Mr. Blue Starts a Coup - SCP Foundation

aka The Great Mystrian Screwjob

BOOM

The ground shook as another shell rocked the president's mansion. Cracks tentacled across the ceiling of the foyer, raining dust and rubble on the patchwork group of politicians and loyalist soldiers retreating further inside. President Rojas, the first elected leader of the Democratic Commonwealth of Mystria, elbowed her way to the front of the crowd and gazed out the window, her stoic demeanor masking her spiking heartbeat.

Her guard had been completely overwhelmed. It was barely even a fight. Armored vehicles had now completely surrounded the building, as men in darkly colored uniforms––emblazoned with the flag of the country that had elected her not two weeks ago––vaulted the fence and pressed on to the mansion. She exhaled slowly through her nose as the soldiers opened the gate, escorting an unwelcome guest inwards. Rojas turned and waved her hand at the few remaining guards left who, with uncertain expressions, lowered their weapons to the ground. The fight was over, and it wouldn't do to further endanger the lives of the people in this building trying to resist.

The president flinched slightly at the sound of a gunshot right at the other side of the door. The metal doorknob fell out of place, hot and smoking as its other half was blown off the door. It swung open aggressively as legions of traitorous soldiers swarmed the room, surrounding the loyalists on all sides. Even with contingents of the men breaking off to search the rest of the mansion for stragglers, they still outnumbered the group by more than five to one. No, this was not a fight they could have won.

"Bajarlos!" The soldiers collectively untrained their weapons from the foreheads of every person in this room, and those nearest to the door parted ways.

Their leader announced himself with a thick cloud of smoke from his cigar before he gave the order. General Ricardo Muñoz, the military party chairman and their former presidential candidate, strode into the room. "Valeria." He bore a condescending smirk on his face as he addressed the new president by her first name.

"General." Rojas fixed a cold glare on Muñoz, but not so cold as to betray her overwhelming anger. Her frustration would only sweeten his victory. "So nice of you to invite yourself. My condolences about the election."

Muñoz tapped his cigar, raining ash down on the Persian rug before the doorway. "That will be Mr. President after a proper recount has been conducted."

Valeria ignored the general's snideness. "I don't know what you hope to accomplish today. The people of Mystria cast off military rule once before and they will do so again."

"I am a champion of the people, Valeria. They will realize that soon enough. You, on the other hand, are a charlatan, bought and paid for by the United States and their other imperialist backers."

"I've never taken a penny from a foreign government."

"Oh, I'm sure something will turn up between now and your trial."

The president narrowed her eyes. "You will get what is coming to you soon enough, Ricardo."

The general folded his arms behind his back and gazed across the interior of the mansion, admiring the handiwork of his soldiers who bombed it near to collapsing. "The state of this mansion will not do. We'll make sure to fix it with the same care as when we fix this nation. And you, Valeria, will have a front-row view. Take them away."

Muñoz broke his gaze with Valeria as she and everyone else were hauled off in handcuffs, and waltzed through his new home. It was a new dawn for Mystria.

The "recount" went as well as expected. Muñoz's seventeen-point loss was corrected to a twenty-point victory. The general had the nation's new flag prepared even before his rushed inauguration. He took the green and orange banner, which represented the Sun and Mystria's fertile lands, and replaced it with alternating red, black and silver stripes––the red symbolizing blood and strength, and the black and silver symbolizing their burgeoning oil and steel industries. The new flags unraveled from the rooftops of every building within eyeshot of the procession parade.

Muñoz rode through the streets in the back of a convertible limo, flanked on both sides by marching soldiers and covered in front and from behind by Su-76 tank destroyers: decrepit machines imported from Russia long before the fall of the Soviet Union, but every one still capable of leveling any building in its sights. The general, riding through a rain of confetti, waved to the crowds of citizens who clapped and cheered with all the enthusiasm of somebody forced to do so at turretpoint.

He exited the vehicle, surrounded on all sides by his guards as they escorted him to position. Muñoz ascended the podium stairs, alone, and addressed the people of Mystria, and the news cameras allowed into his country for the first time in several decades just for this special occasion.

"People of Mystria. We have toiled long years to reach this moment, to purge foreign aggressors and extant rebels draped in the guise of democracy. But on this day, from this stage I say to you, our hardships are over!" Muñoz pumped his fists to the cheers of his paid supporters.

"Our great nation, free from all interference, has been returned to the careful guidance of the state, and the umbrella of the greatest military force on the continent! Once again we shall be a nation worthy of respect! There are some who claim that our methods were too harsh. To those Mystrians who do not believe in the resilience of our people, from the voters who do: You are outnumbered! The road to greatness, to a seat at the highest tables of the world order, is not paved with feebleness! I know that history shall absolve me, as your support has strengthened me!"

Muñoz fought hard to suppress his smirk at the coming lines. "And our great government, though mighty, is vulnerable. To the threats of faux democracy, and an electoral system bought and paid for by our disgraced almost-president! And so I stand before you now as the savior of the Mystrian state! The rightful President of our Commonwealth! The champion of true democracy!"

"OH YEAH?"

The mysterious voice was deafening, overpowering Muñoz despite his microphone. Before anyone could spot its source, a row of pyrotechnics at the far end of the street went off. Then another. Then another. Like dominos, they went off in two parallel columns of fire and sparkles and accelerated to the foot of the street.

That's strange, those weren't supposed to go off yet, Muñoz thought.

An array of fireworks at the foot of the stage, which he was sure he didn't order to be put there, went off in a blinding burst of light. Muñoz had to shield his eyes as sparks rained down on him. As the spots cleared from his eyes, a looming shadow came into view right in front of him. The interloper was massive, standing a clear three heads taller than him, and built like an ox. He wore nothing but purple spandex over his lower body. But most peculiar of all was his blue skin, and purple hair which he fashioned into a mullet.

The entity at first faced the crowd, striking a series of bodybuilding poses. He seemed completely oblivious to the dictator behind him, or the legions of soldiers frantically aiming their weapons and trying to line up a shot that wouldn't strike their general behind him.

