- Event: ICONIC
Cocaine, it’s a hell of a drug.
Not that Sutler Reynolds-Kael would know, he just recently discovered what twenty thousand dollars worth of Cocaine looks like, which, surprisingly, isn’t as much as you’d expect. I mean, it’s huge, don’t get me wrong, when you considered that a gram is roughly all you need to get high and Sutler was carrying a bag that weighs roughly half a pound.
That’s about sixty-four 8-balls for those keeping track.
Thankfully, both for Sutler and perhaps for Mike as well, Sutler had recently discovered he had a mysterious Trust Fund set up in his name that he got access to as soon as he turned 18. Elenore by and large looked after the Trust but it was Sutler who ultimately signed off on any and all expenditures and had access to all the funds within.
It was kind of nice not having to worry about money, honestly, or having to ask for things. It granted Sutler a kind of freedom he had never experienced, so much, so he never really thought about where it had come from.
That would change but for now the boy remained blissfully unaware.
“So yeah, I got the coke.” Sutler whispered into his phone as he slipped into the basement offices of Six Time Academy. “Call me back when you can, Mike.”
Hanging up, Sutler slipped through the gloomy, poorly lit sub-level of Six Time Academy. Discarded boxes of UNDEFEATED merchandise and eMpire gear had begun to accumulate along the walls making the already narrow passages difficult to move through. The slowly moldering clothing was also providing a particularly musky smell that reminded Sutler of the slow rot of the Kael Estate.
It was a brief but unpleasant thought.
–
SRK – 4
Aka
Have You Ever Snorted Sneef Off A Cow’s Shlong?
–
“Sutler?”
The Son of Scions snapped up as he heard the small, familiar voice of Chloe Sektor-Kael, his younger adopted sister and former daughter of John Sektor. In this maze beneath Six Time Academy the girl had come to enjoy hiding, easily scurrying about the detritus and failed products.
“Yeah, it’s me, I’m back.” Sutler replied as he stopped, peering around with a coy smile on his face as he tried to spot the dark haired youth. The soft pitter patter of feet on concrete could be heard as something skittered across the hall in front of him followed by a disquieting giggle.
The sudden realization that he was holding twenty thousand dollars worth of snow in a paper bag in his right hand while Chloe, the daughter of a heroin addict, was running around him.
The guilt he felt slapped him in the chest harder than he would have expected, his lungs freezing over with self contempt.
“Boo!”
He was jolted from his moment of self-reflection as Chloe lept from behind a stack of #97red Dildos that Sutler was glad the girl didn’t seem to notice or at least understand. He stared down at her unsure what to do as shame gnawed at his chest. Chloe seemed to realize something was wrong as her bright, excited face seemed to slip into concern. Seeing this change reminded Sutler that despite his guilt he was still her guardian, still someone she relied upon.
“Oh my GAWD!”
Sutler clutched his chest with his hand, his eyes going wide as he dramatically threw himself back against the wall. He followed this with a hammy series of coughs before crumbling to the ground, his eyes rolled up in his head as his tongue fell to the side. A final, gurgling breath escaped his lips as Sutler expired in the most tremendous of ways.
Delighted, Chloe clapped her hands and hopped up and down as one might expect a small child to do. After a brief celebration she scurried to the side of Sutler, kneeling down beside him as he whispered quietly into his ear.
“Go and find Papa, then both of you come back to me.”
Sutler felt the girl give him a quick kiss on his forehead before the soft sound of her feet carrying her away announced her departure. After a few moments Sutler ceased the act, his body stiffening as he sat up, his sad dark eyes staring in the direction the girl had run.
“Papa ain’t coming back.”
He wasn’t sure if she knew that though Max had been such an absentee father it wasn’t unbelievable to think that he was just off on another adventure. Chloe had never seen the real Max Kael or felt the full extent of his abuses. Much like Sutler had thought when he was very young the cartoonist Max seemed harmless and fun.
Maybe it was best that Chloe remembered Max that way.
His hands instinctual clenched as he thought about his father causing him to once again be reminded of the cloud of California cornflakes in his hand.
“Fuck Max Kael.”
The guilt and shame he felt about Chloe was quickly brushed away, replaced by his intense hatred for his Father and everything he stood for. Chloe would understand if she knew, she’d forgive him. He was doing this for both of them, for revenge that they both deserved.
