Survive and Conquer RP

[Andy D]

If anybody cares, here's my rp for the interfet battle royal I've just partaken in - I have a feeling this may be more apreciated and liked here amongst people who know what the hell is going on between Andy and the 2Guys.


This Kind Of Thing Happens To Me All the Time

Sometimes I wonder just how I get into these situations. And then other times I remember… unfortunately

Action Packed Wrestling is hosting a little match that allows wrestlers from outside their organisation to partake in. Pure Class Wrestling, the place where I work, decided to send a couple of our starts to compete in this match. Put of the four competitors our place is sending across, we have our World Champion who decided to backstab his friends, his fans and seemingly everyone else who supported him without any kind of explanation, a guy who has the worst case of bipolar disease making him almost a Jekyll and Hyde kind of guy, and a Drunkard who genuinely believes he’s a pirate.

I don’t know if they sent me to be ‘the normal one’ or if everybody has a completely different opinion on my mental state than I do.

To be fair I wasn’t just selected at random to represent the fed, I volunteered. Or to be more accurately, I was volunteered without my say so. The people who decided to sign me up without my knowledge? My ‘life advisors’, which just to be extra annoying, would actually mean they were doing their jobs.

Ok, let me explain this a bit. I was out of work. I was in denial about being out of work, appearing in the odd match here and there, but in truth I was out of work. Jackle and Menace were some old acquaintances of mine, I used to use them as my training dummies just after I graduated from wrestling school. Menace had been doing some work for PCW as a podcaster (or ‘audio… thing’ as he used to call them) and obviously had some connections within the promotion. Their bright idea (which wasn’t that bright) was to get me to make them money. In simple terms it is actually a good idea. The problem is things is never that simple.

Being former PCW wrestlers themselves, going under the tag team name 2Guys, Jackle and Menace knew that they could get me a spot on the roster if they asked. So they made me an offer I wish I refused. In return for getting me into PCW, they would have to become my ‘life advisors’ which meant they would decide stuff like my wardrobe, entrance, gimmicks and the like. Or at least, that’s what they thought anyway.

Now before you decide on whether this was a good idea or not you need to know a few things about the 2Guys. The biggest and most important thing you need to know is that they’re idiots. They make dumb and dumber look like MIT graduates. Give you an example. The old Joke ‘What’s the capital of France’ and instead of Paris you say the answer is F, because that’s the capital letter in France. The 2Guys said that it was B… because B was the capital letter of Berlin. This made sense to nobody else but them. As I said, stupid

The other thing you should know is that they have little attention span. They constantly change their plans and ideas shortly after making them, sometimes even in the middle of making them. It was this fact that I had counted on when I agreed to let them be my ‘life advisors’ hoping that they’d forget about me in a couple of weeks and everything would all be over.

I’m not that lucky

Hopefully this explains why I was able to be volunteered without consultancy. It might also go to explain what happened one Tuesday afternoon prior to the PPV event. I’d gotten used to these ‘meetings’ that I had been having in my little hideaway. That makes it sound a bit cooler (or creepier) than it actually was. I rent an apartment that’s above a training gym, which I train in quite regularly. Towards the back of the gym were several, often unused rooms. So I’ve basically set up shop in one of them. Turned it into a bit of a locker room, got a bench to lie back and relax on (you’ll find I do that a lot), and there’s a table for my manager to work at.

Lucy Hunt is difficult to describe for me. Sometimes she’s the most amazing person in the world, like when she books me in for promotional tours and leaves days free in the middle for me to relax and have fun. Then there are other times when she’s the devil in disguise, like when she convinced me to take the 2Guys offer to become my life managers.

Most of the time, however, she tended to just sit at her little table, nose buried in a pile of books and papers of stuff I really don’t want to know about, and gets on with her work. We speak about business when needed and other stuff when we feel like it. Otherwise we just tend to let each other get on with whatever we want to get on with.

The 2Guys on the other hand tend to show up when they want, annoy me with whatever inane idea they have at that moment whether I want them to or not, then just leave, with me usually baffled by whatever happened.

