Grainy footage plays across the screen. A young girl, no more than 8 or 9 years old, is playing at the edge of her family’s lawn. She twirls in circles, watching her white dress spin through the air. She’s completely oblivious to the cars speeding down the road, and to the camera filming her from the bushes.

“I was always a little different from other people.”

The Nickleman’s narration breaks the on-screen silence.

“Crueler.”

The girl slips and falls, landing on her hands and knees as a boy snickers from behind the camera. 

“More X-treme.”

The girl pushes herself up, quiet tears streaming down her unblemished cheeks.

“That’s why it’s hard for me to form attachments. Hard for me to let someone get close. But you…somehow, you always managed to find a way in. Even though my soul was stained, you still found something beautiful in me…something- or rather, someone- who could be redeemed.”

She turns to walk back to her house- stepping right in front of the camera hidden in the bushes.

“I prayed that you were right…”

That’s when the boy behind the camera raised his left hand.

“But no God worth his salt would answer this Bastard’s prayers.”

Revealing the skinned cat he’s holding up by the tail.

Then, he charges out from the bushes and barrels towards his little sister!

Her shriek pierces the heavens!

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

The girl immediately trips over herself in fear, stumbling to the ground in tears. She falls directly into a dirt patch on the lawn, staining her pretty white dress.

“STOP! OR I’M TELLING MOM!”

The pubescent voice behind the camera cracks as it chuckles with satisfaction. Young Charlie throws the dead cat back into the bushes where he ‘found’ it.

“C’mon Jennie, it’s just a prank! You’re acting like a baby!”

“I’M NOT A BABY!”

“Then why are you on the ground crying like one?”

Jennie rubs the water away from her eyes, replacing the tears with dirt from her soiled hands.

“I thought you were a monster trying to kill me!”

There’s a slight pause as Jennie lifts her gaze up from her stained dress towards the boy behind the camera.

“Oh Jennie, you know I’d never hurt you...”

The grainy footage suddenly cuts out, replaced by static on the screen. That’s when we slowly zoom out to reveal an old-school TV with a built-in VHS player set up in the middle of Charlie’s living room. Nickles is seated in a recliner watching the screen, grimacing as he pounds down another bottle of bourbon.

“But I don’t have a choice anymore, do I?”

Charlie swirls what’s left of the bourbon around the bottom of the bottle. As he watches the liquor dance in the glass, he’s reminded of Jennie twirling around in her beautiful dress. The dress that was irrevocably stained by his hand.

Nickles silently curses his own dirty hands for corrupting everything they touch. Charlie drunkenly stumbles towards the TV, hitting the eject button and causing an old VHS tape to slide out. Charlie grabs it, lifting it up to the level of his eye.

You can smell the alcohol on his breath through your screen. 

“I told you that I would always protect you from monsters, Jennie…and I’m going to keep that promise, no matter what it costs.”

Charlie swallows back some liquid courage in order to keep it down.

“Even if it costs me you.”

Charlie carelessly tosses the VHS tape atop a pile on the floor. It crashes against the other memories of his past strewn around haphazardly, but Charlie doesn’t seem to care; he’s moving past them as we speak.

“I have to be the one to do it…because if I don’t, he will.”

Nickles lurches forward from the TV, stomping over the pile of tapes as he heads towards his coffee table- where a golden lock of Jennie’s hair rests in serenity. It was the very lock of hair Charlie recovered from Jordan Penn at Relentless. As Nickles reached the table, he knelt down and caressed the strand of hair like it was his sister’s tender cheek.

“This is the last thing I want to do, Jennie…believe me.”

Charlie pauses for a moment.

“Or at least, that’s what I want to believe.”

He picks the hair up from the table, holding the blonde strands up so that the lamplight can shine through them.

“I failed you once, I couldn’t keep you safe from Jordan.

And the rest of the roster has been rubbing it in my face with every promo since.

It made me sick to my stomach, watching the way Korvayne and Penn treated you like a trophy in their twisted vignettes. Showing up in your hospital room, mocking me, cutting off your hair and parading it around like a souvenir…

Just watching those videos made me feel weak, ashamed, and totally powerless over you. I just can’t take it anymore. I refuse to watch another promo where someone torments my dear little sister.

You were never supposed to be a prop in someone else’s story, Jennie…

You were supposed to be the most sacred object in mine.”

Charlie shakes his head from side to side, clearly distraught by the way people have been treating his sister since Jordan’s attack left her comatose.

“And with Micheal Graves on the horizon, dear Bastardly Father…I can only imagine what he wants to do with you.

I watched that sick fuck run off with Clutch Cassidy’s corpse- and we all know exactly what he did with that pretty little blonde. He’s the same man who leaked Robyn’s private photos, the same man who MOLESTED a teenaged Dolly Waters!

