The camera swoops down over a capacity crowd that is presently losing their minds clapping so hard like trained seals they’re threatening to sear the flesh from their palms. The mindless clapping turns to hoots and hollers as Madison Dyson turns about in her seat behind a massive news desk.

Greetings and salutations true Americans! I am your host Madison Dyson, and we have a heckuva show for you here tonight. Later on, I talk with Stephen Miller as we address “Migrant Cuisine: Is YOUR Dog At Risk?” But for now, we begin with the topic of….GODS. Yes, Gods!

Now gentle viewers, I know you’re all already locked in to the true lord and savior Jesus Christ. But there are some malcontents out there who are still shopping around for a deity! And tonight, we discuss the newest deity on the block, none other than David Doe! Joining me live to discuss the newcomer are none other than Zeus, Aphrodite, Dread Cthulhu, and JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF!

Now I understand you all have had experiences with this young upstart God. Zeus, let’s start with you. What’s David Doe like?

Ugh, Madison, don’t even get me started. You know, last year I invited David to our annual Olympus Super Bowl Party. And Hephaestus brought his fabled Atomic Hot Wings. And well, David just went down on them like a ten dollar rent boy on Lindsey Graham. We tried to warn him of course, but he wouldn’t listen! Next thing we know we hear him screaming Kamehameha from the bathroom. And wouldn’t you know it, I open that door and there is a literal corona of SHIT around the toilet. Like, somehow, he completely missed the can and sprayed in a perfect circle around it! Needless to say it’s the last time he’s getting an invite.

Oh, now that is disgusting! Aphrodite, what was your experience like with David Doe?



I went on a date with David and suffice it to say it was a COSMIC disaster! He got completely shitfaced off the cheapest wine on the menu and then had the gall to invite himself back to my clam shell for a night cap. Well, I’m embarrassed to admit I said yes because, hell, I never fucked an anime before. But after fifteen minutes of him trying to push rope I just told him to get the hell off of me. Oh he whined about “whisky dick” and “this never happened to me before”...blah…blah…blah. I kicked him out into the foamy seas and thank Zeus I never heard from him again.

Madison chuckles. How humiliating! Cthulhu, what say you?



Cahf ah nafl mglw'nafh hh' ahor syha'h ah'legeth, ng llll or'azath syha'hnahh n'ghftephai n'gha ahornah ah'mglw'nafh…

Whoa, whoa, whoa big guy! We speak AMERICAN around here. Let’s try that again from the top!

Oh, my bad, Madison. Force of habit. Anyhoo yeah I used to chill with David. Until one day I scored some primo cabbage and I offered to split it with ma boi! Well, David said he was cash strapped so I offered to cover him if he paid me back, ya know? We’re homies right? Madison, this ni##a right here never paid me a dime! Every time I hit him up on Insta asking him where my money was at his bitch ass would leave me on read. Last time I split my hash with an anime that’s for damn sure.

Ouch! A searing condemnation. Last but not least we have your lord and savior and mine….JESUS CHRIST!



Hey Madison, love the show! But to the point, yes I met David. I was kickin’ it in Jerusalem letting the true believers wash my feet as I do, when David Doe approached me wanting to join in. Well, a messiah can never have too much feet washing…heh, heh….so I said sure, have a go. Now it started out okay, normal foot washing stuff. But then, he started to inch his nose closer and closer to my toes. “Little weird” I thought, but I let it ride. But then the next thing I know the man is licking my toes! Naturally I recoiled and was all like “what the fuck?!” He just muttered something about it being “a thing” for him before taking off. I mean, I knew Japanese people were a little freaky but come on!

Oh my YOU, that is revolting! Certainly not something the savior of all mankind should have to endure.

Madison turns about in her seat, suddenly wearing a shit eating grin. Ohhhh, of course I’m just foolin’ around my dear viewers! These aren’t the genuine article!

All of the “gods” start waving at the camera. “Cthulhu” has lifted off his mask revealing the actor underneath.

