Land of Shadows (1.10) Shadow of the Long Night

[Stormm]

“Justin, keep your eyes forward!” Jimmy forcefully whispered while two local drug dealers conversed. Both of them had tiny tattoos behind their left ears of what appeared to be black hand prints. The quality of the ink work was not the best, and they had faded significantly, but the shape was unmistakable. “It’s already shady enough that I don’t have you blindfolded or under a hood, if they catch you casing the place, we kiss our best lead goodbye.”

“We’ve been wandering around this, what, city center area all night, and the sun is going to start coming up any minute now. I feel like these guys are just stalling, or more likely, fucking with us.”

One of the drug dealers jerked his head towards the Force of Nature, and produces a knife from beneath his jacket under his left arm, and forcefully slammed his hand gripping the blade on Justin’s collar bone. He could feel the sharp edge, even if it wasn’t directly touching the skin next to his jugular, but he did not break eye contact. The gang banger spoke in Chinese, and Jimmy did his best to translate.

“He said there’s a village north of here, outside of…” Jimmy’s voice trails as he tries to understand what is being said. “Outside of Songpan, I think.” Rubbing the tiredness and frustration away from his face, the former agent continues to try and follow along. “Something about buried eyes? No, that can’t be right.”

Sensing Jimmy’s frustrations, Justin shifted his weight from one leg to the other to distract the Black Hand grunt. The movement put both Chinese men on alert enough to give Jimmy enough time to correctly translate the last couple sentences. Holding his hands up to show he’s not looking for trouble, Justin cocked his head towards Jimmy to signal to the drug dealers to continue talking.

...Shadow of the Long Night...

Yeah, your old man had done it. He’s called out the most feared competitor in Pure Class Wrestling history, and not only that, but came out on top! It was time to celebrate, but it was also time to get even more serious. It was probably an even bigger victory than my first, when I beat Loki in that cage match. But I wasn’t about to lose focus like I did the first time, and lose the belt in my first defense either. But in order to focus more on the wrestling, there were still some things I needed to figure out, so I could stop worrying about the nuisance that Kinzo had been that entire year.

“Coward!”

Of every word used to describe him for the past two years, rarely if ever has that one been said so emphatically. It was easy to call out the old man who didn’t have what it took to lead the federation as its World Champion in the past eight years. It didn’t take any effort at all to claim he was only inserting himself into the title picture as a way to try and stay relevant.

Words from people who weren’t cut out for the ups and downs of the business.

Words from those that could only hope for a fraction of the success without seeking out the lackluster talent of smaller market territorial federations.

Words from everyone who wanted what Stormm had, but would never, themselves, have.

But when the Force of Nature finally proved all of those naysayers wrong, that word became the first one to describe him as the new “face” of Pure Class Wrestling. Not only that, but to have been said by someone who, themselves, had run away from the federation after a long list of shortcomings, but still had the audacity and nerve to point that finger in his direction.

It struck him differently than all the rest.

“Coward!”

Like everything else he’d heard in the past twenty-four months, the Force of Nature knew it wasn’t true. Nobody who willingly called out the Hangtown Horror had ever been mistaken as cowardly; stupid if anything, but never scared.

Obviously anger causes people to say and do irrational things, think the worst of any situation, and act before the really think. But the way Brenna Gordon said it continued to echo in his mind. It wasn’t fear driving his decision to not march back to the ring after having, himself, endured a battle earlier in the evening and claiming his second World title, but common sense.

Just like he had told her, with Gerard Angelo winning the Deadly Rumble for the second year in a row, his time with them would come, and he didn’t need to prove anything by jumping into the war sooner than he needed to. Not with his family and friends already at ease and elated with the battle he had asked for, he didn’t need them to start worrying again. At least more than he did when he confidently entered the ring with Angelo, Hunter, and Ross after the Deadly Rumble match.

His presence in general prevented them from really causing any more damage than they already had. It might have been different if, after the tainted victory by Gerard, the three of them had continued to lay into her, but she was only pissed because she lost.

But still…

“Coward!”

It shouldn’t have stuck with him for the last two weeks like it had, and maybe it was because of the announcement of their All Hallows’ Eve match together with Rick Majors that caused it to stick in his craw. How would that affect them all in trying to team against the most recent dastardly group to form in PCW?

Stormm was not about to let emotions eat away at the momentum he would need to carry until Collision Course if he was going to have a chance in hell against Gerard Angelo in his first title defense, especially with Hunter and Ross lingering.

A triad with a common goal, all seeing eye to eye, versus a triumvirate filled with animosity and conflict, what could go wrong? There would be plenty of tricks and treats on the next episode of Trauma, that was for certain.

