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Thaddeus Duke · (11-29-2020)

Asmodeus Illuminatus Air Force Base || Berlin, Germany

Despite our victory just yesterday, the mood around the base is rather grim. As much as we all respect and admire General McGovern, I, and many others, have this grave suspicion that we might have underestimated the fighting forces of Thaddeus Duke’s Illuminatus. Maybe attacking them abroad wasn’t the best idea. Not being in the States gives them a level playing field. Something that, until now, the Illuminatus hasn’t had. The Ares Project has been three, four, even five steps ahead of them every step of the way but something is coming. I feel it in my bones.

General McGovern departed back to the States three hours ago to start planning the next phase. Just thirty minutes before the first Illuminatus tank division rolled up right on our doorstep. I say ‘the first’ because since that time, three other tank divisions have rolled in and we’re effectively surrounded.

We took the base with very little manpower, just a few thousand troops and about a half dozen tanks. The Illuminatus was caught entirely off guard and were not battle ready. I hesitate to admit, but there were no survivors in the end. When you are a soldier and you are given orders by a superior officer, you are trained to follow those orders implicitly and without deviation. I wanted to protest, but I’m a soldier. I follow my orders to the letter. When the fighting was over, all surviving Illuminatus personnel were executed.

Some, by my own hands.

I’ll live with that until my dying day.

That was yesterday. Today is a new day complete with a new set of challenges. Those challenges lie outside the barbed wire fencing in the form of Thaddeus Duke’s Illuminatus army. We wait and do nothing. They keep growing. One tank division? Yeah it’ll be bloody, but I think we’d win the day. But four? And to top that off, Thaddeus sent us a rather cocky message: “When you hear the planes, it’s already too late.” That’s rich coming from a guy that just lost his primary air force base.

At one time I wanted to be a fighter pilot. I’ve heard the stories. I’ve seen the news footage. The reality is, if I hadn’t been snatched up by the Ares Project, I may have tried to find my way into the Illuminatus Air Force. They are an awesome sight to behold. Awesome is a word thrown around far too much, but they truly are. Death from above. In every sense of the phrase, that’s what that Air Force is. Lethal, and with so many talented pilots. In an alternate universe, if the Illuminatus forces were larger and had they had the desire to do it, they could bring the world to heel beneath their banners.

Still though, something is coming and those assholes waving their blue and white banners are taunting us. Any time one of us passes by the fence line, you can hear the wind of their tank turrets following them. We try not to look or pay them any attention, but it’s hard not to when its your friends that have the target on their backs.

”JENKINS!” shouts my commanding officer. In response I slam my journal shut and jump to my feet.

”Sir?”

”Put the diary away and go help Masters with the anti-aircraft batteries!”

”Yes Sir!” I respond before saluting. After my CO walks away to yell at more soldiers, I place my journal inside my footlocker. Taking a second to survey the numerous tanks and Humvees surrounding the base, I turn my attention to my fellow soldiers a few hundred feet away. It doesn’t take long to get there but amid the foreboding threat outside, my fellow soldiers installing the anti-aircraft batteries are rather jovial. Maybe its cover for the fear I think we all feel. Or at least, should feel.

It’s one thing to have an open, level playing field, but we’re in a cage like sheep and the wolves surround us. I am not jovial. I am not happy. I fear a great deal.

”Jenkins, I heard the CO busted you for writing in your diary again,” Masters laughs heartily at his own remark, his buddies join in on his laughter.

”It isn’t a diary,” I fire back, maybe a little more defensively than I intended. ”It’s a journal.”

”Pull that trigger,” he instructs me. I do so and the test trigger jams. ”Mother fucker!” Masters shouts. ”The least they can do is provide us with better fucking equipment!”

”What of the others?” I ask of him, referring to the other batteries.

”Installed, but just like this one, the triggers all jam as soon as you pull,” he informs me.

”How did you know he busted me? I just walked over here.”

”It’s an open field, Jenkins, voices carry.”

”Shhh!” I say as my ears perk up and I wave my hands frantically trying to quiet the nearby banter.

”What is it boy!?” he jokes but I ignore him.

”Quiet! I think I hear something!” Then it occurs to me what the sound is I’m hearing.

Planes.

By the sound of it, quite a few. I dart my head to the sky and the leader of the Illuminatus might be cocky, but he wasn’t lying. When you hear them, it’s already too late.

”SHIT!”

Thaddeus Duke’s black and gold fighter jet swoops down in low, right over our heads and he breaks the sound barrier, sending a lot of our men fleeing. The shock wave itself sends me airborne and crashing into a crate. The air raid siren sounds and the battle is on. The jets behind him start firing their missiles and guns at us. The tanks outside roll forward while clearing their cannons.

