12-30-2014, 05:37 AM
1335 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York. New York Hilton Midtown.
Five-bedroom penthouse suite, window opening on Central Park. Late morning, 12/22/2014, several hours after Christmas Shove-It.
SIMON LYSTER, “THE SPINE TWISTER” sits at a mahogany desk, covered in bandages that for a change serve medicinal rather than fetishistic purposes. Two leatherbound books, a bottle of Laphroiag 18, and his laptop sit in front of him.
He wearily waves away SUBMISSIVE #1, clad in latex nurse’s uniform and halo neck brace, come up cat-o’-nine-tails in hand to offer him a conciliatory flogging. “Not now.”
Wincing with each movement, he looks out the window at the bare branches of Central Park. “Well, hell, it’s already afternoon back home,” he sighs and pours a shot from the open bottle. “Bloody clown show,” he grumbles and raises the shot glass.
Single malt is to be sipped, savored. Under the circumstances, LYSTER pounds the shot like it’s Charles Bukowski-grade hobo rotgut.
A sudden spasm contorts his face, accompanied by a nasty gurgling from his midsection.
“GIMP!!!” he groans, painfully turning his head right.
GIMP ZERO, lowliest and most wretched GIMP of all – a broken, crippled, full-face-masked thing so encased in leg and back braces it resembles an anthropomorphic spider – lurches across the carpet, bearing in splinted fingers a goblet shaped like an H.R. Giger skull-and-spine structure and holding a viscous pink fluid.
“This lowly worm has no higher purpose in life than to serve the Master his elixir,” the GIMP grovels.
LYSTER gloomily contemplates the contents. “Lactose intolerant and they book me in a bloody milk match,” he mutters, then chugs the Pepto-Bismol like he did the scotch.
He settles back. Everything hurts more than everything else.
“So,” he says. “In review.” He opens the feed to last night’s Christmas Shove-It event.
“Didn’t care about the main event anyway,” he says. “That wasn’t wrestling, that was bloody roulette. If I wanted to specialize in small-unit tactics I would’ve enlisted in the SAS. Still, what can be learned here?” He opens and closes windows, playing, pausing, rewinding.
From the feed window: Lyster seems pissed off now, spewing profanities, going red in the face….
LYSTER snorts. “I wasn’t ‘spewing profanities,’ Styles, you ignorant chav. I speak with the Received Pronunciation. Not my fault you Yanks can’t comprehend proper English.”
Another video. Frodo goes over to Lyster’s legs. Is he… Yes, he’s got it locked on! The Demi Lovato Looks Good in Jeans! Lyster is howling due to the intense ankle pressure Frodo is locking on! Lyster grabs his hand on the car handle… and starts pulling himself up!
LYSTER shakes his head. “Bad comedy. This skeevy little troll had the temerity to place his amateurishly executed abortion of a submission hold on me. Look at that! Leverage is all wrong… vector of pressure completely misapplied… at least 18 obvious ways to escape or counter.”
SUBMISSIVE #2 [whispers to SUBMISSIVE #1]: “Not ta contradict the Master an’ all, but between you and me, luv, looks as though the wee bloke had the Master a bit arsed there—“
“Silence! Did I give my slaves permission to speak?”
SUBMISSIVES [all, in unison]: “As it pleases the Master.”
LYSTER shakes his head in disgust. Just tacky all around. Worse than anything the Yakuza ever put me up to.
But then there was the elimination match. That one mattered. A barb is lodged in the soft tissue of LYSTER’s pride.
A man of caliber, though, makes no excuses.
“Well, let’s get on with it,” LYSTER sighs.
He pours a second shot of 18, kills in it one gulp, then connects to the joint Ministry of Discipline/XWF feed. Turns on the webcam.
Live. Ministry of Discipline roving feed. Oceania District, North American Continent, New York City.
LYSTER speaks.
“Well played, Mister ARKHAM.
“At Christmas Shove-It, in a match specifically disadvantageous to a submission-focused competitor, I did what I always do. I walked into the ring against two men, having trained to break them.
“The records show I did, in fact, break one man.”
Simon kicks Storms in the gut and lifts him up! Gorilla Press Backbreaker drops Storms down in a heap! Adrian Storms is crying out in pain as Simon locks on…
THE PARALYZER!
The body vice spine lock/crucifix neck crank has an immense amount of pressure put on the neck and body of Adrian Storms! Storms is reaching out but there is seemingly nowhere to go!
Joey Styles: Storms is in huge trouble! He tapped! Storms tapped out!
“And I contend I broke two.”
Cain is reaching out in exasperation! He begins pushing off the mat and pushing himself to the ropes! He’s a foot away! He pushes off the mat and crawls some more! He crawls and crawls! Cain reeeeeaches out and grabs it! He grabs the rope. The referee looks at Simon who smiles up at him. The referee begins to count!
Joey Styles: Cain is in big trouble right now! The referee has got a five- count to work with until Lyster gets disqualified!
Real Soviet Damage: Yes, Lyster! Don't let go! Show that ублюдок what for!
1… Simon is still smiling.
2… Simon wrenches it back even further!
3… Cain is sputtering as Simon wrenches it back some more!
4… Simon finally relinquishes the hold and steps back smiling sadistically at Cain.
Simon pulls Cain to the center of the ring and pins Cain.
1…
2….
THR-NO! So close! Cain barely kicks out.
“Because from the fight pits of Singapore to the mats of Abu Dhabi to the puroresu dens of Kabukicho, no mortal man has ever risen from a twisting such as I gave you.
“But you did rise, Mister ARKHAM.” LYSTER shakes hiis head in disbelief. “With a fraction of a second to spare. But rise you did.”
Grimacing in pain, LYSTER opens one of the two books: a red leatherbound copy of the Holy Bible. Flipping to John 20, he begins to read:
Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when the Messiah came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, the Messiah came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”
Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here: see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side.
“Stop doubting and believe.”
LYSTER puts down the book.
“I trained for a man. And I beat a man. But then I faced something I confess was beyond my experience.
“But although some of my convictions might need… reevaluation, one remains unwavering:
“Even monsters – if monster you indeed are – can fall.”
LYSTER puts down the Bible, opens the second leatherbound book – Milton’s Paradise Lost – and turns to Canto I:
The infernal Serpent…
Hurled headlong flaming from the Ethereal Sky
With hideous ruin and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In Adamantine Chains.
LYSTER stops, reiterates the last line, savagely enunciating each word. “There. To. Dwell. In. Adamantine. Chains.”
He looks down at his huge strangler’s hands, flexes his fingers back and forth.
“The average man has a grip of 20 pounds per square inch. When I entered the arena last night, my grip measured at 112 psi. It seems, however, I must redouble my training.
“But make no mistake, Mister ARKHAM: Your chains will be forged.
“Perhaps not today, perhaps not tomorrow, but soon enough:
“You will break like Mister STORMS.
“You will break like all the rest.”
LYSTER pauses, looks into the camera. His eyes are two chips of ice in a face dead and cold as a glacier.
“No. Correction:
“You MUST break like all the rest.”
LYSTER kills the feed. Fade to black.
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