The story thus far…. Ever since Corey Smith’s most recent return, he has been coy about his uncanny recovery. Not only has Corey been healed from the most recent damage to his brain, but all traces of past damage and surgery are completely gone. Finally, here is the tale of Corey’s miraculous recovery. Brought to you in stereo surround sound with the verbal bitch slapping to end all verbal bitchslappings of one Thad Duke. ENJOY!

THEN

The world as Corey viewed it through the thin black material of the sack pulled down over his head was one of shadowy impressions, as though filtered through a dusky patina that left all sense of detail frustratingly out of reach. The handcuffs bit deep into his skin, though he could free himself at any time. Even still, he made a show of struggling with them a bit to keep the sense of realism going.

Part of that shadowy miasma viewed through the cloth was the outline of an armed figure, one of Madison Dyson’s Blackwater security grunts. He struck the characteristic pose of someone holding high powered weaponry and feeling emboldened in doing so. Can I get some water?

No.

When can I talk to Madison?

The grunt didn’t respond right away. You know, you were my son’s favorite XWF wrestler.

Your son has good taste.

I told him you were a and that I wouldn’t have that in my home.

Well, that was a Father of the Year move right there. Corey heard the blow before he could feel it, giving him just enough time to juke his head and turn a heavy blow into a glancing one. Even still, it was enough to inflict a fireworks show behind his eyelids. Corey slipped off of whatever seat he had been propped up in, tumbling to the floor with a pained grunt. Pushing his legs up under him, Corey waited for another blow but it didn’t arrive. You think Madison will be happy if I die before she has a chance to pump me for information?

He suddenly felt a strong grip about his forearm as he was hefted up and dropped back into his seat. How about you shut the fuck up?

Corey decided not to press his luck further. Stretching out with his senses, he realized he couldn’t detect any more figures in the vicinity, so he got to work maneuvering his wrists so he could trigger the release mechanism on the cuffs and….

Hey, she’s ready for him. Okay, NOW there was another presence. His jailer gripped him about the forearm again and wrenched Corey to his feet. Abandoning his work on the cuffs out of necessity, he allowed himself to be prodded out of the room and into an adjoining hall. He focused on memorizing the course of his travels, information that could come in useful if Jace’s plans went tits up.

The walk seemed nigh eternal, no doubt a side effect of the immensity of the stress Corey was under. But at last he was prodded one final time. He could somehow sense the cavernous nature of his surroundings, along with a sharp antiseptic smell that harkened back to solemn memories of toil and hospital beds and round the clock nursing.

Look on these works….

Corey jerked his head in the direction of the voice. That voice. Mechanically filtered and labored though it was, it was unmistakable. The hood was plucked from his head, and he beheld the Frankenstein’s monster he had created.

Oh my God….

NOW

Corey Smith seems to be walking along the railing in an arena’s nosebleed section. Scarfing some nachos from concessions as he goes, he notices the camera and sheepishly daps at his lips with a napkin before hastily placing his snack on the seat behind him.

Whoops, caught with the old pants down. Recovering quickly, he gestures at his surroundings. Maybe in more ways than one! I mean, given the enormity of this match, this battle for the ages with the tale as old as time “dissolution of a friendship grudge match”; I guess I could have chosen a locale with a touch more razzle dazzle. Is Corey Smith REALLY cutting an arena promo for this?

REALLY?!

Oh, but I am. Because this arena is SPECIAL. This arena has all the razzle dazzle we’ll ever need. Take a view from the crow’s nest me hearty and tell us what ya see!

The camera’s shot pans over the expanse of the arena.

Getting warmer? Looking familiar? He pauses. Welcome to balmy Tombstone, Arizona, Thaddio. Where this sordid tale of ours took root. Yes kids, this is where Thad Duke won his very first Universal Championship. And what a win it was! Triumphing over an assassin’s array of open invite competitors, literally ANYONE could have been in this thing. But after a dramatic final fourdown featuring Thad, yours truly, Chris “Generic for Ambien” Page, and Fuzz’s goth phase…Thad Duke stood triumphant.

