Post by W A L T E R on Nov 17, 2019 23:51:55 GMT -5
Las Vegas, NV
The Neon Museum
Like Kyle Kemp, these signs burned bright but for a relatively short period, a moment in the grand scheme. In that moment, not a single one knew its own futility, its own irrelevance. In that moment, they were king, held high above all else, naively worshipped by the masses, incorrectly held up as something special, aspirational. With the perspective of time and the evolution of everything around them, they have all been relegated to a place that even its curators muster no more special name for than The Boneyard.
Kyle Kemp should be so lucky as to be amongst those once-bright-shining stars collected en masse. Kyle Kemp should be so lucky as to be appreciated by the future’s simplest-minded wrestling fans. Kyle Kemp should be so lucky as to be taken somewhere with an actual Proper Name after his final Culling.
Evolution holds no place for the “lucky.”
No, The Evolved man has no intention of leaving Kyle Kemp in enough pieces to be collected and displayed by historians. The Evolved Man wants Kemp to be scraped up off the mat, unrecognizable and barely worth shoveling into a compost bin. The Evolved Man does not intend to again swat away the ever-present fruit fly of Kyle Kemp. Instead he is summoning The Beast to pluck Kemp’s wings off slowly, to break the tiny annoyance’s legs, and to make clear the futility and uselessness of his very existence.
Walter: Dear Alyssa, I am, of course, grateful to see you but…why a museum again?
Alyssa Payton had her reasons, none of which she wished to divulge. For example, he didn’t need to know that he labyrinthian twists of this scrap steel jungle was exactly how she pictured his brain. He didn’t need to know that she imagined his past full of sin and near unspeakable acts just as the Old Vegas these signs represent was. He didn’t need to know how much those thoughts excited her. She also brought him here because...
Alyssa: Because you hated that other one and I’m still in kind of a “Fuck you, Walter” sort of mood.
He accepted her explanation without retort. Walter had ended her twin brother's career before it had properly started. A single Television Title reign an absurd underachievement for a man of his talents. Almost the opposite of Kyle Kemp, for whom the US Title victory over Walter is regarded as an absurd overachievement for a man of his "talents."
Alyssa: But I promised to see you again if you beat Corey Black. And you did.
The mention of Walter’s last victory excited her. He could tell that despite herself, she wanted to be there.
Walter: I am not a man who needs a carrot but knowing you are watching, knowing that as I jammed my thumb into the eye socket of “The Last King” that you were at home watching...was exhilarating.
That was the word she used time and again to describe the relationship, to describe their time together, to describe watching this Beast enact his will upon opponents.
Alyssa: So should I dangle another carrot this week as you face the one man who’s beaten you? Because I’ve got something else to keep you motivated.
He found the word insulting. As though “motivation” was something he had ever lacked; as though his purpose weren’t clear every moment.
Walter: You speak as so many of my opponents do, Alyssa, from both sides of your mouth. You correctly regard Kyle Kemp as the one blemish on my Action Wrestling record but then query as to whether I need motivation?
She was needling him on purpose. She liked when his anger would begin to bubble; she liked that his impending rage seemed to change the very air around them.
Alyssa: I know you don’t. But...Well if I’m being honest, I thoroughly enjoyed what you did to Corey Black last week. But this week? I want Kyle Kemp to wish he was that lucky. So do you want me to show you that secret motivation?
She reaches out and her hand disappears inside Walter’s massive palm. He could smell the excitement in her. And it excited him.
Walter: Not yet. I have something I’d like to show you first.
Dusk now at The Neon Museum and the crowds have thinned. Walter stands in front of a buzzing pink sign that reads “La Concha” in stylized blue lettering with a permanently-lit “NO VACANCY” beneath. His eyes are fixed straight forward into the camera, speaking not to the fans or to the other wrestlers but only to Kyle Kemp. The bass in his voice seems harsher than usual, there’s an undercurrent of anger there.
La Concha. The shell. That’s what I drug you out of this year, Kyle. You’d been stuffed inside the protective casing of your own mediocrity for so much of your career but thanks to me, you crawled out ever-so-timidly and basked in the warming glow of success.
For a moment.
But I quickly took back my proper place standing over you, blotting out the sun and the warmth of success you so-briefly felt. My violence, my destruction of that Glory Tournament--much the same destruction I leave in my wake of this tournament--showed you what it took to be a champion. Your victory over me showed me what I must do, of how dangerous this place truly is. As I’ve said in the past, Kyle, I’m truly thankful for how you helped me evolve. And I’m sorry that I came back to eclipse your shine, to lift you up from the sand you were basking upon after finally escaping that shell, I’m sorry that I lifted you up, choked the life from your body not once, not twice, but three different times...and then tossed you back to the earth. And I’m sorry that’s where you’ve been ever since.
