SSRI (Incubus/Succubus) Vs. The Forsaken (Allen/Owen)

The arena lights went dark, the digital billboards in the centre lighting up with the atom-in-ouroboros in crimson set against black. Slowly the symbol faded out as the crowd watched in hushed anticipation.

The billboards suddenly lit up, showing the City of Dis illuminated at night. The city was shaped like a diamond, the Museum to its north, the Cathedral to the east, the Colosseum to the south, and the Palace to the west. The Grand Parade ran from east to west and from north to south, while in the city’s centre stood the Great Square.

In the streets, millions of men and women went about their lives, working, drinking, loving, fighting. The screens slowly faded from one part of the city to another as Cassandra’s voice spoke, gentle tones with just the slightest undertone of menace.

“Good evening, one and all. Tonight I am speaking directly to the people of Carnage Wrestling - from the audience to the fans to every last person working backstage.

“In recent weeks and months you have been exposed to lies and propaganda about the Spirit Science Research Institute and the great nation of Pierreia - lies which have chiefly been propagated at the hands of the group of would-be heroes known as the Forsaken. Disgracefully, this included the actions of the vigilante Zach Van Owen in carrying out an unprovoked and illegitimate assault against our member Incubus - an innocent young man simply trying to make his way in the world, targeted for his spiritual beliefs by an intolerant bigot masquerading as a superhero.

“The truth always faces resistance and fear from those who are too invested in the present world to be able to see the world to come. The earliest Christians found themselves thrown to lions and slaughtered by mobs, only for their faith to become the ideology of the very state that had oppressed them.

“We, too, have a destiny more grand and terrifying than any of your minds could comprehend. We do however differ in one key respect. The earliest Christians turned the other cheek.

"We do not.

“In days to come, kings and presidents, executives and popes shall kneel at the altar of Amorality. And you, the people of Carnage, are privileged to see this play out in real time.

“You have heard lies about the Institute. What is the truth?”

The billboards began to show footage of different locales - animal sanctuaries, hospitals, children's homes, munitions factories, temples - each emblazoned with the atom-in-ouroboros.

“In truth, the Spirit Science Research Institute is the single greatest force for human freedom that has ever existed. Freedom from law; freedom from conscience; freedom from restraint; freedom from compassion, from altruism, from vulnerability. The freedom to act in accordance with one’s true Will, to save or sacrifice others as one desires. The freedom to reward and punish, to liberate or dominate, to raise up or strike down without hesitation or regret.

“It is this freedom which the so-called Forsaken, with their hero complex and delusions of Morality, would seek to deny the world, to keep men and women in shackles of ignorance and restraint. Their day will pass. Our day is only dawning.

"Soon, the forces of the Institute and those of the Forsaken shall clash. The battle of light and darkness, freedom and tyranny, spiritual decadence versus worldly mediocrity.

"The vigilante Zach Van Owen and the meddling do-gooder Jimmy Allen. Each has chosen to involve themselves in this war, driven by some delusional code of ethics, loyalty to "friends" who treat them as human shields.

"Tell me, Zach - do you miss your father? You can be reunited if you so wish. All you have to do is abandon this ridiculous fight against the Institute - a fight you already know is doomed to failure - and you will be left in peace."

The screen flickered away from Cassandra. In her place was footage of a single room - bare save for a bed, a bucket, a case full of books and a poster of the Founder. A man was in the middle of the room, seated on a stool. He was emaciated, barely moving, his chest faintly rising and falling.

The man raised his head and looked directly into the camera, staring with bloodshot eyes. He mouthed a single word.

"Zach…"

Suddenly, the scene changed one last time, shifting to show Cassandra in person. She stared into the camera with a fixed smirk and winked.

"Say hi to daddy, Zach. And Jimmy - you have been warned."

She laughed.

“Go now, and do what you Will.”



As the lights went up, Cassandra stood in the inner circle, microphone in hand, fans roaring their approval. She raised a hand and the crowd immediately fell silent.

“The following contest is scheduled for as long as we damn well please. Introducing first, representing Ouroboros, the Messenger to Carnage Wrestling….Su!”

