Post by Angel Blake on May 26, 2023 0:33:13 GMT
You find yourself, as you often do, back in that moment. The moment when your whole life changed before it ever really began.
There she is, your caretaker, the one who loves you more than anything in the world. She sits comfortably in an olden style wooden rocker, there’s something in her hands but you were too young to really notice it. You just know this is the woman who protects you, feeds you, cloths you, she is your entire world.
Until she wasn’t…
Until that storm came whipping through the tiny trailer walls like a great beast from a nightmare. You can still hear her screaming in terror as she was ripped limb from limb right before your eyes.
That moment started you down a dark path. A path you know you regret, a path you wish you could change. It was a path of everlasting darkness and loyalty to someone who would use you like a pawn. Someone who moved you around the board to shield them and their weakness. You were so desperate for love, for attention, for the protection you felt as a child you didn’t even care.
Until he came into your life.
You see him now as as you did then. He was beaten, weakened, bloody and sitting in a cage. You knelt before him, knowing the truth of the situation before either of you even spoke.
”I am your father…”
Once again your whole world was swept up into a whirlwind, only this time no one was ripped limb from limb. Instead he stood by you, cared for you, went out of his way to protect you. Never once did he use or abuse you and when you finally found someone you loved even more than you loved him?
He let you go as all parents should.
He didn’t Lord over you. He didn’t subjugate you. He didn’t demand your undying fidelity. He let you go on to live the life you wanted to live and that was the first time since you were a baby that you felt true family.
But as you stand here now, reliving that moment kneeling in front of the cage, something changes.
”Dean…”
His voice booms and echoes off the walls of her compound. He stands up, the tattered rags he was wearing dissolve into something more familiar, something more terrifying, the black leather and spiked robes of the one they call God.
”You’ve been waiting for this moment for a very long time, haven’t you Dean?”
You nod your head in response.
”I’ve seen the way you’ve been looking at my dual championships. I’ve heard your whispered words when you thought the bedroom door was closed all the way..."
"Little Damian tells Peepaw everything…”
He holds up a single index finger, wagging it as the door of the cage violently whips open.
”You want what I have but more than that, you want to usurp me. You want to prove once and for all that there is only one Alpha in this family and it’s you.”
”Tsk-tsk.”
“You’ve been living in my shadow for years, son but I’m not the one who put you there. I never asked you to play second fiddle to my orchestra. The reason you are where you are, teaming with who you’re teaming with is because of you.”
One foot at a time he steps out of the cage. You backup without thinking.
”It could have been you standing by me Sunday night. It could have been you holding one half of the IWF World Tag Team Championships. It could have been us, the most powerful father and son duo the world will ever know doing battle for the grandest prize of them all.”
”Instead you drug that derelict, JC Keeton into our affairs.”
“So I had to turn to my other son. The one who never had to whisper behind my back, the one who never tried to hide his envy, the one who, if and when he chooses to take what’s mine?”
”He will take it.”
“Wraith knows as you should, that’s what I expect of my children. I do not tolerate weakness, idleness or sitting back and waiting for an opportunity.”
“You went from one of the biggest stars this company had to offer to someone who barely features in the show open. And who do you blame? Who do you see as the cause of that? It certainly wasn’t me. I never asked you to take a step back. I never demanded you stand just behind me on that stage. No, Dean.”
”You lost your edge.”
With every step forward you take another step back. Her compound begins to fade away around you, replaced by the place you call home. Specifically the living room where you’ve spent many Christmases together exchanging gifts. A fire roars from just behind him, your father who now wears plain black attire with no face paint.
”There was a time when the idea of facing you would have made my heart race. My palms would have gotten sweaty. I may have even felt a bit ill to my stomach.”
”That was a long time ago.”
“I know now why Rowan kept you so close and I know why you were so happy to follow her. Why, even to this day? You still miss having her tell you what to do. You yearn to be subservient. You desire to be kept like a pet. Your whole life has been one lived in servitude and the freedom I offered you?”
”You never knew what to do with it.”
“Look at your brother, Wraith, look at the hell he put me through and look at what we have accomplished since then? He earned my respect, I earned his love and now we are what you and I should have been. He didn’t just take your place at my side, Wraith has taken your place as the future patriarch of this family.”
”And it pains me, son.”
