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Prince Adeyemi · (09-01-2023)

Y'all ready for story time?

It’s been a few weeks since the shitshow with the Just-Us League and whatever he and Ned Kaye were. Nobody had any clue what Theo, Kaye and King were on when they thought a little tag team would change things. King was done with other people trying to fix things for him, he was sincerely done with getting a little helping hand from the shadowy lair of Theo Pryce, that’s for sure,

The Kingslayer is a man of his own. Everything he had, everything he had created, he did with his own hands, his own people, his own passion,

And Isaiah was sick and tired of that not working, but most definitely not tired enough to change for it.

Not sick enough.

And it is by his two hands that he plans on changing the game dramatically. On changing all of the XWF with them.

And just as he made those decisions, just as his eyes set on the very top of the tower, a call came through to him.

A call from his very own shadowey hand of providence.

“He wants you, and the champ gets what the champ wants. You ready…?”

“You have no idea.”

You hear that, Corey?

——

The smell of coffee was thick in the air, mixed with the exhaust fumes of a thousand cars stuck in traffic on their way to their dead end jobs in flashing steel and glass buildings. The upstart teen boxer feels the cold hard concrete under his Stan Smiths with soles too worn out and dreams waiting to be cut short. He passes by the dirty hot dog cart with a man too tired to think past Monday. The man passes a soggy hot dog to a weary, upstart wrestler.

A wrestler that’s about to rock your world.

And then he gets a phone call, a phone call he was not expecting.

The iconic sound of Blitzkrieg Bop.

“They’re forming in a straight line,
They’re going through a tight wind,
The kids are losing their minds
The Blitzkrieg-“

The Kingslayer cuts the tune midway to answer that call.

“Mr… King? This is North General Hospital, we’re calling on behalf of Mr Hussein, he was just brought in…-“

Isaiah pockets his phone before she can finish. Ilyās Hussein was the closest thing to biological family Isaiah still had, known as Doc to the men and women on the street. A man who was so deep in Harlem’s street that every OG alive owed him their lives. He was a war veteran and a combat medic, a man who’d pulled out more bullets from street generals than bagels sold in the city that never sleeps.

A man that was neutral ground between every damned gang.

A man that was meant to be untouchable.

Until Jeremiah came back and dug his dirty ass nails back into Isaiah’s home. He’d vanished from his house a few months ago and Isaiah had searched for him for a bit before Jeremiah got even closer to the family and made Isaiah’s life a living hell. The Kingslayer had almost forgotten about Doc being missing, perhaps out of a deluded belief that the old man was too respected for even Jeremiah to really hurt.

And then Isaiah gets the call.

The smell of a hospital wasn’t familiar to Isaiah, sure he’d been here a few times but usually Isaiah getting medical care smelt more like sweaty men and blood than opioids and sanitizer - be it at the organizations medical facility or the wood of the street thugs surgery table.

Much like Docs table had often smelt like.

Isaiah didn’t make anyones eye as he got the room number of his dear friend, so single minded that he missed the glare of a youth boring a hole into his head by the door.

When he walked in, the sight of his long time father figure shook him so hard he forgot to breathe.

“What the fuck did they do to you-“

When he finally caught a breath for himself it all came flooding out of him with the exhale. Tears pour down his face as he walks up to the old man, enough tubes coming out of him to make him look like an abandoned water slide. The man’s face was covered in welts and bruises, his eyes swollen shut. His lips were split in at least five places, and Isaiah was sure he was missing at leak half his teeth in there.

They’d really fucked him up.

Isaiah slams a fist into the side of the hospital bed, denting it and alerting the boy outside to finally burst through the door behind him.

"What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Unc?”

The last word comes out drilling with sarcastic venom. Isaiah turns his head to look at the kid, a kid he didn’t recognize.

“Get the fuck outta here before I make you eat those words, boy.”

“I ain’t going nowhere King, I ain’t ever leaving his side again. Not with dangerous pieces of shit like you hanging around. Surprised you didn’t finish him off with the two minutes I gave you outta some respect.”

Isaiah finally starts to take the kid in, turning to face him fully and even walking home to him.

