Post by Viduus Morta on Jan 31, 2018 15:03:38 GMT -5
The wind whipped through the bare branches of the vast sea of trees. The overcast sky made the forest feel more dead than it actually was. Snow covered the ground making the wind send a chill through our bones. The scene was not unfamiliar as these particular men had been seen in settings like this countless time before. Today, however, there was something different about this particular scene. Throughout the entire forest, from the lowest branches, dream catchers hung and blew in the wind.
Viduus Morta and The Speaker wandered through the maze of trees, snow crunching under each step they took. Viduus, occasionally would lightly brush his hand against a dream catcher letting it touch his hand and bounce back to its original position. Each dream catcher was a different color, each with a unique pattern, and different feathers hanging from the bottom.
“Dream catchers…”
The Speaker was about to educate us as his smirk would indicate.
“Meant to keep evil spirits away from your infant children. Built to catch nightmares to protect your children from bad dreams.”
Suddenly, they stop their trek through the trees and snow. Above them is perhaps the biggest dream catcher we could have ever imagined.
“Sometimes nothing can protect you or your children from the darkness though. Nothing can protect them from pure evil. Nothing can save them from their nightmares, nothing can save you from the real monsters.”
A glance back at Viduus and nod from him in approval indicated that The Speaker was on the right path as he continued to Speak.
“Little Joseph Stanton had a dream. He wanted to be a professional wrestler and he achieved that dream. He achieved success within his dream in Japan and other American based professional wrestling companies. His successes brought him to Union Battleground…where his failures, starting with Viduus, will expose him to the darkness. Thus far Joe, you’ve been protected. You have been spared from the nightmares, the evil, the monsters that walk this earth. An impressive victory in your first match here has undoubtedly given you a sense of confidence that you can achieve success here.”
Viduus smirks as he takes a few steps forward to stand directly next to The Speaker.
“Your dreams have been realized thus far Joseph but what of them and you when they begin to go up in flames?”
Viduus snapped his fingers at waist level, simultaneously every single dream catcher in the forest went up in flames including the giant one above the two men. Was this a coincidence or smoke and mirrors from the Morta family? Did Viduus hold some sort of strange power in his fingertips? The two men continued their walk with the firey dreamcatchers leading the way.
“That’s when your light burns out. The monsters rise from the darkness and creep out from within the shadows and decimate your entire world. We know you’ll say you have fought bigger men, badder men…but my brother is no mere man. He is more than man. He is the monster you were supposed to be protected from. He is the evil that you’re told only exists in movies. He is the flame that will reduce your heightening career to nothing but ashes and dust.”
The two men reached the end of the trees. Through the forest we can see a clear path of flames in the middle of the forest. Viduus once again snaps his fingers. The world seems to go quiet as the flames are put out and if you listen closely enough, you could hear the ash fall to the ground in a pile.
“This is your fate at Lights Out Joe. A fireball who is ready to blaze his path through another company only to flame out in his second match and fall to ash. If you were the least bit entertaining perhaps we could look over you and let you proceed. If you were at all an original creation of what a professional wrestler is then maybe Viduus would spare you…but Joe…you’re the same as everyone who has come before you.”
In the middle of an open, snow covered field, stood one tombstone that Viduus and The Speaker began to approach.
“You’re baby face, tidy haircut and awful promos are something of a standard in our business Joe and you live that standard to the fullest. Viduus? He’s here for much more than just a dream. There is something here much greater, within Salvation, that is to gain. But you…the way you refer to your younger self in the third person, the way you over sell yourself on the level of your skills, the way you pretend to be excited to be pushed to the limit.”
Viduus and The Speaker reach the tombstone but there is nothing written on it. It is just a blank stone slab.
“It disgusts me when people like you try to convince themselves of these things. You think you’re ready for a challenge. You pretend you want to meet the best of the best. When you stand across the ring from someone such as Viduus though, a former Extreme champion, the urine will begin to run down your leg as you piss yourself like the coward that you, deep down, truly are when faced with a true nightmare. The way you spread yourself so thin among any and all wrestling companies just hoping and grasping at any success you can achieve anywhere is laughable. You’re not confident enough in yourself to stay in one place such as UB, where the competition is fierce. You have to parade yourself out to other companies like a common street whore looking for any and all work you can get.
You, Joe, are a joke. Your mere presence in the same company as Salvation and my brother cheapens everything this company has achieved since its inception. We don’t need company slatterns like you mucking up our ranks here in this company. We don’t need fed-whores such as yourself in a company with such prestige. My brother will do his best to see to it that you never want to show your face here again.
Where we are victors in Salvation, you will only be a victim.”
With another snap of Viduus’s fingers, the flames ignite on the tombstone spelling out Joe Stanton and beneath his name “Victim of Salvation” The camera panned to Viduus showing only his face.
“Only the elite receive their invitation for Salvation. Only the unique may enter the kingdom. The bleak, the bland, and the weak have no seat with us. You have told your last tale in Union Battleground. The Scarlett Speedster is on a collision course with his demise. Your face will adorn a crimson mask and I will feed upon you like a lion preys upon a gazelle. Joe Stanton, I am the Blood King and you will bow before me.”
Post by Joe Stanton on Feb 5, 2018 22:11:35 GMT -5
The scene opens on...Viduus Morta?!
Or, rather the imagery of him associated with his Four Corners Wrestling biography that someone's looking at on their computer, judging by the other tabs open having his Union Battleground biography and several promotional materials & matches they're doing some research on him. The glow of the monitor illuminates enough of the room that when the camera zooms out the IJPW Death Crown Championship is visible on the desk beside the monitor, as is the man that's staring at the visage of his upcoming opponent. Joe Stanton keeps his green eyes locked on Morta for a good long while.
