For Him [EOD Finale, PE #1]
Oct 23, 2020 10:36:27 GMT -5
Mongo the Destroyer, Kira Izumi, and 3 more like this
Post by anthonycaffrey on Oct 23, 2020 10:36:27 GMT -5
“The locals call it the ‘chicken church’. It’s supposed to be a dove, a symbol of love and peace. Whoops.”
(The camera opens on The Wrestler That Made Death Trap Tap, Anthony Caffrey. The former X-Crown champion is sitting in the ring in Indonesia, wearing one of his FIRESIDE facemasks. He’ll do battle here in just a few days in an attempt to capture the XHF Tag Team Championships. His tone is surprisingly level-headed.)
“Ironically, the End of Days finale is being held here, in a place of peace and compassion after spending a month in matches designed to maim or kill us while still wrestling during a global pandemic. Granted, most of Sunday’s matches are still like that-- but I digress.”
(He waves away his thoughts on the structure of the tournament. The time to discuss them is not now, and he knows this.)
“I think it’s fitting, though: wrestling rings have always been my sanctuary. I escape my problems here, escape the outside world for a few hours. When the whole world feels out of my control, an ankle lock brings me back to the idea that everything is going to be okay. I can only wish that peace for everyone watching at home. I know the concept seems foreign right now, but it’s these moments that have allowed me to push on and do my best for all of you.”
(Caffrey takes out his phone. The building is not particularly well-lit, but the glimmer of light reveals that his whole face is smiling. In that way you’ve picked up on walking around the streets when people’s faces are concealed, you can see that Caffrey is smiling even though you can’t see his teeth. The phone comes into focus and reveals a long stream of texts full of congratulations for winning the tag team tournament.)
“Thank you. Thank you for all of this since Sunday. This means more to me than I can put into words.”
(The verbacious Anthony Caffrey admitting that he doesn’t have the words for something rings out in the otherwise empty building. He takes a few moments to just look them over again, and those moments turn into at least a minute as he gets lost in them. His energy is best described as a small child receiving money for a good report card, but he looks up and realizes the camera is still on him. He returns the source of his connection to the fans to his pocket and takes a deep breath, readjusting himself. He stands up in the ring and surveys his surroundings.)
“This Sunday is October 25th. I’ll let you have a minute to realize why that date’s important to me.”
(Caffrey’s planted a small 90s-looking television in one of the corners of the ring. It plays a clip.)
(The footage turns off. Caffrey doesn’t have to dwell on the moment, nor does he want to. People have heard him talk it to death.)
“When I circled ‘Death Trap Taps Day’ in my calendar, I realized the timing. That’s how it started, and a year later, this is how it’s going. I put in a lot of work to stop being such an unrelenting shithead. This time, this October 25th, I have the opportunity to be the one that people scream for, not against… granted, small building, low attendance, but Inferno is three days later… in Philadelphia.”
(You can hear the smirk in Caffrey’s voice. He knows he has to stop himself, and he does.)
“But hang on--- overlooking my opponent is exactly how I landed myself in that situation, and I’m not about to do that shit ever again. The XHF Tag Team Champions are relative unknowns to some of you, but they’ve got a collection of leather and metal. Before the XHF, they won tag team championships together six times. Hell, Lisa Seldon alone’s got forty-two championships in her trophy case. I have a trophy case room, she’d need a whole floor.”
“And her partner’s a Time Lord! Yeah! Now I’ll admit I paid no mind to that at first, but I live with having a delusional president who’s spent time in a wrestling ring AND murder hornets, so really, nothing’s out of the question.”
(He starts listing out only a few of the crazy things he’s seen since joining the XHF on his fingers.)
“Our X-Crown champion is almost more metal than man. I’ve been thrown against a wall by whatever the hell Subject is. And I have seen....
(He looks around to make sure he’s not being watched by anything but the camera. He leans in as close as he can while still observing safety precautions.)
“...I have seen MAJESTY.”
(He shudders. You can sense that he maybe wishes he didn’t sign the Feywild Figure. A little too late for that epiphany there, Caff.)
