The doctor opened his eyes.

As of late, he's opened them to complete and utter darkness.  Surrounded in it.  Succumbed to it.  Embraced by it.

To exist in the void is like not existing at all.  There is nothing to hear.  Nothing to say.  Nothing to see.  Time stands still and means nothing.

Your thoughts are all you have.

And unless you're comfortable here, your thoughts just wander forever.  Never accomplishing anything.

Not the good doctor.  He never wasted a moment within this place.

He did not dream.

He did not ponder.

He did not sit thoughtless or let his mind wander.

He planned. 

Always watching.  Always waiting. 

He's a patient one.

Through the pitch dark, though, something in the distance began to glow.  It slowly grew brighter and the doctor felt himself drawn to it.  And drawn to it he was.  His body floated through the nothingness of the void towards the light, which became brighter the closer he got. 

An old wooden door appeared, and the doctor found his footing and walked towards it.  It creaked open as he reached out and behind it was a blinding white void completely opposite of the one he occupied.  He passed through the threshold and stepped out into the middle of a cornfield.  The door slammed shut behind him and that was when he noticed the shed that he walked out of.  He took a quick peek inside and it was exactly what you would've expected out of a shed in the middle of a piece of farmland; shovels, pick-axes, plows, rakes…  You get the idea.

Very clever.

The doctor says to himself.

We can only assume that he's referring to his departure from the void and his destination.  Where he ended up and why?  We may never know.

He began to walk straight down a row of corn.  There will surely be a path or an end to this sometime, the doctor likely thought.  It was, indeed, hot.  The doctor's normal attire of the white suit and slacks would be extremely uncomfortable for someone other than him, but he trudged through the soil and muck like it was nothing.

He walked for some time, then to his delight he found exactly what he was looking for!  A road!  Eureka!

Well, a roadway within the corn, but surely a way out of this place!  Then, it's onto figuring out where exactly he ended up!  He made his way down the roadway a short while before, to his delight once again, a truck made its way from the opposite direction!  The doctor felt like the luckiest being in the universe! 

This must be what Raion Kido must feel like all the time!

The doctor stood on the side of the path, waiting with a smile, as the truck came to a stop several feet away.  There were three men riding in the bed of the truck and two inside and they all looked pretty much the same; big, rough looking-possibly inbred-farm handin' hillbilly-tough guys.  The three in the back all jumped out in unison and slowly walked towards the front, all wielding something.

A baseball bat.

A tire iron.

A shovel.

The man in the passenger seat stepped out then and walked behind the others who surrounded the doctor, who stood still and remained delighted regardless of how seemingly threatening the situation had become.

"You lost, old timer?!"

The probable leader of the group shouted from a distance and the doctor leaned in to hear.  He took a couple of steps forward only to be shouted at again as the one holding the baseball bat took a step forward.

"Just stay right there!  Don't come any closer!"

The doctor stopped, then disguised a second of forced laughter with a cough.

Hello, my friends!  I beg your pardon!  I am a bit lost and a bit hard of hearing!  Could perhaps have a conversation face-to-face?

The leader looked around to the others, maybe seeking a reaction from them, and they too kind of laughed to themselves.  Needless to say, they were currently unphased by the presence of Doctor Louis D'Ville.

The leader motioned for the doctor to step closer and he did so.

"That's far enough!"

This was a little better.  At least no one had to yell now.

"This is all private property…  You can't just be wandering around these parts, ya know?  There's consequences to that."

As I mentioned, I'm lost.  If you gentlemen would be so kind and, perhaps, give an old man a lift back to civilization…  We could simply forget this ever happened.

"Oh I don't think it's that easy."

He looked around and the men readied themselves.

"How'd you even get here?"

You know, I'm not even really sure of that.  It's been a little bit since I've been out n' about so that would explain the error…

There's a somewhat awkward silence for a few seconds.

So, how about that ride?
   
"Oh, I don't think so.  You ain't uh going nowhere!"

The doctor let out a long sigh and his demeanor went a bit south in that instant.  The guy motioned for his friends to take care of business, but in that instant the doctor was nose-to-nose with him.


15 MINUTES LATER


"Lemme tell ya again, Doctor D'Ville, we are very sorry for the mix up.  You can beam-up into our shed anytime you feel the need to!  Or our barn.  Or our house.  Anywhere you like!  Are you sure we can't give you a ride the rest of the way into town?!  It would be our pleasure!"

