Post by MasterEvil on Jul 31, 2012 15:07:10 GMT
Scene One: Rewaken, My Saint
Time: Night Flame Attacked Saint - Three Days Before The Crossroads PPV
I feel so lifeless on the stretcher, who is this man pushing me up the ramp? I originally came out to make an announcement, instead I am attacked by this utter stranger. We’re on the ramp and all I could see was a blurry ceiling…I felt him push the stretcher and I guess I must have hit the floor because the ceiling quickly flashed from the colourful crowd to a darker black. I could barely see up the ramp to see him with some kind of can…I felt the liquid splash down upon me, what is planning? I wish I could move but my body felt so limp as I see him holding a lit lighter in his hands. The whispers of so many panicked people barely caved into my ear as the lighter fell. The scene turned a ravenous orange and I could feel my flesh melting, yet my body couldn’t move at all…as if it died years ago. The pain was intense but quickly began to feel cold, numbingly cold, as blobs of black consumed my vision until everything is as dark as the Egyptian night.
Am I dead? Have I died? Is this what death is really like? Nothing but being alone in eternal darkness just to linger through the thoughts and memories created by the past and what might have been? If this is death, than I welcome it…I deserve to be nothing more than a nameless thought bound to a fate of being forgotten. But what can I think or remember first? What if I’m not dead? What if I’m just asleep and dreaming? But who would ever dream of such…nothingness? Why aren’t I dreaming of my sweet Serena? My baby girl Sabrina? My friends Duke and Rebecca? My fellow trainees Sebastian and Megan? My trainer Chris? Meine Engel Lya? My hope of fighting Sophie? My grail of a World Championship? The possible carrier of my new child, Yashira? Is this the type of person I am? Heartless? Uncaring? Inattentive? Selfish? Spiteful? Maybe I’m not dreaming…instead I could be dead but without the gift of sight…or maybe I could be entering limbo?
“You’ve returned…my Broken Saint,” who was that!?! I heard those words and my body instantly began spin about, frantically trying to find the source of this voice…in return what I heard was a giggle, a little girl’s giggle. Wait? A little girl? Could she be the hooded child that haunted me at the graveyard, outside a bar and even in my conscious when I was unconscious? I don’t know if I could speak, like the last time we met, or not, like the two times before, but before I could even try to say anything the deep darkness suddenly turned into a blinding white…when I opened my eyes all I could see is four red walls with no doors, as if I’m trapped inside some kind of red cube. Where the fuck am I!?! “Ring around the rosy, pocket full of posy…” her voice bounced off the walls as my body spun around in a panicked search for the little girl before finally stopping. I spotted that black cloaked girl, skipping in the walls…as if the four walls were a never-ending path for this hooded youth. I couldn’t help but reach out towards the wall, to see if I could actually touched her, but my right hand suddenly halted as she stopped and bend down slightly. “Ack! Ack!” Is this kid coughing now? I slowly retracted my hand, no longer sure what to think, but then the young girl stood up straight and faced me before grinning lightly, since the hood covered everything except her mouth. “We all fall DOWN!” Her head popped out the wall as she shouted the word ‘down’ which caused me to fall backwards onto my backside.
Me falling down seem to have amused the mysterious girl, since she giggled again while stepping out the wall. I’m not sure what she has planned but I instantly started to crawl back as the little girl slowly approached me…but my back away went to nought as my back was now pressed against the wall. I felt my heart beating louder and louder with every step the child made towards me, for the first time in my entire life I actually feel scared. “Who are you? Where are we? What is going on?” escaped my panicked lips and those words seem to have stopped the girl’s movements towards me, about a couple of steps in front of me, even wiping the smile off her face.
“Thou don’t know the reason why thou is here?” she said before dropping down to her knees and crawled over the my right, my heart beating extremely loudly as she got next to me, before leaning softly against my right shoulder. My entire shoulder felt cold, ice cold, has she is gently pressed against it. “Does thee want to know the answers to thy question?” I couldn’t bring myself to say anything…so I just nodded a ‘yes’ answer. This caused the hooded girl to smile as she pushed herself away from me and leaned back, falling through the red wall. I instantly got up to my knees and pressed both my hands against the wall she fell through, checking if there was a way out of this room, only to feel the same hard wall that prevented me from backing further away from the female in the first place…what is this place? I slowly sat myself back down, with my back against the red wall, and sighed softly…maybe I’m stuck here forever? Jesus! What the hell!!! Her arms suddenly blast through the wall and wrapped themselves around me, her left around me waist and her right around my neck, before commencing to drag me into the wall. There was no way am I letting myself be dragged into a crushing death, even if I’m already dead, so I began to squirm about and tried to stand up…but her grip was too firm and her strength was deceptively powerful…my attempts were futile as she drag me to my certain demise. What is this? She’s actually pulling me through the red wall…how is this possible!?! Who is she!?!
At the moment the tips of my feet got through the wall everything went blank again. “How is he doing?” Wait…isn’t that Yashira’s voice? Why does she sound so desperate? The blank began to gather colour as I am now inside one of the rooms in some hospital. There are two nurses, one reading something off some machine and the other near my pretty announcer, as if planning to comfort her or something. Next to the hospital bed is Yashira, wearing quite a charming green kimono, and next to her is some kind of doctor in his late-fifties. But what stunned me the most was that thing in the hospital bed…wrapped in multiple layers of plaster, with only his face not being covered, is…me.
Where did the little girl take me!?! I was about to take a step forwards but before I could even muster the first step, I felt a hand on the belt of my pants pulling me back. “No one can see us but ourselves,” I turned around to see that it was the girl who was holding onto my belt “they can’t hear us, they can’t feel us…we are nothing more than thin air to them. And even though your eyes are open…thy body is nothing more than a carcass, thy body is next to dead…but thy mind is still alive and it is our conversation that is keeping thy mind alive.”
She spoke out her words and I was about to speak but quickly stopped myself when I heard another voice speak. “I know that you hold deep feelings for this man, miss,” I turned around to see that it was the doctor that was talking this time “but unless we somehow manage to get his body functioning again…Mister Jericho Agbonlahor is going to be nothing more than dreaming for until the day he dies.” I could see the tears beginning to depart from the Japanese woman’s eyes as each word he said has clear struck her quite hard.
