We see Bobby Bourbon seated in a public park, somewhere sunny and enjoying the spring weather. He’s sitting down, sipping from a cup, looking quite contented. As he does, Dolly Waters approaches. She glances around, avoiding paparazzi, having been under scrutiny since puberty. She sits beside Bobby in the Park as Bobby looks up at her with a smile.

Hey! Nice park, huh?

Yeah, I guess, some people need benches and trees.

Bobby stares at a woman jogging past for a minute before rolling his eyes. Dolly just rolls her eyes, noticing Bobby watching.

Not really my type.

Oh, well…

Aren’t you seeing someone? How would Bouncy feel if she saw you watching other women?

She’d shoot for a threesome.

Wait, what?

Bobby looks sheepish and shrugs.

I’m sorry. I know you’re grown and all now, but I always kind of saw you as a little girl, I never thought of you like that.

Bobby looks down.

I’m sorry. I never wanted to fight women or children.

Dolly blinks slowly, her lip somewhat quivering at the revelation that Bobby was remorseful for anything, let alone interaction with her, and not for trying to get her to sleep with him. She takes a deep breath.

Well, I’ve found the Divine, and…

Bobby is immediately roused from being somewhat forlorn to baffled and disdainful. You know what these faces look like, the nuance of Bobby’s emotion belying why he doesn't play poker.

That magic stuff doesn’t make any sense.

Magic stuff? You’re crazy science makes no sense! You had Jerry Jones floating around in a football uniform! That doesn’t exist!

Antigravity tech does exist, how else would I be wearing it?

Bobby starts to float off the bench.

How does that even work?

I don’t know but it’s giving me a wedgie.

