BRO, REVENGE IS JUST SPICY JUSTICE

“There is nothing more dangerous than a British aristocrat with low morals.” - The World from 1583 - 1997 ..Belarus..  ..Several weeks ago.. He places the cap back on the pen, his eyes scanning the note he had just written. Satisfied He folds the note up and places it into a pocket alongside a plane ticket. The sounds of a FJP burbling up some sloppy protein before it dribbles down into a trough fills the room around Him.

It’s a grotesquerie, this MEAT? business, but its profitability was undeniable. The perfect place to carry out the.. Messy.. bit of business he has planned.

His ears perk up at the sound of a heavy metal door opening and then slamming shut.

“And here I finally find you,” the bitter, shrill voice of Ulsa N. Couth echoes in the industrial MEAT? production room. “Back where I found you!”

Turning, He fixes his gaze down at her with an imperious expression. An apathetic grimace sits cold as stone where Max’s toothy grin would normally be stretched.

“Who would have ever believed I’d make more money off the byproduct of your birth.” Ulsa starts, pointing toward the Farthington Jizz Pod and the various containers being filled with MEAT? around them. “..than I would ever make off pimping you out to PRIME and those wrestling marks.”

His eyebrows arch up in consideration to what she is saying. After careful thought He nods in agreement with her. It was remarkable that this slop was of greater value than Max. He pulls out a pair of black plastic gloves, carefully putting them on.

“That is until you had me cut out!” the old hag declares, spinning on her heel with a pistol in hand. Cocking the hammer back she sneers at Max, pearly white dentures stuck to rotten, cancer ridden gums. “You don’t think I haven’t noticed? Your family has been pushing me out of MY OWN business. I BOUGHT you and I built all of this out of what was otherwise a FAILING investment. I won’t let you get away with it either. So here’s the deal.”

She reaches into her white blazer, retrieving a folded piece of paper before tossing it to Him. Spider-like fingers snap the paper out of the air and quickly unfold it.

“You’re going to sign it all over to me. Not in trust. Not in holding. I will be the sole holder of all the MEAT? assets and anything you’ve created since this fucking machine shat you out into the world.” she says through a smug smirk. “..or I’m going to kill you. I’ll still get what I want but it’ll take a whole lot more paperwork.”

A small smile breaks out on His face as he looks at the gun in her hand.

“I saw you enter the factory, Ms. Couth. I saw you get in a taxi at the airport, saw you on the plane. I saw you when you woke up this morning, your face full of your own arrogant belief you had a handle on this.” He says in an even, cold tone. Looking up from the gun He locks eyes with Ulsa. “..but now you’re exactly where I want you.”

The bitter, greedy old woman stares at Max trying to figure out what his game is. Ultimately, she decides, it’s not worth figuring out.

“You know what? I think I’ll kill you anyway.” that smug smile stretching into an evil sneer. “I’ll make my niece file out the paperwork.”

BANG!

Before the hammer strikes He’s already launching into his attack. Max’s hand strikes Couth’s arm causing the bullet to strike the wall harmlessly. Ulsa lets out a ragged scream as her fragile arm snaps under the blunt force of His strike.

“A good hunter knows you don’t follow your quarry. You lure it to you, bring it to a place where you have the advantage. No prey worth hunting is harmless and it’s a novice who confidently walks into the predator’s den.” 

Ulsa wails pitifully on the floor cradling her broken arm. All the confidence and power is gone. All that remains is a pathetic, broken, frightened old woman realizing all too late the danger she is in. He folds his arms behind his back as he peers down at her with that dispassionate grimace.

“J̴̟̼͈͂̓͗̅̏ustice, my uncouth peasant, is always best when poetic, I find.”

Grabbing a handful of her hair He drags her towards a nearby MEAT? container, depositing her within. Her eyes go wide as her pained wails turn to panicking screams. She begs and pleads, her limbs flailing helplessly in her desperate attempts to avoid her fast encroaching fate.

Each woeful plea is met with cold indifference. Every frantic grasp or kick countered with Max’s superior physicality.

“Please! No, I don’t want to die! Ple-”

Her sobs are cut off as the metal casing of the MEAT? bulk container seals shut. He toggles a few switches on a nearby panel bringing the vacuum system to life. The MEAT? begins to be sucked up, traveling through a tube system before it is deposited in Couth’s container.

A low bang can be heard from within along with faint screaming.

Or perhaps it was just the vacuum system.

He doesn’t really care either way.