“You are my first born. You are the rightful heir to the empire. You are the one who should be taking the legacy I made and carrying it into the next decade. But instead I find you whimpering like a child to JC Keeton about what you deserve.”
”What do you deserve?”
“MY World Championship? OUR World Tag Team Championship? Why? Because you want them?”
”EVERYONE WANTS THEM!”
“You don’t reach our level because you want to, Dean, you know that. You’ve stood at the mountain top. You’ve been the wretched tyrant everyone clamors needs to be toppled. You’ve been IWF World Champion so you know the only way to get what is ours is to be better than every single person on this roster!”
”And are you?”
“You were. You were.... You were someone absolutely everyone feared. The slayer of Spike Kane. The King of Skulls. You were a living, breathing boogeyman to the entirety of the professional wrestling world.”
”Until you weren’t.”
The flames slowly start to creep up around him. You feel your back against the far wall now. There is nowhere else to go as he continues walking toward you.
”You know me, son, you know what these titles mean to me. You saw the hell I went to with your brother. You saw what we put our bodies through. You saw how much this sport means to us and exactly how far we are willing to go to keep what is ours. You know that this is your moment. It’s now or never. You either become the new God of Professional Wrestling or you may as well go join Rowan on the second string comic book convention route where all the forgotten stars go to die.”
”The choice is yours.”
“Either way I will still love you. Nothing will ever change that. No amount of pain or bloodshed will ever change how I feel about you, Dean. You will always be my first born son and I will always want what is best for you. I will always worry about you. I will always watch over you and I will always be there when you need me.”
”Like you need me now.”
The flames from the fire lick their way up the walls until the entire ceiling is engulfed. You look around as the place you call home is quickly taken over by fire until just the two of you stand untouched at its center.
”You need me to remind you who you are.”
“Dean Harper…”
“First Son of Angel Blake…”
“The Heir to the Empire…”
“The Slayer of Spike Kane…”
“The King of Skulls…”
“The Once and Future IWF World Champion…”
“The New God of Professional Wrestling…”
“And if I fail to remind you? If I fail to pull your head out of your ass? If I fail to bring the best version of yourself to the surface at Night of the Immortals? Then I won’t have any other choice, Dean, but to hurt you…”
”Very, very badly.”
The flames kick up into a whirlwind around the two of you. As you feel the heat from the flames you also feel his arms wrapped around you. You feel that love, that safety, you feel everything you ever wanted your whole life and as the flames take you? You know this is how it will end…
”JC Keeton…”
The Lord speaks in a disgusted hiss. The former scene is wiped away in flames as we are taken somewhere else. The Lord, Angel Blake, seated upon his great throne of bones. His pale painted face wearing a haunting preternatural grin.
”Do you know why I don’t like you, JC?”
“Baring in mind, I’m perfectly aware that you don’t care. It’s because you’re arrogant, egotistical and self centered. You truly believe that I, GOD HIMSELF, crafted you from the mold I keep by my mantle of the perfect professional wrestler.”
”When you aren’t even from the mold of the waste I flushed down the toilet this morning.”
“By no means am I saying you aren’t talented, JC. For sure you’re every bit as good as your father and I hope one day you find some local indy promotion full of Nighthawk’s and Jason Sandman’s for you to dominate.”
”You deserve that sort of low level recognition.”
“As far as the IWF goes? You hit your ceiling and it’s not made of glass. Your ceiling is made of pure steel and its name is Blake.”
”You will never reach our level.”
“You will never break through and become everything your drunk piece of shit father wanted to be. He couldn’t hack it in NCW with me around and you won’t fare much better. The only difference between you and him is you have my whole family to contend with.”
”And a bevy of men I actually respect.”
He snorts a little laugh with that remark.
”How does that make you feel, JC? Does it make you angry? Does it make you want to go to some deep, dark place inside of yourself and do terrible things to me? Like your father used to when he actually signed up to face someone better than him?”
”Trust me kid, there’s nothing you can do to me that will even make me flinch.”
“Your father was a two bit Carney hack who surrounded himself with even bigger hacks. And the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Only you had the wherewithal to team up with someone better than you instead of trying to convince them to kill themselves.”
“That’s right.”
”#neverforget.”
“And I’m sure you’re feeling real smart right now. Dean has to be the next best thing to Angel Blake himself, or so you think. So if you’re ever going to stand a chance against God? May as well use his first born son as a human shield and hope against hope you come out on the winning side.”
