[We open in the viewing lounge aboard A Zeppelin Called Trouble. The massive airship appears to be drifting above the ocean. The sky is awash with fiery colors while the sun is slowly setting into the brilliant blue-green sea.]
[But rather than staring out at the picturesque sight, Kalinda Kriegsdottir is instead hunched over a cluttered table. There ware printouts, a good deal of hand-written notes in an unfamiliar alphabet, a large map showing the island chain outside, photos of various DTW wrestlers (which seem to be focused on them winning titles or events in other companies), several photos of graveyards, a globe with bits of yarn pinned to it, and what looks to be plans for a garden with several layers of octagon-shaped trellises set up with a sinister looking centerpiece marked "DREAD GAZEBO!" in large, red letters.]
[Kalinda picks up a photo of Masatake Kawamata, fresh from his victory holding the CPW World Heavyweight Championship up high. She looks at it, sighs, shakes her head, and gives it a fling that sends it flying across the room.]
So this is what it's come to. Literally having to face my own creation. Save a dude from death, drag his soul back from its journey into whatever shitty afterlife you people have that's probably just as shitty as your shitty, shitty planet, stuff it back in his crispified corpse, de-crispify it, and then make the damned thing move again, and what do you get?
The bastard goes and wins a goddamned tournament with the intent on taking from you the prize that it took you three fucking years to get. Three fucking years where every title shot, every other match, and the entire backstage climate were rife with bullshit.
Three goddamned years where every chance I had was stolen away from me. Three goddamned years where I tried to play nice and do things by the rules, but everybody else decided to fuck the rules and propel themselves into title victories by having their friends help them. The rules were beaten, gagged, stuffed in a gimp suit, and became the centerpiece of a super-bukkake circle jerk of politics and corruption.
I'm happy for you, Masatake, I really am.
Somebody had to win the motherfucking Carnage Carnival, and you were one of the few rainbow sprinkles atop a festering mountain of repugnant shitheaps with nothing but avarice and hubris in their hearts.
But how you won, dude, it fucking sucked. You know it sucked. I know it sucked. The fans know it sucked. Dick Devereaux and Poop Troop smeared their shit all over those last goddamned matches in the latest feeble stunt to try and make the grouchy, bald muppet relevant in 2018 DTW.
But because we managed to derail that shit in your match, you won, dude. You won the whole ball of wax taking our division by one whole point, having the highest score in the tournament by one point over DeeDee, Holland, and Avogadro's Number Zombie, and beating me by two whole points.
But the thing is, Beloved Mascot-Chan, once again I had some asshole getting all up in my shit and fucking around with my matches.
I had five motherfucking points stolen from me.
I left another four on the table on purpose. I handicapped myself so that I didn't have a repeat of Railway Rumble.
And even that wasn't enough.
Nine goddamn points, man. If I decided to go all out, that if this whole shebang had been decided on actual wrestling capacity rather than a special-needs clown silently screaming "I'M HALPING!" in his non-verbal communicative way, and a dude actively getting his pals together to fuck with some goddamn matches…
I would've crushed this thing.
But I didn't.
Half because I wanted somebody to earn a shot, and half because of the same old shit.
I'm thrilled it's you facing me, but I am pissed as all fucking hell at the way you ended up here.
Not just the Carnage Carnival, but overall.
And it's not you I'm pissed at. It's the idea of you, the way you got here, the way things worked out to get you to here and now where you've got what it takes to compete for my title.
Any way you slice it you've had one hell of a year. You've had accomplishments that some people never even manage in their entire fucking careers in professional wrestling.
You won the Carnage Carnival. You're the KAMIKAZE Pro King of Violence. You won the MJPW Divine Memorial Tournament. You're KAMIKAZE Pro Omake Champion. You're CPW World Heavyweight Champion. You're After Dark Fusion Champion.
You've got this DTW World Championship shot, and I seem to recall something about the IJPW Death Crown being something on your plate in the near future as well.
And that's fucking awesome. I'm thrilled. I'm ecstatic. It's like watching your horrible, unliving abomination of a child grow up. Taking his first steps, putting his first boot up some unrepentant cockgoblin's uptight asshole so hard that the stick in their ass jumps up into their throat and they choke. Baby's First Arch-Nemesis. Seeing your better half, Hanako, get success on her own in wrestling.
Just think that not even two years ago you were just another hard-drinking swinging dick who stepped out of the crowd to smack down a trash tier bint, and then ended up standing for himself and his country against some raging goddamned asshole with a laundry list of personality disorders, mental health defects, and questionable personal grooming decisions.
I fucking swear that the universe molds these assholes into easy to recognize shapes so we can know that some evil vizier looking motherfucker is shady as all heck and is going to slip a knife between our ribs the moment our backs are turned.
And I'm responsible for you being here today, Masatake. I mean beyond the whole ripping you out of the grip of the grave and condemning you to walk the earth in the lamest fucking undead body I'm capable of generating.
Bro. You've got the whole of pop culture, myth, and legend to draw from on top of all the weird and wacky shit that I'm capable of calling up from beyond and your girl fucking chooses to make you a normal fucking dude, except powered by negative energy instead of positive.
