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| Tweet Topic Started: Jun 13 2016, 11:09 AM (27 Views) | |
| The Institute | Jun 13 2016, 11:09 AM Post #1 |
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》 》 》 》 》 》 》 》 》 》 There is great solace to be found in the brotherhood of men, in the shared struggle, in the same march to war as the next man and the man after that. Even when surrounded by hopelessness, abject desolation and the bleakest of bloody prospects, small words of encouragement, of empathy, of complete shared understanding can be enough to touch the spark back to even the most drenched and despondent kindling. That spark grows, as almost all sparks do when given adequately favourable conditions, seeking to expand, to conquer. Even with empty belly and heavy, rain-soaked armour, the most beaten of warriors will find it in himself to rise up and unlock a lower level of adrenaline-fuelled fury if those about him can find themselves to do the same. Together, the fight binds them. The adversity strengthens their resolve and so, no matter what transpires, no matter the odds they face, those warriors stand together and they stand tall knowing that their unit, their brotherhood, emboldens them far above and beyond what they could summon of themselves alone. Brothers in Arms. The conquerors. 》 》 》 》 》 》 》 》 》 》 Osbourne had a squad of electrical engineers in for two days to rewire the lighting in the facility, having grown tired of the strip lights all being on or all being off. Instead, by way of one panel of switches, he could select which areas to illuminate and use the dimmer switches to determine to what extent. Hence, the rung in the centre of the facility, the grand focal point of the entire establishment is bathed in near-daylight by the artificial cylindrical suns overhead. Slightly more subdued lights draw figures out from the shadows as they sit upon the section of bleacher benches, watching, studying the action in the ring. The Juggernaut, as his friends have taken to calling him, rag-dolls a trio of smaller men who line up to take their turns, wading in with kicks and punches which Jurgen easily blocks or simply absorbs before closing the distance and launching them across the ring or slamming them down hard against the canvas itself. The rings shake and rattle, the coach-bolts holding the turnbuckles together tested above and beyond as each man sling by Jurgen lands awkwardly and painfully before rising again to attempt an attack. Each of them in the 240-250lb bracket still appear small to him, his 6’8” frame and 285lb stacked upon it giving him clear advantages in almost every conceivable manner as he demonstrates, much to their laments and torrents of half-humoured vitriol with each passing rebuttal of their assaults, Jurgen remaining composed and silent save for grunts of effort as the force of will itself escapes him. On the bleachers, his friend and his mentor watch on as the brutal sparring session grinds on into the later hours of the evening, a mammoth undertaking for the novice preparing for his first match, his toe dipped into the water and by no means at the shallow end. Osbourne Kilminster takes a sip from his huge mug of uncorrupted Earl Grey tea, comfortable in loose-fitting shorts and a baggy black t-shirt. Beside him, Shaun Sinclair chews on a hard lump of beef jerky, clothed only in garishly bright yellow basketball shorts. I think he looks good right now, mate. Best I’ve ever fucking seen him. What you reckon? Still not quite there, but close enough that we can get him there right when he needs to be. Close enough now that he’s starting to see why I held him back. By the time his match comes around, he’ll deserve it. Deserve what, man? Of course he deserves a match like… wha- A match, yeah. This match? We all know this was the match I was meant to be having. I called Draven out and said I’d take him if his brother would let him, so he back-tracked and bounced it onto Jurgen. He thought me asking if his brother would allow him to fight was on a level with him asking Jurgen if I’d allow him to fight. In a million years, he’d never have expected to have his bluff called, but he did and that’s how this happened. Draven ducked me and talked himself into this instead, into getting in the ring with an unproven commodity. It’s a big risk for him. Ballsy move or complete fuck-up? We know it’s a fuck up because we know what our boy can do. He thinks he’s smart as fuck, that he’ll somehow do Jurgen over and that's gonna piss you off more. Smirking slightly, Osbourne takes another sip of his tea and redirects his attention to the ring as two of Jurgen’s sparring partners are on their knees, gasping for breath and the third pulls himself to his feet by the ropes and is immediately grabbed by Johanssen, the gigantic Austrian-Dane hybrid ripping the man off his feet and up onto his shoulders, his head toward the ground as Jurgen swings one leg over his head and drops down to his knees and yanks on the legs of the man, almost flipping him as his back smashes into the canvas and leaves him levelled and lifeless, Jurgen rising up on his knees and sucking in air, his eyes closed as the sweat cascades down him. What does he even call that? I’m not sure he named it. He told me “only cunts name their moves” and laughed when I asked. Shaun and