Mad Mike's Fish Sandwich: The Beginning, a WOO Lore Story

Hello all you HIVE people and welcome to another writing post. Today we are writing a submission for the contest located here to flesh out the lore for the character Mad Mike in the #NFT game @wrestorgonline. So here ya go.

Mike grumbled as he slowly slurped his bowl of noodles. The vendor in the cart saw his visible disappointment and spoke angrily in Mandarin.

"If you don't like it you can go to another cart" he scolded followed by various expletives' of profanity.

Mike grabbed the vendor's collar and lifted him inches from the ground, the vendor could almost feel mike's stare boring into him.

"Then tell me who I have to break to get a sandwich around here?" Mike rasped. The vendor, wet with perpetration, hastily gestured down the street.

Mike gently let go of the vendor, left some coins on the bar of the noodle cart, and stumbled in the general direction the vendor had gestured in panic.

Mike thought back to his childhood. Fishing on the banks of the Tamsui with his father, or staying inside with his mother baking delicious Roti bread. Sometimes, when his mother wanted to do something very special for them she'd make him and his father her specialty: A fried piece of fish between two pieces of Roti bread adorned with as many vegetables as she could get them to eat. Now some wouldn't call it a sandwich the way his mom did, but to Mike it was the world.

Mike remembered the the happy times, the relaxing moments, and how quickly the sky grew black and it was all taken away. The water tore their straw hut to shreds. All mike remembered from that moment was the taste of water as he hit the ground in an instant.

Other fisherman rescued him after the flood, the villages in the region suffered that year. His parent's never resurfaced, but after a time he knew that they never would. The life that he knew was gone without reason, without the slightest justification.

Mike never forgot his first sandwich, or his parents. Each sandwich brought that same peace he had in the fishing village all that time ago. Less and less with every breaded ecstasy consumed since. Mike couldn't find lasting peace. He tried to forget. Oh how he tried.

He trained to be a elite specialist for the Royal Taiwanese Armed Forces to find some direction beyond stumbling from club sandwich to dance club. Little did he know he had signed up for his own hell with a "martial arts instructor" as his tormentor, a tormentor that would never let him leave his clutches.

His instructor would always strike him faster, dodge his strikes, and parry every blow. The only thing that struck faster and lashed worse was the bile coming from his trainer's mouth or his boot heel against Mike's neck. The revelry he got in doing this was far greater than having any pupil "graduate to the armed forces" or "improve".

That was until the day of Mike's dishonorable discharge.

Mike had been bruised and bloody from the "training" he was being given that day.

"You fishing village reject, You know I NEVER understood why they even let some pathetic wretches in here." the instructor spit on the whickered matting of the dojo floor and continued blathering, but Mike couldn't hear anything anymore.

All he could hear in his head were his father's words and the ringing the blows to his head gave him. He remembered every lazy afternoon of fishing with his father. The way he was always told to "aim not now, but then". His father's first spear always missed where the fish was, but always the second spear was found it's mark without fail. Mike would always wonder why he did not merely throw the first spear faster. And when he asked his father he would always say "Speed without direction is nothing, I throw the first. And then I throw my second. The fish isn't trying to avoid the second spear, just the first a second time".

Mike got up and adapted a stance the instructor hadn't seen before, his hands were curved like barbs and his stance was completely wide open. Blood dripped to the floor from Mike's swollen face. "Not now, but then" he wheezed.

"You really have lost it haven't you you pond scum?" he said as he laughed and assumed a defensive stance. "I'm---" but before he could finish with further derision Mike had stepped forward and swung with his left hand and was easily evaded. "--- going to rip your----" the phrase continued but was quickly cut short by Mike's right hand cleaving through the air only interrupted by a wet slurp.

"Then." Mike uttered as his labored breathing continued, holding the instructor's tongue like a wriggling guppy before tossing it upon the whickered mat.

Mike's hand had tore clean through the his instructor's defense, the air, and (much to the instructor's mortification) straight through his cheeks.

The instructor's eyes grew wide with horror as he tried to speak, but all that came out was distorted garbling. The instructor grabbed his tongue from the ground and left wailing throughout the military base. That's all Mike remembered before succumbing to training from before.

The dishonorable discharge went through despite there being leniency in hand to hand combat training mishaps. The instructor had claimed Mike had used a "hidden sharp implement" to slice through his cheeks and tongue. The court was inclined to believe it, after all what sort of madman could tear a man's tongue out his mouth with just his bare hands.

After the discharge Mike fought in underground rings, but his rampant addiction to both sandwiches and narcotic substances quickly lead him down his current path of poverty, purloined pita bread, and pilfering.

Now he was stumbling towards the next sandwich he could sink he teeth into, his next moment of nostalgic bliss. Stumbling, right into a large caped man with a white T emblazoned on his spandex suit. The man turned around and spoke English he thought, but couldn't be sure. It didn't matter, in moments the large man was prodding Mike in the chest. Mike had nothing to lose, and had reason to believe this man was standing between him and his fish sandwich. Mike reacted, his training kicked in, Mike struck the man and the spandexed behemoth collapsed in a bloody heap.

"Now time for that Sandwich" Thought Mike, the first and only thought he had in numerous minutes that wasn't "Where do I get a sandwich or drugs?". However, before he was able to continue another man with a slick looking mustache slide in front of him with an arm outstretched.

"Hello, My name is Ivan." Spoke the man in broken Mandarin. "And I would like to have a word with you"