2005
The seven foot tall monstrosity, Free For All Wrestling Entertainment's resident monster, Delta slammed directly into the turnbuckle, chest first, as King dodge rolled out of the corner. The ring seemed to shift with the weight of the giant hitting it, carried by locomotive momentum. King rolled up to his feet as Delta staggered backward and into his arms, King wrapping around Delta's waist and attempting to lift the... MUCH larger man with a german suplex. Delta simply stood there as King tried to lift him a couple of times, failing to do so and actually getting a laugh out of the crowd watching when Delta shook his head in shame. Delta unclasped King's hands from his waist, and turned to take King's throat in his hand.

Delta lifted King high up into the sky, above the ring mat to the excitement of many of the fans in attendance, and to the horror of others. After holding King there for a few seconds, Delta cast him down with a gorilla press slam, thrusting 2.0 back first onto the mat. King arched his back in pain as he cried out. It was a brief flash of pain... but nothing to worry about. Nothing with lasting consequences. All for the sake of the show.

Present Day
King lay in bed. He wasn't sleeping, mind, he was just... laying. He had been for about an hour.

He couldn't get up.

Every time he tried to sit up, to adjust, a sharp pain in his back ran through his spine, down to his tail bone. The place where he'd taken all those bumps all those years in highly competitive matches, the same spot every time just like he'd been trained, trying to take the majority of the damage on his shoulders. All that and for nothing, because here he was, laying in bed, unable to move, unable to get over the sharpest most painful feeling he'd ever felt in his lower back. Searing, crippling, well-earned pain. King whined quietly, laying in bed, reaching to his left for his girlfriend and touching only mattress. She must have left earlier.

King had to move, had to get on with his day. This was just like yesterday. Or the day before. King shifted his weight in the bed, trying to get up, but the pain was just too much. He overexerted himself, as he suddenly rolled. He tried to catch himself as hit the floor, nearly breaking his arm while breaking his fall. He hit the floor by his bed with a loud thud, groaning and whining into the rug. King rolled onto his side, putting a hand to his back, trying to favor it, save himself from the excruciating pain.

There he laid for a few minutes. More than a few. Placing one palm on the wall, and grabbing the top of the bed with his other, he pulled himself up to his knees, weakly, slowly, setting his back on fire, until finally he was on his feet. He stumbled and hit the wall, and took a deep breath.

2006
The Royal Rumble, WWE:U's second most major attraction, just behind WrestleMania itself. King's first match in WWE:U, the first time the crowd had ever seen him wrestle for the company. King sat in the corner, covertly holding onto the bottom rope, sucking in air. He'd entered earlier than most, at number thirteen, his lucky number. He would need stamina and smarts to survive to go on and face the champion at WrestleMania. King was young, he had the energy on his side. This was nothing. He felt like he could wrestle two more Iron Man matches and use his shot right after and still have energy enough in him to go to the movies after.

No, King wasn't short on energy. King took another deep breath and then stood up quickly, running over to the far side of the ring and lifting another competitor by his leg, throwing him over the top rope and out of the match.

King was going to win. Win his very first match in WWE:U, the Royal Rumble, and go on to WrestleMania. But not before he ran laps around the rest of these schmucks.

Present Day
King sucked down air, holding his saxophone in his hands. He liked to practice in the morning. It was a hobby he'd taken after his father, but one he'd given up when he was young and started wrestling. Now, in his twilight, he liked to pick it up again... it reminded him of his dad. But, King was no where near as talented as his dad had been with the brass. He panted quietly, his heart racing, laboring to pump blood into his veins so that he could finish the practice. He'd always thought wrestling every day of his life would train his lungs and bring his childhood asthma to heel, but honestly the cardio he used wrestling seemed to be very different from the cardio he used to blow air through this damn instrument.

King sucked in another wheezy breath. In his music room, he reached out and opened the drawer, taking out his inhaler. He sucked down two pufts, helf his breath deep, let the drug fill his lungs and open up his air ways... He looked up at the ceiling and frowned, shaking his head. He was having a bad day.

He opened up that drawer again, putting his inhaler away but taking out a pen instead. Uncapping it, he moved the pen in his left hand, between his fingers. His wrist stiffened up as he started to make motions to write, shooting pain back and forth up his arm, making his knuckles stiff, his digits rigid. He grit his teeth and tried to bear through that pain to make the note adjustments necessary. Maybe if he just... wrote in an easier octave... Easier for his lungs...


