A journey begins with one single step and a flicker of an idea  

                                                         **3550 years ago***

(Buddha is packing to go on a journey.  Vespertine stands in his doorway leaning against it, you know, like she does.  She watches as he packs up.)

Ves:  Are you sure I can't go with you?

Buddha:  No.  This is something I need to do myself.  

Ves:  What are you doing again and where are you going again?

Buddha:  I need to go think, I need to go meditate, I need, I think, to achieve inner peace.  Where I'm going?  I don't know yet.  I haven't figured it out.

Ves:  Well as long as your back by dinner.

Buddha:  Dear sweet wife.  I think this journey will be longer than a week.  So... don't wait up and don't leave a candle burning in the window. 

Ves:  Maybe you are overthinking this journey?  Or not thinking enough.  So... you don't know what you are going for, you don't know where you are going, you don't know how long this will take and you don't know the end result.  Am I getting this right?

Buddha:  Pretty much.

Ves:  But all you know is that you need to be alone.  (scoffs)  Men!  One little nag and you feel the need to up and hang out with friends.  Look, if you are going to a wayside inn and drink with them, just tell me, I can handle it.  Don't lie to me.  I know you had to lie a lot just to get out of the palace with your parents watching your every move but come on, they still have no idea you've only moved two towns over.  

Buddha:  Is this a woman thing?  I'm really going on a journey.  (He sighs) It is nothing more than that.

(He packs the last of his belongings, picks up his pack and heads towards her and the door.)

Buddha:  I love you.  I do.  I will be back.  But my followers need something to believe in and if I don't earn their trust, what we are trying to accomplish will never be realized.  

(She accepts the kiss on her cheek and follows him to the door.)

Ves:  And who is going to take care of me when you are gone?  Who am I going to take care of when you are gone.  

Buddha:  My brother knows where we live.  Only he does.  Ask him to come around.  But you are strong, I think you'll be fine.

Ves:  And what happens if some rovers or bandits decide they want to break in.

Buddha:  Hide and run.  If violence is answered with violence, then nothing gets done.  (She looks at him with eyebrow arched)  Or if you would rather get hurt by protecting yourself, be careful.  You aren't a warrior, you aren't even a fighter.

Ves:  Woulda been a good time to teach me.  You had mad skills when you lived in the palace.

Buddha:  My skills weren't mad.  (he smiles a lazy smile) They were wicked crazy. (They embrace one last time) Be careful, be dutiful.  I go for us.  I go for my followers.  I go to follow my heart and my belief's.  Remember, believe in me like I believe in you. 

Ves:  Huh, that sounds like a good song lyric.  (she hums the song "Tonight Tonight" by the Smashin Pumpkins but can't seem to place the title or the band.  She shrugs brushing it off for later)  All right.  Be safe.  Travel well.  

(He wanders off down the path.  She'll be home...alone... or with his brother or his followers for the whole next year.  He comes back having achieved enlightenment but now with a new goal and a new eastern way of thinking.)

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            Actual promo 1

(A church in Philadelphia two nights before Warzone.  It's actually the Cathedral Basilica of the Saints Peter and Paul in downtown Philadelphia.  A voice comes up and sounds like a loud whisper that radiates through the empty Basilica, like a voice on the breeze)

Voice:  To learn your opponent, to understand your enemy, you must walk where they have walked and learn all you can about them.

(From the shadows steps Vespertine.  She has a smirk on her face.  Uh oh, let's sit back and enjoy.)

Ves:  Really?  Father, is that the best you got?  You think your brought out your big guns last promo?  Really?  Asking your daughter for help holding the camera and bringing out your cross?  Against... me?  

(SHe shakes her head)

I thought you were a better wrestler than that.  A better ring veteran than that.  You are just an old dog.  What?  Are you trying to keep up with the kids today?  Cute!  When did that ever work?  

(She looks around at her surroundings and wanders about caressing various thing.  She goes over to the candle alter and snuffs a candle out using only her fingers.)

