Post by Justin Kaard on Oct 16, 2015 17:11:09 GMT -5
Supernovas exploded across Justin’s vision as Mr. Showtime made his best attempt to scratch Justin’s brain with the heel of his boot. Justin fell back at what seemed a languid pace, of course it probably just seemed that way because his brain was seeing the same bright flashes and pretty pretty lights that he was. Whatever it was it was playing merry hob with his sense of time.
One eternity later time snapped back to normal speed as Justin’s legs were tangled up in the ring ropes. He was only vaguely aware of Showtime pulling him back into the ring, only vaguely aware of being suplexed so hard his teeth rattled, and suddenly he was keenly aware of the referee counting to three. Though his mind was able to process what was happening his head was still spinning too fast, his brain far too rattled for him to do anything about it.
Ow.
Ow.
Fuckity ow!
Justin groaned and started back to his feet only to eat a stiff shot from Eira that sent him spinning back to the mat. This wasn’t going well. Justin knew if he was going to have any chance of winning the second fall he had to get out of the ring, get his wits back, and…wait…what?
He got to his feet in time to watch Showtime abscond up the ramp with not just the North American title, but the International title as well. There was no second fall, Justin was sure of it. So why in all the made up hells of the world was Showtime leaving with the International title as well? The rules had been explained at the beginning of the match. The first fall won you the North American and the second fall won you the International.
He could only watch in stunned disbelief as Michael Wryght, the possible future leader of the free world and guy who apparently couldn’t understand simple directions disappeared with his ill-gotten gold. Yikes. The referee ran up the ramp after him and also disappeared into the back.
Justin looked at his remaining two competitors, both of whom looked absolutely murderous. He briefly toyed with the idea of going for a quick roll up but prudence and common sense talked him out of it. Besides, there was no referee to make the count anymore and there were certainly much easier ways of committing suicide. Flinging oneself at a wood chipper genitals first, for example.
Eira was the first to leave, disgust readily evident on her face. Justin didn’t blame her, they’d all worked hard to get where they were and then this, whatever this was, had completely derailed it. Justin looked over his shoulder. If murder wore a face, it was wearing the face of Sean Rhodes. That was all the excuse Justin needed to excuse himself from the ring.
No sooner than he’d gotten backstage, Justin was hustled off to what served as PCW’s triage center. Eira was already there, getting the third degree about the state of her head. She looked supremely annoyed. Justin didn’t blame her; the triage crew was doing the same to him; poking, prodding, and questioning.
“I told you, I’m fine.” She snapped at the poor unfortunate soul trying to shine a light in her eyes.
The tech threw her arms up in frustration and walked away. Justin did his best to hold in a snort of amusement. He wasn’t very successful as Eira whirled on him. He tried not to flinch. He failed.
“Something you find amusing?”
Justin shook his head, “No, Ma’am, just laughing at the situation.”
She looked him up and down. Justin suddenly understood how the mouse felt when the eagle was circling above.
“The situation? The situation is more complicated than you could possibly imagine, child. You’d do well to steer clear of it. For your own benefit if nothing else,” Eira said with a resigned sigh.
Justin laughed, Eira did not look amused; “It usually is.”
“You don’t understand, Kaard. You’re caught up in something that’s bigger than you, bigger than PCW. It’s a,” she stopped as Justin blinked stupidly, “Look your life is yours to do with as you please, if you want to throw it away I can’t stop you.”
Head wounds are a hell of a drug, Justin thought; though he was undeniably spooked by the seriousness of her tone and the harshness in her eyes.
“Right, got it loud and clear. Stay out of your way for the title, you’re dangerous and you don’t want to hurt me.”
“Me, dangerous?” Eira drawled sarcastically, “Why I’m a pussy cat,” she practically purred.
“Yeah, so is a panther,” Kaard said giving her spiked knee brace a pointed stare.
The med tech walked back into the triage center and gave Justin the excuse he needed to get away from the scary lady, and make no mistake, she was a scary lady. He walked over to the tech in order to get the go ahead to leave. They’d poked, prodded, and questioned him enough; trying to make sure he didn’t have a concussion, hadn’t developed split personalities, and could resist the urge to spontaneously break into song and dance. Or something equally horrendous.
As Justin turned the corner he heard a roar from behind him, heading towards the triage center, “Showtime?! Where the hell is he!?”
