A bright light overhead shines down upon a steel table surrounded by four chairs, all bolted to the floor. Dixon and Chaos take a seat on either end.

”We’re coming to the end,” Doc says while offering me a seat. We sit opposite ends with Dixon and Chaos sitting at our sides. Is there anything else you gentlemen would like to express before so?

Doc motions towards Andre first…. Who manages to pull his view from the ground and meet Doc’s eye…

Well, War Games is right around the corner and Team B.o.B. is re….oops sorry. I guess I got a little confused since everyone and their mother is telling me that your boy is a part of team B.o.B. and not Team Discontinuum. It’s pretty much all I’ve heard for the last two weeks. How I’m going to fuck over my team and help B.o.B. win this thing. And if I don’t? Well if I don’t then I’ll be kicked out of B.o.B. Can you believe it? I guess I have to believe it because that’s what everyone on the other team keeps telling me.

Then again why would I listen to some unloyal little bitches like Corey Smith and Alias? These guys are supposed to be going head to head but instead they're just jerking each other off relentlessly. North Korean War Criminal is just regurgitating the same shit he’s hearing about B.o.B. and how I’m fighting for two teams. Even though I’ve repeatedly said where my priorities lie. Everyone seems to think Thad is sweating it and constantly looking over his shoulder to see if I’m going to turn on him. Here’s a spoiler for you guys: I’m not. As much respect as I have for my brothers in B.o.B. I know that I am on the BEST War Games team.

Who is there to really worry about? B.o.B.? Nah without me turning on my team to help them they have no shot, right? Estradas Angels? Well...they lost one of the best angels and replaced them with a guy who used to call himself Fuzz. Wow, we are scared. Plus even if they were a decent team their leader is fuckin’ Reggie Estrada. Ain’t nobody scared of them. Charlies Carnies? Nobodies worried about those freaks. A clown is a clown no matter what circus you go to.

Our only real challenge is in the first round against Team Dickriders and let’s be honest their a two man team. Nobody is worried about North Korean War Criminal and nobody has EVER worried about average ass Centurion and his generic ass trash talk which is the same as the rest of his team had to say.

The truth is there isn’t a single team with the amount of talent that we collectively have. We could run through every single team one by one and not lose a single member of our team if we really had to. We have everything a TEAM needs from great leadership to great soldiers. I’m ready to take some heads off. What about you Chaos?

Chaos shuffles around uncomfortably in the seat… He, too, glances up around his team and sits up with a determined look about him.

"I just don't give a fuck anymore. I am done trying to be something I am not. I am worn out, and I have tainted my career trying to be something that I never was. I came in this place, and I was an asshole. I didn't play well with others. I didn't care about feelings, I didn't care about opinions. I was here for titles like a stripper is there for dollars. I was here to burn it down and walk over the ashes.

Then.....well......I started to feel things. I started to like some of you fuckers a little bit. I started to hate what I was, and I wanted to be your friend.

I just almost gagged saying that, I can still taste the bile.

I wanted you all to like me and I....oh my god here it comes again......

*gags*

valued your opinions.

I mean, what the fuck is wrong with me? During this process, I got soft. I began to loathe the one thing that made me successful here....myself. I am who I am, and if you don't like it you can gargle monkey semen and enjoy it. Literally hang yourself with the drawstring from a bag of dicks.

I haven't been truly happy here in years, but its not because of anything to do with poisoning from outside sources, from a lack of talent, from wins and losses....it was giving you all too much credit. It was for looking at all of you as human beings and not complete wastes of fucking time and space. It was from wanting to be a normal social person who actually.....*shudders*, got along with my co-workers.

No more. I am sick of sitting around and watching the Shawn Warsteins, the Centurions, the Robert Main's having ego's the size of Mars, self-entitled pricks whose only object in life is to make others feel as small as possible......and not being part of it. I am sick of fighting for approval, and seeking the one thing I will never get here........

Un-earned respect.

They never have and never will like me, but they damn sure respected me. Where has that gone? Out the fucking window with the rest of the litter. Why? Because I wanted "friends." I wanted to be liked by others because I hated myself.

I hate all of you a lot more than I hate myself, and its about time I nut up or shut up.

