Post by JoJo Rush on Apr 19, 2024 21:44:09 GMT -6
“Where am Ah?”
“Hell”
“Ah thought we were in hell before.”
“No. That was England.”
“There’s a difference?”
After falling into the abyss, JoJo awakes in pure darkness. The only two things that are visible in this pitch blackness is a standing mirror, and JoJo himself. While the mirror is standing, JoJo is most certainly not. He lays on the ground in a heap, almost as if he fell off the top of the world’s largest carousel. Everything was in pain, even just shifting his body to lay on his back felt like total agony.
“Where are we? Where’s The Beast?”
In fact, JoJo didn’t recognize this second voice at all. It sounded completely alien to him– it was kind, and even a bit playful, but that kind of kindness put JoJo on edge, he knew something was toying with him now.
“I’m your Guilty Conscience. That’s probably why you haven’t heard of me.”
“Ah don’t have one, so Ah don’t believe you.”
While we can’t see the Guilty Conscience, you can feel it in your bones that they’re currently tugging on their collar.
“You stack too many metaphors in that messy head of yours.”
“Quit your games, Ah need to speak to the Beast before Stranglemania.”
“These are not games, I’m here to seriously help you be–”
“WHAT? YOU WANT ME TO LOOK IN THE MIRROR? FINE!”
JoJo says with all the tone of a man frustratingly going through the motions of another one of his dissociative episodes with the same feeling and emotion as a recently fired employee working through their last day of work. Rush drags himself to his feet, literally dragging himself toward the mirror before finding the strength to get his knees onto the ground, which allows himself the momentum to get to his feet.
“You are not going to like what you see.”
“This ain’t my first rodeo, it’s about to be some horror beyond human compre–”
JoJo’s voice trails off as he finally approaches the mirror and sees in the reflection not himself but instead, The Boss, Jason Anderson!
“--Hen–What in tarnation–”
“I told you.”
JoJo does the typical bit one does when they see something that isn’t themselves in their reflection. He waved his hand, he made faces, he leaned in and squinted.
“What are you tryin’ to tell me? That Jason and Ah are one in the same?”
“Are you going to argue that you two are not?”
“We couldn’t be more different.”
“Yet your fates parallel each other in so many ways.”
“Ah’ve lived up to my potential and more. Jason hasn’t.”
“Have you though, Stormbringer?”
JoJo’s face tightens up from a look of shock into a look of anger. He looks away from the mirror to shout at the voice in his own head. Like what normal people usually do.
“Have you not seen the things Ah’ve accomplished? Ah’m doin’ everythin’ Ah’m expected to do!”
The spirit does not respond. JoJo looks around the darkness in hopes that he could see the being. If it even had a physical form.
“What more must Ah do to have my peace!? Look at all the good Ah’ve done for this world! Ah’ve done far more than Jason will ever be able to do!”
Rush claws at the air frantically, desperately hoping that he could get his hands on his Guilty Conscience and beat the hell out of it.
“Ah didn’t have the luxury of my blood family lovin’ me! They saw the chaos in my soul– they feared me! Jason’s family never gave up on him!”
In JoJo’s frantic flailing and swinging, he turns back to the mirror to see Jason mirroring his every action.
“Ah had to find my own family! Jason never watched the love from his parent’s eyes fade away!”
JoJo turns to the mirror and grips the sides, he tries to toss it across the pitch black room, but to JoJo’s shock, the mirror is too heavy to lift, let alone throw. He strains against it.
“You can’t fight this, Stormbringer. You can’t continue to fight against what you really are.”
“WATCH ME!”
Shouts a defiant JoJo, he roars as he punches the mirror, the mirror of course punches back. Yet despite how hard JoJo slams his fist against the reflective glass, it does not break. Rush punches it over and over again and it still does not shatter. The skin breaks around JoJo’s knuckles, staining the mirror with blood, but it still does not break.
“Go on, tire yourself out.”
Says the spirit aloofly while judgmentally watching JoJo exhaust himself punching the mirror. The large Texan huffs and puffs for air. Once his breathing is under control, JoJo rests his forehead against the mirror and shouts.
“Ah’m better than Anderson– Ah’m better than everyone. Jason doesn’t fight for anything other than his foolish pride. He doesn’t care about the people he’s surrounded himself with. They’re nothing but his safety net to catch him when he falls!”
Rush, still in a rage at the sight of Jason in his reflection, now starts headbutting the mirror.
