Title: Tyrants' Road: Kings, Fools, Executioners
Featuring: Violence Jack
Date: 2/23/2011
Location: Various (Rev 240 vs Ward)

Heaven is burning. All around them, cathedrals topple and sanctuaries crumble. Denizens of this promised land, panicked, surge from their places of asylum and into the blood-slicked streets. A churning black cloud, death incarnate come from a world long thought distant and powerless, accelerates in its path overhead to hang ominously in skies once streaked at once blue, silver and gold. Paradise, now lost. The divine heartland, invaded by forces hellbent on its destruction.

Carnage reigns as angel and demon alike die amidst the strife, bodies consumed by the hellfire cascading in a raging torrent from the tainted blackness overhead. In one such scene a hideous thing lies cradled in the arms of one of the Holy City's winged crusaders, both slaughtered and frozen in one ultimate and visceral representation of their eternal conflict. It is here that the forces of the Maker and those of the Old Ones will determine the masters of creation. Armageddon and Megiddo will never see the war come; the land long prophecized to see the end is only an Earthly surrogate, parable for a war transcending the mortal realm.

There are no trumpets, no seals being opened. Ruin has come like a thief in the night to steal away dominion from its long unchallenged master. This very world screams in its death throes, a conscious and fragile reality breaking under the stress, the ground shuddering beneath monstrous war constructs come to crush the palaces and holy sanctums of the celestial capital. In all of his knowledge and vigilance, even the Creator never saw such a campaign take form in those black gulfs of outer existence he'd long forgotten, places he'd relinquished eons past to those purveyors of madness and vile antiquity.

But it had been a mortal that spurred them to this action. A mortal even He had dismissed as a maniac, just an impotent heretic leading others like him on Earth. Even He had underestimated his ambition to see revolution undertaken, the seat of creation defiled in an effort to become one with the essence of power.

He faces the mortal directly, his chamber cleared of guards. Outside the palace, the war rages. Inside, facing one another and separated only by a handful of cobbled steps, silence prevails. The air is cold, the cracked stone floor likewise. The only warmth emanates from the blood painted across the long blade gripped in the mortal's hand, his infernal Excalibur. Bruce Shanahan has cut a bloody swathe through Heaven's sentinels to reach here.

He produces something from behind his back. Still dripping blood, its black eyes are cold and unflinching. It had faced its final moments with calm resolution, as grim as the tasks it had undertaken during its existence.

"Raphael."

Shanahan pitches the decapitated head of the archangel toward his foe, watching it roll and come to rest at his feet. From his golden throne, the other offers nary a further word on his servant's demise. In the distance, a mighty roar announces the clash of two other celestial titans as Heaven and the Void rekindle their struggle, revelation come to pass.

"He fought, as did the others I'm told." Shanahan gestures to the head and its stoic, dead gaze. "He didn't sit idly by as what he'd made and worked for was wrecked by usurpers. We, the damned and condemned, relegated for so long to stalking the fringes of places you renounced."

"What do you hope to achieve in this, my son?" the voice asks. No hate, no anger, not even sadness.

"The fall of a tyrant." The polar opposite, tinged with fiendish fury.

"In exchange for others?" He appeared apathetic even to his own impending demise, an impassive face that belonged on a dead man. "They've duped you, you know. What sort of maniac would worship them, those bringers of pestilence and chaos?"

Shanahan says nothing, muted by his own rage. He'd hoped the divine father of all, proclaimed to be nigh-omnipotent, would play the part of the warrior in his waning moments. He wanted the satisfaction of besting Him, mortal triumphing over immortal, not the diatribe of a frail sage, degenerate and atrophic, atop an isolated throne.

"Is it vengeance? Displeasure? Power? Tell me, why would you and your kind hand such wicked beings the reins of creation?"

Still nothing. The other sighs, rising, resigned to fate.

"What you are doing cannot be undone. If this is what you seek, you seal the fate of all things. There is no going back, no salvation to be had. All is lost."

A growl, touched by satisfied finality. "Time to die."

