1A: Chaos Redefined

“Can we all just say ‘that’s a wrap on Chris Chaos’, now? Seriously… he’s done, right? Put a fucking fork in him. We’ve all had our fun, but the joke has been beaten to death. It’s like flicking through Netflix and ‘rediscovering’ something like The Big Bang Theory. You get into your cozies and settle in for the night, maybe get through a couple of episodes, and then you remember that this show just isn’t that funny to begin with. And Chris Chaos, ‘Corporate’ or not, just isn’t that good. Corey took a turn on his heiny (with an honourable shout out to Jimbo!), Louis joined the train, and then little ol’ me got to finish him off with the money shot. But now it’s time to let sleeping dogs lie, because even with his new coat of paint, Chris once again fell short. He’s fucking finished. And Theo... the more you keep parading him around, the worse it’s actually going to start looking for you. You don’t want to get any of that Chaos stank on you, do ya?

If there’s a silver lining to that failed ‘Corporate’ experiment, it’s that there is now at least one less person harping on about me using the 24/725/8 briefcase for the exact fucking purpose it was supposed to be used for. Maybe it was the back door option, but since I just blasted my way through Chris’s own rear entrance, I’d expect him to now be fully fucking acquainted with what I can do.

I. Will. Not. Stop.

I will keep fucking fighting until my last god damn breath. That is the one thing that I can guarantee about the future. I don’t know where this journey is going to take me, but I know that there is only one person who is going to decide when it’s time for me to say goodbye, and that is me. That’s why I’m standing here, once again, fucking inviting Chris Page to use his rematch! Because I know what I have to do. With every bead of sweat that drips from my brow; every drop of blood that I shed; every ounce of pus that leaks from my fucked up hand; every phlegm-stained curse that I spit; I get closer to where I need to be! And there isn’t a man, woman or fucking God that can stop me.

Chaos may have learned, but I know there are still so many more that don’t have that insight yet. Self-righteous assholes like Centurion throw around bullshit like ‘I still consider Chris Page the true Universal Champion’, but what the fuck woud ol’ Andy Cortinovas know about being the Universal Champ? He’s failed to even get within a fucking cunt’s hair of this championship so many god damn times that he’s literally banned from failing again. It’s like it’s too fucking embarassing for the company to let him get steamrolled again, and that’s saying something! It’s okay for Papi Theo to open up Chaos’s bootyhole for a good old fashioned gaping by yours truly, and even then that is considered less embarrassing than letting Centurion get his ass beat once more.

So let me ask this, not just to Andy, but to any of you, what the fuck else do I need to do to get this message into your thick fucking skulls? I’ve torn the fucking moon apart; I’ve laid waste to the god damn White House; I have shown that I will tear apart the very foundations of this fucking world if I have to. No matter the cost!

A hero will sacrifice you to save the world.

A villain will sacrifice the world to save you.

I’ll let you all fucking burn. If I have to.

You and your fucking Gods.”

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1A: The Godmoot I





“What is the meaning of this?!” bellows the highfather from his throne of black marble. Gold flecks flicker throughout his royal seat, peeking out from behind the fleece of the purple ram that insulates him from the throne’s cold touch. Above him, the blue of the sky forces its way in front of the intricate carvings of the palace’s ceiling. A look away, and it’s gone. But when eyes fall upon the Highfather, there is no mistake that the sky is his domain.

“What do you think?” spits the falcon-headed being before him. His eye glimmers with a lunar promise, ablaze and still bitter. At the tip of his staff, an ankh.


“Tread carefully, young Moon, for you are in my house,” the Highfather warns. The softness of his words bely their gravity. His right hand strokes a golden sculpture of an eagle perched upon the arm of the throne. Rubies tint its eyes and a jagged strip of tin hangs from the clutches of its beak. With each stroke upon the eagle’s back, the sky above darkens a shade. Thunder begins its slow rumble.


“You dare condescend me?” The Falcon of the Moon straightens his back and stamps its staff. Had he an upper lip it would have stiffened. “We may be here in your temple, but we precede you by millenia. You were naught even a seed in mankind’s loins when they paid tribute to us.”

“Yet here you are!” The Highfather rises from his throne. Lightning cracks underneath his feet with every step as he stomps down the seven stone steps - each a colour of the rainbow - that lead to the floor below. “You disrupt this meeting by spilling the blood of your own kin upon my floor? SPEAK!”

