OOC: General reminder that the salmon-coloured sounds of The Salmon-Coloured Minotaur always have words attached to them if you hover with a mouse. This has been the case with previous rps even if I didn't say it. Doesn't really work on a phone though.


5A: This, The Moment

I knew they were coming. I was given ample warning, so in the end, I have no excuses. But I still struggle to understand the ‘why’.

Why me?

What leads them to haunt my dreams? To cloud my memories? Why am I of interest?

Is it even me that they’re looking for? Or is it him?

I step into his realm, that swirling vortex of clouds of every colour (and then some) beyond the dark from which the forces of Other attack. With considerable effort I had fought my way through them. The vibrant revenants keeping them at bay have lessened in number, making the fight that much more difficult. An impossible purple spectre gracefully bats back beast after beast, while the golden echo of a young man hovers over a downed pink shadow, tinged with a hideous green.

But no more are the white spider and the blue lightning. A discarded cane lies to the side of the battle, all light depleted.

The fight rages on.

There is no light without shadow, just as there is no happiness without pain.
There is no shadow without light, just as there is no pain without happiness.

Some torches still burn.

Inside the pulsing cosmic meninges that guard against the chaos, five altars of stone stand above the aether.

When he dwelled here, it had oft taken the form of a warm log cabin, complete with crackling fire and the kind of clutter you’d find in the house or office of somebody who collected more than they ever had time to use. Books would overflow from full shelves and stack in front of them, rendering the tomes in the back inaccessible. A thin layer of dust coated artifacts and mysteries that hadn’t been touched in weeks. An ordered chaos, but altogether a homely affair.

That is not the realm I step into. Not without him here to maintain it. My feet find a hold upon a secret floor that at first, gently gives way. It firms and holds, allowing me to take another step towards the first altar.


The map.
Existence.

I touch the browned parchment with the tip of my finger. It flashes a memory of red dust darkened by the silken night sky. I stand upon the rock, the desert having cooled in the absence of the sun. But in my memory it’s not cold. I know the rock was, but now it is not. My feet burn. Still I persevere.


Delicately, I draw my finger across the lines marked upon the map, back and forth across the Atlantic. To three continents now the lines touch, but when once they led me, now they follow. I’ve done my best to maintain the journey since The Salmon-Coloured Minotaur was lost following the incident with the Obsidian Mirror that Shawn Wylde found. I’ve returned here after every battle, every new location, and have updated the path. Ulaanbaatar being the latest. There used to be lights, however. It used to guide me. Now, it’s more ritual than anything. Further proof to not believe in destiny.

For a moment, I wonder how he came to have this map in his possession. He never did share that tale with me. In our evenings under the stars, he would rather hear me speak. I knew there was always something more than he was letting on, but I never found out precisely what. There is still time, I suppose.

I hope.

I leave the map behind, and walk towards the second.


The dagger.
Truth.

As I lift the dagger from its clawed stand, the silver blade catches the golden light of the young man’s revenant form from beyond the protective membrane. In the reflection of the dagger, I see him return to the battle. I watch for a moment, before gently rotating the dagger in my hand. On the other side, the spectre is gone.

I study the hilt below the steel. An upside down pentagram adorns the black shagreen wrapped around its wooden centre. I’ve pondered upon it often since that day in Indonesia, prior to Leap of Faith. The woman whom I took this from in the frozen green overlooking Green Bay, just outside the city proper, was there in the prison. She wasn’t alone, though I remember almost nothing of her tall companion save for the ring that adorned his finger. And hers.



But there is no hand upon this dagger, save my own. A sudden urge overwhelms me as I juggle the weapon from my left hand and into my right. It lands where I can see the cross upon the other side of the hilt, reminding me of what I did know about the woman. Religion was her weapon back in the hospital. It was how she ’treated’ me.


This blade… all it offers are memories now. When he was here, it helped illuminate the way. At my hands, the dagger could fall upon the map and lead me where I needed to go. Now it merely falls with a clumsy clatter, and reminds me of the lies I’ve been led to believe.

I holster it in place once more. Through the soft billow of clouds at my feet, I move to the third.


The rope.
Life.

Multicoloured, it glows. Blue, yellow, silver, and even black - a deep, twinkling black. It's coarse to the touch. Each strand of colour wraps taut around the next in an awkward mash of contrast made even more unsettling by the origins of the stained fibres.

Hair.

Human hair.

The people - the Demos - had gifted me a clump of black and silver pulled from the head of Geri Vayden as some sort of olive branch. The blue had been entwined in my fingers as I pummelled Lycana’s face into the ground. Fond memories, that. The yellow was plucked - voluntarily I might add - by Dolly Waters from her own head. I glance back to where the green-tinged pink glow struggles to rise from the ground. Adding her one strand somehow turned the woven hair into a rope, that somehow helped us escape from an amusement park inside a fucking television.


The rope saved me. It returned me to this version of reality, however real or imaginary it may be. I had thought it would again. When The Salmon-Coloured Minotaur first disappeared, I came straight to the rope and cast it into the sky.