Man. You're lucky Hanako's amazing in other ways because her capacity to determine your form for the rest of forever is kind of shit. Especially when she's decided that if Riddick kills her in some sort of disgusting murder-suicide to bring her back as a godsdamned banshee. You got ripped off, bro, she's keeping the cool undead for herself.
When I say I'm responsible for you being here, I mean that without me you'd have never gotten to this point. Without me in DTW there would be no SPIDER running the Death Dojo. I brought in one of the dudes who trained me in for the exclusive purpose of teaching Beloved Adorable Mascots Kawamata-chan and Hanako-tan self-defense to take on the forces of questionable hygiene, masturbating in public, and being over the top bug nuts insane.
Err… that is to get it so you could take on the Ultraviolence Union. Not like… teaching you how to wash, that you need to actually use honest to goodness fucking soap when you do so, keeping your hands off your pecker in public, and making you talk to a therapist.
I brought in the guy responsible for the brawling, deathmatch centric chunk of my professional wrestling education in to teach you two how to fight. And my gods did you two ever take to it like fish to water.
Without Kalinda Kriegsdottir there is no Masatake Kawamata. If things stayed the same, rather than getting the basics under your belt in a few weeks, you get your ass even more handed to you at the Railway Rumble.
Even without Riddick having to bring in his goddamned flamethrower to deal with me, there's Dick and his goddamned Compensationmobile turning you into a splatter on the floor. And then that's where the curtain falls.
Here lies Masatake Kawamata. He smacked a bitch once and died a loser.
But I brought you back. And you succeeded in professional wrestling beyond my wildest expectations.
And I'm so happy for you.
And I'm so fucking pissed off.
Because you were able to be successful because I went and played that stupid bullshit game.
You got to succeed because you had me as a patron, as a friend, and as a mentor.
I can't pull strings to get you into all the exclusive places, all the big tournaments. I can't throw my name around and open doors for you.
But I could sure as hell teach you how to fight. I could toughen you up. I could give you the best martial education that I could get.
I brought you to the same guy that taught me how to kick ass, and here you are two years later kicking metric fucktons of ass.
What pisses me off, Masatake, is that you're in the exact same spot that I was in. You're living the exact same set of circumstances I went through. Well, if you stand back far enough and squint until things blur a bit.
We both got suddenly and unexpectedly dropped into the world of professional wrestling. We were both trained by SPIDER. We both shared our journey with a galpal who is definitely more interesting than we are. And we both rose to become forces to be reckoned with.
Except…
Except that from the beginning you got to compete in a company that gave a shit about you. Well, kinda. Goro Yamashi doesn't give a goddamned if one of his wrestlers murders another so long as it's being recorded to get those eyeballs drawn in. But he's not going to try to fucking ruin you, he's not going to actively try to make you miserable. He's not going to make you sit out in the parking lot at a fan meet because of the color of your skin. He's not going to cut off your entire existence at the knees and use you to make his Unlimited Bitch Works look good and then kick you to the curb. He's not going to hire people with the sole intent of milking them for every last drop of credibility and then try to torpedo your goddamned career.
You got to rise under your own merits. You got to succeed. You got to thrive.
No one attempted to smother your career in the cradle and then proceed to smear your good name to the point where you're tainted goods in the wrestling industry.
You don't have a faction of racist fucks dedicated to screaming at the top of their hood-wearing, traitor's rag waving lungs that your mere existence is a slap in the face to all of professional wrestling just because you were born the way you are.
You've gotten invitations to all these tournaments, Masatake. Allowed to compete in all these wrestling federations.
You've won titles. You've won tournaments. You've succeeded beyond your wildest dreams as a professional wrestler.
You started with so much less than I have, less raw athletic ability, less size, less strength, less agility, less durability, less everything.
I remember Claudia joking that it was a good thing Hanako was there to give you a hook and save you from being bland, generic fighting spirit man #2356.
I'm everything that an ideal professional wrestling ought to be. Powerful. Agile. Intimidating. Intriguing. Interesting. Charismatic. Eye-catching. Unique.
And yet I only have a fraction of your success.
In less than six months you've eclipsed the entirety of my four-year career.
That's great! That's awesome! You've done so much and you'll go on to do so much more!
But I won't.
I can't.
They won't let me.
Because I'm different. Because I'm blue. Because I'm a dragon. Because I love an android.
Because I'm more than a mere human, a certain segment of the population has decided to treat me as if I were less than human. I simply exist, and that fact somehow drives people to mouth-frothing madness and raging insanity.
I've tried, Kawamata, I've tried so hard to do what you do. I've tried so hard to succeed somewhere that isn't DTW, and I've failed.
Time and time again I try to reach out of the safety of the little bubble I have here, of the one place in professional wrestling that treats me right, and every time I'm smacked down.
Every time a member of my little family of weirdos attempts to do something, we're shoved back.
People threaten to murder Sammy and I basically every other match. All the fuckwits come screaming out of the woodwork talking about how they're going to slay the dragon and dump water on the android.
