Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2008 13:38:26 GMT -5
There used to be a time when I could meet people free of preconceived notions. A place where I could walk into the room without drawing every eye and thought like a lightning rod of malice.
There used to be a world where nobody knew my name. A community where I was taken at face value. No one wondered if I had a gun in my pocket or a bomb in my briefcase, or whose wife I was ransoming. Nobody cared where I’d been before or what I’d been up to. I was just another dime-a-dozen guinea-mick kid with a spotty past and a winning smile.
When people dreamed of beating me it was with the same motivation they drew upon for battling anyone else. The desire to win was paramount. Not to put in a good showing or to beat anyone in particular, but just to win. They looked at me and saw another hurdle to soar over, not a mountain to make a career trying to climb. Nobody gave a thought to the countless others who’d had their bodies broken in the attempt.
Rumor had yet to put me on the radar. Every match was something new. Every opponent brought something unique, something to capitalize on their individual strengths. Nobody worried about what my plans were, about how to counter or duplicate them.
Reputation had yet to make me into a measuring stick. Mere survival was never the goal of the other man’s equation. Seeing how he stacked up against the best was never a part of his formula. Beating me for the sake of spreading another rumor, of instant ascension to stardom through one match, never factored into it.
Prestige had yet to settle me in the crosshairs of every big-game hunter’s gun.
There used to be a life where I was judged for what I was doing, not for whispers of what I’d done. There used to be a place where I arrived before my name did.
There used to be a time when I defined myself.
"Please tell me you have more than that," Eleanor Kannon-Hall demanded slowly, her tone subdued by disbelief. Facing her in his neatly pressed suit, holding a small white dog -- of all things! -- to his chest, The Deville shrugged his shoulders, his mischievous grin never sliding a hair.
"Do you really mean to tell me," Eleanor went on, gluing her hands to her hips as she began pacing before him, "that less than an hour before your match with Wayne McGurk, your Loaded Debut match, your gameplan consists of what we discussed earlier?"
They had had a meeting to discuss strategy over the weekend, a luncheon initiated by Deville in Eleanor’s hometown. He had originally pushed for her to fly to his home, but Eleanor had vowed to never again set foot on the premises of that Batcave. When she finally insisted that they could easily discuss tactics over the phone, Pierce wouldn’t hear of it, lecturing her that business lives were conducted over the phone only in the greatest emergencies, and personal lives never. He would simply fly down. He made it sound as if she lived down the street, that he’d stop by for a spell on his way home. When she protested about the unnecessary cost, he just laughed. "It’s a business trip," he scoffed, and for a long while she was left wondering whether he meant he could write it off or that he had "other" business to attend to. In the end she was left with the realization it was probably both.
That meeting had lasted all of forty-five minutes, with the majority of it whittled away in obliquely flirtatious chatter. Not that Eleanor wanted to spend the time that way, but The Deville had been persistent, eyeing her askance when she changed the subject and looking hurt until she answered the trivial questions he put to her. By the time he got up and said he had to run, paying her as if she was the waitress, they had talked remarkably little of tactics and only settled on one sure-fire ruse.
"The Great Pierce Deville," Eleanor scolded with much mockery, "can’t even add to my gameplan?"
"The plan is already brilliant," Deville responded with another spamnt shrug. "Wayne’s out of his element without his puppetmasters, so we do your cut-faking and get rid of his entourage. Then I tear him apart in the ring." Arching his eyebrow, Deville scratched the Chihuahua behind its ears. It snarled and started biting the thumb of his glove.
Eleanor stopped pacing and glared at the dog. "This isn’t a sound strategy. You can’t go into matches planning to wing it, trusting we’ll be able to get people tossed from ringside! You’re supposed to be this great strategist! You’re supposed to be-- What the hell is with that stupid dog?" she snapped suddenly.
Looking wounded, Deville clamped his hand down over the dog’s ears and pulled it away from her, as if to protect it from her. Just as quickly he let the facade drop and tossed the dog to the ground, giving it a little kick when it went after his shoe. He flashed Eleanor a rascally grin. "I hired him yesterday as a consultant for the match. If there’s anyone knowledgeable enough about crap shoot culture, someone with a hope of articulating those thoughts in a way intelligent men can understand, it’s this Mexican dog."
Lips pursed, Eleanor could only glare at him.
"Don’t worry," Deville said as his grin grew, "he doesn’t outrank you. You’re still number two in Camp Deville." Eleanor continued glaring, unimpressed. Seeing his joke was getting nowhere, Pierce sighed and added a muttered "For now." just loud enough for her to hear.
Eleanor took a deep breath, foreshadowing the impending harangue. "This isn’t all a big joke! You have to--"
"I know what I have to do!" The Deville boomed over her, not shouting, but perilously close to it. "I have to do what I’ve done my entire career! What I’ve somehow managed to stumble into by myself all these years!" It was his turn to take a breath, holding his hands out to tell her to hold on. "Listen, I know you have a job to do and I appreciate you doing it, but discussing how I’m going to execute this move or counter that one isn’t the way I strategize. I already know what I’m going to do. You stay back here and wait for CBT while we take care of The Axis."
