Post by TheNewBreed on Nov 11, 2023 3:59:42 GMT -5
John awoke with a start as the piercing shards of pumice sands swirled around him as the hellish winds whirled and roared their rage at his intrusion in this foul and desolate place. The noxious fumes of the sulfur plumes billowing into the blood red sky in the distance were overwhelming and he could feel his insides twisting in rebellion at the smell of it.
He hated this place.
Before he heard it, John could feel it... the presence of the most vile... the evil that dwell here... he could feel the very hatred emanating from the creature he himself had caged away here all those year ago. Like tendrils of black ooze creeping into his very soul, he could feel the thing seeking him out... reaching to find him wherever he might be in this place of darkness and deceit.
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John heard the monster exhale slowly on the other side of the shallow dune he had found himself partially buried in, but he didn't move. He lay still... right there where he was.
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The thing exhales again, closer this time as the sound of massive clawed feet sliding across the shards of black sand drift over the side of the dune, but still John lays perfectly still... almost comfortably in the sharp sands surrounding him. The demon snorts and chortles as it's thousands of discordant voices chuckle together in a cacophony of riotous laughter.
“You know you can't hide from me, Morsel. Not HERE... not in the cage you've left me in to rot for eternity. This is MY domain... and you know very well you can't... so... why try? What game are you playing at, Deceiver? What plot is it this time that you think will rid you of me forever, hmmm?” the voices play and swirl among themselves as they all form the words together in the unnerving tone of the thousands of souls of the damned.
Still... John lays there as the sands of ash and sharp shards of rock billow across the horizon and cover him in a thin layer of pumice and soot nestled in the side of the ebony dune.
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The demonic monster slowly swings its horned head from side to side scanning for John in the dunes. Smoke plumes from it's flaring nostrils as it snorts in frustration, and a thick rope of magma drips from it's craggy lip stretched taunt across it's jutting lower tusks and sizzles as it hits the sands far below. The creatures gaze still swept from side to side across the wasteland of sulpherous sands before it closed it's blood red eyes and sniffed the air once more.
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“I feel it in you, Morsel... I can taste it... the despair. I can feel it coursing through you... and when I finally find you, I will relish in it, Morsel. I will take great joy in devouring your anguish once more... oh yes.” the throng of voices echoed out across the dunes as the monster grew even closer to where John lay becoming more and more covered by the shards of shifting sands as the moments pass.
“All it took to send you hurtling back down here this time was a loss to Spencer Adams, and that precious Title slipping through your fingers just one more time, Morsel! It's been, what? Three times this year alone you've had the chance to grab YOUR Belt back and you haven't done it yet? If I were you, and thankfully I'm not... I might reconsider calling it THE Belt instead of YOUR Belt from this point on maybe? I don't know how you can even say that to the fans out there who cheer for you anymore anyway... with the number of times you've failed to step up and prove any of your pompous bluster... that you still have any fans is a wonder... but you meat sacks are all idiots anyway so it's not too much of a surprise I guess. The only real surprise here is that after all your failures you still have the hope to try again and again... and again...” the multitudes taunt as the demon comes ever closer.
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The monster's forked tongue darts out of its rocky maw and flicks into the ashy air. A slick grin spreads across it's blackened, smoldering features as thin tendrils of sooty smoke curl from it's nostrils.
“That you have the gall to call it YOUR Belt in the first place is ridiculous, Morsel. You've managed to become the WGWF World Heavyweight Champion twice now... and you've retained it for less than five minutes across BOTH of your so called reigns! You're a never was, Morsel... and the fact that you hold yourself in such high regard as Warriors who have actually BEEN the Champion for more than a dash of tea should make you feel ashamed of yourself. You're a fraud... little better then a lunatics and power mad tyrants you've fought against your entire career... and most of them weren't murderers to boot. That you have the audacity to call anyone evil... that you have the balls to question the morality of others at all... after all of the lives you have taken... after all of the lives you have snuffed out in the blink of a thought... to think that YOU of all people are the moral compass of anything let alone the WGWF... and they call me the demon? HA! If they only knew all of the pain you've caused... all the anguish... all the blood on your hands... they would never cheer for you again. You would be left alone... just like every other time people find out about who you really are... miserable... and you would deserve it. You would deserve to rot in this place like I do... and I wold cherish every day that I would get to remind you of all of the vile things you've done for an eternity of anguish, Morsel.” the voices swirl together, driving the memories of all those John has hurt in his life to bubble up and fill John's thoughts.
