Back to Basics

12.12.25 Academia Fuerza Long Beach, California

“I see Ivan’s finally let you out of his sight, huh?”

The question, complete with a chuckle, comes from the mouth of Axel the Shark as the head trainer of the wrestling school sees the Masters of the Moscowverse step into his office. Hours prior, the pair attended a small press conference announcing the reopening of the academy after the Crisis event brought things to a grinding halt. Indeed, the Masters themselves had quite the hand in what was noted as “a show to behold, a match that can never be replicated”...although, equally notable is the lack of public record as to what went down at that event. What we know now, however, is that Fuerza’s main focus of teaching a new generation of athletes has been revived, which brings us to the second question that comes from the Kids Champion’s mouth before the duo can answer the first.

“What brings the two of ya here, anyway?”

“I gotta get this guy trained again,” Kenny replies, pointing to Randall who gives a slight glare back at his friend and tag team partner. “You know that after nearly five years teaming with Randall, I’m just now finding out my man never actually spent a day in wrestling school?”

He turns his attention to The Entertainer with a nod.

“Go on, show him where you got your training from.”

Schwartz lets out a sigh as he reaches into his jacket pocket, pulling out a newspaper dated June 28, 2007. He opens the newspaper up, revealing an advertisement circled in red ink for “Glorious 1 School of Hard Knocks” complete with a picture of its own head trainer with a big grin on his face.

“That place turned out to be one of them ‘pay your dues’ gimmicks,” Kenny adds on, shaking his head. “And by that I mean Randall here paid his dues and learned how to fall…with style.”

“I learned how to rile up a crowd, damn it,” Randall interjects with a scowl. “And by gawd I was one of the best at it before that school shut down the following year.”

This makes Axel raise an eyebrow…that is to say, it can be assumed he raised an eyebrow. Masked men such as the Shark are a tough one to read facial expressions for.

“And why exactly did the school shut down?” he asks, the look in his eye suggesting he already knows the answer coming from The Entertainer.

“One day, we got to the school and on the front door was an eviction notice. Rent was due and the promoter, for whatever reason, never got it paid. Weird, right? The man was bragging about his Benz just the week prior.”

“Weird indeed,” Axel replies with a nod. “Well, we are more than happy to provide Randall with the training he needs to succeed. We can even make sure he gets a proper wrestling license for his in-ring return.”

“Oh, I’ve already got that,” Randall says, reaching back into his jacket pocket to pull out his Multiverse Multi-Pass. “See, this right here says I can wrestle anywhere in the Multiverse.”

“Uh, that’s not what that says,” replies Axel, not fazed at all by the mention of the Mutliverse as he points to the front of the card. “That right there is a holographic Charizard trading card. Valuable, sure, but definitely not a wrestling license.”

Confused, Randall takes a look for himself…only to see, clear as day, that it is precisely what his prospective new trainer is saying it is.

“What the hell,” he says under his breath as he puts the card back into his pocket. He begins searching through his pockets, jacket and pants, before letting out a heavy sigh. “Gotta be kidding me, I had that here somewhere.”

And that’s when it hits him, making The Entertainer let out another heavy sigh.

“I left it in my France pants.”

“Your what, pal?” To say that the Shark is confused by this reveal is an understatement. “Buddy, I’m pretty sure we call them freedom pants around h--”

“He’s talking about a pair of pants he left in France,” Kenny chimes in, trying to ease whatever weird tension is going on. “We were in Lyon for a recent appearance, it’s actually to do with why we’re here today. I gotta get ol’ Randall here ready for a match in Miami, and on top of that he’s expected to actually compete more in PRIME next year so…yeah, the time has come to get back to basics here.”

“Oh, we can definitely do that,” Axel remarks with a nod, holding out his hand for a handshake agreement. “Welcome to Academia Fuerza, Mr. Schwartz.”

The pair shake hands, sealing the deal as Randall finally gives a smile at the thought of gearing up for his first day of re-training.

“So, when do I start?”

Axel chuckles at this, pointing to the door.

“You start now, Randall. Go take a lap.”

From: kfree@skibiditoiletrizz.net To: mommafreeman@email.net Sent: 12-25-25 - 1:09 PM

Mom,

I mentioned in my text this morning that I had an update coming your way, and here is the Christmas gift I promised lol. I’ve attached the specifics as a PDF (it’s a lotta info, sorry about that), but the long and short of it is I’m stuck in training during the offseason…but I will NOT give up on finding Jack. I talked it out with Alexei (the guy I told you about running things in the Red Army), and he is helping me get a team together to get out there ASAP.