It was a struggle for Eleanor to keep her voice level. "What if that doesn’t work? What if he never even comes?"
The Deville laughed, eyes gleaming. "Then we’ll wing it."
"Pierce," Eleanor warned, "I’m serious."
"So am I," Deville replied, walking across the room to scoop up the yapping dog. "Trust me. Some plans go off better if the only place they exist is up here." Smiling as the dog bit into his glove again, Deville tapped his temple with his free hand and swept over to Eleanor. "Trust me . . . I’ve sent him a message he wouldn’t dare ignore. Now I’m going down to the ring. It’s time to get this over with. You stay here and make sure you take CBT out!"
Eleanor sputtered as Deville turned on his heel and began heading for the door. "What? Now?" Scrambling after him, she kept the questions going, displaced by her new charge’s unorthodox spontaneity.
The Deville pulled the door open and offered her a slight bow. "Just stay here . . . I promise he’ll be here," he said wryly, "if he’s not already on his way. Just make sure you let the dog give him a scare." Ruffling the dog’s fur Deville threw his voice to an affectionate murmur. "Aren’t we? We’re just going to bark and bark and scare him, right" he asked the dog, then answered in that same voice as he closed the door behind him, "Yes we are."
“What if he bites him?”
The Deville grinned. “Look at the dog . . . even if he did bite him . . . do you really think it’d hurt?”
Of course, now everyone knows who I am. Or think they do, at least.
The rumors beat me wherever I’m going, and before I can even set foot in the door there’s a line of talented promise waiting for their chance to run the gauntlet. Plenty of people give in to their survival instinct and avoid me, but for the most part, professionals in our sport are more glory-bound than sensible. They fear the reputation, but ultimately they want to try cutting their teeth.
Against the myth. Against the legend. Against everything they’ve heard about me, exaggerated by their own fears and insecurity, downplayed by their raging egos. With their hearts and souls bare naked before themselves and the world, they set themselves to put everything on the line against my reputation.
Not against me. Against my reputation.
That’s what they prepare for, that’s what they want to measure themselves beside, that’s all they allow themselves to see when I walk into the arena. Not a man to struggle with and endure, but an obstacle to overcome and move beyond. A stepping stone to the limelight. A lottery ticket to strike lucky and rich on.
They think they’re at an advantage because they’ve heard of me, because they know I’m up to something. As if it’s not well-documented that I’m always up to something. As if I’d deny it if I was asked.
I don’t deny it. Never have, never will.
Hell, I flaunt it.
Checking her watch again, shaking it dramatically as if to make sure it’s still working, Eleanor heaved a sigh and once again eyed the small table littered with magazines. It was all tripe; Chatelaine, People, Time. Normally she wouldn’t be caught dead reading such drivel, and even dead she knew she’d be bored, but reasoning that it might help her pass the time, she picked up the issue of Time and started flipping through the pages, hoping against hope that it had a jokes section.
She had been at the veterinarian clinic only an hour, but with the incessant barking and chirping, teamed with the smell of urine and feces and dusty medicine, it had seemed much longer. A woman in a glorified smock had only come to get the angry little Chihuahua five minutes ago, telling Eleanor that since she didn’t own the dog and it didn’t seem comforted by her, she may as well wait in the lobby. Eleanor was more than happy to oblige.
As happy as she could be running these stupid little errands for Deville, at least. Finding out that he didn’t actually own the dog, but had found it in an alley and taken it in, bothered Eleanor, and not just because she knew he was lying. But that bother was nothing beside what she felt when he told her "The overgrown rodent seems to be sick. Take him to an animal shelter, or whatever passes for The Humane Society around here."
It took her ten minutes to talk him into letting her take the dog to the vet, and by the time she realized what she had been doing, she had roped herself into doing just that. She hadn’t wanted to take charge of the stupid thing. In fact, she had planned to raise the issue of it being assumed that she’d just take the animal to the shelter in the first place. But then she got caught up in the thought of the animal sick and suffering, neglected by a bunch of high school volunteers, and her heart went into her mouth before any thought could. It would have seemed foolish to argue about wasting her time after the scolding she had given him for thinking of putting a sick animal in a shelter.
Slapping the magazine back on the table, she was startled and began blushing when someone from the doorway coughed and called her name. A squat grey-haired lady in a white coat and mask beckoned her to follow, then turned and walked off down the hall. Eleanor jogged to catch up, then fell in behind her, wriggling her nose at the strengthening antiseptic odour. Before long they entered a small room, and Eleanor could see the dog was back in the carrying case she had brought it in, the carrying case Deville insisted she couldn’t let it out of. It was still snarling and barking as much as before, which was to say relentlessly.
The veterinarian took a seat at the desk without offering Eleanor one. "Your relationship to the dog, Mrs. Kannon-Hall?"
Eleanor folded her arms over her chest, refusing to be put off by the rude omission. "My employer found it about a month ago," she replied dryly. "He says we’re co-workers."
The vet turned to eye her from under her brow, then wrote away with her pen, scribbling something much more in-depth than "co-worker." "Where did your employer find the dog?"
"I don’t know."
More scribbling. "Has the dog been exhibiting this behavior the whole time?"