Which is exactly what happened that Tuesday. Lucy was working away on whatever she works away at long before I even showed up at the room. I took my usual spot on my bench and lied back. “Don’t get too comfortable” Lucy said without even raising her head “I think Jackle and Menace are planning to drop by”

I groaned. I groaned even louder when they burst through my door with their usual “Andy” Greeting. As they started to kick into their usual spiel, I wondered if they took the time to register if I was there. I later learned that the 2Guys could go on for almost a minute before realising I wasn’t in the room, when they would promptly leave and try again another day. I thought of those times as lucky escapes from then on.

“Have we got an idea for you” Menace said, which translated as ‘Have we got a headache for you’

“Survive and Conquer is coming up soon” Jackle informed, before sighing blissfully “you against 85 other people”

“Man, I wish we could lose against 85 other people” Menace added. I should point out here that the 2Guys wrestling career was based off losing, the knowledge that they were going to lose, and the general enjoyment of losing. The only thing that would be better for them to be in this match would be if they were the last entrants in this match, only one other person who was in the ring who was completely exhausted and even a feather could throw them out of the ring… and for them THEN to lose.

“You realise I’m not planning on losing” I said, finally sitting up on my bench

“Of course not” Menace exclaimed

“We want you to win” Jackle added. The whole reason they wanted to be my life advisors was so that I could win more money wrestling that they could losing. I had to be honest, for a couple of idiots it was a really good plan.

“To help you win” Menace started while I thought ‘here it comes’ “We’ve got you a new gimmick.” Fantastic! And for those of you who don’t know me, that was a sarcastic fantastic (which, I’ve noted down, is a great name for a band). Ever since we started this arrangement the 2Guys have been trying to give me a new gimmick. The problem is that they’ve been trying to give me more and more ridiculous ideas each time.

Case in point, when the 2Guys pulled out a display chart, setting it to a page with a photo shopped image of me in a very brightly coloured pink and yellow costume. Before they even said anything I blurted out “I am not wearing spandex”

“It’s not spandex” Menace started”

“It’s lycra. There’s a difference” Jackle added in the way that those idiots seem to just finish each others sentences “We checked” He added.

“Ok, Ok, Ok.” Menace said in a similar way to Joe Pesci’s character from the lethal weapon movies. “You don’t like that idea, we have other ideas” I groaned again.

“Up next…” Jackle changed the page on the chart. On it was another photo shopped picture, this time with me in a black mask, a hat and a cape. “The mark of Dee!” Jackle said very dramatically

“You’d go around, saving oppressed people and leaving your mark, a D, on all those evil tyrants” Menace explained

“Oppressed people?” I asked “And who would these oppressed people be exactly?”

“Well…” Menace started, and you could literally hear the gears turning in his head. And of course those gears had no teeth so it made things really difficult to come up with an answer.

“Maybe the fans?” Jackle finally chirped up

“Yes” Menace came back excitedly “The fans are always oppressed with high ticket prices and bad confectionary choices”

“Ok,” I started, pausing for a moment “So who would be the oppressor in this situation?”

“The arena managers?” Jackle suggested

“The Promotion heads?” Menace suggested in a similar manor

“Let me get this straight” I started “You wanted me to go around attacking and defacing the people who pay me to appear?”

There was a long pause as the 2Guys looked at each other, silently communicating. “Ok” Menace finally broke the silence “Next idea”

After flipping a couple of pages, Jackle finally spoke out “You know what, you wont like this idea”

“Oh” Was all I could say in response

“Right” Menace confirmed “I mean if you didn’t like our best idea and our second best idea, there’s no way you’d like our third best idea”

“You don’t have any more ideas do you” I stated, seeing through their charade

“Nope” Jackle confirmed

“Those last two ideas took ages to come up with” Menace explained

I sighed, heavily “Why am I doing this?” I rhetorically asked. I was mainly referencing this whole discussion from a couple of people who’s combined IQ is about a quarter of the average persons trying to change, in effect, who I was. The response I got wasn’t assuming my question was rhetorical and was in reference to the upcoming match

“Well you’re in this match for a few reasons” Jackle started

“A lot of reasons in fact” Menace added

“I can think of one very big reason off the top of my head” Jackle added again

“Yeah, that one hundred thousand dollar prize would be really nice to win” I said.

This caught Lucy’s attention, and she looked up in confusion “Isn’t the prize five hundred thousand dollars?” She asked. I immediately looked at the 2Guys who looked like rabbits caught in headlights.