He’s a perverted fuck, with a track record of taking advantage of vulnerable women.

The things he might be planning to do to you…”

Charlie sets down the lock of hair with a heavy sigh.

“Are the same things I’d do to Miss Furry if the shoe was on the other foot.

It takes a Bastard to know a Bastard- and me and Mikey?

Let’s just say, we know each other…

So I know exactly what I have to do.

For your own good-

And for mine.”

Nickles pushes himself up from the coffee table, but the camera stays locked at its level. As Charlie stumbles off screen, we slowly zoom in on a post-it note stuck to the table.

It reads: “URGENT - 10 AM MEETING W/ JENNIE DR”.

The camera stays locked on the note as the scene slowly fades away. In the background, we hear only the flick of a lighter before the shot cuts to black.







The XWF Universe isn’t big enough for two monsters like us, Mikey.

Two sick, deranged freaks who just take what they want- from whoever happens to have it.

Two twisted, morbid fiends with a bloodletting kink.

You knew as well as I did...eventually our paths had to cross again.

And only one of us gets to walk away as the same monster we were before.

The loser?

Walks away the victim.

So I think we both know exactly how this main event is gonna’ go!

I’ve beaten Micheal Graves in battle royales, in tag matches, in singles competition; I’ve beaten him for number 1 contenderships, beaten him for championship gold, and I’ve even beaten him just for the fun of it!

In my 6 years in this company, Mikey hasn’t beaten me once. Not even in a game of rock, paper, scissors! Probably because every time he tries, I stab his punk ass with the scissors and smash the rock against his stupid fucking mask!

That kind of dominance? That’s not a trend. That’s not luck.

That’s pure and unfiltered superiority.

Charlie > Graves

Especially now, since after Bad Medicine, Gravy’s been limping around like he’s some kinda A-L-S victim!

Every.

Fucking.

Promo!

“His neck, his back, his crack” - complaining about all the aches and pains across his body like he’s singing a god-damned Missy Elliott song!

I’d almost feel bad for this sorry sack of shit…

If he wasn’t a necrophiliac.

A rapist.

And a child molester!

If he wasn’t the #1 threat to my sweet and innocent little sister…

But I can’t change Mikey’s past-

And he can’t change it, either.

All he can do is run from it.

And trust me when I say…that crippled son of a bitch is running away from his past so fast you’d swear it was Usain-fuckin’-Bolt under that mask!

Gravy isn’t man enough to stand by what he’s done. He isn’t proud enough to put ten toes down and defend his “alleged” legacy: so he tries to reinvent it.

He tries to twist it.

And style it in the fashion of Mark fuckin’ Flynn.

I swear to the Bastardly Father above, ever since Micheal Graves returned he’s been asking himself one simple question every time he puts on the mask:

What would Mark fuckin’ Flynn do?

✅ Use D.E.I. casting to find a new tag-team partner
✅ Completely derail said tag-team partner’s career
✅ Vacate the Anarchy Championship

And to Mikey’s credit, the grift’s been working. Graves has been an unstoppable force since his return. He’s already reached heights he never even sniffed until another man took the mask and did it for him.

But Gravy just did the one thing Mark Flynn was never stupid enough to do…

He just put everything on the line against The Nickleman.

And everyone knows Charlie Nickles is an immovable wall.

So what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable wall, live in the main event of Warfare?

We all find out that force was far more stoppable than previously ‘alleged’.

And when the show’s over, and the crowd goes home, that ‘alleged’ force will be left bleeding out in the mean streets of Boston.

BEEP!

The monitors attached to his sister moan and groan in harmony, each machine doing what it can to keep her alive. Jennie lies completely still in the hospital bed, her eyes closed but her cheeks flushed with life. Blonde bangs drape over her forehead like the white gown draping over her body. Charlie Nickles sits in a chair beside her, surrounded by hospital staff.

“She’s…not going to recover from this, ever.”

The doctor states matter-of-factly. The nurses stand beside him, holding back tears of their own.

“Jennie has lost all brain activity, she couldn’t even breathe for herself if we turned the machines off. I know this may be hard to hear, Mr. Nichols, but…it’s time for us to have a difficult conversation about your sister.”

Charlie bears a grim expression as he nods his head politely.

“There’s nothing more we can do for her, and at this point, it may be crueler to keep her alive-”

“You’re saying you want to take her off life support.”

Charlie looks down at his sister.

“I know.”

The doctor composes himself after Charlie’s bluntness, adjusting his collar before he responds.

“All I want is what’s best for my patients, but ultimately as her next of kin, the decision is yours to make.”

