Post by Alex Kiseragi on Aug 3, 2010 7:32:19 GMT -5
After In Your Hands
He’d been in the locker room for a while now, watching the rest of the show on the live feed through the monitors scattered around the building. He was sore, that wasn’t unusual, but his pride had taken the greater hit that night. Katie was sat next to him. They hadn’t spoken a lot since he had dragged himself back in there after the match. She knew how he must be feeling and the quiet time was good for him.
“Wow…” Alex said, the first word that had been spoken for the last ten minutes. “I didn’t see that coming.”
“Which bit?”
“Either.” he replied, referring to both Phrixus Deimos’s capturing of the UGWC World Heavyweight title and the subsequent assault by Blessed Immortality on Declan Prescott and Andy Savana. “I really thought they were past that.” he added, disappointment clear in his voice.
“People don’t change like that Alex.” Katie said.
Alex shook his head slowly. “I think that’s a little bleak. People can always change.” he sighed. “I’ve got a feeling UGWC is about to take a dark turn…” he trailed off as the noise from the hallway started to pick up. The two of them looked towards the door frowning.
“What’s going on?” Katie asked.
“Probably someone hunting post-show interviews. Probably Reeves.” Alex replied.
“I’ll get rid of him.” Katie said, making to get up to her feet. She stopped as Alex gently grasped her forearm and guided her back down to the bench.
“It’s ok. I’ll speak to him.” Alex said, getting to his feet.
“You don’t have to do that.” Katie said.
“I know.” Alex smiled slightly. “I want to. I’ll show Pierce how grown ups take a defeat.” Katie smiled warmly as Alex opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, closing the door again behind him.
It didn’t take long for Alex’s assumption to be proven correct as once GIW’s and now UGWC’s most dogged, intrusive and on occasions damn right creepy interviewer to spot him and hurry his way, closely followed by a beleaguered, sweaty and panting cameraman.
“Keep up Jim, we’re interviewing.” Jason Reeves said as he noticed the more rotund man trailing behind. Reeves stopped a few paces in front of Alex. Jim catching up a few moments later.
“Yo homies.” Jason began, turning back to the camera. “Reeves getting you the low down from UGWC In Yo Hands. I got the main man, ma Japanese brother from another mother, The Dragon, A-Kis, Alex Kiseragi.” Jason turned to face him. “How’re you feeling Bro’?”
“Scared and confused. You sound ridiculous.” Alex replied.
“It’s cool. We’ll edit that out.” Jason said, looking at the cameraman, then back at Alex. “You just lost the big grudge match with your new nemesis Travis Pierce. How’s that feelin’?”
“Nobody wants to lose.” Alex began. “We’re all competitors, that’s why we’re in this business. I can’t say I’m happy about it but you can’t win them all. The best I can do is go back and learn from what went wrong tonight.”
“So I got word from some of your homies that you were going into this fight hot. Had some real fire built up. You think that affected the outcome?”
“I got angry sure. I won’t deny that Pierce got under my skin. Did it affect the outcome? Maybe, but if it did that’s my own fault. I’m not taking anything away from Travis Pierce’s performance tonight.”
“This loss also keeps you a step away from a shot at the Cross-Hemisphere gold. That’s gotta sting.”
“Of course. I want to get a shot to reclaim the title but unlike my opponent tonight I’m not going to cry about how hard done by I am and earn myself a shot. Or buy one. I’ll have to check my purse takings. It doesn’t matter whether the champion is Russo, Pierce or even Cockatoo. I’m coming back for the title.”
“Would you say the best man won tonight?”
Alex slowly shook his head before answering. “They say in sports like ours that any man can be beaten on any given night. Tonight Travis Pierce was the better wrestler, but the better man? It’s going to take more than one match for me to call him that.”
“Is it safe to say it ain’t over between you two?”
“By my count tonight makes it 1 - 1. Where I come from that means one thing, rubber match.”
Jason turned back to the camera. “You heard it here first homies! Kiseragi vs. Pierce three. It’s on!”
