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Thaddeus Duke · (05-30-2021)

St. Peter’s Basilica || Vatican City, Illuminatus Nation || 11:12 AM

”These people are fuckin’ weird,” she says aloud as we pass by the dead popes in the necropolis. I nod in agreement. ”So how does this work? What happens?” she asks as we make our way toward the far end where my loved ones are buried.

”It’s a drug,” I begin explaining. ”I don’t remember what its called but it comes in a syringe. It knocks me cold in seconds and gives me a dreamless sleep that allows me to just enter my subconscious once I’m knocked out.”

A great deal of hesitation, call it cold feet even, overcomes me just as we reach the final doorway where my mother, my grandfather and my fathers friend and confidant Jake Anderson all rest. Some panic washes over me and I’m now in the middle of my first panic attack in months. The attack causes me to stumble backwards and Dolly is right there for me, fully aware of my history of panic attacks. Like a nurturing mother she retreats from the doorway to my side and rubs my shoulder.

”It’s okay, take a breath,” she says and following her advice, I bend at the hip and lean my hands upon my knees, trying to take deep, calming breaths. The attack is over in a few seconds and I don’t really even acknowledge it or her response to it. I have a mission to see through and at the moment, that’s the only thing on my mind.

Entering the room, I stop and take a slow look around at the bare caskets covered in an ever-thickening amount of dirt and dust. Passing by Jacob and then my grandfather, we come to my mother. Fastened to the brick below her casket is an illegible brass plate. Wiping away the dirt covering the engravings reveals the inscription: Caitlyn Nguyen-Duke – The Queen Mother. Sadness and silence grip me tight but Dolly, sensing this, grips me even tighter by my hand.

”I often wonder what she’d think of me,” I admit to Dolly as a tear rolls down my cheek.

”Did you ever tell me she was adopted?” Dolly asks, warmly leaning her head against my shoulder in an effort to comfort me.

I shrug in response, I honestly don’t remember.

”There’s a lot of parallels don’t you think?” she asks glancing up at me for a moment before returning her head to my shoulder.

”I wasn’t adopted,” I reply to her with a bit of confusion in my voice.

”I mean her, you, Frankie,” she retorts. ”Your mom was adopted, you adopted Frankie. Frankie’s birth father killed his mommy, your father killed yours.

“Similar wit with a sometimes sharp tongue, blatant disregard for rules of the norm.”

I look at her and can’t stop myself from smiling a little. ”I’m not sure I ever really thought of it that way,” I tell her before returning my attention toward my mothers casket. ”A lot of Frankie’s attitude I think is learned though. I try to be a good influence on him, but he picks up the bad from me as well as he does the good.”

”Do you think the similarities between what happened to both of yer mothers is what prompted you to pretty much drop everything and drop in on him like a damn superhero to save him?”

”Maybe… probably,” I tell her. ”Maybe I oughta start seeing you instead of my shrink,” I joke. ”I mean...” I stammer, realizing what I just said.

”Shut up, I knew what you meant.”

”Well,” I begin, taking a step away from her and releasing her hand. ”You ready to sit in the dirt and be bored for the next… I have no idea how long it’ll be?”

”Am I not comin’ with you?” she asks, looking a bit put off.

”I’m not sure its a good idea,” I answer her. ”I’m just not sure that...”

”Thad, I came to do this with you. I came to help you see this through. I came...”

”No,” I snipe back much colder than I intended and interrupting her before I take a seat on the dirt covered floor then lean my back against the brick wall. Removing the small case from my backpack, I open it up to reveal the syringes inside. Picking one, I remove the cap and squeeze a little, flicking the syringe as a bit of the contents drips from the hollow point of the needle. Squeezing my left hand into a fist a few times to get the blood flowing and my veins to swell a bit, I stick the needle in my arm and press the plunger.

”See ya on the flip side,” I joke. Dolly rushes down to the floor beside me and just as I’m falling unconscious, I can see her remove the needle from my arm and stab herself in the leg with it. ”No… Dolly… what the f…….”

Blackness.

…

…

…

…

My eyes flutter open and I can feel the cold damp compacted dirt floor beneath me. After a moment, I sit up and rub my eyes before climbing to my feet. With no hesitation, I start down the corridors of my subconscious memories toward the big red door with the brass handles. The one far down the other end that leads to the Saint Peters Basilica memories. That’s where I always found Doc before and I have no reason to suspect this might be any different.

Reaching the door I place my hand on the handle then hesitate and take a deep breath. Just as I’m about to push the door open, a small hand slaps down upon mine, startling me. Jumping back, I realize Dolly has joined me despite my protests earlier back in the real world.

”Dolly what the fuck are you doing here!?” I doth protest. ”I told you...”

”And I told you I was in this with you,” interrupting me, she pleads her case and looks up into my eyes. ”Besides its a bit late now don’t you think? I’m already here.”

Looking back into her eyes for a long moment, something occurs to me. ”I’m really glad you’re here,” I say as a tear escapes my eye. Her support for me, for this crazy endeavor that may not even work, its everything to me, to our friendship.

”Yeah well don’t open the flood gates just yet,” she jokes, causing me to laugh. ”You’ll turn this damn floor to mud and I just bought these shoes.”

Her and I both almost simultaneously remove our eyes from each other and turn our heads toward the red door. Together, we push on that door. Inside that door lies the Basilica that in the real world rests just above our unconscious heads.

