3A: Platform 9 inches 3/4

Stepping out of the van, the first thing that Steve Sayors sees is an old, aching, weeping willow tree. The rain had only just taken its leave, but still the tree stands there, sobbing. Behind the dangling leaves and their crying veneer, a crooked branch protrudes from higher up the tree and seems to arc back around lower down, nearly joining back up with the trunk. An arm, supporting the bad back of an old crone.

“Fertility. Chastity. Flexibility.”

Steve jumps like he’s seen a ghost. He turns, and there, having slinked up beside the XWF’s stalwart interviewer, was a man nearly as translucent as the teardrops dripping from the willow. In this light, his sickly, spectral skin seems to take on the properties of his environment. Against the dirty grey of the surrounding buildings and the still dark shadows crowding the sky above, he looks as though he is made of some living (perhaps barely) stone. A tombstone of a man. Or a tablet. Either, awaiting its inscription.

His name is Lance.

“That’s what the willow tree is supposed to symbolise,” Lance resumes, looking up to the living statue. “Or some sort of variation on the same theme, anyway. I don’t particularly know where all of that comes from, it’s just something I heard from Dani. Apparently it even applies to the weeping varietal. I would have thought something a lot more melancholic, but after Dani explained it to me, I figured it made sense in the end. They’re quite young trees - lucky to hit fifty years under the right conditions. On top of that, there’s something beautiful about crying, don’t you think? Something pure. And every time we cry, there’s something new on the other side. Some advanced sense of understanding. Does that sound corny?”

With his heart on his sleeve like this, water sits just behind Lance’s eyes, somewhere between the outside world and the soul that dwells within. It tugs on Steve’s heart strings, and convinces him to extend an olive branch. Or a willow branch, if that fits the metaphor better.

“No, not at all,” Steve says to Lance, generating warmth. He looks back to the tree. “I think you’re right. It is kind of beautiful.”

“It also just looks neat, doesn’t it?” Lance says, comforted by Steve’s gesture. “Some people line their gardens with dozens of these, just because it looks good. They don’t even need to maintain the gardens - they could let the garden dilapidate and die, and the willows would still let them paint a pretty picture. It’s meaningless and superficial, but it pretends that it isn’t, and that’s what’s important to some. We’ve kind of taken that to another level ourselves.”

“How so?” Steve asks.

“With all which the tree implies, it serves as a nice beacon here, for this place.” He gives the tree its due praise once more. “It’s an easy to identify landmark.”

“Identify…?” Steve wonders, latching on to Lance’s specific choice of words. “Identify what? And by whom? What’s it a beacon for?”

“Come,” Lance says, beckoning as he turns. “You were invited here to see for yourself, so let’s do that. I’ve been asked to help show you around.”

“Thank you,” Steve says, falling into step beside Lance. “Is ALIAS here as well? Will I be able to speak to him?”

“He’s here,” Lance acknowledges. “And He’s more than happy to speak to you when we’re done. But first… a tour!”

“Of?”

Having led Steve down the street about twenty feet or so, Lance pauses outside of a rickety gate made of corrugated iron that blocks off an alleyway cutting between two large old apartment buildings.

“This.”

Lance opens the gate and steps through. A Potterhead since Day One (Steve Sayors is definitely a Hufflepuff), stepping through this gate is the closest Steve has ever felt to entering the Wizarding World. It’s like the gate was a train platform magically embedded in a brick wall in an old London train station, and he had just charged headfirst into it, luggage and all, and fell out onto the pavement on the other side. Except he didn’t fall. And really, there was nothing magical at all in what he saw. It was, however, a whole new world.

Right next to where he and Lance now stood, a couple of structures wobbled under the stress of simply existing, amateurly fastened together from boards of plywood and typical blue tarpaulin with stray offcuts of rope. The structure on the right is empty save for a few nondescript crates, but underneath the one on the left a matronly old woman sits with her back against the cold stone of the border building. Two small children are tucked under her arms, doing their best to follow the words in the Animal Farm novel she is trying to read to them.

From there, Steve looked down the alley. As his vision swept down it, the narrow walls seemed to widen unnaturally the further from the entrance that he looked. Maybe there was some magic here after all, hidden behind the dirt and grime.

