For once I'm rather pleased with the way things have gone on a ULW show. My opponent bludgeoned into submission, a member of her entourage badly mauled once again, and justice served in the main event where Jason King triumphed once the odds were evened.
Funny how that works.
From top to bottom the whole show was a catharsis for me. I got to beat the peas out of that obnoxious little thorn in my side, Lenore Price-Mason. I got to suplex her brother-cousin-husband Silas, and I got to absolutely maim a member of her overpopulated entourage.
My one regret is that I didn't get that chance to punt that little kid into the gods damned Jumbotron. that would've made my year.
But no, I'll settle for literally giving Mr. Joshua the spear. On the bright side that guy is going to have an absolute amazing Jesus halloween costume for decades to come. And while he may not be able to have a wank now, and will have to hope for Silas to splurge of some of New Eden's demonic frankenhookers, Ol' Josh'll have a pair of Fleshlights wherever he goes from now on! He can even use his hands as a whistle!
*Twee!*
*Twee!*
Just like that!
And of course ol Silas is raising a tremendous stink over the whole matter on Twitter. That guy tossed out a whole bunch of dehumanizing language and what I'm pretty sure where some racial slurs. Bigot, sexist, racist bastard.
He clammed right the fuck up pretty quickly when I asked him how many persons of color had ever been employed by Silas World. My guess? The same number of books read by Champion the Wonder Horse! A big fat zero!
Silas is huffing and puffing and threatening to get me sent to court on criminal charges. Oh please. What criminal charges? It's a pro wrestling event for fuck's sake!
Oh sure, I was a hell of a lot more brutal than most people would be. But then again you need only one look at me to see that I'm nothing like most people.
But we did agree on one point, that ULW doesn't care one whit about the safety of its wrestlers and its employees. I've never seen security involved in one of my matches, not one hide nor hair of them in close to a half dozen attacks on my person carried out by Lenore Price-Mason.
When an unscheduled participant enters a match, I expect security to get out there to attempt to regain control, to restore the flow of the match to what it was supposed to be. But nope, security is nowhere to be found.
So when Mr. Joshua laid his hands on me, I defended myself. I defended myself and I did what ULW would not. I assured that the sanctity of my match would go unsullied from that point on. I took away his capacity to interfere in my match, along with the capacity to pet a puppy, feed himself, and wipe his own ass.
But it's not like this was something out of the blue. It's not like this was a surprise. Oh no. I told Silas that if he wanted a war, it would be a war he'd get. He invaded ULW with the intent on making my life a complete and utter misery, and now he's getting all weak in the knees the moment I started fighting back.
Amazing how the bullies crumble, isn't it? The moment that they discover that they have no power over you that they go scurrying back into hiding and cowering behind things like legal threats and tattling to the bossman on you.
I'm proud of that match.
I'm proud of what I did to Mr. Joshua.
I just wish I could've destroyed even more of Silas World.
But I did get to lash out at the other half of the Shadow Cartel. I got to smack New Eden right in its hideous, festering, pus-sore filled face.
Weeks ago I put out the offer, if anybody in the Triad needed someone to help them stand up against the numbers game of the Shadow Cartel, I'd be there to answer the call. They sought to keep the title they stole from Jason King through an unfair advantage, and I simply levelled the playing field. By levelling Adam.
I sent that son of a she-jackal staggering straight to the back.
And then when Dante tried to interfere, oh gee Dante interfering in the main event segment, GEE WHO EVER WOULD HAVE THOUGHT? Who comes up to spoil the fun but Silencer, the man ol Braceface put on the injured list waaay back at ReBirth, wasn't it?
I'm surprised that Willow hasn't hiked up be meat curtains, taken some pictures of rooftop air conditioners, run those sumbitches through a desaturation filter, and tossed the fuckers all up on Twitter along with her usual weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
"Oh how dare you Kalinda! Shame on you Silencer! I am a precious special snowflake, and thus I am the only one allowed to use certain tactics to my advantage. It's so unfair that my attempt to run a numbers game on Jason King blew up in my face and resulted in me losing the ULW World Heavyweight Championship."
