Flamberge · CULTURE SHOCK 2024 – NIGHT TWO · War Games Match — Four-Team War Games -- 28 participants · Mar 23, 2024

The End is never The End is never The End is never The End is never The End is never The End is never The End is never The End is never The End is nev

The nice people at Wellmind Clinic said I should go, so here I am.

They told me about the Hidden Meditation Track at Gwrych Castle that can be transformative if you go all-in. “You won’t find it on the website”, they said, but hey, look - here it is, and here I am, walking it and probably looking like an idiot.

…

Simple little quarter-mile dirt track, but it feels so old. Centuries old. Old enough that maybe kings or dukes walked this track, lost in thought. That could be pretty cool, maybe.

…

“Radical Acceptance”, that’s what they told me I

resent you, I resent this place, I resent everything you think you’re doing here.

What a disgusting display of Being A Little Bimch, FLAMBERGE. I told you, man, I told you EXACTLY what you needed to do, and even though you tumbled back down to the cold earth after I dragged your silly ass up the hill in the first place, I got you another neck.

Pineapple flavored, too. And the fact that I’m not sharing a hilarious infographic on the sexual benefits of pineapple should tell you how serious I am.

You’re really going to make me fight you, aren’t you.

I don’t want to do that, I want to

say that everything you’ve made me do has felt disgusting, but…that’s not quite it.

I feel like a dying husk. It’s not disgusting because of anything gross, it’s disgusting because I feel like the rot is setting in and I can smell the decay settling into my bone marrow.

…

I was waiting for you to hop in there.

Reflex, I guess.

…

I didn’t expect this track to be so quiet.

Usually there’s at least, like, a cool bird kakawing or something.

…

Have I really almost finished three laps?

Huh…of course

you’re second fiddle to this team, of course you’re a lieutenant after you waved the banner of Glue alone, in isolation, for the better part of the year - it’s because if you aren’t clinging to a life preserver, you have no gameplan.

2023 PRIME Wrestler of the Year, the Robin to the 2023 PRIME Rookie of the Year’s Batman.

But the thing is, FLAMBERGE, this is why our dynamic WORKS.

I am the ultimate life preserver.

You can lose yourself in me.

You don’t even have to lift a finger.

Often times, provably, you HAVEN’T lifted a finger, and that one pair of footprints in the sand was me carrying a little poodle to victory, and

did I just see a giant dog hopping between the trees?

…

Where did it go?

I swear I just saw a big black dog with glowing red eyes out there.

It’s gone now, though.

Is it gone?

…

Look at your hands, center yourself, you’re here. You’re in Wales, your teammates are around, there is no giant demon dog.

And if there is, it’s chosen to fuck off and leave you alone.

…

Maybe it knows the journey you’re taking right now. You know

who you really have to thank for this mess you’re in?

Cancer Jiles.

That fucking crumb - sorry, “le fucking crumb”.

…

It’s funny - in 2024, FLAMBERGE vs Cancer Jiles is a dream match main event, but people forget that at ReVival 10 he beat the piss out of you.

…

It was a main event too. Your first one.

And he showed off just how much of a green spinach turd you were.

Then a couple months later, he obliterated Phil Atken.

Look where that took us.

…

I wonder if

mom is going to show up when PRIME comes to France.

Should I ask her to?

No, I’m not actually asking your opinion, so just like.

Chill.

I already know, nyehhhhh, spoilers, you think she should throw herself down an elevator shaft or something horrible.

I get it.

She’s only ever really seen highlights.

She’s never really seen me…DO do…the things I am known for.

I don’t think she’s ever seen what I do to people with kendo sticks.

Don’t think she saw me light one on fire that one time. If there’s

one thing Jared Sykes proved, it’s that I’ve always been right about you. Nobody knows you like me, baby boy. Nobody hates you like me, either.

…

You wish Jared Sykes would have hated you, don’t you?

…

He doesn’t hate you. He’s going to be a dad, and dads save their hate for their children.

…

So you’ve got somewhere between now and 18 years before he’ll be ready to share his hate with the rest of the class and make you feel like you lost the Universal Title to someone who was actually hunting YOU, instead of the kindly

fuck off, please.

Jared Sykes is a phenomenal wrestler, and I am the fastest Triple Crown Champion in the history of PRIME.

Can’t you let me have that?

Can’t you even let me be happy, even for a SECOND, for accomplishing so much so soon?

What’s the point of driving me so hard if even the winning hurts?

