'So, wait. I'm fired?'

'If you'd like me to sugarcoat it, Mr. Avalon, then you're released.'

My name is Coral Avalon. I'm a professional wrestler currently working for Sin City Championship Wrestler under a ridiculous gimmick literally shoved into my face known as 'Baron von Blackberry'. I had no choice, I needed the money in the worst way in order to make life easier for myself and my wife-to-be, and the only way it seemed I was going to get hired anywhere was to be something I felt I wasn't.

This was my story.

It was the day after Colossus IV, otherwise known as September 8th in 2007. Up until that date, I had been employed with PRIME. Up until the day before, I was half of the PRIME tag team champions with Allen Brown, better known by his monicker, the Codemaster. Allen was the other survivor of Joey Malone's first edition of 'the Backyard', which saw fifteen promising young wrestlers-to-be whittled down to two: myself and Allen. Everyone else simply couldn't survive it.

I hadn't known it, but my days of working in PRIME Wrestling had been numbered. It was like Lisa Tyler had set aside her own little clock on her desk that expressly said how long Allen and I had left to work in this organization. Like one of those big clocks they put on time bombs, and you just didn't know which wire to cut before it'd explode and take out half of the conference room.

I guess I should've cut the damn red wire.

Either way, what I didn't know had come back to bite me. Allen had done something to have raised the ire of the management, something so severe that it was going to take the both of us with him. Strangely enough, the only guys in our entire crew who still kept their jobs were the Mega Job guys.

Thinking about that only served to give me headaches at night, so I tried not to.

They called us in separately.

It's always intimidating to go to the company headquarters of the professional wrestling organization you worked for. It was like a whole other world from the one I was used to. I'm used to wrestling rings and locker rooms of questionable cleanliness, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with men and women who performed in front of thousands of people. On the outside, PRIME's offices were sterile, like they were crafted out of the whitest building materials there ever were and then routinely cleaned every day. It was that kind of building.

The insides of the building felt similarly sterile. Large rooms gave way to empty spaces that somehow gave me an overwhelming sense of foreboding even before Lisa Tyler very bluntly gave me the bad news. The conference room was about twice as big as it should have been. The big table I sat at was bigger than it had any right to be for such a small meeting between myself and the brass, and I briefly wondered if PRIME just thought that because it's bigger that it must therefore be better. There was a window on the far wall behind where the brass sat, and for some reason, the sunshine that shone through made this atmosphere even more oppressive.

I squinted just from how damn bright this room was.

I was also the least professional person here. There I was in my blue ski cap, my black hoodie, and khaki pants. These people were in suits. They called it 'business casual', but their 'business casual' looked a hell of a lot like 'business' to me. I looked like the elephant in the room here.

'Do I get to ask why?' I asked.

I'd never been fired from any wrestling promotion I had ever worked for up until this point. Nearly every organization I'd ever worked for went under at a certain point, or simply fell out of the national scene in the case of the Squared Circle. People called me a great wrestler, and while I believed this to be true, I always felt I had more to learn. More importantly, I always felt I was a valuable resource in making others look good and helping others improve. I was also a good role model considering the fact that I didn't smoke, drink, do drugs, never intentionally hurt anyone I worked with, and hell, I didn't even curse. Why would anyone outright fire me?

'The actions of your partner have reflected poorly on yourself. You failed to restrain his unacceptable behaviour.' Lisa told me.

Tyler's words were robotic, like she was reading a prepared statement to me rather than talking to me like a human being. It worried me that these kinds of people were in charge of a multi-million dollar wrestling company. They probably viewed their employees in terms of numbers instead of their values as people. We were merchandise sales waiting to happen, not wrestlers who needed time to mature and grow in the eyes of the fans.

She probably thought that some of us were public relations nightmares waiting to happen.

I'd long thought I wasn't one of those.

'Just so we're clear, what 'unacceptable behaviour' are we referring to?' I asked. I didn't even feel like arguing. Once these bean counters had it in their heads that they were going to fire you, there was little you could do about it. They seemed determined to bring me down with Allen.

Blaine Blair unsettled me in a way I couldn't properly described. At first glance, he seemed meek and nervous. At second glance, he might still seem that way, but he had this way about him that made me think he would go for my throat at any possible second. Besides, if a meek and nervous person could get the kind of job he had right now, then PRIME had issues well and beyond what PR nightmares that Allen Brown could manage. The reason I pointed him out was because he had pulled out a piece of paper from the manila envelope he had set aside. The light from the windows shined onto the paper, and gave me an indication that there were more than a few words written on the paper, and more than what Blaine was really willing to read outloud.

'September 6th, 2007, post-Colossus IV. Mr. Allen Brown was seen at a local night club in Seattle, with a blood-alcohol content nearly three times that of the legal limit and carrying heroin on his person. At one moment during his escapade in the night club, witnesses reported him jumping up onto a stage and performing what is believed to be a flying elbow drop on one of the strippers as she was performing a dance, sending her to the hospital with grievous injuries.' Blaine said. The almost ludicrous story was spoken with such a dull monotone that I swore Blaine would've asked for Bueller at any moment.

'I don't see how that has anything to do with me getting the axe.' I said, 'I never went to that night club. What would I even do there? I'm not a drinker and I love my girlfriend too much to go there for the strippers. I spent the time talking to your Universal champion about her performance that night, and Annabelle was there with us. I had nothing to do with what Allen was doing.'

'Be that as it may, it's questionable just how Allen came into possession of heroin. Do you know, Mr. Avalon?' Lisa asked.

I almost had to bite my tongue to stop that naturally sarcastic streak I had from going into overdrive. You mean, did I knowingly allow Allen Brown to go to a night club with heroin in his pocket where he would injure a stripper with a professional wrestling maneuver? Yes, of course I did, I definitely needed to commit career suicide. I figure I'd take up poetry after this whole wrestling thing combusted, thanks for asking.

'No.' was what I actually said. I figured these guys were immune to sarcasm, anyway.

'Interesting. The police reported that there was more heroin in that tour bus that Mr. Brown leased in the name of PRIME Wrestling, hidden in the luggage compartment. You don't know anything about that, either?' was the next question. For such a huge room, I felt very claustrophobic. I felt it difficult to breathe. I could handle performing in front of thousands of people, but this room with this few people just made my skin want to leap off my body and go to Tahiti.

