This is mostly Deadman Crossing Wrestling backstory (2 of 2)
Nov 23, 2021 23:45:16 GMT -5
BRAVE1, SWAT eFed, and 2 more like this
Post by Old Line Jeff on Nov 23, 2021 23:45:16 GMT -5
Sometimes things are so otherworldly, so just plain shocking, that they bely a freakout.
Jeff Andrews only stared numbly at the man who’d just been introduced to him, who he hadn’t seen in 14 years, but would never forget the sight of. His hair was long, almost to his shoulder blades, jet black and just a bit tangled. His eyebrows were dark and striking, his smile was just a bit lopsided, and his eyes… his eyes were tired.
“Yeah…” Jeff heard himself saying. “I remember Mr. Torres.”
“Mr. Torres is perhaps my most talented agent.” Lambert Haniel said, his smile still mild. “Were it not for his efforts that span over two decades, we might not be here today. Yet he managed to untangle a history headed towards pure annihilation, and almost turn it to a victory. On his first attempt, however, you were just too young and inexperienced, and on the second you were… well, you were too loyal to her.”
“Heidi…”
Jeff Andrews did everything he could to try and avoid thinking about Heidi Christenson, and not a single bit of it ever helped in the goddamned slightest way. Some nights he drank himself into a stupor, trying to get those shining blue eyes with the tears of diamond in them in his mind to shut.
Instead they were the last thing he’d see before he blacked out, and then he’d wake up hours later, confused as to why there were tears in his own eyes.
“Jeff, there is so much I wish I could have managed to tell you”. Dionicio spoke for the first time, his voice heavy. “However, clarity is the ultimate enemy of prophecy. Prophecies are useless, almost more harm than good, because for them to work they must be clear to only the recipient and not to those agents working against it. It is an impossible needle to thread. And despite our best efforts, she has clawed her way free.”
Another vision flickered behind his eyes. A woman of unearthly beauty, hair of the palest blonde, eyes of crystal blue, just like Heidi’s, lying in a coffin. She smiled, and her teeth were shark’s teeth, and she ran her hand along the coffin lid, her nails gouging furrows in the silvered wood.
“Almost won?” he asked dumbly.
“As I was saying, Mr. Andrews, you approach a crossroads… a crossing.” Laurent continued, without quite answering the question. “It could be your final one. That is your choice, one we cannot deny you, and would not anyway. You have suffered at your own hands long enough. And, if you chose to walk away, things would be something of… of a draw, I suppose. The person who has the most to lose, but also the most to gain, by your decision not to walk away, is you.”
“If you mean walk away from wrestling, I think I have.”
Lambert shook his head. “That is the road you are facing, but you haven’t walked it yet. And what we have gathered to offer you is an alternative. More time. More time to work. More years for your body. Fewer years on your mind. An alleviation of bitterness. Mr. Andrews, let me be direct. After all this time, all the important pieces are prepared to move. Both ours, and our opponents. What we need is a playing board.”
“A real specific one. Ritzy, like.” Another man spoke. Jeff didn’t recognize him. He wore an old fashioned fedora and slacks with suspenders over a white work shirt.
“Deadman. Crossing. Wrestling.” Torres concluded.
“But… Lambert wanted me to make DCW.” This memory, at least, was clear. “Then he told me he’d been forbidden to help, and that he didn’t think he could talk to me anymore. That was the last I saw of him, and all the permits I needed just… didn’t come through. I still own the bulldozed ground.”
“If. IF. You accept our offer… you will find everything you need. Property… a physical location… physical and mental replenishment. I want to stress again that this is entirely your decision, and that neither we nor our opponents could cause you grief if you chose to remove yourself from the game.”
Somehow, Jeff figured out the question he needed to ask.
“Who exactly are you people?”
And of course he didn’t get a straight answer from Laurent.
“Your friend Mr. Scott once said that there is only one game, and we are all playing it, and that there are no rules except win, and that winning is self-evident. He’s almost right, but there are, in fact, rules. And you, Mr. Andrews, are an anomaly. The rules themselves break around you.”