The blue man spun full circle, snatching Muñoz's microphone out of his hand and again facing the crowd, who watched in stunned silence. "HELLLLLOOOOOOO MYSTRIA! LET MR. BLUE HEAR YOU MAKE SOME NOISE!"

The confused masses, only a few of whom could understand his English, made only a single clap and a few coughs. But Big Blue was not deterred. "Now Mr. President, I'm sorry for interruptin' your promo, but I had a few notes! One, keep your back straight. Two, speak with your chest. And three, don't you call yourself the champ in Mr. Blue's hometown!"

Muñoz cocked his head to the side, and responded with as much English as he knew. "You are from Mystria?"

"NOPE! But it sure feels like home, don't it?" He pumped his microphone in the air out towards the crowd, to another silent response.

"Now you all might be thinkin', what brings the globe-trottin', ass-whooping, champ of champs to our neck of the woods? Well, let the Cerulean Savage tell ya: Because THIS MAN!" He spun and pointed a finger at Muñoz. "Calls himself a president! Now I dunno what those political scientists told ya, hell, I ain't even an engineer myself! But it ain't a democracy unless you gotta go through Big Blue! So I'm about to take that acceptance speech, roll it up real tight, and shove it right up your junta!"

Mr. Blue grabbed Muñoz's podium and ripped it out of the ground, tearing its steel base apart like papier mache. The guards attempted to train their weapons on the indigo interloper, but before they could pull the trigger, the last of the fireworks surrounding the stand erupted a spray of sparks and blinding light, causing them to miss wildly into the air. With one mighty swing, Mr. Blue broke the stand over the general's head so hard that the medals flew off his uniform like shrapnel.

The Lapiz Leviathan reared his head back and let out a deafening war cry. "BLUE BOMB!" He then grabbed Muñoz by the waist, flipped him up into a seated position on his shoulders, and leaped off the stage, soaring through the sky before crashing down with his trademark sit-out powerbomb right onto the hood of the general's convertible limo. The front half of the vehicle crumpled like a can of cola, with smoke and oil leaking out and onto the street. Mr. Blue then pulled the broken, but still very much alive, general from the scrapheap that was once a thirteen million dollar car, laid him out for a pin, and delivered the count himself, slapping the street with one hand.

"ONE!"

"TWO!"

"THREE!"

Mr. Blue stood victorious, pumping his fists in the air. The people of Mystria still had no idea what just happened, and looked at the blue foreigner in stunned silence. Then they saw the bruised and beaten body of their dictator lying at his feet.

And they erupted into a deafening cheer.

Elsewhere, in a clandestine laboratory a continent away, Researcher Stanford Ryan peered closely through an electron microscope. The substance below him was the bone marrow of a new SCP. The other researchers were stumped at how it worked, but Ryan could feel a breakthrough coming on. After countless hours of crunching numbers, crossing out entire paragraphs on his idea board, and staring blankly at the tissue sample waiting for it to do something, he saw it. A small, microscopic movement. A shape coming into view. He refocused the lens and looked closer. Closer…

"Hey Stan!"

Startled, Ryan looked away from his project at the source of the voice. Containment Specialist Johnathan Hooke, a retired MTF operative turned researcher (who knew damn well that Ryan hated being called 'Stan') welcomed himself into the laboratory.

Ryan, panickingly, looked back into his microscope. It was gone. All he could see was the last glimpse of a black shape burrowing back into the marrow. "Dammit, dammit, dammit! Knock first, Hooke!"

Hooke put his hands up pleadingly, but the smile never left his face. "Yeah, yeah, calm down, Stan. I found something you might wanna see."

Ryan bend his arms at cartoonish angles as he furious pointed at his microscope. "This! I wanted to see THIS!" He looked back through the lens. Whatever that thing was, it was gone now. He sighed. "What is it?"

Hooke pulled an electronic tablet out of his coat and put it in front of Ryan's face.

Ryan squinted his eyes. "Is that…?"

"What the hell? No! How?"

"Yeah, that's the same reaction the Site Director had. Hey, what should we call this on the mission report, Blue's Coups?" Hooke chuckled before his expression darkened suddenly. "Yeah, in all seriousness, this is pretty bad."

"How did this even happen?"

"Well, have you ever heard of the Democratic Commonwealth of Mystria?"

"That doesn't even sound like a real country."

"Uh-huh, well, it is, so try to suspend your disbelief.1 It's a South American dictatorship. Their general, Ricardo Muñoz, just won a maybe, probably, definitely rigged election. And Blue here crashed his acceptance speech. Next thing you know, they throw a uniform on him and called him 'General Blue.'"

"Oh my God, this big blue dumbass cannot be the one to break the Veil."

"Well, there are some positives. Like I said, this is a dictatorship. We managed to kill the feed of the election as soon as he showed his face, and, lucky for us, they've got tight borders and no Internet access. So this hasn't hit world news yet."

"Okay, okay. So send Nu-7 in there and turn him into blue paste before word gets out."

"Yeah, not exactly a lot of subtlety in starting an open war with a South American government. We're trying to figure out something with a bit more discretion. And nobody knows more about 7370 than you."

"Because he hospitalized me and drew Hulk Hogan on my diploma?"2

"Exactly. Any thoughts?"

Ryan rubbed his temples. "Okay, so, 7370's got a pretty loose understanding of what a 'champ' is, right? So he goes around beating people up and stealing whatever physical object they use as a title. Well, what do you steal from a dictator besides his country?"

"Okay, that's the why. But how do we get him to give it up?"

"It's too soon to figure that out. I don't want to psychoanalyze 7370 anymore because he's got a brain the size of a walnut, but we should get boots on the ground and observe him up close."

"Sounds good, I'll see you in the hangar in an hour?"

Ryan laughed. "Pfft, I'm fine right here, thank you. You're the ex-marine, special ops, whatever you are. Go yourself."

"What, are you scared of 7370 or someth––"

"Yes." Ryan plopped in his swivel chair and spun back to his desk. "Have a safe flight."

In the capital of Mystria, their decrepit loudspeaker system crackled to life. Those who managed to smuggle American pop culture into their country recognized the ensuing guitar riff immediately, as "The Cult of Personality" began playing throughout the city.

