We see Bobby looking less than pleased, the North Korean War Baby swaddled to his chest via harness so he won’t lose the little guy again. He’s standing in front of the National Museum of Funeral History.

Well, baby, I feel weird walking around in there with you, so no dice.

The baby makes a noise, looking around at the whole brand new world in front of him.

You’re a friend to the proletariat!

You’re not going to grow up to be some spooky, creepy goth dude, no sirree, pure poli-char gravitas only for my little boy!

The NKWB sticks his tongue out and waves his arms.

Let’s go to the San Jacinto Museum, that one’s all about the history of Texas freeing itself of Mexico to become a part of the United States!

The baby coos. Bobby walks proudly down the street with his son.

Y’know, maybe we should come up with a better name for you than North Korean War Baby.

I like Aldo.

Bobby crosses the street, jaywalking as he normally does. Cars honk their horns at him, causing the baby to start crying. Bobby runs out of the street cradling the kid.

Fucking animals, I was walking there!

Bobby looks down at his son.

Okay, it’s okay, we’re not running through traffic anymore, I won’t go playing in traffic with you anymore, it’s cool!

The baby continues to cry.

Hush little baby, we’re out of the road

Man I hope your diaper doesn’t explode

We didn’t get hit by a sedan

Or a motorcycle or a moving van.

Bobby’s phone rings. The baby hasn’t settled down yet, still bawling and having a cry. Bobby answers the phone, looking very frazzled having to answer the phone with a crying baby on his chest, having become a strange exoskeleton for the kid. Bobby pulls his phone out and swipes at it.

Hello!

From the other side, over speakerphone, because Bobby is the loudest thing walking around Houston right now, we hear Genevieve Tote, or Stephanie Wilson.

Mr. Bourbon! I was calling to see what you were doing, I found out you left the hotel with your child earlier than expected.

It’s a bonding experience, Miss, um, Wilson, is it?

Yes, Mr. Bourbon. My name is Wilson.

Okay, well, Miss Wilson, I need help with the baby.

...

It’s crying.

Make it stop crying.

…what did he have for breakfast?

He had imported North Korean breast milk.

…he had what?

Look, I insisted on developing a super-strain of milk for the kid in a lab, but that seemed too unethical to create a clone and feed it something I cloned.

…yeah that does sound like you playing God.

Exactly.

So I just have gallons of breast milk imported from North Korea.

…you have food shipped out of North Korea?

Yes.

I’m 99.99% of their GNP.

…you did the math?

No, that’s for nerds.

Bobby looks down at the North Korean War Baby, who is still bawling.

Unless you like the math, little buddy!

You’re born from pure athletic talent!

Literally a genetic copy of a champion wrestler!

I hope you like that kind of thing, because you can do whatever you want!

…Mr. Bourbon how is his diaper?

I don’t know, you pervert!

…Mr. Bourbon, have you changed him today?

I hope he or she’s developing to be the person he or she wants to be!

…Mr. Bourbon, seriously.

Look, I know what you’re getting at, and I did not think of that when I cloned someone and adopted the clone along with Mark.

…You have to change him.

…You can’t be PC and a dad.

Fuck.

Bobby hangs up and walks back into traffic, undoing the harness as he does. He holds the North Korean War Baby up in the air. A driver stops on the road and immediately steps out of the car.

Hey, what are you doing with that baby in the street?

I’m Bobby Bourbon, you know who I am, and this is my adopted son, and I need to commandeer your vehicle to take him to get a new diaper!

The driver looks genuinely impressed.

Wowie!

Bobby Bourbon with North Korean War Baby!

Hell yeah, take my car, this is the coolest day of my life!

Go XWF!

Fuck yeah, bro!