Slowly, we enter the darkened recess of my memory. Behind us, the red door closes with a hushed click and the Basilica lights up. Just as he was so many times before, Doctor D’Ville sits upon the altar where unlike previous trips here that had one throne- mine- this altar now has two. In contrast to real world D’Ville that has changed his skin in a manner of speaking as often lately as dogs shed their hair, he appears here in his most traditional form. Balding head with what’s left of his hair combed back against his skull, clean shaven with his blue eyes still very much soul piercing.

Dolly and I make our way down the main aisle of the Basilica toward the altar. Reaching the bottom of the steps, D’Ville looks down at us.

”Young Duke,” he nods in my direction before looking to my right, instinctively I roll my eyes. ”Miss Waters.”

”’Sup Dawk?” she greets him as she normally would have.

”I wasn’t sure you’d be here Doc,” I say to him as Dolly and I make our way up the steps. ”We haven’t exactly been in the same company of late,” I say as I sit my own throne beside his.

”I knew you’d come calling eventually,” Doc says as he shifts himself to view the both of us better.

I look to my left toward Dolly and now a third throne has appeared and she casually sits upon it.

”Three thrones? Where’d that one come from?” I ask of D’Ville.

Doc stares at me blankly for a quick second before answering. ”It’s your dream, you tell me.”

For a brief moment, my heart starts to pound as I stare straight forward toward the red door Dolly and I entered through moments ago, though it isn’t visible from here. ”For someone so concerned with Corey wanting him out of Continuum, you sure did a good job yourself of making sure you were out, didn’t you?” I ask of him, changing the subject.

”Spare me,” he begins. ”Let’s not pretend that you and Corey both haven’t been looking for an excuse to dump me on my ass.”

”You’re wrong,” I fire back at him and he looks at me. ”You ought to know by now that loyalty is embedded in my DNA.”

”Loyalty,” Doc scoffs but stops short of rolling his eyes. ”Loyalty so strong you couldn’t even kneel to your King.”

I shake my head. ”It wasn’t like that, man,” I begin to try explaining my perspective to him. ”You’re the King of the XWF. I too am a King and you remind me of that fact constantly. Except my royal titles exist outside the arenas and stadiums.

“You know as well as I do Louis, a King who kneels is no King. I couldn’t have knelt to you if I wanted to.”

”Fair enough I suppose,” Doc agrees hesitantly.

”I told you a long time ago that my loyalty didn’t come at a price.”

”I remember.”

”You helped me out Doc,” I remind him. ”Corey wasn’t quite well enough to return just yet. Dolly was doing whatever Dolly does. My father was still licking his wounds from being buried alive, but it was you.

“You were the one that helped me out when I was getting my ass kicked by Cataclysm.

“You were the one not just behind me, but beside me as together… we ended Cataclysm and their reign of dominance… for good.”

”We did.”

”You earned my loyalty through fighting beside me when you didn’t have to, Doc. My loyalty doesn’t waver and it doesn’t take a day off. Regardless of what it is that Corey wants or doesn’t want… You’re a part of Continuum so long as you choose it.”

”It doesn’t take a day off? Did I or did I not hear you at MayDay cheering on Alias to defeat me from your comfortable front row seat?”

”You did,” I willfully admit.

”A man that would much rather see you dead than alive,” Doc drives home his point. ”And don’t think I didn’t see you sneering at me when I shoved that sneaky little shit on his ass.

“Tell me, why so loyal to Corey Smith?”

”Well… he’s...”

”Not so quick to answer,” he interjects. ”You’ve given back to him everything he is now and even he befriends the man that wishes death upon you.”

”I’ve been an underdog all my life Lou,” I inform him, ignoring his shot at Corey. ”It’s hard for me not to root for an underdog no matter what that man thinks of me.”

”Underdog,” he scoffs again but this time rolls his eyes with a bit of a grin. ”You’re a dynasty, Young Duke,” he says pointedly. ”Not an underdog.”

For a moment, he leaves me speechless.

”With all the talk of Continuum and am I or am I not, I can’t help but notice you’re a little light in the waist.”

I look at him, confused.

”Where are my tag team titles?”

”The Bastards took ‘em.”

”Right, and what are you doing...?”

”Yeah yeah, I have a plan for that,” I interrupt him.

”When?”

”I’mma get to it,” I answer him like a defensive teenager being scolded by his parent. ”You gonna help me out or what man?”

D’Ville stands from his throne.

”If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here,” Doc says and his response gives me a bit of a smile. Standing from my throne and Dolly from… apparently her throne, the three of us walk down the steps toward the Necropolis that lies behind and beneath the altar. Quietly, we make our way through the different rooms to the very last one, again containing the remains of my loved ones.

”Is it even possible for you to do what I need you to do?” I ask of him as the three of us come to a stop before my grandfathers casket.

”You want to enter your grandfathers memories like I do yours,” he answers.

”Yeah pretty much,” I answer him. ”But I’m certain he won’t have any headaches.”

”So why is she here?” he asks, pointing to Dolly.

”Moral support Dawk,” she answers quickly. Doc’s eyes pass back and forth between Dolly and I, then he turns his attention to the dust covered casket of my grandfather. He pulls a small dagger from… somewhere… and starts to slide it into the locking mechanism of the casket.

”Woe! Wait! What the fuck are you doing!?” I yell out, slamming my hand down on D’Ville’s.

”Did you think I just snapped my fingers?”

”Yeah kinda,” I admit, feeling a bit foolish. He shrugs my hand from his and jimmies the lock open, then lifts the lid, revealing my grandfather, dead now six years. The smell is overwhelmingly disgusting. I’ve seen death a thousand times over. I’ve smelled it too and this, just isn’t that. After Dolly and I both nearly vomit, it takes us several moments to gather ourselves.

