Post by "The Ripper" Danny B on Apr 21, 2014 9:37:33 GMT -5
“To take the time to understand someone, you need to go inside their heads. I have something that I want to get off my chest, but with a lot to get through.
So let me do what I do best and tell you a story. You will have to stretch your imagination a little to be here with me, but I assume anyone who is paying attention to this will have one. So welcome to this narrative ladies and gentlemen.”
*****************************************************************************
The sun shines down on the hills, green and luscious, spreading as far as the eye can see. This is no recognisable place, no mythical region or normal land. Few creatures roam this land, and one particular form stands out, alone, sitting on what seems to be a rounded out rock. The remnants of a campfire still smoulders. Judging by the low level of the sun in the sky, it was early morning. The figure stands up, looking out over the path, ahead of him, one that winds through the great mountains. This man was of course the protagonist of this little story, Danny B.
On this particular occasion Danny stands alone, none of his usual cohorts seems to be around, he stands alone. Not really a surprise considering this journey is one that he must take alone, for this war is one that is his, and no others.
Danny seems to have finished his lookout, he buries what seems to be his food remains from the night before, before docking his backpack over his shoulders, picking up a large stick and starting his journey. The sun starts to creep into the sky little by little as he goes along his journey, allowing more and more light to carry over the green carpet, illuminating the dew drops on the ground. Ripper looks above him into the sky, as a few colourful birds fly ahead, chirping their beautiful morning song. This causes a smile to plaster itself across his face; the smile is contorted with nervousness, as if something was bothering him, making his mind think.
As it is Ripper, and there was no one around anyway, he decided to think aloud.
“I cannot help but think this could be a wasteful mission, after all, many will believe that I am walking to my death, I even think that myself occasionally, but hell, you never get anywhere without holding your own life in your hands.”
Cryptic speaking of course, was his strong point, but there was a real point behind this journey, he was travelling, to possibly the greatest battle of his life, a war that would rage for an uncertain amount of time, a battle that would leave wounds and creates memories, a little more on that later, after all, sometimes the journey can be more than the prize, am I right?
For all intents and purposes, this path was memory lane, specifically the one before his current journey. Some may call it a history lesson, but Ripper was to look at it with reminiscence. In this journey he was going to travel to his previous wars, and relieve the everlasting memories attached to them. For those wondering, the antagonist will not be making an appearance this time, that story will come at a later date.
Some time had passed since this story began, and Ripper had seemingly reached his first stop. The sign showed a picture:
Danny sighs looking at the sign.
“Well, this was the first great war really. One that I rushed into as a rookie, and well I learned a few lessons here, this would be the first battle in an ongoing war that has yet to be ultimately resolved of course. It still strikes me sometimes that this young and spritely, happy go lucky chic is now the demented and tormented woman that stands by me these days, alongside me as my partner in war.
I came up short in this battle, but barely. I learnt a lot of the lessons that I would need to come to learn in this one, as a rookie I didn’t really have much experience. I had had a few scraps before this one, but due to the inexperience of these people, I had no problem walking through them. But this one, this one really took me to my limit, and although I struggled to come to terms with this first major loss, in retrospect, I learned how cockiness and stupidity can cost you everything, this one gave me my first chance of gold on American soil and I blew it by being too cocky.
I look back now and realize that you cannot go into a match without doing your homework, do not believe that you are always better than anyone else. That was that, and I was able to move on, like I can right now.”
He taps the sign almost empathetically, before turning his back on the site and moving on down the path. The sun had risen fully now, almost at the high point in the sky, indicating the nearing of midday. More animals had reared themselves now, showing themselves to be foraging for food, some eating the grass, others climbing the few and far between trees, some looking for berries on the bushes. The animals ignore Ripper, and he ignores them. He carries on down his path, wiping a few beads of sweat from his forehead as he does. A sigh of relief escapes his mouth as he comes across the next battle site. A minute later he drops the backpack on the floor, removing a canteen of water and taking a deep swig. He looks at the next signpost, showing a similar image to the last.
“This one is an interesting one, both one my favourites and one of my most hated. The story of this one was that I had been absent from battle for a number of months, and upon my return, my general decided to place myself alongside The Blue Scorpion, simply because Scorpion and my mentor had won the tag team gold in a throw together match. Now, I despised Scorpion before this, and now I despise him even further, rat bag bastard, but at the time we had to work together. Now, I will never forget the moment when the RKS drilled Solstice and gave me the victory, and as I held my newly won title up high, I looked down and saw Scorpion stood there with the other. I will never forget wishing I had never won that match, a feeling that I have never had before or since. But there is what it was, I move onto the next war, knowing that I had my greatest victory under my belt, and knowing for the first time, that winning isn’t everything.”