“Err… well” Menace started off “We… err… had to take our twenty percent?”

“Twenty Percent?” Lucy asked “How does twenty percent leave Andy with just a hundred grand?”

“Well, two hundred for me” Jackle started “And another two hundred for him… all that’s left was what we offered Andy”

Ok, first off, they can’t work out percentage but some how still manage to get all three numbers to add up to the actual total. Somehow I felt a calculator had been used.

“Oh well” Lucy sighed “as long as I get my cut I don’t care how you divide up the rest”

“Hey!” I exclaimed, slightly annoyed “Don’t I get a say in this”

“No!” Was the very quick response I got from all three of them, I sighed in defeat.

“How about we start talking strategy” Jackle changed the subject after a few moments silence.

“Oh yeah” Menace excitedly bust out “We have a great strategy for you to use in the match”

“I almost dread to ask” I thought out loud

“Don’t get eliminated” Jackle said with look of beaming pride on his face

I paused, waiting for the rest of their strategy. When nothing was said for about 30 seconds, I finally spoke up “Is that it?” I asked

“No of course not” Menace explained and I sighed in relief. I was about to say ‘for a moment there I was worried, when Menace cut me off “Eliminate other people at every opportunity.” He said with the same look of beaming pride

“As strategies go” I started, diplomatically “It’s a bit obvious.”

“If you don’t try the obvious plans” Jackle started “Your goals may never be obtained” ‘Wow’ I thought ‘that was a bit deep for them’

“This pearl of wisdom was brought to you by the fortune cookie from last nights Chinese meal” Menace said in his best presenter’s voice. Of course the wisest thing they’ve said was from a fortune cookie.

“Its not like you can plan anything more than that anyway” Lucy added with a sense of logic “You don’t know most of the people in the match”

“Except the other people from PCW” Jackle quickly added

“So what,” I calmly responded “It’s not the first time I’ve been in a match against people I don’t know.”

“True” Menace redundantly added

“But this is a lot of people you don’t know. In a match that will probably get crazy very quickly” Lucy again tried to bring down my mood

“This isn’t the first time I’ve been in a crazy match, managed to keep my head and not let the crazy cost me the match”

“He has a point” Jackle threw out

“Lets not forget that you will have to some how survive past all those people you don’t know, and a couple that you do know, heavily exhausted trying to just stay upright when the last entrant finally arrives and still have enough energy to finish off the last few people in order to actually win this” Lucy again pointed out

“Well it’s a good thing that this isn’t the first time I’ve been up against impossible odds, fought through sweat, blood and pain to conquer all opponents despite being almost destroying my body to come out on top and win one of the biggest matches I’ve ever participated in” I proudly said

I looked at the quizzical looks from all three of the other people in the room for a few moments before I finally asked “That’s never happened to me has it?”

“Nope” “No way” “Sorry”

I sighed in defeat, again. But then I brightened up “Maybe this will be different” I said “There’s a first time for everything right? Maybe this will be the first time I overcome insane odds to win a match. Maybe there’ll be a first time where Lucy comes in and doesn’t bury her nose in all that stuff” I waved my hand towards Lucy and her table where she responded with a slightly annoyed look “Maybe there will be a first time where you two would come up with an idea I actually like”

“Maybe there will” Menace said hopefully

“Maybe we’ll go and do that right now!” Jackle added and started to drag Menace out of the room. I sighed in relief at finally getting rid of those two

“Nice job convincing them to go away” Lucy said, obviously annoyed with the 2Guys as much as I was.

“Thanks” I responded “Nice job with the reverse psychology trying to pump me up”

“You noticed that huh?” Lucy playfully said. I moved to lie back down on my bench to relax “Shouldn’t you get back to training” My manager asked me

“I’m suppose to have a 20 minute rest” I said

“You’ve been in here longer than 20 minutes” Lucy shot back

“Yes, but it was dealing with them” I waved my hand to where Jackle and Menace had been standing “That is not restful” Lucy just nodded in agreement and got back to her work.