Taking a breath, He removes the black gloves, discarding them in a trash bin. Taking a seat on the MEAT? container, he peers at the Farthington Jizz Pod. The place where this had all started again for Him..  and for Max.

“..You should speak to your Mother, Max..”

A sardonic smile touches the corner of his lips. One last passing order before he closes his eyes. Max’s eyes flicker open as the apathetic chill is replaced with confusion. “Speak to mother...?”

Max’s voice wavers. Sweat drips from his forehead as his blurry vision begins to focus…

- ..The Kael Manor in Arkham, Massachusetts.. ..Late March.. Max stares at the War Games conspiracy map spread out across the wall in front of him. Four teams with seven wrestlers per team for a grand total of twenty eight participants. Twenty eight different worlds sharing one PRIME Universe, shoved into two PRIME rings and one supersized PRIME cage. 

That’s a lot of lives to keep track of.

“Violent has tickets to Belarus. She’s taking Crash Jackson with her.”

The silky voice of Mina Starr-Kael coos from the doorway behind Max. A pale face with an ornate eye patch stands atop of a disheveled, chaotic collective of black materials fashioned into a dress. The Minister’s corruption of Mina had taken its toll on her body. Her teeth are rotten and her skin swallowed from malnutrition

“Yes, He assumed she would. It’s being taken care of.”

Max turns to look back at the wall. He couldn’t think about Violent Purple or Ulsa N. Couth right now. His job was to deal with War Games and more specifically, find a way to eliminate Cecilworth Farthington from the equation.

“Do you have anything beneficial to share about any of my War Games opponents?” he asks, wanting to move away from anything to do with His business.

A coy smile cracks Mina’s face as she takes a step toward Max.

“Nothing you don’t already know. PRIME isn’t my business, Max, as I recall that’s your job. That is what he wants you to do, isn’t it?” Starr-Kael’s words have a cruel mirth to them.

The INTENSE Champion flashes her a dangerous glare, his lips tightening into a frown.

“Careful. It’s He. Put more respect on it.”

The two lock eyes for a long while, like two predators sizing the other up. After a few tense moments Mina offers an apologetic curtsy.

“My most sincere apologies to Him.” Mina’s raspy voice could be interpreted as sarcastic but Max wasn’t going to argue the point. She addressed Him with the appropriate level of respect.

He grunts in acceptance before turning to stare back at the wall. Too many variables, too many moving parts to hatch a direct plan against Cecilworth, especially with six others backing their captain.

“Why Cecilworth Farthington? Michael Best was the one who killed you.” the ghoulish, waif of a woman hisses the question.

The mention of both their names causes Max’s lip to twitch involuntarily. He feels a flash of hot, visceral hatred boiling up from his bowels like regrettable Indian food on a humid day. His hands instinctively tighten into fists while his eyes trace the conspiracy wall to settle on the Lord of Farthington Manor.

“..it’s a matter of..”

There is a pause as Max seems lost in thought. After a deep breath his body seems to relax. He lifts Max’s hand, wafting it in the air as though sifting through his thoughts.

“J̴̺̠̘̻̞͚̌͌̇̿̿ͅustice..”

- ..Max's Hotel Room In Cardiff, Wales.. ..A Few Days Ago.. “Nobody seems interested in killing Cecilworth Farthington.”

The Herald stares down at his phone with a shrug.

“What a bunch of fucking pussies. What a collective of doddering, duplicitous diphthongs. Imagine going to Europe and NOT deciding to murder an Englishman? An ARISTOCRAT no less?!” Max snarls while pacing back and forth.

“..I’m an English aristocrat..”

“My dear the Herald, you’re a sub-Marquis, you’re worth five points, at best. Bagging someone like Cecilworth Farthington would have gotten you hailed as a hero of the people a hundred years ago! No, no this PRIME roster supposedly has killers and murders on it but they won’t band together to execute one lousy billionaire?! Fucking fake liberals, you give them to chance to show their real colors and wouldn’t you know it?” Max spits on the floor. “Yellow as dog piss.”

The Herald scratches his chin in thought as Max continues to pace.

“What about your War Games team?”

In his mind's eye Max can see the conspiracy board. He can see his own team there. Ivan Stanislav and Alexei Ruslan, the Master Blaster of PRIME Wrestling. He could appreciate the toxic nature of their relationship, the purity of their belief. Prudence always served Ivan, it was why he was still alive. The chastity that Alexei kept of his ideology was unbreakable.. Max had tested the waters with the dog, a regrettable decision..

“The Russians are like a river we can not dam. Instead find small ways to divert its flow. A small rock in the right place can eventually bend the river's path. We don’t have the time for that right now but we’ll keep them in consideration for the future.”

