PARADIGM SHIFT XXI // BOTTOMFEEDER
I’VE HEARD ENOUGH; YOU’VE HAD YOUR TIME IN THE SUN. KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN KID, YOUR FIFTEEN SECONDS ARE DONE…LET’S GET THIS STRAIGHT, WHILE YOU’RE LISTENING. IN MY WORLD, YOU COUNT FOR NOTHING.
PARKWAY DRIVE .
••••••
Another surreptitious meeting. That was the life that they were involved in now – secret meetings, quiet mutterings. If anyone ever saw them together and knew nothing of their past, they might assume that there was something romantic going on between the two. Once upon a time, there had been, but now between the two, the other was the villain in their own story. There was a muted hatred between the two, though it was a bit more one-sided when it came to him. She would forever try to re-win him, but if there was anything that Finn was, it was stubborn.
Like a damned mule.
But there was a friendship that would always remain between the two, no matter how strained, sarcastic, or serrated-knife like. But this wasn’t a meeting between friends – right now, it was critical to the mission that had become keeping dumbshits in Finn’s life safe. Because for whatever reason, he was the only one that had a brain in a head that wasn’t concussed to all hell between two rigid shoulders. His brother and his half-witted best friend certainly didn’t.
It was easier to meet in the open, and the open meant within the hallowed halls of Wolfslair. With an open door separating them from the office to the gym floor. Anyone could have probably heard them, but Finn’s office was usually avoided during the day unless someone needed him for something. Aaron perched herself up on his side of the desk, her red-bottoms dangling off the side as she crossed her legs. Her multi-coloured hair was pulled tightly up into a ponytail, and in line with the season, she wore a corseted tank top that enhanced her otherwise lack of bosom.
He had, of course, looked at her when she made herself at home on his desk. But only a split second until his eyes went back to the screen in front of him where he started playing with the google dinosaur.
“You’re frowning again.” She pointed out, pressing the file folder in her hand to Finn’s mouth. When he swatted at her, she smacked him across the temporal bone with it.
“For fuck’s sake–” He snarled, and swiped the file out of her hands.
“It takes like three muscles to smile, can’t you do that?” She crossed her arms and leaned over her knees. “You used to, all the time.”
He paused, turned his head and looked at her, tilting it slightly.
“Okay, I mean…you know, before all the you know, stuff…”
“Horizontal mamboing in the sheets with a trainee?” Finn retorted, setting the file down and opening it. Inside were several images, rap sheets, and what looked to be a dossier on the person he’d seen at his apartment. Jace, Kayla had called him. The supposed head of a Romani clan that had made its home in New York. The idiot that had made himself known to Finn by threatening his girlfriend.
Or sort of girlfriend.
Finn didn’t do well with feelings anymore. He tried. But sometimes he didn’t know how to accurately respond to Kayla. They were perfectly fine within one another’s company, choosing a lot of the time they spent together watching television, falling asleep on the couch, purchasing favorite things without an occasion. Typical relationship things. But he never quite knew how to read her, and he wasn’t about to take another step where she might end up jumping out of his life again.
“Look, I know it might be hard to deal with someone who has feelings the size of an ant, but she can’t be making you that–” She stopped when Finn’s blue eyes narrowed as he looked at her. “Okay, I’ll stop.”
Finn let his eyes fall back to the paper in front of him. He knew Kayla didn’t want him getting involved in this, but he wasn’t about to leave it alone either. Information was king, and the more that he knew, the more he could deal with appropriately. The General had left no stone unturned, not this time. He gave his former-son-in-law everything that he had, including the smallest of details, such as his blood type and felonies committed as a child.
“He’s Romani,” Aaron pointed out, pressing a manicured pink nail into the word on the page. “Gypsy.”
“That’s a slur,” he snorted.
“You’re a slur,” she countered, rolling her eyes. “I don’t know the full history, but there’s a second dossier that The General is compiling about this guy’s older brother. Looks like he used to be the leader and now this guy is, and I think it’s kind of like…um…” she pursed her lips together, looking up at the ceiling as she thought. “I think it was like an inner revolt.”
“Little brother stood up to older brother?”
“No, I think it was more like older brother got popped and the family had a bunch of inner turmoil. I mean, like…his older brother was apparently a completely radicalized dickhead. I dunno how much you know about Romani culture, but–”
“Men treated women like garbage and beat them in order to keep things going,” Finn inserted. He knew that much. And he tried to not think about it just enough so that his blood wouldn’t boil as he thought about that happening to Kayla. As much as she was a hardened person, he could see through her little bitch exterior to the scared little girl that existed inside. He just never said it.