She was now crying heavily and I really wanted to comfort her but I need I was unable to like this…so I’ve decided to ask this hooded girl a question that lingered in my mind ever since the day I hired Yashira. “Why does she care so much about what’s happening to me? She knows that I won’t ever oust her from any of my houses and she also knows where I store my money…”
“Does thou know much about women?” Was the simple reply that she gave me but, before I could answer, she continued to speak. “Miss Yashira Maran does not like you as a friend…she doesn’t care about being just your trustworthy friend…she cares about you because she loves you Jericho, she held feelings for you ever since you passed out a while before Retribution. I know you first hired her just to be your personal announcer, as well as a friend to save you from loneliness backstage…but does thou hold more feeling, towards her, than that?”
That question struck hard…I was almost winded by not only that question but also the thought of someone actually loving a killer like me. I looked back over towards a teary-eyed Yashira, as she slowly moved over to my lifeless body, before looking back at the hooded girl “I-I…I do hold more feelings for Yashira, I-I…I love her so much…but after going through what I’ve been through, I don’t think I’ll be able to go through another heartbr…” while I spoke I slowly looked back towards the Japanese lady and was actually speechless when she leaned down and kissed my carcass on the lips. I might be outside my body but I definitely felt her sweetly tender kiss upon my own lips.
“And she’s currently the bearer of your unborn child…”
Those words completely tore down whatever remains of my previous opinion “how do I come back to life!?!” I asked frantically while spinning around to the little girl. She only giggled and smiled lightly before placing her hands on my belt and pulling me back into the red room, this time I was willing to her tugging. So we’re both back in the red box, me sitting with my back against one of the walls and her just sitting in the middle of the room cross-legged. My eye intensely glaring over to her and I guess, if the hood didn’t cover her eyes, that she was joyfully staring back at me. “How do I come back to life?” I repeated my question with a tone filled with determination.
“That wasn’t your first three questions,” was the girl’s simple reply, a grin appearing on her face.
“Who gives a shit about those three questions!?!” I shouted out, wanting to return to Yashira’s side as she carries my second chance of a new life. I was about to say something else but stopped myself to see that the girl’s grin has disappeared and was beginning to sink into the floor. I was about to reach for her but at the moment my hand moved it was too late. The hooded child sunk into the floor and out of that floor oozed a new red…a blood red. Like a geyser the new red shot into the ceiling and the room slowly converted into its new bloody colour, my hands were resting on the floor and when they felt the new colour touch them I realised that this wasn’t a new change of colour…this was legitimate blood consuming the room.
I felt like scream but my body was cold, numb and unresponsive. Am I going to drown in blood!?! “Two of your three questions are important to your survival…” the girl’s voice spoke as my numbed body was helpless in this blood infested prison. “Where are we? We are inside your very own mind…your dark, guilty, mind.” As the voice spoke I began to hear my own heartbeat quite easily as its tempo increased dramatically “how can you come back to life?” The voice repeated my question as a child’s hand reaches out of the blood geyser, blood tinkling off it, open towards me “take my hand. Break the Restraint Of A Broken Heart and be reborn as a new Saint…” the voice spoke coldly as the blood was beginning to reach up to two feet high. I tried to move but my body won’t let me…is this the ‘Restraint Of A Broken Heart’ that the girl spoke of? Ether it be true or not I needed to move my body or else I’ll drown in my own mind, possibly meaning that I won’t be able to return to my body ever again.
But how can I? Serena, my wife, is dead and my daughter Sabrina have been stolen from me…maybe the world would be better off without Jericho Agbonlahor. I got given life and I wasted it, maybe its time to finally give up and die away. But what about Yashira? If I disappear, who would be there to teach her how to paint? Who would be there to hang out with her after the show is over? To take her to respective comic and anime coms? To taste her delicious cookies? To comfort her when she needs a shoulder to cry on? To support her when she gives birth to my child? I can’t leave Yashira alone in such a cruel world, especially one with people happy enough to take advantage of her gullibility? You were everything to me Serena…my founder, saviour and lover…but now I need to move on!
My body suddenly felt a lot lighter as I easily got up to my feet, the blood almost reaching four feet…consuming the entire hand of the child. So with one leap of fate I drove into the blood and began to swim through it. Has I held my breath many flashbacks began showing up in the blood…the car crash that killed Serena, the judge’s call to give my child’s custody to my awful sister-in-law, the time I’ve spent training under Chris Middley, the moment I hired Sapphire as my ring announcer and the kiss we shared in the tent during the Download weekend. I steeled my resolve through the blood until I found the child’s hand slowly falling into the geyser it came from. With possibly seconds left to reach the hand I put all my strength and remaining breath into a charge towards that very hand. It was about to hit the floor but fingers were barely able to touch hers and everything returned to nothingness.
“You are reborn Jericho…” my eyes softly opened to see that standing in front of me, in this nothingness, is the hooded girl. I was about to ask who was she but the child spoke up before I had a chance “you’re going to wake up soon Jericho…but in three months time you’ll suffer a heart attack,” my eyes expressed a huge amount of shock towards what the child said “you’ve unshackled your heart but half a heart won’t be enough for you to last the rest of the year. We’ll meet again on that day and that day shall be our last meeting…either you live or die.” Live or die…wait, what!?! “On that day I’ll repeat the question you asked me…‘who are you?’ and you’ll either answer correctly and survive…or answer wrongly and never return to the world you want to return to…with my last words until that day I’ll say this: retrace your past for your answer is at the end if them. Now…reawaken, my Saint,” she smiled and giggled after saying those words before everything suddenly turned a blinding white.
“So…bright…” weakly ejected my lips as the whiteness gave way to a set of tiles…am I staring at a ceiling?
“J-J-JERICHO!” huh? My self-awareness seem to have temporarily vanished because I still couldn’t recall where I was until that scream was heard…that was Yashira’s voice and my adorable announcer seem to have ran over to me and wrap her arms around me. It was then I realised that I was back in my plastered body, since my entire body stings everywhere except for my face. Her face was completely teary-eyed, as if she was a war widow, and she seem to notice that was in pain since her arms moved away from my body. “I’m s-sorry Jer-Jericho, I’m just happy to see…” with each word spoken Yashira’s tear stained face was getting closer to mine so, at the first chance I got, I pained my neck into pushing my head forwards to softly peck Yashira on her lips.
