The shot opens on a dizzying sight, staring straight down from about 100 feet up. At the base of our vantage point, we see metal latticework painted sky blue, stretching up from a foundation of gravel. Following the legs of this structure up, we soon determine that it's a water tower. Thankfully, the winds are calm making the position not so precarious despite the height. By the sun's place in the sky, it seems to be around late evening.



Corey Smith is sitting on the metal walkway encircling the bulbous head of the tower, face and hands resting on the railing that's presently his only safeguard from a nasty fall. His legs dangle down over nothingness.

I live there.

Corey points down at a residential area in the distance. He speaks the words simply, but directly, infusing them with meaning.

Present tense actually. I still live there. He smiles wistfully. Let me back up a bit. Yes, Lux will be in house for Savage. But I hopped a quick flight to my home town at quite a bit of personal expense because I felt it would be meaningful to show it to you, Destiny. After all, you showed me your home. I suppose the least I could do is show you mine.

So, yeah, back to “present tense”. I live there. But the reason I'm up here and my home is down there is because there are currently two Corey Smiths in this time line. The one who belongs here is in elementary school though and just lost his first tooth. And he lives in that house with his parents and two younger brothers. There will eventually be a sister but she isn't born yet. It's impossible for me to go see them because, as you may expect, showing up at their door and telling my folks “Hey, it's me, Corey! From the future! I rode back in time with the ghost of a killer in me, and we're here to stop the entire human race from being systematically subjugated and destroyed” probably won't go over so well. So here I am. And there they are. A sadness creeps into his voice at that. Turns out you can lose a family while they're still alive too.

And while we're having this heart to heart Destiny, I'm going to go ahead and tell you just why this is so hurtful for me. Because above and beyond the fact that my living family is tantalizingly out of reach, I must exist with the burden of knowing what kind of pain I cause them in the future. You see, I'm the Sean Graves in my story. I'm the one who fucks everything up. Because that little boy down there in those Batman footie PJ's grows into a selfish drug addict who will drag his loving family through years of hell before suffering a catastrophic drug overdose at the age of 17 that rendered him comatose. SPOILERS! Corey laughs bitterly. I know all that. I know what that kid down there is going to become. And I can't do or say a damn thing to stop it. Not a damn thing.....

Corey rests his chin on his folded hands, eyes misting a bit as he looks down at his home.

So what's the point of this, Destiny? Aside from a touch of “I'll show you mine if you show me yours”? Well, I suppose the point is that you don't hold a monopoly on suffering. Everybody hurts. Everybody has pain. Some people, like me, self inflicted it. Some others had it foisted on them. Now, I'm not a monster. I've given you a lot of well deserved shit, but I'm not going to try to undermine your loss. I can't imagine what losing a child must be like. It must be awful. And for that, you have my sympathy. But just because you have my sympathy doesn't mean you have my respect.

Corey turns to look at the camera, his expression a countenance of bitterness. I see a lot of what I used to be in you, Destiny. Maybe that plays into why you piss me off, I don't know. But you're one of those people who thinks they have a right to pull people into their suffering. Like an emotional black hole, you find justification after justification to outsource your pain, to make it other people's problem by treating them like shit and existing in a bubble of nothing but your own self regard. See, you tried to blame it on the business Destiny, but yet all that seems to be on your mind is Sean and all the turmoil he's caused you. And yeah, sure, the business is tough. But plenty of people have managed to weather it without turning into an insufferable prat. So I don't buy your transparent BS about wrestling turning you callous.

Corey backs away from the railing now, and the sun catches off the back of his head for a moment, briefly illuminating him in a brilliant corona.

And that's another thing I can't wrap my head around, you staking this claim that the business has left you so jaded, and yet, what have you even done? Like I said last time, you have no claim to anything in the XWF. So unless your career elsewhere edges on fucking legendary, what amount of skin have you put in the game to claim that it's damaged you so badly? You don't even strike me as much of a fighter considering your next response after I blew you out of the goddamn water was to walk back all that bravado and claim you don't even care about the Television Championship or winning this match. And let me tell you just how reassuring that little nugget is after facing a champion who didn't give a shit about the title, followed by a first challenger who didn't give a shit about the title! So thank you so fucking kindly for making this a hat trick of ambivalence!

He picks himself up to a standing position, gripping the topmost railing now as he is beholden to a mirthless sneer. Once he gets to a standing position, he brazenly abandons the railing.

So why the hell are you here?!

Corey splays his arms out challengingly, leaning in and shouting at the camera.

Why?! If it's not to WIN, if it's not to be a champion, then WHAT DO YOU WANT? To find Sean and get your revenge on him? Fine, sure, go ahead! But couldn't you just do that on your own time without dragging the rest of the XWF down into your pointless existential pity party? Because Lux and I both are getting pretty damn sick and tired of wasting our time with people who don't want to be here. And I'm DOUBLY sick of people like you who use their own personal tragedy as a pathetic excuse to act like an insufferable shit. As if you wouldn't have found another reason to hoist yourself up on an unearned pedestal even if your son hadn't died. Oh, you would have found your reason. As sure as water is wet, you would have found it.

