TV Multiverse 124 (Patreon)

After sending Donna to Los Angeles, he didn’t follow her there.

Nor did he stay in New York, because the loss of her precious secretary meant that Harvey had lost a significant organizational advantage, and his attacks slowed. So, Ethan had no trouble trusting Zane to handle the rest.

At least, until Harvey gathered himself for another attack.

Instead, he flew to Vegas, because Carina called him, calling in the favor he owed her.

He even flew to Vegas a few days early, wanting to explore the city without any spy adventure spoiling it. Having a day to himself with no agenda would be fun.

Also, he was curious whether he would come across any new shows there. It seemed likely.

Once he arrived, he spent some time gambling, losing some money by playing roulette and other randomized games rather than blackjack or poker.

Sometimes, losing money was more fun.

Also, he wanted to blend into the background, so he used his Controlled Dimming perk to look more ordinary, and he deliberately wore loose jeans and a flannel shirt, even putting on fake glasses.

After all, if he was pulling a Clark Kent transformation, he better pull it with style.

A tall, nerdy guy walking around Vegas didn’t get any undue attention, and he enjoyed the rare experience of fading into the background. It was meditative.

He even got his hands on a guitar, and played rock covers at a corner for a couple hours for the sake of nostalgia. After all, it was the way he earned his first dollars once he found himself in this world.

He had been planning to drift aimlessly, until, at the edge of the strip, he saw advertisements for an unexpected show.

The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.

GLOW.

That surprised him, because it was supposed to be a show that happened in the eighties, yet the horribly made poster showed familiar faces from the screen.

One of the faces looked somewhat similar to a certain community college student. Yet, they weren’t identical, just very similar, though that might be the age and heavy makeup, which answered his questions about what would happen if the same actress played two different roles in the shows.

Naturally, he purchased a ticket for the show. GLOW was popular in Vegas, but not the degree that it sold out with impossible to find tickets.

He couldn’t help but smile as he entered the showroom. The show might have been marooned thirty years ahead of their time, but their aesthetic stayed solidly eighties, which, admittedly, made it even more charming.

An unashamedly 80s all-female wrestling show was a fun change of pace.

He sat on a comfortable seat and watched. The production quality was scrappy at best, and the choreography required a lot of touches to be changed, yet the performances were enough to compensate.

He was riveted.

He expected that his skills would make him enjoy the show less, but that was the opposite. It allowed him to separate production and skill. But what truly sold it was their passion.

Understandable. The GLOW team was a gathering of people who had nowhere to go, and in turn, they put everything they had and more into the show. Their passion added a charm that was impossible to replicate.

Yet, two figures shone.

The first was billed as Liberty Belle. An exaggerated all-American sweetheart, the face, and the hero of the show. She was blonde, tall, and beaming, draped in stars and stripes, an Amazon in the flesh. She was also strong and physically domineering.

She owned the room in an effortless way, radiating Charisma even when standing still.

Her nemesis was Zoya the Destroya. A russian villain, the heel, a Soviet caricature from the days of red scare, magnified to absurdity. She didn’t have the effortless charisma of Liberty Belle, but she compensated it with constant movement and endless quips.

Yet, the best part of her show was how much Zoya enjoyed it. Her joy came across in a way that was impossible to fake, both the cheers and boos giving her a boost.

Of course, the advantage of watching the show was that he knew exactly why she enjoyed it so much. Ruth Wilder, an actress that failed too many times to take her moment in the spotlight for granted.

The two of them together put together a match that was incredibly compelling, so much that he was surprised how they were not more successful … then he remembered. They had a struggling drunk for a director, and a trust fund baby for a producer who, at the start, signed the name rights to a channel without even considering the implications, screwing their talent badly in the process, including not giving them health insurance.

As he watched, he pulled his notebook, quickly drawing a storyboard.

It was a fun opportunity. Olivia and Penny were working on the movie already, but he knew they were having trouble during the auditions. There weren’t a lot of actresses that could carry an action movie.

He might have just solved that problem.

And, with tech business trusted to Donna, he had some time for new project, and he was looking for someone that could help Olivia with the directorial duties, which she seemed to not enjoy as much as she first expected.

While watched, he used his notebook to draw, capturing a few scenes. Drawing wasn’t as challenging as oil painting, but it had its own charm.

He had been planning to enjoy the night, when one of the side performers, a black woman who was billed as the Urban Queen, stopped early. The name was on the nose, but considering the original show had her name as the Welfare Queen with casual eighties racism, it was considerably better. From the show, he remembered her real name.

Tamme.

He saw her talk with her friends, but she wasn’t good enough to hide her health issues from him.

She was in serious pain, the kind that left most people collapsed on the ground, howling. Worse, it was a lower back injury, the kind that could be devastating left unattended. She was hiding from everyone because she didn’t want to lose the show.

He respected the determination she showed.

