A man goes to the doctor.

That's how the old joke always starts, anyhow. "Doctor," he says, "I'm depressed. The world is cruel, life is unfair, reality is harsh and the universe is uncaring. I cannot derive any joy, any love, any hope for the future. Whatever shall I do?"

"Ah," says the doctor, lighting up. The answer, of course, is simple. "The great clown Pagliacci is in town. That should cure you."

The man bursts into tears. “But doctor,” he says, “I am Pagliacci.”

There's little else that's worse than a sad joke. You know the type; it has the look and feel of a joke, it's meant to be humorous, it certainly could be funny, but it just simply isn't.

The fact that this finale, this farce of a tournament, is ending with anything other than a three way dance amongst The Pact is enough of a slap in the face, but the fact that the likes of Danny B and one of Elijah and Caledonia are allowed to be in the conversation is an out and out disgrace. I mean, I'm not allergic to the circus, but these clowns are making me sick.

It's a bad joke. I mean, for Chrissakes, I don't even know for sure who all of my foes are for this one. Two recipients of the most consequential participation trophy in history do battle earlier in the night, presumably to determine who's ass is going to get pinned in the main event. Fuck, Danny B at least was good enough to be spared of that farce.

But really, I'm the only one to blame here. As much as I'd like to, I guess I can't blame clowns for being clowns. After all, I was the one who chose to go to the circus.

May I be spared the fate of becoming one of them, though.

-

"Explain it again," I said. The lights in the lab, already a darkened room in the basement of a converted morgue from the old days, flickered lightly as wild winds howled outside, flecked with razor-sharp ice crystals that stung as Glace and I trekked there that morning. Other than the wind, a ticking clock was the only sound as Dr. James Russell shuffled around the room.

The vampire's words had corroborated the truth of what we had found in the ancient paper archives of a police precinct near the epicentre of Anthropolis. Jarvis King was not given a warrior's death. He did not die in battle, he was not given the opportunity to rise to the godhood he deserved. He was struck down by little more than a collision of vehicles on some London street in the early 21st century.

The small man, at least a foot shorter than me, craned his neck up to look at me, his skin a pale olive tone, accented by thick white eyebrows and a ring of salt-and-pepper hair around the base of his skull. His eyes, watery grey, were almost cartoonishly large behind his thick spectacles as he simpered up at me, creasing his too-large mouth into a sympathetic smile.

Pathetic.

Not him - me. He didn't even fear me. He was pitying me.

"Well," Russell said, shuffling back behind his desk - a spartan slab of metal that once served as the examination table for the post-mortem examinations, "through a process that takes advantage of particular geographical areas of significance, we extract the consciousness of a historical person and place it into a host body."

"English," snapped Glace. She was domineering, intimidating, but looking into her eyes I could see the worry. Most of my once mighty Vengeance had left me when the news came out. Only she, and a handful of other, lesser followers were still with me. The tribes were already at war in North America.

"Put simply," said the small Doctor, his patience apparently unending, "we bring Jarvis King back and place him in a body."

-

Elijah, the Philosopher King of professional wrestling. Yours is a name that I know, and your participation in this tournament - I won't lie - disappointed me. You stand in defiance of the Amoralists, and yet you cannot stand on your own two feet. A competitor of your background, of your breeding, ought to have been as near to undefeated as you could have been in a grouping of talent like the Infernalia, but yet, here you are, scrapping with the dregs to even get a shot. Don't get me wrong, it's not like Danny B got to where he is on anything but his own merit, but that ought to have been you, Elijah.

Maybe something in the past broke the Elijah that I knew of. Maybe Elisha's dominance over you was so great that you were never the same. Maybe the forces that brought you here proved too damaging to bring a version of you that's worthy of your own name. Maybe you're just as broken as Eris, as Omega, as all the other misfit toys that you've surrounded yourself with. Maybe you just miss your old friends.

Amber. Chris. Angelica, before she became whatever she is now.

Maybe it doesn't matter anyhow, because just like them, you were never a match for my blood, let alone me. You were never more than a gnat, a buzzing pest, and now you're apparently incapable of being even that.

I hope for your sake that Caledonia puts you out of your misery in the early going, Elijah. Because honestly, you're just so damn sad that I can't stand to think what I would have to do to you if you made it past her.

