Bobby Bourbon, recently shot, is seen in a hospital bed. He looks grouchy, wearing a gown, an IV stuck into his arm. A nurse is rooting through the meat of his massive opposing forearm, injecting another needle to do blood work. Beside Bobby we see none other than Walter, a fan of Bobby’s that’s been talking to him his entire fucked up trip from Houston to San Antonio. Bobby looks up at his nurse with a smile.

All done, Mr. Bourbon! And the doctors say you’re healing at a terrific pace, you’ll be out of here tonight!

Then why are you still taking blood?

We’re bored and selling it on the black market. Crazy people think they’re vampires and pay thousands for the ounce, especially from a famous person like you!

Walter looks intrigued.

Really? Bobby, you could do that, package and sell your own blood for thousands of dollars to weirdos!

Bobby looks absolutely baffled at the talks of someone exploiting his blood for record profits money, before he purses his lips and inhales sharply through his nostrils.

Well, honest, at the very least, although fucking weird.

The nurse walks off, and Bobby watches as she does. He’s been in the hospital a few days, you try not staring at people when you’re basically confined to yourself for hours on end, besides the accompaniment of someone annoying the absolute piss out of you. Walter pats Bobby’s shoulder, and Bobby shudders as he does.

You hear that! You’ll be able to make it to San Antonio and face Flynn for the Universal Championship after all, and you know what Bobby? You’re welcome! I was there, every step of the way, to help you along.

Bobby’s gaze looks off, and away from Walter.

Oh, I’m surely aware of you, Walter, and I will repay you in kind.

Sweet! I’m going to be a Bourbon Man!

Bobby shakes his head and looks at Walter.

Nope! You’re going to serve a much greater purpose. You, Walter, are a part of a grand design, and we need you more than ever to hang tight!

The hospital room door opens, and in walks Charlie Nickles. He looks deadpan, and expressionless, not happy to see Bobby, not effected at all, but glaring at Walter. Charlie walks over to the far side of the room and sits on a windowsill, the light from outside silhouetting his face and features. From behind him, Crash Rodriguez, the OCW Paradigm Championship being dragged along the floor like a toy, walks in. He waves to Bobby, but mugs Walter the entire time. Crash sidles up next to Charlie in the other window sill, also hiding his face with the shadow provided with his back to the sun. Through the door next we see Harmon Egan, OCW Craze Championship neatly worn around his waist. He points at Bobby and then signs something at Walter, to whit Bobby, Crash, and Charlie laugh.

Uh, heh, wow, the entire Brotherhood of Bastards! So, I thought I was going to be a Bourbon Man, but you mean…

Walter looks as though he’s going to lose his shit because his dreams are coming true.

You want me in the Bastards?

Bobby, Charlie, Crash, and Harmon all laugh in unison. Bobby stands, holding his IV stand with his left hand, and looks down at Walter.

You got me shot, Walter. Now, these guys won’t let me go into a fight if I’m hurt, they’re my brothers, Walter. They don’t get me shot. I rely on them, to the ends of the earth, completely, but you? You’re just a pain in my ass. Time to take the pain away.

Bobby throws an open handed slap, cracking Walter across the jaw. Walter recoils as the rest of the Brotherhood of Bastards look on and laugh.

Ow! What was that for!

Bobby slaps Walter again. Not a punch, not a wrestling hold or maneuver, an open handed palm to Walter’s flush cheek. Walter steps back and sniffles.

Bobby, stop! I’m just a fan of yours!

Bobby slaps Walter.

I don’t want you as a fan, Walter! You’re a fucking loser, and an asshole, so fuck the fuck off! You’re kicked out of being a Bobby Bourbon fan! Don’t root for me, don’t like me, run the fuck away!

Bobby slaps Walter a fourth time. Walter looks like he’s weeping.

Jesus, and you’re fucking crying? You’re a grown ass man, and you’re getting slapped in the face so you’re going to start weeping like a bitch about it! You think that makes you Bourbon People material? You think that makes you a Bastard? No!

Bobby slaps Walter a fifth time. Walter sits on the floor, crying, looking like a baby.

Please, God, no!

God? GOD!?

Bobby grabs Walter by the collar of his shirt.

My name is not fucking God, Walter, who the fuck are you saying 'please' to?

Bobby slaps Walter in the face again. These are at best baby taps at this point, but Walter is flipping the fuck out.

Pl-please Bobby Bourbon, no!

