Post by Immanuel Taylor on Jul 8, 2011 14:52:22 GMT -5
Three losses in a row, setting off a losing streak just after an impressive winning streak and one that involves the loss of the Hardkore Title. And now ,in the latest dramatic installment, Immanuel has resorted to petty theft and has literally stolen the title from Tyreke Bell. On live television, nonetheless. The heaviness of all of that weighed down on Immanuel as he stood in front of the Asylum-EUW Headquarters at 1337 Mission Street in San Francisco at around one AM with his head bowed down.
The Headquarters is closed, of course, to the general public and fans but Immanuel, like any registered Asylum-EUW wrestler, has a neon black access card that serves a dual purpose. Firstly, it can be used at the lavish main entrance thus granting you access to the first vestibule, or entrance hall, at which point you would be confronted by a stereotypical security guard, completely adorned with a flashlight, newspaper, and a Colt .45 pistol. After the proper ID verification, you would then use the card to access the service elevator.
Immanuel pressed the “B” button, they’re categorized alphabetically, at which point the spacious elevator took him to the associated destination, the Asylum-EUW Gymnasium and corresponding Locker-Room facility. Immanuel, clothed in a plain shirt and trackpants, made his way past the gymnasium and into the locker-room area, surpassing the innumerable identical lockers, there are 200 in total, and stopping at a specific one. Locker #73. He took out his wallet and extracted a small key from the left inner flap and used it to open the locker.
The Hardkore Title, which is a very ugly title design-wise, was hanging from the built-in hanger on the locker door. The locker itself was empty and Immanuel only concerned himself with the ugly looking yet immensely influential title. He grabbed it off the hook, set his shoulder bag down, and sat down with his back to the wall of lockers and the title on his lap.
Immanuel Taylor had no plans to go after the Hardkore Title, before and after his acquirement of it, yet it had become perfectly clear to Immanuel that Rivera was not going to transfer him out of the corresponding Hardcore Division. Immanuel is there to stay in the world of chairshots, absurd varieties of weaponry and a constant dangerous encouragement of using them for brutality. Immanuel did not belong in that world, in that specific division.
All it took was Rivera’s laugh for Immanuel to understand that he’s stuck there and that led him to his next course of action. The theft of the Hardkore Title. It was a spontaneous move, one that Immanuel conjured up as he was leaving Rivera’s rented office. If Immanuel is deeply entrenched in the Hardkore division and if he’s already surfacing around at the top then why not strengthen his position and seek to reclaim the throne? Immanuel was reeling after a two-loss streak, which would become a three-loss after his triple threat match, and was especially weakened after such a blatant and high-profile loss to Bell.
It just then occurred to Immanuel, leaving Rivera's office with the news that he would remain in the Hardcore diviosn, that in the world of professional wrestling if you want something, you’re going to have to snatch it with your own claws. Just as Jackal attacked Immanuel after Immanuel’s title win, Immanuel attacked Bell after Bell’s respective victory. Immanuel managed to take it one step further, however, and swiped the bloody title.
The Asylum’s policy about title belts revolves around the strict requirement to keep it within the premises of the Headquarters. Immanuel found a loophole around that. It does not specifically state that the champion or current title holder has to return it himself. Thus, Immanuel the Thief was able to return it himself and check it in one of the innumerable lockers located in the premises.
What Immanuel intends to do with the title belt when the next edition of Sunday Night Vengeance rolls by and he inevitably (and literally) runs into Tyreke Bell is still undecided. He'll give the title back of course, he has to eventually, but it would have to be in a way that would secure a net gain for Immanuel himself. Immanuel could go for a simple swap, giving Bell the title back in exchange for a rematch. When it comes to masterminding thefts, the simplest route to go is the best. Occam's Razor. And Immanuel saw no obstacles in going for a simple swap with Bell.
