Post by strat on Nov 2, 2022 22:31:22 GMT -5
“ I once said that I climbed the mountain to see the world, not so the world would see me.
For me, success was not the adulation or the glory, nor was it the attention or obligations that came with it. I held little interest in the opinions of people on what it meant to be a champion and yet less interest in being a role model.
It was about proving something to myself. About making a decision to right a wrong, and to know whether the feelings I kept buried for many years, all the what-about-ism, had any truth to them. And what came of it was something else. It evolved, it changed. And I changed and evolved along with it.
That’s the thing about life, though, isn’t it? The only constant is change. The only way to ensure disappointment is to expect that everything will stay the same. ”
– Stephen Stratford
“The Blindside”
May 23, 2022
━━━━━ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ━━━━━
The screen before you is black, and there is nothing but silence. An almost deafening silence, where you can hear the faintest electrical current humming in the distance, and as your ears adjust to try to make out where the sound is coming from you’re suddenly jolted by the jarring sound of feedback, like a microphone jack being jimmied into an amplifier that was already switched on.
The screen flickers for the briefest of moments, like the first few slides on a VCR tape aligning themselves against the video head drum, before finally the picture focuses on our screen. A large imposing structure encases a wrestling ring. A cell with four pods in each corner, a buzzer inside each cell. A chrome ladder that stretches out through a hole above each pod, leading to another cage that stands on top of the previous one. This one doesn’t have a roof. In fact, dangling above this very cell is a championship belt that is adorned with three gruesome looking skulls. There are yet more ladders, fixed to the sides of the cage as the shot widens and becomes aerial.
As we are given the time to absorb the ‘Stairway Asylum’, plain white text overlays the footage:
OUTLAW PRO WRESTLING
STAIRWAY 2 HEAVEN
LOS ANGELES, CA
8 / 21 / 2020
A familiar face stands among the seven men and women that stand in a circle, waiting for the bout to begin. He’s a couple of years younger, but a person of Stephen Stratford’s appearance is not hard to pick out. To his left and right are competitors that some of the hardcore fans may recognise - OPW Immortal Champion Anicka Swan, Roger Wright, Former Immortal Champion Apathy, Scotty Adams. Then there was a fairly well known porn star in a blue mask, known as El Gran Luchador. But Stratford was not concerned with any of these, his eyes were laser focused on the man standing opposite him, and likewise, Xavier Wolf had no spare attention for any of the other five fighters in this fight.
Fans of FIGHT! NYC would later recognise Xavier Wolf as Xavier Black, the owner of the organisation that was born from the ashes of OPW’s demise. Through the fuzz of static and distant commentary, the ominous sound of a bell ringing signified the beginning of the match. As Xavier Wolf slipped a cheap shot from Roger Wright and made a bee-line for Stratford, Stratford ducked under a clinch from Anicka Swan with deft agility. Instead of engaging with the oncoming rival, though, he dove into the nearest booth and hit the buzzer, immediately securing his position in the second stage of the match, where seven would become four.
“ What a motherfucker.. ” the voice sounds more present and near than the sound coming from the footage.
As Xavier Wolf pressed his fist angrily into the plexiglass barrier that separated him from his rival, a double set of arrows familiar to any user of television services as a fast-forward icon popped up in the bottom right of the screen, and the action rolled on at 4x speed. Briefly, the velocity of the fast-forwaring slows as we see the four successful wrestlers emerge from their cells as stage two of the battle commences. Xavier Wolf, the last to qualify for the second stage, Anicka Swan - the current Immortal Champion at this time, and Roger Wright had joined Stratford. During this battle, Wolf and Stratford did exchange blows, but the first clutch-point came as Stratford defiantly pinned Xavier’s close friend and one-time lover, Anicka Swan, to eliminate the incumbent right in front of him.
“ You could’ve saved her, you know. ” a quiet but almost incredulous laugh overlaps the familiar Australian sounding voice.
The tape rolls on.
The final two men are fighting tooth and nail for the championship that hangs, the palpability of the atmosphere in the Coliseum in Los Angeles seems to physically cause it to sway as if being attracted and repelled by tension in the room. Like a Newton’s Cradle, the three-skulled championship subtly moves from one side to the other.
