#they actually started the night with good ol’ valorant

[254th-legion]

Crosshair & Ghost: *Playing video games*

Flanker: You guys woke up at 5:30 in the morning just to play games?

Crosshair: *silence*

Ghost: *silence*

Flanker, finally figuring it out: ...You two never went to sleep, did you?

[lunaraen]

“Hearts are fickle things. They seem to break at the slightest shove. I’d much rather give mine away.” “Well, I wouldn’t mind having yours...” Magnus/Ellegaard? Am I doing this correctly? 😓 I’m so sorry if I’m not-

It feels like it's just the two of them on the roof, only the occasional noise coming from the new settlement below- little more than a camp but growing by the day with more and more followers eager to greet and behold their heroes- and the much closer trees as their branches sway in the wind. The moon hangs high in a clear sky colored by swirls of stars and brighter spots, ones that Ellegaard can name as specific planets.

(Nerd.)

It's wrong.

It's a storybook night meant for storybook heroes. The Order of the Stone.

(Who came up with that dumb name? Soren? Ellegaard?

Was it is his own drunken suggestion?)

It's a beautiful night in all the ways it shouldn't be, in all the ways it has no right to be, and Magnus internally curses the nice night as he passes Ellie the cigarette they've been sharing.

And if Ivor were still here, he'd make a stink about the cig, the way Ellegaard normally does. But Ivor isn't here, is he? That's the whole reason things are fucked up like they are, why they're hurting in all the wrong ways inside. Instead, Magnus is here, and he figures it's better the devil he knows, the sick taste of cigarettes and the lung damage that inevitably comes with it in place of the burn of whiskey and the spiral into one drunken blackout after another.

Besides, he and Ellie have a whole thing, banter wise, going on about cigarettes and smoking. She's less likely to slip into it as a habit and deal with actual damage than she is if he'd helped her drown her sorrows or whatever. They've done enough drinking, lately.

Never mind that getting drunk on a roof's a pretty good way to die stupidly.

(He's not helping her with that, either.)

So, here they are, hurting and smoking and staring up at the sky like it can keep whatever answers it has and shove the ones it doesn't.

It's the first time in weeks that Magnus has managed to really hang out with her again.

He's not great at comfort, but he can do shared bitterness. And if Ellegaard wants to get poetic, he'll listen, though even grief won't keep him from giving less poetic responses.

"Hearts are fickle things. They seem to break at the slightest shove. I’d much rather give mine away."

It's a whole lot of anguish, jaded and weary, that he's never heard in her voice before, despite all the other messes they've gotten into before, the less than stellar backgrounds they crawled out of.

(Not that he can’t relate to what she’s saying, because the desire to crawl off to some remote, desolate tower and stay there is strong.)

So Magnus does what he does best, blowing a smoke ring that wobbles and dissolves into the darker splotches of night when she hands him the cigarette and shrugging as he gives an offhand comment that's surprisingly hard not to mumble.

"Well, I wouldn’t mind having yours..."

There's a dumb thought that goes with that, something right out of Gabriel's latest speech to their adoring 'fans', embodying stupid chivalry and valor like it means something when it comes from people like them.

The dumb thought is that, if Magnus had her heart, he could at least try to keep it safe. He wants to keep all their hearts safe, like that's possible. Like they'd ever let him. He's a griefer who breaks things, time after time, but deep down he just wants to take the shards of their strained and broken friendships and fix them back up.

That's Ellie's job, though, fixing things up or making them useful.

Magnus wants chaos, because it's his nature, but the pain of the last few weeks has been nothing short of awful. It's change, sure, at what cost? This isn't fun change or his brand of hectic shenanigans, the kind Gabriel used to help him with while Ellegaard shrieked at their heels.

He wants to fix what they broke, but he's never been able to undo a TNT blast before. Now doesn't seem any different.

"Seriously?" She's looking at him, really looking at him in a way she hasn't since he got her up here. The raised eyebrow and disbelieving tone would make him more defensive if he hadn't been desperate for a response that wasn't entirely negative.

He offers her the smoke again, crushing the lit end against one of the roof's many carved stone edges when she shakes her head.

"I mean, yeah. You've already got mine."

And it's the truth, the exhausted truth at the heart of their years of bonding and bickering and living. Ivor leaving, Soren lying, (almost) all of them selling their souls for fame and glory- it's stripped back each and every layer of Magnus and his usual defenses. What's the point in denying it, when they're this close to losing whatever it is they've got?