A screech sound is heard, like a car breaking suddenly. Corey startles, throwing his hands out.

But hold the phone, why is THIS the place where Thad and I’s rivalry started? We were both so happy that night. I was genuinely ecstatic that my best friend in the whole round wide world had accomplished his dream.

Well folks, it’s because this is also where Thad Duke’s tremendous insecurity was birthed as well. Ya see, not long after this, I made a comment that Thad saw as me essentially taking credit for his championship win. He was miffed because he thought I was undercutting his big moment, so he latched onto my Freudian slip like Robbie Bourbon latches onto sticky Godzilla porn ‘zines and spoke his piece. It didn’t end our friendship. And I apologized for what I said. Because I couldn’t possibly have been taking credit for Thad’s win. No, no, never ever!

Eummpppfff. Corey clutches his stomach. But something was still roiling in Thad’s guts. Something still didn’t feel right for him. Because that niggling sense of “what if Corey really IS the reason I’m Universal champion” just wouldn’t go away. Would. It. THADDEUS? He draws the phrase out pointedly.

But I said I was sorry, right? I said I didn’t mean it “that way”.

He stops abruptly and holds up a finger.

Except….except….I kinda did mean it “that way” didn’t I? He takes that same finger, dunks it into his nacho cheese and then makes a slightly gross show of enjoying this chemically based non dairy slop show by popping it in his mouth. Ooohhh, it’s SOOOOOOO GOOOOOOD.

Stop and think about it for a sec. I never had any intention of winning that battle royale if you had a chance. And, you had a helluva chance considering I was watching your back throughout that whole match. I wasn’t going to let you get eliminated. And when it came down to that final four, who deep sixed your competition?

Ayyuuup. Me.

Shit man, the closing moments of that thing were pretty much a handicap match! You and I versus See Pee Pee versus Just What the Fuck Ever Fuzz Was Doing. Do I need to spell this out for you even more? Cool, I’ll bite.

Y.O.U. W.O.N. B.E.C.A.U.S.E. O.F. M.E.

This episode of Sesame Street is brought to you by the number six and Thad Duke’s months of insecurity being dragged out into the sunlight and kicked belly up.

BEFORE THEN

Jace Mingla’s private jet was just this side of ostentatious. It was a practical craft, free of the luxuries that a more discerning elite may have opted for. But Corey presumed it wasn’t for lack of funds. In the time he had gotten to know Jace, it was clear the man was beholden to a brutalist mien. To men like him, everything was a potential tool used to mold and bend the shapings of reality to his will. It was undeniably sociopathic. And yet, here I am.

Corey looked out the window, seeing little else but the inky storm clouds beneath them. Every so often a burst of illumination would appear like a wisp in the wind. A strange thought occurred to him then, that maybe all he knew, the people he loved and cherished, could be a fantasy that lay beneath the storm clouds. An unreachable dream state, withheld from him while Corey set out to do the Devil’s work. He decided he liked it like that.

Tell me more about your son. Corey spoke aloud without looking at Jace, who was seated across from him, one leg crossed over the other as he read something on his phone.

Placing the phone down next to him, he answered simply. What would you like to know?

Corey looked at him then. You told me you adopted him. That you saved his life. But why would you pull him into your world after going through all that trouble?

A small grin cracked his lips. I suppose there are some rather large gaps in the story. He paused to collect his thoughts. My boy’s given name is Amari. He was a child soldier in Mozambique, where I had established a fledgling operation. I was out inspecting a coca field when some of my men found him. His throat had been cut, and he had been discarded by his fellows. When I saw him….I….his expression goes strange and distant….there was so much blood. I leapt in to stop it immediately. He almost died.

That's awful. Corey empathized. But, what made you take him in?

