Lies, damned lies, and the Society Members That Tell Them.

I had a dream once…

Like Dr. King, I had a dream of a better world, a better IWC. There was a time when I imagined that I was making a difference, that the things I was doing served some sort of purpose. I dreamed that when I hurt people, when I broke their bones and ground them into the mat and shattered their dreams, that it was for the greater good and it would all pay off in the end.

I was wrong.

***
[AWOL stands before what is obviously a green-screen image. At current it shows a shot of the Parthenon. As you watch, what is clearly just a PowerPoint presentation of scenic slides changes to Mount Everest. Somewhere, someway, perhaps Christian Savior will be happy to see that AWOL is not, in fact, standing before a generic background. In any case, we will not be mentioning it again.]

AWOL: Gentlemen. I believe congratulations are in order. The end of the year awards are out, and the two of you made off like bandits (temper tantrums about not winning aside.) You officially embody everything that’s wrong with the wrestling business today. Sit back and let the magnificence of your achievement soak in. You should really pat yourselves on the back. The IWC audience has spoken, and apparently your particular brand of nonsense is exactly what they’ve been waiting their miserable, squalid lives to see.

I have a hard time coming up with a compelling reason to condemn you anymore, honestly, so there’s really no reason to continue bothering. You’re doing what you’re doing and looking out for yourself, and who can blame you? There’s no profit to be found in standing on ideals anymore. Ideals get you retired. They leave you in a situation where you have no friends in a company you helped build, where you’re told by people with half your experience that somehow you’re a “retard” in the ring. You spend a career breaking down the Christian Savior and Shawn Hall’s of the world, ostensibly as a means of trying to improve it, and one day you wake up and discover that your only friend is a miserable, self-absorbed ego-maniac who is almost certainly going to sell you down the river at the first opportunity to advance his own career at your expense.

Does it shock you to hear me say that, Savior? It turns out I’m not a simpleton, despite the conclusion you’ve drawn. I know the score. I’ve known Johnny longer than you have, all the way back to before he was ever a champion and when everyone thought he was just a nobody that did funny videos for his promos. The blind tag and jumping into the match last week? Shocker. You mean that a man who has traded everything in his life to hold the world heavyweight title isn’t above pulling a dirty trick to get into the ring and eliminate any chance of not reacquiring the strap? My god, my entire paradigm just collapsed. Thank you, Christian Savior. Thank you for pointing out what was glaringly obvious to the entire world. Where would I be without you?

Why am I not furious? Why am I not cursing Johnny’s name up and down? Let’s think about this one. Item number one, the blind tag happened several minutes before the match ended, when the opposition was gaining a little momentum on me. It was a clutch move at an important moment in the match, one of the thousand little things that make us the most effective tag team in this company. Neither of us saw the ending of the match coming when the blind-tag happened, so what the hell is the point in getting angry that, while legally tagging himself in, Kingdom got the win? There isn’t one, particularly when you’re interested in getting the victory, no matter the cost.

Number two has to do with a word that I’m certain is unfamiliar to you: professionalism. I don’t need to crush my partner for my own advancement every time he makes the mistake of turning his back on me. I don’t play the double-dealing bullshit game because, unlike you, I can get what I want by doing a crazy thing called winning. It’s how I earned all my titles, and more often than not I did it under my own power and without interference. For instance, no one has ever won a title and then handed it to me, to cite a hypothetical example that clearly has no relevance on this match. If and when the time comes when I get an opportunity to fight Kingdom for the belt, he’ll get everything I can throw at him and then some, and I have every confidence I would win. Beating him twice previously in singles competition probably has something to do with that, although again, that’s not a point Savior finds all that meaningful or important. We were in a tag-team match at Riot! with the tag titles on the line, we got the win, and a belt that never should have been taken from Johnny in the first place was rightfully restored. Today, the Empire possesses the two most important titles in this company, the World Title and the Tag Team strap, and things are right with the world.

I know, they’re no Submissions or Cartel title, but we’re happy with them so I guess that’s what counts.

And now it’s a new week, and I’m stuck having to fast-forward through more of your terrible promotional material to prepare for another tag-team match where you get to have a fully functional, coordinated team and I’m stuck with Orlando Cruze. Feel free to torch him, by the way. I won’t dispute any of your points. To be honest, after he screwed the pooch on that Extinction match I was halfway tempted to just not show up on Riot! and leave him to be torn to shreds by you. However, the thought of another loss on my record to your group turns my stomach, so I’ll find a way to put the nausea aside until the final bell rings and make this work. Say what you will about us, the two of us put together have more wrestling accomplishments than anything you and the talking penis have in your entire stable. I know you think that somebody just walked down the aisle and handed us all of our title belts and wins over the course of our career (perhaps because that seems to be your method of choice,) but I assure you those things don’t happen by accident. We’re both very good professional wrestlers. No amount of trumped up facts, exaggerated failings, and flat-out lying on your part will change that.