Charlie places a hand on his sister’s wrist, squeezing it gently before looking back to the doctor.

“They’re going to say I killed her, you know? That her blood is on my hands…”

The doctor and the nurses are all taken aback, speechless at Charlie’s directness.

“Let them.”

Charlie turns his gaze back to Jennie, whose chest only rises and falls when the machines tell it to.

“I have to do what’s best for her. I’m still her big brother, after all…and big brothers are supposed to protect their little sisters.”

“You’re doing the right thing.”

One of the nurses says while giving Charlie a few pitiful pats on the back.

“If you would just go ahead and sign these forms…”

With just a few signatures, Jennie’s fate was sealed. The medical bureaucracy never moved this quickly, until it was time to empty a bed and deliver a death warrant. Everything Jennie Nickles had been, all the dreams she had…all dashed, with just the click of a pen.

Charlie clutched his sister’s hand as the doctor unplugged the machines. He moved the hair out from her eyes as the doctor moved to take the breath out from her lungs.

The machines shut down one after the other.

BEEP.

BEEP.

BEEeeeeep.

Then silence.

Charlie waited quietly, wearing the vacant expression of a man dissociating from the moment he literally signed himself —and his sister— up for.

But then Jennie's chest rose.

Once.

The nurses gasped, placing their hands over their hearts in shock.

Then Jennie’s chest rose twice.

The doctor removed his glasses, rubbing his eyes in disbelief at what he was seeing.

Then her chest rose again for a third time!

As Charlie felt a deeply unsettling chill run down his spine.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen…”

The medical staff crowd around the hospital bed in awe. Jennie lies there resting, her eyes closed, but her heart still beating against all odds. While the nurses and the doctor stare in disbelief, The Nickleman wears a starkly contrasting expression…

The face of pure, unfettered disappointment.






I’d rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6.

Sadly, not everyone in the XWF gets to make that choice…

Because I make it for them.

Because only The Nickleman can control what happens in this Universe.

The rest of you lot?

My universe happens TO you.

If you’re lucky enough, you might even survive it.

But you won’t be allowed to thrive.

Especially monsters like YOU, Mikey.

All you've ever wanted was to be loved and accepted by the XWF Universe. That’s what you said last time we fought, right Mikey?

Is that why you had your way with Clutch Cassidy’s corpse?

Because you wanted to be LOVED so badly?

Is that why you change, or ‘evolve’, so much? Always pretending to be something you’re not, because you know what you are isn’t worth loving? Isn’t even worth respecting?

Deep down we both know what kind of monster you are.

The same kind as me.

But you like to pretend that you’re not.

Dress yourself up with gimmicks to try and act like you’re somebody else. Somebody worth loving.

I remember the last time I fought you, you couldn’t decide if you were a man or if you were a woman. Your gender swapping nonsense, I grew so sick of it, that I ended the whole debate-

By showing the whole world you were never a man at all. 

You were just a silly bitch playing pretend.

And I see now that no matter how much you’ve changed or shapeshifted over the years: that’s all you’ve ever been.

A silly bitch.

Playing pretend.

Pretends to be X-treme in his promos…until it’s time to actually do some X-TREME SHIT in the ring!

Pretends to be a loving and doting father for Emily…until she passes out on painkillers, and then he probably gives her the ol’ Clutch Cassidy treatment! You know he calls it the BONEyard for a reason, right?!

Maybe you didn’t get enough attention as a kid, or maybe I’ve dropped you on your head one too many fuckin’ times:

But either way, I’m not sure if you can recognize your real self anymore.

You’ve played so many roles, tried on so many different gimmicks, that you may not recognize that ugly mug in the mirror anymore.

When the mask comes off, who even is Micheal Graves?

I’ll tell you this much: you’re not Mark Flynn.

So stop trying to be him, pretending to be you.

All this ‘character growth’ since your return? That shit’s just a cancerous tumor. That big, fat sack of growth ain’t doing nothin’ but weighing you down! Maybe all these strange and unexplainable growths are the reason why your body’s finally slowing down, after all these years in the XWF.

And what did it get ya’?

The ‘new’ Micheal Graves beat SEB for the title? Congrats. Now do it against him and Isaiah both, with Jordan Penn’s deadweight on your back!

Maybe then I’ll actually be impressed!

Until that happens, I’m going to treat you just like everyone did back in the good ol’ days of the XWF you pretend to clamor for. I’m going to treat you like a little bitch in a gimp mask!

I’m going to shove a barbed-wire baseball bat down your throat like it’s my fat cock. For one night and one night only, Gravy- I’m going to bring back the old school XWF you claim to miss so badly. I’m going to add another chapter to that storied history, written in your AIDS-riddled blood!

