"FIGHT OR FLIGHT"

CHAPTER ONE: THE MEAT GRINDER

It is a well established fact that when the WWE comes to town, it sends out a call to local wrestling talent, having them come to the arena with the potential of using them later that night in the show. It is also a well established fact that the fates of said local talent are often not kind ones, frequently suffering a severe beating at the hands of members of the roster.

Why, then, does said local talent keep taking the WWE up on these offers? For starters, even if they're not used, it's a chance for the local talent- who are frequently early in their wrestling careers- to meet up with veterans and learn from them. Secondly, even if they're not used, the WWE does pay the local talent at least enough for gas and maybe a hot meal, with more offered if they do work a match. Thirdly, the exposure the local talent receives by being on television- even if they are just getting their backsides thoroughly handed to them- can provide a temporary boost to one's career. And lastly, every so often, the local talent impresses someone backstage enough that they get brought back and possibly get the opportunity to sign a contract, as happened in the case of one Colin Delaney.

All of this explains why a young man like Alex Dunbury was backstage at WWE Smackdown in St. Louis. Truth be told, he wasn't actually from St. Louis, just being in town for a few indie shows, but the call went out and he answered. He was a lean young man with a mass of tousled blond spikes for hair. His tights were black with a number of multicolored swatches, with tassels lining the seams. He paced the halls backstage near the production area. One or two other local wrestlers sat or lurked nearby. Like Alex, they were all waiting to see if they'd get told to report to the ring. They'd all already introduced themselves to the producers and every member of the roster they could find, as decorum and protocol dictated. Now came the waiting.

Waiting was something with which Alex had always had problems. He paced with restless energy, periodically bouncing from foot to foot, shaking out his hands and arms to try to burn off the nervous energy. One of the other locals peered up at him sourly from under the black bandana headband that kept his longish hair out of his eyes. "Will you sit down and stop pacing? You're pissing me off with all that pacing around." This local wore black athletic trunks and MMA-style gloves. Alex vaguely remembered his name was Marshal or something.

"Can't help it," Alex replied, pausing and looking up at the ceiling. "Too nervous to sit still. Never been someone to just sit and meditate all Zen-like or something." Marshal just gave a grunt tugged his bandana lower, partially covering his eyes. Alex had seen him around at some of the indie shows he'd worked, but it had always been a distant sort of acquaintance. The two had never met in the ring, so Alex couldn't really get any sort of measure of the man.

His thoughts were interrupted when one of the producers stepped out of Smackdown GM Booker T's office. "All right, I need two guys for a match in two segments." The producer checked his clipboard, then looked around at the local talent, pointing at random, and as fate would have it, at Alex and Marshal. "You and you. You set to go?"

"Yes, sir," Alex nodded, as Marshal punched a fist into his palm. "Been ready," he replied.

The producer pointed down the corridor. "Follow the signs to the gorilla position, and head to the ring when the guys there give you the sign." He shrugged to the others when they protested. "Luck of the draw, gentlemen. Better luck next time."

"I dunno whether to be pissed off or relieved," one of the other locals opined as he glared at the two lucky wrestlers. "You know it's probably gonna go bad for you."

"Hope springs eternal," Alex replied with a grin. "Who knows? Maybe we'll get lucky and win."

"Sh'yeah," another local rolled his eyes. "And maybe monkeys will come flying out of my ass." He turned to Marshal and held out a fist, which the other man tapped. "Best of luck to ya, Tetch. Try not to get killed."

"Remember who you're talking to," Marshal smirked. "I'm friggin' immortal."

And that seemed to be that, as the two started down the corridor toward the gorilla position. Alex felt almost jittery as the nervous energy came back in full force. Marshal, meanwhile, just stoically marched onward. "First time doing this kind of thing?" Alex tried to make small talk.

Marshal just nodded his head in response.

"Think we actually stand a chance of winning against whoever they got us in the ring with?"

This got a shrug.

Alex regarded him sidelong, then hazarded, "You're not much of a talker are you?"

Marshal's nonverbal vocabulary increased with an emphatic shake of the head of confirmation.

In the gorilla position, one of the producers looked up, then asked them, "All right, which two are you guys? I need to know so Lillian gives the right names."

"Alex Dwight Dunbury." "Mars Tetch."

The producer nodded, typing something into his laptop. Then he cupped his headset, relaying the information to a stagehand at ringside. Out in the ring, the previous segment was winding down and they were breaking for commercial. Alex looked around. "So who are we wrestling? The guy at the GM's office didn't say-"

"Just shut up, man," Marshal (or Mars, as it seemed he preferred to be called) interrupted. "Whoever they are, I'm gonna kick their ass." Now he was swinging out his arms, stretching his neck and jogging in place to loosen up. His boast just drew an amused chuckle from the crew who overheard it.

The producer looked up again. "All right, head on out. When we come back from break, you should already be in the ring. Don't waste too much time pandering to the crowd, we got a timetable to maintain."

