Somewhere in space.
We’re talking deeeeeep space, not like the space that Jeff Bezos just went up into and was still able to slide in the DMs with those weightless dick pics kind of space. No, this is deep space where the internet can’t reach. We’re talking between the galaxy's kind of space, where the light from stars is still attempting to reach it since their formation billions of years ago.
Dead space.
Space that you’d think was completely empty, devoid of light and matter. But out here instead of there being complete and utter emptiness floats a massive floating tentacle blob entity known as Ammutseba, the Devourer of Stars. One of the members of the Outer Gods of the Universe, Ammutseba sleeps eternally amongst the darkness that Earth scientists might refer to as dark matter at this current point of understanding. And honestly, it’s best that there’s nothing around to wake the Outer God from its sleep for it were to wake? That’d be some next level chaos. We’re talking you’re going to have a bad time level of chaos, think Christmas with an endless number of racist Uncles, ugly sweaters, and really bad carolers singing ‘Jingle Bells’ until your ears bleed sort of chaos.
Safely, Ammutseba has slept for the duration of all of humanity’s history and will sleep until humanity’s end. I mean, unless something on Earth had enough influence to reach out past the stars and nudge the sleeping Outer God awake. But, that’d an incredible amount of influence, influence on the levels that humanity has never seen before.
Wait, did one of its countless number of eyes just twitch?
And we’re live on Instagram!
According to the user count in the corner of the screen there are currently over five thousand people watching a robed figure slowly lifting up what can be best described as the Ajanti dagger from the Golden Child over their head. As the dagger reaches nearly to its apex above the robed figure’s head the user count swells to nearly eight thousand people watching. But just before the dagger plunges downwards the robed figure stops mid-ceremony and removes the hood of her robe.
It’s Claudia Frost. One half of the soon to be ACE Tag Team Champions collectively known as the Influence.
Her black hair sits naturally on each of her shoulders, showing little effect of having to wear a hood over it -- you can find tips of how to do that on her Insta, as usual. There’s no need to let your hair get messy despite wanting to wear hooded cult robes. Claudia, with the good hair going, looks down with a confused look on her face, still holding the large dagger high above her head pointed downwards.
CLAUDIA: “Are you positive you want me to do this, Deets?”That’s when her tag team partner, co-pilot in life and of course participant in the Excellence Invitational Tournament, Delia Black pops her head up off of the ground. Oddly enough, this single sit-up is her current record for sit-ups. The constant stream of people in the livestream chat pointing that out is why we mentioned it.
BLACK: “Yes, stab me through the heart.”CLAUDIA: “Your heart’s on the right side, right?”BLACK: “Left.”CLAUDIA: “Are you sure?”BLACK: “At least seventy percent positive.”CLAUDIA: “Maybe I should just Google where the heart is. I really don’t want to mess this up.”Delia sits back up again which causes Claudia to once again pause from driving the oversized Ajanti dagger into her chest. Delia gives Claudia a look, Claudia returns the look. This is what happens when you share the same brain.
BLACK: “Come on, we both know that you know where my heart is. What is this really about, Claudia? Why are you delaying the summoning sacrifice spell?”Claudia’s lips do a McKayla Maroney twist as she looks down in an unsatisfactory manner.
CLAUDIA: “It’s just that between this whole Excellence Invitational Tournament thing and replacing your mortal vessel with that of an unbeatable demon, I feel like I’m losing a partner here. I mean, we’re the Influence, we’re the best damn tag team in the world, but most of all we’re best friends and now you’re going to go off to become the Excellence Championship.
It’s just a lot to process, Deets.”Delia looks sad now.
BLACK: “Ah, Claudia. There’s nothing that could ever possibly break us apart… now, just one minor correction there. We’re not replacing my moral vessel with an unbeatable demon from the Abyss, we’ve tried that before. This time around, we’re creating a black hole gate which is going to pull the essence of Ammutseba, one of the Old Gods, through and it is going to give me insane levels of power to run through the Excellence Invitational Tournament.
And when I say insane levels of power, I mean power that’ll make people do the craziest of stuff when they lay eyes on me. It’ll be like that movie the ‘Happening’ where people fling themselves off of buildings and Marky Mark ends up talking up to a houseplant for ten minutes, but instead of it being plants doing it it’ll be me. Well, maybe not me per say, a cosmic power inhabiting my body. And don’t worry, Claudia, I am going to make sure we hold onto that power for that SEX Cup tag team tournament, winning and holding onto our ACE tag team titles and anything else we decide to do next year. You know why? Because we’re forever, Claudia.
Forever.”Delia places her hand across the cheek of her tag team partner.
BLACK: “Trust me when I say that nothing and I mean even Ammutseba the Devourer of Stars can ever break us apart. Twenty twenty-two is going to be a crazy year for us, Claudia.
