Post by Rated R on Mar 16, 2014 4:50:34 GMT -5
Knocking, continuous, unending, shouts and screams. Almost feels like she’s knocking at his very soul. But no, not his soul, simply the bathroom door. Though the pain in his head is the same when it’s all said and done.
Emily Hall: Trace! Trace get her out of the damn bathroom!
They think he made a mistake letting her stay, but he doesn’t make mistakes, it’s not his nature. Last mistake he made almost cost him everything – Alexa, his health, his career… no, he’s not in the habit of making mistakes anymore. It’s a good thing he’s smart enough to make that claim a truth, not everybody has that luxury. That’s a shame really, for them anyway.
Emily Hall: For f**k’s sake!
Trace hears the pounding of feet on the stairs long before she makes her entrance, and he tries hard to remember that this was the right decision, that in this rare act of kindness he is doing something pure. That’s a difficult thing to remember however when a seventeen year old girl is screaming at you the moment she storms into his office, interrupting the precious time he has set aside to scouting out his Superbrawl opponents.
Emily Hall: Will you do something about your precious house guest? She’s been in that shower for twenty minutes!
He manages to avoid thinking about why a nineteen year old girl would be in the shower for twenty minutes, for the most part anyway, and turns his attention away from the five separate monitors he’s got set up, each one showing different matches or highlight videos. The average man wouldn’t be able to follow each match, let alone take notes and formulate strategies from them, but Trace Demon was not your average man, though whether that could be considered a good thing was most definitely up for debate.
Trace Demon: Just chill out, it’s not like you’re going anywhere.
Emily Hall: I’ll have you know I’ve got a date, which is why I need to use the bloody shower!
Trace Demon: You’ve got a date? You, little miss heartbreak, has a date? The girl who spent a month avoiding leaving the house except for school has an actual date with an actual human being?
Emily Hall: Shut up.
Trace Demon: Seriously, I’m interested.
It’s hard to tell if he’s serious about anything when every word he says is tinged with undertones of sarcasm.
Emily Hall: Her name’s Lexi, and she works in Starbucks.
Trace Demon: Her? Wait, you’re telling me you’re gay?
Emily Hall: Can we please drop the joke where you pretend not to know, it wasn’t funny the first dozen times you used it and it’s certainly not funny on the hundredth and fifth time.
Trace Demon: Okay one, it’s really sad if you’ve counted. Two, it’s a good joke and it gets a lot of laughs whenever I use it in the office. Not sure if they’re laughing for real or if it’s because they’re scared of me, but I digress. And three, she works at Starbucks?
Emily Hall: What’s wrong with Starbucks?
Trace Demon: I’m not even going to grace that with an answer.
For a man like Trace Demon, who only accepts that coffee should be taken black with one sugar, Starbucks was everything that’s wrong with the modern world of capitalization and commercialization. He of course ignored the fact that, being a businessman, he was part of that world and instead hung on to the belief that he was still an anarchist even if he’d long since lost that edge.
Emily Hall: Just get her out of the shower.
Trace Demon: Can’t you even try to get along with her, she’s not going anywhere.
Emily Hall: Yeah, you made that perfectly clear when you told her she could move in. Just because you’ve got some weird paternal instinct going on doesn’t mean I’ve got to like whatever stray you bring into the house.
He had expected Alexa to be the difficult one to convince, but she’d been relatively accepting of having a nineteen year old runaway move into their spare room. It likely had something to do with him letting the sexually abusive father out of the old bag, the moment he’d dropped that into the argument she’d softened. It of course helped that as crazy and unpredictable he was Alexa trusted him wholly. Emily on the other hand had found just about every problem she could. This was just the latest in her crusade to be a rebellious teen.
Trace Demon: Give her a chance, just because she’d different doesn’t make her bad, just because you don’t like her attitude doesn’t make her your enemy.
Emily Hall: No, it just makes a shower hogging pain in my ass. And I’m sure you won’t be preaching about cooperation when your turning your back on all these idiots teaming with you.
