Post by Kyle Shane on Aug 6, 2017 21:03:04 GMT -5
1) The Real Folk Blues...
"Are you awake?" Hisako says to him, and his eyes snap open.
Hiro rolls his legs and turns out of bed, stretching. He can't help but get that dream out of his head...
Him and that damn white boy, Kyle. Both of them, back in the day, in their goofy phase as the Game Boyz. Some incident of them feeding Lion's custom Jungle championship into a wood chipper. Even now, as he closes his eyes over the Keurig as it dollops coffee into his mug. He doesn't know why Kyle has been on his mind so much, honestly. He has left wrestling behind. He's left the Game Boyz behind. Kyle was the one obsessed with it, even when the weekly grind of it got to be too much for him. Even when all he did was complain about having to get up at 12 on a Sunday to start writing for another promo. As Hiro rested his chin in his hands, exhaustedly wiping his eyes, he recalled that conversation, asking his old compadre "Look, man, if you don't like it, why don't you quit? Do anything else? Look, join the work force with me, I can get you -"
And Kyle had looked at him, with that mixture of disdain and feeling sorry for someone who just wasn't in on the joke. "Because Kyle Shane never quits, he just goes dark."
He had flapped a hand at him, frustratedly. Whatever. "I don't know how you can live this kind of life, brochacho," he told Kyle, amiable but envious.
"Well, I've found there's always alternatives, man," Kyle shrugged. "Probability cause means that for every outcome, you're shaking out the die and letting them fall. Whatever amount falls, that is the reality where that outcome happens. Right? But reality is subjective to what you want to perceive. So if you are bold enough, and game enough, and you roll a roll that gives you an ending you're not satisfied with, then you have the mental power within you to change it."
He had laughed, then, at their last hangout, in a dingy pizza place a middle distance between both of them. "Man, I don't know what the hell you mean," and he had handed Kyle a cigarette they were sharing.
He didn't know what Kyle meant then, but he had been trying, since then, to influence the direction of his roll, or if not that, to at least understand why the dice had fallen his particular way...
Ughhh, Hiro felt close to collapsing. His love was busy in the other room, shrugging in to her dress, but he just sat there reflecting into his coffee. Something still nagged at him, and he couldn't tell whether it was the dreams about Kyle or Hisako's tone of voice when she had asked him if he was awake. But he had to get motivated. He had to go get his suit on, check his palm pilot, log in, see today's work email. And he would. As soon as he could move. His exhaustion made his muscles feel locked. For a second he was stiff as a corpse, and then he rose, stretching, yawning. Hisako was giggling at a video attachment her mom had sent, but he came behind her, kissing her on her neck. She squealed a little, her voice peaking as she said how cold he was.
"Don't forget you have that meeting with your father today," Hisako reminded him, sternly. Hiro sighed, pulling away from her, and reached for his dress shirt.
The feelings of unreality continued long after Hisako went to her own job, and Hiro was showered, dressed, had imbibed the rest of his coffee, and was sitting in rush hour traffic into the heart of Manhattan. It was a feeling of anger, resentment, and for some reason he could not put a finger on, a deep and profound sense of loss. And it's connections to Kyle could not be put aside. When he thought of his erstwhile Game Boyz partner, he still felt conflicted. He envied Kyle his free-wheeling lifestyle, when it all came down to it. Here he was, a year short of thirty and when he looked at his life, reflected on it as he studied his own face in the mirror, he saw emptiness looking back. But, no. He firmed himself up more than that. No, he told himself strictly, not empty. I have everything Kyle does not. I have a girlfriend who doesn't want to leave me at any given point. My father respects me, and I'm a key player in the financial futures of a company that's gone public on the stock exchange. He felt and told himself all of that and yet he still felt the pangs of regret and loss. Loss of innocence. Loss of that smarky, cocky, happy-go-lucky Youtube game streamer that had moved into a dorm in MIT in the spring semester of 2009.
It was a sense of existential ennui and depression, a real folk blues that he could not acquit himself of. He certainly wouldn't have been able to find reason for it. And he had gone to a quack who liked to call himself Dr. M, instead of Monsaint. But all that had provided was pills, which hadn't fixed the real problem staring in the face.
As he sat in traffic he slid his ear buds in, and his audio book began reading to him through the speakers. A soothing female voice was relaying to him a passage from "Navigations of the Hidden Domain," author, Virgil Coates, 1971. The cool, inflectionless patois soothed through to the core of his brain, taking him away from the traffic jam, and the stresses of his daily life. She read to him.
"As terrifying and inescapable the trajectory of Man's moral dilemma may appear, there does exist with proven certainty a wholly different current of life. For the man willing to stand unflinching before his own nonexistence, a fissure between worlds can appear. A doorway, revealing itself not to the "man" but to something deep within the man that has for years cried out unheard. Occasionally he will catch the whispers of this abandoned voice, in the afterglow of certain dreams with that lingering sense of a paradise lost, reminding him of another kind of life, the life he was always meant to live, but for some reason did not..."
He sat in his assigned spot for sometime when he allowed himself to gather out of his reflective state, the question hanging in his mind from the self-help book about whether he was living in a dream world or not. He looked up at the curved, spartan architecture that served as the face of his father's company, Noriyuki-Sasuke. And he felt a dark sense of foreboding. He keeled forward, gritting his teeth, feeling like he had been here before. He opened his eye and saw himself, standing in the courtyard in the plaza of the complex, rainwater running down his face, washing and thinning rivulets of blood that covered him like a crimson mask, and him opening his good eye and pointing his finger forward like a gun. It felt like he was circling back around to a feeling he had experienced before, a dark and nihilistic deja vu. What in the hell was that? What was wrong with him??
He was sweaty and pale as he sat in the elevator next to his sister. Suki and Hisako dressed so similarly, but his baby sister was so much more severe. She had a tablet and several thick binders in her hands, and she looked at him, impatient with him. "You need to get your act together for the meeting with our new investors, Hiro," she chided.
Hiro wiped sweat from his upper lip and turned to her, straightening his tie. "Suki - my mind is breaking. Why do I feel like this is all some kind of terrible dream?"
Suki, not without her own sense of compassion, felt his forehead, and looked sidelong at him, "It's stress, is what it is. Father's had you working so many late nights, and you're having a breakdown. You need to go home, rest, and we'll call Dr. M for another prescription, if you'll take the blasted things this time."
Hiro pushed her hands off. "No, it's not that, it's - things have diverged, in my mind, in one dream, I'm reliving a life with Kyle, a life that I thought ended a long time ago,... a life that continued on as if our split never happened, we kept our tag team together all of this time and he never went on to do anything else. But, in my other dream, when I close my eyes... I see days like this... days that end in a horrible betrayal, and violence, and blood... and so help me, it's so realistic, that I can't tell which is which..."
Suki put a hand over his mouth, telling him stonely, "I won't have any more of this talk. Here is real, here is what matters and these stupid flights of fantasy with your old white ex-boyfriend are just childish games. You gave that up a long time ago, Hiro."
"I know, I - " he couldn't get the words out, "But why does it feel like I'm sleepwalking through life? Why does it feel like I'm living a dream that's coming to an end?"
The elevator dinged, and Suki looked up at their stop, then over at Hiro, screaming at him with their eyes because she tried to keep her voice low. "Do not tell father of this." The doors were opening, and her father was there, at the head of a procession.
Hiro's eyes widened in shock as he saw who was standing next to him.
"Oni-Ogun!" he rasped, and the tall, dangerous looking man with the black eye-patch turned from facing his father. The contingent of beefy men surrounding the black-clad figure as one reached into their coat pockets, ready to pull out guns at the least trigger that there was some sort of conflict, but with a wave of his hand the most notorious Yakuza oyabun in New York waved them down. The literal kanji was Demon's Head, and Oni-Ogun smiled appropriately devilish as he stepped up to the younger boy. "So, this is the boy that wants to be heir to his father's throne. Inheriting a company who's stock has fallen."
"We haven't fallen so low as you, scum," Hiro spat, then turned to his father, who's mustache seemed to droop. "Father, is this our meeting?"
His father tried to tell him something, but the crime boss swaggered closer, and smiled. "No, what we have to do here is that me and you have to come to an understanding, young Hiro-kun. You think that you are ashamed now because my money is going to be going to buying out your father's investment firm, and that we will gut it and loot it of all it's treasures. That is not the case. What is the truth is that my money has helped your father all along, and now his debt has grown too large. This company has always been mine. Now I will make use of it at my pleasure."