Adjacent ladders stand beneath, each of their chrome plated rungs rising and reaching toward the prize. At the foot of each ladder’s ascent, broken and beaten versions of Stephen Stratford and Xavier Wolf will themselves and their bodies to comply with the task ahead, to climb the proverbial and literal Stairway To Heaven. Deep breaths, and many mental obstacles, were undertaken and traversed.
“ To get to heaven, Mr. Stratford, you’re going to need your wings. ” the sound of The Producer’s voice rung in Stephen’s mind as his fingertips clasped onto the bottom-most fold of thick genuine leather.
He had made it. Another step and he would have the championship fully in his grasp. As he took his next step, suddenly his footing became unsure – the ladder was beginning to sway. A large hand gripped hold of the belt, and his balance was further compromised. Unable to correct himself with the anchor he had on the belt. His focus shifts from the ladder beneath him to the determined look in the eye of Wolf.
Fight, or flight. Do, or die. Take a risk, or let him walk away with it all.
Stephen Stratford lunged toward the belt, his black-tipped fingers grabbing hold of it with all his might, as the ladder fell to the wayside. The momentum of his move unsettled Xavier, too.
And now Xavier was faced with the same dilemma. Hang on for dear life or accept that his rival had bettered him.
Xavier Wolf had never and would never accept such a thing. It crossed his mind for the briefest of glimpses, before being banished. A deep growl emanated from somewhere inside of him, as his whole body tensed and braced for what was to come. His ladder fell as he pushed himself up and got a second hand onto the championship belt, securing a firm grip.
For what was merely seconds, but felt like an eternity to both of these warriors, they hung there. Suspended in their own defiant unwillingness to accept defeat. Thrusting ineffective kicks at one another in a desperate attempt to shake their opponent free of the championship, before suddenly the links in the chain that held the belt started to structurally fail. It took less than a second, but then they were in what seemed like a terminal velocity freefall.
Neither Stephen Stratford nor Xavier Wolf knew or could comprehend what followed. As they lay there, the roar from the crowd grew to deafening levels, and the first that either of them knew of the outcome was when Sarah Wolf slid under the bottom rope and collected her younger brother into her arms, pulling the Championship from his fingertips and placing it over his shoulder.
The men had descended through the sky, both still unwilling to compromise their investment in the prize, and landed almost on top of one another. The body of Xavier Wolf bracing Stratford’s arm and separating it by less than an inch from the belt.
“ A twist of fate. ” came the first voice, separate from the video’s audio.
The image before us begins to blur and dissipate, the low din of OPW’s commentary team selling the magnitude of what had transpired disappearing incrementally until it is nothing more than the static that it started as. Blackness once again.
You can feel the tips of the hairs in your ear canal stretching out, feeling for a sense of vibration, to understand and comprehend what it is listening out for. Yearning. Unsated. A deafening quiet envelops you and it feels disorienting. Debilitating.
The silence feels awkward, and it is supposed to. Our preconditioned cognition expects a short pause, but the pause must be short. Within moments, we would expect to break to a commercial, or for the scene to change. Staring at a black screen with no noise is jarring, because you wonder whether your stream cut out, whether there is a technical issue. And just when you’ve lost hope and you go to refresh the stream, to check the television hasn’t accidentally been paused, the feedback starts again.
Like a microphone jack being jimmied into a live amplifier.
The familiar mechanical sounds of a VCR tape sliding into place inside a VCR machine, and the film streaming onto the video head.
This time, it is New Orleans. Unmistakably. The streets are lined with steel guard railings, there’s a wrestling ring in the middle of the road, and there are thousands of fans struggling for a spot at the front to see what is going on in the ring. The smell of sewage that is so synonymous with New Orleans is masked by the smell of anticipation. The scent of expectation.