Destiny, I don't need to figure out who I am. I've got a damn good handle on that. The only one here who needs a smidge of insight is you, because you're the one inking contracts for title matches that you say you have no desire to win. You're the one showing up to your family's stomping grounds and bemoaning the fact that it's bringing up all these horrible memories for you, effectively sticking your head in the toilet and wondering why it smells like shit. And you're the one pushing your pain on everyone around you despite it not doing a damn bit of good in helping you to get over it (once more, got PLENTY of personal experience with that one).

So until your next revelatory “stream of vomit-consciousness” that you try to pass off as a promo, I suggest you start focusing on the shit that actually matters, like figuring out how to duck a leather strap as it barrels towards that Botox stuffed toxic puss-pool you call a face. Because considering that you've already outed yourself as someone who doesn't really care about the outcome of this match, I'm thinking that last second bit of aggressive posturing you tacked on at the end there has about as much truth to it as Michael Graves claiming he's at a Chuck-E-Cheese for the pizza.

Destiny, Lux is gonna bowl over you this Saturday. There is simply no other outcome. You're distracted, you by your own admission don't even CARE about winning this opportunity you've been given, and quite frankly I just don't think you deserve it. But feel free to try to claw your way back to the surface in your last promo seeing as how I've just spoon fed you one more helping of material to work from. #FollowTheLeader. Now bounce to it, bitch.

Lux's image appears just behind Corey. She looks tentatively towards the ground, and then brings her hands up to cup around her mouth and whispers.

Hey, I'm behind you.

Corey looks back at her. Why are you whispering?

Lux jerks her thumb up over the barrier. I figured surprising you into falling to your death would be a pretty anticlimactic end for both of us.

Point. Corey sits back down again, allowing the adrenaline from his promo to burn off. Lux takes up residence just next to him, looking out at the rows of neighborhoods panning out before them.

Do you miss it?

Being a kid or living here?

Both, I suppose.

Corey swings his legs over the side a bit, setting his chin back down on the railing as he considers the question. I guess. But I can never go back to it, so there's not much point in being nostalgic.

I'm not sure that's true. I think there's a lot of value in holding on to those memories.

Things sure were less complicated back then.

Yeah. Lux shifts her weight, eyes ticking towards the horizon as she proceeds. I owe you an explanation.

You don't....

I do though. I used your body for something without your permission. I really suck at this building trust thing.

Corey chuckles. You kinda do. But he speaks the words without any true malice.

Yeah, I earned that. Lux pulls her legs up to sit indian style, her phantom form allowing her limbs to simply pass through the bars of the barricade as though through thin air. You were right about me being lonely. I am. No offense, I think part of it is me ending up in the body of a hormonal teenager. But the rest of it is all on me. I never had time for relationships. Not real ones. So I've been alone most of my life. But I think seeing you with VV recently brought that into sharper focus for me, it reminded me of what I've never been able to have. She cants her head with a smirk. And yeah, maybe there was some jealousy mixed up in there too.

Do you want to be with Joachim?

The question seems to catch Lux off guard, and she has to take a few moments in search of an answer. But, in the end, she still comes up with little. I....I guess I don't know. I don't know what I want.

Corey finally looks over at her. He's a good guy. A little messed up in his own way maybe, but who amongst us isn't?

I agree. But then another part of me wonders if I'm allowing myself to get too distracted, too tied down to people and romance when I should be solely focused on the mission. I start to wonder if I'm not making the best of decisions lately.

Corey gestures to himself playfully. Kind of the cost of doing business when you're a 17 year old. I think you hit the nail on the head, welcome to the world of teenage boy hormones. We're always horny, and that pretty much always wins out over common sense.

Lux laughs.

Plus, Jo is stupidly good looking. For a dude, I mean. How that man came from Engy I just have no goddamn idea.

It IS pretty mind blowing. Lux pauses, and she watches the traffic flow in the communities down below ,and it occurs to her that from up on high it's almost like watching blood pass through a giant organism. All those people and things, all those homes full of happy families, or unhappy families, people on their own, or relationships in bloom. A human stew of sorts all coming together to form something greater than the sum of it's parts. And all of it lost if she couldn't stop Aiwass and Madison Dyson from blowing it all to hell. And yet here, sitting beside her, one relationship of many, a microcosm of the entire human condition. But perhaps the most vital and meaningful relationship Lux has ever had with anyone. Something so powerful it had come to rival the importance of the mission itself. Lux reaches over and takes hold of Corey's hand. If I do decide to pursue something with Jo, we'll talk about it before I do anything.

Corey looks down at Lux's hand, and gives her a squeeze in return, marveling at how they had been able to will this contact into being somehow. Deal.

Lux smiles again, but this time with a touch of cheek. So you think I got this tomorrow?

That veneer of boyish braggadocio reappears on Corey's face. Oh my God, yes. You know, I hope the booking team finds us an opponent soon who actually cares about winning the TV title.

Mmmmm.....be careful what you wish for.

You got it, Lux. And you know what, you got it at War Games too. We need to start thinking about who we want to shack up with.

That we do. You know, I kind of like what Centurion had to say earlier today about taking a stand for what's right in the XWF.

Corey looks at her, kind of surprised. You mean you want to throw in with those guys?

Lux shrugs, but looks a bit playful. Maybe. I'm not ruling it out. She closes her hand around Corey's even more. We'll just have to see what the future holds.

They both cast their glances out at the horizon, inviting the future in.