…

I wonder what your emotional range is.

Is it all bile and snark and hatred and ego? Or is something else in there, too? An emotion you can’t admit.

Something has to be driving you, too.

Right?

…

Not to mention

Brandon Youngblood - remember when you started a whole thing with him, and in the end, he cost you the Five Star and haaaaaang on a minute there, ok, Julien, ok.

Look.

Enough of this.

Do not deign to think that after one little session at the Wellmind Clinic and 9 and a half laps around a shitty little dirt road in the shittiest half-country out of the shittiest islands in all of Europe that you have ANY capacity to turn this around on me.

Fucking absolute baby child. You’re the kind of narcissist that sees one headline and reads a paragraph and a half and suddenly you’re prepared to give a TED talk.

Sometimes I think

this is all coming at me too quickly, and maybe that’s one of those things I should Radically Accept.

What if it was OK to be overwhelmed?

…

Only a handful of people can say they conquered the world before turning 25, and those people don’t tend to grow old.

Alexander the Great, Jimi Hendrix.

I need to be careful about that…setting myself on fire to keep the world warm.

…

The dog is back.

Is that a beret?

That’s not a beret. That’s not a dog. It’s a bush or something, or maybe it’s

VENDBERGE will consume, VENDBERGE will conquer.

But I swear to God almighty, FLAMBERGE, if VENDBERGE is the greatest lasting legacy of our relationship, I’m burning everything to the ground.

I don’t like it when my side projects outperform my main projects. It tells me that there’s faulty processes with how I’m spending my time.

…

Time is the one thing I’m not getting back, FLAMBERGE. Phil Atken isn’t getting his back, either.

…

I hope you can appreciate how understated my sense of urgency has been to this point.

And ff you say, “but you’ve been screaming at me for years”, I’d tell you that I wonder

what other people on my team are doing instead of…this.

…

I bet Sage Pontiff doesn’t need to walk this many laps to draw out these feelings.

…

He’s got a lot figured out, I think.

He at least knows what he’s about. If someone asked what I’m about, I don’t think I’d be able to remember.

…

I should talk to him. I wonder what he thinks happens when you die. From what I know,

before you can be reincarnated as a human, you will be reincarnated as a Hungry Ghost, which is lower than an animal.

…OH!

…

Heh. FLAMBO. That’s just it, isn’t it.

You were here on earth before. You fucked up your last life, and now you’re a Hungry Ghost.

That’s the rot you were bitching about, I assume.

Because it’s true. You ARE lower than an animal.

Animals have dignity.

…

Maybe Anna Daniels and her Multitudes have insight into your past life. Why do

I wish dad was here?

…

Oogh, that was a pang I wasn’t expecting.

…

I didn’t want that much.

Both mom and dad were athletes, I just wanted to go to the games and then go home and play FIFA.

The games stopped being fun, because the games became preambles to shouting matches. Shouting matches became preambles to bruises.

…

Why couldn’t it have been enough to just enjoy the life he had?

What devil was eating at him that made him destroy his marriage, his family?

Was it you?

…

I don’t know if you remember

the existential dread that came from even LOOKING at Ivan Stanislav, but I sure as hell do.

Do you want to know why you were able to answer questions at the post-Colossus press conference, and why Ivan Stanislav sent a lackey while he was whisked away with haste to the hospital?

No, you know. I don’t have to spell it out for you.

…

Calling me a devil, how dare you. That’s reductive, first of all. There is nothing Judeo-Christian about all this, and it’s blasphemous to say so.

Second of all, I’m a helper. I improved your life, FLAMBERGE.

…

Look at where your wrestling career stood - an average hand with upside whose claim to fame was being The Black Guy Who Ate Chips.

Now, you’re the Ace.

You can pinpoint the moment where that arc took off to the millisecond, can

I pinpoint where my nature to Distrust Everything started?

I don’t think it was the same moment.

…

Damn. I don’t think I can yet.

I wonder if Wellmind Clinic knows.

Or maybe I should ask that black dog with the red eyes over there.

…

Hey doggie. Hi. You’re a good boy, yes.

Thank you for the licks. I like you too.

…

Wait, don’t go yet, where

are you, Julien? Are you still on the dirt track?

…

You’re adjacent, that’s good, I think.

I uh. I hate to break this to you.

I was getting some readings back here that said you thought you were interacting with a forest animal?

…there’s no forest animal, Julien. There never was.