Eleanor glared at the yappy little beast. "The barking and snarling? Yeah, he never stops that."
"And has he been exposed to anyone other than you or your employer in the last week?"
Eleanor paused, biting her lip. Not because of the fear suddenly gripping her heart -- with the sudden realization of where the line of questioning was leading, it would have been enough -- but because there was just no reasonable way to explain that the dog had been exposed to thousands of people, the majority of whom she couldn’t contact. Instead of trying to explain, Eleanor moved up behind the woman and began reading over her shoulder, turning the tables. "What’s wrong with him?"
The woman spun around in her seat, pushing Eleanor back and glaring fiercely above her mask. "It hasn’t had any of its vaccinations. Not that I can detect." She sighed, pausing to shoot a sympathetic look at the cage. "I won’t know for sure without killing it and running the tests, but I’m pretty sure the dog has rabies."
The world faded out for Eleanor, as if someone had stuffed her ears with cotton and trapped her inside a huge bubble. Air wouldn’t come. Her lungs burned with the lack. Her stomach suddenly felt very light, and her head very heavy. With her mind’s eye she saw Deville backstage with the dog, looking immaculate in his suit, ruffling the dog’s fur with his gloved hands.
" . . . exhibiting all the signs." The veterinarian was saying, oblivious to the fact that her audience was no longer there. "You will need to warn everyone who came in close contact with the dog and tell them to get a series of precautionary vaccinations."
He had to have known. It was too much of a coincidence for it to be otherwise, and with Deville, Eleanor was beginning to think coincidences did not exist.
"Some plans go off better if the only place they exist is up here," Pierce told her, tapping his head. The image flickered to a few moments before, when she had asked him about the dog. "I hired him." Memories lurched again, fast-forwarding, moving in macabre black and white, then slowed to a crawl. The Deville smiled as she strode by him, holding the dog’s head close to his chest so it couldn’t bite her. That’s what it had to be, though she mistook it for affection at first. Same with letting the dog gnaw on his gloved finger. "We’re just going to give him a little scare aren’t we . . . yes we are."
"People will likely resist, Mrs. Kannon-Hall, but these vaccinations are of the utmost importance. And they must be carried out as soon as possible. Immediately. Anyone who has been licked or bitten is a top priority."[/b]
Flashing forward, to CBT entering the locker room. The dog immediately furious. "Stop right there or I’ve been instructed to let him loose!" CBT chuckled. "That cute little thing? I'll take my chances." The Deville’s grin wading in her mind like a calm wake, she let the dog go as CBT pressed on. Eleanor thought it was a joke in bad taste, but a joke nonetheless. It seemed less and less a joke as it replayed in slow-motion.
As if Deville had been coaching it all along, the dog latched onto CBT’s hand when he caught it, viciously biting at his fingers. No one had thought anything of it at the time, even when blood started dripping to the floor.
"Not everyone will be affected, but there’s a good chance, especially if their skin has been in contact with saliva. If there was an open wound the chances increase exponentially. It takes a while for the symptoms to show up, but they could manifest in as little as a couple of days. If the symptoms show up before treatment has begun the person is a lost cause."
Eleanor’s mind screeched to a halt at that last, and she tried to bring it under control enough to speak. "What happens if treatment hasn’t begun by the time symptoms appear?" she heard herself ask. She already knew the answer, but in her fogged state she asked before she could think better of it, subconsciously hoping she might be wrong.
"Rabies is fatal, Mrs. Kannon-Hall."
She tried to focus in on the vet, to keep her vision from blurring, but she couldn’t. In her mind, that ring of fire was back, supplying a border to the scenes that kept replaying themselves in gruesomely exaggerated slow-motion. She tried to make them stop, but she had a better chance of hurdling that ring of fire and skipping into a field of dandelions.
"Nobody screws with me," The Deville told her as soon as he got backstage, furious from the announcement that CBT had meandered his way into a championship title match. He wasn’t angry that he had to face him. He just seemed offended that his first Super Brawl was going to be against an unreliable no-talent like CBT.. And resolved to revenge. "He’s a dead man."
She had taken it as an idle threat, an impassioned boast by an athlete who needed to vent. She had taken it as a harmless threat of habit from a man with a reputation for the unsavory.
Eleanor Kannon-Hall had spent years listening to people talk about The Deville. She listened as performers who had never seen or met him built him up as unstoppable, then to others -- and some of the same -- boasting about what they would do if they ever faced him in the ring. None of them had ever met the man, but they knew of him, they had heard the stories, and so they thought they were prepared.
In truth, Eleanor had thought the same thing. She had been around him for years, even interacting with him once or twice in PCW, then having him sink RPW beneath her husband’s feet. Up until she met him face to face a couple of weeks ago at his house, she thought she had The Deville figured out.
Sitting in the clinic trembling, trying to work saliva into her mouth, she realized that, like many, she only had the vaguest hint of what lay beneath the chilling reputation.
"Nobody screws with me," the words chimed hauntingly, echoing. "He’s a dead man . . . We’re going to take CBT out."[/b]
She realized she hadn’t even been scratching the surface.
