Post by Zachariah Blood on Jun 1, 2013 18:38:48 GMT -4
The focus is on the broad, bare back of Zachariah Blood as the scene opens, the posture of the ‘dangerous half’ of The Unforgiven stooped over just a little. The line of Japanese lettering down his spine shifts subtly with his every breath and his broad shoulders have a trace amount of tension in them. Given that he’s sitting on a bench in what looks like a locker room, the source of that tension may be a recent match or a workout, but we can only assume. He seems aware that a camera’s on him as he turns to look over his shoulder, the Eye of Horus tattooed around his right eye adding something sinister to his glare. Zachariah snorts in an irritated fashion and turns back to his previous posture. Speaking can be heard but it obviously isn’t him. The cameraman hesitatingly edges closer and peers over his shoulder…
…and sees, played out on the screen of a tablet clutched in Blood’s hands the recent promo put to the airwaves by one-half of his opponents this week, “Madman” Chris Madison. This particular viewing of it is almost over as we can tell from the constant blathering of the APW newcomer as he verbally lays into both Blood and his absent partner, Sentinel. One can safely assume that the Silent Destroyer will be ‘saying’ his piece soon. For now, there is only Blood, bereft of even Lady Rayne for the moment, allowing the promo to finish before sweeping the video aside and setting it on the bench beside him. Black workout pants with blood red piping that ‘drips’ down the legs and a pair of black-and-red Otomix comprise his attire, his streaked black hanging in his face, blown out a bit by each breath…and when he speaks.
Zachariah Blood: ”Just as with the administering of pain, there is an art, a certain level of panache, that goes with cutting someone down verbally. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the game of professional wrestling, where we spend untold hours wasting breath and energy in an attempt to win the mental game before we can dig our claws into the flesh of our opponents. Any moron can have some monkey hold up a camera and push the little button so that their every weak insult is recorded for posterity. Chris Madison proved that.”
Zachariah rises to his feet and stretches his arms up over his head as he arches backward. The effort proceeds until he hears and feels a relief-inducing pop from his spine, exhaling in near-contentment. He walks forward to the counter, three empty sinks installed within and one large mirror the width of said counter on the tiled wall before him. Staring into his reflection, he releases a snort and shakes his head.
Zachariah Blood: ”Feel better there, Madman? Got some weight off your shoulders now that you’ve run your mouth a little bit? Feels nice to just unleash on someone, doesn’t it?”
Glaring over his shoulder at us again, we can just make out the grinding noise of his teeth as his jaw sets. The Eye of Horus tattooed around his right eye seeming more imposing when seen on his skin instead of as a reflection for some reason...
Zachariah Blood: ”Good…yet hollow. You’ve at least accomplished more than the so-called New Dynasty did last week against us, and all you had to do was talk a little shit and get into a scrum at some scuzzy Oakland dive. But you also proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that despite your entering APW on…how did they put it?”
Blood’s brows furrow for a moment in thought until another voice, sultry and sweet, speaks from off-camera.
Lady Rayne: ”’At the forefront of massive hype trains.’”
Tall heels click on the linoleum as Rayne walks into the frame, jeans held tight to her legs and a flowing silk top in black rustling with each shift of her torso. She pushes herself up onto the counter easily and crosses her legs at the ankle as she grips the edge, watching Zachariah. He nods once and turns back to his reflection.
Zachariah Blood: ”Exactly. Despite that, you proved that no amount of hype on the planet can made an idiot less of an idiot. From the moment you opened your mouth, the difference between us was clear, Chrissy: you talk shit and I DO shit.”
Rayne is more content to listen this time around while Zachariah responds to his vocal opponent.
Zachariah Blood: ”Piece by piece for the next few minutes, Chrissy, I’m going to illustrate the differences between you and I. It’s going to be harsh. Feelings are going to be hurt. But this is for your own good and when the haze lifts and you have proper control of your body again after the fact…you’ll thank me. Or you’ll curse me for laying your weakness bare for the world. One of the two.”
Smirking as she eyes Zachariah, Rayne remains silent as he turns and leans back against the counter, tattooed arms folding across his chest as he stares directly at the camera.
