Are you Ready?

[Teo Blaze]

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…Are you ready? 

May 29, 2016.

Reading, Pennsylvania

Slam! Arena.

Darkness. 

The screen is consumed by darkness, an inky black void that swallows everything around it. With vision gone, sounds become clearer….sharper.


Fans cry out in calls of bloodlust, eager to see a bone snap, a face cut, a starving mob of jackals hungry for violence.

For pain.

Seven days. 

Seven days since the paramedics hoisted Teo del Sol from the ring, onto the stretcher.


Seven days since the limp body of the People’s Champion had been lifted from its crucible.


Seven days since the mask had been peeled from his face, a hysteric paramedic roughly shoving a silicone breathing tube into a rapidly closing throat.

Seven days since Teo fell. 

Seven days since his eyes had opened. 

Slowly, surely, the blackness begins to fade, the scene becoming clearer as the noise dims. While before one might have been met with the familiar sight of a locker room, of an eager del Sol preparing for another confrontation, a different sight now greets the viewer.


An iron maze of pipes, knobs, and gears wraps around a narrow hallway, coiled like the wrinkled folds of a shattered mind around a concrete tunnel. Only one way in, and one way out. The camera plunges forward towards the end of the hallway, going deeper, and deeper.


As the scene becomes clearer, the pipes seem to grow in number, and in density. While at first there may have been a dozen, they split and weave amongst themselves, like strands of hair on the back of a colossus, a tangled spider’s web of cold, unfeeling steel.

Yet still the viewer is plunged forward, deeper and deeper into the web, further and further along the tangle, and as the scene moves, sounds become clear.

A hiss of steam, a rush of water. 

The skittering of vermin. 

Faster now, the viewer moves forward into the darkness, stabbing towards the center of the maze with a harried speed, seeming now to lapse into a full sprint!


The noises now grow louder, intertwining and mingling into a cacophony of metallic shrieks and chaotic roars! The mechanical sounds come faster, faster! One by one they fall over themselves in a tidal wave of clamor!


CLANK!


HISS!


The camera is at a breakneck speed now, flying along what seems to be and endless hallway, stabbing forward as if moved by unseen forces, hurtling along like a meteor, and yet still the noise persists! Louder, like a rumbling golem wresting itself from an iron cage! Yet still the camera moves!


And then! Suddenly, the camera reaches the end of the hallway! With a mighty bound the viewer finally sees the end of the tangle, the spot where the pipes seem to all come together! And then!

….Silence.  

…Darkness. 

All is once more calm. A few moments pass in the inky blackness once more, no sound can be heard. Then, faintly at first, but growing louder with each thud against the concrete…footsteps. 

Each moment the footfalls grow louder, quicker. Someone is walking towards the viewer in the darkness. Then, all at once.

Silence.

The darkness suddenly is broken by a single white flame.


And standing in front of the camera is a very unfamiliar sight.


Teddy Blaze: Hello WCF. I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced.


Where once stood Teo del Sol, there now stands a strange figure. Garbed in a dark red Trench coat and eyes obscured by rounded glasses with blood red lenses, barely visible by the light of the silver lighter he now holds before him.


Teddy Blaze: I know, you were expecting someone else. Pity too. I bet he would have loved to be here.


Blaze stares deeply into the flame of the lighter, the orange glow shining in the lenses of his glasses as he speaks.


Teddy Blaze: See, that’s the funny thing, isn’t it? Everything has its expiration date. Poor Teo, always running, always fighting.


Always winning.


Poor little guy was burning the candle at both ends. Trying to put everyone else before himself, to always be the hero, the cool guy, the champion.


Blaze turns away from the camera and turns back, a glint of gold gives away what he now holds towards the camera, the People’s Championship.


Teddy Blaze: The People’s Champion. He was all set to carry this belt to Ultimate Showdown, to finally prove that he belonged.


And then…poof.


Just like that, it all went up in smoke. With one fell swoop, one night, WCF was changed forever.


No more Spencer Adams, no more Beach Krew, nobody to help Teo back to his feet, to help him out of the rubble.


The only ones left were there to twist the knife.


