It's Christmas Eve and as predicted, I had plans to spend time with my family. There was a big dinner lined up and everyone was going to be there. It's the holidays though, that's what people do. They spend time with their families. Seriously, what's next? Predicting the color of the sky when it's daytime or if the following days of the week will end in the letter "y"? How about foretelling that Noah Jackson will say the word cunt, like he's filling a quota or requires speaking it aloud, the same way that someone needs oxygen to live? He must say it... or he will die. What that broad faced chicken really needed was a thesaurus. Fuckin' twat.


Anyway, dinner with the entire family was occurring later on in the evening and it was going to be held at my place, I would also be doing the cooking. Yes, actual cooking, not catering because I happen to be a pretty damn good cook, when I truly produce the effort towards the task. Time doesn't always permit such things. I work quite a bit and a large portion of my days, gets occupied by that. However, it's Arkin's first Christmas that he'll genuinely remember, he was an infant for the last one and they don't tend to recall their infancy. I want him to have good memories to look back on fondly and I fully intend on doing my part, to make that happen.


So I am cooking dinner. No powers or special abilities, just me and the kitchen. This was going to be a project too considering the number of individuals that I was making this meal for. Alara, Azrael, Rebel, Lila, Griffin, Grey, Oliver, Ezra, Ivan, Raphael, Arkin and myself. That's twelve in attendance and it's all family. With the exceptions of Rebel, Griffin and Ivan but they're romantically linked to members of my family and the relationships are serious, so they still count. This also meant my prep work started early. I had it all figured out too, the precise time and order to get things done, to ensure that everything was ready when the guests started arriving and my formula was working. Arkin was watching cartoons and I was on a roll, playing the part as chef.


As to be expected, just as soon as I gave myself praise for that and patted myself on the back, there was a knock at the door. Sighing, I stopped what I was doing and walked over to it, promptly opening the door right when I reached it. I couldn't help but take a step back as I released a soft gasp in shock. There stood Zane Norrison. In all his leather clad glory.


"Zane. What are you doing here? Wait. This isn't the revenge thing you talked about, is it? You're not doing that now, are you?"


He released a snicker and smirked, briefly closing his eyes as he dipped his head. Then he shot a direct gaze towards my own and shook his head.


"On Christmas Eve? In front of your seven year old son? No. I'm not here for that. I'm here to talk. What do you say, do you think that's possible?"


"Ah yeah, sure. Come in."


I allowed Zane enough room to walk inside and then I closed and locked the door. He wasn't standing within my abode, for longer than two seconds before an exuberant outcry, came from the living room.


"Zane!"


Arkin raced over and gave him a hug, to which Zane lowered himself and returned, laughing.


"Hey you! Are you ready for Christmas?"


Zane ended the hug and stood up but kept his focus on Arkin.


"Yeah. We got a tree and everything."


This cheerful admission was followed by Arkin pointing towards the fully decorated tree in the living room, Zane looked over at it and nodded in approval.


"It's a good tree."


"Yeah my uncle Oliver and my dad took me to pick it out."


"Hey, we were merely there to assist, you did all the work. You picked it out. If we had been alone, we would have been totally lost. I would have come home with a cactus or something. Maybe a decorative houseplant made from plastic."


All of the laughs, all of them.


"Dad, you're so silly."


"So are you ready for Santa?"


"Oh, I'm prepared, alright. My dad said that he can arrive at any minute, you never know when he'll show up. One minute there's nothing under the tree and the next thing you know, there's presents. So I plan to keep my eyes peeled and watch the tree like a hawk. I am not missing that moment. I'm going to catch him in the act."


"Wow. That sounds like a solid plan."


"Arkin, why don't you take a break from the stake out, I need to talk to Zane."


"But..."


"I'll give a holler if the tree's status changes."


"Okay. Fine."


You could almost feel the resistance in Arkin's steps as he slowly walked off but eventually, he managed to make it to his room and Zane and I brought our conversation to the kitchen.


"Presents that instantly appear. Sounds like Santa got himself a seven foot tall, replacement elf. Or should I say ALF?"


