Post by ππ’π₯ππ¬ πππππ on Feb 27, 2021 17:49:55 GMT -5
βI feel like Iβm playing chess underwater. The pieces keep floating away. I donβt know where things are. I canβt figure out tomorrow.β |
New York City is a bustling place, always moving, always something happening. It's not a city for the weak minded, the weak willed or the weak at all. In a sea of humanity that line the sidewalks, one man stands out. A fresh faced, clean shaven, high and tight haircut having young man marches down the sidewalk. He's wearing a three piece suit, dark blue in color with a sea green tie on a white business shirt. As the buildings around him get taller and taller, kissing the sky and making him feel smaller and smaller, he reaches his destination. Stopping in front of the steps leading to the entry way, he breathes in deep. People pass him, pissed off that he's holding up the flow. He walks up to the door and peers at the address.
44 Union Square. Tammany Hall.
A quick straighten of the tie, hand through the hair to make sure that's okay, pat on the cheek and in he goes. The building is seemingly desolate inside but grand and vast. A front desk straight ahead, doors to either side but no vegetation, no art. Bare walls and a bare soul. Undeterred, the young man steps forward and to the front desk. The lady behind it, sternly, looks up at him over her glasses.
"Name?"
"Volz," he responds. "I have a three o'clock."
The receptionist curls her lips, turning to her computer and typing a few letters or numbers on the keyboard. She looks to her left at the clock on the wall, the only thing adorning the desolate lobby. It's about two forty five. She sighs. Picks up the phone, dials four numbers. A beat passes.
"Your three o'clock is here, can I send him in?"
Another beat. She nearly slams the phone down and looks up. "You can be seen now, up the stairs, two lefts and then it's the last door on the right."
Volz, as he's known as now, smiles and nods, picking up his briefcase once again and heading up the staircase to the right. Into a hallway that looks like it could be in a hospital. Just white. The mahogany doors contrast against it but it's almost eye piercing. A left, down another similar hallway. Then the next left, again, like deja vu, it's as pure. Finally at the end of this hallway is the last door on the right. Volz knocks, a booming voice from the other side answers.
"Enter!"
He reaches down and places his hand on the long horizontal door handle, pressing down and popping the heavy wood open. He slowly opens it and the room is seemingly breathing. As devoid as the rest of the building, except a grizzled man sits at a mahogany desk, the same grain as the doors. Two white chairs sit at an angle facing him, a computer screen on the desk and that is literally it. A window behind him opens to the rest of Manhattan but that is literally the only view in this office. The man stands, placing his hand palm up and fingers pointing at a chair.
"Sit."
Volz sneaks in sheepishly, approaching the desk and putting his hand out to shake the man's hand.
"Just sit."
A quick nod and Volz sits down, placing his briefcase on the floor next to him. The man sits, licking his teeth and snapping his tongue in his mouth.
"So I have a man down on Wall Street that says you've got what it takes. A keen eye for companies that will turn us a profit if we help them."
Volz sits forward in his chair, placing his hands on his knees.
"I have what it takes, sir. I've been knocked down a time or two before but this time I am ready for whatever comes my way."
The man behind the desk leans back himself, curling his mouth in an amused manor.
"Please, tell me about one."
FOUR HOURS EARLIER
Sunlight shines through the skylight of this trendy apartment, down onto a dining room table where Corey Black sits. From the kitchen walks Taylor, holding two bottles of Diet Coke. She hands one off, cracks hers open and takes a drink. Corey does the same.
"This is stupid," Taylor breaks the silence. "A dumb idea and it's only going to get you hurt."
Corey sighs. "They've been in my head for five months. It's time I get in theirs."
"Why this? You don't even know how deep this does."
"This will send shock waves through their Action Wrestling contingent. I've already eliminated one of them. The water is receding. I can breathe a little bit and now is the time to strike."
Taylor sits down across the table, looking into Corey's eyes.
"Ash Blake has done nothing but disrupt your life from the moment Clash 100 ended. She points, they listen."
"Exactly; but who points her?"
"I can't believe I am helping you with this."
Corey reaches over and grasps her hand.
"I'll be fine. For all the shit she has done, for all the shit THEY have done - it's time someone outsmarts the smartest kids in the room."
Corey stands up and begins pacing back and forth. Taylor pulls her phone out but a hand stops her. Corey slowly lowers the phone down.
"No, not this time. She doesn't deserve the acknowledgement."
Taylor relents, placing her phone back in her pocket.
