The Great Escape

“LET ME OUT OF THIS MOTHERFUCKING STRAIGHT JACKET OR I’LL SHOVE MY BOOT SO FAR UP YOUR ASS YOU’LL BE TASTING MY SHOE LACES MOTHERFUCKER!”

It had not been a pleasant stay at HappyDale Sanitarium to say the least. Between being stuck in a padded cell and the constant fluctuation between his rival personalities, Julius was confused to say the least. The single barred window of his cell was the only thing that told him if it was day or night. Not that his captors hadn’t been taking care of him of course. He’d been fed and even allowed to jot down his predictions so that they could be faxed to the Project: Honor offices for the next F’n Edge episode. However, his violent tendencies and unpredictable changes in personality gave the staff little choice but to regularly sedate him. It was waking up back in a strait jacket that really pissed him off.

“I’M ABOUT TO BEAT SOMEONE’S ASS LIKE THEY OWE ME MONEY!”

The staff would never show up to remove his restraints until he calmed down, but he never seemed to learn. Julius charged into one wall of his cell, bounced off, and immediately ran to slam his body into the opposite wall. It wasn’t until a voice came over a speaker in the ceiling that he stopped his futile struggle.

“Julius. I need you to calm down. You need to listen to me before one of the other versions of you comes back out. Please…I promise I can make all of this right if you just give me the chance.”

He recognized the voice belonging to Marissa Covington, the agent of The Purple Reign who had apparently been assigned as his personal watchdog. Still with a scowl on his face, Julius stopped bouncing against the walls and looked upwards toward the out-of-reach camera in the upper corner of his cell.

“We’ve learned how to fix the damage that was done to you by The Illuminati, but we’re going to need the real Julius…Julius Fairweather…if we have a chance.”

With his crush on Miss Covington still intact, Julius continued to stare up at the camera and focus on her voice.

“Good. I have your attention. This all started with your quest for the missing biblical commandments, and our chief scientist believes that your contact with the first relic may have helped to trigger these multiple personality episodes. In order to make them go away, he believes that we must find the final commandment. To be more specific…YOU must find the final commandment. We can’t trust a maniac like Foulweather to go along with this and obviously Fineweather will be no help at all. Only you can finish what you started, Julius.”

With an angry glare but a much calmer voice, Julius responded to the camera lens.

“Fine. Let me out of this motherfucking nuthouse and I’ll get the job done.”

“I wish it were that simple, Julius. We can’t risk Foulweather getting his hands on the relic and turning it over to The Illuminati. That’s why you’re here right now. We need to keep you under observation until the mission has been prepared.”

His eyes narrowed as he considered everything he was hearing.

“Oh yeah? And just where is this mission gonna take place? I don’t even know where the last commandment is.”

“That’s not your concern. Our intelligence officers believe they’ve been able to decode the journal that belonged to your friend, Winston. We’ve narrowed our search down to the Yucatan Peninsula. Once everything is ready, you will be briefed on the mission, and we’ll make our way to Cancun.”

That brought a smile to Julius’ face.

“Cancun, huh? You, me, a bottle of tequila, and a quest for a long-lost artifact. Sounds like a date.”

He could hear her exasperated sigh over the intercom, but it only made him smile wider.

“You need to take this seriously, Julius. It may be your only chance at fixing your mental state.”

“Yeah? Well, there’s just one problem with this plan…”

Julius began to shrug his shoulders and contort his upper body. He had picked enough locks and escaped from being tied up enough times to get out of something as simple as a strait jacket. He only needed the right motivation to do it. Showing off for Miss Covington seemed like a good enough reason. After some graceful movements, he finally slipped free from his restraints and smiled back up at the camera.

“...I ain’t gonna be here when your mission starts. Thanks to you motherfuckers letting me make some notes for The F’n Edge, I know that Castle is counting on me to get the fuck out of here so we can properly defend our tag team titles. As long as Edgebrook passes my notes on to Castle like he’s supposed to, I don’t plan on being here for much longer.”

For a moment there was silence on the intercom, until Miss Covington’s concerned voice finally reemerged.

“Julius…what are you talking about? What have you done…?”






The C4 explosives put one hell of a hole in the building, but thankfully the padded walls kept Julius from coming to harm when the shockwave hit him. Still enough to stun him, Julius sat up and brushed the loose pieces of concrete from his body. Squinting to see beyond the cloud of dust created by the small explosion, he then pulled himself to his feet.

“Catch you at a bad time, motherfucker?”

The voice of his tag team partner, Slade Castle, was like music to Julius’ ears. The assault rifle hanging over Castle’s shoulder seemed a bit much to Julius at first, but he wasn’t about to question the former Marine in his time of need. He rushed toward the hole in the wall where Slade waited for him but couldn’t resist turning back to give the camera one last smile.

“I’ll see you in Cancun, baby, but first, Julius has got some motherfucking business to take care of!”

With that, Julius and Castle disappeared through the haze of dust and debris as Purple Reign security guards fumbled with the locks to the cell.




A SHORT TIME LATER…

Seeing Slade Castle behind the wheel of his Cadillac was unnerving for Julius, but considering everything he’d been through lately, he was willing to let it slide.

“So, I take it you got my message?”

“Yeah. I got it. Edgebrook thought he was a big deal when he delivered it to me. Like he was some kind of secret agent or something.”

“I hate owing that motherfucker a favor, but it was the only thing I could think of.”

“I’ll admit, making a map out of satanic symbols was an interesting way to tell me where you were. I just don’t understand one thing. How in the hell did you know so much about where they were keeping you?

Julius smiled as he retrieved his cigarettes and lighter out of the glove box.

“One of their guards was this pretty little thing named Precious. I guess she wasn’t used to guarding a suave motherfucker like me.”

Castle shook his head in disbelief as Julius lit up his cigarette.

“I don’t even want to know. So, are you good for the match this week before we finish all of this Purple Reign bullshit? Am I teaming with Fairweather, Foulweather, or Fineweather?”

Julius shrugged his shoulders.

“Beats the hell out of me, but I figure any version of my bad self is enough to handle…what were their names again?”

“DJ Hunter and Kyle Valentine. The Phantom Troupe. They’re a serious team, Julie.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. This week we take out The Phantom Troupe to retain our titles and next week…you and me are gonna hit Cancun like a couple of highly trained, heavily armed, bad motherfuckers.”

Castle let out a sigh and shook his head again, a bit bewildered at what he’d been dragged into.

“Fucking hell. That’s even worse. These secret societies you’re tied up with are the real deal. Trained soldiers. I know I’m good, but you're just a smooth-talking street fighter. No offense, but how in the hell are we gonna stand up to them?”

Julius exhaled a cloud of smoke and turned to give his partner a mischievous grin.

“Yeah, about that. I think it’s time I called in a few favors…”