| We hope you enjoy your visit. You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: |
| "The Harbinger"; Now Assuming Direct Control | |
|---|---|
| Topic Started: Feb 16 2013, 05:45 AM (124 Views) | |
| xShanex | Feb 16 2013, 05:45 AM Post #1 |
|
Stay Down
|
Journal Entry: “The Gambling Man” 2/13/2013 I never gamble, and yet, I’m the greatest gambler you’ve ever met. A wise man once said a true gambler never puts his faith in luck. A brilliant mind, left as an island in the sea of shrunken heads, still believing that their hopes and prayers would make a difference. Millions flock to casinos every year, spending money they’ve earned by the blood and sweat of real hard workers while they’ve collected on imaginary disabilities. They sit down at the altar of their choice, whether it be the roulette or the blackjack table, or the dozens upon dozens of slot machines, the zombies waiting to make that one final handshake that would forever send them to poverty. They put their offering up to their goddess, Lady Luck, and beg and plead with her to deliver onto them more in reward of their idle lives. They have to feed their families, after all. They just stand by as the wheels spin like the barrel of a revolver pressed to their temple, just waiting for the click. Still, they show no fear. They show no fear of failure, and why is that? Stupidity in the form of faith. They have faith in their luck. They wear lucky charms and lucky clothes, they do lucky things and think lucky thoughts. Each of them knows, deep down in their fat-laced hearts that Lady Luck is with them. Sadly, there is a truth most of these men and women will never understand..... Lady Luck is a fickle bitch. So if I know all of this to be true, and I claim that putting great investment into high risks is a fool’s game, why would I form the Desperate Measures match? Why would I put all of this work, all of this time and effort and the hopes and dreams of my fellow Uprising members, and more importantly myself on the line in just one night? It must be because I’m one of those idiots too, right? I’m just talking out of my ass at the rest of the world, obviously. There’s just no possible way Ryan Shane has a plan. He never has a plan! Right? Truth is, there’s no escaping the game. We’re always playing. When we wake up, we’re playing. When we go to work, we’re playing. When we eat, we’re playing. When you fuck your girlfriend, you’re playing, and when she fakes that orgasm, she’s playing. We’re all pawns on a board, thinking we’re the ones making our own moves. Every slide we take closer to destruction, we consider a good move. Just waking up the next day is a gamble the human race takes without acknowledging it. We are all locked into a deadly game with the only rules left to play with being sacrifice, pain, and the knowledge that one day you will cease to exist. You will simply stop being the moment you are no longer required and can no longer keep up with the newer model. You cannot fight. You cannot win. One day you will die. That is, unless you find a way out of the machine. We’re watching you now, you know. We’ve been watching since day one. Since the dawn of time and to the end of it all, we will be watching. You’re so sad to see, but at the same time we can’t help but laugh as you all walk behind the person in front of you, never taking the time to just peek over their shoulder. You just walk off. You just step over the edge. We hear you talk about your attempts at immortality, and sometimes, honestly, we think you’ll make it here………….but you never do, and we continue to stand here alone, out in the ether. We had done this for so long it seemed like an eternity, but now…..now we’re done waiting. We’ve given up hope that you will eventually break from the gears. It’s clear that the men and women we held so much hope for will never meet our standards. Sadly, this has been the same story since we awoke in the farthest corners of the multiverse. Civilizations rise, and they become powerful. Oh, they become fierce, marvelous existences, and they reach a potential higher than the one before, and we wait for them. We wait for them to escape, to join us in transcendence…..and they fail. There is no room for failure in our existence. Failure makes men do reckless things, and recklessness leads to pandemonium. There is no room for chaos in our existence, so we purge them, and wait again. It’s a vicious cycle, one of my own creation, but one that gives us purpose. We now find ourselves in the same lapse of the circle again. So, if you can’t come to us, we’ll come to you. The cycle continues. I told you all that the world that you had come to know would end when it had to. I told you that something beautiful, something immaculate would be reborn in the ashes of the wrestling industry, and when the time was right that phoenix would rise up. Alas, my brothers and sisters, I am afraid I did not tell you the entire truth. This prophecy I have presented has not been fulfilled, yet. The oncoming storm has not arrived. This change in CZW is just the first signs of an emergence that the world might not be ready for, but ready or not it is coming. It is coming on the eighteenth of February, and there is nothing that can cease the arrival. Look around at the world you live in, CZW! See what we’ve done now with just idle hands! We’ve rose the seas themselves and drowned out your heroes in one fell swoop! We’ve raised mountains with just our words! Mountains we now watch you from. Mountains we now prepare to descend. We’ve left your homes in rubble, your lineage in ruin, you morals and your philosophies burned down into piles of soot that you can never reclaim. The very elements have bent to our will, and yet the horizons are just so much darker. All of this pain, this destruction, it’s all a warning shot. You’re all just the field mouse, threshing and shivering in the teeth of the fox. We’ve been playing this game for so long, Paul, Mike, but I think it’s about time I finally reveal the rules. I’m not afraid of what is to come. I don’t fear luck because luck was never a part of this plan. I don’t fear defeat because there was never a chance I could be defeated. The puppets danced as they were commanded, and the