Post by Daniel MacNamara on Dec 15, 2019 17:33:13 GMT -5
“Battlegrounds.”
He felt that word dry up his tongue, wringing the moisture from his mouth and turning it so barren that it felt like sand had been forcibly poured down his gullet until he couldn’t even breathe properly. Anxiety inducing, the term wasn’t quite enough and yet it made sense to him as he pondered it. Why did it bother him so? The thoughts of competing in such a myriad of bloody brawls with a wide variety of superstars that ranged from almost harmless to well and truly lethal; from mundane to walking cosmic horrors that he had no business fighting. All for a belt, for glory, for the honor of representing your home.
Maybe that’s why when the camera was on NVR’s favorite son, it became readily apparent that he had a NVR pin on the left lapel of his jacket. Wait, where was he? Why was he sitting on that front porch of.. God knows where?
How many times had he gone to war for this company? How much of his blood did he pay his dues with, only to hold nothing in his hands to show for that? Yet there he was, the first one to man the ramparts, the first body in when the charge was lead? Loyalty was his greatest virtue, it seemed. Still, he sat in that rocking chair, on the porch of… what almost looked like a groundskeeper’s house.
Black pants adorned his lower half, creased sharply and tailored to his form, just like the matching button up and blazer were. Those clothes, so sharply contrasted in how different they were for him just months ago, were so in order that it almost seemed out of touch. So neat, so sharp, from the shine to his wingtip shoes to the way his black framed glasses sat so smartly on the bridge of his nose. Daniel MacNamara would have looked more in place doing academics than he would have in a ring, or he would have until you looked at him.
The scars around his mouth and jaw, the subtle markings around his right orbital. Crooked knuckles and off angled fingers from past breaks that he’d tried to disguise under skin conditioners and manicures. He wanted to look softer, but a man like Daniel MacNamara, no matter what airs he put on, couldn’t be the soft hearted boy that he wanted to be, even when he actively tried to be.
That was his curse, wasn’t it? While the world screamed about the monsters that they were, he shied away from his calling time and time again only to have it dragged out of him, screaming.
“I..”
He took the glasses from his face, lifting a hand to rub at the bridge of his nose as if to massage away the irritation and stress, only to drop the hand into his lap entirely.
“I’m here to represent NVR Wrestling. To show the world what we’re capable of.”
That’s when he forced a smile to his lips, a tight, grim, line that seemed to die just short of his baby blue colored eyes.
“No champions are representing NVR in this. None of its number one contenders, none of the people always thrown to the forefront that seem to talk the loudest. No, it’s me. I’m here. Just like I was when we took on Seattle Pro. Just like I always am, when someone throws down the gauntlet. It’s just me. Danny. Like it always seems to be in the end.”
His voice seemed tired. So very full of fatigue that no amount of sleep could ever properly cure. Still, he sat there, and he watched the camera as he spoke as if he was giving a response to something that nobody even brought up.
“Killers, monsters, wrestlers that have been doing this since before I was even thought of. A proving ground of bloody fucking mayhem, and here I am, carrying a flag that half of them won’t recognize, and the other half won’t care about. I’m doing it, because it needs to be done, and those that should be representing us, won’t. In a world where 4CW and Yamashi are seemingly king, NVR is here in a competition to step towards both, not to mention Union Battlegrounds itself. “
Pause. Daniel snorted in pure derision, looking off to the side.
“It’s bullshit. All of it. I know why I’m doing this, and it’s not because of NVR, though it's home. It's not the real reason I'm salivating at the thought of this dance.”
That’s when he looked back to the camera.
“I’m doing this because.. Well, I’m doing this because I need to on some strange fundamental level that I can’t explain. I can’t quantify my need to hurt people, I can’t explain it, and as much as I’ve tried, and I have, I can’t deny it. It’s my mercurial nature to be destructive. I don’t know why I do these things, I don’t know if it’s somehow genetic and coded to who and what I am, but it’s there. This isn’t to brag or boast about my affliction, this isn’t to convey how very dangerous I am. This isn’t even a declaration of intent. This is..”
He leaned back, just for a moment, steepling those fingertips together as he kept his eyes trained on the camera, looking strangely thoughtful despite the grim air that he had.
“...An apology.”
“I want to apologize. I want to apologize for the hypocrisy in my words and my actions, claiming that I don’t want to do what I always wind up doing, that I don’t enjoy every second of it like a hound being released from its bonds after baying for blood all night long. There’s a certain kind of feeling that I can’t describe when I feel my knuckles impact the flesh of another person, when I hear the deafening thud of their bodies as they hammer the ground with parts of them that were never meant to be the point of contact for a landing, usually while they’re tucked in my arms.”
