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Sebastian Duke · (01-31-2022)

Fire & Ice – Reykjavik, Iceland

Locked in the End Game.

The move I taught him.

MY move.

Pandora’s Box, but different.

He had me in it earlier, but I powered out.

I tried it here too.

The fans, they’ve switched sides and I didn’t expect it. I thought they really loved me. I thought that they hated him so much that they’d cheer me, love me. Instead, all they were looking for was an excuse, a reason to welcome him back into their arms.

I can see his face.

Beet red as he holds on so tight.

He’s not a big man, not a small man. But god damn if he ain’t one of the toughest mother fuckers I’ve ever been in the ring with. Much stronger than he looks, too. He moves fluidly, gracefully. He can hit like thunder and move like lightning.

I can feel my power draining quickly as I try to power him off the mat like I did earlier.

I’d be so damn proud of him… if it didn’t hurt so fucking much.

I can’t… I can’t break it. I’ve failed to lift him again and now I’m fucked.

The Universe… they feel it coming.

They’re getting so much louder.

I hear everything, but at the same time, nothing at all.

I’m starting…

...to lose…

...conscious…

...ness…

He got me. Tapping my free hand against his arm, Smith calls for the bell and Thad finally releases me from the prison that is End Game.

The fans are euphoric as he and I lay here, both staring up at the lights.

Laying here in defeat, I stare up at the flashing gold lights overhead.

The student has defeated the master.

The son has outlasted the father.

The lion has eaten his prey.

The light… has swallowed the Darkness.

Rolling out of the ring, tired, defeated, exhausted, I slowly make my way up the aisle. A few fans hurl different insults at me but I pay them no mind as I raise my eyes to watch the X-Tron while I walk.

50 wins.

Good job, kid.

This is it for me.

Stepping through the curtain into Gorilla, Paul Heyman is here, Theo, Lane, other producers and agents.

He had to have cheated! Heyman calls out. For the moment I ignore him. Lane says something to me, but it doesn’t register as Heyman exits Gorilla to the backstage area. Theo says something too, but I try to ignore him also.

Finally, just as I’m stepping backstage, Theo grabs me by the wrist.

Hell of a performance, he says. Thing is, I never cared how pretty a match was just as long as I won the match. I didn’t.

Idenhaus.

Nickles.

Samuels.

Braddock.

Flynn.

Thad.

Those are the matches I’ve had over the last eighteen months and only one of them did I win. John Samuels.

Next time...

Theo begins but I cut him off.

There’s not gonna be a next time, I reply to him. Taking off my fight gloves, I hand them to Theo. Give ‘em to Thad… or burn ‘em. I don’t much care.

Proceeding into the hall, Heyman starts in again.

”He had to have cheated, Seb,” he begins. ”There was no way he was gonna beat you otherwise.”

He did Paul, I argue. I came here with every trick I could think of. The thunder, the rain, putting Smith in place as the ref, banning Page and Braddock, hiring you to manage me not long after he fired you and kicked your ass on Warfare, no holds barred…

I gave him everything I had left, Paul.

Had him for awhile but you know him as well as I do. Did you really think he was just gonna roll over?

Paul ponders for a moment. ”Then we’ll get a rematch!”

No, there are no more matches. Everything I had left, I just spent it trying to beat that kid and he got me. He overcame everything I threw at him and he tapped me out in the middle of the ring.

It’s over.

Continuing down the hall, Paul stays behind almost flabbergasted at what I’ve told him.

”You’re a staple, you were the staple before he came along! This is your house...”

Paul, enough! I shout in frustration, stopping near my locker room. Paul hurries to catch up. It’s his house now, Paulie.

Thank you for your service to me, to my family.

You’re fired.

Without another word, I disappear into the locker room, closing it behind me.

Several hours later, I’m back in my home in Virginia. Walking through the door in the dead of night, I flip on the light switch and proceed into the hallway leaving my bag by the door. On the wall to my left is a painting of Thaddeus, made by a fan and given to me.

I stare at it for a long few minutes.

I never lived my life with regret. As long as I have lived I have made the best decisions I could based on the information I had at the time. Granted, I made a lot of mistakes. He’s not impervious to them either, but my mistakes… they were big ones.

He was right to take my crown.

He was right to hate me.

He was right to take my legacy.

He was right about everything and all this time, I’ve been in denial about it all.

While he has some detractors, by and large he’s a good and decent man despite my efforts, despite my fathers efforts to make that not the case. The one regret I truly have is Thaddeus. No, I don’t mean that I regret conceiving him with his mother. What I regret is that I wasn’t capable of being the father he needed. Especially when I’m the reason he didn’t have a mother growing up.

He hates me.

He loathes the very ground I walk on.

And he should.

So should you.

Just as I turn away from the painting to head to the kitchen, I hear a knock on the door.

Who is it? I call out, but no one answers. It’s 4AM for hells sake. Again, a knock. Relenting, I make my way to the door and open up. Standing on the other side is Richard Small, my sons Chief of Staff, with a small army of Thad’s soldiers.

”Sebastian Duke,” he says as he pushes passed me and into my home. ”I’m here on behalf of the Illuminatus State. You are hereby under arrest.”

Standing there shocked, I don’t even resist when a pair of men step on the inside of my knees to put me down and begin to cuff me.

On what charge?

”Charges, sir,” Dick corrects. ”Plural.”

What charges?

”Negligence.

“Crimes against humanity.

“Crimes against the Illuminatus State.

“Murder.”

Thad’s men start to lead me out.

Under whose orders? Tritter?

”His orders.”

So what? You gonna take me somewhere quiet? Put a bullet in the back of my head? Dump me in the Chesapeake?

”Sir that’s something you would do… not him,” he argues. He’s probably right. ”You will be tried in accordance with Illuminatus law.”

So…

This is how it ends.

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