Post by Stormm on Dec 3, 2020 22:54:21 GMT -5
Running a hand through his beard, the man who for the last several years fought his way off the streets of Lansing to an apartment in Detroit, and all the way to the Nation’s capital, stood on the front porch of a cliche perfect American house. Green grass and trees surrounded by a white picket fence, a mailbox out front with the name Meyer on the side, a large covered porch in front of the two story home in the suburbs of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
His left hand remained clenched, not necessarily into a fist, but perhaps grasping onto something important. With the hand he had corrected his braided hair several times, and run through his beard just as many, finally worked up the courage to ring the doorbell.
Unsure why he was there, all he knew was that the woman he followed back to that very house a few days prior had sparked something within him that he didn’t know was there. A memory of a memory long forgotten, but once again found. Her name, he still drew blanks on, and was still very much in the dark as to how they may have known each other.
As he impatiently waited for someone to answer the door, he knocked hesitantly to accompany ringing the doorbell a second time and unclenched his left fist enough to peek at the trinket that he still had that matched the memory the woman had sparked.
Just as he was about to give up on anyone being home, the front door cracked open, and the softest, most innocent voice he could ever remember hearing answered. “Hello?”
The sight of a child was a shock to the man, for unknown reasons, and he smiled. “Hey there.” He said, still caught off-guard by the little brunette girl staring up at him with her emerald green eyes. “Is your mom home?” He asked.
She smiled up at the man and nodded her head, and with no mistrust at all, turned and scampered back off inside the house, leaving the front door just cracked. From within the home he could hear the woman’s daughter calling out for her. “Mom! There’s a giant at the door who said he’s here to rescue you!” Her summon was followed by the sweetest little giggle.
“Your imagination never stops, does it?” A woman’s voice called back out to the little girl with a chuckle, as footsteps could be heard making their way to the front. “Kayden, what have I told you about leaving the door open like this? And go tell Christopher that dinner is almost ready!” She yelled out to her daughter once moor as she glanced through the crack in the front door as she went to close it, but did not expect to actually see a man standing there.
“Oh my.” She was startled, but quickly opened the door further. “I’m so sorry, you startled me. I didn’t expect anyone to actually be there.” She admitted. “Can I help you?”
Her voice remained calm, and nothing about the first impression suggested that she knew who the man was at all. The only thing noticeable, other than the shock of him standing there, was a slight wide-eyed look as she looked up at the large man standing before her. “I’m honestly not sure that you can.” He said to her, and her amazement turned to guarded curiosity as he noticed the door close ever so slightly. “Do I look familiar to you at all?”
She took a moment to collect herself, but the peaceful and friendly nature of the neighborhood in which she lived, still didn’t cause her any alarm, and she did her best to be civil and helpful. “Sorry, sir, I can’t say that you do.” Her voice trailed off a little towards the end of her statement, as a man she hadn’t thought of in years popped back into her head. “Though, I can’t say I’ve seen too many guys your size this up close before.” Her voice cracked.
From inside the house, an adult male’s voice could be heard calling out for the woman. “Hey Kyra, how long before grub?”
She signed, but quickly answered back. “Ten or fifteen minutes.” There was no answer back, just the sound of a door closing somewhere in the home.
Nodding his head, as the situation continued to play out in the unfavorable way he pictured it in his head, the only hope he had was the memento that he’d held onto all those years would somehow tie everything together. Everything from a past life that had been lost or taken from him, would come rushing back. “What about this, does this look familiar to you at all?”
Opening his large hand, he revealed the memento that he’d had a death grip on the whole time. A silver locket, larger than most average lockets that are worn on chains around your neck, this one was shaped like a flattened diamond, no point on the bottom. On the face of the silver memory were two K’s, side by side, with the second one mirrored next to the first.
The woman’s mouth dropped, and before her gaze could even shift from the locket back up to the man’s eyes, tears had started to form in her eyes. She reached out with her right hand and placed it on the man’s forearm.
