Keeping Friends Close and Enemies Closer

To say The F Word didn’t go exactly as planned would be an understatement. Losing his cool in front of a live audience wasn’t that big of a deal for Julius. After all, losing his cool and giving motherfuckers death-stares had become commonplace. Not being in control of his own show bothered him more, but even that he could handle. The first two times were annoying, and while they had screwed up the flow of his show, Julius could respect someone firing back at him through well-placed attack ads. That was the kind of war he could sink his teeth into, and the thought that James Edgebrook was ready to renew their feud actually got The Shepherd’s competitive blood pumping.

Then there was the third interruption, the one featuring a poor Mississippi farmer by the name of Eustace Carter. The one claiming that this old war veteran was his biological father. Now that...that was unforgivable.

Seeing the old man’s picture and hearing the distorted words spoken by his attacker awoke something in Julius that had been buried for years. It woke up the confused and angry little boy named Luther Franklin who wondered why he didn’t have a daddy to protect him from the bullies, teach him how to fight, or offer words of fatherly advice. It reignited his monstrous potential, the cruelty and hatred that had been buried by a fascination with Samuel L. Jackson movies. It could even be said that it had lit a fire deep within Julius, a burning rage that frightened him with its familiarity. It made him want to share that uncontrollable inferno with the rest of the world, to sanitize the world with flames and cauterize his own wounded soul in the process.

It made him understand a man like Pyro.

After leaving the studio where The F Word was filmed, Julius did the only rational thing he could think of. He tried to drown that fire with as much alcohol as possible. He didn’t even bother taking the time to seek out his preferred choice of Hennessey. This was the kind of need where any cheap bottle of ripple would suffice. So with a brown paper bag in hand and violent retribution on his mind, Julius wandered the streets of Cusco, Peru like a member of the city’s homeless population, his once clean and pressed suit becoming a disheveled mess as he mumbled to himself and grew more incoherent with every pull of the bottle.

Julius had lost track of the time well before he passed out on the front steps of his hotel. In all honesty, it was through sheer luck that he managed to find the hotel at all. He had heard a friendly voice that managed to break through his drunken state, one that he couldn’t quite recognize but that he would know without question had he been sober. It may have been the voice of Savannah Sunshine or perhaps even Pixie Sloan. It was definitely female and it came from the direction of the hotel’s lobby doors, but beyond that, the drunken man referring to himself as “Jushus Ferwertherer” was clueless. It didn’t occur to him that it could have been the voice of a female stranger or perhaps his drunken imagination. In that brief moment, all he knew was that it sounded friendly and a friend was something he was in desperate need of. Instead, he managed to find the concrete steps in front of the hotel, which seemed like a comfortable place to lay his head to rest before entering the lobby.

It was hours later before anyone stumbled upon him. After all, at that drastically late hour, only the brave or the foolish would wander the streets of a foreign city. It was well beyond the witching hour, the time of night where only monsters dared to tread. So it was that the man simply known to Project: Honor fans as Pyro, made his way to the hotel in search of his own lodgings. Yet what to his wandering eyes did appear, but an old enemy and future partner, laying in a helpless heap upon his path.

If anyone else had been present and aware of the violent history between the two men, they would have questioned the look in Pyro’s eyes. They may have been right to wonder what he was thinking; of whether or not he contemplated setting the drunk and unconscious man ablaze, thus being rid of him forever. Their suspicions may have been warranted if it were not for Pyro’s dedication to saving his fellow Fallout competitors. At one time, finding his hated rival in such a state may have led to an early morning of torturous glee for Pyro, but that was no longer the case. Those thoughts would have tempted him before their seemingly endless wars created a mutual respect. Before they saw something in each other that reflected a hidden piece of themselves. Before their hatred morphed into a kindred acceptance that neither of them had yet to fully understand.

