Richard Blonoff
Make America Rassle Again
Deadline is Monday, Novembers 14th, 11:59PM CST. Extensions available upon request.
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Meltdown 135: Blackjack Theron vs. Xander LeBelle
- Thread starter Richard Blonoff
- Start date
- Status
Deadline is Monday, Novembers 14th, 11:59PM CST. Extensions available upon request.
The Legend Of Theron
Phantom Reappearance
Phantom Reappearance
9 days after Lethal Lottery 2016....
Scene opens up to a view of an exquisite benefit dinner event in a fancy ballroom. Everyone is dressed in formal attire. Many of the guests are seen mingling as they go between food tables and drink tables. A few are dancing on the dance floor as a symphony plays in the background. A familiar figure with blonde spiky hair is seen leaning up against a pillar by the back of the room. The figure is that of Blackjack Theron who can be seen fully when the angle zooms out. He is holding a wineglass but it has ice water in it because Theron does not like wine. Theron never was into that kind of stuff. He takes a sip from the ice water in his wineglass. His thoughts are heard.
Theron: (Voice-over) This is no time to be at any type of dinner party. Not after what happened at the Risky Raffle. I should have won that Four Elements match for the Global Championship. I didn't even want to come to this thing, and I couldn't care less. I wasn't listening when Kirilah Heart was talking about the specific business company that is being honored here tonight. I was too busy being disappointed in her for putting herself in danger at the Risky Raffle match.
He takes another sip of his ice water and sighs as he continues internally processing.
Theron: (Voice-over) Tidarthian will not be so lucky next time. I have never been as furious with another gladiator as I was with him that night. NO ONE treats my Kirilah that way.
In anger he verbally has an outburst out loud.
Theron: NO ONE!
The other guests all look in Theron's direction for a moment, and then are back to mingling again a few seconds later. Tiffany Wyatt, Theron's girlfriend, walks over to him wearing a blue dress. She has her long dark blonde hair in a ponytail.
Tiffany: Hey there. Are you alright?
Theron: Kinda bored, actually. Why are we here again?
Tiffany: To get a sense of what life must be like for high class diplomats like, umm, Excalibur Labarbra. He must go to benefit events like this all the time. And he is your next opponent.
Theron: Gotcha.
He takes another sip from the water.
Tiffany: Don't drink it through your eye.
She laughs at her own joke and Theron raises an eyebrow in confusion.
Theron: Huh?
Tiffany: You know, like in that SeeD party in Final Fantasy 8. Squall is off by himself like you are here, then he takes a drink but it looks like he drinks it through his eye. It was a joke.
Theron: Oh, right. I can observe from the back to get an idea of what Excalibur's sphere of influence in society is like, and then I'll watch some footage of Excalibur's matches when we get back to the Inn. For now, I'm just gonna hang out over here. I don't feel like talking to a bunch of rich people who only care about their rupees.
Tiffany is visibly frustrated by this and crosse her arms.
Tiffany: What is your problem? You have been in a really grouchy mood all week. Talk to me.
Theron: The Risky Raffle. What were you thinking, Kirilah? You could have gotten yourself severely injured out there.
Tiffany: I was trying to help you, just like I promised I would when we were planning for your match at Lich T's house. I already help you by managing the business negotiating side of things for you now that I work for Talent Relations, I thought I could help you win a match while competing right next to you too.
Theron places his wineglass down on a tray on a table to his right and then looks at Tiffany again.
Theron: It was a foolish decision. You didn't even ask me, you just went out and jumped into the match. What if I hadn't been there? You were out there with monsters like Kaiser and Tidarthian. What if Tiberius Cutlass had drawn the 14th Initiative instead of me, and if Quezacotl had drawn the 15th Initiative? Not even Din, Farore, and Nayru themselves could have saved you if you were alone in the ring with Cutlass and Quezacotl.
Tiffany: It's not like I haven't worked a match before. You know. That one match on that other show, 3 years back.
