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Finn Kühn · (04-08-2023)

OOC: Just going to write this up now. I've been sick for over the past week and it's been really brutal on me. No excuse for not properly showing up but I also didn't want to completely no-show, so I'm just putting out all I can. By next show I should (hopefully) be back to normal. Apologies to Jason Cashe who offered to drop down to 1 RP with me and proved to be a real class act.

28 March 2023
Brooklyn, New York

The welts on my body continued to show and sting, burning a bright red across pale skin. I had to wince as I toweled myself off after a hard training session's work, before slipping on the rest of my clothes. The post-workout gel I had brought with me today had sat right next to my bag, practically demanding to be used, and I begrudgingly had to take it up on its offer out of shame. Serves me right for not coming back to the ring sooner.

First was deciding to handle the Jacki O'Lantern situation, when she was making her move right when March Madness came about, effectively taking myself out of the King of the XWF tournament. While it was my own choice in the end, if she chose to try locking me in another room again to keep me from my match, I knew I'd never hear the end of it. And then letting her inner desire build to a fever pitch and let her hardcore side manifest...

I shook my head as I started pacing around the mini-locker room. Just because she put up a larger fight than usual didn't change the end result. I triumphed, she did not, and that wouldn't change even if we were to fight again. But Skyla, my trainer, had made sure to keep whipping me into shape even in my time spent recovering. Even today, the scars on my body were from her attempts to keep hitting me with the shaft and blunt end of that damned spear she kept toying with. But, I was ready to get back to work, and I had a match in front of me that I was very much looking forward to for a while now...

"Still hurts..." I muttered to myself, rubbing the gel I had with me over my wounds and vigorously trying to massage the area. My focus on trying to look over each of the crimson welts popping up all over my body led me to end up looking over a familiar sight that took this opportunity to creep up behind me-

"Boo!" rang the voice of Christine, taking a measure of delight as she saw me practically jumping out of my clothes with how she managed to get me. Suppressing a small chuckle, she kept a smile visible as she continued, "You still look so grumpy, you know. What, did Skyla beat on you long enough your frown is just etched in stone?"

I gave a small noise of indignation back, finishing rubbing in the gel as I turned to face her. Christine did good work behind the scenes with keeping me in check, but the girl knew how to grind my gears and then some. Skyla was more hard-nosed and would eagerly get into my face to challenge me on things if she saw me straying off the path in any way, but Christine...

Christine was almost like a puppy you'd kick at times with the way she'd look at you. She can get mad herself, too, but it was almost like a parent really being disappointed with you. In some respects, she was worse to handle than Skyla. Though it wasn't like her trying to surprise me out of nowhere was all that much better...

"You act like that's anything new," I snorted back. "You see this? If I have to even look at that shitty little spear of hers again, I might just lose it."

Christine's eyes followed along to my fingers that pointed at some of the crimson welts that formed along my skin, and she winced in response. Looking at me, she found the strength to try and question, "You, uh... think that's gonna help with Jason Cashe?"

Considering my words for a bit, I thought on my opponent for the next upcoming Warfare before giving a small sigh. "Cashe is nothing, if not resilient. But I think he'll take himself out of the match, personally."

"Well, from where I'm standing, he's got more titles than you do in this company..." Christine needled, bringing her finger over to poke at a patch of intact skin, her smile not fading even as she saw my unamused visage.

"An Xtreme Championship reign that's fought against - and lost to - the likes of John Black, as well as being carried along to a tag title reign, is hardly compelling in his favor. He's been going at it for a lot longer than I have ever since my return late last year, and if that's all he has to point to himself being worth much, it's not a lot."

I walked along further into the small changing room, sitting on one of the nearby wooden benches. Sat right next to me was the open dossier given to me for this match with plenty of pictures and information on one Jason Cashe himself. Plenty of noteworthy moments were brought up in pictorial form for the trained eye to see from a glance - there was of course moments of him as the Xtreme Champion as well as winning the tag titles with Raion Kido, but there were also matches such as him challenging for the Anarchy Championship against EDWARD at Relentless, as well as his clashes with Bam Miller.

"You see, what I think is Jason Cashe's problem is that he sticks out like a sore thumb. The Saga like to at least pretend that they're the good guys - hard not to make yourself try and look like that when you're facing those bumfuck idiots with the CCPE. Yet, here you have someone among them who cheerfully and blatantly skirts around the rules to his own whims, trying to use that advantage to win matches. It's yet another person using them as a crutch, from the one force in wrestling that you would think would try and stay away from that nonsense."

I furrowed my brows in disgust, before delivering a deep sigh. "It's hypocrisy at its finest. And because Cashe can't get the job done properly and has to resort to cheap tactics in order to win, once he comes across someone who knows what to expect and how to deal with them, he crumbles. He has Kido backing him up to try and prevent that from happening now that they have the tag titles, but out there come Warfare, he's going to be all on his own. Against me."

"If there is one thing I despise above all else, what I will never show mercy towards, it's a cheater. If Cashe wants to try going as depraved as possible in order to secure a win as he's shown himself being capable of multiple times, he's going to find that I push back. I've got plenty of aggression to work out after handling the nonsense that was Jacki O'Lantern, and I'm more than eager to try and put it to good use."

"If he thinks he's going to easily get one over on me, then I'll be happy to show him why he's the weakest link of his own damn team while I get myself back on track."

Christine was silent as she looked at me, scratching her hair. The weight of it all felt like it was ready to tie a noose around one's neck, and I furrowed my eyebrows as I studied her face. Finally, I managed to ask, "What is it?"

"Doesn't this just get tiring after a while?" Christine finally asked me. Noting my surprise, and perhaps her own forwardness at that moment, she began stuttering slightly. "I mean... uh... y-you mind if I'm just honest-?"

"Go ahead," I sighed out, curious myself as to what she was going to say.

"Not that I agree with what Pumpkinhead tried doing to you to get inside your head," Christine said, "But... it feels like this is all you do. You know? I know that's something you're, like, proud of and all... but don't you just reach your limits after a while? Do you do anything to ever just take a break?"

Christine's words made me flinch as I found myself nodding along. Once I had the match with Jacki in the rearview mirror, I found myself looking back to her words. I had isolated myself from everyone in the lead to that very same match. Sure, I had gotten the win, and perhaps that was something I needed in the moment, but at the same time...

Thinking back to being inside that gym...

The glass everywhere, the bag pouring out onto the mat, signs of my frustration everywhere as it felt like my life had spiraled around me within those few weeks...

Did she have a point? Trying to sustain yourself while living like that was a nigh-impossible task, and I was faced with having to learn that. I didn't want to admit that fact, but having to come face-to-face with it again...

I was left with a difficult option. Deciding to make the first move on this for once, I gave a deep sigh and decided to come to grips with it. I looked up at Christine, noticing her own surprise back as I gave a response.

"Can you show me how to have fun for once?"

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