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Roleplay Boards => Archived Roleplays => Climax Control Archives => Topic started by: finnwhelan on May 08, 2020, 09:50:57 PM
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NOTHING TO LOSE
AUGUST 31ST 2018
WEST POINT MILITARY ACADEMY, NEW YORK
The Colonel was a formidable man. Though the natural lack of light tended to hide and obscure, it did nothing for him except make him look that much more stoic and irritated than he usually did. Awoken at the midnight hour, he had no choice but to be standing here, his jaw clenched and his focus deliberately locked on his surroundings. He stood on the upstairs terrace of his quarters, his arms crossed as his eyes took in the parade fields that his alma mater used as a training ground for the military officers of tomorrow.
On those spacious green fields, men and women learned to walk in formation -- a tradition long past being useful, especially with the guerilla warfare tactics the world had succumbed to. But it was good for those cadets to learn to be in sync with their fellow men in arms. It created a sense of camaraderie that did not exist in the new age of American citizens. It was all for none this day and age, and anyone would have to be completely ignorant of their society to realize that. Hell, politics had gone way off and fucked everyone over so much that it was normalized.
“So she’s safe.” He uttered, his voice coming out slightly strained. He turned his head, just enough to give the man who was his complete and utter opposite in every way shape, and form. The Colonel stood for justice, for righteousness. He was the penultimate proprietor of truth. He had to be, to stand in the position that he had for so long.
Six feet from him, his hands shoved nonchalantly into his denim pockets, and his foot propped against the balcony wall, stood a man who never once stuck his neck out for anyone but himself. Even in his most altruistic of times, there was an underlying reason and he never made it clear. He did not bother to look up, his eyes obscured by the mass of blonde hair that hung across his face in a heavy curtain. He sniffed in the summer air, though his nose, too, was covered by a cloth. They said it was to hide the scars of his childhood, but even that couldn’t be proven.
“Hideshima!” The Colonel hissed urgently through his teeth, narrowing his darkened eyes.
“Hai,” he confirmed in Japanese, turning his head. “Your ōjo is just fine,” he added, with a sneer, “and the only reason I am even saying a word to you is because you put your head in where you’re not wanted or needed and you would fuck everything up.”
“That’s not for you to decide, Kei.”
“If you want your little girl to stay safe, then yes, it is for me to decide.” He retorted, tossing his head with indignance and forcing his hair from his face. “You take your intelligence bullshit and stay out of my business.”
“She is my daughter--”
“She is in safe hands.” Kei pushed himself off the balcony, not even bothering to look at the other man as he walked away. “Stay away from my business, Colonel.”
The Colonel turned finally, staring at the back of the Japanese man’s head as he retreated from the area, moving for the steps that would take him to the ground floor and to a gate where he could disappear undiscovered otherwise. His lips curled back in a sneer, and before he knew it, he’d stomped after the man angrily, slamming his hand down on his shoulder to stop him. “Does he know?”
Kei reached upwards and flung The Colonel’s hand off of his body with a ticking noise through his teeth. “I do not see how that is any of your business and I just told you to stay out of it. But…” he paused, rolled his eyes petulantly, and looked at the man with an expression that clearly said fuck off. “Since it’ll make you giddy as shit since you hate the kid--”
“I don’t hate my son-in--”
“If I wanted him to have his head on his shoulders,” Kei snapped, cutting off the man’s attempt to lie, “I would have definitely told him. But seeing as Callien responds irrationally when his life is out of balance…”
Silence permeated the air as he trailed off. The Colonel’s lip pulled backwards even farther. “You’re manipulating him. I don’t even know why he trusts you.”
“That’s the thing, Colonel. He doesn’t, and he never has. The kid trusts no-one, and he has every right not to. But I have resources available that even you would salivate with, and whatever he needs, he has access to -- provided he keeps his head in the game. Right now, that’s all he’s got. In order for him to see his own worth, he’s gonna have to work through it. What you call manipulation, I call esteem-building.” Kei stepped down on the stone stairway, keeping his gaze locked on the Army Officer before turning his head and shoving his hands back in his pockets. “Spare me your family bullshit.”
