SURPRISE. [DICKIE WATSON PG I]

“You’re spreading’ yourself thin, mate.”

The Australian drawl that came from the man’s mouth was callous, even a bit derogatory. Leaned up against the wall with his arms crossed, the usually amused and rambunctious wrestler known as Aiden Reynolds almost seemed to be staring daggers into the man seated on a bench in the training facility known as Wolfslair. He pushed his hair back, the sweat off his forehead, and shook his head, looking off and away. Anywhere except directly in front of him, at least for now. For a moment.

Dimitri folded his hands, letting them dangle between his legs as he gazed motionlessly down at the ground. He twiddled his thumbs, exhaling. Perhaps it was as if he didn’t want to believe his tag partner’s words. Division wasn’t a strong emotion for either of them. They were close with one another, almost to the point of brothers. He trusted his judgment and trusted his opinion. Trusted that he would help him make decisions that would benefit not only his career but both of theirs. After all, that’s what a team did, didn’t it? At the same time though, he understood Aiden’s frustration.

Dimitri Watson, otherwise known as Dickie Watson in the wrestling world, had all but hung up his boots. At least, that’s what he had thought two months ago. In a distant land, one where there was so much camaraderie that it seemed having to fight one another was a painful task, he’d led the charge. There was something to covet, something to hold dear, something to fight for. Some part of him missed that, and he knew it. It was never going to be quenched by just anything, and while that saying was true, he didn’t know what that specific refreshing breath of air was going to be.

It was because of Aiden that Dimitri had even stepped back into the foray. Oh, it wasn’t because he didn’t think he was good. Nah, he knew better than that. He had superior tutelage under Steel Bones Wrestling, he had a wrestling family. Hell, he’d held the DIVISION World Championship for a year, in both incarnations of the company. No, it wasn’t that he didn’t think he was good. It was because he hadn’t found a company that inspired him. But Aiden told him of the benefits of Pro Wrestling Syndicate Apex, told him what it would be like. That this time? He wasn’t going to be standing by himself as the target of the company.

“Nah, I think it’ll be fine.”

“We just became tag champions there, Dickie.” Aiden argued, setting his blue eyes back onto the crown of Dimitri’s head. “Inaugural champions, mate. We have a story to create for them, a legacy that can’t be matched.”

Dimitri snorted, but Aiden continued.

“It’s time now to make them realize that there are new ages and eras all the time in these fuckin’ companies. The new kids roll in, but unless we make them see that we can do bigger and better than fuckin’ Dumb and Dumber--”

“--the pity party--”

“--then they’re never going to take us seriously. Look, mate, what if...what if we got the opportunity to face off against their United and World Champion? Champion’s showcase, you know? You’re not going to be on your game because you decided to fuck off to--”

“Oi, calm your shit!” Dickie snapped, lifting his head and staring down Aiden with a flared nose. His cockney accent roared to life, causing him to drop consonants and vowels like they were no longer a part of the English language. “I can do both, Aiden. When have I ever let you down, mate? I know what’s at stake here, and I’m not the type to let down and disappoint the people that give me their trust. They’re completely different schedules, and Apex comes first in the weeks that we need to show up. It’ll be fine.”

Aiden pushed off the wall, his arms still crossed while he took a couple of steps in a circular motion. Dimitri knew he wasn’t happy with it, and probably would take a few minutes for the second half of The Commonwealth to let it go.

“They contacted me, mate.” Dimitri insisted. “They wanted me on the show, and as much as tagging with you at Apex works, I can do this too. Project: Honor just...has that vibe, you know? Like it’ll matter in the coming days, and they’re having this tournament of sorts where I could be the first champion again. Like I did in DIVISION.”

Turning his head, Aiden snorted. “You’re riding a high that doesn’t exist anymore, mate. Like Macca’s football in a Covidi world.”

Confusion. Utter confusion crossed Dimitri’s face as he tried to deduce, once more, Aiden’s unique set of English words relating to his heritage. Of course, Australians abbreviated quite a bit of words in a strange way that didn’t make sense to the rest of the world, and this was just another one of those times. “...McDonald’s has football?”