With that, Bruce Shanahan takes the head of God. All becomes nothing.



= = = = = =



If war is Hell, I have no place in Heaven.

It's a sad thing to admit that I don't feel alive anymore without the chatter of gunfire or static-charged voices bursting from the comm in my ear. I think watching my life flash before my eyes nine and a half years ago crippled my humanity, made every day reality into little more than a passing shadow. Life was soulless. Banal. I watched old friends and people only slightly familiar from morning elevator rides streak toward the ground, choosing one death over another. Incinerated by burning jet fuel

I think about it often. I had a therapist that told me it was unhealthy to focus so much attention on such a catastrophic event. I stopped going to that guy. He and his Ivy League doctoral degree were far too sheltered for me after what I'd seen and endured. All the pretentious theory in the world paled next to experience, and he had none of that.

For guys like me, the only real therapist is my kin. Brotherhood forged in combat, seeing the same horrors and sharing those same gut-rending experiences. When you've shared in the darkness of war, really seen the depravity of the human condition instead of just relying on lectures and books, you can share pretty much anything and know you've found a kindred spirit. We're our own therapists.

When you've faced a tsunami of bullets and wrecked entire terror cells, that office job just never seems the same again....


"Captain?"

Ramsay Bennett, the War-Hound and leader of the Blackhelm Coalition's Alpha Strike team, looks up from his work. At the door of his makeshift office is Willis, the team sniper.

"Apologies, sir. Disturbing you?"

Bennett leans back, resting his pen on the desk. "Journal writing. Who knows, if I live long enough then maybe they can be the anchor of some memoirs."

The other is uneasy. "They're here. Your guests. And before you say anything, I don't like it."

The captain's expression doesn't change. There's no surprise in that disclosure, not from a man who has spent the better part of the past decade taking up arms against the very individuals he's welcomed into his abode. Not with open arms by any means.

"I know you don't, Willis. But you know the score here. The enemy of my enemy, strange bedfellows and all that."

The veteran sharpshooter groans. "That doesn't necessarily make them your friends. That adage doesn't always hold true, especially not with some of these guys. They're ruthless, they're conniving..."

"...And they know him better than anyone else in the world. I'm willing to take that chance."

Anticipating the visit, he'd sent the others away. In particular, Slade and Webb could never know this meeting took place, not with the obsessive mindsets that had taken them as of late. Willis was headstrong in many respects but he was the most patient, the most open-minded in regards to the odd and even nauseating politics sometimes necessary as they followed this course. Choosing lesser evils and agreeing to uneasy truces was protocol in this line of work.

Sooner or later, they would get theirs too. Bennett would be sure they were well aware that this changed nothing between them, it was a brief means to an end. The feeling was assuredly mutual.

"Let's get this over with."



= = = = = =



"I can't believe our luck. When's the last time he granted an interview to anyone, let alone wrestling journalists?"

"Years I think." His friend, Dylan Yeager, chewed nervously on his fingernails. He wasn't nearly as happy or as animated. He felt legitimate anxiety, even a lingering dread at being in the presence of the man who led the Sect of Black Wisdom. "Christ, it kinda gives me the creeps."

"Don't be so damn uptight. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, man! Even the big names haven't been able to land this guy."

Newton Hiller was ecstatic, and he had been ever since the correspondence had landed in his mailbox two weeks ago. The request had been done on a whim really; his wrestling news site was small, barely off the ground and not even competition to the major players and domains of the industry. The kid had hoped for nothing more than a refusal with his target's signature attached, little more than a cheap autograph acquisition scheme. He never dreamed that this man would grant him a one-on-one interview, not to the long time fan-turned-blogger. Seasoned veteran, world traveled star, tournament powerhouse, and now PRIME Jewel in the Crown and top title contender. This stuff was reserved for the top dirt sheets and magazines.

