Post by TactilizingOne on May 22, 2022 22:59:09 GMT -5
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Larry Tact walked backstage at Pro Wrestling Valor’s Zenith Pay-Per-View. He had just gone through a World Heavyweight Title match, his first since he returned from his return to the ring in 2021. He had some bruises and superficial wounds, but nothing that wouldn’t heal soon enough.
He was drenched in sweat and exhausted. He had been in the ring for over half an hour with Sebastian Everett-Bryce and Matthew Knox, the Raven he vowed to wrest the title from.
He had failed to do so, having been pinned by SEB in the first elimination of the triple threat. It was small consolation having taken SEB down with him, after the fact, but it had to be done. He damn sure wasn’t leaving without unloading his rage onto someone. Anyway, that young prick Sebastian deserved it.
Larry made his way backstage, ignoring applause from a few of the other wrestlers who saw him trudging through on his walk of shame. Most of them were watching Matthew Knox celebrate his title retention. There would be a time and place to address him, an even bigger douchebag than SEB could dream of being.
He slammed the locker room door open and ripped a towel off the line of supplies staged for the talent. As he made his way down the aisle of lockers, he stopped at one marked for SEB. Larry dented it with a straight punch. Then, right next to it, was none other than Matthew Knox’s locker. Larry took hold of the slits protruding slightly from the locker door, and with a howl of rage, ripped the door off the hinges!
He knew Knox wasn’t using that locker, anyway. PWV just placed a label on one for every wrestler. Knox likely had his own locker room, like champions did. Still, fuck that guy.
Larry finally made his way to the showers and, after seething and seeing red all the way there, allowed himself to take a couple breaths while the water poured over him. He always replayed the match in his head, seeing where he could have made a different move, gotten an advantage.
But tonight, in the harshest irony, all he could think of was his brother, Lazarus Tact.
“How?” Larry contemplated aloud as he looked up at the florescent light shining down. It may as well have been a hologram, too, with the so-named Salazur Catt standing there and removing his sunglasses, revealing his identity.
The question that had haunted Larry the past week plus wasn’t, ‘How could he deceive me?’ but rather, ’How did he survive?’
The answers weren’t entirely clear after their first encounter in twenty-plus years…
Then his thoughts drifted back to the warehouse that evening…
Standing in the middle of the ring at his renovated training facility, Larry looked at the hologram of Salazur Catt, who had removed his sunglasses to reveal himself as Larry’s own younger brother, Lazarus. Larry was absolutely stunned, and to say he was able to process the revelation at that moment would be a total lie. He was simply frozen for a few moments as he stared at the hologram – appearing from thin air, by the way. Sometime later, as Larry evaluated the entire scenario, to futilely dissect it, he would wonder how in the hell THAT happened. As he stood in the ring, his son Logan outside of it, and the enigma only known as Fanatic standing in the ring near Lazarus, Larry tried to look at every feature of his brother’s visible face. The golden blonde hair, stopped at the shoulders. The eyes, Larry only knew one person who had that color. As Lazarus once told him, they were the color of materia in the Final Fantasy games. Larry wondered if that was a real color, but Lazarus popped himself when he explained it that way. He was a huge fan of video games, and Final Fantasy being one of them.
Larry abruptly rolled out of the ring. He landed on his knees, and stayed that way. He didn’t want anyone to see the tears, and he couldn’t control them. He felt his face was flushed, and the moistness around his eyes, combined with the saline stinging them as it combined with the sweat that broke out all over his face. He needed a few seconds to collect himself, get his wall back up. This wasn’t happening, it had to be some sick deception from one of his adversaries.
“D…dad? Dad,” Logan called to him as he peered around the ringpost and then took a few tentative steps towards Larry. “Is that really Uncle Lazarus? I thought you said he was…” Logan trailed off. If he said it, he wasn’t sure how his father would react, and he was already acting super awk and not himself. Logan had no idea what to expect next. He had only heard about his uncle. His dad thought he was some sort of saint. But he wasn’t supposed to be here… technically he wasn’t. There was a totally sick hologram – like high tech and everything – in the ring! But it made things seem surreal for Logan, like he was suddenly in a movie. Super awk for sure, and he really needed his dad to like, pull it together and explain some things. He was alright going along with Salazur on his idea, but this was not what he had signed on for. His dad looked physically hurt, bent over on his knees and panting.
After a half minute, Larry managed to gather himself. He wasn’t about to be bested BY A FUCKING HOLOGRAM. Fuck that. He was the POWER Champion, after all. He was on track to be the PWV World Heavyweight Champion, and eventually, the Final Boss. This wasn’t becoming and he had to stand up.
Stand. Up.
He did. Larry got upright and raked his face with his hands to bury whatever he was feeling. He got back in the ring. He walked up to Fanatic. He grabbed him by the shoulders and glared into his masked eyes.
