Time moves slowly, creeping by on catlike feet, like Sandburg's fog. The incessant drip drip drip of water onto a cold stone floor would drive a normal man insane. But were Vannacut and other early psychologists and psychiatrists right about insanity? Would that which drove a sane man mad drive a madman sane? As if throwing the truth up in the face of these men from the past, Ichabod laughs almost inwardly in the darkness. An insane chuckle, in resonates against the pillars that hold up the walls but cannot be seen.
The smell of decay and death and mildew permeate all things within what seems like a corridor, judging by the clausterphobic feel of the place. And the air is cold, stale, and still. Ichabod laughs because this place seem so unreal, so... wrong, and he doesn't even feel like he is really there.
What is it Ichabod, I see nothing funny about this.
How can you see anything at all?
There is no other sound besides the drip and the voices. No rats chirruping, no bats muttering in their high pitched voices, nothing at all. The silence bears down around the two men in conjunction with the darkness, until it feels as if they will suffocate. As if it weren't hard enough to breath already, Ichabod flicks his Zippo and lights a cigarette.
Enjoy it while you can, its your last one.
Like hell it is.
In a few moments, I will be detonating charges at the entrance to this corridor, and it will be closed off from the surface. We will be buried alive, Ichabod, and that means the oxygen supply is limited.
This corridor is friggin huge and the room you keep talking about is massive, there is plenty of oxygen for me to smoke a few.
Not after I'm done with you there won't be. Keep moving.
Ichabod and Steve Parke move along the corridor slowly, the red hotboxed cherry from Ichabod's cigarette the only light.
Not long later, Steve rustles around in the pack that he carries, and a deep rumbling echoes through the underground tunnel. The opening is now closed.
Finally, they two reach the end of the long tunnel, and it opens up into a huge cavern. The cavern looks like it was hacked out of the bedrock under the earth, with indentations that resemble shelves all over it. The walls are inset with prescious stones that sparkle with some unnatural light. A subterranean lake edges the cavern on its far side. It doesn't take long for Ichabod's eyes to adjust to the dim underground eerie light. Steve is already unpacking his bag, and Ichabod watches him as he sets the numerous items on the ground. Ichabod is already stretching, knowing that Steve has something special in store.
Steve picks up as set of foot long needles that looked like the ones used for acupuncture. The needles have little barbs all along the shafts and acute hooks at the ends, and they have been sharpened, polished, and sterilized. Steve brings the needles to Ichabod.
Alright take off your shirt and pants.
Steve, just cuz we are alone in a private place doesn't mean...
Stop f**kin around and strip to your damn boxers, Ichabod. NOW!
Ichabod strips down to his boxers and Steve goes to work on him with the needles. He inserts one above each pectoral muscle, one into the back of the neck, one in the top and bottom of each bicep and tricep, four in the abdominal muscle, two in the lower back, four around each quadrecep, a line of three up the backs of each calf, and finally one in each achilles tendon. Ichabod bleeds a little from each spot, but holds his tongue. It is only pinpoint pain. The barbs hold the needles in place, and the hooks stick out from the ends of the needles, glistening a bright electric blue in the cavern's light. Steve reaches out to his right and pulls on the air... there is a thin but strong length
of twine was hanging there. It is very long and now that Ichabod can see it, he notices that it is leading up to one of the shelves high up on the wall of the cavern. Steve makes a slipknot and loops it on the hook in the back of Ichabod's neck. The smell of copper rubbing on human skin oils is apparant, and Ichabod now knows that the string is pliant metal wire. Steve continues to pull the wires from thin air and hook them onto the needles. Each one leads to a shelf at some random spot on the wall, ranging from ceiling height to floor level. After all of the hooks have wires attatched to them, Steve walks over to the walls and begins to use the shelves to climb. He stops on one of them and there is a clicking sound, and a soft humming overtakes the silence. He does this at each shelf on the other end of a wire, and soon the cavern is alive with mechanical humming. Steve comes over to stand in front of Ichabod and studies his face. Ichabod looks confused, but says nothing for a long time. And only after several minutes does he ask:
Painful?