“Didn’t they steal your blood?”

“What’s a little vitae theft between friends, the Herald?”

Bentley looks up at Max with surprise before shrugging it off.

“Find out more about Arthur Pleasant. I have faith that Mr. Pleasant might be of some use to us post War Games.” the INTENSE Champion said thoughtfully.

There was something about Pleasant that was fascinating to Max. He saw so much of himself in the man and yet they were so different.

It was probably an interest worth dissecting with a steel chair at some point.

“What about Kenny Freeman?”

“Every army requires their stormtrooper. Alas he is already Ivan and Alexei’s loyal minion. Anyone with the fortitude to remain the foot soldier of the Red Army all this time will certainly prove useful.. To the Russian’s cause.” Max frowns. With so much of the War Games team belonging to the Red Army it had been difficult to manipulate them.  “I’ve heard rumors they possess trans-dimensional technology so that might be worth investigating.”

“Woah, more the Heralds!?” the Herald jumps up with excitement.

“No, you idiot! I mean, well yes, technically, but no!” Max scolds, his chest puffing up. “More ME. And endless array of trans-dimensional Max Kael’s, each of them with their own universe of Fragments! Finally people I can empathize with!”

The Herald sits down, pouting.

“Rob Williams is already in the thrall of.. something. From my own past experience playing with his head might not be good for our own long term viability. Best let him work that one out on his own. The good news is, he’s been charitable enough to already have provided us with one of Cecilworth’s most humiliating defeats. The loss of the 5 STAR TITLE.” he gleefully giggles the words up, his eyes feeling with joy. “We can certainly hope he showed Cecilworth some humility.”

“So if you just leave him alone, he might do it himself?”

“Exactly, my the Herald! You’re learning! You can’t control a tornado but you can certainly shove someone towards it!”

Seems like good advice. Well, at least the Herald seems impressed by it.

“Then there is the Samurai.”

“I don’t think he’s a samurai, oh Smart and Sneaky Max Kael.” corrects the Herald.

“Maybe not a literal samurai but he certainly embodies the traits of one, doesn’t he? Honestly, I wasn’t even going to try and manipulate him. I think his proximity to this rogues gallery of a team has had an unexpected effect.”

There is a sinister undertone to Max’s words as he wrings his hands together.

“He found temperance with this group. Faced judgment for his association with us as a collective. Showed patience even as Lindsay Troy teased his salvation. Came to the revelation that good and evil are relative. To be a loser.. Or a winner. Useful. A long term investment, perhaps.”

“So that just leaves you with JCH?”

The smile on Max’s face grows a little larger.

“..One can always Hope.”

-

Twenty eight voices screaming into the void about why they and theirs should reign supreme in the War Games cage.

That’s a lot of noise, a lot of hungry bellies eager to get their fill of blood and violence.

Why try to compete with all that?

I’m not here for glory, I aim for a much more reasonable goal. Should it take me to final victory, well that's just dandy. Truthfully, however, what I am driven by is a wanton thirst for Justice. I am lost in a desert of injustice starved for the chance to make what was wrong, right.

My modest goal is simple. Kill Cecilworth Farthington.

Could you call it Revenge?

Why can’t it be both?

What's so wrong about killing a sociopathic billionaire? Would you all be crying if I was calling for Elon Musk's death?

Ya’ll wanna know what Farthington Madness is?

It’s being sociopathic enough to think maiming another human being is okay so long as you don’t end their life. Ending someone's career and ensuring they spend the rest of their life suffering isn't morality. It's cruelty.

It’s having so few social skills and being so unable to divorce yourself from work that you start dating it. At least Cecilworth Farthington's fake-imaginary conceptual girlfriend allows him to identify as an Ace in PRIME.. just not the Ace of PRIME.

It’s a lot of different things but probably the most offensive?

..it’s using L̶̡̮͉͉̹̂̆͒ord F̶̧̛̮͓̬͌̆̍̐͠arthington’s name without deserving it, boy..

Soon enough we’ll all get to see the fall of Cecilworth Farthington, the illusion of his life shattered as he is exposed as a parasite. A spoiled, broken child who thinks breaking limbs in a wrestling ring is ever going to fill that empty hole in his chest. It warms my cold, bitter heart in my coldest, darkest moments to imagine the horror of his revelation..

Sadly I don’t think that moment will be at War Games.

Too many variables. Too many idiots willing to protect him.

Too many weak, pathetic plebeians with a lack of vision or perspective, their brains poisoned by Jabber.

