M. Ike Hagar, the Southerner and other members of the Slam Master's gym all looked on agape as Rex, or rather, the hulking, seething mountain of inhuman muscle that was Rex, stormed towards them. The experimental strain of super soldier serum had left the man they once new nearly unrecognizable. His is were burning red, as if the raw energy of an exploding sun was now teeming within him.

"KniiiiiiightMask.....you don't have to worry about Arrrrrrrrrnaud....I'm going to kill him before he can hurt you....but fffffffirst things fffffffirst........where are all those guys that used to beat on me and call me a j--j-j-jobbber....I'm going to kill them all...one by one...."

The Southerner cleared her throat and walked up to Rex.

"Well, sugah, ah do believe they'd primarily be located in the Mongoose Den, which is on the other side of town from this our establishment."

Rex growled, turned and bounded off, crashing through a brick wall and charging off down the street. As the stunned members of the Slam Master's gym stared after him through the hole, they saw that he was running down the middle of the street, swatting incoming traffic away with casual sweeps of his massive arms.

"Darn it, KnightMask!" Ratboy chastised, "That coulda been you! If only you'd let me inject you with the syringe, you coulda been a contender! Not some bum! You coulda been--KnightMask? KnightMask? Where's KnightMask?"

The masked wrestler was gone, swinging from lamp post to lamp post in hot pursuit of the hulking horror that was once j0bber Rex Loman.

"That kid, always trying to play the hero..." sighed Hagar. "Awright, you guys hold down the fort while I go after them! And Ratboy, where did you get...ah, nevermind..."

With a single flex of his chest muscles, Hagar's leather jacket and t-shirt burst into tattered pieces, revealing the head trainer's own powerful physique. With a battle cry he charged off through the hole in the wall left by Rex. The remaining members of the Slam Masters gym were figuring out what to do next, when an attractive young Asian woman in a business suit with her hair pulled up into a neat bun walked into the door with a notepad.

"Hello, I'm Kaori Inoue, with Pro-Wrestling monthly. I was looking for KnightMask, to interview him about his upcoming bout with Arnaud Chevailler?"

"Y'just missed him, darlin'. But he's busy right now. Y'see that pile up of cars runnin' down the street fer as long as the eye c'n see? That was done by one man...and KnightMask is in the process of chasin' him down as we speak. Ah'm not sure what he's got in mind if'n he catches the boy though."

Ratboy stepped forward, stroking Bob the dead rat in his hands.

"Actually, we know him better than he knows himself anyway, so you can direct all questions here. I’m sure you want to understand why KnightMask hates France,

The reporters eyes went wide.

"KnightMask hates France?"

"Not to mention French people, French fries, French bread, French toast and of course, Lady Liberty, the world's tallest French woman, which he’s been plotting to blow up. He does like handbags though. In fact, I believe he carries one around in his secret identity."

"KnightMask wants to blow up the Statue of Liberty?"

"I tried to tell him that she's not French anymore, she's a naturalized citizen and this is a nation of immigrants...but the guy doesn't listen. That’s the REAL reason that all the tools in the wrestling industry don’t want to talk about when it comes to Arnaud and KnightMask. But it needs to get out there. I mean, KnightMask is my best friend and I will not tolerate falsehoods being put out there about him. It all goes back to the fact that the Illuminati…"

The Southerner whispered to one of the other wrestlers, "Ah'd stop him, but ah confess, ah'm too interested in what the fellah is gonna say...'sides, it can't be any worse than bein' caught beatin' up a cardboard poster, can it?"




When KnightMask finally caught up to Rex--his trail of utter destruction made him easy to follow--he was pressing a monster truck over his head while a middle aged man cowered beneath him.

"NOW WHO'S THE J OBBER? COULD A J OBBER DO--"


"Cut the crap, Rex!"

KnightMask interrupted him and stepped in between the middle-aged man and Rex.

"You were never a tomato can, a j*bber or any of those things, man. You wanna know what you were, Rex? You were a juggernaut in the most meaningful sense there is. You never let physical beatings or insults stop you from pursuing your dream. Whenever I needed inspiration when I got to the edge of quitting...whenever I had to think of someone I knew that was physically and mentally tough...you were one of the first ones I thought of, man. Its easy to keep going when things go your way and everybody likes you. What takes toughness is to continue on when nothing is working out and everyone's down on you! And that's what you did, Rex! That's what you always did!"

"I WAS A LOSER!"

"Alright, so your win-loss column sucked...whatever. A record is just a number, an abstraction! The will power you showed in enduring those defeats? Now that, that's real man. What's a record going to do for you? Can it fight for you? Can it buy you a drink?"

"IT CAN GET YOU RESPECT!"

Rex dropped the monster truck over his shoulders, where it crash-landed on its side in the middle of the street.

"Okay, okay...good point. It gets you respect, but that sort of respect, who needs it? That kind of respect, its just about the cheapest kind there is. The people that respect you or not on the basis of your record are the same guys that are the first to desert you when the going gets tough. Arnaud, he's got a great record, doesn't he? But you can't stand him! Why is that? I’ll tell you why! Cause he’s a jerk that goes around spitting on people! All the wins in the world don’t mean squat if you’re still just a bully."

Rex roared angrily, and KnightMask felt as if he’d just been blasted by a powerful storm wind.

“NOBODY’S GONNA BULLY REX LOWMAN ANYMORE!”

Rex raised his hands as if to smash KnightMask, who tensed up in a readied crouch. After the beating he’d gotten that past Saturday from Agony, he wasn’t going to last too long against the towering mutant in front of him, but he supposed that he had to do something...especially sense Rex was his friend.

“Listen, Rex, you might’ve gotten pushed around and bullied, but it was because you were too nice, to decent, to use your strength and size to be a bully yourself. The decency was so deeply ingrained in the core of who you were as a person that no matter how cruddy they treated you, no matter how much they walked over you…”

Rex began to seeth and foam at this. KnightMask paused, worried that he was about to end up squashed like a bug on the pavement, but he kept going.

“…they couldn’t beat you, not in a real, meaningful way.”

Rex growled again. He was pulsing with power and it was obvious that the urge to use that power was overwhelming. It was he was on the strongest pre-workout powder in the universe.

“They couldn’t…they couldn’t make you into somebody like them. Was Jesus weak because He let them cruficy Him? He could’ve sent an army of angels to wreck His attackers if He wanted…and you could’ve messed up those chumps that used to torment you, serum or no serum…but the fact is that you were made of sterner stuff than that. Maybe that strength…led to you dropping matches in the ring, but if so, then it was more than worth it. I don’t think so, though. I think it was the fact that the guys who were supposed to be training you were just using you instead of working to make you better. But the joke is on them, because by enduring their abuse and finding it within yourself to rise above it, you gained something far more valuable than any technical understanding.”

Suddenly, Rex’s muscles relaxed. He dropped to his knees. KnightMask sighed a breath of relief. Maybe he wouldn’t end up a stain on the pavement after all…

“Look at me now….I’m worse than a j0bber…I’m….I’m a monster…”

Monster. KnightMask closed his eyes underneath his vizor. He saw Natalia’s face, her voice echoing in his mind, “You-you monster!”

“You’re no monster, Rex. You’re...”

Suddenly M. Ike Hagar slammed into Rex with a flying shoulder tackle, bowling the sobbing behemoth over.

“HAGAR WITH THE SAVE! BOO YEAH!”

“Coach….! Wait…! Don’t…!”

“Shuddup Killjoy! I always wanted t’go toe-to-toe agaiinst someone with superhuman strength! Y’only live once!”