DTW 2nd Year Anniversary: Of Sinking and Skeletons

Two years. Two whole years of DeathTrip Wrestling, and in just a few weeks I'd be defending the DTW World Championship once again.

With the big anniversary show looming on the horizon I was putting all my focus towards that instead of my various extracurricular activities.

The Skeleton Isles were growing nicely, soaking up calcium carbonate from ancient deposits on the seafloor and transmuting that into… well… bonestone. It sounds less lewd in Dwarven, let me assure you. It's a necromantic version of marble that operates as if it were still the raw bony bits that one uses for various forms of necromancy, except sturdier.

Using the usual necromantic forging techniques the stuff ended up somewhere between steel, mythril, and adamantite instead of approximating steel like the usual sort of bones. Necromatic Dragonbone was even better, but I certainly wasn't going to find any dragons here, and none of my bones were large enough to make swords out of anyway. Armor? Forget about it. I'm still using this ribcage, thank you very much.

I was a titch tempted to find myself some dinosaur fossils to make into things, but folks around here had to dig them up the old fashioned way and lacked divination spells to pinpoint their locations.

So while they certainly wouldn't be missing them, because they'd never know they were there in the first place, I was leaving the rocks that used to be bones in the ground for science and future generations.

Kaiju Family Values was on hold. That was probably the thing that pissed me off the most. We'd gone to all the trouble of tracking down a plethora of non-human wrestlers and getting them to agree to work for us, and just when things were getting good we were forced to shut down.

Somebody had went and attacked Giant Crab one night. The poor thing was missing his biggest claw and lost an eyestalk.

This was followed with Russel the Love Mussel getting kneecapped in the alley behind the strip club he worked at.

I'd even had several prospective signees spontaneously cancel on me. They sounded panicked and were absolutely terrible liars.

But the nail in the coffin was when we found the Kaijuicer hacked into pieces in the lobby of one of those self serve frozen yogurt bars. Several vital organs appeared to have been carved out, placed in the poor soul's own blender, and he'd been made to drink them before he died.

And then came the death threats.

I had no idea how the fuckers kept managing to get into my mailbox.

The portal home and the ley line network Delilah and I had constructed to power and fuel it were coming along nicely, but things needed to charge up and stabilize before any more parts could be added to the portal or new lines added to the circle.

Del was in her workshop aboard A Zeppelin Called Trouble working on what she called "a late birthday present."

My birthday, September 13 according to this particular calendar system, had just passed and Delilah had given me a box with a note in it reading "Redeem For A Thing From Home That You've Been Missing."

I asked if she'd brought my favorite brand of crackers and had gotten the empty box lobbed at my noggin for my troubles.

But she'd zipped off to the lab immediately after and had remained there for several days.

MECHA-Kalinda was off practicing her battlefield command skills and spellcasting in a practical environment and once again I found myself being grumpy at the stupid gauntlet on my arm for its capacity to fuck with my magic in a way that could have me potentially murder everything in a hundred yard radius if I used a spell it could enhance.

I liked my spellcasting, dammit. It was the only thing that had made my teenage years liveable. I can't imagine trying to keep an entire city's utility corridors clean with just my bare hands. The dozens of other duties I'd had on top of that were right out.

I'd banished Claudia from my presence for being annoying for not taking no for an answer on one of her ideas. Somehow she'd gotten the thought in her head to have us go break into the grave sites of several members of a nationally recognized political dynasty. At best that meant performing a seance and summoning spirits. At the worst it meant reanimating the dead and desecrating the graves of some very important people.

And for what purpose? Why, to make a political ad call out video in the style of a recent campaign ad where six siblings of a douchebag senator got together to support his opponent and tell their brother to fuck off.

I sent my evil clown minion to her room, but I drew the line at having her blaring Dead Kennedys songs at unreasonable volumes and had thrown her out the window and told her to entertain herself in a non-violent, non-public citizen traumatizing way.

The Von Steuben Day celebration was in full swing, and I'm sure Claudia would probably be joyfully contributing to eventual liver failure by challenging folks in the Biergartens to drinking contests.