I mean, why would I care what guys like Corey think? Guys like Corey Smith don’t matter to me, never have. Hell, I do a better job getting under their skin than anyone else. I love it, I thrive on it. Corey, You already look like one of those socialites who drinks boxed water and gets waiters fired, what else could I possibly do to make you look any worse than you already make yourself look? It’s like if that waffle girl and that sickly kid from stranger things mutated into each other. Eeek. Not a good image, Cor.

We open with you, and many people think we drew a bad hand. That perhaps Dock, Thad, Andre and I have the hardest road to winning this little shindig. Perhaps we do.

I say good.

For too long I have been ducking competition, asking for title shots and favors that I didn’t earn and don’t deserve. It is time I begin to do the only thing I was ever truly good at here…..

Not giving a fuck, and fucking dominating. Thad showed me how much of a pile of mush I have become, and I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to believe that was really me. BUT, it was.

Key word, was.

Because the Chris Chaos you all remember just kicked the fucking door down, and is about to tie up your children and go to town on your wife. Then put a gun to their heads and make you choose the one that lives.

The XWF is very much like the hollow moon hypothesis, it has a substantial amount of extremely empty and very dense interior space. Just look at Charlie and his band of circus freaks. Look at the team of Dick and Dolly, with Caedus and Geri….Jesus that just screams hillbilly incest and moonshine fisting. Dolly is a little slut who has never been able to live up to the hype, Jim Caedus proved in his comeback that his time has long since passed, Dick Powers is a gimmick and Geri Vayden only gained success in this business because she took a now obsolete and meritless title off a loud mouthed cunt with a god complex. Is this really a team I would fear? 5 years ago, I would have spit in all of their faces at the same time and and kicked all four of them in the nuts.

Yes, I said it.

And Estrada’s Angels? That’s cute. They probably want to get paid the same for this event too, don’t they? But its fitting that Atara flaked, it is kind of her MO. But of course, boo thing swoops in and picks up the slack. Warstein is always there to clean up the mess. He is like the XWF’s resident abortion doctor. And B.O.B, the wanna be super villains who get more out of comedy than they do actually accomplishing anything worth writing home about? Please. I was around for AX3. APEX, The KINGS…..B.O.B is nothing but a gang of trolls who make Vinnie money so they are allowed to continue existing.

So fuck your feelings, fuck your opinions and fuck your faces. I am back in a DAMN big way and win loss or draw I am coming to War Games to maim and mangle. The XWF won’t be the same after tomorrow night.”

Doc smiles and looks over to Thaddeus who remains quiet… Staring down at the gauntlet which has been bound to him….

Corey will forever be the thrower of stones at glass houses. His constant false claims, his slander of my intentions… His non-stop whining about my methods… Tell us, please, when has the bottom ever fallen out? When have my methods, whether they be of madness in your eyes or not, failed? Straight up bit me right in the ass and cost me everything! Oh, never? I don’t mean taking a fall or not being the one to win a race to a case, either. I mean straight up blew up in my face.

While ya’ll look back and both you and Alias conveniently pick your spots… I’ll wait… I know the only reason I became King is because… Oh… You guys just didn’t want to, right? Laughing Out Loud. It’s only funny because that’s close to the same line I give Worstein and Main when they start going off on how great they were when no one was around to present a legitimate challenge. And I say that very, VERY loosely. When I say challenge I mean, well, put up a fight I guess. Something as simple as that. You chose not to involve yourselves in March Madness because, much like right now, your knees are weak… The bellies grumble… And you can’t predict the outcome. Alias talks about the force that was behind him BEFORE he won the title and I had a similar force behind me when I was climbing my own mountain. Well, another mountain formed beside the one I just scaled and guess what…. Ya’ll know I’m one HELL of a climber.

Now, I would never put this passed Corey. The guy has proven he will do anything to get what he wants… I’ve personally seen the guy run out of options and ideas and literally do whatever it takes to get his way.
But Alias?

Are we seriously talking about colors? That’s “colors” with a “U”, by the way! I don’t want to look stupid if the subtitles come out mispelled or something. Adjust your television, asshole.

