A cross roads

[Gerard Angelo]

Things were awful around here.

At least that was the thought running through Gerry’s head as he sat in the dimly lit [redacted] hotel room he was staying at in California. He got told he had to leave the hospital due to the risk of being infected with coronavirus. Gerard reluctantly left, but not before being assured up and down that Jonathan would be kept safe. It had not been a good two weeks for the self-proclaimed Living Legend. Not only did his mentor have a terrible accident that left him in a coma, but Gerry also couldn’t even take the World title from Stormm. Now he sat, half in the dark, thinking about what had gone wrong in the match over and over again.

Gerry lifted the bottle of Jim Beam to his lips, the cap long ago chucked across the room, tilting his head upwards as he guzzled down the brown liquid until the bottle was empty. He kept it up, trying to get every last bit of whiskey before giving up and dropping it onto the carpet with a soft thud. Was he just not good enough anymore? In his two years in PCW, he had only 3 big wins. Every other time he had come up short.

Once again he was contemplating retirement. The formation of Pandaemonium helped rejuvenate him a bit, but the whole point of the group was to dominate Pure Class Wrestling as a whole. And since the formation of the group both Holden and David lost their respective titles, both of them injured, and Gerard had lost to Justin Michaels twice. It almost seemed like Gerry was cursed and brought down awful things on whoever was close to him. Much like what happened with Jonathan.

And now this week he gets to team with his returning protege against Grimm and Brenna Gordon. God, that girl just won’t give it up. She still thinks she was wronged at Deadly Intentions, when intact she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. She thought she was a thorn in Pandaemonium side but most she was a fly buzzing around the head of a great beast. Annoying and useless, but not a threat like she thought. Brenna was trying to attach herself to something to make herself relevant when in reality she’s simply a card filler. Gerry still regrets the day they, as a unit, jumped her and took her out. Not because he felt bad, far from it in fact, but because now she has an excuse to bother him even more now.

Yet Grimm was the one that was intriguing here. The man that Gerard Angelo couldn’t beat. Hell, that wasn’t that big of a deal these days. Gerard couldn’t beat half of the big names in PCW. Gerard was washed up, and Grimm was the one who showed him almost exactly a year ago. Now Gerard could use this as motivation. Try to get his career back on track after another devastating loss.

But what was the point, he thought to himself. Barely anyone could beat Grimm, and Brenna was going to come in as motivated as possible to “get one over on the bad guys”, or whatever lame cliche she was gonna use this week. Gerard was gonna show up, half because he was contractually obligated and a half because he wasn’t going to leave David on his own. But his heart wasn’t into it.

Gerard Angelo didn’t feel like Gerard Angelo anymore.

And it scared him.

Suddenly, Gerry’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled his iPhone from his dirty jeans and looked at the message ribbon. It was from Kara.

Hey… Do you wanna talk?

========

In his lair, Ba’lal cackled to himself, his laugh sounding like the ancient stone of the great tectonic plates scraping along one another. His plan was coming together beautifully. His chosen one would be broken fully before long, and then he would have the perfect host to complete his master plan. His black lips curled into an evil smile, revealing his fangs. Ba’lal would get what he wanted in the end.

He always did.