It was always a little different. Beautiful each time of course, but different. A splash of violet here that wasn't there the last time. The sand with a subtle change in hue. But no matter what it looked like, The Beach, that meeting ground between bothCorey and Lux's mind, never failed to be a place of peace and solitude.

Tapping one naked foot in the water, Corey enjoys the simple pleasure of the rivulets of water threading between his toes, the cooling feeling of the pristine blue on his skin. Further out, the calmer water reflected the heavenly cosmic scene above his head, dotting the ocean with pinpricks of starlight.

He saw Lux coming before he heard her, her footsteps disrupting the sand and sending splashes of it drifting on the breeze back out over the water. She greeted him simply but warmly.

Hey.

Hey yourself. Corey shot to his feet, brushing the sand off his pants.

I just wanted to check in on you and see how you're doing.

Amazing! Corey exclaimed, his body shot through with a sort of nervous unspent energy. You've been watching the promos, right?

Lux chuckled. I have. They've been.... her lips part into another light chuckle ….really funny, actually. That poor girl, Sarah. I really do think she thought she was just going to bowl you over.

I know, right?! Corey let out a laugh of his own, stretching his arms out. And I'm not even close to done! I've got so many ideas for how to hype this match! I can't stop thinking of them! My mind's going a mile a minute!

Something flicker's in the woman's expression, but it goes unnoticed by Corey. A nagging in the back of her mind. The budding kernel of a worry. Corey, are you getting any rest?

Oh Mama Bird, don't worry about me. Corey kicked the water, sending a crystalline arc into the air. I haven't felt this good since our little “pairing”. You putting me on point for this was just what the doctor ordered. I feel good. I have purpose. I have drive. I'm doing what I'm good at! Suddenly, he rushes up to her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders in a hug. Naturally, in this ethereal state there's no body to truly hug, but Corey doesn't seem to mind. He breaks from her, but notes Lux's bemused expression. Sorry! I just feel so good!

Lux looks away from Corey and her bemusement drops into a steady etching of concern. Corey still remains oblivious.

Hey, so you haven't really been telling me anything about your next target though? Are you getting close? Do we have to move soon, because I'm gonna have to make arrangements to take my show on the road.

No...no...not yet.... She tried not to sound so distant as she chanced another look at the boy. But this time he wasn't so unaware.

Is everything cool?

Yeah...it's fine. Just...you know, division of responsibility and all that. I don't want to bother you with all the details when you got so much on your plate.

Oh. Corey shuffles in place, and then chirrups. Well you can tell me a little bit, right?

I think it best we work separately on this.

Why are you hiding this from me? Corey drops all pretension of subtle inquiry, and starts to consider her with an air of suspicion. I mean, you haven't said a word about what's been going on. You tell me to go to the beach all the time, and when I am out in the real with you, you hide your work. Now, what is going on?

Lux stays silent, her own mind running test after test on the potential outcomes of what she could say, how she could spin this. But when she took too long to respond, Corey set in again.

Is there something about this you think I can't handle? Lux....I'm doing so good now. You don't have to worry....

You seem manic. Lux blurts, meeting his eye. You told me you had a history of bipolar disorder in your first life and you....you seem manic. Your promos seem manic. You seem manic now. You're a big jittery bundle of energy and your mood is elated. You.... she takes a breath ….you just seem manic. There. She pronounces with finality, seeming none too happy about it.

Lux looks down at the sand, and then the side of his lip curls up in a half sneer. Manic? That's how you're gonna change the subject?

Corey...I....

You're gonna throw my past in my face? That's what we're doing?

I'm just reporting what I'm seeing because I'm worried.

Silence reigns for an eternity of seconds. Corey still hasn't looked at her again. I got work to do.

Ok. It's your turn at bat anyway.

Yeah. Right. He still doesn't look at her as his manifestation fades from the beach, journeying through the mechanisms of their twinned mind to take control of their corporeal form.

Drained, Lux drops down into the sand sitting indian style, wondering when the crash was going to hit, and if the mission could take it when it does.



The shot opens on young Corey Smith who's, well, dressed to the nines. Tuxedo with a tie...

**CHING** **CHING** $422.18 **CHING** **CHING**

...what the fuck was that?

Yeah, sorry about that folks.

Oh, there's Corey again. Perhaps now we can finish setting the scene after being so rudely interrupted? Ah-ha-HEM. Anyway, Corey and his resplendent suit coat, tie, and slacks are currently sitting in a restaurant for which the term “swank” is a gross understatement.

