[April 25th 2017 – 4:34 AM – The Wylde Residence – Western Maryland]

CJ couldn’t sleep.

It was another night that the coughing kept him awake. One in many, so many now that he had lost count.

The edict against him was simple – abuse any substance and get caught doing so, and he’d lose what was left of his career. This included the lifesaving anti-inflammatory steroid Prednisolone, something that his doctor had prescribed him for a rare lung disease that everyone once thought was terminal lung cancer, being as the symptoms almost completely mirror one another.

Lucy asleep in the bed next to him, CJ had to be careful not to wake her. It was difficult, but practice always tends to make perfect, and CJ had slipping out of the bed undetected down to a science. Though he felt more like a zombie than that of a living creature, he managed to drag his feet into the same worn-out slippers that he’s owned for years; and managed to drag his leaden body, along with his slippered feet, into his favorite room to hide out in before the crack of dawn.

CJ slid woefully into the bathroom.

With the door closed behind him, CJ flipped on the light. It was only a few days now until his showdown with UGWC World Champion Eden Morgan; something that he was looking forward to getting over with, just as much as he was looking forward to it anyway.

Life had turned into something crazy – something upside down and inside out from what it was supposed to be. For the first time in a long time, CJ couldn’t stop the incessant coughing that accompanied his lung disease; and it reminded him of a tumultuous time back in the OWF where life wasn’t worth living, where it was more of a countdown to the inevitable if anything.

Where legacy meant what was left when the timer reached zero. Where time was of the essence for all of the wrong reasons. Where things didn’t have to make sense; they just needed to be, and they needed to happen as quickly as they could. Future be damned.

Shirtless, Wylde slinked forward, towards the vanity at the center of the large master bath. The incandescent light pulsed as it bounced off of his frame, forcing his irises to slam shut just to not be overtaken by the harsh glare.

Just outside the irises, crimson veins wrecked what once was the whites of his eyes. It was the physical manifestation of a man who suffered simply to occupy his own body. The telltale sign of a fighter who was losing the will to fight; and CJ couldn’t even pretend that he didn’t know the reason why.

CJ ran some cold water, leaning over the vanity to take a closer look in the mirror. After splashing his face with the chilled essence of the tap, his soul felt as though it was shocked back to life.

Those pinprick irises readjusted, and CJ fell into the pitch at the centers of his eyes.

Once more at the fulcrum, the living Wylde wondered quietly what his purpose was on this planet. Is it finally too much to press forward? Or would pride be the deadly sin that would lead to his fall?

[August 24th, 79 AD – 10:01 AM – 150 South of Rome, Italy]

“Your magistrate! The hill!”

Just beyond the grand entrance hall, past the open-sky atrium and through the main chamber, Town Magistrate Eden (a striking resemblance UGWC World Champion Eden Morgan) sat on her throne, seemingly unaffected by the urgency in her subordinates voice. It wasn’t the first time that the inaptly named Mister King bothered her on matters less than what she had been elected to deal with – and the minor rumblings of the nearby hill were nothing more than just that.

“What?!” She responded sharply. The bright sunlight reflecting off of the central garden behind her, filling the space with a comfortable warmth that the Magistrate had grown accustomed to. “Can’t you see that I’m busy?”

“My apologies, Magistrate.” Mister King replied, bowing his head. “But there are reports across the town that the rumblings of the grand hill are growing stronger and more violent.”

“Nonsense.” She scoffed. “Do not bother me any more with these trivialities. I am ashamed that you would think so lowly of me to dare enter my court and waste my precious time.”

“Again, my apologies,” Mister King replied, bowing yet again.

“On your way out, please send in the slaves,” Magistrate Eden commanded.

“Yes, my liege.”

“These luscious grapes won’t put themselves in my mouth,” she snickered.

“Of course not,” Mister King replied. For once, he wished that Eden would let him put something in her mouth instead. But he knew that it wasn’t his place to question the orders handed down to him, especially if the rumors were true that Eden were to soon become a member of the Roman Senate.