Xavier Wolf was an archetypal champion. A physique chiselled from granite, model looks and an extroverted personality. Every promotion’s dream. He could sell, he was money. And he was the right-hand-man of the owner, who’s homecoming was marked by this event. But in this moment he was anything but the consummate professional. Fury burned through his irises, adrenaline bubbled through his veins and threatened to boil over. Like a chained animal he paced back and forth, waiting for his opportunity to get his hands on the man who stood opposite him.
“ You are only content by the act of being my enemy. Well, this is what it is like to be my enemy, Xavier. Tell me if you like it. ” the voiceover was the voice of Thomas Marke. Xavier’s adopted father, speaking on the phone of Xavier’s older sister, Sarah Wolf. Sarah had disappeared, and the only reason this conversation was happening was because Xavier had answered the call in the desperate hope that she was sending up the bonfire signal. That she needed help, but she was alive and okay.
The echoing voice haunted Xavier, as his father went on to explain that Stephen Stratford’s private investigator had been instructed to share with him his findings, and there was significant evidence that tied Xavier to a murder. It bottomed him out, threw him through a loop. He knew Stratford was formidable, but this? When people show their true colors, believe them. Stratford had shown that he was willing to completely destroy Xavier Wolf, and now he knew he had to respond in kind.
“ I am sure you’re the same good boy you’ve always been. Which is why I am doing you a favor. Security blankets are actually pitfalls. You remember that? ”
Stephen Stratford’s face was painted white, with a deep blood-red circle like a bullet-hole in the centre of his forehead, and streams of black bursting out like a shattered star around each of his piercing gray eyes. His moniker of “The Angel” had been twisted decidedly more macabre in the lead-up to this, and he now referred to himself as “The Painted Devil”. His demeanor was more callous than before, his expression betrayed no sliver of empathy, he was salivating for the opportunity to inflict unmitigated violence and vengeance on the man willing death upon him from sixteen feet away.
“ It’s not about what I can say, it’s about what I can prove. I can prove that there were monthly trips from your gated community to the region this murder occured. A region you were zig zagging over during the time it happened. I can prove that within a week of the murder, you left that area. I can also prove that maybe it wasn’t you. Maybe it was your dear sweet sister. The same sweet sister who carved her name into that dead man’s chest. ”
OUTLAW PRO WRESTLING
DRUGZ, SEX & ROCK N ROLL
NEW ORLEANS, LA
1 / 11 / 2021
Once more the white text appeared at the bottom of the screen, and the same commentary team could be heard, over-excitedly hyping up what was about to unfold. Through sweat and blood, they tore each other asunder. Through Bourbon Street and back they painted the streets with the disdain they shared for one another. Their unwavering desire to conquer fully and completely the rival that threatened their very existence.
Momentum shifted from one to the other, with a referee getting caught in the crossfire. Another referee emerged, one sympathetic to Wolf’s plight, and began to incorrectly infract Stephen Stratford. But this wasn’t about victory, or a championship. This wasn’t about winning a match. This was about righting a wrong. This was about destroying the man who tried to destroy him.
“ Why? Because she’s your security blanket and I detest security blankets. ” Thomas Marke made certain that Sarah took the fall because she meant so much to Xavier. This way he could truly leverage his son to do what it was that he wanted him to do. To yield. To submit. To be the subservient and abideful heir that he wanted. To uphold his image, rather than taint it.
Xavier grabbed hold of the referee and violently drove him into the canvas, rendering a second referee incapacitated. The opportunistic Stratford lay in wait, and used all of the momentum and anger that Xavier Wolf had misdirected toward an almost-innocent bystander against him. Within moments, his face had been drilled bombastically into the shoulder of Stratford and a shower of gardenia petals had rained from the sky, signifying the end of one era and the beginning of another.
“ You really did allow the occasion to dictate your actions, you know. ”
“ And you really, really, crossed a fucking line. ”
“ Did you expect anything less? ”
As Stephen Stratford’s body collapsed to the floor no longer able to sustain itself, the focus of the shot tightens around the three-skulled championship strapped firmly around his waist, the video again becomes incomprehensible before disappearing. The noise softens. We’re teased into the blackness. But it is fleeting.
