((He's not running or jumping or lifting. He's not drenched in sweat. His shoulder's don't slump in exhaustion. His breathing isn't labored. It should be though. He should be more focused now then he has been at any time before this. Well almost...because there was always fall from grace six, and that mattered to him on a different level. A level where title shots and records didn't rate. But that'd become such a distant memory now that he'd stopped caring about it. After all he had been such a different person then...with asinine hopes and aspirations.))

((He almost could have laugh at what he'd been it was so funny. Laughed at the tool he'd allowed himself to be, and he would have too if only it meant he didn't have to smile. Because he didn't feel like smiling. Didn't even feel like talking really. In fact he was more or less content to watch the waves rolling in on Malibu.))

((The sand beneath his bare feet felt good...it felt right. The feel and texture was like an old childhood memory revisiting him over and over with each move of his foot. The music of the ocean folding into the shore made his mind spill over with memory after memory, and then he wanted to talk, but not about you, or him, or they, but about what really mattered to him... ))

((He wanted too, and he knew the camera was right there of course. Right behind him waiting for him, and why wouldn't it be? He made the call, right? He chose the location, right? There must have been a reason, right? Yeah there was a reason, but he'd still rather talk about that time when James...))

November: So they tell each other that the other one doesn't really matter. That they're just a match waiting to happen. That there's nothing personal going into this. That it's just a professional hatred for an opponent.

Yet, they jab the hardest when it comes to subjects of a personal nature. The only problem there is that they don't know anything about the other. They have assumptions, and they might have passed by each other one or twice in the back, but they really don't know what it is they hate about the other. 

((It's maybe just a little after noon...the heat of the day, and he's dressed for the weather. A pair of black shorts, cloth, and a white t-shirt cover his body as his gave reaches out across the beach.))

((As a kid he's chase each glint in the sand in hopes of finding buried treasure, but as was the case...with every step in the direction of the glint a dozen or so more would appear, and before too long he'd lose track of his original target. He was five then he thought...five was a good age...  ))

I suppose their hatred for one another is all based on assumptions. Assumptions that they've allowed themselves to make into fact. It's stupid I know...with how enlightened they both pretend to act...with how open minded they want the rest of the world to be...they are both so very shallow, and that's the only reason I need to hate the both of them.

Actually...I hate Twenty-One just a little bit more, and it use to be "just because". Just because I could I did, and it helped. It helped me crawl back into that ring again after months of downtime. And even during our whole game of cat and mouse there was never a reason. Most would assume that it was because he took the lead role in a film that I thought was going to me, but that wasn't really it...because I felt more hatred for Shawn and Jeffery at that time. They were family, they wronged me, and Twenty-One was just an innocent bystander in a little family feud.

I perhaps dwelled on that for a handful of months, and went through all of the proper emotions...pity, hate, self-loathing...and while I still plan on being around to watch Twenty-One and the Fatal Charm dynasty fall apart...I've worked past all of that for the most part, but there's still that issue of hate I feel for the Fatal Charms spokesman...it's not "just because" anymore.

((He inhales deeply of the ocean air...and even that is enough to push more memories back up out of the shadows of obscurity. You wouldn't see it from the camera's vantage, but he did just smile. Not at anything witty he felt he might have said...or even something currently going on. It was more a smile that's been trapped in time, and was finally just released by the memory of a young Kyle Lee losing his ice cream cone in the tide...))

((His father had told him the sharks ate it...he didn't go back in the water for a whole week, and when he finally did again it was only because he'd forgotten all about the sharks...He felt like calling up Shawn and talking...because they knew each other. They were at one time friends, and that was a hard thing to let go of, but he had, and so the smile faded...))

Yeah, now I have an answer for you, Twenty-One. It's because you drop names you really know nothing about. It's because you've allowed what I liked about you at one point to be swallowed up by the west coast. It's because a full circle doesn't make any sense when you're just continuing that same circle Jeffery was on. There's nothing about you anymore that's really you. I close my eyes, and what I hear is Jeffery Drake rhetoric spilling from your lips.

And yeah it works...I won't and can't deny that, but it's not you anymore. You didn't force the spotlight to pick you out of the crowd...five-years of Fatal Charm mystique placed you directly in the center of that spotlight.

And I'm glad now...I'm glad that I didn't walk that same path. Because I would have been no different, and my family would have fallen just as fast. Too bad they can't see that. Too bad they don't realize sometimes you have to change interior as well as the exterior. I know Twenty-One none of it makes sense anymore, and I'm all over the place emotionally, but I think I'm starting to find myself. Starting to remember who I was before I became, November.

((His first kiss was on this beach...just a little down the way in fact. He turned his head in that direction, and could almost smell the burning wood. It was midnight then, and they had all been huddled around a bon fire. It was the summer after his seventh-grade year...))

((Her name was Cindy, and she wasn't amazingly stunning. Just a plain girl that a friend of a friend knew, but he was extremely attracted to her. She was only visiting for the summer though, and so that first kiss had turned into his first love, and then his first heartbreak...Kentucky of all places...))