It'd break my heart to break you, old man. Don't take that as hesitance, though. I, like any good King, have an appropriate amount of kindness for the lesser beings that populate my world, and sometimes that kindness means being ruthless. It sometimes means providing pity through pain.

Sometimes, you have to put an old dog down, Elijah.

-

"Oh yes," Dr. Russell said, adjusting his near comic glasses. "We simply find a host body and upon a thunder storm through the night of a full moon..."

"Seriously?" interrupted Glace. She was masking her considerable worry with hostility, whether she was aware or not. "Should we get an eye of newt too, or is that considered passe?"

A font of patience, Russell smiled up at her. "My dear," he said, "we live in incredibly interesting times; the facts of what work in science need not be understood for them to still be true."

"Fine," I said, shortly. "We'll do it. We'll find a body and bring him back."

"Excellent!" Russell clasped his hands together and simpered even more cloyingly. "That will give you a good month with your loved one, then."

-

I hope you enjoyed what you did, Caledonia.

I genuinely mean it. That must have felt nice. On the same night that you got a rare victory, you ended proceedings, in turn ruining my night. You've seen how things have gone for me, Caledonia. You must have watched on in envy, seeing that while you struggled to find any success at all, I was more than capable of practically sleepwalking to excellence, ruining the lives and careers of the Scorpion and the madwoman all the while.

It must have felt good to get one over on me. It must have felt good to get a little modicum of revenge for what I did to you the night that The Pact became a matter of public record. It must have felt nice to end your night the subject of the spotlight rather than the one staring up at the ceiling.

And just to be 100% clear, I'm referring to you getting pinned, not the boring lovemaking that Highlander subjects you to. For what it's worth, though - if you ever want to go from being the wife of a Hammer to a concubine of a King, you need only ask, sweetheart.

But honestly, there's not much need. If you want to know what it's like to be well and truly fucked, just beat Elijah, Caledonia. Because if you do, you're going to learn what that feels like. Sure, you've struggled before now - who could blame you when you look at the competition - but being a Bright Young Thing, you must be smart enough to know that making it to the main event at Frozen Over isn't an accomplishment - it's a punishment.

So I hope you had a good time on Friday, because at Frozen Over, you've got a choice between the ignominy of defeat, or the devastation of destruction at the hands of yours truly. I promise you, either way, you're fucked.

I've never been one for BDSM, but I'm willing to make an exception for you, Caledonia.

-

I did not hide my disapproval in any way, shape or form. The little man leapt in his seat, a pathetic flinch of fear as I slammed my hand onto his table and the metal rang out in protest.

"Well, yes," he quivered, "w-were you expecting something different?"

"What the fuck," I seethed, "is the fucking point of a goddamn month?!" I stood, glowering down at the miniscule doctor as he seemed to shrink into his chair.

"A-a month of life is extraordinary for a body that is already dead!"

"Let's go," said Glace as I glowered down at Russell. She was turning to leave as a thought struck me.

"A body that is already dead?"

"Y-yes," he replied.

"So what of one that is not dead? Would that...extend things?"

-

Ripper, Ripper, Ripper.

There's something appropriate about that name, Daniel. You've accidentally been clever in your choice of moniker, though certainly not in the way that you think that you have. It's a funny thing about you that I've observed; you're clever, no doubt, but mostly by accident, and never to the degree that you think that you are.

The Leather Apron of Whitechapel, isn't it? Good ole Jack? I mean, how appropriate that you've not only stolen your name, but stolen it from a mythical creature whose real name is unclear. I mean, Jesus - people wonder if Shakespeare wrote all of his plays, a question that can be answered to some degree of certainty through analysis of written works of him and his contemporaries - imagine the difficulty in parsing the actions of an unidentified serial killer from copycats in an age long before even mid-20th century forensics.

But leave it to Danny B to see a name that sounds cool, an aesthetic that seems interesting, and glom onto it immediately while missing the obvious symbolism.

You've spent your entire career acting as a copycat, Daniel.

I'm not diminishing you, Danny. I know who you are, I know what you've done, I know the ways in which you are truly, genuinely, impressive. But, just like your nickname, you're not impressive for the reasons that you think that you are. You've had successes - titles, accolades, Hall of Fame worthy and achieved - but your biggest accomplishment? Never getting caught.

Like I said, Danny - you're accidentally brilliant.

