Meltdown XXVII & Fallout 027 || Promo Thread

[SupineSnake]

The promo deadlines for both shows are:

Sunday 12th March, 2023 at 23:59 Pacific Time.
Monday 13th March, 2023 at 03:00(am) Eastern.
Monday 13th March, 2023 at 08:00(am) UK.
Monday 13th March, 2023 at 11:00(am) Turkey.
Monday 13th March, 2023 at 19:00 Melbourne.

There will be no extensions. Good luckl!​

 

[SupineSnake]

UNCLE J.J. JAY!, THOMAS WEST, HARRY THE SANE WIZARD, and QUIET are
[CTHULHU’S NEPHEWS]
in

”A CLOCKWORK OCTOPUS.”

*****

"So, what's it going to be then, eh?"

There was me, that is Uncle, and my three Nephews, that is Thomas, Quiet, and Harry, and we sat in the Kosmos Milkbar trying to make up our rasoodocks what to do with the evening. The Kosmos Milkbar sold soymilk-plus, soy milk plus phosphorium or vuluvosect or chiralom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence.

We were dressed, as you might imagine, in the trends of the day. Our shirts and our pants were a fetching hot pink, as were the neezhnies that we wore over the top of them. A cricket box was stuffed down the front of these neezhnies, protection for the skirmishes to come later in the evening. On our feet were black Chelsea boots for galoshes, with steel cap toes, better for kicking and stamping, and atop each of our gullivers rested a bowler hat, except for Thomas, who provided variation with a feathered stovepipe. He also wore a heavy chain around his neck, which I thought was provocative for the Kosmos Milkbar. The rest of us wore blades, hidden within our tolchoks, more discrete and possibly more deadly, too.

"So, what's it going to be then, eh?"

The old chelloveck who was hovering next to the pair of devotchkas, ogling their cocktail dresses (or the contents thereof) and swaying this way and that with his drink in his hand, repeated his question. The two devotchkas were standing up next to the old jukebox, and smotted as though they were about to sing us a warble, the old jukebox being broken and unable to perform that function. The pair were engaged in a hushed discussion, much to the impatient chelloveck’s distaste. It seemed they were trying to choose a warble that they both remembered the words to. The old chelloveck continued to wait and sway.

"What's on the cards tonight, Uncle?" Harry asked, whilst sipping his moloko. The other three weren't the most observant of Nephews, and were mostly oblivious to the goings on in the bar beyond our table. “What does our droog have planned for us?”

"... ….. .. …. …. ….?" Quiet added.

"More of the same, I don't doubt," Thomas. His moloko was already empty, the chiralom roaring around his body and doing its work. Putting him on edge. "Moloko and then krovvy and then later devotchkas, I don't doubt."

"Wait, dear Nephews," I said, with my hand raised, a warning that something was about to happen. Something that they should halt their incessant chatter for. Over by the broken old jukebox, the two devotchkas were ready for their performance. They cleared the throats and stretched their diaphragms, the old chelloveck still swaying and drinking nearby.

"So, what's it going to be then, eh?" he said, once again. The devotchkas, who were real arty performance types, were no doubt quite accustomed to dealing with drunks and hecklers and other unfavorables. They did their best to ignore him, projecting their goloss out over the bar as they began their warble.

And just as fate would have it, Nephews, this warble happened to be one of those classic numbers that I had at home, which I liked to play for myself or for a young devotchka or two I sometimes like to entertain. None of those pop warbles, of course. Something real classic, to really get the krovvy pumping. This was a country and western number by The Man himself, one that I found particularly stirring, and one that the two devotchkas in the Kosmos Milkbar sang with such a beauty that hasn't been viddied in London for the longest time. Indeed, Nephews, it was as though angels flew into the room, blowing long, golden trumpets and singing with golosses only ever heard in the heavens.

It was as these two middle-aged devotchkas were singing about keeping a close watch on this heart of mine, though, that a most uncomely interruption broke their rhythm. And it pains me to admit the source of this interruption was my own Nephews. Harry had thought it wise to show these two angels what his uncultured rasoodock thought of their warble by pushing his lips together and blowing a raspberry. Thomas immediately started to laugh, but stopped when I lashed my tolchok down hard onto Harry's thigh. The youngest amongst us let out a yelp, and then fell silent.

"Watch that," I said. My glazzies were focused on the two devotchkas, who were watching the scene unfold from the perch by the broken jukebox. I smiled and waved them on, and they finished the warble from the last verse. But it wasn't the same. My anger had been stirred. This is why nobody made this sort of music anymore. Why it wasn't heard on the streets anymore. It had disappeared in the wake of uncultured apathy, and when it infrequently made its grand return, in beautiful but fleeting moments like this one, it was greeted by mockery and disrespect. And its pride was delicate.

"You hadn't ought to have done that," Harry mumbled, after the devotchkas had finished their warble. "You hadn't ought to have hit me like that."

Only then did I remove my glazzies from the angels and their trumpets, a smile still etched upon my litso. I finished my moloko.

"So, are we ready to go?"

*****

Outside of the Kosmos Milkbar, we viddied a babbling old pyahnitsa or drunkie sitting - almost lying, really - against the wall of a bridge's underpass. He was yelling and yammering into the night, mostly howling the old warbles of his dead fathers, but also whining some empty epitaphs about how veshches used to be and what's wrong with everyone today. Occasionally, he would yawn, and appear for a moment like he was about to fall asleep. Then he'd get a new second wind, and begin a new fragment of a warble or jumbled diatribe about the Truth of the matter.

"So, what's it going to be then, eh?" the old drunkie gargled as me and my three Nephews arrived at his side. Our shadows danced on the wall like in one of those old-timey puppet theatres. "Twenty more years of the same? Is that it? Fifty? A hundred?"

"Are you okay, my old droog?" I asked, my tolchok propped against my shoulder, cutting the figure of a fine, young, and - most importantly - compassionate chelloveck. "Are you in need of some assistance? What seems to be the problem?"

Rather than accepting my kind offer of help though, Nephews, this old pyahnitsa bulged his glazzies out - real unseemly, like - and burst into a fresh round of warble.

"And I will go back to my darling, my darling,
When you, my darling, are gone."

That was enough to start Harry laughing again, and Thomas joined in, too, his chain dangling around his neck. I didn't reprimand them quite so harshly as back in the Milkbar. This old drunkie's rendition of a warble I didn't know didn't quite stir in me the same sentiments as the old devotchka and their angelic performance of The Man. I let them go on laughing, and even afforded myself a smirk, which only seemed to raise the pyahnitsa's ire.

"You children, you ruffians!" he began again in a bark. He lifted one of his fists, clenched and brandished at us. The other was wrapped around the top of a whiskey bottle. "You've no idea what it was like for me! You've no respect for the roads I had to walk!"

"No?" I asked, thoughtfully. "Then why not tell us, droog? If one doesn't know, then one must learn!"

"Scrapping and fighting and clawing for everything you got," the drunkie went on, his speech a laboured struggle. "When I was a boy, you had to earn a veshch, and that's the Truth of it! Not like it is now! Everything is handed to you! Nobody has to scrap, nobody has to fight, nobody has to claw!"

"My heart feels for you, droog," I said, whilst gently tapping my tolchok against my shoulder. Thomas was removing his heavy chain from around his shoulders, the links clinking and clanking against one another as he did. "But I think you're a little bit mixed up."

The ded’s glazzies had closed over again, and in this brief bout of unconsciousness he even indulges in a snore. When he burst awake once again, more snippets of old warbles emerged from his quivering lips.

"Oh dear dear land, I fought for thee,
And brought the peace and victory –"

The end of Thomas' chain hit the ground with a dull thud. Quiet and Harry both had their tolchoks clenched in their hands.

"It's not that we are given everything," I explained to the old pyahnitsa. "It's that we’re taking it."

*****

When on our way towards the docks for an evening stroll along the water, we heard a commotion from within the old fallout shelter. The disused municipal bunker was abandoned and had been for a couple of decades now, except for when used by the city's bored and misguided youth. In this day, all sorts of skullduggery went down in the fallout shelter, and - like any good citizens would - me and my three Nephews decided to investigate the cause of the disturbance on this crisp, spring evening.

Inside the shelter was the familiar sight of Besty Boy, another of the city's bored and misguided youths who, like me, ran with his own gang and proved a nightly menace to London's streets and citizenry. Unlike me, though, Besty Boy merely played at chaos. He was a product of his environment, whereas, with your dear Uncle, veshches are very much the other way around. I am the sort who bends their environment to their will, whose strength of personality is enough to divide or unite depending on my whims. On the outset, my own group and that which Besty Boy led perhaps seemed of the same cloth. But his brand of anarchy is selfish and trivial, less ambitious, and altogether nastier.

Tonight, Besty was with two of his hoodlum followers, scrapping amongst themselves in-between the long canteen tables inside the fallout shelter. There were only three of them: Besty himself, his fiercest and dimmest ally Big Bryan, and a young, twinkish boy they called Wolf. The last of these three was invariably the butt of the other two's jokes, and a frequent punching bag for them to warm up on before heading out into the night. This evening was no different. Big Bryan was throwing the young Wolf this way and that, over the canteen tables and skidding across the hard, concrete floor. Besty Boy hooted with laughter, occasionally putting the galosh in himself but more frequently watching his droog's handiwork with a sense of unbridled glee.

Such was the commotion inside the fallout shelter that Besty Boy and his droogies didn't even hear us enter. We stood in a line against one of the end walls of the rectangular room, watching the scrap develop between these two alleged friends. Eventually, to call time on the in-fighting and draw their attention to us, I let out a long, monotonous whistle. The three of them quickly stood to attention at my sounding the alarm.

"Well! If it isn't young Besty Boy!" I began, my goloss echoing around the old, abandoned building. "Come to play at anarchist whilst M and P soundly sleep, is it? My Nephews are here to watch your circus! Don't stop it on my account!"

Besty Boy took a step towards me, his truncheon gripped tightly in his hands. I could hear Thomas chuckling next to me.

"Or, better yet," I hollered, enjoying the echoing acoustics. "Come show us your yarbles! If you've got any yarbles!"

A silent, tense stand-off.

"So, what's it going to be then, eh?"

That was enough to draw a lunge out of Besty Boy and his droogs. What followed was a brief but fun brawl, punctuated by the free and energetic hurling of tolchoks and the hypnotic swinging of Thomas' chain. I was enjoying myself far too much, in fact, for I barely even heard the ringing of sirens stirring in the distance. The symphony got closer as I threw my galoshes into Besty Boy's stomach, the knives in the chiralom from earlier in the evening finally beginning to scratch. Only when Quiet dragged me away did the sirens become apparent to me, and we dove through the surrounding alleyways in the direction of the docks.

*****

The Pink Squid was full of the usual assortment of old pyahnitsas and drunk devotchkas, and so me and my Nephews nestled ourselves around a quiet corner table away from the buzz. I came with gifts, too, returning from the bar with four tall glasses of Fantasy Cola, perfect for quenching one's first after a bout of highly-charged exploits. The evening so far, I surmised, had been a productive and enjoyable one. Already I felt my krovvy was up, and I would be able to go to bed a happy young chelloveck. But, my Nephews, the night was still young.

I was surprised to find that my droogs did not seem to be sharing in my sense of satisfaction and ease. They each took their colas from the tray and stared into them, as if suddenly overcome by a deep and inexplicable malaise. I smotted at each of them in turn. Harry still pastiched a wounded animal in reference to the tolchok - perhaps ill-advised, I'll admit - that I'd delivered to him earlier. Thomas was passing each of the steel links of his chain through his hands, a stream of unknown thoughts running slowly through his rasoodock. Quiet gently tapped the side of his glass, his mask hiding his litso but his glazzies hinting at a chaotic underflow.

"So, what's it going to be then, eh?" I asked, my tone upbeat and chipper in an attempt to stir them from this sudden lethargy. None of them paid too much notice to the utterance. They continued in their individual representations of aloof, suppressed contempt. "What's got us down, Nephews? A fine start to the night it has been! And the sun has barely even left the sky."

"The three of us have been thinking, Uncle," Thomas started, before trailing off. I smotted at my droog and found he couldn't hold my gaze.

"Oh?" I asked, curiously. "And you didn't think to involve little old me in this brainstorm, Nephews? What is it that's on your rasoodock, that's got you all so downcast and sullen?"

My Nephews glanced at one another, nervously. I took a sip of my cola, regarding each of them ambivalently.

"We've been thinking about how veshches are," Thomas said. "And about a new way."

". … …," Quiet repeated.

"A new way," I threepeated, suspiciously. Thomas shuffled awkwardly in his seat. "So tell me, Nephews, about this new way."

Another uneasy silence. I was unsure how long my Nephews had been plotting this moment, but now that it was here they seemed to be struggling with the execution of it.

"You won't be hitting Harry anymore, for one thing," Thomas said, finally.

"....'. … .. …," Quiet added.

"And we're tired of you choosing what we do all the time," Thomas continued. "Maybe we have an idea or two for capers. Real stuff. More than just a rush and a little bit of pretty polly."

"Do you want for cutter, Nephew?" I asked, still smiling. A part of me was enjoying the sudden resistance. "If you want a new car, droog, you take one off the road! A new record for your stereo or a dress for your devotchka doesn't require pretty polly."

"Even so, we have ideas too," Thomas insisted. "And there are others that could help us in capers. Information. Leads. Extra glazzies and galoshes."

"You mean her?" I asked. Thomas shuffled uncomfortably. I took a lengthy sip from my drink, letting them wait. "We Nephews are an anarchist collective. There is no leader, and all ideas are valid! Even this one, which stinks a fair bit of mutiny, but I'm sure comes from a good place. Your new way is the same way as the old way, Thomas! Any ideas for capers that you have you can bring to the group, and any that are worthy of consideration will indeed be considered.”

Thomas, Quiet, and Harry exchanged smots, as if attempting to ascertain whether they were happy with this response. Neither of them really seemed to be, but weren’t equipped to come up with a counter.

“So, Thomas, as you are the one with all the ideas,” I began, taking advantage of the lingering silence. “What do you have in store for us for the rest of the evening, Nephew?”

*****

The public house looked out over the docks, and after drinking up we headed out for a stroll in the direction of the old town. I walked a little ahead, considering this new status quo that Nephew Thomas had suggested, and that I had acquiesced to and supported in the name of unity. I couldn't viddy my Nephews walking behind me, but I sensed they did so with a renewed sense of purpose. Their importance had swelled and their stock within our group, at least in their own glazzies, had risen.

Even though I couldn't viddy his litso, I could tell that Thomas was smiling, and that I didn't like that smile.

What happened next, Nephews, was another one of those curious twists of fate. A miracle, perhaps, just like when we were sat in the Kosmos Milkbar at the beginning of our evening, and those two middle-aged devotchkas started their warble and chariots bore trumpet-blowing angels into our midst. For one of the coffee houses or apartments overlooking the river-side path had their windows open, and out of them poured the sweetest melody I ever heard. The Man, of course, singing about the man coming around. Before now, I had never been sure if he was talking about himself. But now I understood. Of course he wasn't. He was talking about me.

And, bathed in the light of this sudden and sweet music, I knew exactly what to do.

Slowing to allow Thomas to catch up with me, I threw my weight into the much larger chelloveck. He lost his balance, and with a swift kick with my galosh he fell into the river. I turned towards Quiet, who was slow to realise exactly what was going on, and sliced the front of his shirt open with my blade, which I had quickly and silently unsheathed from its hiding place in my tolchok. The masked chelloveck was barely even cut, but the shock of the surprise attack was enough to send him tumbling backwards onto the pathway. Harry was already back-pedalling, his guard up but his intention to defend rather than attack clear.

Thomas had grabbed onto the side of the river but was struggling to keep his head above the surface. I lowered myself onto my haunches, offering my helping hand to him, which he reached for. He didn't viddy the blade until it cut into his palm. The sweet symphony still poured out of the open window and scored the scene, just as the krovvy poured from his open hand.

So, my glazzies said to him. What’s it going to be then, eh?

"Well?" Uncle asked, as he swivelled away from the screen and addressed the other three Nephews. His countenance suggested a smug pride. "What do you think?"

"I mean… it's okay," Harry said, with a shrug.

".'.. …. ……," Quiet posited.

"I don't think it has the quality and uniqueness of something that we'd actually make ourselves, unfortunately," added Thomas.

"Maybe not, but just think of the time this will save us!" Uncle declared, triumphant even in the face of his critics. "We've toyed with the idea of A.I.-generated promos before, but I think this is a huge leap in the right direction!"

"I'm sure I saw a few guys in there with six fingers," Harry said.

"And will it really save us any time in the longrun?" Thomas asked, with an air of cynicism. "I imagine the prompt commands you had to give were ridiculously specific."

"Not really,” Uncle said. "Look for yourself."

Uncle entered a sequence to load up the command interface on the screen. The other three Nephews crowded around the machine to read it:

=========================
<Principal Nephew Characters>:
Uncle J.J. JAY!, Thomas West, Quiet, Harry the Sane Wizard.
<Supporting Nephew Characters:>
None selected.
<Opponent Stand-Ins:>
Tommy Bedlam, Cyrus Truth, Jeremy Best, Bryan Baxter.
<Supporting Stand-Ins:>
Krash.
<Grade Window:>
30.0-31.5.
<Promo Type (select one or more):>
[ ] slice of life. [ ] monologue, [ ] adventure, [x] homage,
[ ] parody, [ ] dream sequence, [ ] podcast, [ ] historical,
[ ] other (please specify).
<Additional Notes:>
Medium length ‘A Clockwork Orange’ parody promo (without the controversial parts). General idea should be that the Nephews are ripping apart the fabric of the FWA to mirror what the idiots say about us in ‘reality’. Allusions to pre-developed friendly tensions within the Nephews, particularly between Uncle and Thomas and the never-ending ‘leadership question’.
=========================

"Okay," Thomas started, after scanning through the input commands. "But I imagine you had to program it with all the base characters, too. Couldn't have been quick."

"That's the beauty of it," Uncle said. "This thing syncs up with the ship's surveillance systems to get Nephew characterisations right, and all you need is a subscription to the WCNetwork for the stand-ins."

"Still, I didn't see much character progression," Harry pointed out.

".. ….. ……… …, .. .. ….," Quiet agreed.

"Well, we didn't watch all of it," Uncle started. "There's still about an hour and forty minutes left. And part of that's on you anyway, Quiet, for picking such terrible source material to homage. If you wanted Kubrick, I'd have gone with Dr. Strangelove. Or 2001, but I seem to remember Dreamer and GiGi doing that before. If you were after Burgess, maybe Nothing Like the Sun."

"We've done Shakespeare, too," Harry reminded Uncle. ”Twice. If we’re worried about repeating ourselves.

"Running out of things to homage," Uncle rued.

"Even beyond development, I didn't think the character portrayal was quite right, either," Thomas interjected. "We seemed a little unfriendly. Sinister, even. Decidedly un-Nephew-like."

"I noticed that, too," Uncle admitted. "I guess our commands were too centred around other people's perception of us. We're watching how other people see us rather than what we really are."

"Can't we just write a script and act it out?" Harry asked, waving his hands (one human and one animatronic) about in the air. "The costumes are most of the fun!"

“Part of me worries about plagiarism,” Thomas mused. “That’s all A.I. is, at the end of the day. Just in a more sophisticated form than copying and pasting.”

“.. …’. …. .. … .. …. [REDACTED],” Quiet said.

"I've surrounded myself by luddites," Uncle lamented. "Fine. Do you want to watch the end of this first?"

"Sure," Thomas said, with a shrug. "But can we put the controversial parts back in? We're the Nephews, after all. We are controversy. And controversy creates credits."

"If you insist," Uncle conceded. "So long as Eric's tidied the just-chilling room, in case one of us needs it afterwards."

The Nephews settled in around the screen again as Uncle hit play.​

 

[Mandalorian]

Chris Peacock in…

THE PAIN. THE FIGHT. THE HATE.
​

Saturday, 24th July 2021 - Edinburgh, Scotland.​

It had been a long day for Angus, after a long night preceding it. He picked up a piece of stone and tossed it on top of the growing pile of pieces of stone which used to form one of the supporting walls of the Edinburgh Castle’s interior. Deciding that it was time for a break, he stood up straight and strained his back into a more comfortable position. He exited what was left of the room inside the historic venue, frustrated that live explosives had been used to decimate it the previous night. All for the sake of a wrestling show of all things.

He removed his hardhat and wiped his brow before removing his gloves and setting them down on a small plastic table. Angus gave a cursory look around to see whether he was being watched by any of his fellow maintenance workers and upon seeing that they were all elsewhere, he pulled a small, silver flask from his jacket pocket and took a swig. The smooth sensation of whiskey travelling down his throat did not affect him in the slightest, such was the stress he was feeling due to the ongoing massive clean up operation.

Angus took another swig from his flask and allowed the liquid to sit in his mouth for a moment, but this was an inopportune time to do so, as he hears a voice shout from behind him, causing him to spray the whiskey out of his mouth onto the ground in front of him. “For fuck’s sake, Mickey! What did I tell yous about sneaking up on me like that? More fuckin’ mess to clean up now, ya stupid bastard!”

“Sorry, gaffer. There’s just something I wanted to show yous. Something I found.” Mickey said, also removing his hardhat. He, like his boss Angus, spoke in a thick, Scottish accent. He then produced an object from out of his pocket and held it in front of him in his left hand.

“I found something in the wizard’s room, or whatever it is supposed to be. Some kind of workshop or something, I don’t really know.”

“These fuckin’ bastards!” Possibly due to the wastage of his whiskey, or his general demeanour, Angus didn’t care for whatever trinket Mickey had found. He was too angry at that moment in time. “These fuckin’ jazzy yank bastards coming here and making all this mess. They’ve got no respect, Mickey. No respect for our culture, our traditions!”

Mickey scratched the back of his head, unconvinced. “I’m not so sure, gaffer. I think things might have just got a wee bit out of hand, that’s all.”

“Show me what you’ve got there, anyway.” Angus said, not wanting to debate the topic with his subordinate. He snatched the item out of Mickey’s hand and examined it closely. “What’s this supposed to be, some kind of doll or something?”

Neither man spoke whilst Angus held it away from his face so he could get a proper look at the doll. It was composed of a soft wool of some sort, stuffed, and seemed to be a representation of a male as indicated by the black handlebar moustache on the doll’s face. Angus chuckled as he played with the purple jacket stitched onto the doll, before passing it back to Mickey, who looked at it closer.

“There’s a wee name on it, here.” Mickey said, as he pointed to a label affixed to the doll’s foot.

“Aye? What’s it say then?”

