Heavy breathing. Darkness.

“...Okay, NK. I’m calm now. I promise. Come on out.”

…

“GET OUT OF THERE, YOU LITTLE…”

The sides of NK’s improvised shelter, made out of overturned chairs and cardboard, caves in from a barrage of blows. But the indent quickly pops back out and is solidified with another layer of duct tape.

“I KNEW YOU WERE NOT CALM, MARK FLYNN! YOU PROMISED AND YET I KNEW!”

Flynn covers his face with his hands. He had been trying for the last half-hour to assault his tag-team partner for giving their opponents a secret strength elixir… apparently MONTHS AGO?!?



…Goddamnit, Flynn KNEW Twitter was nothing but trouble.

Siiiigh. Flynn takes two deep breaths.

“...Okay. Fine. I’m done. I’m done, I’mdoneI’mdoneI’mdone.”

…

The top of the cardboard dome pops off. And NK’s head pops out.

“I am prepared to discuss the terms of your surrender to my superior Korean-engineered box fort, Mark Flynn.”

Flynn sucks in air when presented with the words ‘surrender’. But he counts to 3 and remains calm.

“...Let’s put that on the backburner and start over. What did you give to Dolly, NK?”

NK reaches his arms out and climbs out the top of the box fort.

He hops and gracefully lands before Mark Flynn.

“Special North Korean Super Soldier Serum. Designed to expedite recovery during injuries and improve muscle and tissue strength.”

Flynn pinches the bridge of his nose. This news is so bad, it’s giving him a migraine.

“Okay. Welp. Shit. There goes the plan to exploit Dolly’s knee injury. What abo- HEY!”

Mark Flynn snaps his fingers at NK, whose short attention span has him already painting the North Korean flag on the side of his box fort and writing ‘NK is very cool’. NK spins and returns to full attention.

“What about side effects?”

“...Side effects, Mark Flynn?”

“Every medicine has side-effects. What does Dolly have to deal with? Loss of bone density? Blood-clotting? Explosive diarrhea? Give me something here.”

NK is ghastly offended, his pen goes all wiggly against the side of the fort

“Mark Flynn! Do you believe North Korean scientists to be quacks!?! There are, of course, no negative side effects to the super-soldier serum!”

Flynn sighs… burying his face into his arms.

“The medicine only does exactly as its intended. Generate immediate, increased muscle mass gain to accommodate for injured tissue.”

…

Flynn’s ears perk.

“Increased muscle mass, you say?”

Flynn immediately jogs over to the chalkboard and starts writing…

NK curiously goes to join him beside the chalkboard.

“How much muscle mass we talking, NK?”

…NK retrieves from his front pocket a calculator. He presses a few buttons, then nods, satisfied at his figuring. “Approximately a 20 percent increase per subject, Mark Flynn.”

“And Dolly is 110 pounds. So if she goes into this match at 132, we’re talking about 22 extra pounds she’s not using to moving around the ring with…”

NK thinks, then nods. “Yes, correct.”

“So that fast-paced, zippy offense she likes to break out… She’s gonna need some time in the ring to get used to her new build.”

“Conceivably so, Mark Flynn.”

…Flynn sighs, relieved. He’s found the Optimal Path once more.

“Okay. So. We’re going to shift plans. We’re going to outpace them.”

NK guffaws dismissively. “Outpace Dolly Waters? She is a lightning bolt in the ring! The idea is absurd, Mark Flynn.”

“Normally, it would be. But she’s coming in heavy and we’re countering light. We’re comin’ in hard and fast.”

NK blushes.

“I believe it is YOUR turn to think about what YOU said, Mark Flynn.”

Flynn rolls his eyes. “Shuddup.”

…Flynn finishes drafting the playbook.

“Okay. We’re emphasizing speed and we’re prioritizing takedowns.”

NK strokes his chin delightedly.

“Aha! Most clever, Mark Flynn! If we are quick, their powerful strikes will miss! And from a grounded position, they will be ill-equipped to attack from underneath.”

“Right, that’s the thought. But, we need a little extra…”

NK’s head tilts with an air of confusion.

“Extra, Mark Flynn?”

“Dolly’s the embodiment of radiant joy.”

Flynn grins.

“So, pre-match, we’re going to break her fuckin’ SPIRIT.”

