The Oppressed Wrestler

## Overview

> The 90s marked the debut of Yurin and Astra Bludrayne in the feverish and frenzied world of mixed martial arts. Will the hostile social environment hinder his aspirations and his desire to inspire? Or will he change everyone's prejudicial perspective?
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## Act List

* Prologue - Windy Before The Storm
* Act 1 - Rise and Fall of The Masked Menace
* Act 2 - Can Never Catch a Break

## Characters

Primary characters
* Yurin Bludrayne (protagonist)
* Astra Bludrayne
* Jude S. Escargot

Secondary characters
* Mohammad Harrison
* Kaiser Richards
* Kazuo Bludrayne
* Abel Bludrayne

Tertiary characters
* Trace Bludrayne
* Carl Barron
* Duncan McCarthy
* Saichi Otoko
* Finn D. Carreras
* Mr. and Mrs. Carcinoncos
* Oliver Renigen

Important Location/Entities
* Prosokroma

#### In Sharmont

* The Prosokroman Power
* Bastion Boxing Academy
* Endergy Promotions
* Green Land Inc.
* Carl's Ultimate Streaming Service

#### In Hideaway Hills

* House of Ares
* Face-Over-Heels

## Acts

### Prologue - Windy Before The Storm

Just like anyone living in Prosokroma, Astra and her parents were miserable, thus they gathered enough money to go to the cheapest city in the USA: Sharmont in 1980. They settled in a subpar neighborhood called Pluckington Oaks, for the time being. Three years later, a new neighbor, Carl Barron would move into the vacant house to the right of their own. The Carcinoncos family would meet and greet the new resident to which they hit it off quite well, they thought he was kind and humorous.

All was fine until June 7th 1989, the mother of Astra would be contracted Stage 4 Cancer which sent the family into tears since they didn't have enough money. The father would go on numerous business trips just to allocate enough money to pay for his wife's treatment and they would enter the lottery every single day, they even had Carl Barron helping them out. Luckily, on November 16th of the same year, they finally won the cash prize of 1 million 225 hundred thousand dollars in the lottery. Astra was so excited that her mom can get proper treatment yet she couldn't submit it herself since she was a minor and her dad was on a business trip so she looked to the adult she trusted the most outside her family: Carl. She knocked on his door and told him that they won the lottery and asked if he could submit it for them, he happily and wholeheartedly obliged. He walked to the store and she waited... waited... waited and waited. She thought there was traffic or something holding him back so she turned to watch TV to kill time and there she saw him... Carl Barron. On the news channel, he claimed to have received the cash prize of 1 million 225 hundred thousand dollars and got interviewed for it on TV. He announces that he deserved all the money since he was poor and he needed to pay his own college debt. He didn’t thank anyone; his neighbor, his friends, not even his family. He ended his speech was a mic drop. What a betrayal.

Astra would do anything now, she started going to downtown Sarmont and began performing "magic tricks" using her ancestral supernatural powers in the bustling streets. This immediately caught the attention of hundreds of pedestrians to the point where her dad quit his job to become a magician with his daughter. They would eventually go mainstream and they would ascertain their own magic show, which they named The Prosokroman Power in their own home, mind you, this was the first time a Prosokroman ever showed their powers to any humans and since they weren't scaring anyone, the Prosokroman government across the globe allowed this despite condemning it at first. In early 1990, during a performance, Astra noticed that a Prosokroman, who looked miserable, was watching the show; she wanted to cheer him up so at the end of one of her tricks she zestfully calls up the man to the stage so he can show off his abilities too, and so he did. At the end of his impressive tricks, Astra asked what his name was to which he replied with "Yurin Bludrayne".

After the performance, they both started hanging out, Yurin tells her was an only child born in a, you guessed it, miserable family in Sharmont. The difference between him and Astra though is that he was constantly bullied in school for being "different". His parents were the only people he can rely on, he never liked anyone in his school. His favorite activity was watching boxing and wrestling on TV and rooting for the wrestlers with masks/face paint on, he wanted to be like them. She was intrigued by the story and told him about why the show, The Prosokroman Power, exists; it was a fundraiser for her mother who had terminal cancer. He tried to care but something made him feel indifferent about it, she asked him if he wants to join the magic show which he declined at first because he never was fond of crowded places but it was the first time he saw his brethren other than his relatives, so after a little bit of convincing, he accepted.

