Post by Swindle Shelldrake on Jan 7, 2022 21:31:13 GMT -5
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---| Unbreakable Resolution |---
---| 2022 |---
∞
T h e K r a k e n
---| S w i n d l e S h e l l d r a k e |---
C a n W e E a t S q u i d ?
Die, before I find you
Two Headed Hydra
I'm not going to do your will
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---| R a t t l e T h a t L o c k |---
(Prelude of this segment can be found Here)
TickTickTickTick TickTickTickTickTick TickTick Tick TickTickTickTickTick
The waiting room was mostly quiet, but not so for him. He showed up to make my scheduled court marshal with his highness. Only this time, the priority was someone else. In his own simmering seething as he waited there, legs too long for the overly designed, tacky sofa in the waiting room that sat so close to the door, he might as well sit on the carpet. These refurbishments were terrible. Swindle's attention left from fiddling with a loose thread from the armrest, and looked to the secretary that was clacking away at her keyboard. Too loudly for Swindle's mind to be at ease. Not that it would be anyway. Not after that.
She had dirty blonde hair, dressed in a smart pant suit of black. With pinstripes too. Thick, clear-framed glasses sitting over sky blue eyes. When she stood to walk to the printer, she was very tall even without the murder weapons of stiletto spears under her feet. And the talons....nails, no doubt the skittering rattle that scratched her keyboard.
Swindle had to hide a smirk, thinking that Roland must hire what he likes, for such a vertically challenged firecracker that he could be. She was attractive, he concluded. His mind struggled to find much else to comment about her. A brief reprieve from the frustration that was swirling in his head. Rattling at the lock and scraping at the bars.
Who was that schmuck anyway? He would have suspected him to be Roland's lawyer if it weren't for the built physique and broad shoulders, or that he'd already graced Project: Honor programming before this. For Roland to deem whoever that was to be more important. Another hurdle from what should be the friendly side.
Just the next in the tribulations of Swindle Shelldrake.
TickTickTickTickTickTickTick TICKTICKTICKTICK Tick TICKTICKTICK TickTickTickTICKTICKTICK
He begged for someone to please pull her nails out before he did it himself.
The wait is finally over when the doors to Roland's office swing open, the moustached man walking out with a neutral look on his face, a cordial smile to the secretary, and as Swindle would pick up on it, the slightest side eye to The Kraken.
The secretary looks up to speak, but Swindle is already stalking across the hall and through the door.
SWINDLE SHELLDRAKE: "I know, I know...".
He strode into the room and closed the door behind him, Roland sitting back down at his desk with an audible sigh leaving his lips as his tall client enters his office.
ROLAND RAITH: "Afternoon, Mr. Shelldrake".
SWINDLE SHELLDRAKE: "Don't 'afternoon' me, Roland. Who the fuck was that, huh? What? I happen to not be the Grand Champion and now you're getting some no-names off the street to do your taxes?"
ROLAND RAITH: "I'll remind you that you were a no-name off the street before I put my banner over your shoulders, Swindle. You'll do well not to forget it again. And yes, your loss in the Scramble match disappointed me...but not more than the performances you've had since. Phoning it in during a 6-man tag match, and no-showing an event most recently. Let alone what you did to Mark Hunter...."
SWINDLE SHELLDRAKE: "Mark Hunter had his time, ok? You're concerned with the wrong people if you have more worry for a retired old man over your meal ticket. I'm sure here's perfectly fine how he is. You might have a little pity party and feel that he's been robbed of a second wind like you were, but he wasn't. You weren't good enough to make it in the ring so you're there behind a desk trying to make me the wrestler you never could. So don't come at me and tell me I'm not conducting myself. I'm sorry that you can't see what I've sown. Every time you shoot me down I've already got myself further up the ladder. Title or not. Conduct or not".
ROLAND RAITH: "You weren't meant to be me, and it's an everlasting headache for it that I'm stuck with you and not a less problematic flagship. I have to adapt to the mess you make, Shelldrake. Do you know the amount of strings I have to pull to cover for you? Mark Hunter's early retirement will forever be hanging over my head because of your lust for power".
Swindle's face manages to hide part of a smile creeping over his lips, walking over to Roland's overly lavish mahogany desk and leaning in to loom over his diminutive manager.
