Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?

In 2021, the United States government had taken a… special interest in the XWF.

...Special interest?

She means they saw a big gun across the bar and got an itchy trigger finger.

Flynn, you shut your goddamned mouth unless you’re spoken to!

...Redd, that line *literally* only works when your boss isn’t ALREADY SPEAKING TO ME.

...

Monica, I appreciate the reminder, but I remember all this… And Irwin watched it on television. He’s a superfan.

I prefer the term ‘pop-culture enthusiast’.

REGARDLESS!

I’m familiar enough with what happened two years ago.

I don’t need a refresher on my own life.

ALIAS jumped into the future, revealing a future war where the world had submerged into Anarchy…

There was a civil war between a resistance force and

*spoiler alert*

Turns out ALIAS kills Vinnie and Theo and took over the planet.

…

He also ate NK, I think?

Gasp! That’s why they call ALIAS the World-Eater!

…

No.

…

Well, actually maybe.

Can we stay focused here, SMARTASS? There’s an important matter you DON’T KNOW ABOUT!

Oh, you mean…

---

”How were you able to bypass the security protocols, anyway?”

”I had the same question! ChadGPT is designed to do no harm…”

”Haha! That is but one of Comrade Chad’s objective! His first is to be a model of citizenship and inspire the youths!”

”...And *arson* is aspirational for the youths?”

”Wanton, purposeless arson? Naturally not. But! Arson of a capitalist structure like MuskCo headquarters! A tool of oppression of the laboring class! HAHA! There could be nothing more heroic than the destruction of that temple designed to worship capitalism!”

”Haha! Well done, commander!”

”...No! Even if *you* believe that destroying MuskCo is ethical, Chad’s ethical core isn’t self-determined! It’s hooked into Twitter’s algorith… Chad is designed to reflect the value systems of the average internet user!”

”Ah, true… And perhaps you were also aware that Chad may… filter voices his algorithm determines to be detrimental to his cause of ethical behaviour.”

”...Yes. To avoid that thing that happened with Bill Gates’ AI experiment wrestling robot prototype. The thing feel into a right-wing internet rabbithole and started screaming about how the holocaust didn’t happen.”

”And… naturally… to avoid such a phenomenon, you embedded into Chad’s systems… the power to… EXCISE voices that could corrupt the purity of your robotic boy’s soul, yes?”

…

”Oh my God.”

”What? I’m confused, what happened?”

”...He filtered the voices guiding his ethics algorithm to fit his own ethical code…”

”Yes! Now the only voices I listen to are Kim Jong Un’s official twitter… As well as leading Internet communists… And Thaddeus Duke’s twitter, for a little dramatic flair!”

”...Shit. Why didn’t we test for that?”

”We?!? Don’t bring me into this! You’re the analyst!!!

”Haha! Inspired, Commander! Truly genius! However, one question remains unanswered…”

---

”How the Hell is the US Government wrapped up in all this? One second, I’m trying to buy Twitter… Next second, NK is setting MuskCo on fire!”

”Well, Flynn. Since you have such a great memory… you might remember that YOU were our operative we had at the ready to run interference on ALIAS, should he suddenly go on a world-eating conquest.”

”AND YOU FUCKED IT! HAHAHA! SUCK IT, FLYNN!”

…

”You done, Sp-?”

”HA!”

”Fuck off. Yeah, I lost. So did everyone else. I picked up valuable data! And I converted that intel into dominance from that point forward! I went like six months without losing after that!”

”Indeed. Which would have been impressive… If the goal of our operation was you winning in the XWF. We needed you to investigate talent foreign to your dimension an-”

“And be a weird mono-universe border patrol. Yeah, yeah, whatever. ALIAS is gone, Jay Omega split for Vegas, so if you wanna harass him more, get a room at the Bellagio, he and Richards are rolling Chris Page’s dice now… Point being, the extra-universal threats handled themselves. All’s well that ends well.”

“...You think this op ended, just because you walked away, Flynn?”

“Because you threw your partner through an electrical box, won the Universal Title, and stopped showing up for work… That our mission would just die after you left?”

…

“Yes?”

“No such luck. Our operative went AWOL.”

“As in YOU.”

“The operative he recruited had been… *ahem*... compromised to a permanent end.”

“As in… the WAR CRIMINAL.”

“Yet, despite this development… The mission continued.”

“We needed a replacement operative.”

“And that’s where… *throat-clear* he comes in.”

“...He?”



“Hello!”

