ROUND 2 MANSON VS AUSTIN

[The Great Eye]

Rp is due at 11:59 EDT on 7/12

 

[NOTMikeythePyro]

(FADEIN: A high class Japanese oxygen bar in the middle of the day. Bright, flickering neon blue lights dominate the decor despite daylight streaming in through the windows. Giant "O"s mark up all the walls since that's the bar's name. TV hang from every corner, each playing weird Japanese anime or fetish porn -cyborgs and alien plants, giant hands and three-headed woman with stool-shaped bodies. Oxygen masks sit up at the bar and at every table. The staff moves about uneasily, cleaning, taking inventory, and watching the man sitting alone at a table, wearing his own gas mask.

CUTTO: The front doors swinging open, letting in the wallowing white daylight and MICHAEL MANSON. Despite the summer humidity, he's wearing a black leather jacket, jeans, boots, and a black t-shirt saying "Amsterdam" on it with a dull blue star. He signals the bartender before grabbing a chair at the only occupied table and swinging it around for a seat.)

MANSON (curling up his arms): So...?

(The other man slowly takes off his oxygen mask to reveal CASTOR V. STRIFE.)

STRIFE(shaking his head and coughing: So..so? SO? You demand me to come to this sordid place and breathe this feeble air and all you can say to me is so?

(Manson nods.)

MANSON: Yeah, what do you want? I heard you wanted to see me.

(Castor stares at him.)

STRIFE: I've wanted to see you for 4 years! I've called, emailed, texted, sent prostitutes, pez, and bowers of dead flowers, but you were nowhere! No one could find you!

(Manson slides a man into his coat's inside pocket and takes out a smartphone.)

MANSON: Well, I only just got your voicemail.

(A waiters comes by and sets up a side table. He pours an array of green pez onto a boards and begins grinding it up.)

STRIFE(shaking his head): And now you're back and in this tournament.

MANSON: I'm going to win this tournament.

STRIFE: Yes...maybe...but why...why are you back?

MANSON: Because I was the greatest P* Classic Superstar of All-Time. Now I can prove it even if half the guys in this tournament weren't around back then.

(The waiter places a plate of ground up green pez before Manson and he takes a taste.)

STRIFE: That's why you've come back? But where have you been? People said you died or time traveled or were stabbed. The Internet thought you were running every single fed on the circuit for a while.

MANSON: Did you make porn based on all that? Me getting stabbed? Time traveling? Did you use that goth guy with the eyeliner and totem pole in his pants as me?

STRIFE: Of course! It was a business opportunity I couldn't pass up!

MANSON: Then I expect royalties, Castor.

(Castor rolls his eyes and bends over and picks up a briefcase. He snaps it open to reveal it's full of money and slides it over to Manson.)

MANSON: I'll just assume it's all here, but since you're giving me things...

(He motions to the gas mask. Castor sighs and hands it over. Manson puts it in and breaths in and out. He pulls off the gas mask and breathes in the air again.)

MANSON: Yes, there is a noticeable difference.

STRIFE: Enough with that! You're not answering any of my questions! You do know whom you're facing in the next round, yes?

MANSON: Alex Austin.

STRIFE: My protege, my prized student, and my legacy.

MANSON: I know all about him.

(Manson reaches down into the back of his jeans and pulls out a file. He tosses it onto the table.)

There's his FBI file.

STRIFE: Where did you get his FBI file?

(Manson shrugs.)

MANSON: Here's yours.

(Manson tosses a phone-book thick file down onto the table.)

STRIFE: What...what is the meaning of this?

MANSON: Proving a point, I suppose. Just because I've been away doesn't mean I don't know what's been going on.

STRIFE: But we could have done so much together. The revival of the NFW East! Chaos! Anarchy --the real thing and not the wrestler! The porn we could have produced! And now you'll be facing off against my legacy! My protege! I can't let you simply annihilate him! He is my future! He is my immortality! You can't do to me! Not after I funded your NFW East!

MANSON: Not after I pulled you out of a gutter? Not after I retrained you and made you the wrestler you are? Not after I got back into film with my connections?

STRIFE: You...you did not create me! I am CASTOR V STRIFE!