“I…love you…please stay…with me…” my crispy larynx was barely able to voice out.
Part of me expected a resounding no and her walking off…instead Yashira nodded softly, a new set of tears exiting her eyes “…yes.” After saying that the Japanese female returned a tender kiss to my lips. As we kissed my eyes has spotted the doctors and nurses looking completely traumatized at me, I guess most of them expected me to change from ‘The Broken Saint’ to ‘The Broken Vegetable’. But I don’t fucking care, for now I have my beautiful Yashira kissing me and when our lips depart she blushed lightly “I’m pregnant…”
Is simply chuckled at the blush on her cheeks, personally she looks a bit cuter with a bit of pink, and barely managed to whisper out the following line before beginning to rest “…I already know…”
Scene Two: A New Chapter For Us Both
Time: 27th Friday July 2012
Today is officially the first day I’m back in a WEW arena, the one in Atlanta Georgia to be specific, and now matter how much pride I want to hold…this wasn’t the most greatest of first steps into the arena. Sapphire, my beautifully cute ring announcer, is holding onto my left hand while my right was firming clutch the handle of a walking stick. Me…a walking stick…I am thirty odd years to young, I so wish that I’d be able to get my hands on that Flame guy soon enough. But for now I’m using the fusion of Yashira’s clutch and this crutch to walk through the arena at my slow and weak pace. The backstage crew around seem to have stopped whatever they were doing and applauded me as my healing figure is dragging itself with each step, why do they care? I’m no Oliveira or Copeland, so why do they care? Either I get the answer or not I don’t fully care; I insisted that I should get into an arena as soon as I was able to stand up. So here I was, using the arena as an exercise to get my legs back into good condition. I coughed lightly and Yashira seem to be quick in holding me still, as if expecting me to fall down.
Sapphire: Maybe this was a bad idea Jericho…
TBS: No, Yashira, I need to do this or I’ll never be able to trust my legs when it matters the most. So please lets us continue onwards…
Sapphire: But…
I knew that this Japanese cutie was getting more and more worried about my health, so I interrupted her words my softly pressing my lips against her sweet lips and tenderly kissed her. As I departed my lips from hers I noticed that I’ve managed to silent the girl so I smiled gently toward her.
TBS: If it makes you feel better, then why not we head off to my locker room and you find a cameraman. I’ll then shoot a promo and afterwards we can head back home…okay?
The bearer of my unborn child didn’t say anything at first, if anything I think she was still partly mesmerised by my kiss, but after a couple of quiet moments Miss Maran nodded her head. I took it as an ‘okay’ answer so we began to make our, rather slow, way towards my private locker room. Even though I was able to walk with assistance from Yashira and a stick, my shoulders still feel pretty weak…maybe I won’t be anywhere near a hundred percent for my return. But that didn’t matter at the moment as we finally managed to arrive at the door with the name ‘Broken Saint’ on it. Sapphire was about to open it but my left hand squeezed tightly as my eyes looked into hers, mentally asking her to not do so. When she obliged I smiled light and, knowing that my door possesses no locks, I slowly raised the walking stick and tried ramming it into the door to open it. Good news, it worked…bad news? My hobbling legs lost balance and I fell towards my right, accidentally causing Sapphire to fall on top of my recovering body in the process. She looked worried at first but I simply chuckled at what just happened and, after she helps me back up to my mostly numb feet, we managed to enter my locker room. Sapphire took the earliest chance to sit me down on the bench and looked me in the eyes before beginning to speak.
Sapphire: I’ll find you a cameraman Jericho, just please don’t move.
After those words were spoken Yashira exited my locker room and closed the door behind her. So now I’m alone in my locker room…I must admit that I was heavily surprised to see my name main eventing the upcoming Animosity, against the current Universal Champion Vantage, in my first match back from the burn injuries. I was nearly starting the last Animosity I appeared on but it seems that everyone has been looking forward to me coming back…there is no way I’ll be at ninety percent for this match though. But there is no reason to feel unconfident, this is MY return and there is no way I’m going to let myself be weak…especially when that ‘Flame’ guy could be watching from anywhere backstage. So maybe there is nothing wrong with trying to get more life in my legs, after all I won’t be leaving the room. So, putting a lot of pressure on the walking stick, I forced myself up to my feet and I wobbled for a bit. But after a short while my legs stopped shaking about so now I should let go of the walking stick…what a bad move. At the moment I let go of that damn stick my entire body collapsed, causing me too smack face first into the ground. It was only a few seconds later that Sapphire has re-entered the room and saw me laying on the floor.
Sapphire: I told you not to move Jericho…
She said while helping me back onto the bench. If it wasn’t for how stern Yashria sounded I would swear that the cameraman would have laughed at the sight of my body helplessly sprawling on the floor. I sighed softly when I was sat back down on the bench, clutching the walking stick in my right hand and holding Yashira’s hand with my left, before indicating to the cameraman that he could start recording. So after a few mildly quiet seconds he motioned back that the camera is now recording both me and my announcer.
TBS: Please don’t adjust your TVs or check your glasses for your eyes aren’t playing tricks with you. After thirty-five odd days of injury, The Broken Saint has returned to the world of Animosity…and what a way to make my in-ring return: main eventing this week’s Animosity in a none-title match against the new Universal Champion Vantage, the same Vantage that has never pinned me. Oh, didn’t you know Mitch? Didn’t you know that, discounting the five man ladder match last year, I have always beaten you? What was the official score again? Oh, now I remember, two and one…and, while I’ve pinned you before Vantage, you still haven’t pinned me yet. You might want to make the first match of your second reign start with a bang, but I intend to start it with a flop for this is MY return and there is absolutely no way I’m going to lose my first match back from injury. You are the two time Universal Champion, and you deserve that honour so damn badly…but the one fact, the only fact, that completely matters to this match is that no matter how hard you fight…I am yet to truly taste defeat at your very hands.
The black glove, which I was advised to wear to improve my grip until I am fully healed, on my right hand held tightly onto the walking stick as I began speaking my words of returning to the main event of Animosity. Out of the corner of my eye, my peripheral vision, I could barely spot out the sense of anxiety on Yashira’s expression…so my left hand squeezed hers gently, not caring if it was on camera of not, while keeping my gaze and words focused on the lens recording us.