Danny takes one more deep swig from his canteen, and after putting it away, pulls a packet of smokes from the backpack. Yes even in this world he smokes. It’s a thing. With a box of matches used to light the infamous cancer stick, Ripper moves further on. The path had gotten very winding, possibly signifying the rocky road that he had between the last site and the upcoming one, depending on how much you want to look at the metaphor of it all.
Ripper traversed rocks, hills, a few scorpions, yes scorpions, it’s a story, get over it, and the blistering midday heat to get towards his next tale, after passing a puzzling steel grate lying at the side of the road, he came out of the mountains to a huge clearing, these field had monumental proportions, seeming much larger than life. The war that had taken place here was catastrophic and again, Danny leaned on the ever telling signpost.
I had a few minor wars on the way to this one, including continuing wars against my greatest enemy, one Angel, but this is where one my greatest wars came to a head. Everyone was on the line when it came down to myself and Scorpion, pride, glory and gold was on the line in this one. It was street wars, there was nothing to be held back, and I walked into this one with an army of bona fide demons behind me. Do you know what happened? Against all the odds, I lost this war. I went into this one with everyone expecting me to walk out the victor, after all at this point I had been the dominant force in this partnership, even with a decisive loss to Scorpion’s partner in crime, and a stalemate between Angel and her new partner, one Alex Cain.
With everything in my corner, I walked into this match with a lot of ground behind me, and that was the ground I ended up lying on afterwards, I will admit this was the greatest shock of my life, and this really did change me forever.
What did I learn from this one? Simple, even when you are the best in the war, you aren’t always going to be the winner, you will not always walk away the victor in every war. Lesson learnt, you should never think that any match is a given. However, I also learnt how to pick yourself up when your ass is covered in dirt and move forward, see down there in the close distance is the next war, one that I will never forget, nor will any fan that travelled down this path with me.”
Danny picks up and quickly moves towards the next post, this one seemed to excite him, he couldn’t hide this one. He wanted to reach this one. He did only five minutes later, and as he reached it, he stared long and hard at the poster on the signpost. There was no picture this time, it seems as if this one was done in a rush. As if it didn’t matter.
“World Title, Hellbound Hardcore Triple Cage Match
Ataxia © VS Danny B VS Jace Valentine”
“This bittersweet this one, the reason this sign looks rushed is because it was. This was the last battle that was to be undertaken by this great battalion of warriors, at least that is what we thought. This was my greatest war to date, inside one of the greatest structures I have ever seen, and I was placed inside with two of the great warriors of my time, one man that didn’t care about his own life, and one that lived to induce pain. Out of this one I came out the victor, after my greatest war of all time. I nearly killed myself in this one, but at the end of the day Valentine and Ataxia were left lying, and I was stood tall as champion.
The lesson learnt in this one is that whether or not you get beat up on the way, there is never any reason to stop fighting, to stop scraping and to stop giving your everything in the war. This one more than ever has relevance to the reason that I am on this path, the reason I wish to travel this line is to learn where I have gone right and I have gone wrong. I said it before, I am walking to my death, but on this weekend more than any other, lest us forget that reincarnation is possible.”
The path ended with this final post, but that fact seemed to do little to deter Ripper from his journey, he picked up his gear once again and headed across the grassy land towards a large stone monument. A gentle breeze had picked up, brushing the grass against his ankles, there was a golden twinge to the blades, as if this grass was important, like when Ripper walked this path in the past it was important to him. He soon re-joins another path, this on seemingly smoother than the last, as if Ripper had built it just the way he wanted. The sun was starting to dip out of its northern position and was heading back to the horizon when he finally was able to lean on the cold grey stones of the monument. It seemed to have crumbled, as if it stood much taller in the past, of course there was another sign here.
“The Tower: “The Ripper” Danny B vs Ataxia.”
Danny leans forward reading this one, massaging his left knee, he grimaces slightly, whether through physical anguish or mental is unknown, but nonetheless he stands and recites his personal lesson.
