Mark Laundre lays stretched out upon the operating table. All had been lost. His name. His worth. His very identity. His very livelihood wrenched from his enlarged heart by one man and his terrible son. As he stares up into the light above the operating table he narrows his gaze directly into the blaring yellowish-white flourence, a blobbish afterglow left both by the intensity of his vision as well as the psychotropic effects of the medication that had been forced into his body. A lone pool of spit forms near his neck as standing over him, the dissident Marauder glares down at his creation, narrating the scene.

GENTLEMEN
WE CAN
REBUILD HIM


Cut to an image of paramedics operating on The Nigerian as Freakshow stands behind the crowd of EMT's puffing on a very large flesh colored tobacco pipe, blowing smoke into the ear of someone who appeared to be an intern. Cut to a green three dimensional graphic of Mark Laundre rotating rapidly, detailing the structural damage caused by his attack at the hands of the ultimate fraud, Mike Landry.

WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY...


The blonde with sweat dripping down his nose shouts orders to the men in scrubs. "Calibrate the turbophasers to maximum capacity.."
 His fingers wrap around a knob as he twists the hyperreactor to it's highest setting sending shockwaves pulsing through the reveberated core of Laundre. In a display of computer generated mastery the injured man froths from the mouth jerking in his binds as Freak shouts over the struggle, "Tighten the chains! Set the microfibulators to overdrive! GOGOGO!!"

"HE WILL BE BETTER THAN HE WAS BEFORE..."

The audience is subjected to footage of Laundre in his early training in the events prior to his debut. The footage, shot in sepia to impart the impression that this did indeed happen in the past, documents arm drag drill upon arm drag drill, back bump upon back bump of the once naive and childlike Marauder trainee. A simpler time for an athlete about to make the ultimate transformation, from Prince to King. From man to Babylonian Supergod. This was going to be the final ultimatum of his absolution.

FASTER..


Laundre on the treadmill, his massive legs pumping harder than they ever have before as Freakshow with a whistle in his mouth blows until red in the face. Sweat pours down the diamond scarred back of the gorilla as his feet carry him to nowhere.

STRONGER..


We see a tube inserted in the veins of Mark Laundre as an ambiguous substance is pumped into his throbbing veins. A close up of his flexing bicep. A close up of his curled knee his calf muscles inflated as he squeezes at apple so hard that it turns into apple sauce. That's how hard he squeezed the apple. It was so hard that it turned into apple sauce. Then we see Mark Laundre eating the apple sauce to gain more size. That's how dedicated he was. Then, ******** Metallica starts playing.


Make his fight on the hill in the early day
Constant chill deep inside
Shouting gun, on they run through the endless grey
On they fight, for they're right, yes, but who's to say?
For a hill, men would kill, why? They do not know
Stiffened wounds test their pride
Men of five, still alive through the raging glow
Gone insane from the pain that they surely know


The operation table slowly begins to elevate, static shocking in the background as Mark Laundre, the finished product, is elevated upwards in full view of the operating room camera. Freakshow, with his pipe in his hands, begins laughing maniacally as thunder strikes in the background and Metallic plays way louder. Laundre's fists clench tightly as he with suspicious ease snaps free of his leather binds, the binds the kept him strapped to the table, the binds that symbolically represented his former identity binding him eternally to mediocrity. The Tearjerker was no more. It was a new day.

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS
TIME MARCHES ON
FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS


He reaches out to the side and clasps in his hand a metallic sledgehammer. His weapon of choice. The Sphincter. Clenching the weapon white knuckle in his hands he stares dead into the camera. Everything we thought we knew about Mark Laundre, the old Mark Laundre, was wrong. Gone was The Originator. Gone was The Duke of The Hammerlock. This was a man reborn. He steps forward towards the camera swinging it towards the screen and shattering it into a hundred billion pieces as in red impact font text the words appear to the entire world:

MARK

LAUNDRE

2.0