He imagined the Hamburglar kick a football and decking Wallace in his big, fat purple costume’s face.

We’re sure you thought it was going to be about throwing a football, not a soccer ball either.

Both wrong.

“Ping pong, but that’s beside the point.”

“Ping pong?!”

“Why are you so confused about fuckin’ rugby?”

Realization dawned on Dimitri and he exhaled, shaking his head. “Look--”

“Nah. Nah, yeah I get it, Dickie.” Aiden held up his hand and waved him off. “You’re looking for that moment where you can take the glory again. You had a couple of rough days and didn’t think you could do it, but you’re riding that high from winning the championships. Just...don’t let it affect us, yeah? Put a lot of work in for it to go to shit.”

“Oi!” Dimitri jumped to his feet and pushed Aiden’s shoulder. “Don’t be a dick because you’re having problems with your wife, man.”

Silence permeated the room painfully. Aiden’s nose flared and as he tilted his head to get a better glare on Dimitri, who refused to back down. For a second, they stared at each other as if they were truly siblings set to fight about something inconsequential. People around them, mostly Aiden’s friends and fellow trainees within the training facility, stopped to glance up there. Champions, training in the center of the ring, stopped to look up. It wasn’t often that Dimitri could cause the entire room to stop, but he had. All because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

Aiden glanced around him before finally settling on one of the desk receptionists for the center. “Ride a rocket to the fuckin’ moon, bitch!” In response, she jumped, turning her eyes back to her computer screen hastily and Aiden snorted. “That’s what I thought.”

“Aiden.”

He held up his hand and shook his head once more, sighing slightly. “I get it. Just. Make sure you know what you’re getting into. And if this is something that you have to do, Dickie...make sure that you take the gold, yeah?”

“It’s all the same. Every place has the same routine, the same bullshit, the same whatever.”

A blank room, devoid of pictures and furniture, save for a window in the middle of the frame, open to a tree as it flows in the breeze. The light makes it difficult to see any other surroundings within the room, but that doesn’t seem to be the issue with the room itself. It was strange, almost disconcerting in the fact that a person so normally upbeat and amused would settle himself in such a downtrodden place. But like everything, it had a purpose.

Dickie Watson stood, his back to the frame and his hands placed upon the windowsill. The grip he has into the frame almost seems as if he’s clutching at it for every bit of his life, making sure that he has something to attach him to that wall. However, the rest of him appears calm, normal. He doesn’t shake, as if he’s angry. He doesn’t twitch. He stands. Calm. Collected. In control.

“Days in, days out, we talk and we say some of the same shit that we would say to every other person in the history of mankind. Maybe even in this history of every single promotion that we walk into. Build up the other person as a bitch, and maybe--just maybe, you might have an edge or you might one-up your opponent because you’ve gotten into their head. That’s the gist of it all, isn’t it? To be ahead? To push forward, breaking the people around you because you don’t have any other choice except to be a raging cunt?”

He flexes his fingers, before he moves his body, rotating to the right and staring up at the wall.

“We let people in. We let them see the inner workings of our heads, let them know what bothers us, let them know that there is a place where they can find a chink in our armor and deliver what they perceive to be a final blow to destroy everything you hold dear. To wreck your confidence. To make themselves look better in the limelight, while simultaneously wrecking everything they know about you.”

Again, Dickie moves, turning to face the camera head-on. He crosses his arms then, tilting his head to the side. “Or so they think.”

His face lights up then, and with that lighting comes a smile. It’s a typical one you’d see from the Russian-British National known as The Molotov. The name didn’t come simply because there was a desire to pay homage to his homeland, or that someone else thought it would be funny to play on the fact that he was this smaller individual that was a joke. No. The Molotov moniker came because Dickie was truly just like a molotov cocktail: unstable, volatile and explosive -- well, only in the ring. Outside of it? Probably one of the most true to himself, kind individuals to grace the wrestling business. He gave a shit, and that was something difficult to find in a sea of egos and bad temperaments.

