Post by kaster on Nov 13, 2023 3:39:59 GMT
Soon after their tag team match at Halloween Hell, the Kings of Flight are in the trainer’s room. The medical team is busy checking out Charlie Van Ruth’s arm as Tyson Everest worriedly watches on. Every poke and prod at Van Ruth’s arm results in a pained wince.
“Doc, is he gonna be okay or what?”
“Too early to say… he might have aggravated a previous injury in his arm. We’ll need to take him to the hospital and get it checked out for any sort of tear or fracture.”
“Ty… that son of a bitch has to pay for this. I don’t care when or where, but that big bald bastard is going to get the asskicking of a lifetime. I’m going to go and- AHHHH!”
As soon as Charlie goes to stand, a sudden motion of the arm is enough to send him back down. He clutches at his bicep and shakes his head. Tyson puts a hand on his good shoulder and tries to comfort his hurt partner.
“It’s all good, Charles. Tell you what, if Terrella wants to play dirty, let him. We bounce back and we show him that we aren’t gonna be pushed around. He’ll get what’s coming to him.”
“I don’t know how bad my arm is right now, T. It might take a minute for this to heal up.”
“So what are we gonna do?”
“It’s what you have to do. Show Terrella that we can fight back and fight more viciously than ever before. I’ll be with you, but with one arm, there’s only so much I’ll be able to do. You get what I’m saying?”
Everest strokes his chin for a minute, thinking to himself. He then slowly nods his head.
“Yeah… yeah, I got you. Go get that arm checked out and I’ll talk to you later.”
“Where are you going?”
“Gotta go let ‘em know what we came to do.”
Tyson closes the door to the trainer’s room and does a heavy sigh. He pulls off his armband, emblazoned with the Kings of Flight logo. For a while, he simply gazes at it before heading down the hallway.
Tyson Everest leans back against a chain-link fence. He wears a black hoodie which is fashioned with a golden IWF logo. The camera tightens up on his face as he looks to the ground. Snow litters the air around him, some even falling onto his hoodie and contrasting with the black.
“So this is how it’s gonna be, huh?”
He shakes his head while a clear frustration washes over his face.
“You wanna blindside my partner, my brother, and think you can get away with it? Nah, man. You have to do better than that. I know I’m pretty new to the game, never been a big singles guy. Most of my success is because of Kings of Flight. I got to IWF because of Kings of Flight. Charlie and I are a team. We do everything together. When we came back, we knew that there were gonna be people like you. Looking down on us, thinking that we’re weak. It ain’t anything I haven’t heard before. Runnin’ around and talking like you own this place. Like you deserve something. You deserve somebody that can whoop your ass, Terrella.”
“I guess I’m him.”
“We came face-to-face. You’ve been talkin’ about how much of a badass you are. Tryin’ to act like one, too. We told you what we wanted to do and you did nothing. You ran away. Dodged us like a bad date. We must’ve been a little foolish to just leave it alone. When our backs were turned, you came in and hit Charlie with a wrench. Took him out for a minute. But you know what? I’m STILL HERE! If you want to take us out, you gotta do it fully, my man! Because now, now you’ve got the Aerial Archer to worry about! That ain’t a nickname that I gave myself, it’s a nickname I earned! Earned it through hard work, through grinding each and every day to be somebody inside that ring! All I’ve seen you do, Terrella, is bitch about not getting second chances. Plain and simple, you lost against the tag champs and now you’ve been pushed back down to the bottom. Instead of making your way back to the top, you’ve gotta go ahead and pull other people down with you. That ain’t the way Charlie and I wanted things to go.”
“You wanna fight? You better have the balls to say it to our faces.”
“We came to your front door and told you that we’d be down to face you and whoever you wanted to bring. When you bitched out, we figured that you were all talk. Now, I realize that Stephen Terrella doesn’t just talk. He snakes in and waits for the chance to kick somebody while they’re down! We don’t play that game, we never have. Accolades and experience don’t matter to me, not one bit. What matters is how you carry yourself. You don’t carry yourself like a contender, you’re more like a chump with a chip on his shoulder. If you wanna run your mouth, Terrella, fine. Go do that. But when you try to break up the Kings of Flight only weeks after we’ve come back?”
“Then you’ve officially made it personal.”