The Colonel clenched his fists. He did not relish being told off by, though unofficially, a felon. He grit his teeth as the Japanese man continued on his merry way, not giving a royal shit that The Colonel’s only daughter was in danger and it was because of her damned husband and his involvement with the petty criminals that Kei Hideshima’s outfit was. Or at least, that’s what his intel told him. Not that it was his daughter that involved Hideshima with Callien to begin with. Not that it was his daughter who brought this all down on them anyway. He wouldn’t believe that even if it was wrapped in gift wrapping and handed to him on a silver platter.
“Why do you save him?” The Colonel broke in once more, his voice gruff and agitated with worry that he couldn’t get rid of -- not now. Not now that his daughter was involved in this shenanigan.
Kei stopped once more, but did not look up, but his shoulders went rigid. He said nothing for a long, pregnant pause. He exhaled slowly out of his nose, closed his eyes, and then smiled. The smile was not a comfort -- it was maliciousness. “Everyone has a story to tell, Colonel.”
•••••
APRIL 27TH, 2020
DILLION, COLORADO
The quarantine had made life in the mountains even more silent than before. The only travel that the highway saw now was the occasional traveler for work, semi-trucks hauling essential goods to various stores and the law-breaking city slickers who treated the statewide lockdown like it was a new vacation for them. The unseasonably warm weather brought them up to go hiking in nature’s backyard, and in that moment, they also brought their sickness with them and infected the land as they sneezed from the overabundance of allergens and coughed because they forgot that the land up here was nine-thousand feet from sea level and their measly Mile High City wasn’t high enough to keep them from feeling the edge.
Not that it really mattered, in the end. Everyone likely had COVID-19 already in some form, they would go on to say in the future,, and they argued that immunities only came from getting the virulent strains to begin with. The body built up antibodies, but it would take time. And this coronavirus, well, it seemed like it morphed to fit the purpose. Much like, for example, the human society as it was. People morphed and changed to fit a purpose for a sliver of time until they changed their ways and their thoughts to something else just as the fancy hit them.
Even so, the silence seemed somewhat surreal as the stars glimmered against the sheer darkness of the night sky. Normally, even through the floor-length windows that lined one wall of their room, he could hear the traffic as it zoomed by at seventy-five miles per hour (or probably more, since people didn’t seem to follow laws). Now, he heard nothing as he leaned against the doorjamb, looking into the room from the hallway. He set his head against the frame, his arms crossed. He’d been up for the last two or so hours, the usual nightly reminder of a year and a half prior burying itself within his brain in the form of a dream and in habit, he’d woken himself up out of it and now couldn’t go back to bed.
Finn’s mind was always, constantly, moving and turning these days. There wasn’t a moment in which it wasn’t revolving previous words spoken, previous actions made, and what was going to happen in his future. It was true that he hadn’t been himself for the past two years. At one point, he’d been on top of the world, and then all of a sudden, it was like he lost every edge that he’d ever had. KINGDOM had been the final lock in his attempts to be the person that everyone else wanted him to be. He was not the same kid who’d bashed in the doors of HONOR Wrestling, left after being treated like dirt for old men to rise to fame. He was not the same kid who ran through fourteen matches in San Diego as a lethal threat, nor was he the undefeated kid that made a tired, emotional mess of a man second guess his abilities in the ring after nearly having his own neck broken in a vicious battle he knew he’d never win.
He’d have to reinvent himself. Reinvent the wheel. But that...well, that took more doing than he probably would ever be able to do.
His eyes settled on the woman in his bed. For six years, save a good six months in which they argued and couldn’t get their shit together, he’d woken up next to her. She’d been his saving grace, the reason he even stepped into wrestling to begin with. She believed in him every time he didn’t, and argued vehemently with him every single time he even began to think that his life in the ring was over. What did she get in return?
Hidden away because of his mistakes. Nearly killed in an made-to-appear-as-an-accident assassintation gone wrong because he made choices that affected the powers he had no control over. And why? Why?
