The Invasion Begins
The skateboard had been specially thinned down, so I rode it carefully as I coasted down the ramp.
Most of the crowd had their eyes locked on the ring, but a handful of fans near the ramp seemed to catch sight of me. Even so, against an arena of twenty thousand, they were a vanishing minority — a few dozen at most. Just as planned, the cameras never found me. To the vast majority of the audience, I would appear like a ghost.
Once I reached the base of the ring, I stomped down hard on the board. A faint, brittle crack rose up through the sole of my foot. I lifted the board carefully and slipped quietly behind Yazan, who was already set in the corner, lining up a superkick.
I sprang up the steel steps and glided into place at his back. Only then did the crowd spot me, and a wave of shocked screams tore through the arena.
Oh! Oh!
Hey! Behind you! Look behind you!!
Hearing them, Yazan spun around. The moment he registered my face out of nowhere, his eyes went wide with pure panic. I furrowed my brow in a quick signal, then swung the board.
CRACK.
Yazan got his hands up just in time. The board slammed into his palms and split clean in half.
Oh my God!
Oh. Jesus!
I stepped into the ring and pulled a blood pack from my pocket. Under the pretense of checking on him as he clutched his head and crumpled, I pressed the pack into his hand. He was a veteran — he'd know what to do with it.
That was when Brian, who had been laid out by a spear earlier, started to stir. I drove a kick into his gut, then hoisted him up. I'd told him I was going for a powerbomb, but the ease with which I lifted him made his pupils flicker. I dropped straight into a sit-out powerbomb and drove him into the mat.
THUD.
Ooooh!
Charina! Charina!
One leap put me on the top rope. I held there for a beat, giving the crowd time to lock in, then felt the cascade of flashes and the roar of the arena wash over me before launching into a shooting star press that buried Brian.
Adolf was right on the count, and the crowd, half in a daze, chanted along with him.
One—
Two—
Three—
The moment the count finished, Adolf started yelling at the ring announcer to call the winner already.
"What are you doing? The match is over. Ring the bell. Call the winner — Charina."
"What? This is an outsider interference…"
The ring announcer was completely frozen, with no idea what was happening. Adolf had seen enough. He dropped out of the ring himself and rang the bell.
DING. DING. DING.
Then he snatched the announcer's mic and made the call himself.
Only then did the crowd start to murmur, finally realizing something had gone very wrong.
"Charina! It's over. We need to run — now!"
"One second."
I opened my bag, squeezed mint chocolate whipped cream into my hand, and first made a show of licking it off with a grin. Then I piled generous dollops into both Brian's and Yazan's mouths. Yazan, still playing unconscious, didn't move — but Brian shook his head hard in refusal, so I smeared it across his entire face with my palm. Somewhere out there, I thought I heard laughter.
"Okay. Let's go."
Adolf and I grabbed the IC Championship belt and bolted from the arena with fire under our feet, leaving a stadium full of stunned spectators behind us.
Backstage, we collected our gear with the championship belt still in hand. Along the corridor we ran into several wrestlers.
"Adolf! What the hell is this?"
"Why is a woman walking off with a men's championship belt?"
"Hey! What exactly is going on?"
Their stares were a tangle of confusion and curiosity.
"Ask your general manager. We've got a getaway scene to shoot. We're out of here. We'll introduce ourselves properly next time."
"See you later, seniors!"
I bowed my head in greeting and fell in behind Adolf. A few wrestlers started to follow, but the moment they spotted the cameras in the parking lot, they ducked out of sight with professional speed.
We filmed the sequence of climbing into the car and peeling out of the lot, then switched into the vehicle the general manager had arranged for us and rode it all the way to the airport, where we boarded a flight to Orlando.
"That was fun, right?"
"Ha! It was — but my head's still spinning."
"Hey. Congratulations anyway. You're a champion for the first time."
"A stolen championship nobody even recognizes?"
"That depends entirely on you. Depending on the career you build from here, this could still count as your first real title. You've been debuted for less than two months, right?"
