Post by Sentinel on Apr 22, 2015 8:51:49 GMT -6
The red digits glowing from atop the nightstand read 5:31. Instead of the expected two, there's only one form resting beneath the thin hotel room blanket at this early morning hour, and a big one at that. Some early light is starting to filter through from between the heavy drapes but it's hardly enough to draw a dim line across the sleeping form. They're drawn close for a reason, after all. Yet it hardly matters even at this hour, before the rising of Jesus and the Mexicans, because our subject is already awake. It's the uneven breathing that gives it away at first, followed by the harsh yet contained glow of a cell phone screen moments later.
Sentinel, head still thick with sleep and slowed by the pain of recent wounds, pushes up onto his elbow, reaching toward the bedside table for the aforementioned device. The cover falls down to just above waist level, his bare, tattooed torso revealed slightly as he activates the phone. A few wounds criss-cross his dusky flesh but they're ghostly in this light. He runs his thumb up and down the screen a time or two before setting the phone aside with a low groan. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he sits up and rubs at his eyes with one hand, staring at the clock when it lowers.
Sentinel: "...fuck."
It's either late, early or something else. The Destroyer rises from the bed, only his slightly darker silhouette against the lightless shadows of the room showing his motion...which is probably a good thing. Moving slowly across the room, he's within the bathroom before the light comes on along with the ever-present growl of the fan. Back on the table, the phone lights up a few times, then stops while Sentinel's voice cuts in over the footage.
Sentinel (voice-over): "'Better to live on your feet than die on your knees.' It's one of those trite quotes some folks like to toss out when they feel like sounding deep. I have my own line to deliver in its place instead, though: 'Is a man ailing more to bury his sins and live happy beneath the weight or to strike them down and live unfettered at the cost of solace?'"
A rasping chuckle after the somewhat-strained words show that a full recovery still hasn't quite happened after the injury affected upon the Destroyer.
Sentinel (voice-over): "It don't exactly roll off the tongue, but it's appropriate. I've spent the last several months trying to expunge the sins of the past, digging up old bones from older graves to burn them to nothing. It was time. Time to break the vow of silence I took over a decade ago and make amends to the people hurt by my words in the first place. My old friend, his family that to this moment hates me, my brothers who rode with me through my silent pain...they needed the closure every bit as much as I."
His voice trails off as we see him again, stepping from the bathroom in a pair of old jeans with his boots in one hand and a towel draped around his neck. With light fully upon him as he steps into the small alcove near the bathroom, that rock-hard torso with the ink and barely-healed scars is visible. But as well, beneath a stringy curtain of still-wet, beyond-black hair are the gray eyes and tired expression of a man who by his own admission has only found more pain in the place he immolated his old sins. He doesn't seem to realize that he's staring at his reflection trance-like as his voice cuts in over the scene.
Sentinel (voice-over): "I guess they got it. I ain't heard otherwise, at least, which could just mean that they're puttin' on happy faces for my benefit. There's no right way to ask them after what went down at Mayhem a few days ago, either."
A reference to the Dead Men's return after seeing Sentinel out of the building post-fight with Alex, putting themselves between Arsenal and the decimation of Brody Montgomery by Shonn Maguire. Perhaps the Sentinel in the moment we're seeing is thinking about it too, based on his stony expression.
Sentinel (voice-over): "Robert at least, the guy who'd have rather seen me face-down in a shallow ditch weeks ago, seems to have gotten a little peace out of what went down. Good on him for that. The price paid to wean those words out of the murderer who handed him his pain..."
There's no verbal continuation of that thought. Instead the scene goes to black in a quick fade before a series of swiftly-disappearing, in-motion images flicker on the screen between the heavy beating of a heart.
The Dead Men riding up on a line of black cars and even more black garbed men...
The makings of a wicked street brawl with bodies everywhere, swinging anything not nailed down...
Talon dragged out of a black sedan by a gun-wielding Benimaru (first appearance), a scene that goes black before the sharp bang of a gunshot is heard...
Bodies strewn on the street from both sides of the battle, including Talon with a wound to her right thigh...
...and a final image, that of Sentinel with a gun pointed beneath the chin of Benny while the latter has a straight-bladed dagger against the former's throat. Another swift move to black, the sound of tearing flesh and another gunshot followed by broken glass.