sharp, unwavering minds of the world’s greatest fighters were simply captivated by the shiny piece of gold around my waist like an infant to dangling car keys. This is bigger than some belt, but those words weigh heavy on your thought process as if they were a foreign language. So much time has been put into preparation. Into readying the men and women of CZW for a bloody firefight, but so much focus was on catching the bullet that you failed to realize we had pulled the trigger so long ago. Bang. What will be witnessed in Hempstead will not be a fight for supremacy. There will be no struggle for power, or an epic clash between good and evil. There will only be truth. The truth that when I emerge into the chamber, the blood you spill and the blood I spill and the blood we spill together will not be for an uprising. The truth that every boundary I step over will not be as a leader of a new, fashionable movement. The truth that you just might not be as smart as you think you are, and of course, my personal favorite: Uprising. Elite. Sons. It doesn’t matter. It never mattered. So show me your hand, CZW. Show me your skills, Wayward Sons. Show me that you’re willing to put everything you have on the line for a war you cannot win, for a war that never actually existed in the first place. Show me just how desperate these times really are.… And we’ll show you what it’s like to be Godless. ========================================================================================= He had put on the fight of his life. He had faced a rival that had always doubted him, always placed himself on that next pedestal no matter how far up the ranks he climbed, and he had had enough. There was nothing left, no other options except moving straight on. No options except moving through him. They had been there for it all. It was a blood bath by the closest literal approximation. By the time it had finished, both men had been changed for the rest of their lives. There was no prize in that company worth the pain they had gone through, or in any company for that matter, but it wasn’t for a prize. It was for honor. That company actually had honor. The ambulance rode through the streets of Charlotte, North Carolina in a single, somber parade, paying no mind to the black ford mustang with deep blue racing stripes acting as its shadow. He had to look upon the man one more time. This is how we find ourselves among the injured and the diseased. The Carolinas Medical Center, specifically the waiting room of the emergency ward, was as packed tightly as one would expect on a weekend night. Bar fights, car crashes, gang-related activities, or the sheer stupidity of a young adult with nothing to do all had delivered many a man and woman through the sliding doors and into this room made of pale tiles and faded maroon chairs. Somber faces filled the room to the brim, faded memories unable to decide whether that sadness was from their own pain, the pain of those around them, or the late hour draining their strength like a vampire on the vein. It was a distasteful poison to choose. It had been seventeen minutes since the clock had struck two in the morning, and those who could afford it took to forming chairs and tables into public, germ-laced sleeping arrangements while they waited for their names to be called. They had all the time in the world to wait in this sickly refugee camp, their night focused on one thing: Recovery. Waiting, however, was never the strong point of the man who stood at the customer service station. Tattooed fingers rattled on the counter top like rain against a window, gray eyes coasting around the small office as he waited for the tenth minute in a row. For an emergency room, this place was a fucking ghost town. There was dozens of people in this room, all needing medical attention, and there was no one around to see to them. Typical American fashion. Boredom, as it is, is a disease that is easily cured when you suffer from it on a daily basis. Ryan had turned his attention to a life-scale skeleton hanging just like you'd see in a high school sitcom. He counted the ribs, the bones in the forearms and the shins. He wasn't familiar with all of their names, but that wasn't what memory let him recall. He knew their snap. He knew their crunch. He knew the feeling of an arm, or a leg, or a shoulder when it had been pushed to the point of no return, and past that. Femur. Snap. Orbital Socket. Shatter. Clavicle. Crunch. "May I help you, sir?" Her words had grabbed Ryan’s sight with no relent. He would have to save his recollection of injury for another day. Without suggestion, Ryan simply leaned back, resting his elbow on the counter to balance his weight as he made room for another. That room would soon be occupied by Cassidy Fontaine. The personal assistant turned devious lover adjusted her black t-shirt, the blue and white logo of the CEW plastered across the chest. She flashed that smile that she had shown so many times before, just as a snake shows its teeth before striking, and faced the nurse that had called their attention. From the nurse’s demeanor, a rather large, unimpressed woman of African descent who presumably didn’t need a man, Cass’ faux politeness had been wasted that morning. “Hiii. Yes, we have a friend of ours who was brought here just a few minutes ago. He’s in really bad condition and we just wanted to stop in and see him.” The nurse leaned her head forward, both eyebrows raised. It almost would’ve been cute to see this girl ask such an ignorant request if she hadn’t had to deal with it on a nightly basis, and again, if it wasn’t this damn early in the morning. With a sigh, the nurse responded. “Y’all are here to see the wrestler, ain’t you? You ain’t trying to get any autographs now, right?” Cassidy responded with a laugh of pure fiction, hoping to mask her true wishes from the woman who controlled their ability to see their friend. She had taken to confrontation much better than Ryan, who turned his stone glare onto the woman in the scrubs. Cassidy folded her hands, motioning toward the woman. “Ma’am, we’re actually business associates, friends, really. Now, if you could, we’d really like to see him.” The nurse ran the duo over one more time, taking a