CQ, CQ, CQ...Please Respond...(2/3)
Sept 20, 2021 14:27:46 GMT -5
Marcus Welsh, petervaughn, and 1 more like this
Post by ROUND II | Ross Hanson on Sept 20, 2021 14:27:46 GMT -5
A crackling voice through the static is the only greeting that this video gives us. More dead air static plays as a dim light bulb flickers to life, flashing a couple times between on and off before staying on.
"CQ….CQ….CQ….please respond, over…"
Ross Hanson sits at a metal desk, getting no answer from his ham radio. He sighs, looking back to survey the rest of his bunker. A rusty AK47 hangs on the wall, along with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire and a bandolier of what appears to be tear gas canisters. Militia flags also cover much of the wall’s surface area with things such as the New California Republic, the Minutemen, the Betsy Ross US flag, a POW-MIA flag, a rainbow flag, a flag with the Triforce, a flag with the Raid: Shadow Legends logo, and many more.
"Still no response."
Sitting on a plain fold out futon; Chelsea Skye deadpans her boyfriend as she and his son, Mini-Human, continue watching their DVD of Phineas & Ferb on the old CRT style television.
"Try sending them a text message, babe."
"Honey, we're in a metal tube ten feet underground. There is no cell phone reception down here."
"Then go outside."
"We are sheltering from nuclear fallout! I can't just walk back out there and risk getting called enhancement talent again by a guy whose dad paid for his whole career!"
"I don't like how Thad talked to you either.”
Ross turns away from the radio to face his girlfriend, popping open a Cherry Ale8 and adding the bottlecap to a desk drawer completely full of them. A rather large spider crawls up onto the corner of the couch, unbeknownst to Chelsea or Mini-Human.
“It’s all good. He’ll either learn to respect me, or he’ll learn to respect me. He has gotten me into so much shit since I came back to OCW, trying to act like he’s some kind of puppet master and he has to control everything around him. And it’s not him who has to pay the price for the shit he pulls, it’s people like me or Ian. He was really going to sacrifice Ian to Supreme Machine...and not only that, Crash is probably going to want revenge and it’s going to be me he goes after.”
“You acted on Thad’s orders. Crash is smart enough to know that.”
“But Thad isn’t the one who put hands on him. I did. And Ian is so far up Thad’s ass that the shit in Thad’s bowels can teleport straight into the fuckin’ toilet. Crash won’t go after them. I did him dirty, I got to pay. It’s that simple.”
“Ross, I wish you’d quit being so hard on yourself.”
Ross gets up from the desk, turning the radio off. He also does not notice the spider getting ever so closer to Mini-Human.
“You’re right. It’s gonna be okay. How about I go see if we have any Fruit Roll-Ups and bacon jerky left?”
“RADROACH!”
Mini-Human jumps up from the couch into Chelsea’s lap, pulling out the Nerf gun revolver and rapidly firing several darts into the spider’s general vicinity.
“Don’t scare me like that, Mini-Human!”
“What the fuck was that about?”
The spider is now scampering back behind the couch, where Mini-Human meets it with a melee attack. He squishes the spider a couple more times for good luck, now standing tall on the couch like a true Wastelander.
“GRENADE!”
Ross and Chelsea just stare at each other in bewilderment.
“How much Fallout did you let him watch you play?”
“Yes.”
Mini-Human reaches over and removes one of the tear gas canisters from its display on the wall.
“FOR ELDER MAXSON!”
“OH GOD DAMN IT I RAISED A BROTHERHOOD OF STEEL BIGOT! WHY COULDN’T YOU GO WITH THE MINUTEMEN LIKE YOUR FATHER?”
“PRESTON GARVEY SUCKS! GET DOWN!”
Ross and Chelsea realize all too late that Mini-Human has just pulled the pin and dropped the tear gas grenade behind the couch.
"FUCK! THOSE WERE REAL?"
Chelsea immediately begins to cough and gag. Ross gets his nose and mouth under the neck of his Ashlynn Cassidy T-shirt to try and stave off the gas. Mini-Human is still wearing the gas mask (and trench coat) from last week, and is totally unaffected.
"I KNEW MY DUDE'S MILITARY SURPLUS STORE WAS LEGIT...but...damn…."
Chelsea and Ross pass out, Chelsea on the couch and Ross on the floor. Mini-Human sits back down on the futon, laughing at Dr. Doofenshmirtz and Perry The Platypus fighting on the TV. He reaches down under the couch to pull out a box of Fruit Roll-Ups as the video ends…
"CQ….CQ….CQ….please respond, over…"
Ross Hanson sits at a metal desk, getting no answer from his ham radio. He sighs, looking back to survey the rest of his bunker. A rusty AK47 hangs on the wall, along with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire and a bandolier of what appears to be tear gas canisters. Militia flags also cover much of the wall’s surface area with things such as the New California Republic, the Minutemen, the Betsy Ross US flag, a POW-MIA flag, a rainbow flag, a flag with the Triforce, a flag with the Raid: Shadow Legends logo, and many more.