It hooked on nothing.

Fucking nothing.

Now it sits there, coiled around a hook of its own. And I make make way to to fourth, empty altar.


The stone.
Hope.

As I approach, a faint hum begins to drum. Its beat comes in waves. WHHM-WHHM-WHHHHHM. WHHM-WHHM-WHHHHHM. Gradually it grows louder, never quite overtaking the sound of the fight raging without, but just loud enough to announce itself. And then it vibrates. The hum. The stone.

My denim pocket comes to life with movement. Reaching in, I withdraw a small, palm-sized orb. Its weight belies its size, and I bring my scarred right hand together with my left to support it. The humming continues, in rhythm with palpitations of splendid blue. Shades across the spectrum separate and collide in unison. I stare into its brilliant mystique, comforted by the inherent peace it radiates.

Like the map The Salmon-Coloured Minotaur left behind, I know nothing of this stone’s origin. It was a gift. Looking over my shoulder once more I see the impossibly purple shadow continue to fight, as if she had no other choice. It’s no wonder I relate to her so much now, I just wish I saw it sooner.

With my eyes once more upon the stone as it weighs heavy in my hands, its divergence from the map’s properties become salient in my mind. Both may be mysteries, but functionally, they are diametrically opposed. The map - and the dagger for that matter - reveal the path ahead. This stone - and in a sense the rope too - they provide a way out. Maybe that’s the same thing though, at the end of the day? Not here, but there. Not X, but Y.


I shudder. On instinct, I carefully place the stone upon the altar. Immediately a ring of white light rises from the edges of the stone slab and up into the fucking nothing. It fades beyond the visible spectrum, and on the altar I can still easily see and touch the stone’s smooth surface.

“Thank you, Betsy Granger,” I say into the air. In the background, a powerful discharge of white blasts from the purple revenant and the opposing forces, allowing time for the others to finally regroup.

The fourth altar is complete.

On to the fifth.


The universe.
Intangible.

Improbable, their claim.

Intangible, the goal.

Inevitable, my defiance.

I said it would be so. Did I not?

Insurmountable, the odds.

Impossible, their naivety.

Indomitable, my will.

It was always going to be this way.

Immortal?

Hardly so. I fucking hope not, anyway.

The zenith, reduced to a pebble that I then stepped over and beyond.

And upon my waist, the universe.

I unfasten the straps of the cumberbund and hold it before my eyes. It - the original, no longer marred by ego and falseness - reflects everything back to me. Everything and nothing merge, and history sings out! Each name, etched amongst the stars.


‘Tis for I the stars explode.

That they do.

The stars explode for me. Legacies of yesteryear borne forth on tertiary dreams.

I, the dreamer.

I, the other.

This, the moment.

I was returned. And as I stand before the altar, watching history unfold, I believe with my every-nothing that it was all for this.

“...into thy hands I commend my spirit.”

I place the Universal Championship upon the final altar.

And…
































































FUCKING NOTHING!






My eyes flit up and down expectantly, but nothing happens. No shining light, no chiming bells, no ascension. Nothing.


The piece is on the altar, and I know it's the right piece, I fucking know it!

I roar in frustration.

“Wait…”

I roar.

“Where are you?”


“Who?”

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5B: The Definition of Dumbass

“Did this motherfucker just pull out a dictionary definition? Really? Like… REALLY?

Theo, come get your boy! He’s fucking cooked.

You know, it was just a day or so ago that I was lambasting Chris here for the whole ‘chaos’ thing being a load of shit. When I was doing that, I thought to myself - you know what might help here? A fucking dictionary definition! That way, this numbskull might just be able to figure out that ‘chaos’ isn’t just about trying to be an unironic edgelord. It’s the full fucking spectrum. I thought about it, just for a millisecond. And then… I laughed at the stupid idea and decided against it.

Because I’m not out here making a god fucking awful best man’s speech.

But hey, you do you, Chris! It’s the closest you’re ever going to get at being the ‘best’ at anything. I’ll just be over here doubling down on how much of a waste of breath you are. I mean, I get that you’re such a fucking idiot that maybe you didn’t even know what the word ‘validate’ meant, but after looking it up you still can’t figure this shit out? I know I said that you were incapable of learning, but I didn’t expect it to be this easy to prove it!

Le sigh.

