Christmas with Animus

(Seen neck down, he sits at a dinner table surrounded by family, but it is like he is a ghost. Everyone wears spider masks that suit their character and names. At the head of the table, upon a golden dragon throne, one with a golden spider mask. Beside Gold, a woman in a fay themed spider mask. Beside her, real close is the only one without a spider mask, instead dawning a mask of a young boy. Distant, but imposing, one with a shearling fur coat with a harpoon themed chibi spider mask, mocking or tributing Cthulhu.)

“Another holiday, another time I share with the denizens of Wrestleworld. It doesn’t matter whether Halloween, Thanksgiving, or Christmas, you’re always welcome to walk into my parlour. Apologies, I mean home. Thanksgiving celebration of betrayal truly is my favourite, but even I must concede this is quite the season of families coming together and giving you the gifts you’ll always remember.”

Gold: All I ask on this Christmas day is for us to live prosperously, and for the rest of you to follow my lead in achieving goals and being above being controlled by typical sins. I know for some, one, of you, this seems rather difficult.

Tinker: Oh, don’t be like that, the little guy is trying. If he sticks to his guns, I’m sure he can be an adorable little champion.

Chuchulhu: Ha! Do you realize there’s a reason I was the chosen one? Not him, he’s an eyesore….your statements merely amuse.

(The figure whose head is above camera view stands up, walking by ignored as he speaks.)

“I find life to be quite a cyclical experience. Always meeting the same type of people. Leaders of men who pass down their edicts as they become accustomed to being head of the table, people that patronize with support if you do what they want, and peers that are wrapped up in such mighty lifestyles that they all can’t see what is building up beneath the surface. They don’t want to, no they can’t, scratch beneath that surface because they’re utterly incapable of looking deep into something they’d hope not to see.”

(He gets behind the left shoulder of the Kid.)

Kid: What’s so funny? I could be a great champion just the way I am! Bitch.

(Tinker smothers the Kid with a hug.)

Tinker: You tell em sport! But watch your language, you have temper problems, calm down. No one will take you serious lashing out like that.

(He puts his hand upon the Kid’s left shoulder.)

“No, you must learn to channel that hatred. Refine it until it is a fine blade that can cut through your woes. Sever your enemies, slide through the back of your friends, and puncture everything in between! I know you can hear me, you’re drawn to call of enmity. Let Pendragon, Renee, and Jonetta know your might.”

Kid: What???

“Make Asakura know it is not over, and he shall never escape you, no matter how far ahead he thinks he is! Teach Cynthia the knowledge learned from the webs, you are no child nor false existance! Ozymandias simply needs to fall in line, his role as a chosen leader was as false as his god, your the true rightful heir that can lead our forces to the promised land.

Kid: I don’t understand, I don’t know any of these people.

“THEIR NAMES DO NOT MATTER! Mr Gold, Tinker, the False Idol, no matter where you go, from the comfort of your own home, to the Grotto, to Wrestleworld, to anywhere in this big old world,  there will always be people of their ilk! Pompous Gold who forges on ahead taking charge, thinking itself a dragon, you must always make it clear that Silver is at it’s back! Tinker, a lover of fairy tales sees to it that children grow up coddled in foolish stories of restraint and happy ends, but it is the cautionary fictions of flame and destruction that truly ought to rule the day! False Idol always gets your mantle through appearances and favour, but fumbles the ball that rolls downhill to greater depths of carnage where you shall await! Even you, Kid, there’s always people of your kind who need a push to take you out of stale plain youth. Use the others to drive you, to dig deep into your well of raging malice that can change the tides and disturb the currents! You need only dawn your gift, the one they give you. But quickly now, there’s always others wanting to take what’s yours.”

(A man with a Lizard mask enters, slamming open the door and pointing at the Gold spider mask.)

Lizard: GOLD, YOU’RE MINE!

(The Lizard and Gold begin fighting as everyone turns their attention to it, except the Kid and headless figure.)

“Very troublesome, how this invasive species encroaches on the domain of the arachnid. Still, it is only natural for the season to have friends of the family visit. They simply don’t understand, rats, snakes, crows, and all our other friends in the realm of treachery do not have the qualities of the arachnoid! They can do their deed by scurrying with disease, slithering in the grass, and taking to the skies in their attempts to scavenge for sustenance, but only the spider has the ability to weave its own traps! Only we work with fine silk that shines like silver and can be the fabric that blankets these naked empires that have lost their clothes!"

It is only natural for cretins to disparage and look down upon the spider, they confuse us for insects. It is their own undoing, for they walk right into our web in their ignorance. Still, it upsets you does it not? How foolish they are. How arrogant! Them making it easy does not quell that feeling! So put it on, take all that they gave you and give in to the hatred that makes you whole!

(A wrapped up box appears before the child, he opens it on to see the spider mask of Animus. He stalls for a moment, before putting it own, as webs begin to blanket the screen into darkness.)

^️Afterwards, it comes back on with a wiping away of the webs to Animus alone at the table.^️

If you wish to fuel Animus, each and every single one of you is quite up to the task. Always prodding. Always speaking out of your stations. Always stuck in on the past.

