Post by Giovanni on Feb 2, 2022 18:06:03 GMT -5
[ The Giovanni Penthouse ]
Once more finding ourselves in the vaunted Giovanni Penthouse, we see a sleepy and disheveled Calliope stepping out of the kitchen with a warm mug of tea, still trying to clear the sleep out of her eyes, the young muse still manages to finds ways to be ravaging even when she hadn’t gotten the time to dress the part.
Softly shuffling through the penthouse, she tried to make her way to the lounge, but just as she prepared to take a seat in the comfiest lounge chair the penthouse had on offer, an explosion shook the foundations of the building to its core, eliciting a shocked and distressed ‘eep’ from the young woman, and nearly causing her to spill her mug of tea onto herself, the lounge chair, and floor below.
Oh my goodness, I hope Giovanni is alright! she exclaimed in worry as she forewent the the choice of taking a seat and instead made her bunny-shaped slippers carry her towards where the explosion had come from.
Arriving in the hallway, coloured smoke billowed out of a room that she was certain hadn’t been there four weeks ago, and the sound of coughing could be heard from inside as Giovanni stumbled out, his hair exploded in various directions and the labcoat he was wearing have various scorch marks and holes in them.
Calliope let that sight ruminate for a bit, proceeding to do a double take at not just this previously unknown part of the penthouse, but also the lab jacket.
What happened, Gio? she asked, deciding to ignore her curiosity for just a second to first make sure her precious object of adoration and desire was physically fine.
I just made an earth-shattering discovery, my dear Calliope! he’d call out, his voice still a bit ragged as he coughed a few clouds of dust out of his lungs.
Stepping closer to Calliope, he’d gratefully accept the mug of tea with an appreciate pat on her shoulder and took an oversized gulp of the boiling hot liquid to clear out his throat… But to nobody’s surprise, it quickly was spat all over the wall as the heat was still scalding.
What on earth is that?!
Peach tea? I have just made it, so it was still hot. Calliope answered somewhat dryly.
Shaking his head, Giovanni turned around to re-enter the mystery room, the smoke having largely cleared out and somehow not triggered any fire or smoke detectors nearby. Remind me to never drink boiling tea again! he’d add.
Calliope would nod along to that thought, although she rather wanted to make clear the tea hadn’t been made for him in the first place.
Giovanni, what is all of this? And why are you dressed like a doctor? she’d finally ask as her eyes scanned around the room.
The new room was filled with various lab equipment, mass spectrometers and other devices she could only remember seeing on medical or detective dramas on TV. It all looked completely new too – ignoring the layer of soot on everything – and undoubtedly very expensive.
I hear all these deluded fools talk about ‘doing your own research’, so I decided to do just that myself. So I hired some people to install a laboratory in the penthouse, since Sonya Benson was so nice to reward me financially for the win earlier this month. Giovanni would explain, his eyes idly scanning a print out that the man could only interpret as utter gibberish.
Putting down the now-empty mug of tea on one of the laboratory counters, Calliope would inspect everything a little bit further, her brow furrowed in scepticism at hearing the name ‘Sonya Benson’, whom she still couldn’t trust.
So wait, you’ve spent all of the money she gave you to build a laboratory in the apartment?! she’d ask after doing yet another double take, remembering the staggering amount of money the Benson woman had given Giovanni.
They could’ve never worried about paying bills again, and dined in fancy restaurants.
That’s exactly what I’ve done, my dear. And the money has already paid off, because like I said, I’ve made an earth-shattering discovery! Giovanni spoke, trying his best to get Calliope excited for what he wanted to show.
Raising a little vial with a glowing green liquid in it, Calliope would close in and inspect it inquisitively.
Behold, I call it ‘Fifteen Minute Syndrome’. The thing that afflicts so many of the fools that perform on Proving Ground, it manifests itself as a crippling amount of blandness, sucking not just the colour and soul out of themselves but everyone who is forced to watch them perform inside a ring. he’d reveal, a shake of the vial caused the viscous liquid inside to slowly move back and forth.
Quirking her eyebrow, Calliope was neither a scientist nor a wrestler, but even she felt a great deal of scepticism about the thing Giovanni was holding. So that syndrome thing is in the vial? she’d humour his tangent in the hope it’d eventually make sense.
Letting out a deep breath and shrugging in frustration, Giovanni would throw the vial away causing the glass to shatter somewhere against a previously pristine white wall.
