Scrambled

Brandon’s knuckles drank the blood of Max Kael, chewing on the ribbons of flesh torn from The Commissar of the Red Army’s head. Each strike, each blow, satiated more than their hunger. An umami sensation upon the lips. Bloodlust. Death had, apparently, chewed up and spat this...thing...back into the world; how unfortunate for Kael, so desperate for so long to get into this match. The sheer levels in which he worked in this pursuit were, to his standards, banal. Outside the stopes of The Pit, and no matter how often Anna Daniels groused on Jabber, PRIME wasn’t a bed of chaos. Intimidate through targeting family? There was a price to be paid. There was no escaping the mount. Technique conquered the new flesh. For a moment, Brandon stopped, took a deep breath, letting the oxygen replenish within his blood before his arms sent down another volley. And as he did, he looked upon his canvas, admiring his work.

From underneath, wavering, yet still alive; a middle finger. Then, another. Pulled from the depths, gurgling. No. Laughter. Bone piercing. Defiant.

It would harrow most.

The Tower of Babel seethed. There was precision in the strikes now, in the manner in which they lash across The Commissar’s face. The bridge of the nose. The cartilage. Crush it. Let the phlegm and blood thickly rush down the back of his throat. Hypoxia makes cowards of even the most brave. Like a hammer hitting the same spot, repeatedly, over and over. So close to crushing.

“ALORS, DICKHEAD!”

Safeco Field wasn't the home of the 12th Man; FLAMBERGE's pronouncement managed to cut through Seattle's din, and Brandon caught in the steel chair coming for him in his periphery. Instinct guided him through. It was too late to avoid the blow. Hands up. If he timed it right, maybe he could impede and--

No. Julien Lavigne's lithe form was capable of generating greater velocity than the larger Commissar. There was no snatch and grab here. Flesh to steel. Eat the blow to parry and protect his skull as best as possible. The inflection point was jarring. Like tinnitus vibrating down his forearms. The blow landed, causing Youngblood to slump to his stomach. He checked his vision through closed eyes. Bright red to filtering purple at first, and then, enveloped across his eyelids, the cosmos. Stars, not starbursts. A valiant guard rewarded. Just...let him collect himself until the next volley.

So many variables with an extra body to account for. Snow had cut deep into him not two weeks prior with the artillery fired upon him. The Original Villain's fists, his head, those boots, they were cinder block kisses with an ample dusting of salt. Brandon had barely gotten the stitches out from the bridge of his nose days before. Now, the wound was open anew. All the bone broth and ice baths in the world weren't going to provide him the recovery ability he'd had even two years before. The old man fighting against the young men. Well, the young man and the infant, if superstition was to be believed.

Then again, could he trust his own eyes?

Was that...a tiny, doll sized steel chair, wrapped in concertina wire? Palmed or pushed into Kael's forearm, whatever it was, it was aimed for FLAMBERGE's blood soaked face. A little spin for flourish from The Commissar.

Instinct for The Diamond. The Suplex Family likes to have many reunions. It's a very close knit group. Very up close and personal. Brandon's high grip did more than save The Lizard King from having his face turned to shredded tuna; it helped deposit Kael on the very top of his head. Brandon tried to follow up, but collapsed from the sudden rush. A ten count from Turnbull. By seven, each of them is back to their feet, in some form or fashion, worse for wear.

Brandon wobbled at his base, his feet far too light underneath him. His eyes scoured across his opponents. FLAMBERGE, the whites of his eyes and teeth stark against the literal mask of blood pissing from his lacerations. Max Kael, rictus grin, war torn and vibrating with madness.

There is no hesitation in him as he drives into the fray with the both of them. Attacking each other in close quarters. A cluster of misery and pain. Heavy blows from right hands seeking and searching, only to land like dirty bombs, crashing against flesh and bone. In the limb tangle, one of them should've caused a topple. Yet there they stood, in the smog of UltraViolence, willing themselves forward. Through the destructive wanton carnage. This mishmashed collection was stirring something. All hazard and caution, thrown to the wind. A former Intense Champion, one of the most brutal and oppressive figures in the history of the sport. He was matching wills and holding his own against the ReVival's two Wrestler's of the Year. One with the longest winning streak in the entirety of PRIME's history. The other had won more one on one battles that any other, far ahead of anyone on his heels. The house was in the process of being burnt down. This was fine. They are okay with the events that are unfolding currently.