Back in the moment, Sentinel is pulling his fist away from the mirror where a spider's web of cracks has spread from that spot. He's rather lucky he didn't cut his knuckles wide open with that physical expression of rage, but luck is the furthest thing from his mind. His hand lifts to lightly touch his bandaged neck, a look of pure disdain etched on his features and shown in pieces upon the ruined mirror.
Sentinel (voice-over): "...wasn't worth it. The people who let me live happy and in peace despite my sins want little if anything to do with me now. Most of the family that took me in along with them are even angrier. The folks who saw Mayhem got a taste of that."
Walking away from the mirror, Sentinel lowers himself onto the edge of the bed, pulling the aforementioned boots on. He doesn't even look at the phone beyond shoving it into his jeans pocket and rising to turn on the room's lights. He moves with purpose, the kind of motion and manner that a person has when they're trying to occupy their mind. Sentinel pulls on a white t-shirt, then his Dead Men vest. A small black bag is snatched off the dresser, packed the night before to save him a few minutes. Picking up the key card off the dresser, he leaves the room and lets the door slam behind him.
Sentinel (voice-over): "I don't like this introspection bullshit. And right now, Artemis, you're probably sitting there watching this, wondering why the hell you have to listen to it. I assure you that there's a point to it all, so stick with me."
The door slamming brings that last scene from before to the forefront again, Sentinel and Benimaru glaring into one another's eyes like a real-life version of Spike and Vicious, each one daring the other to make the first move. A first move that could very well be their last. The abrasions, cuts and blood on their faces show that they've already gone round before this point and that we've reached the end, one that's certain to be bloody.
Sentinel (voice-over): "You're new here, and word is that you had a solid debut even in defeat. That's all well and good, but on the other side of the coin it means you haven't gotten acclimated just yet. You don't get how shit works in the UWA."
The voice-over cuts out and instead we're hearing what went down in the moments before our eyes.
Benny: "Fear's still in your eyes, Daisuke. Wasn't shooting your woman enough to bring out the old you? I don't know if that's guts...or stupidity."
The knife is ground closer to Sentinel's throat, drawing a bit of blood even as he jams the gun barrel harder against Benny's chin, no doubt leaving an indentation on his flesh.
Sentinel: "Fuck you, Benny! Who the fuck are you to bring innocent people into this?!"
Benny: "Ask Junichi! He WAS innocent before you filled his head with bullshit!"
Sentinel: "YOU killed him, not me!"
Benny: "You might as well have!"
The rest of the Dead Men, most wounded, are backed off from this situation and not by choice. They, unlike the two men a hair away from ending their enemy's life at the cost of their own, want to put a stop to this before something bad happens. But they'd never make it in time.
Sentinel: "NO! You're NOT holding that shit over my head anymore! NO ONE is!"
Benny: "Then take the shot! Or is our friend's blood still on your hands making it hard to hold that gun steady?!"
Shawn Crowe: "Back away from this, Sentinel! There ain't no winning this shit! Cops'll be here in minutes!"
Sentinel: "Stay the fuck out of this, Shawn!"
Sentinel's eyes are off Benimaru for just a moment and that lets the Yakuza expatriate lunge in, driving his skull into the bridge of Sentinel's nose. The Destroyer reels from the surprise blow and Benimaru doesn't waste his opportunity; he lunges again at Sentinel, bringing the dagger up and across in a slashing motion. The scene cuts away for a moment, simply showing a splash of red strike the ground nearby. What we see next, from Sentinel's perspective on his back in the road, is Benny standing over him with the red-tinged weapon, staring down.
He says something, but over the heavy heart's pounding which has started up again we can't hear what's said. A brief flash cuts the man off, a shiny bit of what appears to be glass sticking out of his hip. The assault takes HIS eye off the moment now and, from the right side of the screen, a gun moves into view. Benimaru turns back to Sentinel below him and has enough time for his eyes to widen before Sentinel squeezes the trigger.
Back to black, back to the Destroyer's voice over the nothingness.
Sentinel (voice-over): "And you sure as shit don't know who the fuck you're dealing with in the ring two weeks from now. Ya know how I know that, little lady?"