"Bastards!" Hiro shouted, and he lashed out. He didn't get far, though. The criminals were numerous, and they caught his arms, throwing him forward. Ogun pistoned out with his fist, throwing him down. Nothing fancier that a painful and savage strike. His world exploded, his vision reddened and he felt something pop at the side of his head. Suki screamed. His father was yelling that that was enough.
After a few more blows, Oni-Ogun stopped. He fastidiously took a handkerchief out of his pocket and began cleaning his knuckles. He sighed. "Such a world beater. It would have pleased me to give you a position in my new order, Sasuke Hiro. As it is now, I'm casting you out."
Those words followed him down into unconsciousness.
He opened his eyes, again, and Kyle was there, on the couch with him, sitting next to him with a bowl in hand, ready to spark it up. This wasn't the dorm he knew. It was a modern apartment. And an older, wiser Kyle was staring over at him, offering him a fragrant packed bowl and a lighter.
"Yo, Hiro," he called, "Are you awake?"
"Are you awake?" Hisako says to him, and his eyes snap open.
Hiro rolls his legs and turns out of bed, stretching. He can't help but get that dream out of his head...
Him and that damn white boy, Kyle. Both of them, back in the day, in their goofy phase as the Game Boyz. Some incident of them feeding Lion's custom Jungle championship into a wood chipper. Even now, as he closes his eyes over the Keurig as it dollops coffee into his mug. He doesn't know why Kyle has been on his mind so much, honestly. He has left wrestling behind. He's left the Game Boyz behind. Kyle was the one obsessed with it, even when the weekly grind of it got to be too much for him. Even when all he did was complain about having to get up at 12 on a Sunday to start writing for another promo. As Hiro rested his chin in his hands, exhaustedly wiping his eyes, he recalled that conversation, asking his old compadre "Look, man, if you don't like it, why don't you quit? Do anything else? Look, join the work force with me, I can get you -"
And Kyle had looked at him, with that mixture of disdain and feeling sorry for someone who just wasn't in on the joke. "Because Kyle Shane never quits, he just goes dark."
He had flapped a hand at him, frustratedly. Whatever. "I don't know how you can live this kind of life, brochacho," he told Kyle, amiable but envious.
"Well, I've found there's always alternatives, man," Kyle shrugged. "Probability cause means that for every outcome, you're shaking out the die and letting them fall. Whatever amount falls, that is the reality where that outcome happens. Right? But reality is subjective to what you want to perceive. So if you are bold enough, and game enough, and you roll a roll that gives you an ending you're not satisfied with, then you have the mental power within you to change it."
He had laughed, then, at their last hangout, in a dingy pizza place a middle distance between both of them. "Man, I don't know what the hell you mean," and he had handed Kyle a cigarette they were sharing.
He didn't know what Kyle meant then, but he had been trying, since then, to influence the direction of his roll, or if not that, to at least understand why the dice had fallen his particular way...
Ughhh, Hiro felt close to collapsing. His love was busy in the other room, shrugging in to her dress, but he just sat there reflecting into his coffee. Something still nagged at him, and he couldn't tell whether it was the dreams about Kyle or Hisako's tone of voice when she had asked him if he was awake. But he had to get motivated. He had to go get his suit on, check his palm pilot, log in, see today's work email. And he would. As soon as he could move. His exhaustion made his muscles feel locked. For a second he was stiff as a corpse, and then he rose, stretching, yawning. Hisako was giggling at a video attachment her mom had sent, but he came behind her, kissing her on her neck. She squealed a little, her voice peaking as she said how cold he was.
"Don't forget you have that meeting with your father today," Hisako reminded him, sternly. Hiro sighed, pulling away from her, and reached for his dress shirt.
The feelings of unreality continued long after Hisako went to her own job, and Hiro was showered, dressed, had imbibed the rest of his coffee, and was sitting in rush hour traffic into the heart of Manhattan. It was a feeling of anger, resentment, and for some reason he could not put a finger on, a deep and profound sense of loss. And it's connections to Kyle could not be put aside. When he thought of his erstwhile Game Boyz partner, he still felt conflicted. He envied Kyle his free-wheeling lifestyle, when it all came down to it. Here he was, a year short of thirty and when he looked at his life, reflected on it as he studied his own face in the mirror, he saw emptiness looking back. But, no. He firmed himself up more than that. No, he told himself strictly, not empty. I have everything Kyle does not. I have a girlfriend who doesn't want to leave me at any given point. My father respects me, and I'm a key player in the financial futures of a company that's gone public on the stock exchange. He felt and told himself all of that and yet he still felt the pangs of regret and loss. Loss of innocence. Loss of that smarky, cocky, happy-go-lucky Youtube game streamer that had moved into a dorm in MIT in the spring semester of 2009.
It was a sense of existential ennui and depression, a real folk blues that he could not acquit himself of. He certainly wouldn't have been able to find reason for it. And he had gone to a quack who liked to call himself Dr. M, instead of Monsaint. But all that had provided was pills, which hadn't fixed the real problem staring in the face.
As he sat in traffic he slid his ear buds in, and his audio book began reading to him through the speakers. A soothing female voice was relaying to him a passage from "Navigations of the Hidden Domain," author, Virgil Coates, 1971. The cool, inflectionless patois soothed through to the core of his brain, taking him away from the traffic jam, and the stresses of his daily life. She read to him.
"As terrifying and inescapable the trajectory of Man's moral dilemma may appear, there does exist with proven certainty a wholly different current of life. For the man willing to stand unflinching before his own nonexistence, a fissure between worlds can appear. A doorway, revealing itself not to the "man" but to something deep within the man that has for years cried out unheard. Occasionally he will catch the whispers of this abandoned voice, in the afterglow of certain dreams with that lingering sense of a paradise lost, reminding him of another kind of life, the life he was always meant to live, but for some reason did not..."
He sat in his assigned spot for sometime when he allowed himself to gather out of his reflective state, the question hanging in his mind from the self-help book about whether he was living in a dream world or not. He looked up at the curved, spartan architecture that served as the face of his father's company, Noriyuki-Sasuke. And he felt a dark sense of foreboding. He keeled forward, gritting his teeth, feeling like he had been here before. He opened his eye and saw himself, standing in the courtyard in the plaza of the complex, rainwater running down his face, washing and thinning rivulets of blood that covered him like a crimson mask, and him opening his good eye and pointing his finger forward like a gun. It felt like he was circling back around to a feeling he had experienced before, a dark and nihilistic deja vu. What in the hell was that? What was wrong with him??
He was sweaty and pale as he sat in the elevator next to his sister. Suki and Hisako dressed so similarly, but his baby sister was so much more severe. She had a tablet and several thick binders in her hands, and she looked at him, impatient with him. "You need to get your act together for the meeting with our new investors, Hiro," she chided.
Hiro wiped sweat from his upper lip and turned to her, straightening his tie. "Suki - my mind is breaking. Why do I feel like this is all some kind of terrible dream?"
Suki, not without her own sense of compassion, felt his forehead, and looked sidelong at him, "It's stress, is what it is. Father's had you working so many late nights, and you're having a breakdown. You need to go home, rest, and we'll call Dr. M for another prescription, if you'll take the blasted things this time."
Hiro pushed her hands off. "No, it's not that, it's - things have diverged, in my mind, in one dream, I'm reliving a life with Kyle, a life that I thought ended a long time ago,... a life that continued on as if our split never happened, we kept our tag team together all of this time and he never went on to do anything else. But, in my other dream, when I close my eyes... I see days like this... days that end in a horrible betrayal, and violence, and blood... and so help me, it's so realistic, that I can't tell which is which..."
Suki put a hand over his mouth, telling him stonely, "I won't have any more of this talk. Here is real, here is what matters and these stupid flights of fantasy with your old white ex-boyfriend are just childish games. You gave that up a long time ago, Hiro."
"I know, I - " he couldn't get the words out, "But why does it feel like I'm sleepwalking through life? Why does it feel like I'm living a dream that's coming to an end?"
The elevator dinged, and Suki looked up at their stop, then over at Hiro, screaming at him with their eyes because she tried to keep her voice low. "Do not tell father of this." The doors were opening, and her father was there, at the head of a procession.
Hiro's eyes widened in shock as he saw who was standing next to him.
"Oni-Ogun!" he rasped, and the tall, dangerous looking man with the black eye-patch turned from facing his father. The contingent of beefy men surrounding the black-clad figure as one reached into their coat pockets, ready to pull out guns at the least trigger that there was some sort of conflict, but with a wave of his hand the most notorious Yakuza oyabun in New York waved them down. The literal kanji was Demon's Head, and Oni-Ogun smiled appropriately devilish as he stepped up to the younger boy. "So, this is the boy that wants to be heir to his father's throne. Inheriting a company who's stock has fallen."
