---

Not Gonna Play Nice, Boy?

He still has a little limp.

He still can’t hold back a wince.

He still tosses and screams in his sleep.

He still feels the metal embedded into his skin.

He still remembers the absolute nothingness he felt.

He still remembers seeing the briefcase hang as the rafters enveloped him.

It all still was so fresh in his mind as he trained for his next.

It all still ached every time he remembered that day.

It all pushed him only harder as he worked.

It all made it harder to fight back.

It all cemented… Mr Imperial.

---

Danny popped his knees as high as he could as he hopped up the stairs. Jackson stood by with a timer in his hands, eyes flickering from the moving digital timer and who he still thought of as his ward. Danny grimaced and cried as pain shot through his body, but his muscles tensed as he worked himself to the max. He was bandaged all over, patched up and looking more like an Egyptian mummy than a wrestler. A little case of taped wrists gone wrong. Little red splotches of blood where his wounds had reopened from the exertion are splattered all over him. His eyes glowed with ferocity, when it wasn’t tearing up from excruciating suffering.

”I think that’s about it for today, Danny.”

”Shut the fuck up and tell me how long.”

”You’re not doing yourself any favors, asshole. You’re bleeding all over again.”

”What, you deaf now? I said.. Ahem… HOW LONG?!”

”34 minutes.”

”Good man, you wouldn’t want us to overshoot our 45-minute mark and… Push dear ol’ Danny a little too much now, would you?”

”You’re not that stupid, he dies, you die, you’re both the same person, you said as much yourself.”

”Right, we don’t want to hurt Danny, well… Not more than he can handle at least. You say that like you believe it, but if you did… You wouldn’t be here, cupcake.”

Jackson sneers, shaking his head. What the fuck was he going to do about this sorry little state Danny found himself in? He was right, Jackson was worried, but what could he do?

”You realise, we’re a defense mechanism, right?”

Jackson just nods his head once, he was done wasting his breath on this side of Danny.

”So any time Danny is in pain, angry, or threatened… We get to play.”

Danny gives Jackson a little giggle paired with a wink.

”And oooh, are we in pain right now! We looooooove it. We’ve never felt more alive! The more this keeps up, the harder it’s going to be for us to control ourselves on Wednesday. Danny would hate that, wouldn’t he… If we hurt his little visionary.”



A shrill, child-like giggle gurgles out of Danny’s mouth, along with his heavy breathing from his training.

”OHWELLS. It’s not like Danny’s going to come out and stop us, oh no. Poor little Danny boy is curled up in the shadows nursing his wounds. Much… MUCH easier to let us prance about and own the show. Let us deal with all the pain and suffering whilst he tries to get his shit together.”

A fresh bolt of pain shoots up Danny’s right leg, he doesn’t seem to have expected it as he feels his leg crumble under him. Landing on one palm and a knee, he grimaces and curses loudly.

”Nevermind… That fucked Main, as much as we need to thank him for letting us come out to play… We’re going to bend him backwards so far his spine pops out through his throat for how fucking weak he’s made us. Let’s take a seat riiight here. You can stop timing. Entertain us.”

”I’m not your fucking monkey.”

”Aww shucks, don’t be like that Jackson. We don’t like to get bored, pleeeaaasseeeee? Oooh I know! Let’s go watch some Gilly promos, maybe we can both laugh then! No, seriously, do it.”

Danny’s voice drops low, menacing, as his canines flash. He stares straight at Jackson, his head tilting very slightly to one side.

”Tick… Tock.”

Jackson sighs, before pulling out his Galaxy Note and pulling up the XWF website. His eyebrows raise by a fraction as he see’s something on the front page.

”You’ve got yourself a response from your opponent on Wednesday. The one who’s not even going to have to lift a finger to beat you.”

Danny smirks, grabbing the phone from Jackson with surprising speed. Clicking to play the vignette happily, Danny listens.

---

”HAHAHAHAHA.