While he was watching, the girl performing noticed him and called him up to the stage, he was afraid at first but then he performed his powers easily which made the crowd go even wilder. Later, they both introduced themselves to each other, and the girl, "Astra Carcinoncos", told him all
Unfortunately, all of this wouldn't be enough to pay for the extremely expensive hospital bills of 500 thousand dollars so a few years passed and Astra's mother was still clinging on to life until January 11th of 1993, when she would finally succumb to her untreated illness. After canceling the show, Astra was so infuriated and depressed and righteously blamed Carl for it when the news hit about the tragic passing. After this predicament, CUSS, Carl's company he made after becoming rich, lost a lot of supporters to the point where not only are people unsubscribing from CUSS but they are destroying their CUSS Entertainment Systems as well. Carl was arrested later that day for fraudulence and theft, but due to the mass amount of money he possesses he was able to win the case with the most sophisticated lawyers in the hundreds, therefore, he now walks a free man a week later. He procedurally donated a million dollars, money he can carelessly wipe his ass with, to Cancer Research in order for the public to respect him again and reinstate his tarnished reputation. Due to this incident, Carl wanted to get back at Astra and made a public announcement that would consist of him berating and slandering all of the Prosokromans in America and stating that “they are all liars and frauds” which is a front for directly causing the YoY Cult to be xenophobic and use the Prosokromans as sacrifice fodder, however, this indirectly caused a lot of American outsiders to be racist towards them, thus becoming another oppressed "race".

The prejudice has gotten so bad that all of their old fans started to turn on them. After a bunch of criminal acts committed in Astra's home, such as robbery trespassing, and other unspeakably vile acts. Three months after the death of Mrs. Carcinoncos, the final crime was committed when a group of teenagers decided to set the house on fire with both Astra and her father in it, Yurin witnessed the teenagers in the act but it was too late, he managed to save Astra from the fire but her father was asleep at the time and the door to his room was sturdily locked. Yurin really tried to break in to save him but it wouldn't work, they had no choice but to abandon him. This devastated Astra.

Yurin didn't know whether to leave her or help her at first, her bawling and shouting about how she has nowhere else to go and no one else. This is the first time he felt empathy towards someone else, he didn't want to be the "asshole" everyone he interacted with knew him to be so he reluctantly and shyly asked if she wants to move in with him, while she was in a fit of tears. She yelled out "YES! YEEEES! PLEASE HELP ME!", this made him feel happy for once. They walked to his house and he showed her around, she noticed that he lived alone and that there were three rooms dedicated to fitness and boxing respectively. Astra inquires him about the reasoning behind those rooms to which she learns that Yurin was training to be a boxer and a wrestler to fight all the bigots professionally and legally. That answer was followed by "You should do the same.", said Yurin in a chilling tone.

She decides to take the next couple of days to decompress before being inspired by Yurin's words. She thought of being a police officer to catch these criminals who harmed them and to ascertain justice for all Prosokromans involved. Yet, of course, she can't do that looking like a Prosokroman in fear of the police also being racist, so she resorted to putting on a face mask, bandana, and sunglasses, she went to the police station to sign up for the job and surprisingly they accepted her.

Astra went back home and told Yurin, who was training for boxing, that she got accepted! He looked at her and gave her a fast thumbs up then went back to boxing. Astra wondered and asked "Why not go to a boxing academy?" to which Yurin ignored. Astra, impatiently waiting for a response, leaves the room. In the coming days when Astra gets back home from work, she keeps on nagging him to go to a public boxing training place to which he refused, but the fifth time she asked was different for him apparently so he thought about it this time. There's a boxing academy near here named "Bastion Boxing Academy" so why not? He didn't want to at first since it was out of his comfort zone, but he decided to suck it up and go there.

### Act 1 - Rise and Fall of The Masked Menace

In the early morning of May 2nd 1993, Yurin grew some balls and decided to go to the nearby boxing academy to finally fulfill his aspirations, due to high demand from his roommate, Astra. As he was leaving the house, Astra stopped him, which confused him at first but all she wanted to do was give him a bandana, face mask, and sunglasses so no one there would recognize him as Prosokroman and persecute him.

