Compton Security must have been unavailable; so, Tempest called on her connection with Fat Saul to provide her some assurance. While they were too likely too lazy to prevent or protect, there in an intensive care corridor, Kuntry Twang and Lil’ Roscoe sat on each side of a door. They are country boys, denim and flannel, chumming up with their eyes on the nurses. Roscoe is anything but little and Swaggy is much shorter ...and rounder. Luckily, their only purpose is to mind who comes calling on the room's occupants.
Following his rematch with Jimmy Pagan for the ICWA Heavyweight Championship, Mr. Boneshaker was rushed to the Cedar-Sinai Medical Center.
Inside the room, Tempest sat next to her bestest friend since childhood. She held his hand as he slept.
The last month, everything leading up to this point flashed in her mind. When they had first appeared on Lights Out, he had just won the ICWA Heavyweight Championship. After signing with Iconic Pro Wrestling and then, much like Joanna Kreiger, Union Battleground.
“That was your goal all along,” she spoke softly under her breath with a nod.
Contrary to the epitome of southern beauty at ringside, her eyes are heavy and tear-streaked mascara stains her cheeks. She has her hair pulled up in a ponytail.
She knew that night; the very moment Saul asked and Bones answered, she knew his focus had changed.
“Drell.” And, that was all he said.
One simple word sent a rift through the Union Battleground locker room and changed his focus completely.
It didn't help that the very next weekend, Jimmy Pagan attacked him from behind and robbed him of the ICWA Heavyweight Championship. At that point, he made his feelings crystal clear, “Fuck professional wrestling!”
Combat sports; his entire life, he has disciplined himself to fight. Training in multiple disciplines, though he was never able to compete for any sanctioned event. A congenital heart defect, repaired and in good health, makes him unable to be insured or sanctioned. It's also the reason they are here. Sure, Pagan had blindsided him once again, attacking Bones as he prepared in his locker room. This time, the attack was merciless and the defeat remorseless. Keep in mind though, it was professional wrestling.
As soon as this twenty-four hour cardiac observation is over, Bones will be right back at Squires West to prepare for the challenge he confirmed last Friday night.
“Seriously,” she continued to mutter, “I think you did all of this on purpose.”
They had moved to the golden shores of West Hollywood from the muddy banks of Hell for Certain this year. There were ten times as many people in their condo complex in California than had ever resided -ever- in their Kentucky hometown. A creek by the same name of their small village runs to Harmony Lake, an even smaller community, where Saul calls home.
What brought a couple of kids all the way across the country?
Their talents; she is a renowned pianist and he is an stunt actor, recently cast to a late night mafia thriller based on professional wrestling.
While the only keys her fingers have been working recently are those in her telephone, setting up promotional appearances and getting him bookings, his part in the show is currently on hiatus to allow him to focus on his professional wrestling.
“Go figure, right?” She shakes her head.
Tempest was aware that Mr. Boneshaker wanted out and she knew that they weren't going to make it easy on either of them.
“Yeah,” he coughed with no other motion, “fuck all of them.”
“I would have liked you to have a better record going into this, you know?” She nudged him in the arm. Hard.
“Damn!”
“So, what,” her brows raised as her tone bit down serious, “you just blow matches, spit and cuss now?”
“Blow matches,” he opened his right eye with stern questioning, “I did what I was told by the road agent and trainers. And now…”
She scowled at his smirk. The significant rage in her eyes showed she wasn't too thrilled with his new nonchalant, cavalier attitude.
“And now, what?” He left her hang far too long and she let go of his hand as she asked.
“And now, I get an actual opportunity.”
“Excuse me?” She didn't like his answer. She had set him up with some more-than-decent opportunities. “Just this month, I had you competing in a Junior Heavyweight Tournament.”
“And, I did exactly what they told me to do.”
“You were supposed to use it for exposure,” she threw her hands up in the air. “You had twelve minutes to a time-limit draw in the first match and you hardly even touched your opponent. The second match was decent, but that last one, you pretty much went out there and laid down. That is three losses, Kodi!”
“Three losses to girls,” he shook his head, “in a predetermined setting where my ass doesn't belong.”
“You can't talk like that, Kodi; it's how we are making our living.”
“Not any more.”
“Union Battleground is a professional wrestling company,” she rolled her eyes…
“No, they are not,” he shook his head again, “they are combat sports in a professional wrestling ring.”
“You are a stubborn ass!”
“AJ, where else you gonna see a bitch get her nose ring ripped out? Or her braid?” He asked. “No, Darlin’; this is not professional wrestling, this is a fucking battle to the finish just to get up, come back and do it again.”
The monitors indicated that his pulse was elevating.
“Where else are you going to get to immediately challenge the most intense sumbitch on the planet,” he continued as the story unfolded in his eyes, “because every one else to attempt to put his ass down thus far, has failed.”
