Incredible cranial pain…

Flynn leans his head back against the pillow. God… is he hungover or suffering a concussion…

…And how long has he owned a pillow…?

The light seeps in the seconds Flynn tries to flutter open his eyes.

“EHHH! F(ORGET YOU), THE SUN!” Flynn’s spine stiffens… and then he visibly deflates against the pillow.

“God da… Gosh darn it, gee whilikers, golly gee, zippidy flipplidy doo! Buy war bonds so we can fight against un-American things like Communism and Humanity…”

Flynn’s face slips into his palm.

“I’m on Warfare again…”

The sudden impact of forehead on hand sends a rippling pain through Flynn’s skull…

“Ahhh… That stung a bit…”

Flynn rubs his temples, trying to soothe them back into a state of not being on fire…

Are they actually on fire? No... JusWOW DOES EVERYTHING HURT TODAY?!?

Flynn pushed against not-his pillow, struggled to pull not-his sheets from his shoulder and realized he was in not-his hospital gown.

Well. Actually, that might be his. They’re probably not going to ask for it back in any case.

Flynn struggles against the steel bar around the bed.

“God damn it…”

Flynn’s skull pulsed, every second, every errant motion not carefully thought out and planned, sent a ripple of pain through his skull…

It was at this point that Flynn noticed a box on not-his nightstand. A large white gift box. Wrapped with a red bow.

Flynn looked at it, turned it over and noticed a card.

He pulled the card with a snap, the plastic tie broke.

He pressed it close.

“Dear Flynn.

Don’t open this.

Sincerely,
Flynn”

…

That is not going to help Flynn’s headache…

Flynn rubbed the box with an index finger.

As suddenly a torrent of memory washed over him…

His fists clenched.

And he lied back against the hospital bed defeated.

He didn’t remember all of last night.

Hell, he couldn’t remember half of his first match.

But he did remember a three-count.

And he knew that the white box at his nightstand.

All mysterious and shit.

Couldn’t be holding the XWF United States Title…

Flynn rolled over, just another body close to death in a hospital bed.

***
GAUNTLET CITY TRAILER



(0:00 to 0:04) Outside of XWF Headquarters

(0:04 to 0:19) XWF superstars sitting at round long desks in a lecture hall. Shane is standing at the front, pointing towards a dry erase board. The camera pans over certain XWF superstars like Gilmour struggling to take notes, Angelus talking on a phone in the back, NAZI doodling swastikas on the syllabus, etc…

The board has GAUNTLET CITY written on it.

Below that…

Location: ???...

(0:19 to 0:36): The XWF superstars in question are forced into a limousine with a driver given a map. Past him, he runs into an inattentive asshole driver, who smacks into him trying to sprint to his own vehicle. The maps slowly sail to the earth as the two get into a yelling match before storming off with their respective maps…

The driver of the XWF limousine pulls into what appears to be…

A high-school prom…

(0:36 to 0:51) The superstars, fully dressed in wrestling gear and attire, begin to flood in alongside high school kids in tuxedos and their dates… Mystery ducks under the front door a half a foot to small for him, Donathan and Senator Samuels sip punch inside while sharing pleasantries, Soldier starts spiking aforementioned punch with what appears to be a goat leg, at which point Donathan throws away his cup… Samuels doesn’t notice this and refills his cup…

(0:51 to 1:00) John Black and Mr. Natural woo along to the music at the center of the dance floor. Mr. Natural appears to be doing the funky chicken while John Black hoe-downs, apparently having learned his dancing skills from his several meetings with Jim Hickbilly.

(1:00 to 1:08) The last of the XWF superstars in line to get in is NAZI, who is arguing with a black valet driver. Suddenly, John Madison woos as he bends over to get on his knees behind the driver.NAZI pushes…

Cutaway before the fall to…

(1:08 to 1:23) Tyrone sprinting down a hallway, looking back and forth… He sees a door open and slam to his right! He sprints inside…

And the door locks behind him in what appears to be a janitor’s closet. Flynn stands outside the glass and waves. Flynn leaves to return to the party as Tyrone tries to break the door with his fists, brooms and sponges shaking behind him…

Meanwhile, World-1 International and Crimson Cobra are trying to set up chairs to see who could parkour leap to touch the dangling disco ball above the party. This game is quickly broken up by the school’s principal who waves them away…

(1:23 to 1:37) Angelus, still wearing sunglasses, with his shoulder perched on a wall pulls out his phone to check the time and realizes its dead. He asks one of the girl’s dressed in a magnificent white gown and corsage for the time disinterestedly. At this point, her date, dressed in a baby blue suit and smelling curiously of bourbon starts belligerently poking Anj in the chest, pointing from him to his girl aggressively. Anj takes his shades off.

