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Thaddeus Duke · (04-27-2022)

Woolworth Tower Situation Room || Tribeca – New York City || 1124 Hours

Thaddeus has been gone for four days now. Before he left, he was hoping to already be home by now and really they’re just barely getting started. When I married him, I didn’t know half of what I know now and even that isn’t enough. Really, I don’t know anything about tactics or strategy, but I pretend well enough in front of all of his chiefs. Fake it ‘til you make it, right? Dick knows though. He sees through me and mostly it just pisses me off. He never says anything, but if I say something he just gives me this look like I belong in the kitchen and not in this room watching my husband defend his people, his family, himself.

You don’t know me. None of you do. Yeah, you’ve seen me on Warfare or at pay per views at ringside with Frankie while Thad does his thing. But you don’t really know much about me aside from what little you’ve seen in a Thaddeus Duke promo here and there. What you need to know is that Thaddeus is legitimately the best thing to ever happen to me. Yeah, we have our problems as any young marriage will, especially when you only knew each other a few weeks before getting hitched.

Some people think I married him for his money. Facts tell an entirely different story. If it was for the money, I’d have let him pay my mob debts from the word go. If it was the money, it wouldn’t have taken me three months to use the credit card he gave me. The first time I used it, it wouldn’t have been for McDonald’s for me and Frankie. If it was the money, I wouldn’t feel this damn alone without him.

Looking around the Situation Room, its full of doom, gloom and long faces. The effort in clearing the mountains with the WarHammer’s was successful, but the entire underground desert facility is surrounded by land mines.

”How much we got left?” Dick Small asks of Thad.

On the wall is live footage from Thad’s helmet cam. The feed fuzzes in and out with every nearby blast from the tanks. First, they tried mine sweeping with heavy machinery, but they suffered losses quickly.

”Not a lot,” Thad answers him after a blast.

”At least we’re making headway,” Dick says in an effort to stay positive.

Later, they tried a ‘Thunder Run’ tactic made famous during the war in Vietnam. I’d never heard of it personally, and I was afraid to ask Dick. He’s earned his name, that’s for sure. So, later that night I was sitting with Brandon and researched it together. Turns out, the Ares Project adopted the Viet Cong minefield strategy. So close and so densely packed together, that clearing the field is a suicide mission.

”Not enough,” Thad replies. ”At this pace, we’ll run out of tank ammo about eight to ten hours before the supply convoy gets to us.”

”Can you slow down your pace?” Dick asks of him.

They gambled and tried that tactic. It didn’t go well. Catastrophic losses resulted and Thad ordered them to pull back.

”That’s tough,” my love replies to that Dick. ”We sit too long, they start lobbing missiles at us. It’s been two and a half steps forward, two steps back for the last twelve hours.”

”So you’re saying we’re gonna lose this war over a fucking minefield,” Dick fires back with anger evident.

”I’m saying we’re gonna lose this war because I can’t use my fucking air force, Dick!” my husband retorts quickly. ”You were supposed to have this figured out by now and instead, I’m wasting tank ammunition by blowing up mines all fucking day when I could be carpet bombing the god damn area and be back in New York by sundown!”

”I’m still working on it,” he argues.

”Work harder,” I blurt out.

”Lauren, sit and shut up,” Dick says to me, shooting me an angry glance.

”Dick,” Thad says before taking off his helmet to look directly into the camera. ”I appreciate everything you do for me. I haven’t forgotten the fact that you left a government job to come work for me, but don’t ever make me remind you again how the chain of command goes.

“Lauren is the Queen of the Illuminatus State and Vice Commander of the armed forces. You ever talk to her like that again I swear to god I will bounce you out on your ass, you got that?”

”Sir,” he agrees, red faced and defeated. ”My apologies Mrs. Duke,” he says, turning toward me for an extremely brief moment before the door buzzer goes off. Dick nods to Brandon who quickly darts across the room and opens the door slightly. Someone on the other side hands him a slip of paper before he closes the door and rushes across the room to hand it to his father.

”Hey baby,” I say to him softly.

”Hey babydoll,” he greets me warmly.

