Post by stratford on Jun 29, 2020 18:01:44 GMT -5
...moments following the Ultimate X 4 Way Match at Highway2Hell...
The Protagonist smirked to himself, looking back down the ramp at the Ultimate X ring setup behind him, briefcase in hand, destruction all around him.
The way things transpired, it could be said that The Protagonist was fortunate. One man held the briefcase, but slipped. Another man unwittingly pulled The Protagonist to the canvas to ensure his victory.
Fortune?
Nah.
A smart player knows how the play the cards he has been dealt. You can’t control the cards that come from the dealer’s hand, but you can control the table, your emotion, your reaction, the way you ensure all of the pieces fall into place, just the way you planned them. Whether you got a royal flush or you bluffed your way through with a two and seven, so long as you collect the chips, who cares?
That baseball bat nailed Daniel Holiday square on the chin, bullseye and a home run in one go.
There was no fortune about it.
As Holiday remained slumped to his knees in the ring, trying to figure out where it all went wrong, The Protagonist’s smirk became a wide, sparkling grin. He knew that in less than an hour, he would see the outcome of the main event and his next steps could be planned.
As predicted, the Wolf family made a mockery of the Immortal Championship, and it would not even be defended. The Protagonist knew that this was a ruse all along to keep the power in the hands of a Wolf, he hadn’t seen the exact outcome planned, but in his words, it was as see-through as Xavier’s personality, or Anicka’s goth cosplay. So it was no surprise, when the contract signing happened midweek, we got our curveball. Now he was just licking his lips in hopes of seeing them tear a few chunks out of each other at least.
In his right hand, the bound leather briefcase contained his contract, his ticket. By no means could they play tricks any more. As he ran a thick, rough finger across the cool metallic locking mechanism, he knew that the fuse had been lit. The cinders had been set alight. It was merely a matter of time before he tore apart the establishment, burnt it to the ground. Piece by piece, pawn by pawn.
As he closed his eyes to savor the moment, salty droplets of sweat ran from his forehead, down his face through the wrinkles in the corner of his eyes and into his bloodied lips. Mixed with the distinct copper taste, it was as good as the contract itself. Satisfaction in victory.
Everything was falling into place.
… friday 26th june, 0342am …
The Protagonist leaned back at his desk. He let a long, slow breath of air whistle between his front teeth. In a way, he was both upset and intrigued by what had transpired in the main event following his victory at Highway 2 Hell. There was nothing spontaneous about it, as far as he could fathom. It was premeditated to the last precise detail. It was calculated, and effective, the plan was in motion for those god forsaken Wolf morons to maintain power indefinitely, or so they hoped. Sure, they can move the pieces to different sides of the board, they can pretend to dislike each other, but its fucking clear. At least to The Protagonist, it was. Two sides of the same dirty coin.
He shifted uneasily in his seat. It wasn’t the duplicity that bothered him, it was something else.
As he leaned forward again, to his laptop, his digits began dancing gracefully over the faded keys of a bluetooth Mac keyboard that had clearly seen its share of use over time. In the reflection in his hazel, tired-looking eyes, it was clear that he was writing a document.
They are all complicit together. Swan, Wolf (X and V), Wright, Stylez, Riggs, Preston, Buchannan. One and the same. A game they play, at the expense of everyone else. We are supposed to remain suppressed, docile, medicated by the machine, monkeys to the organ grinder. Say nothing, do nothing except stand and cheer as the establishment continues to grow ever more powerful in perpetuity. Stop questioning, start cheering, do as you’re told. Work all your pathetic life for your three minutes of fame as they stand on your chest and bury you back where you came from. No longer shall I sleep like a gloved hand covers my eyes. Its time to wake up. I’ve been lost, I am lost, we are all lost.
But I have ambitions of my own, not to be lost in the shadow of the behemoth, so I will make my own moves, against the establishment, to end it all, to have something of my own to cherish, instead of watching longingly as the same people, over and over again, live the dreams that I deserve. So they must be taken out, no prisoners or passengers in my hunt for the biggest buck, no trace of remorse in the land where nobody gives a fuck…
About me.
He closed his eyes and let the words settle on the screen for a moment. The thoughts echoed around his his office, rebounding off the walls, filling the space around him with a sort of heat. He wasn’t going to sit idly by. The Protagonist thought about his words as he read them back to himself.
As the events of the main event of Highway 2 Hell ran through his mind again, to him it was clearer than ever - they’d taken a moment that should have been filled with great joy and entertainment for all, and tarnished it, turned it into a charade, a horse and pony show, and the biggest case of fuckin’ blue balls in living professional wrestling history. It was as profound a display of overt, gross power as he could imagine. It was provocative, they were lauding their superiority over the organization with wanton disregard for any sense of integrity.