Mr Jones, Kid that has yet to take that next step into defining yourself, don’t question how I lead my team, when you have nothing to command but plain followers. What is that you know of needing to do anything to instill your leadership? Claudia Michaels is just your very own Tinker, someone who coddles you and makes little tweaks so you can stay as you are without any real pressure in the world. Look at that the team she set up for you; she took no chances, she sacrificed quality for safety! Every single member of your team is either straight-laced or so insignificant that they’re desperate to win to the point of doing anything it takes to be the last team around to fight in the finals. Your only wild card is Violet, who at the end of the day, despite her illness, is a woman deathly afraid of Claudia and will never resist you as she wishes to avoid consequences, and she’s a good girl at heart. My team? It’s risky, aside from two pawns, all members on my team can be standouts IF they apply themselves, but they also have their egos. One believes he should have remained in charge. Another is a ticking timebomb that’s already sick of being in the shadows and taking orders from Kimberly on DOMINION. My secret weapon while stealthy and unpredictable in her value is a double-edged sword, where it’s far too early to know what’s on her mind. I actually have to do something to get them all in line, someone like you who gets to kick back comfortable has no place to judge me strapping a bomb onto my chest to threaten them into remembering what I’ll cost them if they cross me. Your team is boring, but she believes it’s effective enough to get you across the finish line. I can’t completely knock that, sometimes the most straightforward tool does the trick. Yes, your team perfectly fits you, because you’re the lanky growing Kid who hasn’t filled grown into the big shoes everyone thinks he will, but everyone knows you have promise. But you know something? One of these days you’ll see that playing it safe and being the promising young lad isn’t enough, you’re in the ring with an entire army out to make sure of that at War of the Worlds.

Heartless alright, but not because your aura exudes cruelty and seems cold to the touch, but because you’re a robot who does well going through the motions. You speak of my past often to discredit me, in some strange blend disgust in me being a faker yet thinking my failures at the time define my status forever, but must ask, do you think I couldn’t have pretended to be a Jay Jones? All I would have had to do is tone down the naive act and improved on being a much better blueprint wrestler. There’s nothing glaringly wrong with you but one thing, Kid, is there anything Jay Jones does or says that would make anyone know it was Jay Jones if they couldn’t see your face as a figurative name tag? I think you need a heart, tin man from Oz. Something that gives you distinction outside of a fleeting sense of prodigy, but we’ll see whether you narrowly make it to your destination or become just another critter caught on my web.

Speaking of Tinker, her and the rest of the Parejas have truly gone deep into the realm of dreamland. We even got to see one of their bedrooms. Another with all the Christmas present receiving brats that make people’s hearts feel warm. Tinker herself continues to be an irritant that seeks to treat me like a child, speaking ill of my name for my inability to take on what she deems to be true responsibility. She’s a magical girl who creates things out of thin air, with pixie dust, so these responsibilities of mine can be as made up as the self imposed restraints she puts on herself in that ring. She thinks all of these rules and code of ethics make people adults, but even an average person should know by her age that rules are nothing more than restrictions the powerful throw down on their lessers to keep them in line. The bigger you are, be it in positions of leadership, big-time corporations, or anything in between, the fewer rules you have to follow. Isn’t there a reason why it’s the small businesses suffering the most right now in these trying times of shutdowns? Crying smalltime owners are crying on TV about the fact that they see bigger companies with bigger crowds stay open right next to their closed business to pour salt on their wounds.

Oh yes, I am far from out of touch on such happenings. Some have referred to me as a being who has failed to reach the levels of Havoc, the False Idol, and his calls to Cthulhu, but this is a failure to understand scope. I exist not in the realm of monsters, spiders have always been creatures close to the realm of man. I am no demon, just a man who has gotten in touch with the dark side and learned the ways of arachnid.  

I have more than two eyes, and I’m always watching from above like my webcrawling family. Do you know who else spoke of not hurting their opponents and would get offended at the inference of one enjoying people’s pain? A very champion of that team Tinker is on, the foolish Jaguar who would spend his days lecturing others on the responsibilities we have as performers to protect one another in that ring. Do you know what they did to him? Someone took him out in some alley, and it’ll probably be the last we hear about it unless someone decides to confess. The brothers he felt responsible for as fellow competitors? They’ll move on. No one is going to go on the hunt for his attackers, and if we ever found out who it was, most of this roster would do nothing about it. There’s no real social contract in wrestling, a weaver of threads like myself know the difference between thin lines and lines that do not exist, trust that “responsibilities” are the later in this business. One of these days, if she doesn’t wise up, Tinker will get the same treatment the Jaguar did. There’s no trust, no responsibilities, no common decency at all, there is only those follow those standards and those who make them.

As for the Lizard, he shames himself further by thinking I never intended to defy Mr Gold. This man is a true testament to ignorance being bliss. The fact he remained a leader all of this time when Babayka has the brains to replace The False Idol…….well that just goes to show the Shogun division truly has an inflexibility problem. How could it come to this? Listening to the words of The Lizard and his Beauty Melanie has made even my skin crawl, I’m called off-kilter, but there is no doubt something truly disturbed about these two individuals. Hana and Xavier will have a lot of work on their hands to be the brains of this operation, unless Sabertooth drops the Kid act and gets back in touch with what gave him life in this business. In many ways in how he has decided to remove an arrow from his own quiver, Sabertooth reminds me of the folly that befalls the Bell to Bell Tinkerbell.

Those who accept their gift are bestowed the power to make their dreams truly come reality! For those who do have the gift and choose not to use it out of some sort of principle, you practice restraint in all the wrong ways! For those of us who spin our own threads of fate, there are no limits to what we can achieve.

^️End.^️