Post by tigermaskred on May 29, 2017 3:23:30 GMT
Star Wars was a work of fiction, fucking amazing fiction but fiction nonetheless. Ok, the prequel trilogy left something to be desired and the man known as Tiger Mask Red might never truly forgive George Lucas, though genius that he may be, for turning Darth Vader into a whiny bitch or any of the unnecessary changes to the movie (Han shot first damn it!), but overall it was an incredible saga. Borrowing from Greek mythology and the works Edgar Rice Burroughs, the saga of three generations of Skywalkers had become a sort of mythology of its own, something that could be handed down for generations, much like Anakin's lightsaber, from father to son.
Tiger knew the movies weren't really, no one needed to tell him that, but as he pulled into his garage he clearly felt a disturbance in the Force. He groaned inwardly as he pulled his suitcase from the trunk of his Trans Am and walked inside. There was only one person who he could "sense" like this, someone he wished he hadn't seen in 20 years like Obi-Wan and Vader had, his father.
His wife, Charlotte, was there to greet him as he entered. Her furrowed brow told him all he needed to know. He gave her a kiss on the cheek and squeezed her hand reassuredly. For a brief second he thought about grabbing a weapon, you could never be too careful about his father, but thought better of it.
"Where is he?"
Charlotte pointed down the hall, "He's in the den and Haruto's with him."
"Perfect," he growled.
Without another word, he made his way down the hallway towards the den, taking slow, deliberate breaths along the way. This was the second time that his father had invaded their solitude without his permission. He would rather his former friend, Jacob Hammerstein had shown up, and considering their relationship these days, that said a lot.
The man known to the wrestling world as Tiger mask Red entered his den without knocking, a beast doesn't need to give an invader to his lair fair warning for his intrusion. He stopped for a second and his blood turned cold. There, sitting in his chair, was his father playing with his two year old son, Haruto, the little boy was laughing at something the old man had done. The sight should have brought joy to his heart, that's how you're supposed to feel when you see you're father playing with your son, but the sight made his stomach clench and made him want to vomit.
Haruto looked up and saw his father standing there and smile.
"Papa!"
He returned the young boys smile and waved to him to come.
"Haru tora, mama o mi ni iki nasai."
The little boy gave his grandfather a kiss on the cheek and hopped off his lap. He ran over to his father for a quick hug before running out of the den in search of his step-mother. Once he was gone his father shut the door to the study and turned back to the old man sitting in his chair.
"Nice to see that you're encouraging him to speak Japanese, Son."
"Well we think it's important that he be able to hold onto part of his culture," our protagonist replied, flopping down on a couch, "I'd teach him how to speak the demonic tongue of the Hades as well, but you know, since I disowned you as a father I've sort of fallen out of practice with the language."
The old man laughed quietly to himself.
"So it's still going to be like that, is it?"
"Damn rights, Mr Ambassador."
"That's former ambassador, Son."
"Whatever, I'd rather call you that than Dad."
His father clucked his tongue and shook his head.
"Is that anyway to speak to the man who raised you almost single handedly after your mother passed away, God rest her soul, and who provided for you everything you ever needed."
The younger man groaned, hearing the same old tired argument from his father. He had slipped his hand inside the couch, where he had hidden a package filled with flash paper and a lighter, but resisted the urge to set the old man a blaze. Instead he decided to hurl some fire with his tongue.
"I owe you nothing. Charlie's parents and your employees at the embassy were more parents to me than you were, and don't think for a second I owe you a dime because every cent you ever gave me, for wrestling school, for that first flight to Japan, for bringing Haruto to Canada, for helping start up our business, I've paid you it all back with interest. You turned a blind eye to my battles with mental illness and even tried to exploit it for your gain in that company run by the chickens. If it wasn't for the people who really care for me, I'd probably still be blindly following Nirvana around and attacking cameramen for looking at me wrong. You have failed me as a father and if I fail my children the way you failed me, Holly and Real..."
It was his father's turn to groan.
"You had to go there, didn't you?"
"… God help me, if mess up Haruto and our unborn twins the way you messed us up, may someone blow my brains out."
"A little over dramatic if you ask me," his father said, laughing dryly, "but the point is taken. Perhaps I'll do better as a grandfather than I did as a father."
"Over my dead body."
The older man started chuckling and slowly rose to his feet.
"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," he quipped, pulling out an envelope from his pocket and tossing it to his son.
"What's this," the younger man said, staring at the envelope.
"It's the payment from my friends for you throwing the match with Avery Miles III a few months ago. I apologize for not bringing it sooner, but you know, it's hard when your own son is wants to burn your face off at first sight."
"I didn't throw that fight, Miles took everything I could throw at him and came back with more. He beat me that night because he was the better man, not because I let him."