AREN’T YOU JUST THE FUNNY ONE?!

Maybe the Jester should take a page out of your book. But then again, he actually has some talent to boast about and doesn’t need shit from you.

You sound so delusional you might give Chris Chaos a fucking run for his money.

At least he had a past to boast about… Y’know Universal Champion and all, the fuck do you have?

A win against Tyler Cross and The Phantom Clown?

Yeah, we’ll get the party poppers and balloons for your celebration, hm?

The fuck are you smoking, my dear? All the pretty names you dropped, from Danny wanting to fight Scully rather than you, to you noticing that we’re next in line for the TV Title, to even mentioning Gilly, Bourbon and the Jester. You realize every single one of them, lord bless us, even Scully and Gillypig, are leagues more talented than you ever will be? Have you even seen what they’ve done? Fuck, you even mentioned that Bourbon was Universal Champion. Getting that shot is impressive enough, actually becoming champion literally means you’re the best in this company. BOURBON WOULD RIP YOU A NEW HOLE FOR YOU TO PLAY WITH YOURSELF WITH. Scully was actually conniving and sneaky enough to become Universal champion once, Gilly managed to hold that Hart title for a fair amount of time before a better, much more entertaining Jester took it away from him. What have you done with your career? You think taking that mask off, dropping the symbolism Danny attributed to you, means anything?

You want to know why Danny actually bothered praising you? Because he’s a naïve little shit. The last time he recalls you is back in March when you last wrestled and lost to the likes of Random. Back when you were still masked and part of the active roster, that’s the clowning-anarchist-fuck he remembers. The better you. We don’t recall Danny… Or ourselves, ever saying you were bottom of the barrel, rather… All he did was pile praises upon you. Explain how he didn’t want to have to fight you.

We ON THE OTHER HAND…. Oh, we most definitely thought the words bottom of the barrel, almost felt like you got a glimpse into the chaotic little cesspool of our head there. Took the words right out of our split personality, that you did. Maybe you know us better than we thought!

You see, Danny wanted to keep you in one piece. We wanted to rip your gutless, delusional, pseudo-revolutionary brain out through your skull and throw it against a wall for the world to call an art piece. We want to dance on your limp corpse and feast on your communist loving cunt.

Here’s some comparisons that you might want to consider.

We’re the fat kid on the playground, you’re the cream-filled donut his mummy packed for lunch.

We’re the starving shark, you’re the tied up seal tossed in for our benefit.

Oh fuck.

We’re Danny Imperial, you’re that fucker Dr. Psycho.

We came to terms with our lackluster past a long time ago, that’s why we’re back, hm? We came back and took the heads of Caedus and Chris Chaos. Danced with the devils on the rafters of Leap of Faith. You came back and got beat by Mark Brooks (Sorry, remind us who that was again?) and Neville Sinclair…. Who might we add, you mentioned earlier as someone more inept than ourself? Hmph. That may very well be true, and if we one day decided to show up at Savage and take that title off that colonial fuck, we might prove it too… But that’s more than we can say for you. You’ve already proven yourself to be second grade to him, he wiped the floor with you recently... Didn't he?

Fuck Danny. Fuck what he thinks you stand for. Fuck everything he might have said about you in that last vignette. He might have wanted to play nice, but we never have, this just proved you don't deserve his... Appreciation. Only party poppers you're going to need are the kind that'll loosen up your ass for when we viciously show you who you're playing with, sunshine.

You’re an ice-cold mojito on the beach after the challenging three fights we've had, the brass is trying to do us a favor that we didn't want. We want a challenge, we want a feast, we don’t want insolence… NO that won’t sate this beast.”

Danny giggles to himself at his little rhyme. His eyes roll back into his head as he leans backwards in his fit.

---

OOC: You really did start quoting from my narration, rather than my actual speech regarding the bottom of the barrel stuff, I don't think that works. Just a heads up! It's there to craft my RP, but not quite something you can pull from directly. Y'know?