In the space in between, an entire city seems to spring out of nothing. The worst of the structures are much the same as those under which the woman reads to the children, but beyond that, they grow sturdier and more complex. Climbing the walls like lianas, the structures of this budding metropolis layer on top of each other, and a teeming mass of people bustle back and forth, and up and down.

“What is this?” Steve asks in awe. Lance begins his walk down the city’s ‘main street’, and Steve follows without thinking.

“It’s a place for people to come to when they need to come here,” he tells Steve, without glancing back. The pedestrian way in which Lance says it suggests that he doesn’t even realise the circular nature of the explanation.

“Like… ‘Coreytopia’?” Steve wonders aloud, trying to pull sense from Lance’s statement. He thinks of the Florida mansion that Corey Smith had inherited from Madison Dyson and turned into a sort of refuge for the lost and the needy.

“The comparison isn’t lost on me,” Lance admits. “Nor on Him. Knowing the affection that He has for Corey Smith, it’s entirely possible that the young man has served as a sort of inspiration for all of this. Or perhaps even a beta trial, though that would suggest that this is something ‘better’ than what Corey has provided, and that is certainly not His intention.”

“What’s the difference then?” Steve asks. The ever-widening path runs right through what appears to be a makeshift soup kitchen, with a row of cooks dishing up bowls of food and bread to weary patrons. Lance and Steve are forced to twist and side-step in order to get through without knocking anyone’s meal onto themselves or the ground.

“He is the difference, of course,” Lance says.

‘Of course’, Steve thinks, keeping a lid on his sarcasm.

“He never asked for any of these people to come here,” Lance continues. “Just as He never asked me to come. Or Dani. Or Stan there, behind the camera that’s following us.”

Lance points right down the camera’s lens. Steve had been doing his best to ignore it, but it had been at the expense of not being introduced to the cameraman before the green light turned on (it seemed like it turned on before he even got there). That’s not how Steve likes to operate, so he was glad that Lance was providing this semi-introduction here. Steve offers a little wave, and the camera adjusts slightly - presumably in sync with Stan waving in return.

“Every single person here…” Lance gestures to the busy mob. “…came to this idea themselves. With the exception of you, that is. None of them were asked to be here, Steve; they weren’t offered a place; they put this all together - built off their own backs - based on their own intuition. This isn’t my place, just like it isn’t His. It’s theirs. He may come and go, but these communities… they’re going to be here forever.”

“Wait…” Steve heard something! “Did you say ‘communities’? As in, more than one?”

Lance stops, and Steve didn’t even realise that they had reached the end of the alley, right where a yurt-like tent dominates a T-junction from which more of the cities’ streets branch out from.

“These are cropping up everywhere, Steve,” Lance says, staring deep into his eyes. “Everywhere that He has been. Established by people whose lives He has touched. These people are the counterbalance in the Universe. The lives he touches in the XWF seem to deteriorate, but here? We grow. Steve, I’ve been telling you for days now. So has He. His are the backstreets. His are the shadows. And this?

This is a movement.”

Speechless, Steve stays trapped in Lance’s gaze for several passing moments before a sharp scream catches his attention. He snaps to its direction, back down the path that he and Lance had walked up. There he sees Dani, the woman he met the last time that he was with Lance, standing on top of a box and pointing in the direction of a rat running right towards where he and Lance stood. The people around Dani began to laugh at her, and eventually, Dani relaxed and was able to join in at her own expense.

The rat, meanwhile, bounded right over Steve’s shoes, without making any contact. The door to the tent busted open just in time for it to flit inside, and there, in the centre, is the man Steve was wanting to speak to.

ALIAS.

---

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3B: Show and Tell

Sitting cross legged on a large, circle cushion, across from where Steve Sayors sits on a matching, but slightly smaller one, the man sucks away on an already lit cigarette. Steve had been hesitant to come into the tent after seeing the rat escape into it as it fled the buzz of the burgeoning shanty town outside. It took a fair bit of prodding from both Lance and his BEST FRIEND to get him to change his mind. They both entered first, making a song and dance about their presence to show Steve that there was nothing to worry about, and sure enough there was no rat inside when he peered in after them. It’s almost like rats don’t like the sound of fully grown men crashing about. Weird, huh? Steve was proud as punch that he saw right through their plan, like that. Still, they had addressed his primary concern and even though a part of him suspected that these men were in some sort of cahoots with the rodent, he couldn’t exactly come out and accuse them of something so ridiculous. After all, in his mind, he had a reputation to uphold! He told himself the same thing a million times before - even as recently as the last time he saw this man: Steve Sayors is a professional. And he’s willing to do whatever the job requires.


