Something to Fight For. Something to Die For

[Outcast]

Lightning flashes across the sky, illuminating the rain that batters the window of Ronnie's childhood room, which had been converted into a state-of-the-art medical facility. Must be nice to have that kind of money. I couldn't believe I was here, but many of the things I’ve experienced this year haven't been believable. I never thought I'd see where Ronnie had grown up, but I never thought I'd care this deeply about someone after Nicole.

What was supposed to be some wham-bam-thank you mam, had turned into much more. I won't use the "L-word", because that is something I don't believe myself capable of anymore. But, here I am, sitting at her bedside, holding her hand and willing to transfer all my energy into her if it were possible.

All this while wanting to kill the alternate dimension version of her, Victoria. Then there's her aunt she shared this room with as a child, Tamika. Don't think that b*tch doesn't occupy a spot near the top of my sh*t list. The time for vengeance will come, for some on the list, it will come sooner rather than later. For now, though, I'm here to be with Ronnie, even if it is just holding her hand as she lay in her coma.

I squeeze her hand tightly and close my eyes even tighter. I never got the chance to tell her everything that happened in the portal, and now that I have time, I can only hope she can hear me.

My mind opens, and I allow the locked away memories to rush out like water from an open floodgate. That gate is my mouth, and I spew the story out of it as the memories wash over my mind.

About ten weeks ago, or as you know about ten months portal time. The proverbial straw that broke the Camel's back dropped. It was a rainy day like today, and I was sitting in the passenger seat of the cruiser when the alert came in.

Where secrets lie in the border fires
In the humming wires
Hey man, you know ya never coming back
Past the square, past the bridge
Past the mills, past the stacks
On a gathering storm comes a tall handsome man
In a dusty black coat with a red right hand

Looks like two small blips, probably Dwarfs hitting the wrong vein in a mine. We'll make… SHORT work of them.

I can hear my eyes rolling in my skull at the lame joke of Salvo, the eldest brother of Kroxa, and the only person who loved killing more than him. I take the last drag of my cigarette, no Newport's in the wasteland, just unfiltered, hand-rolled, and expensive as sh*t ones.

I exhale slowly through my nostrils, as I often do when contemplating violence upon another. Not contemplating it for the blips, however, but for Salvo. With a grin highlighted by his green teeth, Salvo hauls a$s to the alert, dashing between traffic in the city, and hitting triple digits speeds in the country, all with no sirens to avoid alerting the blips.

We roll in quietly to the base of the mountain that the alert generated from. We exit the cruiser, and I start to grab the climbing gear from the back when I hear Salvo loading his rifle.

No time for all that safety gear bullsh*t.

Do you want to slip and fall up there? I can see your big a$s falling down that hill like Jack and breaking like Humpty Dumpty.

Salvo gives me a blank stare, he's so ignorant he doesn't even understand children's literature references. Finally, he shakes his head.

I'm not a f**king pussy. Let's get up this f**ken mountain and do some midget tossing.

I shove the equipment back into the truck, wishing I was shoving Salvo's face into a wood chipper. We head up the mountain, our destination is a cave just a little above the middle of the stone tower. It's mostly a hike, but partly a climb. Salvo insists on being in the lead the whole time, and during the climb, I'm glad he is.

As he pulls himself up the wet rock face he slips, losing his grip, and falls backward. As his body hurdles past me I grab the gun that is attached to his body with a strap. I'm able to catch him, but looking back on it now, I wish I had just let him fall.

I had grasped the barrel, and I could feel the cold steel sliding through my hand. I swung him towards the rock face and he grabbed on, catching his grip again. In return I don’t even get a thank you, he just starts climbing around me. He stops when he is beside me and holds out his hand. I look at him with confusion.

“Give me the gun”, is all he says. No, “thanks for saving my life”, no “appreciate the hand”, not even a courteous head nod. What an a$s-hole. I hand him the gun and we finish the climb up the mountain. As we stand a few feet from the cave we can hear voices inside, but there is no light from a fire or a torch. I found that odd, the Dwarf miners were excellent fire starters and always carried a light with them.

Salvo motions for me to man the light, I nod and pull it from my jacket pocket along with my revolver. We move quickly, but quietly towards the entrance of the cave. I hated to admit it, but we were a good team. You could say a well-oiled killing machine, but there was too much friction between us to be well-oiled.

We stepped into the cave, I hit the light and aimed my pistol, but what I saw stopped me.

It…

It wasn’t two Dwarfs, it was…

It was two kids.

A brother and his younger sister. They were huddled together, frightened, and cold. At the sight of us, the brother moved his sister behind him. His resemblance to Victor was uncanny and stopped me dead in my tracks. I had my eyes locked on him, and he had his eyes locked on Salvo. I turned my head and saw the rifle pointed straight at the kids. I quickly stepped into the path of the rifle, placing myself between the barrel and the kids. I shoved the barrel away and Salvo snapped.

WHAT THE F**K ARE YOU DOING!?!

They're just kids Salvo.

NO! There f**king blips. Let's do what we came here to do.

