The bass guitarist gestures to his drummer, clicking his fingers to help give his band mate find the timing. The drummer shakes his head to the clicks, finally getting the beat and letting his drumsticks strike the appropriate drums.
“There ya go, nice and clean.”
The bass guitarist points to the pianist next, he begins to hum a tune, along with the beat of the drums. And the pianist begins to mimic his notes to the key. The guitarist grins, happy with the result, he immediately shifts his attention to a violinist queuing his notes into the song too. Soon, all of them are playing to the beat. The guitarist looks to backstage, nodding once at someone. All three members of the band have Long streaks of black hair covering their face, very KISS-esque, or perhaps I should say Unknown Soldier-esque outfits.
“Listen closely to this song,
Listen carefully to this beat.
From once what was Chaotic,
We’ve produced this beautiful feat.
Hear as the snare drops,
Just as the violin sings,
Watch as the pianist plays,
As each crafted key, rings.
There is beauty in our battle.
Love in our war,
There is order in our Chaos.
Leaving you wanting more. You just want to watch the world burn,
See it return to dust,
But you fail to see it’s glory.
Show you, I must.
Pretending to be someone you’re not, Chris you’ve been hiding for so long,
Let me enlighten your soul,
For you’ve been crying all along.
Danny lowers the mic from his lips, allowing his lead guitarist, who raises his face, the Long streaks of hair dropping to the sides to reveal Grande Ricardo’s mask. The drummer throws his fake hair back to reveal a cynically grinning R.L Edgar and finally the pianist peeks out from his own fake locks of hair to reveal the ever-serious face of Erik Black.
The scene opens with Danny sitting on a table, his legs propped up on a wooden bench. He’s wearing a large thick leather overcoat. His hair is slightly greasy, uncombed and falling across either side of his face. His eyes look ever so slightly glazed over, intoxicated?
“Before I kick off my verbal decimation of my opponents, I’d like to address the XWF brass for just a brief second.
This is quite the shitfest you have on your hands eh?
Raven replacing Unknown Soldier.
Scully replacing Chasm.
All of that is good and what not, but Bourbon replacing Drezdin? Did that quite sound fair to you? Where's our little advantage? Hm? Do we get to roll up with baseball bats? Maybe we get a five second head start, or, maybe Mike gets to chew on the heads of our enemies.
Fuck you guys."
His right hand caresses a bird cage, a single Raven perched on a stand inside of it. He looks to the bird before looking straight into the camera.
“Oh, you know what’s going on here, don’t you… James
But let’s leave you in this cage for a bit and talk about your team mates.
Let’s start with Chaos, he’ll like that prioritising. Really plays on his narcissm.
Chris Chaos. Bringer of Chaos, reveller of destruction, harbinger of pain.
Hah!
You rebranding, son?
You’ve been yapping at this narrative for awhile, I’m impressed with your leve of commitment.
Spew some shit enough and we’ll have to accept it from sheer exhaustion, right?
I can buy into that, lack of talent spews worse shit I guess. This is hardly a hard pill to swallow.
Fine, let’s try your new little rhetoric for awhile.
You want to watch the world burn, you want to burn alongside it.
Khaleesi imagery right there, mother of dragons. Eeep, Mike might not like that.
A recurring confusion with you, your inability to see the obstacles in your path. You look to the future, which is great. I’m sure the legendary Michael Graves is a threat you must face. Yet… You seem to forget that you have four ridiculously talented motherfuckers standing right infront of you.
I’ve trained with these cunts, I’ve wrestled with them to perfect our craft before Wargames.
You’d be a fool to ignore us.
You see, Chaos. They crave this destruction almost as much as I do.
Edgar wants nothing more than to flush out the pain he seems to struggle with on a day to day basis. What better way to deal with suffering than inflict it, eh?
Erik is on a warpath to help each and everyone of us to understand the dominating presence he’s brought to the XWF. Sure, he’s new, but fuck me, I’d love to get my hands around his throat and throttle him to death in a match. That’s a compliment, that is.
Oh Captain, my captain, Grande Ricardo. Eccentric, humorous, dangerous. There’s something about delusions like his that just make me giggle in glee. There’s just something preciously terrifying of a man who is as unpredictable as Ricardo. There’s just something tantalising about a… Creature that has no limits or any form you can slot him into. Like an everchanging element, a raging storm, he’s uncontainable, and I cannot wait to dance in the ring with him… Partner with him to destroy whoever else decides it’s their turn for a little pain.