Bobby puts the harness into the car, and Bobby boops a button. The BourbCo BabySystem attaches itself to the seat, becoming a secure car seat in seconds. Bobby reaches below the steering column, ripping it open, and feeling around with the fuse box. Bobby pulls a small tomato colored device from his jacket with a car fuse connection, and attaches it, sliding a fuse out, all with one hand. Bobby presses the gas pedal, and in an instant, the car flies. In a manner of seconds, Bobby drives the car through light speed back to the Bastard’s Den, the strip club owned by he, TK, and Barney Green. Bobby parks, and unstraps the wee North Korean War Baby. He pulls the tyke out, and presses another button on the side of the BourbCo BS. The entire harness transforms into a trench coat with a set of legs. Bobby puts an adult fedora on NKWB’s head.

Alright, little guy, play it cool.

The baby with the soiled diaper continues to fuss. Bobby holds on to the back of the trench coat and pulls it along, a pair of roller blades on the mannequin feet allowing it to glide along elegantly. Bobby’s greeted at the door by the massive doorman, who nods to Bobby and NKWB. They stroll into the massive club and Bobby leads NKWB to the bar, where four other children in trench coats and fedoras are seated.

Wow, the bouncer is doing a horrible job!

Bobby leaves NKWB at what has become a daycare at the bar in his strip club. Bluey is on the TV as Bobby approaches a dancer walking to the pole.

Candi! Hey, do any of the girls have any diapers.

Yeah, Bobby, but that’s like fifty dollars extra!

No, for my kid!

Why’d you drive here instead of to a store?

No time, Candi!

Hold on, let me go check!

Candi runs to the back, and in a second is back out.

What size?

What do you mean ‘what size’?

For a baby!

Baby sized!

They come in different sizes for babies, Bobby.

Why would they do that to me!

Look, um, Bobby, why don’t you just let us change the baby.

Okay, but we gotta do this on the sly.

No, Bobby, it’s not a big deal, we can absolutely do this…

Bobby winks at Candi. He approaches the bar and grabs a baby in a trench coat and a fedora, and walks back to Candi. Halfway to her he stops, glancing down.

Shit, wrong kid again.

Bobby pivots and hustles back to the bar, putting the other baby in a trench coat and fedora down and picking up NKWB after double checking under the fedora.

Seriously, we’re running a shell game day care?

Bobby moves NKWB along on the roller bladed mannequin legs within the trench coat, all part of the BourbCo BabySystem. BourbCo, we don’t sell diapers! Bobby approaches Candi.

Alright, one private dance for my friend here, and give him the works!

…that means change his diaper.

Oh, okay!

Candi leads NKWB to the champagne room to change him. Barney Green walks out and hands Bobby a massive bundle of diapers.

You’re going to need those by the thousands.

Damn it.

Candi strolls NKWB back out to the dance floor.

He’s good as new!

Thanks.

He’s adorable, what’s his name?

..um

Chevy.

Chevy Silverado.

That’s a pretty name, where’s his mom?

She was a surrogate.

The adopted mom is…

..I don’t know where they are or what they’re really doing.

Candi pouts, feigning a sense of sympathy while Bobby barely notices.

I really should invent a new superdiaper that destabilizes the molecular structure of human waste into a fun and festive substance like confetti!

Candi looks quizzically at Barney. Barney shrugs, not understanding half of what Bobby said himself.

That sounds dangerous, Bobby, you shouldn’t put that on your baby.

No BabyGoBidet by BourbCo?

Candi shakes her head ‘no’.

No, Bobby.

Use real diapers.

Okay, thank you, Candi, you can go back to stripping now.

Um…

Oh, shit, yeah.

Bobby pulls his wallet out. He hands Candi two hundred dollars.

Is that right?

Sure, whatever hun.

Candi walks off.

Bobby, never pay that much for a lap dance for your baby.

Yeah, well, Barney, you could have said something.

Shame on you.

Let’s go, Chevy.

Bobby rolls Chevy out of the Bastard’s Den. As he does, five men in samurai armor stand before him and Chevy, katanas drawn. Bobby rolls his eyes and presses a button on the BourbCo BS system, and lightning shoots out of it, striking the samurai and turning them into dust.

I think Candi has a point, Chevy, I need to stop installing death rays into your toys.