Because Kei had come to him on a Saturday afternoon and begged for him and his sister to fix his problem. Like a fool, they fixed it by removing the son of a suspected Cartel drug lord from the picture to make it clear to everyone that the Yamazaki Clan was not to be trifled with.
Everything had been intertwined because of the Japanese man who Finn had once called his mentor. How was he supposed to focus on his career that he actually cared about and was groomed for by Kei himself when he was stuck doing the dirty deeds that Kei wouldn’t deign himself to be so above? He walked away from that shit when this last scenario involved his wife. He would not allow Aaron to be mixed up in this shit. And he told Kei this. He told him he was done.
In his sweatpants pocket, his iPhone vibrated for the hundredth time that night. Some of it was familial texts between his mother and his sister who couldn’t shut the fuck up no matter what time of day. Some of it was his adoptive brother sending him pictures of his goddamned dumbass wallaby and his wife.
But one text now seeped into and rested fitfully in his mind.
He’d done so well staying out of the eye of the world. Finn legitimately thought he could step back into the business and actually focus on it. That, it seemed, was not an option for the former Seattle Saint. Not unless he ignored the text, threw it in the archive bin and forgot all about it. He’d mulled it about too, but hadn’t touched the text. He hadn’t tossed it, he hadn’t deleted it, he hadn’t stopped. In fact, he ignored it, though it rested in his brain. It was two little words. But if he responded, then...
“What’re you doing?”
Her voice brought him out of his reverie. She’d lifted herself up onto her elbow and was looking at him curiously through her mussed pink hair. He pushed off the frame and approached her, whatever expression he’d worn seconds ago masked with a light smile. “Just thinking about shit.”
Aaron rolled her eyes and ran a hand through her hair as she sat up fully. “You and thinking doesn’t always mean good things are happening. What are you thinking about?”
Decisions. He had nothing to lose right now. He could tell her about the text, but he knew exactly what she’d say. She’d be gung-ho about it, offering to even call herself, see what was going on. Ever since her injuries stopped her from wrestling, she’d been willing to throw herself headlong into whatever harebrained scheme Kei came up with, or her friends called her to do. She didn’t think anymore, and that was terrifying to him. She’d always been the one who mulled about decisions with logic and poise. Now, she just wanted to live vicariously through him.
“Work.” He lied. A good marriage, they always said, was built on one where lies never existed. Finn swore he wouldn’t do that to her. But this time, he had to. Especially with the consequences of if he didn’t.
“Are you worried about doing well again?” Another roll, and she patted the bed next to her, pulling her legs up to her chest. “You’ve got to get out of your head, Finneh-Finn. I will say it now and I will say it again: that’s all you did in KINGDOM. You were so focused on what they wanted from you that you couldn’t even think about what you wanted to do. Now you have the opportunity to think about what you want from Sin City.”
Finn dropped down on the bed and leaned over his legs, resting his elbows on his thighs and hanging his hands between them. He took a moment to respond, and then he looked up at her from the corner of his eye. “I want to be respected.”
She cocked her head to the side. “You have accomplishments, Finn. Those bring respect, don’t they?”
He shook his head. “Accomplishments are a dime a dozen in this sport. I have World Championships, yeah, but so do people who have been wrestling for three weeks in some companies. I want to be respected as a competitor, as someone that it’s going to take a lot more than five minutes in the ring to put away. KINGDOM, I constantly felt that there was this...unspoken statement that was going on backstage that they all knew what they were doing and giving people opportunities to fall flat on their face to the same person three times in a row just because they were trying to teach a lesson. I have never, in the history of my career, failed to capitalize after falling once until I met the shareholders of that company. Once, shame on me. Twice? There was something that just...kept me down. I felt like I was treated as if I was just some old wrestler who wasn’t worth their time. A ploy to get their name known and then tossed aside when they had their newbies.”
“It...could have been that.” Aaron shrugged her shoulders. “But you’re a new face in Sin City. There isn’t a name to capitalize on here. You’ve been gone so long from the main scene that these people...well, save for the few that are in the company that you know and you’ve beaten, these people don’t know you. So make them.”