He towers over the Falcon. In his ire, the sky sets alight. Lightning pelts down Athens, setting it on fire.


“I did not spill this blood,” the Moon says to the sky.

“Why wouldst we trust thine word, Moon?” asks a clean-shaven man in the gathered crowd. Brimming with a white glow, he stands noblest amongst the otherwise motley Æsir.

“Baldr speaks true,” the Sun of the East steps forward from the court. “You offer us a head today, but did not your own mother summon a serpent to poison the very body this head belonged to?”

“Amaterasu, forgive me,” the Falcon dips his beak in respect. He looks down to where the head, a falcon like its own, lies bleeding on the stone. With a glance back to where his mother stands leaning upon a papyrus staff of her own, he quietly nods his head. “Your words strike true, noble friends. My mother, Isis, did once poison the Sun to learn its true name. But as to truth… as true as I stand before you now, I implore you that the Moon did not kill the Sun.”

Horus turns back to the Highfather before him.

“Reputation holds that our pantheon never saw the stability of yours, but recall, mighty Zeus, that we reigned for thousands of years.” Suddenly, they appear eye-to-eye. Equal in stature. “It was not I who acted so heinously. It was him.”

The gods are silenced, each contemplating in their own way. In his house, Zeus’s thunder is the one to break the silence.

“Of whom do you speak?” he asks of Horus.

“He. The mortal.” A murmur ripples throughout. Zeus himself ponders this, and glances to Amaterasu and the other skyparents at the front of the host.

“You found him?” Half-asking, and half-noting, Zeus steps back. With a sullen grace he makes his way back up the rainbow steps and takes his seat again in the blue-once-more sky.

“No, but I found where he has been,” Horus steps forward to the base of the rainbow. “In the last visions of our Sun, we saw his face. Alas, when we arrived, we were too late. Ra is dead.”

“This is troubling…” Zeus brings his hand to his chin and tugs upon his beard. “How can you be sure it was him?”

“Highfather of the Aegean,” Horus pleads, “when last we met upon these grounds, our Sun himself led our horde! He questioned why we were not already intervening. At your behest, we agreed to wait for evidence. Is this not evidence enough?”

“Dost thou pantheon formally accuse?” His hand returns to the eagle and he drums his fingers upon it.

“We do,” Horus states, without consideration.

“I ask to the Skyfathers and Skymothers amongst you,” Zeus pronounces to the crowd, “is there a second who will support our brothers and sisters of the Nile?”

Front and centre, Amaterasu remains silent. To the side, Baldr turns to his one-eyed father, whose visage gives naught away. Amongst the others, Anu, Perun, Kāne, and more… nothing.

Understanding his position, Horus refuses to stand down. He stands, steadfast in front of Zeus’s throne.

Until another joins him.

“We will.” From a throne of her own - ivory with its back adorned with golden sculps of cockatoos and flanked by willow leaves - Hera stands. As she rises from the cowkin that softens the seat, her head is haloed by a moon of its own hanging above. With determined, dignified movements, she swoops down the three crystal steps that rise to her throne, and crosses the palace floor, joining the Falcon at the base of the rainbow. “Won’t we, husband?”

Zeus stares at her.

She stares back.

