Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2007 13:00:38 GMT -5
For the first two days it was all screaming and cursing and fighting. The resistance, though futile, was necessary for Deville to maintain even the remotest hold on sanity. On himself. Disbelief would have flooded through his body, gifting him a few precious moments in which to doubt, but he could feel no body for it to flood through. There was no basis for denial or disbelief; the truth of the situation stared at him through eyes he no longer controlled, mocked him with a cutting voice that was no longer his. As much as Deville knew it was impossible, The Devil had taken over his body as easily as he had sneaked into his mind.
Pierce never saw it coming. The very idea of losing control of himself was such a foreign concept, such an absurd notion, that it never even occurred to him as a possibility. He had spent his entire life in complete command of himself, always doing what he wanted when he wanted, and he typically held control over several other people as well. When his father warned him that Satan might become more than a voice, begged him not to let it happen, Deville naturally assumed he was speaking in figurative terms. That he had to beware not to let The Devil's thoughts become confused with his own. For Satan to actually take him over completely . . .
To say the fear was paralyzing would be like saying the Grand Canyon is a little ditch. It didn't begin to accurately describe the sensation that saturated Deville's bleak emptiness. Floating in a sea of darkness, drowning in it, he didn't even have the capacity to be paralyzed. All of his control was already gone. He was nothing more than a specter in his own mind, a helpless spectator in his own life.
He couldn't even cry. When he tried, cold haunting laughter echoed back to him. The same emotionless cackling he himself had barked innumerous times when letting some unfortunate soul know they were screwed.
Two sleepless days of fighting to usurp power over his own pilfered body felt like an eternity passing in slow motion, with each and every millisecond standing out boldly, demanding to be counted. Deville cursed and screamed, challenged and insulted, but throughout it all The Devil stoically ignored him, going about Pierce's business as if he had every intention of living out Pierce's life. Without Pierce's input.
As far as The Devil was concerned, this was another lease on life. Not for Pierce, but for him. Pierce was all but dead to him. He wasn't living through Pierce, or as Pierce. He was living as himself, wearing Pierce as a suit.
He let that thought drift back to Deville from time to time, followed by a bout of laughter that continued so long in the same vein and pitch that Deville thought it must have been on a loop. Most of the time, Deville could pick and choose when he listened to what Satan was thinking, like tuning into a radio station, but when The Devil thought directly at him, his voice was all Deville could concentrate on. It consumed all else. The merciless barrage was omnipresent -- there was nothing except Satan's voice. While it went on, all thoughts and memories of Deville's existence fled.
The silence that followed struck him like whiplash whenever the direct thoughts cut off, the helpless feeling of non-existence echoing incessantly in the darkness. Every time it stopped and Pierce would become aware of himself again, he couldn't help but wonder if it would ever become permanent. If someday all he would be able to hear would be The Devil's thoughts, and his awareness of self would abandon him completely.
It's only happened twice, The Devil cut in, musing. And that was only because those two people couldn't accept reality. They struggled against my ownership of them with every fiber of their diminished being, refusing to accept the fact that they were no longer in control. In the end, they couldn't wrap themselves around the idea that they could exist without physically existing, so they stopped. Terrible end, that.
Transfixed by the idea, Deville couldn't help but respond. What do you mean they stopped existing? What happened to their souls?
Laughter rife with mirth was Pierce's only answer for a very long time. Don't you worry yourself about that, Satan finally said, dismissing the possibility of Deville winking out of being as unimportant. Like I said, it's only happened twice. A thoughtful hum filled Deville's consciousness. Though I have heard that these things usually happen in three’s.
So it went day in and day out, The Deville struggling to maintain some small hold on himself while The Devil taunted and teased him. The only respite from the lunacy came when Satan would settle Deville's body down for sleep. When Pierce felt surprised that The Devil needed sleep, he was pointedly told that it was a necessary evil to keep his "host" healthy. The Devil, he was haughtily informed, needed only his own magnificence to function. It was a weakness of the body, not him.
Yet when the body slept, The Devil must have too, because it was then and only then that Deville was alone in the darkness of his mind. Pierce couldn't imagine why he didn't drift into dreamland when Satan and his body slept, and it wasn't something he was going to waste time wondering about. It was his opportunity, perhaps his only one, to probe the unseen barrier locking him away from himself.
Every night, as soon as The Devil's ominous presence disappeared -- Deville knew exactly when it happened; it was as if a vice-grip clenched around his temples suddenly vanished -- Pierce would set diligently to work. Not that he had a lot of options to work with. Hour after hour he would focus himself entirely on just his index finger, trying to make it move, willing it to wiggle. It was like trying to wiggle a mountain. Underwater.