After a minute or so, I’d picked up a furniture catalogue that had randomly been on the floor. Flicking through the pages I stopped on one. “Wow, this looks interesting” I said out loud. Lucy made some sort of noise to indicate she was listening but still working. “It’s a chair, draped in fabric, which you can have in either black or light brown. Its got four stumps at the bottom raising the base off the ground, its otherwise box shaped with a reclining back, which a footstool then appears from the base when it goes back. Rounded arms and headrest. Eighty five centimetres in width, ninety four centimetres in depth and 97 centimetres in height, although the seat itself is fifty four by fifty four by forty five. The fabric cover is even removable and machine washable.”

Lucy stared at me for a good minute before asking “Why the hell did you tell me that?”

“I don’t know” I started “Just felt like I had to describe something”

“And why the hell is it in metric?” She asked again

“Huh” I muttered in puzzlement before closing the catalogue and staring at its back “You know I might have brought this back from the UK last time I was there” I suggested as an excuse

“Sometimes I think you’re just as stupid as the 2Guys” Lucy said in frustration and irritation. We both looked at each other for a moment

“Nah, that’s not even possible”

[Non Compos Mentis]

I figure since there's already a thread I won't waste space. Here's mine...


Trashcan Hotdogs and Half A Million Dollars

January 22nd 2003
New York City, New York
An Alley Deep and Dark

Smash!

An empty beer bottle hits the alley floor, tumbling from the stuffed trashcan in unwanted misery. If it had been half full I would have drank it just for the moisture. Nights this cold dry your skin to the point of cracking like ill-prepared plaster. Digging my hand further into the trashcan I feel the crumpled edges of newspaper and pizza boxes, too light for any crusty remnants of cooked dough… greedy bastards.

“Come on, give me something…” I mumble as I feel garbage-juice ooze onto my arm. I’d cringe if I wasn’t already used to it. Further into the aluminium cylinder I go until I’m shoulder deep and touching the bottom. My hand searches for anything of value but its experienced touch finds nothing but another empty bottle.

“Bah!” comes a grunt from my spleen as I pull my hand from the filth and throw the bottle into the nearest wall with an ear-splintering smash. Drunks… drunks and well fed opulent scum, all of them!

“You can’t spare one God damn slice of pizza?!” I shout at the top of my lungs and listen as it echoes between the two residential buildings and then into the open streets of New York City. Maybe I hope they’ll all hear it and leave out free pizza every night. Maybe I’m going more insane than I already know I am.

“Get the hell out of here you bum!” calls a voice in the New York accent I’ve become so used to since being shipped her from Texas. It bounces off the walls, surrounding me until it finally penetrates my ears. I take a moment to decide if it’s real or not, it’s so hard to tell now. Every voice is on a knife edge, it’s fifty-fifty if I’m imagining it or not. This time I glare up and there’s a burly, hairy man in a vest leaning out of his window, glaring black with his burly, hairy eyes… oh it’s definitely real.

“Come down here and say that, you ugly bag of maggots!” I suspect he didn’t like my retort.

What gives that impression? The beer can making its way at express speed toward my head. At the last moment I sidestep the incoming alcoholic projectile, watching as it hits the ground and begins to pour sweet intoxicating nectar. Quickly I dive on the gushing tin and stop the flood of beer on the cold ground. On my knees, without hesitation, I down the remaining liquid with the exclamation of “Disgusting!” above me. The moisture is a glorious respite from the parching air, never mind the warming glow it will provide shortly. “You pig! Do you have any idea what I’d do for a whole can?!”

The answer was a great deal, I’d pet the man’s back hair for a sip. With a grumble the repulsive man disappears back into his lair. I, on the other hand, decide this alley has lost its allure and leave, moving on to find buried stinking treasure. The search doesn’t take long as I head toward downtown Manhattan; a source of success in previous forages. I move toward the heart of the commercial district, toward Midtown and, if need be, as far south as can earn me a decent meal. This is my life; walking until I eat.

Soon I’m in the heartland of New York, perhaps all of America and the pickings on this night are still meagre. Every trashcan empty, neglected entirely or their contents already pilfered by some other mucky vagrant. Further I go until I see the burning lights of the inner city, moving into the back alleys in search of a morsel to eat; an undercooked burger or a charcoal hotdog that some downtown shmuck couldn’t stomach.

How many fellow homeless scroungers are here, looking intently for their next meal and a chance to make it to tomorrow? I know I’ll make tomorrow; I’ve been through too much to let hunger be the bastard that brings me down. A bite to eat would be a pleasant bonus though.