His hands untangled from one another, lifting in a ‘what can you do’ shrug before they dropped into his lap with his elbows still on the arms of his chair.
“Truth is, it’s all bullshit. I’m as wayward and vicious as the rest of these people here, they’re just more honest about themselves than I am, but even my hypocrisy has bounds.”
Getting to his feet, he ran those calloused fingertips along the edges of his jacket, before he rolled it from his body and hung it up on the back of his rocking chair, those same fingers moving to uncuff his shirt’s cufflinks, neatly foldings and rolling his cuffs up those surprisingly muscular forearms.
“Eddy Poe found out the hard way just how deep that I buried what I am inside of me, when that what clawed its way to the surface to say hello to the world. I broke what the Slasher was at the very height, of what he was. Edgar Malcovich could not meet the consequences of his actions, he couldn’t stare into the void without looking away. Riley Savell thinks that she can, but she only thinks that because I imagine there’s an emptiness in part of her that there is in me, which means she’ll have an appreciation for the hell I plan to drag her through.”
Pause. Beat.
“She won’t enjoy it, but she’ll have an appreciation for it.”
Would she? He doubted it, but as he stepped down from that porch, it became clear that Daniel wasn’t in a park, or on some manor grounds. He was in a graveyard, and judging by the mausoleum that the ginger was approaching? It was the graveyard of important people, and he was nearing the grave of someone who probably had once held considerable importance. Who, though? The answer wasn’t immediately there, if it was there at all, Danny took his sweet time walking down the path towards it, even going so far as to pluck his cigarettes from his pants pocket, along with his white bic lighter. Mouthing the filtered end of that cancer stick, he struck up the flame from the white lighter an’ ignited the tip, sucking hard on the other end to strengthen that cherry.
There it was. That first lungful of nicotine laced cancer.
That was that good shit.
“Still. See, if I almost killed a man after mentally breaking him for passively hurting members of my family, what the fuck am I going to do to the woman who hurt my sister then assaulted me with the same weapon she nearly ended her career with?”
Pausing as he pulled the cigarette from his lips.
“What depravity can I sink to that’s beyond digging up a man’s mother? What kind of brazen bullshit can I muster up to top nearly murdering Eddy Poe in a ring with his own chainsaw? Is escalation truly necessary? Can’t I forgive her and walk away? Or do I have to do this, like a dog controlled by its master? Am I capable of walking away?”
He snorted.
“Fuck that, because if I forgave her, then I can’t hold anyone accountable for my pain and suffering and I just have to live with it.”
Gesturing with his cigarette, careful where the lit cancerstick was pointed, especially since near the entrance of that mausoleum, next to the sledgehammer he’d brought, was a strange contraption with a series of flashing lights strapped to a bleach container. Whatever the hell Danny was planning wasn’t good, and it was bound to not end well.
“And social responsibility and personal acceptance? Now that people, that’s hell for people who climb into a ring and try to murder one another for the amusement of thousands.”
That’s when.. Danny was casually picking up the sledgehammer that he’d left propped up on the side of the mausoleum, casually rounding it to line himself up with the doors to the structure. Sledgehammer balanced on his shoulder, he adjusted his bodyweight before taking the first swing, the doors almost instantly gave way before the second swing of the hammer had them absolutely splintering open. The hammer was tossed aside almost casually before the contraption rigged with those lights was picked up in passing as he walked into the room filled with death and stale air, setting down the jug atop what was a stone coffin.
“Astrolite, or what a cousin of mine calls TNT’s bigger, badder, cousin with a prison record. Effective, cheap, and incredibly unstable.”
Pressing a button, flipping a switch, he took a tentative step back as the beeping stopped and the lights all glowed red, a nerveless hand now holding the switch as he took a step back, turned, and stepped out of the mausoleum.
“..When I’m hurt, I’m fine. I don’t mind it. When my family’s hurt, that’s a different story, I’m afraid. When my family’s hurt, then I’ll stop at nothing to make you feel what they felt and then some. I’ll turn you into an absolute fucking masterpiece of wretchedness and misery, because it’s, as I said, what I’m good at doing. I’ll slither inside of your head and make my nest there, because it’s what, in my opinion, you’ve forced me to do by not crippling me in your ineptitude. After all, when you pay an insult to your enemy, it should be so grave that they dare not answer it in kind, and.. Honestly, short of killing me, I’m afraid that the rule can’t be properly applied to me.”
He’d covered enough distance, he didn’t even look back to the mausoleum after he’d retrieved his blazer, hanging it off one shoulder with the corresponding hand as the other gripped what looked to be a detonator. Blue eyes forward as he walked down the pathed path.