The face of his mother, eyes wide in the death mask she wore that night laying on the floor.
The look in his father's eyes as the man in the kitchen dragged the knife across his throat.
The man's face as a young Johnathan stabbed him over and over and over that night.
The empty eyes of Vivian, his fiance from ages ago, laying dead on the locker room floor.
The smoldering corpse of his adopted father, lost to the fires within the home he had built.
The realization in the face of the mimic who had pretended to be him that his life was now over.
The pleading look of his ex-wife, Jessica, as she realized he wouldn't reach her in time.
The pile of Council of Shane soldiers and the faces of the Council Members, all dead.
The sea of fans who had cheered for him only to watch him fail time after time.
The twisted rage on the face of the other John who was hell bent on killing him after all this time.
The look in his father's eyes as the man in the kitchen dragged the knife across his throat.
The man's face as a young Johnathan stabbed him over and over and over that night.
The empty eyes of Vivian, his fiance from ages ago, laying dead on the locker room floor.
The smoldering corpse of his adopted father, lost to the fires within the home he had built.
The realization in the face of the mimic who had pretended to be him that his life was now over.
The pleading look of his ex-wife, Jessica, as she realized he wouldn't reach her in time.
The pile of Council of Shane soldiers and the faces of the Council Members, all dead.
The sea of fans who had cheered for him only to watch him fail time after time.
The twisted rage on the face of the other John who was hell bent on killing him after all this time.
Countless faces, countless failures, endless moments of pain he had caused or failed to stop... either way... they all floated through John's mind as he lay motionless there in that dune of shards and grit.
“How does it feel, Morsel? How does it feel to fail so easily and then watch as your dreams disappear over the horizon while you get drafted to the new show? The only Title that mattered to you is just out of reach now... lost is the destiny you claimed before facing Adams... your supposed friend... while boastful arrogance saw you fall before you even rose to fight... and yet again your empty words filled the void between you and the fans and just like every other major moment in your life, you fell short of actually fulfilling your self righteous prophecy... again... and this time... you proved to yourself and the rest of the world that when it matters, the Morsel just can't get it done!” the voices roar in unison, the frustration and rage within the monster growing with each moment that passes as the demon stalks the dunes, searching for the man lying within the shifting black sands of this hellish dimension.
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“They all said it before... but now they all know it... and so should you! You haven't ever pulled off a single major win that really mattered in your life... not one. Even the BIG WINS didn't matter, because you never could hold on it once you got the Title. They were always right, Morsel... you were a support cast in the Tag Scene at best, and without a partner like Sebastian or Tristan or Aaron... you weren't worth the check they paid you, and you never were. You're a joke... and not even a good one. The best parts of you pooled around your parents the night they died... or maybe they charred away to nothing the night you let Hank burn to death for your arrogance? You're so pathetic your own wife faked her death to get away from you... and you have the audacity to stand up on your own two feet and pound your chest with your balled up fists and claim to be a threat to anyone... anywhere... with the depth of talent you find yourself surrounded by in your pathetic existence... but deep down... you know. You know better than to think you're actually any of the things you say you are, right? Oh yes... I can feel the guilt... I can feel the doubt and despair... you know your a pretender... a fake... a phony... and you know one day they'll all know it too, just like I do... just like WE do.” the many voices of the demon taunts John as it grows closer and closer to the dune the Beast is lying under, the veil of ash and soot and sand now entirely covering him from sight.
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As the demon crests the rise of the dune, the sands shift beneath his clawed paws and the side of the windswept mound slides down across John's body, burying him deeper in the shards of hellish stone as he stays still, barely even breathing.
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“And now, Morsel... it's time for my feast!” the demonic voices intertwine in a shrill hiss as the monster drives his massive clawed hand into the dune, snatching John from beneath the sands in an instant and dragging him up to look him in the eye, encircled in the grasp of the hellish creature
Stoically, John just looks at the monster... his face hidden behind the leather mask, but no reaction evident as the monster growls at the Beast in his claw and snorts in his victory mirth.
“Not even enough pride left to beg for your life, Morsel? Pathetic!” the demon shouts at Cable with it's swirl of many voices, it's breath hot and nauseating as smoke curls from his nostrils and the edges of it's toothy grin.
“I knew I couldn't hide from you here... just as you said. Demon... so there was no need to waste my energy finding you when I knew you would come to find me. Why should I? There's feasting to be had after all... and I wanted as much of my strength as I could muster for the festivities.” John said as nonchalantly as he could being waved around by a monstrous demon in a hellish pocket plain of a prison dimension.
