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Prince Adeyemi · (04-08-2023)

…Continued from Hunting Redemption 1: Moonstruck Nostalgia

A reasonably unfamiliar voice replies on the other line, dripping with a mix of surprise and arrogance.

”Is that what you're going by now, Chae…?”

Chae’s eyes go wide and she looks at her phone screen to just make sure she hadn’t called the wrong person. Her eyebrows furrow and she walks away from Isaiah even quicker.

”What, did you think I didn’t have every one of your little… Side-hustles scouted? Wrestling? Really?”

Chae can’t seem to find the words to reply him. This was a voice she hadn’t heard in years… A voice she thought was dead quite honestly. A voice that shot her backwards into time.

”What’s wrong Chae, I can hear you mumblin’. Where’s daaaaaddy’s hello?”

Chae quickly hits the hang up icon on the phone and looks back towards Isaiah. He momentarily looks up to meet her gaze, noticing how pale she had gotten. Isaiah slowly gets off his seat, tilting his head before his eyes glance at the phone in her hand.

”Who was that, Chae? What’s wrong?”

”J-Jeremiah’s there. Here… He’s-”

”Who?”

Isaiah heard her just fine, but the words come off like gibberish in his head. He approaches her a little quicker, a little more aggressively. His eyes alight with memory.

”Who was that, Chae.”

This time it comes off more like a statement than a question - he’d heard her just fine the first time.

”I’d c-called the XWF, I was trying to speak to T-t-... But he picked up. Jeremiah picked up.”

Isaiah looks straight through her as the words reach him. Jeremiah was truly a ghost from his past, the fourth member of their little gang alongside Ezekiel and Chae. The one who had leaned into the streets the best, the one who truly fit in The King’s Court streetgang. Everything from sales to assault seemed to come so quickly to him.

For all of his boxing ability, Jeremiah had never quite been better than Isaiah. Yet, when it came to taking charge, to leading a people, developing a business and being ruthless against competition - Jeremiah was unparalleled.

Well… Until he’d gotten arrested on murder charges.

Until he’d got arrested for finally killing Pops - their coach and the true mastermind of the gang. The man who had taken them off the street, groomed them into killers and criminals and used them to take over the Harlem underground.

Jeremiah was supposed to be locked up for life - at least that’s what they’d all thought. The gang was supposed to have dissolved without him and Pops calling the shots. Absorbed by other parties.

But now the Empire has returned.

And now Jeremiah?

And through it all Isaiah couldn’t get this nagging voice in his head to leave him alone.

”So, he’s free, Is he? I always knew he was a certified killa, but more slippery than OJ? I really underestimated him din’ I? Ya fucked BOY.”

Isaiah’s fist slams into the hospital wall.

“Oh honey.

You’re really starting to show your age.

Sure felt like you mentioned Ned Kaye’s name more times than I have since I lost to him.

Hell you even had to invoke that name against Dionysus.

Everyone can take a dive down the archives and throw out wins and losses lil lady, but real victory comes when weaknesses are found.

When a predator goes for the vitals.

And your vitals… As lightly beating as they still are…

They scream of apathy.

“Oooh, apathy, cheap tricks, same ol’ same ol.”

But really Dolly. When are you going to see through your own irreverent, purposeless babble and see that what you’re really hiding…

Is apathy.

It’s the lack of emotion and drive that make it loud and clear.

What you call melodrama, I call hunger.

What you call distraction - I call a goal.

I see you loud and clear Dolly, I just see every match in my horizon just as as clear.

I don’t overlook you for Ned Kaye - I see what defeating you will lead me to.

I see WHY I need to face you AND why I need to beat you.

You on the other hand look bored with your position - a boredom you’d feel sitting at home without a title.

A boredom you feel because you lack a plan or a drive.

You feel nothing when you lose - so I won’t even bring it up.

You feel nothing when you win - so you won’t even bring it up.
You just exist.

A placeholder at best.

A paperweight the size of a backwater child.

