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Reality Through the Dragon’s Eyes; vs. Tombstone (08/11/13)
Topic Started: Aug 5 2013, 03:34 PM (161 Views)
Eric Donavan
Member Avatar
Irish Dragon
[ * ]
”If the word has the potency to revive and make us free, it has also the power to blind, imprison, and destroy.” – Ralph Ellison




AUGUST 5TH, 2013, 9:32PM




There’s no pretense this time, no grand recollection of previous events put on screens across the country to jog the memories of the forgetful. There’s no expertly-edited and musically-enhanced montage to revisit pain recently inflicted and grievous, spectrum-spanning wounds created. What we have before us is a simple, dark room with a chair of metal and cheap plastic, set in the middle of a bare floor recently divested of all shreds of carpet. There’s a single window high on the wall but the tattered screen outside it and the years-old grime upon the glass itself renders the potent sunlight of a clear morning into a far dimmer glow. Thanks to dilapidated, time-forgotten state of this room however, even that simple light sent through in a few haphazard rays reflects off the debris wafting in the otherwise still air.

Such particles were kicked up by the simple opening and closing of a door out of our sight. Gentle as the effort and resulting sound was, it was enough to disturb the peaceful layer of dust into a cloying, lung-clogging cloud. Somehow, that doesn’t result in coughing for the perpetrator. The camera turns about and we’re shown the Irish Dragon, Eric Donavan, dressed simply in jeans and a sleeveless tee. His arms hang loose at his sides, his body language betraying a calm that’s…well, the only way to truly describe it is with calling the man defeated. There’s just haphazardness to the way he makes his slow walk to the chair and takes a seat that displays a void where strength and rage used to be. He sits slowly, as a man would when his body is wracked enough with pain so as to make the simplest physical effort a trial.

For a few moments, he’s silent. He sits hunched forward with his arms resting on his legs and his head lowered. The view swings around and we see that the previously out-of-frame wall is in fact a mirror, ceiling-high, wall-wide. Unlike the rest of the room though, it is sparkling in its cleanliness. Perfect and without flaws, it shows the man before it exactly as we see him: on the edge of nothingness. There’s nothing resembling weakness in his voice, though. When Eric finally decides to start talking, what he says is in every breath a betrayal of how he looks.


Eric Donavan
“I’m this close to simply being sick of trying.”

He lifts his right hand, holding his thumb and index a fraction of an inch apart. Eric doesn’t look up or gesture in any other way. His hand is lowered and he continues after a breath.

Eric Donavan
“I’m sick of trying to fight the darkness that nips at my heels every day and night in an effort to consume me. I tire of the misplaced efforts of others to get me to explain myself, to give reasons why. The masses are unaware by idiocy or by choice that many things in this world simply defy explanation. Some things…and I know this will be hard for some watching and listening to take…”

A vocalized thought that should have been accompanied by the Donavan Smirk…instead stands on its own as Eric’s gravelly, brogue-laced words hang as thickly in the air as the dust clings to the floor and walls.

Eric Donavan
“…but some things you just aren’t meant to understand. The moment you willingly accept that fact, you will find that a lot of pressure on your shoulders melts away. Life becomes a little easier to handle once you give in to the knowledge that there are powers outside your range. Look at all the religious people in the world, or at least the intelligent, well-adjusted ones: they don’t try to explain their deity to the masses if that is not their given duty. They are content in their faith and follow their teachings with just the right balance of fervor and devotion. The rest of the world may not believe what they believe and persecution might be visited upon them just because their beliefs are ‘recognized’ as being set against more popular ones…but that doesn’t stop them because they have struck that balance.

It is a balance that in my own life has been nonexistent for several months now with no end in sight.”

His head dips further and unbound hair falls into his face, further masking his weathered, tired features. Eric sits up a little and brings his hand up to push those dark strands back, tucking them behind his ears. He stares at the mirror through his shades for a few moments as a thin, half-smile manifests.

Eric Donavan
“Control is an illusion. Sanity is an illusion. FEAR…”

A sharp upswing in potency and ferocity flows into that single word.

Eric Donavan
“…is an illusion. I refuse to waste any more energy on illusions.”

The small smile fades as Eric’s head lowers and the focus shifts to the mirror.

