Post by Jonathan Sanders on Sept 6, 2021 22:12:58 GMT -5
ANTITHESIS: COLLISION COURSE
“Project: Honor…”
*Fade in. We open in an empty arena, the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan. The venue is empty of fans, but clearly set up for Project: Honor’s upcoming event “Collision Course”, with the ring set up in the centre and banners bearing the event logo hanging all around the area. The production set-up has all been completed as well, with big screens which will broadcast the wrestlers’ entrance videos looming large in the background, clearly visible even from this high vantage point. Our camera pans slowly through the empty stands before coming to rest on one single figure, seated high up in the nosebleeds, looking down over the arena with a cold and detached sneer. Some viewers will recognize this as PWS: Apex mainstay, “The Lost Cause” Jonathan Sanders, one half of ANTITHESIS with Tyson Sykes. who will be competing in the Collision Course tag title tournament later in the evening. Sanders is sitting with one foot up on the back of the chair in front of him, knee bent and right arm draped over it. In his right hand he clutches the PWS: Apex Collateral Damage title belt, the faceplate in full view from this position. He is clad in a black leather jacket with spikes along the wrist sections of both of the sleeves, along with grey faded jeans, ripped at the knees, and an ANTITHESIS t-shirt. His jet-black hair is combed forward into a loose fringe, which barely covers his left eye and forehead, and his eyes themselves - steel-grey in colour - are ringed with thin black eyeliner, accentuating their dark and piercing nature. The camera comes to rest on him but he does not look directly into it, keeping his attention on the ring far below as he speaks.*
“A prestigious name, in certain circles...and a reviled one in others. It seems, for an organization that prides itself on honour, the concept tends to be in short supply. But what IS honour, really? How do we define such a nebulous and abstract idea? Is honour a code of ethics? An integral part of the human experience, which separates those we call ‘good’ from the ‘evil’ and ‘immoral’? Is honour an outdated philosophy, built on simplistic principles that no longer apply to a complex and modern world? Is honour a myth a human construct perpetuated by those in power who seek to normalize their own behaviours and entrench them as the status quo?”
*The camera moves directly in front of Sanders, and he turns his attention to it, letting his foot drop back to the floor and leaning forward, hands clasped in front of himself.*
“In truth, honour is none of these. Honour is a prison, in which the weak-willed trap themselves to avoid judgement by those who claim to be their peers. Honour is the crutch that humanity leans upon when they lack the will to change a broken system, to stand against injustice with the violence that is necessary to ever TRULY effect change. ‘Honour’ is what losers cling to when the vicious, self-serving MONSTERS that rule this business prey upon their meekness and eat their dreams alive…I have moved beyond such petty, human concepts. I learned a long time ago how little ‘honour’ is truly worth in this cold, cruel world, and I knew that if I was to survive...I must become the ANTITHESIS to all who hold it.”
*Sanders smirks to himself; a bitter, sardonic expression. His eyes lock on the camera and glare daggers into it.*
“My name is Jonathan Sanders. Some of you know it well, and you know precisely why you should be very, very concerned to see me here. Where I go, destruction follows. Where TYSON SYKES goes, destruction follows. Wherever ANTITHESIS deigns to step...we bring armageddon in our wake. This is not a revelation to some of you; to those who know us, you know that it is FACT. But for those of you unfamiliar, allow me to make a more formal introduction; I am the last face you are ever going to see. I am the Horseman of Pestilence, the PLAGUE of Professional Wrestling...I am the apocalypse given flesh, and it is not a role that I take lightly. I have not come here to make friends. I have not come to ‘test my skills’ against tag teams and wrestlers from all around the world...no. I am here for the same reason as my blood-brother, Tyson Sykes. For the same reason SHARKS congregate when they smell blood in the water. I am here...to kill Project: Honor’s tag team division.”
*The smirk blossoms into a wicked, sadistic grin, and the Snake of Eden’s eyes glint in anticipation of the violence he’s describing.*
“But I will not stop there. See, the tag division here is...lacking. Wounded. Reeling, as my partner mentioned, from the departure of two figureheads it had come to rely on far too heavily. It is not enough to destroy a division that is already floundering. There is no satisfaction in murdering a dying animal. No, I will use Project Honor’s Tag Title tournament as an ingress point; an open wound I can infect, to spread my creeping sickness. I will burrow into the veins of this dying, bleeding company like the Conqueror Worm of old, and I will not rest until I’ve withered not only this division but the entire INDUSTRY from the inside out, and buried the hollow husk six-feet deep in salted Earth!”
