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.