You’ve been writhing in the dirt, out of your shell, out of place. You were brave enough to be be laid bare a moment but you’ve found no new home, you’ve found no new shell. This tournament, this is your chance to find your new home; a trip to the finals of the Wrestler of the Year tournament assuredly means your new home is in the main event, at the top of the card. Unfortunately for you your trip has been cancelled, flight never to be rescheduled. Your plans have run into a force of nature with which you are already intimately familiar:
WALTER.
As I told Corey Black before you, I am not here to the Wrestler of the Year. I am the Monster of the Year. I am the Irresistible Force of the Year. I am The Beast of the Year. And you?
You are a forgettable footnote the evolution that I bring to Action Wrestling.
Still, it would be a lie if I told you this match was the same as any other for me. It would be a lie if I told you that dispatching Derrick Vayden means the same as it will to crush Kyle Kemp. Even the exhilaration of blinding Action Wrestling’s Hardcore Champion pales in comparison to how it will feel to show you The Great Mystery again, Kyle.
This is not because I have earmarked our potential matchup from the start as you did. This is not because of what you mean to me but instead what you mean to all of THEM. Not in a general sense, Kyle, because in a general sense you are as utterly meaningless as you’ve ever been. No but in a sense specific to me, you mean everything to those others in the locker room. You represent the only possible chink in my armor. You represent my humanity, my fallibility. To them, you represent hope. Most of them are smart enough to see that the door to their success against The Evolved Man is entirely closed, that an escape is futile. But there are those like Corey Black who see your victory leaving that door open just a crack, for them there is that miniscule ray of hope shining through.
Thanks to you. Because YOU were once able to poke your head through that door.
So now I must take the door and slam it upon your beloved face. Over and over and over again. I must repeatedly crush your skull under the weight of that door until all see it closed tight again, until you are beaten and bloodied and battered again, unrecognizable to those hopeful few in the back, to yourself, to your dead parents.
I am thankful for this opportunity. I am thankful that I bruised Roger Payton Jr’s brain in enough places that even YOU could squeak by him. I am thankful that Ryan Elias clearly had one foot in retirement while in the ring with you. Because if not for those competitors’ distracted dispositions when facing you, we both know you wouldn’t have made it this far.
I credit you with with those victories, Kyle, I do. But you know they were not true. You are a smart enough man to know that the tournament road you’ve walked thus far has been a blessed one; the same as your whole life has been. Blessed with physical gifts. Blessed with good looks. Blessed with fans and success and money.
And now you’ll fail to turn those tournament blessings into actual successes the same way you failed to turn all those other blessings into any significant success in life. Blessings do not make champions, Kyle. Easy roads paved with the types of handouts you’ve been lucky enough to receive all your life do not make champions, Kyle. Trials make champions, Kyle. Tribulations and struggle hone the sharpest weapons. Instead of two now-retired men, I faced Action Wrestling’s longest-reigning Cruiserweight Champion and then the Hardcore Champion. I faced men with a long list of bodies to their name. I faced them and and I swatted them away like so much vermin.
But you? You, I will not swat. You, I will crush. You, I will hurt. You, I will maim and grind into dust. You...I will must make an example of. Perhaps then you can regain some semblance of purpose here, Kyle. Perhaps if I send you from the ring on a stretcher--again--then you can become the martyr. You can become the man who entered battle knowingly outgunned but still fought proudly, valiantly. Would that make you feel good, Kyle? Would that warm the cockles of that empty chasm where your heart is supposed to be? To be Action Wrestling’s great sacrifice to Walter?
What HAVE you done since we last met, Kyle? How have you evolved and bettered yourself? Explain to me WHY this time it’s going to be different than every other time we’ve set foot in the ring, one-on-one. Is it the Trios Championship? Is that what you’re going to point to as the difference-maker this time? That watered down, feel-good, participation-trophy of a tournament is the only accomplishment under your belt since last time I broke you. A tournament you won alongside Teo Blaze and Alex Richards, men your superior in nearly every way. A tournament that called for you to eliminate a group named after an adolescent virgin’s idea of a Saturday well spent and then face three competitors who likely had never exchanged words much less tags prior to the event.
What an achievement.
