Like A Shooting Star / Camelot's Turntable, The Third Armament

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Harley Walker is not the first daredevil to challenge the Crownless King in Cardiff.

But he is about to become the most visible one... Like a shooting star, with all that entails. *.* Winifred Bannister stared at the two cats dragging themselves into her home in Cardiff, and almost didn’t recognize them at first. A lot could change in a couple of years after all, and for her two guests, much had changed.

Nevertheless, she couldn’t help but greet them warmly, “What’s occurin’, Mr. and Mrs. Avy?”

The two people standing at her door were familiar to her. Mr. Avy’s hair had changed from its natural black to a dyed blonde in recent years, but the prominent forehead remained the same. He’d taken to wearing a blue waistcoat, worn underneath a long black coat meant for the rain. He stood with a woman a full foot shorter than him, her hair half black and half pink. She carried a basket containing their bundle of joy, a tiny three-month-old girl.

Winifred recognized him as a friend, rival, and a mentor to her husband. He’d been there for the wedding, along with that strange Japanese boy whom she knew as a “professional shark”. They’d called ahead earlier, and Winifred had agreed to look after the family.

Winifred was still a young woman in her early 30s, attractive enough with her blonde hair and glasses. Her appearance was a far cry from when Coral first met her backstage at a Rapier: Battle Arts crossover show. She was a heavy metal girl then, leather pants and studs and piercings and all that. Nowadays, she worked as a secretary and wore honest-to-god suits and skirts.

Were it not for her voice and that look in her eyes that still remembered her rebel years, Coral might not have recognized her. Time changed everything.

“Hey, Mrs. Bannister, been awhile,” Coral said, “Thanks for letting us crash here while we’re in Cardiff.”

“Lookit you all stiff and formal,” Winifred chided cheerfully, before she came in for hugs. She invited the Avalons into her flat, who graciously entered.

After Winifred closed the door behind her, she looked up at Coral afterwards and studied his face, “’Part from the blonde, you don’t look like you changed much, Mr. Avy.”

Coral laughed, “You know that Coral is fine, ‘Fred.”

“And you!” Winifred exclaimed, turning her attention towards Annabelle, “You’re lookin’ great for a lass that just had a baby!”

Annabelle gave her an impish smile, “Oh, trust me, not without effort!”

The happy Avalon couple sat down at one of the couches lined up in the living space of the flat, the one against the wall overlooked by a shelf. Pictures adorned the shelf of Winifred with her husband.

So many pictures.

“Sorry for the big ask on a whim, ‘Fred,” Coral said when Winifred sat down at the opposite couch, “We’re treating this tour as a way to catch up with some old friends and see the sights. The wrestling’s kind of an afterthought.”

Winifred smiled, “Wrestling’s never been an afterthought for ya, Avy.”

Coral smiled, knowing that Winifred always had him figured out.

Even now, in the back of his mind, he was seeing Harley Walker move. His reckless abandon. The way he dispatched of Coral’s last Alias contender, and of Adam Ellis before him. Outwardly, he’d been referring to Harley as “number two”. He meant the second successful defense of his Alias championship, not the business one conducted in the bathroom. Inwardly, though… he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that he knew exactly the kind of man he was dealing with.

He glanced up at the wall of pictures. Gears turned in his head, though Winifred couldn’t know that the Crownless King who’d once been her husband’s mentor and greatest challenge was connecting some dots.

“No, I guess not,” he admitted, shaking his head even as his gaze remained fixed on the pictures, “Anyway, thank you again for agreeing to help look after Aoi. I know it’s a big ask.”

“She can be a handful,” Annabelle agreed.

“It’s fine, sweeties,” Winifred said, “We can always use the company.”

Winifred saw sleepy eyes in both of the Avalons. She knew it’d been a long trip for the two of them to get to Cardiff, a lot of ups and downs among companions they wouldn’t have associated with even a year ago.

Winifred kept talking about her husband and her son, but she didn’t know that it was all noise to Coral now.

The gears turned. *.* Let’s go back.

It’s 2016. The world was about to take a big dumb turn into uncertainty, and the Crownless Kingdom was in full swing. It wasn’t just Japan that felt the pressure of four of the very best independent wrestlers in the world teaming up to ruin everyone’s day, either.

