Sticky Situations

“Gotta say, Scott… it feels good to be back together.”

The Five Star Champion of PRIME scrawled the black Sharpie held in his hand across the base of the glossy eight-by-ten into a sharply angled signature.

“Abso-posi-lutely, my dude! The Wingmen are back in the saddle!”

PRIME’s Breakout Wrestler of the year 2025 fiercely nodded in agreement while scribbling his own marker across the front of a bright banana-yellow “HUNTERMANIA” tee.

The entrance plaza to Arena Monterrey hosted an array of colorful canopies and flapping banners with no less than a couple hundred fans bustling among them. The turnout was greater than anticipated, but that was to be expected, given how long it had been since PRIME’s last foray in Mexico.

Kerry Kuroyama and Scott Hunter had a table to themselves in the upper pavilion. The autograph session was only supposed to last for an hour, but even as the time lapsed, their queue showed no sign of getting smaller.

Not that either one of them had a problem with that. As a former fan who eventually grew up to live the dream of being a wrestler, Scott always looked forward to the opportunity to meet his admirers. Kerry, who at one time loathed these kinds of obligations, now found himself looking forward to them after seeing the impact he had on the lives of ordinary people.

Even though he was admittedly slightly jealous of Scott having the longer line.

“Seriously, though,” Kerry continued. “I don’t know where my head was those past couple months, but the stress was really getting to me. Had some really fucked up nightmares… weird shit, like you’d see in a Tool video.”

“That sounds informative, actually,” replied Scott. “You can never have enough wrist control when you’re operating a power drill.”

Kerry briefly stammered as he struggled to find an alternative way to articulate the experience. When he realized that was next to impossible, he simply shook his head.

“Yeah… you’re not wrong there.”

The next fan approached, laying down an event poster for the upcoming show. The top half was dedicated to promoting the main event, highlighting the two of them facing off against Farthington and FLAMBERGE of the Glue.

“It’s been a fun week,” said Scott, signing his name on the poster’s outer edge. “But tomorrow, we should probably start getting serious with this tag match of ours.”

Hunter slid the poster over to Kerry, who looked back in mild surprise. He never expected Scott to be the one to focus on business.

“Yeah, we absolutely should,” he concurred. “Personally, I’m not interested in repeating what happened the last time I tangoed with the Universal champ and his pet lizard…”

Seeing the face of the Universal Champion, Kerry’s arm tingled with the sensation of a phantom pain. Quite deliberately, he signed his name across the faces of their esteemed opponents before handing the poster back to the fan.

“Lizard…?” mused Scott, thoughtfully looking up to the sky.

“Maybe we split up and do our own thing, yeah?” suggested Kuroyama. “Do some independent research, or what have you.”

Looking to Scott for a response, Kerry could see the gears still turning in his friend’s head.

“Liiiiizzzaaaaaaarrrrrrrd…”

Scott snapped back to reality as a bright pink “Vae Victis” shirt flopped across the table. Inexplicably, it already had signatures from Clay, Henry, and LT. Hunter and Kuroyama promptly added their own to successfully complete the ensemble.

“Sure, sounds good, dude,” Scott eventually agreed. “Tomorrow, we will do independent research. Then we’ll meet at sundown and compare notes.”

“Groovy,” said Kerry. “Honestly, I’m kinda looking forward to this. For a number of reasons, really, but a big one is showing the world that we’re tighter than ever after our match.”

Stone-faced, Scott nodded in agreement. “We sure are, dude.”

A kid wearing a faded Dan Ryan t-shirt was in line. Grinning eagerly, he held up his phone.

“¿Una foto?”

Kuroyama arched an eyebrow as he glanced over to his Wingman.

“Remind me, Scott…” he said. “How much do we charge for a photo opp?”

Scott leaned forward in his seat and cradled his chin between his fingers as he looked the young fan up and down. A second later, his lips twisted in a quizzical pucker.

“More than you can probably afford… muchacho.”

Hunter spoke with an uncharacteristic level of sternness. The kid’s smile slowly waned into a grimace of crestfallen disappointment.

Then the Wingmen of Vae Victis threw their heads back together and burst into a shared outburst of laughter.

“Nah, just fucking with you kid,” said Kerry, waving for him to come around the table. “Of course you can get a photo.”

The sting of defeat still clung to Scott like a cheap cologne. At least it was Kerry, but the sting was still there. It stung. Like a bee. It didn’t float like a butterfly because it was rude. Just a bee. Stinging.

Where was I?

Oh, right.

A fresh, far more intriguing aroma now filled his nostrils, the scent of conspiracy, of scales, subterfuge, and store-bought crickets, for some reason.

FLAMBERGE.