minute extra to examine the strange, and to the right person offensive, tattoos of the larger man. After a pause, she turned to her computer. They didn’t have to say the name; she knew who he was just by the situation. Guy had come in there looking worse for wear. It was a stupid ass job, but that wasn't her choice to make. A few keystrokes later, and the room number had come to her. “Alright, y’all are going through those doors and to the right. About four doors down your friend will be. Just keep it down, he ain’t doin’ so well.” “And here I thought he was in the emergency room because he was fine.” A scoff left the lips of the curse as he pushed off from the counter, wasting no time. He knew where he had to go, so why waste time with formalities? Cassidy was forced to deal with the fallout. A feeble smile hoped to make the rudeness disappear, but she was not the magician she had hoped. The nurse just shook her head, prompting a nervous laugh from Cassidy before her feet moved on their own, power walking to catch up with Ryan as he disappeared behind the swinging double-doors. Upon the entrance to the ward, the shift in the atmosphere could be felt upon the calming heartbeat. There was a calmness to this section of the hospital, a world apart from the ticking time bomb in the waiting room. The stillness in the air, while it was welcome, was just as off-putting. This area was not a realm of happy thoughts. This was death’s doorstop, and the devil himself now walked among the flittering souls. Eye-lined stares past between the closed curtains, dismissing them one by one……and then he found it. Room 424-M. Ryan stared at the mix of numbers and letters, repeating them over and over in his mind, mumbling them just out of hearing. Cassidy looked over his shoulder, noticing the signs of one of Ryan’s trancing out episodes. “You sure you want to talk to him, now?” Ryan did not turn back to face her, but she knew he was thinking of no other person. His ears had perked up; slightest motions of the body enough of a cue that he was listening. “I still owe him from the last time we met. He would do the same for me.” He looked into her eyes, and she could see his sincerity. This was the most care he had taken for anyone in a long time, including herself. Just his presence was more affection and attention he had ever delivered. He needed to say no more. With that, Ryan wrapped his digits around the door handle, turning it in small intervals to avoid making much noise. He slid the door silently across the floor, following it just as silent, but that was not enough to throw off the keen senses of the world class competitor that had been confined to his hospital bed. Ryan stood in the door way, facing the man who weakly moved his head to see his visitors. With a new warmth in his heart and a new energy coming to his body, the man in the bed greeted them both with a kind and endearing…… “What the FUCK are you doing here?!” “Showtime” Nick Alexander, SNA as they called him, had sat up as best as he could, but the strain his devastating Last Man Standing match with Xavier Reid forced him back down into the bed with a shooting pain. Ryan stared at the man for a moment, picking up on the buckling in his elbows and the jolt in his spine and knees. He tilted his head to the left, speaking over his shoulder to the woman behind him. “Close the door.” With a smile on her face and a sinister quirkiness to her body language, she moved the door shut again, taking care to keep the noise down to the minimum. Ryan slipped his hands into his jean pockets, strolling into the room through the shadows granted by low-lighting. SNA never once let him out of his sight. Even injured and beaten to a pulp, he was never a dumb man. Ryan Shane didn’t come calling to wish you a speedy recovery, and looking away once could be just what he needed. This night would be the last night he would call himself pro wrestler, he wasn’t going to add coma victim to that list. “You going to answer me, slap nuts?” “That was a great show, Nick. Really touching stuff out there. It was almost, well…..almost CZW-style. Almost.” He reached down into the container at the foot of the bed, removing from it a clipboard. Ryan scanned over the injuries; find a who’s who of the favorites. Minor concussions, internal bleeding, some of his favorites. He whistled in a mocking tone as he sat down in the chair at Alexander’s bed side, crossing one leg over the other. SNA was less than impressed. The man was not one for fear. He’d spit in the Devil’s eye if he knew he’d get a laugh out of it. That being said, if he was going out, he was going out smiling. That’s exactly what Ryan had expected. Seeing that mocking grin brought out one of his own, both men in a clash of egos that would level nations. “Tell me, Nick? Do you remember what happened last time you and I met?” Oh, the memories. Of course he did. Alexander still remembered the feeling of the steel in his hands, the arch in the swing he had made. He remembered the crack of steel over skull, and the thud of a face dropping onto the mat. He remembered the dent in the seat, but above all, he remembered just how damn good it had felt. He actually wanted to do so again one day. “I knocked those shitty tattoos off you with a fucking chair!” He laughed in Shane’s face for a breath or two, the pain in his chest eventually winning out. He coughed violently, holding his chest at the source. Ryan nodded to the response. He too remembered it all. Well, up until the impact. Then he remembered waking up in the trainer’s room. Then he remembered being fired. “Yeah, yeah you did. You really did. It’s actually pretty funny now, don’t you think?” Ryan laughed lightly under his breath, looking over to Cassidy who had joined in, doing the same. Alexander would be the loudest of the three, of course. He had always thought it was funny. It would’ve only been better if Ryan had gotten, like, brain damage or something. “It’s really hard to think that it’s been just over a year since then. We’ve both come a long way, haven’t we? I just really……well…….I just wanted to know-” The clipboard went flying, an inked hand pressing its shape into the throat of the Demon’s Head. Ryan squeezed as hard as he