Post by Downfall on Nov 27, 2022 14:26:14 GMT -5
"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And crinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read..."
His lip was curled in a frown as Rumiko looks in on him. Daniel paid no heed to any outsiders as he stood down the hallway, gazing longingly in through the wire-mesh window into an old office. Inside, movement. Michelle was pacing around, anxiously as a kid. Softly, gently, Daniel raises his hand up to the glass, flat, palm first, and places it on the glass.
He breathes in, he breathes out. Eyes closed. It's as if the glass is a barrier keeping him from her, although realistically, all he would have to do is walk over and open the door and go to her.
It's a moment of such earnest yearning and heart, yet even as Rumiko watches, it curdles into anger and bitterness. His hand, pulling back from the glass, twists into a claw, and he looks away.
Acknowledging Ru's presence, he speaks, clipped. Not liking to be bothered or intruded on, because he still can't decide what to do with the... Michelle problem (she wasn't his person anymore, had regressed to where she was barely a person at all. Truly, truly cruel.)
"What is it."
"If you're done checking on her, we have a problem."
He turns from her without a look back, and Rumiko has to fall in step. "The fires have started up again... this time in the marketplace, some food truck workers lost everything."
He sneers at her. Why would that bother him? He's sent his little birds out to keep an eye on street crime. "I don't have time for small shit, Rumiko, go home. Why're you always here?"
Exasperated and tired of his attitude, she bites back. She asks herself the same question. "And all this time I thought you cared about this neighborhood, white boy. To answer, I don't know why I bother with you, either, other than the vain hope that you'll recover your lost soul, maybe."
As they walk and talk, they miss that the office door behind them has opened, and a slim-necked blonde with wide, blue eyes has poked her head out of the door, curiously.
He stops, glowering at his landlady. "I have other things to consider right now, Ru. I'm this close to finally finishing this rotten year with a strong message. I just need to get past Spencer Adams."
"What message? Daniel, what message have you learned from any of this year? Your behavior is at its worst. You're going around with a stolen championship, demanding vengeance from people that've wronged you... You carry this... weight of rage around with you anywhere you go..."
"The message has been something I've realized more this year than anything. I'm tired of pretending to be anything other than what I am, Rumiko... I'm sorry you have this idea in your head that I'm a good, noble, protectorate guy. You need to stay out of Pine Street. Go back uptown. Meet a doctor, or a lawyer, and -"
"And what, you sexist ass? Pine Street is where I grew up, Daniel. And I love the Hasegawas, we've given them shelter. And I love - " You, she thought but couldn't finish, I love you, somehow, deep down, though you terrify me...
He scoffs. "Love..." and he doesn't quite glance back, but he wants to, back up the stairs to the office. (Not seeing Michelle, timid and scared as a mouse, around a cornice listening.)
"Love's a pretty lie we tell ourselves, Ru... but it's fleeting. Melting. It goes away in the end. That's the real secret life doesn't tell you... that this? All this?" He gestures to the house around them, the feeling of security... "Isn't built to last. Achievement isn't built to last."
"If you really believe that, then why did you steal someone else's belt?" she rejoinders.
"I - " He pauses.
"If you truly believe that accomplishments mean nothing... then why bother with... what you do at all? Why bother trying to build anything? Fuck..." she laughs, "Why not let Spencer Adams walk over you?"
That ruffles the arrogant martinet that lies underneath his breast, the tyrant that won't accept such an outcome. He would rather die than let someone else have something he felt he deserved, is the answer plain on his face.
"Yeah, that's what I thought."
"Shut your mouth, girl... and go home, if the Death Riders are starting shit, I need to..."
They heard a bang out in the street, and yelling.
I want to take a moment before we begin, to soak this in.
To give a nod to the fact that this moment has been building since Meltdown, when Spencer, so fucking arrogantly proclaimed "If you're in this match and your name isn't Spencer or CJ I want you to explain what you're doing here".
The titillating aspect of unstoppable force/immovable object is "what happens when the undefeated Spencer Adams, Mister Action Wrestling, meets Downfall when he's at the peak of his viciousness and ruthlessness??"
I want it to be built up so perfectly mythological in your mind, Spence, the certainty that this is a page in your legend to be built to a frothing point.
You are Action Wrestling. Your lifesblood pumps through it's veins. As you told Dion, only you two were here when it started, still going strong today.
I want that blood pumping thick and heavy.
This is where I rip the beating heart out of Action Wrestling, and hold it in front of them.
When we ask ourselves "What's this really for?", this tournament is a thinker because, going by seeds, the rankings should dictate a pecking order.
If Gerard Angelo was the first draft pick after everything he accomplished, then we'd be crowning him Wrestler of the Year just based on win percentage, right?
