You Don't want to be There When I Get Up
Jun 11, 2019 22:27:14 GMT -5
Adam Dante, BonnieBlue, and 2 more like this
Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2019 22:27:14 GMT -5
Open scene to a red room reminiscent of Meiji antiquity. There the camera pans to the older version of Masuda Jubei sitting on his knees. His antiquated uniform of imperial Japan gives him austereness and the cold command of a leader. The Master snaps his white-gloved fingers before shouting:
4! 11!
Two men appear and bow to the wooden floor: The first is a tall, robust man of Slavic decent in black/white MMA gear. The second is ragged wrestler dating back to the disorder of the early ’90s. His numerous scars define him more than his old promotion t-shirt ever could.
Jubei: I told both of you to deliver me to victory. Instead, you sidestep our process—one that has worked for decades—with such unacceptable effort. I have never seen such incompetence from you both. So much that I almost regret your incorporations of talent. Explain yourselves one at a time.
Karl Voronov: Yes, Master… We failed to anticipate the fortitude of your opponent. It was my failure and lack of preparation for Braxton Locus’ submission style.
Jubei: You are the soul of our striking, 4. Explain your lapse in judgment in three words.
Karl Voronov: Yes, Master… I failed you.
Jubei: Exactly.
He waves a hand to the right. Upon this motion, Karl falls on his face writhing in pain. Greg Parker, otherwise known as #11, shakes in his bowing position.
Jubei: You had the agency of your old self. Now I’ve taken all but your thoughts, 4. I am The Master and there can be no more failures of this kind. I expect your strikes to be on point, vicious and unrelenting next week. We don’t have a target yet, but I believe it will be another figment of wrestling’s dark closet.
Karl Voronov: Yes, Master… I shall not fail you again.
Jubei: Enough of that. 11, report on your failures in three words. No more. No less. Now speak.
Greg Parker: Yes, Master… I let up.
Jubei: Explain your sudden sense of empathy.
Greg Parker: Yes, Master… My thinking was save your strength for later on in the match. You lost a boatload of stamina by the second half. I just conserved everything for a final push. Because that dadgum Locus just didn’t wanna go down.
Jubei: When I say stretch them, 11, I mean pull as hard as you can. Do not weep for the other’s body. And never give my opponents any way to escape my wrath. I will not give you the same treatment that 4 received. Instead, I have a different punishment in mind.
Masuda steadies his hand. It almost seems as if he has projected something onto Greg Parker.
Jubei: Do you see her face?
Greg Parker: Yes, Master… I see my daughter, Eliza. She just turned twenty-three last month.
Jubei: And you haven’t seen her in the flesh since 1999, correct?
He nods with puffy eyes stuffing his face purple.
Jubei: You will suffer her loss until your fighting skills impress me.
Both regain their bowing postures—their noses scrunched to the ground—as Jubei gathers himself.
Jubei: I will not fail in that ring again. Is that clear?
Both nod murmuring “Yes, Master” as does everyone trapped in the Red Room. Cut to black.
Somewhere in New York Sixteen hours After Alpha Rising
The camera pans to a nice hotel near Madison Square Gardens. Roku, arguably the most intimidating member of the ASU stands next to Co-Commission Jason Zurra. His arms appear huge even without flexing. Except that they have a delicate hold onto of the umbrella keeping the commissioner dry during one of those New York drizzles. Roku checks his phone for their uber driver.
“I really don’t know about him,” he tells his associate. “Jubei always seemed tougher than that. I was scared to put him in a ring, to be honest.”
“It’s the eyes.”
“Yes!” Zurra exclaims. “He’s like a demon behind those gray—are they gray or blue?”
“Like hazel,” Roku says. “That weird green-gray kind of gray.”
“But you’re dead on about that,” Jason says. “Shame that we sold so many t-shirts too.”
“Oh yeah?”
“It has his profile in a white negative on a black shirt,” he says. “Hate to admit, Roku, but it looks good. If you can stand Jubei staring at you all day.”
Impatience overcomes them in the form of an aggressive albeit petty conversation about the goings of their young promotion. Roku pats his shoulder as only a true companion could.
