Post by LACKLAN on Sept 21, 2019 11:46:55 GMT -5
The mighty beast Ioth Rhulitar growls in her slumber, her long neck acting as an echoing chamber for the sound to bounce within and grow. It escapes her maw with a force that rattles the gold around her, causing great shifts in the hoard upon which she sleeps. The eyes of the ancient black dragon move behind scaled lids rapidly, hinting at the dreams of the powerful wyrm. A mound of gold pushes away from the beast as her tail moves during the dream, the long appendage ending in a heavy hammerhead of bone which catches treasure of all sorts as it moves.
The Dagger of Life Stealing, once wielded by the Succubus Synn in her battle against The Great and Powerful Wizard CAPTAIN. It’s jeweled handle, now catching and reflecting the light as a member of the dragon’s hoard, was all that remained after Ioth Rhulitar decided that their alliance was at an end and she hungered.
The mirrored shield of the great knight Vainamous, which held the dual purpose of assisting the man in defeating a gorgon and checking his hair at a moment’s notice, was lazily thrust against the wall by the sweep of the sleeping dragging, the spoils of the man’s brave, albeit foolish, quest to slay her.
The tongue of The Man of Many Names, covered in solid gold after Ioth Rhulitar pulled it from his head many years before. His attempts of using those honeyed words, as he had with so many through the years, was thwarted in the face of the dragon’s terrible might, and her humor, as it now and forever would be as “golden” as he proclaimed.
More treasures, number beyond counting in the cavern of gold, jewels, and riches where the dragon sleeps. Her great body moves, the long and powerful legs joining the tail in their movements, telling of the dreams she has, dreams of a time long ago.
“Are you SURE that this is the right place?” asks the paladin, doubt plain on her stern face. Her armor of plates, all buffed until they shined, stand out in the dark commonroom filled with men drinking at tables. The blonde woman standing next to her, wearing a brown cloak with green vines wrapping themselves up her long legs and to her shoulders, breaks into a smile that splits her face in two.
“Tobvs! At least, maybe? Its where Ambrosia said we would find-”
She screams as a man flies through the air and slams down before them, a knot already forming on the top of his head. Standing at the table from where the man had been but moments before, three men, day laborers by the harshness of their faces and severity of their rough clothes, brush off their hands as if finishing their work. The paladin pushes the man with her booted foot but he stays motionless, though playing cards fall from the inside of his sleeve, all aces of varying suits.
“Judgement for breaking the law,” she says as she turns her gaze back up to the taller woman. “Belgiana, are we SURE that-”
“Have faith, Mero!” says the druid, her smile coming back to her face, though with a tinge of worry in her blue eyes. She claps her friend on her armored shoulder and moves away towards the keep of the bar. “My good man! Perhaps you have heard of the drink of my people? Its one part apples to three parts tini and-”
Merovingian the Righteous shakes her head as the druid Belgiana heads toward her usual bout of day drinking and then lets her gaze turn over the room once more. She narrows her eyes at the group of miners and laborers taking respite from their work and reaches up and touches the icosagon in the center of her breastplate just above her breasts, the symbol that helped her attune to the desires and powers of her patron, the Forgotten God THAC0. Silently communing with him, her eyes flash solid white for a moment as she seeks out those who would do evil deeds, or those who might be corrupted by some Abyssal force. But none of the bodies the room radiate an aura of darkness to tell her of their evil.
“Hmmm. This is-”
“Oi! Get outta my door, woman, eh?!”
Distracted by her attempt to detect any evil in the room before her, she jumps slightly from the cantankerous voice behind her. She spins and sees a barbarian with tilted eyes, though not of a color she was accustomed with her close association with bb of the Cottonlane Hills. This man...more a brute than anything...was darker and shorter, and she can see teeth filed down into points.
“Who are yo-”
“Oi! Down ‘ere!” Merovingian takes her eyes downward and is surprised to see that the voice did not belong to the brute, but to a dwarf of orange skin with what seemed to be a perpetually sour look upon his face. “Yer in me way, ya oversized mouthbreather!”
Merovingian blinks several times at the odd dwarf as the light of the pub glistened off his cleanly shaven head.
“My apologies, Master…”
“Crushbone!” he yells after the prompt from the paladin. “Let me make one thing…”
“PERFECTLY CLEAR!” comes the cry of every man in the pub.
“I own this place...and don’t you forget it! Not get outta mah way! My poutine will burn! Let’s go, Yama-san!”
The surly dwarf pushes past her, the shoulder he pushes into her thigh feeling like a mountain. As he pushes past, Yama-san does not move, instead keeping dark eyes on her. After pushing past, Crushbone reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small wooden stick.
“Yama-san! Come eat, ya dumb barbarian!”
The barbarians’ eyes fixate on the stick with an undeniable hunger and he, too, pushes past the paladin. As he follows the pub owner, Belgiana returns with two small drinks in her hands and a face which is already beginning to show a flush in both cheeks. She eyes Crushbone and Yama-san wearily before turning to her friend.
“Is that them?”
Merovingian gives the druid a nod.
“Indeed. It seems Ambrosia’s network of spies was correct. And if they are even further correct, this man will lead us to the mysterious head of this black market. And then we will SEVER that head with RIGHTEOUS FURY and then-”
Belgiana tunes out the paladin’s usual rant about her god’s version of “good” and “lawful” and takes a moment to look over the menu. As she reads the few words on the wall, she cannot help but do so in the dwarf’s voice:
Poutine.
Just poutine.
STOP ASKING WE ONLY SERVE POUTINE
A loud chuckle, emanating deep within the sleeping beast’s body, rumbles outward and shakes the walls of the cavern, the force nearly a sonic blast which disrupts even more of the treasure hoard. A chain of platinum falls and tumbles down a hill of gold coins, a remnant of Crushbone’s slavery trade. The dwarf had not lived long after his business had been uncovered by an overly curious group of adventurers. First the discovery that his pub was a front for a black market, and then the revelation that the market was the cover for the true business in ownership over flesh.
With a clatter against jems, the spiked club once belonging to Yama-san of the Cherry Blossom Valley barbarians rolled down the golden hill to fall limply at the side of the chain. His attempt at vengeance for the gruesome death suffered by his master had brought him to a similar fate years later, with the Knocker of a paladin giving his head the thematically appropriate, albeit ironic, SPLAT! as that of Crushbone before him.
A restless movement of a comparatively small forearm sends another hill of gold to be scattered across the room. These are different, not the standard of the land, but from another. Given as tribute to the great wyrm by Sebward Maximilian Whitely Michael May-Porter von Sherridon the LIII, Prince of the Kingdom of Brycetown, and his courtesan-turned-consort Mignonne, their regular shipment was what kept that land across the sea safe from the fate of Lacklandia, a fate of darkness and poison.
The eyes behind the scaled lids continue to shift.
“My liege!”
Merovingian yells into the air as her warhorse Mane of Red, the spiritual being given to her by the Forgotten God THAC0 as a reward for her penitence, skitters to a halt before a man as wide as he was tall. The heavily armored paladin pushes herself off the large saddle and lands upon the ground, then lowers herself to one knee and bows her helmeted head.
“You called for me?”
“YES ME DID CALL FOR YOU”
The massive man, seeming a mountain of flesh barely contained by a coat of chain threatening to burst at the seams, has a voice as big as his body.
“ME NEED YOU HERE FOR MEETING. RISE AND FOLLOW.”
As the large man, the liege of Lacklandia who went by the name earned in battle, that of Thunderous Redd, turns and heads towards a massive ten, Merovingian slowly rises to her feet. The slow movements continue as she reaches up to her visored helmet and slowly removes the bug-shaped headgear. Green eyes move all about the war camp as her body tingles with a feeling of unease. She had been on the front lines, fighting in the seemingly unending war with the Emor Kingdom, and this summons was out of character for everyone. Still, she would obey her liege. Her heavy footfalls come to an abrupt halt as soon as she pushes past the curtains of the tent and her eyes go wide.
“YOU!”
The tent is full of men dressed for battle sitting on either side of a long table of heavy wood, likely of the famous birch of the forests of her homeland, but half of the men are not men. At least, not wholly. Taller than any man she knew, and with tiny tusks sticking out from their mouths, the half-orcs of the Plains of Emor are a gruesome sight to her eyes. And as she reaches for her great maul at her belt, the holy avenger which has helped bring justice and light to the world through her strength, a hulking brute stood tall behind the table and withdrew a thick short sword in response.