Finn paused for a moment, mulling the option in his head. “I...don’t think they would have hired me just on a whim, Aaron. They had to have seen--”
“Doesn’t matter.” She smiled, leaning forward. “Everyone has pasts that they want to rise from. Some don’t get that opportunity, but here it is, right in front of you. Take it. Rise to the occasion, whatever they put in front of you. Multi-Champions in the company, current champions; hell, if they want to throw you Mercer, at least he’ll have a rough time manhandling you and you’ll put him on a level playing field. You have to look at this from the perspective of that you’re new to this company, and your past is only there to help you, babe.”
“It’s got enough in it to drag me down too.”
“So? You think the multiple times I failed to achieve something kept me down? Yeah, it sucks. But you let it go to your head, just like everyone else’s words. That’s not like you. And you know better. Be the Underdog, Finn. Be that person you’ve always been -- the one who thinks on his feet, the one who perseveres no matter how many times you were knocked into the gutter. No one thinks you’re going to get right into the fray immediately, and that’s fine, but show them who you are. No matter who they set in front of you. They will see you for what you are, and they’ll learn that you’re not just another talent coming in that they can step over.”
She reached forward, pushing him lightly with her hand as her smile widened.
“After all, right now...you have nothing to lose.”
•••••
MAY 7TH, 2020
DILLION, COLORADO
An empty table rested in the center of a large room. Along the wall, in an alcove that seemed to be under a flight of stairs, was a custom cabinet filled with championship belts and trophies. You hear stories of men and women who never knew when to stop and just consistently amass the glory of their time. Over their twenty year careers, they continually build their repertoire and have something that says that they mean something. You know you’ve seen it -- the lists of accomplishments six feet deep and they keep trying to gain notoriety when they’re one foot out of the grave.
“Let’s talk about time.”
Finn stepped into the frame from off camera, dropping into the empty chair. He leans his tattooed arms onto the table, crossing them upon one another. His hair appears slightly disheveled, as it usually does, and falls into his eyes just a bit on the right hand side of his face. He taps the table.
“I’ve been running this circuit for three years. Up and down across this world, I’ve run this gamut until I just simply couldn’t anymore. Various promotions, some I did at the same time not because I was trying to push for pay, but simply because I craved the fight. Championships won, always considered somewhere in the top after a few matches in. Given opportunities that I earned every step of the way. It wasn’t until the end that I squandered my chances, that I lost my own reason for why I chose to perform in front of millions of fans every year. I thought I knew why at the time, thought I was doing everything right that I should have been, but I was completely and utterly disillusioned. Too many people leaned on me to support their world, and while I did that, I lost my own ability to support myself. I lost faith in me, and for no good reason.”
He looked down at the table for a moment, shaking his head. The expression on his face showed pure, unadulterated irritation for a moment; but just when it seemed like he'd already had it, he coughed and then looked back up, a smile gracing his mouth.
“Sucks when that happens, doesn’t it? When you think you’ve done everything you can to compete for everyone else, except you’ve lost why you do it for yourself. Everyone else matters more than your own fuckin’ opinion of yourself. At least, it did for me for a bit, and it ruined every piece of me that I was ever able to build. I’ve had to sit down and reinvent the wheel in my own head to remember who the fuck I am.”
He pressed a finger into the top of the table, tapping it as he finished his sentence, his Irish lilt becoming more prominent as he spoke. He narrowed his blue eyes as he looked ahead, his smile turning more into a sneer.
“Last year, OATH popped up and I signed up for an unknown shot at one more chance to mean something. Various popular names that litter the scene right now decided to attempt it as well, though the more expecting of them dropped out and disappeared as they slowly lost match after match because they didn’t keep their head in the game and let their mind check out because of their fame. Hah, check that rhyme…”
He snorted, and finally leaned back.
“Regardless, the ones who were the loudest attempted to dissuade me from rising. They said I was washed up. That I didn’t belong. Multiple times I was attacked and labeled a coward, that I didn’t have integrity, that I wasn’t who I said I was, and yet...at the end of it all, I was the one who stood on the horizon with my hand raised. I was the winner of the Event Horizon Tournament. I was the Inaugural World Champion. The OATHkeeper. I defended that championship until I couldn’t anymore. And when I lost it? I stepped away because I wasn’t the same person that signed to that company.”
