Post by King Incredible on Apr 25, 2020 19:21:06 GMT -5
“I’m sorry,” Knux apologised, “maybe when this all dies down you can try again.”
Knux was referring to me putting up a “closed for business” sign up on my training school in Key West, Florida. After my failed stints in GCWA, I “retired” from the business and decided to give back by hoping to attract wrestlers to train in the beautiful city near Higgs Beach but of course, a fucking pandemic had to wipe away my entrepreneurial endeavors.
“What if it’s a sign to not have one?” I shrugged, putting the final lock on the doors, wrapped in chains, “I couldn’t fucking do anything in GCWA and now I can’t even run a school.”
I lit a cigarette and took a long drag as a car parked on the road adjacent to my now empty building.
“You’re still going to hold on to this building right?” Knux asked.
“For a little while,” I nodded, “hopefully this whole fucking thing will die down and people will want to train again.”
“Florida did deem OCW essential,” Knux mentioned, as the two of us headed to my SUV, “if OCW stays open after the tournament, maybe you can partner with them?”
“That’s another conversation for another time,” I sighed, looking at the business that had the word ‘INCREDIBLE’ in large font hanging on it, “I hope you’re right.”
I scraped the cigarette on the road, and placed it behind my ear as Knux got into the driver seat and I hopped into the passenger. I cocked the seat back and put on my shades as the usual thunder began to crack in the sky. Knux turned on WAIL 99.5 classic rock as we left the parking lot. We were immediately caught off guard by the parked car’s inner lights turning on and a police siren sound going off. Knux slammed on the breaks as I jolted up and my forehead hit the dashboard, thankfully not with enough force to let the airbag go off.
“Do you want me to book it?” Knux asked, shifting the gear.
“No,” I shook my head, rubbing the back of my neck from possible whiplash, “let’s see what the fuck happens.”
The officer got out of his unmarked vehicle, in his police uniform, and walked over to our SUV that hadn’t made it out of the building’s parking lot. He checked the license plate in the back before coming over. I glanced at the clock, showing ten at night, as Knux brought the window down.
“Yes, officer?” Knux asked, politely.
“License and registration, please,” the officer said nonchalantly.
I popped open the glove compartment and handed the registration to Knux who handed it over along with his license. The officer scanned it over before looking up at me.
“Are you the owner of this vehicle sir?”
“Yes,” I nodded, “is there a problem?”
“No problem sir,” the officer said, returning Knux’s license and the registration, “I needed to locate you. My name is officer Gregory Manson.”
“Okay,” I nodded slowly, unsure why the police would need me, “how can I help you officer Manson?”
“Well,” the officer took off his hat and sighed, “I actually need you to come with me to the morgue and identify a body.”
Knux and I both looked at each other perplexed as we both spoke, “a body?”
“Yes,” the officer nodded, “we believe this is a time sensitive situation so if you could come with me, please.”
Without another word I simply nodded and the officer left for his car. Knux, bewildered, looked at me as I did nothing but shrug, as Knux put the car back in gear and we followed the cop car to the morgue.
***
My eyes rolled into the back of my head as I could feel the meal I ate three hours ago make its way back up. I lunged for a garbage basket and proceeded to hurl my entire stomach up.
“You could’ve warned the fucking guy!” Knux swore at the top of his lungs, coming over to me immediately, “dude are you okay?”
I didn’t answer as I was still puking my guts out. After about a solid minute, Officer Manson brought me over a bottle of water. Knux grabbed it from his hands and gave me the bottle. I swished the water around and spit it out, getting all the gunk out. I put a piece of mint gum in my mouth and cleared my nose before getting back up and punching Officer Manson in the face. The guy running the morgue backed off as Knux pulled me back while another officer who was with us stood between me and Officer Manson.
“You’re fucked, you know that?” I screeched, flipping a table with medical equipment on it, “you know who this is!
I pointed at the body on the table, the body that happened to be of my daughter, Jenna. I punched the wall before coming back over to the table, crying. I went down to my knees and hugged her body, even though her body had begun to decompose in places and the odor was not pleasant. It didn’t matter. She was my daughter, and now both her and her mother… my wife… were gone.
“I’m going to forgive that punch,” Officer Manson said, wiping the blood from his lip, “because this is a highly emotional moment.”
“Fuck you,” I muttered, as Knux tried to pry me from her body.
“She’s gone, Ian,” Knux sniffed, his hands tugging on my arms.
“I’m not fucking stupid!” I screamed, getting up and pushing Knux off me.
“I didn’t say that, man,” Knux said calmly.
“Do you know what the last thing I said to her was?” I barked out between tears, “I told her that once her mother was gone, I didn’t care for her anymore. I tried to convert back to a successful lifestyle and now look where it has ended! She’s fucking DEAD! She wasn’t even twenty, Knux! JENNA IS FUCKING DEAD!”