“Unfortunately for you, JC, your cute little plan will never come to fruition. While you and Dean have formed a partnership of circumstance, Wraith and I? Father and Son. We stand united. He isn’t in this to use me and I would never dream of using him. We will be in that ring to prove once and for all against the only competition this company has left to offer that…”
“WE ARE THE ONE AND ONLY BEST TAG TEAM EVER!”
“I applaud the effort, JC. You’ve accepted being a Keeton means nothing to the professional wrestling world so you latched your claws into the one true First Family of Wrestling. You thought you could ride that wave to a Title, something that has escaped you ever since I took back what was rightfully mine.”
”But you’re a pretender. A phony. Like your father before you.”
“And like your father did so many times in his life, you will fail on the grandest stage of them all against the greatest professional wrestlers in the history of the business. That is your legacy.”
”That is your father’s legacy.”
“That is the legacy you will pass on to your own child. A legacy of failure. A legacy of delusion. A legacy of unearned self importance.”
”A legacy fit for a Keeton.”
That trademark terrible grin etches its way across his pale painted face.
”While my sons, my family, they will carry on the greatest legacy known to man. They will forge their own legacies from it. Dean Harper will rise again from this failure. He will finally step out of my shadow and he will forge the path of Harper.”
“Wraith will take this victory and he will turn it into ten more. He will take those ten victories and turn them into a legendary World Title reign. And before the sun sets on his time inside of that ring he will not be known as my son. He will simply be known as…”
”Wraith.”
“My daughters, if they so choose, will carry on the legacy of their mother, they will dominate the ring in their division or any other they set their sights on. They will become the next generation of legendary talents, carrying this business on their shoulders for decades to come.”
”As for Damian?”
“I will guide him. I will train him. I will teach him everything I have learned. When he makes his professional wrestling debut? He won’t be carrying on the Legacy of Blake.”
”He will create an entirely new one on his first night.”
“That's what it means to be born from true greatness. That's what it means to carry my legacy on your shoulders. That's what it means to be among the elite. That's what you’re facing off against at Night of the Immortals. What I am? What we are? It’s more than just a Legacy.”
”It’s a Lineage.”
There she is, your caretaker, the one who loves you more than anything in the world. She sits comfortably in an olden style wooden rocker, there’s something in her hands but you were too young to really notice it. You just know this is the woman who protects you, feeds you, cloths you, she is your entire world.
Until she wasn’t…
Until that storm came whipping through the tiny trailer walls like a great beast from a nightmare. You can still hear her screaming in terror as she was ripped limb from limb right before your eyes.
That moment started you down a dark path. A path you know you regret, a path you wish you could change. It was a path of everlasting darkness and loyalty to someone who would use you like a pawn. Someone who moved you around the board to shield them and their weakness. You were so desperate for love, for attention, for the protection you felt as a child you didn’t even care.
Until he came into your life.
You see him now as as you did then. He was beaten, weakened, bloody and sitting in a cage. You knelt before him, knowing the truth of the situation before either of you even spoke.
”I am your father…”
Once again your whole world was swept up into a whirlwind, only this time no one was ripped limb from limb. Instead he stood by you, cared for you, went out of his way to protect you. Never once did he use or abuse you and when you finally found someone you loved even more than you loved him?
He let you go as all parents should.
He didn’t Lord over you. He didn’t subjugate you. He didn’t demand your undying fidelity. He let you go on to live the life you wanted to live and that was the first time since you were a baby that you felt true family.
But as you stand here now, reliving that moment kneeling in front of the cage, something changes.
”Dean…”
His voice booms and echoes off the walls of her compound. He stands up, the tattered rags he was wearing dissolve into something more familiar, something more terrifying, the black leather and spiked robes of the one they call God.
”You’ve been waiting for this moment for a very long time, haven’t you Dean?”
You nod your head in response.
”I’ve seen the way you’ve been looking at my dual championships. I’ve heard your whispered words when you thought the bedroom door was closed all the way..."
"Little Damian tells Peepaw everything…”
He holds up a single index finger, wagging it as the door of the cage violently whips open.
”You want what I have but more than that, you want to usurp me. You want to prove once and for all that there is only one Alpha in this family and it’s you.”
”Tsk-tsk.”
“You’ve been living in my shadow for years, son but I’m not the one who put you there. I never asked you to play second fiddle to my orchestra. The reason you are where you are, teaming with who you’re teaming with is because of you.”