Europe buckled before their siege, as the Kingdom were among the hottest tickets around the international scene. They would arrive, defeat many of the top talents in Europe, and then depart back for any number of other conquests that they endeavored.

As hectic as it was, Coral Avalon didn’t mind the travel. The ring was his home, and his guests were graciously taken care of by way of yakuza kicks and piledrivers. The hustle and bustle of airline flights and train rides were only there to fill space between his home visits. For his wife who came with him, she played music wherever and whenever she could. It was a busy, exhausting, but often enjoyable time for the two of them.

“Oi, Avy!”

And then there’s this motherfucker.

Coral and Franco were in Cardiff for a tour with an independent promotion in the UK called “Dauntless”. Founded by “the Birmingham Blender” Cedric Derrickson Jr. in 1991, and currently run by his son “the Blackguard” Cedric Derrickson III (aka CD3), Dauntless was a promotion founded on traditional wrestling values in the spirit of World of Sport Wrestling.

The best thing you could say about Dauntless was that it made for a wonderful Beavis to Rapier Battle Arts’ Butthead considering the long storied rivalry between the two promotions. It was also the rugby to Rapier’s soccer, a sport for hooligans played by gentlemen like Lord Gavin Yum.

Coral had wrestled on the show’s main event, a fight against this very motherfucker that ended when Avalon proceeded to beat said motherfucker into a gelatinous substance with a long series of elbows to the back of his head and neck until the referee made him stop. Now, on his way out of the Cardiff International Arena, he ran into this motherfucker once again.

Coral regarded his opponent with only a calm glance and a nod, “Tim.”

This professional name of this known fucker of mothers was Typhoon Timothy, an undersized performer out of Swansea. When we say “undersized”, we mean that despite managing a muscular build, it would be ludicrous to even call him a “light heavyweight”. He stood at a height that would be just above eye level with Coral’s wife. He crept up to Coral and Franco on a motorcycle that looked much too big for him, looking like a miniature Logan Paul from a time before he’d taken the Super Soldier serum. His mirror sunglasses cast a pair of reflections back at the two charter members of the Crownless Kingdom.

Coral looked to Franco, who only shrugged his shoulders and went to fetch the rental car.

“How’s your head?” Coral asked. It was a fair question after their match.

Typhoon Timothy had been challenging Coral Avalon to matches every time he came to Europe, and Coral had been having to escalate the amount of punishment he had to deliver just to keep him down for a three count. The previous match required the services of not only the First and Second Armaments that’d been serving him well to this point, but Timothy’s sheer tenacity forced Coral to add a new weapon to his arsenal on the spot before the rain of elbows.

Hence the Third Armament, “Camelot’s Turntable”. It went unnamed at the time and wouldn’t even be an Armament until Annabelle came up with the name as a joke. Not that she’d ever admit it.

“Fuck you, that’s how my head is,” Timothy said. He didn’t lack for confidence as he swung his leg over his motorcycle with a careless motion, and sauntered up to Coral with swagger to spare and a deficiency of fucks.

Coral grinned, “That doesn’t really answer my question, does it?”

“I got yer number, ya fuckin’ prick,” Timothy said with a finger to Coral’s face, “Oh, I got ya now. You just wait! Imma kick ya fuckin’ ass between your ears next time, ya hear me?”

Coral listened to Timothy’s trash talk with the patience of a man who’d heard all of it before and didn’t take it very seriously. He was like that after every match they had. No matter how much Coral beat him down, he simply came up talking more trash. For Coral, none of this was a threat. It was a greeting.

And so, with the cadence of a man who didn’t feel threatened, Coral casually said, “So, Tim, word on the street is that you’re expecting a kid with ‘Fred.”

Whatever trash talk Timothy had lined up next disappeared in his throat like a Nightcrawler BAMF, leaving behind only a vacuum of rapidly compressing air in its wake. He coughed.

“Who told ya?” Timothy balled up a fist and held it up like he was ready to fight, “I’ll fuckin’ kill ‘em.”

Coral held his hands up, “’Fred told Annie, then Annie told me.”

Timothy’s hand relaxed, and his face softened. The very last person he wanted to pick a fight with was Annabelle. He still thought he had a chance against Coral, but when it came to Wakana, he knew that the Natsukawa family raised a fucking demon in Kawaguchi that breathed fire and wore the big platform heels that made your shins concave when she kicked you with them.