What he saw as thorny and possibly dangerous was how exactly he was going to keep the title away from Bell until he gets a guarantee that a rematch for the title would happen. And that was why Immanuel the Thief is sitting here in an empty locker-room in the middle of the night with only a faint light glimmering from the gymnasium and shining off the Hardkore Title on Immanuel’s lap. If Rivera was going to keep Immanuel in Hardkore Hell, locked in and trapped, then Immanuel saw no choice but to gun for the throne.
Immanuel got up as soon as he heard footsteps. He calmly but resolutely hung the Hardkore Title back on the built-in hanger and closed Locker #73 before locking it and hiding the small key in his wallet. Immanuel made his way out of the headquarters, taking the same route as that of which he came in through, and onto the streets of San Francisco.
All the freaks come out at night here in San Francisco. Immanuel is one of them. The words of the prophet were written on the walls and Immanuel brushed past without a moment of reflection. The eccentricity of San Francisco came along with its liveliness. Immanuel crossed the street and took a transit train from the Church port of the overall BART station. It was nighttime, and obviously dangerous, but Immanuel persisted. He got on the transit and sat down inconspicuously at the back.
All these reflections on theft and match contests that specialize in weaponry, the use of it and the very importance of it made Immanuel nauseas. His lack of sleep and inability to do so made contributing factor too. And thus he found himself welcoming his upcoming match at the July 10th edition of Sunday Night Vengeance. It was against Danny Tenfold and what Immanuel was happy about was that Tenfold is not a hardcore wrestler and the match, a regular one, is something that Immanuel does not need to study inside out to figure out. It is what it is. A straightforward and usual match.
The match itself, however straightforward, came with the inevitable side effect of being influenced by both Tenfold's and Taylor's out-of-match circumstances. Danny Tenfold left Retribution without his title. Before the match that night, Immanuel had come off a damaging title loss too and an overall two straight losses in a row. The number reached an unhealthy trifecta after that match. The streak beginning with his loss at the battle royal, followed by his title loss at the hands of Bell, and now a third one at the hands of Viper. This losing streak came at the heels of a winning streak that Immanuel was able to sustain as the Hardkore champion.
Immanuel served the majority of Thursday the 30th reviewing this pattern. The turning point was the battle royal itself. That was when Taylor's chorus of wins turned into a chorus of losses. When he had begun his career here, Immanuel had gone through a zig-zag of a win followed by a loss followed by a win followed by a loss and such. That pattern came to an end with Immanuel's title win at Back 2 Roots, ushering in a trifecta of victories. This soon neck-dived into a tumbling of losses.
The train itself that Immanuel rode on, like his recently discussed match pattern, also tumbled and came to an end at the last station. Immanuel, having got on for no other reason but to keep moving, got up and noticed the Embarcadero name imprinted on the digital overhead board. He got out of the train and, for some reason, took out his wallet and checked for that small Locker #73 key. It was there. He went to put it back just as he moved out of the train. Immanuel passed by a woman in revealing clothes and an advancing attitude, he eyed her and she eyed him. Immanuel then continued on without hindrance.
Now in North Beach of San Francisco, Immanuel continued his pointless and dangerous walk in the middle of the night, passing by the Embarcadero Centre and moving deeper into the streets. His train of thought, by contrast to the train he just got off, continued its path on Immanuel’s wrestling career.
The turning point of Immanuel’s match record came at the 6-Man Battle Royal at the special edition of Sunday Night Vengeance. What Immanuel strongly noticed at the battle royal, upon reflection and watching the match again, was how he had come so close to winning it. In other words, he was not taken by surprise in that match. He had made it to the final with Jace Ambrose and had found himself going against an opponent he already knew to be difficult to deal with. The difficult part being Ambrose's eccentric showman-based wrestling style, something Immanuel did not even knew to exist before he found himself preparing for his match with Ambrose.
Furthermore, Immanuel found himself anything but the victor in that match as the result of a dramatic run-in by Immanuel's arch-enemy Jackal. This marked the end of the winning streak and ushered in the losing streak. Immanuel paid close attention to this point. A loss is a loss, no matter what, and Immanuel lost that battle royal but it had come at the expense of circumstances beyond his control.