Five times you mentioned that kid-table victory in your promo against Roger Payton. And then against Ryan Elias you literally drug the trophy out and made it a centerpiece of your promo. This is not the Kyle Kemp I unleashed. This is not the Kyle Kemp that had the gall to take a baseball bat to my skull. This is the skulking, midcard-mired, never-will-be Kyle Kemp that the world has been deeply familiar with for years. And judging by what you’ve done since our time together, it’s the Kyle Kemp the world will continue to be familiar with.
As soon as you were shown your inferiority at Execution you regressed back to this Kyle Kemp of old. Again you’re doing these painfully trite sitdowns with Jenna Bauer. Again, you’re dedicating it all to these “fans.” Again you’re floundering just outside of excellence. Because you haven’t evolved. You haven’t grown one IOTA as a result of what we did.
You went out and choked out Corey Bull; a formidable physical specimen but a competitor you should be able to out-tactic in your sleep. What did you say after that? What was your boast?
Your name was absent from my lips, your visage gone from my mind. You were a plastic bag caught on a westerly, tumbling about and out of my life, worth nothing near a second thought. But my name stayed on your lips; the feeling of my hands around your throat burned deep into your mind. So even when you TRIED to move forward after a victory, your words exposed your truth: you look back. You look back at me, at your losses, at your FAILURE in the wake of your momentary success. You must accept your failure, Kyle. You must accept your inferiority. The rest of Action Wrestling has. We’ve all moved on. With my three resounding victories to your one, everyone else here has moved past the Kemp-Walter rivalry because there is none. A rivalry implies some semblance of competition, a balance sometimes struck. Perhaps now, as I strike you down for the fourth time, you can see that is is no “rivalry,” this is no “feud.”
A buzzsaw does not feud with lumber. A flame does not feud with wood. A wrecking ball does not feud with a building. We simply destroy and move on. As I have done. I implore you, Kyle, for your sake, move on.
Walter lets out a sigh. He seems...legitimately disappointed.
To be fair though, you did at least attempt to move on I suppose. The end of that quote was about Corey Black’s Hardcore Title and the opportunity it represented to you. Unfortunately you failed to procure that just as you failed to protect and then re-procure the United States Title. Because that’s what you do, Kyle. You fail.
Me?
I jammed my thumb so far into that same man’s eye socket that he required surgery. Because that’s what I do, Kyle. I destroy men. I destroy psyches. Or for some lucky few like you Kyle, I simply haunt your every waking thought it would seem. I take up all the oxygen until every promo you put out mentions ME more than it mentions YOU. What was it you said to Roger Payton Jr?
A bit...convenient to frame our previous rendezvous as though you and that Louisville Slugger had the last laugh, isn’t it Kyle? As though you’d finally slayed this Beast with nothing more than a stick of wood and your plucky attitude? You and I both know that two short weeks later at Execution, with stitches still in my flesh from that shot with the bat, I threw you from one side of that cage to the other and then back again. And then I introduced you to The Great Mystery, the wonderful black that comes via asphyxiation.
Regardless of the false narrative you weave for the fans, Kyle, the rest of that quote has that particular pang of truth to it. And we both know that if you could still feel my hands around your throat for weeks after the first time, then I’m certain it was the same after Execution. And judging by how the name of the Evolved Man frequents your promos, it’s clear I haunt you still. It’s clear that my voice, my hands, my breath on your neck as you lose consciousness....it’s all on repeat in that pathetic mind of yours.
The brain is a wonderful slave but a terrible master, Kyle. And it’s obvious to me that I have enslaved yours. Forty lashes now for pretending you want this match, you should not lie to your master. And then forty more for occupying one of the final four spaces in the Wrestler of the Year tournament.
Does that bother you, Kyle? That you don’t belong in the final four? You and I both know that. You preach such honesty and undoubtedly consider yourself such an honest soul that it must bother you to occupy a space in this tournament that you KNOW you do not deserve. Lockheart. Leviathan. QDT. Dandy...Even TFK and Kidsgrove have resumes better fit for what you’ve stumbled into. If you were half the virtuous man you pretend to be, you’d have already stepped down. You’d have already acknowledged that your competition thus far was concussed or already-pondering retirement. You’d give into those nightmares and the fear your carry in your heart of gasping for air in my clutches once more and relinquish your spot to a more deserving competitor.
But you and I both know you aren’t that man. As “good” as you pretend to be, we both know that it’s all about Kyle Kemp. It’s all about how that crowd makes you feel, how you replace the validation you miss from your parents with the validation from the crowd. It’s about hoping that I make a mistake again. It’s about praying that you’ll be the benefactor of my short-sightedness again. There is no Hope, Kyle, you’re on the wrong side of the bracket for that. And pray all you want but the Evolved Man knows God is a myth and religion is no more than superstition.