“What the hell is wrong with you, guy? I’m just trying to teach you a lesson you need so The Beast doesn’t consume your sou–”
Rush actively ignores his Guilty Conscience in favor of blasting the mirror with repeated headbutts, and again, the mirror does not relent.
“Ah refuse to fail the family that chose me! Ah refuse to fail them any longer!”
JoJo continues headbutting and smashing against the mirror. Unable to break it. Eventually, after all that headbutting, JoJo became dizzy, Rush slumps to his knees, his forehead sliding down the mirror with his blood smearing downward against the otherwise clean mirror.
“It takes more to being a legend than holding a couple of belts. Jason, just like El Pablo and Stitches, can’t see what Ah see. They can’t see the titles as anything other than their chance at immortality. They don’t see the burden required to elevate yourself to greatness!”
Rush falls to his hands and knees. He is shaking with anger, but there is nothing that he could take his anger out on that would give in. The mirror proved to be a formidable opponent. JoJo looks down to the pitch black floor beneath him and saw, of course, nothing. This is a hell of his own making, and it was drab as fuck.
“Too many weak men like Xavier Reid, El Pablo, and Jason Anderson have made people forget what real hardcore is about. It wasn’t until Ah showed up on the scene and started tossin’ jukeboxes did people remember what Hardcore was about. It was about pain, n’ who can dish it out.”
Rush looks up to the reflection and sees Jason again, but the man is bloodier, and the background behind Jason is the War Games cage. Rush locks eyes with the reflection and said with determination.
“And men like Jason want to stop me from saving this world. He wants to take this title from me so he can drag folks away from my LIGHT!”
Rush climbs to his feet once more, this time he takes some steps away from the mirror, exactly ten steps away to be exact.
“Ah won’t let you destroy everything Ah’m buildin’. Ah refuse to let you destroy anything anymore.”
Rush rushes the mirror in a full sprint before diving into it with a bone-shattering mirror. This time, JoJo spears himself into the mirror. No, literally into the mirror. The mirror perplexingly sends JoJo back into the real world. Literally spitting him out of the London Eye Cabin and out onto the ground safe and sound. All in sight of a rather confused. JoJo himself appears out of it, confused and in a panic.
“Sir? Sir are you okay?” Asks a confused ride operator. To which JoJo stands up to his feet and tries to brush it off.
“Ah’m alright. Just too tired to finish this story.”
“What? Asks the ride operato–
“Hell”
“Ah thought we were in hell before.”
“No. That was England.”
“There’s a difference?”
After falling into the abyss, JoJo awakes in pure darkness. The only two things that are visible in this pitch blackness is a standing mirror, and JoJo himself. While the mirror is standing, JoJo is most certainly not. He lays on the ground in a heap, almost as if he fell off the top of the world’s largest carousel. Everything was in pain, even just shifting his body to lay on his back felt like total agony.
“Where are we? Where’s The Beast?”
In fact, JoJo didn’t recognize this second voice at all. It sounded completely alien to him– it was kind, and even a bit playful, but that kind of kindness put JoJo on edge, he knew something was toying with him now.
“I’m your Guilty Conscience. That’s probably why you haven’t heard of me.”
“Ah don’t have one, so Ah don’t believe you.”
While we can’t see the Guilty Conscience, you can feel it in your bones that they’re currently tugging on their collar.
“You stack too many metaphors in that messy head of yours.”
“Quit your games, Ah need to speak to the Beast before Stranglemania.”
“These are not games, I’m here to seriously help you be–”
“WHAT? YOU WANT ME TO LOOK IN THE MIRROR? FINE!”
JoJo says with all the tone of a man frustratingly going through the motions of another one of his dissociative episodes with the same feeling and emotion as a recently fired employee working through their last day of work. Rush drags himself to his feet, literally dragging himself toward the mirror before finding the strength to get his knees onto the ground, which allows himself the momentum to get to his feet.
“You are not going to like what you see.”
“This ain’t my first rodeo, it’s about to be some horror beyond human compre–”
JoJo’s voice trails off as he finally approaches the mirror and sees in the reflection not himself but instead, The Boss, Jason Anderson!
“--Hen–What in tarnation–”
“I told you.”
JoJo does the typical bit one does when they see something that isn’t themselves in their reflection. He waved his hand, he made faces, he leaned in and squinted.
“What are you tryin’ to tell me? That Jason and Ah are one in the same?”
“Are you going to argue that you two are not?”
“We couldn’t be more different.”
“Yet your fates parallel each other in so many ways.”
“Ah’ve lived up to my potential and more. Jason hasn’t.”
