[ANDREWS] My Time Is Now (ColdWar ep3)

[Steele]

As the scene fades in from black, a chilling laugh can be heard. It begins faintly, almost imperceptible, and grows in volume as the image slowly becomes visible.

"ah-hah-hah...."

The insane cackling continues and as the image comes into focus, we see only a silhouetted figure, side-on to us and illuminated from behind by a deep crimson glow.

The figure rocks back and forth as he continues to laugh, his long hair hanging down and swaying in front of his face.

"You don't know who you're dealing with, do you? None of you. None of you know. How could you? Or - perhaps I should say "what" ... you don't know what you're dealing with."

"hah-hah-hah..."

"You think you can beat me into submission? You think you can break me, destroy me? You think you can kill me? Bigger and badder men have tried. Bigger and badder men have been left screaming like little girls, garroted with barbed wire- their flesh searing and tearing, their lifeblood draining as they looked up into my eyes."

"They found no mercy. No remorse. The spark of compassion has long since dwindled and died within me- when they looked into my eyes they saw only burning hatred for them and everything they were. They gazed into the eyes of a man who takes great pleasure in their pain, a man who feeds and thrives on watching another man writhe beneath him completely helpless, completely under my control."

"I looked into their eyes completely without feeling as the tears rolled down their bloodied faces, utterly convinced that they were going to die there in the ring by my hand. I watched as their eyes rolled back in their heads and they drifted into unconsciousness... It brought me some scant satisfaction as the next best thing to robbing a man of his very existence."

"Of course I never killed any of my opponents in the ring, as much as I would have liked to. If I had done so, I would be locked up, far far away from here - far far away from you. And if I was far, far away from you then you would have nothing to fear."

*The figure stops his rocking, and laughs once more. He breathes heavily as he slowly turns his face, still silhouetted, towards the camera. As he moves ever so slightly closer, his face begins to become visible to us, and he stares into the camera, his eyes seeming to pierce right through us.

"But I'm not."

"And you should be."

"Ozymandias, you tried to destroy me last month when you hit me with that sledgehammer wrapped in barbed wire... Now I can't condemn you for that, I too have taken the easy route when faced with an opponent too strong for me to put away... but I'm half your size. Are you really that desperate, that inept that you, the great Ozymandias, can't finish off a sub-200 pound kid in a fair fight?"

"Such a shame, Oymandias. You couldn't beat me, so you tried to destroy me. But... you failed. I am still here. I am still standing - and if you will recall, I was the last man standing for our team at Xtraction... we were team-mates that night but do not think that I have forgotten."

"Oh no, I haven't forgotten."

"I owe you, Ozymandias. I owe you payback. And one of these days, when you least expect it... I will come knocking. Only I won't be knocking politely at the door like an old friend come to pay a visit, oh no. I'll come crashing up against the door, I'll kick it in, and I will take what I am owed."

"Think of me as the worst bailiff that you ever pissed off, Ozymandias. And just to eliminate any possibility that you might make a stand against me, I'll come knocking with this..."

He reaches below him and brings an object up into view of the camera.

The ring bell that AK took with him when he left FIW.

"This is my insurance policy, Ozymandias. This is to guarantee that when I come knocking, I am able to collect payment."

"hah-hah-hah..."

"I will collect my payment in your blood, Ozymandias."

"Ask not for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee."

AK tosses the ring bell back down onto the floor, it rings out as it hits the hard concrete. He leans back a little bit, and returns to the shadows.

"So what now? What is next for me? Who shall become my victim? Who shall bear my wrath as I wait until Ozymandias and I next cross paths?"

"Ah, yes. Dylan Black and Lethe."

"Dylan Black, you have had an auspicious start to your time in FWA. Handed - just handed the Fire & Ice Tag Team Championship. Well let me assure you my friend, you will not be merely handed the Firestorm Championship. I have been waiting a long time for this opportunity, believe me. I was the top contender for the FIW Championship, only for that opportunity to be ripped away from me. Do you know what that does to someone... someone like me?

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"It makes me want to rip this opportunity away from you with every fibre of my being. No, to rip more than just this opportunity from you. To rip your flesh from the bones, until you are nothing but a husk, withered and decrepit, to be cast aside and forgotten."

"How can you look at yourself in the mirror and call yourself a champion, Dylan? How can you even begin to pretend to yourself that what you have is warranted, earned? How do you justify yourself?"

"I'll tell you how. On ColdWar, you beat me for the FWA Firestorm Championship. Only then can you say you are worth the gold you wear. Only then can you call yourself a champion. You are nothing but a fraud, Dylan, and I am going to expose you and I will NOT let you win the championship!"

AK appears to be looking around him or perhaps cricking his neck, but we cannot tell for sure.

"Of course, there is one other factor in our match that stands between both you and I, and the Firestorm Championship. Lethe, you and I are perhaps kindred spirits."

"We are both broken. 'Wrong in the head', as so many people have called me in the past. There is something about you, Lethe, that makes me think that there is more than meets the eye with you. You might be a woman, but I will treat you as just as big a threat as Dylan Black."

"But I promise you, that if you get into the ring with me then I will leave your body just as broken as your fragile little mind."

He leans his head back and slowly runs both hands through his long undercut hair. He begins to sigh, which quickly gives way to more diabolical laughter.

"And how do we decide who wear the gold? Ahhh... an Electrified cage deathmatch. Nothing gets my heart beating faster than ten thousand volts being applied to my hapless opponent. I find nothing more invigorating than slicing through skin with shards of broken glass, and those shards will be supplied by the light tubes so thoughtfully strung around the perimeter of the cage. Oh, when I close my eyes and imagine the carnage.."

"It send a shiver of anticipation down my spine to know that soon, very soon, I will be free to unleash such havoc upon both of you."

"Both of you must realise that I've been f***ed around, pushed, prodded, cajoled, ridiculed, cast aside for too long, and I won't take it any longer! You both have dreams of being the one to hold that championship above your head, well so do I, and I won't be cast as the underdog any more! My time is now - and I won't let either of you or ANYBODY else take ANYTHING away from me any longer! My time is NOW! There is only one man who can win that belt at ColdWar, and that man is ME! I will fight you - and I mean reeeally fight you - and I will win! I will scratch, claw, bite - oh, yes, I'll bite! To make sure that championship comes home with me that night!"

"MY. TIME. IS. NOW!"

"I can feel it, I can taste it..."

The black figure of AK Andrews reaches out with his right hand towards the camera, fingertips extended.

"I can almost reach out and touch it, I'm that close..."

"You won't steal this away from me. I won't let you."

"Black. Lethe."

"Ask not for whom the bell tolls."

A sound of a bell rings out for just a split second as the picture on screen disappears suddenly, and we hear no more. Then, static.