Behold Your End
(SCENE: Blackness becomes static. As an image begins to materialize, the words PREVIOUSLY RECORDED APRIL 18, 2009 appear as a watermark in the lower right corner of the footage, remaining for the duration.
An agonized scream slices the air, mirthful laughter echoing down the dank corridors of whatever dim and hellish labyrinth holds the tortured crier. Chains rattle against cobbled stone, oblong shadows wavering about torch-lit chambers. The video feed is black-and-white, grainy in the lines of old film stock of 20th century cinema's golden age. This particular style has become the mark of the agents of the diabolical Sect of Black Wisdom in recent times as they've beset both the wrestling business and the seedier elements of the underworld with their unholy designs, delivering their many video messages using this very inventoried stock.
Soft steps resound as a figure descends down winding stairs, torch burning in hand. Clad in drab robes he appears nondescript, but Horace Tully's countenance is stern, wearing a hungry gaze befitting a serial killer preparing to carve his victim into ribbons. For the top lieutenant of the Sect of Black Wisdom, it's a comparison that could be chillingly close to truth.)
Tully: It appears vermin like you needs shocked back into recalling who I am. So I've been instructed to bring you here, to the heart of where it all begins for those who would call the likes of Azathoth and Tsathoggua their liege-lords. In this stronghold beneath the mountains of Vermont, weakness and mortality are purged from initiates, and their grand journey into eternal servitude begins.
(SCENE: Another shriek rends the dungeon as the flame of Tully's torch quivers amidst a drafty breeze. He shows neither pleasure nor revulsion as the Sect's subterranean hell is flooded with the terrified, anguished peals of would-be disciples while the cult's 'cleansers' go about their violent work behind closed doors. Unintelligible syllables, the alien gospel of the Sect's depraved gods, rise to drown out the sorrowful shrieks of those entering the faith's swelling ranks. He begins to stride down the torch-lit hall, others of his ilk stepping to the side and lowering their heads in reverence as he walks past, his passing serenaded by the roar of the instructors as they impart their mad doctrine on the suffering.)
Tully: I have a history lesson for you, Shawn, so open your ears and receive your education like I pray you did before you began your failure of a wrestling career. Now...Wyatt Manor was named for the Wyatt family of the mid 19th century. Reclusive and introverted, they were a clan whom commanded respect for their wealth and fear for their malign, shady dealings. Shortly after the turn of the 20th century, and as the young of the village were being drafted for the first World War, the townspeople of nearby Brayston discovered, to their horror, that their neighbors had long engaged in the practices of cannibalism and witchcraft. Some had long suspected their monstrous kinsfolk but had feared reprisal had they voiced their suspicions, especially had they been wrong. But most, while long concluding the Wyatt family as being vindictive and manipulative, thought them incapable of such atrocities. They doomed their friends, colleagues, and even their own families, because they dismissed the family's capacity to hurt and bring evil to their quaint, picturesque hamlet.
I tell you this because to forget history is to be doomed to repeat it. The people of Brayston ignored the Wyatts', and while considering them disreputable and unworthy of trust, unwittingly allowed them to entrap and kill their own neighbors in the pursuit of ascendancy. A community culled by its own ignorance. It is now we, ordained of the Old Ones, who have come to call Wyatt Manor home, and it's from atop these primal and cursed hills that we wage our war on the deceivers of man and those who may undermine our attempts to enlighten humanity.
The Sect of Black Wisdom has become a name synonymous with power. And after the havoc I wreak in this competition, another lone entity will become synonymous with pain. And that entity will be that of the right-hand of our glorious mastermind Father Shanahan, bringer of TEAM-wide veritable genocide in the form of Horace Tully. I haven't come to game with comically deficient heretics like you, Hart. I'm on safari for the most elite of prey, and to destroy you is only phase one in the plan. Your blood will be the bait I need to lure my quarry into the open, and punch a bullet straight into their impure and downtrodden hearts.
(SCENE: Tully pauses in his walk, grasping the bronze handle of the closest door and opening it to reveal a CIA wet dream: manacles, whips, and an assortment of ornate blades are among the instruments lining the walls and shelves of the infernal chamber where old bloodstains still speak volumes of past 'students' worldly defilement as determined by their new fraternity.)
Tully: I'd hoped to reserve you a chamber, boy, so I could impart the wisdom of the cosmos upon you personally. But I've come to realize you're both far too stupid and defiant to waste my efforts. So I've opted to douse the altar in your remains instead, and use them to entice more alluring prey, and conquer the champions this tournament boasts of hosting this year.
(SCENE: This door he closes, marching down the hall further and rounding a corner, more of his Sect brethren uttering greetings in their hideous secretive language and parting like the Red Sea as their Moses directs his attention down the hall.)
Tully: It was written that my placement in the finals of the past GTT tournament would secure respect for the apostles of the Old Ones, and the mere mention of my name would strike fear in the psyches of my enemies. Mongrels like you fail to get the message, and to spell it in even simpler terms is futile for a cretin like you. I'm not here to conjure up witty catchphrases or impress quirky nicknames on myself; I win, and I crush those that would bear resistance against we who bestow truth upon the world, just as I did in the Primetime Central realm in my mentor's stead and continue to do in ACW. You have offended me, insect. You have offended me by your naivety, your snide attempts at humor, and the simple fact that you've been chosen to defeat me by the rest of your debauched ilk. You've been condemned by a council of two: yourself, and whoever chose the hierarchy of the TEAM competition. Just as the masters I serve, I am a creature of vengeance, and it shall be terrible to behold.
(SCENE: A sob echoes in the room beyond. Slowly pushing open the door with a steady creak, a chained and shirtless form jerks painfully on the floor, flesh of his back shredded and mired with dried blood, his strained pleas for mercy falling on the deaf ears of a devoted madman come to administer his lessons. The other smiles devilishly, shrugging off his robe as his fingers close around the medallion swinging from a chain around his neck.)
Tully: I am Horace Tully. And I am your annihilation. Hiss your prayers, snake, but do so in the light. The dark is my domain, and it's within its embrace that I'll steal you away to an eternity of everlasting death. Pleasant dreams.
(SCENE: The door slams emphatically and the feed abruptly cuts to blackness, silence.)