“What the fuck is this supposed to be, huh?!?” Larry demanded.
“Larry,” Lazarus began, but stopped as Tact shoved Fanatic back and paced around the ring. A form of backing off.
“Who the hell do you think you’re playing games with?!” Larry maintained eye contact with Fanatic.
“Larry, don’t redirect your anger,” he heard Lazarus and ignored it, decidedly set on staring a hole through the masked enigma.
Fanatic straightened up and approached Larry, surprisingly. He stated plainly, “I did what you asked, Mr. Tact. I brought you the one you requested a meeting with … however, you were not the only party who requested the meeting. In fact, you needed to See. When the Watcher began this journey with you, months ago … it was looking for an artifact. However, it was not incorrect in saying something was triggered when you returned to wrestling. Had you not done so … Lazarus would not have seen an opportunity to reach out. All those nights away … those nights preparing for matches … it afforded time for us to reach out, in our way. We never would have made contact had you not gone back on the road. You were very insulated.”
“Insulated?” Larry scoffed. “You mean protected. Surrounded by people who would have found you and your Watcher something to report to the damn police!” Larry exclaimed. “I don’t know what the hell you thought you were doing, but you’re clearly not on my side. You went out of your way to set me up. I ought to—”
“LARRY,” Lazarus boomed, forcing Larry to involuntarily look his way. “This is not the way to conduct our meeting. You know Fanatic to be an upstanding individual. He has not led you astray, and this is no exception. Look at me, please.”
Having already jerked his head towards the commanding and familiar voice, Larry continued to look at the image of his brother.
“Fanatic has always been a valuable guide for you. Why do you think this is anything other than what it is? A reunion. While I’d dearly like to explain everything, we don’t have time for that right now. There’s twenty years of catching up to do. But this is me, this is real,” Lazarus took a tone of appeasement. “You must be feeling an enormous amount right now. Believe me when I say, it is not meant to cause pain. We will meet in the near future, should you meet the conditions. But I had to know who you were before I could have that meeting. We aren’t kids anymore, after all,” Lazarus gave an uneasy chuckle.
Larry stared at the hologram, feeling the emotions banging on the wall he had put up in his mind. He waved off Lazarus with a hand. “If this is the level of belief you have in me? Then maybe I don’t need to see anyone claiming to be my brother, of all people.”
Deny. Push. Resist.
“Anyway, what ‘conditions’ are you even talking about?” Larry countered.
“Conditions that will show me you truly do want to meet. If that is the case, you won’t have any trouble carrying them out,” Lazarus said, somewhat cheerfully. “For one, I don’t want you to forget the War Games match you and your compatriots have upcoming. Show me what you can do in that match. Show me you can balance your heart and your mind. Show me you can lead your team to a war you never asked for, and finish it for those who did.”
If he weren’t practically overwhelmed with emotions, Larry would have been extremely curious about that line of thinking. Instead, he inadvertently betrayed his own true feelings, and gave a stiff nod. “So you know about the Game Changers? That’s about the least surprising thing right now. Yeah, we’re going to DOOM to bring a hammer down on some nails that popped up in our house. Nothing more.”
“Very good,” Lazarus flashed a grin and gave a clap. “Now, I expect you will need Fanatic, since he is the only way of contacting me. Unless, of course, you’ll want to forget this entire encounter altogether. I suppose it worked well for twenty plus years?”
“Now wait just a minute!” Larry sneered.
“That was a joke, of course,” Lazarus replied, although Larry couldn’t help but wonder… was it? “I will be in contact with Fanatic, and he will relay further instructions. This is merely a ‘first in a while’ contact, Larry. Remember, you did a great deal to get here. We both did. Until next time… all my love,” Lazarus winked and the hologram disappeared.
“WAIT!!” Larry exclaimed, but to no avail. He looked frantically at Fanatic– who had suddenly disappeared. Logan, who had gotten into the ring, tapped on his shoulder, and almost caused Larry to whirl around and grapple him. He had nearly forgotten his own son was there. Logan pointed towards a far doorway of the facility, where Fanatic had apparently made his exit. Larry had been so fixated on Lazarus, he had lost track of everything around him.
He still had questions but, for the moment, he needed to accept what he saw.
Lazarus Tact had risen.
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Larry left the shower after having washed and toweled off. He was fortunate to have had a corner locker away from the showers, so as the other PWV wrestlers were coming back to shower and gather their things, he could avoid interaction with them. Larry didn’t want to have anything to do with these mooks, much less share a locker room with the pissants.
Instead, he dressed in a pine green hoodie and stone grey denim jeans, gathered his duffel bag and headed out of the arena. He wasn’t giving comments to the media tonight. If he was being honest with himself, he hadn’t planned on giving comments had he won, either. He was going to take the title and walk off with it.
