Dave
|
|
« on: September 09, 2015, 12:15:07 am » |
|
The gymnasium had seen better days. In the past few years, its outer shell had begun to crumble away. The sign was completely gone, taken by looters, but the people of the area still remembered it. They’d mention it every now and then. Remember that old gym on Fifth Street? I’m surprised they haven’t knocked it down yet, it looks dreadful.
That was the way the Stranger wanted it. Since returning to the United States, he’d taken over the gym – bought it, actually – and let the business fail on purpose. He raised membership fees until eventually, they all just left. He fired what little staff there were (after making sure there was more work for them elsewhere – he was, after all, an altruist). And now, on the inside, he had a spotless gym where today, it was just the two of them.
He punched Blackout square in the face.
“Ow! ****! Come on, what was that for?”
“You know what it was for. If you didn’t deserve it, you would’ve stopped it. But you didn’t, because once again, you are failing me. You’ve started setting a dangerous trend. Walking out on your matches… I thought we’d removed that abhorrent behaviour. But no, you’re continuing to blather about how strong you are but walking away from every fight – and losing them when you get them.”
Blackout threw a punch of his own, but Stranger deflected it.
“You’re not becoming what I thought you would be. Maybe everyone was right about you. Maybe you’re a weakling. A chickenshit, cowardly weakling.”
Fire burned in Blackout’s eyes. He threw another punch, unleashing his rage. This one struck Stranger in the jaw, and the man yelped in surprise, not pain. He fell to the ground, clutching his jaw. And laughed.
“Your buttons are too easy to press. You’ll never succeed like this. I thought I taught you better.”
“You didn’t teach me ****. Four months we spent wandering around those high school gyms and community halls, four months we spent in dark, grimy building basements, wrestling nobodies. And four months we wasted. You should’ve let me come back sooner.”
“So you could walk out on more matches?”
“I was being smart. That’s what you tried to teach me, isn’t it? And weren’t you all about embracing the rage? Getting even more violent. Let’s talk about your **** inconsistencies. One minute you want me to be a saviour, the next you’re berating me like I’m the toddler that just **** all over your carpet. Titan was right about you. You’re not good for me.”
“Titan wasn’t willing to go this far. He was just humouring you. He didn’t want you to get hurt, that was all he cared about, and when you got hurt he decided he’d had enough. Where has he been? Since you got hurt, after your surgery, he never returned. He’s never shown his face again. Have you even talked to him since then, your supposed best friend?”
“No. You told me not to. You took me out of that hospital as soon as I got out of surgery, and told me to throw away everything I am, and become your weapon.”
Blackout spat.
“You **** conned me, old man.”
“I didn’t con you. You came willingly.”
“Bullshit. I was doped up on pain meds, and you took me away, and taught me to fight. At least that’s something. But I’ve forsaken everything to become Blackout. And I’m not being rewarded for it. So why are we walking down this path?”
“Help me up.”
Reluctantly, Blackout took Stranger’s hand, and pulled him to his feet.
“In all my years in this business, I was at the height of my powers when I was most disturbed. When I embraced the demons inside myself and just let loose on everyone. When I stopped caring about the health of my opponent, or how the crowd reacted. All I wanted was to destroy them. Everyone. And the promise of glory that came from victory after victory. That fuelled me for years. I tasted blood on a nightly basis, and yes, it was glorious.”
“Get to the point.”
“Change doesn’t happen overnight. You want to start a revolution. You told me you created Blackout because you’re tired of the status quo. You wanted to show the world that you don’t have to be a mentally deranged psychopath or corrupt businessman to make it. And I told you that’s just not possible. Since I took you, trained you, changed you, you’ve garnered more respect. Nobody remembers weak Eddie Hayes and his pitiful attempts at starting a fire. You were just a kid playing with matches. I’ve put you on the path to becoming a man. To fulfilling that Blackout legacy. Becoming the embodiment of the hacker Eddie Hayes. A true revolutionary. A man not afraid to take on any challenge. A man fighting for justice. To right so many wrongs. And what do you do? You **** walk.”
Stranger shuffles on his feet, and superkicks Blackout.
“Now tell me, Eddie, why the **** are you walking?”
“Don’t… don’t call me that.”
“Why shouldn’t I? What have you done to deserve your new name? You’re not Blackout. Maybe Abram Adams is right. You just want to hide behind your cheap parlour tricks. Turning lights on and off, luring imbeciles with Bluetooth speakers. You’re empty promises, again and again, failing to bring even a shred of proof that you can do what you say you can do. You’re not a warrior. A keyboard warrior, maybe, but when you step in that ring everyone can see the fear in your eyes. It’s not confidence. You’re still that same sad boy that got beat up every day, only now you’re getting paid to get beaten up. Better yet, you’ve found you can get paid just to walk out. So remind me, how are you Blackout? Who is Blackout supposed to be, Eddie?”
Still on his backside, Blackout looked up at Stranger and pushed to his feet.
“I… I really don’t know.”
“Then you need to find it. You need to prove it to yourself. You felt confident because you beat up a monster when he wasn’t ready for you, but since then, you’ve been a joke. He got to you last week, he’ll get to you again. You got lucky and won that championship shot. And now you get to face the man, the WWG Champion, and get a chance to prove yourself. So do it. Don’t just walk out. The Wretched Nobody won’t be there on the other side of that ring. Adams is just a man, and despite his recent record, he’s a weak man. You know this. You’ve seen into his life deeper than anyone. You see the lies he spouts constantly.”
“You mean the data I got from his computer? Yeah, that guy is all kinds of **** up.”
“Then that’s perfect. You want to bring some sense of normalcy to this world, start there. Why don’t you release those files? Show those text conversations? Some of the **** you told me about, Adams should be locked up in a cell for eternity. I know why you don’t want to talk about them. That’s dark stuff. But if he weren’t your co-worker, your opponent, your prime opposition, you would’ve done what you did with the countless other paedophiles you’ve outed, wouldn’t you? Instead, you get the chance to destroy a man not where he tries to hide, online, but where he doesn’t shy away from the spotlight. Where the spotlight is his. And what do you do with that spotlight? You smash the **** out of it. You turn the lights off. A blackout. That is what you said you were gonna do. Are you gonna do it, Eddie? Are you actually going to do what you said you were gonna do, for once?”
Blackout looked down at his feet for a moment. Then raised his eyes, staring right into the soulless expression of Stranger’s own mask.
“You’re god damn right I am.”
|