Love and War

I stood outside city hall in Columbus. I was starting to think The Detective wasn’t going to show.

He was about to miss his one and only shot to speak with me one on one -- to clear to air -- to realize I’ll always be free because I don’t subscribe to the rules of this world.

A pack of cigarettes later headlights appear in the distance… but it doesn’t look like the same car he’s been tailing me with for the last three years.

Then she opens the car door, her high heels hitting the pavement ringing to my ears like a familiar song.

“Sara,” I said her name aloud, under my breath.

She walked toward me slowly, her long blonde curly hair tucked up under a toque, a long jacket handing nearly down to her heels.

“It’s taken care of,” she said.

“What are you talking about,” I said, letting the Warrior Rising Championship fall from my shoulder. I hold it in my hand letting the strap dangle and touch the ground.

“The Detective is gone.”

I didn’t ask any details, I just embraced her. This isn’t who she wasn't meant to become, but I have a bad nack of influencing those around me to embrace the darker parts of themselves. I could only hope it would be the same with Myojin at Unbreakable Resolution.

She kissed me.

The first embrace I’ve had in two years.

The first time I let my guard down -- became vulnerable.

Nothing sucks the life out of you like a good woman… it’s not as sexy as it sounds.

I got in her car and heard the newscast on the way back to the hotel.

“Highway patrol has a portion of the road shut down as they extract the vehicle. People say former Ontario detective Reese Hancock lost control of his vehicle and tumbled nearly 30 feet to the water below. He was pronounced dead at the scene,” I turned the radio up slightly.

“There is reason to believe speed and alcohol did play a factor in the single vehicle collision. Police say they send prayers to the loved ones of Mr. Hancock.”

Sara and I had a lot of catching up to do, I had to focus on winning the X-Factor Championship. But in the ride back to hotel I had to say it.

“I never wanted this for you I never wanted to see you take matters into you own hands,” I said.

“Then why did you ask for my help Cass. I have been sitting in that tiny shit hole town for nearly a decade watch the love of my life win world championships,” she sighed. “I just wanted to be part of your life again and when I knew he was going to put you away… well I couldn’t take the idea of losing you again.”

It was her polite way of saying I did this. It was my fault for leaving in the first place. I should of took the gig at the local paper, shut the fuck up -- maybe I would’ve got the wife and kids, the white picket fence.

“He learned too much, ripping ten pages out of your diary was not going to stop him Cass. Nothing was going to. I needed to poke the hold in his brake line… I’m not going to be some pawn for you any longer. I want to part of this.”

“Part of what.”

“Part of whatever the fuck you are doing, preaching the last years. I have been listening. I am tired of being walked on, tired of the upper class shitting on people like you and I.”

She was off her medication again, another manic episode. Something I encouraged in the past in my youth. Usually she was my balance, and I relished the moment I could be her savior. Those early relationships can really fuck us up and here she was gripping the wheel, white knuckling that shit, fresh off a murder -- sending me those Bonnie and fucking Clyde vibes.

“Look, this isn’t for you Sara. I think you need to go home. You need to forget me, you….” she slams on the brakes knowing full well I didn’t have my seat belt on. My head pings off the dash, my nose starts bleeding right away. “Fuck.”

“Some things have changed since you left me as a naive little girl… You don’t think I had to learn to survive too. You don’t think I have figured out how to harness my flaws, my illness as well. We’re both sick Cass, you know that.” She smirks. “I’m here for you. I don’t want to hear you telling me to get lost anymore. I’m the part you have been missing. The reason why you aren’t a World Champion and the undisputed leader to True Society. Like it or not… you need me.”

I don’t let anyone else talk to me like that -- but after all I had put her through she deserved it. I mean she did just kill someone for me -- how romantic.


I should be sitting here as a double champion -- having fulfilled the prophecy I spoke for month on end -- but not all things pan out the way you plan. Maybe Sara was more of a distraction than a help.

The sex is good, but I hate that she is here. Hate that I engaged her to help me with The Detective and she took it too far. Upset i turned her into something she is not. She paints when she is off her bipolar medication and she hasn’t stopped since she got to Ohio. Using hotel walls to paint twisted nude bodies fused together when she ran out of canvas. My credit card was taking a hit playing for the renovations.

Still… I couldn’t help but wallow in self pity -- drawing in the idea I could have made history. I could have turned the crowd my way if just I could back up the words I yelled for weeks. Myojin bested me, I will give them that, but this isn’t over.

“Are you okay?” Sara asks, leaving a blotch of peach paint on my wrist.

“Yeah, it’s just… I fell short.”

“If you fell short they wouldn't be asking you to go to Fallout this week,” Sara said.

Bash and Voodoo welcomed Sara with open arms, but they were doing some of their own training -- waiting for an opening at Project Underground to possibly debut as a tag team. A move I was getting more and more on board with since joining True Society.

“You are doing more to elevate the Warrior Rising Champion than any other person to hold the title. That title gives you a stage to be heard and at Fallout don’t go out there just to show you are the best member of Project Honor or True Society… show them you are still one of the hottest talents in the industry,” she said smirking. “It shouldn’t be hard… I did take care of your biggest distraction.”