Trace Demon: You… have a mildly accurate point, but it doesn’t take away from the grandiose nature of my good deed, nor does it take away from the point I’m trying to make.
Emily Hall: If she doesn’t get out of that shower in five minutes I will storm in there and strangle her with the shower hose, you got me?
As she storms off back upstairs Trace can think of only one thing. Where in the world did she get her temper from?
< *** >
One Week Earlier
She’d turned up at his doorstep without any kind of warning. Okay, not his doorstep exactly, rather she’d broken into his house and nearly gotten her head caved in by his baseball bat wielding step-sister. Certainly not the smoothest of entrances but he’d never been one for doing things smoothly, why should he expect anyone else to do the same?
Trace Demon: How’s the head?
Caitlyn Lucia: It’s f*****g painful, obviously.
He’d met her in the desert basically, just standing there on the side of the road. He wasn’t in the habit of picking up strays but he was bored and needed something to make the long car ride back that little bit more interesting and she seemed like the ticket. In the end they’d bonded, he’d told her about his twisted nature and she about her abusive step-father before she stole his car and his wallet. He’d seen it coming, leaving her a note with his address on and a simple message that when she needed it, he’d be there to help. Those who didn’t know him all that well would claim it wasn’t like him but those who did, like Emily and Alexa, knew that he was always hard to predict and they weren’t going to start trying to work him out now.
Caitlyn Lucia: That girl’s got a bloody swing on her.
Trace Demon: Yeah well, Emily’s family, we’re all a bit heavy handed when we want to be. Runs in the blood.
Both theirs and those whose blood they spill.
Trace Demon: So, you want to tell me why you showed up now? Gave you my details a month back now and you’re only just taking me up on my offer?
She shifts in her seat uncomfortably, unsure what to tell him. He had witnessed first-hand that there was a vulnerability to her beneath the attitude and the red hoodie and as hard as she tried to hide it from him she couldn’t, he saw through her like she wasn’t even there to begin with.
Trace Demon: Either you tell me or you’re done here, you can go back to whatever mess you’ve come from. I want to help you, wouldn’t have given you my address otherwise, but I’m not having you here if you can’t be the littlest bit honest with me.
Caitlyn Lucia: I drove out to Chicago-
Trace Demon: In my car.
Caitlyn Lucia: Yeah, in your car, sorry about that, kind of broke down just outside Chicago so I don’t think you’re getting it back now. Anyway, like I said, I headed out to Chicago because I’ve got an aunt out there, I was gonna stay with her for a while until mom dumped that bunghole. But then they found me, I think my aunt called mom… b***h couldn’t keep her mouth shut.
Trace Demon: He came looking for you?
She gives a little nod.
Caitlyn Lucia: Tried dragging me back home, but no way am I going back there, not with him. So I ran again, and I thought about the one place that he’d never come looking for me. In a strangers house in Los Angeles, that stranger just so happening to be you.
Trace Demon: So what’re we talking, you’re looking for protection from your step-father, someone to make sure he can’t get to you, that it?
Caitlyn Lucia: I’m just looking for a fresh start.
Trace Demon: Well that my girl is very much the right answer.
She looks at him and finds him smiling, an honest to god smile this time, not one of those snarky underhanded smiles she’d seen him give half a dozen times when they were in that car together.
Trace Demon: I’m not here to play protector, not to anybody. Alexa, Emily, they both know how to handle themselves, they’d never come running to me if they had a real problem. Eliza, when she’s grown and kicking ass then she’ll be the same. Now don’t get me wrong, if anyone close to me needed my help then I’d be there no question, but if they ever do I know it’s serious, it’s something they couldn’t do on their own because they are in control of their own lives. You stay here, you’ve got to be the same, I told you to come here because I saw something in you, you could be somebody, but I’m no babysitter.
Caitlyn Lucia: I don’t need protecting.
Trace Demon: I know. We’ve got a spare room upstairs, get whatever stuff you’ve got with you and chuck it in there. The rules of the house are simple, don’t bring trouble to it… that’s about it.