As King moved out of the court, he was passed by an armed Roman Soldier, dragging a prisoner along in shackles. The soldier he knew as Mister Somers, highly regarded as one of the most gifted gladiators on the inside of the amphitheater walls, and equally as deadly in open combat. As the two passed one another in the hall, they shared glances.

“Be careful, Mister Somers,” King spoke. “She’s in a testy mood.”

“Is that so, King?” Somers replied. “Well, perhaps a gift is in order then.”

King eyed up the prisoner. He scoffed at the sight of him.

“That vermin?” King grimaced. “That is not a gift; that is a travesty that should be jailed.”

“We shall see,” Somers replied. “If it’s what the Magistrate desires, of course.”

“Of course.”

Somers redoubled his grip on the underarm of the prisoner, and shouted at him as he pushed the prisoner forward into the main hall. Eden, her eyes turned towards the sky behind her as she lie lazily in her throne, thought it was the slave entering to feed her.

“Do hurry slave,” She grunted. “I grow weary, and I require sustenance-” motioning to the plate of grapes that sit on the table within arms reach of her throne.

“Well that’s too bad-” The gladiator spoke, causing Eden to shoot up into a more upright position. “I brought you this instead.”

With a kick and a shove, Somers tossed the disheveled man down to his knees at the feet of her Magistrate’s throne. The man, clearly in considerable pain, struggled to keep himself from a total collapse, barely having the strength to remain upright.

“Oh, Dear Somers, favorite champion of the crowd.” Eden said as she gazed upon the prisoner for the first time. “Why does one believe my chambers to be the reception hall of the cities waste?”

Somers kicked the prisoner in the small of his back, causing pain to shoot through his kidneys once more.

“Your Magistrate,” Somers said with a grin. “This vermin comes from the grand hill.”

“Oh, really?” Eden replied, her eyes growing slightly wider with a modicum of self-interest seemingly coming from the blue. “Only the Gods reside on the grand hill.”

“Of course.” Somers replied. “Do you think that this heretic may be the reason for the Gods being angered as of late?”

“Excuse me?”

“The Gods.” Somers spoke matter-of-factly. “Surely, you’ve felt the quakes. They speak as a testament of the anger of the Gods. And I have reason to believe that this man right here-”

“Enough!” Eden cut in with a shout. “That will be all from you, Somers.”

“But, your Magistrate, the prisoner-”

“I said, that will be all!”

Somers looked down at the prisoner before gazing back up at Magistrate Eden.

“Yes, My Liege.”

Somers saluted his Magistrate in the way Roman Soldiers salute, one arm across his chest. Eden waved him off with a flick of her wrist, as if he were nothing, because to her everyone and everything inside of this small township was. With Somers and King both gone, Eden yawned before sitting forward on her throne, looking down at the prisoner who was left at her feet; the man still cringing in pain.

Eden lowered herself just enough to place her finger under the mans chin, using it to push the man’s head up just enough to look at her.

“Let’s get a good look at you, shall we?”

The man, held helpless by the iron shackles, had no way to stop the Magistrate from forcing his eyes upward at hers.

“Are you truly the one responsible for the needless fears of my people? Or will I have to take on yet another slave – since my three are obviously worthless.”

The man peered up into her eyes.

“Well, are you going to answer me, heathen?”

[April 24th 2017 – 11:01 PM – The Wylde Residence – Western Maryland]

“CJ, you’ve got to listen to me.”

CJ’s brother, Matt Wylde, used to be a wrestler once. A damn good one, too.

Now he drives around a beat up old honda civic.

“This match you have coming up against Eden, you’ve got to give it your all.”

“What the fuck do you think I’m gonna do?” CJ replied. “Go out there and just lay down?”

That old honda civic rolled to a stop in the gravel driveway right in front of CJ’s large mansion house.

“No,” Matt replied. “That’s not what I’m saying. All I’m saying is, that this match is a statement piece. Not just to the people in UGWC, and not just to the fans, either. But it’s a statement to make to the world… to fucking Angel and Redemption.”

“Yeah.”

Matt kept the engine running, it was late and he knew that CJ and Lucy were set to travel to Canada in the morning for Seven Deadly Sins, the UGWC’s next big Pay Per View event.

