01-07-2015, 07:18 AM
SUBMISSIVE #1: "Absinthe."
SUBMISSIVE #2: "From Prague."
SUBMISSIVE #3: "148 proof."
SUBMISSIVES [all]: "As it pleases the Master."
SIMON LYSTER, "THE SPINE TWISTER," seated at his London fetish parlor’s wet bar, beckons magnanimously for his slaves to serve him. Off his recent triple threat win, he is in a good mood.
And on to the next one. He has opted to forego his usual Laphroiag 18 for the notorious spirit. Absinthe gives a clearer, more lucid buzz and he needs creativity. A nice tipple, a review of next week's booking, preliminary study of his opponent-to-be. Start the gears in motion, the calculations, the equations that, for his foes, always add up to zero.
He is booked for Monday Madness. The booking papers lie unopened before him. He reaches for them, a smug, lazy half-smile on his face. "Finally. The promoters have put me through the wringer, but surely my victory in the triple threat has placated them. I'm certain at last they respect my technical prowess and have booked me in a one-on-one match suitable to a scientific grappler of my caliber...."
Smirk on face, he flips through the details of the booking sheet.
His smirk fades.
Then dies.
His eyes widen.
His jaw clenches. His face turns ghastly pale.
His huge hands squeeze, crumpling the paper in fury.
"Battle royale?"
The various GIMPS, pausing from their duties, shrink down in apprehension as LYSTER stands up, slamming his hand on the table.
His voice is a cold snarl, glacier ice cracking in sunlight.
"Battle. Royale."
He looks at the paper, face twisted in disdain, then wads it into a ball and hurls it down.
"What part of 'one-on-one submission specialist' did these bloody chavs not comprehend when I signed the contract? Battle royale? HOW DO I SUBMIT AN OPPONENT IN A BLOODY BATTLE ROYALE?!?!?!?!?!?"
LYSTER rarely raises his voice past a certain icy timbre. The entire entourage cringes.
"FUCK!!! FUCK!!!! FUCK!!!!! FUCK!!!! FUCK!!!! FUCK!!!! BLOODY FUCKING GERBIL-RAPING DAUGHTER-FELCHING COCKSMOKING BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!!"
The absinthe glass rockets across the room and into a support column to shatter into powder with a crash.
The SUBMISSIVES draw back with a start.
The HUMAN MAGGOTS slither backward, body braces digging into the mats. The HERMAPHRODITES and DOMINATRIXES-IN-TRAINING press themselves into the closest alcoves. Even the SLUG WOMAN undulates her 300-kilo mass in her diaper, her Down’s Syndrome face wrinkled in confusion. In the lower dungeon, the APPRENTICE TORTURERS leave off their work of custom-crippling children for discriminating clients in the Dubai-to-Bangkok white-slavery market, looking up in alarm.
LYSTER grips his head in his hands.
"OK. OK. OK. Think. Think, SIMON."
He staggers forward, gripping the table. Then he takes a deep breath and removes his shirt.
"Discipline. Discipline. Discipline. YOU!!!!" he snaps at SUBMISSIVE #1. "Flagellation! 35 percent of maximum! Now!"
"As it pleases the Master," SUBMISSIVE #1 replies and starts laying into LYSTER's back with the cat-o'-nine-tails.
SIMON picks up the bottle, slams back a straight shot. Pure absinthe is bitter under the anise. It suits his mood.
Comforted by the burn of the whip and the absinthe, LYSTER accesses the XWF’s datafiles. "There's got to be a way to win." He flicks through footage and stats, moving the most noteworthy to the full-screen monitors.
"JILL LORDER. Impressive. BJJ background like my own; excellent technical skills. Almost a shame I’ll have to break her someday. But in this match, the only salient fact is that she weighs 57 kilos. Battle royale: not her fight. Dismissed.
"C.C. HOLLYWOOD. 90 kilos, according to his dossier, which gives me a 30-kilo weight advantage. Has some genuine skill, though, and smarter than he looks. Don't get overconfident.
"BIG JOE. He's... big. In this kind of match, big is a big deal.
"And… What? The same two chavs I've already beaten... who should be thanking Heaven and Earth they're still ambulatory... but now I have to face them again, and in a match explicitly geared to their weight advantage? Especially that fat lacrosse player or whatever he is.
“Six competitors. Six. Too many variables. It’s chaos.”
LYSTER flips over a panel of the wet bar. Underneath is a chessboard. He sets it up. Starts moving pieces.
No. No. No.