Murder thy name is Mentis. Justin was glad he’d gotten out of there when he had, after being in the ring with him, he had no desire to get between Rhodes and his prey when there was no ref around.
He wandered around backstage for a while, to keyed up to just sit and watch the rest of the show. Not that he had anything against the others, far from it. That would just require too much sitting still. He heard the chatter though, it was impossible not to. High school girls had nothing on PCW when it came to gossip and rumors. Sadistic had retained his title, not a surprise. What was the surprise was the number of people actually cheering for Sadistic, PCW was a fairly simple place. It liked its bad guys bad and its good guys good. It must have taken something momentous to get the PCW faithful to switch sides like that.
The biggest thrill of the night was Grimm winning the Deadly Rumble. Justin certainly didn’t envy the referee for that eventual showdown. What really caught Justin’s eye and prompted him to stop his roaming was the statement delivered by Frank Foley. Foley claimed that the whole boondoggle had been the result of a “legal issue in the wording of Mr. Showtimes match contract.”
That in itself was interesting. As far as Justin knew no one else had received a special contract for the match, he certainly hadn’t. Secondly, when Justin had been signing his basic hiring contract that covered basic things like though shalt not attack PCW personal, though shalt not steal PCW property, and though shalt not compete for other companies unless express written permission is granted while under contract; they’d gone over it with a fine tooth comb, an electron microscope, and the five living descendants of Sherlock Holmes to make sure that everything was in order. So how had Showtime’s magical contract made it through with such a glaring mistake?
Foley claimed that PCW’s legal team was hard at work trying to sort out the issue and force Showtime to vacate one of the titles. In Justin’s eyes it shouldn’t have been that hard; you’d think the contract of the parent company would override a personal contract. So by that logic they should just take the International away and award him the North American. But that’s why Justin was a wrestler and not a lawyer. Stable hours, non-life threatening position, no jumping off of things; no thank you, who would want a life like that?
Furthermore, Foley was claiming that as of now, Mr. Showtime Michael Wryght was the “Disputed North American and International Champion”. His face is disputed, Justin thought petulantly.
More interesting however, was Foley’s announcement for Trauma 180. There would be a triple threat match for whichever title that Showtime was forced to give up. That in itself was a farce but again, not a lawyer. The faithful would get to see the second fall after all as Justin faced off against Eira and Non Compos Mentis. Joy.
The silver lining in this was that of the three of them, Justin was probably the least injured. Eira and Mentis had both taken absurd amounts of punishment, mostly from each other. And while Justin had taken several heavy blows and hard shots, outside of one boot to the head, he’d been relatively unscathed. Well if you could call eating Mentis’s Dum Dum Drop and a Fisherman suplex from Showtime unscathed.
On the flip side, Eira and Mentis had been seen working together before. They were much more likely to work together in order to remove Justin from the match than they were to work with him. Well shit…
Though after the brutality the two had put each other through on two consecutive shows, odds were they weren’t exactly feeling chummy. That didn’t mean they were likely to put aside whatever differences they might have had with Justin and form a team, but it did improve the odds that they wouldn’t team up against him.
Justin left feeling better about the upcoming match. He wasn’t thrilled about his odds overall, but he wasn’t loathing them either. Besides, it was hard to pin what you couldn’t catch.
He went into the locker room, mostly empty now, and took a quick shower before changing. He was just pulling his shirt over his head when his bag started to sing.
“They see mowin…my front lawn”
He dug into the duffel as Weird Al continued to memorialize his nerdyness. He finally found it in the front pocket and pulled it out. It was an unknown number.
“Hulk’s Deli. You order, we smash. Hulk speaking.”
“Cute,” said the voice on the other end.
“Who is this,” Justin asked, “Look if you’re trying to get an interview I don’t do the whole phone thing. Way to creepy for me, so if you’re looking for a quote for your blog or whatever, it’s not going to happen.”
“This is Justin Kaard, yes?”
The voice was irritatingly familiar, but Justin couldn’t place it.
“That depends on who’s asking. Do I owe you money? Cause if I do then no, this is Justin Card, one ‘a’ and a ‘c’, easy mistake to make.”
“This is Justin Kaard, recently rehired to PCW and recently arrested for assault at a live Trauma event.”