“This to me was the war to end all wars, Ataxia continued to crop up in my life, and, evidently upset about his previous loss to me, decided to take it out on me when the battalion returned to war only a few months after disbanding. He tore my left ACL, something that has never fully corrected itself, and took me out of battle for many months. Now, all in all that actually proved beneficial, as I was promoted to Commander in that time, and whilst recuperating was able to place my great wealth of knowledge to use my commanding my troops and leading the expedition, but the time must come when a man has to stand up for the injustices in his life, and in the tower was the place to do it.
That match, as it was previously was a war, there was nothing that would stop this man in his tracks, when the aim was to deliver the opponent from the top of the tower, with no safety net to catch the fall, there was everything on the line, after all, both of us knew that whomsoever lost this one, may never fight again.
Now, for anyone that knows anything about me, they know that when you put me in an environment out of the ordinary, then I am likely to manage to come up with something intuitive, fact number two is that I possess a want to maim people, it happens to be in my nature, So placing me into a structure where I could utilize both of those skills proved hazardous for him. I never learnt much from this battle, other than a skateboard is a useful tall for running people off the edge of the building. But there was one thing that everyone else learned, I was back, and I was more dangerous than ever, something which I have only continued to expand on thus far.”
Danny pats the stone one more time, a tear rolling down his right cheek.
“Shame to see the old girl fall apart like this, but it was never used again after I was done with it.”
The hook and lift strategy employed to hoist the backpack from the ground begins again, for some reason the shot can’t seem to help but pick up the black strap around Ripper’s left knee now. He continues across the grassland, having no path to walk upon again, thanking his lucky stars that the heat of the sun was now over the hills to his right, meaning that it wasn’t bearing down on him.
The next signpost was one that he looked at with reverence upon reaching it. Not for the first time he gave this one an empathetic pat.
“Well, we all know what we learnt from this one, that Danny B cannot do graphics! Still this has got to be my favourite match of all time. Dan Highlander and I had never lost the championship, both of us at two separate points were closed down with the prize in our possession, so, considering I had brought out this entire battalion, I felt it fitting to have this one finally settle the score, little did I know that my own brother, the new commander in chief, would create new gold for one of us to take home.
I have to say I screwed Highlander at every turn, from dropping a second cage to contain him, to hiding weapons, to rigging c4 explosives, I screwed him at every possible turn, and you know what, he kept coming. It took for me to spear his ass into the c4 rig to end that one, and simply because he took most of the blast I was able to crawl through the damn hole it created in the cage. That was the last match Dan ever wrestled, I can imagine being shot one month and then being blown up two months later really bums a guy out, but it was a shame, sometimes I feel like I ended the career of the great Aussie wrestler I have ever known.
But I learnt the most valuable lesson on all from Dan, they aren’t beat until they’re beat. When an opponent is that good, there is nothing to say that they won’t keep fighting, again, on this particular path, I need to remember that.”
Danny sees the sun finally setting over the hills and decides this is as good as place as any to rest up for the night. He drops his stuff and sets about building his fore for the night. Deep in thought about the next path he must take when the sun rises again.
==============================================================================
It isn’t quite so early when Danny gets going the next day, the sun was fully in the sky, by the time he reached the start of the next path, it was quite some distance away from his last, and by the time he stepped foot on gravel, the critters and rodents were out and about, doing their daily survival routine. A small grey rabbit came up to him, and pushed it’s paws into his boots. Danny smirked, and reached into his shorts pockets, pulling out some peanuts that he had left in there, the creature happily took one, holding between its paws as it cracked into the shell. Danny dropped the remainder beside it an carried on, his next two destinations weren’t all that far away.
The first sign post he reached came around midday, and contained an all too familiar face, at least it would have done, if the poster attached hadn’t been scratched off.
“See this is what you get when you don’t archive things properly! Oh well, ought to tell you myself then, this was a different war, a different battalion… Can we drop this whole battle metaphor thing, it’s getting on my tits. Can’t I just refer to them as matches and companies?”
I was never stopping that in the first place, you were dictating the story, and I was just filling in the blanks.
“Well good, I’ll do it my way then. So, after I had left my CWF for good, I stayed out of the business for a while, when I came back it was to lead a rag tag bunch of ex-CWF’ers into this new company, GWR. My first pay per view match pitted me against Alex Cain and Angelica in a tag team match whereas if I pinned the Revolution champion, that being Cain, I would win the belt, however, if my partner did, I wouldn’t. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out that my partner of course was the lovely Amber Ryan, who by that point had started using her real name, and edged out a bit, seriously, look back at her in the start compared to what she is now, the ’incident’ changed her.