Caitlyn Lucia: So you’re letting me stay, just like that, you’re not even going to ask your girlfriend or your sister.
Trace Demon: One thing you’ll have to learn, I don’t ask, I decide. I know what’s best.
Caitlyn Lucia: Little bit arrogant there, don’t you think.
Trace Demon: Arrogant? I’m not arrogant red hood, I just know how damn good I really am.
< *** >
Jason Anders: She’s good at this, if you haven’t figured that out by now.
Trace Demon: I had, but thanks for pointing out the obvious.
The pair stands beside Trace’s car in the parking lot of the WFWF’s official headquarters, a large unspectacular building on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Trace looks up towards the clear blue sky as he takes a drag on the cigarette between his lips. He exhales, watching the smoke drift off into the ether.
Jason Anders: I don’t know what else needs to happen before you stop trying to provoke her, you’re not making things easy here.
Trace Demon: How dare you accuse me of provoking anybody, I’m just going about my business, she’s the one who’s got it out for me.
It’s hard to tell whether even he believes that, of course with the delusions of grandeur that he undeniably suffers from its very likely that in his mind he’s the victim in this little game he has going with Lila Sleater.
Jason Anders: Stop interrupting her every chance you get, stop trying to make decisions just because you know it’ll antagonise her and for god’s sake stop wearing a hat around the office that says Lila Sleater sucks on it.
Trace Demon: You don’t like my hat?
Jason Anders: The fact that that is what you’ve taken from this is deeply worrying to someone who is deeply involved with your legal matters.
Trace chuckles, patting Anders on the back just that little bit too hard and taking another drag of the cigarette.
Trace Demon: You have got to chill out Anders, I know what I’m doing and if my actions ruffle a few feathers then I know I’m onto a good time, and you’ve got to have a good time when you’re living on borrowed time.
Jason Anders: What are you talking about?
Trace Demon: We both know I’m not going to be running this place forever, the WFWF is a revolving door of owners, bookers and wrestlers and that’s never gonna change. People turn on you on the flip of a coin, unable to see the good you’re doing for them. And I’m not one for overstaying my welcome, when my time comes I’ll walk out that door and I won’t ever look back.
Jason Anders: You’ve been here for how long now Trace, eight years? Don’t think I’m questioning you or anything but I’ve got the slightest feeling you’re full of s**t.
Trace nearly loses it there and then, with laughter, not violence as you would expect from him. It’s not often anyone, let alone a weasel of a man like Jason Anders has the balls to speak to him like that. Can’t say he likes it too much but it’s certainly amusing.
Trace Demon: My times just that bit longer than everybody else’s is all, eight years though man… eight years is a long time to be in one place. When I started all I had was a drug addiction and some questionable issues with reality. Now I’ve got a family, money, success, hell I’ve got everything. You’d think that’d mean I’d grown, but I’m still unable to enter a tag team match without wanting to turn on my partner and make a big flashy show of it. As long as I’m doing this I don’t think that’s ever going to change. There’s no trust in the ring Anders, you’ve got be a cocky son of a b***h to succeed in there, can’t be friends with anyone, hard to turn that off outside of it.
Jason Anders: Hence the hat?
Trace tips the front of his custom baseball cap to Anders. He refused to take it off when they left the building.
Trace Demon: Hence the hat.
Jason Anders: Lila’s not here to try ruining you Trace, as much as we thought that was the case, maybe if you try working with her you can actually do something big.
Trace Demon: Jason my boy-
Fully ignoring the fact that Anders is fifteen years older than him there.
Trace Demon: Turns out teamwork just isn’t my bag.
He takes a final drag and then stubs the cigarette out with his boot. He savoured it for what it was; he limited himself to one a month nowadays, just to remind himself that the bad could so often feel oh so good.
Trace Demon: Now you coming back in, I haven’t shown my hat off to the marketing guys yet, maybe they’ll want to make a big product line out of them.