General Blue kicked open the golden gates to the presidential mansion, decked out in a steam-pressed military uniform. Every stride of his power walk caused the mess of dazzling medals (all of which he awarded himself the night before) to jingle like chimes. His stone-faced bodyguards flanked him on either side in their new blue uniforms, with facepaint to match.

As Big Blue Brother sauntered down the streets, his terrified denizens scampered out of his path. Men and women pulled their children of the streets, street vendors cowered behind their carts, and even the animals––half-starved cats and dogs, and stray farm animals––seemed to stray away nervously. Their seven-foot-eight ruler took no notice, taking in the sights and smells of his domain as he continued along his way. His trek came to an abrupt stop as he reached the town square, desolate except for the marble water fountain, perhaps the most ornate object in this otherwise squalid town.

Blue snapped his fingers, and a bodyguard carried a microphone to his side, resting on a red velvet pillow. He inhaled deeply as he put the device to his lips. "FINALLY! THE CHAMP HAS COME BACK TO PHILADELPHIA!" A guard whispered something in his ear. "You sure? MYSTRIA! AND HE'S BRINGING HELL WITH HIM! SO WHO'S GONNA ANSWER THE THIRD WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION'S OPEN CHALLENGE, AND TAKE A SHOT AT THE GOLD?"

Crickets.

The streets were completely desolate. How could any self-respecting man pass up a shot at the gold? he wondered. He stroked his purple goatee as he thought of a solution. If these challengers ain't gonna bring the fight to Big Blue, he's gonna bring the challenge to them!

Mr. Blue eyed the one lone figure still on the street: a middle-aged man, scurrying along with a brown paper bag. "YOU!" He pointed a big blue finger at the startled denizen. "CONGRAT–U–LATIONS! WHILE YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS DUCKED AND RAN, YOU SHOWED THEM WHAT A REAL MACHO MAN LOOKS LIKE BY STEPPING INTO THE RING OF HONOR!"

The quivering man responded in broken English. "Please, General, I was only passing thr––"

"BUT THAT AIN'T GONNA DO YOU ANY GOOD WHEN I WRING YOUR NECK! NOW GIVE ME YOUR BEST SHOT!"

"I–– I don't want…" The man jumped when he saw the guards watching him, expectingly. He wouldn't dare disobey an order by General Blue, people have disappeared for less during the reign of Muñoz. He closed his eyes and winced as he reared he arm back, winded up with all the strength in his core, and whallopped Blue in the chest… pitifully. The frail man's punch bounced off the dictator's chest, as if it were a piece of paper thrown against a gust of wind.

Blue blinked twice. "What was that?"

The man shrieked and stammered. "I am sorry, General Blue! I didn't mean–– I couldn't, I…"

The Cerulean Caesar grabbed the man by the wrist and hoisted him up like a bag of groceries. His sleeve fell down to reveal an emaciated, almost skeletal arm. Mr. Blue, as strong as he was, was shocked at how light the man was. His gaze drifted down to the paper bag, its contents––a container of soup and a piece of bread––now scattered on the ground.

He dropped the man. "Brother, you gotta put some protein in your diet if you're gonna throw a real punch!"

"G-G-G-General Blue, these are my rations. This is what we were given from the storehouses this morning."

"…that's it?"

"Yes sir. Not that I am complaining, I am grateful that the state spared me this much!"

Mr. Blue fumed. "How the Hell are you guys supposed to bulk off a kids' menu? You people are gonna start eating right! Red meat, lean greens, and franks and beans! BUT NO TRANS FATS!"

Slowly, cautiously, the citizens began opening their blinds and peering their heads outside. One woman stepped out of her door, cautiously, but with the hint of a smile forming at the corners of her mouth. "Does this mean…" she said, in Spanish. "…My God, he's opening the storehouses!"

The people flooded the streets, whooping and hollering. "General Blue! General Blue!" they chanted in unison.

Their Spanish thank-yous fell on Mr. Blue's deaf, English-speaking ears. "OH, FINALLY SOME CHALLENGERS! THAT'S RIGHT, BULK UP! I'LL EVEN SPOT YOU, OH YEAH!"

There were many similar such incidents in Mystria. That afternoon, the Sapphire Stalin threatened to teach a small child "a lesson." Passersby fawned at the apparent proclamation that he was building a new school. The next day, the Aquamarine Mao told a teenager in a wheelchair that he would hit him so hard he would "wake up in another country." And so began the first student exchange program in the nation's history. The Benevolent Blue Batista, a day yet later, cornered an 84-year-old man feeding the ducks at the pond within his retirement community. He got in the elder's face, jamming a hot dog-sized finger in his nose. "I am going to kick your ass. Actually, really, literally, with no subtext or metaphors involved. I will hurt you." But one of those threats must have sounded close enough to the Spanish word for "social security" that this announcement was still a big hit.

As the Iron Curtain fell in Mystria, the Great Language Barrier rose in its place.

A bump in the road caused Hooke to fly out of his seat, smacking the back of his head into the aluminum ceiling of the Foundation van. "Ow! Motherfbrbr!"

Ryan's voice crackled in the specialist's earpiece. "Uh, Hooke? It's pronounced fu––"

"Will you two be quiet?" Captain Harry Burns glowered over his inconspicuous sunglasses. Neither he nor the rest of Hooke's escort from the City Slickers were pleased to have been dragged to another continent on such short notice. "It's like you've never infiltrated a third-world dictatorship before."

Hooke crossed his arms. "I don't respond to sarcasm."

"I don't care as long as you respond to orders." Burns turned to face the rest of the agents in the car, swaying like bobbleheads with the rising and falling of their transport. "Listen up: Mystria isn't your average dictatorship. Its people are starving, desperate, and paranoid. Their government cracked down hard on all forms of political opposition and foreign influence."

Hooke raised his hand. "That sounds exactly like your average dictatorship."

"Point taken. Now shut up. You need to do more than dress the part to blend in, you need to act it too. Keep your eyes down, hunch your shoulders, and don't talk to anyone. In any other espionage operation, they'll tell you not to look suspicious. Everyone here is suspicious."