“But I don’t think anyone’s ever come against me with such a message of pessimism, maybe Michael Storm at worst. The Nihilists called and would like their whole shtick back, Anna. Yeah everyone but you dies, who gives a shit? Speaking of, I know you don’t care about the XHF -- that much was abundantly clear from the moment you opened your mouth, but that belt has, give or take, eighteen years of history behind it, and I intend to carry them with Radu into year nineteen. Hell, the belts could vote against Kanyon in the upcoming election if they could only fill out a ballot.”
(The time for jokes comes to an end as Caffrey’s tone shifts.)
“You talked about the ‘monsters I have to endure’, Anna. You want to talk monsters, but you’ve got nothing on Brad Swann. My new bar for terror is ‘are they trying to behead me or my friends’, and if the answer is ‘no’, I’m not scared. You said I wasn’t worried about you two, that I hadn’t paid you any mind, that I was unfocused. If anything, my focus has been laser-sharp the entire tournament. See, unlike J-ROK where star players walk in off the street and have their asses wiped and their diapers changed for them, Radu and I had to learn to work together, develop chemistry and trust, and build ourselves as a team. We had obstacles to overcome, challenges ahead, things to learn. Your path to the gold was much easier than ours: I don’t care about the teams in the little league you won, only one of them entered the Tag Team Annihilator even though the barrier to entry was being better than Copycat and the rotting, walking corpse of Terry Bradshaw. But the teams we beat skyrocketed over that bar. We beat Izumi, Dhaven, NPW’s flat-out best wrestler in Gordon Carlson, one of the hottest rising stars in FIRESIDE in Mistress Discipline and, this former two-time X-Crown champion and future XHF Hall of Famer you might have heard named Death Trap. You guys beat an act best known for a stuffed animal rather than actual fucking wrestling ability.”
“The monsters I have to endure. The only monstrous thing you have done is proven you care more about a stupid fucking chair than humanity. You could fix this-- or PREVENT-- ALL OF THIS! If what you’re claiming is true, you’re a TIME LORD and you spend more time caring about a Goddamn chair than actual people! A MILLION people have died worldwide and you care about a place to sit. You are a despicable son of a bitch, Anna, and I will rattle you so hard with the Closing Remarks that even the little voices in your head go ‘Fuck, why did we even come here?’ You can try to travel back to fix the result after it's over, but the pain you're gonna suffer is NEVER going to be worth it.”
(Caffrey just shakes his head. It’s clear that he’s endured more than his fair share of monsters in his time, but he’s tossing around the words in his mind, his attention being taken by what he’s placed down in the center of the ring. It’s a mask in the style of the iconic Phantom of the Opera.)
“Now as a patron of the arts, I thought long and hard about a Halloween Costume for this Monster Mash match. I paid the fees to trade a face mask for a mask belonging to a brilliant composer, genius, and architect. I traded the face mask for the mask of a man whose strong drive shows he would kill to be loved. A man who, once shown compassion, once someone took a chance on him, proved he could change for the better. The Phantom of the Opera does all of this despite being horribly disfigured.”
(Caffrey stretches his arm. He is certainly not denying the rumors of his shoulder being messed up to the point of not being able to lift people.)
“I mean fuck, you’re looking at one of the worst monsters of them all. I was a man so hated that they gave me an award for it. You’re looking at a man who ruled over a company with such an iron fist in the ring that men and women fled. I have done horrible, horrible things to win matches. The real monster in this match is an angry omnipresent spirit that drives me to get out of bed in the morning and spend hours researching your team’s entire kick collection so I don’t have to stare into a bleak dark emptiness of a fucking empty ass house. I’m ready to go. You’re planning on kicking us into submission? Do you two realize how fucking bad of a mistake that is? You’re gonna throw a roundhouse in the form of the Man Opener? I’ve caught ‘em and broken ‘em. Interrobang? Caught ‘em and broken ‘em. Thrust kicks, heart kicks, big boots, football kicks, enziguris, mule kicks, superkicks, you name it, the Best submission hold in the XHF today and BROKEN ‘EM.”