(1:37 to 1:38) The kid turns to his date and grabs her hard by the arm. He turns around…

(1:39 to 1:55) Anj takes off the kid’s head with a superkick. The kid rolls in a backwards somersault before eating tiled floor. The girl panicks… Anj shrugs and nods towards the dance floor… She weighs her options, looking from her drunk slightly overweight date to the professional wrestler in front of her.

Cut to the pair waltzing gracefully in the center of the dance floor, surrounded by couples.

(1:55 to 2:08) Ann Thraxx and Blair Sully look onto this display wooing, surrounded by simultaneously interested and terrified young men. One walks up and asks Blair if she’d like to dance. Immediately, she bites his nose hard. As he runs away, blood running down his face, the ladies return to their wooing.

(2:08 to 2:26) Four shoes meet at the center of the floor. One pair is a size of giant steel toed boots. The other is a pair of loafers. The camera pans up to see Madison and Mystery staring at each other, jaw jacking quietly. Luca, Duke and NAZI step behind Madison as the Black Circle steps forward closer to Mystery… But Gilmour and Soldier step to Mystery’s shoulders…

Meanwhile, Tyrone finally smashes his way out of the closet…

The five are about to tangle… When Angelus lets go of the girl, holding up a finger, indicating he’ll only be gone a moment. He steps in between the two rival factions… Everything seems to calm down.

(2:26 to 2:27) Until Mark Flynn out of nowhere delivers a running drop kick to Mystery that propels him, arm sprawling for balance, into Madison.

(2:27 to 2:41) Madison gets crushed under Mystery’s weight…Mystery trying to return to his feet gets stomped by Duke, NAZI and Luca just as Gilmour and Soldier hurl themselves into the fray.

From all corners of the dance floor, Benjamin Crane with a steel folding chair, Tyler Decker and Mr. Satellite carrying over a ladder, CM Punk looking up from the three different high school girls he’s hitting on, Kinwraithi from the human punch bowl interaction he’s studying confused, Ronnie Wilkins from harassing the corner of Latino American students, John Black bursting from the women’s restroom with a mouthful of tampons…

All sprint towards the center of the dance floor…

(2:41 to 2:58) Duke Soul Shots World-1 who flips like he got hit by a freight train. Crimson Cobra sprints and leaps off a chair into a corkscrew plancha onto Chris MacBeth and Steve Davids. Madison is emptying a can of pepper spray into Mystery’s eyes, who is currently tightening his grip around Madison’s throat. The principal of the school is currently in the fetal position several feet away from the carnage. Tyrone bursts into the room, screaming for Flynn, who he sees riding on a blinded Mystery’s back like a bull rider, whipping him in the back of the head as CM Punk tries the same to Sebastian Duke. A chokeslam clearly makes his venture unsuccessful.

(2:58 to 3:04) Seated behind the punch bowl are Steve Sayors and Liz Weinberg, currently wooing and oohing at John Black and Mr. Natural getting their heads repeatedly smacked together by Ronnie Wilkins… NAZI gets knocked back into this table by Crimson Cobra, sending the punch bowl's contens swirling around...

Crimson Cobra leaps... RED FA-

NAZI slides out of the way. CRIMSON COBRA RED FANGS THE PUNCH BOWL AND SPLITS THE TABLE! A FLOOD OF RED ALL OVER OUR ANNOUNCERS AND COBRA!

(3:04 to 3:06) Angelus guides his dance partner to the wall and indicates for her to stay put.

(3:06 to 3:14) She begs for him to stay, echoing the words of the song, but Anj runs to join in the fight, her hands outstretched to bring him back…

(3:14 to 3:24) Mystery finally gets Flynn off his back and wraps his hand around Flynn’s throat. At the same time Tyrone sprints to the center to dive on Flynn... Madison who has made it to the wall, pulls the chain holding up the disco ball so it plummets towards this trio… Angelus sprints towards the clusterufkc... Goes for the Whole Damn Show on the disco ball...