You started your career, essentially replacing my kin in the Cyndicate when Chaolin Sahn recognized that having a superior competitor as his subordinate was not going to last. You effectively replaced Chaolin Sahn when his house of cards finally tumbled around him, as they so often inevitably do. From there, you established yourself at the top of the world, once again, in the wake of your betters simply not being there anymore.

I'd call you a flash in the pan, but I simply don't think you're that bright.

If you were, you'd be running away from the danger that faces you, Danny. Hell, you would've avoided the chance of being found out and never got yourself into the situation you're in now. You think The Pact is full of shit? Prove it, jackass. Step up to three men who are united in purpose and in talent and prove that you've got more substance than a clickbait headline.

But you can't Danny, because you know that a headline can't stand up to the genuine article.

-

After several seconds of silence, he finally spoke up. "I...I simply do not know. Hypothetically," he said, the puzzle almost overriding the fear as he reached out to grab a note pad to sketch out some arcane scientific formulae, and try to work it out on the fly. "Hypothetically it would work, but I don't know the ramifications of--"

"We will do it," I said, definitively.

-

There are no friends in this business. I know that you two are the last people who need to be reminded of this fact, but it's true; I doubt the veracity of any so-called friendship in this business to the point that I find the strength of the marriage between Highlander and Caledonia more than a bit suspect (PS, again, Cali - call me). Any fool who believes that they've found a friend is just expressing that they're ready to be stabbed in the back.

But that doesn't mean that respect, admiration and esteem don't exist either.

When we dreamt up The Pact, it was always coming to this; the final of Infernalia would always feature at least two of us, and with the Amoralist change of tune and plans, it became obvious that it would be all three of us taking up our rightful residence in the main event come Frozen Over. We stood in the ring in front of the world and predicted as much, and stood as equals.

And Harlan, Shane - we are equals.

We are equals in skill, ruthlessness, violence and malice, and we stand head and shoulders above the entire field of Infernalia, the true finalists of this tournament, no matter who or how many of the small, insignificant ants that we already defeated join us in the main event. This tournament was always destined to come down to one of us with our hand raised.

The Pact is stronger than one match. It is stronger than one result, one tournament, one title, one pinfall, one victor.

Shane, you are a machine, an undeniable competitor hellbent on success and driven to it by a desire that most only pretend at having. It goes without saying that your allyship with my kin was what initially drew me to you, but it is not why I chose to ally myself with you in the end - it was your capabilities, your artistry in inflicting pain and your towering skill.

Harlan, you are a monster, but not the kind that children fear. You're something more than a boogeyman, lurking in a dark room; something more sinister and fearful due to one simple fact - you are undeniably real and painfully, terrifyingly inevitable. To play against The House is foolhardy because of that old tautology - the House always wins. Why wouldn't I want that kind of monster on my side?

So what of the crucial moment, gentlemen? What happens when we, inevitably, have to cast aside our pre-existing understanding and the match becomes every man for himself?

I, for one, can't wait for that to happen. Because I know that I'm going to win.

We are equals, gentlemen, in all ways except one.

I need this.

I need this victory, this result, this title in a way that neither of you do. I need the proof, the external validation, the undeniable evidence of the fact that I am worthy of my forefather's name, that I am truly built in his image, that I am, as he was, a champion.

I have no fear of appearing pitiful or pathetic in this desire. It is the one time that such a weakness would be, undoubtedly, a strength. I will stop at nothing, find nothing too depraved, to get what I desire, to get what I want, to get what I need.

I need this, gentlemen. Like a fish needs water. Like a drunk needs alcohol.

I need to win.

-

"We will find a subject," said Glace.

"No," he said, shaking his small head. The gall of the old man, to deny a King, was almost heroic. "I cannot abide that, I'm sorry. I know that this may mean my undoing but I simply cannot cross that line. I cannot experiment on an unwilling subject."

"Oh," said Glace, a sense of malice in her voice that bordered on sexual, "they'll be willing."

Russell smiled. "I know that they won't be, my dear."

I sat in silence, puzzling out the issue. I could kill the small man, of course, but that would not solve the problem of bringing back Jarvis, of giving him the life - and death - he deserved.

The answer to the dilemma hung in the air like a thick fog.

"Then I'll do it," I said.

A man goes to the doctor.

"Doctor," he says, "I'm depressed. I stand at the top of my game, but my world has changed. Things that I believed to be true are no longer the case. I am lost. Whatever shall I do?"

The answer is simple.

Make them all bow down.