The video begins and we see the inside of a hotel room, like so many videos before filmed on the road in the crazy life of the twenty-five year old blonde professional wrestler the world knows as Syren. This time however she’s far from alone. She stands in her hotel room dressed in a freshly released ‘Dark Fantasy’ t-shirt and alongside her stands Ravyn Taylor, also dressed in a matching shirt of a different colour. The two of them smile at the camera and Syren gives a little wave. “Hey guys of Femme Fatale Wrestling, hasn’t it been a while? You guys remember us, right? I’d hate to think you’d forgotten about us,” she says with a smile before shaking her head. “The truth is though that I guess I wouldn’t blame you too much if you did, I mean over the past few months it’s not exactly like Dark Fantasy have been lighting the world on fire, is it? In fact it seems like FOREVER ago now that Ravyn and me teamed with Maddie McTaggert to face the Shades of the Sun, the last time that I stepped in to an FFW ring and left with a victory under my belt, and in the time since then we’ve seen a new FFW Champion, we’ve seen new Unity Tag Team Champions, and we’ve seen the beginning and the end of the reign of the Shades of the Sun as Trios Champions, and it’s actually there that I wanted to start. Now I don’t want to kick this off on a nasty note, I’m not bringing this up as a ‘ha-ha, in your face’ kind of thing because no matter what you may think about me I’m not actually like that. In fact I wanted to start by telling Gabrielle and Alysson that I was sorry.”

“Actually we both are,” Ravyn says as she looks in to the camera. “The truth is that I think the two of us will agree that we really thought you three were going to hold on to those titles. We’ve been in the ring with you often enough by now to know how good you are, to know how hard you fight and how valiantly you put everything on the line. When we walked out on Breaking Point to issue a challenge to the winners of the match we both expected that you three would be the winners. I think we were both a little shocked come the end of the show. That isn’t to say however that there was anything to necessarily be shocked by, after all you were in the ring with three fantastic competitors and they were hungry for opportunity after losing those belts before. Now Zoe and I, we undoubtedly want our shot, but that isn’t to say that we wouldn’t enjoy sitting down and watching a third match in the series between the Triple Threat and the Shades of the Sun to see which team is the better team. Then again we’d also very much like the challenge of stepping up and being able to take on the Triple Threat with the Trios Championships on the line, to be able to test ourselves against multi-time champions, and to see how good we could be. But I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking we’re still without a third. We’re a duo and not a trio. That does pose a problem, I’ll be the first to admit that. Come 2015 however that problem may be about to correct itself. Let me go on record now as saying that a surprise is coming your way very soon.”

Syren laughs and nods her head. “And don’t worry, before you even think it you don’t need to. It’s not Maddie. We do have a surprise though, someone that we’re both incredibly close with, someone that we both have experience with and someone who’s hungry for an opportunity, just as hungry as we are. We’d reveal all the secrets but it’s not time for that yet. You see we sat down and we talked about it and we both agreed that right now it’s time for our focus to be on just one thing, and that’s this Saturday night in Dallas, Texas, the final FFW show of the year, where Dark Fantasy gets an opportunity we’ve waited a long time for,” she says in an excited tone. “That’s because this Saturday night when we get our chance to step in to the middle of the ring in a sold out AT&T Stadium it’ll be Dark Fantasy back in action, looking to end 2014 in the best possible way, looking to recover from what began as an exciting series for us but has unfortunately turned against us in recent weeks, looking to go two on two with the Rocking Kittens one more time and this time looking to leave that ring with our hands held high. And that’s not something we’ve experienced in a while, and when you get to the position that we’re in right now, when you don’t get the opportunity to compete in the ring, you don’t get the opportunity to build momentum, you don’t get the opportunity to push yourself and test yourself and ready yourself for the big matches it can send you in one of two directions. It can make you give you, or it can make you hungrier. And I think I speak for both of us when I say that all the waiting, all the hoping, has only made us want this more.”