Speaking of flat out lying, there seems to be a rash of that going on with your team of late. I blow spots, Porno Lad? Really? Which spots would you be referring to? Because, to my knowledge, I’m just as technically sound today as I was during the days when I was Submissions champ. Allow me to explain something to you quickly: I am a powerfully built individual. I have a strength advantage against the majority of my opponents, and I take advantage of this in the ring. I don’t need to be doing high flying maneuvers anymore than Rey Mysterio needs to start choke-slamming people. It’s your prerogative to think what you want about my abilities in the ring, of course, but I’ll be damned if I’m just going to let an out-and-out lie on your part go uncontested. It’ll just make it all the more sweet when you underestimate me and find yourself getting out-wrestled in the middle of the ring on Friday.

And I could harp on the irony of someone who seems to be barely able to communicate verbally calling me a “retard,” but it’s almost too easy, and you probably wouldn’t understand what the word irony meant anyways.

There was one thing you said where I agree with you however, Savior. A win is in fact a win. The “W” goes in the book for your team at Extinction, and I made it very clear that I don’t hold that against you or begrudge it. I do take some issue, however, with the implication that somehow you pinning a random spectator who interfered in the match while half of my team was in the backstage area and Johnny Kingdom had been knocked out with a chair is somehow equivalent to somebody putting a t-shirt on you and saying something spooky over the PA system. However, as you put it, a win is a win. So I’ll be expecting, from now on, to hear no more bitching about my pinning you, which I’ll point out came in a singles match where we were facing each other one on one rather than with three other bodies as backup. If you’re willing to do that, then yes, Christian, a win is a win. You’ll hear nothing else from me on the subject of the loss at Extinction. And when Cruze and I beat you tomorrow night, even if some fan in the crowd is holding up a particularly clever sign that somehow causes you to be distracted and lose to me again, that will be a win as well. Deal?

Come to think of it, I’m going to take back what I said about not contradicting you when it comes to Cruze. There is one thing you said that I thought was truly hysterical: this accusation of corruption on Cruze’s part. This would be, as far as I can tell, yet another of these examples of the two of you just making random shit up and spewing it out from week to week. Cruze is corrupt? Really? That might be the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard since…well since a person who honestly said the sentence “His ring work is like a raging retard playing a piano sure he can hit all the keys but he cant play real music well me I am Mozart” called me retarded. Nevermind the fact that he’d actually have to have done something in his role as GM for any of it to qualify as corruption, the few times he has attempted to be of use he’s done it in a fashion that is flat-out irreproachable. You honestly think that putting Johnny in a situation where he has to specifically pin Simon Cagero in a tag-team match is doing him some kind of favor? There was only one out of the eight possible outcomes to that match that involved him regaining the belt, and Cruze certainly didn’t come down to the ring and make Cagero tag in to put his belt at risk. If your puppet champ was too stupid to come into the match with a game-plan, that isn’t Cruze’s fault either. And really, you are aware that the World Champion has a mandatory rematch clause in his contract, right? So Johnny was going to get at least one more shot at that belt anyway and, frankly, I doubt even you are deluded enough to think that he would NEVER have gotten a title shot again.

But put all that aside for a moment, and let’s get down to who the whistleblower is on this particular outcry against graft. You’re Christian Fucking Savior. You are the EMBODIMENT of corruption. Every week I see you booking matches that favor yourself or your stable. You’re blackmailing Dan Douglas into giving you a title shot (and, seriously, the submissions belt? Way to reach for the brass ring, Christian.) Everything you do is a calculated move with exactly one beneficiary, yourself, and you damn well know it. And yet, somehow, you have the gall to claim that Orlando Cruze, the boyscout of boyscouts, is somehow corrupt? Christ. If people Google “Pot calling kettle black” the first thing that pops up on the search results is going to be your promo. Cruze is Mother Teresa compared to you, and trying to push the lie any further just makes you look even more ridiculous.

