...
~ pka: 9/29/02~
Blood soaked hands... not literally, but the feel of the blood remains...grasp a television remote. They flip easily through the channels, the holder looking for something to watch. Finally, the remote is tossed aside, and it sinks beneath a cushion on the couch. There is giving sound as the person on the couch rises, and then the opening of a door can be heard. Keys jangle and the door closes.
Ichabod races down the highway toward a gym in the hills. It is the Third West Coast Steve Parke Training Facility. Ichabod pulls into the parking area of the facility and climbs out of the truck. He grabs his gym bag out of the driver seat and walks up to the gates in front of the entrance. Pressing a combination of numbers and symbols on the keypad, Ichabod causes the high iron gates to slide aside. He steps in as the gate closes after a ten second delay. Ichabod walks into the facility and turns right.
Deep inside the facility we find Ichabod pumping a heavy set of irons inside one of the gym rooms in the facility. He wears no shirt, and stretched across his muscled arms runs scars of many sizes and color. He stares down at the weight of the load in his fist and thinks back over the years of brutal matches he's experienced.
A cage match featuring Lobster, the IPWF Intercontinental Champion. I won.
A five windshields match featuring Velocity, a member of the fourth installment of the ORS. The first man to put his opponent through three of the windshields was the winner. The score was tied up and I was on the brink of winning until Bigg Wafer interfered.
Two hardcore matches with Justin Payne, gold on the line both times. I won both times.
Hell in a Cell against my own brother Reverend and Tim Gorder. World Title Gold was on the line.
Two run of the mill matches, the most deadly match ever conceived, in the first I was in the final three competitors, the second I won.
King Karnage 2001: I beat Mastermind and Toxin in a cage match, I beat Apollyon on the roof of the Skydome, which was littered with unorthodox weapons, I took Ti Konflict to the extreme in a razor wire ladder match.
Gladiator 2002: I beat every competitor in WOW to Brother Brimstone, who's World Title Gold I then won.
King Karnage 2002: I beat Bpac and Judas in order to face Smoke Dawg in an exploding turnbuckles match. That match we went neck and neck, taking it to the first pinfall, which was sustained backstage after a jealous Bpac attacked me with a bat.
Countless hardcore matches, under different names of course, names that entailed a new gimmick thrown into the match to make it seem different. All have I survived, and it all culminated back before Ring Wars when I took the gold you now see sitting on my gym bag, from Justin Payne and Wafer. A war that waged all over the arena, inside and out.
I ask you, PKA, while my mind focuses on adding another brutal match to my record, another victory to my shameless record, what will your mind be focused on? You told me you cared not if I kept Rose, for though you loved her, you knew that no real harm would befall her. You dared me, you dangled the proverbial bait between my eyes, and I bit. Now, will your love for her prove true? Will you focus on the death of your only love and let your mind wander away with grief at the loss of your young beauty?
Or will you prove a man of no heart, and continue on as if you never cared about Rose in the first place? Will you become callous and cold?
Either way, you've fallen right into my trap. Either you will be distracted by Rose's untimely death and I'll take advantage of your mourning, or you will go forth into the match with no heart, and I will easily defeat you. I fight with heart and let no distractions tear me away from my goal.
Ichabod switches the weight to another arm, equally if not more scarred from the battles in his lifetime. He continues to watch the weight rise and fall at the end of his forearm as he continues.
You can try and dance around my words with your own lies and confusions, saying that you in fact do have heart, a heart for winning, a heart for beating a legend as myself so you can gain respect, but it'd all be bullshit. A man who does not possess a heart for something as simple as a woman he had committed himself to, this is a man who possesses no heart. If you knew of my legend, which I assume you do since you go on about it more than I do, then you'd know what I'm capable of, and murder one is easily shrugged off my chest.
You made a mistake challenging me, PKA, and I'll prove that to you on Ruffhouse. Not a mistake because you can't win, no. A mistake because you thought this would win you glory and respect in the eyes of your peers and fans. In reality, you've subjected yourself to being made a fool of by the Evil Redneck himself. Now, instead of just ignoring you, or asking who you are, when people pass you they will just point and laugh. You'll be more widely known now, thats true, because this past week I have toyed with you and made you the laughing stock of WOW. The ruin of your name is not yet complete, however, for I've not yet embarassed you on the physical level. Its coming, PKA, its coming fast, and in less than a day your former glory as the greatest two time European Champion will have fizzled out. Out, out, brief candle, for tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow PKA will forevermore be a joke passed from the lips of not only the greats who nod in condescension on young upstarts who foolishly jump the gun and try to be something they aren't, but also the lips of newer stars who remember the lesson Ichabod and PKA taught them about what it means to blindly leap into the things they are not prepared for.
At least your dream of going down in history because of this match will come true. This is a milestone in wrestling, PKA, an example to all those below the real stars of this federation. I come tomorrow to bury you, for the death of your career will be the punishment of your crime of ambition. Ambitious men are usually dangerous, but the only real danger is to their own careers and lives. Let your defeat serve to remind all those who retrace your footsteps and try to take the ladder two at a time in a race to be somebody. Good things come to those who wait, but haste makes waste, and tomorrow, as you waste my time in the ring, I will waste your career, just like you did, on your one and only meaningful shot.
Ichabod puts down the iron and lays back on the bench. There is twice his body weight arranged on the bar, and he begins to press it with no spotter.
Just be sure to be there, PKA, and try not to get yourself killed for Godsakes. I'd hate to be responsible for the death of another promising talent, if you know what I mean.
The scene goes out on Ichabod continuing the reps on the weight bench. His Brutality title gleams from the top of his gym bag, his possession, rightfully, and in its one true home.
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