There’s something about progress - about picking yourself up and redeeming yourself from your failures, kinda like repentance - it means acknowledging your failures, facing them head on and overcoming them.

Not ignoring your losses and falsifying some sense of foolish, ignorant progress.

Maybe I should take you back, back to school Dolleeey.

When you fail a class - you retake it.

Doesn’t matter if you passed AP Physics if you failed 12th grade Math.

Beating Jay Omega is beating Jay Omega. I was determined to do it before I got in the ring.

I did when I slipped through those ropes.

And now I look to my next failures.

To you, to Jenny, to Kaye.

I conquered the space warrior - but Ned? To define him by his place in the tournament is childsplay. Like a punk thirteen year old talking about sports rankings.

Any real sports fan would know rankings don’t mean shit in a head to head battle.

Beating Omega doesn’t make Ned disappear because I didn’t beat Ned.

Rankings are just a way for money-grubbing corporations to make simple-minded fans feel some sense of superiority.

You were top… 16?Ned made it further than you - which by your logic makes him the better target anyways?

I don’t know what you’re getting at Dolly - if you’re trying to imply I don’t have you in my sights… That somehow I’ve managed to look past your pile of sweltering sycophancy, you’d be wrong.

Just like I need to crush the ghost of Ned once and for, I need to crush you. ”

Isaiah takes a deep breath, rubbing the bridge of his nose to calm himself down a little

“Apathy Dolly will be your downfall.

Your belief that your throne belongs to you, and that you don’t need to put in the effort to defend it.

That you can belittle every challenger in your way with your “humorous” stipulations, your extra minute.

You’ve gotten comfy with your loss from the tournament so soon.

You’ve gotten real comfortably with that title straight off it that your loss means nothing to you.

Instead of chasing after Grey, instead of conquering the Queen… You sit here, growing hemorrhoids on your lazy ass before your..."

Isaiah gestures awkwardly to his chest.

“Have even grown in.

apathy will define this chapter of your career.

Your sunset chapter before your brains even gotten the chance to full develop.

You spew off the nonsense of a grizzled veteran whose won it all with nobody to stand in their way when really…

Three Time X-Treme champion.

Two-time Television champion.

Two-time tag-team champion…

It’s impressive… But done it all?

You were never as dominant as posture yourself to be.

You were never on top of the XWF.

You were never truly feared.

You never truly made a difference.

You’ve done plenty Dolly - but you’ve not done enough.

Yet you’re content? Or discouraged?

Did you feel that ceiling and realize the glass was real?

Watching Sidney take you down before going to win it all… Did that not at least spark some sense of drive in you? Some sense of need to be better?

Or are you going to rise, sputter and fall to perpetuity?
Is this really all you’ve got? All you dreamed about?

If it is, then so be it.

Stand across me from the ring with that sixteen minutes of limelight you’ve given us.

On the main-event of Warfare, for sixteen straight minutes let me either beat some passion back into you or retire you once and for all.

We’ve got an array of hungry talent that’s spilled into the company the last few months - there’s no growth with someone like you holding any gold anyways.

Come at me with all your cheap tricks and I’ll still conquer you.

While you’re lazy, I’m hungry.

While you’re spent, I’m just beginning.

Because while you’re apathetic, I’m just melodramatic.”

Isaiah stands at the foot of the redbrick (well off-yellow), looking up at a building Isaiah basically grew up around. Somewhere near 153rd and St. Nicks lived an old veteran in the neighborhood called Doc’. He had a reputation for taking care of street thugs who’d gotten at the wrong end of a knife or a mistimed drive-by. His part of town was off limits just by reputation.

To Isaiah - he was an uncle. Well… Half. Doc and his runaway mother had the same mother.

Doc had probably emptied a lifetime’s supply of cotton buds cleaning up Isaiah’s post-fight cuts and bruises, both on and off the street. Isaiah genuinely cared about the older, grizzled man, though his recent lack of visitations wouldn’t show it.

