The southernmost part of the sky is pitched with such a sable nightfall that the stars are lost–placeless, unrecognizable to their homes in the cosmos. Schism can’t chart the constellations, their stories smothered out by the bleak repetition of the gloaming. But behind him, the northern night is ablaze– glowing with cannon and structure fire, alighting the sky, burning the night in protest. Schism turns to face it: the revolution. Torching a symbol of extraction and exploitation, one as viscous and inevitable a cycle as the unsolicited night.

The fire cracks into the frames of the XWF corporate sponsorship logo. The sounds of it buckling are dwarfed only by the firework explosions above the fields of MayDay. Schism tilts his head, his eyes, above and below the lenses of his sunglasses, proving a theory: unlike those lost stars to his south, the revolution is unmistakable.   

The flames strike the sky, casting a carmine glow that bleeds into the south. Schism returns his gaze in that direction. Pulling from his shirtpocket the crumbled and ink smeared Denny’s napkin, his map, he claims, to The Big Rock Candy Mountain. He positions it over the bleak twilight, the fire behind him illuminates a type of translucency through the thin, worn material, but it’s still not clear. Holding it still, he peers around the napkin like he’s looking into a fractured sky. And there he sees, running headlong into that capricious nightfall, a man toting a stolen Universe. An extraction. An exploitation.

Schism’s features unchanged, and stoic, he pulls the napkin away and peers back onto the lost constellations in the sky.

See her.

He commands,

See her.

Again,

The stars appear to brighten, even behind his lenses– and shift

What should be Pisces, and Cancer, and Scorpio, pulling into the center of the sky, forming something else.

Legs and arms and a defiant feminine frame, with one fist angled on her hip, and another raised into the air. The final stars streak into their places, creating long hair sweeping in the winds of battle. There’s no void within the outline, the celestial stories are ambiguous no more. He sees her…

Hey

Dolly Waters turns, pulling the attention of Mark Flynn, and Corey Smith, and ALIAS away from the fire they’ve set, and onto Schism.

What’cha you lookin’ at out there?

Schism lets out a pleased chuckle, not breaking his gaze from-

-Her.

I see her. Finally.

The tempest, clearing the path to Big Rock Candy mountain. The champion of the revolution. The hero.

See who?

It’s you.

He turns to face Dolly and points in the sky at this new constellation that maybe only he sees.

No mistaking it, comrade, you’re her…

I’m Dolly

Nope Schism corrects her, a gratified smile of knowing twisting at his lips  You’re…

Part 4: Eroica

Errr-what?! Is that Italian?!

Flynn shouts over the noxious sounds of a backfiring, classic oldsmobile engine– sprawled in the backseat of Schism’s car. There is no passenger seat. There’s no AC. The windows wont roll down. The roof wont open. And Schism is smoking, and driving like a freight train.

It’s Universal, kid, I told ya’! She’s the tempest. The celestial embodiment of the ancient story–

A cigarette flips lazily along the movement of his lips as he answers through the side of his mouth, his ton manic and confident, weaving through traffic traffic like a man who knows exactly where he’s going,

--The hero of Big Rock Candy Mountain. The hero of the revolution.

Oh…. Flynn coughs, and waves through the cigarette smoke You’re talking about Dolly… again... CLEAR AS MUD, SCHKINAMARINK!

We’ve gotta’ bring her to Minnesota.

It’s a wonderful idea, Schizzer! But I don’t think she’s gonna’ come with us-

It’s been weeks since Rebellion, where Dolly, Schism and Flynn paid for their actions at MayDay.

-- she hasn’t returned a single phone call, text, none of that. She doesn’t want our help.

We got her suspended and her knee torn all to hell.

A victim of the rot in pro wrestling we’re supposed to be upending in the first place.

Dolly and The Revolution are over.

Donezo.

Your Eroica, is no-more-ica!

Wrong story, bossman!

Schism lays on the horn, swerving wildly between passing semi-trucks on the highway,

This isn’t the revolution abandoned!

That’s the tale of submitting to viral sycophants for cruelty, spreading ‘round like a venereal disease. VLIs, and SYNvolutions and the such. All the looney tune cultists, the same. Commonplace, dear comrade!

Flynn, tugging at his hair with one hand, pinching the bridge of his nose with the other, head slumped in his lap What in the fuck are you even saying, Schipperke?!?

Eroica doesn’t succumb, she doesn’t go gently into that good night. She’s the unmistakable flame of revolution that ignites the whole of the sky, showing us all the Big Rock Candy Mountain

Okay, then answer me this: why can’t we see it right now? Where’s her light?

Sure. Did I have a natural adderall-high when we took over MayDay with her? And stormed Warfare together?

Yes.

And yes.

I had high hopes too… but we don’t even know where Dolly is. We’re chasing a ghost.