***

The screen is covered in flashing images, and pictures of Dolly’s past triumphs.

“At WarGames 2021, there were a multitude of storylines and talents vying to break out to the top of the XWF. Team Dis-Continuum ranked first overall contained both the ongoing bitter rivalries between Thaddeus Duke and Corey Smith… as well as the match that would main event Relentless that year, Doc versus Alias. We also saw further development in the ongoing feud between Betsy Granger and the entirety of B.o.B… And after SEVEN years away from the company, we saw the return of Mark Flynn, after a fake injury switcheroo by his tag team partner, North Korean War Criminal.”

“But, UNDENIABLY, the biggest breakout star that night was Dolly Waters… who after the early elimination of her team captain Charlie Nickles, led Charlie’s Carnies alongside Robert ‘Omega’ Main, to a victory over the Dick-Powers-Captained Acockalypse Now. By a margin of two whole survivors.”

“Dolly Waters first appeared on XWF programming in mid-2015 alongside her pa, Muddy Waters. The at-the-time TWELVE year old won her first taste of XWF gold shortly after surprising Federweight champion Tommy Wish. Dolly was wrestling royalty, the granddaughter of Misty Waters. The Waters family trailer was the Kentucky, Mid-South wrestling equivalent of Stu Hart’s Hart Dungeon… If Stu sold moonshine out the back of it. And Dolly was a young cruiserweight talent with all the promise in the world… Scoring multiple, albeit brief X-Treme title reigns AND winning the vacated TV Title. Fans could see Dolly’s immense potential, but it was clear she was a little ways from realizing it.”

“But at WarGames? For her longtime fans, it looked like we were there. Dolly looked like main-event talent, catching X-Treme champ Jim Caedus with a Running Waters and capturing her third X-Treme Title.”

“Dolly rode that momentum to a dominant showing in the finals, when she pinned former Universal Champion Bobby Bourbon, dashing the hopes of B.o.B. to win the whole thing…”

“Between the final two teams, Corey Smith and Alias of Team F.U.C.K.T.H.A.D. and Rob Main and Dolly… There were moments where it seemed like Charlie Nickles had picked the perfect team to take WarGames…. And if it weren’t for some interference on the part of ‘Chronic’ Chris Page, who was amidst blood-feuding with Dolly’s teammate… It wasn’t outrageous to think on an even playing field, Dolly could’ve led her team to win the whole damn thing.”

“Dolly’s two eliminations earned her the honor of XWF Superstar of the Month! And with Relentless right around the corner, it started to look more and more like 2021 was Dolly’s breakout year, that her recent breakthrough would take her straight to the top of the XWF!”

Cut to Flynn squaring a stack of papers in his hands…

“Yeah… About that…”

HOW DOLLY WATERS WENT FROM THE BREAKOUT STAR OF WARGAMES TO A COMPLETE FAILURE
Directed by Mark Flynn
Assistant Director: North Korean War Criminal



“So, it’s easy to say Dolly’s fall started immediately after WarGames. But, that would be a lie.”



“Dolly chased her star-making performance in WarGames by taking a surprise win over Betsy Granger, the #5 Ranked Wrestler in the world! While racking up bigger and bigger wins in XWF, she had even branched out to another company, OCW… which had an open-call tag-team tournament, the Margarita Mix, in a desperate attempt to dethrone Thunder Knuckles and Bobby Bourbon, Them No Good Bastards… Dolly and Victor Malvado of the Malvado Brothers, won match after match, taking the whole cup and scoring a dance with the Bastards, a few short weeks after Dolly pinned Bobby at WarGames!”

“Possibly inspired by Dolly’s climb across multiple ladders in global wrestling, XWF CFO Theo Pryce pulled a few strings to pair Dolly with another upstart Mexican wrestler, Latina Submission Machina… Then, he stacked the pair in a #1 contender’s match against the upstart team of Mark Flynn and North Korean War Criminal.”

“Amateur wrestling critic and movie star Sam Elliott predicted that Dolly and LSM would become the greatest tag-team of all-time.”

“The night of Warfare rolled around and… Nope.”



“The duo proved ultimately poorly suited against the old-school isolation-based playbook of Flynn and NK. The two completely dominated LSM… And despite a last-gasp offensive burst from Dolly, a still very green-in-the-ring NK pinned LSM with a dragon sleeper counter.”