2012
King climbed up to the rope rope, easily ascending as he swiftly got ready to drop the Shoal on his opponent, a man slightly older than himself named Seita Gray. Before his accident. Before he became... something else. Back when he was just the Hardcore Genius and shaded. King put his arms out and went to just fall off the top rope and drop his sheer weight on his opponent, but Gray rolled out of the way, leaving only mat for King to hit. King bounced, flopped really, on the mat and scrambled up to his feet, knowing that any moment with Gray on the offensive is one that could end up with a shattered bone.

King turned around and saw Gray running straight at him. King ducked under a clothesline, acting on instinct. His eyes followed Seita as the other man bounced off the ropes and came running back at him. 2.0 leapt up, giving Seita a high knee in the face for his troubles, sending the hardcore wrestler down to his back, rolling straight out of the ring, holding his face. 2.0 smirked as he stood back up and laughed at the situation, trying to see Seita on the floor of the arena where he'd rolled out.

Gray didn't resurface immediately, but King eventually saw him hunched over, doubled up and trying to recover from the attack. King ran off the far end of the ropes as he ran back at the other side, headed for an uncharacteristic suicide dive through the rope--

SMACK!

King dove head first into a steel chair, one that Gray must have cooked up from under the ring while he was out of view. Of course he did. That was his whole shtick. King didn't even have a chance to hold his face in pain when he was suddenly jostled to a complete stop, as he was ripped back toward the ring, upside down, by an unseen force. He whipped up against the ring apron. His foot had been caught in the top and middle ropes, hanging down at the mercy of his opponent. King wailed as he reached up helplessly to try and free himself.

He could see Gray walking up the steel steps, still holding that black steel chair in hand, holding it up for the crowd, who was foaming at the mouth for some hardcore action. Seita pandered to the frothing masses, as he raised the chair up. King shook his head wildly, his slightly longer hair flailing about as he did so, when Seita swung again.

Smack!

Right into King's knee.

King screamed in pain as he reached up again for his knee, caught like a fish on a line.

Smack!

Seita swung another hard chair shot into King's leg, threatening to break the cap or tear a ligament with each hard shove of his arms. In the great battle of steel versus flesh, steel always won.

Smack!

King was startled.

Where was he? What was he just doing? He lost his balance and reached out instinctively to stop himself from falling. He felt the familiar wood of the handrails to his stairs. The stairs in his home.

King recovered from his out of body experience, as he stared at steps in front of him. He felt the corners of his mouth tug down and the ache in his knees. He stepped back down, off the first step of the stairs. There were about fifteen of them. He always used to count them when he went up the stairs as a child, and was always confused over why there were more steps, seemingly, going one way rather than the other.

There were about fifteen. Fifteen, he whispered to himself as he looked up at the stairs, watching as more and more steps seemed to appear out of thin air, as the second story seemed to get further and further away from his place on the ground floud. As his legs began to tremble. The sun had gone down... Kelly had been standing there for an hour. Sweat started to bead his brow, nervous sweat, cold sweat. He swallowed thickly as he put his leg on the first step and pulled himself up.

Smack!

King winced in pain, the ache in his knees graduating to real pain. His arms shook, taking his time as he tried to climb up another step, timidly. His foot barely left the stair. He set the sole of his foot back down, dreading the idea of climbing up another step. Dreading the idea of the pain that was about to shake him.

Smack!

Maybe if he climbed faster, maybe if he just put a bunch of the stairs behind him in one quick burst.

Smack!
Smack!
Smack!

Why the hell didn't he live in a one story home?

Smack!

King slipped out from the ropes after that chair shot, falling down onto the ring apron and down to the flood with a sudden and harsh thud. He wailed and held his knee in excruciating pain. Chair shot after chair shot, as the crowd's cheering turned into ringing in his ears.

He was on the floor of his hallway, below the first step of his home, screaming in pain and holding his knee, scuffed from rug burn. He wasn't on the floor of an arena, he wasn't at the mercy of Seita Gray. King cried out, holding himself together, but only barely. King looked back up at the top of the stairs, as thousands more steps added themselves on top of the others, making a trek to the top seem like a truly impossible venture.

Tears filled his eyes, helplessness filled his heart. The man that time forgot, had forgotten that he was a King but not immortal. Not unreal. Larger than life but still human.

King... after all these years...

Was old.