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 Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2014 1:29 pm
"KTLA 5 News reporting on a gruesome situation that occured last night, right behind me at this popular dive bar, Kar's Bar, here in downtown Hollywood, California. At around seven o'clock last night, Matthias Augustine-Landry came in to Kar's Bar to try and participate in their weekly wrestling show. He was wearing a red, metallic mask, and calling himself the Red Raven. The owner of the bar, formermly FFA Superstar, Karadon, real name Carl Langston, said that Matthias demanded a match in the main event against his Champion, a 7'2", 300 lb blonde veteran named simply, "The Hunter," despite Carl trying to talk him out of it. Matthias was adament, and he was given the match. Police seem to believe that this is the same "Hunter" who was a major rival of Matthias' father, Mike Landry, and that Matthias was attempting to assault him the same way he is believed to have assaulted four other men and women in the past few months. In the ring, however, as the match began, Hunter decimated young Matthias from bell to bell, causing two broken orbital bones, a fractured jaw, a major concussion, and a bruised spinal cord, with plentiful internal bleeding. The match ended when Hunter dropped Matthias on the back of his head on top of the bar with a move called the 'Vertibreaker', moments before Matthias' father, Mike Landry, charged through the door and assaulted Hunter. Police believe Mr. Langston called Mr. Landry before the event began and tipped him off. Hunter was able to escape from the situation, and was unable to be reached for questioning by us, or the police. Matthias was taken in to custody by the police and transported to a nearby hospital for treatment, where it was also found that he had been competing with several other small fractures in his ribs and hips. He was reported to be in critical condition as of last night, undergowing surgury for some of his injuries. He is currently stable, and handcuffed to his bed until a time where he will be deemed healthy enough to be transfered to the local Hollywood County Jail where he will be questioned for his involvement in the alleged assaults over the past few months. Father Mike Landry and mother Athena Augustine-Landry could not be reached for questioning."
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Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 11:34 am
The melodic click-clack, click-clack of patent leather heels were hard to ignore as they rolled in like thunder toward the far end of the intensive care unit where the sheriff's deputy sat slumped against an office chair, wearing the holes in the upholstery even thinner. KTLA 5 News may not have been able to reach Athena Augustine-Landry for comments but that didn't mean she didn't have something to say. Her shadow briefly loomed over the deputy like clouds teeming with rain before the portly fellow craned his neck to trace the shadow to its source, finding himself promptly met with a box of Randy's Donuts and a tall mug of coffee. Deputy Mendez straightened his back and started to rise until the lady spoke, her voice lowered to a gruff whisper.
"What's under the cover should make disappearing for fifteen minutes worth your time...sir."
The officer cast a glare of suspicion at the haggard visage behind the bribes before he lifted the lid to find two hundred dollar bills, folded and taped to the cardboard. Mendez rolled his tongue over his upper teeth before he tilted his head back to the lady and stood to take the coffee out of her hand, shifting his mustache with a wry smile.
"If you'll excuse me, I need to see a man about a horse... so make it quick, ma'am."
Athena turned her back towards the door to her son's hospital to ensure the deputy was gone, hesitating to cross the threshold into a cacophony of whirs and beeps and face her estranged progeny.
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Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 12:03 pm
Matthias was in about the worst shape he's been in in his life, and not for a lack of trying. His self destructive behavior was taking a toll on his body and mind, and refusing to seek professional medical services for his injuries was only amplifying that. But what Hunter did to him, was the worst thing that's ever happened to him. He didn't remember most of the fight, because you couldn't call it a match, all he remembered was that he was, from the second he laid eyes on him, constantly terrified. A feeling he hadn't felt in a very, very long time. He never threw a punch or kick, tried to grapple, he was paralyzed by fear from the second he saw him, and the scariest thing was, he didn't know what it was about the man that scared him. He wasn't the biggest or strongest man he'd ever fought, or the most overtly intimidating...but the look on his face...the aura around him...froze him in his footsteps. And to think...Matthias sought him out.
Since then, he'd been in and out of consciousness, before and after his surgeries. He knew he was handcuffed, but he never saw a cop, he barely ever saw a doctor when he woke up. But now, his timing happened to be perfect. His pain meds were wearing off, allowing him to wake up...and see that oh so familiar sillouette in his room. He thought he was hallucinating, but the pain sobered him up. At first, his usual feelings of resentment surfaced, and he started to flap his gums before he even really had time to think about it.
