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Scoops McGee · (11-01-2025)

Noah could feel the pit of anxiety chewing within his gut as the three men walked down the afternoon street. Autumn’s chill was taking its toll on Noah, who felt himself shivering with every step. In contrast, the two hardened elders before him walked with focus in their strides, sharing glances with each other as they murmured under their breaths.

Finally, Scoops McGee looked up towards the dingy sign that hung out over them- Pulse. “This is the place, then?”

Joseph nodded, taking a look inside the small windows to the almost claustrophobic interior. “Yeah. This is one of Jonas Baumann’s favorite spots to train, though I know he’s bounced around a few different spots around the city. If we’re lucky, we might be able to get some intel on him and help keep you sharpened.”

“I like it,” Scoops declared as he eyed the building up and down. “Reminds me of the Forge. Good times. It’ll help me get my ass in gear, that’s fer’ damn sure.”

His head craned over to Joseph, eyebrow raised. “You sure they’re gonna let me just waltz in?”

Joseph shrugged in response. “I don’t see why they wouldn’t. People are way more open about offering things on a free trial basis nowadays, you know?”

“They give this shit away for free?!”

“Oh, for the love of…” Joseph ran a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, groaning as he did so. “Think of it like a temporary thing. We’re only probably going to be here for the day anyway, so…”

Just as soon as the pair were about to go through the front door, Noah found the ability to speak again.

“Wait.” The pair paused. “Scoops, are… are you okay?”

Scoops slowly looked back over his shoulder, and the camera could finally get a good look at his face for the first time. Thick, white bandages were wrapped around his head, the scars of war present from his chaotic match against Kieran King during the Spirit Halloween Anarchy.

He scrunched his nose. “My pride’s hurt. Sometimes I get a headache comin’ on. But I’m standin’. I can still fight.”

“I’m just worried after Anarchy-”

“And I get where yer’ comin’ from,” Scoops nodded. “But trust me, boah. We’ve all lost before. I’ve had a few rough losses with some worse bumps than what I took before. Shit happens. I ain’t gonna make excuses. I knew King Dumbass was gonna get his men involved, and I was the dumb sumbitch who took my eyes off the prize, and I got caught because of it. The world keeps spinnin’ at the end of the day. I knew win or lose, I was still gonna have work to do before I get to a title match.”

He cracked his knuckles, a smile forming on his face. “At the end of the day, we keep movin’, boah.”

“Trust me, Noah,” Joseph offered with a small smile. “I know more than anyone how hard it is to convince Terry to act in his own benefit sometimes.”

“Hey!”

“If he was really unfit to compete, though, I would have kept him locked in his room with no way to get out.”

Noah allowed himself a small sigh of relief at Joseph’s words, to which Scoops rolled his eyes. “Whatever. We goin’ in there, or what?”

“Please, mon ami. You first.”

Scoops exhaled, before leading the way inside. Noah craned the camera inside, helping to drink in the atmosphere as the trio took a look around.

The air was drenched in sweat, tears and dreams. Pulse was bigger than the Titan Forge, but there were more things to do here. There were still the heavy bags, but that was joined with cardio machines and weightlifting benches. Noah realized a stray resistance band had gotten caught along his foot, and he quickly kicked it off.

A loud slam snapped him from his thoughts, and as he trained the camera upwards, he realized there were four wrestling rings inside of here.

Despite it being bigger than the Forge, Pulse was arguably even more claustrophobic. And that was with all the equipment being top-of-the-line, a clear contrast to the shoddy exterior. They took pride in their work.

Joseph was busy talking with the front desk, leaving Scoops and Noah alone as they watched the people hard at work inside the gym. Noah turned to Scoops, raising an eyebrow at his stone-like face. “You’re really concentrating right now, huh?”

“Well, I got a lot on my plate, boah,” Scoops huffed. “War Games comin’ up soon, TV title match against my own damn partner. Ole’ Dick Powers ain’t respondin’ to any messages comin’ his way right about now. Gotta keep myself on track to face King Dumbass sooner rather than later. And on top of that, Crusher decides he oughta come back from the dead just to try and haunt me with his dumbass nephew?”

“Fair,” Noah nodded back. “Sometimes, I get confused just trying to keep up with everything.”

Scoops didn’t respond to that. His eyes were focused straight ahead, on the raw energy coursing throughout the gym. The visceral impacts of a body slam in the ring. The heavy bag swaying back and forth with each punch delivered. The sweat flying off of people’s foreheads as they broke into a sprint on the treadmill.