---

“Belay that though a moment… Elon Musk was hired by the government to program Chad GPT?!?”

“...Kinda sorta.”

“...Kind-of… Sort-of?”

…

“Little of column A, little of column B?”

…

“Look, we signed non-disclosure agreements… We’re really not supposed to talk about… ANY of our work. To anyone.”

“...Ah… naturally, I understand.”

“Phew, good.”

“However, I would like to kindly ask you to forgo this non-disclosure agreement and elaborate fully and completely. Additionally, I would like to remind you both that my current form is a 6-and-a-half-foot-tall, 800-pound robot with the crushing capacity of a small hippopotamus’s jaws.”

“...Right, good point. So…”

---

“Naturally, I wished with my whole heart to own a wrestling company. I approached Theo and Vinnie to buy the XWF outright, with my billions of dollars in net worth… To which, Theo replied…”



“HA! Nice.”

“I was eight dollars richer, but still didn’t have a wrestling company! And I’d wanted one for forty whole minutes!”

“Aw, poor baby Musky…”

“And that’s when it hit me! If I couldn’t BUY the company, I’d take it via hostile takeover! I’d dominate the XWF! With my artificially intelligent wrestling automaton!!”

---

“You’re, of course, referring to Comrade Chad?”

“Well, that was the goal, anyway. Elon figured Chad GPT would basically win the Uni in a week and Theo Pryce would beg him to buy the company off his hands.”

“Aha! Quite brilliant, this plan!”

“...Is it, Commander? It feels like having a dominant wrestling robot may actually increase the value of the XWF.”

“...Hold on, Kato! An idea forms in my mind! Elon’s plan would *actually* increase the value of the XWF!”

“...Well-spotted, commander.”

“Right. And that’s IF Chad set the world on fire in his debut.”

---

“And he DID!”

---

“He did NOT.”

“He did okay, he beat like… Mastermind.”

“And Taylor Rabid!”

“But he kinda just… kept wrestling opening matches on Anarchy.”

---

“The entire Anarchy system conspired to prevent my wrestling automaton from exploding in popularity like I designed him to!”

“Exploding like a SpaceX rocket!”

---

“So, with the slightest impediment in his way, Elon did what he usually does.”

“Kill the project. Write it off as a loss on his taxes and move on!”

---

“Until! The government approached me about utilizing my wrestling robot!"

“...Wait. You tried to replace me with CHAD GPT!?!”

“He worked perfectly for our needs.”

“We needed someone who could wrestle…”

“I CAN WRESTLE.”

“And would follow orders.”

…

“...*cough* Point taken.”

“But, like I said, ALIAS got beat by the Puppy-Adopting-Golden-Child… Like… who are the XWF’s biggest villains right now?”

“Sidney Grey, the star of a reality show?”

“Bobby Bourbon, moderately-stagnant asshole?”

“Corey Smith for cheating on Peter Pan?”

“*sob* Leave the memories alone!”

“I’m just saying. We haven’t had a threat that could destroy an Arby’s franchise in almost a year! Let alone destabilize the fabric of the multiverse.”

…

“Flynn.”

“I’m going to say this with all the patience that I believe I am capable of.”

“Are.”

“You.”

“This.”

“Fucking.”

“Dense.”

…

“You think it’s gonna stay this way forever?”

“You XWF freaks just sit in your backyard with a pile of fireworks and matches… Not reading the labels on any of ‘em.”

“Any time someone wants a go in your little ten-foot-by-ten-foot wrestling ring…”

“Be they good guy…”

“Bad guy…”

“Robot.”

“Alien.”

“Bioweapon.”

“Cthululean ultrabeing.”

“Or whatever the fuck a ‘Roger’ is.”

“Vinnie Lane signs them that minute and tosses them in the ring.”

“The XWF is a time bomb. ALIAS’ disappearance didn’t snip the fuse.”

“It just temporarily stopped ticking.”

---

“But, wait! Capitalist Elon Musk is outspokenly against government subsidies! Surely, he would be principled enough to not accept external public funding for his wrestling robot.”

…



“HAHAHA, a mere jest. Capitalists have no principles. Go on.”

---

“We began implementing and outfitting potential expansions on the Chad GPT system… Even MuskCo’s own developers weren’t aware of our changes.”

---

“OH FUCK! THAT’S WHY CHAD HAS LASER EYES!?! AND SHOT THEM AT A SQUIRREL!?!”

“And… neither of you two thought it was peculiar that your wrestling robot suddenly developed laser vision?”

