The Interview, Part One [Rumble RP #1]
Mar 31, 2024 22:35:56 GMT -5
Mongo the Destroyer, Dave D-Flipz, and 4 more like this
Post by Donzig on Mar 31, 2024 22:35:56 GMT -5
The man blinked in the bright sunlight as he was dragged forward by huge hands dug into his jacket. He was sweating in the heat, and the sun burned his eyes after a time in darkness. He didn’t struggle of course, the two brutes who held him would not be moved by such things. He knew them of course by reputation. They had the names of devils, because the Scourge had said Hell was empty.
Mormo.
Moloch.
The Oblivion Death Squad.
They hauled him across the flagstones of the patio where a woman waited. She was pretty, with glittering eyes, and reddish hair. She wore a fine dress despite the heat, black of course that showed off her body. She jerked her head, and the two men flung him into the wrought iron seat before the glass topped table.
One of them shoved a tablet into his hands, and stepped back. They were wearing dark suits, and in fact he realized that everyone he had seen since he had been brought here wore only black or white.
Beyond the patio was green, the deep and brilliant green of the jungle. He could see flowers blooming, their bright colors bathed in the unforgiving sunlight. And off somewhere to the side he heard the crash of waves, the roar of the nearby ocean. The table before him was strewn with food and drink, and he stared at it before the woman poured him a glass of juice. She shoved it into his hand, and then leaned over to whisper to whoever sat in the other chair. Then she straightened, and stepped back.
The chair turned, and despite the heat a chill swept through him.
The man who reclined in that chair wore a long leather coat covered with studs and buckles, the hood drawn up though the sunlight gleamed on reddish metal. A mask stared at him from the shadows which seemed all the darker for the bright light. The eyes behind the mask had less life or feeling in them than the mask itself.
They were the eyes of something not human, something monstrous.
‘Alfred Cohen.’
The man blinked as that voice hissed his name, and he nodded quickly.
‘Yes! What is the meaning of this?’
The mask didn’t move, but he heard a faint touch of amusement in the voice as a hand waved absently.
‘You asked for a sit down interview did you not?’
Cohen sputtered, tugging at his jacket before he sat down his glass. Juice sloshed over the side, and he frowned. He leaned forward, glaring angrily before he answered.
‘I didn’t ask to be kidnapped and held in a cell!’
Donzig stared at him, and he leaned forward himself.
‘Do you think perhaps knowledge is free? Odin hung for nine days and nine nights for the knowledge of runes and other worlds! But you can not spare a night here in paradise? He gave an eye for divine wisdom. Do you know what Promotheus sacrificed to give men the knowledge of fire? But you are too proud to spend a night in a dark room?’
Cohen blinked.
‘Do you know what I sacrificed, Alfred Cohen? Do you know what I gave for my knowledge? For my secrets? The prices I paid to become the New God of Extreme! Should I tell you? Or should I have my men dump you off back in the city!’
Like lightning the hand slapped down on the table, and everything on it leapt into the air. Cohen jerked backwards, and the three figures around the table winced. Donzig’s hand lifted, curling into a fist as his fingers squeezed before loosening as it drew back. Cohen was amazed at how fast the slap had come. The Scourge was quick, surprisingly quick.
‘No, I’ll take the interview.’
The thing across from him made a noise then, a horrible grinding noise that sounded like some ancient machine forced to life. It wheezed, hissing, and burbling as the shoulders shook. There was a slight tinny echo from the mask as the thing cackled. Cohen flinched backwards in alarm, and he looked at the other three who were trying to look like they were anywhere else.
This was the laughter of the Scourge, the laughter of a thin not made for laughter.
A hand waved, and then the thing leaned forward as it half rose.
‘Take? You’ll fucking take? You take nothing! You will receive what is given! No one takes from me, mortal! I am Death in High Places! I will answer your stupid fucking questions, and you will write down the answers it pleases me to give you!
Take!’
Donzig dropped back, and Cohen gaped as he tried to catch his breath. His eyes flickering around the patio, and then Donzig’s hands moved to press together before him. Knuckles in his palm before him, and his head tilted as he sniffed.
‘Shall we begin like David Copperfield? 'I am born... I grew up. '
Cohen blinked again, and he stared at the tablet. Then he looked up, and he arched a brow.
‘David Copperfield?’