He never gave up, though. The fear of discovery and punishment shrieked at him to abandon the task, to just accept his fate and wait for an opportunity, but it was nothing next to the fear of what would happen if he did nothing. Satan said that was the best way, that if Pierce didn't resist they'd be able to co-exist and live a long, prosperous life together. If Pierce resisted, on the other hand . . .
That he didn't accept Satan's version of how he would fade into the abyss went without saying. If he doubted Satan was the definition of deception when they first met, that delusion had long since been scoured from his mind. Satan truly was the Father of Lies. Deville was both living witness and victim to that fact. If Satan said resistance would bring Deville's ruin, Deville would run toward that ruin without ever looking back.
Except . . . The Devil must've known that Pierce was on to his deceptions. Perhaps now he was cloaking his deceit with truth. If that was the case, Deville was walking blind, and there was no way for him to feel out which way to step. Sighing, probing, fumbling, he admitted that he had been blind all along.
He never got anywhere trying to force his body to accept his commands. The attempts would last for exactly seven hours each time, at which point the tension suddenly returned to Pierce's imaginary temples and his jeering captor would ask him ever-so-pleasantly if he'd had a refreshing night. Then Satan would rise in Deville's body and go about his business.
Perhaps the most infuriating aspect of this descent into madness was the fact that The Devil was doing everything exactly as The Deville would. If not for his being packed away in the back of his own mind like useless cargo on a plane, Pierce would never have guessed that he wasn't the devil at the controls. The beast even kept his wrestling appointments, muttering something about not wanting to arouse suspicion.
So you never lose, eh? Approaching an ‘arena’ for a “surprise superstar” match he’d agreed to in a close by Indy promotion before continuing into his FDS debut next week, Satan sounded both amused and doubtful. Not about Deville's past in the squared circle -- Satan knew all about that -- but about his future. Skepticism skittered along Deville's awareness, not from himself. Somehow, that just doesn't seem right. Gratingly, Satan almost sounded pious. Others need to win sometimes.
Rather than ask him if he applied that philosophy to his own life, Deville told Satan that it wouldn't matter to him one way or another whether he won or lost. He knew that he could win if he was in charge, so if The Devil wanted to drop the ball and be defeated by a mere mortal, that was his prerogative. It might be Deville's shoulders pinned to the mat, but it would be him, The Devil, who was too feeble to lift one.
If you can't live up to who I've been, The Deville scoffed, if you want us to be remembered as a loser, then lose.
For a long moment there was a shared silence, and for a fleeting second Deville allowed himself to believe he had actually succeeded in his manipulation. Then The Devil erupted with laughter. Keep practicing, my boy. Keep practicing. If you survive this you might make a good heir after all.
In the ring, Satan was as ambiguous as ever. He ignored Deville, who shouted counters and linkers as soon as either he or this Duisternis character made a move, and reprimanded Satan for being pathetic whenever he went down. Several times throughout the grueling match The Devil would let the referee's hand fall within a fraction of an inch of the mat before kicking out. He tortured Deville as it went on, not just with promises of failure, but also by making boneheaded rookie move after boneheaded rookie move. At one point, during a two-minute-long abdominal stretch, the referee actually leaned in close and told him to stop messing around.
Eventually, though, Satan's penchant for sensationalism and victory won out over his desire to abuse Deville. Suddenly fresh as a daisy twenty-five minutes into the match, he grabbed Duisternis by the neck and launched him across the ring like a javelin. There was a sickening crack as the Duisternis- missile collided with the ring post, then spun like a whirly-bird down into the guardrail.
The entire venue went deathly silent. Every eye was trained on Deville as he sauntered over to the ropes, regarding him with equal parts fright, disbelief, and awe. The referee stood gaping, his duty to count forgotten in the wake of the impossibility he had just seen. Not even MOD and TA combined could have thrown Duisternis, or even someone half his size, like that. No man could have.
The Deville ignored the stares just as he did the wondering buzz that descended when he rolled the half- conscious Duisternis into the ring, then followed him under the ropes and locked in The Gridlock. Poor Duisternis passed out before he could even think to tap, and the match was over; leaving a shaking referee to tentatively raise Deville's hand, to Deville looking for all the world as if he feared the touch would burn him.
It would, Satan laughed, reveling in the torrent of boos the fans suddenly remembered he was due. If I wanted it to.
The next several days were equally disturbing mentally. The Devil continued with his sport of tormenting The Deville, driving him to the brink of insanity and then pulling him back just in time.
One morning, as Deville continued the onerous and soul-destroying task of trying to make his body obey him, his index finger twitched. Triumphant hope and jubilation decimated all other thought as the finger waggled back and forth, then was joined by the rest as soon as Deville tried moving them. He could actually feel his hand, feel his power over it. He tried to snap his eyes open and they did. Not daring to laugh, eyes wide with glee, Deville curled his arm up and regarded his hand as if seeing his salvation. That's when he felt the wall slide effortlessly back into place, cutting him off from himself, followed by his middle finger jutting straight up before his eyes.