“What’d you say about me? Who the hell is you is even? They hiring thirteen year old nurses off the street now?”

“Fourteen, and that’s my gramps you crying yo ass over. My gramps that you might’ve killed.”

The kid was shaking now, holding his own before the towering Kingslayer, but he’d clearly been crying for hours, and slept for less. He looked much smaller than Isaiah had first clocked, he was dressed in a dirty purple hoodie, ripped black jeans at the knees and sneakers that looked like they’d been worn down on the court.

He also had an uncanny resemblance to Doc.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Elijah Hussein, well, Ilyās, but you know even gramps didn’t like being called that.”

Isaiah’s mind was running.

“They named you after him? Damn… Who you repping?”

The boy glares back at him, spitting a giant wad on the floor.

“I rep myself punkass, gramps never let me join up, I’m straight. Now why don’t you tell me what he’s doing in that bed instead of serving me supper?”

Isaiah gives the broken older man a look.

“That’s Jeremiah’s work, well, he goes by Kingpin these days… And he runs Empire.”

The kid moves so fast he’s got Isaiah’s collar in his small hands before the man can even react.

“And why the fuck would Kingdom do this to gramps when he’s the biggest OG on the block? Why would Jeremiah touch a man whose stitched him up more times than birthdays I’ve had?”

Isaiah meets his eyes and doesn’t remove his hands from his collar. But he doesn’t answer.

“Cos you know what I heard, King, everything was going perfect until Doc started dropping your name at Sunday suppers. A few weeks later his apartment gets trashed and he goes missing? The only reason I didn’t come pop yo ass sooner was because I was at least looking for him unlike your ungrateful ass.”

The words sting harder than Isaiah could deal with. He slaps the boys hands away and takes a step back, eyes glued to the floor.

He’d fucked up, he put Doc in the crosshairs and then did nothing about it.

The boy was right.

“I dont know what to say. I’m so sorry man, I’m so sorry. I… I never wanted any of this to happen. Doc was safe ground, he’s always been safe ground, Jeremiah wants me and he took it out on Doc outta pure spite. I… should go.”

The kid steps out again and presses all his body weight against the pro wrestler.

“D-don’t you f-f-fucking dare leave him again, not here like this. Look at h-h-him you selfish prick, you got him into this mess, you better get him outta it!”

The boy can’t hold it back any longer and let’s the tears flow, pounding his fists into the big man’s chest. Each hit followed by a heavier sob.

“You did this, you! You better take your seat and own up to it. You out gramps in this bed, and if he dies, you put him in his grave. YOU. So, don’t you fucking leave.”

Isaiah glances down at the boy, tears streaming down his own face. His hands come up to hold the kid firmly before he even knows what he’s doing.

“You’re right kid, you’re right. I’m staying right here, WE are staying right here. We ain’t leaving Doc, and I never should've. We’re staying right here, you hear that kid?”

Your screen flickers to life back at the hospital, except this time it’s by the childrens ward. Kids run along the screen, screaming in glee, dressed as way past its prime . The laggard child pulling along his IV drip arrring like a pirate with a hook over his right hand.

The wall the camera is centered on is painted with a large mural of Peter Pan protecting a bunch of a young boys and a cute blonde girl.

The American bedtime legend.

Isaiah walks into the screen, eyes steely, but swollen.

“Hey there Corey, you better be listening close.

How’s it been like in your little fantasy ass world? Neverland right? Dancing your pretty white ass away from every single problem you had in the world?

Cos tell me that ain’t what you’ve been doing, fighting champ.

Tell me you didn’t see a scope pointed right at you, in plain fucking view, and danced your ass right back to where kids like you don’t age.

I don’t have to list out your accolades, your wins and losses or even callback to your biggest fuckups - cos everybody worth anything knows you got me whooped in all them categories.

You’re a bigger star, got a better track record and sure as hell a larger asshole.

If there’s ever been a David versus Goliath matchup, the fans are looking at one with all senses of the term.

You’re the damned Universal Champion for Lane’s sake.

A damned fraud of one.

A damned coward of one.