"...you're sappy, tonight."

"'m tired." Tired of what? Winning nothing, losing everything? Because that's what's happened. Sure, technically they've got far more now than they ever could've had before, at the price of them getting all the credit for something they never did. It's an empty, shallow victory that burns in his throat and his chest. It came at the price of losing Ivor. Losing their snarky healer, their friend who was perhaps the most excited for their adventure and the most carefully prepared, hurts them as a team and cuts to the heart of who they are as friends.

Who they were as friends might be a better way to put it.

(It came at the price of all their friendships, really, who they are- who they used to be.

Gabe's been in a daze- who isn’t?- but he's stiffer too, formal in a way Magnus's fellow trouble maker never is. This new Gabriel’s somewhere between a warrior and a knight. The crowd loves him. Magnus just feels sicker listening to him, his speeches and his new habit of saying no to everything fun. Gabriel's chivalrous, sure, but he's also Magnus's friend, not this stressed out hollow shell with an empty smile and dramatic speeches for crowds spun from nothing but despair and grief.

It turns out that is who he is, now.

And if Gabe's in a daze, there's no real way to describe what's going on with Soren. Soren had his head in the clouds to start with. He’s gotten, forced, everything he’s ever wanted, except Ivor isn’t here to drag him from his room into the open. Everything they dreamed of is at their feet, minus the integrity. Soren, already running on no sleep and manic energy during that uneasy time after the Dragon was 'defeated' but before Ivor left, has shut himself away almost entirely.

Can't disappoint or lie to people you don't see or talk to.

Ellie too, because of course she squirreled herself away, because she and Soren are two sides of the same coin the way she and Ivor are- were. It’s worked just as well for her as it does for him. Even without Magnus's interference, she's been doing little more than slipping up and burning her own fingers on her machines. She stares out windows and mumbles nothing to an empty room. She'd still be in that room if Magnus hadn't managed to coax her onto the roof like this, the promise of familiar company better than hanging out with those in the camp under them.

There are other engineers here to talk to, now, but what's the point?

Magnus himself, well... he's partied, he's feasted, and he's hated himself all the more for it. He chose this over defending Ivor, he was the first to follow Soren’s lead and pick their pretty lie over the rusted truth. Magnus is the one who couldn’t even look Ivor in the eye. He'd like to think he's at least trying to have fun, being truer to himself that Gabriel is, but that doesn't mean he isn't sickened by every fake grin and overblown guffaw, every bit of fun at the unsuspecting crowd’s expense. It’s his worst prank yet.

They're coping, maybe, but it ain't healthy. None of this is.)

Ellegaard sighs, a curled lock of hair brushing against her cheek as the wind toys with it, the rest held back only by her goggles, and she’s so strikingly beautiful it hurts.

It just ain’t fair.

Still, she also sounds achingly drained, circles under her eyes as bold as he’s ever seen them.

"...so am I."

Nowhere to take the conversation from that, is there? That's what it all comes down to.

They’re washed up before they could ever really begin.

And if the conversation can't continue, then it's time to move things along before they do end up breaking out the alcohol. Magnus pushes himself to his feet with energy he doesn't have, stretching his arms above his head before cracking his neck the way Ellie usually hates.

The breeze picked up at some point, though hell if he knows when, and the stone roof's cold enough to have leeched all the warmth from his hands and his ass.

"Great. We might as well crash- I'm sick of staring at the big ol' empty."

This is, of course, Ellegaard's cue to lecture him on how beautifully vast and amazingly full space is, how it's hardly empty and that the hollowest space to crack jokes about is in his head.

She doesn't, but she does smile.

It's weak, but it's the first smile in at least a week that hasn't looked totally plastic.

On top of that, she hands him the mask he'd almost left on the roof, an easy victim for the breeze, and he's hardly thinking when he takes it in a balled up fist as they both slip back through the window they came onto the roof from.

(Not that he hasn’t been thinking about replacing this mask. 

It’s almost half stitches now, the victim of all the repairs it’s needed since he first made it, back when they started out their training and the world looked so beautifully big and unknown.

...his later stitches are much better than the first few repairs, on account of Ivor showing him neater stitches and making Magnus practice them. 

They work for skin and cloth, as it turns out.

That might be a little more important now, since they’re down a healer and Ivor was the one who kept inventory of the healing potions.)

