This is the way.

Breathe.
He had to breathe.

Slow, rhythmic. In, and out. In, and out. Every breath that passed his lips was deeper than the next, the lift and fall of his chest was something that he was becoming more and more aware of. With each cycle of breath, the rifle tucked into his shoulder moved just slightly, just enough to throw off a potential shot as it was cradled in his arms. The legs of the bipod attached to the forestock of the rifle were slowly let out with his left hand as those fingers stroked down the checkered design of the wood, ratcheting out that metal and planting the feet of it onto the soft grass he laid out on beneath the sun. Blue eyes stared outward, not quite focused in on the targets out at the end of that seven hundred yard range. He didn’t need to, not yet.

“This is the way.”

Those words. The words that’d been repeated og so often across the series of the Mandalorian, the words of a warrior order. The words, simply put, of a warrior. They were words Jason van Owen could identify with, simple and to the point. After all, there were very people in wrestling that were more simple than Jason van Owen, but to the misfortune of so many in this sport that’d faced him, simple didn’t mean stupid. The left hand that’d folded out the bipod slipped upwards to adjust the Leupold scope of his Remington 700 rifle, almost lovingly running those calloused pads of his fingertips across the dials to adjust his shot. He’d previously had it zeroed in for just a hundred yards before he brought it out today, and while he knew he could probably make the shot, he’d rather adjust it and redo it with a cold bore.

“This is the way.” He repeated to himself, as if it was being committed to rote memory. Repetitious with the conviction, that was him to a tee.

Breathe. He repeated in his head. Sudden breaths. Deep breaths. If he held his breath without surging his oxygen with blood? Vision would blur too quickly, he’d trade the lack of movement in his chest for a shaky hand. Even the slightest tremor could throw off his shot. No. He breathed in deep, over and over, until he wasn’t breathing, until he was as still as the grave that he’d one day be in. The tip of his finger stroked along that trigger, only to curl until.. CRAAAAA--ACK! The deafening sound of that rifle firing resounded through the range as the bullet ripped from the blued muzzle of that bolt action rifle, sending the round all the downrange.

Did he put the round where it needed to go? The frown that spread across his lips answered the question as he moved to go through the motions all over again, squeezing that sock full of rice he’d put on the rifle’s buttstock, bringing it up and softly adjusting the rifle in his arms with just that barest motion. He let go with another round this time, and this time, he struck true. This time, the silhouette that was painted up as a jedi had a round put right through its self righteous head.

“This is the way.” Said again, whispered out as he pulled away from his rifle, taking out the earplugs he’d protected his hearing with as he shifted up to sit cross legged, the rifle laid across his lap.

“Daniel Rizzo. The Last Apex. The ever evolving champion who was one the last ones to be in Valor. There’s a lot of pedigree with that one. How many warriors did this man body on his bloody path to the fucking top? How many people did Daniel tear through? Christ, the man’s UnYielding Championship reign in Valor was something else, wasn’t it? That’s not a shot I’m taking, either. I get it, Jedi, you worked your ass off to be noticed, to elevate that title. You’ve spilled enough blood in the Valor ring to dye your gear red. I get why you ever got the moniker ‘The UnYielding Danny Rizzo.’ It’s kinda fuckin’ lame, but it’s also kinda fuckin’ cool at the same time. It’s the championship that defined you.”

Pause. Beat.

“Well, kinda, right? Only that when you dropped it, and you when you won the Apex Championship, you started calling yourself The Last Apex when the company went belly up.”

Oh, there it was, that ‘really?’ look given before he sighed.

“No one doubts what you can do, Daniel. Not a single, fuckin’, person doubts what Daniel Rizzo is capable of. If they do, then they haven’t been paying you the proper attention, or the proper respect. Most people see you, and they go straight for the Kaven Drell situation, the weird shit with him and Leela. That’s not my concern. I doubt that’s going to affect you in the ring when it’s just me, you, the bell, and the main event. Dragging a man’s personal life isn’t part of my creed, but at the same time, you’ve directly involved yours in this, so forgive me if I’ve dipped into it while talking about this, Rizzo. If you’re the same Daniel Rizzo tomorrow, that you are today, anyways. Sometimes I wonder if it’s adaptation with you, or if you get just bored with who the fuck you are and feel the need to change it up.”

His thumb quietly slid the safety of his rifle into place, grasping the weapon but also keeping his finger along the trigger guard instead of in it. Always ready, always vigilant, always cautious even when in a paradoxical mess of recklessness and chaotic energy. Frankly, he fed off of the chaos.

“You can’t let all that hate and aggression bottle up inside of you. You have to let it out before it fuckin’ consumes you. Look at you, you did just that. I saw it. I’ve watched the matches you had, the onscreen moments where you shined, and I saw when you stepped back and let others soak in the spotlight that should’ve been yours to bask in. How many times did you do that? Suffering in silence, the whole schtick? Was it worth it, those feel good moments of ‘this is what I’m supposed to do’? Or did it taste like swallowing your own fucking bile each time you did it? The fans went from screaming your name to a cacophony of boos. You went from UnYielding to the Dreamkiller, from Jedi to Sith.”

That’s when Jason grimaced, tilting that head of his to the side.

“Did you reach beyond your grasp and fall, Danny? Is that what happened? That you fell from grace? Or is the simple truth that being good was too fucking hard for you so you had to be something more You spoke to me, to Maxx about dedication, education, and respect. You never saw what the fuck we put ourselves through again and again to get to the level where we’re at. You saw rookies, you saw our twitter fuckery, and you assumed that’s all we are and were. You found out real quick that we weren’t. You said we were gonna base our assumptions on shit that we barely touched. For all the talk of who we allegedly were, and what we allegedly gonna do, you should’ve identified as a fuckin’ storm trooper because you missed every goddamn shot that you took at us, Danno.”

His left hand lifted and snapped the bipod of his rifle back into place and simply reached over to set it down in the foam insides of that pelican hard case that bore the mandalorian symbol on it, letting it rest there as he turned back to the camera.

“You two thought you understood us, you attacked us personally, you focused on all the wrong parts. You saw what we broadcasted, what we wanted you to see, and just like the Kansas City Shuffle that we played it out as? When you were watching the left hand, you never saw the right curling up into a fist before it smacked you so hard that you thought it mattered who shot first. Fast is fine Padawan, but accuracy is final. You went from the hip, we went for the heart. I want you to remember that when you think about how we beat the two of you. I want you to remember that when you walk to that ring to face me in the Main Event. You’re a child at prayer, trying to find ways to be anything but the person that brought you this far. I’m nothing more than contained chaos, waiting to be unleashed.”

And with that, he placed his hands on his knees, and he bowed his head with closed eyes.

“This is the way.”

The screen went black. There was nothing else to say.