"We haven't fallen so low as you, scum," Hiro spat, then turned to his father, who's mustache seemed to droop. "Father, is this our meeting?"
His father tried to tell him something, but the crime boss swaggered closer, and smiled. "No, what we have to do here is that me and you have to come to an understanding, young Hiro-kun. You think that you are ashamed now because my money is going to be going to buying out your father's investment firm, and that we will gut it and loot it of all it's treasures. That is not the case. What is the truth is that my money has helped your father all along, and now his debt has grown too large. This company has always been mine. Now I will make use of it at my pleasure."
"Bastards!" Hiro shouted, and he lashed out. He didn't get far, though. The criminals were numerous, and they caught his arms, throwing him forward. Ogun pistoned out with his fist, throwing him down. Nothing fancier that a painful and savage strike. His world exploded, his vision reddened and he felt something pop at the side of his head. Suki screamed. His father was yelling that that was enough.
After a few more blows, Oni-Ogun stopped. He fastidiously took a handkerchief out of his pocket and began cleaning his knuckles. He sighed. "Such a world beater. It would have pleased me to give you a position in my new order, Sasuke Hiro. As it is now, I'm casting you out."
Those words followed him down into unconsciousness.
He opened his eyes, again, and Kyle was there, on the couch with him, sitting next to him with a bowl in hand, ready to spark it up. This wasn't the dorm he knew. It was a modern apartment. And an older, wiser Kyle was staring over at him, offering him a fragrant packed bowl and a lighter.
"Yo, Hiro," he called, "Are you awake?"
2) Are You Living In The Real World?
It's time to bring it to an end. This dream, within a dream...
I've accrued such a run in my eight years of creation that sometimes people have lost sight of just what makes me the best in the world. It's something they take for granted. To be so consistently good, every single time I put out an effort is a feat in itself, but people seem to forget the sheer impact I've had on the direction of this federation. I'm a spider sitting in the center of a web that always connects its threads back to my spinners. I have had a hand in not only the direction of the main event level talent scene, but the ebb and flow of it's roster. Just by existing, I alter the dynamic of the entire fed, and even in absentia I still remain a factor. My hand is the world-shaping tool of secret cabals that alter world events and depose dictators. Think about the big events that shaped the modern world. A president gets involved in Cuba, souring under the table trade deals between the CIA and Third World nations. So they butter him up, and get him to take an early little detour down a street in Dallas with multiple sniper positions. Bang, headshot, he goes down, and a new figurehead that will play ball is put into position. A singer who's transcended the Beatles begins preaching about peace and tolerance and criticizing foreign powers... suddenly put in the path of a mental patient obsessed with him, silencing his voice. Bang. The conspiracies and whispers in the dark are legion, but there is an interconnectivity to it that's the central message. That there are powerful people, hegemoniacal dynasties who attain and retain their power by quietly moving their staunchest critics into place for them to get put down by a bullet. That's power.
Here, now, in the WGWF, I have moved all of my pieces into place. And it's here that the game of chess that I've played stands revealed. When people really step back and look at the patterns I've moved, they see a puzzle so vast and complex that it would stagger the mind. Think about what I've done. Not just the titles and the accolades I've won, but those that won from me. Men like Tax and Joseph Page made their biggest name ever off of beating me. Men like Dante Anglais count me among their biggest wins. But time went on and their regimes as champion always failed. Why? Because of the assassination they suffered at the hands of Kyle Shane. I had a hand in the rise of so many pretenders to the throne. Mic Ferrari, at last year's Summer Madness, attained his coronation, the culmination of what people labelled a two year long odyssey of Mic being the most underrated player in this game finally getting his due... but despite him getting the rub from beating Kyle Shane, he could not hack holding the World title, in the way that J-Pa, Lucas Felix, Isabelle Desjardins, Tomoko Hanahara or any of the other pretenders who've revolved around the World Title could not. Because I had a hand in it, and I always made them look inadequate when push came to shove. And they knew it. For anybody's tough talk about what I'm lacking, almost all criticism of me always misses the point. People short-sightedly sneer down their noses. They think they have me figured out because of what they see in some way out there, unrealistic story I film about myself. They critique my attitude, they question my resolve, never knowing that every inch of me is calculated and crafted to maximize lulling someone into a false sense of security. Nobody has seen this until they get up way too close, or come into my orbit. By then, it's too late.
I'm an Assassin, and I suppose you could call this the creed I've lived and won by.
I am an artist of confusion, obfuscation, and deceit. No one ever knows the hidden me, that I keep under a shaded cloak, because they know the bright, flashy and smarky persona I've crafted to fool idiots. What I've done is made "Kyle Shane is a whiny bitch" into such a common buzzword that it's lost all it's impact. I got everyone talking about me in the same way so that now it's old news. When everyone thinks and talks the same, no one is an original, and that weakens their own argument. I control what people say about me like I'm playing ventriloquist and working their damn jawbone and it was easy to do it. And what no one ever seems to see is that Kyle Shane is the most human and flawed person on the roster, but all of my flaws are carefully honed and shown only in the order that I want them to be. I could even be making half of it up, and I'm a picture of mental health... And you'd never know. But regardless of what's real and what isn't, everything that people say in their trash talk is wrong with me is a product of me controlling my own narrative, and working them into thinking they're ever in control or they know something vital about me. They are not. I have yet to hear something from someone, responding to the flaws I choose to put on display, that really made me sit back in my seat and say "Damn, they got me there."
But see, they keep going with it like rats in a maze and it makes me grin widely when I get people moving the way I want. It's manipulation on the grandest scale. You all forget what a gamer I am until I move every piece around me into it's proper place. I even get you thinking you've got what I'm going to say figured out. Theatricality and misdirection are powerful allies, and the target that my opponent is about to pounce on is a tiger's pit that's going to leave them spiked to a post come Summer Madness. Because I've gamed my so-called peers on this roster quite expertly into thinking they've got me figured cold. All of my talk since winning the IC title at Wrestlewars has been dedicated to this end. Every time I brought up the argument about people comparing me to some other legend and name-dropped Raven or Ranma. Every time I came out to mock Cable. He honestly must have thought that he has gotten so far into my head that he's got me running scared and clutching my championship...
Cable, let me ask you a thing.
Are you living in the real world?
When I talk about impact I don't mean what matches go in your won and lost column lately. I'm talking about the real power that comes from your absence and the destabilization of the paradigm when you come back. I'm talking about how a lack of Kyle Shane affected a scenario where the World Title would pass in quick succession from Mic Ferrari to Nathan Miles to Paul Frost to Tristan Slater, putting you in the position where you are. It's a domino fall, a CIA effect of installing puppet dictators on the throne to get them in position where they can negotiate for the resources that they want... and when the time comes that those marionettes get a little too jangly for their strings... they get cut down. Smited by the hand of a god. Shot in the dark in a manner they never saw coming.
Did you ever see this coming, Cable?
I bet not.
So in the last few seconds before you shut your eyes, I want you to know that this is the least personal ending I can give you. I don't hate you, or disdain your existence, or see you as a stain on the WGWF like I do the negative star that is Alyce Starchylde, John, in fact I actually kind of respect you. I won't call you, in the similar vein as I did Alyce, a starfucker that only hitched on to Tristan because you like riding coattails to success. No John, I hate the idea of you rising up and claiming this title because it is something you feel like is owed. I get the sense that this is a lifetime achievement award for you, for sticking it out with WGWF, for you or SSP or Darian Dream or whatever connotation of the New Breed continuing to be a minor factor in WGWF despite never winning a meaningful feud. And even if you feel like you've done the best work of your career this year, I hate the fact that you think you got in to this match at Summer Madness because you've proven that you can hang with me, or you think that you've shown me you're good enough to beat me. You're living in a dream, Cable... and the signal coming to you now is your wakeup call... Because you've been taken for the ultimate ride. If this is your New Breed revolution, counter-insurgency measures have already been enacted.
And now, the final sanction can begin.
It's time to bring it to an end. This dream, within a dream...