It was his eyes, Corey. His eyes. He was bleeding to death. I had seen many men in similar states. Some of them by my own hand. And there’s almost always fear there. Or, on rarer occasions, resignation. But what I saw in that boy’s eyes…how he raged against that dying of the light. I was awestruck. I knew I had something special. So I took him under my wing. He was ten. Or eleven. He wasn’t sure how old he was.

Corey pinched his features in disgust. And after all that trauma you set him to work for you as a killer.

Jace laughed, a punchy sound that caused Corey to set back on his haunches. Have you listened to a word I said, Corey? The boy was already a trained killer. He knew nothing but, from the time he could walk his little feet trailed bloodstains in the dirt. What would you have me do? Set him up with a job at a call center? A nice respectable bank job? Maybe he could have sold used cars.

He could have been different.

Jace suddenly looked exhausted. He sat back in his seat, considering Corey through lidded eyes. I can see why your friend Thad started to find your moralizing tedious.

Don’t even…! Corey jabbed a finger in Jace’s direction.

Why, if you want to talk about ethics I think it’s fair game! You looked down upon his lifestyle, didn’t you?

What do you mean his “lifestyle”?

Soldier of fortune. Heir apparent to a nation state that had to fight fist, tooth and nail to maintain its very existence. You don’t inherit something like that without coming to accept a healthy shade of ethical gray area. So how often DID you harp on him about it?

I…Corey stammered. We talked about it sometimes. But ultimately it never changed how I felt about him. As a man.

…no? He arched his eyebrows inquisitively. Jace’s expression told the tale. I don’t believe you. And it’s interesting given your, you know, history. He waved his hand dismissively. Not to mention the fact that you work for the most violent wrestling company on the planet.

I don’t kill people!

Anymore. Or was that Lux? But you could have stopped her, right?

Lux walked her path. I walk mine.

You essentially killed Madison. He spoke the words with finality.

Not according to you. Corey replied tartly.

Well, you certainly gave it the old college try. Look, Corey…. He leaned forward. The way you view the world, in its absolutes, its whites and blacks. It’s juvenile. It’s naive.

Now wholly irritated, Corey gesticulated as he spat back at Jace. I’ll be damned if I’m going to take an Ethics 101 lesson from a drug pusher like you! I assume because you’re so high up the proverbial food chain you’ve forgotten what the destruction you wreak looks like. Well, I haven’t forgotten. I haven’t forgotten how sick I was, how I alienated all the people who cared about me, how I was so enslaved to my next high that everything else, literally EVERYTHING else, took a back seat! I’ll never forget how being an addict almost killed me twice over! And I’ll never forget the motherfuckers like you who made all that possible! So suck shit, asshole!

Did that feel cathartic?

It did! Corey crossed his arms.

Well, good. I’m glad for you. Now is this going to be a problem for us going forward?

Corey scowled, turning his head away. No.

Hmmm. Funny how that works.

Shut up. This relationship ends the moment we take what we want from Madison.

I’m fine with that. He pauses. Although I see so much potential in you. You could do a lot better than slumming it up with the dregs in sunny Florida.

I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.

Alright. Nonplussed, Jace picked up his phone again. We touch down in roughly 40 minutes. Get your game face on.

NOW

The shot opens back up on a bathroom stall door. We hear a flush, and after a moment Corey exits the stall. Sorry, processed cheese gives me the Thads something fierce. The camera follows him as he walks back out into the halls of the arena.

Now, I’ll begrudgingly accept that some of my views on you as a military man may have been unfair. A rather…”unconventional” source….played a role in helping me see that. And incidentally, I don’t think you’re evil Thad. What I do think is that you’re letting your petty little foibles take you for a ride right into downtown Hypocrisy City, and putting you up in the Selective Memory Hotel. Because for as much as you want to carp on me for not always being there for you, for not being a good friend, well….heh….just hold your horses.

