¤ It is better to shut up and let people THINK you are stupid than to open your mouth and PROVE it to them. ¤

Ichabod breathed heavily as he mopped his brow after the four hour training session at the Parke 1 Facility. He was so focused on the match tonight, that he seemed to breath Tikon, like Tikon seemed to breath marijuana halitosis everytime he talked. The thoughts racing through his mind as he closed his eyes and drank in the warm air of the sauna. Thoughts of the hospital Tikon stayed at. Thoughts of the endless attempts to get Tikon to his stash. Thoughts of the words spoken between Yiao and Tikon. Predicted thoughts about the match at hand, even several detailed scenes played over and over in his head, so that he anticipated nearly every move Tikon could make, even a few he would never expect from any other man. Finally the thoughts of Inga and what she said recently. Ichabod's brow wrinkles as he wonders where she came from on her words.

First she had said that Ichabod had waited until the last minute to prepare. He wondered if her laptop had been broken during the week, because he clearly remembered four interviews that had been posted about Ichabod's thoughts and training for that match. Then she had said Ichabod had been playing with his tag team partner all week. Strange since he only spent ten minutes with Bigg Wafer, and only on thursday night. Also strange since Wafer had been hospitalized until Wednesday.

She claimed Tikon would not be unfocused, that his only side effects had been temper and energy. Tikon had already made several dumb decisions, such as escaping from a maximum security hospital twice. He acts on instinct and not brain power when he is not on the hash. This was proof he was not focused as well when he didn't get his fix. As the son of recovering pothead, Brandon, the real man behind the Ichabod wrestler, and also the friend of a man who died, the stepson of a man who was in jail, and the good friend of a dude who was kicked out of his house, remembered what effect this drug had had on all of these people. Either Inga didn't know her drugs, or Tikon wasn't human. That would put him right up there, or down there rather, with TOXIN and Arctic Fox in the fantasy wrestler zone.

She also wondered if Ichabod were respecting her potheaded boss. As if Ichabod would make the mistake of underestimating a man like Tikon. The minute you don't respect a man like that, is the minute you die.

That was another thing. Brandon had survived beatings from his pothead father for the first 19 years of his life, and wondered how it would feel to sink his scarred fists into the flesh of yet another pothead, making him pay for the pain he caused, the pain he planned to cause, and the pain Ichabod always felt. Ichabod laughs, as if Tikon could kill him. He had been in two run of the mill matches, the most brutal in existance, and had survived with minor injuries. He resolved now that Tikon couldn't, and never would kill him. Inga was very wrong about that.

But he still realized that Tikon was one of this worlds deadliest muthaf'ckers. But Tikon and Inga seemed to forget that Ichabod didn't feel pain. That he actually fed off of it, rather. Ichabod didn't feel like he would just push Tikon over the way he pushed Apollyon over the edge at Karnage. He knew the match would be brutal, bloody, and very deadly. But Tikon, like Justin Payne, was getting too damn cocky for his own good. He was failing to respect the other wrestlers here, but still demanded respect from them. That is just not how it worked. Ichabod knew he could beat Tikon for at least one title, if not two.

With all of those mistakes in Inga's thought process, Ichabod wondered why Tikon kept her around when she did such a sh'tty job or her duties. He should just fire her ass. Perhaps Tikon knew of other "qualities" she possessed. Ichabod realizes it is true that putting glasses on a pretty face doesn't make the girl any smarter than she really is. It only makes her look that way.

Ichabod takes out his cell phone and makes a telephone call.