Alias, beating me at May Day is what made you what you are today. It has given you this same aura that you and Corey both are basking bathing together in. It wasn’t the Xtreme Title reign. It wasn’t even the Universal Title. It was May Day. Do you know why I say this and I’ve stressed so much about it?! Because what you thought was over has just begun. Surely your “saga” with the Left Hand went on and on and built you up to be this “Vampire Club Killing Machine”... Thanks, I guess? I had a few “Left Hands” myself back in the day, too! Apex…. AxE… They were kind of the same thing, but not. Basically, just another group of assholes that think they were much further above what they really were. In fact, at least those groups had some significant members…. Caedus… Main… I forget the rest, to be honest. Just another group that thought they had way more traction than they actually did only to be STOPPED dead in their tracks by you know who. Beating you all at War Games may not do it… But just as that nonsense about May Day made you what you are…. You and I will most definitely catch up again soon and erase you just as quick as you *POOFED* into all of our lives.
With the mention of a *POOF*, DOCK snapped his gauntlet and bam!
*POOF*

Did someone say….

NO!!!

DOCK clicks his fingers a few times more and Cadryn Tiberius comes and goes off and on until DOCK manages to beat the glitch and finally *POOF* him away again. DOCK looks around the table to all of his foes friends and takes a deep breath.

Beyond this team of FUCKTHAD’s…. In the finale… I already anticipate the two teams that will surely advance with us. I will say, there is no way that Worstein is going to save Reggie’s Angels from BoB. I mean, it’s elementary, gentlemen. We all know BoB was going to come in with their shit already packed nicely into little packages, together, as one. We knew that. But as I said before, it’s just BoB. The same BoB that thrives on being the Wish.com version of a threatening group. Yeah, you can get some good shit out of ‘em… But it ain’t exactly what was pictured, right?

Now, who else we got? Oh! Jim Caedus versus Robert Main. Isn’t that a funny scenario? Isn’t Robert Main the one that brought Jimmy back in the first place? If they don’t kill each other before I get there then so be it…. I’ve always looked at both of them as the opposite ends of the same joke so… ya know… More misplaced arrogance and pride without DOCK validation. Who else is there? Oh…. Poor, poor Dolly, right? Did both of your boys leave you out of the mix and leave you to get picked up by….. Ew….. The mud under my boot? Oh no, that’s just Charlie Nickles.

I’ll be honest, men, I am not concerned beyond our first bout against Corey and Alias. Concerned probably isn’t the right word, but what I mean is…. Threatened? Uh, no. I dunno. I feel that our “random” draw to face the Universal Champion and a potential one is basically, already, the main attraction of the evening. When we get past them, it will be smooth sailing past ANYTHING that BoB or Charlie’s Carnies… Or Dickpockolypto or Reggie’s Angels could come close to imagining as a solid run.

Just look around this table…. Three former Universal Champions and someone part of a legacy surrounded by the same gold. Look beyond what we have before us and I see nothing but rubble making up the same stone that we’ve crushed and sanded down into nothing over our time here…. Chris Chaos, a former champion. Much like Alias, you got one over the Doc a long time ago…. And what did it do?

Chaos says nothing and holds a stone cold face about it.

You went straight to the top of this XWF and, short of dominating, were the top guy for quite some time…. Everyone can say what they want, but War Games will prove that with a little added spice you can still be the same wrecking machine you were all of those years ago. Do what Corey didn’t and just believe in the fact that if you want to follow us, Duke and I are leaving War Games together in the very end as victors.

Charlie Nickles, Robert Main, Dolly Waters, Dick Powers, Jim Caedus, Bobby Bourbon, Thunder Knuckles…. After we dismantle, destroy, burn not eat, gross the first team we go up against that fine evening…. You can bet ALL of your asses what’s coming for you next. Just like High Stakes. Just like March Madness. The same fellows always seem to be hanging around the top…. And I know I’m ready to take an entire roster of the best we have and show them exactly where their place is….

”Think you’re ready?” he asks.

Sitting quietly for a moment, eyeballing the gauntlet that has slowly felt more like a natural part of my body and less like a heavy accessory. Looking around at the team I have assembled, my eyes settle on D’Ville. Pausing in thought, I remember back when Doc showed me the mirror. When he showed me the teenage version of myself staring back at me. I remember the anger and the frustration. I remember not wanting to be that guy.
Some might say that I’ve always been that guy, that I’ve always been evil… just dressed nice and flashing a fake smile. Being willing to do evil and being capable of doing evil are two different things. I’m not willing to do bad things for the sake of doing bad things. I am, however, very capable of doing very bad things any time it pleases me to do it.