Bobby picks Walter up and puts him on his feet. In short order, Charlie Nickles steps up and whacks Walter on the ass good and hard with a big flat Philosophy textbook. Crash comes in and spanks Walter with the OCW Paradigm Championship. Harmon comes in and spanks Walter with the OCW Craze Championship. Walter walks out of the room, rubbing his ass and his teary eyes, the basic seventh grade bullying by the Brotherhood of Bastards fully, and simultaneously, getting his goat and harshing his jimmies. Bobby sticks his arm out. Charlie removes the IV from his arm and dresses it, his knowledge of needles and blood vessels unmatched in all of wrestling. Bobby doffs the cotton hospital gown, revealing swank gray slacks beneath. He puts on a crimson dress shirt, followed by a white blazer, and he begins to button the shirt while Crash and Harmon leave. Charlie is looking through a cabinet, and pulls out a pillow. He holds it up.

Keeping this!

Bobby, not caring since it’s not even his pillow, gives Charlie a thumbs up.

Hey, it’s yours bro!

Bobby, having finished buttoning his shirt, picks up a pair of cheapo sunglasses and puts them on, running his fingers through his hair as he does. He walks out of the hospital room, his tacky bright red suede shoes absolutely stealing the scene. Bobby pauses and clicks his heels together.

There’s no place like home.

Bobby chuckles and keeps walking down the hospital hall towards the elevator. He presses the down button, still not looking at the camera following him. The elevator arrives, and Bobby enters the empty elevator car. Bobby glances around, realizing he rides an awful lot of elevators. The car stops and the doors open. Bobby steps out into a hall and walks towards a set of large glass doors. Bobby exits the hospital, but is met with a stage already set up, the XWF Logo proudly on display from banners adorning it. Bobby approaches and a bevy of flash photos go off to get images of Bobby for the clickbait that is him recovering from the hospital in time to have his match with Mark Flynn for the Universal Championship. Bobby steps up to a podium set up with a microphone in front of him.

Well, hey there XWF Universe! How are you doing? Me, well, I’m just fucking swell, felt pent up and trapped in a hospital, and every time they caught me sneaking into the physical therapy labs to get some cardio in, they were like, ‘oh no, Bobby, you’ve been shot’ and I want everyone, especially Mark Flynn to know, this sure as fuck isn’t the first time anyone has shot on Bobby Bourbon before, it won’t be the last fucking time, because by now it’s so woven into the cycle of cliche horseshit I keep hearing from the mouths of dumb shits who offer NOTHING unique to this world, offer nothing great, just a cookie-cutter path to being alone in your case, and whoo-boy, this business sure is rife with the cold loner types! Me? Well, I’m a man of the people! My people, mind you, not everybody’s cup of tea, but hey, not everybody drinks Coca-Cola but they can tell you about their commercials. I mean, yeah, Mark, you’ve done a helluva job expressing every mar on my record, writing an expose that’s on an expose from two-thousand and nineteen on shit that happened in twenty-seventeen. I sure am tarnished, and rotten, and no good, and used up, chewed up, spit out, and absolutely condemned. Heh, that’s the crux of it, right Mark? We’re bringing up shit everybody already knows, I guess to get the new kids up to speed, on why I should be condemned?

Bobby flashes a million dollar smile.

Mark, I’ve accepted my condemnation a long time ago. It’s a part of me, bruh, you’re the loremaster and whatnot, as King my crown was forged in blood for a throne made of skulls, and that’s within the last year, I guess you missed that part? I’m pretty sure I brought it up whooping the dog piss out of you, Dolly, and Jenny Myst Cancelled in one go. Go ahead, math nerd, showcase the statistics on that, and the probability, and show everybody your bell curve, your conic sections, and your fucking fractals, because I’m going to throw my fist so hard through your face you’ll be coughing up equations with blood and finding your teeth in your own shit the next day. You never stopped to think, for one instant, Mark, that I didn’t know the fact you’ve been hammering home the entire time? That I’m bad? Heh, alright man, I get it, you’ve done the homework and came to the same conclusion every fan in attendance already knew going into this shit, and that’s Bobby Bourbon is a fucking demon in this business, not to be fucked with, you will not get any lower, you will not find any meaner, and you will not face any more ferocious you stupid motherfucker! That ring, come Warfare, becomes the Seventh Circle of hell and I slaughter you in the pit like you were fucking cattle coming in to donate eyeballs to McDonald’s cheeseburgers. Spread the word, Mark, how awful I am.

Bobby sips a cup of water from beneath the podium.

Better still, Mark, do me a bigger favor, convince the world I don’t exist! Hah, yeah, tell them all, lie to them, Mark. Lie to all the people who don’t know any fucking better, let them know how when it comes to Bobby Bourbon, it’s as simple as looking through the numbers and pouring over the data, because the devil is in the details and Bobby is terrified of his own past. You’re going to get someone hurt doing that, you know that right? Some stupid shit walking in off the street is going to call a shot at me because of something you said, and when I paralyze the little shit, he will sue you for lying to him, knowing damn well not to fuck with me. Then again, someday, Mark, some kid is going to come in here and shoot me down, making himself the fastest gun, but that kid sure ain’t you, is it, old man? Oh, shit, that’s ageism, or is it? I didn’t say there was anything bad about being old, I respect my elders. Not you, Mark, but mind you, most elders.

