PROMO: "Crown Prince".

[Guest Fire and Knives]

PROMO: “Crown Prince.”

 

 

 

”Darkness distorts your light. Avoid attempting

to force a completion. Go slowly, methodically, and

with quiet balance.”

 

- I-Ching, Hexagram 3, Line Five.

 

 

 

It’s two in the morning, but Nathaniel Kibagami is still awake - there's a lot on his mind tonight. Insomnia is never pleasant, especially when it hits the night before a title match. He’s watched himself kick a hole in the thighs and chest of Danny Williams more than a dozen times tonight; perhaps it’s time to shut the tape off for a while and try to get a little sleep.

 

He leans back against the headboard of the bed and lights another cigarette – the therapists at the clinic did their best to break him of the habit, but he remained steadfast. “I need at least one vice for the road, and this is it,” he told them, and they eventually accepted it. Nathaniel Kibagami has generally found that if he makes up his mind, other people will come to accept his decisions and adjust to them out of necessity. It doesn’t work as quickly now without the threat of immediate, gratuitous violence, but it still works all the same – everybody changes with time.

 

Mark eventually accepted that he was finally cleaned up. He was tested and retested and then tested again, of course, but in the end Stevens was convinced, and he had his second (fifth? sixth?) chance. Zenon eventually accepted that he was going to be part of the fed. It took sweat and blood – from both of them, to be fair – but he did accept it, and he’s had no problems since. Well, maybe Alex has been a little zealous with his expense account, but it’s certainly easier to deal with than getting dropped headfirst onto a steel chair. An improvement is an improvement – best to be grateful for the little things.

 

He plays the tape again.

 

“SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-LENT...

SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-LENT...”

 

The chants still astonish him – they’re loud enough on tape, but in the arenas, they are deafening. His merchandise sales doubled after Battleground. The preliminary numbers suggest that they’ve tripled since he won the title little more than a week ago. The fans are enraged when he loses; they care when he wins.

 

”Cross armbreaker from the challenger, and Danny Williams is in trouble! If Kibagami can hold on long enough, he can put a serious dent in the champion’s offense...”

 

It seems that the fans have accepted him, too.

 

Apocalypse crosses his mind – he had been so ecstatic, so triumphant that night, turning the fans against MacPhisto. What they thought of Silent couldn’t have been further from his mind. As long as they hated MacPhisto, all was well. If he could do that, then things would be better. Things would be easier, and nobody would care when the Crown Prince of Flash and Panache finally fell.

 

”A devastating counter from citizen Danny, and he seems to have the challenger on the ropes!”

 

He broke James’ body, of course, but he’d failed miserably at erasing the memory of Edwin MacPhisto. In fact, when it came down to it, the crowd had decided that it would be easier to love the self-styled Slaughterer than it would be to boo the man who’d led the Midnight Carnival. And now, in Edwin’s absence, Nathaniel seems to have inherited his fans.

 

“The champion is looking to put citizen Nathaniel away with his patented powerbomb!”

 

They’ve fixated on his old ring name, and it suits him still – he comes a little closer to that persona with every match. Every time somebody pushes him, he lets a little more go. Then a little more. Then a little more. Whatever it takes to win, because he has nothing else left. The story of his life – a story everybody already knows.

 

“Citizen Danny kicks out of the Fall From Grace, and this crowd is on their feet! Words cannot do justice to the sound of this arena, ladies and gentlemen – these two men have totally captured the attention of eighteen thousand people!”

 

If he beats Danny again – and it was a near thing last time – he’s got Duran to look forward to. And Dace Night, and Tom Flesher, and anybody else that Zenon decides to throw at him. Janus is still waiting in the wings for a chance to cripple him a second time, and Toxxic...something about Toxxic worries him still.

 

“Good gracious! That may be all for citizen Nathaniel – his fragile neck can’t possibly hold up after such a brutal maneuver!”

 

He will do whatever he can to win. He will do whatever he thinks he has to do to win...but the fans cheer him now. Other than the fans, he has nothing, and he knows it. He can win the matches, but what will happens when the chants begin to change?

 

”Something has to give soon, Bobbi! They can’t keep this pace up much longer!”

 

There’s a lot on Nathaniel Kibagami’s mind tonight, and most of it has nothing to do with his first title defense. His body is on the mend, but his life is in shambles. He has the title, he has the support of the fans, but he has no more than that. The only thing he’s ever been able to rely on is himself – and sooner or later, even he will start falling apart at the seams.

 

“What the hell is he doing? All those elbows must’ve scrambled his brain – this isn’t the time for high-risk maneuvers!”

 

His neck is the least of his worries right now; the doctors did their job well, and it doesn’t ache like it used to. It’s the rest of him that’s the problem. His legs are exhausted, his back is a mess, his shoulders and elbows are tired and worn. Nathaniel Kibagami is made of blood and ink, sinew and willpower – and no more than that holds him together anymore.

 

On the tape, Nathaniel Kibagami spirals downward – a six-foot-five, two hundred sixty-odd pound man delivering a picture-perfect Phoenix Splash at the tender young age of thirty-two (thirty-three in September) – and he wonders how many more times he can possibly hit that move.

 

“Your winner by pinfall...and NEW SWF WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION....”

 

He shuts off the tape and turns off the lights; the World champion sits alone in his room and smokes in silence. There’s a lot on Nathaniel Kibagami’s mind tonight, and the ghost of Edwin MacPhisto looms large over all of it.

 

He will hold on to the title as long as he can. He will do whatever needs to be done to defend it. He stands at the summit of a mountain he’s never climbed, and he wants to savor the view for as long as he can before it’s finally time to go home.

 

He sits and smokes in his room, alone.

 

He will fight to defend his title, but he does not know why he defends it.

 

Or for who.

 

 

 

END.

[Dace59 0]

It's lonely at the top isnt it?

I am Lion, hear me roar...and hear it echo of the empty walls.

 

Pretty dark and bleek, just what you'd expect.

[Toxxic 0]

Yeah, you'd better damn worry about me. Danny, Duran, Flesher and Dace want the title. Janus wants to cripple you because you created him. Toxxic just wants to cripple you because you BEAT him. You can't reason with someone who thinks that way.

 

Really, really nice promo. And wherever Silent is, MacPhisto crops up too it seems. One way or another.

[the.weej 0]

I blame the lack of readership on the change from The Art of War to the I-Ching. It's just too much of a shock, I feel.

 

It's a good promo, though. The parralel lines between MacPhisto and Kibagami, currently, are an angle I hadn't even considered. It is easy to forget, in Edwin's absense, exactly how much he means to Nathaniel's character. It is easy to forget a lot of things about Nathaniel, in the absense of others.

 

Even for, it seems, Nathaniel himself.

 

-Z

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

I actually think it had more to do with GrapplerStar's weird-ass new character promo. Hilarious violence gets 'em every time.

 

The real storyline here, against whoever Kibs feuds with, will be whether or not he can come up with his own reasons for fighting, if there's anyone out there that can draw that much passion out of him and finally reconcile it to himself. INTRIGUEz0r

[Hank Kingsley 0]

I actually think it had more to do with GrapplerStar's weird-ass new character promo.  Hilarious violence gets 'em every time.

Sorry

 

I thought this was a really solid promo. The flashbacks from the match were a great addition, and I like Kibagami's mindset going into tonight's match and the matches ahead.