But that’s what it boils down to for the Society, isn’t it boys? It’s not about wrestling talent. It’s not about wins or losses. It’s about pushing the lie. If you tell people often enough that you’re good, eventually they believe you. If you spend enough time claiming that you don’t care about any of the top belts in the company and that, somehow, holding mid-card belts is an equivalent achievement, the people will follow. If Porno Lad just manages to put enough sex and depravity into his promos, eventually they’ll forget that he’s nothing more than a phallus with a mouth that, apparently, doesn’t have a functional brain attached to it. If Christian Savior can just find enough hyperbole and exaggeration to base his promo around, eventually the fans will just accept that he must see something they don’t and, in fact, the world actually does revolve around him. It’s straight out of the Carl Rove playbook, the same sort of garbage that can somehow convince the gullible masses that voting for a staunch right wing congressman in Massachusetts to reestablish gridlock in the Senate is somehow a vote for “change.” Give ‘em the old Razzle Dazzle and they’ll never catch wise.

And hell, let’s not kid ourselves, it works. I have only lost a handful of matches since I came back, all of which happened through 5SS interference, and yet I find myself always the underdog on the weekly predictions lists. Porno Lad is the Superstar of the Year. The Five Star Society is the stable of the year despite only being in existence for the last few months. The masses are asses, and we all know it. So keep it up, fellas. Tell people I’m a sidekick. Tell people I’m irrelevant. Tell people that in a tag match I’m the first one to go. Lie, lie, lie, and when you’re done, start lying again. Just be careful you don’t start buying your own propaganda, because I’ve built a career off of defeating people who underestimated me. The list of opponents who thought they had me under their thumb only to find their entire world destroyed by yours truly could about fill a book, and I assure you that you will be just as surprised and disbelieving as they were when I add your name to it. You say you’ve got nothing to prove? Well I do. If nothing else, I have to do my little part to restore some semblance of reality to this place, and I can do that by reminding you and the world that, in fact, I am far from an afterthought and, in fact, I am the most dangerous man in this match. I am angry. I am motivated like never before. And I am coming for you tomorrow night. You say you’re going to make me into a burning sign?

Fucking.

Try.

It.

***

I still have a dream, but it is a very different one today. It’s not a dream of a better world. It’s a dream of destruction. It’s a dream where this bloated, twisted, putrid excuse for a wrestling organization is burned to the ground. It’s a world with streets littered with bleached skeletons, an empty, desolate world where I sit on a throne of skulls surrounded by the broken bodies of enemies. The last, grasping hand of those standing lined against me reaches to claw at the ground, one fingertip just barely grazing against the tarnished, charred golden plate of the World Heavyweight title resting at my feet. I look out upon the devastation, watching the towering edifice of our pride and bloodlust and greed burn to the ground. Dark forms twist and turn in the street, rings of spectators watching violent bloodsports with no need for talking or promotional material. The animalistic cries of the audience rise into the air with every pure blow of competition, and it is music to my ears.

The faintest hint of a smile rests upon my sooty, ash covered face.

*sung to the tune of "What do Tigers dream of?" from The Hangover.*

What does Adam dream of
when he takes a little Adam snooze?
Does he dream of failing freshmen
or pretty ladies in their catwoman suits? (hopefully that one)
Well don't you worry your pretty balding head
you're more than likely gonna graduate someday before you're dead.
Assuming of course that you don't choke
And then maybe someday you won't be broke.
Brooooke, Brooke, Ooohhh Broke, Brokey brokey broke broke.
But if he gets murdered by crystal meth tweakers....

Then my creditors are shit out of luck.

Answers from on High

The scene is filled with white, floating clouds. The surrounding area is filled with ephemeral, prismatic light shining off of golden and pearl furnishings. It is clearly a room from the heavenly host, a holy site in the eternal hereafter. Winged people walk here and there, laughing gaily amongst themselves as they travel from place to place with no apparent aim or intention. The musical tones of windchimes fill the air, and the scene is entirely one of serenity and peace.

In one corner, a simple workshop is in place. An old, bearded man stands in front of a bench, fiddling with something rotating on the tabletop in front of him. Upon closer examination, the object appears to be the emerald and blue rotating sphere of a planet. The bearded man scratches thoughtfully at his chin for a moment before an idea seems to alight in his sparkling, golden eyes and he reaches down towards one of the brown and green blobs of a continent. With a touch of his finger, the land shifts, reorganizing itself at his command. A mountain range forms slowly beneath his fingertips, rising towards a brilliant blue sky rapidly. Finally, it stops as the celestial figure removes its digits from the orb, looking down at his creation and nodding in satisfaction.