“And we seek to keep the true rulebreakers out.” Dionicio spoke grimly, a thousand-yard stare on his face.
“What did he mean by ‘real rulebreakers?’ Like the KGB?”
“I haven’t a clue what he meant.” Jeff Andrews snapped at a reporter.
“It’s a shame that we couldn’t be clearer with him. He’s a good man when fate allows him to be himself.” Dionicio stared at the sleeping form of Jeff Andrews.
“He must know these things for this to work. I’m speaking to you, Mr. Andrews.” Laurent said, mild as ever.
“First. Forgive Cole Christenson. He, like you, is someone who tries to be a good man in a world that he does not truly understand.”
“Second. Forget Eric Dane. Forget DEFIANCE, forget Wrestlecoast Cascadia, forget all between the end of Old Line. Those things cannot be deleted, but the less you dwell on them, the less reality they hold within them.”
“Third. Do not pine for Heidi. This is one wound that going back in time will reopen. It will be painful, and I apologize from the bottom of my heart. Yet she is marked by the Sands, just as you, and her fate is not within your hands.”
Laurent Haniel removed his shades and hung them over his vest.
He opened his mouth to speak one last time, but somehow, all that came out was radio feedback.
The next morning, Jeff Andrews woke up. The top of his head felt funny somehow, and he sat up, rubbing his eyes. He stumbled towards the bathroom, only slowly realizing something.
It hadn’t hurt to sit up. There was no pain in his back.
And for that matter, he’d sat straight up. No wallowing around in his bed or swinging his feet to the floor first.
But it wasn’t until he looked in the bathroom mirror that he truly began to realize how big this thing that was supposedly going to happen might be.
“So what you’re saying is you boarded a spaceship so futuristic you can’t describe it, and the people on it somehow reverse aged you ten years, which also caused you to inexplicably regrow your hair, and also they gave you the money to open a new wrestling promotion in the middle of nowhere in Ohio.”
“Yes. That is a one hundred percent accurate description of what I just told you happened. I knew y’all you wouldn’t believe it, but hey - anyone wanna call me a liar?”
Jeff Andrews grinned, surveying the room. Nobody did.
“So.”
“Deadman. Crossing. Wrestling.”
“Deadman Crossing’s a real place, you know. Six mailboxes on a stick just south of Chillicothe Ohio, but that doesn’t make it not real. And Wrestling because, y’know, it’s a new promotion.”
“Now if you’re wondering who I’ve got on my roster, well, it’s going to start with mostly the same people I had back in Andrews*Promotions. In fact, if you followed A*P, things are gonna seem like deja vu for the first while.”
“And me? Look, I’m here to talk about my fed. I don’t know these other guys in the tournament and they don’t know me. With respect to my first round opponent Lochlyn Cade, I’m not gonna drop a bunch of clichebombs on him. He can introduce himself to me if he wants, and it’s up to him if he follows DCW well enough to learn who I am.”
“DCW is going to begin active operations immediately after the CWA World Title Tournament concludes. Of course it’s gonna be me running the joint, and me and my old frenemy Daeriq Damien calling the action. Like last time, Cole Christenson is providing financial backing. And, like I did with A*P, Cole, Daeriq and I are going to be holding auditions for ladies who’d like to be the EmCee. Job goes to the woman with the highest average scores between looks, voice, and being a pro wrestling fan.”
“Unlike A*P, DCW is going to be located in Deadman Crossing, full time. We’ve built this complex I’ma call the Road House. Two words. When there aren’t wrestling shows, there might be music shows. Full functioning bar, activated liquor license, talented bartenders safely behind plexiglass. There’s a stage, a pit, it’s gonna be awesome.”
“But don’t get me wrong. I’ve just got a full body tuneup and I’m raring to see what I can do, and I’ve always been the kind of promoter who liked to lead by example. My promotion runs out of the Road House, but believe you me, I will roadhouse the absolute hell out of this tournament. And if I don’t? Cole’s rich and I WILL use his money to beat the crap out of everyone who uses me losing as an excuse NOT to watch DCW. Seriously, we’ll be on Youtube. No excuses. I’ll kick y’allz ass.”