(Caffrey holds up his two hands to the camera, before moving them in a movement similar to snapping his opponents’ ankles.)
“Beating Top of the Class was about a promise to the fans, a promise to the people, to keep fighting for them and doing the best I can, for them. I called my shot and wrestled my ass off for them, and I did something no one’s done in ten years. But this Sunday, this Sunday isn’t about me, it isn’t about the tag team championships. I will be more than happy to carry this tag team division for a very long time -- I’ve already spotted in the history that no team’s ever held the belts longer than six months -- that’s the next goal.”
(Caffrey really has to get out of the habit of making big goals and challenges, but as his bracket showed, he backs it up almost every single time.)
“This Sunday’s about Radu Matei. In the ring, he is a warrior. He’s lost a step, but that just means he runs 26.1 miles instead of a marathon. Radu has been the best tag team partner I’ve ever had. He’s also rapidly becoming the best friend I’ve ever had in wrestling, and I’ve been doing this shit for a long time. He has bailed my ass out and guided me through this new stage of my career. I had people telling me they didn’t trust me, that even with everything happening, that they thought I would turn my back on the fans after losing the Crown, to the point that I started to wonder if anyone would ever believe me. Radu was the only one in this business who looked me in the eyes and took me at my word. I thought I just needed a tag team partner and that would fix things. What I really needed was someone to listen, someone to understand, hell, someone to have a beer with. I didn’t just get a tag team partner. I got a mentor, and what I needed most of all: a friend. I can’t thank him enough.”
(Caffrey leans against the ropes, taking a moment to think about the Purple Emperors. He buries his head in his hands for a few seconds, doing his best to not show any emotions, but failing pretty hard. He shakes it off and delivers the facts of the matter.)
“So yeah, Radu’s health is in question. We’ve been through submissions, tables, ladders, and bears while you two were sitting around scratching your asses worrying about a dumb chair. It happens. And I know on Sunday, I will see both of you salivate like one of those sharks going after Dhaven’s leg. Here’s your problem though, ladies…even if you somehow manage to pin Radu...”
(He holds up two fingers, then puts one down, revealing a middle finger ala the Rumble.)
“...you still have to beat a fucking motivated as hell Wrestling Emperor, a man ready to give everything he has and leaving nothing left to have his friend’s back.”
(Caffrey sheds the facemask to reveal a full face of determination.)
“This isn’t about gender, FIRESIDE shows you can identify as anywhere on the gender spectrum and kick ass. All that matters is the talent, the ability, and the drive, and I’ve got the three of those in spades. I’ve been up and down this fucking insane year and it comes to a conclusion on Sunday. If there’s anything people should know about me now, anything that’s changed in the 365 days since i lost the AXW Undisputed Championship, it’s that I will do anything for my people. I outlasted fifty-nine of XHF’s best and brightest to send a message of hope to my people, all I gotta do is run through two nihilistic marauders who don’t give a shit to take home the XHF Tag Team Championships. Radu has had my back in all these matches, it’s time I repay the favor. I will throw this team on my back, carry him to victory, and break both of you FOR HIM.”
(He delivers one final look to the camera.)
“I may not be able to thank him enough, but delivering him his half of the XHF Tag Team Championships is gonna be a helluva start.”
(The camera fades on a genuinely smiling Caffrey.)
(The camera opens on The Wrestler That Made Death Trap Tap, Anthony Caffrey. The former X-Crown champion is sitting in the ring in Indonesia, wearing one of his FIRESIDE facemasks. He’ll do battle here in just a few days in an attempt to capture the XHF Tag Team Championships. His tone is surprisingly level-headed.)
“Ironically, the End of Days finale is being held here, in a place of peace and compassion after spending a month in matches designed to maim or kill us while still wrestling during a global pandemic. Granted, most of Sunday’s matches are still like that-- but I digress.”
(He waves away his thoughts on the structure of the tournament. The time to discuss them is not now, and he knows this.)