Without turning back to Alex, Reeves looked down the hallway. “Yo it’s Lopes! Come on Jim!” he said excitably before running off further down the corridor, leaving Alex on his own once again. With a smirk Alex turned, opened the door and disappeared back into the locker room as the scene fades out.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This Week
You’ve heard a lot about him. You’ve seen him around, even seen him in action. You can’t help but be a little impressed. He’s good, in an unorthodox way. It’s his mind that worries you though. On the surface it seems like he’s got his morals in the right place but you’ve heard stories, lots of stories. He’s been linked to the Japanese mob and their attempts to create a new Sun. You’ve heard whispers of his involvements with the North Korean Dragon repopulation initiative. Some have named him the mastermind behind the west coast chameleon assassination unit and the ring leader of the mono-gender inclination litigation movement. You’re not sure what to say, what to do. He’s now standing face to face with you, staring at you as if you’re the weirdo here. It still poses the question though. What’s he doing in your gym?
“Forewell?” Alex asked as he stepped away from spotting one of the Dragon’s Cave’s patrons as he just finished his latest set on the bench press. “What can I do for you? Wait, is this about Jet? Because he’s not here at the moment.”
“Shhh!” Forewell says, jerking forward and clamping his hand over Alex’s mouth. “Is this place clean?”
Alex could only nod.
“How can you be sure?” Forewell asked. Alex eyes said it all, opening wide into a ‘What the fuck?’ look spared for only the most insane of encounters. That was all Forewell needed to see. Without another word he began to run riot around the gym, searching around, under and inside every piece of equipment in the room. Patrons stopped and stared and before long the whole place had come to a stand still with all eyes on the paranoid man. Alex could only watch in a mixture of horror and outright hysterics as Forewell disappeared into the showers heralding a first a barrage of disgruntled shouts from the men’s room and moments later screams from the ladies as he swapped rooms. He swiftly reappeared and charged over to a line of heavy bags that he placed his ear up against one by one and began to tap on them like a man trying to find a hollow behind a wall. Satisfied with that he ran into the centre of the room and disappeared under the first ring. A few moments later he crawled out from under it and into the centre ring. Minutes after that he appeared again and did the same to the last one. With the rings clear he shot to is feet and ran across the stretch of floor to the foam pits at the end of the room. He jumped and did a text book dive. The foam caught him, leaving him up ended with his legs pointing into the air. The foam blocks shifted as Forewell fought through them and disappeared underneath. He seemed to be gone for quite some time. So much so that many of the people in the gym had started to go back to their training and Alex was starting to wonder if he’d managed to suffocate himself. He allowed himself a sigh of relief when Forewell reappeared once again, struggling to clamber out of the unstable mass. He eventually did so, only to throw himself into the second pit and repeat the process once again. When he reappeared he charged back over to Alex, now panting and dripping with sweat.
“I need to talk to you.” he said in a harsh loud whisper. He looked around them at the number of people filling the gym. “In private.” he added.
Alex looked around and frowned, then looked back at Forewell. “My office.” he said, gesturing with his head up towards the room overlooking the gym floor. Forewell nodded and the two walked off, Alex ahead, Forewell a couple of steps behind. They made their way up the steps and towards the office. A few steps from the door and Forewell burst past Alex and dived inside, setting about another bug search in the same way as before. Alex simply watched dumbfounded as Forewell went through his drawers and shelves and finally started up his computer.
“Hey, what’re you doing? That’s my computer.”
“Need it.” Forewell said, not looking away from the screen.
“Well it’s pass worded so you can’t.”
“Got past it. Took a back door in.” Forewell said, then stopped. “You’d know about that right.”
Alex was taken aback. “Was that a joke?”
Forewell went back to the computer. “Just a joke. Don’t sue.”
Alex shook his head in disbelief and walked around behind his desk to see what Forewell was doing. As he tried to look Forewell closed whatever was running and jumped out of Alex’s chair. He started to pace furiously in front of the desk.
“What’s this about Forewell?” Alex asked, taking a seat. He had a feeling he’d need it.
“This.” Forewell said, removing a print out from his pocket and placing it on the desk before continuing his pacing. Alex picked it up and looked it over.
“This weeks card? I didn’t think it was up yet.”
“It isn’t. I needed to know though. I had a suspicion. I was right.” Forewell said, reeling off short sentences in a rapid fire fashion.
“Oh we’re tagging together.” Alex said, not taking much real attention. “You want to talk strategy?”
“Strategy? No, much more than strategy. Look at our opponents.” Forewell said, pointing to the paper in Alex’s hand.
“The Saints of Los Angeles.” he said. “The new champions. Should be interesting.” he nodded.