**CHING** **CHING** $212.47 (plus gratuity) **CHING** **CHING**

God damn it!

Corey, looked annoyed but unsurprised by the interruption holds up a finger, pointing upwards at the graphic floating above his head.

Alright, this is gonna keep happening so let me explain. I...uhhhh..recently came into some, shall we say, “financial aid” so that I could step up my promo game even harder. Now, said “financial aid” came with the requirement that I keep all my receipts and file an expense report for everything I spent money on. Unfortunately, I have the organizational skills of a toddler. So I lost the receipts. And I'm praying to God having this damn thing pop up everytime we see something I paid for will suffice.

**CHING** **CHING** IT WILL NOT!**CHING** **CHING**

Corey cringes as the new graphic appears above his head. Crap. Well then can we just dispense with it?

**CHING** **CHING** NO WE CAN NOT.**CHING** **CHING**

Corey thumps his head on the table, and upon picking it back up, continues in an exasperated tone. Fiiiiiine. Well, I might as well get this show on the road then. So, it was brought to my attention that I roasted Sarah pretty hard last time. In fact, it was brought to my attention many times. About 27,436 times by my count. By her “fans” (I like to call them Stockholm Syndrome sufferers) on social media. But, it did get me to thinking. Okay, maybe I was kind of an asshole. Maybe...maybe I even made her cry. And unlike Sarah, I have an actual soul and I don't extract any joy from making someone cry. So, as a gesture of good will, I invited Sarah and her wife Kenzi to a sit down dinner in one of those nice restaurants I know they love so much. And speak of the devil, here they are now!

Enter stage left, “Sarah” and “Kenzi”. And if you haven't figured out by now that its not actually them then maybe you should have listened when your parents told you NOT to eat all those paint chips. But, as they step into view the savvy viewer will see that they are both being played by famous people. Well, relatively speaking. REALLY relatively speaking.

Guest starring.....PARIS HILTON AS SARAH

**CHING** **CHING** $15 (for Herpes simplex cream copay)**CHING** **CHING**

And also guest starring.....TILA TEQUILA AS KENZI

**CHING** **CHING** A SANDWICH **CHING** **CHING**

The ladies take their seats at the table with Corey. Paris has had her skin artificially bleached, her hair dyed chalk white and her eyes have menacing red contacts in them. Corey inadvertently looks up and meets her gaze and instantly recoils.



HO-LEE MOLEY, could you like, look anywhere BUT here? He gestures to his face.

“Sarah” shrugs disdainfully. What's your problem?

Yeah, I think her eyes are totally hot. “Kenzi” looks lustily at Sarah from across the table, molesting her with her eyes.

Corey takes a deep, zen-like, breath and then allows it to pass through him slowly. My apologies. Rough start. Today is about extending the olive branch. So Sarah, I apologize. Corey winces as he fights to meet her gaze, capping it off with a very forced looking smile.

Whatever. SERVANT! She raises her hands and claps smartly twice. A waiter bounds over. We want drinks. I want a vial of virgin blood.

The waiter considers her strangely. I'm sorry ma'am....I....I don't think....

USELESS! Fine, just get me a pumpkin spice appletini. The waiter records the order without gagging. A true professional. Kenzi?

Pabst Blue Ribbon.

You and your shitty beers....

The waiter turns towards Corey. And for you young man, a cherry Coke perhaps?

**Grumble** **Grumble** ...yes, please. He says begrudgingly. The waiter steps away from the table with their orders. Corey heals from the damage to his pride fast enough to keep the ball rolling. Sooooo, ladies. Any big plans for the evening after this?

TONGUE PUNCH MY TURD SLICER! “Kenzi” calls out abruptly, like a small child realizing that they can say “fuck” for the first time. Corey looks at her in astonishment. “Sarah” looks at her with....with....is there a word for “I'm going to pretend I'm horrified by this but I'm such a solipsistic media slut that I won't pass up any opportunity to prostitute myself in front of a camera”? If there is, it's probably German but hell if I know what it is.

**Melodramatic gasp** Kenzi, we are on TELEVISION! “Sarah” follows it up with a long hard look at the camera to ensure it's on and recording.

Mmmmm...sorry babe.

Corey throws his hands out, trying to regain control of the situation. Okay, okay. Fine. It happened, can we just move.... But as he turns to address “Kenzi” he catches sight of her rolling her tongue seductively around the lip of her water glass as she stares at “Sarah”. “Sarah” makes a show of pretending to be aghast while shooting cloying glances at the camera. Corey snatches the glass from “Kenzi” and tosses it over his shoulder in disgust. Jesus you two make me soft! And I'm a seventeen year old boy, a swift wind pitches my tent for me!