Special thanks to the Republican Actors Guild for portraying our “gods”. You may be blackballed by Hollywood, but you’re all Academy Award winners in my heart.

Madison blows them all a kiss as their images leave the screen.

I mean, come on, did any of you for a fraction of a second think that I was going to posit that David Doe was a REAL God, if not an incompetent one? OF COURSE NOT! In fact, this entire shtick of David’s is so poorly planned that it’s completely undone by a piece of comic book ephemera.

Boom! Enter Dr. Manhattan.



Now, don’t be alarmed. I’m still not some sexless geek pining my time away reading the funny pages. No, this research was dug up by my crack team of nerds backstage.

Ya see folks, Dr. Manhattan, in the seminal comic book Watchmen, was a man who accidentally turned himself into a God. And throughout the course of the story, his extraordinary power only continues to alienate him from the rest of humanity until he finds that he is so out of step with the human condition that he eventually moves to Mars. Now, I gotta admit, it makes a lot of sense. How would a being with that much immense power, who sees the world through the lens of the nigh infinite, EVER be able to find ANYTHING in common with the common man?

Moreover, how would any being that has tripped galaxies, a being whose power is limitless…possibly find any sort of satisfaction bumping uglies in spandex with the rest of us?! I mean, fucksakes David, with your stores of knowledge and wisdom you could save humanity….or doom it! You could cure untold diseases! You could utilize your breathtaking perspective to end war as we know it. But no! Instead you opt to wrestle in the XWF? To take marching orders from a liberal dilettante like Johnny Bacchus?!

Answer me David! Why would the distillation of an ethereal being waste their time with WRESTLING?! I mean, it’s so breathtakingly STUPID. But the answer is, of course, because Team Bacchus’ narrative calls for it. 

There’s no truth to David’s claims of the divine. It’s nothing but another avant garde piece of hogwash from David’s ultra-liberal snowflake patron.

Oh, but David will so CONVENIENTLY argue that he’s lost his memory. He doesn’t RECALL being a God. In fact, as a brand new human, he doesn’t recall much of anything. I mean, that’s a pretty spot on read of your gimmick, right David? Hmmmm….but something tells me that despite being a newborn baby boy he’s going to have absolutely no problem cutting a promo! Right David?!

Dumb dumb dumb dumb DUMB!

I mean God forbid he portray his own gimmick CORRECTLY and stumble over his words, or fail to understand certain cultural precepts. Oh, no, no, no! I’m sure we can count on Lord Goku from the Seven Heavens himself to cut a segment with no problems whatsoever. I mean, besides the plethora of problems such an action creates for the sanctity of the gimmick he’s trying to portray.

You know how else I know David’s shtick is bullshit? Well, you know how they say that when it comes to storytelling, pretty much everything has already been done before? Turns out that’s true for David’s bit of creative fiction too! Because he was beaten to the punch by….drumroll please!....


…..FUCKING GHOST TANK!

Madison takes a few moments, or more than a few, to laugh uproariously.

Ohhhhhh yessssss, David! That’s right! You just ripped off Ghost Tank! You see, he did the whole “God masquerading as a human” bit YEARS before you did. Which makes you nothing more than the XWF’s biggest abject failure with a fresh coat of lacquer. People, can you imagine being an also-ran to GHOST TANK?! It’s enough to make you want to kill yourself.

Oh, but we won’t get off that easy, will we? David’s too proud to off himself. His ego’s too massive! Case in point, here are some select chunks of narcissistic blather from his roster bio on the XWF website.

Quote:David moves faster than thought. His strikes, fuelled by something ancient and raw, hit with the force of the stars. His opponents don’t know it, but they’re fighting something far beyond them.

Madison looks agog after the quote pops up on the screen.

What in the Mary and Marty Sue in wedded bliss bullshit is that?! So basically David fights with the power of a thousand thousand suns because he says so. Man, I can’t wait to see how much that holds true the first time he gets socked in the mouth.

Madison makes an exaggerated jerking off motion.