And then the title loss came. There was no interference there, unless one would count Jackal and Diabolik's observatory presence, and Bell won fair and square. Immanuel rented some time at the Asylum headquarters' excellent in-door mini-theatres and brought a DVD recording copy of his title match with Bell. He had done so just after he registered Bell's title in an unidentified locker at the storage facility. Immanuel watched the match back-to-back, a grand total of two replays, and pinpointed two strategic events in the match.
The first was when Bell was getting back up on his feet and Immanuel was still handcuffed to that steel fence. Immanuel was in a perfect position to use that steel fence. But he didn't. He used the bolt cutter (yes, there was a bolt cutter in the midst of the debris of weaponry in the ring) to break the handcuff.
The other decisive point came when Immanuel was going for the brain buster. Church reversed it, pulled off his finisher and that was that. Immanuel did not see anything wrong in the first event, that of not using the steel fence. Immanuel refused to use weapons until it was absolutely necessary. However, the finish of the match was what presented itself as Immanuel's mistake. Unlike the battle royal, Immanuel's loss came without any outside intervention. It was a clean and decisive loss.
Immanuel won the Hardcore title, defended the hardcore title, and lost the hardcore title and did all of that without ever truly, truly familiarizing himself with what a Hardcore Champion should be and what a Hardcore match should be fought like. Immanuel understood the barbarity of it, the fact that anything and everything is legal, but he did not fully embrace that. He did not fully embrace the fact that the presence of weaponry in such a match fully meant that you very well had to utilize them. Immanuel Taylor understood the mechanics of being a hardcore wrestler but he still could not be one in practice.
That last strand of thought resonated strongly in Immanuel’s min as he suddenly stopped in front of the Vesuvio bar on 255 Columbus Avenue, just opposite of the City Lights Bookstore. He proceeded to sit down on an empty bench and, for a brief period, simply watched the entrance of the Vesuvio bar. The colorful yellowish-greenish façade gave him some small amount of relief. A shining beacon during a time of distress.
It was only when the woman in revealing clothes he encountered earlier at the Embarcadero station walked up to the bench that he broke off his watchful gaze of the Vesuvio.
“You dropped your wallet at the subway”
Immanuel turned his head to the right and upwards, eyeing the attractive brunette. Indeed, she had Immanuel’s stuffed tri-fold wallet, Black Genuine Leather, and she extended her hand to hand it over to him. As Immanuel took it and thanked her, he noticed the glitter on her blue-painted fingernails.
She sat next to him on the bench and crossed her legs before running her hand across her brunette hair. Immanuel wanted to move away, really wanted to, but decided not to. He managed to pull a decent smile before turning his head back to that crowded bar.
“So, what’s your story? You looked nervous back there, walking around with your head down and your shoulders all crunched up”
“I don’t have a story”
“But you have a gun bulging out from the back of your pants” Immanuel’s head turned sideways and eyed her. She smiled. “Don’t worry, you hid it well enough. It’s just that my job requires me to spot these things. I would be stupid not to. What did you do?”
“Nothing”
“Then are you walking around in the middle of the night with your head down and what looks to be a semi-automatic shoved at the back of your pants?”
Immanuel massaged his own neck and didn’t respond. Two young males left the bar across the street, opening the front door and letting out a wide barrage of music before closing it again. They held hands and made their way to the left and across the street.
“Honey, this isn’t an investigation. I’m just looking for a conversation.”
“I don’t do conversations” Immanuel calmly but resolutely replied, his shell still shut close. The lady, attractive with a good amount of maturity, did not push any farther. She continued seated there, next to Immanuel, both quiet and idle. Immanuel did not converse with the lady seated next to him due to unwillingness rather than inability. Soon enough, Taylor’s thoughts drifted from the Vesuvio bar to his opponent come Vengeance the 10th.