Before we are fully able to settle in on the uncomfortableness of the quiet darkness, a large shot of the moon ripples into view. Bathed in its glow is the monolithic Manhattan skyscraper, FIGHT! Tower. As the shot pans and zooms around the imposing gothic architecture that belonged to Xavier Wolf, we eventually find ourselves staring at a series of glass panels that divide a two by two grid of traditional wrestling rings.
FIGHT! NYC
TAG WARS III: TOXIC TAG
MANHATTAN, NY
8 / 28 / 21
Vincent Black, Xavier Wolf’s twin brother, is the wrestler that the camera is clearly concentrated on, as he stands separated by glass from his toxic tag team partner, an unknown entity that personified violence to an almost unmanageable level. At this time, only known as Dollface. Announcements over the public address inform fighters of the consequences of attacking their own partner, and the importance of maintaining the spirit of the competition that awaited them, but this didn’t matter to Dollface.
Nothing mattered. Before the bout had officially begun, and no sooner than she was able to fit through the gap made by the glass panels moving had she already contravened each rule set in place for this competition. She was gouging the eyes of her tag team partner, and in retaliation, he was trying to create a doll head-shaped hole in another of the glass panels.
Undeterred, they fought on. Their opponents watched on in amusement, at first, before they turned on them too. But ultimately, it would be Dollface who sealed her own fate. Because for her, her intention was nothing more than to inflict as much damage as humanly possible on Vincent Black. To enact vengeance, and pain. Some measure of the pain she had endured. She compelled Allison Riggs-Preston to pin an incapacitated Vincent Black.
“ I still can’t believe that I didn’t see it coming. ”
“ Maybe you just didn’t want to. Or maybe, on some level, you actually wanted it to happen. You fucked her up, he did too. This was your way of giving her a purpose again. You gave her a reason to fight, even if she was fighting you. If I know Xavier Black, I know you’d rather that, than have her so broken that she gave up. ”
As the tape continues to roll, Vincent Black seems to get the jump on Dollface, and that is where she almost kills him. She propels him through a sheet of the glass, and it shatters into millions of pieces. He’s covered in lacerations. She is speaking to some of the other competitors, who at first seem to come for her, but then look down at Vincent in genuine panic. She withdraws her mask, for the first time revealing her identity as Sarah Wolf, and allows the wrestlers to use it to apply pressure to the wound on Vincent’s neck.
As Vhodka Black rushes toward Sarah, and she slips out to safety, the video once again cuts out. But this time there is no graceful fade, no lowering of the audio level. It is abrupt.
And then it hangs…
“ If anyone knows, I know. ”
“ But she can’t do it on her own. And if anyone knows about that, it is me. She thinks she’s Icarus and she can fly into the sun with just wax wings. And if you tell her they’ll melt, she’ll do it anyway, just for spite. ”
The sound of ice clinking is quickly followed by an audible gulp of somebody drinking something.
“ So, what do you want to do about it? ”
A short, patterned glass sits alone on a worn coffee table with an odd-coloured leg. Inside the glass, a plastic purple grape, a blue melon and a yellow banana float unevenly in the amber liquid. Xavier Black’s hand cajoles the frozen fruit pieces around, wishing that the re-useable ice substitutes could more efficaciously cool his whiskey.
“ If I do nothing, she will rise quickly and without the support system of her family behind her, implode. But she won’t do it in FIGHT!, she knows that winning in her brother’s company means nothing. ”
The hand becomes an arm and eventually a shoulder, and finally we see Xavier Black sitting almost precariously, looking across at Stephen Stratford. Xavier looks as he always had - smart, groomed, confident. Matter-of-fact. Stephen looks rejuvenated, too. The darkness behind his eyes had given way to a glint of light, almost.. happiness?
━━━━━ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ━━━━━
April 30, 2022
Bent Fork, Tennessee
“ She can’t forge a legacy when there will always be questions over favoritism, despite the fact that she very nearly killed Vincent, and I’m sure is waiting for a chance to do the same to me. ”
I laugh, my eye contact with him breaks briefly as I see Beulah May Bickett gesturing to bring over some of her homemade snacks. I’d heard the folklore of these ‘creations’, and whilst the thought of watching Xavier navigate through a deep fried spaghetti-o sandwich seemed amusing, it might be better later on. Beulah waves me off, and disappears back inside her trailer.