Quote:You could tear him apart, break him, burn him and he'd still press forward. The laws of physics are suggestions, not rules. The concept of pain is a distant, alien thing. He can’t feel it the same way you do. He won’t stop because it simply... doesn’t occur to him to stop.

Hoooooollllll’ up. Is this motherfucker honestly claiming that PHYSICS doesn’t apply to him? That he can’t feel pain because he’s beyond such paltry human notions?

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING, DAVID?

I mean, his entire roster bio is simply loaded with wholescale horse shit like that. “David Doe hits harder than any man.” “David Doe hits so hard it makes your life flash before your eyes.”

Let's set aside the notion that all of this pablum is gonna be revealed for the farcical levels of exaggeration that it is the moment he hits the ring with yours truly. Because I think it’s more important to note that this bullshit is of the same tone and tenor of an ADHD-addled nine year old smashing his action figures together. “I’m just better and stronger than anyone else because I say so.” It’s literally the kind of narrative quality you’d expect from a CHILD.

A LITERAL CHILD!

Holy CHRIST!

Bacchus, are you hearing me verbally skull fuck ya boi? I hope you can feel some level of embarrassment here because something tells me David can’t.

I don’t think David has the emotional maturity to feel something like embarrassment. Because anybody who proffers themselves up as a living embodiment of an anime character and expects us to take that shit seriously is so far detached from reality there’s no way we can even toss them a lifeline and drag them back to shore.

David is so completely lost in a morass of ego, fantasy, and childlike bravado that there is simply no chance in hell he can compete successfully in the XWF. Much less get one over on me! This is nothing more than garbage tier haute self wankery of the highest caliber and I’m going to expose it for exactly that at Warfare!

Come down from on high David. Because Heaven to Earth is one helluva fall.

MADISON’S MIND
SAMAEL’S ROOM

The ball clapped off the floor and against the wall for what must have been the umpteenth time. Ariel watched it make its cycle back into Samael’s waiting hands and resisted the urge to scream a torrent of profanities into the void. Ariel knew peace after all…tranquility…serenity….

I’M BORED! Samael hollered, whipping the ball at the wall such that it almost struck Ariel in the head on the rebound.

Ariel kept her tone as measured as possible. Well, you could show me around. As you promised.

The boy got up to his feet and stabbed a finger in his counterpart’s direction. You said you’d show me some sick moves!

And I did. Now I’m calling in my debt. Ariel answered simply.

Samael casts his hands into the air and dove onto his bed, whining incoherently in that most melodramatic of childhood ways.

Wait it out. Ariel thought to herself. And, after a protracted series of moments, her patience paid off. Samael sat up on his bed, eyes dry for want of crocodile tears. You’ll teach me more moves if I show you stuff?

I promise. Ariel responded with as much solemnity as she could muster.

The boy, bottom lip still pushed out in a pout, seemed to ponder his options. But finally, logic won out. His pout turned into another one of those mildly unsettling smirks of his. I think I know just what to show you. But it’s pretty messed up.

Ariel resisted the urge to leap at the offer. Madison’s mental dirty laundry was precisely what she wanted. But she didn’t want to seem too eager. This boy, as rogue as he seemed, was still a part of Madison’s consciousness. Albeit a seemingly neglected part.

I can handle “messed up.”

Suit yourself.

The boy went to his door and placed a hand on the handle. He stood immobile for a moment, and his eyes fluttered into the back of his head. When the episode ended, he cast open the door into what could only be described as a medieval torture chamber.

Ariel peeked her head through the threshold and was immediately overwhelmed by the wails of the damned. The entire chamber was only dimly lit by a series of torches on sconces, and it seemed to wander off in any number of serpentine directions, with each subchamber also filled to the brim with people strapped down into a wide variety of torture devices. The amount of demonic creativity on display was mind blowing and certainly spoke to the dark side of Madison’s psyche.

Ariel took one step into the chamber, and then another. Nearby was a woman she didn’t recognize strapped into an electric chair which would go off at random intervals, sending a penetrating jolt through the poor soul. Samael pointed the woman out.