It happens so often that I think it's real. That to a narrow-minded segment of the human population that people like the Menagerie aren't really people, and that it's perfectly okay to slaughter us and that there will be no consequences for doing so.
I've reached out from DTW three times this year. I've tried to do something for myself twice, and for my daughter once.
Both times I tried to do something, I hit racist bullshit. Some dumb cunt with the wrestling capacity of a moldy fucking cantaloupe dropped some bigoted bullshit on me and Sammy out of fucking nowhere and Hollywood Hangover did fuck-all about it. They didn't think it was worth enforcing their own rules. They didn't think it was worth standing up against somebody who said that they can't be racist against me because I'm blue, and that blue was a perfectly acceptable skin color to be racist about because it wasn't a "real" skin color, that made cracks about a goddamned bathroom bill and dragons and androids wanting to get married.
They escalated the hatred. And rather than deal with it, the company decided to fold and go away. Vanishing like a fart into the wind rather than actually act on their policy to quash bigotry, racism, homophobia, and transphobia.
And I tried doing special events, Masatake. Just like you did, I entered a contest based on Survivor.
We started with three tribes of five and everything was going swimmingly. I'm a goddamned magical dragoness from a world where the light of one of the four suns turned SUV's into goddamned triceratops and motorcycles into fucking utahraptors. You're not popping over to some town 250 miles away and back in an afternoon. It's going to take days, you're going to have to walk, you're going to have to camp, you're going to have to murder monsters that want to kill you in your motherfucking sleep.
Living on a tropical island with basically fuckall except what you can pull out of the jungle is a goddamned breeze. Especially when you can animate the dead, conjure up any tools you need via magical energy, and can reach into any puddle of water and grab a dinner.
First or second place in every challenge. And then we hit twelve people, and all of a sudden I'm the only member of my tribe stuffed in five unfamiliar assholes.
Some inbred son of a WalMart greeter and a dental dam product tester drops the Lord of the Rings bullshit reference that every fucking asshole in the cosmos comes up with the moment they see me and another dude calls me one of the things from motherfucking Avatar.
So I give 'em the a speech that amounts to calling them out that making jokes based on people's skin color is not cool, and that after four years in professional wrestling there are a number of cracks that I've heard so many time that I want to snap a motherfucker's neck every time I hear them.
I ask them "Guys, if you're going to banter and bullshit with me, can you at least be creative and interesting about it and not be racist, uncreative, cliched hacks?"
And then these suckwads proceed to blow a tribal challenge and I'm unanimously voted off.
Me. The one who has done the best in all the challenges. The one who was feeding them. The one who kept the coldfires burning to keep away the heat and humidity. The one whose minions built them cabins to live it, furniture to sit on, used my capacity to link one body of water to another body of water to steal beer out of Riddick's minifridge.
All I asked was if they wanted to insult me, to at least try to be entertaining about it.
Like I said, I asked them not to be racist, uncreative, cliched hacks.
They voted me off, despite all the advantages I bring.
Do you know who does that?
Racist, uncreative, cliched hacks who are pissed off about being called racist, uncreative, cliched hacks.
So, let's move on from OCW to CPW.
Do you like that title you won from them? Nice and spiffy, isn't it? But it's tainted, and what's more, you know that it's tainted.
Because you know that there was somebody else that deserved to compete for that title. Somebody that was right on the cusp of scoring the third point for that title.
Only when she asked the goddamned company to follow its own contractually mandated rules, it refused. Dude was an advisor, they said, he's not in the official CPW hierarchy, they said. He doesn't have to adhere to the contract between us and your daughter that we all signed, they said.
They said in writing that this was how things were going to take place. They explicitly hired somebody so that they didn't have to actually make those things take place.
MECHA-Kalinda wasn't fired from CPW for an incident involving a catering crew and a disgustingly large bowl full of mayonnaise. That was just the excuse we all used to part ways due to their breach of contract rendering my daughterganger's employment null and void. They work in professional wrestling, for fuck's sake, spilling coffee on another wrestler will start a fucking months long blood feud. Everybody that works in this industry knows that.
You're CPW World Heavyweight Champion because I refused to let any company get away with shady shit where a member of my family is involved.
It sucks for non-humans out there. DTW, and the feds under its umbrella, is basically the only place I trust to give people like me a fair shake. I spent three years crawling through a goddamned desert of suck before I found the oasis that was DTW. An oasis where I have a pretty good chance on any given card of being splattered with shit, spit, and spunk, but an oasis nonetheless.
It's something that Sammy's had to learn as well. Stanton Enterprises was basically her family, and she got kicked to the fucking curb because she wanted to reach up above her lot in life and build somewhat wonderous and fantastic.
And instead of being built up, she was knocked down and told not to do that. That there were some things that were off limits, and that Stanton Enterprises wanted nothing to do with what she'd planned.
Which is how Kaiju Family Values ended up under the DTW umbrella, how a goodly chunk of the stuff that Sammy was organizing for her former company ended up under DTW's new After Dark brand.
There are so many assholes out there that hate me just because I'm a dragon and I exist. They tell Sammy to go kill herself because she's an android and she's taken part in professional wrestling.