“ You can go with that narrative, if that’s the one that helps you sleep at night. ” I grin. My own drink, a trailer park take on green tea which I’m certain is just some aloe vera stirred up in tepid water, rests on my knee. I consider taking a sip, to fill the gap as Xavier replays in his head the words I’d mentioned to be certain he really heard what he thought that he heard. I decide against drinking the ‘tea’. Some people, including the man opposite me, think I thrive on misery, but even I don’t hate myself enough to drink this.
“ You don’t think she could do it without a bit of help? Really? ” I think he feels a bit offended. His hand lets go of the glass, and his body language seems a bit defensive.
“ Oh, no. She absolutely could. Like a hot knife through melted fucking butter. Being successful there would be as meaningful as it would be to beat your newborn at a game of chess. Speaking of which, how is Lex, by the way? And Le’Andra? ”
He’s unable to conceal the wry smile creeping in at the side of his mouth. He knows I am right, but he can’t say that I’m right.
“ Dane, Paul, Joe, Brandon.. All those guys had opportunities to make their mark. I can’t do it for them. ” he answers. “ In two days time, Dickie Watson will have to fight Shawn Warstein, because he’s ran through everyone else that came up with us. ”
“ Everything we fought for. Every sacrifice. Ounce of blood, pound of flesh. For what? So these guys could represent us? And fail so catastrophically that it calls into question everything we did? ” The games feel like they’ve stopped. Xavier says nothing, because he can’t.
This is his business, his investment, he has to believe that at some point he can help guide it towards what it was supposed to be. A celebration, a showcase. The best of the best.
“ You have jumped up nobodies like Dickie Watson, James Raven and Shawn fucking Warstein walking those halls like king shit, wiping the floor with the so-called talent that was ready to step into the big time. ” I push the crockery cup onto the table, finally breaking clear of any flirtation with drinking it, then continue. “ Watson is lapping the guys that people were saying could be the one to dethrone me. You know exactly what that feels like, because that puts your legacy in the same question. ”
“ Stephen, it is not that straight forward. You can’t just go in there and right that wrong. I can’t just go in there and set the record straight. They have to figure it out on their own. ”
“ You say that, but what about Sarah? Why can’t she figure it out on her own? ”
“ I broke her, and I need to be the one to put her back together again. She’s not stupid, and so I am hoping that you can help. ” His tone’s earnest, and I can feel the weight in his voice as it carries his words. “ I’ve spent so long changing everyone around me, cutting people out of my life, the people that don’t vibrate on the same frequency as me. Not allowing them to infect me with their negativity. Sometimes I feel like I should go the other way. ”
“ More words, X. ”
“ What we did to one another would be unspeakable to people who have not walked the paths we’ve travelled. The mere concept of sitting in touching distance of one another would baffle many. But when you’ve done what we have done, and you know that the only solution is mutually assured destruction? Perhaps we can set an example, instead. ”
He’s right. It would be mutually assured destruction. In FIGHT! Tower, we fought for nearly three hours before his assistant had to call paramedics because despite neither of us being able to move, neither of us were willing to concede defeat.
“ I can’t corner Sarah, and force her back into the family. She needs her family, but she doesn’t want her family. So perhaps you could.. Do Stratford things.. And drive her back to her family. ”
What interested me most about this dynamic was two-fold. Firstly, Xavier has never and would absolutely hate to be beholden to anybody for anything, so for him to swallow that watermelon of pride in his throat and fight through that request showed me how much he wanted this. And secondly, this was the second time in a fortnight that somebody had propositioned me or my wife to deal with Sarah Wolf.
“ Interesting choice of words. But it’d be a bit obvious, if I just so happened to appear wherever she appeared, wouldn’t it? ”
“ It would. Unless, I don’t know, there was a sudden influx of free agents looking for a place to work, and in among them happened to be a Doll and maybe an Angel. ”
Now the coy look is on his face. He hides the grin behind the whiskey glass that he raises to his lips.
