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+---- Thread: Facing an uncertain future (/showthread.php?tid=35310)
Facing an uncertain future - Mastermind - 11-01-2019
When we last saw Tony Santos, he was in a world of hurt. That Hart title meant so much to him. It was like another drug all on its own. Tony was teetering on the edge of a wharf in Miami, not under the influence of alcohol, but cocaine... a month-long cocaine bender. Tony hadn’t showered and he’d lost all of his money, practically becoming a large street urchin. Tony’s eyes were practically in the back of his head, and a dip into the water would leave him in quite the precarious position.
Just as he was about to topple into the water, a hand grabbed him to stop him falling, and pulled him up to his feet.
He did a stumbling 180, as he looked at the stranger.
Santos: Who are…
"My name is Markus, I'm Mastermind's brother in law. He sent me on a head to find you. He's on his way back from Wales."
Santos: Who the hell is Mastermind to send some fucking in law to watch over me? I don’t need no god damn babysitter!
"Oh he knows that, but judging by the state you are in, you certainly need a friend."
Tony looks back at the man, and smiles that usual toothy smile, albeit a bit wobbly.
Santos: Heh, fucking friends. You know who your friends are, Markus my boy? Money, material possessions, and your own god damn self. The people who have a lot of friends really just pity themselves, and the people with few friends… get it. So don’t fucking pity me. Don’t use me as your god damn charity case. I’m fucking…
Just as Tony continues his rant, he trips over his own ankle, stumbling to the side. He attempts to keep himself upright, but ends up falling flat on his face. He mutters some choice expletives, as he attempts to lift his bare, and very sunburned, head to catch a glimpse back at Markus.
Markus shakes his head as he watches Tony attempt to lift himself to his feet.
"Oh I don't pity you, but I have somewhere you can stay, have a nice hot shower and a hot meal."
Markus jingles hotel keys over Tony’s head. Tony grunts, pushes his entire 200 pound frame up by his palms, and follows Markus. Markus leads Tony to his cool blue BMW M3, pops open the door automatically, and watches Tony flop his barely conscious body in.
________________________________________
Several hours later Mastermibd's private jet lands at Miami Airport and he receives a text from Markus, stating that he found Tony Santos, and they are at the hotel.
Mastermind makes his way to the hotel. He reaches the door and music playing, and Markus laughing.
Mastermind smiles to himself. His brother in law must be bonding with his teammate for Round 1 of Lethal Lottery.
He opens the door and goes in. He is shocked to see the scene in front of him.
The whole room has been trashed. Beer cans lines the floor, Tony and Markus splayed, stone cold drunk. To add insult to injury, marijuana smoke coats the air, so they sit in the clouds, drunk as skunks.
"What the fuck is going on here?"
"Hey bro, you finally made it to the party of the century."
Mastermind is angry, so he gets his men to start tidying up the room.
Tony can be found flopped in the corner of the room, his weight pressed against an ottoman in the corner. He looks up at Mastermind, who is clearly enraged, and lifts a finger in the air, as if saying "let me explain," but before he can, his head flops back to the base of the ottoman, the weight of weed, beer, and a crushing cocaine hangover hitting his brain like a ton of bricks. His eyes trace the holes in the hotel ceiling, connecting each like stars in the galaxy. As he focuses on each hole, they become bigger, and bigger, as the ceiling converges. The holes continue to get larger, and Tony feels as though they will swallow him...
...whole...
...as his pupils dilate. His eyes widen as he feels as though he's going to be crushed like coffee grounds in a fine French press, when...
Reality hits. Mastermind snaps his fingers...
"Snap the fuck out of it dude! We have a match to prepare for! Get your fucking act together. I can't belueve you got my bro in law stoned. Just when he was coming right.
"You can take yourself down after Round 1 but do you have to take other people down with you too? Jesus Tony,"
Tony stares at Mastermind, stunned by his incredulous behavior. The ceiling is no longer caving in, he no longer feels like he's being sucked into a time suck... and he's no longer the legend that many have bowed down to. He's just a man, his flaws the only thing covering his naked insecurities. He's not a Hart champion. He's not the May Superstar of the Month. He's not the Tony Santos, feared competitor. He's just a man, in a tag match, being stared down by a man not ready to deal with his bullshit.
And Tony is floored.
Tony can't manage to muster the words. He just sits in front of Mastermind... speechless.
