I was signing autographs in a downtown Richmond book boutique when Henry came in. I had been there for over four hours, sitting at a folding table scribbling my name on the inside covers of endless copies of Night Terrors, and was exhausted. My arm ached and my head throbbed. Meeting a perpetual flow of fans, many of them gushing, is hell to me. Don’t get me wrong, I love them dearly, but social situations tend to repel me, and actually engaging people I don’t know is an awkward near impossibility.
It was nearing one, dark and nasty without, and I was longing for a nice long nap in my hotel room when Henry’s turn came. I thought that the woman before him, a middle-aged blond in a brown leather jacket, would never leave. But thankfully Mr. Preston, the owner of the shop, ushered her away in his prissy manner.
I smiled at the man whom I did not recognize as Henry. He was tall and pale, his wavy black hair limp and lusterless, the flesh of his face tight and his eyes an unhealthy pink which bespoke sleepless nights. He smiled wearily yet warmly.
Without a word he passed me his copy of Night Terrors. “And how are you today?” I asked as I sat the book down, my blue Sharpie pen, the second one of the day, poised.
“Just peachy,” he croaked, and I at once knew the voice. I looked up, and Henry was still grinning as if through pain.
“Henry!” I cried happily, and extended my hand. He took it, and it was like a block of ice.
I and Henry were like brothers since time out of mind; our parents were high school friends who lived next to each other in the Pickett subdivision on Thomas Street, and from diapers we were always together, on play dates, camping trips, and backyard pool parties. We were inseparable all through our school years, and only parted, tearfully and grudgingly, when I left Picketts Meade to study at UVA in 1997. Since then, we had seen very little of each other, as I lived mostly in New York City and he in the house willed to him by his childless aunt and uncle.
“Hey, man,” he said, “what’s goin on?”
“Not much,” I said, “same old stuff. Working and all that. What about you?”
He shrugged. “Same here, pretty much. Listen, are you free this afternoon?”
“Sure, what’s up?”
“I got a ghost,” he said, as though the words were kidney stones.
“Sure, I’d be happy to come by.”
Henry smiled again. “Thanks. You know where my aunt’s old place is, right?”
“Ahhh, no, I forgot.”
“Okay, here.” Henry pulled out his wallet and opened it. In the translucent slot where preening fathers proudly put pictures of their children, there was a faded Polaroid of two boys, one tall and skinny, the other short and fat, at a lake on a summer day in 1988, mugging it up with their arms thrown around the other’s shoulder. I had the same one in my wallet.
Henry produced a small piece of creased paper and, with my pen, jotted down the directions.
“I’ll be there at around four or so,” I said, sticking the paper into my blazer’s breast pocket.
“Thanks a million, man, I can’t tell you the kinda shit I been goin through.”
“I can imagine.”
“Good book; is it number one?”
I snickered. “Ahead of Glenn Beck? I wish.”
Henry shrugged. “Still a classic. I can’t believe some of the shit. All of it’s real?”
“As you and I,” I replied. I jotted down my name and a small, personal message onto the inside cover, and handed it back to Henry.
“I’ll see you,” he said. “I’ll be there,” I responded with a smile.
***
Almost two hours later I left the bookstore by the back door, emerged into a narrow ally of grimy brick walls, and carefully crept toward busy 5thstreet. Above, the sky was malevolently silent.
Before leaving the relative safety of the alley, I looked both ways along the sidewalk, and found it empty save for several rushing, bundled forms. For a moment I was reminded of those old shots of The Beatles running from mad throngs of screaming women through the streets of London, and smiled.
I stepped into a freezing gust and hurried up the sidewalk, passing drab storefronts darkened by the gloomy afternoon light. A Ford Focus passed by on the street in a splash of puddled rain, its red taillights glowing satanically in the mist.
Ahead, a brave hotdog vendor, possibly a transplanted New Yorker, stood tensely behind his cart, ready to feed the world. He offered me a taste of his wares, and the almost desperate imploring of his voice touched me. Imagining poverty and mounting bills, I bought a small fountain Coke even though I wasn’t thirsty, and almost as soon as I was out of sight I cast the cup into a metal trash bin, the clanking ice cubes within having sapped the heat from my hand.
Slowly the scenery bled into one of the residential. Dirty Brownstone tenements marched dismally into the ashen day, their crumbling stoops guarded by rusted metal sentries overflowing with rank refuse.
I finally came to the small lot where I had left my Jeep in-between a pick-up truck and a hatchback. The latter was gone, replaced by a small red Beetle. I fished the keys from my pocket and opened the driver side door.
Behind the wheel, I started the engine and the radio came to life with one bland Taylor Swift song or another. Before leaving I slipped Krokus’ Change of Address into the CD player, and slowly cruised back the way I had come.
Several minutes later I took a sloping onramp and met the babbling interstate; before I joined the flow I waited for several large Mac trucks to scream by in their shrouds of water mist. The meager Richmond skyline stretched away to the east, interrupted only by the wide river which bisects the city. Maybe it was the mood and light of the afternoon, but the city seemed a deserted necropolis, the buildings bizarre Druid ruins rising black against the sky.
Once on the interstate I noticed that several idiots cars next to mine were busy blabbering into their cell-phones or texting. I’m not the kind of guy who wants to ban this and that, or the kind of asshole who preaches his opinion to everybody, but I know what can happen on a freeway when someone wants to whip out the old Droid and chat.
One girl, with wet black hair and dressed in a loose white t-shirt, flipped me off when I motioned hang up and drive.
Women, I thought with a grin, they taste good…but the heartburn!
I soon took rural Exit 154 and coasted into the parking lot of a small roadside gas station fed by a narrow hillside lane. I pulled under the gas-pump shelter and killed Marc Storace in the middle of Burning up the Night. I searched my hip pocket and checked the directions again. The name of the town was Fairfield, not too far north of the city.
I got out into the damp and filled the jeep up with juice, wincing at the price. With that done, I crossed the open space between the pumps and the store, my hair dampening, and entered.
After waiting for a white man in a mossy oak camo cap to buy a six pack of Bud Ice and a black woman to purchase a pack of condoms and tampons (an ungodly mix, if you ask me), it came my turn. The wispy old man behind the counter, wearing country regulation suspenders over his button up work shirt, studied me for a long moment.
“Hey, you’re that writer fella, aintcha?” he asked with a rough smile, revealing that his teeth were mostly black or tarnished gold.
Despite a swelling of pride in my chest, I wanted desperately to avoid an embarrassing scene.
“No.”
“Hm. You look a lot like ‘im. She loves all that damn ghost huntin’ garbage.”
I paid for the gas, and the old man wished me a good afternoon with a crooked grin.
Once back in my car, I again studied the directions, trying to absorb them so that I wouldn’t have to constantly consult them in transit.
Feeling confident that I could make it on my own, I started up the engine and followed the ascending byway toward Fairfield.
I soon left behind all urban pretense and found myself speeding through low hills and tiny hamlets made up of slanted wood structures decades past their prime. It had begun to rain more steadily. Crossing the murky Roman River, I saw that it had overflowed its banks.
The winding lane took me past yet more hilly farmland enclosed by strands of barbed wire, putting me slightly in mind of northern England. When I came to the outer limits of Fairfield, which sat across another, smaller, swollen river, I was greeted by a white board sign proclaiming it as The Nicest Town in America.
Main Street, lined with gray brick shops dating from the 1920s, sank down into the rest of the town, from which a white church spire rose into the air, and a blue water tower next to a tall brick schoolhouse loomed supernaturally forth from the thick valley mist. The sidewalk boasted fiery trees, the embers of which carpeted the wet concrete.
At the four-way intersection, the only cars that I met were a station wagon going to the east part of town, a minivan heading back the way I had come, and an SUV going down into the heart of the town, which lied spread before the hill like a fog enshrouded dream.
I took the left and followed the street for a time, passing a small doctor’s office and the police station. The big roll-top doors of the local volunteer fire department were open, and I glimpsed several men in the gloom lazily wiping down the sleeping green dragon within. A group of children struggled down the sidewalk with crammed backpacks dragging along the wet pavement. A boy on a ten-speed bike shot past them and hung a sharp right, taking a small dead-end road ending at the foot of the hill. In the rear view mirror a large yellow school grinded to a halt, the red lights on its mounted stop sign blinking rhythmically. Teenagers tumbled out and hurried across.
Lee Street was an odd mix of ranch and Victorian houses, all beautiful and tastefully enclosed by hedges or withering gardens. A few of the larger homes were sectioned off with low stone walls waist high to a man.
The last house on the left was tall and narrow, dating back at least to the latter half of the 1890s. With spires and gingerbread trim it affected a stately air.
I parked along the street and sat for a moment, memories washing over me. I and Henry had come here several summers during our childhood. Being unable to have children, Jo and Oscar doted on us so much it was almost cloying. They were rabid antique collectors, and spent thirty happy years hoarding history together before Flight 93 went down over Pennsylvania on the eleventh of September, 2001.
I killed the engine and got out into a brisk slap of wind. After waiting for a minivan to swoosh past, I crossed the street. The grass along the flagstone walk was encroachingly tall, and I wondered if Henry’s ghost had hidden his lawnmower.
I bounded up the porch and knocked on the door. I waited in the cold for a moment, a wind from the west raking my flesh. Finally, as I cocked my fist to knock again, the door opened, and was filled with Henry, dressed as he had been at the bookstore.
“Hey, man” he greeted and moved aside.
“Long time no see,” I smiled. Stepping across the threshold, I was immediately struck by the heaviness of the atmosphere, crushing down on me like the world upon Atlas’s shoulders. I staggered, and Henry at one grabbed my arm and helped steady me.
“Uh-oh,” he said, “I don’t like that.”
“I’m fine,” I lied, looking suspiciously about myself, “just tired.” I didn’t at once remember what such a black heft meant, but I did know that it wasn’t good. At all.
“Well, if you wanna go back…”
“Nah,” I dismissed, “I’m alright.”
“Okay,” Henry said and led me from the shadowy foyer and into a wide parlor. A large bay window, an ugly modern addition, sat across the room, uncurtained. Save for tall, dusty bookshelves along either wall, the only other furnishings in the room were a couch piled with tangled blankets and a pillow, and two armchairs.
Henry showed me to one of the chairs and took the one across from me.
“So, what’s up? How’s life treating you?”
I sighed. “Alright. I hate the touring, though. I can’t stand being on the road.”
“Ah,” he dismissed me with a wave of the hand, “you always were a little homebody. I love the open road. Nothing like it. You want a drink?”
I nodded.
“Coke,” he warned me.
“Better be.”
He laughed and moved off to the kitchen, leaving me alone in the room. The dark feeling pressed down on me harder than it had been, compressing my chest. I tried to take a deep breath, but was unable. It was like standing on a high butte overlooking a strange plain in a dark world, the air thin and sour.
Henry returned with two Cokes. He handed me one and sat back down. “Sorry they’re not cold. I just bought ‘em on the way back.”
“That’s fine,” I said, opening mine and taking a long drink. Henry sat his between his legs.
“I saw you on Ghost Hunters last month,” he said with something like pride, “I was over at my old girlfriend’s house and when your mug popped out, I about went crazy. “Hey, I know that guy!””
My appearance on the popular SYFY Channel show had been little more than a publicity stunt engineered by my agent. I was against it from the first, but ending up going on anyway. The target was a 13th Century castle on an Irish bluff overlooking the crashing sea. Supposedly, a family of werewolves had lived there in the sixteen hundreds.
“They’re a sham,” I said, glancing around as if expecting a hostile apparition to materialize. Maybe I was.
“Who?”
“Those attention whores,” I said, referring to the ‘ghost hunters’. “There weren’t any ghosts. It was all faked. The noises. The mist. All of it.
“I figured,” Henry said, “they usually are.”
“I guess,” I looked around.
“Yeah.” Henry finished off his Coke and sat the empty can at his foot.
“So, what have you been doing?” I asked, “just hanging out?”
“Yeah,” he said, “aunt Jo and uncle Oscar weren’t rich. They had money, but not much. The way the recession’s going, I’m probably gonna have to go back to work soon.”
“Sometimes I wish I could just stop writing and investigating and all that and just live off my books’ proceeds,” I confided, “live the life without doing the work.”
Henry chuckled. “You’re lucky; you got a kick-ass job. I’m most likely gonna end up at Food-Lion or something.”
“Gotta start somewhere,” I said. “Maybe we can write a novel together.”
Both of us had tried as children to write our own horror stories. Henry’s were mostly better than mine.
“Maybe,” he seemed to taste the idea.
I opened my mouth to reply, but a stiff gust of wind slammed into the house, and I jolted.
Henry laughed. “Scared?”
I shook my head. “No, not really. I just…well, what exactly are we dealing with, here?”
Henry sobered, his face darkening. “I…I been thinking how to word this for a while now.” He paused. “You ever hear that phrase La petite mort?”
I missed a beat. “What?”
“You know, that French metaphor? It refers to a state of euphoria after you “finish.””
“Yeah, I know.”
Henry sat grasping for a moment. “People believe that some kind of spiritual lifeforce is…expelled when you cum. Somehow that’s like dying or something.”
“Uh-huh,” I nodded awkwardly.
“And in Ghosts and Ghouls, you said that some people think a ghost is just…leftover human energy. Right?”
“The atheists and agnostics in the field, yes.”
“Do you think it’s possible that…that release of energy can leave a…a ghostly residue?”
I laughed. “Henry, that’s just a metaphor; it doesn’t mean anything.”
“Are you sure?”
I opened my mouth, but closed it again. I couldn’t honestly say that I was.
“What…what makes you ask that?”
“It’s my bed,” he replied darkly.
“Your bed?”
He nodded. “Remember Sarah Kerns?”
For a moment I drew a blank, and then an angular face framed in raven hair materialized before my mind’s eye.
“Sure,” I said, “your girlfriend in eighth grade. What about her?”
“Remember how she moved over the summer, before we started high school?”
I nodded. Her father was in some kind of business that forced him to relocate often. I can’t remember what it was, though.
“The night before she left, she came over to my house and we did it...”
“Alright,” I urged, and then it dawned on me. “You still have the same bed, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “Never saw a good reason to get rid of it.”
“And you’ve…done a lot in it, huh?”
“A lot,” he admitted.
“And now you think…what, all that combined energy has created a sort of ghost?”
“Look, I know it’s crazy, but just hear me out, okay?”
“Okay.”
Henry took a deep breath and began.
Several weeks before crying out to me for help, he told me, he had been lying awake in bed. It was a windy night and he was as far from sleep as a man can get, so, as he watched the darkened ceiling, he let his mind drift unfettered. He had always had a fertile imagination, and was entertaining himself with undisclosed fantasies when, all of a sudden, the foot of the bed lurched to one side, as though booted by an angry WWE star after an in-ring betrayal.
“Man, that scared the shit outta me,” Henry said. “I froze up and just laid there for a minute. Then it happened again, and this time I got knocked off.”
Frightened, Henry jumped up, fell in the sheets tangled at his feet, and flew down the stairs.
“I sat here in the living room for a little while. After a half hour or so, I decided it was a nightmare and went back up. In the room, I flipped on the light switch and…”
He was quiet for a long moment, looking down at his ashen hands. “And there was a fuckin dead girl spread out on the bed, covered in blood and shit.”
I gasped softly at this, my heart freezing in mid beat.
“You’re sure?” I asked incredulously.
He nodded without looking up. “Yeah. And she looked like Hanna Giles…you remember her, right?”
I did. She was a cheerleader during school, a tall drink of blond perfection. She and Henry spent much of the 11th grade getting hot and heavy together before he grew bored and found another conquest.
“And…and she…sat up, her fuckin eyes were black and she had these long Dracula fangs. She opened up her legs and…fucking blood gushed out.”
He stopped at my hiss of horror. “It looked like…you know, in The Shinning, when that elevator opens up in the beginning?”
