Match of the Millennium

Description: Following King Jaguar's visit to the hospital in which the man behind (and still inside the) Griffon Mask recovered from a violent match, Tizoc leaves the hospital with a clean bill of health. Just in time to be met by the crew of MURDERHOUSE Mick, ushered towards his bus for a little business talk.

[TIZOC]
It was not a short recovery. As far as injury recoveries go, it was the most inspiring. A visit from the King was all Tizoc needed to find it in himself to get better, get stronger, get ready to go back into training for the biggest fight of their lives -
A fight to save wrestling.
Recently discharged from the hospital at last, the Griffon Mask has put on his favorite old fancy snazzy black suit-and-tie clothing on the way out. It's way too hot to be wearing his favorite old fancy snazy black suit-and-tie clothing, but he will endure... and maybe buy clothes better suited for a warming globe later.
The beak of the mask turns upwards to the morning sky. A dawn of a new day. He strides down the hospital steps with excitement but also with patience. No sense breaking his knees falling over the steps, or looking terrible in front of the American public (or any public).
He gets a few friendly waves. He's not quite as big north of the Mexican border, but his cheerfulness is the same for children across all national boundaries! He already has his day mapped out. Going to head back home, get some training in, and prepare to take on the King of Fighters tournament...
...You do not turn down King Jaguar when he comes to you for help in defending the honor of the way of the wrestling ring.
The ideas in his head are entirely romanticized, unaware of just what it will mean to put it all on the line...

[MURDERHOUSE]
On Tizoc's journey, he would undoubtedly see the big, gray monstrosity that was the MURDER Xpress: Mick's tour bus that took him from fight to fight. It seemed that for all of Mick's abrasiveness and antisocial behavior, the team that catered to him understood marketing, seeing as the front of that bus was shaped to look like a crude sort of 'hockey mask', down to a thick divider in the middle of the windshield that made it look like two tinted black eyeholes. The driver must have been a legendary sort to be able to transport the monster in those sorts of conditions.

There was also a small team outside the door to the massive monstrosity of a tour bus, serious men in plain suits who were keeping fans from getting -too- close. When the masked man gets close enough, a smaller man in a much flashier suit would approach, offering his hand even as he gave a gum-chewing smirk. His eyes had the glossy sheen of a liar's, and his adam's apple was entirely too big for his neck. Somehow this was accentuated by the sheer amount of hair gel he put into his black hair in order to get it to stick up in a horrendously fashionable way. His voice was like a mix between a slowly fading Irish accent and a car salesman who became a Hollywood exec. Or maybe it was the other way around?

"Gryffindor baby, I'm a big fan of the work ya do, yeah very tremendous c'mon. The big man wanted me to make sure ya saw him before ya left, speaks very highly of you c'mon yeah. Right this way for a moment of your time please, if you thank you baby."

Even as he spoke the doors slid open with an audible rusted squeak, causing the two professional suited men to part ways to give Tizoc, and only Tizoc, the opening he'd need if he were to indeed accept the invitation. From all around, people gasped and looked on. What was going to happen?

[TIZOC]
Tizoc stops in his tracks as the metaphorical camera pans over his left shoulder from behind his head to reveal the presence of the MURDER Xpress. The tour bus. The unsightly scab the roads will just never have picked off, a traveling rash of the brash. The camera pans further down to reveal the approach of the smaller, suited man.
Tizoc doesn't get a word in. He doesn't need to speak, as the doors from outside the van open. Inside...
...
Tizoc adjusts his tie.
There are many boundaries that the MURDERHOUSE gleefully rips apart, rams through, and otherwise do unspeakable things with in the ring. This is not the ring. Tizoc is wearing his nice grown-up business talks clothes. The muggy warm air the scent of burnt gasoline, the oily stench of hair gel... who knows what else.
The Griffon Mask strides forth with a confident, measured walk.
The man inside the mask takes a quiet breath to steel himself.