Thinking and gathering my thoughts, it’s difficult to put into words what I’m thinking. While Thad is so very good at expressing his emotions, I am not. For so long, I’ve buried everything I’ve felt and only with him have I ever felt safe in opening up. He makes it easy. But I am a colossal fuck up in every sense of the phrase. The fact that we have an open marriage with boundaries is common knowledge. He wishes things would stay quieter in public. ”The world doesn’t need to know every detail of our personal life,” he always says to me. He’s right, they don’t. But I was also born without a filter and that sometimes causes us problems. I don’t ever intend to do it, it just happens.

I messed up recently. Instead of verifying with Thad and getting the green light, I trusted that Ricky had already gotten it. He didn’t, but we did it anyway and to make matters worse, pretty much the entire Velvet Rabbit clientele knew about it before Thaddeus. To top it off, Thad’s at war and when you’re the wife of a soldier, that’s about as low as you can get.

”Thad we have a problem,” Dick cuts through my thoughts.

”What now?” he asks coldly.

”The transmission we intercepted last night?” he begins in a ‘you remember’ kind of way. ”Well, we deciphered it and they apparently have dragons.”

[Image: llVGbxt.gif]

Kings.

Queens.

Popes and Churches. Militaries and wars. Nations, jets, mansions, cars, yachts and a multibillion dollar fortune.

And now dragons.

”Excuse me, what?” I chime in.

”Babydoll, I gotta go,” he says with sadness in his voice.

I wish I was there with him. Wait, no. I wish he was smart enough to be here with me instead of across the country in the scorching desert where one lucky shot takes my world away from me. Why couldn’t he just stay home? Why couldn’t he just send all those people we pay?

”I’m sorry,” I blurt out before he switches off the microphone.

”About what?”

”About Ricky,” I answer him quickly.

”Yeah I know,” he says with a sigh.

He doesn’t know. Seriously the last thing I want to do is upset him. He’s so good to me. He’s good to his children. He’s good to everyone that’s in his life and I just keep… fucking up.

”I forgive you,” he says and I can’t help but crack a little smile. ”I’m still gonna knock Ricky on his ass when I get home.

“Prolly smoke a little weed after though.”

”So… no hall pass?” I ask hopefully.

”Haven’t you learned yet not to ask questions you already know the answer to?” he asks me with a laugh.

”No,” I reply back to him, also with a little bit of a laugh. ”I learn slowly.”

On the screen, I can see him messing with his phone real quick before putting it back in his pocket. Seconds later, my phone chimes. Checking the notification, he sent me this:

[Image: SnA1leu.gif]

”Dammit,” I mutter under my breath. ”Dick,” I say aloud so he can hear me.

”Big one.”

”True.”

”Dick before I go, what are these dragons?” he asks. I’d like to know too, in all honesty.

”We have no idea,” the incompetent Dick Small answers him. ”The message reads as follows: Illuminatus stalled but blowing mines, release the dragons.

“End of message.”

”Commander!” shouts a man nearby. Thad looks toward him. The soldier points toward the sky.

”What the fuck...” he mumbles under his breath.

”What do you see?”

”Looks like a stealth bomber,” he answers as his helmet cam steadies on the black aircraft.

”That can’t be, they don’t have an air force,” Dick interjects.

”We’re certain they didn’t find a way to buy one? I mean, they bought a navy.”

”Which wasn’t a wise investment on their part,” Dick reminds him. ”Sir, their navy rests at the bottom of the Atlantic because of you.”

”That doesn’t answer my question,” Thad says with waning patience.

”We have had no indication that that kind of purchase was made by the Ares Project, sir.”

”Well they have one plane at least.”

”Six,” the soldier corrects.

”There’s five others coming up behind us,” Thad informs us.

On the screen, we can watch what Thad watches. The large bomber swoops in across the mountains.

”Prepare to launch!” Thad instructs his soldiers and within seconds a half dozen or so soldiers move to the front of the line. One by one, surface to air missiles are fired toward the bomber. On the screen, we watch as the stealth bomber dives lower and lower toward my husband and his soldiers. As the missiles near the plane, it ejects flares from all sides, confusing the missiles and forcing them to chase the flares rather than the plane.

”TAKE COVER!” he yells and he and we assume many others dive underneath whatever they can. Thad dives to the ground and crawls under one of the tanks as flames cross just behind him.

”What the...”