It's amazing, isn't it? Amazing how when I open my mouth and words fall out that I just so happen to be right. Willow's never been able to beat Jason King in a fair fight, and lo and behold when she was dragged kicking and screaming into a fair fight she lost.
And now she's probably gone sobbing to Raymond der Vaart, telling how Kalinda and Silencer and Jason King were just a bunch of big old meanie pants! Oh it's such a terrible thing that a wrestler went and direly injured a member of their opponent's entourage. Such a horrible, despicable, abominable thing that needs to be punished.
Except when it's Gemma Spector and not Mr. Joshua.
That's the way things always seem to be in ULW, isn't it? Things are absolutely terrible, loathsome, abhorrent behaviors. Until the Shadow Cartel does them.
And other things are terribly tragedies, sad accidents, unavoidable but lamentable circumstances. Until somebody else does it, then it's a slap in the face and a hiking up of Lady Justice's robes to fuck the old blind biddy in the ass.
I've been saying for so long how slanted and skewed this company was. About how disgustingly unfair the policies of this federation have been since basically day one.
But you know what?
I don't care any more.
Why?
Because I'm in a position to change it.
WE are in a position to change it.
I've put my ego aside, I'm not afraid to have somebody standing by my side against injustice. I'm not above letting somebody else take the spotlight, of letting Jason King be World Heavyweight Champion if it means that through sportsmanship and teamwork I can help make ULW a better place for everybody involved.
Except the Shadow Cartel. Except for New Eden. Except for Silas World.
Because fuck those people.
Fuck those people with a rusty clockwork dildo.
This main event match? This is a punishment for Silencer and I, this is our supposed penance for DARING to even the odds, for having the GALL to stand up for what is right, to spit in the face of injustice and give it a knee in the balls.
Willow and Adam get to get their hands on the people responsible for the biggest loss of face New Eden has had since they had to take Ba'al off the air after the whole incident about the fruit bat, duct tape, an urban legend about Richard Gere, and some complaints from animal rights activists.
Vini! Ah, ah, ah, ah!
That's a vampire laugh.
While New Eden sees this as an opportunity for revenge and Leo the Fart looks at this match as punishment, do you know what I see?
I see two more acceptable targets.
I see two more tendrils of the Shadow Cartel, reaching out from the dark, dank dungeon of petulance. Tentacles filled with blood and noise and whiny, snotty crocodile tears that I can take out my frustrations on.
Oh I have been waiting for this. For the opportunity to reach out and grab the thing that's in Adam's driver seat and beat the absolute shit out of it.
You heard me, demon-boy, you're going to get a foot up your incorporeal ass EXORCISM! I've incredibed the steel toe of my boot with a one way ticket back to hell for you, Captain Doodie! It's just too bad I can't pitch Angel Kash, Steve Smith, and Raymond der Vaart into the handbasket with you.
And Willow?
Honestly, what can I say about Weeping Willow that I haven't already said?
This isn't a punishment.
This is a reward.
I am going to tear down everything that Silas World and New Eden hope to accomplish in ULW. I started with Lenore Price-Mason and I'm not going to stop until we get the scent of meat curtains and frankenhookers out of the gods damned ring mats.
I'm going to stop the Shadow Cartel.
I'm going to stop you COLD.
Three days out from Ascendancy and I've decided to take the day off from training, slacking off in the comparatively balmy 50 degree weather in the park with a carton of ice cream with diminutive peanut butter cups. Of course I'm not satisfied leaving it unadorned. I've got a jar of copper BB's that I've been periodically shaking over the concoction like they were sprinkles.
I'm a dragon, I have weird dietary needs and cravings for weird minerals. It's not like I'm ruining my teeth by noshing on the things anyway. Dragon's teeth are scary levels of durable. They have to be to handle enchanted saliva that breaks down just about anything from metal to gemstones.
It's a shame you people have let one corporation run roughshod over your diamond productions, because those things are a hell of a lot more common than most people think. Artificial supply restrictions that make having the world's most delicious jawbreaker a rather rare treat for me. Though opals are almost as tasty and a hell of a lot cheaper.
