The Game of Kings: Hangtown Edition
Jan 14, 2019 10:34:58 GMT -5
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Holden Ross and Gerard Angelo like this
Post by Grimm on Jan 14, 2019 10:34:58 GMT -5
As anyone watching could attest, Grimm’s performance at Collision Course VII did not pass muster.
Before Grimm can turn the full hundred and eighty degrees to face the other man in the ring, he gets his clock cleaned as the end of the wooden bat jams through the ginger beard and connects with Grimm’s jaw…
Wait! There’s more!
Stormm rears back and cracks Grimm across the back with the chair while Grimm is still straddling the guardrail. Stormm lifts the chair back up, then gives Grimm another wince-inducing chairshot. Grimm contorts in pain, arching his back, and he finally extricates his leg, falling off the guardrail back into the aisle with a thump. Stormm, not letting the moment get away, climbs over the guardrail, holding the chair, and waffles Grimm with a final chairshot across the midsection…
Also
Grimm gasps and the crowd winces, but Stormm does not stop there; taking the long cable and wrapping it all around Grimm’s neck, chest and, most importantly, his injured ribs! Hanging off the cable, Stormm quickly falls down to the canvas with Grimm and wraps his legs around the sternum of his opponent for a vice-like body scissors choke, with the cable still around his throat. The sound of Grimm struggling to breathe can be heard quite clearly, and it is a disturbing sound to say the least. Stormm wrenches back with all of the cable as hard as he possibly can, causing the entire roll to tighten around his throat and body. At first, Grimm writhes and wriggles, his arm flapping around like the gills of a dying fish in an effort to escape, but he soon begins to fade…
And let’s not forget
He knows it's now or never to close this match out. Grimm paces over to the ropes and climbs up, going to the top rope and setting himself for a tornado DDT. Grimm catches Stormm by the head, but instead of dragging him down, he is turned onto Stormm's shoulders. Stormm is able to use his greater size and strength to lift Grimm back up, with his left arm over the back of Grimm's head, and his left arm over his left shoulder. Stormm then grabs Grimm's left leg, lifting it up close to Grimm's own torso, and then lifts Grimm up into the cradle suplex position. Stormm then jumps a little, twirls about two hundred and seventy degrees, and falls on his stomach while Grimm is forced to land on his neck, shoulders, and upper back. The crowd explodes in an awed, flabbergasted expulsion of air. Both Stormm and Grimm are laid out.
Neither man is able to move after the long, brutal war we've witnessed. It has taken its toll. Finally, at long last, Stormm starts to move. He meekly rolls onto his side and his fingertips stretch out. He places a weak arm over Grimm's chest.
The referee drops down for a cover…
However, the Iceys showed he was not yet without merit or relevance. And besides…
Seromine makes his way to the ring. He looks up at Stormm, who still hasn't moved since the assault by Dominator. Then, suddenly, he turns his attention to Grimm, who has finally rolled his way out of the ring and has started to make his way back up the ramp. Seromine attacks Grimm from behind!
Seromine takes Grimm down with a clothesline and then he stomps away on him on the floor. Seromine stops his assault only to frantically search around ringside for a weapon. He finally finds one, in the form of a steel chair. Grimm presses himself up to his knees, but he's cracked in the head. Seromine then drives the point of the chair several times into Grimm's spine. Finally, PCW security rush down to the ring…
It goes without saying that would be addressed.
Sooner rather than later.
~~~~~~~~~
Phinehas Dillinger sat at a table in The Owl & Eel. The one in the corner, to the left of the fireplace. Where the scent of burning pine hung heaviest. Near a window, so Phinehas could look out onto morning breaking in Hangtown. The gas lamps still flickered along the cobblestone street, and frost gave a cold, sharp edge to the world. The morning remained dead quiet other than the clink of glass as the barkeep prepared for the day. An occasional wind gusted down the street, rattling windows and threatening to extinguish the lamps.
He sat at the table with a pint of Mandrake’s Old Peculiar in front of him. Or, that is to say, about half a pint, as the rings of foam testified Mr. Dillinger had not only now taken this seat. Phinehas alternated swirling the glass and moving pieces across both sides of a chess board. The board was a thick piece of cardboard with a crease running down the center, and the pieces had been whittled roughly out of wood. It was a chess set that did not insist upon itself.
Center Counter Opening. Scandinavian Defense. Pinning attacks. Forks by each bishop and rook. Phinehas played against himself as a way to focus, to eliminate distractions. It reduced the world around him to its essentials. It allowed him to test out various strategies, to winnow out the weak and ineffectual.
Phinehas paused. He took a sip, then turned his attention to the window. Wreaths dried and shed needles on closed doors. Bayberry candles stood as mere stubs on window sills. No one walked the streets. Not yet. Only shadows moved within the shuttered storefronts as shopkeeps made ready for the day.
