Wish Upon A Death Star

[LQJT86C]

(FADEIN: Hollywood Hills, CA – dirt paths that run through shrubs and brush, quiet in the late afternoon’s amber glow. This is remote territory, at least for CASTOR STRIFE who has walked far back and high up. The camera remains still as he winds his way down a path and toward it, never looking ahead, like a Sasquatch or Jersey Devil, some crypto-zoological flesh-legend, not walking but blinking and glitching forward, disappearing and reappearing three-steps ahead each time; a dirty lens, the only live witness. The man has bruises aged brown, cuts dried into scabs, and a walk made peculiar by injuries sustained recently. His eyes are covered by square lens sunglasses; blonde hair combed back on one side and hanging on the other. He swigs from a water bottle then fastens it back to a leather satchel strapped to his right thigh. Athletic pants are black, form-fitted; tank top is black. He meets the camera, stops)

CASTOR: “The expected unexpected. The man behind Door Number Thirteen. The highest flyer. The deadly and friendly Neighborhood Lunatic. Where are you, Jack Harmen?”

“I can hear the sound of a propeller blade cutting circular toward my neck like a blunt guillotine. And it’s your hand on the button, Jack. A long-term plan of yours that started with Cancer and ended with Black. The dot has been connected. Patrick Black ‘Cancer’, the Walking Dead.”

“That’s a fair association for a man who is plagued, Jack. I’ve been eating Patrick alive for years, and the most ironic part is that I don’t even know why. Maybe he can explain? But his can’t be the only mind I’ve been on, right Jack? I’m on yours, aren’t I? Have to be, since you knew it would be me all along – coming back for what was mine. By specifically recruiting Black, you’ve admitted the threat I pose without uttering a word. That is a odd predicament for a man who deals in fear currency.”

“Some people don’t know you, Jack, like I know you. You’re a terrorist. You confuse and keep your victims guessing, then strike and retreat at a moment’s notice. Yeah friend, you’re a dangerous one – I have to admit that. I didn’t get this far by being stupid.”

(Drops head and circles around and back towards the camera)

CASTOR: “You wield that element of surprise like a master swordsman.”

“But Jack? (leans in) You don’t have it anymore.”

“The surprise is gone. The hand’s been revealed. Your cards are on the table. I can see the Walking Dead coming from miles down the road.”

“But there’s one card left to draw, Jack.”

(Reaches behind back, and pulls out a rolled up piece of paper that he unfurls before the camera)

“And I control it.”

(Paper reads at the top: “New Frontier Wrestling – OPEN CONTRACT”)

CASTOR: “HARMYN with a ‘Y’? How about HI FLYER! (waves) Maybe it’ll be your best friend. Feel like getting paid, Nova? How about your best enemy? I’m sure there are some PRIME candidates out there looking for work – who feels like eating this month? Or I could salvage a name from the fallen EMPIRE.”

“Hell, I might turn this thing to gold and wrap it up with a fucking chocolate bar. You don’t know, Jack. And you won’t.”

“I’m happy to let you look over your shoulder a while, wondering just whose name is on this contract, until it eats you alive and leaves you at my feet like the puddle of shit you are and have always been. Your final chapter is written on this blank page.”

(Points index on contract)

CASTOR: “The element of surprise, Jack, and it’s mine all mine.” (smiles)

“You go on, Harmen. You and the Black Cancer. Open another door and wheel out the plague. Whistle and call for another terminal illness. Roll a 13, feed a black cat, and set a ladder up over my head. Continue casting your orbs; cast them good and plenty. All I am is a magnet. One, single magnet that all your tricks revolve around. It only takes a motion, a single shoulder roll to deflect it past me.”

“On this frontier, I am the man who gets drawn on. Everywhere I go, they want to test me. I’m still here, breathing, surviving, winning. I am not perfect; I’m just the best big game player in the world. When it’s all on the line, when the defining moment comes, I always, always win. I am the LA KING. Whoever you are, Castor Strife is your nightmare match. And as Random Rumble proved, even when I’m number 30, I’m still number 1.”

“When people start disappearing, dropping off the planet and out of address books, Castor Strife stays.”

“Ask yourself, Jack, and answer honestly: who really signs the death notes around here?”

 

[Ford]

I'm an Evil Cat

(Black Video Matte.)