“You said we weren’t going to mention New Blood,” Roku says. “That it always leads us to bad blood.”
“I didn’t say it like that. But I might just steal it for the next time I see that smug bastard.”
They share in a chuckle just as a black SUV pulls up to the curb. Roku opens the door and helps his boss into the side door. He then packs their luggage into the trunk. Cameras focus on the behemoth closing the lid down with both hands; when to his surprise, another door shuts. Roku walks around the side only to have exhaust burst into his face. He coughs a moment before giving chase. It’s no use: His boss takes off without him into the heart of Ney York City.
Cameras cut to inside the SUV where an occupied Jason Zurra checks his phone for updates from the higher-ups. A free second allows him time to relay instructions to his closest bodyguard.
“We’re on flight 12d,” Jason tells Roku. “I just hope we don’t have to scurry to our terminal. Nothing like last time out, eh?”
“Airlines are fickle,” says someone off camera. “They only do what’s best for their bottom line. Building off the weak, the stupid and the poor.”
“Jubei! Where do you come from?” Zurra says, catching his breath. “And where’s Roku?”
“Not bad for a ‘smug bastard’ huh?”
“Your flight left four hours ago.”
“No,” Jubei says, shaking his head. “I cancelled it. Now I’m leaving on your flight.”
Dread, confusion and disgust combine into one extremely sour expression. Zurra goes back to his phone.
“Don’t hide in text messages,” he says. “I want you to explain this to me.”
“About what?”
“Why are you trying to make me look bad?”
He pulls out his own phone with the new card on display.
“You lost that match to Braxton,” he says behind a deep sigh. “We put you in top booking, and you failed. What did I do to hurt you? Believe that you could actually win a fight on TV?”
“You and that Dante… I don’t trust him.”
“You’ve never trusted anyone. Why start now?”
“I trusted you.”
“I’m not entertaining this anymore, Jubei.” Zurra turns deeper into his email. “You had a chance at highest slot and blew it. If you want to go farther, you just need to win. Because the more you twist my arm for favors, Jubei, the more it’s going to come back to bite you.”
Zurra spends the next few minutes rearranging cab fairs for his bodyguard. That gruff voice coming through his phone—and the sound of objects being thrown—gets Masuda laughing. Zurra does his best to fix things no matter how many times his former boss tries to gaslight him. When their Uber drives under a few powerlines, however, his call drops. All that leads to murderous silence.
“Jubei, you can ride with me to the airport,” Jason tells him. “However, I don’t want to see you once we get there. Go your separate ways. I don’t care how you do that. Just leave me out of your schemes.”
“For that,” Jubei says, leering with those green-gray eyes, “you can grab your own luggage.”
We see a desk, an open laptop and the back of Masuda Jubei—nothing else. His netbook colors a bluish aura around him, unveiling multiple lines of treated workout tape across his back muscles. They still look supple regardless of his middle-aged physique. He waits on a Skype invitation that continues to load, but no one comes up at first. Jubei waits several minutes in silence until a familiar name accepts his contact information: Rachel Blanche Bertrand. Her visage suddenly pops up on screen.
Rachel: I can’t believe you actually wanted a follow-up.
Jubei: Why not?
Rachel: Because you’re—well, you know, don’t you?
Jubei: Everyone thinks I spend all day drowning interns in red soft drinks.
She laughs while trying to hide an obvious steno pad on her lap. Likewise, the pencil used to hold up her auburn hair. Although it looks black from her bedroom lighting.
Rachel: Well, since you dialed me, Mr. Masuda. I suppose it’s your turn to ask questions, isn’t it?
Jubei: That’s why I like you, Ms. Bertrand.
Rachel: For my spunk?
The Master curls his nostrils at the word.
Rachel: I’m sorry, Mr. Masuda. I know it sounds strange.
Jubei: I know what it means. And no, it’s because you follow decorum. You understand how to assess a situation without making the person enraged. If I weren’t so suspicious, I’d have to think you were trying to mesmerize me, Ms. Bertrand.
She breaks out into hysterical laughter.