The heart continues to beat but steadily slows, quiets...shifts down to nothing, the same as the blackness before out eyes...in time for seven or eight more gunshots to sound out in rapid succession. Somewhere beneath them is the roar of a man broken.
Sentinel (voice-over): "Because even I don't fucking know who you're dealing with, and I'm wearing the sonofabitch's skin."
It might've been funny five or ten minutes ago. It isn't now. Somewhere between the origin of the show Supernatural and Tulsa, Oklahoma, Sentinel has taken a few minutes to pull off the highway and dig out the portable camera. Traveling alone these days means he has to handle things on his own from top to bottom. It also means no fancy tour bus and a string of dingy hotel rooms instead of riding the roads in comfort with those he loves. Every inch, every minute sensation of pain that he feels...it's all on that weathered faces, one that's a few days past needing a shave.
Sentinel holds the camera away from himself a bit, the focus drawn back just enough so that he's not entirely filling the frame as he now directly addresses his first opponent in several weeks.
Sentinel: "What you're looking at is the number-one contender for the UWA World Heavyweight Championship, a title that in the space of a little over a year has only been carried by three people. Around here, against what's becoming the norm elsewhere, our big belt isn't a hot potato. If you want that gold and leather over your shoulder or around your waist, you better be in for the long haul. Lock yourself in the room named 'Dedication' with only the bare essentials, powering through the pain and keeping your head above the ocean of sweat and suffering that you're gonna spill. I've been in this place since the start, Artemis, and I've had one...ONE...shot at that title.
And I didn't even factor into the finish of the match to crown that first champion. It was a slap in the face and a kick in the ass at the same time. And after going down with injury and fighting my way back between the ropes, I swore to any God that would listen that that would not be the last time I made a run for the gold. Two others have worn the gold since. Several more have tried and failed. Up until several weeks ago, no one had been able to put my shoulders down for three. My ticket for another crack at the main prize was punched. And then the bottom fell out on that little record. But I don't care about that so much, you know? Because the person that beat me is the person who represents this company as champion right now. It ties things up in a neat little bow."
He forces something resembling a smile but fails to properly get any shine on it and gives up after a moment.
Sentinel: "So you're facing the next man to challenge for the championship, ironically one that a man has never held. You're seeing a man who is the epitome of alone who spends his mornings punching mirrors and waiting for calls that never come. A man..."
Reaching behind his back, he pulls the familiar Browning HP-SFS from the back of his belt. It's the same weapon that we saw previously. In fact, it still has Sentinel's own blood on the handle and barrel, courtesy of Benny's dagger. Seeming to forget that he was speaking, Sentinel sets the camera on the handlebars of his Road King, directed at him as he slowly discharges the clip from the weapon. It's hard to tell what he's doing until he picks up the camera and points it toward himself and his raised, clenched hand. He hadn't forgotten his point after all.
Sentinel: "...who's made it a practice lately to take the hard road no matter what he does."
Opening his hand, at least nine empty shells drop to the gravel and dust beneath his feet. With even passing knowledge of how guns work, this means that he literally picked them up and put them BACK into the clip after unloading on his old friend/enemy at some point in the near-past. Sentinel stares, nonplussed, down at the pile of spent brass shells.
Sentinel: "You're in for a long damn night, Artemis. This wound across my throat spilled more than blood and it has kept me out of the ring for too damn long. Bethany Kenyon, meanwhile, has been out there proving why she's just as worthy a champion as her predecessors. I have a lot of catching up to do. You, unfortunately, were sold a woof ticket in the process. You faced her in your debut, so you know what I'm up against. One tandem Kiss-Off put you down for the count and there's no shame in that. Again, there's a reason that woman's the flagship.
It took a hell of a lot more than that to drop me though. And you don't have a partner to tag in after I've started throwing you around like a rag doll. No disrespect, Artemis, but a message needs sending. This here, this wrestling thing that I've been a part of for the last several years? It's all I have left right now. That ain't a sob story. It's the fucking truth. And a man with little left to his name, if he's any kind of man at all, will fight to his last breath to defend what he has. You're all set to take that from me and I don't begrudge you for such a twist of fate being visited upon you in your fledgling career. It's what you're supposed to do."