The name itself felt like a flicking tongue. Scott had seen it before, in grainy VHS glory, the 1980s mini-series “V” playing on a loop in his mind. He wasn’t falling for it again. Not this time.

FLAMBERGE, the multiple-time champion from Strasbourg, France, with his impenetrable glare and unnerving stillness, wasn’t just a man. He was a lizard. Scott knew it in his gut -- a gut that had absorbed more suplexes than a crash test dummy, not to mention far too much chips and queso while watching football the day before. This wasn’t about a toxic thought monster controlling his brain, as some whispered. No, that was merely a clever cover. FLAMBERGE was the monster. A literal secret lizard, masquerading as a deadly professional wrestler in an all-red one-piece suit with black V-shaped striping, probably.

The audacity.

Having separated from Kerry to do his research, Scott paced his small, rented local apartment, the air thick with the humid weight of unspoken reptilian truths. He needed answers. He needed to understand the enemy. And to understand a lizard, one must become the lizard.

“It’s elementary, really,” Scott muttered to his reflection in the darkened window, his eyes narrowed. “To truly grasp the psyche of the reptilian, one must shed the skin of humanity.”

His reflection offered no argument. It simply stared back, a man on the precipice of a very strange journey.

At the same time, Kerry was in his hotel suite, catching up on his voicemail.

“Hey, Ker… hope the trip to Mexico has been going well,” grumbled Rocko Daymon’s prerecorded voice through his phone. “Wish I could say the same up here in Seattle, but… well, with Zack taking his sabbatical, Leo and I were hoping you could lighten the load a bit by--”

Kerry “sneezed”, with his finger inexplicably hitting the red phone icon to end the call.

“Whoops,” he uttered insincerely, tossing the phone into the empty seat next to him on the couch.

He sighed, not looking forward to the inevitable headache he’d have to deal with when he got home. He had hoped the drama with his business partners would eventually resolve itself, but it was now looking more certain that it required his direct involvement.

But it would have to wait. Considering the battle that was waiting for him at ReVival, he couldn’t afford any distractions.

The faces of Farthington and FLAMBERGE flashed through his mind, once more triggering that familiar light tingle in his arm. The lingering reminder of his last encounter with the Glue tandem between the ropes.

A year and a half had passed since that match at ReVival 54, but the memory of being seconds away from a broken arm was not one that would easily fade.

Ever since, despite whatever was going on in his career, the hypotheticals continued to haunt him. What would have happened if Scott was a second too late with the towel? How much would the injury set him back? How much time would slip through his fingers sitting on the shelf, waiting to heal?

Time…

There was no commodity in this world more precious than time, as far as Kerry was concerned.

He especially felt this way considering his father only had so many years to set his mark on this world before the cruel hand of fate had stripped him out of existence.

But it was through that match that Kerry had learned that Cecilworth Farthington would have gladly taken that time away from him, and gloated about it after the fact. A deliberate act that, despite LT and Ami’s affinity toward the man, the Emerald Apex could not readily forgive.

“Just admit that you’re jealous, Face.”

As the beast within made its presence felt, the sneer that formed on Kerry Kuroyama’s face could not be restrained.

Begrudgingly, he reached for the tumbler and decanter.

The next morning, armed with a map of the surrounding area and an unshakeable conviction, Scott drove his beat-up rented sedan out into the densely forested foothills beyond the outskirts of Monterrey.

The reptile farm, promising “authentic wildlife encounters,” beckoned. He envisioned a grand reunion, a family gathering of FLAMBERGE’s kin, ready to spill the secrets of their scaly lineage.

A sign, faded by relentless sun, creaked above the entrance: “Reptiles of the Sierra Madre.” Scott pulled into the dusty parking lot, a handful of minivans baking under the unseasonably brutal heat. He adjusted his sunglasses, a pair of aviators he felt lent him an air of serious journalistic inquiry.

A bored local teenager with a nametag reading “Mateo” chewed gum behind a plexiglass window.

“Fifteen bucks, dude,” Mateo said in a decidedly non-local accent. “Or twenty-five if you wanna hold a baby iguana.”

Scott leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’m not here for baby iguanas, Mateo. I’m here for… family.”

Mateo slowly pulled his gum from his mouth, stretching it into a thin, glistening thread. “Everyone’s family here, man. We got, like, three generations of iguanas. And, a couple of really old turtles.”

“No, you misunderstand.” Scott tapped the plexiglass. “I’m looking for the FLAMBERGE family. French. Strasbourg region, specifically. Though I imagine they migrated.”

Mateo blinked, then popped his gum. “Never heard of ‘em. You sure you got the right place?”

“This is a reptile farm, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but like, for actual reptiles,” said Mateo, looking genuinely confused. “Not… French reptiles.”