Violence Jack was controversial, considered by many the most diabolical and despicable figure operating in professional wrestling. But he'd agreed to meet, grant him an exclusive. Maybe even a monstrous icon like him was willing to give a break to a greenhorn journalist. That was what fueled Hiller as he sat with his pen already poised to jot quick notes, notebook computer already humming at his side. Yeager's anticipation was closer to alarm as he heard shuffling and murmurs in the adjacent room.

The door opened, and it would later be stated that it was a singular moment that altered Newton Hiller's life forever.

Even the air seemed charged by his presence, the room dominated in some uncanny and outwardly intangible way. He was flanked to either side by his allies, or minions depending on who you asked, with Blake Ender to one side and Hayate Sanada on the other. They were his guardians, safeguarding him from rivals and enemies as his plans unfolded. Such was a necessary precaution for an individual that entire religious factions had marked for death.

Bruce Shanahan approached the young man, the latter visibly quivering with anticipation. Introductions were informal regardless of the tension in the air. Yeager excused himself from the room, a small conference chamber they had rented out in a small hotel not far from the arena that would be hosting Revolution in just a couple of days. As soon as the door closed behind him, Newton Hiller's accomplice puked up his dinner.

In his absence, Shanahan wasted no time. It took little to sway the kid; he was already star-struck beyond the almost unnatural charisma that Shanahan infamously commanded.

"Before we start, I know why you wanted this interview, my boy."

Shanahan clasped his hands, his fingertips loosely tracing lines in the air. Hiller's eyes were transfixed on his movements, his posture, taking it all in. A lifelong follower of the sport, this was a meeting he knew would never forget. Though he had no idea precisely how accurate a feeling that was.

"You hoped to be the man to sit down with the beast himself, and ask me about how my career has been shaped. You want to be the one to translate to the world how I really feel about my crowning at King of Kings, about my imminent shot at Culture Shock. Maybe you even want to know some juicy tidbits about PRIME politics, locker room rumors, yay-or-nay confirmation on some stories that have landed on the internet."

The boy enraptured, his second still tasting the undigested remnants of his lunch combo in the restroom, Shanahan moved in. His voice changed almost imperceptibly, a subtle technique he'd long ago perfected in an effort to further his deranged machinations.

"I want you to be my voice, Newton. My personal cyberspace spokesman in a sense. You'll translate my message to the world, spread my sermons for the people to read and hear." He reclined gently, Ender passing a folder into his hands, leathery hands thick with calloused flesh. "I'm getting older, my boy. My grasp on technology is slipping. I understand you're in the know, on the cutting edge, and that's why I chose you. It's why I acquiesced to granting this interview to you among all of the eager applicants. You're not the first to desire this, you won't be the last."

"I dreamed en route here, saw things unfold in such dazzling stages of detail you couldn't believe it. Do you know what I witnessed, Newton?"

No, of course not. The boy was mesmerized, mere putty in the malefic and manipulative grip of the Bringer of the Black Gospel. The man called Violence Jack leaned in close, almost whispering into the boy's ear. Toxic words injected directly into his subverted consciousness.

"I saw the fall of Heaven. The death of God. You should have aseen it, Newton, oh, the splendor of devastation. A kingdom erected on lies, on fear, on millions of years of subjugation...annihilated." Shanahan smiled before blurting out a laugh, an insidious outburst laced with malice. "They say what we fight for is unholy, evil. I tell you, son, nothing could be more righteous than the overthrow of a tyrant."

He drew himself upright again, averting his eyes and drumming his fingers on the desk between them. He shifted subjects yet again.

"Podcasts, Youtube addresses, marketing to would-be disciples of the new faith. That's my offer. Tell me, son: how would you really feel about taking this beyond a one-off Q & A session to garner a few extra hits on a struggling webzine, and take on a role of ambassador, interpreter, the voice of the supposed monster Bruce Shanahan? An integral part in shaping an entirely new culture?"

Newton Hiller was making a deal with the devil, and he didn't care. Like so many before him, even though he didn't know why, he was willing to sign away his soul to appease Shanahan and his voracious hunger for power.

"Oh, child, the stories I have to tell you. Let me begin with the ballad of Shanahan, Kelsig, and Ward..."
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