Oh shut up Corey, you just wish you could get in on this action!

Ordinarily, yes. But with anyone but you two! You bitches are so basic you might as well be “ones” and “zeroes”! Corey stops himself, throwing his hands over his mouth. Then, speaking through his fingers, he goes on. Serenity now...serenity now....

Come on babe, let's just get out of here. I'll take you home and **bleep** your **bleep** hole while you're **bleep**, and then you can turn around and **bleep** in my **bleep** while the **bleep** watches.

Oh God I hope that last “bleep” was a person.

“Sarah” rises to her feet, doing her best to look haughty. You and your stupid olive branch can get fucked, you little scrub.

Finally, looking utterly depleted, Corey appears to give up. Yeah, well you sound like you talk in Comic Sans.

With one last icy glower, “Sarah” peels away from the table with “Kenzi” in tow. Corey watches them go, looking like he's just glad for it to be over. Drumming his finger tips on the table, he turns to the camera. See! I tried! Oh well, at least the budget's still looking good.


**CHING** **CHING** FCC CONTENT FINE OF $100,000 **CHING** **CHING**

WHAAAAAAT??!! UGH! Was it the “tongue punch” line? It was the “tongue punch” wasn't it?

**Sigh**

Alright, well, moving on. Hey hey, Dolly joined the party! But, seeing as how we're all underage looks like we're gonna have to get a grown up to buy the booze for us. Game Girl, are you SURE you're 17? Because graphics wise you look late 90's at best. Speaking of everybody's favorite virtual wunderkid, did you know that rattling someone's cage=jokey invitation to a gif battle? If that “evidence for getting under somebody's skin” bar was any lower Tyrion Lannister could limbo under it. And for the record GG, were we watching the same promo's? Because I didn't see a whole lot of me getting dunked on by Sarah. On the contrary I couldn't have burned Sarah any harder if I rolled her twee ass out into the sun. She even stopped talking for a whole day, which up until now I wouldn't have considered to be possible. And before you lay claim to being the reason she finally shut up, let's be real here. I roasted her. What you did was more of a hot pocket in the microwave. And I think you know that.

But hey, GG (errr...that's “good going” not “Game Girl”) with the absolutely brutal smack downs you keep laying. What with the gender confusion jokes at my expense and calling Dolly a “cunt”, and those are just off the top of my head, why you are positively cleaning up the "cheap tawdry shots under the guise of well, this is just what we have to do” market. And coming out of your delightfully nostalgic 16 bit mouth it's about as awkward as listening to Fred Rogers say “fuck knuckle”. But you see, we don't actually have to do that. How many cheap shots have I taken on you? How many times have I resorted to calling you a four letter word? Yeah, I'm calling you out, but in a way that maintains my respect for both you and Dolly. So GG (that's “Game Girl” this time), you can say whatever you want about me. I'm a big boy and I can take it. But don't wrap it up in a shiny package of “teehee but I gotta” so you have an excuse for veering disastrously out of character. It's such a cop out. If you're gonna go Full Rated M then own it completely.

As for that little “pulling back the curtain” remark. **Sigh** When we get to know each other a little better I'll give you the whole skinny. But for our purposes, the purposes of millions of viewers and the purposes of a hackneyed mean girl cliché with the body of a 12 year old boy, you do realize it's possible to capture people's imaginations while acknowledging that something isn't real right? I'm not sure if you realized it, but television and film has been doing that for quite some time. I went into this in depth in my last promo, so I won't rehash it here. But a big part of what I do is to give an oppressed people an escape. To give them a world of strangeness, intrigue and wonder that they can lose themselves in and maybe take a bit of inspiration from. The fact that it's a creation doesn't make it any less inspiring than any other piece of art. Your world is real. Hey, that's awesome. No snark. But don't take a steamer on what I do just because I wasn't fortunate enough to be born in a video game, or born with my own inherent super powers. Some of us have to work with what we've got. And what I've got is a creative mind and a passion for crafting one hell of a tale. If you wanna neg me for that...sure. I guess I can't stop you. But everything we see, hear, taste, and touch once started with “one guy or gal with a vision”. Hell, YOU started out as somebody's creative impulse given life. Remember that.

Good call on the weeb sword though. Anime is pretty sweet.

