(10 years after the events of The One Where Rook May Or May Not Have Slept With Ace’s Mom )
“SAVINIEN ROOK” boomed over the stadium speakers, and the rhythmic echo of ‘rook, rook, rook’ brought him back to the cheers from the audience.
The retired champion looked out from his glass box in the stadium towards the field to see who was calling for him, but the hovering cameras found the culprit first, and every screen in the coliseum was filled with his face.
Ace groaned, “oh no.”
Her little brother Sam, not so little anymore, no, now he was even bigger than Ace. He’d been an up and coming fighter in the coliseum that Rook pretended not to see, having a sinking feeling of where he was heading. Even without his great size, which did not betray his incredible snapping speed, there was a burning spirit within him that made him nigh-unstoppable.
Sam shouted into the pickup, “I’M CALLING YOU OUT. OF RETIREMENT.” The crowd lost their minds.
Ace followed Rook down to the field. “Listen, don’t kill my kid brother, alright? Then I’ll have to get revenge.”
“Your family has been sweet to me, Ace. The last thing I want to do is kill Sam. I swear I’ll do everything in my power to not to.”
Sam’s mother Ezme sat on the sidelines and spoke into a pickup herself. “Hi Savi~ I love your beard!” and she waved her claws at him.
“MA!” Sam shouted.
Rook smirkingly returned her gesture. “Thanks Missus P.”
“ROOK.” Ace shouted.
The audience laughed. Sam regained his composure and addressed Rook. “10 years ago, you killed Gatornade. But like some marvelous flaming crocodile, I’ve risen from his ashes!” Indeed, his fighting costume did resemble a modern redesign of Gatornade’s old outfit, now adorned with flames.
Ace spoke into a pickup. “Sam, don’t you realize you’re doing the same dumb theatrics that Rook does? You’ve become him.”
“I’ve spent many an hour researching your friend, sister. To truly defeat your enemy, you must know your enemy. You must become your enemy.”
Then Sam addressed Rook as he paced the field. “You’re a crafty fellow. For years we watched as your head was crushed, your blood was drained, your entrails strewn across this very field.” As he spoke, graphic images of past fights ending in Rook’s apparent multiple deaths played on the stadium screens. “And yet every time you returned the next day in one piece. But now, I’ve found it. Your weakness.”
Rook stood with his bullseye as naked as the day it was inked. “Golly, what gave it away.”
“We all thought it was some sort of bluff. What lunatic would broadcast the one thing that could kill him so blatantly? But as I watched every match frame-by-frame,” and at this, videos of near-misses to Rook’s heart slowed to single images to show a split second of Rook’s horrified face followed by a swift dodge to avoid the bullseye being touched, and instead taking the killing blow in the gut, the throat, the brain.
A small croc scout sits far too close to the parlor room video display, one claw on the dial on the side, turning it ever so slowly. His eyes wide as he views the slow-motion gore.
“It became crystal clear to me then.”
‘He never takes it in the heart.’
“The one thing that will snip your red thread of Fate, slip you from this mortal coil and send you to straight Hell.”
(unfinished for now because I’ve written myself into a corner lol)