A Crescent Over the Arena
Russell, sprawled on the mat beside Cena, began to slowly crawl toward me.
"Russell! Tag! Tag!"
I flailed my arm in all the theater I could muster, then threw my other hand into whipping the crowd into a frenzy, sweeping it from low to high to coax the cheers on. With every roar from the stands, Russell dragged himself a little closer.
Cena, meanwhile, was inchworming toward the opposite corner, hunting for his own tag.
He got there first.
When Eddie stormed through the ropes to cut Russell off, the women in the crowd shrieked.
But a heartbeat before Eddie's hand could clamp around Russell's ankle, Russell lunged forward in a desperate dive.
It was cutting it impossibly close.
Smack! Our palms met, and the tag was made. I, who had been waiting for this exact moment, scrambled straight up the turnbuckle.
Amid the crowd's roar, I launched a missile dropkick at Eddie, who had frozen stiff for an instant.
Cena, still catching his breath after making his own tag, jolted in alarm and came charging at me.
It was an illegal intrusion. Sadly for the rulebook, the referee was too busy checking on Russell to notice.
Not that I was about to take it lying down. I sent the onrushing Cena tumbling with an arm drag, then drove a kick into the knee of the incoming Eddie.
"…!"
Eddie's knee wobbled for a moment, and pain flooded across his face.
What was that?
I'd better find out for myself.
With that decided, I herded the standing Cena into the corner. Then, under cover of the pouring cheers, I leaned in close and whispered.
"Eddie's off somehow. I'll check on him—so go scope things out and report back when you come in."
Cena answered with a look. I seized the back of his neck and sent him tumbling out of the ring over the second rope.
Then, milking a huge reaction from the crowd, I made my way toward Eddie.
"All right! Let's finish this!"
He stood propped against the ropes, clutching his knee. Feinting a hold, I brought my face in close and got a read on his condition.
"You hurt?"
Eddie shook his head. He'd merely slipped—nothing that looked serious.
Right. There's no way a kick of mine could actually put anyone on the injured list.
All the same, a flicker of worry crossed my mind. A giant's knees are more delicate than they look. All that exertion had the joint running hot, and it could stand to be cooled down before long.
"Still, let's trim this part short. I'm calling the barricade bump. Play dead, take a breather, then come back out."
Eddie nodded. I hauled him to center ring, laid into him, then dragged him to our corner and tagged in Russell, who had risen to his feet.
Russell frowned, thrown by the unplanned call.
"Barricade bump. Now."
At that, he threw out the rehearsed sequence and kept the match moving.
A double suplex drained what was left of Eddie's strength, and we hauled him out of the ring and hurled him into the barricade—which crumpled on impact, exactly as designed. We'd loosened the screws beforehand.
This was a match where pinfalls counted anywhere.
We had meant to exploit that rule to the fullest, escalating the fight step by step with the various fixtures scattered around the arena.
But with the beats Eddie was supposed to eat suddenly cut out, the whole structure of the match had come unmoored.
No choice, then. Cena and I will have to fill the gaps with ad-libs.
The referee, having sized up the situation, sent Russell back to his corner. I took the reins and steered the match with Cena.
How?
Comedy.
Overdo it and it costs you your standing, but deployed in the right doses, comedy lets you slow a match's tempo while still carrying the crowd along with you.
Fortunately, Cena kept right on my heels, following the comedy I improvised on the fly.
"Mmmph—?!"
"Come on, come on! Keep up unless you want a pig's snout!"
I jammed a finger into each of Cena's nostrils and went strolling around the ring. The instant he snapped and lunged at me, I ducked smoothly out of the way—and Cena slammed into the far side of the ring like a complete fool.
Russell, catching the gist of my act, chimed in with heckling from the corner.
"What are you even doing out there?!"
"It's fine! It's fine! We've got this one in the bag!"
I fired back the answer at my leisure and went on toying with Cena like some insufferable little mouse. My character never thought twice about dirty tricks, which made it easy.
