NOTE
This story picks up immediately from Robert Mains "Apex Goes to the Fair Part #1". In it, the members of Apex go to a fair. It was a very aptly titles story. Robert, Drew Archyle and I wandered around and bantered wittily until stopping for a fine artisanal pizza and some beers... none for Drew though... he doesn't drink. He DID actually offend some woman at the concession stand, but she kicked him in the balls and we all called it even. Everything seems to be going smoothly, aside from the fact that our boy Centurion decided to be a fucking traitor and work with Lux against us this week, but whatever... I meant at the fair. Everything seems to be going smoothly at the fair.

Or is it?

I'm starting to feel funny.

Anyways, enjoy the story. There's not much trash talk because I love Centurion and Lux by association, but I'll eviscearate them next week.

---

The smile falls from my face as Robert and Drew argue. What are they arguing about? Pizza? It might’ve been pizza, but they seem pretty fired up for it to be about pizza. Ha. Fire. Pizza. Good one, Raven. I wonder if the pizza at the fair is made with fire? Probably not, that would be fancy for a place like this… it’s probably just out of the oven, like peasants eat.

Wait, what was I thinking about?

MAIN: Raven, everything OK?

The pizza is OK. That’s probably not what he’s asking about though. I think I’m focusing on the pizza too much. I try to focus on Roberts face but everything is swimming. I feel flush. I need to know if I am.

RAVEN: Am I flush?

MAIN: What?

RAVEN: Flush, Robert! Am I fucking flush?!

ARCHYLE: Whoa! Relax! You’re cool as a cucumber! Your skin is perfect, buddy!

I take a deep breath and try to calm myself down. Good. I don’t want to be flush. I can feel Robert and Drew eyeing me as I stare down at the bench. Robert leans over and pushes my beer across the rickety picnic table towards me.

MAIN: Take a drink man, calm down.

I nod slowly and extend a trembling hand to grab the styrofoam cup and lift it to my lips. Budweiser. Why do Americans suck at beer? There’s no head on this. Who doesn’t want head? The taste is foul and the little tablets floating in it just don’t add anything to the aesthetic. One of them sticks to my lip as I pull the cup away, and Mains eyes widen as he spots it.

MAIN: What the fuck is that?!

Main snatches my cup away from me and looks inside furiously. He fumes as he spots the remaining tablets. Robert grabs me by the arm and leaps up from the table, dragging me back towards the concession stand.

RAVEN: Owowowowow! Fucking Ow, Bob! Anyone ever tell you that you’ve got a real vice grip? Actually, the way your fingers are mashed together they look like a claw. Are you part crab, Omega?

I manage to make it sound like a joke, but I’m seriously digging for some intel here. If all this time Robert has been a crab-person in disguise, I’m sprinting to the car and Lux and Cent can take the tag team titles. Apex Prophecy is dea-

MAIN: Hey! Hey lady! Did you put that shit in his drink?

“HEY LADY”: Excuse me?

MAIN: You heard me! Did you put that shit in his drink?! Just because my friend Drew insulted you, you think it’s OK to drug people and-

A voice calls out to Robert from the far end of the concession stand. Main and I both look for the source, and see a very obvious “bro” leaning out the window and smiling at us.

“SNACK BRO”: Yo, duuudes! You enjoying the trip?

MAIN: Excuse me?!

“SNACK BRO”: The trip, bros! I thought you’d like it! I’m a big fan of Apex man, I wanted to hook you up!

Robert looks enraged. It’s hilarious. I can all but see steam rising from the top of his head, flames blazing in the pupils of his eyes. He looks like Satan, and I don’t mean Satan as in “unknown warrior in a group chat” Satan. I mean literal Satan. Keep moving, kids. If you didn’t get the joke yet you’re not going to.

MAIN: Are you kidding me right now? Raven is tripping?

“SNACK BRO”: Yeah man. I mean… you both should be. I hit your drink with it too!

Oh shit. Oh shit that’s hilarious. Shit dude, did you hear what he just said?! Shiiiiit maaaaaan. The color drains from Roberts face as he looks from the snack bro, to me, then back again. Robert lifts his hands to his face, digging his fingertips into his flesh and dragging them all the way down to his chin.

MAIN: Excuse me?

“SNACK BRO”: Totally bro. You’re both about to trip balls! Enjoy! APEX PROPHECY FOR LIFE!

Apex Prophecy for life.

Prophecy for life

A.P. 4 life.

AP4L.

What were we talking about again? Something… something about pizza? Something about Robert? RIGHT! Robert! Robert stares at me, his eyes as wide as dinner plates and beads of sweat racing each other down his forehead. He doesn’t look good. He looks nervous. He looks scared.

RAVEN: You OK buddy?

MAIN: When did you grow rabbit ears, Jimmy?