Immanuel didn’t know whether Tenfold would go for a rematch with Cross for the Pure Title or not but he knows that Tenfold will be looking to keep himself going strong with a win. Immanuel saw Tenfold as a threat in of himself without taking into account whom he is battling against, yet it would be folly to assume that exterior circumstances don’t play a part. Unlike Immanuel, Danny was able to rebound with a win on the episode of Vengeance following that of Retribution.
And this is where Immanuel’s strong, perhaps stronger, need for a win came into play too. All this talk of three losses in a row, 3 being an unhealthy sign of a pattern, made Immanuel that much focused on the match. Yet he could not let this importance get to him. Immanuel needs cold precision with Tenfold. Immanuel saw in Tenfold a polar opposite. His high-flying being prominently countered by Immanuel’s pragmatic ground-based offensive.
With a direct confrontation with Tyreke Bell guaranteed come the upcoming episode of Sunday Night Vengeance following Taylor’s theft of his title, Immanuel saw more and more a gold rush worth of value in being able to get a clean win on a former pure champion. And the gold rush itself was a curse too. It’s importance weighed down like a ten ton albatross. It weighed down heavily, just like Immanuel’s losing streak, and thus Immanuel seeked to delay having to deal with it for now.
He refocused on the Vesuvio entrance, all shiny and glittery, and it gave him another doze of easiness. He eventually got up, took out his wallet and extracted a handful of bills. He reached his hand out to the attractive brunette next to him, who was playing with her little blackberry.
“I’m not a whore”
“Didn’t say you were” Immanuel’s hand with the money remained extended. The woman didn’t take it.
“Then what’s that for?”
“For the conversation”
“There wasn’t one”
“I know” Immanuel placed the stack of bills, totaling 500 dollars, on the seat which he previously occupied. “Didn’t say there was one”
Immanuel flung his shoulder bag on his right shoulder and walked away from the bench. He crossed the empty street, waiting until the traffic light turned green to do so. Immanuel walked and marched, not taking a respite. Nighttime San Francisco continued to host what it always hosts. A livelihood of clubs and bars for the yuppies and fortunate and the streets for the eccentrics and damned. Immanuel continued on his journey to the Embarcadero port of the overall BART Station via Sansome street, past the semi-empty streets, past the occasional suspiciously watchful bystander, past the man who seems to be wanting to sell you something, and back to his solitary private hole in the Hotel Tropicana in Valencia Street in the Mission District.
The Headquarters is closed, of course, to the general public and fans but Immanuel, like any registered Asylum-EUW wrestler, has a neon black access card that serves a dual purpose. Firstly, it can be used at the lavish main entrance thus granting you access to the first vestibule, or entrance hall, at which point you would be confronted by a stereotypical security guard, completely adorned with a flashlight, newspaper, and a Colt .45 pistol. After the proper ID verification, you would then use the card to access the service elevator.
Immanuel pressed the “B” button, they’re categorized alphabetically, at which point the spacious elevator took him to the associated destination, the Asylum-EUW Gymnasium and corresponding Locker-Room facility. Immanuel, clothed in a plain shirt and trackpants, made his way past the gymnasium and into the locker-room area, surpassing the innumerable identical lockers, there are 200 in total, and stopping at a specific one. Locker #73. He took out his wallet and extracted a small key from the left inner flap and used it to open the locker.
The Hardkore Title, which is a very ugly title design-wise, was hanging from the built-in hanger on the locker door. The locker itself was empty and Immanuel only concerned himself with the ugly looking yet immensely influential title. He grabbed it off the hook, set his shoulder bag down, and sat down with his back to the wall of lockers and the title on his lap.
Immanuel Taylor had no plans to go after the Hardkore Title, before and after his acquirement of it, yet it had become perfectly clear to Immanuel that Rivera was not going to transfer him out of the corresponding Hardcore Division. Immanuel is there to stay in the world of chairshots, absurd varieties of weaponry and a constant dangerous encouragement of using them for brutality. Immanuel did not belong in that world, in that specific division.