'Ms. Tyler...' I started to say, and after a few moments of trying to figure out the correct words to say, I simply said screw it and took the plunge, 'Are you accusing me of something dishonest?'

There was a long pause from the other side of the table before Lisa spoke again, 'No, Mr. Avalon. We are simply assessing the facts.'

It was like she was trying to be a bitch, but be politically correct about it at the same time. I think some part of her knew that I had nothing to do with whatever the hell Allen Brown was doing, but she just didn't want to have the incident stain PRIME for longer than it had to. If at all possible, she probably wanted to find a way to make sure it was never spoken of again.

'Then why fire me?' I asked, again. I was a bit more forceful that time, likely because I didn't actually have my question answered the first time.

Lisa leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table, 'The thing is, Mr. Brown brought you in because he couldn't think of anyone else to have as his partner. There's nothing marketable about you, but there was something marketable about you and him together. With Mr. Brown fired, there's nothing else we can really do with you, especially with the new contracts we've been signing as of late.'

I didn't know what to say.

I was somewhat marketable as a rookie because of my 'kleptomaniac' gimmick, which actually didn't mean that I stole things from people on whims. Rather, I'd steal other wrestler's signature moves when I performed in the ring. After tSC went off the air, I decided I didn't need that gimmick any more and pursued to refine my own style with my own signature moves. Unfortunately, while I had improved exponentially as a performer, I had nothing as a personality other than 'me', and I'm a pretty average guy. I wasn't marketable.

'I see.' I said. I was deflated. I sulked in my seat, feeling like the chair had become a part of me. Had I been standing, I'm pretty sure I would have fallen over like a domino, 'I guess I'll just let myself out, then.'

I don't know if Lisa Tyler or Blaine Blair had said anything on my way out of the conference room. To tell you the truth, I don't think I'd have listened anyway. My mind was awash in a sea of thoughts, wondering if I was being fired because of Allen or because people found me uninteresting. They weighed heavy on my mind, and I wondered for a while if this was the end of my dream to be a professional wrestler.

* . *

December 22nd, 2007; Seattle, Washington

This was a hell of a birthday I had on my hands.

Getting older was something I used to look forward to as a kid, particularly since my birthday happened to be three days before Christmas. I used to call it 'Double Christmas' when I was a kid, because I got gifts on both days. It was definitely a time to look forward to.

I hadn't as much to look forward to as I grew older.

It had been three months since I'd been fired from PRIME. To be honest, I still don't know what the hell happened to me. I was half of the PRIME tag champions one moment, and the next, I was back to sitting in a convention center trying to figure out how best to take the Falk Brothers' ridiculous stacked double powerbomb in a building with such a low ceiling.

As for Allen, his judgment was swift. He pled guilty to all charges and was about to start a two year term in a Washington prison on charges of drug possession and assault. It was a surprisingly quick trial.

I imagine that were it not for his celebrity status, he would have no doubt served a much longer term. His descension in professional wrestling was well-reported at the time, but it was quickly forgotten like so many other major newsworthy stories in professional wrestling. People just didn't care that long for a 'sport' like ours, the media would just shake their heads and consider it to be just another random arrest or death of a wrestler.

That's not to say that the Codemaster was gone, though.

'You know that I owe you a punch in the face for what you did, Allen.'

Allen had a phone call made that requested I see him at his holding cell. He was awaiting his sentence, which would occur in just an hour. He wore a black suit with a red tie, oddly looking the most mature and respectable I had ever seen the man. I sat across from him, and compared to him, I was rather casual. The steel bars that separated us were unfortunately keeping me from actually being able to fulfill my little threat. For his part, Allen looked pretty shaken. He'd lost a lot of weight. He looked almost pale, and he definitely looked like he hadn't had much sleep in a while. It seemed that he was going through the pains of heroin withdrawl. I guess they don't give you much of that in a holding cell.

'Yeah... shame we got these metal bars separatin' us, huh Avy?' Allen joked. He smiled the smile of a man who wasn't really smiling, like he smiled just because he lacked the energy to frown.

I cut to the chase, 'So, what do you want from me? You'd already taken my job. I don't reason there's anything else you could take from me. I have some lint in my pocket if you want that.'

'Haha, no. That's fine.' Allen said, his laugh clearly faked, 'It's about the Codemaster.'

People thought he lived his gimmick, and in some ways, he did. Allen Brown was the Codemaster, and he was celebrated as a digital hero and the 'Blackest Brother in the Hyrule Kingdom'. Whatever in the hell that meant. Behind the scenes, Allen used to be manipulative and cunning, the type of guy that moved people around as if they were pawns in a delicately constructed chessboard. Somewhere along the way, that manipulative man had become just another addict who did a stupid thing and got caught for it. The man who sat before me was nothing like the Allen Brown I once knew.

He looked like he'd given up.

I nodded for him to continue.

'I'd given a lot of thought about this, man. I just... this business ruined me. It's funny. I got into this crap because of a stupid bet with my brothers. 'Be a bigger star than your dad'. I can't help but wonder if I'd succeeded or not. Feels like I missed opportunities. Made mistakes. Transgressions.' Allen lamented, sighing to himself as he said the last word in his monologue.

'You elbow-dropped a stripper.' I said, bluntly.

'I was drunk!' Allen objected, throwing his hands up into the air in a frustrated gesture. After a pause, he added, '...And I thought it was a knee-drop.'

He let his hands fall to his sides, and stood up, pacing in his cell. The way he moved was sluggish. He was nervous about the sentencing, I could tell. 'When I get out, Coral, I'm done. Calling it quits from this entire goddamn wrestling thing. I'm gonna open up a new game store, man. You'll see. It'll be the biggest damn thing you ever saw. A regular video gamin' emporium.'

I thought about it and smiled, 'Sounds like you've got that figured out.'

'Naw, man. I ain't got crap figured out.' he said, moments later, 'I just got the idea in my head. Still gotta get outta here. Still gotta figure out how I'm gettin' the money and how I'm gonna get advertising. It'll be hard work. I can't have wrestling get in the way of that.'

'And this has what to do with Codemaster?' I asked.