"Yeah, I kept all the presents by my father's tower and when everyone is finished with dinner, while plates are being cleared, he's going to make them appear under the tree. Along with some random clatter that sounds like someone is depositing gifts. This is being done for Grey as much as it's being done for Arkin. They're young now and will enjoy it, by next Christmas, both are going to be well beyond the age of believing in the story of Santa Claus. Shit. Arkin is going to be seventeen, Grey will be fifteen and I'll only be 25. It'll be to the point where folks won't believe Arkin's my son."


"That's why it's good that you're doing this stuff, while you can."


"So what did you want to talk to me about?"


"I think you know. In fact, I know, you know."


"Okay. What did you decide on with all that? Hehe. Still making the preparations for my day of reckoning?"


"Look. I don't know if it's the holidays or if I simply had time to think... or if it was the fact that Raph laid it all out for me, how things would go if I actually went through with my plots for payback, while he had me lifted in the air by the throat but I think I'd rather squash this before it gets even uglier. It's not worth it. And I know I put the blame on you but it's not solely your fault. You didn't force Frankie to do anything that she didn't want to do. It just sucks, you know? She cheated on me, with you. Still I don't want to do this anymore. This isn't me, I'm not the guy that schemes about revenge. I don't know, that's all I got. Didn't exactly organize my thoughts and work out what I was going to say. All I knew was that I wanted to end this shit. So I got in my car and drove over."


"I still don't understand how I let things get so far out of hand like that, I'm sorry."


"I know and I forgive you."


"Just like that?"


"Just like that."


"Do you maybe want to stay for dinner?"


"Christmas dinner, here, with your family?"


"Yes. Absolutely. I insist. Wait. What am I thinking? You more than likely have plans with your own family."


"Nope."


"No?"


"My family's Jewish. As long as I make a point of swinging by the homestead between the first day and the last day of Hanukah, I'm all good. In other words, yes, I will stay for dinner. You plan on serving brains, right?"


"Uh... no."


Quick grin.


"I'm kidding. I had a big breakfast. I'm fine with a cerebellum free meal. Speaking of which, do you need a hand?"


"Yes! That would be fantastic. Thank you."


Looks like I was going to make my dinner deadline after all. On top of that, I regained my friendship with Zane. I guess miracles really do happen on Christmas.





"Alright. I need to get this out there, first and foremost before I tackle my actual opponents. Thunder Knuckles. It sucks that we couldn't do business with each other, I think we could have had some laughs and I woulda given you a good portion of X-Bux too. You know, for your troubles. Since you love them so damn much and I couldn't care less about them. I prefer real currency. Not money that is literally, only legal tender here in the XWF. I don't buy the XWF merchandise, so why would it matter to me how much I have? That's like caring about Monopoly Money or Chuck E Cheese tokens, outside of their effective zone. Which is why it doesn't matter that my brothers and I acquire them together. Cause in the end, I don't care how much is there... we all don't care. I can't pay the rent with them. Or buy a new car. So they simply accumulate."


"Word on the street goes that you can bribe a general manager to host a show with them. If I am not mistaken. But then I'd have to host a show and I don't want to deal with all that malarkey. All that nerve racking, headache inducing, nonsense. I've seen the management and every single gm has aged twenty years, since the first day that I joined the company. At least that's what it looks like in my opinion. Which is why I say... no sir, I will not take on that chore. Ruin this face and pay for it. I don't care if it's only video game tokens and buttons. I will not destroy this masterful, work of art for the price of hosting a televised wrestling program. Well, that's all I wanted to say, shame it didn't work out between us but thems the breaks. Oh well, on to the next topic."


"You know Noah, you've convinced me. Because you said I'm worthless and I should just stop wrestling, I'm going to do exactly that. I'm going to take my contract, shred it up and flush it down the toilet. Nevermind the lawsuit that follows, the grueling days and weeks in court and all the fines, I am sure to receive. You, Noah Jackson, know precisely what's best for me. In fact, from now on, I'm going to start texting you for advice on everything."


