Post by Grimm on Feb 29, 2016 11:54:30 GMT -5
No use ignoring or pretending it didn’t happen. It was a matter of public record, after all, and you didn’t even have to file a FOIA request to obtain the proper documentation. There was no secret about it. The momentum from his recent wins (including one that had resulted in Grimm’s fourth World Championship title), and the pressure on the champion to destroy all comers, had not carried the day. Be that as it may, Grimm had already lost plenty, anyway. As one of the longer standing members of the federation, it could accurately be said that Grimm had lost more matches than most. He’d won more, too. Many, many more. But there were no lessons to be learned from those.
Phinehas Dillinger stood on a windswept ridgetop. A cobweb of joints and fissures crisscrossed the limestone pavement. Some of the cracks grew wider and deeper than others, extending into the depths of the hill itself. Phinehas stepped from rock to rock, maneuvering among the fossils cast into the stones. Whorls and remnants of an ancient sea. His boots brushed grasses and wildflowers blooming in the shallower spaces. Dwarf shrubs, Bloody Cranebill, a bright blue flower whose name he had never bothered to learn.
Grimm of all people knew that attempting the Harvest at that point in the match had been a risk. And a foolish one at that. But nothing ventured, nothing gained, and oh, what a statement it would have made had it landed. But it hadn’t, and, so, file it away as yet another learning experience. Just something else to include in future strategies. Split second considerations which would lead to immediate decisions in the midst of a match.
What could he have done different. What should he have done. Eh, we are all failed creatures. As much as it pained Grimm to admit defeat, it could have gone the other way. His way. But it didn’t. Then again, at the end of the night, a loss courtesy of Non Compos Mentis was nothing to be ashamed of. It wasn’t like he was an upstart, a newbie, a flash-in-the-pan that burned bright, showed promise, then flared out.
It wasn’t like he’d never face him again.
There were the usual hill noises. Sounds from the woods, from the cracks, from the root cellar. The tales of shadows and shapes passing among the trees, in and out of the shuttered iron furnaces. Movements accompanied by dim lights. Some blamed the nature of the landscape itself. Some claimed the ghost of Ronnie Frown. Some proposed things even more incredulous.
The recent disappearance of William Dillinger added both fuel and credence to the more outlandish of the tales. His absence grew more disconcerting as the days passed. Then again, this was Billy Sadistic we were talking about. The man had gone to hell and back, and if the stories were to be believed, the phrase was not just a tired metaphor. And if the stores were to be believed, his brother Phinehas had sent him on his way. Perhaps the Man in Black had finally collected his due. Maybe it was a simple case of sibling rivalry taken to the extreme, with William spirited away to tend a broken heart. There were those in town who fiercely subscribed to one explanation or the other. Neither camp could be persuaded otherwise.
Phinehas knew what he believed, and he knew that he had not seen the Man in Black in some time. But he had seen the huge black hound standing at a curve in the road. And he saw it now, snuffling through leaves, bounding over the small abysses, pausing to look at him. And then it was over the side of the hill and gone.
Phinehas stood his ground and sighed. Despite it all he would to his own self be true. Beneath it all (and by all we mean the skull-shattering Harvests, the gristle-liquefying headbutts, the maimings, the disappearances, etc., etc. ), he wielded a violence tempered by wisdom and a deep-seated serenity. He followed an unuttered and unwritten code. His code served as one of the few things of which there was no written record in the annals of the Black Hand, as was his Science of Eight Limbs. No physical markings could fully represent such things.
And yet.
Phinehas, as Grimm, must sever the border between before and after. No sense dwelling on what had been when what was coming approached by the day.
Justin Kaard, unfortunately, found himself having no choice but to dwell on the past, which in his case was an injured knee. An injury thanks to Mr. Showtime who, despite all his U.S. Presidential aspirations and PCW President duties, managed to find the time to nearly cripple Grimm’s current partner. It was, as someone had said, “the ugly side of risk and reward.” And this was an unusual if not interesting pairing. Sometimes, though, such pairings resulted in surprising success.