“Think about it. They tried to kill you. Not just hurt you, not just end your career. They tried to kill you, man.”

“Oh, I know.” CJ replied with a laugh. “Trust me, it happens.”

“It’s not funny.” Matt said. “Winning the UGWC World Championship would be… the biggest ‘fuck you’ to Angel and Redemption. Think about it. Not only are you not dead, but you’re alive, well, and doing shit in a new place that they only dreamed of!”

“Hah.” CJ replied, feeling groggy enough from a long day of training. “I mean it would be nice to be champ, but I dunno. Is it really worth it? Is all of this… worth it?”

Matt threw the car into park. He turned his shoulders toward CJ, doing everything in his power not to slap the taste out of his big brother’s mouth.

“How fuckin’ dare you.”

“What do you mean?” CJ replied.

“You don’t appreciate shit.”

“What?”

“Look,” Matt continued. “You know that if I could still go, that my ass would be in the ring every single day of the week – maybe even two or three times a day! I’d be in there with one goal in mind: I want to be the best wrestler, period. You, you get to sit here having had a full fucking career… never having it cut short like mine was.”

CJ slumped in his seat, thinking about Matt’s words.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” Matt said, “to have to sit on your ass because you can’t wrestle. Wresting is all that we ever wanted to do, from kids, growing up and shit. You and I, we were supposed to be a team, until my fucking neck took that away from both of us…”

“Yeah…” CJ replied with a sigh.

“You’ve been given like, a million chances. Every time you have something happen to you, where you think it’s the end, it just never quite happens to be the actual end. You’ve won championship after championship, and WHEN you beat Eden Morgan in a few nights, you’ll have cemented your legacy as being a World Champion wherever you’ve laced up your boots.”

CJ listened as best he could, his eyes drooping and his body sagged. When Matt finished up, CJ shrugged haphazardly, drawing the ire of his brother.

“I mean, Eden ain’t no easy win,” CJ replied.

“Oh, I know.” Matt said. “But come on, Eden Morgan versus CJ Wylde. One of these things are not like the other- ya know?”

“You mean one of these things aren’t a washed-up has been?”

Matt’s lips pursed.

“Fuck you, man. Where is your sense of pride, hmm?”

“Hey, I’ve got plenty of pride!” CJ responded.

“Oh, is that so?”

“Uhh, yeah.”

“Well then, act like it!” Matt said. “Get your ass on up to Canada tomorrow, and walk in there with your head held high. You know you’ve got this. You know you’ve got this…”

CJ nodded his head as he followed along. He stopped nodding when he started with a little cough, burying his face into the sleeve of his hoodie as to not cough on his brother in the process.

“You gonna be okay?” Matt asked.

“Yeah,” CJ replied. “Fucking dosage is off.”

“Off?” Matt asked. “Are you out again?”

“No!” CJ responded, yelling. “…and don’t you fuckin’ go out looking for more for me, again. We had enough trouble getting your ass out of prison the last time.”

Matt chuckled.

“Yeah… wasn’t that some shit?”

“Hah, yeah it was-” CJ said, coughing again into his jacket. “Matt Wylde, suspected drug dealer. All because you were trying to help your brother out through a tough time.”

“Yeah, but we got that all straightened out, didn’t we?” Matt said as he grabbed at the collar of his sweatshirt.

“It was stupid to begin with, Matt.” CJ said with a chuckle. “Just as long as it doesn’t ever happen again. We’re all good.”

[August 24th, 79 AD – 10:12 AM – 150 Miles South of Rome, Italy]

Just as the man’s face was upturned by the finger of the Magistrate, a low rumble came through the ground beneath them.

“I am from the hill.” The shackled prisoner spoke. “My home, it is destroyed.”

Magistrate Morgan pulled her finger away, and slapped the man across the face as hard as she could. The man from the hill turned with the slap, but still had a fresh wound open up on his lip, where blood and saliva mixed and began to dribble down the man’s chin.

