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Hello, my foes.

As I sit here in this emptiness... I know that deep within all of us this darkness exists... All we have to do is find it. And what a better time? What a better place to find someone's deepest, darkests and use them in such a GLORIOUS manner.....? Because it’s that time of year again where we all come together in harmony with our most heated enemies and try to kill everyone else. At least for US, huh, Dukey?

DOCK appears sitting still within his nothingness, emptiness, blank, and boundless darkness…. the void…. holding up in front of him a near life-sized dummy of Thaddeus Duke and rests it on his lap.

Oh, DAWK! You know I had you in mind all along!

DOCK is a terrible ventriloquist and you can CLEARLY see him talking for Dukey.

Well, you know, Dukey, as the number one overall pick I feel I have a bit of responsibility!

And what’s that, DAWK?!

To win War Games, duh?! To live up to what’s expected out of THE number one pick in the draft! What’s expected out of a number one pick? You didn’t just pick me because we’re pals, am I right?!

Of course not, DAWK! You’re the absolute bestest! But, you DID kinda have your hand in my back pocket all along though… GET IT?!

DOCK looks down at the doll and it looks up to him before he flings it off into space. Slowly, the office of Doctor Louis D’VIlle forms around him, but in ashes. The fireplace is spent and the books are all burned. He sits behind a charred mahogany desk with his feet propped up.. His boots are just as ashy and disgusting as the rest of the mess.

Well, there’s no denying WHY I was picked number one overall. Picked before the Universal Champion…. Before ANY champion. Before Robert Main. Long before Jimmy Caedus. Of course Duke and I have a history…. But it would have been an easy pick for anyone with my credentials and all…. I kid, of course, but let’s look beyond that.

The obvious pick would be the Universal Champion, right? This guy even beat ME, DAWK, ladies and gentlemen. He killed the King!!! He earned his ticket to fame, and has been Everyone’s personal hard-on since last August… Of course of course of course, Alias.

Now, none of us could’ve seen THIS coming, but right out of the gate we have Corey Smith’s team meeting Thad’s in Round One. Do you know why it’s called DIS Continuum, Corey? You probably do. You can take pride in it being a shot at you, but nothing beats “F.U.C.K.T.H.A.D”, right? Such ingenuity. So creative. So likeable. So stupid. All Thad ever did was kiss your ass and… *ugh*... LOVE YOU…. But, from the very start it wasn’t I that was the rotten apple of the bunch, was it? From the beginning it wasn’t DAWK that poisoned the water… From day ONE it was not ME that was putting myself before the team. All I ever wanted was to bring the best out of the boy and all you ever wanted to do was find a way to stay one step ahead of him. You knew that I would get him to new heights, example one: Cataclysm; example two: High Stakes Battle Royal. You would’ve been stupid to turn down a title with the duo that pissed in the long-reigning Tag Team Champions’ fucking soup. Like your team name, stupid. So, differences aside, why not, right? We even managed to defend the straps against the current champs at Snow Job, they’ll tell you otherwise, but we stole the show, am I right?

So what was the problem? DAWK couldn’t be trusted. DAWK was messing with Duke’s mind and emotions. DAWK was the one risking the team. DAWK goes off and wins March Madness, and the tag titles are gone. To the branded bad guys of this foul federation… Don’t get me wrong! I DO lay a little bit of the blame on Duke, but this is why I didn’t want Corey Smith in this to begin with. I’m known to hold some weight through some tag team reigns and Thaddy’s a light load to have to carry. I came into this knowing what I had to do and it’s not Thad Duke that failed and destroyed Continuum, it’s Corey Smith, the real evil villain all along. Let’s look at the rest of the roster, shall we? Alias, who we know is nothing but a confused, hurt, just as bad as me human-being. We have the China-man, who is obviously evil. And, Morbid Angel. To be honest, I’ve been around a long time, mind you, I think Morbid Angel is the most evil NOW than he’s ever been. And this guy used to Peter Gilmour’s!!

The ground begins to shake and the office around DOCK begins to crumble. He sits up a bit and braces around the desk. It rumbles around for quite awhile before settling again and DOCK relaxes.

Sorry, I guess the place is still a little sensitive to that. But anyway, with War Games, there’s a lot we have to take into account. Not just these couple of common enemies in front of us. But all fronts. We have Betsy and the Broads plus Reggie. Dick and Balls. We have Robert Main. And we have BoB. If we want to speak seriously, BoB is the only one outside of this first round that Duke, myself, and the gang need to be looking forward to.