MANSON: Just like you didn't create Austin. Now it's time for him to grow up and face the enormity of consequences, mainly of signing a contract. Let's face it. I did basically create this entire circuit. I started in P* and within a few years the whole place revolved around me. Who I was wrestling. Who I was feuding with. What titles I was winning. My influence ran deeper than anything else and everyone who's come along since has tried to repeat the infamy of being me.

And failed.

(Manson claps his hands together in front of Castor to get his attention.)

Where I've been isn't important. What I've been doing is even less so.

What I'm going to do now is what matters.

You might have tried to make Alex Austin into this warped reflection of everything a professional wrestler should be, but I was doing that years ago and I already perfected it with myself.

This is an example of finer art winning out.

Alex Austin isn't wrestling a man.

He's facing the Man More Exciting Than Jesus, the American Alien, the Satanic Jimmy Carson.

I cast a long shadow and you fell into it, Castor, along with all your proteges.

And the entire wrestling world.

Even now, everyone's wondering what I'm going to do next..And why? Why? Why?

Well, because I can.

And because Alex Austin is to be made an example of.

STRIFE: An example of what...?

MANSON: What happens when postmodern meets modern art. Postmodern wrestler against wrestler.

STRIFE: No, no, it's past versus future!

MANSON: I was the past, but I was also the future. I'm always the now. Austin is just Austin.

STRIFE: Incorrect! You haven't been wrestling! You haven't been training as hard!

MANSON: I haven't...?

STRIFE: You're older? Slower! You have to be!

MANSON: Do I appear to be? Did you ever know how old I actually am?

STRIFE: Well, no.....but....but...

MANSON: And despite all your claims, you're still here, asking me to go easy on your boy.

STRIFE: It's just that....that...

(MANSON takes a great snort of pez and then slams the plate of it down before Castor.)

MANSON: For you. Relax. Enjoy the Great and Secret Show, the one I've been running forever.

STRIFE: No..I RUN THE SHOW!

MANSON: Please, Castor.

(Manson pushes back his chair and picks up the briefcase.)

MANSON: Alex might see as his chance to make history and make a name for himself forever, but the truth is he'll be remembered as only another name on a wall. Another list.

STRIFE: A list?

MANSON: Of victims. He's in my way. I am already the P* Classic Champion. I just have to take it.

(Manson turns and walks out.)

 

[LQJT86C]

(FADEIN: Training ring – ALEX AUSTIN has CASTOR STRIFE in a waistlock. Castor. Austin tries to lift him for the suplex, but Strife’s weight is too big. He steps around, reverses Austin into a full-nelson, and full nelson slams him to the mat, making a big THUD)

AUSTIN: (slow to get up) Jeez!

CASTOR: (wipes nose) Again. Come at me again.

(Austin approaches Castor in the corner, rolls at his knee to catch him in a knee bar. Castor parries, corners Austin, and throws a BIG KNEE into his stomach. Castor turns from Austin and laughs as his student begins to heave on one knee)

AUSTIN: (heaving, looking up at Castor crookedly) Real nice. Crack my ribs a week out from the match. … What the f*ck are you laughing at? You’re supposed to be training me.

CASTOR: (keeps back at Austin, slightly turns face) Your…submissions. They’re only good at center-ring.

AUSTIN: Huh?

CASTOR: Your confidence is predicated on the opponent’s inability to escape your submissions. Poor assumption, considering they need only to grab the ropes.

AUSTIN: So you’re saying I’m f*cked, in other words…

CASTOR: You’ll always need a plan for pinfall. If they grab the ropes, hold the submission until the referee forcibly breaks it.

AUSTIN: The submission won’t count then…

CASTOR: You’re not trying to submit them, you’re trying for injury. Now pinfalls become easier. So do submissions at center-ring.

AUSTIN: (clears throat) Can I ask you a question?

CASTOR: …

AUSTIN: Why did you let him mock you like that? I mean you saw his last promo, right? Manson brought in some guy to play you, made you look like a b*tch.

CASTOR: That’s how Michael plays his games. It’s a trick we honed years ago, and employed against his every opponent.

AUSTIN: But he’s not facing you, he’s facing me.

