09-06-2019, 06:48 AM
09-10-2019, 10:32 PM
OOC: I kind of want to apologize to G... I saw your post about not being able to get anything up for this match, and I truly hate posting anything when I know my opponent can't, but it's been far too long since I've gotten to write anything for Blackbourne since I had the extra time off due to my trip, and considering it doesn't look like he's going to be booked again until the PPV after this I had to get something done to at least start moving things in the direction I want them to start going in the aftermath of my RtG effort. That said, I actually did have another part to this CD planned, but ultimately between losing part of my own day to something unexpected that's related to work and seeing G's post, I opted to forego it for posting this and plan to maybe post it in the CD section at some point before this week's done so as not to interfere with my efforts for the PPV.
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While many people could look back on Rise to Greatness in disappointment because it simply wasn’t their night, it’s very unlikely that any of them could compare to Aaron Blackbourne in that category.
After all, his reflection went far beyond simply falling short in a title match on the biggest night of the year.
Aaron truly couldn’t blame Bree for taking advantage of the injury he’d sustained. After all, nobody could’ve seen Dylan’s attempted attack coming. Nobody in the business had any knowledge of who the guy was, and Aaron and those close to him who were either involved in the situation or at least aware of it would’ve never predicted the brazen move. After all, up to that point, he’d played everything in such a calculated manner to keep his tracks covered that by the time his false image of Andrew having committed suicide finally fell apart he was well out of reach of local authorities and near impossible to track down by anybody else. He even seemed to plan around his own ego, making sure that when he did strike again to slowly erode any sense of positive energy it was just as difficult to be absolutely certain he was to blame. The only answer he’d given Aaron when confronted about it all?
He was simply acting like any human being would.
It would be hard not to look back on that weekend and try to speculate as to how much it affected the creative soul going forward. The rib injury that, luckily, was the only significant damage he sustained in that final encounter was obvious, and Bree certainly didn’t seem bothered by the fact that her title defense wasn’t a completely clean victory to gloat about as long as she held on to the gold. Aaron was cleared despite being warned his decision to compete anyway was ill-advised, and injury be damned, he gave Bree everything he had and then some to try and walk away as the champion. What no one could really gather through his battle, however, was how much that ordeal affected him mentally.
Plain and simple… whatever mess existed in his creative mindscape before was far more chaotic now.
The pay-per-view was done and SCW was on its customary hiatus to allow all their athletes to recharge and prepare for the second half of the year, and while Aaron was grateful for the break he was also being forced by doctors to take the first two shows of the return off from actively competing to give his ribs as much time to heal as possible. It wasn’t a prospect he was particularly thrilled with, but it did give him time to really sort through what was next for him. It wasn’t going to be an easy question to answer on the SCW front with a title opportunity having just fallen by the wayside, but with the Dylan nightmare finally resolved once and for all there was a sliver of hope that he could put his undivided focus on his in-ring work once again to close out the year with some success in hand.
Before he could really say that with a straight face, though, there was one last lingering war that needed to be resolved if he was going to finally regain some semblance of stability in his life.
Aaron couldn’t help but mutter that to himself when he found his way into the realm of his imagination for what felt like the first time in forever. He didn’t really have any set destination in mind, though he doubted it would matter since trying to navigate around here had been a challenge in and of itself since this nonsensical war had started between Nemesis and the Twin Stars. At least signs seem to be pointing to the latter being willing to actually side with him, considering the last time he’d dealt with either Dreambender or Gleeful they seemed to be trying to make amends and be on the same page, but it was hard to tell when they’d been left to their own devices even after that because he’d been more tied up with the situation going on outside his head. After Rise to Greatness weekend and the ordeal with Dylan, however, he needed to know for sure where things stood before he made his next move.
If there was anything he was one hundred percent certain about, it was that Nemesis had to go.
As conflicted as he felt about several lingering threads in the aftermath of that night, one thing that continued to stick out in his mind was the brief moment when Nemesis had seemingly taken control. If it was just out of desperation because the human behind his very existence was in serious danger and he wasn’t willing to risk anything, the artist might’ve been willing to excuse it. The moment he’d pried the crowbar from Dylan’s hands, however, his intentions were clear and Aaron was not about to succumb to the stress of watching his career and perhaps even his life itself be destroyed just so the negative demon could claim victory.
Nemesis had crossed a line, and what started out as an annoyance he’d have to fight off just to keep going in life had now turned into a mission to be rid of the creature of stress once and for all.