His concentration, however, is disrupted temporarily by the sound of a polite cough behind him. The bearded man turns, looking behind to see an angelic figure standing rigidly behind him at attention, arms clasped behind the golden breastplate adorning his torso. The figure’s white wings are drooping down, and the angel bows before the gaze of the old creator, who waves a hand to indicate that the figure should rise.

Angel-Lord, a thousand pardons for interrupting you, but there has been a somewhat irregular occurrence. It seems that a mortal has arrived and wishes to speak with you.

The old one looks confused for a second, but nods for the angel to continue.

Angel-We’re not entirely certain how he made it here, but he indicated that he would not leave without speaking to you personally. He seemed very set in his ways. Shall I send the heavenly chorus to escort him back to Earth, Lord?

A thoughtful expression, followed immediately by a negative shake of the head and an indication for the visitor to be allowed inside. The angel looks puzzled for a moment but quickly recovers, turning and running back out of the workshop. The older man turns back towards the workbench, picking up a small paintbrush. He dabs it in some white paint before twirling it into the atmosphere of the planet, creating a white puffy cloud.

A moment later, a chorus of trumpets heralds the arrival of the angel with a stocky individual, his characteristic bald head shining in the everpresent glow of his surroundings. He looks around in awe, staring up at the old man who, though looking frail and weathered by experience, towers over AWOL. The angel announces his arrival while simultaneously swatting AWOL in the back, indicating that he should kneel. The IWC superstar looks very out of character as he takes a knee before the supreme power arrayed before him.

AWOL-Thank you for making time for me. I can, uh, see that you’re pretty busy right now.

The creator has picked up a small squirt bottle, dropping a gentle rainstorm onto one of the landmasses before him. He waves a hand dismissively without turning to greet his visitor.

AWOL-I, well, I suppose I don’t need to explain the situation to you-

Angel-Actually, you do.

AWOL-I thought he was omniscient.

Angel-He is, but he gets a kick out of listening to you mortals’ voices. He thinks they’re funny.

AWOL turns back to the old man, seeing the bemused smile on his face, before nodding and continuing.

AWOL-Well, as you know, in the IWC things have been a little less than great recently. My group has been doing what we can to eliminate another group called the Five Star Society, with no amount of success thus far. We had a match against them at the last pay-per-view, Extinction, and had to face them four on four. Their group had to replace a member before hand, but they picked up somebody else from their stable they had been working with for some time. We, on the other hand, were stuck with having to use Jackson Adams, a man who had a grudge against all of us from many years previous, and a “mystery partner” whose identity even we didn’t know until the match had started. Well, the match went predictably, in other words Jackson smashed my teammate in the face with a chair in the middle of the proceedings with a chair, Mr. Orlando Cruze turned out to be the mystery partner which, as exactly none of us actually want anything to do with him, was pretty much awesome, and then proceeded to not play any kind of significant role despite all the artificial hype he had created for himself. Their side won, and now because of him I’m going to have to listen to them congratulating themselves for their crushing victory this week. This isn’t anything new, I’ve dealt with insufferable pricks my whole career.

He looks up, checking to make sure his language hadn’t aggravated the Creator. Seeing no response he carries on.

AWOL-However, things have gone downhill from there. Last week we did manage to take the world title back for Johnny, but this week I’m back in a tag-team match with the Society. Again, I can deal with this. Admittedly I tend to compare trying to create any kind of intelligent discourse with Christain Savior and Porno Lad to getting a root canal and, believe me, I would rather go for the dental work, but I can deal with it. Far, far worse is the fact that I’m stuck with Cruze as my partner again, despite my making it very clear that I wanted absolutely nothing to do with him from here on out. This match seems pretty much tailor-made to aggravate me. This is my worst nightmare. So, I was just wondering if you could let me know what in the hell I did to piss you off?

He pauses, waiting for the Creator to respond. However, the old man simply picks a chisel up from the workbench, carving a scenic canyon into the project that seems to be drawing the majority of his attention. AWOL keeps looking expectantly for a moment before turning to the angel.

AWOL-Um, doesn’t he talk?

Angel-No. His voice would kill you instantly.

AWOL-Oh. I thought Kevin Smith just made that up.

Angel-*sigh* I suppose you think Heston wrote the Ten Commandments too?

AWOL looks in every direction.

AWOL-So shouldn’t Alan Rickman be around here somewhere to translate for him?

The angel rolls his eyes.

Angel-I tried to tell you this was a bad idea, but I suppose you can direct your questions to me and I’ll try to answer them. Although your arrogance at assuming that somehow the one true God has it out for you, specifically, is almost too much to be believed.