"Still no response."
Sitting on a plain fold out futon; Chelsea Skye deadpans her boyfriend as she and his son, Mini-Human, continue watching their DVD of Phineas & Ferb on the old CRT style television.
"Try sending them a text message, babe."
"Honey, we're in a metal tube ten feet underground. There is no cell phone reception down here."
"Then go outside."
"We are sheltering from nuclear fallout! I can't just walk back out there and risk getting called enhancement talent again by a guy whose dad paid for his whole career!"
"I don't like how Thad talked to you either.”
Ross turns away from the radio to face his girlfriend, popping open a Cherry Ale8 and adding the bottlecap to a desk drawer completely full of them. A rather large spider crawls up onto the corner of the couch, unbeknownst to Chelsea or Mini-Human.
“It’s all good. He’ll either learn to respect me, or he’ll learn to respect me. He has gotten me into so much shit since I came back to OCW, trying to act like he’s some kind of puppet master and he has to control everything around him. And it’s not him who has to pay the price for the shit he pulls, it’s people like me or Ian. He was really going to sacrifice Ian to Supreme Machine...and not only that, Crash is probably going to want revenge and it’s going to be me he goes after.”
“You acted on Thad’s orders. Crash is smart enough to know that.”
“But Thad isn’t the one who put hands on him. I did. And Ian is so far up Thad’s ass that the shit in Thad’s bowels can teleport straight into the fuckin’ toilet. Crash won’t go after them. I did him dirty, I got to pay. It’s that simple.”
“Ross, I wish you’d quit being so hard on yourself.”
Ross gets up from the desk, turning the radio off. He also does not notice the spider getting ever so closer to Mini-Human.
“You’re right. It’s gonna be okay. How about I go see if we have any Fruit Roll-Ups and bacon jerky left?”
“RADROACH!”
Mini-Human jumps up from the couch into Chelsea’s lap, pulling out the Nerf gun revolver and rapidly firing several darts into the spider’s general vicinity.
“Don’t scare me like that, Mini-Human!”
“What the fuck was that about?”
The spider is now scampering back behind the couch, where Mini-Human meets it with a melee attack. He squishes the spider a couple more times for good luck, now standing tall on the couch like a true Wastelander.
“GRENADE!”
Ross and Chelsea just stare at each other in bewilderment.
“How much Fallout did you let him watch you play?”
“Yes.”
Mini-Human reaches over and removes one of the tear gas canisters from its display on the wall.
“FOR ELDER MAXSON!”
“OH GOD DAMN IT I RAISED A BROTHERHOOD OF STEEL BIGOT! WHY COULDN’T YOU GO WITH THE MINUTEMEN LIKE YOUR FATHER?”
“PRESTON GARVEY SUCKS! GET DOWN!”
Ross and Chelsea realize all too late that Mini-Human has just pulled the pin and dropped the tear gas grenade behind the couch.
"FUCK! THOSE WERE REAL?"
Chelsea immediately begins to cough and gag. Ross gets his nose and mouth under the neck of his Ashlynn Cassidy T-shirt to try and stave off the gas. Mini-Human is still wearing the gas mask (and trench coat) from last week, and is totally unaffected.
"I KNEW MY DUDE'S MILITARY SURPLUS STORE WAS LEGIT...but...damn…."
Chelsea and Ross pass out, Chelsea on the couch and Ross on the floor. Mini-Human sits back down on the futon, laughing at Dr. Doofenshmirtz and Perry The Platypus fighting on the TV. He reaches down under the couch to pull out a box of Fruit Roll-Ups as the video ends…
...but the audio does not.
“CQ...CQ...CQ...is anyone there?”
The scratchy voice of Ross Hanson echoes in the silence, with a lime green sound wave mirroring his words.
“It’s been one week since the bombs fell. I’ve been isolated, hiding out where I thought it was safe. But I figured a few things out while I was down here. It wasn’t XWF who drove me underground. Theo Pryce isn’t my biggest enemy. I am. I am the leading cause of all my current problems. I am the reason I thought I had to hide. In the end, I didn’t drop bombs on anybody but myself.”