One foot at a time he steps out of the cage. You backup without thinking.
”It could have been you standing by me Sunday night. It could have been you holding one half of the IWF World Tag Team Championships. It could have been us, the most powerful father and son duo the world will ever know doing battle for the grandest prize of them all.”
”Instead you drug that derelict, JC Keeton into our affairs.”
“So I had to turn to my other son. The one who never had to whisper behind my back, the one who never tried to hide his envy, the one who, if and when he chooses to take what’s mine?”
”He will take it.”
“Wraith knows as you should, that’s what I expect of my children. I do not tolerate weakness, idleness or sitting back and waiting for an opportunity.”
“You went from one of the biggest stars this company had to offer to someone who barely features in the show open. And who do you blame? Who do you see as the cause of that? It certainly wasn’t me. I never asked you to take a step back. I never demanded you stand just behind me on that stage. No, Dean.”
”You lost your edge.”
With every step forward you take another step back. Her compound begins to fade away around you, replaced by the place you call home. Specifically the living room where you’ve spent many Christmases together exchanging gifts. A fire roars from just behind him, your father who now wears plain black attire with no face paint.
”There was a time when the idea of facing you would have made my heart race. My palms would have gotten sweaty. I may have even felt a bit ill to my stomach.”
”That was a long time ago.”
“I know now why Rowan kept you so close and I know why you were so happy to follow her. Why, even to this day? You still miss having her tell you what to do. You yearn to be subservient. You desire to be kept like a pet. Your whole life has been one lived in servitude and the freedom I offered you?”
”You never knew what to do with it.”
“Look at your brother, Wraith, look at the hell he put me through and look at what we have accomplished since then? He earned my respect, I earned his love and now we are what you and I should have been. He didn’t just take your place at my side, Wraith has taken your place as the future patriarch of this family.”
”And it pains me, son.”
“You are my first born. You are the rightful heir to the empire. You are the one who should be taking the legacy I made and carrying it into the next decade. But instead I find you whimpering like a child to JC Keeton about what you deserve.”
”What do you deserve?”
“MY World Championship? OUR World Tag Team Championship? Why? Because you want them?”
”EVERYONE WANTS THEM!”
“You don’t reach our level because you want to, Dean, you know that. You’ve stood at the mountain top. You’ve been the wretched tyrant everyone clamors needs to be toppled. You’ve been IWF World Champion so you know the only way to get what is ours is to be better than every single person on this roster!”
”And are you?”
“You were. You were.... You were someone absolutely everyone feared. The slayer of Spike Kane. The King of Skulls. You were a living, breathing boogeyman to the entirety of the professional wrestling world.”
”Until you weren’t.”
The flames slowly start to creep up around him. You feel your back against the far wall now. There is nowhere else to go as he continues walking toward you.
”You know me, son, you know what these titles mean to me. You saw the hell I went to with your brother. You saw what we put our bodies through. You saw how much this sport means to us and exactly how far we are willing to go to keep what is ours. You know that this is your moment. It’s now or never. You either become the new God of Professional Wrestling or you may as well go join Rowan on the second string comic book convention route where all the forgotten stars go to die.”
”The choice is yours.”
“Either way I will still love you. Nothing will ever change that. No amount of pain or bloodshed will ever change how I feel about you, Dean. You will always be my first born son and I will always want what is best for you. I will always worry about you. I will always watch over you and I will always be there when you need me.”
”Like you need me now.”
The flames from the fire lick their way up the walls until the entire ceiling is engulfed. You look around as the place you call home is quickly taken over by fire until just the two of you stand untouched at its center.
”You need me to remind you who you are.”
“Dean Harper…”
“First Son of Angel Blake…”
“The Heir to the Empire…”
“The Slayer of Spike Kane…”
“The King of Skulls…”
“The Once and Future IWF World Champion…”
“The New God of Professional Wrestling…”
“And if I fail to remind you? If I fail to pull your head out of your ass? If I fail to bring the best version of yourself to the surface at Night of the Immortals? Then I won’t have any other choice, Dean, but to hurt you…”
”Very, very badly.”