“I’ll… fuck. I’ll let it go.”

Coral laughed, “Probably better for your health that way.”

The air had gone out of Timothy’s bluster, and what was left was the same meek young man that Coral first met just four years before. The same one who needed the swagger and the attitude of men twice his size in order to make it in the cruel business they took part in.

“Look, Avy, not bein’ funny but I don’t know what to do. ‘Sall happenin’ too quick, y’know?”

Coral didn’t understand at the time, but he’d feel the same thing seven years later when the call of fatherhood finally came for him. “Yeah, I get you, but I’m not so sure I’m the guy you should be talking to about your worries.”

“Yeah, but you fuckin’ know everything, don’t you, mate?” Timothy asked. His eyes sparkled.

Coral was quick to correct him, “Look, I only know everything about wrestling. Anything else and I only seem like I know what I’m doing because I’m faking it.”

“Well, I know I ain’t good for nothin’,” Timothy had a faraway look in his eyes, like he was seeing something miles away that was visible only to him.

“That’s not true.”

Timothy waved him off, “Ma and Pa was always tamping ‘bout me gettin’ into wrestling, still don’t think they’ve much forgiven me for it. Flunked outta college. All I had was me motorbike and ‘Fred. Honestly, man, didn’t think I’d get this far with wrestlin’ or nothin’.”

Coral smiled.

He knew what that was like when he’d made the decision to become a professional wrestler. Only he didn’t even have a motorbike and the woman that came to his side turned out to be someone more into giant noses than giant foreheads. He wondered where his life would’ve gone if he hadn’t met Annabelle. Probably nowhere good, he thought. He thought of a man like Terrence Kingsley, the man responsible for nearly killing him in Sin City and sending him to the relative safety of the international wrestling scene, and shuddered.

“But when ‘Fred told me that she was pregnant, I was positively buzzin’. Not being funny, but like… ain’t so sure I’m cut out to be a dad, man.” Timothy looked even smaller than the five foot two that he usually was, which surprised Coral. Usually, he walked and talked like he was a humanoid typhoon and had a sixty billion double dollar bounty on his head.

“No one ever thinks they are when it happens to them, Tim. God knows, maybe it’ll happen to me and Annie one day,” Coral said with a mirthful laugh. As if that would ever happen! Annabelle might kill him for floating the possibility! “So cheer up, I reckon you’ll do just fine as a father.”

“Thanks, man. I needed to hear that.” Timothy nodded, and walked back to his motorcycle. The swagger came back as he donned his helmet, and he pointed at Coral, “But next time you come back to the UK, you fuckin’ prick, I’m killin’ you in that ring.”

Coral couldn’t help but laugh even as the motorcycle’s engine roared to life and he streaked down the street. *.* It rained plenty during the week leading up to Culture Shock. It rained when Coral and the gang docked in Cardiff and when they came to visit Winifred. It always seemed to rain when in PRIME.

Rain, rain, go away.

Dauntless was in town to take advantage of PRIME being in town, and so three thousand people were in attendance to watch a show with many ups and downs. Conspicuous by his presence in the crowd was Coral Avalon in his Mariners hoodie. You almost couldn’t miss him because Annabelle sat beside him and her half-pink hair always stuck out like a sore thumb.

Wrestlers came and went, faces familiar and not. Every blow was like the crash of thunder. Every death-defying high flying move sent a thrill that resonated in the crowd in waves. The crowd roared and made chants better served in soccer arenas, often set to popular music.

Annabelle cheered for their mutual friends and acquaintances, people that Coral knew in the area because he seemingly knew everyone in pro wrestling. Coral tried to be inconspicuous while enjoying the show, but such friends and acquaintances would recognize Annabelle and thus recognize him.

Coral felt anxious being a spectator instead of a performer. He was rarely at a wrestling show only to watch, and wasn’t used to being in the crowd cheering on the action without any stakes for himself. He was just there. Vibing. He didn’t quite know how to handle it the same way his wife naturally did.

There was the dreaded Pirates of Dark Tuber, the haunting tag team of Spud Wellington and Potato Pete, who spent most of their match with the completely overmatched Prep Kids Generation Z completely fucking them up. Coral found himself with his fists balled up as he stood on his feet and watched them like he was hoping that they’d come his way when the fight spilled out into the crowd, and maybe Spud and Pete would pick a fight with him.