Eric Donavan
“But therein lays the question of what is illusion and what is reality. Depending on what you believe, reality is the illusion. That usually refers to the reality that the media and those who see themselves as ‘in charge’ of the masses would have us accept. It’s just an illusion over the top of the ‘real world’ manufactured to keep the masses docile. Others would say that reality is simply what you make of it and if you don’t like it, it’s within your power to do something about it. Use the power you were born with and cultivated up this very moment in your life to make the world around you what you want it to be. Who’s to say you don’t have that right? Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, right?”

The camera remains focused solely on Eric’s reflection as he rises from the chair and starts to pace back and forth along the length of the surface.

Eric Donavan
“That’s just noise to most of you. You don’t have the courage to reach out and take what you want, damning the consequences in the process. You they’re all just pretty words, an attempt to weave a spell over the masses and bring them around to my way of thinking like some cult leader. But it just goes back to the original point…that I’m sick of trying. I’m sick of living in this bullshit world where people who make the snappiest retorts and get the masses to dance like marionettes with a few flashy gestures. I refuse to bow in a world where people who are all about image and public opinion have the power.

I made that decision months ago though I didn’t know it at first. I misconstrued my own thoughts and feelings as something else. And with my recent realizations comes a kind of freedom…a freedom that has served me well on my way from London Brawl…to the here and now.”

The door opens and closes in the background but as it is out of frame currently we could almost write it off as our imaginations.

Eric Donavan
“And that thought process brings me to you, Elias.”

The pacing stops and Eric stiffens for a moment before an invisible wave of contentment washes over him. The rigidity of his posture, having changed from the stoop of the beaten, becomes far more fluid.

Eric Donavan
“First off…”

The tension returns for a moment, what we see of Eric’s expression contorting slightly. The internal war lasts for a few moments and distracts from a few soft steps in the background. The Irish Dragon’s head snaps up and he whips off the sunglasses, staring directly at us. For a moment he looks like he’s going to launch into a rage. Then…

Eric Donavan
“…I’m not going to explain myself to you. I’m just…not. What good would it even do at this point, when we’re so bent on destruction that we can’t see straight? I have enough cohesion of thought and instinct to know that I cannot look past you toward Bombtrack at Vindication and despite your furious pursuit of Fabulous Disaster, you know that you cannot look past me. This rekindling of our past wars two weeks removed from Vindication threatens to detonate the bond between us for good.

I heard what you said, that you can still ‘say it’ and despite my current state…”

Eric tenses again but after a moment relents and allows himself to feel. He folds his arms across his chest and leans back against the far wall, head lowering again.

Eric Donavan
“…despite everything, I believe you. You’re honest if nothing else.”

Getting that out of his system took some effort, but the words are no less heartfelt despite the monster Eric is slowly becoming.

Eric Donavan
“But what you think, Elias, is not my concern. I don’t need to look for a reason to become what I am becoming. Life at large has provided me with plenty of reason already so that there’s no need to look. And looking at what’s become of me, how can you sit back and try to fault me for distancing myself from you and everyone else? Have I not said time and again that I do not want others, especially the precious few I would consider friends or family, drawn into the hell in which I dwell? Are you going to tell me that I’m wrong for wanting to protect you and others from…this?”

He gestures as if to indicate the room but we know he means it to be his life, and perhaps this dark room is a good resemblance of it: dim light showing only part of the story, an inability to escape looking at what he’s become, nothing to offer solace…

Eric Donavan
“But then, I’m a liar and a self-absorbed one at that. What do I know?”

A threatening growl rumbles in the Irish Dragon’s chest. His shoulders shift a little and that dark emanation dies before it passes his lips fully. Instead he just shakes his head.

Eric Donavan
“I build the wall and you cast the stones. So which of us is wrong, Elias? Because you came out of a similar situation as mine without falling to the darkness, that somehow makes you right in all of this? That is where we find the flaw in your logic. You wrongfully assume that this began with James Stall in my regard, giving that motherfucker far more credit than he’s ever earned. You came out of what he did to you and took a few layers of his hide as compensation over the ensuing months. You won as far as the rest of the world is concerned, as far as YOU are concerned. And not to shock anyone watching or anything, but I agree with that. Thing is, at least where it comes to Stall, I won as well. I won because that sonofabitch isn’t the champion anymore, because what I did to him opened the door for Romeo to relieve him of what he treasured most.