Dolly grabs Bobby and pushes him back down onto the bench. As she does, her crystals actually flare up and begin to glow as do Bobby’s sophisticated and technologically superior albeit pointless slacks. A bolt of pitch black lightning strikes them both, and they vanish from the park.

~~~~~

The haze lifts itself from Dolly’s head as she glances around. The world was not the park she and Bourbon were in a moment ago. Barren wastelands stretch on to mountains, a tower in the distance looming ominously beneath three moons. This was when Dolly noticed the mounted rider. The beast, some horrific demonic horse, rears back, and makes its charge towards Waters.

The fuck do you think you are?

The beast continues charging.

Alright, well, y’know, I ain’t fucking scared of your ugly ass!

Dolly steels herself, prepared to strike back with a parry or counter, unflinching in the face of the hooded rider. It's as that moment that we hear the gutteral bellow of Bobby, who plows into the side of the mount itself headfirst, sending it keeling. The rider crashes to the ground as Bobby puts a shoulder under one of the legs of the beast itself and pushes, snapping it. With almost lightning speed, Bobby grabs the rider by the neck. Dolly’s eyes widen, watching Bobby do what he does almost instinctively in is assault, a strange smile crossing her lips at the notion that Bobby actually stepped in thinking he need save her.

Nice! Now we can find out what the fuck is going on here, seeing as how we’re not in the park anymore and this dickhead wanted to come and kill me. So, dickhead…

Bobby, without looking back, snaps the neck of whatever devilish creature he was holding.

…or that. You don't plan ahead for anything, do you?

Bobby shrugs, dropping the rider's limp corpse.

Wanna grab food after this?

Jesus, shut the fuck up!

Bobby looks back at Dolly, cocking his head. Dolly smiles.

You’re telling me, after all this shit, you’re really that fucking simple that you just do what you do and live with the consequences?

Bobby ponders the thought for a moment before his brow creases in contemplation. He smiles and nods back to Dolly. If you can’t actually acknowledge how a human conveys emotion by how they look, first, sucks to be you if you’re sober, and second, Bobby just told Dolly she’s correct. Dolly looks frustrated, and if you don’t know what a genuinely frustrated human looks like, congrats, you’re one of the XWF GMs who took top billing in the credits at the last shitshow Weekend Warfare, and may you never encounter such adversity!

Are you fucking telling me you never fucking had a plan for beating me? Ever? I mean, I plotted, I planned, I prepped, I followed so many words that start with “p” you’d think I was Jenny Myst following Penis.

Bobby snortles, then nods ‘no’ back at Dolly.

What the fucking fuck!

Before Dolly can go any further, Bobby starts trodding off towards the tower.

Where do you think you’re going?

Bobby points at the tower.

Oh, so you’re going to point? You went silent all of a sudden, is that it? Since when do you not want to talk all day?

Bobby glances back at Dolly.

You told me to shut up.

Dolly looks taken aback.

So?

So, we’re partners, if that’s what you want, fair.

You mean you’re here to do whatever I want?

Sure. You want to win, right?

Yeah!

Then yep.

Don’t you want it too?

Bobby pauses.

Sure.

I don’t get why you stopped then said ‘sure’.

Some people won’t.

So what the fuck do you want? I mean, you recruited me, you wanted something!

Bobby stops dead in his tracks, stopping his tread towards the tower in the distance.

It’s been a damned long time since I got asked what I want, I generally just got told what was best for me and ran with it. To be honest, I didn’t recruit you, you recruited yourself.

You’re not making any sense, you know that?

Heard that shit before. By you.

Yeah, well, you aren’t.

Bobby shudders, then takes a deep breath and exhales slowly through his nostrils, considering every thought that exists within him as he composes what must be said.

I need to just get home, that’s all.

Me too, motherfucker, I have to plan MayDay2 and we gotta take on Team HSU.

That’s a dumb ass team name!

Yeah, and?

And…

Bobby looks lost. He looks back at the now very dead rider, and sadness destroys Bobby’s jawline. That’s a fucking cool way to say Bobby looked sad in whatever else eFed you compete in.

S’matter, you need your phone to be a bad ass now?

Nah, I’ve been one. I need her.

Bobby’s shoulders heap. No matter how big he was, regardless of the notion he just destroyed some demon on horseback, went toe to toe with Raion Kido only to get absolutely robbed then have the match tossed back in his face by the same petulant fool, or even beat Mark Flynn, not after nobody else could, but after he failed to do so for so long; Bobby was defeated now by not gaining what he craved, a semblance of understanding. Dolly looks at Bobby, and tucks the Tarot deck away. She’s a bro, she didn’t need to perform a ritual to understand where he was coming from.

Bouncy adores you. Right now, you need to get back to her, and nothing makes you feel right besides her. You were willing to gamble away the Universal Championship, but here you are, after pretending to the world that it was the most important thing to you, only hoping for her? Bobby, bro…

You’re right.

Bobby looks far more positive, the sense of self-awareness washing over him like a deluge. He looks at Dolly.

You’re absolutely right. I told the world I valued the Universal Championship above anything when I showed everybody what I valued. Deprive me of it, and, well, what am I? Helpless, on my belly. On that note, Raion Kido is the biggest damned fraud in the history of the business, I’m absolutely sickened by this sick fucker’s bullshit on thinking he’s something spectacular, some kind of hero, some kind of role model, when I have not seen him go through the tribulations we have for fucks sake, only taking advantage of situations. He told me it was an honor to have a rematch when I was given…

Bobby, we have other opponents, if you reference anyone else it might not be a good idea!

You’re right, our opponents aren’t absolutely garbage telling everybody the stink off their ass is what sells at Bed, Bath, and Beyond when homeboy is really a leftover stack of bulk Yu-Gi-Oh cards in his own mom’s basement. Fuck, past him, I’ma grab Liam Desmond by the face and wipe my ass with it and show him there’s a damned good reason Theo Pryce stepped away from talking with me when he took up managing guys who, flat the fuck out, weren’t bodyguards. The latest mistake Desmond made, as far as I’m concerned, is taking our opponents…

Right, taking our opponents, and…

Bobby smirks.

Trying to make us think they’re our enemy. Lacklan, and I’m sorry if I’m pronouncing that weird, it’s almost like if I typed it nobody who speaks English would say it that way, and the actually talented Vaughn, absolutely not Peter, team HSU, are a venerated and accomplished tag team in this business. You and Charlie definitely couldn’t close out on them, but how could you? They’re old. You needed an old man to help out. Charlie defied them to behave like they couldn’t learn new tricks. I won’t, no reason to defy them, any fool who has watched Team HSU over the past three years already knows they absolutely, undeniably, will not learn new tricks. It’s not even a dare, like here’s some shit, show us your old tricks, it’s more ‘welp, same ole’, same ole’, definitely ole’, I guess we’re in for some more of it though, hope you were sweet enough to have a gift receipt printed for us instead of, now I think of it, printing one out for some other team in some other company that doesn’t matter.

What about other companies?

I don’t know. Want to play Mad Libs?

Dolly nods excitedly.

Oh yes, most definitely, dove, love, pet name, or whatever the rest of the girls in the wrestling world call you.

Bobby slowly turns his head to Dolly.

They don’t call me, I won’t give them my number.

Dolly smirks.

Here, you play.

Bobby hands Dolly the MadLibs book.

Okay, I guess while we’re in the middle of this horrible wasteland we can play word games.

That’s the spirit, anybody with any sense has fun with their words when shit sucks.

Did you already read this?

Maybe.

Doesn’t that defeat the purpose? Wouldn’t you rather be surprised, maybe by the thing in that tower?

No, we’re going to kick it’s ass then go and watch bullshit unfold at Warfare because you jinxed us to have crazy stupid match endings with your voodoo.

Did not.

Dolly puts her hands on her hips and looks at Bobby pouting.

Did too.

Bobby pouts right back.

If you were more of a boring doofus like either of our last opponents and less of a woo-wee-woo twiddly fingers spooky bitch…

Yeah, well if you were more personable instead of taking everything in stride with some kind of confidence incels can’t understand…

Bobby and Dolly glare at one another.

(Wordcounter.net; not going to spoil it, you have fun using a word counting tool yourself.)