So with that settled, I'd laid down for a nap.

I'd just managed to drift off when I got a late birthday present in the form of something I'd been missing from home.

No, Delilah didn't burst in with a completed device. Someone else had decided to give me something that I had nostalgically missed.

Ridiculous poorly thought out and executed botched assassination attempts.

I could smell my attacker coming, and at first I thought that Dragon Kitty had gotten into something that didn't quite agree with the roiling acidic cocktail of whatever the fuck it is that surges through his digestive system. Because the room had filled with the funk of forty thousand years.

I'd compare it to a rotting zombie, but a zombie of one of those stinky guys who don't actually bathe or put on deodorant and think that Axe body spray is acceptable in place of a shower. Except that instead of some stupidly masculinely named fragrance they decided to spray themselves with skunk butt.

My eyes flickered open as the door to my room burst open and the collective embodiment of 4chan barged its way into my bedroom.

No, not Riddick, I mean a literal fucking troll.

Eight feet of unwashed, green, pudgy muscle with an honest to goddess flaming fucking sword.

I was jolted into full consciousness as I was threatened by something that could actually really and truly fucking kill me.

Which would then be followed by the aforementioned murder of everything in a hundred yard radius to fuel the Hand of Arimus's life drain spell. Because while the Hand could be taken from the corpse of its previous wielder, it was a picky little bastard.

Not that I blame it. I mean if you were The Beginner's Guide to Being and Evil Overlord in sentient and wearable form would YOU want to be stuck to a gargantuan fucking reekazoid for any remote period of time?

I briefly wondered where the fuck a troll came from, as most of this world's supernatural beings had up and stuffed themselves into pocket dimensions where the magical bleedover from several of the nonmaterial planes could sustain them, rather than having their magic slowly sucked out like a freshwater fish carelessly thrown into the ocean. But I didn't have time to try and work out precisely how my attacker had come to be, as I was too busy dodging.

"Motherfucker!" I growled, "That bedspread was a present!"

It had an tessellated pattern of pixelated hearts and it was soft, silky, thick, and fluffy. Combined with my body temp that worked the opposite way of most people, it kept me nice and cool while I slumbered. And now it was on fucking fire.

The thing growled at me in what sounded like the languages of Giants from back home as spoken by a drunken Spaniard trying to sing it with a potato in his mouth. Something about the deadline of a year, a month, and a day having been granted to change my wicked ways and burble burble graagh.

The burble burble graagh part weren't actually words, but the sounds he made upon having a globe made of welded together bits of bent rebar adorned with various colors of neon lights that moved and changed shape to simulate weather patterns striking him in the groin. My daughterganger had made it for me, and it was proving to be much more useful and practical than a macaroni picture. Mostly because if she did engage in those kind of crafts, Dragon Kitty would eat them. Not to say that he wouldn't eat neon lights, but a few blasts from the spray bottle managed to get it through his exceedingly thick skull that they were not for eating.

On the topic of thick skulls, I was going to have to find some way to overcome the troll's regeneration. I'd sunk the Hand of Arimus's talons into his back and severed his spinal cord, but the damn thing had popped back into place before my attacker could so much as wobble at the knees.

Despite being fire of a sort, my coldfire didn't work either. The freezing and rupturing of troll cells didn't stop the regrowth of tissue. If this troll were anything like the common ones from my world it would probably need proper fire and acid.

Sure, I could try to wrestle the sword away from it or summon the Antithesis of All Fey, my massive greatsword that would make even Cloud Strife remark that I'm obviously compensating for something. But I was not only in quarters a bit too close to effectively swing her (while getting chewed out in a voice that sounded like Harvey Fierstein reading the lines of a stereotypical Jewish mother for not bringing her out to fight in so long), but I was also feeling exceptionally vindictive.

For once I called upon the power of the Hand of Arimus. The dark artifact had interfaced with my Personal Necrotech Poly-discipline Arcane Library (Professional Edition), a creation of implanted circuitry shaped in patterns and sigils that provided specific magical effects.