“Interesting? Don’t you get it?”
“Get what?”
Forewell let out a low frustrated scream. “The dictionary defines a Saint as ‘any of certain persons of exceptional holiness of life, formally recognized as such by the Christian Church, esp. by canonization.’”
“So?”
“Declan Prescott and Andy Savana hardly fit that bill do they?”
“Well they’ve been pretty good recently.” Alex said.
“There’s a difference between good and Saintly.” Forewell replied. “No, there’s more we don’t know. Declan Prescott was once a man of great evil. Who knows what conspiracies he was involved in in those days. People don’t change like that.”
“People can change-” Alex tried to say but Forewell was still talking.
“No, something happened to him. Something holy, something paranormal. Declan Prescott has been brainwashed or otherwise tricked into service of the Ecclesiarchy.”
“What about Savana?”
“No, Savana’s just along for the ride. The Saints. To become Saints they must have done something. Something significant. Something major in service of the church, Catholic I’m sure, to have themselves ordained by the Pope himself but how haven’t we heard about it? Saints aren’t ordained every day. No there’s a cover up, something great for the church but they don’t want us to know about it.”
“I think it’s just a name.” Alex said.
“No!” Forewell snapped at him. “That’s what they want you to believe. The Saints of Los Angeles are in league with the Catholic Church, the greatest evil this world has ever known and now they’re in UGWC. What do they want? What do they want?”
“Um, this is great and all but why are you telling me it?” Alex asked.
“I came to warn you.” Forewell said. “Whatever the church wants they won’t stop until they get it and now you and I have been placed in the way. Albino warrior monks could be here to deal with us at any time.”
“I think you’ve watched The Da Vinci Code too many times.” Alex said.
“You haven’t watched it enough.” Forewell retorted as something seemingly vibrated in his pocket. He removed a pager and looked at it. “I have to go. They’re tracking me. When they get here, you never saw me.” he said and made for the door. He stopped just before opening it and ran back to the table, slamming his hands down on the end of it. “I know about North Korea.” he added sinisterly before making for the door again, this time exiting the room and disappearing down the stairs leaving a stunned Alex in his chair.
“Well…” he said to himself. “Monday will be fun.”
He’d been in the locker room for a while now, watching the rest of the show on the live feed through the monitors scattered around the building. He was sore, that wasn’t unusual, but his pride had taken the greater hit that night. Katie was sat next to him. They hadn’t spoken a lot since he had dragged himself back in there after the match. She knew how he must be feeling and the quiet time was good for him.
“Wow…” Alex said, the first word that had been spoken for the last ten minutes. “I didn’t see that coming.”
“Which bit?”
“Either.” he replied, referring to both Phrixus Deimos’s capturing of the UGWC World Heavyweight title and the subsequent assault by Blessed Immortality on Declan Prescott and Andy Savana. “I really thought they were past that.” he added, disappointment clear in his voice.
“People don’t change like that Alex.” Katie said.
Alex shook his head slowly. “I think that’s a little bleak. People can always change.” he sighed. “I’ve got a feeling UGWC is about to take a dark turn…” he trailed off as the noise from the hallway started to pick up. The two of them looked towards the door frowning.
“What’s going on?” Katie asked.
“Probably someone hunting post-show interviews. Probably Reeves.” Alex replied.
“I’ll get rid of him.” Katie said, making to get up to her feet. She stopped as Alex gently grasped her forearm and guided her back down to the bench.
“It’s ok. I’ll speak to him.” Alex said, getting to his feet.
“You don’t have to do that.” Katie said.
“I know.” Alex smiled slightly. “I want to. I’ll show Pierce how grown ups take a defeat.” Katie smiled warmly as Alex opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, closing the door again behind him.
It didn’t take long for Alex’s assumption to be proven correct as once GIW’s and now UGWC’s most dogged, intrusive and on occasions damn right creepy interviewer to spot him and hurry his way, closely followed by a beleaguered, sweaty and panting cameraman.
“Keep up Jim, we’re interviewing.” Jason Reeves said as he noticed the more rotund man trailing behind. Reeves stopped a few paces in front of Alex. Jim catching up a few moments later.
“Yo homies.” Jason began, turning back to the camera. “Reeves getting you the low down from UGWC In Yo Hands. I got the main man, ma Japanese brother from another mother, The Dragon, A-Kis, Alex Kiseragi.” Jason turned to face him. “How’re you feeling Bro’?”