Long story short, Amber continued to be a pain in my ass and pinned Cain, thus I was not the revolution champion. My lesson in this one? I don’t always start off well, but in any case, I always catch up, the ring rust was coming off, and it lead not too far down the line to the next sign post.”
And so once again, the gear was on his shoulders and the travelling commenced, the path was rocky and windy, occasionally large rocks would be strewn, one at a time along the road, the first of which was covered in dry blood. Ripper looked at his hands as he passed this one, his hands too, matched the deep crimson colour of the stone as he travelled past. The sight did not make him uncomfortable, but rather angry, and for the first time in a long time, his yes flashed a burning red. His demeanour changed as he reached the next sign post however, this one again was scratched off, but a reminder of the war…
“Please, for the love of all that is fucking holy, it was a match!”
…Fine, a reminder of that match was scattered around it’s post, broken ladders.
“I crossed Amber again this time, in a TLC match for the revolution championship. Since she had pinned Cain before, she was granted her shot, and she took it, becoming champion, we would face off again, this time with four other guys in this one, in a TLC for that belt. We fought, we scratched and we clawed, and in the end, as it was always destined to, it came down to us, and what happened? We grabbed it together, that’s right, we couldn’t outlast one another.
It was about this time that I came to understand that Amber and I would never truly best the other, but I learnt something far more valuable, if you want something, you never let go. It will be yours it you covet it enough, no matter what the odds. This path is leading me to an upcoming match as you may have guessed, and this one was the final step in the puzzle before I joined OCW, you want it, you have to go and get it.
Syen will learn that this week, he will find out that all these lessons have made Danny B the competitor he is today.”
Danny sits down at this last one, looking up at the scratched off wood, his eyes deep in wonder.
****************************************************************************
“I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of this little tale, there is plenty more to come, in this one we learned how I adapted and evolved throughout my career, but I couldn’t have done it without the people in that I encountered along the way, this time it was history, the next is psychology. To beat a competitor such as Syren, I have to understand how the mind works, I have to understand what it takes to beat a man that cannot be beat, I look forward to you joining me again on this little journey.”
So let me do what I do best and tell you a story. You will have to stretch your imagination a little to be here with me, but I assume anyone who is paying attention to this will have one. So welcome to this narrative ladies and gentlemen.”
*****************************************************************************
The sun shines down on the hills, green and luscious, spreading as far as the eye can see. This is no recognisable place, no mythical region or normal land. Few creatures roam this land, and one particular form stands out, alone, sitting on what seems to be a rounded out rock. The remnants of a campfire still smoulders. Judging by the low level of the sun in the sky, it was early morning. The figure stands up, looking out over the path, ahead of him, one that winds through the great mountains. This man was of course the protagonist of this little story, Danny B.
On this particular occasion Danny stands alone, none of his usual cohorts seems to be around, he stands alone. Not really a surprise considering this journey is one that he must take alone, for this war is one that is his, and no others.
Danny seems to have finished his lookout, he buries what seems to be his food remains from the night before, before docking his backpack over his shoulders, picking up a large stick and starting his journey. The sun starts to creep into the sky little by little as he goes along his journey, allowing more and more light to carry over the green carpet, illuminating the dew drops on the ground. Ripper looks above him into the sky, as a few colourful birds fly ahead, chirping their beautiful morning song. This causes a smile to plaster itself across his face; the smile is contorted with nervousness, as if something was bothering him, making his mind think.
As it is Ripper, and there was no one around anyway, he decided to think aloud.
“I cannot help but think this could be a wasteful mission, after all, many will believe that I am walking to my death, I even think that myself occasionally, but hell, you never get anywhere without holding your own life in your hands.”
Cryptic speaking of course, was his strong point, but there was a real point behind this journey, he was travelling, to possibly the greatest battle of his life, a war that would rage for an uncertain amount of time, a battle that would leave wounds and creates memories, a little more on that later, after all, sometimes the journey can be more than the prize, am I right?
For all intents and purposes, this path was memory lane, specifically the one before his current journey. Some may call it a history lesson, but Ripper was to look at it with reminiscence. In this journey he was going to travel to his previous wars, and relieve the everlasting memories attached to them. For those wondering, the antagonist will not be making an appearance this time, that story will come at a later date.