That is a win.

But my pain comes from a darker place, Elias. A place further removed from the former champion and the hero du jour of NEWEra. You know from whence it springs, which is fortuitous since I have no desire to revisit it again for the purpose of making a point. I respect your efforts to ‘save’ me from myself and the hell I’m running headlong into…and I know that you’ll keep trying no matter what I say or do. Truth told, I don’t have the energy to try and stop you. I don’t think I could. And a small part of me doesn’t want to.”

The thought alone is distasteful if his expression is any indication. Distasteful…but accepted.

Eric Donavan
“That part has no place in the war forthcoming, and you had best recognize that. I’m not coming to that ring bearing mercy or understanding. I won’t see a friend or ally standing across the ring from me on that night. Instead, I will see an adversary standing between me and what I want. Several months ago at Secret Santa 2, before the abyss opened up to swallow me, I toppled you and from there went on to have a run the likes of which has not been seen in a very long time. The purported rising star of NEWEra took his final step out of purgatory and up the mountain, through the clouds and within sight of the peak. You remember that match, Elias. But do you know why I refer to it? Not because I won, but because of the lengths I went to in order to secure victory.”

Against the mirror we see the match played as though from a projector. The montage of clips shows both Tombstone and Eric at their violent best, fighting all-out to secure a World Heavyweight Championship match with then-champion James Stall. Nearing the end of the match, we start to understand, or rather remember, that which Eric is referring to. After taking a sick top-rope leg drop through the announce table outside the ring, Eric barely kicks out of a pin attempt. Pulling himself up with the ropes and guts, he picks up a nearby steel chair and smashes it into the back of Tombstone over and over again…

Wham!

Wham!

Wham!


Still standing against the wall, Eric watches impassively as the clips continue. The chair goes upside the Television Champion’s with a sick level of velocity. But even that and an Eric-executed Graveyard Shift doesn’t seal the deal. The two friends, stablemates…brothers…trade vicious moves and holds until a pair of Dragon Fangs put the monster down and earn Eric a ticket to the main event. The images fade from the mirrored wall and Eric hasn’t moved an inch. Even his breathing is silent.

A few moments later, he speaks.


Eric Donavan
“The darkness was always there, Tombstone. That it was unleashed on you then, before it had the power to control me, should have been proof that I needed help. I would never have gone to those lengths against a friend once upon a time, even in the heat of battle. I won’t stand here and say you should have known…only that part of my point has been made, that being that what you’re walking into in a few days is going to change you. We’ve fought as opponents, as rivals, as friends. This match will see us come as closing to being enemies as I hope we ever get.”

The view draws back some, giving us an odd sight. Though in the mirror he stands against the wall, in the room Eric has not moved from the chair. A familiar hooded form stands behind him at the moment, her hands on his shoulders lightly, almost reassuringly. In the chair, Eric lifts his head and looks back over his shoulder at her. She nods once as the reflection in the mirror shifts swiftly, almost too much so to see, so that it properly shows what actually is.

???
“It is for the best. This will go a long way in showing those who do not believe the folly in their lack of faith.”

Eric Donavan
“I’m not going to destroy him. I do not think that I even could.”

???
“You don’t have the faith in your ability that you should, my dear. You’ve proven time and again that no one can stand in your way for long.”

Eric sighs harshly, sitting back forcefully as though to try and throw off the woman’s hands…but they stay where they are despite the minimal effort. He makes no further attempts.

???
“Finish what you wish to say.”

Eric nods once, lifting his dark eyes to the camera.

Eric Donavan
“Some small part of me will not allow what we have cultivated in our time together fall to the wayside, dying an inglorious death. You can at least take some relief from that, Elias. But I don’t think you possess the strength or determination to go as far as might be necessary to bring me back to the light if that’s even possible. Think hard: if the trip through a window that you say I deserved, something that would put a normal man in the hospital for weeks if he even survived it, was not enough to ‘wake me up’, what will it take? How far will you go?

As far as Stall went to eliminate you as a threat?

As far as Nightmare has gone to draw the wrath of Adam Jones?

As far as I went to prove a point against the Grecos upon my return?