Your hope doesn’t exist.
Your prayers fall upon deaf ears.
There is only me you can beg for mercy...but evolution knows no such thing.
Does it hurt you to know how badly you failed? Do you feel responsible for all those I’ve hurt since your failure? Those words--spoken before your mauling at Execution--would indicate that you should feel guilty. Worry not, Kyle. The next person I hurt is you. The next blood on my hands is yours. Feel no guilt, only the familiar weight of your own failure bred by your inferiority.
You are not fit to survive me, Kyle, you are not fit to survive this tournament. It is my duty to extricate your from it and from my presence.
Though I deem your failure inevitable, I do not expect my victory to be easy. I know what I mean to you. I know you are willing to do anything for this victory, for final retribution.
I know I am your white whale and you stand now on the deck, harpoon in hand, desperate for your grand moment.
But you do know what happened to Ahab, don’t you? The poor, obsessed, inferior being lashed out at Moby Dick. He stood upon his ship and stabbed at the great Beast but the line on his harpoon became tangled around his neck. The great beast--who has already laid waste the ship and all its men--swims off, dragging the Obsessed behind him by the neck. And the obsessed challenger, the one willing to sacrifice it all, DID sacrifice it all. He drowned, dying a meaningless, flailing death having but wounded the superior being.
Burn it all.
Salt the earth.
Evolution comes...again.
She couldn’t imagine what Walter wanted to show her but she was excited as they left the Neon Museum, twisting and turning down industrial back streets of lesser-seen Las Vegas. He’d never actually wanted to show her something before.T hey walked briskly with her hand snugly inside his. Walter’s massive paw enveloped hers completely and made her feel...safe.
Alyssa: You know...when we’re alone...I’ve always made Etta give this to me.
She shows him the Device.
Alyssa: I didn’t want you to control yourself, I wanted you to be free with me. I wanted the real Walter. And I’m so grateful I’ve gotten him.
With that she presses the button on it, removing the failsafe that would incapacitate Walter were he to become...agitated.
Alyssa: Every time we’ve been alone together, I’ve turned it off. I’ve never told you before now but you must’ve known.
Walter: I did not.
Alyssa: You didn’t suspect it when we were...
Walter: I wasn’t thinking about it then. I was...otherwise occupied.
Alyssa: I guess I would hope so. I trust you. I think it’s important for you to know that.
She places the device into his jacket pocket. They enter a seemingly deserted industrial park filled with nearly a hundred shipping containers, all lined up like oversized steel coffins.
Walter: I have known that for some time now.
She caresses the underside of his thumb with hers.
Walter: You are a physically perfect specimen. When I speak of evolution, I imagined people like you and I creating the next generation’s great leaders, fighters, thinkers. I saw our progeny’s superiority to all those around them as plain as day.
He stops outside one of the containers and she spins quickly to face him, her back to the container. She smiles at him, straining not to admit that she’s had the same fantasies about their future together.
Walter: But you speak at such lengths about re-focusing my...inclinations. About honing my desires for violent delights for use only within the ring. You want nothing more than for me to live a normal life, for my bloodthirst to be quenched once a week within the confines of professional wrestling.
He reaches behind her and presses open the heavy metal door to the container.
Walter: I have no desire to deny who I am.
She cocks her head and opens her mouth to speak but he places one of his fingers over it.
Walter: I will not curb my lust for blood.
She recoils from him now, taking a step backwards into the shipping container, her shoes not clanging on metal as they should but crumpling on plastic instead.
Walter: I am the instrument of Evolution and my cravings are its great scythe. To deny my appetite is to deny my purpose. I did care for you, Alyssa and I did dream of our future. But a woman who does not understand my needs...has no future.
He spins her around to see the inside of the shipping container with a bed standing alone in the middle of the room. Every inch is covered entirely in plastic. She shrieks but his hand is already over her mouth. Evolution has come for her.
The Neon Museum
Like Kyle Kemp, these signs burned bright but for a relatively short period, a moment in the grand scheme. In that moment, not a single one knew its own futility, its own irrelevance. In that moment, they were king, held high above all else, naively worshipped by the masses, incorrectly held up as something special, aspirational. With the perspective of time and the evolution of everything around them, they have all been relegated to a place that even its curators muster no more special name for than The Boneyard.