”Fuuuck?”

”Alright I gotta switch off the mic. These fuckers are dropping fire on us.”

With an audible click, the sounds of war are quieted.

”Dick, why is the Illuminatus Air Force so lethal?” I ask.

Not removing his eyes from the screen and standing with his hands on his hips for a long few moments, he and the rest of us sit helpless, three thousand miles away from him as flames shoot out from the low flying stealth bombers.

”I asked you a question,” I remind him and he cranes his neck to look back at me for a moment before taking his seat.

”The Illuminatus Air Force possesses a propulsion technology that not only allows them to fly longer and further without refueling,” he begins to explain. ”But they’re also faster jets than any other military on the planet.”

”How much faster?”

”The Illuminatus fighter jets outpace the Foxbat by almost 400 miles per hour,” he answers.

What the fuck is a Foxbat?

”What the fuck is a Foxbat?” I ask, repeating my own thought.

”Built by the Russians, it was the fastest fighter jet ever to enter service,” he informs me quickly.

Eyeing the red phone on the table, I really don’t want to look at the screen. The red phone connects to the Air Force chief who is in the Baja with the carrier. That much I remember. On that carrier is Thad’s super duper lethal air force.

”And we can’t use them,” I say to him, still not taking my eyes from the red phone.

”Not without risking open air conflict with the American military,” he informs me.

Dick looks up at the screen and taking that moment, I spring to action, lifting the red phone from its cradle.

”Put that down,” Dick says as he leaps from his chair.

With the phone to my ear, it starts ringing.

”Or?”

”God DAMMIT LAUREN!” he shouts before ripping the phone out of my hand and slamming it back down in its cradle.

The little white blinking light ceases and I was so close.

”I know you want to help!”

”I want to win this fucking war and bring my husband home, Dick!”

”That right there, that’s why you can’t lead! That’s why you shouldn’t be in this room!” he shouts at me.

I’d like to say I’m in a stunned silence, but I’m not stunned, I’m absolutely fucking furious.

”All you think about is you! All you think about is what Lauren wants! What Lauren needs!” He steps toward the screen, pointing to where Thad is again diving under equipment. ”That man right there! Your husband! He thinks of everyone!

“Me! Those men and women fighting beside him! Those beautiful children downstairs! You! And you want to risk all of it because you can’t wait and let him see this through to the end!”

Rage.

Boiling.

Kinda wanna punch Dick in his dick.

Also kinda wanna push him out a window and watch him splatter on Broadway.

With nervous anger trying to escape, I tap my fingernails on the table and look over at Brandon. He’s had his eyes glued to the screen. There was a time, I used to call him Braden. He’s cute. He’s been a great man to have around in times like these. He loves Thad almost as much as I do.

”What if it was your son?” I ask of Dick.

”What?” he asks as he turns to face me again.

”If Brandon was out there facing actual fire in that hellscape of a place like Thad, hell, with Thad,” I try to be concise with my line of questioning. ”Would you have been so quick to rip that phone out of my hand?”

Dick spies me quietly for several seconds before looking down the length of the conference table to Brandon. Darting his gaze from Brandon to me, he finally answers. ”Yes.”

”How could you?”

”Because thinking with your heart in times of war rather than your brain gets a lot of people killed,” he answers. Retaking his seat, he pulls the red phone toward him and rests his hand on top of it before averting his attention back to the battle that I can only assume our side is losing pretty badly.

How the fuck do you combat planes spitting fire on you?

With an Air Force, that’s how.

Looking side eyed at Brandon, I notice him looking at me. What Dick is forgetting is that this isn’t the only red phone in the house. There’s also one on Thad’s night stand in our bedroom. Catching Brandon’s gaze, we look at at each other for a long few seconds before I dart my eyes to the phone and nod toward it, then give a quick nod toward the door. It takes a few seconds for him to understand what I’m hinting at before he nods to me.

”It’s clear I’m just a nuisance here,” I say as I stand up and start for the door.

”Lauren I’m sorry,” Dick says without looking at me. ”I want to send the planes. We just can’t.”

Stopping at the door, I turn back toward him. ”You better hope he makes it out of this,” I warn him. ”Because if he doesn’t, you’re the first person I’m executing.”

An idle threat.

