<![CDATA[X-treme Wrestling Federation - Relentless Day 3]]> https://xwf1999.com/ Mon, 11 May 2026 09:56:40 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA[At least it's something.]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=21026 Sat, 01 Aug 2015 20:59:30 -0700 El Tiburón]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=21026 El Tiburon: “The last few days mang. The last few days have been the craziest of my whole entire life. I wish you could see them, but for some reason I forgot to videotape all that shit.”

[I slap my head like I should’ve had a V8]

El Tiburon: “I rode a unicorn, I had a razorblade fight with two skunks in an overcoat pretending to be an even bigger skunk, I became a werewolf, I had sex with Lindsay Lohan, I got an STD test, I got some very unfortunate news, and I made it through 45 minutes of Gone Girl before I vomited of boredom. SO crazy mang. So crazy. You’ll just have to take my word for it though.”

[I’m talking into the mirror, duh.]

El Tiburon: “But, ain’t no point in living in the past right? Otherwise I’d have to change my name to John Samuels and that guy is just the biggest bitch, mang. All I can do is keep on swimmin’ and--CHUEY! What the fuck mang!?”

[Chuey! That puto crashed my Yugo into the tree!]

El Tiburon: “Not Mang-y Moore! My baby!”

[That fat piece of shit stumbles out the door drunker than what ever sorry ass mang dared to stick his churro inside of Fontanna’a ugly mama.]

Chuey: “Cuz! Holy shit! I was driving and then in the backseat all the sudden I saw a big fuckin’ skunk with a razorblade and he said he was looking for you!”

[Fuck. I thought we were square.]

El Tiburon: “You sure mang? I coulda swore we shook on that shit and called it good.”

Chuey: “Nah bro, he said you stole his girl and he wanted vengeance.”

[Skunketta? I didn’t even smash.]






[Alright, full disclosure: I did smash.]

El Tiburon: “Well whatever mang. But look at my car! How am I going to get to the taco stand? The boss lady said if I was late one more time I’d have to start massaging her feet after work. Have you seen those hooves? Her toenails scratch the ground every time she takes a step, it looks like a rape dungeon with all those claw marks on the floor. And the smell, my god mang, it’s more nauseating than a Thunderbolt X promo. Alright that might be a stretch, his stuff is so rancid I literally have to shit every time I get more than 25 seconds in.”

[I digress.]

Chuey: “Take my bike man!”

El Tiburon: “That thing still has a basket on the front and a bell that dings ‘La Cucaracha.’”

Chuey: “It’s the bike or you’re oiling up that upright pig’s pimply talons.”

[Bike it is.]

[I’m cruising down the street, squawking at the senoritas as I roll by. Minding my own damn business, enjoying the sunshine and the sweet sounds of Carlos Santana blasting at a moderate volume through my walkmang’s headphones. But uh oh. Trouble is afoot. Why don’t the cameras ever stick around when something boring is going on? Like unless you’re Michael McBride or Peter Gilmour, every XWF wrestler only shows up on screen when something entertaining or important happens. I envy those guys. But anyway, up ahead there’s a group of some tough looking hombres on bicycles and they’re all looking at me like Crimson Dong looks at the puss. They stop me right in the middle of the street and circle around me, laughing.]

El Tiburon: “Gentlemen, can I help you?”

Bicycle toughguy: “Nice costume, freak. We like your bike.”

El Tiburon: “Oh thank you, my abuela made it. And the bike is my cousin’s. You know it’s nothing too flashy but I think it’s a very practical piece of--”

Bicycle toughguy: “You shut your goddamn mouth right now. Get off that bike and take a walk or we’re going to have a problem.”

El Tiburon: “It’s, I mean it’s not really my bike. I can’t just give it up.”

[I try to be diplomatic, but I’m preparing myself for some good ol’ fashioned fisticuffs.]

Bicycle toughguy: “You’d think I’d be dissapointed by that, but truth be told I just bought a brand new ball-peen and I need to take it for a test drive.”

[Jesus he’s going straight for the hammer? These guys mean business.]

El Tiburon: “Guess I ain’t got too much of a choice mang.”

[I hop off the bike, prepared to do battle. These leather clad bicyclists all pull out hammers now. Should’ve thought this through a little better. As they inch closer my face instantly tenses up because it knows it’s about to get put through the fucking ringer. I’m half winking like a drunk old man hitting on a barstool.]

[WHACK!]

El Tiburon: “What the fuck?”

[WHACK! AGAIN!]

El Tiburon: “Is it raining rocks!? No, Jesus! Don’t do us like you did the dinosaurs!”

[Just then rocks begin flying in from what seems like every direction. The bikers all retreat on their bicycles, leaving me on the ground panting and unsure of just what the fuck was going on. And then a shadow appeared and blotted out the sun. A hand reached down. My guardian angel…


Her name was Dolores, according to her name tag, and she had blue hair, liver spots, and a Walmart frock. Behind her, her squad: Agnes, Martha, Beatrice, Ethel and Doris. These were some bad old bitches.]

El Tiburon: “Thank you, ladies. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

Agnes: “Our pleasure, dear. These punks today, they have no respect. Back in my day, when you stuck someone up you at least had the decency to not do it in the light of day.”

Dolores: “You stuck up to them kid, that took some guts. Not a whole lot of brains, but definitely some guts.”

El Tiburon: “I’m 90% heart, as my abuela used to say. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”

Dolores: “Luckily, I have just the idea. As you can see, we aren’t as young and agile as we once were. We need to bring in some fresh meat. What do you say, kid? You ready to take to the streets and put these idiots in their place?”

[Are you fucking kidding me? You’d have to carbon date the dust on their chochas to figure out how old they were, and yet these fossils want me to run around with them playing neighborhood watch? I’D. FUCKING. LOVE. TO.]

El Tiburon: “Count me in ladies.”]]> El Tiburon: “The last few days mang. The last few days have been the craziest of my whole entire life. I wish you could see them, but for some reason I forgot to videotape all that shit.”

[I slap my head like I should’ve had a V8]

El Tiburon: “I rode a unicorn, I had a razorblade fight with two skunks in an overcoat pretending to be an even bigger skunk, I became a werewolf, I had sex with Lindsay Lohan, I got an STD test, I got some very unfortunate news, and I made it through 45 minutes of Gone Girl before I vomited of boredom. SO crazy mang. So crazy. You’ll just have to take my word for it though.”

[I’m talking into the mirror, duh.]

El Tiburon: “But, ain’t no point in living in the past right? Otherwise I’d have to change my name to John Samuels and that guy is just the biggest bitch, mang. All I can do is keep on swimmin’ and--CHUEY! What the fuck mang!?”

[Chuey! That puto crashed my Yugo into the tree!]

El Tiburon: “Not Mang-y Moore! My baby!”

[That fat piece of shit stumbles out the door drunker than what ever sorry ass mang dared to stick his churro inside of Fontanna’a ugly mama.]

Chuey: “Cuz! Holy shit! I was driving and then in the backseat all the sudden I saw a big fuckin’ skunk with a razorblade and he said he was looking for you!”

[Fuck. I thought we were square.]

El Tiburon: “You sure mang? I coulda swore we shook on that shit and called it good.”

Chuey: “Nah bro, he said you stole his girl and he wanted vengeance.”

[Skunketta? I didn’t even smash.]






[Alright, full disclosure: I did smash.]

El Tiburon: “Well whatever mang. But look at my car! How am I going to get to the taco stand? The boss lady said if I was late one more time I’d have to start massaging her feet after work. Have you seen those hooves? Her toenails scratch the ground every time she takes a step, it looks like a rape dungeon with all those claw marks on the floor. And the smell, my god mang, it’s more nauseating than a Thunderbolt X promo. Alright that might be a stretch, his stuff is so rancid I literally have to shit every time I get more than 25 seconds in.”

[I digress.]

Chuey: “Take my bike man!”

El Tiburon: “That thing still has a basket on the front and a bell that dings ‘La Cucaracha.’”

Chuey: “It’s the bike or you’re oiling up that upright pig’s pimply talons.”

[Bike it is.]

[I’m cruising down the street, squawking at the senoritas as I roll by. Minding my own damn business, enjoying the sunshine and the sweet sounds of Carlos Santana blasting at a moderate volume through my walkmang’s headphones. But uh oh. Trouble is afoot. Why don’t the cameras ever stick around when something boring is going on? Like unless you’re Michael McBride or Peter Gilmour, every XWF wrestler only shows up on screen when something entertaining or important happens. I envy those guys. But anyway, up ahead there’s a group of some tough looking hombres on bicycles and they’re all looking at me like Crimson Dong looks at the puss. They stop me right in the middle of the street and circle around me, laughing.]

El Tiburon: “Gentlemen, can I help you?”

Bicycle toughguy: “Nice costume, freak. We like your bike.”

El Tiburon: “Oh thank you, my abuela made it. And the bike is my cousin’s. You know it’s nothing too flashy but I think it’s a very practical piece of--”

Bicycle toughguy: “You shut your goddamn mouth right now. Get off that bike and take a walk or we’re going to have a problem.”

El Tiburon: “It’s, I mean it’s not really my bike. I can’t just give it up.”

[I try to be diplomatic, but I’m preparing myself for some good ol’ fashioned fisticuffs.]

Bicycle toughguy: “You’d think I’d be dissapointed by that, but truth be told I just bought a brand new ball-peen and I need to take it for a test drive.”

[Jesus he’s going straight for the hammer? These guys mean business.]

El Tiburon: “Guess I ain’t got too much of a choice mang.”

[I hop off the bike, prepared to do battle. These leather clad bicyclists all pull out hammers now. Should’ve thought this through a little better. As they inch closer my face instantly tenses up because it knows it’s about to get put through the fucking ringer. I’m half winking like a drunk old man hitting on a barstool.]

[WHACK!]

El Tiburon: “What the fuck?”

[WHACK! AGAIN!]

El Tiburon: “Is it raining rocks!? No, Jesus! Don’t do us like you did the dinosaurs!”

[Just then rocks begin flying in from what seems like every direction. The bikers all retreat on their bicycles, leaving me on the ground panting and unsure of just what the fuck was going on. And then a shadow appeared and blotted out the sun. A hand reached down. My guardian angel…


Her name was Dolores, according to her name tag, and she had blue hair, liver spots, and a Walmart frock. Behind her, her squad: Agnes, Martha, Beatrice, Ethel and Doris. These were some bad old bitches.]

El Tiburon: “Thank you, ladies. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

Agnes: “Our pleasure, dear. These punks today, they have no respect. Back in my day, when you stuck someone up you at least had the decency to not do it in the light of day.”

Dolores: “You stuck up to them kid, that took some guts. Not a whole lot of brains, but definitely some guts.”

El Tiburon: “I’m 90% heart, as my abuela used to say. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”

Dolores: “Luckily, I have just the idea. As you can see, we aren’t as young and agile as we once were. We need to bring in some fresh meat. What do you say, kid? You ready to take to the streets and put these idiots in their place?”

[Are you fucking kidding me? You’d have to carbon date the dust on their chochas to figure out how old they were, and yet these fossils want me to run around with them playing neighborhood watch? I’D. FUCKING. LOVE. TO.]

El Tiburon: “Count me in ladies.”]]> <![CDATA[Total Eclipse of the Heart]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=21021 Sat, 01 Aug 2015 16:42:56 -0700 Vincent Lane]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=21021


My mother taught me only a handful of things while I was a little girl in Canada. Sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for, is something I remember her saying from time to time, while reaching for another bottle. Sometimes, they come true, but not the way you expected them to do.

Now I know she was right. While I watch the ceiling fan over me throw shadows on the wall and listen to my fiancé catch his breath next to me in bed, her words are what my mind keeps drifting back to. Be careful what you wish for.

I spent the last month crying over the comatose, barely alive body of the love of my life, “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane… well, just Vinnie to me. I went about my days with a strong face, because that’s what I’ve always done. The one other thing my mother ever taught me in between passing out and drinking was to never let them see that they hurt you. Ever.

So the makeup stayed on. The tan stayed golden. The roots were bleached. Outside of that hospital room, I stayed impeccable. A dream for other girls to strive for. Inside, though, I was a tumultuous maelstrom of emotion and pain.

Now, though, he’s awake. Alive. He even seems better than before, physically. The doctors couldn’t find a single trace of post-concussive symptoms, nor could they find any other ailments that might prevent him from resuming the life of a main event level professional wrestler.

He simply got up out of bed and was one hundred percent… perfect.

Well, his body was.

“Babe, grab my smokes?”

He shoves his foot against my thigh, not-so-gently suggesting that I hurry up and do what he asks. Here we lie, in a tangled mass of satin sheets, just like a thousand times before. The sweat evaporating from our naked skin, the smell of our passion still lingering in the air.

But something is different.

“Sure.”

I swing my feet out of bed and onto the shag carpeting of our bedroom. As I move around the bed, Vinnie reaches his hand out and slaps my ass, hard. The sting is sudden and crisp, and it makes me yelp in both surprise and pain. Normally, this sort of playful interaction would be followed by him grabbing me in his arms and pulling me back into bed for another raucous round of lovemaking, but this time? He just laughs at the red hand print blossoming on my ass cheek like a puddle of spilled wine.

“Ha! Got you good, baby! Hey… that thing’s got a little extra jiggle in it than what I remember, dude. Have you put on a pound or two?”

Remember he rule, Roxy. Just like Momma told you.

I laugh it off and walk a little quicker out of the bedroom. I get about two steps into the bathroom and barely manage to get the door shut and locked before I collapse forward, catching myself just in time with one hand on either side of the sink, and then the tears come.

My chest and stomach heave as I sob, doing everything I can to keep the volume of my desperate crying to a minimum. Feeling my cheeks burn, I glance up into the vanity mirror and see the face of someone else. A mask of anguish covered with spider webs of melted eyeliner and eye shadow.

Who is he? Who was just inside of me? Vinnie never fucked me that way before. He always loved having me ride on top of him, looking down into his eyes while he played with my body. He loved hovering over me, my legs wrapped snug around his waist or over his shoulders while he watched my body move with his. Never before had he been so rough, so adamant that I remained turned away from him, just an ass in the air for him to fuck like some sort of machine. Never before had he kept his hand tangled in the hair on the back of my head and kept pushing my face deeper into the pillows to the point I actually thought I might suffocate.

When he emptied himself into me and slid off from my back, there was no tenderness or appreciation. He just flopped onto the mattress, breathing heavy, and watched his cock shrink back down to normal while I dried off of him. I was left there with my bare ass sticking up in the air like a piece of exercise equipment, and I saw some of my own face, the painted on self-defense mechanism, staring back at me from the pillowcase where I had apparently cried it off. No, Vinnie, those whimpers weren’t the pleasure that they usually were.

When I finally stopped waiting for a gesture from him and decided to just roll over and hug him, he shoo’d me off, claiming to be too hot in our 72 degree bedroom.

I’m not crazy. I know I was fucked by “Loverboy,” I could see him and I recognized his smell and taste… but Vinnie was nowhere to be seen.

“Babe?”

He’s shouting at me from the bedroom now, I’ve taken much too long in here. Quickly, I grab at the roll of toilet paper and wipe away tears and makeup. I look again into the mirror and remember how to smile the pain away. Then, I exit the bathroom and find the cigarette’s he’s decided he has been smoking for years.

When I get back into the bedroom, a young, surgically perfected and aesthetically impossible centerfold, naked and willing and smiling, he looks right through me. I could have left the tears and the snot and the makeup running down my face, it would have made no difference.

“I’m hungry, dude. What’ve we got to eat?”

I smile at him and tell him I’ll find out, then turn and walk out of the room even more naked than when I walked in. When my bare feet touch the cold tile of the kitchen floor, the sudden wave of actual feeling startles me. I shake it off and reach for the refrigerator door.

My mother taught me everything I ever needed to know.



[Image: V4UoHoa.gif]




“Loverboy” Vinnie Lane and Roxy Cotton sit on opposite ends of their plush sofa in Malibu. On the large, flat paneled television mounted on the wall in front of them, the first night of XWF Relentless is reaching its conclusion. The battle between Game Girl and Robbie Bourbon is reaching its denouement.

After Bourbon goes down for the final count and the show fades to black, Loverboy snorts and turns to Roxy with a snide grin on his face.

“Huh, you see that? Nobody can ever beat that pixelated freak, man. No one except me, of course. They should have just awarded me the Intercontinental Title when Game Girl won it, since it’s obvious I’m the only one that can beat a 16-bit cartoon character around here.”

“Well, you beat the boy, not the girl. And he did beat your team at War - ”

“War Games didn’t happen. War Games is the next pay per view, and I’ll lead a team of the best and coolest XWF stars over any other garbage they throw at us, trust me. It’ll also be the first pay per view I’ll get to show up to with the Universal Title, keep that in mind as well, dude.”

“You can’t just pretend it didn’t happen…”

The look that Loverboy shoots at his fiancé could melt steel. He eventually looks away, reaching his hand into the front of his heart covered boxer shorts for a comprehensive scratching, but for the time the gaze lasts there is a definite dearth of love and compassion.

Roxy stands up, straightening the hem of her short camisole, and leans over the couch to grab the empty glass tumbler on the table next to Loverboy. As she retrieves the glass and stands back up, he grabs her by the wrist and looks her over, essentially staring straight down the deep neckline of her top.

“I don’t like the bra you’re wearing. It makes your tits look weird.”

“I’m not wearing a bra, Vinnie. You know I almost never do.”

“Yeah, well, I guess maybe your tits just look weird then. Can you get them fixed? How am I supposed to cum on weird looking titties?”

Roxy blinks and pulls away, managing to keep her composure by sheer force of will alone. She tugs the top of her camisole up, sheepishly hiding her cleavage from view as she backs away with the tumbler in hand.

“I think maybe you’ve had enough to drink for the night.”

“What? Don’t be dumb. This is my last night home before flying out to New York City tomorrow. I’m done drinking when I say I’m done drinking, dude. Make it stronger this time, though. Your Long Islands taste like old dishwater.”

“Right. I’ll get you another, then. Anything else?”

“Yeah, I think I’m gonna go take a shit. When I come out of there I want to do a few lines with you, cool?”

“Actually… yeah, that would be a great idea, Vinnie. I got an eight ball yesterday while I was out, I can cut them while you… freshen up.”

“Yeah, but don’t put them on that stupid little mirror. You ever see Wolf of Wall Street? I wanna snort the coke right off of your ass.”

“You… do? That’s crazy, Vinnie.”

“Just get the drink, get the blow, and put it on your ass crack. I’ll only be, like, fifteen minutes tops. Just wait here with your ass up and let me get high, alright? Jesus, stop making everything so complicated. I’ll put a line on my cock and you can get some that way, or I can just fuck it into you.”

“That could kill me.”

“Well, whatever, you can do whatever you want, but I’m getting it my way. So, let’s recap. You. Drink. Coke. Ass. Got it?”

“Yeah. I got it. I got it alright.”

“Cool.”

Loverboy hops off of the couch and struts past Roxy, whose face falls into a scowl as soon as he’s out of eyesight. She walks slowly, like a POW in a death camp, towards the kitchen area as Loverboy bobs and weaves into the bathroom.

Once inside, Loverboy closes the door and lets out a deflating sigh, his lips vibrating like a shrinking balloon. He turns on the tap and splashes water onto his face, bracing himself over the basin and breathing deep.

“I can’t keep this shit up, dude. It’s killing her.”

As the water drips off of his visage, swirling in a tiny eddy down the golden-rimmed drain, Loverboy hangs his head and squeezes his eyes shut, steeling himself against some unseen force of oppression. Then, suddenly, he stands upright and stares into the mirror.

“You hear me, dude? This isn’t fair. I gave you what you wanted but this shouldn’t be a part of it, man. This wasn’t part of the deal.”

In the mirror, Loverboy sees his eyes as they redden, the stress of his situation growing almost too heavy for him to bear. As he stares at himself, the mirror begins to cloud over, then the glass itself seems to grow luminescent and transparent. After a moment of the light from the mirror glass intensifying, Loverboy’s reflection shifts and transforms into someone else.

Someone who led Loverboy through the dreamscape of his coma.

“Hello again, Mister Loverboy. Are you thinking of ways to take back our arrangement? I’m terribly afraid we can’t allow you to do that, I’m afraid.”

“No… dude, I gave you what I had to give. I’m empty. I’m your trophy to put on the center of your mantel. But there’s no reason to hurt Roxy this way. The whole reason I succumbed to what you wanted from me was to protect her, and now you’re making me abuse her every minute of her life. Why?”

The apparition laughs and backs away, revealing a serene landscape of a city park behind him. The vision turns and walks toward a park bench, sitting and crossing his legs, then producing a small brown paper bag to feed pigeons with.

“Oh, my friend, how tiny your mind is sometimes. You think you are the big game of our endless hunt? What makes you believe you deserve to be ‘on the center’ of any mantel? We have held the essence of emperors, kings, saints, popes, madmen, and messiahs. You are merely a piece of a puzzle, nothing more.”

“You seem pretty focused on me for someone who doesn’t matter that much, dude.”

“If you knew the scope of our work, Mister Loverboy, you’d see that the time and attention I give to you is as a drop of water in an ocean. You are but a mote of dust on a breeze to us, my friend. A tool to build greater things. If you fulfill your role and acquire the acclaim and widespread recognition that comes along with a Universal Championship… you will open doors to others for us to acquire. That is your sole purpose. Do you understand?”

The specter resumes feeding pigeons, his bag of seed seemingly bottomless. As the flock of birds increases around his ankles, he begins to stomp them, one by one, into bloody puddles of feathered gore.

“Now, you may be asking yourself, why do we care what becomes of your pretty little plaything, Miss Cotton? Well, Mister Loverboy, I must admit that one is a bit of my own inclination for… pleasures of your flesh. You see, although you are something as insignificant as a fly on a rotting carcass to us, even we at times have moments of weakness. Lapses in judgment, perhaps. Your little angel, Roxy, pleased me when I visited her, and I simply have not been able to let the taste of her leave my mouth, so to speak. And so, I decided to take her from you.”

“That wasn’t the deal!”

Loverboy shouts at the glass, pounding his fist against the porcelain of the sink and glaring with the intensity of supernova. The mirror shakes in its frame, but the man on the bench merely smiles again and continues to feed, then murder, the pigeons at his feet.

The madman’s laughter grows in intensity, echoing through the Malibu bathroom. Then, from outside the view of the mirror glass, Roxy herself walks to the bench in her customary attire – tight fitting purple mini dress, six inch spike stiletto heels, face and hair impeccably made up. She walks over to the bench and seductively slithers onto the man’s lap, smiling broadly as she settles her bottom onto him.

“What the fuck? No! Roxy, stop it! What are you doing?”

“Oh, Mister Loverboy… please do get used the sight of your lovely plaything and I together as one. This is the inevitable future, and the end result of your lifelong need to put yourself and your desires at the forefront of your actions. You reap precisely what you sow, my friend. You should have seen this coming.”

Loverboy rears his hand back and shatters the glass of the mirror, cutting his palm deeply and sending spatters of blood and slivers of reflective, broken glass throughout the bathroom.

The sound of the mad spirit’s laughter echoes and fades away as the broken mirror ceases to glow, leaving only the harried, frenzied “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane as he stares into the remnants of mirror still within the frame.

Looking down at his hand, Loverboy grabs a towel from the nearby rack and wraps it around, which quickly soaks through with his crimson blood. Anxious and panicked, Loverboy flings open the bathroom door and steps back into the living area of the apartment.

“Roxy! Roxy, we need to talk, baby… I need you.”

But Roxy Cotton is not on the couch with an ass covered with cocaine, as he had told her to be. Instead, she stands at the door of the apartment fully dressed, just as he had seen her in the bathroom vision – and she has two medium-sized overnight bags with her.

“Roxy, wait… what are you doing? Where are you going? It’s late…”

“I don’t know, Vinnie. I don’t. But I can’t stay here. Not right now. Something’s wrong.”

“Baby, wait… I can explain. Please, just talk to me. I mean it, I didn’t mean the things I said…”

“I… I don’t know if I believe you, Vinnie. I’m sorry. I need some time. Please. We’ll talk again soon, after the show.”

“But baby, please… I need you! I’m nothing without you! Please!”

“Vinnie… I’m sorry. This can’t about what you need anymore. Not now, anyway. I’m sorry. Good luck on Sunday night. I’ll be watching, and I’ll always be cheering for you, you know that.”

“But Roxy… I love you…”

“I love you too. But that doesn’t matter now.”

“Baby…”

“Goodbye, Vinnie.”

And as quickly as the mirror shattered, Roxy is out the door and gone.



[Image: V4UoHoa.gif]



“This is it.

Relentless, 2015. Of course it comes back to this.

Last August, I was just getting my feet wet in the XWF. I only had a couple of thrown together tag team matches, and each of them had low level talent across the ring from me. Guys like a halfway out the door Bobby Zi and an ever-absent Shelby Cobra and Fandango. When the booking for Relentless was announced, I was presented with a nearly insurmountable task.

Three of the greatest champions in the history of the XWF against myself and two partners I’d never even met. Two partners I had no idea if I could trust, or would even be there at the time the bell rang. I did the only thing I knew how to do, and I took the weight of the challenge head-on, right on my shoulders. I carried Zoey Ryback and Clean Lucena and I shocked the wrestling world by taking down Theo Pryce, Azrael Erebus, and even the great Sebastian Duke, who lie on the canvas while I pinned him, one, two, three.

The first championship of my XWF career. The now mostly defunct Trios Title. No one knew then who I was, what I was capable of. Not a single member of the XWF roster or administration gave me a shot in hell of overcoming the odds given to me that night, but overcome them I did, and continued to do for the next year. I overcame the odds at Relentless. I overcame them again when I formed the Underground and sent Miranda Tigris out of the company for good. And again at Turning Point, when I defeated Justin Sane, the new golden boy in the XWF, along with TJ Wallace and Iris Oppenheimer to earn my spot as a number one contender to the Universal Championship. I overcame the odds to win the Madness Stampede and become a dominant Hart Champion, winning a series of grueling matches that would cripple most men.

The thing is, that same night that started my rise to the top, Relentless in August of 2014, also introduced the XWF to a new menace. A man who rolled in like fog beneath the door, soon to usurp the focus of the entire company. Doctor Louis D’Ville, the one man I have not been able to overcome. He showed up to Relentless and stole the spotlight immediately. He built his Asylum, using my own friends as well as enemies against me the entire time. He was unstoppable. He IS unstoppable. His meteoric climb to the Universal Title was unfettered by any setbacks. He simply never stopped moving up and forward. And now, here we are again. XWF Relentless. Doctor D’Ville and his untarnished Universal Championship legacy against the man who is destined to break the chain.

Doc, we don’t need to go over the past encounters we’ve shared. There’s nothing there for us any longer. You were stronger. You were BETTER than I was. On Madness last year. At Bad Medicine just a few weeks back. You have proven time and time again that you can defeat “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane, and I have never proven that I can do the same to you.

The odds are, of course, in your favor.

You’ve beaten two men at once before. You’ve beaten former champions before. You’ve won everything there is to win. By god, you’re the fucking KING of the XWF, and no one has even attempted to take that away from you. You very well might be the king for another year if it comes up. There’s no reason to believe you won’t. But Doc… I need to make it exceptionally clear to you right now, because I believe this will be our last conversation before we see each other in the ring on Sunday night. You need to understand, that you will walk out of Relentless as the king, but you will not leave as the champion.

The thing, I think, that stopped me before was exactly what I just described to you all in my little bio there. I thrive when the chips are down and the odds are against me, dude. When we met on the last full throttle edition of Madness, we were on even footing. Some might have even said I had the upper hand, since I was already a multiple champion by that point. I had help from my second, Diesel, at ringside. I had the home field advantage on Madness and a hot crowd that was pulling for me every second of the way. But I lost. Then at Bad Medicine… well, come on. That pay per view may as well have been named the Loverboy Show. The entire main event was geared towards me. My match type. My specialty inside a cell, where I’d never been defeated before. The story was written JUST for me, man… the rise to the top, the scrappy underdog against the unbeatable god-champion. All it needed was the heroic ending where the good guy rides off into the sunset leaving the bad guy face down in the dust. But again, I lost, didn’t I?

I’m going to shock you right now, Doc, because I am going to say something that you would never expect in a thousand years. I’m going to thank you. Thank you, Doctor D’Ville, for setting my feet back on the ground and reminding me where my strength is. Thank you for setting me straight and pointing me back in the direction I needed to be in. Thank you for changing the odds back into your favor.

So here we are. Here I am. A two time loser to the most dominant champion this company has ever seen. The most unstoppable juggernaut of evil. The king, the god of the asylum, the champion of the universe.

You.

Only this time, no one thinks I have a chance. Just like Relentless last year. Just like Turning Point. Just like the Stampede. The odds are against me. I have no chance.

But I am going to win.

That’s all I wanted to say to you, Doc. There’s nothing more that needs to be told, honestly. No insults, no empty words to try and get into your head and under your skin. It wouldn’t work anyway, after all. There’s only one simple fact that needs to be repeated, because it is the one truth, the one narrative of Relentless 2015.

“Loverboy” Vinnie Lane is going to win. “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane is going to beat Doctor Louis D’Ville.

“Loverboy” Vinnie Lane is going to be the champion of the XWF.

That’ the end of the story. I’ll see you Sunday night, on the last page of our book together, Louis. I hope you are ready and I hope that you are, as always, looking as forward to our encounter as I am.

I can’t wait.
]]>


My mother taught me only a handful of things while I was a little girl in Canada. Sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for, is something I remember her saying from time to time, while reaching for another bottle. Sometimes, they come true, but not the way you expected them to do.

Now I know she was right. While I watch the ceiling fan over me throw shadows on the wall and listen to my fiancé catch his breath next to me in bed, her words are what my mind keeps drifting back to. Be careful what you wish for.

I spent the last month crying over the comatose, barely alive body of the love of my life, “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane… well, just Vinnie to me. I went about my days with a strong face, because that’s what I’ve always done. The one other thing my mother ever taught me in between passing out and drinking was to never let them see that they hurt you. Ever.

So the makeup stayed on. The tan stayed golden. The roots were bleached. Outside of that hospital room, I stayed impeccable. A dream for other girls to strive for. Inside, though, I was a tumultuous maelstrom of emotion and pain.

Now, though, he’s awake. Alive. He even seems better than before, physically. The doctors couldn’t find a single trace of post-concussive symptoms, nor could they find any other ailments that might prevent him from resuming the life of a main event level professional wrestler.

He simply got up out of bed and was one hundred percent… perfect.

Well, his body was.

“Babe, grab my smokes?”

He shoves his foot against my thigh, not-so-gently suggesting that I hurry up and do what he asks. Here we lie, in a tangled mass of satin sheets, just like a thousand times before. The sweat evaporating from our naked skin, the smell of our passion still lingering in the air.

But something is different.

“Sure.”

I swing my feet out of bed and onto the shag carpeting of our bedroom. As I move around the bed, Vinnie reaches his hand out and slaps my ass, hard. The sting is sudden and crisp, and it makes me yelp in both surprise and pain. Normally, this sort of playful interaction would be followed by him grabbing me in his arms and pulling me back into bed for another raucous round of lovemaking, but this time? He just laughs at the red hand print blossoming on my ass cheek like a puddle of spilled wine.

“Ha! Got you good, baby! Hey… that thing’s got a little extra jiggle in it than what I remember, dude. Have you put on a pound or two?”

Remember he rule, Roxy. Just like Momma told you.

I laugh it off and walk a little quicker out of the bedroom. I get about two steps into the bathroom and barely manage to get the door shut and locked before I collapse forward, catching myself just in time with one hand on either side of the sink, and then the tears come.

My chest and stomach heave as I sob, doing everything I can to keep the volume of my desperate crying to a minimum. Feeling my cheeks burn, I glance up into the vanity mirror and see the face of someone else. A mask of anguish covered with spider webs of melted eyeliner and eye shadow.

Who is he? Who was just inside of me? Vinnie never fucked me that way before. He always loved having me ride on top of him, looking down into his eyes while he played with my body. He loved hovering over me, my legs wrapped snug around his waist or over his shoulders while he watched my body move with his. Never before had he been so rough, so adamant that I remained turned away from him, just an ass in the air for him to fuck like some sort of machine. Never before had he kept his hand tangled in the hair on the back of my head and kept pushing my face deeper into the pillows to the point I actually thought I might suffocate.

When he emptied himself into me and slid off from my back, there was no tenderness or appreciation. He just flopped onto the mattress, breathing heavy, and watched his cock shrink back down to normal while I dried off of him. I was left there with my bare ass sticking up in the air like a piece of exercise equipment, and I saw some of my own face, the painted on self-defense mechanism, staring back at me from the pillowcase where I had apparently cried it off. No, Vinnie, those whimpers weren’t the pleasure that they usually were.

When I finally stopped waiting for a gesture from him and decided to just roll over and hug him, he shoo’d me off, claiming to be too hot in our 72 degree bedroom.

I’m not crazy. I know I was fucked by “Loverboy,” I could see him and I recognized his smell and taste… but Vinnie was nowhere to be seen.

“Babe?”

He’s shouting at me from the bedroom now, I’ve taken much too long in here. Quickly, I grab at the roll of toilet paper and wipe away tears and makeup. I look again into the mirror and remember how to smile the pain away. Then, I exit the bathroom and find the cigarette’s he’s decided he has been smoking for years.

When I get back into the bedroom, a young, surgically perfected and aesthetically impossible centerfold, naked and willing and smiling, he looks right through me. I could have left the tears and the snot and the makeup running down my face, it would have made no difference.

“I’m hungry, dude. What’ve we got to eat?”

I smile at him and tell him I’ll find out, then turn and walk out of the room even more naked than when I walked in. When my bare feet touch the cold tile of the kitchen floor, the sudden wave of actual feeling startles me. I shake it off and reach for the refrigerator door.

My mother taught me everything I ever needed to know.



[Image: V4UoHoa.gif]




“Loverboy” Vinnie Lane and Roxy Cotton sit on opposite ends of their plush sofa in Malibu. On the large, flat paneled television mounted on the wall in front of them, the first night of XWF Relentless is reaching its conclusion. The battle between Game Girl and Robbie Bourbon is reaching its denouement.

After Bourbon goes down for the final count and the show fades to black, Loverboy snorts and turns to Roxy with a snide grin on his face.

“Huh, you see that? Nobody can ever beat that pixelated freak, man. No one except me, of course. They should have just awarded me the Intercontinental Title when Game Girl won it, since it’s obvious I’m the only one that can beat a 16-bit cartoon character around here.”

“Well, you beat the boy, not the girl. And he did beat your team at War - ”

“War Games didn’t happen. War Games is the next pay per view, and I’ll lead a team of the best and coolest XWF stars over any other garbage they throw at us, trust me. It’ll also be the first pay per view I’ll get to show up to with the Universal Title, keep that in mind as well, dude.”

“You can’t just pretend it didn’t happen…”

The look that Loverboy shoots at his fiancé could melt steel. He eventually looks away, reaching his hand into the front of his heart covered boxer shorts for a comprehensive scratching, but for the time the gaze lasts there is a definite dearth of love and compassion.

Roxy stands up, straightening the hem of her short camisole, and leans over the couch to grab the empty glass tumbler on the table next to Loverboy. As she retrieves the glass and stands back up, he grabs her by the wrist and looks her over, essentially staring straight down the deep neckline of her top.

“I don’t like the bra you’re wearing. It makes your tits look weird.”

“I’m not wearing a bra, Vinnie. You know I almost never do.”

“Yeah, well, I guess maybe your tits just look weird then. Can you get them fixed? How am I supposed to cum on weird looking titties?”

Roxy blinks and pulls away, managing to keep her composure by sheer force of will alone. She tugs the top of her camisole up, sheepishly hiding her cleavage from view as she backs away with the tumbler in hand.

“I think maybe you’ve had enough to drink for the night.”

“What? Don’t be dumb. This is my last night home before flying out to New York City tomorrow. I’m done drinking when I say I’m done drinking, dude. Make it stronger this time, though. Your Long Islands taste like old dishwater.”

“Right. I’ll get you another, then. Anything else?”

“Yeah, I think I’m gonna go take a shit. When I come out of there I want to do a few lines with you, cool?”

“Actually… yeah, that would be a great idea, Vinnie. I got an eight ball yesterday while I was out, I can cut them while you… freshen up.”

“Yeah, but don’t put them on that stupid little mirror. You ever see Wolf of Wall Street? I wanna snort the coke right off of your ass.”

“You… do? That’s crazy, Vinnie.”

“Just get the drink, get the blow, and put it on your ass crack. I’ll only be, like, fifteen minutes tops. Just wait here with your ass up and let me get high, alright? Jesus, stop making everything so complicated. I’ll put a line on my cock and you can get some that way, or I can just fuck it into you.”

“That could kill me.”

“Well, whatever, you can do whatever you want, but I’m getting it my way. So, let’s recap. You. Drink. Coke. Ass. Got it?”

“Yeah. I got it. I got it alright.”

“Cool.”

Loverboy hops off of the couch and struts past Roxy, whose face falls into a scowl as soon as he’s out of eyesight. She walks slowly, like a POW in a death camp, towards the kitchen area as Loverboy bobs and weaves into the bathroom.

Once inside, Loverboy closes the door and lets out a deflating sigh, his lips vibrating like a shrinking balloon. He turns on the tap and splashes water onto his face, bracing himself over the basin and breathing deep.

“I can’t keep this shit up, dude. It’s killing her.”

As the water drips off of his visage, swirling in a tiny eddy down the golden-rimmed drain, Loverboy hangs his head and squeezes his eyes shut, steeling himself against some unseen force of oppression. Then, suddenly, he stands upright and stares into the mirror.

“You hear me, dude? This isn’t fair. I gave you what you wanted but this shouldn’t be a part of it, man. This wasn’t part of the deal.”

In the mirror, Loverboy sees his eyes as they redden, the stress of his situation growing almost too heavy for him to bear. As he stares at himself, the mirror begins to cloud over, then the glass itself seems to grow luminescent and transparent. After a moment of the light from the mirror glass intensifying, Loverboy’s reflection shifts and transforms into someone else.

Someone who led Loverboy through the dreamscape of his coma.

“Hello again, Mister Loverboy. Are you thinking of ways to take back our arrangement? I’m terribly afraid we can’t allow you to do that, I’m afraid.”

“No… dude, I gave you what I had to give. I’m empty. I’m your trophy to put on the center of your mantel. But there’s no reason to hurt Roxy this way. The whole reason I succumbed to what you wanted from me was to protect her, and now you’re making me abuse her every minute of her life. Why?”

The apparition laughs and backs away, revealing a serene landscape of a city park behind him. The vision turns and walks toward a park bench, sitting and crossing his legs, then producing a small brown paper bag to feed pigeons with.

“Oh, my friend, how tiny your mind is sometimes. You think you are the big game of our endless hunt? What makes you believe you deserve to be ‘on the center’ of any mantel? We have held the essence of emperors, kings, saints, popes, madmen, and messiahs. You are merely a piece of a puzzle, nothing more.”

“You seem pretty focused on me for someone who doesn’t matter that much, dude.”

“If you knew the scope of our work, Mister Loverboy, you’d see that the time and attention I give to you is as a drop of water in an ocean. You are but a mote of dust on a breeze to us, my friend. A tool to build greater things. If you fulfill your role and acquire the acclaim and widespread recognition that comes along with a Universal Championship… you will open doors to others for us to acquire. That is your sole purpose. Do you understand?”

The specter resumes feeding pigeons, his bag of seed seemingly bottomless. As the flock of birds increases around his ankles, he begins to stomp them, one by one, into bloody puddles of feathered gore.

“Now, you may be asking yourself, why do we care what becomes of your pretty little plaything, Miss Cotton? Well, Mister Loverboy, I must admit that one is a bit of my own inclination for… pleasures of your flesh. You see, although you are something as insignificant as a fly on a rotting carcass to us, even we at times have moments of weakness. Lapses in judgment, perhaps. Your little angel, Roxy, pleased me when I visited her, and I simply have not been able to let the taste of her leave my mouth, so to speak. And so, I decided to take her from you.”

“That wasn’t the deal!”

Loverboy shouts at the glass, pounding his fist against the porcelain of the sink and glaring with the intensity of supernova. The mirror shakes in its frame, but the man on the bench merely smiles again and continues to feed, then murder, the pigeons at his feet.

The madman’s laughter grows in intensity, echoing through the Malibu bathroom. Then, from outside the view of the mirror glass, Roxy herself walks to the bench in her customary attire – tight fitting purple mini dress, six inch spike stiletto heels, face and hair impeccably made up. She walks over to the bench and seductively slithers onto the man’s lap, smiling broadly as she settles her bottom onto him.

“What the fuck? No! Roxy, stop it! What are you doing?”

“Oh, Mister Loverboy… please do get used the sight of your lovely plaything and I together as one. This is the inevitable future, and the end result of your lifelong need to put yourself and your desires at the forefront of your actions. You reap precisely what you sow, my friend. You should have seen this coming.”

Loverboy rears his hand back and shatters the glass of the mirror, cutting his palm deeply and sending spatters of blood and slivers of reflective, broken glass throughout the bathroom.

The sound of the mad spirit’s laughter echoes and fades away as the broken mirror ceases to glow, leaving only the harried, frenzied “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane as he stares into the remnants of mirror still within the frame.

Looking down at his hand, Loverboy grabs a towel from the nearby rack and wraps it around, which quickly soaks through with his crimson blood. Anxious and panicked, Loverboy flings open the bathroom door and steps back into the living area of the apartment.

“Roxy! Roxy, we need to talk, baby… I need you.”

But Roxy Cotton is not on the couch with an ass covered with cocaine, as he had told her to be. Instead, she stands at the door of the apartment fully dressed, just as he had seen her in the bathroom vision – and she has two medium-sized overnight bags with her.

“Roxy, wait… what are you doing? Where are you going? It’s late…”

“I don’t know, Vinnie. I don’t. But I can’t stay here. Not right now. Something’s wrong.”

“Baby, wait… I can explain. Please, just talk to me. I mean it, I didn’t mean the things I said…”

“I… I don’t know if I believe you, Vinnie. I’m sorry. I need some time. Please. We’ll talk again soon, after the show.”

“But baby, please… I need you! I’m nothing without you! Please!”