TBS: Thirty-five odd days ago I got set on fire by Flame and yes, even though I am here right now, I don’t feel as strong as I was before the attack…hell, I’d be extremely lucky to be at eighty percent for our match Vantage. But, deep down, I know that eighty percent of me is just enough for a hundred percent of you, Mitch. Don’t feel fully offended though, there is a ridiculously high probability that I’ll be nothing more than easy pickings for you. But for each breath my burnt up lung inhale, for each word my blazed lips speak and for each punch my charred hands throw, I’ll never go out without a good hard fight. You can call it a lifestyle of thuggery and I can call up an English upbringing but every fibre, seared or cleared, in the essence of my existence solely relies on my capability to bring hold my hands up and fight ’till my very last breath. Like a Japanese solider between the years of nineteen-thirty-eight and nineteen-forty-four, surrendering is never an option…even death is a more considerable option, to me, than surrendering no matter how beaten-up my mind and body may be.
Moments after I spoke out my last few words I bent over and coughed loudly, a temporarily aftermath of being burned alive I hope. Sapphire immediately moved her right arm across my shoulders and offered me a tissue. I softly mouthed “thank you” but refused the tissue…instead I slowly rose my head back up to stare at the camera lens and continued on with the promo, doing my utter best to ignore the frailness of my current condition.
TBS: Yes, I have a heart of a warrior…a Zulu warrior if you will, a broken heart I admit but this broken heart still beats enough life in my body to provide fight to pin your shoulders to the mat last time we fought. But here comes a question specifically chosen for you, Vantage. By now I think people should know that I have the drive to go on and on and on…but do have it? Do you have the drive? Do you have the drive to go on and on and on when everything seems to be over? Does Mr. Amazing possess a seventh gear to use when sixth gear isn’t enough? Does the New Age Nature Boy have the dedication, the motivation and the conviction to use the wild card when all is seemed over? People can remind me of how you won your Title back, in a ladder match…but you had the motivation of revenge over a death that everyone have been tricked to believe. What about Legacy? You wanted to be known as the ‘King of Last Man Standing’ yet instead you were simply disposed off into a role of the losing jester. I want to call it over-confidence, arrogance if you will…
But its just not true. No matter how much of the charisma, the in-ring ability and the good looks you have…you always seem to be lacking one thing Vantage. I don’t know what this one thing truly is but it is down to this one fact that you’ve lost to Alister Bane back at Legacy, that you’ve failed to breakthrough as a consistent main eventer and that you’re currently possessing an one-two win-loss record against me. Like the title of a brilliant Metallica song all I’ve just said about you, Vantage, is “Sad But True.” You can like me for what I’ve revealed you can hate me for what I’ve revealed, you can love you can loathe me, but if you don’t agree with what I’ve spoken…then why has your greatest claim to fame, in this company, was a bitter rivalry against a German celebrity? Why has everything you’ve done, since your and Stefan’s rivalry climaxed, have been so…so…mediocre? Stefan Raab has practically been more impressive in two matches than you have so far this year, Vantage. Why, man, why? Why have you flopped so much in the first half of twenty-twelve? You know what Mitch? After seeing how…how…blunderful your twenty-twelve is going, I’m actually feeling quite embarrassed by the fact that I lost a five man ladder match to you.
The words were quite slowly said I must admit, while very words scraped through my sore voice box as they were spoken to the lens. Maybe it wasn’t a totally smart plan to cut a promo during my first walk through an arena since being set on fire. But I kept going with my words, trying to avoid my announcer’s pleading face, I know she is worried about my health…but if I was totally worried about my well-being, then why did I become a professional wrestler?
TBS: But this all leads up to three days time, when we main event Animosity together on MY return and YOUR first night as the new Universal Champion. This is a our fourth confrontation yet on a new chapter for us both…so who would we be in our respective chapters? I enter mine as a wounded extremist who seeks revenge against he who gave that extremist those wounds…how will you enter your new chapter Vantage? Will you enter as the true Mr. Amazing Vantage? The very Vantage that would give me a true fight that both me and the audience would love to watch over and over again? Or will you enter as the lame ass Vantage that seemed to be without a cause until being tricked into believing that his dear Zoey Walters was dead? The very Vantage that will not only being completely mauled over by a weakened Saint, but will also succumb to a downward spiral into obscurity. Who shall you enter your new chapter? Show us all on Monday, I’m The Broken Saint…Break Me! I Don’t Care…
My peripheral vision did notice Sapphire smiling lightly when I said the catchphrase I would normally use to end a promo…but that isn’t the way I want to end this. So in a sudden flash of movement my left hand lets go of hers, shot over to the camera and cupped the lens so that it would still be looking at me. I grinned in an almost malicious way as my noticed not only the scared expression on the cameraman’s face but also the heavily surprised look on Yashira’s face. After a few soundless moments I spoke up yet again.
TBS: This is the story of the Red Rose.
There was once a man greater than greatness,
More perfect than pure perfection,
More phenomenal than a phenomenon,
More excellent than excellence,
That they all called him Mister Amazing.
But one day he battles a bizarre man…
With flesh burnt by a thousand suns,
With a heart broken into a thousand parts,
With the mind of a thousand fools,
So all of them called him The Broken Saint.
The two fought each other hard for what each man believed in…
The first believed in becoming more amazing than amazing,
The second only seek the end of heartache,
The battle waged on until the Naked Truth struck through the first’s heart,
As Saint moves on Mister Amazing’s blood stained the white rose.
That was the story of the Red Rose.
In three nights, Mister Amazing, we will re-enact that story.
Amusing how I chose to end my promo with a poem, instead of a catchphrase, but I chose to do so moments before the cameraman switched off the camera and scampered off. I looked over to see how worried and upset Sapphire look but with after a tiny cough I spoke up.
TBS: Fine…lets go home then, Nurse.
I jokingly called her, since I swear Yashira doesn’t always keep that that nurse outfit in the wardrobe for Halloween, and it seem to have lightened her mood because the female giggled lightly and smiled. She then helped me up to my feet and together we managed to not only get my carcass out of the arena, but also into a taxi that could take us to the nearest hotel.