Her touch, her name, and the names of her children; they were a combination to a locked safe of memories that flooded back into his mind. Instantly, gaps of his life filled in, but not just of memories he knew for sure were real, but also of some memories that had been suppressed for years, and again were revealed to him. She moved her hand down to the locket, and while he was still grasping it, she too grabbed ahold of it as well, and they both smiled at each other.
“K-Kaden?!” Her voice quivered as she asked.
“That’s not who I am anymore.” He proclaimed, letting go of the keepsake that the both of them had both latched onto. Nudging her chin with his thumb and forefinger, he shook his head. “I’m not sure that’s who I ever was.” He continued to recall memories with his former companion, as memories he wasn’t sure were even his own continued to pour in as well.
“All this time, I…” She paused. “I thought you were…” Kyra couldn’t even finish her thought.
“Me too.” He admitted. “Me too.”
...Shadow of the One That Got Away...
(Needle in a Haystack)
So it came down to that. A giant named Finn Dahl was the lucky winner of the Once in a Lifetime Raffle at Faithful Friday, and it didn’t take me long into the beating he gave me to figure out the real identity of the man trying to hand me my own ass on a silver platter. Or a gold plate, if you will, because, you know, the World title and all that.
He took out years of frustration on me in one brutal fifteen minute beatdown to close out the show, and despite the first couple minutes of that being spent wondering what the hell was going on, the only thing I could think of in the end was.
He’s alive!
What happened to his blonde hair? Nice beard! What are you, some kind of Viking now? Who the hell is Finn Dahl? What happened after you got admitted into Southwind? Dr. Sorrow is dead.
The number of other things that I could have wanted to ask him, or tell him, maybe let him know I never stopped thinking about him, and how I was glad to see him again. It didn’t really matter. What mattered was he was alive, and if he was angry with me, then he had every right to take it out on me.
Don’t get me wrong, it felt like the man had grown three to four inches since I had last seen him, and put on about thirty pounds, because he was definitely more of a beast than what I remember him being during our sparring sessions all those years ago. But he was “back” and I had found him. Or, well, he found me, technically, but the search had finally come to an end.
He wasn’t much for talking after the fact, though, so there were still some questions that I had. First on that list was definitely the whole Finn Dahl / Kaden Calix multiple identity nonsense that had been going in circles for most of the year. However, one thing he did say while beating me to a pulp stuck in my mind. “You took her from me!”
While I could have tried to wait his anger out, I’m not so sure that was going to be possible, especially given those last five words I remember him saying. So there was really only one thing I could do, find Kyra Macaria. Or as I would soon realize, I would need to find Kyra Meyer.
With the usual Pure Class Wrestling Holiday Break on the horizon, I could have just as easily waited for that to spend some time trying to figure things out and mend fences, but I’m sure you know your old man well enough by now to know I’m not one for waiting around.
What else did I have to do at that time? Prepare to face Grimm for the umpteenth time? That door had been opened and closed so many times, it squeaked everytime you just walked by it. Don’t get me wrong, when it came to heat between two superstars in PCW, he and I may not have burned as bright as some, but we had certainly burned for longer than the rest. Our flame just needed to be stoked once in a while to add life to it.
I suppose this being just the third time that Stormm and Grimm had stepped into the squared circle, one on one, for the Pure Class Wrestling World Championship, was more than enough to bring that smoldering pyre to a roaring blaze. It was the rubber match after all. Grimm had won the first contest at the very pay-per-view they were about to meet at once again, Collision Course, but the first time was thirteen years prior. The second was just the year before that at Deadly Intentions when I had won the second contest to claim my second World Championship.
The best preparation to face Grimm is no preparation at all, as he’s never been one to be predictable inside of the ring. So without a need to really plan a strategy inside of the ring, conditioning and strength could be done anytime, and anywhere.
So, off to Myrtle Beach we went.
Kyra was Kaden’s, or as we were still figuring out, Finn’s, ex-fiance. They were together for years before he came to the states from Greece, and all the way up until Dr. Sorrow imprisoned him in Southwind Gardens, when all I was trying to do was get him some relief from things that had been troubling him mentally.