SWINDLE SHELLDRAKE: "It's a damn good thing that you need me, then. Like it or not, you can't get a Tetan Kai Dojo member to the top that isn't me. Even that button-up you just had in here. Your kneejerk reaction to some fireworks from me won't go anywhere. He won't do anything for you, other than make up a missing spot. I won't team with him under your name either".
ROLAND RAITH: "If they book you to tag with him down the line, then you will tag with him. You won't be no-showing any matches from now on, Mr. Shelldrake. No matter how insignificant you might deem them to be. What you've built that you haven't already knocked down is on a shaking foundation as it is. And Mr. Barrick isn't of your concern. I'm allowed to have more than one project. If it's such a big thing for you, then think of him as my contingency plan if you scuttle your own bid for glory again".
"Speaking of matches, you have one coming up. At the Unbreakable Resolution PPV. Maybe the bigger stage will motivate you".
SWINDLE SHELLDRAKE: "....Fine. Who am I facing? They'd better be good..."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---| O u r L a t e s t T r i c k s: |---
---| T h e G l i t z a n d t h e G l a m o u r |---
I want my...
I want my MTV
I want my...
I want my MTV
I want my...
I want my MTV
Flickering lights of static blur into vision from an old box TV. The channel changes to show flashes of various classic TVs shows from throughout the decades, all in black and white with the fuzzy signal. Intercut with them is invasions of colour in aggressive flashes, showing footage of Johnny Levy. Both in his wrestling career, and on the silver screen.
The lights of the TV are then overshadowed with the sillhouette of a tall, lanky figure. Those familiar with Project: Honor are well aware of who that entails. abrasive screeching sounds are heard across a hard concrete floor as Swindle drags a steel chair to the centre of the frame, sitting right in the front of the TV, being back-lit by the shivering white light and static bars of the limited pixels, only showing the very outer expressions of a smirk on his jaw, and the slightest pink of his hair able to emerge from the lack of light.
SWINDLE SHELLDRAKE: "So, the power of the radio waves yield to the mighty screen in your own home. As do the masses fall to the feet of those that star. The glitz and the glamour. Given all the leverage they could imagine. All for pretending to be someone else. No matter how genuine they can be, or even are. By their role, and voluntarily, they're all liars. You'll have those few that take their newfound fame and worship with grace..."
"Most, however...not so lucky".
"The worst part is when you have to talk about them. The hedonists of that world. Slave masters of the screen. Talking about you, Johnny Levy. What makes your spiel even more vulgar is that it's not so different to what we do in the ring, this business..."
"Even if you came from money, or plucked from obscurity....you do it for you. Of all the people in this place, you're just the scumbag I would be".
"Everyone and their mothers would want what you have. All that surface level luxury to themselves, people praising you for waking up in the morning and shitting out whatever they'll eat up off the cinema floor. You don't wrestle because you ever need to. You don't do anything because you need to. Lose in a 6-Man Tag Match where I'm not even trying, lose your chance at the Warrior Rising Championship...none of that would shake you because why would it?"
"Just go back to harassing anyone who doesn't have your favourite artisan shawarma in stock, or your designer cufflinks, or your teeth whitener. The fluffiest of fallbacks in your own bubble of show business while I have nowhere else to go but this grind house of an industry"
"Luxury versus necessity".
"I won't say I'm better than you as a person for that. It needs no announcement that somehow, even when hell hasn't frozen over, Project: Honor have found someone more detestable than me. Someone worse than me. That's very impressive. But at the end of the day, you belong in that world. Out there. The red carpet awaits you with a plush landing and soft pillows. Not here. The blood doesn't want you. I wouldn't have it any other way for me to dismantle Proving Ground's status quo for the sake of my own gain, over your body".
More lights start jolting to life behind Swindle, this time showing an entire wall of old box TVs with their own loops of footage. This time the Levy footage shows his more comedic pursuits in Project: Honor, and his unsuccessful attempt at the Warrior Rising Championship. In the smattering of colour that Levy is providing to the muted strobe effect behind The Kraken, more sinister clips of Swindle's own exploits start to play too. This time they're painted over with the striking shade of pink that has become his trademark over any form of blood. The aftermath of the Scramble Match. Dripping down from his hand over the kusarigama reading "Die Fallout" as it hangs from its chain. Pink droplets falling messily into a sink and mixing with the running water. Swindle's face. The pink dye in his hair melting down with blood, and the grin that spells only malice and deceit.