*Sanders pauses again, his grin having faded into a furious, determined frown, brow furrowed as he leans forward once again.*
“We will begin with two newcomers, siblings who have traveled here in the hopes of making a name for themselves by capturing Project: Honor’s tag team championships. Ryan Young and Rebecca Brookes…’The Heritage.’ Heh.”
*Sanders’ lips flicker up into a smirk again, his eyes this time bearing pity and derision to go along with it.*
“Our paths have never crossed before, so I understand your eagerness to face ANTITHESIS and ‘prove yourselves’ within this tournament...but I want to make one thing abundantly clear to the pair of you before our match tonight, to issue you one very deliberate warning: RUN. If you step in the ring with Tyson Sykes and myself, you are going to get hurt. This is not a threat, it’s a promise. We are not like the other teams in this tournament, who use violence as a ‘gimmick’ or who seek to ‘test their mettle’ and prove their strength; we are here for one reason and one reason alone, and that is to CRIPPLE anyone and everyone who stands in our way. The Project: Honor Tag Team titles are a secondary objective at BEST, two meagre, gilded trinkets to hold the fascination of lesser, less-enlightened mortals. These belts are not worth enduring what we will do to you - and this goes for ANY of the teams who find themselves across from us.”
*Sanders’ smirk has vanished, replaced by an intense, malicious glare.*
“ANTITHESIS does not care about you. We are not bound by your rules, your ethics, or the prison you call honour. Our only goal is to cause as much pain, misery and VIOLENCE as we can POSSIBLY inflict, and the Project: Honor tag team titles will not bring you any solace when you’re lying in a hospital bed, nursing your ruined bodies and every breath is enough to make you sob in beautiful agony.”
*The Lost Cause inhales sharply, a disturbingly-blissful expression passing over his face at the description he just offered. His eyes drift closed for just a moment as his entire body relaxes into his seat again, then he re-opens them with a derisive smirk.*
“So I must ask...do you truly think it’s worth it? I am well aware that human life is pointless, that we are merely blips in the geologic time scale...so can you not think of anything better to do with your limited time on Earth than throw yourselves at the mercy of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse? I know you’re young and hungry; some of you have something to prove, others have a score to settle...but let me be very clear that ANTITHESIS will break every. Last. One of you.”
*Sanders leans forward again, his eyes hardening as he glares into the camera once again.*
“We will find your limits and take you WELL beyond them; we will bring you to the point of no return and we will keep pushing until there’s nothing left of you but broken dreams and crumpled corpses. This is our design; it is what we were MEANT for. We did not call ourselves the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, that name was given to us. Consider what we must have done to earn it.”
*Another pause, and Sanders smirks again, but the malice does not leave his eyes.*
“Niccolo Machiavelli once wrote in his seminal tome ‘the Prince’; ‘It is best to be feared and loved, but it is safer to be feared. However, above all else, you must ensure you are not hated. A man who loves you will help you if he can, a man who fears you will not hinder you as long as fear is maintained, but a man who hates you will destroy himself to harm you.’ Well I am a man who hates everything, and I will annihilate every atom in my body to see it brought to ruin. Can any of you TRULY say the same? I suppose we’ll see.”
*Sanders stands up now, flipping the PWS: Apex Collateral Damage title up onto his shoulder as his gaze locks with the camera.*
“Tonight, Project: Honor is on a Collision Course with doom; every tag team in this tournament will be taken to their limit and forced to contend with the stark and grim reality that they simply do not matter to this cruel and fickle fanbase. All they want is to see you suffer for their entertainment; they are ravenous lions who thirst for the blood of modern gladiators...and tonight, ANTITHESIS is eager to provide it for them. Tonight, the Horsemen ride into Saitama...and just as in the book of Revelations, Hell itself will follow with us.”
