Post by Chaos Stryke on Oct 5, 2012 22:22:05 GMT -4
“When it flies, it flies thick here in Action Packed Wrestling.”
The scene comes into focus and we find the camera moving alongside Logan Alexander as he’s walking down a sidewalk somewhere in downtown Toronto. We can see he’s got on a faded jean jacket that is done up against the cooler weather and wearing what appears to be a black shirt underneath it from what we can glimpse past the jacket. He’s got on sunglasses to cope with the sun shining down around the buildings. He glances at the camera briefly and he looks quite annoyed.
“I get that the front office really wants to push One Night in Hell. It’s only three weeks away and Meltdown has a huge match on the card. We’ve got nine competitors for that match and there are already a huge number of issues involved among the competitors in there. Mainly Lively wants to receive a beating of epic proportions and has tried to piss everyone off. So what are APW staff doing?”
Logan stops walking and turns towards the camera. We see some people walk past in the background. A few stop and glance curiously at the camera. A few others stop and wave from behind him
“Here’s a snippit from the card this week… ‘M&M has had their own problems, with both members of the team competing at ONIH, can they cast that aside for a few moments and work together again?’ Really? That’s where we are now?”
“I take a couple of shots at Aubrey in the ring during a match and suddenly we are about to split up in the middle of the ring throwing some sort of hissy fit in the style of the European Invasion? Did I stutter last week when I did my pre match promotional video?”
“I'm pretty sure that I said I was going to go right after Aubrey if she hesitated to come at me. I said I was going to step on her if she gave me an opening. I sure as heck didn't lie about that, did I? I needed to push her. I needed to get under Aubrey's skin just a bit so that she wouldn't be so hesitant.”
“I understand that she didn't want to fight me last week. And I wanted her to deal with that so she would be at her best in three weeks time. As her partner and her teacher, I made her confront a potential problem and deal with it so that further on, it won't hamper her. But what does everyone else in APW get from that exchange? M&M are at each other's throats. Beautiful. People here are about as observant as the blind, the deaf, and the dumb combined.”
He lets out a frustrated breath and moves closer to the camera.
“Other than the fact that another thrown together team, a team we already beat, and a team that had their first win gifted to them are being positioned for the next tag team title match, there’s nothing that Aubrey and I are bothered by. Yeah, the North American championship is important to each of us, but it’s not going to split us up. There might be a day where we do decide to go our own ways. It’s just too bad for Lively, Sabur, Williams, and Pennington that this week is not when it happens.”
“We are a team. I know that is such a foreign concept to people in APW. Raab and Yarmouth never figured it out and you see where they are now. Kash wasn’t serious about it and he took out his would be partner last week. Noble and Hart seemed to have forgotten that concept over the last couple of months, and with Hart possibly on the shelf they may effectively be done. Aubrey and I have been together for five weeks. We haven’t gotten a shot at the tag titles yet, so our reason for being in APW hasn’t been completed. Why would we suddenly break up M&M?”
“We discussed everything about last week. Aubrey understands why I did what I did. If she held a grudge, do you think we would have left our match together? I gave her a push and she came within a moment of keeping me out of the One Night in Hell title match. I did what I needed to do for her and she understands that… even if everyone else doesn’t.”
“M&M isn’t pulling a one night only appearance here.”
Logan shakes his head, then turns and starts to walk down the sidewalk again. He makes his way around other pedestrians as the camera moves to first catch up, then fall back into step beside him. He turns his head towards the camera slightly.
“And what kind of wonderful showdown do we have for M&M’s first main event appearance? We have two more thrown together teams just to help build up the One Night in Hell championship match. All right, I’m willing to not complain about that. But I’m still irked by the fact other ‘teams’ are getting tag title consideration instead of us. But if Aubrey and I walk out of this match with a win over two other North American championship contenders and two other wrestlers who used to be World champions, M&M immediately should be back on the short list of potential contenders for the Tag Team titles. We’ll be more than happy to go through whoever wins the earlier triple threat match on Meltdown to prove that we deserve the shot too.”
He stops and looks at the camera again.
“Maybe that’s the method behind the madness of the M&M break up rumours. They don’t want us to get that shot, which means we’re just going to have to make ourselves impossible to ignore on that front. And this week gives us a chance to do so.”