“So I ain’t coming into Odyssey with any thoughts of championships, I’m walking down to that ring so I can beat a little bit of humility into that thick-ass skull of yours! Every time I see you come out, the King of Clubs keeps looking more and more like a Joker. A jester. A clown. ‘Cause when you open your mouth, nobody fears you. They just laugh at you. You act like a man but have to hide behind your manager to get things done. In my life there are only two options when I’m in danger: fight… or flight. And when I say flight, I don’t mean running away like you do. I mean soaring through the air, getting that adrenaline rush as my feet leave the ground, my heart pumping because I feel like I’m up in the clouds, that’s what I mean! They say my style is too risky and that I won’t make a long career out of it but… taking risks is what life is. I took a risk when I moved out of my parents’ home and became a pro wrestler. I took a risk when I had a hundred dollars to my name and walked into wrestling school. I took a risk when I had to sleep in my car because I was lucky enough if I got paid twenty bucks to be on a show! I took a risk when I told a guy, you might know him, named Charlie Van Ruth and I told him that we should be a tag team. We took a risk signing a contract with the IWF. And look where that all brought me. Now, I’m tourin’ the entire world and doing what I love. But you took a risk, too. You took a risk when you came out at Halloween Hell. You took a risk when you tried to take out Charlie. And now, bitchmade Stephen Terrella gets to take the biggest risk of his entire career, because you are going up against ME!”
With that last exclamation, Tyson pulls his hood down and looks more intense than most have ever seen him. He tries to pull himself together before he speaks again.
“For real, though, you’ve got some steel balls in your sack if you think this is gonna be some free ride. I’m giving you the fight of your life. Oh yeah, bro, I know you’ve been in some dogfights, but this is me telling you that you are not leaving Montreal without battle scars! Bring Portia, bring Calaway, bring that spooky spider lady you hang around with, ‘cause they are gonna be witness to how far I’m willing to go. You can be built like a damn skyscraper, but only one of us is actually gonna reach for the stars. I haven’t done a singles match in over two years but that won’t stop me. If I can survive having my leg almost torn to shreds nearly a year ago, what makes you think that I won’t be able to hang with you? All the pain, all the doubts, it’s all behind me now. I’m looking ahead and the Kings of Flight don’t plan on stopping for some Vin Diesel bootleg!”
“There ain’t gonna be any more running, Terrella.”
“I don’t give a damn if you want to try and take cheap shots against me. It’s when you tried to put Charlie’s career in jeopardy, that’s when I had a problem. I’m not doing this match for myself, I’m doing it for Charlie and I’m doing it for all of the fans out there who have had to put up with you for so long! This is about showing people that bullying your way into things is never the way the world works! Charlie and I have worked so hard to get to where we are and for somebody like Stephen Terrella to try and take us away from what we love? He’s not gonna walk all over us, not now and not ever. When Charlie is good and ready, you better believe we want that tag team match! At this point, I wouldn’t even care if it didn’t put us up in the tag rankings, I just want to make a statement. Terrella, if you truly think you deserve another shot at those tag team championships, then you ain’t gonna have a problem going up against me, right? Since you think that beating up one dude and calling out the champs on the microphone makes you a contender, then I guess I’m gonna become a contender on Tuesday night. But I’m not gonna run off scared like you do, I’m actually gonna fight you and prove what it takes to be a legit champion! It ain’t about your muscles, it ain’t about who’s at ringside, it’s about pushing yourself to be better today than you were yesterday. I can say with full confidence that I have worked every single day of every single week to improve myself, little by little. Can you say that, Stephen?
“Can you look me dead in my eyes and tell me that you’re a better man or a better wrestler now than you were a year, two years ago?”
“Nah, I didn’t think so. That’s why you’re playing to lose on Tuesday. But I’ll keep it a hundred with you, Terrella. I ain’t expecting this match to be a breeze. I know how decorated you are, man. I know that your girlfriend will probably try to take a shot at me, blind me, distract the ref, all of that shit. I know this because I’ve seen it time and time again. I’ve seen guys like you ever since I was a kid. Fighting dirty, talking up a big game, trying to pick on people. They said that you should pick on people your own size, but I’ve never believed that. Size don’t matter. I bet Portia tells you that all the time.”
He chuckles over his own little joke. The snowfall has slowly come to a halt, leaving his hoodie and hair covered in tiny white snowflakes.
“Size won’t matter when we’re in the ring. What matters is who the better man is. Are you gonna be able to keep up with me? Or are we about to find out who the King of this place really is? Stephen Terrella, get ready to find out why they call me the Aerial Archer. ‘Cause I’m gonna hit that bullseye… and you won’t even see it coming.”
Tyson pulls the hood back up and winks at the camera before it fades out.
Well howdy there pardner.