Our protagonist walks up to the open gate and makes his way up the rickety stairs before knocking on the familiar wooden door, blue-chipped paint and all.

“Yo’ Doc, what’s going on?”

Silence.

Isaiah slams his fist into the door a little harder, but still with some respect.

“Doc, it’s me, Isaiah, c’mon open up.”

Still nothing.

A few knocks later, Isaiah’s patience runs thin and he slams a foot through the door. The door swings open without much holding it back - it didn’t even seem locked. Isaiah smacks himself mentally for not checking first.

”Still a muscle-headed idiot.”

Walking into the small apartment Isaiah notices the nostalgic smell of cheap whiskey and weed. Doc always had the best grass in town, the boys always dropped off a batch regardless of which side of town they fought for. It helped with the chronic pains, the PTSD. Unc’ used to tell him all about the war, and the constant nightmares he’d still get.

”Nev’ fight fo’ nobody but yerself and yer friends. That way the nightmares’ll be worth it.”

The room was sparse, kept clean except for a few well kept books that were in different parts of the room. The man was well read but it looked like he didn’t like the thought of reading just one book at a time. One for the tea table, one over dinner, one as he watched some TV.

And then it caught his eye - a phone that had been placed right by TV.

Isaiah walks up to it and picks it up, it was old, a burner that didn’t even have internet on it. Just then it buzzed and the screen lit up. A single received text message and no passcode.

Shouldn’t have come alone.

Isaiah drops to the ground just as he hears glass shatter and a loud crack from above him. The TV was full busted as a round came straight through the window and embedded itself into it. Two more rapid shots miss Isaiah by an inch as he rolls onto his belly and scurries to find some cover. He hears some commotion from the outdoor stairway, swearing under his breath.

Breathing in deeply, Isaiah darts across the living room towards his uncles bedroom. The room looked a mess, clothes strewn on the floor, cupboards ransacked. There was no sign of Doc.

“Tick tock, he ain’t dead yet kid.”

Isaiah shakes his head, trying desperately to focus as he pulls up the window to the fire escape. He hears footsteps make it to the front door and the eerie sound of multiple handguns being cocked.

“The past will always try to pull you back. Whether you like it or not. Whether you think you’ve gotten over it or not.

It comes back and it demands you deal with it.

Wartime trauma.

An abusive ex.

A deadbeat father.

They somehow always come back to haunt you.

They somehow always come back to haunt me.

Because when the past is left unresolved it turns into trauma, post-traumatic. It turns into a dark little monster that feeds on your fears and insecurities until you’re nothing but a record-player on repeat.

Until you’re your fear.

That’s precisely why I can’t leave you undealt with Dolly.

You’re not going to become my trauma.

Not you, not Jenny, not Kaye.

I’ll deal with you swiftly, process you quickly.

This will start no feud.

You will not become the mountain I cannot conquer.

You will not be the grief for further character development.

You will not be necessary for true redemption.

Because I realize you can’t do anything for me.

You’re not in this to make it interesting, to give me a challenge, you’re in this thinking you’ve already won and a bonus minute will mean nothing.

You’re in this warming the throne till somebody yanks it from under you.

You’re in this just until you aren’t.

Then you’ll probably crawl back into the hole you ran away to before.

A hole Vita Valenteen had to pull you out of with the promise of Midnight Doll glory.

A hole that you scurried out of to feel relevant again only to realize this company was suddenly stacked with new talent you couldn’t quite dominate.

And just like that, with your partner gone, you receded back to grumpy old Dolly with nothing to fight for.

Taking that title off just as defeated a Myst must’ve been hard. Two women both fighting without the heart to actually win.

Without the heart to win, but without the dignity to lose.

You’re confused as you do everything within your power to keep from losing while posturing nonchalance after you do.

Let me free you from your internal dissonance.

Let me liberate you from your lack of ambition.

Let me send you back to your safe obscurity.

Let me retire you to another statistic.

Let me save you from apathy.”

[Image: Michael_B_Jordan_2.gif]

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