"Corey, she had all the momentum last time, she has it all this time. Philidor will stop at nothing to keep the belt on their prized Ash."
"Momentum.. we put the breaks on Philidor at XIII, the only momentum that have is downward."
"Where you also entertained the mongrel."
"The outgoing perception of that scenario is comical at best. A stupid bitch's way of trying to twist the blade through my heart even more than it already was. Frank had to convince me to even give it a chance but he knew. The mongrel wanted Philidor blood just as much as we did. He also wanted ours. So we fed some scraps to the hungry wolf to stave it off for a time. Until it was up to me to put the bullet in his head at Execution. Now look at me. Removed of what is more revered in this company. Subjected to being tied up and having it held in front of my face as if I am the hungry beast, just wanting to taste that forbidden fruit once more before it is my time. Until someone comes along and puts me down."
Just then, the doorbell of the apartment buzzes, causing Taylor to stand and hurriedly make her way to the front door. She opens it and greets the man standing in the doorway. An older man, shoulder length brown and graying hair. He's carrying a bunch of duffel bags and a square case. Taylor ushers him in to the dining room where he shakes Corey's hand.
"Corey, this is Bill Corso."
"A pleasure, your work is incredible!"
Bill waves his hand like he is deflecting the compliment. "Please, let's get to work. We'll make you young again yet Mister Black!"
NOW
Volz leans back in his chair, testing the limits of the chair's flex.
"So there I was, right? I had just got the white whale. My company had an uncaged beast of a client they were sure they'd never be able to crack. For nearly a year this guy jerked us around, made people quit, it was awful. But on one fateful day, after I had been begging for a chance at him, I was allowed to go toe to toe. It was quick, impactful. we were throwing one another jabs like we were destined to do it forever but finally I hit the killing blow. He relented. I had won.
But I hadn't. You see, when you slay one monster six more pop their heads up to see the commotion. Only these were sharks, waiting in the dark to pick my bones after I had come away. At my expense they made a name for themselves. Took all the credit for my win, put a dome over my light, my fireworks display was snuffed and there was no confetti. Anybody else would be furious, and in the moments that followed, I was. But I knew one day, come hell or high water, I'd find myself across the table from each and every one of those people that decided my time was theirs. And I let it go, instead choosing to focus on me for once.
We'd tangle a few more times in the months that followed. It was more them poking at me with a stick and seeing if they could get me to lose my cool. I did once or twice, got one of them fired and nobody has heard from him since. But the ringleader, the one orchestrating the puppets, relentless in the pursuit. She took on three of our best and she's still so new at this but she has that x-factor. She came away with the chance to take my highest honor. When I got that client, he entrusted me with his entire World. But her words slithered around in his mind and his World, once mine, is now hers. She took it right from under my nose and she doesn't have what it takes to give it the respect it deserves. That's why I am here."
The man, confused, cocks his head to the left. "You want a better job to rub it in their faces?"
Volz laughs, "something like that."
A tiny bead of sweat runs down Volz's temple to his cheek, where almost impossibly it suddenly turns toward his nose instead of continuing down his cheek. Volz quickly wipes it away before the man can notice. Volz reaches down and pops his briefcase open, producing papers he tosses onto the man's desk.
"My abbreviated portfolio. I feel you'll find that I am far and away the most qualified for this position, possibly even more than the people you currently have on your payroll."
The man snatches the papers and peers at them, flipping to the second page nearly with eyes bugging out of his head. "You do seem to be on top of your game. One of the best I have seen."
"That's just it, sir. I'm the fucking king."
THREE HOURS AGO
Back in Tribeca, Bill Corso is drawing on Corey Black's face with a light blue marker.
"Mmhmm, yes I have something for this. Alright, now Mister Black, what's the occasion? Why could you ask Taylor to fly me in so urgently?"
Corey smiles, "Bill, it's a long story."
Corso reaches into his bag and case, pulling out flesh colored latex and glue, "we have a little bit of time."
"Have you ever felt like you were playing chess underwater, Bill?"
"In what way?"
"You place a piece down, but the current takes is back three spots. Unable to get ahead, to get a foothold and drive forward."
"I suppose so, Mister Black."
"That is my world right now, Bill. I just got my breath in me, and now I'm back to being submerged - but I've got the fight."
Bill Corso begins cutting the flesh colored latex, measuring it up to Corey's beard.
NOW
Volz has just spit his line out, the man behind the desk seems taken back.