SWINDLE SHELLDRAKE: "You're not in this match for your gain, Johnny boy. You might be a little too new around these parts to know who I really am. What you've accomplished so far is cute, but as poison as you might be in Hollywood....you're entering my lair here, Levy. You've been fighting for the scraps from the table thinking its something great. Championships that already have an eclipse standing in front of them. The top prizes are all that really matters. Holding leverage over them even more so. The scumbag tactics that made your millions on TV won't get you anywhere here. You need the chin to take it. You need the resolve to take it. You must want because there is nothing else".
"There can only be one true shitheel on Proving Ground and I'll make it my resolution to let you know that. Loud and clear for all your fans to see".
"You're in here because I am back, plain and simple. You and your entourage can shrug off all your failures, at least I can go places with mine. I let them become resources to a greater victory. In time, I reap what I sow. Always. Be content as the warm body for me to sidestep on my way back up the ranks. Keep fighting for those chances, pretend that you're really as good as you think you are. Because skill or not, you are not like me".
"You don't have the sheer force of will to carve yourself into the rock and dig in when nothing about this world wants you. From two men that don't belong in this place, I have to oust you from anything that could be mine. You're in the way. Just like Mark Hunter was, just like everyone is. Only you're not....up there in the list of priorities. Oh well, no harm in cutting out a weed when you see one. No harm when a parasite eats a parasite".
"It didn't take long for me to be main eventing Pay-Per-Views like this one, and I will do so again off your back. There's plenty of ways for The Kraken to rise up. But you? Best you'll serve is to show everyone that they shouldn't meet their Hollywood heroes...".
"They're just as rotten as they portray themselves to be".
"From one bastard to another. You'll always be undercut by the smarter man".
-----
That ain't workin', that's the way you do it
Money for nothin'
and your chicks for free
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---| Unbreakable Resolution |---
---| 2022 |---
∞
T h e K r a k e n
---| S w i n d l e S h e l l d r a k e |---
C a n W e E a t S q u i d ?
Die, before I find you
Two Headed Hydra
I'm not going to do your will
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---| R a t t l e T h a t L o c k |---
(Prelude of this segment can be found Here)
TickTickTickTick TickTickTickTickTick TickTick Tick TickTickTickTickTick
The waiting room was mostly quiet, but not so for him. He showed up to make my scheduled court marshal with his highness. Only this time, the priority was someone else. In his own simmering seething as he waited there, legs too long for the overly designed, tacky sofa in the waiting room that sat so close to the door, he might as well sit on the carpet. These refurbishments were terrible. Swindle's attention left from fiddling with a loose thread from the armrest, and looked to the secretary that was clacking away at her keyboard. Too loudly for Swindle's mind to be at ease. Not that it would be anyway. Not after that.
She had dirty blonde hair, dressed in a smart pant suit of black. With pinstripes too. Thick, clear-framed glasses sitting over sky blue eyes. When she stood to walk to the printer, she was very tall even without the murder weapons of stiletto spears under her feet. And the talons....nails, no doubt the skittering rattle that scratched her keyboard.
Swindle had to hide a smirk, thinking that Roland must hire what he likes, for such a vertically challenged firecracker that he could be. She was attractive, he concluded. His mind struggled to find much else to comment about her. A brief reprieve from the frustration that was swirling in his head. Rattling at the lock and scraping at the bars.
Who was that schmuck anyway? He would have suspected him to be Roland's lawyer if it weren't for the built physique and broad shoulders, or that he'd already graced Project: Honor programming before this. For Roland to deem whoever that was to be more important. Another hurdle from what should be the friendly side.
Just the next in the tribulations of Swindle Shelldrake.
TickTickTickTickTickTickTick TICKTICKTICKTICK Tick TICKTICKTICK TickTickTickTICKTICKTICK
He begged for someone to please pull her nails out before he did it himself.