“Mhm,” she nodded. “Why the interest?”
“He showed up at the apartment complex.” He picked up the picture and stared at it. “While I was gone,” he added, “and while Kayla was there.”
“I mean…it makes sense…” Aaron trailed off, and when Finn didn’t press, she added, “Well, I mean, because she was part of them.” She acted as if she were telling something profound and new to Finn, who just looked up at her again, raising an eyebrow slowly. “I’m just saying…doesn’t it seem a bit odd that she came back and accepted your little love proposal the second that Kei died?”
An uneasy and awkward silence settled into the office as Finn slowly set down the picture and looked up at Aaron with that same eyebrow in danger of disappearing into his hairline. He leaned back in his chair, his expressionless face peering into hers. It was the one thing that she absolutely hated that he did. It made her feel like she’d absolutely done something wrong and needed to leave entirely. And perhaps she had: the suggestion was just something that was sitting in her mind and she blurted it like the idiot she was.
She had a savior a moment later in someone she didn’t expect whatsoever. Kayla herself, who rarely came to Wolfslair, stepped up to the office, Tasmin in tow. She stopped in the doorway and stared at the scene in front of her. Oh, there was no way that Kayla would ever feel threatened by Aaron – she knew exactly why Finn hated her.
Aaron hopped down off the desk and looked at Kayla, shrugging her shoulders. “Oh don’t worry. I tried showing him my tits and he didn’t care still.”
“Wasn’t really a concern,” Kayla replied dryly, looking Aaron up and down briefly before glancing at the file that was on the desk. She then looked up at Finn’s face. Aaron looked at her, tilted her head, and then nodded slightly to herself.
“Let’s go find Kallie, Tas,” Aaron stated, stepping around Kayla and grabbing Tasmin around the shoulders, pushing her out of the office..
“Um…but why do you think you can call me that?” Tasmin replied, confused.
Kayla stared at Finn, who breathed out of his nose before standing up and walking towards her. She pressed a hand to his chest. “I thought I asked you to let me deal with it.”
“I am,” Finn replied, almost adamantly. “I just wanted information. Enough information that I knew what was being dealt with here.”
Kayla frowned deeper, crossing her arms then and looking over his shoulder. “You could have just asked.”
Finn snorted, reaching out and gathering her in his arms again. She let him, keeping her arms solidly crossed. “You wouldn’t have told me anyway. And besides,” he pulled back, reaching for her chin and tilting it toward him so she had to look at him, “you would have told me something along the lines of I don’t know what I’m getting into, and I would have reminded you with the same thing: I have the Yakuza behind me. It’ll be fine.”
She huffed. “No. It won’t, because you don’t listen. Please just let me handle it.”
“No,” he shook his head. “Again, that’s not how this works anymore. You don’t get to come in here and tell me to just fuck off while you do something dangerous. We’re a team.”
“Yes, a tag–”
“Not what I meant, and you fucking know it.”
••••••
Time and time again, we go around and around…it’s the same diatribe uttered from the mouths of pedantic, petulant little children. It’s utterly astonishing how the world of professional wrestling creates bitchy little side quest non-playable characters that think they’re worth more than the ground that they walk on, and that their opinion is validated. I’ve made a career about breaking the chains that have surrounded me, and stepping on the heart and soul of the people who thought this business cared about them.
The last time I faced someone in this company, it was for one of my championships. You know, the things that make the weakest of minds struggle immensely and scream from the rafters that they did it too! Congrats, no one gives a fuck.
If we’re being perfectly honest…no one gives a fuck about anything. I’m speaking probably from a bitter, jaded standpoint here since, at one point, I was one of those people that gave props to everyone under the sun. I thought that guidance while pushing limits, making my opponents bring out the best in themselves to face me, was the best way to approach everything in this business. And what am I greeted with every time that I give myself to the fans?
Derision.
Shit attitudes.
Maliciousness.
Envy.
People thinking that they’re far better than they really are, and refusing to understand where they stand in the cycle.
At the end of the day, every single one of us is replaceable by a new, shinier version. One day, when our bones are broken and our bodies bloodied for the entertainment that our bosses push us to participate in, we’ll sit in our wrestler nursing homes at the age of forty-five and wonder if we had the same charisma as our shiny, one-cent replicas do. And we won’t be thought of again. The gold that we hold is only applicable as something great when it's held for longer than a cup of coffee or a one night stand.
