TITANS OF THE MIDWAY CHAMPIONSHIP

"So, hey guys? Remember how I told you not to stack the cube boxes on the shelf over the window?" Johnny Raike asks of his Kissing booth work staff. They nod and grumble a general yes to recalling the order. "Cool. Next week, say Thursday eveningish, I'd like you to all have a brain fart and stack all of the boxes there. And, while we're assigning homework, I want everyone to come up with one place in the carnival where someone not paying attention could get really hurt."

Most of the staff just nod, getting back to whatever tasks they had been interupted from. One of the newer hires looks puzzled instead, opening his mouth to ask a question when Todd pokes him in the ribs and nods toward the poster on the wall advertising Johnny Raike in a title defense against Nova Wonder. The Beautiful Nightmare, shirtless and wearing a faded yellow sarong, returns to his assessment of the booth, lifting the cash register to test it's heft, double checking the 'handsy guest' mace, whistling "The Telephone Hour" from "Bye-Bye Birdie all the while. Todd approaches, half smiling.

"Should I even bother coming to work next weekend? Seems like you're planning to demolish this place to keep your belt."

Raike smiles and gives a quick laugh.

"Don't worry, I won't do anything to risk your job security. I doubt we'll be able to keep the fight in here the whole time anyway, she's not that incompitant and I'm not that lucky."

Todd gives his own polite laugh and nods an 'I get ya' kinda nod.

"Could just be that you are, actually. Greg told me he'd make sure all the skee ball games are on free play. You just have to hold down the button for two seconds let it up, and hold it down another two, and viola! Free skee ball."

Johnny smiles with a mixture of contentment and wistful desire, imagining all the pain he can cause.

"Ah, the Skee ball. Truly the most destructive and best weighted of all the balls. Well-"

"Not counting the time Earl's truck nuts fell off on the highway and caused that three car pileup?"

Johnny gives Todd a flat look as he dead pans his answer. "Yes. Except those. Please go play in traffic."

Todd smirks as he back steps away. "I am as you have made me. Try not to bring down the entire park, I've grown to like this place"

A non-commital grunt is all the answer Todd receives as the Panty Wearing Panty Dropper goes back to his planning. Todd had been joking, mostly, about not burning the park down. Johnny liked the atmosphere too much to purposely damage it, that much was fact. But Todd saw how Johnny looked at his belt after a long shift of actually managing the booth and smiled, how Raike's eyes shone with pride we he beheld his prize. Todd knew Raike wouldn't set out to wage a scorched earth war, but if that's the fight Nova Wonder brings then Todd knows the only thing waiting for him at work will be a pile of rubble where the booth once stood. Sighing, he pull his gaze from the Beautiful Nightmare, choosing not to worry about things that might happen a week in the future but keeping an eye on Johnny all the same. After all, you want to try and see the curveballs coming.
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Images of fireworks and the sounds of "Pure Morning" cue up the latest Johnny Raike video, this time coming from out on the Midway itelf, the Party Queen of Queens dressed in Daisy Duke shorts and white cotton tank top. Raike has his Titan of the Midway belt slung over his shoulder, his smile almost a leer of challenge as The Most Liberated Man in Professional Wrestling begins his adress.

Johnny Raike: "Well, how's that for impressive? Our second mega show and once again the Thigh High Thriller is up for more than one dance. Up first is the tag team turmoil, sure to be an insane and crowd pleasing bit of spectacle, though not the one I want to talk about first. No, no I'll save my best for last and the breasts for first. Hi Nova! How's life going? Having fun? Getting ready for our match, I wouldn't doubt it. You...you will be showing up, yeah? I mean, you aren't going to forget the date again, then fire off some weak excuse about how I- one of, if not the most, dominant wrestlers in Pure Amusement Wrestling- am just not worth your time. Honey, you ain't even fucking a champion, let alone holding one. Forget this attitude of casual arrogance; it's been done to death. At least step it up to extreme arrogance, sometimes that can be funny. But, seeing as you already have the deluded sense of self-worth that seems to be a pre-req to wrestle these days, you won't take my advice. At least listen to me about setting an alarm."

Raike lets go with one of his usual 'what can you do?' shrugs

Johnny: "I thought about letting that whole no show and then trying to talk shit on me thing go, but really it cuts to the core of what I hate about this business; this idea people have that if they don't promote themselves at all times as the end-all-be-all-best-wrestler-in-the-world-and-only-they-have-talent than they'll be seen as weak or pandering. It's not pandering to have a bit of respect and professionalism. Game recognizes game sweet cheeks; guess that means you don't have none."

A mock sympathetic little smile and shake of the head drive home how the Brutiful One is feeling about Wondergirl.

Johnny: "And I'm sick of shaking hands and holding the door for people who turn around and spit on me for the simple reason of 'they can'. We can all be fortresses of ego, living in echo chambers of our own creation. It's easy. It's well tread. Some of us dare to try it a different way, some of us stare reality in the face, bend to it only when we have to and alter it wherever we can. And others of us sit on twitter, tossing out high school level insults about virginity and how I'm ugly. Ooh. Ouch. Stop. Look, you want to try and call me out for an actual physical flaw, go ahead. When you know you're talking shit just for the point of talking it, shut the fuck up. Though that may have been one of your brain dead friends. I'd go check, but you were all sub-tweeting. Hashtag so brave!"

Johnny fans himself with his hands as though the thought of Nova Wonder and her band of merry morons has left him fending off a case of the vapors. He ends his interlude by silently pretending to vomit, returning to a contemptious smirk as he continues.

