Journey to the Dungeon
Rebecca Hickenbottom.
The woman I remembered was the saint who had driven John Michaels—the most notorious degenerate the world had ever known—to repentance.
She was the one who married John and led him to faith, and I'd heard she helped run the wrestling dojo as well.
Following Rebecca into the house, I found myself marveling anew at how immaculately kept everything was.
Never mind that the doorway Michaels had just blasted was a disaster zone of splintered wood.
And sprawled on the floor in front of it, frog-style, was my respected senior—John Michaels.
Rebecca sighed, picked up the shotgun lying beside him, and broke it down with practiced ease.
I stepped over the liquor bottles rolling across the floor and made my way inside, which prompted Rebecca to apologize once more.
"I'm so sorry. He's normally a decent man—it's just that whenever he thinks about the past, he gets like that."
"Well, thanks to him, my fingers nearly went down to five."
Two on the right hand, three on the left.
Feeling my heart still hammering, I crouched down in front of the prone Michaels.
His face, buried under an unruly thicket of beard, looked nothing like the Sexy Boy I remembered.
Seriously, what is wrong with this guy.
Was what happened with Greg really traumatic enough to do this to him?
Then again, the Michaels I knew was the dazzling showstopper who lit up the ring. A side like this... he probably rarely let anyone see it.
"John. John."
I took hold of his body and shook him.
"Mmm... uhhmm..."
"Get up. We need to talk."
"Uuugh... Huh?!"
Michaels' eyes snapped open.
An awkward silence hung for a moment.
Then, frozen mid-stare, Michaels suddenly let out a battle cry and lunged at me.
"RAAAAGH!!"
"Wha—?!"
Caught off guard and knocked flat on my rear, I responded on pure instinct. I seized both his shoulders, planted a foot in his gut, and rolled him backward.
"GUHWH—?!"
Michaels spun half a rotation through the air and landed squarely on his feet behind me.
A magnificently brutal bump—no, a flawless tumbling pass.
"..."
"..."
Ah. But that back of his.
"AAAAGH, MY BACK!!"
"Oh, honey!!"
Rebecca rushed to her kneeling husband's side.
Well, this is a disaster.
* * *
The dojo in the basement.
Thanks to Mrs. Rebecca stepping out, John Michaels and I were able to speak alone.
The back-tumble had apparently been sobering enough to snap him awake; Michaels pulled himself together and apologized.
"Sorry about that. I swore I'd never touch another drop."
"You must have been quite startled when Greg called out of nowhere."
"...Yeah. I haven't kept in touch with anyone in the industry since I retired."
His eyes were lonely. He hadn't contacted a single soul after walking away—and I clearly remembered him saying as much in that documentary, too.
"The only person who even has my number is Hunter. And it's been ages since I last spoke to him."
"I see."
"I know I should... reconcile with him."
"With Hunter?"
"That's the point."
Michaels' eyes were serious.
"Greg believes I did something unforgivable."
"And Hunter?"
"Honestly speaking, he's the one I owe an apology to."
Michaels smiled bitterly. Beneath the thick beard blanketing his face, something like a mouth flickered faintly in and out of view—a memorable sight.
I wondered if that was what a chia pet would look like after roughly two hundred years of regular watering.
"I've committed a lot of sins, you know."
"And yet you've been steadily preparing for a comeback, it seems."
"...?"
That was a bluff only possible because I could see what the future held.
"You didn't look like a man in *agonizing* back pain a little while ago, either."
"...You know, all I ever saw of you was what you did on screen, and I thought you were one hell of a talent."
Michaels' mouth slipped out from the beard and vanished again.
"You're remarkable, truly. I had no idea anyone would figure out what I've been preparing."
"Have you spoken with Bart?"
"No need. When the time comes—"
"When Greg retires?"
"Sharp as a knife, aren't you."
He laughed, half in exasperation.
"That's right. I planned to come back after Greg's retirement. ...Because of what I did. I can't be forgiven for it."
Hearing that answer, I fell silent and sank into thought.
I had a fair idea what was going on.
Michaels was a timid man at heart. Scarred, prone to impulsive mistakes that then became his own daggers—a man others found exhausting to deal with.
The manic energy he showed was the performance; this brooding gloom was the real Michaels.
Much like Orton's excess. Just as that kid had sharpened his edges to hide his weakness, Michaels had played the cheerful one—until the depression festered so deep he curdled into a full-blown degenerate.
Faith and a wife had given him something to lean on, and he'd become a better man for it.
But the business with Greg belonged to the past. Unless he faced it head-on, it would never be resolved.
In short, he was a difficult man to deal with.
The solution, though, was simple.
"John. You reached out first, didn't you? That means he's willing to forgive you."
"Is that... so?"
"Things ended badly between you, but the fact that it's come to this is itself your opening for reconciliation."
"..."
After a long silence, Michaels reached into his shirt and drew out a cross—the symbol of his faith hanging at his chest. He pressed his lips to it, and at last, slowly, nodded.
"All right. Let's go."
At that very moment, Rebecca's voice drifted in from far down the hall.
[You're shaving that beard before we leave~!]
"..."
"..."
She heard everything, didn't she.
* * *
They handled the tickets on their end, and we were airborne almost immediately.
Calgary, in the midwest of Canada—a place pro wrestling fans called holy ground. The ancestral seat of the Hart Family, one of wrestling's most storied dynasties, stood there.
