We find ourselves, still in the XWF headquarters parking lot.

The business discussion went on all night. The pitch black night lifts, the sun is now trickling over the horizon. The sky is a dim orange, with waves of purple and yellow humming at the rim of where the land and air meet.

Another day, another chance.

Sitting on the closed trunk of his limousine, looking out on the horizon, who could it be?

Who else but that dastardly demon? That wicked whelp? That viciously vile villain? The North Korean War Criminal.

His face looks onto the start of a new day, onto the promise of tomorrow. Then, he turns his head to face the camera.

“Betsy Granger.”

He raises his eyebrows.

“There, I mentioned you.”

A sinister smile crosses his face as he strokes his chin thoughtfully.

“Though, to tell the plain truth, I’ve been chomping at the bit to tangle with someone of your caliber.”

“No lie. No sarcasm. I was way too excited when our match was announced.”

He hops off the trunk and leans to speak to the space behind the camera.

“Kato! Didn’t I say when I discovered my second opponent on my glorious ascension to the top was the only-recently-deposed XWF Shooting Star Champion… THE Betsy Granger… how I was absolutely delighted.”

“What an opportunity! What a chance to showcase the truth: that I am the real deal. A rare opportunity to take on a genuine challenge! Instead of flying to the moon to take out a geriatric joke and two green-as-gooseshit geeks, I had an actual fight against a real contender.”

“This is my first one-on-one match in my XWF career that began in 2013! For real! What a stellar debut opponent to have!”

The flashing smile... slowly fades and turns to a bitter scowl. He turns his back to the camera to pop open his trunk. He retrieves a number of files...

“Then, I started looking through your recent past.”

He gently closes the trunk and lays the files out on the back of the limo.

“Imagine my disappointment to discover that you’re completely over the hill.”

“That you’re a hollow shell of your former self.”

“The only difference between you and that corpse Terry Borden is that Terry has won a match since April against an opponent that fought back.”

NKWC briefly looks over his shoulder.

“There’s one thing we both agree on: That Powerpoint presentation Bobby Bourbon compiled of James Raven tweets doesn’t count as a match.”

“But, honestly, with your recent results, can beggars be choosers? Shouldn’t you just take the Free Win at this point?”

He turns back to his records.

“I mean, just look at this.”

NKWC starts pulling results sheets off the trunk and tossing them into the air.

“Warfare - April 7th - Betsy Granger vs Lycana. Loss.”

“Warfare - April 21st - Betsy Granger vs Corey Smith. Loss.”

“Leap of Faith - May 30th - Betsy Granger vs Atara Themis. Loss and Title Change.”

“Thank God for you, the XWF doesn’t have a UFC-style ‘three losses in a row’ policy or you’d be fired! And I’d have a REAL OPPONENT THIS WEEK.”

NKWC shakes his head, his gaze to the camera.

“You used to be a star, Betsy! You wrestled three different matches in one night at March Madness! You used to be a fighting champion!”

“Then, you just clung onto your belt for two months by not defending it. From March 31st all the way to May 30th… ZERO TITLE DEFENSES!”

“How does it feel to be the longest reigning Shooting Star champion of All-Time... out of cowardice?”

“How does it feel to be a walking ghost? Someone who might as well have died after failing to win March Madness, the way you howl like a banshee at the ghost of your own success story…”

The North Korean War Criminal seethes angry, a loose wisp of hair failing in front of his face. He pauses, inhaling as his right hand carefully weaves the hanging strand back atop his head.

“But, I still had hope for you, Betsy. Let’s face it. None of us are defined by our lowest point. Nor should we be.”

“I, for instance, used to be the General Manager of Saturday Shove-It. Way back in 2013. Then, like a month later, I got blown up with a tank.”

NKWC leans forward with his hand covering his mouth, as if whispering a secret.

“By the way, I talked to my doctor about it after it happened. Turns out that’s really bad for you. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

He smiles, before leaning back against the trunk.

“Then, three long years later, after a lengthy period of recovery… I had my first match in the XWF. I won, of course, but afterwards, I ended up getting lynched by some toothless redneck from Mississippi in a klansman’s robe.”

NKWC, as he remembers the attack, rubs his neck where the rope was tied. Where he hung from the neck until he passed out, convinced he was dead.

He blinks rapidly, as if trying to escape that moment and return to the present. He deeply inhales, steadying his nerve.

“I got better, though. Thanks, Obamacare.”

He smiles, winking at the camera.

“My point is… I hope no opponent of mine would fail to take me seriously because of the low places I’ve been. Because I’ve risen up and been made stronger despite them.”

“I know personally you never underestimate someone with an empty belly… Because they’re starving for chances to fill it.”

NKWC scratches across his stomach twice to emphasize his point.

“So, despite your failures… Despite the fact you haven’t won a match that wasn’t a weird cruel prank on you in just under three months… I figured that someone that was clearly, at one point, capable of greatness would dig deep within and find something truly remarkable when faced with a genuine challenge such as myself.”