The walk through the halls is almost peaceful, on account of it being short and the others hiding in their own rooms or making speeches outside or chasing after Endermen in an empty End or whatever they’re each doing (because whatever Soren and Gabriel are doing, they’re doing it alone and Magnus knows it), and Ellegaard’s shoulders are relaxed like they haven’t been in over a month.

So far, so decent.

He's no Ivor, but Magnus is still doing his best to fill in as the glue.

It's working better than he figured it would; griefers aren't meant to be the glue of anything, never mind horribly fractured friend groups.

And, hell, while he's patting his back for a job well done, Magnus'll take an extra second to preen about how surprisingly easy it was to get Ellie to crash in his room instead of hers, and, heck, he's even proud (and sad and confused and exhausted) about how his room is actually the healthier choice.

Going from the window to his room means they don’t pass Ivor’s door.

(The long shadows cast by the torches can’t be helped, gnarled into shapes that are almost human and hauntingly familiar against the stone bricks, fire and shadows alike wavering as the two of them walk by.)

In Magnus’s room, there aren't any machines for her to tinker with, none out in the open, anyway, to be obsessed over like there are in hers.

She can’t keep herself up all night doing nothing.

There aren't any pipes or wires to fuss over like her next invention will prove Ivor wrong or bring him back.

He's not even dead -probably- and it feels like they've lowered the casket already.

(Ivor's resourceful, practical, skilled, and alone. He can take care of himself just fine, fend for himself as he does who knows what with the treasures he bargained for, but he shouldn't have to.

None of them should.

Magnus thinks of an exhausted Ivor, holed up in a dirt hut somewhere or already dead in a ditch, and he shifts the arm around Ellie’s shoulders so it’s closer to a squeeze.

If he's got any say in this, cowardly as he is and weak-willed as he's been shown to be, it won't happen to the rest of them, drift apart as they may. He wants to be there for them, in this twisted lie they’ve trapped themselves in, be available even when he's busy with whatever chaos he and his followers cobble together.

Gods, he has followers now, fans who think the world of him.

He's gonna be sick.)

Magnus's armor is already kicked into a forgotten corner, left alone unless he's making an appearance for 'the public' that seemed to spring up overnight.

It’s his clumsiest way at trying to fix what he helped shatter. It hasn’t helped much; the others wear their armor more than ever and always around him, Ellegaard only taking hers off now to chuck it on top of his.

Falling into bed is easy, something from Before that isn't instantly painful or miserable, and so's peppering each other with kisses as they settle under the covers. It's easy to slip into the familiar position, her arms wrapped around him and her chin on his shoulder.

(Hey, it's not just because he's short.

Magnus is the damned best little spoon there's ever been.)

Ellie goes a step further than just silently settling into what's familiar, though, whispering in a voice that isn't pained as he cranes his neck to kiss her cheek.

"Thanks for holding onto my heart."

Fat lot of good it's doing either of them, with how much hers still hurts and how much it can still be hurt, but the thought has to count for something. She's kind enough to do the same for him.

"Yeah, well, don't go throwing mine around."

It means a lot, given how easy it ultimately was for them to chuck Ivor's away and turn their backs on him. Magnus still can't really believe that happened, or that anybody else in their group would be willing to do that to him, never mind brilliant Ellie- but here they are, short a healer, short a friend, and short on all the trust they'd had in spades before they entered the End, and Magnus would be a fool to not take the blame for being one of the first to toss all that. Why wouldn’t they turn on him after how quickly he turned on Ivor?

There's a spiky, prickly paranoia nestled in the back of his mind that wasn't there before, but he still trusts Ellegaard, and he means it when he silently promises himself he won't throw away whatever trust she's got left in him.

And for a minute, as they sink into sleep, it almost feels alright.

They're both stubborn people, and they've never been the types to give up on a challenge, even one that aches.

[shieldfoss]

Second Session - a wolf hunt

The same people again - Gnome Artificer (Gart), Half-Elf Sorcerer (Heso), Half-Elf Monk (Hemo), and Drow Sorcerer (Deso)

The obvious thing to do, having been to Vemb and seen the tracks of people being dragged into the sea, is to get your hands on a boat. Those are expensive.

So as a purely instrumental secondary choice, you gotta go wolf hunting for that quick cash. The Warden of the March offers a bounty on wolf pelts, and a significantly bigger bounty on an answer to this question: Why are the wolves killing his sheep but not eating them?