Allen looked pained. I couldn't tell if it was an emotional pain or if it was because of the withdrawl symptoms, but it definitely made him very uneasy as he spoke his next few words, 'You took that kid, Antonio, under your wing? Yeah?'

'Yeah.'

Antonio Briggs was a kid very similar to Allen Brown in appearance, with a few small differences separating the two men as Briggs seamlessly took on the Codemaster persona. Antonio was black, bald, and around the same size as Allen. Their main differences were that Antonio was a good ten years younger than Allen was, and their clear facial differences, to which Antonio slightly fixed by wearing an unusual silver mask that looked more like something you could injure someone with by headbutting them to death. I'm not sure how the hell one could consider that legal.

Antonio had expressed a love for Allen's gimmick, being an avid gamer in his own right. The kid used to kick the hell out of me in Soul Calibur, which I'd always considered to be my sole dominion in the video gaming world. He hadn't been wrestling very long, though. In fact, he was one of the students I took in at 'the Backyard' that year. Allen met him shortly before the incident that put him in the cell and had developed enough of an interest in him to take him under his wing as well.

Apparently, a large part of the reason why Antonio got into wrestling was because he had met Allen before and Allen convinced him to try out. The fact that Allen sent him to Joey Malone's exercise in abject suffering probably showed an outright malicious side to Allen Brown that I didn't know existed, or perhaps, I didn't want to know had existed.

How TWO black video game geeks survived 'the Backyard' is a damn mystery to me, though.

'I've... I've probably disappointed him.' he said.

Nodding quietly, I added my comments to Allen's statement, 'He did admire you a bit. You're still not answering my question, though.'

'I want to give Antonio the Codemaster gimmick.' he said. I was taken aback, surprised that Allen would abandon the gimmick that made him famous in the first place. After a pause, Allen continued, 'He's the only one capable of taking it.'

'And you're telling me instead of Antonio because...' I held the last syllable out a bit, trying to coax Allen to finish my sentence and thus answering my question.

Allen turned away from me at that moment, trying to hide his shame. If I didn't know better, I'd swear I could see the glimmer of a tear in his eye, 'I don't want to face him. Not like this. Just...'

Now he turned fully away, but his body language indicated to me that he was trying to wipe away those tears, '...Just tell him for me.'

What could I do but look down and agree? 'Alright, Allen.'

Somehow, the fact that I turned twenty-six today was the last thing that crossed my mind.

* . *

January 19th, 2008; Dallas, Texas

The Squared Circle was a company founded by my cousin, Harvard Avalon, in 2004.

I was one of the first people he hired, though I was asked to come through some contacts of his and never actually knew I'd be working for him until I stepped into the building that first day. He was a firm, but fair promoter and had a genuine love for the competition of our sport. I also found out later that he'd been ostracized from the rest of the Avalon family, much like I was, by getting into the same business I was into.

When it started, Harvard used his resources and managed to pull a television deal for the first year of programming, but the ratings sort of fell under right around the time that Harvard's health did. His wife, Rosemary Avalon, had been the primary booker of the promotion up until then, and when her husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she left booking duties in the hands of some of the road agents and that led to some particularly bad ideas like the King of Indies Tournament or, sad to say, the pushing of Inoue Doi as top contender.

The Squared Circle lost its television deal by the end of 2004.

Harvard Avalon would succumb to his cancer just months later.

Most people wrote off the Squared Circle as just as dead as Harvard was. It took a lot of effort from a bunch of folks, including myself, Rosemary, and even that mongrel idiot, Steve Knox, to bring the Squared Circle back up to a respectable outlet for pure wrestling. I had the distinction of being a 'charter' member of the promotion, having been with it since not only the promotion's rebirth in mid-2005, but having also been with the company since Harvard started it. The only other person still on the roster that had that distinction was Inoue Doi, and she didn't come in nearly as often as I did due to the fact that she lived in Japan.

I brought up the Squared Circle primarily because of the fact that it was at one of their shows that I had begun to wonder exactly what this whole wrestling thing really meant to me.

I was working a tag match with me and Antonio (now the Codemaster) taking on Inoue Doi and Johnny Long. Long was a traditional wrestler with a hint of sports entertainment in his style, but there was something off about him that kept him from really breaking out. As for Doi, she was the most unpleasant person I knew who had the distinction of being counted as among my friends. She spoke Japanese, refused to speak English, and never addressed me by my name. Rather, she used 'bakayarou' to refer to me, which was a rude name to say the least.

It was late into the match, and Inoue and Johnny had practically made it a competition to beat the absolute tar out of the poor rookie.

I had warned Antonio before the match that Inoue Doi's kicks were powered by the devil and could hit you right in the soul. Inoue Doi was the type of person to not hold the hell back when she threw a kick. True to my warnings, Antonio had endured Inoue's vast array of kicks and the way he moved indicated that he was more of a jelly-like substance than a human being, now. That smile I saw in Inoue's face as she kicked Antonio's ribcage into another zip code was something I only got to see when she was inflicting agony to other people. Seeing that smile really made me wonder just how many of the people I considered my friends were really sociopaths.

Inoue had taken control first, so when Johnny Long finally tagged himself into the match (in no way would Inoue willingly tag herself out of a match), he had decided that he needed to at least be half as brutal as Inoue Doi. Which was still pretty damn brutal, by the way.

The crowd of just under a thousand sounded ten times that.

The acoustics of the building made that loud crowd reverberate, and I would be lying to myself if I didn't say that it gave me goosebumps. The sound got even louder when Antonio leapt up and kicked Johnny right in the head, and lunged towards my outstretched hand.

The instant it made contact, I launched myself into the ring like a slingshot. The crowd was electric to the point that it could power the city of Dallas for a full day, and that power simply fuelled my adrenaline.

I hit Johnny, and the crowd got louder.

Inoue came into the ring and I countered a kick by basically manhandling her into a backbreaker, and they went even wilder.

In the back of my mind, I thought this was going exceedingly well. The hot tag was practically nuclear in heat and they were cheering everything I did almost as wildly as they cheered me back at my professional peak. In fact, a small part of me thought that this was going entirely too well, but I brushed that feeling to the side as I continued my work in the ring. Eventually, I caught Johnny with a kick and lifted him up for a vertical suplex.