JACK HARMEN(O.S.): “I only just crack the deck!”

(MULTIPLE BURSTS OF STATIC. Interlaced with the NFW Logo. JACK HARMEN, your world champ, stands in front of STONE BRICK WALL, RED like FIRE or BLOOD. He is noticeably ALONE. He wears a custom made t-shirt of himself rotting away like a zombie, with an arrow through his shoulder blade, the NFW title dangling from the fletching. The color under his eyes is a dark black, indicating he hasn’t slept for days. Or at the very least, made up to be look as such.)

JACK HARMEN: I’ve got all the imagination in the WORLD, and all you have is a STUPID PIECE OF PAPER. Which you better cling to like it’s your MORPHINE drip two Christmas’ ago, while lying in the hospital bed after Impulse sent you FLYING through those glass tables.

(Harmen cackles.)

JACK HARMEN: You say you KNOW me, and you give a better description than most, and yet you STILL underestimate me. The STORY OF MY LIFE. But FINE! Go a-HEAD! Believe that I’ve played all my cards. Believe that I have nothing left to show, nothing left to give, nothing left to surprise. Believe you have the upper hand.

(XCU: Harmen’s cheshire like grin.)

JACK HARMEN: It’s how I work best.

(HARMEN reaches out, grabbing the camera at it’s edge.)

JACK HARMEN: You bring WHOEVER YOU FEEL YOU NEED TO BACK TO THIS CESSPOOL. Whatever FALLEN hero you want to take the CREDIT you may deserve for putting THESE shoulders to the mat. You do WHATEVER you feel is necessary. Because I’ve not hidden my intentions.

(HARMEN lets go of the camera. He reaches off frame and is handed the World Championship by, no doubt, Calvin Carlton the Third.)

JACK HARMEN: I will keep this World Championship in my grasp for as long as I can. And when I lose it, (raises belt to his cheek) I will SCORCH this FRONTIER to get it back. By the time I LOSE? FOR GOOD? There won’t be much of this world I HAVEN’T TORCHED yet.

(HARMEN tosses the WORLD TITLE over his shoulders and slaps the faceplate.)

JACK HARMEN: Whoever you bring in, know their fate and their injuries and their future burdens are ON YOUR HEAD.

(XCU: HARMEN’S unflinching eyes.)

JACK HARMEN: While I’m concerned about you being back in full force Castor, with your silly scary piece of PAPER I'll one day use to WIPE the shit from Eddie Mayfield's INCONTINENT BOWELS, I’m not WORRIED. I’m not FEARFUL.

(XCU: HARMEN licks his lips.)

JACK HARMEN: Cause I’ve been WAITING for a real fight.

(Back to a Medium Shot as HARMEN paces.)

JACK HARMEN: Some may say it’s hubris. That I’m letting the deadly sin of PRIDE get in my way. But what can I say? I love me my violence. So Castor, let’s be BLOOD BROTHERS like so many of my foes before.

Everything I said before to Bryant still stands. If you, or ANYONE else in the Frontier wants to take this strap, they’re gonna have to pry it from my cold dead hands. And Castor, you may be the one to finally end the Legacy of a Lunatic. I HOPE you are. This senseless quarreling and fighting, this SINNING I can not stop myself from doing. Maybe Castor Strife, the purveyor of pornification can grant me SALVATION with the SWEET release of DEATH.

But I DOUBT it. Cause while you may have ended an EMPIRE with PAPERS, I have reigned FIRE AND BRIMSTONE upon EVERY organization I’ve been a part of. I can’t believe Mayfield even THOUGHT to hire me. He HAD to know, that where I go, only CHAOS follows. Riots and MAYHEM and DESTRUCTION are my SPECIALTIES. I am a TRUE unnatural disaster. And I will do the same to the FRONTIER, until my body has been scorched and turned to ASH.

(JACK smiles, that sly smile.)

JACK HARMEN: Cause I’m a phoenix Castor. I’m a spectre, a man who will never be ceased. I always rise from the ash of my devastation, LAUGHING. Sign my death note Castor. It won’t be the first time, and it CAN’T be the last.

(FADEOUT.)

JACK HARMEN (O.S.): I’ve got Thirteen lives, and I’m only on seven. Lucky, oh so lucky seven.