Threaded Mode | Linear Mode

Thaddeus Duke · (07-28-2019)

[duke]11:31 PM | On Board Illuminatus Two | Above the Atlantic Ocean[/duke]

DING!

”Attention all passengers, please place seats in their full upright and locked positions and fasten your seat belts. We’re on final approach and will be landing in just a few minutes.”

Jim Edwards sits by his lonesome on this trip. He’s a bit disheveled. Unshaven and his hair unkempt. He’s exhausted and can barely register what’s going on around him, yet even still, he heeds the pilots instructions. He has neither seen, nor heard from Thaddeus in six weeks.

Why six weeks?

One night, Thaddeus Duke, the young leader of the Illuminatus Nation slipped out of the Compound unnoticed and hasn’t been heard from since. He left a note: don’t look for me. I’ll be back when I’m ready.

For the first few days, James followed those instructions. He might be Thaddeus’s friend, but at the end of the day, he’s just an adviser. He’s a subordinate that is trained to just do what he’s told. Of course, that training only works for so long. The two boys are like brothers at this point in their lives and Jim can’t just sit back and allow his best friend to go missing. Unaccounted for with no protection? No. Not in this life time.

There are things the XWF viewers are not yet aware of. Things that have gone down that have caused this short absence of the Lion Heart. Things Thaddeus can’t change and perhaps, emotionally speaking, can’t handle. Before his abrupt departure a few months back, Thaddeus, James, Sebastian and the entire Duke clan were targets of an unknown enemy. Thaddeus with his youthful niavete, neither believed the threat was real, nor did he take it seriously… until he had no choice in the matter… until the threat revealed itself to be quite real.

Illuminatus Two is set down on the runway with the grace and expertise you would expect from a seasoned, well trained pilot. The jumbo airliner rolls to a stop as its engines wind down. Steps are positioned next to the fuselage and the door is opened. Jim Edwards, in his half asleep delirium, exits the plane and descend the stairs as his phone begins to ring.

”Yeah?

“You’re sure he’s still there?

“Send the coordinates to my phone.

“He moves, you call me immediately.”

James enters Big Bertha as hangs up the phone. Big Bertha is an old beat up truck owned by Sebastian Duke that for some reason, just refuses to die. It’s a good thing its still around though because wherever Thaddeus is, there are no actual roads to get there. Jim starts the old truck and it stalls immediately.

Siiiiiigh.

He retrieves his cell phone and texts Sebastian Duke: ”How do I fucking keep this bitch running again?”

”It’s carbureted. Pump the gas and turn the key.”

Jim loads the coordinates into the GPS on his phone and sees the location is only about a mile from the airstrip. He pumps the gas and fires the engine. Knowing its an old piece of shit truck, he revs the engine a little to give it more fuel before putting it in gear. The truck lurches forward and Jim searches around the side of the airstrip for a good place to enter the heavily wooded area. Steering the truck to the right, he guns the throttle taking the truck airborne over a hump barrier and into the woods.

A few minutes later he comes to a clearing with a large ancient castle in the distance. ”Fucker bought a castle,” he surmises aloud to himself as he nears the building.

It’s definitely a castle. The moat has long since dried up and been filled in, but the drawbridge is intact and drawn. Burning torches line its old gray stone walls. Outside the drawbridge, sit a half dozen guards wearing Illuminatus insignia.

”Halt!” yells one man, his gun drawn and pointed toward the old truck. Jim looks around frantically for the button to lower the window in order to chat with the guard. ”Window down! Then put your hands on the wheel!”

Still, Jim can’t find the button. And he yells that to the guard. A few seconds go by and the guard taps on the window with the barrel of his gun. Jim looks at him and the guard uses a crank motion with his free hand.

”Oh right. It was the 70’s. Not many power window options.” Quickly he rolls down the window.

”Sir, you’re trespassing on private property, and I’ll have to advise you to...”

”Lower the drawbridge, sir. I need to see Thaddeus,” he informs the guard.

The guard looks over his shoulder toward his mates, then back at Jim. ”We weren’t informed of any visitors. I’ll have to clear this with my superiors.” He then reaches for the CB radio on his shoulder when Jim stops him.

”My name is Captain James Edwards, sir. I AM your superior.” Jim pulls out his wallet to show the guard his Illuminatus identification.

The guard is startled by this revelation and drops Jim’s wallet. He grabs it up quickly and stands at attention. ”Please accept my sincerest apoligies, SIR!” The guards mates also stand at attention.

”At ease soldiers,” he states, retrieving his wallet from the guard.

”Open the gate!” the guard yells out. ”Through the gate and on the far side of the courtyard is a large brown door. It used to be a throne room in ancient times. His Grace is in there.”