Satan seemed to think it a wonderful joke. His macabre laughter abraded Deville's mind for the next two hours.
Despite all of that, he was handling Deville's business exquisitely. He had already executed the heads of three eminent Families, dazzling even Deville with his creative methods of killing them, and he had somehow managed to convince one of the Families to unite under him. Aligning with two other Families, one minor and one major, was not something Deville would have done if it were left up to him, but the strategy of the move was not lost on him. The Devil, like The Deville, was planning a complete coup of the Mob world, and sometimes it was better not to let your enemies know who they are.
Satan also dedicated a lot of time to pursuing his own affairs, things that pre-dated Pierce. Mostly it was dropping in on people who had betrayed their oaths to him -- Pierce had to concentrate very hard not to dwell on the agonizing means of their demise -- but there were also many who were still loyal that he wanted to assign tasks to. His ultimate motive for those tasks was something he would not share with Deville, but it was readily apparent he didn't mean to stop with the Mob. From time to time he went recruiting, as well, planting seeds of discontent and rebellion.
When he showed up at Deville's old junior high school late in the afternoon, Deville wasn't sure whose business Satan was taking care of. Sometimes their goals were eerily similar. Sometimes their business was the same. Most of the time, though, Satan didn't let him know which until after it was done.
Walking into the gymnasium through a backdoor Deville always remembered as being locked, he smiled warmly at a small group of youths arranged in a circle on a large wrestling mat. They were all kneeling, apparently listening to a lecture from the gnarled old man in their center, who cut off mid- sentence, his fist still raised emphatically, when he heard the door open and saw the heads of his audience swivel. He looked ready to kill when he first turned to face his intruder, but then his eyes popped wide with a mixture of recognition and disbelief.
"Pierce?" he mouthed, the name coming as little more than a whisper. Then he was storming across the mat with surprising spryness, his arms held out to his sides and his mouth contorting with laughter. "Pierce! Damn! Is it really you?"
Deville wanted to say no, to warn the man -- he had always liked his old wrestling tutor, and didn't fancy any plans The Devil might have for him -- but of course he couldn't. "Coach Rubenschue," came the warm response instead. Deville glided forward with a cunning smile of his own and welcomed the embrace of his long-time mentor, scooping the old man up and squeezing him tight, ignoring the tired protests about weak bones.
Throughout his life, Deville had never had any formal training for professional wrestling. He simply couldn't stomach the idea of paying some failed Indy fed reject to guide him through the arduous task of bouncing off of ropes and falling correctly. His prowess in the ring came from two distinct sources: the streets and Coach Rubenschue. He credited most of his success to the latter.
When Pierce had entered the school for his grade seven year, already closing in on 6' and weighing a lean 170 pounds, Rubenschue latched onto him like a leech, practically forcing him to join every macho sports team the school supported. Pierce had always loved sports, so he complied, quickly becoming each team's go-to guy on the field, and Rubenschue's right hand in the dressing room. The coach took Deville under his wing, ranting about how he could turn pro in any sport he chose, and tutored him late into his teens, long after he had graduated and moved onto high school.
Rubenschue was a little dismayed that Pierce wanted to focus on wrestling, especially when he was told that it was professional wrestling Deville was after, not olympic-style. He had wanted Deville to pursue football, or baseball, or even soccer -- "any REAL sport" -- but Deville had his heart set, and Rubenschue quickly discovered that trying to steer Pierce in the wrong direction resulted in a very short trip. He trained Deville as an amateur first, for four years, before even allowing him to get near a wrestling ring, saying a professional wrestler who couldn't actually wrestle was like a dickless gigolo.
Rubenschue had wanted to become a professional wrestler in his youth as well, but he never had the right look, so he squandered away his prime in low-budget feds that left him with nothing but a bunch of nagging injuries and a lifetime's worth of bitterness. He definitely knew what he was about, though. Not just with moves and counters and transitions, but with psychology. He refused to teach Deville even a proper headlock takedown until Deville admitted with conviction that psychology was the most important part of the game.
Their training sessions ended when Deville dropped out of University to pursue his career in WEEF, but Pierce still called him every year at Christmas, and bought him a brand new car every year on his birthday. Rubenschue would always gush about how it was too much, and Deville knew he felt awkward accepting such extravagant gifts from a boy he watched grow up, but Deville didn't care. Besides his own father, Coach Rubenschue was the closest he ever had. Salvatore, who had practically adopted him, didn't even come close.
If Deville could love another man, and be loved by one in return, it was Coach Rubenschue.