RAVEN: Excuse me?

MAIN: Rabbit ears. You’ve got ‘em on your head.

RAVEN: No I don’t. You’re trying to trick me…

I raise a hand and begin feeling around the top of my head. I don’t feel anything that feels like ears, but I feel two random clumps of my hair on opposite sides of my scalp.

RAVEN: HEY MAN! Are these rabbit ears?

He lifts an index finger to his lips to shush me.

MAIN: Shut the fuck up! You’re so loud! No, that’s just your hair…

The snack bro watches us both from his vantage point in the concession stand. He grins from ear to ear as he watches us descend into madness. It’s creepy, he looks like the Joker and I think I might be Batman, so I kind of want to hit him in the face. I turn away from the concession stand and away from Robert, wandering off in the opposite direction. I need a minute. This is all getting way too strange for me, too stressful. Maybe if I keep walking I won’t have to deal with any of it any of it… whoa, did I just think that last part twice? Weird.

Walk. Just keep walking. Away from the fair, and away from the snack bro that dosed you. Away from Robert Main, and the tag team championships. Away from everything that’s stressing you out. Walk away from Centurion stepping away from the team to work with Lux.

Whoooaaa… That came out of nowhere. I wonder if maybe Centurions bitter betrayal has affected me more than I was letting on.

MAIN: Where are you going?

RAVEN: I’m walking!

MAIN: Well stop! Drew’s gone!

What a strange thing to say, I wonder what he means by that? Drew’s gone? Like gone fishing? I didn’t even see a lake around here or anything, that’s crazy.

MAIN: Hey! Raven! Where the hell is Drew?

RAVEN: I don’t know, I was with you dude.

Main looks panicked, like a parent that can’t find their kid in the middle of a mall. It’s cute, you can tell those two really care about each other, kind of like how I care about Centurio- NO! STOP IT, RAVEN! Stop thinking about the fact that someone you’ve known for more than a decade has essentially spit in your face because Lux batted her eyelashes at him! Stop thinking about the fact that a member of your stable has literally taken steps to take championships away from your stable! Stop thinking about it, and whatever you do… don’t cry!

MAIN: Are you about to cry or something?

RAVEN: NO! Where the fuck is Drew?

Robert shrugs and begin to glance around the fairground. To the left there are banks of carnival games; ring tosses and dart tosses and basketball tosses… lots of tosses when you really boil things down. To the right there are rides; bumper cars and fun houses and wooden roller coasters likely assembled with paper clips and rubber bands by a meth head named Eddie wearing a stained Philadelphia Eagles shirt.

MAIN: I don’t know.

RAVEN: Should we split up to look for him?

MAIN: No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.

RAVEN: Good because I’m pretty scared right now.

Robert and I stand side by side as several carnival goers pass us, faces twisted into grotesque masks of terror and despair. That might just be the drugs, though. They probably look normal if I’m being totally honest with my account of things. There are too many lights, too many sounds. I need to get away from it all and find someplace quiet to think.

MAIN: Let’s check the games. I think he probably went to look at the goldfish or something.

RAVEN: Goldfish? I can’t handle that, dude! Goldfish look like Magikarp and they might evolve into Gyrados, and I’m not equipped for that sort of confrontation.

MAIN: HEY! Get it together! Apex leaves no man behind, right?

RAVEN: I’m not sure I ever agreed to that, Robert. Can we review the contracts? Drew may be on his own here.

Main grunts angrily. I can tell he’s not impressed with me right now, and the way the lights catch his hair and beard… it looks like the mane of a lion. Robert Main isn’t a crab man like I had thought earlier… he’s a lion! A majestic fucking lion, and I would follow him anywhere.

MAIN: Why are you looking at me like that?

RAVEN: Don’t worry about it, fearless leader. Let’s find Drew.

He furrows his brow but doesn’t question me. He simply nods and turns towards the games, wandering off ahead of me in search of our comrade. I stand completely still, because I already forgot what we were doing and started staring at the flickering flame of a nearby torch and daydreaming about what it would be like to live on the sun.

MAIN: Raven!

RAVEN: Yup! Of course! Right behind you!

I scamper off, trailing behind Main and trying to remain focused on the task at hand. I’m sure Drew is fine, but on the off chance he’s not then Robert is right. We need to find him and help him. We take off down a trail past several snack carts and towards the various tossing games. If there was a salad tossing game Vinnie Lane would have cleared out the prizes already. Robert makes his way over to one of the random carnies to ask if they’ve seen Drew. I look around, scanning over a few more games and a bumper car track about fifty yards away. Bumper cars are fun, I used to like them when I was a kid. This setup looks pretty similar to the tracks I used to ride around on when I was younger; hay bales around the outside, cars that look like bowling shoes and Drew Archyles unconscious body in the center.