Do you have any idea how many times I’ve had some mangy pup start up and draw a line in the sand, declaring "Not in my backyard."? Can you even begin to guess how often I’ve heard people claiming I’m not used to the level of competition they are, or that I’m finally in for the rude awakening that’s been building all these years?
No? Want a hint?
It happens every single time I debut somewhere, from at least half a dozen different people. The only thing as numbingly persistent is the reputation itself.
Now would you care to wager a guess at how often those people have been wrong?
Take your time. It’s tough coming up with two "every single time" answers in a row.
Apologies in advance, Reverend Shadow, but your playground is being conquered, ceded to the strongest bidder, and the only thing you can do about it is dig in your heels and fight. You can try to play popularity contests, or join and abandon friends every few months when you decide to show your face, or study my history and reputation to try to use it against me, but it’s not going to change the fact that I’m here, ready to do what I’ve always done.
Not in your yard?
you. All over your yard, using your warm-up towel as toilet paper.
I’m supposed to fear you because you’ve been here a while? Because ou used to wear a title for a couple of months? What, you think you get squatter’s power or something, that the ring’s going to cushion your falls and harden mine because I’m newer here? I’m supposed to play second fiddle because you have seniority? I’m supposed to job because I’m "the new kid in school"?
I wish I was surprised to hear it, but I’m not. It’s the same old story everywhere I go. The only thing changing is the zombie regurgitating the sentiments. You hear about my reputation, figure that it’s my be-all end-all, and try to swat it down with other inconsequential intangibles, like seniority.
Instead of preparing for me, you prepare for my reputation, because instead of losing to me, you want the excuse of losing to my aura. If you win, you toppled the great and "omnipotent" Pierce Deville. All the tabloids will be abuzz with the news. Conspiracy theorists everywhere will be on the wire. If you lose, well . . . no big deal, right? I mean, you were supposed to lose, right?
Can you imagine what that’s like for me? If my reputation is so strong that it defines me in your eyes, that you throw out words like unstoppable and omnipotent to describe me, that I’m expected to win because of who I am. Can you imagine how much it must affect me, at the heart of it?
Can you even begin to understand how much pressure it puts on me? Can you begin to fathom how much it must eat away at my spirit?
I hope not, because it doesn’t. Not at all.
I don’t care about reputation, seniority, or any of that other crap losers use to convince themselves they lost for some reason beyond their control. I approach every opponent, now, the same way I did when I first broke into the business. Pitting myself against them mano-a-mano, doing whatever I can to gain an advantage, doing whatever I can to win. If I need to stack the deck, I stack the deck. If I don’t need to, I still stack it, just so you can’t.
The reason I win has nothing to do with my reputation. It has nothing to do with name-value, or the fact that I’ve beaten some of the biggest icons in the sport. If you think I managed to fluke my way into the spotlight and have been coasting ever since, that somehow my worth is inflated, you don’t have too firm a grasp on how the business works.
The reason I win is because I’m willing to take it further than you are. I simply do not tolerate defeat, and I’m always, always looking forward. While you’re caught up in my past, worrying yourself over what I’ve done, looking over your shoulder, I’m up ahead laying tripwire for the future. While you’re lamenting my past greatness I’m setting the roadwork for the next wave. I’m riding high on the future, watching you drown on the now.
There used to be a time when other people did the same, when people worried about winning a match instead of getting lost in their opponent’s reputation. They concentrated on the man they’d be facing, not the myth they’d be faced down by. They worried about making a name for themselves rather than spraying graffiti on my monument.
Now my reputation precedes me wherever I go and wannabes are always clamoring up beside it, trying to see how they measure up, like giddy children to the wall that marks their growth, sure they’ve shot up a foot in the past month. They’re always a little higher up than the last time, but never as much as they had hoped. And so they sulk away, disheartened, only to try again in another month. The only thing more disheartening is when they realize that eventually they’re going to stop growing, and that no matter how high they get, that wall will always contain them.
This week when I have you locked in The Gridlock, or The Soprano, or whatever the I want to put you in just because I can, remember that you’ll never be able to live up to my reputation. Because it’s not an obstacle or an adversary. It isn’t something to be defeated. It’s as unconquerable as that child’s wall.
What you should have been paying attention to this entire time was me. Not my reputation, but the man behind it. The man responsible for it. The man constantly striving beyond it. While you were worrying about what I’d done before, I was crafting the demise that waits.
Remember that as you continue staring expectantly at the arena’s ceiling, trapped in agonizing pain, waiting for the heavens to split open and my reputation to ride into the arena on a golden unicorn. Remember that as the announcers call out my name as the victor of the match. Remember that as you go to give your apathetic press conference about how you got screwed.
I’ve been right in your face the whole time, but you were too blinded by my reputation to see it. In waiting for the myth you forgot about the man.
So allow me to introduce myself this final time.
I’m Pierce Deville.
Not the legend or the myth, but the man who makes both a reality. The man who’s going to show you not what a reputation can do, but how a reputation is made.
Pleased to meet you, Reverend Shadow.
See you in the ring.
There used to be a world where nobody knew my name. A community where I was taken at face value. No one wondered if I had a gun in my pocket or a bomb in my briefcase, or whose wife I was ransoming. Nobody cared where I’d been before or what I’d been up to. I was just another dime-a-dozen guinea-mick kid with a spotty past and a winning smile.
