It was the year 2036, and the London Eye was burning.

Lux looked up at the eponymous Ferris Wheel, a mainstay of the London skyline for over 30 years, and heard it's death shriek. Rivets popped and the metal sang in agony. The roaring fiery grounds about it were littered with the bodies of the desperate, people who chose to jump rather than be burned alive some 400 feet in the air. She dragged her eyes away from the sight of a small body, refusing to think of the ramifications. Behind her, more buildings burned under the summer sun, like the celestial body itself had spit it's apocalyptic wrath down on the whole of London. But this was no natural disaster, no solar anomaly, it was terrorism. Pure and simple.

She breathed in and caught the singe of the angry air in the back of her throat, eyes working to part the smoke in search of the one who caused this. She didn't have to look long. The Praetorian cut though the smoke on skeletal wings of steel, a creature once woman and now human only in vague form. It's body was a sleek arrow of muscle, unhindered by the modest need for clothing like an animal. Catching sight of Lux almost immediately, it swept a wide arc through the blackened air and dove, it's jaw unhinging and revealing multiple rows of knife like fangs. Lux brought her blade to bear and prepared to meet the beast....


Something jarred Lux from her memory. Offering up a small gasp,she opens her eyes to see that a small child had collided with her. A tutting parent rushed up, a chastisement for the child on their lips.

It's ok. Lux offered preemptively, offering a hand out to the little girl to help her up off the ground. With a touch of trepidation (she was taught well to be wary of strangers) she initially recoils, but Lux's demeanor and Corey's kind face win her over and she accepts the help.

Hey, sorry about that. The mother, presumably, takes the child's hand and pulls her gently away. Lux smiles a bit, and returns her gaze to the top of the London Eye. The playful screech of children echoes from the topmost carts as the Eye allows them a taste of flight, and Lux's heart suddenly hammers against the inside of her chest. Was that cry one of delight or terror? Her mind again descends unbidden into the memory of that horrible day, and she envisions a little boy or little girl trapped on high as the fire works at their tender flesh, blackening it, and causing it to crack and weep.

Icarus is burning.

She feels faint all of a sudden, and her stomach bucks. For a moment, she fears she may vomit and runs to a bench to sit down. Folding herself over, Lux puts her head down near her knees, trying to control the memories and the reverse peristalsis in her throat threatening to bring her lunch to the fore. With a series of controlled breaths, she regains control. Spotting the little girl who bumped into her before, she sees the girl pointing up at the Eye. Lux watches her for a moment before she begins to speak. Her eyes stay trained on the girl, but she addresses Tristan Slater.

I'm not actually here for you, Tristan. She lets the words hang there for a moment. Shocked? Probably. You and your ilk seem to think the world revolves around you, so why shouldn't my actions do so as well? But it's true. Honestly, I'm technically not even in the XWF to win championships. Blasphemy, I know. However, I'm not going to sit here and front and act like I don't get a kick out of it. But it's for different reasons than you Tristan.

You see, for guys like you, winning is a form of self-validation. It informs who you are. Its why when you talk about who Tristan Slater is, the things that come front and center are your record and your championship wins. But me? I've got my eye on a higher prize. Her. Lux points to the little girl who bumped into her before. Confused? Good. That means I got you scouted.

Lux turns her attention fully towards the camera now. When I came to the XWF, it was a way to train my body and mind. To put myself back in the fighting shape I needed to be in to challenge the threats to that little girl's way of life. A lot of people have called bullshit on it, but the fact is that a reckoning is coming to all of us. And the real monsters lurking just underneath the periphery of that comfortable thing called reality don't care how many titles we've won. Winning in the XWF was never about stroking my ego. No, it was a barometer of how ready I am to face down that darkness. A measure of preparedness. Of strength.

When I called you “table scraps” Tristan, it wasn't a critique on your history with the XWF. In fact, I had no foreknowledge of your history here. That would come later. And yes, I would come to learn that you've had a great deal of success here. I can never take that away from you.