Like being able to consume any weapon, absorb its magical and material properties, and then produce conjured customized copies. If you had a dragonbone sword and a flaming axe, for example, you could have it conjure up a dragonbone flaming axe. Or if you'd previously had the PeN-PAL nom a trident you could also make that dragonbone and flaming.

But the item I summoned wasn't so large and flashy and obviously sorcerous. It looked like a very large tooth with one root cut off and the other wrapped in purple scaly skin. Because that was exactly what it was. A tooth of a very rare, very dangerous undead creature.

I ducked under a horizontal swing (that took out my framed Transformers: The Movie posted and one of my Happy Joe's hanging stained glass lamps) and once again found myself with the creature's back exposed to me.

The son of a bitch was probably used to just shrugging off any damage dealt to him and as a result fought sloppily. I used the opportunity to aim for his shoulder blade, the bone with the largest surface area I could target, and plunged my dagger into it.

The tooth easily parted flesh with the power of my swing and instead of being slowed by the much harder, more solid bone it sunk in as if it were nothing more than water. I released the weapon and let it do its wicked work.

In an instant the troll could no longer control his arm effectively. The pale purple-black glow of necromantic magic shown through his skin, fully suffusing the shoulder blade and beginning to spread.

It was enough to overcome the creature's regeneration as the cells that comprised its bones died. But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that the dead bone was then reanimated.

In less than thirty seconds I had an undead skeleton fully under my power. One that just so happened to be placed within the still-living body of a troll.

"Let him talk, but nothing more," I instructed my minion. "Now, tell me who sent you and why."

I didn't need the Rosetta Stone to translate the two word phrase that was hurled at me.

"No, you won't be doing any of that for the time being."

I waved a hand and extinguished the flaming bedspread so I could sit on the bed.

"Emasculate yourself, then dig into the thighs and start ripping off muscle." I instructed my undead thrall.

It's a good thing I had a skilled carpet cleaner on speed dial.

-o-

This, Josh, is exactly what I've been talking about.

This, Josh, is what I pointed out not one month ago as the central tenant as to why I cannot allow you to take my DTW World Championship.

This, Josh, is why for all you've accomplished, for all the fire you've lit under me, I have to crush you and throw you away like an empty juicebox.

Because once again here you are asking questions and making insinuations that would reveal the answers if you only got off your ass and fucking looked for them.

You think you've laid your soul bare to the world, while I lurk in a bunker of self-delusion and aggrandization, protecting myself from all critique and criticism by holding my thoughts, feelings, triumphs, and tragedies close to my chest, refusing to show any weaknesses.

What scares me?

What makes me feel insecure?

What do I wish I could escape?

What drives me?

What do I want?

Josh Kennedy wants to know.

Josh Kennedy demands the answers.

Josh Kennedy calls me out for hiding away who and what I am.

But Mary Mother of Christ and Her Clockwork fucking Dildo, Josh, did you not bother to take fifteen motherfucking minutes out of your day to try and seek out the answers?

I said last month that if you'd watched so much as one promo you'd know that I'd certainly not gotten everything I ever wanted, and that I was not a coward.

But all those questions? Each and every single one of them?

I've already answered them.

I answered them before you asked them.

I answered them ONE MOTHERFUCKING MONTH AGO.

What'd you do Josh? Just put the tape in and just watch the start and the finish? Why couldn't you watch all of it, were you too busy grooming you sister to be your nest egg in your inevitable retirement from pro wrestling by teaching her how to make clown porn?

Perhaps you're a secret government experiment in trying to create the ultimate fuckwit and you don't actually have any real memories at all. After every DTW show they stuff you back into your cryogenic capsule filled with unspeakable goo to slumber and regenerate until the inevitable time where you're next needed to open your mouth and say something ignorant.

Because seriously, Josh, for all you've accomplished in professional wrestling you seem to really fucking suck at this whole studying your opponent thing.

You're like the wrestling version of that assbag in the office that says something racist to test the waters for their bigotry, and when called out on it go "Ha ha ha, it was just a joke! Stupid SJW snowflake, so fucking triggered!"

