Sacrifices and the weight of being an Avatar of Death
Apr 18, 2024 22:56:09 GMT -5
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Post by TheNewBreed on Apr 18, 2024 22:56:09 GMT -5
“It was supposed to be an in and out.
It was supposed to be a surprise.
Decisive. That's what it had said before we... before the world exploded.
We were going to end it before it even got started.
Instead... we... we... fuck.
They're dead aren't they?”
The young woman's voice, barely a whisper, cracked and failed her. The realizations dawning on her face left nothing to the imagination of the gamut of emotions flooding her mind, thoughts racing... terror... panic... loss... grief... nightmares that would stain her vision forever danced across her gaze.
Her light brown tresses fell across her face as she leaned forward onto her knees, her stomach fighting to empty her lunch rations directly onto the steel plated floor. With hands shaking, her insides trying with every moment to become her outsides, and her mind racing through the visions on the horrors she had witnessed on the other side of that infernal portal... she tried feebly to remove her armored gloves. The suit was choking her... it was so heavy... so oppressive... so damned hot.
The panic took her and she, through bleary eyes, started to just flail her hands and try to fling the gloves free of her hands, but after moments of frantic thrashing... the gloves remained... dislodged and even more inhibiting than they had been before.
The woman lurched, vomit spewing across the floor, and then the world went black.
“What do you mean, R2? What happened?” John shouted across the holographic mission table where moments ago there had been twelve of the best trained members of the Foundation's most elite forces, and now there was only one signal, and it was back here, in this reality, not in the other dimension like they had planned.
“There was an anomaly. The portal was opened as expected. The travel from this dimension to that one was uneventful. However... once the mission party arrived they encountered a... an... um...” R2-IDEA buzzed and hummed uncharacteristically fumbling, trying to find the right word to describe the thing they had met in that other dimension. R2 watched the events unfold over and over as it analyzed the twelve different body cam perspectives, and still it was unsure what to call the thing they had found there.
“You don't know what it is... or?” John pleaded impatiently.
“Indeed, I do NOT know what it is, John Cable. One moment.” R2 hums at him as billions of pages of the internet flooded through its processors as it scanned every available source material it could to find out if humans of this time frame had a word for this horrific creature and after a minute, the whirring of processors stopped.
“I believe the closest thing you would understand is an Eldritch Horror?” R2 chirped hesitantly having noted the human condition concerning these particular nightmares of human legends and how they could be effected by these creatures as it had scanned for the information available on them.
“Like... Lovecraft?” John asked incredulously, his face screwed up in disbelief at the very thought of it.
“That would seem to be the closest equivalent in your lore that I could find, John Cable.” R2 responded flatly.
“Did we just happen to jump into it, or was it there on purpose?” John asked absent mindedly as he stood there staring at the vitals of the one soldier left flashing warning icons on the side of the table, barely clinging to life as she lay there on the floor down the hallway instead of in a totally different dimension all together.
EMT's swooped in rapidly, going to work right away to save the young woman, and after several tense moments, it was decided she was stabilizing, and it was safe to move her to the medical facility. A back board was brought in, she was slid over and affixed to the board, and she was whisked off down the hallway to a place to rest and recover after her ordeal.
After several minutes of silence, R2 finally addresses the preoccupied inquiry about the intentions of this eldritch nightmare from across the omniverse, but it wasn't sure that John would like the answer.
“There are no readings or scans of that creature, John Cable None of our instruments detected that... thing... at our destination. The triangulation of the dimensional arrival was correct, and the team did in fact arrive in the desired location as calculated. I do not know if it was there on purpose or by accident, however, John Cable. I am sorry. There is no way for me to know that information without further investigation.” R2 whirs and chirps as it floats towards the Axtgriff parked in the lab.
“How long will that take?” John asks hurriedly as he makes his way towards the lab doors across the room.
“I am unsure, John Cable. There are many events to analyze. I will let you know when I have finished.” R2 answers as it floats down to it's socket in the back wall and gets to work.
John grits his teeth and leaves the lab, heading down a hallway inside the Foundation's bunker. His black combat boots echo on the plating floor as he rushes past several massive steel bay doors.
“Darina... ETA?” John says to the empty hallway before his watch glows green across the round black face.
“I am finishing up activation of the Emergency Protocol at the base, and I should be there in five.” her voice answers from the watch.
