Post by Vladimir Strife on Oct 7, 2015 22:21:55 GMT -4
With a click, the camera comes to life.
A serene autumn sky hangs over the world. The day grows weary and the night bleeds into it, the setting sun casting a violet hue beyond the drifting cottony puffs. Back down to Earth, man-made stars dot the landscape, sprouting up from metal posts and towers and the constructs that solidify mankind's position as masters of their domain. Winding reels of steel twist about the apex of another of their constructs - a skeleton of metal poles erected in a series of rectangular segments with a skin of wires twisted about one another in zigs and zags stretched across it's face. The sharp, ripping barbs upon the coil over the structure attest to the fact that the vacant concrete lot beyond it, dotted in oil and grease stains, once contained something of value to the world. Now, however, as EVPW's infamous co-founder sits before it, head laid back against the rhombus gaps in the fencing, the lot is desolate and barren - it's glory days well beyond itself and the memory of most.
The Barbarian Lord sits there in the waning eve, a stoic and somber expression taken over the constant rage in his features. His attire is as expected: a long sleeved raven blue shirt, swat-styled boots, black cargo jeans, and even the usual black padded gloves (despite the lack of a need for them). Vladimir produces a pack of cigarettes - Winston Red 100's - and flips the top open, removing the last in the box before tossing it aside, the silence interrupted by the sound of it scrapping across the sidewalk. He pops the butt of the cancer stick between his lips and leans forward, cupping one hand over the lighter in the other before a click begets a glow of orange from his palm. When it disappears, he leans back against the fence, the glow transferred to the tip of the cigarette hanging from his mouth. He looks at the lighter a moment before casting it aside with the same indifference as the empty crimson box and takes a long drag of smoke down into his lungs before bellowing it out into the lavender sky. He takes his time with a few more drags as someone unseen from the waist up passes by without a word. Once he seems to have gotten his fix of the vice, he leans forward again and finally addresses the camera before him.
"For nine years now, countless men and women have tried to figure it out. I've been asked it a million times it should seem. How or why am I as gifted as I am? What makes Vladimir Strife so nigh unbeatable? How do I manage to win time and time again?..
Why is Vladimir Strife the best?"
The GodKing takes another lengthy drag off of the cigarette before expelling it's pollution. A smirk comes to his face and he again presses himself back against the chain link.
"Because I had to be.."
"You see... I look around the wrestling business and it seems I always saw the same thing.. a bunch of Americans and Canadians and Englishmen. First world fuckers who could never understand it. You all got to be mediocre wrestlers thrust into the greatest wrestling scene on the planet because of your nationalities and first languages.. but me? Some dirt poor boy from Romania? You don't get out of a shithole like that without being the best.."
"The things that get a rise out of you.. nails, tacks, broken glass, pipes, bricks... the shrapnel of the world.. these were the things that littered our streets. Those who would destroy you, attack you, and take everything from you lurked behind every corner.. We were afraid too, yes, but we learned that fear was no excuse for inaction. If you stood still too long for fear of the gangster around the bend, you made yourself a prime target for the mugger coming up behind you."
"You taught your children to believe they were inherently exceptional, that they were special and precious and unique. You taught them that they could be anything they wanted to so long as they believed in themselves. But I saw the world for what it was.. I knew before you were finished playing Candyland that this world belongs only to those fortunate enough to find opportunity and ruthless enough to take it at any costs. The generation before mine rotted in orphanages filled to the brim until they became animal shelters. Children - chained and tied to beds so they couldn't harm themselves, their brains so addled by neglect and desperation that they were nigh vegetative. Toddlers and children who'd lived their entire lives without a warm embrace or caring smile. Parents would leave their offspring in these wards to atrophy and sit in solitude and a living hell until they were old enough to work the fields. They would return to villages hollow and thoughtless like zombies, unable to do anything but the most menial work they were given..."
With another long drag of the cigarette, Vladimir casts it aside and runs his fingers through his hair.
"And so I come out to that ring and I decimate and I destroy and I ravage and you look upon me and my works and you ask... How can a man be so ruthless? So destructive? So remorseless in what I do to my fellow man?"
"It is because I've seen what man does to man... I've witnessed humanity's depravity and I know that it knows no bounds. I know that not a one of you... not American or British or Canadian or white or black or yellow... would hesitate to slit my throat and throw me in a gutter.. would give second thought to ending and slaughtering your own young... You've just never been so desperate before as to see it.."
A toothy smile comes across the Barbarian Lord as he looks into the lens.
"So give me everything you have... Skull, KaHLaN, Jakob... whomever else would have a part in all of this chaos.. and I will show you just how desperate you can become. I will press my boot upon your esophagus.. I will rend flesh from bone... I will pummel and pound and claw and bash and bruise until your limits are gone.. until you're as hungry and desperate as my brethren were. I will rip the American dream from your lungs and show you what the world is like down at the bottom. We've played these games a million times now, it seems, but you've never understood the rules.. Never stopped to realize that once you step into that ring with me, all of your skills and knowledge and strength and speed, oh - they're nice and they'll get your foot in the door... but the name of the game is who is willing to go furthest... so ask yourselves: this little game.. this tournament.. this prize.. would you maim for it? Would you destroy someone to have it? Would you have your name up there if you had to etch it yourself with the flesh, blood and gore of one another? I stand at the top because I've taken it to lows you won't."
Reaching back over his head, Strife slips fingers through the links and clutches them, bowing his spine as he pulls himself up to his feet. He stands tall and looks forward, almost as if staring deep through the screen and into his fellow competitors souls'.
"Come..
There is no glory... or honor... or vision.. left for us anymore..