Listen, you aren't taking this seriously.  You need to take this seriously if you want to keep that title.  I want a fight.  I want a battle.  I want a war.  And what you have shown me is that you aren't ready for war.  Sure you claim you hate EG, you claim that we are the evil that is spreading across the federation.  You claim you are going to do something about the monsters that live within us. BUT... war has come, father.  War is here, father, war is at your doorstep, father.  And are you anywhere near ready for it?  Are the monsters you face actually evil or are they on your side.   I've lived lifetimes leading troops, being a soldier, fighting battles.  I've heard better battle cries than what you gave me in your last promo.  Hell, I've heard better promos against my character than what you gave me last promo.  

(She shakes her head again)

I find it hard to believe that you are ready.  Fiona seems more ready than you.  And she isn't even in this match. Am I looking at an old dog waiting to be put down like Old Yeller or am I looking at the staunch battle hardened warrior ready to fight a battle that will probably be his last one but one that will let him keep his legacy intact.  For me, if it were me, no matter how old I get, how crippled I get, I would stand up, and stare into the face of my enemy and no matter how hard I fought, even if I lost, I would want to be remembered as the best battle they ever fought as the opponent that took them past their lentation.  Thank buddha then I'm immortal or supernatural.  

(She brightens but barely as she walks up a huge cross with Jesus hanging on the wall behind the pulpet)

Your next battle WILL be your last battle.  Always see it as your last battle, as the best battle you will ever have.  You always want your opponent no matter how much they hate you, to always remember you, to respect you not for the what you said to them, not what you did to them or for them but for how well you took the battle to them.  THAT... is a soldier, my sweet.  Don't ever forget that.  

(She looks down and sees the Bible sitting in front of her.  She opens it and caresses the page....)

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

            20 years ago

(This is all in Korean so all we get are subtitles.)

Ves:  DAD! I'm ONLY 10.  Why are you talking as if you are going to die or go away forever.

Father:  I'm not going anywhere anytime soon.  Neither is your mother but I am looking to the future and on these streets, in this city, I want you to protect yourself.

Ves:  How?  I don't know martial arts.  

Mother:  That is why we are enrolling you into a karate class.  I want to introduce you to that so you can defend yourself if need be.  Your father and I aren't always home and it's long walk from here to school.

Ves:  But I don't want to.  Nothing is going to happen to me on these streets.  I don't want to.

Father:  It is not your choice.  I'm not having my princess mugged or worse yet, raped and killed because she didn't want to learn how to protect herself.  

Mother:  We have found a class for you in the nearby YMCA.  Next class is Tues.  

Ves:  But I don't wanna-

Father:  You are going and that's final. Learning karate forces you to learn discipline, humbleness, something in which you really need to develop.  

Ves:  I'm an only child.  What do you expect?

Mother:  Don't sass your father.

Father:  And helps you understand what honor and respect are.  Again, two things you think are a gift.  You have to earn those.  By failing will you earn respect and honor because in karate they are drilled into you.

Ves:  And are you a martial artist?

Father:  Song Reng do, 13th level black belt.  But only by choice.  In the gambling world, I need to be ready to protect myself if my bodyguards are down.  Your mother is a brown belt in Kempo.

Ves:  How come you never use it.

Father:  I have never needed to.  Violence begets violence.  We learned that from Buddhism.  I don't resort to violence if violence is inflicted upon me.  Trust me you will thank me when you are older.

Ves:  BUT I won't know anybody and why can't Jamie-

(She is cut off when he holds up a hand.)

Father:  You will do as you are told.  The class is at 4:30 on Tues.  At the YMCA just down the block.  (He stops her before she protests again)  I will not hear another word and neither will your mother.  

(She just turns like the spoiled brat she is, and walks off down the hall and slams the door to her room.  Behind it we hear a scream and an "I HATE YOU!".  He sighs a long hard sigh trying to suppress an urge to go and slap some sense upside her head)

Mother:  She will understand later in life.  Buddha must've had tough kids too.  

Father:   I doubt that.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

              Actual promo 2

Ves:  Friends, enemies, countrymen, nemesis and all religions in between, come, lend me your ears.  Let me tell you the story of how two warring factions have started a new fight but an age old battle that has been fought for nearly 2000 years.  Our story begins as stories often do not with a clap of thunder and a lightning strike, or a dark and stormy night or even the opening of a door.  But with two warriors facing each other.  At a crossroads of their careers.  Both sides have their belief's, their convictions, their doubts, their staunch level heads but neither sees the other as friend more as an enemy of their faith, so both believe that the other is faithless and evil.  

