Post by Downfall on Jan 28, 2021 0:38:28 GMT -5
He cranes his neck up at the illuminated building across the street.
Awash with floodlights, and security sweeping the grounds. Watching from Lafayette Square, his eyes sweep over the stately White House, something swelling inside of him.
The weight of centuries of history lives, electric and tangible and real as the snow flutters around him. Where generations of eyes turned towards those who cared enough to leave their mark on history. Where history had its eye on the truly great.
In four short days, all eyes on this house once again.
It culminates... everything, he's been working towards since July.
When he'd started, remember?; sitting on his Corvette's hood, signing his contract, he'd felt the winds stirring him. Asking himself, he wanted to be rooted to his past, married to the idea of himself as-he-was, the narcissistic prick who let his own ego outstrip him, or if he ever wanted to aspire to something more.
He thinks of that legacy;
A legacy he'd married to the main-event rise of the Television title. How he was intent to make this mean something.
And how it was cheapened by two afterthought challenges; one from a man who thereafter quit the company, another laid by two chuckling, comic-relief celebrities. Thinking that cementing what he'd said on the tin (The. Best. In. The WORLD.) meant being subjected to such jocular chicanery rankled him. Staring across the distance to the illuminated seat of power, he snarled. It threatened to dilute everything he was working to build. So it was imperative that he win, not just expediently, but in a show of force.
'Cause history had it's eyes on him.
"If you had your hands on this opportunity, would you make the most of it?"
"Not just winning the title... (although that's gonna prove beyond you at Revolution, I promise you that.)"
"Coming out here weekly and giving the effort I have. Putting all the legwork I did into making the triple-threat match something people cared about."
"Cranley is so wrapped up in social media and talking himself up as Influencing- despite his Twitter not having any activity since November 12, and his only wrestling appearance in three calendar months being a crushing defeat. Before that, he'd gotten decimated by Max Daemon; lost his only claim to fame to boot - a fluke victory in a division he had no place in."
"Kidsgrove - Sooooo busy with Hollywood projects, you guys, couldn't be arsed to make an appearance for the company that cuts him a regular check, he'd look at the TV title and pale."
"But, paradoxically, he'd also see it as a demotion."
"Neither one of them worked hard for this. Neither one of them, really seems to give a shit about making this the fight it deserves to be."
"Kidsgrove openly said he doesn't care, he just wants to 'Send a message to my boss', he didn't even intend for this challenge to come about."
"When Ben and Matt cacklingly sputtered out a challenge bro, Kids glared at them. But he's quick to come out to cut a promo, talking about how I rode Nightengale's coattails to success and get my marching orders from him"...
"Sam..."
"The fuck makes you think you're worth that much? To him, to me? Furthermore, what two brain-cells making friction do you have, thinking Nightengale is anything to me anymore?"
"D'you see me interacting with the Lost Breed on a weekly basis, have they helped me in any of my matches?"
"Or has it been just me and my two hands out here leaving a string of bodies in my wake? I beat a woman you never could to get here. You, Samuel... haven't even won a MATCH since Trios."
"You probably need to stop thinking about this as a roundabout way to erase the stink of failure from your being locked out of the US title conversation conclusively... thinking this is about my boss, while I'm out there... closing a loop and ending your claim on a title you claim not to want... that means more than you ever will."
"What really gets under your skin is, both you know I'm right. I've made you both look outclassed, nigh irrelevant. Your respective forms of media are secondary. I outworked, and outperformed both of you on a weekly basis. I've proven that nobody can touch me, in that ring, on this microphone. If it wasn't for me, you'd be having a limp slap-fight over whether social media made movies passe. You'd coast to an empty victory, because Noris' been putting about as much work into promoting his own matches... as you have appearing on the shows."
"And we'd stop caring in two weeks' time."
"This isn't about some twenty-year-old Tik-Tok baby wanting likes and attention distracting from his many failures or a vapid wannabe Bono who doesn't know the first thing about this country, this White House or even this Television title using it as a shiny prop for one of his photo-ops."
"This title is my weekly mission to build myself into something entirely new from the ground up."
"Take the best AW can throw at me and let them shatter, like waves against my shore, like insurrectionists unable to get through those gates; Where I am handed a blank document every week to make history and I am not throwing away my shot."
"In front of the entire free world at Revolution, I'm gonna be a revelation. In front of the most powerful venue in the world, I am going to fuck both of you gloryhound clods up beyond belief. And when it's all said and done..."
"I'm going to keep the flame of My division held high like a beacon, call to bear witness."
"To keep eyes on history."
He turns his back on the White House, walking into Lafayette Park. But somehow, his words echo on behind him, as if to underscore their meaning.
"To make sure it lives on."