Kyle Kemp should be so lucky as to be amongst those once-bright-shining stars collected en masse. Kyle Kemp should be so lucky as to be appreciated by the future’s simplest-minded wrestling fans. Kyle Kemp should be so lucky as to be taken somewhere with an actual Proper Name after his final Culling.
Evolution holds no place for the “lucky.”
No, The Evolved man has no intention of leaving Kyle Kemp in enough pieces to be collected and displayed by historians. The Evolved Man wants Kemp to be scraped up off the mat, unrecognizable and barely worth shoveling into a compost bin. The Evolved Man does not intend to again swat away the ever-present fruit fly of Kyle Kemp. Instead he is summoning The Beast to pluck Kemp’s wings off slowly, to break the tiny annoyance’s legs, and to make clear the futility and uselessness of his very existence.
Walter: Dear Alyssa, I am, of course, grateful to see you but…why a museum again?
Alyssa Payton had her reasons, none of which she wished to divulge. For example, he didn’t need to know that he labyrinthian twists of this scrap steel jungle was exactly how she pictured his brain. He didn’t need to know that she imagined his past full of sin and near unspeakable acts just as the Old Vegas these signs represent was. He didn’t need to know how much those thoughts excited her. She also brought him here because...
Alyssa: Because you hated that other one and I’m still in kind of a “Fuck you, Walter” sort of mood.
He accepted her explanation without retort. Walter had ended her twin brother's career before it had properly started. A single Television Title reign an absurd underachievement for a man of his talents. Almost the opposite of Kyle Kemp, for whom the US Title victory over Walter is regarded as an absurd overachievement for a man of his "talents."
Alyssa: But I promised to see you again if you beat Corey Black. And you did.
The mention of Walter’s last victory excited her. He could tell that despite herself, she wanted to be there.
Walter: I am not a man who needs a carrot but knowing you are watching, knowing that as I jammed my thumb into the eye socket of “The Last King” that you were at home watching...was exhilarating.
That was the word she used time and again to describe the relationship, to describe their time together, to describe watching this Beast enact his will upon opponents.
Alyssa: So should I dangle another carrot this week as you face the one man who’s beaten you? Because I’ve got something else to keep you motivated.
He found the word insulting. As though “motivation” was something he had ever lacked; as though his purpose weren’t clear every moment.
Walter: You speak as so many of my opponents do, Alyssa, from both sides of your mouth. You correctly regard Kyle Kemp as the one blemish on my Action Wrestling record but then query as to whether I need motivation?
She was needling him on purpose. She liked when his anger would begin to bubble; she liked that his impending rage seemed to change the very air around them.
Alyssa: I know you don’t. But...Well if I’m being honest, I thoroughly enjoyed what you did to Corey Black last week. But this week? I want Kyle Kemp to wish he was that lucky. So do you want me to show you that secret motivation?
She reaches out and her hand disappears inside Walter’s massive palm. He could smell the excitement in her. And it excited him.
Walter: Not yet. I have something I’d like to show you first.
***********************
Dusk now at The Neon Museum and the crowds have thinned. Walter stands in front of a buzzing pink sign that reads “La Concha” in stylized blue lettering with a permanently-lit “NO VACANCY” beneath. His eyes are fixed straight forward into the camera, speaking not to the fans or to the other wrestlers but only to Kyle Kemp. The bass in his voice seems harsher than usual, there’s an undercurrent of anger there.
La Concha. The shell. That’s what I drug you out of this year, Kyle. You’d been stuffed inside the protective casing of your own mediocrity for so much of your career but thanks to me, you crawled out ever-so-timidly and basked in the warming glow of success.
For a moment.
But I quickly took back my proper place standing over you, blotting out the sun and the warmth of success you so-briefly felt. My violence, my destruction of that Glory Tournament--much the same destruction I leave in my wake of this tournament--showed you what it took to be a champion. Your victory over me showed me what I must do, of how dangerous this place truly is. As I’ve said in the past, Kyle, I’m truly thankful for how you helped me evolve. And I’m sorry that I came back to eclipse your shine, to lift you up from the sand you were basking upon after finally escaping that shell, I’m sorry that I lifted you up, choked the life from your body not once, not twice, but three different times...and then tossed you back to the earth. And I’m sorry that’s where you’ve been ever since.
You’ve been writhing in the dirt, out of your shell, out of place. You were brave enough to be be laid bare a moment but you’ve found no new home, you’ve found no new shell. This tournament, this is your chance to find your new home; a trip to the finals of the Wrestler of the Year tournament assuredly means your new home is in the main event, at the top of the card. Unfortunately for you your trip has been cancelled, flight never to be rescheduled. Your plans have run into a force of nature with which you are already intimately familiar:
WALTER.