AWOL-I’m sorry? I wanted answers, and I’m here to get them.

Angel-Well don’t you think you could have maybe done something a bit more practical? Like talk to your little wrestling federation’s owners or commissioner or something? I would think a military man would understand the general concept of a chain of command and how annoying it is when people do an end run like this.

AWOL-The owners of my company don’t give a shit what happens in the ring, as long as there’s chaos to generate ratings. As for the commissioners, they’re half the people competing in this match.

Angel-Seriously?

AWOL-I know. Ridiculous, right?

Angel-A little. But regardless of how stupid your company’s management situation is, I’m not sure how you can claim that somehow this was our fault.

AWOL-Well it all starts with you guys, doesn’t it? The idea has to come from somewhere, or at least the creation of the genetics that makes the brain that comes up with the idea. No one in the IWC will take responsibility for it, or anything else for that matter, so I’m looking for some answers. I don’t know whose idea it was to stick me with Cruze as a tag team partner, but whoever it was had to have gotten that idea from somewhere, and I’m blaming the big guy.

Angel-That seems a little circular, but free will is unfortunately one of the things the Creator chose to give you mortals, so I suppose I’ll have to allow it.

The angel and AWOL exchange withering glares, but the celestial being finally relents. Meanwhile, the old man picks a metal instrument off of his desk which promptly sparks a bolt of lightning onto the planet’s surface.

Angel-Care to explain why you have such a problem with this?

AWOL looks incredulous.

AWOL-I’m sorry? Are you serious? Let’s put aside for the moment the fact that I would sooner rip the intestines out of Christian Savior and Porno Lad’s guts than have to live through another week of them essentially ignoring any positive point I make in favor of the one or two statements I put out that they can distort into something that is in their favor, you teamed me up with Cruze. Cruze! Orlando fucking Cruze!

Angel-And…that’s bad?

A classic facepalm is AWOL’s response to the winged being’s seeming apathy at his dismay.

AWOL-Yes, cupid, it’s bad. For one thing, the son-of-a-bitch single handedly cost us the match with the Five Star Society at Extinction. And yes, I’m aware that Jackson Adams hit a member of our team with a chair, and yes, I’m aware that I chased his ass through the backstage area to go punish him for it, but Cruze is the one who stuck us with that worthless sack in the first place. But even if you ignore that, there’s his farcical insistence on making himself the “mystery opponent” in the match. I mean, here’s a thought: maybe let your potential teammates in on the gag. It’s not like we’d have rushed out to the promo cameras to brag about how we had a washed up, retired, broken down drama queen for our partner. But no, instead we all got to sit in the dark and wonder. Apparently it wasn’t an attempt at creating drama for his return (yeah right), but the end result was the same regardless. Johnny Kingdom and I essentially got to face the entirety of the Five Star Society with an unknown and Judas on our team.

Angel-Hey, watch that.

AWOL-Sorry. The point stands regardless. And I ask you, out of the four people we had on our team, which one do you think was pinned to cause us to lose that match?

Angel-I really couldn’t care less, but feel free to inform me.

AWOL-NONE OF THEM! They pinned Hurse, the guy Cruze was replacing! Do you know how ridiculous that is? That would be like me dragging some random fan out of the crowd, bashing him in the skull, and pinning him.

Angel-Huh. I suppose that doesn’t make much sense.

AWOL-You think that’s bad, let me tell you about how Christian Savior won the Cartel Title sometime.

The angel looks puzzled but AWOL carries on regardless.

AWOL-Be that as it may, I don’t honestly hold it against the Five Star Society how that match ended. I’m not one to player hate. It would have been one of the greatest upsets of all time if they somehow managed NOT to win it. But they didn’t, they got the pin, I’d have done the same thing in their position, congrats to them, blah blah blah. Let’s get back to the fact that the ending was a complete joke, and yet Orlando Cruze, who is ostensibly one-half of the commissioning team for the IWC, has done absolutely nothing to overturn it. Or set up a rematch. Or do ANY GOD DAMN THING WHATSOEVER to make it right. We all knew he was a figure-head when he started turning his power over every fucking show to let someone else do his job for him. But he apparently now is just making it official and doing absolutely fucking NOTHING with the authority he’s been granted, and I think that’s the thing that pisses me off the most. Cruze could literally book a new member of the 5SS into a “Fight All Three Members of the Empire One-on-One with no outside interference” match every week or, random idea, just fire them, but no. Clearly the best solution to the problem is to throw on his trunks and get back in the ring. And I’m not buying this “I don’t want to look biased” bullshit either. Cruze would hardly be the most biased GM this company’s ever seen. Conrad Grey once pulled a gun on me. Seriously. A gun, and frankly I had it coming. Actually laying some kind of discipline out into the company is nothing compared to that.

