Post by Caleb Lockwood on Apr 22, 2018 17:54:40 GMT
We open on Caleb Lockwood sitting slumped against the bottom turnbuckle in the Pack's gym, deep in their compound. The Extreme Championship sits across his lap, straps unfastened and splayed to each side. The look in Caleb's eyes is that of a man who has been unable to rest, his expression weary. Still, his voice is as cold and resolute as ever, cutting through the gentle buzz of the overhead lights.
"We are all creatures of sin, aren't we? I sin all the time. I was envious of those who had achieved championship glory. I am wrathful towards those who would poison the well of my family. I felt pride when I stomped the head of God's chosen son into the mat and took his title from him. The God of Extreme, deprived of the Championship of Extreme. A beautiful piece of irony, wrought at my hands."
He chuckles, reaching up slightly and stroking the nameplate of the belt with a thumb. Caleb cracks a fond smile, nodding his head unconsciously as he runs his fingers across the face of the Extreme Championship.
"My first title. At least, my first title of any significance. Sure, you can be the champion of some backroom in the middle of nowhere, California...but this, this means something more. This title means that I'm the most extreme competitor in all of IWF, in all of the world. It's physical proof of what I've known all along, what the world has turned a blind eye to and what I forced them to confront in all its ugly glory. And in recognition of this, James Michael Nash and the front office decided to give me a gift. They let me pick my first challengers."
Caleb cracks his neck with a smile, finally looking up from the title to the camera.
"Each of you are sinful in your own way. That's why I brought you together: as a celebration. I see a little bit of myself in each of you, a sliver of my own sin...and I want to prove that as you are a fraction of my sin, you are a fraction of the fighter that I am. I want to leave each of you in a pool of your own blood for pretending to my title."
He reaches up slightly, hooking his arms around the bottom rope, and takes a deep breath, leaning his head back as he inhales.
"Jason Sandman. You are wrath. Without a question, beyond a shadow of a doubt, you are a man of wrath. You hate everyone around you, you hate yourself, you hate the very company that gives you a chance to express your hatred. You thrash about like a wild animal, untamable and uncontrolled. Your wrath is as much your greatest weakness as your greatest asset. Jason, I've fought my share of rabid dogs in my day. Trust me when I say they always get put down in the end."
Caleb pauses, raising a finger as he resumes speaking.
"But...you are also sloth. You sat back and took your time, waited until the name Jason Sandman was only on the lips of those who remember the obscure and the arcane, and only then, when the memory of your past failures was almost wiped clean, did you come back. You dragged your heels and hoped we would forget. The Pack never forgets, Jason. Your sins are eternal...and you will keep paying for them, eternally. The only thing that's extreme about you anymore are the extreme lengths you will go to in order to pretend you still frighten anyone but yourself. I'll extinguish your legacy, and you'll flame out as you always do. So it goes."
He reaches up again, grabbing the middle ropes and carefully wrapping his fingers around them one by one.
"Steve Awesome. Pride. Lust. These are the story of your career, why should they be any different now? Your pride over your past accomplishments has done great things for keeping your name on the lips of the people, Steve, even when you've done absolutely nothing to prove your relevance today. You went to war with Xavier Cross, and you corrupted an idiot, made him your lackey. Congratulations. If he makes his presence known, if any of your entourage try to help you to another undeserved accolade, I'm going to put their heads so far through the mat that they come out in the middle of the Indian Ocean. But then, you wouldn't care if they got hurt. Your pet project, your so-called friend, they're only there to further the glory of Steve Awesome."
Caleb's lips curl in a snarl as he pulls himself to a kneeling position, title balancing carefully across one of his knees as he stands.
"Your lust for gold has blinded you to the fact that you can't go anymore, Steve. You can't keep up. I beat you, once upon a time when neither of us were the man we are today. The man I was died, alone and afraid in the cold of the streets. The man you were died as well, choked on his own hubris. You're a shell of a man, Steve, reduced to yet another keyboard warrior, taking shots from afar and too afraid to actually do anything. You just see the Extreme Championship as another box to check on a collector's list. Me? This title is everything to me. My first, my greatest, the achievement that has given me validation. If you think you can take it from me, you're stupider than you look...and I didn't think that was possible."
Caleb's hands reach up again, grasping the top rope. The veneer of calm cracks further, his eye involuntarily twitching as he speaks through clenched teeth.