Instead, we all saw that moment, where he threw his hardest shot at me, and I smiled back at him and ate it.
In all honesty, the Wrestler of the Year belongs to someone who's fucking worked for it. Who's earned everything that came to them.
I can't discount the fact that Spencer is successful. He'd be the first one to tout, in every breath and every other line of every promo he ever cuts, that he's been undefeated, not been pinned all year.
But that's also exactly why this is where that gets wiped off the map. Step by step through this tournament I've let this bleak, nihilistic anger carry me.
I let that out on every opponent from the start and destroyed them with it.
I'm not a bright, shining monument, but a foreboding, haunted ruin. A cursed, blighted warning. A reprisal, when I step in that ring, "Abandon all hope, ye who walk through this arch." I embrace that.
I've forsaken the comforting, bland safety of perfection, and embraced the truth that everything dies. Streaks die. Status quo is not infinitely-continued momentum... the real equalizer is that in the end, after everything breaks down, falls apart, we're free to start anew.
I want you to carry that on into this new year; As everything you thought you had handed into your baby-soft manicured grasp slips and splinters into pieces at your feet at the last moment.
Where I rip victory out of you between my teeth, drag you to the ground and bear down until you can't stanch the bleeding.
I've already rocked this company to it's core in the last few weeks, but I haven't drawn enough blood from it, yet.
Come Turmoil, I'm squeezing every drop of blood from that stone.
Daniel started to give chase, then stood out in the middle of the street, roaring. "I TOLD YOU TO STAY OFF THIS BLOCK! TAKE THAT BACK TO HINATA, YOU FUCKS! I - "
Rumiko huffs, grabbing his arm, "They're gone..."
He flinches, then looks back... there's a busted-out window of a curio shop, and the owner, a wizened old man from Ainu is looking ashen, but alive.
Daniel, growling low in his throat, lets his anger out with a swift, savage kick, uprooting a trash bin in a futile act. It's Rumiko who speaks to the shopkeeper, reassuring him that it was just the window and he will be alright.
She goes back over to Daniel, who is breathing heavily, eyes searching the street restlessly. They sit in silence.
Fumbling, his hand pulls out its pack of smokes, which, as she's noted, he's needing more and more. Addictions, added elements of vice which calm his nerves...
"Wanna know what I think, Danny..."
When he flicks a lighter, his hand begins to calm.
"I think you believe in nihilism as an ideal, more than that I think you're obsessed with being in control. That's where your central conflict is, in all things... you have to be in control..."
He brings the smoke up to his mouth, not answering.
"If, as you say, love is a lie, everything's transient, and achievement all goes away in the end, then it means that you and only you see being in control as the endgame... because you're the strongest, meanest, most ruthless around. Right?"
Exhaling, and relaxing visibly, his eyes settle on her for a moment. Then he squints them into angry slits. "Go to hell, Ru."
"So what is all of this, "taking over Pine Street", taking over the stolen belt, hijacking this tournament, if not your bids for being in control?"
He doesn't answer, not for a long time. Finally, he flicks his finished cigarette away.
"Being in control's a lie we tell ourselves... the only truth is, that it'll always be rejected." Which wasn't an answer, but, he didn't think he was lying.
The absolute, Brobdingnagian hubris of you, Spencer.
The undeserved arrogance with which you carry yourself, knowing that you're just good enough to squeak through victories on a weekly basis enough that you can say you walk that walk; but Spencer, what separates me from you isn't a win-loss record, it's knowledge.
Knowledge that everything you are is what I've been before, in previous lives.
Everywhere you've been, or will be in the future, on a long-enough timeline. That's what informs my perspective... and that's why I'm the counterpoint that defies you.
That tells you that all you are is worthless in the end.
That you've built yourself a towering, Colossus of Rhodes wonder of the world, monument to nothing.
I tell you all this, because I want you to understand, Spencer.
Your year, perfect and nonstop, win after win, isn't the year that deserves its praise. Isn't a story that knows struggle, that gives "grinding my hardest".
Fuck, Spencer when I compare your year and my year I laugh uproariously because you had an even easier time of it than Gerard.
You barely competed from the time you finished your wars with Dune until it was time to team with Corey Black and form your bond with CJ. You did not actively compete on a weekly basis.
All you've accomplished fits neatly between Evolution time, when you finally teamed with CJ to overcome some Chris Page simps, and Trios, when you lead Jonny Cedrone and CJ of all teams to overcome Lissie Hope and anyone who can stand to be around Lissie Hope enough to endure nonstop livetweeting of Big Brother stanning and endlessly putrid 11:11 posts about her brother.
You're the master of drawing in sidekicks to your causes, and overwriting their agendas and their ideology to where they basically serve as little more than to co-sign anything you say. Even Lissie has to give respect to that.