Johnny: "And sweet heart? I don't think you understand just who you're getting into bed with here. The ways you've tried to get under my skin prove you just don't care enough to learn about me. Which actually does stick in my craw a bit, and not just because I like to swallow when given gifts. So hey, guess your very basic little bit of stirring the pot did do something."

A very sarcastic double thumbs up from the American Wet Dream. The big, cheesy smile is soon shaken from his face to be replaced with a roll of the eyes and dismissive wave of the hand.

Johnny: "Nova? Cupcake? You had better start praying to the Starman, or to Allah, or whatever whole-cloth, bullshit Wicca substitute is popular now that I come to my Midway, my home, already beaten down. Because I know this Midway, and this Midway knows me. I'm the only top star to be running his own booth since this place opened. Profitably, I might add. I've actually had conversations with the people around here, know names and stories."

Johnny advances on the camera, turning it to the left of the kissing booth to focus on the deep fried turkey leg trailer. A spotty young man attends it, staring idly at the sparse mid-August crowd milling about on the afternoon.

Johnny: "That young man with the unfortunately greasy job is Jesse. Jesse is working to buy his first car so he can get out of Purity and to a real, decent city like-and these are his actual words- Schreveport or something. Nothing too grand or lofty, just a young man who wants for something a little better, and is striving to make it happen. Achievable goals, that's the key to fulfillment. And we're discussing with Nova just why her goal of taking my Titan of the Midway Championship from me isn't nearly so achievable as it might seem."

Raike returns the camera to it's original angle and swishes back into frame, once more backed by the Kissing Booth.

Johnny: "I'm out here talking, sometimes snogging, with our fans and guests. I know where the skeletons are buried, but even better I know where the key to the toolshed is. And I live for this kinda crap, doll face. Thinking up what ways I can hurt you out here on the Midway, it actually makes my nipples hard. Seriously, I could cut glass right now. We've got hammers and crowbars for putting up tents, we got all sorts of do not enter areas where a person could lose an arm or a leg if she's not careful, deep friers, baseballs, I'm betting there's some knives in a prize case somewhere. And this is just off the top of my head, I haven't really begun to plan yet. Have to figure out which of my little toys I think best suits you. Want to really look for all the dark nooks and crannies here on the Midway. I want to wear this asphalt nightmare basking in the Louisiana sun like the perfect flirty little top to go with my new boots. It will tell me it's secrets. It will lead me to destroy you."

Raike draws himself to his full height, staring down the camera in a calm, unwavering challenge. he voice is low to start, serious and deadly.

Johnny: "So you better hope that everyone in the tag championship looks at team Straike, looks at our records and our standing, and decides as a whole that we can't be given the chance to kick an imperial fuckton of ass, and that you just get a goup of people shit stomping Johnny Raike into the mat for twenty minutes. Hope that they line me up and hit their finishes one by one, wish, wish with all your might that my notoriously thin skin opens up and I leave pints of blood behind me. Because that's the state I'd have be in before I could see myself giving you the advantage. That's how hard they'd have to ride me and put me away wet. You feeling that lucky?"

Johnny raises a questioning eyebrow while giving his best aggravating smirk. The Sissyboy Savior examines his nails for a moment as though giving Nova time to think, before finishing his thought.

Johnny: "If I was you, I wouldn't feel lucky. Or blessed, or any other synonyms. If I was you Nova, hun, while I was down there with my head in the dirt, praying to your sacred and asking if please, pretty please, could you have a title, while I was asking for every advantage I could have, I would ask that Jack Nomad and The Shadow destroy each other in record time. Wish for a surprise roll up, a stabbing related ref stoppage, a no show. You really want this, you should take the both of them out before the bell. Hell, do it before the show and be right there to watch me saunter my way out to the Midway fresh from tag glory, no rest and still fixing my hair. Make me have to overcome you, peach, or I will simply overwhelm you. Don't believe me? Don't care. Don't need you to believe the truth, it simply is. You won't give a shit about the empirical anyway, why bother with the numbers. But if you want this from me, step one is you getting lucky. It's you having to step into my yard and take what's mine. Be wary."

Johnny lights up an American Spirit, takes a deep, soul cleansing drag and slowly lets it out.

Johnny:"You got about a week left on your license to dream. That picture of you and Harris, power couple of Pure Amusement? Not happening. If I don't live up to my end of the bargain, well I still don't see Calvin as the one to upend Press. If you have to call yourselves a Power Trio it bespeaks a lack of confidence. Don't hear me calling myself the power single, do you? And I could, go check the rankings. But that's venom for a different time. This time is about me and Wondergirl, and the wonder of just what I'll do to you, girl. I don't know all of the things yet. But I know it will all be marvelous, messy, and magical. As only I, your favorite faerie could make it so. You call yourself the Diminutive Dragon Slayer, eh sugar bear? Well, the Fae are a different threat entirely, and you'll never find anyone as fae as me. So put aside all the things you think you know about fighting me, and get ready to learn on the job. My ways are as varied as they are effective, my mind is tuned to violence on a level that scares me. I demand to keep the treasures I have rightly won. And you will not be above that demand."

Johnny takes a final drag on his smoke and tosses the butt into a nearbye trashcan. He slowly rolls and cracks his neck, resetting from the intensity of his promo.

Johnny: "So that leaves you, my beloved Team Fuckboi, with a week to go before my sexy ass shows you that it's so nice it can do it twice. Bad Moon Rising, I expect you to be out in full force; in the stands and on the Midway, cheering for what you all want to see. The Thigh High Thriller beating all sorts of hell out of the Wondergirl, showing it to you like you know only I can do. I love you and I miss you my friends and lovers, and I can't wait to delight you time and time again. See you soon, honies!"

The scene fades black as Raike gives his little finger wave, the Raike in the Cash logo replacing the view of the Midway.