“Heard. I'm on my way to medical now to find out about Laura's condition, and to talk to the Doc. I'll see you in a few.”John says matter of factly as he approaches another door at the end of the hallway, and lowers his face to a scanner next to the door. A green light flashes across his eye before the red light above the door turns green and a pressure lock releases with a hiss of air.
“The tech is too dangerous, John. Period.” Darina scolds John across the narrow gap above a small desk in the garage beneath the bunker. Blueprints and diagrams are scattered across the desk below them interspersed with notes and technical print outs.
“This whole thing is insane. Eleven of my men just... just... they just had their god damned flesh stripped from their bones like a fucking chicken wing on game night, John! Seriously, what the fuck did you get us into here?” she screams at him, frantic over the events of the day before, and obviously incensed at the thought of dealing with this nightmare of a creature at any point in the future.
“There are things that we don't understand yet. With an unending galaxy and an infinite number of dimensions out there... it's inevitable that in some of them... our worst nightmares are more than just our imagination about things that go bump in the night... somewhere out there, some of them are real.” John says somberly with his head resting on both of his palms, bowed over the desk.
“Yeah... no I'm going to need a better explanation than that, John. This isn't like we walked into a fire fight with another squad or got overrun with little robotic murder machines, again. NO... we just unlocked a doorway to a place where 'nightmares are real' and a whole squad died save one because of it. Those aren't circumstances I generally just chalk up to acceptable losses and move on about, you know? What the fuck is going on? Who is this other you, and what the fuck do you expect us to do about this bullshit?” She seethed, the idea of going into battle in another dimension against actual Eldritch monsters pushing her to the limits of her sanity.
“I understand why...” John started to answer before she slammed her hands on the desk, shocking John, and sending him sitting upright in surprise.
“I don't need you to understand shit right now. What I NEED is to know who this fucking guy is and why he's willing to go to these lengths to kill you, John? What the hell did you do to this guy and how in the fuck did he unleash Horrors from across the dimensional fold to take out his revenge on you?” Darina demands as she gets down in his face, towering over him sitting at the desk.
“He's a Me... from a timeline I eliminated.” John says flatly, his head cocked backwards to make some space between them awkwardly.
“What the fuck does that mean, John? Explain it to me. Make it make sense to me why they're all dead now.” Darina growls through gritted teeth, leaning in even closer to John's gnarled and scared face.
“About a decade ago, there was a man named Kyle Shane. He was the biggest rival I had at the time... maybe ever... and trust me when I tell you I have had some real winners oppose me and go to great lengths to make sure my life was miserable. Karl Cross burned down the gym with my dad in it... Sean Corvik kidnapped my wife and ruined her mind, not to mention this fabulous piece of art...” John explained looking up and motioning to the garish scars knotted across his face.
“But Kyle was different. Kyle didn't need to burn down my gym or kill anyone close to me or rape my wife or burn my face... no... Kyle just kept beating me. Every time we got into the ring, he would win... one way or another...and this time... it was me who decided I would win at any cost... and I did. I walked away from that last match holding the WGWF Intercontinental Title in perhaps the biggest upset win in the history of the company... bu it cost us everything.” John continued to tell the tale as Darina finally sat down at the desk and stopped hovering over him.
“I had been to other dimensions by then, and I had known for a while the reality of the multiverse and how it worked, but I had only seen magic work the ways between worlds... until the Council of Shane's came. They came for me... and took me to their stronghold in the universe. They told me a how Kyle... my Kyle... had taken their tech and was going to unravel the universe with it, and they needed me to help them stop him before he unwound reality.” John said softly, looking down at the desk.
“So... that explains where you got Shane Tech from, but what happened? How did you help them stop the threat of the rogue Shane and...” she asked, but John cut her off as he cut his eyes at her, a look of shame and regret stricken across his gnarled features.
“I didn't. I mean... I did... but it wasn't what they expected... and in the end... it wasn't what I expected either.” Jon says, his words croaking from his lips.
“I took their tech, let them teach me how to use it... and then I destroyed them and everything they had created... or so I thought.” John finally said slowly.
“Why would you do that? They came to you for help and you...” Darina asks, her mind spinning at the possibility of what could have been, and what was.
