Land of Shadows (2.06) Shadow of the Caged Bear

[Stormm]

The crowd had crammed into the area surrounding the square cage, much like every first Friday night of the month for the last couple of years, in one of the city’s many abandoned buildings. The location was never the same, nor was the time of night.

To prevent too much attention being drawn to their location, the number of fights they held were kept relatively small, three or four depending on the amount of interest, but there was always the featured fight at the end of the night. An undefeated fighter from previous months facing off against someone the high rollers pay to bring in to try and dethrone the champion.

It had been nine months since the man standing in the middle of the cage showed up and made the previous champion tap out in forty-five seconds, so all the money being tossed around that night was in his favor.

Two men in suits, standing near the back and out of all the commotion, had other ideas, though, as they both placed the maximum bet of ten grand hoping a new champion would be crowned that night. The smiles on their faces suggested easy money, but the man with the blue mohawk standing in the cage was likely thinking the same thing, given his track record.

“Ladies and gentlemen, he’s been in this spot for months, a perfect nine and zero, and if your bets suggest anything, he’s looking to make it ten in a row!” A man in a suit, likely the same one he wore to his office job that day, circled the defending champion with a microphone in hand. “He’s your hometown hero, from right here in Detroit, he’s the most dominant champion we’ve ever had, you all know him, you all love him, he is The Destroyer!”

The champion raised his taped hands into the air, and let loose a battle cry that rivaled the noise from the crowd before ripping his tank top off and tossing it over the cage, out into the sea of people.

Pulling a piece of paper from his jacket pocket, the announcer continued the introductions to the night’s main event. “Of the handful of people here that don’t believe the destruction our champion has left in this cage every time he’s stepped foot inside of it, our challenger for tonight has actually, for the first time ever, bet on himself.” The crowd began to boo the challenger’s introduction. “From the dirty and depraved streets of Lansing, looking to be the first to make it past the first round with our champion, folks, give a Detroit welcome to…”

Pausing at the name of the man about to step in the cage, he looked over to the two men in suits at the back, still with smiles on their face, and they both nodded.

“Detroit! Feast your eyes on Chaos!”

The jeers that followed were silenced almost immediately when the monster that accompanied the name appeared from the staging area, and began making his way towards the cage. He towered over everyone in attendance, and when he finally made it into the cage, the smile on the champion’s face had faded as he even stood three to four inches above him as well.

Just as soon as the cage was closed and locked up, the bell rang, and the fight was underway. The Destroyer wasted no time going on the offensive, looking to end another fight in less than a minute. A quick left jab that was blocked, followed by another left and a quick right, both of which were deflected as well, and the champion moved in for a grapple on the larger man, who effortlessly pushed the champion away from him.

A smile came to the champ’s face and with both hands, motioned for the challenger to make his move. But before he could finish taunting, the larger man, with an obvious reach advantage, let a right hand fly that connected with nearly the whole left side of the champion’s face, and he dropped to the ground in a heap.

The cheers, the boos, all replaced by gasps and then silence. The large man just stood there as the referee moved in to check on the fallen, but had not yet officially stopped the match. Looking past the strands of hair that dangled over his face, Chaos ran both hands through his beard, and looked at the men who brought him here. They both nodded again, just like they had before at the announcer, and he took it as all the permission he needed, and moved in on the downed champion.

Before he could get his mitts on the fallen, the referee tried to stand in his way, and wave off the match, but Chaos only had one thing in mind as he grabbed a handful of mohawk, and stood the man up to inflict more punishment.

It took a handful of grown men to pry the former champion from his hands, and hold him back, as the announcer re-entered the cage with The Destroyer being carried out. “There you have it everyone, we have ourselves a new champion!” Everyone was still in shock, not just with how quickly the match was over, but also likely at the fact that most of them had just lost a lot of money, so the reactions were very mixed at best, if not non-existent. “If I were a betting man, and I am, I wouldn’t bet against this man moving forward! Chaos, do you have anything to say to the city of Detroit?”