Jason Anders: I’m going to say out here for a bit longer, that office gets clammy ever since you threw that photo frame at the air conditioning unit.
Trace Demon: What can I say, I get agitated when the Maple Leafs play. Just don’t enjoy the fresh air too much, air conditioning repair guy isn’t coming for another two weeks, not after the last one… well, we all know what happens when you insult my hat now, so that was a learning experience.
Trace again tips the cap to him and heads back off towards the office. Jason Anders watches him go and pulls out his phone, quickly typing out an e-mail to the one and only Lila Sleater – thought about the offer yet?
Emily Hall: Trace! Trace get her out of the damn bathroom!
They think he made a mistake letting her stay, but he doesn’t make mistakes, it’s not his nature. Last mistake he made almost cost him everything – Alexa, his health, his career… no, he’s not in the habit of making mistakes anymore. It’s a good thing he’s smart enough to make that claim a truth, not everybody has that luxury. That’s a shame really, for them anyway.
Emily Hall: For f**k’s sake!
Trace hears the pounding of feet on the stairs long before she makes her entrance, and he tries hard to remember that this was the right decision, that in this rare act of kindness he is doing something pure. That’s a difficult thing to remember however when a seventeen year old girl is screaming at you the moment she storms into his office, interrupting the precious time he has set aside to scouting out his Superbrawl opponents.
Emily Hall: Will you do something about your precious house guest? She’s been in that shower for twenty minutes!
He manages to avoid thinking about why a nineteen year old girl would be in the shower for twenty minutes, for the most part anyway, and turns his attention away from the five separate monitors he’s got set up, each one showing different matches or highlight videos. The average man wouldn’t be able to follow each match, let alone take notes and formulate strategies from them, but Trace Demon was not your average man, though whether that could be considered a good thing was most definitely up for debate.
Trace Demon: Just chill out, it’s not like you’re going anywhere.
Emily Hall: I’ll have you know I’ve got a date, which is why I need to use the bloody shower!
Trace Demon: You’ve got a date? You, little miss heartbreak, has a date? The girl who spent a month avoiding leaving the house except for school has an actual date with an actual human being?
Emily Hall: Shut up.
Trace Demon: Seriously, I’m interested.
It’s hard to tell if he’s serious about anything when every word he says is tinged with undertones of sarcasm.
Emily Hall: Her name’s Lexi, and she works in Starbucks.
Trace Demon: Her? Wait, you’re telling me you’re gay?
Emily Hall: Can we please drop the joke where you pretend not to know, it wasn’t funny the first dozen times you used it and it’s certainly not funny on the hundredth and fifth time.
Trace Demon: Okay one, it’s really sad if you’ve counted. Two, it’s a good joke and it gets a lot of laughs whenever I use it in the office. Not sure if they’re laughing for real or if it’s because they’re scared of me, but I digress. And three, she works at Starbucks?
Emily Hall: What’s wrong with Starbucks?
Trace Demon: I’m not even going to grace that with an answer.
For a man like Trace Demon, who only accepts that coffee should be taken black with one sugar, Starbucks was everything that’s wrong with the modern world of capitalization and commercialization. He of course ignored the fact that, being a businessman, he was part of that world and instead hung on to the belief that he was still an anarchist even if he’d long since lost that edge.
Emily Hall: Just get her out of the shower.
Trace Demon: Can’t you even try to get along with her, she’s not going anywhere.
Emily Hall: Yeah, you made that perfectly clear when you told her she could move in. Just because you’ve got some weird paternal instinct going on doesn’t mean I’ve got to like whatever stray you bring into the house.
He had expected Alexa to be the difficult one to convince, but she’d been relatively accepting of having a nineteen year old runaway move into their spare room. It likely had something to do with him letting the sexually abusive father out of the old bag, the moment he’d dropped that into the argument she’d softened. It of course helped that as crazy and unpredictable he was Alexa trusted him wholly. Emily on the other hand had found just about every problem she could. This was just the latest in her crusade to be a rebellious teen.