CASTOR: Right. He’s facing you. And by baiting me, he’s undermining your challenge, as if to say you are nothing but my paperweight. I retaliate, and it becomes Manson versus Castor, with Alex Austin fading into the background.

AUSTIN: I don’t see how undermining me is going to help him. Could backfire, make me want to beat him even more.

CASTOR: Or it could sap your confidence; reinforce that you are not in his league, and never were.

AUSTIN: What do you think? Am I in his league?

CASTOR: You only have to beat him once. Michael never claimed to be unbeatable; wins and losses are not where his pride rests. But he will extract his pound of flesh, and in that case, are you willing to part with it? Can you walk his hell?

AUSTIN: Know what? F*ck this clown. He’s like the 5[SUP]th[/SUP] sequel of a bad goth album, two sequels after it started to suck. He’s not edgy, he’s not cool, he’s just a gimmicked f*cking ego, a legend in his own mind, and I won’t lose to him. No way. He can FBI file MY DICK. He’s DONE. I’m too good, too smart.

CASTOR: A lot of people said that.

AUSTIN: It’s different this time. His high ground’s GONE.

CASTOR: They said that too.

AUSTIN: F*ck, man. Are you on my side, or his?

(At that, Castor GRABS HOLD of Austin’s hair and SLAMS HIM down to the mat, pinning his neck with one knee)

CASTOR: I HAVE ENOUGH TO WORRY ABOUT! UNDERSTAND? (inhales violently through his nose) There is ONE SIDE. MY SIDE. Hear that? MY SIDE. (eyes widen, smiles) Walk his hell, Alex. Beat him or not. But walk his hell. Or face mine.

(Releases Alex, who is purple faced and coughing. Castor walks out of the ring, heads out the door)

ALEX: (coughs, draws breath, musters a yell) FINE! (coughs) AND IF YOU SEE HIM, FOR REAL, (coughs) TELL HIM HE’S GONNA GET EMB-(coughs)…EMBARRASSED BY THE MOST TALENTED SUBMISSION ARTIST (coughs) …IN THE WORLD!

CASTOR: (back still turned) We already met. In private. (stops, turns around) Oh and, by the way…

AUSTIN: …?

CASTOR: …we struck a gentleman’s agreement. I’ll be watching this one from a skybox.

(Austin grits his teeth)

CASTOR: (turns to walk out) See me again tomorrow.

(FADEOUT)

 

[NOTMikeythePyro]

(FADEIN: A gray Chicago sky outside a window. Inside, an old house, stripped of most furniture with the walls gone moldy and the wallpaper stripping off. Dirt and dust cake around. CUTTO: MICHAEL MANSON, spreading his arms in a crucifix-like manner and dropping back down onto a stiff mattress. He's wearing gray jeans and a faded black t-shirt with the bloody Superman logo on it. He drapes over the mattress, playing dead, lolling his tongue up before abruptly sitting back up.)

MANSON: Given I haven't been around in a while, I was feeling nostalgic --enough to enter a P* Classic Championship Tournament-- that I decided to come around to the old neighborhood. And this here is actually the house that I grew up in and this was my old bedroom and this might even be my old bed. In fact, the school I first went to is right down the street.

(CLOSER UP: Manson's face.)

MANSON: I still remember the old part-time janitor who also worked in the boiler room at the old factory. Old Mister Kruger.

(Shakes his head.)

Like Jean Rabesque, he tried to lure me back to his home with candy so many times, but I always knew better. I always sensed something off about him. Of course, there were always rumors about what Mister Kruger was doing and with all those missing children...and then they found those bones in that boiler room...well...everyone's parents could hardly just sit there and do nothing. They formed their mob and fed Freddy to his fire.

Me being me, I couldn't going there afterwards and clawing around....seeing what I could find..

(Manson drapes a hand under the bed and suddenly flicks it back up, wearing an old, battered glove with metallic claws. He rakes the air a few times before reaching into his back pocket to take out a Golden Delicious apple. He cuts off a few slices to eat.)

For you information, no, I didn't like the remake.