“But I can apply it. I can apply it in spades. For all of those out there that claim they have nothing to lose? I’ll make them all liars. I’ll show them how very wrong they are. For all the promotions claiming that they’re sending monsters out to the field to claim glory in this.. Clusterfuck? NVR sent one of their own, and I promise, they don’t need to send another one, because if they’re okay with what I do to their own? Imagine the lack of a leash they’re willing to hold when it comes to the outside?”
Click.
He didn’t even blink as the camera shook from the shockwave that resonated from behind them, the loud, deafening sound that very possibly gave poor Daniel a case of tinnitus despite the unwavering stare he held to the camera as flames shot up in the back amidst the explosion and the smoke that rose up as he kept his pace forward.
“Riley Savell is already learning who I am. The kind of man that will wipe the remnants of the father she hated, yet acts like, off the face of this Earth. The kind of man that’s not satisfied with a pound of flesh and simply moving on. The kind of man that fully intends on taking the Guerilla Warfare match by storm, taking the title, and planting the flag for NVR.”
Pause, he pocketed that now useless detonator, not even missing a beat as he walked to the exit of that graveyard.
“That’s the point of this chat, isn’t it? To tell the world who I am, and what I have planned? To explore the depths of my depravity, to see just how far down the black spiral that I can dance without succumbing to the madness of Malfeas and giving myself to the wyrm? I’ve already done that once, so I can’t do it again, can I? The Defiler Wyrm is an inhospitable thing to serve, the red star of Anthelios is ever burning brighter, and here I am, stacking my sins in front of it all while claiming I’m not something, then showing that I am. It’s all a song and dance, and I’m nothing if not a showman.”
As he exited the graveyard and headed quietly towards the black Audi that was parked with a driver at the ready, he stopped just as he reached the back passenger’s side seat, looking right at the camera as he opened the door.
“...For the record, I wasn’t lying. All I ever wanted was to be left alone, but since the lot of you won’t let me be.. Consider this my acceptance of your invitation by way of your behavior. I’ll burn us all down for the sake of the culture of savagery that we’ve accepted for a way of life. I’ll show you all what it means to dance the black spiral.”
His last words, uttered without an octave lifting in his voice as he smiled.
That was the last thing that camera saw as it faded to black. That fucking smile.
He felt that word dry up his tongue, wringing the moisture from his mouth and turning it so barren that it felt like sand had been forcibly poured down his gullet until he couldn’t even breathe properly. Anxiety inducing, the term wasn’t quite enough and yet it made sense to him as he pondered it. Why did it bother him so? The thoughts of competing in such a myriad of bloody brawls with a wide variety of superstars that ranged from almost harmless to well and truly lethal; from mundane to walking cosmic horrors that he had no business fighting. All for a belt, for glory, for the honor of representing your home.
Maybe that’s why when the camera was on NVR’s favorite son, it became readily apparent that he had a NVR pin on the left lapel of his jacket. Wait, where was he? Why was he sitting on that front porch of.. God knows where?
How many times had he gone to war for this company? How much of his blood did he pay his dues with, only to hold nothing in his hands to show for that? Yet there he was, the first one to man the ramparts, the first body in when the charge was lead? Loyalty was his greatest virtue, it seemed. Still, he sat in that rocking chair, on the porch of… what almost looked like a groundskeeper’s house.
Black pants adorned his lower half, creased sharply and tailored to his form, just like the matching button up and blazer were. Those clothes, so sharply contrasted in how different they were for him just months ago, were so in order that it almost seemed out of touch. So neat, so sharp, from the shine to his wingtip shoes to the way his black framed glasses sat so smartly on the bridge of his nose. Daniel MacNamara would have looked more in place doing academics than he would have in a ring, or he would have until you looked at him.
The scars around his mouth and jaw, the subtle markings around his right orbital. Crooked knuckles and off angled fingers from past breaks that he’d tried to disguise under skin conditioners and manicures. He wanted to look softer, but a man like Daniel MacNamara, no matter what airs he put on, couldn’t be the soft hearted boy that he wanted to be, even when he actively tried to be.
That was his curse, wasn’t it? While the world screamed about the monsters that they were, he shied away from his calling time and time again only to have it dragged out of him, screaming.
“I..”
He took the glasses from his face, lifting a hand to rub at the bridge of his nose as if to massage away the irritation and stress, only to drop the hand into his lap entirely.
“I’m here to represent NVR Wrestling. To show the world what we’re capable of.”