Now shove that dagger through my heart.”Claudia rears up once again with the oversized Ajanti dagger with both arms and takes in a deep breath, because the last thing you want to do is not go fully through and not create the black hole gate required to pull a cosmic entity onto the Earth’s surface. As soon as Claudia’s lung fill with the biggest amount of air possible she goes rears fully back nearly lifting herself off of the ground in the process putting all of her muscle into her arms holding the large dagger. And it is a dagger, not a knife. However, just before she’s about to drive the dagger through the heart of her best friend, Delia holds up her arms and calls a timeout.
BLACK: “Whoa, whoa wait a minute!”Claudia exhales and relaxes.
BLACK: “I’m seeing a little bit of a hesitation in your eyes there, I just want to make sure you’re one hundred percent on board with this. Because, the slightest miss with that dagger and who knows what sort of horrors we are going to unleash upon this world. Are you one hundred?”CLAUDIA: “To be honest, I’m like eighty percent. We could always wait until the actual title match to perform the sacrifice, right? Deets, you’re good enough to get past Vhodka, we both know that. Hell, you’re probably good enough to get past both her and her husband, Vin…”Claudia oddly trails off there before finishing the name of Vincent Black. That sort of catches Delia off guard. And then it hits her in the awkward silence.
BLACK: “Oh my God. You have a thing for my opponent’s husband! You want him to be at ringside so you can make eyes at him while I do all the dirty work of getting rid of his wife inside the ring. Is that your plan?”CLAUDIA: “Noooooo!”It’s a defensive “no”, which usually means yes.
BLACK: “You home wrecking slut.”CLAUDIA: “Am not.”BLACK: “Admit it, you have a thing for the guy.”Claudia shrugs her shoulders as she places the Ajanti dagger to the side. It’s not like the two of them could ever possibly have any sort of secrets between the two.
BLACK: “Gross.”CLAUDIA: “What can I say, he’s bad. You know me, I go for the bad boy type. The tattoos, the attitude, the fact that he’s a musician. It’s a total package… I’m sorry, that’s my thing.”BLACK: “The meth look is totally in, I get it. But don’t you get distracted at ringside making kissy-faces at your forbidden love, Vinny.”CLAUDIA: “I won’t! But just to be completely sure, you sure you’re not related to him, right? LIke the fact that I’m going to be the only person out there without the last name of Black kind of disturbs me. Is this a wrestling match or a goth rave scene?”Delia shakes her head, not even acknowledging that one.
BLACK: “No, no relation.”She thinks about it for a minute.
BLACK: “Well, now that I think of it, my dad's brother got around a lot in the 1990s, at least that’s what my aunt said. So, who knows. Maybe Vincent’s a second cousin or third cousin one removed, I don’t know how that works. Do you want me to text him and ask if he ever smashed in the dreaded parts unknown?”CLAUDIA: “That’s gross.”BLACK: “The 90s were wild. People were dumping all over the place, and he could have even dumped in unknown parts.”CLAUDIA: “Is this a butt joke?”Delia shakes her head resoundingly no, but the expression on her face says yes. She eventually blurts outwards and gives up trying to deny it.
CLAUDIA: “You’re gross, Deets. But seriously, there’s no actual relation?”BLACK: “No, we are not related. You have the green light to go out there and attempt adultery on national TV.” Claudia shakes her head, but then has a “eureka” moment.
CLAUDIA: “That’s it! That’s it! I know what we’re going to do, you go out there and do your thing and while you’re doing your thing, I’m going to do my thing. My thing is that I’m going to make sure Vhodka sees me flirting with her husband on the outside of the ring and when she’s distracted.
BOOM!
You take her out with a headshot! Teamwork makes the dream work. Then we get back to this ritual after the holidays, and use the power to get all the belts. And I mean, all the belts in the world. How’s that sound?”Claudia nods her head as she reaches for a can of Liquid Death. A large can, in fact. Delia gives her the eye, while the livestream chat going on in the corner of the screen is now blowing up with thumbs up and thumbs down emojis. Even with the spamming like crazy taking place, Claudia begins to chug the Liquid Death.
BLACK: “One question though.”CLAUDIA: “What is it, Deets?”BLACK: “I like the plan, I like every bit of the plan. But, I’ve been preparing for this ritual sacrifice for a couple of days now, and I haven’t been able to eat or drink anything. Do you think I could get a drink of that Liquid Death and murder my thirst too?”Without hesitation, Claudia hooks up her co-pilot in life with a can of Liquid Death herself. She even cracks it for Delia which allows for Delia to reach up with both hands and chug that badboy of a can down her throat.