As I told Corey Black before you, I am not here to the Wrestler of the Year. I am the Monster of the Year. I am the Irresistible Force of the Year. I am The Beast of the Year. And you?
You are a forgettable footnote the evolution that I bring to Action Wrestling.
Still, it would be a lie if I told you this match was the same as any other for me. It would be a lie if I told you that dispatching Derrick Vayden means the same as it will to crush Kyle Kemp. Even the exhilaration of blinding Action Wrestling’s Hardcore Champion pales in comparison to how it will feel to show you The Great Mystery again, Kyle.
This is not because I have earmarked our potential matchup from the start as you did. This is not because of what you mean to me but instead what you mean to all of THEM. Not in a general sense, Kyle, because in a general sense you are as utterly meaningless as you’ve ever been. No but in a sense specific to me, you mean everything to those others in the locker room. You represent the only possible chink in my armor. You represent my humanity, my fallibility. To them, you represent hope. Most of them are smart enough to see that the door to their success against The Evolved Man is entirely closed, that an escape is futile. But there are those like Corey Black who see your victory leaving that door open just a crack, for them there is that miniscule ray of hope shining through.
Thanks to you. Because YOU were once able to poke your head through that door.
So now I must take the door and slam it upon your beloved face. Over and over and over again. I must repeatedly crush your skull under the weight of that door until all see it closed tight again, until you are beaten and bloodied and battered again, unrecognizable to those hopeful few in the back, to yourself, to your dead parents.
I am thankful for this opportunity. I am thankful that I bruised Roger Payton Jr’s brain in enough places that even YOU could squeak by him. I am thankful that Ryan Elias clearly had one foot in retirement while in the ring with you. Because if not for those competitors’ distracted dispositions when facing you, we both know you wouldn’t have made it this far.
I credit you with with those victories, Kyle, I do. But you know they were not true. You are a smart enough man to know that the tournament road you’ve walked thus far has been a blessed one; the same as your whole life has been. Blessed with physical gifts. Blessed with good looks. Blessed with fans and success and money.
And now you’ll fail to turn those tournament blessings into actual successes the same way you failed to turn all those other blessings into any significant success in life. Blessings do not make champions, Kyle. Easy roads paved with the types of handouts you’ve been lucky enough to receive all your life do not make champions, Kyle. Trials make champions, Kyle. Tribulations and struggle hone the sharpest weapons. Instead of two now-retired men, I faced Action Wrestling’s longest-reigning Cruiserweight Champion and then the Hardcore Champion. I faced men with a long list of bodies to their name. I faced them and and I swatted them away like so much vermin.
But you? You, I will not swat. You, I will crush. You, I will hurt. You, I will maim and grind into dust. You...I will must make an example of. Perhaps then you can regain some semblance of purpose here, Kyle. Perhaps if I send you from the ring on a stretcher--again--then you can become the martyr. You can become the man who entered battle knowingly outgunned but still fought proudly, valiantly. Would that make you feel good, Kyle? Would that warm the cockles of that empty chasm where your heart is supposed to be? To be Action Wrestling’s great sacrifice to Walter?
What HAVE you done since we last met, Kyle? How have you evolved and bettered yourself? Explain to me WHY this time it’s going to be different than every other time we’ve set foot in the ring, one-on-one. Is it the Trios Championship? Is that what you’re going to point to as the difference-maker this time? That watered down, feel-good, participation-trophy of a tournament is the only accomplishment under your belt since last time I broke you. A tournament you won alongside Teo Blaze and Alex Richards, men your superior in nearly every way. A tournament that called for you to eliminate a group named after an adolescent virgin’s idea of a Saturday well spent and then face three competitors who likely had never exchanged words much less tags prior to the event.
What an achievement.
Five times you mentioned that kid-table victory in your promo against Roger Payton. And then against Ryan Elias you literally drug the trophy out and made it a centerpiece of your promo. This is not the Kyle Kemp I unleashed. This is not the Kyle Kemp that had the gall to take a baseball bat to my skull. This is the skulking, midcard-mired, never-will-be Kyle Kemp that the world has been deeply familiar with for years. And judging by what you’ve done since our time together, it’s the Kyle Kemp the world will continue to be familiar with.
As soon as you were shown your inferiority at Execution you regressed back to this Kyle Kemp of old. Again you’re doing these painfully trite sitdowns with Jenna Bauer. Again, you’re dedicating it all to these “fans.” Again you’re floundering just outside of excellence. Because you haven’t evolved. You haven’t grown one IOTA as a result of what we did.