“Chris… Peacock?” He scratched his head. “Who the fuck is that?”

By this point, Angus had already begun to put his gloves back on, his flask safely tucked back away. “No idea.”

“Shall we get it back to him?”

“That’s up to you, lad.” Angus said as he placed his hardhat on his head, ready to get back to work. “Whoever he is though, he sounds like a right proper arsehole.”

Mickey laughed at Angus’s comment as he looked into the doll’s face. “I’ll get you home, you’ll be safe with me, Chris.”

Mickey smiled and then squeezed the doll’s body in both of his hands. At that very moment in time, a beaten, broken and charred full-size Chris Peacock screamed at the top of his lungs from his hospital bed.

“ARGH! MY FUCKING RIBS!”

<========3
​

Monday, 6th March, 2023 - New York City, USA.​

Being the FWA World Champion was nothing like how Chris Peacock expected it to be. Despite the outpouring of love and support from his family, his friends and the FWA fans, Chris found himself realising that there was a lot more truth to the saying “It’s lonely at the top” than he first thought.

The pressure of his upcoming first championship defence at The Grand March was already getting to him. Whilst he was doing his best not to let it be known to anyone outside of his inner circle, Chris felt like his reign was in serious jeopardy. He believed that he could go down as just another of the recent holders of the title who merely passed it onto the next person. The more he thought about it, the less he thought of himself as the person to bring stability to the richest prize in the game.

These thoughts existed when it was just Michelle von Horrowitz he was due to be facing, prior to the addition of Cyrus Truth into the match. Chris knew Michelle would do her worst to undermine him at every opportunity. He knows that he got out in front of her on Meltdown, taking her by surprise with his revelation that she had failed in her goal to block Cyrus from the shot at the title which ‘The Exile’ had been craving for a very long time.

Chris tried not to let his dreams of dark clouds engulfing peaceful meadows shake him too much; but his moments of panic and worry would come at the most unexpected of times and not just when he slept or was about to undertake a daunting task. His feelings of loneliness and isolation were only exacerbated by Alyster Black’s understandable need to give thought and time to the search for Krash, as well as Cyrus Truth’s inability to show any sort of gratitude for anything that Peacock had done for him.

Peacock was yet to throw it in Cyrus’s face that he’s only got the title shot because Chris went to bat for him to Jon Russnow, because it was the right thing to do. He was also yet to remind Cyrus that ‘The Exile’ only got a reprieve in the F1 Climaxxx because Chris gave up his own spot in the final four - a spot he earned partially because he beat Cyrus in the first round of pool matches. Cyrus Truth had every reason to be falling at Chris’s feet in gratitude, but Chris knew he would not get thanked. He would not be shown mercy.

So Chris decided that the only way he could hope to advance from The Grand March with the FWA World Championship still in his possession would be for him to train. He would train to the point where he could out-fight Michelle von Horrowitz. He would train to the point where he could out-will Cyrus Truth. Who better to prove his fighting ability, and the strength of his will against, than Reagan Cole?

Chris drove his fists into the punching bag suspended from the ceiling of the old school gymnasium. Despite his champion status, he had no problem preparing for battle in such humble surroundings. This is where he felt the most comfortable. His fists pounded against the bag, creating loud thudding sounds which echoed around the gym.

“So, Reagan Cole. It makes plenty of sense, right? After all, there’s no getting around the fact that he is one of the toughest guys in the locker room. I don’t have a problem admitting that.” Chris rested for a moment, leaning into the bag and he then pushed himself away from it and wiped his forehead with a small flannel resting on a nearby chair. He picked up a bottle of water and took a swig from it, before throwing it back into his training bag. The bottle rebounded off of the FWA World Championship sticking out of the opening.

“This isn’t just any tune-up match, though.” Chris shook his head. “There’s a lot more to this than that. A lot, lot more.”

Chris sat down on the chair and slowed down his breathing, before taking another large drink of water. “And no, it is just because of what happened with Trixie. That was fucked up, there’s no denying it, but that isn’t the reason why this match with Reagan Cole on Fallout carries so much weight for me.”

“There are three words that are heard quite a lot out of the mouths of people connected with the Fantasy Wrestling Alliance.” Chris paused for a moment and leaned forward in the chair. “Fuck. The. Nephews.”

“I like using those words. The fans like using those words… and Reagan Cole likes using those words, too.” After a few seconds of reflection, Chris’s face turned sour and he lightly shook his head. “And it makes me fucking sick.”

“Let’s just think about what possible reasons Reagan Cole could have to feel that way about the Nephews for a second. What is there? Oh, it was he and Aka Yurei that the Connection won the tag titles from. Then there’s… absolutely nothing else.

Reagan Cole’s whole problem with the Nephews is that they wanted and won a title that he had. That’s just the game, pal! That’s how this shit works! You’re telling me you’ve been around the block as many times as you have and you haven’t learned that yet?

You think the rest of us hate the Nephews for things like that? Does Reagan Cole think I feel the way I do about Uncle because he took my X Championship from me, not once, but twice? No. I hate that son of a bitch because he PUT HIS HANDS ON MY FUCKING FAMILY!”

Chris slicked his hair back out of his face and then rose back up to his feet and he threw the flannel down onto the floor. “Reagan Cole doesn’t have the RIGHT to use those words, he hasn’t earned the HATE that I feel for that bunch of assholes.

Hey, Cyrus Truth might be a monologuing, ungrateful piece of shit, but he has earned the hate. He does have the right to feel the same way as me. I’ll gladly admit that.

But Reagan Cole thinks he has a right to feel the same way that I do. Fine, what does he do about it, though? Absolutely nothing. The hate that courses through my body every time I am faced with one of them fuels me. It makes me want to do better for the people that I do this for. It makes me stronger. I’ll be using that when I am faced with Michelle von Horrowitz at The Grand March. What does Reagan Cole’s hate fuel him to do? Absolutely fucking NOTHING!

Does it come as much of a surprise though? I mean, when Uncle and the Nephews put my family in danger, I made it my MISSION to end those assholes once and for all. Yeah, it didn’t work out, but at least I can say that I tried. Reagan Cole’s answer to Jeffry Mason threatening his family, his world? He carries the guy’s fucking bags.

Where’s your fight, Reagan? He’s threatened your family, dude! You should be ripping this asshole’s head off, but instead you’re helping him bully some kid? I’d ask what is wrong with you, but I think that’s something that I already know, too. You’re weak, Reagan. You think I don’t know how this whole thing is going to go?

Let me guess, instead of using our match as a way to elevate your own career, you’re going to whine and complain about being in matches that are too hard for you and that management is trying to screw you over. You’ll be doing that instead of realising that you’re going to be in a main event match with the FWA World Champion and you’ve got the chance to prove to everyone why you’re the best and I’m not. You won’t do that Reagan, because you don’t have the fight in you. If you did, you’d have done something about Mason by now and you’d have done something about the Nephews by now, too.”

Chris stopped talking for a moment and took a deep breath, before dropping himself back down onto the chair. His hands shook as he reached down into the bag in front of him and pulled something out. In the palm of his hand rested a doll. It had black string for hair, a matching moustache and was dressed in a deep purple coloured suit. He ran his hand across the doll’s hair and his own head instinctively moved back at the same time, until he stopped.

“So, this is what it looks like. They made a fucking voodoo doll based on me and it was only because they left it in Cosmic Playground that it found its way into my hands.” Chris spoke in a much calmer voice. “This… is how I know that Reagan Cole hasn’t earned the hate and he doesn’t have the fight and it is because he hasn’t felt the pain. I’m not talking just physical pain either, although they definitely used this for that, too. No, they used this thing to infiltrate my mind.

Hurting my family wasn’t enough. Taking my title wasn’t enough. Beating the shit out of me every chance they got wasn’t enough. They weren’t going to be happy until they’d broken me down and they did. By the time I got my hands on this, they didn’t need it anymore. But what I don’t even think the Nephews thought was that I’d come back and I’d come back stronger and now? There’s nothing they can do to me to get me to that place again. They can’t strip me down to nothing again and force me to rebuild from the beginning again.

Michelle might take this from me at The Grand March. I don’t want it to happen but if she does, I’m not going to hate the Nephews any more than I do now. That’s the game that we all play and we know what we sign up for. I’m sorry if Reagan Cole doesn’t get that and is happy to allow himself to be used by someone just as bad as The Nephews.

Reagan, you’re probably going to hate me too after our match on Fallout. We’ll hear you whining about how you never had a chance anyway and screaming “Fuck Chris Peacock!” any chance you get. Just like them, you wouldn’t have earned that hatred that you’ll feel towards me. That’s unless you learn from the lesson that I’m going to teach you when we face off on Fallout, Reagan.

Reagan, I’ll show you just how powerful hatred can be when it is REAL, and it is earned. I’ll show you the FIGHT that it gives me and I will show you the real PAIN that I felt EVERY SINGLE DAY! So you can choose to learn from what is going to happen to you or not, Reagan. You can choose to take the pain that I am going to inflict on you, take that hatred that I am going to show you and you can learn what it means to truly be able to FIGHT. You can only be an apprentice for so long, Reagan.

When you look at me, when I’m kicking your ass, you’ll see the version of yourself that you have the potential to be. You’ll see what happens when a person learns to fight past the pain and fight with the hate and how it can make them stronger.”

Chris pulled the FWA World Championship out of the bag and held it in front of his face. “I am the best version of myself, Reagan. I don’t know yet if it is going to be good enough for Michelle and Cyrus, but if you aren’t ready to come to Fallout and fight me, I’m pretty fuckin’ confident that it’ll be enough to beat you. So, get ready to feel hatred, to experience my fight and feel the pain.”

Peacock rested the championship on his lap and then reached down into the bag once again and he pulled out another doll. This one wore a black vest with a Union Jack on it and a small pair of denim shorts. Chris looked into the doll’s face as he held it in two hands… and then he tore the doll’s head clean off.

The pieces of the doll dropped to the floor and Chris slumped back in the chair and he closed his eyes. His breathing started to rapidly increase as his head flooded with the weight of the words that he spoke. He knew that this was the last stop before The Grand March, where they were waiting for him. His last chance to prove to the world that he was ready to walk into that match and walk out of it with the championship.

He thought about Michelle’s perceived superiority over him, Cyrus’s lack of gratitude, and how he would overcome them…

“Fuck Cyrus Truth…”

The pain.

“Fuck Michelle…”

The fight.

“Fuck The Nephews…”

The hate.

“Fuck Reagan Cole.”​

 

[Tommy Bedlam]

Rocks…Rocks Everywhere

​

Tommy’s loss to Cyrus Truth was just the most recent defeat on his losing streak. As angry as he wanted to be, he had shifted his focus toward Shawn Summers and the FWA Television Title. Randi had been at the Fallout in Washington D.C., although she did decide against walking Tommy to the ring. No matter how gorgeous she was, she simply wasn’t sure about being on camera in front of millions of people.

If she hadn’t been there, the entire evening would have been an absolute nightmare. She always had a way of making things better. Rocco was excited about the fact that he had secured Tommy a contract for a match with Summers, and their optimism somehow lifted Tommy’s spirits. Of course, all of that was subject to change if Tommy lost to The Boulder next week.

Instead of lashing out like he had done after his previous loss, Tommy maintained his composure following Fallout. He couldn’t really afford to repair another dressing room anyway. As he walked out of the dressing room, Randi and Rocco were waiting on him.

“So, what are we doing? Grabbing dinner and then hitting the road?”

“Oh, we’re grabbing dinner, drinks, and a show.”

“A show? I don’t really wanna go to a ‘show.’”

“You’re gonna love this one. Randi’s been researching. There’s a great karaoke bar not far from here.”

“I’m not getting up on stage and singing like an idiot.”

“None of us are kid. We’re gonna watch other people get up on stage and sing like idiots!”

As they walked out of the arena, Randi was still looking at her phone.

“Did you know that the word ‘karaoke’ means ‘empty orchestra?’”

“Yea, I’ve heard that before.”

The trio pulled into the parking lot of Recessions Bar and Grill. The parking lot was pretty crowded. They walked in, ordered a pitcher of beer, and sat down at their table. Randi, of course, opted for a club soda.

The first man to walk onto the stage was a large gentleman wearing a black tank top that was far too small for his frame. The music started, a tune that Tommy recognized.

Like a rock!
I was stroooooong as I could be
Like a rock!
Nothing ever got to me
Like a rock!
I was something to seeeeeeeeeee
Like a rock!​

Surely it was a coincidence. Out of every song in the great Bob Seger’s repertoire, this tone deaf buffoon really had to sing a song about a rock?

As he mercifully came to the end of his song, the emcee stepped up onto the stage.

“How about that performance, ladies and gentlemen?! Let’s hear it one more time for tonight’s first participant!”

The crowd released a meager applause. Pity clapping, really.

“Now, who’s next on our list. Ah yes, here she is. Going by the name ‘Ruby Diamond,’ this young lady is going to sing a KISS classic!”

An older woman got up from her seat as her gaggle of female friends whooped and hollered. She was entirely too old for the skintight leather pants that she had on. The music started, and Tommy’s eyes rolled back in his head.

Iiiii wanna ROCK and roll alllll night
And party ev-uh-ry day!
Ooooo I wanna ROCK and roll alllllllll night
And party ev-uh-ry day!​

Seriously? Another song about fucking rocks?! Tommy wasn’t sure if she was actually worse than the first performer, or if he was just getting annoyed at the constant rock references. What was next, a song about boulders? Were there songs about boulders? Who would write a song about boulders?

Tommy leaned over towards Randi.

“Was that old woman emphasizing the word ‘ROCK’ on purpose?”

“You’re thinking about this too much, Tommy. Just enjoy.”

The aging woman in the skintight pants finally left the stage. Her cohorts eagerly applauding her as she sat back down at the table and grabbed her martini glass.

The emcee, who looked like a used car salesman jumped back onto the stage, trying to work up some crowd support for whatever the hell had just happened. It didn’t really work. No one outside of the Great Value Golden Girls at table six were remotely impressed with a bad KISS cover.

“We have a VERY special guest with us tonight. A man who has sang in front of stadiums…but doesn’t have much going on at the moment….DEE SNIDER!”

The lead singer of Twisted Sister, looking as dejected as any past-his-prime rocker could possibly look, stepped onto the stage. For whatever reason, he was in his full rockstar regalia, including a blonde wig so tall that he had to take it off in order to keep it from catching on fire in the low-hanging light above his head. After an audible gasp from the crowd, Dee Snider put his wig back on and just stood to the left side of the stage.

Going back to his rockstar roots, Snider worked the audience of 53 people into a frenzy as the guitar intro started.

I WANNA ROCK!
The crowd screamed “ROCK” in unison.
I WANT TO ROCK!
Once again…the crowd yelled “ROCK” back at him.
I WANNA ROCK!
Ok…the yelling it back was getting old fast to Tommy.
I WANNA ROCK!
As the crowd screamed “ROCK” for the fourth time, Tommy killed off his beer, grabbed the keys off the table, and headed for the door.​

Randi and Rocco quickly caught up, both of them laughing entirely too hard.

“Tommy, wait!”

“Nope. I’m going to the hotel. I have a match against a Boulder, and all of a sudden everybody here is singing songs about rocks?”

“Oh, for fucks sake, kid. It was all a big joke.”

“Huh?”

“Yea, me and Randi thought it would be kinda fun. So she called the bar before we got here, and got them to line up some people to sing about rocks and shit before we got here.”

“How did you get fucking Dee Snider in on the joke?”

“Oh, that wasn’t part of the joke. Dee Snider just has nothing else to do anymore. This is the biggest room he's worked in 10 years. Hell, he’s a 67-year-old lead singer from an 80s hair band. If he wasn’t headlining karaoke bars, he’d probably be dead.”

Tommy couldn’t help but laugh.

“Seriously, honey. Don’t take it so seriously. You’re facing The Boulder. You’ll be fine.”

The three of them walked back into the bar as the crowd started stomping their feet and clapping. From the stage…

We will, we will ROCK YOU!
ROCK YOU!​

 

[Jimmy King]

Jackson Fenix in...
Home


”They can’t keep getting away with this!”

To say that Nate Savage is upset would be an understatement. Once again, The Undisputed Alliance’s attempt to reclaim the tag titles was thwarted after The Connection retained them, but of course, you can give the assist to the Nephews, and that would explain Nate’s frustration. The Undisputed Alliance are in Jon Russnow’s office following their match, and Nate Savage expresses his disdain for the Nephews.

” You can’t keep letting this skullduggery happen, Russnow! You need to do something about Michelle and her band of simps!” Nate Savage pleaded with Russnow, who was sitting at his desk, rubbing his temple in annoyance.

” Look, I’m sorry for what happened out there, but it was a street fight, so it was fair game, so I don’t know why you didn’t expect them to get involved,” Russnow says as he leans forward in his chair.

” I get that, I get that it was a street fight, but you’ve got to do something about them! They’re a nuisance!”

” You think I don’t know that? I’m well aware of it.”

” Well, why haven’t you done anything about it?!” Nate demands as he slams a fist on Russnow’s desk.

”What do you suggest I do?” Russnow asks in a slightly annoyed tone.

” Give us another rematch but this time, make it so that the Nephews can be barred from ringside!” Nate nods his head at his seemingly good idea, and he looks over at Fenix, who has been oddly quiet this entire time.

” Why aren’t you as mad as I am about this? You should be just as angry,” Nate questions his friend, who doesn’t respond.

” I won’t be doing that, I’m afraid.”

”What?! Why not?!”

” Well, for starters, I already gave you a rematch, and you lost. Besides, even if I were to entertain the idea and give you another rematch with the Nephews being barred, don’t you think they’d find a way to work around that? They aren’t as dumb as you think.”

” Add us to their next title defense and make it a triple threat!”

” Look, Mr. Savage, I appreciate your resilience, but I can’t do that. The Buddy System has earned that match, and they’re next in line for the title shot at The Grand March.”

” I can’t believe I’m going to live in a world where The Buddy System could very well be the next tag team champions; this is the worst timeline,” Nate says in a sad tone, and he looks over at Jackson again.

”Can you believe this, Jax?”

Jackson finally snaps out of his daze and looks at Nate.

” Yeah, it sucks, but what are you going to do?”

Nate looks at Jax, dumbfounded by his friend’s lack of emotion.

” You should be more upset about this, Jax! Do you want to live in a world where those two jerks are tag team champions? I don’t get it! Why do bad things happen to good people, and why do good things happen to bad people?!”

” Look, why don’t I give you, Mr. Savage, the next show off and have Jackson here in a single match?” Russnow leans back in his chair again after making this proposition.

” Jackson beats someone and earns us another shot at the tag titles?”

” No, it’ll be Jackson Fenix taking on the latest signee to FWA, Trevor Walker, but you can still be at ringside in support of Fenix; what do you think Mr. Fenix?” Russnow smiles, seemingly proud of this suggestion.

” Yeah, that’s fine. As long as Nate is there in my corner,” Jackson looks at Nate, who is thinking it over, but eventually shrugs his shoulders.

” Yeah, okay, whatever. I’ll be there to watch Jackson wipe the floor with that old-timer,” Nate gives Jackson a pat on the shoulder and a half-hearted smile.

”Splendid! I’ll let Mr. Walker know about it and see you two in Pittsburgh.”

====================

A few days have passed since Fallout 026, and Jackson Fenix is traveling alone to Las Vegas to visit his Mom and Meemaw. Jackson hasn’t returned to Vegas since the last time FWA held an event there. Jackson used to call this place home at some point before he relocated to Los Angeles, and while he likes living in LA, a part of him does miss Vegas. Mostly due in part to not being as close to his Mom, who still resided in Vegas.

It’s not well known; he’s kept it a secret, but Jackson Fenix is a bit of a Momma’s boy. His Father wasn’t in the picture much after he and Jackson’s Mom separated, and Jackson’s Father hardly visited his son, so Jackson grew closer to his Mom. Being an only child did help in that respect, and his Mom spoiled him rotten. Jackson loved his Mom so much, and he’d do anything for her, and just as much as he loves his Mom, he loves his Meemaw too. He loved it when he got to see her, and he looked forward to spending some time with her and his Mom before his match in Pittsburgh.

Jackson will compete on Meltdown in Pittsburgh against a newcomer to FWA, Trevor Walker. Despite being a newcomer, Trevor Walker was familiar with the wrestling business. Walker was a journeyman, someone who had never reached their full potential. Now, he gets his opportunity in FWA to change that. Jackson was somewhat familiar with Walker’s work after seeing some stuff online and on tapes as a youngster.

Walker is also the opposite of what Jackson wants to become. Walker is a bitter old-timer that is too stubborn to accept that he’s way past his prime and that time has passed him by. Walker also isn’t the nicest man to be around, and Jackson is trying to turn a new leaf and be the hero that the fans need since Jeremy Best showed his true colors and turned his back on them.

As silly as it sounds, Jackson wants to be someone that the fans can look up to now, but he feels like he can do it. He wants to do it, not just for the fans but for himself and, most importantly, for his Meemaw.

“Jackie boy!” Momma Fenix exclaims as she sees her son at the front door, and she greets him with a big hug and a barrage of kisses on the cheek. Jackson tries to brush her away, but it does him no good, and eventually, he caves in and lets her finish.

” Hey Mom,” Jackson places his bags down near the front door after he walks inside the house.

”What are you doing?”

” I’m setting my bags down,” Jackson replies and looks around the house, but his Mom won’t settle for that answer.

” Your bags do not belong there, mister! Take them to your room right now!” Momma Fenix says in a stern but motherly way.

” Come on, Mom, I’ll take them up there later; let me settle in-ow ow! Okay, okay! I’m taking them up there right now!”

Momma Fenix was about to take Jackson’s ear off before she released her death-like grip

” You can settle upstairs in your room, and later we’re going to meet Meemaw for dinner.”

Jackson gives a curt nod to his Mom, and he walks upstairs. He trips up one of the steps, but he shakes that off and continues his ascent to the top. He reaches his bedroom after walking up the stairs, and as he walks in his bedroom, he’s in awe that his Mom kept it just how he had left it.

He sets his bags down near his bed and walks around, looking at all of his childhood memories. His bedroom walls are adorned with posters of Britney Spears, and he walks over to the poster that matches his t-shirt and caresses the poster softly.

” I bet you’re surprised I kept it this way, huh?”

Jackson is startled by his Mom silently entering the room. He gathers himself and tries to play it off coolly.

” I, uh, it’s not what it looks like, I swear,” Jackson sits down on the edge of his bed while his Mom laughs at him.

” It’s so good to see you, Jackie.”

” It’s good to see you too, Mom.”