This bullshit is the reason why Sammy and I made KFV in the first place. No other company out there is willing to stand up to the racists, the bigots, the speciesists, the vitalists. There's no wrestling federation out there that's beating down my door trying to get interesting nonhuman wrestlers like myself, Claudia, Delilah, MK, or Sammy.
People fucking love A Giant Crab, but does he have to beat off job offers with a stick? No! He's a cult favorite in KFV, and he can scarcely find work anywhere else. The occasional commercial for a restaurant or a small role in somebody's low budget monster movie.
This is what we're reduced to, Masatake. We're back to the good ol racist US bullshit of separate but equal, which in the end never, ever turned out to be equal.
I've had to build a promotion for non-human wrestlers from the ground up. Because wrestling promotions will rarely hire more than a token preternatural, mechanical, alien, or extraplanar sentient being.
It took me three years to win my first professional wrestling title, and it took another year and me building my own goddess-damned promotion where human and non-human wrestlers alike are welcomed in order for me to get another.
I don't get invited to tournaments.
I don't get invited to other wrestling federations.
I was sent to KAMIKAZE Pro's trios tournament as a part of Team DTW. But did they ask me if I wanted to stay on?
No. They said they loved my work, that I was cool, thanked me for repping DTW and then they sent me along on my way back here with the two crazy stalkers, the failed serial killer, the nihilistic shitgibbon, and motherfucking Purple AKI Man.
Does simply being a different color and having a tail make me so undesirable that the only place I'm treated fairly is a place that welcomes with open arms such repulsive human beings? Through my simple existence am I forever marked to be of a kind with murderers, rapists, and Purple AKI Man?
You have the world of professional wrestling on a fucking platter. The world is your oyster. All the tournaments, all the titles, all the accolades.
You've managed to do so much when you started out with so little.
I sit here and I wonder, "What would my career look like if that were me?"
How amazing and well-decorated would my four years as a professional wrestler be if I didn't have to deal with all this bullshit? How much further could I have gone if I had been a part of a wrestling federation that believed in me from the start? Would I always have ended up the cynical, bitter, jaded wreck that I am that uses the words "fucking," "motherfucker," and variants of "goddamned" as motherfucking punctuation, or would I have managed to remain the sweet, happy, bouncy dragoness that I started out as when I first ventured into the pro wrestling business?
Because I'm done, Kawamata. I'm done reaching out of the metaphorical oasis that is DTW only to have my hand bitten again and again and again by a vile and loathsome industry.
I mentored you, I sheltered you, I trained you, I brought you back from the goddamned dead. As it stands you're basically my legacy to the sport of professional wrestling.
Four years into my career, and I think I've reached the top of what I can do. Because this sport will not allow me to be anything more. It refuses to give me the chances to prove myself and crawl out of my little niche here in DTW.
You are where you are because I pulled you up from the mire and let you stand on my shoulders.
I want you to fly, Masatake. You and Hanako.
Fly high, fly far, fly the fuck away from this place and have all the success that I never could.
Because you're a human. Because you're a man. Because your very existence in the sport of professional wrestling isn't compared on a regular basis the various forms of grievous bodily harm.
Fly away, Masatake. Find a place to call your own and thrive there.
Because you can.
I can't.
I've tried to fly so many times now that my wings are broken and shattered, the membranes torn into tatters.
I'm done.
I've lost the capacity to fly. I will never soar. I've accepted this.
I want you to do that for me. Win all the tournaments. Take all the belts. Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women, men, and inflatable battery-operated love dolls.
Live a glorious life of a successful professional wrestler.
Because I can't.
DTW is all that I have.
DTW is all that I will ever have.
You have the chance, you have the opportunity, you have the capacity to go anywhere, to do anything!
And what do you do?
You're fucking standing here in front of me, still your fucking generic-ass fighting spirit man #2356 self except that now you've got a fire lit under your ass. You've tasted success, you've tasted World Title gold, and now you think you're here to take mine. Yet another prize to adorn the already gold-clad form of Masatake Kawamata with all his belts, all his trophies, all his accomplishments.
Fuck. Off.
And once you've fucked off, Kawamata, fuck off from there.
And then keep fucking off.
Because I'm not going to let that happen. I'm not going to let the DTW World Championship become just another fucking fashion accessory for you.
What was it you said when you were gunning for the CPW World Heavyweight Championship?
"There's a lot on the line, not just for us, but for the company. It's more than just selling tickets, it's also about bringing respect to the belt and to the company."
And I agree with you. I agree with you one hundred motherfucking percent.
And that's why I have to crush you, buddy. That's why I have to destroy you, pal. That's why I've gotta strap on my prosthetic nose, fire up the Motorhead, grab my goddamned shovel and become the glass ceiling that you bash your soaring little goddamned birdie brains out on.
I absolutely, positively cannot let you win this.
Because you're more than DTW right now. All these titles, all these tournaments, all these accolades. What happens, kiddo, if you win the DTW World Championship, eh? It becomes just another notch on your belt, just another jewel on your crown, just another heavy decoration that you've got to lug around through the metal detectors, customs, and the motherfucking TSA wanting to feel up your dick and stick their hands in your ass.