“That’s the thing we know as leaders in companies, right Kris? We know when it’s time to step away. Sometimes, we think it’s a good thing to come back, to make our name, to rise above our own faulty beliefs and try again. We try to recreate ourselves, but for what? Fame? Notoriety?”
Finn glanced back at the case with a slight interest, as if he was reliving fond memories in his head. Perhaps they were, because when he turned to look back at the camera, his sneer had once against returned to a smile.
“When I started in this business three years ago, I was a competitor with a desire to fight. I was trained, but I always reverted to this brawler tactic because it was what I knew. Before I was a wrestler, I was living on the side of the road because I refused to own up for my mistakes, and I was filled with a pride that injured me more than I can even tell you. But I grew. I used those brawling tactics and built off of them, learning, training, pushing myself so I could be quick on my feet. And even though I reverted to brawling, it was never without thought. Look at me, Kris, and tell me -- do I look like the kind of wrestler that’s going to go into a match screaming about how big I am and how tough I am? Nah. See, what kept me alive in all of my matches was my ability to read people. I’m not always one step ahead, but I have to think about all of my options, you know? I act quickly and decisively.
“From there, I moved into deathmatch territory. You stated that your most brutal of matches was against Crimson--” he chokes slightly, before coughing. He pounded on his chest with a flat hand for a second, before laughing slightly. “Sorry. Crimson was a dick, totally, but outside of Sin City, he amounted to literally nothing. That was one match for you. That was a full year for me. And I carried that with me into every company -- I enjoy that scene, so forgive me if I lean toward it when we face up.”
He lifted a hand then, jabbing his thumb in the direction of the championship case.
“Those championships back there -- they tell you something. I’m not one to sit there and tell you why I won each of those, and why it is important. I like to live in the here and now. But simply for relevance, I’m showing you and Sin City them. They tell you I’m not lackluster, and that I’m not one of those people that you’re going to see as a flash in the pan. Three years. That’s what I racked up, and I even took time off for a bit in-between. Maybe it’s not the list of accomplishments some wrestlers have, but they are my own, and goddamn, am I proud of them.”
Finn dropped his hands back onto the table, folding them in front of him and leaning forward a bit. In a way, it was as if he was interested in listening to what Kris might have to say, regardless of the fact that he wasn’t there to actually be interested in. He flattened his hands on the table and turned his head just slightly to the side. As he speaks, his head bobs naturally with the flow of his words. None of this is rehearsed, anyone could tell. But that was Finn’s favorite part -- he did enjoy speaking profusely.
“But let’s look at you. I didn’t have to look in the annals and archives to figure out who you were, Kris. You told me that already, whether you realized it or not. Since you prattle on and on about being a Grand Slam Champion, that tells me you’ve got this heightened sense of superiority when this company is concerned. And you should, after all. In four years, you held championships for a combined total of six hundred and thirteen days. I don’t like math and I got bored doing it, so I may be off one or two days. You’ll forgive me, I hope. Now, some of those were at the same time; I’ll give that to you. It’s impressive, isn’t it? Forty-one percent of your time in Sin City Wrestling, you’ve held championships. That’s a feat, isn’t it? I definitely agree with you on that.”
However, his smile finally faded as he looked straight ahead.
“But here’s where I don’t, especially where those are concerned. That’s fifty-nine percent of the time in which you didn’t hold a championship. You want us to remember your legacy, but to me, I want to remember the people that accomplished much more in less than fifty percent of the time. I went back and watched your last promo against Bill Barnhart, and you know what I heard? A child pining for the attention that they didn’t get. I mean, I get it. I’ve done it once. I was so fuckin’ frustrated that I lost an opportunity that should have been mine and I went and whined about it in a promotional video afterwards and didn’t give a shit about the result of the match I needed to rise above.”