CLAUDIA: “Now that’s killing your thirst.”BLACK: “That can of Liquid Death was like an Ajanti dagger through the thirst of my heart.”Both turn their heads towards the livestream and hold up the cans.
CLAUDIA: “That’s right, this has been an advertisement for Liquid Death. Shilling and killing the business.”BLACK: “It’s free money, bitches.”Both of them put down their cans.
BLACK: “There is one hole in your plan, though. What if Vincent doesn’t come down to ring with his wife? What if he doesn’t have her back like you’ve always got mine? Then who are you going to make ga-ga face out there with?”CLAUDIA: “That’s a good question. Maybe… maybe we should just go through with the sacrifice afterall?”The two of them think about and agree. Delia lays back down on her back, Claudia picks up the Ajanti dagger from the ground and with both hands she rears upwards once again filling in her lungs with air as she tightens her grip on the blade ready to drive it right through the chest and heart of her best friend and unleash an unspeakable evil upon Earth.
Here we go.
However, just as Claudia is about to plunge the dagger straight down, the door of the room the two are in swings open and in walks Christopher J. Wrigley steps through. With a shocked look on the lawyer’s face, he yells out.
WRIGLEY: “What. The. Fuck?”These words cause Delia to sit up and Claudia to be distracted as she drives the dagger down towards the ground. Just as the dagger is about to hit flesh the livestream gets interrupted and we fade to sudden black. The last image is that of the sickened look on the face of Wrigley.
A FEW MOMENTS LATER
The livestream returns.
We are in a different place.
Christopher J. Wrigley, wearing a navy blue suit coat with matching pants and his signature dark red tie, sits there looking across a table at an unseen person at the other side of the table. There is a look of serious disappointment on his face, like a parent who just received a phone call about their kid’s behavior in class. In a calm manner, he speaks as he lifts up the end of the Ajanti dagger which is in front of him on the table.
WRIGLEY: “So, let me just run through this one more time for my own sanity. The two of you were using this knife here in an attempt to summon an ancient being through human sacrifice in order to win a couple of wrestling matches and call yourselves champions? Did I get that right? Because when the words leave my mouth I feel as if I’m talking gibberish.
Am I talking gibberish?”The camera slowly pans over. At this point, Claudia Frost comes into frame of the picture. She too is sitting at the table, but she is facing towards the camera sitting to Wrigley’s left. Sheepishly she looks up as soon as Wrigley stops talking.
CLAUDIA: “Well, it’s mostly right. A couple of things, first off, that's not a knife, that's a dagger. Secondly, it’s technically not an ancient being we were summoning. Ammutseba is a cosmic horror that’s about as old as the universe and has been sleeping longer than any human has walked the Earth.
And technically speaking, it’s not human sacrifice per say, it’s more of creating an interdimensional rift through the use of blood magic to pull that cosmic horror through and give Deets unlimited power.”Wrigley shoves his red rimmed glasses up onto his face in frustration. He then begins to rub his temples in pain.
WRIGLEY: “Right, makes perfect sense. I just have one more question about the whole interdimensional rift cosmic horror plan you two were taking part of.”CLAUDIA: “Shoot.”WRIGLEY: “Did you have to do it in the damn break room of my law office!?” Wrigley’s voice goes up to where it normally is, at a level between Samuel L. Jackson in Avengers and Samuel L. Jackson in Snakes on a Plane. Claudia flinches, like any kid would having one of their parents yelling at them. She goes for a response, but Wrigley hasn’t heard his voice enough today and continues talking.
WRIGLEY: “Do you know now what I am going to have to do about this? How the hell am I going to explain this to HR? Do you know how much paperwork there is going to be as a result of this? Stacks on stacks that I’m going to have fill out over the holidays. And speaking of which, do you think we can just get a cleaning crew in there over Christmas? Not at any normal cost. Tomorrow is Debroah’s birthday, we’re supposed to have cake in that room. But now? Sorry everyone there was nearly a damn murder in the coffee room everyone, try not to slip on the blood on way over to celebrate Debroah’s birthday today.
Hope the cake doesn’t have any bits of skin on it.”Claudia sort of laughs at the whole Deborah thing. Wrigley doesn’t break eye contact with the still unseen person sitting across from him at the table to even give her a glance. He continues.
WRIGLEY: “Debroah’s party is going to suck now. And all because you wanted to fill Delia up with unlimited power of some cosmic entity.”CLAUDIA: “When you frame it like that, it sounds bad. But how else are we going to win the Excellence Invitational?”Wrigley slams the table in frustration.
WRIGLEY: “Train! Hit the damn gym!”Claudia shakes her head no and recoils in terror.
CLAUDIA: “The gym? That’s hard work, though. We just thought it would be easier and on brand to go with unspeakable evil instead.”Wrigley still looks annoyed, but he once again calms himself down. Breathing exercises.