Take Psychedelica, for example. Nathan Saniti and Kelli Starr had parlayed their respective oddments into the Tag Team Championship. Not that it had been an easy row to hoe, but events took a prosperous turn for them just this past week. Starr off the injured list? Saniti back to what passes for normal for him? Well, ain’t that just dandy. The four of them were not strangers to each other. And, oddly enough, this was one of the few times a person could describe two teams as reasonably decent, honorable people - at least inside the confines of the ring, and at least as long as Saniti’s reversal was sincere. Not that it would keep them from beating one another silly, but still.
As a result of this shared history, the East Sutcliffe Gentlemen’s Club could by default be considered something of a “wild card”, as they say. They’d made their debut, of course, and Reginald Emsworth had been so kind as to provide the complete rundown of Messrs.Hayden and Prescott’s pedigrees and abilities. However, two matches do not a legacy make, and from their brief time here it would not be out of line to suggest they may be TOO honorable, at least as far as this business was concerned. We may be Pure Class, but we also want those almighty victories, do we not? So we shall see whether FISTICUFFS shall be had, and whether said FISTICUFFS result in a triumph. Oh, yes, we shall see…
Phinehas walked to edge where the hound had disappeared, and looked down. He surveyed his town. The river. The railroad. Even if not directly involved in either, by reason of growing up here he was irrevocably tied to both. Both spelled home. The rumble along the tracks, the squeal of brakes, a whistle at the crossing. The aroma of creosote on a midsummer day. Lights gliding down a fog-drenched river at night, and the tune of a sternwheel calliope as it dopplered past. Timber, steel, saltpetre, coal…something else? Something hidden. As inland as it may have been, Hangtown was a land of bridges and waterways, steel spans and wooden covered bridges. Streams and creeks and marshes. Rusted railroad bridges flaked off into valleys and hollows.
The corners of Grimm’s beard curled up at his own form of joyful thought, though he had considered all the facts. He had failed before, and he would continue to fail in good spirits. The Lord of Misrule welcomed them, and welcomed the fight.
There were those who, when describing these hilltops, described them as “a country where there is not enough water to drown a man, wood enough to hang one, nor earth enough to bury him.” Of course, there was much more to Hangtown than just these hilltops. Phinehas Dillinger would keep his word to Billy Bob. And though Joe and Henry had not been directly involved in the scuffle with Dan Fierce, after such a shameful display outside The Owl and Eel Grimm was not feeling particularly generous.
His fingers flexed within the confines of his gloves.
Time to take up the shovel and commence digging.
Phinehas Dillinger stood on a windswept ridgetop. A cobweb of joints and fissures crisscrossed the limestone pavement. Some of the cracks grew wider and deeper than others, extending into the depths of the hill itself. Phinehas stepped from rock to rock, maneuvering among the fossils cast into the stones. Whorls and remnants of an ancient sea. His boots brushed grasses and wildflowers blooming in the shallower spaces. Dwarf shrubs, Bloody Cranebill, a bright blue flower whose name he had never bothered to learn.
Grimm of all people knew that attempting the Harvest at that point in the match had been a risk. And a foolish one at that. But nothing ventured, nothing gained, and oh, what a statement it would have made had it landed. But it hadn’t, and, so, file it away as yet another learning experience. Just something else to include in future strategies. Split second considerations which would lead to immediate decisions in the midst of a match.
What could he have done different. What should he have done. Eh, we are all failed creatures. As much as it pained Grimm to admit defeat, it could have gone the other way. His way. But it didn’t. Then again, at the end of the night, a loss courtesy of Non Compos Mentis was nothing to be ashamed of. It wasn’t like he was an upstart, a newbie, a flash-in-the-pan that burned bright, showed promise, then flared out.
It wasn’t like he’d never face him again.
There were the usual hill noises. Sounds from the woods, from the cracks, from the root cellar. The tales of shadows and shapes passing among the trees, in and out of the shuttered iron furnaces. Movements accompanied by dim lights. Some blamed the nature of the landscape itself. Some claimed the ghost of Ronnie Frown. Some proposed things even more incredulous.
