Post by Evan De Parker on Mar 22, 2013 14:50:07 GMT -4
Go on out and gain the world
But don't you lose your soul
[/color]But don't you lose your soul
While you're trying[/color]
Your truth is changing every day[/i][/center]
”What have you been doing with yourself up there, baby-bear?”
We blink into color, and we are sitting alone with Evan and Sienna Harrison in a restaurant, appropriately dimly lit by the pale yellow lights, hanging overhead, above scratched and chipped tables of the 24/7 Baltimore diner.
Empty plates sit between them, but Evan idly scratches the porcelain surface of the plate with his fork, finally raising his eyes up toward Sienna’s. She leans on the table with her chin resting in her palm as she looks across, patiently waiting for an answer.
”I’ve been trying to get an Overdrive Title match.”
The two stare at each other and Sienna narrows her eyes. Evan reaches for his water and takes a sip.
”Trying... Trying to get an Overdrive Title match.”
”Yes.”
”So you and Jenny broke into Mark Mania’s hotel room--”
”We actually persuaded our way into Mark Mania’s hotel room.”
Sienna blinks rapidly and shakes her head, murmuring something under her breath before ultimately deciding to deny Evan’s comment acknowledgement.
”You forced your way in, and you harassed his assistant. Right? So when THAT didn’t work--”
”When Rosa refused to campaign for my Rasslemania match, I was on edge, yes. And then Mania provoked me during our tag team match.”
”Evan, I saw the match! He hit you on accident!”
Evan scoffs and shakes his finger at Sienna. Once again, he reaches for his water-- perhaps looking for anything to occupy himself and distract himself from her gaze in the slightest.
”He hit me, and he did it out of spite. So... I retaliated.”
Sienna folds her arms, emphasizing the fact that she is unmoved; unimpressed.
”You cost your team the match. You thought you trumped him. You thought you embarrassed him. And then he invested in APW... He did something that you never thought to do and he signed onto become a damn shareholder, Evan, and he would’ve owned Meltdown. But you--”
”No!”
Evan’s voice audibly raises in volume and Sienna nervously casts a glance around the diner, which still remains visibly empty.
”I saved your fucking job. I tried to save Duvall’s too.”
Sienna responds in a hushed tone.
”Yes. And I appreciate it. But you might’ve cost Mark Mania over a million dollars, Ev. You could cripple a man’s business. His livelihood. He has bills, and family. Evan, you-- YOU have a family. Mom, dad, and you have two beautiful boys that I see a hell of a lot more than you, and if somebody tried to do to you, what you did to Mark... I’d never forgive them. I wouldn’t forgive them for what they did to my nephews. I wouldn’t forgive them for what they did to you.”
She sighs and pushes stray strands of hair out of her face before her focus settles on her little brother.
”You set him up, didn’t you?”
The camera focuses on Sienna’s face, and we see upon closer inspection that despite the clever application of blush and foundation, the slight redness and swelling under her left eye is quite visible-- courtesy of Amy Zing’s Fenghuang Kick on Monday Night Meltdown. Sienna observes her brother for a while, waiting for Evan to respond... But Evan is looking away. After another few seconds of silence, Sienna opens her mouth, ready to speak once again.
”You saw the article. You saw the footage.”
”Yeah. I saw it.”
”So there you go! You saw Mania orchestrate the whole fucking thing!”
Again, Evan’s voice raises, and again, Sienna glances around the vacant diner.
”...I’m not really sure what I saw in those videos.”
”I couldn’t make something like that up!”
”Sure you could... You’re a Harrison.”
Finally, another face appears in the diner. Their waitress-- a woman they’d become very familiar with, Carly, who probably ranges from her late forties to early fifties.
”How was everything for y’all?”
”It was fantastic, Miss Carly, thank you.”
Evan gives Sienna an amused glance at her formal greeting, meeting her eyes only for a millisecond before he smiles up at Carly and nods, handing her his empty plate and glass.
”It was very good. Can we have the check?”
”Good, good. Certainly; be right back.”
As she turns to whisk their dishes away, Evan turns to Sienna again with a look on his face that was more invasive than any glance or glare. It’s a look Sienna knows very well... He’s annoyed. He may be offended. She only needs to take one guess to establish why.
”Y’know-- maybe I should be flattered that you think I could successfully set up a two-million dollar scheme like that. Eh?”