The one goal he had in mind when he took this dive was to find the twins and see exactly where they stood, so he had to assume that was why he’d ended up here. He wasn’t entirely sure where in his little mental world he was, with part of the blame on that being things getting shifted around due to the constant fighting between his most powerful and dangerous designs, but he had a feeling he was in the right place as he made his way through the seemingly endless monochromatic forest, ignoring the eyes that seemed to open up in the trees themselves and follow his every move. It all came together when he finally made it through the woods to find a wooden cabin at its heart, designed to look like any place a family might crash during the summer to enjoy some outdoor living for a spell. Naturally, the big difference between this and any actual cabin in the woods was the starlit sky that featured opened windows and doors floating along, some even opened up with multicolored ribbons crisscrossing through them with little rhyme or reason. Other miscellaneous knick-knacks seemed to float around in that space, occasionally entering or leaving these floating portals, but none of them truly seemed important for anything.
“This certainly brings back memories of when I was first piecing them together…”
A nostalgic smile crossed his lips as he made his way up to the door of the cabin, recalling his desire to give the Twin Stars a place to call home that perfectly fit both their supernatural abilities and appearances as well as their childlike nature. It was no surprise that they’d likely made some changes since those early days, but he couldn’t fault them for wanting to make it feel more like home within his head. As if he needed any more confirmation that he was, indeed, in the right place, the moment he opened the door he found the two beings he was looking for sitting in a recliner big enough for the both of them, treating it like a throne as they appeared to be expecting him. Before he could even say a word, he was startled by the sight of a small army of different colored gummi bears rapidly approaching him before throwing themselves at his midsection, seemingly fusing together to form a soft, gelatin-like substance around his bruised ribs that he had to admit did make it feel better… at least in here anyway.
“We’ve been expecting you, and we figured we’d help you be as comfortable as possible after all those meanies tried to pulverize your ribcage like a skeletal pinata or something.”
“Feel happy that she settled on gummi bears. She originally wanted to do a giant teddy bear, but I talked her down because no matter how soft it would’ve been, it probably would’ve just made things feel worse.”
“Try telling that to Bear-O when I have him give you a big ol’ hug later.”
The spectral siblings shot one another annoyed glances, but it immediately faded when Aaron’s chuckling got their attention, which seemed like it surprised them a bit.
“I appreciate it guys… if only I could have something like this be an actual miracle cure for my ribs in the real world. Not going to lie: I kind of missed this. The little shack I designed for you guys, which I see you’ve expanded upon since those days, your childish sibling bickering… things I think I repressed when this whole idea felt like it fell apart and I felt you two were more interested in trying to screw with me than anything else.”
The siblings exchange glances of confusion this time before Gleeful starts to respond, but her voice shakily betrays her at first before she takes a fairly uncharacteristic deep breath and tries again.
“Aaron… we aren’t even going to sugarcoat the fact that we were screwing with you. It’s kind of how we were designed, after all, something we’ve both admitted to fairly recently.”
“We were just… tired, of being forgotten about because we never got to see any public recognition like virtually any of your other creations, and for the dumbest of reasons at that.”
“We did kind of take it too far at times in hindsight, and we’re sorry for all of that.”
“But at least we didn’t try to lead you into actually killing someone! Even for us, that’s just-”
The two are cut off as Aaron raises his hand as a silent request to stop, the other moving to gently massage his forehead as he takes a deep breath, seemingly trying to recompose himself. Granted, he had to admit it was a little heartwarming seeing these powerful entities of dreams and emotions acting like the kids they appeared to be, and it did seem to clear up any lingering doubts he had remaining from his most recent encounters with the pair, but part of him was also still feeling overwhelmed by everything that had happened that fateful Friday night that he was still having some trouble processing. These two probably weren’t the right entities to confide in about those matters, even if he knew he was better off talking with someone in the real world on that front so it didn’t seem like he was just keeping things bottled up inside again, but they did seem to open up the perfect segue into the matter he did need to discuss with them.
“Dreambender… Gleeful… in hindsight, I think we’re all at fault for a lot of the things that ultimately caused our relationship to deteriorate, and there will be plenty of time to rebuild those bridges and make it up to one another. For now, I’m just glad that we truly seem to be on the same page again and this isn’t just a ‘we need to band together to defeat a greater enemy’ scenario.”
Aaron slowly walks closer to where the twins were sitting, causing them both to raise their eyebrows as the look on his face shifted from one of exasperation to one of determination.
“I… still have a lot of things I need to sort out mentally regarding what all happened with Dylan, but one thing I know for sure that we seem to be in agreement on is that Nemesis had no reason to intervene and actually try to make things worse no matter how much he may try to disguise it as ‘saving me.’ This whole struggle for control has gone on long enough, and I’m tired of having to bear the burden before I do anything outside of this little world of mine.”
“Trust me when I say this Aaron: even if it wasn’t the reason we started fighting with him in the first place, we’re more than happy to side with you to take Nemesis down once and for all to keep you in control. It’s… been kind of messy trying to actually defeat him ourselves.”
Aaron shot Dreambender a confused look and was met with a face that showed only disappointment and shame in its purest form. He glanced over at Gleeful, but she was trying to mask a similar expression behind gnawing on a literal gummi snake she pulled from out of thin air.