After a little bit of walking and weird looks from other pedestrians, he finally ended up at Sharmont's only Bastion Boxing Academy. When he entered, he asked the receptionist "Where can I train?" to which she asked for his name first, yet he didn't wanna give her his real name in case she recognizes him as the co-star of The Prosokroman Power, so he replied with "...John... Arbuckle." She inscribed him then kindly showed him while containing her fit of laughter. Yurin noticed her snarking but didn't want to be confrontational today (plus he respects women) so he just thanked her for inscribing him and moved on.

He went to the room assigned to him. It consisted of a boxing ring in the center and each corner possessed either weights or a punching bag. He wasn't alone in the room though, on the far left corner of the room he found a muscular man lifting weights. The man noticed him and shook his hand before happily introducing himself as "Duncan McCarthy, professional boxing coach, and manager!". He asks for Yurin's name to which he reciprocated the same thing: "John Arbuckle." The coach laughed and said "You have the same name as the Garfield guy!", "... with an H.", Bludrayne replied. The conversation shifted to Coach McCarthy asking why he has superfluous headwear, "Mr. Arbuckle" responded by saying that he feels insecure about his face and covering it up is the only way he would want to perform. McCarthy respects his decision and decides to start with the training.

It didn't take long for the coach to realize how fierce Yurin truly is. He punched punching bags out of their chains from where they were hanging, lifted heavy weights at the speed of light, and punched McCarthy so hard in a sparring session that he saw his life flash before his eyes. The latter was so impressed and wanted to see how he would fare against the most experienced trainees.

In the next 2 days, Yurin sparred at least 15 opponents and won all 15 matches which may sound impossible for a beginner but keep in mind that this man casually spent all his free time training in his home for years at a time. He already gained a reputation just from these few sparring matches, word got around and suddenly he became mainstream where he would become the idol of the infant Internet, teenagers and young adults alike, these fanatics would later dub him "The Masked Menace". This really impresses Duncan to the point where he asked Yurin if he can be his manager, to which it would be a shame to decline.

Three weeks later, after more victories, a promoter named Finn D. Carreras would approach Yurin and Duncan, he said that he would like Yurin to be in his promotion named Endergy Promotions due to the reputation he accumulated. Yurin was given a pretty good contract with unconditional pay, creative control, and health care so they ultimately signed it. Carreras booked a pay-per-view match on the 28th of May in which Yurin, who still goes by John Arbuckle or mostly The Masked Menace, will be fighting against this random person named Saichi Otoko

Yurin went back home and told his roommate all about his endeavors and exploits which she was happy about. Astra herself has been making progress in her criminal-busting profession. She claims to have captured at least a dozen of criminals who were caught doing malicious acts to Prosokromans and humans alike while patrolling the streets. They chatted all day and night about how the match will go, well, it was mostly Astra talking excitedly about how he will surely secure a victory.

Two days later, after two casual sparring matches with new and slightly more experienced people, it was finally May 28th: the long-awaited day. He arrived backstage at 7 PM, the official time of the pay-per-view event. Astra showed up at the event as well as a crows member donning the bandana, sunglasses, and a face mask. Luckily, no one would suspect her due to the fact that his fans decided to don the same attire to show their fondness for Yurin, so ultimately she would be disregarded as another fan.

The referee announced the ingress of Yurin's opponent first, Saichi Otoko enters from backstage and into the ring. He appeared to be an obese sumo-like Afro-Asian man and with him came a loud roaring sound from the audience who were excited to see his arrival. After a few taunts from Otoko, the referee finally announced the entrance of John Arbuckle: The Masked Menace who was met with a much larger cheer from the crowd. He never liked the attention but he was accustomed to it since it was not the first time he's been exposed to such a large quantity of viewers.