Low flying bombers start emptying their payloads onto the base, destroying everything and everyone in their wake. Blood leaks from my ruptured ear drums and I can almost feel the bombs bursting inside my head. My ears ring with the deafening tone of tinnitus. Crawling on my stomach, I search and search for some cover, finally finding refuge beneath the burned out hulk of one of our tanks.

Part of me wants so badly to see the Illuminatus Air Force in action, a much larger part of me, just wants to survive. I peek through the small gaps between the track sprockets. They really don’t care what they’re destroying. It’s their base, their equipment that they’re blowing up. It’s almost as if they just want to make sure they kill us all.

They’re succeeding.

The bombs stop falling and its mostly cannon and small arms fire now. I can’t see most of it, but I can hear how badly we’re losing this battle. The screams from my brothers in arms are bone chilling and I’m entirely gripped with fear, unable to move. With no other weapons at my disposal except my pistol, if I reveal my location I’m as good as dead. If I wait until the battle is over, at least I have a chance of surviving this endeavor. Locked in chains maybe, but alive to tell the tale.

Several agonizing minutes later, the repeated sounds of bullets escaping their barrels and the screams slow to a crawl. A plea for mercy here, a shot there. A scream here, the sound of a lifeless body falling to the ground there.

Then silence. Nothing more than the sound of screeching tires as their Air Force touches down on the runways. The Illuminatus has landed. The battle is over and they were resoundingly victorious. With no idea how many of my brothers made it out or survived this, I’m frozen once again with fear. Part of me wishes that one of their bombs would have struck close enough to my hiding place that it would have ended me.

Finding what’s left of my courage and shaking like a late stage Parkinson’s sufferer, I crawl out from under the smoldering tank. I pull my sidearm from my holster and raise my hands in surrender. Two of their soldiers draw their weapons and rush over to me. One forces me to my knees as the other… wait! The other guy is the Illuminatus leader.

”Name and rank?” he questions me. No words come at first. I didn’t think I’d come face to face with Thaddeus Duke but here I am surrendering to him with my gun still in my hand. I could end the war right now! Sure, I’d be dead, but so would he! Of course… that’s in theory because he just took my weapon.

”Name and rank, soldier?” he repeats to me as he removes the mag from my pistol, takes a look, and replaces it.

”Harold Jenkins, sir. Private First Class,” I answer him.

”How old are you, Harold?”

”Twenty, sir. You?” Seriously Harold? You’re face to face with the leader of your enemies and you ask his age?

”Twenty one,” he answers as he places the barrel of my own gun against my forehead. Nervously, my bladder decides to let go. ”What would your General McGovern do, Harold, if he were in my shoes?” he asks.

I know what he’d do. He knows what he’d do, but I decline to answer.

”Did you take pride in killing my people in cold blood, Harold?”

Vigorously, I shake my head. Negative. I did not take pride in those actions.

”But you did it like a good little soldier, didn’t you?”

I nod slowly. I’m a soldier. I was just following… shit. Never mind.

”I’m a merciful man, Harold so I’m going to ask you a question. If you give me the right answer, I’ll let you live to see tomorrow.

“Do you have any intention of giving me any relevant information about the Ares Project?”

I’m torn but thinking quickly. On one hand, living is good, but we’re both soldiers. Giving away our secrets is a step below treason and loyalty is an admirable quality. He’d respect that, right?

”No sir,” I answer him, convinced that no matter how I answer, it’s the wrong answer. Thaddeus sighs and pulls back the hammer.

”Harold, I don’t want to kill you,” he states emphatically. ”I’ll ask you again, do you intend to give me relevant information about the Ares Project if I let you live?”

”Sir… if it was the other way around and you were captured, would you give away Illuminatus secrets?”

He sighs and lowers my weapon.

”Sir, I’m sorry, but I just ca...”

POP!

It pisses me off immeasurably to see this list of competitors gunning for what should belong to me. Every one of them, every single one should be in this match gunning for a shot at my championship yet here we are. The XWF can never see what is right in front of them. They refuse to see that Thaddeus Duke is the real number one contender to the vacant Universal championship and the number one pretender gets to stalk around the halls putting everyone else to sleep while he pretends he fucking earned something.

I earned it. Not him. I earned it by routing Relentless, I earned it by beating that dumb son of a bitch Chris Chaos twice in under a month. I earned it by simply continuing to be exactly what I am and that’s the absolute best wrestler in that fucking ring.

With all the logic shown by the brass, it makes me wonder if the term “wrestler” is a dirty word here too.