Trace Demon: Give her a chance, just because she’d different doesn’t make her bad, just because you don’t like her attitude doesn’t make her your enemy.
Emily Hall: No, it just makes a shower hogging pain in my ass. And I’m sure you won’t be preaching about cooperation when your turning your back on all these idiots teaming with you.
Trace Demon: You… have a mildly accurate point, but it doesn’t take away from the grandiose nature of my good deed, nor does it take away from the point I’m trying to make.
Emily Hall: If she doesn’t get out of that shower in five minutes I will storm in there and strangle her with the shower hose, you got me?
As she storms off back upstairs Trace can think of only one thing. Where in the world did she get her temper from?
< *** >
One Week Earlier
She’d turned up at his doorstep without any kind of warning. Okay, not his doorstep exactly, rather she’d broken into his house and nearly gotten her head caved in by his baseball bat wielding step-sister. Certainly not the smoothest of entrances but he’d never been one for doing things smoothly, why should he expect anyone else to do the same?
Trace Demon: How’s the head?
Caitlyn Lucia: It’s f*****g painful, obviously.
He’d met her in the desert basically, just standing there on the side of the road. He wasn’t in the habit of picking up strays but he was bored and needed something to make the long car ride back that little bit more interesting and she seemed like the ticket. In the end they’d bonded, he’d told her about his twisted nature and she about her abusive step-father before she stole his car and his wallet. He’d seen it coming, leaving her a note with his address on and a simple message that when she needed it, he’d be there to help. Those who didn’t know him all that well would claim it wasn’t like him but those who did, like Emily and Alexa, knew that he was always hard to predict and they weren’t going to start trying to work him out now.
Caitlyn Lucia: That girl’s got a bloody swing on her.
Trace Demon: Yeah well, Emily’s family, we’re all a bit heavy handed when we want to be. Runs in the blood.
Both theirs and those whose blood they spill.
Trace Demon: So, you want to tell me why you showed up now? Gave you my details a month back now and you’re only just taking me up on my offer?
She shifts in her seat uncomfortably, unsure what to tell him. He had witnessed first-hand that there was a vulnerability to her beneath the attitude and the red hoodie and as hard as she tried to hide it from him she couldn’t, he saw through her like she wasn’t even there to begin with.
Trace Demon: Either you tell me or you’re done here, you can go back to whatever mess you’ve come from. I want to help you, wouldn’t have given you my address otherwise, but I’m not having you here if you can’t be the littlest bit honest with me.
Caitlyn Lucia: I drove out to Chicago-
Trace Demon: In my car.
Caitlyn Lucia: Yeah, in your car, sorry about that, kind of broke down just outside Chicago so I don’t think you’re getting it back now. Anyway, like I said, I headed out to Chicago because I’ve got an aunt out there, I was gonna stay with her for a while until mom dumped that bunghole. But then they found me, I think my aunt called mom… b***h couldn’t keep her mouth shut.
Trace Demon: He came looking for you?
She gives a little nod.
Caitlyn Lucia: Tried dragging me back home, but no way am I going back there, not with him. So I ran again, and I thought about the one place that he’d never come looking for me. In a strangers house in Los Angeles, that stranger just so happening to be you.
Trace Demon: So what’re we talking, you’re looking for protection from your step-father, someone to make sure he can’t get to you, that it?
Caitlyn Lucia: I’m just looking for a fresh start.
Trace Demon: Well that my girl is very much the right answer.
She looks at him and finds him smiling, an honest to god smile this time, not one of those snarky underhanded smiles she’d seen him give half a dozen times when they were in that car together.
Trace Demon: I’m not here to play protector, not to anybody. Alexa, Emily, they both know how to handle themselves, they’d never come running to me if they had a real problem. Eliza, when she’s grown and kicking ass then she’ll be the same. Now don’t get me wrong, if anyone close to me needed my help then I’d be there no question, but if they ever do I know it’s serious, it’s something they couldn’t do on their own because they are in control of their own lives. You stay here, you’ve got to be the same, I told you to come here because I saw something in you, you could be somebody, but I’m no babysitter.