“I think it’s fitting, though: wrestling rings have always been my sanctuary. I escape my problems here, escape the outside world for a few hours. When the whole world feels out of my control, an ankle lock brings me back to the idea that everything is going to be okay. I can only wish that peace for everyone watching at home. I know the concept seems foreign right now, but it’s these moments that have allowed me to push on and do my best for all of you.”
(Caffrey takes out his phone. The building is not particularly well-lit, but the glimmer of light reveals that his whole face is smiling. In that way you’ve picked up on walking around the streets when people’s faces are concealed, you can see that Caffrey is smiling even though you can’t see his teeth. The phone comes into focus and reveals a long stream of texts full of congratulations for winning the tag team tournament.)
“Thank you. Thank you for all of this since Sunday. This means more to me than I can put into words.”
(The verbacious Anthony Caffrey admitting that he doesn’t have the words for something rings out in the otherwise empty building. He takes a few moments to just look them over again, and those moments turn into at least a minute as he gets lost in them. His energy is best described as a small child receiving money for a good report card, but he looks up and realizes the camera is still on him. He returns the source of his connection to the fans to his pocket and takes a deep breath, readjusting himself. He stands up in the ring and surveys his surroundings.)
“This Sunday is October 25th. I’ll let you have a minute to realize why that date’s important to me.”
(Caffrey’s planted a small 90s-looking television in one of the corners of the ring. It plays a clip.)
Caffrey grabs Draven's ankle and applies The Process!
Draven counters, grabbings the wrist of Caffrey from underneath before going between Caffrey's legs whilst still holding on, grabbing the other arm and running towards the middle of the ring for
CARPE NOCTEM!
THE FANS EXPLODE IN A CHAOTIC POP! DRAVEN HOOKS THE LEG!
Derrick Donovan: Hold on! Wait a second...
[...ONE...]
[...TWO...]
[...THREE!...]
THE BELL IS RUNG AND THE FANS HAVE ERUPTED IN A MASSIVE AMOUNT OF CHEERS!
BB Gunn: WHATTTTT?
Derrick Donovan: VINCENT DRAVEN! THE IMPOSSIBLE! THE REIGN OF CAFFREY IS OVERRRRRR!!!
Alpha: Here is your winner, and NEWWWWWWWWWW AXW Undisputed Champion... VINCENT DRAAAAAVENNNNN!
The footage stops on Caffrey looking up at the lights.
Draven counters, grabbings the wrist of Caffrey from underneath before going between Caffrey's legs whilst still holding on, grabbing the other arm and running towards the middle of the ring for
CARPE NOCTEM!
THE FANS EXPLODE IN A CHAOTIC POP! DRAVEN HOOKS THE LEG!
Derrick Donovan: Hold on! Wait a second...
[...ONE...]
[...TWO...]
[...THREE!...]
THE BELL IS RUNG AND THE FANS HAVE ERUPTED IN A MASSIVE AMOUNT OF CHEERS!
BB Gunn: WHATTTTT?
Derrick Donovan: VINCENT DRAVEN! THE IMPOSSIBLE! THE REIGN OF CAFFREY IS OVERRRRRR!!!
Alpha: Here is your winner, and NEWWWWWWWWWW AXW Undisputed Champion... VINCENT DRAAAAAVENNNNN!
The footage stops on Caffrey looking up at the lights.
(The footage turns off. Caffrey doesn’t have to dwell on the moment, nor does he want to. People have heard him talk it to death.)
“When I circled ‘Death Trap Taps Day’ in my calendar, I realized the timing. That’s how it started, and a year later, this is how it’s going. I put in a lot of work to stop being such an unrelenting shithead. This time, this October 25th, I have the opportunity to be the one that people scream for, not against… granted, small building, low attendance, but Inferno is three days later… in Philadelphia.”
(You can hear the smirk in Caffrey’s voice. He knows he has to stop himself, and he does.)
“But hang on--- overlooking my opponent is exactly how I landed myself in that situation, and I’m not about to do that shit ever again. The XHF Tag Team Champions are relative unknowns to some of you, but they’ve got a collection of leather and metal. Before the XHF, they won tag team championships together six times. Hell, Lisa Seldon alone’s got forty-two championships in her trophy case. I have a trophy case room, she’d need a whole floor.”