No one else noticed, including her friends, but he didn’t blame them for it. It was very difficult to notice someone hiding an injury, especially in a chaotic environment like a Vegas show backstage.

He also noticed Tamme wasn’t going to the dressing room, but a back alley, already tearing up.

He left the show and followed her to the alley.

She looked up sharply as he approached, which was an understandable reaction. Random men approaching crying women in a dark back alleys seldom had good intentions. He was the exception. “Walk away, white boy,” she said, her voice tense, and he noticed her gaze on a bottle nearby, ready to use it as a weapon.

“Even if I plan to make you moan with joy with my magic fingers,” he said, giving her a teasing opening.

“I’ll put your head through the wall, white boy,” she said. “I have enough problems.”

“I know, back problems,” he said, his tone serious. “Probably a misalignment of lumbar vertebrae. Some bad muscle spasm as well, worsening the pain. It must feel like someone stabbing your back with a hot knife”

“What?” she said.

“I was at the show, I watched you leave. The way you walked out, very distinctive. It must be hurting like hell,” he said. “I can give you a massage to relax it.”

“Why?” she said.

He shrugged. “It was an amazing show. It would be a pity if you injured yourself permanently. And, I’m guessing you don’t want to go to the doctor.”

That made her laugh. “I can’t, not if I want to spend all I earned last month and maybe more,” she said.

“No health insurance?” he asked. She nodded. “Of course. Independent contractor trick, right?” he said.

“You’re not a doctor, right?” she asked.

“No, but I’m really good at first aid and massages, which is more than you’ll get from your exhausted and well-meaning friends. Assuming, of course, you told them about your back pain in the first place.”

“Fine, white boy. I’m going to turn my back to you, but if you’re a serial killer, you better kill me instantly,” she said. He couldn’t help but respect her. It was not easy to make jokes while suffering.

He put his hand on her back. “It’s going to hurt a bit, but it’s part of it,” he warned.

She gasped in pain when he started. “Only a bit,” she said, but when he pulled back, she hummed. A minute passed in silence. “Wow, I’m feeling better already.”

“That’s just a start,” he said, and spent the next ten minutes fixing her back, in a way that no one in the world could do. The combination of Master Field Medicine, supported by his franky ridiculous stats, was impossible to copy.

He was preparing to end the massage when he noticed Ruth, still dressed as Zoya, arrive at the back alley, tensing the moment she saw them. The nice thing to do was to introduce himself and discuss Tamme’s back injury.

Unfortunately, he was feeling mischievous. As Ruth approached, he deliberately adjusted his massage to be more effective, which made Tamme gasp loudly, though more from a shock of changing sensation rather than real pain.

Naturally, Ruth misread, and thought he was stabbing her friends, and immediately went for a bodyslam. She was very brave. “Leave her alone, creep!” she declared as she flew in the air.

She was tiny, but as an experienced wrestler, the power she put behind that fullbody slam was no joke. He barely turned, and took her to his chest and made a show of falling back, his head hitting hard enough to make a thud.

It sounded far worse than it actually did.

“H-hello, pretty Soviet lady,” he said, slurring like he was concussed. “Is this how you ask for dates in Siberia?”

“Ruth, what the hell!” Tamme gasped.

“He was attacking you!” she said.

“He was giving me a massage because I hurt my back,” Tamme explained. “And you just gave him a concussion.”

Ethan gave Ruth his best smile. “Worth it,” he said, watching her blush.

[Achievement complete. Arrange a perfect meet-cute with Ruth Wilder.

Challenge: Hard]

[+10 Intelligence

1 Random Gold Skill

1 Random Gold Reward]

Intelligence was useful, but at this point, he wanted to test his luck with rewards once more.

[Inspiration for a movie script]

Simple, unadorned, and also very difficult to know its value. But, with his plans for the movie changing, it was a nice reward to have.

He let Tamme and Ruth bring him backstage, making a show of looking dazed and stumbling. “Who’s this?” one of the girls asked.

“He’s a doctor Ruth decided to tackle and give a concussion for helping me,” Tamme said.

“I thought he was attacking you,” Ruth tried to defend herself, panicking.

“Hey, don’t be hard on her,” he said, slurring still as he fake-stumbled. “I’m the hurt party, and I think what she did was amazing, throwing herself as a missile to defend a friend.”

Tamme sighed, and patted Ruth’s shoulder. ‘She’s amazing like that, our little ninety-pound guardian angel,” she said.

“Sexy guardian angel,” he added while he let them set him on a couch while he gave Ruth another smile, making her blush and the other girls giggle.

“That was not an explanation, ladies. We want more details. Like why Ruth decided that he was attacking you.”

“He …” Tamme started, then paused.

“Ethan,” he completed, still slurring.