She wasn’t as strong as she had hoped to be after he disappeared, and after a while, just assumed him dead, and moved on with her life. She met her now husband a couple years afterward, and that’s all history. She had not truly forgotten, though, as I quickly found out, when her son and daughter were given names in honor of the man she assumed to be gone forever. Just some tidbits from the visit your mother and I had with her.
Oh, I should mention, she slapped me too when she first answered the door, but was more receptive to a conversation afterwards.
Come to find out, he had actually visited her a year or two before the Trauma incident. Gave her back a little trinket that he had held onto from their time together. She invited him to stay for dinner, and it was there that he retold the tale of how, up until literally standing face to face with her again, he had lost big chunks of his life from the past decade, and while he appreciated knowing he had gone by the name Kaden in the past, he had spent years not really even having a name. Not only that, but for the years while he was underground fighting, he didn’t even really have a name, just a stage presence.
But even if Kyra knew him as Kaden in a previous life, there were also a bunch of new memories coming back to him that suggested who he was when she knew him before, wasn’t even truly who he really was.
The name Finn Dahl never came up in their discussion though, so that must have been something new he either picked up, or had come back to him at some point over the couple of years between his visit with her and the time when he and I finally met face to face.
It was funny to see the look on her husband, Liam’s, face as he heard her recall stories with Kaden in the past, and reliving his visit. I could tell he was not thrilled with it at all, but even my size towered over and intimidated him some, so you’d have to imagine Kaden, I mean Finn, standing three inches taller than me over him too.
That’s neither here nor there though.
Our visit with her did fill in a lot of what was missing from our search, but there were still some unknowns that would bug me until I could talk to him directly, and figure out. I imagine there was a bit of that same feeling for him too, as he seemingly had memories he didn’t even know he had coming back to him. Likely another of Dr. Sorrow’s tricks that he continued to play from the grave.
Thing was, after our little scrap, he disappeared again. His apartment in Detroit was years in his past, and the underground fighting scene in D.C. had all but dissolved by the time we got there looking for him, probably due to his massive winnings and thrown match as he left town.
I knew there’d be at least one more chapter in the Kaden Calix and Finn Dahl story, but at that time, there was comfort in knowing he was alive and somewhat well.
So it was on to continue defending the World title against Grimm at Collision Course. Fighting for a title reign that was coming close to rivaling my record setting North America title reign a few years beforehand. I was not looking for a reason to lose the title, on the contrary, I hoped to hold it for as long, if not longer than I held the North American title. If and when my reign were to come to its conclusion, because every champion falls eventually, perhaps that would be the time that I could work to shed some more light on the Finn Dahl story.
Perhaps.
He took out years of frustration on me in one brutal fifteen minute beatdown to close out the show, and despite the first couple minutes of that being spent wondering what the hell was going on, the only thing I could think of in the end was.
He’s alive!
What happened to his blonde hair? Nice beard! What are you, some kind of Viking now? Who the hell is Finn Dahl? What happened after you got admitted into Southwind? Dr. Sorrow is dead.
The number of other things that I could have wanted to ask him, or tell him, maybe let him know I never stopped thinking about him, and how I was glad to see him again. It didn’t really matter. What mattered was he was alive, and if he was angry with me, then he had every right to take it out on me.
Don’t get me wrong, it felt like the man had grown three to four inches since I had last seen him, and put on about thirty pounds, because he was definitely more of a beast than what I remember him being during our sparring sessions all those years ago. But he was “back” and I had found him. Or, well, he found me, technically, but the search had finally come to an end.
He wasn’t much for talking after the fact, though, so there were still some questions that I had. First on that list was definitely the whole Finn Dahl / Kaden Calix multiple identity nonsense that had been going in circles for most of the year. However, one thing he did say while beating me to a pulp stuck in my mind. “You took her from me!”
While I could have tried to wait his anger out, I’m not so sure that was going to be possible, especially given those last five words I remember him saying. So there was really only one thing I could do, find Kyra Macaria. Or as I would soon realize, I would need to find Kyra Meyer.