Louis!

You know, for a thinks-he-knows-it-all, I gotta correct YOU on a thing!

For starters, we fought forever at Relentless, and I went on my merry way, doing what I do.

I didn’t whine, Louis.

No sirree.

I didn’t bitch.

I still don’t.

Hell, Mark, my tag team partner, kneed me in the jaw to help his friends take OUR tag team championships.

You’d think I’d fuss about that, at least, but let’s face facts.

Mark isn’t the kinda creature WE are.

He couldn’t plot a birthday party for a houseplant let alone cook up some conspiracy where I get roped into beating up two Anarchy stars that his friends couldn’t beat.

He’s gonna learn.

We have a son.

He’d be a terrible mom if he couldn’t at least bake a decent chocolate cake for his birthday.

He wouldn’t sabotage his chances of winning if he even knew how.

But you’ve had enough to say about me since we faced last, and fighting forever just wasn’t enough for you?

Louis sounds like a little girl who got her pony for Christmas and didn’t like the saddle.

SO, you’re bitter I got rhymes.

Dismissing what I do as ‘rap battles’ or some such bullshit.

I get it, you’re sad that we never had a rap battle.

Doc, we all saw your lyrical game on display, and if you had the ability to turn fire into silk like I do we would have done a rap battle.

If you want, we can at Warfare!

You can get your favorite karaoke lined up on the Xtron, stand up proudly, grip that microphone, and recite whatever you feel like.

Then I’ll come on down, and it’ll be my turn.

I’ll take the microphone from you, and deliver to the XWF Universe what they ought to see.

Me shoving that microphone so far up your scrawny ass we’ll hear your innermost thoughts.

Not that we’d need the microphone for them, now would we, Louis?

You’re just a bitter cranky old man, out of touch with the present and grasping at anything to seem like you’re still relevant and not a relic.

You bemoan the notion I have people in my life, hell, you’ve brought up my image consultant with an air of disgust, and why?

Jealousy?

Tell you what, Louis, if you’re so desperate to have a companion, to have someone who will hear you out, not just listen but work with you, by all means, I hear Charlie is available.

Though it was awful sweet of you to try to emulate my rhymes delivering a eulogy to his career.

An XWF career I shattered and ended.

Heya, Mark!

So, you wanna play the hero, eliminating the likes of Michael Graves for being utter scum, following Ned “I ain’t done shit” Kaye around to pick up pointers on how to be a better person from a naive kid who hasn’t had to make tough decisions?

Let me fill you in on what being a hero entails.

You don’t get the glory, you don’t get the parade, you don’t get praise, you go home and feel content by the quiet for a change.

The calamity is gone, the people are alright.

Personally?

Well, fuck, Mark.

I went and drove the Nickelman out of this company and practically out of wrestling, the laughing stock you BOTH held onto to use as a punching bag whenever you saw fit, rotting away at the core of the fans, new stars, and even tried veterans.

Charlie Nickles was a pocket pussy you both passed around.

First I beat him.

Then I taught him everything I know.

Then I destroyed him.

Neither of you know what it’s like to be a dad.

You just drew the fruits of my labors.

And here’s the kick of it, fellas, you know what I got for my troubles?

Do you know what I got for going that length to destroy a monster?

I wound up killing B.O.B., destroying the only family I had.

I wore a dress for a month to give the people something that he would never fucking deliver.

I spent Christmas entertaining you, Mark, giving you a gift and myself yet more responsibility with a kid.

This is the great reward, Mark, for taking it upon yourself to make a fucking change, to make a difference.

To this day I get called a joke, and for what?

Beating you then giving Sidney Grey an opportunity?

For treating Raion Kido like he was somebody with a future?

By all means, seek that glory, Mark, go find it someplace, help yourself sleep at night with that vindication that your career actually means something more than statistics and numbers.

Have Ned show you how to escort little old ladies across the street for all I fucking care.