That’s when he came to me. That’s when he realized how quickly it could all be gone. How in an instant that everything he’d worked for, everything he’d put in the hours, the weeks.


Every sacrifice, every loss, every scar.


As if for Emphasis, Blaze runs the lighter near his face, and the scars, once covered by a mask, are laid bare before the viewer.


Teddy Blaze: He wasn’t ready to give up. But he was tired. Tired of playing the hero, tired of fighting the good fight.

Tired of playing the martyr. 

So WCF, we cut ourselves a little deal.


Old Teo del Sol is going away for a little while. Call it a sabbatical. He needs some…time to himself.


And me? Well I’ve been waiting for my turn for a while.


So, for now, we’ll leave Teo del Sol out of the matter, and get down to…


A wicked smile flashes across Blaze’s face, chipped teeth showing a row of crooked ivory.


Teddy Blaze: Business. Now let me make one thing perfectly clear. Playtime…is over.


Now is not the time for heroes.


Now is not the time for drama.


Now? Now is the time for survival.


You want to cheer me like you cheered Sol? I welcome it. You want to boo me? Get it out of your system.


I stand now, the Phoenix on the ashes, the last man on the rubble. The standard bearer for ideals long forgotten.


Strength.


Determination.


Hunger.


WCF has grown fat with privilege, overstuffed by lazy, self-serving egotists who care nothing more than preserving their spot! We came within inches of losing everything because we knew that it would be around forever! That each week we could start fresh!



Well boys, consider this a wakeup call, nothing gold can stay!



WCF needs a cattle prod up its ass yesterday! It needs people who will stand on their own two feet and bleed if they need to!


I will not stand here and let the blood that I have spilled fall on scorched earth!


I will not let chaos reign among the ashes!


I will not let anybody! Take away the house that we built.


If that means that I have to kick each and every ass on that roster personally, then so goddamned be it!


I have no words for my opponents this week.


Let me spell it out for both of you. You. Are. Scum.


You are weak. You are complacent.


You have both had title shots, both had chances to try and grab a little gold, grab a little reassurance that you’re worth a damn, and what happened?


Put your phones down, I’ll tell you what, nothing!


You laid down, you got pinned. You were challengers du jour for a title that has been held by Adam Young. By Grime.

CJ Phoenix. Lucious Starr. The names practically run together, don’t they? Quick, which one won their match last week?

Did you have to think about it? I bet you did. You know why? It’s because nobody CARES about these two.


I would call them jobbers, but frankly that would be a compliment at this point.


You want to know what happened when I got a title shot against Jonny (Goddamned) Fly?? I took that prize away from him! I threw myself into the gym and I pushed myself until I was sweating blood, and I made something of myself!


Blaze now holds the People’s Championship towards the camera.


Teddy Blaze: I don’t win titles, I break records! I see something I want, and I take it! And this week, what I want is to kick both of you square in the mouth so hard that your tooth fairy is going to have to double as a proctologist!


Face facts. You two are stepping stones. A tune-up. A workout. There’s not a single person who wants to see this match except that I am in it. By holding this title, I give the people a reason to care about you, because maybe, just maybe they’ll get to see me defend against one of you.


You had better pray that doesn’t happen. You had better reach down into whatever bag of tricks that you have and make sure that you don’t pick up that pin this week. Because if you come for this?


If you come for this belt..?



I. Will. End. You.


Blaze inhales a deep, sucking breath, letting out a calm sigh before offering another smile.

Do you not like what I’m saying, gentlemen? Am I making you mad? Am I insulting your precious little egos?


Good.


Teddy Blaze. That’s my name.


And I’m here to stoke the fire.


I’m here to bring the flame back to the ashes.


I am here to breathe life into the bonfire that was once the WCF!


And once that spark gets started..?


There is Nobody! Who is going to be able to stop it.


Suddenly, and with a flourish, Blaze turns and hurls the lighter into the darkness, where it slams into an open boiler.


The flames roar to life and the room is bathed in an orange glow as he turns slowly away from the camera.





…And in the distance, barely visible in the shadows…




Hangs a white and gold wrestling mask.