-Promo-
No one wants to do their fucking job around here. The referees that cannot see, the management won't do anything remotely resembling good business, the booking committee cannot stop changing its fucking mind after the preliminary card already goes out, and the other wrestlers refuse to fucking wrestle real fucking wrestling matches.
I've tried. Goddess knows I've tried so hard to actually go out there and perform the functions of the task for which I am under contract to provide. I was under the impression that professional wrestlers were supposed to be gladiators for a new day and a new age. That they would take part in grand, glorious displays of one on one combat with the purpose of providing bloodsport for the entertainment of the masses.
But it's so difficult to do that when a select minority of one's co-workers holds to the same ideals. They do not want to have fights, they do not want to have battle, they do not want to partake in grand, glorious struggles filled with honor and drama, with both parties through mind, body, and soul into the flames of combat to obtain victory.
No, they simply wish to bypass the whole struggle part and simply be handed glory and victory on a silver fucking platter. I gave Brandon Vow a chance. I gave him an opportunity. I let him have everything he'd need to show the world the truth of his words.
I gave him every chance to claim the title of Dragonslayer. I held back all night. I let him pour everything he had into me and in the end he could not get the job done. When the bell rang, I was not slain. I was standing tall with the object that he had chosen in his feeble attempt to slay me, the object that he had swung with all his strength. The object that failed completely and utterly to do anything more than fuel my rage.
Brandon Vow did not accomplish his boast. He did not slay the dragon. The creature that was lying in a mewling heap of anguish and agony when the bell rang was not I. Vow's pained carcass was put on display to the world, telling anyone and everyone with a functional pair of eyes who the true warrior is.
What a wonderful place to be, wherein an official will completely and totally ignore the rather distinctive, INDESCRIBABLY LOUD sound of several square feet worth of metal object being smacked against four hundred pounds of flesh at high velocity. Where said official ignores this sound TWICE and the following EVEN LOUDER sound of a metal-clad fist punching said chair.
Fine. I understand. I've come to expect such piss poor conditions here in ULW, where referees not only lack the capacity for self preservation, but are legally blind and hard of hearing as well! I'm sure der Vaart's getting some tax breaks somewhere for employing disabled referees.
To quote a man from a highly educated university, most of ULW knows they can't beat me one on one, so they're not even going to try. They're going to cheat, they're going to manipulate the rules, bend the circumstances, achieve victory like a coward, not as a warrior. Brandon Vow is not a warrior. He's a liar, he's a con man, he's the scum of the earth.
What you did to my leg, Vow? All that is, is pain. Pain is temporary, pain is transitory, pain fades, pain goes away. A little pinch, some discomfort, and a touch of redness. You can't hurt me, Vow. No one can.
You can't hurt me. You can't wound me. You can't damage me. I'm not like anything anyone has ever wrestled before. I simply do not wear down. I will always fight at one hundred percent each and every week, each and every match.
This isn't a secret. This isn't some carefully hoarded information, written in the margins of a book in a secret code, kept in a lockbox, locked in a trunk, sealed within a cargo container, resting at the bottom of the fuckin Marianas Trench. This is something I have to SHOUT FROM THE FUCKING ROOFTOPS EACH AND EVERY WEEK.
It's like there's some sort of fog around the diseased little brains of all the ULW wrestlers that the moment they take their eyes off me makes them forget that I've a seven foot tall motherfucking dragoness from another world that breathes fire. I've taken shots that would end the careers of normal human beings and walked out under my own power.
The world isn't as blind as that referee, Brandon. They know your words for the lies they are, the boasts that you tell to make your legend seems all the greater, when in reality you are a shadow of what you claim to be.
You're a spoiled manchild with a pretty vocabulary, Vow. You think that the world around you is your play room, and that human beings are your toys to play with. Demanding that people belong to you, breaking them and casting them aside when they don't fit your plans and refuse to accept your bleak gospel.
I've suffered a wrong at your hands once again, Vow, you've stolen something that rightfully belongs to me, and I mean to collect redress from you and yours. It's no surprise that rather than risk undirected anger and wrath, ULW management has seen fit to placate me with a blood offering.