“Vinnie… I’m sorry. This can’t about what you need anymore. Not now, anyway. I’m sorry. Good luck on Sunday night. I’ll be watching, and I’ll always be cheering for you, you know that.”

“But Roxy… I love you…”

“I love you too. But that doesn’t matter now.”

“Baby…”

“Goodbye, Vinnie.”

And as quickly as the mirror shattered, Roxy is out the door and gone.



[Image: V4UoHoa.gif]



“This is it.

Relentless, 2015. Of course it comes back to this.

Last August, I was just getting my feet wet in the XWF. I only had a couple of thrown together tag team matches, and each of them had low level talent across the ring from me. Guys like a halfway out the door Bobby Zi and an ever-absent Shelby Cobra and Fandango. When the booking for Relentless was announced, I was presented with a nearly insurmountable task.

Three of the greatest champions in the history of the XWF against myself and two partners I’d never even met. Two partners I had no idea if I could trust, or would even be there at the time the bell rang. I did the only thing I knew how to do, and I took the weight of the challenge head-on, right on my shoulders. I carried Zoey Ryback and Clean Lucena and I shocked the wrestling world by taking down Theo Pryce, Azrael Erebus, and even the great Sebastian Duke, who lie on the canvas while I pinned him, one, two, three.

The first championship of my XWF career. The now mostly defunct Trios Title. No one knew then who I was, what I was capable of. Not a single member of the XWF roster or administration gave me a shot in hell of overcoming the odds given to me that night, but overcome them I did, and continued to do for the next year. I overcame the odds at Relentless. I overcame them again when I formed the Underground and sent Miranda Tigris out of the company for good. And again at Turning Point, when I defeated Justin Sane, the new golden boy in the XWF, along with TJ Wallace and Iris Oppenheimer to earn my spot as a number one contender to the Universal Championship. I overcame the odds to win the Madness Stampede and become a dominant Hart Champion, winning a series of grueling matches that would cripple most men.

The thing is, that same night that started my rise to the top, Relentless in August of 2014, also introduced the XWF to a new menace. A man who rolled in like fog beneath the door, soon to usurp the focus of the entire company. Doctor Louis D’Ville, the one man I have not been able to overcome. He showed up to Relentless and stole the spotlight immediately. He built his Asylum, using my own friends as well as enemies against me the entire time. He was unstoppable. He IS unstoppable. His meteoric climb to the Universal Title was unfettered by any setbacks. He simply never stopped moving up and forward. And now, here we are again. XWF Relentless. Doctor D’Ville and his untarnished Universal Championship legacy against the man who is destined to break the chain.

Doc, we don’t need to go over the past encounters we’ve shared. There’s nothing there for us any longer. You were stronger. You were BETTER than I was. On Madness last year. At Bad Medicine just a few weeks back. You have proven time and time again that you can defeat “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane, and I have never proven that I can do the same to you.

The odds are, of course, in your favor.

You’ve beaten two men at once before. You’ve beaten former champions before. You’ve won everything there is to win. By god, you’re the fucking KING of the XWF, and no one has even attempted to take that away from you. You very well might be the king for another year if it comes up. There’s no reason to believe you won’t. But Doc… I need to make it exceptionally clear to you right now, because I believe this will be our last conversation before we see each other in the ring on Sunday night. You need to understand, that you will walk out of Relentless as the king, but you will not leave as the champion.

The thing, I think, that stopped me before was exactly what I just described to you all in my little bio there. I thrive when the chips are down and the odds are against me, dude. When we met on the last full throttle edition of Madness, we were on even footing. Some might have even said I had the upper hand, since I was already a multiple champion by that point. I had help from my second, Diesel, at ringside. I had the home field advantage on Madness and a hot crowd that was pulling for me every second of the way. But I lost. Then at Bad Medicine… well, come on. That pay per view may as well have been named the Loverboy Show. The entire main event was geared towards me. My match type. My specialty inside a cell, where I’d never been defeated before. The story was written JUST for me, man… the rise to the top, the scrappy underdog against the unbeatable god-champion. All it needed was the heroic ending where the good guy rides off into the sunset leaving the bad guy face down in the dust. But again, I lost, didn’t I?

I’m going to shock you right now, Doc, because I am going to say something that you would never expect in a thousand years. I’m going to thank you. Thank you, Doctor D’Ville, for setting my feet back on the ground and reminding me where my strength is. Thank you for setting me straight and pointing me back in the direction I needed to be in. Thank you for changing the odds back into your favor.

So here we are. Here I am. A two time loser to the most dominant champion this company has ever seen. The most unstoppable juggernaut of evil. The king, the god of the asylum, the champion of the universe.

You.

Only this time, no one thinks I have a chance. Just like Relentless last year. Just like Turning Point. Just like the Stampede. The odds are against me. I have no chance.

But I am going to win.

That’s all I wanted to say to you, Doc. There’s nothing more that needs to be told, honestly. No insults, no empty words to try and get into your head and under your skin. It wouldn’t work anyway, after all. There’s only one simple fact that needs to be repeated, because it is the one truth, the one narrative of Relentless 2015.

“Loverboy” Vinnie Lane is going to win. “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane is going to beat Doctor Louis D’Ville.

“Loverboy” Vinnie Lane is going to be the champion of the XWF.

That’ the end of the story. I’ll see you Sunday night, on the last page of our book together, Louis. I hope you are ready and I hope that you are, as always, looking as forward to our encounter as I am.

I can’t wait.
]]> <![CDATA[Next verse, same as the first.]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=21003 Fri, 31 Jul 2015 21:44:04 -0700 Vincent Lane]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=21003

“Dude, you mean to tell me that YOU were the Federweight Champion?”

The incredulity is palpable in “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane’s voice as he looks at Roxy with a shocked expression. The hot pink convertible whips around a PCH mountainside corner at reckless speed, creating flames of peroxide-blond hair to billow out behind the pair as they cruise the LA landscape.

“Yep! Just for a few days though, then John Samuels decided he wanted to be the only female champion in the XWF and he took it from me.”

“Fuckin’ Samuels. For a guy who’s retired he sure pops up a lot, man. Place needs a vaccination against that kind of guy.”

“Vinnie! You know how I feel about vaccines!”

“Right, right… heavy metals causing autism, I forgot. Probably because it’s fucking .”

“Vinnie!”

“Shit, my bad baby. I didn’t mean to say that out loud… it’s just the coma talking, you know how much I respect you and all your kooky causes.”

“Kooky?”

“Whatever. What else did I miss? Gimme the scoop, dude!”

Roxy maintains a serious level of side-eye on Loverboy, completely nonplussed with his opinions. Quickly, though, another twisting mountain turn snaps her attention back to the road and seemingly reboots her mindset.

“Oh! I had a for real match, too!”

“Like… a wrestling match?”

“Yeah! Against Nico Lavey!”

“Who?”

“It doesn’t matter, he’s probably already quit.”

“But baby… you can’t fight! You’re a girl!”

“Vinnie, don’t be stupid. Girls can fight. You lost the Hart Title to a girl. Ronda Rousey is a girl.”

“I’m not so sure about either one of them, man. I felt a little something extra when I picked that ginger up for a body slam, you know what I’m saying?”

“I’ve seen her naked, Vinnie, we were in the locker room showers at the same time. She doesn’t have a dick.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it, I guess.”

“Uh huh…”

The road straightens out as the pair of newly reunited lovers descend back near sea level. The Pacific Ocean laps at the crags of the California shoreline as the car’s powerful engine growls to the tune of 500 horsepower.

Loverboy begins patting down the side of his American flag patterned Zubaz pants and digging through the glove box of the car. Seeming flustered, he then turns his attention to Roxy’s tiny purse.

“Hey! Vinnie what are you doing?”

“Dude how do you fit so much shit in here? Is this a fucking secret entrance into Narnia?”

“Get out of my purse!”

“I just want a fuckin’ cigarette, god damn. I haven’t had a puff in a month, dude!”

Roxy’s face turns quizzical, looking more confused than Gator when he’s trying to find the piss hole on his pajamas. She turns to Loverboy and stares silently at him as the car rolls to a stop at a red light.

Feeling the weight of his fiancee’s gaze, Loverboy stops scrounging through her purse and tossing crumpled tissues and Kotex singles all over the floorboards.

“What, man? You’re giving me some serious stink-eye right now, dude.”

“Vinnie… you have never smoked a cigarette in your life. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“What? Come on Roxy, don’t be dumb. Did you inhale while you were getting spray tanned again?”

“Why are you being such a dickhead right now, Vinnie? I’ve been barely holding myself together the entire time you’ve been in this fucking coma, and you’re gonna wake up and just start spewing macho bullshit at me like you’re some sort of walking, breathing Ed Hardy shirt? You don’t smoke, asshole, but there are a couple of cloves in the side pocket of the purse. Keep digging, you’ll find them.”

Loverboy goes back to the purse like a pig rutting for truffles, eventually finding a mostly crumpled pack of Djarum Blacks.

“Sorry baby. You’re right. It’s just the coma, man. I’m still feeling a little weird is all.”

Loverboy pops one of the two remaining cloves into his mouth, dangling it from his lip while he continues to rummage. Finally, he throws his hands up in the air and shouts loudly, surprising pedestrians on the street.

“FUCK man! Can a god damn megastar get a light or what?”

Quickly, a hot little number jogs over from the corner and sticks a Bic out to Loverboy, flicking the flame on expertly with a black polished thumb. As the light finally switches to green, Loverboy hands the lighter back to the young strumpet and manages a quick slap to her ass as Roxy leans on the gas, clearly displeased.

“Damn dude, you trying to put me back in the hospital? You almost gave me whiplash the way you shot off from that intersection!”

“Yeah, I’ll put you back in the hospital for sure if you keep eye-fucking every piece of ass you see. Probably gave yourself whiplash trying to memorize that slut’s tits.”

“Baby come on. She’s AT BEST a single D. A solid eight out of ten, but I’m sitting next to a solid eleven. Why would I stare at another chick, even if she does have a really cut freckle right on the inside of her left boob?”

“Yeah, you totally weren’t looking.”

“Exactly! See? I’m glad we worked that out, man.”

Loverboy puffs on his smoke, then pulls out his cell phone and starts swiping across the screen with his free hand. After a few moments, wherein he casually ashes the cherry of the clove off into Roxy’s purse while she’s looking away, Loverboy sits upright in his seat and sticks the phone right in Roxy’s face, nearly causing an accident as she stomps her stiletto heel down onto the brake and the tires squeal to a stop just centimeters from the back bumper of a plumbing van.

“Roxy! Holy shit! Did you see this?”

“What? Jesus fucking CHRIST Vinnie are you trying to kill us?”

“Who cares? Look at the god damn screen!”

Loverboy shoves the phone closer, practically pressing the glass against her large sunglasses. He points excitedly at the image on the phone’s screen, giggling like a toddler after a fart joke.

There, on the main page of the XWF mobile website, is a familiar bald-headed face gleaming with a sadistic smile from behind a crimson mask of blood. Loverboy continues to look happier than an old man with a full bottle of Viagra.

“Who is that ugly son of a bitch?”

Roxy, clearly disgusted, shoves the phone away brusquely with the back of her hand as the traffic begins to creep forward.

“Who is this? Who is THIS? Roxy, dude, come on… that is none other than the man, the myth, the legend… Darren motherfucking Dangerous. He’s only one of the most talked about XWF wrestlers of all time, man, how can you not know who he is?”

“He looks like a lunch lady.”

“You’re such a bitch sometimes. I’m calling Gator, he’s got to hear about this.”

“Uh… I don’t think you can call Gator.”

“What? Why not, dude? Did he run out of minutes or some shit?”

“No… Vinnie, I told you. You have a match against him and Doc D’Ville! You can’t just call him up and be all buddy-buddy with him right now. You have to stay focused!”

“What are you talking about, dude? Gator’s my bro! It doesn’t matter if we have a match, man, we’ll always be tight. You sound so jealous and petty right now. Are you on your period?”

Roxy slams the car to a halt right in the middle of the street as cars behind them screech their brakes and lay on their horns.

“Okay Vinnie, you think he’s your buddy? Find his promo. Here, take my earbuds and listen to the shit he said to you while you were still lying unconscious on a hospitable bed and pissing into a plastic bag. We can sit here until you’re done and then you can call him and tell him that his fat boyfriend is back in the XWF. Deal?”

Loverboy just smirks his cocksure smirk and takes the bright purple butterfly-shaped earbuds and jams them into his ears. He finds the Gator promo and then leans back in his seat, plopping his bare feet out over the rear view mirror of the car and folding his arms behind his head.

“Sure man, whatever you say, Rox. I’ll try not to make fun of you too hard when I prove you wrong, okay babe? I know it’s tough for you when it’s that time of the month. Quick reminder though, babe, for when we get back home… you’ve got a couple other holes, you know?”

“Shut up and listen.”

Loverboy smiles and flips down the aviator shades from his forehead, then presses play on the promo, wiggling his bare toes in the afternoon air.

Slowly but surely, the smile starts to melt away from Loverboy’s face as the screen of his phone shows an excited Gator dancing around in his trademark red underoos like some sort of Teletubby cosplayer.

Finally, after listening for a few minutes, Loverboy sits straight up and pulls the earbuds from his ears, his face red with anger.

“Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be, huh? Well, I guess I know what I’m doing once we get home. Sorry baby, your perfect pink is gonna have to wait a little while longer to get the loving it deserves.”

“I’m sure I’ll live.”

The scene fades away as a CHiPs officer rolls up to Roxy at the driver’s side, gesturing at the long trail of traffic building up behind them all.



[Image: KDAWanX.gif]



“Gator are you fucking kidding me right now, dude?

This is how you treat your buddy after he comes out of a fucking coma? This is the way you come back after taking a half-ass vacation because your neck was a little sore? Dude, I’ve been trying to get your shit selling at the merch booths for you while you were at home with your two fleshlights, Todd and Better Todd, but I can’t make people buy shit they don’t want, man. So my bad if your royalties were getting a little dry, but the fans want what they want, dude. Supply and demand. That’s why there’s Loverboy posters, Loverboy wristbands, Loverboy beer cozies, Loverboy calendars, and, like, seven different Loverboy shirts at every vendor stall in every arena, man. Not my fault the official puka shell necklaces with little Gator faces painted on them were a bust, dude. Get some better branding, don’t blame the guy doing it right.

I shouldn’t be surprised that you tried to renege on the way we bonded since our days in Japan. Yeah, sure, you thought I was some scrappy little curtain jerker the whole time, right? Of course you did. Makes you look cooler to say that, doesn’t it? That’s all that ever mattered to Gator anyway. Looking cool. Man, if you could just BE cool you wouldn’t have to try and ACT cool, you know what I’m saying, man? Quit putting up a front and just be your lame-ass pouty bitch self instead of trying to act like nothing ever ruffles your feathers. Face it, you got put in a funk because you fucking lost a match. You don’t feel like you can call yourself a former Universal Champ because you barely got a minute to even hold the belt, dude, much less relish the victory. See dude, unlike you, when I walk into a match and win a title, I walk out WITH that title. Very few times has that not come to pass in XWF history dude… so congrats on tying John Samuels for being the least significant Uni Champ ever, I guess.

Now you want to roll back in here and act like you own the place. Dude. Seriously. Frodo’s had more matches than you this year, and he fucking quit. You’ve done less work than John Black. You think you have any business challenging the guy who took your title and then beat you to retain it? You think you deserve a shot against ME even? I’ve been a champion more recently than you have, man, and if I hadn’t felt sorry for the little Ginger chick for being born premature I’d still have my belt to rub in your fucking face. What’ve you got again? Five seconds as the top gun and a record-winning owner of a belt nobody remembers? Yeah, you definitely should be in there main eventing the biggest show of the year, sure.

I can’t fucking believe you’d seriously try to come after me for my promos being uninteresting. Dude, this isn’t drama class, man! Just because you watched a few YouTube vids and learned how to add a Microsoft Office wipe effect onto the end of your lazy vignettes doesn’t mean you’re gonna be winning any daytime Emmy’s, pal. Unless it’s the award for ‘guy who looks like he loves his dog a LITTLE too much.’

Hey, speaking of your pets, you never even paid me back for that couch your hair trigger cameraman ruined when he popped off in his jockey shorts while I was babysitting him. You know I don’t put my megastar ass in some cheap IKEA bullshit, either dude… that couch was Italian leather and expensive as fuck! Now it’s got a white shadow on the cushion from that ice cream sandwich loving weirdo making cum angels with his fat ass.

Sup Todd.

Anyway, dude, look, I’d love to sit here and refute every stupid thing you tried to set to your cheap laugh track, but I’ve got actual shit to do that doesn’t involve dressing up like a bum on Hollywood Boulevard and offering five dollar pictures so I can buy my pocket pussy back from the pawn shop, you know? Like training to win a match? I know this might be a foreign concept to a dude who’d rather sit in on a beginner’s yoga class and sneak pics of camel toes, but working out definitely involves more than falling asleep while lying on top of an exercise ball and calling it aerobics.

Listen up, Gator. I know you have a lot of lying to yourself to do in order to pump your anxiety levels down low enough that your shitty heart won’t just pop like the condom your father wishes he hadn’t left in the hot car for week, but if I were you I’d start listening to that little voice in the back of your head. Not the one that told you that puttering by on your little gay scooter was a good segue for cinematic experiences, no, the other one. The one that’s just you, hiding behind the mask and the bravado and the nom the plume. That little, annoyingly British, voice that’s telling you what you obviously already know, dude. You can’t do it. You’re done. Call it a career. Don’t be Muhammad Ali drooling on his opponents before getting knocked onto his overweight ass in the 1980’s. Go out with a little bit of pride. Burn out, dude, don’t fade away. I’m saying this as a friend – you suck now.

Think about it… once Scarlett gets knocked up by someone else and convinces you it’s yours, do you want that kid growing up and being able to find videos of his ‘dad’ getting embarrassed because he tried to hang on for too long? Way after his body and his brain tried to tell him he should hang up the red thermal underwear and go home to milk goats or whatever the fuck English people do once they’re done failing at their first job? No, of course not. You want that kid to be able to see you in your prime, man. So, basically that stretch of matches where you kept beating Knight. You want that kid to be able to see you on TV and say, “Wow, that’s my dad! He’s an awesome wrestler! But why is he white when I’m black?”

Take a look around here, man. Look at all the fresh talent coming into the XWF right now. Robbie Bourbon, Ginger Snaps, Trax, Darren by-fucking-christ Dangerous… you think someone like you should be leading them on to the most prolific period in their careers? You think YOU should be the one they look up to as their champion? Are you serious right now? These dudes need a champ that is going to last more than a night. They need a champ who can shoulder the weight of the entire federation on his ripped-as-fuck shoulders and carry them to new heights. They need a champ who can sell a fucking t-shirt.

In two days, I’m going to be that man. I’m going to forever be known as the valiant hero who vanquished the evil Doctor D’Ville and ushered in a new era to the XWF. And after Sunday? I’m going to lead the charge of the new XWF and wash the taste right out of everybody’s mouth from the old version. The status quo. I’ll make them forget the record-long reign of Doc’s by eclipsing it with my own, and in the process your little cup of coffee with the belt will get forgotten in a heartbeat. You know, almost as long as your championship tenure.

Face it. “Gator” is the ghost of XWF Past. I’m the present and the foreseeable future, and it’s time to ring in the new year, baby. Let the sun set on the stagnant stalwarts and let a REAL champion, a guy who the people want to see more and more of like me, and who doesn’t have a surgically repaired stack of dimes for a neck like you, have his time in the spotlight.

It’s 14:59, Gator. Your fifteen minutes are up.


]]>

“Dude, you mean to tell me that YOU were the Federweight Champion?”

The incredulity is palpable in “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane’s voice as he looks at Roxy with a shocked expression. The hot pink convertible whips around a PCH mountainside corner at reckless speed, creating flames of peroxide-blond hair to billow out behind the pair as they cruise the LA landscape.

“Yep! Just for a few days though, then John Samuels decided he wanted to be the only female champion in the XWF and he took it from me.”

“Fuckin’ Samuels. For a guy who’s retired he sure pops up a lot, man. Place needs a vaccination against that kind of guy.”

“Vinnie! You know how I feel about vaccines!”

“Right, right… heavy metals causing autism, I forgot. Probably because it’s fucking .”

“Vinnie!”

“Shit, my bad baby. I didn’t mean to say that out loud… it’s just the coma talking, you know how much I respect you and all your kooky causes.”

“Kooky?”

“Whatever. What else did I miss? Gimme the scoop, dude!”

Roxy maintains a serious level of side-eye on Loverboy, completely nonplussed with his opinions. Quickly, though, another twisting mountain turn snaps her attention back to the road and seemingly reboots her mindset.

“Oh! I had a for real match, too!”

“Like… a wrestling match?”

“Yeah! Against Nico Lavey!”

“Who?”

“It doesn’t matter, he’s probably already quit.”

“But baby… you can’t fight! You’re a girl!”

“Vinnie, don’t be stupid. Girls can fight. You lost the Hart Title to a girl. Ronda Rousey is a girl.”

“I’m not so sure about either one of them, man. I felt a little something extra when I picked that ginger up for a body slam, you know what I’m saying?”

“I’ve seen her naked, Vinnie, we were in the locker room showers at the same time. She doesn’t have a dick.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it, I guess.”

“Uh huh…”

The road straightens out as the pair of newly reunited lovers descend back near sea level. The Pacific Ocean laps at the crags of the California shoreline as the car’s powerful engine growls to the tune of 500 horsepower.

Loverboy begins patting down the side of his American flag patterned Zubaz pants and digging through the glove box of the car. Seeming flustered, he then turns his attention to Roxy’s tiny purse.

“Hey! Vinnie what are you doing?”

“Dude how do you fit so much shit in here? Is this a fucking secret entrance into Narnia?”

“Get out of my purse!”

“I just want a fuckin’ cigarette, god damn. I haven’t had a puff in a month, dude!”

Roxy’s face turns quizzical, looking more confused than Gator when he’s trying to find the piss hole on his pajamas. She turns to Loverboy and stares silently at him as the car rolls to a stop at a red light.

Feeling the weight of his fiancee’s gaze, Loverboy stops scrounging through her purse and tossing crumpled tissues and Kotex singles all over the floorboards.

“What, man? You’re giving me some serious stink-eye right now, dude.”

“Vinnie… you have never smoked a cigarette in your life. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“What? Come on Roxy, don’t be dumb. Did you inhale while you were getting spray tanned again?”

“Why are you being such a dickhead right now, Vinnie? I’ve been barely holding myself together the entire time you’ve been in this fucking coma, and you’re gonna wake up and just start spewing macho bullshit at me like you’re some sort of walking, breathing Ed Hardy shirt? You don’t smoke, asshole, but there are a couple of cloves in the side pocket of the purse. Keep digging, you’ll find them.”

Loverboy goes back to the purse like a pig rutting for truffles, eventually finding a mostly crumpled pack of Djarum Blacks.

“Sorry baby. You’re right. It’s just the coma, man. I’m still feeling a little weird is all.”

Loverboy pops one of the two remaining cloves into his mouth, dangling it from his lip while he continues to rummage. Finally, he throws his hands up in the air and shouts loudly, surprising pedestrians on the street.

“FUCK man! Can a god damn megastar get a light or what?”

Quickly, a hot little number jogs over from the corner and sticks a Bic out to Loverboy, flicking the flame on expertly with a black polished thumb. As the light finally switches to green, Loverboy hands the lighter back to the young strumpet and manages a quick slap to her ass as Roxy leans on the gas, clearly displeased.

“Damn dude, you trying to put me back in the hospital? You almost gave me whiplash the way you shot off from that intersection!”

“Yeah, I’ll put you back in the hospital for sure if you keep eye-fucking every piece of ass you see. Probably gave yourself whiplash trying to memorize that slut’s tits.”

“Baby come on. She’s AT BEST a single D. A solid eight out of ten, but I’m sitting next to a solid eleven. Why would I stare at another chick, even if she does have a really cut freckle right on the inside of her left boob?”

“Yeah, you totally weren’t looking.”

“Exactly! See? I’m glad we worked that out, man.”

Loverboy puffs on his smoke, then pulls out his cell phone and starts swiping across the screen with his free hand. After a few moments, wherein he casually ashes the cherry of the clove off into Roxy’s purse while she’s looking away, Loverboy sits upright in his seat and sticks the phone right in Roxy’s face, nearly causing an accident as she stomps her stiletto heel down onto the brake and the tires squeal to a stop just centimeters from the back bumper of a plumbing van.

“Roxy! Holy shit! Did you see this?”

“What? Jesus fucking CHRIST Vinnie are you trying to kill us?”

“Who cares? Look at the god damn screen!”

Loverboy shoves the phone closer, practically pressing the glass against her large sunglasses. He points excitedly at the image on the phone’s screen, giggling like a toddler after a fart joke.

There, on the main page of the XWF mobile website, is a familiar bald-headed face gleaming with a sadistic smile from behind a crimson mask of blood. Loverboy continues to look happier than an old man with a full bottle of Viagra.

“Who is that ugly son of a bitch?”

Roxy, clearly disgusted, shoves the phone away brusquely with the back of her hand as the traffic begins to creep forward.

“Who is this? Who is THIS? Roxy, dude, come on… that is none other than the man, the myth, the legend… Darren motherfucking Dangerous. He’s only one of the most talked about XWF wrestlers of all time, man, how can you not know who he is?”

“He looks like a lunch lady.”

“You’re such a bitch sometimes. I’m calling Gator, he’s got to hear about this.”

“Uh… I don’t think you can call Gator.”

“What? Why not, dude? Did he run out of minutes or some shit?”

“No… Vinnie, I told you. You have a match against him and Doc D’Ville! You can’t just call him up and be all buddy-buddy with him right now. You have to stay focused!”

“What are you talking about, dude? Gator’s my bro! It doesn’t matter if we have a match, man, we’ll always be tight. You sound so jealous and petty right now. Are you on your period?”

Roxy slams the car to a halt right in the middle of the street as cars behind them screech their brakes and lay on their horns.

“Okay Vinnie, you think he’s your buddy? Find his promo. Here, take my earbuds and listen to the shit he said to you while you were still lying unconscious on a hospitable bed and pissing into a plastic bag. We can sit here until you’re done and then you can call him and tell him that his fat boyfriend is back in the XWF. Deal?”

Loverboy just smirks his cocksure smirk and takes the bright purple butterfly-shaped earbuds and jams them into his ears. He finds the Gator promo and then leans back in his seat, plopping his bare feet out over the rear view mirror of the car and folding his arms behind his head.

“Sure man, whatever you say, Rox. I’ll try not to make fun of you too hard when I prove you wrong, okay babe? I know it’s tough for you when it’s that time of the month. Quick reminder though, babe, for when we get back home… you’ve got a couple other holes, you know?”

“Shut up and listen.”

Loverboy smiles and flips down the aviator shades from his forehead, then presses play on the promo, wiggling his bare toes in the afternoon air.

Slowly but surely, the smile starts to melt away from Loverboy’s face as the screen of his phone shows an excited Gator dancing around in his trademark red underoos like some sort of Teletubby cosplayer.

Finally, after listening for a few minutes, Loverboy sits straight up and pulls the earbuds from his ears, his face red with anger.

“Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be, huh? Well, I guess I know what I’m doing once we get home. Sorry baby, your perfect pink is gonna have to wait a little while longer to get the loving it deserves.”

“I’m sure I’ll live.”

The scene fades away as a CHiPs officer rolls up to Roxy at the driver’s side, gesturing at the long trail of traffic building up behind them all.



[Image: KDAWanX.gif]



“Gator are you fucking kidding me right now, dude?

This is how you treat your buddy after he comes out of a fucking coma? This is the way you come back after taking a half-ass vacation because your neck was a little sore? Dude, I’ve been trying to get your shit selling at the merch booths for you while you were at home with your two fleshlights, Todd and Better Todd, but I can’t make people buy shit they don’t want, man. So my bad if your royalties were getting a little dry, but the fans want what they want, dude. Supply and demand. That’s why there’s Loverboy posters, Loverboy wristbands, Loverboy beer cozies, Loverboy calendars, and, like, seven different Loverboy shirts at every vendor stall in every arena, man. Not my fault the official puka shell necklaces with little Gator faces painted on them were a bust, dude. Get some better branding, don’t blame the guy doing it right.

I shouldn’t be surprised that you tried to renege on the way we bonded since our days in Japan. Yeah, sure, you thought I was some scrappy little curtain jerker the whole time, right? Of course you did. Makes you look cooler to say that, doesn’t it? That’s all that ever mattered to Gator anyway. Looking cool. Man, if you could just BE cool you wouldn’t have to try and ACT cool, you know what I’m saying, man? Quit putting up a front and just be your lame-ass pouty bitch self instead of trying to act like nothing ever ruffles your feathers. Face it, you got put in a funk because you fucking lost a match. You don’t feel like you can call yourself a former Universal Champ because you barely got a minute to even hold the belt, dude, much less relish the victory. See dude, unlike you, when I walk into a match and win a title, I walk out WITH that title. Very few times has that not come to pass in XWF history dude… so congrats on tying John Samuels for being the least significant Uni Champ ever, I guess.

Now you want to roll back in here and act like you own the place. Dude. Seriously. Frodo’s had more matches than you this year, and he fucking quit. You’ve done less work than John Black. You think you have any business challenging the guy who took your title and then beat you to retain it? You think you deserve a shot against ME even? I’ve been a champion more recently than you have, man, and if I hadn’t felt sorry for the little Ginger chick for being born premature I’d still have my belt to rub in your fucking face. What’ve you got again? Five seconds as the top gun and a record-winning owner of a belt nobody remembers? Yeah, you definitely should be in there main eventing the biggest show of the year, sure.

I can’t fucking believe you’d seriously try to come after me for my promos being uninteresting. Dude, this isn’t drama class, man! Just because you watched a few YouTube vids and learned how to add a Microsoft Office wipe effect onto the end of your lazy vignettes doesn’t mean you’re gonna be winning any daytime Emmy’s, pal. Unless it’s the award for ‘guy who looks like he loves his dog a LITTLE too much.’

Hey, speaking of your pets, you never even paid me back for that couch your hair trigger cameraman ruined when he popped off in his jockey shorts while I was babysitting him. You know I don’t put my megastar ass in some cheap IKEA bullshit, either dude… that couch was Italian leather and expensive as fuck! Now it’s got a white shadow on the cushion from that ice cream sandwich loving weirdo making cum angels with his fat ass.

Sup Todd.

Anyway, dude, look, I’d love to sit here and refute every stupid thing you tried to set to your cheap laugh track, but I’ve got actual shit to do that doesn’t involve dressing up like a bum on Hollywood Boulevard and offering five dollar pictures so I can buy my pocket pussy back from the pawn shop, you know? Like training to win a match? I know this might be a foreign concept to a dude who’d rather sit in on a beginner’s yoga class and sneak pics of camel toes, but working out definitely involves more than falling asleep while lying on top of an exercise ball and calling it aerobics.

Listen up, Gator. I know you have a lot of lying to yourself to do in order to pump your anxiety levels down low enough that your shitty heart won’t just pop like the condom your father wishes he hadn’t left in the hot car for week, but if I were you I’d start listening to that little voice in the back of your head. Not the one that told you that puttering by on your little gay scooter was a good segue for cinematic experiences, no, the other one. The one that’s just you, hiding behind the mask and the bravado and the nom the plume. That little, annoyingly British, voice that’s telling you what you obviously already know, dude. You can’t do it. You’re done. Call it a career. Don’t be Muhammad Ali drooling on his opponents before getting knocked onto his overweight ass in the 1980’s. Go out with a little bit of pride. Burn out, dude, don’t fade away. I’m saying this as a friend – you suck now.

Think about it… once Scarlett gets knocked up by someone else and convinces you it’s yours, do you want that kid growing up and being able to find videos of his ‘dad’ getting embarrassed because he tried to hang on for too long? Way after his body and his brain tried to tell him he should hang up the red thermal underwear and go home to milk goats or whatever the fuck English people do once they’re done failing at their first job? No, of course not. You want that kid to be able to see you in your prime, man. So, basically that stretch of matches where you kept beating Knight. You want that kid to be able to see you on TV and say, “Wow, that’s my dad! He’s an awesome wrestler! But why is he white when I’m black?”

Take a look around here, man. Look at all the fresh talent coming into the XWF right now. Robbie Bourbon, Ginger Snaps, Trax, Darren by-fucking-christ Dangerous… you think someone like you should be leading them on to the most prolific period in their careers? You think YOU should be the one they look up to as their champion? Are you serious right now? These dudes need a champ that is going to last more than a night. They need a champ who can shoulder the weight of the entire federation on his ripped-as-fuck shoulders and carry them to new heights. They need a champ who can sell a fucking t-shirt.

In two days, I’m going to be that man. I’m going to forever be known as the valiant hero who vanquished the evil Doctor D’Ville and ushered in a new era to the XWF. And after Sunday? I’m going to lead the charge of the new XWF and wash the taste right out of everybody’s mouth from the old version. The status quo. I’ll make them forget the record-long reign of Doc’s by eclipsing it with my own, and in the process your little cup of coffee with the belt will get forgotten in a heartbeat. You know, almost as long as your championship tenure.

Face it. “Gator” is the ghost of XWF Past. I’m the present and the foreseeable future, and it’s time to ring in the new year, baby. Let the sun set on the stagnant stalwarts and let a REAL champion, a guy who the people want to see more and more of like me, and who doesn’t have a surgically repaired stack of dimes for a neck like you, have his time in the spotlight.

It’s 14:59, Gator. Your fifteen minutes are up.


]]> <![CDATA[Because You're My Friend And That's The Nicest Thing I've Said]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=20891 Wed, 29 Jul 2015 14:53:05 -0700 Gator]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=20891

Sooooo it's been a weird couple of days. I've not only watched Doc's and Lane's promos but I've watched every bodies stuff, you know, try and fan the flames so to speak. And I have dick all. It's sad to be honest, when I met D'Ville in the ring, looked that fucker in the eye and I was fired up, ready to punch the son of a bitch in his cunt face, but just seeing him on TV makes me feel nothing. And it's not just because the dude is basically going through the generic trash talk handbook, it's more because I'm not angry, like at all. I don't know what's up with me, I stopped doing yoga a week ago ever since Alison gave me the good to go. Well, kinda, I may be a tad crazy but honestly who isn't?

I'm driving down the road on this lovely afternoon here in Boston, Todd is in the passenger's seat beside me on his phone. I'm smoking an ecigarette, yeah I smoke an ecig now, and thinking way too hard about all this shit as Todd's iPod plays his terrible, terrible music at full blast. He said it'll get me worked up, but it's just annoying me. I start to bop my head for some reason.. Oh god. Gator no!

"♪ California here we come, right back where we started from. ♪"

No dude, seriously? We're not even in California! Todd looks up from his phone, I look back. And the worst moment of my life happens.

♪ Hustlers grab your guns, your shadow weighs a ton, driving down the 101. California here we come, right back where we started from. Californiaaaaaaaa! Here we come!!!! ♪
T: ♪ Hustlers grab your guns, your shadow weighs a ton, driving down the 101. California here we come, right back where we started from. Californiaaaaaaaa! Here we come!!!! ♪

... Ugh...

One awful fucking song later, we arrive at a Starbucks. I hate this place, filled with so many douchebags. People like Vinnie Lane, and Todd. But goddamn I am a sucker for their lattes. We enter the fairly empty Starbucks, greeted by that god awful soft indie music that this place churns out, the tapping of hipster's fingers hitting keyboards coming up with their big new screenplay that will finally get them out of Boston, and that fucking coffee machine that sounds like it runs on a damn coal engine. Me and Todd walk in and look around, where I see a familiar face. Luke Gunnar is sitting at a table drinking a coffee. Wait, that's not Gunnar. Oh it's that Grime asshole, didn't think he was still alive. After a few steps closer to the counter the gears turn and I finally realise it's Drew Archyle, all these undercards look the same to me. I, for some reason, give the guy a smile and a wave despite never actually encountering him ever. He looks up with a raised eyebrow and nods his head greeting me, and going back to his drink as I get to the counter.

Todd starts to pat his pockets and me, being a fucking fruit now, politely put my hand out, motioning him to stop.

"I got this man, go get us a table."

I take my wallet out of from my jeans and open it up, and a moth flies out as a 'wah wah waaaaaaaaaah' sound plays. Or it might as well have, seriously, I'm fucking broke right now. Can't live of merch sales alone. I place my order and hand the barista a twenty, and get two dollars back in change. Yay! Fucking rip off. As I go to the end of the counter, resting my head on my arms it hits me that I'm wearing my mask and not one single person has gave me a second look. Sure, some people know who I am, I've been here a few times before but not one person cares. I could rob this place blind and nobody would know who I am, except some wrestler in the XWF.

The lovely young woman hands me our lattes and I go back to the table that Todd picked out. I can tell Ashe Dawson is burning a hole in the back of my head for some reason as I walk by, but I ignore him. I take my seat opposite Todd who sits there with a smile as I hand him his latte and he knocks quickly and very purposefully knocks the cup to the floor. How very fucking delightful!

"What the hell man?"

T: "I decided I didn't want it."

"That was like nine dollars. I got extra cream for you."

T: "Yeah but I'm not thirsty."

"Oh.. Alright then buddy."

I hate myself and I want to die. I go to take a sip of my overpriced latte and Todd reaches out a hand and slaps the cup out of my hand. I freeze for a moment, staring at Todd who sits there smug. I let my hands fall back down to the table and try to calm myself, I shouldn't, I should flip this table and strangle this cunt to death.

"Come on man now you're just taking the piss. They're going to throw us out if you make a mess."

T: "No, I've been taking the piss for a few days. Now I'm trying to make you mad."

"Well it's working."

I reach into my pocket and dig around, taking out my ecig and taking a drag. Mmm, tutti-fruity. I blow the, smoke? Steam? Magic dust? Whatever, out into the air and see Todd looking at me quizzically behind the puff of smoke.

T: "Can I try that?"

I hesitate but hand it over anyway. Todd takes the ecig and examines it for a moment, I relax in my chair staring straight ahead. Todd puts the ecig in his mouth, getting it really in there and wetting the end way too much. Gross. He takes a drag and immediately starts to cough.

T:*Cough* *Cough* "Fuck, how do you smoke this?"

"Usually by inhaling the smoke then exhaling the smoke, like breathing but better."

Todd makes a sarcastic laugh... Oh shit! I was sarcastic! Gator! You're learning! Todd takes the ecig and twirls it in his fingers, I hold out my open palm but Todd takes the ecig and begins to clean his ear with it... You know when a moment happens in your life, you see something so horrific you just freeze, everything goes in slow motion and no matter what you do your limbs won't respond. You just are there, in that moment with your eyes wide and your body in total shock. This is my 9/11. Todd finishes cleaning his ear and tries to hand the ecig back to me.

"Nah man, you keep it."

T: "Nah, I don't smoke. Take it back man, it'll be rude if you don't."

... Mother fucker.

T: "You don't want to be a rude asshole now do you?"

I want to explode, but I don't. I can't. Uuuuuuuuuuuugh. I rub my brow as my headache intensifies and hold my hand back out, Todd shakes his head putting the ecig back in my hand and I begin to clean it thoroughly with my t-shirt. One of the staff walks over to the table with a smile and looks at me.

"Hey! I'm sorry sir but there's no smoking here. I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

I respond continuing to clean the ecig.

"It's cool, it's electronic."

"They're not allowed either sir."

I stop cleaning the ecig and place it on the table, looking at the girl.

"Are you joking?"

She seems a bit taken back. Todd looks on leaning forward a little.

"I walk in here wearing a mask, not one single person bats an eyelid. This cunt opposite me throws two lattes onto the floor, causing a public disturbance and making a huge fucking mess for you to clean up for minimum wage. But I take one, ONE, drag of this stupid fucking device that doesn't even help me stop smoking tobacco and you come over here telling me to leave!? Hahahahahaha!!! Fuck you!"

I get to my feet, knocking the chair to the floor. Fuck this feels good. Todd gets up to, a smile plastered on his face.

T: "Gator! You're back man!"

I turn to Todd who is happy to see me back to normal and bitch slap the smile off his face. The girl gasps and takes a step back.

"I aplogise for ruining your shitty little Starbucks, have a brilliant day ma'am. Here's your tip."

I take the ecig and stick it in the girl's mouth, giving her a playful tap on the cheek and walking away. Todd holding his face in pain, almost slips in the spilled liquid as he follows. I chuckle like any normal human being would do and open the door, Todd exits first as I turn to Drew looking at me.

"Drew, instead of hiring the human form of a penguin to think for you, do your own fucking work for once and actually try to form a clever sentence on your own. While you're at it, stop being Frodo 2.0 and go after actual wrestlers instead of trying to pick fights with management you dense twat. Peace! I'm out!"

I walk backwards through the door throwing up double peace signs. I turn laughing to myself exiting the building and walking down the path, nicking a lit cigarette from the mouth of some business man. He shouts something but doesn't try and stop me, because he's not an idiot most likely. Speaking of idiots, I have a few new thoughts on my opponents. I smile to myself as I meet Todd at the DeLorean and we enter, I start up the car and pull away quickly down the road Todd's music starts to play again, Bullet for my Valentne. Ugh. I rip the iPod away and throw the damn thing onto the tarmac.

Ah, it's good to be back.


I sit down, camera in front, Todd's a bitch, go go go!

"No time for pleasantries, fuck you all! Let's get shit on the road!"

"So we get a great look at Lane's inner workings here, dude's in a coma, he's lost, confused, trapped in his own mind and he's going through a whole bunch of crazy shit. And the thing he thinks about more than most is little old me. How fucking adorable. Snot nosed punk in J-Pro was I Vinnie? Yeah maybe, I was not the same guy I am now. But honestly I feel better being that shitty little brat compared to that shitty little nobody who couldn't get anything done, you're doing great now man but back then, woo, I didn't think you could make it at all. But here you are, good for you."

"Fucking awesome right? Me and you, dueling it out for something we both want. Good times. Two younger guys in J-Pro, still working our way up, still fighting with limp wrists in the ring and going out back and having a beer to being the best here, fighting each other tooth and nail and going out back and having a beer. I saw you come in after me and I was like, this is cute. Dude just can't survive by himself without having his role model Gator paving the way for him. Because let's face it man, everything you've done, everything you've achieved, I did it first and I did it better. I won the TV, you won the Trios. You won the Hart, I won the Uni albeit for a brief moment."