‘That was actually ‘Interview with the Vampire’.
Cohen rolled his eyes, and he looked back at the tablet before he started to take notes. He glanced up, and shrugged before he muttered.
‘I think you do that quoting thing just to prove to yourself how much smarter you are then everyone else. Like no one has ever read a book but you.’
Mormo stepped forward, his huge hand balling into a fist. He loomed over Cohen, and the reporter ducked down in his chair as he braced for a blow that never came. Sinclair Godfrey was staring at Mormo, her lips pressed into a thin line. Donzig was staring at him, and he purred with amusement as he leaned back.
‘Oh, you have fire don’t you? I like that. I like a bit of spirit. That is the problem with the world today, too many people do not say what they think, eh? They just mince words, and tell little lies, and play games. But not you!
No, no, no!
You just say what’s on your mind. And you know what?’
Donzig leaned closer, head tilting as light flashed across the metal mask.
‘Maybe you are right. You see, Alfred. I am not the biggest man, I am not the strongest man, and since we are being honest? I am not in fact perhaps the greatest wrestler who ever lived. But what I am? What I have always been is smart. I am clever, I am cunning, I am a veritable wizard of schemes!
I know what to do to defeat my opponents, I know what I have to do. And I do it. Headgames, cheating, whatever it takes.’
Cohen frowned, and looked up. He took a drink of juice, and shrugged.
‘I heard it said you beat them through sheer mean-ness.’
Donzig hissed.
‘Sometimes you have to be mean. I have a war to win. You think being kind will win the war? You think being nice and fighting these people with some kind of fairness will win it? These selfish, short-sighted, self serving fucking people?
I am not mean, I am not unnecessarily cruel! Would you have me spare the rod to these children?’
Cohen thought it over, after all he had seen Donzig’s matches. He had seen the Scourge seem to delight in his own savagery, his own brutality. He wallowed in it, drinking it like a wine. He tapped the screen, and leaned forward.
‘I can ask any question? Any questions and you will answer?’
Donzig sniffed, and flicked his fingers as he leaned back. A glance at Sinclair before he nodded, and Cohen spoke.
‘Than why do you do the things I have seen you do. You gouged a man’s face with a screwdriver, you have burned people, you hit Spike Kane with a truck! But you’re telling me you didn’t want to do all of that?’
Donzig tsked, and he leaned forward again.
‘If you have to fight someone? You should destroy him. You should make your enemies suffer, so they do not dare to face you again. You should show everyone and everything what you are willing to do so they do not dare, DO NOT FUCKING DARE to test you. And if I have to gouge a few eyes, or take Lightbringer across someone’s flesh, or even hit them with a goddamned truck!’
Cohen nodded, and he took another sip of juice. Then he leaned back, staring at the masked man.
‘You speak of a war, what war is that?’
Donzig grunted.
‘The war to save wrestling. To save the sport of kings. Look around this place, look at what it has become! You think this is what it was meant to be? Kings wrestled at the Field of Gold! And now what do we have? Comedy bits? Degenrency? Fucking Bouncey Houses of Friendship?
Bah! I gave my life, my entire fucking life to this sport! I dedicated my entire being to it!
And I get treated like a villain because I don’t find half assed jokes told by glorified race car drivers to be compelling? No! Make no mistake, Cohen! This is a war! I will restore us to the Golden Path! I will drag this sport kicking and screaming back to itself!
I will let entire fucking worlds burn! I will save this! This is all falling into the Pit, it is screaming down into the Void, and you think jokes will let us survive that? Some feel good fucking stories about being drunk or high? No!
The Endless Dark is coming, and I will lead us to the other side! We will all be reborn!’
Donzig’s fist hit down on the table, and it jerked again. He leaned back, shaking his head as he wiped a hand across the mouth of his mask. He stared at the reporter, and Cohen leaned back as he shrugged.
‘So this is all for us? Our benefit?’
‘Are you a fool? You think I do all of this for me? For my own amusement? I will save the XHF! I will save wrestling! I will make it strong enough to survive the Fall! The fall will be darker than the pit itself, Cohen. We will all be made monsters of our own design!
I just happen to be the first to see it! You think this a Utopia?
That we are all happy here? That this is a paradise where we all live in equality and fellowship? No, no, no! It is anything but that! A few sit at the head of the table and feed the rest of us fucking scraps!’