*With that, Sanders has finished, and he shoves the camera out of his face before turning on his heel to stalk towards the exit. The feed cuts into static for a beat before we fade.*
“Project: Honor…”
*Fade in. We open in an empty arena, the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan. The venue is empty of fans, but clearly set up for Project: Honor’s upcoming event “Collision Course”, with the ring set up in the centre and banners bearing the event logo hanging all around the area. The production set-up has all been completed as well, with big screens which will broadcast the wrestlers’ entrance videos looming large in the background, clearly visible even from this high vantage point. Our camera pans slowly through the empty stands before coming to rest on one single figure, seated high up in the nosebleeds, looking down over the arena with a cold and detached sneer. Some viewers will recognize this as PWS: Apex mainstay, “The Lost Cause” Jonathan Sanders, one half of ANTITHESIS with Tyson Sykes. who will be competing in the Collision Course tag title tournament later in the evening. Sanders is sitting with one foot up on the back of the chair in front of him, knee bent and right arm draped over it. In his right hand he clutches the PWS: Apex Collateral Damage title belt, the faceplate in full view from this position. He is clad in a black leather jacket with spikes along the wrist sections of both of the sleeves, along with grey faded jeans, ripped at the knees, and an ANTITHESIS t-shirt. His jet-black hair is combed forward into a loose fringe, which barely covers his left eye and forehead, and his eyes themselves - steel-grey in colour - are ringed with thin black eyeliner, accentuating their dark and piercing nature. The camera comes to rest on him but he does not look directly into it, keeping his attention on the ring far below as he speaks.*
“A prestigious name, in certain circles...and a reviled one in others. It seems, for an organization that prides itself on honour, the concept tends to be in short supply. But what IS honour, really? How do we define such a nebulous and abstract idea? Is honour a code of ethics? An integral part of the human experience, which separates those we call ‘good’ from the ‘evil’ and ‘immoral’? Is honour an outdated philosophy, built on simplistic principles that no longer apply to a complex and modern world? Is honour a myth a human construct perpetuated by those in power who seek to normalize their own behaviours and entrench them as the status quo?”
*The camera moves directly in front of Sanders, and he turns his attention to it, letting his foot drop back to the floor and leaning forward, hands clasped in front of himself.*
“In truth, honour is none of these. Honour is a prison, in which the weak-willed trap themselves to avoid judgement by those who claim to be their peers. Honour is the crutch that humanity leans upon when they lack the will to change a broken system, to stand against injustice with the violence that is necessary to ever TRULY effect change. ‘Honour’ is what losers cling to when the vicious, self-serving MONSTERS that rule this business prey upon their meekness and eat their dreams alive…I have moved beyond such petty, human concepts. I learned a long time ago how little ‘honour’ is truly worth in this cold, cruel world, and I knew that if I was to survive...I must become the ANTITHESIS to all who hold it.”
*Sanders smirks to himself; a bitter, sardonic expression. His eyes lock on the camera and glare daggers into it.*
“My name is Jonathan Sanders. Some of you know it well, and you know precisely why you should be very, very concerned to see me here. Where I go, destruction follows. Where TYSON SYKES goes, destruction follows. Wherever ANTITHESIS deigns to step...we bring armageddon in our wake. This is not a revelation to some of you; to those who know us, you know that it is FACT. But for those of you unfamiliar, allow me to make a more formal introduction; I am the last face you are ever going to see. I am the Horseman of Pestilence, the PLAGUE of Professional Wrestling...I am the apocalypse given flesh, and it is not a role that I take lightly. I have not come here to make friends. I have not come to ‘test my skills’ against tag teams and wrestlers from all around the world...no. I am here for the same reason as my blood-brother, Tyson Sykes. For the same reason SHARKS congregate when they smell blood in the water. I am here...to kill Project: Honor’s tag team division.”
*The smirk blossoms into a wicked, sadistic grin, and the Snake of Eden’s eyes glint in anticipation of the violence he’s describing.*
“But I will not stop there. See, the tag division here is...lacking. Wounded. Reeling, as my partner mentioned, from the departure of two figureheads it had come to rely on far too heavily. It is not enough to destroy a division that is already floundering. There is no satisfaction in murdering a dying animal. No, I will use Project Honor’s Tag Title tournament as an ingress point; an open wound I can infect, to spread my creeping sickness. I will burrow into the veins of this dying, bleeding company like the Conqueror Worm of old, and I will not rest until I’ve withered not only this division but the entire INDUSTRY from the inside out, and buried the hollow husk six-feet deep in salted Earth!”