With the usual Pure Class Wrestling Holiday Break on the horizon, I could have just as easily waited for that to spend some time trying to figure things out and mend fences, but I’m sure you know your old man well enough by now to know I’m not one for waiting around.
What else did I have to do at that time? Prepare to face Grimm for the umpteenth time? That door had been opened and closed so many times, it squeaked everytime you just walked by it. Don’t get me wrong, when it came to heat between two superstars in PCW, he and I may not have burned as bright as some, but we had certainly burned for longer than the rest. Our flame just needed to be stoked once in a while to add life to it.
I suppose this being just the third time that Stormm and Grimm had stepped into the squared circle, one on one, for the Pure Class Wrestling World Championship, was more than enough to bring that smoldering pyre to a roaring blaze. It was the rubber match after all. Grimm had won the first contest at the very pay-per-view they were about to meet at once again, Collision Course, but the first time was thirteen years prior. The second was just the year before that at Deadly Intentions when I had won the second contest to claim my second World Championship.
The best preparation to face Grimm is no preparation at all, as he’s never been one to be predictable inside of the ring. So without a need to really plan a strategy inside of the ring, conditioning and strength could be done anytime, and anywhere.
So, off to Myrtle Beach we went.
Kyra was Kaden’s, or as we were still figuring out, Finn’s, ex-fiance. They were together for years before he came to the states from Greece, and all the way up until Dr. Sorrow imprisoned him in Southwind Gardens, when all I was trying to do was get him some relief from things that had been troubling him mentally.
She wasn’t as strong as she had hoped to be after he disappeared, and after a while, just assumed him dead, and moved on with her life. She met her now husband a couple years afterward, and that’s all history. She had not truly forgotten, though, as I quickly found out, when her son and daughter were given names in honor of the man she assumed to be gone forever. Just some tidbits from the visit your mother and I had with her.
Oh, I should mention, she slapped me too when she first answered the door, but was more receptive to a conversation afterwards.
Come to find out, he had actually visited her a year or two before the Trauma incident. Gave her back a little trinket that he had held onto from their time together. She invited him to stay for dinner, and it was there that he retold the tale of how, up until literally standing face to face with her again, he had lost big chunks of his life from the past decade, and while he appreciated knowing he had gone by the name Kaden in the past, he had spent years not really even having a name. Not only that, but for the years while he was underground fighting, he didn’t even really have a name, just a stage presence.
But even if Kyra knew him as Kaden in a previous life, there were also a bunch of new memories coming back to him that suggested who he was when she knew him before, wasn’t even truly who he really was.
The name Finn Dahl never came up in their discussion though, so that must have been something new he either picked up, or had come back to him at some point over the couple of years between his visit with her and the time when he and I finally met face to face.
It was funny to see the look on her husband, Liam’s, face as he heard her recall stories with Kaden in the past, and reliving his visit. I could tell he was not thrilled with it at all, but even my size towered over and intimidated him some, so you’d have to imagine Kaden, I mean Finn, standing three inches taller than me over him too.
That’s neither here nor there though.
Our visit with her did fill in a lot of what was missing from our search, but there were still some unknowns that would bug me until I could talk to him directly, and figure out. I imagine there was a bit of that same feeling for him too, as he seemingly had memories he didn’t even know he had coming back to him. Likely another of Dr. Sorrow’s tricks that he continued to play from the grave.
Thing was, after our little scrap, he disappeared again. His apartment in Detroit was years in his past, and the underground fighting scene in D.C. had all but dissolved by the time we got there looking for him, probably due to his massive winnings and thrown match as he left town.
I knew there’d be at least one more chapter in the Kaden Calix and Finn Dahl story, but at that time, there was comfort in knowing he was alive and somewhat well.
So it was on to continue defending the World title against Grimm at Collision Course. Fighting for a title reign that was coming close to rivaling my record setting North America title reign a few years beforehand. I was not looking for a reason to lose the title, on the contrary, I hoped to hold it for as long, if not longer than I held the North American title. If and when my reign were to come to its conclusion, because every champion falls eventually, perhaps that would be the time that I could work to shed some more light on the Finn Dahl story.
Perhaps.