Zachariah Blood: ”That scrap you got into with those clowns in the bar? That was my life growing up. Every day before and after school, having to fight my way into the building and back home again. More than once I staggered through the double-doors of the school with my clothes torn and blood dripping from more than one part of my body. The smirks on the faces of the bastards who did it apparently weren’t clue enough for the so-called administrators of the school. Their first question was ‘did your mother or father do this?’ ‘No,’ I would retort, ‘they just gave them the opportunity.’ Then I walked off while their faces scrunched up in confusion. But after a time, even a kid can be pushed too far. Growing up in a situation like that showed me what pain could do for me…toughened me up.
And it taught me that I prefer to be on the other side of the equation of violence.”
Sucking in a slow breath, Zachariah turns on the faucet and splashes cold water on his face before taking a sip from the clear liquid cupped in his hands. Shutting it off, he braces his palms against the counter for a moment as shoulders rise and fall with heavy breaths. Then he looks up at the mirror with a grimace. It isn’t that which disturbs, though. It’s the look in those eyes of his: fervent, excited…psychotic.
Zachariah Blood: ”I was fourteen or fifteen at the time and had been taking side routes to school some days just to throw off my tormentors. It didn’t dawn on me that there might be worse things out there on this new route. The perils of a sheltered life.”
His attentions shifts briefly to Rayne who is paying rapt attention, then back to the mirror through which he stares at the camera.
Zachariah Blood: ”A couple of thugs not unlike those you danced with in the bar, Chrissy…one with a pipe, one with a bat. You see where this is going? A punk in clothes a bit too nice for that part of town walking in an area that was claimed by a couple of would-be hardasses, guys who were begging for a reason to teach a lesson. Long story short, they kicked the shit out of me. That was the pivotal moment. That was when I tasted the sweet sting of pain for the first time in the same manner that I do every time I step in the ring or the cage nowadays.
But what happened to the other two, you’re probably asking? One of them, the one swinging the pipe…I caught him with a lucky punch in the chin and picked up the steel when he dropped it. Then I proceeded to make sure he wouldn’t have proper use of his right leg again. As for the asshole with the bat, I introduced a cinder block to his skull. To my eternal amusement, he never woke up from the coma. After they peeled my concussed, bloody hide off the concrete, every breath causing a broken rib to scratch against my lung and several seared ones to burn like mad, I went first to the hospital, then to juvie for a few years. You can imagine that by that point I was done letting people screw with me.”
Letting it out seems to feel good, but not because he’d been holding it in. More because he treasures the memory of ruining a pair of lives.
Zachariah Blood: ”That’s not counting the battles in Japan or the cage fights in back alleys and underground clubs across the country. So forgive me for not being impressed by you beating up some tricycle-riding, leathered-up jackasses who watched one too many episodes of Sons of Anarchy, Chrissy. I did worse before I could legally get a fucking license.”
The smirk is close to, but not quite, a smile.
Zachariah Blood: ”Beating The New Dynasty this past Monday was the real-life equivalent of smacking a mosquito with a newspaper. The only pride I got out of that was in choking that over-muscled asshole into unconsciousness after Sentinel nearly shattered his partner’s spine. The win didn’t mean shit. Those two were on their way out. Sienna Harrison just used us as a clean-up crew. End of story.”
Lady Rayne: ”An effective one at that. But that’s just a small taste of what we’re capable of.”
Nodding in agreement, Blood turns to staring into his own eyes again. Someone passes by behind him but he pays them no mind. Rayne, however, slides off the counter after whispering something to Zachariah which prompts another nod. Moments after she leaves we hear two females conversing and Blood gets back to business.
Zachariah Blood: ”But really, that’s all you did that was close to being noteworthy. Sitting there and poisoning your body with nicotine and alcohol just made you look like someone who doesn’t take his career seriously despite the tough talk. And claiming that you and I are similar in anyway is a shot in the dark that missed by a mile. Why, because we both plied our trade in Japan and hopped from indie to indie? You described 75% of the wrestlers on the planet with that line, bright-boy.