It's only once at the ropes when the cluster starts to break. Kael managed to knock FLAMBERGE through the ropes with a massive forearm to the Lizard King's chin. Sting to the eyes of The Diamond. Blood. His own. The wound that had been closed from Snow  and reopened by The Neck Collector was beginning to pool. That the rush of red had stayed muted as it had from its first appearance, from that chairshot Youngblood thought he'd so decently parried, was a minor miracle. He palmed his eyes, seeing The Commissar, and with a sudden burst, launched himself into him with his arm, crushing him over the top rope with a clothesline boarding on Texas Lariat. The violence of the collision dropped him to a knee. Somehow The Black HEART of PRIME had landed on his feet. Any sense of disbelief melted away on the impact, however; Kael had landed on his heels, and stumbled back and twisted until his back slammed against the guardrail.

More blood. Handfuls worth. This was going to be a problem. Hazy vision. He looked outward and saw the little doll chair of razor horrors lashed into the crotch of The Commissar.

Live by Jolf, die by Jolf.

The Lizard King's attention was drawn. This had to end. This had to end now. Brandon, perched between the ropes, reaching for Le Protagoniste. The moment was his. Just get a hold of that reptilian bastard and

There were the starbursts.

And they are bright.

So…

So bright...

It’s midday, or it’s early evening, or is it the morning after the sun has settled? Time doesn’t matter; all that does is that the light hurts, even under the creosoted wood of the pier. From the distance of the Pacific and through the posts anchoring the pier above, it beamed relentlessly. He wanted to look away. Needed to look away.

He couldn’t.

Decades ago. Melissa was an O’Malley then. The florals of her sundress clung to her legs as she kicked about the ocean waters, smirking, smiling, laughing. It was infectious. He couldn’t help himself from joining in despite the burn in his own lungs. “Try to keep up. You’re almost there.”

An immense heat across the top of his head. It had been so long since he’d let his hair grow that he couldn’t help but feel taken by its oppression. Yet this all felt so safe. The distance runs. The finish line under the pier. He’d done this before. So many times.  A holdover from Muscle Beach, the early days of his professional wrestling training. This was the spot they’d first met. Huffing and puffing, their joints scorching, their soles scalding. Given her manner of dress, she'd been the one waiting for him.

“So close...Brandon...so–”

She yelps as she falls. The ground is soft yet messy. His tackle is slightly more firm yet still playful. He is the aggressor here, but she won’t give this up easily. He has to pin her wrists above her head. Press them deep into the sand. Oh, she keeps trying to lash out toward him, her neck raising, her lips beckoning.

They shared the same breath now.

They stayed that way for a long time.

Nine months. It had been nine months since that first meeting. This place had brought them together despite the starts of their journeys being thousands of miles away. Perhaps it was meant to be. He didn’t feel the weight of so much when he was around her. So much time spent. Drank up. Like a drug. Burn away the trauma. The abuse. He was just a normal man. She didn’t look away from the cigarette burns across his inner thighs. Didn’t push and pry. When you want to talk about it, you can, if you only you want to.

“It’s so much better under Santa Monica than above it. I...love you” she spoke against his cheek.

She was the one. “I love you too.”

A sigh lilted through her in the wake of his admission, and she felt content. ”Just think of how silly when we tell our family where it all started. To our kids and–”

A lightning strike against clear skies. Just...no. No. He couldn’t be a father. Wasn’t interested in being a father. Not because of his career. Reed Young had already invested plenty of capital into him before even making it to the national stage. He just...couldn’t. After his own family...after what his own father had done to him…

He couldn’t.

He wouldn’t.

Not now. Not ever.

His pause was building tension. He needed a way to defuse. Things were just become truly serious; there would be time in the future to discuss that. “Enough of that. I’m not sharing you. Not with anyone else...”

The light hurts and it isn’t from the sun.

Nitriled fingers pried open his eyelids. He tried desperately to look away, his iris darting, rolling backward. A heavy grunt and groan. He tried to move his limbs but they are far too heavy. His skull, felt bloated. He feels pain and everything hurts, but in a multitude of ways that the synapses can't explain in a manner that makes sense. The walls inside of Safeco bleed away into the loading bay, into the belly of the hospital beast, its sirens flashing. Mercifully, its siren was muted. A moan. His neck felt so stiff. He reached for his throat.

A brace.

Why was there a brace?

