Hell Is Preferable To Nihility

[music]

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Of all of the people in PRIME that could’ve gotten a shot at the biggest prize in the company, it had to be him. 

Mother of sweet tiddyfuck and all of her wacky children.

Let me make this abundantly clear to you, Coral Avalon.

You’ve fucked up.

I’ve overlooked you for years, you know. You got away with lying about your age, you’ve wrestled in countries you shouldn’t have left alive from, and you somehow survived Gimmick Hell. You know, a match so hideously expensive and stupid and convoluted that they’ve only ever done it once. Because even I was pissed at it. You can thank me that the Lowell situation finally sorted itself out, by the way. I know you haven't yet.

Truth be told, I thought you were rational enough, so boy, is there egg on my face when I found out that you were this fucking stupid. Clearly, I have erred. I have erred and that’s really fucked up because I’m not supposed to err.

Do you understand, Coral Avalon, how upset it makes me that I have to admit that reality itself has erred?

You’ve fucked up in every which way possible, honestly. I don’t know how your wife manages to put up with your stupid easy-going attitude you have about being a professional wrestler in a world full of people trying to murder you, especially after you went and got yourself murdered that one time. In this specific case, though, I’m talking about what you’ve done to me with regards to Fred Dick.

Fred Dick is not just any challenger; he’s an abomination unto God. In other words, me. Hi.

I’m so impossibly angry right now that I’ve infiltrated your world, Coral Avalon. I’m here, only for the moment, to scream unendingly at your whole me-damned life.

Do you think this is a mere Universal title defense? No. This is an affront against me. Fred Dick is the fire giant besieging the Asgard of my existence. He’s the very definition of the term “failing upwards”. He operates on this fundamental rule called “Did Fred Dick Fail? No He Didn’t.” I hate that rule. I didn’t make that rule. He did.

So you willingly thought it was cool to offer him a shot at your throne, and you didn’t even consult me? Yes. I know. He’s the grand cosmic joke of life itself. You could beat him by making him chase you for, like, a whole minute. In no sane universe should this jabberwock-in-human-flesh-form be allowed to breathe the same air as you, but here you are gleefully giving him a chance. And because he fails upwards, you stand a horrifying chance of actually letting him be champion of the fucking Universe.

You motherbitch. You son of a fucker.

Clearly, I have to take drastic measures. I have to… motivate you.

Because when Fred Dick says he’s your “enemy for life”, I’m very much willing to show you what that’s like, motherfucker.

*.*

There’d never been a better time to be older than death.

Coral Avalon might not have been immortal, but advancements in medicine gave a man who was staring triple digits in the face a whole new lease of life. Not that he particularly cared about that lease on life, but at least his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren would come visit and talk about the latest trends that terrified and baffled him. He was pretty sure the children were wrong, it was the only thing that made sense.

His time as one of the greatest champions to have ever laced the boots for PRIME’s ReVival were a distant memory, and PRIME had gone through numerous additional eras like the Wild West “ReVolver era”, the “ReVenge era” that toppled the government that one time, and the little-regarded “ReViled era” that saw all of Cancer Jiles’ illegitimate children pop out of the woodwork to form the Neo eGG Murder Bandits. We don’t really talk about the sellout “ReVenue era”, but the Troy family got paid, we’re just saying. It all splintered after that with the “ReVolt era” and civil wars broke out across all of PRIME, and now we’re in the middle of the “ReVanche era” to put it all back together.

Years had passed. Eventually, like most people of his era, he would wind up too goddamn old and too goddamned exhausted to live in normal, everyday society. Hence why he was here, where they called you by your name.

Mind you, he didn’t remember when he got here.

The various virtual implements that kept the nearly-deathless elderly occupied had messed with his sense of time, lost in a sea of past glories and glories he’s never achieved. Maybe it was the lingering sadness of knowing that not everyone made it as far as he had. Maybe it was the fact that since most of the old men in this place had access to VR and spent most of their days doing… questionable activities with said VR, the whole place smelled like old man jizz.

He vaguely recalled seeing Johnny’s ugly-ass grandson just a moment ago. What was his name? Lil Johnny Pudding-somethingoranother? All these damn kids with their long names and their Nintendos and their iPhone 98s (they skipped 97, natch).

