DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Scott opened his eyes and realized immediately that he was face down on all fours, with smoke billowing around him. He raised his head, an incredulous expression on his face. The humidity was stifling, thick like an eighty-five-dollar steak, and a poorly constructed “rock” waterfall was nearby. There was an odd smell to the ‘water’, an odd smell because it was vodka. In the rock face was a carved hammer and sickle. Slowly, he rose to his feet. “Where am I?” Scott looked around with a confused look on his face, which was not unusual for him. “There’s no Huntermaniacs here!!” What was a Huntermaniac? No one knew. But they weren’t there. He reached out slowly, letting the vodka waterfall flow over his hand. Loudly, he yelped in pain and pulled back. “IT’S NOT HOT!” This made no sense. Scott’s dreams were getting weirder and weirder. Suddenly, there was a rumbling noise, like a great earthquake. Scott turned as the rock wall behind him burst open in a shower of broken stone, and suddenly, before him was a great throne, and upon it was a figure who kinda looked like Ivan Stanislav, who looked straight ahead, covered in what appeared to be Bisquick baking mix. “Oh no… my arch nemesis...” Scott muttered. “Biscuits.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “All the variety, charm, and beauty of life are made up of light and shade.” - Leo Tolstoy ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The dressing room reeked of sweat and liniment, a familiar cocktail after any one of Scott’s matches. Tonight, it amplified the profound exhaustion that had already settled deep into his bones. He was slumped against the cool cinder-block wall, legs stretched out, arms dangling uselessly at his sides. The roar of the crowd, a distant echo now, still reverberated in his skull. His chest rose and fell in slow, heavy gasps. He’d done it. He’d actually done it. Hayes Hanlon. Submitted. To his figure four. The memory of Hanlon’s guttural noise as Scott had leaned back, legs locked tightly, the sharp cracking noise that followed, still made his knee ache in sympathy. A burst of light, then the sharp THWACK of the door swinging open. Kerry, a grin splitting his face, strode in, followed by Emma, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “You son of a bitch!” Kerry bellowed, his voice hoarse from cheering. He leaned down, a hand clamping onto Scott’s shoulder, a solid, reassuring weight. “You did it, you magnificent bastard!” Emma knelt, her gaze searching Scott’s face. She didn’t say anything, just reached out, her fingers gently brushing the sweat-soaked hair from his forehead. A soft, relieved chuckle escaped her lips. “I knew you could do it, baby brother. I just knew it!” Scott could only manage a weak, lopsided smile. His mouth felt like sandpaper. “Did I? Did… did that really happen?” he rasped, the words barely audible. The victory felt surreal, a dream he hadn’t quite woken from. He’d trained and trained, visualized the moment, but the reality was a dizzying, overwhelming rush of adrenaline and disbelief. Kerry clapped him on the back, a little too hard. “Did you not hear that crowd? They went crazy over that figure four! Absolutely textbook, man.” Scott muttered between breaths. “I… invented… that… you know…” Kerry chuckled. “I know.” Scott managed a deeper breath. The pain in his left knee was a dull throb, a souvenir from the same figure four clamped in a little extra tight, but it was a good pain. A victorious pain. He slowly pushed himself upright, leaning against the wall for support. His body screamed in protest, every muscle a tight knot of exhaustion. He needed a shower, a long, hot one, until the water ran clear and the ache eased. “It just… happened,” Scott said, shaking his head. “One minute I was trying to block the Epoch, the next he was on the mat… he kicked out… but his legs were right there, so I just grabbed them and held on tight… and I just… went for it.” Emma stood up, her hand still resting on his arm. “You were incredible, Scott. You fought with everything you had.” Her gaze softened, then a flicker of worry crossed her face. “You feeling okay? You look like you’re about to pass out.” “Just.. tired,” Scott admitted. He closed his eyes for a moment, the imagery of the match flashing behind his eyelids. Hanlon’s face was contorted in agony. The referee calling for the bell. The roar. His hand raised. He opened his eyes, and the world seemed to tilt. Hanlon. Then… Ivan. The name hit him like a cold splash of water. Ivan. The former multiple-time Universal Champion. The man he’d battled to a no-contest months ago, a grueling stalemate that had left them both bruised and battered—Ivan, who many expect to win the whole tournament. A shiver, not of cold, but of apprehension, traced its way down Scott’s spine. “Ivan,” Scott mumbled, the single word heavy with dread. Kerry’s boisterous energy dimmed slightly. He nodded, his expression turning surrious. “A couple weeks of recovery, but… yeah. You, of all people, know what kind of monster he is between the ropes. And given what happened back in April, you know he’s going hungry. No element of surprise to help you this time around. He’s been looking forward to this.” “I know,” Scott said, the exhaustion suddenly feeling tenfold. “That no-contest… it still bugs him. He’s gonna come at me like a freight train.” He remembered Ivan’s cold, unblinking