When people dreamed of beating me it was with the same motivation they drew upon for battling anyone else. The desire to win was paramount. Not to put in a good showing or to beat anyone in particular, but just to win. They looked at me and saw another hurdle to soar over, not a mountain to make a career trying to climb. Nobody gave a thought to the countless others who’d had their bodies broken in the attempt.
Rumor had yet to put me on the radar. Every match was something new. Every opponent brought something unique, something to capitalize on their individual strengths. Nobody worried about what my plans were, about how to counter or duplicate them.
Reputation had yet to make me into a measuring stick. Mere survival was never the goal of the other man’s equation. Seeing how he stacked up against the best was never a part of his formula. Beating me for the sake of spreading another rumor, of instant ascension to stardom through one match, never factored into it.
Prestige had yet to settle me in the crosshairs of every big-game hunter’s gun.
There used to be a life where I was judged for what I was doing, not for whispers of what I’d done. There used to be a place where I arrived before my name did.
There used to be a time when I defined myself.
December 16, 2007
Moments Prior To Deville vs. McGurk
Pierce’s Locker Room
Moments Prior To Deville vs. McGurk
Pierce’s Locker Room
"Please tell me you have more than that," Eleanor Kannon-Hall demanded slowly, her tone subdued by disbelief. Facing her in his neatly pressed suit, holding a small white dog -- of all things! -- to his chest, The Deville shrugged his shoulders, his mischievous grin never sliding a hair.
"Do you really mean to tell me," Eleanor went on, gluing her hands to her hips as she began pacing before him, "that less than an hour before your match with Wayne McGurk, your Loaded Debut match, your gameplan consists of what we discussed earlier?"
They had had a meeting to discuss strategy over the weekend, a luncheon initiated by Deville in Eleanor’s hometown. He had originally pushed for her to fly to his home, but Eleanor had vowed to never again set foot on the premises of that Batcave. When she finally insisted that they could easily discuss tactics over the phone, Pierce wouldn’t hear of it, lecturing her that business lives were conducted over the phone only in the greatest emergencies, and personal lives never. He would simply fly down. He made it sound as if she lived down the street, that he’d stop by for a spell on his way home. When she protested about the unnecessary cost, he just laughed. "It’s a business trip," he scoffed, and for a long while she was left wondering whether he meant he could write it off or that he had "other" business to attend to. In the end she was left with the realization it was probably both.
That meeting had lasted all of forty-five minutes, with the majority of it whittled away in obliquely flirtatious chatter. Not that Eleanor wanted to spend the time that way, but The Deville had been persistent, eyeing her askance when she changed the subject and looking hurt until she answered the trivial questions he put to her. By the time he got up and said he had to run, paying her as if she was the waitress, they had talked remarkably little of tactics and only settled on one sure-fire ruse.
"The Great Pierce Deville," Eleanor scolded with much mockery, "can’t even add to my gameplan?"
"The plan is already brilliant," Deville responded with another spamnt shrug. "Wayne’s out of his element without his puppetmasters, so we do your cut-faking and get rid of his entourage. Then I tear him apart in the ring." Arching his eyebrow, Deville scratched the Chihuahua behind its ears. It snarled and started biting the thumb of his glove.
Eleanor stopped pacing and glared at the dog. "This isn’t a sound strategy. You can’t go into matches planning to wing it, trusting we’ll be able to get people tossed from ringside! You’re supposed to be this great strategist! You’re supposed to be-- What the hell is with that stupid dog?" she snapped suddenly.
Looking wounded, Deville clamped his hand down over the dog’s ears and pulled it away from her, as if to protect it from her. Just as quickly he let the facade drop and tossed the dog to the ground, giving it a little kick when it went after his shoe. He flashed Eleanor a rascally grin. "I hired him yesterday as a consultant for the match. If there’s anyone knowledgeable enough about crap shoot culture, someone with a hope of articulating those thoughts in a way intelligent men can understand, it’s this Mexican dog."
Lips pursed, Eleanor could only glare at him.
"Don’t worry," Deville said as his grin grew, "he doesn’t outrank you. You’re still number two in Camp Deville." Eleanor continued glaring, unimpressed. Seeing his joke was getting nowhere, Pierce sighed and added a muttered "For now." just loud enough for her to hear.
December 31, 2007
Moments Prior To Obo/EBR/Deville vs. The Axis
Pierce’s Locker Room
Moments Prior To Obo/EBR/Deville vs. The Axis
Pierce’s Locker Room
Eleanor took a deep breath, foreshadowing the impending harangue. "This isn’t all a big joke! You have to--"
"I know what I have to do!" The Deville boomed over her, not shouting, but perilously close to it. "I have to do what I’ve done my entire career! What I’ve somehow managed to stumble into by myself all these years!" It was his turn to take a breath, holding his hands out to tell her to hold on. "Listen, I know you have a job to do and I appreciate you doing it, but discussing how I’m going to execute this move or counter that one isn’t the way I strategize. I already know what I’m going to do. You stay back here and wait for CBT while we take care of The Axis."