…

Keep moving, at least. I’m going to take the fact that your brain is this lit up as a net positive.

It means that at least the electricity is on.

…

The dog…you don’t think that was gwyllgi, do you? Achos

wnes i erioed weld dime o'r arian Brets Chips hwnnw…

I wonder what would happen if I dropped to the ground and started rolling.

…

Rolling rolling rolling, rholio ar lawr gwlad

Mae bywyd yn hir, mae'r ofn wedi diflannu

Rwy'n rholio ar lawr gwlad

…

Je me demande de quel autre argent je manque à cause de Daniel Darby…

…Nope, getting up, there were more rocks than I expected. Meditation immersion slipping, get back to it now.

One step at a time. One foot forward, if you’re

wondering where Daniel Darby, Henri Lavigne, Jordan, Sid Phillips, or anyone else in your life you’ve ever spent a waking moment concerned about went - they vanished, and you vanished them.

Narcissist. “Le Protagoniste”, what a toxic motherfucker you are for that, by the way.

Wait.

Whose voice is this. Am I me or am I him?

…

Whaaa wherrrrre, it’s like an echo echo echo in here here here. What?

Where did they go go go?

Where did all those people in your life go go go?

You have object permanence, Julien, they’re alive. Somewhere. Right?

Maybe next time they can become useful to you they’ll re-e.merge, I think

that’s a little harsh, don’t you?

Daniel Darby deserves to be gone. He stole my financial safety.

Henri Lavigne deserves to be gone. He stole the safety of childhood.

Jordan and Sid deserve to be gone, they stole the safety of my heart.

…

…no, hang on.

I can’t say that. I can’t lump those two in with Daniel and dad.

It was my fault with Jordan and Sid.

I wanted to be safe, so I did nothing.

Act first, get hurt, I thought.

…

…hm.

Maybe next session at Wellmind Clinic I should consider

all the other necks I drove you to collect.

Two outcomes occurred for them all.

They’re either gone forever like everyone else in your life, or we changed them…meaning I changed them.

It’s lots of fun for me to see what happens to wrestlers who receive neck-ectomies. Necktomies?

Neck tummies? I’m getting sidetracked.

I gave you a reputation. I gave you the fucking menacing aura that tells subconscious instinct of the world that when you walk in a room, it’s time for the little hairs on their necks to raise themselves out of fear and self-preservation. I don’t

even think I like stamps, or baseball cards. Baseball in France is trash.

The only things I ever collected as a kid actually were cool looking rocks.

Oh no…I’ve always been a lizard, haven’t I?

Building a damn terrarium for myself when I was 6.

I liked to imagine that they were fossils. I was a famous archaeologist and somewhere deep inside this cool looking rock was an artifact, or something.

I don’t even remember stopping, it just sort of happened one day.

Man. I should’ve

squished you under my thumb after the Five Star fiasco, I should’ve bricked out everything else in your system the first time I couldn’t control every detail - but you know what, that’s on me.

I guess I can’t complete my proper Hero’s Journey without the fucking Abyss Death and Rebirth steps, which you did and are still doing to me.

…

Brandon Youngblood decided that the best way to get back at the world for losing the Universal Title at your hands, at Phil Atken’s hands, was to hold you by the waist so you could flail helplessly as two men not named FLAMBERGE finished the match. Which, I dun-

-no, man, I think it’s pretty cool.

Teal, you know?

Nobody thinks of teal when they think of interesting colors, but look at it, right?

Little bitta green, little bitta blue.

All these jokers are like BLUUUUUUUUE and I’m over here thinking like, “but what about almost blue? Almost blue is just as good as blue.”

Blue glue blue glue boo goo bloogoo glog gloob blah.

I wonder if people who live here are happy happy villagers.

Or are they bluuuuuuue, see nobody has anything bad to say about teal.

It’s not a hater color.

I’m a hater color though. Grrrrrr

rrrrr ok, look…are you sure you’re not high?

Everything’s much less stable - DUDE, JULIEN, ONE FOOT IN FRONT OF THE OTHER PLEASE.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO TRIP ON YOUR OWN FEET IN THE DAYS LEADING UP TO WAR, ALSO PLEASE.

If you get a concussion, you get an out - is that it?

A little Draft Dodger special?

Is this your way of getting even?

Oh…nope, fuck, that wasn’t intentional, was it.

Breathe, yep, breathe again, do that.

I felt the stomach lurch too.