I nodded, my mouth slightly agape.
“I saw that shit and lost my mind. I ran out the front door and down the street. Spent the rest of the night in a booth at the diner, too afraid to come home.”
In the morning, Henry stretched out in the parlor.
“I was having dinner the next day. A buffalo chicken Hungry Man. So, I was sitting at the kitchen table eating, when something above my head, in the room, crashed against the floor. And right after, I heard this long, high pitched laugh.”
Stiff with terror, Henry remained unmoving at the table for nearly an hour before packing up and going to a motel for a few days.
“I was starting to think it was a nightmare, but when that shit happened…”
Henry eventually returned, convinced that the “ghosts”, while frightening, were harmless.
“So, one night, I got brave and went back upstairs to see what would happen.”
After several uneventful hours, Henry was on the border of sleep when something, something cold and dry, wrapped around his throat.
“It felt like hands, little…you know, a woman’s hands.”
The world grayed as Henry clawned at the phantom hands to no avail. He nearly collapsed into death before they suddenly and inexplicably spared him.
“That was the other night. I was about to leave, go get a motel or something, but I heard you were coming down, so I thought I’d see if you could help me.”
For a long moment I sat in brooding silence.
In 1999, I left school to work for a noted regional paranormal researcher named John Haggis. I accompanied him on many outings, most of them busts. Only three confirmed cases of the genuinely supernatural came across our desk in the three years I worked with him, one of them being the demonic haunting of a bar in Headwaters, a tiny hamlet nestled in the Shenandoah foothills southwest of Harrisonburg.
I learned several things from our experience there. One: Demons despise the presence of a professional. Two: While ghosts can, on extremely rare occasions, possess human beings, only demons can shapeshift and actually harm someone without the use of a human agent.
“Have…have you ever smelled sulfur here?” I asked, my voice natural, at least to my own ears.
“Rotten eggs? No, why?”
“You’ve been left alone outside the room, right?”
“Yeah. What about the sulfur?” he seemed impatient.
I ignored him and looked from one shadowy corner to another, the house bathed in a sour, uneasy silence. I was shocked to find myself wanting to get as away from the house as I could.
“Henry,” I drew, my eyes darting apprehensively, “there…”
I stopped. How would he take hearing that a demon was in his house? But was it really a demon we were dealing with? I couldn’t be sure; I’m not, after all, a demonologist.
“What?” he asked, his tone low and worried.
If it was, then it appeared to be attached to the bed somehow, like a ghost to a favorite rocking chair…
“…I doubt that your ghost is made of girl goo.” I at length flashed a smile, hoping that it didn’t look too fake. “I’ve heard of similar cases, and they are relatively easy to deal with.”
“Really?” Henry’s face brightened for the first time all day, and his tone was one of a child in the presence of a shyster birthday-party magician.
“Yeah,” I said, “no problem. Tomorrow I’ll call some people and they’ll conduct…sort of an exorcism. It’ll be a breeze.”
Henry sighed, relieved. “Okay.”
I looked again from corner to corner. “Hey, you want to go and get some dinner, my treat?”
Henry smiled again, his dark eyes alight. “Sure.”
We took my car, and drove off into the thickening gloom. Main Street was busier than it had been when I entered town; it was past six, and people were returning home from work in droves.
“Take a left up here,” Henry said as we approached the four-way, “and go for about…five miles. Place called Ryan’s.”
I nodded, lost in thought. I would have to call Tom Youngblood, the only demonologist in the Richmond area, in the morning. And maybe I would have to call the Catholic Church in town, too. Then again, the church has tried in recent years to distance itself from the supernatural.
I took the left, and descended down into the heart of Fairfield. Queerly, about a mile of hillside between the upper and lower sections had been left undeveloped, and was currently a hopeless tangle of dead grass.
“Man, I feel like a weight’s been lifted,” Henry said as we passed the dark shops and rain sluiced sidewalks, empty save for the phantom trees along the edge. “You can really do all of this tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” I said confidently. I took a deep breath, and seemed to blow away all of the mounting worry crushing my chest. I only had to call Tom and a priest, and they would take it from there. They were experts. It might not be an easy break, but it would get done. Demons were actually weak in the presence of religious men; which is why I abandoned my former atheism.
“Good. I can’t wait to get this shit behind me. It’s been a living hell, you know?”
I nodded, and then realized that it was probably too dark for Henry to see. “Yeah, I bet it’ll feel really good.”
“Like a million bucks,” Henry said.
“And…get rid of the damn bed. I don’t think that what we’re dealing with is…what you thought, but just burn it. It’s possible that the ghost is attached to it for some reason.”
“Way ahead of you, man,” Henry said. “I’m gonna go down to Mattress Warehouse and get me a new one tomorrow.”
At the end of town, just before the beginning of the dark, wet woods, I slowed at the traffic light, pulling to a stop alongside a school bus; the small lights affixed to the ceiling within were on against the dark. I saw a few dark silhouettes through the rectangular windows, and ascertained from their distorted shapes that they belonged to the high school’s football team.
“And…don’t have all your fun in one place, okay?” I said as we got back underway, the bus falling behind in the darkness.
“I ain’t gonna have that kinda fun for a long time.”
“Yeah, bullshit,” I jested in hopes of further lightening the mood, “you can’t go a week without having sex with someone…or something.”
Henry chuckled. “Yeah? I once went a month without doin your mom.”
“She needed that long to stop laughing at your…handicap.”
Henry laughed. “Okay. Just wait till we get there; take you in the bathroom and show you what’s up.”
I snorted. “What’s limp.”
“It won’t be limp when I shove it down…”
The restaurant, a sparkling oasis cloaked in primal black, loomed so quickly from the darkness that I nearly missed the turn.
“Alright,” Henry said after I had slid us into a slanted parking spot facing the empty road, his penis forgotten, “let’s get some grub.”
“You look like a German Jew,” I said as we got out of the car, “you need a good meal.”
“Yeah, thanks, mom,” Henry said as we crossed the parking lot. Through the big front windows, we could see happy families sharing joyful meals in the warm brightness.
We came to the double doors, and both held them open for the shuffling passage of an elderly couple. “Thank you,” the old man rasped and nodded as he helped his wife past us and toward a silver Cadillac parked in one of the closest handicap spots. They were immediately followed by two teenage girls in gym shorts and pink tops.
“What is it with kids dressing like that when it’s cold?” I whispered as we entered the restaurant, assaulted at once by the good odors of many steaming, mingling foods.
“If you got it flaunt it,” Henry reckoned.
We walked up to the long lunch counter and took cups, silverware and plastic trays from a hotplate guarded from inconsiderate sneezers by smudged plastic. We waited behind a party of rowdy college students to pay the casher.
We paid the chipper blond behind the register and were shown by a young sleepy eyed man in a red t-shirt and black slacks to a booth along the far wall of the room, mercifully away from the main population. Henry was immediately off to fix himself a plate at the buffet.
I sat at the booth for a moment, looking around the brightly lit room. It was crowded with families, mostly, passing food and laughing over their tables.
After another moment of inventorying how many people I would have to pass to get to the drink machine, I got up and moved to the Coke island. Apart from the dispenser there sat a plain metal canister marked with the picture of a tall, frosty glass of chocolate milk looming forward like a favorite uncle. I considered for a moment, and finally decided to get the milk, the likes of which I haven’t tasted since I was a child.
As I drew the dark liquid into my clear cup, a beefy older man in a brown leather jacket walked unthinkingly up to the machine and filled his cup with Sprite, all the while gasping softly to himself about someone named Mony-Mony.
Sidestepping a yellow WET FLOOR sign at the head of a nasty spill, I went back to the booth where Henry sat, bent protectively over a plate of fried chicken and breaded shrimp. I took my plate and quickly filled it up with French fries, several times nearly colliding with a young boy in small glasses examining each bright pile of food as if he would die if he did not detect the poison on his choices. At the booth I splattered a liberal amount of Tabasco sauce on the golden potatoes and dug in, my chocolate milk standing dutifully by should I need its aid.
“Remember Donny West?” Henry asked around a mouthful of food. I nodded. Donny had been one of our friends as kids before his mother moved the family to West Virginia. A beefy kid with red hair and deep freckles.
“Yeah. How can I forget?”
“He died.”
“What?” I asked, a bit of fry falling from my mouth and landing on the plate.
Henry nodded and swallowed. “I talked to his sister on Facebook, and she said he was drinking and wrecked his car into a tree a couple years ago. Took two of his friends with him.”
“That’s horrible,” I said numbly. Though I had not seen Donny in years, to hear that a once close friend was dead broke my heart.
“You remember what he did on April Fool’s Day that one time?” I asked Henry after a long, respectful moment of silence.
Henry nodded. “He had balls to do that.”
Donny, much more a practical joker than even Henry, had run the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy up the flag pole before school started that day. What made it even funnier were the facts that no one even noticed until lunch, and that the school sat right on the main highway in Picketts Meade.
“Yeah,” I sighed, black, cancerous nostalgia flooding me. “The good old days.”
We then lapsed into a comfortable silence. After savagely stripping the meat from a chicken bone, Henry wandered off to treat himself to a cold dessert. I finished the last of my fries and polished off the chocolate milk, my burning mouth greedily absorbing the cool liquid.
After a return trip to the machine, meeting once again the boy who had been diligently studying for his buffet safety PhD (he wasn’t quiet as conscientious when it came to Coca-Cola), I placed myself in my seat and awaited Henry. He soon returned empty-handed.
“They all sucked,” he declared.
I did not reply, but suddenly realized that the ice cream machine was next to the soda and chocolate milk fountains.
Suddenly, from across the room, there came a loud racket, drawling the puzzled stares of patrons in the gulf between walls. From a door came a line of people dressed in red shirts and black pants. The person at the head of the rank, a rather fetching teen goth with long midnight hair and a generous bosom, held something in her hands, something aflame, for her strong angler face was awash in orange. The Ryan’s troops behind her were clapping.
With mortification I saw them making a B-line toward our table like a personified children’s show choo-choo. Now all of the bemused eaters were looking toward me and Henry.
“You bastard,” I said, turning to Henry. He was smiling and clapping flourishingly. I broke out in my own grin, my cheeks afire. “Oh you son of a bitch; real funny.”
The Ryan’s Birthday Army now surrounded my half of the booth, leering over me like grinning psychos and clapping madly. I hung my head in embarrassment as they sat a flaming birthday cake on the table before me. “Bastard,” I muttered, lowering my head, realizing that now all of the other patrons too were looking at me and clapping.
Then the singing started.
I could just imagine Henry going up to our hostess and stage whispering across the counter, his hand shielding his mouth from prying lip readers, Pissst; it’s his birthday, pointing in my direction.
Bastard.
***
Coming out of the Ryan’s parking lot nearly half an hour later, I took a right on the rain swept street and followed it back to town past several large comfortable southern homes boasting screened in front porches and spotlighted flags. Most of these were protected from the street by rusted chin link fences.
We were silent and content, our stomachs full.
Finally desirous of breaking the silence, but too stuffed with food and lazy to speak, I switched on the radio, picking up a station from southern Maryland. After a “local” newscast about a New York mobster choking to death in a King George pizza joint and the discovery of a well-known radical poet shot dead in a D.C. parking garage, Cyndi Lauper came on with Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.
“Your song,” Henry croaked from the passenger seat.
I changed the station. The Culture Club was singing about a Church of the Poisoned Mind.
“Damn, must be your night,” Henry snickered from the darkness.
“Shut up,” I replied, hitting the scan button; the radio settled for a station playing a Seether song.
Henry laughed. “I meant you like eighties music. I wasn’t trying to say you’re gay…not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
Pulling to the end of Henry’s street, I noticed that we had left none of the lights on when we departed; the thought of waltzing through the door into the pitch black slightly uneased me.
I thought of asking Henry to stay with me at the Marriot in Richmond rather than me staying with him, but quickly decided against it; we’d be safe in the parlor.
Putting down my own childish reluctance, I parked the car at the curb and killed the engine, shutting Kanye West off in mid-rant.
We entered the house and immediately repaired to the parlor, where Henry took care of stoking a warm fire into existence.
That done, he came back to his chair and sank with a pleasured sigh. “So, you gonna write about this?”
To be honest, the thought hadn’t crossed my mind. “Maybe,” I said. Of course I would. Would it make it into my next book? It had a better chance than some of the other cases I had. People love their supernatural when it’s really weird.
“Well…” Henry said, but was interrupted by a terrible crash from overhead, which shook the house and caused us to jerk in surprised fear.
“There it is,” he shivered.
Another long bang sounded upstairs, as if something had thumped to the floor.
I swallowed around a lump in my throat, and opened my mouth, but was forestalled by another loud crash, this one followed by a stomach-piercing moan.
“Maybe we should go,” I stammered, a sudden bubble of stark fear overwhelming my cool rationality.
Henry licked his lips and swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
I looked appraisingly up at the smooth ceiling above my head, partly hidden by the gloom. There was another thump that stopped my heart and froze my blood. A shower of fine plaster rained down upon me like hard snow, and I quickly averted my eyes to avoid it.
“Henry?” I panted breathlessly, wrestling with my own galloping fear.
“Fuck this,” Henry affirmed and moved to stand, “let’s…”
Henry had been whispering, as if worried about disturbing his inconsiderate guest, so I was able to hear the soft, terrible footfall. It was as if an electric shock ran through me, reducing my bones to jelly.
I heard it again, louder this time.
Henry’s eyes were wide. “Was that…?” he whispered superstitiously.
I gulped and nodded. “It sounded like it…
From the dark upstairs hall there came a soft, fugitive creak. Henry was now fully standing, his wiry body tense and rigid.
“Hennnryyyyyy!” drifted a thin and ghostly greeting.
“Jesus Christ!” I exclaimed, and bolted to my feet. I turned to the dark threshold into the rest of the hostile house, and saw nothing but playing shadows.
“Hennnryyyy, baaaabyyyyyyy!”
I spun on my heels. “We have to get the hell out of here!” I whispered incoherently, my mind reeling. There was no hope of using the front door. We would have to pass the stairs…
Henry stood slack in place, his eyes wide and seeming to vibrate with terror.
There was a more confident footfall from halfway down the staircase, and a definite swish like that of a passing priest’s cassock.
“Come on!” I screamed, my fear boiling over. I desperately regarded the window beyond Henry’s chair. It appeared wide enough for both of us to escape side-by-side.
I grabbed Henry’s wrist, but pulling him was like trying to move a wooden post set deeply in the ground.
“Come on, we gotta go, NOW!!” I screamed franticly, hearing the loud moan of the last step. Henry shook his head as if shaking away a dream and looked at me with frightened, pleading eyes. But before a word could pass between us he turned back to the threshold.
And screamed.
Hearing the horrible, damned-soul quality of his voice broke my resolve and nearly my mind. It was the high-pitched shriek of a child on finally seeing the thing under its bed and finding it far worse than imagined; it was the scream of a sinner being shown into his new abode in hell; it was the pitiful cry of a madman.
Fueled by mindless animal terror, I sprang for the window.
Forearms thrown protectively over my face, I crashed through with a cry, and sailed into the damp night in a shower of broken glass, my stomach throbbing in my throat. I hit the grassy ground with an umph and staggered to my feet, my knees watery and quivering.
Behind me, the laughter of madness turned into the orgasm of agony.

Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words, continuing in the footsteps of daprice82. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.
• PREVIOUS •
1987
FUTURE YEARS ARCHIVE:
The Complete Observer Rewind Archive by daprice82

1-4-1988	1-11-1988	1-18-1988	1-25-1988
2-1-1988	•	•	•

• The wrestling war is, for all intents and purposes, over. The war between the territories, the ongoing collapse of the territory system, and Vince McMahon’s rise is certainly the biggest story in decades, and at this point the war is over and Vince McMahon has won. Sure, the fighting is still ongoing, but even if JCP can recover from their troubles, the gap between them and WWF is there and it’s just going to keep widening.
  
• The biggest story of the week is that WWF has announced its ppv schedule for the next year. March 27 (Wrestlemania IV), August 29, November 24 (Survivor Series), and January 15 (Royal Rumble). Four ppvs doesn’t look like a big deal, just capitalization on the market trend. But it’s going to have a major effect on Crockett. Crockett had been planning ppv shows in early April (Crockett Cup), July (Great American Bash), and November 24 (Starrcade). With WWF’s new calendar and the exclusivity clause in their ppv deals requiring no competing wrestling ppv events 60 days before and 21 days after their shows and the success of Survivor Series and Wrestlemania IV (presumed for that one - Dave expects Wrestlemania IV to be the biggest grossing ppv ever to this point), WWF is putting the squeeze to Crockett. And in doing so, they’re killing any chance Crockett can compete and break into the ppv market. Long-term, ppv is going to mean live gates will be completely insignificant (like it already is in boxing - and hey, in 2020 we have seen the prophecy fulfilled). Because of ppv, Dave expects Wrestlemania IV to gross as much as every other American promotion will gross for the entirety of 1988, combined. Hence why the gap is wide and will only get wider, and JCP will never catch up. JCP’s going to try to counter, and the apparent move will be to shift those events to prime-time WTBS live (or very recently filmed, like a Saturday Night’s Main Event) specials all built as major cards. Starrcade probably will not be among those, Dave figures this will help.
  
• WWF’s Royal Rumble came out the clear winner against the Bunkhouse Stampede Finals. The Rumble drew an 8.2 rating and was seen in 3.2 million homes, which is twice as many people as when Georgia Championship Wrestling’s show on WTBS was big several years ago when this wrestling war was getting started. It’s the highest rated show in the history of the USA network, and the encore broadcast on Monday drew a 4.8 rating (a regular episode of Prime Time Wrestling in that time slot usually draws a 2.9). All this means that the repeat showing of the Rumble was probably the second highest rated show on cable during the last week.
  
• PPV numbers take longer to get, but it’s possible to make some sense of preliminary reports for the Bunkhouse Finals. The show was likely profitable, purely in terms of money, but the reaction was strongly negative. Early reports estimate the buyrate at 4%, which tells us that if given a fair shot at ppv, Crocket could be profitable with a ppv line up. That’s also encouraging for Crockett, since the card wasn’t strong and the show didn’t have the best heat, but those things may be moot now that WWF has a full year’s schedule set up. Big props to the JCP broadcast team for how well they sold the ppv in advance, because ppv and closed-circuit purchases are majority (90%) last minute, as opposed to house show tickets which are typically bought well in advance.
  
• Wrestlemania IV is expected to sell out by the time this issue hits you. Yeah, Dave. By 32 years now. Anyway, about 14,000 seats went on sale to the general public on Saturday and all but a few thousand were sold by the end of the day. The highest price was $150. It’s funny to Dave that despite the crowd discrepancy, WWF may make as much off 14,000 tickets for Mania IV as they did selling 90,000 for Mania III (The April 3, 2000 issue is the earliest I can find for when Dave revised his view of the numbers for Wrestlemania 3). Anyway, the Convention Center is home to Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, and Donald Trump is using Wrestlemania as the centerpiece of a weekend-long event designed to attract vacation families to his casinos, including a Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine concert in the adjacent Convention Center ballroom. So I guess we can put Donald Trump down as the innovator of Wrestlemania weekend. WWF claims Wrestlemania will be available in up to 9 million homes on ppv, and if the show gets a similar buyrate to last year’s then we’re talking around $15 million on ppv, $1 million live, and probably $4-5 million at closed-circuit.
  

Watch: Dave Meltzer talks about Bresloff telling him 78,000

• The employment status of the Rock & Roll Express, Michael Hayes, and Steve Williams with JCP has significantly cleared up. The Rock & Roll Express were fired at the Bunkhouse Finals. On January 23, they were asked to do a clean job to Warlord and Ivan Koloff in 12 minutes. Koloff’s been a low card guy recently, and they have been main guys for years, so instead they did the job in 12 seconds (Ricky Morton laid down and let Warlord pin him). Then they flew to New York for the finals, and Dusty learned what happened (he was not at the show on the 23rd) and fired them on the spot. They could be heading anywhere, though WWF is doubtful due to their size. Michael Hayes was fired last week following an incident. He was teaming with Jimmy Garvin and feuding with Ric Flair on the most recent tour; those spots have been taken by Ron Garvin and Sting, the latter of whom is having an accelerated push as a result. Hayes is expected back at World Class, though he did send a resume to WWF. As for Steve Williams, he stayed an extra week in Japan and missed the Stampede. He’s in a contract dispute with Crockett over whether the money he makes in Japan counts against his guaranteed minimum pay from Crockett (Crockett says yes, Williams says no, you’re not paying it so it doesn’t count toward the minimum you are paying him - corporations are not your friends). Williams has disconnected his phone and is out of communication.
  
• Cable ratings for wrestling in the fourth quarter of 1987 dropped from the the third quarter. The World Championship Wrestling show dropped from second to eighth overall, and WWF’s All-American Wrestling surpassed it at seventh. Prime Time Wrestling, formerly ranked third, fell to tenth, while the Sunday WTBS show dropped from tenth to twentieth. AWA on ESPN dropped out of the top 20 (it was number 19 in the third quarter). Some of the drop probably comes from the change in how ratings are gathered (enter the Nielsen box, or “people-meter” as it’s known at this point). There’s controversy about this whole way of gathering ratings, as detractors believe that the boxes ensure shows that appeal to women will receive higher ratings than they would get otherwise. Regardless, wrestling shows across the board dropped about 10% in the ratings in the fourth quarter.
  
• New Japan’s “Martial Arts Olympic” event in the Tokyo Dome has some hoping it will surpass Wrestlemania 3 for biggest live gate ever. They’ve sold tickets at as much as $220 for ringside and sold out those events, so there’s a chance they could if they price right and sell out. Dave’s been told that Inoki vs. Koji Kitao has the potential to double the gate of Inoki’s matches with Leon Spinks and Masa Saito (each over $700,000). If they can get Taue, that’s probably the best opponent they can get for Inoki to ensure a big draw. I think last week he may have written All Japan, but he's very clear this is an Inoki idea this week.
  
• Speaking of Inoki, New Japan recently did a tour in Italy. The big show was January 24 in Rome and drew 8,000 fans. New Japan actually airs on tv in Italy, and Inoki was the big draw, and he pinned Badnews Allen in the main event. Shane Douglas won a battle royal on the show too. These are the first “western-style” pro wrestling matches in Italy since WWF did a show in Milan back in October.
  
• Jake Roberts was on Ellery Queen mystery magazine’s cover this month, and Muscular Development did a cover story on Jesse Ventura. The Ventura article is excellent, but mostly about his life and training regimen, and not to do with wrestling.
  

Jake Roberts on the cover of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

• Genichiro Tenryu won all the major awards in Japan. Tokyo Sports named in MVP of wrestling, and Gong Magazine and Weekly Pro Wrestling gave him the equivalent. He beat Riki Choshu in Gong’s annual popularity poll as the most popular Japanese wrestler (Maeda came in second, so pressure there for New Japan to bring him back). Chigusa Nagayo placed 9th, the first time a woman has cracked the top ten of Gong’s poll.
  
• Dave went to the WWF show at the Cow Palace on January 30. It’s his first live show since Japan, and the show drew pretty well, but not as well as you’d expect from a show with a battle royal in the area. The big news of the show were four no-shows: the British Bulldogs (Dave’s heard one of them collapsed at the airport and the other went to the hospital with him), Billy Jack Haynes (his health’s really bad and he’s missed a lot of bookings lately and folks are speculating his career is done), and Bam Bam Bigelow (scheduled to face Ted DiBiase, but he had knee surgery so no clue when he’ll be back). Due to the no-shows, the athletic commission ordered WWF to offer refunds to anyone who wanted them before the end of the second match. He runs down the card: Ron Bass pinned JYD, Ultimate Warrior pinned Harley Race. Warrior’s over big, but still sucks. Ted DiBiase beat George Steele by DQ and Dave alludes to last week’s decision to no longer call matches “abortions” and says “The only word to describe this match is one that has been banned from my vocabulary.” Don Muraco pinned Butch Reed in an okay match. The Jumping Bomb Angels beat the Glamour Girls to retain their tag titles in the only good match on the card (Dave gives it three stars). Noriyo Tateno pinned one of the Girls, Dave doesn’t identify her, saying “you know how it is with those people, they all look alike to me,” which is a pretty solid skewering of people who say that about the Angels and other Asian wrestlers, imo. Ted DiBiase won the bunkhouse battle royal to moderate heat. Hercules pinned Hillbilly Jim. Jim Duggan and Ken Patera beat Demolition and Mr. Fuji by pinning Fuji. Jake Roberts and One Man Gang went to a double countout.
  
• By the way, the California state assembly voted 60-7 to reclassify pro wrestling as entertainment and not a sport. So that means once the bill passes the state senate, athletic commissions will have no power over pro wrestling in California, and wrestlers will not need wrestling licenses to work in the state (which was already a joke of a requirement - Dave got a print-out once of all 60 wrestlers licensed in California and major guys like Hogan and Steamboat weren’t on the list).
  
• The lineup for AWA’s February 4 show, the last at the Minneapolis Auditorium before it’s demolished, has been announced. Curt Hennig defends the AWA Title against Greg Gagne in a cage match. The Midnight Rockers defend the tag titles against a mystery team (the latest announcement was Nick Kiniski and Kevin Kelly, but Kiniski was let go this week and they’re building to a face turn for Kelly). The rest of the card has Dick the Bruiser vs. Adnan al-Kaissey, Billy Robinson vs. Tom Zenk (particularly interesting since Robinson is in for a one-off but has a reputation as a shooter, as well as competing against Verne as a promoter sometimes, so there’s a chance he may go into business for himself), Wahoo McDaniel and Baron Von Raschke vs. The Nasty Boys, and Billy Jack Strong vs. Soldat Ustinov.
  
• Adrian Adonis broke his ankle at the AWA tv tapings in Minot, North Dakota.He was getting whipped into the turnbuckle and stepped into a hole in the ring. He won’t be back for at least two months. Adonis has about 4 months left before he dies.
  
• AWA released a song called “Superstars of the AWA.” Jerry Lawler and Jeff Jarrett were in it due to the increased swapping of talent between Memphis and AWA. I could not find the song.
  
• Something Dave forgot to mention about the WWF battle royal in San Francisco. Technically there were 19 guys, but only 18 actually worked the match. George Steele came out about a minute late, walked around the ring for a few minutes without getting inside, and then just walked to the back with JYD when JYD was eliminated (JYD was the second out of the match). Dave guesses at George’s age he didn’t want to take the bump or something. Dave recalls a story he heard about an unnamed WWF “neanderthal character” who stalled outside the ring for a complete match, and when one fan yelled to “Get in the ring, you lazy bum” he retorted (despite his character not being able to speak English): “What do you think this is, the NWA?”
  
• WWF Superstars tapings were held on January 26 in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Barry Horowitz and Steve Lombardi beat Lanny Poffo and Scott Casey, which set up the main event for the second hour of the taping where the Killer Bees beat Horowitz and Lombardi. Rick Rude and Ricky Steamboat had a match that ended in a big brawl that got Hercules, Harley Race, Jim Duggan, and Ultimate Warrior involved. The main event of the live show was not taped for tv, but had Hogan and Bigelow going over Andre and DiBiase (Hogan pinned DiBiase). Andre’s contribution to the match was one minute (of nine total for the match) in the ring, and a body slam to Hogan before almost collapsing. Commentary for this taping was not done live, but rather will be done in post-production due to the fact that they’re waiting for The Main Event first, since these will all air after that sets up the angles.
  
• Dave hears that the decision on what to do with Hogan/Andre at The Main Event will be decided this week once his filming schedule is determined. If he’s available for weekends, he’ll stay champion through the summer. If not, then a title change will happen and DiBiase is the likely beneficiary.
  
• [Stampede] Badnews Allen and Jason the Terrible were fined $200 and $300, respectively, by Calgary City Hall. This is in relation to their brawl in the audience on December 18 that led to a woman in the audience suffering a concussion.
  
• Oregon will be holding a special show on February 16 as a Frank Bonema Memorial show. Bonema was the tv announcer from Portland who passed away in 1982 or 1983. They haven’t announced any matches yet, but Curt Hennig is supposed to defend the AWA Title against their Northwest Title holder at the time, and there are plans for a tag title match, a strap match, and a cage match.
  