If you
ing hurt him, Deville seethed, so engorged with rage that if he had a body to control it would have been shaking like Byron in a stag shop. If you even think about hurting him, I swear to . . . He trailed off, not quite knowing how to finish it. He wasn't really in a position to be threatening The Devil, and both of them knew it. Satan's only response was an inner shrug.
"Good to see you, you crotchety old bastard," Deville said as they broke apart, a wry grin splitting his face.
"And you, you stubborn punk kid." Affection shone in Rubenschue's eyes, and his smile was a replica of Deville's. "How the hell have you been? What are you up to now? What brings you down here to mingle with us common folk?" The questions spilled out one on top of the other, with nary a pause between them, leaving Deville to laugh and shake his head.
Clapping a hand over his mentor's shoulder, Deville guided him back toward the mat. All of the children were ogling Deville as if he were an ogre, or a charming magician. At work, Rubenschue always adopted an austere demeanor; Deville guessed none of the children had ever seen him happy and laughing before. "I was just in the neighborhood so I had to stop by. There's no way I wanted to listen to an hour-long guilt-fest about not coming to see you if you caught wind I was in town."
Rubenschue snorted.
There was another reason for the teens' stares, of course. Most of them had recognized Deville the moment he stepped into the gym, and the few who didn't were quickly nudged and informed by those who did. While Pierce wasn't quite a household name, anyone who had even the slightest interest in professional wrestling knew who he was.
The trophy case in the main hall showcasing his picture and all of his awards helped, too.
They watched with rapt attention, barely concealing their expectant grins, as Deville and their coach waltzed back to the focus of their circle. A few of their eyes were wide and glazed, as if they were staring at a movie star. For his part, Deville surveyed the group coolly, inclining his head ever so slightly whenever one of the kids nodded a respectful greeting.
"Well gang," Rubenschue barked suddenly, shrugging out from underneath Pierce's arm. "Looks like we have ourselves a special treat for today's practice." He grinned sideways at Deville. "Say hello to Pierce Deville."
Stammering their hellos as instructed, the teens exchanged excited looks before rising unsteadily to come forward and shake The Deville's hand. Rubenschue was having none of that, however.
"Did I say practice was over?" he roared. "Back to your spots! One of the most important things in wrestling is discipline! More importantly, the most important thing in my class is doing exactly as I say, and only what I say!" His triumphant harrumph came only after those who had risen were back on the mat, eyes drawn down in front of them, properly chastened. The room was quiet but for the hum of the ventilation system. "That's more like it."
"Easy, Pete," Deville chided playfully, "easy now. No need to work yourself up to a heart attack, not at your young age."
That earned Deville some smiles and a couple of quickly stifled chuckles. Peter Rubenschue was sixty years old if he was a day, and while he didn't move like it, he certainly looked it. Besides, in a way, Deville was defending them. Maybe he could soften up their coach a little bit.
Rubenschue's loud smirk put that line of thinking to an abrupt halt. "Discipline, Pierce. They're gonna need it if they want to succeed in wrestling." Suddenly there was a twinkle in his eye, and the corners of his mouth twitched up slightly from his permanent frown. "But look who I'm telling this to. One of the only two winners of the biggest tournament the professional wrestling world has ever seen, and the best amateur wrestler I've ever seen." There was a hint of sarcasm in his voice, but only a hint. "Please," he continued, holding his hands up in invitation, "if you have some wisdom to impart on my class, the floor is yours."
Every eye turned expectantly to Pierce once more. Rubenschue folded his arms over his chest, a smug look on his face. The Deville grinned.
"I'm sure your esteemed coach has already told you this many times," Deville began, sparing a wry glance for Rubenschue as he circled slowly, so he could address his entire audience. "But I'm going to tell you again, just so you know it's not simply the rambling of a senile old man." The laughter flowed this time, even from Rubenschue, and Deville let it die down on its own before continuing.
"Never, under any circumstances or for any reason, underestimate your opponent. No matter how weak you think he is, or even if you've defeated him another time . . . if you let down your guard for even a second, that's all the time he'll need to disabuse you of your superiority. He's called your opponent for a reason. He's your enemy, out to prove himself by defeating you, and as much as you think you're ready for the battle, he thinks exactly the same.
"Never hesitate. Take him out as quickly as possible and as efficiently as possible. Don't concern yourself with putting on a good show. The result is all you care about. If you can win the match in three seconds, after only one cumbersome move, all the better. It's rare that you'll get that opportunity, but it's what should be at the forefront of your mind at all times. As soon as the match starts, WHAM!, you're on him, and you don't let up until he's defeated." Pierce paused to make sure they were following. They were. "In this game, winning is all that matters. And if you underestimate your opponent, or you hesitate in decimating him for any reason, you won't win.