“SIT DOWN PLEASE YOUR LIEGE CAN EXPLAIN EVERYTHING”
The booming voice of Thunderous Redd holds the room in place, though the immediate tension remains. Merovingian holds the knocker back, ready to strike or throw as needed, and the hulking beast across from her holds his sword the same way. But then the man next to him slowly stands, holding his hands up, and motions towards the liege of Lacklandia.
“Yes, we can.”
The man’s accent was harsh in the paladin’s ears and made her mind flash to moments on the battlefield. That accent had declared death upon her, and her homeland, and her God, as many times as it had pleaded for mercy as she brought the hammer down.
“YES PLEASE PUT YOUR HAMMER AWAY THEY ARE NOT NAILS”
Merovingian doesn’t move, instead keeping her eyes on the man across from her with the sword. But movement out of the corner of her eye catches her attention, and she sees the hooded figure of Deimosious raising a hand to her. The Oracle’s calm demeanor eases her worry and she slowly places her maul back into the hoop at her waist. As she does so the man with the sword lowers his in turn, and both take up positions behind their charges as the two sit down at the table.
“We are here today to discuss peace. There has been enough bloodshed.”
The man gestures behind him.
“Redd, your general has fought Zanerus on the battlefield enough and-”
“CENTURION!”
The room nearly explodes as the paladin screams out and points a finger at the large standing man. Zanerus, her general counterpart of the army she had fought for years, was finally before her.
“MURDERER! RAPIST! YOU WILL DIE FOR YOUR CRIMES!”
Swords draw as she pulls the Knocker free again and lunges across the table.
“SMITE EV-”
She stops in mid-leap, frozen in place, with Zanerus in a mirrored position. Calmly sitting at the table, a thin rod of metal in his hand, Deimosious’ Hold Person spell bringing calm to the situation.
“Whether you like it or not,” comes the raspy voice out of the hood, his face as always hidden by his Persistent Displacement spell, as he puts the rod back into his cloak. “We MUST have piece. Merovingian, Paladin of THAC0, and Zanerus, Centurion General, MUST work side by side for the greater good. A dragon...a terrible beast...has come.”
Neither Centurion nor Paladin looked convinced as the spell faded and the two lieges lay out the plans for their tenuous peace.
The mountains of gold turn into rivers as Ioth Rhulitar moves in her slumber, her great mass moving the gold and pushing into waves. More and more treasures reveal themselves as the dreams...the memories...threaten to awaken the sleeping wyrm. The Heart of Edenossa fell out of a chest, one of the many adventures which Merovingian found herself completing during that short-lived peace with the Centurion, the Dryder’s heart being a weapon needed to fight the dragon spoken of by the Oracle, Necronium the Long-Winded. More oddities were unearthed by the shifting waves of treasures. The severed foot of Durden the Unfortunate, victim of a misunderstood riddle about a rabbit’s luck. The Jar of Eternal Bile, the terrible joke from the wizard who cursed Baar, a bareknuckle brawler who had lost his 395th fight in a row. The identity-changing hat of The Great and Powerful Wizard CAPTAIN, the very wizard who had helped Merovingian with the eventual defeat, and severed head, of Necronium. More.
More.
More dreams.
More memories.
More regrets.
Merovingian knelt upon the ground, one knee pressing down into the dirt of the pit, the other holding her broken and ruined arm. Her armor was heavy, pushing down upon her with all the weight of her station, and blood dripped hot down her face. Green eyes, hazing and haggard from the fighting, do their best to take in her surroundings, but the fog of war obscures much. She does not know how long she has fought, but it has been long enough for her body to give way, for her body’s protestations with aches and pains to bring her spirit low. But still, she must press on, she must find the will to rise above.
All around her, bodies lay in pooling blood. Bodies she had killed in that massive melee. The Siren, that ugly hag who had threatened to “wreck” her “ship” before she had thrown the Knocker not just into her head, but THROUGH it, when it had become distracted. Near it, the body of the Rydell the Resolute, his unkempt beard soaking in the mixture of mud and blood, the very next victim of the Knocker, unknowing of the Returning enchantment she had had placed upon it. The Man of Many Names, or what was left of him, gone to the Veil after her Branding Smite and witticisms of that long-ago eaten bagel. And, of course, the body of The Oracle, killed by the Centurion, who then was felled by the paladin’s dagger. A dagger given to her by-
“It’s over, Mero. Give...give in…”
Merovingian’s gaze cuts through the fog to one again see Thespina the Bard, her one time best friend, half out of her wolf form, the damage to her body making it difficult to keep her transformation. The ebony woman’s braids looked as haggard as the paladin felt, with several torn out from her head by Merovingian’s own hand just minutes before. On the ground next to her lay Belgiana, felled by a blast from the Knocker, though she could still see her chest moving with shallow breaths. Far beyond them, bb the Barbarian lay in a heap of crumpled limbs, the first casualty of this final fight in this deadly battlefield, though not before she was able to mangle the paladin’s arm with a crushing swing of her great club. But worst of all, most striking of all, was the pale form, the sickly pale form, of the reason why The Fearsome Five had broken in the first place: Ambrosia the Pirate Princess...now an undead creature, a perversion of life itself. The monster’s flaming red eyes and fangs poking down pink lips gave truth to the story, showed the reason for the break in the group.
“Ne...e...never…”
Merovingian pushes herself to her feet and then holds out her one good arm, her fingers outstretched in their glove, willing the Knocker to return. But it cannot, the maul stolen from her and placed into a box with some sealing enchantment far beyond her understanding. Her friends...her former friends...had set the trap, and they were successful.
“Don’t make us kill you, Mero.”
“Yes...don’t make us…”
A shiver runs through Merovingian’s spine at the breathy words of the vampire. She had wanted to kill Ambrosia as soon as she had been turned, as was righteous and good, but the other three had stood with her. And now, these years later, it had finally come to this moment at the end of this massive melee of death. And the small smile on the vampire’s face, hidden from the view of her werewolf companion, told the truth of how much she wanted to kill the paladin, to kill what Good was left of their company.
...embrace me…
The paladin’s eyes close for a moment as the voice fills her head. It was not the first time since she had come to the field that the voice found her, but it had grown louder and louder during the fight with her friends.
...embrace God…
“I...I don’t…”
A mask, a dull alabaster in color and lined with cracks, appears before her. The Mask of Japles. A relic from the founder of Lacklandia itself. Merovingian’s eyes go wide, but so do the eyes of Thespina and Ambrosia.
“No! Mero!”
“Its not what you think!”
...become…
She reaches for the mask.
...BECOME…
She takes it in her hands.
...the holy avenger...incarnate…
She places the mask upon her face.
And then she screams.
And screams.
And SCREAMS.
Pain wracks the paladin as the mask sears itself to her face, melting the flesh, becoming one. Anguish fills her as her body begins to break, bones snapping in half, joints popping out of place, only to find themselves whole again. And she grows. And grows.
And grows.
“MERO!”
“RUN, THESPIE!”
Thespina scoops down to pick up Belgiana, but she cannot lift the unconscious druid. Ambrosia grabs the bard by the shoulders and pulls her away, forcing her to move, as the paladin continues to grow, her body hunched over as a circle of dark clouds begin to shape.
“GET DOWN!”
Thespina pulls Ambrosia down as the Knocker, the great spiked maul, comes flying out of its magical prison and returns to the paladin.
“AAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!”
The scream of pain turns to a guttural roar as the paladin grows in the darkness. With the wet slicing sound, nubs of bone rip out of her back and her armor, spreading out and turning into wings. Her legs grow long and thing, her arms bulging and lengthening into hook claws. The Knocker joins her, becomes one with her, stretching out to become a tale. Her neck lengthens and her masked face turns into a snout.
“....sia ominak ui…IOTH RHULITAR!”
Had either Thespina or Ambrosia known Draconion, they might have been able to translate “My name is...HOLY AVENGER!” before a black cloud of death was breathed upon them.
...let me sleep…
...let me come home…
...when…
...why now…
...I am tired, Husband…
Green eyes open in the dark. Haggard. Lined with red. Behind a haze. They close softly and then struggle to open again, as if the flesh would rather stay, as if the body would rather not move. But they DO open.
A deep sigh, shaky, resigned. It shutters outward in a painful rasp, the sound thin and wavy with a weak reverberation. A swishing sound follows as the silhouette of a form moves across a sleek surface.
CLICK!
