’s been my honor to host and induct so many people into the WSOW Hall of Fame tonight. Next up is a dear friend of mine, known her almost since she began in the wrestling business and had the proud honor of being there to see her final match in the biz! It’s my privilege to introduce you to the latest induction to the class of 2050, MMMMOOOOLLLLLLYYYY HHHAAATTTCCCHHHEEEETTT!!”
#THAT’S ME, DESIGNED TO PISS YOU OFF!!!!
“Designed to Piss you off” by Pain plays over the sound system as the stage turns green and black and a Hatchet Clan banner graphic flutters across the wall panels. Through the opening between them steps an woman with red and gray hair, a freckled face with age lines that are in keeping with a very healthy fifty year old woman. Dressed in a simple hooded black dress is none other than Molly Hatchet’s future self stepping out onto the stage. The present version of her stares on in quiet disbelief at the scene playing out before her. Is this the real life or is this just fantasy?
The gracefully aged Molly steps up to the podium, looking out across a crowd of both familiar faces and new ones alike, smiling brightly as she breathes it all in. She quickly wipes at the moisture building in her eyes, overcome with emotion for a moment before suddenly snapping out of it with a slap of her hand to the podium and a chuckle.
“Thankee kindly for introducing me up here tonight, Griff. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the best friend anyone could ever ask for and truly a grand example of a wonderful human being. Anyone who says different is a git and a liar,” she says with a little chuckle.
“Oi! It’s bloody dusty up here, enough to make a woman misty-eyed yeah?”
Old Molly quickly wipes at her eyes, still chuckling a bit.
“When I started wrestling, I was nothing to anyone and unprepared for fame. I’d left behind a brutal life for something I thought would be better and at first, it wasn’t by all that much.”
Though there was a bit of a Scottish accent still there, you could tell that time had managed to tone it down and refine it a bit to something much more clearer. Somehow, the older woman seemed to stand a little taller and carried herself with a maturity that her younger counterpart could ever hope for. The old Hatchet Clan chief clearly had accomplished much, given that she’s on a stage being honored on this future night. Her presence is commanding despite her stature and a modest boost with a step-stool behind the podium.
“Aye,” she continued, “Twas a long time ago when I came to America and turned to professional wrestling. It wasn’t without it’s downs, but certainly it came with many ups. Most of my life, I was hard to understand for most, not just because I was Scottish,” she adds with a little chuckle, “but because I never knew what I really wanted from it. Then suddenly everyone knew my name and I was like, ‘tha’ fuck? How’m I sa’ bloodae’ special?’ this wee bonnie Scotswoman without a clue or a care in the world became a household name. No bloody way, but here we are, 40 years later celebrating me for whatever reason.”
A little giggle passes her lips as she says, “No accountin’ for taste, yeah?”
There’s a few laughs from the crowd.
She looks at the front row where she sees the influences in her life like Griffin Hawkins, Chelsea Skye, her wife Valkyrja Lindstrom-Hatchet, James Spade, Ronnie Barnes, Lexi Gold, Lexus Van Drachenberg, Atara Themis, Raion Kido, FM Young, and many more, aged but healthy. The crowd consisted of her life staring back at her, though there are a few noticeable faces missing from the crowd, causing her to mist up a bit.
“There’s two people I really wish could be here tonight, but can’t for obvious reasons… My teacher, Rory Fitzpatrick who passed away two years ago at the age of ninety-seven,” She looks up at the ceiling and continues on, “Thank you so much for everything you taught me, Rory. You were a blessed father and even though we grew apart near the end, I still loved you very much.”
Old Molly looks back to the crowd, sadness in her eyes.
“...and Melinda Rhodes…”
Young Molly watching gasped and said aloud, “Mel’s gone?! but…”
“...Oh Rebel. If not for you, I’d have never continued my journey as a wrestler or made it to where I am now. Rest in power, dear sister. You won every battle in your life, but cancer took you from us way too soon.”
There’s a short moment of silence observed before she continues.
“I think if not for the World Series of Wrestling and my time in Uprising, taking over the world one Revolution at a time, methinks I’d have faded away to nothing really. Who would have thought that thirty-some-odd years ago today that taking a chance would have lead me here?”
A small smile crosses her lips.
“I can remember signing up for This Is Awesome’s WSOW on a lark in the early fall of 2022… or was it late summer? Bah who cares. I didn’t know how much this was going to change my life for the better. I met some wonderful people through it such as Harvey Marx, Peter Vaughn, and Allen Chaney, and strengthened relationships with people I already knew, like Raion Kido, Vhodka Black, and Dane Preston. I will always remember that competition, even though I didn’t win it, I gave those who did all the fight in the world.”
Old Molly picks up the trophy and looks upon it with great pride, the stage lights reflecting off of the chrome gold surface onto her face. She raises it up high.