“I killed them... every single one of them. I tore through their galactic base and piled the bodies of the Shananites to the ceiling. Before I left, I gathered as much of the Shanetech as I could, and I... I burned the rest of it. I left it floating in space, a desiccated husk of the former glory of the Council of Shane's. With their base of operations destroyed, there was no where for their emissaries to go and those few Kyle's who managed to evade me and flee across the multiverse went into hiding, never to be seen again.” he looked up at her as he admitted the egregious atrocity he had committed all those years ago.
“OK, but what does that have to do with this other You, and why is he traipsing around the omniverse with Eldritch Horrors now?” Darina inquires, still confused as to where this new threat comes into play all of a sudden.
“When I destroyed the Council of Shane's... I made a terrible choice... a decision that had no good answers... but had to be made... so I made it. The Shane's approached me with this choice, and I didn't know then, but I know now. That decision was a nexus event. It set in motion the future timeline we exist in now... but in doing what I did... I ended other timelines that stretched out across the omniverse. One of those timelines... the other me's timeline... was one of the ones that ended. I didn't know the Council of Shane's had reached out to other me's... there was no way for me to know after the fact, and I didn't ask enough questions when I could have... but that other me... and maybe more me's across the multiverse... he was displaced from his timeline when I destroyed the Council. He was meeting with the Council in a parallel universe, and when I destroyed them, he was never able to go home. He was stranded in a timeline that was not his own, and his entire existence from that moment on was just gone. His life, his family, his friends, his Earth, his entire universe... all of it... just ceased to exist. I caused a cascade of collapsing timelines, and in my brash decision, I had taken away everything for trillions of people who just stopped existing. Now... he's spent the last decade searching for me... to exact his vengeance for what I cost him... and to be honest... I don't blame him.” John finished explaining as he looked at her across the desk, his shame and regret plain upon his twisted face.
“What do we do to fix this, John?” she asks tentatively.
“What indeed...” he says flatly, despair weighting heavily on his mind as he struggled to answer the question himself.
Mr. Phoenix...
Self proclaimed agent of despair and luminary of the new age.
Like your name sake... imploding in your past to rise anew from the ashes of your creation... standing among us once more as the Future of an Industry... self made and self promoted... but still misunderstanding your true place in the cosmos among the God's of War here in the WGWF.
You see... you see yourself as the inevitable... the undeniable... the inexorable... The One, if you will.
Funny thing about fate though... is you never know what it is until it's happened already.
You never know what tomorrow holds, CJ, because no matter how hard you work, what you sacrifice... or who... nothing is guaranteed. Life doesn't follow a linear timeline. It never has... because each day we are faced with billions of decisions.
Some of them are small, insignificant things:
beef or chicken for dinner...
red or blue on that wall...
leg day or cardio...
And some of them are bigger than we can imagine:
to marry someone or not...
to take job across country without a promise of the future we want...
to kill a man who would kill you given the chance...
to destroy millions of people on a whim...
Even the smallest of these can have rippling effects across our lives that are so small as to be imperceptible over the flowing of time, and the biggest of them can have an impact far larger than you can imagine.
For instance... you chose to sign a contract with the WGWF, and in your short time here you've made a major name for yourself around the globe, and you've even done pretty well here, so far. You can claim wins over two former WGWF World Heavyweight Champions and a smattering of success otherwise, but it hasn't come without a cost, Phoenix. It has taken time, energy, and more than just a bit of your blood sweat and tears to make it here on the biggest stage of them all... and I know you would make those choices again if you had to. I know you would sacrifice everything to find the success you seek... and while you are well on your way there... you haven't made it yet, son... and you won't either.
See... the success you're seeking isn't a singular destination like you think it is. It's a lifetime of work and sacrifice... and winning Titles isn't the end goal... it's just the beginning.
Titles come and go, CJ, and without them, what are you?
A guy with a notebook and a chip on his shoulder?
A talented young athlete with millions of things still to learn not just about wrestling... but about life?
An eager warrior willing to fight the fight but still ignorant to what your fighting for?
I know what it's like to look at life the way you are CJ... the similarities can't be ignored.
You have a mildly successful training academy. So do I... but mine is a global enterprise with thousands of students training to be the best in the world.
You have a profitable company... but one built on greed and profiteering. I have a company too, built on the idea that we can build a future together, and money is worthless in the face of helping others find their success instead of just stacking profitable assets just to feel important.