That's when Inoue Doi decided that she had not levied enough suffering in my life.

Her feet came out like a bolt of lightning and hit like buckshot, right in the left side of my abdomen. I remember that in my shoot interview with the Mark, six months after this match, I swore that it was unusual among Inoue Doi's kicks in that it came out as a 'stab' rather than a 'slash'. Usually, when Inoue threw kicks, they came out wide like roundhouse kicks. They were easy to see coming and therefore, fairly easy to anticipate and take. The kick Inoue threw at me was more akin to a low-angle, bull rush-styled straight kick. In what I've deemed to be a freak anomaly in everything I knew to be true, the always sure-footed Inoue had actually lost her balance on the rush, because she later claimed to me that she was aiming right for my 'oversized nose'.

When she hit me, I felt like I'd been pierced by a spear.

Then I, too, lost my balance, and Johnny Long fell on top of me, one of his knees jamming up right against my abdomen when he landed. Even though the referee didn't expect the event and noticeably hesitated for a second after it happened, he still dropped down and counted me down for the three.

I'd never heard boos so loud before in a tSC ring since I'd been a part of it, and I was there during Sonny Silver's 'glory days'.

Even as I laid in the ring, clutching my now-torn abdominal muscle and grimacing in pain, I couldn't help but hear them. I couldn't help but hear the profanity cries of screwing up the spot.

I couldn't help but think that this wasn't worth it any more.

* . *

January 20th, 2008; Dallas, Texas

Annabelle Summers was a girl I met four years ago in a chance meeting at some Greek restaurant.

She was a beautiful girl, with long black hair and a short stature. She was a bit of a geek and spent much of her childhood in Japan, so not only did she have a lot of downright weird obsessions that I couldn't comprehend, but she was also a fluent speaker of Japanese and the reason why I could understand just what the hell Inoue Doi often said to me.

Annabelle worked in music and performed regularly as a violinist. She's very musically sound and would soon become the director of music for a local video game company here in Dallas, ironically making her the breadwinner of our little coexistence even though I needed to support her.

She also didn't really understand my profession, and more specifically the risks involved in the profession. A couple of years ago, I won a match so dangerous that it was never done again. It was the very last match I ever had that caused me to have to go to the hospital overnight, but the incident in Dallas just a night ago had consequences that I hadn't anticipated. Not only had I been in the middle of getting booed out of the building, the first time that'd ever happened to me in my career, but I had suffered an incredibly painful tear in one of my abdominal muscles.

I couldn't show my pain to Annabelle.

You have to understand.

She's generally the sweetest person in the world, but when it came to me and my physical well-being, I found her scarier than some of the people I've worked with. Maybe it's because I just didn't like to see her upset, or maybe it's because the image of her pouting made me feel like absolute mush.

'Hey, Coral, I thought you were working today.' she said to me with innocence in her eyes. I was at home in my apartment, and I was resting on the couch as much as possible, with only a pair of shorts and a T-shirt worn. I was trying not to move too much, if only so I didn't cause myself any more pain and suffering.

I already had trouble breathing. Each breath I took was a reminder that my nerves in my abdomen were totally shot. The injury was only a day old, and I had the promotion's doctor pretty much assure me that I had some kind of muscle tear and that I pretty much needed to take time off to let it heal.

How the hell do I explain to Annabelle that I couldn't work for a couple of months, knowing that the only reason I'd ever take time off from my busy travelling schedule would be because of injury?

'Nah, I was told I wasn't booked, so I decided to just spend time with you.' I hated to lie, especially to Annabelle. People knew I was usually pretty honest, and maybe it was because of that that so few of my current friends really had any inkling of what I was doing with Sin City Championship Wrestling. Ironically, it's my honesty that made me a pretty good liar.

Unfortunately for me, Annabelle had the ability to simply *know* when I was lying.

'Oh? That's sweet of you.' she'd start with, before she got a bit suspicious, 'But you don't take days off.'

Crap. I'm at Defcon 4 here. Think of something, think of something... 'What? I can't do something like this every once in a while? Come on, Annie, they can live without me for a day or two.'

'If you say so, Coral.' Annabelle said, sitting down next to my legs. She wore the yellow dress today. I liked the yellow dress. She didn't so much look towards me as she did try to pay attention to something besides me as she talked, 'By the way, the doctor called.'

Make that Defcon 3.

'Which doctor?' I asked. I think I'm just clinging on to hope that Dr. Allensby, the guy who treated my torn muscle, hadn't given me up so quickly.

'Don't give me that.' Annabelle said, and I could already tell that there was no more use in hiding anything from this girl. She didn't look mad, but she definitely looked disappointed, 'When were you going to tell me about your injury?'

In my mind, I had this image of kicking that eccentric quack of a doctor right in the groin. It was a beautiful image that I wished my 'honorable' impulses would actually go through with. I'd have rather told Annabelle myself than make her believe that I'd hide something from her. I really just wanted to find the right moment to say something about it, but now it was out there in the open.

'Some time today.' I said. It wasn't like I could hide it forever, I was actually concerned that I was going to need some kind of surgery. Annie would've had to have been told eventually.

'Then how come you didn't just come right out and tell me?' she asked, her tone becoming increasingly upsetting. This was a girl who was easily led to tears, so I could only imagine just how long it'd take for her to get there. A couple of seconds, most likely, 'I worry about you all of the time, you know! Don't treat something serious as an injury as something that you can't tell me about immediately.'

I think I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest that we tentatively move this to Defcon 2.

'Alright, alright, I'm sorry.' I said, holding my hands up in surrender while trying not to make any sudden movements that would irritate my injury. Or my mood. I was pretty much willing to do whatever I could to make sure Annabelle didn't look so... pitiful, 'Inoue just kicked me in a rather unexpected way and then Johnny fell on my ribs, it wasn't like I could've avoided it.'

Annabelle looked away and got quiet for a bit.

'I don't get it.' Annabelle finally said, breaking the silence that I ever so hated, 'Why do you choose a job that you get hurt in? I just don't understand. You... have other avenues, don't you?'

Of course I did, I just didn't want to take them.

'I like wrestling, okay? If I knew how to do anything else with the kind of passion I have for what I do out there, sure, I'd do that. But it'd be like me asking you to give up music, you know?' I said. It was a reasonable argument, I figured.