Silently, he tells himself to ‘calm down’. This is just an extension of his discomfort from being drowned in the smoke. And from the rats. And even the man looking at him from behind the glowing cancer stick. He wonders, ‘why does he look at me like that?’, but then he wonders if even asking the question is part of why this man disturbs him so. There probably wasn’t a correct answer.

“Shoot,” the man says. Steve’s eyes shoot open and his train of thought gets derailed. He can spend as much time thinking about worst-case scenarios as he likes, but the reality is, he’s here, in a tent, within a city of tents, within another city, with a man who doesn’t exactly scare him but just feels… off.

“Pardon?” Steve asks, trying to buy himself some more time to gather his composure.

“You’re here to ask questions, right?” the man recounts. “So shoot.”

“Well, actually…” Steve starts the next part without even thinking whether or not it’s a good idea. He’s a professional! “...You’re the one who invited me here. To see… well, I don’t really know what. I’ve heard Lance’s explanation…”

“You know how he gets.” They say in unison. ‘Jinx, buy me a Coke’, Steve thinks, but something tells him that this guy doesn’t exactly have any coins in his back pocket. If shoes are anything to go by, there are probably holes in the pockets too.

“Right,” he meekly offers instead. “There are quite a few structures out there. I’m not sure they’re exactly up to fire code, so…”

Steve gestures towards the still burning cigarette. The man follows his gaze, and it seems to prompt him just to take another puff.

“In your words, what is this place?” Steve perseveres.

“It’s a family,” the man says. “You know, it’s funny. I never really picked myself as being a family man, but here I am. I found my people, Steve. And they’re everywhere.”

“Lance mentioned that too,” Steve notes. “Where exactly? Aside from just outside the door, I mean.”

“You’d have to ask Lance or Dani, to be honest,” he shrugs. “Canada, Iceland, Spain, Italy, ‘the moon’, anywhere I’ve been, really. Except for France. Of course, right across the U-S-of-A too.”

“You’ve been to those countries?” Steve asks.

“I mean, those are just the XWF ones alone,” the man answers. He’s somewhat surprised Steve didn’t pick up on that. “Not to mention South Korea, Indonesia, Australia, Ancient Greece, heaven, hell, Tartarus, and a permanent apartment in ol’ Lou’s head. There’s probably more.”

“Err… right.” Steve pauses. “So… what’s up with France?”

“I don’t know, man!” he throws his hands in the air. “Last time I was there was 2010 against a guy named Morten Saint. A lot’s changed since then. According to Lance, they just really seem to like that Schism dude there now. I guess I kind of get it. His denim jacket is pretty awesome.”

“Okay…” Steve knows he’s not going to get anywhere with that. “So what does this place do.”

“Do?” the man asks, finally dabbing out the cigarette into a small ceramic bowl to his side.

“Yeah, like… I saw people out there serving food. Is this some sort of program for that? A makeshift homeless shelter? Something… else?” Steve would be lying if he said that a nefarious thought or two hadn’t crossed his mind about all this. All this talk of a ‘movement’, and the way in which Lance in particular spoke with such reverence about someone who at the end of the day - and despite his own attestations to the opposite - is just a professional ‘wrestler’. Steve had seen enough true crime documentaries to know that this sort of hero worship often ends in disaster. One way or the other.

“No,” the man flatly denies. ‘Of course he would though.’ “At least I don’t think so. I’m not the leader here. As best I can tell, there isn’t one.”


“You say that, and Lance did too, but with the way he speaks about you, it does suggest you hold some sort of power, doesn’t it?” In a world full of egos and violence, it’s rare that Steve Sayors gets to feel like a proper journalist, but with that question, he did. Even if just for a moment.

The man smiles back at him.

“You know how he gets,” he repeats.

“Don’t you think that’s a bit of a copout?” Steve’s on the attack now! He feels invigorated! Like he’s just mounted Charlie Nickles’s ex-wife!

“Of course I do,” the man laughs. Steve can’t help but wonder why he is being so jovial about all of this. “It doesn’t make it any less true though. Sometimes non-answers are the best answer that one can provide. And that’s okay! Or, it should be. If this is all of the information that I have, then I don’t know how I could tell you anything more?”