It was a struggle for Eleanor to keep her voice level. "What if that doesn’t work? What if he never even comes?"
The Deville laughed, eyes gleaming. "Then we’ll wing it."
"Pierce," Eleanor warned, "I’m serious."
"So am I," Deville replied, walking across the room to scoop up the yapping dog. "Trust me. Some plans go off better if the only place they exist is up here." Smiling as the dog bit into his glove again, Deville tapped his temple with his free hand and swept over to Eleanor. "Trust me . . . I’ve sent him a message he wouldn’t dare ignore. Now I’m going down to the ring. It’s time to get this over with. You stay here and make sure you take CBT out!"
Eleanor sputtered as Deville turned on his heel and began heading for the door. "What? Now?" Scrambling after him, she kept the questions going, displaced by her new charge’s unorthodox spontaneity.
The Deville pulled the door open and offered her a slight bow. "Just stay here . . . I promise he’ll be here," he said wryly, "if he’s not already on his way. Just make sure you let the dog give him a scare." Ruffling the dog’s fur Deville threw his voice to an affectionate murmur. "Aren’t we? We’re just going to bark and bark and scare him, right" he asked the dog, then answered in that same voice as he closed the door behind him, "Yes we are."
“What if he bites him?”
The Deville grinned. “Look at the dog . . . even if he did bite him . . . do you really think it’d hurt?”
~><>…<><~
Of course, now everyone knows who I am. Or think they do, at least.
The rumors beat me wherever I’m going, and before I can even set foot in the door there’s a line of talented promise waiting for their chance to run the gauntlet. Plenty of people give in to their survival instinct and avoid me, but for the most part, professionals in our sport are more glory-bound than sensible. They fear the reputation, but ultimately they want to try cutting their teeth.
Against the myth. Against the legend. Against everything they’ve heard about me, exaggerated by their own fears and insecurity, downplayed by their raging egos. With their hearts and souls bare naked before themselves and the world, they set themselves to put everything on the line against my reputation.
Not against me. Against my reputation.
That’s what they prepare for, that’s what they want to measure themselves beside, that’s all they allow themselves to see when I walk into the arena. Not a man to struggle with and endure, but an obstacle to overcome and move beyond. A stepping stone to the limelight. A lottery ticket to strike lucky and rich on.
They think they’re at an advantage because they’ve heard of me, because they know I’m up to something. As if it’s not well-documented that I’m always up to something. As if I’d deny it if I was asked.
I don’t deny it. Never have, never will.
Hell, I flaunt it.
January 14, 2008
One Day Prior To Loaded
One Day Prior To Loaded
Checking her watch again, shaking it dramatically as if to make sure it’s still working, Eleanor heaved a sigh and once again eyed the small table littered with magazines. It was all tripe; Chatelaine, People, Time. Normally she wouldn’t be caught dead reading such drivel, and even dead she knew she’d be bored, but reasoning that it might help her pass the time, she picked up the issue of Time and started flipping through the pages, hoping against hope that it had a jokes section.
She had been at the veterinarian clinic only an hour, but with the incessant barking and chirping, teamed with the smell of urine and feces and dusty medicine, it had seemed much longer. A woman in a glorified smock had only come to get the angry little Chihuahua five minutes ago, telling Eleanor that since she didn’t own the dog and it didn’t seem comforted by her, she may as well wait in the lobby. Eleanor was more than happy to oblige.
As happy as she could be running these stupid little errands for Deville, at least. Finding out that he didn’t actually own the dog, but had found it in an alley and taken it in, bothered Eleanor, and not just because she knew he was lying. But that bother was nothing beside what she felt when he told her "The overgrown rodent seems to be sick. Take him to an animal shelter, or whatever passes for The Humane Society around here."
It took her ten minutes to talk him into letting her take the dog to the vet, and by the time she realized what she had been doing, she had roped herself into doing just that. She hadn’t wanted to take charge of the stupid thing. In fact, she had planned to raise the issue of it being assumed that she’d just take the animal to the shelter in the first place. But then she got caught up in the thought of the animal sick and suffering, neglected by a bunch of high school volunteers, and her heart went into her mouth before any thought could. It would have seemed foolish to argue about wasting her time after the scolding she had given him for thinking of putting a sick animal in a shelter.
Slapping the magazine back on the table, she was startled and began blushing when someone from the doorway coughed and called her name. A squat grey-haired lady in a white coat and mask beckoned her to follow, then turned and walked off down the hall. Eleanor jogged to catch up, then fell in behind her, wriggling her nose at the strengthening antiseptic odour. Before long they entered a small room, and Eleanor could see the dog was back in the carrying case she had brought it in, the carrying case Deville insisted she couldn’t let it out of. It was still snarling and barking as much as before, which was to say relentlessly.
The veterinarian took a seat at the desk without offering Eleanor one. "Your relationship to the dog, Mrs. Kannon-Hall?"
Eleanor folded her arms over her chest, refusing to be put off by the rude omission. "My employer found it about a month ago," she replied dryly. "He says we’re co-workers."
The vet turned to eye her from under her brow, then wrote away with her pen, scribbling something much more in-depth than "co-worker." "Where did your employer find the dog?"