No, my dear muse, it’s dish-washing liquid. Are you even paying attention right now?! he’d huff incredulously.
Stepping away from the various vials of liquids, he’d instead proceed to a threesome of computers that were running various screensavers highlighting the true historical artists, ‘The Scream’ by Edvard Munch, ‘Night’s Watch’ by Rembrandt, and the NFT Monkey that the person installing had copy pasted off the internet because their knowledge of art didn’t stretch further than the first two search results.
And Giovanni had neither the patience or interest to figure out how to change it to a true masterpiece.
But as I was saying, this syndrome is running rampant on Proving Ground. Everywhere I look there are these painfully obvious examples of so called ‘performers’ who couldn’t even perform themselves out of a school play. They’re all these ‘shooters’ and ‘high flyers’, or even ‘powerhouses’, just example after example of men and women who seem to be thinking that the only thing one needs to be a wrestler is the ability to wrestle.
Shaking his head, Giovanni took off the remnants of his lab coat and tossed it away, underneath it a pristine shiny new white labcoat that was unsullied by explosions.
It’s insufferable, Calliope. And the only two that I can somewhat rely upon are Levy and Benson, two individuals who know better than be the same boring soul-sucking leeches upon artistic beauty.
Calliope would once more furrow her brow at the woman’s name, but she’d stay silent for now, not wanting to potentially offend Giovanni with what she felt was very well-placed mistrust on someone that was a complete and utter self-serving serpent.
Bashing a random string of text on the keyboard, somehow a video of Tara Fenix popped up. The length of the video being a staggering three hours and fifteen minutes. This Tara woman, I hear she wins a lot of matches, but by god this woman just drones on and on and on about all sorts of wrestling things. I made it less than five minutes before my eyes glazed over and I wanted to throw the computer out of the window.
Letting a pause drop between the two of them, Giovanni glanced at the window in front of him and back at the computer.
Except I forgot the windows in this room are reinforced, so all it did was leave a dent in the computer. he sighed.
Should you really be throwing new computers around like that? Calliope asked, only scarcely imagining the price of wasting such a thing.
Giovanni would wave dismissively as he straightened out his explosive hairstyle into something more respectable, and significantly more ravishing.
Nonsense, these computers are a fad anyways. Just because some slob behind one can write a novel or make someone’s thighs look bigger doesn’t mean they’re worthy of being called artists. It doesn’t compare to working on a real canvas. he’d say in a completely unrelated tangent against modern technology.
But this Tara woman, she just drones on and on about honour this and honour this, she lives in both worlds trying to be the world’s least interesting badass whilst also going around and being the world’s least interesting altruist. It’s insufferable, utterly and completely trite, and a whole list of accolades nobody ever cares for doesn’t make for someone that actually makes the wrestling ring a more interesting place to be in.
Biting his cheek with a little bit more venom, Giovanni squinted his eyes and gave Calliope a side-eye.
This woman is not a phoenix, she is a leech. Because she’s going to keep wasting everyone’s time with idle chatter and make everybody give up on hoping that wrestling can be anything more than that, she’s an enemy to everything what I’m trying to achieve, the utter and complete definition of the hue that is grey.
And to imagine this woman has taken on the undeserved responsibility of teaching the next generations of wrestlers… he sighed, his depressed eyes looking over at Calliope for moral support.
Calliope would need no motivation to give it, as she closed in and gave him a squeezing hug. Letting the hold stick until she could notice that Giovanni would find it utterly awkward that it was taking so long.
But that’s why you’re wrestling, right? To stop these people, to show your brilliance to the world and make that disgusting sport a more colourful place? she recalled Giovanni’s motivations, in the hope it would brighten up his day. Defeating this Tara woman will show her stupid students that you’re the person they should be inspired by! she added.
Giovanni would smile and hold his hand on his heart at the words and wisdom of his muse, of whom he’d truly be lost without.
You’re right, but it gets worse. Because then there’s that Brandon Hendrix man. I had a whole presentation prepared on him, but the computer froze and I have no idea how these diabolical things work, so I can’t fix it. he lamented, but rather than letting that keep him down he’d quickly sprang up again.
With a smile, Giovanni tapped his forehead.