You have a wife... so did I before greed and madness changed the women I had fallen in love into a monster of nightmarish proportions before she met her untimely demise. Fortunately, yours is still alive and well... but time is rarely kind and if you aren't careful... the decisions you make in your life could cost you even that bit of happiness... if happiness is even something you can fathom with your condition.
Hell, CJ... both of us are surrounded in a constant madness enveloped in a cloud of death and destruction at every turn, and yet we continue to try to build bonds with others when everyone around us inevitably succumbs to the grip of darkness found only in death's embrace. We share the arrogance in this that we keep embracing the connections to others, knowing in the end we will cause them pain, despair... and eventually, they will all die because of us... yet we keep moving through our lives as is the next one won't find that very same fate... when we know they will... because everyone else has... and everyone always will.
We're both pariahs, CJ... the lingering stench of death and despair clinging to every action and interaction with others, yet we both continue to strive towards that success, no matter what it costs us... or who.
The difference between us is that I accept that fate... and I've lost more than you have ever held in your hands, and I am OK with that while you're still striving to make it to land of dreams and wishes that you've conjured in your mind's eye because you still think you deserve it and one day, someone might hand it to you.
I already know I don't deserve shit... and if I'm going to get it... if I want to hold it in my hands and claim it for my own... I have to take it... and keep it all on my own.
You're the last obstacle in my path to strapping my WGWF World Title back around my waist, CJ... and you're already looking to the next pay per view and wondering which of the man who could leave Wrestle Wars with that Belt is going to be the one you take it from... when you haven't even made it past me yet to earn the chance to grab it.
You take my loss to Peter Vaughn and Spencer Adams and Enigma as a sign to the inevitability of your success here, and you overlooked the threat I represent to your future, not just here in the WGWF, but to your entire existence.
It will be the last mistake you ever make, CJ... and come Wrestle Wars... I'm going to show you what it takes to make it past the gate to the promised land... because the Beast is hungry... and you are merely a meaty morsel to be lost to the despair and forgotten among the other broken sacrifices I willingly make to ensure my own success... and in that... I'm not sorry, CJ.
I'm only sorry you hadn't thought what this was going to cost you and that you were willing to pay the price before you knew the weight of it.
It was supposed to be a surprise.
Decisive. That's what it had said before we... before the world exploded.
We were going to end it before it even got started.
Instead... we... we... fuck.
They're dead aren't they?”
The young woman's voice, barely a whisper, cracked and failed her. The realizations dawning on her face left nothing to the imagination of the gamut of emotions flooding her mind, thoughts racing... terror... panic... loss... grief... nightmares that would stain her vision forever danced across her gaze.
Her light brown tresses fell across her face as she leaned forward onto her knees, her stomach fighting to empty her lunch rations directly onto the steel plated floor. With hands shaking, her insides trying with every moment to become her outsides, and her mind racing through the visions on the horrors she had witnessed on the other side of that infernal portal... she tried feebly to remove her armored gloves. The suit was choking her... it was so heavy... so oppressive... so damned hot.
The panic took her and she, through bleary eyes, started to just flail her hands and try to fling the gloves free of her hands, but after moments of frantic thrashing... the gloves remained... dislodged and even more inhibiting than they had been before.
The woman lurched, vomit spewing across the floor, and then the world went black.
* * * * *
“What do you mean, R2? What happened?” John shouted across the holographic mission table where moments ago there had been twelve of the best trained members of the Foundation's most elite forces, and now there was only one signal, and it was back here, in this reality, not in the other dimension like they had planned.
“There was an anomaly. The portal was opened as expected. The travel from this dimension to that one was uneventful. However... once the mission party arrived they encountered a... an... um...” R2-IDEA buzzed and hummed uncharacteristically fumbling, trying to find the right word to describe the thing they had met in that other dimension. R2 watched the events unfold over and over as it analyzed the twelve different body cam perspectives, and still it was unsure what to call the thing they had found there.
“You don't know what it is... or?” John pleaded impatiently.
“Indeed, I do NOT know what it is, John Cable. One moment.” R2 hums at him as billions of pages of the internet flooded through its processors as it scanned every available source material it could to find out if humans of this time frame had a word for this horrific creature and after a minute, the whirring of processors stopped.
