(FADEIN: The First standing in the arcade at the Salem Willows, behind him in the background Muse is battling an old man in Ms. Pac Man. “Peek-A-Boo” by Siouxsie and the Banshees plays in the background.)
FIRST: Cammy, glad to have you with us, I was worried you were running late…
I don ‘t exactly understand why you have such a need to tell me that everyone hates me, that I’m so alone…C’mon man, seriously I’m the friggin’ goth stereotype (Smiles) shouldn’t your negativity be what I seek? Shouldn’t I be smoking cloves and listening to The Cure while throwing a pity party with my stuffed animals about all the mean things you have said about me?
MUSE: Where is Princess Sparkle Pony anyhow?
FIRST: Oh Elle drools on her every night now, she's her favorite thing in the world.
MUSE: Ewww, baby drool (Shudders) Poor Princess Sparkle Pony.
FIRST: I'm sure she'll manage...(Shrugs)...Cammy you always try to make me out to be the ugly duckling…And that’s the point…That’s who I am, the Outcast Hero…I’m the avatar of all the neglected, the alienated, those who feel alone…I stand with them…You tell me I have no friends, that’s what they hear every day, from parents telling them they are failures, classmates telling them they are ugly, boyfriends or girlfriend tearing them down to control them emotionally…They get to turn on that TV or hit the arena, and see me beat the crap out of the people they hate…
And they paint their faces, and they put on the T-Shirt, and they cheer and scream and rally to support me…I get to unleash their anger, their frustration, their rage at the world into my action…They fuel my fire, and I burn ever brighter, till I consume all of EPW…
(The old man steps away from the game and Muse takes her turn.)
OLD MAN: Missed 2 ghosts and a fruit on the first board, I’m just giving you this game.
MUSE: Oh I’ve screwed up plenty of times before…
(Muse gets to eating dots)
FIRST: You’ve been pushing yourself since 2004? Haven’t done a good job of that Cammy, since this your first World Title shot since then….Of course you had your chance to fight for the title right after Wrestleverse Three, but you ducked Stevens, since you were to scared to lose the IC Title…
Of course after HOPE punked you out of that belt and Anthology punked you out of their little club you finally decided to grow a pair and go after the World Title…I’m glad we could finally motivate you to try to make something of your career…
And no I don’t expect you to thank me…
(Muse hops up and down in front of the machine.)
MUSE: Fourteen Six perfect board!
OLD MAN: I’m gonna need to last a bunch of boards to catch up
MUSE: I’m in the zone!
(Muse gets back to eating dots.)
FIRST: And that brings us to Triple X…
So you hate when I do promos like this, and you hate when I do promos that reference pop culture…That Omar stuff really hit a nerve…Maybe my next promo I’ll teach Muse how to play chess…”King Stay The King” and all…I’m not feeling that we’re going to come to a consensus on what kind of a promo I could do that you would approve of Trip. So I’m just going to have to keep doing my thing and you’ll just have to keep disapproving of it all…
And for the record, I wasn’t trying to catch you in a contradiction, for that would be bringing up you saying one thing and then saying another thing…Like “I voted for the war before I voted against it.” Yeah, my state sucks when it runs people for President. No I was just trying to explain why I didn’t honestly buy into your whole theory that EPW really really hates Sean Stevens…You may not agree with my logic, and that’s all fine and dandy, but I’m not trying to convince you, I’m trying to show everyone out there just how absurd your arguments really are.
Look, you need that school boy cradle to be some testament to your unending greatness, proof of your divine right to be EPW World Champion? Do it Trip, tell yourself whatever you need to hear to get yourself through the night. Cause this whole thing isn’t about a roll up…You know that as well as I do, before your little roll-up that one of those ‘flippidy-floppidy’ moves of mine KNOCKED YOUR ASS OUT…That’s what they did. You were at the mercy of a semi-conscience ref…He manages to count the three, you FAIL to defend that belt for the second straight time with it….He counts that three, our lives change forever…
Of course, that would have been the worst fate for both of us…You losing that night, well that sends your career into a tailspin. You get called a fraud, a sham…You get belittled for not being able to hang onto the belt …Everyone doubts Triple X and how good he really is…You don’t become a King…You’re just an oddity in the history of EPW, the only man to hold the belt twice, but he didn’t retain it for a single defense either time.
You were that close (Holds up his thumb and pointer finger an inch apart) to being a laughingstock and it haunts you every day of your life.
(Muse steps away from the controls as the old man takes his turn.)
