Wakana and the Bellevue

My name is Annabelle Natsukawa Wakana Avalon, and I’m the First Mate of the USS Octane by the ironclad decree of its Captain.

Perhaps you’re asking how I convinced the Captain to let me be the First Mate! Well, the first step is knowing how to demand it, which was what I did a day before Coral set out for Boston.

“I’ve decided that you’re going to name me First Mate, Captain.”

My husband – you all know him as beloved professional wrestler Coral Avalon and I know him as my beloved moron husband Coral Avalon – is very easy to read if you know what to watch. Whatever hamster that runs things in that penthouse loft of a skull will trip over its own feet and go tumbling around like a ragdoll the moment I do or say or ask him anything that it doesn’t expect. It’s that funny way his eyebrow curled up and his mouth went agape that lit up my day, you know?

He’s always so relaxed about most aspects of his stupid job, so I made it mine to keep him on his toes. It’s only fair, I took the lion’s share of taking care of Aoi.

“You want me to name you what now?” Coral finally sputtered.

It’s almost adorable how high his voice could go when he’s surprised.

Oh, sure, he’s more than fine standing toe-to-toe with Brandon Youngblood or Chandler Tsonda or even that piece of human filth Cecilworth Farthington. But if it’s me, the hamster will fall asleep at the wheel. Especially when he’s tired, which… well, we both often were thanks to Aoi. Clearly, I dealt with sleep depravity better than he did.

“First Mate!” I said cheerfully. I’ll blame the cheer on said sleep depravity.

It was a reasonable request, I thought. The pancake platter of dumbasses that Coral was teaming with, the eGG Bandits, they had all kinds of stupid titles among them that didn’t make sense to me. Like “the eGGscutioner”? What the fuck’s that? Do they kill eggs? Is that what it means? Seems counterintuitive for your egg-based cult to me. But the one thing I did notice was that there wasn’t a “First Mate”.

So, that’s me now! I’ve decided. Ipso-facto, I make it so.

“Why?” he asked.

“Why not?”

I loved a lot of things about Coral, but I think my personal favorite was that incredulous look plastered on his face whenever I gave him a counter-argument he’s not prepared for.

I put my hands on my hips and stood at my full height on the tips of my toes. I’m not even up to Coral’s shoulder, but in a scenario like this, I am a colossus.

I continued, “Is there anyone on your team that has sense enough to take this coveted position?”

Coral had to think about it. I could tell because I could see a hint of steam coming out from his ears. Maybe it was me. I’m good at seeing that sort of thing in him.

“Winters?”

I scoffed, “Him? He can’t even keep a penguin under control!”

“Diamonds?”

I burst out laughing in response to that suggestion, and I could tell from his expression that it was a huge reach to even ask.

“Uh… Hessian?”

“Sweetie, I love you, but you already know the answer to that question.”

Coral looked up at the ceiling. That forehead of his might as well be transparent and I could see the words forming in his brain: “That man tried to trademark murder, and even Gavin thought that wasn’t going to fly.”

My husband didn’t even try to suggest any of the other Bandits, because he knew better. He’s not naming any of them as the First Mate. Not Bobby, not Gamble, not even Jiles. It had to be me.

Coral ran his hand over his face, “I’m not exactly arguing against this, Annie, it’s just… Why do you want to be on the boat?”

I smiled.

“A trip to Europe, our travel covered by way of the Bandits, and we’ll be there for three months? Sure, sign me up for a little foreign excursion. Beats flying!”

Coral shook his head.

“You do realize that we’re going to be traveling with all of these lunatics and freaks and Cancer Jiles, right? I heard Winters is bringing his whole congregation with him, and I’m not yet convinced that it’s not a cult. And, well… Daytona exists. And, you know, the Bandits…”

I punched my husband in the shoulder with a grin on my face. Not hard, but he still winced and staggered back. He even said “ow”.