In the back of your mind you knew that none of what you said or did was going to get to me. Unfortunately you didn’t realize it till you’d been talking for a while, so you dipped into the same well of idiocy that multiple opponents in the past have against me: you picked at shit that doesn’t matter.”
Blood turns and walks to one of the lockers off to his left, opening it up and retrieving a black duffel bag which he set on the bench near where he’d previously been sitting, retaking that spot. He leans over to unlace his shoes as he continues addressing Madison.
Zachariah Blood: ”It’s like fly paper for assholes. People get a taste of what Rayne and I do, what our lifestyle consists of, and they jump right on it. Calling us every synonym for weird in the book and thinking because a woman leads me about that that makes me less of a threat. What’s painfully stupid to me, though, is after seeing what I did to The New Dynasty with Sentinel, two men who didn’t even bother to speak and thus had no chance to insult us…you still talked that kind of shit. There’s no pretense to me, Chrissy. I don’t pretend to be a damn thing. What I am is laid bare for the world. It isn’t my fault or concern that most, like you, can’t handle it.
I’m not in this business to have a dick-showing contest with my opponents like you are, showing off by doing all the tough-guy clichés to get attention that you can’t earn between the ropes on your own merits. And I’m not keen on explaining my motivations again. If people didn’t get it the first time, they’re not going to get it the second, third or fourteenth. As for intimidating you, hey, if you’re not, you’re not. Is it supposed to bother me that none of what I say or do is sinking through that rock-filled skull of yours? Am I supposed to be pissed that you’re not afraid of what I can do after seeing it live and in living color? Sorry to bust that ignorant bubble you’re living in, but neither is the case. If you’re too thick to get it, that means more fun for us. It means you’ll run at us head-first without a care for what might happen, right into the beating of your miserable life.”
Through his monologue, Zachariah has risen and wrapped a towel around his waist, what clothing he’d been wearing set aside neatly. The height of the camera spared us seeing anything below his chest. It seems like the address, like the assumed workout, is just about done. Time to wash away the taint of sweat, dirt and the mindless words of another victim.
Zachariah Blood: ”Your kind will never understand, Chrissy. You’re all mouth and no action. You might have walked in here with a reputation but all you’ve done is bury yourself with your mindless drivel. Maybe you really are as impressive as you’d like us to think. Wrestling in Japan takes a special kind of athlete and few survive without having size, strength and heart in spades. Is that what took you through the death matches and the stiff shots they love to deliver? Maybe it is. That’s not what did it for me, though. You want to know how I survived Japan? Because there was no amount of pain they could bestow on me that I hadn’t felt before.
Japan, rough as it is, has rules. It has standards that everyone will follow or they’ll get tossed out on their ass. Cages, their floors littered with broken glass and debris, their walls rusty and sharp…you won’t find standards or rules that’ll help you worth a damn in a situation like that. And that, Chrissy, is where I thrived before Japan was a blip on my radar. Are you getting it yet? Or am I still prancing and barking like I think I’m badder than I’ll ever be? If that’s what you still think then I’m begging you to bring that attitude to Oakland Monday night. I’m begging you to give me an even greater reason to rip you open.”
One of the showers starts up, which we can just hear on the edge of our range. Eventually, steam starts flowing past the opening leading into that particular area, the sound of female conversation becoming quieter as Zachariah moves toward the noise of running water.
Zachariah Blood: ”As for Sentinel, he can answer your bullshit in his own way if he wants, but someone like you…you’re under his notice. You don’t register for a monster like that. You’re referring lightly to a man who held a top singles championship at the same time he was defending a World Tag Team Championship with the woman who walks him down to the ring, a singles title of repute around her own waist. One look into my Lady Rayne’s eyes will tell you that she’s had her share of ring wars as well. There’s not a one of us that can’t take you apart…you or your silent partner. But we’re just talking shit, right? The dominatrix, the gimp, the mute and Miss Cleo, you said?”
He stops before the entrance to his destination, one hand on each side of the doorless opening, his shoulders shaking with perceived laughter that falls silent from his lips.