The leader was now sitting back in the passenger seat of the truck with the others loaded in the back and all looked as if they saw a ghost or their own death or something.  They were no longer in the cornfield, either, they're a few miles down the road away from the farm.  Leaning up against the truck was the doctor, puffing away at a cigar.

Misunderstandings happen all the time, my friend, and no need!

The doctor said with a wink.

I will travel the rest of the way on foot, but I thank you for your newly-found generosity.
 




It all made sense now.  He was brought to Lima, Ohio, or close to it, to track down Thunder Knuckles and lead his War Games team to victory.  The doctor was ecstatic to be drafted by one of the founding fathers of BoB, remembering their loyalty to him during his last reign as KING of the XWF.

So, onto Lima it was.

It's not the first time I've walked this road.  It's not the first time for a lot of folks.  Corey Smith's been down it.  Dolly.  Ned Kaye.  Bobby Bourbon.  Our very own Thunder Knuckles and Jenny Myst.  War Games is never anything special, in my opinion.  It's a nice way to shake up everyone and to take everyone out of their own little elements and comfort zones.  Not everyone is able to take change or mesh with someone they wouldn't normally stand with.  That's where you get your Dolly and Corey's and your Team BoB from last year.  Picking with your heart isn't always the answer as the latter proved before.  Dolly may have grown a bit in the past few years but she still isn't mature enough to make any wise decisions.  The poor girl has had her poor heart strings tangled up for years when it comes to my former tag team partners Corey and Thaddeus, and like the spider web of lies and deceit the Duke's and Smiths play…  There's been no escape.  It's the only explanation why little Dolly would be so hasty to pass over myself to take Mister Smith in my place.  She's confused, abused, and like the flow of water…  found the easiest path.  When you're already so trapped, like Dolly does best, it's easiest to just give up.  Is this another half-assed attempt to climb the high mountains only to gain enough momentum to fall on your face and crawl back down again?  Another little Semi-retirement-for-realsy-this-time-party at the bottom where only a few people show up to now?  No one likes saying 'good-bye' to begin with and this girl has made people do it multiple times.  It's evil.  I should forget my office visits and just set up a booth outside of the ring selling pats on the backs for five bucks a clip.  There ya go, feel better, yeah?

What does Corey think?  Is this the way he pictured War Games to be?  I had always blamed him for corrupting Duke.  Heh…  And in turn he did exactly what's expected and turned the blame onto me.  I only wanted what was best for the boy.  He wanted to succeed.  He wanted to win.  He wanted his own legacy.  Those were all things that Corey could've never given him.  Duke couldn't help but to continuously fall back into his shadow, where he would dwell and wallow.  He would drag everyone down around him and piss and moan into a tissue about every single issue he had.  His family would fall back into the darkness with him and let's not even go into his daddy issues.  And where is Duke now?  Finding a means to end his story, with or without his legacy.  I lifted him up and showed him that he could do anything, as long as he would've done anything to get it.  Corey never allowed Duke to use his full potential because, in my opinion, it frightened him.  He didn't like the looks of it so he deemed everything 'Doc' wrong and taboo and convinced Duke to look elsewhere for it.  I ask again, where did that get him?  He lost the Universal Championship.  He lost my Tag Team Championship.  Now, he's lost himself.  Corey would call Duke happy with his current situation…  But in my eyes he cold shouldered Duke straight to a confusing little hell of endless, hollow joy.  Will Dolly suffer the same fate?  Corey couldn't fix a ham sandwich and he surely couldn't fix an already beyond broken Dolly Waters.  She's destined to the same fate as anyone else that's come close to Corey and that's fall into his obsolete shadow and watch as he tries to save you from drowning with a hand around your throat.

Doc pulled a long cigar out from his jacket and lit it when a small poof of flame ignited from his thumb.