I'm sure you'll have heard that same sentiment a million times, and it'd elicit the same weary disgust I've felt as hearing the Nth time someone tries their level hardest to get under my skin by calling me Daniel.
But the problem I have with you, isn't... just that it becomes a meme with you, that every time ya lose, you go quiet for months until you tag up with some other small-minded follower who you can mold into a Little Spence.
No, if you did this all because you cared about the Tag division so much that you'd keep coming back to it, time and again, to boost it's rankings, that'd get a thumbs up from me.
It's that you've never built anything worth lasting with... any of it.
You've accrued the most time with the Tag Team championships than anyone, ever in this company. Your record dwarfs mine and Dion's record set by quite a bit.
The instant you stop putting work into it? Leave your friend to his own devices, let them stand on their own, fight in the name of your partnership?
It falls apart.
This isn't just why people don't take you at your word that you teaming with CJ is because you believe in the best that you both are capable of, it gives the impression that you're less of a leader, movement, institution than you portray yourself as. That heaven forfend, Spencer Adams is just a weak and mortal man.
Look at them.
The instant you're not there holding the reigns, Jonny and CJ are falling to pieces, getting run over by little girl Alice (who I, parenthetically, stomped), failing on a weekly basis.
But it doesn't matter, because you're getting through Turmoil and undefeated, right? This is your year, to prove yourself as the measure that nobody else in this company stacks up against.
God, go fuck yourself, Spence.
In the final analysis, even your current run with the Tag belts is lacking.
Without a Vanguard to compete against, you've done less with those belts than any team previously simply because you haven't inspired competition that wants them badly enough to come for you.
That didn't happen with Dion and me. We had top-flight main event teams lining up to be the ones that ended our reign.
You? You've consigned yourself to beating up the Heritage and the Painkillers, pretending that that means a damn thing.
It's exactly as I said the moment you were promoted as the favorites in that Meltdown battle royale... the entire thrust of your push has been that King Shit, bolstered by your reputation, was unbeatable, but you hadn't done anything of merit to get there.
You still... haven't done a damn thing with those belts since.
Go on, tell me I'm wrong.
Pretend that you've been performing at an elite level of weekly competition and making those belts mean something... and I'll roar to the heavens that you're a liar.
If you were to win Turmoil, going to face Gerard for the belt, that just spells another month that goes by without you concentrating on the Tag belts, letting them fade further into obscurity.
But the happy news for the Tag division is... you're not passing me, Spencer.
You're not slipping through my grasp, and you don't have the out of dumping me over a rope. I'm going to bend your wrist and shoulder around your back until I can hear them pop, wetly, and I'm going to keep wrenching until your high shrieks of agony can be heard all the way up in the nosebleeds.
You can tout your victory over me, dumping me out of the ring in July and wave that in my face until you're blue, but you have not had my year.
But I want you to think it matters.
Condescend to me about the success of your reign, the wins at Trios. Build yourself up so impressively that when I topple you... you fucking shatter.
A testament to the only universal truth I service under. Everything perfect decays given world enough and time... I'm the architect of that.
If you, as a symbol of what this company represents, it's best and brightest then I have fully committed myself to being the avatar of it's entropy.
The sabotage that grinds the gears to a slowing halt.
The ghost in the machine.
This lesson, you'll thank me for.
Your weakness is endemic of the fact that you haven't had to face me one-on-one until now, so you haven't had to sharpen your iron against anyone of real worth in a long time... but you're swinging your blade, brittle and flaking, against sharpened, fire-forged, tempered fucking steel.
You'll be the one that breaks first, and that's okay.
Free of the security in being perfect, we're free to actually be our best.
You'll see that, in time, Spencer.
They were just entering the open security gate when they saw something that gave Daniel pause.
Michelle was bent down in front of Tomie, playing at the bottom of the steps. And, in her fogged, addled state, she still was happy and engaged when she held the ball out to the young refugee. "Hi! What's your name, sweet girl?"
Rumiko watches as this moment sticks on Daniel's face with wonder, even though Michelle doesn't have her mind or her memories, seeing her interact with the world, for just one second opens up a well of hope in him.
Mat and Keiko emerge from their side room under the stairs where they've been squatting, encouraging Tomie in Japanese to not bother the nice lady, while simultaneously leading the child by the shoulders away... knowing that Michelle was an associate of Danny, they didn't want their kid anywhere near the scary dark man, or this weird, empty-headed lady with blue eyes.
Rumiko, smiling satisfied at Daniel's shoulder, crossed her arms with a grin. "Sometimes beautiful things can stay... can still come back to us, if we know where to look for them..."
He was about to retort, to tell her that was a ridiculous sentiment;
When, for the second time that day, the world crashed and burst around them with sound.