“I believe the closest thing you would understand is an Eldritch Horror?” R2 chirped hesitantly having noted the human condition concerning these particular nightmares of human legends and how they could be effected by these creatures as it had scanned for the information available on them.
“Like... Lovecraft?” John asked incredulously, his face screwed up in disbelief at the very thought of it.
“That would seem to be the closest equivalent in your lore that I could find, John Cable.” R2 responded flatly.
“Did we just happen to jump into it, or was it there on purpose?” John asked absent mindedly as he stood there staring at the vitals of the one soldier left flashing warning icons on the side of the table, barely clinging to life as she lay there on the floor down the hallway instead of in a totally different dimension all together.
EMT's swooped in rapidly, going to work right away to save the young woman, and after several tense moments, it was decided she was stabilizing, and it was safe to move her to the medical facility. A back board was brought in, she was slid over and affixed to the board, and she was whisked off down the hallway to a place to rest and recover after her ordeal.
After several minutes of silence, R2 finally addresses the preoccupied inquiry about the intentions of this eldritch nightmare from across the omniverse, but it wasn't sure that John would like the answer.
“There are no readings or scans of that creature, John Cable None of our instruments detected that... thing... at our destination. The triangulation of the dimensional arrival was correct, and the team did in fact arrive in the desired location as calculated. I do not know if it was there on purpose or by accident, however, John Cable. I am sorry. There is no way for me to know that information without further investigation.” R2 whirs and chirps as it floats towards the Axtgriff parked in the lab.
“How long will that take?” John asks hurriedly as he makes his way towards the lab doors across the room.
“I am unsure, John Cable. There are many events to analyze. I will let you know when I have finished.” R2 answers as it floats down to it's socket in the back wall and gets to work.
John grits his teeth and leaves the lab, heading down a hallway inside the Foundation's bunker. His black combat boots echo on the plating floor as he rushes past several massive steel bay doors.
“Darina... ETA?” John says to the empty hallway before his watch glows green across the round black face.
“I am finishing up activation of the Emergency Protocol at the base, and I should be there in five.” her voice answers from the watch.
“Heard. I'm on my way to medical now to find out about Laura's condition, and to talk to the Doc. I'll see you in a few.”John says matter of factly as he approaches another door at the end of the hallway, and lowers his face to a scanner next to the door. A green light flashes across his eye before the red light above the door turns green and a pressure lock releases with a hiss of air.
* * * * *
“The tech is too dangerous, John. Period.” Darina scolds John across the narrow gap above a small desk in the garage beneath the bunker. Blueprints and diagrams are scattered across the desk below them interspersed with notes and technical print outs.
“This whole thing is insane. Eleven of my men just... just... they just had their god damned flesh stripped from their bones like a fucking chicken wing on game night, John! Seriously, what the fuck did you get us into here?” she screams at him, frantic over the events of the day before, and obviously incensed at the thought of dealing with this nightmare of a creature at any point in the future.
“There are things that we don't understand yet. With an unending galaxy and an infinite number of dimensions out there... it's inevitable that in some of them... our worst nightmares are more than just our imagination about things that go bump in the night... somewhere out there, some of them are real.” John says somberly with his head resting on both of his palms, bowed over the desk.
“Yeah... no I'm going to need a better explanation than that, John. This isn't like we walked into a fire fight with another squad or got overrun with little robotic murder machines, again. NO... we just unlocked a doorway to a place where 'nightmares are real' and a whole squad died save one because of it. Those aren't circumstances I generally just chalk up to acceptable losses and move on about, you know? What the fuck is going on? Who is this other you, and what the fuck do you expect us to do about this bullshit?” She seethed, the idea of going into battle in another dimension against actual Eldritch monsters pushing her to the limits of her sanity.
“I understand why...” John started to answer before she slammed her hands on the desk, shocking John, and sending him sitting upright in surprise.
“I don't need you to understand shit right now. What I NEED is to know who this fucking guy is and why he's willing to go to these lengths to kill you, John? What the hell did you do to this guy and how in the fuck did he unleash Horrors from across the dimensional fold to take out his revenge on you?” Darina demands as she gets down in his face, towering over him sitting at the desk.
“He's a Me... from a timeline I eliminated.” John says flatly, his head cocked backwards to make some space between them awkwardly.