Or the internet troll that goes on threads and pretends to be somebody else. You're the sort of motherfucker that lurks in the comments on Anthro Harry Potter fanfic forums and goes "Hey guys, I totally ship Anaconda!Harry and Cat!Hermione, but isn't she a bit of a douche for doing this thing…" when you're actually an Eagle!Harry/Ferret!Malfoy shipper whose avatar is Pepe the Frog and like all your other posting are Slytherin Pride bullshit.

And when called out for lying and fakery you go "Lulz, I was just trolling you motherfuckers!," when the intent was trying to spread an idea and sew dissent all along.

You're the kind of idiot that does stupid things on video in the name of "pwning the libs."

I don't care if you shoved a microphone up your ass while sucking a Bad Dragon dog dick ironically, you still shoved a microphone up your ass and sucked a rubber dog dick. Going "Ha ha, I was only pretending to be a cockthirsty furry idiot," doesn't change what you did.

I asked you a month ago what the reasoning was behind your actions, and those questions stand today.

Did you miss out on the answers because you just didn't catch them?

Did you not get them because you didn't even bother to watch the promo and decided to just get information secondhand from someone who gave you the highlights?

Or do you just not give a shit and are just blazing ahead at full steam with your chosen narrative no matter the reality because you've decided to adopt the mantle of a post-truth world in the vein of the human Dorito in the White House?

While you may still be conveniently in the dark with the answers to your questions, Josh. I've got mine.

The answer to "Is Josh Kennedy stupid, lazy, or lying?" is by your own admission C.

You're lying.

You just want to rile me up just to amuse yourself. You don't care about how it makes me look, how it makes you look, or anything of the like. All that matters is that you scored invisible, immaterial, worthless lulz-points because you think it's funny that I decided to treat your message like that of a legitimate human being and not a complete and utter steaming pile of bullshit meant to be obvious lies.

Thanks, Josh, that makes my job so much easier.

I don't have to wrack my brain thinking about your positive qualities, if I can overlook your flaws, if I ought to hold back just a little bit to give you just a little bit more of a fighting chance than I really should.

You've banished all the niggling little doubts I've had in my mind as to whether or not you could be my potential successor as DTW World Champion.

And the answer to that is "FUCK NO!" with the word FUCK underlined three times in bright red ink.

I will not let you become DTW World Champion. I will fight your victory with every breath left in my body, every single fiber of my being.

My goal is not merely to defend my title.

My mission is to make an example out of you to those that would follow in your path, those that would be like you, those that would seek to emulate your wretched ways.

I may have been too generous when I said you sit on a throne of lies. It's more of a stool in the corner with a dunce cap on top of it.

Lies are ephemeral, fleeting, ever-shifting things. They are a poor foundation upon which to build a life and to build a career.

To let you add to the tower of DTW's renown with bricks of deceit and falsehood would surely see anything that comes after in time come crashing to the ground.

To answer your question loud and clear once again, Josh, I don't fear losing my DTW World Championship.

What I fear is losing it to some asshole like you who is going to do fuck-all for the company, use the belt to put himself over, and shit on everything DTW stands for.

Because your trolling sucks, bro.

If you're going to be a centerpiece, an icon, the focal point for a company you have to be polarizing.

You can't keep doing this wishy-washy shit, Josh.

You have to either make people love you or hate you, and right now you're absolutely sucking at both.

Riddick and Narwin fucking understand this. They're obnoxious, incendiary, inflammatory. They'll lie, stretch the truth, insult people, be complete and utter dicks and in general absolutely repugnant human beings.

They get it.

They know that they'll never be loved. How Riddick managed to find something to willingly fuck him and produce a child the first time I will never know, and Narwin's never getting laid. They don't have what it takes to make people adore them, so instead they take the most loathsome aspects of their personalities and turn it up to eleven. Narwin is a disgusting bigot, and Riddick is a creepy fucking sex offender.

But they do their jobs. They come in to work and people want to see the shit getting beat out of them.

Shit or get off the pot, Josh.

Decide if you want people to love you or hate you.

Either way you have to stop with this half-assed bullshit.