I wonder if Dolly picked with her heart when Mystery Man 666 came up?  Surely she had already guessed who it could've been.  Anyone with a functioning brain would've known, and some XWF tenure, I suppose.  For starters, it's not the first time he used the moniker.  The man is so obsessed with SATAN! and made it very well known when together we were known as Doctor SATAN! and dominated the tag team division until he just got up and left one day.  I even think Dolly was around to witness the ultimate bail that forced me to look elsewhere for a partner(s) in the Kings.  Didn't that leave some post traumatic stress following that long dreadful childhood of hers or was that rehabilitated after staying a weekend at Corey's little eutopia?  Ugh.  Unknown Soldier could perhaps be the worst pick in this entire draft, my friends.  The man is a fraction of the competitor that he used to be in our day and the reason being is that he was never able to evolve like the rest of us.  Anyone can see that this is not the same glorious federation that it was ten years ago.  Or even five years ago.  The talent has changed.  The pace has changed.  Nearly everything has changed and it's obvious that some of us from before just cannot keep up anymore.  Unknown Soldier is in the same group as Gator, Morbid Angel, Sebastian Duke…  Heheh..  Jay Omega's watching this saying, 'Who?'  And exactly!  I may have disappeared a time or two in my many years here, but my name still echoes through the halls and my presence still looms.  A mention of my name rattles the very pillars of the XWF and rumbles within its foundations.  Unknown Soldier is merely a ghost that from time to time floats back in to tell a couple of bad "dick-jokes" then disappears again with no explanation.  I'm probably speaking riddles to the final entry in Dolly's bag of tricks, Dionysus.  The fellow's new enough he may not even know who Corey is…  Well, I hope I filled him in a bit up to this point.  Dolly's a train wreck.  Corey Smith has an entire deck of victim cards for himself and anyone else who would like one.  And Unknown Soldier has less uses than a stiffed-up jag rag found under a mattress (was that a dock joke?).  Dio is the newest, last drafted, and probably considered the weakest link on the entire team, yet he has the most going for him right now.  Say hello, my friends, to the newly crowned XWF Television Champion!  One good thing will come out of this for the fellow and that is he will have the opportunity to share the ring with a couple of greats that he hasn't had a chance to do so with yet.  Take myself, for example, and Thunder Knuckles.  I once carried this very federation on my shoulders and to this day feel I am a single yet significant staple that continues to hold the very fabrics of this place together.  Thunder Knuckles, along with his members of BoB, defended this place from invaders and imposters.  When my watch over the tag team division came to an end, due to my lackluster partners, he and Bobby Bourbon carried the torch.  Jenny Myst, most may hate her and she sure stinks of Chaos, but that doesn't erase her accolades as she was and still remains one of the centerfolds to the thriving women's division we once had.  I'd be a liar if I would talk up Mister Mad Dog the same.  I'd be a liar if I said I had a single clue about this fellow coming into our meeting.  But I trust Thunder Knuckles, or should I say, Jimmy's judgment when it came to our final pick in the draft.  After all, he did make sure Thunder Knuckles ended up with your's truly in the first round which was the smartest and probably the greatest pick-up in any War Games draft ever.  He saw the best out there and didn't even have to choose with his gut, he chose with just plain common sense.

When the doctor finally reached the outskirts of town, he noticed the line of semi-trucks all pulling into the trailer park together.

Aha!  It appears that I have shown up just in time!

He continued down the street and entered the park through the main entrance.  He followed the trucks to their final destination where they parked very inconveniently in the middle of the street.  One man popped out of the first truck and walked up to one of the mobile homes and who answers?  None other than ol' Thunder Knuckles, himself!

And here we are!

The doctor may be the single, only person in the world to ever be excited to see this man…  But yes, there he was.

He chose to not interrupt with whatever was going on in the front doorway.  Thunder Knuckles appeared to be yelling at Jimmy and the doctor didn't want to get in the way of a good scolding, so he went to the backyard to seek a way in.

There was an open window that gained you access to the bedroom, but, like the flow of electricity and Dolly Waters, let's choose the easiest path first.  The doctor scans the side of the building once door and BOOM!  There's a back door!  There's no porch to give you easy access and the storm door appears to be painted shut, but it will look a lot less foolish using an actual door to gain access to his shoebox than going head and shoulders first through a tiny window.  So, he reached up and ripped at the door a bit until it came free then, to his non-surprise, the door was unlocked so he went inside.

Jimmy and Thunder Knuckles were still talking with one of the truckers at the door when he noticed a bottle of whiskey high up on a cabinet and a few glasses.  He brought them all down and excitedly began preparing drinks for himself and the others when he announced his arrival:


Hello, my friends!