“What do you mean? You two are, in all honesty, some of the strongest beings I’ve ever created. The only ones that would be on a similar level are Zeitgeist, Ferrugo and MAYBE Nemesis depending on how much stress he’s able to feed on. Even then, a numbers advantage is the one thing you two always have over any of them.”
“Yeah, but… you see… as powerful as we know we are, that power is more suited for mind games and manipulation for the most part. We’re not too experienced combat-wise.”
“And that twisted you-looking jerk sees right through any of our tricks and overwhelms us! It’s totally not fair!”
Aaron looked away for a moment, letting the twins vent as he contemplated the situation, realizing they had a point. While these two and their reality-bending ways did have the potential to be dangerous in a fight scenario, it was really best geared towards someone who didn’t have any powers of their own. It might explain why he found out around this time last year that they were unsuccessful in defeating Ferrugo after invading his Carnival of Rust and virtually left him alone after that. If used against him if you ignored the amount of control he usually had here inside his own head, they’d be a serious threat. Against someone who played similar games and had the power to fight back, like Nemesis…
The creative soul shook his head, refusing to give any more unintended praise towards the monster that was plaguing his mind and trying to control his life. He was sick of the way Nemesis always seemed to find a way to get to him, even when it seemed like he was on the verge of defeat once and for all, and he knew he wasn’t the only one. This went far beyond even the Twin Stars… every last being and idea that called this place home was tired of things being torn apart by war. That’s when he remembered the initial plan he had tried to form, about recruiting his own army in a sense to try and put an end to it all. On paper, it sounded good, but in theory… even if he could add these two to the list and focus all of the proverbial firepower on his demented reflection, so long as Nemesis had that toxicity to fuel him he would never truly be defeated, not even by a unified front. Aaron’s plan had the flaw of requiring a split focus to do what he was beginning to realize would be the only way of truly ending this once and for all, and that was just asking for disaster, especially now. But…
“Maybe there is a way…”
The Twin Stars both stood up and looked over at their creator, their own stressed-out shenanigans seemingly forgotten about. Gleeful even waves her hand and the pile of black confetti that seemed to be forming at her feet for virtually no reason vanishes. Aaron simply turns and gives them the softest of smiles before snapping his fingers, producing a scroll of some kind in his hand. He opens it up and uses his finger to sign his name at the bottom before handing it to Dreambender to read through, despite the perplexed expressions he and his sister shared.
“Before you two started trying to make amends and join forces with me, I was piecing together a plan to try and convince those who weren’t already a part of this to side with me in order to put both you and Nemesis in your places and stop this at long last. The more I think about it now, the more I realize that it might’ve worked with you guys, but not so much with him so long as he’s able to keep running off of whatever’s trying to destroy me mentally and emotionally outside of my imagination. If I divide my attention between the two tasks, I fear I’d be giving him an opening to exploit. But…”
He cut himself off when he noticed the grin beginning to form on Gleeful’s face as she seemed to catch on to where he was going with this. Dreambender was in the same boat but seemed like he was hesitant about something.
“If we’re on the same side then we can talk everyone into this little resistance plan for you while you cut off his power supply! YES!”
“Hang on Gleeful… it’s a solid plan, sure, but not everyone around here really likes us right now.”
Gleeful’s head literally deflated at her brother’s grim reminder but returned to normal as Aaron motioned to the scroll.
“That’s why you can show them this. That scroll is a treaty of sorts between the two of you and me, as well as anyone else that wants to sign it. Considering it’s a way only I would ever present a treaty and I have the first signature on there, everyone will know this isn’t some kind of trap you two might’ve conceived to trick them. There are a few that I know I’ll need to personally deal with as they won’t budge otherwise, but this should allow you guys to build us an army while I get myself straightened out to weaken that abomination.”
That seemed to instill some more confidence in Dreambender as he had to admit the point being made. Even their best attempts to imitate their creator could never be mistaken for the actions of the real deal, and this was one such action. It didn’t take the twins long to add their own names beneath his before they all shook hands, leaving Aaron with the first sense of positive progress inside of his head in months. He knew the road ahead wasn’t going to be easy, especially with everything he needed to figure out in the aftermath of Dylan’s death, but just as he now had help inside his head, he had just as much help waiting for him outside of it.
Through hell or high water, he was going to return to a way of life that was not dictated by stress or negativity, and he was going to reclaim control of the world he’d spent his whole life building.
I apologize for that, I truly do. I may have been appearing on TV the past few weeks, but I haven’t exactly been cleared to do much more than that. Call it a case of the doctors not wanting to take any chances after I walked into Rise to Greatness and, despite my ribs feeling like they were literally crumbling to dust, still gave Bree Lancaster the fight of her life. Even though we had a long break after the show was in the books, they didn’t want me to go full throttle into competition again and risk any further damage. As much as I understand and respect that, I’m also getting tired of sitting on the sidelines.