Speaking of the gang…. I couldn’t give up enough on Duke’s first pick, obviously, but let’s talk about two and three! I had some personal time with all of these boys here recently and I think it would be quite educational for everyone to get in on some of that. We all know Thaddeus Duke is my most favorite and best patient currently. A give-in! Let’s talk about the next pick!! A former Universal Champion. A guy that has taken down THE Doc on a single occasion which he basically built his entire success from who is now feeding from the teet of a fellow King of mine…… You guessed it! Chris Chaos.

This is the best part of War Games right here. The enemy of my enemy is my enemy! Let’s get it on! Chris Chaos has made so few friends and so many enemies in this place since 2016 that he could team up with a doormat and still be happy to be part of it all! So imagine teaming up with the one and only ME coming into War Games? We’ve all seen the guy's confidence soar before, but walking into a match like this KNOWING you’re on the winning team has to be something this guy has never felt before. I can imagine how ecstatic he must be. The same goes for Andre Dixon. Sure, BoB has been on a roll, as of late. Tag Champs in two different federations, Bobby just beat Corey for the TV title, oh, that's it… Yeah, they’re thriving. But at what level? Are we talking top level? Because, well, I think sometimes folks like that have an issue where they’re getting too big for their britches and they eventually… give out. Andre Dixon will have an opportunity to witness BoB put in a complete Five-Star effort only for it to get shoved back down their throats and digested, regurgitated, swallowed back again, just to walk it off, fuck off, and have a nice day. I’m sure Dre will go back to them after that, which is fine and dandy, but he’ll be able to do it with his head held high for sure.

Now I know you’re all wondering how all of us are going to just get together and rock the show like I’m talking about. I mean, first we’ll have to take down FUCKTHAD. Then, once they are disposed of, move onto a triple threat match with the other winners to claim the top prize. I went through a lot to get these boys on board, but I think we are all eventually going to be on the same page. One goal, my foes.

CHRIS

The car rumbles down the road at a steady fifteen miles an hour. The small car can only handle that much as the path has been beaten so much and been uncared for for so long that it’s basically a rumble strip.

Chris drives, eyes steady on the road ahead, high beams full blast peering into nothing but darkness. He looks over to his passenger, who is sitting quietly looking out the window.

I think you’ll like this place. Everything will be fine. Everything.

The passenger says nothing.

I always wanted to come here as a kid. But, because of how CRAZY it was… they quit having it, of course.

The two bounce around in the car some more. After a hard bump, the passenger takes a heavy thump on the window leaving a red stain blotched onto it…. Chris gets a disgusted look on his face…

Aweee… C’mon..

He searches around the console for some tissues. He swerves off onto the side of the road and stops the car.

Why are we stopping?

The passenger speaks, but doesn’t move.

Because you’re bleeding all over the place.

Chris says calmly as he steps out of the car. He marches around the front and opens the passenger door where the body flops down onto the ground. Chris, uncomfortably, looks up and down the highway before reaching down and dragging the body of the girl out of the car and to the back of the car.

Where are you taking me?

Shut up.

Chris lays the body down and opens the trunk. He shuffles a few things around to make room and picks the body up and lies it inside. Slamming the trunk shut he walks back to the front of the car and sits back in the driver’s seat.

Taking one deep breath after another, a long stream of sweat escapes the top of his head and falls down between his eyes. It snaps him back to this world and he puts the car in gear and starts to drive down the road again.

I think you’ve been going about all this all wrong.

Going about what?

Everything, Chris. You were once, dare I say, FEARED around here. Now? You’re nothing. You’re scraps. You’re laughable at the least.

Chris says nothing and presses the pedal harder.

Riding on coat tails and wishing you were something else… Wishing you were something better… It’s not going to make you better. You need to embrace what you are. There’s a darkness within you that you’ve forgotten about… That you’ve ignored. And THAT is what has cost you the most. THAT is the reason you fail fail fail fail over and over again. THAT is your downfall. If you continue down the path you’re on, Chris, WISHING…. That’s all that it will ever be. And you know what they say… You can wish in one hand….

Chris stares into space, at the two bright headlights ahead showing nothing more than the darkness ahead when all of a sudden DOCK appears in front of the car glaring at Chris who swerves the car.. It spins out of control until it stops suddenly sending Chris out of the windshield and landing face down on the ground. After a few moments, he rolls over to his back and realizes that he’s unscathed from the accident. In fact, there was no accident at all. No car. No wreckage… He stands up and faces a large, empty field. He hears music playing from within it though… And voices… And laughter… So he follows it.

ANDRE

It’s been years since Andre’s been home. Not two, not three… It almost felt uncomfortable. The place where he grew, where he became a man… It all seemed foreign to him now. But he knew the right thing was to go back.

He stopped his car just outside of the cul de sac. He shut off the engine and stepped outside then slowly walked down the sun beat pavement towards his old, small neighborhood. Memories flooded his brain of children, including himself, playing in the street. Now it’s littered with garbage. It’s dark. It’s lonely. It’s fucking wrecked.