stare after their last match, a silent promise of future retribution. Emma squeezed his arm. “Don’t think about Ivan right now. Focus on this win. You deserve to savor it.” But it was hard to savor anything when the shadow of Ivan loomed so large. And then there was the other shadow. The one that had been following him since he’d arrived back home. “Dad,” Scott said, the word a quiet sigh. His father’s failing health, the secret illness he’d tried to hide. It felt like another match, one he couldn’t win with a figure four. Emma’s jaw tightened. She stepped closer, her voice firm, resolute. “Dad’s fine. He’s resting. I’m with him. I’m taking care of everything. You don’t need to worry about him right now. You focus on Ivan. You focus on this tournament. This is your shot, Scott. Your shot.” Her eyes, so usually full of warmth, held a fierce, unyielding glint. “You hear me? I’ve got Dad. You’ve got Ivan.” Scott looked at her, at the unwavering strength in her eyes.. He saw the years of her looking out for him, protecting him, guiding him. He took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said, his voice a little stronger this time. He pushed himself off the wall, his legs wobbling slightly. He took a single, deliberate step towards the showers, the dull ache in his knee a reminder of what he had just achieved. “Okay,” he said again, to no one. He would be ready to be there for Kerry in his match later. Then, he would shower. He would rest. And then, he would think about Ivan. And he would think about his dad. But not yet. Not quite yet. First, he would just stand. And breathe. And let himself realize, for a moment, that he had won.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Biscuits? Turned out, it wasn’t biscuit mix. This ‘Ivan’ character just didn’t know how to moisturize. Scott wondered if they had Jergens in Russia, then imagined Ivan Stanislav standing in line to treat his cracked, glazed-donut feet, and it made him wince. A booming voice shook him from his contemplation. “SSSSSC-AHHHHHHHH-TTTTTTTTT!!!” Scott frowned in determination. The goblet of darkness would not corrupt him. “YOU WILL BE CORRUPTED BY THE GOBLET OF DARKNESS!!!!!” Scott shook his head. “Will not!!!” Unmoisturized ‘Ivan’ ignored him and looked straight ahead through the smoke into nothingness. “I HAVE JOURNEYED FROM THE VALLEY OF MADNESS!!! I HAVE COME DOWN FROM THE MOUNTAIN OF CALAMITY!!! GALLOPED OVER THE ROLLING HILLS OF LOWER BACK DISCOMFORT!!! CROSSED THE BABBLING BROOK OF INCOMPETENT BARTENDING!!!!” Scott shook his head harder this time. “Why are you screaming?!?” “SSSSSC-AHHHHHHHH-TTTTTTTTT!!!” Scott grabbed at his ears. Suddenly, another earthquake rumbled, and another piece of the rock face came tumbling down… ‘Alexei Ruslan’, dressed like a shark. Scott stared, incredulous. “What the…?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “Better bread and water than pie with trouble.” - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The morning sun, still gentle, warmed the cobblestone street outside Artie Blumenthal’s gym. Across the way, an outdoor cage buzzed with the lazy clink of ceramic on saucers and the low murmur of conversations. Scott sat hunched over a small, wobbly table, a steaming mug of lukewarm coffee forgotten beside a tattered notebook. Pages, dog-eared and smudged, were crammed with hastily scribbled diagrams and notes on Ivan Stanislav, notes on Ivan’s signature moves, his counters, his brutal, methodical style. The name tasted like iron and cold fury. The same thoughts hovered in his mind. Two-time Universal Champion. Leader of The Red Army. A wall of muscle and menace. The diagrams on the page were crudely drawn, like a third-grader, or Scott drew them. But he stared with the intensity of a post-graduate preparing his thesis. “You’re gonna burn a hole through that page if you keep staring at it like that.” Kerry Kuroyama’s voice, a low rumble, pulled Scott from his mental sparring session. Kerry leaned back in his chair, a pair of dark sunglasses perched on his nose, watching the trickle of pedestrians. He’d ordered a smoothie, a vibrant green concoction that looked suspiciously healthy. Scott sighed, running a hand through his damn hair. “Just trying to get a read on him. It’s like you said the other day. Ivan’s different.” He tapped the notebook. “He hit me with a common clothesline, and I felt like it just about took my head clean off. Every slam and impact feels… extra.” Kerry grunted, taking a long sip of his smoothie. A faint hint of disappointment still clung to him, a weight hanging over the calm facade. He’d lost his second-round match, a tough defeat. Scott saw it in the way Kerry’s jaw occasionally tightened, in the subtle clench of his fist under the table. He was trying to move past it, burying the sting deep. Scott knew better than to dig. Kerry was still the Five-Star Champion. That was his anchor. “Extra is right,” Kerry said, his voice flat. “He’ll snap you in half if you give him an inch.” He paused, then added, a faint, almost imperceptible shift in his tone, “But you won’t. You’ll find that inch.” Scott looked up, meeting Kerry’s gaze. There was a quiet intensity in his friend’s eyes, a strange mix of weariness and conviction. “I don’t know what advice to give you, man…” Kerry continued, swirling the last of his smoothie with his straw. “...but I can tell you this.”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table.