You went out and choked out Corey Bull; a formidable physical specimen but a competitor you should be able to out-tactic in your sleep. What did you say after that? What was your boast?
“Tonight I showed the world that Walter was just a blip on the radar...I proved that no matter what obstacle you throw at me I am going to get up and give my very best and now I have been given an even bigger opportunity. That opportunity is you Corey Black. You and your Harcore Title.”
Your name was absent from my lips, your visage gone from my mind. You were a plastic bag caught on a westerly, tumbling about and out of my life, worth nothing near a second thought. But my name stayed on your lips; the feeling of my hands around your throat burned deep into your mind. So even when you TRIED to move forward after a victory, your words exposed your truth: you look back. You look back at me, at your losses, at your FAILURE in the wake of your momentary success. You must accept your failure, Kyle. You must accept your inferiority. The rest of Action Wrestling has. We’ve all moved on. With my three resounding victories to your one, everyone else here has moved past the Kemp-Walter rivalry because there is none. A rivalry implies some semblance of competition, a balance sometimes struck. Perhaps now, as I strike you down for the fourth time, you can see that is is no “rivalry,” this is no “feud.”
A buzzsaw does not feud with lumber. A flame does not feud with wood. A wrecking ball does not feud with a building. We simply destroy and move on. As I have done. I implore you, Kyle, for your sake, move on.
Walter lets out a sigh. He seems...legitimately disappointed.
To be fair though, you did at least attempt to move on I suppose. The end of that quote was about Corey Black’s Hardcore Title and the opportunity it represented to you. Unfortunately you failed to procure that just as you failed to protect and then re-procure the United States Title. Because that’s what you do, Kyle. You fail.
Me?
I jammed my thumb so far into that same man’s eye socket that he required surgery. Because that’s what I do, Kyle. I destroy men. I destroy psyches. Or for some lucky few like you Kyle, I simply haunt your every waking thought it would seem. I take up all the oxygen until every promo you put out mentions ME more than it mentions YOU. What was it you said to Roger Payton Jr?
“I bet you can still feel his hands around your throat. I’m guessing it’s a feeling that you can’t shake. A feeling that haunts you. Just randomly throughout the day it just pops up and you get a little uneasy. Tell me Payton, how are the nightmares? How’s waking up in a cold sweat thinking it’s your blood running down your face?”
“I’ve been there. I’ve gotten over it. Hell I got over it to the point that I walked right up to Walter and got him with a damn bat.”
“I’ve been there. I’ve gotten over it. Hell I got over it to the point that I walked right up to Walter and got him with a damn bat.”
A bit...convenient to frame our previous rendezvous as though you and that Louisville Slugger had the last laugh, isn’t it Kyle? As though you’d finally slayed this Beast with nothing more than a stick of wood and your plucky attitude? You and I both know that two short weeks later at Execution, with stitches still in my flesh from that shot with the bat, I threw you from one side of that cage to the other and then back again. And then I introduced you to The Great Mystery, the wonderful black that comes via asphyxiation.
Regardless of the false narrative you weave for the fans, Kyle, the rest of that quote has that particular pang of truth to it. And we both know that if you could still feel my hands around your throat for weeks after the first time, then I’m certain it was the same after Execution. And judging by how the name of the Evolved Man frequents your promos, it’s clear I haunt you still. It’s clear that my voice, my hands, my breath on your neck as you lose consciousness....it’s all on repeat in that pathetic mind of yours.
The brain is a wonderful slave but a terrible master, Kyle. And it’s obvious to me that I have enslaved yours. Forty lashes now for pretending you want this match, you should not lie to your master. And then forty more for occupying one of the final four spaces in the Wrestler of the Year tournament.
Does that bother you, Kyle? That you don’t belong in the final four? You and I both know that. You preach such honesty and undoubtedly consider yourself such an honest soul that it must bother you to occupy a space in this tournament that you KNOW you do not deserve. Lockheart. Leviathan. QDT. Dandy...Even TFK and Kidsgrove have resumes better fit for what you’ve stumbled into. If you were half the virtuous man you pretend to be, you’d have already stepped down. You’d have already acknowledged that your competition thus far was concussed or already-pondering retirement. You’d give into those nightmares and the fear your carry in your heart of gasping for air in my clutches once more and relinquish your spot to a more deserving competitor.