The green eyes squint in pain as the light from a lamp pushes away the darkness. Sitting on a massive bed of black and purple, with silken canopies raining down from the high ceiling, Aveline Lacklan looks as haggard as her eyes suggest. The woman looks gaunt in her simple black shift, with her pale skin showing bony shoulders and a protruding collarbone, though with the taut muscles of her arms still bulging with a pleasant roundness underneath the lines of scars on her arms. Her face does not seem sickly, but instead as if every ounce of fat had been burned away to leave cheekbones so high and sharp that they might draw blood with a blow.
Vous avez un message!
She jumps slightly as the voice pierces the air, seeming to her ears to be the loudest boom since Creation. She looks down at the glowing device on the table next to the bed and sees a cellphone. She takes it up and presses a few buttons, her nails filed down to cruel points making an effective stylus, and is greeted to a wallpaper image of herself, several years younger, holding onto the massive arm of a man in a black hooded robe and a hellish white mask on his face. She pulls down the notifications on the phone and sees, yet again, what she has been actively avoiding:
264 missed calls from a surprising variety of people.
47 unread emails, the last four marked “URGENT” from some physician with the unfortunate name of “Numbers.”
18 Dear Bordy questions.
Aveline sighs again with deep resignation. She pulls up the messaging application on the phone and selects one of the small handful of names saved and types a few words.
Aveline pushes herself off the bed and stumbles forward, her feet tripping over what is little more than debris. She had thrashed her room in her disappointed rage after WrestleStock...not the first time she had assaulted her private quarters...but no servants have been allowed in her room. No one at all, for that matter. She stumbles forward, pushing past an upended table and broken chair, until she moves through the doorway and into the restroom. The light from her bedside lamp gives her enough to see herself in the mirror, and her lips thin in annoyance.
“...mes cheveux sont un désastre…”
Her hands move to and through her hair, those emerald eyes squinting with disdain at the amount of brown starting at her roots and traveling down to her eyes. She had removed herself so fully from the world that not even the ritual bleaching had been allowed.
“Je ne serai pas vu de cette façon.”
Aveline retreats to her bedroom and searches across the mess that is the floor, rummaging through carelessly discarded clothing with her foot.
”La victoire!” exclaims the Frenchwoman as she bends down to pick up a particular piece of dark clothing. She returns to the bathroom mirror and wraps it around her head, pulling the dark scarf tight so as to hide her hair and leave her bright face exposed. She turns her head in left and right, looking at the different angles the scarf created. She gives herself a small nod of satisfaction.
Vous avez un message!
Back into the room she goes, back through the debris of clothes, books, furniture, and more to her bedside table, back to her bright phone to see a message. Not the one she expected, given her own text, but still one of importance:
Aveline sighs again.
And then smiles.
...you DO smile down upon me, Husband.
Bonjour, mes enfants
It is with my own quiet surprise that I find myself before you all again, so I imagine that there are few among you who expected this. The words of the vanquished. The voice of the powerless. The testimony of the fallen. But there are needs within the world which have a call more powerful than the grave, need of family, of the future, of God’s plan, which force away the haze of the darkness. The need, put simply, to Outlast.
Last year, the Harvester thought me cowed. He thought that his momentary victory at WrestleStock, his short-lived occupation of my championship, had left me subservient to his will. Perhaps even eager. His judgement became clouded in his pride over a single finger pressed to my chest in that Chaos match and he paid the price of his hubris. I worked alongside my dear friends, the Good Doctor Baal and the dearly departed Eden, and brought the Harvester low, giving him the wound which would prove to be his downfall by Battleground. I do not fight it “odd” to be in such a similar situation as last year, though some might attribute that word to this coming Monday. The word is not “odd.” It is “humorous.”
God’s humor is legendary, for those who pay attention. Children provided to old men and women who believed their rearing days long over. Great floods when infidels point at droughts to call down His power. Answers to the questions of men given to those with nothing to say. Occasional victories for the Rydells of the world to remind everyone that yes, anything is possible, should He will it. And thus I suffered a bit of a repeat of last year, as when He used the Harvester to FORCE me to rest when I refused, he so used the Vaughan girl to FORCE me to sleep when I had my eyes on the World Championship. God finds great humor in such repeated themes, it seems. And that same humor finds me standing at the side of those who might not have the greatest intentions for me at Outlast, and those who I might well side with the enemy to take down.
Oh, the humor of the One Lord God.
But do not be too disparaged, dear children, for I am not here to ruin the chances of my team for any personal vendettas. Or spiritual ones, for that matter. Yes, I stand with Yamazaki and Bonecrusher, though any who pay attention will know that our alliance, while perhaps tenuous, remains intact. Yes, I too find it annoying that he still grumbles about the hammer falling on his head….
...yes, Johnny, from behind...I was there…
...but I cannot fault him too much for a long memory. And yes, I stand with Zane, a man with whom I have shared little love with as we have battled across this year, time and again looking to prove our perspective over the other. And, of course, I stand with a member of my own House, though her childishness has her deny it. But she and I will find an accord before Monday, I assure you. For the House of Lacklan WILL stand strong well WELL represented at Outlast. Our team, at least insofar as myself, WILL stand strong. We WILL stand resolute. We WILL stand together.
To face a team which reminds us all of God’s great humor.
I do thank Him, though, for certain things happening during my slumber. Because of my rest, I have missed the entirety of the return of Gabby, and I do indeed thank Him in my prayers everyday. This business, God’s favorite sport, is often one of extremities, of injuries often at the cusp of ending careers, and often not but a smile and granola bar for your troubles, but we in general police ourselves when it comes to decency. Outside of our current World Champion, not one of us can be considered little more than bottled up sin for the consumption of the baser masses, at least until Gabby’s return. Zane has told me to my face that this woman was once important, was once a great warrior who pushed the world to accept gender equality in this sport, but I believe he was razzing me. There is nothing in this two-dimensional whore which could possibly be redeeming.
I am Chaos! I am fire! I am weapons, and tables, and chairs, and bloodshed! But I am no whore. I am not one to accept man’s craving of flesh to determine my worth. I am not one to allow who I am, what I am, be distilled down into but one base trait in hopes that the world will accept what little I truly have to offer. But Gabby HAS done this. And while there are those in the world who would cry out “LET GABBY BE GABBY!” like so many poly-amorous prostitutes on that silly twitter machine, I will stand tall and proudly cry out that I will NOT accept such defiance of what God wishes this sport to be. And while precious few of my compatriots publicly agree with the divinity of my position, it is nice to see that their professional opinions result much in the same way:
Naught but embarrassing, pathetic, and emphatic loss for the harlot. Perhaps I will take the opportunity on Monday to tell her, as one woman in this business to another, that when your ability to win matches in the UGWC is less than even that of a member of the House of Raab in the middle of a coma, it may well be time to put away the boots.
Of course, it could be worse for Gabby.
She could be Dave Rydell.
Ten months ago, I gifted Dave the resolution to stand on his own two feet. His career had come to an impasse in 2018 and he was in great need of rest and redirection. After that rest, he came back focused and ready to take on the world, with the World Championship as his goal. But after that initial burst of inspiration and focus, he reminded us, and himself, of a particularly powerful fact:
He is Dave Rydell.
Oh, to have been gifted the angelic Vaughan girl! The bane of my existence, that one. And again, God’s humor shows itself as the Patron Saint of Losers found himself as part of a powerful and well-respected Cooperative Champion team. But all throughout their reign, every single one of us, even clueless vegetables like the Salvatores and Paynes which populate our lower cards, understood that “Team Angell” was simply “Angie and her leering friend.” And my charge for him, my GIFT for him, to stand on his own feet, to PROVE himself, has resulted in what we all knew it would amount to:
Another year of listless losses.
Because he is Dave Rydell.
Oh, to have every single aspect of your dreams amount to ash!
The World Championship? Laughable to even consider a title opportunity.
The Cooperative Championships? Silly to see that the “dominance” of Team Angell has already been eclipsed by an even more oddball pairing in my daughter-in-law and former admirer.
The Cross-Hemisphere Championship? The “greatest” champion has lost his last three attempts at the title against three different champions.
But at least he was able to hurt Angie after she pinned him. After all, if you cannot defeat your opponents, at least you can feel better about yourself by “winning” outside of matches, yes?
It is interesting, I might add, that the entire theme of this team, in God’s humor, seems to be “UGWC veterans who have forgotten how to win.” Much of my time within the Coalition has had Alan Wallace as a major component of it, from a man trying to turn Mathis into something more than yet another mediocre face in the crowd, to practically handing the Cooperative Championships to Vaughan and Cotton in order to take them away from the Court, to pulling down two championships while atop a ladder and spending the rest of the year untouchable. And unwatchable, if I recall correctly. That entire “I do not care to wrestle” attitude was quite silly.