(We back up and in the pews are several old souls and ghosts ready and waiting to hear her talk)

In this story is a man and a woman.  Born thousands of years apart,  thousands of miles apart and yet having the same sense of belief as they go to war with each other.  He, an Irish Catholic dressed in his trappings of Christianity and wrapped in the darkness and the evil his religion begets upon others.  She, a Buddhist warrior monk, dressed in her trappings of buddhism and wrapped in white light, the symbol, the color, of death in her culture.  They are two mighty warriors both generals of their time, he against what he considers pure, against demons, devils and poor sinners who cannot help themselves be what they are.  She, against what she considers evil, in the forms of the hungry, the lost, and the wretched.  They aren't sinners, they cannot help themselves to be that way.

(She flips a page and pretends to have been burned on that page.)

The buddhist monk wanders across the years, across the lands searching and hoping for a worthy opponent that will take her past her breaking point.  An opponent worthy enough to push her past her lentation and make her go further, fly higher, be better leaving nothing in her wake but memories and believers.   The Catholic Priest journeys through the darkness, across the pains of others, trodding on the backs of the downfallen leaving misery and pain and doubt in his wake.  

(She continues)

Two very different faiths, two very different outlooks, two travelers of long roads and years criss crossing the earth until... one day.... lo and behold they stand face to face at an intersection of  faith and loss, righteousness and iniquity.  Maybe Walgreens.  Who knows?  (laughter from the viewers)  Their armies following them from miles away.  The forces of faith, the forces of good.  Having nothing to do with titles or accolades, of mortality or immortality, of the supernatural or the natural, they face each other, knowing the trails of blood and bodies, believing in the lies the other told in their wake.

(She turns a page again)

And lo on this day, no voice from up high was forthcoming.  No universal sign was shown.  These two were to meet and wage war in a battle not for souls, not for the followers they lost to the other, but for  the convictions each one carries in their heart.  One thinks the other is evil.  So they stand.  At the crossroads, no signs forthcoming from their respective gods and leaders and so they intend to wage a battle between them whilst the armies they lead catch up from across the miles and over the years and wait for a sign up high that isn't coming.  No one there, no one is talking to them.  

(She turns the page and we see more ghosts, ghouls and goblins, vampires and werewolves have entered the church and are listening to her story.)

 

Ladies and gentlecreatures of the night, does the story end here?  Nay.  The story never ends.  For the battle never ends.   The battle between what is considered pure and good and what is considered dark and evil will never end.  The battles between mortals and immortals are few and far between because nothing can kill immortals while everything can kill mortals.  NO, this story is more about the belief of a Christian Upstart who believe's that evil is the root of all things wrong when in fact, evil is protection from ones that overindulge in the pure and good.  More about the belief of a buddhist monk whose work at bringing darkness is never ending.  She brings light into the the dark places.  Places no one else knew existed.   In people who are thought to be a lost cause.   It is not bad, not evil, not wrong but one part of a whole.  Light and dark.  Good and evil.  Just and unjust.  All part of a whole.  All part of being one with the verse.  There are no wrongs here.  There are no sinners here.  Yay amen I say, there is the one and the only, the Universe.  Of which both sides must balance out and become one for the whole.   It is all about balance.  

(She flips the book closed)

I am not the villain.  Father Nathan is not the hero.  But either am I the hero and neither is he the vile antagonist.  The pure and the good are not always right.  The dark and unjust are not always wrong.  Both sides battle in a war they are certain they can win but the outcome is never the expected one.  Both very much equal out.  I do what must be done to save souls.  He does what must be done to save hearts and minds.  Again, two parts, two pieces of the same whole.  

(Oh now she preaches)

In this world, there are no sinners, there are no faithless, people and creatures aren't lost.  In this world, the only justice is a word made up by man who needed his neighbor to get the hell out of dodge. Two thousand years of following the teachings of an obscure mid east carpenter who claims an invisible man up above is his father, has opened the door to doubt, to darkness, to loss, to insincereity.  Three thousand years of follows the teachings of a young brash prince who wanted to make himself better and make an Eastern Philosophy and founded a faith that opens the door to being one with the 'Verse.  THAT, my breathren is what THIS should be about.  This fight, this battle, this war waged across the years, over the miles, laid before us in the vast plain of emptiness and idleness.  Nothing wrong about that is there?