“Keep your head still, Brandon.” Doctor Astrid Fihlguud commanded. “After the fall–”

“I...”

“You lost a lot of blood, and the burns–”

“...I need to get ready for the match.” His hands swiped toward her, pitifully. He was still successful because he didn’t know his own strength. Swinging his body to the end of the gurney, his legs dangling, he reached with both his hands, peeling away the neck brace. “I need to get ready for the match, Astrid. I’m good. I need to get ready for the match.”

The sensations inside his skull felt as though they were born from the minds of tormented eldritch horrors. A rattlecan being readied to spit out its primer. He felt it everywhere, especially behind his eyes. Vertigo. His stomach felt so heavy, everything in it sloshing in violent waves. Astrid wasn’t alone in trying to get him to settle. Angelica Brooks was tailing behind, the camera crew with her filming the carnage in the wake of the triple threat. “Just let her do her job. Please.” He wasn’t alone in this space, but seeing FLAMBERGE and Kael amongst him didn’t register. How could it when they were mere fuzzy outlines.

“I got to focus on the match, Angie. And after I do, I got to talk to Lindsay–”

“It can wait, Brandon.”

“--no. No it can’t. I got to give her something. I got to get it to her and talk to her and–”

“Look, whatever it is, I can let her know okay?”

“But it’s about my boy–”

“Cody?”

“No. Cheddar. He...”

Fihlguud eased him back onto the gurney, but not before readying a sedative and injecting it in his arm. “Just relax. You’re showing some real bad concussion symptoms–”

He kept talking, but whatever was coming out was a jumble. His eyelids grew heavy. “I got to get ready for the match...”

Hello Amy.

Amy?

The monitors and their blend of redundant beeps pierced through his skull, causing his brain to pulsate. Or so he told himself. Enough clarity had settled in that he was aware that the triple threat had ended poorly. If it hadn't, he wouldn't be laid out in a hospital bed. “...so...how’d I lose.”

The Red Raver scoffed. “For the third time, Brandon. You didn’t lose.”

The heart rate monitor began to spike, a sly smile creeping across his face. “Who’d I beat, then?”

“None of them. It was a draw.”

Acrid was the taste. Like stale coffee. Or battery acid. “...fuck.”

“I gave Lindsay the urn, Brandon. She said it was thoughtful. Said she’s sorry we lost our pup.”

“Wait...you...”

“You kept trying to get out of your bed and go to Safeco and give it to her. Just seemed better that way.”

He reached out to her, in the low light of the room. She scooched her chair so she could be closer. “How bad is it?”

“The burns? Well, you’re not melted. Still your same old ugly ass self.”

“I’m being seri–”

“You expecting me to pearl clutch over you being concussed? We’ve both been down this road, hon. Last thing anyone wants when they have a brain bleed is to get a big dose of crocodile tears and someone telling them to come home and be a family man.”

The perks of having a battle sister for a significant other. He sighed. “Hope it’s not too bad.”

“That’s why I’m here. To drive you home.”

“You? Drive? With your lead foot–”

She flashed her cell phone camera light at his eyes for an instant. It may as well have been the eclipse. “This isn’t up for discussion. Now get some rest, okay?”

“Wait.” Had he heard her right? “...you had a conversation with Lindsay?”

Amy readied her cell phone, ready to blast him again. “We’ll talk about that...later.”

This one... 

Jesus Christ…

This one feels different.

The lights keep hurting.

And time...

The YouTube Theater in Inglewood. Not a flight. A drive, Amy at the wheel. Days after the UltraViolence. And the oddness of it all. Sitting on stage, staring out at the collection of media personnel and the fans that had flocked the building for one of Lindsay’s media scrum events as the company was building to Colossus. The same park. Perfect placement if ever there was one.

Brandon’s sunglasses weren’t t-shades. The others from the triple threat were in attendance, ample Enemigos in supply to act as security barriers. FLAMBERGE was effervescent in his...whatever it was that he considered fashion. Kael reaped his brothers in the Red Army. Or perhaps it was a touch for mourning. Even through the haze of splattered time, Ivan Stanislav falling to Nate Colton still was a known certainty.

Troy’s voice boomed from her perch at the podium. "--matches will have no time limits attached. I want to make it known right now, that each of these contests will be under extra scrutiny from our officiating team.” Her eyes scanned across all three of them. “The results of these matches have major implications in regards to Colossus, so it is in the best interests of everyone involved to adhere to the rules."