” You had a long trip, so why don’t you rest up before we go out later, okay?”

Jackson nods, and his Mom closes the door as Jackson lays down on his bed. He gets his phone out, and he begins to do more research on Trevor Walker.

” This guy doesn’t have theme music? What kind of weirdo walks out to no music? He doesn’t have a hometown, either. This guy must suck so much that no town wants to claim him.”

Jackson finds some matches of Trevor Walker online, but it’s all grainy footage that looks like it was filmed on a potato. Jackson begins to get sleepy as he watches the match and starts to doze off for a bit…

” Jackie, wake up, it’s time to go meet Meemaw for dinner,” Momma Fenix shakes her son awake, and Jackson is a bit startled out of his sleep, but his Mom quickly calms him down.

”How long have I been asleep?”

”I think about an hour at least.”

Momma Fenix notices he is watching wrestling on his phone and shakes her head.

” Don’t you see enough of that stuff doing it for a living? You watch it when you’re not even there.”

” Oh, that, I was looking up matches for my next opponent. This old guy has been around the business for a long time.”

” Oh, I see; well, finish getting ready so that we can head out.”

She leaves the room so Jackson can get changed before they go out.

====================

“Meemaw!” Jackson exclaims as he greets his Meemaw when they enter their meeting restaurant.

” Jackie boy!” Meemaw hugs Jackson, and the two of them hold each other for some time before finally letting go.

” It’s so good to see you, Meemaw!”

” It’s so good to see you, my Jackie boy!”

Jackson and his Mom sit in the booth, and Meemaw sits across from them. A waitress soon greets them.

” Can I get you folks some drinks to start with?”

Jackson gets a Dr. Pepper, his Mom gets sweet tea, and Meemaw gets water. The waitress leaves to get their drinks.

” So, uh, Meemaw, Mom says you watch my wrestling matches?”

” Oh, of course, I wouldn’t miss your matches for the world! I wish you would be a little nicer, though. You can be so rude there when you point to your private area. Your Momma raised you better than that.”

” That’s what I said, Mom. I don’t know where he picked it up from, but it was certainly not me, and his Father was never around enough, so I don’t know.”

” Yeah, I’m sorry about that. As I said to Mom, I don’t know why I do it. I guess I do it because it’s fun to act out.”

” I understand, but you don’t have to be nasty about it, dear.”

” I know; I’m sorry Meemaw. I promise I will try to change, act nicer, and not be rude.”

” You do whatever you think is right, dear. Don’t worry about me; I’m just an old lady stuck in her ways.”

The waitress returns with their drinks, and Jackson eagerly takes a sip.

”What can I get you all to eat?”

”I’ll have chicken tenders and french fries.”

Meemaw and Mom both get a salad and nothing else. The waitress takes the menus and walks off.

” Say, Meemaw, have you ever heard of a guy by the name of Trevor Walker? He’s this old wrestler that I will face in my next match.”

” Oh no, dear, I’m afraid I haven’t heard of him. Is he a good guy?”

” I don’t think so from what I’ve read about him. He thinks he’s a big deal but way past his prime.”

” Well, maybe you can teach him a lesson on how to be nice like that Jeremy boy you used to be friends with; whatever happened to him?”

” Meemaw, Jeremy isn’t a good person. He’s not a good friend, so I’m no longer a friend. He’s not who he said he was,” Jackson gets up out of the booth.

” I’m going to go use the bathroom real quick.”

His Mom and Meemaw both nod, and he walks toward the bathroom. He enters the bathroom, splashes his face with cold water, and looks in the mirror.

” Forget about him; forget about Jeremy. Focus on Trevor Walker. You got this, Jackie, you got this.”

Jackson washes up and is about to leave, but he bumps into a familiar face before leaving.

” Well, if it isn’t Wacky Jackie Fenix!”

”Richie Floyd!”

Richie Floyd was Jackson’s number-one bully throughout high school. Richie tormented Jackson any chance he could get.

”What brings you back to town?” Richie asks, while kind of blocking the door.

” I’m visiting my Mom, and my Grandma,” Jackson tries to walk past Richie, but Richie won’t let him through.

” I’m surprised you’re here, considering you’re a big TV star now. You’re on TV all the time now. Who would’ve guessed that Wacky Jackie would be a big-time pro wrestler? Not me!”

”Crazier things have happened.”

” Tell me, even though you’re this big TV star now, why is that you’re still nothing but a loser? Every time I see you on TV with that fat friend of yours, you’re always losing! Same old Wacky Jackie, always destined to be a loser!”

” Yeah, yeah, I guess I am a loser, but at least I’m doing something with my life, unlike you, Richie. I may not win a lot, but I’m still living my dream, which is probably more than I can say for you.”

“You remind me of my next opponent, Trevor Walker. This guy thinks he’s all that and a bag of chips, but he’s not. He’s too delusional to admit that time has passed him by, and he’s way past his prime. That’s you, Richie. Time has passed by. You’re still here, working a dead-end job, thinking you’re some hotshot, but you’re not. You’re nothing but a bully coasting off his past.”

“Yeah, I’m a loser, but this loser will go to Pittsburgh and wipe the floor with some old-timer. This loser will do something he loves while you’re still stuck here, watching me on TV. I hope you watch my next match, Richie because you won’t see a loser anymore, you’ll see a winner. The only loser you’ll see is the next time you look at yourself in the mirror.”

Jackson brushes past Richie, who is flabbergasted and at a loss for words. Jackson rejoins his Mom and Meemaw and finds his food has arrived.

” What took you so long? I thought you had fallen in!”

”Ma!”

Jackson may be rocky on his road to being a nice guy, but he’ll get there. At least it’s still better than being whatever Trevor Walker is.​

 

[CakeWalker]

Grayscale III

Madison Gray is standing outside Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Michigan dressed in a black ‘Bring Me The Horizon’ hoodie, a grungy looking pair of jeans and a backwards New Era hat with the badge of Portsmouth FC on the back of it. Madison would remove a pair of headphones and smile as she locked eyes with the camera. Madison would pause for a moment as the viewer's ears would be filled with the sounds of traffic and the city around - before the sound quality would isolate focusing just on what Madison had to say as lifts up an android phone in the air and just smiles before smashing it down on the concrete.

“Social media is honestly the most disgusting, trivial and pointless thing that was ever invented - and just after a few weeks being part of this company - I find it hilarious that so many people that hadn’t even heard of me a few months ago seem to have become complete experts about my life and my potential. Some people are even making childish statements that I should have my contract terminated and sent on the first flight home.”

Madison looks at her phone for a moment and gives it a soccer kick away from her as she continues to address the camera.

“I don’t need strangers to tell me stuff that I already know. I think I have been very open and honest when I signed with FWA that I had absolutely no professional wrestling experience - so I am not sure why anyone is surprised why I am not the finished article. I am not even the starting article - I have only spent a few days at the wrestling schools and all that is carrying me at the moment is my experience in Karate/Taekwondo/Mixed Martial Artist. However - I respect that management have faith in my determination and although I can’t promise a win anytime soon. But that doesn’t mean I will ever lie down on my back and not fight for territory in the square circle. I want nothing more than to make this place my home and for wrestling to become my career.”

The camera lifts up into the sky and there is a fast forward of time, with the time of day changing from afternoon to evening. However, when the camera pans down and we now find ourselves inside some sort of heavy metal nightclub with a live performance by a non descript band taking place. The camera then spins on his axis, to Madison Gray who is behind a Perspex screen and is joined by a number of other influencers and minor celebrities. There is another clear time skip - as the club is now empty and Madison is sitting on the stage with trash littering the club and only a heavy drum kit remaining on the stage.

“Why am I here? I am here because I want to be. Sometimes the sound of heavy metal just centers me and helps me forget about everything else around me and makes me relax - it is almost a form of mediation. And now that I am focused I know what is on the horizon for me. On one hand I have the person that I want to prove myself against - the person that I want to be my first one on one test. Sawyer Xavier. They might be ten years older than me - but that is exactly what I want in regards to a test. I want someone who has age, maturity and experience to be the person to stand in my way and prevent me from climbing up the next rung of the ladder. I don’t deserve to be beating individuals like them - because I haven’t earned it yet. I am not ready. And in order to become ready I need to jump through these sorts of hoops and earn my stripes. Nothing that is given without being earned means anything - I learned that a long time ago and I think that translates in this sport too.”

Madison stands up and picks up a drumstick and smacks it down on a cymbal before she carries on talking.

“And then there is Death Walker - the artist formerly known as Darius Walker. Do you know what I feel when I have to think about being in the same ring as that man? Fear. It feels like climbing into a shark tank - with the cage covered with fish guts and blood in the water. This is the last place in the world I want to be - and yet this is the hand that I have been dealt and so I must accept my fate and take this as another learning experience. My next match is going to hurt like hell - so I have to be prepared to take my licks and then get up onto my two feet and walk away from the ring knowing this is the cycle of my life. Rinse and repeat and eventually I am going to be able to hold my own and actually fight for what I want on my own terms. I do this for me right now - but eventually I hope I will be able to do it for the fans too. I doubt I have many people who are cheering for me or wanting me to win - but hopefully this Young Lioness will eventually earn your love.”​

 

[Dubb]

Big Bryan Baxter splashed the lukewarm, slightly murky water across his face. He looked up from the tarnished, off-white porcelain sink before wiping away the condensation off the fogged-up, cracked mirror on the bathroom wall in front of him. Having just stepped out of the mildew-ridden shower, he wrapped a tattered bathroom towel around his large frame. Bryan began to lather up his face before reaching over to his black travel bag, hanging haphazardly off the loosely attached bathroom doorknob to grab a handheld razor.

The scene left a lot to be desired. But it’s something Bryan had grown accustomed to since being on the road in FWA with Mr. Scorpane being the one in charge of booking his travel accommodations. It’s been a marathon of run-down motels over the past several months. But with Jeremy now accompanying him, Mr. Scorpane thought it more cost-effective to find the cheapest Airbnb he could find in Pittsburgh instead of booking two hotel rooms.

Nevertheless, a shower was a shower, and it was the moment that Baxter looks forward to the most every day. It gave him a chance to reflect, and there has certainly been quite a bit to reflect on the past few weeks for Baxter.

For one, he’s been able to smooth things over with Jeremy and get the Buddy System back on track. Sure, it took a little friendly kidnapping, but Bryan has always followed the motto of “by any means necessary,” and if that’s what it took to reunite the Buddy System, then Bryan was all for it.

And just as soon as they’ve reconciled, they’re right back to their winning ways. Immediately getting a chance to earn a shot at the FWA Championship… something, quite frankly, they should’ve had a long time ago. Baxter scoffed at the notion that back at Back in Business, the match with Undisputed Alliance was supposed to have tag team championship implications… but instead, it was The Connection getting the title shot instead. Instead, it was The Undisputed Alliance getting not one, not two, but three chances at the title since then.

The Buddy System stood tall on Meltdown, defeating five other teams in the scramble match and earning a shot at The Connection.

The Connection. A team that got the title shot they should’ve gotten.

Michelle and Gerald.

Bryan still had a bone to pick with them after the F1. Especially Michelle von Horrowitz. Bryan had defeated Gerald Grayson during the tournament, but no Michelle. Bryan felt as though he should’ve never lost that match. It should’ve been him in the finals. He should’ve won the F1. He should be getting the FWA Championship match against Chris Peacock.

Chris Peacock. A man he destroyed in the F1 would be defending against Cyrus Truth, another person he defeated in the F1, and Michelle… who, again, he HAD all but beaten in the F1…

If it wasn’t for those goddamn Nephews.

“Shit,” Baxter muttered to himself, the frustration he was feeling just thinking about the Nephews caused him to press down a little too hard on his razor, slicing a small cut on the side of his face as he shaved. He wiped away the blood and continued to shave.

Of course, this Nephews problem hasn’t just been one that has plagued Bryan. Any time MvH stepped foot into the ring during the F1, she had the likes of Uncle and his merry band of asshats there to help her pick up another win after another win.

They’re everywhere. Everywhere you turn, there’s another Nephew.

You take one out. Another one takes its place.

They just keep coming. You can’t get rid of them.

It’s like they were some sort of… pest.

Like they were a bunch of... ugh, Bryan couldn't think of the comparison he was trying to make. Some kinda bug... that just won't go away... what are they called again?

“AHHHH!!! ROACHES!!!”

***

THE BUDDY SYSTEM

in

Jeremy Best had been enjoying his morning thus far. He had grabbed his box of Froot Loops from the pantry and poured it into the provided plastic bowl before adding a generous amount of milk. He took a seat at the table and made a phone call to Mr. Scorpane.

“How’s my little buddy doing?” Jeremy asked cheerfully.

“Uhh,” Mr. Scorpane responded on the other side of the phone, the sound of a door creaking can be heard, “yep, still sleeping. Just like last time you called. Half an hour ago.”

“I know, I know. I just worry that’s all. You know me.”

Scorpane huffed through the phone, “that I do. That… I do… did you need anything else.”

“Oh, I guess not. Just thanks again for handling the travel arrangements. What a quaint little place you’ve picked out for us!”

“Uhh, sure, yeah no problem…” Scorpane said with disinterest. “You guys just keep up the good work. I’m looking forward to adding some more gold at Carnal Contendership… Bryan has seen what it feels like to be champ, I think it’s time you do too.”

“Oh, sure, sure,” Jeremy nodded with a smile, “I know Krash will be really excited if we come back home with the tag team gold. He’s gonna be so proud that I’ll hold a title he also once held… with… well… you know who.”

Jeremy trailed off once he started thinking about who Krash had most recently held those tag team titles with. His Gangstars teammate. At least Jeremy could relish in the fact that he now has two pinfalls in a row over Krash’s former best friend.

“That reminds me,” Scorpane chimed in, more interested now all of a sudden, “you’re not actually thinking about that King of the Deathmatch thing are you?”

Jeremy didn’t answer immediately. On Fallout, Alyster Black had been nice enough to extend a friendly invitation to take part in that upcoming event. Aly clearly has enjoyed sharing the ring with Krash’s new best friend, Jeremy even though the results probably hadn’t gone the way Mr. Black would’ve wanted them to. So much so that he is hoping to wrestle Jeremy yet again.

But Jeremy wasn’t sure. The whole “deathmatch” thing… wasn’t really his cup of tea. “I dunno, Mr. Scorpane,” Jeremy finally replied, “it’s just so much violence. Not sure that’s something I am really into ya know? But I also hate to let people down.”

“Dammit Jeremy, you’re not letting anyone down. No one's gonna care if you aren’t in it. I highly suggest you don’t though… I want you 100% going into Carnal Contendership and putting yourself in that tournament is a death sentence.”

“I suppose that’s a good point,” Jeremy concluded, “but we’ll see. I’m gonna keep thinkin’ about it… what do you think Krash would want me to do?”

A deep sigh was heard on the other side, “Shit Jeremy, I don’t fucking know… uhhh,” the frustration evident in Scorpane’s voice, “I’m sure… uh, he’d want you to keep yourself safe. Yeah, definitely that. Look, just keep that in mind… I gotta go.”

“Oh, okay, well goodb…” Click. Scorpane hung up before Jeremy could finish his verbal farewell. But he simply shrugged his shoulders and placed his phone back down onto the small folding table serving as the home’s dining table. Jeremy reached back down to grab his spoon back off the neatly folded napkin, and he felt a little tickle on the back of his hand.

At first, Jeremy giggled at the feeling before realizing that those tickles came from little tiny legs.

Six little legs.

And two little antennas, feeling their way across Jeremy’s hand as Jeremy yelped and flung the intruder across the room.

“AHHH! ROACHES!!!!”

Bryan Baxter rushed out of the bathroom, his razor still in his right hand and his face still halfway covered in shaving cream with the tattered bath towel still wrapped around his torso. But he heard his friend in distress and came running to his aid. Jeremy had jumped up from the table.

“What’s going on?” Baxter questioned.

Jeremy pointed towards the corner of the kitchen, where the roach that had been cuddling up with his own right hand mere moments ago. “There! Bug!”

Baxter shook his head, “really, Jeremy? It’s just a roach. ONE roach at that.”

“I dunno Bryan, I’ve always heard that where there’s one roach… there’s more.”

Baxter grabbed a fly swatter off the top of the refrigerator before walking over and swatting the roach with it. He lifted it back up and the roach had survived the initial contact, trying to scurry away as Baxter brought the swatter back down on it again. And again… Baxter added more and more mustard behind each swing until the roach finally succumbed, and squished to the floor.

“There we go.” Baxter reached to the kitchen counter, grabbed a paper towel, and wiped away the remains of the bug, tossing it into the trash can. “Ugh, Mr. Scorpane really needs to stop cheaping out on us. I’m the North American champ and we’re both soon to be tag champs… We should be in a penthouse somewhere.”

“Oh, it’s not THAT bad, Bryan. It has a lot of character! So what if it has a roach…”

SMASH!

Another roach had started to crawl across the table - Bryan quickly disposed of it.

“Or… two… no biggie, right? Could be a lot worse.”

Bryan chuckled. While the crowd’s outlook on Jeremy may have changed recently, he was still quite the optimist.

“So, we should probably talk about this match, right?”

“What’s there to talk about? We’re gonna do what we do. We’re gonna go out there and kick some ass and we’re gonna win.”

“C’mon now Bryan, you know we can’t take the Nephews lightly.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. Those little fuckers just won’t go away and we know they’ll do whatever it takes to win. But so will I. And besides, you’ve beaten Uncle, what, three times now?”

“Well, yeah… but this time it’s so unpredictable. We have to team with other guys too… and… well…”

Jeremy had a point, but Bryan just shrugged his shoulders, “it’ll be fine. The cowboy seems alright, I guess? I hate the football team though…”

“Sure, he seems like a good guy, for sure. I’m sure we’ll enjoy teaming with him… but I’m more concerned about our other partner.”

Cyrus Truth. Bryan Baxter had to admit that there could be a combustible element to this pairing. After all, Baxter and Truth had collided in the F1 with Baxter winning, in ways that Truth quite certainly wouldn’t consider admirable with the assistance of Mr. Scorpane. And Bryan also was holding quite a bit of resentment for Truth at the fact that he not only got ONE second chance in the F1 when he was allowed back in for the semifinals… but he also got ANOTHER second chance when he was added to the FWA Championship match anyway despite losing again in the finals. Sure, by DQ… again… fuckin’ nephews… but still, just like a win was a win to Bryan - a loss was a loss.

“Look, if Truth wants to cause some trouble - I’ll kick his ass just like I did before, okay? But something tells me he doesn’t want to lose to the Nephews either, so he’ll suck it up and deal with teaming with me. Just like I’m gonna do the same for him.”

“Sounds good to me! Who knows, maybe we’ll both make some new friends through all this. Remember how much friendship came out of the last time I was in a thrown-together multi-man team… at Cibernetico… right… right…” Jeremy grinned as he gave an imaginary nudge to Baxter who stood on the other side of the kitchen.

“Yeah, no” Baxter shot that idea down quickly. “How about we get outta this shithole and go get some real breakfast.”

“Um, Bryan…” Jeremy motioned towards the towel wrapped around Bryan’s body.

“Oh, right,” Bryan laughed, “yeah let me get dressed, and let’s get outta here.”

A morning out to get pancakes at IHOP turned into an all-day outing for the Buddy System duo. Bryan had zero interest in going back to their rental home, so he made sure to keep finding reasons for them to stay out. After breakfast, they caught a matinee showing of Creed III, grabbed some lunch at Five Guys, hit the bowling alley up for a few frames, and then took in a hockey game at PPG Paints Arena to watch the Pittsburgh Penguins in action.

But eventually, they had to go back to that piece of crap. They had to sleep at some point, after all.

They returned at night, Baxter opened up the door and flicked on the lights…

And with that, they witnessed several roaches scurry across the kitchen floor, scared off by the light and running for a place to hide. Bryan muttered something under his breath before turning to Jeremy. “You know, I bet we could just go get our own hotel… why are we doing this?”

“It’s okay,” Jeremy tried to continue to be optimistic, “it’s late. I’m sure they won’t bother us if we don’t bother them.”

“Whatever,” Baxter said as one of the roaches scurried close by…

SQUASH.

Baxter brought his big foot down, squishing the insect under his shoe. “Fine. But in the morning, I’m callin’ the owner and telling them to give Bill his money back. This place is disgusting.”

Jeremy agreed and off to bed they went. Jeremy in his FWA Krash pajamas and Bryan in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs. Unfortunately for both, their slumber would be quite short.

“Hehehehe,” Jeremy giggled, a tickling sensation being felt on his neck through his sleep, “now is no time for a tickle fight!”

The groggy Jeremy opened his eyes to see the tickling was being caused by another darn roach, causing a high pitch squeal to come out of Jeremy’s mouth as he brushed the roach away, knocking it to the bedroom floor where at least another twenty roaches were awaiting them.

Frightened by the bugs, Jeremy backed up to the corner of the bed, cradling his knees as Bryan Baxter came rushing to the door. “What’s going… what the FUCK?!” Even Bryan found himself startled by the sheer number of roaches pacing around in Jeremy’s bedroom, no longer showing any type of fear of the light or the two humans sharing the room with them. “Where are they all coming from?!”

“I told you! It’s never just ONE roach!”

“Well, they’re about to be a bunch of DEAD roaches!” Bryan grabbed a magazine off the dresser in the bedroom, rolling it up with a twisted smirk on his face.

SQUASH.

SQUASH.

SQUASH.

SQUASH.

SQUASH. SQUASH. SQUASH. SQUASH. SQUASH. SQUASH. SQUASH. SQUASH.

Bryan went around the room like the cockroach terminator, squashing any of them that moved which allowed Jeremy to slowly come down off the bed and make his way to the hallway out of the room. The remaining roaches scurried into the cracks along the baseboards of the room to escape the wrath of Big Bryan Baxter.

“I’ll go check the kitchen… maybe there’s some bug spray or something,” Jeremy said, rushing down the hallway towards the kitchen.

CRUNCH.

Jeremy squirmed and felt some vomit swelling up in his mouth as he realized his bare feet just stepped on another roach. He swallowed it back down as he reached for the hallway light, flipping it on to reveal an army of cockroaches had invaded the kitchen. Jeremy could barely make out any type of floor through the moving insects. “Bryan… they’re EVERYWHERE!”

“Shit,” Bryan said as he joined Jeremy in the hallway.

Cautiously, trying not to get more bug guts on his feet, Jeremy slowly tiptoed his way through the infested kitchen… shivers went up his spine when he’d feel one of them brushing up against his bare skin. But finally, he made it to the sink, throwing back the cabinet doors frantically and rummaging through a cluttered mess of different cleaning chemicals before finding a bug spray.