“Hey man, no charges were ever filed so I’m good on that end. You’ve got the rest of it right, now who the hell is this and how did you get my number?
“I hope you make the most of this run with PCW, Justin. Your bail wasn’t cheap. Now listen closely, we need to meet.”
One eternity later time snapped back to normal speed as Justin’s legs were tangled up in the ring ropes. He was only vaguely aware of Showtime pulling him back into the ring, only vaguely aware of being suplexed so hard his teeth rattled, and suddenly he was keenly aware of the referee counting to three. Though his mind was able to process what was happening his head was still spinning too fast, his brain far too rattled for him to do anything about it.
Ow.
Ow.
Fuckity ow!
Justin groaned and started back to his feet only to eat a stiff shot from Eira that sent him spinning back to the mat. This wasn’t going well. Justin knew if he was going to have any chance of winning the second fall he had to get out of the ring, get his wits back, and…wait…what?
He got to his feet in time to watch Showtime abscond up the ramp with not just the North American title, but the International title as well. There was no second fall, Justin was sure of it. So why in all the made up hells of the world was Showtime leaving with the International title as well? The rules had been explained at the beginning of the match. The first fall won you the North American and the second fall won you the International.
He could only watch in stunned disbelief as Michael Wryght, the possible future leader of the free world and guy who apparently couldn’t understand simple directions disappeared with his ill-gotten gold. Yikes. The referee ran up the ramp after him and also disappeared into the back.
Justin looked at his remaining two competitors, both of whom looked absolutely murderous. He briefly toyed with the idea of going for a quick roll up but prudence and common sense talked him out of it. Besides, there was no referee to make the count anymore and there were certainly much easier ways of committing suicide. Flinging oneself at a wood chipper genitals first, for example.
Eira was the first to leave, disgust readily evident on her face. Justin didn’t blame her, they’d all worked hard to get where they were and then this, whatever this was, had completely derailed it. Justin looked over his shoulder. If murder wore a face, it was wearing the face of Sean Rhodes. That was all the excuse Justin needed to excuse himself from the ring.
No sooner than he’d gotten backstage, Justin was hustled off to what served as PCW’s triage center. Eira was already there, getting the third degree about the state of her head. She looked supremely annoyed. Justin didn’t blame her; the triage crew was doing the same to him; poking, prodding, and questioning.
“I told you, I’m fine.” She snapped at the poor unfortunate soul trying to shine a light in her eyes.
The tech threw her arms up in frustration and walked away. Justin did his best to hold in a snort of amusement. He wasn’t very successful as Eira whirled on him. He tried not to flinch. He failed.
“Something you find amusing?”
Justin shook his head, “No, Ma’am, just laughing at the situation.”
She looked him up and down. Justin suddenly understood how the mouse felt when the eagle was circling above.
“The situation? The situation is more complicated than you could possibly imagine, child. You’d do well to steer clear of it. For your own benefit if nothing else,” Eira said with a resigned sigh.
Justin laughed, Eira did not look amused; “It usually is.”
“You don’t understand, Kaard. You’re caught up in something that’s bigger than you, bigger than PCW. It’s a,” she stopped as Justin blinked stupidly, “Look your life is yours to do with as you please, if you want to throw it away I can’t stop you.”
Head wounds are a hell of a drug, Justin thought; though he was undeniably spooked by the seriousness of her tone and the harshness in her eyes.
“Right, got it loud and clear. Stay out of your way for the title, you’re dangerous and you don’t want to hurt me.”
“Me, dangerous?” Eira drawled sarcastically, “Why I’m a pussy cat,” she practically purred.
“Yeah, so is a panther,” Kaard said giving her spiked knee brace a pointed stare.
The med tech walked back into the triage center and gave Justin the excuse he needed to get away from the scary lady, and make no mistake, she was a scary lady. He walked over to the tech in order to get the go ahead to leave. They’d poked, prodded, and questioned him enough; trying to make sure he didn’t have a concussion, hadn’t developed split personalities, and could resist the urge to spontaneously break into song and dance. Or something equally horrendous.
As Justin turned the corner he heard a roar from behind him, heading towards the triage center, “Showtime?! Where the hell is he!?”
Murder thy name is Mentis. Justin was glad he’d gotten out of there when he had, after being in the ring with him, he had no desire to get between Rhodes and his prey when there was no ref around.