Time: Night Flame Attacked Saint - Three Days Before The Crossroads PPV
I feel so lifeless on the stretcher, who is this man pushing me up the ramp? I originally came out to make an announcement, instead I am attacked by this utter stranger. We’re on the ramp and all I could see was a blurry ceiling…I felt him push the stretcher and I guess I must have hit the floor because the ceiling quickly flashed from the colourful crowd to a darker black. I could barely see up the ramp to see him with some kind of can…I felt the liquid splash down upon me, what is planning? I wish I could move but my body felt so limp as I see him holding a lit lighter in his hands. The whispers of so many panicked people barely caved into my ear as the lighter fell. The scene turned a ravenous orange and I could feel my flesh melting, yet my body couldn’t move at all…as if it died years ago. The pain was intense but quickly began to feel cold, numbingly cold, as blobs of black consumed my vision until everything is as dark as the Egyptian night.
Am I dead? Have I died? Is this what death is really like? Nothing but being alone in eternal darkness just to linger through the thoughts and memories created by the past and what might have been? If this is death, than I welcome it…I deserve to be nothing more than a nameless thought bound to a fate of being forgotten. But what can I think or remember first? What if I’m not dead? What if I’m just asleep and dreaming? But who would ever dream of such…nothingness? Why aren’t I dreaming of my sweet Serena? My baby girl Sabrina? My friends Duke and Rebecca? My fellow trainees Sebastian and Megan? My trainer Chris? Meine Engel Lya? My hope of fighting Sophie? My grail of a World Championship? The possible carrier of my new child, Yashira? Is this the type of person I am? Heartless? Uncaring? Inattentive? Selfish? Spiteful? Maybe I’m not dreaming…instead I could be dead but without the gift of sight…or maybe I could be entering limbo?
“You’ve returned…my Broken Saint,” who was that!?! I heard those words and my body instantly began spin about, frantically trying to find the source of this voice…in return what I heard was a giggle, a little girl’s giggle. Wait? A little girl? Could she be the hooded child that haunted me at the graveyard, outside a bar and even in my conscious when I was unconscious? I don’t know if I could speak, like the last time we met, or not, like the two times before, but before I could even try to say anything the deep darkness suddenly turned into a blinding white…when I opened my eyes all I could see is four red walls with no doors, as if I’m trapped inside some kind of red cube. Where the fuck am I!?! “Ring around the rosy, pocket full of posy…” her voice bounced off the walls as my body spun around in a panicked search for the little girl before finally stopping. I spotted that black cloaked girl, skipping in the walls…as if the four walls were a never-ending path for this hooded youth. I couldn’t help but reach out towards the wall, to see if I could actually touched her, but my right hand suddenly halted as she stopped and bend down slightly. “Ack! Ack!” Is this kid coughing now? I slowly retracted my hand, no longer sure what to think, but then the young girl stood up straight and faced me before grinning lightly, since the hood covered everything except her mouth. “We all fall DOWN!” Her head popped out the wall as she shouted the word ‘down’ which caused me to fall backwards onto my backside.
Me falling down seem to have amused the mysterious girl, since she giggled again while stepping out the wall. I’m not sure what she has planned but I instantly started to crawl back as the little girl slowly approached me…but my back away went to nought as my back was now pressed against the wall. I felt my heart beating louder and louder with every step the child made towards me, for the first time in my entire life I actually feel scared. “Who are you? Where are we? What is going on?” escaped my panicked lips and those words seem to have stopped the girl’s movements towards me, about a couple of steps in front of me, even wiping the smile off her face.
“Thou don’t know the reason why thou is here?” she said before dropping down to her knees and crawled over the my right, my heart beating extremely loudly as she got next to me, before leaning softly against my right shoulder. My entire shoulder felt cold, ice cold, has she is gently pressed against it. “Does thee want to know the answers to thy question?” I couldn’t bring myself to say anything…so I just nodded a ‘yes’ answer. This caused the hooded girl to smile as she pushed herself away from me and leaned back, falling through the red wall. I instantly got up to my knees and pressed both my hands against the wall she fell through, checking if there was a way out of this room, only to feel the same hard wall that prevented me from backing further away from the female in the first place…what is this place? I slowly sat myself back down, with my back against the red wall, and sighed softly…maybe I’m stuck here forever? Jesus! What the hell!!! Her arms suddenly blast through the wall and wrapped themselves around me, her left around me waist and her right around my neck, before commencing to drag me into the wall. There was no way am I letting myself be dragged into a crushing death, even if I’m already dead, so I began to squirm about and tried to stand up…but her grip was too firm and her strength was deceptively powerful…my attempts were futile as she drag me to my certain demise. What is this? She’s actually pulling me through the red wall…how is this possible!?! Who is she!?!
At the moment the tips of my feet got through the wall everything went blank again. “How is he doing?” Wait…isn’t that Yashira’s voice? Why does she sound so desperate? The blank began to gather colour as I am now inside one of the rooms in some hospital. There are two nurses, one reading something off some machine and the other near my pretty announcer, as if planning to comfort her or something. Next to the hospital bed is Yashira, wearing quite a charming green kimono, and next to her is some kind of doctor in his late-fifties. But what stunned me the most was that thing in the hospital bed…wrapped in multiple layers of plaster, with only his face not being covered, is…me.
Where did the little girl take me!?! I was about to take a step forwards but before I could even muster the first step, I felt a hand on the belt of my pants pulling me back. “No one can see us but ourselves,” I turned around to see that it was the girl who was holding onto my belt “they can’t hear us, they can’t feel us…we are nothing more than thin air to them. And even though your eyes are open…thy body is nothing more than a carcass, thy body is next to dead…but thy mind is still alive and it is our conversation that is keeping thy mind alive.”
She spoke out her words and I was about to speak but quickly stopped myself when I heard another voice speak. “I know that you hold deep feelings for this man, miss,” I turned around to see that it was the doctor that was talking this time “but unless we somehow manage to get his body functioning again…Mister Jericho Agbonlahor is going to be nothing more than dreaming for until the day he dies.” I could see the tears beginning to depart from the Japanese woman’s eyes as each word he said has clear struck her quite hard.