The van rolled to an abrupt stop.

"Alright, this is the drop point. Mystria's capital is one of the most militarized cities on earth. So, men, be smart, stay safe, and keep your cover." The doors creaked open as the captain led his squad out to the streets.

One by one, the agents filed out, spaced out just enough that it wasn't obvious they were a group. Hooke came up last. He felt silly wearing his dirt-stained trousers and decorative vest––which, despite Burns' reassurances, he was sure wasn't geographically accurate. He had never liked disguises, his family didn't even celebrate Halloween. But for their plan to work, Ryan had to push his nonexistent acting chops to their limit. It was a two-mile walk from the back alley the Foundation van was parked in to the president's mansion. He'd read the reports of wild dogs, marauding gangs, and death and disease around every corner.

But, on the very first corner he rounded into the streets, he was greeted with… celebration? Local Mystrians danced through the city streets, whooping and hollering. Every single man, woman, child, and elder on the streets wore blue facepaint, blue jerseys, some even blue foam fingers. Blue and purple confetti rained from every rooftop, civil servants pushed carts through the streets dispensing blue raspberry-flavored snow cones and cotton candy. Waves of citizens crowded together, and in the very middle stood one, certain, large blue man, clad in a purple general's uniform.

Hooke's earpiece crackled to life. "Uh… what are we looking at?" asked Ryan. The researcher had a front-row view of the circus before Pi-1 through their bodycam feed. The fact that their resident SCP-7370 expert was (reasonably) confused did little to encourage Hooke.

Hooke answered the call. "Do you… do you think he's forcing them to do this?"

A little boy pushed through the crowd and handed General Blue a poster of himself draped in the Mystrian flag. The Blue Baron patted the boy on the head and autographed the poster with a purple marker. He then grabbed the boy by the shoulder and posed with him for the cameras, flexing a bicep. "OH YEAH!" Blue bellowed. "¡OH SÍ!"3 the crowd chanted in response.

"No… he's not smart enough to do that. I think this is real."

As Hooke looked around, he didn't see any signs of the squalor he had been warned about. Everyday citizens walked by with grocery bags full of fresh produce and full bellies, and clean clothes, although most opted to wear wrestling paraphernalia. Where once there were streets full of abandoned, condemned buildings, now the capital was packed with brand new storefronts, including a six-story tall Slim Jim factory. Hooke had glanced at a Wikipedia page about the Mystrian economy and recalled that their dollar was all but worthless due to hyperinflation. But instead, he spotted civilians exchanging what appeared to be an all-new currency: blue coinage with the faces of famous pro wrestlers etched across their fronts. Somehow, against rhyme or reason, the dumbest anomaly4 in the Foundation's database was doing… a good job?

He spoke into his communicator once again. "Won't that make step three a little complicated?"

"Let's get through step two, first." Ryan took a brief pause, during which Hooke could swear he heard something reminiscent of a chuckle on the other end. "Hey Hooke, remember that time you made me dress as a referee for 7370's first containment procedure?"

"Yeah?"

"You know, right after he powerbombed me through a table, broke my collarbone, and stole my diploma?"

"…Vaguely."

"Uh-huh. I've got a special job for you."

Creak

"General Blue?"

Mr. Blue looked up from his desk and squinted over his comically small pair of reading glasses. One of the pencilnecks from the Army was nervously peeking into his Opal Office. He was a short man with a well-kept mustache. Everybody was short next to Blue, of course, so the Azul Abomination wouldn't hold it against him.

"C'mon in pipsqueak, grab yourself a chair! I'll give you a front-row view as Big Blue lays the SMACKDOWN on this subprime mortgage crisis!"

"Yes, thank you, sir." As the man walked the rest of the way into the room, Mr. Blue was blasted by the waft of a familiar aroma. Had the aide not walked in with the package, Blue felt he may have floated to it like he would to a freshly baked apple pie on a windowsill. As the man crossed the doorway, Blue could see he was holding a gift basket overflowing with Slim Jims. But not just any run-of-the-mill long bois. These were SAVAGETM Slim Jims, inspired by the original "Macho Man," Randy Savage himself. Blue wasn't sure what they were filled with exactly, the ingredients list was too long. They were probably only fit to be read aloud by a priest, anyway. But if he had to guess, they were full of beef, pork, mechanically separated chicken, and the golden ichor that flowed through the veins of Greek gods.5

"Gimme gimme gimme!" Blue snatched the basket greedily, wrapping it in a bear hug. "Who do I owe a ma-cho thank you to?"

"They said they were with the 'Foundation Wrestling Federation,' General."

Blue cocked a purple eyebrow. "Those chuckleheads?" He spotted a grey envelope hidden in the mix. It had a sticker on the back that looked like the promotion's logo, a circle with three arrows running through it. He tore it open, but immediately decided he wasn't reading all that. "Read, nerd."

The aide cautiously grabbed the letter as Blue stuck it in the air. He cleared his throat. "Dear Mister Blue––"

"You trying to bore the champ to death? Skip ahead."

The aide's eyes darted hurriedly from side to side, picking out every important detail. "The… Foundation says that you have missed too many matches, and that they will be stripping you of your title if you do not return to Site-19."6

The aide jumped as a pair of big blue hands thudded against the desktop. "They're stripping me… the champ… of his BELT?" the Color-Coded Khan fumed. "They're gonna give Big Blue an ultimatrix?7 Nobody puts the Teal Titan in a corner!"

"Well hold on, General. They don't say that you have to relinquish your presidency. In fact, they'll let you keep both."

"…Go on."

"They say they'll let you do one last title match in Mystria, then you need to return to the FWF. Otherwise, they'll terminate your contract."

"Me like-y the sound'a that. And what's the government got to say about it?"

"That would be you, sir."

"Oh." Mr. Blue opened a desk and pulled out a handheld mirror. "Can I go back to the FWF?"

His reflection flashed a thumbs up. "You betch'er bottom dollar Big Blue! And that's one migh-tee goa-tee you're rocking there!"

"Aw, you'd make me blush if I could do that instead of just turning a slightly darker shade of blue. You're rocking some super stubble yourself, champ! Whaddya dye it with?"