Jeremy turned and began spraying the bugs around him with a fierce vigor but the bugs only seemed mildly inconvenienced by the light mist coming from the nozzle.

“I don’t think it’s working!”

Bryan, having equipped his feet with boots, was stomping his way down the hallway, squashing away at bugs with nothing but those boots and his boxer briefs on. He peered over towards Jeremy, “Jeremy, that’s bug repellent! Not killer!”

“Well, why aren’t they being repelled at least?”

“See if there’s anything else!”

Jeremy tossed the bottle of mosquito repellent away and moved around some more of the bottles, “Ah ha! Got it,” he proclaimed with excitement as he pulled the can of Raid out from under the sink. His frenzied eyes were wide as he began to spray the surrounding roaches, coating them with a nice thin film of poison. The roaches affected by the spray began scurrying around in a panic, twitching in pain before eventually coming to a complete stop, rolling over, and coming to a final resting place on their back. “It’s working!”

“This is too!” Bryan said with a weird amount of joy as he stomped around the living room, decimating more of the roaches.

As a two-man killing machine, Bryan and Jeremy worked together and cleared both of the front rooms of the home… with enough dead roach bodies to look like the insect beaches of Normandy. But together they stood, back to back, admiring their work.

“Are they all gone?”

“I think we got them all, yeah.”

“Whew… that was intense. That really escalated quickly.”

“Like I said… we’re outta here in the morning.”

Jeremy nodded this time, now in complete agreement with his partner. “Hopefully we can at least get some sleep tonight.”

“Amen to that brother,” Baxter said as they walked shoulder by shoulder down the narrow hallway back towards the two bedrooms.

“Good night, Bryan.”

“Night bro.”

They simultaneously opened the doors, each finding another sea of roaches in both rooms. “You’ve got to be kiddin’ me!”

Nope, it didn’t seem like how many they killed… they just kept coming. Almost like each kill spawned two or three more somewhere else in the house. Jeremy began spraying the bug spray at the roaches spilling out of his room, but the spray was quickly drying up as the canister emptied.

“I’m out of ammo!”

“Let’s just get outta here!”

Bryan and Jeremy rushed away from the army of roaches that marched their way out of the bedrooms and into the hallway, heading back down the hallway and toward the front door… only to have a swarm of roaches come in to block their exit!

“Are they… trying to prevent us from leaving?”

“No… that would be crazy. Impossible. Right?”

Jeremy nodded but was unsure because it sure seemed like the roaches were suddenly out to get them. “What if they’re out for revenge? For what we did to their friends?”

“They’re just bugs, Jeremy. They don't think like that. They have little tiny bug brains.”

“What now?” Jeremy asked with a nervous sweat as they both backed up. The insect infantry kept slowly approaching the pair while the ones from the hallway also began to make their way into the kitchen, starting to surround them.

“The garage!” Bryan said as he noticed the unguarded door to the small one-car garage attached to the home. Jeremy nodded in agreement and they both immediately darted for the door. Flinging the door open, Jeremy then quickly pressed the garage door opener along the near wall, but the garage door completely ignored his request for it to open.

Panicking once again, he pressed the button over and over again but still no response from the door.

“Jesus Christ, what ISN’T wrong with this goddamn house?!” Bryan voiced his frustration, kicking a nearby bucket across the mostly empty garage, but he took notice as the bucket came to a resting position next to a blow torch. Bryan smirked, “that’ll do.”

Jeremy watched as his partner trotted across the garage, picking up the blow torch. He then noticed a shelf of different aerosol cans nearby, including more bug spray. “Oh! Perfect, you found more bug spray.”

Bryan shook his head as he grabbed one of the canisters. “Oh, I’m gonna use this alright… but it’s gonna take more than a little bug spray to get rid of these fuckers.”

“Bryan… what are you about to do?” Jeremy asked with trepidation as Bryan walked back across the garage with the blow torch in one hand and the can of Raid in his other. “Just be careful okay?”

“No worries, man. I know exactly what I’m doing…”

Jeremy and Bryan stood outside on the sidewalk watching the beautiful sight of the warm orange flames sending black smoke into the night sky. Side by side, Jeremy was still in his Krash PJs and standing on the sidewalk in his bare feet while Baxter, his arms crossed as he tried to keep himself warm, was in just his boxer briefs and a pair of wrestling boots.

Jeremy bit his lip as he watched their rental home burning in front of him. The sound of fire truck sirens in the distance but getting closer. “I… don’t think… Mr. Scorpane is gonna get his safety deposit back…”

Baxter smirked and nodded his head, “well, at least we won the war with those stupid bugs.”

Just as he mentioned it, from the burning building, a single solitary brown roach scurried out, through the grass and towards Bryan and Jeremy on the sidewalk.

SQUASH.

Bryan was having none of it. “I said… WE WON!”

Frustrated, Baxter kept lifting his boot up and bringing it back down. Over and over again on top of the lonely insect. Squash! Squash! Squash! Grinding his teeth together, his anger over the situation was evident as he continued to smash the already dead roach until there was little trace of it ever there to begin with.

Jeremy reached out, grabbing Bryan by the arm and getting him to calm down. “It’s over, Bryan,” he told his friend calmly, “it’s over. It’s dead. They’re dead. The roaches are gone. They’re finally gone. We can all just be happy we don’t have to deal with them anymore.”

Bryan let out a sigh of relief as he finally stopped the repeated stomping. A fire truck pulled up along the curb. The firefighters quickly rushed out, grabbed their hoses, and headed toward the flames.

Jeremy and Bryan both watched the events unfolding, but both couldn’t help but smile at the warm glow of the burning Airbnb. That was the feeling of satisfaction from a job well done.

One pest down.

One to go.​

 

[Jimmy King]

Jason Randall in...
Nonsense


"Don't you ever get tired of it?" Penny asks Jason Randall as she sits beside him on the couch.

They're at their home in San Diego, and usually, you'd expect beautiful, sunny weather in San Diego, but not on this day. No sir, on this day it's raining. Yeah, it rains in San Diego; crazy, right? Anyway, on this rainy day, Jason has chosen to study matches for not only his upcoming match on Fallout but also for the King of the Deathmatch tournament that he'll be taking part in this year.

"Hey, did you hear me?" Penny snaps her fingers in front of Jason's face, and his focus breaks away from the TV and on Penny.

“Uh, no, what did you say?”

"I asked you if you ever get tired of it."

“Tired of what?”

“This deathmatch stuff. You don't get tired of brutalizing your body with the weapons and other nonsense that comes with it?"

"Honest answer, no, I don't. As sick and twisted as it may sound, I enjoy it. I meant it when I said I feed off of spilling one's blood. That wasn't something I said to sound intimidating."

"Some people enjoy long walks on the beach, but you like throwing someone on a pile of thumbtacks or putting someone through a flaming table."

"Well, we can't necessarily go on a walk on the beach today due to this weather we're having, so watching deathmatches is the next best thing."

The deathmatch in question he's watching is the opening contest from the previous year's King of the Deathmatch, which had XYZ, his partner at the upcoming Fallout, taking on Krash and Kleio De Santos, one of his opponents.

"What's with all of the light tubes?" Penny asks as she cringes when XYZ is struck with one of the tubes in the match.

"It's a 10,000 Light Tubes Can't Be Wrong Death Match."

“Seems a bit excessive, no?”

“Looks like fun to me.”

"It's barbaric," Penny says as she shakes her head and gets up, and leaves the room.

Penny returns a few minutes later with a familiar-looking plush cat. She sets it down on the couch next to Jason, who doesn't seem to notice.

“Are you thirsty? Do you want me to get you something to drink?"

“Sure, anything is fine,” Jason says, not really paying attention to Penny.

Penny smiles and shrugs before leaving the room again. She returns with a drink for Jason and hands it to him. Jason takes the drink and takes a swig of it.

“Thank you.”

Penny nods and leaves the room as Jason drinks and watches the match.

He wasn't looking forward to teaming up with XYZ, but as long as XYZ stayed out of the way, he didn't care. He supposes that it's better than teaming up with Trixie Bordeaux, although they both seem to have the IQ to that of a child, so it probably wouldn't make a difference.

He needed to figure out Kleio De Santos too, but he knew she trained under the guidance of Saint Sulley. Randall is no stranger to Saint Sulley, so he knows to be better prepared for Kleio if she picks up any of Saint's old tricks.

Randall finishes off his drink and looks over at the plush cat.

“Hey Fred, it’s been awhile.”

“It has been awhile, yes.”

“She put something in the drink again.”

“What do you mean?”

"Penny put something in my drink again. She doesn't think I know that she does that, but I'm wise to her little games. It would certainly explain why I can talk to you right now."

"That does seem like a logical explanation, but she's done this before? That seems a bit extreme, no?”

“Eh, it could be worse.”

"Oh dear, I don't think I want to begin to imagine how worse it could get than that," Norman looks at the TV screen and sees the deathmatch.

"It's not so bad, I guess. I suppose this must be how XYZ and Trixie always feel. Like they're always on some euphoric high. It would explain why XYZ rides around in a school bus with an imaginary friend."

"I think that's more so to do with all of the mental scarrings he's endured in his life."

“What about Trixie? Why does she act like she's five?"

"That I don't know, but I don't think being in a deathmatch will help matters for her, or you, or for anyone, to be honest."

"I know I'm already mentally far gone. Not as bad as them, but I'm pretty far gone. Look at me; I'm talking to an inanimate object right now!"

"That is the sign of a crazy person, or so I hear."

"Everyone's a little mad, though, right? XYZ with his mental trauma. Trixie with the IQ of a child. Kleio with whatever Saint Sulley put her through, and even before he adopted her, I'm sure she went through some shit."

“What is the point of this promo anyway?”

"I don't know, the writer was all out of ideas, so he decided to bring back an old favorite with you. It might get him some points, but who knows? I guess it depends on whoever grades this promo."

"What if your teammate doesn't promo? Or one of your opponents?"

"I know for sure that our opponents will, but I don't know about my teammate. He no-showed last time, so he might make a habit of it, who knows."

"Well, hopefully, he shows up because this is going nowhere pretty fast. He'll need to carry you guys to a win now."

"Yeah, this isn't how I pictured this going, but what are you going to do?"

“How should we end this?”

"Since we're bringing back old favorites, how about an old catchphrase? Playtime is over, and your asses are next! No, wait, that wasn't a favorite. No one liked that catchphrase. I did it as an homage to my old partner, Josh, but no one cared, and I was told to drop it."

“How do we salvage this?”

"There's no salvaging this, I'm afraid. What's done is done. Let's end it here."

“Okay.”​

 

[Rosie]

Featuring @Nostradamus as K̶̡̗̯̯̞͚̹̿͐͊̊̋̐̽̐̃̆̐̊̂́͜͠e̴̢̦̗̜̿̓̿r̶̬͖͖̳̰̣̦͎͇̖͔̖̀̆̾͆̉͂̑͐̑̿̂̔̈́̉͑̏͒̚͝ͅè̶̠̣̼̖̳͍̯̗̰̃̅̎͋̾͐̃̒̃̉̌ś̷̢̩͇̑̓̀̈́̌̀̋̿̋͋͗͠

And yours truly as Princess Nova

March 10th:
Van Andel Arena
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Rockford IceHogs @ Grand Rapids Griffins

The arena is mostly packed for the beginning of a game in the main developmental hockey league to the National Hockey league, the American Hockey League, as the Grand Rapids Griffins, the developmental team for the Detroit Red Wings, play against the Rockford IceHogs, wearing jerseys inspired by their partner team, the Chicago Blackhawks. The national anthem has just wrapped up as a carpet is rolled off the ice and the singer is gone. Both team’s starting line-ups, featuring five skaters and a goaltender each, ready themselves for the opening faceoff. The fans, about seven thousand in attendance for this late regular season game, ready themselves, with some just now getting to their seats. Sticking out from the normal crowd of families, drunk fools, and some business suits who are here with compensation tickets are two young ladies who stick out.

Keres, the Daughter of Demise, is in her usual school-like outfit with a skirt and black sweater. Her expression is somewhat blank as she sits down. Next to her, Princess Nova, although she is toning her normal look down a smidge compared to normal. Visible is the skirting of a red dress with leggings, but she has more casual boots. Over her dress is the iconic winged wheel of the Detroit Red Wings. The red uniform has a white “C” on the right corner of the chest, breaking tradition from most other teams and the number is 19, showing respect to a Red Wings great, Steve Yzerman. On her head is a ball cap with the Grand Rapids Griffins logo, likely trying to blend in a touch in the crowd, but still having some glimpses of her regal appearance with her make-up and dress. She seems ecstatic to be here as the two “sisters” sit down at their seats in the section behind the penalty boxes.

“Our debut as a team gives us much to build on, sister.” Keres tries to make light conversation into something not relating to the game in front of them as the teams ready for the opening face-off. “You made it far, as expected. It was quite the shock to those in FWA, though, given what some people already understand of you, it should not be a surprise.”

Princess Nova has a wide grin on her face. “Thank you, Keres!!!” She shouts with joy and then has a small giggle. “Though we have larger matters at hand, I did really want to win in the end until that MEAN Alyster Black hit me with a chair before Best submitted.” She folds her arms. “And of course, we all know where THAT got him.”

Keres shakes her head. “For someone who has been a champion as long as him, I would have expected him to use his head and not be consumed with petty revenge. Though I suppose, given that one of the champions seems preoccupied with singles glory, it is a wonder how valuable those tag team titles actually are?”

“Well I value them, sister.” Princess Nova folds her hands which still have her signature gloves on. “The ultimate symbol of unity. Not just an accolade for the sake of it. Though, I think you have what it takes to achieve them, given what I saw.”

“Of course, Nova.” Keres stares forward. Her poker face remains strong, but Nova, probably one of the few people who truly understands her, senses something off.

“Did you expect more, dear sister?” Princess Nova asks. “How do you feel about what you did?”

“I feel satisfied. Informed. They know of me, yet, not what I am truly capable of.” Keres turns her head to look at Nova. “I saw what we are up against. Their strengths and their flaws. I acknowledge the difficult nature of professional wrestling. However I will admit to purposely restraining myself. Never play all the cards in your hand, let alone reveal your entire deck.”

Changing conversation topics, Keres finally focuses on the game at hand. “So, Nova. Could you explain to me why we are partaking in this spectacle?” She turns her head towards the ice. “Aside from our upcoming opponents being obvious fans of this sport.”

“Well, I thought it would be fun!” Nova shows a huge grin and is extra happy, excited to talk to Keres about it. “I have not been to a live hockey game in years! I used to go to my hometown Vancouver Canucks. Though I suppose being a fan of them is a pain greater than anything that I go through in the ring. But since Eden and Slate took me under their wing, I needed to step back from old things I loved. I didn’t want to relapse. But now,”

Nova giggles gleefully. “I know I’ll never go back to that old life, so what’s the harm in indulging? If anything, I think we can be inspired by this game.” She motions with her hand to the ice as the Grand Rapids Griffins are on the offensive end, passing the puck around. “These men are all coordinated, falling into a system from the coach towards a simple task, getting the puck into the net of the opposing team and preventing it from going into theirs. A single mistake-”

A defenseman from the Rockford IceHogs strips a player from the hometown team of the puck and releases a pass down the ice to a forward, breaking out towards the other end of the ice.

“And the players need to adapt to the utter chaos.”

Keres blinks. Despite how powerful she is, she marvels at the display. “And they are moving at quite a fast pace with blades of steel on their feet along a slippery surface. It takes a vast amount of discipline, agility, and ability to master a skill such as that.”

Princess Nova nods, continuing her friendly smile. “There is not a game like it. Speed, grace, coordination, both order and chaos all in one. And yet, at any moment…”

A player from the Rockford IceHogs gets body checked into the boards. The glass shakes as the crowd jumps up.

“It can get brutal…” Nova’s voice is cold for a moment before she smirks. “What other game allows bare-knuckle fighting and all you get is a five-minute penalty?”

“A display of that aspect of this game would be… lovely.” Keres has a very subtle smirk. She raises her right hand and-

Snaps her fingers.

The player that was checked shakes off his hit far sooner than he would have normally and pushes the player who rammed him into the boards. After some shoving the players drop the gloves, grab a fistful of each other’s sweaters and throw heavy right hands at each other! The fans are electric with an early fight as the officials rush over to keep a close eye to stop it when it either gets too dangerous, or someone gets knocked down to the ice. Nova pats Keres on the head.

“Silly.” She calls her “sister” as the Grand Rapids player knocks the Icehogs player down to the ice. The officials step in and guide both men to their respective penalty boxes as their gear is picked up and the P.A. Announcer confirms the Five-minute majors for each.

“Tell me, if we are in Detroit for our match, then why are we here, and not in Detroit to see their team?” Keres glances at Princess Nova’s jersey. “You do seem dressed for it.”

“The Red Wings are out of town this week.” She clarifies, before adding. “But this is their prospect team. A team of hopefuls looking to make it in the largest league in the world. I want to understand their mentality because, and I do not mean this as an insult to us, we are merely prospects in terms of our tag team experience together. It is the same in the eyes of the Lumberjacks. Though I think they have more refining to do than us.”

Keres adds on, “They are savage imbeciles. More akin to jagged rocks than intelligent organisms.”

“The Lumberjacks are Pylons, dear sister.” Princess Nova quips and Keres appears confused, tilting her head slightly.

“Pylons? You mean the orange markers for the road, Princess?” Keres asks and Nova grins.

“Nope! Hockey slang! A pylon is a defenseman on the opposing team, big and lumbering, but is skated around.” She points towards two men on the ice who stand a distance back from the person taking a faceoff. “If they were slow and easy to get around, they would be considered to be pylons.”

Keres glances at the two men pointed out to her by Nova. “If I am understanding this hockey slang correctly, then the Lumberjacks are merely the first individual test to us as a tag team. As powerful as they may be, a team we can likely ‘walk around.’ Considering your skill and our intellect, it should not be an issue.”

“Although, personally, if we are to consider what the Lumberjacks could be, they could be the grinders of the tag team division. That means someone who does not rely on skill, but uses their size and strength to antagonize and wear down their opponents.” Nova hums, “Though you need a certain mindset to accomplish that which they lack, jack.” And the TORN Angel winks.

“This is amusing, sister. I do enjoy seeing your excitement. Is there more I should know?” Keres turns to Nova who brushes off her hockey IQ.

“Hmm,” she taps her chin, considering what to mention as she notices a forward player moving behind the opposing team’s defense rather than helping his own team protect their net. “Oh! A Cherry picker! Someone who stands behind the opposing team in hopes for a breakaway. In this case, it is waiting for a moment to strike.”

“Much like stalking your opponents in the ring and patiently holding back until the right opportunity presents itself. It allows you to change the tide at a moment's notice, but if you are caught, then it is a greater risk.”

Princess Nova nods, patting Keres on the shoulder, “See? You’re learning fast!”

“Is this revelation about hockey or wrestling?” Keres blinks.

“Both! I told you, you’re a very valued member of our team. I do not need to carry you or vice-versa. In fact, sometimes in hockey, when a far more skilled player plays with weaker linemates, we consider them their babysitter. Like McDavid carrying Hyman, or whoever Gretzky played with by comparison to him-”

“Or singles champions poking their nose in a tag team division?” Keres quips. “Seeing themselves as being the ones to be its salvation.”

Princess Nova giggles. “Clearly many of them forget the struggles of flying too close to the sun or putting too much on one’s plate.”

The whistle has blown to end play and five minutes of play have passed since the fight. The penalty boxes swing open and both the previous fighters skate to their team’s benches. Keres asks another question.

“Curiosity is getting the best of me, sister. Would there be hockey slang for the athletes that constantly engage in physical violence?”

Nova nods. “Sometimes called an enforcer, other times a goon. They are players whose main talent is fighting and protecting the star players of the team-”

And a lightbulb goes off in Keres’ head. She blinks, looking at the ice as the next play begins. “We should acquire one…”

“They are an underrated part of the team.”

Keres nods in agreement.

“Every team needs a protector. Much like how father protected mother and you at times. Although perfectly capable on our own, it would be beneficial to not have our attention deviate in the midst of battle. A dedicated… knight, per se, to guard the metaphorical castle.”


Nova interrupts her ‘sister.’ On the ice, a Griffins player crashes down to the ice as an opposing player’s stick gets tied up between his legs. For hockey, a penalty, but the officials miss it and the crowd jeers. Nova, maybe showing a hint of her old self, leaps up from her chair and yells.

“Get some fucking glasses ref, that’s horseshit!” And a couple male fans holler near her, getting into it. Yep, even with her TORN "reprogramming," still a Canadian at heart. Polite until hockey is involved. Keres snaps her fingers and Nova immediately sits back down. She blinks. “-Apologies, sister.”

“Accepted.” Keres says coldly. “No worries, however. You reek of passion for this sport.” Keres asks.

“Truthfully, growing up where I lived, hockey is a big part of life for the average person.” Nova holds her knees up to her chest. “Even the least interested sports fan could not escape from it. So, I did get drawn into it when I was younger. In fact, when my hometown team made it to the finals, each time they lost in the final game and there were riots in the city. Places were looted, cars were burned. All over a game. I-”

Keres reaches over and touches Nova on the nose, indicating for her to stop talking. Nova stops, and Keres speaks.

“I see. I also understand why you wanted to see this. We have much to learn from the sport of hockey… My powers translate differently in this world. Although still quite effective and dangerous, they are tempered. And I understand that while the sizes of our fight, influence, and ability are astronomical… in stature we differ vastly from those in FWA.”

Nova nods. “This is a sport of teamwork, and a sport of toughness. In fact, hockey players, despite being a fifth smaller than football players, hit around twenty-percent harder. I believe it is similar for us in the ring.”

Keres glances down at the ice before looking Nova in the eyes. She holds her finger up and speaks calmly to Princess Nova. Even with the loud crowd around them, Nova’s mind is fixated on her sister and her words.

“And the giants we will slay are the Lumberjacks, aren’t they?” Keres asks Nova and she simply nods. “So I believe we will come up with a perfect system to take them down. Like the swing of an ax to the bark of a tree, carving out their entrails and making a useful tool of them will be but a formality. Now, the tools they become are up to them… it depends on the quality of their wood… and I do not see a pair of sequoias.”

Princess Nova nods. She doesn’t flinch.

“And, we each have something to offer. My dear sister, you are the one who is experienced in the ring. You are the solution. The destruction. But I must be the instruction. When chaos arrives, I will be the one to give us order, a new mission. If we must chop the Lumberjacks down, I will tell you. If someone needs to fall, you will push them over without question. If someone is unruly, you trap them until they stop fighting. And, if I ask you to burn them down-”

Nova interrupts. Her voice is cold, unflinching. Her face is expressionless. “I will burn everything without a moment of hesitation…”

Keres shows a small and snide grin. She lightly pats Nova on the shoulder. “Precisely. I love you, sister.”