You’re going to be choking on every bad word you’ve ever said about me, all while begging The Nickleman for peace and forgiveness.

Pleading with me for the impossible.

Because Mikey, you should know by now…

Bastards like us don’t show mercy.





It was a modern medical miracle.

That’s what the doctor told him.

But that didn’t bring Charlie any comfort.

“I guess it’s true what they say: it’s damn tough to kill a Nickles.”

Charlie sat in the chair next to his sister’s hospital bed for hours, waiting next to her as doctors and nurses ran test after test. Only after the sun began to set did the fuss begin to end. Before Jennie’s primary doctor went home for the evening, he told Charlie not to get his hopes up: because at any time, Jennie’s lungs could give out.

If only he knew how true those words would become.

As Charlie sat alone with his little sister, he watched her chest heave up and down on its own- almost in disbelief that it would keep happening. Like he was patiently waiting for her to stop breathing, but she never did.

“I wanted to spare you from the cruelty of this world, from the cruelty of monsters like Micheal Graves…monsters like me.”

Charlie sighed as he gently touched his sister’s shoulder.

“But it seems the more I tried to shelter you from it, the more it backfired on me.”

He looks his sister up and down, her body resting under the moonlight beaming in from the window. The shadows contour around her face like a dark mask while her white gown shines almost translucently.

Charlie stares at her face for an uncomfortable amount of time before finally breaking the silence with a heavy sigh.

“I promised you that I’d never hurt you, Jennie…but I can’t let anyone else use you to get to me.”

The chair creaks as Charlie rises from it, heading towards the door and gently closing it. He turns back towards Jennie, the mask of shadows still obscuring her face.

“That’s why this is going to be for your own good.”

Charlie slowly walks back towards his sister’s hospital bed, his shadow towering over her body.

He takes another step, until Jennie’s face is just arm’s length away.

“Your story ends here, sis’. For both our sakes.”

Charlie puts his hand atop Jennie’s nose and mouth. He holds it there firmly, with self-justifying resolve, as her unconscious gasps for breath become more labored.

As Charlie looms over his sister, suffocating her, the shadows obscuring her face suddenly morph. The Nickleman gasps as he swears he sees the outline of his daughter’s lucha mask atop Jennie’s face.

But he doesn’t remove his hand.

Instead, he presses down on Jennie’s mouth more roughly. Her nose audibly cracks as twin streams of blood pour down her face. The crimson stains the palms of Charlie’s hands and the collar of Jennie’s dress alike.

The wrongs of his past don’t weigh down Charlie’s resolve; instead, they merely add more weight to his hand.

Charlie keeps his soiled hand atop her mouth until he hears Jennie’s heart stop beating. Only then does he remove his hand, wiping her blood off on the linen bed sheets.

“Rest in peace, Jens’.”

The Nickleman bows his head before his lifeless sister. He gently kisses her on the forehead one last time before turning towards the door. When Charlie reaches the door he grabs the handle, but before he pulls it open he takes one last glance at Jennie.

Resting pale and still under the moonlight. She has blood stains on her face and her dress, but with her eyes closed, you would almost swear she was at peace.

Or at least, that’s what Charlie swore.

Until he saw the dark shadows, morphing and twisting atop her face. The shadows stretched and contoured themselves into the shape of a mask so heinous, even Charlie Nickles was appalled.

The shadows on Jennie's face stretched into the mask of Micheal Graves.

“You won’t be claiming my sister, Mikey.”

Nickles stood there a moment longer than he needed to, waiting for the mask to say something back.

But it never did.




The XWF Universe is mine, Mikey.

Just like it has been for the last 6 years.

When I’m around, no one else’s story can so much as breathe without my permission.

My presence is stifling- suffocating, even.

Just ask James Shark. Or Jim Caedus.

You could even ask Jennie Nickles.

They’ll all tell you the same thing:

And their blood-curdling silence will echo in your ears for eternity.

A foreboding warning that you were too foolish to heed.

You forced my hand tonight, Mikey- and now, it’s only fitting that your blood will join hers.

I’m not like you, Mikey: I don’t mind having bloody hands. In fact, I’ve started to enjoy it. Every scarlet stain just means another job well done, after all.

So when we meet at T.D. Garden in Boston Massachusetts…

In front of a sold out crowd…

I’ll bury you!

Right next to Jennie and Robyn!

Your body, your career, your mask, all laying in the dirt next to theirs! All of it!

I’ll bury your entire championship run!

I’ll buckle your so-called legacy at the knees!

And I’ll leave you laying six feet deep, just like I did at Fire & Ice.

But this time, when I send you back to hell with my Devil Hook Drop…

Say hi to my sister for me.