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Finn Kühn · (08-04-2017)

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step."

~Lao Tzu

Present Day
Mansion of Carter Willaims
Hollywood, CA

The soft hum can be heard of a vehicle driving into the driveway of the mansion of Carter Williams, the location of this story. Jon Williams, the deuteragonist and best friend to the protagonist of this story, Finn Kühn, could be seen staring through the window, tracking the car as it rolled up to the garage. As soon as the window rolled down, a familiar hand shot out and gave the thumbs-up, however the camera is unable to see the full identity.

When Jon noticed the thumbs up, he whips out his phone and begins to dial a number. As soon as the person Jon's calling responds, he says, "Alright, the garage code is [REDACTED]. Get yourselves ready for a bit in there, the mats should be in one of the closets. I have to go get Finn."

The camera is unable to pick up the owner of the voice, however the words "What's wrong with him?" can be heard.

"It's his match at Warfare. Finn's been silent to me and locked himself in his room since he got handed his first loss. I hope he's okay, his title match is right around the corner. I can only assume he's getting mentally ready." The voice could be heard saying something the camera is unable to pick up, and then the phone is hung up. Jon let out a loud sigh, before marching to Finn's room.

"Finn?" Jon yells, giving the door three loud knocks. "You got a visitor!"

"Not interested." Finn could be heard moaning through the door.

"This is important for your match with Neville!"

Silence.

"Finn, I swear if you don't answer, I'll--"

The door squeaks open, revealing a groomed Finn in naught but a t-short and sweatpants. "Where is this visitor?"

Jon smiled as Finn came out. "In the garage, come on," he said, nodding his head towards there. The duo began to walk, with Jon keeping a curt pace as Finn lagged behind, his shoulders slouched. It was evident that following his loss, he wasn't in the proper state of mind. Jon noticed this as he was about to open the door, and yelled, "Finn! Come on! If you want to shut up Neville, you gotta get moving!"

"Seriously Jon, who the hell did you bring in?" Jon responded by smiliing and opened the door.

Finn's eyes grew tenfold once he saw what was in there. The mats were taken out from the nearby closet and were rolled out as if a training session was going to take place. A familiar butler also was there. But those weren't what surprised Finn. No, instead what surprised him was the other figure.

Tanned skin. Buzzed hair. A short, yet striking figure.

[Image: 200_s.gif?dateline=1438444106]

Maverick.

"Ah, you must be the Finn Kühn I've heard so much about yesterday,"

Finn was silent as Maverick smiled. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am--"

"I know exactly who you are."

"Oh?"

"You're Maverick. That fucking title shitter."

Maverick's smile was quickly replaced with a frown. "Ah yes, I can see the whole 'title shitting' controversy is still chasing me around. Tragic. Tell me Kühn, do you know how to watch tape? You'd see X-Pac dumping his shit over the Xtreme title, or Crimson Dong taking a dump over the Hart title, and yet the blame was shafted to me. Disgusting, quite literally."

"Even disregarding that..." Finn shuddered, "...shitty scenario, you were a joke the entire time you were with the company. Rarely ever did you not go out there and make a mockery of the sport."

Maverick's face turned into one of disgust. "If you truly know of my record, then you must know I'm a former Xtreme Champion. Former Hart Champion. Former Tag Team Champion with Scully. Aside from winning the big one, I've done a lot here."

Finn frowned in response. "Yes, you immediately dropped the Xtreme Championship in two days to Vinnie Lane--"

"With trickery. Not to mention, Lane isn't one to talk considering he immediately lost the title to Evertrust's wizardry."

"Right. And then with the Tag Team titles you lost them immediately to the Shit Squad, namely consisting of our Universal Champion," Finn shivers once more, "Blingsteen."

"Bruce Blingsteen won the Universal Championship while I was away? Jesus, this company went to shit. Er, pardon the pun, I assure you that was unintentional."

"Not Bruce, actually," Finn chuckled. "Brucette."

"Blingsteen's a girl?!" Maverick was unable to supress his laughter, soon getting on all fours. "Holy shit, this is great."

"I know, right? Anyway, your only real title reign was with the Hart Championship, which admittedly you held for a good while."

"There's more than title reigns here. I was in the main event of War Games 2015. I was main eventing Monday Night Madness - that's the predecessor of Savage Saturday Night, for those who don't know - frequently while I was Hart Champion. I was one of the leading defenders of the XWF during the CCWF invasion, and until I dropped the Hart Championship, I was a top contender for the Universal Championship, even facing Vinnie Lane in the main event of Back in Black."

"You can mock me for things all you want, but if there's one thing I won't tolerate, it's people making a mockery of my in-ring career. And evidently, I've done more than you can dream of currently, Mister Two, One and nil."

Finn crossed his arms. "Fine, you've done more that what I, a rookie who has had three matches so far, have done so far. But I beg the question, how the hell did you get this address?"

"Your friend there," Maverick said, pointing to Jon, who sheepishly smiled as Finn locked eyes with him,"told me to help you train for your title match. And it's time for lesson number 1--"

"Ugh. I've had enough of lessons. That cocksucker Neville always tries 'educating' people."

"Ah yes, Neville Sinclair. During my time away from the company, I remember hearing his name. I assure you however, these lessons will only serve to help you, unlike Neville's balderdash gibberish."