”Hey. Have you talked to Dad recently?”
Evan freezes. For a tenth of a second, his eyes grow large and he retracts a bit in his seat.
”N-no. Why?”
Sienna can’t help but smirk, ever-so-slightly at the realization that the very notion of Mr. Harrison is enough to send chills down her baby brother’s spine. She looks across the table at an Evan Nicholas Harrison that is far younger-looking and far more unprepared and less-confident than the Evan Nicholas Harrison she’d been sitting across from a few moments prior.
She knows that Evan, after throwing boiling water into their father’s face in October, has only been able to face their father once-- purely for publicity. Purely to exploit him to show what he was willing to do to an opponent and it was something that Sienna’s been positive, ever since, that Evan would never forgive himself for.
”I dunno. I went and saw him the other day. He asked about you.”
”Yeah. I bet.”
”He was a little disappointed... With the whole Mania thing. He thought he taught you better.”
”He hates me anyway. I’m surprised he’s able to be disappointed in me.”
”He doesn’t hate you.”
”Bullshit.”
”You’re his son.”
”I-- I had him breathing out of tubes for a month. I stopped talking to him. I barely talk to Mom. Or Tyler. I know Dad, and I know he hates me, because he’s a spiteful bastard.”
”That’s the pot calling the kettle black.”
”And y’know, it doesn’t surprise me that he’d take Mark Mania’s side. Because that’s exactly the kind of thing that a spiteful bastard would do.”
”Are you even listening to me?”
”Here you go!”
Carly returns to the table with the check, and Sienna breaks her gaze looking up at her with a smile. Polite, as always, as she’d been raised. Evan’s eyes don’t leave his sister’s though, and our camera views the scene as our self-proclaimed Mega MegaStar would-- with an ignorance to Carly’s disappearance. A burning curiosity, staring across the table at Sienna Harrison as she briefly observes the check before reaching for her wallet.
”I’ll cover this. I know you don’t carry cash.”
Distortion. Our vision grows a bit dark and then Sienna looks up at Evan with a curious half-stare.
”You alright, baby-bear?”
Sienna’s face begins to fade. In some instances, she’s right in front of us. A split-second later, she could be feet away. Yards. Seemingly miles.
”Ev...an...?”
To get his attention, Sienna lifts a stray spoon up from the table and begins to tap it against the glass.
”EV!”
Ding...
Ding...
Ding...
Ding...
Ding...
Dark.
We hear gears whining, groaning, and grinding to a halt; the familiar sound of a train docking at the station. We only have to wait seconds before we are introduced to a world of black-and-white.
Standing alone at the train station is a young man that we’ve physically come to know as Evan Envi. He stands in a light-colored button-up, wearing thick, rectangular glasses over his eyes, over the brim of his nose. His hair is slicked back, and he loosens and tightens his grip, repeatedly, around the handle of the briefcase.
With a single finger, he pushes the glasses farther back up onto his nose and shoots a look in either direction. He glances toward his watch, muttering something under his breath. He sways, and his body language suggests impatience-- the worst case of it.
Finally, the cab doors slide open. Nobody exits the train. Nobody has to depart at Station 24. It catches Evan off guard, and he nervously shoots another glance around before hugging the briefcase close to his side and strolling onto the cab.
Immediately, the doors slide shut behind him. He pivots and looks out of the windows of the train doors, nearly knocked off balance as the train is immediately thrust back into motion.
”Nice shoes. How much did those run you?”
Evan cautiously turns to face the man that had said it... A familiar man. Perhaps more familiar to us than to Evan.
”Do you speak?”
Evan looks at him for a moment, stuck in silence for a while longer before he’s promptly thrown off-kilter once the train abruptly pulls off again. Evan glances around the cab-- noticing that he and this “stranger” are the only two present.
”They’re not mine.”
Giving up on looking for any other source of humanity, Evan tiredly turns back to the occupant.
”Whose are they?”
”This guy.”
The man’s eyes grow wide with excitement. He leans forward and grins, looking up at Evan behind eyes that lack life... Black.
”Did you kill him?”
Evan looks down at his shoes. Sure enough, here they are-- drenched in the blood of another person.
”Yeah. I guess I did.”
”Feel bad about it?”
Evan shakes his head.
”Not really.”