She was now crying heavily and I really wanted to comfort her but I need I was unable to like this…so I’ve decided to ask this hooded girl a question that lingered in my mind ever since the day I hired Yashira. “Why does she care so much about what’s happening to me? She knows that I won’t ever oust her from any of my houses and she also knows where I store my money…”
“Does thou know much about women?” Was the simple reply that she gave me but, before I could answer, she continued to speak. “Miss Yashira Maran does not like you as a friend…she doesn’t care about being just your trustworthy friend…she cares about you because she loves you Jericho, she held feelings for you ever since you passed out a while before Retribution. I know you first hired her just to be your personal announcer, as well as a friend to save you from loneliness backstage…but does thou hold more feeling, towards her, than that?”
That question struck hard…I was almost winded by not only that question but also the thought of someone actually loving a killer like me. I looked back over towards a teary-eyed Yashira, as she slowly moved over to my lifeless body, before looking back at the hooded girl “I-I…I do hold more feelings for Yashira, I-I…I love her so much…but after going through what I’ve been through, I don’t think I’ll be able to go through another heartbr…” while I spoke I slowly looked back towards the Japanese lady and was actually speechless when she leaned down and kissed my carcass on the lips. I might be outside my body but I definitely felt her sweetly tender kiss upon my own lips.
“And she’s currently the bearer of your unborn child…”
Those words completely tore down whatever remains of my previous opinion “how do I come back to life!?!” I asked frantically while spinning around to the little girl. She only giggled and smiled lightly before placing her hands on my belt and pulling me back into the red room, this time I was willing to her tugging. So we’re both back in the red box, me sitting with my back against one of the walls and her just sitting in the middle of the room cross-legged. My eye intensely glaring over to her and I guess, if the hood didn’t cover her eyes, that she was joyfully staring back at me. “How do I come back to life?” I repeated my question with a tone filled with determination.
“That wasn’t your first three questions,” was the girl’s simple reply, a grin appearing on her face.
“Who gives a shit about those three questions!?!” I shouted out, wanting to return to Yashira’s side as she carries my second chance of a new life. I was about to say something else but stopped myself to see that the girl’s grin has disappeared and was beginning to sink into the floor. I was about to reach for her but at the moment my hand moved it was too late. The hooded child sunk into the floor and out of that floor oozed a new red…a blood red. Like a geyser the new red shot into the ceiling and the room slowly converted into its new bloody colour, my hands were resting on the floor and when they felt the new colour touch them I realised that this wasn’t a new change of colour…this was legitimate blood consuming the room.
I felt like scream but my body was cold, numb and unresponsive. Am I going to drown in blood!?! “Two of your three questions are important to your survival…” the girl’s voice spoke as my numbed body was helpless in this blood infested prison. “Where are we? We are inside your very own mind…your dark, guilty, mind.” As the voice spoke I began to hear my own heartbeat quite easily as its tempo increased dramatically “how can you come back to life?” The voice repeated my question as a child’s hand reaches out of the blood geyser, blood tinkling off it, open towards me “take my hand. Break the Restraint Of A Broken Heart and be reborn as a new Saint…” the voice spoke coldly as the blood was beginning to reach up to two feet high. I tried to move but my body won’t let me…is this the ‘Restraint Of A Broken Heart’ that the girl spoke of? Ether it be true or not I needed to move my body or else I’ll drown in my own mind, possibly meaning that I won’t be able to return to my body ever again.
But how can I? Serena, my wife, is dead and my daughter Sabrina have been stolen from me…maybe the world would be better off without Jericho Agbonlahor. I got given life and I wasted it, maybe its time to finally give up and die away. But what about Yashira? If I disappear, who would be there to teach her how to paint? Who would be there to hang out with her after the show is over? To take her to respective comic and anime coms? To taste her delicious cookies? To comfort her when she needs a shoulder to cry on? To support her when she gives birth to my child? I can’t leave Yashira alone in such a cruel world, especially one with people happy enough to take advantage of her gullibility? You were everything to me Serena…my founder, saviour and lover…but now I need to move on!
My body suddenly felt a lot lighter as I easily got up to my feet, the blood almost reaching four feet…consuming the entire hand of the child. So with one leap of fate I drove into the blood and began to swim through it. Has I held my breath many flashbacks began showing up in the blood…the car crash that killed Serena, the judge’s call to give my child’s custody to my awful sister-in-law, the time I’ve spent training under Chris Middley, the moment I hired Sapphire as my ring announcer and the kiss we shared in the tent during the Download weekend. I steeled my resolve through the blood until I found the child’s hand slowly falling into the geyser it came from. With possibly seconds left to reach the hand I put all my strength and remaining breath into a charge towards that very hand. It was about to hit the floor but fingers were barely able to touch hers and everything returned to nothingness.
“You are reborn Jericho…” my eyes softly opened to see that standing in front of me, in this nothingness, is the hooded girl. I was about to ask who was she but the child spoke up before I had a chance “you’re going to wake up soon Jericho…but in three months time you’ll suffer a heart attack,” my eyes expressed a huge amount of shock towards what the child said “you’ve unshackled your heart but half a heart won’t be enough for you to last the rest of the year. We’ll meet again on that day and that day shall be our last meeting…either you live or die.” Live or die…wait, what!?! “On that day I’ll repeat the question you asked me…‘who are you?’ and you’ll either answer correctly and survive…or answer wrongly and never return to the world you want to return to…with my last words until that day I’ll say this: retrace your past for your answer is at the end if them. Now…reawaken, my Saint,” she smiled and giggled after saying those words before everything suddenly turned a blinding white.
“So…bright…” weakly ejected my lips as the whiteness gave way to a set of tiles…am I staring at a ceiling?
“J-J-JERICHO!” huh? My self-awareness seem to have temporarily vanished because I still couldn’t recall where I was until that scream was heard…that was Yashira’s voice and my adorable announcer seem to have ran over to me and wrap her arms around me. It was then I realised that I was back in my plastered body, since my entire body stings everywhere except for my face. Her face was completely teary-eyed, as if she was a war widow, and she seem to notice that was in pain since her arms moved away from my body. “I’m s-sorry Jer-Jericho, I’m just happy to see…” with each word spoken Yashira’s tear stained face was getting closer to mine so, at the first chance I got, I pained my neck into pushing my head forwards to softly peck Yashira on her lips.