Some time had passed since this story began, and Ripper had seemingly reached his first stop. The sign showed a picture:
Danny sighs looking at the sign.
“Well, this was the first great war really. One that I rushed into as a rookie, and well I learned a few lessons here, this would be the first battle in an ongoing war that has yet to be ultimately resolved of course. It still strikes me sometimes that this young and spritely, happy go lucky chic is now the demented and tormented woman that stands by me these days, alongside me as my partner in war.
I came up short in this battle, but barely. I learnt a lot of the lessons that I would need to come to learn in this one, as a rookie I didn’t really have much experience. I had had a few scraps before this one, but due to the inexperience of these people, I had no problem walking through them. But this one, this one really took me to my limit, and although I struggled to come to terms with this first major loss, in retrospect, I learned how cockiness and stupidity can cost you everything, this one gave me my first chance of gold on American soil and I blew it by being too cocky.
I look back now and realize that you cannot go into a match without doing your homework, do not believe that you are always better than anyone else. That was that, and I was able to move on, like I can right now.”
He taps the sign almost empathetically, before turning his back on the site and moving on down the path. The sun had risen fully now, almost at the high point in the sky, indicating the nearing of midday. More animals had reared themselves now, showing themselves to be foraging for food, some eating the grass, others climbing the few and far between trees, some looking for berries on the bushes. The animals ignore Ripper, and he ignores them. He carries on down his path, wiping a few beads of sweat from his forehead as he does. A sigh of relief escapes his mouth as he comes across the next battle site. A minute later he drops the backpack on the floor, removing a canteen of water and taking a deep swig. He looks at the next signpost, showing a similar image to the last.
“This one is an interesting one, both one my favourites and one of my most hated. The story of this one was that I had been absent from battle for a number of months, and upon my return, my general decided to place myself alongside The Blue Scorpion, simply because Scorpion and my mentor had won the tag team gold in a throw together match. Now, I despised Scorpion before this, and now I despise him even further, rat bag bastard, but at the time we had to work together. Now, I will never forget the moment when the RKS drilled Solstice and gave me the victory, and as I held my newly won title up high, I looked down and saw Scorpion stood there with the other. I will never forget wishing I had never won that match, a feeling that I have never had before or since. But there is what it was, I move onto the next war, knowing that I had my greatest victory under my belt, and knowing for the first time, that winning isn’t everything.”
Danny takes one more deep swig from his canteen, and after putting it away, pulls a packet of smokes from the backpack. Yes even in this world he smokes. It’s a thing. With a box of matches used to light the infamous cancer stick, Ripper moves further on. The path had gotten very winding, possibly signifying the rocky road that he had between the last site and the upcoming one, depending on how much you want to look at the metaphor of it all.
Ripper traversed rocks, hills, a few scorpions, yes scorpions, it’s a story, get over it, and the blistering midday heat to get towards his next tale, after passing a puzzling steel grate lying at the side of the road, he came out of the mountains to a huge clearing, these field had monumental proportions, seeming much larger than life. The war that had taken place here was catastrophic and again, Danny leaned on the ever telling signpost.
I had a few minor wars on the way to this one, including continuing wars against my greatest enemy, one Angel, but this is where one my greatest wars came to a head. Everyone was on the line when it came down to myself and Scorpion, pride, glory and gold was on the line in this one. It was street wars, there was nothing to be held back, and I walked into this one with an army of bona fide demons behind me. Do you know what happened? Against all the odds, I lost this war. I went into this one with everyone expecting me to walk out the victor, after all at this point I had been the dominant force in this partnership, even with a decisive loss to Scorpion’s partner in crime, and a stalemate between Angel and her new partner, one Alex Cain.
With everything in my corner, I walked into this match with a lot of ground behind me, and that was the ground I ended up lying on afterwards, I will admit this was the greatest shock of my life, and this really did change me forever.
What did I learn from this one? Simple, even when you are the best in the war, you aren’t always going to be the winner, you will not always walk away the victor in every war. Lesson learnt, you should never think that any match is a given. However, I also learnt how to pick yourself up when your ass is covered in dirt and move forward, see down there in the close distance is the next war, one that I will never forget, nor will any fan that travelled down this path with me.”