The flames kick up into a whirlwind around the two of you. As you feel the heat from the flames you also feel his arms wrapped around you. You feel that love, that safety, you feel everything you ever wanted your whole life and as the flames take you? You know this is how it will end…
”JC Keeton…”
The Lord speaks in a disgusted hiss. The former scene is wiped away in flames as we are taken somewhere else. The Lord, Angel Blake, seated upon his great throne of bones. His pale painted face wearing a haunting preternatural grin.
”Do you know why I don’t like you, JC?”
“Baring in mind, I’m perfectly aware that you don’t care. It’s because you’re arrogant, egotistical and self centered. You truly believe that I, GOD HIMSELF, crafted you from the mold I keep by my mantle of the perfect professional wrestler.”
”When you aren’t even from the mold of the waste I flushed down the toilet this morning.”
“By no means am I saying you aren’t talented, JC. For sure you’re every bit as good as your father and I hope one day you find some local indy promotion full of Nighthawk’s and Jason Sandman’s for you to dominate.”
”You deserve that sort of low level recognition.”
“As far as the IWF goes? You hit your ceiling and it’s not made of glass. Your ceiling is made of pure steel and its name is Blake.”
”You will never reach our level.”
“You will never break through and become everything your drunk piece of shit father wanted to be. He couldn’t hack it in NCW with me around and you won’t fare much better. The only difference between you and him is you have my whole family to contend with.”
”And a bevy of men I actually respect.”
He snorts a little laugh with that remark.
”How does that make you feel, JC? Does it make you angry? Does it make you want to go to some deep, dark place inside of yourself and do terrible things to me? Like your father used to when he actually signed up to face someone better than him?”
”Trust me kid, there’s nothing you can do to me that will even make me flinch.”
“Your father was a two bit Carney hack who surrounded himself with even bigger hacks. And the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Only you had the wherewithal to team up with someone better than you instead of trying to convince them to kill themselves.”
“That’s right.”
”#neverforget.”
“And I’m sure you’re feeling real smart right now. Dean has to be the next best thing to Angel Blake himself, or so you think. So if you’re ever going to stand a chance against God? May as well use his first born son as a human shield and hope against hope you come out on the winning side.”
“Unfortunately for you, JC, your cute little plan will never come to fruition. While you and Dean have formed a partnership of circumstance, Wraith and I? Father and Son. We stand united. He isn’t in this to use me and I would never dream of using him. We will be in that ring to prove once and for all against the only competition this company has left to offer that…”
“WE ARE THE ONE AND ONLY BEST TAG TEAM EVER!”
“I applaud the effort, JC. You’ve accepted being a Keeton means nothing to the professional wrestling world so you latched your claws into the one true First Family of Wrestling. You thought you could ride that wave to a Title, something that has escaped you ever since I took back what was rightfully mine.”
”But you’re a pretender. A phony. Like your father before you.”
“And like your father did so many times in his life, you will fail on the grandest stage of them all against the greatest professional wrestlers in the history of the business. That is your legacy.”
”That is your father’s legacy.”
“That is the legacy you will pass on to your own child. A legacy of failure. A legacy of delusion. A legacy of unearned self importance.”
”A legacy fit for a Keeton.”
That trademark terrible grin etches its way across his pale painted face.
”While my sons, my family, they will carry on the greatest legacy known to man. They will forge their own legacies from it. Dean Harper will rise again from this failure. He will finally step out of my shadow and he will forge the path of Harper.”
“Wraith will take this victory and he will turn it into ten more. He will take those ten victories and turn them into a legendary World Title reign. And before the sun sets on his time inside of that ring he will not be known as my son. He will simply be known as…”
”Wraith.”
“My daughters, if they so choose, will carry on the legacy of their mother, they will dominate the ring in their division or any other they set their sights on. They will become the next generation of legendary talents, carrying this business on their shoulders for decades to come.”
”As for Damian?”
“I will guide him. I will train him. I will teach him everything I have learned. When he makes his professional wrestling debut? He won’t be carrying on the Legacy of Blake.”
”He will create an entirely new one on his first night.”
“That's what it means to be born from true greatness. That's what it means to carry my legacy on your shoulders. That's what it means to be among the elite. That's what you’re facing off against at Night of the Immortals. What I am? What we are? It’s more than just a Legacy.”
”It’s a Lineage.”
Look into my eyes and you will see
I am not afraid of destiny
Moving forward with violent grace
I'm the weapon to seal your fate
I am not afraid of destiny
Moving forward with violent grace
I'm the weapon to seal your fate