And then we have Dolly Pocket herself. Real talk, Dolly. It's an honor. When I saw that you had finally joined the fray I was so excited I did a spit take....of millions of Vinnie Lane's dead children. Kidding! Don't want to get a reputation now...heh.... And uh, I don't know how you found out but let's keep that little windfall between you, me, and the powers that be, 'kay?

Now Dolly, I was a little surprised you didn't have much to say about me. I figured you could have at least hoped aboard the oh-so-imaginative “you lost your first match” train. But you didn't. No, instead you hoped on the head scratching “Corey thinks that promo's determine match winners” train. Dolly, I'm gonna need you to focus. Because that's not what I said at all. What I said was that Sarah and I were pulling ahead in match build-up. I continued that train of thought by comparing it to the match build up for Main beating Chris Chaos....I mean Main FIGHTING Chris Chaos. Even I wouldn't be dumb enough to think that cutting a red hot promo makes you a lock for winning a fight. I mean, can you imagine a world where things worked like that? HOW STUPID WOULD THAT BE, RIGHT?!

**Crickets**

Right-o. So, closing argument time. GG and Dolly, you're both seriously accomplished in your own right. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that, at one point in history, either one of you had the chops to win it all and be universal champion. I truly believe that. But each of you, in your own way, just...stopped. You had so much going for you and you just went away. When the wind is at your back, you don't give up and stop paddling, you keep fucking going! And that's what makes me different. I keep going. I don't stop. I don't buckle. And I don't give in. I adapt when I need to adapt. What some might see as me “selling out” who I am to engage in a deep down and dirty trash talk battle with Sarah was actually me just boosting my stock by showing I could walk in HER house, put my muddy boots up on her couch, and buy all the shitty cable channels that I want on her subscription. I have been owning her at her own “mean girl” game. Because I can do that. And I wanted to show the world just how many different flavors of fight I bring to the XWF.

Yes, I lost my first match. But I learned from that. I adapted and saw what I needed to do better. You know what most people do when they don't have immediate success in this business? THEY QUIT. But I don't. Because losing is just as much a part of winning as the winning itself is. I've said this before, as Lux, but losing is a teacher. It instructs. And it makes you better and stronger. And it sure as hell worked for me because I went on a tear in my last 5 matches after that. You call me overconfident? Then you're still not reading the winds correctly. Because when you two put your oars down, the winds chose me. Pushing me ever forward. It's a tale as old as time. A new standard bearer pushing his way to the front of the line, stepping on toes and unapologetically biting, clawing and tearing his way to the top. Game Girl, you yourself admitted I was the best newcomer you'd ever seen. That's me Game Girl. That's me! It's my time! You both had your chance to do that, but got half way up the ladder and said “hard pass”. Game over. You had continues left but shut off the console rather than keep learning and growing and fighting. You voluntarily stopped short of mastery. And that just blows my mind.

And I'll tell you something else, maybe I do seem confident. And I'm going to own the hell out of that because I'm owed a shot of confidence. Remember that part of my story where I said I was a recovering drug addict?

That part is true.

At one point in my life I was a couch surfing, directionless, junkie piece of shit. “Confidence” was just a word I was too high to spell. It was the absolute nadir of my entire existence. And being an addict? I don't wish that shit on anyone. I don't know if either of you have experience being an addict, or know someone who was an addict, but...Jesus, there is nothing more humbling. Nothing. Waking up face down on the linoleum in a McDonald's bathroom, pants soaked through with piss. Nothing screams confidence builder like that. Nothing....

Corey's eyes flutter, looking like they're starting to glisten. But he fights it off and soldiers on.

I don't want pity and I don't want anyone tugging my pud about how strong I was to kick the habit. I don't want that and I don't deserve it anyway because honestly my recovery was out of my hands. But here I am, being given the gift of a second chance. A chance I did dick all to earn. Except now, this time around, I find something I'm actually good at. I find a little bit of a platform to entertain people, have some fun, talk some shit, and kick some faces in. And I tell you, every day...every DAY....I find myself feeling like a bit less of a fucking loser. So am I gonna let myself ride this wave for a bit, am I gonna let myself not feel like the biggest unworthy scum sucking piece of shit?

Yeah. Yeah, I think I will. I think I'm gonna let myself be a little confident this time. To be painfully honest, the high's STILL not quite as good as the drugs. But its a start. And if people wanna shit on me for that? Again, I can't stop you. But...can you blame me?

Corey runs his hands through his hair and shakes his head.

Sorry, that got heavy. I'll make up for it next time. See you soon.