Donzig snarled angrily, and he leaned forward as his hands hit the table again. They dug into the edges, and he leaned closer as he glared at Cohen. The reporter drew back, leaning hard into his chair as Donzig fumed.
‘I am done eating scraps! And at the Rumble? I will take what is mine! I will take the X-Crown! And I will lead this place into the future, I will fucking save it! Do you understand?’
Cohen swallowed, and he held up a hand. He could feel the weight, the terrible weight of this man’s presence. Donzig was like a black hole, he sucked in everything and consumed it. He was an absence, an emptiness that would not be filled.
‘You say titles don’t matter to you. But you are obsessed with the X-crown, why?’
A hiss, and then that terrible laughter echoed again. Cohen jerked away, but Donzig dropped back in his chair with a wave of his hand.
‘You’re right. I don’t care about titles. I am a multiple time champion, I am a multiple time hall of famer, I am a legend in my own time! The world has seen nothing like Donzig before, and never will again! My enemies are gone, they are gone or suffering.
Or worse in some trash company.
But you see, they will never admit these things! They will never bend down and confess my greatness, they will not accept my superiority over them! I need a symbol of my greatness, a symbol of my dominion over them!
Over the XHF!’
Donzig hissed, his eyes narrowed behind the mask as he stared into nothing.
‘But they will learn. At the Rumble? I will show them the errors of their ways, and this year? There will be no fucking games to deny me! No enemies to rise up from their fucking graves to tear me down! No, no, no!
They will have to face me inside that ring, face to face! And I will show them that I am the Wonder and Terror of this Age! I am everything that I say I am!
So you can line up the faded legends, the fucking sad race car drivers, and the has beens trying to pretend in a fucking world that belongs to me! You can line up the young bucks, and the rising stars!
AND I WILL LAY THEM THE FUCK DOWN!’
Cohen winced as his voice rose to shriek, and he saw Sinclair flinch as well. And then Donzig fell back again, silent for the moment. Cohen reached for his glass, and then stopped when the voice snarled once more.
‘I saw them, you know. When Spike put us in the earth, when he laid us in our grave, I saw them. I saw them all gloating over our demise, I saw them acting like Spike won them something. And they crawled out of the woodwork and came into my house! Into my house and made challenges!
You see the former X-Crown Champion didn’t have the ball balls to walk into my house with my name on his fucking lips when I was not buried beneath the dirt of London did he? And of course that refugee from Swamp People was there to swoop in wasn’t she? Like she is the first person with tits to wrestle in the Rumble? Excuse me for not being fucking impressed.
But you see all these games, all of this bullshit END! It fucking ends! This farce fucking ends the minute I walk into the Rumble! Because the One God is coming to drive out the many gods! And that God?’
Donzig pointed at himself, and hissed.
‘Is the New fucking God of Extreme! And I will take what is mine by right of birth, what mine is by right of blood, by destiny! BY RIGHT OF FUCKING CONQUEST! I will take it off the fucking remains of that fool Spike Kane if he can even keep the motherfucker that long covered in the blood of lesser men! And I will take it!’
The patio beneath the hot sun of Mexico felt very cold as he stared into the dead eyes of the Scourge as they looked at him from under that mask. His hand shook and he wiped it on his leg before he reached for the juice.
‘What broke you?’
Donzig froze, and everyone stared at Cohen.
‘What?’
‘What broke you? What made you like this?’
Donzig hissed, and he leaned back slowly as he tapped his fingers against his mask.
‘All I ever wanted was to be loved, Cohen. I wanted to be loved, I wanted to be seen for what I was. Do you understand that? But the world took that from me. The world is cruel and terrible place, it is full of evil people. They lie, they cheat, they steal.
They treat their fellow men like shit, they wallow in every sin, every vice. They fistfuck everything they see, because they can! You see they are what’s important, and then? When you call them out on this? When you punish them?
You’re the bad guy, you’re the villain, the monster.
The world everyone wants? That is a dream, Cohen. A lie.
I saw that. I saw the cold hard truth. The world doesn’t give two fucks about us. It doesn’t care, it doesn’t want us to be happy. It wants us to suffer. It doesn’t matter, nothing matters.
Nothing I do? Matters.
