Outsider

The thing about taking the scenic route is that it takes time.

No pun intended.

Highways are a lovely thing if you want to get somewhere as fast as the speed limits will let you. But going too fast leads to accidents. Mistakes. All kinds of sloppiness. Not saying it couldn't happen when you're chilling on the back roads too. If you're patient, however, you tend to see things you wouldn't normally be at the proper speed to notice.

We had a gardener for a couple of years. Name was Jesse. He did great work and he did it for a fair price. Occasionally, we’d give him some snacks and such. Ya know, normal shit. Then he didn't come for a month. Then two. Grass started getting all raggedy. We passed his house, didn't see his car, knocked on the door anyway. Kept doing it until it was becoming clear we couldn't really rely on him anymore. So we had to buy a lawnmower and do our own shit.

After about six months, Jesse returned. Hard times, hard luck, and even harder drugs caught up with him. He was homeless, living in his truck, his cell phone got busted up, and he just got a new one. Jesse wanted to work and we put him to work. Got everything all caught up, paid an ample amount, even gave him some pre-cooked food for his cooler so he could eat later. Jacky offered him a place to stay until he got his shit together. He refused that last one. Showed up one other time and then never came back again. Phone disconnected. Gone for good.

But we still drove by that house.

In spite of the fact that the guy we knew fucked off to Woop Woop, there was still a habit of going low and slow through the backstreets and just passing by. We saw people move in, live, and move out. We saw it stand there, the future uncertain. We saw it slowly erode and rot. Watched the collection of notices grow on the walls, the padlock on the door that got broken by the next week. The door got boarded up after that.

On Wednesday, Jesse’s house disappeared.

Whenever there's a demolition or a fire, there's usually some evidence of it happening. A patch of dead land or an outline of the foundation. Maybe even rubble. Something that proves that once upon a time, there was a home here filled with traces of the people who used to live there for better or worse. It's the last gasp of that property before nature inevitably takes over just as slow and methodical as the rot.

There is none of that on the lot. Ironically, the grass is fine.  It's neither perfectly manicured not is it knee high. There’s no mounds of dirt symbolising a burial. No scorch marks from flame. No straw. It looks like a normal everyday yard. If you didn't know the house sat in that spot before Wednesday, you would've never known there was anything standing on that spot to begin with. Most would breeze right past it without the slightest bit of knowledge. Every day, every person passes by and passes through lives and moments that used to exist.

B̶̧̡̖̀̈́̋̃̈l̶͔̥̠̐̀̑̒̚ą̵̡̭̑̓͑̀͠z̵̘̥̟̈̆͐̊͡ḛ̶̼̤̉͗̅̃̎ C̸̟̩̼̎͂̆͒̚l̵͓̲̺̂̅̋̌̚a̵̢̰͉͐̊͘͠͝y̸̳͓̞̒̐͋́͘m̷̭͚̽̉͊̀͡ͅő̶͇̠͚̽̀͘͡r̸̰̜̹͂̓̂́̈ẽ̴͙͖̄̈́͒̕͟ is Jesse's house. The eviction already happened. The notices are beginning to pile up and we have no doubt that some dumb redhead whose two Tony Gambles tall maximum is going to do everything he can to break the padlock with or without your help, Bobby Neptune.

And we welcome it. Because some people? They gotta learn the hard way.

________

It's that time of the year again.

Anna Daniels rarely has any constants in her life but two personal holidays seem to have stuck. The first is the wedding anniversary. The second is this. The former has a set date. The latter…well, it tends to come when she feels it. It's a feeling she could never explain to anyone because she cannot find the words to explain it to themself.

Every other time they've had this urge, she went to Orlando. It was where she started her career, got the first belt, dealt with first few loves. It was the closest to ancient Anna they allowed herself to get because what does the rest of the shit matter? We are what we are and it is what it is and if you don't like it, sodomize yourself with a rusty chainsaw.

But it does matter.