“The key,” said Granny, just the other evening, between drags on her pipe, “is to show he’s fallible. That’s he’s nothing more than a liar and a coward and a cheat. That’ll take more than an egregious beating, too.”
She’d said that with pipe embers glowing, and smoke swirling about her head like a veil. Granny’s countenance could make even Grimm uncomfortable at times.
But, still, how astute of her.
Back to the board. Once Phinehas had taken advantage of the Ponziani Opening, it allowed him to work through a King’s Gambit. On to Alekhine’s Gun. The Pocket Mutation. Solomon’s Hexagon. The Cartographer, driven mad by the endless expanse of ivory and ink, moved erratically, confusing the Centaur into committing to a Poisoned Pawn Variation. Of course it had.
Phinehas-as-Grimm would do as Granny had suggested. Eventually. But not just yet, as a tag team match would make it difficult (but not impossible!?) to focus too much of his energies on the Serpentine Sermonizer. There would be others to consider.
The candle flame on his table wavered. It moved around the compass points before resuming its guidance towards north. Wax dripped, forming tiny golem familiars around the candle’s base. Hangtown stood cold, and damp, and gray outside, without the benefit of snow to soften winter’s blow. Nothing but mud and wet leaves for the time being. So Phinehas set the Blind Monkey against the Treacherous Fox, using the Pyramid as cover as it stood there in the middle of the board. Stationary, indifferent, silent. He took up the Minotaur. What next?
Yes, sure, there would be Seromine to consider. But also Holden Ross. Both of them seemingly on the same page, but if history had taught us anything, it’s that neither of them knew what they wanted. Or even who they really were. They definitely couldn’t trust one another, as their loyalties had shifted as much as the direction of the wind. It all depended on how their whims, their desires, pulled them along that night. And Seromine would no doubt have an explanation ready regardless of how the night ended. Which, if Tyler Scott had anything to say about it, would be unpleasant. Grimm had never wished Scott any specific harm. There was no reason the two of them couldn’t coexist for at least one night. And, once again, history was on their side. Tyler Scott had taken the world champion to the very limit. He had the mental and spiritual fortitude necessary to have broken away from a certain cult. The Transgressor would be a valuable partner.
A log shifted in the fireplace, tossing up sparks and wafting a whiff of ancient fir trees. Phinehas set the Minotaur against the Prophet, but the Prophet, aware of the hands that moved the pieces and foreseeing what was to come, easily escaped via the Daedalus Convention.
And so, let’s face facts. Once one was physically trained and technically proficient, Pure Class Wrestling was nothing more than an exercise in strategy and PsyOps. Some preferred to distract on the entrance ramp or disturb at ringside. Others loved nothing more than denying, degrading, and discrediting via in-ring and out-of-the-ring “promos”, as the kids called them (though there was not yet an official term for the seemingly endless pontifications that had become common in PCW recently), or sharing the same on the interwebs. There was also the simple ‘destroy’ option, though that could take various forms. There was the coward’s way of attacking from behind (see: Seromine), or having a behemoth coming right at you face-to-face, so as to provide a moment in which to come to terms with the travesty that was about to befall you (see: Dominator’s brutal announcement regarding his intention to pursue the North American title).
Grimm, though he practiced his own peculiar variation of shock-and-awe and was no stranger to hit-and-run guerrilla tactics, did not have the patience or inclination for certain black operations. He would not toy with an opponent with the pomp and circumstance of dressing up like, say, a scarecrow, or tossing out bits of Edgar Allan Poe in hopes of unnerving said foe. There would be no conspiracies of ravens flitting hither and yon. All Grimm would do would be to declare, the Red Death was coming straight at you, in all its blood-dimmed glory. For, while others bounced around other (dare I say, inconsequential) federations, Grimm had long devastated this organization.
While you tried to decide whether you were a motorcycle punk, a dopefiend, or a cult’s strongman…or tried to get a handle on which worked better: presenting yourself as an anarchist, a false prophet, salvation, or a simple family man…well, the Hangtown Horror had been sealing his presence with scarlet stains upon the mat. While nigh on all opponents had cast mad assumptions about him, his age, and his skills, he had remained in his slow and steady movements. He had stalked them and made his deliberate attacks. And they had known despair.
Rain gave way to sleet. It pelted the windows and clattered against the roof. Phinehas took a deep breath of smoke and wood. He swept his arm across the field and knocked all the pieces into the box. Then placed the crows on the board, there after the final turn.
Grimm would be there, Seromine. He would always be there, knowing it would eventually be your turn. An inevitable reckoning. Federation rankings and championships notwithstanding, the Hangtown Horror held everlasting dominion over all.