"We could have ruled the world! We could have been the best team this place has ever seen. But it never happened, it could never happen, because let's face it dude. We both have or egos, we both have our goals and I'd get sick of you riding my coattails for however long our super team lasted."

Loverboy Vinnie Lane Said:You slapped me in the face when you formed Defiance

"And you punched me in the dick when you decided Peter Gilmour and Morbid Angel would make better Trio partners than me. You spat in my face when you decided working for MacClay was a better option than working with me. Don't play the victim when you're just as guilty yourself. But that's just what you do best right? And it's the reason why we could never be the team you apparently dreamed of us being, because you whine, you complain and you push the blame. Imagine if we lost a match, I would have to endure listening to you tell me how it was somehow my fault for the rest of my life. Because that is the type of person you are."

"A basic bitch."

"Also, one more thing, Defiance weren't after you. Sane, Fern and CorVus weren't after you. We were after Asylum. Remember Lethal Lottery? You teamed up with CorVus, who was the guy who made sure he didn't break your legs and leave you hanging? Yeah, you're fucking welcome you ungrateful shit."

Bitchboy Vinnie Lane Said:See man, when you went after the Uni against the Doc the first time, I was right there cheering you on.
...
But where were you, dude? Where were you when I was locked in that cage with D’Ville?

"Excuse me? ... Ex-fucking-cuse me? Hahaha, wow! How exactly where you rooting me on? Mentioning me briefly in a promo and watching backstage as you were masturbating over your belt? I'm so very sorry I was dealing with my own stuff, but I was cheering you on. Why the fuck wouldn't I? You know I did. Fuck D'Ville, dude's a cunt. I for some reason like you, I cheered for you. If you're seriously asking me where was I when you were in that cage, where the fuck where you when I was in that chamber? Duke hid in a box for D'Ville, why didn't you do the same? You let me down Vinnie. Sadface. I was cheering you on in the back. Don't believe me? Oh well. I was at Bad Medecine if you remember, gave Duke a bit of payback which was fun. Sorry I didn't see you, sorry I didn't give you that loving embrace you wanted so so bad, sorry you were crying after you got your ass kicked and just wanted to go home for a hot bath and had no fucking time for anyone. Grow up Lane, you're embarrassing me."

Fuckboy Vinnie Lane Said:No. You took your ball and you went home, didn’t you? You came up short one time and you just went ahead and asked for the check. You lay down for fucking MAVERICK, dude.

"I broke my fucking neck dude. Fuck, were where you? Why didn't you cheer me on in the crowd and ride out on a white horse and save me like the brave knight you truly are? ... If that's laying down then what the fuck is this coma you're in? If leaving on management's orders to heal up is taking my ball and going home, then I guess you're just as bad as me. You lost to fucking Ginger Snaps. You lost to a chick who thinks a lariat and a clothesline are totally different things, a girl who can't read and confuses goats for llamas and you lost to her on her fucking debut. Then you looked on as she defended her belt against TBX and you ended up in a coma. Awesome."

Ladyboy Vinnie Lane Said: something that belongs to those of us who stuck around and kept fighting while you were licking your little wounds and trying to feel better about not winning every single time.

"You're in a fucking coma! And have been for a while now. What makes you different? I still have title shots under my belt, I am one of a very select few who deserve to be the Universal Champion and while Doc has been hanging out with the nobodies I have been healing up, and yeah, you're right this is the second coming of the messiah. Fucking believe it you piece of shit, I'm back and better than ever while you're going through the same fucking motions over and over and fucking over but this time in comaland. Oh no! How will Vinnie Lane go to some shitty mall and call kids names for being fans of different wrestlers!? Oh me oh my! How will we manage if we don't see Roxy and Vinnie talk about sex for the millionth time!? Maybe this coma is a blessing, maybe this time you can actually grow as a human being."

"Maybe, but it's not looking good when you basically go for the same shit as you did last time we faced. Gator's my bro, but man, he's not my bro dude. Fuck Lane, show some goddamn teeth for the first time in your miserable life. Don't pussyfoot around, call me a cunt. Call me a piece of shit. Try doing anything that isn't you saying I'm this and that when you're in the same fucking boat I am. Then you talk about the first time you got the win over me, in this environment. You did, and I'm not going to try and deny that, because I'm not a pussy, but when it's about our one on one. "

You're out of your league boy Vinnie Lane Said:Well, you had to have the rules changed to beat me, didn’t you?

"You mean when Kirk, your leader at the time, came out and said we're going into extra time because Vinnie needs another chance? Because our match technically ended in a draw but Kirk believed you could somehow beat me? And I stood up and I kicked your ass. Again, grow the fuck up and admit when you lost you fucking child. This whole thing you're doing now, it's simple whiney bullshit. It means nothing and it can be brushed aside with ease, you're fucking pathetic dude. Oh but just because a long, long time ago you won a four way, this time will be the same. Hahaha, I've pinned you, I've pinned Doc. Something you can and will never be able to say, I know I can beat you. You know you can avoid me and get an easy pin. I'm happy with what I have."

I take a cigarette out from the packet in front of me and light it up, taking a good long drag and blowing smoke into the air.

"I'm rusty too, need to step my game up soon. Then again if this is what's going to happen all week then I guess me being rusty will do just fine."

I rub my mask and get to my feet, starting to pace back and forth as I continue to smoke.

"Hahaha. Then we have Doc, back with his shield up after I knocked it down last time we faced off. Back to being all polite and friendly after he was being such a devilish little prick with me, hello my friend. How have you been? Let's face it here guys, the three of us, we aren't the most active guys in the fed are we? Lane's in a coma, my neck is fucked up and Doc only come back for his monthly check up. Like what I did there D'Ville? You can use that one if you'd like. But we don't need to be around a lot do we? We've all made such a hug fucking impact in this hell hole people will be talking about us for years to come."

"The three musketeers. That all fight one another and never seem to work together for once to change the world. Oh well, it's a hell of a lot more fun this way. So Doc, I have to ask. What the fuck is up? Why are you doing this polite bullshit now when you showed such fire before? Must I piss you off again? Get the fire roaring so I can finally have some fucking fun with you? Come on Doc, let the devil loose and let's have some fun. I'm tired of this whole facade you put on, the helping hand, the light in the darkness. I want the man who wanted my blood, I wanted the Doc angry and ready to tear me up."

"Not this pussy with a fake smile still rehashing the same points he rehashes in every promo he's ever done. Vague bullshit and facts we all know about, trying to say he's the top dog but not making me believe he's the top dog. I don't want to talk about Defiance or Asylum because who gives a fuck about teams we used to be in? Or are you still in Asylum? I don't know, seems like everyone left you on the mountain. Anyway I don't want to talk about them, but I will do if I can see that fire again. Just one last time."

"But, you haven't said much about me really. More stating the obvious and talking about how great I was. Was. I need to prove myself all over again here. And I'm going to. Doc, Lane.. Harrison? Maybe. I'm here, and I want some fun back and forth before I go into that ring and use Lane's comatose body to beat D'Ville's smug face into the fucking mat. You two, listen the fuck up and pay attention. I'm back. And right now I'm not at one hundred percent, I need you two to show me you're actually as good as you say so then I can get that passion back and crush you both under my foot."

"Because your egos, your talent and our history doesn't mean shit to me. You're both worthless in my eyes, and I will stand here in front of this camera and convince the world to think the same way as me. I will walk into Madison Square Garden and I will show the world just how much you both truly mean to me. And I will walk out the champ with blood on my hands and a big shit eating grin on my face."

"That's it for today, step your game up guys. Let's have some fun!"

"Also Luca, make sure you don't overdoes in the ring before raising my arm in victory. Later."


F A D E 2 B L A C K
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Sooooo it's been a weird couple of days. I've not only watched Doc's and Lane's promos but I've watched every bodies stuff, you know, try and fan the flames so to speak. And I have dick all. It's sad to be honest, when I met D'Ville in the ring, looked that fucker in the eye and I was fired up, ready to punch the son of a bitch in his cunt face, but just seeing him on TV makes me feel nothing. And it's not just because the dude is basically going through the generic trash talk handbook, it's more because I'm not angry, like at all. I don't know what's up with me, I stopped doing yoga a week ago ever since Alison gave me the good to go. Well, kinda, I may be a tad crazy but honestly who isn't?

I'm driving down the road on this lovely afternoon here in Boston, Todd is in the passenger's seat beside me on his phone. I'm smoking an ecigarette, yeah I smoke an ecig now, and thinking way too hard about all this shit as Todd's iPod plays his terrible, terrible music at full blast. He said it'll get me worked up, but it's just annoying me. I start to bop my head for some reason.. Oh god. Gator no!

"♪ California here we come, right back where we started from. ♪"

No dude, seriously? We're not even in California! Todd looks up from his phone, I look back. And the worst moment of my life happens.

♪ Hustlers grab your guns, your shadow weighs a ton, driving down the 101. California here we come, right back where we started from. Californiaaaaaaaa! Here we come!!!! ♪
T: ♪ Hustlers grab your guns, your shadow weighs a ton, driving down the 101. California here we come, right back where we started from. Californiaaaaaaaa! Here we come!!!! ♪

... Ugh...

One awful fucking song later, we arrive at a Starbucks. I hate this place, filled with so many douchebags. People like Vinnie Lane, and Todd. But goddamn I am a sucker for their lattes. We enter the fairly empty Starbucks, greeted by that god awful soft indie music that this place churns out, the tapping of hipster's fingers hitting keyboards coming up with their big new screenplay that will finally get them out of Boston, and that fucking coffee machine that sounds like it runs on a damn coal engine. Me and Todd walk in and look around, where I see a familiar face. Luke Gunnar is sitting at a table drinking a coffee. Wait, that's not Gunnar. Oh it's that Grime asshole, didn't think he was still alive. After a few steps closer to the counter the gears turn and I finally realise it's Drew Archyle, all these undercards look the same to me. I, for some reason, give the guy a smile and a wave despite never actually encountering him ever. He looks up with a raised eyebrow and nods his head greeting me, and going back to his drink as I get to the counter.

Todd starts to pat his pockets and me, being a fucking fruit now, politely put my hand out, motioning him to stop.

"I got this man, go get us a table."

I take my wallet out of from my jeans and open it up, and a moth flies out as a 'wah wah waaaaaaaaaah' sound plays. Or it might as well have, seriously, I'm fucking broke right now. Can't live of merch sales alone. I place my order and hand the barista a twenty, and get two dollars back in change. Yay! Fucking rip off. As I go to the end of the counter, resting my head on my arms it hits me that I'm wearing my mask and not one single person has gave me a second look. Sure, some people know who I am, I've been here a few times before but not one person cares. I could rob this place blind and nobody would know who I am, except some wrestler in the XWF.

The lovely young woman hands me our lattes and I go back to the table that Todd picked out. I can tell Ashe Dawson is burning a hole in the back of my head for some reason as I walk by, but I ignore him. I take my seat opposite Todd who sits there with a smile as I hand him his latte and he knocks quickly and very purposefully knocks the cup to the floor. How very fucking delightful!

"What the hell man?"

T: "I decided I didn't want it."

"That was like nine dollars. I got extra cream for you."

T: "Yeah but I'm not thirsty."

"Oh.. Alright then buddy."

I hate myself and I want to die. I go to take a sip of my overpriced latte and Todd reaches out a hand and slaps the cup out of my hand. I freeze for a moment, staring at Todd who sits there smug. I let my hands fall back down to the table and try to calm myself, I shouldn't, I should flip this table and strangle this cunt to death.

"Come on man now you're just taking the piss. They're going to throw us out if you make a mess."

T: "No, I've been taking the piss for a few days. Now I'm trying to make you mad."

"Well it's working."

I reach into my pocket and dig around, taking out my ecig and taking a drag. Mmm, tutti-fruity. I blow the, smoke? Steam? Magic dust? Whatever, out into the air and see Todd looking at me quizzically behind the puff of smoke.

T: "Can I try that?"

I hesitate but hand it over anyway. Todd takes the ecig and examines it for a moment, I relax in my chair staring straight ahead. Todd puts the ecig in his mouth, getting it really in there and wetting the end way too much. Gross. He takes a drag and immediately starts to cough.

T:*Cough* *Cough* "Fuck, how do you smoke this?"

"Usually by inhaling the smoke then exhaling the smoke, like breathing but better."

Todd makes a sarcastic laugh... Oh shit! I was sarcastic! Gator! You're learning! Todd takes the ecig and twirls it in his fingers, I hold out my open palm but Todd takes the ecig and begins to clean his ear with it... You know when a moment happens in your life, you see something so horrific you just freeze, everything goes in slow motion and no matter what you do your limbs won't respond. You just are there, in that moment with your eyes wide and your body in total shock. This is my 9/11. Todd finishes cleaning his ear and tries to hand the ecig back to me.

"Nah man, you keep it."

T: "Nah, I don't smoke. Take it back man, it'll be rude if you don't."

... Mother fucker.

T: "You don't want to be a rude asshole now do you?"

I want to explode, but I don't. I can't. Uuuuuuuuuuuugh. I rub my brow as my headache intensifies and hold my hand back out, Todd shakes his head putting the ecig back in my hand and I begin to clean it thoroughly with my t-shirt. One of the staff walks over to the table with a smile and looks at me.

"Hey! I'm sorry sir but there's no smoking here. I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

I respond continuing to clean the ecig.

"It's cool, it's electronic."

"They're not allowed either sir."

I stop cleaning the ecig and place it on the table, looking at the girl.

"Are you joking?"

She seems a bit taken back. Todd looks on leaning forward a little.

"I walk in here wearing a mask, not one single person bats an eyelid. This cunt opposite me throws two lattes onto the floor, causing a public disturbance and making a huge fucking mess for you to clean up for minimum wage. But I take one, ONE, drag of this stupid fucking device that doesn't even help me stop smoking tobacco and you come over here telling me to leave!? Hahahahahaha!!! Fuck you!"

I get to my feet, knocking the chair to the floor. Fuck this feels good. Todd gets up to, a smile plastered on his face.

T: "Gator! You're back man!"

I turn to Todd who is happy to see me back to normal and bitch slap the smile off his face. The girl gasps and takes a step back.

"I aplogise for ruining your shitty little Starbucks, have a brilliant day ma'am. Here's your tip."

I take the ecig and stick it in the girl's mouth, giving her a playful tap on the cheek and walking away. Todd holding his face in pain, almost slips in the spilled liquid as he follows. I chuckle like any normal human being would do and open the door, Todd exits first as I turn to Drew looking at me.

"Drew, instead of hiring the human form of a penguin to think for you, do your own fucking work for once and actually try to form a clever sentence on your own. While you're at it, stop being Frodo 2.0 and go after actual wrestlers instead of trying to pick fights with management you dense twat. Peace! I'm out!"

I walk backwards through the door throwing up double peace signs. I turn laughing to myself exiting the building and walking down the path, nicking a lit cigarette from the mouth of some business man. He shouts something but doesn't try and stop me, because he's not an idiot most likely. Speaking of idiots, I have a few new thoughts on my opponents. I smile to myself as I meet Todd at the DeLorean and we enter, I start up the car and pull away quickly down the road Todd's music starts to play again, Bullet for my Valentne. Ugh. I rip the iPod away and throw the damn thing onto the tarmac.

Ah, it's good to be back.


I sit down, camera in front, Todd's a bitch, go go go!

"No time for pleasantries, fuck you all! Let's get shit on the road!"

"So we get a great look at Lane's inner workings here, dude's in a coma, he's lost, confused, trapped in his own mind and he's going through a whole bunch of crazy shit. And the thing he thinks about more than most is little old me. How fucking adorable. Snot nosed punk in J-Pro was I Vinnie? Yeah maybe, I was not the same guy I am now. But honestly I feel better being that shitty little brat compared to that shitty little nobody who couldn't get anything done, you're doing great now man but back then, woo, I didn't think you could make it at all. But here you are, good for you."

"Fucking awesome right? Me and you, dueling it out for something we both want. Good times. Two younger guys in J-Pro, still working our way up, still fighting with limp wrists in the ring and going out back and having a beer to being the best here, fighting each other tooth and nail and going out back and having a beer. I saw you come in after me and I was like, this is cute. Dude just can't survive by himself without having his role model Gator paving the way for him. Because let's face it man, everything you've done, everything you've achieved, I did it first and I did it better. I won the TV, you won the Trios. You won the Hart, I won the Uni albeit for a brief moment."

"We could have ruled the world! We could have been the best team this place has ever seen. But it never happened, it could never happen, because let's face it dude. We both have or egos, we both have our goals and I'd get sick of you riding my coattails for however long our super team lasted."

Loverboy Vinnie Lane Said:You slapped me in the face when you formed Defiance

"And you punched me in the dick when you decided Peter Gilmour and Morbid Angel would make better Trio partners than me. You spat in my face when you decided working for MacClay was a better option than working with me. Don't play the victim when you're just as guilty yourself. But that's just what you do best right? And it's the reason why we could never be the team you apparently dreamed of us being, because you whine, you complain and you push the blame. Imagine if we lost a match, I would have to endure listening to you tell me how it was somehow my fault for the rest of my life. Because that is the type of person you are."

"A basic bitch."

"Also, one more thing, Defiance weren't after you. Sane, Fern and CorVus weren't after you. We were after Asylum. Remember Lethal Lottery? You teamed up with CorVus, who was the guy who made sure he didn't break your legs and leave you hanging? Yeah, you're fucking welcome you ungrateful shit."

Bitchboy Vinnie Lane Said:See man, when you went after the Uni against the Doc the first time, I was right there cheering you on.
...
But where were you, dude? Where were you when I was locked in that cage with D’Ville?

"Excuse me? ... Ex-fucking-cuse me? Hahaha, wow! How exactly where you rooting me on? Mentioning me briefly in a promo and watching backstage as you were masturbating over your belt? I'm so very sorry I was dealing with my own stuff, but I was cheering you on. Why the fuck wouldn't I? You know I did. Fuck D'Ville, dude's a cunt. I for some reason like you, I cheered for you. If you're seriously asking me where was I when you were in that cage, where the fuck where you when I was in that chamber? Duke hid in a box for D'Ville, why didn't you do the same? You let me down Vinnie. Sadface. I was cheering you on in the back. Don't believe me? Oh well. I was at Bad Medecine if you remember, gave Duke a bit of payback which was fun. Sorry I didn't see you, sorry I didn't give you that loving embrace you wanted so so bad, sorry you were crying after you got your ass kicked and just wanted to go home for a hot bath and had no fucking time for anyone. Grow up Lane, you're embarrassing me."

Fuckboy Vinnie Lane Said:No. You took your ball and you went home, didn’t you? You came up short one time and you just went ahead and asked for the check. You lay down for fucking MAVERICK, dude.

"I broke my fucking neck dude. Fuck, were where you? Why didn't you cheer me on in the crowd and ride out on a white horse and save me like the brave knight you truly are? ... If that's laying down then what the fuck is this coma you're in? If leaving on management's orders to heal up is taking my ball and going home, then I guess you're just as bad as me. You lost to fucking Ginger Snaps. You lost to a chick who thinks a lariat and a clothesline are totally different things, a girl who can't read and confuses goats for llamas and you lost to her on her fucking debut. Then you looked on as she defended her belt against TBX and you ended up in a coma. Awesome."

Ladyboy Vinnie Lane Said: something that belongs to those of us who stuck around and kept fighting while you were licking your little wounds and trying to feel better about not winning every single time.

"You're in a fucking coma! And have been for a while now. What makes you different? I still have title shots under my belt, I am one of a very select few who deserve to be the Universal Champion and while Doc has been hanging out with the nobodies I have been healing up, and yeah, you're right this is the second coming of the messiah. Fucking believe it you piece of shit, I'm back and better than ever while you're going through the same fucking motions over and over and fucking over but this time in comaland. Oh no! How will Vinnie Lane go to some shitty mall and call kids names for being fans of different wrestlers!? Oh me oh my! How will we manage if we don't see Roxy and Vinnie talk about sex for the millionth time!? Maybe this coma is a blessing, maybe this time you can actually grow as a human being."

"Maybe, but it's not looking good when you basically go for the same shit as you did last time we faced. Gator's my bro, but man, he's not my bro dude. Fuck Lane, show some goddamn teeth for the first time in your miserable life. Don't pussyfoot around, call me a cunt. Call me a piece of shit. Try doing anything that isn't you saying I'm this and that when you're in the same fucking boat I am. Then you talk about the first time you got the win over me, in this environment. You did, and I'm not going to try and deny that, because I'm not a pussy, but when it's about our one on one. "

You're out of your league boy Vinnie Lane Said:Well, you had to have the rules changed to beat me, didn’t you?

"You mean when Kirk, your leader at the time, came out and said we're going into extra time because Vinnie needs another chance? Because our match technically ended in a draw but Kirk believed you could somehow beat me? And I stood up and I kicked your ass. Again, grow the fuck up and admit when you lost you fucking child. This whole thing you're doing now, it's simple whiney bullshit. It means nothing and it can be brushed aside with ease, you're fucking pathetic dude. Oh but just because a long, long time ago you won a four way, this time will be the same. Hahaha, I've pinned you, I've pinned Doc. Something you can and will never be able to say, I know I can beat you. You know you can avoid me and get an easy pin. I'm happy with what I have."

I take a cigarette out from the packet in front of me and light it up, taking a good long drag and blowing smoke into the air.

"I'm rusty too, need to step my game up soon. Then again if this is what's going to happen all week then I guess me being rusty will do just fine."

I rub my mask and get to my feet, starting to pace back and forth as I continue to smoke.

"Hahaha. Then we have Doc, back with his shield up after I knocked it down last time we faced off. Back to being all polite and friendly after he was being such a devilish little prick with me, hello my friend. How have you been? Let's face it here guys, the three of us, we aren't the most active guys in the fed are we? Lane's in a coma, my neck is fucked up and Doc only come back for his monthly check up. Like what I did there D'Ville? You can use that one if you'd like. But we don't need to be around a lot do we? We've all made such a hug fucking impact in this hell hole people will be talking about us for years to come."

"The three musketeers. That all fight one another and never seem to work together for once to change the world. Oh well, it's a hell of a lot more fun this way. So Doc, I have to ask. What the fuck is up? Why are you doing this polite bullshit now when you showed such fire before? Must I piss you off again? Get the fire roaring so I can finally have some fucking fun with you? Come on Doc, let the devil loose and let's have some fun. I'm tired of this whole facade you put on, the helping hand, the light in the darkness. I want the man who wanted my blood, I wanted the Doc angry and ready to tear me up."

"Not this pussy with a fake smile still rehashing the same points he rehashes in every promo he's ever done. Vague bullshit and facts we all know about, trying to say he's the top dog but not making me believe he's the top dog. I don't want to talk about Defiance or Asylum because who gives a fuck about teams we used to be in? Or are you still in Asylum? I don't know, seems like everyone left you on the mountain. Anyway I don't want to talk about them, but I will do if I can see that fire again. Just one last time."

"But, you haven't said much about me really. More stating the obvious and talking about how great I was. Was. I need to prove myself all over again here. And I'm going to. Doc, Lane.. Harrison? Maybe. I'm here, and I want some fun back and forth before I go into that ring and use Lane's comatose body to beat D'Ville's smug face into the fucking mat. You two, listen the fuck up and pay attention. I'm back. And right now I'm not at one hundred percent, I need you two to show me you're actually as good as you say so then I can get that passion back and crush you both under my foot."

"Because your egos, your talent and our history doesn't mean shit to me. You're both worthless in my eyes, and I will stand here in front of this camera and convince the world to think the same way as me. I will walk into Madison Square Garden and I will show the world just how much you both truly mean to me. And I will walk out the champ with blood on my hands and a big shit eating grin on my face."

"That's it for today, step your game up guys. Let's have some fun!"

"Also Luca, make sure you don't overdoes in the ring before raising my arm in victory. Later."


F A D E 2 B L A C K
]]> <![CDATA[Alone in the Universe - We Can Be Like They Are (2)]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=20901 Wed, 29 Jul 2015 11:38:14 -0700 Doctor Louis D'Ville]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=20901



                                                                                                                              


























































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OOC - Part 4 of Alone in the Universe.

Part 1 - Alone in the Universe - Take My Hand

Part 2 - Alone in the Universe - Chasing Rabbits

Part 3 - Alone in the Universe - All Our Times Have Come

"I'm not afraid of death. It's the stake one takes in order to play the game of life."
― Jean Giraudoux


[Image: Kd641BT.png]

Tyrant -OR- Savior


Take two and call me in the morning . . .

The detective rubs his eyes open after splashing a couple palms of water to them. He stares at himself in the mirror for a moment, then throws a handful of water across his head and slicks his hair back. After a couple deep breathes, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small prescription bottle filled about a third of the way with tiny pills. He pours one out into his hand and throws it in the back of his throat, gulps it down, then chases it with water by putting his mouth under the faucet.

The prescription was given to him due to anxiety, sleep, and what not. It was recommended by his doctor that he might consider narcotics in order to stay sane. A very low dosage at most, of course. It's important for him to keep his focus, as well. The sleep deprivation was all cured by one of his old dear friends, drink. But, those days were far behind him and he owed his sobriety his job at the least.

Truth is, though, the pills did the trick. He was cool as a cucumber. Slept long every night, but still felt extremely worn out throughout his days. The plan was to work at least some through the night, but it would be useless attempts at this point. He figures to rest now and hopefully get an early start tomorrow.


"Okay, here we are."

The reporter throws her arm up in the air and nearly slaps the driver in the face. He slams his foot down on the brakes and it screeches to a halt.

"Could you be ANY less conspicuous?!"

"I knew were the place was. You didn't have to slap me in the face."

The reporter reaches out and slaps the driver in the head.

"Now, shut up."

"What are we doing here anyway?"

"I told you! I have a lead on that murder."

"Do you you even know what a lead is?! What lead?"

"I got some information, and they said more information would be in the house."

"The police looked in the house. Did you go to them with this?"

"Are you crazy?! You seen what happened last time."

"Yeah, you were dragged off--"

"The whole world seen it you prick. You filmed it remember?"

"Ha. Right."

"...."

The reporter doesn't finish what she thought of saying aloud. Instead she reaches into her small purse and pulls out a pack of cigarettes and starts to smoke.

"You're smoking NOW? Shouldn't we be investigating?"

"Just give me a minute, okay?"

"Whatever you say."


Finally.

A familiar sight.

As hot as it's been lately in this part of the world, the Doctor's fireplace continues to roar on the far side of the room as it always has. Bookshelves which seem fifty feet tall and loaded with books line the walls.

The Doctor sits behind his large wooden desk, with his face buried in his work, as always. The little girl sits facing the wall, bouncing a ball in perfect succession, over and over again. The Doctor looks up from his work and a large smile stretches across his face.

Hello, my friends!

He throws the pen from his hand spins around to his drinking stand. After a few seconds he concocks a drink and spins back around once again. After gulping it all down he places the glass nicely on his desk and rises out of his chair.

It's me again . . .

Your dear friend. Your doctor. Your King. Your Universal Champion. Doctor Louis D'Ville.

It's been a long road. A very long road, friends. I've noticed across this fine federation that PERHAPS some of my credentials could be a bit questionable. A few of my talents. My abilities. Nearly everyone I've faced claimed there was some kind of incident or discrepancy that lead to my victory.

How absurd is this?

Just because everyone decides to stick their noses in my sessions, doesn't mean the Doctor condones it.

Austin Fernando, for example. Here's a fellow using his one match against the top dog around here now to his defense. You almost beat me, you say? Well, it's too bad almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. I'm glad you still look back to our session from time to time now, Mister Fernando. It shows that I truly made a breakthrough with you in the short time we spent together. You're welcome, my friend. And I hope your reference of the Doctor and your near-win scares off whatever opposition you have this week. Good luck.

The Doctor marches out around his desk and lights a a big cigar that he pulled from inside his jacket.

That reminds me. Not only have all of my victories been tainted... But it seems that none of my selected opponents are even worthy of a Universal Title shot. Gator had his rematch and lost. Loverboy had his match and lost. Mister Harrison barely exists.

Ha.

Oh, he exists, my friends.

This is another case of more of you giving your ridiculous two cents where it is completely unwanted. These men were chosen as my opponents for a reason. Whether we've had a thousand matches, one, or none, why should that matter? If it's THAT big a deal, what has anyone done recently to even come close to proving they have what it takes? Hm?

You all make it sound like I'm not trying around here. Like.. I'm hiding. If I haven't said it a million times, I'd be lying. My doors are always open, my friends. Your reputation, your bank, your health, no matter. Stop in anytime for a session.

The Doctor sighs for a moment.

I see Mister Loverboy is still deep in his slumber.

I do hope you wake up, my friend, it would be the biggest shame if you were absent from this event. Maybe this was all just some trick from the general manager to get the Doctor's hopes up, is all.

Now, I know you and I haven't exactly had the a history like you and the other boys. Mister Harrison and yourself have had countless battles and Gator began his career even closer to the time you began yours. The two of you walked away with titles after last year's Relentless. Of course, you know that.

Gator went on to become what the XWF has recognized as the greatest Television Champion of all time. The title remained with Jacob for nearly the rest of the time it was active. Your Trios Titles? Well, after the circus that you put on with them they eventually ended up with the Kings and taken out of normal defenses.

Ups and downs, am I right, Loverboy?

You were a shooting star from the time you entered the XWF. You were soaring and now look at you. That star that I admired in the sky for so long is gone. I didn't even see it blink. Not even fade away. It was just gone one day.

A megastar. A role-model. A Hart Champion. The face and representing champion of Monday Madness, dwindled down into nothing more than a barely breathing sack of bones. Tell me, Mister Loverboy, was it the Universal Championship that ruined your attitude? That killed your smile? That Hart Championship just didn't seem like much after having a shot at something so much more.

So, here we are again. Only instead of sitting on top of the world like you once were, you're barely hanging onto life. Do you know what's going on in there, Mister Loverboy? Is there anyone home? Surely you do. Whatever spell you're under right now, I doubt it's keeping you from knowing that the most important event of your life is only days away. You've always been a fighter. A champion at heart. That's why that other title was just so fitting for you. The world loved to see their Loverboy week in and week out come out on top. All of those children and ladies. All cheering at the top of their lungs and chanting your name. That's another thing you could add to the list of things that separate us, Mister Lane. There aren't too many people in the crowd out their to chant the Doctor's name. My loyal followers sit in awe and respect. The love they share for me is not like the love they share for you. While your a hero, a role-model, and a sex symbol, I am the Higher Power. The masses look at me as not a hero, more of a savior. And due to my dominance, some may refer to me as a tyrant. Or a monster. But, I don't think it would be fair to go quite that far. I have after all, been a very fair King, have I not?

A tyrant. You know, if anyone has made me feel like one of those it has been you, gentlemen. As much as I am a target in this match and as much as you all demand so much to end my reign, just think about one thing.

How many of you have gave me your all? How many of you have used every last thing you've had and still failed?

Well?

All of you.

You've all come to me and said the same thing.

It's your time.

My time is over, is it? Well, I'm still waiting, friends. Just to be clear though, even if I lose once and am no longer the Universal Champion, that doesn't mean I'm going anywhere. I'll still be here and I'm sure I'll still be beating all of you. You're all the same. Just a tally across my sword.

Mister Loverboy, as many sessions as you and I have had I'm sure you know quite a bit about the Doctor. You've seen many sides of him as well. But you surely couldn't have seen everything about the Doctor. Even if you did, I was there too, my friend. What makes you think I don't know everything there is to know about 'Loverboy' Vinnie Lane? After all, I'm the reason you're trying so hard. I'm the reason you're in the position you're in right now. I'm the reason your thriving for the hunt. That's right, you too fall into that same category with everyone else, Loverboy. I've set the bar around here and, you know, maybe you are the only one that can reach that bar. You did manage to do something that only one other person in my history here has been able to do. And you did it at Bad Medicine. But, it just wasn't enough was it? Just wasn't enough. And it never will be. I don't know what makes you think that I've gotten any worse since then Mister Lane. I'm still the reigning, defending, monster that you've grown to love. You beloved King of the Xtreme Wrestling Federation. And just like that Xtreme Title, I'm going to be the Universal Champion until I decide I no longer want it. Bad Medicine wasn't that long ago, I know you've slept through most of it, but I'm not done yet, my friend. Apparently there's still several gentlemen around here that are not convinced that I belong where I am. So maybe the Doctor still has some convincing to do. I'd be happy to. And it starts with you, Jacob, and Mister Harrison. Three gentlemen that have spent that last year picking this place apart along with myself. Three men who's names will never be forgotten.

"Doctor?"

The Doctor is cut off by the voice of the little girl across the room. She holds her little ball in her hands and continues to stare at the wall in from of her.

Clementine, my dear.

The Doctor smiles and peers over to her.

How can I be of service?

"Who were those people?"

Never you mind, dearest. I think it'd be best we get going, don't you? Can't keep you cramped up in this office the entire time, now could we?

The little girl doesn't respond and just slowly rises up to her feet. She leaves the ball at her feet as it quickly deflates across the floor.

Allow me.

The Doctor presses open the door and allows the little girl into a hallway.

First door on the right. I'm right behind you, deary.

The Doctor slams the door to his office shut and in a blink the little girl is standing in the middle of a paved road. She stares forward into a pair of headlights while listening to the repeated beeping of a vehicles horn before leaping out of the way into the grass.

She rises up off the ground, dusts herself off, then the only think she thought to do was walk the road.


The reporter slips through the police tape and past the back door that was still left ajar from the break-in. She looks back at the man following her outside carrying a small camcorder.

"You coming or what?!"

"I really don't think this is a good idea..."

"Grow a set of balls and come on!"

He takes a gulp and slips through the tape and into the house. He holds the camera out in front of the two of them, using it as a source of light for the dark house.

"Place doesn't look like a murder scene, at all."

"I think it happened upstairs."

Together, the two creep through the house and make their way up the steps.

"What do you expect to find here again?"

"I don't know."

"Then why are we here?!"

The reporter sighs and looks over at her cameraman.

"Look, the other night, some creep-o in a mask came to my condo."

"Your condo? Mask?!"

"YES. My condo."

"Wait! Some dude in a mask came to your place? What did he want?"

"He wanted me to continue my story on the murder."

"That doesn't make any sense. Why would he care who covers the story?"

"I don't know!"

"So, you're taking advice from some masked stranger that appeared in your apartment one night."

The reporter ignores him as he continues his whining. She reaches the second floor before him and cuts back towards the bedroom.

"Can you smell that?"

"Smell what?"

"I don't know... Sulphur?"

The bedroom door slowly begins to creak open and an eery red glow seeps out from the opening.

"Do you see that?"

"Uh, yeah? What the fuck is it? Are you filiming?"

"Yeah."

He's filming, but the signal on the camera is getting weaker every step they take. Static slowly begins to take over the screen until it's barely visible.

"What the fuck? Damn thing!"

"Oh, don't tell me!"

"I can't help it! I don't know what's going on with it."

The reporter pulls her cellphone from her pocket it.

"Ouch!"

The cellphone drops to the ground and shatters to pieces like glass.

"What happened?!"

"It.. was REALLY hot. I couldn't hold it."

A slight sense of fear begins to overcome the two of them as they notice the heat radiating from the room. They take each others hand and slowly approach the room.

The reporter reaches out and pushes the door open revealing a large open office.

"This doesn't look like a bedroom."

SLAM ! !

Before they realized they even entered the room, the large wooden door slams shut behind them.

Hello, my friends!

A voice echoes through the room and the two nearly jump out of their skin.

"H-Hello?"

The reporter whispers, but her voice still carries through the long room. At one side of the room is a roaring fire, snapping and crackling, reaching out from the fireplace across the room at the guests.

Welcome!

"Who's there?"

A small ball rolls across the floor and stops on the cameraman's foot. It begins to swell and rise into the air as if it's filling with helium. He watches it as it levitates in front of his face until it pops and blasts him with a red paste.

He spits it from his mouth and does what he can to shriek out in pain.

"What the fuck! Owe! God, what is this?!"

The reporter says nothing and takes a couple of steps back. She begins to tremble as she watches him fall to his knees and sob in agony. She looks up in time to see a very small silhouette standing across the room in front of the fire.

"Hello?!"

"Have you seen my ball?"

The little girl takes a step forward into the light. Her face is so very pale and looks rotted from a constant salty trail of tears. The reporter looks on confused for a moment and actually shut out the screams from her friend. She gulps and takes a few steps forward.

"Little girl? Wha-- What are you doing here?"

"Have you seen my ball?"

"Honey, whats your name? Where is your family?"

The little girl lets out a quick sigh and sits cross legged onto the floor.

"What's going on?! Who's there?!"

Still ignored, he manages to wipe enough of the red liquid from his face to get a visual.

"Who is that?"

"Honey? Hello?"

The little girl looks up and smiles at the two frightened individuals.

"Hi. I'm Clementine."

"Clementine? That's a very pretty name. My name is --"

"Have you seen my ball?"

"Honey, we haven't seen your ball. Listen, why don't you come with us?"

The reporter slowly approaches the little girl and holds out her hand. From out of nowhere, a dog rushes out from behind the desk and latches onto her arm. It growls and pulls at the skin on her forearm as she shreiks out in pain. The camera man picks up the small camcorder from the ground where he dropped it and whips it at the dog's head. It let's go of the reporter's arm and runs back under the desk. He runs to the reporter's aid and grabs her blood covered arm.

"Are you okay?!"

"Do I fucking look okay?!"

She shrieks at him.

"Where the fuck did that come from?"

"Calm down. Calm down. Let's just get out of here."

He tries his best to pull the reporter to her feet as carefully as he could. She cries a bit from the pain as she holds the deepest wound as tightly as she can with one hand. As she gets to her feet, they both turn around to run out of the exit, but the door is gone. It's as if the room reversed itself and now they stand staring into the huge fireplace they were watching from across the room a second ago.

"Oh, what the fuck is this?!"

The little girl walks over and picks up the small camcorder and admires it for a moment. The cameraman rushes over to her and kneels down.

"We HAVE to get out of here!"

The little girl smiles and then shrieks so loud that it shook the room and shattered a couple of the liquor bottles. She then jumps into the air and slam dunks the camcorder down the cameraman's throat where it stays lodged there. He falls backwards as his grabs his throat which is nearly twice the width it once was. He panics and struggles for air as the reporter shrieks behind him. He flops around on the ground like a fish for a few moments before he stops and his eyes roll into the back of his head.

The reporter notices that the room did indeed reverse itself and she makes a b-line for the door on the opposite end of the room. The little girl watches her run past and giggles a bit. Once the reporter reaches the door, she grabs the doorknob with her damaged limb and pulls it open. While looking back at her fallen friend, she sees the little girl hovering over his body while the fire from the fireplace slowly begins to crawl across the floor and consumes the room. As the door slams shut, the flames pull back into the fireplace and a small red ball bounces out from the blaze. The little girl smiles and plants her butt to the floor, then begins to bounce the ball against the wall to catch it again in her hands.

After the reporter rushed out of the doorway she falls flat on her face. She looks around a moment and realizes she's not in the hallway, not even the house. She's lying on the roof to the house, just below the bedroom window. The steep roof and loss of feeling in her one hand made it difficult to keep a good grip, so she slid down and fell off of that roof onto the ground. With a whimper, she crawls out of some brush and to her feet. The cameraman's vehicle is still parked in front of the house along the side of the road. She rushes over to it now with a very bad limp. She feels very lucky that her leg isn't broken as she gimps across the lawn to the vehicle. She opens the driver's side door and climbs in.

No keys.

"Oh... no...."

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OOC - Part 4 of Alone in the Universe.

Part 1 - Alone in the Universe - Take My Hand

Part 2 - Alone in the Universe - Chasing Rabbits

Part 3 - Alone in the Universe - All Our Times Have Come

"I'm not afraid of death. It's the stake one takes in order to play the game of life."
― Jean Giraudoux


[Image: Kd641BT.png]

Tyrant -OR- Savior


Take two and call me in the morning . . .

The detective rubs his eyes open after splashing a couple palms of water to them. He stares at himself in the mirror for a moment, then throws a handful of water across his head and slicks his hair back. After a couple deep breathes, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small prescription bottle filled about a third of the way with tiny pills. He pours one out into his hand and throws it in the back of his throat, gulps it down, then chases it with water by putting his mouth under the faucet.

The prescription was given to him due to anxiety, sleep, and what not. It was recommended by his doctor that he might consider narcotics in order to stay sane. A very low dosage at most, of course. It's important for him to keep his focus, as well. The sleep deprivation was all cured by one of his old dear friends, drink. But, those days were far behind him and he owed his sobriety his job at the least.

Truth is, though, the pills did the trick. He was cool as a cucumber. Slept long every night, but still felt extremely worn out throughout his days. The plan was to work at least some through the night, but it would be useless attempts at this point. He figures to rest now and hopefully get an early start tomorrow.


"Okay, here we are."

The reporter throws her arm up in the air and nearly slaps the driver in the face. He slams his foot down on the brakes and it screeches to a halt.

"Could you be ANY less conspicuous?!"

"I knew were the place was. You didn't have to slap me in the face."

The reporter reaches out and slaps the driver in the head.

"Now, shut up."

"What are we doing here anyway?"

"I told you! I have a lead on that murder."

"Do you you even know what a lead is?! What lead?"

"I got some information, and they said more information would be in the house."

"The police looked in the house. Did you go to them with this?"

"Are you crazy?! You seen what happened last time."

"Yeah, you were dragged off--"

"The whole world seen it you prick. You filmed it remember?"

"Ha. Right."

"...."

The reporter doesn't finish what she thought of saying aloud. Instead she reaches into her small purse and pulls out a pack of cigarettes and starts to smoke.

"You're smoking NOW? Shouldn't we be investigating?"

"Just give me a minute, okay?"

"Whatever you say."


Finally.

A familiar sight.

As hot as it's been lately in this part of the world, the Doctor's fireplace continues to roar on the far side of the room as it always has. Bookshelves which seem fifty feet tall and loaded with books line the walls.

The Doctor sits behind his large wooden desk, with his face buried in his work, as always. The little girl sits facing the wall, bouncing a ball in perfect succession, over and over again. The Doctor looks up from his work and a large smile stretches across his face.

Hello, my friends!