The one problem was that all of this chewed into Cena's standing.
But my own stock was climbing through the roof, and the fans were laughing themselves silly—so all told, no harm done, right?
No. However I turned it over, there was no settling it.
The people watching would be the ones to decide everything. For now, I made up my mind to focus on the situation in front of me.
Whenever things threatened to get rough, we tagged out—and Russell caught my bug too, starting in with pranks of his own at Cena's expense.
That was how we stoked the arena's fever higher and higher, biding our time.
And then the referee gave the signal.
A run-in was coming. Better yet, Russell happened to be working Cena at that very moment—perfect timing.
Russell clamped on the Sharpshooter, and the crowd erupted, roaring, willing Cena to slap the mat.
Then the lights went out.
CLANG!
A colossal sound, and darkness swallowed the arena. The ring shuddered and rocked—someone was climbing up from beneath it.
And when the lights came back on.
Broken Wyatt was standing directly in front of Russell.
The referee lay flat on the mat, taken out by an attack—kayfabe, naturally.
The one man who could have declared a disqualification was gone.
Wyatt's mouth split into a grin, and he went straight for Russell. The crowd buried the cowardly ambush in jeers.
He paid them no mind, mowing Russell down, then me, one after another.
The tables had turned.
Wyatt said something to the fallen bodies—and Cena and Eddie, who had been lying flat, shot back to their feet.
Then came the Toast Bomb.
The jolt when Russell's back cracked against mine—BOOM!—hurt more than I'd bargained for. Perhaps neither of us had managed to absorb it with a proper breakfall.
Either way, the powerbombs that followed left the entire crowd thunderstruck.
But no cover came. The three men of the Wyatt Family simply set about trying to smash Russell and me to pieces.
And right at that moment, a man built like a black lion came tearing down the entrance ramp.
Bobby Ashley.
The sight of him in his wrestling gear drew a huge pop. Here came the hero, arriving to put the match back on its intended course.
True to that image, Bobby tore through the ring like a whirlwind and cleaned house in the blink of an eye.
And so, amid the pandemonium, the match carried on.
Russell and I joined Bobby, and together we swarmed the Wyatt Family.
The brawl spilled out of the ring, and before long it rolled into the stands themselves.
"Sin! You've got this!"
As Cena and I traded blows, the fans' cheering was loud enough to deafen me. Everyone was slapping my back, grabbing at my shoulders, shouting encouragement in my face.
Even so, whenever a move was about to land they courteously gave us room. With security shielding us on top of that, Cena and I kept slugging it out.
The match ran long, but we had blown it up to this scale precisely so that the crowd's roar never dimmed by a single degree.
Off on the far side of the stands, Russell and Eddie were surely tearing into each other just as savagely.
Wyatt and Bobby withdrew on cue. The arena belonged to the four of us once more.
Everyone was in raptures over the story and the war we were weaving.
The cameras tracked our every move. Right on schedule, the four of us converged at center ring and kept swinging.
But Russell, having already eaten the finisher once, couldn't absorb the offense of the giant called Eddie any longer.
He tumbled out toward the crowd gate. Eddie glanced around, closed in, and came at me.
Caught between the two-pronged assault of Cena and Eddie, I went down under it. Moments later, the crowd gasped and tilted their heads back, looking up.
Russell had climbed the stairs and now stood on the second-floor railing, finishing his preparations.
The moment I confirmed it, I sent the signal with a flick of my eyes even as I took my beating. Cena and Eddie whipped around in unison—and I pitched myself forward and clear.
Launched toward the heavens, Russell's body carved a crescent moon across the air.
A breathtaking move.
The Crescent—carrying Russell's wish to break the ratings record his uncle had left behind.
The crowd watched him and could not find a single word to say.
It looked for all the world as if he had staked his very life on that leap.
But it wasn't so.
He jumped because he trusted, absolutely, that he would be caught below.