(A few amens are shouted from the pews)

But it is not.  THIS battle is like every other battle: for prestige, for a title, for becoming ELITE>  I would go on but we are all believers here, we all hold our own convictions.  I'm not the preacher man of this church who forces you to believe that the world is a better place under his rule.  Pedophile he may be.   I'm not Father Nathan who wrestles you down and forces you to believe that the evil I spread harms all that he sees.  He and I are not the same but we are not that different.  We fight for a better CWF, we fight for a title we both believe  will make us better than we are.  A CWF title, one called The Elite title.  He holds it.  I want it.  And both of us will stop at nothing to claim it.  We know each other, we have faced each other in past battles.  But clearly, there can only be one winner.  And it's high time that the side of Eastern thinking wins over the Western teachings of his faith.  Wrong we may be.  But we strive to become better as our armies are miles away.

(She clicks her fingers and everything falls into darkness.)

Only one can win.  Only one can survive.  Pray, father Nathan, that if you don't win.  That you at least survive.  For I am YOUR inevitable end. 

        ::Scene shimmer/wavy lines/+motion sickness wave::

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

        ::scene shimmer/wavy lines::

        "Back to life.  Back to reality"

(I'm just babbling to myself, I know I'm in the mental ward at the local hospital.  Somewhere on the therapists couch.  I haven't stabbed any of the other patients or set any of the orderlies on fire in the last few weeks.  I should be free on good behavior.  But I'm stuck on this couch in my doc's office surrounded by his love of anything/everything literary.  How can one person spend so much time reading.  My doctor and the head orderly are talking quietly to each other.  Probably trying to figure out what personality I am this time.  I don't even know anymore.  Last time I was in a concessions stand stabbing someone in the ribs.  I barely remember that.  Why do I remember walking around a church at the station of the cross.  And then a big cross on the wall.  Why am I even in a church?  I'm atheist.  I think.)

Doc Carr:  Who is she talking about now?

Orderly:  I think she's back in her wrestling persona.  Or her buddhist past.  She has been saying she was Buddha's wife but that was over 3000 years ago and now recently she has been mentioning someone called Nathan O Connell and how his religion is the very definition of evil.

Doc Carr:  Hmmmm... religious zealot or fanatic?

Orderly:  Possibly.  But she is currently in solitary still but unstrapped.  She hasn't hit,  burned or stabbed anyone within the last few months.  So we should be good there.  Still though, we are watching her.

Doc Carr:  Good.  If she keeps up with her good behavior we can let her out of solitary confinement.

Orderly:  Yeah no I wouldn't until a year or two from now when we can safely assume her other personalities aren't going to be a danger to anyone else.  OR we could burn them out.  Worked on the Scribbler.

Doc Carr:  You want... to burn... them out?  That only works on extreme cases and she isn't that extreme yet.  If it goes wrong, we would burn her brain.  

Order:  Is that a bad thing?

(Doctor Carr just looks askance at him but then they continue to talk as I continue to babble.   They aren't aware I am listening to every word they are saying.  Maybe I'll just play at being nice for 6 months just so they can let me out of my cage.  Still though I always like to throw a wrench into their thinking.)

Kimber:   Hey. Doc.  What year is it?

Doc Carr:  2026.  Same as last time you asked a week ago?

Kimber:  Right (pause)  Is Trump still president?

Doc Carr:  He is.

Kimber:  Is Russia still the Overlords of the Eastern Seaboard?  And is Australia still an evil Axis power?

(See)

Doc Carr:  Nope.  Still have an active imagination.  I think it's time to go back to bed and get some rest.

Kimber:  But Kimber isn't tired.  

Doc Carr:  That's ok, Kimber and Doctor had a long session today.

(Did we?  It's only been an hour. Or has it been 20 minutes?   Whatever still bored.  I let the orderly take me away and stick me in but he just throws me into my cage and doesn't strap me down.  I sit down on the floor and rock myself to sleep, stringy dirty hair falling over my eyes.  I sing a song.  Tonight Tonight by the Smashing Pumpkins.  Where have I heard that song before?)