Things that go bump in the ring [Rocco EoD 3.2]

[Steele]

A back alley
Rochester, New York


AWF interviewer Charles Akiyama stands in front of an enormous steel door built into a red-brick wall situated at the end of a dimly-lit alley. He eyes the door, noticing that there is no handle on the outside.

He looks around at the vicinity, and checks a scrap of paper, double-checking that he is indeed at the correct location. Balling a fist, he bangs loudly on the door.

Suddenly, almost instantly, a hatch in the door slides open, and a pair of beady eyes and bushy grey brows peer out through the opening. They are unmistakably Harry Hansen's eyes.


Harry Hansen:
Yes? Oh - it's you. Hold on.


Harry slams the hatch shut and begins the laborious process of unlocking all the latches and deadbolts on the other side of the door. Akiyama wonders exactly what Harry has back here that's worth keeping under such tight security.

The door swings open, and Charles walks inside. He takes a good look at the inside - it looks every bit as dingy as the outside world.


Charles Akiyama:
What's with the, uh-

Harry Hansen:
The locks? Heh. Everyone asks that.

Charles Akiyama:
Who are you trying to keep out?

Harry Hansen:
Keep out? Ha! I ain't trying to keep people out, kid. I gotta lock this place up like that to keep 'em in.


Akiyama notices Harry secreting several keys in various pockets about his person.


Charles Akiyama:
Oh. I've heard your training methods are somewhat...

Harry Hansen:
Unorthodox? Crazy? Brutal? Yeah, I've heard that too. It's a load of horse crap. I don't breed pussies at my school.


Harry leads Akiyama along a short hallway, the paint on the walls a blotchy and peeling mish-mash of various shades of white and grey, a testament to Harry's 'minimalistic' approach to property repair. Along the wall are a few framed portraits, of bare-chested young men holding diplomas, smiling for the camera through gap-toothed grins. The final picture shows former AWF Champion and current AWF Commissioner Jackson Steele, his torso covered in welts and his left eye swollen and bruised.


Charles Akiyama:
You haven't had many students, then?


Akiyama waves a hand towards the portraits.


Harry Hansen:
I've had hundreds of students. Those are the ones who survived.

Charles Akiyama:
Oh... and Rocco?

Harry Hansen:
He's close. But there's still a little ways to go yet.


Akiyama nods as he notices dried blood smeared across one of the walls. He considers bringing it up, but then thinks better of it. Harry swings open a set of double doors that threaten to fall off of their hinges, and the pair walk into a room that is somehow even dingier than the preceding hallway.

The room is fairly large, the walls are covered in the same peeling-paint-and-blood effect from the hallway and the high windows that run just below ceiling level are barely large -or clean - enough to let any natural light through. Around the perimeter of the room are several ancient articles of workout equipment - punching bags, speedballs, a few weightlifting benches. The floorboards are sticky enough to make you think that you might permanently fuse to them if you stand in one spot for long enough.

The room is dominated, however, by a wrestling ring. The ring is the only object in the room that looks like it's had any care whatsoever given to it. The mat is only slightly soiled by sweat and blood, the ropes look to have been changed fairly recently.

Rocco Rose stands in the ring, arms crossed on the top rope as he overlooks the doors.


Rocco Rose:
What took you so long?

Charles Akiyama:
Sorry, Rocco. I... got lost. All these alleyways look the same, you know?

Rocco Rose:
Well you're here now, and that's all that matters. So I figured today that we'd-

Harry Hansen:
Rocco! Look out!

Rocco Rose:
What the-


Rocco suddenly finds himself surrounded by several masked men who rappel down from the ceiling of the training room. They circle him in the ring, and it is clear that they're all wearing halloween masks to cover their faces.

Suddenly they all go for Rocco at once. He takes out the ghostface killer with a textbook judo-style throw over his left shoulder, before sweeping the legs of a zombie and taking him down to the mat.

A werewolf tries to get Rocco in a rear waist lock but Rocco breaks free and switches position, smashing him into the canvas with a German suplex.

Dracula puts the boots into Rocco as he gets up off the mat but Rocco weathers the storm, gives Vlad a stiff forearm smash before dispatching him with his Kiss From A Rose finisher.

The four masked assailants lay in the ring, motionless. Akiyama peers out from his hiding spot behind Harry as Rocco surveys the wreckage.


Charles Akiyama:
Is it- is it over? What the hell just happened?


Rocco stares at the four men in the ring as Akiyama waits for an answer. He slowly turns to the reporter, and then breaks out into peals of laughter. Harry begins to laugh too.


Charles Akiyama:
Wait, what's going on? What's so funny?


Rocco slaps his thigh as he points at Charlie.


Rocco Rose:
Oh man! You should have seen your face! You were scared shitless! That's priceless!

Charles Akiyama:
Wait, this was a set-up? To prank me?


The four men who "attacked" Rocco slowly roll out of the ring - the one who ate the finisher rolls a tad slower than the others - and they all file out of the room. Rocco shoots them a thumbs-up.


Rocco Rose:
Yeah, relax Charlie. Nobody's going to get you. They're just local job guys.

Charles Akiyama:
So... what was the point of all that?

