Blood in the Waterverse

02.02.24 Wells Fargo Center Philadelphia, Pennsylvania “Where were you!?” The question cuts through a tense silence in the locker room area, mere moments after ReVival 42 has come to a close. The inquiry comes from a surprising source, as we see Randall Schwartz nearly beside himself looking at a surprisingly tired Kenny Freeman…who simply shakes his head at first before looking his friend square in the eye. “Where was I?” asks Freeman with a mocking tone. “I was out and about doing Red Army business as was instructed, with no help from you…where were you, anyway?” “I went out for a bite to eat,” replies the Entertainer, pulling out the twenty-dollar bill he received earlier that night. “I bumped into the Angled Luchabro and he had some harsh words for me…but I made a twenty spot in the process, so everything’s coming up Randall tonight.” Before this conversation can progress (and really, get any more awkward over food, money, and incorrectly mentioning fellow PRIME competitors), the pair is interrupted by the arrival of Alexei Ruslan, his brow furrowed at the sight of the Masters. Kenny picks up on this immediately. “What’s up, Alexei?” he asks, raising an eyebrow at the look on Alexei’s face. “I did the thing you asked of me, why are you mad?” “Mad? Oh no, not mad,” Alexei responds, softening his face slightly. “Just…confused. One thing was asked of you weeks ago, comrade…honesty. You and your friend Randall told Starshy Praporshchik Stanislav there was no tomfoolery going on, no fancy technology the two of you are hiding from us…and yet, the night of Colossus I see you riding off in a clock of some sort?” Kenny just looks at him, attempting to feign confusion by the accusation…but, as one would expect, the effort is squandered as Schwartz jumps in. “It’s a grandfather clock!” exclaims the Entertainer, seemingly oblivious to Kenny raising a hand to his face in disdain before he chimes in for an attempt to salvage his reputation. “It’s a long story, Alexei,” Kenny states flatly, glaring at Randall before continuing. “But the short version is, we were simply visited by our old buddy Aeon and nothing more.” “If anything we didn’t get to talk to them long enough,” adds Schwartz, drawing a raised eyebrow from Ruslan. “They?” he asks, to which the Entertainer nods. “There were two of them, male and female,” Randall continues, as Kenny rolls his eyes. “Like Noah’s ark but for traveling across space and time…in a grandfather clock.” Kenny lets out a sigh before jumping in to finish his point. “What I’m saying is, we don’t actually have that technology on us, we just got kinda…caught up in it, when you saw us. It’s not like I have a portal gun in my pocket now, sheesh.” Alexei slowly nods his head in response, though the manner in which he does so raises its own question of whether he accepts this…a question that is just as quickly answered. “I see,” he states, looking back and forth between the pair. “Well, the next time you get caught up in it, you would do well to inform myself and Starshy Praporshchik Stanislav immediately. We are marching on toward War Games, and the Red Army needs every soldier to play their part in obtaining victory.” Kenny nods in acknowledgement as Alexei turns to leave the locker room…but not before dropping a bit of a bombshell. “By the way, since you seem to ignore your phone from time to time,” he states with another glare at Freeman, “I’ve been asked to forward a message to you about your match against Anna Daniels a couple weeks ago. That foolishness you and Randall pulled is not becoming of the Red Army, and a rematch was scheduled.” “Listen, I promise to be on my best behavior next time” interjects the Entertainer, to which Ruslan nods in agreement. “Oh, I know,” he replies with what appears to be a slight smirk. “Because you’ll be in a shark cage above the ring. Don’t worry, comrade, Starshy Praporshchik Stanislav has already scheduled a session back home to get you ready for that.” “Sounds good, will do,” Kenny replies, a hint of sarcasm in his voice that is only slightly picked up by the gentleman. Alexei simply nods in response before taking his leave from the locker room…which gives Kenny a chance to add a retort he dares not say to Ruslan’s face. “Or maybe not, brother.” With that, Kenny pulls out a portal gun, inexplicably hidden in his pocket this whole time, with a smile on his face as Randall’s grows with shock and confusion. “The hell you find that at?” asks the Entertainer, who is quickly shushed by his compatriot. “Grabbed it off Aeon’s ship,” replies Kenny with a hushed whisper, pointing the gun at the wall before firing off a blue portal into the wall. “Come along, comrade, we’ve got some world-hopping to do.” Randall nods with a smile as he jumps into the portal, with Kenny following close behind before the portal closes with a flash of light. Seconds later, the door swings open again as Alexei starts going on something of a ramble. “Right, once you fellas are ready we can--” Ruslan cuts himself off as he stares blankly into the empty locker room, his eyes widening as he tries to assess what’s happened. “--oh no, not again. Starshy Praporshchik Stanislav is going to be furious.”