“And to those who kept reinforcing that I’m nothing but a shit wrestler, look at me here and now today. Multi-time world champion, WSOW 2050 Hall of Famer, and a success despite how much you tried to absolutely tear me down and make a joke out of me!”
She lowers the trophy back down, nodding slowly.
“Aye, I may not be wrestling anymore and I may not be the greatest wrestler in the world, nor am I pretentious enough to ever make such a claim, but I am much more than my haters ever said I’d be. I won’t name them here, digging up bones of hatred on such a wonderful night. I overcame hate, addiction, pettiness, and my own limits to be here tonight before all of you, accepting this high honor.”
“I stand here as an affirmation not just to myself and my abilities, but to those who believed in me even in the dark times when I was at the bottom of bottles and slowly destroying myself every which way I could. I stand here not just because I’m strong, but because my friends, loved ones, family, and fans were strong enough to keep faith even when I’d lost mine.”
Old Molly tapes a fist to her chest, then kisses two fingers and points to the crowd.
“Thank you all so very much. I love all of you and will cherish this treasure for the rest of my days.”
She turns away, applauses in her ears, only to stop and lookd back with a bright smile, adding, “I guess the best ginger won after all, yeah?”
The crowd gives a cheer and a louder applause to the newly crowned Hall of Famer and finally she leaves, the music playing once more as they set up for the next inductee. Molly suddenly hears a long, heavy sigh and looks to her right. The stranger had removed her helmet, revealing red hair that is significantly streaked with grays. Molly recognizes her own face, but bits of metal suck out along the jaw and one side of her head, clean shaven to accommodate the weird implant. Both of her eyes are black with red dots serving as pupils.
“You’ve two options,” she says, her voice still deep and modulated, “You can either pick up the bottle again and end up like me, a ruined and broken thing or you can do the right thing, stay sober, and end up having your very own hall of fame moment.”
Molly looks at her older, cybernetically enhanced future self.
“What happened to ye’... ta’ me in yer time?”
Cyborg Molly looks back down.
“I finished that bottle, got piss drunk, and then got another the next morning, multiple bottles on the flight home, and I kept drinking at the bar after. I was making up for two years worth of not drinking. I came home to Valkyrja and she saw that I was drunk and immediately gave me what for. I cursed her out and got struck. We fought…. I backhanded her and she fell and hit her head on the table… didn’t get back up… She was paralyzed because of me! I hurt her.”
She rubs her gloved hands together, uncomfortable as she tells the story.
“From there my life spiraled out of control. I was fired from Uprising after it got out that I had abused my girlfriend and that my alcoholism was once again out of control. Chelsea helped me for a time, got me into shooting pornography for a living. It wasn’t the life I wanted, and I coped as well as one would expect. Ten years in, during one of the shoots, I overdosed on heroin and died.”
Young Molly looks at her cybernetic self with a mixture of horror and shock.
“Yes… died. When I awoke, apparently my body was taken and used for experimental augmentation surgery.”
“But why would anyone do that?” Molly asks, unable to mask her disbelief.
“You know that box you tick on the driver’s license that says you’re an organ donor? Yeah in the future, corporations will take advantage of that, keep your body on ice for awhile, use the organs up, and then whatever remains is theirs to play with. This body got drawn on a lottery for an experimental augmentation program in the 2060’s and was taken off ice.”
“Oi, that’s… that’s very fucked up… So… how did ye’ get the AXT Griff?”
“I nicked a time displacement device from my time, 2073, and used it to transport myself back in time to the moment right before it was to be destroyed as someone traded it in for some lousy prize on a contest. The displacement device can only do so many jumps, but the AXT was far ahead of it’s time and much more powerful than my device. Speaking of which, we need to go. When the power runs out on the TDD, I will either return to my time or vanish from the time stream entirely.”
“What do ye’ mean ye’ll vanish?”
“I disrupted the timeline, but the truth is I don’t mind fading from existence. If I can give myself another chance through you, then so be it. I would rather not exist than be this… corporate owned thing that I am.”
She taps her metal hand and looks back to Young Molly.
“We’ve to go. Time is running out.”
Cyborg Molly rises and holds her right hand out. Her younger counterpart takes it and they both head for the door, only to hear heavy thudding on the other side.
“Shit,” says Cyborg Molly, “We’ll have to find another way out!”
“Ye’ mean ye’ dinnae’ have a plan B? Fuck, even future me isn’t good at planning shite out!”
“Yeah, shut it.”
The cyborg pulls back her sleeve to reveal her metallic left arm and pushes a button. A little projector pops out of the wrist, creating a 3D hologram of the Sands Expo center. Swiping her finger through it as if it were a cell phone screen, she brings it to where they are. After a few seconds, she snaps the lid on the projector shut and grabs Molly by her arm, pulling her along just as the door breaks down and several guards rush the scaffold!
