🗽Golden highlights shine amongst black hair as the video opens to a studio makeup room in the metropolis of Syrene City. Renee Jonae is seated in the client chair, having the finishing touches done by one of her understudies from the J-Dynasty Brand talent agency. Both women are enjoying themselves during a great stretch of time for Jonae and having a discreet laugh after noticing a figure of a man unsure if he’s allowed to peak in from the door, and doing a poor job being hidden.🗽Renee Jonae:
Everyone says this is the year the world turns things around, and normally I’d say that’s all just silly talk that people partake in during every January, but after a year unlike anything in our lifetime...it’s hard not join in on that line of thinking for once. Maybe it’s the emotions of getting over on top of the mountain that was the Shogun tournament that’s getting to me, but I just feel it has to be true this time. I won’t go as far as to say I’ve got New Year Resolutions to uphold, but I will say I’m ready to make a lot of touch-ups in my life now that I’m reigning in WWH. (Laughing) I have to make some cuts too, lest things get unmanageable in all the fun, wouldn’t you say so my greatest apprentice?
Allie Anne: (Giggling) You’re so right, as Shogun everything about you must be well-kempt, for it’s all too easy for everything around to become a tangled mess if you’d let it. All of you need is me, I’ll help snip away the unnecessary. I’m here to serve, unlike your other apprentice who is just no help, I should cut him off for you.
Renee Jonae: I have another understudy? I don’t see anyone here. I’ve completely forgotten who you are talking about, and he must have forgotten me despite my big moment, so I think it’s fine to get rid of him.
?: WAIT! Give me another shot! I’m here Renee!
🗽Her other understudy, Pierre Java, runs into the room and slips onto his stomach on small pieces of hair on the ground. He gets up to see the two ladies laughing at him some more.🗽
Renee Jonae: Serves you right. I told you on the phone, I’m not a REAL head of state. What are you doing prowling around like some sort of monarch assassinator? Or worse yet, a creeper!
Pierre Java: No! It’s nothing like that, I just wanted to congratulate you in person, but didn’t know what you were doing in here! I didn’t want to stumble into something I shouldn’t see among girls in private quarters...
Allie Anne: I’m just doing her hair ya doofus!
Renee Jonae: So, what do you think? Before leaving Japan, I got the idea to start adding colour to my look, with my hair as the canvas. I feel like gold fits the occasion, it’ll remind me and everyone watching on Dystopia how much I want to win that championship, all the more so considering my opponent. It’s a women’s affair but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t accept a word from the boys dear to my heart.
Allie Anne: As a fellow vassal, you’d best say it looks nice and it’s a fantastic idea! Go on, tell the Shogun.
Jonae: Oh, you start! You aren’t vassals.
PJ: I see. She’s got a point Allie, I believe it’s more logical for us to have titles that suit officers of the shogunate’s Shinsengumi.
Jonae: No shogunate, no Shinsengumi! I don’t need all of that.
AA: Awww, come on Renee! The last time you were here during the tournament, you said it was too early to call you Shogun Ren, now that you won you still don’t want to soak it all in? Think of all the sweet names we can come up with!
PJ: At least think about us, we’d have way more job security in the agency if we had titles tied to yours!
Jonae: How many times do I have to tell you not to worry about stuff like that? Everyone knows if you two were ever gone, I’d be in the boss’ office by the end of the day, asking what happened and how much money he’s willing to lose.
Especially now that I went and won in the main event on PPV, wins like that mean something! The merchandizing, the percent they get from all my brand makes in the wrestling world, and what they invested in me, I’d have him sweating buckets if I told him it was in jeopardy for negligently letting go two bright young kids under my wing.
AA: She’s totally saying she’d willingly play the diva role for us! I can’t imagine what she’d be like, so scary!
PJ: Oh, I want to know more. What would you do if someone kicked our asses out of the blue? We heard Matsuda’s girl Jocelyn got her shit rocked by some asshole.
Jonae: Things would get real nasty…..real quick, it would break my heart and not be good for anyone who’d dare be part of it. I can only imagine what Cloud is feeling right now, Jocelyn is such a kind soul that nobody decent would want to harm. I truly feel for Cloud right now. It’s disrespectful that someone would break the honour code of the locker room, when they know The Revolutionaries exist against this type of behaviour. Still, there’s not much we can do about it considering the culprit is hiding like such cowards often do. That’s why you two sweet little poppets won’t be around the dangerous parts of this industry until you’re ready, I wouldn’t want to have to do what I’d do if something happened to you.
AA: Forget just being a diva, you’re such a big mama bear too! All claws out over the thought!
Jonae: Wouldn’t you do the same if you had to avenge me?
AA: Avenge?
PJ: YOU?
🗽Now it’s tables turned as the students laugh at the master.🗽AA & PJ: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
PJ: As if you’re the type of person who can be avenged. If by in a one in a million chance someone was lucky enough to get the drop on you in the first place, you’d be back to whip their ass before we could hope to do anything. I swear, we could have another asteroid hit the earth like that which took out the dinosaurs, and you’d still somehow be alive to berate the rock into submission for harming innocent people.
AA: Don’t forget, she’d dig us out of the destruction, and STILL make sure we did our wrestling training for the day first.
Jonae: Oh hush, you two exaggerate! And even I wouldn’t lecture an inanimate object.
PJ: Notice she didn’t refute the making us train part. I’m surprised she hasn’t checked our progress yet….and we’ve been trying so hard knowing you were coming in.
Jonae: I trust you, or more so I know you two know how more intense it would be if I knew you weren’t keeping up your practice. Last time, I was just keeping you on your toes in case the world going upside down made you forget how it is to be my pupils!