I’m gonna do my best to get this done before I have to get back in the swing of things with PRIME, but I can’t make any promises cause we got a big match smack dab in the middle of the break. What I CAN promise is that I will get to the bottom of this.

I won’t let Max get away with this bullshit. He can’t.

Love you, send Dad my regards. See you soon.

~ Kenny

P.S. Please don’t tell Dad I said “bullshit,” thanks.

01.09.25 Kaseya Center Miami, Florida

Any questions to what an Academia Fuerza education can accomplish may or may not have been answered on this fine evening, as the victorious Masters make their way through the backstage area following one hell of a contest against the Atomic Punks. Entering the locker room, Randall plops himself on the bench before dousing himself with a bottle of water handed to him by Kenny…and by “handed to” we do mean thrown at.

“What the hell, Kenny!?” Randall exclaims, narrowly dodging the bottle as it slams against the wall behind him. “We pulled it off, buddy!”

“Don’t ‘buddy’ me, Randall,” Kenny replies, nearly staring daggers into his tag partner. “What the hell was that out there? I thought we had a plan. I thought we were working together on this.”

Randall shakes his head at this, pointing at him.

“Kenny, you know as well as I do that the plan went out the window as soon as we realized who we were actually facing. You told me we were meeting with Dr. Sato to issue the challenge, right?”

Kenny simply responds to this with a nod as Randall continues.

“Then you can see how I assumed we were facing Dr. Sato in the match. Soon as I saw Gigaton in that ring I got scared…and you know what happens when I get scared.”

“Oh, brother,” replies Kenny, rolling his eyes. “Well, you’re right about one thing. We won tonight, and we did a lotta damage…but we really gotta get our shit together going into the new year.”

“We’re already in the--” Randall remarks, only to be cut off by Kenny.

“You know what I mean. You heard from Alexei, we’re on the lineup for next week and we got a couple fledgling students to contend with.”

Kenny reaches into his phone, tapping the screen a couple times before showing it to Randall who takes a sip of his water.

“These guys,” he says, pointing to the pair of faces on the screen. “They call themselves the Foot Soldiers, and--”

“Holy shit,” Randall says, nearly choking on what he took in. “You mean we finally get to deploy the Moscow Multiversal Masters in ol’ PRIMEski?”

“What?” a perplexed Kenny asks in response. “No, that’s not…”

His voice trails off as he looks at his phone, seriously pondering the crazy idea his friend has just presented.

“Well shit, maybe. I dunno. What I do know is, the intel I got is these two are comin’ out of Gray’s Wrestling Academy.”

“More like Gray’s Wrestling Anatomy,” Randall instantly remarks, garnering a glare from Freeman who presses on.

“They’re a couple students of Foster Nackedly--”

“More like Foster Knackeredly.”

Kenny just rolls his eyes with a sigh.

“--and Jonathan Rhine.”

This last name really seems to get Randall’s spirits up, indicated by him widening his eyes.

“Jonathan Rhine? And you said these guys are the Foot Soldiers? Damn, that’s--”

“Don’t,” Kenny says curtly, staring The Entertainer down until Schwartz backs off from whatever terrible remark he was about to make. “Tony Gamble is not supposed to be the standard for your sense of humor, Randall.”

“What can I say, the guy is growing on me,” Randall says with a shrug. Kenny just gives him a bit of the ol’ side-eye before continuing as the door starts to crack open.

“Anyway, we did what we needed to do. Let’s get dressed, I’m sure Ivan is gonna want us out there for his match against--”

“That’s a no-go, Kenny.”

The voice of Alexei Ruslan cuts Freeman off, before the figure it belongs to steps in through the doorway.

“I’ve been instructed to tell you two to stay back here, so Dan Ryan has no excuses for losing tonight. I will be accompanying Starshy Praporshchik to the ring, to keep eye on any loose elements…but you are free to continue celebrating your big win. Congratulations.”

“Ah, hell yeah!” Randall exclaims, reaching into a nearby duffel bag. He pulls out a bottle of sparkling apple cider and a pair of champagne glasses.

“What are those?” asks Ruslan, confused by the sight.

“Champagne glass with the Martinelli’s,” replies Randall, opening the bottle to begin pouring some of the cider into each glass. “We’re pourin’ up like the night is ours.”

He hands one of the glasses to Kenny, who finally relents after his earlier outburst to raise a toast with his tag partner. In his mind, Kenny figures it’ll all work out.

Somehow.