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Osbourne.
Topic Started: Jun 21 2016, 07:59 AM (16 Views)
The Institute

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From many angles attack the forces of malice, aligned against the three who stand talled in the face of weathered steel winds and rancid red rain. Beneath the carbon clouds and lizard’s tongue lightning, back-to-back and with sword in hand, they stand. Shields splintered and discarded like the limbs of those who once charged at them from the lined legions of live fodder and died where they fell.

Three, barely armed with weapon but resolute and strong of conviction parry all foes, all assailants and attackers, preparing for the worst as the darkest hour ascends, their skin cold and tired eyes glazed and wild as the berserker spirit calls forth strength from pits within within pits deep inside of them.

Determined, ready and entirely focused, unbreakable, they simply wait for that which will come. They wait and they smile.

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This is a smart move by his opponent, a quick flurry of movement which had him convinced of something else and then switched at the last possible moment. As a mentor to these athletes, he found pride in the fact that one of them had developed the skills to pull off a move like this, but still, not enough pride to succumb.

Shaun Sinclair and Jurgen Johanssen watch from the ring apron, their eyes wide with excitement, completely immersed in the spectacle as the two men in the ring grapple as if their lives depend on it.

Osbourne Kilminster bites into his gumshield as he feels his student and opponent tighten his lock, a triangle grinding away at his neck, compressing against his own shoulder joint and threatening to cut off both blood and oxygen supplies. A subtle submission, one which takes time to apply and take effect, a personal favourite and, as such, his mastery had taught him several escapes.

He could feign tiredness and leave an arm hanging just over his opponent’s stomach and ripe for the picking - an easy armbar to add to the choke, bait him in to secure the arm and then, suddenly, he could spring into life and use the extra leverage to hoist his opponent up and slam him or powerbomb him, just as he himself had seen Rampage Jackson do to Ricardo Arona so many years ago.

He could force his trapped left arm around his opponent's back and reach around with his right to lock hands and stop the pressure on his neck, maybe wait it out until he tires and break out or maybe throw some strength into it and power him up for a slam.

Still, sometimes, simplicity is the sharpest weapon. Swinging his gloved right fist over the top, the punch collides with his opponent’s unsuspecting jaw. Immediately, Osbourne feels the triangle slacken. It’s enough for Osbourne to be able to tuck his chin down before swinging another grenade, smashing his opponent’s jaw a second time while he still reels from the first blow. Shaking off the legs which had constricted him so tightly just moments prior, Osbourne pops up onto his feet and takes a walk over to the side of the ring where Shaun and Jurgen stand nodding in approval, his opponent rolling up onto his knees and pulling out his gumshield.

Fair play, that cunt caught me in a triangle last week and nearly popped my fuckin’ head off.

He tried with me, but he couldn't get his legs around me. I guess a real man’s just too big for him.

Cocky prick.

Kilminster smiles as he rips open the velcro closures on his gloves and tosses them down onto the matted floor outside the ring, stepping through the ropes and sitting down on the ring apron between Shaun and Jurgen, who lean their elbows again the ring to look at him as they speak.

You reckon X is training as hard as you are?

Atleast as hard. He doesn’t want to lose to me. More than he wants to hold onto the Tapout Championship, he just doesn’t want to go down to me. He’ll be training harder than he probably has for years, just to make sure he stands a reasonable chance of surviving, just scraping through because he knows it’s not the kind of thing he can trick his way out of with clever mindgames or just bowling right through some novice. He knows I’m coming to hurt him and he knows he can’t stop that, but he’ll be trying his damned best to put enough in the tank to make it through the other side.

He’s a Champion. He’ll be as ready as he can be, but it won’t be enough. It’s OUR night - all three of us out there and we’re not just filling up the card. We’re there to win, hands down, and all of them know it, even Van Warren knows it.

I’m not going in there to fuck about with Calder. I can’t afford to, not when I’ll be up against Grace Goeren the next fucking night. No laughing matter, but the work we’re putting in here and now… fuck…

Look, I need to thank you two for stepping up when I had my eye off the ball with Jada and all that. You brought in new people and we’re all benefiting, so I owe you for that. I’ll sort out a little package for you both after Path of the Warrior and we’ll see what’s what going forward, but it hasn’t gone unnoticed. Hard work always pays dividends. Short term, we win our matches and REALLY make our mark on the EWA, longer term, I’ve got plans.