I nodded.
"Then you're the youngest and fastest champion in history. And you took a men's championship belt to do it."
"Come on. I didn't even get a real ovation from the crowd, and my name isn't engraved on the belt. This isn't for me. I want my first championship with a proper round of applause."
"Fair enough."
It was only about an hour and a half in the air, but by the time we landed in Orlando it was well past midnight. I was wondering whether catching a taxi at that hour was even a good idea when we stepped out of the gate — and found Clint waiting for us, to my relief.
"Whew! Both of you looked incredible tonight."
"Did I even do anything?"
"Oh, please, Adolf. That charisma of yours was still intact. That winner call at the end was especially cool."
Adolf's face lit up under the praise, a bright smile spreading across it.
"Charina! Our board and the WWO boards are going completely insane."
"Are they?"
"You didn't check your phone?"
"I got texts from Selma and the others, but we boarded right away, so I never looked."
"Yeah, that tracks. Make sure you check later. Haha."
Clint pressed us with questions about whether this was an Invasion, but I deflected and told him to hear the scenario announcement for himself in the morning.
"Oh, right — both of you are supposed to come in at eleven tomorrow. The general manager specifically said not to show up early. Be there on time."
"Me too? I'm still in rehab."
"Come on, Adolf. You're one of the main characters. Of course you have to be there."
"Hmm. Then I guess I don't have a choice, even if I'm exhausted."
Even if they'd asked us to come early, I doubted I could have managed it. It wasn't my body that was spent — the mental drain had been enormous.
The next day, after a quick call with Jane, I headed to TPA right on schedule.
"Rina! Why didn't you call?"
"Hey! Champion!"
"So this is what you disappeared for all weekend?"
I scrambled to fire off answers.
"By the time we got back to Orlando it was one in the morning. It was way too late to call. And I signed a nondisclosure agreement, so I still can't say more than this."
The words nondisclosure agreement shut down any further digging. They just switched targets.
"Hey! How does it feel holding the championship belt?"
"I stole it. What's there to feel good about?"
"Stolen or not, you're the one holding it now."
"Exactly! And it's the men's IC Championship belt."
"Ugh. Let's just drop it."
I tried to brush it off, but Selma, the Inquisitors, Olivia, Tina — none of them were about to let me walk away that easily.
"Looks like Anne and Dorothy are prepping something similar to what you did."
"Seems that way. That's why they're not here today either."
At those words, every wrestler in earshot — men and women alike — turned their attention our way. I kept my mouth shut and my face carefully blank.
Damn it. I only got here fifteen minutes early for an eleven o'clock call, and it's already like this.
A short while later, just before eleven, Adolf Ziggler arrived. He'd barely finished greeting the roster when John Michaels walked in with General Manager Carl.
"I'm going to talk about the scenario going forward."
John dropped the line cold, and the restless room snapped into order. It went so quiet you could hear someone swallow.
"Starting next week, TPA will begin indiscriminate invasions of WWO."
Even that silence shattered the moment the words indiscriminate invasions landed.
"So it's an Invasion?"
"Holy crap! Does that mean we get to crash Law the way Charina did?"
"But even setting talent aside, the numbers gap is huge."
"Quiet. I'm not finished."
At John's voice, the room went still again in an instant — but the faces told a different story. Selma, standing right beside me, was flushed red and breathing hard.
"Tomorrow night — Wednesday — the Hardy Boyz and Anne will go into NEXT and flip the table one more time. But NEXT will become TPA's ally, so don't worry about the numbers. As for all of you — form stables of three to five, men and women separately. On Thursday I'll evaluate overall performance quality, and only the strong ones get put into the program going forward. One of those teams will also be selected to support the Dudley Boyz and Dorothy when they hit Smash Down on Friday. Oh — and Dorothy, Anne, and Charina are excluded from the stables for now."
John went on to say that the full-scale Invasion would kick off on next week's Smash Down, and that anyone who didn't make the cut in the day-after-tomorrow tryouts shouldn't get too discouraged.