And Nova perks up, clapping. “Aww, I love you too! You’re the best little sister I could ever ask for!” And she hugs Keres before they both turn their attention to the game. Although Keres, being the ever chaotic toddler at heart, is having a hard time focusing.

“Sister, I could use some refreshments. How much longer do they play this game?”

“We can go at the end of the period. It is only about six more minutes.”

Keres folds her arms. She’s angry, even if the expression on her face doesn’t show it. The play continues on the ice as she… gets an idea. Looking towards center ice, she gives it a death stare. She lifts her hand up and it shakes lightly before…

A snap.

Breaking is heard on the ice as a long crack is visible from the team benches to the penalty boxes on the other side of the ice. The play moves to the other end of the ice, but several of the defenseman who skate backwards in order to see the play in front of them, fall backwards on their rear. A referee joins in face planting as the other players stop, confused. The officials blow the whistle and check on the ice conditions as the fans are confused. A referee goes over to the area between the two penalty boxes, where league officials usually sit to keep track of calls and be a relay between the officials and the league offices. They talk before relaying a call to the announcer on the P.A: system.

“Ladies and gentlemen, due to the ice conditions, we are going to experience a brief delay. We will keep you updated as we attempt to fix it.”

Princess Nova, knowing what happened, smirks at Keres.

“You little troublemaker.” She sticks her tongue out, teasing Keres before getting up. “Well, you have it your way, let’s get some snacks.”

Keres briefly stops Nova by tugging on her jersey. “Perhaps some jerky?”

“Anything you want… Hehe”

Nova grins and the two head up the steps as several fans join them in the delay. The sisters, though going about it in a unique way, have smoothed things out for their next steps after a chaotic debut match.​

 

[SupineSnake]

MICHELLE von HORROWITZ
in
VOLUME ONE HUNDRED AND SIX

[1 : FATHER]
Sunday 11th January, 1987. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. USA.

Michelle sat on the end of her bed and stared at the matryoshka in a central position upon her dressing table. The doll wore plainish clothes: a white blouse with green, floral detailing down its arms and a brown dress with embroidered gold intricacies around its hemline. Her face was pale and her dark brown hair was gathered together in a ponytail. She clutched a bouquet of yellow and orange tulips in her hands. Michelle found herself staring into the doll’s passive eyes, as if momentarily held within a sort of trance. The matryoshka only returned a dour, absent gaze of her own. Michelle was dressed in much the same colour scheme: a white shirt with a green cardigan over the top and brown corduroy trousers that flared around her boots. She was only missing the flowers. The comparison wasn’t lost on her. Perhaps that was why the doll gave her such pause. Finally, overcoming the matryoshka’s spell with a sense of triumph, she collected her rucksack and headed for the door.

She lit a cigarette whilst waiting on the sidewalk for the cab she’d ordered, the biting north-east cold rolling in from the Atlantic. She pulled her coat more tightly around her to brace herself. There was only a long list of things she’d rather be doing on a windy Sunday afternoon, the dull aches of a nagging hangover still lingering. But visiting her father had become a once-weekly habit (or obligation, maybe) that she’d neglected for the last six days. She sucked on the end of her cigarette and felt the bite of anxiety. The apprehension went unexplained. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling, and one that generally descended over her as she prepared to visit her father, but she made little effort to pinpoint its source. It was easier to wait for the old man to die. It wouldn’t be long now, surely, and then she could stop visiting - and by extension worrying - altogether.

The taxi rolled through the streets of Oakland and towards the centre of the city. Michelle stared out of its window and watched the buildings get taller, absently listening to the radio as her indecisive driver flicked through the channels. She caught glimpses of Prince’s Kiss followed by a news report on Gorbachov and glasnost and perestroika, and then a disk jockey talking about the latest Rock N Roll Hall of Fame class. This allegedly included Roy Orbison, who the DJ managed to pipe out a few chords of before the driver again switched the channel. He finally settled on a football game, just before the opening kick-off, which Michelle soon deciphered to be between Cleveland and Denver. She kicked herself, quickly surmising that her father would be indulging his own inexplicable interest in this interminably uninteresting sport as well. Michelle sighed, and continued to watch the buildings grow.

“You don’t mind if I listen, do you?” the driver asked. “Big game.”

Michelle shrugged, but said nothing. The driver went on in her stead.

“Just as long as Cleveland don’t win,” he continued, offering her a smile through his rear-view mirror. “They ain’t been to the superbowl yet, and I’m happy to keep it that way.”

Michelle returned his smile, but shuffled uncomfortably. She hoped it would be clear that she didn’t want to prolong the conversation. Either it wasn’t or the driver felt his own desires of greater import than hers.

“You from Pittsburgh yourself?” he asked. His window was slightly open and the odour of stale cigarette smoke lingered in the cab. She thought about asking him if she could smoke in his car, but didn’t want to embolden him towards further friendliness.

“Born and bred,” she offered.

This was enough to give the driver a false sense of comradery. He spent the remainder of the journey into the city illustrating his woe at the Steelers’ poor efforts this season, which had been something often communicated to her by her father as well. He was left cheering for the failures of a rival in place of his own team’s success. She said very little else, and soon stopped offering him polite, cursory nods altogether. By the time they reached North Shore they’d settled back into preferable silence, punctuated only by the driver’s disdain for a Browns touchdown as they crossed the river. She paid him four dollars and knocked on her father’s familiar, burnt orange door.

“It’s open,” came a call through the open window. She could hear the game’s commentary, too. A deep breath to fend off a distantly brewing panic attack. Then she entered. Her father was lounging on the couch, a bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon in one hand and a cigarette in the other. For quite some time he looked like a waxwork, but he came alive when a Broncos defender intercepted a Cleveland pass early in the second quarter and returned it to the nine yard line. Michelle felt forgotten about in the entrance way, her father punching the air and hollering with pleasure as the Denver offence took the field. He eventually settled back into his chair and picked up his cigarette from the ashtray. “You going to stand there all afternoon or come and take a seat?”

She meekly acquiesced. They watched the game together. He didn’t say much. The game was tied up at ten-apiece as they went into half-time. The teams were as evenly matched as father and daughter, though at least they’d put points on the board.

“Keeping okay?” he offered, finally, as he opened up another bottle of Pabst. There were three empties at the side of his chair. His one saving grace as a father was that he kept a four-pack of Heineken in the fridge for her visits, even though he’d never touch the stuff himself. Michelle was on her second, drinking to plug the silence. “Feels like it’s been a while.”

“I’ve been keeping fine,” Michelle replied. “It’s been a little longer than a week. I was here the Friday before last.”

Her father absently nodded his head, his focus returning to the television screen and an advertisement for a blender. Michelle sipped her drink and shuffled in her seat. A moment later, her father’s wife - not her mother, who lived somewhere near Philadelphia and whom she saw only once or twice a year, but rather his second wife - entered the room with a tired air about her. Despite never leaving their small, terraced house, the woman seemed to eternally have succumbed to the same sense of fatigue whenever Michelle was visiting.

“You didn’t tell me we were expecting company, Shawn,” she asked, her voice as tired as her general demeanour and laced with remnants of a slowly disappearing Asian accent. Nobody had been more surprised than Michelle that his father had married a foreigner, as he often dismissively called people born outside of his beloved country, especially one descended from those he fought against in the Pacific Theatre. Her people seemed to hold a particularly prominent position within his sphere of intolerance.

“I didn’t know myself,” he said, roughly and impatiently. Michelle thought about correcting him, but a reminder of their conversation late last night would’ve been pointless. It was her own fault for calling him so late. There was little chance of him remembering come morning.

“Are you staying for dinner?” the woman asked. She took a seat opposite from her husband and looked around at the unkept state of their living room. This caused a deep sigh, as if she was embarrassed at her insufficiencies as a host. Michelle didn’t mind. Her apartment was no different.

“That was the plan,” Michelle answered. “But only if there’s enough.”

“I’ll get another steak out of the freezer.”

At dinner, Michelle - a vegetarian, of course - ate around the steak and concentrated on the vegetables and rice. Her father was more interested in the television screen than anything else, and only gave them a semblance of his full attention when the two teams went in at the end of third quarter.

“Still teaching grade-school?” her father enquired, clearly disinterested, as he sliced into his own steak. The meat seemed tough but he was used to it.

“Not quite,” she responded. “I’m a professor at the university. Have been since I graduated. Women’s studies.”

This brought about a chuckle from her father. He shook his head, as if he was gently surprised by what society was becoming. Michelle watched him laugh and focused in on the grey and white hairs amongst the blond around his ears. He was getting old, but she unfortunately couldn’t put his poor memory regarding her occupation down to dementia or the ageing process in general. He didn’t know what it was she did for a living even when he was a young man.

Dinner descended into a quiet, resentful chaos in a way that it often did when her father had been drinking. She remembered it well from when she was a child, with a different woman playing the role of his unfortunate wife. The switch in cast members hadn’t really changed him. His mood wasn’t helped by the football. Cleveland crept ahead in what he dubbed a sneak attack, and his prejudices soon had him rounding upon his wife and reminiscing about the great fight of his youth.

As he slowly progressed through his steak, he continually repeated two of his favourite phrases: every man should have at least two wives, and keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. Neither of these platitudes did much to please his wife, who grew increasingly hostile in return. Eventually, when she had finally had enough of her brow-beating, she placed her empty plate into the sink and disappeared upstairs. Michelle was left wondering why he was like this, and why she was here.

“You want another beer?” he asked, as he finished his steak. She shook her head.

“I should go, too,” she said.

“I’ll see you next week, then.”

When she had returned home, Michelle once more sat on the end of her bed and glanced at her matryoshka. She had already undressed, and no longer shared by coincidence the doll’s colour scheme. Yet still there was a connection to it that went beyond the clothes she wore. She approached the matryoshka and removed the upper half of the outer doll. A body became a shell. She removed the smaller nesting doll from within and placed it in-between the two halves of the outer layer.

[2 : CO-WORKER]
Wednesday 20th December, 1995. London, England. UK.

She stared at the matryoshka, positioned on her desk next to her computer monitor, and tried to drown out her colleague's conversation by focusing on the doll’s details. It was a gift from a Russian ex-girlfriend, given to her on the day she'd started this new job. Neither the matryoshka nor the job were new anymore. The figurine was wearing business attire: a dark grey pantsuit with a thin white pinstripe. Her red hair was tied up into a tight bun on the top of its head. She also shared the dour doll's pale complexion and her unenthused and unamused expression. She lacked the yellow and orange bouquet of tulips, though. This seemed only a small distinction.

"Even if I didn't want to do it, I'm not sure I'd have been able to fight her off," her colleague continued, in a fresh new torrent of brash obnoxiousness. She was brought back into the room by his booming voice and his overly confident intonations. "She was all over me all night, from the moment I walked into that place. Which, I think it goes without saying, I usually wouldn't have been caught dead in. I only went in because it was Jeffrey's birthday. He's an old friend, and you can't account for terrible taste."

Michelle's eyes drifted away from her monitor and onto the partitioning screen between her cubicle and the one next to it. She could only see the top of her co-worker's head and his slicked back blond hair, but she knew what the face that was attached to it looked like. She'd been here long enough to have a firm visualisation of his smug and smarmy visage. Only now, her memory added a single horn protruding from the right side of his forehead. His name was Shawn and she hated him.

"Dude, tell me about it," he went on, incessantly, with the receiver lifted to his ear. He was on the phone to one of the travelling sales representatives. She knew this because these phone calls were routine, each more grating than the last. "I'm already booked into the clinic this weekend… NHS?! No, private! What the fuck do you take me for?"

Michelle tried to focus on the last of her morning tasks. The Windows '95 screensaver had taken over her monitor thanks to the distraction, and she rattled the mouse around to return to her report. She'd been researching the UK launch of similar products to the company’s - a revolutionary new blender - and was now amalgamating her findings. It was due later on in the week and the men she worked for were waiting on her toil so that they could develop their marketing strategy. She stared at the cursor at the end of her most recently typed sentence. It blinked at her in a manner that she found accusatory. She decided it was time for a coffee.

Her blond-haired colleague entered when the pot was boiling. He placed his empty cup next to hers and lent against the counter, grinning at her in a manner that made her feel familiarly uneasy. He narrowed his eyes and Michelle got the sense that he was attempting to drum up recognition from the recesses of his memory.

"Are you new here?" he asked her, eventually. She blinked at him. The bubbling coffee seemed to roar as it approached the boil to the point where she worried it might burst her eardrums. She'd worked here six years, and the last two of them were spent in the cubicle directly next to his, separated only by their thin partitioning wall.

"Not quite," she said. The storm broke and the pot boiled. She turned to pour herself a cup. She felt his eyes lasered upon her as she did, as if he wished to draw her figure from memory later on.

"Any plans for the holidays?" he asked, with an affectation of aloofness. Her plans for the week off the company afforded all of its employees for the festive period was to spend it walking in the hills in the Peaks, near the village she grew up in. It seemed so far away from here, and she found herself longing for its distant embrace.

"No real plans," she lied, as she turned to face him again. His eyes quickly raised to meet hers. He was still grinning in a manner that made her feel dirty.

"A few of us are for the Octopi after work tonight," he said, whilst reaching past her for the coffee pot. She knew the club he referred to. It was a favoured spot for many of her nameless colleagues in more abstracted resources of their office. "Angel from Marketing, Christabelle from Accounts, and some of the sales team. You're welcome to join us, if you're free. Come and get to know everyone."

He stirred a pair of sugar cubes into his black coffee, but never once were his eyes removed from his counterpart. From his would-be prey. For Michelle's part, the offer brought about a sudden and overwhelming queasiness that she struggled to master.

"I'm busy," she answered, simply, whilst choking back the bile. "Thanks for the offer."

"Next time," he returned, with a wink that broke the queasiness and left Michelle smothered in humiliation. The simple, condescending gesture was enough to bring about an acute sense of shame in her that she couldn't quite explain.

He left the kitchen and returned to his desk. Michelle waited with her coffee in her shaking hands, fending off a panic attempt that threatened to overcome her. Deep breaths. Count to ten.

At her desk, she again internally recited the characteristics of the doll next to her monitor, as if that might anchor her down to this time and place. After reaching the climax of this chronicling, she absently removed the outermost doll. A smaller one, differently dressed but equally as dour, stared back at her.

[3 : PETIT AMI]
Sunday 18th January, 2015. St. Petersburg, Leningrad Oblast. Russia.

Before she left the hotel room, Michelle realised - by a coincidence - that she'd dressed herself in identical fashion to the matryoshka she'd bought that afternoon. The doll sat upon the windowsill opposite the bed, staring at her with a dour expression and the same black and purple ensemble that she herself wore. Granted, the matryoshka's attire was more in keeping with outdated Russian traditions than the French woman’s, but the colour scheme was at least the same. Michelle even wore the same bored and mildly impatient expression as the doll, though she lacked the yellow and orange tulips that were in her grasp. Maybe Shawn would buy her some. She smiled to herself at the unlikeliness. The last gift he’d got her was a blender. What he lacked in romanticism he made up for in functionality.

She smoked a cheap Russian camel and slowly walked the short distance between their hotel and the restaurant. Shawn had spent the afternoon watching one of his American sports, which meant he would've been drinking and wouldn't be particularly talkative. This was fine. She'd been drinking, too, and wasn't all that talkative regardless of her levels of sobriety.

Her preconceived notions were validated at dinner. After a brief recapping of the game, the rules of which Michelle didn't really care to understand, he fell into a sullen state and addressed his meal. He ate a blue steak and winter vegetables. Michelle didn't eat. She drank wine and then later on in the ‘meal’ vodka. The food and drink was only briefly punctuated by snippets of conversation, mostly centred around Shawn's forthcoming return to Los Angeles. He seemed to be looking forward to this. Michelle would be joining him in the summer but that gave him six months of freedom to do as he pleased.

Not that he didn't enjoy freedom now. Most of the holiday had been spent apart. She was content with this arrangement. She spent her time in St. Petersburg alternating between smoking cigarettes in cafes or bars and visiting art galleries or museums. She didn't know what Shawn did. Wasn't too concerned about knowing.

As he finished his dinner and wiped the animal's blood from his lips, Michelle sipped at her vodka and subtlety detested him. She found herself relieved when he made his intention clear to spend the evening alone and without her.

After a night wandering the city's old streets, Michelle found herself in a secluded and quiet district to the north-east of the nucleus. Following a lead from an old university friend she'd managed to track down a dealer, and was beginning to plot her way back across the city when she spotted a familiar glimpse of blond hair across the street.

She lit a cigarette and hung back in a dark corner. She watched the young-ish and handsome-ish man approach a tall apartment block. He smoked a cigarette of his own and waited impatiently by the building's doors. They eventually opened, and a tall woman who wasn't dressed for the biting winter cold emerged. They exchanged a brief and inaudible interaction and disappeared inside. Michelle was left under no allusions as to what she was, even if she didn't know who she was. She watched with a dull, passive expression and finished her cigarette.

Two hours later, Michelle left a club with a dancer who'd introduced herself as Leto. She'd soon come to find out that this meant ‘summer’ but she doubted this was the girl's real name. Russian girls didn't have names like that. Michelle had first seen her dancing inside a cage. They'd bonded from across the room and different sides of the bars over their shared bored abstraction from the general chaotic debauchery unfolding between them.

For most of the night, Michelle stood next to the bar, near a station where balloons were filled with nitrous for a few hundred rubles. She didn't go in for the gimmick. She stuck to vodka and cocaine like a good girl.

Fortunately the dancer had more of both in her apartment, which was spacious and modern with huge glass windows that overlooked the river. There was a large balcony to smoke on and lots of clean surfaces. Michelle asked her if she made a lot of rubles dancing. The dancer shrugged and said enough but that the apartment was her brother's. He did something important in Moscow and rarely came here. Michelle asked if he knew what she did for a living and the girl offered her a playful wink in response. There were no cages but the girl danced for her anyway, and was just as good at it without the bars encapsulating her.

They finished the coke and the vodka. The sun came up and a gentle morning breeze rolled in through the open balcony window. Its touch was cold and sudden against Michelle's pale and naked skin. The girl had no weed and didn't know where to get any. After a cigarette next to the open balcony door, Michelle pulled on her clothes and said goodbye to Summer.

Back in the hotel room, she watched Shawn sleep and smoked out of the window. The city was waking up beneath her. Sunrise was approaching. He seemed content and blissful. Ignorant. As repulsive as ever.

Her matryoshka stared up at her from the windowsill with its dull, passive eyes. They were still dressed in the same colour scheme, but now - with the night behind her still weighing heavily upon her mind and upon her shoulders - this seemed like less of a coincidence. She threw her cigarette out of the fourth floor window and watched it land in the snowdrift below. Then she addressed the doll. She peeled open the outermost layer and retrieved a slightly smaller matryoshka with an equally absent countenance from the shell.

[4 : BOSS]
Tuesday 24th December, 1963. New York City, New York. USA.

She’d bought her outfit with one of her first pay packets from her new city job. It wasn’t until after she’d worn it into the office for the first time that she realised the colour scheme of the sleeveless blouse and knee-length pencil skirt - cream and dark green respectively, to match her pale skin and her bright eyes - matched that of the Russian doll sitting on her desk in the office. More than once, one of her colleagues had pointed out that she also frequently wore the same dour expression as the matryoshka. You just need a bouquet of tulips, they’d remark, each considering themselves wittier than the last. She did her best to remember to wear a smile. A false smile was better than none at all, Mr. Summers always said.

The matryoshka had caused quite the stir when she’d first brought it into the office and positioned it on her desk. There was talk amongst the other secretaries of her being a spy and the nesting doll a listening device. What the Soviets would want with information from a Madison Avenue advertising firm was anyone’s guess. She’d explained to Mr. Summers that it was a gift from her father, who was given it by a Russian soldier he’d met in Berlin in 1945. It reminded her of him: the closest thing she had to a man she could think of fondly. Remember fondly, now that he was dead. She needed that around here.

She dragged her eyes away from the doll and onto her typewriter, where her half-finished document stared at her accusingly. It was a transcript of Mr. Summers’ notes from his meeting that morning, which he’d asked her to type up before retreating into his office after his long and seemingly boozy lunch. She hadn’t seen him since, but it wasn’t abnormal for him to spend whole afternoons locked away. It wasn’t her place to question. She placed her fingertips on the typewriter’s keys and prepared to begin again, but before she could begin the phone on the corner of her desk announced its presence and disrupted her focus.

“Mr. Summers’ office,” she said, after picking up the receiver. “This is Michelle speaking,”

“Is Shawn there, darling?” came the reply. She recognised the voice as that of Mr. Ocean, one of his clients. “And don’t give me any excuses, sweetheart.”

“I’m afraid Mr. Summers is out of the office at the moment,” she answered. Mr. Ocean couldn’t see her smile, obviously, but she’d been told it was important to project one down the phone regardless. “I can take down a message for him if you’d like, Mr. Ocean?”

“Recognise my voice, sweetheart?” he asked. She could detect a playfulness in his tone. “How long you been waiting for me to call?”

“It’s my job to know Mr. Summers’ clients,” she explained. The false smile on her face became more sincere, matching his playfulness. “Especially one as important as you, Mr. Ocean.”

“Good girl,” the client returned. It was loud where he was. Probably a bar. A lot of Mr. Summers’ clients seemed to spend a lot of their afternoons in bars. “Shawn is lucky to have such a competent secretary.”

“Is that the message?” Michelle asked.

“That’s the message,” he said. “Merry Christmas, sweetheart.”

“Merry Christmas, Mr. Ocean,” she replied, before hanging up.

Michelle’s eyes scanned the office to check that nobody had caught her flirting. She didn’t want the same reputation that some of the other girls enjoyed. Most of the secretaries were busy at work, except for Gabrielle, who was busy laughing at one of Mr. Fenix’s vulgar jokes. Michelle couldn’t say what he was doing so far from accounting, but lots of men spent company time at Gabby’s desk. Glad for the respite from curious eyes, which was a frequent concern for a young woman in an office like this, she turned back to her typewriter. She managed only a couple of words before the door behind her opened and Mr. Summers emerged from his office.

“I’ll be out for the rest of the afternoon,” he announced, as he pushed his arms through the sleeves of his black blazer. He straightened the jacket’s lapels and then did the same to his slicked back blond hair. “Client meeting. And then I’m having dinner with Rupert. Did you book Le Boucher?”