Eddie and Cena, arms outstretched, took Russell's falling body clean.
CRASH!
The collision sent all three of them to the floor in a tangled heap. I stood a step apart watching it unfold, then hurried in and gathered Russell up.
"Haah… haah…"
I laid Cena out flat and draped Russell's body over him. The referee, scrambling close, dropped for the count.
The whole arena shouted along at the top of its lungs.
It was loud enough to sting my ears, but I felt goosebumps wash over me.
[2!]
[3!]
Russell's theme music erupted through the arena, heralding our victory.
Strength gone, I slumped to the mat where I stood and drank in the voices of the fans nearest me.
"You were amazing out there, Sin!"
"Russell! You're the best!"
"Thank you for that incredible match!"
Well now. This was a strange feeling in its own right.
The trouble came after the show.
Cena and I were in decent shape. The problems were Russell, who had taken that dangerous bump at the end, and Eddie's knee.
Unlike Cena and me, who had walked back in on our own two feet, those two had been helped to the locker room and were being examined there.
Baku, watching over them alongside me, spoke up.
"Good work out there."
"Do you think the match produced results to match all that promotion?"
"Of course it did."
Smiling, Baku gave my back a firm thump.
"Every one of your boys looked great out there. But it was your ad-libs midway through that got this match home in one piece."
"Is that so."
"It is. Without them, Eddie's knee would've been blown to pieces."
"I doubt one short breather made it all better…"
"No. You're right."
Baku shook his head.
"We'd best keep a close eye on Eddie's knee. The bumps tonight were too heavy. From here on, that joint needs to be handled with kid gloves."
"Hard to argue with that."
Eddie himself agreed, too. Probably.
"I don't want that knee plaguing him for the rest of his career. And besides—this is a developmental territory. We have to think about what comes after he's called up to the main stage."
"…With all due respect, I happen to think this is the finest pro wrestling company there is."
"So do I."
Then, looking straight at me, Baku added one more thing.
"Probably because of you."
"Sorry?"
"Don't make me say it twice."
The old man flashed a grin and ruffled my hair. It felt like being handled like a kid—and yet, somehow, it wasn't an unpleasant feeling.
While that little exchange wound on, the doctor, having finished checking on Russell and Eddie, came over.
"Baku. We're done."
"Oh, right. How are they?"
"Russell's fine. The impact just rattled him for a moment. Eddie is the problem…"
The doctor's expression turned grave.
"He'd best lay off the 'jumping' for a while, I'm afraid."
"I see."
"And he should wear a brace. All those years of basketball—his knees were never in great shape to begin with."
"Got it. I'll talk to Harley."
"Right, then."
"…You heard all that, right? Sin?"
"I'll be careful when I'm booked against Eddie from now on."
"No. The other way around."
"Then I'll smash Eddie's knee as fast as humanly possible and make him the world's first wrestler who crawls to the ring."
"…No feud for you two anytime soon."
"Huh?"
"Watching tonight's match, something occurred to me. You… no—Sin-Cell is, without question, a hell of a team. But your matches are every bit as violent as you are good."
He wasn't wrong.
Our wrestling—ferocity and raw speed put out front—was, for lack of a better word, the pro wrestling of the modern generation.
But the classic giant-style wrestlers simply couldn't keep pace with it.
"At the end of the month, you're facing Street Times at the pay-per-view. After that, you'll defend that title against the veterans I line up for you… Show me what you've really got there."
Viewed that way, this truly was the right direction.
"Yes, Ba—"
Just as I opened my mouth to answer, someone flung the locker room door wide and came bursting in.
It was an FD—floor director—with a headset clamped over his ears, a single sheet of paper in hand.
"Baku! The numbers are in!"
"Oh, yeah? How'd we do?"
Don't tell me—the ratings?
Startled, I looked up at the staffer's face with wide eyes.
The highest rating of any episode Greg had appeared in was 3.5 percent.
Had our match really burned bright enough to top it?