The young man smiles up at Evan for a few seconds before gesturing toward the briefcase.
”And what’s in there?”
Evan looks down at the briefcase for a moment. He places it down on the floor and maneuvers off to the side of the cab, sitting down in one of the train’s bench seats. He pulls his right ankle up to his left knee and checks the sole of his shoe.
MANIA.
”I kind of figured you’d be the type to talk a lot more. Want a drink? It’s 5:00 somewhere, after all. I suppose it’s something of a tradition.”
The moment Evan looks up, the man is standing before him, poised with a grace and elegance that almost seems unreal. He hands Evan a glass, filled four-fifths with dark, spiced rum on ice.
”This is what you drink, right? Kraken? The exciting shit.”
Evan is tempted to laugh, but knows that he shouldn’t. He takes the glass and gives the man a nod of respect.
”You know my name?”
Evan takes a sip of the rum and nods.
”John.”
”You know the guy you killed?”
”I... Yeah.”
”What do they call him?”
”Mania.”
John nods slowly and backs away from Evan, taking a sip from his own glass.
”Is that his blood?”
Evan looks down to observe his shoes again.
”I think it might be a couple of people.”
”Feel bad about it?”
”They were there. I mean...”
He looks up at John and shrugs.
”If they didn’t want to be used, they wouldn’t have been there.”
”They wouldn’t have been there to support their friends? Their loved ones? You-- you think Jenny was there to be used by you? You think Rosa was there to be used by Mania?”
”I think their roles were obvious.”
Evan interrupts and gives John a stern look. John is a bit taken aback by it-- but still, more amused than anything. He gives Evan a curious glance and crosses his arms, sinking back into a seat as the train’s bumpy course continues.
”Shameless. You really don’t care about anyone but yourself, do you?”
”I care about plenty of people.”
Evan looks at John for a while, before a smirk crosses his face.
”I just care about myself the most.”
”Hm. Hope that wasn’t supposed to be a secret.”
Evan shakes his head and their eyes both drift back toward the briefcase. A small puddle of blood has formed near the bottom of the briefcase. It rattles, sways, and shakes violently as the train makes its way through the night, and Evan can only look at it, sighing. He feels an odd sense of security with this man. The man is a stranger, but he’s familiar. He’s new, but he’s been there before. Evan knows it; he feels it.
”Mind if I take a look?”
”Wha...”
Inexplicably, Evan throws himself to his feet and protectively takes a step toward the case as if to guard it. He turns and looks at John with uncertainty-- anger.
”What the-- no. You can’t have it.”
”I don’t want to take it.”
”Back down! Don’t even look at it!”
John looks at Evan with a scoff and takes a step forward-- but Evan reaches into his peacoat, retrieving a silver revolver. Upon first glance, it’s near-impossible to distinguish the exact model, but once the safety is clicked off, John’s face falls a bit. He looks down at the barrell, raising one hand, stopping in his tracks. He sighs and looks around.
”Now... Why would you wanna make all that noise?”
”Get away.”
”How much better at this was Mania than you anyway... Hm? You’re erratic. Look at you. You’re threatening me and you don’t even have any idea why, do you? You’re a damn child.”
”Watch your mouth.”
”You don’t need to threaten me. You don’t need to threaten... Rosa, or... Mania, or anybody, really. I’m willing to bet, you didn’t even need to kill anybody to get what’s in there, did you? You wanted to do it. Right?”
Evan lowers the revolver and glances around as John had done, though he has no idea why-- it’s clear that there are no other occupants on the cab of the moving train, and it’s highly unlikely that there are any on the entire vehicle. Evan’s index finger brushes over the trigger contemplatively as John’s eyes lower toward the case once more.
”It belongs to Mania anyway, so--”
”It belongs to me.”
John smiles warmly and gives a quick nod.
”Can I look?”
Evan groans loudly and slides his weapon back into the black peacoat and, with his index finger, pushes his glasses farther back up onto his nose. He lazily gestures toward the case after a few seconds of silent deliberation and a sigh of defeat.
”Go ahead. Don’t smudge it.”
John nods and kneels down to observe the case-- but not before one more stern warning from Evan:
”Don’t smudge it, John.”
”You-- relax, my friend. Don’t be so uptight.”