You've got the potential to become something more, something special, something that can transcend DTW.
You can go anywhere in the world and thrive.
You've got the entire globe at your fingertips.
You could put out the word and you get yourself wrestling a match every night of the week, each one in a different city, each one in a different federation.
I wish I could do that.
I wish I could have what you have.
But I can't.
I never will.
My territory will never be broad, it will never be vast. I will never win tournaments, I will never win titles in other promotions, I will never be champion of anything more than the little oasis of DTW in the endless desert of suck that is professional wrestling.
They've decided to smother out my light. I will never grow branches. My canopy will never spread wide. But my roots? My roots will dig deep and my trunk will grow tall. My tree will never be the grandest, the largest, the most beautiful.
But what it will be is fucking unshakeable. Completely immobile. Utterly indestructible.
As DTW World Champion I will tower above all others.
I can't go out into the world of professional wrestling and thrive. But what I can do is stay the fuck right here in DTW, and let people like you come to me.
People who hold so many titles, people who have emerged victorious from so many tournaments, people who need entire fucking semi trucks to carry around all the prizes they've won in professional wrestling.
And you're going to throw yourselves at me, and I am going to break every single last motherfucking one of you that think you can take the only thing that I have ever managed to fucking earn in this industry away from me!
I am DTW's Ace! I am DTW's World Champion!
And the way I'm going to earn my legacy is to be the anvil that future legends like you, Kawamata, are hammered against until they fucking shatter.
And you're gonna shatter, Kawamata. It took you what? THIRTEEN GODDAMNED MINUTES to put Cyral Kanas away in a handicap match down in CPW? The greasy beardy fuck my daughterganger basically decapitated and forced to tap out in the center of the ring.
You know, the guy that you, Super Orca, and cheatin' ass triflin' ass Dr. Sato had to overcome with your goddamned backslide.
Because that's who has a chance of showing up in this match. Running on fumes, drunk, hungover party boy Masatake Kawamata. Run ragged from all his success and wrestling for ninety bajillion feds, going shot for shot at some bar with the drummer from a band that calls themselves Gutter Slut, and winning all the medals and the titles and the trophies.
The titles, the tournaments, the accolades, I can't come to them.
So I'm going to let them come to me.
DTW's World Championship is not going to be just another jewel in your fucking crown, Kawamata.
I'm going to take all your belts, all your trophies, hell, I will rip the gold goddess-damned fillings out of your motherfucking teeth, melt all that shit down, and I'm going to build a fucking palace with it.
I am going to build a sprawling fucking empire here in DTW by making MY World Championship THE premier title in professional wrestling. The belt everybody wants. The belt no one is ever going to have because, in order to do so, they'll have to take it away from me.
I've tried to play the questing hero, adventuring across the land and bringing the fight to the forces of darkness and it's brought me nothing but pain.
I'm done.
Done with that shit forever.
I've got so many offers, so many dark powers whispering in my ears to stop with the heroic nonsense, so many devils offering me the world on a silver platter.
I've always said that I never thought of myself as a hero, that I just looked like I was shining bright because the shadows of those around me were so much deeper.
I'm never going to be the hero that I wanted to be.
But you know what? That's fine.
I'm done with adventuring, done with trying to galavant all over the world to try and win prizes that were never within my reach in the first place.
So what I'm going to do is sit down on my throne of skulls and build a palace around myself of bones, blood, and gold.
I'm going to be the motherfucking evil overlord that all the heroes in the land will seek out and attempt to take down.
It's been made apparent that I have to become a godsdamned supervillain to get anywhere in this business. And you know who I'm going to be? I'm going to be Bane. I'm going to break the metaphorical backs of the decorated heroes and lesser villains of professional wrestling alike and leave a trail of shattered, paraplegic invalids stretching from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea, bobbing in the ocean, leaving the goddamned Great Pacific Trash Vortex choked with egomaniacal blowhards, pin-up posting goth emo bitches, fucking useless clown brothers, whatever the fuck Aggretsuko Zombie is, and having a tsunami of shattered bald beardy dwarven fucks cascading down on Japan and fucking up their goddamned nuclear power plants.
I can't go out and prove my glory to the world, so I'm going to make the world come to me.
All the championships, all the tournaments, all the accolades. I want to find challengers who have won it all, who have done it all, who think they have no more mountains to conquer, or that they need just one more shiny bauble for their treasure hoards.
And I am going to beat the motherfucking shit out of each and every last one of them and make all those glorious prizes fucking worthless.
Because the DTW World Championship is going to become the only prize that fucking matters because I'm going to make sure that not a single one of you sons of bitches will ever fucking beat me for MY belt!
With each defense, with each win, I will raise myself and DTW up that much higher at the expense of all the other federations that have bestowed their inferior tokens, titles, and trinkets upon those who come to face me.
DTW will be the only fed I will ever have.
DTW will be the only fed I will ever need.
And I will reign over it eternally as DTW's Necromancer Queen.
And you, Masatake Kawamata?
Congratulations.