“I was still a kid when I learned my dad was sick. And I remember feeling like I was tied to a chair. Watching everything happen, and incapable of doing a damn thing to stop it. Powerless…”

He looked out at the street, his stare distant.

“It’s… a nasty feeling.”

Scott felt a familiar pang in his chest. His own dad’s illness was a constant dull feeling just beneath the surface of his every thought. He understood that feeling of being a spectator in your own life. “Yeah,” Scott murmured, his voice low. “It is.” “It forces you to face facts,” Kerry said, turning back to Scott, a spark of his usual fire returning. “That we can’t control everything. Like illness… or the crowd… hell, even the ref. But if there’s anything I’ve learned by getting my ass kicked by a Greek murder granny this past month, it’s that what we can control is what we put into this.”

He tapped the table, a soft tap-tap-tap.

“The work. The dedication. The sweat. This is what you can control. And you are doing it, Scott. More than anyone I know, man.” He took off his sunglasses, revealing eyes that, for a moment, seemed to hold a flicker of sadness, quickly masked by resolve.

“Scott, to be honest… I don’t think this crowd will ever fully get behind me. I’m too… I don’t know. Too much of an acquired taste, I guess. Too set in my ways. But you, Scott?”

He looked directly at him, his look unwavering.

“You have that fire. The kind they look to. For all my talk on wanting to give hope to the people, I think you’re the one who can really break through.”

He gestured with a subtle nod towards the gym across the street.

“You are the star, man,” he said. “And when you put Stanislav on his back, you are going to go fucking supernova.” Scott felt a warmth spread through him. Kerry, his best friend, saw something in him that even he sometimes struggled to grasp. He was still learning, still growing, but with every passing week, every brutal training session, every whispered word of encouragement from Kerry, he felt a little bit brighter. A little bit stronger. A little bit more ready for someone like Ivan. A shadow fell over their table. A scent of stale tobacco and sweat suddenly filled the air, and they both made a face in reaction. “Alright, you two! Less moping, more training!” Artie’s voice, raspy as a gravel road, cut through the cafe’s gentle hum. He stood over them, a half-smoked cigarette dangling from his lips, his eyes, sharp and cynical, fixed on Scott. “Ivan ain’t gonna wait for your therapy session to finish, kid—time to get back to work.” Scott grinned, a genuine, hopeful smile. He stood, shaking off the last vestiges of doubt. “Comin’, Artie!” He met Kerry’s eyes, a silent acknowledgement passing between them. Kerry smiled a small, encouraging smile, and with a flex of the muscles in his face, let his sunglasses fall back over his eyes. He looked away for a moment, then back, and watched as Scott gleefully followed Artie across the street, back towards the dingy warehouse and the worn wrestling ring.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

