Post by Eira on May 22, 2015 21:10:54 GMT -5
Threads everywhere, weaving through everything we do, everything we ARE. If you’re an awakened, you can feel them. Feel the tug and pull, knowing which threads to follow, which to abandon, which frayed ends to repair. Each thread a soul, a timeline, crossing and knotting around each other to weave the events of our universe.
The fabric of our lives, am I right? Don’t make that face, you were probably thinking it. This is not current events that we discuss, dear reader, this is something of a history lesson. It was in the weeks leading up to Mass Destruction IV that this particular thread began.
It didn’t take much, you know, despite Murdoc’s skill in becoming one of the unseen. For someone like him, with eyes everywhere. Cloudy grey orbs staring in the flickering light of a dying streetlamp. A dark, beady little stare from a pile of refuse buried deep in an alleyway. The watery blue, bloodshot gaze of the skeletal man on the corner, paying his dues to earn his next spike in the arm. Everywhere.
NCM knew where Murdoc was at all times, digging deep into the man’s activities to find some notch. While NCM might have been a former champion, Murdoc was no slouch. Being the larger and stronger of the two men, it seemed prudent for NCM to do whatever he could to gain an edge. Using Eira against Murdoc would prove pointless, it was impossible to turn her against the man, and he’d seen others try and fail to use her in any manipulations. That left trying to get as deep into Murdoc’s head as possible - a hellscape, certainly, but for NCM it would be just a different flavor of Kool Aid.
They had made it into Alabama, it hadn’t been hard. He had ghosted along behind Murdoc, hitching rides and sleeping on buses. The first night there, Murdoc had gone up to the local mental health facility, NCM doggedly following. He waited a few moments after Murdoc entered the building then slipped along inside, finding himself both strangely drawn to and also repulsed by the setting.
Much as any lunatic in an psychiatric hospital is wont to do.
As Murdoc reached the front desk, he asked to visit someone who calls himself "The Holder of Eternity". A sigh escaped the desk worker as he looked upon an uncaring Murdoc with the utmost pity - the man’s blank gaze passing also to a hidden NCM. He lead Murdoc down a flight of stairs as NCM waits patiently for his turn. The Hobo King had more than enough experience with waiting. As the mousey man returned to his post, NCM strode forward and repeated Murdoc’s words. “I wish to see the Holder of Eternity.”
NCM moved through the door, and down the stairs into what should be the basement of the building... but wasn’t.
As he pressed deeper and deeper into this under layer of the institution, led by the desk worker, a chorus of screams began to be audible. No sign of Murdoc, none at all. NCM puts the sounds out of his mind and continued treading in the footseps of his enemy. Softly at first, as if from a great distance, the screams continue. The closer NCM got to the end of the hallway, the louder it became until the drone became so loud that it seemed to consume all other noises. Even the Natural Born Psycho was reduced to clawing at his own ears in pain. The worker showed NCM a door, covering both his ears. As swift as he could, he unlocked the door and ran, leaving only NCM in the cramped, dark hallway.
His animal instincts at war with his drive to bring about the fall of Murdoc, he moved through the door way - the piercing wail ended abruptly, leaving his ears ringing. Nothing he had seen in his travels, nothing he had seen in his squalor and filth, nothing could have prepared him for what he saw.
The room was coated in an almost tangible, all-consuming darkness but for the far end of the room. There, manacled to the wall is an emaciated figure, covered in raw lashes. He was staring directly at Murdoc, with a grin plastered to his face despite festering wounds and a scalpel still half-protruding from his chest. The figure’s eyes bugged wide, bloodshot and bulging, as he spotted NCM - Murdoc whipping around to see him. With a strangled roar, Murdoc charges for NCM even as the Hobo King begins to feel his heart freeze in his chest, icicles on the inside of each chamber slicing into the slowing, laboring muscle with every pulse of slowly poisoned blood through his body.
