April 19th, 2023

A puff of dust erupted as Ned reached beneath the ring inside of The Notorious Gym. He and Darcy had been reorganizing and deep cleaning the gym for the past few days and it seemed, finally, like the fruits of their efforts may have been realized. Attempting not to inhale the once stagnant powder he kicked up, he pulled out the rag he'd chosen for the job of dusting underneath the ring. After a single pass through, it was coated in soot-like dirt, only barely having made a scratch in the population dust hiding behind the ring apron. Darcy handed him another towel as he prepared to hand her the one brimming in dust. Clutching it with her thumb and index finger in a claw-like grip, she understandably tossed it to the side, attempting to limit contact as much as possible.

“So,” she began, observing Ned quickly sully the second towel as he gave it a pass through under the ring, “are you excited for today?”


“Oh?” Ned feigned ignorance defensively for a moment, before forcing himself to be honest, “You mean the 30 day chip since my relapse prior to March Madness. I... I wasn't going to go.”

“What?!” She responded slightly indignantly, receiving the next towel from him as he offered it to her and tossing it on his head, huffing softly.

“H-hey!”

“Oh, look, “the best hair in the game” is all dirty. You better go wash it so you can receive your chip!”

“Darce, it's really nothing,” Ned stressed, lifting himself off the ground, the dusty towel still draped over his hair.

“But it is! This is a milestone and you're treating it like a load of nothing due to it not being some gaudy, golden belt,” she countered.

“You know full-well that's not it,” Ned responded sternly.

“Then what's the issue here?”

“I don't feel like I earned it, okay?!” Ned announced, raising his voice lightly.

“You're supposed to be ecstatic whenever you pass one of these growth points, but I don't experience that. I don't feel like I've grown as a human being. I'm just the same mess with a chip in my hand instead of on my shoulder.”

Darcy stepped towards him, adjusting the rag to get a better view of his face.

“Look… I get it. It's no fun trying to appreciate the little stuff, but those make up the big things. You know you've gotten better, you just... you need to try to accept it a little,” She placed a hand on his cheek after she spoke, rubbing some of the dirt away with her thumb. She smirked slightly before speaking again.

“Y'know, this isn't the worst look for you,” she giggled slightly, “No Shower Ned Kaye could be a hit.”

“Oh, shush.”

---

Ned stood by the desk at the building where he attended AA meetings, tapping his fingertips on the coarse plastic surface. Normally, he didn't have to wait too long to talk to someone, but it seemed the one day where expedience would have been appreciated was the day he found himself severely lacking it. That's when he heard the voice, familiar as any could be, coming from just out of view.

“Well I'll be! The man himself actually appeared!”


Ned didn't have to look to be certain of the identity, but viewing the source was no less surreal.

R.L. Edgar. In the flesh.

He stuck out his hand towards Ned, prompting a handshake from the utterly speechless Kaye.

“Bet ya didn't expect to see me here of all places!” Edgar stated, looking particularly well-kept and dressed, not completely divorced from the rugged man Ned recalled, but still appearing better.

“I can't say I did,” Ned struggled to reply, “what... brings you here?”

“Man,” R.L. took a look over the modest arrangements that stood around them, knocking on the table lightly, “somebody's gotta organize all these meetings.”

Ned was taken aback, fighting with the realization that the man who headed this establishment was the first man hurt by Ned's alcoholic breakdown when he became The Nefarious One. As relieved as he was to see an old friend, it was followed immediately by a wave of regret. Of the awful jealousies that fueled Ned's meltdown, unjustifiably targeted at Edgar.

“Edgar... I'm so, so sorry-”

“Ned,” Edgar cut him off with a raised hand, “it's in the past. Don't get me wrong, what you did was shitty, but I've been down bad roads before and I don't know that even I'm all the way on the straight and narrow. But I forgive you. I had to a long time ago or I wasn't gonna get anywhere near here. It sounds like you oughta try forgiving yourself, too.”

Ned nodded somewhat, comforted a bit by Edgar's words, yet not alleviated entirely from the guilt. R.L. Snapped his fingers.

“That reminds me,” he said, reaching into his pocket and handing Ned his 30 day chip, “this is yours. You should be proud.”

Ned felt the chip gently fall into his hand, its weight far more pronounced than he recalled. Nodding, he began heading towards the exit.

“Before I forget,” Edgar called out, “there's something I wanted to suggest.”

“Yeah?” Ned looked up, still entrenched in contemplation.

“I think you should sponsor someone. You'd be perfect.”

Ned stood silently, trying to absorb the offer.