Ravyn nods her head in agreement. “It’s also given us added motivation,” she explains. “You see we know what our status is within the company. We know that we’re still the outsiders. We may have been around for a while now but we’re far from the first names on anyone’s list as potential opponents, we’re far from the list of people that this company goes to when they’re looking to build a card that’ll get an arena full of fans in and on to their seats so that they can rise up off their seats, and quite frankly we’re looking to do something about that. We want to do something about that. We want to establish ourselves. We want to get our names into those positions. But we’re not going to do that in the way that other tag teams have done before us. We’re not going to declare ourselves ‘beautiful’ and claim the rest of the world pales in comparison. We’re not going to give makeovers. We’re not going to threaten redheads. Instead we’re going to step in to that ring on Saturday night and we’re going to put ourselves in to a position that we both want to be in for 2015. Now that may sound like just words coming from a woman with a disappointing pay per view record in this company. The last time I was on pay per view I faced a deaf woman, and I lost. It wasn’t a happy moment for me. It wasn’t anything I intended to celebrate. But it was an awakening. After that match I was forced to assess, I was forced to make adjustments, and I was forced to decide what truly mattered.”

Syren looks at her and nods in agreement before motioning between the two of them. “And this right here in front of you is what truly matters to the two of us. And I know you guys don’t really know us that well, we don’t have many friends within the company, in fact considering the way I joined I think I made more enemies the moment I signed my name on the dotted line than friends, but that’s not going to stop me from doing everything I can to prove that I belong here, that we belong here and that we can compete with the very best tag teams in this industry,” she says in a emotionally fired up tone. “And you guys, you know all about the other tag teams in this company. Why wouldn’t you? You’ve watched them take advantage of opportunities, you’ve watched them prove themselves, you’ve watched them establish themselves, and you probably look at us and you wonder why you should bother caring about the two of us. Who are we, right? What have we done? Why do we even deserve to be in this match? It’s been months since either one of us was victorious in singles, in tag or in trios. We’ve all but disappeared. So you’re probably thinking that it’s next to a foregone conclusion that that’s our future, and that when the Rocking Kittens win on Saturday night Dark Fantasy will be no more. We’ll be a failed experiment. We’ll be two more girls who couldn’t make it in FFW. How many of them have there been, huh? Even in the time I’ve been here I’ve seen people come and people go. But that’s not going to happen. We’re not going to disappear. We’re not going to give up. We’re going to fight this Saturday night and we’re going to show you why you should care, because we’re going to show you how good we can be!”

 “Why are we in this match? There are plenty of other tag teams in this company right now, aren’t there? There are plenty who are hungry, plenty who are looking for their opportunities. And that’s the keyword right there,” Ravyn tells the camera calmly, less fired up than her partner. “We’re in this match because it’s our opportunity. It’s our FIRST opportunity and we’ve had to sit back and watch impatiently but now it’s upon us. This is the FIRST opportunity that either one of us have truly had in this company to earn a shot at anything, and that’s what we intend to do. Our opponents, on the other hand, are in a very different situation. Our opponents right now, the ever-confident Alysson Gardner and Gabrielle Crimson, the duo who have time and again criticised my partner for a lack of confidence, are approaching this match from an entirely different perspective. For them this isn’t a first opportunity, for them this is a second chance. They were former contenders for the Unity Tag Team Championships. They lost. They are former Trios Champions. They lost. Yet this Saturday they’re blessed with an opportunity to put both those losses behind them and move forward. Now I’m not going to say they don’t deserve that, of course they do. But there is a strong difference between being the former contenders looking for a second chance and being the two who feel like outsiders, who feel like they’ve been left out in the cold for so long and who are ready and willing to fight this Saturday night to find their way in to their very first opportunity. You’re going to hear the Rocking Kittens tell you what it means to them. But for us there is no second chance.”

“That’s certainly how it feels,” Syren agrees with a nod. “And that’s why I’m sorry to the girls for the tough loss they suffered, because I know what it means to lose a belt, I know what it means to long to bounce back, and I know how hard it can be. Any opportunity in this business can be hard to come by in truth, any opportunity can be difficult to find your way in to, and for Dark Fantasy it certainly feels like those opportunities are few and far between. Ravyn says there’s no second chance for us this Saturday, and that’s how it feels. Our backs are against the wall. We have ONE shot to do this, ONE shot to earn our way to a guaranteed Unity Tag Team Championship match in 2015, ONE shot and this Saturday we want to take that chance. You see this started out as a rivalry between the Infamous and the Shades of the Sun. Unfortunate events transpired to force it to become a rivalry between Dark Fantasy and the Rocking Kittens. And in the time that we’ve been doing this, in the time since this whole thing began, in the time since a random trios match ignited a spark between us that’s seen us time and again clash with each other, we’ve watched as the Kittens got opportunities and we’ve got none, and we’ve looked at each other and we’ve said that if got that chance, if we got that opportunity, the two of us would give everything to make it happen. And that’s what we’re going to give this Saturday night because this is no longer a personal rivalry; this is Dark Fantasy looking to establish our future. We’re not just fighting to beat two girls we don’t get along with, with one win this Saturday we can come in from the cold.”