“Scared and confused. You sound ridiculous.” Alex replied.
“It’s cool. We’ll edit that out.” Jason said, looking at the cameraman, then back at Alex. “You just lost the big grudge match with your new nemesis Travis Pierce. How’s that feelin’?”
“Nobody wants to lose.” Alex began. “We’re all competitors, that’s why we’re in this business. I can’t say I’m happy about it but you can’t win them all. The best I can do is go back and learn from what went wrong tonight.”
“So I got word from some of your homies that you were going into this fight hot. Had some real fire built up. You think that affected the outcome?”
“I got angry sure. I won’t deny that Pierce got under my skin. Did it affect the outcome? Maybe, but if it did that’s my own fault. I’m not taking anything away from Travis Pierce’s performance tonight.”
“This loss also keeps you a step away from a shot at the Cross-Hemisphere gold. That’s gotta sting.”
“Of course. I want to get a shot to reclaim the title but unlike my opponent tonight I’m not going to cry about how hard done by I am and earn myself a shot. Or buy one. I’ll have to check my purse takings. It doesn’t matter whether the champion is Russo, Pierce or even Cockatoo. I’m coming back for the title.”
“Would you say the best man won tonight?”
Alex slowly shook his head before answering. “They say in sports like ours that any man can be beaten on any given night. Tonight Travis Pierce was the better wrestler, but the better man? It’s going to take more than one match for me to call him that.”
“Is it safe to say it ain’t over between you two?”
“By my count tonight makes it 1 - 1. Where I come from that means one thing, rubber match.”
Jason turned back to the camera. “You heard it here first homies! Kiseragi vs. Pierce three. It’s on!”
Without turning back to Alex, Reeves looked down the hallway. “Yo it’s Lopes! Come on Jim!” he said excitably before running off further down the corridor, leaving Alex on his own once again. With a smirk Alex turned, opened the door and disappeared back into the locker room as the scene fades out.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This Week
You’ve heard a lot about him. You’ve seen him around, even seen him in action. You can’t help but be a little impressed. He’s good, in an unorthodox way. It’s his mind that worries you though. On the surface it seems like he’s got his morals in the right place but you’ve heard stories, lots of stories. He’s been linked to the Japanese mob and their attempts to create a new Sun. You’ve heard whispers of his involvements with the North Korean Dragon repopulation initiative. Some have named him the mastermind behind the west coast chameleon assassination unit and the ring leader of the mono-gender inclination litigation movement. You’re not sure what to say, what to do. He’s now standing face to face with you, staring at you as if you’re the weirdo here. It still poses the question though. What’s he doing in your gym?
“Forewell?” Alex asked as he stepped away from spotting one of the Dragon’s Cave’s patrons as he just finished his latest set on the bench press. “What can I do for you? Wait, is this about Jet? Because he’s not here at the moment.”
“Shhh!” Forewell says, jerking forward and clamping his hand over Alex’s mouth. “Is this place clean?”
Alex could only nod.
“How can you be sure?” Forewell asked. Alex eyes said it all, opening wide into a ‘What the fuck?’ look spared for only the most insane of encounters. That was all Forewell needed to see. Without another word he began to run riot around the gym, searching around, under and inside every piece of equipment in the room. Patrons stopped and stared and before long the whole place had come to a stand still with all eyes on the paranoid man. Alex could only watch in a mixture of horror and outright hysterics as Forewell disappeared into the showers heralding a first a barrage of disgruntled shouts from the men’s room and moments later screams from the ladies as he swapped rooms. He swiftly reappeared and charged over to a line of heavy bags that he placed his ear up against one by one and began to tap on them like a man trying to find a hollow behind a wall. Satisfied with that he ran into the centre of the room and disappeared under the first ring. A few moments later he crawled out from under it and into the centre ring. Minutes after that he appeared again and did the same to the last one. With the rings clear he shot to is feet and ran across the stretch of floor to the foam pits at the end of the room. He jumped and did a text book dive. The foam caught him, leaving him up ended with his legs pointing into the air. The foam blocks shifted as Forewell fought through them and disappeared underneath. He seemed to be gone for quite some time. So much so that many of the people in the gym had started to go back to their training and Alex was starting to wonder if he’d managed to suffocate himself. He allowed himself a sigh of relief when Forewell reappeared once again, struggling to clamber out of the unstable mass. He eventually did so, only to throw himself into the second pit and repeat the process once again. When he reappeared he charged back over to Alex, now panting and dripping with sweat.