The Protagonist lifted a hand to his forehead as if he suddenly felt feverish. He was not surprised to find sweat there. This was a threat to our existence in this industry as we known it. No different to a man with a gun or a knife and a sexual obsession. Or a drunk driver behind the wheel of a car accelerating down the highway carelessly. Or some insidious disease, eating you away from the inside.
The Protagonist rose from his chair and started pacing nervously around his laptop.
We fear losing the big one, we fear never getting a chance at the big one in the first place. But what is far worse that we fear is everything being torn apart and ruined.
His adversaries understood that often what truly threatens us and is hardest to combat is something that stems from within, the insecurity of never being able to truly ascend to the level because instead of building and building themselves higher and higher, they work solely and completely on building the glass ceiling below them.
He knew that single-handedly he needed to pull them apart at the seams, but he also knew that he would have to plot his moves carefully, as precisely and meticulously as they were planning theirs. For now, he was but an eyelash in the ointment. Barely on their radar. It was perfect if it stayed that way, because The Protagonist knew that the knockout punch is always the one that you don’t see coming.
He looked around his office, a place that he thought did much to define him, where he’d been comfortable and happy for the last decade. He wondered, in that second, whether it was all about to change and wondered if it suddenly was about to become ground zero for one of the largest seismic shifts in the neverending power struggle in Outlaw Pro Wrestling’s storied history. This place right here, the birthplace of the revolution.
Leaning over the back of his wicker chair, his fingers once again began their serenade of the keys, lightly clicking and moving in the dim light.
They’re worried, he wrote, I know it because they’ve started their campaign against me already.. Going for the ‘death by a thousand cuts’ method. They don’t want to give me the spotlight of a proper challenge, but one by one they plan to suffocate me with people like Kip Kutler, people who want to make a name from me. The very short introduction I have made for myself has been impactful, so from the bottom to the top, the brass have been read the riot act, told how to proceed with regards to me. Death by a thousand cuts.
He often jotted things down, one thing that we knew about the Protagonist is that he is not the kind of person who speaks off the cuff. He speaks carefully, deliberately, like somebody who has planned out every syllable that he utters, the cadence in which it will be spoken, the tone, intonation, so it stands to reason that he would jot his thoughts down in a diary of some type.
Momentarily, he stepped toward the window adjacent to his desk, and leaned a thick fist on the single pane. A ring of condensation emerged around the fist, belying the stress that The Protagonist currently felt. His office was a mess of papers, scribblings, drawings, scrawls really. To one side the pile of papers was somewhat neat, the other side was somewhat disorganized. He had been rummaging through them whilst trying to collect his thoughts.
Each moment spent focused on Kip Kutler is a moment where my eye isn’t on the ball with the establishment. The conjoined forces that stand atop this organization, that are manufacturing war to ensure nobody else comes close to their grip on OPW.
But the war will have to wait.
There is an asshole who wants a piece of me, and I’ll make sure he gets a piece of me.
He looked up from his arched position over the desk, eyes narrowed.
Fuck it.
They want to throw the distraction at me, and I’m sure a whole lot more is sure to come in the ensuing weeks, so I’ll make sure I give them a real show. Maybe they’ll think twice before feeding me another one of their little lambs.
I can be a Kutthroat killer, if I have to be.
Hope you ain’t vegetarians.
He seemed pleased with that. He flipped his laptop closed, zipped it up in its travel case and cleared his throat.
Despite it being the middle of the night, The Protagonist was on his way out somewhere. He was still dressed, he had his boots on, and before he slung his brown leather laptop bag over his shoulder, he put on his black leather jacket and strapped it closed across his abdomen.
The Protagonist slammed the door to his house shut behind him, the noise resounding in his ears. Keen from the lack of other noise in the city, it was almost dawn, and nothing could be heard anywhere else. The sound echoed around the narrow street, the dimly lit backstreet a block or so back from the riverfront. He frantically twisted the locks that he so infrequently used, double-bolting the entranceway. He pulled on the door handle, to make certain that these functioned correctly. Then, still uncertain that the locks alone were sufficient, he looked around to feel just secure enough that nobody had seen him leaving. One of the lights was on inside the property, hopefully that was enough to ensure nobody would be breaking into his house.
He set off into the cool morning air, exhaling thick condensation.
Showcase beckoned, the renaissance beckoned, the seismic shift in the political landscape of OPW fucking beckoned.
He gulped.
He was ready. Were they?