“Is it though?” Steve’s question cuts. “Is it all you know? Let’s not pretend like you didn’t joke about going to heaven and hell just a couple of minutes ago. Let’s not pretend like you don’t tell stories about travelling from city to city via some sort of nexus in reality. If all of that is true…”

“What if it’s not?” the man asks, flipping the script.

“What do you mean?”

“What if it’s not true?” he continues. “What if I’m lying about all of it? Or what if there’s some sort of version of reality that I’m experiencing but am just interpreting wrong? What then? Does it mean I’m lying about what this is? Does it mean that you didn’t just walk past people in need being provided with a free meal? Does it mean that if you walk down the side-street on the right of this tent that you won’t see people being given free carpentry lessons? Or if you go down left of this tent, that you won’t be greeted by the beaming smiles of cheesemongers, fishmongers, and even sexmongers?”

“Sexmongers…?” Steve hadn’t heard that phrase before.

“It’s exactly what you think it is,” the man clarifies. “And some of those mongers had nowhere to go; nowhere to apply their trade. Shit, some of them didn’t even have a trade - they never even knew they had a talent! But now they do. And they’re happy. Whether my side of the story is true or not, isn’t that what’s important? Can’t you say that, wherever you think is going on or has gone on here previously, those people’s lives are unquestionably better now?”

“I haven’t seen them,” Steve admits. And he’s not lying. But his comrade here isn’t either. He knows it.

“Think of your own life,” the Label-Gatherer suggests. “Isn’t your life better too? When was the last time you were beaten up by an XWF wrestler? When was the last time you were chained up and made to watch someone get tortured and torched? I’m sorry for calling that out - feels like I might jinx you…”

‘Wait! No! You’re the one who is supposed to be jinxed!’ Steve thinks. But he doesn’t say it.

“…But shit, man, let’s go a different way with it. When was the last time you got your dick wet? Pretty recent, huh?”

“How did you…” Steve’s mouth was agape. He hadn’t mentioned last night’s ‘action’ to anybody. His memory wanders back to its pleasure. “Were you… wait… no…”

“No,” the man agrees.

And Steve knows.

Thankfully for everyone else, his memory wanders right on past the events of last night. It builds up into a jog. A sprint! Turning back the hours and minutes, the clock winds back in a frenetic spin.

Until…

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3C: High Stakes

Tombstone, Arizona, USA.
29 November 2020.

What a night!

The chaos that had made its home in the tents and cabins set up around the centre of the small tourist town had begun to dissipate, as the rabid crowd went back to wherever the heck they were staying. I thought that I had heard something about campsites being set up to accommodate the attendees, but in my outings around the town in the lead up to this event, I hadn’t seen any evidence of this. Best to stick to the questions relevant to my job, I had thought. And the biggest of those had been answered.

Thaddeus Duke was the new Universal Champion.

What a night, indeed.

What a night for the young Duke, who also took home the Tag Team Championships alongside Doctor Louis D’Ville. On the other end, what a night for Chris Page and Robert Main, who’s monumental reign as Cataclysm was finally over AND Page went home without the Uni. What a night for Vinnie Lane, being rightfully inducted into the Hall of Legends. What a night for Ned Kaye, who took down former Universal Champion Bobby Bourbon and became the new Hart Champion. What a night for the newcomer Charlie Nickles, who showed he is going to be an absolute ‘force’ “LOL!” to be reckoned with for a long time to come! What a night all round.

It had been an adventurous one for me too! It turned out somebody had been impersonating me in the weeks prior. Naturally that had made me uncomfortable (to say the least!), but if there was a silver lining that could be put on it, it was that it didn’t seem to be anything personal. There had been no danger to my personal information, credit cards, or anything of that nature. Instead, the whole ordeal seemed like it was just a cruel, indiscriminate prank to play on a man who had been clearly already suffering. As an olive branch to try and help the healing, I had offered to sit down and speak to the man himself. After all, I seemed to be one of the only people who even remembered him. If I was being honest with himself, I didn’t at first. But the more the man spoke - in particular his references to James Raven - what could be made of the identity of the man became clear.

His name was Alias. And he had only been around for a hot minute before vanishing again, barely having made an impact.