No she didn’t… she just became it.

She moves the Warrior Rising Championship off my lap and rubs my upper thigh

Fuck…

Bash Daddy’s boots sloshed through some melting slush a I lit a cigarette in an alleyway close to the hotel.

“I know you owe her one at this point, but do you really think it’s a great idea to keep her around?,” he asked.

I take a sharp inhale and blew the cigarette smoke upwards between the two brick walls.

“I ran away from home for a reason, from her for a reason… I’ve come too far to get soft,” I taken another few sharp drags off the cigarette -- but I don’t elaborate.

“Just roll the fucking camera,” I say propping the championship up on my shoulder.

Bash does what he is told, kicks the record button. That’s what I like about Bash, he listens to instructions. He doesn’t go rouge and put a pin hole in a fucking line killing a man.

“I should be here holding two championships. I should be here clearly the needle mover in this company, but here I am again being whored out like a circus act to Fallout to jack the ratings up for these corporate leeches. They can claim all they want it is to have True Society in one match together, but I know what you're trying to do… You are trying to entice me to turn on my new found family. You surround me with all that opportunity for more gold, for more opportunity and you think I won’t be able to control myself.

“Let me make one thing clear, I have no desire to take anything from my own… I am here to spread the wealth to people like me. Those looked down upon, those who don’t give these fans everything they cry for. No, I am not done with Myojin or people like them. The match at Unbreakable Resolution was only the beginning… and when I am done with this fun little crossover episode it is back to elevating this Warrior Rising Championship higher than any title in this company. If I missed my opportunity to take the X-Factor title, I will do my best to make it irrelevant in comparison.”

I take another drag and blow smoke into the face plate of the Warrior Rising Championship.

“I know what this is… a hail Mary to try and give the ‘good guys’ the gold. The powers that be entice us to turn on each other, there is nothing I can win from our opponents… but I will make this clear if Havoc, Bennett, Valkyrie, Caito and Syndicate hold up their bargin, they walk in with the same mission…. To simply destroy the competition… well this should be a quick night’s work… and if not… well you know what they say about love and war.”

“Long, Hyde, Grace, Wright, DeDraca, Ozymandias I could run down your names slander you, but this is an opportunity for all of you… not for me. See I am what they are all talking about. That match with Myojin is just the beginning of the classics I have left in the tank and I know my title isn’t on the line… but that doesn’t make me any less dangerous. I am fighting for the dignity of True Society. I am fighting the very idea of this group of people, this group that gives you all this disenchanted hope. This ungenuine honor seeking saps are going to get an up close glimpse of what true warriors look like. This is a celebrity appearance for me, this is the opportunity for you to tag in for 60 seconds, stand opposite of me and feel relevant for once. I’ll throw the gauntlet down to my brothers in arms.. Lets not be tempted by the spoils which lay before us, no… let us share the wealth. Let us go out there and see who can dominate our opponents. If I have to be the sole survivor for True Society I am ready, it’s how I have felt my whole God damn life.”

I drag the cigarette across the side of the brick wall putting it out in the process and letting it splash in the slush.

“This isn't the Summer of Casanova. This isn’t a tour to see if I can get the big fucking pop, no I come into Fallout with the same mission I have a Proving Ground and that is to go into this match and prove that I can hurt people in ways no one has ever imagined. I don’t need to list 65 special moves on my bio because if I have to I’d give you Glasgow Smile stretching the sides of your mouth out with an exposed turnbuckle hook. I haven’t been studying my opponents, but if they were smart -- they would start watching tapes now. Because at Fallout I’ll prove to True Society that if I am not the best… I sure as hell can be the sickest.”

Bash Daddy shuts the camera off as I walk toward it tapping my championship title.

This isn’t just a chance to showcase my skills, my charisma, my way of thinking to a larger audience, deep down this is about proving to True Society that I belong, that I am not the weakest link. It is what I have always hesitated to pull The Orphanage into a larger group, to allow someone to ask things of me… but what choice do I have. I need them… for now… but at Fallout… well, you can’t blame the scorpion for being a scorpion.

Back at the apartment I can hear her voicing the names of my opponents.

“Long… Hyde.”

The whole apartment is dark, I can just hear Sara from my bedroom saying my opponents names over and over.

“Wright, DeCarca, Ozymandias…”

I turn the corner and there she is fixated on making the letters perfectly straight along the wall in what looks to be her own blood.

I look at Voodoo who is sitting cross legged on my bed observing the strokes.

“All of use have shed a pound of flesh to be part of this…. There is no special treatment.”

I look at Sara who doesn’t take her eyes off the wall, shes looking at the bloody names like they are the most beautiful painting she has ever done.

I didn’t want this life for her… but she’s part of it now.


All the way to the CIA… that’s where former detective Hancock’s son made it. Follow in his dads footsteps and over shadowed him quickly. It was part of the reason he was working so hard on the English case. He needed to prove not to himself, but to his son he was worthy. Prove he wasn’t just some drunk his mother divorced.

But things rarely go as smoothly as we plan.

A knock on the door as he sips his morning coffee and checks last nights football results. A knock we will all get someday -- but one that changes your life none the less.

“Special Agent Hancock… It's about your father.”