Smiling, Osbourne jumps off the ring apron and walks past the two men, heading up the stairs toward his private area and leaving his opponent sat in the middle of the ring, looking lost.

How do you reckon he’ll do it?

Do what?

Fuckin’ tap X, you dull cunt!

Oh, right… well, he caught me in a heel hook yesterday. I thought it was just a straight ankle lock and went to kind of sit up into him and he switched it on me and nearly took my foot off. If he catches X with that, it’s done.

I’ve got a feeling it’ll be something stupidly simple like a guillotine choke or a straight armbar. He likes the basic shit and, in all fuckin’ honesty, when you can make the basics work as well as he does, everything else is just icing on the cake.

I thought you told me icing the cake was when you take a shit and then jack off over it?

Fuck’s sake, mate. Nobody really does that! And this isn’t even about that! Dirty fuckin’ cunt!

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Shaun’s Adidas trainers pound into the paving slabs of the sidewalk, or moreso sounding like pounding in the relative silence, his feet never hitting the ground lng or hard enough to register any real impact. In the distance, the morning sun shines amber and rose hues between the tall concrete beasts which offer home and workplace to the people of the city.

His morning runs offered him solace, not that he begrudged the company of his friends and their living arrangements, but that he valued his time to himself, to think, to simply breathe freely and respect nothing but the burning in his chest and the inner screaming from his legs. It didn’t seem to him like it had been long since these mornings were bitterly cold and the sky a tableau of starlight white flecks spattered across an obsidian canvas but now, with the Summer supposedly upon them, the sun rose to greet him each morning and it's warmth soothed him.

It was never as warm as Kingston - nowhere ever was, never that comfortable dry heat with just enough humidity to stop that prickly sensation along your skin when it rebels against the sun’s undiluted offerings. It was never as warm, nor as bright, but it was another place he had made an approximation of “home” and it was atleast similar in climate to his second home in London.

He had adjusted to Boston and he had adjusted to the EWA, hia workrate proving his talent as he smashed through the Path of the Warrior tournament to the semi-finals, albeit after dodging the potentially career-ending bullet of a showdown with his own mentor. Osbourne knew what lay ahead and he had faith in Shaun, faith that he could overcome the challenge and then secure his place as an upper-echelon athlete in the dog-eat-dog world they’d chosen.

He always rose early, only ever really needing a couple of hours of sleep even after a heavy night drinking and partying, but he’d barely been sleeping at all lately. His metabolism was in overdrive as a result of the increased intensity of his training and his cleaning up of his diet, which would ordinarily make him more tired, but the puzzle which lay ahead presented such a conundrum that it haunted those moments when his eyes closed, obfuscating his endeavours for egress.

Indrid Calder was a man who just liked to be odd and had something about him, about his person which made him feel different, an aura of… of nobody knew what, but it wasn’t good. It made people feel uneasy and uncomfortable and he’d become masterful and employing that for the greatest result - making people fear him almost before they even saw him.

He thinks himself an educator, of sorts, and seemingly a better one than Osbourne, doubting his abilities to inform and guide Shaun in the utilisation of his powerful emotions, guesses like blunt darts cast at a board in the darkness - most missing, some hitting but none sticking.

Shaun knew Osbourne had picked him for a reason and that reason was balance, that his speed would balance Jurgen’s power, that his raw emotion would balance Jurgen’s abstract and objective machine-like calculation. He had been chosen because of, not in spite of, the way he could turn feelings into petrol, transfer inner turmoil into explosive physical movement. Osbourne had recognised the talent and he learned from it in the same way Shaun learned from him in a much more symbiotic and mutually beneficial manner than many seemed to understand.

Calder misinterprets him, his skewed view perhaps distorted by his “the world is flat” logic that eyes are flat panes of glass rather than complicated prisms of varying opaqueness. Calder sees hate as a weapon to be wielded, to be swung at opponents, literally like a blade, like an external prop, but that's not how Shaun sees it. He sees it as the petrol injected into an engine or the coal shovelled into an engine. It is fuel, a fuel which never runs out, which never degrades and can never be taken away.

He thinks he’ll play Palpatine to a young Anakin, but he is wrong.

Grace knows nothing, still struggling with her newfound feelings for her father, grasping at straws to understand Shaun and what he’s all about and finding precious little in her palms. She knows he swears, she knows Osbourne allowed him past and… and that’s all. That’s nothing.