After all, how else am I supposed to get back to proving myself around here?
Trust me, I heard everything Bree’s had to say in response to how I addressed her leading up to our match, the shots she’s taken at my injury beforehand and her comments about how I was never deserving of a shot to begin with and nobody on the roster has proven they deserve the next shot, not even her so-called friends apparently. She can rant and rave all she wants about how I was wrong and people like her are the ones who built this country and represent America, but I’m not blind… like with Syren when I addressed her face-to-face, I can see the cracks forming in her facade. No matter how much she boasts about getting away with her belt, deep down she’s questioning the fact that I came so dangerously close to ending ‘her’ America at less than one hundred percent. She’s rattled by the fact that because someone who’s had this sociopathic obsession with trying to destroy my family for reasons I doubt even I would ever truly understand, she will always have that asterisk in the conversation about our U.S. Title showdown of whether or not that match could’ve ended differently if she didn’t have an injury to exploit. Hell, had things ended up being any worse, she could’ve found herself in a scenario where she would’ve been able to retain her title without having a match at all in exchange for being denied the opportunity to showcase herself on SCW’s biggest show of the year, which I doubt would’ve sat well with her.
Me, on the other hand? Yeah, it sucks not being able to walk away as champion, I won’t deny that. But like I said on Twitter, I still won on that night as far as I was concerned. Bree may have walked out with the belt, but for me to be able to show up and face her in the condition I was in and push myself well beyond my limits even if I hadn’t been injured? That was a statement in and of itself… a statement that no matter how much someone thinks they can destroy your life no matter the reason, they will only win if you let them have it. Even if that man didn’t succeed in his horrifically clear goal of ending my life, he thought that if his life was the one that ended and he could somehow try to present it in a way that makes me seem like I was responsible for it, then between that and the physical damage he left me with he could deny me the chance to walk out onto that stage and welcome you all into the world I proudly champion every single day. By fighting through all of that, he wasn’t allowed the last laugh even on his way down into the depths of Hell where I know he belongs for every atrocity he’s committed.
That’s one thing he has in common with people like Bree and Syren: no matter how much you try to build your pedestal above everybody else, it will always ultimately crumble in the face of that one person who refuses to back down no matter how much you think you can tear them down.
Mark my words: Bree, so long as you hold that title, you haven’t seen the last of me, and next time you won’t be able to hide behind the excuse that I didn’t earn it. And Syren? Like it or not, your time is slowly coming to an end.
Of course, that’s addressing my recent past and future, but I’d be a fool to ignore the present, now wouldn’t I? After all, this Wednesday night I get to head to Cleveland, Ohio to have my first match since Rise to Greatness at long last, and I know Gavin Taylor won’t make it easy on me. I mean, he’s finally jumped into the proverbial shark tank of SCW after deciding he’d done everything he could down in EMERGE, and considering he never had a proper debut last week because of the enemies he’s already made around here, I can only imagine how much he’s chomping at the bit to really get to show what he can do. He’s the All-Star after all, among various other nicknames, and it only seems fitting to properly showcase his skills and make it clear why SCW managed to lure him away in the first place.
Gavin… I really hope you were paying attention to what I just said in regards to the likes of Bree and Syren, because from what I’ve seen of you in EMERGE and what I briefly experienced when we crossed paths in last year’s open invitational at the End of the Year Special, you certainly seem like you’re kind of in that same boat. You think very highly of yourself, and while it’s one thing to be confident in your talents it’s another thing entirely to act like it’s something that needs to be shoved down everybody’s throats 24/7/365. This has nothing to do with anything in this nonsensical war EMERGE is trying to pick with SCW either, this is simply me warning you that just because some people might be sitting pretty right now just because they gloat and brag about what they’re capable of, it doesn’t mean they’re going to be sitting there forever, nor does it mean you’ll be able to join them by walking the same path.
As much as I may not agree with the way they approach things, I’d wager that you’re going to find this out the hard way sooner rather than later, if not from me than from the people you’re clearly trying to pick a fight with while reopening old wounds.
Breakdown, however, isn’t about you trying to play games with Kandis and company and seeing how long you can dodge the bullet after the fact. Breakdown should be about you showing everyone exactly why you feel you deserve to be called the All-Star, especially since you find yourself sharing the ring with one of the hungriest athletes in all of SCW right now. Last year, I was a two time TV champion by this point, and I effectively had the rest of the year stolen from me around this time by somebody who clearly doesn’t understand what the word ‘no’ means. Despite how much I’ve been busting my ass since then and the performances I’ve put on against some of the very best SCW has to offer, it doesn’t really feel like I ever fully recovered, and given everything else I’ve had to endure so far in 2019, I refuse to let the rest of the year be stolen from me again by those who have been thinking way too highly of themselves for too damn long. If you aren’t one of those people after all Gavin, then please… prove it against me at Breakdown.