Jubei: Which would be a terrible idea. I am immune to such things. You can never get to where I stand following whims. You can trust a million people and never know how many trusts you back. Even more, no one will tell you outright. You have to test their loyalty and do so regularly. My employees, be they secretaries or the executive board, everyone had to prove their work is accountable.
Rachel: That’s a lot of “you’s” for one thought, Mr. Masuda. Are you nervous about talking to me?
Jubei: Which brings me to your other outstanding quality: Unlike the rest of those lampreys, your work never supposes more of me than I say. Never goes deep sea diving for things on land. What I mean, Ms. Bertrand, is that no outlet believes why I’m here. They want it to fit some unabridged stories for crime novels. Supposing evil things of me like “racketeering” and other illicit activities.
Rachel: If it’s not true, then why are so many people asking you the same questions? Questions nearly identical to what other journalists have asked you in Yokohama, Australia and South Korea.
The Master cracks his knuckles one at a time until coming at his answer.
Jubei: No one believes in clean success stories. They want to find dirt and end your career. Why? It all comes down to jealousy, Ms. Bertrand. Jealousy fit for sharks or rabid dogs. Success endures so long as you let it. Nursing such a thing takes tremendous sacrifices—ones most people would never undertake.
Rachel: You aren’t a martyr, Mr. Masuda. You’re just misunderstood.
Jubei: If I'm lucky, Ms. Bertrand, and I only hope you never understand my plight. You aren’t ready for—
Rachel: Mr. Masuda....
Jubei: What now?
Rachel: What’s that red glow behind you?
Jubei: A salt lamp.
Rachel: Oh! I have one of those. Although It never turns that shade of red.
Jubei: What does it matter? I summoned you, Ms. Bertrand. Don’t flip my table around!
They touch on small subjects, avoiding the three things Masuda refused to speak about beforehand: New Blood Wrestling, his family and his loss to Braxton Locus. Then, at their calmest segue that early morning, something snaps.
Jubei: Why don’t believe me Ms. Bertrand?
Rachel: I believe that we have a good story. Even if it all feels too easy.
Jubei: Easy?
Rachel: That you rose from nothing to own one of Japan’s most-respected financial institutions. And that you did so on your own without much help. That sounds too easy to any reporter’s ear.
Jubei: I believe this interview is over…. don’t call me back, Ms. Bertrand. I will find you.
He shuts off the screen, letting the whole room fill with darkness. Faint numbers from a digital alarm clock flicker in the background. Yet nothing quite impresses like, his so-called Himilayan lamp, whose reddish pink hue lightens up the whole space. What Jubei uses for dramatic effect on camera.
Jubei: I was beaten. Something I never expected to admit before all you streaming this off our site, or the many outlets we leech off social media. It was not my intention to lose. My destiny was perfect in mind, and perhaps by some greater will, my karma return for its debts. Well those fateful three second have eclipsed forming a new Masuda Jubei
No, I haven’t changed. My resolve hasn’t swerved from where it began two weeks ago. My signing to Alpha Pro Wrestling has already begun a dramatic change to it talented landscape. Yet while others celebrate or mope in their beds eating Cheetos©, I am back to training. Preparing for what challenge our fearless leaders wish to drop on my head like some cartoon anvil. Hoping somewhere in their locked offices that New Blood Puroresu no Masuda Jubei falls again and again and again until his flame has extinguished. They wish to castrate the bull and pasture him for consumption. I won’t let them!
He pulls the lamplight closer until his face looks red. Then by contrast, everything looks pitch black on camera.
Jubei: That’s what brings us to the Windy City of Chicago. Where I shall face another face whom I have never seen in my world travels. Someone worth his salt in the ring. Another brought here with lucid dreams unfit for that locker room. Another intrepid spirit looking to leave ruin wherever he goes. Trent Page, allow me introduce all that stands in your way: ME.
Everyone positions themselves at the board. They analyze moves. They try to find which punch is going to land, and which will cripple. Truth is, Mr. Page; I didn’t strike hard enough last week. I regret not trying to pull bones from ligaments. Holding until that tiny referee pulled me off Braxton Locus. A man who spent every once in his body to keep mine to the mat. Funny how simple those great labors end at a simple count. Yet from them you begin to wonder where those who feared darkness now turn. Because nothing frees a coward’s soul like the death of monsters.