Chaos. You were quite something in that Shove it. A burning fire within you I had not seen in quite awhile. I was impressed. I left that burning ring with a smile on my face, I’d almost sated my hunger, I’d never quite gotten that close to satisfaction. Deservingly you got stuck in an odd marriage with Caedus. It was pleasing to see you win yet lose at the same time, I’d hate to partner with that ignorant fuck, but ignorance is something you two can bond over.
Your overconfidence, however, will extinguish your flame in a second.
The time it takes you to blink, all could be over.
As you look ahead at Graves, I’ll come up behind you and crush your cerebral cortex through the mat and end any hope of victory you had. Keep your eyes focused Chaos. Or not, either ways I’ll enjoy the sound of your skull against the mat. Feed me, cunt.”
Danny opens up the cage, the trapped bird hops about but doesn’t fly out. Danny reaches into the pocket of his coat, taking out a prepared piece of… Jerky(?), that he holds out in his hand. The Raven eyes the piece of meat, cocking its head.
With a little more coercion the bird leaps onto Danny’s hand, pecking at the jerky before swallowing it whole. Just as the bird swallow, Danny’s other hand shoots out to grab the bird by the neck, immobilising it in his grasp.
“You’re kidding me right, didn’t realise that’s all it took to spook somebody like Unknown Soldier, Mr. 24/7, The one and only worshipper of SATAN himself. Really? What, did he see the collective brilliance of our team and piss his pants? Who broke him finally? Ricardo’s literary brilliance? Edgars depressing yet remarkable drive for a man who’s… Not had the best run, or was it Erik Black, who believes he’s the best… He knows he’s the best. I disagree, because hey, look at me, BUT, believing it is almost all the way there. Maybe it was the magnificent Mike. The dragon who strikes fear in the hearts of all who hears his name… That actually sounds most likely. Pussy.
Then again, maybe it was me. I’m terrifying. No?
I can think about four people who are stupid enough to count me irrelevant in a fight. Erik Black, Robert Main, Chris Chaos… And it seems James Raven.
The hailed returning prodigy seems to have conveniently ignored the most imminent threat in his path.
Me. If that wasn’t clear, you cement-brained cunt.
My victories aren’t consistent, obviously, and that is most definitely a shame.
But my devastating impact most definitely is. One can confidently say that I will destroy your body, whether I get the pinfall or put you through a table at the end of. You see, that’s all I’m really in this for. The opportunity to leave your bodies in ruin at the end of the night.
James, Oh, James. I was oh so excited when I found out you’d returned, even more so when you took the Universal Championship and held it vehemently. I was enthralled by your return and rise to your previous glory, I’d only ever seen recordings of your technical prowess and your dominance in earlier years.
I wanted to be across the ring from you so badly, and you’ve just danced your way right there.
Yet…
Yet somehow….
Your eyes glance right over me.
Sure, you’re bitter about Robbie Bourbon taking that title off you like a burly man with sixty five gigabites of kiddy porn on his laptop takes candy from a child. I understand it, I’d want some semblance of revenge too, I’d want to show the world that it was a fluke. A one-off mishap, a slip up of the century… But one that I would not repeat. I understand, really.
But I thought you more intelligent than that James.
I assumed with all your pretentious speech and your experience, you were just the slightest bit more calculative than that.
We have a match before you get to even sniff at the sweat and ignorance filled pits of Bourbon and BWP. Before the cum and blood stained tanktop of Engy is within your grasp.
Before all of that, the future meets the past.
Before all of that, I stand before you in the ring.
“YOU WANT TO BE ME”
Main and Chaos would say pathetically. But no. I hardly want to think about those two insolent little shits. You… I wanted to fight you more than anyone else. I wanted to blemish that record, or at least have a chance to. And now that I have that opportunity… You just look past me?
I am your undoing staring right at you.
I am the man who is going to make the XWF think of James Raven as a pleasant but distant memory.
Yet, you look past me.
That is a mistake.
A mistake I will make you regret.
A mistake you will rue for the rest of your fucking career.
A career I plan on making significantly shorter by the end of Wargames.
Nobody pretends Imperial doesn’t even exist.
Nevertheless, I’ll do you the honour of reminding you. Painfully.”
Danny brings the bird to his eye level, it’s still struggling feebly between his fingers.
“Speaking of short careers, where the fuck have you been? Did Bourbon beating you really shatter your spirit that hard? A Universal Champion disappearing into his abyss because of one loss? Was it to build up the anticipation? Surprise muthafucka the XWF universe so that people would have some sort of reaction to you instead of utter fucking disappointment.
That’s what you are, you realize? A fucking disappointment.