Not even the nagging whispers at the edge of my hearing, a sign that the Matriarch is being lazy and wants me to summon her up with my own power, rather than have her use some of hers, can bring down my mood. If she wants to talk she can pull on her big girl panties and suck up the cost of calling on me.
Well, she'd put on her big girl panties if they A, made panties in her size, and B, could find her forelimbs. Her true form is essentially a writhing nest of slithery draconic heads and necks, liberally interlaced with tails and wings. I presume she's got a torso in there somewhere, but for all her consumed aspects of draconic gods, goddesses, heroes, and villains she's still only got four legs to call her own.
Of course a day that is going so pleasantly has to immediately be shat on by the cosmos, as my ice cream binge and happy thoughts are derailed by the cocking of a gun's hammer right behind my head.
Honestly, it's New York, I'm surprised it's taken this long for some twitchy drugged up mugger to work up the nerve to try and extort money out of the big blue thing that's probably a figment of his imagination.
"What the fuck did you do?" growl a shaky, near-panicked female voice. I grin as I recognize the source.
"Ah, Dr. Claw. I've been expecting you."
Dr. Claw is short for Dr. Claudia… well, her last name doesn't really matter, since she doesn't really have a family or friends any more. I kind of ripped her out of living memory with a powerful artifact of a weapon from my collection of crap I've accumulated over my years of adventuring.
She was annoying me and was laying down threats in this repulsively snide, egomaniacal manner. You know the sort. The kind of attitude you develop when you've never had to lift a finger for anything in your entirely life. The sort of person who through money, power, or both can get each and every whim carried out tout suite.
In short precisely the kind of person that having anybody and everybody with anything more than a passing connection to her suddenly forgetting that she ever existed would screw up pretty bad.
"Change it back!" she demands.
"Change what back?" I ask, trying my very best not to giggle.
"The world! Change the world back to the way it was!"
I slowly turn my head so as not to provoke her. This part of the park isn't particularly well trafficked, which is why I've been hanging out here to begin with, but who knows what a stray shot might do?
Doc isn't looking so hot. She's dropped weight, her skin's pale, she's got bags under her eyes. Signs of stress, lack of sleep. Her clothes aren't the tailored sort this time and they're not the kind of expensive stuff that she'd get via swiping them from a relative. It looks like thrift store stuff.
"You know, if you took more than a grand from his bank account it's grand larceny, and that's a felony."
"Shut up! It's my money too!"
"I highly doubt he'd see it that way."
"Just because nobody remembers me doesn't mean that I don't exist! Now change everything back!"
"Or what?" I saw, putting down my ice cream and BB's, standing up slowly from the bench.
"Or I'm going to kill you." she says, seeming to almost try and hide behind the revolver.
"No, you're not."
"Yes I am! Don't push me, dragon!"
I grin, "Oh, so I'm definitely a dragon now, am I?"
"And don't try that safety's on trick with me! Cause it's not!"
Damn, I was actually going to use that. I mean how many times do you have the perfect opportunity to use one of the classic lines in a real life situation?
"How much of your ill gotten gains did that thing cost?"
"I didn't buy it! It belongs to..."
I suck in a breath through my teeth. "That's DEFINITELY a felony."
"I don't care!"
"You should. It's one to four years in prison."
"I want my life back!" she whimpers, eyes tearing up.
"Sorry, no can do. Oh theoretically I'm sure it's possible, but I'm neither a skilled mage nor a master artificer who can ask the thing to spill its secrets. I'm just the end user. It's the difference between using a word processor and making a computer with breadboard and parts."
She looks me over, judging my sincerity. I'm being completely truthful when I say I haven't a clue how to put her back to her proper place in living memory. I don't have a clue how Memory Ripper works. It's always been more of a curiosity than an actual, functional weapon. Thus because it's never been a part of my offensive arsenal, I've never really had anyone qualified take an in-depth look at the thing.
"Then I guess you're gonna die." she says with a sigh, sighting down the gun's barrel.
I just shake my head and glare at her. Though getting shot stings like hell it's nothing close to an actual injury. It's more like a bee sting would be to a typical human being.
"Go for center of mass, please." I say, all smiles, politeness, and sugar sweetness, "I don't want the bullet to go rocketing off into the park and adding to the pile of ULW dead babies. Remember hitting me upside the head with a big hunk of metal? Yeah, same rules apply."