We don’t need to make Walking The Same Loop Over And Over to be more complicated than it already is. But also,

Nate Colton is the biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitch. GOD DAMN, FUCK THAT MAN!

I just hate him so much.

Why is that?

…

Is it because he looks like he tells people how much money he donates to charity?

Is it because he filled your most prized FLAMBOrghini with about a billion fucking pennies that one time?

Is it because his dad likes him?

…

No, that isn’t it. Dads, like settings, are for cowards, and you know

what, I hope your mother DOES show up when PRIME swings through France.

If she does, maybe that’s the moment I fucking leave you forever, have you ever thought about that?

You think it’s all fun and games and that your life will be some blissful dream without me, but I am a goddamn SUPERPOWER, kid. A scrawny little boy who loves chips powerbombed a 400 pound Russian bear because of me, so.

I guess you can look forward to someone kicking the shit out of you in front of your mom, for real this time, and I can kick back and tell you “Not only did I tell you so, but I never

really *listened* to the theme song of Thomas the Tank Engine before, but I think it might be the secret to everything.

They're two, they're four, they're six, they're eight

Shunting trucks and hauling freight

Red and green and brown and blue

They're the Really Useful Crew!

Crew glue blue glue blue crew glue crew.

Heh.

…

I’ve gotta tell someone about this. Where’s Cecilworth?

I need to tell him that Thomas the Tank Engine should have a brother named Hank the Tank Engine and that Hank could be Hank.

It’s a

fool’s errand to find peace in the heart of a child terrorist, I know, but Paxton Ray…maybe he’s not so bad.

…

Hello?

…

Ok, well, shit. That didn’t work the way I thought it would.

Normally when I hit you with some outlandish bullshit, it’s like dunking your brain in icewater.

Crap.

…

I don’t…I’ve lost all sense of what’s happening right now. I don’t like this. Julien, get me out of here, I don’t know what’s happening anym

mmmf….snack, snack’em, yep.

S’good. S’real good. A cheeseburger would be so good right now, or some CHICKEN oh my God. I have to tell Joe that I want to go back to Church with him soon, wait.

WAIT.

JOE. JOE! Sid’s friend’s name is Joe!

That’s so wild! I have to write it down in this dog over here.

…

Hello dog, would you like fried chicken covered in cheeseburger? I’d walk a thousand laps if I could just have one of those…walk right into Whataburger and say

“Howdy.”

Muse and Multitudes appear suddenly in the middle of the path like an abrupt interruption in your broadcasting day. For a moment, the many in the one consider sending a message to their lizard friend. But given his vessel's glazed over eyes and uncharacteristic sloppiness in the grooming department, it's easy to tell that this is not the right time or place. It's best to keep such things at base level for now. In their arms lay a rather obnoxiously long scarf, tailor made for pure Eurotrash.

“We're just going to give you this, okay?”

If there was an answer, Anna didn't hear it, forcing the poor young man to twirl around like a ballerina until he was covered in fabric. They pat him on the head and just as quickly walks in the opposite direction.

FLAMBERGE pauses, and for the first time in 32 laps around the track, he blinks.

…

I’ve figured out what I need to do, maybe.

I don’t know if it’s the scarf.

Is it the scarf? It’s warmer now. This feels…safe.

I’ve needed to feel safe. I’ve needed it for so long.

…

It’s like I’ve needed to decide what “safe” means. Or, more like…I’ve needed to decide what it looks like. I’ve needed control…mother of GOD, I’ve needed control, even just a little bit.

The last time in my life I felt safe, it was Strasbourg in the fall, it was familiar streets. It was me dealing with the sinkhole of anxiety you like to dance around in so much by visiting her.

I don’t care that you don’t like it. You stole the last tattered shreds of control I had left. You stole the rest of my safety.

Anna Daniels gave me an enormous

last chance, sweetheart. You think you want this, and I get why you think you want this.

I get why you think literally every single thought that comes across your stupid little poodle brain, and you should thank me for the ones I filter out and bury, you sicko.

…

What is this?

What are you…

Julien. Come on.

…please.

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease.

You don’t need to make these kinds of choices, and CERTAINLY not while you’re walking a dirt track at a castle in Wales. Just talk to Phil, he’ll set you right, he’ll tell you that

I am the true Lizard King and I am unconquerable, even by you.

Nothing gets to have this level of dominion over me.

Ever.

Fucking.

Again.

And I’ll collect every neck in the world at Culture Shock if that’s what it takes to feel safe again.

…

On my terms.

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