"The only exception to this comes when you're facing someone too clueless to know of these laws, or too ostentatious to heed them. When faced with such an opponent, one who's overly cocky or just plain ignorant, sometimes it's best to lull them into a false sense of comfort, to let them think they really are as good as they believe they are, let them think they have the match won. Then, when they're strutting around prematurely, sure of their victory, you lower the boom."
Pierce never saw it coming. The very idea of losing control of himself was such a foreign concept, such an absurd notion, that it never even occurred to him as a possibility. He had spent his entire life in complete command of himself, always doing what he wanted when he wanted, and he typically held control over several other people as well. When his father warned him that Satan might become more than a voice, begged him not to let it happen, Deville naturally assumed he was speaking in figurative terms. That he had to beware not to let The Devil's thoughts become confused with his own. For Satan to actually take him over completely . . .
To say the fear was paralyzing would be like saying the Grand Canyon is a little ditch. It didn't begin to accurately describe the sensation that saturated Deville's bleak emptiness. Floating in a sea of darkness, drowning in it, he didn't even have the capacity to be paralyzed. All of his control was already gone. He was nothing more than a specter in his own mind, a helpless spectator in his own life.
He couldn't even cry. When he tried, cold haunting laughter echoed back to him. The same emotionless cackling he himself had barked innumerous times when letting some unfortunate soul know they were screwed.
Two sleepless days of fighting to usurp power over his own pilfered body felt like an eternity passing in slow motion, with each and every millisecond standing out boldly, demanding to be counted. Deville cursed and screamed, challenged and insulted, but throughout it all The Devil stoically ignored him, going about Pierce's business as if he had every intention of living out Pierce's life. Without Pierce's input.
As far as The Devil was concerned, this was another lease on life. Not for Pierce, but for him. Pierce was all but dead to him. He wasn't living through Pierce, or as Pierce. He was living as himself, wearing Pierce as a suit.
He let that thought drift back to Deville from time to time, followed by a bout of laughter that continued so long in the same vein and pitch that Deville thought it must have been on a loop. Most of the time, Deville could pick and choose when he listened to what Satan was thinking, like tuning into a radio station, but when The Devil thought directly at him, his voice was all Deville could concentrate on. It consumed all else. The merciless barrage was omnipresent -- there was nothing except Satan's voice. While it went on, all thoughts and memories of Deville's existence fled.
The silence that followed struck him like whiplash whenever the direct thoughts cut off, the helpless feeling of non-existence echoing incessantly in the darkness. Every time it stopped and Pierce would become aware of himself again, he couldn't help but wonder if it would ever become permanent. If someday all he would be able to hear would be The Devil's thoughts, and his awareness of self would abandon him completely.
It's only happened twice, The Devil cut in, musing. And that was only because those two people couldn't accept reality. They struggled against my ownership of them with every fiber of their diminished being, refusing to accept the fact that they were no longer in control. In the end, they couldn't wrap themselves around the idea that they could exist without physically existing, so they stopped. Terrible end, that.
Transfixed by the idea, Deville couldn't help but respond. What do you mean they stopped existing? What happened to their souls?
Laughter rife with mirth was Pierce's only answer for a very long time. Don't you worry yourself about that, Satan finally said, dismissing the possibility of Deville winking out of being as unimportant. Like I said, it's only happened twice. A thoughtful hum filled Deville's consciousness. Though I have heard that these things usually happen in three’s.
So it went day in and day out, The Deville struggling to maintain some small hold on himself while The Devil taunted and teased him. The only respite from the lunacy came when Satan would settle Deville's body down for sleep. When Pierce felt surprised that The Devil needed sleep, he was pointedly told that it was a necessary evil to keep his "host" healthy. The Devil, he was haughtily informed, needed only his own magnificence to function. It was a weakness of the body, not him.
Yet when the body slept, The Devil must have too, because it was then and only then that Deville was alone in the darkness of his mind. Pierce couldn't imagine why he didn't drift into dreamland when Satan and his body slept, and it wasn't something he was going to waste time wondering about. It was his opportunity, perhaps his only one, to probe the unseen barrier locking him away from himself.
Every night, as soon as The Devil's ominous presence disappeared -- Deville knew exactly when it happened; it was as if a vice-grip clenched around his temples suddenly vanished -- Pierce would set diligently to work. Not that he had a lot of options to work with. Hour after hour he would focus himself entirely on just his index finger, trying to make it move, willing it to wiggle. It was like trying to wiggle a mountain. Underwater.
He never gave up, though. The fear of discovery and punishment shrieked at him to abandon the task, to just accept his fate and wait for an opportunity, but it was nothing next to the fear of what would happen if he did nothing. Satan said that was the best way, that if Pierce didn't resist they'd be able to co-exist and live a long, prosperous life together. If Pierce resisted, on the other hand . . .