Y’all can deny it, scoff, make your jokes, whatever you like but the facts are what matters. Not your feelings, not your projections. The facts are that your Lionheart was selected by the fans of the XWF and my own fellow competitors to reign as your star of the month because I am that fucking good. The facts are that before she was fired, your former Universal Champion was getting ready to accept Paul Heyman’s appeal on Savage in replacing Chris Chaos with Thaddeus Duke at High Stakes. Which, by the way, has gone entirely ignored by the XWF brass as if it never happened.

Why? Why would Sarah Lacklan accept a change in opponent when she’d make minced meat of Chris Chaos and leaver herself open to a far, far less certain outcome?

Because Thaddeus Duke is money. She knew it. Lacklan knew that me sharing the marquee with her regardless of what the end result might have been, would have been the largest XWF payday she’s had in a long time. Maybe ever, but now we’ll never know. She was fully prepared to accept the change in High Stakes opponent and put the ball and all the pressure that goes with it, in the court of the XWF brass and we were going to watch them squirm and figure out how to weasel themselves out of a fucking mess that they created by allowing a sorry little bitch ass loser like Chris Chaos to get a sniff of the main event and the Universal title, while having to deny the XWF Universe, the entire roster, and the world at large what they know to be true: I… am… the real… number one… contender.

What has always been, continues to be: put a good thing in the lap of the XWF brass, and watch them find new and exciting ways to fuck it up. To quote Robbie Bourbon: “don’t do dumb.” But alas, they can’t help themselves.

Now we have a whole bunch of guys coming out of the crevasses of this industry trying to lay claim to what is mine by right. Guys that don’t even have the courtesy to truly identify themselves to their fellow competitors. I’m not going to defend my right. I earned it by being here, by beating the competition placed in front of me. By beating the number one pretender before and after he was rewarded that pretendership. You have guys that are “part time” and the only thing that tells me and anyone else is that “well, if I win, I’ll stick around. If not, I’m out.” So much for the confidence they have in their abilities to come into the XWF and knock some heads while walking out Universal Champion. If you truly thought you were the best, or that you could cut the mustard inside the halls of the Xtreme Wrestling Federation… why not prove it by signing a full time contract?

That answer is simple: when they fail, and they certainly will, they can slink back into obscurity and no one will even remember they were here and they can continue on pretending that they’re someone special.

Thad’s phone dings. After pulling it from his hoodie pocket, he unlocks and takes a look, then laughs hysterically.

’Corey Smith’ Said:

I Said:
LOL! I love you too buddy

Do people ship us? Is that a thing?

Anyway, it is inevitable that I will cover everyone of note as time goes on. It’s kind of what we do.

Everyone and their brother claims they want to affect change. That they want to be the change in the landscape of the XWF and I have to tell you, if you’re one of those types, and you’re crawling from holes no one but you knows even exists, you’re not change. If you’re a blast from the past hoping to cash in on the misfortunes of Sarah Lacklan. If you’re hoping to steal a little glory due to the ineptitude of the powers that be and their continued mockery of the business we all love. You’re not the blood the XWF needs. Your not the change the Universe seeks. Real change comes with young blood and a fresh face. Not with names from the past that either no one has ever heard of, or no one remembers, much less that anyone cares about.

You look at me or Corey Smith, and you see the present and the future of this company, and this industry as a whole. Young, exciting, uber talented.

You look at guys like James Evans… maybe he was a big deal somewhere before but somehow I doubt it. I have nothing against the man trying to make a name for himself, but he’s supposedly been a part of the XWF in years past. He’s so damn good that when he was here, no one seemed to notice.

You’ll notice he spent his entire last promo talking about Corey Smith and only Corey Smith as if Corey is the only other guy in this battle royal. He isn’t, James.

There’s Robbie Bourbon. His buffet seems a little thin at the moment but when he gets goin’ he’s a rather dangerous and difficult competitor to navigate.

What about Witness? He seems to have taken my grandfathers cult game and went rookie. He talks of war like he’s the only one that’s seen it. This is wrestling, bro. Not war. Don’t ever equate the two because they are not the same. If a wrestling competition is war to you, then you’ve never seen real war. I’ve lived war most of my life. There’s no time for games in war. There’s no young lion metaphors to bludgeon. No best friends to try and divide on the battlefields. There’s no guys opposite you that were never quite good enough and no cagey veteran doctors.

War is kill or be killed and there is no middle ground, so this war you speak of is a really bad metaphor. I know war, Witness. A real soldier learns quickly, war is neither something to want, nor something to make light of.

Its all fun when its just a metaphor but it hits a little differently when the bullets are real and the bodies start dropping. In war, when you're eliminated, you don't get to brush yourself off and live to fight another day.

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