But luckily I remember most of it, because there’s nothing inspirational to really say about Brandon Hendrix other than that he’s just another deluded fool who thinks that just because they have a bit of money, a bit of talent, and mentorship from someone more successful than them, they can call themselves ‘based’, whatever the hell that might be because I am not ‘down with the kids’. An artist like me respects the classics, rather than grasping at straws to stay relevant when they never been relevant. he retorted at nobody in particular, but instead chose to continue.
Classics never dull, they never lose their inspirational luster, and Brandon Hendrix is anything but classic. They’re the second example of ‘fifteen minutes’, a man whose found some lightning inside a bottle and thinks that it’ll keep him relevant forever. When their relevance already ended the first time they left, let alone the feeble attempt at making a grand return thinking people would care, people would be excited, or people would cheer in anything but irony at their presence.
Raising his hands towards his own chest, Giovanni smiled at Calliope as he furthered the point he wanted to make.
They want to see me, whether they realize it or not. They want people that bring something new, rather than someone that has flailed about for an inordinate amount of time to achieve nothing significant. No classics, lord forbid they’d ever dream of making a masterpiece that stands the test of time. They do not deserve to be in that ring because he doesn’t bring anything that makes it a better place, a more beautiful place, he just brings the mood down with their presence, and with it dash the hope of millions looking to be inspired.
Letting in a deep breath and letting out a deeper sigh, the luster would disappear from Giovanni’s eyes once more, as he remembered that there were not two but three competitors that he and his allies would be forced to face soon enough.
And finally there’s the worst offender of all, the woman named Lexi Gold, the woman who is delusional and obsessive enough to assume that I have any interest in being in the same vicinity as her, let alone dirty my hands dealing with her utterly dire existence. What happened last week was not about her, the kick I threw was for the best intents a foolish mistake on my part, a complete freak accident from a momentary lapse of my otherwise impeccable judgement.
I didn’t steal her entrance, because you can’t steal something that doesn’t exist, and even if it had existed, people would thank me for doing it because unlike her name there’s nothing golden about the things she does. Unlike her many nicknames, there’s no standards or vision in what they do in the ring. They’re just lying to themselves and the people that are addled enough to want to buy into her, she’s the NFT of wrestling because she’ll make people invest into nothing, because she didn’t come here to bring a new vision, she’s just a poseur like the rest of these delusional ‘wrestlers’ that make up the Proving Ground roster.
Giovanni would smile devilishly, his hand raised and closing into a fist, the luster in his eyes sparking back to prominence.
Gold will fall, and I can promise you Calliope that I won’t even need to lift a finger to prove that. She’ll self-destruct, her obsessions against me will be her downfall, a creative powerhouse like me will only have to look down in pity at what the result will be…
Turning to face Calliope, Giovanni would cup her chin, Giovanni would sink into her perfect green eyes for the inspiration and hope he needed, the inspiration she brought him the only addiction in his life. They brought him the knowledge that there was beauty in the world, even if what he was forced to see was lifeless and dull.
I know you believe in me, Calliope. You have always been the one person in my life that has provided me with the spark to keep trying, to keep pushing my artistic faculties to their limits, and to not just provide myself with the cerebral challenges to continue being the master at all the crafts I do, but to provide that beauty to the world.
Gio… Calliope would speak, her voice short of breath as her lips were agonizingly close to Giovanni’s.
That’s why I can’t wait to face those three drab colours, because I will wipe them from the canvas with one fell cleaning swoop. And with the assistance of Benson and Levy, and your beautiful inspiring presence, I will continue to achieve my ultimate goal.
Hearing the words from Giovanni, Calliope can only close her eyes and hope that all of it would be followed up by the one thing she had dreamt of these past years. One kiss, that’s all that she had wished for.
To bring what wrestling has always missed, the pure unbridled class and beauty of your inspiring presence, and the unrelenting creative force that is my brain.
But instead of a kiss, Calliope felt the warmth of Giovanni’s hand leave her face as she nearly stumbled and fell. Opening her eyes, Giovanni was already out of the door.
Gio, but what about the laboratory and your research?! she called out after him.
I’m bored, and I think I’m going to get some of that peach tea you made earlier! he’d call out, his attention already elsewhere.
Looking around the mess that the brand new and cripplingly expensive laboratory had become in such a short time, Calliope sighed a little as her hopes were dashed again. But she’d hop after him, if only to prevent him from blowing up the kitchen.
2700 Words |