You get to be the first unfortunate motherfucker I force to kneel before me and acknowledge my majesty.
I dragged you back kicking and screaming into this world and on July 3 you are going to be BEGGING me to let you back out of it again.
I love you, man.
You're a true friend.
You may end up being the only lasting thing I end up giving to the world of professional wrestling.
But I cannot, will not, let you take the DTW World Championship away from me when I KNOW that I can make it into something much bigger.
And you know that.
You fuckin' generic-ass fighting spirit man #2356. You'd be indescribably pissed off if I gave you anything less than my best.
So you've got it.
No jokes. No goofy shit. No slacking off this time. No time limit draws. I will put you down before the timer hits 60.
You've already been literally beaten to death, so I'm going to beat your ass halfway back to life. I'm going to fucking Flair chop your nipples clean off, throw them into the crowd, and give the Japanese equivalent of Little Bobby Blowhard something weird to frame and put on his goddamned wall.
Everything you've done, everything you will do, everything you've ever won.
Kawamata, when I beat you and then all that you have ever achieved in your career becomes mine.
All the titles.
All the tournaments.
All the trophies.
All mine.
All of them sacrificed on an altar to my DTW World Heavyweight championship.
I'm going to rip the heart and soul out of every single title that comes across my path, and I am going to feed it to my title until it becomes a ravening monster the likes of which will never be stopped.
And that, Masatake Kawamata, is as you say "Where the money is."
All hail the Necromancer Queen.
All hail DTW.
-o-
With that, the camera turns off and I look down at the table before me, where all my plans and plots are laid out. More plots than plans, because that's what evil overlords do. They sit in their wicked lairs and plot and scheme.
And well, I didn't have a wicked lair yet. But that was going to change soon. I meant every word that I'd just said. I was done with trying to maintain the status quo, trying to keep things normal, trying to do things within the framework that had been set up.
Heroes are reactive. Villains are proactive.
And despite my best efforts I'd spent most of my time on Earth reacting instead of acting.
No more.
I was going to be acting now, and acting in a big way. Not just to change professional wrestling, but to change the world as a whole.
It was going to piss some people off. It was REALLY going to piss some OTHER people off. It was DEFINITELY going to be something big enough to draw the attention of the reclusive preternatural communities who had long ago withdrawn from the material world into the pocket dimensions, the magic here failing due to some kind of cataclysm.
Because all the creatures of myth and legend were here. They just had to rip a few holes in reality and basically hide themselves away so that they didn't slowly fall apart and degrade from their innate magic being sucked out.
If you thought of Earth as a body of water, magic was the water. Most creatures like myself naturally swam through it, we needed it just like fish needed water to breathe. Dragons were basically fish that pumped out water non-stop and wrapped themselves in a bubble of water when they went on land.
But Earth had grown too salty, dipping into the waters here for most preternatural creatures would be like going from a ph balance, climate controlled fish tank into a goddamned salt flat. If they didn't outright choke and die, they would rapidly dehydrate as the magic was pulled from their bodies to try and equalize the concentration.
I had spent the last few months using the zeppelin to properly chart out the planet's natural ley-lines. It was something I had to do anyway in order to power the portal home.
You needed to place one on a ley line nexus in order to generate the sorcerous oomph to pierce the veil between worlds and pierce it hard enough to rip on through to the other side.
Unfortunately, all the ley lines nexuses were already in use. They were powering the little in-between realms where the Earth's native sorcerous creatures were now forced to dwell.
So I would have to make my own.
And I wasn't just going to be letting it turn my metaphorical water wheels either. I was going to be pumping more "water" into the system.
In some cases I WAS pumping actual water into the system, filling up rivers that had been dammed and rerouted for frequently that they were mere trickles, pouring water into lakes that would otherwise be drying up.
And because I was fucking about with the natural order, I was definitely going to get someone sent to kill me.
But that's what being a villain will get you. Adventurers up in your fucking face because you dared to upset the status quo, to make change, to try and make the world a radically different place tomorrow from where it was yesterday.
I rubbed the emerald gem set into the necklace that I never took off, filling my mind with the mental image of my daughter.
"How goes the magic practice, dearest daughter of mine?" I ask of my mechanical doppelganger.
"(Pleased statement) You were correct. In addition to your physical attributes, I also have inherited a measure of your innate magical characteristics, including an aptitude for sorcery."
"However, without the capacity to duplicate your Personal Necrotech Poly-discipline Arcane Library I am limited to the variety of spells I can cast instead of being able to forever add them to my repertoire."
"Forge-Father Delilah's theory that my magic had the capacity to develop in a completely different direction was correct as well. Given that you have that area particularly well-covered and that Delilah covers enchantment, I have for the moment concentrated on Creation and Transmutation."
My baby girl would be summoning and changing shit, that was going to be very useful as I could delegate some parts of my plan to her rather than have to rely on raw divine power to accomplish spell effects that were outside of my repertoire.
"And your experience with the Summon Tools spell?"
"(Pride) I was indeed able to derive a form of it which allowed me to summon more than mere hand tools. It requires a significant expenditure of power in contrast to the original cantrip, but it is capable of creating any non-magical tool whose form and function I understand completely."