“What the fuck does that mean, John? Explain it to me. Make it make sense to me why they're all dead now.” Darina growls through gritted teeth, leaning in even closer to John's gnarled and scared face.
“About a decade ago, there was a man named Kyle Shane. He was the biggest rival I had at the time... maybe ever... and trust me when I tell you I have had some real winners oppose me and go to great lengths to make sure my life was miserable. Karl Cross burned down the gym with my dad in it... Sean Corvik kidnapped my wife and ruined her mind, not to mention this fabulous piece of art...” John explained looking up and motioning to the garish scars knotted across his face.
“But Kyle was different. Kyle didn't need to burn down my gym or kill anyone close to me or rape my wife or burn my face... no... Kyle just kept beating me. Every time we got into the ring, he would win... one way or another...and this time... it was me who decided I would win at any cost... and I did. I walked away from that last match holding the WGWF Intercontinental Title in perhaps the biggest upset win in the history of the company... bu it cost us everything.” John continued to tell the tale as Darina finally sat down at the desk and stopped hovering over him.
“I had been to other dimensions by then, and I had known for a while the reality of the multiverse and how it worked, but I had only seen magic work the ways between worlds... until the Council of Shane's came. They came for me... and took me to their stronghold in the universe. They told me a how Kyle... my Kyle... had taken their tech and was going to unravel the universe with it, and they needed me to help them stop him before he unwound reality.” John said softly, looking down at the desk.
“So... that explains where you got Shane Tech from, but what happened? How did you help them stop the threat of the rogue Shane and...” she asked, but John cut her off as he cut his eyes at her, a look of shame and regret stricken across his gnarled features.
“I didn't. I mean... I did... but it wasn't what they expected... and in the end... it wasn't what I expected either.” Jon says, his words croaking from his lips.
“I took their tech, let them teach me how to use it... and then I destroyed them and everything they had created... or so I thought.” John finally said slowly.
“Why would you do that? They came to you for help and you...” Darina asks, her mind spinning at the possibility of what could have been, and what was.
“I killed them... every single one of them. I tore through their galactic base and piled the bodies of the Shananites to the ceiling. Before I left, I gathered as much of the Shanetech as I could, and I... I burned the rest of it. I left it floating in space, a desiccated husk of the former glory of the Council of Shane's. With their base of operations destroyed, there was no where for their emissaries to go and those few Kyle's who managed to evade me and flee across the multiverse went into hiding, never to be seen again.” he looked up at her as he admitted the egregious atrocity he had committed all those years ago.
“OK, but what does that have to do with this other You, and why is he traipsing around the omniverse with Eldritch Horrors now?” Darina inquires, still confused as to where this new threat comes into play all of a sudden.
“When I destroyed the Council of Shane's... I made a terrible choice... a decision that had no good answers... but had to be made... so I made it. The Shane's approached me with this choice, and I didn't know then, but I know now. That decision was a nexus event. It set in motion the future timeline we exist in now... but in doing what I did... I ended other timelines that stretched out across the omniverse. One of those timelines... the other me's timeline... was one of the ones that ended. I didn't know the Council of Shane's had reached out to other me's... there was no way for me to know after the fact, and I didn't ask enough questions when I could have... but that other me... and maybe more me's across the multiverse... he was displaced from his timeline when I destroyed the Council. He was meeting with the Council in a parallel universe, and when I destroyed them, he was never able to go home. He was stranded in a timeline that was not his own, and his entire existence from that moment on was just gone. His life, his family, his friends, his Earth, his entire universe... all of it... just ceased to exist. I caused a cascade of collapsing timelines, and in my brash decision, I had taken away everything for trillions of people who just stopped existing. Now... he's spent the last decade searching for me... to exact his vengeance for what I cost him... and to be honest... I don't blame him.” John finished explaining as he looked at her across the desk, his shame and regret plain upon his twisted face.
“What do we do to fix this, John?” she asks tentatively.
“What indeed...” he says flatly, despair weighting heavily on his mind as he struggled to answer the question himself.
* * * * *
* * * * *
Mr. Phoenix...
Self proclaimed agent of despair and luminary of the new age.
Like your name sake... imploding in your past to rise anew from the ashes of your creation... standing among us once more as the Future of an Industry... self made and self promoted... but still misunderstanding your true place in the cosmos among the God's of War here in the WGWF.