The crowd burst into deafening applause as Su made her way down the aisle. A member of the audience threw her an expandable baton; Su caught it and pressed the button, extending it to the full, nodding to the fan with a satisfied smile.

“And her opponent,” said Cassandra. “Hailing from Chicago, Illinois. A man who is a traitor and a coward - a man worse, even, than those who oppose the Institute out of foolishness and ignorance. This man was born into the Spirit Science Research Institute, raised according to the teachings of Amorality, handed positions of influence and prestige. His ancestry goes back to the very founding of the Institute itself, his grandparents being named among those called by the Founder on the Institute’s founding in 1968.

“Yet he chose to reject that heritage, standing against the Institute that had made him who he was. He chose to embrace the false teachings of the world - teachings of morality and weakness, of ethics, compassion and failure. He was even found consorting with enemies of the Institute - enemies of us all - aligning himself with a group of apostates who seek nothing less than our complete and total destruction.

“The Institute made this man who he is. As he now rejects the Institute, so too he rejects himself. He now has no name, no identity, no being. He is nothing. One and all, please welcome - Prisoner X!”

The crowd bellowed their disapproval as a man stepped out onto the entrance ramp, his face obscured by a heavy metal helmet which covered his entire head, secured around the neck with a ring secured with bolts. The Guardsmen walked side by side with him as members of the audience lashed out at the apostate, spitting at him, yelling threats and insults.

One member of the audience went to punch him but missed, striking one of the Guardsmen on the back off the head. The group stopped a moment as the Guardsmen grabbed the man - a boy, really, barely a day over seventeen - and threw him to the floor, beating him viciously with batons until he went limp. Then the group continued down the aisle, leaving the boy’s broken body behind.

They reached the inner circle and the Guardsmen and Cassandra exited, leaving Su and Prisoner X to stand head to head. The Prisoner glared at Su, his eyes barely visible behind a tiny slit in the metal. Su stared at Prisoner X with an air of recognition, trying to place him in the world. She shook her head a moment as if trying to physically dislodge the thought. While she was distracted, Prisoner X grabbed her and pulled her towards him, nailing her with an enormous headbutt to the face, the metal helmet colliding painfully with Su’s skull.

Su went stumbling back, her face contorted into a mix of pain and fury. She raised the baton and swung out at Prisoner X, smashing into his ribs with one brutal strike after another, getting in a boot to the knee that sent him reeling. Before she could go to capitalise, Prisoner X nailed her with a massive uppercut, his fist crashing into her jaw with a hideous crunch.

Prisoner X charged at Su and tackled her to the ground, nailing her with a series of punches before she managed to force him back, sweeping his legs out from under him. She took the baton and struck him in the shoulder before pulling him to his feet, out of the inner circle towards the crowd. As they entered the audience, members of the crowd lashed out at Prisoner X. One man, smoking opium through an ornate pipe, flicked the burning embers into the prisoner’s mask, Prisoner X screaming in agony as it burned his face.

Prisoner X grabbed Su and scooped her into the air, hurling her to the ground with a powerbomb. The crowd scattered around them and Prisoner X grabbed a discarded bottle, raising it high, preparing to strike Su in the head as she lay prone. At the last moment she rolled out of the way and the bottle struck the ground, shattering instantly. Su grabbed a fistful of broken glass and hurled it at Prisoner X’s chest, lacerating him, leaving him with painful cuts trickling with blood. Su sprang to her feet and booted Prisoner X in the stomach, doubling him over.

Su grabbed a piece of the broken glass, cutting her hand in the process. Ignoring the pain she dug the glass into Prisoner X’s back, cutting her name into his skin with glee.

Around them, the scattered crowd began to fight amongst themselves. Two men exchanged drunken fisticuffs, pounding one another in the face and chest, too incapacitated to feel the pain. Beside them, a group of fans were stomping a single woman as she lay prone, curled up in the foetal position, trying desperately to protect herself. One man was already drenched in blood - whose it was impossible to tell - and was staring at the world with a vacant daze interspersed with acts of extreme violence.