He wandered around backstage for a while, to keyed up to just sit and watch the rest of the show. Not that he had anything against the others, far from it. That would just require too much sitting still. He heard the chatter though, it was impossible not to. High school girls had nothing on PCW when it came to gossip and rumors. Sadistic had retained his title, not a surprise. What was the surprise was the number of people actually cheering for Sadistic, PCW was a fairly simple place. It liked its bad guys bad and its good guys good. It must have taken something momentous to get the PCW faithful to switch sides like that.
The biggest thrill of the night was Grimm winning the Deadly Rumble. Justin certainly didn’t envy the referee for that eventual showdown. What really caught Justin’s eye and prompted him to stop his roaming was the statement delivered by Frank Foley. Foley claimed that the whole boondoggle had been the result of a “legal issue in the wording of Mr. Showtimes match contract.”
That in itself was interesting. As far as Justin knew no one else had received a special contract for the match, he certainly hadn’t. Secondly, when Justin had been signing his basic hiring contract that covered basic things like though shalt not attack PCW personal, though shalt not steal PCW property, and though shalt not compete for other companies unless express written permission is granted while under contract; they’d gone over it with a fine tooth comb, an electron microscope, and the five living descendants of Sherlock Holmes to make sure that everything was in order. So how had Showtime’s magical contract made it through with such a glaring mistake?
Foley claimed that PCW’s legal team was hard at work trying to sort out the issue and force Showtime to vacate one of the titles. In Justin’s eyes it shouldn’t have been that hard; you’d think the contract of the parent company would override a personal contract. So by that logic they should just take the International away and award him the North American. But that’s why Justin was a wrestler and not a lawyer. Stable hours, non-life threatening position, no jumping off of things; no thank you, who would want a life like that?
Furthermore, Foley was claiming that as of now, Mr. Showtime Michael Wryght was the “Disputed North American and International Champion”. His face is disputed, Justin thought petulantly.
More interesting however, was Foley’s announcement for Trauma 180. There would be a triple threat match for whichever title that Showtime was forced to give up. That in itself was a farce but again, not a lawyer. The faithful would get to see the second fall after all as Justin faced off against Eira and Non Compos Mentis. Joy.
The silver lining in this was that of the three of them, Justin was probably the least injured. Eira and Mentis had both taken absurd amounts of punishment, mostly from each other. And while Justin had taken several heavy blows and hard shots, outside of one boot to the head, he’d been relatively unscathed. Well if you could call eating Mentis’s Dum Dum Drop and a Fisherman suplex from Showtime unscathed.
On the flip side, Eira and Mentis had been seen working together before. They were much more likely to work together in order to remove Justin from the match than they were to work with him. Well shit…
Though after the brutality the two had put each other through on two consecutive shows, odds were they weren’t exactly feeling chummy. That didn’t mean they were likely to put aside whatever differences they might have had with Justin and form a team, but it did improve the odds that they wouldn’t team up against him.
Justin left feeling better about the upcoming match. He wasn’t thrilled about his odds overall, but he wasn’t loathing them either. Besides, it was hard to pin what you couldn’t catch.
He went into the locker room, mostly empty now, and took a quick shower before changing. He was just pulling his shirt over his head when his bag started to sing.
“They see mowin…my front lawn”
He dug into the duffel as Weird Al continued to memorialize his nerdyness. He finally found it in the front pocket and pulled it out. It was an unknown number.
“Hulk’s Deli. You order, we smash. Hulk speaking.”
“Cute,” said the voice on the other end.
“Who is this,” Justin asked, “Look if you’re trying to get an interview I don’t do the whole phone thing. Way to creepy for me, so if you’re looking for a quote for your blog or whatever, it’s not going to happen.”
“This is Justin Kaard, yes?”
The voice was irritatingly familiar, but Justin couldn’t place it.
“That depends on who’s asking. Do I owe you money? Cause if I do then no, this is Justin Card, one ‘a’ and a ‘c’, easy mistake to make.”
“This is Justin Kaard, recently rehired to PCW and recently arrested for assault at a live Trauma event.”
“Hey man, no charges were ever filed so I’m good on that end. You’ve got the rest of it right, now who the hell is this and how did you get my number?
“I hope you make the most of this run with PCW, Justin. Your bail wasn’t cheap. Now listen closely, we need to meet.”