“I’m more worried about you than about me, sweetie,” I said. I took him by the wrist and placed his hand in mine, not taking my eyes from his, “Look, I know this is the last year. That’s not an excuse to get reckless. Especially since I know what the fuck you’re walking into in Cardiff.”

War Games…

I’ll be honest, the idea of my husband in a cage frightened me more than anything he ever did. More than ever before, I didn’t want to be halfway across the world when he went to war.

I wanted to be right there with him.

I stared at him until he caved.

“Alright,” he muttered. When I squeezed his wrist while staring intently at him, he caved even more, “Alright! You’re the First Mate now! Geez. Twist my arm, why don’t you?”

I smiled, “Was that really so hard?”

“Immensely,” Coral said, shaking his hand from my grip and rubbing his wrist, “Some of my students could stand to learn a thing or two from you about wrist control, geez.”

My smile might be described as devilish to some, “Oh, they could, but I don’t come cheap.” *.* We’re on the Octane now, a couple of days out.

I’ll be honest, I have so many questions I have about this stupid boat, so many that if I stopped to ask them a dozen more would pop up like weeds.

The most important of my questions being “What the fuck?”

It covered so much ground!

When I saw that fucking ship for the first time, I finally realized that this thing wasn’t hyperbole. The eGG Bandits really did have a goddamn aircraft carrier. I once asked Coral how that was possible when he first mentioned it, and his only response was “don’t question it, just roll with it”.

Excuse you, sweetie, but how the fuck am I supposed to roll with this? I’m not you! I don’t have that stupid, idiot, absurdly broken part of your brain that you have where you just accept things as they are and never question them! God! Ask a question for once in your life!

Sigh.

Well, whatever.

What’s the best way to describe life on the Octane? It had everything you needed, just a little bit shit. A luxury cruise ship, this wasn’t. Everything was featureless and boring to look at. You’d think that a group as dynamic and weird as the eGG Bandits would have, I don’t know, pictures of naked women adorned on the walls. That would’ve been fun, at least, if only to see Don’s reaction to it.

But no, of course not. That would’ve made sense and we can’t have that on the goddamn Octane.

Anyway, I knew there’d be issues with our little trip.

Boredom would set in. The ship didn’t have any luxuries, unless your idea of a luxury was the magic cryostasis chamber that I informed every Bandit that would (and wouldn’t) listen that I would take no part in. There’s only so much you can laugh at a dipshit cowboy trying to take this trip purely on a jet ski before you get tired. I mean, to be fair, I did a lot of laughing.

Especially when we lost him.

Oh, man, Coral was big mad about that one.

“How did you guys just lose Daytona!?” he shouted to Bobby and… what was that guy’s name again? Lunchbox Lansing? His name really escaped me, and Coral never remembered it either. I don’t know, he’s not particularly memorable.

We were in the captain’s quarters of the Octane, where Coral had more or less spent most of his time on the voyage. Honestly, Coral didn’t know the first thing about being on a boat, let alone an aircraft carrier, but as the Captain of the vessel, that’s where you’d find him. It was Lunchbox Lothario who came to us, with Bobby trailing behind him.

There’s something about Bobby that others find endearing, like he’s some sort of cherubic angel. I didn’t buy it. There’s a secret asshole in there, hidden within four hundred pounds or so of cheer and laziness and frequent uncontrollable hunger pangs. He’d put on a dumb smile, but you know that the smile’s only there because he left a surprise for you in your bathroom.

This secret asshole in a perpetual bathrobe could only stammer, “I don’t know! This is the worst cruise I’ve ever been on!”

I wanted to shush him. We just got Aoi to fall asleep, do you know how hard it is to do that on a fucking aircraft carrier? I do. Now. But then Lunchbox Lyther chimed in, “Daytona did insist on driving his jet ski across the ocean. He was going to fall behind eventually. The Octane goes vroom. Scientific term.”

“I thought that was just hyperbole…” Coral muttered, as his hands fumbled for the aspirin we brought with us on the trip.

“Really?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper so as not to awaken the baby, “That guy might actually be the dumbest motherfucker I’ve ever seen and that’s saying a lot, and you thought he wasn’t serious?”