If the gun were shooting magic bullets, then I might have to be worried. But I'm a dragon, I'd be able to smell the things a mile away.
"On the topic of being able to smell things a mile away, child, my demonheart aspect has noticed that there happen to be an unusually large group of demonic souls headed in this general direction. They'll arrive in a few minutes."
The Manyfold Matriarch has decided, apparently, to eat the charges for calling collect and manifest herself behind me and just over my shoulder, as she tends to do.
After a few moments of staring directly at the large alabaster monster just over my shoulder Claudia shrieks and fires her gun, aiming at the Matriarch. She's not actually there, it's merely a spiritual manifestation. But the bullet can do some damage if it continues on a path.
My left hand reaches out of its own accord, snapping up at an impossible speed the moment Claudia's finger began squeezing the trigger. The Hand of Arimus is an artifact of a death god, and Claudia's intent was to kill. The Hand knows the path of impending death and moves itself to intercept the shot.
At a low rate of fire, yes, I can grab bullets out of the air. It's not comfortable, in fact it feels like getting high fived by someone swinging their hand as hard as possible. But taking the shot on the quasi-metal of the Hand of Arimus is much better than getting shot on my bare skin.
"Don't do that. She's not going to hurt you."
"I couldn't even if I wanted to. I am utterly incapable of manifesting a fully physical form."
I blink for a few seconds.
"Wait, you can see her?" I ask. Normal people can't see aspects of the supernatural, like the Matriarch when she's manifesting to me. Some folks can, anybody with a goodly amount of magic power can, for example. But Claudia is definitely not a wizard.
"...wh-what is that?" she murmurs, pointing the gun at the ground.
I open my hand and dismissively flick the crumpled bullet off of my palm.
"She's the Manyfold Matriarch. Desposed cannibalistic dragon goddess who went and ate herself out of house, home, worshippers, and her entire species."
"They were delicious, and I consumed their power." the Matriarch says matter of factly.
"And of course she can see me, child. All my worshippers can."
I raise a brow, "That's a rather abrupt change in policy. Ever since you decided to sublet my head you've stated that you will under no circumstances accept non-draconic worshippers."
"Umm… I'm Lutheran, I definitely do not worship THAT."
"Technically you do. You confessed before my avatar, the mortal wielder of my power, that you would in fact believe anything she desired, so long as your life was spared."
"No! I'll never worship you! That's… I don't know what it is, but it's wrong!"
"Alas, little one, whatever deity you believe you serve cares so little for you that she never bothered to claim your soul. Even if you renounce me you are still mine. Though I'm sure that our soon to be visitors might be absolutely thrilled to rid you of the whole mess of a soul entirely."
"So they're definitely headed this way?"
"They are in fact homing in on this very spot."
"Interesting." I turn to the camera. Its operator, Mr. Hush, has been assigned to me by one Leeland Gaunt, pyromancer and one of this world's foremost magical authorities, for just such an event as this.
As magical and sorcerous I am, I'm still mostly mortal. I can't see beyond the veil of the material plane. Purely spiritual forces, like demons, are utterly invisible to me. Just as they are to everyone else when they do not wish to be seen.
"Lights, if you would please, Mr. Hush." I say. The camera goes up and down as he gives his acknowledgement and a bright blue set of LED lights illuminate. Even in the middle of the day these things are bright. You know the kind if you have any sort of modern electronics. The little light the size of a pinhead that turns a whole room blue when you have a hard drive on after sunset.
Claudia turns to look at who I'm speaking to and jumps. To her Mr. Hush was not there a minute ago, my cameraman literally beyond her perception.
"Simple stealth charm. Unless attention is brought to him people's attention just slides off. He's recognized as being there, but of absolutely no importance. Fun little charm for intel gathering, absolutely useless for burglary. It dispels the moment you pick something up beyond the original activation."
I reach into the pocket of my coat, pulling out a box of Morton table salt. I start pouring it in a large circle around Claudia.
"Stay in this thing. Demons can't cross it on their own. The demonically inhabited can, but immaterial beings are blocked by it entirely. I don't want you possessed and coming after me."