Caitlyn Lucia: I don’t need protecting.
Trace Demon: I know. We’ve got a spare room upstairs, get whatever stuff you’ve got with you and chuck it in there. The rules of the house are simple, don’t bring trouble to it… that’s about it.
Caitlyn Lucia: So you’re letting me stay, just like that, you’re not even going to ask your girlfriend or your sister.
Trace Demon: One thing you’ll have to learn, I don’t ask, I decide. I know what’s best.
Caitlyn Lucia: Little bit arrogant there, don’t you think.
Trace Demon: Arrogant? I’m not arrogant red hood, I just know how damn good I really am.
< *** >
Jason Anders: She’s good at this, if you haven’t figured that out by now.
Trace Demon: I had, but thanks for pointing out the obvious.
The pair stands beside Trace’s car in the parking lot of the WFWF’s official headquarters, a large unspectacular building on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Trace looks up towards the clear blue sky as he takes a drag on the cigarette between his lips. He exhales, watching the smoke drift off into the ether.
Jason Anders: I don’t know what else needs to happen before you stop trying to provoke her, you’re not making things easy here.
Trace Demon: How dare you accuse me of provoking anybody, I’m just going about my business, she’s the one who’s got it out for me.
It’s hard to tell whether even he believes that, of course with the delusions of grandeur that he undeniably suffers from its very likely that in his mind he’s the victim in this little game he has going with Lila Sleater.
Jason Anders: Stop interrupting her every chance you get, stop trying to make decisions just because you know it’ll antagonise her and for god’s sake stop wearing a hat around the office that says Lila Sleater sucks on it.
Trace Demon: You don’t like my hat?
Jason Anders: The fact that that is what you’ve taken from this is deeply worrying to someone who is deeply involved with your legal matters.
Trace chuckles, patting Anders on the back just that little bit too hard and taking another drag of the cigarette.
Trace Demon: You have got to chill out Anders, I know what I’m doing and if my actions ruffle a few feathers then I know I’m onto a good time, and you’ve got to have a good time when you’re living on borrowed time.
Jason Anders: What are you talking about?
Trace Demon: We both know I’m not going to be running this place forever, the WFWF is a revolving door of owners, bookers and wrestlers and that’s never gonna change. People turn on you on the flip of a coin, unable to see the good you’re doing for them. And I’m not one for overstaying my welcome, when my time comes I’ll walk out that door and I won’t ever look back.
Jason Anders: You’ve been here for how long now Trace, eight years? Don’t think I’m questioning you or anything but I’ve got the slightest feeling you’re full of s**t.
Trace nearly loses it there and then, with laughter, not violence as you would expect from him. It’s not often anyone, let alone a weasel of a man like Jason Anders has the balls to speak to him like that. Can’t say he likes it too much but it’s certainly amusing.
Trace Demon: My times just that bit longer than everybody else’s is all, eight years though man… eight years is a long time to be in one place. When I started all I had was a drug addiction and some questionable issues with reality. Now I’ve got a family, money, success, hell I’ve got everything. You’d think that’d mean I’d grown, but I’m still unable to enter a tag team match without wanting to turn on my partner and make a big flashy show of it. As long as I’m doing this I don’t think that’s ever going to change. There’s no trust in the ring Anders, you’ve got be a cocky son of a b***h to succeed in there, can’t be friends with anyone, hard to turn that off outside of it.
Jason Anders: Hence the hat?
Trace tips the front of his custom baseball cap to Anders. He refused to take it off when they left the building.
Trace Demon: Hence the hat.
Jason Anders: Lila’s not here to try ruining you Trace, as much as we thought that was the case, maybe if you try working with her you can actually do something big.
Trace Demon: Jason my boy-
Fully ignoring the fact that Anders is fifteen years older than him there.
Trace Demon: Turns out teamwork just isn’t my bag.