That he didn't accept Satan's version of how he would fade into the abyss went without saying. If he doubted Satan was the definition of deception when they first met, that delusion had long since been scoured from his mind. Satan truly was the Father of Lies. Deville was both living witness and victim to that fact. If Satan said resistance would bring Deville's ruin, Deville would run toward that ruin without ever looking back.
Except . . . The Devil must've known that Pierce was on to his deceptions. Perhaps now he was cloaking his deceit with truth. If that was the case, Deville was walking blind, and there was no way for him to feel out which way to step. Sighing, probing, fumbling, he admitted that he had been blind all along.
He never got anywhere trying to force his body to accept his commands. The attempts would last for exactly seven hours each time, at which point the tension suddenly returned to Pierce's imaginary temples and his jeering captor would ask him ever-so-pleasantly if he'd had a refreshing night. Then Satan would rise in Deville's body and go about his business.
Perhaps the most infuriating aspect of this descent into madness was the fact that The Devil was doing everything exactly as The Deville would. If not for his being packed away in the back of his own mind like useless cargo on a plane, Pierce would never have guessed that he wasn't the devil at the controls. The beast even kept his wrestling appointments, muttering something about not wanting to arouse suspicion.
So you never lose, eh? Approaching an ‘arena’ for a “surprise superstar” match he’d agreed to in a close by Indy promotion before continuing into his FDS debut next week, Satan sounded both amused and doubtful. Not about Deville's past in the squared circle -- Satan knew all about that -- but about his future. Skepticism skittered along Deville's awareness, not from himself. Somehow, that just doesn't seem right. Gratingly, Satan almost sounded pious. Others need to win sometimes.
Rather than ask him if he applied that philosophy to his own life, Deville told Satan that it wouldn't matter to him one way or another whether he won or lost. He knew that he could win if he was in charge, so if The Devil wanted to drop the ball and be defeated by a mere mortal, that was his prerogative. It might be Deville's shoulders pinned to the mat, but it would be him, The Devil, who was too feeble to lift one.
If you can't live up to who I've been, The Deville scoffed, if you want us to be remembered as a loser, then lose.
For a long moment there was a shared silence, and for a fleeting second Deville allowed himself to believe he had actually succeeded in his manipulation. Then The Devil erupted with laughter. Keep practicing, my boy. Keep practicing. If you survive this you might make a good heir after all.
In the ring, Satan was as ambiguous as ever. He ignored Deville, who shouted counters and linkers as soon as either he or this Duisternis character made a move, and reprimanded Satan for being pathetic whenever he went down. Several times throughout the grueling match The Devil would let the referee's hand fall within a fraction of an inch of the mat before kicking out. He tortured Deville as it went on, not just with promises of failure, but also by making boneheaded rookie move after boneheaded rookie move. At one point, during a two-minute-long abdominal stretch, the referee actually leaned in close and told him to stop messing around.
Eventually, though, Satan's penchant for sensationalism and victory won out over his desire to abuse Deville. Suddenly fresh as a daisy twenty-five minutes into the match, he grabbed Duisternis by the neck and launched him across the ring like a javelin. There was a sickening crack as the Duisternis- missile collided with the ring post, then spun like a whirly-bird down into the guardrail.
The entire venue went deathly silent. Every eye was trained on Deville as he sauntered over to the ropes, regarding him with equal parts fright, disbelief, and awe. The referee stood gaping, his duty to count forgotten in the wake of the impossibility he had just seen. Not even MOD and TA combined could have thrown Duisternis, or even someone half his size, like that. No man could have.
The Deville ignored the stares just as he did the wondering buzz that descended when he rolled the half- conscious Duisternis into the ring, then followed him under the ropes and locked in The Gridlock. Poor Duisternis passed out before he could even think to tap, and the match was over; leaving a shaking referee to tentatively raise Deville's hand, to Deville looking for all the world as if he feared the touch would burn him.
It would, Satan laughed, reveling in the torrent of boos the fans suddenly remembered he was due. If I wanted it to.
~><>...<><~
The next several days were equally disturbing mentally. The Devil continued with his sport of tormenting The Deville, driving him to the brink of insanity and then pulling him back just in time.
One morning, as Deville continued the onerous and soul-destroying task of trying to make his body obey him, his index finger twitched. Triumphant hope and jubilation decimated all other thought as the finger waggled back and forth, then was joined by the rest as soon as Deville tried moving them. He could actually feel his hand, feel his power over it. He tried to snap his eyes open and they did. Not daring to laugh, eyes wide with glee, Deville curled his arm up and regarded his hand as if seeing his salvation. That's when he felt the wall slide effortlessly back into place, cutting him off from himself, followed by his middle finger jutting straight up before his eyes.
Satan seemed to think it a wonderful joke. His macabre laughter abraded Deville's mind for the next two hours.