"Dye!? You watch-er damn mouth, Mr. Blue is all natural! Not like you, ya puffed up steroid droid!"

"Gasp. Just cause you've never seen the inside of a gym don't mean you get to piss on my form! Maybe if you put some creatine in your diet, your transverse abdominis wouldn't look like a deflated whoopee cushion!" Mr. Blue threw the mirror against the far wall, shattering it into a million pieces. "That guy was a dick!" He rubbed his temples. "Set up a squared circle, looks like I've got some ass to kick!"

The aide gleamed. "Right away, sir! I have just the opponent for you!"

"Cool, cool. Hey string bean, while I gotcha, I know Mystria isn't technically supposed to have weapons-grade uranium––"

"Or NATO would invade, yes sir."

"––Right, right. I was just scrolling on Wikipedia, did'ju know 1 gram has 20 billion calories? On a completely unrelated note, the champ's thinking he's got to start bulking, and––"

"Please don't eat uranium, sir."

"I wasn't gonna!" Mr. Blue folded his arms and pouted. "Go find me an opponent, or whatever."

"Right away sir." The aide walked out of the office and shut the door, just in time to miss the champ pulling a not-at-all suspicious glowing green protein shake out of his desk drawer.

•

•

•

The aide held his lapel-pin close to his mouth. The microphone on the back was just small enough that it was completely invisible to anybody without a magnifying glass. "The plan is a go." Specialist Hooke ripped off his fake mustache. "Ow."

The San Muñoz prison was, to many Mystrians, a place of nightmares. Many men and women, mostly journalists and politicians, entered that grim, concrete hexacomb. Far fewer returned. Today, more people flooded the prison than even during the purges that defined General Muñoz's rule…

…for BlueMania! The prison's biggest block was cleared out to pave the way for a makeshift wrestling ring, each side of which was decorated in the likeness of the event's sponsor, their glorious blue leader. The floor was covered in bleachers and folding chairs, and when the government ran out of room for those, they cleared out the cell blocks to form spectator booths. At the center of the complex, they erected a makeshift wrestling ring decorated on the outside with the likeness of their glorious blue leader, as well as the names of various sponsors, including but not limited to Slim Jim, Prime, and an Iranian black market weapons dealer.

Hooke sifted his way through the crowd, donning a striped referee's uniform and a new handlebar mustache. He pressed the ear piece. "Ryan, I swear to God, this better wo–"

bzzt "Enjoy your karma. From experience, that uniform rides up on you."

The specialist knew he deserved that. SCP-7370's standard containment procedures were… unorthodoxed. It was Hooke's idea to have the big blue brute beat up D-Classes for fun, but he sure as H–E–double hockey sticks wasn't going to play referee himself. Ryan, on the other hand, was a Level 2 researcher at the time. By Foundation standards, he was basically an intern with a master's degree.

Oh well, what goes around…

Hooke flashed a signal to the ringside attendants, who rang a bell to silence the murmuring crowds. A microphone hung by a cable descended from the ceiling into the hands of a slightly pudgy ring announcer donning a tuxedo.

The man cleared his throat. "¡Damas y caballeros, bienvenidos al evento principal!" The crowd roared.

Hooke had taken maybe five years of Spanish between middle and high school. He could keep a conversation, but couldn't match the speed of native speakers, and was only able to pick up every other word. It was even harder to keep up with the chattering of the countless speakers around him. 7370 had requested five different Spanish announcer's tables for the event––what use he had for them, Hooke had no idea. This event wasn't even being broadcasted, he wasn't even positive their microphones were connected.

"En la esquina azul, con un peso de 178 kilogramos, el Bombardero Azul, el Leviatán de Lapislázuli, ¡Su campeón! ¡General Blue!"

Columns of blue and white smoke erupted from the crest of a crudely constructed ramp as rock music8 flooded the prison. 7370 burst through the smoke, kicking through it as though he were breaking down a door. "OH YEAH!" he bellowed.

"¡Oh Sí! ¡Oh Sí! ¡Oh Sí!" The stadium was alive with the stomping of feet as the people welcomed their ruler to the ring.

This isn't a cult of personality, it's a full-blown church, Hooke thought.

As 7370 ascended the ring, he paused on the outside of the ropes to turn and face the crowd. He took one big swig of a metal water bottle, leaned back against the ropes, and sprayed it in a pillar of mist over his head. As the crowd screamed with excitement, Hooke couldn't help noticing that the mist had a hint of… green?

The announcer again cleared his throat. "Y en la esquina roja, el retador. ¡Mide cinco pies y diez pulgadas de alto y pesa 81 kilogramos, tu opresor, Ricardo Muñoz!"

A sad trombone played out over the loudspeakers as former General Muñoz was thrust onto the stage by unseen attendants. He was wearing a plain black wrestling singlet which he presumably fit into against his will. No sooner did he step on the ramp did someone throw a half-drunk cup of soda into his face. Startled and confused, his eyes crossed the crowds of his booing former denizens to land on 7370. He screamed a series of Spanish expletives and turned to leave, stopping in his tracks as a wall of guards formed behind him.

Muñoz tentatively stepped into the ring, never taking his eyes off of 7370. He spoke up in English. "Mr.––er––General Blue. Surely we can come to a sensible resolution to––."

"Shut'cher pie hole, you Muñozerable sack of crap!" Mr. Blue barely made eye contact with his predecessor, instead parading around the ring with a microphone to his lips. "You gotta lotta nerve, waltzing back into the GREATEST CITY OF ALL TIME––," he paused for the audience to cheer, "––to tango with the Teal Titan! Normally, the champ doesn't even take his own sloppy seconds! 'Cept this savage sequel is a special exception for you specifically! So quit Stalin, 'cause I'm about to rip you Bonaparte, pin you Un, dos, and tres, and make you Trotsky to the emergency room!"

Hooke stood between the two combatants and chopped his hand through the air, signaling the ringside attendants to ring the bell.