Annabelle looked at me, and I could already see that I was maybe one wrong comment away from achieving Defcon 1 and thus risking the end of life as I knew it, 'It's NOT the same thing, Coral. I don't get hurt playing violin! Especially not so badly that I can barely breathe! Even I can see that you're in a lot of pain, so I can't believe you'd even make an argument like that!'

I couldn't even bear to look at her any more.

'It's not like I was in a barbed wire cage, this time, Annie. It was an accident.' I insisted.

'And that makes me feel better how?' Annabelle asked, 'You tried to hide it from me.'

'Because this conversation gets brought up every time I get hurt in some way!' I said with a little more of a defensive tone in my voice than I really wanted. Maybe it was because of the tone or maybe it was because I said anything like that at all, but I could already tell by the look on her face that my snap back at her had triggered Defcon 1.

I'm screwed.

Because I made her cry.

She didn't say anything else to me, she just stood up with a huff and stormed off in the direction of our bedroom. I tried to get up to go after her, but I found it difficult to sit up because of the injury, and before I knew it, the door was slammed shut and locked behind her.

Defcon 1 meant that I was sleeping on the couch that night.

We'd make up the very next morning over pancakes, but I knew that my future wasn't looking to promising. Usually, I'd be able to shake off these arguments I'd have with Annabelle about what I did for a living. I felt that she loved me too much to actually leave me because of what I did, but I sometimes wondered how long she'd be able to bear it.

It'd be five months before I stepped back into a wrestling ring.

* . *

June 20th, 2008; Mesa, Arizona

Truth be told, I had thought about a career change after the events of that bitter January weekend.

Professional wrestling had been a dream job to me, but I had begun to struggle with my ability to succeed in the ring and my ability to remain personally happy at the same time. I had almost declined going back to 'the Backyard' to help train the newest crop of unfortunate students that Joey Malone had rounded up this year. I hadn't felt good about returning and I was convinced that I was going to retire and put everything behind Annabelle and her music.

I had even considered going up to Rosemary Avalon and telling her that I was done.

It was through this whirlwind of 'almosts' that I ended up going right back to my old stomping grounds in Mesa, Arizona. I only called them 'stomping grounds' because a lot of what I did there before involved me getting stomped into a flaming hot wrestling ring built in the backyard of Joey Malone's house. It was only later in my career that I was considered an adequate and experienced enough wrestler to help Joey train guys again.

Joey had restarted his wrestling school a few years after his well-publicized retirement from the sport in 2003. While some fans were shocked by his retirement, I had known better. Joey Malone barely had a left knee to walk on when he called it quits, having pushed himself way past his physical limits to keep earning from the lucrative contract he had signed with Action! Wrestling at the time. Today, Joey can barely walk without a cane and he lived with a dull pain in that leg pretty much on a regular basis.

Despite that, he liked having people around his house. That might be why he had three kids, with a fourth on the way when I stepped into his house.

To those kids, I was like family, too. They knew who I was, of course. I hear they'd even seen most of my work, though I hope that Joey didn't let them see the one match where my body hung from a barbed wire cage like I was a fly in a spider web. Mostly because I think that match scarred Annabelle for life.

Holly Malone, Joey's red-headed oldest child, was almost five. The force of her colliding into my legs in a big hug made me think she was less of a five-year-old and more of a bullet train. If she were any bigger, I think I could've qualified the hug as an actual attempt at spearing me.

'Uncle Coral!' she shouted my name.

'Oh, God!' I exclaimed. Holly caught me off guard, that's for certain, 'Slow down, next time! I need my legs to work.'

'Oh, you don't need legs, Coral. I pretty much only have one and I'm fine.'

Joey Malone was taller than I was, but with the way he walked with that wooden cane by his side, I could probably fool people into thinking we're the same height. His hair was cut short, a far cry from the long, mullet-like mane he sported throughout his career. He had grown a goatee, as well. Were it not for those strikingly green eyes of his, you would be hard pressed to say that this was the same guy who was once considered one of the best wrestlers in the world just five years ago.

I heard he'd been trying to rehab that knee and get back into the ring.

I'd believe that if I saw it.

Holly let go of me and quickly went to her father's side like she was a pinball and I was merely a bumper. Joey stood his ground, but looked down at his daughter, 'Holly, why don't you go see what mommy's up to? I need to talk to 'Uncle' Coral alone.'

Her response of 'Okay, daddy.' was so quick that it almost came out like it was one word before she was out of the room in a flash.

'You feeding your children nothing but sugar, Joey?' I asked.

'She's one of my kids, you know. She's bound to have a lot of energy. It'll server her well when she becomes a third generation wrestler.' Joey said with a wry smile. He probably said that as a joke. I just had this feeling that he was also serious at the same time. Sometimes, you never knew whether he was making a joke or being serious, 'Anyway. I have a special project for you out there. I can handle most of the rabble that'll be here, but...'

The words 'special project' were Joey's code for 'incredibly agitating task he doesn't want to do himself'.

'Okay, you want to shove something in my lap, then.' I suggested.

'Yeah. There's gonna be someone coming here that I want you to keep an eye on. You probably remember Claire Merci.' Joey said.

Claire Merci was a French professional wrestler and an overall brute of a woman in terms of personality. Claire had been wrestling for longer than I had, and her dad was a world-renowned wrestler as well. I'd met Claire once for an overseas tour in Japan, and even had the privilege of knowing what it's like to be suplexed across a ring by a woman who was taller than I was. Hell, I worked with Lindsay Troy and she didn't do that to me.

She was also memorable in the fact that she had almost nonexistent people skills. She hated people and had no problems being rude to them if they annoyed her even the slightest bit. If it didn't involve wrestling, she wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. It was almost impossible to hold a conversation with her without her being rude, insulting, or disinterested.

How Joey Malone knew her was anyone's guess.

'I try not to.' was my response.

'She wanted to help train the new fish today. In return, though, I had to take in her little sister. You'll train her.' Joey said.

'That she-beast actually has a sister?' I asked.

'Yeah. Laetitia Merci.'

A little spark of recollection hit me and then quickly hid behind one of the lobes in my brain. I knew that name. Why did I know that name?