The older man chuckled again, this time a bit louder.
"Well my friends could care less whether you did or not, what matters to them is that they got the results they were hoping for. They were so happy with how things turned out, they want you to do it again. You have a big match coming up against three opponents, Mark Storm, Julliet Brooks and Dragon Diamante. My friends don't care if you're pinned or not, they want you to lose this match."
"No."
"Please think about it, Son, they will certainly make it worth your while, especially if Storm wins."
"Absolutely not."
"Eli..."
Without thinking, the younger man jumped to his feet. He ripped the envelope in half and tossed it to the floor.
"I will say this only one more time, then you better go before I do something I might regret. I will walked into that four way match against those competitors and I will do everything in my power to win. You can go back to your friends and tell them I'm not interested. Unlike you, I'm no sell out."
His father shook his head, almost sadly. He grabbed his hat and overcoat from the desk with one hand and an open magazine with the other. He slowly made his way around the desk and dropped the magazine on his son's lap as he made his way to the door.
Despite himself, the man known to the world as Tiger Mask Red looked down at the magazine. There in front of him was a full page ad with him in his mask and wrestling attire holding a bottle of Tiger Fire Whiskey with the tagline "Because Every Tiger Deserves A Drink Of Their Own!"
"Not a sell out, eh," his father asked, "Looks like you might be one after all. Think about our offer, carefully, and you might want to tape that cheque back together, I'm sure the bank won't have a problem accepting it still."
His son refused to answer and so the old man shrugged his shoulders and opened the den door.
"I'll just see myself out then. Say goodbye to Haruto for me, I'm sure I'll be seeing him soon."
And with that he was gone, leaving our protagonist alone... and conflicted.
***
"I've got to admit, I didn't quite picture my return like this."
Tiger Mask Red stands in the middle of the GoL ring, looking around the Labyrinth at all the seats currently empty. In a few mere hours this holy place will be filled to the rafters with the GoL Faithful, screaming at the top of their lungs.
"When I came back, I was sure that I had AM3's number. At no point in my career have I ever felt more prepared than I did for him that evening. I was in the best shape of my career and I knew every move he was about to do before he even was even going to do it... and I still came up short. Please don't misunderstand me, I don't say any of this out of arrogance, only certainty. I knew I was going to beat AM3, and I was wrong. What else can I say? My triumphant return came up a bit short and now I find myself on the bottom of the ladder looking up."
He shakes his head begins to sing.
"If you want to be the top banana,
You gotta start at the bottom of the bunch."
He breaks off singing and laughs.
"Sorry, been watching too many old reruns of 'The Muppet Show' with my son, he loves Fozzy Bear. That's the thing though, isn't it, I find myself at the bottom and now I've got to work my way back up to the top. This Sunday night, I face off with three other competitors who all find themselves in the same position as I am in. They all want to climb that ladder, fight and claw their way up over all the other bananas, if you get my meaning, and make their way to the top. All four of us want to be the top banana and that means that we need to go through one another to do so.
"I have a lot of respect for all three of my opponents, Mark Storm, Julliet Brooks and Dragon Diamante. Lady and gentlemen, on any other evening, against each other or any other opponent, I would be one of your strongest supporter, I am truly a fan of all three of you, but at 'Chapter Once: Uno! Dos! Tres!' you three mean nothing to me. You three are simply three more competitors that I need to climb over to get another shot a championship gold here in GoL, and not only prove I'm worthy of being this company's first ever Hall of Fame inductee, but to further cement my legacy in this industry. To that end, there is no rock that I won't overturn or underhanded trick I won't try to win this match.
"I'll apologize to now to The Faithful before the four of us meet in the ring because I truly love and appreciate their belief in me since I returned from the pits of hell. There is nothing more that I want to do than to make you proud of me after all the love you've give me, but a leopard can't change his spots, or I guess, a tiger can't change his stripes. You, the fans, The Faithful, very well might hate me by the end of this match, because it necessary I'll hit Storm with a chair, put Brooks through a table, or even throw a fireball into the masked face of Diamante to win, not because I hold any malice to any of them, but because it needed to be done.
"Storm, Brooks, Diamante, I truly hope that it doesn't come to any of this. I really hope that we all go out there and steal the show. There's nothing more that would please me than if the fans chanted 'This is Lucha' and stood on their feet the whole time, holding their breath Lose, win or draw I hope I can shake your hands and that you'll forgive me for the wrongs that I might have committed against you. After all, all's fair in love and bananas."
He starts singing again and as the camera pulls back it's revealed that the ring is surrounded by banana peels.
"If you want to be the top banana,
You've got from the bottom, UP!"