He heard Johnny go on a long diatribe about how his tag team with Nova was all about protein shakes and fantastic hair, and that wasn’t quite how he remembered their tag team. He recalled a lot of weed and something about time travel, and maybe some crude drawings along the way.

Once Nova got into how their tag team was actually a group of mafiosos, he decided that this was beyond the scope of his patience and decided to leave them to it. He wheeled himself down the hall on his way back to his room.

He missed Annabelle. Terminal cancer had taken her years ago, superkicking her off the mortal coil. Losing his better half might have been when he’d jumped off the slippery slope into dementia, he wasn’t sure.

He was halfway down when he was suddenly thrown from his wheelchair, toppling onto the cold linoleum floor in a heap. A simple fall like that ran a pretty big health risk for a man of his advanced age, and so he laid there in blinding agony. It was only when he managed to look up that he saw why he’d been thrown. Something had lodged itself in the spokes of his wheelchair. It was a mop. Not just any mop, but one that was encrusted with shit and old man jizz. The kind that gets left in a boiler room to be lost and forgotten.

“Think I’d furgawten ‘bout ya, muthafugga!?”

Coral recognized that voice, and looked up horrified at its source.

He looked like he hadn’t aged a day, despite the fact that its owner had dropped dead decades ago. He still looked like a man whose choices in life were now everyone’s problem. Coral had no way of knowing if it was really him, or if it was the VR turning on him, or if it was the dementia.

All he knew was, this was his Enemy For Life.

Through pain and clenched teeth, Avalon looked up at The Enemy and asked, “Why are you here!?”

The Enemy danced in place to a tune only he could hear, but it was what he had in his hands that truly horrified Coral. It was a plunger. Not just any plunger, either. It was The Plunger, all proper name and everything. It had the shid of generations on it. No, being “on it” doesn’t convey enough of it. It was impossible to tell where the fecal matter ended and the plunger began, because at this point in this horrid thing’s agonizing lifespan they were one in the same.

The Enemy un-smiled at him, “Think I dun’ know how a fuggin’ time mahsheen works!? Me an’ the boys revurss en-gin-erred that sumbinch last week!”

Coral had no way of knowing that The Enemy meant last week relative to the Enemy’s time, and not last week when Nova and Johnny kicked his ass at virtual bananaball. All he knew was that when The Enemy pointed the plunger towards him, the gaping abyss that it represented stared back at him. With teeth. Made of shit.

“Now, open wide, muthafugga!”

Coral did, in fact, open wide.

It was the only way he could scream, after all.

*.*

Even I will admit that’s a little harsh.

That’s the reality of your situation, though. Your future. You’ve made an Enemy For Life.

Well, okay. Actually, I’ve made you believe that.

I’ve made you believe it because the reality, Mr. Avalon, is that you cannot afford to lose this match. Not to him. You do realize that you have everything to lose here, right? You stand today as the self-styled “King of Conquerors”, the all-conquering warrior of the international world. You finally took your crown. You usurped the eGG Bandits. You’ve even made Cancer Jiles, a man who would cut off his nose to spite his face, fall in line.

That all goes away if you lose to Fred fucking Dick, who has nothing to lose. He doesn’t even have dignity to lose. He’ll resort to every means possible to win against you to a degree much greater than your little Bandit civil war at UltraViolence. He will have the full might of the Whoresmen behind him, including that cocaine cowboy you somehow tolerate.

He will tarnish your legacy. 

He will make a mockery of the kingdom you’ve built, the empire you’ve created in the professional wrestling world. You’ll get sent to the fucking gallows. And Fred Dick won’t even think twice about you once he’s gone and done it.

So I have to keep finding ways to motivate you, and I think I've got an idea of exactly what to throw out there.

Let’s go pay a visit to your darkest hour.

*.*

This was the midpoint of the worst six months of Coral Avalon’s life, the very nadir.

Everything that would happen after this fact, including the night he died or the night he got press-ganged into the eGG Bandits, would never meet the humiliation he would feel on this night.

Three months ago, Coral went into a match with the most famous nemesis of his “Kleptomaniac” years, “the Original” Jeff Garvin FRED DICK. The Action! Wrestling championship was on the line. It was the first world championship Coral would ever get a shot at and… He beefed it. He beefed it hard. So hard that Garvin FRED DICK put him on a stretcher. Before that night in what would become Coral’s adopted hometown, Coral had beaten Garvin FRED DICK every time they got in the ring together. Yet, in the end, Garvin FRED DICK got the last laugh.