Despite all of that, he was handling Deville's business exquisitely. He had already executed the heads of three eminent Families, dazzling even Deville with his creative methods of killing them, and he had somehow managed to convince one of the Families to unite under him. Aligning with two other Families, one minor and one major, was not something Deville would have done if it were left up to him, but the strategy of the move was not lost on him. The Devil, like The Deville, was planning a complete coup of the Mob world, and sometimes it was better not to let your enemies know who they are.
Satan also dedicated a lot of time to pursuing his own affairs, things that pre-dated Pierce. Mostly it was dropping in on people who had betrayed their oaths to him -- Pierce had to concentrate very hard not to dwell on the agonizing means of their demise -- but there were also many who were still loyal that he wanted to assign tasks to. His ultimate motive for those tasks was something he would not share with Deville, but it was readily apparent he didn't mean to stop with the Mob. From time to time he went recruiting, as well, planting seeds of discontent and rebellion.
When he showed up at Deville's old junior high school late in the afternoon, Deville wasn't sure whose business Satan was taking care of. Sometimes their goals were eerily similar. Sometimes their business was the same. Most of the time, though, Satan didn't let him know which until after it was done.
Walking into the gymnasium through a backdoor Deville always remembered as being locked, he smiled warmly at a small group of youths arranged in a circle on a large wrestling mat. They were all kneeling, apparently listening to a lecture from the gnarled old man in their center, who cut off mid- sentence, his fist still raised emphatically, when he heard the door open and saw the heads of his audience swivel. He looked ready to kill when he first turned to face his intruder, but then his eyes popped wide with a mixture of recognition and disbelief.
"Pierce?" he mouthed, the name coming as little more than a whisper. Then he was storming across the mat with surprising spryness, his arms held out to his sides and his mouth contorting with laughter. "Pierce! Damn! Is it really you?"
Deville wanted to say no, to warn the man -- he had always liked his old wrestling tutor, and didn't fancy any plans The Devil might have for him -- but of course he couldn't. "Coach Rubenschue," came the warm response instead. Deville glided forward with a cunning smile of his own and welcomed the embrace of his long-time mentor, scooping the old man up and squeezing him tight, ignoring the tired protests about weak bones.
Throughout his life, Deville had never had any formal training for professional wrestling. He simply couldn't stomach the idea of paying some failed Indy fed reject to guide him through the arduous task of bouncing off of ropes and falling correctly. His prowess in the ring came from two distinct sources: the streets and Coach Rubenschue. He credited most of his success to the latter.
When Pierce had entered the school for his grade seven year, already closing in on 6' and weighing a lean 170 pounds, Rubenschue latched onto him like a leech, practically forcing him to join every macho sports team the school supported. Pierce had always loved sports, so he complied, quickly becoming each team's go-to guy on the field, and Rubenschue's right hand in the dressing room. The coach took Deville under his wing, ranting about how he could turn pro in any sport he chose, and tutored him late into his teens, long after he had graduated and moved onto high school.
Rubenschue was a little dismayed that Pierce wanted to focus on wrestling, especially when he was told that it was professional wrestling Deville was after, not olympic-style. He had wanted Deville to pursue football, or baseball, or even soccer -- "any REAL sport" -- but Deville had his heart set, and Rubenschue quickly discovered that trying to steer Pierce in the wrong direction resulted in a very short trip. He trained Deville as an amateur first, for four years, before even allowing him to get near a wrestling ring, saying a professional wrestler who couldn't actually wrestle was like a dickless gigolo.
Rubenschue had wanted to become a professional wrestler in his youth as well, but he never had the right look, so he squandered away his prime in low-budget feds that left him with nothing but a bunch of nagging injuries and a lifetime's worth of bitterness. He definitely knew what he was about, though. Not just with moves and counters and transitions, but with psychology. He refused to teach Deville even a proper headlock takedown until Deville admitted with conviction that psychology was the most important part of the game.
Their training sessions ended when Deville dropped out of University to pursue his career in WEEF, but Pierce still called him every year at Christmas, and bought him a brand new car every year on his birthday. Rubenschue would always gush about how it was too much, and Deville knew he felt awkward accepting such extravagant gifts from a boy he watched grow up, but Deville didn't care. Besides his own father, Coach Rubenschue was the closest he ever had. Salvatore, who had practically adopted him, didn't even come close.
If Deville could love another man, and be loved by one in return, it was Coach Rubenschue.
If you
ing hurt him, Deville seethed, so engorged with rage that if he had a body to control it would have been shaking like Byron in a stag shop. If you even think about hurting him, I swear to . . . He trailed off, not quite knowing how to finish it. He wasn't really in a position to be threatening The Devil, and both of them knew it. Satan's only response was an inner shrug."Good to see you, you crotchety old bastard," Deville said as they broke apart, a wry grin splitting his face.