Angel-Not to interrupt, but aren’t you supposed to build your teammates up before matches and insult your opponents? It sounds like you’re doing the opposite.

AWOL-Oh, you mean like what Jackson Adams did when he spent most of his Extinction promo time hammering the Empire?

Angel-Ok, sorry, my bad. No need to rip my head off.

AWOL-Would that even do anything to you?

Angel-Probably not. It’s a figure of speech. Anything else you want to get off of your chest?

AWOL-Not really. I’ve wasted enough breath laying out why I can’t stand Christian Savior and Porno Lad. He’s omniscient, so he’s heard it all before anyways.

Angel-Very well. Lord, you have heard this mortal’s case, inflammatory though it may be. Do you care to respond?

The two turn back towards the older figure, whose shoulders lift and drop in a sigh that literally carries the weight of the world behind it. He sets the blue and green orb down onto his workbench, turning away from it and affixing AWOL with a penetrating stare. A long moment passes, followed by another, as the eyes within the wrinkled face weigh the merits of the IWC superstar’s soul. Finally, with knees creaking with arthritis, he steps down from the simple wooden stool and walks forward, standing face to face with the Big Crazy Bastard. AWOL tries not to blink, but faced with the sheer power, the magnificence of the being before him, he is overwhelmed. At last he turns his gaze downward, which brings a smile to the old man’s face. He puts a brotherly hand onto AWOL’s shoulder, which brings AWOL’s gaze back up to greet his. The old man’s smile broadens, but rather than respond with any sort of wisdom or new clarity, he simply gives the big man a pat on the shoulder before turning and walking away. AWOL’s shocked expression follows his retreating form back to the bench, the Creator’s attention once again focused on the planet resting there. An ugly crimson color stains the wrestler’s face and he takes a testy step towards the workbench, only to be blocked by the angel stepping preemptively in front of him.

AWOL-What the hell? That wasn’t an answer!

Angel-We never promised you one, only that your complaint would be heard.

AWOL-That’s bullshit!

Angel-You have the right to think so, but ultimately this is your matter, mortal. He has bigger things to worry about than your middling problem. If you want advice, here it is: stop letting things happen. You’re going to complain because all of these bad things have occurred? Do something about it. I know enough about you to know that complaining isn’t in your nature. Go bust heads. It’s what you’re good at.

AWOL-That’s your answer? That’s the amazing advice? Go hit people?

Angel-You have a problem with that?

AWOL-Well, I thought Wrath was on that list of deadly sins you guys weren’t so crazy about, for starters.

Angel-That never stopped you before.

AWOL looks like he wants to argue, but he finally waves a dismissive hand in the angel’s face and turns away, stomping towards the exit.

AWOL-Whatever. I don’t know why I expected anything else.

He stops, turning around and pointing a finger at the old man.

AWOL-You want me to deal with this on my own? Fine. But I hope you’re at least prepared to take responsibility, because I can bet that you won’t be smiling after you see what I have in store next.

With that he turns, angrily stomping out of the picture, angrily waving some of the white clouds out of his way as he goes. As the camera pans back to the old man, he slowly rests his tools back on the benchtop, his expression of joy at the act of creation now replaced with one of concern, presumably at the thought of the opposite that is to come.

Extinct

AWOL is sitting on a bench in the locker room, backstage at Extinction. A single cone of light shines down onto the wooden bench he is slumped upon, blood and perspiration dripping down the length of his frame. His breath comes in constant, droning repetition as he unwraps the athletic tape from around his wrists. Loop after loop comes uncoiled onto the floor.

Billy: The Empire has been conquered thanks to the sheer superiority of the Five Star Society.

He stops, his eyes slowly closing as a deep exhalation leaves him, coming from the core of his being.

Mayne: Behold a TRUE Empire ladies and gentlemen.

His head hangs forward, and he drapes his hands across the back of his head, knuckles cracking as he grips onto the back of his neck.

Adams: I know some of you may be upset, that you might not understand why, why I took a chair to Kingdom’s skull? That’s fine, you have every right to be angry with me, and I accept your anger. But I’m not the villain here.
The hands move forward, the palms resting against both of his temples. His shoulders quiver with strain as he presses against the sides of his head.