Scott sighed. This was gonna be harder than he thought. The lizards were clearly more covert than he’d anticipated.

“Listen, I need to immerse myself. To truly understand their ways. Do you have… a sunning rock? A really authentic one?”

Mateo pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “Got a whole reptile pit. They got rocks. And sun. And, you know, reptiles.”

“Perfect.” Scott slapped a twenty on the counter, ignoring the change. “Keep the rest. For your… research.”

Scott navigated the winding paths, past enclosures filled with lethargic iguanas and turtles. He saw no multiple-time championship wrestlers, no French-speaking chameleons.

Disappointment -- a cold-blooded, lizard-like emotion -- began to slither through him.

But then, he spotted it, a large, flat slab of granite, baking in the sun, surrounded by a moat of murky water. Several large crocodiles lay motionless, their eyes barely visible.

This was his chance.

He found a secluded spot, out of sight of the main path, and began his transformation. He shed his shirt, feeling the sun warm his skin immediately. He lowered himself onto the rock, mimicking the unmoving posture of the creatures around him. He focused, channeling his inner lizard. He envisioned scales forming, his blood cooling, his metabolism slowing to a glacial pace.

Hours passed. The sun beat down. His skin grew warm, then hot, then uncomfortably hot.

Then hotter still.

Then hotter again, like several extra degrees hotter.

He barely breathed. He imagined the world through reptilian eyes, a kaleidoscope of heat signatures and slow, deliberate movements.

He felt a strange urge.

An instinct.

The mountain called him.

Cerro de la Silla.

From the moment Kerry touched down in the city and saw it dominating the southern horizon, it all but begged to be conquered.

Growing up in the shadow of the Cascades made the art of mountaineering a natural hobby. A test of physical endurance, while getting closer with the natural environment.

To Kuroyama -- the so-called “Eternal Climber” -- it was nothing short of a zen-like experience.

Just the kind of exercise he needed, both to train the body for the challenge ahead and to clear the mind of lingering doubts.

He set out early that morning, equipped with all the necessary amenities. The guide estimated a five hour venture to the summit, for a seasoned hiker.

Kerry set himself to making it in three.

The crushed-stone path leading up the first leg of the ascent was virtually uncomplicated, aside from the steady upward incline.

An easy hike, that gave him plenty of time to think.

A year and a half ago, Cecilworth Farthington tried to break his arm.

“What’s stopping him from trying again?”

Kerry had no answer to that, aside from hoping he’d have better luck with Scott standing on the apron instead of being down on the floor with the towel.

Naturally, however, that meant if he found himself in the same situation, there’d be only one way out of it.

“But would you yield?”

Would he?

Could he?

It was impossible to make comparisons between the price of one’s time and the price of personal pride.

In that last match, Scott made the choice without a moment’s thought. Protecting his friend was priority one. But for Kerry? The most he could hope for was to keep from being in a position where he’d have to make that choice himself.

“There’s always another choice…”

There was?

“It’s as simple as sacking up and returning the favor.”

…

“Don’t bullshit me, Face. 

“You know you’d love the opportunity.”

…

Maybe.

But that option would forever be out of the question, solely on the basis that injuring a reigning champion was bad for the business as a whole.

Still, there were more effective ways to send a message than by breaking limbs.

And more than anything, he needed to make Farthington understand the real mistake he made that night in Portland.

It wasn’t simply trying to break his arm.

Rather, it was assuming the day would never come where he would be forced to answer for it.

The grade steepened as he reached the abandoned teleférico at the halfway point along the trail. The main path would lead him up the same easy grade until he reached the easily accessible Pico Antena.

However, there also existed another trail that branched off from the main path and led out across the north face of the mountain to its true highest point, Pico Norte.

Kerry opted for the latter.

He didn’t come all this way just to settle for second.

“There may just be hope for you yet, Face…”

A group of children, their high-pitched squeals echoing through the humid air, rounded the corner. They wore brightly colored party hats, clutching balloons. A woman, presumably their mother, trailed behind, looking harried.

“Look, mommy! A giant man-lizard!”

A small boy pointed, his eyes wide.

Scott, fully committed to his method acting, remained perfectly still.

He focused on his eyeball, feeling the strange, almost alien sensation of his tongue extending. He brought it up, slowly, deliberately, to his eye, and licked. A thin film of moisture coated his vision, then vanished as his tongue retracted. The sensation was surprisingly refreshing.

A collective gasp rose from the children.

“Ew! He licked his eye!” a little girl shrieked, clutching her unicorn balloon tighter.

The mother, a woman with a perpetually strained smile, rushed forward. “Excuse me, sir! What are you doing?”