• The February 12 card will be the last card by Continental in Knoxville before Ron Fuller’s new promotion takes over the area from them. The situation with Alabama’s territory continues to confuse me.
  
• Nobuhiko Takada beat Owen Hart on January 13 in one of the highlights of New Japan’s jr. heavyweight tournament. As of January 26, here’s the status of the tournament: Koshinaka leads with 34 points (7-1 record), Takada has 31 points (6-1-1 record), Hart at 29 points (6-2 record), Hase also has 29 points. Yamazaki has 24 points (5-2 record), and Yamada is 4-2-1 with 21 points. Kobayashi has 24 (5-1), Saito at 19 (4-4), and everyone else is negligible at the moment. The finals will be on February 7.
  
• All Japan is pushing a big show for March 9 featuring Hansen vs. Tenryu. That will be a double title match, as Tenryu puts up the United National Title against Hansen’s PWF Title (Dave expects a double countout. Other matches will include Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Tiger Mask II, Baba and Wajima vs. Kimura and Tsurumi, and others.
  
• Giant Baba’s been negotiating with the Funks and David Manning about getting All Japan on tv in the U.S. All part of his angling to help the promotions outside the NWA and WWF against the juggernauts.
  
• AJW is building a big match for February 25, Dump Matsumoto’s retirement show. Dump and Yukari Omori (also retiring that night) will face the Crush Gals in a tag match. Also on the card will be a battle royal and Yumiko Hotta/Mitsuko Nishiwaki vs. Bull Nakano/Condor Saito for the vacant tag team titles.
  
• AJW’s annual rookie auditions took place on January 17 in Tokyo. 1500 girls showed up, and seven were picked based on their performance in various athletic and endurance drills. Dave says this is one of the main reasons it’s ridiculous to attempt to compare joshi wrestling to any American promotion. Only the top half a percent in terms of athletic ability are chosen for training in the first place, and then “they train them like spartans from the age of 15-17 and by the time they are around 22, if they’ve even survived, they are better workers than virtually all the men.” And with the retirement age of 26, nobody stays on so long they feel stale. Then again, that level of training sounds kind of easy to become mega abusive from a 2020 standpoint.
  
• Lots of rumor that NWA’s recent firings aren’t due to discipline issues but due to the company having financial issues. That’s the story those being fired have given. Michael Hayes in particular claims that he and Crockett agreed to a two year deal for $150k per year, but Crockett never signed it and when he pressured Crockett to sign (he wasn’t making money with the contract unsigned), and so he got fired for missing the January 23 show in Cincinnati. Even as Crockett’s financial issues become more and more apparent, they do seem to be recovering at the gate a little.
  
• Unlike WWF, NWA’s weightlifting competition used legit weights. All four guys did 460 pound bench presses easy, then Paul Ellering called to move the bar to 600. Animal failed first, and they threw chalk in his eyes and he bled and was “taken to the hospital” and the whole thing came across well.
  
• The road to Barry Windham joining the Horsemen (not that Dave suspects anything yet) continues as he and Luger are being pushed as a tag team. Meanwhile, Flair and Sting are set to feud.
  
• Dave once again clarifies about Hawk’s line (because apparently he’s still saying it). It’s Neo Maxi Zoom Dweebies, not Neo Nazi Zoom Dweebies.
  
• Crockett referee Jeff Goldberg writes in to correct the record on something. In the January 18 issue, a reader wrote in about the December 26 show in Philadelphia and said it looked like the referee screwed up the finish. Goldberg says he acted as instructed, and Flair would not have congratulated him later on if he had screwed up. He also says readers often blame referees for screwing up finishes, but that’s usually the wrestlers who screw up (or the finish is in fact supposed to look screwed up). Referees can be green just like wrestlers, but he’s proud not to be one of them.
  
• Another reader tells us that his cable company had Bunkhouse Stampede, but Crockett did a LOLNWA. Crockett announced that Sammons cable would have the show on January 23 (day before the ppv). Except they didn’t air the announcement until 2 pm that day, had given no announcement ahead of that time, and Sammons closed their company office for the weekend at noon on the 23rd.
  
• The longest letter this week is all about how Bret Hart deserves a bigger push. Brief version: Vince is making a big mistake by not pushing Bret as a singles star. Even the casual fans buy into him. He’s got promo ability, the ability to make a bad wrestler look good (very important in WWF), and he’d make a great opponent for Randy Savage after an Intercontinental Title change. Give it a few years, Jeff. You’ll get your wish and then some.
  
• Crockett’s apparently going to keep two offices open. The Dallas office will be for tv production, and the Charlotte office will remain as the base for talent.
  
• Mike Rotunda won the NWA TV Title from Nikita Koloff on January 26, then gave the Florida Title to Rick Steiner. Interestingly, Dusty did a promo referencing the Hogan/Andre/DiBiase title situation and said that in the NWA you can’t buy a title. Well, Dave points out, DiBiase offered $1 million to Hogan for the title, so that seems to be the going rate for the WWF championship for a year. Meanwhile, Rick Steiner got the Florida Title for free, which pretty accurately reflects the worth of that title.
  
• World Class drew a crowd of 80 in Houston on January 26. No, you didn’t read that number wrong.
  

THURSDAY: Hogan drops the WWF Title (really the only big story next week)

For decades, spinning the reels of slot machines - whether at land-based or online casinos - has been reduced to pure luck and, apparently, no skill whatsoever. Players have been at RNG's mercy to either win or lose, which for most was both exciting and somewhat rewarding.
However, new generations have started changing the face of gambling, slots in particular. Moving away from luck as a deciding factor of their wins, these generations have started asking for games that put their skills, reasoning, and capacities to test while still being fun – and that's how skill-based slots arouse.

What Are Skill-Based Slots?

Skill based slot machines are the newer breed of slots designed for everyone who would rather trust their skill over their luck, while still having fun - at least that’s how they are advertised.
The outcome of skill-based slots should be based on the player's ability to play the game rather than how lucky they are. Skill slot machines also allow operators, game developers, and suppliers to design variable payback based on a comprehensive variety of identifiers.
​

The outcome of skill-based slots should be based on the player's ability to play the game rather than how lucky they are.

​
While regular slots' winnings involve a lot of player's luck and hardly any skill, skill slots are supposed to be predominantly skill, factor-wise. With skill-based slots, players start the game knowing that they will have a material effect on the outcome, i.e. how much money they can win, with better players getting rewarded with higher payback.
Essentially, in answering what are skill machines, it is safe to say that they are games which resemble video poker or blackjack, as they give the player a chance to boost their profits solely with skill.

How Does a Skill-Based Slot Machine Work?

In comparison with how regular slot machines work, it is kind of difficult to give a definite observation on the matter as, basically, they operate the same way.
Unlike regular slot machines, casino skill games feature bonus rounds that require skill to win. Also, some of these games don't necessarily require playing the skill-based round; instead, they offer the option of choosing between free spins and an interactive bonus.

How Slot Machine Skill Games Work?

Say you are playing a slot with a racing theme; this is how you would go about it:

• When the bonus room is triggered, you choose the skill-based bonus
• You race against other cars
• The size of your payout gets determined by your finish

Skill based slot machines particularly stand out due to their unique bonuses.

What is the Difference Between Regular and Skill Based Slots?

Skill based video games, i.e. skill-based slots, are different from regular slot machines because they feature bonus rounds which include a high degree of skill. While the base mechanisms are the same for both, skill-based slots require some skill if the player is looking to score.
​

While the base mechanisms are the same for both, skill-based slots require some skill if the player is looking to score.

Regular slot machines work in a way that the player places a bet and spins the reels; then, the RNG (random number generator) delivers a combination, showing the results on the reels. Essentially, it is the RNG that determines the spin's fate. With traditional slots, players have almost no say in the outcome – they only decide the amount they'll bet and when they'll start/stop playing.

How Much is Actually Skill and How Much Pure Luck?

When we speak of skill-based gaming, it's safe to say that both are included, with the difference that, unlike traditional slots, skill-based slots do include competence.

What is the Difference Between Arcade Slot Machines and Skill Based Slots?

The younger generations don't remember it – but arcade games were the thing in gaming. New-age developers have decided to use the old trend, revamp it, and make it the basis of the majority of skill-based slot machines. The reason for this is, predominantly, millennial preferences. Millennials are not interested in luck deciding the course of their actions but are known to believe their own competence and rely on it.
As skill-based slots haven't exactly grown in popularity in the past years, bonuses based on arcade games could be the best way to test if skill based gaming will become the new "it" of slots gambli­ng. ­ ­

Can You Make Money Playing Skill Based Slot Games?

Skill-based slots don't come with guaranteed profits despite the fact that your skills can result in earning more money. Why? When it comes to this type of games, the truth is - you won't raise RTP enough to guarantee winnings even if you're an expert at the bonus round. While players are given the option to include their skill in the whole concept of playing, these games are still programmed to give the house advantage over a player.

The Case of PA Skill Machines (Pennsylvania Skill Machines)

Pennsylvania Skill machines are the games you see at convenience stores, at bowling alleys, local pubs, and virtually all other fun-ga­mes­-an­d-e­nte­rta­inment places. These games are allowed for 18-year-olds, while casino slot machines are strictly for those who are 21 years old, or older.
Pennsylvania skill games are produced by Pace-O-Matic (POM or Pace O Matic), distributed by Williamsport, PA, -based-Miele Manufacturing.
There are several games on offer:

• A hypothetically unlockable bonus session
• A tic-tac-toe-style puzzle
• A "follow me" coloured dot-matching second phase of gameplay

If a player plays the Pace-O-Matic game successfully, they win a total of 105% of the original amount spent to play.
Throughout the years, there have been talks whether the machines developed under the name "Pennsylvania Skill" should be considered regular slot machines or games of skill specifically. In the most recent ruling, it was announced that "video game machines manufactured and distributed by the POM under the name "Pennsylvania Skill" are considered slot machines under Pennsylvania law. However, Judge Patricia McCullough did not state that POM was in violation of the Gaming Act."
​

Currently, Pennsylvanian skill machines are considered legal.

But where does that leave things? Are Pennsylvania skill machines legal? Currently, they are considered legal. However, some people argue that the skill aspect is an illusion designed with the idea of floating Pennsylvania gambling laws. The same people, additionally, claim that a player can get lucky on both a regular slot machine and a skill-based one, and win – but that it would be luck in both cases, though.

Are Skill Slots the Future of the Slot Machine Industry?

Discussing whether skill slots are the future of the slot machine industry has to come with a degree of uncertainty as there are still plenty of unregulated and undefined things in this domain. While skill-based gaming sounds like a great idea on paper, the reality is different. Yes, skill-based slots give players the ability to decide their own gambling luck (in a way), but - skill alone doesn't always translate into success.
​

Skill-based slots give players the ability to decide their own gambling luck (in a way), but - skill alone doesn't always translate into success.

The optimum is that, based on how things are now, the future of slots looks close to placing an emphasis on social gaming (e.g. Angry Birds, Candy Crush, and Plants vs. Zombies, etc.) and console/computer games. Still, all further changes and upgrades remain to be seen.

Conclusion

Skill-based slots are a mixed bag of elements different to standard slots, but also a somewhat deceiving game as it sounds like it's giving players more power of the outcome than it actually does. Players are potentially able to influence 5% of the RTP through their abilities, but that is pretty much it. Skill slots differ from casino terminals in a way that they include some skill, the accent on "some". Skill slot machines don't actually give players a true chance to overcome the house edge, but that doesn't mean you can't have all the fun in the world just playing!

I am using games like WWE2k19, 2k20, and Fire Pro Wrestling World to simulate and play through the WWF's PPV's and other events. The outcomes will be different thus forcing me to change story lines. Let me know what you think. This issue covers SummerSlam Fever '90 to Wrestlemania VII

WWF SummerSlam Fever - August 15th, 1990 - Utica, New York, USA - Utica Memorial Auditorium

No.	Results	Stipulations	Quality	Times	Notes
1	Jim Neidhart def. Smash	Singles Match	90%	10:27	Smash and Jim Neidhart went to battle. It's a shame that this was on Prime Time because it was a wonderful match. One half of Demolition and one half of the Hart Foundation doing battle in the squared circle. These two are bitter enemies in the tag team scene. Neidhart won after a lengthy Sleeper Hold.
2	The Texas Tornado def. Black Bart	Singles Match	60%	3:08	Kerry Von Erich looked great in the ring but couldn't carry a match or go the distance. However, he was featured in the Summer Slam Fever episode of Prime Time Wrestling. Black Bart was disappointing. Von Erich won with the Tornado Punch.
3	The Warlord def. Al Perez	Singles Match	78%	4:23	The Warlord has been fighting in a series of squash matches against a lot of local talent. It started with him squashing Brooklyn Brawler, Paul Roma, Sam Houston, and now he is facing Al Perez In a short feature. The Warlord wins with a Bear hug.
4	Nikolai Volkoff def. Boris Zhukov	Singles Match	96%	14:09	The Bolsheviks Explode! Nikolai Volkoff is trying to become a face and has adopted a Pro-USA gimmick. This broke up their tag-team which made nobody sad. They were terrible and had a bad losing streak. This match was a technical powerhouse. Volkoff looked like a machine. Volkoff won after an huge German Suplex.
5	Jake Roberts def. Mike Sharpe	Singles Match	86%	12:02	Jake Roberts knocked out enhancement talent, Iron Mike Sharpe. It was a decent match with a lot of back and forth. It looked like Roberts had started a shoot and clocked Sharpe in the face. Right in the nose. Sharpe went down and Roberts pinned him.
6	Mr. Perfect def. Ronnie Garvin	Singles Match	100%	14:32	Mr. Perfect came out wearing the WWF Intercontinental Title. It was discussed that Warrior had dropped the title to Mr. Perfect at a house show. However this was a non-title match. Mr. Perfect and Ronnie Garvin have been cutting promos on each other since last week back when this match was announced. Both men locked in a pissing contest about who will execute who's finisher first. Mr. Perfect won hitting the Perfect-Plex and getting the victory.
7	The Orient Express (w/Mr. Fuji) def. Power and Glory (Hercules & Paul Roma)	Tag Team Match	97%	20:02	The Orient Express have been coming out and attacking other teams while they are in the middle of a match. Mr. Fuji is dead-set on getting that Tag Team gold. But Power & Glory might have something to say about that. Pat Tanaka wins after a big Super kick on Paul Roma.
Main Event	Earthquake def. Dusty Rhodes	Singles Match	67%	6:04	This was a match that was very heavily advertised. Earthquake has been putting everyone out of action for the past few months and Dusty Rhodes has had enough... babay. This match was so much fun. Dusty hit the shake rattle and roll twice but Earthquake was too powerful. Earthquake hit the Earthquake Splash for the win. After the match Earthquake called out Hulk Hogan!
			84%	84:47
			Total Time:	1:24:47

The SummerSlam Fever Special was a highly viewed television program that aimed to showcase a lot of the top competitors in the WWF during this part of 1990. Hulk Hogan hasn't made an appearance for a couple of months. But that didn't stop Earthquake from calling out the Hulkster. Throughout the night The Ultimate Warrior and Randy Savage had cut promos on each other.