Logan nods to the camera, then turns and walks off, disappearing into a stairway heading below street level. The scene fades to black.
The scene opens again, now though, we have a perspective of looking up from below Logan, and we can see the wall behind him, painted a strong blue, and a bit of the ceiling, a silvery colour. A light is on off to the left side of the camera, casting a strong illumination across Logan’s face from his right. He nods slightly to the camera.
“Now to resume from where I was earlier. Vincent Pennington and Gervaise Williams. Sabur and Michael Lively. These are our opponents this week.”
“First off, Pennington is hard knocks indeed. Big guy, all about power and beating people up… sounds familiar for me. This is pretty much my opponent comfort zone. In the majority of my matches, I’m against guys that out size me and out power me, but that doesn’t stop me. I might get beaten up a bit in this match just because you’re bound to connect with something and you or someone else will get a chance to follow up on it. But I can handle that. After that though, I’ll bring the fight right back to you.”
“How are your mat-wrestling skills, Vincent? You’re good at slamming people against the mat, but when I’m working over a limb or your back or your neck, you’re not going to be able to do that easily. So what will you do? I doubt you’re going to have the skills to match up against me in such an exchange, which means you’re going to have to wait for someone else to bail you out and who knows how much damage I’ll have done by then.”
“Another issue you have is that you aren’t one of the better competitors on Meltdown. You may show up every week and give your opponents a great fight, but don’t have a record worth bragging about. You might be dangerous in the ring, but you’re not a serious threat. You’ve been put down by Mannie and Lively, so you aren’t the one to worry about on Monday.”
“I’ve seen that you have problems outside the ring, try to not let them distract you. If you’re not focused, don’t expect any success this week. It won’t matter who you partner with. But as it turns out, you’re partnered with mister Williams… or the Krunk. I guess that all depends on what you want to call him.”
Logan shrugs indifferently, looking a little bored, before continuing.
“I’d say that I have some respect for Williams as a competitor. He’s got talent in the ring and some great aerial skills. He’s got some big wins here and there on Meltdown, including beating the North American champion. But that is where the good news ends.”
“Unfortunately, the talent he has is mostly squandered. He may have lots of ability, but what does it really do for him since he doesn’t make the most of them? Williams has been one of the more wildly inconsistent competitors on Meltdown. What has he done since he beat Lively? He managed to draw in a cage match against Shadow. Then he got beaten in the rematch a week later. Then last week Mannie carried him to a win over Comikaze.”
He shakes his head and rubs the bridge of his nose, letting out a disappointed sigh as he does.
“He even admitted on Meltdown that he wasn’t ready to compete and he almost ‘forgot’ that he had a match. How do you take a person like this seriously? It’s such a waste. Then is it any surprise he’s got inferiority issues with the majority of the roster? I never said a bad word about the man, despite the many I could, yet last week he’s moaning about how Aubrey and I are acting like we run the show because we won one match. Really.”
“Gee… sorry to offend you Williams. Sure Aubrey and I will stop being relevant so that you can keep sitting on your thumbs and not look so bad for doing so. Better yet, why don’t you go actually win a match or two rather than running over people with golf carts? A month ago, you looked like a guy who was going to win the North American championship. In three weeks, you managed to piss it away and now you’re just another guy that people don’t care about.”
“You’re a high flyer, but I’ve got about as much experience dealing with flyers as I do with power wrestlers. You might be fast and can fly, but you’ll have to get close enough to me to connect with them and I’m no slouch either. I’ll get a hold of you sooner or later then you’ll be grounded and I’ll clip your wings. But maybe before that we’ll see if you can keep up with my partner when you’re fresh.”
“But that’s assumes you even bother to show up and give your best this week.”
Logan snorts, clearly not willing to give his opponent the benefit of the doubt.
“I guess that brings us to Lively and company. I got to stand face to face with Sabur last week.”
He smiles slightly and reaches up to rub the back of his head.
“He is a big man when you stand toe to toe with him. He thinks he saw fear in my eyes… which means he’s forgotten what fear looks like. I don’t fear big men, but Sabur presents a kind of challenge that I haven’t had to face in several years. I don’t run from challenges. I embrace them. I want to face Sabur on Monday night. I want to see just how good he is. Sabur is supposed to be this incredible monster and I want to see if he really lives up to his and Lively’s hype. But I do have a question…”
"If Sabur is such an unstoppable force, why is he still sitting on the shelf after four years? Why is he playing second fiddle to Lively, an unimpressive talent, given his track record over the last several months?”