"Ulf. Hednir. You punched me in the back of the head. You pinned me. Congratulations. That's the only reason you're here. I didn't want to deal with you. I wanted to leave you to Dean. But Dean...you've hurt him, you continue to hurt him. And you humiliated me. So I asked for you to be the final man, Ulf, because your sins are the gravest of all. Your envy of the true champions in this company, your incessant, whining need to be noticed by those who have earned the headlines, it sickens me. I do this for nobody's approval, Ulf. I do it because it's what I'm good at. You're a child, pleading for his father's attention, hoping that you'll be one of the cool kids some day. If I have to crush your delusions of triumph out of you, I'll do so with a smile on my face."
Caleb stands, jerking his knee up abruptly. The motion kicks the Extreme Championship into the air, and Caleb carefully dips his shoulder, catching it and pinning it there with the side of his head. A quick shift lets him straighten his head, looking ahead into the camera with a glare that could kill lesser men.
"You're greedy, Ulf. You want more and more and more, even when it's not deserved. You want to be the youngest World Champion ever, you want to be the leader of your own army, you want to be the hero and conqueror. You think your story will live forever. The truth, to quote, is that life is like a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour on the stage and is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. You are that idiot, Ulf, telling a tale that will never be, a tale where you rule over IWF. No. Not while the Pack still roams free. You will not remove us. You will not dethrone me. You're a child, playing at war. I've been at war with the world my entire life."
Caleb cracks a grin, licking his lips.
"I'm hungry, gentlemen. Hungry for your blood, hungry for the violence that this championship promises. I learned a long time ago that when you have a chance to eat like this, you eat your fill, because you never know when you'll eat again. This is my feast, and I will eat well. And when the end comes, and I look down at your battered and broken bodies, raising MY Extreme Championship over my head...you'll know why you paid for your sins. Be seeing you..."
The lights flicker overhead, and when they come back up Caleb is gone, leaving nothing but the Extreme Championship, laying across the top turnbuckle. We hold on the shot of the title for a long moment before fading to black.
We fade in on Caleb in the compound's dining room, alone in the still of the night. He takes a bite of an apple, staring out across the quiet. The faint sound of footsteps echoes from the kitchen, but he pays it no mind, staring at the apple for a few more moments before the sound of a bowl being set down on the table across from him echoes through the room. "This seat taken?"
Caleb looks up, shaking his head and waving Brooklyn on. "No, you're good." He sighs as she sits down, turning the apple over in his hand.
"Something on your mind?" Brooklyn lifts her eyebrows, dipping her spoon into the bowl of cereal and taking a bite of her own. "Usually your midnight snack's more...more." She shrugs, tilting her head. "I dunno."
"I feel like I'm losing the Pack." Caleb sighs, setting the apple down. "I keep drifting away from Dean, I couldn't get the job done against Ulf...I let Warren down. I don't want to disappoint you guys."
"Disappoint us?" Brooklyn snorts. "Yeah, because the Extreme Champion is such a disappointment. Come on, Caleb." She takes another bite of her cereal, speaking through a mouthful of Lucky Charms. "You're better than that."
"I know I am. I just..." he sighs. "When I start slipping, my brain goes back to terrible places. Where I was before Dean and Rowan found me. I can't help it."
"Yeah, I feel you." Brooklyn nods again, pushing her bowl to the side slightly. "That feeling that there's nothing out there for you, that nobody wants you and that you're not good enough to be wanted?"
"Thanks for reading my mind, jackass." Caleb grumps at Brooklyn, earning a laugh from her. He shakes his head, sighing. "I don't know. I need to win this match. You need to win yours. Max should win the Iron Maiden. We need to come out strong here as a Pack, not just as individuals. If nothing else, I promise that if Spike tries to poke his head in on behalf of his favorite giant, I promise I'll stomp him flat." Caleb pauses. "Again."
"Aww, you're so sweet." Brooklyn snarks back. "You know just what to say to make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside." Brooklyn pauses herself, voice sincere when she speaks again. "But thanks. I mean it. I know we don't talk much, but...I'm glad you're here."
"Glad to be here too." Caleb nods. He pauses for a second before continuing, face completely deadpan and flat. "Can't you tell by my overjoyed expression?" Brooklyn stares at him for a second before letting out a snorting giggle, and Caleb cracks a smile of his own, standing up. "Tell you what, I'm going to make a pizza. You feel like staying up late and watching a bad movie?"