I’ll show you how big a plate of shit you’ll wind up eating for choosing to play the hero, and it’s been documented ad nauseam, and it doesn’t conflict me one god damned bit.

The mythos of who I am, of what makes the name Bourbon echo throughout our industry, of what a buffoon I am and how little I matter doesn’t just fly out the window, it soars, as soon as I have you by the throat.

At least you’re not obsessed with me like the creepy old fuck we’re sharing the ring with.

Seriously, Louis, you have managed to bring me up in every single promo you have cut since Relentless, and granted it’s a rat trap in some meth-addled slum somewhere, but living rent free in your head is still rent free.

And I know, Mark, I know last Warfare was a shitshow.

I don’t blame you, though.

Because you’re not clever enough to perpetrate a conspiracy to clock me and cause your friends to walk away the XWF Tag Team Champions.

I’d do that, but I sure didn’t.

You, pfft, you’re not ready to make those kinds of sacrifices.

The only thing the both of you have in common is the way you both have to believe in me because neither of you cannot do what I am capable of.

You cannot fathom taking indignity in stride because at the end of the day you’re entertaining a pair of spoiled, shitty children, one sardonically bemoaning how fine the establishment is when there’s something on the table for you when nobody could have given two shits if you starved, the other highlighting how pristine his crayons are after coloring completely within the lines on his kids menu.

Leaving me as the man among men.

The one who doesn't have to be here but chooses to be.

I could walk and sign a contract to fight in some other fair company, getting the red carpet treatment like a James Raven.

Hardly anyone has even heard about either of you, and why should they?

Seriously, who is going to sign Doc when he wilts like last Christmas's poinsettias when he's not the focus of attention.

Simply put, never seen Doc?

Never feared Doc.

The fish hopes to be the biggest in the smallest pond he can find because he can't swim in the current, let alone with the other sharks.

Mark?

They think of you as a comic relief dork, not the vicious animal people consider you around here.

I pity you for it.

I could have gone anywhere to make a career, Bobbybombing my way through matches half as dangerous as I have faced here, and still become a household name.

I chose the XWF because I like it here.

I thrive here because I'm not like either of you.

I'm not the malefactor twirling his mustache and scaring kids to ultimately alienate himself from everyone.

I'm not the hopeful nor repentant soul looking to atone and walk in the light.

I am nature, I am time, I am motion.

I am a force.

I do not stop.

I will not pause to consider your feelings.

I will wreck for the sole purpose of selling tickets and ad time for our broadcast.

Oh, and Doc?

You dare address me with disrespect and disdain?
Do I wrack those filthy corners in the recesses of your brain?
You’ve got a clean record on me but still think I’m some stain
If you feel something about me now, Louis, here comes the pain.

For all your words and your worth, you’re not as scary as you appear
Doc’s dangerous, and demonic, deadly, will destroy what you hold dear?
One loss to the man and well it’s the absolute end of your career?
Ask the man over the past few months, I’m fine, I’m well, I’m still bad, and I’m here!

We’re fighting forever, for as long as we’re able to survive
You can stew and be bitter, you can contest it and strive
I got you lock, stock, and barrel, regardless of what you contrive
Be the baddest man in Hell, I saw it, got hit by it, barely got beat by it, don’t fear it, won’t fear it, see it as simple as fried eggs and toast without the benefit of salt or pepper to give it flavor. It does not conflict me, consternate me, or make me fearful.
Because I’m the baddest man alive.

I know Christmas came and went leaving you feeling like Jacob Marley
Empty and dead inside, all sorts of gnarly.
Your prose wasn’t for pros just dead and bloated like Chris Farley
But kudos, you’re the only one who has sucked the dick of the corpse of what used to be Charlie.

Now fuck out of here, stop bringing me up, that’s psycho ex-girlfriend shit, and cry me a fucking river over how you kept your dick drier than the Mojave to avoid a psycho ex-girlfriend.

Doctor Louis D’Ville, the symbol of birth control.

Not medicine, just leaves panties drier than Tampax.

You will never earn what has been handed to you.