"First a dragon, then a goddess, now demons?"
"Don't you watch the damned Triad shows? The things are all over the fucking place with Sinistry and New Eden."
The balmy day turns chilly, and though there isn't a change of cloud cover, light seems to dim from the immediate area as a half dozen or so men slowly approach without a care in the world.
On the surface they look like gang members. They may well have been, once. But not any more. They stink, they positively reek of brimstone. Usually they don't at a distance, but with the light revealing the ethereal, it's seeping over.
I can see the subtle signs on some of them, where their wispy forms don't quite match up with their meat suits when they move. On the one in front, it's obvious, as he's got an additional two or three coiled around his form, like barbed, thorny snakes with arms.
Demons of Possession.
The leader's perfectly comfortable in his stolen skin, nothing out of the ordinary save for his pure black eyes even in the revealing light. Corpsetaker. A demon that can inhabit and revitalize a dead body for its own personal use. The things are damnably dangerous since they can can just shuck a body like a t-shirt and hop into another vacant dead dude without issue. Sure, they'll get pissy about it if you shred their shells, it's like tearing up their favorite t-shirt, but they'll live. For certain values of life.
And the stench gets worse. It's like morning breath if you've been eating rotten meat and drinking pus for a few weeks. Bound Vessels. One of the few ways mankind on this world has found to get rid of demons and devils for good is to bind them to a physical object, usually something made of silver, as it doesn't rust. They can't leave the object, only interacting with something touching their prison.
So you get a demon bound to a silver coin, you put that under somebody's tongue, you sew the tongue to the bottom of their mouth, and then you sew their lips shut. Bound demons can become incredibly powerful, so some demonic overlords will stuff some of their weaker members into objects and then stuff the object into a host to give them some cheap and easy muscle.
Of course this means the host can't eat or drink, and end up subsisting entirely on the power of their demon. For a lot of the possessed being parted from their malevolent spirit means death.
"So this is the alien annoyance, come to pester the forces of darkness from beyond the veil." the leader hisses. He's the only one without a bandana covering a stitched up mouth.
"Yup, that'd be me. You boys New Eden lackies?"
He chuckles, "Merely opportunists. Your elimination or your subservience would be looked upon as a favor."
"Not gonna happen, creepo." I say pleasantly. Everyone hates it when threats and bluster are met with saccharine sweetness.
He raises one arm, pointing at me, sending one of his possessor demons flying right at me. If I were purely a mortal being, it might be able to get a foothold in my soul and after a valiant struggle suppress my consciousness and take over my body.
But I'm not purely mortal.
I'm a dragon.
And not only am I a dragon, but I have a special gift when it comes to things like demons.
I might not be able to see them on my own, but I can touch them. I'm completely and utterly solid to anything on the ethereal plane. I can kick devils in the nuts, I can spit in the face of an angel, I can pimp slap a ghost.
I can also grab an ugly snakey bastard out of the air with one hand, slam it into the other, and then snap its gods-damned neck.
I toss the demon's twitching form aside. I've killed it, for now. I've just given it a one way ticket back to Hell.
I grin, "Y'all got any more of them motherfucking snakes?" I say, quoting both Dave Chapelle and Samuel L. Jackson.
The quip halts them dead in their tracks.
Well, probably it was having their comrade utterly destroyed in seconds by a purely physical being, which is not supposed to happen. But I like to think they were stunned by my command of pop culture.
"Get her!" says the corpsetaker, siccing his minions on me.
That's the whole purpose of having minions, being able to point at a target say "Get her!" and have them eagerly charge in. I swear to the goddess, my tail is wagging. I haven't had a proper fight with a baddie lieutenant and a troop of real, actual minions in so long.
They've got switchblades, brass knuckles, and one guy has a length of pipe because of course he does. And it is absolute bliss. It's like coming home as I rush at them, not waiting for them to come to me.
I'm absolutely huge, and being absolutely huge people tend to forget just how damned fast I can be. One on one fights have seldom been my thing, beating the fuck out of the unwashed masses has always been my bread and butter.
