Miss Furry knew the school was in real trouble a few weeks back after every single student except Peter Parkour just... quit. All at once. Like they'd planned it or something.

Peter was the last holdout. Quiet kid, freak athlete, always flipping off the top rope like it was nothing. Watching Graves get his head smashed in really changed him though.

To be fair, after Graves got that bad concussion, it really looked like the doors were gonna stay shut for good this time.

One week we're all in there running drills, practicing lockups, sweating through the basics. 

Next week? 

Everybody's suddenly got "life stuff" coming up, or "better opportunities," or they just discovered this deep passion for "roles" where you don't have to explain to your mom why you're training at a spot called Gravy's Boneyard. 

It wasn't dramatic. It was sad.

Eventually, Peter would leave too, citing PTSD and a desire to try something new.

Now the place truly was empty, but the building was still the same. Same ring, just with a fresh layer of dust. Same dent in the wall from that one time Graves showed everybody exactly how to not kill your own momentum. 

The others were gone, but not Miss Furry. She liked it here. That's why she continued to show up. That's why she rushed to meet Gravy upon his return, and that's why she has kept telling herself people are replaceable, you lose five, you go find ten more.

First place she tried was this low budget indie show at a rec center that was on its last legs. She waited till after the main event, when everybody's beat up, sore, and perhaps even desperate enough to say yes to something crazy.

She stepped into the back hallway that was passing as a dressing room and addressed the workers.

"Great show tonight, boys! Some of you looked impressive, some of you not so much. It's the later that I'd like to address—see—I represent a wrestling school..."

A couple heads turned.

"It's called Gravy's Boneyard."

They just laughed, but not even at her face. Into towels. Under their breath. 

One guy stops unlacing and goes: "Oh my God... that guy?"

Another chimes in: "Didn't he fake his own death or something like that?"

Another: "No, no, he was a werewolf, or was it a robot?"

Yet another: "Ain't he in prison now?"

"He's challenging for a world championship, actually."

"Ha, that loser? Somebody must have thought the champ needed a rest night," somebody shot back without hesitating.

She kept going: "He's been a champion. Multiple times."

Phones out. 

Screens up. 

Brows scrunch.

One kid squints at his screen: "Wait, this says he actually won titles, like... a lot of them."

Guy next to him leans over: "No fucking way."

"It's true."

They didn't fight her on it. They just looked for ways to make it fit into their preexisting worldview.

"Belts were probably easy to win back then," somebody mutters. 

"Y... yeah, Barney Green was a World Champion back then too," says another.

Miss Furry didn't bother mentioning his recent runs or defending him in any way. She just thanked them for their time and walked out before anybody could ask her if the school gave refunds on dignity.

It didn't...

The flyers went about the same. most vanished within hours of being hung. Others came back to the school with nasty messages and death threats aimed towards Micheal.

A Gold's Gym owner actually told her straight up he didn't want "that man's name" anywhere near his property.

Another asked if it was some sort of parody school or something. 

One more wanted to know if people actually trained there, and if so, if they realized they were in a cult. 

Eventually she stopped mentioning Graves by name. That actually got her a lot further, at least right up until they asked the next question.

"So who trained you?"

She told the truth.

Every time their faces did the same thing—you'd think she had bombed them with Gravy's dirty gym socks.

The response would be: "Oh, yeah. No thanks."

Back at the Boneyard she sat in Gravy's office chair and opened her email. Same message over and over: Moving on. Nothing personal. Hope he's okay, but...

She deleted every one.

Later that day, she pinned the last remaining flyer. She painted over the original text and added some of her own.

---

The Boneyard didn’t need ten students. It didn’t even need five. It needed the kind of person who could walk through that door knowing exactly what stigma was attached to the place… and still step inside anyway.

Anyone who needed permission to respect our dojo was never going to survive it...

---

The next morning, Miss Furry opened the Boneyard like any other day.

Keys. Door. Lights.

She set her bag down, rolled her shoulders, and started moving. Warm-ups first. Then basic drills run exactly the way she’d run them if the room were full of students.

Afterward, she sat at the desk and opened her email fully expecting nothing.

Inbox refreshed—she was right...

She reached for her water bottle, when suddenly an email came in.

Subject: So… is this place actually as bad as everyone says?