“How dare you insult the Gods like that!” Magistrate Eden proclaimed facetiously, before a grin came over her face. “You pathetic worm.”

“Is that what I am?” The man asked, turning his head slowly back in the direction of the throne.

“You are what I say you are,” Eden reminded of him.

“That’s fine,” The man said. “In moments, it won’t matter anyway.”

Eden’s brows turned upward, she lunged for the grapes at her side, sickened by the thought that she would have to feed herself.

“Silence, worm!” Eden proclaimed.

“You have no authority over me,” The man reminded her, not being of her township. “Just as you have no authority over the mount-”

Eden slapped the helpless man again. And once more than that, just for good measure. As the man slumped over onto her mosaic tile floor, she spat down on him, dropping her half-eaten bunch of grapes on the floor next to him as a display of her power and prestige.

“I can quell the anger of the Gods at a moments notice, at any time I wish. Don’t you understand who I am?”

The man said nothing.

“As Magistrate, it won’t be too much longer now. Soon, I will be a grand Senator, just a pebbles throw from the ear of the Emporer himself.”

The man began pushing himself up from the floor. That’s when Eden kicked him in the side of the head, and used her foot to push his face down into the floor.

“…and in time, you’ll be calling me Empress Eden.” She laughed. “Well, not you. You’ll be dead.”

The man spoke, but his words were a garbled mess with his face pressed against the floor.

A victim to her own curiosity, Eden relieved the pressure of her foot on the back of the man’s head, allowing him to speak.

“Oh, I’m sorry, what was that? What do you have to say to me?”

“I said that it’s okay, Empress.” The man chuckled. “I’ve been dead before.”

Eden couldn’t stand listening to the heretic laugh, so she pressed her heel into the back of his head once more. Working hard to grind his face against the depiction of herself scrawled on her floor.

[April 25th 2017 – 2:25 PM – The Wylde Residence – Western Maryland]

At 2:25 in the afternoon, CJ Wylde had already been up almost ten hours.

CJ and Lucy had already had all of their things packed. Been packed for two days thanks to Lucy’s meticulous planning for every detail of their life.

Lucy always took care of CJ, always did it because she wanted to, and because that was the type of person that she was. Sometimes CJ felt like he himself was a burden to her, but Lucy never saw things that way. When Lucy was around the house was clean and CJ’s life was in order. When Lucy wasn’t there, CJ could barely manage to make himself breakfast, or get up before noon.

But today was an exception to her own rule. She had rebooked their flight for the evening after seeing yet another sleepless night out of her husband. It was she who noticed him get in late from training with his brother last night, and she who felt as though he wasn’t in any shape to board an airplane with the way he looked at five this morning.

CJ always tried to hide it, tried to sneak past her and into the bathroom where he usually has his stash of Methylprednisolone tucked safely behind the mirror of the medicine cabinet. Lately, though, CJ hasn’t been exactly allowed to take the dosage that he was used to taking – she knew that it was partially CJ’s fault for being irresponsible for just how much of the steroids he’s relied on over the past year or so, but also knew that it was UGWC officials that were the primary cause of his current pain.

And it was pain; because she could hear him grunting and feel his muscles tighten with every cough. It effected his ribs, his back, his chest, and most importantly, his mind. Everything seemed excruciating, even breathing at some of the worst points, and it made her feel terrible that she couldn’t do anything about it. Attempts to have his prescription dosage raised have all failed – thanks to the UGWC doctors, not their personal and preferred physician. Many a night lately, Lucy pretended to stay asleep as she heard her husband wilting away behind that closed bathroom door.

Now that it was nearing the time to leave, Lucy had to make sure that CJ was ready to go.

CJ approached from the hall, travel bag over his shoulder. He eyed up his wife in the way that she always loved – his gaze moving from head to toe. This time, though, it was different, as she caught her husband’s extended and unwavering gaze on the UGWC Cross Hemisphere Championship belt that she strapped around her waist. Perhaps it was his reflection in the high-polish gold that caught him. Or as she figured, it was his gateway towards contemplating what being UGWC World Champion would be like in a few days.

“Everything alright?” She asked him.