AA & PJ(in a teasing fashion): Tyrant!
AA: Total Shogun behaviour.
Jonae: Alright, alright, I know you two won’t drop the Shogun thing. However, I’ve got enough names already, so what sounds better, a Madame L'Éclair or a Shogun L’Éclair?
AA & PJ: BOTH!
Jonae: Encroyable….
🗽Jonae’s stubbornness seems to have rubbed off on her students as they don’t budge from their mission, with smiles on their faces. Knowing they won this time by Jonae’s exasperated facial expression, Allie moves on.🗽AA: But you know Renee, Matsuda might be ripe for the pickings if she’s all torn up over Jocelyn. It’d hate to say it, but this could be a bless-
🗽Jonae turns in her chair, and flicks her index finger on Allie’s head.🗽AA: Ouch!
Jonae: You know better than that. But everyone deserves a second chance at correcting themselves.
AA: ....Sorry, Renee, I went too far.
🗽Jonae hugs her.🗽Jonae: It’s not just that what you said was wrong, but also it’s not the type of energy you want to have while going about your life. People don’t realize how powerful they are in the word of casting, you summon dark omens beyond your comprehension when you dabble in bad practices and malicious wishes. Besides, a more motivated Cloud is almost the last thing I needed, so this assailant almost did me a grave disservice. Do you think Cloud wants to bring more bad news to her camp now that Jocelyn got assaulted?
🗽Her student knows more than anyone that it is a rhetorical question, but she answers with a no shaking of her head.🗽Jonae:
No, she’s going to fight extra hard to prove that nothing can faze them, that the adversity only makes them stronger. This would bother me, if I didn’t want Cloud at her best! But I do, I want Cloud to be in the same headspace I’m in, as she finds something good out of her terrible group situation. Because I know the feeling of being knocked down hard just when you think you had everything in the palm of your hands.
🗽Renee Jonae turns to the camera, and starts speaking directly to Stephanie Matsuda.🗽The way I see it, I’ve become someone who has had to learn to see the beauty in second chances. I didn’t always have that vision. I was once the new kid on the block that won that Women’s World Championship in my first title match after all. I felt brilliant, unbeatable, and if anyone would have asked me when I was still champion and going into the War of Attrition what my future plans were, I’d have told them I’d be leaving DreamState was the only world champion in WWH.
I didn’t leave, nor go into, DreamState with anything.
You came into WWH Cloud, and you took that Women’s World Championship away from me before I could even try to live up to my goal. And then, when I tried to win the title back, not only did you beat me back, you also took away my aspiration of becoming International Champion in a strange twist of events.
That really hit me hard, a string of failures like that was not something I was accustomed to. It really hurt, but I figured it was time to move on from the Women’s World Championship and cut my losses as you got your time to mold the women’s division in your image.
It was nothing personal, in fact, it was a new lease on life, and I even took your advice about how I needed to become more well-travelled in the industry of professional wrestling if I wanted to be a star like you. I began making guest appearances in other promotions, in fact, in one of them, they were so open with the 2500 dollar paycheck we get for appearing there that I decided I’d donate it to your Cloud Nine Center. You were the reason I was there, so it was only fair, and I think what you do for children and people in need is a wonderful thing, I’m glad to spread the word anytime that I can for you, because I respect you. In fact, if it weren’t for the situation we’re in, I’d think we could be friends, soul sisters. Through the pain and harsh advice, you helped me as much as you help people around the world.
Lo and behold, today I’m the woman who in her new lease on life won the Shogun Tournament in her second crack at it. And the cherry on top? I once again have the opportunity to become the only person with both world titles in WWH. You, and Havoc for a time, have your runs as double champions, but you never quite did what I had planned. The International and Affliction championships are holy grails of their own, but at the end of the day even with another world championship…...they don’t make you any more or less an Undisputed World Champion. Only that Women’s World title and Zolton’s World title together can do that. As far as I see it, I’ve got the best chance of getting it done right now because I’m effectively the number one contender for both.
Oh I know, you think you’re at the top of the contenders because you beat Havoc when he was champ, and you never stop talking about your mission to have that other world title. Trust me, I’ve been where you’re at with the exact same credentials, and I didn’t even get my shot when Havoc WAS world champion. Now that Zolton’s got the championship? The whole world title scene has shifted for someone like you. There’s Josh, Vincent, and anyone else who have ever beaten Zolton who are right there with you wanting a shot. Hell, I assume Havoc’s got a rematch clause, and we all know Shogun means I can challenge for gold. You walk around thinking nobody else is hungry like you are, but you’re wrong, there are so many starving beasts in this landscape that you can’t even turn around without seeing a legion of animals trying to take a bite out of you! I’m one of them, Cloud! You were out of your mind to ever think otherwise when you questioned my hunger, like I said and then proved at the Shogun PPV.
Cloud do you even know what it’s like to know what is played at the start of every Dystopia show for me? After everything I’ve done in this company, the groups I’ve been in, the gold I’ve won, and the legends I’ve beaten, the thing that opens the show with me is my rivalry with you. I understand why they made that decision, it’s nothing personal from WWH, but you and I both know why it would eat up at me…...because it’s a “rivalry” that paints me in a bad light for everyone who knows that my track record with you is not as stellar as my normal WWH career shows. It eats up at me at night, so for you to question my hunger after that? I can’t have it. Not when I have to fight twice as hard to make sure everyone who starts a Dystopia show getting the wrong impression from that opener gets the right one by the end of the night! On this Dystopia, just like with Shogun,
I plan on showing the world how anything can be turned around for the better, in a time we all need to believe it can.
🗽Renee looks on with determination as the camera goes to black.🗽