Christian Andrews? Who the fuck is he?

Hell, you’re facing me on the same night as a match signing for ANOTHER championship match against Thunder Knuckes, what the fuck he done since he decided to run off from this company with his clit brtweeen his legs?

All while carrying a piece of gold you damn well don’t deserve. All while keeping my name in your mouth but not where your fancy ass felt tip pen is.

Did you ask for me after you saw me stumble and fall to Bourbon and the masked vagrants? Or did Theo think I’d be a good stepping stone to hype up your boring ass match against TK?

Am I just another midcarder you’re going to run through?

Or am I think wet eared rookie who slayed the Lion only for you to take all the credit for it?

I knew that punkass bitch screwed me over by not putting his title on the line but I ended his career DURING your match to let you know who you were supposed to face next, fair and square.

I took him out in the middle of the ring clean Corey. You lapped up the roadkill and didn’t even bark at the monster truck that gave it to you.

Ungrateful little shit you are.

Chances are you’re only fighting me this coming week because claiming myself as the Kingslayer has your privileged little panties twisted up in a bunch and you wanna prove yourself before you square up against that washed up superhero wannabe.

You walk around in your own little neverland, as the hero of your own kingdom, bossing about your minions as you wish, running from the realities of evil that await you here.

That’s what you’ve always done. It’s what you did when Madison got too much too handle, it’s what you did when Alias was too much to surpass - it’s what you’ll do when I’m done with you and prove to the world what a fraud you really are.

You see Corey, most of us don’t get to run from our problems, most of us don’t get that privilege.

We just have to keep coming back to work because we have a life to protect, people to keep safe. We fight because we have to, because that’s who we are - not because we’re bored playing with kids dressed unfortunately like bears and natives.

Corey, at Warfare you’ll come down to reality for one day, and I’ll cave your skull in so hard you’ll spend the rest of your sad little life in Neverland - never having to face your problems again.”

Isaiah spits out the last sentence before trying to compose himself. The laughter of children has stopped, and you begin to notice how decrepit the mural out back really is. Paint flaking, Captain Hooks hook almost falling off the wall.

“You see lil lover boy…

As much as you might claim to never want Pans eternal childishenss, you’ve proven that all you never really want is eternal childishness with Peter.

You don’t want to grow up.

You proved that when you came back and immediately got into bed with the biggest sycophant of all, Dolly B.o.B Waters. You proved that when you dropped that misguided, abused girl faster than a rookie quarterback at the Super Bowl when she suddenly stood across the ring from you.

You flip on your “loved ones” without a second thought, just like a kid on the playground still trying to figure out who’s king of the playground.

You want to know who’s king of this playground, Corey? Me.

Cos only the big kids, the seniors get to be king. Call me King Bob and give me a yellow paper crown.

You’re just a snot nosed, good for nothing, disloyal little bitch who has the gall to walk around like he’s a good guy.

You and Raion are no different in that aspect.

Two selfish pricks brandishing gold they don’t deserve, sucking in the adulation of a crowd they haven’t truly earned.

Fakes.

One look at your personal and professional life and the world can see what you truly are.

But don’t worry, I’ll give the fans a hot discount.

Thirty minutes in the ring with the Kingslayer and I’ll unmask Corey for the poser he is.

I’ll show the world why the French invented guillotines.

Why revolutions NEED to happen when incompetence is given power.

Louis XVIs embarrassment will have nothing on you when this blade comes crashing down on your neck.

When I finally take what’s rightfully mine, the world will see that some kings need losing their heads before the people can rise to power.

Before they can crown a king of THEIR choice.

A king of authenticity.

A king who loves the nation he fights for, not one that gives it a visit when he feels like it.

A king who chases, hunts down his enemies instead of running from them.

A king for the XWF, not one wishing for Neverland.

A king like me."

Clutching tightly to the sobbing, the Kingslayers mind races. Why let Doc go now? Why not keep him for longer and use him for leverage? As the questions come, he clutches tighter, almost smothering the little boy into his frame.

"Elijah, how'd Doc end up here? Did someone drop him off?"

"I found him."