He takes a final drag and then stubs the cigarette out with his boot. He savoured it for what it was; he limited himself to one a month nowadays, just to remind himself that the bad could so often feel oh so good.
Trace Demon: Now you coming back in, I haven’t shown my hat off to the marketing guys yet, maybe they’ll want to make a big product line out of them.
Jason Anders: I’m going to say out here for a bit longer, that office gets clammy ever since you threw that photo frame at the air conditioning unit.
Trace Demon: What can I say, I get agitated when the Maple Leafs play. Just don’t enjoy the fresh air too much, air conditioning repair guy isn’t coming for another two weeks, not after the last one… well, we all know what happens when you insult my hat now, so that was a learning experience.
Trace again tips the cap to him and heads back off towards the office. Jason Anders watches him go and pulls out his phone, quickly typing out an e-mail to the one and only Lila Sleater – thought about the offer yet?
Jason Anders: Sorry Trace, but you’re right, teamwork isn’t your bag at all.
< *** >
Here I stand, this same place once again. Forced to work with men I can barely even tolerate in order to stand victorious. It’s almost become a cliché at this point to throw a man like me, notorious for his inability to play well with others, into this kind of situation. I get it, everybody denies it but they all really want to see a car wreck once in their life and this… this is the safest way to do it. Good for you all I guess but don’t you ever feel guilty? Don’t you see what you’ve done? You’ve put not one, not two but seven men in danger just to see me do what I do best. Because we all know that’s what’s going down here, you’ve not come to watch me team with three of my opponents at Superbrawl, you’ve come in the hopes that I will destroy them before we even get there. Well guess what, you might just get your wish.
Now I could stand here and talk about my team mates for hours. I could stand here and talk about my opponents for just as long. But this match, it’s not really about any of them, this match isn’t about the men who I’ll beat at Superbrawl and it isn’t about the men that have been fed to us in order to make us look good before the big night. No, this match is about me, more importantly, it’s about trying to punish me. That might sound arrogant, but it’s not arrogance when it’s true. You all saw Revolution, you all saw Lila Sleater make this match with vitriol and vindication in her voice, you all saw the pleasure she took in forcing me into the ring with men determined to tear this title from its rightful place around my wait. If that’s how she gets her kicks then so be it, I’m not one to stop a woman getting off, hell it’s one of the things I do best. But when that comes at the detriment of other men’s health… well some might say a succubus has to be slain before she brings down a kingdom.
Now some might also say that I’m getting ahead of myself by claiming that it is everybody else who is in danger when the truth is, at least in their eyes, that I am the one who should be fearful. It’s no secret that I’ve made some enemies and it’s no secret that a lot of them are in this eight man tag team match. Shawn Malakai, Crow, Mak Cross, Cam Nitta, I’m not particularly fond of any of you and I expect you feel the same way about me. Thunder, we work well together and you’re the only person on this team other than myself that I can even partially rely on to do any kind of work. Devilkiller and Dex… well actually I don’t have any strong feelings about either of you beyond how ridiculous your names are and how weird I find the two of you. Which, coming from me, makes you pretty damn weird. But here’s the thing, here’s how I know that I am not the one in danger here despite the numbers being pitted against me in whatever conspiracy you want to put this in.
I’m simply better than all of you. You can call me the best in the world if you want, you can call me an all-time great if you feel like it or you can simply accept me as a grand slam champion. None of that matters. All that matters is that I know I am the best damn thing in the WFWF today and more than that I am an expert in outthinking every single one of you. So you’re all gonna come into this match thinking it’s a chance for you to put the champion out of action and make things easier come Superbrawl but the truth is I’ve already got plans to deal with each and every one of you. It doesn’t matter if it’s one man or seven, I know how to beat you all in the ring and in your mind and I will have no problem doing exactly that come Revolution. So as the clock ticks down to Superbrawl what you need to start thinking about isn’t how you beat a king, it isn’t even how you defeat a champion… it’s simply about one thing.
How do you survive… when the devil comes-a-calling?