It would take Coral another twenty years to claim a world championship and to reclaim the city of his most bitter defeat.

Because of the concussion the match had given him from a Memphis Death Certificate onto a steel chair, he hadn’t wrestled since then. He’d been forced to sit at home – which was a halfway house in Cleveland, so you know he wasn’t having a good time – and wait to be cleared by a doctor to be able to return to the ring. He received the first of his family’s yearly letters during the downtime, the ones that would demand that he quit this incessant need to be a professional wrestler and return to the fold.

It said the same things back then as it would the last time he got one in 2022: Wrestling wouldn’t work out. None of it mattered. Come home.

In 2004, Avalon wasn’t the cool-headed, easy-going man that rolled with the punches that he would become later in his life. Without wrestling to help him sort all of this out, he spiraled into a depression and he had to raw dog that reality. It sucked.

Tonight, however, was the night of his return.

The first night in his new home, his new company. The Squared Circle had everything for him. His cousin owned the thing. He was making twice the money he did in Action! Wrestling, to the point that he’d be able to quit his shitty menial side job that he told none of his wrestling peers about. They’d hired so many fantastic wrestlers from all walks of life. They’d sold out the American Airlines Center in Dallas. Best of all, there was no Jeff Garvin FRED DICK.

So, there he was in the ring and across from him was a man that’d also been Coral’s enemy. His name was Keith Scott Zimmerman FRED DICK. KSZ FRED DICK for short.

His nose was enormous, but Coral didn’t remember the flaming red hair. His face tattoos were a little weird. He was pretty sure that Keith FRED DICK was a svelte little shithead that could easily get knocked over by a stiff breeze, but he was very noticeably overweight under that tight black singlet.

Keith FRED DICK got on the microphone, “Cor, Cor, Coors… Ya dun really want this, do ya?”

The butterflies did a funny thing to Coral Avalon’s insides – they were in the middle of a full-blown gang war. Lots of good butterflies died for the cause up in there. Some butterflies never slept, because sleep was the cousin of death. Coral knew that when Keith FRED DICK started talking shit right before a match, something was afoot.

“I mean, we could have the match and I’d ABSHOLOOTLY destroy ya… A-GAYNE…” he said, knowing full well that he was full of shit. Avalon usually won when they faced off. Keith FRED DICK held up a finger, “OR! In the spirit of new beggenings, new biznatch, I could do sumthin’ for YOU.”

Coral had no idea what Keith FRED DICK was going on about, of course.

He looked to his manager at the time, who was also his ex-girlfriend. Her name was Allison Lindum FRED DICK. Coral remembered her like it was yesterday. Bright red dress, almost impractically high heels, 305 pounds, a head of burning red hair, ridiculous face tats… Yep, just like yesterday.

Allison FRED DICK winked demurely at Coral.

Meanwhile, Keith FRED DICK said a couple of things not fit for remembering before he got to his point, “Wut’m I gittin’ at? I’m gettin’ at ya not livin’ undah th’RAWK of IGNORANCE anymore!”

He looked out at the crowd, an entire sea of Freds Dick jeering.

“I’m talkin’ YOU, meetin’ the NEW Mr. Lindum TONITE!”

Coral blinked. Hell had come. Hell had come and it had taken the form of this moment. He’d already comprehended what was going on well before Keith FRED DICK got to his point.

All he could mutter was a weak, “No.”

Keith FRED DICK hadn’t achieved his final Cheshire form yet, but it’s worth noting that Allison FRED DICK had already started moving away from Coral’s corner. Slowly. Quietly. So that Coral didn’t notice at first. “No? Whattya mean, no? I thought this was a DE-MAWK-RACY, Joey Too! Deez peeble wanna see this guy get stomped by you!”

Did they? All of the Freds Dick were making appropriate Fred Dick noises. There’s a lot of yelling, and also a small amount of crocodile tears. Keith FRED DICK lapped it up like a thirsty dog.

“Shame they ain’t gonna sees it,” Keith FRED DICK said, “They ain’t gonna see it cuz Mr. Lindum’s already here…”

The terrible grin of Keith FRED DICK slowly appeared as though the Cheshire cat got really fucked up on inhalants one day and started seeing some real fucked up shit.