could, eyes as wide as they could go, head shaking violently. Alexander gripped his wrist as hard as he could, but the agony held him back. “How the fuck you thought I forgot about it?!” He held tight on the windpipe. It could all end right there, just that easily. Five seconds, ten more maximum. He could just watch the light slip away, and move on to a nice padded cell, three square meals, and no worries left. It sounded so nice, but something else sounded better. Torture, his favorite word. Ryan released the grip, planting his hand on the pillow. He ran his free hand over his face, wiping away the manic look in his eye and tossing it to the ground. “Showtime” took steady gulps of air, trying to catch his breath. Even in that moment, he couldn’t fight back the urge to mock his attacker. “Hehe……heh…..That’s all you-” “Shut up!” Ryan pressed his palm up against the moving mouth of SNA, snuffing out the rest of his words. “Shut…….up. I don’t forget, Nick. I don’t forget……and I don’t forgive. I’ve had you on my list for quite some time, now, and I never had the chance to pay you back what I owe. Days, months, and I couldn’t figure out how. As much as I hate to admit it, and believe me, I do, you’re a hard man to crack, Mr. Alexander. No weak points, no distractions, no love for anything or anyone on this mud ball. I couldn’t take from you if you had nothing to give, so I put my focus elsewhere, but now I see what I need to. Just like every one of you little boys playing wrestler, you’re human, and I know where your heart is….” Ryan left the bed side, walking over to the window sill. He looked out to the city of Charlotte, scanning it with disgust. SNA wiped his mouth on his arm, scowling to the back of Shane’s head. “So you’re going to take the attention off of your pisshole company and take me out?” “That’d be too easy. Not my style and you know that. Like I said, I know where you keep your heart. So I’m going to stab it, and I’m going to turn the knife in the wound. There’s a storm coming, Nick. I’ve already told you that.” Ryan turned back, a single hand slipped into his pocket. SNA rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I know, Uprising. You and your bitches show up on a real show trying to get plugs for CZW. I don’t know the press guy, so fuck off with that.” Ryan cracked that smirk again, turning his line of site to his girlfriend. Such ignorance was commonly irritating, but they had expected this kind of response. “You think this is just about CZW? Nick, you let me down, man. Something like this, it just…..can’t be contained. CZW is the hub, ground zero, if you will, but nobody fears the explosion of the atom bomb. They fear where the fallout will land.” He made his way over to Ms. Fontaine’s side. “I’m coming for what you care about, Nick. After Desperate Times, I’ll have all the time in the world……and I’ll use all of that time to hurt you. Remember those faces. The faces of the people you hugged and the people you kissed and the people you posed for tonight, because they’re now my bitch. That place you love, that playground CEW, it’s mine. I’m taking it for myself, and every little thing you’ve done, every single person you’ve reached out to in your career, I’m going to crush under my heel to the point you’ll beg me to finish the job, and maybe, just maybe, I will…………but until then, sleep well. I do look forward to our next meeting.” Ryan nodded, moving to the door. Alexander snarled at Cassidy, causing her to give a small yip and hop along to Ryan’s company. The two silently slid the door open, slipping into the halls like ghosts, leaving SNA in the silence. He didn’t want to let it get to him, but even under the layers of character and the rough skin, Nick knew Ryan never made a false promise. There was something coming for sure. Something that would blur the borders of CZW and CEW together. He wished he could be there with them, preparing for whatever it was. He hoped that they would be ready. |
![]() |
|
| xShanex | Feb 16 2013, 05:46 AM Post #2 |
|
Stay Down
|
============================================================================================== He watched the snowflakes as they fell like small specks of energy against the backdrop of the night sky, quickly melting away as they met the steam rising from the warm street vents. He had forgotten what a fresh fall of snow, the silent regality of it all, had felt like. Cars passed by in the city streets like strangers in a love story, going their own direction, never to meet again, and he was the witness to it all. He watched their tail lights fade in streaks of red and the hiss of tire on wet tar from under his black hood, never paying too much to anything else. He knew he was being watched. The city, she had her eyes on him the moment he had arrived. The buildings loomed like sentinels, monitoring his every move. Ryan smirked at the thought of what had happened and what was to come. For one last night he would be living as a fugitive, a traveler with no destination and no home to call his own. For one more night, he would be a man on the run, meeting in secret with his associates to avoid failing in a life and death situation. The inhibition was intoxicating, and he could already feel it setting in. He ducked into an alley on the left just under the red and yellow neon sign explaining just how many girls were inside, disappearing into the mist of the street. Small posters whipped by his head as he moved, inviting the passerby to indy band shows and small movie premiers and the like, but their words remained foreign to him. There was a time and a place, and now was neither of them. His place in time belonged just past this way, out in the back street where he came face to face with the man in the skeleton paint. CRYPT had been waiting for what he could say had been thirty minutes. It was not a case of Ryan being late, Ryan was never late, but rather his being early. There had been emphasis on how important this meeting was in the short text he had received. Come alone, move quietly, don’t be late, and god damn it don’t hurt anyone on the way there. As much as the second one sounded nice, CRYPT had done his best to stay in the right. It was never a good idea to get Ryan’s orders