"Where did you learn business, Volz?" inquires the man.
"Our mutual friend took me under his wing. I began as a call boy for penny stocks and moved up from there."
"Kinda young."
"Kinda determined."
"Determined to do what? Show up those who wronged you? This isn't that kind of place, kid. You've come in here with your script and your attitude and you've done nothing but piss me off. Now get the fuck out of my office."
The man stands, pointing toward the door. Volz turns, looks at it, and laughs to himself.
"If I was a lesser man I'd have burnt this building to the ground by now."
The man's eye go wide, "what did you just say to me?"
Volz opens his briefcase once again, slowly reaching in. The man puts his hands in front of himself, sitting down slowly. "No no.. please.."
"Why not start your new life today?" asks Volz, standing up and pulling a photo from the briefcase. He slides it across the desk. "Those words have rung in my head for almost a month now. Bouncing off every corner and cavity of my skull, my waking moments, my sleeping dreams, my wretched nightmares. So I did. I started a new life today. I became a businessman."
2 HOURS AGO
Bill Corso has applied a whole lot of his special effects makeup to Corey Black, seemingly turning him into a younger man. Taylor walks in and is taken back.
"Gosh, you really are good at this."
Bill laughs, "I turned you into a man once. Turning the clock back on Corey is far easier."
His beard has vanished behind latex, hair tucked back and covered with a tight short haired wig, a nose and cheek plate applied - none of it is covered in Corey's skin tone so Bill gets to work on that.
NOW
The photo lands in the man's lap, he looks down at it. "Blakesley?" he questions.
Volz takes his suit jacket off. "Ash Blake is why I am here, sir. I don't know the specifics, and frankly, I don't want to. I tried doing this the professional way, but we're far beyond that now. This company's branch in Action Wrestling is going to be destroyed. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not this month. It began with me and it ends with me. You don't have enough people on the payroll to usurp a king, crowned or not."
The man gets on the floor, wrists on the table and hands clasped. "What do you want?"
"I want you to take the way you are feeling now and remember it. Lock it in your heart. And the next time you see Ash Blake, hark back to this moment. When I could have done what I want to do - but didn't. You there, pissing your pants all because you let your guard down for one moment. That's all it takes. She may be cunning, she may have a plan, but at the end of this all when my sword is plunged in her chest, I'll return to this place. And I'll have her head on a fucking pike."
Volz reaches up to his jaw line and grasps his skin, peeling it off revealing the beard underneath. The man's eyes grow wider and wider. The wig comes off, dropped to the floor, the business shirt ripped off and Corey Black's tattooed torso revealed.
"You've made an enemy til the end, sir. You, the people above you, whomever is running this show. But Blake most of all. You've infiltrated the business I love and stained the sacred mat with your filth. Attempting to spread your message like a disease to own every contract and thus have majority stake. I'm not a fucking fool. Promises of grandeur to broken men and women. The pro wrestling business is chalk full of people that are missing pieces of themselves. Ash Blake is missing her conscious. Her resolve. She's one of those lost people, now a programmed terminator riding high on my wave of glory. She took Clash 100 from me. She took the World Title from me. Most of all, she disrespects my honor. And if she was just a good competitor, I'd say congrats, move on to the next battle.
It isn't in her nature to be good. By any means, Ash will get what Ash believes or is told she needs. That's a spoiled brat, sir. That isn't a wrestler. That's a hired gun that hardly knows how to wield one. The life you live may be about stealing and robbery but mine, it's about honor. One of my men went down in battle against Philidor, and while we finished it, he was taken care of at my home. In my village. I took one of yours - where is Noris Cranley? Written off as collateral. Philidor, Ash Blake, will find another sucker to add to the front lines and act as a meat shield.
I'm just one man. My team? Rubble. My alliances? Fleeting. But I got in here. I am standing in front of you and I am telling you face to face, man to man that I am going to break Ash Blake and I am going to fucking smile while I do it. Send the whole company down to help her, there's nothing more you can do to me. She's already been in my head. Right where she wants to be, it's her wheelhouse. She moles in and gets those that oppose into a state of such uncontrollable rage that any plan goes out the window. Philidor has all the pieces and they're running the game. Two hands on the board, four creating the current, six holding me underwater."
Corey steps forward, picking up the white chair he was in and slamming it onto the mahogany desk in front of him, sending the chair crumbling into pieces and spooking the man even more.
"I've lived and died in the darkness so many times that I feel comforted by the struggle. You, Ash, all of Philidor - you're not ready for this war. Best pull out now while you still can."