“For two, at six,” she confirmed. Her follow up question was asked perhaps a little too hopefully. “Will you be back for the Christmas party?”

“Maybe,” he mused, whilst adjusting his cufflinks. “Is that the notes from the Undisputed Appliance meeting? Don’t worry about that today. I won’t get to it until after the holidays.”

“I’d rather get it out of the way before the break, Mr. Summers,” she said, with her fingers hovering over the keys. “I don’t want to be thinking about it on Christmas day.”

“Very diligent, Michelle,” he responded, with a sickly sweet smile. He collected his long trenchcoat and hat from a nearby stand and sauntered towards the exit as if he owned the place. Which, if you were talking about the television department, she supposed he did.

An hour or so later, Michelle took her fifteen minutes in the secretary’s breakroom. It was as busy as it usually was at three thirty in the afternoon, and she settled herself into a corner with her coffee and tried to switch off. It was difficult with the amount of noise the other secretaries were making. Usually, she’d take her break with a cigarette outside the office building, but the building crew that had set up across the road made that an unpleasant setting, too. The chattering secretaries were the lesser of two evils.

“I got him a pair of cufflinks,” Bell said, as she sipped her own coffee excitedly. Michelle often thought that the young girl didn’t really need caffeine to reach a heightened state, but she went on drinking it anyway. “Maybe not as expensive or as lavish as some of the others in his collection, but I think they’ll hold a special place in his heart regardless. It’s not all about the most expensive gold and the shiniest silver. Sometimes it’s the thought and the associations, y’know? I don’t even know what Gabrielle got him. She can keep her secrets. I guess I’m just more of an open person.”

Bell was one of Mr. Kennedy’s two secretaries, the other being Gabrielle, who - as we’ve established - was busy flirting with Mr. Fenix from accounting. It was a well-known secret that Bell was in love with the man whose calls she answered, and a slightly less well-known (but still well-known) secret that Mr. Kennedy made frequent use of both of his secretaries. Bell, like the others in the breakroom when Michelle had entered and made her coffee, was discussing the Christmas gifts they’d carefully bought and carefully wrapped for their bosses.

“Mr. Truth isn’t an easy man to buy for,” Shannon put in, her southern drawl accentuated by the extravagant dress that she wore. Her style seemed very much in keeping with the part of the country that she called home. “Y’all know how serious he can be. I settled on a signed Calvin Coolidge autobiography. Not as extravagant as golden cufflinks, but I think Mr. Truth’ll like it.”

“I was supposed to buy a gift?!” said Lizzie, who sat in the corner and was - as always - a bundle of anxiety and nerves. She was bright enough to know that coffee wasn’t for her. She was agitated even by her ice water. “Will Mr. Golden be expecting a gift?! I didn’t know we were supposed to buy a gift!”

Michelle stubbed out her cigarette, half-relieved that her fifteen minutes was over and she could escape the gaggle assembled in the breakroom. She returned to her desk and typed up Mr. Summers’ notes, waiting for the day to end and the Christmas party to arrive.

When it came, it really came. This rendition was Michelle’s first taste of the debauchery that came with a company Christmas party. Most of the secretaries had changed, and she wondered if she should’ve done the same. She felt out of place in the same regular clothes that she’d been wearing all day. The other girls buzzed around the younger and more eligible employees in elaborate and colourful cocktail dresses. Regardless of her tepid attire, the party was soon in full swing and swept her along with it. The only person there who managed to put up some sort of resistance against the debauchery was Mr. Truth, who remained very serious and very solemn throughout. Michelle surmised that, from the lofty position he’d built for himself, the stringent conservative looked down upon them all with distaste. Something had to be behind the scowl that permanently plagued his face.

At the other end of the scale was Mr. Peacock from accounts. A very different department from accounting, it should be pointed out. Whilst accounting surveyed tables and charts and counted dollars and cents, accounts were busy spending the money they saved at the behest of the firm’s clients. Mr. Peacock, like most in that department, was an extrovert with a propensity for putting himself over, and was unsurprisingly doing that very thing at the Christmas party. He was deep into his drinks quickly and getting deeper still, his tongue free and wild and letting anyone who’d listen know about the recent big clients he’d managed to land. He was impressive if you didn’t know what you were looking at, which most of the girls and some of the men didn’t.

Michelle nursed a glass of white wine in the corner, fending off a handful of conversations she wasn’t really interested in as the night progressed. It was shortly after Mr. Peacock gave a short and unasked for speech, mostly enumerating his latest contributions to the firm, that Mr. Summers returned. One of the partners, Mr. Watkins, was with him, and there seemed slightly more decorum around the room as they strode across it. They hovered over her desk, which she had abandoned in the name of the festivities, and exchanged some hushed words. Mr. Summers removed his coat and hat but the old man kept his on. He didn’t intend to stay long. He shook the blond man’s hand before walking back across the room, only registering a select number of his employees as he made his way to the exit.

“Do you need me for anything, Mr. Summers?” she asked, after returning to her post.

“Just one thing, Michelle,” he said, with a look on his face that resembled a grimace. “Tell Mr. Walker and Mr. Randall that I need to speak to them both. And when they’ve left my office, send in the new girl. That’s all. Try to enjoy the party.”

Michelle did as she was told, and curiously watched the office’s closed door and closed blinds from across the room. Shortly afterwards, the security guard from downstairs arrived and loitered at the edge of the party. Mr. Walker and Mr. Randall both worked in the television department in production, whilst the new girl had just started in casting following a transfer from a company in Japan. There was some resentment regarding her appointment amongst the older generation at the company. Some said they’d promised never to do business with those people. It didn’t matter, to them, that the new girl was more literally a new girl when the bomb fell on Hiroshima.

Mr. Walker and Mr. Randall left the office angrily, and then - under the watchful eye of the interloping security guard - the party shortly afterwards in much the same state. The girl from casting was more tearful as she made her exit. All three spent about ten minutes each in Mr. Summers’ office, which Michelle watched intently despite being able to see nothing from within. She felt she could guess what was happening regardless of her blindness. Her eyes were open.

Her work was done, and so was the security guard’s. He disappeared downstairs as the party reached full swing. Regardless of the novelty, she felt compelled to knock on Mr. Summers’ door once he’d opened the blinds. She felt it was a sign that he was at least willing to entertain the idea of visitors.

“Come in, Michelle,” he said, from inside. She could barely hear him over the general din in the office. The record player had been brought out of Mr. Kennedy’s office and drowned out most of the scene’s specifics. She took a deep breath, as she always did when standing upon his threshold, before entering.

Mr. Summers sat behind his desk, staring out of the floor-to-ceiling windows that were the dominating feature of his office. The sun had given up on the city. The Empire State Building was illuminated by its own artificial lighting and the pale white reflection of a sombre, distant moon. The satellite’s mood was matched by the executive, who twirled his glass around in his hand. It was empty of whiskey but three ice cubes clinked around its sides as he rotated it.

“I don’t think I’ll be joining you all for the party,” he said, absently. She noticed that the bottle of whiskey next to his empty glass was still nearly full. Two more half-drunk measures, ice half-melted, sat discarded on his desk. “It’s been a long day. Not quite in the mood.”

“Me neither, really,” Michelle answered. “I think I’ll go home soon. Do you need me to do anything, before I do?”

“Call Mrs. Summers,” he instructed, his focus still monopolised by the rising moon. She approached his desk and filled his empty glass. “Tell her I’ve left the city for a client meeting. Book me into the Hilton in Albany. If there is one. Somewhere as nice if there isn’t.”

“Of course, Mr. Summers,” Michelle said. “Is everything okay with Mr. Walker and Mr. Randall? And the new girl, too?”

The executive let out a sigh. He finally turned to face his secretary. There was a steeliness about his gaze. He seemed confident and resolute.

“I’m afraid the department will be three people short, going into the new year,” he told her, his voice level and firm, as if he was steering a ship with it. She emptied his overflowing ashtray and set it down next to his lighter and cigarettes. “The company, and by extension the department, are destined for a fresh start in this coming year.”

Michelle nodded her head. If he was to be ruthless and resolute, she would have to be, too. She reached for the half-finished glasses belonging, she assumed, to Mr. Walker and Mr. Randall, preparing to empty them. She felt and then saw his hand atop of hers, a gentle tingle spreading up her arm, rippling out from the contact. His knees felt weak. Her head felt heavy. She sensed her judgement clouding.

She stared into Mr. Summers’ cobalt blue eyes, which shone and glimmered and sparkled, even in the dull and distant light of the pale moon. She couldn’t determine what was behind the lingering and smouldering look, even though it seemed to stretch on for an eternity. She hadn’t the power to break it. His sudden and absolute hold over her was too strong. It was up to him to halt the train before it pulled into the station.

Eventually, fortunately but torturously, he did. He stood up, collected his glass, and walked to the window. He placed his hands in his pockets and said nothing else.

Her knees still weak, Michelle sat down at her desk and watched the party around her. None of it could hold her interest. She was still under the spell of his cobalt blue eyes, which even now seemed upon her, drilling into her soul.

She reached for her doll, hoping that the familiar feeling of the weight of it in her hands would steer her mind away from the hole it was falling into. She wanted to feel close to her father. She wanted to feel far from here.

The matryoshka opened in her hands. She hadn’t meant to open it. The top half fell through her fingers. She caught the smaller doll with her other hand as the shell rolled away from her.

[5 : STRANGER]
Thursday 16th March, 2023. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. USA.

Michelle sat behind the curtain at Gorilla Position, her rucksack between her legs as she waited impatiently for her cue. Her hands were lowered into it, her fingers gripping the small matryoshka doll that Jean-Luc had bought her when they’d lived in Moscow. It was wearing all black, as she always was. It was why he’d thought it a fun present. Obviously she agreed, or it wouldn’t be in her rucksack, next to her cigarettes and her book and her championship belt and her coke. Probably four of the five most important things she owned, alongside the bag that carried then. And the matryoshka amongst them all, perhaps the most permanent of them all. The sound of a guitar being strummed and the shocked confusion of those in their seats early enough to witness it poured through the curtain. She pulled her belt out of her bag and slung it over her shoulder.

Roy Orbison sang about the sandman as she walked down the entrance ramp, the three-quarters full arena serenading her in a chorus of boos. The show hadn’t started yet. The by-now obligatory pyrotechnic display and commentator card run-down hadn’t yet taken place, and as a result many members of the audience were still queuing in the concession stands or filing towards their seats. The impromptu outbreak of In Dreams and accompanying appearance of Michelle von Horrowitz brought them all rushing into the arena, though, if only to hurl abuse at her.

She smiled to herself as she climbed into the ring and collected a microphone. Europe had been an experience, of course. It always was. But, try as she might, she couldn’t really get even the most unfamiliar of audiences there to really hate her like the Americans did. It was easy to get these people riled. Their sense of morality, though inherently warped, was clear cut and predictable. She had missed this. She felt alive again.

They didn’t abate when she lifted the microphone to her lips. Even though the show wasn’t due to start for another ten minutes, the crowd - who launched into a timely chant of boring, only with the vowels elongated - let her know that they would rather be staring at an empty ring as they waited for the fireworks. Including those that had rushed into the arena from the concession stands to see her. Such was the fickle nature of the trogs, laying bare the contradictions between what they thought and what they did.

“You know, Pittsburgh,” she began, whilst adjusting her championship belt and projecting her voice over the rampant Pennsylvanian crowd. “When I first came to this country with my sister back in 2008, I took a roadtrip with some money I inherited across as much of the good ol’ U.S. of A. as I could. Got as far east as Denver. I spent twenty four hours here to break up the journey between Philadelphia and Columbus. Probably the reason most people come here. Not that I had a bad time. I walked around all day, from downtown to Oakland and back again. I saw your museum and your art gallery, and I saw your underbelly, too. You’d be surprised at what becomes clear to you when you walk around after midnight with your eyes wide open. But Pittsburgh, unlike a lot of cities, at least wears what it is plainly for all to see. It doesn’t try to hide what it’s built upon, and what still runs it today.”

It wasn’t clear if the crowd was even listening. They elected only to hurl orchestrated obscenities in poor Dreamer’s direction. She didn’t flinch in the face of it.

“Which brings me rather neatly on, tulips, to Shawn Summers. A man who is a bastard, who calls himself a bastard, and has made a career out of being a bastard. A man who is almost, honestly, one that I could see myself conspiring alongside. But there are barriers, incontrovertible ones, to such a hypothetical alliance, which would be as unholy as it would be unlikely. You see, Shawn Summers is a man that I am familiar with only from afar, and I mean that in more ways than one…”

A brief pause. Time ticked on towards the show. The fans, fully aware that her minutes were almost up, expressed their impatience. They rowdily informed Michelle that they wanted wrestling, which elicited a wry chuckle from the woman in the ring. Who do you think it is, she thought, that gives you wrestling?

“Perhaps more obviously, I mean it in the sense that Der Basterd and I’s paths have mostly run parallel and often in opposite directions. We have only shared the ring once, a long time ago in a battle royale that I won and he underperformed in. Other than that, Shawn has kept a safe and disrespectful distance from me, for Summers is of the school of thought that men and women should not dance together between the ropes. A philosophy as archaic as it is meaningless. We both wear gold on our shoulders, and I’ve fought against men for longer than I’ve fought alongside them.

“You remember Dan Maskell? The English trog who called me little French boy, right up until I beat him on this very show when it was still in its infancy? He said much the same thing. We could ask him if he still thinks that now, but he decided he couldn’t hack it a long time ago, his inconsequential manhood seemingly not enough on its own to save him. Shawn deserves some credit as the last misogynist standing, but one always gets the sense with this surprisingly fragile manly man that his own downfall isn’t too distant upon the horizon.”

Outside of the ring, the commentators filed into position behind their desk. Anzu offered Michelle a double thumbs up and a warm, encouraging grin, whilst Sterling only greeted her gaze with an impatient sneer.

"I say, tulips, that I am familiar with Shawn Summers from afar, and that I mean it in more ways than one. I mean this in macro: in the sense that I was familiar with Der Basterd - and men like him - since I was old enough to understand enough of the male mind to know its simplicity. As most women are. Fathers, co-workers, boyfriends, bosses, strangers… it's not a list that can be exhaustive or concise. But our resident Basterd, who takes such pride in skirting around the cutting edge of misogyny, is only a whisper of a billion men whose shadow he perennially inhabits. Like the rest of us, he is terrified of the sun, but his fear has overcome him. He touts his stale replications as uniquities, notable only in their traditional and forgettable perverseness.”

Around the ring, the camera crew signalled to one another hurriedly. Four minutes, they appeared to be saying. One of them even seemed to sign that she should get out of the ring. He pushed his untidy, blond hair out of his eyes and encouraged her with his hands to wrap things up. She afforded herself a deliberate and lengthy pause before finally continuing her thread.

“It is interesting how history has a nature of repeating itself. Only recently, I was thrown back into an adversarial relationship with Cyrus Truth, a man I thought I’d left firmly in my past. My own tag team partner is fond of pointing out similarities between this year’s Grand March and the last one. I won’t bore you with them again here. But I am reminded now, once more, of our beloved and departed Heretic. When the puppeteers decided to place me in the ring with that forgotten pig, it was worthwhile putting to one side my conquest of the world championship picture to settle a score with a rotten little man and his rotten little ideas. Some will argue that it isn’t worth it. I beg to differ. You’d be surprised how quietly even the loudest of mouthbreathers suddenly inhale when their lights have been turned out.”

She turned to face the curtain that separated her from the back. It was clear that, at least tonight, at least now, her words were meant for just one man. It wasn’t the man who held the gold, or the one consumed by perceived wrongs. It wasn’t the pantomime act who spoke of friendship, whilst trying to take the one thing that kept her closest and oldest friend at her side. Her words were only for him: a textbook, predictable bigot, with a bad haircut and a ridiculous neck tattoo.

“We remain but perfect strangers, Shawn, but for words cast one way or the other from a distance, and our mutual acquaintance with the ageing prodigy. It’s not much, really, is it? But it’s enough for me. Throw yourself in, Shawn. You don’t stand a chance.”​

 

[Tommy Bedlam]

Tommy Bedlam in:
“Outnumbered by Nephews”

​

Randi and Tommy had flown back to Sweetwater for a few days before the pair was slated to head to Pittsburgh for Meltdown. She had agreed to start escorting him to the ring, which meant that next week was going to be nuts. In addition to his singles match against the Boulder on Fallout, Tommy had been booked in an 8-man tag match for Meltdown.

The Nephews had become a bit of a thorn in Tommy’s side, even if it did seem like they were mostly there to harass whoever Tommy was facing at the time, there was no denying that they had become a headache for him, too. Their interference snatched what appeared to be a win over Cyrus Truth from Tommy’s hands. This week, he would have to team with Cyrus and The Buddy System in an 8-man match against Cthuluh’s Nephews.

Tommy had never teamed with any of the people he was scheduled to team with, nor had he ever been in an official match against Uncle J.J JAY!, or the rest of the Nephews.

Tommy and Randi had made plans to go out to dinner and catch a movie. Just as he was about to head out the door of his apartment, he got a text.

“Hey. Change of plans. Meet me at my brother’s house instead of my place! See you soon.”

Tommy had never met Randi’s brother, but he was familiar with where he lived. He pulled into the driveway and thought it odd that Randi’s car was the only one that he could see. He walked up the long front walk and stepped onto the front porch of the large suburban home. Before Tommy could ring the doorbell, Randi opened the door, a toddler in her arms. Tommy couldn’t help but notice the Texas Longhorns sweatshirt that she had on hugging her ever-growing baby bump.

Tommy stepped in the door, kissed Randi on the cheek, and couldn’t help but notice that she let him do it.

“So, what’s this change of plans?”

“Well, my brother texted me earlier. My sister-in-law went into labor, so he needed somebody to babysit. I told him we would help out.”

“Alright. Guess I need to get used to being around a kid anyway. Who is this little guy?”

Tommy reached his arms out toward the toddler that Randi was carrying around.

“This is Quinn. He’s about 18 months old.”

Little Quinn, though reluctant at first, finally agreed to go to Tommy. Tommy sat his keys, cellphone, and can of Skoal on the small table by the front door, and carried the child over towards the couch. Within seconds, Quinn was screaming.

“Hey, take this kid back. He’s pissed about something.”

“Sorry, Cowboy. You’re gonna have to get used to a grumpy kid.”

Randi didn’t even acknowledge the screaming that was getting louder by the minute. Instead, she was working on dinner. Tommy couldn’t help but think she was making entirely too much spaghetti for the two of them and the screaming hell-spawn in his arms, but she also didn’t cook often.

Tommy tried everything to get Quinn to stop crying. He rocked him, he tried turning on “Baby Shark” on the TV, he bounced him, everything. For what seemed like hours (it had actually only been 6 minutes), Tommy had a screaming baby and no relief.

Quinn’s face contorted a bit through the tears. Suddenly, Tommy felt something warm on his arm. The pungent smell of strained bananas filled the air as Tommy looked toward Randi in the kitchen.

“Randi…Randi! Help! I think he’s….”

Tommy switched Quinn to the other arm, revealing that his worst fears were a reality. Quinn had shit all over his right arm and onto his shirt. He held the baby out as Quinn continued to make weird faces, but suddenly, the screaming was replaced by giggling. The little monster thought it was hilarious that he had shit all over Tommy.

Randi found it equally funny, that was, until Tommy put the turd covered baby into the kitchen sink. As he ripped his T-shirt off over his head, some of the remains of Quinn’s dinner passed over his beard. Tommy grabbed the spray nozzle from the kitchen sink, pumped some dishwashing liquid into his hands, and soaked his face, arms, and hands.

“You little shit.”

By the time Tommy was convinced that he had cleaned himself, Randi had reappeared from the top of the steps with a clean Quinn in her arms and a new T-shirt for Tommy. She tossed it to him from the top of the steps, a bit of a grin still on her face.

Tommy pulled the shirt over his head, quickly realizing that it was far too small.

“Is your brother a 12-year-old girl?”

“No, he’s just not a professional wrestler.” You can change back into your shirt when it comes out of the laundry.”

Tommy, visibly uncomfortable, squirmed around a little bit when he suddenly felt a hard WHACK against the back of his head.

“The fuck was that?!”

“Tommy, language!”

“Sorry, just trying to figure out what cracked me in the back of the head.”

As Tommy finished his statement, he felt another quick, stinging WHACK against the back of his skull. The second whack came with a burst of laughter from behind the couch.

Tommy turned around, looked over the back of the couch and saw a child in a purple, hooded robe trying to hide himself. Tommy shot Randi a confused look.

“Oh, that’s Harry.”

“Harry?”

“My other nephew. He’s six. He’ll be seven next month. He thinks he’s a wizard.”

“You mean like…”

“Yea, huge Harry Potter fan.”

“Of course. Harry the Wizard. You didn’t tell me you had two nephews. Hell, you’ve never mentioned any of your nephews to me.”

“Eh, it’ll just give us some more practice in case we ever have another one.”

Tommy smiled a bit.

“You already thinking about having another one with me?”

“I mean, I think there’s worse…”

WHACK! The little demon-child ran down the hallway after cracking Tommy in the skull for the third time. His giggling echoed throughout the house.

Randi handed Quinn back to Tommy as she got up to go back towards the kitchen to work on dinner some more. He was hesitant to go back to holding the stink bomber, but it looked like the baby was almost asleep. It seemed like a harmless enough idea.

Every few moments, Harry would run through the kitchen and whack Randi on the butt with his magic wand. After the fourth time, both she and Tommy were getting annoyed by it.

“Do they let him act like that all the time?”

“Yea…they don’t want to suppress his imagination.”

Suddenly, Harry the little wizard started his fifth run through the kitchen. Just as he drew back his magic wand to hit Randi for a fifth time, Tommy snatched it out of his hand, quickly tossing it onto the top of the refrigerator. A look of pure rage overcame the child as he looked up at Tommy.

“GIVE THAT BACK!”

“Nope. Sorry. Looks like I made your magic wand disappear. You can have it back when you decide to stop acting like a little f-“

“TOMMY!”

“Felon. Like a little felon. Now go upstairs and play. We will come and get you when dinner’s ready.”

As Quinn slept soundly in his arms, Tommy couldn’t help but think about the fact that before long, this sort of thing would be his new normal. Obviously, things would be a little different since he had to spend a few days a week traveling, but he was hoping that after the D.C. show, Randi was interested in traveling with him.

He sat down at one of the barstools by the island where Randi was working on dinner, Quinn still asleep in his arms. With no warning, a familiar WHACK sounded off the back of his head.

“Motherfucker, where did that kid get another wand?!”