I've accrued such a run in my eight years of creation that sometimes people have lost sight of just what makes me the best in the world. It's something they take for granted. To be so consistently good, every single time I put out an effort is a feat in itself, but people seem to forget the sheer impact I've had on the direction of this federation. I'm a spider sitting in the center of a web that always connects its threads back to my spinners. I have had a hand in not only the direction of the main event level talent scene, but the ebb and flow of it's roster. Just by existing, I alter the dynamic of the entire fed, and even in absentia I still remain a factor. My hand is the world-shaping tool of secret cabals that alter world events and depose dictators. Think about the big events that shaped the modern world. A president gets involved in Cuba, souring under the table trade deals between the CIA and Third World nations. So they butter him up, and get him to take an early little detour down a street in Dallas with multiple sniper positions. Bang, headshot, he goes down, and a new figurehead that will play ball is put into position. A singer who's transcended the Beatles begins preaching about peace and tolerance and criticizing foreign powers... suddenly put in the path of a mental patient obsessed with him, silencing his voice. Bang. The conspiracies and whispers in the dark are legion, but there is an interconnectivity to it that's the central message. That there are powerful people, hegemoniacal dynasties who attain and retain their power by quietly moving their staunchest critics into place for them to get put down by a bullet. That's power.
Here, now, in the WGWF, I have moved all of my pieces into place. And it's here that the game of chess that I've played stands revealed. When people really step back and look at the patterns I've moved, they see a puzzle so vast and complex that it would stagger the mind. Think about what I've done. Not just the titles and the accolades I've won, but those that won from me. Men like Tax and Joseph Page made their biggest name ever off of beating me. Men like Dante Anglais count me among their biggest wins. But time went on and their regimes as champion always failed. Why? Because of the assassination they suffered at the hands of Kyle Shane. I had a hand in the rise of so many pretenders to the throne. Mic Ferrari, at last year's Summer Madness, attained his coronation, the culmination of what people labelled a two year long odyssey of Mic being the most underrated player in this game finally getting his due... but despite him getting the rub from beating Kyle Shane, he could not hack holding the World title, in the way that J-Pa, Lucas Felix, Isabelle Desjardins, Tomoko Hanahara or any of the other pretenders who've revolved around the World Title could not. Because I had a hand in it, and I always made them look inadequate when push came to shove. And they knew it. For anybody's tough talk about what I'm lacking, almost all criticism of me always misses the point. People short-sightedly sneer down their noses. They think they have me figured out because of what they see in some way out there, unrealistic story I film about myself. They critique my attitude, they question my resolve, never knowing that every inch of me is calculated and crafted to maximize lulling someone into a false sense of security. Nobody has seen this until they get up way too close, or come into my orbit. By then, it's too late.
I'm an Assassin, and I suppose you could call this the creed I've lived and won by.
I am an artist of confusion, obfuscation, and deceit. No one ever knows the hidden me, that I keep under a shaded cloak, because they know the bright, flashy and smarky persona I've crafted to fool idiots. What I've done is made "Kyle Shane is a whiny bitch" into such a common buzzword that it's lost all it's impact. I got everyone talking about me in the same way so that now it's old news. When everyone thinks and talks the same, no one is an original, and that weakens their own argument. I control what people say about me like I'm playing ventriloquist and working their damn jawbone and it was easy to do it. And what no one ever seems to see is that Kyle Shane is the most human and flawed person on the roster, but all of my flaws are carefully honed and shown only in the order that I want them to be. I could even be making half of it up, and I'm a picture of mental health... And you'd never know. But regardless of what's real and what isn't, everything that people say in their trash talk is wrong with me is a product of me controlling my own narrative, and working them into thinking they're ever in control or they know something vital about me. They are not. I have yet to hear something from someone, responding to the flaws I choose to put on display, that really made me sit back in my seat and say "Damn, they got me there."
But see, they keep going with it like rats in a maze and it makes me grin widely when I get people moving the way I want. It's manipulation on the grandest scale. You all forget what a gamer I am until I move every piece around me into it's proper place. I even get you thinking you've got what I'm going to say figured out. Theatricality and misdirection are powerful allies, and the target that my opponent is about to pounce on is a tiger's pit that's going to leave them spiked to a post come Summer Madness. Because I've gamed my so-called peers on this roster quite expertly into thinking they've got me figured cold. All of my talk since winning the IC title at Wrestlewars has been dedicated to this end. Every time I brought up the argument about people comparing me to some other legend and name-dropped Raven or Ranma. Every time I came out to mock Cable. He honestly must have thought that he has gotten so far into my head that he's got me running scared and clutching my championship...
Cable, let me ask you a thing.
Are you living in the real world?
When I talk about impact I don't mean what matches go in your won and lost column lately. I'm talking about the real power that comes from your absence and the destabilization of the paradigm when you come back. I'm talking about how a lack of Kyle Shane affected a scenario where the World Title would pass in quick succession from Mic Ferrari to Nathan Miles to Paul Frost to Tristan Slater, putting you in the position where you are. It's a domino fall, a CIA effect of installing puppet dictators on the throne to get them in position where they can negotiate for the resources that they want... and when the time comes that those marionettes get a little too jangly for their strings... they get cut down. Smited by the hand of a god. Shot in the dark in a manner they never saw coming.
Did you ever see this coming, Cable?
I bet not.
So in the last few seconds before you shut your eyes, I want you to know that this is the least personal ending I can give you. I don't hate you, or disdain your existence, or see you as a stain on the WGWF like I do the negative star that is Alyce Starchylde, John, in fact I actually kind of respect you. I won't call you, in the similar vein as I did Alyce, a starfucker that only hitched on to Tristan because you like riding coattails to success. No John, I hate the idea of you rising up and claiming this title because it is something you feel like is owed. I get the sense that this is a lifetime achievement award for you, for sticking it out with WGWF, for you or SSP or Darian Dream or whatever connotation of the New Breed continuing to be a minor factor in WGWF despite never winning a meaningful feud. And even if you feel like you've done the best work of your career this year, I hate the fact that you think you got in to this match at Summer Madness because you've proven that you can hang with me, or you think that you've shown me you're good enough to beat me. You're living in a dream, Cable... and the signal coming to you now is your wakeup call... Because you've been taken for the ultimate ride. If this is your New Breed revolution, counter-insurgency measures have already been enacted.
And now, the final sanction can begin.
3) See You, Space Samurai.
"So I think, your dilemma stems from the fact that you are being asked to choose which life you want to be real, and which, the dream," Kyle said, taking the bowl back from Hiro. He cleaned it out with a paper-clip. Hiro just watched, letting the smoke burn through his lungs and fill his head. It still hadn't killed the sense of loss and brokenness that permeated him. Most of it was the fact that, as he looked around this unfamiliar apartment, that it wasn't something he knew about. This was not a life with Kyle he could have imagined. But how else could he explain being here, and not bleeding, and laying in a whimpering heap on the executive floor of his father's now former company? As if he could sense Hiro's thoughts, Kyle smiled impishly. He began packing Hiro another hit, like back in the old days, when getting high had produced the best results for their critical thinking skills.
Hiro waved him off. No. "What do you mean?" he asked instead. Propping his feet on the coffee table, Kyle continued.
"It's subjective reality trying to assert itself. Which do you want to be real? Which do you want to be the dream?" Kyle said, looking out over the balcony where the unfamiliar, yet beautiful skyline of Boston showered them in gold as the sun was going down over the high rises next door. "Or maybe the reason you feel like you remember these dreams as deja vu is because they're just your life flashing before your eyes while you've already died."
"That's stupid, Kyle... if it had been that, wouldn't I know it?" He said, exhaustedly, but the familiarity of his dream in the rain pulled at him.
"Either way it seems to me like you've been unsatisfied in life. Drifting, feeling like you were lost. Like the people you've surrounded yourself with didn't understand you. And it feels like you're walking through it half awake. But then you keep getting told to wake up... and you're somewhere else."
"Yeah, but my father's company," He started.
"I don't ever remember you being a junior exec in an investment firm, Hiro, I just don't." Kyle said, softly, but firmly, "I remember you being a wrestler, and even making a few appearances with WGWF in my feud with Tax... but I don't remember you ever leaving the world of wrestling so far behind. I remember that Suki was mad at you about pursuing your dream. I remember your father leaving you out of your inheritance. I remember you going on about some girl you met at the Tokyo Dome named Hisako and how over the moon about her you were at the time, but things didn't work out..."
"Hisako!" Hiro said, slapping a hand over his eyes, sitting bolt upright in the couch. "If those killers were there, she could be in danger!"
"Haven't you been listening?" Kyle said, impatiently, "We're pretty far away from the offices of Noriyuki-Sasuke, here, man. It's also not the same day. Those events were in your mind."
"Ridiculous."
"More ridiculous than a rich company getting bought out by a gangster who's a demon and his squad?"
Hiro snapped at Kyle, looking over at him as he shouted, "Enough!"