I don’t even know if I have that power. Nevertheless, Brandon opens the door and lets me out of the room.

”I’m gonna go talk to her,” Brandon says to his father.

”Yeah you do that.”

Brandon races to catch up to me. Silently, we run down the hall and up the flight of stairs to the master bedroom on the top floor.

”You really think he wouldn’t send planes to help me?” Brandon asks as I dive onto the bed, nearly bouncing myself off the other side.

”I don’t know,” I answer him honestly. ”It was my own war tactic.”

”What do you mean?”

”Emotional manipulation,” I shamelessly admit. ”It’s a Sahara Special.”

”Just make the call,” he says with nervous laughter.

In the Situation Room, Dick Small and Thaddeus Duke’s other chiefs sit around quietly watching the action unfold. Every now and again, they see through Thad’s camera as he climbs out of his cover spots and delivers orders to fire more missiles. With none of them successful, they’re all scurrying away to cover.

”Dick,” calls out Lincoln Tritter, Illuminatus Intelligence Chief.

”What?” Dick asks as he turns toward Tritter. Lincoln points at the phone on the table where the connection light is lit up bright. ”Son of a BITCH!”

The obvious thought is for Dick to just pick up the phone and intervene, but it doesn’t work like that. Only one red phone can be active at a time in order to prevent situations just like this where conflicting information might be given and the wrong orders followed.

Chief of Staff Dick Small and the rest of the chiefs all rush out of the room in pursuit of Lauren Duke and Brandon Small.

”Lock the door and lean all your weight against it,” I tell him with phone already to my ear. My heart races in anticipation. Any minute now, Dick and the other square headed neanderthals in the Situation Room are gonna barge in here.

”Mr. Small,” greets the Air Force commander. ”I’ve been anticipating this call.”

”Commander, this isn’t Richard Small, this is Lauren Duke,” I inform the man.

He clears his throat on the other end. I imagine he stands up all straight like and is probably doing some weird salute. ”Yes ma’am, what can I do for you?”

”How soon can you scramble the jets?” Man I’ve always wanted to ask that!

”Ma’am?” I can imagine has brow furrowing.

”Have you been watching the war?”

”No ma’am,” he answers quickly. ”We don’t have that connection.”

”So then you have no idea that the Ares Project is using...” I pause and look over at Brandon as beats and bangs come from the other side of the door. ”Stealth bombers to drop fire on our troops.”

”No ma’am, I had no idea.”

”How soon?”

”Minutes,” he answers quickly.

”Get ‘em in the air Commander,” I instruct of him.

”Forgive me ma’am but,” Here it comes. ”I was under the impression that if the order came it would be from Dick Small?” he questions.

That’s the moment Dick breaks through the door and Brandon flies into a heap on the floor.

”Dick Small has been relieved of his duties and I’m now in charge of this operation,” I inform him, while dead staring Dick in his eyes. For the moment, Dick is speechless and a little dejected.

”I’ve given the signal ma’am,” he confirms to me. ”First planes are already off the flight deck.”

”Thank you, Commander.”

”It’s a pleasure to serve you,” he says which sort of figuratively knocks me out of my socks. ”And ma’am, American support or not… I’d do anything for that man.”

”So would I, Commander.”

Without another word, I place the phone back in the cradle.

”Lauren,” Dick starts, but no words follow.

”I meant what I said,” I begin. ”Until Thaddeus walks back through that door you are relieved of your duties leading this war. You can advise me, but you no longer have decision making power.”

”What did you do?”

Somewhere Over Arizona

[Image: 4QIHKny.gif]

It’s been a minute since I’ve had a match of real consequence here in the XWF. The last time I felt truly motivated to give you all my very best effort was at Fire & Ice when I put down my father for good. But this is the End Game now. I’m on my way out of the place I have called and always will call home and each and every time out, you folks sitting at home are going to get the very best version of me that I have to give.

This company deserves that.

These owners, the guys that put their faith in me and have had, and still have my back… they deserve that.

The fans that pay to see me, the ones that tune in specifically to see me… they deserve that.

My opponents along the way on this veritable swan song, deserve it.

Hell… I deserve it.