Then.

The interview went as well as one with a man like this Alias fellow could. Probably a six out of ten, if I were to mark it on a scale. That was, until the guy freaked out at the mere mention of Betsy Granger’s name and then spent the rest of the night running around the grounds like a maniac. I didn’t see him in person the rest of the night, but I heard the stories. In truth, I was just glad that I had something to do. Outside of Chris Page, not many people had really been calling on me around that time. I was starting to get a little down in the dumps about it.

With a CLAP! I shut my laptop, having just made my final scheduling arrangements for the next two weeks. I unplugged the computer from its cord and began shuffling the machine and its attachments into a bag which I then slung over his shoulder. My other belongings - including the THREE changes of underwear that my grandmother would always insist I packed for day trips - were already stashed away in the roller bag that was set up beside the open door. I snatched the handle on my way out, and the thing clattered off the wooden step that separated the portable production building from the densely packed dirt beneath that passed for a path.

“Oopsy daisy!” I exclaimed, as the bag nearly toppled over. With two hands I managed to right its course, and set off down the dirt track. The bag loudly rolled behind me. The noise reminded me that I really needed to tighten the nuts on one of the wheels, but every time that the idea seemed to pop into my head, it was in a position not too dissimilar to this: when I was tired, cold, wet, or some combination of the three. The first was definitely the case tonight. Pay Per View days were always exhausting. And though at this time of year the days were relatively pleasant out here in the desert, when night settled in the temperature could drop quite significantly. I was tired, and I was cold. Two outta three is most definitely ‘bad’. I just wanted to go to bed.

The path took me past the marquee that Roxy Cotton had set up for the party that followed Vinnie Lane’s Hall of Legends induction. Everybody was long gone by now - moved on to the afterparty, no doubt - and all that remained were the streamers and empty champagne bottles that a lone cleaner was trying to pack into trash bags. I hadn’t made it to the party - too busy doing my work! Whether an accident or on purpose, I didn’t know, but Roxy never actually invited me. It had been Vinnie instead who saw me nearby when they were discussing it, and told me I should come along. I said that I would try, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be. I did appreciate his offer though. Vinnie had always been nice to me. Out of all of the XWF owners that I’ve worked for - literally all of them - he might be my favourite.

There had been times when I would stop and help clean up after events like this. I knew that workers were being paid to do so, but it felt like people made even less effort to put their rubbish in the bin when they knew someone else would do it for them later. That never sat right with me. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t today. I just… couldn’t. I kept on dragging my suitcase along, flicking tiny clouds of dust up from the wheels that I would need to make sure I cleaned off of my shoes as soon as possible.

I couldn’t tell which security guard was still in the booth as I walked past. Their back was to the window, and they seemed to be watching something on a tablet. I remember thinking that I’d have to try and remember to let the bosses know about that tomorrow. It didn’t exactly seem safe.

Underneath my feet, the dirt gave way to a bumpy chipseal, and I nearly lost control of the bag once again. Bringing it under control again, I made a beeline straight towards where my light blue Beetle was. I rummaged the keys out of the laptop case, and then…

HOOOOOOOOOONK!

The sound of a vehicle’s horn stunned me. Bright headlights stared me down, growing larger and larger with every passing second. ‘Move!’ I had tried to tell myself. But I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.

HOOOOOOOOOONK!

It felt like this was it for everyone’s good pal Steve Sayors.

The wind knocked out of me as something connected with my ribcage. I flew through the air, landing on the edge of the sealed surface and rolling into a looser type of dirt. My laptop came with me, almost choking me as it slid up while I rolled.

The massive truck whizzed by.

HOOOOOOOOOONK!

“Ugh…” I groaned. My head hurt from hitting the ground, and I checked it for any bleeding. It seemed fine, but I had been around people taking head knocks long enough to know to keep an eye out for any concussion symptoms.

“Are you okay?” a voice asked from the ground next to me. I pulled myself up to a seated position, unhooking the laptop from my body in the process to give me more comfort and space to breathe in. There, crouching just a few feet away, was the same man that I had interviewed earlier in the night. A much less manic version of him.

“Yeah…” I said, thinking it to be true. “I think. What… what happened?”

“You almost got cleaned out by a truck,” the man said, pushing up to his feet. He moved in closer, and gently put his hand to my temple as he looked at my forehead. “That’s gonna be a nasty bruise in the morning. You sure you’re okay?”