Danny picks up and quickly moves towards the next post, this one seemed to excite him, he couldn’t hide this one. He wanted to reach this one. He did only five minutes later, and as he reached it, he stared long and hard at the poster on the signpost. There was no picture this time, it seems as if this one was done in a rush. As if it didn’t matter.
“World Title, Hellbound Hardcore Triple Cage Match
Ataxia © VS Danny B VS Jace Valentine”
“This bittersweet this one, the reason this sign looks rushed is because it was. This was the last battle that was to be undertaken by this great battalion of warriors, at least that is what we thought. This was my greatest war to date, inside one of the greatest structures I have ever seen, and I was placed inside with two of the great warriors of my time, one man that didn’t care about his own life, and one that lived to induce pain. Out of this one I came out the victor, after my greatest war of all time. I nearly killed myself in this one, but at the end of the day Valentine and Ataxia were left lying, and I was stood tall as champion.
The lesson learnt in this one is that whether or not you get beat up on the way, there is never any reason to stop fighting, to stop scraping and to stop giving your everything in the war. This one more than ever has relevance to the reason that I am on this path, the reason I wish to travel this line is to learn where I have gone right and I have gone wrong. I said it before, I am walking to my death, but on this weekend more than any other, lest us forget that reincarnation is possible.”
The path ended with this final post, but that fact seemed to do little to deter Ripper from his journey, he picked up his gear once again and headed across the grassy land towards a large stone monument. A gentle breeze had picked up, brushing the grass against his ankles, there was a golden twinge to the blades, as if this grass was important, like when Ripper walked this path in the past it was important to him. He soon re-joins another path, this on seemingly smoother than the last, as if Ripper had built it just the way he wanted. The sun was starting to dip out of its northern position and was heading back to the horizon when he finally was able to lean on the cold grey stones of the monument. It seemed to have crumbled, as if it stood much taller in the past, of course there was another sign here.
“The Tower: “The Ripper” Danny B vs Ataxia.”
Danny leans forward reading this one, massaging his left knee, he grimaces slightly, whether through physical anguish or mental is unknown, but nonetheless he stands and recites his personal lesson.
“This to me was the war to end all wars, Ataxia continued to crop up in my life, and, evidently upset about his previous loss to me, decided to take it out on me when the battalion returned to war only a few months after disbanding. He tore my left ACL, something that has never fully corrected itself, and took me out of battle for many months. Now, all in all that actually proved beneficial, as I was promoted to Commander in that time, and whilst recuperating was able to place my great wealth of knowledge to use my commanding my troops and leading the expedition, but the time must come when a man has to stand up for the injustices in his life, and in the tower was the place to do it.
That match, as it was previously was a war, there was nothing that would stop this man in his tracks, when the aim was to deliver the opponent from the top of the tower, with no safety net to catch the fall, there was everything on the line, after all, both of us knew that whomsoever lost this one, may never fight again.
Now, for anyone that knows anything about me, they know that when you put me in an environment out of the ordinary, then I am likely to manage to come up with something intuitive, fact number two is that I possess a want to maim people, it happens to be in my nature, So placing me into a structure where I could utilize both of those skills proved hazardous for him. I never learnt much from this battle, other than a skateboard is a useful tall for running people off the edge of the building. But there was one thing that everyone else learned, I was back, and I was more dangerous than ever, something which I have only continued to expand on thus far.”
Danny pats the stone one more time, a tear rolling down his right cheek.
“Shame to see the old girl fall apart like this, but it was never used again after I was done with it.”
The hook and lift strategy employed to hoist the backpack from the ground begins again, for some reason the shot can’t seem to help but pick up the black strap around Ripper’s left knee now. He continues across the grassland, having no path to walk upon again, thanking his lucky stars that the heat of the sun was now over the hills to his right, meaning that it wasn’t bearing down on him.
The next signpost was one that he looked at with reverence upon reaching it. Not for the first time he gave this one an empathetic pat.
“Well, we all know what we learnt from this one, that Danny B cannot do graphics! Still this has got to be my favourite match of all time. Dan Highlander and I had never lost the championship, both of us at two separate points were closed down with the prize in our possession, so, considering I had brought out this entire battalion, I felt it fitting to have this one finally settle the score, little did I know that my own brother, the new commander in chief, would create new gold for one of us to take home.