“MOTHERFUCKER! MOTHERFUCKER! MOTHERFUCKER!”

Harry’s voice echoed down the hallway.

“Oh great. Now he’s going to get to tell his parents that he learned a new word while Aunt Randi and Uncle Tommy were babysitting.”

“Oh, so I’m Uncle Tommy now?”

“You’ve got potential. But for now, you’re gonna have to go explain to him that you used a grown up word and that he shouldn’t say it. Give me the baby.”

Just as Tommy started to hand Randi the baby back, he felt something hot again. It didn’t take long before they both started smelling urine. Even in his sleep, this kid had it out for Tommy. Randi grabbed Tommy’s original shirt out of the dryer, tossed it to him, and put her brother’s shirt in to wash.

Before he started up the stairs to talk to Harry about the importance of not using the word “motherfucker,” at least not in front of his parents, Tommy went over to the table by the door to get a fresh chew.

Unfortunately, his Skoal was gone. So were his keys and his cellphone.

“Randi, did you move my stuff?”

“What stuff?”

“The stuff I left by the door. My phone, my keys, my Skoal?”

“Nope.”

“Harry!!!!”

Tommy stormed up the stairs. If he was going to make it through this evening, he would need a steady supply of nicotine. When he passed by one of the upstairs rooms and saw Harry sitting inside, he barged in.

“Listen, kid. First of all, you can’t say the word I said downstairs. It’s not fair, but you’re a kid. Life ain’t fair. Second, where are my keys and all the other stuff that you took off the table downstairs?”

“I didn’t take anything.”

“You did. I hid your magic wand, so you hid my keys, phone, and my Skoal. Tell me where they are, and I’ll go downstairs and get your wand.”

“I really didn’t take them, motherfucker.”

“I told you that you can’t say that word. Just give me my stuff back, I’ll give you your wand back, and we can call it even.”

“He doesn’t have your stuff…”

Tommy turned around, shocked to see another kid. How many of these little bastards were there? He thought it was only Quinn, then he thought it was Quinn and Harry. Now there was a third?! Didn’t Randi’s brother and his wife know what caused this? There was no way Tommy was going to father three kids. One and done for him.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Weston…and I hid your stuff.”

“Well, Weston. How bout you go get my stuff and you and I can try to get off to a better start.”

“I don’t know. What’s in it for me?”

Tommy wanted to tell the little brat that not getting his ass beat should be what’s in it for him, but he knew he couldn’t threaten the kid.

“What do you want?”

“I think $100 seems fair.”

“100 bucks?! How old are you anyway?!”

“I’m 11. Plenty old enough to understand the market. I have what you want, and you have what I want. 100 bucks, and you get your Skoal back, your keys, and your phone.”

“I’ll give you $20.”

“Psh! $20 isn’t worth my time. I’ll be in my room down the hall. When you’re ready to be serious, come and see me. By the way, has anybody ever told you that you smell like piss?”

Tommy had been so worried about convincing Harry not to tell his parents about his new favorite word and the fact that he didn’t know where his Skoal, phone, or keys were that he had forgotten that he had been pissed on. Ah well. He would have to deal with that later. First, he needed to strike a deal with Weston.

Maybe Randi could help. Tommy went downstairs to try to bring in some backup.

“Randi, your nephews are monsters. How many of them are there anyway? Now I’ve got one up here who is extorting me for $100!”

“Let me guess, Weston? Gah, he’s all about making some money. I keep telling them that he’s gonna be a politician if they don’t get him under control soon. What do you get in exchange for the $100?”

“My phone. My Skoal. My keys. Which I’m going to use to haul ass away from this house. Your nephews are all monsters.”

“Oh calm down. How can you think that this sweet baby is a monster?”

“Because my shirt still has a piss stain in the middle of it. And that’s after you washed the shit stain out of it.”

“Do you really need me to go upstairs and get your stuff back? Can’t the future FWA Television Champion handle an 11-year-old on his own?”

Damn her for playing to his ego.

Tommy marched up the stairs. He wasn’t sure which room Weston was hiding in, but he knew he wasn’t going to go back in to where Harry was. Friggin’ demon child would probably crack him in the head with another stick of some kind.

Tommy threw open the first closed door that he saw. It was a nursery. Obviously, that was Quinn’s room. There were three more closed doors in front of him. He opened the next one, ready to go to war with an 11-year-old. That was obviously the master bedroom. God, he wished the people who slept in that room were home. He’d give just about anything to get away from these kids.

Two doors to go. One of them had to be the place where his belongings were. The next door was slightly cracked. Tommy tried to push it open gently, opting for a surprise attack. Then, it happened. A bucket of ice cold water that had been positioned at the top of the door rained down on Tommy. Much to his chagrin, there was no one in the room. However, from behind, he could hear the laughter.

He turned around, and there was Weston and another boy. Yes, there was a fourth.

“Looks like you found my little surprise, Bedlam.”

“And who in the blue hell are you?” Tommy asked his question through gritted teeth.

“My name’s Jason Jr. They call me JJ.”

“Well JJ, I guess you got me. Now, Weston, if you’d be so kind as to hand me my stuff, I’m going home.”

“You know the deal, Bedlam. $100 and you get all your stuff.”

Tommy was so desperate to get away from these little monsters that he reached into his back pocket, grabbed his wallet, and pulled out a soggy $100 bill.

“You get the money when I get my stuff.”

Weston stepped into his room, the only one that Tommy hadn’t checked, and came back out with Tommy’s stuff. He sat it all down on the floor between himself and Tommy and held his hand out. Tommy reached down, grabbed his stuff, and then put the $100 back in his pocket.

“WE HAD A DEAL.”

“I don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

As Tommy made it back downstairs, Randi was finishing up dinner.

“Why are you so wet?”

Tommy just gave her a look. It spoke volumes.

“Do you wanna go tell the boys that dinner is ready?”

“I’d rather sandpaper a crocodile’s ass in a phonebooth than have dinner with those kids.”

“Well, you know we have to feed them.”

“Do we? Do we really have to feed them? Can’t they just feast on the souls of those they’ve tormented?”

“They are not that bad.”

“Randi. I have been shit on, pissed on, beaten with a wand by a kid who thinks he’s a fucking wizard, my stuff has been held hostage, and I had a bucket of water poured on my head. They are that bad.”

“Well, then I guess I have some good news for you.”

“What? I’m dying? I only have 30 minutes left to live? That’s the best news you could give me right now.”

“No, dumbass. My mom will be here any minute. She’s gonna watch the boys for the night so you and I can go out. We have a lot to talk about.”

As Randi finished saying that, Tommy heard a car door. He had never been so happy to see Suzy. As she appeared, the three older boys came running down the stairs, thrilled to greet their grandma. The same little monsters who had plagued Tommy’s entire night suddenly seemed like angels.

"We're gonna have to run by my place so I can change."

As Tommy walked Randi over to the his truck, he went to open her door, only to stick his hand in the Vaseline that one of the hell spawns had placed in his door handle.

“Son of a bitch.”

Randi looked down at her phone as a big smile came across her face.

“Awww look! She had the babies.”

“Babies? As is in more than one?”

“Yes, babies. She had twin boys.”

“That’s just what you need, Randi. More fucking nephews.”

 

[Shade]

"How do I get this fuckin thing to wizork?"

With a loud impassioned possibly frustrated push of a button the camera switches on with the lovely close up of Trevor Walker's face. Held from a below the chin angle Trevor looks into the camera displaying an impressive amount of barbecue sauce on his face and what looks like a booger in his nose. Moving the camera around as he tries to find a correct angle for the camera to be held. Shown to be wearing a stained, torn wifebeater vest and a worn out pair of black jeans. Trevor Walker appears to be in a particularly surly mood as he holds his left nostril and rockets the snot out of his other in one blow. With out hesitation Walker sits the camera on the table in front of him and this allows more of the scenery to be shown as it appears that Walker is currently taking a seat in a roadside diner. Using his wifebeater to clean some of the residue from his mouth, Walker shakes his head once he is finished this process.

"So let me get this straight. In order to wrestle in the FWA I gotta cut a promo! You know where I come from the mizarks sit behind the rails not in the back. When you bring a talent like me to the FWA. You ask me if I want you to jump and then you ask how high to clear the fucking hoops. You offer me hand jobs and hotdogs with a glass of OJ. Instead you give me orders like I'm some rook. Like I'm some green young boy who needs to be taught a lesson. Like I have to be happy to just be apart of the show. Well I got news for you Jack, it don't fucking work that way. I don't fucking work that way! Then you ask me if I got an account because everything gotta be official. I ain't come here to get my income and my hard earned coins taken by some ball washing lawyers who think it's great to take an innocent working stiff for everything he got! I get paid in cash. I demand cash, the only flexible friends I ever heard of are the things your wives use cus you ain't man enough."

A loud belch follows before Walker takes a deep breath. Reaching across the table slowly Walker grabs another can of Natty Light and upon cracking it open he impressively tilts his head back before he proceeds to chug the can in one swoop. Once he has done so Walker crushes the can in his hand before tossing it behind him onto the ground where many other cans of Natty Light are strewn across the ground.

"Someone of my experience and caliber deserves more respect than that. I've humped this highway so much I owe it fuckin child support. Yet not only do I get this bullshit summons. But I also get given this flat chested broad for my first opponent. Now I ain't watch the FWA before but when they told me my opponent would be from this team. I assumed I'd be fighting the man of the pair. The fat ass who has more rolls than a bakery. Instead I'm fighting his weird looking sister. Let me tell you something Jack Off Fenix. You get the honor and privilege of stepping in the ring with one of the most respected, admired and highly regarded wrestlers the world has ever seen. Now I know that you young fucks today all suffer with performance anxiety. So let me make it clear to you, this can be the worst night of your life or the best night. I'm offering you a rare opportunity to have the easiest payday of your life. Because I'm not gonna lie, I don't feel doing all my moves least not till I know about the cash. So my offer is let's work together here and you just lay down for me. Consider it a part of paying your dues and also for the love of the sport."

Belching loudly as he leans back in his chair. Walker tilts his head up for a moment as he takes a breath. There is a slight heave from the inebriated Walker as he looks back into the camera.

"Now obviously like I said it can be nice and easy like that if you really want it to be. Yet there is also another option for you, now like I said there's a lot I don't fancy doing. But beating the piss out of a rookie is something I always got time for. Mark my words here as well, I can wrestle circles around you and I damn sure can hit harder than some little pussy. See that's what I call you little tag team wrestlers.. Pussies. As where I come from we fight our own battles, we don't grab others by the hand and have them do it for us. Especially not when the person doing all the hard work for you hasn't seen his dick in years. So like I said do the right thing and make this easy on yourself. Don't make me have to work up a sweat when I beat you down like a dog. The choice is yours!.... Now how do I switch this fucking thing off?"

Reaching for the camera Walker instead sends it flying off the table and crashing to the floor among the empty cans. A series of expletives fly out of Walker's mouth as he grabs the camera and shuts it off entirely.

 

[AON]

You know what's slightly underrated in the world of comedy? Very large men having to sit in ridiculously small chairs, now you and I might find that a somewhat humourous mental image but then again you're not Doug or Dan collectively known to the wrestling world as The Lumberjacks who were currently looking particularly uncomfortable sat in office chairs that were clearly not made with the comfort in mind nearly seven feet tall men who were roughly the size of an adulencent elephant, you could practically hear the chairs positively groan under the collective weight of one of the largest teams ever both clearly trying to shift their weights but no matter what way they sat, they were very uncomfortable, Maybe it had something to do with the setting they're in, The LePond brothers live up in the wilds of Canada surrounded by their arch nemesises; trees in small wood cabins they built with their own bare hands, so it almost felt wrong that they currently sat in the corporent officesof FWA headquarters, To see the two boys from the Yukon sat in a place with bland walls coated in neutral colours and various motivational posters depicting various cute animals ("Hang in there baby". "Don't even talk to me until I have my coffee and of course the old classic smiling orange cartoon cat decrying his hated of mondays) felt like some kind of glitch in the matrixs. No one has ever asked for a Lumberjack crossover with Dilbert, but here they are summoned by the head honchos at FWA headquarters and sitting across from a weedy-looking gentleman in a three-piece suit.

"Ok, I hereby call this emergency meeting of the FWA creative department to order."

"Why are w-"

"Woah, woah, hold on, cowboy, we have to take the roll first to ensure everyone is present and correct"

"But there's literally just the three of us in this room."

"Well, how do you know that officially if we haven't taken the roll."

"He's got you there, Doug."

"Ok, let's see here, in attendance, Raymond Terrific head of creative consulting- yes, I am indeed here, so I will make me as here....now let's see here, Doug? Are you here?"

"...Mhhh"

"Hmmm, interesting response, and how are we spelling that? Just an M and about three H's?"

"I think it's M-"

"Just put me down as present."

"Ok, Doug is changing his answer from "Mmhh" to "Present" Wonderful! And Dan? Are you here?"

"What are we doing?"

"Hey, I will open up the meeting for questions once it officially begins, but it can't begin if you're not here...so are you here?"

"....Yes, I'm here."

The man nods and painstakingly takes down Dan's words as an exact quote; satisfied with his work, he nods, pleased with himself.

"Ok, I'm here; Dan and Doug are here. And now, I can call this meeting to order; the first item on the agenda is fielding questions; I would like to now open the floor up for questions, so does anyone have any questions?"

"Yeah, wh-"

"The floor recognises Daniel Lupone of the Lumberjacks. Daniel, do you have a question?"

You could practically hear the buzz saw that was the grinding of Dan's teeth as he tried to repress his clear anger, but for the sake of his employment, he pushed through with deep breathing exercises. A good lumberjack always practices mindfulness.

"Yes, Who are you? Why are we here, and do you need our card? Your office could need a good furnishing..."

"Oak table, not that sturdy; you need a good pine finish."

"Well, my name is Raymond Terrific, and I guess you can call me an image consultant for FWA, and I've been asked to speak to you about...an issue creative has been having with you."

Raymond shifts in his chair, somewhat clearly uncomfortable with what he has to say next, like he was about to perform insult comedy to a crowd of grizzly bears, talk about a tough room.

"Sorry for the inconvenience; I know you guys live a long way away in the mountains up north."

"It's all good, buddy, we got good mileage on the moose, so it is what it is."

"Moose? Is that like a brand of car or-"

"Nope"

"Oh, so we're literally talking about-"

"Our pet moose, yeah,"

"Avril Lavigne is parked right offside."

"....Just to confirm, you named your pet moose Avril Lavigne?"

"....Yeah?"

"Why, what's the problem?"

Our hero Raymond seems like he has something to say on the matter, but stops himself just in time; it seems like the more he tries to dig deep into the world of the Lumberjacks, the more he'd be lost more and more in their weird Canadian vortex, and he has a job to do, he readjusts himself and moves on.

"First off, I just want to say that the boys upstairs in creative. They love you; You got a good thing going with the big scary lumberjack gimmick..."

"Gimmick?"

"But they called me in because-well...they have some...teeny tiny little concerns in terms of your whole...vibe..."

The brothers stare dead ahead at Raymond as if daring him to imply their vibe was anything other than an utter delight.

"So, how do I put this-"

Raymond mused to himself more than to the lumberjacks without finishing the statement "-Without being beaten up by two Lumberjacks."

"Ok, well, let's compare you guys to your opponents this week, ETERNAL. Before she debuted, Princess Nova sent us these amazing TV spots where she was in this castle and musing on the nature of reality-"

"We didn't see that; we don't own a TV."

"-and they were great, along with her sister she's a really creative -person...or whatever she is....Whereas you guys have sent us three segments ....all of which have consisted of you cutting down trees and talking about how you like to beat people up."

"Right. Sure."

"That's kind of our thing."

"Sure, sure, sure, and that's great. That's all great; the thing is, though...You've been saying that for the last six months or so..."

"Are you upset we didn't do it in a castle or something?"

"Ay man, you want us to cut promos, that's fine, but we got our day jobs to worry about, so we gotta do what we gotta do; if FWA wants to buy us a castle, they can get us a castle!"

"Scratch that; we can just build it from...Trees."

"Yeah, man, that's a good call. Wood is a better material than stone"

"See, this is exactly the problem with you two."

"What is?"

"You guys have been here for six months, and all you guys ever talk about is beating people up, cutting down trees, and being lumberjacks."

"...But we ARE lumberjacks, and we DO cut down trees, and we do beat people up...What else do you want? For us to tap dance?"

"Can you?! Because that would be amazingly helpful!"

Both lumberjacks give Raymond what Paddington bear would call "A hard stare", not feeling the need even dignify that with an answer.

"Just...Just give me something else, anything else to you guys, besides the fact you're big bad and scary Lumberjacks. Like, anything at all. Did you guys have a difficult childhood?"

"Not really; our parents loved us very much."

"Do you ever have moments of emotional vulnerabilities you can put on camera?"

"....."

"Have you ever considered the possibility that all this is in your head and you're both dreaming? That seems to play well."

" How would that even work? I'm I having the dream, is he having the dream, are we both having some kind of...Inception kind of deal?"

"Ok, let me ask you; why you became lumberjacks? What is it about cutting down trees that appeal so much to you?"

"Well, our dad was a lumberjack, so we just kind of fell into the family business..."

"And cutting down trees is pretty cool."

"We like trees."

"Yeah, Trees are pretty dope."

Raymond stared straight ahead at the lumberjacks as if waiting for more to follow, but they seemed to be done


"Look, I'm not saying you gotta change your entire deal! The lumberjack thing, I dig it; it's doing good numbers in the Washington, Ohio, Utah area - y'know, the hipster places, they love the beards."

"What's a hipster?"

"Oh, there's an idea! Have you considered adding more of a hipster aesthetic? How do you feel about craft beer?"

"I don't drink craft beer."

"No one does! They just hold it in their hands because it gives them character! Which is exactly what you need!"

"We usually hold axes in our hands."

"-And chop trees with them."

"Oh yeah. Chop 'em real good."

"Look, I get it, you think you're fine like this, and that's all, but the people want more. They want emotion, they want dimension, they want development, and you're... not any of that."

" But there's not really much else to us; we're wrestlers who are also lumberjacks; we're happy being like that"

"Being happy doesn't pay the bills, being happy doesn't give you wins, and being happy doesn't make you famous! Happy people don't exist; they're a myth! There's no such thing as a white-meat happy-go-lucky hero anymore; they died out sometime around 2005! If someone is just happy and friendly out there, they're either an idiot like Bellatrix or Lizzie Rose, a psychopath like Best, or ridiculously, inhumanly sad on the inside, like... Like..."

"Like you?"

"Exactly like me! You think this smile comes naturally? I'm on so many pills I can't see the colour blue anymore! I haven't felt a pleasant emotion since 1992, but I'm rich! I'm successful! And you can be too, just... Just if you alter yourself. Just a little bit."Look, guys, you're great wrestlers, you are, but in this business, that isn't enough; you gotta sell yourself, you got to engage the crowd, you got to grab their attention and tell them something about yourselves that speaks to the heart of the common wrestling fan....and the common wrestling fan isn't a lumberjack s-"

It was then Raymond noticed that both Doug and Dan had stood up, and Doug was cutting up the chair with a comically large axe with Dan's encouragement.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Screamed Raymond as his beloved chairs lay in a heap, looking like they just got hit with a wrecking ball

"Ha! You see the way the arms crumble like that? That's a telltale sign of shoddy workmanship. Shoddy. Shoddy. Shoddy"

"Whoever sold you these chairs are a bunch of cowboys."

You'd think Reymond would be used to dealing with this kind of stuff being involved in the whacky world of FWA, but he's lost any and all cool as he stepped in between the two.

"HEY, GUYS, LISTEN, LISTEN, STOP. PLEASE"

The jacks pause as Reymond reaches into his coat pocket.

"Look, I just wanted you to come here, so I can give you some inspiration in dealing with two scary wrestlers here-"

He reaches into his coat pocket, pulls out a slip of paper, and throws it at the brothers.

"That's the address of the hotel you're staying at tonight-"

"Really? We can always stare here and help you remodel?"

"GET OUT-!"
--------

CRACK-! The white-hot flash of a powerful lightning strike illustrates the hotel, well, at least, that's what it's being used for at the moment. Still, it seems like the kind of place that was the home of some rich mucky muck back in civil war times, a four-story home seemingly crumbling at the seams, with its classic Georgian design and architecture with gothic statues of Gargoyles staring out at those foolish enough to step inside these hallowed grounds, it seemed impossibly out of place in 21st-century life. Surrounded by nothing but wild wood and Forrest, the house seemed to suck all the energy and colour out of its surroundings, turning everything grey...

In short, it's a hotel that most people would take one look at and shout "NOPE" and turn back instantly.

"I don't know; man"

Doug sighed as the Lumberjacks pulled up to their hotel for the night.

"Do YOU think we're too boring and one-dimensional for anyone to care about us over Eternal?"

"What? That's crazy talk. Sure, Eternal might be this weird supernatural, super gimmicky team, but if you want someone to set up a shelf, who are you going to ask? Us or them? Every other team needs to have all these stupid bells and whistles, but we're meat and potatoes jam up, guys. Eternal can bring all their bullshit, but we'll bring pure lumberjack power to them."

"Thank you, brother. I needed to hear that, just sometimes I worry we're seen as some cliche cheap Canadian stereotypes."

Just then, the great moose the two Canadian brothers were riding gave a distinctive cry.

"You see what you've done now? You've upset Avril Lavigne. She hates when you talk like that."

"Man, I'm sorry I didn't mean to make things so COMPLICATED."

"You know, man, all I can think when I hear you talk is, WHAT THE HELL?!" You need to SMILE more and learn to LET THINGS GO."

"You know what, man? BITE ME!"

" Hey! Don't get HOT at me like I'm your girlfriend, because honestly? Hey. Hey. You. You. I don't want to be your GIRLFRIEND."

"I'm sorry, brother; I'M A MESS. Just hearing all these people talk about how ETERNAL are more creative than us, I just want to scream, DON'T TELL ME. Sometimes it feels like I'm LOSING GRIP because I know we're THE BEST DAMN THING to hit the tag team scene, but when I try to tell people that, it's like NO ONE'S HOME. It's not our fault Eternal said, "HERE'S TO NEVER GROWING UP", but I know when "I'M WITH YOU." I know when our match is done, they'll say, "SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING."

It was just then a cat crossed their path.

"Oh hey, look, a cat."

"HELLO KITTY"

The cat meowed a greeting and then scampered off into the void.

"In any case, man, come on, we have to park Avril and shack up for the night."

"Man, this place is weird; why do you think that guy booked us here away from the rest of the roster?

"Probably because we keep cutting up every chair we see."