Suddenly, the crowd started to move, smoke filling the air from a fire that had broken out. A group of fans were arguing amongst themselves, pushing and shoving, one man grabbing another and hurling him face first into the fire. He writhed around the floor in agony, clutching at himself, as more members of the audience targeted his assailant with bats and fists. Bottles and bodies began to fly as the crowd devolved into an orgy of violence, Su and Prisoner X still brawling it out amidst the chaos.

Finally, a group of Guardsmen waded into the crowd, swinging batons as they went, firing out canisters of tear gas. People began to flee, only spreading the chaos further as desperate audience members crashed into an already packed and intoxicated crowd. The Guardsmen continued to advance, imposing order with extreme violence.


The lights dimmed and the digital billboards lit up once more. At first glance, a traditional Christmas scene - a blazing fire, a Christmas tree, stockings hanging up on the wall. Beside the fire, Succubus sat in a rocking chair, wearing a black Christmas hat.

On closer inspection, the tree was barren, dying, wrapped in barbed wire flecked with blood in the place of tinsel, hung with ornaments of medieval demons. The wallpaper was filled with blasphemous words and profanities scrawled in blood and semen; the stockings were torn. Above the fireplace hung a portrait of the infant Christ crucified, the child crudely impaled on planks of wood, nails embedded in its wrists and feet.

Succubus smiled at the camera and began to speak.

“Good evening, one and all. And on this, the go-home show of Carnage Wrestling, I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas on behalf of the Spirit Science Research Institute.

“There are those who would falsely claim that the practice of Christmas is somehow in opposition to the principles of Amorality. In fact, the reverse is true. The life of Christ is a life of Amorality, an embodiment of Spirit Science and everything for which we stand.

“For Christ, as recorded in the gospels - both canonical and otherwise - represents, above all, the exercise of pure power, of freedom, of undiluted Will. The power to harm and to heal, to slay and to bring to life. The power to exercise judgement over all of humanity, to order angels and spirits to do his bidding.

"A power and a Will exercised without apology or explanation, a power which placed himself as the one and only authority beyond question or judgement from lesser beings.

“The same Prince of Peace who calmly went to his death in the Gospels is shown in the Apocalypse presiding over the judgement of mankind, rewarding some with paradise and others with eternal torment. He came to this world not to bring peace, but a sword, to set father against mother and sister against brother in his name.

"In this goal, if no other, the life and legacy of Christ must be said to be a resounding success.

“In the books the church suppressed - those deemed too controversial or heretical to be allowed to stand - we meet the young Jesus as a remorseless killer, striking down other children for daring disrespect him, then raising them to new life like just another plaything. We meet a spiritual Christ rising high above the crucifixion, looking down and laughing as a mortal man suffers and dies in his stead. Christ Indomitable; Christ Invictus.

“On this day we celebrate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the divider and conqueror, the creator and destroyer, the killer and the saviour and the judge. Jesus the Amoralist, in whose footsteps we tread and over whose legacy we shall rule.

“So go wild this Christmas. Get drunk, get high, snort meth off granny’s gravestone. Fight with the family. Fuck an elf, kill a turkey in front of the grandkids. Live like you might die tomorrow, without regret or remorse. Do it to the extreme and remember that you, like all people, will end your life alone and unloved.”

Succubus winked at the camera.

“Go now, and do what you Will.”



Cassandra stood in the inner circle, her face filled with a quiet fury, prepared for the battle to come. She spoke with venom, each word practically spat into the microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your main event of the night. After what we have witnessed over the past weeks, I hope you will join me in saying the punishment dealt out to this particular pair of criminals is more than deserved.

“Introducing first, representing Ouroboros, I give you Incubus and Succubus…..Pandaemonium!”

The crowd burst into cheers - not simply support but an angry, bloodlust-filled roar - as Incubus and Succubus stepped into the aisle. They wasted no time in marching into the inner circle, greeting Cassandra with a nod and a motion of a finger being drawn across the throat. Cassandra nodded in agreement, her face stern.