So when Pyro lifted Julius off the concrete steps and braced him with his own shoulder, it wasn’t to drive him back down with one of the many moves in his arsenal. It wasn’t to further humiliate him or enact physical pain to match what he was feeling inside. No, it was to help him into the hotel where he could continue to dream within the safe confines of his own private room.

“Hey….mufucka...ah know yoooo…”

No matter how tempted Pyro might have been to bash Julius’ face in, to have the final word in their 6 month rivalry, he simply shook his head and lugged the half-conscious man forward.

“Now who’s the dumb motherfucker?"

It was all Pyro said as he allowed himself a brief moment to smile, fully aware that no one, not even Julius, would know of his kind gesture come morning’s first light.



The remainder of the night and much of the following morning passed by for Julius with drunken visions of an elderly Southern man who shared a passing resemblance to Samuel L. Jackson. In those restless dreams, the old man would chastise his son for not being there, despite the fact that Julius had not been aware of his existence prior to the previous night. Along with those torturous nightmares came haunting images of a demonic James Edgebrook chasing down Julius upon a skeletal mastodon who spoke in the voice of Gilbert Gottfried. If that wasn’t bad enough, this version of Edgebrook also commanded an army of curvaceous women, all of which had been gifted by a one-night-stand with Julius at some point in their lives. Even after escaping the man who may or may not have been his biological father and the ersatz Edgebrook, Julius could not escape the perilous nature of his drunken dreamscape. Gigantic versions of Jason Long and Pyro tugged at his limbs from opposite directions, a clear indication that there was more on his subconscious mind than his long-lost father, his broadcast rival, and a bevy of half-forgotten sexual escapades.

Needless to say, The Furious One awoke in a cold sweat, the blankets on his hotel bed twisted around him as if a miniature cyclone had found its way into his room. He managed to untangle himself and rise to a seated position, as midgets with metal hammers pounded on the inside of his skull. He held his clean-shaven head in his hands, cursed himself for being weak enough to escape into a bottle of booze, and prayed for the strength to reach the bathroom before the inevitable geyser of vomit would begin to erupt.

After purging his body of whatever toxins remained, taking an extended shower, and having a very late lunch that consisted of a handful of aspirin and a Prairie Oyster for his hangover, Julius finally began to feel like himself again. The fire that had been lit inside of him remained, but the flames were now at a manageable level. He managed to put Eustace Carter out of his mind, shove James Edgebrook to the back burner, and start to focus on the matters at hand. Pyro. Jason Long. Kayla Richards. The Celestial Envoy.

“Motherfucking, DeMarco…”

Julius shook his head to emphasize his annoyance with the booking decisions of Fallout’s General Manager as he slipped on his jacket and sunglasses; the seed of an on-air promo beginning to sprout in his thoughts. Leaving his hotel room behind, still oblivious as to how he made it there in the first place, Julius took to the streets of Cusco to meet up with his scheduled camera crew. Within the hour, the cameras would be rolling with the scenic city streets providing a backdrop for the suave motherfucker Project: Honor fans were used to seeing.




“This city is a beautiful motherfucker, there ain’t no denying that. Part of me wishes I could show it the attention it deserves; that I could enjoy it as much as I deserve. Of course it’s Fallout week, so we all know that option is not on the motherfucking table. This ain’t the time for sightseeing or enjoying all of the…”

Julius pauses, his gaze following an attractive woman who passes in front of him.

“...exotic flavors.”

He forces his eyes back to the camera, denying his own primal instincts for the time being.

“Nah, it’s Fallout week, which means it’s time to focus on motherfuckers getting their asses kicked up one side of an arena and down the other. It seems like I’d normally be talking about Pyro when this week rolls around, and I still will be. Only this time it isn’t about me and that crispy, crazy motherfucker trying to kill each other for our own personal gain. Instead it’s about me and him finding some common ground; about us being on the same side for a change.”

He pauses again, taking a moment to notice the young lovers exchanging a kiss at the edge of the nearby fountain.