The Hart Dungeon itself.
The legions of Canadian wrestlers this place produced had been beloved in WWF rings, and the most successful of them all, of course, was Greg Hart.
John Michaels and I landed, and loaded straight into the van Russell had brought for pickup.
The moment Russell laid eyes on Michaels, he bowed with impeccable courtesy.
"It is an honor to meet you, John Michaels."
"Ah—right, yes. Russell, was it...?"
"You met me once when I was a boy."
Russell smiled. I took the passenger seat while Michaels hunched his shoulders in the back, and the van pulled away.
The journey to the Hart Dungeon.
Russell spoke in a voice too low to carry to the back seat.
"Good work."
"Eh, it was nothing."
Nothing much, anyway.
Aside from Michaels bawling his eyes out the entire way to the airport.
Oh—and when we went through airport security, he dug in his heels about never surrendering his iron cross, so we barely made it through. And then on the plane, Michaels had an episode over the Greg situation and was briefly mistaken for a terrorist.
All told? We were fine.
We arrived safely, after all.
"Uncle's nearly at death's door himself. He hasn't eaten or drunk anything for days—just sleeps in the training ring."
"Christ. Honestly, it'd be easier to reconcile two teenage boys going through puberty."
I gave a bitter smile. Orchestrating the reconciliation of two legends while also sticking it to Bart—I had no choice but to see this through. Still, having Russell there steadied me. And so we made our way toward the Hart Dungeon.
A paved road cut like a parting through a sea of blinding white. When we reached the small village at its end, snow slid from the branches of the trees.
The Hart Dungeon had a completely different atmosphere from Michaels' estate out on the Texan badlands. Not a cowboy's home but something closer to a refined nobleman's manor.
Waiting there to greet us were the two heads of the Hart family.
Stu Hart and Helen Hart.
The elderly couple offered me their heartfelt thanks before anything else.
"Thank you, Sin."
"Not at all. I only did what had to be done."
Helen, especially, was on the verge of tears.
"Thank you for telling us before the accident happened."
"Accident?"
"Why, the signing, of course."
Stu frowned with distaste. He was a man who had crossed paths with Bart Maxen in business dealings, so he understood better than anyone how dangerous this contract was.
"You have to be careful with any deal involving Bart Maxen. That son of a bitch bought his soul from the devil."
"Haha, you're not wrong."
He was absolutely right. Bart Maxen was the kind of man even the devil would have sold his soul *to*.
Doesn't work on me, though. I came back from actual death.
I laughed along with his remark, chuckling under my breath.
After that, the elderly Harts turned to Michaels behind me, encouraging him and offering their thanks. Michaels, eyes brimming with tears, exchanged greetings with the couple.
Leaving him to it for a moment, Russell and I slipped away.
"Uncle's at the ring."
Beyond the underground training hall, the Dungeon kept a separate ring outdoors. Everyone in this little village made their living from pro wrestling in one form or another—they even ran a small-scale promotion called Stamford Wrestling.
"Our dear Mr. Russell hated that Stamford Wrestling so much, he came to GCW to make his own name."
"...That's ancient history."
When I snickered and needled him again, Russell's cheeks flushed red.
A small outbuilding beside the main house. The moment we stepped inside, a bump ring greeted the two of us.
Greg, drenched in sweat, stood leaning against the ropes. He heard the door open and spoke without turning around.
"I heard the engine."
"So you've been loosening up this whole time because your heart was racing?"
"...I can't win with you."
Greg smirked and climbed down from the ring. As I drew near, I picked up the towel beside him and handed it over.
"Go take a shower. If you two meet like this, you might hug it out in a fit of emotion."
"Not a chance."
Greg refused flatly.
"I've been thinking it over these past few days, and today is not the day. Definitely not."
"Sorry?"
When I asked him to repeat himself, puzzled, Greg—who had been standing quietly—turned around.
...There was a ring behind him.
I understood immediately.
Greg Hart was saying their reconciliation should happen where it belonged: in the ring.
"Uncle? What do you mean—"
"WWF? Or do you mean Stamford Wrestling?"
"...You really do catch on fast."
Greg placed a hand on my shoulder.
Great, except you reek of sweat, old man.
"If we took this idea to Bart right now, he'd laugh us out of the room. Then he'd cheapen it, devalue the whole thing, and lock us into a contract shaped entirely to his advantage."
"Of course he would. That's exactly the man he is."
"Which is why we start at Stamford, and from there we reach the world."
"...I have my doubts Michaels will agree to that."
"He will. Nobody knows that man better than I do."
Greg let out a short breath, slapped both his own cheeks, and immediately strode ahead toward the main house. Falling in behind him, I slyly asked Russell:
"...Should we do it too? Give it a shot?"
"At Stamford?"
"Could be fun."
"It'd be a contract problem. Stamford's a tiny wrestling show with no TV deal, but even so—"
"So Greg just doesn't care because he's walking out either way."
"I'd imagine so. He can just pay the penalty and leave."
Exactly as originally planned.
And there, I felt it: Greg had truly resolved to retire.
I looked at Greg Hart's back.
His bulk had shrunk considerably. He had aged, unmistakably.
And still, up in that ring, he would remain the master of execution.
Almost makes me jealous.
The ending of the man who left behind a legend was heading somewhere good.
Even better than in my past life.
Because of me.