The world is a different place for Wallace now, though. Dethroned by Vaughan and pushed into a world of obscurity, he has only recently brought his head back out of the Abyss. And while his “entrance” into the WrestleStock Cup was convoluted as it was inane and idiotic, he was there. And unfortunately, that is all that can truly be said of his presence in that tournament.
He was there.
And his presence in the company ever since.
He has been there.
Mostly on his back.
Is he working with Gabby now the way he was with Mathis last year? Is that why he is becoming so good at being on his back? From being ousted at the Melee, to his convenient ability to get to the second round of the Cup to his truly embarrassing loss to Pierce of all people on Pay Per View, he is a man who has fallen so far into the depths of what is wrong with this business that he might as well give himself an anime avatar and learn how to farm gourds. Oh, I am sure that his appearance on Monday will be grand. I am sure that he will arrive on Monday, after having spent so much time in the muck and mire of irrelevance, in full regalia, with his jacket resplendent and his hair filled with more conditioner than even that of Jet. I am sure that, for this moment, for this night, he will be the world-breaking, light-destroying, attention-gathering megastar he is when he cares.
Just as he was at the Melee.
Pardonnez-moi un instant.
How did that work out for him, again? Oh yes! To be the star! To be the man everyone focused on! Until he was ousted by, of all things, the foul-mouthed seed of gluttony that is Bobbi London while I reigned as the victor. For someone so dominant, for someone so accustomed to winning when it matters most, he has certainly lost his way. And much can, of course, be said the same for Travis Roberts.
Much like how I am thankful for the returning of Gabby occurring during my time of rest, I find myself including a small nod of appreciation to the One Lord God for having Roberts’ return during my time in the darkness. Mind you, I enjoyed being able to give the overbearing peacock a new distinction, a new entry into the annals of history and records, by delivering unto him the fastest Melee elimination in history. And I also enjoyed introducing him to L'étreinte de Dieu on the following Synergy and thus allow him the honor of being in the long line of foolish men who have lost to me. But I have far preferred being asleep through the rest of his aimless sojourn as he flings his arms about as a child hoping to draw the attention of his parents and teachers in his desperate need. It is bad enough that I have had to subject myself to it the last few days with the “fast forward” button firmly pressed.
Oh look! Look at me! I was once great! I was once someone! And perhaps I shall be again!
Silly.
Many months ago, I evoked the name of Travis Roberts on a couple of occasions, both to compare him to Zane Scott and myself, insofar as championship records are concerned, at least. And I believe that I ultimately told Zane that he was no Travis Roberts, but I also understand something today that I was not fully aware of those months ago before Roberts mutilated the unfortunate Wrestley:
Travis Roberts is no LACKLAN. Or Lacklan. Or Le Bord de Dieu. Or even Ava Quinn, for those who pay attention.
My evocation of his name has brought reality and truth to the mind, dear children. While Roberts was never exactly one to build the business upon...his use of silly puppets, for starters...what the world has been exposed to since I dragged his name out of dusty tomes in forgettable library shelves has been little more than the unremarkable mediocrity of an Orsen. While it has been entertaining to watch the fool be confounded by my dear Phrixus, there has been little else in his return to even bear consideration other than being forced into victory by my own House. And while I am sure that he, too, will act as the aforementioned Wallace, that he will burst into Outlast with his Melee pomposity and cry out to the world the he really IS good and he really IS important...every now and again...I am certain that he will meet a similar fate. As with Wallace, the outcome of Outlast will be a repeat of the Melee, with he having a stunned expression on his face while my arm is raised into the air in victory.
Something to ponder, though: Is Roberts’ return, particularly with it being as lackluster as the next trip to O’Malley’s, another example of God’s humor? Did He listen to my evocation of Roberts’ name and decide that bringing him back to our annoyance and displeasure would make Him bend over with laughter? Am I, and my connection to the One Lord God, to blame for bringing such a stale relic who has forgotten what it is we DO in this business, back into our lives? It is MY fault that Travis Roberts is here?
Allow me to take this moment to profusely apologize to the entirety of the UGWC.
Pardonne-moi s'il te plait.
And now a final thought, if you will allow, dear children. I have enjoyed my rest. My sleep has been deep. I did not want it. I wanted to keep reaching, keep fighting. I wanted to take that World Championship and be the shining beacon for the world to see. See! God’s plan manifest. See! The Glory He provides. See! The idol you wished for, but then learn the lesson of not worshiping me, but God Himself THROUGH me.
I failed.
God asked me to sleep. He TOLD me to sleep. I did not listen. I have spoke of Johah in the past and how we should learn from his folly, and then I myself made his mistakes. But after Vaughan, I listened. I rested. Much of the world has gone by in that time, but I have caught whispers. One, in particular, found my ear and has rattled around in my head to the point of maddening persistence.
By proxy, Roxy Cotton defeated the Champion of Chaos.
Oh, the silliness of children’s games.
I gifted Roxy Cotton the resolution of finding relevance in a sea of greatness. In this business, we find ourselves running in small groups, at times. Perhaps like-minded competitors, or temporary alliances for a common goal, or even lifetime partnerships, such as I found with my husband, Il est ressuscité. And Cotton has found herself amongst greatness, though everyone involved seems to differ on how that came about. Vaughan was about to win the World Championship, my daughter-in-law the Cooperative, and my step-daughter a trip to regain her freelancing glory. But Cotton? She needed something to make her the star, something to prove her “leadership” within their group.
It took her many months, but she has done it.
But this tale of hers, this narrative.
“I defeated Angie, and Angie defeated Bordy, so its like I beat Bordy.”
How far would she like to play such a sad game? Would she like to say that she has also defeated Tyvola for the World Championship ten years ago because of some convoluted chain of separation degrees? She had better be mindful of such games, for if she is not too careful, she will have to face the fact that she has then, by proxy and separation, been defeated clean in the ring by Maria Salvatore. Bad enough that she has to face the reality of being defeated for a title on Pay Per View by Travis Pierce, as she hopes that sixteen hard-fought victories over Dave Rydell will cleanse herself of, but such a theoretical squash would likely break her spirit.
But the truth, no matter what the World Champion says in order to make herself feel better about her shortcomings, is that she cannot defeat me when she NEEDS to. Win non-title cooperative matches? Yes! Win fatal fourways featuring 395 Muff Divers? Yes! Win the Chaos Championship at Horizons and make good on her promise, her RESOLUTION, to change me forever? To...what was it...let me eat cake?
Non.
Much as Vaughan is to me, I am the bane of Cotton’s existence in this company. A stark reminder, a shining light, of what is RIGHT and how she is WRONG in everything she does in life. Oversexualized and materialistic, as broken and worn on the inside as Lockheart ever was, and in such a desperate need to feel and look better that she projects the broken mirror’s reflection of her soul onto a body of polymer curves. But I stand here, holding up that mirror as is the wont and charge of my House, unbroken and without cracks. Not only do I see her for who she is, I help the entire world do so, as well.
She FAILED to defeat me at Horizons.
She FAILED to defeat me during the Round Robin I eventually won.
And if we find ourselves standing face to face at Outlast, she will FAIL again.
This is no game. There is no silliness. I am the Champion of Chaos, the holder of the greatest, and forever unbreakable, record within this company. I defended against, and defeated, nearly ALL of my challengers. And no matter how she wishes to spin it, no matter how she wishes to fluff up her self worth in the face of very public failure, she cannot hold onto the lie that she can defeat me.
She claims to be the successor of my dear friend Eden after her passing, but the truth is that Eden was so bored with Cotton’s rudimentary skills and talents that she would rather walk away and find something better to do with her time. And probably post that “Shoo Shoo” gif with the pretty brunette she so liked and leave Cotton with the only recourse of saying the NEXT most disgusting or offensive thing she can think of in order to “win” the argument.
She claims to have defeated the woman she could NEVER conquer, all because she was able to skirt by my admitted bane, all without once having to actually defend the Chaos title in the manner I established.
She claims the company does as she says, as she is the champion, yet finds herself lost in the shuffle of midcard multiperson cooperative matches, losing efforts against a disjointed Team Angell, and the role of guest referee which no one bothered to even recognize or mention.
But I am sure that, much like with Wallace and Roberts, Cotton with “show up” at Outlast in her “true” form. She will be offensive and disgusting and consider the backlash of her peers as “heat” that proves she is popular and talked about.