I’d like to tell you I am bringing justice, that I am making things better, but this is all doomed. It all falls apart, we are falling into the Abyss. I see it, I see it as clearly as I see you sitting there. I will destroy it all, I will break the wheel, I will end the cycle.
I was not broken, I was made whole.’
Cohen shivered, and Donzig leaned closer.
‘And I will make all of you whole too.’
Mormo.
Moloch.
The Oblivion Death Squad.
They hauled him across the flagstones of the patio where a woman waited. She was pretty, with glittering eyes, and reddish hair. She wore a fine dress despite the heat, black of course that showed off her body. She jerked her head, and the two men flung him into the wrought iron seat before the glass topped table.
One of them shoved a tablet into his hands, and stepped back. They were wearing dark suits, and in fact he realized that everyone he had seen since he had been brought here wore only black or white.
Beyond the patio was green, the deep and brilliant green of the jungle. He could see flowers blooming, their bright colors bathed in the unforgiving sunlight. And off somewhere to the side he heard the crash of waves, the roar of the nearby ocean. The table before him was strewn with food and drink, and he stared at it before the woman poured him a glass of juice. She shoved it into his hand, and then leaned over to whisper to whoever sat in the other chair. Then she straightened, and stepped back.
The chair turned, and despite the heat a chill swept through him.
The man who reclined in that chair wore a long leather coat covered with studs and buckles, the hood drawn up though the sunlight gleamed on reddish metal. A mask stared at him from the shadows which seemed all the darker for the bright light. The eyes behind the mask had less life or feeling in them than the mask itself.
They were the eyes of something not human, something monstrous.
‘Alfred Cohen.’
The man blinked as that voice hissed his name, and he nodded quickly.
‘Yes! What is the meaning of this?’
The mask didn’t move, but he heard a faint touch of amusement in the voice as a hand waved absently.
‘You asked for a sit down interview did you not?’
Cohen sputtered, tugging at his jacket before he sat down his glass. Juice sloshed over the side, and he frowned. He leaned forward, glaring angrily before he answered.
‘I didn’t ask to be kidnapped and held in a cell!’
Donzig stared at him, and he leaned forward himself.
‘Do you think perhaps knowledge is free? Odin hung for nine days and nine nights for the knowledge of runes and other worlds! But you can not spare a night here in paradise? He gave an eye for divine wisdom. Do you know what Promotheus sacrificed to give men the knowledge of fire? But you are too proud to spend a night in a dark room?’
Cohen blinked.
‘Do you know what I sacrificed, Alfred Cohen? Do you know what I gave for my knowledge? For my secrets? The prices I paid to become the New God of Extreme! Should I tell you? Or should I have my men dump you off back in the city!’
Like lightning the hand slapped down on the table, and everything on it leapt into the air. Cohen jerked backwards, and the three figures around the table winced. Donzig’s hand lifted, curling into a fist as his fingers squeezed before loosening as it drew back. Cohen was amazed at how fast the slap had come. The Scourge was quick, surprisingly quick.
‘No, I’ll take the interview.’
The thing across from him made a noise then, a horrible grinding noise that sounded like some ancient machine forced to life. It wheezed, hissing, and burbling as the shoulders shook. There was a slight tinny echo from the mask as the thing cackled. Cohen flinched backwards in alarm, and he looked at the other three who were trying to look like they were anywhere else.
This was the laughter of the Scourge, the laughter of a thin not made for laughter.
A hand waved, and then the thing leaned forward as it half rose.
‘Take? You’ll fucking take? You take nothing! You will receive what is given! No one takes from me, mortal! I am Death in High Places! I will answer your stupid fucking questions, and you will write down the answers it pleases me to give you!
Take!’
Donzig dropped back, and Cohen gaped as he tried to catch his breath. His eyes flickering around the patio, and then Donzig’s hands moved to press together before him. Knuckles in his palm before him, and his head tilted as he sniffed.
‘Shall we begin like David Copperfield? 'I am born... I grew up. '
Cohen blinked again, and he stared at the tablet. Then he looked up, and he arched a brow.
‘David Copperfield?’
‘That was actually ‘Interview with the Vampire’.
Cohen rolled his eyes, and he looked back at the tablet before he started to take notes. He glanced up, and shrugged before he muttered.
‘I think you do that quoting thing just to prove to yourself how much smarter you are then everyone else. Like no one has ever read a book but you.’