Theron: That doesn't count. Seriously though, promise me you'll never do get into the ring during a match again.
Disappointed, she looks down to the ground before making eye contact with Theron once more. Then she responds.
Tiffany: I promise. Can I at least get a dance with you? It is not every night that we are in a ballroom with a symphony.
Theron: Maybe later. The next time you hear from The King Of Burnup, tell him I want Tidarthian one on one at Empire Rally 8. I'm going outside for some fresh air.
He walks over to a door that leads to an outdoor balcony. Tiffany sends a text message on her iPhone and then walks back toward the refreshment tables to mingle. Angle zooms in on Theron as he exits to the balcony. The scene fades out to black for a moment.
====
Forty-five minutes later....
====
Scene fades back into Theron on the balcony looking out into the stars. A shooting star is seen and he closes his eyes as he voices a wish.
Theron: I wish for.... a match with Tidarthian for the Global Championship at Empire Rally 8....
With his eyes still closed, Theron keeps speaking as he visualizes his wish.
Theron: A chance to make history once again Empire Rally. Last year I main evented the event. This year, I want to defeat a Hall Of Famer. One more shot at the Global Championship.... It would be a dream match for my fans, I get back the first title I ever held, and I get revenge on Tidarthian, all at the same time. It would be perfect.
A voice is heard from behind Theron.
????: (Off-screen) Perfect? Are you sure it won't turn out like last year, dearie?
He opens his eyes, turns around, and sees a familiar face....One he never thought he would see again. It is none other than Mr Platinum, the mysterious shadow wizard who tormented Theron a year ago shortly before Kingdom Come 7. Platinum is known for his charisma and for striking infamous deals that somehow benefit him.
Platinum: Hee hee hee.... Remember me? Surely you do. It has only been.... What now.... One year exactly, since our previous encounter?
The Natural 21 is speechless.
Platinum: Surprised to see me here? Oh, come now. I have been waiting for just the right time to come back into your life. I've been watching from a distance. You've had quite the downtrodden role in the past year, haven't you, Hero?
The shadow wizard walks circles around Theron and cackles to himself.
Platinum: Hee hee hee!
Theron: What is it you want this time, Platinum?
Platinum: Why, I have come to help you win of course. I have in my possession an artifact that will allow you to get the victory you seek.... BUT.... As you know, everything comes at a price. I'll need YOU to do something.... For ME. Hee hee!
The shadow wizard is still walking circles around Theron, who has now turned his back to the door that leads back inside.
Theron: What's the catch?
After walking one more circle around Theron, Platinum stops in front of Theron, who is still facing away from the door.
Platinum: Win against Excalibur Labarbra at Burnup 134. Then I shall come find you and share the conditions of the deal that you and I will make.... but for now, you might want to go find your princess. Wouldn't want her to get hurt like she did at the Risky Raffle, now would you?
Theron: You leave Kirilah OUT of this!
Tiffany's voice is heard from behind Theron.
Tiffany: (Off-screen) Theron, who you are talking to?
Theron turns around to face her. The angle follows him. Theron's back is seen, as is Tiffany over by the door.
Tiffany: I went to come tell you that I sent your request to, umm, The King Of Burnup. Then I heard you saying my name as I approached the door. You clearly were addressing somebody else, but there's nobody here.
Theron: What?
He looks in each direction. Platinum is gone.
Theron: He was just here a moment ago.
Tiffany: Who?
Theron: Never mind. Let's have that dance you wanted earlier. I may need you to lead though, I have never ballroom danced before.
She smiles.
Tiffany: I am glad you are reconsidering. I'll show you how.
He takes her hand and they walk back inside toward the ballroom dance floor. Theron's thoughts are heard once more as they go inside.
Theron: (Voice-over) Now my need to win against Excalibur is twofold. I needed to prove regardless that I am a better gladiator, but now I have a second reason in this win being Platinum's pre-requisite for his bargain. Then on to Tidarthian, who I also will defeat, with or without Mr Platinum's help.