Otherwise?
I’m afraid your story is going to have to wait a little longer to get started while I continue pouring every last drop of my blood, sweat, and tears into turning mine around.
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While many people could look back on Rise to Greatness in disappointment because it simply wasn’t their night, it’s very unlikely that any of them could compare to Aaron Blackbourne in that category.
After all, his reflection went far beyond simply falling short in a title match on the biggest night of the year.
Aaron truly couldn’t blame Bree for taking advantage of the injury he’d sustained. After all, nobody could’ve seen Dylan’s attempted attack coming. Nobody in the business had any knowledge of who the guy was, and Aaron and those close to him who were either involved in the situation or at least aware of it would’ve never predicted the brazen move. After all, up to that point, he’d played everything in such a calculated manner to keep his tracks covered that by the time his false image of Andrew having committed suicide finally fell apart he was well out of reach of local authorities and near impossible to track down by anybody else. He even seemed to plan around his own ego, making sure that when he did strike again to slowly erode any sense of positive energy it was just as difficult to be absolutely certain he was to blame. The only answer he’d given Aaron when confronted about it all?
He was simply acting like any human being would.
It would be hard not to look back on that weekend and try to speculate as to how much it affected the creative soul going forward. The rib injury that, luckily, was the only significant damage he sustained in that final encounter was obvious, and Bree certainly didn’t seem bothered by the fact that her title defense wasn’t a completely clean victory to gloat about as long as she held on to the gold. Aaron was cleared despite being warned his decision to compete anyway was ill-advised, and injury be damned, he gave Bree everything he had and then some to try and walk away as the champion. What no one could really gather through his battle, however, was how much that ordeal affected him mentally.
Plain and simple… whatever mess existed in his creative mindscape before was far more chaotic now.
The pay-per-view was done and SCW was on its customary hiatus to allow all their athletes to recharge and prepare for the second half of the year, and while Aaron was grateful for the break he was also being forced by doctors to take the first two shows of the return off from actively competing to give his ribs as much time to heal as possible. It wasn’t a prospect he was particularly thrilled with, but it did give him time to really sort through what was next for him. It wasn’t going to be an easy question to answer on the SCW front with a title opportunity having just fallen by the wayside, but with the Dylan nightmare finally resolved once and for all there was a sliver of hope that he could put his undivided focus on his in-ring work once again to close out the year with some success in hand.
Before he could really say that with a straight face, though, there was one last lingering war that needed to be resolved if he was going to finally regain some semblance of stability in his life.
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“Well, I can’t say I was expecting this… then again, I don’t know exactly what I was expecting…”Aaron couldn’t help but mutter that to himself when he found his way into the realm of his imagination for what felt like the first time in forever. He didn’t really have any set destination in mind, though he doubted it would matter since trying to navigate around here had been a challenge in and of itself since this nonsensical war had started between Nemesis and the Twin Stars. At least signs seem to be pointing to the latter being willing to actually side with him, considering the last time he’d dealt with either Dreambender or Gleeful they seemed to be trying to make amends and be on the same page, but it was hard to tell when they’d been left to their own devices even after that because he’d been more tied up with the situation going on outside his head. After Rise to Greatness weekend and the ordeal with Dylan, however, he needed to know for sure where things stood before he made his next move.
If there was anything he was one hundred percent certain about, it was that Nemesis had to go.
As conflicted as he felt about several lingering threads in the aftermath of that night, one thing that continued to stick out in his mind was the brief moment when Nemesis had seemingly taken control. If it was just out of desperation because the human behind his very existence was in serious danger and he wasn’t willing to risk anything, the artist might’ve been willing to excuse it. The moment he’d pried the crowbar from Dylan’s hands, however, his intentions were clear and Aaron was not about to succumb to the stress of watching his career and perhaps even his life itself be destroyed just so the negative demon could claim victory.
Nemesis had crossed a line, and what started out as an annoyance he’d have to fight off just to keep going in life had now turned into a mission to be rid of the creature of stress once and for all.
The one goal he had in mind when he took this dive was to find the twins and see exactly where they stood, so he had to assume that was why he’d ended up here. He wasn’t entirely sure where in his little mental world he was, with part of the blame on that being things getting shifted around due to the constant fighting between his most powerful and dangerous designs, but he had a feeling he was in the right place as he made his way through the seemingly endless monochromatic forest, ignoring the eyes that seemed to open up in the trees themselves and follow his every move. It all came together when he finally made it through the woods to find a wooden cabin at its heart, designed to look like any place a family might crash during the summer to enjoy some outdoor living for a spell. Naturally, the big difference between this and any actual cabin in the woods was the starlit sky that featured opened windows and doors floating along, some even opened up with multicolored ribbons crisscrossing through them with little rhyme or reason. Other miscellaneous knick-knacks seemed to float around in that space, occasionally entering or leaving these floating portals, but none of them truly seemed important for anything.