That’s when he forced a smile to his lips, a tight, grim, line that seemed to die just short of his baby blue colored eyes.
“No champions are representing NVR in this. None of its number one contenders, none of the people always thrown to the forefront that seem to talk the loudest. No, it’s me. I’m here. Just like I was when we took on Seattle Pro. Just like I always am, when someone throws down the gauntlet. It’s just me. Danny. Like it always seems to be in the end.”
His voice seemed tired. So very full of fatigue that no amount of sleep could ever properly cure. Still, he sat there, and he watched the camera as he spoke as if he was giving a response to something that nobody even brought up.
“Killers, monsters, wrestlers that have been doing this since before I was even thought of. A proving ground of bloody fucking mayhem, and here I am, carrying a flag that half of them won’t recognize, and the other half won’t care about. I’m doing it, because it needs to be done, and those that should be representing us, won’t. In a world where 4CW and Yamashi are seemingly king, NVR is here in a competition to step towards both, not to mention Union Battlegrounds itself. “
Pause. Daniel snorted in pure derision, looking off to the side.
“It’s bullshit. All of it. I know why I’m doing this, and it’s not because of NVR, though it's home. It's not the real reason I'm salivating at the thought of this dance.”
That’s when he looked back to the camera.
“I’m doing this because.. Well, I’m doing this because I need to on some strange fundamental level that I can’t explain. I can’t quantify my need to hurt people, I can’t explain it, and as much as I’ve tried, and I have, I can’t deny it. It’s my mercurial nature to be destructive. I don’t know why I do these things, I don’t know if it’s somehow genetic and coded to who and what I am, but it’s there. This isn’t to brag or boast about my affliction, this isn’t to convey how very dangerous I am. This isn’t even a declaration of intent. This is..”
He leaned back, just for a moment, steepling those fingertips together as he kept his eyes trained on the camera, looking strangely thoughtful despite the grim air that he had.
“...An apology.”
“I want to apologize. I want to apologize for the hypocrisy in my words and my actions, claiming that I don’t want to do what I always wind up doing, that I don’t enjoy every second of it like a hound being released from its bonds after baying for blood all night long. There’s a certain kind of feeling that I can’t describe when I feel my knuckles impact the flesh of another person, when I hear the deafening thud of their bodies as they hammer the ground with parts of them that were never meant to be the point of contact for a landing, usually while they’re tucked in my arms.”
His hands untangled from one another, lifting in a ‘what can you do’ shrug before they dropped into his lap with his elbows still on the arms of his chair.
“Truth is, it’s all bullshit. I’m as wayward and vicious as the rest of these people here, they’re just more honest about themselves than I am, but even my hypocrisy has bounds.”
Getting to his feet, he ran those calloused fingertips along the edges of his jacket, before he rolled it from his body and hung it up on the back of his rocking chair, those same fingers moving to uncuff his shirt’s cufflinks, neatly foldings and rolling his cuffs up those surprisingly muscular forearms.
“Eddy Poe found out the hard way just how deep that I buried what I am inside of me, when that what clawed its way to the surface to say hello to the world. I broke what the Slasher was at the very height, of what he was. Edgar Malcovich could not meet the consequences of his actions, he couldn’t stare into the void without looking away. Riley Savell thinks that she can, but she only thinks that because I imagine there’s an emptiness in part of her that there is in me, which means she’ll have an appreciation for the hell I plan to drag her through.”
Pause. Beat.
“She won’t enjoy it, but she’ll have an appreciation for it.”
Would she? He doubted it, but as he stepped down from that porch, it became clear that Daniel wasn’t in a park, or on some manor grounds. He was in a graveyard, and judging by the mausoleum that the ginger was approaching? It was the graveyard of important people, and he was nearing the grave of someone who probably had once held considerable importance. Who, though? The answer wasn’t immediately there, if it was there at all, Danny took his sweet time walking down the path towards it, even going so far as to pluck his cigarettes from his pants pocket, along with his white bic lighter. Mouthing the filtered end of that cancer stick, he struck up the flame from the white lighter an’ ignited the tip, sucking hard on the other end to strengthen that cherry.
There it was. That first lungful of nicotine laced cancer.
That was that good shit.
“Still. See, if I almost killed a man after mentally breaking him for passively hurting members of my family, what the fuck am I going to do to the woman who hurt my sister then assaulted me with the same weapon she nearly ended her career with?”
Pausing as he pulled the cigarette from his lips.
“What depravity can I sink to that’s beyond digging up a man’s mother? What kind of brazen bullshit can I muster up to top nearly murdering Eddy Poe in a ring with his own chainsaw? Is escalation truly necessary? Can’t I forgive her and walk away? Or do I have to do this, like a dog controlled by its master? Am I capable of walking away?”