Coral turned to me with such a defeated expression on his face, the kind he had whenever he regretted his decisions in life. Evidently, despite so much experience hanging around history’s greatest morons, even he didn’t expect someone to be that stupid. I almost felt bad for him. Then I remembered that I was on the fucking Octane and I felt less bad.

“Hang on!” Bobby interrupted at a loud enough volume that I considered violence, “Maybe we could check GPS or radar or something?”

I rolled my eyes.

Were you really going to find a jetski on that? That’s implausible.

Coral, on the other hand, clapped his hands and pointed an enthusiastic finger towards Bobby, “You’re a genius, Bobby!”

Wait, what?

In what world!?

Sure enough, we did find him. Somehow. It only got dumber from there. *.* I don’t want to get into the nonsense that happened when we found where Daytona ended up, other than the fact that it was stupid. Maybe we don’t leave professional wrestlers in charge of a fucking aircraft carrier, I’m just saying.

But after that nonsense came and went, and we were back on our voyage to Wales, the boredom set in again. There’s not that much to do even when Aoi’s asleep and I’m not sleeping myself.

There’s plenty of times where my fingers start itching for guitar strings, and this was one of those times. It’s why I brought some of my music equipment with me for the trip. It’s why I set up shop in the Octane’s hangar bay, guitar at hand. I didn’t have any intentions of turning this into a big group activity. Just me and my guitar and the night sky.

I set up shop on one side of the bay, with Coral dutifully bringing some of the equipment for me. We got one of Winters’ congregation to look after our daughter and let us know if anything came up.

Then we played.

Coral first picked up the guitar when he finally started courting me, after almost a year of on-again, off-again awkward flirting throughout our shared tenure at the Squared Circle. He’s nowhere as talented as he thought he was, but he did it all to impress me, bless his heart. I kept things simple so he could keep up with me.

It didn’t take long for others to filter in, after word got out that I was doing this.

I didn’t care if anyone objected to what I was doing. Music was meant to bring people together, dammit, and this gaggle of dipshits needed to be brought together. Bobby and Gamble were the first members of the Bandits on the deck. Was Gamble getting shorter by the day? And Bobby had a… was that a fucking bucket of KFC? Where did he get that?

No. Concentrate. Let the music flow.

I didn’t really set out to play any particular song, I just took the lead and Coral accompanied me as best as we could. Live music can be messy, but fun. We needed a bit of fun.

Those choir kids that Winters brought on board with him started chiming in with their voices. Off on the other side of the hangar bay, I could hear a particular Rhinestone Cowboy yodeling. I almost laughed, the fucker.

Business picked up when I caught a glimpse of the man who put Coral and I in the position of being on this boat. Cancer Jiles looked around like a man who had no idea what all of the revelry was about, but acted too cool to care. I turned to Coral, and told him, “Follow my lead.”

I played a couple of familiar chords and a twang, and it got the room’s attention.

Even Coral looked over at me like I was nuts, which felt right after all of the times I gave him the same expression on this trip.

Once he recomposed himself, Coral sung the first familiar line of the song.

“I’m the one your momma warned you about…”

The song resonated throughout the ship. I swore I heard the perfect melody of a barbershop quartet singing along with Coral, but I brushed that aside as more people joined in the singing. The choir joined in, as though they knew the lyrics all along. I could see Don Winters going apoplectic over it, too.

It’s almost cacophonous the way that so many people in this hangar bay came together for Screamin’ Jay. Even people I wouldn’t expect to sing along started to do it. Coral later described it as having the same energy as that night in Philadelphia, just in a smaller venue.

And maybe it’s just me, but I could’ve sworn that Jiles had a little smile on his face. If only for a moment.

Ha. *.* Team Avalon had every opportunity to leave the boat once we finally made port after ten tumultuous days.