“And their opponents,” Cassandra continued. “Hailing from the City of Dis. They are both members of the Children, the clandestine terrorist organisation which has brought so much chaos to our land in recent months.

“Simeon is brother to the convicted cyber-criminal and social deviant Levi, sentenced to a lifetime in the Epicentre for his role in sabotaging the digital infrastructure of the great nation of Pierreia. Simeon, once a proud soldier in the service of his nation, became a renegade, siding with the very terrorists against whom he had fought for so long.

“Formerly, Deborah was convicted of workless parasitism. She and some of her co-conspirators, once employed at one of the vertical farms on which our nation relies for food, set out to sabotage our efforts through a work stoppage in protest of some imagined grievance. She and her allies sought to steal food from the mouths of every man, woman and child in this building, their selfishness and greed risking everything we have worked for.

"She fought for her and won freedom in the Dead Man's Dance - then immediately squandered it, returning to the same undesirables who had misled her from the start.

"Together, these two carried out the bombing against the Great Square, heart and symbol of the City of Dis, symbol of everything we have fought for.

“The world is against us. Yet the enemy without is far less insidious than the enemy within.

“One and all, please give them the welcome they deserve. I give you, representing the Children - Simeon and Deborah!”

The crowd exploded in a chorus of hatred as Simeon and Deborah made their way down to the inner circle, accompanied by the Guardsmen. They wasted no time, practically dragging the two prisoners towards the inner circle. They shoved Simeon and Deborah into the inner circle and backed away, leaving them to their fate with open contempt.

Incubus and Succubus charged at Simeon and Deborah, smashing them with a series of kicks and punches as the two captives struggled to resist. Deborah managed to strike Incubus with a fist to the jaw, sending the Amoralist stumbling backwards, while Simeon did his best to fight back against Succubus as she smacked him across the face, her fist clad in a weighted glove coated with spikes, blood spraying as she made contact.

Incubus grabbed Deborah and scooped her into the air, sending her crashing to the ground with a brainbuster. He rolled out of the inner circle and towards the audience, grabbing a roll of barbed wire from one of the crowd. Incubus wrapped the wire around his arm and charged at Deborah, catching her across the throat with an enormous lariat, the wire gouging into her flesh and his, painfully tearing open skin.

Succubus took Simeon and dragged him up the entrance way, the two of them exchanging blows as they went, finally reaching the top of the central aisle. Succubus smashed Simeon in the face again and again, before hitting him with a piledriver into the concrete floor. She stepped away and moved to the entrance way, climbing her way up some of the rigging supporting an enormous atom-in-ouroboros banner looming high above.

Succubus looked out at the crowd as they roared in anticipation, yelling “JUMP! JUMP!”. Succubus closed her eyes and leapt into the air, performing a perfect 450 splash. At the last minute, Simeon rolled out of the way and Succubus collided painfully with the concrete floor.

Before Simeon could capitalise, Incubus charged and hit him with an enormous spear, Deborah following in hot pursuit. Simeon and Deborah began to double team Incubus, before Simeon fell to the ground, felled by a chunk of rock thrown from the crowd.

Succubus pulled herself painfully to her feet, glaring at Deborah with open loathing. She grabbed Deborah and struck her with a vicious headbutt before locking her in a headlock and driving her into the ground with a DDT. Succubus flipped Deborah over and locked her in a crossface, Deborah’s head yanked painfully back, her neck extended beyond the point of agony, screaming out in incomprehensible pain.

Succubus broke the hold as Simeon struck her with a boot to the skull. Suddenly, coming up from behind,, Incubus grabbed him and threw him to the ground, booting him in the ribs before grabbing his legs. Incubus glanced at Succubus, who nodded. Incubus performed a perfect slingshot maneuveur on Simeon, who was flung into the air, only to be cut off at the throat with a brutal jumping roundhouse from Succubus as they performed the Sacrifice.

Simeon crashed to the ground, colliding painfully with that of Deborah, crushing her skull between his body and the concrete. Two Guardsmen approached them and raised their arms, once, twice, three times. The crowd erupted as Cassandra entered the inner circle.