“We will,” he confirms. “The mortal’s trial will begin.”

~~~~~

If you forever chase the sun, you never see the sunset.
Where is the beauty in that?

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1B: The Nemean Lion





Whispers of dukes waging war against beasts had reverberated around the world, each story witnessed becoming more fanciful than that which was shared before. They, in turn, engineered another, raising the stakes higher to the point that one tombstone could no longer hold the tale. No, it would be shared across multiple sources. And so it was when first he heard.

He knew not what brought him here, willed by the gods, maybe? Or shunned by them. Perhaps there was no difference. As he camped outside the city, under the ArizonanAegean sun, he slowly turned a small ball around in his hands, studying it carefully. He had felt a power in an orb like this before. But this was not a brilliant blue. This was an iridescent, white, shimmering thing. A pearl like no other. Small and dainty, but capable of untold things. He had stumbled upon it when he first arrived in the Peloponnese. It was more accident than anything. Still, he felt it called to him. Not by name, for that has long been lost to the fates. Rather, it was as if nymphs of an otherworldly beauty were dancing and singing along the river Styx. It both troubled and excited him.

The pitter-patter of excitable young footsteps snatched him from his dreaming. Months of training had by now forged a keen awareness of any potential dangers in the world around him. Slipping the pearl into a small pouch fastened to his waist, his eyes rose to meet the small boy standing wide-eyed in front of him.

“Hiya!” the boy said with a smile. The man with the pearl leans forward upon the felled log he has taken for a seat.

“Hello, little one,” through crooked teeth, he tries to smile back. “Are you lost?”

“No,” the boy replies with confidence. He hops atop a similarly fallen, smaller tree and stretches his arms out for stability. One foot in front of the other, he carefully balances his way up and down the trunk with a nonplussed playfulness.

“Then what brings you outside the city walls?” the man asks further. He notes the dress of the boy, and determines him to be of high caste. “Does the duke often allow children to roam unaccompanied outside the Compound?”

“He doesn’t know. I just had to come and see you.” the boy shrugs. It throws his weight off and he flails his arms about to keep himself on the log. Finding his footing once more, he giggles at the near-fall.

“How did you know I was here?” the man asks, scrunching his nose. “What’s your name?”

“Franklin,” the boy says as he drops down and sits across from the man, putting his chin in his hands.

“Funny name for these parts,” the man muses.

“You can talk,” Franklin retorts.

“Touché,” he laughs. “You were looking for me, and now you’ve found me. How can I help you, Master Franklin?”

“You’re looking for the lion,” he says knowingly.

“How do you know that?” the man leans in even further.

“We were told by the eagle.” He dusts a trail of ants with his shoe. “There needs to be a sacrifice. If you kill the lion within thirty days, we will sacrifice a lion of our own. If you don’t, I will sacrifice myself.”

“What?!” Aghast, he launches to his feet. “Why would you do that?”

“The sacrifice needs to be made.” Once more, he shrugs.

“But you’re just a child!” he begs. “Is there no one else who could take your place?”

The boy hops off the log.

He looks upon the man, at peace with his life’s lot.

With two steps, he moves back towards the path and looks back over his shoulder.

“The sacrifice needs to be made.”

~~~~~

He had wandered for what felt like an age before he found it. He knew he was on the right track, but for every five miles that he walked, it felt as though the lion walked six. Still, after many nights under the shooting stars, fletching arrows and contemplating upon both the pearl and his navel, he heard a roar. Creeping over the top of a ledge of dust and sand, he spies the entrance to a cave. The echo of the lion still rings out from the entrance.

This is it. His moment to kill the beast. His chance to save the boy.

He slinks down the rocky scarp, using three scraggly vines as his guide. The vines continue over the side and down into the unknown, but he leaves them behind as he reaches a thin valley between two precipices, whereupon the cave entrance opens up. He finds a spot. And he waits.

It doesn’t take long. He smells the lion before he sees it. The stench of the bloodied, rotten meat matted to the thin fur around his mouth heralds its presence. And then… the lion emerges.

It is enormous. A golden mane shimmering in Apollo’s rays. With every step it takes, its muscles ripple and flex. The man notches an arrow to his bow. He draws back the string, and as the lion turns its neck, he fires.

The arrow flies through the air.

Right towards the lion’s throat.

It ricochets off.

As the arrow falls into the dirt and stone, the lion is left unscarred. It turns towards its aggressor. And charges.

There is no time to move. In an instant, the lion is upon the man, forcing him further and further backwards towards the edge. The rocky ground gives way and the man tumbles over the three vines. He falls. Down and down. Down to the ground below.

The lion is king.

~~~~~

The indiscriminate rush towards improper goals.

~~~~~

As he picks himself up off the ground, he rues his missed opportunity. He took his shot, and he struck true. But the lion’s hide was impenetrable. It is his kingdom.

He looks up. From below, the mountain seems daunting. How could he possibly climb it again?

Where there is a will, there is a way.

Que será, será.

He begins his climb. His hands claw holes and his feet dig them deeper. It’s a long and tedious journey. Inch by inch he battles against the elements over the course of several days. The solid earth. The howling wind. The rotating forces of cosmic fire and torrents of water, belting down from above.

But he is a survivor.

It’s what he does.

Though the world conspires against him, he ascends the mountain once again. He emerges at the top, but in an unfamiliar location. A green field full of daisies and butterflies.

And a cave.

The scent of blood still lingers in the air. The man skulks up to it. Peering in, his nostrils flare as the stench becomes more putrid.

