“You have to be the bad guy.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m older. So you have to be the bad guy.”

“C’mon. Can’t we both be good guys?”

“If we’re both good guys, then who gets beat up? Someone has to be the bad guy and I’m older.”

“…Yeah, I guess.”

“So, I’m the good guy. You’re the bad guy.”

“Yeah, o-OW STOP! THAT HURTS!”

“Say Uncle!”

“STOP, THAT HURTS! GET OFF!”

“I can’t stop ‘til you say uncle!”

“I’LL TELL!”

“YOU’RE THE BAD GUY! YOU CAN’T TELL! NOW SAY UNCLE!”

“OKAY OKAY UNCLE!”

“Phew. Good. Okay. Justice is served.”

“You’re a jerk.”

“Nuh uh. I’m the good guy.”

“I don’t… Never mind… So, now what?”

“Now, you get executed!”
***
The sun was blinding. Burning his eyes. He had been stuck in a hole in the ground and left there.

He had been pulled from his root

They threw around words like ‘democracy’ and ‘fair trial’ and he’d heard them talking about ‘ably’ he was defended.

And how noble the judge’s decision was to consider leniency.

Before finding ‘the king’ guilty.

‘The king’ wasn’t sure what he was ‘king’ of anymore.

He just wanted to know what he did…
***

He gets leveled with an Osaka Spike Kick to the face by Michael James! He staggers towards the other side of the ring…

***

The taste gets smacked out of the king’s mouth. The recipient of another strike from one of the revolutionary guards.

“Didn’t want to miss out on a new experience. Never struck a dead man across the face before.”

The king spat. He struggles against the grip of the other two guards as one pulls his hair and the other forces him to his knees.

The young man drops close to take one last look at a dying man. In the face of this fifteen year old boy, wearing armor, playing a game, he saw scorn. Hatred. Absolute loathing.

It was powerful.

Made him fall all warm inside.

He stared into the young imbecile’s eyes and saw a glint of something. Behind that false taught hatred? The one that was a better speaker's, deeply planted into his skull?

A cowardly wretch. The kind that only creeps out of its hole when it has two equals to overpower whatever they want to stand against.

That glance at his compatriot’s grip on the king’s shoulders to ensure he’s held down. That nod before the strike to ensure no possible ramifications for his actions.

Disgusting.

The guard’s eyes tighten. His hand reels back…

***

CRACK!

Neonero drops Flynn by smashing a large fluorescent light tube directly into his face. A cloud of gas from the broken tube fills the ringside area while Flynn lies motionless in the middle of the ring. After Neonero receives a huge “HOLY SHIT!” pop from the audience Michael James reaches down easily takes the XWF European Championship from Flynn’s lifeless grip. He calls out to Neonero in some sort of foreign language. Michael James tosses the European Championship to Neonero. While the new champion begins to celebrate his victory, James helps Randall Cross make it back to his feet. A few seconds after Neonero’s music is heard on the sound system, Randall calls out to the time keeper for a microphone.

***

The king collapsed on the way to the gallows. He’d been forced to stand in that hole for three weeks it turned out.

Apparently the revolutionaries were right.

He was getting soft. He used to do four for fun.

Regardless, he’d been forced to his feet, to stand for his crimes and face execution in front of his people. The deck he’d been standing on was of poor craftsmanship. The wood was rotted. The frame wobbled as he stepped heavily and exhausted across the boards. As he stepped on the trap door, he felt certain it was slowly going down from the weight…

It was a shamefully unstable base for a hanging.

Fortunately for the king, he didn’t really care whether the location of his death would be a landmark or a cesspool. He had used this life and felt he was just about done with it…

He just wanted to hear his crimes. Just what he had done wrong… The eulogy he’d provided so many others…

And he’d leave this mortal coil satisfied.

Horns blare out to draw attention to center stage. Despite the new government’s ‘purity’ in its representation of the people, they were as slaves to fashion and appearances as every government before them.

***

Randall Cross: Cut that s(CENSORED)! Cut it! Cut the music!

The music cuts out and Randall casually approaches Mark Flynn. He looks down at the beaten and bloodied former champion.

***

“Wait, why do I need to be executed?”

“Well, ‘cuz.”

“Cuz why?”

“Cuz you’re the bad guy.”

“Good guys aren't suppoed to execute people.”

“They do when they’re super evil. And you’re like super evil. And you’ll do it again.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“But you’ll do it again. So, you have to be executed.”

***
A man stood by the death and stage, gaunt and thin, dressed like a clown. A scroll in his hand.

“Mad King Phillip du Kashian, be it known that you have…”

A boy sat at the top of the structure and began feeding rope down to the stage. The king watched the noose drop slowly like an anaconda just below his neck. He considered a nibble to test its durability.

The king came to focus his eyes on the pathetic clown leading this procession. At last, he’d get a celebration of his crimes…

“…for your willful commission of crimes against the people that include.”

***

Randall Cross: Te… f… Ra… Cr…

Flynn blinks, failing to hear anything. That spike kick must have knocked him deaf…

After Randall motions to both men, James and Neonero drag Mark to his feet.
***
“What?”