We’re chasing a flame, bossman. Don’t confuse the two. Eroica doesn’t die, she waits.

You sound like Miss Cleo, Puttin’ on the Schiz.

You know where we are? Back here on planet earth?

We’re barrelling down a highway in the remnants of a ‘64 oldsmobile, on our way to Kentucky, because we THINK she might be there.

Oh she's there. Steeped in with the lost and dying stars of the night, slowly taking shape, ready to ignite the revolution's victory. It’s unmistakable in the dark.

...whatever, beatnik. Seek help after this.Flynn lets out an exasperated sighThere’s one place I know of that she might be… but we should’ve just taken our bus though.

Kentucky

The car sputters and backfires its way to a jostling stop. An empty parking lot in a hollowed out industrial area, somewhere on the outskirts of Louisville.

This is it… her- Flynn grunts and struggles damnit to open the car door before stepping out into the parking lot.-her SEERS warehouse, slash, lab, slash former think-tank thing

See her… they need to see her.

no, no Flynn pulls his gaze down from the warehouse, and into the car, where Schism is still seated, hands clutching the steering wheel. Not see her, SE-ER. It’s some AI simulation device.

Schism pulls the Denny’s napkin out of his shirt pocket, and consults it

The lost stars need to see her…

With that, Schism stomps the engine on again, it pops, smoke rolling from the exhaust pipes. Without so much as looking at Flynn, he peels out of the parking lot, leaving him choking on the exhaust cloud. Sparks flying as he speeds over a curb and into the streets.

Oh what the hell, man?! COME BACK! Flynn throws his arms up and turns back to the warehouse. Rolling his eyes.

Why? Why do I this? he debates with himself, walking toward the building.

Inside the warehouse, that Flynn was able to access way too easily

Flynn walks into the SEERS warehouse, eyes scanning the darkened space. The infamous, massive tube-shaped machine looms over him, the once-vibrant blue liquid inside now sluggish, barely stirring with the usual energy. It’s an off putting sight, fitting for a place that’s supposed to be at the cutting edge of mind-bending, time predictive technology, yet now looks as though it’s been abandoned by time itself.

His eyes flick to the worn recliner where Dolly Waters sits, her knee braced, and propped up on a pillow. She doesn’t even flinch as he steps further in, her gaze steady but distant.

What do you want?

Her tone is mirthless. There’s no anger, no bitterness–just resignation. She doesn’t even look up as Flynn moves into the dim light

I want you to come to Warfare with us…

He says with a sense of finality. He’s been thinking about this moment for weeks. Since Rebellion. Since everything started falling apart for The Revolution.

Dolly doesn’t respond immediately. She looks at him for a long moment instead.

Us?

Not asking with malice or skepticism. Just Dolly pointing out that Flynn is alone. But truly more of an acknowledgement that she sees through him, his words genuine with their weight.

Oh- he stands there for a beat, and then awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. He almost forgot, Schism is here too, I think he’s just playing MadMax in the landfill right now or something. 

He forces an empty chuckle.

Dolly’s lips nearly twitch in instinct, a brief thought of a smile before she lowers her gaze back to her injured knee, her fingers absently brushing the edge of the brace.

I’m glad you checked on me. But there’s no point. I’m done with the revolution, done with wrestling, done with the XWF, done with all of it.

I’m suspended anyway, I can’t go to Warfare.

We tried to fight the system, to protect wrestlers from being exploited like this, you saw what happened. Look at what it got me. she gestures toward her knee, then the room, the quiet machine, the piles of forgotten documents. The future she was going to build buried here in this warehouse.

Just a cold reminder that the powers that be in the XWF have no intentions on ever ceding their control. We throw caution to the wind with our bodies, while they squeeze us dry to rake in millions, tossing us in the trash once they’ve gotten every last cent.

Exact-a-mundo! And things are about to get worse than ever! We can’t just sit back and let this type of thing he motions over her condition continue to go unchecked. So many more people are going to continue to suffer now. Haven’t you seen what’s happened in XWF?

No. I refuse to watch that corrupt, corporate bullshit.

Flynn deadpans, and pulls his phone out, showing Dolly the opening of the last Warfare.

You think it was bad before… Peter Principle has anointed that murdering fuck, Charlie Nickles, as his new corporate champion.

He peers down at Dolly’s eyes, they’re flickering as she takes in the images on his phone, he can see the fire dancing in pupils, the flicker of the fighter he knows she is. But her face falls to a cold glare.

So be it. She acts unbothered, They deserve each other but her voice is damn near a growl. Like she wants nothing more than to confront and dismantle these assholes in front of the entire world.

You know what's going to come next-

What’s next, Flynn. Tell me. What happens when I show up to Warfare on a crutch? Throw a few dozen signed union cards down on Principle’s desk and demand I be reinstated? It’s pointless. They’re just going to keep screwing us anyway.