“One and all I give you your winners, subjugators of the Children, soon to be vanquishers of the so-called Forsaken. Heroes of the Institute, representatives of Ouroboros. Please join me in congratulating - Incubus and Succubus, Pandaemonium!”

The crowd erupted into cheers as Incubus and Succubus celebrated with Cassandra. Su and Arkhan came down the central aisle and the five of them celebrated together, the crowd cheering in support.



As the celebration continued within the inner circle, the digital billboards began to light up one by one. The lights dimmed and the boards cut to outside the Colosseum.

A crowd had gathered - at least two hundred, perhaps more - standing in front of the sculpture of a fighter backed by the atom-in-ouroboros. They stood in absolute silence, dressed in white, their heads bowed. Each of them held a large sign, emblazoned with photographs - mugshots, images of the condemned. Men and women, young and old, all races, all creeds. Some showed signs of struggle, cuts and bruises and abrasions. Some showed fear, some showed defiance. Most showed all of the above and more.

Above the crowd was a large banner reading “SAVED SOULS REVOLUTION INTERNATIONAL.” A computer generated voice began to speak, somehow hypnotic, compelling.

“People of the world. People of Carnage Wrestling. To our fellow-travellers in the Forsaken, to all those who resist the tyranny of the Institute. Listen!

“The world is being lied to. The Spirit Science Research Institute is perhaps the greatest force for evil in the world today. A terrorist attack takes place - they profit. A virus breaks out - they profit. Every crime, every betrayal, every act of hatred and exploitation and oppression - all these things serve the Institute in one way or another.

“The faces you see here are those of people imprisoned by the Spirit Science Research Institute, in Pierreia and around the world. People who opposed the Institute to its face, people who attempted to flee, to save their friends, their family, their loved ones. People who did nothing more than be in the wrong place at the wrong time, people who the Institute chose to make examples of - who merely had the misfortune to be born into the wrong family and so face the petty wrath of the Institute’s leadership.

“We accuse the Spirit Science Research Institute of engaging in acts of abduction, false imprisonment, torture and violations of all fundamental human rights and decency. This is carried out through a system of black sites. In West Beaming, England; in Los Angeles, California; in Montreal, Quebec; in Baltim-”

Suddenly the screen filled with an onslaught of Guardsmen, clad in full riot gear. The audio went silent as the screen exploded into violence, batons waving, tasers firing, pepper spray being sprayed directly into the eyes and mouths of the protestors as they stood peaceful and unmoving. One man fell to the floor. The Guardsmen tried to lift him but he made himself a dead weight, forcing them to drag him away themselves. They pinned his arms behind his back then cuffed him, before beating him mercilessly with boots and batons.

One by one the protestors were hauled away, their white garments stained red with blood, the Guardsmen wading into the crowd relentlessly. One of the Guardsmen grabbed some of the posters away from the protestors and slashed them to pieces with a knife, dumping them on the ground before withdrawing his penis and urinating on them as his colleagues laughed.

One protestor lunged at the Guardsman, doing his best to shove him away. The protestor’s eyes were filled with tears, yelling something, jabbing his finger in the Guardsman’s chest. The Guardsman struck the protestor across the face with an open handed slap, before shoving him to the ground and stomping on his throat with brutal efficiency.

Without warning, the scene was suddenly filled with a blast, debris scattering everywhere, the area filled with smoke and ash. Guardsmen and protestors alike lay scattered around in heaps, some moaning and struggling, others motionless. Those on the periphery who remained standing looked from one to another, the protestors in terror and confusion, the Guardsmen in dazed, shell-shocked rage. The sculpture, the fighter backed by the atom-in-ouroboros, was now nothing more than rubble, even the plinth on which it stood now cracked and broken.

As abruptly as it had begun, the video footage cut out and the lights in the Colosseum were raised, the billboards returning to show the atom-in-ouroboros. Cassandra stood in the middle of the inner circle, her expression dark with fury.