Seconds later, the drawbridge lowers, allowing Jim to steer the old rickety truck into the courtyard. He hurries out of the truck and bursts through the large brown door. Inside the old throne room is Thaddeus Duke, as promised. The room is lit only by tourch and candle light. Thaddeus is sweaty and a mess. A full beard, or at least, something that would pass as a full beard on a 20 year old kid. His hair is dirty and he’s butt ass naked sanding down what appears to be a door in the dim light.

”Six fucking weeks without a fucking word,”[white] Jim states, breaking Thaddeus’s concentration.

Thaddeus looks back over his shoulder at Jim for a few seconds, then resumes his sanding.

[white]”Seriously? Six weeks and not even a hey, or a hi? Not even a what the fuck are you doing here?”

Thad says nothing. He only continues sanding the door.

Jim though, loses his patience and rushes toward Thaddeus and snatches the sanding block from his hand and tosses it across the room.

[duke]”I was using that!”[/duke] Thaddeus shouts.

”Why!?” Jim shouts back, uncontrollable tears of emotional pain in his eyes.

Thaddeus though, only looks at the floor.

”Fucking…. WHY!?”

[duke]”Fuck, Jim. It looks like you wanna...”[/duke]

THWAP

Jim swings and lands a punch square in Thad’s jaw, dropping his naked, sweaty body into the sawdust covered floor. A moment later, a low growl is heard from the darkened near distance.

[duke]”No Simba!”[/duke] Thad says as he clutches his jaw. [duke]”Owwwww.”[/duke]

”I forgot about the fucking lions.”

Thaddeus sits up on the dirty floor.

”Why are you naked?”

The young leader looks around, then back at Jim. [duke]”It’s a castle with no electricity. There’s no washing machine.”[/duke]

”You have guys here, send someone out to wash them. Or buy new ones. Just cover your balls for fucks sake, mate.”

Jim extends his hand, Thaddeus accepts the help and reaches his feet.

”Now… why? Why disappear in the dark of night? Why leave everyone wondering, and worrying?”

[duke]”Jim, I love you, but I really don’t want to talk about it.”[/duke]

”Forgive me Your Grace, but I don’t give a fuck.

“You don’t have that option.”

For the record, Jim rarely refers to Thaddeus as Your Grace. Only in public, or in meetings with the hierarchy. It’s a subtlety that hadn’t gone unnoticed by Thaddeus.

[duke]”You stand there all high and mighty and you judge me, Jim,”[/duke] Thaddeus begins, somewhat angrily. A characteristic he doesn’t show often. [duke]”Have you ever once put yourself in my shoes? Have you ever known what its like to have the fate of hundreds of thousands of people resting on your shoulders? Have you ever known the burden of having their lives, or their deaths firmly decided by a decision you either made or failed to make?”[/duke] The emotion is leaking from his words as he speaks. His voice, increasing in volume and simultaneously breaking with each passing sentence.

[duke]”There was a threat, Jim. A real threat that I didn’t take seriously. I cast it aside like ashes into the wind and people are dead because of it. Good people, Jim! Loyal people! They loved me! They respected me! They followed me! They trusted their lives to me and THEY are fucking dead because of it!”[/duke]

Thaddeus breaks down. Jim grabs his friend by the back of his head and pulls him into an embrace.

[duke]”They’re dead because I failed to act,”[/duke] he says through his sobbing.

Moments go by and Jim releases his hug. Thaddeus collects himself and wipes the tears from his eyes before taking a seat on a crate nearby.

”You’ve given some rousing speeches in your day, Thad. Words that were just that, on paper. But the men that follow you, they hang onto those words. Everything you say they take to heart. They die for you willingly, Thaddeus.

“So now, I guess its my turn to inspire you.”

[duke]”What do you mean?”[/duke]

”Thaddeus, if I know one thing about you, one thing that sets you apart from literally the entire rest of the world, its the love you share, and your undying loyalty to those you love. Be it friends or family, once a person earns your love, they have it forever.

“You have never let anyone down until 3 months ago and I get it. You might not think so, but I do. You’re under an immense amount of pressure right now and any other normal man is probably in a padded room by now. But you? You know you’re gonna fight. It’s not in your DNA to give up. It’s not in your DNA to go down without taking their people with you.”

[duke]”I did let down my friends, Jimmy.”[/duke]

”Professor Ned, you let him down for War Games. And Corey? You know what you were planning there and poof, you just disappear.”

[duke]”Y’know, he really missed an opportunity with his twitter handle...”[/duke]

”What…?”

[duke]”LuxXWF… Why not just LuXWF!? Woulda been great!”[/duke]

”You were on twitter!?”

[duke]”Just recently.”[/duke]

”You’ve totally scattered my thought process.”

[duke]”Friends… let downs… etcetera...”[/duke]

”Point is this: yes, you fucked up. So did I. If I was a better adviser, I’d have advised you to take the threat more seriously. I didn’t, you didn’t, and here we are.