The image adjusts and refocuses, and after a moment, he’s right in front of the camera, his hazel eyes looking directly into the lens.

“Most of you don’t know me, and that’s okay. I’m not here as a household name, even though I’m probably already more so than the rest of you. You look anywhere on this roster at Project: Honor and you’ll see names that are … well, unknown. I mean, Kasey Winterborn has been around, but how long ago did she exist? Jason Terrance? Never heard of. If you’ve got an Asian Persuasion, you’ll see Caden and Myojin floating around for your fancy and Lil’ Petey might have some sick rhymes if he doesn’t disappear in two months. Also, I distinctly smell rancid bathwater with the vampire girl, but you know what, whatever. But me? Nah, lil’ ol’ me just doesn’t stand a chance, does he?”

He lifts his hand, setting his index finger underneath his eye and dragging it down, allowing himself to frown and shake his bottom lip.

“Don’t get me wrong, I know what everyone thinks of me the first go around. ‘He’s a tiny bastard’, and ‘Fuck, does he have any weight on him?’. Maybe I should eat a few more cheeseburgers, or maybe -- just maybe, I should make sure I wear a lot of padding on me. Everything I’ve heard under the sun and yet, I’m still standing, unphased, unbothered. Maybe it’s because I grew up in an environment that hated my existence. Or maybe it’s simply because insults are less than beneficial when it comes down to facing off in the ring. Well. Maybe. Beneficial definitely not for the person standing across from me with a desire to see me fail.”

Dickie pushes himself backward and he steps to the side as the frame keeps him in the center. “My name is Dickie Watson. I am The Molotov. But I’m also The Calamity. It’s funny. Both of those things entail that there is something catastrophic about to happen, and just like the metaphor in which you can deduce, I truly do cause catastrophes. Imagine, you stand across someone that looks, acts, and thinks like me, and all of a sudden, your false sense of superiority comes crashing into the ground harder than the Challenger capsule crashed into the ocean when you lose. Imagine it, and get used to the feeling, because it’s about to happen to Colton Saint.”

He stops, looking upward, before he turns to look at the camera.

“You didn’t need to look at film, did you, Colt? Thought you had it all covered because you knew exactly who I was. Let me remind you, first, you six-foot-five, two-hundred and thirty pound piece of Texas waste, that while you’ve had a fair share of your own tag team championships, I’ve been the face of a company. I carried DIVISION Wrestling on my back for both seasons of it. From day one, I fought tooth and limb to get where I was at the end of that company, and that was undefeated as the World Champion. Men and women tried to claw their way to the top, multi-time World Champions fell to me and my reign. I earned my right in that company, just like when Proving Ground comes to pass, I’ll prove that my signing was the best thing to happen to Project: Honor. But let’s see why, shall we?”

Dickie cracks his fingers, the smile on his face. “Disguising yourself with a second name because you want to stay exclusive doesn’t really work when it comes to finding tape, dude. Regardless, I found you, and let’s just say, I wasn’t impressed. In the eight matches that I could find you in, you ended up tagging with quite a few people, and failed to beat Wrestleworld’s champion. That’s okay. Good effort. But that doesn’t mean that you’re going to steal the show here, right?” He pauses, and then laughs. “I mean, you could. But you forget that I’m not interested stealing the show as much as I’m interested in stealing the time. It’s all about time, Colton. The fastest time. If I beat you in one of the fastest times -- and don’t get me wrong, I will -- then I get to go onto Hell on Earth to face whomever is on the opposite end of my ring for the Grand Championship. And yes, it is now my ring.”

“Do your worst, man. I’ve had worse. Just make sure that when you think you’ve got me down for the count, you remember that I’m full of surprises. And at Proving Ground?”

Widely, Dickie grins, and taps his temple with his index finger, bouncing it off.

“It’ll be a hell of a surprise.”