Murdoc’s massive form smashed into him, driving him back through the doorway and slamming it shut behind them. Grabbing NCM in a headlock, he bodily hauls him back up the stairs, the Hobo King’s limbs dragging like the useless hunks of meat they were quickly becoming. Through the lobby past the uncaring desk worker, out the doors, and thrown to the bushes where Murdoc kneels over him, hands fisted together and centered over his chest. A short, harsh phrase in a language unknown grates from beneath Murdoc’s beard, the ice in NCM’s chest beginning to ease... for reasons unknown, his enemy had just saved his life. Then came the Order; NCM had seen too much, knew too much. There were two options - assimilate or be neutralized. NCM made his choice, and so became an understudy to Murdoc’s efforts.
Mass Destruction IV, jagged metal tearing at the flesh of the two men as they slug it out in the abandoned junkyard, the fans screaming for blood as the battle wears on, until Murdoc is knocked senseless. A truly depraved smile creases NCM’s face as he regards the situation, punching the power button of the machine with one meaty finger; his grin expanding into a cascade of disturbing giggles as the car crusher rumbles to life with an electronic thrum!
NCM moves forward, shoving Murdoc’s prone body into the car crusher. Pulling back his grimy boot, he steps over to the handle, the camera catching the sickening gleam of firelight in the lacerations and blood peeking through the tears in the back of his shirt. Non Compos Mentis reaches for the handle and...
...pauses?
Staring down at Murdoc, now sluggishly stirring in the metal confines of the crusher’s basin, Non Compos Mentis freezes with his arm midway to the grip of the handle. A shudder moves through his body, a shudder of remembered horror and despair too deep and terrible for words. NCM lowers his arm and drops to his knees, helping a semi-conscious Murdoc pull himself from the lethal embrace of the machine.
A string woven through the lives of both men, wrapping around the solid cord of the Order’s spiderweb influence and so to Eira herself. An Eira who then recruited him to help against the Black Hand. The time has come for a new pattern to be woven, Non Compos Mentis feeling the tug of the dancing threads as Living a Legacy 7 rapidly approaches. It seems that all of Pure Class Wrestling was allying itself against the sinister influence of the Black Hand, yet it had inexplicably wormed its way into one of the brightest star(r)s on the roster. Dollface had turned her allegiance from Pure Class Wrestling to the Black Hand between one show and the next, after returning at the same show in which NCM had obeyed the Order’s directive to return to action.
The Order’s directive that another man had followed, to disastrous results, yet Murdoc had come back. He had returned without even Eira’s foreknowledge, dropping into Trauma 171 like the Holocaust made flesh. She had spent the next weeks tracking him, finally finding him...another thread traced to its origin.
Fighting back tears of desperation, Eira struggles mightily with the heavy door in front of her. A house dead across from a psychiatric hospital, yet a house none could really see. A place neither here nor there, Eira could still find it by following the correct thread. The place she had taken Marcus Murdoc’s identity from him, taken it though he gave it freely, inducting him into the Order’s ranks as a Seeker. He had emerged as Murdoc, his previous names and incarnations burned away with the flames of absolution. She had followed the pulse of him here, the feel of him terrifying her. A raw thrum of pain carried on pyroclastic bombs of pure, unadulterated rage. Closing her eyes, she lays her hands flat against the door, and simply steps forward through it into what had once been the only place she could call home.
Opening her eyes, she stares around in dismay and growing fear in the dim light. This was not the house she had left. The wallpaper was marred with huge, clawed tears and a long dried sticky-dark substance reeking of iron. Anything that could break, had been broken, Eira’s boots crunching and scuffing through the grit of broken porcelain, shards of glass, even shifting aside hunks of wood that had once been furniture. Following the pulse in her soul, she nears the source of the destruction, fear growing within her breast with every step. Stepping through a battered doorway, it’s accompanying door long since blasted from its frame, she reaches out to touch a huddled mass in the middle of the room.
And instantly regrets the decision.
Murdoc explodes into action, lashing out with the heavy chains still shackled to his wrists, a scream of pain tearing from Eira as one of them whips through the air and finds savage impact on her body. Over and over again he lashes out, Eira dodging and scrambling to get away, her cries of self identification going unheard through the madness gripping his mind. Staggering and scrabbling to give ground without hurting him, she reaches out to touch him, anything so he’d know her. Managing to find an opening, she stretches a hand out - only to find herself smashed back first into a wall, one of his fists slammed into the wall beside her head, the other following immediately after - and holding the other end of the chain now crushing her windpipe.