He snorted.
“Fuck that, because if I forgave her, then I can’t hold anyone accountable for my pain and suffering and I just have to live with it.”
Gesturing with his cigarette, careful where the lit cancerstick was pointed, especially since near the entrance of that mausoleum, next to the sledgehammer he’d brought, was a strange contraption with a series of flashing lights strapped to a bleach container. Whatever the hell Danny was planning wasn’t good, and it was bound to not end well.
“And social responsibility and personal acceptance? Now that people, that’s hell for people who climb into a ring and try to murder one another for the amusement of thousands.”
That’s when.. Danny was casually picking up the sledgehammer that he’d left propped up on the side of the mausoleum, casually rounding it to line himself up with the doors to the structure. Sledgehammer balanced on his shoulder, he adjusted his bodyweight before taking the first swing, the doors almost instantly gave way before the second swing of the hammer had them absolutely splintering open. The hammer was tossed aside almost casually before the contraption rigged with those lights was picked up in passing as he walked into the room filled with death and stale air, setting down the jug atop what was a stone coffin.
“Astrolite, or what a cousin of mine calls TNT’s bigger, badder, cousin with a prison record. Effective, cheap, and incredibly unstable.”
Pressing a button, flipping a switch, he took a tentative step back as the beeping stopped and the lights all glowed red, a nerveless hand now holding the switch as he took a step back, turned, and stepped out of the mausoleum.
“..When I’m hurt, I’m fine. I don’t mind it. When my family’s hurt, that’s a different story, I’m afraid. When my family’s hurt, then I’ll stop at nothing to make you feel what they felt and then some. I’ll turn you into an absolute fucking masterpiece of wretchedness and misery, because it’s, as I said, what I’m good at doing. I’ll slither inside of your head and make my nest there, because it’s what, in my opinion, you’ve forced me to do by not crippling me in your ineptitude. After all, when you pay an insult to your enemy, it should be so grave that they dare not answer it in kind, and.. Honestly, short of killing me, I’m afraid that the rule can’t be properly applied to me.”
He’d covered enough distance, he didn’t even look back to the mausoleum after he’d retrieved his blazer, hanging it off one shoulder with the corresponding hand as the other gripped what looked to be a detonator. Blue eyes forward as he walked down the pathed path.
“But I can apply it. I can apply it in spades. For all of those out there that claim they have nothing to lose? I’ll make them all liars. I’ll show them how very wrong they are. For all the promotions claiming that they’re sending monsters out to the field to claim glory in this.. Clusterfuck? NVR sent one of their own, and I promise, they don’t need to send another one, because if they’re okay with what I do to their own? Imagine the lack of a leash they’re willing to hold when it comes to the outside?”
Click.
He didn’t even blink as the camera shook from the shockwave that resonated from behind them, the loud, deafening sound that very possibly gave poor Daniel a case of tinnitus despite the unwavering stare he held to the camera as flames shot up in the back amidst the explosion and the smoke that rose up as he kept his pace forward.
“Riley Savell is already learning who I am. The kind of man that will wipe the remnants of the father she hated, yet acts like, off the face of this Earth. The kind of man that’s not satisfied with a pound of flesh and simply moving on. The kind of man that fully intends on taking the Guerilla Warfare match by storm, taking the title, and planting the flag for NVR.”
Pause, he pocketed that now useless detonator, not even missing a beat as he walked to the exit of that graveyard.
“That’s the point of this chat, isn’t it? To tell the world who I am, and what I have planned? To explore the depths of my depravity, to see just how far down the black spiral that I can dance without succumbing to the madness of Malfeas and giving myself to the wyrm? I’ve already done that once, so I can’t do it again, can I? The Defiler Wyrm is an inhospitable thing to serve, the red star of Anthelios is ever burning brighter, and here I am, stacking my sins in front of it all while claiming I’m not something, then showing that I am. It’s all a song and dance, and I’m nothing if not a showman.”
As he exited the graveyard and headed quietly towards the black Audi that was parked with a driver at the ready, he stopped just as he reached the back passenger’s side seat, looking right at the camera as he opened the door.
“...For the record, I wasn’t lying. All I ever wanted was to be left alone, but since the lot of you won’t let me be.. Consider this my acceptance of your invitation by way of your behavior. I’ll burn us all down for the sake of the culture of savagery that we’ve accepted for a way of life. I’ll show you all what it means to dance the black spiral.”
His last words, uttered without an octave lifting in his voice as he smiled.
That was the last thing that camera saw as it faded to black. That fucking smile.