WWF SummerSlam '90 - August 27th, 1990 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA - Spectrum

No.	Results	Stipulations	Quality	Times	Notes
1D	Shane Douglas def. "Playboy" Buddy Rose	Singles match	91%	14:30	It's becoming tradition for WWF to have amazing Dark Matches. Shane Douglas and Buddy Rose beat the hell out of each other. It was a hard-hitting affair. Shane Douglas defeated Buddy Rose with a roll-up after a tremendous dark match.
2	Power and Glory (Hercules & Paul Roma) (w/Slick) def. Demolition (Crush & Smash)	Tag team match	87%	6:37	Paul Roma and Hercules looked amazing. Their training has made them better in the ring. And they looked great against the out-of-shape Demolition Crush and Smash. The match was a good one with Roma defeating Crush after a pile driver.
3	Mr. Perfect (w/Bobby Heenan) (c) def. Jake Roberts	WWF Intercontinental Title	100%	20:09	Mr. Perfect defeated The Ultimate Warrior after debuting his new manager Bobby Heenan at a house show. Heenan hit Warrior from behind allowing Perfect to win. On Prime Time Wrestling, Warrior was offered a World Title Shot to make up for the screw-job. And Mr. Perfect was slotted against a returning baby face, Jake "The Snake" Roberts. The match was amazing. Another five-star classic from two amazing competitors. Mr. Perfect fought hard and retained his title with a perfectly executed, Perfect-Plex.
4	"The Rocket" Owen Hart def. Rick "The Model" Martel	Singles match	100%	19:38	"The Rocket" Owen Hart has been tearing up the mid-card scene in the past few weeks. Rick Martel has been extra annoying since leaving Rich and Famous following the departure of Rick Rude. Hart was the victim of a spritz of Arrogance from The Model on an episode of Superstars. And that spritz cost him the match. This match was a technical showcase. Hart and Martel looked amazing. They put on one hell of a show. Hart won the match after a Flying Body Attack.
5	The Rockers (Marty Jannetty and Shawn Michaels) (c) def. The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart) 2 - 1	WWF Tag Team Titles	87%	37:34	Best 2 of 3 Falls Match: These two teams have history. That's why this 2 out of 3 falls match is so important. It shows who the top competitors are versus a team that may need to train their skills some more. The Rockers showed their talent in the ring and continuously worked their tag team moves. The Hart Foundation looked great. And Bret Hart made Marty Jannetty submit to the Sharpshooter. But it wasn't enough. Jannetty won the match after a Flying Cross-body.
6	"The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase (w/Bad News Brown) (c) def. The Big Bossman	The Million Dollar Title	73%	14:04	The Big Bossman had heard reports that the Million Dollar Man had stolen the Million Dollar Belt. But it wasn't true and the two had a match to see who would come out as the owner. The match was alright, nothing special, with Ted DiBiase coming out on top after a Million Dollar Dream.
7	The Orient Express (Sato and Tanaka) (w/Mr. Fuji) def. Dusty Rhodes and Jim Duggan	Tag team match	100%	18:52	The Orient Express have been unstoppable. This is proven even further when even Dusty Rhodes and Jim Duggan couldn't stop them. This match was amazing. Great storytelling and even better wrestling. Another match that proves Summer Slam 1990 is the best card the WWF has ever run. Saito wins the match after a Liger Bomb on Jim Duggan.
8	The Warlord (w/Slick) def. "Texas Tornado" Kerry Von Erich	Singles match	93%	15:32	The Warlord is quickly establishing himself as the new Big Bad around the block. Kerry Von Erich volunteered to put a stop to this bully, but that doesn't look very likely. This match was great. Kerry moved like an angel. But The Warlord was just too strong and powerful. Warlord won after the RUMBLE.
9	Hulk Hogan (w/Brutus Beefcake & Jim Duggan) def. Earthquake (w/Dino Bravo and Jimmy Hart)	Singles match	73%	15:03	Hulk Hogan, back from injury at the hands of Earthquake, has returned to do the impossible. Destroy the Canadian Earthquake. Hogan beat Earthquake all around the ring. The match was alright, but the story-telling was key. Hogan won with the Big Leg drop on 'Quake. Hogan poses.
Main Event	The Ultimate Warrior def. "Macho Man" Randy Savage (c) (w/Miss Elizabeth)	WWF World Heavyweight Title	72%	18:37	The Ultimate Warrior, screwed out of the IC Title, had gone on to beat long-time champion Randy Savage in the middle of the ring. Savage looked like he couldn't believe it. The match was alright. Warrior is not the most capable wrestler. But this should be a good run for him. Savage had the match won, but his own cockiness got the best of him. Warrior won after the Big Splash. After the match, Savage was left in the ring where he lashed out at Elizabeth and Hogan. Both tried to reason with him but he left the arena in an angry huff. Cursing and ripping up a Hulkamania sign.
			88%	180:36
			Total Time:	3:00:36

This was a weird event. The Ultimate Warrior and Randy Savage was a match for the ages. Hogan came out half-way through the match when Randy was losing and tried to cheer him on. But it only seemed to make Macho Man angrier. The crowd went absolutely insane when Warrior won the title. You just felt horrible for Macho who won't be the same after this. The Rockers looked amazing against the Hart Foundation. These Michaels and Hart kids look tremendous. I think that Mr. Perfect is taking really well to the IC belt. His video packages in the past few weeks have been some of the best stuff WWF has produced.

Survivor Series Showdown (1990) - October 29th, 1990 - Indianapolis, Indiana, USA - Market Square Arena

No.	Results	Stipulations	Quality	Times	Notes
1	Sgt. Slaughter (w/The Iron Sheik) def. Tito Santana	Singles match	85%	19:32	Someone has hijacked WWF programming and inserted mysterious messages about some sort of middle eastern presence coming to the World Wrestling Federation. A few weeks ago those messages were said to be coming from Saddam Hussein himself! Sgt. Slaughter made his debut here with The Iron Sheik and both pledge their allegiance to Iraq in the middle of the ring. Tito Santana has heard enough and he comes out to attack Slaughter. It's an okay bout. But Slaughter puts Tito Santana to sleep with a Cobra Clutch.
2	Shawn Michaels (w/Marty Jannetty) def. Rick Martel	Singles match	85%	12:28	Shawn Michaels is one half of the Tag Team Champions, The Rockers. They have been turning heads with their high-flying style. Shawn took "The Model" Rick Martel to school in this one on one affair. Michaels whipped Martel all over the ring and winning with a Flying Roll up.
3	Big Boss Man def. Earthquake (w/Jimmy Hart)	Singles match	100%	16:46	Earthquake, angry about his loss to Hogan, has been attempting to challenge all of Hogan's contemporaries. In this instance he is calling out Big Boss Man who doesn't have time to listen to Earthquakes crap. This match was awesome. Both went back and forth. Earthquake hitting a splash on the outside of the ring. But the finish came when Bossman impressively hit a Bossman Slam on Earthquake for the win.
4	The Honky Tonk Man def. Bret Hart	Singles match	97%	14:45	After dueling with The Rockers, The Hart Foundation moved onto fighting Rhythm & Blues. Honky Tonk and Valentine took out Neidhart's knee the week prior to this match. And that might have gotten into Bret's head. This was a fine match. Honky Tonk won with the Figure Four after hitting Bret with brass knucks.
5	Leilani Kai (w/Judy Martin & Jimmy Hart) def. Malia Hosaka	WWF Women's Title	78%	7:42	Leilani Kai and Judy Martin have been competing in Japan on behalf of the WWF. Malia Hosaka hates them both and has been attacking Kai quite a bit in singles matches. This was a great match with tremendous back and forth. Leilani Kai wins via pinning German Suplex.
Main Event	The Texas Tornado def. Mr. Perfect	Singles Match	100%	17:23	Mr. Perfect is the Intercontinental Champion. However, the belt was not on the line tonight as Mr. Perfect faced "The Texas Tornado" Kerry Von Erich. Von Erich looked amazing and wowed the crowds. This match was perfect. Tornado is definitely in line for an actual shot at the title belt. After a lengthy back and forth Kerry Von Erich pulled out the surprise win after a roll-up.
			93%	80:54
			Total Time:	1:20:54

This TV special didn't pull in as many viewers as the SummerSlam Fever Special. But it still did alright. The biggest news was jobber Kerry Von Erich defeating Mr. Perfect in a non-title bout. Earthquake tried to redeem that fierceness that he had a few months ago but it looks like the faces have Earthquake's card. Leilani Kai is one of the most dominant females in the business today and the WWF sending her to Japan has paid off. She is fierce.

WWF Survivor Series '90 - November 22nd, 1990 - Hartford, Connecticut, USA - Hartford Civic Center

No.	Results	Stipulations	Quality	Times	Notes
1D	The Brooklyn Brawler def. Shane Douglas	Singles match	89%	11:52	Another bloody battle from the Brooklyn Brawler. Brawler took Shane Douglas to school, beating the young-kid all around the ring. They both busted each other open hard-way. And then laid in even more of a beating. It was physical for sure. Brawler won with the Knuckle Arrow.
2	The Dream Team (Dusty Rhodes, Big Bossman, Bret Hart, and Jim Neidhart) def. The Million Dollar Team (Ted DiBiase, Bad News Brown, The Honky Tonk Man, and The Undertaker) (w/Paul Bearer)	4-on-4 Survivor Series match	88%	36:42	Dusty Rhodes finally won on a Pay-Per-View. His Dream Team featured The Hart Foundation and one of the baddest SOB's, The Big Bossman. Taking on the "Best" team money could buy, Ted DiBiase, his bodyguard, Bad News Brown, The Honky Tonk Man, and the new and debuting Undertaker. The match was great. The heels got their butts kicked. But the Undertaker took so much punishment. It took various weapon shots and all of the finishers combined to put him down. Survivors: Bret Hart, Jim Neidhart, Dusty Rhodes, and The Big Bossman
3	Venom (Jake Roberts, Jimmy Snuka, Marty Jannetty and Shawn Michaels) def. Slick's Squad (The Warlord, Rick Martel, Paul Roma, and Hercules)	4-on-4 Survivor Series match	93.00%	40:42:00	The Rockers were the showcase here. Booping and Bopping for The Warlord and his band of evil baddies. Jimmy Snuka and Jake Roberts made a good team but Snuka sucks. Marty Jannetty won with a flying cross body on Paul Roma. Survivors: The Rockers and Jake Roberts.
4	The Mercenaries (Sgt. Slaughter, The Iron Sheik, Sato, and Tanaka) (w/Mr. Fuji) def. The Alliance (Nikolai Volkoff, Tito Santana, Owen Hart, and Koko B. Ware)	4-on-4 Survivor Series match	90%	35:32	Slaughter, Sheik, and The Orient Express really got booed and trash was thrown at them during their entrance. Their theme music is just a speech by Saddam Hussein condemning the United States. The Alliance came out and vowed to shut up Slaughter. But they couldn't. It was a great match but each Alliance member fell with only the Orient Express eating defeat for the heels. Slaughter won with the Camel Clutch in the middle of the ring on Nikolai Volkoff who submitted. Slaughter and The Iron Sheik were the survivors.
5	The Macho Disasters (Randy Savage, Earthquake, Haku, The Barbarian) (w/Sherri Martel & Jimmy Hart) def. The Hulkamaniacs (Hulk Hogan, Tugboat, Brutus Beefcake, and Jim Duggan)	4-on-4 Survivor Series match	89%	48:32	Earthquake runs rough shot over the face team. Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan squared off to a huge pop from the crowd. They went to town beating up on each other. Then Hogan/Haku, Tugboat/Haku, then Tugboat/Earthquake. These two behemoths threw haymakers and beat the bejesus out of each other. Tuggers was gone after a running splash from Earthquake. Then Jim Duggan's rugged ass was eliminated by The Barbarian. The Barbarian was eliminated by Hogan. Then Haku was eliminated by Hogan. But Savage would eliminate Beefcake and Earthquake would destroy Hogan. Who took a Flying Elbow Drop from Savage and the Earthquake Sitting Splash for the 1-2-and-3. Savage laid in a beating after the match with Earthquake.
Main Event	The Perfect Team (Ax, Crush, Mr. Perfect and Smash) (w/Bobby Heenan and Mr. Fuji) def. The Warriors (Animal, Hawk, The Texas Tornado and The Ultimate Warrior)	4-on-4 Survivor Series match	84%	30:42	Kerry Von Erich won the right to be in this match after defeating Mr. Perfect on The Survivor Series Showdown. He eliminated Crush. But was double-teamed and eliminated by Ax. Then Animal eliminated Ax, Warrior eliminated Smash. Mr. Perfect eliminated The Ultimate Warrior. And Mr. Perfect won the match for his team, as the sole-survivor, after Perfect Plexing Hawk for the pin and win.
			89%	214:02
			Total Time:	3:34:02

The Ultimate Warrior is a really popular champion. The crowds love him and this program with Mr. Perfect is pretty hot. Hogan and Earthquake is getting stale. Maybe he will challenge Savage again for a match. But my attention is on Sgt. Slaughter who called out The Ultimate Warrior after his match. He says that he is the prophecised champion and he will bring the gold back to Iraq.