“Have you though, Stormbringer?”
JoJo’s face tightens up from a look of shock into a look of anger. He looks away from the mirror to shout at the voice in his own head. Like what normal people usually do.
“Have you not seen the things Ah’ve accomplished? Ah’m doin’ everythin’ Ah’m expected to do!”
The spirit does not respond. JoJo looks around the darkness in hopes that he could see the being. If it even had a physical form.
“What more must Ah do to have my peace!? Look at all the good Ah’ve done for this world! Ah’ve done far more than Jason will ever be able to do!”
Rush claws at the air frantically, desperately hoping that he could get his hands on his Guilty Conscience and beat the hell out of it.
“Ah didn’t have the luxury of my blood family lovin’ me! They saw the chaos in my soul– they feared me! Jason’s family never gave up on him!”
In JoJo’s frantic flailing and swinging, he turns back to the mirror to see Jason mirroring his every action.
“Ah had to find my own family! Jason never watched the love from his parent’s eyes fade away!”
JoJo turns to the mirror and grips the sides, he tries to toss it across the pitch black room, but to JoJo’s shock, the mirror is too heavy to lift, let alone throw. He strains against it.
“You can’t fight this, Stormbringer. You can’t continue to fight against what you really are.”
“WATCH ME!”
Shouts a defiant JoJo, he roars as he punches the mirror, the mirror of course punches back. Yet despite how hard JoJo slams his fist against the reflective glass, it does not break. Rush punches it over and over again and it still does not shatter. The skin breaks around JoJo’s knuckles, staining the mirror with blood, but it still does not break.
“Go on, tire yourself out.”
Says the spirit aloofly while judgmentally watching JoJo exhaust himself punching the mirror. The large Texan huffs and puffs for air. Once his breathing is under control, JoJo rests his forehead against the mirror and shouts.
“Ah’m better than Anderson– Ah’m better than everyone. Jason doesn’t fight for anything other than his foolish pride. He doesn’t care about the people he’s surrounded himself with. They’re nothing but his safety net to catch him when he falls!”
Rush, still in a rage at the sight of Jason in his reflection, now starts headbutting the mirror.
“What the hell is wrong with you, guy? I’m just trying to teach you a lesson you need so The Beast doesn’t consume your sou–”
Rush actively ignores his Guilty Conscience in favor of blasting the mirror with repeated headbutts, and again, the mirror does not relent.
“Ah refuse to fail the family that chose me! Ah refuse to fail them any longer!”
JoJo continues headbutting and smashing against the mirror. Unable to break it. Eventually, after all that headbutting, JoJo became dizzy, Rush slumps to his knees, his forehead sliding down the mirror with his blood smearing downward against the otherwise clean mirror.
“It takes more to being a legend than holding a couple of belts. Jason, just like El Pablo and Stitches, can’t see what Ah see. They can’t see the titles as anything other than their chance at immortality. They don’t see the burden required to elevate yourself to greatness!”
Rush falls to his hands and knees. He is shaking with anger, but there is nothing that he could take his anger out on that would give in. The mirror proved to be a formidable opponent. JoJo looks down to the pitch black floor beneath him and saw, of course, nothing. This is a hell of his own making, and it was drab as fuck.
“Too many weak men like Xavier Reid, El Pablo, and Jason Anderson have made people forget what real hardcore is about. It wasn’t until Ah showed up on the scene and started tossin’ jukeboxes did people remember what Hardcore was about. It was about pain, n’ who can dish it out.”
Rush looks up to the reflection and sees Jason again, but the man is bloodier, and the background behind Jason is the War Games cage. Rush locks eyes with the reflection and said with determination.
“And men like Jason want to stop me from saving this world. He wants to take this title from me so he can drag folks away from my LIGHT!”
Rush climbs to his feet once more, this time he takes some steps away from the mirror, exactly ten steps away to be exact.
“Ah won’t let you destroy everything Ah’m buildin’. Ah refuse to let you destroy anything anymore.”
Rush rushes the mirror in a full sprint before diving into it with a bone-shattering mirror. This time, JoJo spears himself into the mirror. No, literally into the mirror. The mirror perplexingly sends JoJo back into the real world. Literally spitting him out of the London Eye Cabin and out onto the ground safe and sound. All in sight of a rather confused. JoJo himself appears out of it, confused and in a panic.
“Sir? Sir are you okay?” Asks a confused ride operator. To which JoJo stands up to his feet and tries to brush it off.
“Ah’m alright. Just too tired to finish this story.”
“What? Asks the ride operato–