“This certainly brings back memories of when I was first piecing them together…”
A nostalgic smile crossed his lips as he made his way up to the door of the cabin, recalling his desire to give the Twin Stars a place to call home that perfectly fit both their supernatural abilities and appearances as well as their childlike nature. It was no surprise that they’d likely made some changes since those early days, but he couldn’t fault them for wanting to make it feel more like home within his head. As if he needed any more confirmation that he was, indeed, in the right place, the moment he opened the door he found the two beings he was looking for sitting in a recliner big enough for the both of them, treating it like a throne as they appeared to be expecting him. Before he could even say a word, he was startled by the sight of a small army of different colored gummi bears rapidly approaching him before throwing themselves at his midsection, seemingly fusing together to form a soft, gelatin-like substance around his bruised ribs that he had to admit did make it feel better… at least in here anyway.
“We’ve been expecting you, and we figured we’d help you be as comfortable as possible after all those meanies tried to pulverize your ribcage like a skeletal pinata or something.”
“Feel happy that she settled on gummi bears. She originally wanted to do a giant teddy bear, but I talked her down because no matter how soft it would’ve been, it probably would’ve just made things feel worse.”
“Try telling that to Bear-O when I have him give you a big ol’ hug later.”
The spectral siblings shot one another annoyed glances, but it immediately faded when Aaron’s chuckling got their attention, which seemed like it surprised them a bit.
“I appreciate it guys… if only I could have something like this be an actual miracle cure for my ribs in the real world. Not going to lie: I kind of missed this. The little shack I designed for you guys, which I see you’ve expanded upon since those days, your childish sibling bickering… things I think I repressed when this whole idea felt like it fell apart and I felt you two were more interested in trying to screw with me than anything else.”
The siblings exchange glances of confusion this time before Gleeful starts to respond, but her voice shakily betrays her at first before she takes a fairly uncharacteristic deep breath and tries again.
“Aaron… we aren’t even going to sugarcoat the fact that we were screwing with you. It’s kind of how we were designed, after all, something we’ve both admitted to fairly recently.”
“We were just… tired, of being forgotten about because we never got to see any public recognition like virtually any of your other creations, and for the dumbest of reasons at that.”
“We did kind of take it too far at times in hindsight, and we’re sorry for all of that.”
“But at least we didn’t try to lead you into actually killing someone! Even for us, that’s just-”
The two are cut off as Aaron raises his hand as a silent request to stop, the other moving to gently massage his forehead as he takes a deep breath, seemingly trying to recompose himself. Granted, he had to admit it was a little heartwarming seeing these powerful entities of dreams and emotions acting like the kids they appeared to be, and it did seem to clear up any lingering doubts he had remaining from his most recent encounters with the pair, but part of him was also still feeling overwhelmed by everything that had happened that fateful Friday night that he was still having some trouble processing. These two probably weren’t the right entities to confide in about those matters, even if he knew he was better off talking with someone in the real world on that front so it didn’t seem like he was just keeping things bottled up inside again, but they did seem to open up the perfect segue into the matter he did need to discuss with them.
“Dreambender… Gleeful… in hindsight, I think we’re all at fault for a lot of the things that ultimately caused our relationship to deteriorate, and there will be plenty of time to rebuild those bridges and make it up to one another. For now, I’m just glad that we truly seem to be on the same page again and this isn’t just a ‘we need to band together to defeat a greater enemy’ scenario.”
Aaron slowly walks closer to where the twins were sitting, causing them both to raise their eyebrows as the look on his face shifted from one of exasperation to one of determination.
“I… still have a lot of things I need to sort out mentally regarding what all happened with Dylan, but one thing I know for sure that we seem to be in agreement on is that Nemesis had no reason to intervene and actually try to make things worse no matter how much he may try to disguise it as ‘saving me.’ This whole struggle for control has gone on long enough, and I’m tired of having to bear the burden before I do anything outside of this little world of mine.”
“Trust me when I say this Aaron: even if it wasn’t the reason we started fighting with him in the first place, we’re more than happy to side with you to take Nemesis down once and for all to keep you in control. It’s… been kind of messy trying to actually defeat him ourselves.”
Aaron shot Dreambender a confused look and was met with a face that showed only disappointment and shame in its purest form. He glanced over at Gleeful, but she was trying to mask a similar expression behind gnawing on a literal gummi snake she pulled from out of thin air.
“What do you mean? You two are, in all honesty, some of the strongest beings I’ve ever created. The only ones that would be on a similar level are Zeitgeist, Ferrugo and MAYBE Nemesis depending on how much stress he’s able to feed on. Even then, a numbers advantage is the one thing you two always have over any of them.”