(CUTTO: Outside neared a wooded area. The trees are full and green and the grass has overgrown with stalks reaching up into the torn up, beaten up, homemade ring standing there off-balanced. It's made of garden hoses and old, thick sheets. Manson, still wearing the clawed glove, rolls into the ring and runs the ropes a few times.)

MANSON: Now this here is the first ring I ever practiced in when I was 13 and kept using until I was 21 and finally signed to a major contract. Before I went all over the world, learning my craft, earning a black belt, studying manipulation, psychology, and training, always training. I made it from items I...procured from all over the neighborhood...and that's even my blood stained black all across the canvas.

(Manson pauses and scratches his chin with the claws.)

Well, mostly my blood.

Plus, I bet if you had some kind of kit, you'd find traces of Ares's DNA down here, which is all anyone's found of him in a good decade.

(Manson crosses his arms on his chest and leans across the hose ring-ropes.)

My first match in 4 years was against Myers and while I won...I left with...I suppose you'd call it a bad taste in my mouth. It wasn't blood. I actually like that taste and you should see how if you mix that with the right toothpastes it really whitens the teeth.

I actually struggled somewhat against Myers. Naturally, it was my first match in four years. What did I expect?

To dive off an elephant and hit a head butt? To strap him into a dentist's chair and perform dental work on him somehow without getting disqualified? I didn't even have my perverted Mexican luchador lackey molest him in a closet later on.

But...ah..art is ever a self-correcting, ever-moving, and never finished thing.

While I could simply just win this tournament, that isn't why i signed up. More importantly, it isn't why anyone is even bothering to pay attention to it. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if not for my presence nobody would be paying much attention at all.

Which makes me relevant and irrelevance is worse than death. Just ask Hornet. From my calculations, he's been both irrelevant and pretty much the walking dead for at least 7 years.

It strikes me that Alex Austin thinks that I'm trying to undermine him. That I'm trying to play mind games with him and torment him psychologically as well as, eventually, physically because simply winning a match isn't to sate my enormous ego nor my attention span.

It actually offends me that he only THINKS that's what I'm doing.

Of course, it's exactly what I'm doing! It's what I've always done!

Everyone knows it's what I've always done, yet everyone still falls into the same trap anyway.

That's half my enjoyment.

Alex Austin, you very well might be the greatest submission wrestler alive today. You could be a force in the wrestling world years to come. Your potential is vast and your training excellent...since after all...I had a hand in the mentoring of your mentor.

You'd do well to listen to everything he says. Especially about me.

And then pause to consider that while I taught him much...I didn't teach him everything. Just like he isn't teaching you everything.

After all, some things you just need to experience firsthand.

There have been many, many wrestlers, all great and bold and tactical, who thought that they could make me submit. They thought that they could what nobody in the world ever had and make me, of all people, experience so much pain that I have to give up. To submit. To tap out.

But like going to church, paying taxes, and renouncing communism, I do not give up.

At anything.

However, I'd really like to see how far you'd go to try.

I've had my back nearly cracked in half, my skull busted open and cracked, my rib shattered, bones broken, nerves tenderized, skin scorched...and then after I sent the little trollop home I went and wrestled.

(Manson dangles the claw in front of his face, letting the sunshine sparkle off of it.)

I'm seeing the future and it's you trying for a pinfall instead. It's easier. It's quicker. It still makes a legend. It still makes you.

And it's still nigh impossible. For you anyway.

I'm glad you see me as not worth your time. I'm glad you try to undermine me and my self-confidence.

When I'm drinking your blood and the ref's too afraid to stop me, it will taste even better, sweeter, and with a tang because that's some great protein not going to waste.

Castor says I like my pound of flesh....but you have more than a few pounds to lose. And a mind. Confidence. Beliefs. Dreams.

While one match might not be am ample amount of time for me to work on all that, I'm eager enough to see just how I can get done.

It's a crash course into what I was. For years and still am.

Because I never really had to tell anyone I was the best in the world.

I simply was.

Am.

(Manson taps a clawed finger against his chin.)

And then when I'm done with you...I'm thinking Chinese. Sweet and sour chicken...yes that goes well with humility. Hopefully, it comes with a fortune cookie that tells me there's no God.

(Manson runs the ropes a few more times and then baseball slides out of the ring.)