All it took was Rivera’s laugh for Immanuel to understand that he’s stuck there and that led him to his next course of action. The theft of the Hardkore Title. It was a spontaneous move, one that Immanuel conjured up as he was leaving Rivera’s rented office. If Immanuel is deeply entrenched in the Hardkore division and if he’s already surfacing around at the top then why not strengthen his position and seek to reclaim the throne? Immanuel was reeling after a two-loss streak, which would become a three-loss after his triple threat match, and was especially weakened after such a blatant and high-profile loss to Bell.
It just then occurred to Immanuel, leaving Rivera's office with the news that he would remain in the Hardcore diviosn, that in the world of professional wrestling if you want something, you’re going to have to snatch it with your own claws. Just as Jackal attacked Immanuel after Immanuel’s title win, Immanuel attacked Bell after Bell’s respective victory. Immanuel managed to take it one step further, however, and swiped the bloody title.
The Asylum’s policy about title belts revolves around the strict requirement to keep it within the premises of the Headquarters. Immanuel found a loophole around that. It does not specifically state that the champion or current title holder has to return it himself. Thus, Immanuel the Thief was able to return it himself and check it in one of the innumerable lockers located in the premises.
What Immanuel intends to do with the title belt when the next edition of Sunday Night Vengeance rolls by and he inevitably (and literally) runs into Tyreke Bell is still undecided. He'll give the title back of course, he has to eventually, but it would have to be in a way that would secure a net gain for Immanuel himself. Immanuel could go for a simple swap, giving Bell the title back in exchange for a rematch. When it comes to masterminding thefts, the simplest route to go is the best. Occam's Razor. And Immanuel saw no obstacles in going for a simple swap with Bell.
What he saw as thorny and possibly dangerous was how exactly he was going to keep the title away from Bell until he gets a guarantee that a rematch for the title would happen. And that was why Immanuel the Thief is sitting here in an empty locker-room in the middle of the night with only a faint light glimmering from the gymnasium and shining off the Hardkore Title on Immanuel’s lap. If Rivera was going to keep Immanuel in Hardkore Hell, locked in and trapped, then Immanuel saw no choice but to gun for the throne.
Immanuel got up as soon as he heard footsteps. He calmly but resolutely hung the Hardkore Title back on the built-in hanger and closed Locker #73 before locking it and hiding the small key in his wallet. Immanuel made his way out of the headquarters, taking the same route as that of which he came in through, and onto the streets of San Francisco.
All the freaks come out at night here in San Francisco. Immanuel is one of them. The words of the prophet were written on the walls and Immanuel brushed past without a moment of reflection. The eccentricity of San Francisco came along with its liveliness. Immanuel crossed the street and took a transit train from the Church port of the overall BART station. It was nighttime, and obviously dangerous, but Immanuel persisted. He got on the transit and sat down inconspicuously at the back.
All these reflections on theft and match contests that specialize in weaponry, the use of it and the very importance of it made Immanuel nauseas. His lack of sleep and inability to do so made contributing factor too. And thus he found himself welcoming his upcoming match at the July 10th edition of Sunday Night Vengeance. It was against Danny Tenfold and what Immanuel was happy about was that Tenfold is not a hardcore wrestler and the match, a regular one, is something that Immanuel does not need to study inside out to figure out. It is what it is. A straightforward and usual match.
The match itself, however straightforward, came with the inevitable side effect of being influenced by both Tenfold's and Taylor's out-of-match circumstances. Danny Tenfold left Retribution without his title. Before the match that night, Immanuel had come off a damaging title loss too and an overall two straight losses in a row. The number reached an unhealthy trifecta after that match. The streak beginning with his loss at the battle royal, followed by his title loss at the hands of Bell, and now a third one at the hands of Viper. This losing streak came at the heels of a winning streak that Immanuel was able to sustain as the Hardkore champion.
Immanuel served the majority of Thursday the 30th reviewing this pattern. The turning point was the battle royal itself. That was when Taylor's chorus of wins turned into a chorus of losses. When he had begun his career here, Immanuel had gone through a zig-zag of a win followed by a loss followed by a win followed by a loss and such. That pattern came to an end with Immanuel's title win at Back 2 Roots, ushering in a trifecta of victories. This soon neck-dived into a tumbling of losses.