“And her partner’s a Time Lord! Yeah! Now I’ll admit I paid no mind to that at first, but I live with having a delusional president who’s spent time in a wrestling ring AND murder hornets, so really, nothing’s out of the question.”
(He starts listing out only a few of the crazy things he’s seen since joining the XHF on his fingers.)
“Our X-Crown champion is almost more metal than man. I’ve been thrown against a wall by whatever the hell Subject is. And I have seen....
(He looks around to make sure he’s not being watched by anything but the camera. He leans in as close as he can while still observing safety precautions.)
“...I have seen MAJESTY.”
(He shudders. You can sense that he maybe wishes he didn’t sign the Feywild Figure. A little too late for that epiphany there, Caff.)
“But I don’t think anyone’s ever come against me with such a message of pessimism, maybe Michael Storm at worst. The Nihilists called and would like their whole shtick back, Anna. Yeah everyone but you dies, who gives a shit? Speaking of, I know you don’t care about the XHF -- that much was abundantly clear from the moment you opened your mouth, but that belt has, give or take, eighteen years of history behind it, and I intend to carry them with Radu into year nineteen. Hell, the belts could vote against Kanyon in the upcoming election if they could only fill out a ballot.”
(The time for jokes comes to an end as Caffrey’s tone shifts.)
“You talked about the ‘monsters I have to endure’, Anna. You want to talk monsters, but you’ve got nothing on Brad Swann. My new bar for terror is ‘are they trying to behead me or my friends’, and if the answer is ‘no’, I’m not scared. You said I wasn’t worried about you two, that I hadn’t paid you any mind, that I was unfocused. If anything, my focus has been laser-sharp the entire tournament. See, unlike J-ROK where star players walk in off the street and have their asses wiped and their diapers changed for them, Radu and I had to learn to work together, develop chemistry and trust, and build ourselves as a team. We had obstacles to overcome, challenges ahead, things to learn. Your path to the gold was much easier than ours: I don’t care about the teams in the little league you won, only one of them entered the Tag Team Annihilator even though the barrier to entry was being better than Copycat and the rotting, walking corpse of Terry Bradshaw. But the teams we beat skyrocketed over that bar. We beat Izumi, Dhaven, NPW’s flat-out best wrestler in Gordon Carlson, one of the hottest rising stars in FIRESIDE in Mistress Discipline and, this former two-time X-Crown champion and future XHF Hall of Famer you might have heard named Death Trap. You guys beat an act best known for a stuffed animal rather than actual fucking wrestling ability.”
“The monsters I have to endure. The only monstrous thing you have done is proven you care more about a stupid fucking chair than humanity. You could fix this-- or PREVENT-- ALL OF THIS! If what you’re claiming is true, you’re a TIME LORD and you spend more time caring about a Goddamn chair than actual people! A MILLION people have died worldwide and you care about a place to sit. You are a despicable son of a bitch, Anna, and I will rattle you so hard with the Closing Remarks that even the little voices in your head go ‘Fuck, why did we even come here?’ You can try to travel back to fix the result after it's over, but the pain you're gonna suffer is NEVER going to be worth it.”
(Caffrey just shakes his head. It’s clear that he’s endured more than his fair share of monsters in his time, but he’s tossing around the words in his mind, his attention being taken by what he’s placed down in the center of the ring. It’s a mask in the style of the iconic Phantom of the Opera.)
“Now as a patron of the arts, I thought long and hard about a Halloween Costume for this Monster Mash match. I paid the fees to trade a face mask for a mask belonging to a brilliant composer, genius, and architect. I traded the face mask for the mask of a man whose strong drive shows he would kill to be loved. A man who, once shown compassion, once someone took a chance on him, proved he could change for the better. The Phantom of the Opera does all of this despite being horribly disfigured.”
(Caffrey stretches his arm. He is certainly not denying the rumors of his shoulder being messed up to the point of not being able to lift people.)