“Forward!”

Snapping out of his thoughts, Justin glanced over to his newfound ally, Jimmy Nguyen, who had been his guide and translator for the last week and a half. The Michaels family had taken a break from their everyday lives and traveled to China to get away from it all, at least, that’s what Lindsay was under the impression of when they left.

Justin had been spending his days with his wife and children exploring, but at night, when Lindsay and the kids were fast asleep, Justin hit the streets of local villages and cities of Sichuan Province on Jimmy’s heels.

All the clues Justin had come across in his fight back against Kinzo Yoshida and the so-called “real” Black Hand, had finally led him to the underbelly of Chengdu. After many long nights the past week, that night had been the longest, as the clues continued to lead them down the right paths.

“Justin, keep your eyes forward.” Jimmy forcefully whispered while two local drug dealers conversed. Both of them had tiny tattoos behind their left ears of what appeared to be black hand prints. The quality of the ink work was not the best, and they had faded significantly, but the shape was unmistakable. “It’s already shady enough that I don’t have you blindfolded or under a hood, if they catch you casing the place, we kiss our best lead goodbye.”

“We’ve been wandering around this, what, city center area all night, and the sun is going to start coming up any minute now. I feel like these guys are just stalling, or more likely, fucking with us.”

One of the drug dealers jerked his head towards the Force of Nature, and produces a knife from beneath his jacket under his left arm, and forcefully slammed his hand gripping the blade on Justin’s collar bone. He could feel the sharp edge, even if it wasn’t directly touching the skin next to his jugular, but he did not break eye contact. The gang banger spoke in Chinese, and Jimmy did his best to translate.

“He said there’s a village north of here, outside of…” Jimmy’s voice trails as he tries to understand what is being said. “Outside of Songpan, I think.” Rubbing the tiredness and frustration away from his face, the former agent continues to try and follow along. “Something about buried eyes? No, that can’t be right.”

Sensing Jimmy’s frustrations, Justin shifted his weight from one leg to the other to distract the Black Hand grunt. The movement put both Chinese men on alert enough to give Jimmy enough time to correctly translate the last couple sentences. Holding his hands up to show he’s not looking for trouble, Justin cocked his head towards Jimmy to signal to the drug dealers to continue talking.

“A Tibetan village in Songpan with signs hidden in plain sight, point towards a hidden path through the mountain.” Jimmy confidently said, as the dealer proceeded to speak in Chinese at them some more. “Follow it to a field? A clearing? A valley, something like that, and there we will find…”

“Find what?” Justin asked as his movements surprised both lowlifes, as he disarmed the man with the knife at his throat, and turned the tides, pressing the blade up against the drug dealer’s neck, and backing him as his cohort up against the wall of the alley they occupied. “What will we find there?”

“The Black Hand monastery, Qin-Lai.” Jimmy answered with a frog in his throat. “Apparently there are hundreds of Black Hand agents and followers there, and he said we have no hope of making it inside.”

Justin smiled as he stared daggers into the drug dealer, who laughed at the supposed misfortune before speaking in broken English towards the Force of Nature. “Little Dragon seek you. Happy for see you. Happy for you see.”

Both men laugh together as Jimmy asks them a question in Chinese, and they both nod their heads. “Apparently he’s been waiting for you.”

Still smiling at the drug dealers, whose faces have gone stone cold again, Justin nods, but also catches a closer look at one of their Black Hand tattoos, and laughs at them, dropping the knife to the ground, and licking his thumb. “We’ll see about that!” He exclaimed, getting into the man’s face, and using his moisten fingertip to wipe away the ink behind his ear.

Drying his thumb and cleaning away the wet ink onto the other Chinese man’s black jacket, he clenched his fist, and the confidence in their faces as quickly turned to fear. Reaching back with his right, and letting the pressure off of the man with his left, they both took off running out of the alley before the situation got any worse for them.

Justin looked back at Jimmy, who looked stunned at how quickly that situation turned for them, and with a simple tilt of his head, Justin had effectively asked him, knowing everything he did about Kinzo to that point, if it was really that surprising?

“Yeah, we will see.”

The closer we got, the more I realized that his whole plan was based on emotional fear and torture. The closer we got, the more I realized how vulnerable he really was. The closer we got, the sloppier he got. He was in a panic, and for good reason! Now, I had run out of time on our vacation, if you two remember that at all, and I wasn’t going to waste our last day, my birthday, on chasing down any more clues. Your mom would have killed me if I ran off one more time, anyway! You see, it would take two more visits that year before the tyranny of Xiaolong’s “real” Black Hand would come to an end. But I’m getting ahead of myself there, I’ll get those stories in a bit.