“Ethan came to me in the alley. And yes, I know how that sounds and I had my own bottle ready to smash his head. Apparently, he’s a doctor—“

“Field medicine expert, not the same thing,” he corrected. They looked at him, and he shrugged. “Claiming to be a doctor without license is illegal,” he said. “A possible concussion not enough to forget it.”

“Why does being a doctor matter?”

“During the last move, I pulled a muscle. That was why I left the set early,” Tamme said. The girls looked worried. “Nothing too serious,” she added, even as she sent a glare at him, warning him not to speak.

He held his mouth. Even without the show, he would have understood that she needed the money, because without fighting, there was no payment. He planned to intervene, but he could do better than blurting it out.

“Anyway, since he was good enough to notice I pulled my back from a hundred feet, I decided he could be trusted to give a massage. Ruth misunderstood and went full crazy Zoya on him.”

Everyone looked at Ruth. “Sorry,” she said.

Then, Rhonda, a cheerful brunette, stepped forward, putting her hand on Tamme’s shoulder. “And, he made it better?”

“Like magic,” Tamme responded.

Rhonda smirked, then looked around. “Alright, girls. Who’s fucking him so that we can keep him!”

“Rhonda!” Ruth gasped.

“Oh, I would, but technically speaking, I’m married,” Rhonda responded with a smirk. “How about you, Ruth? You’re already mounted him once. And you clearly have a crush on him.”

Her blush was beautiful. “Shut up. I do not.”

Tamme laughed. “You do, girl.” Then, she leaned forward, whispering. “Go for it. It’ll break your dry spell. A man with magical fingers is not to be missed.”

That didn’t help Ruth’s blush.

He didn’t say anything, happy to watch the surrounding chaos while living his fake concussion. The GLOW team was even more fun than he expected. Tamme finished telling the story, while everyone but Ruth laughed, but after he gestured her that he was better, even she was smiling.

“Ladies, how about I walk outside, so that you can change? I have a feeling that those costumes are not comfortable.”

“Not even a bit,” Rhonda responded. “But are you sure you don’t want to stay and watch? A service.”

He smirked. “I would love to, but I have a feeling doing so would ruin my chances of asking out the sexy Soviet gladiator, so I’ll skip,” he said, which made room break into giggles and teasings once more.

Once he left, he could still hear the chatter, Perception keeping his hearing sharp.

“Wow, someone’s getting lucky,” one of the girls said the moment the door was closed.

“I am not.”

“You certainly are. He got slammed on the floor, and the first thing he did was to ask you for a date.”

“Literally,” Tamme said. “His first words were whether sexy russian gladiators asked for a date like that in Siberia.”

That made the rest of the team tease her even more.

While he was sitting on a chair, someone else walked in front of him. Debbie, Ruth’s wrestling buddy and her best friend, though with a rather complicated history between them.

She stood in front of him, changed out of her Liberty Belle costume into a pantsuit, looking even more intimidation. She was tall for a woman, and knew exactly how to turn that into authority.

He would bet everything he had that she would provide Charisma.

“Do you have a concussion?”

“No, I’m already feeling better. It’s probably a momentary dizzy spell, though I would still stay awake just in case,” he said.

“And you are going to force Ruth to stand watch.”

“Force is an ugly word. I’m just using it to ask a cute woman on a date. Hardly a crime, and I can just go to the hospital if she stays out of obligation,” he said.

“I don’t trust random men appearing in dark alleys,” Debbie said.

He raised his eyebrows mockingly. “Really, in a safe and innocent city like Vegas?” he teased. It made her lips twitch, but she erased it. Clearly, despite their complicated past, she was determined to protect her best friend.

“You know what? If it makes you feel better, if she says yes, we’ll stay at the hotel so you can be overprotective without playing spy across the strip.” That didn’t help her mood. She said nothing, just turned her back and left, frustrated.

He wasn’t surprised. Debbie was a control freak in the show, which calmed down only when she pulled a coup to steal a TV channel deal from her boyfriend at the time.

A while after Debbie’s departure, Ruth stepped out, changed into a short, striking red dress rather than the shirt and jeans combo she usually wore on the show. He had a feeling it was from one of her friends, and she was encouraged to wear it.

“So, Miss Wilder. What’s the verdict? Medical observation, or date?”

Her blush was cute. “Let’s start with the medical observation and see how it goes,” she said with a giggle. “There’s a nice restaurant here with good steak.”

“Sure, we can do it, but why do I have the feeling that you’ll prefer waffles and hot chocolate after a fight?”

“Well…” she said.

“We can have that, no problem,” he said.

“Really? Not an ideal date location, right?”

“A place both of us will enjoy being without being stressed about the cutlery, or annoyed waiters that constantly fill our glasses?” he asked. “It sounds like a very fun first-date location?”

Her smile turned brighter.

“You’re right,” she said. He presented his arm. She blushed but joined, and together, they went toward the waffle place.

A perfect Vegas first date.