“Which is why I wish you had a better record going in.”
“Kaven Drell doesn't give a fuck about my professional wrestling record, AJ;” he was adamant because he was convinced, “he ain't losing sleep over who I have beat or who wiped their ass with me on some booker's sheet. That mean ass bastard is looking for a fight and I'm going to fucking give it to him.”
“What was wrong with the match last Wednesday?”
Again, he opened one eye, glaring at her. Is she even fucking listening?
“Are you kidding me?” He opened the other eye as he explained, “You and I both know, that match didn't stand a chance. No contest; speaks for itself, don't it?”
“Match of the Night…”
“I don't know,” he shrugged, “Battle of the Year just sounds better. Besides, there won't be any Heathens running in to completely fuck it up for me. No one is going to run in on Kaven Drell; and soon, the same will be said for Mr. Boneshaker.”
“Okay,” finally, she broke, “I'll have to admit, standing there between the chants was pretty aweing.”
“Kill-Drell-Kill,” he chanted in a whisper, pumping his fist. “I hope he brings everything he has. It's going to take all that and more. See, he ain't blindsiding me like those coward wrestlers. He stood there; he heard my challenge and he accepted my challenge. Like a fighter ...like the Champion would do.”
“Yeah,” she nodded, “the same fighting Champion that had just laid three men out.”
“I'm not any of those men,” he shook his head, “I'm not a sideshow freak or a beer guzzling trip. You won't find me in an ancient tomb or a field of lavender. I am in the gym every day, building my body to withstand and inflict pain with as much power as I can pack into it.”
“I know, Baby.”
“I am at the Academy as late as they will stay, perfecting my moves and learning the psychology of my opponent.”
“I'm aware, I'm the one up waiting.”
“Alan Envy tosses and throws my ass around that ring, teaching me chain sequencing and how to think three or four moves ahead.”
“You will soon be a Squires Knight, I know.”
“You've heard?” He asked with sarcastic rhetoric.
“Several times now,” she returned just as snide.
“The best part, hands down, is getting to go at it with Kaven Drell,” he admitted, “I mean, I understand the gauntlet that will follow, some of the same challengers…”
“You're talking like you've already won.”
“Haven't I?”
“You're going to take a day or…”
“He ain't taking no day or nothing and neither am I. Tomorrow,” he stated, “I'm going back to getting my ass ready. I'm going to knock the Lights Out on Kaven Drell's War Horse Title reign.”
Back outside of the room, Paid to Pummel had both fallen asleep. There wouldn't be any incidents; and, by this time tomorrow, he would be discharged home. Just like the day that followed him being robbed of the heavyweight championship, he would return to the Thunderdome. As he had promised, he had a fight to bring.
Post by Kaven Drell on Apr 1, 2019 20:23:49 GMT -5
“Two Hundred and Six...”
A darkened room is illuminated by a rectangular board that emanates a bright white light. Stuck to the board is an X-Ray of the human body, the light making each bone of the body visible to the viewing audience. Though Drell is not yet seen, his voice has already made the viewers aware of his presence. With each passing week it was a presence they were becoming more and more accustomed to. Some might not agree with his methods. Some might have a distaste for his vigilante nature. But there was no question that, regardless of what people were thinking, they were certainly paying attention. More and more the masses began to follow him. They were growing in number just as the chants urging him to unleash violence on the entirety of the Union Battleground roster were growing in volume with each passing Lights Out.
“Oh my dear friends, Tempest and Mr. Boneshaker. Welcome to my playground. Will you both be participating this week? I know what the card says, but this would be much more enjoyable for me if you played your part too, Ms. Tempest. I imagine you won’t, though. I recall that our rather large friend that you keep at your side dared to speak my name at the Thirty Second episode of Lights Out. But you… you showed wisdom. You stayed his tongue. A single touch of your fingers and utterance of your lips was enough of a warning to caution him from making the biggest mistake of his life.”
Even though he was not visible yet, the audience could hear the sneer that was formed on his lips dripping off of the sound of his words. Silence fell for a moment until Drell clicked his tongue and continued onward.
“I am growing weary of this War Horse championship. I grow weary of Gunnar Graves trying to maintain the status quo while I’m busy lighting fire to everything around him. I grow tired of week in, and week out, men and women walking to the ring thinking that they have that something special to one up me. With each passing week I’m left searching for something to entertain myself with. Everyone was certain that their beloved every man was going to give me the fight of my life. Instead, I squashed him like the insignificant creature that he is under the weight of my boot just like every single man and woman who has made their way down that ramp to look me in the eye. Do you know I can see it, Boneshaker? I can see when the bell rings and I look into their eyes. I watch the little bit of hope they clung to disappear, shattered into a million pieces. It amused me at first. To a certain extent it even aroused me. But now? I am growing tired of taking out the trash. I long for the sort of challenge that Kimitsu swears she will give to me. The sort of challenge that she has given so many others.”