Side tip for you, DM to DM, that I tried out and it worked out super well: If you have a solid random encounter table, roll encounters ahead of time. It lets you flow these things completely into each other in an extremely organic way. I got lizardfolk hunters (There were two: Nightspear and Ebony/Longtooth); 6 wolves; 1 lone worg (Likely to run at first sign of trouble); and a Yuan-ti Patrol.

A powerful storm is roaring over the land and everything is getting soaked, but hearty adventurers being who they are, and the Warden’s lands being only a short brisk march west of Vesterhavn, the party sets out late in the afternoon because Low Light Vision means never having to apologize -_-.

So pretty late in the evening, after dusk, they come to the first of the warden’s sheepsteads[1] as they’re about ready to turn in for the night. The party call out to the last farmhand before he heads inside and have a brief talk where they cover the essentials - sheep are being mutilated, wolf attacks aren’t the worlds biggest mystery to shepherds and they’ve had a few before but recently - within the last two or three months, say - they’ve had some really weird attacks where the sheep have been savaged and their heads completely destroyed, but the carcasses left uneaten. Nobody has actually seen any wolves do this peculiar thing but what else could it be? And either case, the bounty is for wolf pelts.

The party heads for the site of the latest attack to search for clues, but as they crest a hill they spot through gloom and darkness two lizardfolk standing exactly at the site of the attack. Nightspear and Ebony/Longtooth are skilled hunters both but (sans darkvision or lowlight vision) they’re about to quit for the day and make camp when the party sees them - though at this distance, the two lizardfolk are just two large humanoid shapes.

A quick whispered conference. A decision to sneak closer.

Once they’re close enough to overhear the lizardfolk, they realize that only Heso speaks draconic (almost instinctually, the knowledge transferred through his bloodline) and that’s the tongue the lizardfolk are talking in - nothing interesting though. “Bad hunt.” “Sleep soon.”

Because the dark elf player is Like That (does literally every group have a player who is like that) he decides to sneak around and approach the lizard folk from the side as the rest of the party makes their presence clear and approach the lizard folk directly. (He doesn’t even have Sneak Attack! He’s👏🏻A👏🏻Sorcerer👏🏻!)

So anyway, they get to talking - the lizardfolk are surprised to see them, but not immediately hostile, especially since the party hails them on approach which rather does tend to signal that you’re not planning an assault. They’re here as hunters, they say. Hunters of what? Hunters of anything, what’ve you got?

At this point in the conversation, the lizardfolk look at the party. There’s a gnome in tinkerer’s clothes under a waterlogged traveler’s cloak. There’s a half-elf in court robes (under a waterlogged traveler’s cloak,) There’s a half-elf literally without any weapons. They don’t any of them have knives. They have one single ranged weapon among them (there’s another in the tinkerer’s pack where the lizardfolk cannot see it.) “We’re here to find out what killed this sheep and hunt it down to take its teeth. What brings you people here?”

The party claims to be hunters, too.

So anyway it’s at this point Nightspear realizes there’s somebody sneaking up on them.

Nightspear is not a subtle type of person. Nightspear does not manage to hide that he knows, he instantly freezes, as would be very appropriate if e.g. a deer was about to spot him.

Everybody else notices Nightspear freeze except Ebony/Longtooth who has been the main conversationalist and so has taken a step forward and has his back to Nightspear.

Several things happen at once.

Heso asks Nightspear “What’s happening?” (I honestly have no idea if he doesn’t know (because he hasn’t paid attention) or if he’s trying to pretend he doesn’t know to gain some imagined advantage or if he’s trying to keep Nightspear focused on him or what the fuck)

Everybody else looks directly at the spot Nightspear’s body language implies he’s worried about

Ebony/Longtooth realizes something real weird could be about to happen and starts turning around

Deso stands up from the tall grass he’s been sneaking through because obviously that’s what you do if you’ve been caught I guess?

WHY ARE YOU EVEN CLOSE ENOUGH TO BE SPOTTED

YOU’RE A SORCERER YOU DON’T HAVE SNEAK ATTACK

WHAT IS THIS

I DON’T UNDERSTAND PLAYERS

Deso has a plan though. I seriously have no idea why he decided to sneak up on the fucking lizardfolk, but having been caught at it, he has a plan. It’s not actually a bad plan. Deso is going to play this off like it’s nothing. He’s just going to stand up and rely on the fact that he is that cool and collected, plus normalcy bias, to convey that nothing weird is going on, what, doesn’t your people play sneaking games?