Ravyn nods in agreement but smiles. “As much as that may be true however one can’t ignore the very obvious, and that’s that as much as this match means to us as a duo, as much as this match means to use as a team – the opportunity to stand as number one contenders to the most prestigious tag team championships in Women’s wrestling, the opportunity to get ourselves noticed and to move ourselves up in the world, and the opportunity to make the Unity Tag Team Championships truly matter because no matter what you say about the quality of the reigning champions they’re not defending those belts this Saturday – we can’t ignore the very obvious fact that at its most basic level this is a match between two teams who don’t like one another,” she says almost coldly. “From our very first encounter we’ve not liked one another, and why should we? Because from our very first encounter we’ve been told that we’re not good enough. We’ve been told that we’re not unified enough. We’ve been told that we’re not close enough. We’ve been told that we don’t have the experience. We’ve been criticised for the things we’ve said. We’ve been calls cheats and liars. In fact from our very first encounter it would seem that Alysson and Gabrielle have had no interest in the facts, they’ve had no interest in who we are, they’ve had no interest in actually getting to know us but rather they’ve been far more content to sit in condemning judgement of us, something that we’ve both experienced more than enough of in our lives.”

Syren shakes her head as Ravyn speaks and then lets out a sigh when she’s finished. “It’s true. And there’s one thing that I never got about that either, and that’s that the girls who are criticising us, the ones who are telling us that we’re not the way we should be, are the same ones who are proudly dating one another, proudly engaged to be married, proudly standing as different, and those of you who know us well – which doesn’t seem to be many of you, unfortunately – will know that Ravyn and me have more than a little experience with how it feels to be condemned for being different. And Gabby and Alysson have had to have gone through that same thing. They’ve had to have faced the judgement of their peers, the judgement of the masses, the spiteful, hate-filled comments from so many small-minded people, and yet when they have the opportunity to truly be different what did they do? They talked down to us and they judged us just as so many people have judged them. To me that’s sad. And that was a major problem to me,” she admits before letting out another sigh. “Do you want to know what I wanted that first match to be about girls? I wanted to it be about competition. I wanted it to be about two teams going at it to prove themselves. I wanted it to be about two teams introducing themselves to each other and putting on a show so big it got the attention from fans the world over. And now I know the way it ended, and I’ve always been sorry about that, but I was never that sorry because of the way it began. It began with a lack of respect and three women who thought of themselves as better.”

Syren scoffs and shakes her head slowly. “How many people out there have looked at the relationship between the two of you and told you how wrong you are just for existing? How many closed-minded assholes have done that to you? Yet the first chance you get you do the same thing to everybody else. It’s disgraceful. The first time we met you didn’t look at the two of us and say ‘hey, Ravyn and Syren, you guys could be a great tag team’. You looked at the two of us and you told us we were ‘Maddie wannabes’ and ‘not good enough’ and ‘individuals not a team’. You judged us and you condemned us before we’d even MET in person and in doing so you became just as bad as all the people who’ve told you both that you’re dirty and you’re wrong and you’re sinful and you’re going to hell,” she says, shaking her head again. “And so Ravyn’s right, at its core this is definitely about two teams who don’t like each other, and this Saturday Ravyn and me get a chance to show you both how wrong you’ve always been about us. The fact is that we’ve been through so much together, we’ve walked together through thick and through thin and this Saturday night we’re going to walk together again as partners against EVERY criticism, against EVERY doubt, against EVERY petty comment from EVERY asshole who wants to look down their nose at us, including you two. This Saturday night in Dallas, Texas, we’re not the former contenders looking for another shot, we’re the unknown, we’re the undervalued, and we have EVERYTHING to prove!”