Maybe the Neptune match is a sign. But here she is standing in the garage in front of their timeship. It has decided that since Sydney is its new home, it will sit in the corner in the disguise of an old Telstra phone booth. Ironically, this is also the reason why she can't really fly in the atmosphere with it sans proper protection. Phone booths in many fashions are still a thing here and the last thing the world needs is somebody trying to connect to the free Wi-Fi that could potentially open wormholes to who knows where.

The past matters even if you don't remember it well. That's why she touches the door. They can feel the subtle hum of life radiating through the hidden metal towards her palm. There's a conversation that holds no words. It is telepathic, but it goes beyond the brain.

The door opens. She steps in…and picks up the receiver. A dial tone. Fingers embracing the cold of the buttons with rapid dialing.

The floor gives way.

The curtains part to–

…what the fuck do they call it again? Argyle?

She’s gotten used to the phrases. But that doesn’t really stop it from being a STUPID FUCKING NAME. Full stop, all capitals.

Once again, it was Rob Williams and Anna Daniels against the entire damn world. Once again, they came out successful. As if everything never happened. And sure, it was a countout victory. Yet it takes a lot to not start jaw jacking right off rip.

She wants to look Bex Savage in the face and tell her that she gets speared harder going into bed every night.

She wants to tell that fake cunt Quiggles that after all the shit she’s spewed, she deserves every single bit of disappointment on her plate. Don't worry! You'll get used to the taste. Take it from somebody that knows it well.

She wants to smile at the nepo baby and tell her now that she's actually been hit, she can cry about it.

The urge is there. On FYTT's way back to the Whorehouse, it's silently acknowledged. Then Anna lets it go. Because she remembers they aren't worth it. Better to treat them like the trash they call themselves and roll on forward. It's the greatest insult either her or Rob can give.

Speaking of the man, scruffy little bastard's been through hell and back. But he's still lighting up that cigarette with a small grin, the Five Star draped over his shoulder. Not a single person on this roster outside of her ever believed in Rob. The road for him was never going to be easy. Then again, he probably wouldn't have wanted it that way. He created rough times for the people around him and for himself, but he was gaining victories in public and in private.

She wants to say she's proud of him. Because as fucked up as he is, as they all are in their own ways, he's finding some peace that he'll have to fight the world to protect. 

She also wants to say that to Daytona too. Because maybe somewhere in his head, that might help him.

Instead, she says

“Ya know the difference between us and those girls?”

Anna can nearly sense his curiosity.

“We fight demons. They chase ghosts.”

Crashing through the Whorehouse, the Muse collapses into a–

beanbag chair. Because when you're freefalling into the control room of your own ship, it's best to have a soft place to land. Beanbag chairs happen to be softer than wrestling rings, yet she still tucks the chin. Force of habit.

One slow crawl later, the coordinates are entered and everything floats on.

________

As for you and us, Bobbert, we think we know what the idea was when this booking came to be. A smidgen of it was probably because of our connections with Nathan Lake. A portion of it may have been because both of us are hot commodities at the moment against the odds. But when you boil it down to the simplest idea, it always boils down to

“lol they think they're aliens!”

It doesn't really matter what we say or think or even do. A lot of people on the roster think this way. And no matter what, that is the wall you and us have to constantly smash through to be taken even the slightest bit seriously.

We did what we were supposed to do. We focused on the matches. It wasn't just with this promotion either. It's been all of them. Because nobody wants to hear about things half-remembered and we don't want to see their eyes gloss over when we try to explain. We know that what we are--what we truly are, feel, understand--is just too much for anybody who's not in it to handle.

Fucking hell, Bob. Most times, it's even hard for us to handle.

So we've been in this pickle for a long, long while where we have to keep things palatable. Don't give too much. Only show fragments. Don't you dare be out and about. It would be less frustrating if we didn't hear it the other way around back on the Homeworld. Too human for them. Too emotional. Too entranced with relics. Too into our own head. It's a catch-22. We're too much of anything for both sides of our lineage.

As much as the dullards want to make this the goofy little starman vs the oh-so-evil, outspoken villain, we see the nuance.