I am a survivor of many things, Mr. Page. Corporate attacks on my career. Physical attacks on my person. Even yellow page journalists… yet none of that have made a fatal blow. Plane crashes I have emerged from unscathed, undying and bent towards retribution. Many try to extinguish fires and pretend their house still stands. Others will play off bruises, blaming their woes on household objects like doors or stairs. Strong people do not. They admit what was that is no more, and then they get back up.
Masuda cracks every single knuckle before turning back to the static camera.
Jubei: I have returned to my feet to meet another wistful soul. Someone sent through Life’s paper shredder, and then reconstituted as a something less than human. You are broken in many places. Glued back together too many times to recognize. It’s why you seek to ruin what others build, Mr. Page. Because you don’t belong amongst the elite of Alpha Pro Wrestling. Yet like so many other that will share my ring space, your face will stick to my books like sidewalk gum. Clinging until I scrape it off.
Your breed of fighter doesn’t scare me. MMA was designed for chimpanzees: They fight with loose rules like peasants over bread. They all but bite to gain upper position. This place—and “the business” every withered and bloated corpse bleats about when begging for hospital funds on charity sites—is for the mentally strong. We have rules because we are intelligent enough to follow them. Wisdom capable of making precise strikes to wound and destroy our enemies. Grandeur unworthy of broken, unhinged beasts who punch people from behind. They do so because they only see red: red… red… red….
My light is not for those uncivilized enough to peer into its encompassing power. It is my soul and the growth soon to be. Red captures valor. It represents life in its purest form. It accents black, but in truth, red serves to extinguish darkness!
Suddenly, and for no explainable reason, his lamp intensifies.
Jubei: Peer into its power, Mr. Page. This is where the great gather and decide the fate of everything. Somewhere men like you can only hope to see from where you sit. Somewhere so far and vast from where I stand. A place you can only dream of turning red—red like the animal rage pumping into your heart. Red like just that fury cowards have fueled within me. Red like the hopeless puddle I am going to leave you in facedown come Monday. Come at me with your worst. Because these people have only seen my first week in Alpha. They haven’t seen me after a week of research, development and improvement. Sadly, you will be the first to see what happens when the best has renewed purpose.
- cut feed
4! 11!
Two men appear and bow to the wooden floor: The first is a tall, robust man of Slavic decent in black/white MMA gear. The second is ragged wrestler dating back to the disorder of the early ’90s. His numerous scars define him more than his old promotion t-shirt ever could.
Jubei: I told both of you to deliver me to victory. Instead, you sidestep our process—one that has worked for decades—with such unacceptable effort. I have never seen such incompetence from you both. So much that I almost regret your incorporations of talent. Explain yourselves one at a time.
Karl Voronov: Yes, Master… We failed to anticipate the fortitude of your opponent. It was my failure and lack of preparation for Braxton Locus’ submission style.
Jubei: You are the soul of our striking, 4. Explain your lapse in judgment in three words.
Karl Voronov: Yes, Master… I failed you.
Jubei: Exactly.
He waves a hand to the right. Upon this motion, Karl falls on his face writhing in pain. Greg Parker, otherwise known as #11, shakes in his bowing position.
Jubei: You had the agency of your old self. Now I’ve taken all but your thoughts, 4. I am The Master and there can be no more failures of this kind. I expect your strikes to be on point, vicious and unrelenting next week. We don’t have a target yet, but I believe it will be another figment of wrestling’s dark closet.
Karl Voronov: Yes, Master… I shall not fail you again.
Jubei: Enough of that. 11, report on your failures in three words. No more. No less. Now speak.
Greg Parker: Yes, Master… I let up.
Jubei: Explain your sudden sense of empathy.
Greg Parker: Yes, Master… My thinking was save your strength for later on in the match. You lost a boatload of stamina by the second half. I just conserved everything for a final push. Because that dadgum Locus just didn’t wanna go down.
Jubei: When I say stretch them, 11, I mean pull as hard as you can. Do not weep for the other’s body. And never give my opponents any way to escape my wrath. I will not give you the same treatment that 4 received. Instead, I have a different punishment in mind.