Burying the lower part of my face in the crease of my elbow, I hesitantly step forward, peering over the edge of the casket. Call it morbid curiosity. My grandfathers bones lie in a disgusting soup of liquefied flesh and other bodily fluids. Parts of his scalp still remain clinging to his skull, strands of hair still hanging on for dear life. His eyes, ears and everything else that isn’t bone now adding to the putrid soup. His hands still lie at his sides, his Illuminatus iron cross ring dangling from his bony digit and his clothing lies lazily over the rest of him. Reaching slowly inside the casket…

”Eww! What are you doing!?” she asks as she slaps my extending arm.

”Gah! Watch! You almost made me touch the gross grandpa stew!” I tell her before reaching across Asmodeus once more and retrieving the ring from his bony finger.

”What are you doing with that?”

”I gave this to him on his birthday one year. It belongs to me,” I say, closing one eye and squinting the other, looking hard at the detail on the cross. ”Somehow I don’t think he’ll mind,” I conclude as I go to slide the ring into my pocket. Doc has other ideas and grips my arm then shakes his head.

”What do you think I was after?” he asks and I look at him perplexed. ”Connective tissue, in a manner of speaking. The ring connects you to him.”

”What about Dolly?”

”What about Dolly?”

”Nothing connects her to him.”

”She’s connected to you,” he says, once again he poses me riddles and I look at Dolly with more confusion. This time, she returns a similar look.

Looking back at Doc, his ice blue eyes about roll back into his head. He lets out a strange not quite scream and the world goes black around us. The floor beneath us gives way and we’re free falling. I let out a kind of yelp for a brief moment and Dolly let’s out a brief high pitched squeal. Through the darkness, she’s all I can see and she’s plain as day. Everything else is pitch black nothingness. The abyss of nothing similar to that of Ned Kaye’s career and for a moment, Dolly and I look at each other as we free fall.

”I swear if Ned’s down here I’m gonna laugh my ass off,” I joke because really what else am I gonna do? The joke causes a bit of a laugh from Dolly and really, that’s all that mattered. Dolly and I both look down below us as we fall. The floor is quickly rising to meet us and just as we’re about to hit, we grab each others hands and brace for impact.

The impact though never comes. Opening our eyes and letting go of each other, we both look up at the other memory recess we passed through. Looking down again, another one is fast approaching and rather than pass through this one, we land with a thud on the compacted dirt surface. The impact knocks the wind out of us both and for a moment my tinnitus kicks in causing a deafening ringing silence in my ear.

After gasping and coughing the air back into our lungs, I climb to my feet and reach down helping Dolly to hers.

”You okay?” I ask of her while fixing a bit of her disheveled hair.

She nods, then takes a look up and down each end of the memory hallway. It takes us both this long to realize that Doc hasn’t accompanied us. ”Where the hell do we go?”

Looking up and down each end myself, I shrug. ”Beats me.” Side by side, Dolly and I start to slowly make our way down the corridors of my grandfathers memories. In my memory hallways, the walls are made of a painted over cinder block material. Asmodeus? His memory corridors are made of compacted dirt and rock. Almost like that of a cave. The lighting in mine was far better, his is very dim and we can’t see more than two or three feet in front of us.

One by one we pass different doors to different sections of my grandfathers memory. Each door, I have to get up real close to make out the markings. I have to think hard to remember my Latin too, because his doors are labeled in Latin, not English.

What an asshole.

Door after door we pass. Early childhood memories and young adult memories. Memories of him joining the Church and the priesthood. His early friendship with the former Father Ratzinger who would one day rise to the Papacy and would send a man into my grandfathers midst unbeknownst to him, as a spy for the Church. A man that would one day make attempts on the life of my father and grandfather. A man that successfully killed a great many of my fathers friends and turned many others against him.

His name was Jonathan.

Just because I wasn’t there doesn’t mean I don’t know the stories.

My father waged war against Jonathan in the earliest days of the modern Clandestine War and prevailed. Hanging Jonathan and his co-conspirators from the now demolished gallows that once stood against the back wall of the Compound.

Coming to a door that reads: Caitlyn’s Mortem.

Looking at it like I’d seen a ghost, I take a step back, nearly knocking Dolly over in the process.

”We missed it,” I say quietly, unable to take my eyes from the door.

”How do you know?”

”They go chronologically, just like mine.”

”What’s this one?”

”My mother’s death,” I answer her quietly. ”So unless I’m wrong, we missed it. A conspiracy to… remove her… would be a memory before her death would it not?”

”Yeah,” she answers back. ”As much as it might kill you to think it, and it kills me to mention it… Maybe you’ve been wrong and she really did what you’re supposed to believe she did.”

I look at her contemplating for a moment. ”We had to have missed something. Let’s go back.”

Traveling back up the hallway, we both proceed slowly, feeling along the wall for anything different or out of place. Once again we pass door after door. Passing the door labeled: Thaddeus Renovanem, or ‘Rebirth’ once more and just before the door that reads: Militum Aquisitio, or ‘Military Acquisition.’

”Wait,” I stop and feel around. There’s brick and mortar, unlike the rest of the cavern like recesses of my grandfathers memories.

”What is it?” she asks while rushing over toward me.