John turns his attention back to the case, reaching up to tug at the latches. Evan feels his fingers sliding into his coat again, reaching for that familiar, cool, rubber handle of the revolver, but John never makes any sudden movements.
He opens the case, and his eyes widen. His eyes glimmer with gold and he gasps as he observes the contents of the case.
”...Holy shit.”
”I know.”
”How... How did you...”
We pan to a shot of the rear of the briefcase-- the leather exterior. We can only see the sparkle and the internet in John’s eyes, but not the contents. He looks nervously into the case, but his composure is held much stronger-- much more ideally than Evan’s. He turns and shoots a look at the gun-wielding, peacoat-wearing, shaky, twitchy young man, and then casts one look into the fortune inside the briefcase before slowly closing it.
John pushes himself to his feet and sighs, pointing a finger down at the case.
”You sure you wanna be running around with this?”
”Damn right. Any idea what I had to go through to--?”
Evan freezes as he hears the familiar cutting and chopping of the air above the train. A distorted voice blares through the air by proxy of the megaphone.
”...WEAPONS... DROP... RESISTANCE... EVAN...”
Evan looks, wide-eyed up toward the ceiling. He casts a wary look toward John, who moves toward the window. He angles his head up toward the sky and shakes his head, letting out a long whistle.
”I believe they’re here for you, my friend.”
”Fuck. FUCK!”
John blindly raises a single hand to silence Evan.
”Get a load of this. Get-- you wouldn’t BELIEVE who’s manning the gun on the chopper, my friend.”
Evan’s face drains of all color. He grows pale and his heart begins pounding. He kneels down and grabs the handle of the briefcase, ignoring the overzealous thumping in his chest. He doesn’t need to ask to know who it is.
”Y’know, I thought you said he was dead.”
”Get me off this train.”
”Like-- what are the ODDS of this? I thought you said you put him down...”
He finally turns back to Evan.
John’s face is no longer the wholesome, innocent, smiling, and familiar face that Evan had encountered earlier. Instead, it’s twisted into a peaceful, but scornful grin. His face wears the same scars and bruises as a man that Evan had killed, moons ago. Evan jumps to his feet and utters a small moan of horror as he backs away.
”So did you fail or did you just lie?”
”John-- get me off this train.”
”You wanted this. You wanted a trainwreck, my friend. And now...?”
John holds a hand toward the window, where Evan watches in panic as the helicopter swings into view, casting its spotlight into the moving train, capturing Evan in the act. Evan immediately turns, throwing his foot into the base of the wooden door, panting as he tries to break through the cab. John narrows his eyes and shakes his head.
”Evan-- stop!”
”EVAN... RESISTANCE... DIE...”
Evan turns and kicks at the wooden door of the cab. He turns and shoots a glance over his shoulder as the silhouette-- the stiff, and hollow silhouette of the living man approaches the open doors of the helicopter, approaching the mounted gun, setting the young Evan in his crosshairs.
Mania.
DING...
DING...
DING...
DING...
”Evan, don’t go out th--”
The door splinters. It cracks. It fails. the cab door crumbles to the ground and Evan hugs the briefcase close to his chest, sparing one more glance over his shoulder at John, who runs toward him, reaching a single hand forward.
”DON’T!”
Evan hurls himself from the train, watching as the glass behind him shatters... The wood of the cab splinters, and the metal dents. The bullets tear through John’s spine, retreating through his chest, his stomach, his sternum-- and a brilliant bright light emerges from the wounds as an agonizing scream haunts the air.
Evan crashes into the ground, roughly. He rolls into the darkness at an uncontrollable speed, losing sight of John, the chopper, and the light just as quickly as he’d seen it.
Indescribable pain.
*****
Evan sits before us wearing a blank expression. He isn’t necessarily facing us-- his gaze is set just below the camera. It’d be inaccurate to label him as “sad”, but the stress is obvious. The worry is obvious. After a sigh, he brushes a hand over his hair to reach behind him, and pull the black hood of his jacket over his head, narrowing his stare into the camera.
”I’ve thought about what I’d say to you when we finally got here.”
He readjusts himself on what we can assume is a stool in this white room that we’ve become familiar with.
”I thought about telling you how much it meant to you that I... That I walk away with the win on Rasslemania, and what it means to me that I finally earn that one-on-one victory over you, Mark. I thought about going into this long monologue about respect, and honor, and-- and what it fuckin’ means to really work for something in this business the way I’ve worked for this match over the past two months.