How many have experience with this kind of match?

I, myself, have a history with these kinds of matches. My face might be youthful but my mind is filled with the memories of violence and carnage. I see visions of mangled bodies and a steel cage bathed in crimson blood.

Tell me, friends, when the terror of the cage grips your heart or when the bloodlust takes hold of your soul, what will you do? How many of you, when your back is against the wall, will sacrifice for your team?

I’m here to tell you I would sacrifice my own child in a heartbeat if it mean I get my hands on Cecilworth Farthington.

I’d sacrifice Vickie Hall, her cuck of a husband, the Ronin, the Russians, their allies, Williams, the entire War Games match if it means finally getting J̸̨̨͓́̀̑͠USTICE ..

..if it finally means getting..  ..re̵̛̩͉̼̔̈́́̓̉̃͛̈́͛venģ̵̛̯̙̲̽͊̀̈́͊̚͠e.. - ..A lifetime ago.. ..In an afterlife far, far away.. Does one dream in death?

For Max that question is a distinct no. Having been forcefully thrown into Morpheus’s embrace by his cybernetic doppelganger, there was only darkness. No, not darkness, that would give the impression there was something.

This was..

..Nothingness..

An existence of fear and suffering left behind. He had been tired for so long and part of him yearned for the void, welcomed sweet obliteration.

Max is powerless as it begins to take him. He can feel his atoms being undone, his very soul being unwoven. His atoms drift apart as he becomes less and less distinct against the backdrop of the void.

He was so tired...

..Rest at last..

..

…

..

“Wake up.”

A voice cuts through the rapturous undoing, ripping Max’s consciousness back into the black citadel. His eyes flash open to find himself fastened with metal clamps to a black stone chair in the center of a large antechamber. His chair faces a large, ominous circular stone door. Seated in a semi-circle around him are his Fragments.

He recognizes them all, little fragments of his past; Moments of importance captured forever as a Fragment. They’d all been him and he’d been all of them at some point. The fact they had turned on him wasn’t overly surprising, they were all cut from the same cloth. Max Kael stabbing himself in the back was about the most Max Kael thing you could do.

What was surprising was the considerable amount of fear he saw in their faces.

“It seems Shell found you just in time.”

That voice again, the one he had heard in the void calling him back. He can see his Fragments twist uncomfortably in their chairs as they look away.

“Uh..yay?” Max manages awkwardly as the colossal stone door in front of him opens revealing a tumultuous, shifting darkness..

“I should introduce myself.”

Despite the impeccable posh British accent there is an undeniable contempt laced between each letter. Light suddenly floods from the threshold, blinding Max. His eyes adjust to the light as he sees an opulent chair of polished wood, exotic furs and rich leather.

The throne of a hunter.

Something sits upon the throne unfortunately his mind can not comprehend what he sees. It doesn’t have a shape he recognizes or anything close to a rational design. All he can distinguish is a malignancy that takes the form of a tearing agony akin to his skull being ripped apart.

“I am He whose will has conquered Death and the Grave.” 

His words are like waves of blistering heat crashing down on Max. He withers in the chair certain he is being torn apart beneath His voice.

“The Boy might have told you about me.”

While the words are painful they have lost their intensity. Who the fuck is the Boy, Max wonders though the thought melts beneath the blistering dialogue.

“..as if he were some authority.”

Against his better judgment Max pushes his head up. His eyelids break apart as he tries to look directly into the face of Him.

Max gasps only able to open his eyes for a few moments as it feels like his eyes are burning out of his skull. He doesn’t recognize the face though there is something familiar about it. A sun kissed visage with a well groomed handlebar mustache gives him a stately air. Despite the heat He radiates, his eyes are cold and cruel.

“Just so, allow me to introduce myself.”

Kael braces for another wave of verbal conflagration only to find only a warm breeze blowing across his skin. The figure on the throne shifts and the pain vanishes from Max’s mind.

He chances another look upon the throne, trepidatiously peeking.

He has a noble visage. It’s hard to pin down His age as the man’s physical appearance though Max figures late forties to early fifties. He’s wearing a brown tweed hunting jacket and a pair of matching pants tucked into knee high riding boots.

Max knows he’s seen this man somewhere.

It was in a painting.. But where from?

A museum?

..a hotel?

…a Manson.

“..My name.. Is L̷̤̳̳̠̩̍̍̆̾̇̕͜ord F̴̢̡̢̹̦̣͓͕̟͉̟͎̫͍̅͛̈́̿̾arthington..”