Masuda steadies his hand. It almost seems as if he has projected something onto Greg Parker.
Jubei: Do you see her face?
Greg Parker: Yes, Master… I see my daughter, Eliza. She just turned twenty-three last month.
Jubei: And you haven’t seen her in the flesh since 1999, correct?
He nods with puffy eyes stuffing his face purple.
Jubei: You will suffer her loss until your fighting skills impress me.
Both regain their bowing postures—their noses scrunched to the ground—as Jubei gathers himself.
Jubei: I will not fail in that ring again. Is that clear?
Both nod murmuring “Yes, Master” as does everyone trapped in the Red Room. Cut to black.
Somewhere in New York Sixteen hours After Alpha Rising
The camera pans to a nice hotel near Madison Square Gardens. Roku, arguably the most intimidating member of the ASU stands next to Co-Commission Jason Zurra. His arms appear huge even without flexing. Except that they have a delicate hold onto of the umbrella keeping the commissioner dry during one of those New York drizzles. Roku checks his phone for their uber driver.
“I really don’t know about him,” he tells his associate. “Jubei always seemed tougher than that. I was scared to put him in a ring, to be honest.”
“It’s the eyes.”
“Yes!” Zurra exclaims. “He’s like a demon behind those gray—are they gray or blue?”
“Like hazel,” Roku says. “That weird green-gray kind of gray.”
“But you’re dead on about that,” Jason says. “Shame that we sold so many t-shirts too.”
“Oh yeah?”
“It has his profile in a white negative on a black shirt,” he says. “Hate to admit, Roku, but it looks good. If you can stand Jubei staring at you all day.”
Impatience overcomes them in the form of an aggressive albeit petty conversation about the goings of their young promotion. Roku pats his shoulder as only a true companion could.
“You said we weren’t going to mention New Blood,” Roku says. “That it always leads us to bad blood.”
“I didn’t say it like that. But I might just steal it for the next time I see that smug bastard.”
They share in a chuckle just as a black SUV pulls up to the curb. Roku opens the door and helps his boss into the side door. He then packs their luggage into the trunk. Cameras focus on the behemoth closing the lid down with both hands; when to his surprise, another door shuts. Roku walks around the side only to have exhaust burst into his face. He coughs a moment before giving chase. It’s no use: His boss takes off without him into the heart of Ney York City.
Cameras cut to inside the SUV where an occupied Jason Zurra checks his phone for updates from the higher-ups. A free second allows him time to relay instructions to his closest bodyguard.
“We’re on flight 12d,” Jason tells Roku. “I just hope we don’t have to scurry to our terminal. Nothing like last time out, eh?”
“Airlines are fickle,” says someone off camera. “They only do what’s best for their bottom line. Building off the weak, the stupid and the poor.”
“Jubei! Where do you come from?” Zurra says, catching his breath. “And where’s Roku?”
“Not bad for a ‘smug bastard’ huh?”
“Your flight left four hours ago.”
“No,” Jubei says, shaking his head. “I cancelled it. Now I’m leaving on your flight.”
Dread, confusion and disgust combine into one extremely sour expression. Zurra goes back to his phone.
“Don’t hide in text messages,” he says. “I want you to explain this to me.”
“About what?”
“Why are you trying to make me look bad?”
He pulls out his own phone with the new card on display.
“You lost that match to Braxton,” he says behind a deep sigh. “We put you in top booking, and you failed. What did I do to hurt you? Believe that you could actually win a fight on TV?”
“You and that Dante… I don’t trust him.”
“You’ve never trusted anyone. Why start now?”
“I trusted you.”
“I’m not entertaining this anymore, Jubei.” Zurra turns deeper into his email. “You had a chance at highest slot and blew it. If you want to go farther, you just need to win. Because the more you twist my arm for favors, Jubei, the more it’s going to come back to bite you.”
Zurra spends the next few minutes rearranging cab fairs for his bodyguard. That gruff voice coming through his phone—and the sound of objects being thrown—gets Masuda laughing. Zurra does his best to fix things no matter how many times his former boss tries to gaslight him. When their Uber drives under a few powerlines, however, his call drops. All that leads to murderous silence.