CJ didn’t respond at first. But after a split second, he snapped out of it; peering into his wife’s eyes with his bloodshot red ones.

“Oh, oh yeah. I’m fine,” he lied.

“CJ,” she said with an air of concern. “Are you sure that you’re ready to do this?”

CJ coughed into the crux of his elbow.

“Yeah, of course I’m sure.” He replied.

Lucy rolled her eyes.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing,” she said. “It’s just you. You know. I honestly hate to say this, because I don’t want you thinking the worst or anything-”

“But-” CJ quipped impatiently.

“But,” Lucy replied, “are you sure you still want to do this? You haven’t slept in almost two weeks, and if I’m being quite honest, I just think that going all the way to Canada just to do a Pay Per View is a mistake with you in this condition.”

The normally calm and collected CJ Wylde that Lucy once knew was gone. Whatever she said, something that she probably didn’t realize, struck a real harsh chord with her husband. CJ flared up out of nowhere, acting like a madman.

“A mistake?” CJ asked. “You wait until the moment we’re leaving to tell me that you think my world championship match is a mistake?!”

“What?” Lucy blinked. “No… no, CJ. That’s not what I said at all-”

“Then what is it, then?” CJ replied, sharply.

“You just don’t look good.” Lucy said. “You don’t look good at all.”

CJ dropped his bag on the floor.

“Me?” He chuckled outwardly before coughing once more. “Nah, don’t worry about me hun. I feel fine.”

Lucy rolled her eyes.

“What is that all about?”

“What is what?”

“Rolling your eyes at me…”

“Oh CJ, please, let’s not get into this right now. Okay?”

Again, it was a harmless statement, but something in it caused CJ to flare up even more.

“I don’t know why not!” He shouted down at her. “I mean, shit. Let’s go through this, okay? It’s perfectly okay for you to travel to Canada, for you to defend your UGWC Championship, which, by the way, you were gifted the shot at.”

Lucy’s jaw dropped and her eyes opened wide at her husband’s words.

“It was okay for you to follow me to UGWC in the first place – because at first you didn’t even want to go!”

“You know what?” Lucy shouted back. “You’re right, CJ! I followed you to the UGWC. But unlike you, you see, I was perfectly okay with going back to just being retired with you; with spending the rest of my life with you like I thought that you wanted to do with me – but oh no – with you, wrestling is obviously far more important than, I dunno, your wife!”

CJ tried to grab Lucy by the arm, but Lucy’s quick reflexes were enough to smack his arm away.

“Don’t you fucking touch me!”

“How dare you say that!” CJ shouted. “I’ve done nothing but support you since day one, unlike you, who can’t even support me during a fucking World Title match!!!”

“Oh really?!” Lucy shouted back. “You want to talk about support, huh? Who signed the contract behind whose back, huh? And you want to know something else CJ? Do you want to know why you did it? Because you’re too greedy, CJ.”

“Oh, I’m the greedy one?” CJ jabbed.

“Fucking damn straight you are!” Lucy jabbed back.

CJ tried to return the jab with a volley of his own, but a bad cough overtook him.

“All you want is another World Championship,” she continued. “Another meaningless title to add to your resume. You don’t want to be with me, you just want to die inside of a fucking wrestling ring! I have never met anyone as greedy as you!”

“Well, do you want to know what I think?” CJ replied as best he could, trying hard to catch his breath.

“No, I really don’t.”

“Too bad, cause you’re gonna listen anyway.”

“Oh really?”

“I’m not the fucking greedy one in this relationship-”

“Oh, is that so?” Lucy replied sharply. “If that’s the case, then cancel your match with Eden Morgan!”

“You know I can’t do that!” CJ shouted back.

“Because you care about a fucking championship more than you care about me?!”

“Yes!”

The air was completely driven out of the room at that moment; it had gone deathly silent as the tears began to form in Lucy’s eyes.

“If you can’t support me, then what the fuck good are you to me?!” CJ proclaimed, pounding his chest in an effort to force his lungs to cooperate. “You’re the greediest little bitch that I’ve ever met, Luce, and if you think that this is about greed then you don’t really know a fucking thing about me, do you?!”