“Yeah, but… you see… as powerful as we know we are, that power is more suited for mind games and manipulation for the most part. We’re not too experienced combat-wise.”
“And that twisted you-looking jerk sees right through any of our tricks and overwhelms us! It’s totally not fair!”
Aaron looked away for a moment, letting the twins vent as he contemplated the situation, realizing they had a point. While these two and their reality-bending ways did have the potential to be dangerous in a fight scenario, it was really best geared towards someone who didn’t have any powers of their own. It might explain why he found out around this time last year that they were unsuccessful in defeating Ferrugo after invading his Carnival of Rust and virtually left him alone after that. If used against him if you ignored the amount of control he usually had here inside his own head, they’d be a serious threat. Against someone who played similar games and had the power to fight back, like Nemesis…
The creative soul shook his head, refusing to give any more unintended praise towards the monster that was plaguing his mind and trying to control his life. He was sick of the way Nemesis always seemed to find a way to get to him, even when it seemed like he was on the verge of defeat once and for all, and he knew he wasn’t the only one. This went far beyond even the Twin Stars… every last being and idea that called this place home was tired of things being torn apart by war. That’s when he remembered the initial plan he had tried to form, about recruiting his own army in a sense to try and put an end to it all. On paper, it sounded good, but in theory… even if he could add these two to the list and focus all of the proverbial firepower on his demented reflection, so long as Nemesis had that toxicity to fuel him he would never truly be defeated, not even by a unified front. Aaron’s plan had the flaw of requiring a split focus to do what he was beginning to realize would be the only way of truly ending this once and for all, and that was just asking for disaster, especially now. But…
“Maybe there is a way…”
The Twin Stars both stood up and looked over at their creator, their own stressed-out shenanigans seemingly forgotten about. Gleeful even waves her hand and the pile of black confetti that seemed to be forming at her feet for virtually no reason vanishes. Aaron simply turns and gives them the softest of smiles before snapping his fingers, producing a scroll of some kind in his hand. He opens it up and uses his finger to sign his name at the bottom before handing it to Dreambender to read through, despite the perplexed expressions he and his sister shared.
“Before you two started trying to make amends and join forces with me, I was piecing together a plan to try and convince those who weren’t already a part of this to side with me in order to put both you and Nemesis in your places and stop this at long last. The more I think about it now, the more I realize that it might’ve worked with you guys, but not so much with him so long as he’s able to keep running off of whatever’s trying to destroy me mentally and emotionally outside of my imagination. If I divide my attention between the two tasks, I fear I’d be giving him an opening to exploit. But…”
He cut himself off when he noticed the grin beginning to form on Gleeful’s face as she seemed to catch on to where he was going with this. Dreambender was in the same boat but seemed like he was hesitant about something.
“If we’re on the same side then we can talk everyone into this little resistance plan for you while you cut off his power supply! YES!”
“Hang on Gleeful… it’s a solid plan, sure, but not everyone around here really likes us right now.”
Gleeful’s head literally deflated at her brother’s grim reminder but returned to normal as Aaron motioned to the scroll.
“That’s why you can show them this. That scroll is a treaty of sorts between the two of you and me, as well as anyone else that wants to sign it. Considering it’s a way only I would ever present a treaty and I have the first signature on there, everyone will know this isn’t some kind of trap you two might’ve conceived to trick them. There are a few that I know I’ll need to personally deal with as they won’t budge otherwise, but this should allow you guys to build us an army while I get myself straightened out to weaken that abomination.”
That seemed to instill some more confidence in Dreambender as he had to admit the point being made. Even their best attempts to imitate their creator could never be mistaken for the actions of the real deal, and this was one such action. It didn’t take the twins long to add their own names beneath his before they all shook hands, leaving Aaron with the first sense of positive progress inside of his head in months. He knew the road ahead wasn’t going to be easy, especially with everything he needed to figure out in the aftermath of Dylan’s death, but just as he now had help inside his head, he had just as much help waiting for him outside of it.
Through hell or high water, he was going to return to a way of life that was not dictated by stress or negativity, and he was going to reclaim control of the world he’d spent his whole life building.
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It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to talk like this, hasn’t it?I apologize for that, I truly do. I may have been appearing on TV the past few weeks, but I haven’t exactly been cleared to do much more than that. Call it a case of the doctors not wanting to take any chances after I walked into Rise to Greatness and, despite my ribs feeling like they were literally crumbling to dust, still gave Bree Lancaster the fight of her life. Even though we had a long break after the show was in the books, they didn’t want me to go full throttle into competition again and risk any further damage. As much as I understand and respect that, I’m also getting tired of sitting on the sidelines.
After all, how else am I supposed to get back to proving myself around here?