Phinehas Dillinger raised his glass. He looked through the dark-growing-darker liquid, with foam cascading down the sides, and he saluted the fire.
Before Grimm can turn the full hundred and eighty degrees to face the other man in the ring, he gets his clock cleaned as the end of the wooden bat jams through the ginger beard and connects with Grimm’s jaw…
Wait! There’s more!
Stormm rears back and cracks Grimm across the back with the chair while Grimm is still straddling the guardrail. Stormm lifts the chair back up, then gives Grimm another wince-inducing chairshot. Grimm contorts in pain, arching his back, and he finally extricates his leg, falling off the guardrail back into the aisle with a thump. Stormm, not letting the moment get away, climbs over the guardrail, holding the chair, and waffles Grimm with a final chairshot across the midsection…
Also
Grimm gasps and the crowd winces, but Stormm does not stop there; taking the long cable and wrapping it all around Grimm’s neck, chest and, most importantly, his injured ribs! Hanging off the cable, Stormm quickly falls down to the canvas with Grimm and wraps his legs around the sternum of his opponent for a vice-like body scissors choke, with the cable still around his throat. The sound of Grimm struggling to breathe can be heard quite clearly, and it is a disturbing sound to say the least. Stormm wrenches back with all of the cable as hard as he possibly can, causing the entire roll to tighten around his throat and body. At first, Grimm writhes and wriggles, his arm flapping around like the gills of a dying fish in an effort to escape, but he soon begins to fade…
And let’s not forget
He knows it's now or never to close this match out. Grimm paces over to the ropes and climbs up, going to the top rope and setting himself for a tornado DDT. Grimm catches Stormm by the head, but instead of dragging him down, he is turned onto Stormm's shoulders. Stormm is able to use his greater size and strength to lift Grimm back up, with his left arm over the back of Grimm's head, and his left arm over his left shoulder. Stormm then grabs Grimm's left leg, lifting it up close to Grimm's own torso, and then lifts Grimm up into the cradle suplex position. Stormm then jumps a little, twirls about two hundred and seventy degrees, and falls on his stomach while Grimm is forced to land on his neck, shoulders, and upper back. The crowd explodes in an awed, flabbergasted expulsion of air. Both Stormm and Grimm are laid out.
Neither man is able to move after the long, brutal war we've witnessed. It has taken its toll. Finally, at long last, Stormm starts to move. He meekly rolls onto his side and his fingertips stretch out. He places a weak arm over Grimm's chest.
The referee drops down for a cover…
However, the Iceys showed he was not yet without merit or relevance. And besides…
Seromine makes his way to the ring. He looks up at Stormm, who still hasn't moved since the assault by Dominator. Then, suddenly, he turns his attention to Grimm, who has finally rolled his way out of the ring and has started to make his way back up the ramp. Seromine attacks Grimm from behind!
Seromine takes Grimm down with a clothesline and then he stomps away on him on the floor. Seromine stops his assault only to frantically search around ringside for a weapon. He finally finds one, in the form of a steel chair. Grimm presses himself up to his knees, but he's cracked in the head. Seromine then drives the point of the chair several times into Grimm's spine. Finally, PCW security rush down to the ring…
It goes without saying that would be addressed.
Sooner rather than later.
~~~~~~~~~
Phinehas Dillinger sat at a table in The Owl & Eel. The one in the corner, to the left of the fireplace. Where the scent of burning pine hung heaviest. Near a window, so Phinehas could look out onto morning breaking in Hangtown. The gas lamps still flickered along the cobblestone street, and frost gave a cold, sharp edge to the world. The morning remained dead quiet other than the clink of glass as the barkeep prepared for the day. An occasional wind gusted down the street, rattling windows and threatening to extinguish the lamps.
He sat at the table with a pint of Mandrake’s Old Peculiar in front of him. Or, that is to say, about half a pint, as the rings of foam testified Mr. Dillinger had not only now taken this seat. Phinehas alternated swirling the glass and moving pieces across both sides of a chess board. The board was a thick piece of cardboard with a crease running down the center, and the pieces had been whittled roughly out of wood. It was a chess set that did not insist upon itself.
Center Counter Opening. Scandinavian Defense. Pinning attacks. Forks by each bishop and rook. Phinehas played against himself as a way to focus, to eliminate distractions. It reduced the world around him to its essentials. It allowed him to test out various strategies, to winnow out the weak and ineffectual.
Phinehas paused. He took a sip, then turned his attention to the window. Wreaths dried and shed needles on closed doors. Bayberry candles stood as mere stubs on window sills. No one walked the streets. Not yet. Only shadows moved within the shuttered storefronts as shopkeeps made ready for the day.