”Brick and mortar, like it’s hiding something,” I inform her as I pick away at the crumbling mortar. It’s slow at first, but soon, the mortar crumbles away quicker and easier. Dolly hurries to help me out and soon, block by block, the wall starts to fall away into the abyssal nothingness next to Ned Kaye’s career. Staring into the darkness, side by side Dolly and I step into it.

Nothing.

We take another step or so.

Again, nothing.

Together, we step forward deeper and deeper for what seems like several hundred feet until in the distance we see a dimly lit black door. Picking up our pace, we reach the doorway quickly and both stare at the brass placard attached to it.

”What’s it say?”

”Caitlyn’s insidiae,” I take a look at Dolly. ”Caitlyn’s treachery… or plot… or conspiracy… Latin has very loose translations.”

”Gotta be it, right?”

I nod and open the door.

Darkness. Typical.

Dolly and I step inside the darkness and close the door behind us. On the click of the latch, the room lights up before us. It takes a second for me to process exactly where I’m at.

”Your grandfathers farmhouse back home,” she says, cluing in around the same time I did.

My grandfather sits in his chair in front of the crackling fire. A man with his back to us and a hood covering his head looks out the window. It seems to be at some point during the night time hours.

”And the girl?” asks my grandfather, craning his neck just a little to spy the hooded man.

”She’ll be a problem,” the man answers back.

”Wait I know that voice,” I say aloud, taking a step toward the hooded man.

”The King is entirely taken with her, especially since the Prince’s death,” he states. Instinctively, I grab my chest where I was shot and killed all those years ago.

”Well,” my grandfather begins, using the cane to aid him to his feet. ”The Prince’s death is not permanent. I’m currently at work on a solution.”

”Even still Father,” he pauses. ”Once the boy returns, Sebastian will feel bulletproof with both he and the mother by his side.”

”Jacob!” my grandfather shouts. ”Dead or not, you mustn’t refer to the Prince as ‘the boy.’ Not ever.”

”My apologies Father,” Jacob says as he removes his hood and bows his head in respect. ”The fact remains, once the Prince returns, the Queen will be too powerful for us to stop her from perverting the mind of the King.”

”Then she must be dealt with Jacob,” Asmodeus says. ”Permanently.”

”Father let me take care of it,” Jake pleads.

I look at Dolly for a moment, my deepest suspicions being confirmed before our eyes. She can hardly believe it. Meanwhile, I’m sort of relieved that I’m right while my rage begins building.

”The King, if he were to suspect anything at all, he’d never suspect my involvement,” Jake insists.

My grandfather ponder a moment, standing in front of his fireplace.

”He’s too stupid and weak to see what stands before him as it is,” Asmodeus thinks aloud. ”If he did learn the truth, are you willing to sacrifice the lives of...”

”I have a plausible way to warp his mind to our thinking,” Jake interrupts. ”The Queen is a former Catholic. If we can get them at odds, we can manufacture whatever we need in order to turn him against her forever.

“The Church has already been planting evidence in order to tear them apart so really, we just let them do it. What’s more Father, is that he’d take care of our problem himself.”

”Hmm,” he grunts in thought. ”Whatever happens, when the Prince is home he mustn’t ever learn the true fate of his mother. I’ll hold off on his return until she’s out of the picture.”

”What does it matter if a teenage boy learns...”

”You know how he was designed Jacob,” my grandfather snaps. ”He’ll want retribution for his mothers demise.”

”Yes Father,” Jacob nods before excusing himself.

”And Jacob my son,” Asmodeus says. Jake stops at the door. ”Do not think that I’m not aware of the selfless sacrifices you make for the cause. The Illuminatus is indebted to you now and always.”

”Thank you Father.”

Jacob passes between Dolly and I, vaporizing into thin air behind us.

”It’s a shame it has to be this way Sebastian,” my grandfather thinks aloud to himself. ”Where did I go wrong with you?”

”C’mon,” I say to Dolly and we exit the room and travel back the darkened formerly hidden hallway to the main recess corridor.

”How do you feel?”

”Indifferent I guess,” I say with a shrug. ”It’s what I was suspecting. The Church has some explaining to do though, that part I didn’t suspect.”

”Does this satisfy you at all?”

I look at her in deep thought for a moment before shaking my head. ”I want to look a little deeper,” I say as I head back toward his later memories. ”Remember the door that was labeled ‘Apocalypsis’?”

She nods.

”I forgot one of the other translations of that word,” I inform her and she scrunches up her eye and nose to me. ”It also means ‘revelations.’”

Up the corridor, we stop at the appropriate door and with little hesitation, Dolly and I enter. Again, the room doesn’t light up until the click of the door latch behind us. We’re inside the old library at the Compound. Today, it’s my secure Situation Room. In those days it was nothing more than a room filled with books and places to sit. Most of my fathers strategic meetings took place here.

”Holy shit is that her?” Dolly asks referring to the tall blonde woman standing, looking angry at my father. I nod in response. ”She was beautiful!”

”Yeah,” I agree with her. ”Thankfully. I mighta come out looking like my dad otherwise.” Dolly playfully slaps me on the shoulder.

”Don’t give me that bullshit, Sebastian! My son is gone because of you!” my mother shouts at my father.

”He was my son too,” my father replies almost stoically.

In the middle of their argument, Jacob enters the room followed by a dozen or so armed Illuminatus guards.

”Jake?” my father says, looking past my mother to the man in question and Jake nods him over. My father walks past my mother toward Jake. They retreat to a corner and begin to whisper. I can’t hear them from our position so quickly Dolly and I rush over toward them and notice my grandfather sitting quietly by himself across the room in a corner reading a newspaper.