You see... you see yourself as the inevitable... the undeniable... the inexorable... The One, if you will.
Funny thing about fate though... is you never know what it is until it's happened already.
You never know what tomorrow holds, CJ, because no matter how hard you work, what you sacrifice... or who... nothing is guaranteed. Life doesn't follow a linear timeline. It never has... because each day we are faced with billions of decisions.
Some of them are small, insignificant things:
beef or chicken for dinner...
red or blue on that wall...
leg day or cardio...
And some of them are bigger than we can imagine:
to marry someone or not...
to take job across country without a promise of the future we want...
to kill a man who would kill you given the chance...
to destroy millions of people on a whim...
Even the smallest of these can have rippling effects across our lives that are so small as to be imperceptible over the flowing of time, and the biggest of them can have an impact far larger than you can imagine.
For instance... you chose to sign a contract with the WGWF, and in your short time here you've made a major name for yourself around the globe, and you've even done pretty well here, so far. You can claim wins over two former WGWF World Heavyweight Champions and a smattering of success otherwise, but it hasn't come without a cost, Phoenix. It has taken time, energy, and more than just a bit of your blood sweat and tears to make it here on the biggest stage of them all... and I know you would make those choices again if you had to. I know you would sacrifice everything to find the success you seek... and while you are well on your way there... you haven't made it yet, son... and you won't either.
See... the success you're seeking isn't a singular destination like you think it is. It's a lifetime of work and sacrifice... and winning Titles isn't the end goal... it's just the beginning.
Titles come and go, CJ, and without them, what are you?
A guy with a notebook and a chip on his shoulder?
A talented young athlete with millions of things still to learn not just about wrestling... but about life?
An eager warrior willing to fight the fight but still ignorant to what your fighting for?
I know what it's like to look at life the way you are CJ... the similarities can't be ignored.
You have a mildly successful training academy. So do I... but mine is a global enterprise with thousands of students training to be the best in the world.
You have a profitable company... but one built on greed and profiteering. I have a company too, built on the idea that we can build a future together, and money is worthless in the face of helping others find their success instead of just stacking profitable assets just to feel important.
You have a wife... so did I before greed and madness changed the women I had fallen in love into a monster of nightmarish proportions before she met her untimely demise. Fortunately, yours is still alive and well... but time is rarely kind and if you aren't careful... the decisions you make in your life could cost you even that bit of happiness... if happiness is even something you can fathom with your condition.
Hell, CJ... both of us are surrounded in a constant madness enveloped in a cloud of death and destruction at every turn, and yet we continue to try to build bonds with others when everyone around us inevitably succumbs to the grip of darkness found only in death's embrace. We share the arrogance in this that we keep embracing the connections to others, knowing in the end we will cause them pain, despair... and eventually, they will all die because of us... yet we keep moving through our lives as is the next one won't find that very same fate... when we know they will... because everyone else has... and everyone always will.
We're both pariahs, CJ... the lingering stench of death and despair clinging to every action and interaction with others, yet we both continue to strive towards that success, no matter what it costs us... or who.
The difference between us is that I accept that fate... and I've lost more than you have ever held in your hands, and I am OK with that while you're still striving to make it to land of dreams and wishes that you've conjured in your mind's eye because you still think you deserve it and one day, someone might hand it to you.
I already know I don't deserve shit... and if I'm going to get it... if I want to hold it in my hands and claim it for my own... I have to take it... and keep it all on my own.
You're the last obstacle in my path to strapping my WGWF World Title back around my waist, CJ... and you're already looking to the next pay per view and wondering which of the man who could leave Wrestle Wars with that Belt is going to be the one you take it from... when you haven't even made it past me yet to earn the chance to grab it.
You take my loss to Peter Vaughn and Spencer Adams and Enigma as a sign to the inevitability of your success here, and you overlooked the threat I represent to your future, not just here in the WGWF, but to your entire existence.
It will be the last mistake you ever make, CJ... and come Wrestle Wars... I'm going to show you what it takes to make it past the gate to the promised land... because the Beast is hungry... and you are merely a meaty morsel to be lost to the despair and forgotten among the other broken sacrifices I willingly make to ensure my own success... and in that... I'm not sorry, CJ.
I'm only sorry you hadn't thought what this was going to cost you and that you were willing to pay the price before you knew the weight of it.