“We ain’t about to get as friendly as those motherfuckers, but we’re gonna find our common ground nonetheless. After you’ve been at war with someone as long as Pyro and I have, you start to get a sense of what your enemy is really made of. No, I still don’t like him and he sure as hell doesn’t like me, but as crazy as it may sound, we’ve managed to find a mutual respect for each other. I get the feeling there’s more to Pyro than I was willing to see before; that he’s more than a psychotic monster who wants to set motherfuckers on fire. Oh, don’t get me wrong. He’s still all of that and a bag of chips, but he’s also a warrior with his own sense of twisted honor.”

Julius chuckles to himself and nods his head as he thinks about his recent history with the man called Pyro.

“On the last Fallout, Pyro and Havoc could have eaten me alive. They could have roasted my ass over an open fire and sang campfire songs the entire time. Instead, Pyro showed a shred of humanity and decided I’d had enough punishment for one night. While I appreciated the sentiment, I wasn’t about to waste the opportunity to sneak out a win. Some may think that Pyro showed weakness in that moment, maybe someone like Havoc would condemn him for it, but I saw something different. I saw a man who finally understood where my stubborn ass was coming from, and I guess that made me want to figure him out a little bit in return.”

He pauses again for a moment of silent reflection, the city lights of early evening reflected in his dark glasses.

“We’ve tried to kill each other. We’ve fought hand-to-hand in the trenches. We’ve drawn each other’s blood, battered our bodies, and some of us even got our motherfucking hair burnt off. At one point I even said that we might be destined to dance like that until the end of our days. Maybe I still believe that on some level, but I also believe that fighting each other again and again with no clear winner ain’t gonna get either of us where we really need to be. That’s the top of Fallout. The top of Project: Honor. Maybe, just maybe, two opposite motherfuckers like us can get to the top of that motherfucking mountain by being on the same side instead of at each other's throats.”

Tourists continue to pass him by, some recognizing his face but showing enough restraint to leave him to his business.

“Speaking of being on the same side, at least one of the teams we’ll be facing seems to be an actual, honest-to-goodness, tag team. Along with Big Drip, The Celestial Envoy seem to be the unicorns of Project: Honor. They may seem like a thing of myth and legend, but a little super glue and a pointed stick can still help an average horse turn a few heads. They look like a pair of extras in a Japanese horror movie, but I shouldn’t be one to judge. After all, my partner posts creepy motherfuckers in masks on my Twitter timeline every chance he gets. I guess what I’m trying to say here, is that those freaky chicks ain’t about to rile me up. Bring it on ladies, cause I took on a pair of motherfucking monsters on my own last time, and now I’ve got one of those monsters in my corner.”

Julius nods as another attractive woman passes nearby, yet he still manages to restrain those manly urges.

“When it comes to being in someone’s corner, I’ve made a couple of friends in this business who won’t understand where I’m coming from, Jason Long being among them. I just hope the champ understands that this ain’t about me switching sides or turning the tables on him. We might have been on the same side for awhile, and I think Jason is one hell of a Prime Champion, but right now we’ve got our own roads to travel. He’s got his business to take care of and I’ve got mine. If this fucked up partnership with Pyro works like I think it could and goes beyond the next Fallout, well, who knows where we might end up. For all I know, this won’t be the last time me and Jason are looking across the ring at each other. No matter what happens, I’m still the same motherfucker he teamed up with and I’m willing to have his back when he needs it. Just not this week.”

Julius keeps his expression serious, purposely avoiding any smiles or light-hearted gestures.

“We’re all in this business to succeed, to get ahead, to reach our goals. Right now, Jason’s doing pretty well for himself. His business with Kayla Richards ain’t none of my concern, but beating both of their asses to earn another mark in the win column is definitely my motherfucking business. So all pleasantries aside, I’m gonna do what I’ve gotta do. I’m sure Jason feels the same way. It ain’t personal, motherfucker. It just is what it is. Right now, Team Fairweather begins and ends with me, and I’m gonna do whatever it takes to grab that shiny brass ring and put it around my middle finger. Even if that means trusting a motherfucker like Pyro to watch my back without sticking a knife in it.”