“I mean fuck, you’re looking at one of the worst monsters of them all. I was a man so hated that they gave me an award for it. You’re looking at a man who ruled over a company with such an iron fist in the ring that men and women fled. I have done horrible, horrible things to win matches. The real monster in this match is an angry omnipresent spirit that drives me to get out of bed in the morning and spend hours researching your team’s entire kick collection so I don’t have to stare into a bleak dark emptiness of a fucking empty ass house. I’m ready to go. You’re planning on kicking us into submission? Do you two realize how fucking bad of a mistake that is? You’re gonna throw a roundhouse in the form of the Man Opener? I’ve caught ‘em and broken ‘em. Interrobang? Caught ‘em and broken ‘em. Thrust kicks, heart kicks, big boots, football kicks, enziguris, mule kicks, superkicks, you name it, the Best submission hold in the XHF today and BROKEN ‘EM.”
(Caffrey holds up his two hands to the camera, before moving them in a movement similar to snapping his opponents’ ankles.)
“Beating Top of the Class was about a promise to the fans, a promise to the people, to keep fighting for them and doing the best I can, for them. I called my shot and wrestled my ass off for them, and I did something no one’s done in ten years. But this Sunday, this Sunday isn’t about me, it isn’t about the tag team championships. I will be more than happy to carry this tag team division for a very long time -- I’ve already spotted in the history that no team’s ever held the belts longer than six months -- that’s the next goal.”
(Caffrey really has to get out of the habit of making big goals and challenges, but as his bracket showed, he backs it up almost every single time.)
“This Sunday’s about Radu Matei. In the ring, he is a warrior. He’s lost a step, but that just means he runs 26.1 miles instead of a marathon. Radu has been the best tag team partner I’ve ever had. He’s also rapidly becoming the best friend I’ve ever had in wrestling, and I’ve been doing this shit for a long time. He has bailed my ass out and guided me through this new stage of my career. I had people telling me they didn’t trust me, that even with everything happening, that they thought I would turn my back on the fans after losing the Crown, to the point that I started to wonder if anyone would ever believe me. Radu was the only one in this business who looked me in the eyes and took me at my word. I thought I just needed a tag team partner and that would fix things. What I really needed was someone to listen, someone to understand, hell, someone to have a beer with. I didn’t just get a tag team partner. I got a mentor, and what I needed most of all: a friend. I can’t thank him enough.”
(Caffrey leans against the ropes, taking a moment to think about the Purple Emperors. He buries his head in his hands for a few seconds, doing his best to not show any emotions, but failing pretty hard. He shakes it off and delivers the facts of the matter.)
“So yeah, Radu’s health is in question. We’ve been through submissions, tables, ladders, and bears while you two were sitting around scratching your asses worrying about a dumb chair. It happens. And I know on Sunday, I will see both of you salivate like one of those sharks going after Dhaven’s leg. Here’s your problem though, ladies…even if you somehow manage to pin Radu...”
(He holds up two fingers, then puts one down, revealing a middle finger ala the Rumble.)
“...you still have to beat a fucking motivated as hell Wrestling Emperor, a man ready to give everything he has and leaving nothing left to have his friend’s back.”
(Caffrey sheds the facemask to reveal a full face of determination.)
“This isn’t about gender, FIRESIDE shows you can identify as anywhere on the gender spectrum and kick ass. All that matters is the talent, the ability, and the drive, and I’ve got the three of those in spades. I’ve been up and down this fucking insane year and it comes to a conclusion on Sunday. If there’s anything people should know about me now, anything that’s changed in the 365 days since i lost the AXW Undisputed Championship, it’s that I will do anything for my people. I outlasted fifty-nine of XHF’s best and brightest to send a message of hope to my people, all I gotta do is run through two nihilistic marauders who don’t give a shit to take home the XHF Tag Team Championships. Radu has had my back in all these matches, it’s time I repay the favor. I will throw this team on my back, carry him to victory, and break both of you FOR HIM.”
(He delivers one final look to the camera.)
“I may not be able to thank him enough, but delivering him his half of the XHF Tag Team Championships is gonna be a helluva start.”
(The camera fades on a genuinely smiling Caffrey.)