But you and I both know you aren’t that man. As “good” as you pretend to be, we both know that it’s all about Kyle Kemp. It’s all about how that crowd makes you feel, how you replace the validation you miss from your parents with the validation from the crowd. It’s about hoping that I make a mistake again. It’s about praying that you’ll be the benefactor of my short-sightedness again. There is no Hope, Kyle, you’re on the wrong side of the bracket for that. And pray all you want but the Evolved Man knows God is a myth and religion is no more than superstition.
Your hope doesn’t exist.
Your prayers fall upon deaf ears.
There is only me you can beg for mercy...but evolution knows no such thing.
I have done a lot wrong in my career but nothing would be more wrong if I were to walk away and have somebody else get hurt. I’d have their blood on my hands and I couldn’t let myself live with that. That’s why I knew that when I was cleared I was coming back to finish this thing with Walter once and for all.
Does it hurt you to know how badly you failed? Do you feel responsible for all those I’ve hurt since your failure? Those words--spoken before your mauling at Execution--would indicate that you should feel guilty. Worry not, Kyle. The next person I hurt is you. The next blood on my hands is yours. Feel no guilt, only the familiar weight of your own failure bred by your inferiority.
You are not fit to survive me, Kyle, you are not fit to survive this tournament. It is my duty to extricate your from it and from my presence.
Though I deem your failure inevitable, I do not expect my victory to be easy. I know what I mean to you. I know you are willing to do anything for this victory, for final retribution.
I know I am your white whale and you stand now on the deck, harpoon in hand, desperate for your grand moment.
But you do know what happened to Ahab, don’t you? The poor, obsessed, inferior being lashed out at Moby Dick. He stood upon his ship and stabbed at the great Beast but the line on his harpoon became tangled around his neck. The great beast--who has already laid waste the ship and all its men--swims off, dragging the Obsessed behind him by the neck. And the obsessed challenger, the one willing to sacrifice it all, DID sacrifice it all. He drowned, dying a meaningless, flailing death having but wounded the superior being.
Burn it all.
Salt the earth.
Evolution comes...again.
**********************
She couldn’t imagine what Walter wanted to show her but she was excited as they left the Neon Museum, twisting and turning down industrial back streets of lesser-seen Las Vegas. He’d never actually wanted to show her something before.T hey walked briskly with her hand snugly inside his. Walter’s massive paw enveloped hers completely and made her feel...safe.
Alyssa: You know...when we’re alone...I’ve always made Etta give this to me.
She shows him the Device.
Alyssa: I didn’t want you to control yourself, I wanted you to be free with me. I wanted the real Walter. And I’m so grateful I’ve gotten him.
With that she presses the button on it, removing the failsafe that would incapacitate Walter were he to become...agitated.
Alyssa: Every time we’ve been alone together, I’ve turned it off. I’ve never told you before now but you must’ve known.
Walter: I did not.
Alyssa: You didn’t suspect it when we were...
Walter: I wasn’t thinking about it then. I was...otherwise occupied.
Alyssa: I guess I would hope so. I trust you. I think it’s important for you to know that.
She places the device into his jacket pocket. They enter a seemingly deserted industrial park filled with nearly a hundred shipping containers, all lined up like oversized steel coffins.
Walter: I have known that for some time now.
She caresses the underside of his thumb with hers.
Walter: You are a physically perfect specimen. When I speak of evolution, I imagined people like you and I creating the next generation’s great leaders, fighters, thinkers. I saw our progeny’s superiority to all those around them as plain as day.
He stops outside one of the containers and she spins quickly to face him, her back to the container. She smiles at him, straining not to admit that she’s had the same fantasies about their future together.
Walter: But you speak at such lengths about re-focusing my...inclinations. About honing my desires for violent delights for use only within the ring. You want nothing more than for me to live a normal life, for my bloodthirst to be quenched once a week within the confines of professional wrestling.
He reaches behind her and presses open the heavy metal door to the container.
Walter: I have no desire to deny who I am.
She cocks her head and opens her mouth to speak but he places one of his fingers over it.
Walter: I will not curb my lust for blood.
She recoils from him now, taking a step backwards into the shipping container, her shoes not clanging on metal as they should but crumpling on plastic instead.
Walter: I am the instrument of Evolution and my cravings are its great scythe. To deny my appetite is to deny my purpose. I did care for you, Alyssa and I did dream of our future. But a woman who does not understand my needs...has no future.
He spins her around to see the inside of the shipping container with a bed standing alone in the middle of the room. Every inch is covered entirely in plastic. She shrieks but his hand is already over her mouth. Evolution has come for her.