Holding the microphone up to the man, he only smiled while his heavy breathing was transmitted over the speaker system. His gaze turned back to the suits, and he simply nodded back at them.

...Shadow of the Caged Bear...

Alright you two, you’ve seen your mom mad, and then you’ve seen her “mad”, so when I say she was not happy with me, think of the few times when you’ve seen her get really scary. They are few and far between, but this was one of them.

“Hell in a Cell?” Lindsay questioned, and not for the first time, as the two climbed the stairs of a cheap apartment building in downtown Detroit, Michigan. “Either you have lost your mind, or Jason really did knock some screws loose!”

Justin continued to hear his wife berate him, but wasn’t really listening to her. It was hard to pay attention to anything other than the sound of her losing her breath with each flight of stairs they climbed. By the time they reached the fourth floor, she could barely speak, but she didn’t let that stop her. “If that crazy son of a bitch wasn’t motivated enough by taking the World title away from you, you sprinkle his career being on the line on top?” Needless to say, it had been a couple weeks of that nonstop for the Force of Nature. “If you walk out there on Sunday it’ll be a miracle!”

Perhaps it was the constant scolding, or the bright idea to drive to Detroit as a family (Izzy included), or even just all the dirt in the air in the apartment building, but Justin finally had enough. “So, that’s it, I’m going to lose on Sunday?!” He stopped and turned to his wife, finally unable to bite his tongue anymore. “The way you talk about this match has got to be the most irrational fucking thing I’ve heard come from any Matthews’ mouth, and that’s including your brother!” He snapped.

“You did not…” Lindsay began to lash back, but at that point, he was not having any of it.

“Did not, what?” He questioned rhetorically. “I’m tired of your negativity and lack of support, something mostly out of character for you. I’m well aware that matches like this aren’t in my wheelhouse, but they never have been for him either.” Justin continued to defend himself. “If you think putting his career on the line inside of a big steel cage is the only reason Willard has to try and put me on the shelf permanently, then you haven’t been paying close enough attention!”

The metallic sounds of a key going in and turning a deadbolt can be heard, and the Michaels turn their attention to the woman who escorted the couple up the stairs. “This is it, I’ll give you fifteen minutes to look around, and maybe figure yourselves out, and I will be back.”

“Thanks Rita.” Lindsay said as the silver-haired landlord pushed past, and made her way back down the stairs, as her glare returned to her husband’s face.

I knew I was in for it when I snapped back at her, but you know your mother, when she feels strongly about something, and wants you to know it, you definitely know about it. Thing was, if she would have shown just the smallest bit of confidence in me that I could win the match, it would have never gotten to the point it did. I didn’t demand Jason put his career on the line inside of a cell because I wanted him to paralyze or kill me, like she was making it out to be. I did it to put him and I on a level playing field when the time came for a match twenty years in the making.

Walking into the apartment, they were greeted with something very unexpected. Plastered all over the walls were newspaper clippings, accompanied with handwritten notes in black sharpie directly on the walls. There were exactly three pieces of furniture in the living room area; a recliner, a side table, and a bed.

On the far wall, nothing but different sizes and styles of question marks had been drawn from ceiling to floor. “Holy shit.” Justin gulped.

“I’m not letting you off the hook that easily!” Lindsay shrieked, not letting Justin forget what they were talking about, as if he needed to be reminded about the only conversation they’ve had for the last ten days. “And it has nothing to do with my lack of confidence in you, it’s just…”

“That’s exactly what it is, and it’s been getting worse for the last three years!” Justin snapped one last time. “I’m not getting any younger, I know. We are about to have our third kid, I know. I can’t do the same shit now that I did in my twenties, or even thirties, I know!” The Stormm of the present knew of his limitations in comparison to what the Stormm of old could do, being reminded of that was no easy thing to hear, and apparently had finally worn through. “Maybe this will be the last match my body can handle, maybe it’ll be three years from now, or maybe in seven months, I don’t know when it’ll be, and neither do you, but when the time comes, I will know when enough is enough!”