He leans forward over the chain with a bestial snarl, and she could see the pure, seething hatred in his eyes. The frustration of his capture, the pain of his torture, the hell wrought chaos of his unlikely escape from the Order’s hands... all of it staring through the dark pits in the face of the man she loves above all others.
A single, choked gasp makes its final way out as the heavy, grimy chain presses deep into her throat, her world fading into darkness.
“...Beloved...”
A light flares into being at the back of his eyes, the gunmetal quickly lightening to a gray blue as his awareness returns to him. His awareness... of what he’s doing. With a look of horror on his face he jerks his hands away from the wall, catching her in his arms as she collapses, cradling her as one might cradle a child. Carrying her through the madness ruined space, he lays her down on the only surface left untouched - the bed.
His huge paw brushing the hair from her face, he holds her close as consciousness returns. Her cheeks smeared with soot from their battle, a scraped bruised beginning to purple on one cheek... but there. There, with HIM, and HE was there with HER. Anything else, everything else could wait around them, nothing in this world mattering so much as to have her in his arms once again.
A single, crystalline droplet falls to her cheek, clearing away the soot, followed by another, and another, as her dark eyes open and she stares up at him in panicked disbelief for all of a moment.
One moment before her arms wrap around him and she pulls him close, great, racking sobs tearing through her trembling body as she clings to him with the desperation of one who had thought everything good in this world had been lost.
Two threads divided have been reunited, wrapping around each other to form a stronger bond than any around them, immutable to the shears of Atropos herself...
Eira relaxes in her dressing room, mentally going over the last few points of her promo. Someone had brought word of Gem having an interview with Dodge, an interview Eira “simply HAD to see”, and saw it she had. With this in mind, she makes her way to the recording area, settling herself in the chair and nodding to the tech to begin the recording.
“I am not in the habit of mincing words, so I will be quite direct. I’ve received countless messages, most of which are asking what I think of my chances, or my opponents, for the World Championship Match at Living a Legacy VII. First things first, I’ll address the ‘concern’ of Gem. Being as she was so kind as to give me emphatic mention in her recent interview, of course.”
Eira reclines against the dark chair, the soft creak of well worn leather sneaking onto the audio as she crosses her legs.
“Gem, PCW’s little darling, the fierce underdog, the mighty assassin girl, whatever you’d care to call her... you do all realize she’s insane, yes? I’ve heard the rumors, and while she has yet to publicly confirm whether they’re true or not... I’d buy it. Did any of you ever look closely at the history of Lantlas? Such a powerful name around here, almost like Atlas, holding the whole of PCW on his shoulders. Very impressive, but she is not him, she will never BE him. What was the point of this now? Now, at this juncture?”
She sighs, leaning forward a bit, hands loosely wrapped around her knee.
“I can tell you. Gem has more Daddy issues than Kelli Starr, and that’s saying a LOT considering the candy coated bitch of the Black Hand presents herself as a DOLL for fuck’s sake. Can I say that word? Good. Anyway... look at the information. Gem is silent as a gimp suited bottom in a ball gag up until just recently, and now this sudden outburst... she wants to win the gold for Daddy Dearest! Don’t you get it? Her self worth, everything about her is tied into being what Daddy wants. Anything that speaks to the contrary is trying to mislead her, trying to manipulate her, out to hurt her. ”
Nodding, Eira gives the camera a concerned look.
“Sounds kind of close to Stockholm’s, doesn’t it? Yeah, I thought so too. Gem, darling, I was NEVER out to hurt you. If I wanted you down and out, I would have simply snapped that slender bird neck of yours when Grant left us alone - and you injured - in your little blankie fort lair so deep in PCW no one would have heard you scream. Anyway, here we have the single most broken girlchild I’ve ever seen rocketed up into the upper echelon of PCW. The girl is damaged, and the girl is insane. Dangerous? Possibly, if you don’t have the sense your dubious God gave little green apples. Then there’s me, who has been spoken of more than often enough lately, and then we have Billy Sadistic.”
A bright grin crosses her face.