Sliding the clip back into the Browning, Sentinel holsters it again and puts his attention on the camera anew.
Sentinel: "Just like I'm supposed to live up to my monikers, even if half of them don't make sense anymore. The Silent Destroyer, The Silence Behind the Violence...a man who's no stranger to wearing the blood of his enemies and leaving his opponents in ruins. The last part has always been a business matter, though. Even if I was fightin' on the side of darkness against folks the fans loved cheerin' for, there wasn't any malice there even if it looked like it. And ordinarily, there wouldn't be any bad feelings directed your way, either."
His attention shifts down, giving him the appearance of a man who's a bit ashamed by what he's about to say.
Sentinel: "But I can't go an' promise you that that'll be the case. I don't see friends or allies anymore. I don't see enemies, either. I see victims. Everyone around me, Artemis, is a victim waiting to happen. I may not INTEND to hurt you, to put you through the canvas with the force of a rocket on re-entry. I may not WANT to bust you open with fist and boot.
But I'm probably going to. And for one of the few times in my career, I damn well want to win. I NEED to win. My opponent, YOU, need to be battered so hideously that even the thought of getting up makes you suffer. Feeling that way makes my skin crawl. Maybe I'm still the monster people tell me I am. Or maybe I never stopped being that in the first place. Maybe I just convinced myself that I was no longer an animal and everyone around me went along with the delusion..."
Trailing off again, we can see the frame shaking as though the camera's either being jostled or clenched way too tight in a trembling hand. Sentinel is silent for at least a minute before he speaks up again, his tone a lot softer now. Soft enough that volume adjustment is necessary.
Sentinel: "You're stepping into the ring with a blood-soaked demon hungering for more, Artemis. And I'm sorry it came to that."
The feed cuts to silent darkness, then fades back in from a short distance. Sentinel shoves the camera into his bag again, strapping it down securely to the bike. Swinging a leg over the hog, he starts it up with a single kick. Sliding on his dark sunglasses, he looks off into the distance for a moment, perhaps savoring just a moment of peace. On reflex, he takes out his phone and activates it briefly, but finds nothing that he seeks. As the camera had before, the phone shakes in his hand from the pressure of his grip.
In a fit of anger, he smashes the device against the pavement and as a final 'fuck you' to it, grinds it beneath the back tire of the Harley as he tears off down the highway again, bringing the scene to a final close.
Sentinel, head still thick with sleep and slowed by the pain of recent wounds, pushes up onto his elbow, reaching toward the bedside table for the aforementioned device. The cover falls down to just above waist level, his bare, tattooed torso revealed slightly as he activates the phone. A few wounds criss-cross his dusky flesh but they're ghostly in this light. He runs his thumb up and down the screen a time or two before setting the phone aside with a low groan. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he sits up and rubs at his eyes with one hand, staring at the clock when it lowers.
Sentinel: "...fuck."
It's either late, early or something else. The Destroyer rises from the bed, only his slightly darker silhouette against the lightless shadows of the room showing his motion...which is probably a good thing. Moving slowly across the room, he's within the bathroom before the light comes on along with the ever-present growl of the fan. Back on the table, the phone lights up a few times, then stops while Sentinel's voice cuts in over the footage.
Sentinel (voice-over): "'Better to live on your feet than die on your knees.' It's one of those trite quotes some folks like to toss out when they feel like sounding deep. I have my own line to deliver in its place instead, though: 'Is a man ailing more to bury his sins and live happy beneath the weight or to strike them down and live unfettered at the cost of solace?'"
A rasping chuckle after the somewhat-strained words show that a full recovery still hasn't quite happened after the injury affected upon the Destroyer.
Sentinel (voice-over): "It don't exactly roll off the tongue, but it's appropriate. I've spent the last several months trying to expunge the sins of the past, digging up old bones from older graves to burn them to nothing. It was time. Time to break the vow of silence I took over a decade ago and make amends to the people hurt by my words in the first place. My old friend, his family that to this moment hates me, my brothers who rode with me through my silent pain...they needed the closure every bit as much as I."