But that all ends soon. The mirror can only be avoided for so long, dear children. The makeup Cotton cakes on her face melts in the heat. The toxin she injects in her lips turns sour in the light. And he shadows of falsehoods she casts in order to hold up her false image are pushed away by the rising sun. From Outlast to Battleground through Horizons, the forked tongue of Cotton will be severed, her funhouse mirror shattered, and mask removed for all her pocks and scars to be laid bare.
The dragon has awoken, my children.
You may thank me now.
The Dagger of Life Stealing, once wielded by the Succubus Synn in her battle against The Great and Powerful Wizard CAPTAIN. It’s jeweled handle, now catching and reflecting the light as a member of the dragon’s hoard, was all that remained after Ioth Rhulitar decided that their alliance was at an end and she hungered.
The mirrored shield of the great knight Vainamous, which held the dual purpose of assisting the man in defeating a gorgon and checking his hair at a moment’s notice, was lazily thrust against the wall by the sweep of the sleeping dragging, the spoils of the man’s brave, albeit foolish, quest to slay her.
The tongue of The Man of Many Names, covered in solid gold after Ioth Rhulitar pulled it from his head many years before. His attempts of using those honeyed words, as he had with so many through the years, was thwarted in the face of the dragon’s terrible might, and her humor, as it now and forever would be as “golden” as he proclaimed.
More treasures, number beyond counting in the cavern of gold, jewels, and riches where the dragon sleeps. Her great body moves, the long and powerful legs joining the tail in their movements, telling of the dreams she has, dreams of a time long ago.
“Are you SURE that this is the right place?” asks the paladin, doubt plain on her stern face. Her armor of plates, all buffed until they shined, stand out in the dark commonroom filled with men drinking at tables. The blonde woman standing next to her, wearing a brown cloak with green vines wrapping themselves up her long legs and to her shoulders, breaks into a smile that splits her face in two.
“Tobvs! At least, maybe? Its where Ambrosia said we would find-”
She screams as a man flies through the air and slams down before them, a knot already forming on the top of his head. Standing at the table from where the man had been but moments before, three men, day laborers by the harshness of their faces and severity of their rough clothes, brush off their hands as if finishing their work. The paladin pushes the man with her booted foot but he stays motionless, though playing cards fall from the inside of his sleeve, all aces of varying suits.
“Judgement for breaking the law,” she says as she turns her gaze back up to the taller woman. “Belgiana, are we SURE that-”
“Have faith, Mero!” says the druid, her smile coming back to her face, though with a tinge of worry in her blue eyes. She claps her friend on her armored shoulder and moves away towards the keep of the bar. “My good man! Perhaps you have heard of the drink of my people? Its one part apples to three parts tini and-”
Merovingian the Righteous shakes her head as the druid Belgiana heads toward her usual bout of day drinking and then lets her gaze turn over the room once more. She narrows her eyes at the group of miners and laborers taking respite from their work and reaches up and touches the icosagon in the center of her breastplate just above her breasts, the symbol that helped her attune to the desires and powers of her patron, the Forgotten God THAC0. Silently communing with him, her eyes flash solid white for a moment as she seeks out those who would do evil deeds, or those who might be corrupted by some Abyssal force. But none of the bodies the room radiate an aura of darkness to tell her of their evil.
“Hmmm. This is-”
“Oi! Get outta my door, woman, eh?!”
Distracted by her attempt to detect any evil in the room before her, she jumps slightly from the cantankerous voice behind her. She spins and sees a barbarian with tilted eyes, though not of a color she was accustomed with her close association with bb of the Cottonlane Hills. This man...more a brute than anything...was darker and shorter, and she can see teeth filed down into points.
“Who are yo-”
“Oi! Down ‘ere!” Merovingian takes her eyes downward and is surprised to see that the voice did not belong to the brute, but to a dwarf of orange skin with what seemed to be a perpetually sour look upon his face. “Yer in me way, ya oversized mouthbreather!”
Merovingian blinks several times at the odd dwarf as the light of the pub glistened off his cleanly shaven head.
“My apologies, Master…”
“Crushbone!” he yells after the prompt from the paladin. “Let me make one thing…”
“PERFECTLY CLEAR!” comes the cry of every man in the pub.
“I own this place...and don’t you forget it! Not get outta mah way! My poutine will burn! Let’s go, Yama-san!”
The surly dwarf pushes past her, the shoulder he pushes into her thigh feeling like a mountain. As he pushes past, Yama-san does not move, instead keeping dark eyes on her. After pushing past, Crushbone reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small wooden stick.
“Yama-san! Come eat, ya dumb barbarian!”
The barbarians’ eyes fixate on the stick with an undeniable hunger and he, too, pushes past the paladin. As he follows the pub owner, Belgiana returns with two small drinks in her hands and a face which is already beginning to show a flush in both cheeks. She eyes Crushbone and Yama-san wearily before turning to her friend.
“Is that them?”
Merovingian gives the druid a nod.
“Indeed. It seems Ambrosia’s network of spies was correct. And if they are even further correct, this man will lead us to the mysterious head of this black market. And then we will SEVER that head with RIGHTEOUS FURY and then-”
Belgiana tunes out the paladin’s usual rant about her god’s version of “good” and “lawful” and takes a moment to look over the menu. As she reads the few words on the wall, she cannot help but do so in the dwarf’s voice:
Poutine.
Just poutine.
STOP ASKING WE ONLY SERVE POUTINE
A loud chuckle, emanating deep within the sleeping beast’s body, rumbles outward and shakes the walls of the cavern, the force nearly a sonic blast which disrupts even more of the treasure hoard. A chain of platinum falls and tumbles down a hill of gold coins, a remnant of Crushbone’s slavery trade. The dwarf had not lived long after his business had been uncovered by an overly curious group of adventurers. First the discovery that his pub was a front for a black market, and then the revelation that the market was the cover for the true business in ownership over flesh.
With a clatter against jems, the spiked club once belonging to Yama-san of the Cherry Blossom Valley barbarians rolled down the golden hill to fall limply at the side of the chain. His attempt at vengeance for the gruesome death suffered by his master had brought him to a similar fate years later, with the Knocker of a paladin giving his head the thematically appropriate, albeit ironic, SPLAT! as that of Crushbone before him.
A restless movement of a comparatively small forearm sends another hill of gold to be scattered across the room. These are different, not the standard of the land, but from another. Given as tribute to the great wyrm by Sebward Maximilian Whitely Michael May-Porter von Sherridon the LIII, Prince of the Kingdom of Brycetown, and his courtesan-turned-consort Mignonne, their regular shipment was what kept that land across the sea safe from the fate of Lacklandia, a fate of darkness and poison.
The eyes behind the scaled lids continue to shift.
“My liege!”
Merovingian yells into the air as her warhorse Mane of Red, the spiritual being given to her by the Forgotten God THAC0 as a reward for her penitence, skitters to a halt before a man as wide as he was tall. The heavily armored paladin pushes herself off the large saddle and lands upon the ground, then lowers herself to one knee and bows her helmeted head.
“You called for me?”
“YES ME DID CALL FOR YOU”
The massive man, seeming a mountain of flesh barely contained by a coat of chain threatening to burst at the seams, has a voice as big as his body.
“ME NEED YOU HERE FOR MEETING. RISE AND FOLLOW.”
As the large man, the liege of Lacklandia who went by the name earned in battle, that of Thunderous Redd, turns and heads towards a massive ten, Merovingian slowly rises to her feet. The slow movements continue as she reaches up to her visored helmet and slowly removes the bug-shaped headgear. Green eyes move all about the war camp as her body tingles with a feeling of unease. She had been on the front lines, fighting in the seemingly unending war with the Emor Kingdom, and this summons was out of character for everyone. Still, she would obey her liege. Her heavy footfalls come to an abrupt halt as soon as she pushes past the curtains of the tent and her eyes go wide.
“YOU!”
The tent is full of men dressed for battle sitting on either side of a long table of heavy wood, likely of the famous birch of the forests of her homeland, but half of the men are not men. At least, not wholly. Taller than any man she knew, and with tiny tusks sticking out from their mouths, the half-orcs of the Plains of Emor are a gruesome sight to her eyes. And as she reaches for her great maul at her belt, the holy avenger which has helped bring justice and light to the world through her strength, a hulking brute stood tall behind the table and withdrew a thick short sword in response.
“SIT DOWN PLEASE YOUR LIEGE CAN EXPLAIN EVERYTHING”
The booming voice of Thunderous Redd holds the room in place, though the immediate tension remains. Merovingian holds the knocker back, ready to strike or throw as needed, and the hulking beast across from her holds his sword the same way. But then the man next to him slowly stands, holding his hands up, and motions towards the liege of Lacklandia.