Mormo stepped forward, his huge hand balling into a fist. He loomed over Cohen, and the reporter ducked down in his chair as he braced for a blow that never came. Sinclair Godfrey was staring at Mormo, her lips pressed into a thin line. Donzig was staring at him, and he purred with amusement as he leaned back.
‘Oh, you have fire don’t you? I like that. I like a bit of spirit. That is the problem with the world today, too many people do not say what they think, eh? They just mince words, and tell little lies, and play games. But not you!
No, no, no!
You just say what’s on your mind. And you know what?’
Donzig leaned closer, head tilting as light flashed across the metal mask.
‘Maybe you are right. You see, Alfred. I am not the biggest man, I am not the strongest man, and since we are being honest? I am not in fact perhaps the greatest wrestler who ever lived. But what I am? What I have always been is smart. I am clever, I am cunning, I am a veritable wizard of schemes!
I know what to do to defeat my opponents, I know what I have to do. And I do it. Headgames, cheating, whatever it takes.’
Cohen frowned, and looked up. He took a drink of juice, and shrugged.
‘I heard it said you beat them through sheer mean-ness.’
Donzig hissed.
‘Sometimes you have to be mean. I have a war to win. You think being kind will win the war? You think being nice and fighting these people with some kind of fairness will win it? These selfish, short-sighted, self serving fucking people?
I am not mean, I am not unnecessarily cruel! Would you have me spare the rod to these children?’
Cohen thought it over, after all he had seen Donzig’s matches. He had seen the Scourge seem to delight in his own savagery, his own brutality. He wallowed in it, drinking it like a wine. He tapped the screen, and leaned forward.
‘I can ask any question? Any questions and you will answer?’
Donzig sniffed, and flicked his fingers as he leaned back. A glance at Sinclair before he nodded, and Cohen spoke.
‘Than why do you do the things I have seen you do. You gouged a man’s face with a screwdriver, you have burned people, you hit Spike Kane with a truck! But you’re telling me you didn’t want to do all of that?’
Donzig tsked, and he leaned forward again.
‘If you have to fight someone? You should destroy him. You should make your enemies suffer, so they do not dare to face you again. You should show everyone and everything what you are willing to do so they do not dare, DO NOT FUCKING DARE to test you. And if I have to gouge a few eyes, or take Lightbringer across someone’s flesh, or even hit them with a goddamned truck!’
Cohen nodded, and he took another sip of juice. Then he leaned back, staring at the masked man.
‘You speak of a war, what war is that?’
Donzig grunted.
‘The war to save wrestling. To save the sport of kings. Look around this place, look at what it has become! You think this is what it was meant to be? Kings wrestled at the Field of Gold! And now what do we have? Comedy bits? Degenrency? Fucking Bouncey Houses of Friendship?
Bah! I gave my life, my entire fucking life to this sport! I dedicated my entire being to it!
And I get treated like a villain because I don’t find half assed jokes told by glorified race car drivers to be compelling? No! Make no mistake, Cohen! This is a war! I will restore us to the Golden Path! I will drag this sport kicking and screaming back to itself!
I will let entire fucking worlds burn! I will save this! This is all falling into the Pit, it is screaming down into the Void, and you think jokes will let us survive that? Some feel good fucking stories about being drunk or high? No!
The Endless Dark is coming, and I will lead us to the other side! We will all be reborn!’
Donzig’s fist hit down on the table, and it jerked again. He leaned back, shaking his head as he wiped a hand across the mouth of his mask. He stared at the reporter, and Cohen leaned back as he shrugged.
‘So this is all for us? Our benefit?’
‘Are you a fool? You think I do all of this for me? For my own amusement? I will save the XHF! I will save wrestling! I will make it strong enough to survive the Fall! The fall will be darker than the pit itself, Cohen. We will all be made monsters of our own design!
I just happen to be the first to see it! You think this a Utopia?
That we are all happy here? That this is a paradise where we all live in equality and fellowship? No, no, no! It is anything but that! A few sit at the head of the table and feed the rest of us fucking scraps!’
Donzig snarled angrily, and he leaned forward as his hands hit the table again. They dug into the edges, and he leaned closer as he glared at Cohen. The reporter drew back, leaning hard into his chair as Donzig fumed.