His voice trails off as we see him again, stepping from the bathroom in a pair of old jeans with his boots in one hand and a towel draped around his neck. With light fully upon him as he steps into the small alcove near the bathroom, that rock-hard torso with the ink and barely-healed scars is visible. But as well, beneath a stringy curtain of still-wet, beyond-black hair are the gray eyes and tired expression of a man who by his own admission has only found more pain in the place he immolated his old sins. He doesn't seem to realize that he's staring at his reflection trance-like as his voice cuts in over the scene.
Sentinel (voice-over): "I guess they got it. I ain't heard otherwise, at least, which could just mean that they're puttin' on happy faces for my benefit. There's no right way to ask them after what went down at Mayhem a few days ago, either."
A reference to the Dead Men's return after seeing Sentinel out of the building post-fight with Alex, putting themselves between Arsenal and the decimation of Brody Montgomery by Shonn Maguire. Perhaps the Sentinel in the moment we're seeing is thinking about it too, based on his stony expression.
Sentinel (voice-over): "Robert at least, the guy who'd have rather seen me face-down in a shallow ditch weeks ago, seems to have gotten a little peace out of what went down. Good on him for that. The price paid to wean those words out of the murderer who handed him his pain..."
There's no verbal continuation of that thought. Instead the scene goes to black in a quick fade before a series of swiftly-disappearing, in-motion images flicker on the screen between the heavy beating of a heart.
The Dead Men riding up on a line of black cars and even more black garbed men...
The makings of a wicked street brawl with bodies everywhere, swinging anything not nailed down...
Talon dragged out of a black sedan by a gun-wielding Benimaru (first appearance), a scene that goes black before the sharp bang of a gunshot is heard...
Bodies strewn on the street from both sides of the battle, including Talon with a wound to her right thigh...
...and a final image, that of Sentinel with a gun pointed beneath the chin of Benny while the latter has a straight-bladed dagger against the former's throat. Another swift move to black, the sound of tearing flesh and another gunshot followed by broken glass.
Back in the moment, Sentinel is pulling his fist away from the mirror where a spider's web of cracks has spread from that spot. He's rather lucky he didn't cut his knuckles wide open with that physical expression of rage, but luck is the furthest thing from his mind. His hand lifts to lightly touch his bandaged neck, a look of pure disdain etched on his features and shown in pieces upon the ruined mirror.
Sentinel (voice-over): "...wasn't worth it. The people who let me live happy and in peace despite my sins want little if anything to do with me now. Most of the family that took me in along with them are even angrier. The folks who saw Mayhem got a taste of that."
Walking away from the mirror, Sentinel lowers himself onto the edge of the bed, pulling the aforementioned boots on. He doesn't even look at the phone beyond shoving it into his jeans pocket and rising to turn on the room's lights. He moves with purpose, the kind of motion and manner that a person has when they're trying to occupy their mind. Sentinel pulls on a white t-shirt, then his Dead Men vest. A small black bag is snatched off the dresser, packed the night before to save him a few minutes. Picking up the key card off the dresser, he leaves the room and lets the door slam behind him.
Sentinel (voice-over): "I don't like this introspection bullshit. And right now, Artemis, you're probably sitting there watching this, wondering why the hell you have to listen to it. I assure you that there's a point to it all, so stick with me."
The door slamming brings that last scene from before to the forefront again, Sentinel and Benimaru glaring into one another's eyes like a real-life version of Spike and Vicious, each one daring the other to make the first move. A first move that could very well be their last. The abrasions, cuts and blood on their faces show that they've already gone round before this point and that we've reached the end, one that's certain to be bloody.
Sentinel (voice-over): "You're new here, and word is that you had a solid debut even in defeat. That's all well and good, but on the other side of the coin it means you haven't gotten acclimated just yet. You don't get how shit works in the UWA."
The voice-over cuts out and instead we're hearing what went down in the moments before our eyes.
Benny: "Fear's still in your eyes, Daisuke. Wasn't shooting your woman enough to bring out the old you? I don't know if that's guts...or stupidity."
The knife is ground closer to Sentinel's throat, drawing a bit of blood even as he jams the gun barrel harder against Benny's chin, no doubt leaving an indentation on his flesh.
Sentinel: "Fuck you, Benny! Who the fuck are you to bring innocent people into this?!"