You were chosen as a fullblooded human, Earth to space. We were born a halfbreed in the struggle, space to Earth. You have all those little symbols plastered on flesh. We have the one that we sneak into the occasional run of NEW ERA shirts, only at the PRIMEporium. Those are differences and they ain't small. But neither are the similarities. We watched your little thing with the sweaty guy living in his basement. We found two things very interesting.

The first is you talking about feeling like you've never belonged anywhere. We feel that shit every day. The humans call this alienation, oddly enough, and they think it's an us problem that we can fix with therapy. But how do you fix something that's been in you for so long? From first breath, we have felt that strangeness and every day since, we have and continue to do everything we can to chisel our places. In life, in wrestling, even in the Whoresmen.

The second…is that you're not from this universe. Saying that out loud is dangerous because this ‘verse likes to pretend that it's the only one worth its weight. We both know it's not true.

What is true is the only reason Bobby Neptune is considered acceptable here in the PRIMEverse is because Anna Daniels already took those bullets for you.

As disregarded as you may be to the ones that call you delusional, you are given an easier ride because of every barb against our heritage that we've had to tank. You are given the ease of being judged just that little bit less on what you are and more on your work because we force them to do so every single time we hit that ring. The humans can say what they want. They can try to feeblely drag over old ass sins because they really have nothing else better to do. But it doesn't change the fact that your career here stands on our shoulders. You, like a lot of people on this roster, profit on the hard work and the beating hearts of “villains” like us.

And honestly? We would be a lot more pissed off about it if we haven’t accepted that this is the price one pays to be a trendsetter and a wavemaker.

We are still a touch upset about it though. So if it's all the same to you, we're going to take it out on your grey matter.

________

“Yo, Omnicrex! You're hogging the falls!”

Her eyes open as the water beats down on her body from above. While those that live in the domes never see a single spec of dirt on their skin, everybody on Mount Perdition doesn't have that luxury. In the everlasting heat of summer provided by dancing suns, one must always find whatever ways they can to keep cool. For the Fourth Wave, bathing in the river is the best they can do to handle cleanliness so that they can get that much closer to faux-godliness.

“Yeah, yeah.”

She steps back from the rock and–

watches the screen.

Once upon a time, in this very portion of space, there was a Gallifrey. The official count on record during the War was one original Homeworld and eight clones that think they are the real thing, each with their own War Monarchs and strangeness. Was hers the original? No one would know. The humans talk about the British Empire being colonizers, yet the limeys couldn't hold a pot to piss in compared to the Timeys. Learn some terraforming, destroy an entire world's worth of culture, and make it seem like you’ve been there the entire time. Then we'll talk.

The universe has grown up a lot since then. New stars formed. Old stars burned out. Black holes took over. Yet this space remains vantablack in its complete vacantness. Something was missing. Sometimes, that ends up for the best.

Even so.

She lets the weight of it hang on her. Lets it settle on her vessel. For this one fragment, she lets the role of Anna Daniels drop and reassumes the mantle of Annaperennaepsilonomnicrex vol-Xianthellipse.

She turns the camera back on. It’s an overhead shot. The controls are in full view. The room is dimly lit with neon piping. A merge of a far flung future and a long dead past. A relic amongst the stars. She looks up at us.

________

One more thing, Robert. Since you owe us a debt you cannot ever be free of, you can at least make a drop in the ocean by telling us the truth.

Have you ever mourned all the people you could've been?

Have you mourned the death of what you used to be?

Seeing them is one thing. Being them is something that's locked away. No matter what happens, you will never be that kid again before you were taken. And no matter how many times you run in whatever ways you choose to run, you may never really be free in your head. No doctors to heal you, only masters trying to enslave you.

Do you truly accept 100% the burden of what you are and what you've been through? We haven't quite yet.

But we will.

No matter what our sins are, we will always choose us over the perspection of others.

________

She turns the camera off again. Starts streaming the shit talk to PRIME and let fate settle the rest.

Turns off the gravity.

Turns on the music.

Lets it go.