Jeff Andrews grins, like he’s joking. And maybe he actually is.
Probably not safe to bet on it though.
Jeff Andrews only stared numbly at the man who’d just been introduced to him, who he hadn’t seen in 14 years, but would never forget the sight of. His hair was long, almost to his shoulder blades, jet black and just a bit tangled. His eyebrows were dark and striking, his smile was just a bit lopsided, and his eyes… his eyes were tired.
“Yeah…” Jeff heard himself saying. “I remember Mr. Torres.”
“Mr. Torres is perhaps my most talented agent.” Lambert Haniel said, his smile still mild. “Were it not for his efforts that span over two decades, we might not be here today. Yet he managed to untangle a history headed towards pure annihilation, and almost turn it to a victory. On his first attempt, however, you were just too young and inexperienced, and on the second you were… well, you were too loyal to her.”
“Heidi…”
Jeff Andrews did everything he could to try and avoid thinking about Heidi Christenson, and not a single bit of it ever helped in the goddamned slightest way. Some nights he drank himself into a stupor, trying to get those shining blue eyes with the tears of diamond in them in his mind to shut.
Instead they were the last thing he’d see before he blacked out, and then he’d wake up hours later, confused as to why there were tears in his own eyes.
“Jeff, there is so much I wish I could have managed to tell you”. Dionicio spoke for the first time, his voice heavy. “However, clarity is the ultimate enemy of prophecy. Prophecies are useless, almost more harm than good, because for them to work they must be clear to only the recipient and not to those agents working against it. It is an impossible needle to thread. And despite our best efforts, she has clawed her way free.”
Another vision flickered behind his eyes. A woman of unearthly beauty, hair of the palest blonde, eyes of crystal blue, just like Heidi’s, lying in a coffin. She smiled, and her teeth were shark’s teeth, and she ran her hand along the coffin lid, her nails gouging furrows in the silvered wood.
“Almost won?” he asked dumbly.
“As I was saying, Mr. Andrews, you approach a crossroads… a crossing.” Laurent continued, without quite answering the question. “It could be your final one. That is your choice, one we cannot deny you, and would not anyway. You have suffered at your own hands long enough. And, if you chose to walk away, things would be something of… of a draw, I suppose. The person who has the most to lose, but also the most to gain, by your decision not to walk away, is you.”
“If you mean walk away from wrestling, I think I have.”
Lambert shook his head. “That is the road you are facing, but you haven’t walked it yet. And what we have gathered to offer you is an alternative. More time. More time to work. More years for your body. Fewer years on your mind. An alleviation of bitterness. Mr. Andrews, let me be direct. After all this time, all the important pieces are prepared to move. Both ours, and our opponents. What we need is a playing board.”
“A real specific one. Ritzy, like.” Another man spoke. Jeff didn’t recognize him. He wore an old fashioned fedora and slacks with suspenders over a white work shirt.
“Deadman. Crossing. Wrestling.” Torres concluded.
“But… Lambert wanted me to make DCW.” This memory, at least, was clear. “Then he told me he’d been forbidden to help, and that he didn’t think he could talk to me anymore. That was the last I saw of him, and all the permits I needed just… didn’t come through. I still own the bulldozed ground.”
“If. IF. You accept our offer… you will find everything you need. Property… a physical location… physical and mental replenishment. I want to stress again that this is entirely your decision, and that neither we nor our opponents could cause you grief if you chose to remove yourself from the game.”
Somehow, Jeff figured out the question he needed to ask.
“Who exactly are you people?”
And of course he didn’t get a straight answer from Laurent.
“Your friend Mr. Scott once said that there is only one game, and we are all playing it, and that there are no rules except win, and that winning is self-evident. He’s almost right, but there are, in fact, rules. And you, Mr. Andrews, are an anomaly. The rules themselves break around you.”
“And we seek to keep the true rulebreakers out.” Dionicio spoke grimly, a thousand-yard stare on his face.
“What did he mean by ‘real rulebreakers?’ Like the KGB?”
“I haven’t a clue what he meant.” Jeff Andrews snapped at a reporter.