Kyle sighed, and put the bowl down. "Then ask yourself, and concentrate. Which do you want to be more real, and which the dream? Which is the life you wanted, but ultimately did not have?" He leaned over and put his hands on Hiro's shoulders. Memories hit Hiro like a flood, all at once. Game Boyz antics. The "You Got Served" dance battle with Sicko. Stealing Jessica Matheson's underwear. Loading Chad into a cannon to shoot into a fountain of nacho cheese. The Game Boyz panel at San Diego Comic Con. And on, and on the memories came, and it felt like Hiro's heart would break.
"Hiro, are you awake??"
Suki was shaking him by the shoulders, and he rolled around on his neck. He groaned. His face was a massive bruise. Blood was already clotting on his neck and temple.
"Are you awake?" She said, again, worriedly. His sister looked like she was in shock. "Those criminals, they're leaving, but father went with them..."
Pained, in agony, he stood. His knees threatened to lock up. He was in father's office, with it's ornamental and traditional dressings. He had a cultivated, full size bonsai tree, and a rack of samurai armor on the wall, next to multiple weapons. Hiro reached for a heavy steel bo staff, taking it off the rack. Suki gasped, "You don't mean to fight them, they're armed?!"
"Somebody has to," he said, feeling gunslinger calm and determined. "Will you join?"
"Brother," she paused, "I can't..."
He handed her a weapon, "Here, guard his office. I'll be back, sister."
The memories were still fresh in his mind as he made his charge down the hallway. The two of them, his laugh and looking over at the cheeky, cheesy smile of the boy he truly loved, as they sat side by side on the couch in their old dorm, playing X-Box. As two armed henchmen turned his way down the hall, he swatted them with the heavy end of the bo staff, hard enough to crunch bone, taking them down.
He made his way to the elevator.
He closed his eyes, and thought of Kyle. And again, the passage from the book occurred to him, narrated by that cool, female voice - "Occasionally he will catch the whispers of this abandoned voice, in the afterglow of certain dreams with that lingering sense of a paradise lost, reminding him of another kind of life, the life he was always meant to live, but for some reason did not..." And mentally, he blew a kiss, towards what might have been between them, in this other life.
The door to the elevator opened.
He took down another man with a gun with one heavy hit, and he kept running. He was on the bottom floor of the building, which opened in the center to a square which had open sky above it and the offices on every side. The sky had turned an ugly grey, and it was opening up and beginning to rain. He turned around, looking to see the criminals.
He felt a bullet pierce him a second after he heard the gun shot. Breath wheezed out of him all at once, and he turned, despite the severity of the wounds.
Hisako was looking at him from behind the barrel of the gun, looking sorrowful.
"Hi-hisako," Hiro sputtered, as blood coursed down his chest and spurted from his mouth. He felt like he could go down at any second. His head swam from both the pain and this terrible revelation. Oni-Ogun appeared at her side, smiling coldly. "You really didn't think you would escape my notice, did you, Hiro-kun? Not when you were dating... my daughter?"
Hiro's jaw dropped one final time at the revelation. For her part, Hisako looked sorrowful, and let the gun fall. Hiro dropped to his knees. The rain was washing over him, and him alone as he kneeled in the garden in the middle of the courtyard.
"It is sad this is the way it has to end, but once we eliminate you and your foolish father, all will fall into our hands. So we manipulated you here, every step of the way," the crime boss bragged. "We softened you up and dulled your edge here at the company, and when the time was right you walked right in, trying to avenge your company's honor from being besmirched by our clan... but you had someone too close to you, waiting for this exact moment, where you were headed all along. You are a fool, child."
Hiro sighed. He knew it. And he knew that this dream was ending. But if Kyle was right, he could choose. He could empower himself by opening that door, letting his subjective reality put him where he wanted to be, where he had always belonged. He could choose that to be what really happened, instead of it ending here. He readied himself.
"So, what say you, son?" the crime boss taunted, as they stood opposite each other.
Hiro's mouth quirked upwards in a grin, as the rain washed over him, letting the blood run down his face. He dragged his limp arm up, raising it like a weapon, and he pointed his finger at the crime boss and his guards. And he whispered "Bang."
"So I think, your dilemma stems from the fact that you are being asked to choose which life you want to be real, and which, the dream," Kyle said, taking the bowl back from Hiro. He cleaned it out with a paper-clip. Hiro just watched, letting the smoke burn through his lungs and fill his head. It still hadn't killed the sense of loss and brokenness that permeated him. Most of it was the fact that, as he looked around this unfamiliar apartment, that it wasn't something he knew about. This was not a life with Kyle he could have imagined. But how else could he explain being here, and not bleeding, and laying in a whimpering heap on the executive floor of his father's now former company? As if he could sense Hiro's thoughts, Kyle smiled impishly. He began packing Hiro another hit, like back in the old days, when getting high had produced the best results for their critical thinking skills.
Hiro waved him off. No. "What do you mean?" he asked instead. Propping his feet on the coffee table, Kyle continued.
"It's subjective reality trying to assert itself. Which do you want to be real? Which do you want to be the dream?" Kyle said, looking out over the balcony where the unfamiliar, yet beautiful skyline of Boston showered them in gold as the sun was going down over the high rises next door. "Or maybe the reason you feel like you remember these dreams as deja vu is because they're just your life flashing before your eyes while you've already died."
"That's stupid, Kyle... if it had been that, wouldn't I know it?" He said, exhaustedly, but the familiarity of his dream in the rain pulled at him.
"Either way it seems to me like you've been unsatisfied in life. Drifting, feeling like you were lost. Like the people you've surrounded yourself with didn't understand you. And it feels like you're walking through it half awake. But then you keep getting told to wake up... and you're somewhere else."
"Yeah, but my father's company," He started.
"I don't ever remember you being a junior exec in an investment firm, Hiro, I just don't." Kyle said, softly, but firmly, "I remember you being a wrestler, and even making a few appearances with WGWF in my feud with Tax... but I don't remember you ever leaving the world of wrestling so far behind. I remember that Suki was mad at you about pursuing your dream. I remember your father leaving you out of your inheritance. I remember you going on about some girl you met at the Tokyo Dome named Hisako and how over the moon about her you were at the time, but things didn't work out..."
"Hisako!" Hiro said, slapping a hand over his eyes, sitting bolt upright in the couch. "If those killers were there, she could be in danger!"
"Haven't you been listening?" Kyle said, impatiently, "We're pretty far away from the offices of Noriyuki-Sasuke, here, man. It's also not the same day. Those events were in your mind."
"Ridiculous."
"More ridiculous than a rich company getting bought out by a gangster who's a demon and his squad?"
Hiro snapped at Kyle, looking over at him as he shouted, "Enough!"
Kyle sighed, and put the bowl down. "Then ask yourself, and concentrate. Which do you want to be more real, and which the dream? Which is the life you wanted, but ultimately did not have?" He leaned over and put his hands on Hiro's shoulders. Memories hit Hiro like a flood, all at once. Game Boyz antics. The "You Got Served" dance battle with Sicko. Stealing Jessica Matheson's underwear. Loading Chad into a cannon to shoot into a fountain of nacho cheese. The Game Boyz panel at San Diego Comic Con. And on, and on the memories came, and it felt like Hiro's heart would break.
"Hiro, are you awake??"
Suki was shaking him by the shoulders, and he rolled around on his neck. He groaned. His face was a massive bruise. Blood was already clotting on his neck and temple.
"Are you awake?" She said, again, worriedly. His sister looked like she was in shock. "Those criminals, they're leaving, but father went with them..."
Pained, in agony, he stood. His knees threatened to lock up. He was in father's office, with it's ornamental and traditional dressings. He had a cultivated, full size bonsai tree, and a rack of samurai armor on the wall, next to multiple weapons. Hiro reached for a heavy steel bo staff, taking it off the rack. Suki gasped, "You don't mean to fight them, they're armed?!"
"Somebody has to," he said, feeling gunslinger calm and determined. "Will you join?"
"Brother," she paused, "I can't..."
He handed her a weapon, "Here, guard his office. I'll be back, sister."
The memories were still fresh in his mind as he made his charge down the hallway. The two of them, his laugh and looking over at the cheeky, cheesy smile of the boy he truly loved, as they sat side by side on the couch in their old dorm, playing X-Box. As two armed henchmen turned his way down the hall, he swatted them with the heavy end of the bo staff, hard enough to crunch bone, taking them down.
He made his way to the elevator.
He closed his eyes, and thought of Kyle. And again, the passage from the book occurred to him, narrated by that cool, female voice - "Occasionally he will catch the whispers of this abandoned voice, in the afterglow of certain dreams with that lingering sense of a paradise lost, reminding him of another kind of life, the life he was always meant to live, but for some reason did not..." And mentally, he blew a kiss, towards what might have been between them, in this other life.
The door to the elevator opened.
