BLACK DAWN: Cross vs. Troy - World Title

[DBrunkGXW]

For the World Title!

Post all RP here.

 

[TH]

A few words from your guest ref

Fade into a training ring somewhere in Charlotte, North Carolina. Sometime after the Annual Anonymous Family Summer Is Ending, So Let's Eat Until We Can't Feel Our Stomachs Barbecue has ended, we see JA in a referee's shirt with two local yokels in either corner.

JA: Ladies, gentlemen, children of all ages, welcome to the greatest show on Earth.

No, not the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, no, they ain't got nothing on me or Empire Pro Wrestling's main event.

As it stands right now, up Nawth, in Yankee Country, there's going to be a three ring circus. Not because I want it to be that way. No, I'm fair and impartial.

But it seems like Crissy-Cross had to get his Jesus panties in an uproar. Boo-hoo. I made light of the fact that I was softer than the collective penises of all the straight men who watched that Chyna/X-Pac sex tape when I faced off against you at Russian Roulette. Are you that insecure about your career and your chances that you have to go headhunting when you get called out on the fact that you didn't win the match as much as I lost it?

Fine. Be an Uptight Ulysses. But if you have any residual angst towards me, save it for after the match and go release it on the next Staind album. If you touch me, I may not disqualify you, but I will make damn sure you feel it before Lindsay pins you. If you keep your hands to yourself though, we won't have that problem.

Lindsay, the same goes for you, although you really don't have any reason to touch me. AT least I'd hope not. And for the last time, I want to remind you that it's PRIEST who owes you that money from the Super Bowl, not me. So knock down his door if you want to play amateur vigilante.

Oh, and one last thing, Dis Numero Tres, the Carbon Copy of a Carbon Copy, you make your presence felt, and you can guarantee that I'll send your ass back to gimmick infringing hell. Because there's only one person in Empire Pro Wrestling who's licensed and qualified to infringe gimmicks, and that's me. Jericoholic Anonymous.

You heard me.

Now, it's time for me to practice... LOLLI! Ring that bell!

The bell rings and the two local yokels get it on in the ring as the scene fades to the Empire Pro logo.

 

[QueenOfTheRing]

Black Dawn Rising

"I need to address two things before I get right down to the heart of the matter."

Fade-in: Lindsay Troy, EPW World Title strapped around her waist and glinting brightly in the light.

"Dis 3, since your eloquence seems to know no bounds, let me just say that if you get within five feet of my Main Event match, I'll stick my foot so far up your ass that you'll be able to tell which of my toes is tickling your prostate."

"You may have done a lot of things but that..."

"Well..."

"That's something new, even for you."

"And JA, the "Dynasty" title is a far better payment than any monetary amount Priest can give me in repayment of a Super Bowl bet. I'll take comfort knowing that, twice now, the Iggles have choked in big-game situations in the postseason."

"I'll also take comfort knowing that the closest you'll ever get to holding a World Title is when you hand mine back to me after I beat Xandor...again."

Troy offers a moment's pause, then continues.

"I told you at Aggression, Xandor, that we're destined to fight over titles and test the limits of our friendship. Whether you believed that then or now doesn't make much of a difference."

"It's the truth and it's been the truth for over three years."

"You can't cheat destiny, Xandor. You've called upon a Higher Power to guide you through the tough times and help you in your quests to capture glory and save the souls of people who you've claimed to be corrupt and wayward on the paths of righteousness."

"How far have I strayed?"

"Do you think it's your job to save me?"

"Can you, even?"

"More importantly, do I want to be?"

"There are some things in this life that we're not meant to understand, in part or in full. I don't expect you to ever understand the roots of why I did what I did to Marcus, which is partly the reason why, when you raised that issue, I dodged it."

"I don't think you're ready to know, nor do I think you'll ever be ready. We all have our secrets and I'm prepared to take this one with me to the grave."

"I won't ever understand why you left behind your family and friends to go soul searching in Mexico after Uncle Xandor died. I do know your roots were calling you but other than that, I don't know."

"Nor do I think I ever want to."

"Your uncle's been a point of contention for the both of us for longer than I care to recollect. But, he was also the one that bound us together."

"He tried to save us."

"And while I'm not so sure he did such a hot job with me, I know he tried with you."

"He loved you and sometimes I don't think you know just how much."

"But, that's your own mess to sort through."

"I said to you at the first Aggression after Russian Roulette, 'don't think you know the lengths I'll go to in order to keep this one.' (She slaps the faceplate of the EPW Title) I threw you off a scaffold for a title once. Could you even begin to imagine what I'd do to keep what I have right now?"

She pauses, allowing a smile to slowly creep along her lips.

"Do you want to?"

"I plan on keeping this title after Black Dawn goes off the air, even if it means that the sun rises on our darkened friendship the next day."

"It's survival, Xandor."

"Victory at all costs."

"Victory in spite of all terror."

"Victory however long and hard the road may be."

"For without victory there is no survival."

Fade...

 

[QueenOfTheRing]

will this frelling board EVER GET FIXED?!

 

[Cross]

Past mistakes righted...

It seemed as though nature knew he was making his return. The sky grew only darker as the seconds wore on into the early hours of night as Cross glanced at the heavens. The wind rustled through his hair in a chilling breeze that only complimented the new found darkness in his eyes. The breeze faded, but Cross’ darkness didn’t. He looked down at the headstone that marked the grave of his cherished uncle.