That’s the kind of question you need to be asking yourself if you’re so devoted to being my hero, Elias. There’s no doubt in mind that you’ll do all within your power to bring me back, to bring the old Eric Donavan back, but let us suppose that you do manage to do that. Let’s say for the sake of argument that your efforts prove successful. That you even bring Priest, Bombtrack, Zeller and others over to your side in some kind of violent-yet-heartfelt intervention to return the Irish Dragon into the light. Do you know what will happen then?”

Eric’s voice begins to waver a little as he brings this speculation to the air. The way he speaks it, one might think that that’s what he’s wishing for, that he knows it is his only saving grace in the situation in which he finds himself. He moves to answer but the woman’s soft notes cut in before he’s able.

???
“You will have doomed him to destruction. The old Eric, the weak one, could not hope to survive in the world as it is now. Too many pain-filled cracks, too many shattered hopes and dreams. Like an injured soldier returning to an empty home finding the life he once treasured has been ripped away beyond his ability to regain it, the shock to the system would leave him in a dark fugue from which he would not awaken. Would that be the act of a friend, Herr Dietrich?

The woman’s comments make Eric’s form stiffen. He rises from the chair with such sudden motion that it might have upset the thing if the woman hadn’t been standing behind it. Her hands are thrown from his shoulders when he rises so but she merely folds them before her, a shadow of a smile on what’s visible of her face.

???
“And thus, realization sets in. Make no mistake, Tombstone: this man still cares about his friends, including you and even that child-like simpleton Bombtrack. But your efforts to draw him back into your sphere only push him further away. You visit too much influence upon him and thus the effects are inverted. A rose given too much water, light or food shall wither under the pressure. It is called overkill. And of this you are dangerously close to being guilty.”

Eric Donavan
“He wants to help…”

???
“…and has no idea how. Your path is set. Do you deny it?”

Eric shakes his head once.

???
“Then finish this. You require rest.”

Eric Donavan
“…yes…sleep.”

Come to think of it, from the looks of the man, he hasn’t slept in a few days at least. Perhaps that’s why he let his features be hindered most of the time today…because to see him in this state would lead one to believe he is weakened.

And perhaps that belief is the correct one.


Eric Donavan
“This…is a heartfelt plea, Elias, and I beg that you hear and understand it before it’s too late:

All the rage we’ve got pent up from the last several weeks is going to spill over and it looks like we might not even make it to Vindication if we aren’t careful. You don’t want to miss the chance to decimate Kyle Travis, to make him regret ever speaking your name or seeking your championship. You don’t want to deny yourself the opportunity to then turn your wrath upon RAW, McCoy and the rest of their degenerate brood. And I don’t want to miss the chance to show Bombtrack the error of his ways in a contest of my own twisted design.

Consider both our futures and ask yourself if being the hero is worth the consequences. Selling yourself on the path to saving me will deny you the edge and the strength that you need to tend to more important things, like Alexis and your championship. I have to believe that I will get better in time, that the progress I’m told I’m making is enough. This…it can’t be rushed. Or everything will be ruined.”

He turns back to the woman, who walks up to him and reaches a hand to his cheek, cupping it with a thumb beneath his chin. She seems to be searching his eyes for a moment before visibly nodding.

???
“One day at a time, one step at a time.”

He nods firmly now, his resolve growing. It shows in his voice, too, which becomes stronger with every passing second.

Eric Donavan
“We’re going to carry a limp when all is said and done. The wounds will bleed for at least a day and the cuts and bruises will last weeks. But that always been our way in the ring, Elias. There is no retreat. There is only straight-ahead violence of the most dangerous kind: the kind with ultimate, unbiased purpose. You have yours and I have mine.

Just…just leave it at that. Trust that I will come around in time, when I have found my own way back to where I need to be. I don’t need more blood on my conscience. My soul can’t bear it.”

The woman takes his hand and leads him away at that, the point having been made. The door closes on the room as a cloud passes between the sun and the land. The room goes darker as we turn back to the mirror. In the reflection of the chair sits a dark shape, more a shadow than anything else, so dark that it’s difficult to make out any sharp detail.

It lifts its head much like Eric did before, shaped much as he is…but the eyes it opens are a burning red, narrowed as if on top of a smile.

Fade to black.
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1x NEWEra World Heavyweight Champion: 11/03/13-12/15/13
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