Post by The Nihilists on Jan 7, 2021 21:33:55 GMT -5
~The video feed cuts to static and fades to black. It fades back in on a scene the denizens of Northern Pro have not seen before. A group of reporters files into the room to get a look at this spectacle. In the ring of a wrestling gym is set up a heavy bag in the middle of the ring, a crash pad near two of the corners, and a man laying into the bag with athletic strikes. He sprints towards a corner and up the ropes before leaping backwards with a shooting star press to the crash mat. He rolls to his back and kips up and sees the camera crew as he springs to the top again. He backflips off and lands on his feet and walks to the ropes.~
~He moves to the other side of the ring where there are still more reporters. He leans on the ropes and looks at them as they speak~
~He pauses to think about how to word this response.~
~He moves to the center of the ring and begins to pontificate to the whole crowd at once~
~He smiles and moves to the corner again~
~With that statement he climbs the ropes of his practice ring and poses for the reporters~
"Northern Pro I assume? Here no doubt to talk to the dark horse candidate in this Cruiserweight Cup."
"Well yes, there is a good amount of speculation about what you can bring to the event having just returned from a year layoff and being severely injured."
"I can assure you there is no chance I would take this four week undertaking to become the NPW North American Cruiserweight Champion possibly AND stealing your fed’s chance at the XHF Junior Heavyweight title if my neck were not in tip top shape. I have held back until now to make sure it could stand up to the rigors of full long matches and Esmur and I have made sure to run it through its paces. Dinosaur Bones and all you know."
"Are you at all concerned to be going it alone in a foreign market and a new group of people?"
"I understand how that can be frightening for some. But I am a veteran, I’ve been wrestling for close to seventeen years now. And that’s only in the major feds. It is entirely true that I am a tag team specialist. Esmur and I form a unit that is unbreakable, and we build off each other. We work best together. But we are far from helpless whelps on our own. Esmur is about to become Fireside World Champion after all. From time to time it does us well to remind everyone we are so powerful as a team, not just because of our unparalleled teamwork and knowledge of each other, but also because we are so strong individually. It took us many years and more than a few demons … and mad titans … to forge ourselves into the elite that we are. I am sure I can handle the admittedly amazing talent laid out before me in this event."
~He moves to the other side of the ring where there are still more reporters. He leans on the ropes and looks at them as they speak~
"Your first dominant year in XHF you were emotionless stewards of the void. Now you seem to have a new message. What of this darkness that held you for so long?"
"You are partially correct. We had just come off of a rough multi-year journey discovering ourselves, our necessities, and what it would take to finally break through. We had been embroiled with a Church that, as anyone with XHF Network could tell you, became a cult. We were disillusioned. The darkness inside us consumed us, and yet it revived us. That darkness showed us a powerful truth. But our initial crusade was ill-fated. We didn’t understand what was necessary to get through to people like you fine folks here in NPW who could watch us on the network."
~He pauses to think about how to word this response.~
"The message was always the same. We’d been wronged, misled, and abandoned by Churches of every religion and deity you can name. None could agree on anything. So we focused on what is empirically true. No matter what religion you may subscribe to we all have to go. We all meet the end and join the black abyss. From there what you take is up to you but for us it is a comfort to know that we have this great equalizer in the end. And it comes for EVERYONE. But since you don’t know when it will come calling you have to live your life to the fullest."
~He moves to the center of the ring and begins to pontificate to the whole crowd at once~
"The truth is there waiting to be found. Don’t look at the end as a blight but a remedy. From the silence comes a voice of calm, and you wait for an eternity to meet it. Hoping it would call out again. But when you feel all is forsaken … hope is not. And sometimes it takes a good bit of darkness … to show you the light. So to my competitors in this cruiserweight cup I come at you with renewed vigor and zest for life. Prepare yourselves for a reckoning. And when your wold seems to be crumbling away, don’t be afraid, don’t turn away. Let the shadows permeate your mind and reveal the answers in your darkest memories. I am the darkness … that is necessary to show you all the light. In the end, I may be having my hand raised, but allow me to make sure we all come out of this better."
~He smiles and moves to the corner again~
"Don’t let another somber pariah consume your soul. I am your strengthening, your toughening. I am the bit of dark that will rekindle the fire burning in you, ignite the flames within you. Listen to me now … and embrace … eternity."
~With that statement he climbs the ropes of his practice ring and poses for the reporters~