"Stop...just stop it...Get out..." he coughed a little bit, clearing his throat, "I don't want to hear it...the second i'm able i'm going to get the hell out of here, find that monster, and do it all again. I don't care what happens to me, and you can't stop me..."
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Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 4:22 pm
Athena rolled her eyes so strongly that her exasperation over her son's naïveté was almost palpable. Her son was intent on being the author of his own fate and that fate came at such a steep price that she had grown weary of her maternal instincts, having long since given up on being there to catch him when he fell. Athena had tried so many times to keep her distance but when the mysterious phone call came only a few nights prior and threw her husband into a frenzy, it was hard not to be caught up in the furor, too. She shook her head as she let the silence swallow whole the chasm carved between them before she dared to speak again.
"You've made that quite clear, Matthias, because if you gave half a damn, you wouldn't be laid up in the hospital after having God knows what happen to you. But I'M not the one cuffed to the bed now... am I?"
Athena let her question hang in the air like a dagger, sharp and poised to strike. She could remember how Mike left that night without so much as an explanation, barreling down the stairs toward the door and into the night. She let out a ragged sigh as she pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, trying to keep herself from verbally ripping into her eldest son like a wild animal would prey.
"You know, maybe this is a sign that you need to get your s**t together."
The words tore through her throat like fire and it burned her conscience to take her firstborn to task for his misdeeds. Athena bit her lip to keep it from trembling before she set her jaw in a firm line and rallied her strength to finish what she had set out to do, desperate to pull her son back from the brink.
"You're in your prime and it would be a damn shame for you to piss away all the hard work everyone's put in to keeping you comfortable. I'm not kidding around, Matty. You've ******** up a lot and it's either you set things right and you live to see another day or you let things stay the way they are and you end up in jail or worse..."
Athena resisted the urge to beg her son not to do this to himself because she knew she was too fractured to be able to withstand sending her son off to jail or worse, to the grave. She had begged him for far too much; had she raised a man or had she coddled a brat all these years?
"Even though I hate you for a lot of reasons right now, I fought tooth and nail with my connections to get you this second chance. I went from federation to federation; I've made enemies with people I've been friends with my whole career for you. I've had to rebuild bridges I thought I had burned long before you were ever born. I'm not asking for your gratitude; I'm just asking you not to ******** this up too because after that, you and your career will be beyond my help."
Athena dug deep into the pockets of her purse to pull a stack of papers that had been folded over again and again before flinging them at her son's chest.
"You're lucky Uncle Shanahan still gives a s**t."
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Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 4:59 pm
Matthias didn't want to hear it, at all. He looked away from his mother the entire time, pretending he wasn't listening. But this was a different riot act that he'd been hearing from her for the past year, now it was more career based, less...Mom based. It didn't make any sense, and it was making Matthias think a little deeper than he was lately, and that made him...uncomfortable, to say the least. He didn't know she had gone out of her way to do something for him, let alone that anyone else had. He didn't want to believe it, really. It was easier knowing his mom was easy to hate. Hatred was simple. Forgiveness was next to impossible for Matthias.
The papers flopped on his chest, causing him unecessary pain, but then again he's caused a lot of that lately, so even as he was angry for it, he didn't say anything. He just looked at it...and it didn't make any sense at all.
It was a renewed, pre-signed, BBW Contract, with a raise...a significant one which was more than enough for Matthias to forget what the streets looked like. He didn't know what to say, or do, or think. He was as frozen as he was the night he got that beating from Hunter. Why was she doing this for him?
He tried not to betray his emotions, he didn't trust her, then again he didn't trust himself anymore either. He tossed the contract on the floor, away from his bed.
"Get out Athena..." he said simply.
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Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 7:11 pm
Hearing her given name leave his lips felt like being shot in the chest, her body recoiling as the resentment reverberated across the room. The sound ignited a chain reaction that occurred too fast for her to stop, a force too immense for her to reckon with. Her ear flinched at the sound of her name and set her legs in motion to cross the room while the shock drew her face into a scowl and carried her hand across his face with enough force that the regret sank like stone to the pit of her stomach once she realized what she had done. Athena furrowed her brow as she withdrew her hand and towered over her son, massaging her hand as she rasped curses at him.
"Don't you EVER call me by my given name, Matthias Elijah Augustine."
Athena turned her back to the shell of a human being she had once known as her son as she decided to bring her visit to a close before the fifteen minutes she'd bribed Deputy Mendez for were up.
"I thought I raised a young man capable of gratitude, not an ungrateful wretch who'd rather run his life into the ground. Prove me wrong and make something of yourself without blowing this second chance I've put myself at risk to give you because after this... you're on your own."