“Okay, one loss, no big deal! AND you’ve gotta remember, Dolly had already scored a match against the Bastards on OCW. Winning there would put her right back at the front of the line for the tag champs!”

“Dolly and Malvado came out against Them No Good Bastards full of vim and vigor, taking it to TK and Bobby with lightning-fast offense… But, the Bastards proved too good and for the second match back-to-back, Dolly took her eye off the ball and let her partner get pinned.”

“Okay… Well, no fault on Dolly, she wasn’t taking the pins… Maybe the Bastards are just an unbeatable tag-team?”

Cut to Flynn scanning his notes behind a pair of reading glasses. He looks up at the camera, tugging down on his glasses to look over the rims. Then, he slowly shakes his head, ‘no’.

“The Bastards, who at that point were tag-champs across OCW and XWF… took back-to-back losses, first against another random ragtag pairing: Jason Cashe and Cyrus Riddle. Then against the team that beat Dolly, Flynn and NK. Literally weeks after Dolly missed her chance, the Bastards went from double-champions to double-losers… In the middle of Dolly’s collapse, The Bastards’ ALSO collapsed…”

Flynn leans forward with his hands weaving through the air, as if trying to bat away these criticisms from Dolly.

“Okay… BUT! Maybe tag-team wrestling just isn’t Dolly’s bag! After Corey Smith walked out of WarGames the Winning Captain AND the X-Treme Champ, he walked into his next match sporting a concussion he refused to disclose to XWF medical personnel… Jim Caedus pounced and took the X-Treme belt in an incredibly dominant one-sided showing. Dolly was furious at Caedus’ attack on the injured Smith and was set-up to take on Caedus with the X-Treme belt on the line at the biggest show of the year: Relentless!”

Flynn excitedly flipped the next page.

“Dolly fans had what they wanted ever since Dolly’s debut! Dolly Waters was on an XWF pay-per-view AND IN THE MAIN EVENT!”

…

“I mean, fine, main eventing Night TWO of Three total. But, hey, that still counts!”

Flynn lets loose a nostalgic sigh… Immediately followed by a bitter sigh.

“...Then, tragedy struck.”



“In the biggest match of her career up to that point, Jim Caedus delivered a top-rope Katabasis onto a bed of barbed wire. And as she landed, twisting to pull a last second counter, Dolly bent her knee at an odd angle… and tore her ACL. Doctors would go on to say, it was lucky she was knocked out from the slam and that it probably minimized how much pain she felt from the tissue completely tearing off her thigh.”

“Dolly would go on the injured list, taking a long break to reflect and heal. Doctors anticipated she might be out for six months…”

“Dolly maintained some custodial roles behind the scenes at XWF Anarchy, despite urging from Vinnie Lane and Theo that she heal on her own timeline. The bosses eventually hired Sarah Lacklan to take back her role as Anarchy Commissioner, to forcibly reduce Dolly’s workload. Surely, she’d rest up and come back when she was READY and MEDICALLY CLEARED.”

Cut back to Flynn pinching his temples and exhaling. He shakes his head again.

“Sarah Lacklan kicked off her new reign as Anarchy Commissioner by calling for the Plump Pigeon Tournament, a Round-Robin event tha… Oh my god, Plump-Pigeon, Round-Robin, I just got the name.”

Flynn smacks himself in the forehead, like ‘duh’.

“...Anyway… The most elite members of Anarchy’s roster… As well as a few of the ones that suck… Came out of the woodwork to compete for the Plump Pigeon. Oddsmakers were labelling former Anarchy champ Centurion as the heavy favorite in L block and Vita Valenteen, XWF star and vampire to win S block… Odds were even between the two to win the whole thing!”



“Then, a very late entry to the dance! Just a hair short of five short months after her injury, Dolly Waters declared for the Plump Pigeon! That day, wrestling gambling websites crashed. #DollyBreaksTheInternet was trending on wrestling Twitter. Bookies were desperately recalculating tables and Dolly quickly trended upwards as the heavy favorite.”

“...Admittedly, it wasn’t a competition for a title… And it’s still not clear what the winner of the Plump Pigeon even wins… BUT, finally! After so many finals appearances, so many title shots, it looked like a shoe-in that Dolly Waters was about to cruise into the Winner’s Circle.”