I’ve held the World Heavyweight Championship for one hundred and thirty-eight days. Respectable, but nothing huge. It’ll continue as long as I hold it, and that is against Sean Parker…who I have a sneaking suspicion is one of those shiny new objects that claims they’re platinum, but merely appears to be silver-plated nickel.
Despite the statement that we’ve killed the division, the Wolves of Gheimhridh have held the World Mixed Tag Team Titles for the longest record. We’re sitting at two hundred and fifty-seven days, which is far longer than even some combined reigns.
At the end of the day, it’s not because we’re shiny and get special treatment. It’s not because we slide up to bosses and get them on our sides. It’s not because we fight the power. It’s the simple reason for this, and this alone: we do our job.
You can’t sit there and say that we’re going to be distracted eventually because we have been distracted. We’ve been distracted by each other for the past six months, trying to work together through a failed friendship to realize that we were better together in all senses of the word. We’ve been distracted by our lives, which if you knew the extent of, you’d wonder what the fuck we were doing. We’ve been distracted, but the second that music hits and we step out into the fray, the second we hit that mat and those ropes, we become vicious competitors. Together, we push each other to be better, to fight harder, to fight stronger.
And every time that we face someone, they give us our little congratulations and then tell us why we’re going to fall apart at the end of the day.
Haven’t you been listening? Haven’t you been watching?
There is nothing more that incenses either of us than being taken for granted, or being seen as weaker than we have proven to be time and time again. Perhaps that’s why we respond so venomously when our credibility is questioned: we’ve worked hard to be where we are, and there are so many people in this business, even more so this company who rest of the laurels of their predecessors, thinking that their associations are going to help place them in a higher rung than they deserve to be. From stablemates to nepotism, an air of superiority wafts from the arrogance and once again, not only do I have to remind you who the fuck I am, Kayla has to do it too.
We’re not your World Champions because of our predecessors. How many years did I argue that Wolfslair and I were a business arrangement, not a way of life? Alex Jones can suck my left testicle still, and you’ll never see me say a kind word about Alicia Lukas. We are not the same. Look at any of our prominent wrestlers and tell me I’m wrong. Our predecessors in this division alone thought they were given the grace of God because of their connections.
Furthermore, it’s hilarious to see when you people sit there and tell us that we’re only here because of each other for some reason. It’s a constant running theme: Finn, you’re not good enough because Kayla has gotten all your wins. Kayla, you’re carrying dead weight. It’s Kayla who has done better.
Wouldn’t you know that when we go home, we share the win together? Because, I don’t know…we’re a fucking team?
There’s such a sense of hyper-individuality when it comes to this business that you dumbfucks think that you can settle some seeds of doubt into our heads that we’re not worth it to the other, that we’re the weak link. Maybe fucking learn from us: when the team fails, we fail. When the team wins, we win. Together.
And judging by the fact alone that the Wolves of Gheimhridh are undefeated since October, and that on our own, we are undefeated this year entirely…I would say that neither of us is a weak link in the chain. That isn’t based on ego, that’s based on fact. Our records prove this, and as much as you all want to hate us because you ain’t us, it’s written in stone, in the annals of this company.
Can you say that about yourselves? Any of you? Or are you so desperately blind that you want to stick your heads in the sand and refuse to note that?
Sorry, I’m not going to go for the easy, low hanging fruit that all of you try to do against us. Maybe it’s because I have too much respect for myself. This isn’t a case of not having anything to say, because I certainly do when it comes to The Conspiracy. But what was it our former First Lady told us to do: “when they go low, we go high”, or some shit.
Fuckin’ malarkey.
••••••
It was strange to sit in the library office of the former head of the Yakuza. In reality, this would be the last meeting in the area, but for now, they needed to search the office for any leads on any material.
Finn sat in one of the wingback chairs, watching with hawk eyes as his little brother and his best friend Aiden Reynolds searched through all of the books. About thirty minutes before, Aiden had made some quip about the fact that everything was in Japanese. As time wore on, however, that statement because more and more obvious and true. Luckily, the Australian could also read and speak Japanese, so there was some use to his presence.
Though he was never going to obtain a gun.
Dickie Watson sat behind the desk, staring at a ledger in front of him. It had been there since day one, but he hadn’t bothered looking at it for anything in particular. The new leader of the Yakuza clan, Dickie wasn’t sure at all that he even wanted to continue the business. Things had fallen by the wayside, and even that made the regularly anxious wrestler more frustrated. It wasn’t until Finn had agreed to help that he felt even remotely confident in his new role, and that was only because Finn simply knew more.