Wait.

Drew’s body is not something normal, or from my childhood. This is bad.

RAVEN: Robert! Robert he’s over here!

I take off at a full sprint across the fair ground, leaping over the hay bales and onto the bumper car track. I hear people screaming as I race to the center of the track, cars speeding past me as quickly as they can speed considering that they’re fucking bumper cars. I get to the center of the track… and there’s nothing there. A few tires piled up on the floor for the kids to drive into and bounce off of, but certainly not the unconscious body of an Apex Prophecy member.

MAIN: Did you find him?!

Robert shouts through the darkness to me, but before I can answer-

THUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDDDDDDDD!!!

A bumper car hits me in the back of the knee, flipping me over and driving me head first to the concrete floor.

THUUUUUUUNK!!!

That hurt.

Everything looks blurry now. Everything is fading.

Everything is…

---

This was never what I wanted. A no win scenario.

Centurion and Lux? Of everyone I could have drawn as opponents, they were the last on my list. MDK and Bill Blakk would have been nice, I feel like I still owe them one after Leap of Faith, and even Tristan Slater and John Cable or Famine of the Vile or whoever he’s working with this week would have gotten me fired up. Fuzz and Noah Jackson? That would have been fun. Steve Justice and Hanari? Fuck, Lacklan and Kenzi would have been a blast… No. Give me my stable mate. Give me my mentor and friend, and one of the few people on the modern roster that I respect and believe holds a candle to the talent of the past. Ain’t that The Truth?

It’s what I should have expected though. When do things around this place ever work out easily? I wouldn’t be surprised if Theo or Vinnie set this up themselves, just to sit and laugh from their ivory tower as we tear each other to pieces.

Centurion shouldn’t have even BEEN here today, if you want to get all Dante Hicks about it. When the brackets were laid out for the tournament we all thought it was a foregone conclusion that one team would defend the belts and call it a day, but somehow here Cent is lined up with the “champion in waiting” and ready to try and pry the tag belts from Apex’s grasp, the Uni from Robert Main… and maybe the Hart title from underneath Ned’s nose in a weeks time. What gives dude? We’ve been pretty good to you right? We don’t make too many jokes about the artificial hip and Just For Mens hair care routine, but you still wanted to go against the family? What exactly was the offer you couldn’t refuse? TELL ME!!

Sorry. Don’t mind me.

I think I’m still tripping.

Can you trip when you’re unconscious? Is this all a dream?

I never wanted this. Did I say that already?

I always liked Lux. She’s scrappy, she’s talented. I wanted to fight her someday, but I thought the circumstances would be different. A pay per view or a Universal title match or something. Not a Saturday Night Savage halfway across the world with my geriatric ally on her side as some sort of insurance policy. She knows I don’t want to hurt him. She knows he might be the best chance she has at getting me to loosen my grip on these belts.

She’s smart.

She’s wrong.

I don’t want to hurt him, but I will if I have to. I’ve done it before and I can do it again, and I know he feels the same. I gave Robert and Drew my word that I’d give them everything I had and defend these belts until my final breath, and that’s what I plan to do.

MAIN: James…

Hey! This is my monologue, Robert! Get the fuck out of here! Let me talk some shit! Lux is a he/she! Centurion is ancient! I WILL WIN! HA HA!

MAIN: Raven! Wake up!

Fuck off, Main.

MAIN: OPEN YOUR FUCKING EYES!

---

Robert slaps me hard across the face and wakes me up. His hair and beard still look like a glorious lions mane. I’m a little bit aroused if we’re being honest.

RAVEN: Oh hey there, hot stuff.

MAIN: Shut up. I thought you cracked your skull open.

He drags me up to my feet, several children cackling like trailer park hyenas after my horrific wipeout. Whichever one of them is responsible for hitting me; I’m fucking their mother later.

MAIN: You OK?

RAVEN: I’ll survive. Did you find Drew while I was out?

MAIN: You were out for about seven seconds.

RAVEN: So that’s a no? Weak sauce, Robert.

He shakes his head in disgust, turning away from me and focusing on a small building down the lot from the bumper cars. The outside is adorned with twisted portraits, and large bubble letters that spell “HOUSE OF MIRRORS”. Oh, please for the love of God, no.

RAVEN: Robert, I’m not going into a house of mirrors while I’m tripping balls.

MAIN: Yes.

RAVEN: No.

MAIN: Yup.

RAVEN: Not happening.

MAIN: Do it for Drew.

RAVEN: … I hate you so much, Robert. I hope Chris Page kicks at least two of your teeth loose.

Together we set off across the bumper car lot towards the house of mirrors.

We’re coming for you Drew. We’re coming for y-

Oh look! Kettle corn! I should go get some.

FADE OUT