“I thought about it for a long time.
“And you wanna know somethin’ kinda funny?”
Evan laughs and taps his temple, shaking his head at the camera.
”This was never really... About you. And-- I got you. I got myself, y’know? I thought that-- that for the past two months it was my destiny to beat you in a Rasslemania main event-level match, and destroy your career, and make a STATEMENT for every underdog that became something in this business, by toppling and dethroning the biggest and baddest motherfuckers in the game, Mark, like YOU.
“That’s what I thought I was supposed to do! That’s who I was supposed to be!”
Evan’s laugh grows heavier and he has to wipe tears from his eyes before he points a finger at Mark, biting his lip with a twisted grin.
”That was my Rasslemania moment.”
for a while, as Evan stares into the camera, he looks a bit saddened.
”And my Rasslemania destiny is to still beat the APW Overdrive Champion. That hasn’t changed. However-- I’ve already beaten you, Mark. There’s a difference, hah.”
He scratches his head with a thoughtful look and continues, softly.
”Pinning your shoulders to the mat, one-two-three, didn’t mean anything to you because it was in the confines of a tag team match. It’s an easy tactic for any champion to hide behind-- but it didn’t seem to faze you much, regardless.
“A few weeks later, I cost our team a tag team match by letting Terry pin you to the mat. You weren’t fazed. You weren’t hindered. Maybe it’s because it was a tag team match-- or maybe it’s because you reckon Terry’s a superior athlete and no one expected you to overcome him in the first place.
“You knew that wasn’t a story they were interested in.
“You’re gettin’ old. There’s not much that you’re gonna do, or that you’re capable of doing that’s gonna WOW or SHOCK anybody out there. Your best Rasslemania moments are far behind you-- of which there are few-- so you rely on Mania Enterprises to make you big. You rely on your company to bring in the money, like a true entrepreneur; like a true businessman.
“And you forgot what you were in the process. You forgot you were the Overdrive Champion. You forgot what the Overdrive Champion’s DESTINY was at Rasslemania-- and that-- hahaha, Mark, that really fucked with a lot of my plans, y’know?
“So I had to beat you just to remind you.
“And look at you now, Marky. You’re in debt. Nobody under the Experts umbrella is gonna trust you in a business position for-- well-- ever. You can’t even trust your own employees. Like, what are you gonna do?
“I will destroy your business. It’s not a matter of ‘if’, but ‘when.’ It’s gone, Mark.
“It’s all gone. And you know it. I took it.
“You’ve CLEARLY shown that you don’t have any friends. I took them.
“And what happens between the ropes doesn’t hold much weight to you if it doesn’t go your way. Not yet, anyway.
“So what happens when I take the ring from you too?”
Evan looks into the camera as if it’s another human being-- as if it’s Mark Mania and he’s truly expecting an answer. He waits for a few seconds and then sighs, crossing his arms as he leans back a bit on the stool.
”Mark, I don’t like your attitude... Your face... Your false claims to holding the title for six months when you haven’t even had it for five... I don’t like a single goddamn thing about you-- except this one thing, you fucking pig, and this one thing is what makes Rasslemania so important.
“You can fight.
“You can beat me in that ring. I know it-- you--- EVERYBODY knows you could beat me at Rasslemania, and that’s why I w... I want to...”
He giggles a bit and angles his head to look out-of-frame toward something that will never be quite clear. He turns to the camera once more.
”I want you to not be okay. Like-- I want this to fuck with you. I want you to have to start from the bottom.
“I want your life to spiral out of control. I want you to stop talking to your family. Rot your liver out. Find God-- and lose Him.
“I wanna define you. Hahahahahaha...”
Evan leans back in the chair, and gasps a bit as the two front legs of the stool teeter awkwardly upward. He steadies himself, placing a hand against the wall, and calmly guides himself into place.
For a few moments, there isn’t anything for Evan to say. He is gazing down with a little smirk on his face and the best way to describe the smirk that he casts upon the camera is... Dangerous.
”Ever considered killing somebody, Mark?”
He rocks back and forth, dangerously on the stool again and smirks into the camera, across the digital world toward the APW Overdrive Champion.
”Have you ever wanted something so bad, that you thought the best way to get it might be to just... End it? Like, forget about all the blood and the brains and the paperwork for a second and really think about it.”
