After Shock Preview for Future Shock 57

A lightning bolt strikes the screen, leaving the Future Shock logo. The next thing we see is the familiar set of the After Shock studio with the curved video wall behind the purple couch. Gary is also seen in his bowl. The camera pulls back, and finds a raven-haired woman holding the Future Shock Championship.

Jake: Hello there, everyone! And welcome to the latest edition of After Shock, your go-to source for all the latest information and news coming out of FFW’s developmental brand, Future Shock. I’m Jake Chandler, and my guest co-host this week is….well, she’s saying she is one third of the Future Shock Champions….Luna Cortez.

A lower third pops up on screen: “* Or so Christian Kincaid told us”.

Luna: I’m not “saying” I’m one of the three Future Shock Champions, I AM one of the new Future Shock Champions, thank you very much. And, hey, it would have been far more graceful of yours to invite your champions in After Shock on the show right after we won the Championship, but we forgive you for bringing knock-off Sabrina the Teenage Witch #2.

Jake: Mikayla is my friend, and she’s always welcome on this show. But look, we have a lot to cover. So let’s start with a few highlights from the last show. I’m sure you’d like to talk about you and your sisters’ segment before we get into the matches, so go ahead.

Luna: Well, there’s only one thing you need to remember from that moment, and that’s that Tara, Anna and I are running the show now. We made Future Shock the Cortez Show, and it will be the Cortez Show for the foreseeable future. And, hey! Future Shock has always had lackluster champions, and we wanted to make sure this brand had a smart, savvy, intellectually superior champion. A mastermind of the craft, a savant. Not only we gave you that champion; we gave you THREE!

Luna is beaming with a smile. Of course, nobody’s buying that. Jake took a deep breath before he continued.

Jake: Well there was a bit more to it than that, but be that as it may. You found out two of your next matches at the show per Adam, one against Melody Stone on the next show and the tag match with the Stone Sisters in New Orleans April 9th--

Luna: CAN YOU NOT?

Luna casts Jake a NASTY glare, signaling she does NOT want to talk about it.

Jake: But anyway…. Let’s start with the main event. The Gold Standard’s Cassandra Steen and Stacey Sky paid for the win with a few rolls of quarters over Celeste and Katie Keller. I’m going to guess you probably like the Gold Standard a little, is that fair?

Luna scoffs.

Luna: In all honesty, they’re just like the rest of the locker room: limited and sometimes predictable. The difference is that they’re slightly more resourceful than the rest of them, so I guess they have that going for them. The best part about this, though? The message. Katie Keller got struck with a knee that was literally worth chump change. And yet she could use the allowance, because she needs to buy new pants, apparently.

Jake: Or a first pair! Celeste and Cassandra are scheduled to go at it April 9th at the first Future Shock Pay Per View of 2019, Malice. That wasn’t the only match featuring the group. The former Future Shock Champion Valerie McKinley took on “Li’l Pixie Pump” Nora Harris, not that the match ended conclusively.

Luna: No, it didn’t. It had Cait Flanagan, someone who, we should always remember, has not wrestled her first match in Future Shock, making herself known. She attempted to strike Nora Harris with a microphone, but ended up clocking Valerie, to which I say… Ha, what a dumbass! This is the magical thing about being resourceful: you can’t just walk in willy-nilly and flail around with what you have: you have to calculate your moves. And this is something only masterminds can do. Though I have to ask: where did Nora Harris get the idea that Cait Flanagan wants to replace Valerie McKinley in the Gold Standard, when they can both be there together?

Jake: I don’t claim to know how that group works, and I’ll let them work it out. How impressive, though, were the Raging Dragons in their tag team debut against Mars and Vivi? Adam’s been signing a lot of new teams, and so far, they’ve turned out to be really talented, I think.

Luna: Goes to show just how mediocre the Best Friends are, doesn’t it? Losing their match together to a team having their first ever match as professional wrestlers! And good on Adam for bringing so many tag teams into Future Shock; with as many of them popping around, one would even be brought to believe some of them are good by comparison.

Jake: … you did lose to Mars Whimsey back--

Luna: WHAT MATTERS IS that none of those teams has showed the amount of brainpower, willpower, and… just outright power to dominate Future Shock than the Cortez Sisters have. So to Mars Whimsey and Shoehorn Vivienne, what I CAN say is… Stop trying. You don’t have what it takes. Losing to a duo of rookies should’ve tipped you.

Jake rubs the bridge of his nose for a second.