Gods, I don't care if you don't want to trade witty remarks back and forth like we're parked on Monkey Island and we insult one another whilst clashing with sword.

Banter is so much more than that. It's a dialogue, it's back and forth, it's using what we say to one another to elevate the both of us to another level beyond anything we could be on our own.

And yes, you're doing that. I'm fired up, being a wordy bitch, ranting endlessly and passionately about our match.

But you're leaving the job half done here.

You're not doing that. You're not firing back. You're not listening to what I have to say and coming back on that.

You're taking the bare bones, the bullet points, the framework of what I say and reacting to that. Instead of piling up your plate at the buffet you're walking over, taking a deep breath, then going to sit at a booth with a Diet Nestea and complaining how fucking hungry you are, can't we see that you want some food?

You have to fuckin dig in, Josh, you have to sink your teeth into what I've offered you. You can't just decide to keep drifting along and pass like two ships in the night. You have to fucking fire your cannons, man the harpoons, ready the boarding party!

What are you going to do next month, Josh?

Because I can venture a guess.

If you win you're going to be crowing about how you got the Big Blue Bitch to start pissing and moaning about something you never actually believed. That your trolling mind games paid off and threw me mentally off balance allowing you to get the win.

And if you lose? You're going to fucking yuck it up once more giggling about how you never actually intended that as a legitimate argument in the first place, that you were just fucking trolling me once again. Ha ha ha, aren't I an idiot for actually thinking that somebody who takes the time to sit in front of the camera to talk as part of his vocation at face value.

You need to decide what you want to be, Josh, and stick with that.

I'm not afraid of losing my title. I want to lose it. I want somebody to take it. I want somebody to show that they're a better wrestler then me, that they can overcome a goddamned dragon and be able to carry all of DeathTrip Wrestling on their back.

[I tap the belt on my shoulder with a clawed, gauntleted finger.]

Because this title isn't just a prize, isn't just an accolade, isn't just a trinket or shiny bauble to be worn as a fashion accessory to glorify and aggrandize its holder. It's a burden, it's a responsibility, it's the beating heart of the promotion itself.

There is power here, in this construct of leather and metal. In a world bereft of sorcery this title is a totem, a symbol of excellence and greatness.

Have you ever sat down and thought about it? About how men and women can train themselves to absorb hellacious amounts of punishment, about how the right mindset can allow you to overcome insane amounts of pain and suffering in a deathmatch when a single chairshot will down the same man in a standard wrestling match?

That despite all the implements of destruction that end up used in a professional wrestling ring, that somehow a championship itself becomes one of the most dangerous weapons.

It's because there's magic here. Just a little bit. You can't touch the lives of thousands of people over and over, again and again, week after week, month after month and not have that emotion go somewhere.

In a world where magic had faded I'm doing my part to protect what little there is left, to try and fan the dying embers of your world into a raging fire once more.

It is my hope, my dream to drag Planet Earth kicking and screaming into a new ages of wonders and terrors. To make this world both a better place and a worse one.

Because the worst thing you can be, Josh, is mundane.

The worst thing you can be is bland.

The worst thing you can be is boring.

As a professional wrestler it doesn't matter if you're loved, it doesn't matter if you're hated.

Your job is to go out there is to reach out and pluck the heartstrings of the fans, to get them to feel something. To get them behind you or to get them against you.

But you need to fucking pick one, Josh.

I want to make your world a place where miracles and atrocities happen on a daily basis.

I want a world where cancer is dead.

I want a world that has overcome sickness, disease, and dementia for all time.

I want a world where racism, classism, sexism, and bigotry is extinct.

I want a world where it doesn't matter what you look like, what you worship, how you dress, or who you love.

Because you're going to need every last motherfucker you can get your hands on to man the walls when the monsters come.

A world where it doesn't matter which political party you vote for, because you all can agree that giant squid emerging from the sea to devour small children is a bad thing and that all of mankind needs to come together in order to survive.

This world is nothing but shades of grey, Josh.

That's why it's sick.

That's why it's dying.

That's why it's fading away.

It needs true darkness and true light to consume and burn away the sickly, pallid shadows.