Always the same result: the king, surrounded by bishops and rooks, forced to the edge of the board.
Night falls. The entourage leaves the Master to his plans.
The bottle empties along with LYSTER's options.
NEXT MORNING
LYSTER, on a live feed broadcast from Room 101, addresses the XWF, specifically his opponents. His normally laser-focused stare is a little bit glazed over. The bottle of 148-proof absinthe, now two thirds empty, is out of sight under the table.
"This is the part where I use a bunch of pretentious £5 verbiage as part of a long-winded diatribe that, in summary, means: ‘I’m going to kick your arse.’ Then you reply in your usual primary-school profanity-laden word salad as part of a long-winded diatribe that, in summary, means: ‘I’m going to kick your arse.’ All for the illustrious prize of claiming the #1 contendership to the oh-so-important… what is it again?”
LYSTER reaches for a piece of notebook paper, pausing to wince and mutter, “God, my head.”
He holds up the scribbled note. “Yes: The ‘Prophetic Belt of the Almighty Higher Power.’ Because my life simply would not be complete without the honor of adding one of those to my trophy case.
"Know what? Let's spare one another. Because you're probably right.
"I am a submission wrestler. There is no match more poorly suited for my skill set than a battle royale. Even at 18.9 stone, I'm on the small side in this one. I graduated from Cambridge. I can do the math.
"There's no artistry here. No technique. Just flailing and shoving and mass. And while I am a black-belt judoka, fully versed in all 67 throws of the Kodokan method...
"...while my knowledge of leverage, vectors, and trajectories of attack is superior to any of yours...
"...the reality is that I'm not an immortal. I'm not an alien or a robot or a hobbit or a humanoid shark. I'm a man and I'm outnumbered five to one.
"Physics is a cold bitch, and she's just strapped on an icicle FedEx’ed from the Antarctic and reamed me.
"And not in any of the 87 good ways, either.
"So here's the deal.
"I'm not playing by the promoters' rules. I'm playing by mine.
"I'm picking one of you. Not saying whom.
"I'm not in this to win it. I'm in this to take out my single chosen target.
"To that person: Listen carefully:
"No top-rope exit for you. You're going to the mat.
"And when that happens, you will pray to every nonexistent god you hold dear for the mercy of the high ride over the ropes and down to the concrete. But you're taking the low road.
"Paralyzer. No break at the five-count here, ladies and gentlemen. The other competitors will be too busy to interrupt our little one-on-one atrocity exhibition.
"Snap. Pop. Broken.
"Monte Carlo odds are, I'm going over the top rope. But you're going out on a gurney.
"REAL SOVIET DAMAGE, this one's for you, tovarisch: A game of Russian roulette."
[fade to black]
ONE HOUR LATER
LYSTER is a little calmer, or at least more lethargic in the grip of a vicious hangover.
"1 in 6. Fortune might smile on me. Never hurts to stack the deck, though, especially if the house is clearly playing from the bottom."
LYSTER gets out his smartphone, dials a particular unlisted number with a Japanese country code.
"Moshimoshi," a familiar voice answers, suspicious despite the greeting.
"Konnichi wa, MATSUMOTO-san," LYSTER replies to his old compatriot.
"RISUTO [Lyster]-san!!!” (then, playfully mimicking Budokan Hall’s ring announcer) “IGIRISU NO YOKAI… SU-PA-I-NO… TO-II-SU-TAAAAAA!!!"
The sudden scream is a thousand tiny stomping devils driving miniature jackhammers through LYSTER’s brutalized skull.
“Hoped I’d never have to hear that again,” LYSTER replies.
"Amerika ni arimasu ka, hai?"
"America, yes. Mostly," LYSTER agrees. "It's as bad as they say."
"Ima... E-KU-SU - DO-BO-RU - E-FU no RISUTO-san desu ka?" MATSUMOTO asks, stumbling over "XWF."
"Hai. Under XWF contract. Baka bushittu."
"All stupid bullshit," MATSOMOTO commiserates. "Puroresu ga bushittu no shigoto desu, RISUTO-san."
"Tell me about it," LYSTER agrees. “Picked the wrong line of work.” Then:
"Onegaishimasu, sir, could you inform the oyabun-sama I'm coming to Tokyo? With his kind permission, there are a few... keepsakes... I'd like to reacquire and old... enemies I'd like to... proposition.”
LYSTER pauses, then: “Odds, if possible, I’d like to even.”
![[Image: 3RAC6l.jpg]](http://imageshack.com/a/img661/7158/3RAC6l.jpg)
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