Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2014 4:06:48 GMT -5
His head hurt. He was flat on his back, lying on a bit of an incline, but he didn't remember falling or being put down - only the ringpost as it rushed towards his head and made contact. The roar of the crowd was invasive, ever-present, but after a moment of him laying there, eyes squeezed shut in an attempt to counteract the throbbing in his skull, something made it through the din. A word. A number.
ONE!
That was ubiquitous, seeming to come from everywhere. Something else made it through alongside it, however - one voice, nearby: GET 'IM, SILVER!
He got you. He's covering you.
Kick out.
TWO!
KICK OUT.
He did, forcing his shoulder upward (the Last Kazama was surprisingly light) just in time.
THREE!
...what.
He opened his eyes, the words fully formed behind his lips and ready to go - FUCK YOU, I KICKED OUT - but there was no one there. No Matthew Kazama, no referee, nothing but the oppressive glare of the arena's overhead floodlights. He sat up slowly, carefully, hyper-aware of his physical condition and alert for anything that might signal an injury, and looked around.
It took him one second to see, two to process, three to understand.
Downs: Here is your winner, and the NEW EHWF CHAMPION... SILVER KAZAMA!
Pathetic.
He wasn't in the ring. Rather, he was outside, propped up on one of the cell walls that now leaned precariously against the crowd barricade, the upturned faces of EHWF fans less than a foot below his back and on either side of him. Most of his competition was strewn elsewhere around the ringside area, looking like broken and discarded toys, but they - as always - meant nothing to him. His focus was on the two in the ring.
Absolutely pathetic.
He couldn't do it. In the end, Matthew Kazama had been unable to follow through, unable to keep his words, his promises, from ringing hollow. Domenic Mazzio lay unmoving in the center of the ring, and David watched as Joanna Isabella-Rissi helped the new titleholder - not champion, never champion, but titleholder - to his feet. She raised Kazama's arm, and the arena exploded with fireworks and confetti, each spark a testament to the undoing of all David's hard work, every streamer a celebration of a pauper's ascension to a false throne.
David gave himself a once-over - arms, legs, knees, back - and once he was satisfied that, even taking into account the twenty-foot fall he'd suffered, nothing was torn or broken, carefully removed himself from the cell wall down onto the floor. He stood up - it appeared he was the only one of the six who could do so unaided - and cocked his head to one side, the joints in his neck going off like firecrackers. He then turned back to the ring just in time to see Kazama fall back to the mat the moment Isabella-Rissi stopped supporting him, and his face contorted into a grimace that had nothing to do with physical pain.
My God. At least have the dignity to stay standing.
Another moment passed and then he'd seen enough. Turning away, wincing from the throbbing in his head and the myriad cuts and bruises he'd suffered, he trudged around the ring, up the ramp, and to the back. Away from the light, from the sound, from the travesty that had just taken place in the center of the - of his ring. He waved off the EMTs who tried to offer him medical attention, declined to provide Alexander Corvis with any usable news footage, and flat-out ignored a group of fans with backstage passes, all of whom were wearing the shirt the EHWF had made out of his Dragon soundbyte and all of whom seemed to want his autograph for some insane reason.
He finally reached the primary roster locker room - the private one assigned to the EHWF Champion was no longer his, and he was nothing if not adaptable - and collapsed into a steel chair someone had left set-up. He leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and came to terms with it all in a matter of seconds.
Fine. Let him borrow it for a while.
TBC: Anyone