He was getting antsy. There was nothing more he wanted to do than to just get right down to work.

Noah felt the next words slip out of him. “Why did you break the Crusher’s leg, anyway?”

Scoops turned to look at him, amused. Noah blinked in realization, waving a hand in front of his face. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“You ain’t gotta jump to apologizin’ first thing, boah,” Scoops frowned. “I never really told you the full story, anyway. It’s old drama. Bloody drama. It ain’t fit to be spoken about here-” Scoops gestured with his head out to the gym at large, with plenty of potential prying eyes and ears around, “-but I’ll tell you the whole deal some other time. All you need to know is, ole’ Crusher tried goin’ after my family when we were most vulnerable. I told you in the past how I was a young, dumb SOB back then, and I let it get to my head.”

“We were in the match, and I had ‘em in the Merry-Go-Round. I kept twistin’ and twistin’, but the motherfucker wasn’t tapping. That Crusher was a resilient fucker. They say the ref ordered a rope break, and I know the footage showed that. I just didn’t hear it, though. And as I kept twistin’…”

Scoops brought both of his hands apart, making a small noise as he did so. “Achilles, ACL, MCL. The triple whammy. Match got thrown out. That… was the closest I ever got to winnin’ a world title. Crusher had to retire shortly after surgery, and I… I had to look over my family. Dad had just passed, and he gave me the farm, and… there was work to be done. Like he said, SCW went outta business shortly after.”

It made sense. Noah didn’t like hearing the story, but it made sense. If someone had tried talking bad about his own family, he didn’t even know what he would do. And it wasn’t as if Scoops wasn’t known for having a violent temper…

“I know what you told the Crusher earlier, but… do you actually not regret what you did?”

Scoops paused, hesitated. The words sat in his throat, but he couldn’t bring himself to actually say them.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to.

“No way,” a murmur of disbelief shot through the gym, drawing attention. “Is that Scoops McGee?”

The mere mention of the name had faces turning, a shared attention quickly being grabbed amongst a good chunk of the people.

Scoops didn’t miss a beat. He grinned, his chest puffed out as he nodded. “In the flesh. How’re you people doin’?”

What followed was about a dozen gym-goers, more or less, moving up to Scoops to greet him. People were throwing out their names so fast that Noah couldn’t even remember a single one. Truth be told, Scoops looked like he was trying not to show that he was behind that curve as well, but for all Noah knew it was down to the head injury.

As people threw out ridiculous claims from Scoops supposedly scouting for the XWF to wondering if he was going to bow out of his title match on Wednesday thanks to his injuries, Noah quickly allowed himself to slip out of the growing crowd. He was grateful that his job didn’t call for him to usually be a people person… yet. He knew it was something to work on, but that was also a job for another time…

Joseph walked up beside Noah, giving him a small nod. “He’s got the day to train here, at least. I see he’s wasting no time making new friends…”

“Is he usually like this?”

“Ouin! Gods above, with the fans, Terry doesn’t know when to shut the Hell up. He likes a quiet life, yet he goes out and he sticks to people like gum to shoes.” Joseph was smiling, but it was paired with a roll of his eyes. “He’s like an oxymoron. Still, that’s how he likes it…”

Joseph quickly flashed a thumbs up for Scoops to see, which allowed him to turn back to the crowd he was handling.

“Alright, boahs. Y’all can handle yerselves in the ring, yeah? Good. Gimme ten to warm up, then how about we do some sparrin’? Five minutes from some of you people, in ‘n’ out. If I wanna be a man of the people, I figure I better fight with the people too.”

That got some excited murmurs amongst the gym-goers. The chance to step into the ring with a legend was something that couldn’t be passed up on. Just as people were discussing who was going to be going first against him, the door to Pulse slammed open.

The gym fell silent, a breath hanging in everyone’s chest. Scoops could feel the hairs on his neck standing on end, his brows furrowing as he turned around.

The 6’7, hulking frame of Jonas Baumann came walking into the gym, stretching his arms out as he did. His eyes locked onto Scoops, an eyebrow raised.

“Isn’t this a surprise, old man?” His voice, faintly laced with a German accent, seemed enthused. “You get a challenge to a fight laid before you, and the next thing I know, I see you running around in my territory. You know something, I like you. You’ve got balls.”

Scoops nodded to those around him. “Talk to y’all later.”

As the crowd dispersed, he crossed his arms, eyeing up the youngster with disdain in his eyes. “Uncle ain’t around to watch over you, huh?”