Ding ding ding

•

•

•

No sooner did the match begin than Mr. Blue charged like a big blue wrecking ball. Muñoz rolled under the ropes to the outside, narrowly avoiding danger. Not deterred, Blue vaulted over the ropes, landing on the outside with a thunderous impact that shook every seat out to the fourth row. Muñoz scrambled away, running circles around the ring to the boos of audience members.

Mr. Blue followed in close pursuit, like an ass-whooping train with no breaks. On the sixth lap, a metaphorical light bulb went off in his head, and he took a break, leaning against a ringpost. Muñoz, too frantic to pay attention, continued sprinting for lap seven, tripping over Mr. Blue's well-placed size 26 boot and sprawling across the floor. Blue hoisted him up by the seat of his pants and lobbed him back over the ropes at the referee's feet.

Hooke pressed his earpiece. "Shit, shit, shit. He's not gonna last long enough, what do I do?"

Ryan came back over the line. "Referees in pro wrestling are basically made of paper mache. Go down and let us take care of the rest."

As Blue stepped over the rope, Hooke looked around frantically for an idea. Giving up, he simply walked up to Blue and bumped into him, shoulder first. Hooke leaped backward with the back of his hand pressed to his forehead and landed in the center of the ring. He sprawled out and played possum with the best his years of espionage training would allow.

Mr. Blue pinned Muñoz shoulders first for three seconds… then four… then five… then six, seven, eight, nine, and ten. Not hearing a bell, he confusedly looked around and spotted his referee lying down like a ragdoll. He crouched down and lightly poked Hooke's carcass with a sausage-sized finger. "Hey, wake up so I can put away this paltry putz."

As the Blue Bomber's back was turned, three men clad in black sweatclothes jumped over the barricade and slid into the ring. The first, wielding a steel folding chair, struck him in the back of the head with a clang that echoed through the arena. The other two circled around and began kicking and stomping on him from the sides. Two more men ran in from the entrance ramp and slid into the ring, one wielding a sledgehammer and the other swinging a chain.

Mr. Blue, however, simply stood up and slowly turned around to face the first three attackers. Hooke could swear he heard one of the men say "shit" as he leered down at them with a wide grin. Mr. Blue grabbed the two men on his sides by their heads, swung them forwards, and smacked them temples first into the head of the man with the folding chair. "OH YEAH, THAT'S WHAT I CALL A KNUCKLEHEAD SANDWICH!"

The crowd whooped and hollered as he shook off the underhanded assault.

The man with the chain wrapped it around his fist and struck Mr. Blue in the chest, only seeming to sprain his hand as it bounced away harmlessly, followed by a sharp yelp. Blue grabbed him by the collar of his sweatshirt, knocking his hood off. Hooke recognized him as one of the agents who rode into the city with him. Mr. Blue, however, was none the wiser to the Foundation's involvement and welcomed more ass to kick. He tossed the agent into the air, catching him in a fireman's carry, and fell backward, flattening the poor insurgent with a Samoan slam. The agent with the sledgehammer, panicking, threw it at Blue to no effect, and attempted to dive out of the ring. But when he was only halfway through the ropes, Blue caught him with a bearhug to his midsection, leaned backward, and flipped the man up, over, and down shoulders first with a thunderous German suplex.

As the other three men climbed groggily to their feet, Mr. Blue ran back to the opposite side of the ring, slingshotting off the ropes. He steamrolled into the agents, clotheslining the trio over the ropes.

The first two men jumped onto Blue's back like spider monkeys only to be thrown to the ground alongside their colleagues. The Lapis Leviathan leaped down to join them, and began ripping the television monitors out of every announcer's table as though he were plucking vegetables from a garden.

Ryan came over the line. "Oh." Hooke could hear the dawning realization in the researcher's voice with that one word.

"What?" he whispered from the ground, trying his best to cover his earpiece.

"Those aren't just announcer's tables. They're all Spanish announcer's tables."

"So?"

"It's a running gag in pro wrestling. They get destroyed constantly. Someone's been put through one in every WWE pay-per-view since '95."

"So those guys…"

"Are going to have a bad time, yes."

Mr. Blue hoisted one agent up off the ground and flipped him into a seated position, driving him into the table with the same titanic powerbomb he gave to Muñoz when he first arrived in Mystria.

BAM

It buckled and shattered into giant splinters, sending the pair of ringside announcers sitting behind it diving out of the way. But the Blue Bomber wasn't done yet. He picked up a second man, then a third, then a fourth, then a fifth, and put each one through their very own announcer's table.

THWAM

THOCK

KRAKAKOOM

SKADOOSH

When the dust settled, each of the beaten and battered (but miraculously, very much alive) agents lay sprawled out like ragdolls in what used to be cheap furniture.

These five MTF agents had backgrounds in the most elite military units the world over, and they bought Muñoz perhaps a minute and a half to breathe. He still hadn't climbed to his feet since he was thrown into the ring. Hooke glanced to the outside of the ring to see that Mr. Blue was taking a break to strike body building poses for his roaring fans. Knowing him, that should buy them another forty seconds.

Hooke stopped playing possum and hurriedly crawled over to Muñoz, who was curled up in the fetal position. "Get up you big baby." Hooke dragged him to his feet and dusted him off. "Jump on him."

"W-what?"

"Just do it, and hold on for dear life."

Muñoz dutifully climbed up onto the ring post, pausing halfway up after pulling something in his leg. He leaped with all the grace of a geriatric hippopotamus performing a gymnastic floor routine, but he just barely hit home nonetheless. He sprawled onto Mr. Blue's back and managed to wrap one arm under his chin to keep from falling off, tightening it into a loose chokehold.

Mr. Blue stumbled, but stayed standing. "Nice try, but no cigar, chump! Now Gaddafi me before I Pol Pot you six feet un––"

Before he could finish his pun, Hooke waved his hand in the air. "That's a tap, ring the bell!"

Ding ding ding

Mr. Blue swung around to look up at the referee, Muñoz still hanging off his back. They stared at Hooke in mutual confusion.

"What?"

"¿Que?"

The ring announcer bore the same look of befuddlement as the two competitors but made the announcement all the same. "Damas y caballeros, su ganador por sumisión, y nuevo campeón, ¡Ricardo Muñoz!"

