Private: Nova
A seagull flaps its wings and veers in closer to the face of a cliff jutting up from the ocean. Along the side of the cliff’s face, several hikers dot the craggy, forested landscape.
Nova reaches and grips a branch with his left hand, pulling himself up and over a smooth rock. He stalls as he reaches the spot where the branch is protruding from, and a hand reaches down to grab his right and pull him up.
Nova looks up into the mop of curls blocking out the sun and grins at Lindsay Troy.
“Thanks.”
The Queen of the Ring grins back and looks past him with a smirk. “Hey, don’t hurt yourself down there.”
Brandon Youngblood looks up at her and rolls his eyes as he tries to reposition himself against the cliff-face.
“Listen,” he grumbles, “I recognize I’m not getting any younger, but I’m still out in front of those assholes, and one of ‘em’s still in his twenties…”
Below Youngblood, Hayes Hanlon and Wade Elliott navigate their way from rock to rock.
“I think the tone of this group could be more supportive!” Hanlon offers as he feels his way from one cranny to the next.
Nova chuckles as he slides past Troy and pushes off of a foothold to the next natural platform.
“Well, someone’s trying for the merit badge,” Troy observes with a grin.
“Not far now,” Nova says as he looks ahead to where the skyline breaks over the cliff’s edge.
The Risen Star pushes on towards the cliff’s edge, bounding over outcroppings and edges as the chatter of his friends fades in the background. He sees the sun peeking over the edge of the next rock and reaches out with both hands to pull himself up.
The light is blocked out by the silhouette of the Former Chairman of PRIME, who peeks his head over from above. Nova looks up at him with a surprised smile.
“Sonny!” he exclaims, “help me up, bro!”
Nova extends a hand and Silver takes it, pulling at first before pausing. Nova shifts against the side of the rockface.
“Hey, man,” he says, looking around, “c’mon, help me up.”
Silver places Nova’s hand back against the rockface, his hands covering both of the Starchild’s as he leans in, his eyes growing dark and his mouth curving into a disgusted snarl.
“What do you think is up there?” Silver growls, his eyes darting behind him to the space beyond the top of the cliff.
“What do I think…,” Nova shakes his head, “Sonny, I don’t…help me up, man.”
Silver reaches to a nearby bush, snaps off one of its slender limbs, and plunges it down into the center of Nova’s right hand.
Nova screams in pain and stares at his hand as blood begins bubbling up around the wound and running over his fingers.
“AAHH!! NO! Sonny, please!!” Nova cries, “please stop!”
Silver twists the branch around in Nova’s hand, churning the bloody wound as Nova shrieks in response.
“What do you think is even up there?!” he shouts down into Nova’s face.
In desperation, Nova looks back below him…but his friends are gone now.
“I don’t…,” Nova sobs, “…Sonny, please, stop…please…”
Silver rips the stick out of Nova’s hand and casts it aside before gripping both of the Risen Star’s hands in his own. He leans down into Nova’s face, his eyes alight like burning coals.
“What…the fuck…do you even think is up there?!” he roars.
With that, Silver rips Nova’s hands away from the cliff-edge.
Nova feels himself freefall backwards into oblivion, Silver’s visage rapidly shrinking away.
Nova shoots upright in bed with a gasp
Saturday, December 10, 2022
MGM Grand Hotel
Las Vegas, Nevada
Nova yanks off his aloe-scented gel bead mask and his eyes scan the hotel room as his lungs take in rapid, shallow breaths. Beads of sweat run down the sides of his face.
The room is silent, save for the rustling of his sheets as he presses back against the headboard. Morning light filters through the blinds to his right.
After a moment, Nova’s breath slows and he slowly slides his back down from the headboard until his head again rests on his pillow. He repositions his mask.
Just a dream.
A sense of serenity settles over the room, its gray walls and white linens. That serenity is immediately shattered by the door to the bedroom swinging open and Sonny Silver stomping in, clad in a burgundy suit, gold button-up, and black apron that reads “I’m Not Bossy, I’m Aggressively Helpful” across the chest in white cursive font.
“RISE AND SHINE, BITCH!” Silver announces as Nova shoots upright again, his gel bead mask snapping off and slapping against the sliding door to his right with a wet splat.
“Jesus, Sonny!” Nova gasps, “what the fuck, man…”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Snow White,” Silver replies, his eyebrows arching in mock-concern, “need a peck on the lips first? Gotta wheel in a five-piece backing band and welcome you back from the dead, you lazy fuck?”
“It’s 7:00 AM!” Nova protests.
“Get it together, we’ve got work to do,” Silver replies before tossing a softball-sized object into Nova’s bed.
“That thing is time-releasing Icy-Hot starting right now, so you’re gonna wanna get out of bed,” he explains, turning away and walking out of the bedroom.
Nova leaps to his feet, grabbing a bathrobe from a wall hanging and following through the doorway.
What he sees next stops him in his tracks.
Silver whirls around, leaning back against the kitchen island and holding out his arms in triumph. Behind, above, and around him, a maze of clear plastic tubing runs from several pots on the stove up and around the kitchen to various blenders and containers.
“What…is happening right now?” Nova manages.
“Significant, and important, dietary changes,” Silver explains. “If you’re going to kick my ass, it’ll take more than escaping a soapy explosion, outrunning a pack of neglected shepherds, or surviving a compromised elevator.”
He pauses for emphasis.
“It’ll take a complete realignment of your nutritional values.”
Silver pauses dramatically, eyes shut down, nostrils flaring. Nova’s eyes glance to his left and right before recentering on the former PRIME executive.
“Right,” Nova says slowly. “What is all this?”