Osbourne laugh, the uknowingly abrasive manner of their friend and comrade providing all the amusement they need as a great day of days fast approaches them. As Shaun returns to chewing over his jerky, Osbourne surveys the ring much more intently as the steam from his tea rises into his long beard and warms against the scar tissue around his left eye. The three opponents had been picked specifically for Jurgen to experience a scenario where a 246lb man with good cardio but basic leading strikes would attack him and he had stood the test well, able to tire and batter three such men even with his limited experience. It had been a test to determine how the stress would affect him - whether he’d buckle under it, whether he’d respond angrily or whether the adrenaline dump would see him fade quickly. None were the case - he had done as he had been taught from day one, he had done as his master had learnt best from his own experience and employed the disciplines of patience and methodical dissection to dismantle the task at hand. Jurgen Johanssen, green in comparison to Shaun Sinclair, had taken the opportunity of a lifetime by looking Michael Draven in the eye and accepting the challenge that nobody ever thought he would or even could. He had accepted the challenge and been forced to rise to meet it retrospectively and his master is very much delighted to see that the apple has not fallen far from the tree. Michael Draven had thought it lucky to dodge Osbourne again, but in doing so he had made the greatest mistake of all - he’d walked right into a fight with a man proving himself to be a bigger, stronger Osbourne and that should be a prospect to drive fear into any heart - even the cold, frosty piece of granite in Draven’s chest. 》 》 》 》 》 》 》 》 》 》 Sat on the edge of his bed, Osbourne takes a deep breath as he pulls off his t-shirt. Through the high-set window behind and above him, he can tell the morning sun is making its ascent, having forgivingly allowed him to take finish his morning run before casting it’a fiery sword across the Earth. Right there, on the bedside cabinet, it stares at him. What was once a renowned symbol and excellence, it bears the markings of age and trial, burned and cracked, nowhere near the gleaming face of glory it once had been. He looks down from the mirror and casts his eye over that which Chris Kage had callously discarded, the faceplate of the old EWA World Heavyweight Championship, the gold blackened, the intricate engraving liquefied and reformed by burning petroleum, but still… the sentimentality it holds for him is unrivalled. He had only just resolved to act on his inner instincts and return to action when he won that Championship - instantly rising from the written-off “has been” pile to the very top of the mountain. He’d never been able to retake it, to claim it back from Sinnocence, and now the belt was defunct - discarded and forgotten as Kage parades his relic of a Championship and tries to rewrite history sans EWA reboot as though nothing has changed in the last fifteen years. Still, by retiring Sinnocence long after she lost that Championship, he had earned his shot at another and a chance at revenge for wrongs done years before. The Tapout Championship. X-Calibur. Reaching just beneath the faceplate of the belt, he pulls out a slip of paper and his wandering fingers find the name he seeks, reading it almost as if written in Braille as his fingers dance over the biro-scrawled letters on the page. X-Calibur had been a name on the list in his mind for some time, but having it written down just made it feel more real, more final - as if something might actually happen. Of course, he is aware that by virtue of writing the list he guarantees nothing, but in part it was written as a contract with himself, a contract he simply must fulfill. Laying back on his bed, the single piece of paper falls on his bare chest as he stares up at the ceiling, drawing in a deep breath. It had been a long, long time since his submission skills had been truly tested. A few weeks ago, he’d run through some of them with Sahara to test himself as much as to test her and he had found very little rust upon his recollection. It came back naturally to him, almost making him wonder why he’d eased off on them so much in recent times, but the fact remained and remains that he has the very specific set of skills to take that Championship. Dear Eryk had bamboozled the bumbling young novice, Tyler Morris to seize the Championship from him. Previously, he’d been back and forth with Chip Masters, the very man who Osbourne had literally beaten into retirement. Eryk had enjoyed an easy run, barely breaking canter, but now is the time for the racehorse to open his stride and feed from the sting of the whip until he can surpass his rival or his heart tears itself apart in his chest. Osbourne is sure Eryk is aware that he’s no walk in the park, not the kind to be tricked or overpowered. This isn’t going to be another X-hibition match - it’s going to be a fight, the kind of intense all-consuming fight that drives Osbourne Kilminster - the Chosen, the Burned, the Forgotten. The resurgence of King Kilminster is destined to be the defining moment of the downfall of Eryk van Warren. 