"You know what? That's fair

"I don't know, man; everyone thinks ETERNAL had the advantage because they're all charismatic and spooky and supernatural and stuff, and we don't have any experience with the paranormal, so we can't fight them on their level"

"Yeah, man, but at the same time, I never saw Keres or Princess Nova down a great oak."

"Well. Keres could probably do it with her crazy gothic mind powers, and Princess Nova probably has a butler to do it. No work ethic whatsoever."

"It's a shame we had no experience with the supernatural so that we can relate to ETERNAL in all their spookiness."

As they were jibber jabbering their sweet lumber lips off, they found themselves standing in front of some wooden wall just outside the entranceway where they found four words staring out at them, painted in some sort of dark red jagged letters painted in what seemed to be clearly blood bearing the disturbing legend.

STAY. AWAY.

DEATH INSIDE.

"OH MY GOD"

"I know. That's so disturbing!"

"I think I'm going to be sick."

"Me too."

"...Who the hell paints blood over pine wood?!"

"It damages the wood; the pine is going to absorb it, it's going to be comprised, and pretty soon, it's going to rot! No respect whatsoever for good quality wood!"

"Some people are just sick monsters!"

Shaking their heads in synch in mutual disgust at the mistreatment of wood, so much so they don't seem to notice the ominous message, the same way they no sell the bloody hand prints leading up to the front door as Dan knocks on the gothic door knocker which seems to thunder and echo for miles on end.

BOOM-!

BOOM-!

BOOM-!

It seems to take an age before the front door CREEKKKKKKKKKKKED opens slowly but surely to reveal- OH MY GOD, IT'S A WALKING CORPSE-! Oh, wait, scratch that. It's just an insanely pale-looking thin gentleman standing in a black three-piece suit, looking at The Lumberjacks in a way that would make anyone want to shower.

"OH, HELLO, MY LITTLE PRETTIES, MY LITTLE ANGELS, ARE WE TO BE MARRIED ON THE 'MARROW?!"

"....What?"

"Oh, I'm sorry; I thought you were both pretty ladies."

Easy mistake to make.

"Riiiiight, well, I'm Doug, and this is my brother Dan."

"Hello, I'm Dan. I'm a lumberjack."

"and I'm also a Lumberjack, and together we are THE lumberjacks."

"Kinda our thing, anywho I think you're expecting us."

"Oh yes, indeed, we've been expecting you. We've been expecting you indeed. Mhahahaha"

"I don't know about you, Dan, but I like this guy."

"He has a smiley demeanour about him. Service with a smile."

"So, can we come in?"

"Oh, indeed you can. You can certainly come in just fine, but if you come in, you can never leave!"

"Ok."

"Sure."

"...Do you understand the concept? You can come in, but you can ne-"

"Yeah, no, we heard you the first time."

"Because you have such great good service we won't want to believe, seems like a weird sales tactic."

"No, you don't understand; if you step inside, that's it, it's all over, your soul will belong to-"

"Look, will you stop being so ominous? We're trying to figure out how to deal with ominous opponents!

The thing about being so very, very large is that if you want to go somewhere, there's not a lot anyone could do to stop you, so it was a very small thing to casually knock the manager to the side and stroll on into the hotel lobby which has everything you want from a hotel, rustic vibe, ominous lighting, bloody hand prints on the walls spooky organ music that seems to come from nowhere in particular. Very welcoming, The brothers Jack lugged their massive frames towards the front desk looking around with vague disinterest, as Doug hammered the desk bell over and over again but instead of a short musical note ringing out, a disembodied voice cried out.

"Doooooooom"

"Dooooooom."

"....."

"Huh, I guess everyone is busy at the moment."

Shrugging a little, Dan leaned over the hotel counter and produced a clipboard which he scanned with some amount of interest.

"You get our room?"

"Let's see...Torrance family...Lord of the flies nursery.....Norman Bates...A coven book club reading of the Necronomicon..."

"The Coven? The wrestlers?"

"Naa, probably just some fan club, Ah! Here we go! The Lumberjacks-Room 237"

"Let's do it."

And so the brothers set off down the hallway; they talked among themselves, seemingly oblivious that the eyes of every oil painting in the place seemed to be following them, not to mention that the walls appeared to be bleeding.

"See, what my problem is that Keres and Princess Nova can't just be a good tag team because we know they are, we've been in the ring with them, we know for a fact how tough they are, they HAVE to pretend to be this all-powerful supernatural force, they have to try so hard to been seen as MORE than what they appear to be like we'd be intimidated by them rattling their chains."

"So you don't believe they have some special powers?!

"Oh, don't be insane, Dan, there's no such things as ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the night-Oh; hey, look, I think there's a penny in the carpet!"

"Oooooh, let me see!"

In the kind of perfect synchronicity, you can only expect from a world-class tag team, both Doug and Dan lean down to inspect the carpet, intensely combing it for pennies, just as an axe flew over their heads right where they were standing.

"Aw man, it's an AMERICAN penny."

"Man, that's useless to us Canadians."

"We are Canadian AND lumberjacks."

"Indeed we are."

Standing up and dusting themselves off, they move forward.

"Anyway, it doesn't matter if they're some magical, mystical beings; we pinned one of them last week; that means they're not Gods; they're flesh and blood and being punched in the face is still going to suck for them"

Lumberjackack pauses momentarily to observe a hand axe embedded in the wall.

"Oh my God, do you see this?"

"Yeah, this place gives free gifts!"

"What a nice place!"

Happily, Doug takes the axe out of the wall with a grunt.

Happy with a new throwing axe to add to their considerable collection, they made their way to the elevator, and you'd never guess what happened next, that's right. They press the elevator button! Yes, can your body possibly absorb any more dramatic tension than what it's currently experiencing right now? Doug grimaces just a little as he spits on the ground.

"Man, I can't get the taste of glove out of my mouth. We can't let that shit happen this week."

Look, man, they can play all the tricks they want, talk about how they're both magical princesses from another world all they want, but the fact remained last week, they took down one of us, but we took down one of them. That tells me we got all we need to beat them; I mean, c'mon man, You stack Princess Nova and Keres on top of each other, and they don't come close to being either of our sizes...

As Doug spoke, the elevator doors opened, revealing...two figures, the shape of two girls in ruffled and torn matching old school nightgowns; the girls are pale, paler than any living being has a right to be, holding hands; they speak in one eerie bone chilling whisper.

"Come play with us, Lumberjacks, come play forever and ev-"

"Excuse me; we're trying to have a private conversation here."

"Yeah, it's really rude that you'll just jump in like that...just give us a second, ok?

The twin ghosts stand there, slightly nonplused, with the largest set of twins totally no selling their creepy vibe as they turn away, trying not to shake their heads at their rudeness.

"So anyway, Eternal deal in their dream world, but we deal with reality, we handle business in the ring, and in that ring? Might make right, and while ETERNAL might be all about their own fantasy land...we're all about cutting down trees and breaking trees."

The Lumberjacks, having pumped themselves up nicely, do a very complicated brotherly high five; it was then the two ghost girls piped up once again.

"Come pla-"

"Ok, seriously, where are your parents? This is highly irresponsible."

"C'mon, Doug be nice; we always explored the wilderness when we were young, away from our parents."

"Yeah, you're right. Alright, girls, let's play a game that me and my brother used to play when we were your age. It's called catch the axe."

"Come play wi-wait what."

With one fluid motion, Doug flings the axe right at Ghost girls, which hits one of them right between the eyes, and she instantly goes limp and falls to the ground in a heap.

"Woo, twenty points for me!"

The other ghost girl looked down at her sister; with ever-growing horror, she screamed in anger.

"YOUR SOULS WILL BE FED TO THE WORMS, I WILL TAKE YOU DOWN TO THE DEPTHS OF HELL, AND I SHALL FEAST-"

"Can we just offer a note?"

"Um...Sure?"

"You're kind of reaching the point of diminishing returns with the spooky threats."

" I guess...sorry guys...I've been doing this for like eight thousand years; my heart is kind of out of it."

"Hey, it's cool; everyone gets burnt out. You need a change of scenery. have you considered being a lumberjack?"

"... come to think of it, no, I haven't. You think I'd be good at it?"

"I mean, you've got the endurance down; I think you'd be a good lumberjack."

"Huh. Hey, thanks, guys. I'm going to make some calls. sleep well"

Whistling a merry tune as she went, the ghost vanished through the wall, and The Lumberjacks went up to their room and had a lovely nice sleep in what turned out to be the worst haunted house in human history.​

 

[Cyrus Truth]

Exile Chronicles (Volume 5)
Chapter 17: Daddy’s Home

“I suppose I should be grateful.”

We find ourselves in an old, rustic workshop, where tools and knives hang from a pegboard, and a sole window lets in the early morning sun. We hear the scraping of a blade against leather as hands slice a ribbon of tanned hide off from a larger sheet.

We look at the face of a focused Exile, as Cyrus Truth’s attention is on the task at hand. Measuring the leather with a measuring stick, using a smaller knife to cut off any excess or nick any strings from the original cut. Satisfied with the length, Cyrus returns to the pegboard and takes a gander at the tools, before settling on a small hammer, punch, and scratch awl.

It’s been a whirlwind few weeks for Cyrus, with the nefarious ending of the F1 Climaxxx, to the confrontation with the Nephews, to Chris Peacock shocking everybody by granting Cyrus a shot at the title in a Triple Threat at the Grand March.

Cyrus is…torn. On the one hand, he finally has a proper shot to become the World Champion again, after working so hard to attain it. Still, the bitterness of having been handed this opportunity by Chris Peacock is not easy to forget or swallow.

As Cyrus focuses on the leather strip and begins to punch some holes into it, he says as if off-handedly:

“I’ve been given a chance that many would say I hadn’t earned. A chance to return to the throne that I’ve not sat in for years. I should be grateful, shouldn't I? And to an extent, I am. Still, it’s a difficult thing, having that opportunity be handed to you by the man you seek to wrest the prize from. And if I’m being completely honest? I doubt that Chris Peacock did it simply for my benefit. Regardless, it’s complicated and tough to piece together how exactly I feel about this situation, but the bottom line is that I have a chance at the Grand March. I lost my championship in a Triple Threat Match at the event right before the road to Back in Business. And now? The Road has come full circle. Regardless of how and why, the only remaining thing to do is see this leg of the journey through to its end…and crush both Peacock and von Horrowitz to become World Champion. Nothing more or less.”

The leather strip, under Cyrus’s ministrations, starts to take shape as a belt of brown tanned leather. Cyrus completes the holes, and takes a much smaller strip and some glue to make the loop. He then reaches for a simple metal buckle and inspects it.

“However, my own personal feelings in this aren’t the only complicated thing about this turn of events. I doubt Chris fully comprehends the full scope of what he’s done and the dangers he’s put his championship reign in. Not from me, although he’d be foolish to discount me. Michelle made it clear that she’s not about to take this change in her title opportunity lightly, and she has an army of simpering fools at her disposal to throw at whatever problem she has.

“I’m…not exactly comfortable with the match I find myself in on Meltdown. Having to team with Baxter and his little buddy Best after what Baxter pulled during the Climaxxx. And I don’t have a problem with Tommy Bedlam, but that doesn’t necessarily make for the strongest foundation for an alliance.

“Still…a common enemy does wonders when you’re fighting a war. And this is a war, whether anybody realizes it or not. The Nephews have been allowed to run rampant and fester like an un-skewered boil, and we’ve allowed them to become this cancer because they’re a bunch of fools pretending to be clowns. They have no goals, no ambitions, nothing save for a desire to look out for their own. And I find them absolutely abhorrent.

“Nephews…I’m not much for family either, but it’s not uncommon for nephews to be treated with a gentler touch by their uncles and aunts. After all, they’re not their direct children. They don’t have to take responsibility when they act up, or get into trouble. They can just let the children run wild and foist them on their parents afterwards.

“J.J. may call himself ‘Uncle’ for whatever inane reason. And while I’m not particularly fond of corporal punishment to children?”

Cyrus affixes the buckle and belt loop to finish the job. It’s a heavy leather, long enough to reach across Cyrus’s wingspan. Cyrus, after stretching it, folds it upon itself and snaps the two sides of the belt together with a vicious “SMACK.”

“I’m not dealing with children. And it’s long past time these bastards got a lesson in how to behave and when they should keep their noses out of other people’s business. So playtime’s over, Nephews. Because Daddy’s home.”

SMACK.

SMACK.

SMACK…​

 

[The Golden One]

“I am sorry for your mistakenness,” XYZ says, walking away from whomever he’s talking to and towards the curtain area inside of the Fallout arena.

“Mistakenness? Is that a word?” Frank whispers to PacMan Bert, who does not pick up his head or even give a shoulder shrug to acknowledge.

Frank, a big and bulky black man with a personality as soft as a baby rabbit, turns to Sierra next.

“Mistakenness? Is that a …”

“I think YOU are the one who’s mistaken,” Sierra barks, walking quickly in an effort to catch up with XYZ in the backstage hallway.

“Aye, gringo! We were sent to be with you. This ain’t my choice, amigo. This is because of De …”

Sierra frowns a bit at even the beginning of the mention of his name, and Frank elbow-nudges Wild Jerry in the chest to pause him.

“Look. Someone told us to come help you, amigo. Someone who is connected to … both … of us.”

“Connected to us? Who is connected to us?”

XYZ’s question in response gets silence. Of course, Wild Jerry can’t explain that it was “The Rotten Gold” Devin Golden, in one of his final acts in this “place”, as he described it, to send this quartet of side characters to XYZ’s side – without X’s knowledge. Wild Jerry can’t explain this because of the last part – it’s without XYZ’s knowledge, and X doesn’t know yet that he, too, is a side character created by the once-comatose mind of Devin Golden, if you are one who believes Golden’s dreamworld view of the FWA.

XYZ doesn’t know of his alleged connection to Golden, so why would he care – or even believe – that Golden asked these four to stand by his side and help him? Why would X trust this act from a many who, if you had to label him on the board, would be a top candidate for Chaotic Evil?

These are the reasons why Wild Jerry, Frank, Sierra, and PacMan Bert – although PacMan wouldn’t even try if the circumstances were more favorable – will not tell XYZ the full truth and story. They have to withhold certain facts. They have to ask for his blind trust.

“I am sorry. I know you four joined with me at a time of difficulty for me. And you four came to … his service when no one else would come. I know you are good people, and I am grateful for you.

And I know you four … are lost. Usually, as a defender of good and the light and the people who are lost and need to be found, I would embrace you with open arms. I would tell you how we can tackle the universe together. I would tell you that the highest moon in the sky is attainable if you can ride the tail of the sea dragon at midnight.

But right now, I need to work on myself. I am still grieving. And I cannot … I cannot replace him … just yet.”

The “him” X refers to is Big Al, who passed away weeks ago. Although he was never real? But he was real to XYZ, as he told the FWA management-ordered therapist following his episode when Big Al “died” in front of him mid-interview on an FWA show.

XYZ cannot just replace Big Al in the same way a family cannot go out and get a new pet dog one week after their beloved pet died. Well, they shouldn’t, but more about that discrepancy at another time.

“Sauce Man ain’t here no more. Golden ain’t here no more,” Frank says, the last name catching XYZ’s attention for a moment, out of curiosity.

“And Big Al ain’t here no more,” which gets X off of the Golden mention and once more thinking about his late friend – and his grief.

“Don’t this seem like it’s meant to be? There’s a line connectin’ all of us. Maybe it’s time you saw it.”

XYZ reaches the ring area for his 6-person tag team match, and he turns back to the quartet following him. But before he can speak, Wild Jerry speaks for him.

“If he don’t want us, then he can say it right now and we’ll be on our way. Say you don’t want us and we’ll head out.”

“I have to fight. I have to hold the candle that no one else can. I am sorry that I cannot help you all.”

​

---

XYZ watches as the pinfall grants him, Trixie Bordeaux, and Sawyer Xavier with the victory. It’s a moment of elation – albeit temporary, because X felt he underperformed.

But within minutes, XYZ is in the ogre-like arms of Death Walker, who choked him out viciously in the middle of the ring after the match.

What happened to XYZ when he was choked out deserves some attention. As the consciousness fades from XYZ’s eyes, he slips into a dream that can only be described as the most simple dream setting possible.

XYZ finds himself standing along the sidewalk – the same sidewalk where his mother dropped him off when he was just a little boy. There’s a single street light above him, and the sky is pitch dark. No stars. No moon. No clouds. No hint as to which way to go.

“X!”

The voice startles XYZ. He searches for it, but all he sees is about 10 yards of this sidewalk, next to 10 yards of a road, and 10 yards of the sidewalk on the opposite side. There’s nothing else. Even beyond those 10 yards is just darkness.

“X!”

“He continues to look for the voice. Nothing. He notices the puddles of water along the curb – just like when he was dropped off and left there by his mom. It’s all very eerie and … comfortable … for X.

“Down here, X. Dammit.”

Finally, he looks a bit down and notices a black labrador dog. Yep, you guessed it.

“Big Al?”

“Yeah. In a way.”

You’d think that dogs shouldn’t be able to talk, but this one can. The dog barks but instead of barking, speaks in a human voice. In fact, the voice is the human form of Big Al’s voice. It’s a deep, southern voice.

“I’m so happy to see you, old friend!”

XYZ kneels down for a hug, but Big Al backs away a couple of steps.

“I am not real, X.”

“Were you ever real?”

“As real as you.”

The comforting reply still doesn’t solve the question.

“Why are you here then?”

“You’re going to need help, X. You’re going to need their help.”

It’s stunning for XYZ to hear this from Big Al in this setting – dream of not – because he’s instinctively drawn to letting Big Al lead the way from this spot on the sidewalk to somewhere safer, just like he did all those years ago.

But there’s no leash in XYZ’s hand, and there’s no leash connected to Big Al’s collar. There’s no link between them.

“Why not YOUR help? Why can’t you come back with me?”

“You know that’s not how this works. I’ve died. I didn’t come back the first time for years. Then you made me come back in your own mind, but it was time for me to go again. You need to have help from people who aren’t … me. I know I helped you that night when you were left on the side of the road.

I know I’m your shield. Your protector. But you need to not need me anymore.”

Suddenly, the darkness around XYZ begins to feel as if it’s closing in. There’s a panic attack coming on. What began as a nightmare shifted to a heartwarming dream and then swapped back to a nightmare.

“I can’t do it alone.”

“You don’t need to do it alone. You just need to do it … with them. Not me.”

“Wait … they said someone was connected to us. They said someone sent them to help me. Was that you, Big Al?”

“It’s OK to need help, X. You can win King of the Deathmatch. You can be king. You can be champion.”

“Was it you, Big Al?!”

“It’s OK … to ask for help. You can beat them all, X. You can be the hero to so many people. They are standing on a sidewalk in the darkness, waiting for you to lead them to safety. You can beat them all, X. Jason Randall. Trixie Bordeaux. Kleio de Santos. Sawyer Xavier. And yes, even Death Walker.

All of them.”

“Did you send them?”

“Ask for their help.”

“TELL ME IF IT WAS YOU! PLEASE!”

But the dog runs away in the other direction, and before XYZ can begin running after him, he feels pulled by a magnetic force in the opposite direction. And then his perspective shifts to almost witnessing himself in the dream, momentarily, before his eyes open – and he didn’t even know they were closed.

​

---

The dream felt like hours, but it was in fact just 40 seconds of unconsciousness in the ring. Regardless of the length, it was an enlightening experience, to say the least. That’s why, when he wakes up and gains his bearings, XYZ makes a haste walk up the rampway and towards the backstage area.

“Where are they?” he shouts to the three people sitting in the same chairs as before, manning the audio system for the arena. They all look at one another and two of them shrug their shoulders.

The third, in a British accent, says, “Where are who, mate?”

“The … the people with me! The Mexican guy and … the big black guy who … and the guy with the video game … and … the woman!”

Also not enough description to let the three sound technicians and audio board workers help, XYZ stomps off and heads into the hallway. Within seconds, though, he hears the Hispanic accent of Wild Jerry.

“This man is UN…SERIOUS. He just got choked out and he frontin’ like he don’t need us? Wack-ass gringo.”

XYZ turns a corner and sees Wild Jerry, Frank, PacMan Bert, and Sierra all huddled in a group near one of the TV monitors. Wild Jerry seems to be holding court with the other three, leading the conversation.

“Give him one more chance.”

“Shiiiiit. I’m ready to bounce, amigo. We can fend for ourselves. You see what happened out there to him?!”

It’s obvious to XYZ that this quartet witnessed what happened to him on the monitor. They saw XYZ get manhandled and show weakness against someone with evil and darkness in their heart and mind.

“You know we’ll just be floating.”

“There’s nothing for us beyond this.”

“Better that this shit with this goofy-ass gringo.”

At that moment, XYZ steps forward. PacMan Bert just so happened to look up from his video game and with his eyes looking just over the top rim of his glasses, he gets the others’ attention and directs them down the hallway. Wild Jerry rolls his eyes and sighs. Sierra lightly smiles, a warm and inviting expression. Frank is more boisterous with his smile.

But Wild Jerry acts like he’s got egg on his face.

“Look, man, I … I ain’t mean it. If you heard.”

“I heard. And you did mean it. I deserved it. I have been weak. I have not been a hero. Heroes ask for help when needed. Heroes know their limits."

XYZ stops in front of the four. He unties the green cape around his neck and holds it in his hand.

“I need help. Your help. I don't know why, but I do know that you all can protect me from stuff like tonight happening. And I can help you. I can give you purpose.”

“We ain’t gonna be no Nephew shit, though.”

Wild Jerry is pretty emphatic about this. He does not want to be a cast-off character just to fill ranks and prop up one person.

“We’re not nephews. We’re equal. We’re fighting for the greater good … together. And I can’t lead this charge alone. I need help. I need … XYZites.”

“Not XYZites,” Sierra pipes in. “Not XYZites. That died when Jeremy Best turned to the darkness.”

There’s a long pause.

“We’re all from the same place. We’re from the same mind. Think about where we all came from. Think about who sent us. Think about why we're here ... in this place ... right now. It's because we are connected. We are linked. There's a through line. It's in our genes. In our code. In our souls.

Frank's comment gets an eyebrow raise from XYZ. Did they really all come from Big Al? Was it his mind that sent them to X?

"Yes. Big Al IS in our souls!" XYZ shouts.

Frank is about to answer -- to correct him -- but then remembers that XYZ is unaware of the through line. So he stumbles on his words for a few seconds, and fortunately gets bailed out by ...

“The Ménage.”

Thus, the group's name was cast, a historic event only topped by the fact that the naming was the first time anyone ever heard PacMan Bert speak.​