"Some people, we're just born skeptics. You hear something that's too good to be true or too fantastical to sound real, it probably is. Way of the world. I don't know why I've always been like this, but I have been. Always asked why, always needed to know the truth, always questioned what was even staring me right in the face."
Half turning his face towards the lens so that his eyes are staring out of frame, Joe bobs his head in a non-committal sort of way when he begins.
"To be honest, got me in trouble more than a few times growing up..."
A half smile finds its way onto his features and he scoffs, thumbing his nose when he remembers back to his childhood. Most adults didn't like him questioning things, typically they preferred a child to be more compliant than Joe ever was.
"It's a good trait to have in this industry, because there's a lot of smoke and mirrors. Lots of people that will try to pull the wool over your eyes, if you let them. They'll play you like a damn fiddle and laugh their way to success the entire time. Contemporaries, staff, promoters, it's like the real world, there's some bad apples in every bunch you glance into."
Tapping the side of his skull, Stanton shows some wariness to the uglier sides of the business. He let's out a sharp exhale through his nose and he shakes his head when he talks about them playing somebody like a fiddle. Memories of names and faces flood him, both those that tried to to him, and those he saw try to to others around him.
"But..."
Trailing off, the Scarlet Speedster frowns and his brow gradually furrows when something else seeps into his mind. It starts at the base of the back of his neck, almost like a tickle that zigs and zags its way up there making the hairs on it stand up. It gives him a weird sensation when it hits his head, his brain. Like, something halfway between brain freeze and a shudder.
"There's also something about this industry specifically that...draws an element to it like a magnet. It's like all the glitz and the glamour, the smoke and the mirrors invoke, summon. some thing that for a long time I had a very hard time coming to terms with as a born skeptic. I don't know why, I can't even really explain it, and I've come to learn something that I used to believe was a fallacy and that's some things you can't explain. There's some things out there that no matter how you dissect, no matter how much you try to find a scientific explanation for, no matter how you try to rationalize it...there's no rationalizing it."
That frown on his face deepens and his eyes glance at the image of Viduus Morta momentarily before he looks directly into the camera.
"They don't so much break reality as these elements...bend reality around them. Like, something about them just makes everything a little squishier, more malleable, and for one reason or another they're able to find their way out of whatever forsaken hole they crawled out of to slither into this industry. Into the real world. Or, at least into the wrestling world."
He thinks about how to phrase it exactly and he wiggles his hand when describing them not breaking reality so much as bending it. His tone deathly serious when he tries to explain how he makes some kind of sense out of the things that go bump in the night. He bobs his head again when he implies they're in our world.
"I've come to accept that it's just a facet of the job, a hazard of it if you want to look at it that way. That sure there are some pretenders, but sometimes what you find yourself standing across from is the real deal as unbelievable as it is to comprehend. I've been no stranger to them for most of my career, I've fought the holy, the unholy, the undead, eldritch, jurassic, cybernetic, and all manner of creature in-between. Hell, just last week I fought a dragon."
A half hearted shrug is brought on when he confesses his stance, his guide of "Don't think about it. Just punch it" works best for him. It shows in the somewhat incredulous look he has when talking about the subject matter. But he can't help smiling when referencing what he's tangled with in the past. Especially in the recent past, he's still pretty stoked he got to "slay" a dragon.
"One thing I know for certain on the topic, they can fight hard and they can fight well usually, they can kick the average person's ass from here to Katmandu, but they're not infallible. They're not perfect. They're comparable to the best that mankind has to offer in terms of a fighter, and that means you can beat them if you're good enough. It's like Jim and John Thomas once infamously penned, if it bleeds, you can kill it."
Holding up his index finger, the Scarlet Speedster smirks when he praises these types. It's like he's said, he's fought his fair share of the strange and the weird, and they usually provide him with the type of challenge he likes. The smirk grows wider into a grin when he mentions they're not infallible. His voice growing more passionate and blood thirsty with every word.
"You put a thing like Viduus Morta against me, and I'm already pretty excited about the prospects of the match, I'm licking my lips at the idea of getting to go one on one with something like him. Throwing into the mix we're doing this in front of so many people at the Ryōgoku Sumo Hall? That we're doing this in front of Japanese fans that I've practically been married to for the better part of January and February with how many shows I've been performing on over in the Land of the Rising Sun? That just stacks onto the buzz I got going for this."
It's certainly happy but there's also something almost...shark like about Joe's grin, predatory like when he describes the feeling of exhilaration he feels when being booked with Viduus Morta. That undercurrent of intensity to his voice only grows when he brings up the subject of where they're fighting each other. His eyes glow like emeralds in part due to the monitor's light and in part due to the electricity running through them.
"Morta's pride, my pride, those fans in attendance, that should be motivation enough to produce the type of action I like but Union Battleground's just too kind to me. Because they put more incentive for Morta to give me his all, for me to summon every last ounce of my testicular fortitude by dangling a prize, an opportunity at vying for the War Horse Championship! And, on top of that, that championship allows you to challenge for a championship even higher in the pecking order than it! Something I'm sure Salvation has a vested interest in!"
Stanton has to practically stifle a laugh he sounds so god damn jolly when explaining the genius of what Union Battleground have given him. All of the possibilities are running through his brain and he's looking genuinely like a kid in a candy store about the difficulty of the task placed before him.
"A lot of you folks out there may be skeptics too. But believe that on February ninth you're not going to want to miss what happens when Morta and I step into the ring against each other. This match is going to be out of this world."
Pointing a finger at the camera, Joe pantomimes counting up the skeptics in the audience watching this footage. He winks at them when he drops the word believe and wets his lips before he finishes the piece. The Scarlet Speedster reaches over to the camera and it fumbles in his hands momentarily before a cut to black.