The sadness in his eyes was replaced with resolve as he pulled himself up off the floor and pressed on toward the small office he had here at Six Time Academy, the one that had previously belonged to his own Father.
“Let’s get this shit done.”
–
It had been three hours and Mike had yet to get back to Sutler. He wasn’t that surprised, Uncle Mike usually disappeared around these big Pay Per View matches, especially against opponents as dangerous as Dan Ryan. No doubt he was off finding himself or training on some new attack he would debut at ICONIC when he retained his title.
To that end Sutler decided to forge on ahead.
YouTube had been surprisingly helpful in showing Sutler several techniques and tips for taking down lines of Florida Snowdrift including from long fingernails, the dip between your thumb and index finger or even a small spoon.
But Sutler wanted to go classic.
To go classic one needs three things.
A mirror, a razor and, of course, some form of cash money.
The razor wasn’t hard to find in his Father’s old office, the drawers of his desk were filled with a dangerous assortment of cutting devices, screws and other random bits of rusty metal that Max seemed to obsessively collect. Amongst that crude collection of sharp, jagged implements Sutler had located a razor.
As for currency, Sutler had that covered with his very first unspent dollar he ever earned. He had kept it in his wallet as a token of good luck, and he figured it would be the perfect vessel from which to inhale this Colombian marching powder. First dollar, first coke, let’s goooooo.
The last piece was harder than Sutler had expected to locate however once again his Uncle came through for him. After searching the lower offices for a while Sutler remembered that his Uncle still kept a lot of his personal travel items at the Academy since he hadn’t been on the road regularly in over a year. Squirreled away amongst the assorted gym gear, cleaning products and a couple cowboy costumes was a small, circular mirror.
With these three items Sutler was able to create every scene from every movie ever that included white people snorting the sneef. Set out over his desk was the mirror with three long white lines drawn across them having been chopped and shaped exactly as the YouTube tutorial had shown him.
Imagine all the power of the World’s knowledge at your disposal and you’re using it to figure out how to do illegal drugs.
God Bless America.
With the dollar rolled into a tube in his left-hand Sutler stared down at the mirror with a nervous look on his face, his coy smile barely visible.
“Okay Sutler.. Just.. Get down there and rip it..”
He took in a deep breath and leaned down, the tube connecting his nose to the start of the white powder line. He hesitated, unsure for a moment before he withdrew again, breathing heavily as it was clear his nerves got the better of him.
“Dude, just do it. Fuck, just.. Snort the dangerous drug that you have never done before so you can figure out the key to winning the Battle Royal.. Come on Sutler, you can do this.”
He did his best to hype himself up, looking into his own eyes reflected up at him between the bars of King’s Habit lined up in front of him. Another deep breath as he closed his eyes and leaned forward.
“For the HOFC..”
Squeezing his eyes shut, Sutler pinched his open nostril and inhaled, sweeping his head to the side as he sucked the line of Peruvian flake. He felt it rip up his nostril and blast against the back of his nose and throat, an intense burn tearing through his sinuses. Pulling away Sutler felt a bright light flash between his eyes as his hands instantly rubbed at his face as he sought to lessen the intense burning.
It was then that he discovered that cocaine has a rather distinct chemical taste as it slowly slid down the back of his throat in what he would learn is called the drip. Gagging through the taste, Sutler stood up, his fingers rubbing manically at his nose as he blinked rapidly, his sinuses slowly calming as a numbing sensation crept through his brain.
“..woah..”
As his eyes opened he could feel the air rushing past his face, feel the blood marching through his veins as the world seemed to grow both increasingly vibrant and somehow impossibly mundane. In his chest he felt a sudden swelling, not of pain or fear or anxiety, but confidence, a beautiful, tremendous wellspring of both possibility and unharnessed greatness.
He was so taken up by the station he stood there, the sound of his heart pounding in his chest like the drums of war, his blood shot eyes narrowing into tiny pinpoints. He took in a deep breath, the cold air washing down into his lungs filling him with a thousand points of light. Once again his hands began to shake as a new sensation started to creep up inside of his soul..
..a blood-lust he had never known existed. An urging to fight, to attack, to dominate, to climb a mountain and fuck a three headed dragon. He would do it…
He would FUCK that dragon.
–
Twelve Hours Later…
–
Cocaine is a hell of a drug but it doesn’t last forever.