Some grudges were eternal.

After finishing their demolition of the PKGZ, the Pirates would leave without incident. Coral briefly thought that maybe they knew he was there, but corrected himself – if the Pirates of Dark Tuber knew, it might’ve been Belfast all over again.

Screw those guys in particular, he remembered Belfast.

When the night’s main event came up, it was a match for the Dauntless Cup – the top prize in the promotion. It was then that Coral knew why he was so anxious.

After Coral unceremoniously left the mainstream wrestling scene, Coral had prided himself on being above championships. A king that needed no crown to be called as such. But as the incorrigible “Scottish Hound” Douglas Sangster came storming down to the ring with the Dauntless Cup in hand, Coral began to wonder if maybe he’d been making a grave mistake in his life this entire time.

He stared in disbelief at this roly-poly blob of meat, a cannonball with bulky arms and legs seemingly slapped on his body like they were made of Lego bricks. As the crowd gave an impromptu karaoke session for Journey’s “Separate Ways”, watching Sangster pump himself in a singlet maybe one size too small for his frame, the Crownless King realized a terrible truth.

He actually missed this.

He missed being the big fish in the small pond.

He missed being at the heart of the storm. He missed the freedom of being able to work wherever he wanted. He missed the travel, the foreign lands he’d find himself in. He missed the people, many of whom might never get the same chances that he’d ultimately squandered in a twenty year career full of championships that were never the “big” one.

In Sangster, he saw someone his lesser enjoying a glory he’d long wished for. To be at the mountaintop. To be a true King.

PRIME was not a pond. It was an ocean. So wide and vast that even the Octane couldn’t cross it easily. Out there, he was King. In here, he was little more than a Bandit.

No, it’s worse than that.

Jiles and the rest built a whole new eGG Bandit crew upon his forehead, propped up solely by his sense of obligation and kindness. It was a crown he didn’t seek, one that he considered fragile and of ill repute. A stain on his reputation that he’d only managed to salvage by striving to be the exact same man he was before he joined the Bandits as he was after.

But if Coral Avalon left Cardiff without the Alias Championship or a victory in WarGames, he knew Jiles would reassert himself as the center of the Banditverse.

And so, the Superkick of Damocles hung over his head. *.* They’d gotten back to the Bannister home after the show, and little Aoi found herself in her mother’s arms once again. It was just Coral and Winifred now, and Winifred was about two shots of bourbon down. Coral didn’t drink, but he didn’t judge what Mrs. Banister did with herself either. After all, his wife was legendary in wrestling circles for her sheer alcohol tolerance.

She toasted him with her second shot once they’d settled down in her living room, “Iechyd da!”

Coral repeated the phrase as best he could as he did the same with his bottle of water, but Welsh was hard and we shouldn’t judge Coral for stumbling over it a little.

“So, ‘Fred, how old is Pete now?” Coral asked.

“He’ll be comin’ up on seven in a couple’o months, already a little athlete, he is,” Winifred said, smiling wistfully over her bourbon, “Just like his pa.”

“Well, I hope he turns out taller than he did,” Coral said with a laugh.

Winifred smiled ruefully, “I’ve hope yet.”

There was a long pause between the two, long enough that Coral knew it was suddenly awkward.

“Hey, uh…”

“Pfft,” Winifred blew her tongue out at him, “Don’t apologize, Avy. Pete’s doing just fine, he’s got Tim lookin’ after ‘im. You just worry about whatever you gotta do while you’re here, and don’t fuckin’ die doing it.”

Coral smiled like a man who definitely didn’t heed that advice at least once or twice in his life, “Not looking to do that. Annie would kill me if I died.”

“Good. Ain’t too many good men left ‘round here.”

Coral nodded, and his gaze turned once again to the pictures of Winifred’s husband on the wall again.

Fewer now than there were before, too.

Coral knew who his opponent at Culture Shock reminded him of. After all, Coral knew another daredevil long ago, one who challenged his Kingdom. One who could never manage to defeat him, no matter how hard he tried.

That daredevil was on Winifred’s wall, in loving memory, surrounded by a simple golden urn.

Like a shooting star.