”...have irrefutable proof, Your Grace,” Jake says as we pick up his voice. ”We know where the leaks are coming from and we know who the Vatican spy is.”

”Who is it?” my father says as he starts to make his way back to my mother. ”Send them to me.”

”Sebastian,” Jake calls out, breaking protocol. Unlike me, my father on the other hand was always a stickler for protocol. He loved being referred to by his regal titles. Jacob’s break in that regard, sends a chill up my fathers spine and he comes back across the room.

”Who is it?” he repeats.

Jake swallows hard. ”I don’t want to be the one to tell you this, but...”

”Just tell me who it is Jake,” my father insists, his voice level raising a few octaves.

In contrast, Jacob’s voice is barely audible but Dolly and I can both read his lips as plain as day. ”The Queen.”

My father stands in a stunned silence for a few moments before uttering a single word. ”Impossible.”

”Look,” Jake says to him while revealing some pages. A lot of them look to be cell phone records. ”Undeniable proof.”

My dad looks across the room at my mother as his face turns beet red.

”What is it?” my mother asks of him.

He again turns to Jake and gives a nod.

”Dad!? C’mon!? Cell phone records!? That’s circumstantial at best!” I plead with him in vain.

Jake nods to the guards and they advance toward my mother. I want to intervene so badly but at the same time, I know it’ll be pointless, so I stand with Dolly watching the horror unfold.

”Caitlyn Duke,” Jacob says as a couple of the guards grab her by her arms.

”What the hell is this?”

”You’re hereby under arrest and charged with treason and other crimes against the Illuminatus State,” Jacob informs her.

My father stands quietly, staring at the wall in front of him.

”DO SOMETHING!” I shout out to him, again in vain.

”Sebastian!” my mother calls out. ”DO SOMETHING!”

He looks in her direction for a brief moment as the guards lead her out of the room presumably toward the old prison cells beneath the Compound.

”YOU WEAK PIECE OF ABSOLUTE SHIT! YOU COULDN’T EVEN LOOK HER IN THE EYE!” I shout out to my father. My father turns and looks in my direction and for a moment, I can almost feel him looking directly at me.

”You gonna be alright?” Jake asks as he steps back into the room.

”I will be,” my father replies. ”Once I gut her like a fish in St. Peter’s Square.”

Seething with rage and about to burst and with virtually no outlet, Dolly grabs me by the arm but I shrug her off. I look in her direction a moment and she stares into my eyes. A much greater deal of calm washes over me and she grabs my hand, leading me back out into the memory hallway.

Letting go of her hand, I lean head first into the cavern like wall. ”How can he be fooled by simple cell records? Frankie could fuckin’ fake those,” I say to her as I sob a little out of frustration and anger. She steps toward the wall and rubs the upper part of my back and shoulders for a moment.

”Was this enough?”

I don’t answer her immediately. Instead, I quietly cry into my own hand as the realization hits me that I lost my mother because of baseless lies and stupidity and nothing more. Stepping away from the wall, I wipe the remaining tears from my eyes and head deeper into the memory corridor.

”Where are you going!” Dolly calls out as she rushes to catch up to me. In an effort to hamper her ability to do so, I quicken my pace to nearly a run. I reach the door I was after: Caitlyn’s Mortem. Just as I place my hand on the knob, Dolly’s hand come flying in front of my face to grab my hand.

”You don’t need to see that,” she insists.

I relent rather easily and remove my hand from the knob.

”You’re right,” I say quietly. ”I just thought, you know, I came this far. Why stop now?”

”Because you learned the truth,” she answers me. ”Nothin’ good’s gonna happen if you go in there.”

Breathing a deep sigh I turn around and lean my back against the door.

”I guess its a good thing you came after all huh?” I joke a little, trying hard to lighten my own mood. She chuckles just a bit and nods. Just then, the door behind me gives way and I fall backward into the memory. ”Oh shit!” I cry out as I fall inside, grabbing onto Dolly’s arm to stop myself from falling only for her to fall right along with me. I land on my back with Dolly landing on top of me.

”Comfortable?” I joke with a smile and she hurries off of me while slapping me once more in the shoulder.

”Shut up asshole.”

Climbing to my feet, I realize this room isn’t quite like the others. The door is gone and the memory is before us whether we wanted it to be or not. It’s a bright sunny day in Rome and thousands of tourists and worshipers are going about their day taking in the sights and snapping pictures of the Holy City. Soon, a commotion comes from nearby and a horn blows as a speeding van tears through Saint Peters Square. Dolly and I rush over to see what’s going on, both of us momentarily forgetting we’re inside a memory of someone else.

Peeking inside the van, my grandfather sits the front passenger seat as the side door slides open. My father and a couple of his guards file out. In the grasp of his hand is a fistful of my mothers hair. Of course, attached to it, is the rest of my mother. She’s bound and gagged.

”Mom!” I shout out and its almost like she heard me because it appears as of she was trying to find the location of my voice. I start to run off in their direction near the big obelisk, but Dolly grabs my arm.

”Thad! No! Just don’t watch! Turn away!”

”Yeah, you’re right,” I say to her. Just as we turn, we get run into by a bunch of people and her and I both get thrown to the ground in the panic.

”Thad!” she calls out.

Frantically I search for the sound of her voice, but I can’t find her. ”Dolly!” I cry out. Every time I see her, I try to head toward her, just to get ran into by someone else and have to start again. I stop dead in my tracks as a realization hits me: we’re both a physical presence here, not a metaphorical fly on the wall watching like in all the others. Immediately I search around for the foot of the obelisk where my father and his men are about to kill my mother.