It needs black…

[I summon a portion of my power, the markings of the Ebon Empress appearing around my eyes and adorning my lips with its darkness]

...and white.

[I do something that I have never done before, calling upon the power of the Diamond Despot while still maintaining the previous state. The pearlescent crown of my strongest imbuement appears upon my brow and each of my words is accompanied by an icy exhalation of fog as my body temperature plummets with the energy flowing through me.]

Despite making so much progress you have so many people who want to throw it all away for a fiction, for a fantasy, for a world that never was.

You see so many people trying to turn back time, to make everything back like it was in the United States back in the 50's. A golden age of innocence, stability, and prosperity.

None of them realize that the Garden of Eden in which they dwelt was built upon the ruins and corpses of two previous generations.

And that's what the Garden of Eden is. It's comfort, it's plenty, it's shelter, it's innocence. It's a place where nothing bad can ever happen.

It's a place free from worry, free from strife, free from cares, free from responsibility where you are provided for and content and want for nothing.

It's meant to be a metaphor for growing up.

You take a bite out of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and you can no longer wrap yourself in the bliss of ignorance.

That's why you can't be champion, Josh.

Because everything you've said these past two months is nothing but lies. Lies meant to lessen me, lies meant to glorify you.

You can't be the valiant hero charging at the dragon with his sword, come to stop my pillaging and seizing my hoard of riches for yourself.

Because heroes don't lie, Josh.

They don't lie to themselves, they don't lie to others, they don't spread whispers in the marketplace about how the dragon is a coward and how stupid the dragon is for believing those rumors in the first place.

And you can't be the villain either, Josh.

Your lies aren't big enough, bold enough, powerful enough. That the dragon in the hills that has never actually pillaged the countryside instead takes on the form of a comely maiden and upon winter nights lures those who have delved too far into their cups out into the blizzard to perish.

That the dragon calls upon its dark sorceries to blight the countryside, that it's responsible for the recent poor harvest.

The corrupt aristocrat that goads the town into hiring dragonslayers, not caring that they're throwing away their money and sending brave knights to their deaths.

You're not the hero, you're not the villain, what you are is a casualty of the overarching narrative.

You're not the protagonist, you're not the antagonist, you're the greedy douchebag that gets the fuck murdered out of him by the dragon so that the townsfolk can see just how strong the dragon is.

Am I a hero?

Am I a villain?

I don't know, I really don't.

And that's the way it ought to be.

No one should think that they're the villain of the piece. They should think they're perfectly justified.

You wanted to know what I think about humans, such short lived, fragile, magicless things.

I think of you a seeds that have been scattered across a bone dry, sun scorched field.

You are blown into this world upon a wind of change and you inevitably take root and perish from dessication, all the life, all the wonder sucked out of you by an empty, infertile environment.

I want to flood your field. Those of you that have not taken root may end up swept away in the tide, drowning. But those of you that are left behind will flourish and grow to such heights as to be beyond your current imagining.

But my dream is not a dream for the here and now. My dream is a dream that lies far, far away down at the end of a road that I have to build by myself brick by brick.

And it starts right here, with the tiny spark of magic I've managed to kindle within DeathTrip Wrestling and its World Championship.

This is the seed that I have chosen to nurture.

This is the spark that will ignite the flame.

And I will not let you snuff it out, Josh Kennedy.

I will take the cold, dead, grey ashes of your heart and I will pour into them the blood and tears I will wring from you in my victory.

And I will fire that slurry within the kiln of my heart, fueled by the flames of my passion to turn your defeat into one more brick on the road to a world filled with wonders and horrors.

One more brick.

One more step.

I seek to be the rising tide, Josh Kennedy, that lifts all boats.

Unfortunately your boat is the sort held together by slapdash patches, duct tape, and hope with the intent of being foisted off on some poor sucker by the maritime equivalent of a sleazy used car salesmen.

Mine is a tide of truth, Josh Kennedy.

And ships that sail with their hulls made of lies will inevitably sink.

That which can be destroyed by exposure to the truth SHOULD be destroyed.

Sink.

Again and again.

Sink.

Drown in me.