“A… truck?” I asked, still trying to make sense of it all. “This is a parking lot. There’s only one way in, and one way out. Where did it come from, and where did it go?”

“Sounds like a case for Scooby Doo,” the man shrugged, unphased by the nonsense of it all. He offered me his hand, and I readily accepted. Without any effort on my behalf, he yanked me to my feet.

“Oh no…” I muttered, when my feet had stabilised underneath me. In the middle of the asphalt surface, was my rolling bag.

It was completely and utterly crushed.

I moved, as fast as my legs would take me (which wasn’t very fast at all given the circumstances), towards it. My saviour seemed to float along next to me. Reaching the bag, I crouched down and grabbed hold of the garment sticking out. A pair of My Little Pony briefs.

“Pinkie Pie,” I said under my breath.





Of course it was her. With all of her ‘wacky gags’, which other pony’s face would have stuck out at a time like this?

“You need a change?” The man half-jests. I feel his gaze drop down to the seat of my pants to check for any unexpected stains. I didn’t think anything had slipped loose, but I was still thankful to be wearing dark slacks late at night.

“What am I going to do?!” I moaned, trying to stuff the underwear back into the bag. Something wriggled underneath my hand, and I jumped.

“Relax, it’s just a rat,” he said.

“A RAT?!” I yelled. The rodent poked its nose out of a hole within my bag, and scooted off into the night. “I HATE RATS!”

“You’ll be okay.” He placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Just breathe.”

It sounded condescending, but I did it anyway.

And it worked.

“Here are your keys,” he said, holding them out for me. I didn’t even notice him pick them up from the ground. Mind you, I was too busy falling myself to even notice the keys fall. I took them from him, and he bent down and scooped up the remains of the bag. “Why don’t I grab this for you, and you go get your computer case?”

I nodded. My heart rate had started to come down, but with it, it was like my mind was becoming even more clouded. I couldn’t do much but obey.

Staggering back over to where my laptop case was on the side of the road, I collected it, and brought it to where the man now was with my other bag, back at my car.

“Are you okay to drive?” he asked, checking in on me again.

“Yeah,” I replied, unconvincingly. I tried again. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“Good,” he smiled. I unlocked the car and he helped me load everything in. Just before I hopped into the driver’s seat, I turned around to face this… man(?) before me.

“Thank you,” I told him. I meant it with all my heart. “You saved my life.”