He throws the pen from his hand spins around to his drinking stand. After a few seconds he concocks a drink and spins back around once again. After gulping it all down he places the glass nicely on his desk and rises out of his chair.

It's me again . . .

Your dear friend. Your doctor. Your King. Your Universal Champion. Doctor Louis D'Ville.

It's been a long road. A very long road, friends. I've noticed across this fine federation that PERHAPS some of my credentials could be a bit questionable. A few of my talents. My abilities. Nearly everyone I've faced claimed there was some kind of incident or discrepancy that lead to my victory.

How absurd is this?

Just because everyone decides to stick their noses in my sessions, doesn't mean the Doctor condones it.

Austin Fernando, for example. Here's a fellow using his one match against the top dog around here now to his defense. You almost beat me, you say? Well, it's too bad almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. I'm glad you still look back to our session from time to time now, Mister Fernando. It shows that I truly made a breakthrough with you in the short time we spent together. You're welcome, my friend. And I hope your reference of the Doctor and your near-win scares off whatever opposition you have this week. Good luck.

The Doctor marches out around his desk and lights a a big cigar that he pulled from inside his jacket.

That reminds me. Not only have all of my victories been tainted... But it seems that none of my selected opponents are even worthy of a Universal Title shot. Gator had his rematch and lost. Loverboy had his match and lost. Mister Harrison barely exists.

Ha.

Oh, he exists, my friends.

This is another case of more of you giving your ridiculous two cents where it is completely unwanted. These men were chosen as my opponents for a reason. Whether we've had a thousand matches, one, or none, why should that matter? If it's THAT big a deal, what has anyone done recently to even come close to proving they have what it takes? Hm?

You all make it sound like I'm not trying around here. Like.. I'm hiding. If I haven't said it a million times, I'd be lying. My doors are always open, my friends. Your reputation, your bank, your health, no matter. Stop in anytime for a session.

The Doctor sighs for a moment.

I see Mister Loverboy is still deep in his slumber.

I do hope you wake up, my friend, it would be the biggest shame if you were absent from this event. Maybe this was all just some trick from the general manager to get the Doctor's hopes up, is all.

Now, I know you and I haven't exactly had the a history like you and the other boys. Mister Harrison and yourself have had countless battles and Gator began his career even closer to the time you began yours. The two of you walked away with titles after last year's Relentless. Of course, you know that.

Gator went on to become what the XWF has recognized as the greatest Television Champion of all time. The title remained with Jacob for nearly the rest of the time it was active. Your Trios Titles? Well, after the circus that you put on with them they eventually ended up with the Kings and taken out of normal defenses.

Ups and downs, am I right, Loverboy?

You were a shooting star from the time you entered the XWF. You were soaring and now look at you. That star that I admired in the sky for so long is gone. I didn't even see it blink. Not even fade away. It was just gone one day.

A megastar. A role-model. A Hart Champion. The face and representing champion of Monday Madness, dwindled down into nothing more than a barely breathing sack of bones. Tell me, Mister Loverboy, was it the Universal Championship that ruined your attitude? That killed your smile? That Hart Championship just didn't seem like much after having a shot at something so much more.

So, here we are again. Only instead of sitting on top of the world like you once were, you're barely hanging onto life. Do you know what's going on in there, Mister Loverboy? Is there anyone home? Surely you do. Whatever spell you're under right now, I doubt it's keeping you from knowing that the most important event of your life is only days away. You've always been a fighter. A champion at heart. That's why that other title was just so fitting for you. The world loved to see their Loverboy week in and week out come out on top. All of those children and ladies. All cheering at the top of their lungs and chanting your name. That's another thing you could add to the list of things that separate us, Mister Lane. There aren't too many people in the crowd out their to chant the Doctor's name. My loyal followers sit in awe and respect. The love they share for me is not like the love they share for you. While your a hero, a role-model, and a sex symbol, I am the Higher Power. The masses look at me as not a hero, more of a savior. And due to my dominance, some may refer to me as a tyrant. Or a monster. But, I don't think it would be fair to go quite that far. I have after all, been a very fair King, have I not?

A tyrant. You know, if anyone has made me feel like one of those it has been you, gentlemen. As much as I am a target in this match and as much as you all demand so much to end my reign, just think about one thing.

How many of you have gave me your all? How many of you have used every last thing you've had and still failed?

Well?

All of you.

You've all come to me and said the same thing.

It's your time.

My time is over, is it? Well, I'm still waiting, friends. Just to be clear though, even if I lose once and am no longer the Universal Champion, that doesn't mean I'm going anywhere. I'll still be here and I'm sure I'll still be beating all of you. You're all the same. Just a tally across my sword.

Mister Loverboy, as many sessions as you and I have had I'm sure you know quite a bit about the Doctor. You've seen many sides of him as well. But you surely couldn't have seen everything about the Doctor. Even if you did, I was there too, my friend. What makes you think I don't know everything there is to know about 'Loverboy' Vinnie Lane? After all, I'm the reason you're trying so hard. I'm the reason you're in the position you're in right now. I'm the reason your thriving for the hunt. That's right, you too fall into that same category with everyone else, Loverboy. I've set the bar around here and, you know, maybe you are the only one that can reach that bar. You did manage to do something that only one other person in my history here has been able to do. And you did it at Bad Medicine. But, it just wasn't enough was it? Just wasn't enough. And it never will be. I don't know what makes you think that I've gotten any worse since then Mister Lane. I'm still the reigning, defending, monster that you've grown to love. You beloved King of the Xtreme Wrestling Federation. And just like that Xtreme Title, I'm going to be the Universal Champion until I decide I no longer want it. Bad Medicine wasn't that long ago, I know you've slept through most of it, but I'm not done yet, my friend. Apparently there's still several gentlemen around here that are not convinced that I belong where I am. So maybe the Doctor still has some convincing to do. I'd be happy to. And it starts with you, Jacob, and Mister Harrison. Three gentlemen that have spent that last year picking this place apart along with myself. Three men who's names will never be forgotten.

"Doctor?"

The Doctor is cut off by the voice of the little girl across the room. She holds her little ball in her hands and continues to stare at the wall in from of her.

Clementine, my dear.

The Doctor smiles and peers over to her.

How can I be of service?

"Who were those people?"

Never you mind, dearest. I think it'd be best we get going, don't you? Can't keep you cramped up in this office the entire time, now could we?

The little girl doesn't respond and just slowly rises up to her feet. She leaves the ball at her feet as it quickly deflates across the floor.

Allow me.

The Doctor presses open the door and allows the little girl into a hallway.

First door on the right. I'm right behind you, deary.

The Doctor slams the door to his office shut and in a blink the little girl is standing in the middle of a paved road. She stares forward into a pair of headlights while listening to the repeated beeping of a vehicles horn before leaping out of the way into the grass.

She rises up off the ground, dusts herself off, then the only think she thought to do was walk the road.


The reporter slips through the police tape and past the back door that was still left ajar from the break-in. She looks back at the man following her outside carrying a small camcorder.

"You coming or what?!"

"I really don't think this is a good idea..."

"Grow a set of balls and come on!"

He takes a gulp and slips through the tape and into the house. He holds the camera out in front of the two of them, using it as a source of light for the dark house.

"Place doesn't look like a murder scene, at all."

"I think it happened upstairs."

Together, the two creep through the house and make their way up the steps.

"What do you expect to find here again?"

"I don't know."

"Then why are we here?!"

The reporter sighs and looks over at her cameraman.

"Look, the other night, some creep-o in a mask came to my condo."

"Your condo? Mask?!"

"YES. My condo."

"Wait! Some dude in a mask came to your place? What did he want?"

"He wanted me to continue my story on the murder."

"That doesn't make any sense. Why would he care who covers the story?"

"I don't know!"

"So, you're taking advice from some masked stranger that appeared in your apartment one night."

The reporter ignores him as he continues his whining. She reaches the second floor before him and cuts back towards the bedroom.

"Can you smell that?"

"Smell what?"

"I don't know... Sulphur?"

The bedroom door slowly begins to creak open and an eery red glow seeps out from the opening.

"Do you see that?"

"Uh, yeah? What the fuck is it? Are you filiming?"

"Yeah."

He's filming, but the signal on the camera is getting weaker every step they take. Static slowly begins to take over the screen until it's barely visible.

"What the fuck? Damn thing!"

"Oh, don't tell me!"

"I can't help it! I don't know what's going on with it."

The reporter pulls her cellphone from her pocket it.

"Ouch!"

The cellphone drops to the ground and shatters to pieces like glass.

"What happened?!"

"It.. was REALLY hot. I couldn't hold it."

A slight sense of fear begins to overcome the two of them as they notice the heat radiating from the room. They take each others hand and slowly approach the room.

The reporter reaches out and pushes the door open revealing a large open office.

"This doesn't look like a bedroom."

SLAM ! !

Before they realized they even entered the room, the large wooden door slams shut behind them.

Hello, my friends!

A voice echoes through the room and the two nearly jump out of their skin.

"H-Hello?"

The reporter whispers, but her voice still carries through the long room. At one side of the room is a roaring fire, snapping and crackling, reaching out from the fireplace across the room at the guests.

Welcome!

"Who's there?"

A small ball rolls across the floor and stops on the cameraman's foot. It begins to swell and rise into the air as if it's filling with helium. He watches it as it levitates in front of his face until it pops and blasts him with a red paste.

He spits it from his mouth and does what he can to shriek out in pain.

"What the fuck! Owe! God, what is this?!"

The reporter says nothing and takes a couple of steps back. She begins to tremble as she watches him fall to his knees and sob in agony. She looks up in time to see a very small silhouette standing across the room in front of the fire.

"Hello?!"

"Have you seen my ball?"

The little girl takes a step forward into the light. Her face is so very pale and looks rotted from a constant salty trail of tears. The reporter looks on confused for a moment and actually shut out the screams from her friend. She gulps and takes a few steps forward.

"Little girl? Wha-- What are you doing here?"

"Have you seen my ball?"

"Honey, whats your name? Where is your family?"

The little girl lets out a quick sigh and sits cross legged onto the floor.

"What's going on?! Who's there?!"

Still ignored, he manages to wipe enough of the red liquid from his face to get a visual.

"Who is that?"

"Honey? Hello?"

The little girl looks up and smiles at the two frightened individuals.

"Hi. I'm Clementine."

"Clementine? That's a very pretty name. My name is --"

"Have you seen my ball?"

"Honey, we haven't seen your ball. Listen, why don't you come with us?"

The reporter slowly approaches the little girl and holds out her hand. From out of nowhere, a dog rushes out from behind the desk and latches onto her arm. It growls and pulls at the skin on her forearm as she shreiks out in pain. The camera man picks up the small camcorder from the ground where he dropped it and whips it at the dog's head. It let's go of the reporter's arm and runs back under the desk. He runs to the reporter's aid and grabs her blood covered arm.

"Are you okay?!"

"Do I fucking look okay?!"

She shrieks at him.

"Where the fuck did that come from?"

"Calm down. Calm down. Let's just get out of here."

He tries his best to pull the reporter to her feet as carefully as he could. She cries a bit from the pain as she holds the deepest wound as tightly as she can with one hand. As she gets to her feet, they both turn around to run out of the exit, but the door is gone. It's as if the room reversed itself and now they stand staring into the huge fireplace they were watching from across the room a second ago.

"Oh, what the fuck is this?!"

The little girl walks over and picks up the small camcorder and admires it for a moment. The cameraman rushes over to her and kneels down.

"We HAVE to get out of here!"

The little girl smiles and then shrieks so loud that it shook the room and shattered a couple of the liquor bottles. She then jumps into the air and slam dunks the camcorder down the cameraman's throat where it stays lodged there. He falls backwards as his grabs his throat which is nearly twice the width it once was. He panics and struggles for air as the reporter shrieks behind him. He flops around on the ground like a fish for a few moments before he stops and his eyes roll into the back of his head.

The reporter notices that the room did indeed reverse itself and she makes a b-line for the door on the opposite end of the room. The little girl watches her run past and giggles a bit. Once the reporter reaches the door, she grabs the doorknob with her damaged limb and pulls it open. While looking back at her fallen friend, she sees the little girl hovering over his body while the fire from the fireplace slowly begins to crawl across the floor and consumes the room. As the door slams shut, the flames pull back into the fireplace and a small red ball bounces out from the blaze. The little girl smiles and plants her butt to the floor, then begins to bounce the ball against the wall to catch it again in her hands.

After the reporter rushed out of the doorway she falls flat on her face. She looks around a moment and realizes she's not in the hallway, not even the house. She's lying on the roof to the house, just below the bedroom window. The steep roof and loss of feeling in her one hand made it difficult to keep a good grip, so she slid down and fell off of that roof onto the ground. With a whimper, she crawls out of some brush and to her feet. The cameraman's vehicle is still parked in front of the house along the side of the road. She rushes over to it now with a very bad limp. She feels very lucky that her leg isn't broken as she gimps across the lawn to the vehicle. She opens the driver's side door and climbs in.

No keys.

"Oh... no...."

]]> <![CDATA[Sympathy For The Devil]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=20921 Tue, 28 Jul 2015 23:26:49 -0700 Vincent Lane]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=20921

“Look down at me and you see a fool,
Look up at me and you see a god,
Look straight at me and you see yourself.”

- Charles Manson




“Where are we?”

It was the only thing I could get out of my mouth, as I tried to stall the man in the back of the car. Unfazed, he simply ignored me and exited the vehicle as the deer-in-headlights driver, the same man I’d thought was the one to be afraid of just an hour or two prior, dropped the gearshift into park and shut down the car’s engine.

“Why did you bring me here?”

I’m pleading with the driver, just trying to get him to respond to me in some way. A facial tic, an extra blink to show that my words were getting through his stone faced façade. Nothing, though. Not so much as a twitch of his eyeball.

Instead, it’s me who gets startled when the man from the back seat unlocks the passenger’s side door of the car from the outside and swings it open, standing there silently and looking down on me with his mutable Rorschach mask swirling and changing in hypnotic, kaleidoscope waves.

I hesitate, knowing that once I get out of the car I’ll have to make a decision to either run for my life or capitulate completely and put it in the hands of this mysterious madman.

“My shoe’s loose… wait…”

I know it won’t work, but I try my old tricks anyway. Leaning down extra far to adjust the heel of my stiletto, making the hem of my skirt ride up higher and higher as my chest dips low enough to see almost everything.

“Get out of the car, slattern.”

Like I said, I knew it wouldn’t work.

I slowly slide towards the door, putting one foot out onto the littered ground, and I start to stand from my seat. As I put my other foot into the dirt, the masked man is momentarily distracted by the movement of a car driving by a half mile back up the road.

I don’t know what I’m thinking, but it seems worth a shot. Ducking down, I grab a fistful of dirt and dead leaves, standing and flinging them into the masked face of my abductor just as he turns back to face me. In a flash, my shoes are kicked off and I’m spun around, running towards the road, with a scream loud enough to shatter windows building in my throat.

“HELP M - ”

It’s as far as I get before my head snaps backward from the whiplash of a fist wrapped in my hair pulling me from behind. I flail my arms around but lose my footing in the slick filth of the ground on my bare feet and start to fall backwards. I hit a solid chest with my back and an arm like a vise clamps around my ribcage. The voice of the masked man hisses in my ear, but I feel no breath hitting my skin.

“Do not try that again, Roxy. Your path only moves in one direction.”

And, like a vicious dancer, he spins me away from him, twirling me almost gracefully on pointed toes, but the momentum is more than I am prepared for and I fall to the ground, dirtying my knees in the muck.

“Get up. Go to the door of this hovel and let yourself in.”

“This is where you’re going to kill me and fuck my body? Like you did to my sister? You can’t even spring for a decent hotel room?”

“My friend and I will wait here for you to complete your transaction, Roxy.”

“My… transaction?”

“Give us what we want from you when you go in that door. If you follow through on your end, we will give you what you want.”

“Vinnie?”

“Yes, exactly. Your precious Loverboy, almost in one piece.”

“And if I don’t?”

The man’s laughter sounds like breaking rocks.

“What do you think?”

He then actually turns his back on me, confident in the fact that he’s laid it all out for me to make my choice. Surprising myself, I stand and begin to walk, slowly, towards the little ramshackle house. Almost a shed, really. I’m nearly at the threshold when I hear the masked man speak again.

“Roxy… make sure you look in the cardboard box by the door.”

Confused, I look around… then down. At my feet, just inches from my dirty toes, I see a box, sodden with rain. Reaching down and moving one pulpy flap aside, I gasp and stagger back.

Inside the box are my sister’s clothes on the day she went missing. And a sharp, bloody knife.

“Make your choice, Miss Cotton. We’re running low on time.”

I take the knife, and I open up the door.



[Image: zvyV3LN.gif]




”Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.
In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream —
Lingering in the golden gleam —
Life, what is it but a dream?”

- Lewis Carrol, Through The Looking Glass




“Loverboy” Vinnie Lane has been down the rabbit hole with his otherworldly host for what seems like days to the megastar.

After walking circular miles in concentric spirals from the eternal autumn forest, the two come upon a vast desert of red sand.

The tour guide leads Loverboy up atop a massive dune, its grains shifting like smoke from a cigar. Stopping at the peak, the gentleman then sits in the flowing sands, his legs folded beneath him as a yogi in trance.

“Please, have a seat Mister Loverboy. You deserve a rest.”

“I’d really be cool just getting to wherever the hell it is we’re going, dude. No offense.”

“None taken, my friend. Sit.”

Remarkably, Loverboy does as he’s ordered, dropping his haunches into the sand and sinking into the dune.

“Good boy.”

“Thanks, dude. That’s adorable. But seriously, I’m fine, I don’t need to rest. This isn’t even real, you know? I don’t get tired in my coma dreams, man. We don’t need to chill out on some… giant beach or whatever.”

“We’re here, Mister Loverboy.”

“Huh?”

“This is the final destination. This is where we were meant to go.”

“Really? There’s… nothing here though.”

“You really must learn to see the world in more than three dimensions, my friend. Open your eyes wider. Tell me where we are.”

Loverboy leans back and looks around. He tries to find a landmark of some kind, but everywhere he turns he merely sees more sand.

“I don’t know, dude… I don’t see anything other than what I see right here. Just more and more of this stuff. It never ends!”

“No. Look again. Don’t look at the sand, look at the sky. Look… over there.”

Loverboy again follows his instructions and turns his attention in the direction his shepherd points toward. The expanse of white light which exists as the sky in this dream desert extends in all directions. Nearly snowblind from the ceaseless brightness, Loverboy desperately squints into the pain until, finally, he catches a glimpse of something hiding in plain sight.

A simple gleam, curved along an edge, refracting its incandescence in an almost imperceptible prismatic cut in the solid fabric of white.

“There! The sky bends inwards! It has a shape, like a border!”

“Good. And what is it shaped like?”

“I see… it starts wide the higher up I look, but it pinches in as it approaches the ground. All around. And the sand, sinking down into its funnel, like… it’s like a… uh…”

“Yes? Think, my boy.”

“An hourglass! It’s an hourglass!”

“Very good. And what do you use an hourglass for?”

“To measure time. But dude, there have to be a million miles of this sand, and it’s slipping away so slowly… we could be here forever.”

“Nothing is forever, Mister Loverboy. There is an alpha and, indeed, an omega, to all things. When you focus on the glass… what do you see?”

“I see… I see… my reflection, man. Barely, but I see it. It’s like a giant mirror.”

“Loosen your focus. Allow your perception to drift away from yourself, Mister Loverboy.”

“Okay… I see… trees? Yeah, totally, there’s, like, a forest or something, man. And there’s… a little girl, walking in the woods! And a man… holy shit! It’s D’Ville!”

“Ah.”

“What is this thing, dude? It’s like I can see anything just by looking through the right part of the glass.”

“My friend, when you’ve looked into mirrors over the course of your life… haven’t you ever wondered what might be looking back at you?”

“What the fuck is Doc D’Ville doing in some fairy tale forest with a little kid, anyway? What the hell is going on? This is the undefeatable Universal Champion? This is the guy that took everything I had to give and threw it right back at me? What is he doing, playing Snow White with his magic mirror?”

“He broke you, didn’t he Mister Loverboy?”

“Fuck no he didn’t break anything. In fact, if anyone showed any signs of wear and tear, it was that son of a bitch. Before Bad Medicine, all he had was a handful of quick losses, most notably to Gator last year. Just a flash pin, a three second stumble, you know? But man, I showed him he could be beat, and that it wasn’t a fluke. I put him down more than once, and I could have done it again.”

“But you didn’t. It was you who lost.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I lost. I had everything exactly how I wanted it but I came up short. You’re right. He found a way to catch me off guard, man, and he used some fucking voodoo magic to toss me into the air and drop me, stun me, and pin me while the time ran out. But you know what, dude? This time around I only need one. I only have to do what I’ve already done and pin him for a three count in the middle of that ring while the others look on.

Don’t think for a second I’m going to be happy sitting back and watching the three of them fight it out so I can save my strength, man. I’m going to WIN the title because I’m going to BEAT the champion. No excuses for him, dude. No way for him to say he didn’t lose it to me or that I couldn’t get it done against him. I’m GOING to get it done. Losing to him at Bad Medicine just made me more capable of beating him, man. It tells me, the way he had to use that hocus pocus crap, that he knew he was going down. Ad this time? Dude, this time I’m not falling for any tricks. I’m not getting caught up throwing punches with Gator outside of the ring while Doc gets a cheap, easy win over Harrison. I’m not going to be caught with my pants down while one of the others steals my victory away from me.

Look, Doc D’Ville has proven repeatedly that he’s the best in the XWF right now. He’s been King for almost a year. He held the X-Treme Title longer than anyone, right up until he basically decided he didn’t want it anymore. He cashed in on Gator, sure, but then he beat him in a rematch, legitimizing the cash in. He hasn’t lost it, either. Defended it against everyone he could find. He was better than Gator, and yeah, at Bad Medicine he was better than me. But dude, that was then. Now? It’s a whole new story, man. I’ll be more physically capable, more rested, more knowledgeable… shit, for me it’s like Bad Medicine happened yesterday, dude! I hung around another week or two and then took a fucking nap, you know? I remember the way he ducks, the way he dodges, the way he reverses. I know how his weight shifts when he executes a throw. I know the rhythm of his punches, the strength of his kicks.

I know everything there is to know about Doctor Louis D’Ville, dude… the simple fact is, if I can’t beat him? He can’t be beat. And there isn’t a man alive who can’t be beat.

This Sunday, this is the time I’ve been waiting for. I thought it was Bad Medicine, but I see now that I needed to learn more. There’s nothing left for me to know about Doc now, man. This is it. This is the time when I walk into that ring, slap the taste of Viagra right out of Doc’s mouth, and walk out as the new Universal Champion. My dream. My destiny. My fucking moment in the sun, man.

All good things come to an end, Doc, and your sun should have set a long time ago. Just think of me as fate, coming to claim what’s rightfully mine.”

Loverboy smirks in self-satisfied hubris, before turning away from the woodland scene starring Doctor D’Ville and the young girl and back to his dreamland Sherpa.

“I think I’m ready, dude. Take me home.”

“No, Mister Loverboy… not yet… look again, over here.”

And so Loverboy once again gazes into the reflections of mirrored glass, only this time, he sees a dirty man living in squalor. He sees a door swing open, and a wild-eyed blonde woman storm into the room wielding a large knife.

The man is caught off guard, and Loverboy is struck with the realization that he is watching his own fiancée, Roxy Cotton, as she knocks this man to the floor and stands over him, screaming silently and brandishing her weapon.

“Oh god… Roxy! No, don’t do it!”

“She cannot hear you, I have already explained this to you Mister Loverboy.”

“Dude, she’ll go to prison! She’ll spend the rest of her life in jail! Roxy, please baby, you’ve got to hear me! Don’t kill him!”

In the glass, Roxy Cotton kicks the helpless man in the stomach, curling him on the floor into a fetal position. Loverboy can see the anguish and hatred in his lover’s eyes as she comes down on top of the fallen man, straddling him and striking him across the face with the handle of the knife.

“Okay… dude, what do I need to do? How do I stop this? How do I make it right, man?”

“Right? There is no right, Mister Loverboy. There only IS. Now… what there IS… well, sometimes we have a choice.”

“What choice? Please, anything, I’ll do anything for her!”

“Anything? Is she worth everything to you, Mister Loverboy?”

“YES!”

“Is she worth your very soul?”

Loverboy is stunned silent. He sees the demonic smile spreading across the face of his guide, then looks up again and sees the flash of a blade as Roxy lifts the knife high into the air above the beaten man’s chest.

Her arm moves down.

“Alright! Yes! Anything you want, just please… please save her!”

“Good boy.”

And then the guide, and the sand, and the reflections… all turn to black.



[Image: xUP62OJ.gif]



Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Beepbeep.

“What was that?”

“Nurse? Can I get a nurse in here?”

“Vinnie? Vinnie can you hear me?”

“Please, give us some room to work Miss Cotton.”

Beepbeep.

Beepbeep.

“What… what happened… where am I?”

“Oh my god! Vinnie! He’s awake! Vinnie’s awake!”

]]>

“Look down at me and you see a fool,
Look up at me and you see a god,
Look straight at me and you see yourself.”

- Charles Manson




“Where are we?”

It was the only thing I could get out of my mouth, as I tried to stall the man in the back of the car. Unfazed, he simply ignored me and exited the vehicle as the deer-in-headlights driver, the same man I’d thought was the one to be afraid of just an hour or two prior, dropped the gearshift into park and shut down the car’s engine.

“Why did you bring me here?”

I’m pleading with the driver, just trying to get him to respond to me in some way. A facial tic, an extra blink to show that my words were getting through his stone faced façade. Nothing, though. Not so much as a twitch of his eyeball.

Instead, it’s me who gets startled when the man from the back seat unlocks the passenger’s side door of the car from the outside and swings it open, standing there silently and looking down on me with his mutable Rorschach mask swirling and changing in hypnotic, kaleidoscope waves.

I hesitate, knowing that once I get out of the car I’ll have to make a decision to either run for my life or capitulate completely and put it in the hands of this mysterious madman.

“My shoe’s loose… wait…”

I know it won’t work, but I try my old tricks anyway. Leaning down extra far to adjust the heel of my stiletto, making the hem of my skirt ride up higher and higher as my chest dips low enough to see almost everything.

“Get out of the car, slattern.”

Like I said, I knew it wouldn’t work.

I slowly slide towards the door, putting one foot out onto the littered ground, and I start to stand from my seat. As I put my other foot into the dirt, the masked man is momentarily distracted by the movement of a car driving by a half mile back up the road.

I don’t know what I’m thinking, but it seems worth a shot. Ducking down, I grab a fistful of dirt and dead leaves, standing and flinging them into the masked face of my abductor just as he turns back to face me. In a flash, my shoes are kicked off and I’m spun around, running towards the road, with a scream loud enough to shatter windows building in my throat.

“HELP M - ”

It’s as far as I get before my head snaps backward from the whiplash of a fist wrapped in my hair pulling me from behind. I flail my arms around but lose my footing in the slick filth of the ground on my bare feet and start to fall backwards. I hit a solid chest with my back and an arm like a vise clamps around my ribcage. The voice of the masked man hisses in my ear, but I feel no breath hitting my skin.

“Do not try that again, Roxy. Your path only moves in one direction.”

And, like a vicious dancer, he spins me away from him, twirling me almost gracefully on pointed toes, but the momentum is more than I am prepared for and I fall to the ground, dirtying my knees in the muck.

“Get up. Go to the door of this hovel and let yourself in.”

“This is where you’re going to kill me and fuck my body? Like you did to my sister? You can’t even spring for a decent hotel room?”

“My friend and I will wait here for you to complete your transaction, Roxy.”

“My… transaction?”

“Give us what we want from you when you go in that door. If you follow through on your end, we will give you what you want.”

“Vinnie?”

“Yes, exactly. Your precious Loverboy, almost in one piece.”

“And if I don’t?”

The man’s laughter sounds like breaking rocks.

“What do you think?”

He then actually turns his back on me, confident in the fact that he’s laid it all out for me to make my choice. Surprising myself, I stand and begin to walk, slowly, towards the little ramshackle house. Almost a shed, really. I’m nearly at the threshold when I hear the masked man speak again.

“Roxy… make sure you look in the cardboard box by the door.”

Confused, I look around… then down. At my feet, just inches from my dirty toes, I see a box, sodden with rain. Reaching down and moving one pulpy flap aside, I gasp and stagger back.

Inside the box are my sister’s clothes on the day she went missing. And a sharp, bloody knife.

“Make your choice, Miss Cotton. We’re running low on time.”

I take the knife, and I open up the door.



[Image: zvyV3LN.gif]




”Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.
In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream —
Lingering in the golden gleam —
Life, what is it but a dream?”

- Lewis Carrol, Through The Looking Glass




“Loverboy” Vinnie Lane has been down the rabbit hole with his otherworldly host for what seems like days to the megastar.

After walking circular miles in concentric spirals from the eternal autumn forest, the two come upon a vast desert of red sand.

The tour guide leads Loverboy up atop a massive dune, its grains shifting like smoke from a cigar. Stopping at the peak, the gentleman then sits in the flowing sands, his legs folded beneath him as a yogi in trance.

“Please, have a seat Mister Loverboy. You deserve a rest.”

“I’d really be cool just getting to wherever the hell it is we’re going, dude. No offense.”

“None taken, my friend. Sit.”

Remarkably, Loverboy does as he’s ordered, dropping his haunches into the sand and sinking into the dune.

“Good boy.”

“Thanks, dude. That’s adorable. But seriously, I’m fine, I don’t need to rest. This isn’t even real, you know? I don’t get tired in my coma dreams, man. We don’t need to chill out on some… giant beach or whatever.”

“We’re here, Mister Loverboy.”

“Huh?”

“This is the final destination. This is where we were meant to go.”

“Really? There’s… nothing here though.”

“You really must learn to see the world in more than three dimensions, my friend. Open your eyes wider. Tell me where we are.”

Loverboy leans back and looks around. He tries to find a landmark of some kind, but everywhere he turns he merely sees more sand.

“I don’t know, dude… I don’t see anything other than what I see right here. Just more and more of this stuff. It never ends!”

“No. Look again. Don’t look at the sand, look at the sky. Look… over there.”

Loverboy again follows his instructions and turns his attention in the direction his shepherd points toward. The expanse of white light which exists as the sky in this dream desert extends in all directions. Nearly snowblind from the ceaseless brightness, Loverboy desperately squints into the pain until, finally, he catches a glimpse of something hiding in plain sight.

A simple gleam, curved along an edge, refracting its incandescence in an almost imperceptible prismatic cut in the solid fabric of white.

“There! The sky bends inwards! It has a shape, like a border!”

“Good. And what is it shaped like?”

“I see… it starts wide the higher up I look, but it pinches in as it approaches the ground. All around. And the sand, sinking down into its funnel, like… it’s like a… uh…”

“Yes? Think, my boy.”

“An hourglass! It’s an hourglass!”

“Very good. And what do you use an hourglass for?”

“To measure time. But dude, there have to be a million miles of this sand, and it’s slipping away so slowly… we could be here forever.”

“Nothing is forever, Mister Loverboy. There is an alpha and, indeed, an omega, to all things. When you focus on the glass… what do you see?”

“I see… I see… my reflection, man. Barely, but I see it. It’s like a giant mirror.”

“Loosen your focus. Allow your perception to drift away from yourself, Mister Loverboy.”

“Okay… I see… trees? Yeah, totally, there’s, like, a forest or something, man. And there’s… a little girl, walking in the woods! And a man… holy shit! It’s D’Ville!”

“Ah.”

“What is this thing, dude? It’s like I can see anything just by looking through the right part of the glass.”

“My friend, when you’ve looked into mirrors over the course of your life… haven’t you ever wondered what might be looking back at you?”

“What the fuck is Doc D’Ville doing in some fairy tale forest with a little kid, anyway? What the hell is going on? This is the undefeatable Universal Champion? This is the guy that took everything I had to give and threw it right back at me? What is he doing, playing Snow White with his magic mirror?”

“He broke you, didn’t he Mister Loverboy?”

“Fuck no he didn’t break anything. In fact, if anyone showed any signs of wear and tear, it was that son of a bitch. Before Bad Medicine, all he had was a handful of quick losses, most notably to Gator last year. Just a flash pin, a three second stumble, you know? But man, I showed him he could be beat, and that it wasn’t a fluke. I put him down more than once, and I could have done it again.”

“But you didn’t. It was you who lost.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I lost. I had everything exactly how I wanted it but I came up short. You’re right. He found a way to catch me off guard, man, and he used some fucking voodoo magic to toss me into the air and drop me, stun me, and pin me while the time ran out. But you know what, dude? This time around I only need one. I only have to do what I’ve already done and pin him for a three count in the middle of that ring while the others look on.

Don’t think for a second I’m going to be happy sitting back and watching the three of them fight it out so I can save my strength, man. I’m going to WIN the title because I’m going to BEAT the champion. No excuses for him, dude. No way for him to say he didn’t lose it to me or that I couldn’t get it done against him. I’m GOING to get it done. Losing to him at Bad Medicine just made me more capable of beating him, man. It tells me, the way he had to use that hocus pocus crap, that he knew he was going down. Ad this time? Dude, this time I’m not falling for any tricks. I’m not getting caught up throwing punches with Gator outside of the ring while Doc gets a cheap, easy win over Harrison. I’m not going to be caught with my pants down while one of the others steals my victory away from me.

Look, Doc D’Ville has proven repeatedly that he’s the best in the XWF right now. He’s been King for almost a year. He held the X-Treme Title longer than anyone, right up until he basically decided he didn’t want it anymore. He cashed in on Gator, sure, but then he beat him in a rematch, legitimizing the cash in. He hasn’t lost it, either. Defended it against everyone he could find. He was better than Gator, and yeah, at Bad Medicine he was better than me. But dude, that was then. Now? It’s a whole new story, man. I’ll be more physically capable, more rested, more knowledgeable… shit, for me it’s like Bad Medicine happened yesterday, dude! I hung around another week or two and then took a fucking nap, you know? I remember the way he ducks, the way he dodges, the way he reverses. I know how his weight shifts when he executes a throw. I know the rhythm of his punches, the strength of his kicks.

I know everything there is to know about Doctor Louis D’Ville, dude… the simple fact is, if I can’t beat him? He can’t be beat. And there isn’t a man alive who can’t be beat.

This Sunday, this is the time I’ve been waiting for. I thought it was Bad Medicine, but I see now that I needed to learn more. There’s nothing left for me to know about Doc now, man. This is it. This is the time when I walk into that ring, slap the taste of Viagra right out of Doc’s mouth, and walk out as the new Universal Champion. My dream. My destiny. My fucking moment in the sun, man.

All good things come to an end, Doc, and your sun should have set a long time ago. Just think of me as fate, coming to claim what’s rightfully mine.”

Loverboy smirks in self-satisfied hubris, before turning away from the woodland scene starring Doctor D’Ville and the young girl and back to his dreamland Sherpa.

“I think I’m ready, dude. Take me home.”

“No, Mister Loverboy… not yet… look again, over here.”

And so Loverboy once again gazes into the reflections of mirrored glass, only this time, he sees a dirty man living in squalor. He sees a door swing open, and a wild-eyed blonde woman storm into the room wielding a large knife.

The man is caught off guard, and Loverboy is struck with the realization that he is watching his own fiancée, Roxy Cotton, as she knocks this man to the floor and stands over him, screaming silently and brandishing her weapon.

“Oh god… Roxy! No, don’t do it!”

“She cannot hear you, I have already explained this to you Mister Loverboy.”

“Dude, she’ll go to prison! She’ll spend the rest of her life in jail! Roxy, please baby, you’ve got to hear me! Don’t kill him!”

In the glass, Roxy Cotton kicks the helpless man in the stomach, curling him on the floor into a fetal position. Loverboy can see the anguish and hatred in his lover’s eyes as she comes down on top of the fallen man, straddling him and striking him across the face with the handle of the knife.

“Okay… dude, what do I need to do? How do I stop this? How do I make it right, man?”

“Right? There is no right, Mister Loverboy. There only IS. Now… what there IS… well, sometimes we have a choice.”

“What choice? Please, anything, I’ll do anything for her!”

“Anything? Is she worth everything to you, Mister Loverboy?”

“YES!”

“Is she worth your very soul?”

Loverboy is stunned silent. He sees the demonic smile spreading across the face of his guide, then looks up again and sees the flash of a blade as Roxy lifts the knife high into the air above the beaten man’s chest.

Her arm moves down.

“Alright! Yes! Anything you want, just please… please save her!”

“Good boy.”

And then the guide, and the sand, and the reflections… all turn to black.



[Image: xUP62OJ.gif]



Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Beepbeep.

“What was that?”

“Nurse? Can I get a nurse in here?”

“Vinnie? Vinnie can you hear me?”

“Please, give us some room to work Miss Cotton.”

Beepbeep.

Beepbeep.

“What… what happened… where am I?”

“Oh my god! Vinnie! He’s awake! Vinnie’s awake!”

]]> <![CDATA[Hell Below / Stars Above]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=20880 Mon, 27 Jul 2015 19:50:41 -0700 Vincent Lane]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=20880


It’s so weird to me that I didn’t even realize we weren’t alone until the car had been moving for at least five minutes. I may have never noticed, actually, had the man in the back seat not introduced himself out of nowhere.

“Where do you think we might be going, Roxy?”

I jumped in my seat. The driver, the creepy guy who only told me he was ‘a friend,’ didn’t even blink. It was like he was some sort of mindless zombie under hypnosis or something the way he just stared at the road while I shouted and spun around to face the voice coming from behind me.

“Who the fuck are you? Jesus, you scared me half to death!”

The man was in darkness, unnatural darkness, considering the bright Los Angeles afternoon we were driving through. I heard a guttural laugh, and saw a puff of smoke, though there was no cigarette anywhere to be seen.

“You don’t recognize me, Roxy dear? Here… let me shed some light…”

He said it with a smile in his voice, teasing me. Then, he leaned forward. He must have seen the shock on my face as the white mask he was wearing came out into the light, because the ink blots moving across its face became something eerily similar to a smile.

“You… Harrison? Is it you?”

“No… yes… whatever you want me to be, Roxy. I’m just a vessel, after all. When we’re done together I won’t even exist at all.”

He disappears back into the shadow, and leaves me just a voice and a silhouette to talk to. I turn to the driver again, but his face lets me know he is long gone.

“Don’t worry about him. He’s nothing. Nobody.”

“He killed my sister!”

“Did he? Or did he just find her before the cops?”

“Stop with the god damn games! What do you want from me? Where are you taking me? What does this have to do with Vinnie?”

Smoke swirls around the back seat compartment, like dust kicked up into a windy day. I sit and stare back at the black form of my abductor’s head, trying to look where I thought his eyes might be. I needed him to see that I was serious, that I wasn’t going to let it go.

After a heavy minute, he went on. A small victory, maybe, but it felt like a big one.

“Your fiancé has a big match scheduled for next weekend. There are… some very important people interested in the way things go.”

“Yeah, who? The mafia? The Yakuza? Vegas thugs?”

“You’re thinking small time, sister. Think much… much… bigger.”

“And what? You need what to happen? You’re going to fix the match, is that it? You think he’ll bow down to you if you, what? Kidnap me? Rape me? Or do you think I’ll fuck you so he can win? Because let me tell you just how fucking wrong you are you backwoods Arkansas – FUCK!”

I didn’t see his hand, I only feel the sting of it across my mouth and taste the leather of his glove as it mingles with blood from my tongue.

“Watch your mouth, harlot.”

I want to spit the blood in his face. Tell him to fuck himself in the back of his own car if he can get it up with a real girl near him. My mind comes up with endless vitriol, but none of it comes through my slowly swelling lips. Instead, I’m sitting there like a reprimanded puppy licking my wounds and just waiting for him to talk again. Classical conditioning. Learned helplessness.

Finally, after letting me stew in my own defeat for what he determined to be long enough, he spoke again.

“What we want is… well, call it a sacrifice. We want to make a deal. You give us what we want, maybe we let your Loverboy wake up. Maybe we let him get what he wants. Don’t think for a second we don’t control everything that happens in your tiny world. Remember who is in this championship match with Lane.”

“Y… you are.”

“If you mean LH Harrison, then yes, LH Harrison is in the match. A bit of a rogue element at the moment, but they all come back to the fold after they test the reaches of their leash, don’t they? He’s just a sheep. A lamb. The shepherd is there along with him, to make sure everything goes to plan.”

“You mean D’Ville.”

“Yes. That’s what you call him. D’Ville.”

“And what do you think I’ll give you? What makes you think I don’t believe Vinnie can just win on his own, without your help?”

“Because, Roxy, as much as your bleached hair and plastic body try to pretend otherwise, you aren’t stupid. How can he overcome the good Doctor when he can’t even open his eyes? You both have the opportunity to make the deal.”

“What do you mean? Vinnie can’t make any deals.”

“Silly girl. There are other places than this. Look into my eyes and see him.”

He leans forward again, and I find myself squinting through the haze of the smoky air and trying my damndest to look into his eyes. All I see are swirling pools of black ink as they slide and shift and change across his face, however.

I try, and I keep trying, and the masked man laughs.

“Good. That’s good.”




[Image: L2thwvU.gif]




As Loverboy walks through the dreamscape unfolding around him, he sees large, floral banyan-like trees sprouting ahead of him, leaving a path for him to follow.

As soon as each tree reaches its full, colorful height, though, the petals immediately begin to fall and brown. They land on the ground withered and dead just as he walks over them, feeling the crunch of them between bare toes he didn’t know he had.

The voice of his astral spirit guide, always from inside his own head, is the only sound to be heard in this time-lapsed autumn scene.

“How did you like seeing your old friend back in the swamp, Mister Loverboy?”

“That wasn’t Gator. You know it wasn’t him.”

Laughter. No humor in it, but laughter just the same.

“Mister… Vincent. I feel that I can call you Vincent now. We are friends here, after all, why not eschew the formality?”

“And what’s your name then, dude?”

“Ah… so many to choose from. Never mind, then, Mister Loverboy will suffice. But tell me, do you believe there is only one of you? One version of you, I should say?”

“I… think so? I mean, I don’t know, dude, I’m pretty agnostic. I don’t follow any of that Brief History of Time quantum shit either, man. I just work with what I can see and feel, you know?”

“Pity.”

“What do you mean?”