No, f**king way. They must have fallen into a portal by accident. We can take them back to Armada HQ and ship them back home.

That’s not our order.

D@mn it, Salvo, the orders aren’t always right.

If you're questioning the orders, you're questioning the Admiral. Questioning the Admiral… IS TREASON!

F**K OUR ORDERS! F**K THE ADMIRAL! AND F**K THE ARMADA!

Salvo steps forward with his back foot in a hard and fast motion, swinging the butt of the rifle into the side of my head. The blow caught me flush across the head, and it dropped me to my knees, sending the gun and light falling from my hands. The light landed in a way to provide a dimmed view of the cave, and I could see Salvo aiming at the children.

I rolled to my side and delivered a sidekick to the knee of Salvo. I catch him right on the MCL that drops him to his knee, more importantly, it drops the rifle. I quickly get to my feet, and even on his knees, Salvo is at chest level. I charge toward him but his massive hand shoots up and grabs my throat. Pressing against me for leverage he stands up and begins driving me towards the opening of the cave. I try prying at his hands around my throat, but he has a death grip on my neck.

He steadily drives me towards the ledge, I try planting my feet to stop his forward momentum, but he lifts me by the throat and moves forward. I slam both hands down into his elbow joint and it gives, allowing me to move in closer. I jam my thumb into Salvo’s eye, digging the tip into the side of the socket allowing me to get in behind the eye, and then with a quick snap of my wrist I pop his eyeball from his head.

Salvo releases me and grabs at his eye that dangles from his head, held on only by his optic nerve. I don’t even worry about catching my breath, instead, I place a punt right between his uprights, and drop the big b@stard. With Salvo on his knees, I grab him by the ears and deliver a few knee strikes to the face, but the behemoth wouldn’t go out so easily.

Out of nowhere, he comes to his feet and lifts me over his head as he does. I tried grabbing at his face and pulling at his fingers, but he was moving towards the ledge, ready to throw me down into the abyss. Then I hear a sharp sound crack through the chaos. To the untrained ear, you’d think it was a lightning strike, but it’s a sound I’m all too familiar with, the sound of gunfire.

Salvo falls to his knees, and I drop behind him. I look up and see a large exit wound on Salvo’s back. I push myself up to my feet and then shove his body over the ledge with my boot. I watch as his massive body tumbles down the mountain bouncing off of ledges until he disappears in the darkness and I hear him crash below.

I look back over my shoulder and see the boy holding the rifle. I nod my head slowly at him and hold my hands up. His hands begin to shake as he lowers the rifle. I let out a sigh of relief and stand up straight.

It's ok, I'm going to get you two home.

I shift in my chair as my ribs begin to ache. I’m still not fully healed from the vehicular assault. I open my eyes, snapping back to reality. I have to release Ronnie’s hand as I sit upright in the chair and take a few slow, deep breaths. I feel a bit ashamed looking at her laying in that bed in a coma, while I’m simply suffering from cracked ribs.

Darling, this will all be over soon. One by one I’m crossing names off my list. Monday I’m not only crossing Killa Kali off the list, but I’m crossing the OCW championship off the list too. It’s been a long, hard road to get here. Quite frankly, I’ve been getting my a$s handed to me. Falling back into the portal, which ya Ma helped me out with. Being caught in the middle of the PTSD and Paramount war, and now your aunt is out to kill me as well.

I’ve made a lot of enemies and rubbed a lot of people the wrong way over my life. I know everyone is laying their money down on Kali, after all, he took down Biff and has TLS as the referee, but I’ll be laughing all the way to the bank when I lay Kali out and force TLS to crown me champion. I’ve been through too much and been to hell and back, so there is no f**king way I’m leaving Massacre without the OCW championship.

I’ll leave my blood, sweat, tears, and my f**king soul in that ring before I leave without that championship. I fought and clawed my way back to you Ronnie, and back to OCW because she and that championship are the last two things left in the world I care about. Kali tried to kill me with that car, and if he plans on keeping that OCW championship he'll have to finish the job to do so. Kali and TLS might join forces to do so, but they'll find I'm harder to kill than a cockroach.

People that know me, know I am not being dramatic. I’m more than determined, more than driven, and well passed being pissed the f**k off. I am a man possessed, and I am possessed with becoming a three-time OCW champion and sealing my spot in the Hall of Fame. I’ve got nothing left to live for, and nothing left to leave this world other than my legacy. My legacy as the greatest wrestler to ever step foot into an OCW ring, and the greatest to ever hold the OCW championship.

I’m willing to die for that championship and that legacy because I’ve looked the Devil in the eye and seen him smile. I know I’m on borrowed time, and every day could be my last. So, when Kali steps into the ring with me and we lock eyes, he will know who the real killer is. He will know what it is to look the Devil in the eye. He will know who the next OCW champion is…. The Master of Pain, the man with nothing to lose … a man who is a true Outcast.

I take Ronnie’s hand, and I feel her squeeze my thumb. A smile creeps across my face, the first of many victories has just been obtained.