Through the high natural Charisma required of sorcerers and an astounding roll of the dice, he pulls this off. Nightspear is too embarrassed at letting a threat get this close to make something of it, and Ebony/Longtooth, who’s just slightly late at realizing what’s going on, takes his cues from Nightspear rather than insert himself into this whole thing.

So Ebony/Longtooth turns back to Heso and asks, if they’re such great hunters, where should you go to find the beast that did this attack?

This is the part where the party realizes they’re not actually hunters, they’re people on a hunt which is not exactly the same. Well, everybody except Gart who, it turns out, is actually a hunter, or at least has the Survival skill.

It’s been 14 days since the attack. It’s in the night. There’s a storm on. It’s a guess and a gut feeling more than evidence, but it’s the opposite direction of the sheepstead which is definitely not the best direction for a monster to come from. Gart avoids the critical mistake of appearing underconfident by explaining, just points south west and says “That way.” The lizardfolk are surprised the gnome, absent any real search, instantly came to the same conclusion they had reached after half an hour at the site and concede that maybe these strangers are hunters, just real weird hunters.

Well what are you hunting here? We thought all small-folk were herders and planters?

Actually we’re hunting the same thing you lizards are, what a coincidence, wanna join up?

A bit of negotiation ensues, but after the lizardfolk are assured the small folk only want the skins bul will happily leave flesh and teeth to the lizards, they all agree to hunt together.

At midnight, the weather improves markedly - the rain stops and the wind stills except for a mild warm breeze blowing in from the north.

In the much improved visibility, they find six wolves. Nothing much to say about the ensuing combat except this: One wolf manages to flee, and the remaining wolves manage to deal enough damage that the (first level) party decides to do a short rest.

The lizardfolk declare that five wolves is plenty of prey for them at this time and they will head back home with their catch after the skins have been taken off for the players to return with.

At this point, one of the players (I forget who) says: “Wait. What do their feet look like? Do we still have the sketch from the beach? (Yes they still have the sketch. The feet look extremely similar to those of the oceanic raiders, though perhaps larger)

In the ensuing conversation, the party manages to, through the translationary efforts of Heso

(1) make fun of the lizardmen for not being part of the gold-based economy,

(2) ask a lot of questions about the ocean that the lizards, sixty miles west, have no answers to,

(3) imply a lot of things about cannibalism and

(4) insult the lizardmen for being such pathetic hunters that they’ll be satisfied bringing back 5 wolves.

Apparently the goal was to goad them into sticking around and helping out with further hunting?

Player Characters I Swear 2 Fucking God

Listen up you little punk, Lizardfolk have a lot of respect for magic, and a lot of respect for dragons, and a lot of respect for dragon-magic sorcerers, but if you think they’re gonna sit here and take that shit from your can’t track can’t carry can’t stab non-hunter ass, you’ve got another thing coming. 

Anyway they part ways, not amicably. (The lizardfolk head south, not west, despite earlier having claimed to come from the west.)

It’s at this point as the lizardfolk are leaving that Deso says “I stand up and take a good look around.”

Far away, in the direction the fleeing wolf ran, he sees a wolf and a separate, significantly bigger, wolf. The two wolves turn and disappear behind a hill, and the party decides that, since they’ve got some skins anyway and it’s only a few hours back to town, and they’re kind of low on spells, perhaps discretion is the significantly better part of valor right now?

[1] I swear sheepstead is a word but my browser is putting a big ol’ red line under it.

[omgnsfwisnsfw-blog]