“You're barking a lot like Lively does, Sabur... but if you're really that big of a threat, you'd probably have already kicked Lively's backside and taken his spot, rather than constantly having you lips attached to his butt. You’d be walking around with a championship rather than in his shadow. That’s a waste of talent if you really are as good as you say you are.”
“Giving you the benefit of the doubt though, you were hit by a golf cart two weeks ago. That’s going to leave some lingering effects. You were retired because of damage done to your leg. Maybe that’s healed up perfectly for you. If not, I’m definitely going to see just how well it holds up in the ring. I've beaten bigger men at their peak. You might be a mountain of a man, but given enough time, even the biggest mountain can be ground up into nothing but broken chunks of rock and tiny pebbles… and I’m in no hurry.”
“You plan to leave four casualties in the ring. Well, we’ll see how well you do first. Heck… I just like to see how well you do against me. I don’t care how big and tough you are Sabur. When you’re flat on the mat, and I guarantee that you will be at some point, you’re no bigger than anyone else, and you can tap out just as easily.”
Logan smiles confidently at the camera.
“As for Lively, there isn’t really much to be said. You’re a man living off your past success, because you’ve been quite a spectacular failure in the last several months. You became North American champion because Michael Harris handed you the belt in a cage match. You’ve beaten all of two people on your own since you ‘won’ that belt. And you routinely get pinned by people that should have no business doing so. So really, what is there to worry about in regards to you and your giant balls that you so incessantly talk about?”
He pauses while offering a questioning look as though expecting an answer.
“You talk about how great you are, then you routinely get your backside handed to you in the ring. Like Evan Envi, you talk about how great you are, how you’re the big star of Meltdown, how you carry the show, but there’s one big difference between you and Evan. He was able to win with that belt. You kill your own credibility week after week. You’re a joke, but you’re the only one who doesn’t realize it yet. I’m convinced that Sabur could do a better job than you… on one leg or not.”
“You’ve got a great mix of skills and ability, but like Williams, you seem to have some sort of mental block when it actually comes around to bringing the fight to the match and being able to seal the deal with wins. You’re so busy stroking your ego that you cost yourself victories. You’re supposed to be one of the great stars from APW’s past… and it seems that’s where all your skill is.”
“You live off the reputation you used to have, but you’re going to have to earn it back before anyone here takes you seriously again. Until then, you’re just the guy keeping the North American title warm for the next champion.”
Logan smirks at the camera.
“But what really is the problem for the four of you is that this isn’t a singles match and Aubrey and I are the only team in this match. Williams and Pennington are tossed together. Pennington might be able to work with Williams, but who knows if the reverse is true. Williams doesn’t respect anyone on this roster outside of Shadow and Mannie, so who knows if Pennington can really rely on him. Pennington might find himself left high and dry because Williams decides he’s doesn’t need to bother this week. Even if they both decide to bring the fight, they know nothing about each other. They won’t be as effective as anyone else in this match.”
“Lively and Sabur aren't a team either. Sure they might work together, as in Lively says jump and Sabur asks how high. When Lively needs something done, he and his giant balls get Sabur to do it while he hides in his locker room. But Lively doesn't really trust Sabur to do the job and he doesn't respect him either. Why else bring in Bartlett, an inferior talent, and hide it from Sabur?”
“Look at the team aspect. These guys don’t look out for each other. I know at least two instances that Lively has been beaten up and Sabur was nowhere to be found. When Sabur was carted a few weeks ago, there was no Lively there to help him. These two aren’t partners. They’ve already come close to blows on an occasion or two. What trust or faith do you really have in each other? What happens when Lively decides his best course is to leave? Sabur ends up alone. He’s just the hired help after all. Expendable.”
“That’s the problem you four have, no real cohesion or unity. There’s an element of chance since this is a three way match that might help you, but it’s also possible that things break down into a five way fight or people might drop out partway through this match. Aubrey and I don’t have that potential weakness on our side. Neither of us has to worry about our partner’s motives. Can any of you say the same? Can any of you say you trust your partner completely?”
“M&M came into APW as a team and that isn’t changing. You four might be doing a one night only performance, but we’ll be happy to show you how to be the stars.”