Fade to black.
History repeated itself at Lethal Lottery 2016, in spite of everything. It was not as terrible as a loss as it could have been, perhaps, but after three years, it showed to many, many others that there was no sign of improvement for Xander LeBelle. It was the greatest disgrace he had had since that very day. He was as he always had been. He stayed silent a few days afterwards, sending a few messages to officials and friends through text messages, but overall, the bittersweet experience stayed too fresh in his head for the socialite to be as outgoing as he usually was.
There was one place Xander knew he had to visit alone - A pub he had spent the evening in the night after Lethal Lottery 2013, where he made the conscious decision to leave WZCW for the first time. Perhaps it was time to consider a second. He had already heard that plans for a bout between him and Blackjack Theron was in the works, but did he really want to suffer the same humiliation, and degradation of his talents? As he sat and drank his far less than classy scotch on the rocks, he noticed the bartender had a deck of cards just laying on the table next to a plastic cup with dice inside of it. Clearly it was for the use of some drinking game the bartenders played with the customers, but provided that it was the same as any standard deck of cards, then what he was about to do should work.
With nothing more than a flick of his wrist, Xander LeBelle snatched two cards from the top of the deck. In his hand were a king and an ace. As you would expect from The World's Greatest Mind, he knew exactly what cards he could pull out that would have made a perfect twenty-one.
In other words, a Blackjack.
"Even I, a man who knows everything there is to know, doesn't know you." the classiest man in the establishment said, with a laugh. "Or maybe it's that I know you too well. Am I also going to deny that I've once lived my life in a fantasy world, under a heroic facade?"
Xander finished off his glass. He pushed it aside, and stuck all of his attention on "Blackjack", his opponent.
"For over a year, I tried to understand it, and for twice as long I tried to escape it. When I see you, I don't see a former World Champion, or even a human standing across from me. What I see is that red mask staring me back and mocking me as though I cannot escape from it." Xander groaned. "Teaming with you was unbearable, and of every single person who was in that match I think it's fair to say that I hate you the absolute most. I don't like the sight of you. You're the tell-tale heart for what I've hidden under the floorboards, a loud thumping that grows louder and louder every single time that I have to be within your general vicinity."
Xander looked over towards the bartender, who had looked confused about the situation. Xander shooed him away. It didn't matter what someone like him would think of him right now. He probably saw him many years earlier with a red mask on, and that was far more embarassing.
"...The easiest way I could rid myself of you would be if I were to leave once more. I won't deny that it's been on my head, to sort out my personal demons before once again trying for it again." he lamented. "Maybe if I wasn't the one in that title match, or if I had gotten injured so it was just you three, maybe things could have gone much differently. Had I not curb stomped Titus, maybe you would have been Champion at Lethal Lottery. Hell, perhaps you could have lost the match, but won the Lethal Lottery. But we could talk about possibilities until the cows come home. If you were to subscribe to the string world theory, there's a world where I had won the EurAsian Championship, and Lethal Lottery, that's the world I would have liked to have happened, but we have to live in a world where Titus Avision retained, and Justin Cooper won a shot in the Main Event of Kingdom Come. And you know what?"
Xander tucked away the winning pair inbetween his fingers and gave a small clap.
"Congratulations to them. Say what you will, they did it. I did not. I couldn't even outlast that miserable excuse of a part-time wrestler who sent me packing all those years ago in the first place, unfortunately.
So, is this the end?"
LeBelle shook his head, with a grin.
"No."
With a proud, snobbish expression on his face, he looked down on his opponent, as he laid him on the table.