The train itself that Immanuel rode on, like his recently discussed match pattern, also tumbled and came to an end at the last station. Immanuel, having got on for no other reason but to keep moving, got up and noticed the Embarcadero name imprinted on the digital overhead board. He got out of the train and, for some reason, took out his wallet and checked for that small Locker #73 key. It was there. He went to put it back just as he moved out of the train. Immanuel passed by a woman in revealing clothes and an advancing attitude, he eyed her and she eyed him. Immanuel then continued on without hindrance.
Now in North Beach of San Francisco, Immanuel continued his pointless and dangerous walk in the middle of the night, passing by the Embarcadero Centre and moving deeper into the streets. His train of thought, by contrast to the train he just got off, continued its path on Immanuel’s wrestling career.
The turning point of Immanuel’s match record came at the 6-Man Battle Royal at the special edition of Sunday Night Vengeance. What Immanuel strongly noticed at the battle royal, upon reflection and watching the match again, was how he had come so close to winning it. In other words, he was not taken by surprise in that match. He had made it to the final with Jace Ambrose and had found himself going against an opponent he already knew to be difficult to deal with. The difficult part being Ambrose's eccentric showman-based wrestling style, something Immanuel did not even knew to exist before he found himself preparing for his match with Ambrose.
Furthermore, Immanuel found himself anything but the victor in that match as the result of a dramatic run-in by Immanuel's arch-enemy Jackal. This marked the end of the winning streak and ushered in the losing streak. Immanuel paid close attention to this point. A loss is a loss, no matter what, and Immanuel lost that battle royal but it had come at the expense of circumstances beyond his control.
And then the title loss came. There was no interference there, unless one would count Jackal and Diabolik's observatory presence, and Bell won fair and square. Immanuel rented some time at the Asylum headquarters' excellent in-door mini-theatres and brought a DVD recording copy of his title match with Bell. He had done so just after he registered Bell's title in an unidentified locker at the storage facility. Immanuel watched the match back-to-back, a grand total of two replays, and pinpointed two strategic events in the match.
The first was when Bell was getting back up on his feet and Immanuel was still handcuffed to that steel fence. Immanuel was in a perfect position to use that steel fence. But he didn't. He used the bolt cutter (yes, there was a bolt cutter in the midst of the debris of weaponry in the ring) to break the handcuff.
The other decisive point came when Immanuel was going for the brain buster. Church reversed it, pulled off his finisher and that was that. Immanuel did not see anything wrong in the first event, that of not using the steel fence. Immanuel refused to use weapons until it was absolutely necessary. However, the finish of the match was what presented itself as Immanuel's mistake. Unlike the battle royal, Immanuel's loss came without any outside intervention. It was a clean and decisive loss.
Immanuel won the Hardcore title, defended the hardcore title, and lost the hardcore title and did all of that without ever truly, truly familiarizing himself with what a Hardcore Champion should be and what a Hardcore match should be fought like. Immanuel understood the barbarity of it, the fact that anything and everything is legal, but he did not fully embrace that. He did not fully embrace the fact that the presence of weaponry in such a match fully meant that you very well had to utilize them. Immanuel Taylor understood the mechanics of being a hardcore wrestler but he still could not be one in practice.
That last strand of thought resonated strongly in Immanuel’s min as he suddenly stopped in front of the Vesuvio bar on 255 Columbus Avenue, just opposite of the City Lights Bookstore. He proceeded to sit down on an empty bench and, for a brief period, simply watched the entrance of the Vesuvio bar. The colorful yellowish-greenish façade gave him some small amount of relief. A shining beacon during a time of distress.
It was only when the woman in revealing clothes he encountered earlier at the Embarcadero station walked up to the bench that he broke off his watchful gaze of the Vesuvio.