Coral turned to Allison FRED DICK, who now had the same grin on her face, as if to say “Yep, I’m with this muthafugga”. His jaw dropped. He’d find out in the next few moments, when his soon-to-be-assailant announced this to everyone, that they’d actually been seeing each other for months right under his nose.

Not that he’d have any time to comprehend that because as soon as the words “six months” left Keith FRED DICK’s lips, he ran at Avalon and hit him with a 305 pound leg lariat that flattened him.

The bell rang, the match happened.

It was very one-sided. Coral, ruled back then by his emotion, could barely fight back against the onslaught. There was the horrifying visual image of Keith FRED DICK performing a running shooting star press, a move that the real thing probably couldn’t even pronounce correctly. Point being, young Coral Avalon was left lying on the mat, questioning his life choices.

All he could do was watch as Keith FRED DICK and Allison FRED DICK left the ring together, arm in arm. They paused halfway down the aisle, grinning evilly at Coral. Then, looking into each other’s eyes, Keith FRED DICK and Allison FRED DICK shared a passionate kiss, and—

*.*

Um. 

Yikes.

I guess I can understand why that’s the nadir of your life. An unending torrent of public cuckoldery if I’d ever seen it, and I imagine it’s magnified by the fact that you never got your revenge on that jackass who’s more nose than man. They’d laud that asshole for years to come. They gave him endless opportunities, world championships, everything in-between. You know, he still gets invited to the yearly Malone family reunion despite the fact that “Uncle Keith” spent his entire career hating on your mentor.

And what did you get?

Humiliation. Self-doubt. Obscurity. 

It’s taken twenty years, a marriage that’s survived death and the Bandits, the love and respect of millions of people the world over, and a world championship to finally get over that ridiculous spectacle and erase it from the public imagination.

You have to understand something, though. That bullshit? That’s Fred Dick’s whole life.

Every single fucking day is a humiliation for him. That’s what makes him dangerous. That’s why he has nothing to lose. There’s nothing you can do to him that’s a worse humiliation than anything he’s probably experiencing exactly two hours before he wrestles you, when he’ll inevitably shit his pants.

In other words, hold nothing back. Destroy him. End him.

And don’t forget…

…You have the Bandits.

*.*

The cryostasis chamber cracked open like an egg shell, and Coral Avalon spilled from it like a newborn chick. His most recent foray in magical cryoscience and the consequences thereof had gone off without too many hitches. Oh, sure, it might’ve actually made him a little more deranged. He was now even more determined than ever to tear Fred Dick’s arms off inside a professional wrestling ring, and he was already planning to do that.

Anything to get rid of those ghastly mental images it’d conjured, anyway.

Most of the Bandits gathered to greet Avalon after he got dressed in his waistcoat.

The whole gang was there. Bobby was so hungry that he was speed eating through brunch, lunch, and second lunch. Hessian wasn’t physically present, but his big mean mug could be seen on a tablet carried around by Lunchbox Lasagna, who’d decided that he hated Mondays. Tony Gamble was playing mobile games on his phone. Cardboard Dan Ryan stared intently. Doozer.

Finally, Cancer Jiles sat in a forgotten corner, clearly wanting to be somewhere else. His T-shades were still scuffed. His hair was not quite as immaculate as it usually was. He still wore the blazer.

“Guys. We’ve got work to do,” Coral said, nodding to all of them, “It’s time we talked about bringing Hell to the Whoresmen.”

He smiled as walked past them, who followed in step after him. Even Jiles.

In slow motion, of course.

*.*

Yet, the eGG Bandits remained together. United in purpose, crumbs to the end, and forged in the fires of Hell.

Coral Avalon might not always want their help, but he knew that they’d fight to keep the Universal championship in the carton together. This time, they had to. They had no other choice. A living avatar of nihilism itself would destroy all that they’d fought for if they didn’t. The blood shed on UltraViolence would be for nothing if they didn’t stop Fred Dick here.

The one thing, the only thing that Coral Avalon and Cancer Jiles would agree on?

They’d rather live in Hell than to have it all be for nothing.

For Coral and the eGG Bandits, Hell was preferable to Nihility.