02.20.02 ~Although we ignore the little things, we must acknowledge them for entertainment, else how will we spend our bored time?~ Ichabod laces up his boots, tying each lace tighter until he is sure his foot inside is turning purple. He takes off out the door of the Parke Facility to go on a jogging trip. His mind begins to drift as he runs. As much as he hates it, he blots out the pain that he is feeling. The boots he is wearing are designed by Steve. The insoles increase in temperature 10 degrees for every step Ichabod takes. But his mind is racing right now and he can't think about the pain. He suddenly blanks out and falls on the road. When he finally raises his head, he is standing on an overpass. He reaches for his chest as if some great pain is pulling at his heart, the cold and blank grasp of a heart attack matter. Instead, he reaches in his pocket and pulls out a pack of Newports. He packs the box and rips it open in such an earnest one would think he wanted to eat the cancer sticks instead of smoking them. Taking care to first flip his two luckies, D and R, he nearly finds himself flipping the S. But he won't admit it to himself that he was thinking it. The lights up with his custom rebel flag Zippo and puffs, drawing in the nicotine like a full body novicaine, numbing his senses with the menthol hit. The echo of thoughts that caused him to blank out still remain, like the negative type view you see when you look away from a television and gaze upon something pitch black. The haunting images include countless run of the mill matches, world title defenses, extreme gimmick matches, his condo going up in a mushroom cloud, a stream of faces that include Bigg Wafer, Reverend, Lobster, Smoke Dawg, Velocity, Wicked D, Jade Jeckell, Ghost, Selena, Chris Conner, Arctic Fox, Ti Konflict, Zero, even Frost himself. His eyes roll into the back of his head as the images come back to life and take over for a moment. Ichabod screams in agony as every scar on his body seems to come to life and catch fire. He stands rips at his face and shirt, revealing a roadmap of his career marked in grayish-white criss crossing scars. Blood comes to his temples as he continues to scratch. And then all at once, Ichabod stands up and begins to walk in some aimless direction, mostly across the overpass. A short man in a Honda Civic blares his horn as he has to veer to avoid hitting the redneck. The Civic crashes into the cement barrier, setting off a rush of steam from under the hood. Ichabod doesn't even look up. He stands atop the cement barrier on the over pass looking down at the train railings below. The short man gets out of his car and begins screaming at Ichy, adding a few expletives here and there. Ichabod finally turns to the man after he has walked up to Ichy and gets in his face. The man puts a finger in Ichabods chest, and Ichabod just stares at it. Suddenly, without warning, Ichy grabs the mans finger and twists it, bringing forth a crack of bones and sending the man to his knees. Ichabod stalks over to the Civic and rips the hood up. He grabs the man by the hair and presses his face against the rush of steam coming from the radiator, forcing him down onto the hot metal. The short man screams a girlish scream and begins pleading for mercy. Ichabod's eyes are afire with hate and pleasure. He finally releases the man and lets him crumple at his feet. Ichabod retakes his place upon the barrier and continues to stare down. ------------------------------------------------------- Ichabod sits in a chair holding an icepack to his head. Steve stares at him with concern. What happened man? The only thing Ichabod sees when he closes his eyes is a cloud of steam, and it seems as if he is watching it rise off a long distance away, and he is looking through a telescope. I dunno man, I was jogging and I blanked out. The next thing I know some guy is draggin me off the tracks under 23. Hmm. Do you feel up for a promo? Harzy threw his two cents into the match today. Yeah I saw that. I dont' even consider it two cents. Much less than that. He thinks I am now in this little game that he and Archer are playing with one another. Well I got news for him, I don't play games with nobodies like him. I know that's just who he is. He wants to be somebody, he wants to hold gold, he wants to drive fast cars, he wants to date pretty girls. He wants to a part of the machine that is wrestling, a machine in which there are two kinds of people. The parts and the operators. Well Harzy, you are a part of the machine. You are only that, a part, a very small one that the operators like me manipulate to make the machine do what we want. you see, it takes years of training to be an operator. A lot of hands on experience, a lot of trial and error,and even short periods of being a part instead of an operator. It is hard to find equals for the operators. They cannot really be replaced. But you, Chad, you are like a prefab wrestler that some manufacturer sends out to the various federations for the operators to practice on. You are a dime a dozen and you can be replaced. Guys like you come and go, but have no real staying power. You claim that you cannot wait for our match, but that match is the one in which you will be recalled to whereever you came from because you are faulty. Its not going to take much for me to put an end to not only you but Archer as well. You heard that I am crazy, well you don't know the half. As I told Zandor, I'm not insane, crazy people get lobatomies. This shit pumps through my veins. I am the shit I pull, its not some product of a twisted mind. You are both probably going to try to come back with something witty, something threatening, something to make yourselves look hardcore, insane, pain loving psycopaths. But before you waste your time just keep in mind that it matters not to me, because you will have that rude awakening when our match starts. And that little dream you have of using this match to move up the ranks of WOW, you might as well fold that up carefully like a man handling an important document, and tuck it away in some safe place. And when you are broken and remembering Saturday as a distant memory, I invite you to pull it back out and go back over it. But you won't have to wonder where you went wrong, I can tell you, it was believing you were actually going to have a chance against Ichabod. You have been seen, measured, and found wanting, ya fuckin choad. Ichabod turns to Steve. So what kind of training are we going to do next? Steve looks at Ichabod incredulously, the blood from his head starting to congeal around his chin, the look of true anticipation in his eyes. He drops his head and shakes it. Well I guess it is time for the simulation. Whats it going to be this time? The north pole? The Mojave Desert? A subterranean tunnel only big enough to crawl through? Can you do the inside of a volcano? Steve grins at Ichy and stands up leading Ichabod to the simulation chamber.