Saichi took off his right boxing glove and swiftly snatched the microphone from the referee's hand to announce something of his own: "Welcome, Mr. Arbuckle, to Endergy Promotions... said no one! You coming here was a mistake, but at least you have the honor to fight against me! Mr. Carreras only picked you up because he felt bad for your sorry ass, but little did both of you know that you will end up leaving here ripped to shreds from top to bottom. This place has the playground squabbles you're used to in Bastion so even if you survive this encounter, you won't even last more than a second here with the other elites.". Hearing this speech and his fans cheering and laughing at him made his blood boil. Before the bell even rang, Yurin mindlessly and repeatedly swung at his opponent like a bull in a china shop, except few of his many hits landed due to him being blinded by the raging fire that we call anger.

Otoko saw this as a great opportunity to send out a flurry of attacks at an immaculate speed, funnily enough, most of his hits DID land. At the breaking point, Yurin was knocked out, breaking his sunglasses and revealing a bit of his Prosokroman face, which kind of surprised Saichi. After the 10-minute countdown, Yurin sadly lost so he got back on his feet but his physical recalibration was disrupted by Saichi Otoko consecutively tearing off his facemask and removing his bandana to reveal that he is Prosokroman; the crowd's excitement was replaced by a unanimous surprised gasp, yet Astra, drowned out by the crowd, was being eaten up by fear.

"THIS WAS THE THING YOU WERE WORSHIPPING!?" yelled Otoko in a furious tone after grabbing the microphone from the refree for a second time. This reveal struck discord and pandemonium in the crowd, Yurin, who was kneeling on the ground, wanted to look at Saichi's smug face but instead was met with the latter's boot colliding with his own face. This aggrevated him even more to the point where he breathed fire on the man's face causing third-degree burns. Saichi screamed in agony while the audience screamed in horror, Astra was afraid of what everyone might do to Yurin so she dashed to the ring as fast as she can, grabbed his hand, and ran swiftly to the nearest exit preventing the security guards from stopping them.

Saichi Otoko was hospitalized for an indefinite amount of time and Duncan McCarthy was upset that Yurin Bludrayne won't be returning anytime soon because if he still would have coached him whether he's a Prosokroman or not. Despite popular belief, a large chunk of the audience think that what Saichi received was deserved and was the result of karma due to not only him belittling Yurin but for years and years of the same behavior, the martial arts scene began to like Prosokromans just because of the punishment they gave Saichi Otoko, yet Yurin just wanted to stay out of the sportive scene. For the time being.

After the incident, Yurin went into hiding in his own home, he did nothing but watch television and read newspaper articles about him breathing fire on Saichi. The next day, Astra followed his abstractions of staying home since she got fired from being a police officer due to her "possibly being a Prosokroman" considering she donned the same attire as Yurin did.

It's a good thing that Yurin possessed quite a big collection of books all varying from educational, fiction, nonfiction, and many more. She figured that if she can no longer attain traditional education from schools, she can easily assimilate the information in these books and call that education. As for the entertainment side of life, she can watch TV but also socialize with Yurin who, despite being usually monotone, can be actually fun at times.

### Act 2 - Can Never Catch a Break

For the following months, the pair would still be caged within their four walls like it's purgatory, the only shred of sunlight they have been exposed to is those creeping through the windows, it barely illuminated their suburban home since the landlord shut their lights off due to them not paying their electricity bills. However, their bond with each other has increased in an inversely proportionate manner with their money.

It was new years day of 1994 and they thought they don't want to keep suffering like this. Conveniently enough, the newspaper delivered to their house that day consisted of an article that showed a list of jobs for any Prosokroman living in the United States, all of the jobs were typical minimum wage jobs like factory workers, Carl's Ultimate Streaming Service employees, janitors, etc. Their attention was driven to the job with the highest paying salary of 7.25 dollars per hour: a waste collector. At first, Yurin complained to Astra that he didn't desire to take care of the filth left behind by those who desecrated them, yet it was their best option, so why not?

They walked to the address inscribed next to the profession and found a small building belonging to a public company specialized in garbage disposal named "Green Land Inc.", they entered the building a found a grey-haired balding old man who introduced himself as Oliver Renigen. He says that he is quite fond of Prosokromans and believes that the fad of despising them is dying down but is still very prevalent. Whatever the case is, he gave them a job to clean up the city highway of Sharmont and if they do their job correctly they'll rank up to using a garbage truck. They left the building with equipment for internal collection and transportation accompanied by some carts, they started to pick up some trash like cans, papers, boxes, bags, and many more that they deposited inside their hampers, gaylord (XD) boxes, and tilt trucks. They rinse and repeat this same sequence for about 4 hours until they arrived at a peculiar road, this road was in the proximity of a large mansion and a tall office building with nothing other than a large grassy field around those two structures, no dumpsters or something to deposit waste at in sight. Naturally, the field would be filthy due to no dumpsters so they had a ton of work to do.