"Which means?"
"(Resigned sigh) That I have promised to run over Auntie Claudia with a conjured steamroller once I have mastered the usage of the crane, power shovel, bulldozer, cement mixer, and dump truck."
"So you're going to smoosh her just before bed then?"
"(Negation) I expect I will be smooshing her shortly after dinner. I seem to have an innate aptitude with machinery."
"You've probably got that from Daddy Delilah. She's the only person I know that can yank a flagstone out of the ground, slam it against a wall, screaming 'TELL ME YOUR SECRETS, INFERIOR GRADE OF SLATE!" and actually have it spill its nonexistent guts."
"(Agreement) Forge-Father Delilah is particularly fearsome when dealing with inanimate objects. And animate objects. And androids. And human beings. And animals. And insects. And… well, pretty much everything."
"Yes, yes she is. Once Claudia gets all her bones back in the right places have her move on to phase two of the plan." I agree.
"(Acknowledgement) Yes, Template-Mother."
I take my fingers from the gem and then place them back, this time bringing to mind an image of my first (and only) henchwoman.
"And by that I mean phase two of MY plan, where you are to start collecting creatures we can try the Dragonspawn serum out on, and not phase two from some plan drawn up by Wile E. Coyote in a Roadrunner cartoon. "
Claudia sighs. "You know me too well, boss lady."
Another removal of the fingers and a tap. This time I picture Sammy. I've found that she gets most of the Kaiju for KFV from something exceedingly rare: an actual honest to goddess void rift. Probably artificially torn into being from that one wrestling Time Lord popping in and out of reality in her space outhouse so often.
I got here through that void, the book containing the ritual that summoned me here came through that void. The dragon gods of my own realm plucked the entire continent I lived on back home from the void and brought it and all the people on it to the world of Tathion. There were entire factions dedicated to exploring the void and pilfering its trove of heroes, villains, and artifacts cast off and discarded from other realities.
"So, Sammy, how's it going?"
"Nothing too particular interesting. Nothing that makes the little detector wand Delilah made glow and make a very pleasing "ping" sound."
I was looking for more stuff out there from Tathion, or from the World That Was. Either would accelerate my portal construction. Delilah has made a wand that basically acted as a "stuff Kalinda wants" detector.
Thankfully you didn't run across much pizza in the void, though Sammy DID find a pizza ooze monster that we will NOT be putting in KFV. It had pineapple in it.
Such heresy will not be tolerated.
"Ȋ̵̴͓̜̱̏ ̫̩͋ͦ̇ͦͩ͘ͅD̟̪̗̰͚̤͔̏͆̽̏ͥ̓E̢̠͉̞͚͆̉̑ͫͫ̓V̼ͧ̂ͤͥͯ̊̃̌ͧ̕͢͠Ò̵̶̙̲̲̺̝ͦͧ͋̈́̚Ų̰̬̘̼̦̂̉ͨ̀ͮ͛͛́͞R̢͔̼͕̰̗̭̉̎̾̆̄ ̞̞̱͇ͧ̄͐̇̐͟Ĩ͙̥͇̘̎̌͑ͮ͐̓ͧͧN̛͇̪͈͎̞̰͂͋́̄͘T̈́͐ͮ҉̨̟̼͕ͅE̹̻̺͊̅͟R͍͙̤̖̠̝͂̔Ė̷͚̗͙̻̝̼̯͊̉̐S̳̜͚̞̘̙͈̻̽ͧͅT̜̩̲ͮ͒ͥ̽,̤̰͚̬̬̜̬̳̄ͩͥ̈ ̡͈̪͇̝̹̝ͮ͆͒͊ͭ̾Iͦ͆҉̥̜̹̟̪̦̤͓ ̶̩̖̙̮̊͂́͆̇́C͈̪̺͎̞̩ͣͪ̔̇̏͢O͖̖͚͆́͘N̵̶̳͕͈͔͓͎̦̗͒͟S̘̖̤̯̯̤̝͓͔̐̆̄ͬ̏ͯṶ̷ͬ͗M̮̩͎̟̃ͤ̈E̛̞̲͓̜͎͇̰͖̪ͦͪ ̸̨͇̦̣̟̮͙̲̣̾͒͒̓̋̑ͯ̿͜A͐̇҉̸̜͇̼T̸̥͉ͦT̵ͮͧͦ҉̻̹͙̭̕Ě̴̶̻̫̬͎̦̜́N̡͍͈̚͟T̴̝̗͈͕͚̟̭ͥ̽ͮͥͮ͟I̵̴̢͍̳̤̙̽̒ͥ̌̿Ò̶̦̞͇̟͐ͧ̈́N̨̠͙͋̄͗̈ͨ́͞!͍͙͔͓̻̯̙̽ͩ̍ͧ͢͠ͅ" says a monstrous voice over the link.
"What the hell is that?"
"Oh nothing. Just ignore it. All it wants is attention. It's some kind of horrible leech-slug that feeds off of you noticing it doing things. I put a wig on it and named it Sidney. It's currently stuck to my faceplate and despite having asked nicely, does not seem to be keen to let go."