Only blood."
((Not really much of a point, just felt like doing a work))
A serene autumn sky hangs over the world. The day grows weary and the night bleeds into it, the setting sun casting a violet hue beyond the drifting cottony puffs. Back down to Earth, man-made stars dot the landscape, sprouting up from metal posts and towers and the constructs that solidify mankind's position as masters of their domain. Winding reels of steel twist about the apex of another of their constructs - a skeleton of metal poles erected in a series of rectangular segments with a skin of wires twisted about one another in zigs and zags stretched across it's face. The sharp, ripping barbs upon the coil over the structure attest to the fact that the vacant concrete lot beyond it, dotted in oil and grease stains, once contained something of value to the world. Now, however, as EVPW's infamous co-founder sits before it, head laid back against the rhombus gaps in the fencing, the lot is desolate and barren - it's glory days well beyond itself and the memory of most.
The Barbarian Lord sits there in the waning eve, a stoic and somber expression taken over the constant rage in his features. His attire is as expected: a long sleeved raven blue shirt, swat-styled boots, black cargo jeans, and even the usual black padded gloves (despite the lack of a need for them). Vladimir produces a pack of cigarettes - Winston Red 100's - and flips the top open, removing the last in the box before tossing it aside, the silence interrupted by the sound of it scrapping across the sidewalk. He pops the butt of the cancer stick between his lips and leans forward, cupping one hand over the lighter in the other before a click begets a glow of orange from his palm. When it disappears, he leans back against the fence, the glow transferred to the tip of the cigarette hanging from his mouth. He looks at the lighter a moment before casting it aside with the same indifference as the empty crimson box and takes a long drag of smoke down into his lungs before bellowing it out into the lavender sky. He takes his time with a few more drags as someone unseen from the waist up passes by without a word. Once he seems to have gotten his fix of the vice, he leans forward again and finally addresses the camera before him.
"For nine years now, countless men and women have tried to figure it out. I've been asked it a million times it should seem. How or why am I as gifted as I am? What makes Vladimir Strife so nigh unbeatable? How do I manage to win time and time again?..
Why is Vladimir Strife the best?"
The GodKing takes another lengthy drag off of the cigarette before expelling it's pollution. A smirk comes to his face and he again presses himself back against the chain link.
"Because I had to be.."
"You see... I look around the wrestling business and it seems I always saw the same thing.. a bunch of Americans and Canadians and Englishmen. First world fuckers who could never understand it. You all got to be mediocre wrestlers thrust into the greatest wrestling scene on the planet because of your nationalities and first languages.. but me? Some dirt poor boy from Romania? You don't get out of a shithole like that without being the best.."
"The things that get a rise out of you.. nails, tacks, broken glass, pipes, bricks... the shrapnel of the world.. these were the things that littered our streets. Those who would destroy you, attack you, and take everything from you lurked behind every corner.. We were afraid too, yes, but we learned that fear was no excuse for inaction. If you stood still too long for fear of the gangster around the bend, you made yourself a prime target for the mugger coming up behind you."
"You taught your children to believe they were inherently exceptional, that they were special and precious and unique. You taught them that they could be anything they wanted to so long as they believed in themselves. But I saw the world for what it was.. I knew before you were finished playing Candyland that this world belongs only to those fortunate enough to find opportunity and ruthless enough to take it at any costs. The generation before mine rotted in orphanages filled to the brim until they became animal shelters. Children - chained and tied to beds so they couldn't harm themselves, their brains so addled by neglect and desperation that they were nigh vegetative. Toddlers and children who'd lived their entire lives without a warm embrace or caring smile. Parents would leave their offspring in these wards to atrophy and sit in solitude and a living hell until they were old enough to work the fields. They would return to villages hollow and thoughtless like zombies, unable to do anything but the most menial work they were given..."
With another long drag of the cigarette, Vladimir casts it aside and runs his fingers through his hair.
"And so I come out to that ring and I decimate and I destroy and I ravage and you look upon me and my works and you ask... How can a man be so ruthless? So destructive? So remorseless in what I do to my fellow man?"
"It is because I've seen what man does to man... I've witnessed humanity's depravity and I know that it knows no bounds. I know that not a one of you... not American or British or Canadian or white or black or yellow... would hesitate to slit my throat and throw me in a gutter.. would give second thought to ending and slaughtering your own young... You've just never been so desperate before as to see it.."
A toothy smile comes across the Barbarian Lord as he looks into the lens.
"So give me everything you have... Skull, KaHLaN, Jakob... whomever else would have a part in all of this chaos.. and I will show you just how desperate you can become. I will press my boot upon your esophagus.. I will rend flesh from bone... I will pummel and pound and claw and bash and bruise until your limits are gone.. until you're as hungry and desperate as my brethren were. I will rip the American dream from your lungs and show you what the world is like down at the bottom. We've played these games a million times now, it seems, but you've never understood the rules.. Never stopped to realize that once you step into that ring with me, all of your skills and knowledge and strength and speed, oh - they're nice and they'll get your foot in the door... but the name of the game is who is willing to go furthest... so ask yourselves: this little game.. this tournament.. this prize.. would you maim for it? Would you destroy someone to have it? Would you have your name up there if you had to etch it yourself with the flesh, blood and gore of one another? I stand at the top because I've taken it to lows you won't."
Reaching back over his head, Strife slips fingers through the links and clutches them, bowing his spine as he pulls himself up to his feet. He stands tall and looks forward, almost as if staring deep through the screen and into his fellow competitors souls'.
"Come..
There is no glory... or honor... or vision.. left for us anymore..
Only blood."
((Not really much of a point, just felt like doing a work))