“ You’re going to finally put it out of its misery, aren’t you? The great Sisyphus is finally going to stop pushing the boulder up the hill? ” I smirk, trying to read the microexpression as he hears me ask the question. He’s good, this time. He conceals it well.
“ Manhattan real estate is about to fucking boom again. I just don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to convert that whole tower into luxury apartments. ”
“ You short on money? I thought you had ‘fuck you’ money? ”
“ You don’t get rich by not taking sure fire profit. That’s probably why you live in a townhouse and I’ve got a mansion. Actually, mansions. Plural. ” He’s beginning to stand, but I stay seated. Leaned back, grinning up at him as he lets his ego regain control.
“ You realise they’re going to kill you, if you take FIGHT! away from them, right? ”
Xavier Black gestures to the lack of whiskey in his glass and points toward the trailer. As his tall frame settles into stride, he looks over his shoulder and offers one more nugget.
“ Not if I’m already dead. ”
━━━━━ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ━━━━━
Tokyo, Japan
May 2, 2022
To Xavier, putting back together the shattered pieces of his family meant more than the business he has created, meant more than the battles he had won and lost. “Bats” as he lovingly called her, was the closest person Xavier ever had. She looked after him, she nursed him through his worst times and championed him through his best times. So he would do anything, everything, to deal with his guano problem. That’s bat-shit, by the way.
“ I didn’t think he’d actually do it.” I had smirked, as I stood behind Demi and Charlotte, both transfixed as the news anchor’s ashen expression struggled through the teleprompted statement outlining the dramatic shooting that had put Xavier Black into the ICU directly following FIGHT! NYC’s “The Thrill and The Agony” event.
Demi’s hand eventually relaxed and let go of Mai’s hand. Charlotte’s tutor withdraw her arm to his chest and I could see the welts starting to rise.
━━━━━ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ━━━━━
Allentown, PA
Present Day
Whilst some aspects of the past few months have fallen into place perfectly, others haven’t.
For example, I had carefully plotted and curated a series of events that put me in position to be the Courage Champion in time for Tri-Force Heroes. In amongst my other goals, this places me exactly where I want to be in my timeline for Final Fantasy. After all, having seen everything I worked for called into question by my peers’ inept ability to step out of my shadow, I feel that I owe it to myself to climb new mountains. To see the world once again. To be sure that the mountain I climbed before was not just a hill in the Sierra Nevada. It is my destiny to become the Final Boss Champion, and I will do so by becoming the Tri-Force Champion in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
On the other hand, Sarah was able to better Demi on two separate occasions, meaning we had not yet been able to derail her, to unsettle her and to drive her back towards Xavier and the rest of the Wolf/Black family. In fact, it appeared that she had been going from strength to strength. She destroyed Buster Gloves, putting her on collision course with me. Much like her brother predicted. And after each time she succeeded where we had anticipated she’d fall short, an increasing level of anxiety would show through when Xavier called.
Questioning the confidence I had in my approach to solving his problem. There are always backup plans for the backup plans, I’d reassure him. Nothing to worry about. For example, there was a wildcard in play. Our mutual acquaintance, Vhodka Black.
Vhodka and myself have known each other since we were infants in this game, and whilst we could never have called ourselves friends, there is an understanding between one another. “Real recognise real” or so they say.
It didn’t surprise me that she emerged when it became clear that Sarah was beginning to really flourish during her run in Level Up. And she did so in the most “Vhodka” way possible.
When it became apparent that Sarah’s trajectory was mirroring mine, and that there would be an opportunity to fight each other at Tri-Force Heroes, the concern was always going to be what Larry Tact did, as the Power Champion. He could sway the tide one way or the other, and that didn’t sit comfortably with me. It is much easier to work within the confines of the known entity than the unknown. Vhodka managed to inadvertently solve that problem for Xavier and I, because if there is one thing that is certain, there is no person on this earth that harbors more hatred for Sarah Wolf than Vhodka Black.