The man with no identity seems to look back over his shoulder at Loverboy, maybe even smile. A long while passes as the two walk through the woodlands, following the roadway which the trees lay out for them.

Loverboy becomes fascinated watching the blank, pure white horizon morph into blossoms of color ahead of them, and vanish again into nothingness behind them – like walking in a snow globe of color surrounded by nothing at all.

“Think of it this way… maybe that man you rescued back in the doldrums, the surrogate, maybe your words were not meant for him, specifically, but through the great design of things they travel through the proper channels and arrive on the proper ears. Would that not, then, make the man you said those things to the very one and the same as the man you were directing them to?”

“I… I don’t know?”

“Exactly. Ah, here we are.”

And then the trees vanish. The whiteness deepens into a cornfield-like layout, with a sky full of purple storm clouds. Heat lightning dances back and forth between the thunderheads, and an electricity fills the space around Loverboy, giving him the sensation of hair standing on end.

“Where? Where are we, man?”

The figure opens his arms wide and gestures above, spreading the clouds open like Moses parting the Red Sea.

“Look at the clouds, Mister Loverboy. The high-stacked cumulus-like billows of mist. What do you see?”

“What… you mean, like a game? Like a little kid lying on his back outside, seeing horses and dragons and shit in the clouds?”

“Something like that.”

And then, like the heavens themselves were in on the act, the clouds swirl and form together into… a face?

No, not quite.

An ink blot. A Rorschach.

“Whoa, wait a minute… what the hell is this, dude?”

“What do you see?”

“I see Hysteria. Or Harrison, I guess. I don’t know. But the mask is gone, I thought? I mean, isn’t Harrison on my side?”

“Look again.”

Loverboy stares up into the expanse of electric firmament. Then, the fibers of lightning seem to form a picture. Through what could be considered black splotches of eyeballs in the sky, Loverboy sees his fiancée, the voluptuous Roxy Cotton, staring back at him as if searching for something.

“Roxy? Roxy! Baby! I’m here baby, help me! Get me out of here!”

“Pay attention, Mister Loverboy… be quiet and watch. She cannot hear you.”

“Roxy! ROXY!”

But the tour guide seems to be right. Roxy stares and searches from side to side with her eyes, but never seems to focus on Loverboy, nor does she react to his words.

After a moment of looking, she brings her hand to her lip and wipes away a drop of blood.

“What’s wrong with her? What happened? Are you trying to tell me Harrison did that to her?”

“I’m not telling you a thing. Perhaps you have something to say about Mister Harrison leading up to your match this weekend, though?”

“Yeah… yeah, you’re damn right I do…

Harrison! If you can hear me dude, and for whatever reason I have a pretty good idea that you can, you’d better pay the fuck attention right now. I don’t know what role you’re playing in all of this, I don’t know what drove you to the side of the Doctor in the first place, but dude, when you lay a hand on my woman you cross a fucking line.

You know dude, our history together in the XWF has been documented over and over. Shit, man, I sound like a broken fucking record every time some genius comes up with the idea of pitting you against me for the hundredth time. The long version? Ever since birth, you’ve been inferior to me. You’ve been destined to be, at best, the Gilligan to my Skipper, “Little Buddy.” You’re the Robin to my Batman, complete with the gay yellow underpants. If you’re lucky, dude, once I win the Universal Title at Relentless II, I’ll do the same favor Doc did for you and let you touch the fucking belt from time to time, or hold onto it while I’m in the ring giving the fans of the XWF what they paid for.

The short version? You can’t beat me. You never have, never could, and never, ever will.

And how many times have you tried to make a name for yourself at my expense, dude? You tried to spoil my debut. You tried to spoil the ascension of the Underground. And now? You have the brass fucking balls to try and spoil my chance at the Universal Championship. You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve, dude. A lot of fucking nerve. See man, just like Gator, you and me, we could have made some waves around here. When we coordinate, there’s not a better team out there. Look at what we did together at the Lethal Lottery, man. We took down Mystica and Game Boy, two dudes who pretty much never lose. When you stay in your lane and remember who the leader of the pack is, and remember to fill the role you’re assigned, we get shit done. But every few months, like fucking clockwork, someone gets into your head and convinces you that you can hang with me. Spoiler alert, dude: you can’t.

You know… I should have known after what you did at Bad Medicine. I should have known that you’d sold your soul and turned your back on the only meal ticket you’ve been able to latch onto in this federation, man. You think the Doc was gonna take you to the promised land? You think that motherfucker wanted anything other than a do-boy that would be willing to get his hands dirty for him? You’re more delusional than when you were on your knees at the end of your bed praying to an invisible man in the sky, dude. At least then it was honest, you know? Now you put a stupid mask over your head and pretend to be some sort of prophet, all while proving over and over again that you can’t get shit done on your own.

And then what do you go and do? You do what you do best and stab your new hero in the back too! Jesus Christ, H, you’re more predictable than a Nicholas Sparks movie and about half as interesting. Whose nuts are you going to swing from now that you kicked your new daddy to the curb, huh? You gonna try to get Brick Squad to let you do their dishes for them? You gonna see if Drew Archyle needs any help getting semen stains out of his laundry? Why don’t you ask Frodo if you can get back into that closet of his and watch his daughter shit some more?

Man, I don’t even know why you try anymore, dude. You blew it. You blew your shot with me, you blew your shot with Doc, and now you think you can get into a ring with BOTH of us and come out on top? Dude you’re more delusional than Peter Gilmour convincing himself that his lap band can withstand the strain of pinching his bottomless stomach together. Luca has a better chance of winning the title on Sunday, and he’s not even in the damn match. Your dead wife has a better chance of digging her way out of the ground and pinning anyone in the ring than you do. Hell dude, those dead kids have a better chance of actually being yours than you do of winning the Universal Championship.

LH, dude, when I’m done wrecking you for the tenth straight time, you’re going to wish Morbid Angel had finished the job and wiped your whole DNA record from the face of the Earth. The way you keep booking yourself against me, it would really just be Darwinism.

And when it’s all said and done, Harrison? Don’t you come sniffing around here, dude. Don’t come begging for scraps once I’m the man in the ivory tower and you’re still just a beggar on the streets. Once you lay your hand on my queen... well, that’s a stain that won’t wash off of you, man.

You and me? We’re done.

And at Relentless? Your career? Is done.”

Loverboy swings himself around and attempts to attack the mysterious man he’s been following through the wilderness of his own unconscious, but of course there is nothing to hit and nothing to hit it with.

Instead, Loverboy resigns himself to catching his breath as, in the sky, the vision of his beloved with a tear in her eye fades into obscurity.

“You make sure Harrison hears that. And you make sure he pays for what he did to my Roxy.”

“Very well, Mister Loverboy… but you should know. LH Harrison is not the man who struck your girlfriend. It was just a copy of a copy.”

Loverboy nearly loses his composure, his lower lip trembles and his knees get weak… or at least that is what he feels as the man turns and leads the way once more.

“Follow me, Mister Loverboy. We are nearly done here.”

Loverboy hesitates.

“Follow me.”

And finally... Loverboy follows.



[Image: IEYChwZ.gif]



“Did you see?”

The man shrouded in shadow asks me, the smoke intensifying and making my eyes water in spite of my efforts to look strong in the face of danger.

“No. There was nothing there.”

“Pity.”

I turn around and watch the road as the sun begins to set outside of my window. We keep heading south until suddenly we take a turn towards the coast.

Silently, the driver weaves through a series of back roads until nothing resembling L.A. can be seen. Eventually, we come upon a beaten down hovel away from everything else, surrounded by shrub. The car stops and the engine is killed.

“We’re here, Roxy.”

God help me.
]]>


It’s so weird to me that I didn’t even realize we weren’t alone until the car had been moving for at least five minutes. I may have never noticed, actually, had the man in the back seat not introduced himself out of nowhere.

“Where do you think we might be going, Roxy?”

I jumped in my seat. The driver, the creepy guy who only told me he was ‘a friend,’ didn’t even blink. It was like he was some sort of mindless zombie under hypnosis or something the way he just stared at the road while I shouted and spun around to face the voice coming from behind me.

“Who the fuck are you? Jesus, you scared me half to death!”

The man was in darkness, unnatural darkness, considering the bright Los Angeles afternoon we were driving through. I heard a guttural laugh, and saw a puff of smoke, though there was no cigarette anywhere to be seen.

“You don’t recognize me, Roxy dear? Here… let me shed some light…”

He said it with a smile in his voice, teasing me. Then, he leaned forward. He must have seen the shock on my face as the white mask he was wearing came out into the light, because the ink blots moving across its face became something eerily similar to a smile.

“You… Harrison? Is it you?”

“No… yes… whatever you want me to be, Roxy. I’m just a vessel, after all. When we’re done together I won’t even exist at all.”

He disappears back into the shadow, and leaves me just a voice and a silhouette to talk to. I turn to the driver again, but his face lets me know he is long gone.

“Don’t worry about him. He’s nothing. Nobody.”

“He killed my sister!”

“Did he? Or did he just find her before the cops?”

“Stop with the god damn games! What do you want from me? Where are you taking me? What does this have to do with Vinnie?”

Smoke swirls around the back seat compartment, like dust kicked up into a windy day. I sit and stare back at the black form of my abductor’s head, trying to look where I thought his eyes might be. I needed him to see that I was serious, that I wasn’t going to let it go.

After a heavy minute, he went on. A small victory, maybe, but it felt like a big one.

“Your fiancé has a big match scheduled for next weekend. There are… some very important people interested in the way things go.”

“Yeah, who? The mafia? The Yakuza? Vegas thugs?”

“You’re thinking small time, sister. Think much… much… bigger.”

“And what? You need what to happen? You’re going to fix the match, is that it? You think he’ll bow down to you if you, what? Kidnap me? Rape me? Or do you think I’ll fuck you so he can win? Because let me tell you just how fucking wrong you are you backwoods Arkansas – FUCK!”

I didn’t see his hand, I only feel the sting of it across my mouth and taste the leather of his glove as it mingles with blood from my tongue.

“Watch your mouth, harlot.”

I want to spit the blood in his face. Tell him to fuck himself in the back of his own car if he can get it up with a real girl near him. My mind comes up with endless vitriol, but none of it comes through my slowly swelling lips. Instead, I’m sitting there like a reprimanded puppy licking my wounds and just waiting for him to talk again. Classical conditioning. Learned helplessness.

Finally, after letting me stew in my own defeat for what he determined to be long enough, he spoke again.

“What we want is… well, call it a sacrifice. We want to make a deal. You give us what we want, maybe we let your Loverboy wake up. Maybe we let him get what he wants. Don’t think for a second we don’t control everything that happens in your tiny world. Remember who is in this championship match with Lane.”

“Y… you are.”

“If you mean LH Harrison, then yes, LH Harrison is in the match. A bit of a rogue element at the moment, but they all come back to the fold after they test the reaches of their leash, don’t they? He’s just a sheep. A lamb. The shepherd is there along with him, to make sure everything goes to plan.”

“You mean D’Ville.”

“Yes. That’s what you call him. D’Ville.”

“And what do you think I’ll give you? What makes you think I don’t believe Vinnie can just win on his own, without your help?”

“Because, Roxy, as much as your bleached hair and plastic body try to pretend otherwise, you aren’t stupid. How can he overcome the good Doctor when he can’t even open his eyes? You both have the opportunity to make the deal.”

“What do you mean? Vinnie can’t make any deals.”

“Silly girl. There are other places than this. Look into my eyes and see him.”

He leans forward again, and I find myself squinting through the haze of the smoky air and trying my damndest to look into his eyes. All I see are swirling pools of black ink as they slide and shift and change across his face, however.

I try, and I keep trying, and the masked man laughs.

“Good. That’s good.”




[Image: L2thwvU.gif]




As Loverboy walks through the dreamscape unfolding around him, he sees large, floral banyan-like trees sprouting ahead of him, leaving a path for him to follow.

As soon as each tree reaches its full, colorful height, though, the petals immediately begin to fall and brown. They land on the ground withered and dead just as he walks over them, feeling the crunch of them between bare toes he didn’t know he had.

The voice of his astral spirit guide, always from inside his own head, is the only sound to be heard in this time-lapsed autumn scene.

“How did you like seeing your old friend back in the swamp, Mister Loverboy?”

“That wasn’t Gator. You know it wasn’t him.”

Laughter. No humor in it, but laughter just the same.

“Mister… Vincent. I feel that I can call you Vincent now. We are friends here, after all, why not eschew the formality?”

“And what’s your name then, dude?”

“Ah… so many to choose from. Never mind, then, Mister Loverboy will suffice. But tell me, do you believe there is only one of you? One version of you, I should say?”

“I… think so? I mean, I don’t know, dude, I’m pretty agnostic. I don’t follow any of that Brief History of Time quantum shit either, man. I just work with what I can see and feel, you know?”

“Pity.”

“What do you mean?”

The man with no identity seems to look back over his shoulder at Loverboy, maybe even smile. A long while passes as the two walk through the woodlands, following the roadway which the trees lay out for them.

Loverboy becomes fascinated watching the blank, pure white horizon morph into blossoms of color ahead of them, and vanish again into nothingness behind them – like walking in a snow globe of color surrounded by nothing at all.

“Think of it this way… maybe that man you rescued back in the doldrums, the surrogate, maybe your words were not meant for him, specifically, but through the great design of things they travel through the proper channels and arrive on the proper ears. Would that not, then, make the man you said those things to the very one and the same as the man you were directing them to?”

“I… I don’t know?”

“Exactly. Ah, here we are.”

And then the trees vanish. The whiteness deepens into a cornfield-like layout, with a sky full of purple storm clouds. Heat lightning dances back and forth between the thunderheads, and an electricity fills the space around Loverboy, giving him the sensation of hair standing on end.

“Where? Where are we, man?”

The figure opens his arms wide and gestures above, spreading the clouds open like Moses parting the Red Sea.

“Look at the clouds, Mister Loverboy. The high-stacked cumulus-like billows of mist. What do you see?”

“What… you mean, like a game? Like a little kid lying on his back outside, seeing horses and dragons and shit in the clouds?”

“Something like that.”

And then, like the heavens themselves were in on the act, the clouds swirl and form together into… a face?

No, not quite.

An ink blot. A Rorschach.

“Whoa, wait a minute… what the hell is this, dude?”

“What do you see?”

“I see Hysteria. Or Harrison, I guess. I don’t know. But the mask is gone, I thought? I mean, isn’t Harrison on my side?”

“Look again.”

Loverboy stares up into the expanse of electric firmament. Then, the fibers of lightning seem to form a picture. Through what could be considered black splotches of eyeballs in the sky, Loverboy sees his fiancée, the voluptuous Roxy Cotton, staring back at him as if searching for something.

“Roxy? Roxy! Baby! I’m here baby, help me! Get me out of here!”

“Pay attention, Mister Loverboy… be quiet and watch. She cannot hear you.”

“Roxy! ROXY!”

But the tour guide seems to be right. Roxy stares and searches from side to side with her eyes, but never seems to focus on Loverboy, nor does she react to his words.

After a moment of looking, she brings her hand to her lip and wipes away a drop of blood.

“What’s wrong with her? What happened? Are you trying to tell me Harrison did that to her?”

“I’m not telling you a thing. Perhaps you have something to say about Mister Harrison leading up to your match this weekend, though?”

“Yeah… yeah, you’re damn right I do…

Harrison! If you can hear me dude, and for whatever reason I have a pretty good idea that you can, you’d better pay the fuck attention right now. I don’t know what role you’re playing in all of this, I don’t know what drove you to the side of the Doctor in the first place, but dude, when you lay a hand on my woman you cross a fucking line.

You know dude, our history together in the XWF has been documented over and over. Shit, man, I sound like a broken fucking record every time some genius comes up with the idea of pitting you against me for the hundredth time. The long version? Ever since birth, you’ve been inferior to me. You’ve been destined to be, at best, the Gilligan to my Skipper, “Little Buddy.” You’re the Robin to my Batman, complete with the gay yellow underpants. If you’re lucky, dude, once I win the Universal Title at Relentless II, I’ll do the same favor Doc did for you and let you touch the fucking belt from time to time, or hold onto it while I’m in the ring giving the fans of the XWF what they paid for.

The short version? You can’t beat me. You never have, never could, and never, ever will.

And how many times have you tried to make a name for yourself at my expense, dude? You tried to spoil my debut. You tried to spoil the ascension of the Underground. And now? You have the brass fucking balls to try and spoil my chance at the Universal Championship. You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve, dude. A lot of fucking nerve. See man, just like Gator, you and me, we could have made some waves around here. When we coordinate, there’s not a better team out there. Look at what we did together at the Lethal Lottery, man. We took down Mystica and Game Boy, two dudes who pretty much never lose. When you stay in your lane and remember who the leader of the pack is, and remember to fill the role you’re assigned, we get shit done. But every few months, like fucking clockwork, someone gets into your head and convinces you that you can hang with me. Spoiler alert, dude: you can’t.

You know… I should have known after what you did at Bad Medicine. I should have known that you’d sold your soul and turned your back on the only meal ticket you’ve been able to latch onto in this federation, man. You think the Doc was gonna take you to the promised land? You think that motherfucker wanted anything other than a do-boy that would be willing to get his hands dirty for him? You’re more delusional than when you were on your knees at the end of your bed praying to an invisible man in the sky, dude. At least then it was honest, you know? Now you put a stupid mask over your head and pretend to be some sort of prophet, all while proving over and over again that you can’t get shit done on your own.

And then what do you go and do? You do what you do best and stab your new hero in the back too! Jesus Christ, H, you’re more predictable than a Nicholas Sparks movie and about half as interesting. Whose nuts are you going to swing from now that you kicked your new daddy to the curb, huh? You gonna try to get Brick Squad to let you do their dishes for them? You gonna see if Drew Archyle needs any help getting semen stains out of his laundry? Why don’t you ask Frodo if you can get back into that closet of his and watch his daughter shit some more?

Man, I don’t even know why you try anymore, dude. You blew it. You blew your shot with me, you blew your shot with Doc, and now you think you can get into a ring with BOTH of us and come out on top? Dude you’re more delusional than Peter Gilmour convincing himself that his lap band can withstand the strain of pinching his bottomless stomach together. Luca has a better chance of winning the title on Sunday, and he’s not even in the damn match. Your dead wife has a better chance of digging her way out of the ground and pinning anyone in the ring than you do. Hell dude, those dead kids have a better chance of actually being yours than you do of winning the Universal Championship.

LH, dude, when I’m done wrecking you for the tenth straight time, you’re going to wish Morbid Angel had finished the job and wiped your whole DNA record from the face of the Earth. The way you keep booking yourself against me, it would really just be Darwinism.

And when it’s all said and done, Harrison? Don’t you come sniffing around here, dude. Don’t come begging for scraps once I’m the man in the ivory tower and you’re still just a beggar on the streets. Once you lay your hand on my queen... well, that’s a stain that won’t wash off of you, man.

You and me? We’re done.

And at Relentless? Your career? Is done.”

Loverboy swings himself around and attempts to attack the mysterious man he’s been following through the wilderness of his own unconscious, but of course there is nothing to hit and nothing to hit it with.

Instead, Loverboy resigns himself to catching his breath as, in the sky, the vision of his beloved with a tear in her eye fades into obscurity.

“You make sure Harrison hears that. And you make sure he pays for what he did to my Roxy.”

“Very well, Mister Loverboy… but you should know. LH Harrison is not the man who struck your girlfriend. It was just a copy of a copy.”

Loverboy nearly loses his composure, his lower lip trembles and his knees get weak… or at least that is what he feels as the man turns and leads the way once more.

“Follow me, Mister Loverboy. We are nearly done here.”

Loverboy hesitates.

“Follow me.”

And finally... Loverboy follows.



[Image: IEYChwZ.gif]



“Did you see?”

The man shrouded in shadow asks me, the smoke intensifying and making my eyes water in spite of my efforts to look strong in the face of danger.

“No. There was nothing there.”

“Pity.”

I turn around and watch the road as the sun begins to set outside of my window. We keep heading south until suddenly we take a turn towards the coast.

Silently, the driver weaves through a series of back roads until nothing resembling L.A. can be seen. Eventually, we come upon a beaten down hovel away from everything else, surrounded by shrub. The car stops and the engine is killed.

“We’re here, Roxy.”

God help me.
]]> <![CDATA[Downward Dog, Sideways Gator, Yoga Is Stupid.]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=20682 Mon, 27 Jul 2015 19:33:40 -0700 Gator]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=20682
(Click here for the yoga poses used. Suck a dick Absolute Yoga copyright warning!)
I'm sitting down on one of those yoga mats in my living room. Moved the couches back a little for space, got my iPod on a docking station playing some music so I don't blow my brains out listening solely to the woman on the TV teaching me yoga. Todd picked me up the first one he found at our local video place, I'm halfway expecting this to turn into a porno. I put out the cigarette I've been smoking for the first five minutes into the ashtray behind me while this chick is talking about breathing exercises and chakra, Better Todd is asleep on the couch behind me. Adorable. I scratch my head and crack my neck... Ow. Keep forgetting I almost broke it, I'm so doped up on painkillers I'll probably laugh off a bullet to the chest. I pay attention to the TV as Camel Toe McPerm starts to speak up.

**Okay, first we start in the child's pose.**

"..."

Ugh... I'm going to regret this shit. I get into the child's pose, which is like... Wait. Why am I explaining this? This a video promo, not written word or anything, you can clearly see what I'm doing. I look like a fucking idiot, it's clear as day. Anyway, child's pose first. Better Todd sits up a little, guess he thinks I want to play.

**Then we move upwards into the cat pose.**

This is so degrading. Better Todd sits up now, with this amazing pose he most likely thinks I'm a real ass cat. I continue to watch the TV.

**And from cat we move to downward dog.**

... What? ... WHAT!? Fuck me. Better Todd's going to try and hump me isn't he? Just. Just get this over with Gator. I motion into downward dog, sticking my ass into the air like Nicki Minaj trying to hail a taxi. I really hope no one walks in... What am I saying? This is being televised around the world. Hey world! Hope you like British ass in your face!

**And now, ragdoll.**

What was up with the dramatic pause? Okay, I get to my feet a little and flop my upper body down to my feet like, well, like a ragdoll. Points to creativity for the yoga guys. This is surprisingly harder than I thought it would be. I work out almost every day but this is weird. I should have made Todd pick up DDP yoga instead, probably be easier but I didn't want to be another cliche.

**From ragdoll we rise into half moon.**

Done. Look like a half moon too, like an exact fucking replica. Surprised the dog isn't howling at me... I need a match soon, all this trash talk is just going towards the telly.

**Back bend**

OOfph. Fuck. Humans aren't meant to bend like this lady!

**Hold the pose. Breath and transition into hands to feet.**

I pause looking at the TV.

"Fuck that."

I go to grab the remote but hesitate. I shouldn't quit, might as well stick it out just for today. Uh.. I'm going to feel like rubber tomorrow. I move into hands and feet and guess what? It feels awkward as fuck.

**Breathe. And now awkward pose. One.**

Oh great, that wasn't the awkward one.

**Two.**

OH SWEET MOTHER OF GOD THERE'S MORE!?

**Three.**

Ow ow ow! The hell painkillers? Kill the damn pain!

**And all three once more.**

Oh give me a fucking break lady! Better Todd is still watching me, tilting his head a little with his mouth open just a bit. Drool hitting the couch cushions, the hell is wrong with this animal?

**One**

Aagh.

**Two**

D'ah!

**Three**

Uuugghhhh.

**And finally go into the final awkward.**

My face is bright red right now... Well, my mask is always red but my face is really red too, just take my word for it. This is torture, why do people do this?

**And twist!**

"I'll twist your fucking head off woman!"

That scared Better Todd a little, sorry buddy. I twist, awkwardly. Even though this is for lack of a better word, awkward, it is quite stress relieving. Yeah, all this shouting and swearing is me calm. I guess I know why people do this, my head is clear, my body somehow feels better. Then again could just be the painkillers doing their work. I don't know, could get used to this. Fuck it, yoga lady do your worst!

**And go neutral, breathe, relax and now into eagle pose.**

That looks nothing like an eagle. I transition into this bullshit curly snake pose.

**And slowly release from eagle, let your wings open and go into standard head to knee.**

Is she getting off on this? I don't think guys are supposed to do head to knee, the groin region doesn't agree with it.

**Now we move into bow... Mmmmm, let your womanhood flow.**

. . .

**Lower your leg, stretch your arms and balancing stick pose. Hold it for five seconds.**

Holding it like a damn pro.

**Now slowly move into separate leg stretch.**

"... Yeah I'm not even going to attempt that."

I stand there and watch the TV, the poor man's Jane Fonda performing this pose.

**A ... B ... And C ... Woo! Okay let's take a short break, hydrate and we'll cont-

I snatch the remote and pause the DVD, beginning to walk into the kitchen.

"Don't mind if I do lady."

I head into the kitchen and get to the fridge, swinging the door open and taking a... Budweiser. Great. I'm never letting Todd go shopping again, no offence America, you're pretty okay but your beer fucking sucks. I close the fridge and open up the freezer door, should be top shelf and... YAY! Fireball whisky, half empty. I wonder if I can get sponsored by Fireball? I'd put that devil logo on my gear for a lifetime supply of this stuff. I remember John Madison saying that Luca has the hatchet man tattooed on his calf so he gets backstage passes to Insane Clown Posse shows. I take the bottle and close the freezer, get a glass, grab a can of Monster, Ripper or Original will do. Pour three fingers of Fireball, add some crushed ice and fill the rest of the glass with Monster and Bob's your uncle. Best drink ever. If you're eighteen or over... I mean twenty-one.

I tidy around and take the drink back into the living room, taking a seat and switching the TV over to watch some XWF repeats. Today is the sixteenth of April, I've been out for a week, two weeks? And I'm missing the hellhole already. There's a repeat of Warfare on, JACK, Maverick and now Game Girl are fighting in Super Smash Bros... What the fuck am I watching? When did Game Boy get a sex change?

"Hey honey."

I hear Scarlett behind me and feel her lips touch the top of my head. I smile and bring the glass close to my lips to take a long sip. Ah, refreshing as fuck. Scarlett walks past the couch and heads into the kitchen, she's wearing the second best thing a woman can wear. Boy shorts and one of my t-shirts. Second only to yoga pants. Which I guess I should be wearing, well world feel lucky I'm wearing denim shorts instead. I watch Scarlett go the the fridge and bend down a little. ♪Booty booty booty rockin' everywhere♪ I look back at the TV and continue to watch as Scarlett joins me with a glass of orange juice, I put my arm around her and just sit and watch television. Like a couple... Like a normal couple... Weird.

It's a good thing I have a DeLorean because we're going to jump forward in time just a bit.

Months pass, literal months. Like almost three of them, mid June. You're not missing much, or maybe you are. We'll go back to the important stuff if there is any, trust me.

Anyway. Cool transition we're it's me and Scarlett sitting on the couch like before but we're in different clothes and there's more sunlight entering the room. See, look how cool that is. Like an indie movie but not crappy with some bullshit filter over the camera lens. We're watching Mad Max: Fury Road which I totally didn't pirate. Todd did. I'm sitting on my ass watching this pretty fucking cool film, I'm happy, girlfriend under my arm. Chilled out from therapy and yoga, neck is back to normal. I'm happy, like genuinely happy. For the first time in a while. I mean, I'm always pretty happy no matter what. I'm a damn optimist compared to most of the people I know, but I'm different now. Life is good. Scarlett tilts her head under my arm and lifts her arm over to me, poking my belly and making a fart noise with her mouth. Damn, I'm lucky.

"Who's your friend?"

Well, not that lucky. I look at my stomach. Huh. I'm a chubby Gator.

"I've been doing yoga."

"Gay!"

"... I don't know why I've got a muffin top now."

"Yoga doesn't really keep you ripped, it's just... Well, it's bullshit."

"I'm more flexible."

"I know, and I appreciate that."

She's talking about sex kiddos.

"But if you want to go back to wrestling, might want to get rid of the spare tire."

"Yeah you're right babe. I'll go back to my usual workout tomorrow. Maybe next week."

Scarlett sits up on the couch and turns to me, brushing her red hair out of her face. There were a lot of hers in that sentence.

"Do you want to go back to the XWF?"

"Yeah. Well, maybe. I don't know. Listen, I've been having fun doing nothing. I know I sound like a lazy asshole saying that but I have, this is the first real break I've ever had. I'm still getting paid too! That's fucking awesome! I didn't know we got paid for doing nothing."

"That's injury pay babe."

"And title pay, you know I got a huge payday for winning the Universal Title? Earned more money in less than a minute that I did that month total... Are you mad if I don't go back?"

"What? No of course I won't be mad. But, we need money. Me and Tood can't pay the bills ourselves."

"... I know. I'll think about it."

"Do whatever makes you happy Jacob and I'll be happy"

Scarlett comes closer to me and lifts up my mask so she can kiss me. Once she does that, she goes back under my arm and we continue to watch the movie. Do whatever makes you happy. Words to live by. But not easy. So many other obligations usually fuck up the plan to be happy, so you end up with a choice. Make yourself happy or make others happy. A lot of people can be happy from other people's enjoyment, or they say that anyway. But let's be honest, when you walk past a homeless guy and hand him twenty dollars, are you really happy you're twenty bucks down and this dude is probably buying crack? It's complicated.

So I'm in this dilemma. Make myself happy by being a lazy fuck or make my 'family' happy by doing what I do best?

I look at Scarlett from the corner of my eye. She's smiling, interested in the film. Probably daydreaming about Tom Hardy, hey, he's a good looking guy, I'd be surprised if she wasn't. She grips my hand tightly and shuffles closer to me, letting out a satisfied sigh... I can't lie to myself. I'd do anything for this girl. Tomorrow back to work. Train hard, eat better, get in the best shape I can. Fuck coming back and jumping from match to match, teaching the new kids a lesson and earning fuck all for busting my ass.

No.

I'm getting my goddamn belt back.


No fancy transition, shit costs money and I am fucking broke. Present day. I sit in front of Todd and his camera as he sets everything up. I take a drag from my cig and let smoke fill the air as I look down, tapping my foot on the floor. I've done this around a hundred times but I'm somewhat nervous. I used to just sit down, look at the transcripts of the guy I was facing and just go for it. But, this.. This is odd. I'm not sure whether I'm having an off day or I'm just overthinking stuff. Maybe it was that pizza from before. Todd finishes setting up the camera and looks to me.

T: "You ready to rock n' roll buddy?"

"I'm ready to say a bunch of shit, yes."

T: "Aaaaaaaand we're rolling."

"..."

Oh fuck. I'm drawing a blank here. What do I usually do?

"Hey..."

Good start Gator. Baby steps.

"So. I'm back and in a damn good match. LH Harrison, Vinnie Lane, D'Ville with special guest ref Luca. Pretty damn good... Well... Best of luck!"

...

What the hell was that? Todd stops recording.

T: "What the hell was that?"

I shrug taking another drag of my cigarette. Got myself in peak physical condition but forgot about making words happen.

"I have no idea man. Sorry."

T: "Did you just apologize to me? Okay, we need to take a break. Get your head clear dude."

"Yeah, sounds like a plan."

I get up from the chair, smoke in between my lips. My legs wobble underneath me, nerves I guess... What the fucking fuck? How can I not shit talk these guys? I've done it before with ease. Why now? ...... Therapy and yoga. They have killed me. By god, that bullshit has ruined my career. Hey Gator, you should go make yourself angry. Get all hulked up or something, could help. But how? I head downstairs as Todd fumbles with his camera and enter the living room. I sit down on the couch and just look ahead and think about how dumb I am.

I rub my eyes and look up at the now retired Television Title framed and hung on my wall. I'm the same person I was when I won that thing. Kinda. Maybe. I don't fucking know, I can barely remember what I did this morning let alone a year ago. Last Madness, last Warfare, I am definitely the same person I was then. I cam down to the ring, belly full of fire ready to just punch everyone in the face and say fuck you to world, now I got nothing in me. I'm fucking excited for this match. I'm happy about my life. Win, loss, draw I don't even care what happens. I'm just happy to face those three again.

...

What in the hell has happened to me? I'm happy to see Doc again? I'm happy to watch a LH promo? I'm happy to hear Lane whine about bullshit? I hope he got my get well soon card though. GAH! Fuck yoga! Fuck therapy! I'm a goddamn little bitch now! It dawns on me that I've been staring confused at the wall for a few minutes and Scarlett and Todd are sat beside me, gawking. I shake my head and relax on the couch, like I'm trying to cover up that I was daydreaming.

"Sup guys?"

"Jacob, we're worried about you."

"Why? Nothing to be worried about, I'm good."

T: "If you're good why couldn't you cut a promo?"

"... I have the words in my head but I can't make them come out. It's cool, not like I need to do it right?"

Scarlett and Todd look at each other.

"Right?"

"We're going try something honey okay?"

... Are they gonna kiss? I look at Todd who sits there smiling at me with his chubby little prick face.

"Jonathon Heartsford was a better TV champ than you."

I slowly turn to Scarlett, pretty sure this girl wants a nasty break up right now. And by break up I mean house fire.

"Excuse me?"

T: "I agree with her Gator."

Oh, wow. Wow! Mother fuckers, I let them into my home, give them everything and they go say shit like this!? Who the fuck. Oh. They're trying to make me angry, well it worked. Let them have it Gator!

"He was pretty good, had a lot of passion. Yeah I can see why people think he was better than me."

Well... Fuck.

T: "I think the Star Wars prequels are better than the originals."

Well you're fucking wrong.

"I disagree but respect your opinion."

"I think Vinnie Lane is hot."

Sure he is in that walking hepatitis way.

"He's a handsome man, I guess."

T: "You look like Deadpool."

And you look like an overweight Canadian stealing all of my fucking food.

"Haha, yeah I do a bit."

Well, I'm fucked.


F A D E 2 B L A C K
]]>
(Click here for the yoga poses used. Suck a dick Absolute Yoga copyright warning!)
I'm sitting down on one of those yoga mats in my living room. Moved the couches back a little for space, got my iPod on a docking station playing some music so I don't blow my brains out listening solely to the woman on the TV teaching me yoga. Todd picked me up the first one he found at our local video place, I'm halfway expecting this to turn into a porno. I put out the cigarette I've been smoking for the first five minutes into the ashtray behind me while this chick is talking about breathing exercises and chakra, Better Todd is asleep on the couch behind me. Adorable. I scratch my head and crack my neck... Ow. Keep forgetting I almost broke it, I'm so doped up on painkillers I'll probably laugh off a bullet to the chest. I pay attention to the TV as Camel Toe McPerm starts to speak up.

**Okay, first we start in the child's pose.**

"..."

Ugh... I'm going to regret this shit. I get into the child's pose, which is like... Wait. Why am I explaining this? This a video promo, not written word or anything, you can clearly see what I'm doing. I look like a fucking idiot, it's clear as day. Anyway, child's pose first. Better Todd sits up a little, guess he thinks I want to play.

**Then we move upwards into the cat pose.**

This is so degrading. Better Todd sits up now, with this amazing pose he most likely thinks I'm a real ass cat. I continue to watch the TV.

**And from cat we move to downward dog.**

... What? ... WHAT!? Fuck me. Better Todd's going to try and hump me isn't he? Just. Just get this over with Gator. I motion into downward dog, sticking my ass into the air like Nicki Minaj trying to hail a taxi. I really hope no one walks in... What am I saying? This is being televised around the world. Hey world! Hope you like British ass in your face!

**And now, ragdoll.**

What was up with the dramatic pause? Okay, I get to my feet a little and flop my upper body down to my feet like, well, like a ragdoll. Points to creativity for the yoga guys. This is surprisingly harder than I thought it would be. I work out almost every day but this is weird. I should have made Todd pick up DDP yoga instead, probably be easier but I didn't want to be another cliche.

**From ragdoll we rise into half moon.**

Done. Look like a half moon too, like an exact fucking replica. Surprised the dog isn't howling at me... I need a match soon, all this trash talk is just going towards the telly.

**Back bend**

OOfph. Fuck. Humans aren't meant to bend like this lady!

**Hold the pose. Breath and transition into hands to feet.**

I pause looking at the TV.

"Fuck that."

I go to grab the remote but hesitate. I shouldn't quit, might as well stick it out just for today. Uh.. I'm going to feel like rubber tomorrow. I move into hands and feet and guess what? It feels awkward as fuck.

**Breathe. And now awkward pose. One.**

Oh great, that wasn't the awkward one.

**Two.**

OH SWEET MOTHER OF GOD THERE'S MORE!?

**Three.**

Ow ow ow! The hell painkillers? Kill the damn pain!

**And all three once more.**

Oh give me a fucking break lady! Better Todd is still watching me, tilting his head a little with his mouth open just a bit. Drool hitting the couch cushions, the hell is wrong with this animal?

**One**

Aagh.

**Two**

D'ah!

**Three**

Uuugghhhh.

**And finally go into the final awkward.**

My face is bright red right now... Well, my mask is always red but my face is really red too, just take my word for it. This is torture, why do people do this?

**And twist!**

"I'll twist your fucking head off woman!"

That scared Better Todd a little, sorry buddy. I twist, awkwardly. Even though this is for lack of a better word, awkward, it is quite stress relieving. Yeah, all this shouting and swearing is me calm. I guess I know why people do this, my head is clear, my body somehow feels better. Then again could just be the painkillers doing their work. I don't know, could get used to this. Fuck it, yoga lady do your worst!

**And go neutral, breathe, relax and now into eagle pose.**

That looks nothing like an eagle. I transition into this bullshit curly snake pose.

**And slowly release from eagle, let your wings open and go into standard head to knee.**

Is she getting off on this? I don't think guys are supposed to do head to knee, the groin region doesn't agree with it.

**Now we move into bow... Mmmmm, let your womanhood flow.**

. . .

**Lower your leg, stretch your arms and balancing stick pose. Hold it for five seconds.**

Holding it like a damn pro.

**Now slowly move into separate leg stretch.**

"... Yeah I'm not even going to attempt that."

I stand there and watch the TV, the poor man's Jane Fonda performing this pose.

**A ... B ... And C ... Woo! Okay let's take a short break, hydrate and we'll cont-

I snatch the remote and pause the DVD, beginning to walk into the kitchen.

"Don't mind if I do lady."

I head into the kitchen and get to the fridge, swinging the door open and taking a... Budweiser. Great. I'm never letting Todd go shopping again, no offence America, you're pretty okay but your beer fucking sucks. I close the fridge and open up the freezer door, should be top shelf and... YAY! Fireball whisky, half empty. I wonder if I can get sponsored by Fireball? I'd put that devil logo on my gear for a lifetime supply of this stuff. I remember John Madison saying that Luca has the hatchet man tattooed on his calf so he gets backstage passes to Insane Clown Posse shows. I take the bottle and close the freezer, get a glass, grab a can of Monster, Ripper or Original will do. Pour three fingers of Fireball, add some crushed ice and fill the rest of the glass with Monster and Bob's your uncle. Best drink ever. If you're eighteen or over... I mean twenty-one.

I tidy around and take the drink back into the living room, taking a seat and switching the TV over to watch some XWF repeats. Today is the sixteenth of April, I've been out for a week, two weeks? And I'm missing the hellhole already. There's a repeat of Warfare on, JACK, Maverick and now Game Girl are fighting in Super Smash Bros... What the fuck am I watching? When did Game Boy get a sex change?

"Hey honey."

I hear Scarlett behind me and feel her lips touch the top of my head. I smile and bring the glass close to my lips to take a long sip. Ah, refreshing as fuck. Scarlett walks past the couch and heads into the kitchen, she's wearing the second best thing a woman can wear. Boy shorts and one of my t-shirts. Second only to yoga pants. Which I guess I should be wearing, well world feel lucky I'm wearing denim shorts instead. I watch Scarlett go the the fridge and bend down a little. ♪Booty booty booty rockin' everywhere♪ I look back at the TV and continue to watch as Scarlett joins me with a glass of orange juice, I put my arm around her and just sit and watch television. Like a couple... Like a normal couple... Weird.

It's a good thing I have a DeLorean because we're going to jump forward in time just a bit.

Months pass, literal months. Like almost three of them, mid June. You're not missing much, or maybe you are. We'll go back to the important stuff if there is any, trust me.

Anyway. Cool transition we're it's me and Scarlett sitting on the couch like before but we're in different clothes and there's more sunlight entering the room. See, look how cool that is. Like an indie movie but not crappy with some bullshit filter over the camera lens. We're watching Mad Max: Fury Road which I totally didn't pirate. Todd did. I'm sitting on my ass watching this pretty fucking cool film, I'm happy, girlfriend under my arm. Chilled out from therapy and yoga, neck is back to normal. I'm happy, like genuinely happy. For the first time in a while. I mean, I'm always pretty happy no matter what. I'm a damn optimist compared to most of the people I know, but I'm different now. Life is good. Scarlett tilts her head under my arm and lifts her arm over to me, poking my belly and making a fart noise with her mouth. Damn, I'm lucky.

"Who's your friend?"

Well, not that lucky. I look at my stomach. Huh. I'm a chubby Gator.

"I've been doing yoga."

"Gay!"

"... I don't know why I've got a muffin top now."

"Yoga doesn't really keep you ripped, it's just... Well, it's bullshit."

"I'm more flexible."

"I know, and I appreciate that."

She's talking about sex kiddos.

"But if you want to go back to wrestling, might want to get rid of the spare tire."

"Yeah you're right babe. I'll go back to my usual workout tomorrow. Maybe next week."

Scarlett sits up on the couch and turns to me, brushing her red hair out of her face. There were a lot of hers in that sentence.

"Do you want to go back to the XWF?"

"Yeah. Well, maybe. I don't know. Listen, I've been having fun doing nothing. I know I sound like a lazy asshole saying that but I have, this is the first real break I've ever had. I'm still getting paid too! That's fucking awesome! I didn't know we got paid for doing nothing."

"That's injury pay babe."

"And title pay, you know I got a huge payday for winning the Universal Title? Earned more money in less than a minute that I did that month total... Are you mad if I don't go back?"

"What? No of course I won't be mad. But, we need money. Me and Tood can't pay the bills ourselves."

"... I know. I'll think about it."