Benny: "Ask Junichi! He WAS innocent before you filled his head with bullshit!"
Sentinel: "YOU killed him, not me!"
Benny: "You might as well have!"
The rest of the Dead Men, most wounded, are backed off from this situation and not by choice. They, unlike the two men a hair away from ending their enemy's life at the cost of their own, want to put a stop to this before something bad happens. But they'd never make it in time.
Sentinel: "NO! You're NOT holding that shit over my head anymore! NO ONE is!"
Benny: "Then take the shot! Or is our friend's blood still on your hands making it hard to hold that gun steady?!"
Shawn Crowe: "Back away from this, Sentinel! There ain't no winning this shit! Cops'll be here in minutes!"
Sentinel: "Stay the fuck out of this, Shawn!"
Sentinel's eyes are off Benimaru for just a moment and that lets the Yakuza expatriate lunge in, driving his skull into the bridge of Sentinel's nose. The Destroyer reels from the surprise blow and Benimaru doesn't waste his opportunity; he lunges again at Sentinel, bringing the dagger up and across in a slashing motion. The scene cuts away for a moment, simply showing a splash of red strike the ground nearby. What we see next, from Sentinel's perspective on his back in the road, is Benny standing over him with the red-tinged weapon, staring down.
He says something, but over the heavy heart's pounding which has started up again we can't hear what's said. A brief flash cuts the man off, a shiny bit of what appears to be glass sticking out of his hip. The assault takes HIS eye off the moment now and, from the right side of the screen, a gun moves into view. Benimaru turns back to Sentinel below him and has enough time for his eyes to widen before Sentinel squeezes the trigger.
Back to black, back to the Destroyer's voice over the nothingness.
Sentinel (voice-over): "And you sure as shit don't know who the fuck you're dealing with in the ring two weeks from now. Ya know how I know that, little lady?"
The heart continues to beat but steadily slows, quiets...shifts down to nothing, the same as the blackness before out eyes...in time for seven or eight more gunshots to sound out in rapid succession. Somewhere beneath them is the roar of a man broken.
Sentinel (voice-over): "Because even I don't fucking know who you're dealing with, and I'm wearing the sonofabitch's skin."
It might've been funny five or ten minutes ago. It isn't now. Somewhere between the origin of the show Supernatural and Tulsa, Oklahoma, Sentinel has taken a few minutes to pull off the highway and dig out the portable camera. Traveling alone these days means he has to handle things on his own from top to bottom. It also means no fancy tour bus and a string of dingy hotel rooms instead of riding the roads in comfort with those he loves. Every inch, every minute sensation of pain that he feels...it's all on that weathered faces, one that's a few days past needing a shave.
Sentinel holds the camera away from himself a bit, the focus drawn back just enough so that he's not entirely filling the frame as he now directly addresses his first opponent in several weeks.
Sentinel: "What you're looking at is the number-one contender for the UWA World Heavyweight Championship, a title that in the space of a little over a year has only been carried by three people. Around here, against what's becoming the norm elsewhere, our big belt isn't a hot potato. If you want that gold and leather over your shoulder or around your waist, you better be in for the long haul. Lock yourself in the room named 'Dedication' with only the bare essentials, powering through the pain and keeping your head above the ocean of sweat and suffering that you're gonna spill. I've been in this place since the start, Artemis, and I've had one...ONE...shot at that title.
And I didn't even factor into the finish of the match to crown that first champion. It was a slap in the face and a kick in the ass at the same time. And after going down with injury and fighting my way back between the ropes, I swore to any God that would listen that that would not be the last time I made a run for the gold. Two others have worn the gold since. Several more have tried and failed. Up until several weeks ago, no one had been able to put my shoulders down for three. My ticket for another crack at the main prize was punched. And then the bottom fell out on that little record. But I don't care about that so much, you know? Because the person that beat me is the person who represents this company as champion right now. It ties things up in a neat little bow."
He forces something resembling a smile but fails to properly get any shine on it and gives up after a moment.
Sentinel: "So you're facing the next man to challenge for the championship, ironically one that a man has never held. You're seeing a man who is the epitome of alone who spends his mornings punching mirrors and waiting for calls that never come. A man..."