He took down another man with a gun with one heavy hit, and he kept running. He was on the bottom floor of the building, which opened in the center to a square which had open sky above it and the offices on every side. The sky had turned an ugly grey, and it was opening up and beginning to rain. He turned around, looking to see the criminals.
He felt a bullet pierce him a second after he heard the gun shot. Breath wheezed out of him all at once, and he turned, despite the severity of the wounds.
Hisako was looking at him from behind the barrel of the gun, looking sorrowful.
"Hi-hisako," Hiro sputtered, as blood coursed down his chest and spurted from his mouth. He felt like he could go down at any second. His head swam from both the pain and this terrible revelation. Oni-Ogun appeared at her side, smiling coldly. "You really didn't think you would escape my notice, did you, Hiro-kun? Not when you were dating... my daughter?"
Hiro's jaw dropped one final time at the revelation. For her part, Hisako looked sorrowful, and let the gun fall. Hiro dropped to his knees. The rain was washing over him, and him alone as he kneeled in the garden in the middle of the courtyard.
"It is sad this is the way it has to end, but once we eliminate you and your foolish father, all will fall into our hands. So we manipulated you here, every step of the way," the crime boss bragged. "We softened you up and dulled your edge here at the company, and when the time was right you walked right in, trying to avenge your company's honor from being besmirched by our clan... but you had someone too close to you, waiting for this exact moment, where you were headed all along. You are a fool, child."
Hiro sighed. He knew it. And he knew that this dream was ending. But if Kyle was right, he could choose. He could empower himself by opening that door, letting his subjective reality put him where he wanted to be, where he had always belonged. He could choose that to be what really happened, instead of it ending here. He readied himself.
"So, what say you, son?" the crime boss taunted, as they stood opposite each other.
Hiro's mouth quirked upwards in a grin, as the rain washed over him, letting the blood run down his face. He dragged his limp arm up, raising it like a weapon, and he pointed his finger at the crime boss and his guards. And he whispered "Bang."
4) Knockin' On Heaven's Door.
See, what people don't take into account is that I have the ultimate power right here in my hands. With nothing more than this channel to broadcast my talking trash, I can raise or lower the tides here in WGWF. Even my absence affects this company. My absence makes peons stand up and grab at brass rings over their head. That's impact. That's meaning to your existence. God is watching so answer truthfully, John Cable, if you left this company tomorrow after getting put down, would anyone rush to fill the void? Well, I imagine that Tristan would need a newer, better partner, someone who wouldn't stupidly pick fights with James Raven or call their tag team Glorious New Breed. But on a stack of Bibles if you went away on another sabbatical would it have any of the loss, the desperation or the dramatic shuffling of the landscape that it has when I've taken a step back? Or would life just... go on? So when I ask you that, you really start seeing your place in the pecking order as someone who only rose up to fill a void that I vacated. And that is in essence why my return pisses you off so much, because it upset this delicately fragile plan you had to gain yourself finally, the notoriety you feel you deserve. You had your rise all figured out. You hitched your wagon to Tristan Slater. You excelled against the lowlies without him, were able to beat members of Extinction and the DVC. You had everything in place for your ascension to the IC title only to have it snatched out of your grasp.
And now here we are. I held that belt up in your face and told you that if you were five seconds quicker, you would have had it. I mocked you, embarrassed you by making you reach and beg for the title like a dog, and I jumped the gun and attacked you first. Anyone else, wouldn't have taken this so mildly, they would have gone full dark Breaking Bad on me by now. But the fact that you didn't sink a knife into my back when you had the chance in either tag match shows a confidence, and also a naivete, that tells me you think you're the more moral between us. You think you're purely in the right here, and that when the time comes you'll use the anger from the teasing I've been laying on you to perform the biggest upset in WGWF history. And by all means, do so. Use your aggression. The time has ripened for you to exact your coup. Stage your uprising. Break free of the moniker of an also-ran, a tag performer, a toadie to a greater champion and win something for yourself. You've been provided motivation, anger, and a platform to win on the biggest stage. This is your moment.
So why don't I fear the coming insurrection?
Because every moment of this has been plotted out since Wrestlewars. You haven't gamed me or goaded me... I've played you like a goddamn chess grandmaster, removing every layer of pawns and protection from in front of you to castle you into bringing you down. Guess that makes you the queen, as if I had any doubts on that score. You're not quite the king, which would be Tristan, but you're a more valuable piece to me because you can move in any direction that you want. But you are limited by your stature, and when you fall, the entire board basically belongs to the other half. So, the queen. And now... you've backed into a corner that you have zero moves to escape from, and now the assassin's blade comes out.
From the moment at Wrestlewars we both had our hands on the belt I've been planning this, John. As we fell to earth like a star, I was running through a quick time bit of planning Slumdog Millionaire style, mapping out the trajectory for our eventual reconnection down the road at Summer Madness. Every step has brought us inexorably to this moment. My every action was calculated to get the maximum rise out of you because I knew it would make you angry enough to make a mistake. But I also knew you would see it as desperation on my part. You would think I was doing it out of fear. When I attacked you first and got into a fist fight, you might think that I did that because I wanted to get you off your game, and you'll bravely point to how we were part of a tag team match the next week and were on the winning side. Among other such moments of success from you.
You see, there's a reason for my confidence.
You had your hands on the belt and we both fell to earth at the same time. And yet, I won. I stood up holding the belt first, and you were quick to point out that I was frightened of you, because you put an asterisk on my title win, because you made me imperfect, because you ruined my return. I was annoyed by it, in the moment, but I realized that it didn't matter, because I was gaming you right into the position down the line where we stand right now. Because it's more than just a matter of "If I had been slower, this might not have happened", what it plainly says to me there is that I am faster on my feet and more adaptable, and so when things go against my established plan I'm more likely to change course and score a rebound. The fact that you admitted that just makes it plain that you've acknowledged your own inflexibility and lack of imagination which is not a good look, there, sport.
And yes, I'll own it. You think I have shame in saying it? You did, *nearly* beat me in a ladder match. And I recall how it was facing you in that night, John. After going through some kind of Graveyard match you had every right to take it easy and yet you came in stronger than ever. You showed me something. ou did a lot of damage. And yet, you were slowed because you also elected to go to war with Famine, a match that basically earned you nothing and wasted your time since Famine didn't stick around to be a productive member of society. It wasn't even enough to give you a quality win to brag about since he no-showed on you. So you put your all into the ladder match, and tried to come out ahead. But Summer Madness will be different, John, because winning here is going to take a little more than getting your hands on a belt. To win here you are going to have to no bullshit, no chicanery, no excuses play and beat the God of Game.
Do you know how many people have been able to do that? Say in the last 3 years. How you can count on less fingers than a hand how many people can say they've fought and defeated a motivated, fully prepared and dedicated Kyle Shane? Please, just tell me if you can name one. Instances where I was taking a break don't matter to me. Instances I didn't try don't apply. When I've turned it on I'm on a platinum class that nobody can touch. And when I have a rematch against someone, I always fight harder so that they're never able to beat me the same way twice. So let me ask you again John, how confident are you that at Summer Madness, you're going to have my number, how confident are you that you can bring your game to a high enough level to stand even measurably close to the Game Changer? The list of people in the WGWF who've managed that comprise a fairly elite list.
And John, you have never held the status or the wherewithal to be part of it.
You have been banging against the glass ceiling before I came back. And yet, since I returned, you were relegated lower than I was yet again. It must have infuriated you to have to tag team with me, and have me steal all of the glory in matches against Holt and Riggs, and later, Starchylde and MDK, but it is the natural pecking order. Because when I came back, my light outshined you by natural default, I made you look every inch the second banana you've wearied of playing with Tristan. And now all you've been left to do is knock at Heaven's door, trying to get me to let you in and get a foothold. I admit that your story is amazing, and it should pay off with a golden win against anybody else. But when I face you all I can see is the flaws in the inherent design. Facing Tristan Slater 3 weeks before Summer Madness was a baaad idea for you, it exposed your game. And unlike me, your flaws aren't manufactured or intentional to your nature... they show an experienced sniper right where to pick you off. People think that I go overboard by insulting Tristan as much as I do, but it holds weight. He approaches his game in the exact same way I do, and when you went up against him, friend or not, you took it uncommonly easy. You never go for the kill, John Cable. You're lacking the blood rage, the killer instinct, that delineates your Beast from your Man. And all flaws in your character aren't presented as traps or feints, like mine are, to get people to attack me in a predictable way... you're ultimately just too weak to get the job done. If you couldn't step up to the plate in the biggest match of your WGWF career and show your friend that you had what it took to be a real player, what makes you think you can do it against me when the lights are shining their brightest? Ask yourself that.