Logan grins and winks to the camera, before the scene goes to black.
The scene comes into focus and we find the camera moving alongside Logan Alexander as he’s walking down a sidewalk somewhere in downtown Toronto. We can see he’s got on a faded jean jacket that is done up against the cooler weather and wearing what appears to be a black shirt underneath it from what we can glimpse past the jacket. He’s got on sunglasses to cope with the sun shining down around the buildings. He glances at the camera briefly and he looks quite annoyed.
“I get that the front office really wants to push One Night in Hell. It’s only three weeks away and Meltdown has a huge match on the card. We’ve got nine competitors for that match and there are already a huge number of issues involved among the competitors in there. Mainly Lively wants to receive a beating of epic proportions and has tried to piss everyone off. So what are APW staff doing?”
Logan stops walking and turns towards the camera. We see some people walk past in the background. A few stop and glance curiously at the camera. A few others stop and wave from behind him
“Here’s a snippit from the card this week… ‘M&M has had their own problems, with both members of the team competing at ONIH, can they cast that aside for a few moments and work together again?’ Really? That’s where we are now?”
“I take a couple of shots at Aubrey in the ring during a match and suddenly we are about to split up in the middle of the ring throwing some sort of hissy fit in the style of the European Invasion? Did I stutter last week when I did my pre match promotional video?”
“I'm pretty sure that I said I was going to go right after Aubrey if she hesitated to come at me. I said I was going to step on her if she gave me an opening. I sure as heck didn't lie about that, did I? I needed to push her. I needed to get under Aubrey's skin just a bit so that she wouldn't be so hesitant.”
“I understand that she didn't want to fight me last week. And I wanted her to deal with that so she would be at her best in three weeks time. As her partner and her teacher, I made her confront a potential problem and deal with it so that further on, it won't hamper her. But what does everyone else in APW get from that exchange? M&M are at each other's throats. Beautiful. People here are about as observant as the blind, the deaf, and the dumb combined.”
He lets out a frustrated breath and moves closer to the camera.
“Other than the fact that another thrown together team, a team we already beat, and a team that had their first win gifted to them are being positioned for the next tag team title match, there’s nothing that Aubrey and I are bothered by. Yeah, the North American championship is important to each of us, but it’s not going to split us up. There might be a day where we do decide to go our own ways. It’s just too bad for Lively, Sabur, Williams, and Pennington that this week is not when it happens.”
“We are a team. I know that is such a foreign concept to people in APW. Raab and Yarmouth never figured it out and you see where they are now. Kash wasn’t serious about it and he took out his would be partner last week. Noble and Hart seemed to have forgotten that concept over the last couple of months, and with Hart possibly on the shelf they may effectively be done. Aubrey and I have been together for five weeks. We haven’t gotten a shot at the tag titles yet, so our reason for being in APW hasn’t been completed. Why would we suddenly break up M&M?”
“We discussed everything about last week. Aubrey understands why I did what I did. If she held a grudge, do you think we would have left our match together? I gave her a push and she came within a moment of keeping me out of the One Night in Hell title match. I did what I needed to do for her and she understands that… even if everyone else doesn’t.”
“M&M isn’t pulling a one night only appearance here.”
Logan shakes his head, then turns and starts to walk down the sidewalk again. He makes his way around other pedestrians as the camera moves to first catch up, then fall back into step beside him. He turns his head towards the camera slightly.
“And what kind of wonderful showdown do we have for M&M’s first main event appearance? We have two more thrown together teams just to help build up the One Night in Hell championship match. All right, I’m willing to not complain about that. But I’m still irked by the fact other ‘teams’ are getting tag title consideration instead of us. But if Aubrey and I walk out of this match with a win over two other North American championship contenders and two other wrestlers who used to be World champions, M&M immediately should be back on the short list of potential contenders for the Tag Team titles. We’ll be more than happy to go through whoever wins the earlier triple threat match on Meltdown to prove that we deserve the shot too.”
He stops and looks at the camera again.
“Maybe that’s the method behind the madness of the M&M break up rumours. They don’t want us to get that shot, which means we’re just going to have to make ourselves impossible to ignore on that front. And this week gives us a chance to do so.”
Logan nods to the camera, then turns and walks off, disappearing into a stairway heading below street level. The scene fades to black.