‘Alexei Ruslan’, dressed like a shark, complete with a black headband, shark teeth painted onto his lower jaw, and holding one hand vertically with his other hand for some reason, stood before Scott. “No, seriously, what the…?” ‘Alexei’ stared with a… You guessed it… shark-like glaze over his eyes, and screamed at the top of his lungs. “I AM THE PREDATOR OF THE SEVEN SEAS AND THE FOUR OCEANS!! I AM THE CARNIVORE OF CENTRALLY PLANNED ECONOMIES!! THE SCAVENGER OF STATE OWNERSHIP OF RESOURCES!!! THE MARAUDING MENACE OF MARXIST ONE-PARTY STATE RULE!!! RULING THE WATERS WHILE REDISTRIBUTING WEALTH WITH AN EMPHASIS ON INDUSTRIALIZATIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!” Scott stared at him, blinking exactly four times. Scott thought to himself, he looks like he has come on a tidal wave from the South China Sea to the sands of Waikiki with a taste for Huntermania in his jaws. ‘Alexei’ continued. “I HAVE COME ON A TIDAL WAVE FROM THE SOUTH CHINA SEA… TO THE SANDS OF WAIKIKI WITH A TASTE FOR HUNTERMANIA IN MY JAWS!” Scott pointed excitedly. “I KNEW IT!!” “SHARK ATTACK!! SHARK ATTACK!!” ‘Alexei’ bellowed. “SHARK ATTACK!! I WANT A SHARK ATTACK!!” Scott covered his ears. “Again with the screaming!! Why are you screaming?! I’m right here!!” ‘Alexei’ believes subtlety is the propaganda of capitalist imperialism. “I RODE A TIDAL WAVE FROM THE SOUTH CHINA SEA TO WAIKIKI!!! “You already said that!!” Scott said, frustrated. “AND NOW I’M ON YOUR HOME TURF!! LAND!!! MY MOUTH HAS BEEN WATERING FOR THE TASTE OF HUNTERMANIA!! I CAN’T WAIT TO BITE ALL THE LITTLE HUNTERMANIACS!!!” Scott frowned. “That seems slightly inappropriate…” ‘Ivan’ roared to life and lunged at Scott with a mystical, raging fury. “AHHHHHRHRRRRHHHHHHRRRRHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” But suddenly the room spun around violently. Scott felt a surge of nausea, then found himself bolting upright in his bed, sweat pouring down his face. “Those sleeping pills were a mistake.” He looked over at the bottle that a homeless gentleman had given him when he stopped for gas earlier that day and started to question the man’s wisdom. He turned the bottle over and looked for side effects. Scott began to nod as he read the words, “side effects may include but are not limited to: headaches, congestion, fever, restlessness, fever dreams that resemble some sort of hallucinatory nightmare starring your opponent this weak, and nausea.” “Ah, there it is,” Scott said, tapping the bottle slightly. “Nausea.” Scott let out a deep sigh, then ran his hands through his hair. He looked over and saw a coupon for 15% off any entree at the Rainforest Cafe. “Oh, sweet!” he thought. “I haven’t eaten yet.” Scott stood, the stress from the nightmare leaving his body. He chuckled. “Ha! That could never actually happen. Thank God it was only a dream.” OR WAS IT?!?!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “The door flew open, and I ducked immediately, which was the only reason I didn’t get a purse to the face. I’d seen that trick before.” - Andrey Vasilyev ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The darkening road stretched out before Scott’s face, with the warm orange glow of sunset to his left the only remaining light source. He’d insisted on driving up from Florida to Kentucky on his own. The office, of course, questioned his continued insistence on travelling back home between shows to train, but no one could question the results so far. He felt like it was important, and he didn’t want to shake things up. Kerry caught a flight, but Scott wanted some time to think, as much as Scott ever thought, so he took the last mid-size available and hit the road alone. The glare from the descending sun was in his eyes as he turned onto the highway, so he reached up and flipped the sun visor down. He glanced at the photo he had clipped on the underside of the visor and smiled. He always carried it with him, this frayed at the edges memory of much younger days. His mother, beaming, his father standing next to her, arm around her shoulder, stern but strong with a fierce glare of protection in his eyes, his sister Emma, holding up two fingers and wearing her favorite Hannah Montana t-shirt, and Scott, doing his best to ‘show his muscles’ and making a silly face. Simpler times, maybe. He didn’t know how much he didn’t know back then. He remembered that kid, wide-eyed and always dreaming. That kid looked at the world like it was a living, breathing kaleidoscope of color, life, and promise. It could’ve described his first steps into the wrestling ring, too. There wasn’t anyone there to help, no one to guide him. He didn’t know where to start, didn’t know anything except the dream in his head that had been swirling around since before that photo was taken. And then, one day, everything changed. He never meant to find a mentor and friend in Kerry Kuroyama. It wasn’t a master plan. It was happenstance, a wrong turn, and a naive but infectious determination never to lose who he was, no matter the circumstance. There were hiccups, of course, but his world turned upside down the night he faced Ivan Stanislav. He got the feeling that most people didn’t expect much. He was pretty sure Ivan hadn’t. Scott always believed in himself, always felt there was something more to him that he hadn’t tapped into yet, but he also couldn’t blame others for not seeing those things. It was the chance of a lifetime, and up until that point, the biggest match of his young career. Ivan might have underestimated him. He wouldn’t underestimate him this time. He looked at the photo again. He didn’t know what he didn’t know back then, but he knew more now. He battled Ivan to a no-contest, but he couldn’t finish him. He didn’t know if he could. But he knew he was still a work in progress, and he knew it was the work that would determine how far he could go. Scott waited a long time to get opportunities like this, opportunities that anyone would kill for. His dad told him something when he was young that stuck with him. He said, ‘Scott, you can watch things happen or you can make things happen, not both. Only you can decide which one you’ll do.” It was a statement about more than his wrestling dream. It was a statement about life. Scott wanted to make things happen. This was his chance. Life was about taking a big leap. He knew enough to know that now. Reaching down, he tapped the face of his phone, and a dial tone rang out loud. After a moment, a female voice answered. “Hello.” Scott gulped. Here we go. “Hey Val… It’s Scott.”

~~~~~