I had little idea then of how apt that term would be to describe you. So what do I mean now when I use that term that continues to haunt you? Well, it's tough to put into words. I'll admit I don't have Corey's flare for the linguistic. But I think the closest thing that springs to mind is....small. Lux chuckles. You're a small man, Tristan. And that has nothing to with size. Might have a bit to do with intellect though. A wry smirk. But mostly it has to do with what a reedy, petty little thing you are. You THINK small, Tristan. You miss the forest for the trees. For you, victory is just shoveling stats and titles into an unceasing void. Filling an aching absence where your soul should be.

What is your PURPOSE, here Tristan? I mean, here we have a man who has come into a company that he said has so dramatically wronged him. But in reality, it was Shane who wronged you. You said it yourself. But Shane's not here anymore, is he? So you've come to...what exactly? Destroy the XWF anyway? ...why? The man you want is GONE. You can't even do vengeance right, Tristan. And yet here you are, flailing and tantruming and striking out at whatever you can like a deaf blind mute, raging impotently and hurting everyone but the true source of your pain. All you know is that you want to break SOMETHING. You need an outlet for your HURT. But you're so daft you can't see that Shane is getting off scott free.

So what do you REALLY want?

Validation? Proof that you can still hang? That you're not some useless relic of a bygone era? Then say so. Because what you're presently selling is the jumbled ravings of a man who seems to have no idea what he really wants. A man who was made to swallow a poison pill years ago and still hasn't managed to purge all that noxiousness from his soul. A man who has deliberately held onto his bitterness so he can misdirect it years later.

That's what makes you table scraps. That's what makes you SMALL. Your insecurity and bitterness is writ large for the world to see. You just want to watch the world burn.

She stops on that word. “Burn”. Her eyes tick back towards the Ferris Wheel and in her mind's eye she sees bodies plummeting from the top in slow motion. Like so much nightmare rain. She closes her eyes before she has to watch them hit the ground.

Here's another thing that makes you small, you have no real plan or vision. You and the rest of the CCP army are like dogs chasing cars on the freeway. What does the dog do when he finally catches up to the car? What's your end game? Do you even know? Are you going to win all the belts and then cause the buy rates to plummet by being your normal, banal selves? Because if your entire villainous plot revolves around proving that none of you can draw a dime well, I'm inclined to say go right ahead and shoot yourselves in the foot. Or do you plan to win all the belts and....leave? She shrugs. So what. Then we hold some big blow off pay per view extravaganza's to crown all new champions and start fresh. Kind of an exciting prospect if you ask me.

My point is this, I've just put more thought into your comic book supervillian plan in five minutes than any of you have in the last four months. I hate to break it to you but killing a multi-billion dollar franchise that's been around for 20 plus years is easier than done, and I haven't heard anything more comprehensive out of any of you than “uhhhhh....we're gonna win titles, maybe”. Oh, and “we're gonna beat people down too”. Except you just spent a good portion of your last promo talking about how you shrugged off the beating we gave you and moved on. Could it be that that cuts both ways? Turns out I'm still here, and so's everybody else you guys laid into. When it comes to ribald hypocrisy that's about on par with you bitching about my lack of competition all the while ignoring that I challenged Page to a one on one match, only for him to back down on it and use YOU as cannon fodder to do it. Heh.

Maybe I wasn't being fair to you when I called you table scraps. Because maybe it's not just you. Maybe it's this entire slipshod faction of yours. Because from where I stand, thus far you have shown yourselves to be a bunch of sound and fury portending NOTHING. And given how little we've actually heard from your comrades in arms thus far, honestly it's not even the sound. Just the tiny, castrated fury of a bunch of middle aged men blanketed in bitterness and showing up just a little bit too late to take their revenge on the one who actually did them wrong. Pathetic.

Lux pauses a moment, taking a breath long enough to expel some of her own anger.

Whereas you have all the consistency and sense of a schizophrenic when it comes to your desires, mine are crystal clear. I have a desire to beat small, weak men like you Tristan. Sad broken men who exist only to play with matches and set the roof over their heads ablaze as they dance ignorantly in the ashes. I have a desire to be a light in the darkness, to inspire hope in a world where that is rapidly fading. I have walked into hell time and time again. Beaten back the darkness until it literally killed me. So if you honestly think you're going to be the one to put me in my place, I am simply agog at the sheer level of delusion you possess. Because you're not a monster, a fiend or a devil. As much as you may wish to be. No. You're just a man. A simpering, cowardly man clutching onto a sense of persistent victimhood to feed the engines of your own self-righteousness.

