Post by Church on Dec 21, 2021 21:43:49 GMT -6
With a quick glance to the walkie talkie in his hand, Church grew tired of its complete silence. He clipped it secure to the pocket of his jeans, and leaned his shoulder tight to the cold cement wall. Peering slowly around the corner, he looked down the hallway he had followed the trail of ‘Jimothy’ down days prior. Growing impatient, he felt a little less careful this evening; a little more impulsive. He slid his body down the wall, turning the corner and approaching the door.
It was open, just slightly. Church’s eyes grew wide at the opportunity, tightening his fist as if he were cocking a gun.
This was it. It was time to come face to face with the man who had overseen his capture and imprisonment. Thanks to the radio silence on the day, Church wasn’t sure if he was about to walk into a room with one man in it or 10.
At the moment, it didn’t matter to him one bit. He’d stare down bullets to get answers. The most important question was if he could be patient enough with his fists to get answers before beating those who could give them to a bloody, speechless pulp.
He charged forward, shoving the door open with his large shoulder, right fist cocked back ready to swing like a sledgehammer. The large, open space was occupied by…not much at all. A large desk sat empty. There was nothing, nobody.
Silence. The theme of the day.
“Ya gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me…” Church said under the wave of a sighing breath. He walked over to the desk, the sound of his boots echoing off the walls, opening the doors to find nothing at all. He looks up at the ceiling, slowly running both hands down his beard. Walking back out into the hallway, he unclipped the walkie without looking at it, turning the knob up just a bit so he could hear any chatter. Looking straight ahead, his head danced around ideas as to his next move.
“Ya know…”
A voice shattered the silence. Thoughts interrupted. Church’s head snaps to his right with squinted eyes to see Howard Black resting his back along the wall nearby. An unlit cigarette rests between his lips as Church gets ready to defend himself.
“You can sneak around all you want, but do you really think they don’t know you have one of their radios?”
Church looks quickly at the walkie in his hand, but is too unsure to take his eyes off of The Lost Boy, despite the relaxed body language and lack of confrontation. Black lifts a Zippo from his pocket, lighting the cigarette and filling the immediate hallway with a first exhale. Black reaches into his opposite pocket and pulls out another, reaching his arm out without looking up. Church cocks an eyebrow, but steps forward, accepting the offered smoke and the consequent zippo light.
Suddenly Howard Black and Church were sharing a smoke break.
“Haven’t had much luck lately, have ya Church?” Black asked, his voice low and direct. For the first time, he glanced up to make eye contact with the much taller opposition. Church lets a quick laugh slip between his lips, more of a brush off.
“What the hell are you doin’ down here?”
“Oh look, another question you aren’t gettin’ an answer to. You’ve been stuck with nothin’ but questions since you won that tournament, haventcha? You thought you were fightin’ for the ultimate rake, turned out to be the worst thing that’s ever happened to ya.”
Church couldn’t dispute a word sent his way, but it didn’t mean he had to like it.
“You don’t get to act like the shadow that knows me. Yeah, I’ve got alot of fuckin’ questions. And you’re a man who gets answers, aintcha? Maybe you give me one right here, right now.”
“For free? You must be getting the wrong idea that I like ya.”
“What are we fighting for, Black? What are the Medallions? Another red herring? Another fake prize for the sake of a power play?”
“Really gettin’ the wrong idea here, Church.”
Church steps forward with aggression. Black doesn’t flinch for a moment, instead just putting up a hand in a request for calm.
“We’ve got our date, Church. We’ll fight for that medallion, I’m not the one right now that you want to get your hands on. I don’t know much about the medallion, but I do know one thing. You’re gonna want it. You’re gonna want all of them.”
“And how do you know that?”
“I’ve got my sources. I’ve always got my sources.”
“One of these sources Conrad Dukes?”
Howard nods silently.
“Von Brandt?”
“Let’s just say, Church, I see everything.”
Church purses his lips tight, resisting the violent urge once again.
“What do you know about Jimothy?”
“I know that that’s a dumb fuckin’ name.”
Church breathes in like a dragon about to unleash fire.
“You’re on your own on that one, Church. I don’t know who that is or what he does.”
Leaving well enough alone, the two take quiet inhales from their shared cigarettes.
“Your buddy Blackwater stop the internal bleeding from his ass-kickin’?”
“You still havin’ double vision from him knocking you the fuck out?” Church retorted immediately, impressing Howard Black to the tune of a slight smirk and a nod. He drops his cigarette carelessly to the floor, stomping it out and pointing a quick finger at Church as he turns his body to walk away.
“Whatdya say we celebrate a little Cambodian Christmas together, huh?” He walks away as Church allows it, fed up with a conversation that ran circles. Just like everything else. Taking one last big drag from his cigarette, he leaned towards the empty room he had hoped to find his captor in and tossed the cigarette onto the middle of the floor. Just for a moment, he wished the surrounding concrete would turn to straw and burn to the ground.
All questions, no answers. It was at the point where Church knew that the only option he was about to have left was to break everything.
It had been a while since Church set up the small camera for broadcast, but he was done with the silence. He was done trying to outsmart a system that was evolving in 5 different directions while he sat on a fuckin’ boat on the shore of Cambodia. Poor resolution from the depths of the ship didn’t stop his process, he wasn’t looking for high definition. Leaning forward, he pulled his long hair back out of his face so that the fire in his eyes was evident.
“You’re loving this, aren’t you? Watching me dance like the puppet you’d wished for all along. Dukes. Kindo. Jimothy. Whoever the fuck else has a hand on a string. I ran through your Season 1 tournament and got chopped down to size for it. L.A. Blackwater holds that BPW Championship and it’s nothing more than a prop in your play as you race to rewrite scripts and alter potential ending sequences. No. Fucking. More.”
“I’m done with the games. I’m done lookin’ in both directions. There’s only one way through this, and that’s clearly straight ahead. Through whatever walls you keep trying to put up, through whatever road blocks you rush to set…I’m crashing through. The medallions? I don’t give a fuck what I’m fighting for at this point, just know that I’m. going. To. fight. And I will take every single one of these supposed prize possessions just to show you that all you’re asking for is a repeat performance. Over and over again. Because until you kill me, CHURCH will be the one to keep taking the power back. From tournament money I’m still owed to a BPW Championship that came with a fucking neck collar…to each Medallion you want to dangle in front of our faces”
“This all ends the same way. And you will all be reminded that even gravity can’t hold. Me. Down. Howard Black may be a way for me to get an answer to atleast one of my questions, but the only question he will answer is ‘who was the next one to be taken to Church?’.”
“Fuck you Dukes.”
“Fuck you Kindo.”
“Playtime is over. And I’ll see to it that this ship. The charade that has become BPW. It ALL sinks to the bottom of the ocean where everything you’ve created will become nothing more than treasure no one cares enough to dive for.”
With a quick step forward, Church practically punches the off button, cutting the broadcast to a scrape of static.
*Credit to J.C./McManus for the banner*