That’s a lunch lady from my mother’s elementary school who refused her seconds because she said she was looking a little chubby.

Good God…Ariel marveled at the sadism on display.

That’s not even the best one. Come on! The boy waved her onward and inward into the bowels of the chamber and Ariel dragged her gaze away from the damned in front of her to follow suit. After what seemed like ten minutes amongst the throngs of suffering unfortunates, they stopped at a man who was nude and chained spread eagle in the air. Behind him, was a bulbous looking figure in an executioner’s hood. Ariel was shocked to realize she recognized this man.

Mark Flynn. She spoke the name aloud.

Yep! The boy clapped his hands together. My mother hates him especially!

Mark looked at Ariel with desperate, pleading eyes.

Please! You gotta help me!! Awww GAHD! You’d think you’d get used to the pain after a while. BUT YOU NEVER DO! YOU NEVER DO! ARRRGGGHHHHHH!

Mark, what’s wrong?! Ariel replied instinctively, having to remind herself this was but a phantom in Madison’s mind. Ariel took note of Mark’s stomach then, which seemed oddly rounded. Mark let out another ear-rending scream again and the mass in his stomach seemed to move lower and lower in time with his screams until finally it pushed itself out of his ass and clunked to the floor, sodden with gore.

A bowling ball.

Samael let out a cheer and the masked man in the executioner’s hood picked up the ball, paying no mind to the blood and viscera coating it.

No, no, no, NO, NO, NO! PLEASE! NO! NOOOOOOOOOO!

But the pleading was useless. The executioner proceeded to somehow, and in defiance of all laws of biology, ram the bowling ball back up Mark's ass. Ariel winced and turned away from the scene.

OOOHHHHH GOOOOOOOOOD!

Samael turned to Ariel, his face running over with a sadistic glee. This is one of my favorites! My mother just makes him shit a bowling ball back and forth forever!

This is what your mother spends her mental energy on? Torturing her enemies?

Yeah, and? Samael responded matter of factly. And look over there! It’s COREY! Samael pointed across the way.

And there he was.

Ariel stood before the dark effigy of this boy she scarcely knew, yet knew intimately. Her mouth hung open at the sheer horror of this vision, this nightmare of Corey Smith.

He hung suspended in a coil of barbed wire, wrapped around him like a perverse cocoon. His eyes, nose, mouth and ears had all been crudely stapled shut, the wounds oozing pus from infection long unhealed. Another of those black hooded executioners stood at the ready, holding a sack full of God knows what. Slowly, he mounted a ladder adjacent to Corey and once at the top, reached towards the top of Corey’s skull. Then, taking him by the hair, he pulled off the top of his skull and upended the bag into his brain. Fire ants, a torrent of them, rained down onto Corey’s cerebellum and soon got to wriggling their way throughout his sealed skull. Corey started to writhe in agony, screaming a muffled scream through the ragged staples.

Ariel looked away, feeling as though she was about to retch. Samael, still at her side, looked on at the scene with an enrapt giddiness.

And that was when the horror was cut with the sound of another voice.

Bitch, what the fuck you think you doin’?

Ariel spun around to see Madison, standing at the entrance of the chamber, hands on hips and head canted in an expression of incredulity.

I said, what the FUCK you think you doin’?

Ariel pointed at Corey. What the hell is this abomination?

My private thoughts thank you very much. Which you are presently violating the sanctity of! Madison strode up to Samael and scooped up a helping of his hair. Giving it a yank, she pulled the boy to her side. And YOU, you little shit! You started this didn’t you?

Leave him alone. He was just showing me…showing me THIS. Ariel cast her hand in Corey’s direction again. This is SICK, Madison. YOU are SICK.

Oh please. Madison scoffed, shaking her head. Like we don’t all have fantasies like this. Like we don’t all have somebody in our lives we’d like to…

Enough! Ariel’s voice sliced through Madison’s like a knife. I know this boy, this Corey. I….I recognize him…And you’re going to tell me why!

Ha! Madison taunted. I ain’t telling you SHIT. Let’s get one thing clear.