The wait is finally over when the doors to Roland's office swing open, the moustached man walking out with a neutral look on his face, a cordial smile to the secretary, and as Swindle would pick up on it, the slightest side eye to The Kraken.
The secretary looks up to speak, but Swindle is already stalking across the hall and through the door.
SWINDLE SHELLDRAKE: "I know, I know...".
He strode into the room and closed the door behind him, Roland sitting back down at his desk with an audible sigh leaving his lips as his tall client enters his office.
ROLAND RAITH: "Afternoon, Mr. Shelldrake".
SWINDLE SHELLDRAKE: "Don't 'afternoon' me, Roland. Who the fuck was that, huh? What? I happen to not be the Grand Champion and now you're getting some no-names off the street to do your taxes?"
ROLAND RAITH: "I'll remind you that you were a no-name off the street before I put my banner over your shoulders, Swindle. You'll do well not to forget it again. And yes, your loss in the Scramble match disappointed me...but not more than the performances you've had since. Phoning it in during a 6-man tag match, and no-showing an event most recently. Let alone what you did to Mark Hunter...."
SWINDLE SHELLDRAKE: "Mark Hunter had his time, ok? You're concerned with the wrong people if you have more worry for a retired old man over your meal ticket. I'm sure here's perfectly fine how he is. You might have a little pity party and feel that he's been robbed of a second wind like you were, but he wasn't. You weren't good enough to make it in the ring so you're there behind a desk trying to make me the wrestler you never could. So don't come at me and tell me I'm not conducting myself. I'm sorry that you can't see what I've sown. Every time you shoot me down I've already got myself further up the ladder. Title or not. Conduct or not".
ROLAND RAITH: "You weren't meant to be me, and it's an everlasting headache for it that I'm stuck with you and not a less problematic flagship. I have to adapt to the mess you make, Shelldrake. Do you know the amount of strings I have to pull to cover for you? Mark Hunter's early retirement will forever be hanging over my head because of your lust for power".
Swindle's face manages to hide part of a smile creeping over his lips, walking over to Roland's overly lavish mahogany desk and leaning in to loom over his diminutive manager.
SWINDLE SHELLDRAKE: "It's a damn good thing that you need me, then. Like it or not, you can't get a Tetan Kai Dojo member to the top that isn't me. Even that button-up you just had in here. Your kneejerk reaction to some fireworks from me won't go anywhere. He won't do anything for you, other than make up a missing spot. I won't team with him under your name either".
ROLAND RAITH: "If they book you to tag with him down the line, then you will tag with him. You won't be no-showing any matches from now on, Mr. Shelldrake. No matter how insignificant you might deem them to be. What you've built that you haven't already knocked down is on a shaking foundation as it is. And Mr. Barrick isn't of your concern. I'm allowed to have more than one project. If it's such a big thing for you, then think of him as my contingency plan if you scuttle your own bid for glory again".
"Speaking of matches, you have one coming up. At the Unbreakable Resolution PPV. Maybe the bigger stage will motivate you".
SWINDLE SHELLDRAKE: "....Fine. Who am I facing? They'd better be good..."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---| O u r L a t e s t T r i c k s: |---
---| T h e G l i t z a n d t h e G l a m o u r |---
I want my...
I want my MTV
I want my...
I want my MTV
I want my...
I want my MTV
Flickering lights of static blur into vision from an old box TV. The channel changes to show flashes of various classic TVs shows from throughout the decades, all in black and white with the fuzzy signal. Intercut with them is invasions of colour in aggressive flashes, showing footage of Johnny Levy. Both in his wrestling career, and on the silver screen.
The lights of the TV are then overshadowed with the sillhouette of a tall, lanky figure. Those familiar with Project: Honor are well aware of who that entails. abrasive screeching sounds are heard across a hard concrete floor as Swindle drags a steel chair to the centre of the frame, sitting right in the front of the TV, being back-lit by the shivering white light and static bars of the limited pixels, only showing the very outer expressions of a smirk on his jaw, and the slightest pink of his hair able to emerge from the lack of light.