"WHAT?"

"¿QUE?"

Mr. Blue, without looking, grabbed Muñoz's arm around his throat by the wrist, held him out like he was passing a coat to a butler, and dropped him in a heap. "The Teal Titan doesn't tap! You better grow a pair of eyes before I whoop your lying be-hind next, ref!"

Hooke held his hands up pleadingly. "Just calling it how I see it, General Blue."

"An' I'm callin' you a conniving con artist! A dollar store, dime-a-dozen liar!"

"Sir, please respect the rules of the match. General Muñoz is champion, now."

Mr. Blue's eyes went wide. He vaulted back into the ring, jamming a finger in Hooke's chest. "This isn't a match, it's a ruse, a ploy, a plot, a plan, a charade, a conspiracy, a sham! I have been conned, hoodwinked, bamboozled, flimflammed, had the wool pulled over my eyes even! This. Is. A. SCREWJOB!"

Mr. Blue's expression contorted into a look of pure rage. His brow furrowed, his teeth began to grind, and his face turned from blue, to purple, to… green?

"I AM THE BLOODY BLUE SCYTHE INSIDE EVERY RAINBOW! I AM THE UNSETTLING SHROUD OF SWEET PAIN THAT JOHN LEE HOOKER WAILS ABOUT!9 So take your screwjob, and SCREW YOU! I'm going back to the FWF, where they know how to treat their talent! But before I do, I'm gonna show you why I put the CYAN in CYANIDE!"

Hooke scratched his head. "Uh… General Blue? You've got a little something on your face."

"And another thing! Why the hell are you wearing a prosthetic mustache? Grow some facial hair like a real man!"

And then, an abrupt rumbling ground everything to a halt. Blue bent over, grimacing.

Growl

Blue doubled over in pain, clutching his stomach. "Oof, just a stomach cramp, nothing a champ like me can't shake off! OH YEAH––." He was cut off as his stomach growled with all the fury of a pride of lions on Adderall. "Oh no!"

He shook violently as his eyes and mouth began to glow with a sickly green hue. His cheeks puffed as he tried to keep his mouth shut. Finally, with a mighty belch, he vomited a blast of green fire. Hooke dove over the ropes to safety as the wave split the ring in half, turning the square circle into two scorched rectangles, with Blue shaking in a crater in the center.

"Phew! Sorry, I think I have a U-235 intolerance."

The light show started again, shining brighter and even erupting out of his ears. The next nuclear burp fired straight into the ground, propelling Mr. Blue into the air like a rocket. He slammed into the ceiling, cratering the reinforced concrete behind it and causing light fixtures to dislodge and rain down on the makeshift arena. As a dazed Blue fell halfway to the floor, another atomic belch sent him soaring into the bleachers on the far side of the room, miraculously striking an unoccupied section that turned into a geyser of splinters upon impact. Audience members shrieked and bolted for the exits as Blue burped blast after thunderous blast, richoceting himself throughout the arena like a four hundred-pound pinball. The ceiling sagged to one side as the next burp sent him through a load-bearing column, snapping it as cleanly as if it were a popsicle stick.

Ryan's voice crackled back into Hooke's earpiece. "What the hell is going on in there?"

"7370 is having an allergic reaction!"

"To what? Peanuts?"

"Weapons-grade uranium!"

"Oh. That's probably fine. You should leave."

BOOM

BOOM

BOOM

Each impact to the building caused Hooke's legs to wobble as he tried to find his feet. A hand grasped him by the shoulder and pulled him up.

He looked up at Agent Burns, who hadn't bothered disguising himself in wrestling paraphernalia like his subordinates, who were limping away behind him. Instead, he donned a plain gray t-shirt and the same inconspicuous black shades he wore in the van, which now had a spiderweb crack over one lens, probably from falling debris. His lips were moving, but Hooke couldn't make out a single word. They sounded like soft echoes, as though they were underwater. Only then did he notice his ears ringing.

Smack

"Ow." Hooke rubbed the red handprint on his cheek.

"Can you hear me now? Great, now haul ass."

The blasts continued rapid fire as the group sprinted to the exits among crowds of frantic civilians. Where once Blue simply left craters, the impacts grew until the concrete walls, floors, and ceilings chipped, cracked, and buckled as the tremors carried through the entire facility.

Mr. Blue, still erupting like a verde volcano, unleashed another blast mid-air that spiked him into the crater where the ring used to be. Before he could recover his footing, he curled over, holding his stomach tightly10 He gave another titanous belch, the biggest yet. The resulting blast punched a hole straight through the roof, lighting up the Mystrian night sky like the Bat Signal. The Champ collapsed to his knees.

"Woah… Phew… Hey guys! It's okay! I think that was the last––BWEEEAAAAARRRRGGGHHH!"

A single, concussive shockwave erupted from his blue maw in a blast so loud it could put a dump truck crashing through a firework factory to shame. Every window in the building shattered into shards smaller than raindrops, every wall collapsed, and the concrete floor below him exploded into fine powder. The roof blew outwards, raining debris in wide arcs in all directions. And finally… there was silence.

The civilians re-emerged from hiding, creeping out of alleys and from under cars. All gathered in awe at the smoldering ruin that once was once their country's most notorious political prison. But the silence did not last long, and broke completely when one woman in the crowd desperately cried out "¡General Blue!" The realization that their Beloved Blue Leader was somewhere in there hit every man, woman, and child in attendance like a sack of bricks. They sprinted into the ruins of San Muñoz, over shattered bricks, ground glass, and strips of sheet metal. Hundreds of them descended onto the block where the ring used to be, the smoldering strips of rope and canvas the only evidence that it had ever existed. They dug up the earth with their bare hands, turning over every loose rock in search of their leader. But by the time they had scoured every square inch of the prison, all anyone could find were a pair of shutter glasses, and a single, smoking boot.

They hung their heads in sadness, but before they had even a moment to mourn, all turned their heads towards a single, loud voice clearing his throat.