WRIGLEY: “Unspeakable evil? You mean like Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’?”CLAUDIA: “Exactly.”WRIGLEY: “They’ve been playing that song non-stop in this building since December 1st. Swear to god, those motherfuckers just wait to push that loop button on that thing every single year.”Claudia taps her hands over those of Wrigley to show her solidarity with him. The anger has all but left his voice and his body completely at this point. For the first time he breaks eye contact with the unseen person on the other side of the table to look at Claudia.
WRIGLEY: “Sorry I took so long on the phone, then. I know I told you just a few more minutes, but I didn’t plan on that taking over an hour. I do have one more question, though. Seriously, you know Delia better than any other human being on planet Earth, so are you sure she’s okay?”Both Wrigley’s eyes and Claudia’s eyes slowly look across the table at the otherside. The camera begins to pan slowly towards the previously unseen side of the table. Sitting there is Delia Black, her eyes stare blankly across the table back towards Wrigley and on her left shoulder which is facing the camera is a massive bandage and ice pack. With her right arm she shovels cereal from a bowl into her mouth with a spoon, crunching down upon the bits of deliciousness like a robot would. Claudia looks on with a confused look and with a completely unsure tone in her voice she responds.
CLAUDIA: “Yeeeeeeeeah, she… she’s fine.”Some of the bits of deliciousness fall from Delia’s mouth back into the bowl in front of her. But what really catches Wrigley and Claudia off guard is when she scoops that half eaten bit of cereal back up onto the spoon and back into her mouth.
CLAUDIA: “She hasn’t eaten in a couple of days, I’ve seen this before.”Wrigley and Claudia continue to watch Delia chomp away like a robot would for a few moments, before suddenly Delia stops eating and begins to sniff the air around her. This is followed by a low guttural growl like that from a wild dog, this even causes Claudia to sit back in the chair.
CLAUDIA: “Oh, she’s out of cereal. Let me just go ahead and grab her some more of this Magic Spoon stuff, it’s her favorite. Mister Wrigley, did you know that Magic Spoon is perfect for kids and grownups of all…”Claudia pours more of the cereal into Delia’s bowl.
CLAUDIA: “...ages?”WRIGLEY: “What the hell are you doing?”CLAUDIA: “It’s Magic Spoon. The healthy cereal that tast--”WRIGLEY: “Stop. Whatever it is you’re doing, stop.”CLAUDIA: “Low sugar. High prot--.”WRIGLEY: “You’re doing that thing. You’re doing that thing where you try to sell stuff to your followers during the livestream, aren’t you? You’re putting me into an advertisement for cereal while your best friend sits there and eats about as uncomfortably as one of the thousand pound sisters?”Claudia can’t stop herself.
CLAUDIA: “Keto, and grain free.”WRIGLEY: “Stop. Check on the chick, make sure she’s not currently possessed by some outer space demon or whatever the hell you were trying to make a gateway for. I’ve got another meeting coming up, so get her ass to the hospital as soon as possible.”Wrigley stands up out of frustration.
WRIGLEY: “Stop the livestream, stop the advertising. Get her out of this break room, and instead of looking for the shortcut in this Excellence Invitational thing why don’t the both of you get into the gym and do some crunches and some of those leg exercises too. I will call you after Christmas, after I fill out the mountains of paperwork to explain all of this to the rest of my law firm and we will talk about your ACE contracts, and anything else.”Delia sniffs the air and growls as Wrigley goes to leave.
WRIGLEY: “I like the spirit, Delia. Use that rage in your match against Vhodka Black instead of the shortcuts. Claudia, maybe get her a chew toy for the ride over to hospital. Oh and Claudia, get rid of the dagger would you? That’s some legal shit that would even get me in hot water.”With that Wrigley leaves the lunch room leaving Claudia and Delia there in silence, well except for the crunching of the cereal. Claudia decides to stand up as well and she picks up the Ajanti dagger and places it into the sink next to the refrigerator. There is clearly a sign there that says ‘Do not leave bowls or cups in the sink’, but Claudia doesn’t even bother to read it.
Slowly, she turns back towards Delia.
CLAUDIA: “You… you okay, Deets?”Delia nods her head as she finishes chewing.
BLACK: “That Magic Spoon is so good. Reminds me of childhood. Like I said, I haven’t eaten in two days and that was the one thing I was craving more than anything else in the world.”A sigh of relief washes over Claudia as her tag team partner does not seem like she’s being used as the husk for the cosmic outer god Ammutseba. However, you all have still been influenced to buy Magic Spoon cereal.
BLACK: “It’s free money, bitches.”With that, the livestream comes to an end.