“It’s a shame that we couldn’t be clearer with him. He’s a good man when fate allows him to be himself.” Dionicio stared at the sleeping form of Jeff Andrews.
“He must know these things for this to work. I’m speaking to you, Mr. Andrews.” Laurent said, mild as ever.
“First. Forgive Cole Christenson. He, like you, is someone who tries to be a good man in a world that he does not truly understand.”
“Second. Forget Eric Dane. Forget DEFIANCE, forget Wrestlecoast Cascadia, forget all between the end of Old Line. Those things cannot be deleted, but the less you dwell on them, the less reality they hold within them.”
“Third. Do not pine for Heidi. This is one wound that going back in time will reopen. It will be painful, and I apologize from the bottom of my heart. Yet she is marked by the Sands, just as you, and her fate is not within your hands.”
Laurent Haniel removed his shades and hung them over his vest.
He opened his mouth to speak one last time, but somehow, all that came out was radio feedback.
The next morning, Jeff Andrews woke up. The top of his head felt funny somehow, and he sat up, rubbing his eyes. He stumbled towards the bathroom, only slowly realizing something.
It hadn’t hurt to sit up. There was no pain in his back.
And for that matter, he’d sat straight up. No wallowing around in his bed or swinging his feet to the floor first.
But it wasn’t until he looked in the bathroom mirror that he truly began to realize how big this thing that was supposedly going to happen might be.
“So what you’re saying is you boarded a spaceship so futuristic you can’t describe it, and the people on it somehow reverse aged you ten years, which also caused you to inexplicably regrow your hair, and also they gave you the money to open a new wrestling promotion in the middle of nowhere in Ohio.”
“Yes. That is a one hundred percent accurate description of what I just told you happened. I knew y’all you wouldn’t believe it, but hey - anyone wanna call me a liar?”
Jeff Andrews grinned, surveying the room. Nobody did.
“So.”
“Deadman. Crossing. Wrestling.”
“Deadman Crossing’s a real place, you know. Six mailboxes on a stick just south of Chillicothe Ohio, but that doesn’t make it not real. And Wrestling because, y’know, it’s a new promotion.”
“Now if you’re wondering who I’ve got on my roster, well, it’s going to start with mostly the same people I had back in Andrews*Promotions. In fact, if you followed A*P, things are gonna seem like deja vu for the first while.”
“And me? Look, I’m here to talk about my fed. I don’t know these other guys in the tournament and they don’t know me. With respect to my first round opponent Lochlyn Cade, I’m not gonna drop a bunch of clichebombs on him. He can introduce himself to me if he wants, and it’s up to him if he follows DCW well enough to learn who I am.”
“DCW is going to begin active operations immediately after the CWA World Title Tournament concludes. Of course it’s gonna be me running the joint, and me and my old frenemy Daeriq Damien calling the action. Like last time, Cole Christenson is providing financial backing. And, like I did with A*P, Cole, Daeriq and I are going to be holding auditions for ladies who’d like to be the EmCee. Job goes to the woman with the highest average scores between looks, voice, and being a pro wrestling fan.”
“Unlike A*P, DCW is going to be located in Deadman Crossing, full time. We’ve built this complex I’ma call the Road House. Two words. When there aren’t wrestling shows, there might be music shows. Full functioning bar, activated liquor license, talented bartenders safely behind plexiglass. There’s a stage, a pit, it’s gonna be awesome.”
“But don’t get me wrong. I’ve just got a full body tuneup and I’m raring to see what I can do, and I’ve always been the kind of promoter who liked to lead by example. My promotion runs out of the Road House, but believe you me, I will roadhouse the absolute hell out of this tournament. And if I don’t? Cole’s rich and I WILL use his money to beat the crap out of everyone who uses me losing as an excuse NOT to watch DCW. Seriously, we’ll be on Youtube. No excuses. I’ll kick y’allz ass.”
Jeff Andrews grins, like he’s joking. And maybe he actually is.
Probably not safe to bet on it though.
DEADMAN CROSSING WRESTLING
COMING JANUARY 2022
COMING JANUARY 2022