Zachariah Blood: ”You really are a ‘madman’. A mentally-challenged thug of a man-child who thinks name-calling and petty insults are going to get our hackles up. It’s called digging a grave with words, Chrissy. Monday night, we knock you and yours into that grave with a nice, big shovel. It’s called the truth. It’s what we do.
Welcome to our pain.”
He steps around the corner without looking back and the scene fades to black.
…and sees, played out on the screen of a tablet clutched in Blood’s hands the recent promo put to the airwaves by one-half of his opponents this week, “Madman” Chris Madison. This particular viewing of it is almost over as we can tell from the constant blathering of the APW newcomer as he verbally lays into both Blood and his absent partner, Sentinel. One can safely assume that the Silent Destroyer will be ‘saying’ his piece soon. For now, there is only Blood, bereft of even Lady Rayne for the moment, allowing the promo to finish before sweeping the video aside and setting it on the bench beside him. Black workout pants with blood red piping that ‘drips’ down the legs and a pair of black-and-red Otomix comprise his attire, his streaked black hanging in his face, blown out a bit by each breath…and when he speaks.
Zachariah Blood: ”Just as with the administering of pain, there is an art, a certain level of panache, that goes with cutting someone down verbally. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the game of professional wrestling, where we spend untold hours wasting breath and energy in an attempt to win the mental game before we can dig our claws into the flesh of our opponents. Any moron can have some monkey hold up a camera and push the little button so that their every weak insult is recorded for posterity. Chris Madison proved that.”
Zachariah rises to his feet and stretches his arms up over his head as he arches backward. The effort proceeds until he hears and feels a relief-inducing pop from his spine, exhaling in near-contentment. He walks forward to the counter, three empty sinks installed within and one large mirror the width of said counter on the tiled wall before him. Staring into his reflection, he releases a snort and shakes his head.
Zachariah Blood: ”Feel better there, Madman? Got some weight off your shoulders now that you’ve run your mouth a little bit? Feels nice to just unleash on someone, doesn’t it?”
Glaring over his shoulder at us again, we can just make out the grinding noise of his teeth as his jaw sets. The Eye of Horus tattooed around his right eye seeming more imposing when seen on his skin instead of as a reflection for some reason...
Zachariah Blood: ”Good…yet hollow. You’ve at least accomplished more than the so-called New Dynasty did last week against us, and all you had to do was talk a little shit and get into a scrum at some scuzzy Oakland dive. But you also proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that despite your entering APW on…how did they put it?”
Blood’s brows furrow for a moment in thought until another voice, sultry and sweet, speaks from off-camera.
Lady Rayne: ”’At the forefront of massive hype trains.’”
Tall heels click on the linoleum as Rayne walks into the frame, jeans held tight to her legs and a flowing silk top in black rustling with each shift of her torso. She pushes herself up onto the counter easily and crosses her legs at the ankle as she grips the edge, watching Zachariah. He nods once and turns back to his reflection.
Zachariah Blood: ”Exactly. Despite that, you proved that no amount of hype on the planet can made an idiot less of an idiot. From the moment you opened your mouth, the difference between us was clear, Chrissy: you talk shit and I DO shit.”
Rayne is more content to listen this time around while Zachariah responds to his vocal opponent.
Zachariah Blood: ”Piece by piece for the next few minutes, Chrissy, I’m going to illustrate the differences between you and I. It’s going to be harsh. Feelings are going to be hurt. But this is for your own good and when the haze lifts and you have proper control of your body again after the fact…you’ll thank me. Or you’ll curse me for laying your weakness bare for the world. One of the two.”
Smirking as she eyes Zachariah, Rayne remains silent as he turns and leans back against the counter, tattooed arms folding across his chest as he stares directly at the camera.
Zachariah Blood: ”That scrap you got into with those clowns in the bar? That was my life growing up. Every day before and after school, having to fight my way into the building and back home again. More than once I staggered through the double-doors of the school with my clothes torn and blood dripping from more than one part of my body. The smirks on the faces of the bastards who did it apparently weren’t clue enough for the so-called administrators of the school. Their first question was ‘did your mother or father do this?’ ‘No,’ I would retort, ‘they just gave them the opportunity.’ Then I walked off while their faces scrunched up in confusion. But after a time, even a kid can be pushed too far. Growing up in a situation like that showed me what pain could do for me…toughened me up.