The scene opens again, now though, we have a perspective of looking up from below Logan, and we can see the wall behind him, painted a strong blue, and a bit of the ceiling, a silvery colour. A light is on off to the left side of the camera, casting a strong illumination across Logan’s face from his right. He nods slightly to the camera.
“Now to resume from where I was earlier. Vincent Pennington and Gervaise Williams. Sabur and Michael Lively. These are our opponents this week.”
“First off, Pennington is hard knocks indeed. Big guy, all about power and beating people up… sounds familiar for me. This is pretty much my opponent comfort zone. In the majority of my matches, I’m against guys that out size me and out power me, but that doesn’t stop me. I might get beaten up a bit in this match just because you’re bound to connect with something and you or someone else will get a chance to follow up on it. But I can handle that. After that though, I’ll bring the fight right back to you.”
“How are your mat-wrestling skills, Vincent? You’re good at slamming people against the mat, but when I’m working over a limb or your back or your neck, you’re not going to be able to do that easily. So what will you do? I doubt you’re going to have the skills to match up against me in such an exchange, which means you’re going to have to wait for someone else to bail you out and who knows how much damage I’ll have done by then.”
“Another issue you have is that you aren’t one of the better competitors on Meltdown. You may show up every week and give your opponents a great fight, but don’t have a record worth bragging about. You might be dangerous in the ring, but you’re not a serious threat. You’ve been put down by Mannie and Lively, so you aren’t the one to worry about on Monday.”
“I’ve seen that you have problems outside the ring, try to not let them distract you. If you’re not focused, don’t expect any success this week. It won’t matter who you partner with. But as it turns out, you’re partnered with mister Williams… or the Krunk. I guess that all depends on what you want to call him.”
Logan shrugs indifferently, looking a little bored, before continuing.
“I’d say that I have some respect for Williams as a competitor. He’s got talent in the ring and some great aerial skills. He’s got some big wins here and there on Meltdown, including beating the North American champion. But that is where the good news ends.”
“Unfortunately, the talent he has is mostly squandered. He may have lots of ability, but what does it really do for him since he doesn’t make the most of them? Williams has been one of the more wildly inconsistent competitors on Meltdown. What has he done since he beat Lively? He managed to draw in a cage match against Shadow. Then he got beaten in the rematch a week later. Then last week Mannie carried him to a win over Comikaze.”
He shakes his head and rubs the bridge of his nose, letting out a disappointed sigh as he does.
“He even admitted on Meltdown that he wasn’t ready to compete and he almost ‘forgot’ that he had a match. How do you take a person like this seriously? It’s such a waste. Then is it any surprise he’s got inferiority issues with the majority of the roster? I never said a bad word about the man, despite the many I could, yet last week he’s moaning about how Aubrey and I are acting like we run the show because we won one match. Really.”
“Gee… sorry to offend you Williams. Sure Aubrey and I will stop being relevant so that you can keep sitting on your thumbs and not look so bad for doing so. Better yet, why don’t you go actually win a match or two rather than running over people with golf carts? A month ago, you looked like a guy who was going to win the North American championship. In three weeks, you managed to piss it away and now you’re just another guy that people don’t care about.”
“You’re a high flyer, but I’ve got about as much experience dealing with flyers as I do with power wrestlers. You might be fast and can fly, but you’ll have to get close enough to me to connect with them and I’m no slouch either. I’ll get a hold of you sooner or later then you’ll be grounded and I’ll clip your wings. But maybe before that we’ll see if you can keep up with my partner when you’re fresh.”
“But that’s assumes you even bother to show up and give your best this week.”
Logan snorts, clearly not willing to give his opponent the benefit of the doubt.
“I guess that brings us to Lively and company. I got to stand face to face with Sabur last week.”
He smiles slightly and reaches up to rub the back of his head.
“He is a big man when you stand toe to toe with him. He thinks he saw fear in my eyes… which means he’s forgotten what fear looks like. I don’t fear big men, but Sabur presents a kind of challenge that I haven’t had to face in several years. I don’t run from challenges. I embrace them. I want to face Sabur on Monday night. I want to see just how good he is. Sabur is supposed to be this incredible monster and I want to see if he really lives up to his and Lively’s hype. But I do have a question…”
"If Sabur is such an unstoppable force, why is he still sitting on the shelf after four years? Why is he playing second fiddle to Lively, an unimpressive talent, given his track record over the last several months?”