wrong. Things tended to get….heated. As Shane entered the opening, CRYPT left his place on the wall, facing the leader of the Uprising. Shane had stopped, removing his hands from his pockets and removing his hood, steel eyes onto the man in paint. The curse narrowed his eyes just slightly, looking upon the riddle of a man. “Burton?” The skull-faced man slipped into a sickening grin, a motion that would answer all of Shane’s questions easily. “Right, that saves me enough time.” He held his hand out, watching the few stray flakes that fell in this small space to flutter down, landing cold in his open palm. As they melted at the touch of his skin, he returned to his conversation. There wasn’t much time to waste. “Do you know why I picked you, CRYPT?” What an odd question. The painted face of CRYPT twisted and shifted in the midst of finding and answer. He thought the choice was obvious. When entering into a battle as dangerous as the chamber, who better to bring than someone who reveled in the pain? A living, breathing doomsday device? “It’s because you do what’s right for business. You understand your place in the world. The others are too busy pretending to be superstars to keep their mind fully on the task, but you…..you’re different. This kind of match is just what you do, it’s who you are. You live for the fight and for the money, nothing else.” He wiped his hand on the leg of his jeans, leaning back against a wall of brick across from his ally. With lazy eyes, the world champion spoke nonchalantly. “So you know it has to be me that finishes this match.” That had hardly seemed like it mattered. In the short time they had been associates, Ryan had always placed his missions with one rule in mind: win at all costs. Blood would be spilled, limbs would be broken, and life after life after promising life would be ruined, but the end always justified the means. There always had to be victory, and now more than ever. A single defeat would shift the outcome of the battle and change their lives forever. It was the line between prosperity and a life on the black list. Why would he change that now? “What’s with the sudden chosen one bullshit? If the job gets done, it gets done.” Of course he didn’t understand. None of them would. They were so focused on the bullet points that they refused to see what they would result in. Ryan took in a breath from his nose, never truly expressing any of his thoughts. “Your job is to fight for me. Not with, for. CRYPT, there’s a reason why I brought you in, and that reason is right now. This is your purpose. You are my weapon in the chamber just the same as the spike in my hand, and a weapon doesn’t ask questions. Stick to the plan; hit everything that moves and watch……....my………back. This defeat has to be as mental as it is physical, and the moment that Ryan Shane killed the CZW with his own two hands will be a memory no one will be able to forget. If you have to take the bullet for it to happen, then you will do so.” CRYPT’s grin had turned to a frown long before Ryan had finished his barking. He belonged to no one, no matter who they were or what they had done, but a job was a job. He knew what the deal had been when he had agreed to fight with Ryan, and there was a truth to his words. That’s what the price was for, what Shane had paid for. “And what if in the end it’s just you and me? Do you expect me to just lie down?” Shane laughed at the notion, kicking up his foot so that the flat of it would rest on the wall. “If it comes down to you, and to me, well……like I said. I have to finish the match.” He curled his right eye in the wink he had given so many before. The wink that had pierced the soul and stuck in like a thorn that you just couldn’t pick out, no matter how deep you dig. How far you cut. How much blood you spill, it’s still there. “Oh, before I forget. I want you to send the boys a message. I won’t be back. None of you will see me before the chamber, out of my own preference. So, if you would, let them know…..” Ryan left the wall, walking back to the alley he had entered from. He stopped just at the threshold, pivoting his head to looking Burton in the eye. There was a tinge to his eye, a layer of something CRYPT remembered like it had happened every day since the first time. It was then he knew just where this was going, what this had always been about. Ryan Shane had never changed. Ryan Shane couldn’t change. There was only one goal in the end: Power. He wanted more power. “Let them know they won’t be hurt when it happens.” He faded from sight, disappearing from it all. CRYPT had a job to do, he wouldn’t follow him. He knew what would happen if he did. That made the timing of the call perfect. Ryan felt the vibration in his right pocket just as he had moved out of hearing range like a b-rate movie. There was never any doubt as to who it was, only two people had his number. Cassidy knew where he was, knew he wasn’t to be disturbed. He pulled the phone from its housing, sliding a thumb across the screen, and in one second gave his call life. “Shane.” He listened intently to the voice on the other line, the voice he had heard dozens of times since this had begun. He knew the time had come too. “He just flew in today. Everything’s set, no loopholes, I’ve looked over it myself.” He sounded happy, and why wouldn’t he be? He was about to become one of the most powerful men in the sport of professional wrestling, maybe the most powerful. Well, as powerful as they would allow him to be. The ace up their sleeve. “Save it. As long as you remember where your allegiance is, this will all go over smoothly, and you can enjoy that nice pay check. Now, you know who to look for when you arrive?” A small smirk cracked on one side of his face. “He’s one hard guy to miss, yeah. Good company, though. Figured you two would have more in common than our other friend.” Ryan stopped as he arrived on the sidewalk, a statue on the bank of the river of cars. “You leave that to us. Just a matter of hours and you’ll have the office and so much more.” He nodded. “My point exactly. We’ll speak again soon.” A click, a slide, and the phone fell dead in deactivation. With it, the hopes and dreams of every small child that had hoped to one day, if they