I collapsed again to my knees, sobbing. Knux looked at Officer Manson.
“How the fuck did her body get here? What happened?”
Without speaking, Officer Manson went over to the desk and opened a tan envelope, grabbing a photo. He handed it to Knux, who examined it. He threw it at my feet before grabbing another trash can, not the one I threw up in, and tossed it across the room. I looked at the note as Officer Manson spoke.
“The note pinned to her body,” he began to say, “says ‘Find Ian Bishop, also known as the Incredible One, and tell him to identify her.’” We were hoping you could now identify who the man is in the photo.
I got up, eerily calm, and handed the photo back to Officer Manson, but not before looking at the face of the man who killed Jenna. He was posing there, smiling, with his rigid face and well kept facial hair. I turned my head to him, my face red in rage.
“His name is Saxon Rowe.”
***
What the hell am I doing here? I’ve been asking myself this question every single day ever since I agreed to this tournament; a resurrected OCW tournament scrambled by Jock Reasoning. Last time anyone saw me was in my three, that's right, three failed attempts at trying to do anything productive in GCWA. Every time I got going, I lost the steam to go further. What did I do? I retired - and I opened a wrestling school - and closed said wrestling all in a span of three months. I picked the absolute worst time to retire and run a business. Like an angel coming out from the heaven’s though I’ve been graced with an opportunity to wrestle again, and I accepted, but why? I was one of the last people to accept the offer, I honestly wanted to wait and see what the field had to offer. There are wrestlers in this tournament I’ve fought, some I haven’t. There are wrestlers I’ve beaten, and some I’ve eaten a pin or two against. Once the majority of the field was shown… only then I signed the dotted line… but why?
My first opponent in Manifest Destiny 2 is PerZag. Once upon a time in a year called 2014 I believed in PerZag. I could’ve been OCW Champion but I was greedy and wanted more; I felt I had eclipsed the OCW title. I got injured and came back to OCW as a general manager and practically hand picked PerZag to the top of the Genesis card. Even injured, in the middle of Jerusalem, I tried to get you the gold around your waist against the likes of Danny B and MJ Bell, two of my greatest rivals, and yet you still tapped to Bell. Fast forward to 2017 though and you got your revenge on her, becoming champion finally while I was busy being the greatest Paradigm champion OCW ever had and running the greatest stable, the Aptitude.
You did get your hands on the prestigious belt and what did you do? Just like MJ Bell and Alice Knight at the time you brought shame and disgust to the belt; I made the Paradigm title far superior to it. The belt was vacated because who remembers, was it injury or was it because you couldn’t defend it? Maybe you lacked to skill? Eventually I went to war with my Aptitude stablemates and became OCW Champion and was the first in a line of champions to bring honor back to the belt. If it wasn’t for me, to come back and defend the OCW Championship back in 2018, which resurrected the longest run in OCW’s recent history, where would it have gone? I propelled it back to greatness.
From then until now, you’ve done nothing except you’re in the beginning of a stint in GCWA. I haven’t been paying attention to anything over there since I left so it doesn’t matter to me if you’re doing good, bad, if you’re a champion or not. What matters to me is why are you in the tournament? I know why I am. I think you’re hoping to right your wrong of never being the OCW Champion you claimed you could be. You destroyed your legacy and with it half cocked attempts at coming back that never came to fruition. Further self burying your OCW career in the graveyard of those who could’ve been great, those who could’ve held the power and have all the worth, but couldn’t.
PerZag, there was once a time I thought you were the next big thing in OCW but you failed me and then you failed OCW. From your ashes I brought OCW back to prominence. You realize if you had stuck it out, that could’ve been you, right? I bet that eats you up inside - that you didn’t do anything at all when you had the chance. I know it eats you inside because the fact I was a great OCW Champion, and could never get it back, eats me up inside. The fact after I sat atop the OCW mountain and was taken off it - I never scratched my way back due to personal issues and blood feuds. I had a lot of shit thrown at me that I never made the OCW championship a priority and that kills me.
So again, I had to ask myself why am I in this tournament? It isn’t about the need for money and it isn’t about who I face - it’s about clawing back to the top of OCW, the thing I should’ve done the moment I lost to Meyhu. I never got the chance to participate in FrostByte but you can bet your ass if I was in it I’d have been a clear favorite, just like I am a clear favorite to win this. Would you have been a favorite PerZag? People see you PerZag and they think you have what it takes because you rose to prominence in OCW so fast that your quick rise still is in the image of everyone. You know who rose faster? You know who was always one step ahead of you? Me. You want to know why you and I have NEVER had a match before, one on one? The reason is because while you tried to become something - I was already there. I had hoped to face you in this tournament but a little later, because part of me wants to see you succeed… but now that I think of it; it’s better this way so you can realize exactly who you’ve always been - a kid who just got LUCKY!
...Lucky enough to finally witness the man who is this damn incredible.