“I’m a competitor, first and foremost. I didn’t dedicate my life to this sport to learn how to interact with my coworkers on social media. I’m here to compete. That means I get competitive. That means I demand perfection from myself and anything less is complete failure. I should have tied my boots faster so I could have gone out there and had Ian’s back. I should have been just a hair quicker when we were trying to catch Dolly before she took off with Thad’s plane. I should have done this, or that, I should have been superhuman and able to be in two places at once, I should have been able to fight the whole world and win, I should be able to survive death itself and kick out on one. But because I wasn’t able to do any of that, I saw myself as a failure who didn’t deserve to exist.”
“But after spending some time with the only two people in my life I still care about, I came to realize something.”
“Fuck that.”
“So what if I don’t drop Toast on his head just right? All that matters is that I do drop Toast on his head, and he stays down if I try to pin him. If I don’t hit a lariat on Zybala just right, it’ll be fine. He can duck them all he wants, but he can’t duck them all. I’ve got him playing defense by dodging me, instead of playing offense and having me dodging him. That’s all you need to win a match. So what if Dolly Waters is just the same emotionally-bloated self-absorbed cookie-cutter XWF create-a-wrestler as Theo, Thad, Thunder, Robbie, and every single one of them who copied and pasted each other’s Tweets to me?”
“I don’t have to respect her to put her through the fucking mat.”
For a few seconds, all we see is a single green line stretch across the screen. Somehow, it speaks volumes.
“What? You really thought I wasn’t gonna say anything? I’ll definitely remember every word every one of you said. And before it’s all said and done, you’ll be eating every single one of them. Masters Of Macabre is when I serve the appetizers. Toast will be toast, it’s sad that I had to make the most obvious joke I could make about the guy, but when’s the last time he ever gave us any new material? I’m really hoping he comes up with something like inventing fire or pissing on an open wound to sterilize it, something that really surprises me. My man, you’re gonna need every trick in the book to beat me. It’s not that I don’t like or respect you, I do plenty of both. It’s just that, I’ve got a lot of reasons that I need to win this match and I’m sure they’re more important than yours.”
“And Mike Zybala will go back to Outsiders, bet you the next time someone asks him to show up and take a multi-man match, he’ll delete their number. It’s so funny that Mike, the man who’s been in OCW for longer than OCW has been in OCW, is being so quiet now. When we’ve needed OCW’s homegrown talent the most, they run. In 2019, this place was invaded by High Octane Wrestling. Mike Zybala hid in the bushes the whole time, while one by one everyone in OCW tried and failed to run the invaders out. That’s how big Mike’s balls are. That’s why I’m going to go after him just as hard as I go after Dolly or Toast. I respect the ever living fuck out of you, Mike, and that’s why it hurts me so bad to be upset with you about this. You don’t want to stand up and defend OCW, that’s fine. But you better stand up and defend yourself against me come Masters Of Macabre. If you don’t, it’s gonna be a long night for you buddy.”
“And as for Dolly Waters, she will be going right back to XWF and telling them “guys, we fucked up, we shouldn’t have fucked with Ross Hanson” and if she doesn’t she will as soon as the swelling goes down. I've lost all respect for you. Earn it back in London on October 10th, if you can. Or better yet, take the next couple of weeks to think about whether or not you really want me to care that much about beating you. I’m ready to do everything within the spirit of good sportsmanship that I can physically perform just to do it. Whatever is legal to do to somebody in a wrestling ring, I’ll be looking to do it to you. Toast, I’m gonna take out because he’s unpredictable. Mike, I’m gonna take out because he doesn’t have the heart. You? I’m just gonna take out.”
“Congratulations. I am now fully motivated to do one thing: prove everybody wrong. And as I’ve sat here for days, calling out to old friends and new friends, I have only gotten more and more determined to either earn your respect or die in the middle of the ring trying. As I’ve been met with nothing but silence, and I’ve feared the worst, I came to the conclusion that I can’t hide down here anymore. Ross Hanson can’t hide behind The Golden Age, Skyeson, an XWF-OCW interfed war, or a steel bunker door any longer. But before I kick this door open, and before I head out into the world to rebuild what was destroyed, I am going to try this one more time..”
“Are y’all sure you want a fire lit under Ross Hanson’s ass? The last guy to get me this fired up was Aleksandr Baranov, a GCC heavyweight fighter. I beat him, then I beat three more people in a row to win the GCC Heavyweight Championship. That’s what happens when I’m motivated. But if you don’t want to end up like he did, then I’m giving you one last chance.”
“I’m calling out to anyone who will respond. I’m begging anyone who can hear this to please respond. Betsy, if we’re half the friends you say we are, please respond. Ian, if you’re getting tired of being Thad’s lackey and you really considered us bros, please respond. Cashe, if you’re the one who bought an entire box of cigarillos and left them in my hotel room, please respond. Anyone out there who just wants to talk…this is your last chance. When I show up in London for our match, I won’t be doing any more talking.”
“CQ...CQ...CQ….please respond….over.”