“You're barking a lot like Lively does, Sabur... but if you're really that big of a threat, you'd probably have already kicked Lively's backside and taken his spot, rather than constantly having you lips attached to his butt. You’d be walking around with a championship rather than in his shadow. That’s a waste of talent if you really are as good as you say you are.”
“Giving you the benefit of the doubt though, you were hit by a golf cart two weeks ago. That’s going to leave some lingering effects. You were retired because of damage done to your leg. Maybe that’s healed up perfectly for you. If not, I’m definitely going to see just how well it holds up in the ring. I've beaten bigger men at their peak. You might be a mountain of a man, but given enough time, even the biggest mountain can be ground up into nothing but broken chunks of rock and tiny pebbles… and I’m in no hurry.”
“You plan to leave four casualties in the ring. Well, we’ll see how well you do first. Heck… I just like to see how well you do against me. I don’t care how big and tough you are Sabur. When you’re flat on the mat, and I guarantee that you will be at some point, you’re no bigger than anyone else, and you can tap out just as easily.”
Logan smiles confidently at the camera.
“As for Lively, there isn’t really much to be said. You’re a man living off your past success, because you’ve been quite a spectacular failure in the last several months. You became North American champion because Michael Harris handed you the belt in a cage match. You’ve beaten all of two people on your own since you ‘won’ that belt. And you routinely get pinned by people that should have no business doing so. So really, what is there to worry about in regards to you and your giant balls that you so incessantly talk about?”
He pauses while offering a questioning look as though expecting an answer.
“You talk about how great you are, then you routinely get your backside handed to you in the ring. Like Evan Envi, you talk about how great you are, how you’re the big star of Meltdown, how you carry the show, but there’s one big difference between you and Evan. He was able to win with that belt. You kill your own credibility week after week. You’re a joke, but you’re the only one who doesn’t realize it yet. I’m convinced that Sabur could do a better job than you… on one leg or not.”
“You’ve got a great mix of skills and ability, but like Williams, you seem to have some sort of mental block when it actually comes around to bringing the fight to the match and being able to seal the deal with wins. You’re so busy stroking your ego that you cost yourself victories. You’re supposed to be one of the great stars from APW’s past… and it seems that’s where all your skill is.”
“You live off the reputation you used to have, but you’re going to have to earn it back before anyone here takes you seriously again. Until then, you’re just the guy keeping the North American title warm for the next champion.”
Logan smirks at the camera.
“But what really is the problem for the four of you is that this isn’t a singles match and Aubrey and I are the only team in this match. Williams and Pennington are tossed together. Pennington might be able to work with Williams, but who knows if the reverse is true. Williams doesn’t respect anyone on this roster outside of Shadow and Mannie, so who knows if Pennington can really rely on him. Pennington might find himself left high and dry because Williams decides he’s doesn’t need to bother this week. Even if they both decide to bring the fight, they know nothing about each other. They won’t be as effective as anyone else in this match.”
“Lively and Sabur aren't a team either. Sure they might work together, as in Lively says jump and Sabur asks how high. When Lively needs something done, he and his giant balls get Sabur to do it while he hides in his locker room. But Lively doesn't really trust Sabur to do the job and he doesn't respect him either. Why else bring in Bartlett, an inferior talent, and hide it from Sabur?”
“Look at the team aspect. These guys don’t look out for each other. I know at least two instances that Lively has been beaten up and Sabur was nowhere to be found. When Sabur was carted a few weeks ago, there was no Lively there to help him. These two aren’t partners. They’ve already come close to blows on an occasion or two. What trust or faith do you really have in each other? What happens when Lively decides his best course is to leave? Sabur ends up alone. He’s just the hired help after all. Expendable.”
“That’s the problem you four have, no real cohesion or unity. There’s an element of chance since this is a three way match that might help you, but it’s also possible that things break down into a five way fight or people might drop out partway through this match. Aubrey and I don’t have that potential weakness on our side. Neither of us has to worry about our partner’s motives. Can any of you say the same? Can any of you say you trust your partner completely?”
“M&M came into APW as a team and that isn’t changing. You four might be doing a one night only performance, but we’ll be happy to show you how to be the stars.”
Logan grins and winks to the camera, before the scene goes to black.