worked hard enough, become a champion of recognition all washed away. The guests had been invited, the gifts had been received, and the clock had been ticking its final seconds away. The time was here. The party was about to start. ======================================================================================= It was one of the more peculiar sights human eyes could catch if they weren’t used to it. To some, the concept of a beach just walking distance away from a snow bank was enough to numb the mind, but here we were, staring down the billowing force of the Atlantic as in moved in and out, ebb and flow, lapping against the chilled sand of Jones Beach. On any other day, this stretch of sand would be covered in a scantily clad membrane of beach goers. Women flaunting themselves like hanging duck carcasses in a china town restaurant window, men trying to purchase said packs of meat with their fake tans and even faker muscles. The sub-30 degree temperatures of the day had held back the shore dwellers, leaving the once extremely popular vacation spot stripped and barren. Even the snow, which banked on the line between sidewalk and sand, dared not to cross over. It had witnessed the water and the salt of the ocean waste away its kin, and refused to pass the boundary. The lines would be drawn, and they would be sustained by the judge of the land. The judge that had stood high over the barrier for years. And even with all of the power that judge held, even with the sheer size of the goliath, it would fall to a knee in the presence of an eternal force immeasurable in existence. The water tower of Jones Beach, a landmark for the city of Hempstead if there had ever been one before. It seemed like a single sky scraper had grown bored of the hustle and bustle of the big apple, and had migrated and set out to build a life on its own. It rose up to a single point like the spear of Earth, warding off the powers that were beyond, in the heavens. It had failed on that promise. Failed so miserably that the weapon would refuse to be drawn as the enemy from the world beyond placed his hand upon it. The camera settled onto the back of Ryan Shane as he turned his attention skyward, to the blue tip of the water tower. He ran his hand down the wall, the fingers black mitten catching snags in the material that grazed against the palm. He breathed at a steady, calmed pace, clouds of breath extending into the space before him, and then thinning out and away. Despite their sides, their chosen destinies that would never allow the two to be considered friends, the tower held a story that the champion of the world could understand. Giants in the realm of ants, judges in the world of the guilty. Surrounded by many their entire lives, and yet eternally alone. Ryan patted the wall once, turning away from the structure as the icy bite of the northern breeze swayed the black hood that fell over Ryan’s head and down over his eyes. As he stepped closer and closer, the form of the Straight Edge Curse seemed to become that much clearer, as if he emerged from a mist we couldn’t see. His hood fluttered with every step against the mid-sized collar surrounding it, as did the bottom of the jacket it was attached to against the faded blue jeans he wore. Ryan understood what he was. He understood that he was a killer by any name, and had decided to dress for the occasion with a deep blue button-up dress shirt and a black tie around his neck. Then, when he had reached his chosen position, the prize made its presence known with a gleam thanks to a stray beam of light that had broken through the ceiling of silver clouds. The CZW World Heavyweight Championship may have been attached to his waist to the mortal eye, a look into the essence of the man we saw before us would show that it was far but a separate object. That title had penetrated Ryan’s energy. It had fused with his flesh, mixed with his blood. It spoke with his voice, and every action he made, the championship made with him. They were one and the same, and with a single breath, they would address their people, the CZW Nation. "For the better part of my life, I've felt as if I had been living in a world made of cardboard. Every slight move I made, every direction I had chosen to move in ended in tragedy. My mind would change about a foreign concept, and it would shatter in my eyes. My heart would beat for another, and they would fold. They would wither. They would die. I’ve raised my hand to a hundred nations….." Ryan illustrated his fabled motion before the camera, watching the open land from between his fingers and the letters that each of them bared. It remained quiet. It remained so quiet, but the fear began to settle in at that point. The fear that, in some corner of the world, a flourishing land of people now laid as a leveled ground, only prosperous in recognition. “And they would disappear like the assistant to a master magician. It’s funny, though; I thought that there was something wrong with me. The problem had come from my own hands. It’d happened so many times before, and the process of elimination has never been one to waver. My Father. My Mother. My sister, whoever I had decided was a suitable substitute for what you call friends, every one of them, gone in some freak accident I couldn’t control, but I just knew it was me. I knew that somehow their fate had been rewritten by my own will, and my hate gained a new direction. I aimed it at myself. Everything I touched seemed to die. I would just be a monster in the woods, a name on the lips of the villagers which would never be spoken from a light heart.” He rested his hands on the ridge of his championship, coiling his fingers as tightly around it as he could. The frigid air had infused in the metal of the faceplate, sending a shock up his arms, swirling into his elbows, and up into the brain where it hit him like the proverbial shot. This was what it was to be alive. “But time has always been my greatest mentor. He has never lied to me, never turned me against my own will. Time had made me look around at the world I stepped through, remembering every face. The flowers that wilted as I stepped in the garden, the city blocks that had rusted and worn away, and the men and women