Wednesday, just hours before Warfare is scheduled to start.

Micheal Graves is sitting in his cabin, on the edge of the bed. He has his ring gear on, and he is putting the finishing touches on his face paint. Micheal sits the paint brush down in a glass of water. The black paint on the brush dissolves instantly and spreads through the clear water like a virus, over taking it until the entire glass of water turns into a foggy gray. Micheal continues to sit there, staring into the mirror, his pale white skull faced alter ego staring back at him.

“You can do this..”

Micheal says encouragingly to himself.

“Forget about age... forget about ring rust... Just go out there and remind these people... remind yourself who you are.”

Micheal closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths. Trying to calm the anxiety that he is currently feeling. Sure, the other day Micheal got upset, and then went on to record a series of promos where he seemed to be both angry and confident. Micheal was far from confident though. Micheal is currently in the midst of a nervous breakdown. It wasn't like this last month at Wildcard, but then again The Franchise wasn't the caliber of opponent that Thaddeus Duke is.

“You're the Dark Warrior...”

Micheal says, as he continues rocking back and fourth.

“No... No your not the Dark Warrior...”

Micheal stops rocking and opens his eyes.

“The Dark Warrior died over a decade ago, and you killed him. You killed him when you decided to walk away from all of this for her.”

Micheal closes his eyes again and resumes rocking back and fourth in from of the mirror.

“You can't bring him back, what is dead doesn't live again.”

Micheal takes in a couple more deep breaths, releasing them hard and fast.”

“All that remains now is Micheal.”

Micheal stops rocking and opens his eyes. He stares long and hard into his own reflection before continuing.

“Is Micheal good enough?”

Micheal continues to stare at himself. He's really starting to look pissed off now.

“NO, MICHEAL GRAVES IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH!”

He slaps all of the face paints and the glass of gray water off of the stand, sending them crashing to the floor to make quite the mess.

“But tonight you will be... DO YOU HEAR ME!? Tonight you will go out there, and even if it's only for one night, YOU WILL be as good as you used to! YOU WILL GIVE THADDEUS DUKE THE FIGHT OF HIS LIFE!”

With that Micheal storms out of his cabin and down the hall. He walks up the curved stair case and through the red door. Micheal walks down the hallway that houses the much nicer rooms that he was not afforded, and eventually he makes his way topside, to the area set aside for the talent to stay during the show. Micheal stands in a corner all too himself, hyped and pacing back and forth like a lunatic. Everyone seems to make an effort to stay out of his way. Everyone except...

“Micheal Graves, can we get a few words with you for the XWF Wednesday Warfare preshow?”

Micheal continues pacing and generally looking pissed off as Steve Sayors carelessly approaches him, microphone in hand and cameraman following behind.

“Would you say that you are ready for a challenge like Thaddeus Duke tonight?”

Micheal glares a hole through Steve before answering.

“...”

Or not answering as it would seem. Sayors tries to move on to another question.

“What's your strategy for tonight's match?”

Micheal who is still pacing, quickly fires out a one word response.

“BLOOD!”

Sayors is started and jumps back slightly, he didn't expect Micheal to scream like that.

“Do you have...”

Micheal grabs the microphone out of Steve Sayors hand and brings it up to his mouth.

“Leave me alone Steve. The time for talking is over...”

Micheal throws the microphone down to the ground. Steve Sayors doesn't even bother picking it up, and just hurriedly backs away from Micheal Graves.