Fuck you for making me do this:”

Chris Chaos Said:val·i·date

demonstrate or support the truth or value of.
"in a healthy family a child's feelings are validated"

“Do you fucking get it yet? This championship demonstrates and supports the truth and value of why I’m fighting. It doesn’t need to be the fucking end result, dipshit. It rarely ever would be. In fact, haven’t you heard the old adage? ’It’s easier to get to the top than to stay there.’ Shit, you might be the only person in the fucking world who thinks that once you become the Universal Champion that the battle is over. This point right here isn’t even a my world versus your world type of deal, it’s just a cold hard fact that the fight doesn’t end once you’re the champion. That’s why Chris Page took defence after defence, even against questionable opponents, because he knew that the fight had to continue. It’s why people look at your win over Peter Gilmour as the fucking joke that it was because Gilmour fluked himself to the top but could never stand a chance of staying up there. And it’s why you’ve never seen the mountaintop since, because you think that that’s all there is to it. That’s why you fail, Chris. Because you don’t have your perspective right. So when you come up against someone like me, or Chris Page for that matter, or Thaddeus Duke, or even Sarah Lacklan if you got her in the ring for realsies, you fucking fall. Every single time. Because whether I like them or not, they, like I am, are people who understand the fight.

Notice the words that I’m using here, Chris. I’m barely a wrestler, but I’m damn sure a fighter. I don’t know the end goal. If I did, I’d just fucking go and do it. That is when I’d be happy to hand this championship over and that is what I’ve been saying this entire time, you dumb fuck! I don’t know how this ends, but some part of me tells me that the more I fight, the closer and closer I’ll get to the answer. I can’t explain it any better than that, I just know that this championship validates everything for me so far. The fight, not the outcome. And it’s why I know that I still need to fight.

I knew the moment that I received that 24/725/8 briefcase that if I cashed in under the circumstances that I wound up doing it in, that people would say exactly what it is that you’re trying to say, Chris.

HENCE WHY I STILL HAVE MORE TO DO, YOU FUCKING IDIOT!

Holy fuckballs, you’re doing my goddamn job for me!

As I said at the fucking outset to you, the invitation is open to Chris Page to come and take his shot. It’s open to Lycana to see if lightning can strike thrice. It’s open to Corey Smith to give me a taste of my own medicine. It’s open to any fucking person who has been motivated by my plight - your words, Chris.

And they know who they are.

It’s pretty rich though, to hear you complain about the way that I won this, when you’re being given a shot you haven’t earned. I batted away challengers for the X-Treme Championship for four months to earn the chance to claim the prize whenever I wanted. Criticise it as much as you want - and I know Chris Page is already trying to do so - but I put down Universal Champions like Morbid Angel and our mutual friend, Louis, to get here. I did what I needed to. What the fuck did you do, cunt? Which hole did you let Theo slip it in?

You say you’re getting tired of the ‘also-rans’ holding this championship, but the bottom of our boots is the closest fucking sniff of it you can even manage nowadays. If I’m an ‘also-ran’, you’re a ‘can’t-even-fucking-walk’. And to think that you said that you were disappointed in me? Imagine how I feel when the best that my self-proclaimed ‘nightmare’ can do is a fucking dictionary quote?

Let me know if you want to keep fighting with the dictionary, bud. Fair warning though, ‘Mr. Title Wave’, you’re probably going to have more luck just throwing the fucking book at me.

At the end of the day, all you’ve shown by opening your mouth is just how right I am about the different worlds we’re coming from. You still bring up being in the top ten of on the Top Fifty List as if it wasn’t a consolation prize for people that just aren’t considered important enough to be ‘legends’. People like the Robert Mains of the world might get there, but you? Yeah… think again.

And I’m something of an expert on the ‘legends’ topic.

It goes a bit further than different worlds though, Chris. We’re playing different games entirely. And as long as I have this championship over my shoulder, you’re going to have to play my game to try and get it. From that angle, it’s a bit cute that you’re trying to say there are similarities between us. But my game requires a lot more than putting your body on the line. You uh… you actually have to win too. Not only that, but it’s not a win via escaping a cage or throwing someone over the top rope. You’re going to have to pin me. And in my game, nobody has done that. Because that is survival. Not whatever shitty alternative you’re offering.

You’re not the most dangerous man on the roster, Chris. You’re a neutered little lapdog taking scraps from his master’s table. And I don’t need a laundry list of insults and creative adjectives to take the bitch out the back of the woodshed and put her out of her fucking misery. So bring your best jabs, Chris. Call me a ‘douchebag’, a ‘pretentious cock-sucker’, a ‘sanctimonious shit stain’. Call me whatever you want. Just make sure you don’t forget to say ‘Universal Champion’. Because that ain’t changing. Not against you.

The pond’s gotten a hell of a lot bigger since you were considered a ‘big fish’. It’s a fucking ocean now, and you’re just a fucking koi carp in with the sharks. If I don’t kill you, the environment alone will. You’re not made for the deep sea, Chris. You’re out of your element.

I know that eventually I’ll fall.

We all fall down.

Some of us just fall a hell of a lot more often than others. That’s you, bud. Get ready for that ol’ familiar feeling again, because Wednesday won’t be any fucking different.

I’m going to Eat Chris Chaos.”

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5C: El Foreshadow

Rain pelts down from the heavens. Under a dark nylon coat, treated and proofed against the droplets from on high, Kieran King scurries across a rickety plank and onto a boat. The makeshift gangway is hurled aboard behind him and stowed to the side of the boat.

It disembarks.