“Yes, hundreds are now dead because of our failures, but the Illuminatus doesn’t sit on their asses and lick their wounds and cry about what coulda been, Thaddeus. We let the dust settle and the smoke clear. We stand back up and we kick your fucking ass.

“So what’s it gonna be Thad? Are we gonna just pack it in and go home? Or are those hundreds that were killed gonna have their justice?”

Thaddeus stands up from the crate.

[duke]”In the words of the great Al Bundy….

“LET’S ROCK!”[/duke]

Jim and Naked Thaddeus head toward the door.

”Al Bundy… Married With Children?”

[duke]”Yeah. I have Hulu on my phone.”[/duke]

Jim gives him a WTF look.

”It’s the Ares Project, by the way.

“The threat, I mean. That’s what they’re calling themselves and their little mission.”

The scene fades.

[duke]Did you miss me?

Yeah?

No?

Just a little?

Well whether you love me, hate me, or somewhere in the middle, Duke Nation is back, bitches.

Looking at this match on paper, its a bit lackluster and seems to come up short. And I know a thing or two about lackluster and coming up short. Lackluster, like my first return to this company and comes up short, like my one and only Universal title shot awhile back against some crackhead and a long haired douche canoe that thought he knew what chaos was.

Spoiler alert: he didn’t.

See, I’m not a stranger to shortcomings and having goals within your grasp as they’re suddenly and heartbreakingly ripped from your reach. What do we do when that happens? Some of us wither and die, or at least our careers do (see chaos above.) Others, we regroup. We recalibrate. We get back on the horse as they say, and go at it again.

I’m done coming home to try and carry the XWF or an entire brand at least, on my back. I’m not here for that anymore. I’m here to be my best self. I’m here to be the best Thaddeus Duke that I can be. I remember the me that went into the main event of a major pay per view and put on a show like the entire world was watching… because they were. I remember the Thaddeus Duke that skyrocketed up the popularity charts… because I did. I remember the Thaddeus Duke that went on a 10 month unbeaten streak… because I did. I remember the Thaddeus Duke that had fun night after night in the XWF.

That… that’s the Thaddeus Duke I plan to recapture now that I’m back here full time. Am I a Savage exclusive talent like I was in the past? No. I rather enjoy traveling and I have a gigantic airplane that can, has and will take me all over the world. I’m a contracted employee for the Xtreme Wrestling Federation. I’ll be at every show that I can for the time being. At one time, maybe I didn’t think so, but the XWF is home. For better or worse and with all the baggage that comes with having the name Duke, the XWF is my home. Now and always.

Samuel McPherson. What is there to say about this big scary autistic brute that is Mr. McPherson? This is a guy that doesn’t like to make excuses for losing except that he makes excuses for losing, like catching a late flight to the show or because he had an easier time fighting for another company that week. You know, the same old song and dance that literally no one uses.

Sammy, maybe stick to that other company because obviously you haven’t been able to cut it here in the XWF. It’s not your fault bro, most can’t. It’s not easy to hang with the best and the brightest that this company has to offer and the brightest of lights have always shined down on the stars of the XWF. If it’s not your thing, it’s not your thing.

What can I possibly say about Ghost tank that hasn’t been said a million fucking times? Nothing. To the great unwashed masses- which incidentally, aligns with Ghost Tank quite accurately- this match is over before it even begins. Like, I realize by taking my sabbatical when things were just beginning to heat up again bumped me down a few rungs but Jesus Christ I fell all the way to the bottom didn’t I? Such is life as an XWF competitor. So be it. If management sees fit to put me at the bottom of the barrel who am I to disagree? It just makes the climb back up a little more entertaining, and a little more interesting. I could complain but why? I deserve to begin again wherever they put me.

Congratulations Tank, you were my very first match in the XWF and you get to be the first again on my climb back up to the top of the mountain. How does it feel, Ghost Tank, being the XWF’s resident punching bag not named Peter Gilmour? You ought to be used to it by now, management always putting you in unwinnable situations… which brings me to a thought… is it management putting you in unwinnable situations? Or are you just like McPherson and just flat out not good enough? My money’s on the latter.

August 10. Tampa. It’s Thaddeus Duke and these two jagoffs. It’s Savage… and it all begins again.[/duke]

Now showered and clothed, Thaddeus Duke sits beside Jim Edwards on board Illuminatus Two. The two boys sit quietly before Thaddeus breaks the silence.

[duke]”Ares.”[/duke]

”What…?”

[duke]”The Ares Project,”[/duke] he begins. [duke]”In Greek mythology, Ares was the God of War. Son of Zeus. Kiund of a joke, really. At least as far as Greek Gods are concerned. He was humiliated by Athena.

“Nice name. Impactful meaning. They’ve won so far, but… I don’t plan on being humiliated again.”[/duke]

Threaded Mode \| Linear Mode Finding Thaddeus: RP 1
Author	Message