SWINDLE SHELLDRAKE: "So, the power of the radio waves yield to the mighty screen in your own home. As do the masses fall to the feet of those that star. The glitz and the glamour. Given all the leverage they could imagine. All for pretending to be someone else. No matter how genuine they can be, or even are. By their role, and voluntarily, they're all liars. You'll have those few that take their newfound fame and worship with grace..."
"Most, however...not so lucky".
"The worst part is when you have to talk about them. The hedonists of that world. Slave masters of the screen. Talking about you, Johnny Levy. What makes your spiel even more vulgar is that it's not so different to what we do in the ring, this business..."
"Even if you came from money, or plucked from obscurity....you do it for you. Of all the people in this place, you're just the scumbag I would be".
"Everyone and their mothers would want what you have. All that surface level luxury to themselves, people praising you for waking up in the morning and shitting out whatever they'll eat up off the cinema floor. You don't wrestle because you ever need to. You don't do anything because you need to. Lose in a 6-Man Tag Match where I'm not even trying, lose your chance at the Warrior Rising Championship...none of that would shake you because why would it?"
"Just go back to harassing anyone who doesn't have your favourite artisan shawarma in stock, or your designer cufflinks, or your teeth whitener. The fluffiest of fallbacks in your own bubble of show business while I have nowhere else to go but this grind house of an industry"
"Luxury versus necessity".
"I won't say I'm better than you as a person for that. It needs no announcement that somehow, even when hell hasn't frozen over, Project: Honor have found someone more detestable than me. Someone worse than me. That's very impressive. But at the end of the day, you belong in that world. Out there. The red carpet awaits you with a plush landing and soft pillows. Not here. The blood doesn't want you. I wouldn't have it any other way for me to dismantle Proving Ground's status quo for the sake of my own gain, over your body".
More lights start jolting to life behind Swindle, this time showing an entire wall of old box TVs with their own loops of footage. This time the Levy footage shows his more comedic pursuits in Project: Honor, and his unsuccessful attempt at the Warrior Rising Championship. In the smattering of colour that Levy is providing to the muted strobe effect behind The Kraken, more sinister clips of Swindle's own exploits start to play too. This time they're painted over with the striking shade of pink that has become his trademark over any form of blood. The aftermath of the Scramble Match. Dripping down from his hand over the kusarigama reading "Die Fallout" as it hangs from its chain. Pink droplets falling messily into a sink and mixing with the running water. Swindle's face. The pink dye in his hair melting down with blood, and the grin that spells only malice and deceit.
SWINDLE SHELLDRAKE: "You're not in this match for your gain, Johnny boy. You might be a little too new around these parts to know who I really am. What you've accomplished so far is cute, but as poison as you might be in Hollywood....you're entering my lair here, Levy. You've been fighting for the scraps from the table thinking its something great. Championships that already have an eclipse standing in front of them. The top prizes are all that really matters. Holding leverage over them even more so. The scumbag tactics that made your millions on TV won't get you anywhere here. You need the chin to take it. You need the resolve to take it. You must want because there is nothing else".
"There can only be one true shitheel on Proving Ground and I'll make it my resolution to let you know that. Loud and clear for all your fans to see".
"You're in here because I am back, plain and simple. You and your entourage can shrug off all your failures, at least I can go places with mine. I let them become resources to a greater victory. In time, I reap what I sow. Always. Be content as the warm body for me to sidestep on my way back up the ranks. Keep fighting for those chances, pretend that you're really as good as you think you are. Because skill or not, you are not like me".
"You don't have the sheer force of will to carve yourself into the rock and dig in when nothing about this world wants you. From two men that don't belong in this place, I have to oust you from anything that could be mine. You're in the way. Just like Mark Hunter was, just like everyone is. Only you're not....up there in the list of priorities. Oh well, no harm in cutting out a weed when you see one. No harm when a parasite eats a parasite".
"It didn't take long for me to be main eventing Pay-Per-Views like this one, and I will do so again off your back. There's plenty of ways for The Kraken to rise up. But you? Best you'll serve is to show everyone that they shouldn't meet their Hollywood heroes...".
"They're just as rotten as they portray themselves to be".
"From one bastard to another. You'll always be undercut by the smarter man".
-----
That ain't workin', that's the way you do it
Money for nothin'
and your chicks for free
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------