》 》 》 》 》 》 》 》 》 》 The light is an odd shade of blue, almost UV not quite so glaring, much more subdued and palatable. The hue reacts different with the objects in the room, the white bath tub free-standing even whiter than expected, the surface of it glimmering with the extra sheen of hundreds of cubes of ice floating upon it, each casting and twisting the light internally, refracting the whiteness of the tub save for those closest to him. His dark skin is almost bleached a paler version of itself, black to a blue-grey like a Siamese cat as he sits in the tub, his arms draped comfortably over the sides as despite wearing nothing but white boxer shorts, the ice water doesn’t seem to affect him. His lead leans back, the backbof his skull reating against his traps until he moves, much more gradual than sudden as his head rises and falls slowly forward, his eyes meeting us as he runs his tongue along his lips. Oh, Indrid, you’re a special kind of cunt, you are. I’ll be honest with you, I haven’t been in this business long, but I’ve lived the kind of life where you get to meet a lot of… shall we say “interesting” characters? Very interesting in that being in the same room as them can make the fucking hairs on the back of your neck stand up and make your toes curl up inside your shoe. They’re a different kind of person and they just have that fucking air of something about them that makes you want fuck all to do with them. You, Calder, are different even to them. Just the fucking way you move and the way you talk and act around people, my hairs stand on end and my toes curl just knowing that you exist in the same version of reality as we do. Just the base level idea that a creature like you walks among us… Shaun shakes his head, the surface of the water swishing as he suffers a shudder down his spine and takes a scond to regain his composure. The weirdest thing about you is how you take seemingly simple things and beautiful things and find something deeply fuckin’ corrupt in there and then you spin it to make the whole fuckin’ thing corrupt and then spit it out and tell us it’s a lesson. No, mate - you’re fucked up and just because you see things in a fucked up way doesn’t make it right and doesn’t mean the world twists to your looney tunes view of it. There were no rattlesnakes in the tortoise and the Hare in any version anybody has ever heard except for the twisted shit you came up with. I guess that comes from the same storybook that says Bambi’s Mom wasn’t shot but beaten to death by badgers with baseball bats. Maybe the same book that says an ancient Jewish magician could perform some magic tricks and pissed off an evil Empire so they nailed him on some bits of wood and left him to die. That’s the story you wrote, Calder, and despite it being sick as fuck and random as you can get, it was a good fuckin’ story, for what it was… but I’ve got a different one to tell… He arcs his left hand to his face and thumbs the very end of his nose as his jaw clenches, the result of an indeterminate blend of rage and disgust. I don’t quite get this whole “HATE” thing. Most people your age are probably a good twenty or thirty years or centuries past their Emo “let’s be angry at everything” stage, but I guess you get a kick out of it. Thing is, I’m not impressed. I have zero fucks to give about your agenda. I’ve dealt with “hate” my whole life - hated for being to white, hated for being to small, hated for being too black, hated for being too smart… Everywhere I’ve turned, I’ve faced hate and I’ve felt hate in myself and, you know what? I found hate’s a waste of fucking energy, like a weight you tie around your own neck when you’re lost at sea and swimming toward dry land. Why bother? It’s a waste of energy, ergo YOU are a waste of my energy, Dear Indrid. The difference between yourself and myself is that you get your thrills from making people feel uncomfortable, from giving them goosebumps, from scaring girls and being as intentionally weird as you can be. You sneak, you stalk - you hide in the shadows and you try to study your prey but you get caught up in your own game and it’s like the fuckin’ idea of being the big bad runs away with you. Shine a light on you and you’re done. That’s the difference - you’re here to make people feel as uncomfortable as you can and keep it up for as long as you can but I’m here to make people feel absolutely nothing for those crucial three seconds and I’m here to get to that point as quickly as possible. Shrugging his shoulders, Shaun shakes his head slightly. You’re creepy and you’re kooky and you’re altogether ooky, I’ll give you that. You scared the shit out of Michael Draven and Maggie McIntyre. You’ve scared just about everybody you’ve ever met… until now. I’ve felt the chills and my hairs standing to attention, but as a connoisseur of folklore I’m sure you’ll appreciate that the hero who slays the monster is quite often fucking shit scared in the run-up to the deed, but that’s what gives him his courage - fighting it back. I made you a promise, didn’t I? Jackanory, a story. Try this, you creepy fuckin’ cunt. The Stranger reaches his HATEful hand out from his shield of shadows. In a flash like lightning, the fastest man alive lights him up. There are no more shadows. The Stranger is strange no more - just weak and vulnerable and beaten. The. Fucking. End. 》 》 》 》 》 》 》 》 》 》 |
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10:51 AM Jul 11