“Yes, Morsel... and I have waited for my feast for long enough!” the monster bellowed as it gnashed is crooked razor sharp fangs and plunged John towards the widely opening maw of the demon.
As the demon shoved John's body towards its gaping mouth, John shot out a heavy boot into the row of fangs on the left as he got close enough, cracking several and breaking a couple of the dagger like teeth sending the monsters head sideways with the surprising impact. Cable follows that with another, and another before the monster can toss him away, careening across the red sky and skidding to a halt in the razor sharp sands of a nearby dune. The demon spits chunks of mangled rocky teeth into the sands at his clawed feet as thick strings of magma fly from it's lips and flames lick upwards from the shattered gums within it's mouth. The monster roars in rage at the attack and the pain searing through it's face as it howled.
“This is the biggest problem I see, you know?” John says calmly as he stands to his feet in the black sands and brushes the shards from his shoulders.
“Everyone underestimates me because of that... because they see me as a failure... because you see me as a failure... and because of that... you'll never see the danger you're in until it's too late. You think my wins are flukes... you think my failures define me... and you forget that while I have fallen short... I never quit... ever. Beating me is a fight from bell to bell... no matter were the fight is... but this... you and me... right here and now... this is different.” John growled back at the monster, raising his hand to his mask and sliding it off over his bald head. The thick scars criss crossed his face from edge to edge, the pink welts and gashes raised and pock marked across his features.
“I've made a lot of mistakes in my life... and I own that... and now its time to own a few more.” John grits his teeth as he tosses his mask onto the sands blowing at his feet and charges towards the demon.
The monster bellows at the Beast and leaps across the gap towards him, but John rolls to the side and comes up under the monster, grabbing a thick clump of scales on his leg and swinging up onto the knee of the creature before getting his feet under him, and jumping up to the demons chest, swinging from another clump of craggy scales and landing on the monsters shoulder as it flails at him, trying to knock him off. John ducks a wild strike that surely would have sent him sailing across the sands again, and launches himself bodily at the demons face feet first, connect with a massive shotgun dropkick that staggers the demon, and drops him to one knee as John thuds heavily to the sands below.
“No one is going to underestimate me ever again... not you... not my opponents... not even me! It's time to atone for our failures and our sins... and to right the wrong we've allowed to come to pass.” John shouts as his face twists in rage, finally, all of the emotions welling up inside of him as his eyes begin to glow a strange pale white. The glow envelopes him as radiant rays shine from him in every direction, cascading across the demon as the voices scream the agony of a thousand tormented souls as if it were burning.
John rushes the demon once more, grabbing onto one of the massive horns on it's head and swinging it down to the sands with him, sending the demon crashing to the ground. Wasting no time, John climbs onto the demon, and drives a series of boots across its craggy face, teeth shattering and it's rocky jaw crumbling under the strikes.
John reaches down and takes one of the massive tusks jutting from the demons mouth in his hand and wrenches it to the side, cracking it off at the base, and splitting the lip as magma pours onto the sands from the demons broken face.
“Atonement... for us both...” John growls at the monster he is perched upon before driving his hand fully into the skull of the demon and wrenches its blood red eye from its socket with a sickening pop. The voices scream in to the hellish red sky as John bites into the eyeball in his hand and grabs at the demons face, wrenching a large chuck of it's cheek away from it's face as the scene fades to black but the screams of horrified pain can still be heard over the hellish winds.
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There's a new age in the WGWF... the Age of Smash... and in honor of the man himself... I intend to set the tone for the future of the Brand. Enigma may be the SMASH Champion... but on Monday night... when the lights go down and the bell rings for the first ever SMASH Main Event... all eyes will be glued to the ring to see Clyde Newton and Damage test their might against the Beast for the Number One Contender spot.
The future of the brand is riding on this match... and I won't be looking to let Smash down. He had faith in me to represent his team, and now I am going to represent his Brand.
I'm the Legacy of the WGWF... and on Monday Night... I lay to rest all of the questions swirling around me and I take my opportunity to face Enigma for the honor of being the face of the Brand... even if that means going through the both of you to do it.
You've both felt my wrath in days gone by... and you know exactly what this match is going to cost you.
Your standing between me and my Legacy... and I can't abide that.
I have failed at far too many important moments in my career to let another one slip through my fingers now.