Trust me, I heard everything Bree’s had to say in response to how I addressed her leading up to our match, the shots she’s taken at my injury beforehand and her comments about how I was never deserving of a shot to begin with and nobody on the roster has proven they deserve the next shot, not even her so-called friends apparently. She can rant and rave all she wants about how I was wrong and people like her are the ones who built this country and represent America, but I’m not blind… like with Syren when I addressed her face-to-face, I can see the cracks forming in her facade. No matter how much she boasts about getting away with her belt, deep down she’s questioning the fact that I came so dangerously close to ending ‘her’ America at less than one hundred percent. She’s rattled by the fact that because someone who’s had this sociopathic obsession with trying to destroy my family for reasons I doubt even I would ever truly understand, she will always have that asterisk in the conversation about our U.S. Title showdown of whether or not that match could’ve ended differently if she didn’t have an injury to exploit. Hell, had things ended up being any worse, she could’ve found herself in a scenario where she would’ve been able to retain her title without having a match at all in exchange for being denied the opportunity to showcase herself on SCW’s biggest show of the year, which I doubt would’ve sat well with her.
Me, on the other hand? Yeah, it sucks not being able to walk away as champion, I won’t deny that. But like I said on Twitter, I still won on that night as far as I was concerned. Bree may have walked out with the belt, but for me to be able to show up and face her in the condition I was in and push myself well beyond my limits even if I hadn’t been injured? That was a statement in and of itself… a statement that no matter how much someone thinks they can destroy your life no matter the reason, they will only win if you let them have it. Even if that man didn’t succeed in his horrifically clear goal of ending my life, he thought that if his life was the one that ended and he could somehow try to present it in a way that makes me seem like I was responsible for it, then between that and the physical damage he left me with he could deny me the chance to walk out onto that stage and welcome you all into the world I proudly champion every single day. By fighting through all of that, he wasn’t allowed the last laugh even on his way down into the depths of Hell where I know he belongs for every atrocity he’s committed.
That’s one thing he has in common with people like Bree and Syren: no matter how much you try to build your pedestal above everybody else, it will always ultimately crumble in the face of that one person who refuses to back down no matter how much you think you can tear them down.
Mark my words: Bree, so long as you hold that title, you haven’t seen the last of me, and next time you won’t be able to hide behind the excuse that I didn’t earn it. And Syren? Like it or not, your time is slowly coming to an end.
Of course, that’s addressing my recent past and future, but I’d be a fool to ignore the present, now wouldn’t I? After all, this Wednesday night I get to head to Cleveland, Ohio to have my first match since Rise to Greatness at long last, and I know Gavin Taylor won’t make it easy on me. I mean, he’s finally jumped into the proverbial shark tank of SCW after deciding he’d done everything he could down in EMERGE, and considering he never had a proper debut last week because of the enemies he’s already made around here, I can only imagine how much he’s chomping at the bit to really get to show what he can do. He’s the All-Star after all, among various other nicknames, and it only seems fitting to properly showcase his skills and make it clear why SCW managed to lure him away in the first place.
Gavin… I really hope you were paying attention to what I just said in regards to the likes of Bree and Syren, because from what I’ve seen of you in EMERGE and what I briefly experienced when we crossed paths in last year’s open invitational at the End of the Year Special, you certainly seem like you’re kind of in that same boat. You think very highly of yourself, and while it’s one thing to be confident in your talents it’s another thing entirely to act like it’s something that needs to be shoved down everybody’s throats 24/7/365. This has nothing to do with anything in this nonsensical war EMERGE is trying to pick with SCW either, this is simply me warning you that just because some people might be sitting pretty right now just because they gloat and brag about what they’re capable of, it doesn’t mean they’re going to be sitting there forever, nor does it mean you’ll be able to join them by walking the same path.
As much as I may not agree with the way they approach things, I’d wager that you’re going to find this out the hard way sooner rather than later, if not from me than from the people you’re clearly trying to pick a fight with while reopening old wounds.
Breakdown, however, isn’t about you trying to play games with Kandis and company and seeing how long you can dodge the bullet after the fact. Breakdown should be about you showing everyone exactly why you feel you deserve to be called the All-Star, especially since you find yourself sharing the ring with one of the hungriest athletes in all of SCW right now. Last year, I was a two time TV champion by this point, and I effectively had the rest of the year stolen from me around this time by somebody who clearly doesn’t understand what the word ‘no’ means. Despite how much I’ve been busting my ass since then and the performances I’ve put on against some of the very best SCW has to offer, it doesn’t really feel like I ever fully recovered, and given everything else I’ve had to endure so far in 2019, I refuse to let the rest of the year be stolen from me again by those who have been thinking way too highly of themselves for too damn long. If you aren’t one of those people after all Gavin, then please… prove it against me at Breakdown.
Otherwise?
I’m afraid your story is going to have to wait a little longer to get started while I continue pouring every last drop of my blood, sweat, and tears into turning mine around.