"Tony, I consider you one of the best Hart champions of all time. You can't just throw that all away and be remembered as the guy who fought hard every Warfare to retain the Hart title.
"This coming Savage, I want to be teaming with that guy. Not this guy sitting in front of me, a former shell of himself. I know that guy is still in there. We have a couple of days to get you ready before we head to Savage."
Mastermind lifts Tony up, and gives him a big ol' smack in the face. Mastermind lifts a stunned Tony on to his shoulder and leads him to his private jet. The scene fades to black.
The next day...
Tony Santos can be found sitting in the middle of the ballroom in the Timberline Lodge. The room is in shambles, with crew members running around frantically, passing equipment back and forth. A portly man stumbles around as he carries a stack of five chairs, practically breaking his back as he drops them to the ground. Meanwhile, aggravated crew members place ring equipment around Tony, passive aggressively trying to get him to move out of the way, so they can meet the deadline that's closing in.
Tony, however, cannot be bothered. He's staring straight ahead, smack dab into the camera. He has deep bags under his eyes, the cocaine binge having severely affected his sleep. His skin looks worn, almost leathery, the heat of a persistent sunburn beaming across the ballroom. He sits in a clean hoodie and jeans, having changed for the first time in a month, as he deflects the cold Oregon fall weather.
The camera zooms in, and Tony continues to stare. After a few moments, he begins to speak.
Santos: One month. It's been one god damn month since I lost the Hart title. One month since I lost to an old has been in Centurion. People were calling me an old has been when I returned earlier this year, and I damn well convinced myself I was anything but that... and for a while, the illusion stood tall. I won the Hart title, and defended it, and defended it, and defended it some more. Hell, I couldn't lose, and I felt fucking invincible. I wasn't washed up, I was in the best shape of my life!
Fast forward a few months, and I got dropped by a spitting image of myself, albeit a more accomplished reflection. I lost to everything I ridiculed, everything I feared. I lost to a legend, a backhanded compliment in the wrestling industry. A sign that you're incapable of achieving success from years past. Hell, you could hear the cracked hips from miles away when they had the "legends" reunion show, and the stench of pure ass kissing is still being wiped off of this place.
And a month ago... I realized I'm one of them, but worse. Because at least these old timers won more consistently, whereas I was the sign of potential. The man who drew concern from potential opponents, but never outright fear, at least from the top dogs. I was juuuuuust a step behind the John Madisons of the world. I was planted in big matches, in the hope that I would ascend to that next level, becoming a top tier contender, and draw big ratings in the process.
And I would always lose. I would always come close, but never close enough.
So when I came back, I truly did latch on to the facade I had constructed in my years away. I was stronger, I was faster, and hell, I was fucking mean. Gone were the days of the smiling, sarcastic Tony Santos, replaced with a son of a bitch with a mean streak and a desire to truly pummel opponents. I was ready to gouge out eyes, tear out limbs, and leave the company a shell of its former self.
And then I won. And won. And won some more. I was back. I was building my legend, rather than looking back on scant success, or minor accomplishments. Nope, I was living that resume, building it with each win, and every vanquished foe.
Tony pauses, looks down at his phone, which sits face up on the floor. He taps a few buttons on the screen, and hits play.
Quote:Centurion does a STANDING DROP KICK on Tony.
Tony knows what's coming as he goes flying backwards, not into the ropes........
but over the ropes..........
and the huge force from the result of the Standing Drop Kick, has Santos flying over the ropes and into the badly effected Glass Cage Wall that he goes crashing through it, and outside of the glass cage.
"Oh my god..... Oh my god.... Oh my god.....After 157 Days of being one of the best Hart Champions.... That's 5 very long months and 4 Days. Tony Santos reign as the Wednesday Night Warfare Hart champion is finally at an end."
"And what a reign it was....Listen to this crowd though, they are giving Tony Santos a standing ovation."
WINNER: AND NEW XWF HART CHAMPION: CENTURION
Tony stops the playback and lifts his head to the camera.
Santos: The same old shit. I lost, and was given the same sympathy treatment every "legend" receives... the same pat on the back of someone whose script has been finished. The "atta boy" as they push you out the door, the coronation beginning for the next hot item.
Except it was... Centurion. The man with a body aging at a greater pace than Peter Gilmour's cognitive decline. And so, I was thrown back into my little cubby hole, a forgotten toy, which would be pulled out the next time Vinnie needed to fill a card.