Seeing my look of puzzled remembrance, Joey reached over to a nearby table and pulled off a magazine. More specifically, it was the cover of some fashion magazine. There was a girl pictured there, probably between sixteen and eighteen years old. She had long bright red hair arranged in a single braid, and she was dressed in one of those school girl outfits with the knee-high socks. She was gorgeous, and she didn't seem like any typical model given her more candid expression.

'That's her.' Joey said.

Now it hit me.

'Wait. *THAT* Laetitia Merci?' I was incredulous, to say the very least.

This girl was a famous fashion model from France. She became famous really quickly, partially because her sister was already famous in Europe. Annabelle admired her enough that, last year, she'd even suggested dying her hair to match Laetitia's oddly bright red hair, though I told her that I liked her the way she was in response. I hadn't thought much about it since then. At least, not until now.

'Yup.' was Joey's simple response.

I began to ask the most obvious questions that needed to be asked, 'Why the hell is she coming here? To learn to wrestle? Why'd she do that?'

'Claire's her only family, now. Their dad passed away a few months ago. Apparently, Laetitia wants to be with her sister, so she wants to at least learn the trade.' Joey explained. It sounded very plausible, '`Course, the media over there is in a frenzy because she very publicly announced that she was leaving. Gets followed around by the paparazzi a bit, too. I imagine they'll follow her here, too.'

I knew there was something I wouldn't like about this.

'So why make her *my* special project?' I asked.

Joey chuckled to himself as he took the magazine from my hands and looked at the girl on the cover, 'Because you have mobility that I don't. Because you're knowledgeable. Because you know how to push people to achieve something they didn't know they could do. I will say this much. Claire doesn't want Laetitia to make it. She wants her to give up and go back to modelling. She came to me because I have... a certain unsavory reputation spread around by certain people about my brutality as a trainer.'

He said this to me while giving me the stinkeye.

I declined to even give him the privilege of seeing me squirm from it, 'Hey, now, I only tell people that you're fond of Charles Darwin. Not that you apply his work to professional wrestling.'

Sometimes I wondered how Joey ever made money training people here. His reputation as a trainer was unusual in that he frequently wore out the weaker people, with only a tiny fraction surviving the training. He'd even give them most of their money back if they quit, keeping only twenty percent of it. The funny thing was that the students who'd manage to survive his Spartan-like training have, oftentimes, been regarded as great wrestlers in of themselves after a few years of seasoning.

At least, it happened with me.

Joey smiled at me, 'I know she's a model, but she really wanted to do this. Your job is to make sure it's worth it to her. You can do that better than I can.'

After a pause, he gave me one of his typically wry smiles.

'Besides, I don't like to train women. They nag.'

* . *

June 21st, 2008; Mesa, Arizona, 'the Backyard'

The following morning, I was standing in the middle of Joey Malone's half acre lot in the back of his house, which was dubbed 'the Backyard'.

From what his wife once told me, Joey got the idea of holding training sessions in his own backyard because he wanted to find a way to avoid having to pay for a gym to use. He was always frugal, always cheap, when it came to matters outside of his immediate family. He lived in an average apartment complex in Phoenix even while he was making huge amounts of money working at the main event level in IWO and Action! Wrestling, and only bought the place he lived in right now because of a good deal he managed to swing for it.

He bought a wrestling ring, and built it right in his backyard. Then he took in students in 2001 to train them, but his training methods were severe and demanding. Injuries mounted. Physical demands couldn't be reached. In the end, only two people survived what became the hellish nightmare that was 'the first class of the Backyard'.

Joey was so annoyed by this turn of events that he waited another six years to try it again. By then, a lot of things had happened. He had become a carpenter, something he'd always had a passing interest in, for a few years. He began to find more and more free time, though, when the jobs began to dry up. This necessitated that he return to what he once knew, professional wrestling.

Thus, the return of 'the Backyard'.

Last year marked an improvement in the Backyard from last year, in that thirty people signed up and five of them survived. I helped train that crop of students, which included my pet project from that year, Connor O'Reily. I heard he was doing well for himself nowadays, actually.

This year, my pet project greeted me with a meek wave.

'Hello.' Laetitia Merci said. She struggled to make eye contact. For a girl that became famous as a model, she was surprisingly uneased and didn't seem to have that confident swagger I often saw in beautiful women.

In a way, she was a lot like Annabelle.

'Uh, hey.' was my response.

This girl was as pretty in the flesh as she was on that magazine cover. Her hair was such a bright red color that I was certain that it was dyed that way. She put it up in a ponytail with a particularly fancy-looking ribbon. She had a certain regal kind of look to her, which I imagine is because she was European. Her clothing suggested that she had absolutely no idea what she was getting herself into. She wore a pink tank top, but also wore a short white skirt. She seemed to have at least made the good decision to wear shorts underneath her skirt, but of all the big, muscular men surrounded her... Laetitia stuck out like a sore thumb.

'I'm Coral Avalon. I'll be working with you.' I said. I couldn't help but notice Laetitia's obvious discomfort, though, 'Are you okay?'

My question seemed to caught her off guard, 'Oh! Um... I-I am fine. Coral, huh? That is a strange name.'

'I'm told that a lot. I'm also told it's a girl's name sometimes. Will you be fine doing this? You don't seem like you belong here.' I said. I hated to be blunt, but I wanted to make sure that Laetitia wasn't in over her head.

'I will be fine.'

She said this even if I thought the opposite. Laetitia was short, small, and petite. She would be considered small even in a women's division, because she was barely 5'4'. Regardless, Joey told me not to give up on her.

'If you say so. Do you have any athletic experience?' I asked her.

'Um... I-I was into gymnastics as a child, before I became a model. ...Oh! I take taekwondo. First degree black belt, actually.' she told me. The last statement was particularly alarming to me, if only because I didn't think a sweet-looking girl like her could break boards with her fists. If she could, then she's one up on me, most definitely.

'So, athletic and pretty, then. You get through this, you can make it in this business.' I said. I tried to sound encouraging. I also tried not to say it loud enough that her sister, who was currently on the other side of the 'Backyard' knocking some sense into Kelly Masters, could hear me, 'Though, I have to ask. What're your goals in doing this?'