Lindsay let out a heavy sigh as she placed both hands on her stomach, to which was quickly approaching that “ready to pop any day now” look. “Yes, the time will come when it comes, but why do you have to push on the accelerator so hard with a match like this?” Lindsay questioned, still not having fully looked around at everything that Justin had been trying to take in.

“Because I’d rather go full tilt, and have people remember Stormm for not backing down and doing what had to be done, than some easy road wrestler that skated by.” He admitted. “I’m leaving it all in the ring now, because I don’t want to be a beaten and broken down past-my-prime wrestler still trying to do this in my fifties because I think I still have something left in the tank!”

Justin continued to mostly be focused on the writing on the walls, literally, while Lindsay simply followed him around the apartment. The signs of a crazy man’s obsession weren’t limited to the living room as the Force of Nature meandered into the kitchen. Most of the newspaper articles were about the evasive secret fighting ring in Detroit, as well as the unknown vigilante that had started to derail petty criminals in the city. A lot of the clippings were duplicates, but still there nevertheless.

Not only did he stop to glance at each clipping, but just to be sure, Justin also checked the drawers, cabinets, and even in the refrigerator too.

“If Hell in a Cell cuts one or two matches off at the end of my career, well then, so be it, I’ll make sure everything to that point was the best fucking match possible!” His voice echoed from within the open fridge.

“Really?” Lindsay questioned.

“Seems like a pretty straight-forward mentality to me.” Justin suggested.

“No, I mean looking in the fridge. Really?”

“You never know.” He said with a smirk before closing the door to the mostly empty chill box. “The way this place looks, I can’t imagine he was only here for two years before disappearing.” Changing the subject, Justin started to move towards the back of the apartment where the actual bedroom was.

“Who pays for ten years worth of rent up front?” Lindsay questioned. “Why didn’t he just buy a house or something?”

It was a very curious situation for the both of them. “Hard to get inside the head of someone who can’t remember anything, and had already been living on his own without memory for that long, but likely had some connection to this being the first constant in his life after seemingly losing everything.”

Lindsay finally started to turn her attention to the situation at hand, as it was the first time Justin had been able to step inside of Kaden Calix’s world in over a decade. Not only had she come to the conclusion that she was being excessively hard on her husband, but the intrigue of her husband’s search was starting to build as he continued to get closer.

Just as she started to read into a cluster of articles surrounding a silhouette drawing of a man’s head accompanied with a large beard and two scars where the right eye would be, Lindsay turned her attention to her husband.

“What, the, fuck?!” He questioned loudly, not just out of shock, but also as a means to get Lindsay interested enough to come to the back as well.

As she walked into the empty bedroom, she was just as shocked as Justin was when she saw what her husband was standing in front of. Much like the rest of the apartment, it was empty. The closet doors were left open to a barren storage space, and three of the four walls were left untouched, but the one wall with no doors or windows, a large Nordic knot design had been painted. “Is that, I don’t even know what that is.” Lindsay admitted.

“Half axe. Half hammer. Sound familiar?” Justin asked as he pulled a couple of the photos off the wall that surrounded the symbol. There were no newspaper articles there, just a menagerie of photos of other people that Kaden may have come in contact with.

“Isn’t that one of the only legible things in that Finn Dahl file you got from ‘his’ place?” Lindsay’s eyes widened as it finally hit her too. “Wait, what the Hell?” She quickly asked.

Justin tapped his nose with his right pointer finger as Lindsay made her way beside him. “I guess I’m not just looking for Kaden anymore, this Finn Dahl fella is a part of it now too. He is either the key to finding Kaden, or finding Kaden will lead to finding him and unlocking another piece of the puzzle I didn’t even know existed.” With a heavy sigh, he handed one of the photos to Lindsay. “I guess this is who we need to talk to next, though.”

“Is that?” Lindsay’s eyes widened even further.

“How long has it been since the kids have seen their aunt?”

We hadn’t seen Morgan in a while as she kind of always just did her own thing. But finding that picture of her on Kaden’s old apartment wall was shocking, and continued to make the search for him that much more complex, and interesting.