The pangs of guilt mix in with relief.

"Where?"

"I heard some punks talking about someone going to far, of almost killing doc."

Isaiah winces.

"They were just having a smoke under one of them trap houses down 143rd, I just… I just lost it."

Isaiah pulls the kid away from him for a second and looks him in the eye, his gaze drifts down to his hands, flecks of blood on it.

"How'd you get to him?"

"I started swinging. Hard. It didn't do much but…"

"You did good, kid."

Elijah takes out an old, but we'll maintained military pocket knife. Isaiah recognizes it immediately as one he'd often seen Doc use to cut tape and bandages.

"The guys keeping lookout took it well, but they didn't seem to like what they were doing to doc… they practically led me to him and helped me load him into a cab."

"So the blood was Docs, not theirs?"

"I.. couldn't, I just… I wanted to be but I…"

Isaiah rests his hand on the boys head, hopefully comfortingly. With the other, he reaches for the knife. The boy only grips the hilt tighter.

"You keep it, just don't use it until you absolutely have to."

"I want to kill them."

Isaiah turns away from the kid, walking towards docs bedside. The sight of the older man, a man who had done so much for him, broken and bruised… Made Isaiah just as angry. He wanted to kill them too, but standing Infront of Doc - he couldn't.

"You know the scars on Docs arm?"

The boy sniffles, confused for a second before affirming with a sobby grunt.

"He ever tell you how he got them?"

The boy archs an eyebrow, tilting his head to the side.

"The war, obviously."

"Yeah, the war on THESE streets, protecting a kid who definitely didn't deserve it."

"Whaddya m-"

"It's a good story, so listen close. Must've been… six or seven years ago now…"

"All fairytales, bedtime stories and the like have a moral.

That's why parents tell them to their snot nosed kids, to help them see and FEEL that actions have consequences and being a decent, social-rule-accepting member of society has its privileges.

Hansel and Gretel had to check their gluttony.

Icarus had to know when to quit.

Wendy and her brothers had to learn to grow up.

Maturity sucks, no child REALLY wants to grow up no matter how much they tell you they do.

Growing up means losing that freedom to play, laugh, complain and throw tantrums.

Growing up means giving up your fantasies for the truths of reality.

And the thing with time is, you grow up whether you like it or not. You just get to choose whether you want to sacrifice your fantasies or clutch to them until the world's realities crush you.

The drunk frat boy who crashes his car into a tree after an intoxicated joy ride - he takes his punishment gratefully, glad he didn't kill someone.

The kid who trusts his pull out game feels his world crumble around him when his latest hook up misses a cycle.

The orphan with two younger brothers realizes his days on the playground are over when that heart line goes still.

Reality is painfully crushing Corey.

And while you've always had the privilege of running off with your pretty boy to a land where time stands still, whispering sweet nothings into each other's ears…

Reality is coming for you like a relentless train.

You can sit there and list out all my accomplishments and make the case that I'm not even worth your time - it's what youve done to everyone before me.

The arrogance of power is sickening, if I'm to be honest.

But don't worry about it - when you're actually standing across the ring from me, when my arms are around your neck and driving your mushy skull into the mat.

I'll make you see just how different reality is from stats, one liners or records.

You've made the foolish decision to return to reality at a time when it's particularly dangerous.

A time when I'm around.

A time when the relentless Kingslayer won't stop until he's had your head.

Ain't no ticking crocodile or Tinkerbell to save you this time - you see you've chased every one of your friends away.

The lonely boy who never ages is about to face judgement.

And on Saturday you'll realise that you're not the protagonist in THIS story.

You're simply the plot device to advance the tale.

The moral of THIS story isn't for you - it's for the fools who're to come who think they can overlook me.

And lord we know even with MY gold around my waist plenty will do just that.

Actions of consequences, as do inactions.

Your failure to acknowledge me sooner, to acknowledge me seriously - that will be your downfall.

And the WORLD will see how dangerous a mistake that is.

And this time? This time you can't run from your problems.

This time you'll have to grow up.

Wendys gotta grow up, bitch.

Tell me Corey - do you hear me?"

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