Words rolled out of the king’s mouth. He had learned not to speak. Every time he opened his mouth, he was struck. The muscles in his throat struggled back to function as he tried to out-scream a colony of screeching mindless ants.

The man glanced over at the king, bleeding from the skull from his earlier assault. And immediately regretted it.

He stared straight down at the page, reading as quickly as he could, but the volume of the crowd overcame his voice. All screaming for blood. None of them hearing the reason. Not even the man at the gallows.

“WHAT?!? WHAT DID I DO?!?” The king cried again, his voice cracking from pain. Two soldiers dragged him forward and wrapped the noose around his neck.

***

“Okay, so I’m executed. Can we play something else now?”

“What? No. We can’t just say you’re executed. We have to execute you.”

“That doesn’t sound fun.”

“It shouldn’t be. Otherwise everyone would want to be the bad guy.”

"I never wanted to be the bad guy!"

"That's what they all say."

"Bu-"

"We can't play anything else until we finish this game!"

“…Okay… I guess… How do we execute me?”

“Um... OH! I have an idea!”

***

The jester rolls the scroll up and moves to the side to the lever.

“I WANT TO KNOW MY CRIMES!” He spits a mouthful of blood into the crowd, red still streaking down from his face from his pre-farewell celebration with those three cowards.

“I WAN-“ A guard reaches over his skull and yanks his hair back, displaying his dying minute like a magic trick to the screaming elated crowd…

***

They hold up his lifeless body and reveal his bloody crimson mask to the audience. Randall lands a winding hook into Flynn’s jaw causing blood from his mouth to fling onto the canvas. Cross back up a few feet and winds up his arm. He lunges at Flynn and knocks him back by slamming the microphone into his head causing a loud “BOOM!” sound to echo throughout the arena. Neonero calls out to Cross and they change positions. Neonero removes the European Championship from his shoulder and grips the face plate. He charges at Flynn and drops him by slamming the title into his forehead. Neonero holds up the championship to reveal a large spot of Flynn’s blood on the face plate.

***

“OW! GET OFF!”

“Stop being a baby! It’s just a blindfold!”

“IT STILL HURTS! STOP!”

“THERE! I PUT IT ON! RELAX!”

“…”

***

Michael James walks towards the edge of the ring and calls out towards the crowd in Japanese. From individual spots in the audience, several different Japanese men dressed in black clothing and dark sunglasses jump the ringside barrier. Two of the men approach the ring steps and lift them up to reveal them to be nothing more than a hollow plastic cover made to look identical to steel.

***

An engineer examines the sturdiness of the ropes. Apparently, the guard predicted the king’s personal bite-based stress test, which is why the men refused to release his hair until the check was complete. His eyes desperately scanned the crowd, looking for some semblance of reason. Some ghost to explain his fate.

A sage once told the king when you die, you see all those you’ve wronged and lament your sins.

The king expected to see quite a few people. A small legion in fact.

He was prepared to meet the monarch before him that he ambushed and stabbed through the chest. The monarch survived the blade and struck back, but the last battle ended with the ‘Mad King’ victorious.

Or the musically inclined Italian lord he impersonated to re-enter these lands.

Or the Russian Circus Performer he touted as an invincible warrior he sent into battle to be quickly decimated as a sacrificial lamb.

The young general whose dreams he crushed as he swept through the battlefield and crushed their armies in ambush.

The lives he’s ended. The careers he’s ruined. The superior officers he’s disobeyed. A dog he forgot he feed once.

Anything.

But all he saw was a crowd, screaming for his blood.

For a crime no one would tell him.

It’s a long list of wrongs… He just wanted to hear one…

The jester who apparently knew his crimes, fingers the lever as he waits for approval from someone the king might not even know…

And the people…

For just a moment…

Stop…

And Listen…

***

“Any last words?”

“What?”

“That’s what people say to people getting executed."

“Um... what do I say?”

"I unno. Any last words?”

***

They toss the steps aside and reveal an assortment of items. They toss a large box of fluorescent light tubes into the ring. James begins to pummel Mark Flynn with repeated punches to the head while Neonero opens the box. Neonero places five of the fluorescent light tubes on the canvas.

***

“I gue-“

“That’s what they all say!”

A shove…

***

The king’s only regret…

Was that he didn’t know what to regret.

Stupid, really. It all was.

The lever clicked.

And the door under him opened...

***

With smoke from the glass filling the air, James and Neonero lift Flynn up in a press position…

***

“Ahhhhh...”

Splash.

The creek was cold…

***

Flynn’s last thought…

How…

***

Utterly Meaningless it all is…

As gravity pulled the king’s noose tight…

***

Stupid… Phillip thought as he pulled himself from the riverbed. The older child already running home, bored with his game…

Stupid...

***

The audience pops with another “HOLY SHIT!” chant while smoke and gas from the broken glass begins to spread towards the audience.

Flynn… plummeted like Icarus from the sky…

Lying across broken glass… Bleeding like a stuck pig…

The only sound he can hear is the voices… Echoing his last thoughts…

Forcing him to acknowledge it…

Utterly Meaningless…

Utterly Meaningless…