Corey grabs his briefcase and turns and walks to the large door, kicking it open this time and walking out into the hallway. He reaches into the case, pulling out purple spray paint, and as he walks he begins spraying the walls of the office building all the way to the stairs. Corey walks by the receptionist, he slams the spray paint can on the desk. "Bill me for the cleanup," he says as he walks out into the New York air, leaving the building behind him.
LATER
"Living rent free in someone's mind is a dangerous thing. It can go one of two ways, either you are the controller or the pawn. For the longest time I was the pawn, lead down the path and to my own demise. I lost the Action Wrestling World Title not because Ash Blake is better than me, but because Ash Blake WAS better than me. The mental game is just as important as the physical one in most cases. A small, bouncy ball of a woman pulled one on the King of All Wrestlers. Anybody else would crumble and die. They'd take months off, go to CruiserClash or just retire all together.
Manipulation at every turn, deception and malice - a pathetic excuse for a human. Our World Champion once belittled me for teaming up with the devil incarnate, well, that should explain everything you need to know when it comes to what I'll do to exterminate her and her backers. It takes a lot to become marked. A special kind of fucked up. QDT ended my Hardcore Title reign, I didn't come back for his innards. It's beyond belts at this point, isn't it? The World Title is now a prop in a narrative Philidor is trying to spread. They have it, she has it, they're waving it around in my face.
That isn't the king's crown.
Ash Blake isn't holding anything that belongs to me.
She's holding something that belongs to everyone that has ever gone into that ring to compete, not to become famous or rich. Every fan that has spent their paychecks to see men and women go out to that sacred fight square and determine who was better through combat. Ash Blake spits on that idea. She thinks it was mercy shown when Shaw didn't take the title from me after my battle with Walter. Mercy is allowing a building to stand because I will do exactly as she did.
I was merciful today. But if this company bucks back and doesn't respect my offering."
A match is lit, illuminating Corey and his surroundings. In his right hand is a battle axe.
"I'll swing back and finish the job."
Corey blows the match out, plunging the screen into darkness once again.
"Power is relative. Philidor has claimed to have the power since I won the World Title, a blatant lie. I turned Shaw away in Wrestler of the Year and ever since, he's been coddling the case until I lost it. I know first hand when the World Title is on your waist, there isn't a soul that wouldn't do whatever it takes to come for it. Enemies, friends, people you've never interacted with. What happens with the power dynamic is perceived to be the reverse of what it truly is? When the underdog believes her own hype? I got caught. Once. That's all it takes. Ash has never been in a fair fight, let alone a fair fight with someone of my caliber.
Do I believe this will be a fair fight? I do. Simply because Torture knows exactly what will happen if it isn't. This is a man that has plunged a knife in my back more times than I can count. But now, he can be on the opposite side of history. He can make sure Ash Blake has to beat Corey Black for the World Title, no Jim Mud, no Carter Shaw, no HR Department and no ghost of Noris Cranley.
I don't have the backup anymore and I don't need it. I'm the man that ended the mongrel. Me, just me, nobody else. I am the fan voted Wrestler of the Year, while the Turmoil winner of Wrestler of the Year is off on play dates and competing in battle royals because he, too, couldn't get it done. Wrestling is a fickle bitch, everyone's chance is a fleeting moment in time - except mine. I am constant. I am forever. Long after Philidor Holdings has lost the shine and is no longer Action Wrestling's biggest new thing, I'll be here. In the main event. Holding the Action Wrestling World Championship.
Ash Blake is the most delicate block of the Jenga tower, just waiting for a slight tug. One little nudge and the whole thing comes crumbling down. One moment that doesn't go her way. A Lost Girl from Kansas taken to Action Wonderland, landing on the King Champion but expecting her munchkin guild to back her up. The Wizard has given himself the authority and this King Champion is coming back to kill this bitch with the water she holds me under."
A splashing sound echoes through whatever room Corey is in, and he flicks the lights on. It's the room with the TV screens but they're replaced by fish tanks. Corey is soaked.
"Ash Blake is in my head for all the wrong reasons. It's not her doing, it's my own. A wrong I have to right myself. Buying my trainees, Taylor's music, baiting me with the title - it all weighs on me but none of that is my motivation. People disrespect me on a daily basis. It's doing it and using that to further the message. Using me as a way to spread the Philidor gospel.
Absolutely fucking disgusting. That was your first mistake and it'll be your last."