Maybe that sounds arrogant. It probably is because only the ‘bad guys’ are supposed to preach about what they deserve, right? Well, I learned my worth a long time ago. I know how hard I’ve worked to get where I am. I know the battles in my own head and behind the scenes that I had to endure and defeat in order to get to where I am and maintain that position.

Many may even still today question my motives for doing such a thing like trying to erase him from the Hall of Legends, but let’s face the fact that my father, in his prime and in his heyday really wasn’t all that good despite all the gold and despite his win loss record.

He shouldn’t be in the Hall of Legends.

And it SHOULD be available for me to one day grace that hall, because there isn’t a heat seeker in this industry that does it anything like I do. Chris Page is a distant second and that’s not a shot at my agent. It’s just facts. See, there’s a lot of great talent in this business. Yet not a one of them has a knack for generating the kind of heat, the kind of buzz that I can. Whether it’s creating it on social media, or turning heads when I appear in some place I’ve never been… Thaddeus Duke is money and that’s why people seek me out. That’s why the guys and girls in this industry want to step to the plate. Because they want to test themselves, challenge themselves to see if they got what it takes to hang with one of the very best this sport has to offer.

A lot of people can hang, but not a lot of people are successful in beating me.

It’s the reason I reign as XWF Star of the Year… along with my next opponent.

I’ve had a lot of time to think about where it all started for me. I don’t mean my career, I mean the Lionheart Renaissance that brought me from a B+ kind of player to the high standing and high regard I now find myself in. I’ve said before that if it was all over today and I had to retire, I was happy with how things turned out for me… and I meant that then, and I still do now. There are more mountains left to climb. More kingdoms to conquer but before I get to those mountains in new kingdoms, it’s important to know where the emergence of the Thaddeus Duke mega stardom you see today all started.

High Stakes 2020.

That was when this returning star went supernova and started outshining all the other stars around him. I’m not really referencing the Universal title, but it was there for the ride. What I’m referring to is being the only man or woman on this roster now, or over the last to years to legitimately beat Alias.

“Thad, you hate Alias! You betrayed your best friend because he was friends with him! It was a battle royal! He’s lost to others!”

Those are the most common denominators in the maths equation that is Alias versus Thaddeus.

First and foremost, I was wrong for what I did to Corey. I have no excuses for what I did. I’ve never really been a man that made excuses, though it was never about Alias as much he might like to believe it was. It was my own warped mind playing tricks on me and nothing more.

Secondly, I never hated Alias and I still don’t. I have the utmost respect for that man and what he’s done. He’s not the best wrestler, not the best fighter, there’s hundred of men and women that are better than he is in between those ropes. He got something in him that virtually no one else has. A lot of us say we have it, I’ve said it myself, but he truly does have it and that’s his refusal to stay down.

Fact is, I’d love to drag him through the mud and tear him down but I’m not gonna do that. At least not yet. Alias is and has been the very best, in my opinion, in this business for the length of his return to it. While he has lost to others, exactly two others, those aren’t and weren’t exactly what they seemed. The Blue Woman? We all know he pulled those punches and took a dive to save himself to cash in on Chris Page. Jim Caedus? Benefited from holding the golden goose that lays the golden egg.

That leaves me… the only other blemish on his otherwise stellar record. It was a battle royal and I wasn’t even the guy that tossed him. But tit for tat, promo for promo, move for move, it was yours truly standing tall above all others… Alias included.

To this day, it stands as his only true loss.

I’ve beat him before.

Chris Page can’t say that. Doc D’Ville can’t say that. Not Mark Flynn. Not Peter Vaughn.

Me.

Only me.

I can beat him again.

On Warfare – The House That Duke Built – May the 4th be with me, because I will beat him again. And if I don’t? I’m goin’ down swingin’, because that’s the only way I ever go down.

I’ve been looking forward to this match since his original return. It could have been and probably should have been taking place at Leap of Faith for the Universal Championship, but it isn’t. It’s not that it wasn’t on the table because it was. But a match of this magnitude doesn’t need to be at the top of a pay per view marquee. A match this big doesn’t need the higher stakes of world championship gold hanging in the balance. Thaddeus Duke versus Alias sells itself just by names alone and this is the biggest one on one match in the entire history of Wednesday Night Warfare.

That probably sounds arrogant too, but… is it really arrogance if it’s true?

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