“Don’t mention it,” he shrugged. “Hey, do you have a light?”


~~~


His jaw still on the floor, it all sinks in.

Yes. It’s true. Steve knows.

This is a movement.

“Hey, do you have a light?” ALIAS asks. The hairs on the back of Steve’s neck stand up. A fresh cigarette hangs from Space Jesus’s mouth.

Steve Sayors pulls out a lighter that he didn’t even know he had.

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3D: Charlie No-Nuts

“I’ve heard that it’s rude to talk about people in front of them. Allegedly.

When I did the dance with Lycana back in Novemeber, I spent a fair bit of time droning on about how I was trying to ‘be better’. Honestly? I don’t particularly care about sticking to that - I often find my wants and wishes ride along whichever current seems to take them at that moment.

‘Swept away’, if you will.

Get it?

Probably not.

Ultimately, whichever direction I get washed towards, that seems to make me better in the end by default. Should I try to be more active? Sure. Should I worry about any inconsistencies? Hardly. It’s not a matter of ‘catch me if you can’, but rather ‘make me care if you can’. Dig into the dirt and try to trip me up, and see if I don’t just hop on out of harm’s way. Que séra, séra, and all that. That being said, I figured that the least I could do was channel a sliver of that energy and acknowledge how impolite I’ve been, offering an apology from the bottom of my heart. So here you go, Charlie, straight from me to you:

Sorry I haven’t been talking shit directly to your face.

Not that this is really face-to-face - that comes later - but you know what I mean, right? Using Steve Sayors as the conduit takes away some of the bite, and while I’m perfectly okay with that - almost like I designed it that way - I recognise that you might be feeling a little ignored by it all. Since I know that you got drop-kicked in the head as a baby by that methhead Mama Nickles, and as a result, you need me to explain the simplest of fucking metaphors to you, let me connect the dots. Making you feel ignored? That’s entirely the point, boo.

I’m a giver, baby. Everything I say and do before I get my grubby little mitts on someone, is all about giving them a way to connect with me. Like it’s some sort of grand prize! Noone would know if it is or not, since nobody makes the genuine effort to try and hold up their end; to know what they need to do to be better. That keeps on being my goal though. That much hasn’t changed between putting Lycana back into her place and now, and it’s exactly what I’m applying to this little… ‘exhange’. For you, Char’-Bear, I want you to realise where it is that you exist compared to me:

You’re barely even worth me shitting on you.

Don’t get it twisted, my guy. This isn’t about throwing hands, or even throwing bodies. I’m talking about the very core of who you are.

Impotent.

Desperate.

Pathetic.

And all of that, without the slightest capacity to make anybody feel pity for them. Honestly, that take some fucking skill! Some people, however, deserve what they get. Shit, maybe I’m the same. But what have I gotten? And what have you? Shall we compare dicks?

You got pissed out on the sidewalk here in July of 2020, just four months before I would deposit myself once more on the front steps in a similar fashion. In the time between your arrival and my second cumming, you went on quite the little tear. Shortly after arriving, you got yourself a shot against Robert Main for the X-Treme title, and as you know, X-Treme Rules means no rules! So naturally somebody that you antagonised - Sarah Lacklan - showed up and fucked you over.

That is… you lost.

But never fear! You had a shot against that very same Sarah Lacklan only a few weeks later - vengeance could be yours! In the Main Event of the third night of Relentless, no less!

Err… how’d that end again?

You know.

We all fucking know, buddy. But now compare how I got started. In my first two months - I won the X-Treme Championship. From the guy who took it from the guy who beat you, no less! And when the Universe came a’knocking, how’d that go again?


I fucking took it. By hook or by crook, I took it.

And when Relentless rolled around, in the same spot that you were in… what happened, again? Against a guy who’s beaten you… how many times again?

How’re them dick sizes looking?

Do you want to know what I find funniest about the whole comparison between our stories, Charlie? It’s that I’m not even too fussed about having the accolades. I want the Universe for what it will lead me to, but the rest? That shit’s only useful in situations like right now, where I get to lord them over the head of a rank cunt with delusions of grandeur. Well take a look in the fucking mirror, Charlie. My story leads to triumph. Yours? Yeah you wrangled that consolation prize you’ve managed to stumble into once more from your new friend with benefits, TK, but as hard as your microcock gets from being the Television Champion, we all know you’ve always wished for something more. I don’t hold that against you. Let’s face it, the only thing to wrap around more men’s waists than Goldi last year were your ex-wife’s legs. All I want from you though, Charlie, is to be honest about your desires. You make no bones about wanting the Universal Championship. I know that it’s because Goldi isn’t enough. Goldi doesn’t do the job. Nobody looks at you with Goldi and does anything other than scoff. You walk around like it’s everything you ever wanted, but the reflection I’m shining back at you shows that it’s not.

I am.

Look at everything that happened to me, compared to you. All the accolades that you tried to obtain, I achieved. Just like you, I was that person who seemed destined to take the world by storm. I fucking did. More than the world. The Universe! You know this! You were the Television Champion when I first came in, Charlie. And you’re in the exact same fucking position. Try as you might, you were never able to do what I did. And you gave it a red hot go, didn’t you? When the spirit of Demos jumped on down your throat like my cock hand is going to on Warfare, what happened, bud? Didn’t you happen to start seeing an invisible friend?