Royal Rumble '91 - January 19, 1991 - Miami, Florida - Miami Arena

No.	Results	Stipulations	Quality	Times	Notes
1D	Jerry Sags def. Sam Houston	Singles match	96%	9:38	The Nasty Boys have been tearing up the tag scene as the new tag team in the WWF. They are proving themselves against enhancement talent. Nasty Boy Jerry Saggs defeats Sam Houston with a Piledriver. He beat that Houston kid all over the ring.
2	The Orient Express (Kato and Tanaka) (w/Mr. Fuji) def. The Rockers (Marty Jannetty and Shawn Michaels) (c)	WWF Tag Team Titles	98%	29:57	The Rockers have been fan favorites and are a really good tag-team. However, the Orient Express has been turning heads too. Beating most of the teams in the WWF in their presuit for the gold. The match was really good. The Orient Express beats the champions The Rockers with Pat Tanaka hitting a disastrous Rolling Wheel Kick. Mr. Fuji leads another team to Tag Team gold.
3	Big Boss Man def. The Barbarian (w/Bobby Heenan)	Singles match	88%	13:56	Big Boss Man has had enough of Bobby Heenan's antics. But the Barbarian is Heenan's latest hired muscle. This match was another great one. Boss Man and Barbarian tear each other apart. Bossman wins after the Boss Man Slam.
4	The Ultimate Warrior (c) def. Sgt. Slaughter (w/The Iron Sheik)	WWF World Heavyweight Title	80%	11:27	The Ultimate Warrior and Slaughter stood toe to toe in the middle of the ring. Sheik tried stealing the belt but Hogan appeared at the entrance way and stopped him with a judging finger wag in his face. This match was intense and got very physical. Warrior pinned Slaughter after a running splash. Warrior breaks the flag in the ring and the crowd goes nuts. It's a madhouse.
5	Dustin Rhodes and Dusty Rhodes def. Ted DiBiase and Bad News Brown	Tag team match	95%	27:47	DiBiase and Rhodes have been dueling for weeks. DiBiase takes a lot of shots at Dusty Rhodes and his blue-collar upbringing. Dustin Rhodes made his debut a few weeks ago and was attacked by DiBiase's bodyguard, Bad News Brown. This match was an awesome tag affair. Great storytelling and awesome work. Dusty Rhodes wins after the heels have a miscommunication and DiBiase loses to a big DDT.
Main Event	Hulk Hogan won by last eliminating Randy Savage	Royal Rumble Match	74%	43:32	The Final Four came down to Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Earthquake, and Bret Hart. Hart was eliminated by Earthquake. Earthquake by Hogan and Roberts by Hogan. It was a great battle royal that featured some awesome talent. Hogan wants that belt back.
			88%	156:17
			Total Time:	2:36:17

The Ultimate Warrior has some friends in high places. But Hogan wants the WWF World title back around his waist. After the match, during a quick interview, Hogan put the Ultimate Warrior on notice. Hulkamania is back in the WWF.

The Main Event V - January 28, 1991 - Macon, Georgia - Macon Coliseum

No.	Results	Stipulations	Quality	Times	Notes
1	Hulk Hogan & Tugboat vs. Ted DiBiase & Earthquake (w/Bad News Brown)	Tag Team Match	75%	14:58	Double Count Out - This match started off with Hogan and DiBiase locking up and doing battle. But when Earthquake and Tugboat fought it was insane. The crowd went nuts and these guys beat the hell out of each other strong style. Both ended up bleeding and everyone ended up brawling on the outside until they were all counted out by the referee.
2	Randy Savage (w/Sheri Martel) def. The Ultimate Warrior (c)	WWF World Heavyweight Title	100%	14:49	Ultimate Warrior was scheduled to take on Randy Savage in a non-title match. But after some goading by the challenger. Ultimate Warrior accepted and put the belt on the line. It was a very strange move. However, this match ended up going down in history as one of the best. Warrior whipped Savage all over the ringside area. Savage hit some amazing dropkicks. Randy Savage won the match after clocking Warrior with Sherri's purse and pinning him down.
3	Malia Hosaka def. Suzuka Minami	Singles Match	92%	5:20	These two women from Japan were given some time in Prime Time to do their thing and wow the crowd. Vince McMahon is really taking advantage of that partnership with NJPW/AJPW. The crowd loved this short but technically amazing match. Malia Hosaka won with a Avalanche Power bomb
Main Event	The Orient Express (Kato and Tanaka) (c) (w/Mr. Fuji) def. The Legion of Doom (Hawk and Animal)	WWF Tag Team Titles	100%	26:27	The Legion of Doom fought hard but couldn't overcome The Orient Express, who are pressing on to beat every team in the WWF. The match was won when Sato vs. Animal after an Original German Suplex.
			92%	65:14
			Total Time:	1:05:14

The Main Event was a success for NBC and showcased an amazing match between Randy Savage and the Ultimate Warrior. It was an upset victory for Randy Savage who refuses to go by Macho Man. He says that he drove a wedge in the Hogan/Warrior feud and will get his spot in the Main Event of Wrestlemania to beat Hogan all over the arena. Savage can't wait to taste Hogan's blood. Warrior was a speed bump, Hogan is a dog, and Savage is a Muscle car. Do the math!

No.	Results	Stipulations	Quality	Times	Notes
1	Mr. Perfect (c) (w/Bobby Heenan) def. Shawn Michaels	WWF Intercontinental Title	78%	16:22	Mr. Perfect has been taking on all challengers on Wrestling Challenge. This time he takes on Tag Team sensation, Shawn Michaels. The match is alright. Perfect wins after a long Sleeper Hold.
2	The British Bulldog def. Scott Casey	Singles Match	82%	5:55	The British Bulldog returns to the WWF with a new fire lit under him. He wants to prove something to everyone. This match was great. Scott Casey flew all over the place. Bulldog won with a Powerslam
3	Koko B. Ware def. Rick Martel	Singles Match	100%	12:23	Koko B. Ware and Rick Martel are two of the best talents on the roster and this match showcases both of their talents really well. Martel is such a smarmy piece of crap. The crowd hates him. Koko is loved. This was an amazing match. Koko won the match with a huge top rope splash.
4	Greg Valentine def. Scott Allen	Singles Match	84%	10:22	Greg Valentine takes on Scott Allen. Valentine is trying to do something here I am not sure what it is. He is sort of a tweener but no one is really excited to see him. It's kind of sad. Greg Valentine wins after a long sleeper hold.
Main Event	Hulk Hogan & The Ultimate Warrior def. The Iron Sheik & Sgt. Slaughter	Tag Team Match	76%	17:41	Hogan and Warrior have formed a team since Randy Savage pretty much cheated his way into the championship. But the Mercenaries Iron Sheik and Sgt. Slaughter want some blood out of these patriots for Saddam. This match was alright. The story line was clearly focused on Randy Savage who came out and teased interfering. But after Savage was sent to the back, Hogan and Warrior laid waste to these Iraqi Sympathizers. Warrior hit Slaughter with a Gorilla Press Slam and Hogan hit the Big Leg Drop for the win. The crowd went nuts while Warrior and Hogan celebrate waving huge American flags. Savage "Pearl Harbor's" Hogan and Warrior attacking Hogan and tossing him outside of the ring. Savage clocks Warrior with a brick and rolls out of the ring leaving to a sea of boos.
6D	The Nasty Boys vs. The Hart Foundation	Tag Team Match	89%	7:25	No Contest This match devolved very quickly into a schmoz style hardcore match that involved weapons and fighting into the crowd. The referee threw it out after a short time.
7D	The Undertaker (w/Paul Bearer) def. Tugboat	Singles Match	93%	6:23	Tugboat comes out first and the crowd doesn't really care. Then The Undertaker comes out and it's eerie. Everyone is scared of this guy. The Undertaker beats Tugboat all over the ring. The Undertaker wins after a huge Tombstone Piledriver.
			86%	86:31
			Total Time:	1:26:31

Hogan and Warrior are getting tired of being blindsided by Randy Savage. The crowd can't stand him. Wrestlemania will be interesting since Hogan and Savage is getting so much push right now. Vince didn't have confidence in Ultimate Warrior selling out the arena for Wrestlemania so Hogan/Savage is the safe bet. The Undertaker is really turning heads after his performance at the Survivor Series and after tonight tomb-stoning Tuggers.

WrestleMania VII - March 24th, 1991 - Los Angeles, California - Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena

No.	Results	Stipulations	Quality	Times	Notes
1	Koko B. Ware def. The Brooklyn Brawler	Singles match	96%	23:56	Koko B. Ware has picked up quite a bit of steam recently. This was a Dark Match that had Koko wrestling while people were coming in. That didn't stop them from getting color. Brawler was bleeding like a fountain all over the ring. Koko won with a Top Rope Splash.
2	The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart & Jim Neidhart) def. The Rockers (Marty Jannetty and Shawn Michaels)	Tag Team Match	78%	20:45	Bret Hart has really turned over a new leaf and appears to be on an upward trajectory. He is selling shirts and appears to be really popular with the crowds. Da Meltz is reporting that the popular Tag Team, The Rockers, may be heading for bit of a breakup. I hope none of them needs a haircut. Bret wins this match after a roll-up on Marty Jannetty.
3	The Texas Tornado def. Dino Bravo (w/Jimmy Hart)	Singles match	73%	18:48	Ol' Kerry Von came out of the gates hot and practically sent Bravo flying out of the ring. The two clashed and went back and forth but it was Kerry coming away with the victory. Kerry Von Erich wins with a Spinning Fist.
4	The Warlord (w/Slick) def. The British Bulldog	Singles match	97%	21:11	It was inevitable that these two would throw down. They clashed and it was like lightning striking. The Warlord wins after Bulldog passes out in a Neck Hanging Choke.
5	The Legion of Doom (Animal and Hawk) def. The Orient Express (Sato & Pat Tanaka) (c)	WWF World Tag Team Titles	87%	15:13	The Legion of Doom have been snapping necks and cashing checks since they stepped on the scene of the WWF. It was only a matter of time before the Orient Express finally answered the challenge. The match was great. LOD won after a devastating Doomsday Device knocked out Akio Sato. Legion of Doom win the titles.
6	Owen Hart def. Rick Martel	Singles Match	98%	18:54	These two have been feuding after Martel mocked Hart for his size and gimmick as the Blue Blazer. Owen Hart defeats Rick Martel with the Northern Lights Suplex.
7	The Undertaker (w/Paul Bearer) def. Jake "The Snake" Roberts	Body Bag Match	75%	18:27	The Undertaker and Jake Roberts have been feuding since Taker's debut. This match, a Wrestlemania debut for Taker, was a pretty good one. Undertaker won with the Tombstone Piledriver and put Jake Roberts in a Body Bag.
8	Genichiro Tenryu & Kōji Kitao def. Demolition (Crush & Smash) (w/Mr. Fuji)	Tag Team Match	79%	26:18	And the WWF Universe is left wondering, who in the hell is Tenryu & Kitao? Who cares! They kicked the shit out of Demolition and that's all that matters. This version of Demolition proved to be the worst one and it's apparent that they are on their way out. It's the LOD's time baby! Kitao won with a Reverse Viper Hold on Crush.
9	The Ultimate Warrior def. Earthquake (w/Jimmy Hart)	Singles match	82%	12:24	Earthquake vowed to end Warrior's career, but came up short in this bout. The match was decent enough. Warrior won with a Bear Hug if you can believe that!
10	The Nasty Boys (Brian Knobs & Jerry Sags) (w/Jimmy Hart) def. Power and Glory (Hercules and Paul Roma) (w/Slick)	Tag Team Match	68%	10:41	Who's the good guys here? This wasn't the best match on the card. But something has to be going on so you can go to the bathroom. The Nasty Boys won after Jerry Saggs knocked out Paul Roma with something out of his trunks.
11	Ted DiBiase def. Bad News Brown	Singles match	97%	29:49	Ted DiBiase defeated his former Bodyguard in an amazing match. DiBiase showed his technical skills against the much tougher, stronger, and scrappier, Bad News Brown. This match was great. DiBiase won after the Cobra Twist.
12	"Hot Rod" Roddy Piper def. Sgt. Slaughter (w/The Iron Sheik)	Singles match	83%	24:52	In an Ultra-Violent affair, Sgt. Slaughter and Roddy Piper churn out one of the bloodiest brawls to ever happen in a Wrestlemania ring. It was a great match that hearkened back to the old NWA matches. Fans loved it and hated it. It went back and forth but Piper won after a Piledriver.
Main Event	Randy Savage (c) (w/Sherri) def. Hulk Hogan	WWF World Heavyweight Title	89%	19:42	Hogan was set to take on Warrior for the WWF title but that changed when Randy Savage felt it was necessary to insert himself into their feud. He then vowed to end Hulkamania once and for all at Wrestlemania. This match was awesome. Hogan ate a few elbow drops. Savage ate a few Leg Drops. But it was Hogan that fell. Randy Savage hit two Elbow Drops and one Leg Drop for the win.
			84%	278:16
			Total Time:	4:38:16

Hulkamania might actually be dead and Randy Savage was the one to do it. Warrior looks like he has fallen a couple of rungs. Roddy Piper has made his return to the federation. The Undertaker looks like a big nasty guy. Wouldn't want to mess with him.

Title History

WWF World Heavyweight Title

No.	Champion	Championship change	Event	Location	Reign statistics		Notes
4	Randy Savage	4/2/1989	Wrestlemania V	Atlantic City, NJ	1		Randy Savage won the title from Hulk Hogan at Wrestlemania V when the Mega Powers EXPLODED! Meltzer would report that Hogan is going on to make some movies in Hollywood before returning to the WWF. Savage is a great face and will be an amazing champion.
5	The Ultimate Warrior	8/27/1990	Summer Slam '90	Philadelphia, PA	1	154	The Ultimate Warrior had proven himself as championship material following a very nice Intercontinental Title run. The fans had been wanting it, so President Jack Tunney announced that the main event for Summer Slam would be The Ultimate Warrior taking on the World Heavyweight Champion, Randy "Macho Man" Savage! Warrior won the hard-fought bout and tried to celebrate, but was beaten down by an angry Randy Savage.
6	Randy Savage	1/28/1991	The Main Event V	Macon, GA	2		An evil Randy Savage had gotten his revenge on The Ultimate Warrior defeating him in the ring and making his fans cry. Savage now sets his sights on Royal Rumble winner, Hulk Hogan. A rematch from Wrestlemania V.

WWF Intercontinental Title

No.	Champion	Championship change	Event	Location	Reign statistics	Days	Notes
4	The Ultimate Warrior	3/27/1988	Wrestlemania IV	Atlantic City, NJ	1		The Ultimate Warrior won the IC title in a one-night tournament defeating Jake Roberts in the final. He has been a terrific champion so far during his feud with Rick Rude.
5	Mr. Perfect	6/30/1990	Saturday Night's Main Event	Orlando, FL	1		Mr. Perfect defeated The Ultimate Warrior after debuting his new manager, Bobby Heenan, who hit Warrior from behind allowing Perfect to win. Warrior was offered a World Title Shot to make up for the screw job. And Mr. Perfect was slotted against a returning baby face, Jake "The Snake" Roberts.