Me, I win the title there…(Shakes head) I flame out, oh I crash and burn in a fireball…To much, too soon, and too easy…I’m still tag champs with Felix…And let’s be honest, he wasn’t the best guy to be around if you were going to be serious about trying to make it as a wrestler…I win that title, well, I don’t think anyone can beat me, I might be hard to live with now…(Smiles) but that would have made me downright insufferable…
And when I crashed and burned, as I would have, I don’t know if I’d have had the will to pull it together and pick up the pieces…Cause what is there to drive you, to make you want to get back up and do it all over again, when you’ve already climbed the mountain, and it was easy before?
So I thank you Trip, I thank you for rolling me up, I thank Pat Jones for not counting you out and ringing me up on that cradle. Because that’s what made me what I am today…I have walked through the fire time and again, and it’s burn is now merely a tender embrace to me…
At Black Dawn, I will hold the EPW World Title aloft, and I’ll have earned every last bit of it…I’ll have bled and struggled and suffered and I will know the value of that leather and metal…You say I can’t handle carrying it? Well, there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there? (Smiles wickedly.)
(The old man waits for a moment.)
OLD MAN: I never get why they were making out in scene one yet in scene two they are running after each other like this, ya already made your intentions clear, why this song and dance?
MUSE: Maybe it’s the courting rituals of the pac-man people?
OLD MAN: I ain’t wasting my brain thinking about such things….OK we’re back in action
(The old man gets back to playing.)
You say you’re Geppetto and I’m your Pinocciho? Well even if that were true, once he became a boy, Pinocciho didn’t have any strings anymore…And I do think you’re onto something your idea does have some merit…See, I look at it more like, you’re Dr. Frankenstein, and I’m the monster you’ve made…
MUSE: I always hate it when people call the monster Frankenstein, cause it’s not his name…People are illiterate idiots.
FIRST: That’s why I didn’t say it, you keep me honest my lady…
MUSE: Don’t you forget it.
(The game makes the noises that a Mrs. Pac Man has been killed by a ghost, and Muse takes to the controls again.)
FIRST: Aggression 42 was me begin hit by that bolt of lightning and being granted that terrible gift of life…And at Black Dawn, I come back to repay you for that…I come back to take your head off, and take that title…
Now you are a God? (Shrugs) I had always wondered why you had settled for King…It’s a great title, but there are so many higher than that…And why now, do you settle for God? And why merely be my God? Pharaoh now there is a title. Both God…AND King…Ruler of the Empire…In its day, Egypt, today, Empire Pro…(Points to his face paint, which is white with the Eye of Horus in black) The wedjat or Eye of Horus…Horus …Now that’s a mighty God…He was the sky itself, his eyes the sun and moon…Pharaoh was his incarnation on earth…What God are you? Not that iit matters…I know of Gods and Kings and Caesars and tyrants….All of them, and I know that in the end…They all vanish…
Isis, Thor, Jupiter, Loki…Genghis, Alexander, Charlemange, Cleopatra…Little more than fables and tales to tell children…Will you one day be a child’s story?
(Muse lets out a groan and walks away from the machine as the old man takes the controls again.)
MUSE: My name is Ozymandias, king of kings! Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
FIRST: Aggression 50 was no master plan, it was you getting more than you bargained for and bailing out, all this tough talk, all this garbage you’re throwing my way is just YOU trying to convince YOURSELF that things COULD turn out different…It’s just you trying to give yourself a reason to believe that you can beat me…You know I had you at Aggression 42…You fled from
Aggression 50…Nothing changes at Black Dawn Trip…I’m better than you…And I’ll prove it again.
The only question is, are you man enough to go out on your shield, like you claim you will. You say I don’t have to worry about you taking the easy way out this time? Why not? This isn’t like Russian Roulette where Marcus Westscott got you inside a steel cage and FORCED you to man up and fight to win… No we’re gonna kick some ass…Cruise and Hart…I don’t know if either of them really have an idea what’s in store for them. It is going to be brutal and it is going to be devastating…
In the end it’ll be you and me…And you’re going to hit me with everything you have and then maybe a few more things on top of that, you’re going to beat me as brutally as you can, but I won’t stop fighting back, I won’t give up, I won’t be denied, and you’ll know it, just as you knew it last time, that you can’t win…
And then you’ll have to make the choice, you’ll have your title in one hand, and you’ll have your honor in the other hand…And you’ll know you can’t leave that ring with both….Every story has an ending, how will the final chapter of the Reign of Triple X be told…Did he cling to his crumbling empire as it rotted away, brick by brick…Did he have to be pulled off his throne whimpering and crying? Or did he go out like a warrior, did he fight with every last fiber in his being and in the end, while surrendering his crown…Proved himself to be the champion he believed himself to be?
Your fate is in your hands Trip…How you define yourself…Is up to you…
Rex Mortuus Est
(FADEOUT)