“And that’s the way it’s always been with us,” Ravyn says with a nod of her head. “We’ve always been doubted. We’ve always been criticised. We’ve had our personal lives dragged through the mud, we’ve had threats made to every aspect of our lives, from opponents claiming they’d break our legs to those who’ve claimed they’ll hurt the people we love, and yet through it all we’ve only come together and gotten stronger. We’ve had so many setbacks as well. We’ve both been the cause of a few of those setbacks. But just recently all of that has changed. We’ve found ourselves again. I’ve found myself for the very first time. And we’ve come to one indelible conclusion, that together we’re stronger than we’ve ever been as individuals.  Together we’ve fought wars. Together we’ve conquered the impossible. And we’ve done that because together we make up for each other’s shortcomings. You can criticise it all you want but there is a reason that Syren has been called the Best Female Wrestler in the World, and that’s because when it comes to pure athletic and technical ability this is a woman whose fought giants and overcome them. But that’s not my thing. I can’t even beat deaf girls. But what I lack in the physical I more than compensate for in the intellectual. I’m a strategist, I’m a thinker, and when you combine my intellectual ability with Zoe’s athletic brilliance you get a team that complement each other perfectly, and when you add in everything we’ve been through and how hard we fight for each other you get a duo with the capability of being the best tag team in any company, and just looking for a chance.”

Syren holds up a finger. “One chance,” she says with a nod. “That’s what we’ve got ahead of us. This Saturday it’s not about telling you girls how it is, it’s not about criticising the things you say, it’s not about belittling the things you’ve done – in fact it’s the opposite of that last one because I want you to know how impressed I am by the things you’ve done, how awe inspiring I’ve found your accomplishments, because it’s those accomplishments that drive me to want to beat you even more – but instead it’s about competition in that ring, it’s about guaranteeing ourselves a future and it’s about proving that we can be the better team. You’ve beaten us before. You do it again this Saturday and you’re the number one contenders to the Unity Tag Team Championships. We beat you and we move past you for the very first time, we move ahead of you for the very first time, and we get a shot that we both want. Individually Ravyn and me have built ourselves careers away from each other but it’s together that we’re at our best. And together there’s one thing we want above all others and that’s to hold the Unity Tag Team Championships over our heads. It’s personal this Saturday without doubt, it’s about a personal rivalry between two teams to finally find out after all this time which of us is better, and I know in my gut that it can be us. I can’t tell you that this is the last time we’ll clash – truth is I hope it isn’t – but it may be the last time before one team has those belts around their waists. It’s a long way to go before then I know, but it’s possible, and that’s what we’re fighting for.”

She pauses for a moment before looking in to the camera with a sincere and emotional look. “But I want you both to do something for me, ok? When this match is over, no matter what happens, no matter who wins, I want you to stand with us in the middle of that ring and I want to shake your hands. If I’m the loser then I want to show you both the respect I’ve always had for you, and if I’m the winner then I want to show you that respect regardless. You see I know you both better than you realise. I know the things you’ve been through better than you realise. I know how hard it can be. And I’ve always respected the two of you, and it’s always hurt that that respect hasn’t always been returned. This Saturday I want to fight you both and put on a SHOWCASE match for tag team wrestling. I want the world to see that this isn’t just a match between four women but a match between two TAG TEAMS and I want the world to know what the FFW Unity Tag Team Championships mean to all of us. This Saturday I want the four of us to put on the best match of our lives and to STEAL THE SHOW, and when it’s over I don’t want bitterness, I don’t want anger, I don’t want Twitter rants about how unfair things are, I want respect. Can you do that for me?” she asks sincerely. “Can you do that for me this Saturday, no matter who wins? This Saturday it isn’t Future Shock, it isn’t about Ultraviolence, it isn’t about anything but TAG TEAM WRESTLING, and I hope the next time we do meet it’s for those Unity Tag Team titles, and I hope Ravyn and me are defending them. I challenge you both to show us the respect you didn’t show us when this began, and if you can’t then there’s only one other thing I’d want you to do: BE TOTALLY JEALOUS!”

Ravyn looks at her wrist where a watch would be before smirking at the camera. “The clocks ticking, the end is getting near, on Saturday night the four of us fight and only two of us get what we want. You think those two will be you. We think those two will be us. Let’s find out, shall we? No mind games, no bullshit, just the four of us in that ring and Dark Fantasy getting the opportunity to prove ourselves,” she says softly before smiling again. “Let’s finish this the way we should have started it, shall we? Let’s give the fans what they want. Let’s give them a tag team showcase. And I’d tell you that I want to see the best tag team win this Saturday but in truth I already hope that we’re going to. See you Saturday ladies.”

Syren smirks at Ravyn’s comments before shaking her head. She seems to whisper something about her partner being ‘unnecessarily bad’ before turning back to the camera and blowing it a kiss. “Oh, and by the way, since this is the last appearance of 2015 Happy Christmas, and I hope you all have the best of New Years and find all the happiness you deserve.”

She kisses her fingers and presses them against the camera and the video ends there with the scene fading out at that point and the replay button flashing up on the screen.