After having been wronged by their leader, I get to tear apart one of the Crows for my own amusement. To slap Brandon Vow in the face for his disrespect by breaking one of his toys. And do you know what? He knows it. He knows what I'm going to do and he doesn't care.
In the dark, wee hours of the morning the clarion call went out over the series of tubes; Kalinda Kreigsdottir was to be given Mya Denton to devour, that the best pure warrior in ULW would face the yardstick for suck, the worst wrestler on the roster that der Vaart will actually pay to keep.
I'm not sure how long that was the case, but it wasn't too terribly long before an alteration came down the wire. Instead of Vow's right hand gal pal, who is maybe legitimately mentally disturbed and being exploited or maybe just exploiting the psychologically traumatized to further her own career because she sure as hell can't get things done in the ring or on the mic, I've got good 'ol Isamu Ichirou.
Good ol Itchy Ichirou, who managed to lose a match and get his contract sold to Brandon Vow and forced to obey his whim. Isamu, whose own manager has decided to sell him out and hop about the Hillbilly Dicksucking Wagon for some of those sweet, sweet neo-televangelist buckaroos.
The member of the Crows that Brandon Vow gives the least fucks about. Who cares if I fold Isamu's spine in half and have him shipped back to Japan in a full body cast and an iron lung? Certainly not Vow. All he needs to do is talk the Lying Dutchman into signing another match for some other midcarder's contract and make them his brand new personal slave. Isn't that wonderful? That at a whim der Vaart can decide to make somebody the Virgil of the modern age without even the base comforts of fuck money.
Everyone else is rewarded for carnage and destruction. Denton's stuffed her cattle prod down the throats of who knows how many wrestlers and she got a Tag Team title shot out of the deal. New Eden has wrought I don't know how much carnage, and yet there hasn't been a single World title match that hasn't featured either Willow Wilkes or Jason King.
I'm tired. I'm tired of the hypocrisy, of there being different rules and standards of behavior for different people here in ULW. The worst people are rewarded for their wickedness. The foulest people are rewarded for failure, while the stalwart, honorable souls that refuse to be tarnished by ULW's innate darkness are punished for victory.
Cassandra Mason was so bad at her job in management she was fired, rehired as an active wrestler, and was given a title shot that she won and that she wishes to abandon. Her cousin LOST two consecutive matches to me, and she remains in the hunt for that very same title. Willow Wilkes was HANDED one half of the tag team championships, and she has had exactly one match to defend them since their inception.
ULW would not reward me when I sarcastically declared myself a "Certified Baddie," and playfully mocked the sorts of ill behavior that received everything on a silver platter. So let's see what happens when I lash out for real, not at one of the empty suits, one of the corporate puppets, one of the demonic drones who would've ended my career had I not been the bipedal equivalent of an M1 Abrams main battle tank.
Brandon Vow and Raymond der Vaart realized that giving me Mya Denton would be playing into my hands. She is a tiny, fragile thing that I would be able to torment in the middle of the ring like a child tearing the legs off of a grasshopper one by one.
I would enjoy it. I would love to remove her from ULW the way she's removed so many others. After all, we don't need her. She's superfluous. I am everything that Mya Denton is, but better. She's a tiny slip of a woman, I am a powerful juggernaut. She's got a voice in her head that might or might not be real, depending on how you want to count entities I have at minimum three, all of which I can summon forth to hold a conversation with you outside of my own body.
I am capable of unleashing incredible, unspeakable violence capable of maiming, mauling, and crippling anyone who stands in my way, and I don't need props to do it. All I need to send someone to the hospital are my own bare hands. Mya can give somebody a little bitty electric burn with her cattle prod, I can cause deep tissue damage to the entirety of someone's body with a ten second sustained blast of Coldfire.
But Brandon needs his toys, his playthings. He can't get the job done without his prized, "psychologically disturbed" enforcer to bring an extra heaping scoop of violence in the Kellog's Raisen Bran that is the Crows.
Which makes Isamu the bran flakes. The flavorless, bland, uninteresting flakes that were invented as an anti-masturbatory aid by the master of the yogurt enema, John Harvey Kellog.
