((It was always hard waking up the next morning after a loss...always, and so as with any loss the day after And Justice For All) 2 was no different...The world felt hazy, and wrong. He felt denied, humiliated, and embarrassed. He'd missed a step somewhere, over stepped somewhere else, and ultimately fell down hard...))

((And Joshua had been watching in the back...he was sure of that. Had watched him come up short, while he had succeeded...The following week he'd pushed himself harder then was necessary...then was safe...))

((Currently he found himself in a little run down gym on the west coast spotting Chronos as he worked out on the bench press...The weight on the bar doesn't matter...shouldn't matter, but instead what you should be paying attention to is his rhythm. The smooth, fluid, motion that he raises and lowers the bar with. The perfect breathes...An illustration on control over one's body...))

((The moments pass in silence with very little sound. An occasional low and throaty grunt from Chronos, but otherwise only the ambient sounds of a gymnasium at twelve in the afternoon.))

((November's hands hover over the bar as it raises and lowers...his eyes remain focused on that same object...his attention unwavering...All the signs are there...the signs of the work out he went through just before the camera showed up...Unkempt hair laying flat and damp against his skull...a thin sheet of sweat covering his face...the large sweat spot running down the front of his white tank top...it's all there.))

((The bar finally settles back into place with a loud clank, and Chronos slowly pushes himself up. The two don't exchange so much as a glance as Chronos moves away off camera...there's probably a reason for that...))

((And then November turns to you...))

November: Whoever said my business with Chronos and Mirage had anything to do with you, Twenty-One? In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, we made it a point to stay away from you, and your little fiasco of embarrassment during the closing of And Justice For All's festivities...

So keep in mind Twenty-One that while you might be the focus of my hate...you are not the focus of my life. 

((That's a lie...he knows it's a lie. When he ran this morning all he was thinking about was how much faster Twenty-One was running. When he stopped for breakfast he obsessed on the kinds of foods Twenty-One was taking in while he trained...Was it the same diet most of the Charms followed...or something else...He was lying to himself.))

But you know, if I wanted to scare you...you'd be terrified by now, but I'm not trying to scare you Twenty-One. But what I'm going to do is slowly destroy you, and in that same process I will begin to outshine you. And in doing that I'll erase The Fatal Charms from our collective memories. Now you just tell me when you're ready to stand up and be something, and when you do I'll be there to knock you down again...and again.

((With one fluid motion he drops down onto the bench press, and leans a shoulder into the bar...He'll have plenty of time for Twenty-One later...he was a problem that wasn't about to go away for awhile yet, but there was another problem on his mind that he'd been working on for the past couple of weeks...))

I...

((Shaking his head he lot the thought go...he'd deal with it later...))

Yeah, Machine...I heard you saying something, but I couldn't quite make it out. Next time try removing the cock from your mouth before you try going a verbal round with me. You just might stand a chance that way.

((black...))