"All right. Questions?"
"Once we form stables, how do we get our opponents for the day after tomorrow?"
"I'll assign them arbitrarily."
"Then the show's going to be a mess."
"You think the audience is going to cut us off over one bad show? Besides, we don't have time to work chemistry with the Law or Smash Down rosters. What I'll be looking at is improvisational response and safety."
Someone else raised a hand.
"Isabelle Basloni, right? What is it?"
"Yes, that's me. Um… what happens if I can't put a stable together?"
"Hmm. Isabelle. You've been at TPA for over a year now, haven't you?"
"Yes."
"And you still can't form a stable? That sounds like a people problem. Either group up with the other people who failed, or start clearing out your locker."
"I still have time left on my contract."
"TPA also has the authority to release anyone whose in-ring work isn't up to standard."
John took a few more questions. His final warning was not to do anything stupid like posting about this on Star or any other social media — then he left.
"Ugh. It's a shame you're not in this."
"From the sound of it, Rina's getting packaged with Dorothy and Anne. We'll just have to do it ourselves."
Selma, Tina, and Olivia would make an excellent stable.
"What about Isabelle? Do we take her?"
Tina sounded almost sympathetic, but Olivia shut it down immediately.
"Tina. We haven't worked with Isabelle in ages. We've got our own problems right now."
"Yeah, fair. We should start working chemistry with those guys first."
Tina was looking toward where Elizabeth, Natasha, and Lorenzo had gathered — and they happened to be looking right back. They clearly understood that this side of the room was the tier of team they belonged with.
"We're short on time. Let's stretch first."
"Right. Warm up, then run some sequences with those guys."
Meanwhile, the Inquisitors formed a stable with Team Heritage, whose chemistry they'd always clicked with.
Wednesday evening, after dinner with the others, we all gathered to watch WWO NEXT.
"Joshua! How many years have you been stuck in NEXT now?"
"Mac. Three years."
"Any word on a call-up? Or even a hint of when?"
At Mac Hardy's question, Joshua shook his head with a bitter expression.
"We'll put it on the line for you. With your talent, you'd be upper card in WWO, no question."
"And what good does that do me? They won't call."
"Then we flip the table."
"Whoa. Joshua can act!"
"Right? Barely any rehearsal time, and he's nailing it."
"Just now he looked completely pitiful."
"Because that's his actual situation — the empathy's real."
Just as Olivia said, even if you flew high in NEXT, call-ups to the main roster almost never came. Same as us — the NEXT talent needed a scenario that would let them stand out.
"Jet! Flip the table?"
"If the water up top has gone stagnant, you tip it over."
"What power do we even have to tip anything?"
"You all underestimate yourselves. Or is it because Charina wiped the floor with you?"
"Mac!"
Joshua shoved his chair back and roared as he shot to his feet.
"Heh. That Charina who beat you? She's the IC Champion on Law now. A men's championship belt, no less."
"That was a robbery!"
"Robbery or not, she took it, didn't she? And the match was ruled her win! If a kid like Charina can do it — Joshua, can you? Or are you scared?"
Joshua, head bowed and trembling, seized the table in front of him with both hands and slammed it down.
BANG.
CRACK.
The table split clean in two.
"Ha. I'll show you exactly what kind of man I am."
"Damn, Joshua! That was cool!"
"Charisma for days."
"Joshua's always been a good-looking guy."
"Why is he still stuck in NEXT?"
"No kidding. WWO really has gotten stagnant."
My colleagues were right — Joshua's performance was outstanding. Maybe his real life was bleeding straight into the acting.
The show continued. Later, Anne appeared seeking out the women she already knew, rallying them. Then the episode closed on a meeting between TPA's General Manager Carl and NEXT's General Manager Iva — ending right where it would leave the audience hungry for more. A clean, sharp finish.
After the show, the wrestling boards exploded with fan posts predicting all-out war — Law versus NEXT and TPA, or Law and Smash Down versus NEXT and TPA.