In all the matches I’ve been in since signing with PRIME, I’ve had zero rematches in singles competition…so you can imagine my surprise when I found out that I was not only going to be facing someone for the second time, but the very woman who beat me roughly a month ago in that very ring. I’ve thought about how I was going to address that match for some time…and the reality is, that match was mine for the taking. Until my buddy Randall got a little…overeager, that is. Holy shit, what a fumble that turned out to be. With how that match went, however, I’m honestly grateful for the second chance…because I cannot let Anna Daniels win. I have too much pressure on my shoulders to fail in New York City. I’ve heard the rumblings and rumors since the match was made official, the same noise that tends to come up whenever my name gets mentioned in a PRIME lineup. “Oh boy, Kenny’s fighting the biggest uphill battle of his life now,” they say, as if watching my odds in Vegas get set to +300 right away…and since they like to drag numbers into this, lemme drag in some numbers of my own. Nine and twelve, Anna. That’s your win-loss record, with three draws to your name as well. I, on the other hand, have a four and eight record to my credit…and I’m just one spot below you in the rankings, as a result. Ain’t that something? You’ve had twice as many matches as me, and yet your win percentage ain’t lookin’ so hot…whereas I’ve got a thirty-three and a thirds percent win ratio in this company. Don’t tell Chandler Tsonda I’m stealing his schtick, but the numbers don’t lie…and they spell trouble for Anna Daniels. You don’t even need to worry about my buddy Randall from up in that shark cage, either, because boom…he’s a non-factor. This is all about you and me, Anna, and what I’m gonna do to get my win back at ReVival 43. You think you’re special, don’t ya? I can see it in your eyes. I can see it when you…ah shit, I’m quoting Limp Bizkit again. I need to listen to some better music. Something with some better beats and some better rhy--ah fuck, it nearly happened again. This is all your fault somehow, Daniels, and I won’t let you get away with this! People like to count me out, but I’ll be counting my winner’s purse after I make you count the lights inside Barclays Center. Ah, ah…ah hell. When this is all said and done, you’ll be left wondering how the hell the biggest underdog in this company managed to sneak one over on you. The fact of the matter is it ain’t about the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog…and I will bear my fangs at ReVival 43!

One Blog Post Later Somewhere in the Multiverse The portal opens up over a vast ocean, the likes of which would make Kevin Costner jealous as the Masters drop in feet first, crashing with a splash into the deep waters. If one has ever wondered if Randall and Kenny can swim, wonder no more dear reader…because the answer is an emphatic no. The two begin flailing wildly, hoping to either make progress in forward movement or at least to attract the attention of someone that can save them from the mess they’ve literally stumbled into. After what feels like forever, it appears that the frantic motion has worked as they see a figure off in the distance…but any sense of calm is dashed when they see the figure pop back into the water, replaced with a fin. “You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding,” Kenny mutters, struggling to stay afloat as the fin starts drawing near. Curiously, even in this moment of panic, Randall manages to find the wrong thing to focus on as he turns his attention to his pal. “You sure have been swearing a lot more lately,” he remarks, also doing so in between gasps of air. “Everything okay, bud?” Kenny, for his part, just stares bewilderedly at the Entertainer, pointing at the oncoming threat as it draws even closer now. The size of the fin just gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger…until it dips underneath the surface. Kenny and Randall look around, their eyes still widened with fear as time seems to drag on for who knows how long. …The Shadow knows, but that’s a story for another time. “What a relief,” states Randall, letting out a sigh for good measure as the calm starts to settle in again. “I gotta be honest man, that was a bit anticlim--” Schwartz doesn’t get to finish his sentence before being pulled under the water, much to the dismay of Kenny who dives underneath, trying desperately to find his friend…but he cannot hold his breath for very long before he goes back up for air. When he does, he sees Randall floating alongside…a humanoid-shark hybrid? The creature looks at Randall, then at Kenny…and then flashes a toothy grin. “Fellas!” The voice is instantly recognizable to the Masters, even if the face is not. “Axel!?” exclaims Kenny, realizing that he is talking to this world’s version of everyone’s favorite Kids’ Champion™, who nods with a chuckle in response. “You boys sure seem different from when I last saw ya,” Axel states, raising the question of what this world’s version of the Masters looks like…a question that is best saved for another time, as the Shark has a more direct inquiry at the moment. “What brings you boys out this way?” Kenny seems unsure how to respond to the question, but Randall gets the sense this was their destiny as he quickly chimes in. “Kenny here is trainin’ for a wrestling match, and I was told I was getting put in a shark cage,” he states plainly, garnering a look of surprise from the scaly face of Axel. “Ain’t that weird?” Their finned friend eventually nods in agreement as Kenny finally realizes something has been off the past couple minutes. “Hey, Randall…you and I aren’t struggling to swim anymore,” he states, pointing to the water. “You feel anything under your feet, too?” The answer to this query arrives almost instantaneously, as the pair and their friend start rising above water…revealing the back of a blue whale. At least, what appears to be one anyway…we soon hear its voice coming from the blowhole, as all the dumb jokes one can imagine start to spring to mind before we hear what it has to say. “Happy to help, fellas!” The pair think they know whose voice that is, but can’t quite put their finger on it before the whale escorts them on their way elsewhere…and eventually, the destination becomes clear as a solitary island starts to appear in the distance. “Oh, good,” Kenny remarks, letting out a sigh of relief. “The quickest way home is by portal, and I sure as hell wasn’t gonna try and set one off on our buddy’s back here.” Curiously, this gets Randall to start humming a song to himself, to which Kenny just kind of stares at him until the Entertainer reaches what turns out to be the chorus of a BBMak song. “Until you’re back here, baybay…miss you, want you, need you s--” “Stop it!” Kenny snaps, smacking Randall on the head. “You’re gonna get that song stuck in my head, and I need to focus on that match.” The group eventually arrives at the island, allowing Kenny and Randall to disembark. Moments later, Kenny engages the portal gun with a shot on the ground to reveal a blue portal…and the duo are stunned at what they see on the other side. Because they have managed to portal themselves not back to the Wells Fargo Center, but the office of Ivan Stanislav…and as they get through the portal and the blue-rimmed hole closes up, the front door opens. Revealing a very, very confused…and frustrated…Ivan Stanislav. And somewhere across the multiverse, a shark and a whale are singing “there’s a feeling inside, I want you to knoooow…you are the one and I caaaan’t let you goooo!”