During their cleansing of the field of its filth, Astra noticed a little blonde girl with green eyes dressed in a pink dress standing in front of the wooden mansion, she was drinking a can of coca cola alone while she was staring at the pair. Astra signaled Yurin to follow her and approach the girl, Yurin was perplexed at this but decides to go along with it, she thought that maybe she can teach the kid all about how Prosokromans aren't as horrible as she was taught. To start, Astra asks what the girl's name is, but the child didn't respond, instead, with a blank stare and a slight hint of anger, dropped the can on the ground, causing the remaining soda to ooze on the grass like a hose. "Pick it up." said the child condescendingly. The Prosokroman pair looked at each other in bewilderment, Astra put her hand on the kid's shoulder just to show their docility only for the latter to bite Astra's hand in order to deter them. The child's anger has increased and so has Yurin's, he decides to step in and take a few steps closer, for the sole purpose of saying: "We aren't evi-" only for him to be interrupted by a large rock being thrown at his face by the girl.

This threw him into a state of shock, Astra was too, this was the first time she saw someone bleed so profusely as a stuffed pig, so she rushed to his aid. The girl proceeded to cry crocodile tears in order for someone to rush to HER aid. In a snap of a finger, a weird smiley man with glasses and brown hair appeared, Astra looked up from Yurin and looked at the man, she instantly recognized him... it was her old neighbor Carl Barron. He recognized her too and his happy-go-lucky expression quickly shifted to an enraged one. "What did you do to my daughter...?" Barron said quietly. "What did WE do?! We didn't do shit! We were just tryna talk to her and she started fucking belittling us!", Astra replied. Carl looks at his daughter with pride and said "That's my girl!". This disgusts Yurin and Astra to which the former asked angrily, "You made her be like this?". "Oh, who are you? Her boyfriend?", Carl mockingly asked. "No. She's 16...", Yurin responds. "Oh! We have a pedophile on our hands!", Carl screams which nobody fortunately heard. "STOP TRYING TO RUIN MY LIFE EVEN MORE YOU FUCKER! What the fuck even happened to you?! WHAT MADE YOU THIS WAY!??... oh I shouldn't swear there are kids around.". "...Get out of my land or I'll file a trespassing complaint on you.", Carl ordered in a discomforted manner. Astra questions why but was interrupted by a tumultuous "GET OUT" from the man. "It's probably for the better.", Astra said. She left the field to get help for Yurin's gashing wound.

### Act 3 - New Oppurtnity?

A month has passed since the initial day of waste collecting and luckily enough for Yurin and Astra, they were able to pay some stuff off like the electicity bills and rent. On February 23rd 1994, as soon as the pair got home, they were welcomed by the ringing of their house phone, Astra decided to answer and was met with a zestful voice that initiated the call with: "Hello? Is this Mr. Arbuckle I'm speaking with?". Astra was confused and wanted to respond by informing the caller that he dialed the wrong number but a flash hit her and remembered that "John Arbuckle" was the pseudonym of her best friend Yurin Bludrayne.

Astra passed the phone to Yurin, the destined recipient. She couldn't hear what the conversation was about since Yurin only responded with "Mm."s and "yes"s; Yurin hangs up the call without saying goodbye. Astra asks the details about the call only for her roommate to reply: "The man was... someone named... Coach Carter... He proposed a wrestling gig... In Hideaway Hills... House of Ares", he said as if he was speaking through a broken telephone. He was hesitant to let the cat out of the bag since they both know he was only good at boxing and not wrestling.

However, Astra was struck with the same fear and anxiety she felt on May 28th 1993, the day in which the incident discouraged her from either of them making a public appearance so she frantically orders him not to go but her efforts were synonymous with yelling at a brick wall due to Yurin not wanting to abide by her demand. He justifies his perspective with this simple yet existential-dread-inducing sentence: "We can't keep living like this."