His toothy grin widens, as if fondly remembering how bright his outlook was when this match was announced. Then, his eyebrows fold inward, his mouth puckers as if chewing on something sour and distasteful. He glowers sullenly, scowling at the reality of the situation.

“Then I heard your first bit of trash talk.”

A deep, disappointed sigh escapes NKWC’s lungs...

“Imagine my disappointment that the longest reigning Shooting Star champion is now a frightened little girl. Attacking at shadows and monsters in her closet, while there’s a real threat coming straight at her.”

“You’ve got a hundred different made-up enemies and you’re not focusing on the real one standing in front of you.”

“Betsy, let me make one thing perfectly clear.”

“You’re not fighting BoB tonight. I’m not a secret BoB Hydra agent come to show you another slideshow to waste our audience’s fucking time.”

“I’m not going to tape a fucking picture of BoB over my face so you can distract yourself as I relentlessly pummel you towards another embarrassing loss.”

“You’re not fighting Bobby Bourbon or Miss Fury or Doc D’Ville or Vinnie Lane or Warfare’s Match Booking Team or Chuck FUCKING Berry.”

“You’re fighting the god-damned North Korean War Criminal.”

“Undefeated. Never surrendering. Returned from the dead, twice over. And laser-focused with every fiber of my being in decimating what remains of your clearly-depleted sense of self-worth.”

“If you think for a fucking second, I’m not the challenge that you’d have if you took on all members of BoB at the same time, with both hands tied behind your back…”

“You’ve already fucking lost.”

“If you’re checking your corners and jumping at shadows of what BoB might do this Wednesday? That’s all wasted brain power you could have spent thinking about how you’ll stop me from devouring you whole…”

NKWC clenches his fists tightly.

“Though, clearly, you’ve got your mind on other things. Like your fun night out at a museum. Or the kind of insurance policy Vinnie Lane has on ancient artifacts.”

Quote:Which, by the way, is worth noting. How fun is it going to be to wrestle around the Smithsonian Museum for a night?

Quote:Aaaahhh, a match in a museum; I should cheer the hell up about this, that’s going to present a lot of fun opportunities for us.

NKWC rolls his eyes, Betsy’s words echoing in this skull. He sighs.

“I hope you enjoy your free field trip to the Smithsonian, since that seems to be what your focus is on this match. That seems to be what has your heart racing with anticipation.”

“The magic of learning.”

NKWC’s hands make a rainbow in the air. His eyes filled with mock wonder.

“I hope you get to take a lot of neat pictures in the ‘Muppets Take American History’ exhibit. I hope you feel a swell of pride when we visit ‘Picturing Women Inventors’’ or ‘First Lady Portraits’. I hope you learn all about #GirlPower when I crack you over the skull with a wax figure of Ellen Achoa, the first Latin-American female astronaut and when I powerbomb through you through a portrait of Nancy Fucking Reagan, the first woman to ever fight drugs so badly it created an opioid crisis.”

“I hope you get… fucking... SOMETHING... out of this museum experience. Because, clearly, your mind is as far away from this match as it can be.”

“You mentioned three… THREE different times. That you have NOTHING to say. You dig around for a while, you make a loose promise that you MIGHT find a relevant topic of conversation later… A promise that seven days later… remains unfulfilled.”

“You even refer to me as a FUCKING BYSTANDER. As an opponent you have to FUCKING SETTLE FOR.”

“You complain about the booking decision as if this is an odd side-road, unrelated to your story. A story you imagine ends with you triumphing over BoB. A story I have no place in and serve no role in….”

NKWC lifts himself off the trunk and leans into the camera…

“Betsy. Listen to me as hard as you fucking can.”

“This match?”

“This is your story. This is not only YOUR story. This is the END of YOUR story.”

“This is the lowest point you’ll hit… right before you fall all the way off the wagon.”

“The exact scenario you fear most? Sliding to the bottom? Oh Betsy, this is the last slip straight into the abyss of irrelevance.”

“The also-seen in a match about someone else’s ascent onto bigger and better things.”

“MY ascent.”

“This is going to be real-match loss #4 in a row for you. After turning heads back in November… After taking the title in January and defending it multiple times… It’s time for the dream to die.”

“A flash in the pan.”

“A candle that burnt bright, then went out.”

“One flicker of hope, then an eternity of blackness.”

“You’re an over-the-hill stepping stone that I’m going to climb upon, then move as far away from as possible. You’re a bump in the road, a pothole in an underfunded public highway. And I’m going to drive over you, cruising at 85 miles an hour, inside Chuck Berry’s cadillac.”

“Which, by the way, can I just say? It’s super weird we’re celebrating a guy’s car when it transported a 14 year old girl across state lines for sex and its driver liked to film women in his studio using the restroom. Yeah, absolutely, let’s save that guy’s car for posterity! He wrote ‘Johnny B. Goode’! U-S-A! U-S-A!”