Sutler had accomplished quite a bit in the last twelve hours however, he had worked out six times, including running for three hours while watching Blue Planet. He had wrestled six of Six Time Academy’s students, handily, if somewhat sloppily, defeating them while screaming about fucking Dragons.
He had decided to start early on his taxes only to realize that he had no idea how to do his own taxes and when the YouTube page took too long to load he moved onto other things.
Things like rearranging the entire downstairs of Six Time Academy including throwing away all the rotting, discontinued clothes lines, donating what was salvageable and tossing the rest. He cleaned his own office, dumping the odd collection of sharp implements Max had collected. He had even gone so far as to clean up all of Mike’s travel bags, setting up a room where all the costumes that the eMpire had used in the previous year were on display.
It was all really quite impressive, all of this off one rail.
Of course, he was a virgin when it came to these sorts of things so it wasn’t surprising that it hit so damn hard.
Equally, unsurprising was that dangerous, dangerous come down.
If Sutler had been running at one hundred miles per hour since he sucked down that first rail then he certainly hit the wall at full speed. At first, it had been alarming, like all the energy just bottom lined out of his body. His muscles ached, his chest felt heavy and his head felt like it was filled with cotton candy. Thinking had become difficult and, despite having accomplished all that he had, a sinking feeling of failure that settled over the Son of Scions.
Sitting in a pool of his own uncertainty Sutler had done the only thing he could think of.
He called his Uncle Mike Best.
Of course, as has been earlier, Mike didn’t answer. The World Champion has better things to do, Sutler had reasoned, than speak to his nephew right now. He understood but at the same time, he could really use the guidance. As the phone rolled over to voicemail Sutler summoned what little energy he had left.
“..so I took the stuff and.. Well.. I mean I guess I was expecting like..a more permanent solution to this problem.” he managed to say weakly as he stared at his feet, a sad expression settling over his face. “I got the entire basement of Six Time Academy cleaned up and hit the gym pretty hard.. My cardo is out of this World but uh.. Fuck, I feel terrible right now.. Wait..”
Turning his head to the side Sutler’s jaw dropped as a rancid spray of yellow vomit splattered on the concrete floor next to his desk. He stared down at the pool for a moment, shaking it off as he couldn’t be bothered to worry about that at the moment.
“..just threw up. Anyway, feeling like shit. I could use any advice you have.. Thanks. Love, Sutler. I mean.. I’m Sutler. Not.. You understand. Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaai.”
Cutting the call off Sutler tossed the phone onto the ground, careful to avoid the pool of vomit, before staring forward. While before he could feel the pounding of his heart calling for the blood of Dragons in his ear now all he could feel was the pounding of the migraine that was creeping into the back of his skull.
*Beep*
His eyes stared down at the phone as a message came through. Reaching down he picked the phone up to see that his Uncle had already messaged him back. He quickly thumbed the missive open, his brown eyes scanning through it as he read it out loud.
“It’s a performance enhancer, you use it before a performance, dummy.”
A look of awareness seems to pass over Sutler’s face as he realizes the error he has made as he manages a chuckle.
“Oh man, being an adult is harder than I thought.”
Reaching up, Sutler grabbed the side of his desk and pulled himself back up to his feet. He stretched his back and allowed himself to yawn, his blood shot eyes barely peeking out beneath his heavy eyelids. As he peered down at his desk he noticed the mirror with the two white lines still stretched out across it. He paused, staring at it for a moment before he turned to look either way.
He wasn’t sure why he checked to see if anyone was watching him, he knew no one else was down here safe for perhaps Chloe, but she was locked out of his office. It felt.. Strange, like something he would expect Max to do and simply chalked it up to the Florida Dandruff he had taken. He licked his dry lips and shrugged to himself, a wiry smile pulled over his thin lips.
“Fuck it, you only live once and I already cut it. BONZAI!”
Grabbing the dollar Sutler put his nose back down to the glass and ripped another fat line. The pain wasn’t as intense this time but then, neither was high. Still, it was more than enough for the young man as his eyes flashed with a new-found manic energy, mouth stretching out into a toothy Cheshire grin. Indeed, maybe Uncle Mike was onto something about this Battle Royal magic weapon after all..
“..WOO OO.. For the fucking HO motherfucking’ FC BABY!”