As I say this I’m in an alley that would be repeated hundreds of time over across the city, only at the end of this one is a businessman. It’s a late finish for this one, too late for dinner even as he holds a fresh, meaty hotdog in his right hand and his cell phone in the other. He mutters something inane to the other person, unaware he’s being stalked from the darkness.

“One second, I’m starving…” the businessman buys a moment to devour a bite of his dog, craving some late night sausage. There isn’t much traffic on the sidewalks, perhaps I could get away with swiping it from his hand, but would I have enough energy to outrun the suited capitalist? It’s an answer I’m about to find out when a soured expression leaks onto his face. “Goddamnit! It isn’t even cooked through, I can’t eat this shit!”

Without looking he throws it in my direction and I watch the ice cold dog bounced out of the bun and roll over the muck covered ground. The hungry businessman moves on, and this hungry hobo is about to lurch from the shadows when…

Smack!

Something hits my shoulder from behind then moves out in front of me, a man shaped object… no, an actual man! He doesn’t stop to apologise, that rude wretch, instead moving straight for the hotdog in his shabby tattered clothes. That sleaze, he’s stealing MY hotdog!

“Hey!” I shout, and listen as it echoes around the alley for dramatic effect. Stopping with his greasy teeth mere centimetres from that gorgeous uncooked pork-matter, the unshaven man turns his head and finally sees me exit the shadows. “Get your mitts off my damn hotdog!”

“I’m sorry friend, I didn’t see you there.” Polite swine, he thinks he can take my meal and smile at me while he eats.

“Get… your hands… off my dog.” I repeat in slow, deliberate words as my large form looms over his. He’s older, perhaps fifty, and much less muscular than myself but I know better than to push a hobo into a corner; even the old, skinny ones can turn into clawing animals.

He stares back with puppy dog eyes, as if I’m the horrid man taking a child’s sweets away, but I know he’s also sizing me up. Can he take me, he wonders? Can he defend his prize? “We can share it, right?” he asks, clearly deciding he can’t win a traditional back-alley hobo fight. But do I hear it?

No. Like I said, every sentence is fifty-fifty whether I hear the reality or the confused verbal poison of my own mind. This time all I heard was “It’s all mine, you piece of excrement.”

“What did you say to me?!” I holler at the poor frightened man who backs off slightly. I can’t control myself anymore, the hunger is too great and the deep, dark instinct of my sick mind kicks in. “Share… we can share it.” He begs as a last attempt to keep his supper but I’m beyond the point of sanity now and what reaches my ears is “I said you deserve to starve to death, you sick fu…”

Before I can take in the rest I lash out, slamming my already scarred knuckles into the side of his brittle face. He falls to the ground, dog still in hand, and stuck in rabbit-in-the-headlights mode when a second brutish fist lands on his left eyebrow. Reaching out, his free hand pushes at my face as mine goes for that glorious hunk of meat. Pushing turns to raking, then to clawing at my face and eyes like a rabid koala. They always fight… every single one.

I drive through the pain as a rogue punch aimed for his temple actually hits him in the teeth, shattering two straight into my knuckles. I bleed, right into his mouth… I’ll definitely need that hotdog now. Through the raging adrenaline I hear muffled cries of “Please…stop!” that my sickened mind mistakes for vile insults and silences with a fourth strike, this time knocking the old man unconscious.

It was over in seconds but the damage is proof it had been violent enough. I can’t see them, but I feel the nail marks running down my face, the burning of my knuckles too as remnants of teeth fall from the wound. The old man’s mouth is busted open like a piñata full of ketchup… ah ketchup, the perfect accompaniment to a hotdog.

I stare down at my prize, the thick sausage I fought so bitterly for, and I tear open the man’s lifeless fingers with reckless abandon. One by one his grip is reduced to nothing and I hold my supper aloft. Bloody, dirty, sweet tepid pork… you are mine!


January 22nd 2012
Buffalo, New York
Sean Rhodes’ apartment… deep and dark.

“Nine years, the prize changes… the fight remains the same.” I stand in the middle of my apartment in the dead wastes of Buffalo, the asshole of America. In my hand, like nine years earlier, I hold my prize or rather the promise of it. The flyer for APW Survive and Conquer states the magnitude of the situation; eighty six competitors… half a million dollars.