'What do you mean?'

'Why become a wrestler? You had the whole modelling thing, right?' I asked.

'Oh,' she said. She seemed a little down from the question, like I said something she didn't like, 'I just want to be with my sister. We had always been separated because she wrestled and I modelled. Is it so wrong to be close to my only family?'

I hesitated to answer.

Family.

A word that held such little meaning for me in the past. The less I talked about my family, the better off I felt I'd be. If there had ever been a contributing factor to the life I currently led, my family would have been it. I grew up in a life of privilege, but also overbearing control. I couldn't stand it. I found wrestling as my retreat, my escape from all that. If I gave up on wrestling now, what would prevent those idiots from dragging me back into that life of constant control?

And yet, these days, I wanted to start my own. I'd long considered the idea of marrying Annabelle, but never had the courage to outright get down on my knees and ask for her hand in marriage. Quite the contradiction.

Finally, I answered Laetitia with a small smile, 'No. No, it's not.'

A year from today, I would tell my next class of students that out of all the people I've trained, Laetitia Merci was my favorite student.

Because she reminded me just what this really meant to me.

* . *

March 28th, 2008; Walla Walla, Washington

I have to stop every once in a while and question the skies above just what exactly I did in my previous life to deserve the things that get shoved directly into my face.

That usually coincided with every time I was face-to-face with Allen Brown. Particularly, every time I was face-to-face with Allen Brown while he was smiling one of this big smiles that he always had on his face when he was particularly pleased with something.

You know, like right now.

It hadn't even been eighteen months since that incident that cost me my last national-level job in the world of professional wrestling, and I hadn't exactly recovered from it. I had the misfortune of having my name associated with a guy like Allen Brown, who got himself arrested performing a wrestling move on a non-wrestler while drunk. It was safe to say that even if Allen got out of prison and had any remaining interest in this business of ours, there was absolutely no way he'd ever find a job again.

That did nothing to dampen his mood.

'Man, bein' a celebrity is a good thing, sometimes.' said inmate #222535 of Washington State Penitentiary, otherwise known by either the alias of 'the Codemaster' (a title he no longer claimed) or by his real name of Allen Brown, 'They're gonna let me out in a year, Avy. No doubt.'

'You must be ecstatic.' was my deadpan response.

I got a call a week ago from Allen, asking me to come by to visit. I strongly debated not going, but as fate would have it, the Squared Circle was planning their yearly 'Dawning' show in the Seattle area in a last bid to gain interest outside of Texas. As a result, I was asked to be out there to help promote the show, and since I was asked far enough in advance, I could make the four hour drive from Seattle to Walla Walla.

I instantly regretted it when I saw that smile, of course.

The moment I sat down and put the phone to my ear, he smiled a smile that made me think briefly that the glass they put between prisoners and their visitors was REALLY meant for the prisoners' protection from a guy like me lunging at them and trying to wipe that smug look off their face. On the other hand, though, orange was definitely not Allen's color.

'Definitely, man. I tell ya, once I got past the fact that they didn't have Xbox here, everything was cool. Y'know what I mean?' he said, the last line coming out so quickly that it all sounded like one word.

'Allen,' I said, pausing to think of how to put in my thoughts delicately before deciding that people who get thrown in prison for an eighteen month sentence for assault did not get to be talked nice at, 'What in the name of hell are you doing calling me to fly out to Seattle and then make a four hour drive *here* for?'

For whatever reason, Allen just couldn't shake his smile.

'I thought about it, y'know. My future. When I get outta here.' he said, 'I think I want to come back.'

Oh, God.

He's serious.

'You can't be serious.' I said, incredulously, 'Nobody's gonna want to touch you after your little stunt.'

'Now, see, that's where you're wrong. I know a guy who'll no doubt give me a good word. Good friend of mine, in fact.' he responded.

'Oh yeah? And who is this naive individual?'

'Oh, that'd be you.' he said, non-chalantly.

I think my brain just took a siesta. I could have sworn he just suggested that I help him. After a few moments' pause, I had to make sure I wasn't simply crazy, 'I'm sorry, I could have sworn you just suggested that I help you.'

'I did.'

Are these windows bulletproof?

I started to stand up, phone still in my hand. 'I clearly wasted my time coming here.'

'Whoa, wait! What're you doing?'

I hadn't yet fully gotten out of my chair yet, so I sat back down and looked Allen straight in the face, 'Do you have ANY idea what your stunt did to me? You think you were the only one thrown to the wolves? I've been struggling to make ends meet. I haven't had a job at the national level since PRIME. They think I'm just as bad as you are, just as big of a risk. Even if I WANTED to help you, which I sure as hell don't considering what you did to the both of us, you won't get much of anything out of it.'

'Come on, man. After everything we'd been through together, you gonna choose *now* to bail on me?' he asked me.

'So, what? I'm supposed to do everything for you, again, is that it? Just gonna ride again, like the Blue Rogues used to? You as the big star and me as the nobody who happened to do all the work? No. I can't do this again. I can't watch you roll out the red carpet and then snatch it right out from under me. Not again.' I said.

That's when I got up.

'You get out of here, and you do something other than screw me over for a change.' were my final parting words to Allen Brown.

It was one bridge burnt.

I couldn't tell if it would be the last.

* . *

[i]July 24th, 2009; Dallas, Texas[/i]

The sound of Annabelle's nearly endless giggling was akin to nails on a chalkboard or listening to a Britney Spears album.

It wasn't that her giggle didn't have a cute aspect to it. It was that she was doing it while I was wearing the ridiculous mask of Baron von Blackberry, which was given to me when I had finally scored a long, sought-after contract with a major national organization: Sin City Championship Wrestling.

That contract had a caveat, which was that I had to be something other than Coral Avalon. I had to put on a mask and act like a damn fool, and to say I didn't like it was like saying the Japanese didn't like the conclusion of the Second World War. I'd spent years cultivating the image that I was 'wrestling first', so running around in a lab coat and declaring myself 'Baron von Blackberry' and 'the Most Diabolical Fruit Of Them All' were two things I didn't want to do. Ever.

Yet, there I was, looking at myself in the mirror with the stupid mask and lab coat on. I looked like a damn fool.

'Please quit laughing. This is serious.' I said.