The recent disappearance of William Dillinger added both fuel and credence to the more outlandish of the tales. His absence grew more disconcerting as the days passed. Then again, this was Billy Sadistic we were talking about. The man had gone to hell and back, and if the stories were to be believed, the phrase was not just a tired metaphor. And if the stores were to be believed, his brother Phinehas had sent him on his way. Perhaps the Man in Black had finally collected his due. Maybe it was a simple case of sibling rivalry taken to the extreme, with William spirited away to tend a broken heart. There were those in town who fiercely subscribed to one explanation or the other. Neither camp could be persuaded otherwise.
Phinehas knew what he believed, and he knew that he had not seen the Man in Black in some time. But he had seen the huge black hound standing at a curve in the road. And he saw it now, snuffling through leaves, bounding over the small abysses, pausing to look at him. And then it was over the side of the hill and gone.
Phinehas stood his ground and sighed. Despite it all he would to his own self be true. Beneath it all (and by all we mean the skull-shattering Harvests, the gristle-liquefying headbutts, the maimings, the disappearances, etc., etc. ), he wielded a violence tempered by wisdom and a deep-seated serenity. He followed an unuttered and unwritten code. His code served as one of the few things of which there was no written record in the annals of the Black Hand, as was his Science of Eight Limbs. No physical markings could fully represent such things.
And yet.
Phinehas, as Grimm, must sever the border between before and after. No sense dwelling on what had been when what was coming approached by the day.
Justin Kaard, unfortunately, found himself having no choice but to dwell on the past, which in his case was an injured knee. An injury thanks to Mr. Showtime who, despite all his U.S. Presidential aspirations and PCW President duties, managed to find the time to nearly cripple Grimm’s current partner. It was, as someone had said, “the ugly side of risk and reward.” And this was an unusual if not interesting pairing. Sometimes, though, such pairings resulted in surprising success.
Take Psychedelica, for example. Nathan Saniti and Kelli Starr had parlayed their respective oddments into the Tag Team Championship. Not that it had been an easy row to hoe, but events took a prosperous turn for them just this past week. Starr off the injured list? Saniti back to what passes for normal for him? Well, ain’t that just dandy. The four of them were not strangers to each other. And, oddly enough, this was one of the few times a person could describe two teams as reasonably decent, honorable people - at least inside the confines of the ring, and at least as long as Saniti’s reversal was sincere. Not that it would keep them from beating one another silly, but still.
As a result of this shared history, the East Sutcliffe Gentlemen’s Club could by default be considered something of a “wild card”, as they say. They’d made their debut, of course, and Reginald Emsworth had been so kind as to provide the complete rundown of Messrs.Hayden and Prescott’s pedigrees and abilities. However, two matches do not a legacy make, and from their brief time here it would not be out of line to suggest they may be TOO honorable, at least as far as this business was concerned. We may be Pure Class, but we also want those almighty victories, do we not? So we shall see whether FISTICUFFS shall be had, and whether said FISTICUFFS result in a triumph. Oh, yes, we shall see…
Phinehas walked to edge where the hound had disappeared, and looked down. He surveyed his town. The river. The railroad. Even if not directly involved in either, by reason of growing up here he was irrevocably tied to both. Both spelled home. The rumble along the tracks, the squeal of brakes, a whistle at the crossing. The aroma of creosote on a midsummer day. Lights gliding down a fog-drenched river at night, and the tune of a sternwheel calliope as it dopplered past. Timber, steel, saltpetre, coal…something else? Something hidden. As inland as it may have been, Hangtown was a land of bridges and waterways, steel spans and wooden covered bridges. Streams and creeks and marshes. Rusted railroad bridges flaked off into valleys and hollows.
The corners of Grimm’s beard curled up at his own form of joyful thought, though he had considered all the facts. He had failed before, and he would continue to fail in good spirits. The Lord of Misrule welcomed them, and welcomed the fight.
There were those who, when describing these hilltops, described them as “a country where there is not enough water to drown a man, wood enough to hang one, nor earth enough to bury him.” Of course, there was much more to Hangtown than just these hilltops. Phinehas Dillinger would keep his word to Billy Bob. And though Joe and Henry had not been directly involved in the scuffle with Dan Fierce, after such a shameful display outside The Owl and Eel Grimm was not feeling particularly generous.
His fingers flexed within the confines of his gloves.
Time to take up the shovel and commence digging.