Game #7: I’m Bad

The ring gave a noise somewhere between a clatter and a creak as Mike McGuire flopped to the canvas, panting. They had been doing solo workouts for the past hour and their black and green ringwear was quite damp- half from sweat and half from the bottle of water or two they’d drenched themselves with to cool down. Propping their chin in one hand, they looked across the yard toward the garden. A small plot of assorted flowers centralized around an orange Voodoo rosebush at the beginning of the summer, the garden had grown substantially since to include not only more flowers, but fruits and vegetables as well. A small patch of strawberries yielded a steady output of plump red berries, a few heads of leafy green cabbage were coming along nicely as were green beans, snap peas, and, Mike assumed, a row of carrots. Right now, the garden’s tender was seeing to several stakes of tomatoes, the bountiful crop a deep ruddy orange in the early summer sunlight. “Hey. Church. Gimme one of those, wouldya please?” He paused in his inspection of the leaves for any signs of beetles, turned to his partner slightly, and shook his head with a small smile. “They’re not ripe.” “C’mon, I don’t care, they look juicy as shit and I’m thirsty.” They pouted, but John was unmoved. “You’ll get sick. They’ll be ready in a few days.” He turned back to his work, putting a wordless finality on the subject. Mike groaned a bit and rolled to the side, snatching a half full bottle of Gatorade off the ring steps as well as their GoPro. There was a third object stowed to the side as well- a classic black and white mottled composition notebook neatly labeled ‘DAKOTA JENNINGS’. As with every other opponent they’ve ever had, John had used his keen observational skills and insight to keep a well documented record of the Firecracker, and had even made a few updates as pertaining to the match they’d had with her and her partner at Rite of Kings. Mike frowned sourly as they thought of it, rubbing the back of their head. They’d been lucky not to need stitches or come away with a concussion, but the spot where the chair had made contact was still sore even days after the fact. They’d had it. The Chimera Tag Team Championships were in their grasp, and ReKota had known it too. So out came the filthy tactics and steel chairs and at the end of it all, before Bishop Church could even see what was going on, Mike McGuire had hit the canvas and been rolled up for three. The ovation from the crowd, while appreciated, didn’t take away the sting as much as they would have liked. That had been that. And Mike was still angry at themself for it. Angry, and raw, and not just because of the screwy loss- because of what had played out on Twitter afterward. A typical snarky back and forth banter had ended ugly, and Mike wasn’t even sure that Cross or Dakota were aware of just how cruel what they’d said was. How could they? It’s not like Mike advertised the ugliest parts of their past. Huffing out a breath through their nose, Mike took a deep glug of the Gatorade- not, they sulkily thought, a juicy garden-fresh tomato- and wiped their mouth on the back of their hand, setting the GoPro across from them and clicking the record button on. You know, people say stupid stuff on Twitter all the time. The whole platform is made of people’s stupid comments, after all. I’m hardly immune either. Which is why 90 percent of what you jokers say on that thing doesn’t bother me. Hell, bantering back and forth with you and your… boyfriend? Fiance? Eh, it doesn’t matter. Anyway, it’s actually kinda fun. And then you went and ruined that. Let me let you in on something. You’re not the first people to tell me I have a hittable face. You’re not the first to tell me I’m about to get my face caved in. Let me tell you, Jennings, you and Reboca don’t want to be in the same league as that person. I doubt even you are that low. “Fuck.” Mike had clicked the GoPro off and was staring at it. That was stupid. The specter of Steve Archer hadn’t been exorcised half as much as Mike would have liked. A couple of sleepless nights prior had made that perfectly clear. Just thinking about it made Mike almost want to call out across the yard and have John join them for a little bit, hold onto him until they felt safe. But they were stronger than that, right? Besides, they had that… that one thing they couldn’t keep putting off. John was going to need them for support, not the other way around. Mike would be fine. They always were in the end. Reaching forward, they picked up the GoPro and erased what they just recorded, as if those words had never existed. Goodbye. They closed their eyes and took a few deep breaths. Felt their old reliable steel slide into place. No, there was no sense showing vulnerability where it wasn’t necessary. Dakota, whether on Cross’ direction or her own volition, would eat that shit alive. It’d be like a drop of blood in a tank full of starved great whites. They turned the camera back on and set it across from the ring, starting again in earnest with  that big sharkish smile. “So. How about Rite of Kings, Valor Pro faithful? Crazy as fuck, wasn’t it? I mean, Jesus Fuck, did Spiral vs. Aoki nearly make you hurl, too? Shit was fucking insane. Sure hope they catch that pale stickyfingered fucker- after all that, Aoki deserves that strap. I mean, I like the Zombies. They’re weird, but they’re my kind of weird. Cosmo Cooper… STILL has that Apex Championship, which I’m sure has