“Yes, we can.”
The man’s accent was harsh in the paladin’s ears and made her mind flash to moments on the battlefield. That accent had declared death upon her, and her homeland, and her God, as many times as it had pleaded for mercy as she brought the hammer down.
“YES PLEASE PUT YOUR HAMMER AWAY THEY ARE NOT NAILS”
Merovingian doesn’t move, instead keeping her eyes on the man across from her with the sword. But movement out of the corner of her eye catches her attention, and she sees the hooded figure of Deimosious raising a hand to her. The Oracle’s calm demeanor eases her worry and she slowly places her maul back into the hoop at her waist. As she does so the man with the sword lowers his in turn, and both take up positions behind their charges as the two sit down at the table.
“We are here today to discuss peace. There has been enough bloodshed.”
The man gestures behind him.
“Redd, your general has fought Zanerus on the battlefield enough and-”
“CENTURION!”
The room nearly explodes as the paladin screams out and points a finger at the large standing man. Zanerus, her general counterpart of the army she had fought for years, was finally before her.
“MURDERER! RAPIST! YOU WILL DIE FOR YOUR CRIMES!”
Swords draw as she pulls the Knocker free again and lunges across the table.
“SMITE EV-”
She stops in mid-leap, frozen in place, with Zanerus in a mirrored position. Calmly sitting at the table, a thin rod of metal in his hand, Deimosious’ Hold Person spell bringing calm to the situation.
“Whether you like it or not,” comes the raspy voice out of the hood, his face as always hidden by his Persistent Displacement spell, as he puts the rod back into his cloak. “We MUST have piece. Merovingian, Paladin of THAC0, and Zanerus, Centurion General, MUST work side by side for the greater good. A dragon...a terrible beast...has come.”
Neither Centurion nor Paladin looked convinced as the spell faded and the two lieges lay out the plans for their tenuous peace.
The mountains of gold turn into rivers as Ioth Rhulitar moves in her slumber, her great mass moving the gold and pushing into waves. More and more treasures reveal themselves as the dreams...the memories...threaten to awaken the sleeping wyrm. The Heart of Edenossa fell out of a chest, one of the many adventures which Merovingian found herself completing during that short-lived peace with the Centurion, the Dryder’s heart being a weapon needed to fight the dragon spoken of by the Oracle, Necronium the Long-Winded. More oddities were unearthed by the shifting waves of treasures. The severed foot of Durden the Unfortunate, victim of a misunderstood riddle about a rabbit’s luck. The Jar of Eternal Bile, the terrible joke from the wizard who cursed Baar, a bareknuckle brawler who had lost his 395th fight in a row. The identity-changing hat of The Great and Powerful Wizard CAPTAIN, the very wizard who had helped Merovingian with the eventual defeat, and severed head, of Necronium. More.
More.
More dreams.
More memories.
More regrets.
Merovingian knelt upon the ground, one knee pressing down into the dirt of the pit, the other holding her broken and ruined arm. Her armor was heavy, pushing down upon her with all the weight of her station, and blood dripped hot down her face. Green eyes, hazing and haggard from the fighting, do their best to take in her surroundings, but the fog of war obscures much. She does not know how long she has fought, but it has been long enough for her body to give way, for her body’s protestations with aches and pains to bring her spirit low. But still, she must press on, she must find the will to rise above.
All around her, bodies lay in pooling blood. Bodies she had killed in that massive melee. The Siren, that ugly hag who had threatened to “wreck” her “ship” before she had thrown the Knocker not just into her head, but THROUGH it, when it had become distracted. Near it, the body of the Rydell the Resolute, his unkempt beard soaking in the mixture of mud and blood, the very next victim of the Knocker, unknowing of the Returning enchantment she had had placed upon it. The Man of Many Names, or what was left of him, gone to the Veil after her Branding Smite and witticisms of that long-ago eaten bagel. And, of course, the body of The Oracle, killed by the Centurion, who then was felled by the paladin’s dagger. A dagger given to her by-
“It’s over, Mero. Give...give in…”
Merovingian’s gaze cuts through the fog to one again see Thespina the Bard, her one time best friend, half out of her wolf form, the damage to her body making it difficult to keep her transformation. The ebony woman’s braids looked as haggard as the paladin felt, with several torn out from her head by Merovingian’s own hand just minutes before. On the ground next to her lay Belgiana, felled by a blast from the Knocker, though she could still see her chest moving with shallow breaths. Far beyond them, bb the Barbarian lay in a heap of crumpled limbs, the first casualty of this final fight in this deadly battlefield, though not before she was able to mangle the paladin’s arm with a crushing swing of her great club. But worst of all, most striking of all, was the pale form, the sickly pale form, of the reason why The Fearsome Five had broken in the first place: Ambrosia the Pirate Princess...now an undead creature, a perversion of life itself. The monster’s flaming red eyes and fangs poking down pink lips gave truth to the story, showed the reason for the break in the group.
“Ne...e...never…”
Merovingian pushes herself to her feet and then holds out her one good arm, her fingers outstretched in their glove, willing the Knocker to return. But it cannot, the maul stolen from her and placed into a box with some sealing enchantment far beyond her understanding. Her friends...her former friends...had set the trap, and they were successful.
“Don’t make us kill you, Mero.”
“Yes...don’t make us…”
A shiver runs through Merovingian’s spine at the breathy words of the vampire. She had wanted to kill Ambrosia as soon as she had been turned, as was righteous and good, but the other three had stood with her. And now, these years later, it had finally come to this moment at the end of this massive melee of death. And the small smile on the vampire’s face, hidden from the view of her werewolf companion, told the truth of how much she wanted to kill the paladin, to kill what Good was left of their company.
...embrace me…
The paladin’s eyes close for a moment as the voice fills her head. It was not the first time since she had come to the field that the voice found her, but it had grown louder and louder during the fight with her friends.
...embrace God…
“I...I don’t…”
A mask, a dull alabaster in color and lined with cracks, appears before her. The Mask of Japles. A relic from the founder of Lacklandia itself. Merovingian’s eyes go wide, but so do the eyes of Thespina and Ambrosia.
“No! Mero!”
“Its not what you think!”
...become…
She reaches for the mask.
...BECOME…
She takes it in her hands.
...the holy avenger...incarnate…
She places the mask upon her face.
And then she screams.
And screams.
And SCREAMS.
Pain wracks the paladin as the mask sears itself to her face, melting the flesh, becoming one. Anguish fills her as her body begins to break, bones snapping in half, joints popping out of place, only to find themselves whole again. And she grows. And grows.
And grows.
“MERO!”
“RUN, THESPIE!”
Thespina scoops down to pick up Belgiana, but she cannot lift the unconscious druid. Ambrosia grabs the bard by the shoulders and pulls her away, forcing her to move, as the paladin continues to grow, her body hunched over as a circle of dark clouds begin to shape.
“GET DOWN!”
Thespina pulls Ambrosia down as the Knocker, the great spiked maul, comes flying out of its magical prison and returns to the paladin.
“AAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!”
The scream of pain turns to a guttural roar as the paladin grows in the darkness. With the wet slicing sound, nubs of bone rip out of her back and her armor, spreading out and turning into wings. Her legs grow long and thing, her arms bulging and lengthening into hook claws. The Knocker joins her, becomes one with her, stretching out to become a tale. Her neck lengthens and her masked face turns into a snout.
“....sia ominak ui…IOTH RHULITAR!”
Had either Thespina or Ambrosia known Draconion, they might have been able to translate “My name is...HOLY AVENGER!” before a black cloud of death was breathed upon them.
Darkness
...wake, my dragon…
Darkness
...they need you…
Silence
Silence
...let me sleep…
Darkness
….our House needs you…
Darkness
...not yet, my dragon…
Darkness
...soon…
Darkness
...why now…
...my blood must continue...she is afraid...she does not have the courage of her mother...the courage of sacrifice...but she WILL, someday...I have seen it...but they need you…
Darkness
...you earned your rest. Now awaken...wife…
Green eyes open in the dark. Haggard. Lined with red. Behind a haze. They close softly and then struggle to open again, as if the flesh would rather stay, as if the body would rather not move. But they DO open.
A deep sigh, shaky, resigned. It shutters outward in a painful rasp, the sound thin and wavy with a weak reverberation. A swishing sound follows as the silhouette of a form moves across a sleek surface.
CLICK!