“Anythin’ in the ledger yet?”
Dickie, who had his head in his hands as he stared at the kanji in front of him, looked up at Aiden. “Oh, iunno. Maybe the fact that I’m R-U-S-S-I-A-N might hinder me from reading this.”
“Ah, nah, mate. Anyone can speak n’ read a different language. Just takes a bit of ya brain to do it.”
“Well, clearly it doesn’t take much, since you can read it.”
Finn smiled to himself. Dickie and Aiden fought like siblings, and as he sat in the chair, he could see why they were a good team in the end. They trusted each other enough to insult one another, after all. And, after all the shit they’d put each other though, why wouldn’t they trust each other? They’d fallen apart as friends, and then became them once they realized the other wasn’t that much of an idiot. And Aiden had begun to take things seriously as well, which had helped tremendously.
“Give it to me,” Finn stated as he rose to his feet, heading a few feet towards the desk and pressing his hands into it. Dickie turned it around and shrugged his shoulders, signalling that it was up to him now. Finn flipped through the pages, turning the left page back onto the right.
He was on the hunt.
Knowing Kei, it wouldn’t have been a word, and he wouldn’t have given a shit who the leader was. To him, it was about arms deals, about gaslighting, about manipulation to get the things that he wanted. And he wouldn’t have cared who he did business with if it brought him a healthy income. He flipped through the pages quickly, his eyes glancing thoroughly through the pages for a symbol.
A wheel with multiple spokes.
It took a few pages, but he found it. The details of the trade and information about where it went didn’t really interest him. The fact, however, that there was a trade that happened with a tick mark next to it told him that the deal was repeated, and the number “two” next to it told him it was every two months. Kei made trades with the Romani six months out of the year. With his death, and Dickie not following through on those trades, it was going to hurt business.
“This one,” Finn pointed at it, and looked at Dickie, who stared at the page. “If you’re going to start filling in in Kei’s shoes and lead this team, this one is going to be the one that you’re going to want to start trading with it.”
“Oi, isn’t that some gypsy symbol?”
“It’s a rival, Aiden,” Finn said. “And the quicker that we get them on our side, the easier the rest of the shit will go. So set up a meet, and make terms.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if they came to us?”
“You want your head blown off? If you want to spread the word, pick a couple of different ones out of here to restart our deals with. If you need help with that, I’ll go to all the meets with you and speak for you. But this one you need to set up. Now.”
••••••
The Conspiracy has teased for months wanting to face us, but it never quite happened the way that it needed to. Months ago, I think it was, it was Alexander Raven that sat there and said in a press conference that he wasn’t solid enough to face off against me — that the pretty little championships that Kayla and I held were the only way that Alexander Raven was going to step against me since my return to this company. The married couple that The Conspiracy is, together, was the only way that this was ever going to take place. Talk about setting the scene.
As the matches came in and the losses came out, we watched as Alexander Raven went completely batshit crazy and brought forth the idea that the entire company was against him. That Christian and Mark, who rarely speak to me as it is and I’m the face of their company, were setting the stage against him, and he went after Ben Jordan and J2H like a rabid fiend. And then we watched as both Alexander and Luna joined the Blast From the Past and both made it to the finals.
The feeling had to be great, right? Living their dreams with Alexandra Callaway on one side and Sean Parker on the other. It was good for either of The Conspiracy, wasn’t it? Either way, one would ultimately get the chance to face for the championship that they desired. And when Luna signed their fate, it was Alexander who was left one more time to explain his failures. In all honesty, I was disappointed in the showing of The Conspiracy as a unit. Honestly, I can’t imagine that if Kayla and I were set to face one another that we would just so…shoddily present ourselves so that it was really up to our partners.
Nah, we’d both be out for blood. Because that’s our nature.
The past is not always an arbiter of the future, and a lot of the time, I feel like people don’t understand that. People make their waves by the methods in which they change. I’ve always said that leopards can’t change their spots, but not everyone is a leopard now, are they? It’s a commonality in wrestling to equate yourself with some kind of animal as a symbolic representation, and I’m no different. But change can be difficult in this kind of business, because you’re typecast into a role no matter where you go. For instance, I am a wolf. A lone wolf. Whelan is an anglicized version of the word wolf, and that’s what I’ve been known as for eleven years of my life. But this wolf has changed so many times, from a failure, from a choke artist to the demon that you see before you each and every time I step into the ring. Except for a year in the past six, I have done nothing but rise to the top.