Cut to Flynn face-down, slamming his head against a table, over. And over. And over again.

“After week 2. OF FIVE TOTAL WEEKS, Dolly’s record was 0-2. She came to the ring with a knee brace and a VISIBLE LIMP.”

“She dropped her first loss to Boots Lichter, the previously winless manager of the actively-still-winless wrestler, O. Bay T-Law. Which was followed by a loss to the title-less, accomplishment-less, Jason Cashe. A guy who came to the XWF with his tag partner Cyrus Riddle to beat the Bastards… And has never brought it up again… Since Riddle’s mysterious disappearance.”

Cut to Flynn holding a poster board reading ‘#WhereIsCyrusRiddle’.



“And in the middle of week 3, literally the EARLIEST a competitor COULD CONCEIVABLY be eliminated from a five-week round robin… Dolly Waters was eliminated from contention in her block…”

Mark Flynn purses his lips, clearly defeated.

“I mean, I guess the only upside is, it can’t get any worse, right?”

…

“That wasn’t rhetorical. This CANNOT get any worse, right?!?”

…Flynn sighs. “…Well.”



“March Madness 2022. Dolly Waters decided to reboot one last time. She partnered up with a fellow member of the Waters wrestling family: Former Hart Champion, RL Edgar.”

“This was Dolly’s exact formula for success that led her to tag-team success in the Margarita Mix! They were facing Former TV Champ, Rampage and his new rookie pal, Ringmaster. It was essentially a tune-up match! There’s no way that Dolly loses th…”

Cut to Flynn watching game tape of the match. “...Oh.”

“Oh my God.”

“In an… incredibly one-sided match, Dolly and RL came up… short. Even that feels like an understatement…. Look, I don’t WANT to rewatch this match.”

…

“But, I need to tell you about it, so…”

The color drains out of Flynn’s face… As he presses rewind on the tape…

“Here’s what I can say about the match that’s kind: It was short. We’re talking about 11 combined moves between the teams and about two minutes, fifteen seconds in the ring.”

“Dolly and RL got played by Rampage and Ringmaster’s fast-break offense and got blown out of the ring.”

“More embarrassing than that is Dolly’s non-performance. We’re talking THREE attempted maneuvers… and one successful. Instead of trying to take control and re-establish her narrative, Dolly took a backseat, possibly to avoid further criticisms of her underperforming... And the team suffered.”

Flynn pinches the bridge of his nose, shaking his head.

“And… that’s kinda the saddest part, as we reach present day. We’ve seen over the last six months, Dolly Waters has completely broken down, not even in the ring… But in her mental game. Her confidence is shattered. Her in-ring acumen has regressed to its infancy.”

“And she’s about to step in the ring with…”

Suddenly, NK climbs up from under the desk and sits next to Mark Flynn.

“THE.”

“GREATEST.”

“TAG-TEAM.”

“OF.”

“ALL.”

“TIME.”

“Dolly, go ahead. Get a full swig of that super soldier serum.”

“Enjoy some of Kato’s Chicken Soup while you’re at it! It’s full of essential nutrients and vitamins!”

“Come to the ring with your body all healed.”

“Cuz the mind…”

Flynn and NK both tap the sides of their heads.

“Cuz the MIIIIIIIIND is where you’re still weak. The mind is where we’ll target.”

“You have, but, one chance to avoid this fate…”

Flynn and NK suddenly both extends their arms outwards.

“Dolly, you can destroy Theo Pryce! He has foreseen this!”

“It is your destiny, Comrade Waters! Join us and together we can rule the tag-team division!”

“As Tag-Team Champions… and a third person!”

“And if you will not be turned, you will be destroyed.”

“Only now, at the end, do you understand. Your feeble leg is no match for ISOLATION-BASED TAG OFFENSE.”

“You have paid the price for your lack of vision…”

“And now, young Waters, you will… die?”

Flynn peers forward confused. He walks off-screen.

…

Then comes back with a cue-card.

“It says 'die', here. We’re not going to kill Dolly, are we?”

NK thinks about it for a second…

…Then a second longer.

…Honestly, it’s too long to be thinking about this.

“...No?”

Cut to Black.