"No, it is not. Because in spite of everything, in spite of what personal perils that I have had to endure as someone of higher status than this promotion has ever deserved has faced...I shall not go. Because there's one single remaining piece of me that I am sure that even you will approve of, and that is that I do not rest until I have won. Because that's what a true hero does, Theron, or Blackjack, or whatever name you want to call yourself. And you have not earned the right to be a hero. As a diplomat I am in my country's eyes ten million times the hero than you ever have been, or you ever will be, and soon it will be the world's eyes as well. You don't know that yet, but I do. I know everything, just like how I know that I earned a victory you stole away when you covered me instead of taking the pin off of Titus." Xander tapped his finger at the cards. "You never pinned me, you know. Not officially. And it's a shame. I know I would have stopped Titus Avison from getting the winning pin due to my Rose's Thorn, but you let him get the pinfall, and worst of all, the fact you did made me out to be a laughingstock for doing a curb stomp that landed him on Tony Mancini. And that is what I hate the most about that EurAsian Championship match at Lethal Lottery. Not losing, but being made a fool out of."
Xander spit on the cards.
"You are not better than I am. I know, because I am the better version of what you are. I have been here before you have, I can and I will accomplish more than you ever will, and you are responsible your own mistake. And if you wish for me to accept that there's a world you are in the spot I would be, Hell would have to have frozen over a thousand times before I would ever let that be a reality."
Xander adjusted his sunglasses, to stop them from falling off out of fury.
"And perhaps I will lose this one, and perhaps this is the start of a brand new era of failure after failure on my part like winning the tag team titles were to me all those years ago. Perhaps I shall be the biggest failure in all of WZCW, but I know what I am, and what I can be. And that is why if you were to stab me in the back and sever my limbs, I would still be here if I thought I could achieve that greatness I rightfully and knowingly and truthfully deserve."
Xander took a deep breath.
"The smartest man in the world knows when he has been beaten. That's why I can say without a shadow of a doubt, as the smartest man himself, I have not been beaten. You can't beat me. Titus couldn't beat me. Not even Saxton himself could slay the monster that I am. I will keep moving forward through the depths of hell with a smile on my face, and follow through until I'm here on top. One year, two years, fifteen years, fifty years. However many years that it might ever take. I am not the man I was three years ago. He is an absolute joke to me. And I would rather die than follow in his footsteps once more."
No tip, Xander left his glass of melting ice cubes and the cards on the table, and left. With it, he left every doubt he had for his future in WZCW. Theron would be the first one to find out that The Class Act was going nowhere.
There was one place Xander knew he had to visit alone - A pub he had spent the evening in the night after Lethal Lottery 2013, where he made the conscious decision to leave WZCW for the first time. Perhaps it was time to consider a second. He had already heard that plans for a bout between him and Blackjack Theron was in the works, but did he really want to suffer the same humiliation, and degradation of his talents? As he sat and drank his far less than classy scotch on the rocks, he noticed the bartender had a deck of cards just laying on the table next to a plastic cup with dice inside of it. Clearly it was for the use of some drinking game the bartenders played with the customers, but provided that it was the same as any standard deck of cards, then what he was about to do should work.
With nothing more than a flick of his wrist, Xander LeBelle snatched two cards from the top of the deck. In his hand were a king and an ace. As you would expect from The World's Greatest Mind, he knew exactly what cards he could pull out that would have made a perfect twenty-one.
In other words, a Blackjack.
"Even I, a man who knows everything there is to know, doesn't know you." the classiest man in the establishment said, with a laugh. "Or maybe it's that I know you too well. Am I also going to deny that I've once lived my life in a fantasy world, under a heroic facade?"
Xander finished off his glass. He pushed it aside, and stuck all of his attention on "Blackjack", his opponent.
"For over a year, I tried to understand it, and for twice as long I tried to escape it. When I see you, I don't see a former World Champion, or even a human standing across from me. What I see is that red mask staring me back and mocking me as though I cannot escape from it." Xander groaned. "Teaming with you was unbearable, and of every single person who was in that match I think it's fair to say that I hate you the absolute most. I don't like the sight of you. You're the tell-tale heart for what I've hidden under the floorboards, a loud thumping that grows louder and louder every single time that I have to be within your general vicinity."