Rocco Rose:
Ha. That was just to wind Vastrix up. You know what though - that was fun. I think I could get into this LARPing shit. Beat up some monsters, hang around in some fantasy superhero world. Of course, I'd be the super-est of superheroes in his world.

Charles Akiyama:
Ok... so I am here to talk about End Of Days then?

Rocco Rose:
Well duh. What, you didn't think I called you out here to New York because I wanted to fuckin' hang out with you, did you?

Charles Akiyama:
Well no, but all this, and the... you know what, let's just start again right?

Rocco Rose:
Right.


Rocco hops through the ropes and down to the floor level, standing next to Akiyama. Akiyama turns to face the camera.


Charles Akiyama:
Ladies and gentlemen thank you for joining me, I'm-

Rocco Rose:
Charlie, let's just cut the shit, yeah? They know who I am. They probably know who you are.

Charles Akiyama:
Um... right. So Rocco, you're facing Jeremiah Vastrix in the semi-finals of the End Of Days tournament and it seems like you've perhaps come back to the drawing board - Harry Hansen's famous "Hammer House of Horrors" - this is the same school that Jackson Steele came to in preparation for the End Of Days tournament two years ago and he was victorious. Do you think lightning can strike twice for a student of "The Hammer"?

Rocco Rose:
What kind of dumbass question is that, Charlie? If I didn't think I could win End of Days then I wouldn't be in End of Days.

I came up here to refine my edge. When Jackson Steele told Harry to take me under his wing he explicitly told him not to put me through the same torture that Harry put Steele through. Harry worked me to the fuckin' bone to get me ready for this tournament, but it always felt like something was missing.

But the first time I walked in here, I saw that line of portraits of every man who's come through here and survived, and that lineup ends with Jackson Steele. Now Harry's a good trainer and I'm a good student - but I know that I'm never gonna get my picture on that wall until I go through everything that Jackson Steele went through. All of it.

So fuck what Jackson Steele says. I begged and pleaded but finally Harry relented. He gave me the worst he had to offer, and I mean the worst. I took the eighteen hours strapped to a chair being force-fed tapes of my opponents. I took all the hazings, all the physical punishment that Steele took. The last hurdle in my way now is the gauntlet... a huge mechanical deathtrap where you go in blind and come out black and blue, and a hundred times the fighter you were before.

Aaaaaaand... then there's Jeremiah Vastrix. A man who can't even keep his head in the game long enough to hit his finish during a training exercise. This guy drew up a list of trainers to try and get him ready for our match and he blew through the lot of them. They all gave up on him because he's too undisciplined to just hit his fucking finish without showing off.

Even when they went easy on him, they still had him beat. What does that say about Jeremiah Vastrix?


Akiyama looks uncertain whether this is actually his turn to speak, or if Rocco is just going to cut him off like he usually does.


Charles Akiyama:
Uh, well I'd say-

Rocco Rose:
I'll tell you exactly what it says. It says that Vastrix isn't the supercomputer he's claiming to be. He's all talk and no show. If Vastrix is a walking wrestling encyclopedia then he should have made light work of a couple of training matches.

He only got a favourable result when his life was at stake and he could break out his "toys". Now I'm not gonna lie - he put up a hell of a show against those... things that came after him... but he knows full well that he isn't gonna be able to use any of that when he's across the ring from me. He's not gonna be able to fire off those eye-lasers or call on a team of lapdog stormtroopers during our match any more than I'm gonna be able to break out an EMP cannon.

It's gonna be one-on-one, just me and him. Man against tin man.


Rocco points towards Harry, who is standing just to his left.


Rocco Rose:
See Vastrix has had this rotating door of trainers who've all tried to make him into somebody capable of beating me, and they've all failed. A big long list of trainers who are supposedly some of the best in the industry but there's one name who wasn't on that list, and that man is the best in this business, and he's standing right here next to me. I don't need a shortlist of candidates, Vastrix. I don't need monsters and ghoulies to spur me on. I only need one man, and I have him in my corner.

If you want to beat me, Vastrix, then you'll have to do to me what you did to those monsters. But we all know that you can't do that, not if you don't wanna wind up languishing in some jail for the rest of your life. So the only move you have available to you is a losing one.

And you can shake your ass all you want to in our match - but it won't do you a shred of good. Not least because we've all seen what happens when you start trying to entertain those mouth-breathers in the audience. You slip up. But you shake it baby, if that's what you really wanna do. Just remember though, that all eyes will be on me. The only time anybody in that match is going to give even half a shit about looking at you is when the referee is chacking that your shoulders are on the mat.


Rocco looks down to the floor, and spots the discarded mask of one of his "attackers" from earlier. He picks it up, showing it to the camera.


Rocco Rose:
Jeremiah, those monsters who came to kill you - I don't know who sent them or why - but they're going to have to wait their turn.

They can have whatever is left of you. But for now, I'd like to leave you with an old Scottish poem, and it goes like this.

"From ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties, and things that go bump in the night, good lord deliver us."


Rocco pauses, and his trademark wicked grin starts to appear on his face.


Rocco Rose:
But when the alternative is Rocco Rose, you'll be praying for the ghoulies and the ghosties to deliver you from me.


Rocco starts to laugh, a stereotypical Hollywood horror movie laugh, as he looks at the crumpled zombie mask in his hand. The shot fades out to black.