who had simply given up their will to continue under the burden of being at my side, I collected them all inside the cage of my being, making sure they never left me. If I was the one who made them suffer so, I would suffer with them. I still haven’t let those faces go. When I close my eyes, they are there with me. Even now I can hear them beg their final words.” Ryan stretched out his spine, letting a sigh pass from his slightly parted lips. “Time then showed me the truth that would change it all. In my exile I was left with only my thoughts, and when a mind is forced to think, things we had never wanted to see rear their head. It was….almost like a puzzle. The pieces they fell together on their own, and when the finished picture was before me I could finally see. See like I do now.” He closed his eyes, listening to the crash of the waves on the sand. The hair on his arms began to spike from the surge. It was just like the first time he had looked on the truth. “The flowers, the city streets, the people, the animals, they were all one. Every single thing that ceased to be on my arrival were all exchanged faces of a single entity, the opposing category of life that looked at me from the other side. Right then I knew that this guilt I had existed with for so long was a self-inflicted punishment to a crime I had never committed. Those perishing flames of life were no crime of my own, but rather the just reward for their faults. It was never me, it was never my power. It was never too powerful, they…..you, were too weak.” He flared his nostrils at the shortcoming of his younger self, shaking his head in disappointment. Leave it to a child to make such a foolish mistake, to place dependency on inferior impulses such as devotion, compassion, and forgiveness. The curling in his stomach agreed with him. “You were always too weak. My concern left me in the breath I took that second. Why would I show concern for the vermin that the waters washed away? Does the hurricane apologize to the cities of the south? Does the tiger apologize to the fresh kill it’s made? No, we forces exist for these purposes. Anything short of pride in our art goes against everything it means to be what we are. I had found that pride. I had seen the paintings one could craft in the various shades of blood; I had heard the music in snapping bones and woeful tears. I had seen that my hands, these hands were the tools that would build new destinies for the lives they would touch.” He went on to study those hands, gripping them tighter into fists. He read his mantra, to which he had forever placed across his knuckles. The reminder to never return to where his past had been. “And yet, I still forced myself into restraint. I’m still not sure why I had done so. I think it was more of an act of pride, handicapping myself in some strange hope that I would create the challenge that I could never find and so desperately needed. Much to my disappointment that challenge did not come. I’ve travelled the world over multiple times; I’ve traced the strand of thread to the furthest corners, chasing after the words “Legend” and “Icon” and “Superstar”, just in the hopes that I would find someone, anyone that could match me. Someone I could call my equal, but even with my self-limitation these immortals in the craft of combat did nothing but drag me deeper into the truth that I am truly alone. I will never find another that will stand in the pantheon with me. At first I pitied you, truly. I wept at the thought of how small your lives would continue to be and how happy you were with what you had.” For a brief second, we could have believed that the very pity he spoke about existed in the face of the anti-christ, but like every emotion that had found some temporary living in his muscles, it quickly gave away to the hate. He threw his fists down, returning them to the title, his hood sliding back just more up his forehead from the movement in his shoulders. “That pity has since turned to anger. I am a true permanence that will never been recreated, and yet I’m forced to share my home with the disease that is mankind coming and going as they please in my domain. I’ve held back in the hopes that one of you, hell, any of you would give me the challenge I live for, but the time for chances is now over. I am done. I am done holding myself back in the fear that my existing requires your termination. If my conviction means others must suffer, than suffer they shall to the full limit of my ability, and that all starts inside the Desperation Chamber. It starts with the Wayward Sons and the CZW Elite. It starts with Mike King…..and it starts with El Pablo.” For the first time in his life, Ryan had felt what it was like to be a free man. The air around him just felt lighter, more open. He felt welcomed to the kingdom that was rightly his. “Paul, our story has been written too far. Too many chapters on the pages between us both. What started as simply an odd match has turned into one of the most storied clashes in the history of the combat zone. For what it’s worth you have been the largest negative force in my life for quite some time now, but I had endured this for a reason. I needed you, Paul. There was never any doubt in my mind, if anyone on the face of planet Earth would be the worthy opponent I craved, it would be you, but even under the mask and the guise of a character you suffered from the same illness that the people who cheered your name in our matches did: you were only human. An immortal can only be defeated by another immortal, and on your own you could never have hoped to reach that level. It’s not a matter of championships or victories, but a matter of becoming one with what those things presented. You were just a pack mule for gold…….” His right hand disappeared into the pocket of his coat. “But not anymore. You must be able to see the difference by now. Surly you feel it. You may not be in the halls of Valhalla yet, but you do stand just outside the door. You stand there because of me. Each fight, each defeat you became that much stronger. Just being in my wake and not falling to disarray is an accomplishment that belongs to just one, and you are them. Pablo, you are no longer human, but you are far from