Xander looked over towards the bartender, who had looked confused about the situation. Xander shooed him away. It didn't matter what someone like him would think of him right now. He probably saw him many years earlier with a red mask on, and that was far more embarassing.
"...The easiest way I could rid myself of you would be if I were to leave once more. I won't deny that it's been on my head, to sort out my personal demons before once again trying for it again." he lamented. "Maybe if I wasn't the one in that title match, or if I had gotten injured so it was just you three, maybe things could have gone much differently. Had I not curb stomped Titus, maybe you would have been Champion at Lethal Lottery. Hell, perhaps you could have lost the match, but won the Lethal Lottery. But we could talk about possibilities until the cows come home. If you were to subscribe to the string world theory, there's a world where I had won the EurAsian Championship, and Lethal Lottery, that's the world I would have liked to have happened, but we have to live in a world where Titus Avision retained, and Justin Cooper won a shot in the Main Event of Kingdom Come. And you know what?"
Xander tucked away the winning pair inbetween his fingers and gave a small clap.
"Congratulations to them. Say what you will, they did it. I did not. I couldn't even outlast that miserable excuse of a part-time wrestler who sent me packing all those years ago in the first place, unfortunately.
So, is this the end?"
LeBelle shook his head, with a grin.
"No."
With a proud, snobbish expression on his face, he looked down on his opponent, as he laid him on the table.
"No, it is not. Because in spite of everything, in spite of what personal perils that I have had to endure as someone of higher status than this promotion has ever deserved has faced...I shall not go. Because there's one single remaining piece of me that I am sure that even you will approve of, and that is that I do not rest until I have won. Because that's what a true hero does, Theron, or Blackjack, or whatever name you want to call yourself. And you have not earned the right to be a hero. As a diplomat I am in my country's eyes ten million times the hero than you ever have been, or you ever will be, and soon it will be the world's eyes as well. You don't know that yet, but I do. I know everything, just like how I know that I earned a victory you stole away when you covered me instead of taking the pin off of Titus." Xander tapped his finger at the cards. "You never pinned me, you know. Not officially. And it's a shame. I know I would have stopped Titus Avison from getting the winning pin due to my Rose's Thorn, but you let him get the pinfall, and worst of all, the fact you did made me out to be a laughingstock for doing a curb stomp that landed him on Tony Mancini. And that is what I hate the most about that EurAsian Championship match at Lethal Lottery. Not losing, but being made a fool out of."
Xander spit on the cards.
"You are not better than I am. I know, because I am the better version of what you are. I have been here before you have, I can and I will accomplish more than you ever will, and you are responsible your own mistake. And if you wish for me to accept that there's a world you are in the spot I would be, Hell would have to have frozen over a thousand times before I would ever let that be a reality."
Xander adjusted his sunglasses, to stop them from falling off out of fury.
"And perhaps I will lose this one, and perhaps this is the start of a brand new era of failure after failure on my part like winning the tag team titles were to me all those years ago. Perhaps I shall be the biggest failure in all of WZCW, but I know what I am, and what I can be. And that is why if you were to stab me in the back and sever my limbs, I would still be here if I thought I could achieve that greatness I rightfully and knowingly and truthfully deserve."
Xander took a deep breath.
"The smartest man in the world knows when he has been beaten. That's why I can say without a shadow of a doubt, as the smartest man himself, I have not been beaten. You can't beat me. Titus couldn't beat me. Not even Saxton himself could slay the monster that I am. I will keep moving forward through the depths of hell with a smile on my face, and follow through until I'm here on top. One year, two years, fifteen years, fifty years. However many years that it might ever take. I am not the man I was three years ago. He is an absolute joke to me. And I would rather die than follow in his footsteps once more."
No tip, Xander left his glass of melting ice cubes and the cards on the table, and left. With it, he left every doubt he had for his future in WZCW. Theron would be the first one to find out that The Class Act was going nowhere.
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