A second entrance.


He could, he supposes.

So the man gets to work. He gathers stones and branches from the field, and begins to stack them in front of the entrance to the cave. Eventually, the opening is entirely blocked.


The man doesn’t stop. With the cave sealed, he sets off again. He treks through the terrain and eventually emerges back from whence he fell. This time, he leaves the arrows in their quiver. He sneaks inside the first entrance. It twists and turns into the mountain side, and he follows it inwards towards the fragrance of death.

He sees those death-soaked eyes, and quickly acts.

WHACK!

He whallops it with his club, stunning it.

The man then strangles the lion to death with his bare hands.

On his second try, the lion is dead.

~~~~~

On the thirtieth day, the man returned to the Compound. The boy, Franklin, was outside the walls waiting for him.

“You did it,” Franklin says. The man tugs the lion’s pelt from his shoulders and displays it for the young boy. “How did you remove its impenetrable fur?”

“I used its own claws. Here, for your sacrifice,” He offers it for Franklin, but the boy waves his hand in refusal.

“Keep it,” he says. “Wear it. We have others. I am safe, but you have more labours to complete. The coat will protect you.”

The man drapes himself again in the skin of the lion.

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1C: Where Were You?

“Where were you?” asks little Frankie Duke. Tears well in his eyes as his arm raises, strained from the weight he carries. In his hand, the hair of his new father intertwines around his fingers.

It’s Thad’s head.

Blood drips from its severed neck.

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1D: The First Labour

“The Nemean Lion is dead,” announces the Messenger from a throne of stone of his own.

“Then the trial continues.”

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1E: Atty Three Belts vs. Ally THE Belt

“Let’s just get the elephant out of the room straight away, shall we?

You know how this story goes, Atara. We’ve been here, done this, and I got the fucking t-shirt. I hope it was as good for you as it was for me, dove. Probably not though, because not only did I get the shirt, but I got the fucking W too.

I Ate Atara Themis.

I must be pretty good with my oral game if it brought you back for another course. Now granted, this was before Atty Three belts became a thing, but in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t really that long ago. So the question that needs to be asked is, what’s different? What are you bringing this time compared to last? Those belts of yours? Cool. Let’s start there.

Internet. Freestyle. Shooting Star.

Yawn. Yawn. And at the risk of igniting a whole fucking #MeToo movement against myself, Yawn.

I don’t even really want to talk about the Internet Championship. Congrats on being the best troll on Twitter, I guess? But the thing about the internet is that it’s full of people who talk a big game but at the end of the day, just don’t back it up. They hide behind the screens of their perfectly curated worlds and try to present themselves as something that they’re not. Are you picking up what I’m putting down there, Atty? You should be, because it describes you to a fucking T! You took it upon yourself to become Faceless B.O.B. Cheerleader #1, and you kind of just said things enough times that now some dummies out there (hiya, Geri!) actually believe that you promotional whores are a big deal. It’s almost impressive actually. Eventually, you even convinced them to let you into their little inner circle! Oh boy!

How much more ripping off of one other person can that fucking bozo Page do?

But it’s just a fabrication, Atty. Just like everything on the internet. A poorly crafted one at that. Chris Page lost the Universal Championship, has a guaranteed rematch, and still won’t shoot his shot. Because he’s outmatched and he fucking knows it. Andre Dixon fell to Corey Smith and I guess that’s that for him, yeah? He seems to have more or less taken his ball and fucked off. Miss Fury… Jesus water-sporting Christ, how many times can she lose to Ruby?

Yay Ruby. Boo Cent. Seems like the sort of approach I’d take.

And the Bastards… they’ve sure got an iron grip on that tag team division, don’t they? Except… what tag team division? They defended against the fucking Disintegrators last month, for crying out loud! They’re champions of FUCKING NOTHING!.

Sorry. Flashback.

What I’m saying though, Atty, is that your entire fucking group is built on a lie. Just like this whole Atty Three Belts thing. I mean, if I was defending one of them against people like fucking Boris, I’m not so sure that I’d even consider it worth bragging about. And then the Freestyle Championship… you’ve had that thing for what, a week? Two even? Come back to me when you’ve held it for six. Come back to me when you have both 24/725/8 divisions on lock at the same time. Come back to me when the only reason you don’t have the… actually, you know what? Scratch all that. Don't bother coming back to me about it at all, because I am by far the longest reigning Freestyle Champion, and I still don’t give a shit about it.