I mean, its not like you couldn’t have just ASKED for help. I know you know how to do that. You asked me for help defending the tag belts so you didn’t have to pull double duty. But, you may insist as pedantically as humanly possible, “Corey, you should have just KNOWN I needed the help. You should have intuited that I needed you!” Which, aside from making our relationship sound like a stock toxic marriage, is a pretty bullshit argument.

And boy, it’s a good thing I don’t have any examples of times you failed to help me to be bitter about. He wipes his brow in a “whew” motion. Nope! None here! Nooooone at aaaalllll. He scrunches up his face. Well, maybe that one time. Ya know, the time I was possessed by a rogue artificial intelligence that stole my own free will away from me and made me serve Madison Dyson and He Who Shall Not Be Named. But….but….there was NOTHING you could do about that! Madison had so many resources at her disposal. I mean, nothing like a whole NATION STATE’S worth of resources, but still a fucking lot, ya know?!

Corey stops and smirks. Yeah Thaddy, as soon as I got taken over by The Engineer, you bailed like a Prom King being presented with a positive paternity test. But not once, not ONCE, did I ever make you feel shitty about that. And I sure as hell never kicked you in the head over it. Because when that storm was said and done, you made up for it in spades.

So where we at, man? Let’s reassess. You getting pissy could be about me “not being there for you”. Which would make you a giant hypocrite. So maybe it’s not…that….one? His voice becomes increasingly more squeaky with each word as he seems to be questioning the validity of Thad’s reasoning.

Ah, but there is one other little matter, isn’t there? No, good buddy, I haven’t forgotten about….



ALIAS!

Now, here’s where you come the closest to having a legitimate gripe. Too bad, like most of the drizzling shits that come out of your word hole, it too is laden with hypocrisy. You say that it’s muy uncool that I maintain a friendship with a man who has….*checks notes*....threatened your life?! Yikes! Am I the douchebag after all?!

Maybe. But not because of this. Thad, let me ask you something. Are you still alive and kicking? Hmmmm? Amongst the living, are ya? Yep. You are. And it’s not like Alias never had the opportunity to kill you. Hell, our teams shared a ring at War Games! He was legally allowed to do grievous bodily harm to you! And here you stand, suckin’ air.

Look man, Alias was wrong to threaten you. But I know him better than you do. Like, remember that time he felt the same way about Betsy Granger? And then they made up? Like no bad blood ever passed between them?

Alias is a man who is ever in transition, Thad. And sometimes, transitions are confusing. Alias gets confused. And maybe he’ll be angry at me for saying so, but I think he was confused about you. Ironic thing is though, you seem to be hell bent on proving him RIGHT. Corey chuckles. But I don’t think he ever truly would have tried to hurt you like that. Hell, if I thought for a fraction of a second he was actually going to kill you, and deprive Frankie of a father, amongst other things too horrible to consider, I NEVER would have gone in with him.

But let’s put all that baggage on the shelf for a moment. Because we absolutely cannot talk about my relationship with Alias without discussing (and oh you know it’s coming)....



Grandpa Satan.

A man you know I had PROFUSE problems with. A man who I genuinely felt lied and manipulated you on a regular basis. Shit, at least with Alias he’s comin’ at you DIRECT. But this guy? Have you honestly ever thought he did what he did for you out of a sense of genuine friendship? You know his name is spelled like “Devil”, right? ….RIGHT?!

Corey puffs out his cheeks in exasperation and keeps walking.

Despite my feelings about him, you maintain a relationship with the man to this day. But I never copped a bitch fit about it. I never kicked you in the head over it. Even when D’Ville was trying to paint ME as the malefactor in our relationship, I accepted that you saw things differently about him and I never stopped being your friend!

So! What we have here is a series of accusations you’ve left at my doorstep like a flaming bag of feces, when you are guilty of those very same things. So maybe you should focus on your own fiery bag of shit before you spread the wealth. Ya feel me?