Adams: I’m not some generic comic book baddy who beat up Kingdom just because he’s the “hero.” And I didn’t take that chair to his skull simply because I was hoping to make a statement, or to get a boost in popularity.

His entire body is shaking. A slow trickle of blood starts from the corners of his eyes, dripping down to the floor.

Adams: I’m already popular; I’m already the first name that pops into every fan’s head when they think “I-W-C.”

The trickle increases to a stream, pouring slowly from AWOL’s eyes and nose.

Adams: No, what I did, why I struck Kingdom with that chair, it was all motivated by one thing, “revenge!”

A crack rings out in the locker room.

Billy: The Five Star Society came, saw, and conquered. This is such a beautiful moment….I promised myself I wouldn’t cry.

With a sickening crushing sound, AWOL’s skull implodes, dropping a rush of blood and brains down his torso to the top of the bench. His body slowly slumps to the side, landing with a wet thump in the puddle of gore.

And then his eyes open. He’s lying in his bed, Maya’s warm breath against his neck. She shifts, pressing up closer against him as he lies, motionless, on top of the sheets. He is staring, expressionless, at the ceiling as the image wipes to gray…

***

To: Orlando Cruze and IWC Management
From: The Empire
Subject: Extinction PPV Results and Future Relations

I think we were all somewhat disappointed with the outcome from the recent IWC pay-per-view event, Extinction. To be honest, the Empire versus Five Star Society match was maybe one of the most complete clusterfucks I’ve ever had the misfortune to be associated with. At the end of the day, the final result is that the Society managed to get the win that night, and regardless of quality this is a fact that cannot be denied. Ultimately, I feel that this represents a failure on our part as an organization to address the current struggles arrayed against us.

It is fair to say that the coming Riot! main event represents the next chapter in this struggle, though admittedly the Society is not directly booked into the match. I think we are all fairly aware of the fact that this match represents an irresistible target to the members of the 5SS to both attack us and assist their apparently unofficial allies, the Motherfuckers of America. Additionally, it represents an opportunity to correct a past wrong, the taking of the World Heavyweight Title by Simon Cagero in a match from which he had already been eliminated. As such, I feel it is of the utmost importance to ensure that this match is conducted under as stable and fair conditions as possible, and to make certain that the Society is eliminated from being a factor from this match. To wit, I have a number of suggestions to offer for how, in the future, we can address these problems.

First of all, I am concerned about the representation we are receiving in the front office from those who are supposedly our allies. Mr. Orlando Cruze was ostensibly “on our side” during this recent conflict, by his own assertion and presumably by his actions. However, upon closer examination there is a disturbingly regular pattern of behavior that has resulted in increasing the difficulty of our struggles with the Society. This began during the Overbooked Extravaganza Tag Team Gauntlet main event, when Mr. Cruze took it upon himself to re-enter the Motherfuckers of America tag team after they had been eliminated from the match, ostensibly on the grounds of “fair play” from them being attacked by Psycho and Riggs (which, I rush to point out, we had no part in), resulting in the final match of the gauntlet being altered to a triple threat where the world title had to be defended against both the Motherfuckers and the Society. The result of this, as you are aware, was the loss of said World Title to Simon Cagero through even more dubious interference by the ALSO previously eliminated Christian Savior. Additionally, Mr. Cruze was the architect of the match at Extinction wherein we would be placed to defeat the 5SS and presumably liberate the company from their tyranny (though how a match with nothing on the line actually intended to accomplish this goal is a matter of debate.) However, rather than give us the fair shot that we were looking for in the first place, Mr. Cruze insisted on the inclusion of Jackson Adams on our team, an unstable element with past loyalties to the Society and an axe to grind with Johnny Kingdom. We are all aware of how this managerial decision panned out. Furthermore, he also insisted on replacing our injured team-mate, Hurse, with a mystery partner whose identity he concealed even from us. In doing so, he essentially eliminated the possibility of forming a cohesive team strategy as, credit where it is due, the 5SS possessed and executed. This would be frustrating enough, but on top of everything else, Mr. Cruze was of course only keeping the mystery partner’s identity a “mystery” as an excuse for him to grandstand prior to his return to the IWC ring. Compound this with the fact that the member of our team who was pinned, leading to our defeat, was the team member who was cleared from competition and removed from the match, and we reach a level of ludicrous that is difficult to put into words when describing the ending of this complete debacle of a match. There are many people to blame for this and, believe me, they will be brought to justice for the matter. However, when it comes to our supposed ally, Mr. Cruze, I feel I speak for all of the member of the Empire when I deliver one final, simple message.