"And you, you stubborn punk kid." Affection shone in Rubenschue's eyes, and his smile was a replica of Deville's. "How the hell have you been? What are you up to now? What brings you down here to mingle with us common folk?" The questions spilled out one on top of the other, with nary a pause between them, leaving Deville to laugh and shake his head.
Clapping a hand over his mentor's shoulder, Deville guided him back toward the mat. All of the children were ogling Deville as if he were an ogre, or a charming magician. At work, Rubenschue always adopted an austere demeanor; Deville guessed none of the children had ever seen him happy and laughing before. "I was just in the neighborhood so I had to stop by. There's no way I wanted to listen to an hour-long guilt-fest about not coming to see you if you caught wind I was in town."
Rubenschue snorted.
There was another reason for the teens' stares, of course. Most of them had recognized Deville the moment he stepped into the gym, and the few who didn't were quickly nudged and informed by those who did. While Pierce wasn't quite a household name, anyone who had even the slightest interest in professional wrestling knew who he was.
The trophy case in the main hall showcasing his picture and all of his awards helped, too.
They watched with rapt attention, barely concealing their expectant grins, as Deville and their coach waltzed back to the focus of their circle. A few of their eyes were wide and glazed, as if they were staring at a movie star. For his part, Deville surveyed the group coolly, inclining his head ever so slightly whenever one of the kids nodded a respectful greeting.
"Well gang," Rubenschue barked suddenly, shrugging out from underneath Pierce's arm. "Looks like we have ourselves a special treat for today's practice." He grinned sideways at Deville. "Say hello to Pierce Deville."
Stammering their hellos as instructed, the teens exchanged excited looks before rising unsteadily to come forward and shake The Deville's hand. Rubenschue was having none of that, however.
"Did I say practice was over?" he roared. "Back to your spots! One of the most important things in wrestling is discipline! More importantly, the most important thing in my class is doing exactly as I say, and only what I say!" His triumphant harrumph came only after those who had risen were back on the mat, eyes drawn down in front of them, properly chastened. The room was quiet but for the hum of the ventilation system. "That's more like it."
"Easy, Pete," Deville chided playfully, "easy now. No need to work yourself up to a heart attack, not at your young age."
That earned Deville some smiles and a couple of quickly stifled chuckles. Peter Rubenschue was sixty years old if he was a day, and while he didn't move like it, he certainly looked it. Besides, in a way, Deville was defending them. Maybe he could soften up their coach a little bit.
Rubenschue's loud smirk put that line of thinking to an abrupt halt. "Discipline, Pierce. They're gonna need it if they want to succeed in wrestling." Suddenly there was a twinkle in his eye, and the corners of his mouth twitched up slightly from his permanent frown. "But look who I'm telling this to. One of the only two winners of the biggest tournament the professional wrestling world has ever seen, and the best amateur wrestler I've ever seen." There was a hint of sarcasm in his voice, but only a hint. "Please," he continued, holding his hands up in invitation, "if you have some wisdom to impart on my class, the floor is yours."
Every eye turned expectantly to Pierce once more. Rubenschue folded his arms over his chest, a smug look on his face. The Deville grinned.
"I'm sure your esteemed coach has already told you this many times," Deville began, sparing a wry glance for Rubenschue as he circled slowly, so he could address his entire audience. "But I'm going to tell you again, just so you know it's not simply the rambling of a senile old man." The laughter flowed this time, even from Rubenschue, and Deville let it die down on its own before continuing.
"Never, under any circumstances or for any reason, underestimate your opponent. No matter how weak you think he is, or even if you've defeated him another time . . . if you let down your guard for even a second, that's all the time he'll need to disabuse you of your superiority. He's called your opponent for a reason. He's your enemy, out to prove himself by defeating you, and as much as you think you're ready for the battle, he thinks exactly the same.
"Never hesitate. Take him out as quickly as possible and as efficiently as possible. Don't concern yourself with putting on a good show. The result is all you care about. If you can win the match in three seconds, after only one cumbersome move, all the better. It's rare that you'll get that opportunity, but it's what should be at the forefront of your mind at all times. As soon as the match starts, WHAM!, you're on him, and you don't let up until he's defeated." Pierce paused to make sure they were following. They were. "In this game, winning is all that matters. And if you underestimate your opponent, or you hesitate in decimating him for any reason, you won't win.
"The only exception to this comes when you're facing someone too clueless to know of these laws, or too ostentatious to heed them. When faced with such an opponent, one who's overly cocky or just plain ignorant, sometimes it's best to lull them into a false sense of comfort, to let them think they really are as good as they believe they are, let them think they have the match won. Then, when they're strutting around prematurely, sure of their victory, you lower the boom."