[MURDERHOUSE]
The living Lucha legend might be surprised when the inside of that tour bus looked nothing like the harsh, intimidating outside. Spacious and well-lit, the windows though tinted black on the outside let in sunlight perfectly. Air-conditioned and perfectly comfortable, that wormy, slimy agent led him past rows of hooks on the left wall where a number of similar masks hung, to a table of empty black duffel bags on the right. It appeared that the Sultan of Slaughter was a lot more organized than previously believed. Speaking of Mick, the seven foot wall of MURDER was currently laying on the ground, resting on his left elbow and dressed only in a pair of thin athletic shorts, the various bruises and scarring from his matches showing all across his body even as a few ice-packs were wrapped around his left shoulder. His black hair was wrapped in a quick pony tail away from his face, and his face was hidden by a very different mask than usual. A thin white covering made from what looked to be terrycloth, it protected his identity while letting him breathe more freely. And it appeared he needed to, as a woman had her thumbs and fingers deep behind Mick's knee and into his calf muscles. Every so often her and another trainer would move Mick's leg, and bend and unbend that knee even as his muscles flexed and he grunted occasionally in discomfort. Considering the kind of things Mick had endured as a fighter, the fact that this was causing such difficulty was impressive. While 'Hunger Strike' by Temple Of The Dog was playing faintly through the bus, out the corner of Mick's eye he saw the approaching Lucha and he grunted out in a pained voice.

"There's the fucker now. How's your head feeling, boyo? Had a bit of a spill the other day, huh?"

[TIZOC]
The air is so nice that Tizoc might choke in that mask from the intoxication of sheer surprise - but he keeps a stiff upper lip. No, that doesn't work with the beaked mask. A stiff... upper...head? He always has a stiff upper head.
This is going nowhere.
It serves him well. The man underneath the mask bears witness to all the injuries Mick has accumulated over his... illustrious... career. Some of them seem a bit ghastly, even for a man part of a career where debilitating injuries are, shall we say, a thing - even in the safest of circuits imaginable.
"My head is on straight! And narrow." Tizoc lets the bravado of the Griffon Mask get the better of him for the moment - but can he be blamed? King Jaguar asked him, of all people, to join him in the honorable King of Fighters tournament!
Tizoc does not cross his arms or otherwise make any aggressive gestures, as though managing to grip at least to a frayed corner of reality, outside of the ring. Outside of the amazing positive vibes that have coursed through him in the latter parts of his recovery from the dangerous battle between these two men.
"What of you, then...?" He had a different word at the end. It wasn't a bad word. It was a far too silly word.

[MURDERHOUSE]
Mick is nodding as if listening, though he was also clenching his fists and groaning through clenched teeth as occasionally the muscles in his calf 'popped' audibly from being shifted around and worked on. Quickly he hit the floor of that metal tour bus in reflex that caused a split second of a tremor that stopped immediately. With a demented cackle as a response to this pain and Tizoc's question both, Mick looked up to answer, gesturing at his own therapy as he did so.

"Well, I finally stopped tasting blue in the back of my mouth this morning, as a result of bein' dropped on my head an' neck over and over. An' my people finally got my ribs, shoulders an' jaw back where they were supposed to be after ya threw me aroun' like a sack of shit. Now they're just fixin' my knees an' legs after I fucked 'em all up. Never gave anyone the Cemetary Gates '97 from that high up before, didn't know how to land. Ahhh, fuck!"

Another bit of 'popping', another bout of thrashing from the sultan of slaughter before he finally composed himself.

"We're 1 for 1, Tizoc. And the next time we meet, I'm gonna put you in the fucking ground, you understand that?"

[TIZOC]
It is gut-wrenching to watch Mick move the way he does, to comprehend the consequences of what the worst of the craft can do to anyone's body when the mistakes happen, or when one gets too over-eager, or when something is miscommunicated.
To hear Mick tell it like it is, Tizoc may have to come to grips as to how he has been taking his younger age for granted, that he is truly lucky that he has avoided the worst possible injuries that could hinder his career. Before a man whose conduct is of little merit in polite society, their endurance is... Tizoc will admit that's admirable, to be so engrossed in what one does that they'll still fight through all of /that/.
He crosses his arms at last, as Mick puts it in no uncertain words that he's going to go the whole way on him the next time - a death threat, to his very name. It is something of a nervous tic when challenged, the arm crossing. That subtle security blanket of a muscular man that reminds him of his strength before threats and hardship - a gesture that only carries so far when, indeed, he was lucky to still walk after going through all he himself did within that cage.
"Am I to assume you called me here to give me threats?" Tizoc asks, the softer inflection on the first few words suggesting he had indeed been struck by the forward declaration of where he will be going in a theoretical third match-up.