‘I am done eating scraps! And at the Rumble? I will take what is mine! I will take the X-Crown! And I will lead this place into the future, I will fucking save it! Do you understand?’
Cohen swallowed, and he held up a hand. He could feel the weight, the terrible weight of this man’s presence. Donzig was like a black hole, he sucked in everything and consumed it. He was an absence, an emptiness that would not be filled.
‘You say titles don’t matter to you. But you are obsessed with the X-crown, why?’
A hiss, and then that terrible laughter echoed again. Cohen jerked away, but Donzig dropped back in his chair with a wave of his hand.
‘You’re right. I don’t care about titles. I am a multiple time champion, I am a multiple time hall of famer, I am a legend in my own time! The world has seen nothing like Donzig before, and never will again! My enemies are gone, they are gone or suffering.
Or worse in some trash company.
But you see, they will never admit these things! They will never bend down and confess my greatness, they will not accept my superiority over them! I need a symbol of my greatness, a symbol of my dominion over them!
Over the XHF!’
Donzig hissed, his eyes narrowed behind the mask as he stared into nothing.
‘But they will learn. At the Rumble? I will show them the errors of their ways, and this year? There will be no fucking games to deny me! No enemies to rise up from their fucking graves to tear me down! No, no, no!
They will have to face me inside that ring, face to face! And I will show them that I am the Wonder and Terror of this Age! I am everything that I say I am!
So you can line up the faded legends, the fucking sad race car drivers, and the has beens trying to pretend in a fucking world that belongs to me! You can line up the young bucks, and the rising stars!
AND I WILL LAY THEM THE FUCK DOWN!’
Cohen winced as his voice rose to shriek, and he saw Sinclair flinch as well. And then Donzig fell back again, silent for the moment. Cohen reached for his glass, and then stopped when the voice snarled once more.
‘I saw them, you know. When Spike put us in the earth, when he laid us in our grave, I saw them. I saw them all gloating over our demise, I saw them acting like Spike won them something. And they crawled out of the woodwork and came into my house! Into my house and made challenges!
You see the former X-Crown Champion didn’t have the ball balls to walk into my house with my name on his fucking lips when I was not buried beneath the dirt of London did he? And of course that refugee from Swamp People was there to swoop in wasn’t she? Like she is the first person with tits to wrestle in the Rumble? Excuse me for not being fucking impressed.
But you see all these games, all of this bullshit END! It fucking ends! This farce fucking ends the minute I walk into the Rumble! Because the One God is coming to drive out the many gods! And that God?’
Donzig pointed at himself, and hissed.
‘Is the New fucking God of Extreme! And I will take what is mine by right of birth, what mine is by right of blood, by destiny! BY RIGHT OF FUCKING CONQUEST! I will take it off the fucking remains of that fool Spike Kane if he can even keep the motherfucker that long covered in the blood of lesser men! And I will take it!’
The patio beneath the hot sun of Mexico felt very cold as he stared into the dead eyes of the Scourge as they looked at him from under that mask. His hand shook and he wiped it on his leg before he reached for the juice.
‘What broke you?’
Donzig froze, and everyone stared at Cohen.
‘What?’
‘What broke you? What made you like this?’
Donzig hissed, and he leaned back slowly as he tapped his fingers against his mask.
‘All I ever wanted was to be loved, Cohen. I wanted to be loved, I wanted to be seen for what I was. Do you understand that? But the world took that from me. The world is cruel and terrible place, it is full of evil people. They lie, they cheat, they steal.
They treat their fellow men like shit, they wallow in every sin, every vice. They fistfuck everything they see, because they can! You see they are what’s important, and then? When you call them out on this? When you punish them?
You’re the bad guy, you’re the villain, the monster.
The world everyone wants? That is a dream, Cohen. A lie.
I saw that. I saw the cold hard truth. The world doesn’t give two fucks about us. It doesn’t care, it doesn’t want us to be happy. It wants us to suffer. It doesn’t matter, nothing matters.
Nothing I do? Matters.
I’d like to tell you I am bringing justice, that I am making things better, but this is all doomed. It all falls apart, we are falling into the Abyss. I see it, I see it as clearly as I see you sitting there. I will destroy it all, I will break the wheel, I will end the cycle.
I was not broken, I was made whole.’
Cohen shivered, and Donzig leaned closer.
‘And I will make all of you whole too.’