So really that just leaves us with the crown jewel in the Atty trifecta. The Shooting Star Championship. Yeah, well… about that. You know what I said about Them Bastards? Just copy and paste that shit here. The Shooting Star division consists of what, exactly? Who? When you ‘won that title back’, it was against a fucking dude and someone who is only semi-active. Real deep well to draw from there. Who else is there even to line up for a shot at that belt? We’re not about to revisit Geri fucking Vayden are we? Sheesh! How ‘bout that Rel Dixon? May as well be Charlie fucking Nickles in drag. This ain’t a shot at women fighting, or even at you specifically, Atty, because I’ve been in the ring with you and I know what you can do.

Did I mention that I won?

I’m just pointing out the ludicrousness of us having a Shooting Star division at all. Look at Ruby, for example. She’s been running Anarchy for six months now! LyCunta, for all her faults, is the X-Treme Champion, and even people - and I use that term loosely - like Miss Fury don’t seem to be interested in competing for a championship that restricts them to only fighting chicks. Haven’t we, as a society, moved past that shit by now?

But hey, it brought you here, didn’t it? Round two, with yours truly. I uh… I can appreciate the wanting of a second chance. There are a lot of things in my life that I’d like to have a do-over about, and sometimes, in the middle of the night, I even dream that my second chance came true. In that sense, I can relate, Atty. And I should expect a lot more from you this time, shouldn’t I? Because you didn’t really want the X-Treme Championship that we last fought over, but this time… this time you want the Universe.

Or do you?

I mean, we know how you got this opportunity, don’t we? You vacated the Shooting Star Championship to get your chance, and then you went on to just… win the belt back again?. You didn’t leave it for to be fought over as some big cliffhanger to the Freaky Friday shitshow that Dolly got herself into. No sir-eeee! You treated it like a trinket. A plaything. Just another piece of jewelry. And that’s all you want here too. You want to become the Universal Champion? No, you just want the eyes on you. That’s not inherently wrong, but it does mean that every single thing that comes out of your cocksukcer is tainted with that familiar desperation of someone desperate to keep their star from fading. I’m not saying it is, but it’s like that. You bounce around with those thrift store championships around your thrift store waist, and act as though you’re somehow better than people like me because you got your shot with… what was it you said? ‘No corporate bullshit. No cash in. No excuse!’ Really? So that little stunt where you got the championship back wasn’t what one might call ‘corporate bullshit’? Gotta admit, you lost me there. Whatever happened to ‘no rematches’? Seems to me that you’ve found a great… back door, Atty.

God knows you needed one.

You’re skating by on technicalities. In a way, I’m here for it. It certainly screams handout, though. So congratu-fucking-lations Atara Chaos.

The saddest part is that it shows how much your confidence is lacking. You don’t even have the faith in yourself to do he fucking do the job, so you need a goddamn insurance policy: a way for you to still be all dolled up in glitter and gold, and a back-up plan for when you don’t get the job done. Smart, really, but it doesn’t exactly do wonders for the reputation of the championship, now does it? How long can this continue for, though? When I put you down again, are you just going to go ahead and give up the title in another fucking farce, and try your luck a third time? Such a shame.

I told you, Atty, that I used to think more of you. You’re riding a little wave of momentum right now, but you’re going to need to do more than just that, girl. You’re going to need to make the fucking waves. Because I’m not here to put you in your fucking place. I’m here to put me in mine. And I’m the game-changer. I’m the pathfinder. And I’m not fucking done yet.

I’ve read between the lines on everything that you and your sister have said since you announced your intentions. I’ve got to commend you, I know you’re going to try and play my game, and that’s a hell of a lot better effort than what Chris Chaos could muster. But you’re just playing dress-up. You’re doing it for the optics, the image, the perfectly manicured facade. Atty, you’re too busy trying to look the part to actually be the part. You’re not the disappointment that you were last time, but you’re sure as shit not positioned to stop me.

Not today.

The best I’m hoping for is for you to actually fucking speak this time. It’s gonna be a long two weeks if it’s just me doing all the yapping, especially since I only really mean half of what I say. Hopefully it’s enough to get your engine roaring though. On the plus side, at least I’ve only said half of what I wanted to, too. This is going to be… fun.

Hope to hear from you soon, Atty. Careful if you do pipe up, however.

I bite.”