"Į͉͖̫̠̲̤̞ ̝͓̲̞̭̕W͕͎̪̹̗̞͖I̧ͅL̰̟̙͝L̯͉̲̻̻͡ ̙̠͎͔̯ͅG̣͝R̡̻͚̺̪O̼͙W̸̻̥ ̦̠͓̀F̦͈̮̻́A̵͈͕T̲̭̬̫̹̱̟͠ ̲̯̞̭ͅA͏͙̺͙͎N̯̯͈̖͚̻̫D̀ ̘͙̙B̖̖̙L̥̖͚͇͜O̴̞̯̞A͚͇̼͎͢T͠E̶̬̪D҉̯̞̥̦ ̻̝͎̱̦ͅF̝͎͜R̝̣̪̟O͚̖͓̣͡M̢͕͈̣͇̘̖̗ ̞Y̧̩O̲͓͉̹̘̻̘U͏̖R̪̙͚͇͉ ̖͜A̖̞͖͎̤͉̖D͇͈̮͚O̝͇͙͖̝R̢A̠̫͙͝T͍̙̹͟I̤̲O̼͚̫̭̹N̯̳̳͍!͇̤̙ ̭̮A̶̰͔̰Ṉ̝͢Ḍ̞ ̠͇̫͍̝͔A͉Ḻ͍S̩̺̣̬̪͔O̜̹̘̥̙̻̘ ͖̺̗̳̀I̫̬̘̯͟ ͍̪̞̯A͎̙͇M̶̠̤͔̻̣͖ ̙̠̺͍̪̙͕A̢̠̻̬̦͎͕͔ S͍̺̺̦̣̰A̷SS̜̞̹̖͠Y̢͕͕͍̣͎͕̤,̨͚ ͉̟̗̦͚͎S̗̞̙̖̣͇ͅL͏͎̦I̡͔̜M̼̙̝̬̦̟͟Y̩̹͙͜ ̦͈͕͍̳W̫̮O̴M̤̞̻A̬̤͖̯̮N͔͇ ͕͓͔̩̭̳W̸͙̳̳H̨͇̟̭̪O͇̥̟̼ ̶̞̘̫D̡̜̙͍̭̳̮͍O̭̟͕̘̬̰̰N̸͚̟͉̥'̧͎̫̘̦̬̩T͖̫ ̨̗͕͖̥NEE̶̩̩͓̝̹̬͓D̸̼̪̲͕ ̢͖͙͚N̯͟O̯̥̣̳̪̱ ̙͉̗̣̙̕M̭̣͕A͏̤N̸̦̩̻!̷͓̱̘ ̰̯̭S͓̖͍̯̰̱̥T̻͎̜O̤̘̪͎͉͘P̫̬̫̪͇̲̮ ͔̞͕̀C͠A͕̜͚L̢̫L̛̥̖͚͎I͕̟NG̕ ̜̥̩M̴̼͍E̛͍̝̫̫̗̰ ̦̥̹̩A̸̻ͅN̹̝̙͖̰̰ ̺̦̻I͔̗̼͖T͚̹͎̯̺̠̳!̛͙̤"
"Hush. You are not privy to this important conversation and are being very rude."
I sigh, "Sammy, don't you dare bring that thing home."
"Sorry, there's a bit of static in the connection. I am totally bringing this thing home."
"Why, in god's name would you do that?"
"Because it's so horrible that you will want to banish it to New Jersey! I still want to see you banish a thing to New Jersey!"
"Fine. Fine, Sammy. If it makes you happy I will send it to New Jersey."
"Yay!" Sammy cheers as I close the connection, only to be forcibly dragged into another one.
"Construction of initial ley-line portals proceeding fine. Using mana capacitors to store native element and convert to water to power and stabilize your puddleportals is working perfectly." she says, sounding angry.
"I have no idea how you do this and it greatly offs my piss. Much like you, you stupid blue toadbeast, your magic makes absolutely no sense!" she gives me a final snort.
"Will be doing very important alignment work on Portal Prime. Do not disturb. Is why I am sending progress report, rather than sitting on spotty butt and doing nothing. Over and out!"
Where a dark elf managed to pick up walkie-talkie communication terminology I will never know.
But that was everybody, leaving me with my part of the task. The most dangerous part. The worst part.
I turned to the window.
On paper, this was a good deal. I gave up practically nothing in exchange for an absolutely tremendous working of godly power.
It should mean nothing, it should lead to nothing.
Nobody should be watching. Nobody should be listening.
I stepped into the ritual circle I'd prepared and pulled down the Farraday cage.
No sound, no broadcasts, no means of surveillance magical or technological could possibly enter or leave this circle.
I slipped the surgical mask over my mouth, put on a lucha-libre mask, wrapped a scarf around my face, donned a motorcycle helmet, covered the motorcycle helmet with Sammy's ridiculous fursuit head.
And then I closed my eyes, pictured exactly what I wanted her to do, and spoke the name of the Manyfold Matriarch aloud for the first time ever.
"Takhizimqoutl." I said through clenched teeth.
And the seas writhed.
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