If I’m here, why can’t I stop it? I think to myself as I fight my way through the stampeding and panicking crowds. I spy Dolly out of the corner of my eye and physically force a man away from her, helping her back to her feet. Immediately, we get separated and my attention again turns to my mother. She’s roped up to the obelisk now and I can see the sun reflect off my fathers blade.

”Dad! Stop!” I yell out and rush toward them. I can see my father hesitate a second and turn toward where he thought my voice came from. Just as I’m about to reach the footer of the obelisk, I’m run into by a couple of guys running away from the scene, knocking me several feet off course. I roll through the tumble and pop back to my feet but I’m too late. My father drives his blade into my mother and yanks downward, fulfilling his promise.

In a rush, my father and his men pile back into the van and they speed off out of dodge. People stop and stare as I near my mother. A couple of bystanders rush over to help me untie her and she falls into my arms. Together, we fall to the step below. Still alive, but barely, she looks knowingly into my face. Cradled in my arms, her life blood leaks all over me and I start to sob like a baby.

”Thaddeus,” my mother utters through dying breath as she reaches a blood covered hand up to touch my face. ”You grew up so beautiful,” she says and my tears are entirely uncontrollable. I hold her as tight as I can for the only time I can remember.

”I’m… sorry… Mom...” I managed to get out through my sobs. ”I wanted to stop him… but I couldn’t get here.”

”It’s okay… baby,” she manages to utter as her breathing and chest heaving fade quicker and quicker.

”I knew you’d never betray me.”

”No, baby.”

”I love you mom.”

”I love… you too… always,” she replies, her blood covered hand still touching my face.

”You can go now,” I tell her through my sobs, all the while wishing she didn’t have to.

”You’re a… good boy... Thaddeus,” she says as she draws her final breath and her hand falls. Still cradling her, I weep openly, rocking side to side. Dolly finally makes it back to me and she sits behind me, holding me tight as I hold my mothers lifeless body.

My eyes flutter open again and I sit up in a bed.

Having no idea where I am or how I got here, I look around the room. Seconds later, I realize I’m back at the hotel and Dolly is curled up asleep on a chair. It takes several moments to clear the proverbial fog, but everything floods back to me as if the Hoover Dam had just collapsed. I remember waking up in the burial chamber as Dolly was still asleep. I remember removing my grandfathers head from the rest of his corpse. I remember screaming obscenities to him and I certainly remember bashing his skull against the wall over and over until the only thing left in my hand was his jaw. I remember sobbing terribly and when Dolly awakened, she tried to console me, but I ended up collapsing to the floor with her and fell asleep. I didn’t dream of anything.

In the room, Dolly realizes I’m awake and wakes herself up. ”Do you remember everything?” she asks. I hesitate to answer right away. Soon though, I nod. Realizing my phone is dead, I borrow hers and make a call to my flight crew asking that they remove my families remains from the Necropolis and load them onto the plane.

”Why are you doing that?” she asks as I hand her phone back to her.

”My mother deserves a proper burial,” I say as tears start to fall from my eyes, remembering what I’d seen first hand by the obelisk. ”At home with dignity and respect.”

The following evening, Corey’s meant to meet us at the airfield so he can take Dolly back to Coreytopia. She wasn’t sure she should yet but I was insistent. I’ve already selfishly gobbled up so much of her time and I need to tie up a bunch of outstanding loose ends and let her get back to her life.

The flight home though was pretty quiet. She caught up on some sleep that she lost by taking care of me so much these last few weeks while I mostly stared off into space thinking about my mother and what I’d seen. It’s pretty horrific to watch something happen that you had no control over and couldn’t change. At the same time, though my attempts to intervene were futile, it afforded me an opportunity I’d have never had otherwise. That of speaking and holding onto my mother. At least when she was gone she knew she was loved and was being held by someone she loved. I can take some solace in that.

I imagine a great many more sessions with my shrink will involve my mother but if nothing else, maybe now I can try and find some sense of closure. Her station in life will be restored thanks to what I’ve learned. I’ll try hard to get passed it all and with a little help from my friends, maybe someday I will.

I owe my father a conversation at some point in the near future, though I can’t predict how friendly that’ll turn out. Like the actions he took that led to the Illuminatus Civil War between he and I, here too, he didn’t confirm the evidence. By rights, he ought to be tried for his crimes though I’m not sure I’ll take it that far. He’ll neither want the truth nor will he like it, but I know it. I have to live with what he did. I’ll be damned if I have to know it alone and I honestly don’t care what it does to him.

The plane rolls to a stop on the tarmac in Florida. By the time the steps are placed and the door is open, Corey’s Lincoln is already sitting nearby, waiting for Dolly. As we’re about to step from the plane my phone starts ringing. Looking at it for a second, it’s a Zoom call I can’t miss.

”Wait, one sec please?” I ask of Dolly and she nods. ”Frankie!” I say with a huge smile as I accept the call.

”THAD!” he yells out. ”COME QUICK!” He gets way too close to the phone and yells further: ”MY BROTHER AND SISTER ARE COMINNNNNNNG!”

”Frankie this better not be a joke!”

He pulls the phone away from his face to show me the inside of the emergency room.

”Okay tell Ginny I’ll be there in two hours.”

”Okay, love you!”

”I love you too buddy.”

Ending the call, I slide the phone back in my pocket and look at Dolly. She smiles a bit.