In order to be raised through the ranks around here it seems the quickest way to the top is to lash out at somebody who is simply trying to do their job. Just trying to go from show to show doing their best, trying to play by the rules. In order to be rewarded one must not merely break the rules, not merely manipulate the situation to their advantage, but to punish their honorable foe, to make them regret ever daring to think that fair play, entertaining the fans, and leaving your opponent in condition enough to allow them to participate in matches week after week.
Brandon Vow will not allow me to get my hands on him until he has literally no other choice but to face me. I have to get him into a corner. I have to get him alone. I have to get him at a disadvantage. And unfortunately, Isamu, that means that I'm going to have to break all of Brandon's toys first.
You.
Mya.
And now Eli.
There's no way you can stop it. The numbers game doesn't work against me for very long. No matter how hard you hit me, I'm going to come back. I'm a dragon, I don't wear down, I don't wear out. The moment you stop hitting me is the moment that I start getting better. While you're still nursing your sore muscles, I'm back in tip top fighting shape, ready to go another round.
And if I have to attack the Crows three times a show until each and every one of them is broken into itty bitty pieces, that's exactly what I'll do. The Crows are all equals, after all. You're a family. There's no real leader, so you're all equally to blame.
But don't worry, Isamu, this is going to be all for the best. After all, Vow can't do anything with your contract when you're physically unable to compete, now can he? He can't force you to do anything from your hospital bed.
All you need to do to escape from his clutches is to have the nerve to stand in the ring, accept your beating by a superior warrior, and spend a few months with all the Jello, applesauce, pudding, and sushi smoothies you can slurp through a straw, and more sponge baths than you can shake a stick at.
Either Vow holds on to your contract and pays you to do nothing, or he sells it to someone else, who will also be paying you to do nothing. Either way you end up out of Vow's influence, free from his machinations and manipulations. Long enough for me to personally teach him the error of his ways.
I'm going to give Brandon Vow a taste of his own medicine.
Unfortunately, Isamu, you have the misfortune of being the first bitter pill that Glorious Leader has to swallow.
I hope he chokes on it.
-CD-
My surroundings are unfamiliar to me, and yet remind me so much of home. There might be some place on Earth with more magical crap crammed into one room, but it's going to be a close call.
I can feel the ley line behind me, the one bound to an eternally burning gauntlet forged from the prisons of a thousand angelic, demonic, and spectral beings. It sits over a basin that produces a seemingly endless trickle of oil.
There's a mirror in the corner, made of bronze and decorated with a vine motif. It too is an object of incredible power that stands head and shoulders above and beyond any other magical artifacts this world has to offer. In the case of the mirror, it's because it's not of this world. I've seen something like it before; a dimensional focus used to open a portal to the Void, the space between worlds.
Usually the passage of time ceases entirely in the Void, but there are pockets where the more typical laws of physics, time, and space exist. Of course that's due to their proximity to beings of immense power with the capacity to warp reality through their simple existence.
That particular one is known as She Who Thrives Between. If plants had were made out of flesh, skin, blood, and bone instead of bark, leaves, sap, and wood, filled with an endlessly multiplying, corruptive (and also sweet, tasty, and addictive) black blood, and had animalistic features spliced in they'd be pretty close to the simplest of Her constructs.
Spark described her as "A Hive Mind Plant-Cthulhu Jewish Mother the size of a galaxy." Probably the most pleasant eldritch abomination that I've heard of. She still wants to bring every living thing in existance under her sway, yank herself out of the Void, and get rid of that whole "Between" bit of her name. Becoming simply She Who Thrives.
Nagging mother-knows-best who is not only capable of reading your thoughts, but altering them to serve her design. And also altering your body to serve her design as well. And she's doing it for your own good, don'tchaknow?
Yes, I admit the first time I heard Sarah Palin speak I screamed and tried to flee from the eldritch abomination that I thought she was. As opposed to the eldritch abomination I later learned that she actually was. The fact that somebody thought that it was a good idea to have that woman potentially one heartbeat away from being ruler of the free world says a whole hell of a lot about this world particular incarnation of mankind.
