Ghosts of the past
Aiden was happy. And why wouldn’t he be? He had a beautiful wife, a beautiful son, friends and family. A career doing what he loved. He was making good money and was able to enjoy what he was doing as a profession. So many others don’t have that privilege. People work jobs they hate, they do jobs that are dangerous even more so than professional wrestling but don’t give the same amount of satisfaction. The truth is, Aiden was lucky.
But, like most people in the world, he had a past. A past we’ve covered the adventures of Aidan Reynolds and his life in Japan and what he dealt with. He had been betrayed by someone who he considered to be a brother, he lost a woman that he was in love with at the time. And as he traveled to America, he did everything that he could to try and rebuild that life. And what a rebuild job it was.
He trained at Wolfslair, a gym that had numerous world champions that had also had a small stint in SCW as a fraction. A faction that had become dominant in ways that so many people could never believe.
But what happens when that past comes back to haunt you?
Aidan was leaving the gym, stretching as he walked out and down the street ready to get his post-workout meal. Foot sub filled with roast beef bacon turkey ham and chicken. One that he filled with all sorts of other fresh veggies and fats and carbs. Because let’s face it, he’s a pig.
He looked at his phone his gym bag slung over his shoulder before a familiar voice made him stop in his tracks. A voice that he hadn’t heard in over six years. ”Aiden-san..”
Aiden turns slowly and blinks a few times. ”Hikaru?”
His heart left into his throat, it was her. Hikaru. His former boss's daughter. The woman who he had fallen deeply in love with, who had been wished away after their relationship was made public. The woman who was inadvertently the cause of his betrayals and fall from Grace. The woman who had unfortunately been the reason why he had to start over in a new land from nothing. And they are here she was standing in front of him.
”How?…why?”
He was speechless. Which, if you know him, is shocking in and of itself. He shook his head his mind drawing a blank with what he wanted to say. ”I moved here, to New York. And I heard this is where you lived. I guess I just wanted to see you.”
Aiden nodded slowly and stood back. ”Well… it’s good to see you. I’m glad that you’ve been doing well. I didn’t really hear much about you after you got forced away.”
Hikaru nodded moving closer ”I was forced to stay away. I studied, I laid low. But when I started working at a law firm a few years ago I jumped at the chance to transfer to their offices in America and last year I found out you live here too. I didn’t know if I should contact you or say hello because so much time had passed and…..I also know you are married…with a son..”
Aiden chuckled and shook his head ”Yeah, I am married, happily, and my son is amazing. But regardless of the great things I have in my life I still would have appreciated knowing that you were alright.” He shrugged trying to choose his words carefully so he wouldn’t come off as cold or distant or cruel. ”There was nothing to be afraid of. You and I had something and you’re a great person. But all I wanted to know was if you were safe and if you were happy. I went through a lot. Your father, that old man could hold a grudge.”
”He still can..” Hikaru's voice went low, she looked down and away as her eyes burned with anger. Before Aiden could ask she ground her teeth together ”When he found out you were married, he let me go, letting me get settled in and happy before sending me information on you. That you were wrestling again, you had friends and family, he thought it would hurt me, but I was happy for you….I was just mad he thought it was all about you”
Aidens eyes widened and he pushed out a deep breath ”Damn, I’m sorry he did that….apparently he really did hate the idea of us together…” Hikaru nodded and Aiden sighed heavily ”Why don’t you come over for dinner?”
”W-what?”
Aiden smiled and folded his arms over his chest ”Yeah, legit. Kallie is a sweetheart and she is nice to everyone and besides I told her about you, it’s not like you’re some dirty little secret I kept hidden….she felt bad that your dad would do that to you…and me…”
Hikaru nodded slowly, still unsure before clearing her throat ”I’d love to….you seem so happy Aiden and I would love to meet the woman who did that…” The two talked a little more, a weight being lifted off his shoulders before they separated, his heart seemed to feel better, healed, like he finally had closure on a part of his life that he never knew he needed
Tuff
Aiden took a deep breath, he was unsure where to begin, unsure what to say. He rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck. He focused forward knowing that he needed to begin to get his thoughts out there.
”Well finally. Finally a match without Bill Barnhart being involved.”
He was relieved, clearly. Not having to think of new things to say against a man who was at this point in his career a complete joke.
”Look, I’m not going to sit here and say that you should never have a return or repeat matches against people. Hell, you can even have a series of matches in a row. But when it is so one-sided, when I am clearly the better man out of the two we don’t need to keep revising it. I have done nothing but beat the shit out of Bill Barnhart for the better part of two months. I’d like to think at this point we have a definitive answer which one of us is better.”
“Spoiler alert it’s Me. I’m better. And now that that part of my career is hopefully behind me I can move on and look to bigger and better things. Namely getting an opportunity at the roulette championship. I kind of like the whole idea about the roulette championship.”