“Well... whaddya say?”


“I'll think about it,” Ned responded, giving a light smile as he exited the building.

---

---

---

Walking into frame, Ned took a seat on a cheap, white folding chair before grabbing a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. Unfurling it, Ned cleared his throat, glancing upward at the camera.

“In rehab, we do something called taking inventory. The gist of it is that we take a person who's in our lives and we explain our grievances with them so we can work towards solving our internal issues. I've got a lot to get off of my chest, so hopefully I'm able to articulate these feelings without too much trouble.”

He took a brief inhale before scanning his eyes over the paper, trying to get the words to come out accurately.

“Dionysus, you frustrate me because-”

He paused, looking away.

“Because-”

Rolling his eyes, he balled up the scrap of paper, tossing it away violently prior to leaning forward, shaking his head.

“You know why you piss me off, Dion?”

“Because everything about you is a performance. All the world a stage and you are convinced you are its sole actor with the ego to boot. You waltz into this match expecting unconditional respect, but like an amnesiac, your memory only extends so far. When we first fought, you made such a big deal out of appearing superior to me. Like I wasn't even in the same damn league as you. “I hope you win, Ned. I'm rooting for you.” Wish granted, O mighty one. You acted like the possibility of my victory existed solely for mockery. But as soon as you lost to me, all of a sudden, there's this need for mutual respect that you couldn't seem to locate before. You are as disingenuous as you are prideful, Dion. That's why you couldn't just eat your words and acknowledge you underestimated me. You'd rather have a dozen nicknames than an ounce of honesty. It's baffling because you were afforded so many things that I simply wasn't, yet you view yourself as a symbol instead of a rich kid cosplaying as a legend. Legends aren't grown on a vine, Albert, they're forged. Through glory, through hardship, through intense emotions you simply cannot express. You can't even face your real first name without having the people on the XWF website change your roster page to omit it. I didn't call you a mean name. I addressed you by your name and your skin was too thin to handle. And, somehow, you still hoard pride in excess.”

“I think that's the root of my problem. I struggle to accept a chip I earned and you saunter through life happily accepting everything that comes your way without a hint of reconsideration. That's really what I'm trying to get past: the feeling that even the accomplishments I have are unearned, let alone the ones I'm pushing towards. I envy your contentment. But contentment doesn't win championships. Neither does envy for that matter. And so I'm going to let these feelings go, like a whisper in the wind. I held onto them because it felt safe to do so. But a bold new era awaits me and I won't trade better for the same.”

“But I'd be lying if I said that those were my only problems with an opponent in this match. I can't ignore Jay Omega and the narcissist fantasy he's crafted his life into. Maybe it's just due to never feeling whole myself, but there's something so openly insulting about how Jay holds himself. Omega views himself as the literal end where all things go when his most famous move in the XWF is disappearing for months on end. For a man who purports to have an infinite selection of himself, they sure decided to all avoid taking matches for the better part of a year. And it isn't that he's lazy, it's just that he doesn't care. The Universal Championship doesn't matter to him, his opponents don't matter to him, and even professional wrestling as a whole is an afterthought. Jay is so openly dismissive of the institutions that I dedicate my life to and it's infuriating. What right do you have to show up whenever you please when none of us can just toss ourselves to the side? And, I seriously cannot stress this enough, if your claims are accurate, why do you pretend to care about this federation at all when it's obvious that it's at most a little thing you do on the side? It doesn't have to be your whole life, but you gallivant around like you own the place, but you don't follow through. Jay Omega has an infinite number of chances to commit to something and he still fucking doesn't and that should tell you everything you need to know about him.”

“But even then, I know that also comes from a place of envy. I obviously can't inhabit the same room as myself literally, but oftentimes it feels like I can't even do it figuratively. Being able to just... exist alongside myself is something I've been striving for for years and I don't have the luxury of a big ship or the cosmos to comfort me. But I do have love. I have people trying for me and I need to- no. I want to try for them. So that's what I'm going to do. The fault in our stars is that your greatest ally is yourself, Jay. My greatest strength is that mine isn't.”

“They say, when taking inventory, to offer your feelings to a higher power. To something greater than yourself. I don't have faith in a God, deity, or intergalactic interference. But I do have faith in those around me. In Saga, in Darcy, hell even in Noah. Through their friendship, I gain strength and I embody that connection with my will, my skill, and my resilience. Through accepting their faith in me, I become my higher power. And at Weekend Warfare, I exercise these emotions in the only place I know how:”

“In the goddamn ring.”

"You can't run from yourself."