…

NKWC’s right hand rests against his cheek. His index finger presses into his temple, as if he could press the mounting rage back into his brain. He presses it deeper, his eyes shutting tight.

Suddenly, his eyes open wide.

“Actually, fine. Fine. FINE! FINE! FINE! This Chuck Berry talk has given me an idea… Since you want to talk about the Smithsonian. Let’s talk about the fucking Smithsonian.”

“A temple to ‘American achievement’. A hub for educating the unwashed, American masses of their own humiliating history.”

“A history they don’t even want to know. A history they’re trying to illegalize teaching. A story they molded themselves that they’re retroactively trying to rip chapters out of, as their nation’s tale can’t be fully told from any heroic perspective.”

“It’s a land built on the backs of foreign labor, against the will of those poor souls who put in the work, who hundreds of years later still don’t have equal access to the rewards wrought from their work.”

“The Smithsonian Museum was founded in 1846 and didn’t have a non-white curator until the 1960s. Try and hit me with what placard they have that fun fact written on. Can’t find it? PROBABLY BECAUSE IT’S NOT THERE.”

“This museum is yet another house of worship to the fatted calf that is American Exceptionalism, an ideal that this country hasn’t lived up to since Seventeen Seventy FUCKING Six.”

The War Criminal exhales, exhausted by the knowledge he bears. He allows a half-smile to creep back onto his face.

“Betsy, I’m sure you’re sitting there thinking, ’Hey North Korean War Criminal… Aren’t you being a hypocrite? You’re clearly wanting to fight America and I’m not even American… I’m Canadian! Just like me with B.o.B., you’re focused on something you’re not fighting this week…’”

“Here’s the difference, Betsy… I don’t need to tape ‘Systemic Inequality’ or ‘Henry Ford’ or ‘Orlando-based Mediocre Rock Band Covering The Weeknd’ to your face to get something out of beating the unholy hell out of you.”

“Believe it or not, that’s work I can do in my own head.”

“As you say yourself: You’re entitled.You’re complacent.”

“And as I’ll also tell you: You’re arrogant. You’re overconfident. You worship your own successful past as an idol. You believe with enough worship of where you came from, you’ll be successful again.”

“You ignorantly believe you’ll win just by digging down deep enough. And you’re doomed to fail.”

“You may not be from here, but in spirit? You’re as American as Apple Pie, Betsy.”

“Every time I throw a punch, or rake an eye, or kick someone below the belt, or wallop someone upside the back of their head with a steel-folding chair... I imagine I’m striking out at a symbol of western avarice, of North American greed. Of mediocrity being celebrated, of excellence being hidden.”

“Sorry, Betsy. But I have no problem imagining you as the avatar of everything I despise.”

NKWC once again is smiling wide, his mind suddenly aglow with possibility.

“And, I must admit, I do agree with you…”

He actually begins to salivate thinking…

“The unique opportunity to pummel an avatar of everything I despise with relics celebrating the history of the country I fight against with every fiber of my being…”

He rubs his hands fiendishly.

“I’m going to slam Bill Clinton’s sax over your skull. I’m going to knock out every one of your teeth with each one of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s golf clubs. I’m going to choke you unconscious using every iteration of the American flag, from the Betsy Ross 13 star flag to the 50 star flag today.”

“Betsy, I am going to savor every moment of inflicting pain with artifacts of Americana, symbols of the very pain, the subjugation, and the intolerance that has been inflicted on my people.”

NKWC closes his eyes, savoring the imaginary beating he’s handing out, as he allows his hands to rest behind his head. His fingers weave as he relaxes his neck...

“I will say, your second promo was a little closer to the mark.”

“You say you’re going to come at me with everything you have.”

“Good. Cuz you'll need to”

“You say you’ll attack with all the fierceness of a beast on its last legs?”

"You fucking better."

"You're going to rise up and focus?"

“It's your only chance.”

“Because, when we’re in the Smithsonian? When Temperance "Bones" Brennan, Ph.D. rings that bell?”

“Every second you’re thinking about BoB… Miss Fury… Bobby Bourbon… Chuck Berry… Nancy Reagan… Vinnie Lane! Doc Deville! INDIANA JONES! THE FUCKING HAMBURGLAR! Your own collapse into failure!”

“Every thought you allow to pass into your mind that isn’t about me? Is a moment I will weaponize.”

“Your lack of focus? Your fear? The fact that, even now, you’re still thinking about the message you’ll send to the XWF instead of this match…”

“It’s a big blank canvas of opportunity.”

“And on Warfare... I plan to paint a very, very violent masterpiece.”

"One truly suited to hang in the Smithsonian.”

NKWC closes his eyes and turns back to the sun rising. And the promise of a new day.

“Glory to True Korea.”

“Glory to Killing All Our Idols.”

NKWC smiles.

“And Glory to the North Korean War Criminal.”

The scene fades to black.