Several darts fly at them, narrowly missing as they make their way up a railed stairway to the roof access. Immediately one of those darts hits Cyborg Molly and she convulses and twitches as several hundreds of volts coarse through her body!
“F-F-FFFU-U-U-UUUUCCCKK!!!” She thrashes and suddenly goes over the edge of the roof!
“NOOO!!!” Molly screams, reaching for her but she isn’t quick enough, watching as her mechanical future self plummets for what feels like an eternity. It’s a surreal moment for her, so much so that it’s a surprise when she too gets hit with a dart. She doesn’t go over the edge, but falls to the gravel madly spasming for a moment before everything goes black.
She awakens to a splash of water in her face. Coughing and sputtering, she shakes her head as suddenly a gruff voice questions her. Everything is a fog to her, everything coming to her as if murmured and slurred speech. As her eyes begin to focus on the blurry image of a man in a suit sitting before her, the words begin to make more sense.
“...ur in a great deal of trouble young lady! Impersonating a celebrity, breaking an entering, assault and attempted murder, data breach! You’re facing a heap of charges! Who sent you to the Expo tonight?!”
Molly tugs at her arms, cuffed behind her back on the table.
“Fuck, lad… could ye’ uncuff me hands and give me some water?”
The man quirks his brow. More of his features come into view as she regains more of her focus. The man has graying black hair styled in what she could only think of as a short business mohawk of sorts, dark tanned skin, possibly of middle-eastern descent. His right eye glows blue, the left a natural brown, with his right hand clearly a simple mechanical one. He sports a gray business suit and black tie, a rather fancy gold and glowing neon blue Las Vegas police detective’s badge. The look on his face says it all; he’s a by the book, no-nonsense hardass.
“Name your employer, accomplices, and the reason the intrusion and we might accommodate you, Miss…?”
“Hatchet.”
He looks at her for a moment and smirks.
“Yeah right and I’m the President of the UCAS.”
“UCAS?”
“United Canadian American States. The sedative must be still affecting you. You’re clearly an impersonator and while I’ll admit that’s one hell of a face job you’ve had done, you look like she did about thirty or so years ago maybe. You picked the wrong decade to base your face on.”
“Well, I’ve ne’er been told that I’m bad at bein’ meself, but there’s a first fer everythin’ I s’pose.”
He glares at her.
“Ma’am, this is not a game. People were hurt. There’s a guard with a broken neck in critical condition and if he dies, you’ll be charged with murder. Start answering my questions. What were you doing at the Sands Expo tonight?”
Molly tilts her head with a furrowing brow of concern.
“I donnae’ get a lawyer or representation?”
“What rock have you been under? We abolished lawyers in the early 40’s!”
“Oi, so we’re in tha’ Back to tha’ Future future then? Oooooo! Do ye’ have those things that turn trash and bits into gas fer yer car?”
He slams his hand down on the table, rising to his full and rather imposing height.
“Look, are you going to stop playing games and start answering my questions or will we have to hook you to the chair?!”
She blinks at him, confused.
“Tha’ Chair?”
“Interrogation is a formality only. When a suspect is being uncooperative we hook them to The Chair, a memory extractor that has an unfortunate side effect of firing off every neuron in the human brain to great, painful effect. There’s still litigation on whether it’s humane or not, but it’s just a little too good at it’s job. Out of any criminal that’s been processed through the extractor, we have had a 98% conviction rate. Now, answer my questions or we’ll rip the answers from you!”
Molly’s always suffered a bit from Oppositional Defiant Disorder and this man has ticked every single one of her boxes. She tilts her head, smirking with a little twinkle in her ye.
“Go ahead motherfucker… What can ye’ do ta’ me that life hasn’t already done?”
He nods, turns, and opens the door.
“Take her,” he says to the guard and steps out.
A burly man walks in with a stun baton in hand, takes her by the arm, and yanks her from the chair. She suddenly jumps up and headbutts him hard enough to break his nose, sending him staggering back. She then backs him into the wall with a shoulder ram, then sprints out into the hallway, bowling over the detective at the same time. As he fights to get up, she headbutts him hard enough to knock him dazed. Molly squats over him, fishing through his pockets for a set of keys. Finding them, she feels for the familiar shape of a cuff key and unlocks her cuffs.
“All these years and they’ve not upgraded handcuffs,” she says with a smirk.
She looks up to see cops in riot gear rushing from both ends of the hallway. Thinking fast, she ducks into a nearby office, locking the door and shoving a heavy desk up against it. Several heavy thuds hit the door at once. It wasn’t going to hold long and she has to think fast! The window is shuttered with metal slides she couldn’t break, clearly a result of the lockdown. The vents are too small. She’s trapped and panicking.