Next Level. Champion.
SCW, Champion. Over and over and over.
Fuck, if I’d gone at the Triad, I might have been a champion too. But I stepped back from that chaotic little element because it didn’t fit my needs at the time. And yet it was that very tournament that seemed to bring something else out in you, Alex.
Oh, you’ve certainly changed from the piss-ant that was trying to get anyone’s attention to something different. In some ways, at least. You rose to prominence in the Triad, recognized by your peers finally for a wrestler that moved heaven and earth to try and attain greatness. And yet, again, once more you couldn’t capitalize on the things that you wanted.
And here, you changed your tune, screaming about the conspiracies that surrounded you, and trying to push yourself as a competitor. I’ll admit, you did it on my back. Which honestly isn’t anything new because you repeat over and over and over again to anyone that listens. Alexander Raven beat Finn Whelan twice. It’s been a cornerstone of every promotional video since the press conference.
It’s a rare feat that very few in this company have, and I’m not going to sit here and say that it’s impossible to do so. It’s just extremely fucking rare. But congratulations to you, who beat me when I didn’t give a flying fuck about the Roulette Championship. You, who lost the Roulette Championship a week after winning it to the even lesser Harris. The child Harris.
Smooth.
Meanwhile, you’re correct that the man you faced nearly two years ago now for a championship that I still hold is actual garbage on steroids is no longer present. Finn Whelan, the face of SCW; Finn Whelan, the World Heavyweight Champion; Finn Whelan, the White Wolf, the Virulence, the Seattle Saint, is the man that stands in front of you today. I am no shadow, but the real deal, and the reason you’re going to be licking your wounds another week in a row. This person that stands in front of you knows their worth, knows the levity of the situation, and isn’t about to choke out and fail because it’s finally that time.
Let’s be real for a moment, Alex. You pride yourself on being the Workhorse of SCW. Week in, week out, it doesn’t matter what the match is, you’re a fighter. But in reality, we all do the bidding of your favorite people in the world whether we want to or not. I’ve stated this time and time again: you fight where you’re booked. I will give you the clamor that you deserve, the clapping, and the adulation that being the workhorse has given you.
But respect? Respect is earned, and if you were to beat myself and Kayla – which isn’t probable at any given time within the next six months – you would have earned my respect. I know Kayla brought up your choke artistry, but that’s not important to me. I believe that anyone has a chance if they play their cards right. If luck is in the air, if the stakes are only high enough to bring you to success. Despite all of the changes, all of the pushes, all of the things that you have said and insinuated over the last couple of years…you are still screaming at the heavens for someone to notice you.
You ask all of us to listen, you ask all of us to see, like a prophetic vision of the future in which a calamity falls upon us all. Apocalypse and all the terrors of the hounds of hell because we don’t see your vision of vita mors. But like the prophets of old, you are unclear and misspeak on a regular basis. Truth is only believed from those who speak it regularly.
When have I lied?
When have I told nothing more than the truth?
And that, Raven, is what separates us. I do not spew lies as truth, and no matter my belief system, I am an honest individual. Anyone that comes to me, I sit there and I will tell them the truth of the situation in which they are in. Just as I’ll tell your friend that he isn’t aware of what will cross his path when he faces me. But I don’t need prophecies, and I don’t need the apocalypse. I don’t need to shout at the heavens for you to listen to me.
Note the lack of change in my composure, the calmness contrasting the vitriol that hides behind me when I think of the roster and the fact that the one who won the Blast From the Past was not someone on this roster. We should all be very ashamed that a newcomer wiped the floor with the roster, and we should be better than we were before. It should have put us all on notice, and yet all I see…is the same garbage, week in…week out.
So, no, Raven. Believe me when I say this: I think you have changed, I think you have improved, but you still are not sufficient enough in your ability to come out of this the victor. As for Luna, I am sure Kayla is salivating at the bit to get a measure of her in ring skill – especially as her challenger. It was Luna who was more vicious than even you, it was Luna who pushed for the success of The Conspiracy. It was Luna who wanted her result more than you…and the end result left Luna facing a woman who has hit her stride again and been undefeated. Kayla’s record is stronger than mine, and it will be telling in this match if Kayla wipes the floor with her.
I hope that will put a bit of a step in Luna’s feet, because we all know you are out the door in October.
The Wolves of Gheimhridh are here, and despite the contiuous complaints from the Retirement Community…we’re not about to out of this reign any time soon.
Pay attention…are you listening?