The green eyes squint in pain as the light from a lamp pushes away the darkness. Sitting on a massive bed of black and purple, with silken canopies raining down from the high ceiling, Aveline Lacklan looks as haggard as her eyes suggest. The woman looks gaunt in her simple black shift, with her pale skin showing bony shoulders and a protruding collarbone, though with the taut muscles of her arms still bulging with a pleasant roundness underneath the lines of scars on her arms. Her face does not seem sickly, but instead as if every ounce of fat had been burned away to leave cheekbones so high and sharp that they might draw blood with a blow.
Vous avez un message!
She jumps slightly as the voice pierces the air, seeming to her ears to be the loudest boom since Creation. She looks down at the glowing device on the table next to the bed and sees a cellphone. She takes it up and presses a few buttons, her nails filed down to cruel points making an effective stylus, and is greeted to a wallpaper image of herself, several years younger, holding onto the massive arm of a man in a black hooded robe and a hellish white mask on his face. She pulls down the notifications on the phone and sees, yet again, what she has been actively avoiding:
264 missed calls from a surprising variety of people.
47 unread emails, the last four marked “URGENT” from some physician with the unfortunate name of “Numbers.”
18 Dear Bordy questions.
Aveline sighs again with deep resignation. She pulls up the messaging application on the phone and selects one of the small handful of names saved and types a few words.
Je me réveille, cher ami
“...mes cheveux sont un désastre…”
Her hands move to and through her hair, those emerald eyes squinting with disdain at the amount of brown starting at her roots and traveling down to her eyes. She had removed herself so fully from the world that not even the ritual bleaching had been allowed.
“Je ne serai pas vu de cette façon.”
Aveline retreats to her bedroom and searches across the mess that is the floor, rummaging through carelessly discarded clothing with her foot.
”La victoire!” exclaims the Frenchwoman as she bends down to pick up a particular piece of dark clothing. She returns to the bathroom mirror and wraps it around her head, pulling the dark scarf tight so as to hide her hair and leave her bright face exposed. She turns her head in left and right, looking at the different angles the scarf created. She gives herself a small nod of satisfaction.
Vous avez un message!
Back into the room she goes, back through the debris of clothes, books, furniture, and more to her bedside table, back to her bright phone to see a message. Not the one she expected, given her own text, but still one of importance:
Kenzi is Chaos
Answer your damn mail!
Answer your damn mail!
Aveline sighs again.
And then smiles.
...you DO smile down upon me, Husband.
Bonjour, mes enfants
It is with my own quiet surprise that I find myself before you all again, so I imagine that there are few among you who expected this. The words of the vanquished. The voice of the powerless. The testimony of the fallen. But there are needs within the world which have a call more powerful than the grave, need of family, of the future, of God’s plan, which force away the haze of the darkness. The need, put simply, to Outlast.
Last year, the Harvester thought me cowed. He thought that his momentary victory at WrestleStock, his short-lived occupation of my championship, had left me subservient to his will. Perhaps even eager. His judgement became clouded in his pride over a single finger pressed to my chest in that Chaos match and he paid the price of his hubris. I worked alongside my dear friends, the Good Doctor Baal and the dearly departed Eden, and brought the Harvester low, giving him the wound which would prove to be his downfall by Battleground. I do not fight it “odd” to be in such a similar situation as last year, though some might attribute that word to this coming Monday. The word is not “odd.” It is “humorous.”
God’s humor is legendary, for those who pay attention. Children provided to old men and women who believed their rearing days long over. Great floods when infidels point at droughts to call down His power. Answers to the questions of men given to those with nothing to say. Occasional victories for the Rydells of the world to remind everyone that yes, anything is possible, should He will it. And thus I suffered a bit of a repeat of last year, as when He used the Harvester to FORCE me to rest when I refused, he so used the Vaughan girl to FORCE me to sleep when I had my eyes on the World Championship. God finds great humor in such repeated themes, it seems. And that same humor finds me standing at the side of those who might not have the greatest intentions for me at Outlast, and those who I might well side with the enemy to take down.
Oh, the humor of the One Lord God.
But do not be too disparaged, dear children, for I am not here to ruin the chances of my team for any personal vendettas. Or spiritual ones, for that matter. Yes, I stand with Yamazaki and Bonecrusher, though any who pay attention will know that our alliance, while perhaps tenuous, remains intact. Yes, I too find it annoying that he still grumbles about the hammer falling on his head….
...yes, Johnny, from behind...I was there…
...but I cannot fault him too much for a long memory. And yes, I stand with Zane, a man with whom I have shared little love with as we have battled across this year, time and again looking to prove our perspective over the other. And, of course, I stand with a member of my own House, though her childishness has her deny it. But she and I will find an accord before Monday, I assure you. For the House of Lacklan WILL stand strong well WELL represented at Outlast. Our team, at least insofar as myself, WILL stand strong. We WILL stand resolute. We WILL stand together.
To face a team which reminds us all of God’s great humor.
I do thank Him, though, for certain things happening during my slumber. Because of my rest, I have missed the entirety of the return of Gabby, and I do indeed thank Him in my prayers everyday. This business, God’s favorite sport, is often one of extremities, of injuries often at the cusp of ending careers, and often not but a smile and granola bar for your troubles, but we in general police ourselves when it comes to decency. Outside of our current World Champion, not one of us can be considered little more than bottled up sin for the consumption of the baser masses, at least until Gabby’s return. Zane has told me to my face that this woman was once important, was once a great warrior who pushed the world to accept gender equality in this sport, but I believe he was razzing me. There is nothing in this two-dimensional whore which could possibly be redeeming.
I am Chaos! I am fire! I am weapons, and tables, and chairs, and bloodshed! But I am no whore. I am not one to accept man’s craving of flesh to determine my worth. I am not one to allow who I am, what I am, be distilled down into but one base trait in hopes that the world will accept what little I truly have to offer. But Gabby HAS done this. And while there are those in the world who would cry out “LET GABBY BE GABBY!” like so many poly-amorous prostitutes on that silly twitter machine, I will stand tall and proudly cry out that I will NOT accept such defiance of what God wishes this sport to be. And while precious few of my compatriots publicly agree with the divinity of my position, it is nice to see that their professional opinions result much in the same way:
Naught but embarrassing, pathetic, and emphatic loss for the harlot. Perhaps I will take the opportunity on Monday to tell her, as one woman in this business to another, that when your ability to win matches in the UGWC is less than even that of a member of the House of Raab in the middle of a coma, it may well be time to put away the boots.
Of course, it could be worse for Gabby.
She could be Dave Rydell.
Ten months ago, I gifted Dave the resolution to stand on his own two feet. His career had come to an impasse in 2018 and he was in great need of rest and redirection. After that rest, he came back focused and ready to take on the world, with the World Championship as his goal. But after that initial burst of inspiration and focus, he reminded us, and himself, of a particularly powerful fact:
He is Dave Rydell.
Oh, to have been gifted the angelic Vaughan girl! The bane of my existence, that one. And again, God’s humor shows itself as the Patron Saint of Losers found himself as part of a powerful and well-respected Cooperative Champion team. But all throughout their reign, every single one of us, even clueless vegetables like the Salvatores and Paynes which populate our lower cards, understood that “Team Angell” was simply “Angie and her leering friend.” And my charge for him, my GIFT for him, to stand on his own feet, to PROVE himself, has resulted in what we all knew it would amount to:
Another year of listless losses.
Because he is Dave Rydell.
Oh, to have every single aspect of your dreams amount to ash!
The World Championship? Laughable to even consider a title opportunity.
The Cooperative Championships? Silly to see that the “dominance” of Team Angell has already been eclipsed by an even more oddball pairing in my daughter-in-law and former admirer.
The Cross-Hemisphere Championship? The “greatest” champion has lost his last three attempts at the title against three different champions.
But at least he was able to hurt Angie after she pinned him. After all, if you cannot defeat your opponents, at least you can feel better about yourself by “winning” outside of matches, yes?
It is interesting, I might add, that the entire theme of this team, in God’s humor, seems to be “UGWC veterans who have forgotten how to win.” Much of my time within the Coalition has had Alan Wallace as a major component of it, from a man trying to turn Mathis into something more than yet another mediocre face in the crowd, to practically handing the Cooperative Championships to Vaughan and Cotton in order to take them away from the Court, to pulling down two championships while atop a ladder and spending the rest of the year untouchable. And unwatchable, if I recall correctly. That entire “I do not care to wrestle” attitude was quite silly.
The world is a different place for Wallace now, though. Dethroned by Vaughan and pushed into a world of obscurity, he has only recently brought his head back out of the Abyss. And while his “entrance” into the WrestleStock Cup was convoluted as it was inane and idiotic, he was there. And unfortunately, that is all that can truly be said of his presence in that tournament.