“Fuck!!! FFFUUUCK!”
Suddenly she hears glass crackling and breaking as the shape of a fist is dented into the metal shutter. Suddenly it explodes inward and there’s her cyborg self looking a bit bloody and worse for wear hanging outside. She holds her hand out to Molly.
“Come with me if you want to live.”
Nodding Molly takes her future self’s hand and the two are suddenly rappelling down the side of the building at a fast rate on a grapple line.
“Ye’ve been waitin’ ta’ say that haven’t ye’?” Molly asks with a chuckle.
“Aye…Affirmative…” came her future-self’s stoic response, followed by a little smirk.
Bullets start whizzing past them. Molly looks up to see a pair of police officers hanging out of the window, shooting at them with high-powered handguns. Cyborg Molly does her best to shield her past self from the bullets, a few hitting and pinging off painfully.
“Fuck I wish people would stop shooting me! It’s a waste of bullets and just bloody painful!”
They hit the ground in a narrow ally, police officers closing in from both sides.
“What are we gonna’ do?!” Molly asks in panic.
With a smirk, her cybernetic future self hits a button on her keyfob and the AXT Griff decloaks before their eyes, the doors opening up. Wasting no time, they both slip into the vehicle and with the start of the engine and a push of the button, they vanish with a bright flash from time and space, leaving several confused police officers standing in the alleyway.
“WAAAAOOOOoooooo!!!” Molly shouts, punching the roof of the truck with excitement, “That was bloody amazing!!! We got away!!!”
“Grand,” says the cyborg, a bit of blood trailing the corner of her mouth.
Molly blinks and then notices that her right hand is clutching at a small spot under her ribs.
“Oh fuck, yer bleedin’...”
“Lucky shot, penetrated the armor. I just have to get you home… get you back so that you have a chance…”
“Yer dyin’...” Molly says with such sorrow in her voice.
“I was dead long before today, child. It’s time I started acting the part, yeah?”
“No… ye’ saved me life!”
“I saved myself from this… at least I hope I did.”
The Cyborg version of herself looks back at her past self with a small, wistful smile.
“Take the wheel dearie… we’ll be popping back in soon…” she says just before suddenly passing out.
Gasping, Molly takes the wheel just as they pop back into reality, speeding down the highway. She can’t keep control of the AXT Griff like this very well. Her future self’s metal foot was completely relaxed and weighing down the gas pedal. Molly tries to put her foot down on the break, but it’s too little, too late, as they hit a raised concrete divider, the vehicle launching off of it and slamming into a street light with violent force, completely wrecking the engine and warping the frame. Molly’s forehead slams into the dash just before she’s violently struck with the airbag! Darkness takes her again…
She awakens to the smell of fire and burning. The airbags have deflated and the AXT is now on fire! Molly looks to the driver’s seat and sees her past self, paler than ever and staring open eyed at her. Feeling for a pulse, she gets nothing. Molly weeps uncontrollably in sorrow, closing those eyes staring back at her so eerily. There wasn’t much time for mourning, however, as she had to get out before the fire consumes the vehicle completely!
Molly unbuckles her seat belt and when the door doesn’t open, she kicks it several times until finally, the mechanism gives out and it snaps open. She practically falls out of it and rolls away as suddenly it explodes in a violent fireball. She falls to her knees on that pavement, staring at the burning wreckage, now twisted even further as tears fall.
“I’ll save ye’ by livin’ me best life so that ye’ll ne’er suffer this fate again. I promise…”
She then notices her surroundings… It’s that damned abandoned mall parking lot again! She knew exactly where she was. Molly walks away from the wreckage and heads down the highway. She’d realized her wallet, ID, cell phone, and everything else was left behind in the future. She’d have to deal with that, call it a wallet theft. She’d hold her thumb out and hitchhike for a ride back home, getting picked up by a nice truck driver along the way. An hour’s ride would find her being dropped off in her driveway right off that same highway. She’d given the driver an autograph and a promise to repay him for his kindness at the first opportunity she had.
Molly takes the long walk down the winding path that led to her front porch. She gives a knock on the door, hoping that Val was there. A few knocks and suddenly a light turns on. The sound of latches giving way gives her relief. The door opens and there’s a confused Valkyrja looking back at her, bleary-eyed and wearing nothing but a night shirt.
“Älskare, vad gör du här? Du är ti-” Val begins, but is interrupted by a deep, passionate kiss.
Molly pushes her into the room, never separating their lips as she pulls the door behind her and makes passionate love to Val right then and there. She meant every word of the promise made to her future self. From here on, she’d live the best life she could in every way. Enjoy everything, lament nothing, and give more… It’s not all about championships and glory, but love and happiness as well.
We’re family. Love one another and stop letting hate and anger get the better of us, yeah?