Flynn throws his arms up in frustration,

Fine. Have it your way. Schiz is gonna’ be upset though.

Oh… Well, I’m sure he’ll forget about me soon anyway…

That’s the problem, is that he won't… he thinks your some destined champion of the revolution, some imaginary zodiac sign he made up named-

EROICA!

Flynn’s eyes go wide as Schism bursts into the room,

He stands at the doorway, his voice echoing with religious conviction, like the name is a divine revelation. His arms wide, a large smile growing beneath his aviators. Behind him, a group of men and women emerge– old, scarred and broken. Some sit in wheelchairs, others supported by canes or breathing machines. Their faces are hollow, eyes sunken from years of struggle and exploitation.

I bring to you your army of the lost stars, oh mother of glory!

Dolly stares in disbelief and confusion. She glances at Flynn, then back to Schism and his ragtag war memorial procession he’s brought along.

Whats happening?

Uhhh.. He scratches his head, I don’t exactly know –Hey, bud? Schiz? What exactly is going on? Do we need to get these nice people back to their nursing homes?

Schism is undeterred. His focus is locked on her– on Dolly, the one he believes will lead the revolution to the promised lands of Big Rock Candy Mountain,

The revolution is here, comrades! The Eroica–YOUR Eroica– has arrived.

He pauses dramatically, letting the words hang dramatically

“Why’d you bring us here?” one of the men looks to Schism, “yeah” a couple of more ask,

Flynn chuckles nervously,

To see her!

To see that the revolution isn’t finished! To see that our champion has arrived!

Ye’ tired, ye’ weak stand before the lineage of your exploiter!

An old woman squints out at Dolly “Wait a minute… she sort of looks like…

These dim lights– these are the exploited combatants of your grandmother’s wrestling dynasty!

“Why look! She’s spitting image of old Misty Waters” another points and shouts,

She’s Eroica! The mother of our victory, born from the lost stars of the dark, battling in the name of all those who’ve succumb to exploitation of the powerful!


Eroica will travel with us to Minnesota…to WARFARE! Leading the campaign to free our people from the strangling grip of oppression. FOR MANKINDS GLORY!

“Her grandmother is the one who fucked us over!”

“Yeah”

“YEAH!”

A few more shout out, advancing nearer to Dolly

That's why she's the one destined to overturn the twisted system! She is the choice that broke from the pack, the one that fled your oppressor! This is Mosaic. The prodigal daughter of our people!

Alright Schizz, I think we need to get these folks back to where you found them, I don’t think they want to-

NAY COMRADE! Eroica does not march alone! We shall march, this is her army!

I don’t think Dolly is marching anywhere–

Wait a second!

She shifts in her recliner, swinging her bad leg around to face Schism and these former wrestlers,

I think… I remember you… she points one man out in particular, gathering a crutch under her arm and rising up.

The crutch just barely keeps her from putting pressure on her bad leg, as she shuffles toward the man. Her brow tightening with a studious gaze. The man is tall, and scrawny. Scars on top of scars matting the wavy wrinkles on his forehead.

Yer’... yer’...”Beautiful” Bobby Hollon

“Was” he grunts,

I remember you! You used to hold me back stage at Memaw’s wrestling shows.

“I did.” he sputters out a laugh, “We all had some silly notion that you were the prodigy of the Waters family. The one who was gonna’ save the old wrestling territories. We were loyal to Misty, to her daddy, Pop, even til’ they squeezed every dime they could out of our blood and bones. And you? Well, Misty had stabbed us all in the back and closed the doors on KWA before you ever even had a chance to succeed her”

Dolly’s eyes are welling with fire. She’s horrified by the man standing before her. A once strapping, and gallant wrestler. A superb athlete who could wrestle with any of the best that the XWF has to offer today. Here he was now, couldn’t possibly be older than 60, and looking every bit of 120.

This can’t be the fate of professional wrestlers.

Flynn moves beside her,

It’s just the fate of the few thousands who suffer through and actually make it to the ‘big time’. Not even beginning to mention the tens… the hundreds of thousands more who break their necks, or die trying to succeed in this industry

We are here to follow you into battle, Eroica…

He moves away from the pack, to a place where he can address the entire room,

We are here to battle the enemy, comrades!

At Warfare, I stand alongside our champion and do battle with that blood sucking virus of compliance and cruelty, Matthias Syn!

The man who suckered in vagrants from the unground, and wooed them with his comic book obsession for violence and weapons, and illicit drugs. As if running a crime syndicate exploited anyone other than the working man and working woman he swore to avenge!
He’s a grotesque manifestation of everything we’ve been fighting against. The betrayer, the abandoner of revolution. The embodiment of every failed ambition, every broken dream any of you’ve had in that ring. His was a revolution of caprice, morally bankrupt and disguised as a wind of change. How many dope addicts did Syn leave behind when he was forced to part ways with that prop, that “TITLE” of Revolution he so desperately clung to?

