The Dangers of Potential

by **krzy** Tue Jan 25, 2022 6:07 pm

Tailcoat Val, often seen seated comfortably in front of a wall that bore no less than a half-dozen television monitors, tonight sits cross legged on the concrete floor. There’s several sheets of paper scattered around her with various charts and diagrams sketched on them. It feels dangerous to even guess what they’re meant to depict--like you’d become partly responsible for whatever schemes those schematics birthed.

She’s scribbling on papers stacked in her lap while her phone replays her match against Riot. The bout was but a few minutes long, and from that Val has gleaned enough information to fill several of those sheets of paper with notes--back and front. The way Riot shifted her weight when she walked, the flex in her muscles when she hit a move, the macro and micro changes in her expression when she was in pain--every conceivable detail a person could imagine, then those that come intuitively only to people like Val (and perhaps simply only to Val) have been painstakingly documented.

Ashley…you’ll have to excuse me for coming into our match unprepared.

She pauses as the video shows her getting curb stomped again.

Her expression is unreadable as she motions to the papers around her.

Normally my Arsenal would have been sent to your doorstep to help me compile your dossier. As you can see, I’m presently short staffed. Though I must say it was quite refreshing to experience you for myself, and I got what I needed from our match nonetheless.

Val smirks.

Ashley, you have potential.

Did she actually smirk? Because in a flash her expression is cold. Maybe that smirk was just a subconscious twitch of her lips.

Unfortunately, potential in this division is a death sentence.

She says it so matter-of-factly that it’s clear she believes what she’s saying--it’s not needless sensationalism for the sake of drama.

Were my full Arsenal at my disposal, Regicide’s main event would not have happened.

Ashley Rayne--my earliest, and perhaps greatest, failure.

Amber Reed--now a victim of her own greed.

That match was a disgrace.

There’s a darkness in her eye and a flash of anger in her tone as she delivers the line.

Regicide was headlined by two women who pillaged and plundered the division for all it was worth.

They robbed it off its soul.

They stripped it of its identity.

Ashley Riot, understand that Regicide was main evented by two women who also had potential, and they each destroyed the division to reach it.

They got their accolades, and then they left.

They left, and then they were celebrated.

They were celebrated, and no one cared to ask if the price of their success was too steep.

I care.

She clenches her jaw.

Potential is a dangerous thing, Ashley. It's been distorted to mean growing bigger than the division then moving on to perceived greener pastures.

Had Ken Donahue not interfered with my initial testings, I would have dealt with this issue two years ago.

Had I not been attacked, I would have dealt with this issue two months ago.

I will not relent, but I fear it may be far too late to salvage this rubble. I have no choice but to lay waste to what remains so that I may finally rebuild the division into what it should have always been.

Then it will cease to be the stepping stone and become the destination.