"What's that? Avoid our responsibilities and screw around? Now you're talking." Brooklyn nods with a grin, and Caleb smiles back at her, turning and heading to the kitchen. Caleb glances back at Brooklyn, fond grin on his face, and shakes his head as he steps into the kitchen as we fade out.
"We are all creatures of sin, aren't we? I sin all the time. I was envious of those who had achieved championship glory. I am wrathful towards those who would poison the well of my family. I felt pride when I stomped the head of God's chosen son into the mat and took his title from him. The God of Extreme, deprived of the Championship of Extreme. A beautiful piece of irony, wrought at my hands."
He chuckles, reaching up slightly and stroking the nameplate of the belt with a thumb. Caleb cracks a fond smile, nodding his head unconsciously as he runs his fingers across the face of the Extreme Championship.
"My first title. At least, my first title of any significance. Sure, you can be the champion of some backroom in the middle of nowhere, California...but this, this means something more. This title means that I'm the most extreme competitor in all of IWF, in all of the world. It's physical proof of what I've known all along, what the world has turned a blind eye to and what I forced them to confront in all its ugly glory. And in recognition of this, James Michael Nash and the front office decided to give me a gift. They let me pick my first challengers."
Caleb cracks his neck with a smile, finally looking up from the title to the camera.
"Each of you are sinful in your own way. That's why I brought you together: as a celebration. I see a little bit of myself in each of you, a sliver of my own sin...and I want to prove that as you are a fraction of my sin, you are a fraction of the fighter that I am. I want to leave each of you in a pool of your own blood for pretending to my title."
He reaches up slightly, hooking his arms around the bottom rope, and takes a deep breath, leaning his head back as he inhales.
"Jason Sandman. You are wrath. Without a question, beyond a shadow of a doubt, you are a man of wrath. You hate everyone around you, you hate yourself, you hate the very company that gives you a chance to express your hatred. You thrash about like a wild animal, untamable and uncontrolled. Your wrath is as much your greatest weakness as your greatest asset. Jason, I've fought my share of rabid dogs in my day. Trust me when I say they always get put down in the end."
Caleb pauses, raising a finger as he resumes speaking.
"But...you are also sloth. You sat back and took your time, waited until the name Jason Sandman was only on the lips of those who remember the obscure and the arcane, and only then, when the memory of your past failures was almost wiped clean, did you come back. You dragged your heels and hoped we would forget. The Pack never forgets, Jason. Your sins are eternal...and you will keep paying for them, eternally. The only thing that's extreme about you anymore are the extreme lengths you will go to in order to pretend you still frighten anyone but yourself. I'll extinguish your legacy, and you'll flame out as you always do. So it goes."
He reaches up again, grabbing the middle ropes and carefully wrapping his fingers around them one by one.
"Steve Awesome. Pride. Lust. These are the story of your career, why should they be any different now? Your pride over your past accomplishments has done great things for keeping your name on the lips of the people, Steve, even when you've done absolutely nothing to prove your relevance today. You went to war with Xavier Cross, and you corrupted an idiot, made him your lackey. Congratulations. If he makes his presence known, if any of your entourage try to help you to another undeserved accolade, I'm going to put their heads so far through the mat that they come out in the middle of the Indian Ocean. But then, you wouldn't care if they got hurt. Your pet project, your so-called friend, they're only there to further the glory of Steve Awesome."
Caleb's lips curl in a snarl as he pulls himself to a kneeling position, title balancing carefully across one of his knees as he stands.
"Your lust for gold has blinded you to the fact that you can't go anymore, Steve. You can't keep up. I beat you, once upon a time when neither of us were the man we are today. The man I was died, alone and afraid in the cold of the streets. The man you were died as well, choked on his own hubris. You're a shell of a man, Steve, reduced to yet another keyboard warrior, taking shots from afar and too afraid to actually do anything. You just see the Extreme Championship as another box to check on a collector's list. Me? This title is everything to me. My first, my greatest, the achievement that has given me validation. If you think you can take it from me, you're stupider than you look...and I didn't think that was possible."
Caleb's hands reach up again, grasping the top rope. The veneer of calm cracks further, his eye involuntarily twitching as he speaks through clenched teeth.
