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El Príncipe · **02-25-2019, 11:51 PM**

The first thing I noticed when my consciousness began to re-awaken itself was the pain.

The sheer pain.

It shook through my body as if it was an instrument to the sheer punishment it brought with it. It echoed across every corner of my body, not halting for even a second until it struck even the core of my body. Moving any part of myself was outright impossible. Only my hand was able to crawl out of the smoldering wreckage, and it hit the solid ground.

That's when the second thing I noticed came to my attention: the downright frigid cold.

It permeated this entire area, and it only accentuated the excruciating pain I was suffering under. The invisible ice pick hacked away at my body, more and more forcing my body to succumb to the elements.

I had to do something, anything from my body to escape this nightmarish hellhole. My eyes slowly scanned my surroundings - absolutely nothing was before me but the midnight sky and trees everywhere.

I tried to use my hand to push me out of the debris, but I was far too weak in this state. Out of options, I had to call out.

"H... Help..." I croaked out to the world. Nothing responded but the deafening sound of silence. I needed to escape before I met my untimely end. Again, I tried yelling as much as my exhausted lungs would allow me to.

"Someone... help... pl-please..." The fatigued words echoing out of my mouth only served to ignite my parched throat, feeling as if it was like scratching sandpaper. One more time. One more time I needed to call out before I resigned myself to this pitiful fate. My hand grasped the ground, squeezing whatever it could of the dirt and dragged me forward a few inches.

"H-help... please!" Once again, the sound of silence was my only comrade in this seemingly never-ending nightmare. My breaths grew more shaky by the second as I wasted my energy pushing myself forward. My eyelids felt more and more heavy.

What more can I do?

Am I going to die?

Is this what dying feels like?

What the hell happened to me?

Finally, as if the universe intended to answer my pleas, I heard rustling. The trees shook, heralding the grand arrival of someone. My eyes managed to brighten a little as two males, perhaps one was a female, walked out. I could faintly make them out underneath the dark sky, but the footsteps and one of them having bright, platinum-blonde hair made it somewhat easier to tell who it was.

"Oh, shit... I guess we found him."

The two pairs of footsteps immediately rushed over towards me. The one with the platinum-blonde hair took me by my outstretched wrist and, as if to display his downright Herculean strength, was quickly able to pull me out of the metal wreckage.

"Klaus, be careful..." the other female said hesitantly as she quickly took out her phone and dialed for the emergency units.

"Yeah, I know, Eve," the one named Klaus said back. He turned back to me with a look of concern on his face, attempting to feel for a pulse. "Hey, don't worry, we're gonna get you some help. You hear that? Come on, stay with me..."

It was too late. Every second I felt my second drifting more and more into unconsciousness. My body felt like an aging, rotting, decrepit skeleton just two steps away from burying its self into the Earth. My eyes slowly drooped closed...

[Image: 78b5ba3a02f65d9a295b9cbec0372883.png]

Klaus Alfssen pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed deeply, reclining back into his chair and staring up at the sterile white light that permeated the room. The sheer, innate boredom penetrated his mind, and he didn't have much to do except raising his iPhone and start scrolling through whatever temporary attention the Internet had to provide him.

Rain tapped on the window, providing just the slightest hint of noise in tandem with the occasional *clicking* of nurses running across the halls to get to whatever patient needed assistance. A walker was neatly folded on one of the walls, unused and eager for attention as it stared at the sleeping form of the unknown man from earlier, his face wrapped as if he was a mummy as his facial wounds attempted to recover.

"I'm back," rang a familiar voice. Evelyn Tanaka yawned as she strutted in through the door, trying to untangled her frazzled hair after a long night with Klaus and the man.

"Took you long enough," Klaus grunted as he stretched his back out. "What did the docs say?"

Eve rolled her eyes as she sat in another nearby chair. "Well, you can never be too sure when a patient's in a coma. But, it is coming to the end of a "normal" cycle where a patient is stuck like this - usually about three to four weeks. According to the EEG, they're confident he's waking up soon - it's just when that's the question."

Another loud sigh from Klaus as he turned to the next site on his phone, which actually was a video from playback.

Engy gets up laughing again. He helps Gator up. Gator with all his remaining strength tries pushing Engy into the corner with all his force, but just as he gets to the corner, Engy stops, but it’s too late for Gator who is following up, Engy gets out of the way, and as he goes by, uses his own energy to push Gator into the rest with such force that Gator’s sternum hits the corner posts. He comes away clutching his chest, trying to breathe.

Engy goes in for the kill… Moving Gator into another Delirium Tremens, this time into a Kawada Bomb. Gator surely can’t recover from this.

1…..

2….

3!

FINAL ELIMINATION: GATOR

WINNER AND STILL UNIVERSAL CHAMPION: THE ENGINEER

The ending of Survival of the Fittest echoed in Klaus' mind. Was this plan going to work? It was the biggest gamble ever, sure, and some would say Klaus was outright stupid for this. But making the stupid choices into the genius choices was his specialty, or so Klaus liked to believe. But, it all hinged on if this man was able, or eager, to join up. Decisions, decisions...

"Again with that wrestling shit?" Eve asked, not even looking at Klaus as she skimmed through her own phone. "I know you've dealt with some crazy shit in the past, but asking a patient who's coming out of a coma soon to start wrestling? What are you on?"