Life has moved on in almost every way since the days when I fought for hotdogs against aged homeless men. Now I fight for an even bigger change in my life but it’s against the same old mix of maniacs, arrogant and ignorant morons and a few good men caught in a bad situation. Which one am I? I can say I’ve never been arrogant, but that is all.

At some point of the last decade I have been the good man, forced to fight against incredible odds merely to survive until the next day. I have been the ignorant man, thrust into a place where I have no knowledge and no hope. And I have been the maniac, more often than I’d care to admit or remember. I have been many things but never have I been a happy man.

At least, until now.

My thumb rubs over the paper and the promised half million as my eyes drift around the small apartment I now call home. Much better than a squalid back alley in the middle of Manhattan, I’d say, yet still with its own difficulties. Out there I didn’t have to worry about having a social life; I was a lonesome hobo with no friends and no need to be civil. Now, I may not have many but the one I have is precious. She is the one person giving me hope that someday I can be a normal man once again.

When all that time ago I was sick in so many ways, now I am recovering. I am trying to be a different man to the psycho that PCW fans have come to know and hate. I have been trying to do this, but I’m falling short. I’m still the psycho deep down and I’m still born to be in a fight. I isolated that part of myself, forced it into the ring until it left my life alone… now I’m about to unleash it on a psychopaths playground.

“Half a million dollars and all I have to do to win it is put my faith in an animal and beat eighty five other competitors. Sounds straight forward….” I speak with a sarcastic tongue, but one with hope nonetheless. After everything I’d gone through would anyone really be surprised to see the once homeless schizoid defeat the odds once again?

Perhaps LoKi would have something to say, being the current PCW World Champion and a newly discovered villain. It was, after all, he who spurred my recent recovery into action and his new dark side would serve him well. Those who know Pure Class Wrestling will most likely put the Fallen Angel ahead of me as a favourite, but it suits my style more than his recently acquired mean streak. There is no need for technique in a match where attack could arrive from any angle, only the need for brutality.

Then other names I know from my home ground; High Tide and Andy D… wildcards both of them, each with a unique style that will not be easy to adjust to for those without experience. I have ample amounts of that and more confidence that I will at least outlast them two. Their luck is in small amounts, drawing them early in the match while I have been placed at seventy six. I have a mere ten men to best… ten men against one, one man with the madness of ten.

Of course that doesn’t count the men already in the ring, fighting through the numbers until they get to meet the Born Psycho. Men with big reputations would both precede and follow my small name; people like MDK, Level-One, Kurt Noble, Bryan Laughlin. Champions, legends and phenomenal athletes all, but none are tougher than me… none!

I can change everything about myself, as I attempt to do at this very moment, but still that part of me will remain.

I AM a tough son of a bitch to beat, I ALWAYS survive.

But do I conquer? I’m the most dominant North American Champion in PCW’s storied history, one of the most feared competitors the company has ever had and the best wrestler never to win its World Title. But as my life has always been, I have moments of success and failure. Whether it has been alley upon alley of meagre returns, or being a second away from winning a World Championship Belt, failure has never been tolerable.

So when I set myself to even a small task, I give it my all. Imagine what I will do for a chance at global recognition and riches beyond my wildest dreams, the chance to prove my worth amongst the best competitors earth has to offer. For that I will endure the pain of releasing my dark companion upon the masses, I will leave blood and guts in the ring so that people will call my name. For while redemption of my sins is my goal, further reformation can be made with the help of the rewards.

With five hundred thousand dollars I can become more than a homeless man, more than a jabbering maniac, more than a wrestler. I could be a normal man, a sane man, a man known and revered the world over.

Half a million dollars turns my walls from brown to modern white, my tv set from a cantankerous lump of crap to a glorious piece of technology I would have no knowledge of how to use. It would turn my whole apartment in the rats asshole called Buffalo into a desirable pad in New York City. To conquer the mass of competition would grant me a life of which I can only dream.

From my hand falls the poster for my greatest opportunity, my greatest victory in the making. I need not look at it any longer for the vision of triumph is cemented in my mind. I will give my all, I will be a tough son of a bitch to beat and I will be the psycho in the ring that this match deserves… hopefully for the last time.