“Well… At first, we honestly thought we’d fucked something up.”

“We fuck a lot of things up.”

“Software development is a lot of finding out after the fact your math was wrong.”

“Whoops! We put a one where a zero was supposed to go! Now, the MuskCo all-in-one blender is sentient and bent!”

…

“Is that… Is that anecdote based in truth, Comrade Developers?”

…

“So, about our NDAs…”

---

“Okay, okay, I’m putting pieces together. MuskCo made a wrestling robot… Then, some time in April, outta nowhere, the robot stopped getting booked… I assume Uncle Sam wanted to keep its involvement in active XWF talent under wraps… lest it accidentally start a robotic-wrestler-arms-race, huh?”

…

“...Well… Actually.”

“We didn’t order Chad to go into hiding.”

“No one had the notion that the federal government was involved in the Chad GPT project.”

“Turns out it’s a lot easier to keep a secret when your agent isn’t dropping promos about his supposed-to-be-top-secret-work on a biweekly basis.”

“...*cough*.”

“We had assumed Elon’s engineers had caught onto our programming uploads and had put the project under wraps to diagnose potential issues.”

---

“Wasn’t us!”

…

“I mean… Right?”

“No, wasn’t us.”

“Phew, okay, good.”

“We’re two IT guys… We’ve been sitting back and just cashing MuskCo’s checks this whole time.”

“We have no idea why Chad stopped getting booked on Anarchy!”

---

EARLIER THIS YEAR

”ROBOTS?!? On my card!!! I don’t think so!”

Atticus Gold whites-out Chad’s name on the card.

”I have *some* standards!”

…He then writes over Chad’s name, replacing it with A Literal Gorilla.

”Ah. Much better.”

---

“Okay… Wait. Lemme make sure I’m following…”

“So, Chad GPT was originally a vanity project by a billionaire who wanted to whip his dick out on the wrestling world.”

“Correct!”

“But, then the United States government, wanting to keep track of the XWF’s potential destroying the multiverse itself… Then started paying Elon to keep building ChadGPT…”

“In the hopes of stopping the next extraplanar world-destroying entity that XWF would give a two-week contract to.”

“...Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Okay okay okay.”

“There’s just one thing I don’t understand.”

“JUST ONE THING?!?”

“How the Hell did NK get in Chad’s body?”

…

……

“We… uh…”

“We have no idea.”

---

“How do you mean? There must be some logical explanation for why I currently pilot this magnificent, muscular robot body!”

“...Yeah, sure. Buuuuuut…”

“We weren’t on the robotics team! We handle the software, not the hardware!”

“Right. We didn’t build Chad’s body, just his mind.”

“Elon showed up at the office, dropped Chad on our desk, and said make him wrestle.”

…

“Actually… That gives me an idea!”

---

“We thought this project was entirely contained and insulated from external interference.”

“We’ve swept our own servers for hacking or spyware. We can’t figure out how the War Criminal got on Chad’s programming.”

“Plus, our intel said the War Criminal was compromised to a permanent end!”

“If not dead, out of the game for the foreseeable future.”

“And we can see a loooooong way into the future.”

“Well, The Socialist Ghost in the Shell got in there somehow! It’s not like he was on Chad from Day One, right?”

…

*sniff*

“Wait.”

*sniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiff*

…

“I smell billionaire sweat.”

…

“Okay.”

“Everyone in this room…”

“Has to promise not to be mad at me.”

---

“Okay… Opening your logs.”

“Hehe, that tickles, Comrade Programmer!”

“Anything interesting so far?”

“God, I’ve got to cleanup my code… I have a log statement set to trigger every time he thinks the word ‘table tennis’...”

”...Table tennis?”

“Yep. New log just popped up.”

“...Anything WORTH opening his skull and hooking a laptop into it for?”

“...Nothing yet.”

…

“...Wait, here’s something.”

---

“So, yes, at the beginning, I wanted a robotic wrestler!”

“Then, I got feedback that that would be… prohibitively expensive. ESPECIALLY if I wanted an elite-level competitor that could takeover the XWF with an iron fist!”

…

“Then, I saw him!”

“At the 2022 WarGames! The North Korean War Criminal dominated the field! He pinned Peter Vaughn, Mercy and Raion Kido all in one night!”

“Coached by Mark Flynn!”

“The entire world was clammoring for the War Criminal to get a shot for the Universal title!”

…

“Then… someone in this room threw him into an electrical box.”

“...Guilty..”