And so Alex and Mars headed out to the ring, accompanied by the music of the Smackdown theme. They got a quiet reaction, which both of them were expecting. The overwhelming majority of the crowd didn't know who they were, and why should they care? Apart from Alex's tassels and colorful tights, they had nothing distinctive about them, not even their own music. Wrestling fans were savvy enough to know what was coming. Even so, Alex threw his hands in the air and pumped his arms to get a brief volley of cheers, slapping hands as he came down the ramp, in sharp contrast to Mars' beeline to the ring. Alex vaulted over the top rope and joined him in the ring as the lights came back up to indicate a return from break. Lillian Garcia stood by one corner, giving them a polite smile.

A cameraman trained his lens on them. Mars barely glanced at it, instead staring up the ramp as he pushed his bandana up out of his eyes. Alex flashed a grin and a V-for-Victory as he bounced from foot to foot. The camera turned away, and Alex now looked to Lillian. "So no one told us who we're wrestling. Can I get a hint?" Lillian glanced at him and gave him an almost pitying look. Right on cue, the TitanTron lit up, and Allen got his answer.

"FEED ME."

Alex's face fell as he turned to stare up the ramp. Oh, God, no. A low bass started thrumming as the voice growled, "FEED. ME. MORE." He turned to Lillian with a terrified expression, but she just gave him a wan smile and a shrug. He turned to Mars, whose expression had barely changed, but he saw the slight slump to his shoulders. I bet he's reconsidering his boast now. "FEED. ME. MORE!"the TitanTron bellowed as the music picked up further, and now Alex could see the monstrous bulk of Ryback standing at the top of the ramp, raising his arms and chomping his teeth as "Meat on the Table" started blaring through the arena.

"We're boned, aren't we?" Alex said to Mars.

The other man sighed and shrugged, waggled a hand noncommittally, before finally giving a reluctant nod. "Yeah, probably," Mars agreed, "but there's such a thing as going down fighting."

"And how well's that worked out for other people?" He swallowed nervously as he watched Ryback climb onto the apron and glare at them. "I think we should rush him, both at the same time."

Now Mars gave him a pointed look. "And how well's thatworked out for other people?" He glanced only briefly toward Lillian as she finished announcing the two men already in the ring as Ryback stood across from them, fingers clenching and unclenching as his nostrils flared, snorting with his perpetual fury. Then Mars shrugged to Alex again. "Well, here goes nothing."

Alex nodded. "All right, then. Let's do this!" With that, he charged across the ring toward their opponent, but Ryback just grabbed him by the throat and glared at him.

"What the hell were you thinkin'!?" Ryback bellowed at him, hurling him back into the corner, turning back just in time to catch Mars in his arms, then fling him back and over his head with an overhead belly-to-belly suplex. Mars' body crashed into Alex's upside down, causing the young man to slump down against the turnbuckles. Mars rolled to his feet, a bit wobbly, turning to face Ryback again, who slapped his shaven head and roared, "STUPID!"He caught Mars' kick, then hauled him in, hooking his arm under that leg and clamping his massive hands together, swinging Mars overhead with a leg-capture suplex.

He got to his feet and grunted with disdain down at Mars, turning just in time for Alex to fly from the top turnbuckle. He caught him effortlessly, shaking his head, then heaved him up over his head with a gorilla press. He turned in a circle, legs pistoning, then dropped him onto Mars, who was just getting up. Alex groaned and looked down at Mars as he started to get up. "You okay, man?"

"You just landed on me," Mars wheezed. "How the hell you think I'm doing?"

"Sorry, man." Alex got to his feet and saw Ryback charging. Instinctively, he darted forward, ducking underneath his thick bicep and cannoning off the ropes. He came back and leapt into the air, arm outstretched, only to harmlessly bounce off Ryback's chest. They both stared at each other, then down at the man's pectoral, then back at each other. Ryback snarled and smacked a hand into his bald head, roaring at him. In that moment of distraction, Mars jumped onto his back, wrapping his arms around his head and neck as he attempted to apply a sleeper hold. Alex gaped, then grinned. "Hold him, man, hold him!" He wound up his arm and unleashed a chop to Ryback, then grimaced, shaking out his hand. It was like striking a brick wall.

Then Ryback's foot shot out and kicked him back into the ropes. As Alex came back, he had a moment's glimpse of Ryback's arm before he was caught with the Meat Hook. His body spun in the air before crashing, nearly insensate on the mat. His eyes rolled in his head as he saw that Mars was still clinging tenaciously to Ryback's head, but the monster just reached back with his arms, one catching Mars' head, the other a leg, and then dropped back into a sitting position, snapping Mars off with a backpack stunner. Ryback got to his feet, veins throbbing as he roared out, with a definitive sweep of his arms, "FINISH. IT!"

Neither man was in full command of their senses at that point, and so neither man could give much in the way of resistance as Ryback grabbed them both, hooked them under one arm, grabbed their legs and heaved them up onto his shoulders. Alex saw him march around the ring, carrying their weight with ease, and then drop backwards to slam them into the mat with the Shell Shocked. Alex lay on the bottom as Ryback pinned them both for the three count, snarling at the camera, "Two more for the meat grinder!" With that boast finished, Ryback started pumping his arms and screaming out his trademark demand: "FEED. ME. MORE!"