Perhaps subconsciously, Julius caresses his clenched right fist in the palm of his opposite hand as if he’s warming it up to deliver a Royale With Cheese.

“Now Kayla Richards is another story altogether. I’ve mentioned her a few times before, mostly pointing out that she’s a bad bitch. That cold-hearted shit suits her pretty well, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like her style. We’ve never had any personal issues, Kayla, and I’m fine with keeping it that way. Like I said, your business with Jason ain’t nothing I need to concern myself with. You’re after your own slice of the pie just like me and every other motherfucker in this company. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. The only problem is we’re standing in each other’s way this week. You’ve got a partner that you hate and so do I. The key difference is, I’m willing to keep my enemy close so we can both get ahead, while you and Jason ain’t ever gonna see eye-to-eye. Of course I might have thought that about me and Pyro once upon a time, but that was before my recent...change in perspective.”

With the sun beginning to fall below the horizon, Julius slides his sunglasses to the tip of his nose so that the seriousness expressed in his eyes can be seen clearly.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if me and Pyro get the chance to sit back and watch you two kill each other. Hell, be my motherfucking guest. I’ll be cheering for Jason cause we’ve got a little bit of history, but I won’t even think about getting involved. Maybe Pyro and I can make a few bets on which of you knocks the other one out first. Something tells me he’d have his money on you, even if he does want to melt those silicone funbags down into a puddle of goo. Why he’d want to fuck with such spherical symmetry is beyond me, but I’m just tagging with the motherfucker. I ain’t his goddamn therapist.”

Julius makes some circular motions with his hands, silently contemplates something lewd that we can only imagine, and then finally refocuses his gaze on the camera.

“Sorry about that. I broke my own concentration. Rest assured, that won’t happen when the bell rings this Friday Night. Jason’s got his gold, Kayla’s had hers with more set in her sights, and now it’s time for me to get mine. You kids go ahead and fight it out over that Prime Championship for now. Savannah and Pixie can do their thing for the Noble Title. Mason Destruction can reign over those crazy motherfuckers in the Ascension Division. Maybe ol’ Julius will interject himself in one of those pictures, or maybe he won’t. In fact, if me and Pyro are somehow able to turn this shit DeMarco has served us into a plate of gold, maybe we’ll just take those Tag Team Titles for ourselves. Maybe I’ll even aim a little higher and relieve Elena DeDraca of her duties as the ‘Face of Fallout’ by carving a legacy of my own. No matter what path I choose to take, it’s time for The Shepherd to live up to his promise of leading the weak through Valley of Darkness. Only I ain’t gonna do that shit on my own anymore. I’m gonna have a crazy motherfucker lighting the way with a shitload of napalm.”

He finally allows a slight smile to cross his face, the charming kind that could get a prostitute through the gates of the Vatican.

“The Fury and Fire. Iceman and the Human Torch. Pyromaniacal Motherfuckers. It doesn't matter what you call us. He’s a burning mess of rage and I’m as cool as the other side of the pillow. DeMarco might think he’s creating chaos by putting us together, and maybe he is, but as sure as I’m a bad motherfucker, that chaos is gonna burn everyone but us. Yeah, we may hate each other, but that’s just gonna add more fuel to our respective fires. Instead of taking out all of that hatred on each other, we’ll just have to see which of us can hurt our opponents more. No matter how that turns out, we both win. As for Jason and Kayla and The Celestial Envoy, I wouldn’t wish their Friday Night on my worst enemy.”

Another light chuckle escapes from Julius.

“Of course my worst enemy is my tag team partner, and with the way I'm feeling right now, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”