”Yes,” I finally answer.

D’Ville grins slightly and leans forward. Grabbing the gauntlet, he tugs but it doesn’t budge. ”Forgive me Young Duke, but I have my doubts.”

”Stop calling me that,” I insist. ”You know I don’t like it.”

”Why is that?” he asks.

”Duke is my father,” I begin. ”I’m not him. I’m Thaddeus.”

”I once questioned your friend similarly,” Doc begins. ”He needed help in being truthful. Do you need the same?”

”No,” I answer emphatically.

D’Ville leans back and grins. ”You’re certain?”

”I’ve always just been me. Like me, love me, hate me… I am who I am,” I begin to answer him.

”Yet I can’t help but feel a pent up rage, frustration from you.”

I shrug in response. ”Just because I might not say it out loud, doesn’t mean I don’t know exactly what I’m thinking and why.”

”Let’s begin,” he says, I nod. ”As it pertains to the boy in question...”

”Corey,” I interrupt him. ”He has a name, Louis. Use it.”

Doc again grins. ”How do you feel about him right now?”

Considering a moment, ”That his loyalty to me is questionable at best,” I answer.

”Why?”

”I was there for him after his stroke when no one else was. I helped him get better, I helped him become what he is today. I’m not taking credit for him...”

”Shouldn’t you though?” Doc interrupts.

”...but it hurts, that he so easily casts me aside to befriend a man that so openly wishes death on his quote unquote best friend.

“And no Doc, I shouldn’t take credit for him being what he is. I helped him sure, but he did the work.”

”It’s not so different than him claiming to have made you Universal Champion is it?”

”You did the same,” I remind him. ”Everyone tries to latch onto the freight train that is Thaddeus Duke and claim to be the engineer.”

”Why does it bother you?”

”I fucking despise excuses,” I answer quickly. ”I don’t make excuses when I fail and I damn sure don’t like others making excuses when I succeed. It’s lazy. It’s not creative. And it’s altogether bullshit.”

”You hear the rumblings,” he begins a new line of questioning. ”I've fed into them myself and watched opponent after opponent of yours take the bait. They all say I carried you, that Corey carried you. What'd it feel like to be the first person to beat that little shit in over two years?”

Looking down at the table in thought a moment, ”It feels like… Vindication.”

”Why vindication?”

”For months people said I was the weak link in Continuum despite the fact that I just keep fucking winning,” I begin. ”Doc this, Corey that and Thaddeus was the weak one. Thaddeus was the one playing second or third fiddle to both of you in the minds of everyone else. They figuratively deep throated his dick for months because the perception was that he couldn’t be beat and I could.

“Everyone can be beat… Me… You… Corey… Alias.”

“How did it feel to kick that snot nosed little punk in his face?”

I sit quietly for a few minutes, ”Elated. Overjoyed. Insert adjective here.”

”Why?”

”I like reality checks,” I answer him. ”People discount me all the time, I’m used to that. I take pleasure in beating those that think they’re invincible. I take joy in people projecting their insecurities onto me… then showing everyone that they’re wrong.

“Almost chose Alias first… just to fuck him.”

”But you didn’t,” D’Ville interjects. ”Why’d you give him what he wanted?”

Sitting there, I lean forward a bit and retrieve a folded up piece of paper from my back pocket. Laying it on the table, I unfold it then slide it across the table toward D’Ville.



At once, the gauntlet releases itself from my arm. Like a critter or bug, it scuttles across the table and hops onto the gauntlet still intact on DOCK's arm and molds into it.

”I gave him what he wanted Doc,” I say with a pause. ”To see just how weak his mind really is. No passengers?” I ask with a scoff. ”No Lux, no Engineer maybe… still debatable… But he allowed Alias to pervert his mind, pervert his thinking. FUCKTHAD?” I laugh. ”Now that’s true friendship.”

”Thad,” comes Corey’s voice from somewhere behind me. I turn to see him on his knees, still dressed in his fatigues. Standing from the chair I make my way to him. Looking down at him:

I want to thank you Corey… for slowly opening my eyes. It’ll be easy for you, even tempting for you, to sit upon the pedestal in which you placed yourself and blame D’Ville for what’s happening now but the truth is all he ever did was try and show me the real you. I resisted for a long time because maybe I just didn’t want to see it, to believe it.