Cut to Black.

Gauntlet City. March 31st, 2013. The Last Dance.

Cut to High School Band in the Sahara Desert.

"Where's the gig?"

Cut to Black.

***
...

Sweet Cheapshots.

All right. Let’s get this over with.

First off, Sweet Cheapshots.

What… What… kind of name is Sweet Cheapshots?

I mean… Neither of those are first…

First names…

…

And ‘Making it Look Easy’?

You sure… You sure made it look easy to lose to…

Sebastian Duke…

…

………………….

All right.

Kid. I’m going to shoot straight with you.

Man to whatever the fuck you are.

This shucking and jiving bullshit jokey trash talk? It’s not for me.

Not at the moment.

I’m not in a good place right now.

I lost my second real title run.

For the second time failing to get past my second title defense.

Losing to a man I don’t respect.

Because of another man I don’t respect deciding to once again butt his head into my match and restart it after I lost fair and square by disqualification, keeping my belt

This second man I don’t respect also decided to ignore it when a third man who I don’t respect dropped with an elbow to the skull and picked up the victory not for the first man I don’t respect, but for Shane ’s Black Circle.

Not Sebastian Duke.

But Shane .

A man I respect least of all.

Based on the fact that I woke up in a hospital bed, I’m pretty sure I ain’t King of Shit, either.

Which means I’m now in the middle of a four match losing streak.

The longest of my XWF career.

Needless to say. I’m contemplating a lot of things right now.

I could try with this little rant I’m hitting you with to go inspirational. To insist that I’m not going away.

To explain that you’re missing the point with that Robert Miles caricature if you really want to go there…

That Robert Miles wasn’t just an avid fan of old NFC matches and video games.

That Robert Miles was a statement to the idiots that run this vehicle-turned-inferno straight into the ground on a weekly basis that mid-card talent wasn’t something to be overlooked and buried.

That Robert Miles was a denial of reason and logic…

And a demand to replace it with creativity.

I thought about saying that the last time I lost a big match like this, I came back harder than ever and won the United States Championship.

The time before that, after I lost, I beat a man that some didn’t think I had a prayer against, a member of the EGOmaniacs who thought along with everyone in the back that he was being given his first belt.

The time before that… Well, that time Slater made me tap out… I’d rather not cite that one as a huge victory.

But the time before that. After losing a big match?

I invented Robert Miles. A thing I still get asked about today. A thing that makes me proud of the bullshit I conquered, of the new trails I blazed to get to the main event level I fought for twelve years in this ring to arrive at.

Nine months ago to the day, when I came to the XWF, a man named Tri stan Slater owned this company. Not literally in that Shane was the physical owner but yes.

Literally.

Tristan Slater owned this company.

And if you wanted to get past Match 4 on the card, you had to pucker your lips and ‘admire his ring ability’ from left cheek to right cheek.

Ring is a double entendre. Keep up, Sweet.

The point being, I found a way to force myself down the throats of the masses. To a test group that said audiences didn’t want to see me. To a number of executives that tried to lose my contract and get rid of me by any means necessary.

And I outlasted all of them…

I became a staple of the XWF. Living proof that the crazy, action-never-stops nature of this company was what people really wanted to see.

A week after Robert Miles, I was being lobbed with death threats.

Three months after Robert Miles, I was given an award for Shocker of the Year.

…

I could say all those things.

But I’d rather just crack your ribs.

You see. I don't want to educate you.

I don't want another fan from this match.

I just want to hurt someone.

I want to bring pain to another individual.

I want to strike at their physical pride and joy until it floods red and every twitch of those muscles, that cartilage and the ribs surrounding that precious toned core you’ve spent years developing.

I want to take something aesthetically pleasing to the masses and destroy it for my amusement.

And I have the skill to do it too.

I’m going to hurt you, Cheapshots. I’m going to physically dissect you. I am going to split you like the wishbone of chicken.

Unscientifically. And just because I can.

Do you understand that helplessness?

Just like I did with Robert Miles.

Let me try to help you understand it…

First.

Hand.