And you know what? I cannot WAIT to see the Olympics level mental gymnastics you try to pull to get out from under this. I think, deep down inside, even you know my case is iron clad. You abandoned our friendship over NOTHING but your own jealousy and insecurity. You were the Universal Champion and yet I’m the one who got the props for beating the most stacked Leap of Faith line up of all time. I’m the one who got the props for winning War Games. And all you had to hang your hat on was beating me in that Captain’s match like anyone would remember THAT shit after Alias and I got our hands raised in the air.

Corey stops right at a poster of War Games 2021. Clearly something he pulled out of storage for this very occasion.

When are you going to realize that all of this….ALL OF IT….is about you secretly being afraid that I’m just better? And that the capstone of your career happened because I helped you get there? And when it comes to the latter, is that really so terrible? Maybe for an ego monster like you. But for me?

I was just helping out a friend.

THEN

He was hit with dual waves of horror and revulsion. The term suspended animation sprung to mind, but while she was suspended, she could only barely be considered animate. Her body was twisted and rail thin, like a rotting tree growing around an intrusion. Everything about her screamed bent and broken. The tank she floated in was enormous, within it was some kind of bluish solution that somehow seemed firmer than water but still fundamentally liquid. The solution seemed to bear her broken body aloft, along with the nightmarish contraption affixed to her back.

It looked like a hooded carapace, complete with scores of needles on long spindly arms, like the grasping chitinous appendages of some deep sea creature. Periodically, one of the needles would move, sinking into Madison’s dulled flesh. A sensation that didn’t even cause her to flinch.

When he could stand looking at her face, he knew that this was what he would see in his nightmares for years to come. Her eyes were clouded, but you could still barely make out the whitened pupil set against the rest. A pedestal in a sea of milky effluvium. The skin on her face was stretched taut as though across a canvas, making clear the outlines of her skull. Her hair, once full and bountiful, now swayed about her skull like a blasphemous halo, which only served to further illuminate the bald patches of dried flaky skin on her scalp. The remains of the bullet hole were also still barely visible, now a knob of scarified skin.

Look at me! The voice growled through the black filtered mask over her mouth. A trio of bubbles escaped when she spoke.

Corey found himself speechless, suddenly stricken by a pang of guilt. I’m responsible for this. . Corey’s humanity shoved the harsh memories of the torture this woman put him through to the aft of his mind, so overwhelmed was he with the unfiltered awe and dismay this vision of horror engendered. What would you have me say?

Something that sounded like a wet throaty gurgle escaped Madison's throat. I didn’t deserve this. It seemed like she was straining to speak.

Corey was again unsure of what to say. As the initial shock wore off, he found that his conscience was split even on Madison’s statement. So he decided to circumvent it altogether. I can help you.

Jace told me. He told me you remembered.

I do. I remember some of the workings of the device that Lux used to maintain her consciousness in me. He lied. Perhaps it could…

How much do you remember? Her frosted eyes narrowed.

A sufficient amount that it may be possible to reconstruct it. You could upload your consciousness into a new body. He felt a tremor in his knee. No, not now! Could I sit please?

Put him on his knees.

The Blackwater grunts forced him to kneel, which only further pained his spasming knee. He hoped the blow from earlier didn’t do more damage than he initially thought. I’m willing to trade this information for…

Maybe I’ll just bleed you out until you supply it.

Corey paled. This wasn’t what Jace had promised. He took a gamble. Would you risk a second chance at life just to work through your hatred of me?

Razors can keep you functional enough until you give me what I need.

Fuck. Where was Jace? Corey prayed he hadn’t been sold out.

Madison, my head is scrambled enough as it is! You want to worsen my condition, so be it! Another gamble, more forceful this time. Christ, Jace was taking his dear sweet time.

Madison’s haunted face seemed to consider him before she responded, again sending another spurt of bubbles rippling through the life preserving solution. I will skin you alive if you’re lying to me, Corey.

Corey closed his eyes as his heart hammered against the interior of his chest. His mind involuntarily went to his loved ones. Dolly. Christian. The family he could only view from afar. All the lives he saved.

I understand.

Please let me get back home to them.