Evan looks into us behind invasive, hazel eyes. He stares at us as we stare at him; in silence and bewilderment.
”I think about it every day, Mark. I think about just... How far I’d go to take the Overdrive Title. I think about how this has been about you for so long, and now it’s about so much... More. Now it’s about it. The championship. Like we talked about!
“It’s a dangerous combination. On one hand... I hate your fucking guts, and you hate mine. This could get out of hand in a hurry, amiright?
“But-- but on the other hand, I have to beat you within the rules to get that title, because this match isn’t about gimmicks. It’s not about flash, or who can answer a ten count, or who can mutilate the other the most with whatever foreign object-- NO. It’s about wrestling. It’s about winning.
“That’s how this started. That’s how we’ll finish it.”
Evan grimaces and pauses for a moment before he addresses Mania again.
”You’ve-- you’ve allowed yourself to get yourself a little confused over the months.
“You keep harking back to Meltdown, a brand I represented nine months ago, and you try to remind me and everybody else that-- that I haven’t accomplished anything since then. You tell me that I’m not as good as I think, and I’m not in much of a position to argue with you. In a one-on-one match, I have never managed to defeat you. Ever.
“You’ve gotten confused because you’ve grown comfortable with this idea that because I’ve never tasted World Championship gold, and because in my six years in this business, I’ve never been THE MAN, that I can’t be. You assume that my ceiling stops at Mark Mania.
“Michael Lively thought something similar. As did A.C. Smith. As did Biggs. As did Terry Marvin.
“I don’t hear much from them these days.
“So when am I gonna stop hearing from you, eh? Hahaha...”
Evan grins and laughs to himself for a bit before shrugging, listlessly.
”And you know what, fuck you, man.”
Evan’s mood seems to change in an instant. He leans forward on the stool, allowing the chair to sway awkwardly.
”I won’t leave you with anything.”
He stares into the camera for a bit and then smiles, sinking back down onto the stool, and folding his hands, shaking his head, slowly.
”All you had to do was give me a match. We could’ve avoided all this. You would’ve still had Meltdown. You would’ve had Rosa.
“What were you waiting for, Mark? Where’d you think we were gonna end up on March 24th?
“Why’d it have to be this way?”
Abruptly, we snap out to dark.
*****
”Stop that.”
”Stop what?”
We return to a world of color, and we are now sitting with Evan and Sienna behind the wheel of Sienna’s (obnoxious) hot-pink BMW M5. Evan is staring straight ahead, a look of interest on his face, but Siennna looks worried.
Evan’s attire is eerily familiar-- most notably the black peacoat, slightly neutralized by the fact that Sienna sits next to him, wearing a similar grey one.
”Stop zoning out.”
”Must be all the drugs.”
”Stop!”
”Hahaha...”
”It’s not funny, Evan. I don’t even wanna be here. It’s fucking creepy.”
”I don’t get what’s so strange about it--”
”We don’t know her. You said we were going to see Dad. You said you were gonna talk to him.”
Evan clears his throat, greatly ignoring the latter half of Sienna’s statement.
”I know her. You don’t know h--”
”You know her by sending Jenny and Jeremy to stalk her.”
”I don’t like the context in which you used ‘stalk’ there. And I told you-- it wasn’t about her. It was never about her.”
”Then what’s it about now? It it still about Mark?”
Evan doesn’t respond immediately. He jolts to attention as he notices someone in the distance and reaches for the passenger door, pushng it open, slightly.
”Mark. The Overdrive Championship. Me.”
”No! You’re taking this too far. She has nothing to do with him.”
”You don’t even know what I’m going to do.”
”Evan, if you get out of this car, I swear-- EVAN!”
Evan reaches into his peacoat, exiting the vehicle. Our camera swings around, and in the near-distance, we see her clear as day:
Rosa.
Evan strides quickly toward Mark Mania’s former assistant as she makes her way up the cement stairs leading to the front door of her town-home. Evan makes long strides to reach the bottom of the stairs, and retrieves his hand from his peacoat-- we only catch a glimpse of his forearm as he moves it past the camera and looks up toward her.
”Rosa!”
She turns, and her eyes widen as she observes Evan Envi. She lets out one single gasp, and stumbles backward.
Darkness.