This ain't no place for no hero, Cable. You can't get into heaven by knocking politely. You can only ascertain your place among the gods if you kick the golden gates in and take what you want by force.
You're so lacking in grit that it's shocking, what your superficial image is and the disparity with what you want to be. You're the type of person that goes into a match against MDK talking about your New Breed Foundation and your charity work. If I had ever, in my day to day life, taken part in charities, would I bring them up in a space where I'm supposed to be presenting a facet of myself as a tough guy, a determined fighter or a badass? It doesn't work. You want to claim to be a Man Beast but there hasn't been an overly malicious or animalistic bent to your entire spiel. You seem almost too good natured for the real fight. Even when your so-called war with Famine of the Vile culminated at Wrestlewars it never seemed like you were in that to put an ending to it. Contrast that with moi. I might shred an Alyce Starchylde with hatred but the point may be when the time comes for a big match I give it my all. I let everyone know that I'm either winning with my hand raised or going out on my damn shield but I am going to win this if it breaks me. That is the mentality you are going to have to fight through. You are fighting past an ideology, a gamer mindset, a built in need to be 100% the best and to grab every trophy on the way up. And you just don't have that, Cable. Not even now. You might as well be a big bear in bondage and fetish gear. Still wish you hadn't ditched the mask though.
You think that I cheated you out of Wrestlewars. You think that I'm an arrogant golden boy who cries himself to sleep because people don't call him the best in every moment, and you think that if you were in my place you'd have done it better. You so clearly believe throughout all of this that you were in the right, and that informs every move we've taken since the beginning. For a man who calls himself a Beast, you've eschewed a real primal, law of the jungle for a Lawful Good mentality. You wanted to do everything the right way, act like a goody two shoes and not get down into the dirt when engaging in war with me. And that's why you'll lose, because of that unwillingness to take the low ground, the belief that you'll do anything to win. The tale of our names tells the story. You call yourself Glorious, which you stole from someone else. And you call yourself more Man than Beast. Curiously, you've decided to stick with calling yourself Mandingo despite being pasty white, a racist bon mot from the Reconstruction South to disparage African Americans and the Dark Continent that even the alt-right would find too insensitive to use in 2017. But what you cannot call yourself, is someone who is the creme of the crop, the elitest and most dangerous competitor in the WGWF. Hell, I didn't even give myself the Game Changer nickname, the last stable I was in foisted it on me, because that's what I've done for this company. I am, what you have always in your heart of hearts wanted to be. Beloved, celebrated, my stories an invigorating and innovative breath of fresh air in a drab and monotone WGWF.
I am everything you wanted your time in the sun to be.
And I am holding tightly on to the title that you wanted to validate your presence, to finally tell you that you were special enough to be your own man, instead of a proxy of Sebastian St. Paul's, or Tristan's.
And you were soooo close to grabbing it at Wrestlewars that you think it's something I stole from you, something that I owe...
And yet you were never close to gaining it, Cable, because you can not imagine what it is to be the man and to have to be comfortable compromising your ideals or adapting your plan, or doing what you need to do to be the best.
You "won" last time because my attention was diffused, I had to talk up a big return to the WGWF after time away and focus on six other people, and at the time we'd had no interaction ever. I hadn't had time to observe how you move and operate, so I had nothing to call you out on except your surface ugliness and need to be a second fiddle. And so, looking six ways at a time, I never took a hard enough look at you at the time to believe that you were building anything that I needed to tear down.
But I see now, what you've carved out for yourself when I was not looking, and while it is impressive, the time is come for it to be taken away from you.
You are failing this time because now I am focused right on you.
Now I'm cocked and ready to let fly.
Now I've done more than lead you down a back alley to stick a hidden knife in your ribs, I have herded you right into an open territory where you are going to get put down in a bloody and explosive conflagration that brings the failing Glorious New Breed regime to an end. No more of your pissant little side jabs to me. No more of you getting too big for your britches. This is where I put an end to you and drive you down into the dirt, never more to challenge me or pretend to my throne ever again. So long, space cowboy.
At Summer Madness, I am going to wipe you out.
At Summer Madness, I am going to put down this uprising, this engineered ascension of John Cable, this regime that came to power because I abdicated my throne and let all of the little factions rush in to fill the vacuum. I can clearly say, unlike everyone else that's tried this line, that Tristan and his little henchman would not be where they were if I were here. How's that for an ironic line? But it is the gospel truth. The WGWF that I cultivated and harvested since 2013 has been one where people built careers just on being associated with me, even if they weren't good enough to win. They made names off losing to me. Ask Lucas Felix. Ask Tax. Ask Tristan Slater. And ask John Cable. But at Summer Madness, Cable, I make another milestone in your career, when you goes toe to toe with the darkest form of my gamer persona... not a builder, like the Game Changer, but a real Assassin. When I double tap right to the skull and put you right the fuck down.
At Summer Madness, John Cable, it's not going to be the ending catchphrase, it is well and truly going to be the Endgame.
At Summer Madness, all of the manipulating you, all of the moving you into position, getting you confident enough by winning tag matches at your side, and planting the thought that I'm running in fear is going to come to roost when I show you the most terrifying ending, rushing at you like a bullet, while you kneel, powerless to stop what's coming.
At Summer Madness, it all ends.
Headshot.
Bang.
See, what people don't take into account is that I have the ultimate power right here in my hands. With nothing more than this channel to broadcast my talking trash, I can raise or lower the tides here in WGWF. Even my absence affects this company. My absence makes peons stand up and grab at brass rings over their head. That's impact. That's meaning to your existence. God is watching so answer truthfully, John Cable, if you left this company tomorrow after getting put down, would anyone rush to fill the void? Well, I imagine that Tristan would need a newer, better partner, someone who wouldn't stupidly pick fights with James Raven or call their tag team Glorious New Breed. But on a stack of Bibles if you went away on another sabbatical would it have any of the loss, the desperation or the dramatic shuffling of the landscape that it has when I've taken a step back? Or would life just... go on? So when I ask you that, you really start seeing your place in the pecking order as someone who only rose up to fill a void that I vacated. And that is in essence why my return pisses you off so much, because it upset this delicately fragile plan you had to gain yourself finally, the notoriety you feel you deserve. You had your rise all figured out. You hitched your wagon to Tristan Slater. You excelled against the lowlies without him, were able to beat members of Extinction and the DVC. You had everything in place for your ascension to the IC title only to have it snatched out of your grasp.
And now here we are. I held that belt up in your face and told you that if you were five seconds quicker, you would have had it. I mocked you, embarrassed you by making you reach and beg for the title like a dog, and I jumped the gun and attacked you first. Anyone else, wouldn't have taken this so mildly, they would have gone full dark Breaking Bad on me by now. But the fact that you didn't sink a knife into my back when you had the chance in either tag match shows a confidence, and also a naivete, that tells me you think you're the more moral between us. You think you're purely in the right here, and that when the time comes you'll use the anger from the teasing I've been laying on you to perform the biggest upset in WGWF history. And by all means, do so. Use your aggression. The time has ripened for you to exact your coup. Stage your uprising. Break free of the moniker of an also-ran, a tag performer, a toadie to a greater champion and win something for yourself. You've been provided motivation, anger, and a platform to win on the biggest stage. This is your moment.
So why don't I fear the coming insurrection?
Because every moment of this has been plotted out since Wrestlewars. You haven't gamed me or goaded me... I've played you like a goddamn chess grandmaster, removing every layer of pawns and protection from in front of you to castle you into bringing you down. Guess that makes you the queen, as if I had any doubts on that score. You're not quite the king, which would be Tristan, but you're a more valuable piece to me because you can move in any direction that you want. But you are limited by your stature, and when you fall, the entire board basically belongs to the other half. So, the queen. And now... you've backed into a corner that you have zero moves to escape from, and now the assassin's blade comes out.
From the moment at Wrestlewars we both had our hands on the belt I've been planning this, John. As we fell to earth like a star, I was running through a quick time bit of planning Slumdog Millionaire style, mapping out the trajectory for our eventual reconnection down the road at Summer Madness. Every step has brought us inexorably to this moment. My every action was calculated to get the maximum rise out of you because I knew it would make you angry enough to make a mistake. But I also knew you would see it as desperation on my part. You would think I was doing it out of fear. When I attacked you first and got into a fist fight, you might think that I did that because I wanted to get you off your game, and you'll bravely point to how we were part of a tag team match the next week and were on the winning side. Among other such moments of success from you.
You see, there's a reason for my confidence.