Speaking of leaving them wanting more, Mark!

So, to my baby-momma.

Look, I don’t like you.

You don’t like me.

Get whatever bad juju out of your system out there in the arena, because we have a goddamned son together, and you legally agreed to be his mother, to be called Papa Mark, but you’re making it weird.

You always make it weird, Mark, and it’s gross.

You need to be less weird and gross around our son.

Because I’m about to take you onto a daytime talk show and describe why you’re a deadbeat mom.

I haven’t heard from you in days.

Days!

WE have a SON!

It’s a responsibility.

You’re always like “Bobby, where did you leave the baby now?” and you know what?

Maybe, sometimes I feel like asking you what madcap nonsense occurred that had you and our son involved!

We even had our son on Warfare!

THAT SURPASSES BASIC APPEARANCES IN PROMOS!

Our son is the most anticipated XWF star in history.

In seventeen years, or, oh, say, a couple of weeks if I can get bored enough to invent a cream or a swab that ages you and matures you instantly in a controlled enough manner that the kid becomes a grown male fast and without any of our responsibility.

Or not, that’s now how science works.

And I get it, Mark.

You’re mad I called you Morty.

I hate responsibility too!

However, we are, much to my own chagrin, responsible.

We owe the XWF Universe a rematch for those Tag Team Championships.

We owe the people.

And if we can instill anything into our boy, at root, it’s that the people come first.

Bobby slow blinks.

I know you’re just now getting into that whole vibe, but, well, you’ve been taking pointers from Ned.

Ned kinda gets it, fight the establishment, challenge the man.

We do that.

But, well, we should keep fucking doing it.

Because right now, we are not the establishment, we are not ‘the man’.

We’re new parents raising a son because everyone else got into relationships using our industry, weirdos like Raven and Fuzz, soaked up all the available moms but none of them sired kids except for Duke and some guy called Knox who puts Sebastian’s deadbeat daddydom to shame.

And hell, as for our kid?

Well, sure, he won’t get to experience getting power bottomed by Charlie like you and Doc did for years while I somehow got stuck mentoring him.

You’re there to make the kid listen when I mentor him and he turns into Charlie!

Sorry, I don’t mean to circle back, and I say that meaning to circle back, Doc misses watching Charlie bend over in front of him.

Doc is driving from gas station to gas station because he has a hankering for Charlie’s ass.

I destroyed it and wore a dress for a month, you missed the memo.

At best, you’re chasing sloppy seconds, at worst, well, necrophilia.

And would any of us put it past you? You’re a member of this fine federation.

Nah, you’re a fucking eunuch, spurned on by someone else’s actually having balls from time to time.

Look, old boy, I hold no quarter for the repugnant.

The disgusting.

The vile.

You celebrate their coming with hope for a plaything.

I crush them.

So, now there’s Louis.

Nobody else.

Welcome to the sLaughter.

You get to be someone else’s.

I’m yours.

That crackback.

The come up.

You can’t keep me off your tongue.

Hot diggety damn, Doc, you’ve gone full Duke!

The Duck of Death.

Bobby blinks slowly, exhaling sharply as he does.

You quack.

Hack.

You smell like ketchup and old man ass crack.

Hold the phone, I drop bombs while you catch flak.

Here I come again you still feel the same

Soft, warm, moist inside like the last time I came.

I’m who you want to blame? Keep saying my fucking name!

I’m the baddest in the history of this fine Xtreme Wrestling Federation, compared to me you’re a shame.

Capable, culpable, colorful, and creative as a kid.

You’re a dog with no tail or an eye without a lid

You can’t hide the means of your heartlessness without a heart willing to bid

I make yours beat, mine doesn’t beat it’s strong enough to fuel the grid.

And I hate Mark Flynn, he’s a horrible mom!

He likes to keep things distant, I’m talking further than Guam

I’ma beat on one of you, then both of y’all, then eventually drop the bomb…

…and y’all can read all about it on ecks double-ewe eff dot com.