"Fine. I guess I'm doing nothing now. Go on."

"Lesson One: Resourcefulness. If you truly want to excel as a champion, you must be prepared to accept any and all opportunities to allow you to drive forward on the road to success. This includes training sessions with XWF Legends, perhaps cheating to win in a match, et cetra. Now, Neville went ahead and tried bringing me into this, saying you're becoming dependent based off of relying on me--"

"That little shit said that about me?!" to which Maverick gravely nodded. "Is he

? There's only two solutions to this: Either Neville's lying about being a genius, teaching at universities, et cetra, because there's no way a university would bring in a failure like him to teach students, or Neville's just so

he believes he's 'smart' and 'intelligent' when really those words actually equate to 'moronic' and 'mentally challenged.' And trust me, if I were to jump to Neville's IQ right now I'd be committing suicide."

Maverick smiled. "That's the fire your friend told me to expect. However, Neville does have a point. There's a fine line between resourcefulness, and dependency. You can't come to rely on your friends all the time. You can't rely on cheating to win a close battle. Being dependent on any strategy or on any friend is a sign of weakness. If someone takes that away from you, you're left as a house without it's foundation, which will ultimately crumble."

As Finn nodded, knowing he needed to remember those words, Maverick clapped his hands together. "Right! That's enough of a lecture currently. It's time we actually get to the wrestling. We might as well do this under Television title rules given that that's the title you're about to contend for. You, Jon." Maverick pointed at Jon who seemed hesitant.

"You'll be the referee. Gerald?"

The familiar butler from before made himself known, responding, "Yes, Master Solomon?"

"You'll be the timekeeper. Let us know when to start."

As Gerald pulled out his phone to start the timer, Maverick seemed lost in thought. Finn waved his hand in front of Maverick's face. No response. It was only when Gerald yelled, "Ready to start, Master Solomon!", Maverick snapped out of it and replied, "Mmm? Ah yes, let's begin."

Finn noticed Maverick's eyes- which were normally blue- were now a stormy gray. Not only that, but his aura changed, turning from a regal-yet-full-of-himself wrestler into a grizzled veteran who knew exactly thirteen ways to twist you into a pretzel, as well as nine ways to turn you inside out. As Finn and Mav paced around on the training mats, Finn couldn't help but note that he was out of his league.

"When I said you were

earlier, Neville, I didn't know you were this far down on the rabbit hole. To be honest, I expected a lot better from you. You're a walking fucking contradiction, moreso than even Peter Gilimour. So congrats. Pat yourself on the back. I mean seriously, it takes a special kind of idiocy to be on your level, Neville. I wonder if those shots of Scotch are doing direct damage to your brain cells?"

"Where do I start with those clusterfucks called promos you did this week? Why not at the beginning? You proclaim to 'shoot for greatness,' separate myself from the pack, make XWF exciting. And I try to shoot for greatness, achieve the highest achievement this industry has to offer in the Universal Championship, and like a little six-year old- ironic considering what you compared me to in your promos- you essentially say 'no no no that's not how you do it!!1!'"

"Instead you tell me to 'shoot for what I'm able for,' telling me to focus on this match essentially and how I was a fool for passing this chance up when Lane supposedly had to persuade me into taking this match."

"..."

"I'm sorry, what? You mean when Lane told me this was gonna be my first main event, when the Television Championship main eventing has been essentially tradition for a while now sans last week when there was a Universal title match? That's persusasion? Are you daft?"

"Then you also tell me to 'figure out who I am,' going after my little incident at the hospital following my car crash, going on about how everyone's done that at one point or another, and fine. You may be right. But you yourself shouldn't talk, considering you're a generic asshole with money that he got from seemingly nowhere and proclaims his smarts. How many people have we had like that? I already beat Herjavech, what differences are you offering here? You're slightly more intelligent and you have a haunted house or something? You don't try and act like a spoopy dude?"

"Oh man, I haven't even went into your rant on 'dependency' like how I brushed on it before. You're coming after me for something I didn't even do. Jon was the one who called in Maverick, yet you proclaim that I'm depending on people yet I've only had three matches, blah-blah-blah. If you're going to try and go after me for my actions, at least make sure I actually did them and don't make yourself look like more of a

in the process."

"The best part is that I haven't even gotten to the icing on the cake-- you actually said I played things up out of proportion, overreacting if you will, citing what happened between us after Warfare as an example. Oh, you mean the exact example I outright said I was cool, calm and collected? The only reason I went after you is because you can't comprehend simple vocabulary. You dispute me using the term 'fluke' even though I gave an adequate explanation as to why I used that word. You dispute me using 'lightning not striking twice' even though that was a simple, common saying everyone and their mom gets, and somehow you're too mentally inept to even comprehend that much."

"The point I'm trying to get at Neville, is that you're a

, you don't know anything about this federation, and you contradict yourself consistentally. If this match is gonna reflect your trash talking abilities, this is gonna be my easiest one yet. Do us both a favor and don't show up, and I'll collect the Television title by forfeit. Or do, and I'll demolish you in the middle of the ring and take the title belt by force. Honestly, I'm leaning towards the latter so I can hear your

cries for help, though I won't complain if you show intelligence for once and no-show."

The camera fades to black.

~FIN~

Threaded Mode \| Linear Mode Act IV: "Championship"-Class Training - Part 2 of 3
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