Dispatches from the Steel Liberation Front I

[The Colossus]

Angus Skaaland had always figured it was going to get weirder before it got more normal…

What Skaaland had not counted on, was his gym, house, the center of the Crescent City universe becoming home to the kind of animal rescue no one wants. Scott Steel had revealed himself to be something of a one-man Animal Liberation Front.

This sounds all well and good, who doesn’t want to save the animals with planet core rattling powerbombs?

But here in lies the rub. Angus Skaaland no longer had access to the Scott Steel portion of the gym, more regularly known to the non-casual reader as the concrete-walled back lot where Scott performed Herculean feats of Strength as training. It was also home to some of the less well thought of Animals. You’ve met Iron, the Opossum that had found a long term home on the shoulders of Steel’s Leather vest. But attend to the newest members of Crescent City Fight Club.

A raccoon, who Angus was reasonably terrified of, because of his general propensity to steal not only Angus’ garbage but also Angus’ coffee. Which as we all know has become something of an important tool for Angus to absorb the world around him.

Scott had named the Raccoon “Time”. Angus didn’t have the time, the patience, or the coffee to try and figure that one out. All he knew was Scott would come thundering into the gym, Time and Iron sitting on his shoulders like some kind of Munnin and Huginn, with L.D(the dog of dogs) trailing behind him. Scott for all the world looked like some kind of god out of a heretofore not discovered or mentioned Slavic/Nordic Pantheon.

The Racoon always looked at Angus with malicious intent when Steel would thunder about in what Angus had guessed was some kind of attempt at doing “Cardio”. He was certain the man had the stamina now to go about seven minutes unbroken in the ring. But as Angus had noted he had yet to see someone last seven minutes in the ring one on one with Scott Steel. Angus had of course been at Crowning of a Champion, and while he was completely unsurprised by the outcome of the match. Only an idiot couldn’t see what was coming, he was deeply surprised to see Brad Swann and Maverick last about just long enough for Angus to loudly say “huh, didn’t know you could throw a human body like that”.

Now The Mountain and Jamester were moving into Tag Team Action. As direct as when Scott had just after Crowning of a Champion, Absconded with if Angus squinted through the back windows, he was fairly certain that was a juvenile Canadian moose. Angus wasn’t entirely certain what to do with that. Much like the smaller rodents, Angus noted that it adored Scott in a way that you would find cute if Scott was attracting cute animals to the back yard.

Angus had also recently fielded a call from the Crescent City Zoo. They had a complaint that what appeared to be a seven-foot, blonde-haired man had been seen liberating a sloth. They had noted he had several animals clinging to him already. They were fairly certain it was Scott Steel.

Angus had sighed, looked out the window of his office onto the backlot, and of course, there was a fucking sloth hanging from a newly constructed, I guess you could call it Sloth Habitat? The fucking thing slowly waved at Angus.

Angus sipped his coffee and told the Zoo Keeper he’d keep an eye out for anything like that.

Angus had tried to explain that Joseph Mack was probably someone Scott should take seriously. He had tried to say something to the same effect about Bryan Chase, Scott had laughed uproariously at this, said something Angus didn’t understand, and then proceeded to throw a two-hundred and fifty-pound tire about thirty feet.

Angus felt that was a solid message and mostly spoke for itself. He had tried to wrangle Scott in front of the camera for a promo to the same effect. But realized that was a losing proposition. Scott had stared blankly at the camera for about fifteen minutes, Iron and Time Scurrying about his shoulders, Time running off, and Angus’ lunch disappearing seemed less like a coincidence when the Raccoon had reappeared on The Mountain’s shoulder eating his turkey sandwich.

Angus had felt this was a good moment to bring up things like boundaries and varmints. Looked at Steel who was traversing his own portion of the cosmos, deeply, and immediately thought better of it.

Angus had edited the fifteen minutes into two minutes of a raccoon eating a sandwich and Scott Steel wrecking Brad Swann, as well as him grinning maniacally after his previous demolition of Bryan Chase, as well as some choice bits of The Syndicate Tag Team mowing down the unfortunates who were placed before them.

Angus showed it Steel, who solemnly nodded. Angus wasn’t certain what that was about, but Scott had returned to Thundering around gym scaring trainees and the like, specifically the reason he had a dedicated cross-fit style lot to do this type of hernia inducing work. For not the first time this month, Angus had seriously considered just welding the backdoor shut, and locking Steel out there.

The issue was, Steel had torn this particular door off its hinges the last time Angus had locked it. Angus was only a few percentage points more certain that if he welded it to the building, Scott would simply kool-aid man the wall(in the best case scenario), and then Angus would have to deal with the growing collection of fauna that was seemingly attached to Steel becoming more permanent indoor members of CCFC. 

Angus had noted, the man seemed to be a natural at both carpentry and animal husbandry though.

Watching Steel rumble back through the back door for another ill-defined set of Tirebombs, Angus shook his head, realized his cup of coffee was missing, and the Racoon was drinking it.

“That Racoon ain’t right.”