"Ulf. Hednir. You punched me in the back of the head. You pinned me. Congratulations. That's the only reason you're here. I didn't want to deal with you. I wanted to leave you to Dean. But Dean...you've hurt him, you continue to hurt him. And you humiliated me. So I asked for you to be the final man, Ulf, because your sins are the gravest of all. Your envy of the true champions in this company, your incessant, whining need to be noticed by those who have earned the headlines, it sickens me. I do this for nobody's approval, Ulf. I do it because it's what I'm good at. You're a child, pleading for his father's attention, hoping that you'll be one of the cool kids some day. If I have to crush your delusions of triumph out of you, I'll do so with a smile on my face."
Caleb stands, jerking his knee up abruptly. The motion kicks the Extreme Championship into the air, and Caleb carefully dips his shoulder, catching it and pinning it there with the side of his head. A quick shift lets him straighten his head, looking ahead into the camera with a glare that could kill lesser men.
"You're greedy, Ulf. You want more and more and more, even when it's not deserved. You want to be the youngest World Champion ever, you want to be the leader of your own army, you want to be the hero and conqueror. You think your story will live forever. The truth, to quote, is that life is like a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour on the stage and is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. You are that idiot, Ulf, telling a tale that will never be, a tale where you rule over IWF. No. Not while the Pack still roams free. You will not remove us. You will not dethrone me. You're a child, playing at war. I've been at war with the world my entire life."
Caleb cracks a grin, licking his lips.
"I'm hungry, gentlemen. Hungry for your blood, hungry for the violence that this championship promises. I learned a long time ago that when you have a chance to eat like this, you eat your fill, because you never know when you'll eat again. This is my feast, and I will eat well. And when the end comes, and I look down at your battered and broken bodies, raising MY Extreme Championship over my head...you'll know why you paid for your sins. Be seeing you..."
The lights flicker overhead, and when they come back up Caleb is gone, leaving nothing but the Extreme Championship, laying across the top turnbuckle. We hold on the shot of the title for a long moment before fading to black.
We fade in on Caleb in the compound's dining room, alone in the still of the night. He takes a bite of an apple, staring out across the quiet. The faint sound of footsteps echoes from the kitchen, but he pays it no mind, staring at the apple for a few more moments before the sound of a bowl being set down on the table across from him echoes through the room. "This seat taken?"
Caleb looks up, shaking his head and waving Brooklyn on. "No, you're good." He sighs as she sits down, turning the apple over in his hand.
"Something on your mind?" Brooklyn lifts her eyebrows, dipping her spoon into the bowl of cereal and taking a bite of her own. "Usually your midnight snack's more...more." She shrugs, tilting her head. "I dunno."
"I feel like I'm losing the Pack." Caleb sighs, setting the apple down. "I keep drifting away from Dean, I couldn't get the job done against Ulf...I let Warren down. I don't want to disappoint you guys."
"Disappoint us?" Brooklyn snorts. "Yeah, because the Extreme Champion is such a disappointment. Come on, Caleb." She takes another bite of her cereal, speaking through a mouthful of Lucky Charms. "You're better than that."
"I know I am. I just..." he sighs. "When I start slipping, my brain goes back to terrible places. Where I was before Dean and Rowan found me. I can't help it."
"Yeah, I feel you." Brooklyn nods again, pushing her bowl to the side slightly. "That feeling that there's nothing out there for you, that nobody wants you and that you're not good enough to be wanted?"
"Thanks for reading my mind, jackass." Caleb grumps at Brooklyn, earning a laugh from her. He shakes his head, sighing. "I don't know. I need to win this match. You need to win yours. Max should win the Iron Maiden. We need to come out strong here as a Pack, not just as individuals. If nothing else, I promise that if Spike tries to poke his head in on behalf of his favorite giant, I promise I'll stomp him flat." Caleb pauses. "Again."
"Aww, you're so sweet." Brooklyn snarks back. "You know just what to say to make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside." Brooklyn pauses herself, voice sincere when she speaks again. "But thanks. I mean it. I know we don't talk much, but...I'm glad you're here."
"Glad to be here too." Caleb nods. He pauses for a second before continuing, face completely deadpan and flat. "Can't you tell by my overjoyed expression?" Brooklyn stares at him for a second before letting out a snorting giggle, and Caleb cracks a smile of his own, standing up. "Tell you what, I'm going to make a pizza. You feel like staying up late and watching a bad movie?"
"What's that? Avoid our responsibilities and screw around? Now you're talking." Brooklyn nods with a grin, and Caleb smiles back at her, turning and heading to the kitchen. Caleb glances back at Brooklyn, fond grin on his face, and shakes his head as he steps into the kitchen as we fade out.
Well howdy there pardner.