"I don’t know."
More scribbling. "Has the dog been exhibiting this behavior the whole time?"
Eleanor glared at the yappy little beast. "The barking and snarling? Yeah, he never stops that."
"And has he been exposed to anyone other than you or your employer in the last week?"
Eleanor paused, biting her lip. Not because of the fear suddenly gripping her heart -- with the sudden realization of where the line of questioning was leading, it would have been enough -- but because there was just no reasonable way to explain that the dog had been exposed to thousands of people, the majority of whom she couldn’t contact. Instead of trying to explain, Eleanor moved up behind the woman and began reading over her shoulder, turning the tables. "What’s wrong with him?"
The woman spun around in her seat, pushing Eleanor back and glaring fiercely above her mask. "It hasn’t had any of its vaccinations. Not that I can detect." She sighed, pausing to shoot a sympathetic look at the cage. "I won’t know for sure without killing it and running the tests, but I’m pretty sure the dog has rabies."
The world faded out for Eleanor, as if someone had stuffed her ears with cotton and trapped her inside a huge bubble. Air wouldn’t come. Her lungs burned with the lack. Her stomach suddenly felt very light, and her head very heavy. With her mind’s eye she saw Deville backstage with the dog, looking immaculate in his suit, ruffling the dog’s fur with his gloved hands.
" . . . exhibiting all the signs." The veterinarian was saying, oblivious to the fact that her audience was no longer there. "You will need to warn everyone who came in close contact with the dog and tell them to get a series of precautionary vaccinations."
He had to have known. It was too much of a coincidence for it to be otherwise, and with Deville, Eleanor was beginning to think coincidences did not exist.
"Some plans go off better if the only place they exist is up here," Pierce told her, tapping his head. The image flickered to a few moments before, when she had asked him about the dog. "I hired him." Memories lurched again, fast-forwarding, moving in macabre black and white, then slowed to a crawl. The Deville smiled as she strode by him, holding the dog’s head close to his chest so it couldn’t bite her. That’s what it had to be, though she mistook it for affection at first. Same with letting the dog gnaw on his gloved finger. "We’re just going to give him a little scare aren’t we . . . yes we are."
"People will likely resist, Mrs. Kannon-Hall, but these vaccinations are of the utmost importance. And they must be carried out as soon as possible. Immediately. Anyone who has been licked or bitten is a top priority."[/b]
Flashing forward, to CBT entering the locker room. The dog immediately furious. "Stop right there or I’ve been instructed to let him loose!" CBT chuckled. "That cute little thing? I'll take my chances." The Deville’s grin wading in her mind like a calm wake, she let the dog go as CBT pressed on. Eleanor thought it was a joke in bad taste, but a joke nonetheless. It seemed less and less a joke as it replayed in slow-motion.
As if Deville had been coaching it all along, the dog latched onto CBT’s hand when he caught it, viciously biting at his fingers. No one had thought anything of it at the time, even when blood started dripping to the floor.
"Not everyone will be affected, but there’s a good chance, especially if their skin has been in contact with saliva. If there was an open wound the chances increase exponentially. It takes a while for the symptoms to show up, but they could manifest in as little as a couple of days. If the symptoms show up before treatment has begun the person is a lost cause."
Eleanor’s mind screeched to a halt at that last, and she tried to bring it under control enough to speak. "What happens if treatment hasn’t begun by the time symptoms appear?" she heard herself ask. She already knew the answer, but in her fogged state she asked before she could think better of it, subconsciously hoping she might be wrong.
"Rabies is fatal, Mrs. Kannon-Hall."
She tried to focus in on the vet, to keep her vision from blurring, but she couldn’t. In her mind, that ring of fire was back, supplying a border to the scenes that kept replaying themselves in gruesomely exaggerated slow-motion. She tried to make them stop, but she had a better chance of hurdling that ring of fire and skipping into a field of dandelions.
"Nobody screws with me," The Deville told her as soon as he got backstage, furious from the announcement that CBT had meandered his way into a championship title match. He wasn’t angry that he had to face him. He just seemed offended that his first Super Brawl was going to be against an unreliable no-talent like CBT.. And resolved to revenge. "He’s a dead man."
She had taken it as an idle threat, an impassioned boast by an athlete who needed to vent. She had taken it as a harmless threat of habit from a man with a reputation for the unsavory.
Eleanor Kannon-Hall had spent years listening to people talk about The Deville. She listened as performers who had never seen or met him built him up as unstoppable, then to others -- and some of the same -- boasting about what they would do if they ever faced him in the ring. None of them had ever met the man, but they knew of him, they had heard the stories, and so they thought they were prepared.
In truth, Eleanor had thought the same thing. She had been around him for years, even interacting with him once or twice in PCW, then having him sink RPW beneath her husband’s feet. Up until she met him face to face a couple of weeks ago at his house, she thought she had The Deville figured out.
Sitting in the clinic trembling, trying to work saliva into her mouth, she realized that, like many, she only had the vaguest hint of what lay beneath the chilling reputation.
"Nobody screws with me," the words chimed hauntingly, echoing. "He’s a dead man . . . We’re going to take CBT out."[/b]
She realized she hadn’t even been scratching the surface.