Cross Reboca’s underwear in all kinds’a fuckin’ knots. Oh. And speaking of…” Mike’s face went utterly sour then, one hand combing sweat-damp hair out of their eyes. “Ya boys got beat. But it weren’t for lack of trying, Faithful, and it weren’t for lack of cheating on ReKota’s part. I mean, you all saw it, yeah? And if you didn’t, feel free to check out a summary on YouTube. I’ll wait.” The Bronx Brawler paused a moment, twisting their wrist as if looking at a watch. “Yeah, there, you see what I’m talkin’ about? This close. Just a fuckin’ hair, and all of the sudden Jennings and Reboca devolve into their cheap fuckin’ ways because at the end of the day? They know they can’t win fair against a team like me and Church. And it was a damn shame because we were actually having a good time. But, one thing led to another. Broken up pin, then a wallop to the back of my head, and good ol’ N-S-F-Dubs come out of our first Valor Pro Wrestling pay-per-view empty handed.” Tisking and shaking their head, Mike gave a sigh. “Which leads us to here. I’m going solo this week. Me vs. Dakota. And I got all this shit running through my head like a fuckin’ freight train about it. Lots to unpack, so let’s start with bitches talkin’ shit, shall we? Any idiot can talk shit these days. You just get yourself a Twitter account and start running your fool mouth, regardless of whether you got anything fucking relevant to say or even if you know what the blue hell you’re talking about. My opponent this week is no fucking exception. If she knew what the hell she was talking about, she’d know that the last thing my partner is is a ‘meathead’. But I digress.” They snorted, and in spite of themselves cast a look off camera that caused their expression to soften slightly. It’d be missed if you happened to blink, though, because a split second later had Mike facing forward once again, a cool smirk on their face. “Between calling herself our ‘daddy’ and calling me a fucking drunk, Dakota Jennings is proving herself to be just another internet tough guy who thinks they’re ten feet tall with their dick hanging in the dirt. Least, they were until Church said something in particular that seemed to sting a little. My partner, in his infinite wisdom, pointed out that your tendency to go all El Fucking Kabong on people when the chips are down was compensating for a lack of, y’know, any real fucking talent. And at that point, Jennings had a major case of e-cock shrinkage and started whining that such an accusation was ‘hurtful and untrue’.” That smirk began to grow into something distinctly more vicious. “Methinks the lady doth protest too fucking much. Now, I’ve done my homework. I know all about you. And I could sympathize. It fucking sucks to bust your ass and not have anybody take notice. There’s a few ways to tackle that problem constructively, none- I’ll repeat to get it through your skull, NONE- of them involve cracking skulls with wild abandon. But that’s what you did. That’s what you keep doing. And now? I think you’ve been relying so much on the chairs that you don’t know how to get by without them. Now, I challenged you to leave your folding steel special at home. And you said you would. But I don’t fucking believe you, Jennings. Why should I? Why would our little date in Peru be any different than the past few weeks?” Mike rolled their shoulders and tipped their head to the side twice, cracking their neck. “On the other hand, maybe this wouldn’t be the match you’d want to fucking ditch your only real advantage in. Do you know who I am? Have you done your homework like I have? In case you haven’t got yourself out from under Cross’ dick for the last few days, let me educate you. My name is Mike McGuire. I’ve trained at the feet of King Race himself. I’ve gone at people wrapped in barbed wire. I’ve dropped big hairy bitches fuckin’ thrice my size with a single punch. I am one half of the greatest pure tag team of this generation, and if I’m bragging about all this? I’m still being fucking sincere.” Suddenly, Mike’s expression darkened. They leaned forward, their tone gaining something borderline ominous. “I can play fucking dirty if I have to, Jennings. I relish that shit. You’ve been in that ring with me, you know what I can do with backup. You won’t be able to tag out this time, though. You won’t have anywhere to run. But I double dare you. Break your word and go for that fucking chair. Do that, Jennings, and you will be one fucking sorry bitch, because I ain’t gonna play that shit twice. You slither one more cheap victory against me out of your ass and your rich little boytoy is gonna be pushing you to the next show in a fucking wheelchair. See you in South America, Firecrotch.” Their harsh expression remained on their face, even as they reached forward to click off the camera. Mike leaned back against the ropes, letting out a long exhale. Perhaps, they thought, they shouldn’t show John that one. They were pretty sure he wouldn’t approve of the violent threats that they’d dropped. But the thing was? Mike meant every last word. They were as sick of Dakota’s shit as they imagined Ms. Byrne was, but Mike didn’t have the power to fire anyone. They did, however, have the power to do horrible things to people. Things they hoped it wouldn’t come to, but couldn’t make promises it wouldn’t. Sighing, they rolled over, laid on their stomach in the shade of the spreading maple, and watched John tend his garden with a tender affection they almost envied.