[MURDERHOUSE]
Eventually the process was done, and after moving his leg, bending and straightening it as a test, slowly and carefully the seven foot Irish monster got to a standing position. Straightening his 'mask', the big man slowly limped closer to the Luchador, even as he lifted his chin in a show of bravado and machismo.

"Ain't no threat, I got your number. But no, this ain't about that. I'm not an idiot, I know King showed up here, it was all over the news and internet. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know you were talkin' about that daft 'Marduk' cunt."

Mick stepped closer, those creepy eyes glaring unblinkingly at Tizoc's griffon masked head. Slowly turning his head, his neck flexed until a series of pops and crackling could be heard, loud and violently echoing across th?e inside of that tour bus.

"I want in. If I leave it up to you two it'll be a big game of pussyfootin' and headlocks. What that fuck really needs is a boot stepping on his human face. Forever."

[TIZOC]
Tizoc would ask Mick to watch his language, even in private, out of habit from having cultivated what image he does have among the children of the world. It would just so happen that he otherwise agrees with the assessment about what to call Marduk - a man so that dedicated to destroying wrestling could yet still be worthy of a more vulgar, newly-invented word made for him.
Tizoc sucked in air as those creepy eyes bore into his. That was his undoing at the climax of their match. Even when Mick limped, even when Tizoc's cleaner bill of health might have given him the edge if things were to devolve to violence, to look into those eyes was to look beyond the eyes of a man. They were a window to something... worse.
His fingers clenched tighter as he braced for whatever those eyes of the MURDERHOUSE would have communicated to him.
Tizoc wanted to say 'no.' MURDERHOUSE was not a name to be looked upon with the dignity of wrestling - the depths he would sink, the lengths he would go, the destruction he wrought. How many careers has Mick ended? How many has he broken?
...And yet, for his derisiveness, this... was also MURDERHOUSE's fight, wasn't it? Garbage wrestling as it might have been, Mick was still a wrestler. He took as good as he got. Mick was a heel among heels, so heel that even the heels would consider him the heel to their heel. The dirtiest of the lot.
Wrestling's honor, as a whole, was at stake. Tizoc is forced to confront the yin and the yang of it all - if there was no heel, there was no face. Beyond the theatrics, beyond their bad blood, their battle has gone far beyond that, now.
Marduk and his Anti-Wrestling Team were the ultimate enemy to both of their lifestyles.
The Griffon Mask... could he stoop so low to work with a sworn enemy? From a man who lived in a simpler world of black and white, to comprehend the grays - maybe even the beiges and the browns and the teals and the soft oranges - was difficult to reconcile.
"No." No, you can't come?!
"Marduk does not need a boot stepping on his human face... forever."
The Griffon Mask puffs his chest out, as he pounded a fist into it. "The world will need to see, and understand, that their faith in our way of life is not misguided! That it is strong enough to withstand such pressure and threats from those who would dare dismantle it out of whimsy and disrespect! If we are to join forces... MURDERHOUSE..."
He throws a hand out. "We will do it to show the world the honor of those who fight in the ring!"

[MURDERHOUSE]
As Tizoc spoke, Mick absent mindedly reached up to the strap around his left shoulder, undoing it and letting the now melted ice-pack drop and hit the ground with a dull thud, rolling that arm around to test it even as he finally turned his attention back to Tizoc's statement. The eternal face makes a bold statement, causing Mick to nod his head repeatedly in approval even as he looked down at the hand. Finally, in a flash Mick took that hand, gripping it tightly and holding it up even as he glared right back at the griffon-masked hero.

"Yeah. We're on. Now get the fuck off my bus."

From there, the agent and an extra security guard would be waiting patiently. Luckily they'd have any contact details the Luchador might need. For Mick's part, he would wait until the Luchador was well gone before collapsing on to the built-in couch of the MURDER Xpress.

"Fuck that boy hits hard. That third war might kill me."

But he'd be ready.

Log created on 19:22:23 07/28/2017 by Tizoc, and last modified on 01:21:33 07/30/2017.