“You dropped your wallet at the subway”
Immanuel turned his head to the right and upwards, eyeing the attractive brunette. Indeed, she had Immanuel’s stuffed tri-fold wallet, Black Genuine Leather, and she extended her hand to hand it over to him. As Immanuel took it and thanked her, he noticed the glitter on her blue-painted fingernails.
She sat next to him on the bench and crossed her legs before running her hand across her brunette hair. Immanuel wanted to move away, really wanted to, but decided not to. He managed to pull a decent smile before turning his head back to that crowded bar.
“So, what’s your story? You looked nervous back there, walking around with your head down and your shoulders all crunched up”
“I don’t have a story”
“But you have a gun bulging out from the back of your pants” Immanuel’s head turned sideways and eyed her. She smiled. “Don’t worry, you hid it well enough. It’s just that my job requires me to spot these things. I would be stupid not to. What did you do?”
“Nothing”
“Then are you walking around in the middle of the night with your head down and what looks to be a semi-automatic shoved at the back of your pants?”
Immanuel massaged his own neck and didn’t respond. Two young males left the bar across the street, opening the front door and letting out a wide barrage of music before closing it again. They held hands and made their way to the left and across the street.
“Honey, this isn’t an investigation. I’m just looking for a conversation.”
“I don’t do conversations” Immanuel calmly but resolutely replied, his shell still shut close. The lady, attractive with a good amount of maturity, did not push any farther. She continued seated there, next to Immanuel, both quiet and idle. Immanuel did not converse with the lady seated next to him due to unwillingness rather than inability. Soon enough, Taylor’s thoughts drifted from the Vesuvio bar to his opponent come Vengeance the 10th.
Immanuel didn’t know whether Tenfold would go for a rematch with Cross for the Pure Title or not but he knows that Tenfold will be looking to keep himself going strong with a win. Immanuel saw Tenfold as a threat in of himself without taking into account whom he is battling against, yet it would be folly to assume that exterior circumstances don’t play a part. Unlike Immanuel, Danny was able to rebound with a win on the episode of Vengeance following that of Retribution.
And this is where Immanuel’s strong, perhaps stronger, need for a win came into play too. All this talk of three losses in a row, 3 being an unhealthy sign of a pattern, made Immanuel that much focused on the match. Yet he could not let this importance get to him. Immanuel needs cold precision with Tenfold. Immanuel saw in Tenfold a polar opposite. His high-flying being prominently countered by Immanuel’s pragmatic ground-based offensive.
With a direct confrontation with Tyreke Bell guaranteed come the upcoming episode of Sunday Night Vengeance following Taylor’s theft of his title, Immanuel saw more and more a gold rush worth of value in being able to get a clean win on a former pure champion. And the gold rush itself was a curse too. It’s importance weighed down like a ten ton albatross. It weighed down heavily, just like Immanuel’s losing streak, and thus Immanuel seeked to delay having to deal with it for now.
He refocused on the Vesuvio entrance, all shiny and glittery, and it gave him another doze of easiness. He eventually got up, took out his wallet and extracted a handful of bills. He reached his hand out to the attractive brunette next to him, who was playing with her little blackberry.
“I’m not a whore”
“Didn’t say you were” Immanuel’s hand with the money remained extended. The woman didn’t take it.
“Then what’s that for?”
“For the conversation”
“There wasn’t one”
“I know” Immanuel placed the stack of bills, totaling 500 dollars, on the seat which he previously occupied. “Didn’t say there was one”
Immanuel flung his shoulder bag on his right shoulder and walked away from the bench. He crossed the empty street, waiting until the traffic light turned green to do so. Immanuel walked and marched, not taking a respite. Nighttime San Francisco continued to host what it always hosts. A livelihood of clubs and bars for the yuppies and fortunate and the streets for the eccentrics and damned. Immanuel continued on his journey to the Embarcadero port of the overall BART Station via Sansome street, past the semi-empty streets, past the occasional suspiciously watchful bystander, past the man who seems to be wanting to sell you something, and back to his solitary private hole in the Hotel Tropicana in Valencia Street in the Mission District.