Lucy’s hand came across the side of CJ’s face. And in a moment’s time, which felt like an eternity and skipped like a heartbeat all the same, she was gone from view.

[August 24th, 79 AD – 10:15 AM – 150 Miles South of Rome, Italy]

Magistrate Eden sat on her throne with a grin chiseled over her countenance. She enjoyed watching the shackled prisoner before her work to push himself back up to his knees, just at the perfect height and distance where he could kiss the bottoms of her feet should she want him to.

“This is fun,” She said through a minor grumbling of the hill.

“I agree,” said the man, spitting his blood out on the floor.

“How dare you!” She shouted.

He laughed.

“Yes, how dare I…” he proclaimed.

“Do you not understand that you spat on my floor?”

“I understand perfectly, your Magistrate.” He responded with a grin. “It seemed only the proper thing to do.”

Eden rose from her throne, and grabbed her prisoner by the back of his head and shoved his face down into the small pool of his own spit and blood.

“Do you like that, huh?” She said with a strong tone. “Do you like sweeping my floor?”

After a few gratuitous swipes, she finally released the man; the prisoner pulling himself back up to his knees with a grin on his blood and spit covered face. Eden didn’t know how to respond to the man, especially when the man leaned toward one side to allow his shackled hand to touch the tiles of the floor, further smearing his bodily fluids along on her floor.

“You know, I do kind of like it down here.” He replied, stating it as though he meant her to be surprised. “It’s just a shame though, in a little while this all, like my home, will be gone.”

“Silence! I will have nothing more pass through your lips!” She said, grabbing the man by his hair and yanking his face upwards towards hers.

But instead of wincing in pain, as he should, the man just smiled; and shook his head as little as her grip would allow.

[The Power of Pride]

I don’t know why you do this, Eden. I only know why I do it.

I learned a long time ago that the goal of this business isn’t to be well-liked; or even to be well-respected. You see, I can’t really claim to be well-liked, nor can I claim not-to-be. It depends on the person, really. The audience, if you will.

If you’ll excuse the shackles that bind me, you’ll see my reason held out to you on outstretched, open palms. I bear my soul to you, Eden, four times the champion of the Unified Global Wrestling Coalition. I bear it all just so that you, the worthiest of the worthy, can see me for once for who I really am. You can see straight on down to the heart of the matter; the matter of course, being your challenger. You can see who I am because you can see more importantly what I am, and what I desire most in my quest simply to “be” and to “continue being”. You already think that you know who I am, but what you know is a fraction; not yet a portion, but a mere morsel as to what I am and what I’m truly capable of.

I bare this to you knowing full well that the World can see. The curious among them, the peeping Toms, Dicks, and Harrys; I invite you all to bear witness to the deadly sin that will be my undoing…

Pride.

Ironic, or perhaps merely coincidental, that it should be us that cross paths at this, the moment in time where we place our given sin on a pedestal, or in your case a throne, and display it high for the world to see. I’m supposed to tell you that it’s your pride that will be your undoing, as it most undoubtedly will be; and you’re supposed to tell me that my pride will kill me. And I cannot seem to disagree.

Ironically, you wish to silence me because that’s what you need to do. I see clearly now, as clear as the morning sky in Pompeii on a bright August morning in 78 AD, just moments before the blast that would consume every living town member in a killing cloud of volcanic ash and dust. I see clearly that the trouble was always sitting there, quietly, on the horizon; that the city, and its inhabitants, two-millennia ago and right in this spot, were frozen in time simply because their deadly sin was building their shining city so pridefully close to Mount Vesuvius, an active and enraged volcano.

But Eden, you’re just the magistrate. You’re just the elected leader holding the championship belt. It’s not your pride, nor your fault. It’s the UGWC brass, the top staff, the big cheese. It’s those guys who affiliated with, and built so close to the grand mount; its the ones who thought that living at the base of the World Power known at the Outsider Wrestling Federation meant that they could live comfortably in it’s shade, wishing only to please their own most decadent desires.