Alex wasn't exactly sure how he and Mars got backstage, but had vague recollections of stagehands helping them to the back. The medics gave them both a cursory check, but pronounced them as fit of health as they could expect, given their recent experience. The other locals were there, congratulating them both for managing to survive, and then... well, it all was still kind of fuzzy. They all ended up at an IHOP after the show. Food was consumed, small talk was had, and some chuckles at the expense of the two men who'd faced Ryback were had as well. Alex took the jibes and ribs with a shrug and grin. Mars just brooded unhappily and eventually excused himself to go to the restroom.

"What's with him?" Alex asked the others.

"Ah, that's just Mars being Tetch-y," one of the locals replied, with what passed for humor. "He doesn't like losing."

Alex considered this, then asked, "So why bother answering a call from the WWE for this kind of thing? I mean, he's shorter than I am, and I'm practically a midget compared to a lot of the guys on their roster." He thought for a moment, an image of a mischievous leprechaun popping up in his memory. "Well, a midget compared to anyone who isn't literally a midget."

Another local shrugged as he tucked into a stack of hotcakes. "Because Mars craves competition, man. I seen him outside the ring, doin' stock work at a Costco. Any time he's not fightin' somebody, it's like he's just goin' through the motions." He waved it off. "Don't worry about him. He's never been a social kinda person." Alex supposed the locals were probably right. They knew Mars better than he did, but even so, he felt kind of bad for his fellow survivor. He poked at his food for a bit, then wolfed it down and stood up, excusing himself and heading to the restroom.

Mars was leaning over the sink, stretching his neck from side to side and grimacing as he massaged a crick on one side. His head snapped up as Alex offered a "hey" of greeting. Seeing who it was, Mars grimaced again. "What do you want?"

Alex regarded him for a moment, then said, "The same thing I think you want."

"Yeah? And what the hell would that be?"

"Another shot at The Ryback."

He didn't explain himself at the time. They exchanged phone numbers and he told Mars to come by the hotel where he was staying and he'd meet him in the parking lot. They went back out, finished their meals and headed out their separate ways. Alex was staying in an EconoLodge- a chain about which he had few good things to say, but needs must when money is tight. He dragged his gear and other dirty clothes to the laundromat across the street and threw them in the wash. As the machine did its work, he sat in a chair and winced as some of the lingering aches of the beating he'd taken came back for an encore appearance. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes as he breathed steadily, a little trick he'd learned, and let himself drift, as the sensation of the pain faded.

He must have dozed off, because he was awakened by the chirping of his cell phone. It was Mars. "Hey."

"I'm at your hotel. Where are you?"

"Across the street at the laundromat. Come on over, we can talk shop." He rose and checked on his clothes, tossing them into the dryer and setting it to run just as Mars walked in the door.

"You said somethin' back at the IHOP about another shot at Ryback?" Mars gave him a suspicious look. "How the hell we gonna do that?"

Alex leaned against the folding counter as he spoke. "We go to the arena where they're taping Smackdownnext week, and we come in with the other locals. I checked, they're gonna be in Chicago. It's a bit of a trek, but I know a promoter up there who might put our names out there."

"And you don't think they'll notice it's the same two guys from last week?"

"I think they don't really pay much attention, to be honest." Alex spread his hands. "Come on, remember what Ryback said after he pinned us?"

"'Two more for the meat grinder.'"

Alex nodded. "That's all we are to them. Just another couple of scrubs to feed to the beast. And for all that we tried to fight back, we ran into the same problem everyone else did when he came out: we just blindly attacked, and didn't play to our strengths the right way."

Mars peered at him. "I heard of you, you know," he said flatly. "Big on heart, kinda tough for a geek-turned-wrestler, but you got this rep for jumping without looking sometimes."

Alex looked down. It was kind of true. But he had a philosophy about these things. "There's no reward without risk," he told Mars. "If I wanted to play it safe, I'd never have become a wrestler." He watched Mars carefully as the man folded his arms and thought about it. It was a big risk, trying this and possibly striking out. He, Alex, would be out at least a wrestling weekend's pay making the drive. They'd at least have accommodations. Allen had an aunt and uncle in Chicago that would let them stay a night or two.

"How's this gonna work?" Mars finally asked. "You're not local, I know that, you're from, what, East coast? Virginia, right?"

Alex nodded. "I'm on leave from work. I got an understanding boss. My stay at the hotel's up after tomorrow, but my great-aunt is back in town and she has a spare bedroom I can use, and she's only like twenty minutes outside town. She'll be glad of the company, and Ronnie D said he can use me at his shows this weekend." Mars nodded at that. Ronnie Delamonte was a local promoter, decent rep, but a bit of a scumbag. Then again, name a promoter who wasn't. "So I'll be in town through the weekend at least. After the show on Saturday, I'm packing up and I'll be going up to Chicago. If you want in, hit me up before Sunday morning."

Mars nodded at that. "All right. Seems fair. I gotta think about this. My boss ain't so understanding as yours. I'll see ya at Ronnie's shows."

-END CHAPTER-

Afterword: Well, it's been a while since I've done one of these. This has actually been kicking around my head for a while. Let's see how it goes. Leave feedback if you like. -J2K-