“I mean shit I shouldn’t.”
“See, I have what they call an addictive personality. I need to be very careful with things like alcohol and gambling. Don’t believe me? My Call of Duty addiction was once so bad that I ended up on Prestige 10 within a month of release. My old-school Call of Duty nerds will get that one. That’s the kind of addictive personality I have. I developed an addiction to monster energy that was so terrible that my piss turned the type of neon green that you would expect if someone was hanging around Chernobyl 24/7…”
“So, a championship based around a casino gambling game probably isn’t something that I should be too deeply involved in”
Aiden shrugged and continued.
”The title is fuelled by chaos. A roulette wheel with all the different stipulations on it. It gets spun and whatever it lands on. That’s what we get to do. And I get to fight it out against LJ Kasey and Eddie Lyons… and this should be one hell of a match. I mean LJ is desperate to prove himself and Eddie has a massive chip on his shoulder.”
“And I get it. “
“See in this match you have three young names who are on the cusp of being in the main event. With a few wins over some big names you could see myself Eddie or LJ for the world championship. It’s not completely out of the realm of possibility here. Shit, we just saw Felix the cat beat fucking Kris Ryans”
“So anything can happen”
“ The thing is the three of us have also faced each other and come close to trading wins. I’ve beaten Eddie, I’ve beaten LJ and they have both beaten me.”
Aiden sighs and lets out a small laugh under his breath.
”Now, LJ is a weird case. See we’ve had a lot of siblings in this business. From entire families to twins to triplets we seem to attract whole clans coming into the professional wrestling business. And LJ is coming in and following a brother who never quite reached the potential that we all thought he had. So LJ is in a weird position we’re not only does he want to prove that he is on his brother's level he wants to prove that he’s better than his brother and can live up to all of the promise that we have seen in him.”
“And there’s the problem. You see LJ, you have a huge upside in this business and can show us all how talented you are while also showing us all that you are better than your brother. But what if you don’t? What if you try to do everything that you can to win the roulette championship or earn a shot at the world championship and you just never quite get there?”
“What if you fail in every single way?”
“It’s an interesting question, isn’t it? You can say that you’ll come back and you can say that you will do everything you possibly can to reach those goals and those attainable dreams but in the end, you haven’t shown us anything. You haven’t shown us that you’re good enough to be a champion and you haven’t shown us that you’re good enough to break out from the pack. Eddie and I have both had glimpses of it. But you haven’t. You haven’t done anything to prove to us or anyone and to show us that you are indeed special. Because you’re not special LJ….. and I don’t want to be that guy. I don’t want to be a complete prick in this but you’ve honestly left me no choice and sometimes there needs to be a small amount of tough Love.”
He raises his eyebrows and takes a deep breath before continuing.
”And then there’s me old mate Eddie. A guy who I’ve gone to war with. And if you look at the three of us. If you look at LJ and you look at Eddie and you look at me then you’ve got to say Eddie is the front runner to break that glass ceiling and get to the main event scene before us. LJ is nowhere near ready, and many would argue that I am just scratching the surface but Eddie? Eddie is right there. Eddie is looking at that glass ceiling and has his fingerprints on it.”
“So, I have to ask, Eddie. Are you sure you want to be doing this? I know that you’re gonna come into this match and you’re going to give it everything that you possibly can because you don’t know any other way. But you should be fighting for a championship match against Finn. You should be trying to get your hands on that world championship because I unlike LJ‘s idiot brother. You’ve actually got a pin for victory over Finn.”
“So why are you fighting it out for a chance at the roulette championship? You’re fighting it out to get a shot against Alexandra Raven and no offense to Raven because he’s a great roulette champion but he has had infinite championship opportunities at the world title and he has failed and now he is basically banished to the land of the roulette wheel. But what about you?”
“You should be wanting more and fighting for more. And I know that’s exactly what you’re gonna do. Are you gonna do everything you can to win this match because that’s just the kind of man that you are and that’s something that I respect about you. Any position that you are putting you fight tooth and nail to be the man who has his hand raised at the end of the match. You’ll do everything you can to beat myself and LJ you’ll do everything you can if you beat us to beat Alexandra Raven and get that roulette championship back. But sometimes man, your pride and that will win can hurt you more than it can help you. And I’m gonna take advantage of that.”
“I gave LJ some tough Love before so I’m going to do the same thing for you. I’m gonna do everything I can to win this match. I’m gonna do everything I can to have my hand raised at the end of it so I’m the one who is going to go on to face Alexandra Raven. So I’m the one who’s going to go for the roulette championship. Because it’s the only way that you were gonna open your eyes and realize that you need to be climbing for something higher, you need to be going for the world championship and you need to fucking fight for Eddie so, I’m gonna do everything I can to free of this burden and I’m going to go after the roulette championship. And I’m going to do it by beating you and LJ on climax control.”