He let the XWF define his role in the revolution.

A revolutionary, only so long as they told him he could be.

And now what?

He crawls back from hiding, months after his failure.

Months of silence.

No conviction for his fight. Are we to believe that Syn is the conqueror of this corruption?

How many of our poisoned comrades will he raise from the sewers this time? Only to turn them into drug mules for his seedy operations, while he sits around twiddling a butterfly knife like an obtuse teenager who watched that propaganda film Joker one too many times. Anything to produce the type of filth that he thinks the XWF, and wrestling industry will love him for, right?

A man who calls for change, but refers to his brothers and sisters in arms in the wrestling ring, as B-graded players? Syn is a gullible maggot, perpetuating the same type of class domination that exploits the weak. Saying slurs against those with beautifully unique minds.

A man with no compassion cannot lead this fight. It's men like him who have to be exposed. His revolution was a corporate charade, just like the corporate puppets he’s returned to serve. He was never the answer to our plight. A coward. A traitor to everything he ever claimed to fight for. And the worst part? He’s too deluded to realize that it’s more than what’s written on a cheap title belt that makes a revolution– it’s the people. The soul of the fight. And Syn’s got no soul. None. Another parasite feeding off the desperation of people, turning revolution into a cheap catchphrase. A goddamn joke.

He abandoned the fight! And flickered out like another lost star in that horrible darkness. He’s not our champion… it is her! 
   
Eroica!

It is her who will shine the light of the revolution's flames. Fanning them with the winds of her tempest storm. Burning the darkness of night, leading us to the promised lands of the Big Rock Candy Mountain!

The room seems to stir an murmur with an inspired approval.

Dolly’s eye’s scan the room, observing the wreckage of these broken souls, bodies worn and ravaged by the gears of an unforgiving machine. The faces of those who once stood tall, but have been squashed by the weight of exploitation and failure.

She feels their expectant, hopeful eyes on her, and for the first time, a spark of something inside her flickers to life. Something inside her like, like a whisper. She’s heard this all before. She’s lived this, the sting of betrayal, the suffocating grip of a system that rewards the ruthless and buries the weak.

These are my people.

Something breaks in her. But it’s not a moment of defeat, but in a way that feels like the last stitch of a mortal wound giving way. She’s always known it deep down, but now she feels it. It’s unmistakable. This fight… their revolution… its bigger than her. Bigger than all of them. She was never meant to walk away from it.

Slowly, she lifts her crutch, and plants it firmly on the ground. She braces herself, but her posture straightens, rising more than she’s stood in weeks. Her fingers wrap tightly around the crutch handle, and her hand angles onto her waist. Then, almost instinctively, she thrusts her other arm into the air, clenching her fist.

The room explodes, as if on her command of defiance.

Schism steps forward, slow and deliberate, a silent witness to the moment unfolding before him. His brother-in-arms, Flynn, watching his every move. Schism pulls out that crumpled napkin, the napkin that has guided him through this fever dream, and charted this course of revolution. The lines of smeared ink, jagged and worn. He holds the napkin up, and for the first time it’s clear. The ink traces and image– an outline of Eroica, the same constellation he saw form in the skies above MayDay, now visible in the flesh.

Dolly's arm is still raised, as Schism chuckles. Flynn is looking over his shoulder, witnessing this inexplicable moment with astonishment. The crumbled ink lines falling in place around Dolly as if they were just drawn there.

It’s... impossible...

And yet, it makes sense

There she is… they see her. Finally.

Schism’s tone one of awe, and reverence,

She’s here comrades! The Eroica has arrived!

Dolly’s face hardens, her eyes scanning between the faded faces of her past and the fire that now burns in the hearts of those who stand with her. She doesn’t flinch.

And then– before she knows it– she hears it.

A rumble.

A low, distant sound, like thunder breaking through the fever of summer. It grows. Closer. Louder.

Hundreds of voices.

Hundreds of people.

The army of the revolution. Converging on the warhouse.

An exultant grin slides on Schism’s lips, watching the army he’s called forth, as they pour into the area, some on foot, others in old trucks, and beat up cars. All emerging from the shadows– the lost stars, those who were forgotten by the world, by the XWF, but now all stand before her as if summoned.

We march, Eroica! The world will finally SEE us. We will take back what is ours!

The figures surround the warehouse, their faces etched in determination. The revolution is no longer a dream, it’s an army. Converged in this moment of destiny. Like the lost stars that Schism watched pull into the figure of Eroica.

Flynn’s jaw is gape, as Dolly holds still, her first still in the air. Not broken. Not lost. But formed now as the champion of the lost, of the broken, of the exploited, of the revolution…

We’ll show Matthias Syn and the entire XWF what a real revolution looks like.