In a flash, Madison was on Ariel, wrapping her hand around her throat and lifting her into the air.

You are my PROPERTY, Ariel. You’re a product. A product I am utilizing to better myself. You don’t have the right to dictate anything to me. Especially not here, in the creche of my mind. A place I am GOD. Now do you…

Just as quickly as Madison attacked, Ariel launched her own strike. Wrapping her legs up and around Madison’s arm, Ariel leveraged backwards and flipped Madison to the ground. Madison stumbled up to her feet with a quickness.

You fucking…!

And Ariel struck again, this time with a palm heel strike that sent Madison tumbling ass over tea kettle over the cold stone floor.

Madison got up once more, slower this time, coughing and holding her chest. Ariel dropped into a fighting stance, but Madison simply coughed again, and then sputtered out a harsh laugh.

Where do you think this is going to get you? Huh? Fighting me like this? There’s no escape for you! You’re in my head! Madison pointed at her temple.

Fuck you.

Fuck me? Heh heh….hahahahahahaha! Fuck me. Sure, bitch. Fuck me. Madison stood fully upright now, bearing a demeaning sneer. You want the truth? Fine. Madison gestured at Corey. Yeah. You know him. In fact, you used to be in him. Just like you’re in me.

And your name? It’s not Ariel. It’s Lux.

You and I? We’re enemies. But I beat you.

Madison’s smirk grew even wider, if that’s possible.

And this? This is me STILL beating you. Over and over. OWNING you. Like a rented mule.

Ariel…no, Lux, grimaced. Images in her head fluttered by like a staccato beat, all partial broken memories. But finally, the flitting mental pictures settled on a singular moment in time. And Lux saw it play out all over again.

Her death.

She saw Madison remove her housing unit from the back of Corey Smith’s neck.

Corey. The boy she chose in a moment of desperation. The boy she grew to love and appreciate despite the trials and tribulations of sharing his body with him. All those feelings washed over her, like an errant wave engulfing a sand castle on the beach.

But before she could even fully process those feelings, she watched Madison drop her housing unit on the floor and stomp on it. And her entire world went pitch black.

Lux stood stock still, processing the moment of her death. In a daze, she managed to utter the words, How am I still alive?

How? Because I made a backup of your broken consciousness after I stomped you to near death. You can thank Shane for that. He insisted on it. I didn’t see the point. But I realize now that he was right. Forcing you to do my bidding after I beat you all those years ago? It’s fucking DELICIOUS.

No. Lux replied simply, still recovering.

No, what, bitch?

No. You’re not going to use me anymore.

Ha! Madison guffawed. You think you have a choice? Listen Luxy baby. I already told you. You’re stuck with me. There’s no escape. None!

Lux looked up at Madison, fresh hell written on her features. You can’t force me to train you! I WON’T train you!

Then you choose death. Again. You think I didn’t consider this? You regaining your memories? You’re a cluster of nanites floating in my body, Lux. That’s all you are. And all I need to destroy you is one decent sized electro magnetic pulse and POOF, you’re gone! Do you want that? Do you really want to choose the void again?

I won’t allow that.

You think you have a choice?!

I do.

How’s that?

It was Lux’s turn to smirk now. I’m stronger than you realize. And I think you’ve grossly underestimated just who is stuck with whom in this relationship.

What meaningless bluster.

Open your eyes Madison.

Madison canted her head. Huh?

Open. Your. Eyes.

And she did.

THE REAL
MADISON’S HOME

Madison opened her eyes and panic set in immediately. For she was standing in her kitchen, holding a carving knife to her own throat. Madison tossed the knife away, watching it clatter to the linoleum floor.

Oh….oh fuck….

She backed away from the blade, almost as though she expected it to animate and spring on her again. But it wouldn’t. Because Lux didn’t want her dead. Not yet anyway.

Madison cast a glance at the nearest window and saw Lux’s reflection in it, laughing back at her. She gripped the counter as all the energy drained out of her body.

What the fuck have I done…?