The hum of the X-Ray board fills in the momentary pause that Drell allows, that his thoughts might linger on the notion of an actual fight. On actual competition. On the Trench Warfare Champion.
“You, Boneshaker, are not that challenge. Not even with the tempest that’s bottled up inside your masters little body. Oh I wish you had something of value to bring with you. Something of interest for me to pull from your big, meaty paws as your will power fails you. I wish you hadn’t let that ICWA Heavyweight Championship slip through your fingers. Now? Now you have nothing to offer me. Now you have nothing of value. Now you have no worth to me, Boneshaker. Which means that now, instead of focusing on taking from you…”
Finally the silhouette of the War Horse champion appears as he leans close to the X-Ray board, his fingers reaching out slowly to touch the film that was hanging, illuminated by the backlight.
“Well, something much much worse must happen now. I know you think I don’t care about you, big man. I know you think I’m not paying attention to those tiny little details. I wonder what happens when a man who makes bones shake is subjected to a man who just loves…”
Dragging out the word loves before letting a pause fall on the air, a sinister smile formed on his lips and a deep, throaty laugh rumbled out of the core of his being. Gently, Drells tongue darted out to moistened his upturned lips as though he was savoring the notion of the idea that was forming into his head.
“And I really do mean it, Boneshaker, I love…”
Again, he drags the final word out before turning to glance toward the camera. The bright light cast a strangely angelic glow along the outline of his being and the irony was certainly not something that would be lost on the man fans chanted to witness his outbursts of violence.
“To be the bone breaker. Two hundred and six choices to inflict pain. Two hundred and six different ways to make you cry out for Mama Tempest. Two hundred and six ways to dare her to give me the chance to double that number. Will it be the femur that I begin with? You know they say that the most painful thing a human can endure is the breaking of the femur bone? Christ, I imagine the sound of your agony would be absolutely delectable. Perhaps the jawbone, so that you won’t think to ever speak my name again without first being spoken to. Or maybe the orbital bone, nagging at those eyes that you dared cast in my direction, foolishly thinking you belong fighting me.”
His fingers drift toward the right femur on the X-Ray and touch it, a sigh escaping the War Horse champion as he fantasizes inwardly, imagining for a moment the sound of his opponents agony. Slowly his fingers drift up to the jawbone, and then the cheekbone before he heaves another sigh.
“The simple truth is that you are just as much fodder for me as Nathan Turner. As Cletus Franklin. As Karnivall. As Michael Kelly and Elena DeDraca both were. You’ve not been done any favors, though you might see this as an opportunity to establish yourself. Deep down, though, in the depths of who you are, you already know that this is no opportunity. You’re a lamb being guided to the altar. Tempest tried to spare you from it. She tried to warn you. She tried to stop you. In spite of her best efforts it wasn’t to be. And now, in spite of her best efforts, there is little she can do to stop the storm that’s coming to your shore, friend.”
A giddy giggle provides an odd contrast to the slightly eerie set up that Drell has chosen for the day. The boredom that had drenched the undertones of his voice early on now chased away at the delight of the possibilities that awaited him at his fingertips.
“Nobody seems to be capable of grasping that fact, though. It’s not about the War Horse championship for me. I’ve said from the start the only interest I had in this championship was in taking it from a woman who had become so bogged down in the muck and mire of trying to please everyone that she needed to be liberated from it. I didn’t come to Union to win championships. I didn’t come to this company to take on the trash. I came to burn it to the fucking ground week after week after week. Now, I carry trinkets like this one to lure fools like yourself in. Call it gathering kindling for my fire.”
Kaven reaches up with ease and plucks the X-Ray from the board, examining it closely as he continued to talk.
“When I’m finished with you, Boneshaker, the least of your worries will be if that defective ticker of yours can hold up for the long haul. The real question will be how can you walk back to ICWA and expect anyone to buy into anything that you claim to be? When I’m done with you, friend, Tempest will look at me with lust in her eyes, and she’ll turn to you in disgust. She’ll ache for what she wishes she could have, and loathe the broken Boneshaker she’s left with.”
Stepping toward the camera, Drell got close enough so that his breath caused the lens to fog up momentarily. Before the operator could wipe it clean a loud snap could be heard and suddenly everything was dark. Except, as usual, the voice of Drell began to echo in a sing song voice.
“Two hundred six, my friend. And I’m going to use every single one of them to make sure..”
A familiar song can start to be detected in the notes that go along with his statements. Shifting, his deep voice transitions fully into the song.
“I believe them bones are me. Some say we’re born into the grave. I feel so alone, gonna end up a big ole pile of them bones…”