"Do whatever makes you happy Jacob and I'll be happy"

Scarlett comes closer to me and lifts up my mask so she can kiss me. Once she does that, she goes back under my arm and we continue to watch the movie. Do whatever makes you happy. Words to live by. But not easy. So many other obligations usually fuck up the plan to be happy, so you end up with a choice. Make yourself happy or make others happy. A lot of people can be happy from other people's enjoyment, or they say that anyway. But let's be honest, when you walk past a homeless guy and hand him twenty dollars, are you really happy you're twenty bucks down and this dude is probably buying crack? It's complicated.

So I'm in this dilemma. Make myself happy by being a lazy fuck or make my 'family' happy by doing what I do best?

I look at Scarlett from the corner of my eye. She's smiling, interested in the film. Probably daydreaming about Tom Hardy, hey, he's a good looking guy, I'd be surprised if she wasn't. She grips my hand tightly and shuffles closer to me, letting out a satisfied sigh... I can't lie to myself. I'd do anything for this girl. Tomorrow back to work. Train hard, eat better, get in the best shape I can. Fuck coming back and jumping from match to match, teaching the new kids a lesson and earning fuck all for busting my ass.

No.

I'm getting my goddamn belt back.


No fancy transition, shit costs money and I am fucking broke. Present day. I sit in front of Todd and his camera as he sets everything up. I take a drag from my cig and let smoke fill the air as I look down, tapping my foot on the floor. I've done this around a hundred times but I'm somewhat nervous. I used to just sit down, look at the transcripts of the guy I was facing and just go for it. But, this.. This is odd. I'm not sure whether I'm having an off day or I'm just overthinking stuff. Maybe it was that pizza from before. Todd finishes setting up the camera and looks to me.

T: "You ready to rock n' roll buddy?"

"I'm ready to say a bunch of shit, yes."

T: "Aaaaaaaand we're rolling."

"..."

Oh fuck. I'm drawing a blank here. What do I usually do?

"Hey..."

Good start Gator. Baby steps.

"So. I'm back and in a damn good match. LH Harrison, Vinnie Lane, D'Ville with special guest ref Luca. Pretty damn good... Well... Best of luck!"

...

What the hell was that? Todd stops recording.

T: "What the hell was that?"

I shrug taking another drag of my cigarette. Got myself in peak physical condition but forgot about making words happen.

"I have no idea man. Sorry."

T: "Did you just apologize to me? Okay, we need to take a break. Get your head clear dude."

"Yeah, sounds like a plan."

I get up from the chair, smoke in between my lips. My legs wobble underneath me, nerves I guess... What the fucking fuck? How can I not shit talk these guys? I've done it before with ease. Why now? ...... Therapy and yoga. They have killed me. By god, that bullshit has ruined my career. Hey Gator, you should go make yourself angry. Get all hulked up or something, could help. But how? I head downstairs as Todd fumbles with his camera and enter the living room. I sit down on the couch and just look ahead and think about how dumb I am.

I rub my eyes and look up at the now retired Television Title framed and hung on my wall. I'm the same person I was when I won that thing. Kinda. Maybe. I don't fucking know, I can barely remember what I did this morning let alone a year ago. Last Madness, last Warfare, I am definitely the same person I was then. I cam down to the ring, belly full of fire ready to just punch everyone in the face and say fuck you to world, now I got nothing in me. I'm fucking excited for this match. I'm happy about my life. Win, loss, draw I don't even care what happens. I'm just happy to face those three again.

...

What in the hell has happened to me? I'm happy to see Doc again? I'm happy to watch a LH promo? I'm happy to hear Lane whine about bullshit? I hope he got my get well soon card though. GAH! Fuck yoga! Fuck therapy! I'm a goddamn little bitch now! It dawns on me that I've been staring confused at the wall for a few minutes and Scarlett and Todd are sat beside me, gawking. I shake my head and relax on the couch, like I'm trying to cover up that I was daydreaming.

"Sup guys?"

"Jacob, we're worried about you."

"Why? Nothing to be worried about, I'm good."

T: "If you're good why couldn't you cut a promo?"

"... I have the words in my head but I can't make them come out. It's cool, not like I need to do it right?"

Scarlett and Todd look at each other.

"Right?"

"We're going try something honey okay?"

... Are they gonna kiss? I look at Todd who sits there smiling at me with his chubby little prick face.

"Jonathon Heartsford was a better TV champ than you."

I slowly turn to Scarlett, pretty sure this girl wants a nasty break up right now. And by break up I mean house fire.

"Excuse me?"

T: "I agree with her Gator."

Oh, wow. Wow! Mother fuckers, I let them into my home, give them everything and they go say shit like this!? Who the fuck. Oh. They're trying to make me angry, well it worked. Let them have it Gator!

"He was pretty good, had a lot of passion. Yeah I can see why people think he was better than me."

Well... Fuck.

T: "I think the Star Wars prequels are better than the originals."

Well you're fucking wrong.

"I disagree but respect your opinion."

"I think Vinnie Lane is hot."

Sure he is in that walking hepatitis way.

"He's a handsome man, I guess."

T: "You look like Deadpool."

And you look like an overweight Canadian stealing all of my fucking food.

"Haha, yeah I do a bit."

Well, I'm fucked.


F A D E 2 B L A C K
]]> <![CDATA[Alone in the Universe - All Our Times Have Come (1)]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=20874 Mon, 27 Jul 2015 11:42:22 -0700 Doctor Louis D'Ville]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=20874



                                                                                                                              





































































[Image: XyTjvsM.png]

OOC - Part 3 of Alone in the Universe.

Part 1 - Alone in the Universe - Take My Hand

Part 2 - Alone in the Universe - Chasing Rabbits

"Before you embark on a journey for revenge, dig two graves."

― Confucius


[Image: Kd641BT.png]

Full circle . . .


The little girl took to the Doctor's little mirror trick better than he could have imagined. Much better than Mastermind did, that's for sure. The Doctor owes thanks to his befriended, bitter enemy, Master of Minds. The mirror did, after all, belong to him.

The Doctor is glad now at his failed attempts at destroying the thing. So he did what he's sure Mastermind wanted to do in the first place. Lock it up. Until he found a different opportunity, of course. It didn't take him long to realize that he's failed attempts in the past have always ended the same way. Not the same exact way, but similar. Trevor Dedntik's demise was his own fault. His addictions had the best of him. Instead of quitting them, he quit life.

Waste.

The Doctor figured he'd start fresh this time and give this one a little more care than the last. Already broken, fixable, but only fixed to an extent. The Doctor believed this young girl being the perfect candidate for his next project. She had a weak mind and a broken heart, but she had a strong soul. The Doctor could smell it. So then the mirror was simply used to suck any pretty bones left in her innocent little body.

Now go hate something.

Hate it so very much.


The little girl sits alone on a log in the middle of the woods, far, far deep into the woods. She ran that way shortly after coming-to just outside of a small house nearly in the middle of nowhere. It was the only thing she thought of to do, but it felt like that it was what she was doing in the first place. And kept doing it. And doing it. And doing it. And doing it. She forced herself to until she felt it was okay to stop. And by felt, the feeling of security returned to her and assured her it was time to stop.

She felt the urge to cry, but couldn't. She felt the same sadness and hatred as before, even more so, it seemed. But she's coming down from it. So she remains calm and stares into the darkness of the forest around her. She shivers for a moment and places her arms around each other for warmth. She's not dressed for an overnighter in the woods. Suddenly, she hears something rustling around in the bushes around her. Okay, she still feels fear, too. There it is. She shutters for a moment until she feels a warm hand on her shoulder. As she turns around to see who it could be, a large fur coat seems to fall from the sky and land across her shoulders. She slips it on immediately and snuggles with it. Inside the pocket is a couple packs of crackers and a small flashlight. She turns the flashlight on and shines it around the bushes around her. She watches a single pair of green eyes float away into the dense woods. She munches on the crackers slowly and awaits the next time she feels it's time to move.

Meanwhile, across town the reporter sits in her apartment watching the same video over and over again. Play, rewind, play, rewind. It's of the crime scene earlier in the day, but not her beginning segment when she first arrived, after that.

The camera fumbles around a few times in the camerman's hands before it sits steady on his shoulder. The police had everything blocked off and all of the media had to pile into one spot and await the detective to come out with his spiel. The camera focuses on the detective as he walks down the path towards them all, then pans over as he sees the reporter behind the police line running barefoot towards the detective.

It doesn't show much more. She shouts past them a few times, but the detective ignores her. The camera focuses and little better as she stomps her feet intoo the ground a few times attempts to spin past one of the officers. She's then grabbed with one arm and carried from the premises.

"I can't believe that asshole just sat there and taped that. Son of a bitch."

She looked at the chair across the room, where he pet cat was sitting, and spoke again.

"But, I think he got what came to him, too."

The cat meowed back at her.

"He got fired too, silly. I told you."

The reporter shut off her television and sighed as she sipped from a small glass of wine in front of her. The cat meowed once more and gave the reporter a nice long, tired blink. She smiled for a moment then sighed again. She lost her job today, a decent job. Something at she's worked for most of her adult life. She was on television. Something she'd always wanted to do. Her time as an anchor would surely boost her chances in Hollywood. Being transferred to a small shit town, as some would call it, as a field reporter doesn't though.

She reaches out to the table in front and pulls out a cigarette. She searches around a moment for a lighter and finds them in the pair of jeans piled up beside the couch.

"And it wasn't even because he filled me getting escorted by those pigs."

She takes another drag and continues to talk to the feline across the room.

"It was because he didn't catch any of what that detective said. What a douche."

The reporter scans the room and gets up from the couch. She lives on the fifth, and nearly top, floor of an apartment building. She calls it a condo to remind herself of the city life. It wasn't bad, it had a balcony. Which she spent many-a-nights like this one sitting alone out there. She shuffles across the floor and nearly trips over the pair of jeans lying there. After nearly a full bottle of wine, her ability to walk has decreased quite a bit. She laughs and slips the pants on and continues to shuffle and stumble her way to the back of the apartment to the sliding glass doors to gain access to her beloved balcony. She steps outside on the small porch and leans over the railing as she takes a few more puffs from the cigarette.

"The detective knows something he's not telling us."

She hears a deep raspy voice coming from behind her. She turns around and sees a dark figure squatting on a ledge nearby.

"Who is that?!"

The reporter exclaims as her voice trembled and nearly screamed out. The figure jumped down from the ledge and landed on awkwardly in front of the frightened girl. He stood a nearly six foot, and dressed like he was there to fight crime. Mask and all.

"What do you want?!"

The masked man took a step forward and covered the reporter's mouth. In his raspy voice and spoke again.

"The same thing you do. Justice."

He backed away from her and watched as she flicked the now dead cigarette off the side of the balcony. He watched the entire drop of the cigarette to the ground then looked back at the reporter.

"What you want me to go pick it up?"

"Don't give up on your story."

"I don't have a job anymore, creep. Get off of my balcony before I call the fucking cops."

"Did they produce a body from the crime scene?"

The reporter opens her mouth for a moment ready to shout at the masked man before pausing.

"I didn't see one."

"No one did."

"How do you know this?"

"Return to the crime scene. More answers lie there for you."

"Jesus........ What the FUCK are you?!"

"A friend."

The masked man drops a small smoke pellet on the floor of the balcony. A thick smoke pours out of it and spreads in the air and into the apartment. The reporter begins to cough and jumps in the door and slams it shut so hard that it bounces back and forth on it's track.

"Asshole!"

She yelled as she watched him stumble up the fire escape ladder to the roof.


Rise and shine, Clementine . . .

After feeling well rested, whether it was dawn or not, the little girl felt it would be best to begin moving on again. The woods were no place for a little girl, but she felt safe for someone reason. As if someone was watching over her. She was still a bit cold too, maybe if she was moving it would help to stay warmer. She stepped slowly through the woods, pointing her flashlight to the ground in front of her lighting her way.

Around a twenty feet diameter from where she walks, several coyotes circle the ground. The pant and whine as they lick their lips and gaze at what appeared a helpless little girl. Just ten steps behind her is the Doctor. Slowly mosing through the brush, watching over his new little friend as she trucks on through the most dangerous wilderness. One coyote from the pack must have forgotten about the Doctor and broke the circle. He approached the little girl without her knowing it, but before it reached even half the distance it fell over in the grass dead. Either it's pack brothers and sisters were smarter than him from the start, or took at as a lesson, but none of them attempted to come a hair closer to the scared little girl.

Hello, my friends.

Pleasure to see you all again. You guessed it. It's time for another session, folks. Now I'm sure I've said this before, but this could be my greatest session of all time. I'm not lying though. Perhaps, they're just getting better and better!

This one is for the ages. All of my favorite patients all together, standing in one circle, for the most coveted prize. My Universal Championship.

Jacob. Loverboy. Mister Harrison. You and I, gentleman, have a history in this organization going longer than anything else right now. Relentless marks one year that we all left our first permanent mark in this fine federation. Everything has gone full circle and here we are again. Main Eventing the greatest spectacle the XWF has to offer.

How did all of this come about? Well, I could partially be responsible. For months, no one has stepped forth and attempt to take the Universal Title from me. The last challenge that was proposed to me belonged to the Loverboy. His long awaited chance at the Universal Championship came to a shattering end at the hands of your's truly. He carried himself to another XWF event where his strengths and mind were most certainly absent. And someone close to him cost him, which would at the moment be, nearly a month of his life and still counting. One of Mister Lane's final memories before falling into this comatose, other than his dear fanboy, Thunderbolt X, was the fall he took to the Doctor.

His ongoing failure to be at the top.

Seems to be your life story isn't it, Loverboy? Oh, that's right, you can't hear me, can you?

It's funny how opportunities like this spring up at the worst times, isn't it? Our previous encounter was surrounded by the dreaded disappearance of your love's flesh and blood. And now, Mister MacClay thought it would be funny to stick his nose into business that doesn't concern him, just to make your life even worse.

I took it upon myself to come to the XWF World and call out to it. Searching for someone, anyone to step forth and give the Doctor something, anything to fight for. If he only knew it was going to be so easy.

It didn't take long for an old friend of mine to step forth and accept my challenge.

Gator has emerged once again, my friends! Ha! I wouldn't have settled for any less. For those of you who don't know. Jacob and I have the greatest history. We've faced each other twice and we each share a victory over each other. Could call it dead even, I suppose. Besides his forfeit in the King of the XWF Tournament and the cash-in... I don't count those, my friend, fear not.

The distance between the Doctor and the little girl grew greater and greater as they walked. She still had no idea of all the company she had out there in those quiet woods right now. Even the Doctor's little furry friends around the outside lost interest in what at first seemed like an easy free meal.

So anyway, as I said, Mister MacClay had to throw his weight around a little bit. As a way to attack Mister Loverboy even more, he kicks a man while he's down and throws him in the mix with Gator and I. The more the merrier I suppose, but I hate when things were just so thrown together as they were. Gator trying to relight the fire that I extinguished all of those months ago. Loverboy absent for the entire time, leaving his beloved Roxy Cotton to defend him, and of course, my dear Mister Harrison.

Mister Harrison. Just like most of my patients in the past, you have sprouted wings and are now able to fly away on your own. When we first met, you were a confused, lost, shell of a man. Tell me, how is it that I owe you any more thanks for our history here? Do you think I owe you everything?

Don't be silly.

You and I came together and we created a dominant force that still lingers in the shadows of this fine federation. The Asylum, believed to be dead, remains smoldering deep in the depths of the XWF. Tell me, friends. For what purpose would the Asylum need to be around at this point and time? During it's time the XWF was plagued with something that needed to be abolished. The Defiance. Four men that thought they had the XWF in the palm of their hands and when those hands were cut off, they had nothing left. And disappeared. With the biggest possible threat gone, my friends, the Asylum just simply went into a hibernation, so to speak. It make seem like we are naked of our loyal members, but don't be fooled. Once a fire is started, it can easily be spread just like it has done in the past. When the time comes, you will know it.

She climbs a bank and crawls on her hands and knees onto a wide dirt road. After dusting herself off, she feels it would be alright to start down this dirt road and maybe find a way from this wooded wonderland.

The Doctor hangs back a bit and let's the little girl gain some distance up the small road. He slowly climbs the bank and reaches the road. Judging by the sky, it will be dawn soon. A little girl wondering around alone on the highway will surely attract the attention of someone. Maybe he'll hang back a little longer and see what happens.

So from what I've gathered, gentleman. I'm the monster in this battle. I'm the target. I'm the enemy.

Jacob, Loverboy. You two can bicker back and forth about your tallies, or the lack of tallies, you may have against one another. You may claim you share a similar hatred for one another. You can't fool me. I know what your goal is coming into this Sunday. The goal is to take down the one being that nearly no one else has. Taking down the monster Doctor is the only way to free the stranglehold around the XWF and the stranglehold that, whether you wish to admit it or not, that I have around all of your throats. Right now, I'm the one with the last laugh. That goes for all three of you. For two of you, it's the gold around my waist. For the other, I suppose it's the control you claim that I've had over your for all of these months.

The Doctor shakes his head.

This all comes down to one certain vendetta against me and the relentless attempts to take me down. This is the week for it, my friends. I hope you bring your best, even if your still weak, or even still sleeping.


The detective stands in the bedroom holding a handkerchief across his nose and mouth. It's not that the room even really smelled, but the thought of what happened in here turned his stomach. The ceiling, the floor, the walls, the bed, the furniture... everything painted red. The first responders had already taken the precautions to preserve the crime scene, so the detective had a nice thin sheet of plastic to walk across to the center of the room. People in large protective suits were spread throughout the room, taking samples from different places and placing them in small tubes.

No body.

So the body was taken.

But how...?

It couldn't have been drug out. There's absolutely no sign of blood anywhere else in the house.

He's already been briefed before he came from the office. The details provided were horrifying enough, but seeing it added to it 110%. It's not that he had weak stomach, he's just not used to this type of thing. His jurisdiction around here stretches pretty far, it's a pretty big county. Regardless, no one has seen anything like this around here before.

The detective doesn't waste anymore time and leaves the house to head back to the office. On his way out an officer at the door tells hi about the media outside. He rolls his eyes and sighs, knowing he had to do it, but hated it every time. Especially when he had nothing to go with. He has a bloodbath, with no body, with no leads. Just a name and a residence.

As he walks down the small driveway towards the media, he hears shouting off to the left. One reporter went around to the side yard and was running across the field towards him.

Just great.

"Detective!"

The reporter shouts.

"Detective, please!"

Two officers have already stopped her and are escorting her away, quite easily. He can hear the rest of the meda-monsters simultaneously shouting questions at him. He holds one hand into the air and they all seem to shush at once.

"Police were notified at 6:05AM this morning of a missing person. The person was Ben Mandolin. His car was found abandoned approximately one mile east of the residence. The back door, which appears to have already been broken for quite some time, was pried open. While, we believe the victim of the foul play was the person of residence, we have yet to identify the body."

The detective stopped for a moment. Just long enough for one reporter to shout out.

"So there was foul play?! What type of foul play?!"

"Why is the body unidentified?"

"Do you have any leads?!"

A few more shouted.

"We have nothing more. More information will come in a report after a further investigation."

The detective wastes no more time and turns away to head for his car.

]]>



                                                                                                                              





































































[Image: XyTjvsM.png]

OOC - Part 3 of Alone in the Universe.

Part 1 - Alone in the Universe - Take My Hand

Part 2 - Alone in the Universe - Chasing Rabbits

"Before you embark on a journey for revenge, dig two graves."

― Confucius


[Image: Kd641BT.png]

Full circle . . .


The little girl took to the Doctor's little mirror trick better than he could have imagined. Much better than Mastermind did, that's for sure. The Doctor owes thanks to his befriended, bitter enemy, Master of Minds. The mirror did, after all, belong to him.

The Doctor is glad now at his failed attempts at destroying the thing. So he did what he's sure Mastermind wanted to do in the first place. Lock it up. Until he found a different opportunity, of course. It didn't take him long to realize that he's failed attempts in the past have always ended the same way. Not the same exact way, but similar. Trevor Dedntik's demise was his own fault. His addictions had the best of him. Instead of quitting them, he quit life.

Waste.

The Doctor figured he'd start fresh this time and give this one a little more care than the last. Already broken, fixable, but only fixed to an extent. The Doctor believed this young girl being the perfect candidate for his next project. She had a weak mind and a broken heart, but she had a strong soul. The Doctor could smell it. So then the mirror was simply used to suck any pretty bones left in her innocent little body.

Now go hate something.

Hate it so very much.


The little girl sits alone on a log in the middle of the woods, far, far deep into the woods. She ran that way shortly after coming-to just outside of a small house nearly in the middle of nowhere. It was the only thing she thought of to do, but it felt like that it was what she was doing in the first place. And kept doing it. And doing it. And doing it. And doing it. She forced herself to until she felt it was okay to stop. And by felt, the feeling of security returned to her and assured her it was time to stop.

She felt the urge to cry, but couldn't. She felt the same sadness and hatred as before, even more so, it seemed. But she's coming down from it. So she remains calm and stares into the darkness of the forest around her. She shivers for a moment and places her arms around each other for warmth. She's not dressed for an overnighter in the woods. Suddenly, she hears something rustling around in the bushes around her. Okay, she still feels fear, too. There it is. She shutters for a moment until she feels a warm hand on her shoulder. As she turns around to see who it could be, a large fur coat seems to fall from the sky and land across her shoulders. She slips it on immediately and snuggles with it. Inside the pocket is a couple packs of crackers and a small flashlight. She turns the flashlight on and shines it around the bushes around her. She watches a single pair of green eyes float away into the dense woods. She munches on the crackers slowly and awaits the next time she feels it's time to move.

Meanwhile, across town the reporter sits in her apartment watching the same video over and over again. Play, rewind, play, rewind. It's of the crime scene earlier in the day, but not her beginning segment when she first arrived, after that.

The camera fumbles around a few times in the camerman's hands before it sits steady on his shoulder. The police had everything blocked off and all of the media had to pile into one spot and await the detective to come out with his spiel. The camera focuses on the detective as he walks down the path towards them all, then pans over as he sees the reporter behind the police line running barefoot towards the detective.

It doesn't show much more. She shouts past them a few times, but the detective ignores her. The camera focuses and little better as she stomps her feet intoo the ground a few times attempts to spin past one of the officers. She's then grabbed with one arm and carried from the premises.

"I can't believe that asshole just sat there and taped that. Son of a bitch."

She looked at the chair across the room, where he pet cat was sitting, and spoke again.

"But, I think he got what came to him, too."

The cat meowed back at her.

"He got fired too, silly. I told you."

The reporter shut off her television and sighed as she sipped from a small glass of wine in front of her. The cat meowed once more and gave the reporter a nice long, tired blink. She smiled for a moment then sighed again. She lost her job today, a decent job. Something at she's worked for most of her adult life. She was on television. Something she'd always wanted to do. Her time as an anchor would surely boost her chances in Hollywood. Being transferred to a small shit town, as some would call it, as a field reporter doesn't though.

She reaches out to the table in front and pulls out a cigarette. She searches around a moment for a lighter and finds them in the pair of jeans piled up beside the couch.

"And it wasn't even because he filled me getting escorted by those pigs."

She takes another drag and continues to talk to the feline across the room.

"It was because he didn't catch any of what that detective said. What a douche."

The reporter scans the room and gets up from the couch. She lives on the fifth, and nearly top, floor of an apartment building. She calls it a condo to remind herself of the city life. It wasn't bad, it had a balcony. Which she spent many-a-nights like this one sitting alone out there. She shuffles across the floor and nearly trips over the pair of jeans lying there. After nearly a full bottle of wine, her ability to walk has decreased quite a bit. She laughs and slips the pants on and continues to shuffle and stumble her way to the back of the apartment to the sliding glass doors to gain access to her beloved balcony. She steps outside on the small porch and leans over the railing as she takes a few more puffs from the cigarette.

"The detective knows something he's not telling us."

She hears a deep raspy voice coming from behind her. She turns around and sees a dark figure squatting on a ledge nearby.

"Who is that?!"

The reporter exclaims as her voice trembled and nearly screamed out. The figure jumped down from the ledge and landed on awkwardly in front of the frightened girl. He stood a nearly six foot, and dressed like he was there to fight crime. Mask and all.

"What do you want?!"

The masked man took a step forward and covered the reporter's mouth. In his raspy voice and spoke again.

"The same thing you do. Justice."

He backed away from her and watched as she flicked the now dead cigarette off the side of the balcony. He watched the entire drop of the cigarette to the ground then looked back at the reporter.

"What you want me to go pick it up?"

"Don't give up on your story."

"I don't have a job anymore, creep. Get off of my balcony before I call the fucking cops."

"Did they produce a body from the crime scene?"

The reporter opens her mouth for a moment ready to shout at the masked man before pausing.

"I didn't see one."

"No one did."

"How do you know this?"

"Return to the crime scene. More answers lie there for you."

"Jesus........ What the FUCK are you?!"

"A friend."

The masked man drops a small smoke pellet on the floor of the balcony. A thick smoke pours out of it and spreads in the air and into the apartment. The reporter begins to cough and jumps in the door and slams it shut so hard that it bounces back and forth on it's track.

"Asshole!"

She yelled as she watched him stumble up the fire escape ladder to the roof.


Rise and shine, Clementine . . .

After feeling well rested, whether it was dawn or not, the little girl felt it would be best to begin moving on again. The woods were no place for a little girl, but she felt safe for someone reason. As if someone was watching over her. She was still a bit cold too, maybe if she was moving it would help to stay warmer. She stepped slowly through the woods, pointing her flashlight to the ground in front of her lighting her way.

Around a twenty feet diameter from where she walks, several coyotes circle the ground. The pant and whine as they lick their lips and gaze at what appeared a helpless little girl. Just ten steps behind her is the Doctor. Slowly mosing through the brush, watching over his new little friend as she trucks on through the most dangerous wilderness. One coyote from the pack must have forgotten about the Doctor and broke the circle. He approached the little girl without her knowing it, but before it reached even half the distance it fell over in the grass dead. Either it's pack brothers and sisters were smarter than him from the start, or took at as a lesson, but none of them attempted to come a hair closer to the scared little girl.

Hello, my friends.

Pleasure to see you all again. You guessed it. It's time for another session, folks. Now I'm sure I've said this before, but this could be my greatest session of all time. I'm not lying though. Perhaps, they're just getting better and better!

This one is for the ages. All of my favorite patients all together, standing in one circle, for the most coveted prize. My Universal Championship.

Jacob. Loverboy. Mister Harrison. You and I, gentleman, have a history in this organization going longer than anything else right now. Relentless marks one year that we all left our first permanent mark in this fine federation. Everything has gone full circle and here we are again. Main Eventing the greatest spectacle the XWF has to offer.

How did all of this come about? Well, I could partially be responsible. For months, no one has stepped forth and attempt to take the Universal Title from me. The last challenge that was proposed to me belonged to the Loverboy. His long awaited chance at the Universal Championship came to a shattering end at the hands of your's truly. He carried himself to another XWF event where his strengths and mind were most certainly absent. And someone close to him cost him, which would at the moment be, nearly a month of his life and still counting. One of Mister Lane's final memories before falling into this comatose, other than his dear fanboy, Thunderbolt X, was the fall he took to the Doctor.

His ongoing failure to be at the top.

Seems to be your life story isn't it, Loverboy? Oh, that's right, you can't hear me, can you?

It's funny how opportunities like this spring up at the worst times, isn't it? Our previous encounter was surrounded by the dreaded disappearance of your love's flesh and blood. And now, Mister MacClay thought it would be funny to stick his nose into business that doesn't concern him, just to make your life even worse.

I took it upon myself to come to the XWF World and call out to it. Searching for someone, anyone to step forth and give the Doctor something, anything to fight for. If he only knew it was going to be so easy.

It didn't take long for an old friend of mine to step forth and accept my challenge.

Gator has emerged once again, my friends! Ha! I wouldn't have settled for any less. For those of you who don't know. Jacob and I have the greatest history. We've faced each other twice and we each share a victory over each other. Could call it dead even, I suppose. Besides his forfeit in the King of the XWF Tournament and the cash-in... I don't count those, my friend, fear not.

The distance between the Doctor and the little girl grew greater and greater as they walked. She still had no idea of all the company she had out there in those quiet woods right now. Even the Doctor's little furry friends around the outside lost interest in what at first seemed like an easy free meal.

So anyway, as I said, Mister MacClay had to throw his weight around a little bit. As a way to attack Mister Loverboy even more, he kicks a man while he's down and throws him in the mix with Gator and I. The more the merrier I suppose, but I hate when things were just so thrown together as they were. Gator trying to relight the fire that I extinguished all of those months ago. Loverboy absent for the entire time, leaving his beloved Roxy Cotton to defend him, and of course, my dear Mister Harrison.

Mister Harrison. Just like most of my patients in the past, you have sprouted wings and are now able to fly away on your own. When we first met, you were a confused, lost, shell of a man. Tell me, how is it that I owe you any more thanks for our history here? Do you think I owe you everything?

Don't be silly.

You and I came together and we created a dominant force that still lingers in the shadows of this fine federation. The Asylum, believed to be dead, remains smoldering deep in the depths of the XWF. Tell me, friends. For what purpose would the Asylum need to be around at this point and time? During it's time the XWF was plagued with something that needed to be abolished. The Defiance. Four men that thought they had the XWF in the palm of their hands and when those hands were cut off, they had nothing left. And disappeared. With the biggest possible threat gone, my friends, the Asylum just simply went into a hibernation, so to speak. It make seem like we are naked of our loyal members, but don't be fooled. Once a fire is started, it can easily be spread just like it has done in the past. When the time comes, you will know it.

She climbs a bank and crawls on her hands and knees onto a wide dirt road. After dusting herself off, she feels it would be alright to start down this dirt road and maybe find a way from this wooded wonderland.

The Doctor hangs back a bit and let's the little girl gain some distance up the small road. He slowly climbs the bank and reaches the road. Judging by the sky, it will be dawn soon. A little girl wondering around alone on the highway will surely attract the attention of someone. Maybe he'll hang back a little longer and see what happens.

So from what I've gathered, gentleman. I'm the monster in this battle. I'm the target. I'm the enemy.

Jacob, Loverboy. You two can bicker back and forth about your tallies, or the lack of tallies, you may have against one another. You may claim you share a similar hatred for one another. You can't fool me. I know what your goal is coming into this Sunday. The goal is to take down the one being that nearly no one else has. Taking down the monster Doctor is the only way to free the stranglehold around the XWF and the stranglehold that, whether you wish to admit it or not, that I have around all of your throats. Right now, I'm the one with the last laugh. That goes for all three of you. For two of you, it's the gold around my waist. For the other, I suppose it's the control you claim that I've had over your for all of these months.

The Doctor shakes his head.

This all comes down to one certain vendetta against me and the relentless attempts to take me down. This is the week for it, my friends. I hope you bring your best, even if your still weak, or even still sleeping.


The detective stands in the bedroom holding a handkerchief across his nose and mouth. It's not that the room even really smelled, but the thought of what happened in here turned his stomach. The ceiling, the floor, the walls, the bed, the furniture... everything painted red. The first responders had already taken the precautions to preserve the crime scene, so the detective had a nice thin sheet of plastic to walk across to the center of the room. People in large protective suits were spread throughout the room, taking samples from different places and placing them in small tubes.

No body.

So the body was taken.

But how...?

It couldn't have been drug out. There's absolutely no sign of blood anywhere else in the house.

He's already been briefed before he came from the office. The details provided were horrifying enough, but seeing it added to it 110%. It's not that he had weak stomach, he's just not used to this type of thing. His jurisdiction around here stretches pretty far, it's a pretty big county. Regardless, no one has seen anything like this around here before.

The detective doesn't waste anymore time and leaves the house to head back to the office. On his way out an officer at the door tells hi about the media outside. He rolls his eyes and sighs, knowing he had to do it, but hated it every time. Especially when he had nothing to go with. He has a bloodbath, with no body, with no leads. Just a name and a residence.

As he walks down the small driveway towards the media, he hears shouting off to the left. One reporter went around to the side yard and was running across the field towards him.

Just great.

"Detective!"

The reporter shouts.

"Detective, please!"

Two officers have already stopped her and are escorting her away, quite easily. He can hear the rest of the meda-monsters simultaneously shouting questions at him. He holds one hand into the air and they all seem to shush at once.

"Police were notified at 6:05AM this morning of a missing person. The person was Ben Mandolin. His car was found abandoned approximately one mile east of the residence. The back door, which appears to have already been broken for quite some time, was pried open. While, we believe the victim of the foul play was the person of residence, we have yet to identify the body."

The detective stopped for a moment. Just long enough for one reporter to shout out.

"So there was foul play?! What type of foul play?!"

"Why is the body unidentified?"

"Do you have any leads?!"

A few more shouted.

"We have nothing more. More information will come in a report after a further investigation."

The detective wastes no more time and turns away to head for his car.

]]> <![CDATA[What Dreams May Come]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=20868 Sun, 26 Jul 2015 20:30:35 -0700 Vincent Lane]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=20868

The last thing “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane heard before closing his eyes for a month was a scream, not unlike the voice of his own fiancée, Roxy Cotton’s.

He had taken his eye off the ball. Like Maggie Fitzgerald in Million Dollar Baby, he had let his hand drop and forgotten to protect himself.

He saw Archyle coming and he did what his instincts told him to do – get in the way. Unfortunately, as is the case with most terrible injuries, he never swathe one that hit him.

When Thunderbolt X came crashing into Loverboy’s body, it was a complete shock. It was as if he’d been hit broadside by a speeding car. The impact threw him back and into the corner in the course of a single second that took two minutes for him to live through.

Time does something funny when an important moment comes around, like it doesn’t want you to miss the point. It slows and stretches in the same way a writer will italicize or underline something that he doesn’t want to you to miss.

This, the universe said to Loverboy, this matters. You can’t afford to forget this.

There was impact, but not pain. A flash of light, but no sight. Just the sound of a woman screaming.

No, she screamed.

No.

In the weeks that passed since that time, Loverboy had done a lot of thinking, but in the most unusual way. He had become finely attuned to the biological processes of his own body. He felt air going into and coming out of his lungs, first as it was thrust into him by a machine and then later, thankfully, under the autonomic power of his unconscious diaphragm.

He began to know the feeling of his blood as it coursed through him. He could feel the race around his body after the propulsion from his heartbeat. He felt it pushed into his lungs where it absorbed the oxygen, then into his brain and down through the rest of him until it came back again. He clocked the entire process at around 65 seconds.

For days, this was what he did with his life while the outside world went about the business of keeping him clean and comfortable. He was aware of them, though he couldn’t feel, hear, or see them. Just a sensation of a cloud crossing in front of the sun that let him know someone was there, looking at him.

More often than not, he would sense flowers. Fields upon fields of flowers. He knew somewhere deep within him that it was his Roxy, her perfume fighting its way through his comatose brain and letting him know she was there.

What happened in between life and death, though, was what could only be described as elsewhere. When Loverboy was in between, he saw things. Impossible things. And he met people who were both strangers and well-known to him at the same time.

It started about a week after Loverboy got to the hospital. After hour after hour of counting his breaths and heartbeats, he started to fall. As a professional wrestler, he was familiar with the sensation. The thing of it was, he couldn’t be falling. He knew, somewhere in the cortex of his brain, that he was bedridden. With enough concentration he could even almost feel the sensation of the rough hospital sheets and the firm cushions. He wasn’t moving, but he was falling all the same.

Then, just as suddenly, he hit the ground. Spongy, wet ground, but nothing that soaked into his clothing or made his skin and hair wet. He blinked for the first time in days, but his eyes back up in the hospital bed didn’t move at all.

“Hello?”

He screamed silently. A vast expanse of complete soundlessness was in every direction. When people describe silence, they typically mean a lack of loudness. Here, though, wherever here was, was completely silent. No air passing over his eardrums, no groans or bubbles from his own body. He wasn’t even in his body, so far as he could tell, so the heartbeats were gone, as were the breaths. All that there was, was nothing.

“Hello? Where am I?”

It was the lack of an echo that really got to him. The little things that we subconsciously take for granted are the ones that start to fuck with you the most once they’re gone. Loverboy began to be acutely aware that he couldn’t taste his own spit any longer, or smell his own breath. Here, there was nothing at all other than a bright, colorful landscape that seemed to move independently of the invisible ground he stood on, like a sort of Hollywood backdrop.

“If this is what dying is, dude, this is fucking weird. Close the gate, St. Peter, I’ve got shit to do and I ain’t ready to tap out just yet!”

Loverboy walks along what he perceives to be the proper path. The clouds swirling in the edges of his peripheral vision all seem to point him in one direction or another, though he merely seems to float along at a predetermined pace. Something tells him he would have arrived to the same destination regardless of any decision on his part.

Eventually, the backdrop shifts to darker colors, and what appear to be trees adorn the still-moving scene. Loverboy feels the intense desire to sit down, and so he believes he does.

A lifetime goes by, and Loverboy begins to miss the heartbeats.

“Hello, my friend.”

Loverboy’s conscious swings around and finds the source. A cartoonish demon man with a familiar smile… nearly familiar. Just wrong enough that Loverboy knows.

“You aren’t him. I know that now. You fooled me last time, but you aren’t him at all.”

“Good for you, Mister Loverboy. Telling me who I am not is a simple feat - now tell me who I am?”

“I don’t care who you are. I care what’s happening here, what’s going on? Why am I here and not in my body?”

“This is the way home, Mister Loverboy, I assure you. I’m putting things in motion just for you. But first, I need you to do me a favor.”

“Ridiculous. Why would I do anything for you?”

“Because, Mister Loverboy, if you don’t, you’ll never wake up. And your little girlfriend will have a terrible, terrible go of things without you there to protect her.”

“You fucking won’t touch a hair on her head, whoever you are. I’ll break your god damn neck just for threatening it.”

Loverboy hears nothing, but feels the sensation of the fibers of the world around him shaking. After a few moments, he realizes what he is sensing is laughter. The world laughing at him.

“Don’t be such a fool, Mister Loverboy. Your heart only beats because I continue to allow it to. At any moment I choose I could cause the neurons in your spinal column to shrivel and perish, and you’ll spend the rest of your life defecating into a bag for your little trollop to empty for you. Is that what you’d like?”

Loverboy doesn’t answer. He furrows what he thinks might be his brow and he waits, fuming at the words this little incubus is spewing at him. Time passes.

“Good. Now I believe we are on the same page about who is in control of whom. Shall we move on?”

And just like that, the horizon spins and changes. The background is blackened and dripping, it seems, like the air itself is oozing. The entire landscape shifts into a stygian swampland, moving in a slow, pendulous rhythm. Loverboy feels his own spirit sinking into the morass.

“No, no, no, the doldrums are not for you, Mister Loverboy. This is where the suicides live. Look, there goes the harbormaster now.”

A momentary lifting of the ubiquitous fog reveals a long boat being poled along by an impossibly tall and impossibly thin man with a head like a medieval plague mask. As Loverboy watches, he sees that the cattails the harbormaster is stabbing at with his pole are, in fact, hands sticking straight out of the muck, grasping at him as he drifts by.

“I don’t understand. Why am I here? I didn’t kill myself.”

“Please, try to pay attention, Mister Loverboy. I may have an eternity to do with as I please, but I do so loathe repeating myself. This. Is not. For you.”

“Right… but why then? What is your purpose in bringing me to this cesspool? The doldrums, or whatever you call them… they’re chilling me and I can feel them eating at my will.”

“They do have a way of doing that to your kind. Mister Loverboy, I want you to rescue your friend. Your banter over the past year has been amusing to me, particularly when you interact with this fellow. Do you see him? There, in the bog? Just behind the harbormaster’s boat?”

Loverboy squints into his dim surroundings, seeing only a putrid sky meeting a marsh of identical color.

“I don’t think I - ”

But then he sees it. One of the hands, stretching and yearning from the greyblack emptiness is different from the others. Instead of oil-slicked skin, the hand is covered with red fabric.

“What? You don’t mean… didn’t you say this place was for suicides?”

“Indeed.”

Loverboy pushes himself forward, feeling the weight of the swamp as it pulls at him like quicksand. The resistance cloys at him, and saps him of strength, but eventually he finds himself standing over the red hand as its fingers flex and strain, looking for anything to grab onto.

Without understanding how, Loverboy grabs the hand. Though he is formless, he feels the palm on his own as if he were as corporeal as ever.

With a surge of effort, Loverboy pulls a strange man out of the swamp, clad in a red bodysuit. Like his spectral host, his appearance is best described as almost, but not quite.

“Is this supposed to be funny? You and this… guy… being cheap knock-offs of the real thing? What should I call him, Crocodile?”

“He’s a surrogate, Mister Loverboy. A copy of a copy, I pulled him right out of your memory. You know what happens when you copy a copy… things begin to blur. But he may as well be exactly who you think he is, for all intents and purposes.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course not. Suffice it to say, Mister Loverboy, that in a short time you will find yourself in a very familiar scenario. Well, that is, if you show me you deserve the continued effort of breathing life into you.”

“I don’t…”

“Understand, yes, I know. Mister Loverboy, you are going to get another chance at making your dreams come true. At Relentless.”

“Relentless? That was last year, dude, I dominated. Did you know I pinned Duke?”

“Yes.”

“Because I totally did. I pinned Duke.”

“Yes, you did. Pay attention. Do you remember after that? A certain four way match?”

“Hell yeah, I wasn’t supposed to win that one either! The whole planet had priapism over the return of Luca Arzegotti, and yet it was me that walked away with my hand held high that night, dude. LH Harrison, Gator, and Luca all came in second place behind yours truly.”

“And all of them will be in the ring with you again. As will your nemesis, one Doctor Louis D’Ville.”

Loverboy feels life coming back into him at the thought of another chance at the XWF Universal Title. He focuses, and then the red body of the rescued man stands in front of him.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Tell me why you’re going to beat Gator.”

“This is stupid. This isn’t Gator, you aren’t Doc, and no one can see this but me anyway. What’s the fucking point, dude? I’ve been here before, set up to fight all of these guys… what is there to learn from this?”

“If you want to make it to the fight, Mister Loverboy, you’ll do what the surrogate says. Entertain me. Now.”

“You should listen to him, mate.”

“Or what?”

The red pajama’d man shoves at Loverboy, sending him down into the black muck.

“What the fuck, dude? I rescued you, what are you doing?”

“I’m not real, LB. I’m a surrogate, like he told you. Your choice though, innit? If you want to sink into that mud and just let it all go or if you want to work your way out of this nonsense.”

Loverboy rises from the swamp, recouping and pulling himself together as the faces of his tormentors look on at him in bemusement.