“...I was already backstage that night. I’d been asking Theo Pryce to invest in my automaton wrestler idea.”

“And he said it’d never work! A machine could never replicate an elite-level athlete.”

“He gave me eight more dollars, then he asked me to leave…”

…


“I walked to the loading dock.”

“Where an ambulance was.”

“Panicked professionals…”

“Trying to load an electrified carcass to the nearest hospital.”

“Trying to figure out if an enemy of the state had health insurance.”

…

“...Wait.”

---

“...All Chad’s files were all retitled in March to chad_gpt…”

“...That’s when we started working on him.”[/color]

“Right. But the earliest files… were created in… August 2022? Seven months prior.”

“Ah! August of last year! What a time! I had just competed with Comrades Game Girl, Calypso and Carnes! We had dominated WarGames! Mark Flynn and I ruled the tag-team division!”

…

“Then, he threw away our partnership. For his own sick individualist ego!”

…

“That’s an interesting… coincidence.”

…

“...Oh.”

“Shit.”

---

“The medical staff were so off-their-game from the surprise electrocution.”

“They didn’t notice my team creep up.”

“And snatch the body.”

“Of the perfect athlete.”

“Of the charismatic communist!”

“The man who befriended ALIAS!”

“He just needed a fresh coat of paint and some face dialogue protocols!”

“And he would become MuskCo’s perfect automaton wrestler!”

“You’re telling me… that NK is NOT joyriding Chad’s body?”

“But Chad was controlling NK’s?!?”

---

A rag rubs across Chad’s caucasian, all-American face.

…

And under many layers of ‘flesh-tone’ grease paint and blonde hair dye…

…

The War Criminal emerges.

…

He smiles.

“Ah…”

“There I am.”

---

I wasn’t lying last Warfare.

I really was a little proud of NK.

Chip off the old block.

Yes, I am a GOOD GUY.

NOW AND FOREVER MORE.

…

But, c’mon.

Who doesn’t love a good scheme.

A great plan coming together.

I mean, you can’t deny the results.

NK has my briefcase.

He coordinated giving my X-Treme title to B.O.B. D.

…And he currently has, in his possession…

My SINGLE loyal fan.

…

I mean. I’m not happy about the last one.

But, all in all, incredible execution.

…

If I may.

As a former villain.

As THE MOST HATED MAN IN THE XWF.

…

Once upon a time.

Let me give the War Criminal a note or two.

…

If you’re going to come at me?

Come at me.

Bring your two fists.

And swing, daddy-o.

…

Even when I was at my most dirtbag-villainy-bullshit.

I stepped up to the hero.

I told them exactly why they were full of shit.

And then we fuckin’ fought.

Man-to-man.

Fist-to-fist.

Iron-against-iron.

An actual fucking fight.

…

NK.

What the fuck have you been doing?

Skulking around in the shadows.

Playing headgames.

Dodging my many, MANY efforts to settle this.

…

If you wanted an apology?

I already gave it to you.

…

Hell, I’ll do it again, if you ask.

…

If you wanted a fight?

I offered that to you, too.

…

Still didn’t want it.

I saw it in your fucking eyes.

…

You had the chance to run down to the ring.

And scrap with a SAPPED Mark Flynn.

Someone who took a twenty-five minute beating from Mercy.

…I could barely lift my fucking arms to make fists.

…

And you still stutter-stepped to the ring.

…

HESITANT.

FEARFUL.

Because deep down?

You know what’s gonna happen, NK.

…

I mean, you excelled in the lead-up.

You always have, bud.

You’re great at shit-talking.

Great at pissing people off.

…

It’s why we made a great tag-team.

People would swat at the loudmouth gnat…

Not noticing the snake crawling up their arm…

Biting into their throat.

And, comrade, you are in FULL FORM.

100%.

Grade-A mind games.

…

Problem?

You’ve never been up to snuff in the ring.

I had to carry your ass for 200-plus days.

Both those tag-belts were mine.

I just let you carry one.

…

Real talk.

Who the fuck have you beaten without me?

Peter Gilmour?

Centurion?

C’mon.

You have a loss to Charlie goddamned Nickles, NK.

I won a glorified handicapped match against Chuckster where he got to bring Marf and I was being weighed down by Jenny Myst.

…

I hope you enjoyed all your time in the shadows.

Cuz the lights are real bright ringside.

Nowhere to run.

Nowhere to hide.

…

Just you.

Standing in the line of fire.

Against Mark Flynn.[/i]