And when you put on that gimp mask and started running around embarrassing yourself (again) as Thrax, what was the story you were selling? A mystery man with an unknown name? HA!




I don’t know if you were crushing on me or just ‘inspired’ by me…

Feel free to laugh in TK’s face about that dumbass line of his when you get a chance.

…but either way, I’m really flattered. In a, ‘wow, this guy literally has the worst life I’ve ever seen’ kind of way. And now to hear you talk of Minotaurs like you weren’t trying to get all up in Herschel Kiss’s guts at the urging of a voice in your fucking head… fuck man, it’s like I knew that you had nosedived off a cliff, but that’s a shotgun to the top of the head, right?

Oh, and that cliff? Pretty measly by the standards of my big ol’, dick-swinging’ mountain, but even a ledge is a cliff to a fucking ant, ya feel me?

Charlie is as Charlie does, I suppose. I’m out here pulling out all the classics on the motifs and metaphors front, sprinkling a few more in, and really just re-establishing the status quo.

You’re doing the same, Charlie.

And you’re fucked.

Go ahead, baby doll. Swing at my ghosts like we’re all supposed to have forgotten about Demos and Thrax, or how you’ve shit the bed anytime you’ve been thrown a bone after running out of anyone else to feed to those higher up the food chain than you. You think you’re going to embarrass me? Boy, I get beaten up by The Left Hand. Like a bunch of times. It doesn’t get much more embarrassing than that. But we all know how that ended. Not for them. For me.

X-Treme Champion.

Universal Champion.

Winner of the final match of the final night of Relentless.

Shit, let’s throw War Games in there too, Mr. Only Captain to be the First One Eliminated from Their Team.

It ended with me doing everything that you wished you could. And it’s going to again.

Wanna know how I know?”

(02-27-2022, 01:16 AM)Charlie Nickles Said: Extra extra, read all about it! We have a brand new champion's rankings for the TV division! I know I told you all they were coming after Warfare BUT I LIED, because none of you were man enough to handle the truth! Now sit down and takes notes, because this right here is the whole fucking shebang. If your name ain't on this list you better not challenge me for the TV championship, cah-peach?

#1 Contender: Centurion

#2 Competitor: Unknown Soldier

#3 Competitor: Angelica Vaughn

#4 Competitor: Raion Kido

#5 Competitor: Jenny Myst

#69 Competitor: Vinnie Lane

“What? No room for ya boy?

I’ve been getting down on Savage, man! Seems like you bumped Xavi’ Lux after he couldn’t get the job done against me. That’s a fair shout. But Soldy? I put his ass down just like I did the Exile’s Shittiest Member (not hard, there’s only like two of them now).

So riddle me this, Charlie? Why am I not on your little rankings list?

Because you know.

You know that you’re not taking the Universal Championship from me.

Yes, ‘me’. Go fuck yourself Vaughn!

Just like you know that you’re not getting past me on Warfare. You’re willing to put a literal legend that I put down on that list, but not me. You’re willing to put another literal legend at number one, because you know that he doesn’t have what I have. Shit, Centurion hemself knows that!

Centurion’s the kind of competition you think you can manage.

And Centurion’s careers is the best you can fucking hope for, Charlie. And what did Andy never achieve?

Andy Cortinovis was never the Universal Champion.

So yeah, congratulations on beating Raion Kido. I really wasn’t expecting that. My money’s still on you not even making it to April with the Television Championship. Not after coming into contact with me.

That’s how it works, Charlie. Throw all the fucking toys you want, I said it so it must be true.

HA!

Try to prove me wrong, just like you tried to catch me out on my prediction that you were coming for some blood on Savage. You dropped your fucking nuts instead, and probably view that as a victory. Unfortunately, we all got a good look at your belly, bud, and it’s as yellow as the piss that coated Betsy Granger’s pants the moment that the man came back around. Or the moment Bam Miller heard me call his name. You hear he’s retired now? Fucking classic.

Besides, it’s not like The Nicklecunt can complain, can you? What’s an unstoppable paragon gotta do to get some sweet lovin’, eh? Where are ya, Charlie? Waiting until the last minute as always just so you can get in the final word?

That’s not how this goes.

Not this week.

The final word is only going to come when you run around screaming “OH MY FUCKING GOD I’M ON FIRE, PLEASE SOMEBODY PUT IT OUT!”

Because I did this to my own hand, Charlie.





And ever since, the fires haven’t burned me. But if I’m willing to do that to myself, then imagine what I’m willing to do to you?

What I’m going to do.

It’s just a shame that The Chameleon and Barney Green weren’t included to help fill me up. Oh well, at least I’ll still be hungry for Mark Flynn. And there it is… food. You all know what follows that. But I’ve already said the line, and I don’t feel like repeating it.

Because this isn’t about Charlie Nickles.

This is about a movement.

And with all of Charlie’s inability to understand the metaphors, I thought I’d give him one last chance, in the form of a question.

Are you ready for it?

That’s not the question, bozos!

Nor is this next one!

Well… are you?

See?

…

…

…

Hey Charlie… do you have a light?”

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3E: An Old End. A New Lead-In.

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