“Well?”

“I have no idea what to say… I don’t know what I’m doing here, why this cheap off-brand version of my friend Gator was in the suicide swamp to begin with… you want me to pretend?”

“No, Mister Loverboy, I want you to believe it… because the outcome of this is very real. If you fail me here today, you will have chosen to end your own life, and you will stay right here in the doldrums until I see fit to do away with them, clawing out of the mud with the other retched souls who wish to change their minds too late, attempting to grab onto the harbormaster as he does his rounds. Your options are to tell the surrogate what you plan to do, or to commit suicide. Now choose.”

And so Loverboy chooses life.

“Gator… or whatever you are… look, man. This is what we both wanted from day one, isn’t it? Going all the way back to when you were some snot nosed punk in J-Pro, all the way through our debuts here in the XWF… I think we both knew that someday it would be you and me in that ring at the same time fighting for the top prize, didn’t we dude?

For longer than most people realize, you and me have been close, dude. Shit, I’m almost certain I took the first Disaster Drop, you know? We were green as fuck back then, but there was something beneath the surface and anyone in the same ring as you and me knew it. We were a different class.

When I got here, I saw you as a familiar face, a lighthouse in a storm. With you, I knew exactly what I had to look forward to. I saw you taking step after step to the top of the XWF, and it told me I could be there too. That’s how I KNEW I’d be main eventing here, and why it was never a matter of “if” but “when.”

But man… I would be lying if I said what you’ve become in the last six months hasn’t been a blow to the vision I had of you, dude. It was always supposed to be me and you, man. I shouldn’t have had to pull together some motley crew of dissidents and start an uprising on Madness without you by my side. I shouldn’t have had to watch as you built some cool kids’ club with flashes in the pan like Justin Sane and Austin Fernando. Those guys were coming after me, man, and you took up with them. Why would you do that, dude? Why would you sell yourself out just to get to where we always knew you were going to be, just one minute sooner?

You slapped me in the face when you formed Defiance. You spit right on top of the bleeding body of our history together when it needed you most. We could have made this place OURS, man. I was going to own Madness, that was inevitable, and Warfare would have been ripe for you to harvest. We could have held the tag division in our grip for as long as we wanted, instead of just having you and Sane shit the bed as soon as that new belt smell wore off for you.

See man, when you went after the Uni against the Doc the first time, I was right there cheering you on. Your success was my success, dude, even after all the shit we went through. I could have swept all that Defiance and Underground nonsense under the rug and we could have been exactly where we started. Gator and Vinnie against the whole motherfucking world.

But where were you, dude? Where were you when I was locked in that cage with D’Ville? Where were you when I needed every ounce of support I could get? There were dudes I’d only known for a month cheering me on, but every time I looked up during my most grueling and trying time, it as YOUR face I kept looking for… and you were nowhere to be seen.

No. You took your ball and you went home, didn’t you? You came up short one time and you just went ahead and asked for the check. You lay down for fucking MAVERICK, dude. What the fuck? There’s a reason that John Samuels, as decorated a performer and respected an athlete as he is, still hears shit about losing to that belt-shitting dipshit. It’s not an option to let yourself get put over on by the likes of him, dude. That wasn’t part of the plan. You quit on me, dude, and you quit on yourself.

Maybe that’s why you’re sitting here rotting in a garden of sleeping pill overdoses and bridge jumps. You may as well as put a gun into the mouth of Gator as soon as Jacob Woods decided to pack his bags and catch the first plane back to Manchester.

Now you want to show yourself back in like it’s the second coming of the messiah, and you want to just pick up where you left off, fighting for the Universal Title, something that belongs to those of us who stuck around and kept fighting while you were licking your little wounds and trying to feel better about not winning every single time.

Well guess what, Gator dude? The truth is, you’ve had better luck against the unstoppable monster that is Doctor D’Ville than you’ve had against me. I’ve beaten you before, in exactly this kind of environment. The only time during your legendary Television Title run that you didn’t come out on top. And when you had me one on one? Well, you had to have the rules changed to beat me, didn’t you? When it was the same match everyone else had, fifteen minutes then go home, you couldn’t get it done. If it weren’t for interference and an extra five minutes added on, you wouldn’t have the rare privilege to say you’ve gone into a match with “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane and be declared the winner.

The difference this time, dude, and what must really be eating you alive, is that you’re just a side dish to the main course this time around. I’m there for one reason and one reason only – to beat the Doc and take home the title. You’re just in the way.

Face it, Gator… I’m still the main event. And just like last year, you, LH, and Luca will just be standing there watching while “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane gets a win.”

“Very good, Mister Loverboy. Very good indeed.”

“Yeah? I mean, I’m a little rusty…”

“You did well. Jacob will be excited when I pass it on to him.”

“Wait…. How…”

“Never mind that, Mister Loverboy. Now… follow me.”

The ethereal non-Doctor floats away, and the thing that Loverboy has become trails him, leaving the surrogate in the red costume to sink back into the doldrums.
]]>

The last thing “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane heard before closing his eyes for a month was a scream, not unlike the voice of his own fiancée, Roxy Cotton’s.

He had taken his eye off the ball. Like Maggie Fitzgerald in Million Dollar Baby, he had let his hand drop and forgotten to protect himself.

He saw Archyle coming and he did what his instincts told him to do – get in the way. Unfortunately, as is the case with most terrible injuries, he never swathe one that hit him.

When Thunderbolt X came crashing into Loverboy’s body, it was a complete shock. It was as if he’d been hit broadside by a speeding car. The impact threw him back and into the corner in the course of a single second that took two minutes for him to live through.

Time does something funny when an important moment comes around, like it doesn’t want you to miss the point. It slows and stretches in the same way a writer will italicize or underline something that he doesn’t want to you to miss.

This, the universe said to Loverboy, this matters. You can’t afford to forget this.

There was impact, but not pain. A flash of light, but no sight. Just the sound of a woman screaming.

No, she screamed.

No.

In the weeks that passed since that time, Loverboy had done a lot of thinking, but in the most unusual way. He had become finely attuned to the biological processes of his own body. He felt air going into and coming out of his lungs, first as it was thrust into him by a machine and then later, thankfully, under the autonomic power of his unconscious diaphragm.

He began to know the feeling of his blood as it coursed through him. He could feel the race around his body after the propulsion from his heartbeat. He felt it pushed into his lungs where it absorbed the oxygen, then into his brain and down through the rest of him until it came back again. He clocked the entire process at around 65 seconds.

For days, this was what he did with his life while the outside world went about the business of keeping him clean and comfortable. He was aware of them, though he couldn’t feel, hear, or see them. Just a sensation of a cloud crossing in front of the sun that let him know someone was there, looking at him.

More often than not, he would sense flowers. Fields upon fields of flowers. He knew somewhere deep within him that it was his Roxy, her perfume fighting its way through his comatose brain and letting him know she was there.

What happened in between life and death, though, was what could only be described as elsewhere. When Loverboy was in between, he saw things. Impossible things. And he met people who were both strangers and well-known to him at the same time.

It started about a week after Loverboy got to the hospital. After hour after hour of counting his breaths and heartbeats, he started to fall. As a professional wrestler, he was familiar with the sensation. The thing of it was, he couldn’t be falling. He knew, somewhere in the cortex of his brain, that he was bedridden. With enough concentration he could even almost feel the sensation of the rough hospital sheets and the firm cushions. He wasn’t moving, but he was falling all the same.

Then, just as suddenly, he hit the ground. Spongy, wet ground, but nothing that soaked into his clothing or made his skin and hair wet. He blinked for the first time in days, but his eyes back up in the hospital bed didn’t move at all.

“Hello?”

He screamed silently. A vast expanse of complete soundlessness was in every direction. When people describe silence, they typically mean a lack of loudness. Here, though, wherever here was, was completely silent. No air passing over his eardrums, no groans or bubbles from his own body. He wasn’t even in his body, so far as he could tell, so the heartbeats were gone, as were the breaths. All that there was, was nothing.

“Hello? Where am I?”

It was the lack of an echo that really got to him. The little things that we subconsciously take for granted are the ones that start to fuck with you the most once they’re gone. Loverboy began to be acutely aware that he couldn’t taste his own spit any longer, or smell his own breath. Here, there was nothing at all other than a bright, colorful landscape that seemed to move independently of the invisible ground he stood on, like a sort of Hollywood backdrop.

“If this is what dying is, dude, this is fucking weird. Close the gate, St. Peter, I’ve got shit to do and I ain’t ready to tap out just yet!”

Loverboy walks along what he perceives to be the proper path. The clouds swirling in the edges of his peripheral vision all seem to point him in one direction or another, though he merely seems to float along at a predetermined pace. Something tells him he would have arrived to the same destination regardless of any decision on his part.

Eventually, the backdrop shifts to darker colors, and what appear to be trees adorn the still-moving scene. Loverboy feels the intense desire to sit down, and so he believes he does.

A lifetime goes by, and Loverboy begins to miss the heartbeats.

“Hello, my friend.”

Loverboy’s conscious swings around and finds the source. A cartoonish demon man with a familiar smile… nearly familiar. Just wrong enough that Loverboy knows.

“You aren’t him. I know that now. You fooled me last time, but you aren’t him at all.”

“Good for you, Mister Loverboy. Telling me who I am not is a simple feat - now tell me who I am?”

“I don’t care who you are. I care what’s happening here, what’s going on? Why am I here and not in my body?”

“This is the way home, Mister Loverboy, I assure you. I’m putting things in motion just for you. But first, I need you to do me a favor.”

“Ridiculous. Why would I do anything for you?”

“Because, Mister Loverboy, if you don’t, you’ll never wake up. And your little girlfriend will have a terrible, terrible go of things without you there to protect her.”

“You fucking won’t touch a hair on her head, whoever you are. I’ll break your god damn neck just for threatening it.”

Loverboy hears nothing, but feels the sensation of the fibers of the world around him shaking. After a few moments, he realizes what he is sensing is laughter. The world laughing at him.

“Don’t be such a fool, Mister Loverboy. Your heart only beats because I continue to allow it to. At any moment I choose I could cause the neurons in your spinal column to shrivel and perish, and you’ll spend the rest of your life defecating into a bag for your little trollop to empty for you. Is that what you’d like?”

Loverboy doesn’t answer. He furrows what he thinks might be his brow and he waits, fuming at the words this little incubus is spewing at him. Time passes.

“Good. Now I believe we are on the same page about who is in control of whom. Shall we move on?”

And just like that, the horizon spins and changes. The background is blackened and dripping, it seems, like the air itself is oozing. The entire landscape shifts into a stygian swampland, moving in a slow, pendulous rhythm. Loverboy feels his own spirit sinking into the morass.

“No, no, no, the doldrums are not for you, Mister Loverboy. This is where the suicides live. Look, there goes the harbormaster now.”

A momentary lifting of the ubiquitous fog reveals a long boat being poled along by an impossibly tall and impossibly thin man with a head like a medieval plague mask. As Loverboy watches, he sees that the cattails the harbormaster is stabbing at with his pole are, in fact, hands sticking straight out of the muck, grasping at him as he drifts by.

“I don’t understand. Why am I here? I didn’t kill myself.”

“Please, try to pay attention, Mister Loverboy. I may have an eternity to do with as I please, but I do so loathe repeating myself. This. Is not. For you.”

“Right… but why then? What is your purpose in bringing me to this cesspool? The doldrums, or whatever you call them… they’re chilling me and I can feel them eating at my will.”

“They do have a way of doing that to your kind. Mister Loverboy, I want you to rescue your friend. Your banter over the past year has been amusing to me, particularly when you interact with this fellow. Do you see him? There, in the bog? Just behind the harbormaster’s boat?”

Loverboy squints into his dim surroundings, seeing only a putrid sky meeting a marsh of identical color.

“I don’t think I - ”

But then he sees it. One of the hands, stretching and yearning from the greyblack emptiness is different from the others. Instead of oil-slicked skin, the hand is covered with red fabric.

“What? You don’t mean… didn’t you say this place was for suicides?”

“Indeed.”

Loverboy pushes himself forward, feeling the weight of the swamp as it pulls at him like quicksand. The resistance cloys at him, and saps him of strength, but eventually he finds himself standing over the red hand as its fingers flex and strain, looking for anything to grab onto.

Without understanding how, Loverboy grabs the hand. Though he is formless, he feels the palm on his own as if he were as corporeal as ever.

With a surge of effort, Loverboy pulls a strange man out of the swamp, clad in a red bodysuit. Like his spectral host, his appearance is best described as almost, but not quite.

“Is this supposed to be funny? You and this… guy… being cheap knock-offs of the real thing? What should I call him, Crocodile?”

“He’s a surrogate, Mister Loverboy. A copy of a copy, I pulled him right out of your memory. You know what happens when you copy a copy… things begin to blur. But he may as well be exactly who you think he is, for all intents and purposes.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course not. Suffice it to say, Mister Loverboy, that in a short time you will find yourself in a very familiar scenario. Well, that is, if you show me you deserve the continued effort of breathing life into you.”

“I don’t…”

“Understand, yes, I know. Mister Loverboy, you are going to get another chance at making your dreams come true. At Relentless.”

“Relentless? That was last year, dude, I dominated. Did you know I pinned Duke?”

“Yes.”

“Because I totally did. I pinned Duke.”

“Yes, you did. Pay attention. Do you remember after that? A certain four way match?”

“Hell yeah, I wasn’t supposed to win that one either! The whole planet had priapism over the return of Luca Arzegotti, and yet it was me that walked away with my hand held high that night, dude. LH Harrison, Gator, and Luca all came in second place behind yours truly.”

“And all of them will be in the ring with you again. As will your nemesis, one Doctor Louis D’Ville.”

Loverboy feels life coming back into him at the thought of another chance at the XWF Universal Title. He focuses, and then the red body of the rescued man stands in front of him.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Tell me why you’re going to beat Gator.”

“This is stupid. This isn’t Gator, you aren’t Doc, and no one can see this but me anyway. What’s the fucking point, dude? I’ve been here before, set up to fight all of these guys… what is there to learn from this?”

“If you want to make it to the fight, Mister Loverboy, you’ll do what the surrogate says. Entertain me. Now.”

“You should listen to him, mate.”

“Or what?”

The red pajama’d man shoves at Loverboy, sending him down into the black muck.

“What the fuck, dude? I rescued you, what are you doing?”

“I’m not real, LB. I’m a surrogate, like he told you. Your choice though, innit? If you want to sink into that mud and just let it all go or if you want to work your way out of this nonsense.”

Loverboy rises from the swamp, recouping and pulling himself together as the faces of his tormentors look on at him in bemusement.

“Well?”

“I have no idea what to say… I don’t know what I’m doing here, why this cheap off-brand version of my friend Gator was in the suicide swamp to begin with… you want me to pretend?”

“No, Mister Loverboy, I want you to believe it… because the outcome of this is very real. If you fail me here today, you will have chosen to end your own life, and you will stay right here in the doldrums until I see fit to do away with them, clawing out of the mud with the other retched souls who wish to change their minds too late, attempting to grab onto the harbormaster as he does his rounds. Your options are to tell the surrogate what you plan to do, or to commit suicide. Now choose.”

And so Loverboy chooses life.

“Gator… or whatever you are… look, man. This is what we both wanted from day one, isn’t it? Going all the way back to when you were some snot nosed punk in J-Pro, all the way through our debuts here in the XWF… I think we both knew that someday it would be you and me in that ring at the same time fighting for the top prize, didn’t we dude?

For longer than most people realize, you and me have been close, dude. Shit, I’m almost certain I took the first Disaster Drop, you know? We were green as fuck back then, but there was something beneath the surface and anyone in the same ring as you and me knew it. We were a different class.

When I got here, I saw you as a familiar face, a lighthouse in a storm. With you, I knew exactly what I had to look forward to. I saw you taking step after step to the top of the XWF, and it told me I could be there too. That’s how I KNEW I’d be main eventing here, and why it was never a matter of “if” but “when.”

But man… I would be lying if I said what you’ve become in the last six months hasn’t been a blow to the vision I had of you, dude. It was always supposed to be me and you, man. I shouldn’t have had to pull together some motley crew of dissidents and start an uprising on Madness without you by my side. I shouldn’t have had to watch as you built some cool kids’ club with flashes in the pan like Justin Sane and Austin Fernando. Those guys were coming after me, man, and you took up with them. Why would you do that, dude? Why would you sell yourself out just to get to where we always knew you were going to be, just one minute sooner?

You slapped me in the face when you formed Defiance. You spit right on top of the bleeding body of our history together when it needed you most. We could have made this place OURS, man. I was going to own Madness, that was inevitable, and Warfare would have been ripe for you to harvest. We could have held the tag division in our grip for as long as we wanted, instead of just having you and Sane shit the bed as soon as that new belt smell wore off for you.

See man, when you went after the Uni against the Doc the first time, I was right there cheering you on. Your success was my success, dude, even after all the shit we went through. I could have swept all that Defiance and Underground nonsense under the rug and we could have been exactly where we started. Gator and Vinnie against the whole motherfucking world.

But where were you, dude? Where were you when I was locked in that cage with D’Ville? Where were you when I needed every ounce of support I could get? There were dudes I’d only known for a month cheering me on, but every time I looked up during my most grueling and trying time, it as YOUR face I kept looking for… and you were nowhere to be seen.

No. You took your ball and you went home, didn’t you? You came up short one time and you just went ahead and asked for the check. You lay down for fucking MAVERICK, dude. What the fuck? There’s a reason that John Samuels, as decorated a performer and respected an athlete as he is, still hears shit about losing to that belt-shitting dipshit. It’s not an option to let yourself get put over on by the likes of him, dude. That wasn’t part of the plan. You quit on me, dude, and you quit on yourself.

Maybe that’s why you’re sitting here rotting in a garden of sleeping pill overdoses and bridge jumps. You may as well as put a gun into the mouth of Gator as soon as Jacob Woods decided to pack his bags and catch the first plane back to Manchester.

Now you want to show yourself back in like it’s the second coming of the messiah, and you want to just pick up where you left off, fighting for the Universal Title, something that belongs to those of us who stuck around and kept fighting while you were licking your little wounds and trying to feel better about not winning every single time.

Well guess what, Gator dude? The truth is, you’ve had better luck against the unstoppable monster that is Doctor D’Ville than you’ve had against me. I’ve beaten you before, in exactly this kind of environment. The only time during your legendary Television Title run that you didn’t come out on top. And when you had me one on one? Well, you had to have the rules changed to beat me, didn’t you? When it was the same match everyone else had, fifteen minutes then go home, you couldn’t get it done. If it weren’t for interference and an extra five minutes added on, you wouldn’t have the rare privilege to say you’ve gone into a match with “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane and be declared the winner.

The difference this time, dude, and what must really be eating you alive, is that you’re just a side dish to the main course this time around. I’m there for one reason and one reason only – to beat the Doc and take home the title. You’re just in the way.

Face it, Gator… I’m still the main event. And just like last year, you, LH, and Luca will just be standing there watching while “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane gets a win.”

“Very good, Mister Loverboy. Very good indeed.”

“Yeah? I mean, I’m a little rusty…”

“You did well. Jacob will be excited when I pass it on to him.”

“Wait…. How…”

“Never mind that, Mister Loverboy. Now… follow me.”

The ethereal non-Doctor floats away, and the thing that Loverboy has become trails him, leaving the surrogate in the red costume to sink back into the doldrums.
]]> <![CDATA[Where are you going? Where have you been?]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=20863 Sun, 26 Jul 2015 13:05:43 -0700 Vincent Lane]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=20863
Inspiration: "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" by Joyce Carol Oates


My face is so numb I can barely feel the weight of my mascara as it streams down my cheeks in black rivulets.

My hands are shaking as I clutch the limp fingers of my comatose fiancé, “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane, in my own.

I’ve been here every day and night since leaving the arena in Illinois on Monday and catching the first red-eye flight back to LA. I haven’t changed my clothes, showered, or even brushed my teeth since arriving at Vinnie’s bedside early Tuesday morning, fresh from what should have been a moment of celebration and victory for the two of us.

However, I’m reminded by the way strands of my blonde hair stick to the tape residue around my wrists, not all moments end the way they should.

I defeated Nico Lavey on Monday Madness, my one and only wrestling match. An homage and a dedication to my love, hoping to send good vibes and waves of emotion his way. The crowd was in my corner, they chanted his name. They still love him, and they wanted him there in that ring. It was beautiful.

Then, I was assaulted. The Dimallisher raped me, jabbing his filthy fingers into my mouth and humiliating me in front of millions of people. He made a mockery of my tribute to my beloved, and he ruined a truly wonderful connection between the fans, myself, and Vinnie.

At least, though, I knew that wherever Vinnie had been he must have felt that power. It had to have done some good.

That was why when, upon returning to my locker room after the match and the following attack, I was at first excited to see messages from the hospital. My heart swelled. I thought I might have done it. He might have been awake. Maybe he even got to see the show. Instead, the voice mail simply said that the time had come to remove the breathing machine from Vinnie and bring use it for someone else. My world shattered.

I called and spoke to the doctors and they insisted that the machine was only acting as a backup for Vinnie, that his unconscious body was performing all of its necessary functions on its own anyway, and that the machine had simply been acting as a safety precaution in case something changed.

But what if something DOES change? What if he stops breathing one night and the only thing that might have saved him was that machine? They told me that there were others in more dire need of care and they needed the resources… but my resources are my man. My life.

I tried to make the point again when I arrived at the hospital, even getting close to being arrested or thrown out of the building by security. The head nurse, an older black woman, saw me coming and cut me off before I’d even said a word. She must have known I was on my way and put two and two together when she saw a barefoot Playboy bunny running down her hallway with a pair of sparkling heels in her hand and an overnight bag on her shoulder.

“Ma’am, you need to relax,” she said to me in that condescending, professionally detached tone that medical workers all seem to acquire.

“Don’t you tell me to fucking calm down!” I wailed at her, “The love of my life is in a coma, and you’re going to let him just DIE!”

The security guards grabbed me and they held me still, but the nurse softened and led me to Vinnie’s room instead of having me ejected. She even sat with me on his bed and put her hand on my shoulder while I sobbed over him.

“See,” she said to me in a comforting tone, managing to calm me enough to catch my breath, “his chest is rising and falling on his own. His heart is beating. Strong, actually. Biologically, physically, he’s fine. He’s in perfect shape. Even his wounds have healed. If he were awake he would probably feel great right now.”

“But he isn’t awake,” I choked through my tears. As if the nurse needed to be reminded of the medical situation, I went on. “He hasn’t voluntarily moved in weeks. He doesn’t respond to anything. You’re taking machines away from him that could save his life, and you’re doing it because you know it’s hopeless. His body is alive, but his brain? His brain is dead, isn’t it?”

That’s when she smiled. I was so confused by that. Here I was bawling my eyes out in front of a total stranger, beginning to mourn for the death of the only man I’ve ever truly loved, and she’s smiling. For a second, if I’d have had the strength of spirit, I might have stood up and beaten that smile off of her. Luckily, though, I didn’t.

“Miss Cotton,” she began, still with that half-smile on her face that was driving me mad, “your fiancé isn’t braindead. Far from it.”

And she stood and walked to the head of Vinnie’s bed, leaning over him and brushing the hair away from his face, dabbing the saliva away from the corners of his mouth with a cloth and then gesturing to him.

“Come and see for yourself. Get closer to him. Look.”

And so I did, but all I saw was the unmoving face and the closed eyelids. The tepid flare of nostrils as just enough air flowed through them to keep his lungs partially full. Not so much as a blink.

“I don’t understand. What am I - ”

And then there it was. Barely noticeable. The slightest twitching beneath Vinnie’s eyelids as his eyes darted back and forth beneath them, almost as if he were looking around himself without opening those beautiful blue eyes of his.

“What? What is it? What’s happening?”

My tone was strained, anxious. I even grabbed at her wrist, demanding some sort of explanation as if I could yank one from her body by force. She remained calm and placed her free hand over mine, again easing the tension out of me with a nearly latent skill.

“Miss Cotton, what you are seeing is called rapid eye movement, or REM. It’s what happens to you in the deepest levels of sleep. Delta waves emit from your brain, and you dream.”

“You mean he’s dreaming? He’s just asleep?”

“No, not at all… he is comatose. There are no signs from his visual cortex on the FMRI that was performed… but there you see it. Signs of life. Brain life, more importantly. This isn’t a reflex… don’t really know what it is, honestly.”

That was Tuesday, of course. Now, days later, I’m still here staring down at the motionless face of my lover, waiting for the few seconds of every hour that his eyes flicker and move. Every tiny movement giving me another burst of hope that Vinnie and I will be together again.

So, you are probably wondering, then, if things are looking better, why am I here crying?

Well, the answer is simple. Late last night - or early this morning, I’m not sure - the police in Orange County positively identified the body they’d found earlier in the week as my sister, Dani.

Not only is this devastating in the obvious ways, but it brings to mind a series of questions, considering they say she’s been dead for weeks. The most disturbing of which is, who has been texting me from her number and telling me it was her?

I try to steel myself against the tears, wiping them away and leaving garish streaks like tire treads across my face with warm, wet palms.

I wriggle my toes into the stiletto pumps on the floor next to the bed and stand up, striding into the tiny bathroom and taking a good look at myself for the first time in days. I’m a ghoul. A specter of the Roxy Cotton the world has come to know from television and magazines.

In the back of my mind, I think this is how I would look if they ever found me on the side of the road the way they had Dani.

Needing to shed that image from my mind, I run the tap over my cupped hands and douse my face in the cool water. I baptize myself in the sink of my comatose lover’s hospital room, watching the whirlpool of black makeup swirl towards the drain as it bleeds from my skin.

Finally, with a face bereft of any cosmetics, I sweep my hair back into a loose, messy ponytail and then, after a deep breath, I head for the door. For the first time since Tuesday I’m outside of Vinnie’s claustrophobic little hospital room and walking quickly down the hallway, determined to force myself to face the day.

I always get lost in hospitals. Every hallway looks the same, just full of sad, dying, hurting people and rushing medical personnel. I just follow the signs for the Emergency Room, since I know I parked out there anyway.

It’s when I get almost all the way back outside that the doors to the ER burst open and a cadre of harried EMT’s cart in what’s left of a young woman, followed by a handful of completely dumbfounded police officers.

“Move, move, move, we need a room, NOW!”

My eyes are wide with horror when I see that one of the EMT’s is literally holding the girl’s chest together with his hands, like she’s been cracked open for open heart surgery and left to die. Her face is a jigsaw mess. There’s blood everywhere. Miraculously, though, she’s alive.

They hurry her past me and through a set of doors, leaving a trail of horror as well as blood. I knew deep inside what I had just seem wasn’t a car accident or anything of the sort.

Whatever did that to that girl killed my sister.

Just then, startling me back to my senses and getting me moving toward the door again, my phone vibrates hard in my purse. I pull the cell out and check the notifications and then nearly audibly gasp with shock.

It’s from Dani.

“Hey there Roxy Cotton. How’d you like that?”



[Image: Y9miYPw.gif]



About an hour later, I’ve worked my way home through the disgusting Los Angeles traffic on the 405. I’ve made a few calls to make sure everyone is safe and that they know I am, too. Talking to mom back in Kamloops is the hardest. She doesn’t know what to think, what to do. She’s destroyed by the news of her baby girl ending up the way she did on her first trip to America.

I shower, quickly, and get myself put back together. Pack a few things, have a quick snack of something other than what they sell at hospital cantinas. I’m squeezing myself into a different dress and working the zipper up the side when a hard banging echoes from my door.

“What the fuck?”

The surprise and fear are momentary, replaced by anger. This day has already done enough to me, and I’m not allowing it to take anything else away.

I storm to the door and look through the peephole, but there’s nobody there. Probably a prank, or just a wrong door situation.

“Whatever.”

I walk away from the door, headed for my purse on the kitchen counter, but the banging coms again before I take even three steps.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now? Who is it?”

My shout rings through the silent room, the hint of insecurity in my voice muffled, hopefully, by the air conditioner kicking in at the perfect time.

“Who the fuck is there?”

My only answer is another three raps on the door. Hard, the kind a police officer would give. Again, I walk up to the door and get my eye close to the peep hole, seeing nobody. I keep looking anyway, straining to see in my peripherals, trying to angle up and down.

“Fucking ridiculous…”

As I’m about to pull away from the door, it comes again.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

I feel the reverberations of the impact move through my face and body, but still, I see nobody there.

“How the… you know what, fuck this. It’s the middle of the day, motherfucker, what are you gonna do, huh?”

And so I swing the door open. For a second I think I’ve lost my mind. The stress of the events this week must have finally gotten to me. There is nobody tapping at my chamber door.

But then, when I look down the stairs, I see a man leaning against a car idling in the parking lot. Like something out of an S.E. Hinton novel, he’s got hair slicked back into a classic duck-ass style, a leather jacket despite the summer heat, jeans tucked into work boots… he’s got his arms folded over the white tee shirt beneath his jacket and he smiles up at me as he crosses one boot over the other, still leaning against the old car.

“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?”

Stunned, my instinctive reaction is to fall into some sort of pose. Before I do, though, I realize he’s talking to me, not about me. He’s referring to the car.

“1964. Original. These things are classics, but they’re hard to find. The good stuff always takes a lot of work to find, doesn’t it, Roxy?”

“Who are you? How do you know my name or where I live?”

“Easy, babe, easy. I know a lot.”

“I’ll call the police.”

“You won’t do that.”

“Well I’m fucking going to if you don’t get out of here right now!”

“You should come for a ride. Come on. It’s a nice day. Your man isn’t waking up today, don’t worry.”

“Who the fuck are you? What are you talking about?”

“Sweetheart…”

He walks a few steps toward me, unbalanced it seems, like he’s walking on his toes inside of those boots.

“… I told you. I know a lot. I’ve been around.”

I’m nervous, but I want to stand my ground. Show him I’m strong, that I’m in control. I keep a stiff upper lip and I fight the urge to back away from him as he reaches the stairs. He stops at the bottom, on hand on the rail, and just looks up at me. I can see the brightness of his blue eyes even through the lenses of his dark sunglasses.

“Don’t you dare come any closer to me. I have a gun!”

“No you don’t.”

He takes a step up and I start to feel myself waver. I bring my purse around in front of me like a shield, and he laughs.

“Come on, Roxy. You’re afraid? I have a lot of answers for you. A lot of things to show you. Why don’t you get in the car?”

“Back up!”

I yell. I look around me but somehow, in this huge metropolis, there’s no one to hear me. He sees me looking and failing to find anyone and he laughs again. He even shakes his head.

“Stop trying to get others to make your decisions for you, Roxy. Come on. I came here just to see you. I’m A Friend.”

“Friend my ass. Who are you really? Why are you here?”

“I told you,” he says, taking another step up towards me still with that broad grin across his face like a Cheshire cat, “I’m A Friend. Look, I even brought you something.”

He slips his hand into his jacket pocket and I recoil, turning half away and reaching into my bag to call the cops. He sees me pulling the phone from my purse and the smile vanishes for a moment before returning in full force.

“Roxy, you won’t be calling anyone. I know things. If you want your Loverboy to wake up in time for his big show, you’ll just come with me.”

When he says Vinnie's name I freeze. He says it full of emotionless confidence, like someone telling you he's going to check the mail.

“What? What are you, crazy?”

I pull the phone out and unlock the screen, and there’s another message from Dani waiting for me. Of course, I know it isn’t her, but I can’t help but pull it up anyway.

Every ounce of breath leaves my lungs in a fight between gasping and screaming. There on my phone’s screen, in capital letters, it says:

PUT THE PHONE DOWN AND COME WITH ME

While I was messing with the phone he’s gotten closer. Close enough to reach out and nearly touch me. But instead, he’s handing me something.

A cell phone.

Dani’s cell phone.

“Get in the car, Roxy.”

I break the spell for one desperate second and I spin away from him, but the door is shut and locked. I have no memory of closing and locking the door, but there it is. There’s no place for me to go other than forward right into this enigmatic man who probably murdered my sister and seems to know entirely too much about Vinnie.

“This is the last time I’m giving you the option of coming on your own, Roxy. I don’t want to hurt you, okay?”

Shaking, crying, I take a step towards him. He swings his arm back and open, presenting the way for me to go, and I don’t know why but I do it. I go down the stairs and walk to the car, its old engine rumbling beneath the hot hood, and I wait while he comes around to the passenger’s side and opens the door for me. He’s a gentleman, even. He shuts it only after seeing I’ve gotten my legs fully into the vehicle, turning the key in the lock, and I find myself again instinctively reacting the way I’ve been trained my entire life to do. I lean over and make sure his door is unlocked for him.

He gets into the car and turns to me, smiling.

“Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

His face is handsome but his breath is hot and smells like blood.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“I’m A Friend, Roxy. We’re going to make a deal, and then your fiancé is going to wake up.”

“But… how?”

He just smiles again and drops the car into gear without answering. I don’t have to look to know that there is no way to unlock my door from the inside or to understand that I may never be home again.

As we pull off onto the main road, I can only think one word over and over to keep my composure.

“Vinnie.”
]]>
Inspiration: "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" by Joyce Carol Oates


My face is so numb I can barely feel the weight of my mascara as it streams down my cheeks in black rivulets.

My hands are shaking as I clutch the limp fingers of my comatose fiancé, “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane, in my own.

I’ve been here every day and night since leaving the arena in Illinois on Monday and catching the first red-eye flight back to LA. I haven’t changed my clothes, showered, or even brushed my teeth since arriving at Vinnie’s bedside early Tuesday morning, fresh from what should have been a moment of celebration and victory for the two of us.

However, I’m reminded by the way strands of my blonde hair stick to the tape residue around my wrists, not all moments end the way they should.

I defeated Nico Lavey on Monday Madness, my one and only wrestling match. An homage and a dedication to my love, hoping to send good vibes and waves of emotion his way. The crowd was in my corner, they chanted his name. They still love him, and they wanted him there in that ring. It was beautiful.

Then, I was assaulted. The Dimallisher raped me, jabbing his filthy fingers into my mouth and humiliating me in front of millions of people. He made a mockery of my tribute to my beloved, and he ruined a truly wonderful connection between the fans, myself, and Vinnie.

At least, though, I knew that wherever Vinnie had been he must have felt that power. It had to have done some good.

That was why when, upon returning to my locker room after the match and the following attack, I was at first excited to see messages from the hospital. My heart swelled. I thought I might have done it. He might have been awake. Maybe he even got to see the show. Instead, the voice mail simply said that the time had come to remove the breathing machine from Vinnie and bring use it for someone else. My world shattered.

I called and spoke to the doctors and they insisted that the machine was only acting as a backup for Vinnie, that his unconscious body was performing all of its necessary functions on its own anyway, and that the machine had simply been acting as a safety precaution in case something changed.

But what if something DOES change? What if he stops breathing one night and the only thing that might have saved him was that machine? They told me that there were others in more dire need of care and they needed the resources… but my resources are my man. My life.

I tried to make the point again when I arrived at the hospital, even getting close to being arrested or thrown out of the building by security. The head nurse, an older black woman, saw me coming and cut me off before I’d even said a word. She must have known I was on my way and put two and two together when she saw a barefoot Playboy bunny running down her hallway with a pair of sparkling heels in her hand and an overnight bag on her shoulder.

“Ma’am, you need to relax,” she said to me in that condescending, professionally detached tone that medical workers all seem to acquire.

“Don’t you tell me to fucking calm down!” I wailed at her, “The love of my life is in a coma, and you’re going to let him just DIE!”

The security guards grabbed me and they held me still, but the nurse softened and led me to Vinnie’s room instead of having me ejected. She even sat with me on his bed and put her hand on my shoulder while I sobbed over him.

“See,” she said to me in a comforting tone, managing to calm me enough to catch my breath, “his chest is rising and falling on his own. His heart is beating. Strong, actually. Biologically, physically, he’s fine. He’s in perfect shape. Even his wounds have healed. If he were awake he would probably feel great right now.”

“But he isn’t awake,” I choked through my tears. As if the nurse needed to be reminded of the medical situation, I went on. “He hasn’t voluntarily moved in weeks. He doesn’t respond to anything. You’re taking machines away from him that could save his life, and you’re doing it because you know it’s hopeless. His body is alive, but his brain? His brain is dead, isn’t it?”

That’s when she smiled. I was so confused by that. Here I was bawling my eyes out in front of a total stranger, beginning to mourn for the death of the only man I’ve ever truly loved, and she’s smiling. For a second, if I’d have had the strength of spirit, I might have stood up and beaten that smile off of her. Luckily, though, I didn’t.

“Miss Cotton,” she began, still with that half-smile on her face that was driving me mad, “your fiancé isn’t braindead. Far from it.”

And she stood and walked to the head of Vinnie’s bed, leaning over him and brushing the hair away from his face, dabbing the saliva away from the corners of his mouth with a cloth and then gesturing to him.

“Come and see for yourself. Get closer to him. Look.”

And so I did, but all I saw was the unmoving face and the closed eyelids. The tepid flare of nostrils as just enough air flowed through them to keep his lungs partially full. Not so much as a blink.

“I don’t understand. What am I - ”

And then there it was. Barely noticeable. The slightest twitching beneath Vinnie’s eyelids as his eyes darted back and forth beneath them, almost as if he were looking around himself without opening those beautiful blue eyes of his.

“What? What is it? What’s happening?”

My tone was strained, anxious. I even grabbed at her wrist, demanding some sort of explanation as if I could yank one from her body by force. She remained calm and placed her free hand over mine, again easing the tension out of me with a nearly latent skill.

“Miss Cotton, what you are seeing is called rapid eye movement, or REM. It’s what happens to you in the deepest levels of sleep. Delta waves emit from your brain, and you dream.”

“You mean he’s dreaming? He’s just asleep?”

“No, not at all… he is comatose. There are no signs from his visual cortex on the FMRI that was performed… but there you see it. Signs of life. Brain life, more importantly. This isn’t a reflex… don’t really know what it is, honestly.”

That was Tuesday, of course. Now, days later, I’m still here staring down at the motionless face of my lover, waiting for the few seconds of every hour that his eyes flicker and move. Every tiny movement giving me another burst of hope that Vinnie and I will be together again.

So, you are probably wondering, then, if things are looking better, why am I here crying?

Well, the answer is simple. Late last night - or early this morning, I’m not sure - the police in Orange County positively identified the body they’d found earlier in the week as my sister, Dani.

Not only is this devastating in the obvious ways, but it brings to mind a series of questions, considering they say she’s been dead for weeks. The most disturbing of which is, who has been texting me from her number and telling me it was her?

I try to steel myself against the tears, wiping them away and leaving garish streaks like tire treads across my face with warm, wet palms.

I wriggle my toes into the stiletto pumps on the floor next to the bed and stand up, striding into the tiny bathroom and taking a good look at myself for the first time in days. I’m a ghoul. A specter of the Roxy Cotton the world has come to know from television and magazines.

In the back of my mind, I think this is how I would look if they ever found me on the side of the road the way they had Dani.

Needing to shed that image from my mind, I run the tap over my cupped hands and douse my face in the cool water. I baptize myself in the sink of my comatose lover’s hospital room, watching the whirlpool of black makeup swirl towards the drain as it bleeds from my skin.

Finally, with a face bereft of any cosmetics, I sweep my hair back into a loose, messy ponytail and then, after a deep breath, I head for the door. For the first time since Tuesday I’m outside of Vinnie’s claustrophobic little hospital room and walking quickly down the hallway, determined to force myself to face the day.

I always get lost in hospitals. Every hallway looks the same, just full of sad, dying, hurting people and rushing medical personnel. I just follow the signs for the Emergency Room, since I know I parked out there anyway.

It’s when I get almost all the way back outside that the doors to the ER burst open and a cadre of harried EMT’s cart in what’s left of a young woman, followed by a handful of completely dumbfounded police officers.

“Move, move, move, we need a room, NOW!”

My eyes are wide with horror when I see that one of the EMT’s is literally holding the girl’s chest together with his hands, like she’s been cracked open for open heart surgery and left to die. Her face is a jigsaw mess. There’s blood everywhere. Miraculously, though, she’s alive.

They hurry her past me and through a set of doors, leaving a trail of horror as well as blood. I knew deep inside what I had just seem wasn’t a car accident or anything of the sort.

Whatever did that to that girl killed my sister.

Just then, startling me back to my senses and getting me moving toward the door again, my phone vibrates hard in my purse. I pull the cell out and check the notifications and then nearly audibly gasp with shock.

It’s from Dani.

“Hey there Roxy Cotton. How’d you like that?”



[Image: Y9miYPw.gif]



About an hour later, I’ve worked my way home through the disgusting Los Angeles traffic on the 405. I’ve made a few calls to make sure everyone is safe and that they know I am, too. Talking to mom back in Kamloops is the hardest. She doesn’t know what to think, what to do. She’s destroyed by the news of her baby girl ending up the way she did on her first trip to America.

I shower, quickly, and get myself put back together. Pack a few things, have a quick snack of something other than what they sell at hospital cantinas. I’m squeezing myself into a different dress and working the zipper up the side when a hard banging echoes from my door.

“What the fuck?”

The surprise and fear are momentary, replaced by anger. This day has already done enough to me, and I’m not allowing it to take anything else away.

I storm to the door and look through the peephole, but there’s nobody there. Probably a prank, or just a wrong door situation.

“Whatever.”

I walk away from the door, headed for my purse on the kitchen counter, but the banging coms again before I take even three steps.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now? Who is it?”

My shout rings through the silent room, the hint of insecurity in my voice muffled, hopefully, by the air conditioner kicking in at the perfect time.

“Who the fuck is there?”

My only answer is another three raps on the door. Hard, the kind a police officer would give. Again, I walk up to the door and get my eye close to the peep hole, seeing nobody. I keep looking anyway, straining to see in my peripherals, trying to angle up and down.

“Fucking ridiculous…”

As I’m about to pull away from the door, it comes again.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

I feel the reverberations of the impact move through my face and body, but still, I see nobody there.

“How the… you know what, fuck this. It’s the middle of the day, motherfucker, what are you gonna do, huh?”

And so I swing the door open. For a second I think I’ve lost my mind. The stress of the events this week must have finally gotten to me. There is nobody tapping at my chamber door.