Scott, without breaking character, slowly turned his head, his gaze unwavering. He blinked, a slow, non-human blink, then licked his eye again, just for emphasis.

“Just hydrating,” Scott’s voice rasped, a low croak from his parched throat. He hadn’t spoken in hours. “A vital part of the thermoregulation process.”

“Mommy, he’s creepy!” another child wailed, tugging at her mother’s skirt.

It wasn’t the first time Scott had been called creepy. Most recently, at the family Christmas party.

The mother’s strained smile completely vanished. “Sir, this is a children’s birthday party! You’re scaring them!”

“Scaring them?” Scott tilted his head. “I’m merely demonstrating the natural behaviors of the indigenous fauna. A learning opportunity, if you will.”

He paused.

“Are any of these children FLAMBERGE’s offspring?”

The woman stared, aghast.

“FLAMBERGE? Who or what is FLAMBERGE?? Sir, I’m calling security!”

“Security?” Scott finally pushed himself up, his muscles protesting the sudden movement. “For a little educational performance? I was attempting to gain valuable insight into the genetic predispositions of the reptilian brain, to understand the root of FLAMBERGE’s unique style.”

He gestured vaguely toward the motionless crocodiles.

“The territoriality, the unblinking stare, the sudden, explosive bursts of aggression.”

“He just licked his eye again!” a child yelled, pointing.

Scott stopped, realizing his tongue had indeed darted out once more. Old habits, even newly formed ones, died hard.

He shrugged, a very human gesture. “It’s a very effective cleansing mechanism.”

“Get out!” The mother pointed toward the exit, her face a mask of furious indignation. “Or I’m calling the police!”

Scott sighed. The lizard family reunion wasn’t going as planned. He hadn’t found any French-speaking champions, only bewildered children and an angry parent.

Still, he had learned something. The quiet patience, the unblinking focus, the occasional unexpected eye-lick. These were tools. Tools he could use in the ring.

As he walked back to his car, the sun now dipping below the horizon, casting long, distorted shadows, Scott felt a new resolve. He might not have found FLAMBERGE’s literal family, but he had glimpsed the world through his beady little lizardy eyes.

And he knew, with a certainty that chilled him more than the evening air, that he was ready to unleash his new secret weapon, but it would take skill, it would take cunning.

“How does a man work eye-licking into a wrestling match?” he wondered.

This was gonna be tricky.

“...what… the… fuck?”

Kerry made it to Pico Norte within three hours, as expected.

What he didn’t expect upon arrival was discovering a large giftbox there waiting for him.

The wind blew fiercely in the higher elevation. To the north, a panoramic view of Monterrey was laid out in front of him, while to the south, a visible mist formed the mountain valley.

Yet all Kuroyama could do, standing there exhausted and sweating in his moment of conquest over nature, was stare slack-jawed at the medium-sized box wrapped in a shiny black material that may or may not have been a trash bag.

Incredulously enough, the attached tag bore his name.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me…” he muttered as his hands plucked the single-fold card off the string and opened it up.

The letters inside were jagged, and written in something that was too thick and viscous to be ink.

KERRY,

THE UNIVERSE IS A STRANGE MISTRESS. AND SHE JUST SERVED YOU A SUCCULENT, ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME DISH. YA GOTTA FEED THE BEAST. OTHERWISE, IT WILL FEED ON YOU.

-R

PS. DON’T TELL LINDSAY I WAS HERE!!! Kerry blinked in astonishment, still oblivious to the fact that he stood six-thousand feet above the sea level

“How the fuck does he know…?”

Deep inside, he felt the monster cackle in delight.

A heavy, metallic clang resounded as Kerry placed his mountaintop “gift” onto the coffee table of Scott’s apartment.

“You found the pancake-maker!” exclaimed Hunter.

Kerry nodded firmly. “Yeah… just don’t ask where I found it.”

Exhausted from scaling a mountain and hauling a heavy ass piece of machinery with him on the trip back down, Kerry fell into a nearby armchair.

Hovering nearby, Scott thoughtfully scratched his head. “So… how did the independent research go?”

Kerry pondered for a moment, and finally shook his head.

“You know, Scott… I don’t think that there’s any disputing that the Glue crew was the top team of last year…”

Kerry no longer felt like sitting. Despite his legs feeling like jelly, he willed himself back to his feet.

“But the reality is that 2025 is over, and we ended it by being the hottest rising stars in PRIME.”

Scott set his jaw, overwhelmed by a sudden feeling of determination.

“I have a hunch that our bond is stronger than Glue,” declared Kuroyama. “So let’s show these motherfuckers that this is our year.”

After a moment, Hunter nodded in agreement.

“I thrive in sticky situations.”

Kerry chuckled. “I know you do, Scott. I know you do.”