"What to eat, how to dress, if I should take up interpretative dance or ribbon twirling, is there an easy way to acquire an army of chipmunks and is it worth the effort, based on the time restraints of training them, you will literally have control of my whole life and all that I do. Not only that but my child's life as well cause I am responsible for him and you are essentially, in command of my existence. So his well being and safety, hangs in the balance there too. What do you say? Are you up to the challenge? You obviously have what it takes to judge not only my actions but also how they will directly effect me as well. You're like my Yoda, seriously. No joke. Totally sincere, right here. "


"Or wait, am I being random again? Gasp! Is that possible? Could I be saying any old thought that pops into my head? Huh? I seem to recall you mentioning that I do that, now that I think about it. Yeah, that's right. You did. You say I do that a lot but that statement makes me wonder. If I'm known for being random, how is it being random anymore? That sounds like the definition of consistent. Doesn't it? Consistently random. Seems like an oxymoron or a contradiction. That's preposterous though. Noah Jackson doesn't contradict himself."


"No! That's absurd! Never would he do that! He would never complain about the repetitive nature of something, when he's guilty of doing the same thing himself (For real, they have thesauruses online and there are some that have an extensive variety for the word cunt, just sayin' changing it up wouldn't be the end of the world. Mostly because the entire planet has become so desensitized to it, he could be saying the word tree and it would have the same effect at this point.) or family and friends appearing in promos. Even though, everyone knows the camera imps, film whenever they see fit and there's no telling when they'll do it. For instance, when he received that lovely jumper from his mum. It was a touching scene, really it was. I'll never forget it. Anyway, the point of the matter is this. You don't always know what's being filmed and you didn't know that was getting caught on camera, did you, Noah? Unless you wanted that fact known, which would mean that you staged the event. Now that would be weird, wouldn't it? Staging family get togethers. In truth, I don't think you did that, at all. However, claiming that I have some sort of power over what's recorded, a hundred percent of the time, is plain ol' poppycock."


"In honor of randomness and the great Monty Python... and now for something completely different."


"It's already been established that Bearded War Pig has lost his mind, the horse has been beaten past dead, lets leave it resting in peace and talk about Travis Stone. The new guy. Hey, new guy! How's it going? Good, I hope. Nah! I'm just kidding, I don't give a flying fuck! Anyway, I wanted to tell you. We have something in common. When I first joined the XWF I was in a title match, that I lost but then I was in another title match and I won. Sadly your similarity with me is going to end before the latter happens. You might be some kind of warrior that had your fair share of the battlefield or... oh my gosh, even more than your fair share but you're on a whole different terrain. Whatever saved your ass before isn't working now. There are no trenches to hide in. There's only combat and you're going to get your ass kicked. Those teeth of yours, they're going to meet the inside of your stomach and you're going to be pooping them out for days. Mmmkay? It doesn't matter what you say, it's going to happen."


"Lastly there's Vita. You're really going to go with 'jobber' as an insult? Really? That's what you're going to do? Okay. Pot meet kettle because you're calling it black. You lost to Griffin MacAlister at Leap of Faith and while he's technically almost family cause he's involved with my sister. He doesn't particularly win that often. No offense Griff. That is the definition of a 'jobber' and you fucking lost. So what makes your words carry weight again? Oh because Ruby likes you now. Newsflash, she's why you're awesome. Same thing with Amjetkun Socio and anybody else you worked with cause Vita Valenteen sucks a huge bag of dicks, when she's flying solo. Now come on precious, rubber and glue me. Do it. I want you to because then I'd have to say you're full of crap. Literally and figuratively, due to the steroids from Socio and cause your insides look like the interior of a septic tank. You can smell it every time you open that trap of yours. The stench wafts for days. I heard the government is working on weaponizing it. True story."


"Final note. Noah Jackson had to get drugs to beat me, isn't that fantastic. Doesn't matter what way he uses them now. He still plans to use them and during a match with a man that he described as being pathetic. Hey, he doesn't even technically have to use them, it'll still be something that weighs on everyone's mind if he wins even if he doesn't relay on them. Why? He might've had to use drugs in order to face a guy that he, himself deemed terrible. Now that's pathetic."


"That's all I've got for you, have a wonderful evening folks and Merry Christmas."

Donovan Blackwater
Former 1x...