But then, when I look down the stairs, I see a man leaning against a car idling in the parking lot. Like something out of an S.E. Hinton novel, he’s got hair slicked back into a classic duck-ass style, a leather jacket despite the summer heat, jeans tucked into work boots… he’s got his arms folded over the white tee shirt beneath his jacket and he smiles up at me as he crosses one boot over the other, still leaning against the old car.

“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?”

Stunned, my instinctive reaction is to fall into some sort of pose. Before I do, though, I realize he’s talking to me, not about me. He’s referring to the car.

“1964. Original. These things are classics, but they’re hard to find. The good stuff always takes a lot of work to find, doesn’t it, Roxy?”

“Who are you? How do you know my name or where I live?”

“Easy, babe, easy. I know a lot.”

“I’ll call the police.”

“You won’t do that.”

“Well I’m fucking going to if you don’t get out of here right now!”

“You should come for a ride. Come on. It’s a nice day. Your man isn’t waking up today, don’t worry.”

“Who the fuck are you? What are you talking about?”

“Sweetheart…”

He walks a few steps toward me, unbalanced it seems, like he’s walking on his toes inside of those boots.

“… I told you. I know a lot. I’ve been around.”

I’m nervous, but I want to stand my ground. Show him I’m strong, that I’m in control. I keep a stiff upper lip and I fight the urge to back away from him as he reaches the stairs. He stops at the bottom, on hand on the rail, and just looks up at me. I can see the brightness of his blue eyes even through the lenses of his dark sunglasses.

“Don’t you dare come any closer to me. I have a gun!”

“No you don’t.”

He takes a step up and I start to feel myself waver. I bring my purse around in front of me like a shield, and he laughs.

“Come on, Roxy. You’re afraid? I have a lot of answers for you. A lot of things to show you. Why don’t you get in the car?”

“Back up!”

I yell. I look around me but somehow, in this huge metropolis, there’s no one to hear me. He sees me looking and failing to find anyone and he laughs again. He even shakes his head.

“Stop trying to get others to make your decisions for you, Roxy. Come on. I came here just to see you. I’m A Friend.”

“Friend my ass. Who are you really? Why are you here?”

“I told you,” he says, taking another step up towards me still with that broad grin across his face like a Cheshire cat, “I’m A Friend. Look, I even brought you something.”

He slips his hand into his jacket pocket and I recoil, turning half away and reaching into my bag to call the cops. He sees me pulling the phone from my purse and the smile vanishes for a moment before returning in full force.

“Roxy, you won’t be calling anyone. I know things. If you want your Loverboy to wake up in time for his big show, you’ll just come with me.”

When he says Vinnie's name I freeze. He says it full of emotionless confidence, like someone telling you he's going to check the mail.

“What? What are you, crazy?”

I pull the phone out and unlock the screen, and there’s another message from Dani waiting for me. Of course, I know it isn’t her, but I can’t help but pull it up anyway.

Every ounce of breath leaves my lungs in a fight between gasping and screaming. There on my phone’s screen, in capital letters, it says:

PUT THE PHONE DOWN AND COME WITH ME

While I was messing with the phone he’s gotten closer. Close enough to reach out and nearly touch me. But instead, he’s handing me something.

A cell phone.

Dani’s cell phone.

“Get in the car, Roxy.”

I break the spell for one desperate second and I spin away from him, but the door is shut and locked. I have no memory of closing and locking the door, but there it is. There’s no place for me to go other than forward right into this enigmatic man who probably murdered my sister and seems to know entirely too much about Vinnie.

“This is the last time I’m giving you the option of coming on your own, Roxy. I don’t want to hurt you, okay?”

Shaking, crying, I take a step towards him. He swings his arm back and open, presenting the way for me to go, and I don’t know why but I do it. I go down the stairs and walk to the car, its old engine rumbling beneath the hot hood, and I wait while he comes around to the passenger’s side and opens the door for me. He’s a gentleman, even. He shuts it only after seeing I’ve gotten my legs fully into the vehicle, turning the key in the lock, and I find myself again instinctively reacting the way I’ve been trained my entire life to do. I lean over and make sure his door is unlocked for him.

He gets into the car and turns to me, smiling.

“Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

His face is handsome but his breath is hot and smells like blood.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“I’m A Friend, Roxy. We’re going to make a deal, and then your fiancé is going to wake up.”

“But… how?”

He just smiles again and drops the car into gear without answering. I don’t have to look to know that there is no way to unlock my door from the inside or to understand that I may never be home again.

As we pull off onto the main road, I can only think one word over and over to keep my composure.

“Vinnie.”
]]> <![CDATA[Three Witches You Shall Meet]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=20861 Sun, 26 Jul 2015 07:00:53 -0700 Gator]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=20861

Sooooo you're probably asking yourself where I've been? Or maybe not. Maybe you're asking why I'm doing my own narration? Or maybe not. I dunno, I'm not a mind reader or anything. To people who know me, hey, it's nice to be back. To the new guys who don't know me, hey I'm Gator. The dude in the red suit who pops up on occasion at the top of the XWF website, the greatest Television Champion in XWF history, the first man to beat the unstoppable Doctor Louis D'Ville and he will not get over it, trust me. Dude still holds a grudge about that. Anyway, after I lost a rematch for the Universal championship against D'Ville thanks to Sebastian Duke, I went into a match to defend the Tag Team Championship belts with my good friend Justin Sane. I wasn't really focused, kind of lazy of me I know, but yeah... I just didn't give the effort I usually give. I was distracted, I was an idiot, I was pissed off. And we lost that match too... Against Iceman and Scully..... Wow... That, that is a heavy fucking loss. I got thrown against the commentator's table, fucked my neck up and Sane got pinned. I went into hospital that night. Sane disappeared. My other Defiance comrades CorVus was arrested for some shit, Austin Fernando vanished too. The once mighty Defiance was gone and forgotten as we all went our separate ways.

Asylum stopped being the same too, so, I guess in a way we did our jobs. Maybe it was time for Defiance to end. Wish we had a better ending, but what we hope for in life never usually pans out the way we want it to.

This isn't meant to be a depressing story or anything bee tee dub. I'm not into all that shit, life is fun. Everyone should have fun, if we live boring and depressing lives then what is the point in living at all? Have fun, enjoy yourselves and be happy. Forget the bad shit and focus on the good.

... Anyway, back to what I was talking about. I went into hospital with a fucked up neck, can't remember the specifics honestly, it's all a little fuzzy. I do remember the doctor telling me I wouldn't be able to wrestle for a while. I responded the way you think I would.

"Fuck you, you fucking piece of shit!"

Then I threw a chair at him. I think I took the news well. After a few minutes, several orderlies restraining me and a dose of morphine, I cooled down. In my drugged up haze, the doctor who took the form of a unicorn floating on a cloud told me I should see a psychiatrist. I agreed, because who can say no to a unicorn?

No one, that's who.

So, I started seeing this woman by the name of Doctor Alison Cooper. Sweet girl, mid twenties, looked like Anna Kendrick if she was more of a hippie. I'm sitting down on the traditional therapist couch, red leather in this modern art filled room with huge ass windows. Smoke in between my fingers as Alison is scribbling on her clipboard, making quick glances at me to make sure I'm not breaking anything I guess. I'm pretty sure she's a little scared given my history with doctors. I try and make myself less threatening, well, as less threatening as a six foot four dude in a mask can make himself. She stops writing and gives me a smile, I smile back. Pretty sure she didn't notice.

"So, Mister Woods. Or do you prefer Jacob?"

"I prefer Gator, or Master of time and space. Whichever floats your boat."

"... I'll go with Gator."

"Everyone goes with Gator. I need to rethink my name choices in the future."

"Okay, since this is our first session I think we should take things slow. Get to know each other a little better, is that okay with you?"

I nod, taking another drag of my cigarette and flicking the head of ash into an empty coffee cup. Alison shakes her hand in front of her face to get the smoke away, it was nice of her to let me smoke. Then again if she said I couldn't smoke I would have anyway and I would have been more of an asshole about it.

"My name is Alison Cooper. Er, I am twenty-six years old. You are my fourth patient and my favorite color is blue."

"..."

"Now you go."

"Oh, cool. Gator. Twenty-three. You are my third therapist slash psychiatrist and my favourite colour is red."

"Well it's nice to meet you Gator, I hope we can become great friends."

I rise an eyebrow and look around the room.

"The fuck is this? Am I on some kind of hidden camera show? Why are you so nice? Are you trying to take my fucking blood!?"

"What!? No, no. Gator, I'm just trying to be pleasant."

"... Okay. Sorry. I'm not used to people I just met being nice. Like genuinely nice."

"And why do you think that is?"

She clicks the top of her pen and puts the pointy end against the paper attached to the clipboard. I take another drag of my cig and blow smoke into the air.

"It's just my work. Every person I meet either wants to kick my ass or has an ulterior motive, it's just been hardwired into my head that I need to defend myself... Holy shit you're good!"

She laughs while writing down her notes.

"I try. Do you ever feel like quitting? Maybe try a different career?"

"Nah, wrestling is all I know. When I was younger I wanted to be an artist or a teenage mutant ninja turtle. But I found out quickly that there are people better than me with the art stuff, and I never ran into some ooze that could turn me into a mutant turtle. Plus have you tried to find a rat that knows martial arts? It's fucking hard, trust me I've tried."

Alison looks at me like a crazy person. I think this is my problem, some people don't know when I'm joking. Maybe it's because I'm English, maybe my sense of humour is just so fucking dumb people just think I'm that fucking dumb. Reason why I always clarify that I'm joking or being sarcastic, just so people don't get confused.

"That was a joke by the way."

"Oh, haha, thank god. Wait, the artist path or the turtles?"

"The artist thing."

She looks at me for a second before the light bulb clicks and she realises that was another joke.

"Okay hahaha... How about you start to make art again, what were you good at?"

"I wouldn't call it art really.. I used to draw cartoons, like comic strips. Did it from when I was a kid to when I was in high school, stopped when I was around eighteen."

"Why did you stop?"

"I started wrestling in J-Pro. Didn't have time."

"J-Pro?"

"A wrestling fed in Japan, my family moved there when I was like twelve, thirteen?"

"That must have been exciting, a big move to a different country."

"Meh."

"...... Anyway. Maybe you could pick up art again, there's so many places on the internet where you could post your comics. Make some easy money and have fun doing it."

"That would be fun. But like I said, I'm a wrestler Alison. Even if I was in a wheelchair I'd still go to the ring every week."

"It's good to have that passion, but you need to think of others. I know you have a girlfriend, she was at the hospital with you. She was crying in the hall most of the night. Your other friends too, can you imagine how devastated they would all be if you got paralyzed one day?"

"I guess... Myself from the future told me I needed to calm down too."

"Was that another joke?"

"Pfft I wish. You have no idea how many fucked up things I have seen. I spent a day trapped in the wilderness of New Zealand talking to a fox this one time. Todd got kidnapped by Russians and I had to save him. I almost killed Ryan Reynolds."

I have lead a very eventful life. Alison goes on to talk about a whole bunch of other shit. Mainly about me, what I could do instead of wrestle, I'm pretty insistent that I'm not going to do anything else. Then she gets to a more entertaining part, Rorschach test. She pulls these cards from a bag at the side of her chair and adjusts her glasses before showing me each one.

"Okay, clear your mind and tell me what you see."

"Shoot."

"First one."


"Hysteria."

"Second one."


"A rib cage. A heart?"

"And third."


"... A devil."

"Last one."

[Image: fc,220x200,white.u2.jpg]

"... Are we done yet? I think I'm starting to lose my mind here. Which is ironic considering you're supposed to help keep me sane."

The good doctor puts the cards back to the side, taking a look at the last one and shrugging a little. She writes as she talks to me, staring at the paper.

"Almost, just one more thing I need to know. How was your relationship with your parents?"

"Really?"

"Mhm."

"And here's me thinking you were different. Just, don't link everything to sex like some wannabe Freud. Me and my mum are cool, haven't seen her in a while but I try and keep in touch through email and phone. Me and my dad are on the opposite end of the spectrum, I try to avoid contact with him but it seems I see him more than my mum."

"You and your father have a bad relationship?"

"Yeah. Hahaha. Gotta love a guy who wears a mask and has daddy issues. This is how super-villains get their start."

"But you're not a super-villain, so I say you're doing pretty well for yourself."

"Hahaha... Yeah, I guess I am."

Cooper taps her pen against the paper. I'm looking down at the ash of my cigarette burn down to the filter and warm my fingertips, I toss the end into the empty cup and Alison makes a sharp breath as she puts her clipboard on the low table in front of us. I look up to see her smiling at me... I like narrating over myself, the whole first person thing, I'm a poetic mother fucker when I wanna be. You hear that part about the cigarette ash? Your famous author ain't got shit on me. Why didn't I do this when I started? I blame Todd.

"I think that will do for today."

"Cool."

I get to my feet and rub my sore neck. I should really wear that neck brace but I look like a total with it on. Yes, very funny, the guy who dresses like a 'superhero' has a fashion conscience. Alison stands up and extends her hand, I reach out and we shake. I grab my jacket flung over this comfy ass couch and head towards the door. Alison speaks up before I reach it.

"I recommend trying out yoga by the way."

I stop, kinda dumbfounded, and turn to her slowly with a raised eyebrow. Again I don't think she can tell. Masks, although being dope as fuck, aren't that great at showing your expressions. Hey, check this out. Superawesomedudesayswhat?

"What?"

HA!

"Yoga. It could help you relieve a lot of stress, just try it. Please."

I sigh and roll my eyes.

"Fine. But only because I like you."

"Thanks Jacob."

"I don't like you that much. See you next week doc."

De ja vu. I turn the handle and walk out the door, slamming it shut behind me. Not in an angry way, I just forget my own strength sometimes. I put my jacket back on as I walk down the hall and exit through the glass doors at the end, aaahhhh smell that air. I cough. Boston was a good choice to live... A good choice, not the best but whatever. Go Celtics. This is still in April by the way if you're wondering why I'm wearing a jacket. I take the car keys out my pocket and toss them around in my hand as I walk over to the parking space. Scarlett and Todd wait at the side of the DeLorean, Scarlett smiles at me, those big blue eyes sparkling in the sun. She hops off the bonnet, or 'hood' if you're American, and opens her arms as we walk towards one another, she embraces me in a tight hug and I catch a whiff of her perfume. I feel like I could stay like this forever. I awkwardly angle my hand to my mask and lift it up to expose my lips. Scarlett stands on her tip toes as we kiss.

Then I feel bitch boy's arms wraps around us. That satisfied sigh of his really ruins the moment. We break up the group hug and I pat Todd on the shoulder as we enter the DeLorean, Todd squeezes himself in the back with Better Todd (My Bulldog), who starts to pant excitedly seeing me. He puts his fat head through the gap between the driver and passenger's seat and demands some attention from me. I oblige in a less than manly way. Satisfied, he sits back down next to Todd in the back. This feels so strange, I was only in there an hour. I've been home for a few days since the hospital, these three have seen me more than usual but they're acting like I've been away for a months... Maybe I have... Maybe when I was wrestling full time I never really focused on them, just myself, my opponent and the job. Now that I'm on 'forced vacation' I'm actually really with them for the first time since we all met.

Fuck I don't know. My head's all over the place, probably just overthinking stuff. I know they're worried about me, probably just showing their support. Making sure I remember what I have. I know I'm an asshole but I can't be that big of one that I ignore them when I'm working... Alright Gator, quit this soppy bullshit. Scarlett, Todd and Better Todd have been patiently waiting for you to start the damn car for what feels like half an hour. I turn the key in the ignition, put my foot on the accelerator and pull out of the parking space. Like how I pulled out of your momma last night!

"How'd it go babe?"

"Fine."

T: "So you crazy?"

I chuckle. Scarlett turns to Todd like she's going to slap the taste out of his mouth.

"Todd!"

T: "What? He knows I'm joking."

"No Todd, I'm not crazy. Just have Cameraphixia."

"Is it serious?"

"Nah, just means I could snap at any moment and kill the first cameraman I see."

Todd lets out a nervous laughter falling back into his seat. Scarlett smiles, softly caressing my arm.

"How's your neck?"

"Alright."

"You're wearing that neck brace when you get home."

"Why? Is it a turn on?"

T: "Gross."

I look at Todd in the rear view mirror as I reply to him.

"Bitch you're twenty-two years old, don't say gross at a sexual comment."

Todd sulks in his seat and kicks the back of my seat. I swear to god if Scarlett and the dog weren't in this car right now I'd swerve the car off this bridge just to teach him a lesson. Everyone always sympathizes with Todd and says 'Gator why you gotta be so mean to poor old Todd?' Problem is that the guy's a dick, yeah he's my best friend but he can be a real cunt when there isn't a camera around. I pay attention to the road. Traffic's not too bad, should make it home in forty minutes.

"Have you taken your heart medicine today?"

"Yes. What's up with the worrying? Freaking me out."

"Oh I'm sorry I care about my boyfriend."

"There we go. Sarcasm! The Scarlett I know and love is back."

She rolls her eyes at me, pretending to be mad. I can't help but smile. I have a good life right now. Maybe a break from the XWF won't be so bad, probably what I need the most. Clear my head. Heal up. Come back better than ever and kick ten tons of shit out of every single person I come across.

T: "Can we stop for ice cream?"

"Smartest thing I've heard all day, hell yes we can stop for ice cream!"

F A D E 2 B E T T E R T O D D
]]>

Sooooo you're probably asking yourself where I've been? Or maybe not. Maybe you're asking why I'm doing my own narration? Or maybe not. I dunno, I'm not a mind reader or anything. To people who know me, hey, it's nice to be back. To the new guys who don't know me, hey I'm Gator. The dude in the red suit who pops up on occasion at the top of the XWF website, the greatest Television Champion in XWF history, the first man to beat the unstoppable Doctor Louis D'Ville and he will not get over it, trust me. Dude still holds a grudge about that. Anyway, after I lost a rematch for the Universal championship against D'Ville thanks to Sebastian Duke, I went into a match to defend the Tag Team Championship belts with my good friend Justin Sane. I wasn't really focused, kind of lazy of me I know, but yeah... I just didn't give the effort I usually give. I was distracted, I was an idiot, I was pissed off. And we lost that match too... Against Iceman and Scully..... Wow... That, that is a heavy fucking loss. I got thrown against the commentator's table, fucked my neck up and Sane got pinned. I went into hospital that night. Sane disappeared. My other Defiance comrades CorVus was arrested for some shit, Austin Fernando vanished too. The once mighty Defiance was gone and forgotten as we all went our separate ways.

Asylum stopped being the same too, so, I guess in a way we did our jobs. Maybe it was time for Defiance to end. Wish we had a better ending, but what we hope for in life never usually pans out the way we want it to.

This isn't meant to be a depressing story or anything bee tee dub. I'm not into all that shit, life is fun. Everyone should have fun, if we live boring and depressing lives then what is the point in living at all? Have fun, enjoy yourselves and be happy. Forget the bad shit and focus on the good.

... Anyway, back to what I was talking about. I went into hospital with a fucked up neck, can't remember the specifics honestly, it's all a little fuzzy. I do remember the doctor telling me I wouldn't be able to wrestle for a while. I responded the way you think I would.

"Fuck you, you fucking piece of shit!"

Then I threw a chair at him. I think I took the news well. After a few minutes, several orderlies restraining me and a dose of morphine, I cooled down. In my drugged up haze, the doctor who took the form of a unicorn floating on a cloud told me I should see a psychiatrist. I agreed, because who can say no to a unicorn?

No one, that's who.

So, I started seeing this woman by the name of Doctor Alison Cooper. Sweet girl, mid twenties, looked like Anna Kendrick if she was more of a hippie. I'm sitting down on the traditional therapist couch, red leather in this modern art filled room with huge ass windows. Smoke in between my fingers as Alison is scribbling on her clipboard, making quick glances at me to make sure I'm not breaking anything I guess. I'm pretty sure she's a little scared given my history with doctors. I try and make myself less threatening, well, as less threatening as a six foot four dude in a mask can make himself. She stops writing and gives me a smile, I smile back. Pretty sure she didn't notice.

"So, Mister Woods. Or do you prefer Jacob?"

"I prefer Gator, or Master of time and space. Whichever floats your boat."

"... I'll go with Gator."

"Everyone goes with Gator. I need to rethink my name choices in the future."

"Okay, since this is our first session I think we should take things slow. Get to know each other a little better, is that okay with you?"

I nod, taking another drag of my cigarette and flicking the head of ash into an empty coffee cup. Alison shakes her hand in front of her face to get the smoke away, it was nice of her to let me smoke. Then again if she said I couldn't smoke I would have anyway and I would have been more of an asshole about it.

"My name is Alison Cooper. Er, I am twenty-six years old. You are my fourth patient and my favorite color is blue."

"..."

"Now you go."

"Oh, cool. Gator. Twenty-three. You are my third therapist slash psychiatrist and my favourite colour is red."

"Well it's nice to meet you Gator, I hope we can become great friends."

I rise an eyebrow and look around the room.

"The fuck is this? Am I on some kind of hidden camera show? Why are you so nice? Are you trying to take my fucking blood!?"

"What!? No, no. Gator, I'm just trying to be pleasant."

"... Okay. Sorry. I'm not used to people I just met being nice. Like genuinely nice."

"And why do you think that is?"

She clicks the top of her pen and puts the pointy end against the paper attached to the clipboard. I take another drag of my cig and blow smoke into the air.

"It's just my work. Every person I meet either wants to kick my ass or has an ulterior motive, it's just been hardwired into my head that I need to defend myself... Holy shit you're good!"

She laughs while writing down her notes.

"I try. Do you ever feel like quitting? Maybe try a different career?"

"Nah, wrestling is all I know. When I was younger I wanted to be an artist or a teenage mutant ninja turtle. But I found out quickly that there are people better than me with the art stuff, and I never ran into some ooze that could turn me into a mutant turtle. Plus have you tried to find a rat that knows martial arts? It's fucking hard, trust me I've tried."

Alison looks at me like a crazy person. I think this is my problem, some people don't know when I'm joking. Maybe it's because I'm English, maybe my sense of humour is just so fucking dumb people just think I'm that fucking dumb. Reason why I always clarify that I'm joking or being sarcastic, just so people don't get confused.

"That was a joke by the way."

"Oh, haha, thank god. Wait, the artist path or the turtles?"

"The artist thing."

She looks at me for a second before the light bulb clicks and she realises that was another joke.

"Okay hahaha... How about you start to make art again, what were you good at?"

"I wouldn't call it art really.. I used to draw cartoons, like comic strips. Did it from when I was a kid to when I was in high school, stopped when I was around eighteen."

"Why did you stop?"

"I started wrestling in J-Pro. Didn't have time."

"J-Pro?"

"A wrestling fed in Japan, my family moved there when I was like twelve, thirteen?"

"That must have been exciting, a big move to a different country."

"Meh."

"...... Anyway. Maybe you could pick up art again, there's so many places on the internet where you could post your comics. Make some easy money and have fun doing it."

"That would be fun. But like I said, I'm a wrestler Alison. Even if I was in a wheelchair I'd still go to the ring every week."

"It's good to have that passion, but you need to think of others. I know you have a girlfriend, she was at the hospital with you. She was crying in the hall most of the night. Your other friends too, can you imagine how devastated they would all be if you got paralyzed one day?"

"I guess... Myself from the future told me I needed to calm down too."

"Was that another joke?"

"Pfft I wish. You have no idea how many fucked up things I have seen. I spent a day trapped in the wilderness of New Zealand talking to a fox this one time. Todd got kidnapped by Russians and I had to save him. I almost killed Ryan Reynolds."

I have lead a very eventful life. Alison goes on to talk about a whole bunch of other shit. Mainly about me, what I could do instead of wrestle, I'm pretty insistent that I'm not going to do anything else. Then she gets to a more entertaining part, Rorschach test. She pulls these cards from a bag at the side of her chair and adjusts her glasses before showing me each one.

"Okay, clear your mind and tell me what you see."

"Shoot."

"First one."


"Hysteria."

"Second one."


"A rib cage. A heart?"

"And third."


"... A devil."

"Last one."

[Image: fc,220x200,white.u2.jpg]

"... Are we done yet? I think I'm starting to lose my mind here. Which is ironic considering you're supposed to help keep me sane."

The good doctor puts the cards back to the side, taking a look at the last one and shrugging a little. She writes as she talks to me, staring at the paper.

"Almost, just one more thing I need to know. How was your relationship with your parents?"

"Really?"

"Mhm."

"And here's me thinking you were different. Just, don't link everything to sex like some wannabe Freud. Me and my mum are cool, haven't seen her in a while but I try and keep in touch through email and phone. Me and my dad are on the opposite end of the spectrum, I try to avoid contact with him but it seems I see him more than my mum."

"You and your father have a bad relationship?"

"Yeah. Hahaha. Gotta love a guy who wears a mask and has daddy issues. This is how super-villains get their start."

"But you're not a super-villain, so I say you're doing pretty well for yourself."

"Hahaha... Yeah, I guess I am."

Cooper taps her pen against the paper. I'm looking down at the ash of my cigarette burn down to the filter and warm my fingertips, I toss the end into the empty cup and Alison makes a sharp breath as she puts her clipboard on the low table in front of us. I look up to see her smiling at me... I like narrating over myself, the whole first person thing, I'm a poetic mother fucker when I wanna be. You hear that part about the cigarette ash? Your famous author ain't got shit on me. Why didn't I do this when I started? I blame Todd.

"I think that will do for today."

"Cool."

I get to my feet and rub my sore neck. I should really wear that neck brace but I look like a total with it on. Yes, very funny, the guy who dresses like a 'superhero' has a fashion conscience. Alison stands up and extends her hand, I reach out and we shake. I grab my jacket flung over this comfy ass couch and head towards the door. Alison speaks up before I reach it.

"I recommend trying out yoga by the way."

I stop, kinda dumbfounded, and turn to her slowly with a raised eyebrow. Again I don't think she can tell. Masks, although being dope as fuck, aren't that great at showing your expressions. Hey, check this out. Superawesomedudesayswhat?

"What?"

HA!

"Yoga. It could help you relieve a lot of stress, just try it. Please."

I sigh and roll my eyes.

"Fine. But only because I like you."

"Thanks Jacob."

"I don't like you that much. See you next week doc."

De ja vu. I turn the handle and walk out the door, slamming it shut behind me. Not in an angry way, I just forget my own strength sometimes. I put my jacket back on as I walk down the hall and exit through the glass doors at the end, aaahhhh smell that air. I cough. Boston was a good choice to live... A good choice, not the best but whatever. Go Celtics. This is still in April by the way if you're wondering why I'm wearing a jacket. I take the car keys out my pocket and toss them around in my hand as I walk over to the parking space. Scarlett and Todd wait at the side of the DeLorean, Scarlett smiles at me, those big blue eyes sparkling in the sun. She hops off the bonnet, or 'hood' if you're American, and opens her arms as we walk towards one another, she embraces me in a tight hug and I catch a whiff of her perfume. I feel like I could stay like this forever. I awkwardly angle my hand to my mask and lift it up to expose my lips. Scarlett stands on her tip toes as we kiss.

Then I feel bitch boy's arms wraps around us. That satisfied sigh of his really ruins the moment. We break up the group hug and I pat Todd on the shoulder as we enter the DeLorean, Todd squeezes himself in the back with Better Todd (My Bulldog), who starts to pant excitedly seeing me. He puts his fat head through the gap between the driver and passenger's seat and demands some attention from me. I oblige in a less than manly way. Satisfied, he sits back down next to Todd in the back. This feels so strange, I was only in there an hour. I've been home for a few days since the hospital, these three have seen me more than usual but they're acting like I've been away for a months... Maybe I have... Maybe when I was wrestling full time I never really focused on them, just myself, my opponent and the job. Now that I'm on 'forced vacation' I'm actually really with them for the first time since we all met.

Fuck I don't know. My head's all over the place, probably just overthinking stuff. I know they're worried about me, probably just showing their support. Making sure I remember what I have. I know I'm an asshole but I can't be that big of one that I ignore them when I'm working... Alright Gator, quit this soppy bullshit. Scarlett, Todd and Better Todd have been patiently waiting for you to start the damn car for what feels like half an hour. I turn the key in the ignition, put my foot on the accelerator and pull out of the parking space. Like how I pulled out of your momma last night!

"How'd it go babe?"

"Fine."

T: "So you crazy?"

I chuckle. Scarlett turns to Todd like she's going to slap the taste out of his mouth.

"Todd!"

T: "What? He knows I'm joking."

"No Todd, I'm not crazy. Just have Cameraphixia."

"Is it serious?"

"Nah, just means I could snap at any moment and kill the first cameraman I see."

Todd lets out a nervous laughter falling back into his seat. Scarlett smiles, softly caressing my arm.

"How's your neck?"

"Alright."

"You're wearing that neck brace when you get home."

"Why? Is it a turn on?"

T: "Gross."

I look at Todd in the rear view mirror as I reply to him.

"Bitch you're twenty-two years old, don't say gross at a sexual comment."

Todd sulks in his seat and kicks the back of my seat. I swear to god if Scarlett and the dog weren't in this car right now I'd swerve the car off this bridge just to teach him a lesson. Everyone always sympathizes with Todd and says 'Gator why you gotta be so mean to poor old Todd?' Problem is that the guy's a dick, yeah he's my best friend but he can be a real cunt when there isn't a camera around. I pay attention to the road. Traffic's not too bad, should make it home in forty minutes.

"Have you taken your heart medicine today?"

"Yes. What's up with the worrying? Freaking me out."

"Oh I'm sorry I care about my boyfriend."

"There we go. Sarcasm! The Scarlett I know and love is back."

She rolls her eyes at me, pretending to be mad. I can't help but smile. I have a good life right now. Maybe a break from the XWF won't be so bad, probably what I need the most. Clear my head. Heal up. Come back better than ever and kick ten tons of shit out of every single person I come across.

T: "Can we stop for ice cream?"

"Smartest thing I've heard all day, hell yes we can stop for ice cream!"

F A D E 2 B E T T E R T O D D
]]> <![CDATA[Captain Ayy-Hab: YARRIGINS]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=20860 Sun, 26 Jul 2015 07:00:33 -0700 Pringle Boi 187]]> https://xwf1999.com/showthread.php?tid=20860 Yarr mateys, so you want to hear the story of how Captain Ayy-Hab came to be? Well here, I wrote a little rap about it! Hit the music!



In the middle of the deep blue sea
Born and raised
Swabbin' the poop deck's how I spent most of me days
Bein' all lax and YARRin' so cool
Keelhaulin' some bastards out of the crew
When a couple of scallywags
I guess they were board
Started makin' trouble on the Starboard
Got in one little fight and me captain got scared
He said "yer gettin' off me ship you filthy landlubbair"
I begged and pleaded
Day after day
But he made me walk the plank and sent me on me way
He shot me in the gut and took all me money
If that was a joke it wasn't too funny
I walked up to a building about 7 or 8
I yelled to some homeless guy "wait no I don't have a rhyme for this"
I looked at my kingdom I was finally there
To sit on my throne as the Pirate King of the XWF

YARR, NOW CUT THAT MUSIC OFF!

The scene opens to deep blue seas of the Mojave Desert. The man, the myth, the legend, Captain Ayy-Hab lays flat on his back, bleeding from the bullet hole in his stomach. He weakly brings one hand to the wound, trying in vain to cover the wound. In the distance, his place of birth, The Night's Pearl races away from the scene of the crime, rowing against both the dirt current and the light wind.

He forces himself to sit, staring at the horizon that The Night's Pearl disappeared beyond, squinting against the sun, and waits for death.

That is, until a man riding a horse comes into view.

[Image: 18zrzs.jpg]
(like this only with, you know, desert and stuff)

Captain Ayy-Hab rubs his eyes as the horse comes to a stop and the man atop it climbs down to the ground. The horse rider reaches out and grabs one of the good Captain's hands, helping him up to his feet.

Are you alright?

The captain presses his hand hard against the wound and winces, before coughing up a mouthful of phlegm and spitting it at the dirt.

Yarr, I'll live. I think. How did ye even find me, matey?

Funny you should ask that. My employers sent me. They heard something about a ship rowing through the middle of the Mojave Desert and figured the type of crazy to do something like that is the type of crazy they need working for them. You don't happen to know how to wrestle, do you?

The captain cocks one eyebrow and glares at the horseman.

No.

You'll fit in perfectly then.

The man climbs back on the horse and motions for the captain to join him.

Yarr matey, I am not riding bitch seat.

You'll ride whatever goddamn seat I tell you to if you don't want to die out here.

The captain weighs his options. On one hand, riding bitch seat sucks octocock. On the other, being dead sucks octocock while getting railed by Davey Jones himself. Needless to say, the captain begrudgingly joins the man on the horse and rides off back towards civilization.

What's your name anyway?

Yarr, call me Ishmael.

Nice Moby Dick reference.

YARR! DON'T SPOIL IT FER ME!

...

…

It's literally the first line in the

YARR I DON'T KNOW HOW TO READ!

--------------------
One horse ride and then a few more hours later
--------------------

The scene opens back up on Captain Ayy-Hab behind the wheel of a stolen 2015 Cadillac Escalade, swerving in and out of traffic, stomping the pedal, and jamming out to the tunes blasting out of the speakers.

YARR MATEY WATCH ME WHIP! WATCH ME NENE!

He's got two eyepatches on as well as the puffiest of shirts for maximum sex appeal. The sound of sirens blaring is loud enough so that he can hear it over the hottest rap song of 2015. He looks in the rearview mirror to see three police cars swarming him from behind.

IT'S THE BRITISH!

Obviously, the captain knows what the fuck's up, with these fascist British dogs hot on his tail. So he does what any self respecting pirate would do, he hits that emergency evasion strategy. Which in this stolen Escalade means stomping the pedal even further into the floor and juking in between the lanes at such blinding speeds it'd make even the jukiest of NFL running backs explode in hype. The sheer level of swagger the car exudes is too much for one of the drivers, who swerves uncontrollably and crashes head on with a minivan, exploding like a Ford Pinto upon impact. Sorry kids.

The other two cars hardly even notice their friend's fiery death at the hands of a wild minivan (FACT: Minivans kill more people a year than Ebola. Friends don't let friends drive minivans), and press on, swerving just as expertly in an effort to not let our hero go free.

YARR! THESE LANDLUBBERS ARE GOOD! BUT ARE THEY THIS GOOD?

I hope you are.

That's when everybody sees that guy who was on the horse a while ago in the passenger's seat, grabbing tightly onto the seat and pleading that this stunt doesn't kill them under his breath.

The captain guns it like it's never been gunned before, aiming for the big glass window of a H&R Block. YEAH, FUCK TAXES!

The car explodes through the wall, sending shards of glass and brick scattering across the empty interior. Then it slows to a stop.

YARR!

The police cars surround the giant hole in the side of the building and quickly exit the car, guns drawn. They point them at the Escalade, demanding for the good captain and horse guy to get out. Both do, enthusiastically in horse guy's case, reluctantly in the captain's.

You're under arrest!

YARR ALRIGHTY OFFICER. BUT WHAT IF I TOLD YOU, I WASN'T UNDER ARREST?

The officer who shouted the request opens his mouth to speak but gets cut off by the good captain.

WHAT IF I TOLD YOU, I CHALLENGE YOU TO A RAP BATTLE?

All the officers on the scene burst into laughter.

Fine, tell you what. We'll have this rap battle. Hell you can even go first. Then you're going to jail you fucking idiot.

ARR MATEY, YE SHOULDN'T HAVE LET ME GO FIRST! I'M ABOUT TO END YOUR WHOLE LIFE RIGHT NOW!

AHEM.

CALL ME

The captain looks to horse guy.

Ishmael?

YOU A BITCH-MAEL!

YARR YARR YARR

MATEYMATEYMATEY YARR!

The officer who accepted the challenge spontaneously bursts into flames. After a few seconds of flailing around, he drops to the floor, dead because of all that FIRE spit in his direction. The remaining officers are too busy being hype as fuck to even notice there's still a guy left to be arrested and pile into the police cars and drive off.

YARR MATEY, I GOT ME A GET OUTTA JAIL FREE CARD!

The captain laughs before horse guy points out something important.

The building is on fire.

A flaming piece of debris falls from the ceiling and pins ol' horse guy to the ground.

YARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

What the fuck did I get myself into?

FADE TO AFFIRMATION!

]]> Yarr mateys, so you want to hear the story of how Captain Ayy-Hab came to be? Well here, I wrote a little rap about it! Hit the music!



In the middle of the deep blue sea
Born and raised
Swabbin' the poop deck's how I spent most of me days
Bein' all lax and YARRin' so cool
Keelhaulin' some bastards out of the crew
When a couple of scallywags
I guess they were board
Started makin' trouble on the Starboard
Got in one little fight and me captain got scared
He said "yer gettin' off me ship you filthy landlubbair"
I begged and pleaded
Day after day
But he made me walk the plank and sent me on me way
He shot me in the gut and took all me money
If that was a joke it wasn't too funny
I walked up to a building about 7 or 8
I yelled to some homeless guy "wait no I don't have a rhyme for this"
I looked at my kingdom I was finally there
To sit on my throne as the Pirate King of the XWF

YARR, NOW CUT THAT MUSIC OFF!

The scene opens to deep blue seas of the Mojave Desert. The man, the myth, the legend, Captain Ayy-Hab lays flat on his back, bleeding from the bullet hole in his stomach. He weakly brings one hand to the wound, trying in vain to cover the wound. In the distance, his place of birth, The Night's Pearl races away from the scene of the crime, rowing against both the dirt current and the light wind.

He forces himself to sit, staring at the horizon that The Night's Pearl disappeared beyond, squinting against the sun, and waits for death.

That is, until a man riding a horse comes into view.

[Image: 18zrzs.jpg]
(like this only with, you know, desert and stuff)

Captain Ayy-Hab rubs his eyes as the horse comes to a stop and the man atop it climbs down to the ground. The horse rider reaches out and grabs one of the good Captain's hands, helping him up to his feet.

Are you alright?

The captain presses his hand hard against the wound and winces, before coughing up a mouthful of phlegm and spitting it at the dirt.

Yarr, I'll live. I think. How did ye even find me, matey?

Funny you should ask that. My employers sent me. They heard something about a ship rowing through the middle of the Mojave Desert and figured the type of crazy to do something like that is the type of crazy they need working for them. You don't happen to know how to wrestle, do you?

The captain cocks one eyebrow and glares at the horseman.

No.

You'll fit in perfectly then.

The man climbs back on the horse and motions for the captain to join him.

Yarr matey, I am not riding bitch seat.

You'll ride whatever goddamn seat I tell you to if you don't want to die out here.

The captain weighs his options. On one hand, riding bitch seat sucks octocock. On the other, being dead sucks octocock while getting railed by Davey Jones himself. Needless to say, the captain begrudgingly joins the man on the horse and rides off back towards civilization.

What's your name anyway?

Yarr, call me Ishmael.

Nice Moby Dick reference.

YARR! DON'T SPOIL IT FER ME!

...

…

It's literally the first line in the

YARR I DON'T KNOW HOW TO READ!

--------------------
One horse ride and then a few more hours later
--------------------

The scene opens back up on Captain Ayy-Hab behind the wheel of a stolen 2015 Cadillac Escalade, swerving in and out of traffic, stomping the pedal, and jamming out to the tunes blasting out of the speakers.

YARR MATEY WATCH ME WHIP! WATCH ME NENE!

He's got two eyepatches on as well as the puffiest of shirts for maximum sex appeal. The sound of sirens blaring is loud enough so that he can hear it over the hottest rap song of 2015. He looks in the rearview mirror to see three police cars swarming him from behind.

IT'S THE BRITISH!

Obviously, the captain knows what the fuck's up, with these fascist British dogs hot on his tail. So he does what any self respecting pirate would do, he hits that emergency evasion strategy. Which in this stolen Escalade means stomping the pedal even further into the floor and juking in between the lanes at such blinding speeds it'd make even the jukiest of NFL running backs explode in hype. The sheer level of swagger the car exudes is too much for one of the drivers, who swerves uncontrollably and crashes head on with a minivan, exploding like a Ford Pinto upon impact. Sorry kids.

The other two cars hardly even notice their friend's fiery death at the hands of a wild minivan (FACT: Minivans kill more people a year than Ebola. Friends don't let friends drive minivans), and press on, swerving just as expertly in an effort to not let our hero go free.

YARR! THESE LANDLUBBERS ARE GOOD! BUT ARE THEY THIS GOOD?

I hope you are.

That's when everybody sees that guy who was on the horse a while ago in the passenger's seat, grabbing tightly onto the seat and pleading that this stunt doesn't kill them under his breath.

The captain guns it like it's never been gunned before, aiming for the big glass window of a H&R Block. YEAH, FUCK TAXES!

The car explodes through the wall, sending shards of glass and brick scattering across the empty interior. Then it slows to a stop.

YARR!

The police cars surround the giant hole in the side of the building and quickly exit the car, guns drawn. They point them at the Escalade, demanding for the good captain and horse guy to get out. Both do, enthusiastically in horse guy's case, reluctantly in the captain's.

You're under arrest!

YARR ALRIGHTY OFFICER. BUT WHAT IF I TOLD YOU, I WASN'T UNDER ARREST?

The officer who shouted the request opens his mouth to speak but gets cut off by the good captain.

WHAT IF I TOLD YOU, I CHALLENGE YOU TO A RAP BATTLE?

All the officers on the scene burst into laughter.

Fine, tell you what. We'll have this rap battle. Hell you can even go first. Then you're going to jail you fucking idiot.

ARR MATEY, YE SHOULDN'T HAVE LET ME GO FIRST! I'M ABOUT TO END YOUR WHOLE LIFE RIGHT NOW!

AHEM.

CALL ME

The captain looks to horse guy.

Ishmael?

YOU A BITCH-MAEL!

YARR YARR YARR

MATEYMATEYMATEY YARR!

The officer who accepted the challenge spontaneously bursts into flames. After a few seconds of flailing around, he drops to the floor, dead because of all that FIRE spit in his direction. The remaining officers are too busy being hype as fuck to even notice there's still a guy left to be arrested and pile into the police cars and drive off.

YARR MATEY, I GOT ME A GET OUTTA JAIL FREE CARD!

The captain laughs before horse guy points out something important.

The building is on fire.

A flaming piece of debris falls from the ceiling and pins ol' horse guy to the ground.

YARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

What the fuck did I get myself into?

FADE TO AFFIRMATION!

]]>