I have to say I screwed Highlander at every turn, from dropping a second cage to contain him, to hiding weapons, to rigging c4 explosives, I screwed him at every possible turn, and you know what, he kept coming. It took for me to spear his ass into the c4 rig to end that one, and simply because he took most of the blast I was able to crawl through the damn hole it created in the cage. That was the last match Dan ever wrestled, I can imagine being shot one month and then being blown up two months later really bums a guy out, but it was a shame, sometimes I feel like I ended the career of the great Aussie wrestler I have ever known.
But I learnt the most valuable lesson on all from Dan, they aren’t beat until they’re beat. When an opponent is that good, there is nothing to say that they won’t keep fighting, again, on this particular path, I need to remember that.”
Danny sees the sun finally setting over the hills and decides this is as good as place as any to rest up for the night. He drops his stuff and sets about building his fore for the night. Deep in thought about the next path he must take when the sun rises again.
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It isn’t quite so early when Danny gets going the next day, the sun was fully in the sky, by the time he reached the start of the next path, it was quite some distance away from his last, and by the time he stepped foot on gravel, the critters and rodents were out and about, doing their daily survival routine. A small grey rabbit came up to him, and pushed it’s paws into his boots. Danny smirked, and reached into his shorts pockets, pulling out some peanuts that he had left in there, the creature happily took one, holding between its paws as it cracked into the shell. Danny dropped the remainder beside it an carried on, his next two destinations weren’t all that far away.
The first sign post he reached came around midday, and contained an all too familiar face, at least it would have done, if the poster attached hadn’t been scratched off.
“See this is what you get when you don’t archive things properly! Oh well, ought to tell you myself then, this was a different war, a different battalion… Can we drop this whole battle metaphor thing, it’s getting on my tits. Can’t I just refer to them as matches and companies?”
I was never stopping that in the first place, you were dictating the story, and I was just filling in the blanks.
“Well good, I’ll do it my way then. So, after I had left my CWF for good, I stayed out of the business for a while, when I came back it was to lead a rag tag bunch of ex-CWF’ers into this new company, GWR. My first pay per view match pitted me against Alex Cain and Angelica in a tag team match whereas if I pinned the Revolution champion, that being Cain, I would win the belt, however, if my partner did, I wouldn’t. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out that my partner of course was the lovely Amber Ryan, who by that point had started using her real name, and edged out a bit, seriously, look back at her in the start compared to what she is now, the ’incident’ changed her.
Long story short, Amber continued to be a pain in my ass and pinned Cain, thus I was not the revolution champion. My lesson in this one? I don’t always start off well, but in any case, I always catch up, the ring rust was coming off, and it lead not too far down the line to the next sign post.”
And so once again, the gear was on his shoulders and the travelling commenced, the path was rocky and windy, occasionally large rocks would be strewn, one at a time along the road, the first of which was covered in dry blood. Ripper looked at his hands as he passed this one, his hands too, matched the deep crimson colour of the stone as he travelled past. The sight did not make him uncomfortable, but rather angry, and for the first time in a long time, his yes flashed a burning red. His demeanour changed as he reached the next sign post however, this one again was scratched off, but a reminder of the war…
“Please, for the love of all that is fucking holy, it was a match!”
…Fine, a reminder of that match was scattered around it’s post, broken ladders.
“I crossed Amber again this time, in a TLC match for the revolution championship. Since she had pinned Cain before, she was granted her shot, and she took it, becoming champion, we would face off again, this time with four other guys in this one, in a TLC for that belt. We fought, we scratched and we clawed, and in the end, as it was always destined to, it came down to us, and what happened? We grabbed it together, that’s right, we couldn’t outlast one another.
It was about this time that I came to understand that Amber and I would never truly best the other, but I learnt something far more valuable, if you want something, you never let go. It will be yours it you covet it enough, no matter what the odds. This path is leading me to an upcoming match as you may have guessed, and this one was the final step in the puzzle before I joined OCW, you want it, you have to go and get it.
Syen will learn that this week, he will find out that all these lessons have made Danny B the competitor he is today.”
Danny sits down at this last one, looking up at the scratched off wood, his eyes deep in wonder.
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“I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of this little tale, there is plenty more to come, in this one we learned how I adapted and evolved throughout my career, but I couldn’t have done it without the people in that I encountered along the way, this time it was history, the next is psychology. To beat a competitor such as Syren, I have to understand how the mind works, I have to understand what it takes to beat a man that cannot be beat, I look forward to you joining me again on this little journey.”