"Well, Eve, after the last five prospects turned tail and left me in the dust, my options have become few and far between," Klaus grunted. "Besides, if my intuition is correct, this man is going to want to get back into fighting shape. And what better way to do that than wrestling?"

"It's not just 'any' wrestling company though," Eve commented as she shot a hard glance at Klaus, who was forced to yawn back from extreme fatigue. "This is the XWF. A place that accepts murderers, criminals, video game characters, psychopaths and God knows what else. I can't even begin to list off the amount of things that could possibly go wrong."

Unbeknownst to two as they continued arguing amongst themselves, the unknown man in bed felt himself rising to reality, slowly but surely. He could feel his hands slowly tighten on the bed sheets.

"And what would you have me do? Alaska isn't exactly a state known for popping out athletes left and right! I'll figure out something else if he just says no!" Klaus angrily said back.

"That's not what I'm worried about! What if he agrees and you two rush into things and he ends up seriously getting injured, possibly killed out there?! You can't just make these kind of decisions in good faith!"

The man could finally feel as if he could control his breathing. His vision was woozy, blurry. He touched his face, only to be blocked by bandages. Why did he have bandages?

"Oh come on, you're worrying too much! It's his decision, he's a big boy!"

"You could be getting him KILLED!"

"Oh, COME THE FUCK O-"

"Uhhhh..." came a slightly muffled voice. "What's going on? Where am I?"

Both Klaus and Eve stopped arguing, slowly craning their heads over as they saw the man, just in a coma not even two minutes ago, now sitting up and looking at them expectantly. Klaus chuckled, calming down almost instantly and walked over to the end of the bed. He leaned on it, looking at the man dead in the eye.

"So. You're finally awake. Kept us waiting, huh?"

A pure dimness fills the room. Spanning for what seemed like miles on end, the sound of silence and the blinding light of darkness filled the room. The cameraman looked around desperately, expecting someone.

After a few, long moments, a click can be heard as a lone light shines above. The dull light shone as best it could, providing it's own sort of safety in the unknown sea of darkness. More clicks filled the room as Klaus Alfssen walked into view, lifting a foldable chair, and setting it down as he sat.

"I quite like this place you know. Dark... mysterious... the known unknown, quite like my client - no one truly knows a damn thing about him, and trust me - I'd prefer to keep it that way. Anyway, it sure took a while to get this set up, huh? My apologies, but there were... behind-the-scenes issues. The producers couldn't get to Alaska, and they kept going on and on about how they need to be there to actually help us cut a promo, disregarding the fact that the cameraman is already filming us 24/7, and... ugh. But enough of our more mundane troubles. No no no, if you're watching this, you're expecting me to talk about my client's match against Peter Gilmour in only two days time. And believe me, I plan to deliver."

"Isn't it funny? Just before this show, management was intent on delivering Hart title shots as if they were candy. 'You get a title shot! You get a title shot!' I can get trying to stimulate a title picture, but... Wylie Sinclair? Arthur Grey? It looks clear to me that management was scraping the bottom of the barrel. But now... now... when the showtime, premier match comes on... you give Peter Gilmour the easiest stipulation allowed to him:"

"He keeps his Hart title match, just if he does... one... little... promo. And he did cut a promo, if you can even count it as that. But promos do not cover in-ring performance. When you look at my client Wednesday night as he defeats Peter Gilmour, I want you to ask to yourselves... shouldn't he replace Gilmour after he outclasses him time and again?"

"Now, I'm not going to be stupid here, Pete - can I call you Pete? We're sticking with it - you have a long list of accomplishments. You have an obscene amount of Xtreme title reigns, you're a multi-time Lethal Lottery finalist, and hell, you're even a former Universal Champion. You are nothing short of a literal living legend. I don't think there are plenty of people here who would argue that point, for better or for worse."

"But Pete... there comes a time when legends expire. They drift off to the road, becoming story as new men rise to the occasion. A man can only stay on top for so long right before he meets that expiration point... and just utterly crumbles."

"Do you want to know what I know, Peter? I know you have hit that expiration point. I know you know you've hit that expiration point. And you're scared it's going to be shown whenever you step in that ring. Why else would you want to just throw away what should have been an easy win against you in Wylie Sinclair by brawling with him backstage? Simple: you knew that even a man like Wylie Sinclair could best you in your current state. But no, better to have the match thrown out rather than face the embarrassment. So you ran. You ran from competition and took the easy way out."

"Is this truly what the fans want to see as a prospective champion? A coward, a broken down husk of a man resorting to not having his matches, the matches they PAID to see just to be disappointed?"

"And another thing I know that you think: You think my client is just another company job man sent to you, to make you look big, bad and strong. Why else would there be such an easy stipulation? Why else would you cobble up a """promo""" like the one you did? You're expecting to waltz in there, and pin my client for the 1-2-3."

"It's not going to work that way."

"I've seen my client undergo brutal training for months now. He has an in-ring style that cannot be accounted for. The sheer grace, the technical brilliance, all of it. In this day and age, my client could finish the job on you faster than you can go line up for an all-you-can-eat Chicken Parmesan buffet."

"Do you want to know the best part though? This, my friend, is just going to be a footnote in the grand scheme of things. Already, my client is looking to March Madness. Already, my client is looking to management and have them make the right call and replace you once he beats you."

"Everyone has an expiration point, where they fade away, and get left behind as a bloody, broken mess that cannot even hope to reach the glory they were once capable of. And you're next, Pete."

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