Ricardo Muñoz, the newly crowned champion, crawled out from under a fallen slab of concrete, scorched on one side from where it had shielded him from the blast. He cleaned himself up to the best of his ability, rubbing the soot off his face, patting down his smoldering wrestling singlet, and trying futilely to matt down his frayed and still-smoking hair. "Ahem! This is a dark day indeed… the demolishment of San Muñoz, our treasured reformatory! But fear not! For democracy has spoken and you are once again in my capable hands! It will be just like old times. Now, for the first order of business–––. Why are you all looking at me like that?"

Hooke inhaled deeply from the back of the crowd. "Get him!" he shouted in a high-pitched, fake voice through cupped hands, before pretending to look around for who said it. And on cue, the crowd rushed their befuddled dictator.

In one of many dimly lit sub-levels of Site-19, Researcher Ryan once again sat hunched over an electron microscope, with a familiar pile of bone marrow below him in a petri dish. This time, he would try things differently. He flipped a switch, giving the dish a low voltage shock from beneath, and peered through the lens. Still no movement. He made a note on his clipboard and shocked it again. Nothing. After the next shock, it began to shudder.

Ryan's heart began to beat faster. The thought of spotting this creature for the first time since Hooke made him miss it two months ago excited him. He gave one last shock. As he peered through the microscope once again, he saw it: movement. A small fissure in the marrow opened up, releasing a thin body. It was almost centipedal, with hundreds of pointed legs and a sleek exoskeleton. It gazed around, likely unable to see Ryan due to the sheer size difference. And yet, its dozens of asymmetrical eyes appeared to gaze up, right into the microscope.

There you are. Ryan's mind was abuzz with possibilities. Was this a parasite, eating away at the subjects innards? Maybe this was a larva, and the anomaly reproduces through its bones? He would have to take a picture. He lined the camera up to the lens, held it steady, and…

"Morning, Stan!"

Startled, Ryan shook the camera off course before taking the shot. The image came out splotchier than a Jackson Pollock painting. He looked back through the microscope, only to find that the creature had once again disappeared.

"Dammit, dammit, dammit! I thought I locked that door?"

"Oh, was it locked?" Hooke discretely tucked a freshly dislodged doorknob in his coat pocket. "Thought you might appreciate an update."

"On what? Is the Mets game on?"

Hooke snickered. "You would be a Mets fan. No, the Mystria situation."

"Oh, I got briefed after the explosion. It was so hard to keep under wraps that the GOC had to use their 'rebranding' protocol for the first time since Czechoslovakia. I hear Mystria's going to start going by 'Juventud.'11 What was it you lectured me about before you left? 'Discretion'? How'd that go? Still glad you shot down my Nu-7 idea?"

Hooke, failing to think of a quick-witting comeback, ignored Ryan's rhetorical question. "Yeah, well, Mystria's been rebuilding since then. They're actually doing pretty well for themselves. Slim Jim's opening up a new headquarters in their capital, and everybody is also just absolutely ripped. I don't know what kind of diet plan 7370 put them on, but they're sticking to it."

"That's good. How's their new-old-new president holding up?"

"Rojas? She's handling things. Muñoz's trial is really bringing the people together. She also assured the Foundation that her country will keep a lid on the whole 'teleporting blue dictator' situation."

"You mean she'll show some 'discretion'?" Ryan grinned amusedly.

"You're never going to let me live that down, are you?"

"Probably not. How's our patient?"

"Aw, you do care. Why don't you see for yourself?"

Hooke withdrew his tablet, which was set to a live feed from Site-19's anomaly treatment ward. A large figure was strapped to a hospital bed, with both his arms and one leg raised. He was covered in so many bandages that he would have been unrecognizable save for the purple mullet leaking out of the cast on his head. Ryan could have mistaken him for still being comatose, except that his one unbandaged hand was squeezing and releasing a hand exerciser.

"He finally woke up?" Ryan asked, surprised.

"Just a few hours ago. According to this freshly typed-up incident report, he hopped out of bed, ripped off his casts, and paraded through the halls while bragging something along the lines of 'champs don't need painkillers,' before falling over and begging for them. He's bandaged up again now. They're still not sure how he was able to move in the first place."

"We're luckier that he didn't grow antennae or melt into sludge after eating uranium."

"Yeah, that slowed down the recovery process quite a bit, but he's radiation-free."

"Cool, so everything's back to normal, then?"

"Well, not everything."

"What do you mean by that?"

"They just unveiled something where San Muñoz got demolished, check it out. It's gonna be fun explaining this to the Site Director."

Hooke swiped the screen on his tablet to the next slide. It flipped to the recording of Mystria's state news program. In the video, President Rosas stood before an object nearly ten times her height, covered in a red sheet. She waved to the cheering crowds before yanking it off, the figure beneath briefly blinding the camera with the Sun's reflection. It was a brilliant statue, identical to SCP-7370 in all ways except for its shining golden sheen. He was grinning from ear to ear, and striking a body-building pose with one arm raised to the sky.

As the crowds cheered, the camera zoomed in on the inscription on its marble base.

When we were hungry, He fed us

When we were shackled, He freed us

And at the height of his power, He left us so we could build a brighter tomorrow

Long live General Blue, Mystria's Once and Forever Champion

Footnotes

1. Breaking the fourth wall––WHICH MR. BLUE DOES NOT CANONICALLY KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT––like the Kool-Aid Man, OH YEAH!

2. That's a Mr. Blue original! Hang it in the Louvre, oh yeah!

3. That's French, for "thank you." The more you know💫

4. Hey, would a dumb one have seven doctorates that I definitely did not steal?

5. He should be so lucky. It actually has a deceptively sweet taste to it.

Hey, where the hell did you come from?

6. Uh… Where is that again?

I don't think they'll let us say.

7. "Ultimatum." Mr. Blue has been binge-watching Ben 10.

8. Sorry Blue-ites, but it's copyrighted. I'm crazy enough to take on the Foundation, but Licensing Squad? Noooo thank you!

9. Credit to Mister_Toasty for this Ma-cho line!

10. And the Champ almost sliced his fingers off, 'cause he is CUT! Do yer sit-ups, Blue-ites.

11. And that's a real island, Blue-ites! Unsuspend that disbelief!