That’s what Unknown Soldier was. We were excited to see a legend come back, and what did he give us? Nothing.
Now that you’re back for yet another return, how much do we want to bet that you’ll give us fuck all too?
The fans, the wrestlers, the bookers, don’t need more disappointment.
Why don’t you go back to your life of delusion and let the few of us who actually put in the work run the fucking show, James.
We don’t need part timers.
We don’t need forgotten legends.
We don’t need you.
I’ll help you return to obscurity too. Chaos could learn a thing or two from you and Unknown, it’s about time he packed his shit and fucked off too.
Quote the Imperial, I will be your end.”
Danny’s forearm flexes, his fingers snapping the neck of a raven. A single feather drops to the floor, followed by the thud of a dead birds body hitting the concrete floor. Just for emphasis, Danny drives his boot into it’s skull, the squelching sound resonating through the speakers.
“And just for good measure, let me throw in McBride and Scully.
Two son of a bitches who have a nice looking resume but nothing else to show for it in recent history.
I know there was some form of selection process that led to these teams. But there has to have been some cosmic force that thought the best idea was to put, honestly, three hasbeens and one barbie-fuck princess in the same team against four of the newest XWF has to offer.
Historical vs Potential.
Scully, lack of potential is exemplified by your career as of late. You have a foolish veracity begging to be thrown into fights, thrown into the deep end that your dystrophic talent is unable to keep up with. If you put a fraction of the effort you put into looking for a fight into preparing for a fight, you might actually get a win, if you matched it, you might get an ioata of respect from the locker room.
Could you hear the collective groan of every competitor and official as your name came up as Chasm’s replacement? You would’ve been deaf not to.
You realise how depressing that is, to be despised over CHASM. Hm…
And McBride. Where have you been, brother?
Your face flashed for a moment during shove it. I was surprised, to be honest.
But would you say you even tried?
And before that? Little sprinkles here and there on Warfare and Savage? You sure you’re up for this? Or perhaps has Scully’s Dystrophy, I honestly think we should get that patented, been contracted by you as well? Perhaps the days of Mcbride are past as aswell.
I can get someone to play a really nice package of your best work, alongside Raven’s and Chaos’, maybe little bit of Scully in there too, though there isn’t much to show on that front. We the Dragon Pals will give you a nice little send off, don’t you worry yourself."
Danny reaches down to yank at the body of the Raven, separating it from its crushed head easily. He chucks it over his shoulder, where Mike leaps into the air to gobble it up. Grande Ricardo brandishes a thumb at the camera, also at Danny.
Danny’s hand hung in the air in front of Ina’s door. To knock or not to knock.
Quote: “A girl that looks like she does at least three different kind of drugs and spends more time with a belt around her arm than around her waist?”
The line came out venomous, catching Ina off guard, making her take a step back. A look of disgust spreads across her features and she spits at Danny’s feet.
“Fuck you.”
Danny growls a little, before realizing what he’d said, especially in relation to that drunk ex boyfriend who had showed up at her place just the other day.
Danny had never been all that great at apologies. Eh, he’ll let it simmer and wait for her to forget about it. What was he going to do? Buy her a bunch of flowers, get a reservation at Masa and pay his way to her forgiveness? Hmph, fat luck.
Danny turns away from the door and moves to his own apartment door when something startles him. A loud thud from within Ina’s apartment. The door swings open violently soon after, and a large, muscled man steps out. In his right hand is a handful of Ina’s hair, and he proceeds to drag her down the hall.
“Hey, Grodd. Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
Danny bolts down the short distance, and plants a firm hand on Grodd’s left shoulder.
“Why don’t you let go of this lil’ Miss here, and get your ass prepared for a kicking life you’ve never felt before.”
The massive man chuckles, turning to face Danny and dropping Ina’s head against the floor. She seems to be groggy, but conscious, blood drips out from her mouth and her right eye is swollen. Danny can feel the anger bubbling in the pits of his stomach, boiling up to his lips.
“You fucking animal, you have no idea what you just did.”
Danny throws a fist at the man, but before he can savour the crunch of his fist into the man’s jaw, an explosion of pain emanates from the back of his skull. Before he knows it, the ground rushes up to meet him and he just manages to look behind him.
“Hicks said you might be a problem, that’s why he sent me.”
The man was about six feet, built like a lean swimmer, and had a baseball bat in one hand. His hair was short and slicked neatly to the side. A black suit with a black shirt and a white tie, he looked fresh out of an assassin movie. His jacket hit a double gun holster, like you saw on cops in TV-shows. And that grin, Danny could feel his consciousness leaving him, but he would remember that fucking grin.
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