“I…love you…please stay…with me…” my crispy larynx was barely able to voice out.
Part of me expected a resounding no and her walking off…instead Yashira nodded softly, a new set of tears exiting her eyes “…yes.” After saying that the Japanese female returned a tender kiss to my lips. As we kissed my eyes has spotted the doctors and nurses looking completely traumatized at me, I guess most of them expected me to change from ‘The Broken Saint’ to ‘The Broken Vegetable’. But I don’t fucking care, for now I have my beautiful Yashira kissing me and when our lips depart she blushed lightly “I’m pregnant…”
Is simply chuckled at the blush on her cheeks, personally she looks a bit cuter with a bit of pink, and barely managed to whisper out the following line before beginning to rest “…I already know…”
Scene Two: A New Chapter For Us Both
Time: 27th Friday July 2012
Today is officially the first day I’m back in a WEW arena, the one in Atlanta Georgia to be specific, and now matter how much pride I want to hold…this wasn’t the most greatest of first steps into the arena. Sapphire, my beautifully cute ring announcer, is holding onto my left hand while my right was firming clutch the handle of a walking stick. Me…a walking stick…I am thirty odd years to young, I so wish that I’d be able to get my hands on that Flame guy soon enough. But for now I’m using the fusion of Yashira’s clutch and this crutch to walk through the arena at my slow and weak pace. The backstage crew around seem to have stopped whatever they were doing and applauded me as my healing figure is dragging itself with each step, why do they care? I’m no Oliveira or Copeland, so why do they care? Either I get the answer or not I don’t fully care; I insisted that I should get into an arena as soon as I was able to stand up. So here I was, using the arena as an exercise to get my legs back into good condition. I coughed lightly and Yashira seem to be quick in holding me still, as if expecting me to fall down.
Sapphire: Maybe this was a bad idea Jericho…
TBS: No, Yashira, I need to do this or I’ll never be able to trust my legs when it matters the most. So please lets us continue onwards…
Sapphire: But…
I knew that this Japanese cutie was getting more and more worried about my health, so I interrupted her words my softly pressing my lips against her sweet lips and tenderly kissed her. As I departed my lips from hers I noticed that I’ve managed to silent the girl so I smiled gently toward her.
TBS: If it makes you feel better, then why not we head off to my locker room and you find a cameraman. I’ll then shoot a promo and afterwards we can head back home…okay?
The bearer of my unborn child didn’t say anything at first, if anything I think she was still partly mesmerised by my kiss, but after a couple of quiet moments Miss Maran nodded her head. I took it as an ‘okay’ answer so we began to make our, rather slow, way towards my private locker room. Even though I was able to walk with assistance from Yashira and a stick, my shoulders still feel pretty weak…maybe I won’t be anywhere near a hundred percent for my return. But that didn’t matter at the moment as we finally managed to arrive at the door with the name ‘Broken Saint’ on it. Sapphire was about to open it but my left hand squeezed tightly as my eyes looked into hers, mentally asking her to not do so. When she obliged I smiled light and, knowing that my door possesses no locks, I slowly raised the walking stick and tried ramming it into the door to open it. Good news, it worked…bad news? My hobbling legs lost balance and I fell towards my right, accidentally causing Sapphire to fall on top of my recovering body in the process. She looked worried at first but I simply chuckled at what just happened and, after she helps me back up to my mostly numb feet, we managed to enter my locker room. Sapphire took the earliest chance to sit me down on the bench and looked me in the eyes before beginning to speak.
Sapphire: I’ll find you a cameraman Jericho, just please don’t move.
After those words were spoken Yashira exited my locker room and closed the door behind her. So now I’m alone in my locker room…I must admit that I was heavily surprised to see my name main eventing the upcoming Animosity, against the current Universal Champion Vantage, in my first match back from the burn injuries. I was nearly starting the last Animosity I appeared on but it seems that everyone has been looking forward to me coming back…there is no way I’ll be at ninety percent for this match though. But there is no reason to feel unconfident, this is MY return and there is no way I’m going to let myself be weak…especially when that ‘Flame’ guy could be watching from anywhere backstage. So maybe there is nothing wrong with trying to get more life in my legs, after all I won’t be leaving the room. So, putting a lot of pressure on the walking stick, I forced myself up to my feet and I wobbled for a bit. But after a short while my legs stopped shaking about so now I should let go of the walking stick…what a bad move. At the moment I let go of that damn stick my entire body collapsed, causing me too smack face first into the ground. It was only a few seconds later that Sapphire has re-entered the room and saw me laying on the floor.
Sapphire: I told you not to move Jericho…
She said while helping me back onto the bench. If it wasn’t for how stern Yashria sounded I would swear that the cameraman would have laughed at the sight of my body helplessly sprawling on the floor. I sighed softly when I was sat back down on the bench, clutching the walking stick in my right hand and holding Yashira’s hand with my left, before indicating to the cameraman that he could start recording. So after a few mildly quiet seconds he motioned back that the camera is now recording both me and my announcer.
TBS: Please don’t adjust your TVs or check your glasses for your eyes aren’t playing tricks with you. After thirty-five odd days of injury, The Broken Saint has returned to the world of Animosity…and what a way to make my in-ring return: main eventing this week’s Animosity in a none-title match against the new Universal Champion Vantage, the same Vantage that has never pinned me. Oh, didn’t you know Mitch? Didn’t you know that, discounting the five man ladder match last year, I have always beaten you? What was the official score again? Oh, now I remember, two and one…and, while I’ve pinned you before Vantage, you still haven’t pinned me yet. You might want to make the first match of your second reign start with a bang, but I intend to start it with a flop for this is MY return and there is absolutely no way I’m going to lose my first match back from injury. You are the two time Universal Champion, and you deserve that honour so damn badly…but the one fact, the only fact, that completely matters to this match is that no matter how hard you fight…I am yet to truly taste defeat at your very hands.
The black glove, which I was advised to wear to improve my grip until I am fully healed, on my right hand held tightly onto the walking stick as I began speaking my words of returning to the main event of Animosity. Out of the corner of my eye, my peripheral vision, I could barely spot out the sense of anxiety on Yashira’s expression…so my left hand squeezed hers gently, not caring if it was on camera of not, while keeping my gaze and words focused on the lens recording us.
