FIRESIDE Memories (Esmur OH Promo)

[The Nihilists]

Esmur traps the champion’s legs together, stomping his own leg down and then falling to the mat, pulling Constantine’s lower half in the air and trapping him in the submission! Esmur screams for Constantine to embrace the void but the champion doesn’t want to tap! He screams out in pain and looks for the ropes, but they’re too far away! His back is contorted and in immense agony, as he can’t find a way out! Misha Constantine stretches out the arm one more time, desperately trying to make it to the ropes, but he’s trapped in the center of the ring! With one final effort, he taps out! The timer expires!

Washington: Therefore, your winner, and the NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNEWWWWWWWWWW FIIIIIIIIIIIIIRESSSSIIIIIDEEEEEEE WOOOOOORLDDD CHAAAAMPIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON, ESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMUUUUUUUURRR!

"January 31, 2021. Alaska. An ending nobody foresaw. Only the current company in this room believed I could win a solo title at the highest level. After all … he’s just a tag team submission specialist, right?"

MAJESTY grabs the back of Esmur’s head… and sets his FACE ON FIRE!

The bell rings!

Esmur screams out in deep pain as he escapes the clutches of the Feywild Figure! Pyrotechncians quickly extinguish his face as the crowd is in shock at the man’s face being lit ablaze! It takes the announcer over a minute to actually announce the result!

Stanford: Here is your winner, and the NEW FIRESIDE World Champion… MAJEEEEESTYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

"June 17, 2021 … The day … I came face to face … with the Void. "

~Our scene opens inside of a darkened film room, a man stands behind the projector and watches the clips back on the projector screen. He has his palms on the desk in front of him, the only light in the room is the projector itself. We can make out the shape of the man’s face, with clear points coming off of it, a luchador mask. He curls the hands into fists and shudders with … pain? Rage? Malice? Annoyance? Sorrow? Or all of the above. His voice descends a level into a guttural hiss.~

"The Void … was angry with me. With my weakness. How dare I show up before my time? How dare I let this pretender dictate to the Void the whims of the emptiness itself? The darkness consumed by fire. I could feel the agony of the hundred years it tormented me. The skin on my face melting and flaking, the hair on my beard igniting and smoking, the vitreous humour of the eyes bubbling to the point of bursting. A hundred years of fire, with no clear way to pass to the great end we all are destined for. Had I not been a good messenger? Had we not proven the point?"

~He raises his right hand and punches the table and it punches a hole in it. He punches with the left and again goes through the table. The projector falls through the crumbling edge and crunches on the ground, the light now illuminating the masked man. Esmur. In his mask.~

"ONE HUNDRED YEARS, DAMN IT!"

~The lights click on in the room an in steps the unmasked visage of the tag team partner of the broken Nihilist, Gebin. He holds on his shoulders both of the SCCW Double Down Championship belts.~

"It was ten seconds my friend. More than was necessary, but less than-"

"IT DAMN SURE FELT LIKE A HUNDRED YEARS GEOFFREY! … Time is relative. All of this is an illusion. Meaningless wastes of time. For so long we tried to save these people by enlightening them. Removing the fear of death, the obligations imposed by all these fake deities, undoing the damage we did in our past lives in this very federation before it became a network. WE WENT FROM JOKES TO DOMINANT STARS! WE WERE THE TALK OF THE TOWN! And then one man decided to play with forces he couldn’t control and give an unhinged murderous psychopathic sociopathic EVIL HERETICAL MONSTER … the means to destroy his own champion and ruin us. For ratings. TO WIN A PISSING CONTEST WITH THE OTHER FEDS WHO DIDN’T GIVE ONE SHIT WHAT HE DID!"

"Calm down, Edward. You know the doctors do not want you getting overly hyped up. The damage may have healed externally but severe burns leave a lasting mark internally …"

~Esmur hurls off his mask, his beard has regrown, shorter and coarser, lighter in color. His head however is bald and his face sports some superficial burn damage and his forehead shows the scars of a skin graft. His mouth foams with rage, the normally calm and emotionless Nihilist has been irrevocably damaged by the monster of MAJESTY … as have all who come face to face with the Faewild Fighter.~

"HEALED? No no, Gebin. No I will never heal. The fairy beast made sure of that. And here we never got the chance to exact revenge on them … or on Anthony Caffrey. Who decided to FUCKING QUIT and act as if we never existed as he walked into the abyss to meet the ultimate abyss. Do you know how long I’ve stewed over this? DO YOU UNDERSTAND MY PAIN?"