Jake: Let’s move onto the next show. We’ll be back in the Future Shock Center on March 26th on the last show before we head to Malice. And I already mentioned that my co-host here will be in action against Melody Stone. To be fair, Luna here does have a win over Mikayla in her debut. But the girls are pretty smart, and I suspect Melody will have watched plenty of tape and will be ready to go.

Luna: And it’s like we told them on social media. We’ve beaten them before and we can beat them again. They wanna raise the point that it was their debut and maybe they weren’t ready, but guess what? We’ve gotten better too. So… What they call a “preview” of Malice, I’ll call foreshadowing: it’s going to be the same result when I last faced one of them, and it’ll be the same result when Anna and I take them on PPV: one, two, three, LOL the twins win.

Jake: Also scheduled, Mars Whimsey gets back into the ring in singles action against one of the newest Prospects who had a very successful debut recently. Straight out of New Zealand, Katie Hanley will meet Mars, who has a win over you back at the supershow.

Luna pinches the bridge of her nose and lets out a soft growl, as this is the second time this is mentioned.

Luna: Okay. Sure. Look: I don’t care about Mars Whimsey, ‘k? She may have struck luck when facing me, but she doesn’t have this belt. And as far as this match of hers with Katie Hanley goes, all I can say is that people should brace for diabetes, because of the amount of saccharine that’s gonna be this match. This whole “power of positivity” thing is more appropriate for a TED Talk seminar than a wrestling ring. But then again, what can we expect from someone who took on wrestling to gain more Patreon followers willing to pay to see her crotch on Snapchat?

That silenced Jake for a second as he tried to move forward.

Jake: And then there’s the main event! A big tag team main event will see Valerie McKinley and the new Aspire Champion Elizabeth Lannister meets Nora Harris and her training buddy and former Aspire Champion Lydia Charisma! After the last matches involving all four of these girls, I think this one has the potential to be a real bruiser of a match.

Luna: Yes! And I’m pretty sure everyone wants to see the… uh, let’s call “debut” of Nora Harris and Lydia Charisma as a team, since they’ve been very friendly with one another over their gym achievements and their “do you even lift, bro” attitude. But again, it’s the Gold Standard on the other side, so unless Cait Flanagan decides to fuck up for Valerie there once more, I expect a lot of bad blood, especially between Elizabeth and Lydia, since they have the Aspire Championship history to go on.

Jake: Lydia and Nora both probably have some payback in mind. I’m looking forward to it too. You know what? I’m kinda surprised by the fact that Kyle hasn’t tried to lure you all for his group. I think you all would get along pretty well. You seem to have similar mindsets.

Luna waves him off as she blows a raspberry.

Luna: Christian Kincaid saw the potential in us long before Kyle Kilmeade even cared to look our way. Not to say we’re mercenaries, but when someone senses in us an opportunity to strike gold -- ACTUAL gold, not just a stable with that name -- we can work on a first come, first serve basis. I’m positive CK would never give us up, seeing as we’re his best success case study, and we don’t really need to abandon him for any dog pack mentality either.

Jake: That does bring up a question about Anna though. Do you think she’s prepared to make her debut at Malice? I mean it’s not like she’s had an actual match yet, like you or Tara. Do you think you’re going to be carrying her at Malice?

Luna: Do you REALLY think that?

Luna smirks.

Luna: Mikayla Stone may want to call us generic because we look the same and act the same, but think about it. If the three of us are interchangeable… It could’ve been anyone of us using Tara’s name to defeat Harley Shannon for the Future Shock Championship. And THAT is why all three of us are champions. And even if you disagree with that idea, then hell, Anna just made history in FFW by becoming a champion on her first night in the job!

Jake looks off camera for a moment, as if asking if this was all real before he took a deep breath and turned back.

Jake: That’s the card you can expect to see March 26th when Future Shock heads back to Boston on the last stop before Malice. Before we wrap up, I like to give my guests an opportunity to leave you all with something to think about. So Luna, is there anything you’d like to add before the show is over?

Luna: Just one quick reminder that this…

Luna raises her counterpart of the FFW Future Shock Championship belts.

Luna: … is proof of everything we have been saying. We’re superior in every sense of the word. So pay close attention to what’ll happen when I face Melody Stone. It’s all the information you’ll need for Malice; all the rest is a filler. And Jake, thanks for having me! Maybe you should go for the trifecta and get Tara and Anna here for upcoming shows for a change!

Jake: I’ll uh….look into that. Thank you for being here, and we’ll see everyone March 26 back in Boston as Future Shock makes one last stop before Malice!

As the shot fades out, someone hands Jake a couple aspirin and a glass of water. The Future Shock logo flashes past after that.