But let's be real, all of that is beyond you. You are a creature of the here and now. Of the pleasures of the present. A lizard brain driven thing who is nothing but an all consuming maw with no substance. So let me bring this down to Earth for you. Because your loss to me won't just be a symbolic one. Oh no, it has the potential for some VERY real consequences. The Television Championship comes with certain perks, namely that if one holds it for 8 successive weeks or more, they can cash it in for a shot at the Universal Championship. And for those playing along at home, I'm a bit past 8 weeks.

Allow me to put this together for you, Tristan. If you don't beat me, and Page somehow manages to win the Universal Championship, he can not run from me. My shot at him is guaranteed. And you, Page, and the rest of the XWF know, deep down inside, that I will eat that man alive. It's why he already ducked me once. If you fail at Leap of Faith, Page's best case scenario is an ignoble blip of a Universal Title reign ended by the one he once disparaged as being well beneath his notice.

This is very, VERY real. And it's not just about you. Or even me. You go down, and Page does too. One fell swoop. You feeling that heat Tristan? That sweat starting to push through those pores? That choking sensation about your throat? It's my boot on it, pressing the last dying gasp of this pathetic revolution out past your lips.



Don't forget to breathe, Tristan.

LATER.....

The memory returns. The Praetorian, Carna was her given name, bears down on her, distended mandibles open wide forming a void of blades. Lux locked her back leg into position, dropping into a guarded stance with her sword aloft. Carna met her head on, crashing into her sternum and sending them both rolling along the sooty ground.

Lux took the momentum and used it, controlling her fall and rolling up to her feet. But she instantly sucked in a pained gasp as what must have been a fractured rib bit deep down into her pain receptors. God she was so strong....

Carna recovered quickly as well, leaping towards Lux for a wild slash with her claws. Lux ducked and parried the blow, turning for a sweeping slash with her sword that drew blackened blood from the creature's thigh. It emitted an inhuman screech and slashed again, this time knocking the sword from Lux's grip! Cursing, she backflipped towards the sword, grabbing it, but not quickly enough. Carna placed a webbed foot down on the blade and Lux's fingers grabbed at nothing. Righting herself to duck and weave, she was cut off guard by a headbutt from Carna that rocked her, splitting her vision and sending her stumbling back. Carna slashed again and Lux turned her body aside, reversing with a back fist to her enemy's eye. But Carna shrugged it off, taking hold of Lux's arm and lifting her aloft as she would a doll. Lux gasped again as hot ache radiated out from the fractured rib. Carna's vile face lurched forward, teeth going for the thick of Lux's torso, but Lux was able to pick her feet up just in time to kick her in the face and propel herself out of the creature's grasp. Lux risked another grab for the sword and was successful this time, and she wasted no time by dropping into a low strike aimed at Carna's knee. The blade bit deep but only sunk as far as the Prateorian's steel reinforced bones. Carna howled and dropped to one knee, lashing out at Lux with an erratic swipe that sent her sprawling.

Lux rolled into a crouch, now seeing a fresh canyon of torn flesh bisecting her forearm. She hissed and instinctively reached to put pressure on the wound, but the Praetorian was relentless and gaining on her again. Lux readied herself for another clash when....

….black.

Lux blinked in confusion and rolled over in her bed, suddenly in the grip of a cold, clammy anxiety. Her eyes darted about the interior of the hotel room, dumbly searching for an answer in the generic wall art or floor to ceiling gray drapery perhaps. But there were no answers here, of course. Nothing to explain why this memory simply didn't exist anymore. Her heart thudded as she tried to recollect more details about her fight with Carna...but all those moments were like water cascading through her splayed fingers. Fading...fading....Carna...why did that name sound so familiar....Car-C....

Lux's head sunk back down onto the pillow, and she swiped at a thin sheen of sweat that had coated her brow. Soon enough, she would not even remember trying to remember. She would not even recall what had bothered her so. Or why it should have bothered her.

And she would go to sleep, blissfully unaware of how, even now, her entire existence was being rewritten because someone, somewhere, was placing a simple phone call and undoing what should have been....

To be continued....