What's Happenin'! with Amber Skye

[Dubski]

Spoiler

Casey Kiernan stood, watching the stage as it was being set up. It was a dark night--a morose night. Even in the backstage and the loud crowd outside, Casey could swear that it was raining. Was God punishing her with His tears? No, it was more likely it was punishing LAW, for forcing her to do yet another interview. She had tried her usual methods: hiding, trying to escape the arena, faking injury. This time she even faked her own death, but when it was discovered that she was not a part of a ten car pile-up that devolved into a shoot out in Japan, it became far less likely to be true and she was found making the call in the corner of catering.

Now Casey stood, a young woman tortured by having to do her job, holding her coffee in both hands. A single tear dripping down her face as the last chair was set up for her interview. It dripped off her cheek and into the coffee, sending ripples throughout the tiny mug. Like ripples of a time far more simple, where she was merely an incompetent intern rather than an incompetent interviewer. Where she could just hide for hours and nobody knew where she was, and she wasn't needed to be hunted down. Where her nepotism hire was a simple part of her life where she could just catch up on her positively atrocious reality television without anyone asking her to do anything. Now she was a part of the show, and Casey Kiernan loathed it more than anything.

"...Casey?" asked a stage hand simply.

"Asami... I need you to tell me it will be okay," said Casey, bowing her head sadly.

"It's still Izumi, and... what will be okay?" replied the stage hand flatly.

With a heavy sigh, Kiernan looked up. "Tell me that this fleeting life of interviewing people will be fine... that one day maybe it will be... no work at all." Taking a deep breath through her nose, Casey took a sip of coffee. "Tell me that one day, it will be automated by robots, and that I'll never need to be on a stage again, asking questions nobody cares about to people nobody cares about."

Giving Casey a strange look, the stage hand looked behind her to someone overhearing, getting a shrug in response before looking back to the lamenting interviewer. "I mean... I guess it's possible that robots will take the job at some point...?"

"...Do you mean that?" asked Kiernan, glancing back at Izumi, hope in her eyes.

"...Not really?" replied Izumi honestly.

"...Thank you. Your barely committed answer will help me through this," said Casey, wiping another tear away. "Just do me a favor and... don't let them play my music."

"They have to play your music."

"But if they don't play my music, I--"

"You do need to go out regardless. It's your segment. And it's starting now," said Izumi, deflating slightly.

Almost on cue, Get Over It by OK Go started to play, making Casey Kiernan shake her head and say solemnly, "I'll remember this betrayal..." And then she began to walk out to the stage, taking one more large sip of coffee to steel herself.

"I don't control the music!" shouted Izumi before sighing and rolling her eyes, letting the segment begin.

Stepping through the curtain to face the crowd, Casey Kiernan instantly smiled cheerfully, waving to the crowd, briefly dancing to the song with coffee in hand and blew kisses to the waiting crowd. The stage was loud, tacky, and had two cozy chairs and a small table between them, with a giant sign hanging from the ceiling that glowed saying "WHAT'S HAPPENIN'! With Casey Kiernan" on it. She waited for the song to end before greeting the crowd with a big smile on her face, waving at them with her non-coffee-holding-hand. "Hello everyone! Thank you for joining me for Whaaaaaaaat's Happenin'! with Casey Kiernan. And I'm your loveable host, Casey Kiernan, and today I have a treat! Maybe! I actually don't know! it could be awful! But we're being optimists today, because we're about to find out Whaaaaaaat's Happenin'! with one half of the.... Pom-Pom Punchers?" Looking confused briefly, Casey reached into her pocket and pulled out a note card, a surprised expression popping on her face. "Wow, that's an actual team name. Okay." She cleared her throat, pocketing her note card again. "My guest today is... Cheryl Williams!" The crowd then clapped and cheered as Casey gestured to the entrance, waiting for her guest to come out for what was certainly going to be an interview that would take place.

[Taskmaster12]

“What am I doing here?” She knew the answer but she still felt like this was the dumbest thing she could agree to. The now fully healed Amber Skye was happy that people wanted to see her that she agreed to do an interview or two. Only now she was doing one without Cheryl and was nervous about what they might ask her since she was hearing that the person trying to interview her was trying to back out! It set her nerves on fire that she was going to deal with someone really harsh who didn’t like her. She was waiting for her cue and didn’t think about anything until she heard Casey’s voice speak to the crowd telling her it was close to her time. She took her cue put on a smile and stepped out to introduce herself as

Wait did she call her Cheryl?

Amber almost stopped in place and her eyes went a few inches wider when she heard what Casey called her. She just stepped out to the wrong introduction! Quickly composing herself Amber started to move out some more and laughed off the mistake. “It’s Amber. Cheryl’s my partner.” She still took her place and gave a curtesy to the audience. “Thanks for having me!” Thanking the fans came easy to her and it was the positive reception that was helping calm herself from all of the problems eating at her before she was looking back at Casey. “I plan to be the treat for you today.”