your seat in eternity. That part of the journey I cannot take you on. That part is up to you and your own will, and all you have to do…………is match me. Match me just one time, ignore the numbers we had drawn before, and you will finally meet the potential that you’ve had all along. Then I will firmly stand by my honest opinion that you are the very best this planet has to offer. El Pablo is the king of the sky he flies through, which is a fact that I sadly see has gone unremembered to the people that claim to love him so.” He slid his free hand into his hood, peeling it back to allow his deep brown hair to greet the air. “As foolish as it sounds, I’d like to think that in some strange, twisted future you and I could call each other brothers. You belong here with us, Pablo. I hope that one day you see this as well.” And then, the sentiment had ended, for the glory that this fight would have had been diluted. The prize had been tattered, and it was all thanks to the last entrant into the chamber, the tumor on the body that was the Desperation Chamber. A tumor that CZW’s Surgeon General aimed to remove in the most violent way possible. “There is another, though, that doesn’t understand their place in this world, but it’s not thanks to short comings. No, they’re the result of a mortal man who wants to play God. The damning curse that has befallen my beloved, sweet brother Mike King……..” Ryan’s words dripped with the venom that was sarcasm, a heavy dose placed on the word “brother”. He shook his head once more, running a hand on the face of the World Title, a prize the fool would never have. “King you ignorant bastard, just when I think I’ve gotten over how much your face annoys me, I surprise myself to find that it can get just so much worse. You are the definition of what I hate about this world. You accomplish goals that mean nothing in the total scheme of things, and you dare raise your head up to your superiors as if you were one of them. You have no place in this fight, Mike, but you preach on as if you were the knight in shining armor, and while that is good for a laugh the joke stopped being funny four months ago. You would have been so much happier if you just looked at reality as what it was as opposed to what you want it to be, but at this point you’re more fucking delusional than El Pablo is. You’ve actually convinced yourself that you are this champion of the people that can change the tide of war, but you have the same power to change the tides of the ocean behind me. You’re the only one in this match giving yourself a chance, but your involvement in an insult to Paul and myself.” He removed the championship from around his waist, gripping it in his right hand and in that instant he could feel the power. “The hero has no place in the realm of Gods. Your greatness is only measured in mortal levels, but any pride that you’ve somehow managed to create for yourself is demolished by one unavoidable fact. Achilles’ sword will never bite the neck of Zeus. If you had understood this from the beginning, you would have lived a prosperous life at the level you could handle. Instead you want to be a big man in the hopes that if you could defy logic itself and somehow beat me, this “glass ceiling” you love to bitch about would go away. If anything, Mike, your persistence has been noted, so I’m going to do something for you. In this chamber I will remove the glass ceiling with the hands that have spilled your blood and destroyed your family of lies called Youthful Aggression.” The fire emerged in his glare, the head of the unworthy rat in his cross-hairs. “I’m going to take that glass ceiling, and I’m going to break it over your fucking head! I’ll pierce your heart with every shard, because I know unless I kill you, you will continue to annoy me until the day you die because I am your obsession! Without me, your life is meaningless! You need me; you need that victory over me to prove to yourself that the kid you helped signed to a CZW contract isn’t just worlds ahead of you in everything he does, but you have a better chance of being struck by a damn meteor in a frozen over hell! Like it or not, and I assure you I don’t, what I do to you in the chamber will be an act of sympathy. This is not a match, this is not a chance for you to reach some greatness you could never have. This is a fucking mercy killing in the hopes that your eradication will be enough to make you leave me alone!” His yell rattled the frame as he turned back to face the endless water. As he walked to where the sidewalk ended, the camera followed close behind. We joined Ryan in this place, and the two of us would share a deep moment of silence. A moment of silence ended after a passing minute. “This is not the end, CZW. This is the beginning of something great. If only you could understand what it is I know right now, you would welcome me as a hero. I have not turned my back on you like that idiot King would tell you. Every move I make is for us all, and finally we will have a home to return to. Pablo, Mike, and the rest of you who wander into the chamber come Desperate Times, know that you will still be a part of this new world. You will see this through my eyes; you will be as I am, and for eternity you will walk with me until I look upon the end of time itself, and in that final moment I will recall your face. That is my curse.” He took in one more breath of fresh ocean air through his mouth, hoping to recall what this world tasted like one last time. It was bitter. “I will always remember you. I have to.” He said no more. He didn’t have to. The champion turned, leaving us off-screen with calmed preparation. The coming battle would be nothing short of chaotic, but that was not the object of his focus. The change could not be fought off, no matter how hard they tried. It was already here, and these self-made Gods would be forced from their machines. The camera reduced to pure static, burning for a moment, before falling to a still black. |
![]() |
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
| « Previous Topic · PPV RP Archives · Next Topic » |
| Track Topic · E-mail Topic |
1:00 AM Jul 11
|
powered by podcast garden
Hosted for free by ZetaBoards · Privacy Policy





1:00 AM Jul 11