And man, I was even getting sober. My whole schtick in this stupid place has been raging alcoholism. It was the punchline in many a segment, in the commentary of seemingly every match I participated in, and the easy throwaway line when Lux or Noah ran out of shit to talk about, and needed an easy pop.
And they were right, until I proved them wrong.
And they were wrong, until I proved them right.
Tony lifts his arms into the air, his fingertips tracing the shingled roof above.
Santos: So here I am, after yet another national embarrassment. Filmed out cold, dirty and under the influence of fucking cocaine. You've all seen it before, and it'll be the subject of future punchlines. "TONY SANTOS IN DISTRESS: FORMER HART CHAMPION LOSES TO THE MIAMI HEAT."
Just another fucking embarrassment. My tag team partner pulled me up from the wreckage, for Christ's sake, carrying me here in his private fucking plane, which felt like my living casket, as I laid on a plush couch, practically comatose.
But here is where I pick it back up... and it won't mean shit. I've heard that I'm going to "carry" Mastermind to victory. I've heard many a prediction of Duke and Thunder... Knuckles... yes, his name is Thunder Knuckles... getting their comeuppance to me, the great Tony Santos. And I feel a sense of expectation for this win, my chance to get back in that ring, and eventually yank that title out of Centurion's elderly hands, or even better, take down Soldier and finally take over this damned company like people have been hoping for for a year.
So of course, this win will mean nothing. Why? Because it's all fucking rigged. Thunder Knuckles is selling out for cash, and is planning to show up, and basically lay down. In return, Duke will beat him up, say some big boy words, and puff his chest, proclaiming to the world that he is the best this company has to offer, propped up by the loud mouth "legend," Paul Heyman.
It's a big old fucking con.
I'll move on to the next round, and none of it will fucking matter. Tony Santos, the charity case. The man who could've been great. The...
Legend.
Tony's glare continues into the camera, his left eye twitching, a scab shining under the sunlight emanating from the sun roof. Just then, a drop of blood falls from Tony's nose. Then another, like a faucet you didn't quite turn all the way off. And another.
The drops soon turn into a steady stream, a line forming from Tony's left nostril to his chin, then down to his neck, then his chest, but Tony doesn't lose his gaze, or the twitch. Drip... drop... drip... drop.
Tony lifts his finger to the blood, a drop sitting peacefully on the tip of his index finger. He looks at it, then lifts his palm under his nose, letting the stream collect in the cracks on his hand. The blood forms a pool in his hand, slowly, but surely. After roughly five minutes of filling up his hand with blood, he draws his hand away, and can see a semblance of his reflection on the bloody canvas in front of him. He sees the twitch in his eye, the blood smeared across his face, but he digs deeper and sees the broken man in front of him. He sees a...
LEGEND
Mastermind has been watching Tony speak from off camera. Horrified by the situation he walks on camera and places a hand on Tony's shoulder. Tony keeps staring ahead.
Meanwhile Mastermind's personal physician quickly walks onto the camera, and leads Tony off camera and with a couple of other members of Mastermind's starts sorting Tony out with a check up.
Mastermind looks down at the blood, and starts to speak.
"When I first found out that I was teaming with Tony, I was so ecstatic. Here's a guy I looked up to when he was at the top of his Hart reign.
"But since being with hin over the last few days that reign has come at a cost cleatly, and I am concerned for Tony."
Mastermind looks into the camera.
"Or should I say, I should be more concerned for our Round 1 opponents. Thunder Knuckles and Sebastian Duke. Tony was at the top of his game as Hart champion. In a matter of hours we have this Tony that you saw, and he is more than just a former champion..... He is dangerous.
"And I for one can't wait to team with 'Dangerous' Tony Santos.... the legend.
"We all know that old TK has accepted xbux to take the fall. He still has to wrestle though, and what more of a way to take the fall by being destroyed by 'Dangerous' Tont Santos.
"I guess Tony and I will be heading into Round 2 where we will maybe no longer be partners but at least we will be there unlike Thunder Knuckles and Sebastian Duke.
"But first thing's first. We will see you guys in mere hours and mere horrors will await you. Don't take my word for it, just look at 'Dangerous' Tony."
Mastermind smirks and gets the camera to move over to the right and show Tony Santos looking angry at being given treatment for his situation. The camera then fades out.
Mastermind walks back over to Tony and slaps his back.
"You'll be fine,"