“That’s what happens to people like us, Kris. We know we’re great. We’ve been told it too. But we also need to remember that the people around us? Yeah, they have meaning and greatness too. They’re fighting just as hard to defeat us as we are to defeat them, and it shows in the ring. I lost heart when I put everything into my match against one of the best competitors that I have ever faced and I came out the loser. I didn’t get that championship. I didn’t walk away from the company, but it closed a couple of weeks later. But it stays with me.”
Inhaling, Finn paused again, opening his mouth to take in a large breath. It still frustrates him, to this day, a match he lost in 2017. But he knows hit makes him stronger -- better -- than he was before.
“It stays with me. Every day, I fight harder to be better than that person who lost that championship opportunity. Every shot I’ve had that I’ve lost? I use it to fuel me. I need to do better, to be better. Every day. Every second. Every bit of my career.”
“However, in that last promo? You bitched about your return being cast aside like it wasn’t important. That’s what two years out of the ring does to anyone. New talents come in, they take the scene, and they become more important, more prominent, especially if they’re promoting the company. The fact that you complained about Nazi Queen, Alicia Lukas -- hey ‘Lic -- having more impact than you, you simply became Bitch Boy #1. No one, in the entirety of wrestling, gives a shit if you feel like you’ve been cast aside.
Come to terms with it, Ryans. You left Sin City for two years, and more people -- some totally different than you, maybe even better than you -- came in. Face it, Kris. When you choose to walk away, you choose to have your legacy fade with your rise unless it’s so fuckin’ prominent that you deserve to be remembered. Grand Slam, Triple Crown, whatever the fuck label you want to have and proclaim it loudly, doesn’t matter because there are names who have done it more than you and better and longer than you.”
A smirk rose in his expression then. He looked directly at the camera, as if he were speaking directly to his opponent. He wore confidence on him like it was always with him. To be honest, the thought of already have to face someone the company considered at one time to be championship material...well, he always took and went with the punches, after all.
“You even said it took you too long to get started in this company. I’m not about to let that be me, Kris. Mark and Christian, whomever it was that gave me my last match….well, they realized I could be better than I am. Who better to pair me with than someone I know is going to push me simply because they need to be pushed too? Like a true underdog, I do better when I think I’m the one going to get slammed. El Dark...well, I can’t say he was a pushover, but he wasn’t on the same caliber as me. You, on the other hand, are considered higher cost. If I want to get anywhere, it’s going to be using you to get ahead.”
With a slight sigh, he shrugged his shoulders as he continued, looking off to the side before returning his gaze to the camera.
“I’m sorry to say it that way, but it’s the truth -- you are my roadblock, as you called Bill. The difference, though, is that you’re not going to block me like he did you on Climax Control 266. The only highlight you could give us was a glaring and blinding sight that you’re not prepared to be back here, and no amount of shaking off the ring rust is going to fix that. You’ve had a moment of leniency, but it ends here. We’re going to have a great match, it’s going to be back and forth, because I know you want to continue the legacy that’s faded away. But I am going to pin you, and move on, because that’s what I need to do. If I want to be respected -- because that’s literally the only reason I’m in this company right now -- then I need to beat the best of what this company has to offer, and that’s on my checklist -- check number one. You know how checklists work, right?”
“Let’s put it this way, Ryans. I’m the unknown variable here, and to state the obvious, you’re known. Ward and Underwood have seen you, they know what you can do, they know what you can’t do. Perhaps they’re hoping that you can create for yourself a new story to be remembered for. But remember this, and remember this well: when you’re reminding us of all the accolades you have accumulated and pushed for in this company, you’re also reminding us that you have a name that carries clout and people are looking for you to fail. And me?”
Another pause, and he lifted his arms to the side.
“It’s simple. I have nothing to lose, and literally everything to gain. I’ll see you at the GO Gym on Sunday Night. And I promise you...the only miracle that’s happening then is you still being able to leave the ring intact after I’ve slammed you down for the three-count. No hard feelings, though, Cap’n. You’ll get over it after another cry session, I’m sure.”
Mockingly, Finn presses his index and middle finger to his head in a fashioned salute and clicks his tongue. In a split second later, the camera cuts out to a black screen, nothing more. Nothing less. No static. No white noise. Just silence.
FIN.