“I need to talk to you.” he said in a harsh loud whisper. He looked around them at the number of people filling the gym. “In private.” he added.
Alex looked around and frowned, then looked back at Forewell. “My office.” he said, gesturing with his head up towards the room overlooking the gym floor. Forewell nodded and the two walked off, Alex ahead, Forewell a couple of steps behind. They made their way up the steps and towards the office. A few steps from the door and Forewell burst past Alex and dived inside, setting about another bug search in the same way as before. Alex simply watched dumbfounded as Forewell went through his drawers and shelves and finally started up his computer.
“Hey, what’re you doing? That’s my computer.”
“Need it.” Forewell said, not looking away from the screen.
“Well it’s pass worded so you can’t.”
“Got past it. Took a back door in.” Forewell said, then stopped. “You’d know about that right.”
Alex was taken aback. “Was that a joke?”
Forewell went back to the computer. “Just a joke. Don’t sue.”
Alex shook his head in disbelief and walked around behind his desk to see what Forewell was doing. As he tried to look Forewell closed whatever was running and jumped out of Alex’s chair. He started to pace furiously in front of the desk.
“What’s this about Forewell?” Alex asked, taking a seat. He had a feeling he’d need it.
“This.” Forewell said, removing a print out from his pocket and placing it on the desk before continuing his pacing. Alex picked it up and looked it over.
“This weeks card? I didn’t think it was up yet.”
“It isn’t. I needed to know though. I had a suspicion. I was right.” Forewell said, reeling off short sentences in a rapid fire fashion.
“Oh we’re tagging together.” Alex said, not taking much real attention. “You want to talk strategy?”
“Strategy? No, much more than strategy. Look at our opponents.” Forewell said, pointing to the paper in Alex’s hand.
“The Saints of Los Angeles.” he said. “The new champions. Should be interesting.” he nodded.
“Interesting? Don’t you get it?”
“Get what?”
Forewell let out a low frustrated scream. “The dictionary defines a Saint as ‘any of certain persons of exceptional holiness of life, formally recognized as such by the Christian Church, esp. by canonization.’”
“So?”
“Declan Prescott and Andy Savana hardly fit that bill do they?”
“Well they’ve been pretty good recently.” Alex said.
“There’s a difference between good and Saintly.” Forewell replied. “No, there’s more we don’t know. Declan Prescott was once a man of great evil. Who knows what conspiracies he was involved in in those days. People don’t change like that.”
“People can change-” Alex tried to say but Forewell was still talking.
“No, something happened to him. Something holy, something paranormal. Declan Prescott has been brainwashed or otherwise tricked into service of the Ecclesiarchy.”
“What about Savana?”
“No, Savana’s just along for the ride. The Saints. To become Saints they must have done something. Something significant. Something major in service of the church, Catholic I’m sure, to have themselves ordained by the Pope himself but how haven’t we heard about it? Saints aren’t ordained every day. No there’s a cover up, something great for the church but they don’t want us to know about it.”
“I think it’s just a name.” Alex said.
“No!” Forewell snapped at him. “That’s what they want you to believe. The Saints of Los Angeles are in league with the Catholic Church, the greatest evil this world has ever known and now they’re in UGWC. What do they want? What do they want?”
“Um, this is great and all but why are you telling me it?” Alex asked.
“I came to warn you.” Forewell said. “Whatever the church wants they won’t stop until they get it and now you and I have been placed in the way. Albino warrior monks could be here to deal with us at any time.”
“I think you’ve watched The Da Vinci Code too many times.” Alex said.
“You haven’t watched it enough.” Forewell retorted as something seemingly vibrated in his pocket. He removed a pager and looked at it. “I have to go. They’re tracking me. When they get here, you never saw me.” he said and made for the door. He stopped just before opening it and ran back to the table, slamming his hands down on the end of it. “I know about North Korea.” he added sinisterly before making for the door again, this time exiting the room and disappearing down the stairs leaving a stunned Alex in his chair.
“Well…” he said to himself. “Monday will be fun.”