“The key,” said Granny, just the other evening, between drags on her pipe, “is to show he’s fallible. That’s he’s nothing more than a liar and a coward and a cheat. That’ll take more than an egregious beating, too.”
She’d said that with pipe embers glowing, and smoke swirling about her head like a veil. Granny’s countenance could make even Grimm uncomfortable at times.
But, still, how astute of her.
Back to the board. Once Phinehas had taken advantage of the Ponziani Opening, it allowed him to work through a King’s Gambit. On to Alekhine’s Gun. The Pocket Mutation. Solomon’s Hexagon. The Cartographer, driven mad by the endless expanse of ivory and ink, moved erratically, confusing the Centaur into committing to a Poisoned Pawn Variation. Of course it had.
Phinehas-as-Grimm would do as Granny had suggested. Eventually. But not just yet, as a tag team match would make it difficult (but not impossible!?) to focus too much of his energies on the Serpentine Sermonizer. There would be others to consider.
The candle flame on his table wavered. It moved around the compass points before resuming its guidance towards north. Wax dripped, forming tiny golem familiars around the candle’s base. Hangtown stood cold, and damp, and gray outside, without the benefit of snow to soften winter’s blow. Nothing but mud and wet leaves for the time being. So Phinehas set the Blind Monkey against the Treacherous Fox, using the Pyramid as cover as it stood there in the middle of the board. Stationary, indifferent, silent. He took up the Minotaur. What next?
Yes, sure, there would be Seromine to consider. But also Holden Ross. Both of them seemingly on the same page, but if history had taught us anything, it’s that neither of them knew what they wanted. Or even who they really were. They definitely couldn’t trust one another, as their loyalties had shifted as much as the direction of the wind. It all depended on how their whims, their desires, pulled them along that night. And Seromine would no doubt have an explanation ready regardless of how the night ended. Which, if Tyler Scott had anything to say about it, would be unpleasant. Grimm had never wished Scott any specific harm. There was no reason the two of them couldn’t coexist for at least one night. And, once again, history was on their side. Tyler Scott had taken the world champion to the very limit. He had the mental and spiritual fortitude necessary to have broken away from a certain cult. The Transgressor would be a valuable partner.
A log shifted in the fireplace, tossing up sparks and wafting a whiff of ancient fir trees. Phinehas set the Minotaur against the Prophet, but the Prophet, aware of the hands that moved the pieces and foreseeing what was to come, easily escaped via the Daedalus Convention.
And so, let’s face facts. Once one was physically trained and technically proficient, Pure Class Wrestling was nothing more than an exercise in strategy and PsyOps. Some preferred to distract on the entrance ramp or disturb at ringside. Others loved nothing more than denying, degrading, and discrediting via in-ring and out-of-the-ring “promos”, as the kids called them (though there was not yet an official term for the seemingly endless pontifications that had become common in PCW recently), or sharing the same on the interwebs. There was also the simple ‘destroy’ option, though that could take various forms. There was the coward’s way of attacking from behind (see: Seromine), or having a behemoth coming right at you face-to-face, so as to provide a moment in which to come to terms with the travesty that was about to befall you (see: Dominator’s brutal announcement regarding his intention to pursue the North American title).
Grimm, though he practiced his own peculiar variation of shock-and-awe and was no stranger to hit-and-run guerrilla tactics, did not have the patience or inclination for certain black operations. He would not toy with an opponent with the pomp and circumstance of dressing up like, say, a scarecrow, or tossing out bits of Edgar Allan Poe in hopes of unnerving said foe. There would be no conspiracies of ravens flitting hither and yon. All Grimm would do would be to declare, the Red Death was coming straight at you, in all its blood-dimmed glory. For, while others bounced around other (dare I say, inconsequential) federations, Grimm had long devastated this organization.
While you tried to decide whether you were a motorcycle punk, a dopefiend, or a cult’s strongman…or tried to get a handle on which worked better: presenting yourself as an anarchist, a false prophet, salvation, or a simple family man…well, the Hangtown Horror had been sealing his presence with scarlet stains upon the mat. While nigh on all opponents had cast mad assumptions about him, his age, and his skills, he had remained in his slow and steady movements. He had stalked them and made his deliberate attacks. And they had known despair.
Rain gave way to sleet. It pelted the windows and clattered against the roof. Phinehas took a deep breath of smoke and wood. He swept his arm across the field and knocked all the pieces into the box. Then placed the crows on the board, there after the final turn.
Grimm would be there, Seromine. He would always be there, knowing it would eventually be your turn. An inevitable reckoning. Federation rankings and championships notwithstanding, the Hangtown Horror held everlasting dominion over all.
Phinehas Dillinger raised his glass. He looked through the dark-growing-darker liquid, with foam cascading down the sides, and he saluted the fire.