"DOWN!" Daniel said, sweeping Rumiko's head down under his arm and reaching futilely for Michelle, feet away...
For precious clocktick seconds, the world boomed... this was not breaking glass and a Molotov, this was gunfire! Bursting into the open security gate!
And then it stopped...
Rumiko, dazed and the onset of shock from the vicious bursts splitting the air, craned her head up, ears ringing tinnitus choirs as she heard squealing rubber peeling faraway.
She heard a high, hard wail, pain mixed with rage mixed with rising, incomprehensible horror.
There was a trail of blood in the stairwell, and the wood panelling of the sideboards was dotted with holes of high-caliber gunfire and piercing rounds... but, following a line, there was a quickly-spreading pool of dark red.
Daniel saw it too; he saw he was too far away from the slim, long leg of his love, through the haze of the ringing, Rumiko heard him yell for Michelle...
But Michelle, unharmed, sat still, frozen into trauma shock, not bleeding, but shaken, innocent eyes widened with a shattered, horrible expression as she gazed next to her.
The wails were coming from Keiko as she bent over the bleeding body of her daughter, Tomie; The dark red claret poured, staining her dress in a thick, syrupy pool spread from a shot in her little abdomen.
Rumiko saw all of this in less time than it took to tell... and, stricken, she looked over at Daniel, his lost, stormy expression a frenzied mask of anger and hurt.
What he'd said had come to pass, after all. Try as you might you control it all, it'll reject you... and leave you in this state, comfort eroded, safety destroyed... no love, no comfort, with nothing left.
It was, she thought, the cruelest way you could end the year.
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
I wouldn't trade anything in this entire year, Spencer. The trials, tribulations, and failures.
I don't need... to defend myself against where I've fallen short anymore. Because it doesn't matter.
I'd rather have a year that defines me, of being kicked down and still rising again-and-again, than your sheltered, pocketed protection.
Because try as you might, it isn't you they fear when they see the cards. It's me.
You realize that, as surely as you realize that you're going to have to do the impossible to beat me mister Undefeated Streak... You're going to have to no bullshit, no distractions, no interference survive and go through the god damn Beast Unleashed.
I'm the one that has the choir sing O Fortuna every single time I step down that ramp.
I've done more than you have in a shorter period of time.
Unlike you, there's a very real perception of me, that every time this company sets a course, protects a favorite, gears itself for an expected main event in the future, I'm the one that comes along and destabilizes everything.
I'm anarchy incarnate.
That's point number two, isn't it?
That despite your self-professed assurance being Mister AW... there have been long stretches of tenure where you've done nothing for it.
Never changed the game here. Never completely upset the status quo.
No. You are the status quo, and you're just blind and conceited enough to believe that competing here longer than anyone and winning a certain amount of your matches is enough to qualify you for GOAT status.
Because you confuse longevity with consistency.
Because you equate running over scrubs for dominance.
You aren't, have never been, the man here, Spencer.
You've taken multiple partners to Tag championships, you've overcome the odds again and again. You absolutely have won accolade after accolade. Trios. Battlebowl. Havoc.
But you've also shown an incredible ability, when someone really brings the thunder down and goes in with an intention to hurt you, to be put on the back foot.
Your offense is deadly... but baby, I've seen exactly how to turn your glass cannon into fucking powder.
You have all the ability and talent in the world but I'm telling you now you shouldn't have swung for WOTY when I was running for it.
Because you haven't been taken where I'm going to take you. Mister AW or not. Undefeated or not.
I see your passion for this. The glint in your eyes as you look forward to adding another accolade and finally itching the monkey off your back that was the last time you made it to a final... that it kills you that names like Walter, Wesley, Howard Black and Downfall are up there when yours isn't.
You think you're ready for this.
You're not. Haven't been, this entire time.
I watched when you barely scraped by Dionysus. And I knew that, when it came to it, if I faced you I would fucking destroy you.
You haven't felt the terror when you looked in my eyes and saw that there was no mortal fear, nothing to dissuade me, nothing to stay my hand from unleashing the most ruthless, unforgiving and brutal anger, dripping from my fists like red rain.
When I said I'd find a new dream, this is it.
I'm going to let it all out there on the field at Turmoil.
They came in looking to you, giving you love, adulation and gratitude for being their hero, for championing this company and promoting yourself as a man of the people and I'm going to tear that down piece-by-piece, brick-by-brick in front of their eyes..
Your throne taken, and smashed into pieces.
Everything you stand for... everything you are, reduced into rubble.
The gifts I bring to the end of your year are showing the entire world the comfort, the solace of nothingness.
And for one fallen, desecrated ruin left in the wake of a force of nature, I bring you... oblivion.