“The fuck…”

He says to himself as he walks along… The place was never nice but this is nothing that he was prepared for. Windows of houses were shattered and boarded up and whether they were officially or even legally occupied, he had no idea. When he finally reached the end, the place where he once lived, a place still so familiar but foreign at the same time… He reached out and slammed his fist against the door knocking it open. Stepping inside, it’s his old home alright, but completely trashed. He looks around aimlessly, until he sees a figure in the shadows.

“Hey! Who’s there!”

Andre stomps into the darkness chasing after the shadow.

“I said, hey!”

He throws around a few chairs and boxes, but the stranger, or whatever it was, seems to have gone. Andre kicks a pile of junk and garbage away from him before turning and facing a long dark hallway that was never there in his home before. It’s like he’s not in his old home any longer. At the end of the hallway stands the dark figure he thought he seen before.

“Hey!! HEY!!”

He shouts over and over again. He’s not afraid, not very much, anyway. Cautious is what he would tell later in a story. The large shadowy figure steps away from the edge of the hallway leaving Andre with the choice of to follow or… Not. The logical choice would be to Not, but we’re not showing that episode tonight

We follow Andre Dixon down the dark hallways. When he reaches the end, he finds himself at a T. One way down another long hallway and another way through a door that will soon be discovered is currently locked. Andre does the logical thing and continues down the hallway where he assumes that tall, dark, shadowy figure had gone. He turns the corner and he’s met with a woman and a belt.

“ANDRE!”

“Momma?”

“ANDRE! I TOLD YOU GARBAGE AND QUIT THAT I SWEAR!!!!”

Charging Andre with her weapon, the crazed woman begins beating what is now Andre the boy senseless with a leather belt. One crack after another as she screams loud explicits and senseless nothings at him. She whips over and over until a light behind him blinds her and it all goes away…. The lashings get lighter and the pain just stops… In the light… In the glorious light a man steps forward and down from several steps to little Andre and holds out his hand, but it's too far to reach and he falls forward. It’s many years later now and he’s in the street walking with a friend.

“It’s weird to be home again man. Glad to see you again, though, Doc.”

You know you can trust me, right?

“Why would I?”

Andre laughs as a car speeds up and the passenger unloads on Doc on the way by leaving a bloody massacre behind them. Andre rushes up to Doc and holds him tightly while watching the vehicle speed away.

“Doc! Doc?! No! Are--- Help!! HELP!!”

Trust me.

As Andre holds Doc’s body it turns cold. Andre clenches a hold of him, searches for his cellphone to call 911, but he can’t find it.

Andre…

“Yeah, Doc?”

I think you’re a BoB spy… And…. If I found out you really are…. I’ll make sure this fucking happens…………..

“What the fuck…. WHAT?!”

In Doc’s dying breath he reaches out and touches Andre’s face..

Those No Good Bastards… Heh… They feel like they’re on top of the world right now. As they should! Huh-heh! HAK! But, what they don’t realize is they have no idea what they’re up against. YOU, Andre, are lucky enough, my foe, to be on the good side of things. This war… These War Games… Will destroy BoB.

“Doc… Save your energy man….”

Silence! Heh… Huh-hack-hack-huh…….. They think that their numbers… Their luck of the draw will lead them to victory… Miss Fury… The Bastards… Oswald… They brag as if this was some sort of accomplishment… Like … They out did everyone else… That they made out better somehow…

“Yeah?”

Won’t they look stupid when they lose to us? Won’t they look absolutely ridiculous after they… They……

“They what Doc? They what?!”

They…… uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Doc slowly passes away in Andre’s arms.

“Nnnnnnnoooooooooooooo!!!!!”

DOCK’s body begins to turn into a dense smoke and sifts through his hands. Andre stands up, realizing he’s in another dark hallway by himself. Realizing that what is happening is most likely, hopefully untrue, he still takes his time as the hallways slowly fill with fog. He sees in the distance a doorway surrounded by light… He approaches it and when he reaches it… He turns the handle and walks in.



DOCK re-entered the void for the last time and was immediately overtaken by the intrusion of what could only be…. Himself?

While the emptiness and nothingness is all too common, it is also not so uncommon for voices to echo and ruin the precious silence that often times makes this place as great as it is. DOCK follows the sound, the voices, and the ruckus to find Duke holding a knife to Corey’s throat… While, he, long before he was burnt or even became King of this foul place… stood over his shoulder… egging him on…. DOCK stood and watched as Duke takes a shot to the chest and his own father release him into the abyss… his precious void. DOCK… with a smile and best intentions… floats over to his partner within this darkness..

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