You had your hands on the belt and we both fell to earth at the same time. And yet, I won. I stood up holding the belt first, and you were quick to point out that I was frightened of you, because you put an asterisk on my title win, because you made me imperfect, because you ruined my return. I was annoyed by it, in the moment, but I realized that it didn't matter, because I was gaming you right into the position down the line where we stand right now. Because it's more than just a matter of "If I had been slower, this might not have happened", what it plainly says to me there is that I am faster on my feet and more adaptable, and so when things go against my established plan I'm more likely to change course and score a rebound. The fact that you admitted that just makes it plain that you've acknowledged your own inflexibility and lack of imagination which is not a good look, there, sport.
And yes, I'll own it. You think I have shame in saying it? You did, *nearly* beat me in a ladder match. And I recall how it was facing you in that night, John. After going through some kind of Graveyard match you had every right to take it easy and yet you came in stronger than ever. You showed me something. ou did a lot of damage. And yet, you were slowed because you also elected to go to war with Famine, a match that basically earned you nothing and wasted your time since Famine didn't stick around to be a productive member of society. It wasn't even enough to give you a quality win to brag about since he no-showed on you. So you put your all into the ladder match, and tried to come out ahead. But Summer Madness will be different, John, because winning here is going to take a little more than getting your hands on a belt. To win here you are going to have to no bullshit, no chicanery, no excuses play and beat the God of Game.
Do you know how many people have been able to do that? Say in the last 3 years. How you can count on less fingers than a hand how many people can say they've fought and defeated a motivated, fully prepared and dedicated Kyle Shane? Please, just tell me if you can name one. Instances where I was taking a break don't matter to me. Instances I didn't try don't apply. When I've turned it on I'm on a platinum class that nobody can touch. And when I have a rematch against someone, I always fight harder so that they're never able to beat me the same way twice. So let me ask you again John, how confident are you that at Summer Madness, you're going to have my number, how confident are you that you can bring your game to a high enough level to stand even measurably close to the Game Changer? The list of people in the WGWF who've managed that comprise a fairly elite list.
And John, you have never held the status or the wherewithal to be part of it.
You have been banging against the glass ceiling before I came back. And yet, since I returned, you were relegated lower than I was yet again. It must have infuriated you to have to tag team with me, and have me steal all of the glory in matches against Holt and Riggs, and later, Starchylde and MDK, but it is the natural pecking order. Because when I came back, my light outshined you by natural default, I made you look every inch the second banana you've wearied of playing with Tristan. And now all you've been left to do is knock at Heaven's door, trying to get me to let you in and get a foothold. I admit that your story is amazing, and it should pay off with a golden win against anybody else. But when I face you all I can see is the flaws in the inherent design. Facing Tristan Slater 3 weeks before Summer Madness was a baaad idea for you, it exposed your game. And unlike me, your flaws aren't manufactured or intentional to your nature... they show an experienced sniper right where to pick you off. People think that I go overboard by insulting Tristan as much as I do, but it holds weight. He approaches his game in the exact same way I do, and when you went up against him, friend or not, you took it uncommonly easy. You never go for the kill, John Cable. You're lacking the blood rage, the killer instinct, that delineates your Beast from your Man. And all flaws in your character aren't presented as traps or feints, like mine are, to get people to attack me in a predictable way... you're ultimately just too weak to get the job done. If you couldn't step up to the plate in the biggest match of your WGWF career and show your friend that you had what it took to be a real player, what makes you think you can do it against me when the lights are shining their brightest? Ask yourself that.
This ain't no place for no hero, Cable. You can't get into heaven by knocking politely. You can only ascertain your place among the gods if you kick the golden gates in and take what you want by force.
You're so lacking in grit that it's shocking, what your superficial image is and the disparity with what you want to be. You're the type of person that goes into a match against MDK talking about your New Breed Foundation and your charity work. If I had ever, in my day to day life, taken part in charities, would I bring them up in a space where I'm supposed to be presenting a facet of myself as a tough guy, a determined fighter or a badass? It doesn't work. You want to claim to be a Man Beast but there hasn't been an overly malicious or animalistic bent to your entire spiel. You seem almost too good natured for the real fight. Even when your so-called war with Famine of the Vile culminated at Wrestlewars it never seemed like you were in that to put an ending to it. Contrast that with moi. I might shred an Alyce Starchylde with hatred but the point may be when the time comes for a big match I give it my all. I let everyone know that I'm either winning with my hand raised or going out on my damn shield but I am going to win this if it breaks me. That is the mentality you are going to have to fight through. You are fighting past an ideology, a gamer mindset, a built in need to be 100% the best and to grab every trophy on the way up. And you just don't have that, Cable. Not even now. You might as well be a big bear in bondage and fetish gear. Still wish you hadn't ditched the mask though.
You think that I cheated you out of Wrestlewars. You think that I'm an arrogant golden boy who cries himself to sleep because people don't call him the best in every moment, and you think that if you were in my place you'd have done it better. You so clearly believe throughout all of this that you were in the right, and that informs every move we've taken since the beginning. For a man who calls himself a Beast, you've eschewed a real primal, law of the jungle for a Lawful Good mentality. You wanted to do everything the right way, act like a goody two shoes and not get down into the dirt when engaging in war with me. And that's why you'll lose, because of that unwillingness to take the low ground, the belief that you'll do anything to win. The tale of our names tells the story. You call yourself Glorious, which you stole from someone else. And you call yourself more Man than Beast. Curiously, you've decided to stick with calling yourself Mandingo despite being pasty white, a racist bon mot from the Reconstruction South to disparage African Americans and the Dark Continent that even the alt-right would find too insensitive to use in 2017. But what you cannot call yourself, is someone who is the creme of the crop, the elitest and most dangerous competitor in the WGWF. Hell, I didn't even give myself the Game Changer nickname, the last stable I was in foisted it on me, because that's what I've done for this company. I am, what you have always in your heart of hearts wanted to be. Beloved, celebrated, my stories an invigorating and innovative breath of fresh air in a drab and monotone WGWF.
I am everything you wanted your time in the sun to be.
And I am holding tightly on to the title that you wanted to validate your presence, to finally tell you that you were special enough to be your own man, instead of a proxy of Sebastian St. Paul's, or Tristan's.
And you were soooo close to grabbing it at Wrestlewars that you think it's something I stole from you, something that I owe...
And yet you were never close to gaining it, Cable, because you can not imagine what it is to be the man and to have to be comfortable compromising your ideals or adapting your plan, or doing what you need to do to be the best.
You "won" last time because my attention was diffused, I had to talk up a big return to the WGWF after time away and focus on six other people, and at the time we'd had no interaction ever. I hadn't had time to observe how you move and operate, so I had nothing to call you out on except your surface ugliness and need to be a second fiddle. And so, looking six ways at a time, I never took a hard enough look at you at the time to believe that you were building anything that I needed to tear down.
But I see now, what you've carved out for yourself when I was not looking, and while it is impressive, the time is come for it to be taken away from you.
You are failing this time because now I am focused right on you.
Now I'm cocked and ready to let fly.
Now I've done more than lead you down a back alley to stick a hidden knife in your ribs, I have herded you right into an open territory where you are going to get put down in a bloody and explosive conflagration that brings the failing Glorious New Breed regime to an end. No more of your pissant little side jabs to me. No more of you getting too big for your britches. This is where I put an end to you and drive you down into the dirt, never more to challenge me or pretend to my throne ever again. So long, space cowboy.
At Summer Madness, I am going to wipe you out.
At Summer Madness, I am going to put down this uprising, this engineered ascension of John Cable, this regime that came to power because I abdicated my throne and let all of the little factions rush in to fill the vacuum. I can clearly say, unlike everyone else that's tried this line, that Tristan and his little henchman would not be where they were if I were here. How's that for an ironic line? But it is the gospel truth. The WGWF that I cultivated and harvested since 2013 has been one where people built careers just on being associated with me, even if they weren't good enough to win. They made names off losing to me. Ask Lucas Felix. Ask Tax. Ask Tristan Slater. And ask John Cable. But at Summer Madness, Cable, I make another milestone in your career, when you goes toe to toe with the darkest form of my gamer persona... not a builder, like the Game Changer, but a real Assassin. When I double tap right to the skull and put you right the fuck down.
At Summer Madness, John Cable, it's not going to be the ending catchphrase, it is well and truly going to be the Endgame.
At Summer Madness, all of the manipulating you, all of the moving you into position, getting you confident enough by winning tag matches at your side, and planting the thought that I'm running in fear is going to come to roost when I show you the most terrifying ending, rushing at you like a bullet, while you kneel, powerless to stop what's coming.
At Summer Madness, it all ends.
Headshot.
Bang.