Now, he headed to the airport for his chartered Kayfabe Airlines flight back to New York. They had served him well in the trips over the past several months, and he was satisfied using them. As he was taken through the streets in his private Lincoln Continental, Larry decided he would vent to an audience that couldn’t deny what he was and had done.
After all, they were witnessing a game-changing movement at hand.
He switched on his phone camera, looking down upon his audience with his hair tied back, and a mostly dim view of himself. Occasionally they passed lights that shined across his face.
“DOOM. That was supposed to be the sentence of the Game Changes, wasn’t it? It should have been the end of the coup… a stop to the abhorring actions of a group that did as they pleased for months… right?”
“You sheeple are all too damn comfortable with your story tropes. The good guys don’t always win, now do they?”
He laughed heartily at this.
“I have to hand it to Dionysus, Centurion, Paul Freedom, Eli Goode, and Brody Adams. They tried to make the best of a situation that fell apart from the beginning. They were at a disadvantage from the start, but none of them were ever going to match up one-on-one to us. Whether it was myself, Mister Blizzard, ISAAC, or Drake, we are all too capable of strategizing and devising a plan that leads to victory. Once the advantage swung to us? It was all but game over for those losers.”
He managed to find a smirk forming on his face, and reached for that feeling.
“But that’s all I’ll speak to War Games here, since there’s plenty to say at our next celebration: EXP 25. For now, let’s look at the card, shall we? Oh, what’s this? We have another Developer—sorry… Trent special awaiting us. It looks like this guy doesn’t understand, either. He’s been watching us for months, and doesn’t see that we’re never going to find ourselves in a situation we can’t fight our way out of. Multiplayer match versus Duncan and Peter Vaughn? Bring that shit on, broken Trent. That’s what we’re gonna call you now because you’ve clearly either lost your mind or your passion to fix the company that the Game Changers are fixing for you, fuckface. I said we’re going to take this company to new heights, and we will. But since you’re too stupefied by whatever brain trauma you’ve suffered over the years, we’re going to mold things in OUR image, as WE want it to be. Because that’s what’s in the best interest of Level Up. But let’s look at these two who are standing across from the Game Changers. Duncan, Duncan, Duncan.”
The backlighting improved as Larry’s car reached a highway on-ramp, and we see as he shook his head in clearer lighting.
“When will you understand that, as good as you are, I’m improving on your work every step of the way? You won the Power title and defended it twice, held it for far longer than that should have warranted, and then lost your mojo to me at Final Fantasy. So much so, in fact, that you wouldn’t even accept my offer for a Power title rematch at an EXP after that grandest of shows. You decided you couldn’t stop me, then and there. Your premonition came true, because I’ve led the Game Changers to prominence and success right alongside my own. Thanks for not even trying to save the fucking day, hero.”
Larry laughs mirthlessly.
“This time around, you have some help, but don’t think it’s going to be anything you can RELY on. Much like Emily Simms tried to take on the Game Changers, we’re going to show you this ‘helper’ is nothing more than a sacrificial lamb to be devoured by the Reaper and his band. Duncan, when I’ve got a one-on-one match with you, that’s when you’ll deserve my full attention. Until then, keep wanting and watching, as I eclipse your Power title reign.”
He clicks his tongue and waves a finger.
“Don’t think I forgot about you, Peter. You must be the fucking luckiest bastard in all of wrestling. You botch defending your four titles that you so love to tell anyone willing to listen about, then get MORE title opportunities on top of it. A Game Genie, eh? That’s a new one to me. We didn’t have those around earlier in Level Up, so I can only imagine this is the Developer’s way of manufacturing opportunities to possibly take titles off of Mister Blizzard and myself. But I know you well enough, Peter. I know you won’t be aiming for anything less than the top, because your ego won’t allow it. Which brings to mind a few questions…”
“How are you going to look Duncan Shepard in the face before the match, and figure out what it will take to defeat the Game Changers? If you think you can wing it, ask the five guys who had a couple weeks of preparation for DOOM. They all failed and so will you, if you can’t get along with your partner versus two champions.”
“How are you going to reconcile in your mind, helping Duncan face us when we could simply beat the hell out of him for you?”
“How are you going to look me in the eyes, the man who took you down to earn a key spot that led me to a World title match? How will you look at me and decide that you won’t want to beat me up?”
He chuckles at that.
“Oops, did I let that slip? I guess my entire point regarding you, Vaughn, is that you’re in a bit of a pickle, thanks to the Developer. Broken ole Trent thinks he can insulate his Final Boss by throwing two champions directly against you? Well, he obviously doesn’t know the history between us, does he? Whatever you choose, it’s going to TEAR YOU APART. I’ll be savoring that sight, to be sure.”
“All the while, EAB and I will be absolutely in synch and ready to take the two of you to the Game Changers Experience. Your EXP 25 will be full of those letters, because when we’re done with you, there won’t be any doubt about the Tact Fact you learned…”
“A humbling is never better done than from the Tactilizing One.”
FADE OUT