And it taught me that I prefer to be on the other side of the equation of violence.”
Sucking in a slow breath, Zachariah turns on the faucet and splashes cold water on his face before taking a sip from the clear liquid cupped in his hands. Shutting it off, he braces his palms against the counter for a moment as shoulders rise and fall with heavy breaths. Then he looks up at the mirror with a grimace. It isn’t that which disturbs, though. It’s the look in those eyes of his: fervent, excited…psychotic.
Zachariah Blood: ”I was fourteen or fifteen at the time and had been taking side routes to school some days just to throw off my tormentors. It didn’t dawn on me that there might be worse things out there on this new route. The perils of a sheltered life.”
His attentions shifts briefly to Rayne who is paying rapt attention, then back to the mirror through which he stares at the camera.
Zachariah Blood: ”A couple of thugs not unlike those you danced with in the bar, Chrissy…one with a pipe, one with a bat. You see where this is going? A punk in clothes a bit too nice for that part of town walking in an area that was claimed by a couple of would-be hardasses, guys who were begging for a reason to teach a lesson. Long story short, they kicked the shit out of me. That was the pivotal moment. That was when I tasted the sweet sting of pain for the first time in the same manner that I do every time I step in the ring or the cage nowadays.
But what happened to the other two, you’re probably asking? One of them, the one swinging the pipe…I caught him with a lucky punch in the chin and picked up the steel when he dropped it. Then I proceeded to make sure he wouldn’t have proper use of his right leg again. As for the asshole with the bat, I introduced a cinder block to his skull. To my eternal amusement, he never woke up from the coma. After they peeled my concussed, bloody hide off the concrete, every breath causing a broken rib to scratch against my lung and several seared ones to burn like mad, I went first to the hospital, then to juvie for a few years. You can imagine that by that point I was done letting people screw with me.”
Letting it out seems to feel good, but not because he’d been holding it in. More because he treasures the memory of ruining a pair of lives.
Zachariah Blood: ”That’s not counting the battles in Japan or the cage fights in back alleys and underground clubs across the country. So forgive me for not being impressed by you beating up some tricycle-riding, leathered-up jackasses who watched one too many episodes of Sons of Anarchy, Chrissy. I did worse before I could legally get a fucking license.”
The smirk is close to, but not quite, a smile.
Zachariah Blood: ”Beating The New Dynasty this past Monday was the real-life equivalent of smacking a mosquito with a newspaper. The only pride I got out of that was in choking that over-muscled asshole into unconsciousness after Sentinel nearly shattered his partner’s spine. The win didn’t mean shit. Those two were on their way out. Sienna Harrison just used us as a clean-up crew. End of story.”
Lady Rayne: ”An effective one at that. But that’s just a small taste of what we’re capable of.”
Nodding in agreement, Blood turns to staring into his own eyes again. Someone passes by behind him but he pays them no mind. Rayne, however, slides off the counter after whispering something to Zachariah which prompts another nod. Moments after she leaves we hear two females conversing and Blood gets back to business.
Zachariah Blood: ”But really, that’s all you did that was close to being noteworthy. Sitting there and poisoning your body with nicotine and alcohol just made you look like someone who doesn’t take his career seriously despite the tough talk. And claiming that you and I are similar in anyway is a shot in the dark that missed by a mile. Why, because we both plied our trade in Japan and hopped from indie to indie? You described 75% of the wrestlers on the planet with that line, bright-boy.
In the back of your mind you knew that none of what you said or did was going to get to me. Unfortunately you didn’t realize it till you’d been talking for a while, so you dipped into the same well of idiocy that multiple opponents in the past have against me: you picked at shit that doesn’t matter.”
Blood turns and walks to one of the lockers off to his left, opening it up and retrieving a black duffel bag which he set on the bench near where he’d previously been sitting, retaking that spot. He leans over to unlace his shoes as he continues addressing Madison.