It was never your fault, per se. Even though you are a woman who takes pride to a whole new level; even though your solid base that works as the foundation of everything you’ve ever earned is your own incessant and carefully crafted hubris; I cannot blame you for the eruption that happened just outside your township wall.

It isn’t your fault, nor is it mine, that the OWF had to close the way that it did. But as a veteran of UGWC, didn’t you have to know? Didn’t you expect, or at least suspect, that something; some fallout from the OWF’s destruction had to make its way over the UGWC town walls? Didn’t you?

The issue at hand is that I am here, now; and I have no control over what JC or what Lucy Wylde have done, contrary to some beliefs being held around here. I have no control over those OWF wrestlers who retired and of those who moseyed on to Carnage Wrestling; but I suppose that having three of the top stars OWF had to offer swooping in like a black cloud isn’t about the people that didn’t make it here; but more about those of us that did.

You see, you cannot silence me. I’ve found my voice. I found it a long time ago, thank you very much. You cannot silence me because this is your home and it’s not mine; you can’t silence me on some basis of me being an outsider because that’s not how any of this works. What happens here is that CJ Wylde comes through like a natural disaster. He works and he pushes on proving to himself and to the people around him that he is one of the best damn wrestlers that ever walked the face of this planet. I’m not sure if I love wrestling, or if I’m addicted to it, something that UGWC doctors luckily cannot test me for, because that’s a drug test I’m sure that I’ll fail. I feed off of the pageantry and off of the mindset that I get in right when I’m standing in front of that curtain. I like it when my theme song hits and I know that I’m about to go rewrite history the way that only I know how to do.

But I knew all of this before I ever stepped foot into UGWC. This, this match here, this is unfortunate, for you. And hey, unfortunate for me as well. I didn’t ask for this; and I certainly don’t need to be UGWC Champion to be the best wrestler here, it’s simply a consequence of the truth. I pride myself on the truth, the same truth that tells me that I’m more an Engine of Chaos by myself than all four of its members combined. I pride myself in the truth that I know that everything that I’ve got coming to me is inevitable – that belt that you carry around your waist is mine. The UGWC is mine.

I’ll bury it. Trap it in feet upon feet of ash and dust. Maybe some day, a long time from now, archaeologists will come along and discover the hollowed remains that once were where our bodies fell; perhaps they’ll plaster it in like they did the people of Pompeii, so that they can see the reflection of the terror on your face just as I see in this moment right now.

Let me guide you through this, Eden. Let me be your mirror.

I shall act as your reflection. I will be the UGWC’s pride staring back at you.

My life was never easy, nor was it fair or true. I do find a lot of the same qualities in myself that I see in you, just as a reflection truly would. But make no mistakes, I don’t wish you to lie to them. Don’t tell the world this match between us is about you versus me, because it’s not. Don’t spin your silk of lies to weave your web of deceit. We’re both professionals here, so let’s cut all the bullshit.

It was once said that you don’t truly become a winner until you learn how to lose. In that way, Mil Vidas didn’t truly become a champion until you made him lose his first one, the one that you made him lose.

Eden, you’re a champion not because you hold that belt, but because you’ve lost that championships three times before. You hang your pride on being the four-time UGWC World Heavyweight Champion, and I beseech you my Queen; please let me help you grow your pride even further.

Allow me the duty of further cementing your legacy. Allow me the courtesy of staying down when I put you down, no matter how many times it may take. Allow me the honor of sending the great Queen Eden Morgan right off on her quest for her fifth UGWC World Championship. Let me help you help yourself into history; let me help you learn through loss once more.

You see, Eden. This isn’t about you, or me, or the belt, or anything. This is about pride. And if you think that I’m abusive towards Lucy, emotionally, physically, what have you. Then what the fuck do you honestly think that I won’t do to you?

It is ironic.

I don’t even want to win to take the UGWC Championship away from you-

I fight for pride

I just want to beat you.

When the referee counts you down and hands me my championship, start looking forward to your fifth.

Ask the frozen villagers of Pompeii. Even though you think you have the world at your fingertips, Changes will always and most certainly come.