I'm keeping the name though. It still has a lot of sentimental meaning to me...so hopefully you'll forgive me that, and if not...well that doesn't really matter either. So having said all of that, there's still the issue of a match. So now you can either accept my offer for a match at NoA 4 now...or you can continue to wait on Darren Ridel who will never accept a match with you because he knows he can't beat you.

Regardless...it's your choice now when or if ever you want a match against me. I'm tired of playing that game with you.

((He raises his head to the sky, and shields his eyes against the glare of the sun. As far back as he could remember nine times out of ten the sky always looked like that. Even in the winter. If you could call it that...The first time he'd experienced snow wasn't until he was well into his teens, but that was just a vacation...and by the time they were back home he'd already forgotten about what true cold was...))

((Just like he'd forgotten about everything else in his life...))

Of course my dislike for Angelus is found on a whole different tangent, and is perhaps a bit simpler to explain. He judged me with out knowing me. I stepped into the VFS as a nobody, and had nothing but the up most respect for him and his career, and because of my name I was labeled the same as Jeffery Drake and Twenty-One.

That's pretty funny considering this labeling was coming from a guy who damned other people for labeling him because he was young...or he was a Wicca...or he loved women...or he spoke French. Yeah, but suddenly the rules he created for himself don't apply to me...because in my stupidity I wanted to be what my family was.

Forgive me father for I have sinned. 

Forgive me father for having a family. 

Forgive me father for parents who provided for me. 

Forgive me father for not being, Angelus.

And so now...now that I've turned away from my family with no help from you...Now you like me on some level don't you? Now you can't get enough of what I've become. Fuck you Angelus for first labeling me, and then not helping me break away sooner. Fuck you.

((The memories were slowing down now...talking too much about topics that didn't matter like labeling and not being one's self...and reaching for the prize tended to drain him quickly. He wanted a real conversation. He needed...))

((He needed to get to the gym...))

So then there's just you, Inferno. The last on my list of "worthwhile" subjects. I don't know where to start and where to end really...I suppose I could do what's expected of me and preach to you how this is my first title shot, and the hunger and desire to hold that title is greater then yours, but then how would one go about proving that? That's all bullshit...because I don't know you...

I mean after all that's your first title too isn't it? And only because you couldn't quite make it to the World title match right? I mean because otherwise you would be our champion, right? I bet you're kicking yourself for that one right now on some level. So again I won't do what's expected of me and illustrate that my focus is so much greater then yours because I would have never missed that match...because that's bullshit...I missed out on the first five-years of what should have been a great career. So you miss a match for whatever reason...it happens...So then the question that's proposed is what route does November take? 

Is he gonna play the nice guy bit? Or is he going to try and throw the insults left and right as he did with Wally Attict and Jackson Santee? Who, by the way, will get my attention when and only when we have another match. So that leads us all back to the original question what's it gonna be November...what's it gonna be?

((A moment of hesitation, and then he pushes himself up out of the sand...brushing at the back of his shorts in the process...))  

Well...the way I see it...I don't need to say too much. Because as you so elegantly put it to my friend Mirage, you don't need to say anything at all unless it's to sell a shirt. So you go ahead and sell your shirt...talk to the big dogs that matter and spread your name around on the wings of a catch phrase. And then...then just maybe I'll be the lucky dog that you decide to drop your title to so that you can get a shot at the World title...

Hmm, title for title matches use to happen all the time right? But, hey that's just me blocking loop holes left and right like I do...all the time...Hey, who do I remind myself of right now? It'll come to me in a second I'm sure...

But getting back to you, and a statement you made, and I'll quote you because I can...whoa! Who is that I'm ripping off? Let me think about it for a second while I lay down this quote to the very best of my memory..."I've already got Twenty-One running scared, something that you and your two friends haven't been able to do despite your greatest efforts to prove... well... whatever it is you're trying to prove." Wow! I'm really surprised that I was able to remember all of that...I mean...that's amazing don't you think...but in getting back to YOUR quote let's break it down a bit...

I do realize that that wasn't directed to me, but all the same I was implied so please do tell me exactly when I ever said or even implied Mirage, Chronos, and myself were trying to scare anyone off? I brought the three of us together for protection and little else, and together we made a violent truce with the M.o.A, yeah...but never did I or they say that we were trying to scare Twenty-One away. No, in fact I'm pretty sure that I said I would outshine Twenty-One in the end, and that I would watch him fall away back into obscurity. You can research to try and prove me wrong, but you won't find the quote you're looking for...it doesn't exist.

There's no plot to over take the federation...or bring down the M.o.A...or string Twenty-One up to a scoreboard. Nah, it's much simpler then all of that. I hold a chair to watch their backs, and they do the same...sometimes we're successful, and sometimes we're not. Eh...it happens.

I know now you're dying to say something now...despite the fact that you don't have to talk...you want to, and so you'll do your best imitation of a real wrestler, and come out on that camera, drop a few words to spin the story around, and in the process leave yourself wide open for my left hook that you didn't even know about. Because you labeled me wrong... 

And I'll end it right there...you may speak now. Good boy...

((black...))