On the large screen behind them, a video began playing. Something about a round robin and there must be a winner. Nick Stuart made sure to make it all sound official and important. Youngblood tried looking at the screen, to discern the dates. He could only focus on his own. Reno Nevada, ReVival 58, Max Kael. FLAMBERGE in Las Vegas at ReVival 59.

Las Vegas.

Really?

When were the other two supposed to face off? For whatever reason, their date was blurry. As his eyes tried to focus, Troy continued. "Each of you also need to be aware that you will be facing someone outside this Round Robin on the way to Colossus. FLAMBERGE faced Fred Dick at ReVival 56. Brandon Youngblood is facing The Generalissimo on ReVival 57–.”

Oh. I can see it in the lights, even though it hurts.

The Silly One.

I always get to have one of the Silly Ones. A Bobby Dean or a Tony Gamble. Teehee ha ha.

And it’s not funny. It’s never funny. Why? Goddammit. They become deathly serious against me. They find themselves. They put every bit of themselves into the bout, and I have to dig deep for the ride. They usually start journeys. This...whatever is before me...if I’m medically cleared, I know I have Max Kael and FLAMBERGE on the horizon. They should get my focus.

My brain is foggy. I remember certain things though. The Generalissimo has big goddamn slapping hands. He took out David Noble and nearly ended Jonathan Christopher-Hall's run in the 2023 Almasy. But it’s more than that. 

The time of year. 

Did I hear that you were going to take me out for Coral Avalon? Colossus isn’t the time for teehees and hahas for me. Not when a big old steaming pile of shit like GREAT SCOTT comes to mind if I don't focus in full on purported jesters. And you? There’s nothing funny about you. Not with those big ass mitts of yours and my brain in recovery. 

So I’ll probably operate more at a primal level. I’ll apologize to Battaglia later. For what is going to happen to you. Though then again, he understands. Everyone understands. You lanky, mustached agent of fuckery and chaos. 

You rule for Monsters and Monsterkind, huh?

I'll play.

You're getting in the ring with a Suplex Monster. And it should be known...you can’t contain a Suplex Monster. Can’t control it. 

In the presence of one, you just…

Have to sit back and enjoy the ride. It's in the testaments of your God, don't you know?

After all...

The Dale cares not from where the Hell is raised, only that it is raised.

Let the GM Goodwrench burn.

The bedroom is dark, the ambience of soft rains emanating from a bluetooth speaker located somewhere within, while on another was the news from a local NPR station. It took a bit for Cody’s eyes to focus, but once he was able, he could make the outline of his father, perched upright, seated on his bed. It was as though he was meditating.

In the wake of Cheddar passing, of the conversation held in the aftermath, an olive branch was extended. Against all that had welled up inside him, Cody took it. Maybe he was just tired. Maybe being so relentlessly angry was wearing too thin. It had changed him. Changed his friendships. Changed how he viewed the world. And he’d kept it all so close, so balled up inside. Readying to unleash. But for what?

For when?

“Hey.”

Brandon looked toward his son, his voice groggy. “Hey.”

“How you holding up?”

“Lights are getting better.”

Cody nodded. “Is it right? That whenever you start seeing stars, you got a concussion?”

His father thought about it through the dull throb. God, I hope not. “Honestly? I don’t know.”

“Not like anyone is going to tell you to quit, right?”

“I...” he hesitated. “You ever get the stars in your eyes? After a big blow or anything?”

There was no answer from his son. All he did was take a seat next to his father. “We’re worried about you. Mom is...worried about you.”

Brandon shook his head. “I’m taking chairs out anytime I see them–”

“--I didn’t think I’d be able to forgive you, dad.”

The sloshing in Youngblood’s stomach grew more forceful.

But there had been a pause. “And I don’t know if I can. What happened between you and mom...”

“I’m sorry–”

“Why didn’t you guys tell me the truth? You both always said it wasn’t true. That it was garbage.”

Because your mother didn’t want to tell you. “You were too young to understand.”

“Am I too young to understand now?” There wasn’t rage or forcefulness in Cody’s tone. His hand reached into his pocket, pulling out his cellphone, loading up his Tiktok account. The sounds behind it. The crackling. The desperation. The audio recording, unearthed. “I want to know what happened.”

The night. That night. Brandon could hear his own voice breaking through immediately. The furor.

“--MY FATHER DID, HOW COULD YOU–”

Until now.