TBS: Thirty-five odd days ago I got set on fire by Flame and yes, even though I am here right now, I don’t feel as strong as I was before the attack…hell, I’d be extremely lucky to be at eighty percent for our match Vantage. But, deep down, I know that eighty percent of me is just enough for a hundred percent of you, Mitch. Don’t feel fully offended though, there is a ridiculously high probability that I’ll be nothing more than easy pickings for you. But for each breath my burnt up lung inhale, for each word my blazed lips speak and for each punch my charred hands throw, I’ll never go out without a good hard fight. You can call it a lifestyle of thuggery and I can call up an English upbringing but every fibre, seared or cleared, in the essence of my existence solely relies on my capability to bring hold my hands up and fight ’till my very last breath. Like a Japanese solider between the years of nineteen-thirty-eight and nineteen-forty-four, surrendering is never an option…even death is a more considerable option, to me, than surrendering no matter how beaten-up my mind and body may be.
Moments after I spoke out my last few words I bent over and coughed loudly, a temporarily aftermath of being burned alive I hope. Sapphire immediately moved her right arm across my shoulders and offered me a tissue. I softly mouthed “thank you” but refused the tissue…instead I slowly rose my head back up to stare at the camera lens and continued on with the promo, doing my utter best to ignore the frailness of my current condition.
TBS: Yes, I have a heart of a warrior…a Zulu warrior if you will, a broken heart I admit but this broken heart still beats enough life in my body to provide fight to pin your shoulders to the mat last time we fought. But here comes a question specifically chosen for you, Vantage. By now I think people should know that I have the drive to go on and on and on…but do have it? Do you have the drive? Do you have the drive to go on and on and on when everything seems to be over? Does Mr. Amazing possess a seventh gear to use when sixth gear isn’t enough? Does the New Age Nature Boy have the dedication, the motivation and the conviction to use the wild card when all is seemed over? People can remind me of how you won your Title back, in a ladder match…but you had the motivation of revenge over a death that everyone have been tricked to believe. What about Legacy? You wanted to be known as the ‘King of Last Man Standing’ yet instead you were simply disposed off into a role of the losing jester. I want to call it over-confidence, arrogance if you will…
But its just not true. No matter how much of the charisma, the in-ring ability and the good looks you have…you always seem to be lacking one thing Vantage. I don’t know what this one thing truly is but it is down to this one fact that you’ve lost to Alister Bane back at Legacy, that you’ve failed to breakthrough as a consistent main eventer and that you’re currently possessing an one-two win-loss record against me. Like the title of a brilliant Metallica song all I’ve just said about you, Vantage, is “Sad But True.” You can like me for what I’ve revealed you can hate me for what I’ve revealed, you can love you can loathe me, but if you don’t agree with what I’ve spoken…then why has your greatest claim to fame, in this company, was a bitter rivalry against a German celebrity? Why has everything you’ve done, since your and Stefan’s rivalry climaxed, have been so…so…mediocre? Stefan Raab has practically been more impressive in two matches than you have so far this year, Vantage. Why, man, why? Why have you flopped so much in the first half of twenty-twelve? You know what Mitch? After seeing how…how…blunderful your twenty-twelve is going, I’m actually feeling quite embarrassed by the fact that I lost a five man ladder match to you.
The words were quite slowly said I must admit, while very words scraped through my sore voice box as they were spoken to the lens. Maybe it wasn’t a totally smart plan to cut a promo during my first walk through an arena since being set on fire. But I kept going with my words, trying to avoid my announcer’s pleading face, I know she is worried about my health…but if I was totally worried about my well-being, then why did I become a professional wrestler?
TBS: But this all leads up to three days time, when we main event Animosity together on MY return and YOUR first night as the new Universal Champion. This is a our fourth confrontation yet on a new chapter for us both…so who would we be in our respective chapters? I enter mine as a wounded extremist who seeks revenge against he who gave that extremist those wounds…how will you enter your new chapter Vantage? Will you enter as the true Mr. Amazing Vantage? The very Vantage that would give me a true fight that both me and the audience would love to watch over and over again? Or will you enter as the lame ass Vantage that seemed to be without a cause until being tricked into believing that his dear Zoey Walters was dead? The very Vantage that will not only being completely mauled over by a weakened Saint, but will also succumb to a downward spiral into obscurity. Who shall you enter your new chapter? Show us all on Monday, I’m The Broken Saint…Break Me! I Don’t Care…
My peripheral vision did notice Sapphire smiling lightly when I said the catchphrase I would normally use to end a promo…but that isn’t the way I want to end this. So in a sudden flash of movement my left hand lets go of hers, shot over to the camera and cupped the lens so that it would still be looking at me. I grinned in an almost malicious way as my noticed not only the scared expression on the cameraman’s face but also the heavily surprised look on Yashira’s face. After a few soundless moments I spoke up yet again.
TBS: This is the story of the Red Rose.
There was once a man greater than greatness,
More perfect than pure perfection,
More phenomenal than a phenomenon,
More excellent than excellence,
That they all called him Mister Amazing.
But one day he battles a bizarre man…
With flesh burnt by a thousand suns,
With a heart broken into a thousand parts,
With the mind of a thousand fools,
So all of them called him The Broken Saint.
The two fought each other hard for what each man believed in…
The first believed in becoming more amazing than amazing,
The second only seek the end of heartache,
The battle waged on until the Naked Truth struck through the first’s heart,
As Saint moves on Mister Amazing’s blood stained the white rose.
That was the story of the Red Rose.
In three nights, Mister Amazing, we will re-enact that story.
Amusing how I chose to end my promo with a poem, instead of a catchphrase, but I chose to do so moments before the cameraman switched off the camera and scampered off. I looked over to see how worried and upset Sapphire look but with after a tiny cough I spoke up.
TBS: Fine…lets go home then, Nurse.
I jokingly called her, since I swear Yashira doesn’t always keep that that nurse outfit in the wardrobe for Halloween, and it seem to have lightened her mood because the female giggled lightly and smiled. She then helped me up to my feet and together we managed to not only get my carcass out of the arena, but also into a taxi that could take us to the nearest hotel.