“Jubei, you can ride with me to the airport,” Jason tells him. “However, I don’t want to see you once we get there. Go your separate ways. I don’t care how you do that. Just leave me out of your schemes.”
“For that,” Jubei says, leering with those green-gray eyes, “you can grab your own luggage.”
We see a desk, an open laptop and the back of Masuda Jubei—nothing else. His netbook colors a bluish aura around him, unveiling multiple lines of treated workout tape across his back muscles. They still look supple regardless of his middle-aged physique. He waits on a Skype invitation that continues to load, but no one comes up at first. Jubei waits several minutes in silence until a familiar name accepts his contact information: Rachel Blanche Bertrand. Her visage suddenly pops up on screen.
Rachel: I can’t believe you actually wanted a follow-up.
Jubei: Why not?
Rachel: Because you’re—well, you know, don’t you?
Jubei: Everyone thinks I spend all day drowning interns in red soft drinks.
She laughs while trying to hide an obvious steno pad on her lap. Likewise, the pencil used to hold up her auburn hair. Although it looks black from her bedroom lighting.
Rachel: Well, since you dialed me, Mr. Masuda. I suppose it’s your turn to ask questions, isn’t it?
Jubei: That’s why I like you, Ms. Bertrand.
Rachel: For my spunk?
The Master curls his nostrils at the word.
Rachel: I’m sorry, Mr. Masuda. I know it sounds strange.
Jubei: I know what it means. And no, it’s because you follow decorum. You understand how to assess a situation without making the person enraged. If I weren’t so suspicious, I’d have to think you were trying to mesmerize me, Ms. Bertrand.
She breaks out into hysterical laughter.
Jubei: Which would be a terrible idea. I am immune to such things. You can never get to where I stand following whims. You can trust a million people and never know how many trusts you back. Even more, no one will tell you outright. You have to test their loyalty and do so regularly. My employees, be they secretaries or the executive board, everyone had to prove their work is accountable.
Rachel: That’s a lot of “you’s” for one thought, Mr. Masuda. Are you nervous about talking to me?
Jubei: Which brings me to your other outstanding quality: Unlike the rest of those lampreys, your work never supposes more of me than I say. Never goes deep sea diving for things on land. What I mean, Ms. Bertrand, is that no outlet believes why I’m here. They want it to fit some unabridged stories for crime novels. Supposing evil things of me like “racketeering” and other illicit activities.
Rachel: If it’s not true, then why are so many people asking you the same questions? Questions nearly identical to what other journalists have asked you in Yokohama, Australia and South Korea.
The Master cracks his knuckles one at a time until coming at his answer.
Jubei: No one believes in clean success stories. They want to find dirt and end your career. Why? It all comes down to jealousy, Ms. Bertrand. Jealousy fit for sharks or rabid dogs. Success endures so long as you let it. Nursing such a thing takes tremendous sacrifices—ones most people would never undertake.
Rachel: You aren’t a martyr, Mr. Masuda. You’re just misunderstood.
Jubei: If I'm lucky, Ms. Bertrand, and I only hope you never understand my plight. You aren’t ready for—
Rachel: Mr. Masuda....
Jubei: What now?
Rachel: What’s that red glow behind you?
Jubei: A salt lamp.
Rachel: Oh! I have one of those. Although It never turns that shade of red.
Jubei: What does it matter? I summoned you, Ms. Bertrand. Don’t flip my table around!
They touch on small subjects, avoiding the three things Masuda refused to speak about beforehand: New Blood Wrestling, his family and his loss to Braxton Locus. Then, at their calmest segue that early morning, something snaps.
Jubei: Why don’t believe me Ms. Bertrand?
Rachel: I believe that we have a good story. Even if it all feels too easy.
Jubei: Easy?
Rachel: That you rose from nothing to own one of Japan’s most-respected financial institutions. And that you did so on your own without much help. That sounds too easy to any reporter’s ear.
Jubei: I believe this interview is over…. don’t call me back, Ms. Bertrand. I will find you.