Spoiler

[Dubski]

Casey Kiernan waited for her guest to come out, sipping her coffee and letting out a soft sigh. The only solace in this world, especially now, was that delicious cup of coffee. Eventually, Amber spoke to her after finding her seat and Casey looked at her, confused. Shaking her head, Kiernan leaned over and said, "No, it says in my notes you're Cheryl." She then held out her note card for Skye to confirm. It had a picture of a dog on it.

Settling back into her seat, Casey cleared her throat and spoke before Amber could object. "Cheryl, let's start with the question I open up all of my interviews with. And that's... Whaaaaaat's Happenin'!?" asked Casey, looking out to the crowd for their approval, to which they granted with cheers. Their approval made her die inside. But it was an easy softball question to start off their interview that required minimal effort on her part, so it was potentially the best question that Casey had.

[Taskmaster12]

“I’m still Amber.” Still she looked at the notes to see where the confusion was and ended up being more confused. Considering her notes weren’t a name or even the picture of a human being. Already she could feel that this interview might be a mistake. She was already in front of the camera and audience so she couldn’t walk back and since this was the first public appearance she was planned to make she still wanted it to go well. All she could do was answer the questions and wink at some fans to get through this. First question was easy. What’s happening? “I know my fans have been worried about me ever since I had to back out of my PPV match. I hear you and thank you for your loving support while I made my recovery. Which I’m happy to announce is complete. That’s right! Im fully healed and ready to get back in the ring for all of you!” Amber pointed to the crowd which gave her a cheer in approval. Getting a crowd ready for action like always. “My first order of business is Apex. Being a former champion I don’t need to qualify to be on it, while I’d love for my opponent to be Roni so I can humiliate that jumping jerk and win a title doing it, the coward didn’t qualify and can’t be used as my opponent so I’m still looking there. Don’t worry I’ll still get her back and whoever paid her. In the meantime I’ll be getting ready to get back into tag team action. Can’t leave my bff out there solo and asking for partners.”

[Dubski]

Casey Kiernen took the time to actually look at her notes while Amber was talking away--a perfect strategy for her opening question. Especially with the ones who liked to talk. The interviewer took a deep breath, clearly not paying much attention to what Amber was saying as she pursed her lips, with a roll of her eyes thrown in every once in a while.

After Amber was done speaking, however, there was a few moments of silence as Casey continued looking at her notes. Finally, she peered up, looking between Amber and the crowd. "...Oh, you're done? Wow. Okay. That was a long answer to a simple 'what's happenin'?' but alright," stated Kiernen before taking a sip of her coffee. Then, she closed her eyes and took a sigh. "God, this is good coffee." Then, she took another few moments to just look at Skye, a smile on her face. "That was a long answer," stated Casey again, continuing the awkward bout of nothing happening in this moment.

Before her guest could reply though, Casey cleared her throat loudly. "I have a note here about Roni. It looks like her last name is Hitwoman. And she's a Mancini," said Kiernen. Then, she furrowed her brow and let out a laugh, gesturing at her note card. "Wow, actually, her name is Roni Mancini. And she's a Hitwoman. That makes a lot more sense. We have fun here, Cheryl," said Kiernen.

And before Amber could reply again, Casey was already speaking once more. "It says that Roni had broken your arm and kept you out of competition. I'm going to go ahead and break this down a bit. Roni, as I saw from a very flattering promotional picture of her on the LAW website, has a lot of muscles. And she is big. Do you think she needs to jump that much to be a jerk? It sounds like you would need to be the jumping jerk in order to reach her height." Casey Kiernen explained her logic, face scrunching up as she looked at Amber with scrutiny. "And if she broke your arm, do you think it's wise to call her out like you did? She already beat you up once in her debut match. And then broke your arm. Aren't you afraid she'll do more? Like what if she breaks two arms? What if she beats you in two wrestling matches simultaneously? I don't know if that's possible, but we can present it to the LAW board room leader management stocks... carriers," said Casey straight-faced, finally allowing Amber the floor to speak.

[Taskmaster12]

She thought when she won her contract is a sign that she was moving up in the world. Casey did a wonderful job making her wonder if LAW just let anyone in. The only thing she seemed interested in was her coffee. “It is when you have so much happening.” It was an awkward way of phrasing it and came out as such. Anything seemed better than the dead air she was getting from her interviewer. When she finally got another question Amber could tell she wasn’t going to like any of it. She was called Cheryl again and when her arm was brought up she mentioned Cheryl’s match with Roni like it was against her. Now she was mixing them up as if they were the same person. Soon she’d be calling Cheryl the former LAWless champion. “My friend Cheryl fought Roni and nearly beat that muscly assassin despite mostly tag teaming with me. When she tried to break Cheryl’s arm she ran when I came to her rescue. That’s why I think I can beat her. She’s a coward who only has a few little tricks so I’d like to see her try and beat me. Excuse me I have a question now? If this is you mid coffee what are you like without it?”

