Post by Virgil Barrick on Feb 13, 2022 23:24:39 GMT -5
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---| Project:Underground VI |---
---| Love Hurts |---
---| The Smooth Operator |---
---| Virgil Barrick |---
---| Red on White |---
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---| Free Free, Set Them Free |---
The scene opens with a sultry jazz number befitting that of the Smooth Operator. His apartment sees the slander frame of a woman, dressed in a jet black satin pencil dress. A waterfall of golden hair flowing down her exposed back as she sits on the edge of the bed. The room is well furnished and spotless, styled to be warm and comfortable even with a level of sterile sleekness of its modernity. She sniffles for a moment as she stands to look out the window. Dotted with raindrops, the city moves on. The city never sleeps. The lazily moving lights of car lights drifting through the dark concrete jungle. Lights in the windows with more life than during the day.
A tear calls down her cheek as she fiddles absentmindedly with a ring on her finger. The scene now intercut. with a pumping club bassline, overbearing with the more elegant, listenable saxophone. The scene snaps to the pumping lights of a seedy nightclub. This time there are slender figures clad in skimpy clothing, dancing on raised stages with an audience clutching their bank notes. A bloodied fist races across the screen and into the face of some poor fellow. Who was he? He didn’t really know in the end. Someone who just decided to kick up a fuss. Someone with a burning vendetta against the club owner. Someone who was willing to try and pull a gun in the place. Someone who didn’t want to pay for the privilege.
It might have been all of those things, as far as he knew. He didn’t know. He wasn’t paid to know. But, he was paid to bloody them up and send them on their way with a message that they wouldn’t easily forget in their drunken dreams. Another punch flies, with a glob of red liquid stringing form their broken face to his knuckles. Caked in the blood, and scarred from the impact of his bombs.
The scene cuts again to another jazz tune, this time it is a cookie cutter, far less attention grabbing than the previous. Virgil stands in an elevator listening to the coffee shop jazz that mingles in the small box. The white cocktail jacket he wears has a splatter of crimson over his lapel.
His bruised hand opens the door. He says nothing. Walking into the small, but stylish apartment, his attention isn’t drawn to the silence until after he passes through both the kitchen and the bedroom. He looks around for a moment before a glint of light on the bedside table catches his eye. Even for one as stoic as Virgil is, he squints and his face scrunches slightly in a pained expression, even for just a moment as he carefully picks up the small silver band off the table. He inspects the small but sparkling diamond sitting on its crest. His fingers leave a small bloodied fingerprint over the fine craftsmanship as he looks it over.
Standing and walking over to the bathroom ,along the way he sees half of the wardrobe cleared out. Eerily empty to see his suits and jackets only occupying half the space. He places the ring on the side as the tap begins to run. The water now tainted with a wispy red, moments being intercut with flashes of another punch before going back to Virgil’s expression. Deadpan into the mirror. The crack of emotion in his face being harder and harder to see as he calmly and professionally cleans up the mess of his own making. The mess that is needed to clean up the problems he is there to deal with.
The cuts on his fists cleaned, he takes on more look to the mirror as he tries to wash off the red flecks from his beaming white cocktail jacket. Try as he might, it wouldn’t lift. It would always be there as long as he allowed it to be there. The light to the bathroom turns off as he leaves, a sparkle of the ring still chiming from the bathroom shelf. Love. His love would always be there, stained and splattered on his lapel. That’s where it really was.
Free, free, set them free
Free, free, set them free
Free, free, set them free
Free, free, set them free
If You need somebody
Call my name
If you want someone
You can do the same
If you wanna keep something precious
Gotta lock up and throw away the key
You wanna hold onto your possession
Don't even think about
If you love somebody
If you love someone
If you love somebody
If you love, someone
Set them free
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---| The King and The Kid |---
Free, free, set them free
Free, free, set them free
Free, free, set them free
Free, free, set them free
If You need somebody
Call my name
If you want someone
You can do the same
If you wanna keep something precious
Gotta lock up and throw away the key
You wanna hold onto your possession
Don't even think about
If you love somebody
If you love someone
If you love somebody
If you love, someone
Set them free
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---| The King and The Kid |---
Virgil sits alone on a steel chair in the Tetran Kai Dojo ring. He is wearing a sharp, dark blue suit and taping up his fists and wrists with athletic tape before looking up to see the camera.
VIRGIL BARRICK: “Are you both ready for this? Genuinely, I want to know. I’ll be stepping to the ring with the two extremes of what the world can be, so I want to know what it’s like for each end of the spectrum. We have the king…and the kid….”
“I’ve been here for the last few weeks and able to carve out an early winning streak here. I don’t claim to be anything more than a fighter, but I am the top of Project: Underground. More than what a throne can bring. You’ve been here as long as I have, Scar, and I don’t see the same dedication to one’s craft”.
“I don’t see the results racking up for someone of your pedigree. I don’t need a coronation or a court or a throne because this ring is where my domain is. This steel chair is all I need here. No frills or thrills, this is where I belong, and I have shown it against the best talents of this burgeoning brand. You might be the One True King, but you are just the bluechipper that I, or Nathan O’Connor are. Proclaimed royalty doesn’t stand for it when I don’t see the hardline numbers to respect that desire. I don’t see the love that I have for what I do. I was in the fight game before this squared circle and I will be after. Even if I wanted to shake that reality, it is where my heart wants to be. I love being in my domain, Scar. It suits me. And I suit it”.
“Nothing else matters sometimes when I can get that rush. I’m a simple man, in reality. Some might not understand, or feel they can’t walk alongside me while I’m in this life. But I won’t move away from it”.
“If you want to make your name, then you can’t sit around and hope for it to be made. It doesn’t fall into your lap because someone like me might show up and take it from you with the simple input of winning. The kid can even teach you that. He’s on his debut. But, with how new we all are to the big lights of this business, you’d better watch out, Scar. All it takes is one young kid with a drive to dethrone what you think is a stable foundation”.
“As for the kid, I wish you the best in your debut and all, but I can’t and won’t give you the leeway to make it out. You’ll have to find that yourself, just like I had to. A family in the business is what you both have in common, but make no mistake, it won’t get you further than me. I’m well acquainted with stopping the entitled, and the punks, at the gates”.
“If you both want to grab your opportunity or flip the status quo, you had better go elsewhere. Try your luck stepping to Proving Ground or Fallout for that against the grizzled veterans of this industry. Try to upturn the apple cart and take their spot. This isn’t about upsetting the men of yesterday, or pushing down on the rookies of tomorrow when you’re washed up. We’re all on the same level so I have no problem whatsoever in taking the spot that is mine from the both of you. That is what makes it mine. Not my name, or my tenure”.
“Because I have already become the embodiment of Project: Underground”.
“My domain is Project: Underground”.
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