Billy Bones stood alone in the ring, staring up the ramp.
He’d been out there for four minutes already. The referee checked his watch. The Grand Auditorium buzzed with a restless hum, the kind that builds before something big.
Billy’s shirt was buttoned all the way up tonight, no rolled sleeves yet. His taped forearms rested against the top rope. He didn’t pace around. He waited, his uncovered eye fixed on the entrance at the top of the ramp.
[Braxton: We are moments away from a match that has been building for more than a month. Billy Bones has been out here waiting, and folks, you can feel it in this building.]
[Tanaka: Ray Jr requested a new entrance for tonight. Nobody in production would tell us more about that.]
The arena lights cut to black.
A single guitar note rang out through the speakers, clean and slow. Then a second note. Then a drumbeat kicked in underneath it, and the crowd became unglued before a single lyric hit.
[Braxton: Is that--]
[Tanaka: That’s Kid Montana!]
The scream that followed drowned out the rest of whatever Tanaka was going to say. Pyro cracked off on both sides of the ramp, gold sparks raining down in twin columns.
[Braxton: Kid Montana just dropped his new single two days ago and it’s already the number one song in the country! You’re telling me Ray Jr got him to write his entrance theme?]
[Tanaka: They go back. Way back. Before any of this. Before the mask...is what I hear.]
Ray Jr stepped out in his blue and silver tights, his version of his father’s mask catching the light. He didn’t wear the fur jacket tonight. He walked out with his arms loose, his eyes on the ring the whole way down.
Billy’s expression didn’t change. He watched his brother walk the aisle, nothing to do but wait for him to arrive.
Ray Jr slid under the bottom rope and rose to his feet in one motion.
The referee checked both men for weapons, patting down Billy’s taped hands extra carefully, remembering the incident with the brass knuckles. He found nothing. He backed off and called for the bell.
Neither man moved.
Ding.
Ray Jr stood in the center of the ring. Billy stood by the ropes. The bell rang again, the timekeeper thinking it hadn’t sounded loud enough, but both brothers stayed rooted where they were, staring at each other across feet of canvas.
[Braxton: The bell has rung. Neither man is moving a muscle.]
[Tanaka: Look at their faces. This isn’t a wrestling match to either one of them right now.]
The referee stepped between them, waving his arms, telling them to engage. Neither one looked at him.
Ray Jr’s mask hid whatever was on his face, but his shoulders were dead still, no rise and fall, like he’d forgotten how to breathe. Billy’s bare eye didn’t blink. Twenty seconds passed. Then thirty. The crowd started a slow clap, trying to will something to happen.
Billy broke first.
He came off the ropes at a speed and threw a forearm that Ray Jr barely got an arm up to block. The impact staggered him back a step. Billy followed with another, catching him clean on the jaw this time, and Ray Jr’s masked head snapped sideways.
Ray Jr answered with a boot to the gut and a European uppercut that folded Billy all the way back, over the middle rope. He grabbed a fistful of Billy’s shirt and yanked him back to center ring, firing off two more uppercuts before Billy shoved him off and connected with a headbutt square to the bridge of the nose.
Smack!
Both men staggered back from each other, breathing hard.
[Tanaka: This won’t be a technical showcase. Just two brothers trying to hurt each other.]
[Braxton: It’s ugly. It’s personal. And the fans are eating up every second of it.]
[Tanaka: You got that right! And so are we.]
Billy caught Ray Jr with a knee to the ribs, doubling him over, then threw him into the corner. He charged in with a running clothesline, but Ray Jr got a boot up at the last second, catching Billy clean in the face and sending him stumbling backward.
Ray Jr climbed to the second rope of the corner. He leaped, catching Billy around the neck with both legs for a hurricanrana, spinning him down hard onto the canvas.
Billy rolled through it, faster than his body should have allowed, and came up swinging. His fist connected with Ray Jr’s temple, and the rookie’s legs buckled.
Ray Jr staggered towards the ropes, using it to support his weight. Billy came in for another clothesline, sending both men over the top rope.
The match spilled out onto the floor, both men trading shots along the barricade. Billy whipped Ray Jr into the steel ring steps. Ray Jr answered by driving Billy’s back into the apron over and over, the sound echoing through the auditorium.
Billy fell to the ground, but Ray wasn’t going to give him breathing room. He picked his brother up and rolled him into the ring, wasted some time before going in himself.
Back in the ring, Billy sprang up, locked in a chinlock, grinding his forearm into Ray Jr’s jaw, dragging out the seconds. Ray Jr fought to his feet, elbowing free, only to catch a knee to the gut that dropped him right back down.
[Braxton: Neither men has controlled the most of this match. Billy bones is bleeding from the mouth, not sure when he got that cut.]
Ray Jr found an opening off a missed clothesline, ducking under and firing off a German suplex that folded Billy backward onto his neck. He held the bridge for the count.
1
2--
Billy kicked out, rolling to the ropes to buy himself room.
Ray Jr hit towards the ropes, building speed, and Billy rose just in time to catch himself a flying forearm that spun him around and dropped him flat on his back.
Ray Jr climbed the turnbuckle. The crowd rose with him, sensing where this was going.
Billy stirred at the last second, rolling out of the ring before Ray Jr could leap, landing hard on the floor, beside the barricade near the broadcast table.
Ray still sprang off the top rope with a moonsault that caught Billy square, both men crashing into the barricade.
[Tanaka: Picture prefect moonsault right there. These two are destroying each other out here!]
Billy shoved Ray Jr off him and staggered toward the announce table, ripping the monitor cables loose with a wild swing of his arm. Braxton and Tanaka scrambled back from their chairs, headsets torn off, retreating a safe distance.
Ray Jr grabbed Billy by the back of the shirt and drove his head into the edge of the table. Billy answered with an elbow to the ribs, forcing Ray Jr to let go, then grabbed him and slammed his back down flat across the tabletop.
The wood groaned under the impact but held.
Billy climbed up onto the table beside him, hauling Ray Jr up by the mask, setting him up for something.
Ray Jr fired back with a forearm, then another, breaking Billy’s grip. He grabbed Billy by the waistband and dragged him up onto his shoulders.
The crowd screamed in anticipation.
Ray Jr hoisted Billy higher, adjusting his footing on the unstable tabletop, and drove Billy down, falling backward with everything he had.
The table exploded beneath them, wood and plastic scattering across the floor. Monitor sparks flickered somewhere in the wreckage.
The Grand Auditorium erupted.
Ray Jr rolled off the debris slowly, favoring one arm, and dragged himself up using the ring apron. He climbed onto the steel steps, then over the top rope, his chest heaving.
The referee waving his hands over the ropes, continued the ongoing ten count, pointing down at Billy buried in the ruined table.
The crowd counted along with him.
Four. Five. Six.
Ray Jr climbed to the top turnbuckle. He looked down at his brother, motionless among the splintered wood, one arm bent awkwardly beneath him.
Seven. Eight.
Billy didn’t get up and wasn’t looking like he was going to for some time.
Nine.
Ray Jr stood up straight on the top turnbuckle, still staring down. The referee was this close to a ten count when Ray leaped off the corner.