”Holy shit,” I say to her as emotion starts to boil.

”Are you gonna cry? I swear you should be empty by now,” she comments, causing me to laugh.

She grabs me by the hand and we start our way down the steps.

”Sup dudes?” Corey calls out through his open window.

”Hey bro,” I reply with a fist bump to him as we walk by and around to the other side. Opening the passenger side door for her, Dolly glances at me a second before taking a seat. I go to walk away but she keeps a hold of my hand, causing me to turn back and look in her direction. ”Thank you,” I say with our hands still clasped. ”For everything.”

Not taking my eyes from her, I can still spy Corey passing his eyeballs between Dolly and I repeatedly.

”Uhhh, what the fuck happened in Italy?” he asks to no answer from either of us.

”Go become a daddy,” she says to me and immediately puts a giant smile on my face.

”The babies are coming?” Corey asks, his ears perk up like a Labrador who’s just heard the word ‘treat.’

Dolly and I finally release our hands and I close the door before heading around the car to the plane.

”What happened in Italy?” he calls out after me. ”Tell me,” he says turning to Dolly. ”What happened in Italy?”

”Go home Core!” I call out to him as I start to climb the steps.

”AM I INVISIBLE HERE!?”

Well would you look at that Ned? The wise masters of the XWF’s official twitter referred to me as… get this… a living legend. Man what an opportunity for you! You get to go to Leap of Faith in quite honestly the biggest match of your life and you now have the opportunity to defeat a Living Legend.

As if my ego needs any more feeding.

I mean, that’s that persons opinion but I find it rather difficult to disagree. My record is what it is. My trophy case has quite a few notable championships within it and there’s a literal laundry list of those I’ve faced, beaten and turned into better competitors. I mean, one needs to look no further on the latter point than the current Universal Champion. The man couldn’t get over the hump two years ago, couldn’t get the job done time after time against Robert Main and fast forward two years. I beat 18 of the best this company has to offer including the current champion and I dare to say that in that feud between he and I, I forced him to get better at his job and... listen, I know what you’re thinking Ned. “What the fuck does that have to do with me?”

Well here it is Nedward… I’ll be damned if I don’t see that same trend all over again… with you. I mean just your promo ability alone for Leap of Faith has improved substantially. It’s almost like you sat there thinking “oh em gee, it’s Thad, I better get better real fucking quick.” And that’s because… well… you do. I know promo ability has nothing to do with in-ring ability but it’s definitely an indication of what you think of me, I mean truly think of me, as a competitor.

Bring the A game, because Thad doesn’t have anything other than an A game.

So let me go back to a point I previously made in these proceedings. I said you never advance passed the middle of the mountain and we both know that’s true. Why Ned? If you’re as good as you say you are then why have you never really made it? I think I know why. You never tried to climb passed the middle of the mountain because you feel safe in the middle. The top is hard. It’s difficult to get there and to stay there is even harder. The fact is, Ned never thought he had what it took to be anything more than what he is. It’s the same reason he didn’t jump into the mix in the High Stakes battle royal for the vacant Universal title… because he knew it’d be in vain.

“Oh but I was challenging Robbie Bourbon for the Hart title…” he might say and he’s right. A pretty daunting task when Robbie’s on his game, but he wasn’t really. A win is still a win though but here’s where that metaphorical argument dies. I too had another match. In fact it was right before the battle royal in an epic tag team collision between Continuum and Cataclysm in which yours truly won that mother fucker too.

All I’ve ever done is turn heads and impress the world. All Ned has ever done is be average and afraid to take the next fucking step. Well now I’ve given him no choice but to take the next step. The Hart title be damned. The “nu-uh that was cuz of me” arguments be damned. It’s time for ol’ Ned Kaye to pay the piper so to speak. He either takes the next step and rises to the occasion in contrast to what he typically does, or he doesn’t even get to keep his title and his little band of misshapen idiot friends go back to being an afterthought.

If you’re following along at home and you still don’t get it, in the grand scheme of things, this match makes or breaks Ned Kaye. As for me? If (when) I win, great, that was the predictable outcome and I don’t come out of it any better or worse for having done it except adding yet another championship to the trophy case… it really does fill up fast when you’re me. If I lose (highly doubtful) then I just made Ned Kaye the fucking star he always wished he was and I’m still hotter than a two dollar pistol. That’s what it means to be a big fucking star, Ned.

Let’s address some things he’s said at or to me a bit.

I’ll take Walking Talking Contradictions for a thousand Alex. Ned accuses me of “acting out” for attention. I mean, it’s been said a hundred times by both better and worse opponents than Ned Kaye. Yet, I receive attention on a daily basis whether it’s my promos, my social media presence, or having my ruggedly handsome face on a television screen playing a role someone else wrote. I get the attention, because people enjoy giving it to me. Not because I seek it. So let’s talk about the Nefarious One and his acting out. This is a man that got pounded by R.L. Edgar and a result of that figurative ass pounding he took saw Ned… oh no… act out and change his stripes before the masses. He had to willingly cheat to beat Edgar then turned around and willingly cheated to beat him the second time. What do we call that? Is that not acting out because something didn’t go his way?

Yeah yeah, High Stakes, Doc grabbed my leg blah blah blah. He cheated, not me.

Ned sure does talk a lot but really says very little, doesn’t he? I mean he filled the airtime in his first promo basically just hearing himself talk without making much of a point other than finding new and (un)exciting ways of calling me a child. Been there, heard that. That’s not gonna do it killer, try something else.