He was there.
And his presence in the company ever since.
He has been there.
Mostly on his back.
Is he working with Gabby now the way he was with Mathis last year? Is that why he is becoming so good at being on his back? From being ousted at the Melee, to his convenient ability to get to the second round of the Cup to his truly embarrassing loss to Pierce of all people on Pay Per View, he is a man who has fallen so far into the depths of what is wrong with this business that he might as well give himself an anime avatar and learn how to farm gourds. Oh, I am sure that his appearance on Monday will be grand. I am sure that he will arrive on Monday, after having spent so much time in the muck and mire of irrelevance, in full regalia, with his jacket resplendent and his hair filled with more conditioner than even that of Jet. I am sure that, for this moment, for this night, he will be the world-breaking, light-destroying, attention-gathering megastar he is when he cares.
Just as he was at the Melee.
Pardonnez-moi un instant.
How did that work out for him, again? Oh yes! To be the star! To be the man everyone focused on! Until he was ousted by, of all things, the foul-mouthed seed of gluttony that is Bobbi London while I reigned as the victor. For someone so dominant, for someone so accustomed to winning when it matters most, he has certainly lost his way. And much can, of course, be said the same for Travis Roberts.
Much like how I am thankful for the returning of Gabby occurring during my time of rest, I find myself including a small nod of appreciation to the One Lord God for having Roberts’ return during my time in the darkness. Mind you, I enjoyed being able to give the overbearing peacock a new distinction, a new entry into the annals of history and records, by delivering unto him the fastest Melee elimination in history. And I also enjoyed introducing him to L'étreinte de Dieu on the following Synergy and thus allow him the honor of being in the long line of foolish men who have lost to me. But I have far preferred being asleep through the rest of his aimless sojourn as he flings his arms about as a child hoping to draw the attention of his parents and teachers in his desperate need. It is bad enough that I have had to subject myself to it the last few days with the “fast forward” button firmly pressed.
Oh look! Look at me! I was once great! I was once someone! And perhaps I shall be again!
Silly.
Many months ago, I evoked the name of Travis Roberts on a couple of occasions, both to compare him to Zane Scott and myself, insofar as championship records are concerned, at least. And I believe that I ultimately told Zane that he was no Travis Roberts, but I also understand something today that I was not fully aware of those months ago before Roberts mutilated the unfortunate Wrestley:
Travis Roberts is no LACKLAN. Or Lacklan. Or Le Bord de Dieu. Or even Ava Quinn, for those who pay attention.
My evocation of his name has brought reality and truth to the mind, dear children. While Roberts was never exactly one to build the business upon...his use of silly puppets, for starters...what the world has been exposed to since I dragged his name out of dusty tomes in forgettable library shelves has been little more than the unremarkable mediocrity of an Orsen. While it has been entertaining to watch the fool be confounded by my dear Phrixus, there has been little else in his return to even bear consideration other than being forced into victory by my own House. And while I am sure that he, too, will act as the aforementioned Wallace, that he will burst into Outlast with his Melee pomposity and cry out to the world the he really IS good and he really IS important...every now and again...I am certain that he will meet a similar fate. As with Wallace, the outcome of Outlast will be a repeat of the Melee, with he having a stunned expression on his face while my arm is raised into the air in victory.
Something to ponder, though: Is Roberts’ return, particularly with it being as lackluster as the next trip to O’Malley’s, another example of God’s humor? Did He listen to my evocation of Roberts’ name and decide that bringing him back to our annoyance and displeasure would make Him bend over with laughter? Am I, and my connection to the One Lord God, to blame for bringing such a stale relic who has forgotten what it is we DO in this business, back into our lives? It is MY fault that Travis Roberts is here?
Allow me to take this moment to profusely apologize to the entirety of the UGWC.
Pardonne-moi s'il te plait.
And now a final thought, if you will allow, dear children. I have enjoyed my rest. My sleep has been deep. I did not want it. I wanted to keep reaching, keep fighting. I wanted to take that World Championship and be the shining beacon for the world to see. See! God’s plan manifest. See! The Glory He provides. See! The idol you wished for, but then learn the lesson of not worshiping me, but God Himself THROUGH me.
I failed.
God asked me to sleep. He TOLD me to sleep. I did not listen. I have spoke of Johah in the past and how we should learn from his folly, and then I myself made his mistakes. But after Vaughan, I listened. I rested. Much of the world has gone by in that time, but I have caught whispers. One, in particular, found my ear and has rattled around in my head to the point of maddening persistence.
By proxy, Roxy Cotton defeated the Champion of Chaos.
Oh, the silliness of children’s games.
I gifted Roxy Cotton the resolution of finding relevance in a sea of greatness. In this business, we find ourselves running in small groups, at times. Perhaps like-minded competitors, or temporary alliances for a common goal, or even lifetime partnerships, such as I found with my husband, Il est ressuscité. And Cotton has found herself amongst greatness, though everyone involved seems to differ on how that came about. Vaughan was about to win the World Championship, my daughter-in-law the Cooperative, and my step-daughter a trip to regain her freelancing glory. But Cotton? She needed something to make her the star, something to prove her “leadership” within their group.
It took her many months, but she has done it.
But this tale of hers, this narrative.
“I defeated Angie, and Angie defeated Bordy, so its like I beat Bordy.”
How far would she like to play such a sad game? Would she like to say that she has also defeated Tyvola for the World Championship ten years ago because of some convoluted chain of separation degrees? She had better be mindful of such games, for if she is not too careful, she will have to face the fact that she has then, by proxy and separation, been defeated clean in the ring by Maria Salvatore. Bad enough that she has to face the reality of being defeated for a title on Pay Per View by Travis Pierce, as she hopes that sixteen hard-fought victories over Dave Rydell will cleanse herself of, but such a theoretical squash would likely break her spirit.
But the truth, no matter what the World Champion says in order to make herself feel better about her shortcomings, is that she cannot defeat me when she NEEDS to. Win non-title cooperative matches? Yes! Win fatal fourways featuring 395 Muff Divers? Yes! Win the Chaos Championship at Horizons and make good on her promise, her RESOLUTION, to change me forever? To...what was it...let me eat cake?
Non.
Much as Vaughan is to me, I am the bane of Cotton’s existence in this company. A stark reminder, a shining light, of what is RIGHT and how she is WRONG in everything she does in life. Oversexualized and materialistic, as broken and worn on the inside as Lockheart ever was, and in such a desperate need to feel and look better that she projects the broken mirror’s reflection of her soul onto a body of polymer curves. But I stand here, holding up that mirror as is the wont and charge of my House, unbroken and without cracks. Not only do I see her for who she is, I help the entire world do so, as well.
She FAILED to defeat me at Horizons.
She FAILED to defeat me during the Round Robin I eventually won.
And if we find ourselves standing face to face at Outlast, she will FAIL again.
This is no game. There is no silliness. I am the Champion of Chaos, the holder of the greatest, and forever unbreakable, record within this company. I defended against, and defeated, nearly ALL of my challengers. And no matter how she wishes to spin it, no matter how she wishes to fluff up her self worth in the face of very public failure, she cannot hold onto the lie that she can defeat me.
She claims to be the successor of my dear friend Eden after her passing, but the truth is that Eden was so bored with Cotton’s rudimentary skills and talents that she would rather walk away and find something better to do with her time. And probably post that “Shoo Shoo” gif with the pretty brunette she so liked and leave Cotton with the only recourse of saying the NEXT most disgusting or offensive thing she can think of in order to “win” the argument.
She claims to have defeated the woman she could NEVER conquer, all because she was able to skirt by my admitted bane, all without once having to actually defend the Chaos title in the manner I established.
She claims the company does as she says, as she is the champion, yet finds herself lost in the shuffle of midcard multiperson cooperative matches, losing efforts against a disjointed Team Angell, and the role of guest referee which no one bothered to even recognize or mention.
But I am sure that, much like with Wallace and Roberts, Cotton with “show up” at Outlast in her “true” form. She will be offensive and disgusting and consider the backlash of her peers as “heat” that proves she is popular and talked about.
But that all ends soon. The mirror can only be avoided for so long, dear children. The makeup Cotton cakes on her face melts in the heat. The toxin she injects in her lips turns sour in the light. And he shadows of falsehoods she casts in order to hold up her false image are pushed away by the rising sun. From Outlast to Battleground through Horizons, the forked tongue of Cotton will be severed, her funhouse mirror shattered, and mask removed for all her pocks and scars to be laid bare.
The dragon has awoken, my children.
You may thank me now.
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