“What, you didn’t think I wasn’t going to mention HIM, did you? The mouthpiece of the Black Hand, and the anus of humanity’s collective sins. I have no idea how some of you support the Black Hand, and him in particular, when he’s shown over and over again that it’s all showmanship. Razzle dazzle, lies and snap crackle pop, and some of you idiots are buying into it like it’s your own personal call to arms. I’ll be frank - professional wrestling doesn’t always bring in the most educated of audiences, but God damn. How stupid ARE some of you?”
Her legs uncross as she leans forward, glaring straight into the camera.
“He is a snake oil salesman, peddling his wares of half-truths and hurt throughout this company. Anything he touches becomes diseased, anyone he sways becomes a carrier. He is patient zero of the miasma that plagues Pure Class Wrestling, and so he needs to be dealt with. Perhaps not so far as to cut off his head and put a stake through his heart, tempting though the thought may be, but he CANNOT be allowed to run rampant any longer.”
Body language easing, her expression returns to a calm neutrality.
“Living a Legacy VII has become the end point for many threads. Stories, personalities, feuds, alliances, all twisting in and around each other in an orgy of chaos. We will all see the end picture, we will all see which threads end - and which threads continue on unbroken. Will it be the wiry black wool of Billy Sadistic, or the gossamer green filament of Gem - or the shimmering white of Eira?”
Eira’s sculpted shoulders lift and fall briefly in a shrug of the unknown.
“Only one thread can continue. Only one can reach the gold.”
The threads continue, a kaleidescope of fibers tangling and reaching to this one conclusion...
Weaving her silvery tresses into the tight braid of her battle dress, Eira considers the events of the past weeks. So much to take in, so many threads pulling and tugging together to create a tapestry, but no matter how far she tried to stand back she still couldn’t see the picture. An epic, no doubt, a huge battle the likes of which Pure Class Wrestling had never seen. A magician wars with the very princess he covets, a madman battles with the court jester, the rabble squabble over their prize of savagery and for Eira herself...
...for Eira herself, she and two others warred at the top of the tapestry. A slim assassin with her green Emerald pendant; the terrifying, grizzled reaper with his jagged maw and eager eyes; the dark clad witch with living tendrils of white hair - all arranged around a disc of gold. The order of the hour was clear. No holds barred, no punches held. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.
Blood for blood.
A knock at the door brings Eira back to reality with a snap, checking her appearance in the mirror briefly before calling entry to the person on the other side. An intern, still in the glow of eager youth, (a youth Eira was just old enough to begin envying), pokes her head in at Eira’s call. Gingery red hair swept back from her face in a messy ponytail, an adorable pattern of freckles sprinkled across her cheeks. Eira smiles despite herself - the girl was just CUTE - yet seemed terribly nervous as she stands there, fidgeting in the doorway.
“Can I help you?” Eira smiles, trying to put the skittish redhead at ease.
“Someone would like to meet with you, if you have the time.” The words come out in an uncomfortable rush, the girl fiddling anxiously with her tech headset.
Eira smiles, trying to put the skittish redhead at ease. “Of course. Who?” She smiles a bit wider, trying to focus on warmth, wondering why the girl looked so damn nervous.
“It’s um. Well. Billy Sadistic.”
Oh. That’s why.
“Did he say why?” Eira’s smile is gone, instead staring straight at the intern with unerring focus.
“He wants to discuss an alliance.”
Her eyes narrow, the girl taking a half step back.
“Did he say where I should meet him?”
The intern points down the hallway, drawing a breath to speak, Eira’s mind racing ahead of her.
An alliance with Sadistic... and by proxy the Black Hand. Anathema to everything I have been trained to believe, everything I have been trained to do.
But perhaps not everything that I AM.
I am not here to be nothing more than the crotch-borne legacy of a faded, tattered legend.
I am not here to carve the legacy of a dark organization into the backs of the fallen with handprints oozing crude oil and ichor.
I am not here to ensure a legacy for the corrupt Order that has long since forsaken me.
I AM my legacy, and at Living a Legacy VII, I will take what is MINE.
I am not here to carve the legacy of a dark organization into the backs of the fallen with handprints oozing crude oil and ichor.
I am not here to ensure a legacy for the corrupt Order that has long since forsaken me.
I AM my legacy, and at Living a Legacy VII, I will take what is MINE.