Instead, they stuck around in the hangar bay once they made port. I was left to care for Aoi while I impatiently waited for Coral to say whatever he was going to say to his team so we could find a hotel and I could sleep on something that didn’t constantly rock and roll and tumble and toil. I didn’t know why they let me stick around for this, but there I was. A fly on the wall. An adorable fly, very pink, and probably just as small and insignificant to these people too.

At least Aoi’s sleeping, thank God.

Coral cleared his throat.

I can tell you that he was never much for speeches, but this one was important to him and to his audience of six (plus me).

“I need you all to know that the moment we walk on the dry land of Wales…” he started, surrounded by the other six members of his team, “We’re at war.”

“I know none of you asked for me to put this team together,” Coral said as his gaze turned towards Don and Daytona, who exchanged frosty looks of their own with one another. Then he continued, casting a glance towards Bobby, “I know some of you wished I’d chosen you sooner.”

Bobby looked away sheepishly.

“I know that on its surface, this match has nothing at stake. It’s only for pride. When we win this thing, we’ll get a shiny trophy – probably, I think, need to check with LT about that one – and some pats on our backs and our names next to a little record that says we won PRIME’s first War Games.”

He scanned all of the faces surrounding him.

“And I say this,” Coral said, before punctuating his next two words by slamming his fist into his hand, “Screw. That.”

He turned his body as he continued talking, so that it appeared like he was addressing each of the six men that he was going to “war” with, “For us, this is an opportunity… nay, a demand. Because all of us, each one, has something to prove in that cage. Before we came to PRIME, who were we? Some of us were Hall of Famers, champions, main eventers… and some of us were underground. Forgotten. And I don’t know about any of you, but I’m not here to be forgotten. I’m not showing up to war just for the paycheck and settling for runner-up.”

They all exchanged glances with one another, while Coral continued like he was a football coach at halftime, “I came here to win. I chose all of you because I wanted to win. I want all of us to win. We’re going to war with every Russian, Hall, Glueboi, judgmental good boy, and champion in this company. I want all of us to be able to say that we beat all of them. And when we’ve won this war, we’ll write our own damn tickets in this place.”

Then he raised his fist into the air, and bellowed louder than I’d ever heard him before in my life, “SO TAKE NO PRISONERS! I DON’T WANT TO SEE A SINGLE PRISONER!”

It sounded like maybe he got through to them. Some agreed to the concept of taking no prisoners. Others looked too cool for this, but nodded along with the sentiment anyway.

But then Aoi woke up from the yelling and started crying, and that interrupted the proceedings. I glared at my husband.

He’s definitely going to have to be the one to put her back to sleep now. *.* I’m going to be honest with all of you.

The whole reason I insisted on coming along for the ride and taking a meaningless title on this boat had nothing to do with putting myself in some kind of position of power among the Bandits. I don’t care.

It had to do with War Games itself.

You see, my husband hadn’t been in a cage match in eighteen years, and there’s a reason for that. The last one he was in was in New York City, and you might better know that match as the one where he died.

I was there in the crowd when Coral climbed inside that towering nightmare. It was the kind of tower that God himself probably should’ve toppled like he did Babel. Not Brandon Youngblood, the Biblical one.

It wasn’t the sort of thing human beings should be wrestling inside of, let alone climb up. It was made of steel and barbed wire and hate and malicious advertising. It reeked of blood. The explosions were too loud. Everything was too red.

When one of his opponents of the match got thrown from the very top of the cage, my heart leapt into my throat and I wailed because I thought it was him. It wasn’t. Instead, the man I loved ripped himself apart to win that match. To this day, he still has scars on his arm that he hides under his arm sleeve from when he fell into a coffin full of broken glass.

He climbed down from the cage after he’d won like he was in a drunken haze, shell-shocked from the experience… and then he lost his grip and fell the rest of the way when he passed out from losing so much blood.

I think a lot about that night, the single worst of my life.

I think about how lucky we are that he’s still alive, much less still wrestling.

I think about how afraid I am to repeat the events of that night ever again.

Most of all, I think about that small part of me that wondered how much of him I truly lost that night.