Stop helping.

We do not want or need your “assistance” any longer. Exactly what game you’ve been playing in your role as GM is somewhat beyond me, I confess. I myself have some experience with the struggles of the job, having performed it for a number of months. I am very well acquainted with the pain of watching your carefully laid plans fall down on themselves. However, these last few weeks simply leave me speechless with how incredibly useless you truly are. I am left with only one of two conclusions: you are either dangerously incompetent or secretly working for the other side. Are you or are you not in possession of fifty percent of the controlling influence in this company? Are you or are you not the GM? And yet, week after week, it is Christian Savior acting on Dan Douglas’ behalf who is actively making an impact in the match bookings while you, as far as I can tell, apparently are in the back staring at yourself in the mirror and imagining the roar of the crowd when you make your big return. Despite their recent success, I want to emphasize something, the Five Star Society are not as good as their record would indicate. I have every intention of demonstrating this fact in the coming weeks, but the last thing I need is some more of Mr. Cruze’s assistance tying my hands, making the job more difficult, or otherwise stacking the deck any further against me. So I conclude, please Mr. Cruze, get out of my way. I neither desire nor require any special favors from you any longer. I will take any further interference by you as a personal insult, as you have received this message and in doing so have chosen to ignore it. I feel I should advise you that such an insult would be extremely unwise, and would likely result in violent reprisals.

Kindest Regards,
AWOL

***

Extinct.

That was the joke at the last show, that when we were defeated in the pay-per-view main event, the Empire would be extinct. Kaput. Out of it. Dead like the dodo. Your choice of euphemism may vary, but that was supposed to be the end. Well, we were defeated, if you want to call the complete collapse of all of the people we were forced to carry into that match as a “defeat,” but yet here we still remain. We are as strong now as we ever were, and now we find ourselves in perhaps an unfamiliar position: that of underdog.

Yes, I just said that. For all our posturing and chest-beating, the Five Star Society is the better stable right now. Admittedly, in a match-up by match-up comparison, well, there is really no comparison. I have no doubt that I could defeat any member of the Society I was put up against in one-on-one competition, to say nothing of what Johnny would do, but ultimately that has very little to do with success in this company. Wrestling ability is irrelevant. Victory these days comes from who has the biggest entourage to interfere on their behalf. It comes in the form of trash cans being passed to people from under the ring, run-ins during title matches, and outsiders shocking your opponents with tazers.

I sincerely wish that I was still referring to the Society, but it appears that I’ve changed subject. I’m talking to you, now Motherfuckers, a group that seems to be getting more assistance from the Society than even some of their charter members. I’ll admit, it’s entirely within the realm of possibility that they’re really just doing it to irritate us, but like it or not the two of you have gotten quite a lot of help from them in recent weeks. I’m curious how you feel about that. Are you proud of how you won the World Title, or how you retained the NHB belt? Too Mag certainly pointed it out as some kind of achievement. Are you that deluded? No matter how you slice it, no matter how good the match was, the interference ruins the outcome. It’s a disturbingly common occurrence in this place, to be honest, and I’m getting a little tired of it. I can barely remember the last time I had a match that ended cleanly. It’s to the point now that I just expect it to happen. I would be honestly surprised if a week went by when there wasn’t a run-in. And so, despite your assertions that this week will in some way prove anything about your abilities, just expect that this is simply going to show that, yet again, you and Cagero are perfectly fine with accepting help from people you claim to hate, so long as it serves your agenda.

This is the point where I’m supposed to tell you all the things that are going to change from this point on. We’re supposed to go back to the drawing board, re-evaluate how we’re going to go forward from here. This, however, is not a focus group. I’m not interested in re-evaluating. I shouldn’t have to. We’re the better team in this match. You’re either going to find that out on Riot!, or Christian Savior will hire the 101st Airborne to interfere on your behalf again and you’ll win. I don’t even care at this point. I honestly would love to see you get buried under a tide of tainted gold that none of you have earned or deserved. If it happens that way, I’ll smile and hand my tag-team title belt to you, just so you have something to remember how, yet again, you sat back and accepted the fact that you aren’t good enough to beat us on your own, but you can get the job done with a little help from your friends. But if by some miracle there is no interference, or more likely they do interfere but we manage to overcome it, the title will go back to where it should have been this whole time, and the two of you can head back to the obscurity you came from in the first place.