So whilst she might not be directly aware of it, she will be an incredibly useful asset where Tact wouldn’t have been, and I don’t even need to be persuasive about it.
In the past, we’d helped each other out with mutually beneficial favours. Platonic only, of course. We were cordial, but not exactly friendly. I don’t know if we could ever be true friends. She is a bad person, after all. She will even tell you that herself, if you’re brave enough to ask.
When she visited us in Spain, it was in order to help her pupil, Asher, find some information out about his sister. But when the realisation that helping him would mean he was no longer dependant on her, I’ve been reliably told by the Unicorn she withheld that knowledge from him.
She appears, on the surface, and in a very deliberate way, to be kind and thoughtful and willing to help anybody; and she relies on this appearance.
It is disarming.
It is through the lens of this deceit that her strength shines brightest. Nobody expects her to be as good as she really is. She’s more interested in cheese-based humor and being the center of attention on Twitter than wrestling, right? Everybody underestimates her.
But anybody who has known her for more than a blink of an eye could see what she really is. She has known Sarah and myself for more than two decades, we have been from the top to the bottom, and all the way back to the top again, many times over. There are no surprises left, the only thing you have to rely on is your will and determination to be better than you’ve ever been before.
But as is typical, she has gotten herself in much too deep meddling in people's affairs; and she’s frantically trying to put a band aid over a bullet hole that she could’ve avoided creating. How can she possibly be on top of her game, when the walls are closing in and the very thing she wanted to prevent is becoming inevitable? She’s hurting one of her ‘kids’ for her own selfish gain, whilst lying through her teeth to another about the why and when.
This could easily be her only opportunity to prove herself against the people she holds in such esteem, yet her mind is elsewhere, dealing with and contributing to her recalcitrant teenagers and their neverending drama.
She can’t help herself. Her self-worth is so low that she anticipates her value to others as being a transactional “what have you done for me lately?” paradigm.
She’s weak, and fragile, and clings to anything and anyone who shows her the smallest glimpse of gratitude. She’s a love-bomber. She mothers people and takes away their independence so that they feel they can’t survive without her. But it is my belief that the gig is up and beginning with those kids, she is going to have to start paying the cost of her deceit.
I understand the plight though, truly. People call me manipulative and deceitful, they say I am a bad person who does bad things. I don’t waste my breath denying them, I don’t hide from what I’ve done, or act like I did not do those things. But Vhodka? She acts like she wouldn’t lower yourself to those standards, and yet here we are.
And don’t mistake what I am saying. She is incredibly good. She could be one of the best but she always seems to be half a step behind. Whether she is compromising her integrity to please somebody else, or distracted by something like I mentioned before in her personal life, there is always something that holds her back from the embarrassment of riches that she could obtain if only she would fully commit to her supposed goal of standing among the giants.
She told me herself that she doubts herself, at times. She asked my wife and I to help put Sarah to pasture because she wasn’t certain that in her decisive moment, she could drop the hammer on her sister-in-law. She lacks the killer instinct, moreso when it comes to people like me. People who can dig deeper and go further than the best of the rest.
She knows that to see through her desire to crush Sarah under her boot would hurt her husband, and that’s something she’s at odds with too. So whilst I think Vhodka will certainly be an asset, I think there are serious doubts about her ability to fully realise and see through any designs she might have on winning this match outright.
You see, Vhodka’s greatest strength is her laissez-faire approach to life. She is never overwhelmed by an occasion, never under so much pressure that she buckles under the weight of it. It is not that she does not care about things, it is just that she never allows herself to be in awe of the person standing opposite her; to her, people are just people. Nobody more important or special than the other, so she doesn’t build them up to be this big colossal entity that has to be conquered. Whether it is Blair Buchannan in OPW, or Damian Ayla in PWE, or Larry Tact right here in Level Up, she humanises them, reduces them to nothing more than just a person, and then beats them.