Smiling, Shaun can feel his calves crying out and his thighs thudding with each heartbeat, but he holds true to his pace, consciously breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. Streetlights, benches, windows blur as he races past them, his bright yellow shorts and blue vest-top clinging to him as he strides on, nearing his goal, nearing the house of torture where he lives and where he must prepare to do unto others as they would most certainly do unto him.

Calder and Goeren, two of the biggest names in the business, think they know him inside out but Shaun knows he can run rings around them so fast he’ll turn them inside out…


》 》 》 》 》 》 》 》 》 》

In the darkness, nothing. No swirls. No smoke. No illusion. Nothing.

Nothing but sound. Heavy boots grind dirt into a hard stone floor. A man clears his throat and sighs. The rustle of clothing.

A match strikes. Sparks. Flame. Light. The man is illuminated as he holds the match in one hand and carefully cups the flame in the other. The flame itself is reflected by the lenses of his mirrored aviator sunglasses and glints off the silver bead tying together his long, gingered beard.


A long, long time ago, a former WPW World Heavyweight Champion and former TTW World Heavyweight Champion debuted in what was considered the “big league” of the industry, finally setting foot on what was thought to be hallowed ground, a privilege to have his name said in the same sentence as that organisation. Yes, a long, long time ago, Osbourne Kilminster joined the SHOOT Project and everybody remember the Rule of Surrender Championships and the Iron Fist Championships and the Laws of Survival Championships and everything else, but one thing which slips people’s minds is what happened in those very early days… but I never forget. I never forget anything.

The very tip of his tongue tracks along the sharpest edge of his incisors as he ponders his recollections.

Two men came to me, knowing I was new and knowing I was levelling up just by virtue of my presence there, and they told me they’d stand with me - that the three of us would stand together and we’d find a way to make our voices heard and dominate the product. That… well, that never happened. You see, my very first match was against a man called Ichiro Seppuku, a match fought under MMA rules and I lost, a rare thing, but it happened. Still, despite taking me under their wing and bringing me out to the ring for a grand speech about our “plans” earlier in the evening, after that night I never heard from them again. One, I crossed and crushed several times as an opponent. The other, he managed to elevate himself and messed around with they boys at the top before leaving, presumably for the EWA.

Those two men were Cade Sydal and X-Calibur, the two who promised me the world and ditched me at my first stumble. That taught me a valuable lesson about not everybody being true to their word in this business, that you can’t put your faith in anybody and it’s a good lesson learned the hard way… but I never, ever forget and I never ever forgive.


Tilting his head to the side, he clenches his jaw and exhales a long, deep sigh.

X-Calibur has always been an arrogant, pompous bastard and his talent has, admittedly, taken him a long way… but he’s aged. He still swaggers the same way he always has and he still talks like a petulant teenage wannabe badass, but I’ve seen him from afar when he finishes matches and he can barely walk. I’ve seen doctors forcing oxygen masks on him. I’ve seen them stitch him back up and send him out on a stretcher just like everybody else so when he walks around, looking down his nose at everyone else, and gives it all the big speech about being some kind of Superman, I know what he really is. I know he’s a liar and I know he’s a broken-down has-been on his last legs.

And what does he know? He knows that the people he trampled on his way to the top aren’t nipping at his heels - they've got him by the scruff of his neck and they’re ten seconds away from launching him off his perch and casting him right back down to the bottom of the pile. Even The Hierarchy turned tail and fled because they all knew that the USS X-Calibur is a sinking ship that’s been taking on water for years.


Smirking, he can’t help but feel amused by the image conjured of even the rats frantically swimming away from the doomed galleon.

We’ve had this for years where he makes thinly-veiled taunts at me and I reciprocate and we throws these spears back and forth from time to time. Initially, it never came to anything out of respect because he was good, at one time. Then, he began to fade and I think he got fearful, probably breathed a sigh of relief when I left the business for a while… but then I came back and he’s a shadow of his former self but I’m at a second peak, higher than the first and he knew to keep his distance but the problem now is that he’s struggling to validate his position, to hold his respect and he’s been forced to finally face me in the hope that he can fluke himself a win and hang on for a little while longer.

I retire people. It’s what I do. I push them so far that they just break. They may hang around a while after or they may just hang up their boots there and then, but what I do to people ultimately ends their careers. I am the last person… the LAST person he wants to be facing right now, but he’s a desperate man and I have all the time in the world.

Bring it, Eryk.

Bring me my Championship.


The flame is gone. Darkness returns. Darkness and silence.

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