You’re right Ned. I’m a bad bad man because I fight for the right of my people to... live. I’ve never claimed I was perfect, never claimed I was a hero, never claimed to not make mistakes. You projecting as much, all that tells me is that you’ve been preoccupied with how the fans treated me differently than you. Or Ned. Or whomever. Whatever, you’re just Ned. Ned tried to be a good little soldier and they liked him, but they didn’t love him. Is it my fault watching Ned Kaye has always been akin to watching pain dry? And not even fun, colorful pain either. Like eggshell white or something. Plain, boring… regular… Ned.

Cry a little more fella… or fellas… know what? I don’t even fuckin’ know anymore.

And while he rants and rants about me hiding this and that… nothing is hidden about me. Everything I have ever done, good bad or indifferent is all out there for the world to see and to make their judgments on. I’m so bad at hiding things that I’m literally like an open fucking book so I’m sure that dossier does anyone a lot of good. If he didn’t know the things I’ve done in my life that I’m not proud of previously, then he (you) wasn’t paying close enough attention.

Oh and for the record, his name was Harold Jenkins. I wear his dogtogs with me everyday, not as a trophy, as you’d like to think, but a reminder of the real cost of war. The human cost of war. See, you paint these pictures of me sitting on some throne sending people to die for me while conveniently forgetting the whole truth. I fight alongside them. On the front lines, in the skies, in the tanks. I’ve been shot, shot at and shot down. I’ve held the intestines of my brothers inside their bodies as they’ve died in my arms. I certainly have blood on my hands, mine, my brothers, and theirs too. I’ll never deny it. But when it comes down to it, you said Ned was a pussy? You said yourself you don’t shed blood so how can you sit in judgment of me when in my world its kill or be killed? Clearly if you were in my shoes, TAPS would play early because you wouldn’t be long for the battlefield.

Oh come on, Ned! Big D? Tell me about other losses I had two years ago. Tell me how that or any of them somehow equate to today. Tell me how harping on losing to Big D once so long ago has any bearing on Ned Kaye and Thaddeus Duke in 2021.

Ned. Can I point something out to you? And I’m being serious.

Never take bait.

Most everyone lays out bait for their intended opponents whether it’s on the show or in promos and it’s your job to identify it as such and not swallow it like your mom should’ve swallowed your dad but instead here you are acting a fool and giving some figurative class and wasting a fuck ton of breath on a throw away line that I knew you’d bite on because you can’t help yourself. You heard his name come out my mouth and you thought you had my balls nailed to the wall while you “cleverly” point out why it makes me a villain.

Laugh.

Out.

Loud.

I told you I wanted the Hart title in my first promo and while Edgar is mentioned, it’s simply to make a particular point about you not having what it takes. Ever, really.

Oh my dude!

Ned this second promo is really something. Remember how I said I was pushing you to get better? Okay I was wrong. Giant step backward here and you called me a check artist? Thad applies pressure and ole Ned Kaye folds in on himself like fuckin’ accordian.

My tag title reign? I had to be pushed to relevance? Jesus you’re absolutely fucking clueless. Go watch the match when it was won: yeah that was me sacrificing my teammate and my opponent to win a match. That’s called a killer instinct and that’s a strand of DNA that you just don’t have.

This dude called my Universal run a hobble. Thad is visibly laughing his ass off. You can say whatever you want about the Universal title run, but there’s two people in this match. Only one of them has ever even had a Universal title run to be called a hobble... and the other person is you.

You can criticize all the gold I’ve worn, Nedward, just as long as I stay gold, Ponyboy.

Awwww look at you. The big bad bad big guy… or something… making jokes of my sexuality, which is clearly bisexual, not homosexual, but go on, make your big boy jokes as if you actually ever had a sense of humor.

See now look, this little rant you have goin’ on. It’s a lot of words but it’s mostly just filler bro. You really gotta work on that. When you talk, make sure your insults actually have basis in reality. For instance, you saying I’m not a good wrestler: if I wasn’t then why is Thad v Page at Snow Job compared to Flair and Steamboat by one of my enemies no less? Page didn’t wrestle himself dumbass.

Listen, if I could suck my own dick I totally would. Any man that says they wouldn’t is lying. But you do realize what we do here right? We call it promoing, but the real word is promoting. That’s what I do, promote myself. Did you expect me to sit down and be like “nope, guys, I’m okay but Ned’s pretty good too and he could win but I really really hope he doesn’t and…” nah bitch it ain’t like that. This is my time to tell you and the world exactly how good I am because little boys like you trying to play in a big mans world alongside people like me just always seem to forget just who the fuck you’re dealing with. I really am the shit and I don’t mind tellin’ ya.

It’s clear to me that over the last couple weeks you’ve gone from cocky and confident, which is good for any defending champion. And you’ve now ventured into “why’s Thad gotta pick on me and want my belt now?” territory. By the way, is me valuing the title to put in my trophy case somehow worse than you not valuing it at all? I didn’t think so.

Ned, the time for me to talk is now coming to an end and I’m sure despite your bravado that you’re breathing a sigh of relief. You’re about to learn first hand what it’s like in the ring with me… I don’t do a lot of talkin’ there. Oh mighty Nefarious One, you can’t be the first victory on my ledger but you will be next. I mean, why stop at seven championships when I can have eight?

And as the late Roddy Piper once said: You do not throw rocks at a man who’s gotta machine gun.

Threaded Mode \| Linear Mode Missing Pieces: Part 2 - RP #3
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