~><>…<><~
Do you have any idea how many times I’ve had some mangy pup start up and draw a line in the sand, declaring "Not in my backyard."? Can you even begin to guess how often I’ve heard people claiming I’m not used to the level of competition they are, or that I’m finally in for the rude awakening that’s been building all these years?
No? Want a hint?
It happens every single time I debut somewhere, from at least half a dozen different people. The only thing as numbingly persistent is the reputation itself.
Now would you care to wager a guess at how often those people have been wrong?
Take your time. It’s tough coming up with two "every single time" answers in a row.
Apologies in advance, Reverend Shadow, but your playground is being conquered, ceded to the strongest bidder, and the only thing you can do about it is dig in your heels and fight. You can try to play popularity contests, or join and abandon friends every few months when you decide to show your face, or study my history and reputation to try to use it against me, but it’s not going to change the fact that I’m here, ready to do what I’ve always done.
Not in your yard?
you. All over your yard, using your warm-up towel as toilet paper. I’m supposed to fear you because you’ve been here a while? Because ou used to wear a title for a couple of months? What, you think you get squatter’s power or something, that the ring’s going to cushion your falls and harden mine because I’m newer here? I’m supposed to play second fiddle because you have seniority? I’m supposed to job because I’m "the new kid in school"?
I wish I was surprised to hear it, but I’m not. It’s the same old story everywhere I go. The only thing changing is the zombie regurgitating the sentiments. You hear about my reputation, figure that it’s my be-all end-all, and try to swat it down with other inconsequential intangibles, like seniority.
Instead of preparing for me, you prepare for my reputation, because instead of losing to me, you want the excuse of losing to my aura. If you win, you toppled the great and "omnipotent" Pierce Deville. All the tabloids will be abuzz with the news. Conspiracy theorists everywhere will be on the wire. If you lose, well . . . no big deal, right? I mean, you were supposed to lose, right?
Can you imagine what that’s like for me? If my reputation is so strong that it defines me in your eyes, that you throw out words like unstoppable and omnipotent to describe me, that I’m expected to win because of who I am. Can you imagine how much it must affect me, at the heart of it?
Can you even begin to understand how much pressure it puts on me? Can you begin to fathom how much it must eat away at my spirit?
I hope not, because it doesn’t. Not at all.
I don’t care about reputation, seniority, or any of that other crap losers use to convince themselves they lost for some reason beyond their control. I approach every opponent, now, the same way I did when I first broke into the business. Pitting myself against them mano-a-mano, doing whatever I can to gain an advantage, doing whatever I can to win. If I need to stack the deck, I stack the deck. If I don’t need to, I still stack it, just so you can’t.
The reason I win has nothing to do with my reputation. It has nothing to do with name-value, or the fact that I’ve beaten some of the biggest icons in the sport. If you think I managed to fluke my way into the spotlight and have been coasting ever since, that somehow my worth is inflated, you don’t have too firm a grasp on how the business works.
The reason I win is because I’m willing to take it further than you are. I simply do not tolerate defeat, and I’m always, always looking forward. While you’re caught up in my past, worrying yourself over what I’ve done, looking over your shoulder, I’m up ahead laying tripwire for the future. While you’re lamenting my past greatness I’m setting the roadwork for the next wave. I’m riding high on the future, watching you drown on the now.
There used to be a time when other people did the same, when people worried about winning a match instead of getting lost in their opponent’s reputation. They concentrated on the man they’d be facing, not the myth they’d be faced down by. They worried about making a name for themselves rather than spraying graffiti on my monument.
Now my reputation precedes me wherever I go and wannabes are always clamoring up beside it, trying to see how they measure up, like giddy children to the wall that marks their growth, sure they’ve shot up a foot in the past month. They’re always a little higher up than the last time, but never as much as they had hoped. And so they sulk away, disheartened, only to try again in another month. The only thing more disheartening is when they realize that eventually they’re going to stop growing, and that no matter how high they get, that wall will always contain them.
This week when I have you locked in The Gridlock, or The Soprano, or whatever the
I want to put you in just because I can, remember that you’ll never be able to live up to my reputation. Because it’s not an obstacle or an adversary. It isn’t something to be defeated. It’s as unconquerable as that child’s wall.What you should have been paying attention to this entire time was me. Not my reputation, but the man behind it. The man responsible for it. The man constantly striving beyond it. While you were worrying about what I’d done before, I was crafting the demise that waits.
Remember that as you continue staring expectantly at the arena’s ceiling, trapped in agonizing pain, waiting for the heavens to split open and my reputation to ride into the arena on a golden unicorn. Remember that as the announcers call out my name as the victor of the match. Remember that as you go to give your apathetic press conference about how you got screwed.
I’ve been right in your face the whole time, but you were too blinded by my reputation to see it. In waiting for the myth you forgot about the man.
So allow me to introduce myself this final time.
I’m Pierce Deville.
Not the legend or the myth, but the man who makes both a reality. The man who’s going to show you not what a reputation can do, but how a reputation is made.
Pleased to meet you, Reverend Shadow.
See you in the ring.