Reaching behind his back, he pulls the familiar Browning HP-SFS from the back of his belt. It's the same weapon that we saw previously. In fact, it still has Sentinel's own blood on the handle and barrel, courtesy of Benny's dagger. Seeming to forget that he was speaking, Sentinel sets the camera on the handlebars of his Road King, directed at him as he slowly discharges the clip from the weapon. It's hard to tell what he's doing until he picks up the camera and points it toward himself and his raised, clenched hand. He hadn't forgotten his point after all.
Sentinel: "...who's made it a practice lately to take the hard road no matter what he does."
Opening his hand, at least nine empty shells drop to the gravel and dust beneath his feet. With even passing knowledge of how guns work, this means that he literally picked them up and put them BACK into the clip after unloading on his old friend/enemy at some point in the near-past. Sentinel stares, nonplussed, down at the pile of spent brass shells.
Sentinel: "You're in for a long damn night, Artemis. This wound across my throat spilled more than blood and it has kept me out of the ring for too damn long. Bethany Kenyon, meanwhile, has been out there proving why she's just as worthy a champion as her predecessors. I have a lot of catching up to do. You, unfortunately, were sold a woof ticket in the process. You faced her in your debut, so you know what I'm up against. One tandem Kiss-Off put you down for the count and there's no shame in that. Again, there's a reason that woman's the flagship.
It took a hell of a lot more than that to drop me though. And you don't have a partner to tag in after I've started throwing you around like a rag doll. No disrespect, Artemis, but a message needs sending. This here, this wrestling thing that I've been a part of for the last several years? It's all I have left right now. That ain't a sob story. It's the fucking truth. And a man with little left to his name, if he's any kind of man at all, will fight to his last breath to defend what he has. You're all set to take that from me and I don't begrudge you for such a twist of fate being visited upon you in your fledgling career. It's what you're supposed to do."
Sliding the clip back into the Browning, Sentinel holsters it again and puts his attention on the camera anew.
Sentinel: "Just like I'm supposed to live up to my monikers, even if half of them don't make sense anymore. The Silent Destroyer, The Silence Behind the Violence...a man who's no stranger to wearing the blood of his enemies and leaving his opponents in ruins. The last part has always been a business matter, though. Even if I was fightin' on the side of darkness against folks the fans loved cheerin' for, there wasn't any malice there even if it looked like it. And ordinarily, there wouldn't be any bad feelings directed your way, either."
His attention shifts down, giving him the appearance of a man who's a bit ashamed by what he's about to say.
Sentinel: "But I can't go an' promise you that that'll be the case. I don't see friends or allies anymore. I don't see enemies, either. I see victims. Everyone around me, Artemis, is a victim waiting to happen. I may not INTEND to hurt you, to put you through the canvas with the force of a rocket on re-entry. I may not WANT to bust you open with fist and boot.
But I'm probably going to. And for one of the few times in my career, I damn well want to win. I NEED to win. My opponent, YOU, need to be battered so hideously that even the thought of getting up makes you suffer. Feeling that way makes my skin crawl. Maybe I'm still the monster people tell me I am. Or maybe I never stopped being that in the first place. Maybe I just convinced myself that I was no longer an animal and everyone around me went along with the delusion..."
Trailing off again, we can see the frame shaking as though the camera's either being jostled or clenched way too tight in a trembling hand. Sentinel is silent for at least a minute before he speaks up again, his tone a lot softer now. Soft enough that volume adjustment is necessary.
Sentinel: "You're stepping into the ring with a blood-soaked demon hungering for more, Artemis. And I'm sorry it came to that."
The feed cuts to silent darkness, then fades back in from a short distance. Sentinel shoves the camera into his bag again, strapping it down securely to the bike. Swinging a leg over the hog, he starts it up with a single kick. Sliding on his dark sunglasses, he looks off into the distance for a moment, perhaps savoring just a moment of peace. On reflex, he takes out his phone and activates it briefly, but finds nothing that he seeks. As the camera had before, the phone shakes in his hand from the pressure of his grip.
In a fit of anger, he smashes the device against the pavement and as a final 'fuck you' to it, grinds it beneath the back tire of the Harley as he tears off down the highway again, bringing the scene to a final close.