[Dubski]

Casey Kiernan would look like she was barely paying attention to Amber's answer as she looked through her note cards, pursing her lips for anything interesting to ask about. It wasn't until Amber posed a question to Casey that she looked up to her again. What was she like without coffee? Kiernan thought about that and made the first response that came to mind. "Sad."

Without wasting a beat, the interviewer continued on with her next question. "First, I need to please remind you to stop mixing up both you and your tag partner Cheryl up, because you're frankly confusing the audience," said Casey, deciding to shift the blame onto her interviewee on any confusion here. "But you said a lot of brave, bold words about Roni Mancini and her stunningly killer thighs that she's bravely showing off in that one piece nowadays. Because I have a surprise for you today," stated Kiernan as she stood out of her chair with coffee in hand, stepping away.

"Because it's time to put up or shut up... I'd like to welcome my special guest, Roni "The Hitwoman" Mancini! Come on out and help Amber Skye face her demons, right now!" said Casey as she gestured to the stage entrance!

...

And then Casey lowered her hand about five seconds later and took a sip of coffee, sitting back down into her seat. "That would have been crazy if I actually did that, right? But I try not to talk to the wrestlers here, and honestly, have you seen her? She has a very mean mug. Just... a nasty aura about her. You get it. You've been crippled by her before and are looking like you're on your way to be crippled again," explained Casey before taking a sip of her coffee once more.

[Taskmaster12]

“Checks out.” Was Amber’s response to Casey’s answer. She couldn’t imagine how miserable this barely attentive interviewer was without it. The only progress she made was now she seemed to be aware that she wasn’t Cheryl. Even if she still got blamed for the misunderstanding so Casey could feel like she wasn’t doing a terrible job. Amber either and tried to settled into her chair again when she heard Roni was here and Casey was bringing her out. That got Amber out of that chair quickly and had her turning towards where Casey was looking expecting to attack Roni the moment she showed her face. A few seconds passed and then a minute before Amber started looking everywhere else and then slowly back at Casey when she realized she’d been tricked. How much of a fine would she get if she smashed a mug of coffee over someone’s head? And then proceeded to drown them in a pot of the stuff? She might find out soon. “I can take care of myself. If you have any reason to doubt that just wait until I’m the Openweight champion.” Assuming Amber avoids making Casey her next opponent!

[Dubski]

Casey could tell that Amber was losing her patience with her--a very common occurrence when dealing with Casey Kiernan. She knew she never made it easy to handle her, but she didn't really seem to mind too much. In her defense, the crowd did seem to enjoy the bit, even if they were equal parts disappointed they didn't get a brawl between Amber and Roni. But then Amber brought up the Openweight Championship, making Casey's eyes go wide... and then she looked confused.

With a deep sigh, Casey looked at her note cards again, going through them. "Openweight... Openweight... Don't tell me. I heard of this thing before," said Casey, adding to the dead air count as she looked for the cards. Her face lit up as she held it up. "Ah! Hah! I don't know if you're aware, or maybe someone at home doesn't know... but the Openweight Champion... is someone who holds the Openweight Championship," explained Casey, practically reading her note card verbatim before turning it over.

"And I understand you need to qualify for it first by... winning matches," said Casey, looking confused. "Okay, winning matches so that you can wrestle in another match seems redundant." She shrugged after her remark before clearing her throat and resuming. "But you are competing for it... against Vanessa I. Price. And according to my notes, she is... a mean lady." Pausing for a bit, Casey showed her note card to Amber, pointing at it. "That's it. That's all I have about her." That was, in fact, all it said.

"Maybe help inform people a little more about Vanessa I. Price. Who is she? Why do you feel so confident about beating her?" Kiernan asked, resuming her coffee sipping as she let Amber take over for her lack of research.

[Taskmaster12]

While Casey prided herself on knowing the simple things about Apex Amber already had a better answer for it. “Unless you’re me. A former champion such as myself gets to wrestle at Apex whenever she wants. If not for my broken arm I would already be done with it.” As short as her time as champion was Amber was happy it happened for this reason. It gave her an advantage and it felt special to have earned it. She had an easier road than Vanessa I. Price who had no such advantage and was the kind of person to resent Amber for that fact. “Vanessa is very mean but the way I’ll beat her is the way everyone could if they were careful. People underestimate her where I will not. She can’t boss me around or bully me and when she tries all she’ll get is a fist to the face. I know many of you have been looking forward to someone taking her down so I can’t wait to do that for you!”