"Yes, I’ve been with you every step of the way, just as you were when Natasha tried to unalive me as well. My neck has finally hit full power again after YEARS of rehab and therapy. I too sport scars that will never heal. Betrayal. We know it all too well my friend. Be we Genesis and Exodus, Gebin and Esmur, the Nihilists, the Arbiters, Testament … or just Geoffrey Corbin and Edward Sebastian Murdoch. Nobody … has ever had our backs. Nobody has been true to the cause. Nobody but us."

~Gebin walks into the room and puts his arm around his best and only friend.~

"Not McCloud, not Natasha, not Felix Ziko or Anthony Caffrey, and certainly not Mongo the Destroyer. But at least Mayfield and Solomon have given us a chance. And you an even bigger one. What better revenge could there be on all those who have betrayed us than to claim the title of titles? To hold it as an offering to the Void. To show them that all their bickering and betrayal amounts to less than nothing. And that in the end, the Abyss is the only sure thing?"

~Gebin’s calm demeanor does seem to mollify his damaged friend. Esmur slowly smirks and begins to chuckle under his breath before breaking out into a malicious, demonic laugh. He slowly raises his arms and runs his hands over his bald head and licks his lips.~

"The irony is not lost on me. The last time I was on a network show I was winning a world title … and then I got lit on fire. And now here we are … at … Overheated. Mongo has a sick sense of humor. And I bet he STILL doesn’t know who we are or remember that we STARTED in XHF as part of Mongo Corp."

"And the jokes continue. Florida Man. Ripped from the headlines right to the meth farm. What is it with people putting us up against men in reptile disguises? Am I going to be stuck in an impromptu match with Jesse Jamester just because? Then again Jesse can actually wrestle. Unlike the inflatable skeleton or the star trek reject."

~Esmur whips around to the camera and spits on the floor. He scowls and his tone again drops to an unnatural guttural growl, an imagined side effect of the fire?~

"Florida Man. Reckless. Arrogant. Insane. You disgust me. How you keep managing to climb out of the woodwork and appear on the grand stage is beyond me. Here I am, a former world champion, former global tag champ, and current double down champ – having dethroned the longest reigning champions in ANY of the feds, chasing one of the most decorated stars to another fed. And here are you. Pitching drugs to folks in Minnesota and teaming with AND AGAINST the same man who thinks he is a Disney princess."

~Gebin laughs~

"In what universe is this not a cruel joke played on us? Just because you cheated your way into a global title, nobody believes you would ever actually beat Bloodied Fox. Amazing how you are not in demand and yet you keep popping up in various places, more like a roach than a gator."

~Esmur breathes in and calms himself down again~

"In a way, I suppose … there may be no man more than you who can understand the depths of my damage. Anyone who chooses to live in that hell hole of a state and represent it must have some serious mental trauma in their past. Maybe you alone can understand the horrors I see in my dreams. Perhaps … you can actually understand and pity this poor broken soul. And … then you’d see it is just a form of therapy … when I light your stupid FACE ON FIRE AND WATCH THE MASK MELT TO YOUR SKIN BINDING YOU TO FOREVER BE A MONUMENT TO THE STUPIDITY OF THIS WORLD. *exhales sharply* Excuse me, it turns out I am working through some shit. I am going to imagine Caffrey’s face on your own, I will hear MAJESTY’s voice instead of yours. And I am going to work through some stuff. Maybe you can come to see the beauty of the Void yourself. Become a better person. Not like you respect the sanctity of life as is."

~Gebin picks up the projector. He sets it back on the stable part of the table and pats his friend on the back before exiting the room.~

"Flo, I’d love to say it’s nothing personal. But … everything is personal to me now. This network has put me down too many times and I’m making it my crusade to stand atop this den of sin and villainy and show the world who the true champions are. There is only one other person in this world I can trust anymore. It’s a lesson I learned too late. But rest assured. I will etch your name in history. I will brand my name on all who stand in the way of the Void’s progress. And when Night of Champions comes around … it will be me in the ring, not you. Me, who gives Fox the baptism by fire he has so desperately called out for. The Void is very much calling that broken soul. This Sunday … I embrace … EXTERMINATION! One less vermin befouling the old limp dick of America."

~He restores his mask and storms off~