Not really... only a little.
As the humming slowly fades into Ichy's subconscious, Steve smiles and goes over to get a spear that is against a wall. It looks rusty and dangerous to those who don't like things like Gangrene or Tetnis. He begins to jab at Ichabod, who dodges and blocks, only wincing a little from the pain of the needles. Blood still trickles freely from the injections, but Ichabod hardly notices them now. Steve moves on and uses a kendo stick to test Ichy, then a baseball bat, a steel chair, and other random weapons. Then he begins to attack Ichabod with wrestling moves as Ichy continues to defend. Ichabod smiles as a thin sweat breaks on his brow and the small of his back. The workout is doing him well.
Soon however, the sweat saturates his whole body, and he has no idea why it is so hot in this underground cavern. That is when he feels it. As the sound of the humming slams back into his mind, he realizes what it is. The wires continue to heat up and suddenly the needles themselves are hot and burn his muscles from the inside. The humming comes from machines that sit on the shelves, slowling heating the wires. Steve doesn't slow his attack, now combining maneauvers with weapon blows. Ichabod struggles to keep up. His muscles are wearing down faster than normal now. The wounds of the needles are now cauterized with the intensifying heat.
After around twenty minutes of sparring, Ichabod nearly collapses, but catches himself on his knee, drops to his back and sweeps Steve's feet out from underneath him. The wire system Ichabod is attatched to is only built for standing defense, and Ichabod's attack causes wires to pull taut, and then drag most of the machines from their stone shelves. They fall noisily to the floor all at once and crumple before letting out a small explosion wherever one landed. The heat begins to diminish in the needles after what seems like forever.
Ichabod and Steve sit near the lake, Ichabod bathing his burnt wounds with the cool, crisp water.
Juggernaut.... so this is the challenge that lays ahead of me. This is the name that I will erase from the champions list and stamp mine in place of. Hardcore Champion. I think that by now everyone here, whether they want to admit it or not, understands that I am closer to the true meaning of Hardcore than anything WXW has to offer. I entered this company with all the sound and fury of a future champion, gaining my shot with my debut match. Now I have come full circle and its time to step up and take that strap from the shoulder of Juggernaut.
A challenge, on my life. And am I a man to encounter Juggernaut? Why what is Juggernaut? More than a face to go with a belt, I'd hope. I hear his name a lot around here... like he is some legend. You know what, thats good and all, I'm very happy that the "competition" here has a hero like that to look up to. That makes it very easy for me to come along and spoil their hopes and wishes of emulating greatness. For what greatness can they hope to have when Juggernaut is their example? Surely, he must have done great things before I came, or why would his name be up in lights everytime I see it?
But he hasn't done much since I've come here... Now hold on, some might disagree with me on that one, so I'll rephrase it. He hasn't done much to impress me since I got here. Come on, where is that champion spirit, that flash and flare that all champions exhibit? Are you hiding it Juggernaut? I know you are, because since the day I pinned the first WXW "superstar's" shoulders to the mat, you knew that you were going to have to get in the ring with me eventually, and quite frankly, I think you are scared. Have you so much as mentioned me? If you have, you did it behind closed doors, under your breath, to ears that wouldn't pass it on to me.
Sure, I haven't mentioned you before now either, but hell, I'm not the champion here. You are the one with a strap to defend. I am the intruder, I am the thief in the night. I've snuck up on you and now I'm here, and you aren't ready for what is about to happen.
I won't doubt your skills Jughead, I'm sure you went through hell to get that belt and are willing to give hell to keep it. This will be a good match, but if you don't bring 110% to the show, you won't leave. I don't wrestle people who hide, trying to ignore fate until it is upon them, and then try to whimper their way out of it. No, I just finish those people. I may not finish you at Soul Survivor, but your reign as Hardcore Champion is over.
Ichabod reaches for his cigs, but Steve grabs them and tosses them out across the lake. Ichabod growls under his breath and nearly dives into the lake after them, but thinks better of it. If he can go this week with no smokes, hell he can do anything. It's time to show Steve that a man can do anything if he wants to.
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