Zachariah Blood: ”It’s like fly paper for assholes. People get a taste of what Rayne and I do, what our lifestyle consists of, and they jump right on it. Calling us every synonym for weird in the book and thinking because a woman leads me about that that makes me less of a threat. What’s painfully stupid to me, though, is after seeing what I did to The New Dynasty with Sentinel, two men who didn’t even bother to speak and thus had no chance to insult us…you still talked that kind of shit. There’s no pretense to me, Chrissy. I don’t pretend to be a damn thing. What I am is laid bare for the world. It isn’t my fault or concern that most, like you, can’t handle it.
I’m not in this business to have a dick-showing contest with my opponents like you are, showing off by doing all the tough-guy clichés to get attention that you can’t earn between the ropes on your own merits. And I’m not keen on explaining my motivations again. If people didn’t get it the first time, they’re not going to get it the second, third or fourteenth. As for intimidating you, hey, if you’re not, you’re not. Is it supposed to bother me that none of what I say or do is sinking through that rock-filled skull of yours? Am I supposed to be pissed that you’re not afraid of what I can do after seeing it live and in living color? Sorry to bust that ignorant bubble you’re living in, but neither is the case. If you’re too thick to get it, that means more fun for us. It means you’ll run at us head-first without a care for what might happen, right into the beating of your miserable life.”
Through his monologue, Zachariah has risen and wrapped a towel around his waist, what clothing he’d been wearing set aside neatly. The height of the camera spared us seeing anything below his chest. It seems like the address, like the assumed workout, is just about done. Time to wash away the taint of sweat, dirt and the mindless words of another victim.
Zachariah Blood: ”Your kind will never understand, Chrissy. You’re all mouth and no action. You might have walked in here with a reputation but all you’ve done is bury yourself with your mindless drivel. Maybe you really are as impressive as you’d like us to think. Wrestling in Japan takes a special kind of athlete and few survive without having size, strength and heart in spades. Is that what took you through the death matches and the stiff shots they love to deliver? Maybe it is. That’s not what did it for me, though. You want to know how I survived Japan? Because there was no amount of pain they could bestow on me that I hadn’t felt before.
Japan, rough as it is, has rules. It has standards that everyone will follow or they’ll get tossed out on their ass. Cages, their floors littered with broken glass and debris, their walls rusty and sharp…you won’t find standards or rules that’ll help you worth a damn in a situation like that. And that, Chrissy, is where I thrived before Japan was a blip on my radar. Are you getting it yet? Or am I still prancing and barking like I think I’m badder than I’ll ever be? If that’s what you still think then I’m begging you to bring that attitude to Oakland Monday night. I’m begging you to give me an even greater reason to rip you open.”
One of the showers starts up, which we can just hear on the edge of our range. Eventually, steam starts flowing past the opening leading into that particular area, the sound of female conversation becoming quieter as Zachariah moves toward the noise of running water.
Zachariah Blood: ”As for Sentinel, he can answer your bullshit in his own way if he wants, but someone like you…you’re under his notice. You don’t register for a monster like that. You’re referring lightly to a man who held a top singles championship at the same time he was defending a World Tag Team Championship with the woman who walks him down to the ring, a singles title of repute around her own waist. One look into my Lady Rayne’s eyes will tell you that she’s had her share of ring wars as well. There’s not a one of us that can’t take you apart…you or your silent partner. But we’re just talking shit, right? The dominatrix, the gimp, the mute and Miss Cleo, you said?”
He stops before the entrance to his destination, one hand on each side of the doorless opening, his shoulders shaking with perceived laughter that falls silent from his lips.
Zachariah Blood: ”You really are a ‘madman’. A mentally-challenged thug of a man-child who thinks name-calling and petty insults are going to get our hackles up. It’s called digging a grave with words, Chrissy. Monday night, we knock you and yours into that grave with a nice, big shovel. It’s called the truth. It’s what we do.
Welcome to our pain.”
He steps around the corner without looking back and the scene fades to black.