Future-you, though, how old is that guy, even? Like, you’re forty-fucking-two, but you don’t have your shit together enough until, what, you’re like seventy? Is that what you’re planning on doing, Mark, is reaching deep down, inside of yourself, and pulling out not just every shred of strength you can muster, every bit of guile in your soul, and pulling out the assistance of a septuagenarian NOT named Gandalf? Look, stop, a forty-two year old and a seventy year old couldn’t carry a sofa into a room, let alone compete with me. Leave the old man at home, for Christ’s sake, you’re completely relying on future you that doesn’t exist, because last I checked, that motherfucker is nowhere near as fucked up as I’m going to make future you. That was just potential future you untouched by the fourth dimensional ass whooping I’m bringing to you in San Antonio, two complete moves ahead of you at every time, and after the first concussion you get from getting your fucking melon cracked by some deviant, diabolical demonstration of destruction I do in that ring, you’re probably going to tell your rook to move out of his dad’s basement and you’ll think your own king is supposed to be hiding places and handing out secret cheeseburgers. I will prove myself to be the absolute best baddest in the XWF, the consecrating flames and sweeping plagues of the Bastardly father coming from below to cleanse the realm and the palette to make way for the finest flavor and taste on Earth, compared to the basic-ass, run of the mill macaroni-and-cheese bullshit you’ve managed to serve up since you heard I was coming to whoop your ass in that ring, Mark. Fuck, I tried sounding like you for one whole promo, only entertaining, and I got bored with that shit.

As for the XWF, well, we got a mutual understanding, Mark. You keep pointing out record profits, and all these business terms you’re trying to trademark, and I don’t even think you know that just adding a little “™” to the tail end of anything doesn’t actually trademark it, but do you know what these people are coming to buy, Mark? Don’t you recall the business the XWF is in? It’s not you shooting off at the mouth and sounding like a sullen little boy who lost his balloon, nah. It’s not you at all, no sirree, it’s not even me, or Vaughn, who you fucking shat on for being, ugh, whatever champion you just heralded as to say he was a worthy contender not three weeks ago. It’s not Dolly Waters, Jenny Myst Canceled, not women’s football, although they’re generating more money than I thought, not Madness, not Anarchy, not Warfare. It’s not even Relentless. Nah, Mark, what this business sells is simpler than that; we’re in the business of blood. Every penny this company earns is soaked in it. You feel it, every time you take a shower, or at least I hope you shower, all the war wounds, the spots on your body that weren’t that way when you were born. That injury that shelved you, Mark, and gave you the perfect excuse to stay away? Someone made millions off of it. The progression of this business, Mark, doesn’t require analytics, and pencil pushers, no, not at all! What it needs, Mark, is it’s absolute best goddamn wholesaler in company history, the Warfare Wrecker, the man who’s going to beat the fuck out of you and take what is yours by fucking force using the utmost tact in every move. Fuck it, I might run out there and just Bobbybomb a few of your chess pieces, Mark, how the fuck do you intend to move a queen that can’t walk, a forklift? See, that whole moving the pieces part of our Chestling© match is to get your blood pressure up, make you sweat a bit, so when I pop you open you gush all over the mat, onto the referee, and give the people what they fucking crave, the beautiful red trickle of human fucking blood, our tithe and sacrifice to the corporate demigods the way of the Bastard so rewards, getting the fans talking, telling each other the story of the night Bobby bled Mark like a stuck pig en route to peeling the Universal Championship from his grip, and the ratings shooting higher and higher to see who I bleed next. Bobby the Butcher, come to call, not a king, just cutting you to fucking ribbons and leaving you smoked in the back. I’ma sell you for a dollar ninety-five a pound, MountainTop Meatloaf, ground up, salty, with a hint of pointless fact checking, perfect for trivia night with the gals. The process, though, where we bash each other and stain the floor red? That's the measure of success we strive for. That's what sells, Mark, if it bleeds it leads, and by god, you will fucking bleed! You won't be the last, no, because, heh, we have this whole crop of new talent coming into the XWF by way of the Denzel Porter show and March Madness itself, and they will come, Mark, and they will fall, Mark, bleeding all the way to the ground, the dollars pouring in, caked in gore but still worth every cent. What you do after that? Well, that's entirely your business. I'll be defending the Universal Title.

Bobby winks, smiling, and leaves the podium. He steps into the rear of a large black SUV, the logos removed, and the vehicle departs the hospital.