WWF Tag Team Titles

No.	Champion	Championship change	Event	Location	Reign statistics	Days	Notes
1	The U.S. Express (Barry Windham & Mike Rotundo)	3/31/1984	WWF on MSG Network	New York City, NY	1	586	The U.S. Express was a great tag team that started the game as Tag Champs. They would lose them to the British Bulldogs at the Wrestling Classic.
2	The British Bulldogs (Dynamite Kid & Davey Boy Smith)	11/7/1985	The Wrestling Classic	Rosemont, IL	1	871	The British Bulldogs vs. The U.S. Express in a fantastic bout. Dynamite and Rotundo were meant to do battle. They have defended against Iron Sheik & Nikolai Volkoff, The American Express, The Hart Foundation, The Islanders, and many more during their impressive multi-year run.
3	Demolition (Ax & Smash)	3/27/1988	Wrestlemania IV	Atlantic City, NJ	1	537	While the British Bulldogs were the most popular team in the WWF. No team were turning heads faster than the big, angry, Demolition. Ax and Smash along with their manager, Mr. Fuji, have been running rough-shot over the WWF. They had their eyes set on gold. The Bulldogs are good, but they couldn't best the beasts.
4	The Twin Towers (Akeem & The Big Bossman)	9/15/1989	Saturday Night's Main Event	Sacramento, CA	1	69	Akeem and The Big Bossman might be one of the biggest, baddest, and toughest tag teams on this list. They dominated just about everyone and pounded Demolition into submission to win the tag titles. Under the managerial skills of Slick, The Twin Towers will go down in history.
5	Demolition (Ax & Smash)	11/23/1989	Saturday Night's Main Event	San Jose, CA	2	56	They say the second time is never as sweet as the first. And that has to be true for DEMOLITION. The dirt sheets would report that Ax was suffering from some injuries that had yet to be healed. Leading to them dropping the belts to The Rockers at Royal Rumble.
6	The Rockers (Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty)	1/21/1990	WWF Royal Rumble 1990	Orlando, FL	1	363	The crowds love them and the opponents can't stand 'em. The Rockers have been turning heads and snapping necks all over the world! Their defeat of Demolition at the 1990 Royal Rumble was one of the biggest upsets of all time. Their reign has been one of the best. They have top level talent along with a charm and charisma that can go for years to come.
7	The Orient Express (Sato & Pat Tanaka)	1/19/1991	WWF Royal Rumble 1991	Miami, FL	1	64	The Orient Express is the latest tag team to find success under the managerial skills of Mr. Fuji. This team is very good and pose a threat to the entire locker. Pat Tanaka has brutal kicks that tear his opponents into shreds. They vs. The Rockers at Royal Rumble '91.
8	The Legion of Doom (Hawk & Animal)	3/24/1991	WWF Wrestlemania VII	Los Angeles, CA	1		The Legion of Doom picked up the WWF Tag Team Titles at Wrestlemania VII from The Orient Express. It was a great little feud they had. The crowd loves the LOD and they are the 4th most popular wrestlers in the WWF in 1991. A shame they had to drop the belts.

Previous Posts

• Part I (1985 - 1987)
• Part II (1987 - 1988)
• Part III (1988 - 1989)
• Part IV (1989 - 1990)
• Part V (1990 - 1991)