You latched onto my coattails starting at High Stakes and you never really let go did you? Yeah we worked together to help each other out in that battle royal and I’m positive at the time, that either of us would have sacrificed ourselves for the other.

But how things change, Corey.

Riding my big dick energy for months to reclaim your stardom that… let’s be perfectly honest you never really earned, did you? It was your body but Lux was the star. It was your body and the Engineer was the star. Even today… it’s your body, but I’m the star and you just haven’t accepted it. Others see it now though don’t they?

It’s funny to me when I stop and think about it. Starting at High Stakes all the way up to and through the Captains Match on Savage you were riding my dick. You tried hard to be Thaddeus Duke but you couldn’t quite live up to such lofty expectations. You see me accomplish big things and you wish it was you. You follow in my footsteps like a lost little puppy dog.

Case in point: we lose the tag belts and I move on to claiming something I never held, the only thing I never held and that was the Hart title. Not to be outdone, you tried real hard to be the Savage version of me by becoming the Television Champion and in your first major defense… you drop the ball.

We are not the same.

Your first shot in this War Games contest was berating management for throwing FUCKTHAD and DisContinuum together right out of the gate. You didn’t want it. You know who your betters are Corey, and at least two of those betters will be staring across from you at War Games. You didn’t want it because the embarrassment of getting bounced in the first round is too much for your fragile little ego to handle.

I continue to make circles around this manifestation of Corey Smith.

I, on the other hand, am absolutely fucking ecstatic. DisContinuum couldn’t be happier than to eliminate the Universal Champion and his number one pretender from the equation right out of the gate. I wanted this match so bad I damn near did something I never do. I almost went to my uncle to lobby for it, to make it happen. When I told Doc what I wanted he sat in thought for a minute, No, he urged me. Que sera, sera.

We’ll be okay though, right Cor’?

Leaning down to look manifested Corey in the face and adopting a mocking tone for a moment, Mommy and Daddy are fighting but we’ll be fine…

Well mommy, tell the kids Daddy wants a divorce.

I resume pacing circles around “Corey” and drop the mocking voice.

Alias, you backed the wrong fucking horse and I hope you’re paying attention. I’ve never hidden who I am and you think you have this insight into me that no one else can see? Don’t be ridiculous. Corey says its all about you. He said the same things about me going into High Stakes and Doc was right… he had a dagger pointed at my side the whole time that my love for him blinded me from seeing.

I see it now.

If you don’t think he’s got the same thing in mind for you… you’re sadly mistaken.

Speaking of Alias, Corey says he’s unstoppable and doesn’t know what fuels him.

Again, I lean down and stare “Corey” in the eyes.

It’s HATE you fucking idiot! Hate for me is what fuels him! He spent months quoting me in his promos. He isn’t stupid, he knows what works and he watches me to see what works and that entirely explains his eveloution into the arrogant asshole he’s becoming – because I’ve lived in his head since November. And now Corey, I live in yours too.

Why loyalty to Doc?

He didn’t have to help me. I was getting my ass handed to me by Cataclysm and I was fully prepared to go it alone at High Stakes against them if I needed to. Dolly wasn’t back yet. Corey, you were promoing for the battle royal but you couldn’t be bothered to help out his friend in need when you knew full well I’d been embroiled in a rivalry with Chris Page and by extension, Robert Main. If the shoes were on the other feet… I’d have rolled my ass to the ring in a wheelchair if I needed to in order to help you.

We are not the same.

Doc helped.

And with Doc at my side... I look over at Doc, still sitting at the table. We conquered the Universe.

I have a problem with you Corey, suggesting that I thought I needed you. That I somehow couldn’t function, couldn’t be the best without you. Let’s not confuse the terminology. Let’s not confuse needing and wanting. Did I want you by my side? Did I want to share my successes as well as my failures with you? Absolutely I did.

Did I need you? Did I need you to become Universal Champion? To become Tag champion? To be… me?

Nah man. I didn’t need you then and I don’t need you now. Looking at our recent track records… I think it’s pretty evident, that it’s you that needed me.

Pulling the Luger from my holster I put the barrel against “Corey’s” temple and pull the trigger with a loud pop. Blood and brain matter exit the far side of his head as he falls lifeless.

Continuum, Corey.

But no more passengers.