*Sanders pauses again, his grin having faded into a furious, determined frown, brow furrowed as he leans forward once again.*
“We will begin with two newcomers, siblings who have traveled here in the hopes of making a name for themselves by capturing Project: Honor’s tag team championships. Ryan Young and Rebecca Brookes…’The Heritage.’ Heh.”
*Sanders’ lips flicker up into a smirk again, his eyes this time bearing pity and derision to go along with it.*
“Our paths have never crossed before, so I understand your eagerness to face ANTITHESIS and ‘prove yourselves’ within this tournament...but I want to make one thing abundantly clear to the pair of you before our match tonight, to issue you one very deliberate warning: RUN. If you step in the ring with Tyson Sykes and myself, you are going to get hurt. This is not a threat, it’s a promise. We are not like the other teams in this tournament, who use violence as a ‘gimmick’ or who seek to ‘test their mettle’ and prove their strength; we are here for one reason and one reason alone, and that is to CRIPPLE anyone and everyone who stands in our way. The Project: Honor Tag Team titles are a secondary objective at BEST, two meagre, gilded trinkets to hold the fascination of lesser, less-enlightened mortals. These belts are not worth enduring what we will do to you - and this goes for ANY of the teams who find themselves across from us.”
*Sanders’ smirk has vanished, replaced by an intense, malicious glare.*
“ANTITHESIS does not care about you. We are not bound by your rules, your ethics, or the prison you call honour. Our only goal is to cause as much pain, misery and VIOLENCE as we can POSSIBLY inflict, and the Project: Honor tag team titles will not bring you any solace when you’re lying in a hospital bed, nursing your ruined bodies and every breath is enough to make you sob in beautiful agony.”
*The Lost Cause inhales sharply, a disturbingly-blissful expression passing over his face at the description he just offered. His eyes drift closed for just a moment as his entire body relaxes into his seat again, then he re-opens them with a derisive smirk.*
“So I must ask...do you truly think it’s worth it? I am well aware that human life is pointless, that we are merely blips in the geologic time scale...so can you not think of anything better to do with your limited time on Earth than throw yourselves at the mercy of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse? I know you’re young and hungry; some of you have something to prove, others have a score to settle...but let me be very clear that ANTITHESIS will break every. Last. One of you.”
*Sanders leans forward again, his eyes hardening as he glares into the camera once again.*
“We will find your limits and take you WELL beyond them; we will bring you to the point of no return and we will keep pushing until there’s nothing left of you but broken dreams and crumpled corpses. This is our design; it is what we were MEANT for. We did not call ourselves the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, that name was given to us. Consider what we must have done to earn it.”
*Another pause, and Sanders smirks again, but the malice does not leave his eyes.*
“Niccolo Machiavelli once wrote in his seminal tome ‘the Prince’; ‘It is best to be feared and loved, but it is safer to be feared. However, above all else, you must ensure you are not hated. A man who loves you will help you if he can, a man who fears you will not hinder you as long as fear is maintained, but a man who hates you will destroy himself to harm you.’ Well I am a man who hates everything, and I will annihilate every atom in my body to see it brought to ruin. Can any of you TRULY say the same? I suppose we’ll see.”
*Sanders stands up now, flipping the PWS: Apex Collateral Damage title up onto his shoulder as his gaze locks with the camera.*
“Tonight, Project: Honor is on a Collision Course with doom; every tag team in this tournament will be taken to their limit and forced to contend with the stark and grim reality that they simply do not matter to this cruel and fickle fanbase. All they want is to see you suffer for their entertainment; they are ravenous lions who thirst for the blood of modern gladiators...and tonight, ANTITHESIS is eager to provide it for them. Tonight, the Horsemen ride into Saitama...and just as in the book of Revelations, Hell itself will follow with us.”
*With that, Sanders has finished, and he shoves the camera out of his face before turning on his heel to stalk towards the exit. The feed cuts into static for a beat before we fade.*