But those victories, as impressive as they may be, are not victories that carry the same gravitas as beating people like Xavier Black in his prime, or ending Damon Riggs’ career. And she knows it. It haunts her. When she beat Damian Ayla, in PWE, she felt empty. She was a world champion and yet the feeling of satisfaction, of accomplishment, it still eluded her. So much so that she walked away, she couldn’t prove herself there; the same way that Sarah couldn’t prove herself in FIGHT! NYC. It was an empty, hollow, meaningless accomplishment.
I am not the same as Blair Buchanan, Damian Ayla or even Larry Tact. When she is around me, she is in awe of me. She doesn’t have it within her to reduce me down to that level of insignificance, to rise above the pressure of the occasion, because to her, this is everything. To her, I am more than just a person. I am the embodiment of power that she aspires to portray.
I am a God.
Vhodka doesn’t carry the advantage she has previously enjoyed of taking her adversaries by surprise. It’s entirely possible that she is a non-factor within moments of the match starting.
And should that worst-case-scenario happen, I would be able to feel the anxiety emanating from Xavier Black wherever he may be in the world like a kinetic force gravitating toward me.
But I’d reassure him that everything will be fine, and he should trust in my process. Because after all, Sarah is a pet project I’ve been working on for many months.
And by now, we should all have learned not to doubt in the results I can produce.
Think about my journey to this point, and how each step along the way has been carefully curated to demonstrate exactly how things are going to play out for Sarah Wolf. Think about what happened with Eli Goode. It is true that he was beaten before the bell rung, because I made it so. But the most important part of the Eli Goode situation was how I demonstrated that angry people make foolish decisions. Predictable decisions.
Sarah Wolf is an angry person. You would be, too. I don’t begrudge her that.
Everybody she ever trusted let her down, and betrayed her. But its difficult, isn’t it? To accept the fact that the people you loved more than anything in the world would care so little about you and reduce you to something so meaningless as an afterthought, that they carried on behind your back. So whilst she harbours valid anger at her brothers, she reflects it out onto the world. She’s brash, brazen, aggressive. We’ve all heard the stories of the vulnerable injured dog who bites first and asks questions later, right?
For her, it is a matter of survival. If anyone gets too close, snap their hand off. Whole arm if you can get it. That soft underbelly that she’d left exposed for so long cost her so much that now it is buried so deep that the thought of its re-emergence is almost unimaginable.
To Sarah, this is all about revenge. This is is all about getting payback. Nothing about this is about going to Final Fantasy and becoming the Final Boss. She doesn’t care to climb the mountain, she only cares that I can’t. This wasn’t about victory, or a championship. This wasn’t about winning a match. This was about righting a wrong. This was about destroying the man who tried to destroy her. And look how well that worked out for her brother.
I’ve proven, time after time, that I can separate the moment from the match, the emotion from the fight. I am calculated, calm, concise and clinical. When tensions are high, I don’t falter or fall.
The same mistakes yield the same misfortunes. She walks in the same footsteps as Xavier, but she doesn’t take heed of the wisdom he gained.
I will take her wisdom.
The hubris that shields her is all-encompassing.
She thinks she has the divine right to hurt people the way she was hurt and it will come with no consequence, she believes that she can beat anybody and everybody because she does not fear reprisal. She has endured the worst life can offer, so what could anybody possibly subject her to that she hasn’t already overcome?
She believes her sheer aggression and relentlessness is enough to overpower anybody standing in her way. What happens, though, when the aggressee doesn’t cower beneath the imposing and haunting physical appearance? When they don’t back down, when they double down and dish it back in equal dose?
Sarah believes that she is the dog with the sharpest teeth, but what does she do when she has bitten off more than she can chew?
The difference between Sarah and I, is that she revels in the violence. I don’t. I can be violent, should I choose to. But I don’t have to. When Sarah Wolf comes for you, you may leave on a gurney or in a coma, but wounds heal, people get better and through adversity they rise.
I take people’s fucking souls.
Sarah should look in the mirror. Look at herself. I did that to her. Me.
Look at Eli Goode, who was fucking defeated before he stepped into that ladder match with me last week. He will never be the same again. Lord Raab, EA Blizzard? Where are they now?
Sarah has got a body count? People don’t come back from what I do to them.
━━━━━ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ━━━━━