I am, of course, in the office of one Leeland Gaunt, premiere sorcerer of Planet Earth, pyrokinetic extraordinaire, and the summoner of two bonafide professional wrestling monsters. One being me, and the other being ex-IWC NHB champion Legion.
Mr. Gaunt is the one who took over the summoning spell that brought me to this world, and unfortunately one of the foremost authorities on the planet on magic. Unfortunate because he also doesn't have a clue how the fuck to get me home.
Well, aside from attempting to pop through using that mirror. But I don't want Mrs. Grabby Tentacles going all Japanese hentai on my ass, and I'm pretty sure that nobody wants an extraplanar plant monster taking root on then devouring the whole world. So that on'es on the back burner.
Mr. Gaunt himself is rather suited to his chosen pseudonym; tall and thin, lanky blond hair, an ever-present pair of sunglasses, various suits (often red, possibly from Satan's tailor), and a pair of decidedly fascist-looking leather gloves.
"So, Ms. Kriegsdottir...,"
"Actually I'm pretty sure I've jumped up a few rungs on the social ladder back home. We'd have to make another batch of minion juice with just me providing the dragon DNA. But since Claudia's wings turned out the way they did, I'm pretty sure that I'm actually a blooded member of House Kajara." I say with a shrug.
Gaunt raises a brow, "Aren't they that crazy try to breed the perfect creature through sorcery, alchemy, genetic engineering, and breeding by anything with a pulse?"
"Yup, that's them!"
"And you said any attempt to determine your ancestry through thaumaturgic meats resulted in severe headaches, exploded crystal balls, and visions of illogical and impossible genetic possibilities?"
"The crystal balls tend to implode actually. And yes, I've gotten weird and wacky shit like having three parents belonging to two mutually exclusive bloodlines, and being told I don't exist and am just a myth that the upper ranks use to frighten new recruits." I say with a chuckle, "But until I can get myself officially recognized by the proper authorities, which means getting back home, I'm going to keep the name I've had all my life."
"Bully for you." Gaunt says, "I'm glad you dropped by my office to inform me of the fact that you're keeping your name as it is and always has been."
I roll my eyes and let the sarcasm wash over me. "Actually I dropped by looking to talk to you about a job."
Two eyebrows raised this time, if I were back home there would be a remote possibility of Gaunt being a shapeshifter and me being able to trigger THREE raised eyebrows within the further course of conversation. I miss Tatheon, my home world. "Has that fat, bald idiot of a Dutchman finally smoked enough ganja to off his last few remaining braincells and decided to fire you?"
"Not yet. Though I've kind of organized a union in ULW and declared personal, violent, brutal war on a stable and thus am pretty sure that if the Fart is going to fire me, it'll be soon." I shrug. "Actually I'm wanting to look into the OTHER career option you offered me when we found out I was stuck here."
"We need to figure out what the fuck Claudia feeds on without stuffing hobos down her throat or something. I can't keep just charging her up with the Hand of Arimus like she's some sort of pale, dragon-y shaped wind up toy."
"Well, I could, but it's annoying and I'm pretty sure that by doing it small children in sub-saharan Africa are developing boils, or I'm literally draining love from the universe and making the divorce rate skyrocket, or causing puppies to spontaneously combust or something. The Hand isn't a ley line, it isn't as battery, but it sure has to get its power from SOMEWHERE."
"I'm noooot tellliiiiiing!" the artifact of unspeakable evil singsongs.
"Shut up!" I growl at the creation of a dark god that has grafted itself to my left arm, "Spark is such a horrible influence on you. And on Claudia. To sentience as a whole, really."
Gaunt grins a grin that is usually reserved for copyright lawyers and alligators, "So you're looking to pick a fight with some misbehaving members of the supernatural community?"
"They don't need to be members. Claudia and I can go around smacking around werewolves to convince them into paying membership dues and signing onto the community proper if you want. I just need a couple sentient beings that nobody is going to miss that I'm not going to feel bad about if I accidentally murder them."
Gaunt opens his mouth.
"I'm sure somebody would miss them if half the ULW roster managed to mysteriously disappear leaving behind only puddles of blood, boxes of funny pizza, ugly clothes, and lesbian pollen."