Sidestep a clumsy stab, duck under a poorly thrown punch, ruminate on the fact that these guys REALLY stink, grab the guy with the pipe by the wrist as he's bringing it down, grab that same shoulder and swing him as a makeshift club against two of his buddies.
I stop to admire my handiwork for a moment, sucking in a deep breath and letting loose with my Coldfire. It feels so good to be able to use it as a proper weapon again, not just to emulate a flash paper fireball.
The Bound Vessels are dry, dessicated things and they catch light immediately. Infused with the fires of hell, devils and demons are typically resistant to fire. But not my fire. My fire is against the natural order, infused with the Void element, which warps the laws of physics to the point of shattering them at times. My fire burns cold, and it burns even those that fear no flame.
Occupied with setting his three buddies on fire, one of the two remaining minions decides that my back is a prime target for stabbing. I've been whacked upside the head by a dumbbell bar, I've been bludgeoned with steel chairs, I was shot a few minutes ago. Being stabbed by an oversized Swiss Army Knife is nothing.
I elbow the demon in the face, sending him staggering back. I swat his pal's clumsy thrust to the side and headbutt him hard enough to break his nose. I swing on one foot, building my tail to incredible momentum. I hear the first one's knees shatter as I take them out from underneath him.
The second is still staggering from the blow, his hands covering his eyes as he tries to instinctively protect his agonized snout.
The Hand of Arimus is a necromantic artifact, it has power over the dead. So with a moment to prepare I let it draw on a tiny piece of my power to fuel a minor spell. I hit the demon like "The Demon" Kane, with an uppercut style throat thrust. Only with my spell-wrapped gauntlet dead tissue becomes like tissue paper. I tear right through the throat reaching up to grab the bound vessel's demonic driver, ripping it out entirely.
I turn and bring my fist down on the head of the fallen demon with the busted legs, two for two in the ripped out coin count. I chuckle and rid my gauntlet of dried blood, desiccated tissue, and disgusting brain matter with a gout of sapphire flame.
"Oh my god! Get away!" shrieks Claudia.
I turn to find that the corpsetaker has plowed through the circle of salt I put around my erstwhile assassin. He's staggered a bit by going through the damned thing, but wrapped in his stolen corpsey cloak he can barge right on through, instead of being seared to a crisp like the possession demon that had been clinging to him, and was writhing on the ground just outside the circle.
Claudia fires once, twice, three times. Hell, she empties the revolver into the corpsetaker, each bullet accompanied not merely with a muzzle flash, but a trail of searing light.
The demon shrieks as the bullets tear through not only its physical shell, but wounding the evil spirit within as well. The creature sheds its tattered form and rockets straight up into the air, seeking to escape the circle of salt it would otherwise be trapped in via simply going up until there is only emptiness. Salt circles are an imperfect protection and an imperfect trap when out of doors.
Divested of its host the corpse virtually explodes into a cloud of dust and discarded gangland clothes. Boy, that body had been occupied for quite awhile if its driving force's departure turned it into complete dust.
The narrow possession demon tries to slither into the circle through the scuffed gap its leader's foot made, but I grab the thing before it can wiggle in all the way and dispatch it just like I did the previous one.
Claudia is flat on her seat on the opposing edge of the circle, covered in corpse dust, which she spits out in disgust.
"What just happened?"
"You DID ask for my aid in getting that thing to go away. That, my pet, is a prayer, and that gives me power and a path to act on your request."
I turn to the pile of burning demons, and give them a DX style crotch chop. "Yeah, consider your asses divinely smote, bitches!"
"So, wait." Claudia says to the Matriarch, "You can give out magical powers?"
"What kind of third rate hack of a deity does not give credence to her followers faith and reward their devotion with miracles?"
"What kind of a third rate hack of a deity om nom noms her entire following?"
"Hush, child, now is not the time for pointless commentary."
"I… I don't feel so good." Claudia says before vomiting violently and falling over.
I step through the salt circle and can suddenly smell the fungal taint in the air.
The corpse hadn't turn to dust because of age, but rather because it had been turned into a weapon to be unleashed upon being abandoned by its host. A self destruction mechanism.
Oh fuck.
(To be continued…)
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