“He has other business to tend to,” Jonas dismissed simply, before his eyes grazed over both Joseph and Noah who were beside Scoops. “Of course, you need two men to make sure you don’t trip and fall your way back to the hospital.”

Joseph’s face scrunched in anger. “You’re not going to fight now, are you? Not after what you told him earlier.”

“I did say I’d wait ‘til after War Games, yeah,” Jonas nodded as he stalked his way forward, glancing back towards Scoops. “But I didn’t think I’d see you in my gym.”

“Soundin’ like yer’ uncle right about now.”

“Uncle complains and demands. It’s fitting for him, but I don’t like acting that way.” As Jonas came face-to-face with Scoops, eye-to-eye, Noah could feel his heart beating a mile a minute in his chest. It was threatening to pop like a balloon on the spot, knowing that one wrong move, and things were going to get violent.

Silence reigned between the two. It was a silence that felt like it could last for a small eternity, before Scoops finally broke it.

“You gonna do somethin’, or are you just gonna stand there lookin’ big and tough?”

Jonas’ lip curled into a smile as he took one small step back. “I just want to wish you good luck for Warfare and War Games, is all.”

Then, without warning, he lurched forward into a headbutt that SLAMMED right between his eyes.

Scoops felt his head jarring and trying to split apart in two separate directions. He grabbed his skull, slumping down onto all fours. The gym came alive, with figures and voices all darting in to try and separate the two.

Scoops couldn’t focus on any of that. He wanted to vomit. He wanted to break apart. The head pain felt like it was going to break him. He couldn’t run from the truth- his injuries were catching up with him, a fact that just rubbed salt in the wound. But even that ugly truth could hardly persist in his mind right now.

He felt like he was just breaking apart.

“Howdy, boahs. Doin’ this a bit different for once- I’m still on for Warfare, don’t you worry. Right now, this plane ride’s goin’ as smoothly as it can, even with my head fuckin’ killin’ me. But I got some things to say, and I know there’s one man right now who’s gonna need to hear it.”

“Dickie Watson. You know, boah, I got a lot of respect for you. You remind me of me when I was younger. Full of grit, passion, that desire to prove yerself, the ability to tell someone ‘fuck yer’ damn feelings, I’m gonna go out there and succeed in spite of ‘em.’ That’s why I drafted you with my first pick, yeah. But you know somethin’, yer’ like an unsharpened tool. You’ve had some success elsewhere, sure, but it’s been a slippery slope here in the XWF, ain’t it?”

“You call it ‘the Climb.’ Pretty fittin’, all things considered.”

“You know what I think? I think you don’t even know what you want out of all of this. The act of fightin’ is its own reward, and I can get with that to an extent. Titles and hardware not meanin’ a damn thing to you though, now that’s just stupid. You only need to look at that piece of gold around yer’ shoulder to prove my point. In the breath right after sayin’ how it don’t mean shit to you, you talk about needin’ to do right by the belt, showin’ yer’ work in the ring for the sake of it for fifteen minutes every show.”

“Yer’ confused, swirlin’ around. Lookin’ for answers in yer’ own life. Lookin’ for answers to justify things that happened in the past for you. Yer’ like SEB, every damn chance you get, you talk about all the bad you did in the past. Boah, I’m gonna be brutally honest with you. When I step into the ring with you come Warfare, I don’t give a single flyin’ fuck about yer’ past. I care about wantin’ to beat some goddamn sense into yer’ skull.”

“You wanna make like yer’ the burnin’ Calamity? You gotta burn shit down in order to build it back up again. I wanna build a place without trillionaires decidin’ what the little man can and can’t do. A place where Universal champs don’t get to threaten to go ‘bye-bye’ with the belt. You got the skills, but I need to know you have the damn heart to do so.”

“We’re pickin’ up Dolly’s fight together. When it comes time for Warfare, you got fifteen minutes to show me just how much yer’ willing to put on the line for that fight. Fifteen minutes to show me what yer’ heart and soul is made out of, because any man that stepped in the ring with me knows yer’ gonna have to kill me to beat me.”

“And if yer’ heart ain’t good enough in those fifteen minutes, then you better bet yer’ damn ass it ain’t good enough to carry that gold. And that belt is gonna come onto the shoulder of someone who’s gonna appreciate it.”

“Yer’ good, Dickie. But you got a lot to learn.”

Threaded Mode \| Linear Mode Scoops McGee in… “The Price We Pay”
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