Previous | First | Next
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A/N: Please consider supporting my writing efforts on Patreon. You can follow this story and be alerted when new chapters release via fanfiction.net.
Special thanks to Tobi from the discord server for another visual accompaniment!
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May 7th, 1942. 11:15 Hours. Coral Sea.
“Nyaa nyaa, missed again!” Sims taunted as Sakura bombs rained all around her. More than thirty aircraft from carriers unknown had swarmed her ship and the oiler Neosho, just one of many maneuvers that had begun days before as Sakura ground forces invaded the island of New Guinea, seeking to complete their conquest of Southeast Asia and sever the link between Australia and its allies.
“Someone’s feeling optimistic,” Commander Hyman growled as his crew did their best to return fire and ward off the attackers. The spunky, star-spangled neko shrugged at him.
“It’s not our fault that those planes dived onto Neosho. Not even guns can stop that. For now we just have to stay alive! You can tell they’re frustrated, and frustrated enemies make mistakes! I’m sure my sister will be here soon, along with Yorktown and Lexi.”
“I never said I didn’t admire your optimism,” the Commander clarified before engaging in yet another random evasive maneuver to throw off the attacking planes. His crew was seasoned and had taken on land-based Sakura craft before, but these were different. There was something intangible about their flight patterns, something deadly and beautiful, like the red-crowned cranes that called Japan their home.
“What’s that, still haven’t had enough?” Sims demanded as the strike force turned for them again. She watched them with keen eyes as her ears twitched. “Take that, and that!” She yelled as her AA guns fired and struck one of the bombers down. “Haha, you see! No one is immune from the pranks of the almighty-”
Any further gloating was forestalled as three bombs struck the ship dead on. The shipgirl cried out in pain and anger, dropping to the floor as the ordinance exploded in her engine room. Hyman took a knee and lifted her, his arm under her shoulder. “Damage report Sims, now!”
“Get…everyone to the engine rooms. All hands,” she gasped through the pain. “Not much time.”
Hyman relayed the orders as sailors scrambled to contain fires and maintain propulsion. With help Sims was soon standing on her own power again, clutching her side and yelling into the radio in an attempt to notify the Union carrier groups of her position and plight. She was in the middle of her third repetition when she suddenly stopped and looked at her commander. “Sims?” He demanded, a visage of dread and sorrow on her permanently mischievous face.
“Hold me, Commander,” she pleaded, throwing her arms around his waist as an unholy sound consumed them. In the wake of the battle the fourteen survivors of the Sims would recount their commander’s bravery, their shipgirl’s spunky and playful nature, and the explosion that launched their ship fifteen feet out of the water before sending it to the bottom of the ocean along with one hundred and seventy nine souls.
-----
May 7th, 1942. 23:00 Hours. Coral Sea.
“The tides of war favor us, sister. They brought this to us instead of the enemy,” Zuikaku said sadly, descending gracefully from her flight deck to retrieve the two cubes that floated gently in the glassy, black sea. One had been a flat top carrier, the other its operator. The seasoned warrior knew which it was which the moment she touched them. “No…no no no!” She wailed.
“Zuikaku please, we must keep moving!” Shoukaku advised from nearby, able to feel her sister’s distress through the bond they had forged from years of training and months of survival under Akagi’s regime.
“They swarmed her. So many bombs and torpedoes…she never stood a chance,” Zuikaku growled, returning to her ship and spiriting Shouhou’s cubes away in her kimono. “She died afraid, screaming, and trying her best to be like us…just like those foxes and their cursed Creator demand!”
“The Union killed her, sister,” Shoukaku replied sagely, feeling the spirits howl on the winds. She thought of Nagato, and prayed for the kitsune’s guidance.
“And who attacked the Union before sending us off to die?!” Zuikaku yelled, experiencing none of the calm of her sister. It had always been so and they were stronger for it, yin and yang, light and dark, harsh and calm. Zuikaku did not appreciate the fact that such a dynamic extended to their bodies as well, but that was fate.
“We will have our victory in our own time, sister. For now we must destroy the Union carriers in this theater. Only then can we resume our search for her, hopefully this time without siren scouts breathing down our necks. Polish your blade if you must, but do not allow Shouhou’s death to consume you. We will honor her in the old way…when there is time. All we can do for now is pray and fight.”
Though she bit back bile, Zuikaku heeded her elder sister’s words, kneeling on her flight deck and breathing deeply to clear her mind. “Rest in peace, little one. We will avenge you,” she finally spoke aloud. She drew her sword, laid it across her lap, and began a soothing ritual of honing the fine edge. It had already tasted Union blood that day and she swore more would come. Around her Zeros, Aichis, and Nakajimas shimmered to life, testament to her unquestioned command of her armament. With each stroke of the whetstone their engines spun up one by one until she was surrounded by the hum of war. Across the water a haunting song played from Shoukaku’s wooden flute, joining the industrial rage of her sister. Together the two of them formed a duet, a pledge that come the dawn the Union dogs that had stolen a young life would pay with theirs; the first step on a bloody path that ended with Akagi and Kaga’s heads separated from their bodies.
-----
May 8th, 1942. 11:00 Hours. Coral Sea.
“I can’t shake them!”
“Two Zeros on my tail! How the hell did they get up here so fast?”
“I’m hit, gotta bail!”
“All torpedoes failed to hit!”
“We didn’t…we barely scratched them. What the hell is with these flattops?!”
“More fighters, we need to get out of here!”
Zuikaku stood silently and unafraid on her flight deck, mercilessly gunning down Union dive and torpedo bombers. She could sense her own bombing groups drawing closer to the enemy, but they were a distant concern, not yet under fire or in range of the target. That left her and Shoukaku to deal fully with the attacking planes from Lexington and Yorktown. Across the water, her sister sighed sadly.
“You are brave pilots, to try and attack us like this. But you will not find us as susceptible as Shouhou. I will endeavor to make your deaths quick,” Shoukaku said calmly. Her Zero formations flew like the cranes that she so loved, arcing and diving in ways that manned fighters simply could not mimic. She lost a handful of aircraft along with her sister, but only those who chose to retreat survived.
“Sister, you’re letting them get away! We almost had them!” Zuikaku fumed, her sword drawn.
“Be at ease, sister. They will die all the same when they find no place to return to. My planes have spotted the enemy carriers. Join my formation. We must strike together.”
“On it!” Zuikaku replied gleefully, reaching a hand inside the folds of her kimono and palming Shouhou’s cubes. “Finally, at long last...you can rest easy.”
“It’s been a day, sister.”
“And she should have never suffered in the first place!” Zuikaku insisted.
“Hmm, that is true. Come, it is time to show the enemy the might of the fifth carrier division.”
“I’m right behind you, nee-san. Their wildcats are low. Stay high and we will win this fight before it has even begun…”
-----
“Wildcats, regroup on this vector here! They’ve already broken through Lexington’s lines! Helmsman, hard to port now! I need damage control teams ready below decks, there are more bombers coming. Vejtasa, was that another kill? You’ve done marvelously! Keep it up and we will survive this!” Yorktown commanded.
“I’ll be out of a job at this rate,” Captain Elliot Buckmaster joked, watching the oncoming attack aircraft like a hawk.
“But I’d be so lonely up here then, Captain,” Yorktown smiled momentarily.
“By all that’s holy…I knew something was wrong. Yorktown, these enemy fighters have no pilots! Why don’t you seem surprised?”
“We appear to be facing one of the Sakura’s uncrewed carrier divisions. But you have me and Lexington. We will see this day through together. The omen of death flies with us!”
Buckmaster nodded grimly as bombs were dropped, scoring direct hits on their flightdeck. As Yorktown dropped to the floor of the bridge in pain he scooped her up in something of a bridal carry. “On your feet sailor, we’re not dead yet.”
“I’m still here,” she affirmed with thanks in her voice, using his shoulder for support as she evaluated the damage and began directing control teams to affected areas. Buckmaster took over the radio in an attempt to establish contact with the Lexington, who had suffered a deadly pincer attack from Shoukaku’s torpedo bombers. After a few minutes of trying he turned to his shipgirl with a grim look on his face. “Captain?”
“We need to assume that we are the only operational carrier left in this theater, Yorktown.”
“I understand, sir. Dauntless and Wildcat formations, regroup to repel the attackers!” Yorktown requested, icy fear gripping her as fresh waves of Sakura planes appeared on the horizon. She and Buckmaster stood grimly defiant and prepared for the worse as Hammann’s panicked voice could be heard on the radio.
“Yorktown, I can’t reach Lexington! There are so many planes, what do we do?!” The young destroyer demanded. “Wait…they’re retreating?! I don’t believe it! You did it Yorktown! We won!”
“Captain…you should know that I can only sense a handful of returning planes from our strike group. I fear this battle has been a complete loss,” Yorktown lamented, having held back the news until an appropriate time. The omen circled above the ship, crying loudly to rally the Union sailors to action as they began damage repair and aircraft retrieval.
“Then why did they retreat?” Buckmaster demanded. “Why not finish us off?”
“I don’t know, Captain.”
-----
“Enemy carrier group spotted! It’s them!” Maryland reported. She, Colorado, South Dakota, and Tennessee formed the front of Thorson’s formation. To the sides were Pennsylvania and Arizona, with West Virginia and California bringing up the rear. Within the protective shell of those battleships rested Yamashiro, the flagship, along with Ark Royal and the various escorts of Thorson’s fleet. Yuudachi, Yukikaze, and Shigure had each shown affinity for Penny, Arizona, and Yamashiro respectively, so Thorson allowed those destroyers to shadow their battleships of preference. Cleveland, Indy, and Portland, along with Kasumi, Downes, Laffey, and Javelin, slotted into the formation wherever needed, though Thorson preferred Downes and Laffey just behind his vanguard given their offensive capability. Far in the distance he could see Zeros circling above the two carriers and their escorts like hawks waiting to strike.
“Ark, get your planes in the air now! Cleveland, you have command of the AA defense. South Dakota and all Colorado class ships, your priority is defending us from air attack with those fancy new guns of yours. All ships fire at will. Target the enemy carriers!” Thorson commanded. As battle roars went up from his fleet and the thunder of guns sounded at Coral Sea, Yamashiro slipped her hand into his.
“It is the crane sisters, Shoukaku and Zuikaku,” she informed him softly. “They are peerless warriors who rival the might of Akagi and Kaga. I believe we will be victorious today but if not…know that I have never known a greater peace than waking next to you each morning nor a greater pleasure than making love to you each night.”
“Two good reasons not to die here then,” Thorson agreed solemnly, watching through his binoculars as a splash of shells began to rain down on the enemy formation. “We got lucky.”
“Tono-sama?” Yamashiro asked for his meaning, deploying her scout plane to circle the fleet while her forward cannons joined in the barrage.
“They’re sending up bomber formations now. Whatever they were doing before now it wasn’t scouting. We may have caught them unawares. Ark, ready yourself! We have visitors!”
“I see them, Knight Commander!” The carrier affirmed, taking careful aim with her rifle as the lead group of screening Zeros came into range. Heavy flak and machine gun fire erupted from Thorson’s battleships and cruisers, tearing into the aircraft as they began evasive maneuvers. “Oh…you have some skill,” Ark declared, sending a screen of P-40’s at the lead bomber elements. The attack of heavy aircraft with their .50 caliber guns sent the enemy scattering like a flock of birds, salvaging their airgroups at the cost of a bombing run. “Let’s see how you handle this…”
-----
“What? That’s impossible!” Zuikaku raged. “Sister, how did they do that?!”
“Look not with your eyes. Feel the flow of battle, Zuikaku. We are not fighting Dauntless or Wildcats. As though the incoming shell fire was not enough of an indication…we have been taken upon by the Knight of the Union.” Even Shoukaku could not maintain total composure as a barrage from the enemy broke apart above them, raining down small explosive clusters on one of their escort ships. The drone caught fire and exploded, leaving naught but a cube and wreckage in its wake and another kill for Tennessee.
“I don’t need my eyes to tell me that if we don’t disable some of those heavy guns we’re doomed. They can see us, Shoukaku-nee!”
“Not for long, sister. I did not want to show this hand to the enemy so soon, but we will not survive the day without it. We will subject them to the dance of the cranes.”
Zuikaku grinned viciously, summoning more aircraft and recalling her remaining ones in flight. “You got lucky against Kaga, Knight. I don’t care how many strange aircraft or guns you possess. A blind giant is nothing more than a larger target.”
Across the battlefield, as Thorson’s battlegroup closed in on the crane sisters, a sinister song began to play accompanied by thick fog. Within seconds Thorson’s ships were cut off from one another, moving forward with zero visibility. The Commander took a call from Kasumi.
“Commander, Foo says that the sisters are planning a major attack through the mists. But they remain in their positions.”
“Kasumi, you’re a lifesaver,” Thorson replied, hearing her pleasant giggling over the radio before he sent orders to his entire fleet. “Tennessee, South Dakota, move aside. Laffey?”
“Hmm? The song makes Laffey sleepy.”
“Well wake up and use your weapon, now! Fire at their last known position!” Thorson commanded. “All vanguard ships, prepare to fire.”
“The voices are back again,” Laffey commented softly as the front of her ship morphed and a massive cannon emerged from her front turrets and bridge. “But they say silly siren things. Laffey is not afraid of them anymore. They are just feeling angry their power is being used for good, yes yes. Firing now. Have fun, please.”
-----
Across the mist-shrouded waves, Zuikaku and Shoukaku were on the precipice of commanding their aircraft to descend out of the fog in kamikaze strikes. The younger of the crane sisters felt the grip on her sword tighten as her body responded to something unknown, something evil. “Sister, do you sense that?” She demanded urgently.
“Yes, Zuikaku. I am reminded of that foul sanctuary,” Shoukaku agreed. Slowly a rumbling and strange light grew at the position of the enemy, a threatening sound like a slumbering beast being woken. “Sister, call off your attack now.”
“What?! But we-”
“Maneuver and shield yourself, now!” Shoukaku ordered as a massive ball of energy hissed across the water, parted the fog, boiled the oceans, and vaporized a portion of their screening force that rested between the two carriers. Through the gap in the fog, a hail of large and small caliber shells followed, lashing out at them as Thorson’s group gained ground by the second. Between his impressive number of dreadnaughts and Downes’ belt fed cannons the ships accompanying the crane sisters were slaughtered, their empty hulls leaving behind several cubes ready to be snatched up as a prize. Shoukaku grimaced and closed her eyes. “Zuikaku, we are leaving now.”
“But sister!”
“There is no sense in drawing the enemy’s blood if they kill you in the process. We have claimed our revenge for Shouhou. It is enough. Come, if we are swift the foxes may even believe us destroyed.
“Damnit...Damnit!” Zuikaku yelled, nevertheless sheathing her blade and recalling all her aircraft so that she could maneuver at full capability. “One day I'll come back for you, Knight. I’m ready, nee-san. Let’s get out of here.”
At her younger sister’s agreement, Shoukaku put her flute to her lips again. Aboard the Kasumi, the young fox girl shivered as an oppressive spirit seemed to descend upon the battlefield, turning the diffuse fog into a spiraling storm centered around the enemy carriers. When it finally cleared, naught was left but the four cubes from their escorts as they fled north towards the Solomon islands. Thorson was left scratching his head, and on the cusp of ordering a scouting and pursuit mission when the radio crackled to life.
“This…Lexington…Captain Sherman. Heavy…assistance needed…”
“Yamashiro?”
“Hai, tono-sama?” The shrine maiden replied as adrenaline slowly left her body. The battle had been so brief she almost didn’t know what to do.
“Do you think we have a chance of catching them?”
“As much chance as capturing a wild crane, tono-sama,” she gave her evaluation. He nodded.
“Alright then. All ships adjust to a new heading, southwest. Akashi?”
“Nyaa?”
“Looks like today you’re going to be the star of the show,” he declared grimly, wondering just how much damage Zuikaku and Shoukaku had managed to inflict before his arrival. The minty kitty, however, could not have been happier.
“Akashi is prepared to be the hero, nyaa! Make way for Akashi!”
-----
“Lexi, Lexi, you gotta get up! We have to leave!” Hammann cried, trying desperately to lift the injured shipgirl from the floor of her bridge as the ship burned around them. Flooding and fires had wracked the vessel and the crew of Hammann's ship was doing their best to evacuate the sailors of the Lexington before the worst.
“I can’t…” the pink-haired beauty whispered weakly. “My crew, and Admiral Wags…get them to safety, little one.”
“Noooo! I can’t lose you too! Sims is…Sims is already…” As Hammann cried into Lexington’s shoulder, watched over sadly by Captain Frederick Sherman, a new voice hailed them over the radio.
“Union carrier group, this is Union Commander Andrew Thorson. We have a repair ship with us. Advise as to the Lexington’s position, over?”
“Tell Akashi where she is needed, nyaa!!!” An overexcited female voice added, causing Hammann’s ears to twitch madly. Sherman snatched up his radio receiver.
“Say again, did you say Union?”
“Affirmative. Is this Captain Sherman?”
“Affirmative, Commander. Lexington has been badly wounded and we are preparing to abandon ship. If you have ships, my crew needs places to evacuate. Relaying our coordinates now.”
-----
May 8th, 1942. 14:00 Hours. Coral Sea.
“I know they say not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I’ve never seen one like this,” Captain Sherman murmured as a veritable flotilla arrived to his rescue. It looked as though someone had pulled the Spanish Armada forward in time, with battleships galore pulling up alongside his ship and pumping whatever water they could onto the decks. Cruisers and destroyers without crew navigated smoothly to safe areas and evacuated his men, while a single Sakura repair ship tethered herself to the side of the Lexington and a horde of small white-haired…girls rushed aboard his ship. The lead mechanic and Akashi barked orders to the bulins.
“Fires first!”
“Buli!”
“Then flooding!”
“Buli!”
“And shut down the gas lines and motors! One spark and we all go boom! Akashi smells gas, nyaa!”
“Buli!”
“For the glory of Shikikan, nyaa! We will send them the repair bill later!” Akashi declared, dispatching the chief bulin to oversee her troops while the minty kitty scampered through twisted corridors and flaming decks to finally reach the bridge. Along the way she found a cocker spaniel, collecting the little dog with a look of disgust on her face. “Akashi is no Shiratsuyu-class, nyaa. But you are too cute to die here.”
A loud knocking stirred Sherman and Hammann from their vigil over Lexington as an unknown catgirl with light green hair and a large metal sword barged onto the bridge, immediately depositing Admiral Wags with the Captain. “Here, take your puppy, nyaa! Akashi detests normal dogs even more than shipgirl dogs!”
“Who the hell are you? I’ll claw you!” Hammann spat back.
“Oooh, Akashi can see you have good taste, Union girl. But now it is time for you to stand aside. You have no rigging and are not a repair ship, nyaa.”
“Over my dead body!”
“That can be arranged, nyaa. Now stop being silly and let Akashi follow the orders of Shikikan Thorson to save this pretty lady!” The neko demanded. “Just because you have fake cat ears does not mean that Akashi will…nyaa?”
“Owowow, get off me!” Hammann yelped as Akashi grabbed her by the white-furred ears. The Sakura boat backed off a pace with an amazed look on her face, turning on her rigging’s radio.
“Yamashiro, Yukikaze, Asashio, Arashio, get to the bridge of this boat now, nyaa! You must see this!”
-----
“Half of this boat is still on fire! Why do you need Yukikaze the Great to be…n-n-nanoda? She…she’s one of us! Nanoda!” The slim destroyer exclaimed as she got her first real look at Hammann.
“I like her outfit. It’s very cute,” Arashio added.
“Yeah, she looks like a real Union maid!” Asashio said.
“All of you must remain composed. We represent Shikikan Thorson who, as you may recall, went against Union high command to keep us all safe! Now help tend to the wounded carrier. Akashi, what can we do for you?” Yamashiro took command of the situation, hoping Thorson would approve of her actions. The Commander himself was still aboard the Yamashiro, overseeing the rescue and damage control operations with South Dakota and West Virginia.
“Akashi needs a cube, stat,” the repair ship demanded. Yamashiro reached into her kimono and withdrew five cubes. Four they had acquired in their fight with the cranes, the other had been snatched from the water by Javelin who caught a twinkle on the waves during their transit. As soon as that cube saw the light of day, Hammann leapt forward and snatched it from Yamashiro. Yukikaze was about to blast her with her rigging when the Union cat began sobbing and cradling the cube to her chest.
“T-thank you,” she sobbed, not caring that Sakura had delivered such a treasure to her. “Sisterrr!”
With silent, sad glances, Yamashiro passed a drone ship cube over to Akashi. With the help of Arashio and Asashio they began to nurse Lexington under the curious and skeptical gaze of the ship’s Captain. Meanwhile Yamashiro embraced Hammann as Yukikaze rested a comforting hand on the girl.
“We are here for you, little one. Us cats need to stick together even in war. What was your sister’s name?” She asked kindly.
“S-Sims. She liked pranks,” Hammann sobbed, not able to resist Yamashiro’s soft and warm embrace for long. The shrine maiden seemed to innately understand how to soothe her feline ears.
“Yukikaze the Great would have liked to meet this cat, nanoda,” the Sakura destroyer remarked sadly. Around them the amount of smoke billowing from the Lexington slowly abated, easing Akashi’s task of keeping the carrier girl stable. After about half an hour of effort from the bulin crews, the ship was declared safe and functional enough to limp back to port. But all involved acknowledged that it would be a long time before Lady Lex would fly again. With the immediate crisis averted and Yorktown nearby, the situation stabilized enough for Thorson, accompanied by South Dakota, to board the Lexington and seek out his girls. When he finally reached the bridge he happened upon Akashi tending to a woman with beautiful, flowing pink hair and Yamashiro cradling a white-haired Union shipgirl to her bosom. Strangest of all was the ship’s Captain, who stood there with a grateful look on his face and a cocker spaniel in his arms. Thorson couldn’t help a smile as South Dakota barked at the dog in an attempt to communicate.
“Captain Sherman, I presume?” Thorson asked, extending his hand. The man shifted the dog to one arm and offered his.
“And you must be Commander Thorson. While I feel the need to demand an explanation of…everything, it can wait until Lexi is back on her feet.”
“Captain…” the carrier girl smiled weakly at him. “You’re still here.”
“Where else would I be?” He demanded. “How are you feeling?”
“She is stable, nyaa, but you should not be pressing her for a long time. Akashi is surprised you survived at all. Zuikaku and Shoukaku are not known for mercy, nyaa,” the minty kitty observed.
“So it was them?” Lexington whispered, looking out at the smoke shrouded sky. “That would explain a lot. I lost…so many wonderful pilots.” A tear slipped from her eyes as Thorson tapped Akashi on the shoulder. She hugged his leg and received ample praise for her work.
“Akashi, turn one of those cubes into shards,” he ordered. The neko went to work immediately with her tools as all looked on, wondering what Thorson was up to. He nodded to Yamashiro and then Sherman. “Captain, I’ll be up front with you. I’m probably considered a traitor by Rear Admiral Spruance and High Command. But I’m also a scientist so if you wouldn’t mind I’d like your help with an experiment, one that I hope will spare your pilots in the future. I already told Spruance he can kill me later, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
“Who the hell are you, Commander?” Sherman demanded, causing South Dakota to step forward.
“He is my Commander. Listen to him,” she said simply, summoning forth her rigging within the enclosed space. Her shields looked even more powerful in a cramped environment, and she was pleased to see that Pennsylvania’s little trick seemed to work well. When Akashi handed the shards to Thorson he held them in his palm and knelt at Lexington’s side.
“How are you feeling, Lexington?” He asked.
“I have been better, Commander. Thank you for your timely rescue today. It appears I will be in your debt going forward.”
“Don’t worry about that, just…” Thorson took a deep breath as he tried to explain to her what he would otherwise do himself. “Think about Captain Sherman for a moment, alright? Think about the bond of command the two of you share. Do any of these shards call out to you when you do that?”
Arashio and Asashio watched spellbound as the carrier contemplated his request and eventually pointed to two of them. He nodded, pocketing the remainder and extending those shards to Sherman. “And what should I do with these?” He wondered, putting down his dog who immediately waddled over to South Dakota and sought some attention from her. She was more than happy to pick him up and snuggle him in Sherman’s stead.
“If I’m right, when Lexington accepts these from you the two of you will form a bond and she will be granted rigging. With training she will be able to summon and pilot her own aircraft, as well as better maneuver and ‘feel’ her ship. I’ve never really tried this with anyone else before, but I see no reason you couldn’t have a shipgirl with rigging on a crewed vessel. Maybe that would be even more powerful than my own carrier? I don’t know.”
“Then I’ll pass,” Sherman declared, throwing a worried look at Lexington. “She’s been through enough.”
“Captain…please?” She protested. “The losses today were too great.”
After worrying his hands together a moment, Sherman accepted the shards from Thorson. After Akashi, Yamashiro, and the others, a couple glowing pieces of siren tech were the least strange thing to happen that day. He held them out to her. “Well?”
“Hehe, I gladly accept,” Lexington affirmed. When she touched them a faint glow surrounded her body, returning color to her cheeks and healing several visible scratches and bruises on her body. Without needing any provocation from Thorson or her captain, a long bore rifle appeared in Lexi’s hand. A long ribbon in the motif of a tarmac hung from it, and a pair of cute secondary batteries formed at her hips. A finishing touch came in the form of her command tower, which now served as a hairpiece. With Sherman’s help she planted her rifle butt on the floor of the bridge and stood again. Thorson smiled faintly at the look of relief on Sherman’s face. It was heartening to see that not all Union shipgirls had suffered as Penny and Tennessee had.
“Lexi, you alright?” Sherman demanded.
“In spite of the state of my ship, it is safe to say I have never been better,” the carrier laughed delightedly. “Once I am repaired and can test this new power we must tell the others of this!”
“Well Commander Thorson, I don’t know what sort of beef you have with Admiral Spruance, but you’re alright in my book. Thank you for saving my ship…and my comrade.”
“Akashi will send you the bill, nyaa!”
“Akashi will do nothing of the sort,” Thorson corrected.
“Then Akashi will ban Shikikan from the onsen!”
“Then Akashi will not get as many snuggles, kisses, and ear scratches as she wishes,” Thorson bargained. After a moment of consideration, Akashi offered her oversized sleeve to Captain Sherman.
“It’s been a pleasure, nyaa~!”
With raised brows and a smile born of relief, Sherman shook it. The improved mood on the bridge did not last as Hammann finally spoke up, glaring at Thorson through tears of despair. “You! How could you?” She wailed. “Why didn’t...why didn’t you come sooner? Why didn’t you save my sister?!”
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