“Soooooo, I stayed up all night,” Silver begins, staring around at his assembly, “and I created this new juicing system using some maple sugaring tubes I ordered from Vermont, I think we’re really onto something, these juices are orchard-level fresh, they’re good, and they’re GOOD FOR YA.”
“Okay,” Nova nods, “may be time to lay down, don’t you-”
“I’m GOOD, bro,” Silver says with a dismissive wave, “know why? I’ve been main-lining farm-fresh juice blends for more than ten hours. I could bench-press a Volkswagen. Here, try this.”
Silver scampers over to one of the various pots and begins ladling out a hazy golden liquid into a glass.
“Ya know,” Nova says, holding out a hand, “I could always just start with wat-”
Several of the pipes explode and begin spraying juice around the kitchen. Nova catches a face-full of what he will only later be able to determine involves pineapple juice and cayenne pepper, and drops to the floor, blinded.
Nova reaches out a hand and feels the frame of the kitchen island. He pulls himself up and opens stinging, blurry eyes.
The light is blocked out by the silhouette of the Former Chairman of PRIME, who peeks his head over from above. Nova looks up at him with a surprised smile.
“Sonny!” he exclaims, “help me up, bro!”
Sonny Silver looks down at his friend, beads of well-intentioned (and thoughtfully prepared) juice rolling off the protective face-shield he managed to don right as his project went pear-shaped.
“Nov, I think we’re gonna need another room,” he says, looking around.
Nova and Sonny’s New Suite
MGM Grand Hotel
Later that evening
“Enough is enough!” Sonny Silver yells out the doorway in the front entrance to their new hotel suite in the general direction of a departing attendant. “The soap explosion was one thing, then we have the juice tubes situation…I’m serious, if anything else pops up, someone’s gonna get it…”
He recoils as if struck.
“Don’t look at me like that, booooooy, you are asking for trouble,” he says, shaking his head.
Silver shuts the door and whips around, his white terry cloth bathrobe whirling behind him in a flourish, and strides back into the new suite’s living room. He finds his cigar box on the coffee table, removes one, and walks past the kitchen island, scooping up two gin & tonics along the way. He walks over to the sliding glass door that leads out to the balcony and opens it, stepping out onto the balcony.
Nova is lounging in the hot tub, clad in full wrestling gear and smoking a cigarette. Silver sheds his bathrobe and hops in, careful with the drinks. He hands one to Nova, they clink glasses and have a sip.
“What’s going on, man?” Silver asks. “You in your head? What’s up?”
Nova stares out at the bright Nevada sky and shakes his head. “What am I doing, Sonny?”
The Risen Star takes a drag and ashes outside of the hot tub. “What am I doing here? What am I aiming for? I have this amorphous drive to compete, and to win, but what does it mean? If there is a mountaintop for me, what does that look like?”
Nova pauses.
“What do you think is up there?”
Having lit his cigar, Silver takes a moment for a few ceremonial puffs before he puts it aside and grins the Sonny Silver grin that launched a thousand ships.
“What do I think is up there?” Silver repeats before having another puff.
“Nov…you are.”
Silver gives his friend a nod. “You are. And that’s all that matters.”
Nova nods back and lights another cigarette, staring out at the stars.
Later that evening
Nova sits at the edge of a lounge chair on the balcony and lights a cigarette, adjusting his pads. Inside, Sonny Silver is clearly passed out on one of the couches, flashes from the TV illuminating his body.
There’s a Naked & Afraid marathon on Hulu. One contestant just chose a flint as their special item. The other chose a photo of their mother. Gonna be a good one.
Nova takes a drag and smiles as broad a smile as PRIME has seen from him since the reopening.
“I love you, Sonny.”
The Starchild holds out his arms.
“We saw this place for what we could make it if we worked hard enough. We worked hard enough, and we manifested that shit. We helped build the house where Colossus became the standard by which all other shows were measured.”
Nova takes a drag. “And now we’re back, and your point is well-made, brother. It hasn’t been an easy run for your boy.”
He rubs his temples. “I just love this place so much. And I think hanging in there is more important than the big win. I’m here.”
Nova nods.
“I’m here.”
He takes another drag and chuckles.
“And if being here means I have to go back to wrestling school if I lose at Colossus…that will be…”
The Risen Star winces. “…interesting.”
He nods and snuffs out his cigarette butt before lighting another one.
“And if I win…please don’t use sugaring equipment to string up a juicing machine in our suite, that really stresses me out.”
Nova looks out at the night sky.
“We are what’s up there, Sonny. Just ourselves. You’re right about that.”
He takes a drag. “And grappling with that is harder than any booking, anyone they want to put across the ring from me. That is what it is.”
Nova smiles and closes his eyes. “But I’ll do it, and I know at the end of the day, when I step into the squared circle, I’m doing it for me, for you, for Tony, Rock, for Ian, for Lisieux, for Joey, for Black Angel, for Killean…”
Nova takes a drag and shrugs. “Even Hoyt, that motherfucker…for the K-Wolf, Tchu, Olsig, LT, Tsonda, Snow, Flyer and Tony…fuckin’ Gamble…Rayne, Hessian, Brandon…”
The Risen Star nods and looks around as he takes another drag.
“We fight for what it means to be part of this place. We fight for what it means to give everything to this place.”
Nova stands up, cracking his neck and stretching his shoulders as he stares out for one last time at the Nevada desert.
“And this time, we do it at the Garden.”
Nova takes a drag and ashes his cigarette over the balcony.
“I appreciate you, Sonny. Really. Thanks, man.”
He heads inside.
“Thank you.”