'I-I'm sorry.' she said, in between her gigglefits. She definitely didn't take this as seriously as I did.

'I look like an idiot.' I said. I was not one to mince words when it came to myself, that's for sure.

'Well, um... you're supposed to be a dictator of a made-up country in a fruit mask. I think that's the idea.' Annabelle offered. It wasn't hard to see her point, but her point also pissed me off just a little bit, too. Her amusement at my suffering made me wonder if I picked the right girl to marry some day.

I did not let my frustration even remotely escape Annabelle's attention. I sighed deeply and tore the mask from my face, 'It's a stupid idea. What kind of idiot is going to cheer for a guy that looks this stupid?'

Annabelle was too busy trying to stop her gigglefits to even respond to my question.

'I mean, okay. I got some of the ideas for this guy. Evil German accent, for one thing. How's this...' I said, before I started to go into the aforementioned 'evil German accent', 'Ach! Zis lab coat does not match mein mask!'

Annabelle went into hysterics for a couple of seconds, before she managed to settle down enough to make her next point: 'U-um... maybe you should tone that down just a bit. You know, so people could understand you. Also, when did you learn to do an accent?'

I sighed, 'Doctor Curiosity promos.'

'Oh.' she said. I guess she understood me.

It was at around this time that I heard a knock at my door. Hastily, I removed the lab coat, wrapped it around the mask like it was a present I was planning to give someone, and tossed it into a neglected corner. Annabelle frowned on this action, but I didn't want people to know what the hell I was doing.

I opened the door and was greeted with the smiling face of Antonio Briggs, 'Yo, what's up?'

A quick high five turned into a handshake and then a quick hug. Antonio had been in Japan up until now, refining his skill set and his knowledge of our great and glorious sport of pretending to beat each other to death. After we'd gotten done with our physical greeting, I added my verbal one, 'Not much. How long have you been back from Japan?'

'`Bout an hour,' he said with a shrug, as he walked in and quickly made himself at home, 'Inoue broke my mask, man. Had to go get a new one made. Y'ever gonna tell her to hold back a bit?'

'I've tried. She just hits me harder when I do that.' I said with a sigh. I really wished that I was kidding.

Antonio smiled and waved at Annabelle, who stood her ground. Annie was always nervous around newer people, and Antonio never really hung around with me that much at my home.

'Um, hello,' she said nervously, before she turned to me, 'I'm going to go lie down, Coral. You can talk to Antonio.'

Before I could even respond, she'd already hidden herself in the sanctity of our bedroom.

Antonio chuckled, 'That girl ain't a fan of mine, is she?'

'It's not that, she's just not good around people she's not familiar with. Took her months to warm up to me, really. Anyway, make yourself at home. There's not much here.' I said. Really, the only reason why my apartment is even remotely presentable to other people was because of Annie. Even then, Annie littered the shelving with her little anime toys. The couch was directly in front of an HDTV that was admittedly small, and I didn't have a game system better than the PS2.

Seeing that, Antonio frowned, 'Man, not even an Xbox?'

'Still working on rent over here, Antonio.' I said with a sigh. Getting signed to a national company never sounded so good, even if it involved becoming a fruit.

'Right, guess so.' he said, looking around, 'Anyway. I talked to Allen.'

Alarm bells began to ring in my head. 'Allen as in Allen Brown, I presume?'

'Yeah. He wanted me to tell you that he said 'thank you'.' Antonio said.

'What?' I thought my reaction was rather understandable.

'Yeah. Said you came to visit him in prison. Apparently, whatever you said to him hurt him pretty badly and since he's in prison, he had nothing but time to think and reflect about it.' Antonio said. I looked down, and away from him. I remembered my words clearly from that day. I was angry and frustrated, and I said a bunch of things that I definitely meant to say, but at a particularly bad time for Allen.

Still, 'thank you'?

'He said you talked him out of making a huge mistake, though.' Antonio said, crossing his arms and looking up, as if thinking about it, 'He said that he talked to you about coming back to wrestling, and you refused to help him.'

I nodded, slowly, 'When you put it that way, you make it sound like I was the one who made a mistake.'

'I already know, man.' Antonio said with a sigh, 'Allen ain't the same guy any more. Hell, he might never have been the guy I always thought was so cool. Dude was a mess when I saw him before he went to jail. He'd done wrong. Last thing the dude needs is to go back to what prolly drove him to it in the first place, y'know?'

I nodded.

'So, because of what I said, he doesn't want to come back to wrestling, now?' I asked.

'He still does.' Antonio clarified, 'He just wants to take a different path than you. Doesn't wanna rely on anyone else but himself, now. I don't know what that means, though.'

I sighed, 'I wouldn't worry about it.'

To me, that was his message to me: 'I'm going to show you how wrong you are.'

Just the way I'm sure he always meant it to be.

* . *

[i]February 21st, 2010[/i]

I stared at the masked man in the mirror.

What I thought had been the death of me being taken seriously as a wrestler had instead become one of the better things to happen to me in a long time. It had taken a lot more work than I thought to bring this 'Baron von Blackberry' thing to fruition... no pun intended, of course.

It did still bother me that after years of wrestling in huge matches that drew fans in, I could achieve similar reactions by throwing the most ludicrous punch ever seen in a Sin City Championship Wrestling ring. Seriously, half the time, even I didn't know what the hell was going to happen when I unleashed the 'Retcon Punch'.

There had been many days leading up to today where I wondered if it was all worth it.

There had been many days leading up to today where I believed that the whole Blackberry thing would ruin me.

There had been many days leading up to today where I thought that I'd made every manner of wrong decision getting here.

I don't know what changed, or when I began to finally accept this idiotic masked persona I'd found myself portraying on a regular basis. What I did know was that my basic performance hadn't changed all that much. I was still the same kind of wrestler I was before I put the mask on, the same kind of guy who'd go in and give it his best effort week in and week out.

I hated the gimmick when I first got it, and now, I can't be certain what I'd be doing without it.

Funny how life went.

Now, if you'll excuse me for a second, I have to go talk to the voices in Blackberry's head.

Ahem.

'And let me tell you something, Harry! You will RUE the day that you, as one of the six voices in my head, EVER questioned the unquestionable logic of Baron von Blackberry!'