"Mmmhmm." Gaunt says, looking thoughtful for a moment, likely imagining the gruesome murder and dismemberment of certain members of the ULW roster and their management. Particularly a certain mush-mouthed southern fellow in possession of a bimbo factory.
"I'm sure I can find something for you to experiment with, but why the sudden change of heart? You didn't seem interested in this particular aspect of my business at all."
I grin, "Most of your business seems to deal with incorporeal critters. Demons, devils, ghosties, and stuff. I can reach out and touch the things, but I can't see them without looking through that huge camera of Hush's, and with the amount of old tech you have to use to get the magic to work trying to make a set of goggles would likely mean my neck would snap like a twig from the weight."
"Buuuuut!" I chuckle, "Claudia can fix that. My casting sucks, but after having been made a walking ley line and taking up tutoring with Eleanor, she's getting pretty adept at necromantic spellcasting."
Two brows again, if Gaunt was some sort of shapeshifting doppleganger or a sentient fluid in the shape of a man he'd so totally be raising three brows right now. "Eleanor?"
"The Cannibalistic Dragon Goddess Formally Known as Miss Hissy. Desolation gave her the nickname Eleanor Rigby, since she literally died in a church and was buried along with her name. Spark thought it was hilarious and keeps correcting me every time I don't use it, so I just started playing along."
"So does she keep a face in a jar by the door?"
"If she was able to manifest in her full power she has enough faces that I'm sure one would end up crammed in the jar by the door just by virtue of the raw, incorporeal bulk of her. I think she's got one head and neck for every dragon's soul she's consumed. And she basically ate her entire race, living and dead."
"Sounds less of a Miss Hissy and more of a Miss Piggy."
"Well there ARE dragons that resemble frogs. It's possible she had a paramour amongst that race. You know, before she ate him."
"Not the sort of frog in her throat that Kermit would hope for."
I chuckle. "But in all seriousness, Mr. Gaunt, another part of the reason I'm coming to you is that I need a real fight. A proper battle. I don't need the grim reaper at my back hover-handing me and waiting for my potential demise, but no one in ULW seems to want to give me an all out knock down, drag out fight."
"Every time it gets to the point where things are getting serious and I start to have fun, some asshat comes running in and ruining the whole thing. All this pinfall, countout, and disqualification bullshit. I just want to beat the living fuck out of someone until they're utterly incapable of defending themselves. Is that so much to ask in this day and age?"
"It shouldn't be, but with the state of mismanagement in the professional wrestling industry, it does seem to be that way some times." Gaunt says, pulling out what is either a small tablet computer or a very large cell phone.
"But I will find something for you and your minion to messily murder and devour in order to establish her proper care and feeding habits. Believe you me, I understand perfectly the need to discover precisely how to satiate an unknown supernatural entity." he says, looking down at his empty hand and flexing his gloved fingers.
I nod, knowing his gloves hide some pretty nasty burn scars. There are places where is skin looks like melted wax.
"Thanks. It means a lot. I need to vent and repeatedly ripping the limbs off a troll would make me feel much better."
"If I can't find you a rogue supernatural one, I'm sure I could dig you up a few thousand YouTube commenters that I'm sure no one will ever miss. They might even give you a medal for it."
I stick out my tongue. "Uggggh. Just the normal trolls, please. They have better hygiene and tend not to lurk in their parents' basements."
"On the positive side some of them do have that Brendon Vow hillbilly hipster look. After gagging them with their own fedoras you could borrow a pair of my gloves and pull out their shitty beard hairs one by one."
"Actual trolls are more intelligent and know better than to defend the Confederate flag."
"Ok, ok, I get it. I get the picture. I'll try and find you a proper, interesting challenge that's making a pest of itself. It may be a few days so I can get the bounty paperwork properly set up. Think you can manage winded up the evil clown until then?"
"Is that a euphemism for masturbation?"
"My dear, in the English language if it's not a euphemism for masturbation it's a euphemism for sexual intercourse. Been that way since Shakespeare's time."
"Is that the "Art of War" guy?"
Gaunt freezes and just stares at me for several moments. I do so love inflicted brain freeze on English literature snobs. I'm an ice dragon, of course.
Freezing things is what we do.
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