He shuts off the screen, letting the whole room fill with darkness. Faint numbers from a digital alarm clock flicker in the background. Yet nothing quite impresses like, his so-called Himilayan lamp, whose reddish pink hue lightens up the whole space. What Jubei uses for dramatic effect on camera.
Jubei: I was beaten. Something I never expected to admit before all you streaming this off our site, or the many outlets we leech off social media. It was not my intention to lose. My destiny was perfect in mind, and perhaps by some greater will, my karma return for its debts. Well those fateful three second have eclipsed forming a new Masuda Jubei
No, I haven’t changed. My resolve hasn’t swerved from where it began two weeks ago. My signing to Alpha Pro Wrestling has already begun a dramatic change to it talented landscape. Yet while others celebrate or mope in their beds eating Cheetos©, I am back to training. Preparing for what challenge our fearless leaders wish to drop on my head like some cartoon anvil. Hoping somewhere in their locked offices that New Blood Puroresu no Masuda Jubei falls again and again and again until his flame has extinguished. They wish to castrate the bull and pasture him for consumption. I won’t let them!
He pulls the lamplight closer until his face looks red. Then by contrast, everything looks pitch black on camera.
Jubei: That’s what brings us to the Windy City of Chicago. Where I shall face another face whom I have never seen in my world travels. Someone worth his salt in the ring. Another brought here with lucid dreams unfit for that locker room. Another intrepid spirit looking to leave ruin wherever he goes. Trent Page, allow me introduce all that stands in your way: ME.
Everyone positions themselves at the board. They analyze moves. They try to find which punch is going to land, and which will cripple. Truth is, Mr. Page; I didn’t strike hard enough last week. I regret not trying to pull bones from ligaments. Holding until that tiny referee pulled me off Braxton Locus. A man who spent every once in his body to keep mine to the mat. Funny how simple those great labors end at a simple count. Yet from them you begin to wonder where those who feared darkness now turn. Because nothing frees a coward’s soul like the death of monsters.
I am a survivor of many things, Mr. Page. Corporate attacks on my career. Physical attacks on my person. Even yellow page journalists… yet none of that have made a fatal blow. Plane crashes I have emerged from unscathed, undying and bent towards retribution. Many try to extinguish fires and pretend their house still stands. Others will play off bruises, blaming their woes on household objects like doors or stairs. Strong people do not. They admit what was that is no more, and then they get back up.
Masuda cracks every single knuckle before turning back to the static camera.
Jubei: I have returned to my feet to meet another wistful soul. Someone sent through Life’s paper shredder, and then reconstituted as a something less than human. You are broken in many places. Glued back together too many times to recognize. It’s why you seek to ruin what others build, Mr. Page. Because you don’t belong amongst the elite of Alpha Pro Wrestling. Yet like so many other that will share my ring space, your face will stick to my books like sidewalk gum. Clinging until I scrape it off.
Your breed of fighter doesn’t scare me. MMA was designed for chimpanzees: They fight with loose rules like peasants over bread. They all but bite to gain upper position. This place—and “the business” every withered and bloated corpse bleats about when begging for hospital funds on charity sites—is for the mentally strong. We have rules because we are intelligent enough to follow them. Wisdom capable of making precise strikes to wound and destroy our enemies. Grandeur unworthy of broken, unhinged beasts who punch people from behind. They do so because they only see red: red… red… red….
My light is not for those uncivilized enough to peer into its encompassing power. It is my soul and the growth soon to be. Red captures valor. It represents life in its purest form. It accents black, but in truth, red serves to extinguish darkness!
Suddenly, and for no explainable reason, his lamp intensifies.
Jubei: Peer into its power, Mr. Page. This is where the great gather and decide the fate of everything. Somewhere men like you can only hope to see from where you sit. Somewhere so far and vast from where I stand. A place you can only dream of turning red—red like the animal rage pumping into your heart. Red like just that fury cowards have fueled within me. Red like the hopeless puddle I am going to leave you in facedown come Monday. Come at me with your worst. Because these people have only seen my first week in Alpha. They haven’t seen me after a week of research, development and improvement. Sadly, you will be the first to see what happens when the best has renewed purpose.
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