Athena exhaled sharply before she strode from the room before her offspring could spew more hatred her way, desperate to leave her son and the intensive care unit far behind her.
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Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 7:38 pm
For the first time in a long time, his numbness...failed him. He felt every syllable of every word she said to him. And it hurt...really badly. Even began to tremble. He heard her start to walk away, and he really didn't have the ability to stop himself anymore.
"Mom...stop..." he said before she got to the door. He hadn't called her that sincerely in months. "Please...I need help...I don't wanna die..."
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Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 6:50 pm
No matter how hardened her heart had become watching her son self-destruct, a force beyond her control stopped Athena in her tracks as she crossed the threshold of Matthias' hospital room. She pressed her eyes shut and her lips into a firm line as her ears zeroed in on the sound of him calling her "Mom" again, a sound with the weight to shatter the defenses she had torn down only to rebuild again with the ebb and flow of her son's wrath. Athena hung her head in shame as she struggled against her maternal instincts before she cursed loud enough to elicit the raised eyebrows of the nurse who sat behind the counter of her station, reentering the room against her better judgement. Her face sagged under the weight of her sorrow as she stood there in the sterile silence of Matthias' hospital room, struggling to form her words.
"If you don't want to die, why do you keep doing this to yourself? What is it that you're trying to run from?"
Athena let out a sigh before she approached her son's bedside, seating herself on the edge before turning towards Matthias. She hesitated a moment before taking hold of her son's hand that had been shackled to the railing of his bed by Deputy Mendez, trying not to falter as she had done so often the past when she begged her son to come to his senses. Athena gave a weak smile as she gingerly combed his mop of inky black hair away from his face, trying to buy herself time before she had no choice but to diffuse the tension she had contributed to between them.
"I care for you to a fault, I swear; that's why I went behind your father's back to get your contract renewed... but even in secret, I can only do so much. I'm probably going to get an earful when I get home for this, if your uncle's half the bigmouth he used to be."
Athena fell silent as her eyes scanned her son's battered and bruised face, still showing signs of how his yearlong reckless streak had left him worse for the wear. She wanted to scoop him up and make the hurt go away like she had done when he was a boy but now he was a man grown with problems bigger than skinned knees.
"Matthias, you've got to help me help you if you want to get better."
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Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 7:12 pm
Matthias was overwhelmed with emotion. The pain and torture of the past year coming down upon him all at once. For once, he wanted help, he wanted to go home. But he had to convince his mom that he deserved it...which he didn't even believe.
"Because...at one point...I did want to die..." he began, facing the demons in his head straight on for the first time in his life, though just the touch of his mom's hand in his hair somehow made him feel a bit better, "I'm so sorry...for everything I did...I let Invidia get in my head, and...it all just went so out of control...and then Summers and Freakshow...And King...I don't know what happened to me...I think part of me was just looking for something that could put me down, just so I could finally...stop..."
And boy, did he find it...He winced in pain, remembering the fight once again...like it happened one more time in the blink of an eye.
"I just...I just need help...Please help me Mom..." he begged once again.
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Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 8:27 pm
Athena felt her heart sink when she saw her eldest overcome with another wave of remorse over allowing his younger sibling get under his skin, for giving his demons leeway to reduce his life to shambles. She kept a gentle hold on his hand as he continued to beg for forgiveness and deliverance from this hell he found himself in. Mike had spared her much of the details of what he saw once he arrived at Kar's to intercede on his son's behalf but there was no need with her son forsaking all pretenses and desperately trying to patch the rift between them, his voice quavering as he begged forgiveness. Athena released his hand to retrieve the papers he had tossed aside earlier, pressing the contract into his free hand before she closed his fingers around the contract and spoke again.
"Matthias, sweetheart... that is my help."
Athena grabbed a fistful of Kleenex from the box on the stand beside his bed before she brushed tears from the corners of his eyes and tossed them in the bin, grabbing his glass of water and offering him the straw to drink from. It felt so strange to be acting like his mother again and not an enemy, that she should be apologizing instead of him.
"I don't know how but we'll sort everything out with law enforcement until you feel ready to take uncle Matt up on that contract. I'll see to it personally with Deputy Mendez's help. You need to heal before you rush back into competition and the safest place to fight your demons from right now...is home. With your father, your brother, and me."
Athena cleared her throat and returned her watchful gaze to her son's face as she awaited a reaction to the olive branch she had extended to him.
"Follow the doctor's orders and when they clear you for release, you can come home and we'll take things a step at a time from there."
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