“You were wrong.”

The wind kept returning in short bursts, each more powerful than the last.

“You were SO wrong!”

He raised his hand up far enough to reveal a crunched sheet of paper. He squeezed it tightly as if choking whatever life it had.

“I will not commit the same mistake you did and fall for this again.”

“There is no saving Lindsay. I’m sorry to say your attempts were for naught. You wasted precious time on someone who didn’t want to be saved and looked for something deep inside of her that was never there.”

“As much as you wanted to consider her family, she never was family and never will be. I followed your example until the end, but I have to do what is best for me now even if it means breaking with you.”

“She hasn’t changed nor does she want to change.”

“You knew from the beginning that I was fine leaving things as they were, but you insisted on taking in the orphan girl.”

“Now at Black Dawn Lindsay Troy walks into the arena wearing the EPW World Heavyweight Championship around her waist willing to kill the man who wants to take that title for himself.”

“Me.”

“You taught me to be the very best and being the very best means destroying whatever bond there was between Lindsay and me. What does it matter now? You are no longer with us.”

[i[Cross turned his head to the left and looked intently into the camera with his peripherals.[/i]

“Do I want to imagine what you’re willing to do for the EPW World Title, Lindsay?”

“I don’t have to. I’ve known for a very long time what you are capable of doing. That is why I didn’t and don’t WANT to save you. You are not worthy of salvation.”

“You see this isn’t about salvation or redemption. I am not my uncle. I will not repeat HIS grave mistake.”

“Atop of the scaffold in A1E, I wasn’t willing to listen to my instincts. I listened to faulty reasoning of a man who was blinded by a pretty face. In that brief moment of hesitance, you did what you had to do and retained your title.”

“I can’t fault you for that.”

“I fault the man whose remains are lying below me.”

“At Black Dawn, I will not hesitate to do whatever it takes to pry the EPW World Title belt from you.”

“You are right that this match is all about survival. But you are wrong that without victory there is no survival.”

“Remember you killed Triple Cross when you threw him off the scaffold. But I survived despite the loss and rose up to become a World Champion.”

“Can you kill what just won’t die?”

“I know all about survival. So you aren’t teaching me anything new.”

“On the other hand, Lindsay, are you willing to exchange your life for the EPW World Title?”

“You know I will for I’ve already been dead.”

With those eerie words, Cross left his uncle’s gravesite for possibly the last time.

 

[QueenOfTheRing]

The World Title Waltz

"Here's a novel concept, Xandor. Straight from me to you and you don't even have to pick up a New York Times book review to get it."

"Stop blaming your uncle for things that were beyond his control."

Fade-in: Lindsay Troy, sans title for the first time since she won it. She stands in the middle of a large living room that has a view of the Manhattan skyline. Twilight has not yet come to the City that Never Sleeps, but the sky is beginning to change colors. In the background, Alaina Troy looks on but says nothing. Lindsay clenches her fists and glares into the camera lens.

"You scold and curse your uncle from beyond the grave because you are incapable of comprehension. You turned your back on him so many times, yet you have the gall to utter oaths against him."

"I thought you better than that."

"I didn't ask to be a part of your family, Xandor, but your uncle saw something in me those three-plus years ago that not many people saw in me at the time."

"Potential."

"He knew I was at the very end of a tight leash in UEW and he offered me a chance to break out on this circuit. It's unfortunate that financial obligations derailed that train."

"I have a family, as broken as it once was it is now as tight-knit as far as I can remember. I was an orphan only in the sense that I knew few people when I came to this place and the few people that I knew cared as much about doing good business and taking care of talent as Mike Neely cares about hiding his boner every time I walk into an arena."

"Whether you like it or want to admit it, we're bound by a force that's both silent and ever-present at the same time."

"Your uncle's spirit."

"I'm not asking for any sort of salvation because I squared certain things with myself a long time ago, things your uncle never talked to you about out of fear that you wouldn't be able to understand. I can't see the eventual end of my path, nor can I foresee anything beyond the immediate present, but right now what I see is you and I at another crossroad."

"Am I ready to take the road less traveled? Keep my title and put our friendship in the same patch of earth where your uncle's coffin rests?"

"I may have killed the man who called himself Triple Cross, but in the same breath I was the catalyst for the man who will be standing across the ring for me at Black Dawn."

"I gave you new life. And what I gave I can very easily take away once more."

"I survived as the Triple Star Champion through my victory."

"You metaphorically "died" because it was my Will and through that action will be the consequence of history repeating itself."

"You will fall, Xandor. You will fall because you do not believe in redemption."

"You can't redeem yourself in your uncle's eyes because it's now far too late to do so, both physically and spiritually."

"You turn your back once more and you will walk away forever."

"You cannot win this battle, because you do not wholly believe in the fight and the cause you're fighting for."

"Why are you fighting, Xandor? Just to be a World Champion? To prove that this empty shell you now inhabit is still as good as it once was?"

"Or are you fighting to put your demons to rest?"

"You don't need to climb a scaffold to get your answer. But, maybe, another loss will help the answer come to you."

"I am willing to do whatever is necessary to ensure my career stays at its peak. But are you, Xandor Cross, prepared to watch me to so?"

Fade...