This phrase was uttered in his usual monotone voice yet Astra could hear the discord and pain coming from her best friend's heart which pushed him to say those words. Astra let out a big sigh and said "I suppose... let's where this goes...", finally accepting the situation.

They resigned from Green Land Inc., packed their bags, and went to the Sharmont Subway, using a different disguise, to go to Hideaway Hills which is the neighboring city located in the same county, an hour-and-twenty-minute train ride away. A new job in a new city means that they get to leave their woes behind in Sharmont, which is exactly what they wanted. They were searching for an excuse to exit that urbanized pigsty and they were glad they found it. Yurin, and even Astra, who wasn't convinced at first, treated this new opportunity at Hideaway Hills as a miraculous godsend.
At 7:30 PM, as soon as they emerged from the Hideaway Hills Subway, they were greeted by the sheer glitz and glamour of the city skyline. The colorful LED lights wrapping around the various skyscrapers were graced and complimented by the juxtaposition of numerous hills and mountains; funnily enough, both the urban and the geological aspects of the city felt as if they completed each other like connecting puzzle pieces.

Of course, since the coach informed them that the sessions will take place at 8 AM the next day, the pair allocated the income they received from their waste collecting profession to buying a hotel room to stay in for the foreseeable future. Fortunately and conveniently for everyone involved, the hotel they're staying at, Hyde's Hotel, was pretty near House of Ares, their destination. At first glance, it was stated on the side of the building that House of Ares was a Wrestling Gym, which, to Bludrayne's confusion, was not stated during his call with Carter.

He shrugged it off and time traveled to the next day when he decided to walk to the gym undisguised. The reactions of his fellow pedestrians to him were a mixed bag, some were delightfully surprised as if they were looking at an exotic animal, some were disgusted as if they saw maggots, others were perplexed as if they've encountered an undiscovered animal and others simply did not notice him, as if he was an insignificant ant.

He finally arrived at the front entrance of House of Ares, he does not know what awaits him in his potential new career path but as he entered those glass doors, he is equipped with the mindset of "expecting the unexpected". The sound of the doors shutting was followed by a soft female voice sourcing from the receptionist's desk: "Hello. Mr. John Arbuckle?". His attention shifted to the lady to whom he approached and said "Yes." in a straightforward manner. After some boring admission stuff, the receptionist told him to come back in the afternoon and go to a specific stage room where he can meet Coach Carter, the person he's been looking for.

He entered the room, it was a ring... Yurin didn't know he would already be thrown in the middle of the action already. As soon as he climbed the stairs and climbed through the ropes, he acknowledges the presence of two individuals: someone whom he assumes is Coach Carter and another guy who is fully dressed. The coach gave him a brief introduction of himself and Yurin's opponent: Mohammad Harrison. "Hey, Arbuckle! I just wanna welcome you to House of Ares! I'm glad you could be here! However, I just wanna warn you from here that this might be a new fresh hell for you. Some of my students have been rotting in this academy for YEARS and some haven't even been proposed a single contract by the pig promos! I don't know how much luck a Proso like you will have, haha." the coach said condescendingly. Has he been brought out here to be humiliated? "Shucks, coach! Why do I have to be the one to babysit the newbie Proso?? You know how I feel about these face-painted monkeys!", Harrison begrudgingly complains; this statement of his drove Yurin around the bend.

"You." Yurin said to address Carter. "Enough with the horror stories." Yurin declared. His glare diverts to Mohammad: "You. Scrap.", he said, without a single change in emotion or stance. The bell rang and the tension between the two fighters is being released by their spar; Yurin who seemed to be red in tooth and claw has done nothing but apply what he learned from a lifetime of boxing training, that being throwing punches without practicing a single grapple move. Harrison noticed that Yurin is pretty slow but his accuracy and strength can not be outdone, the former tried his best to even land a single attack on the latter but to no avail due to the fact that each attack felt as if a large boulder is being tossed at him by a catapult, the fact that he has a pretty bad win to loss ratio and that he is among the weakest of the gym does not help his situation.

Despite his efforts, Harrison lost. He felt so ashamed of himself, that he let the thing he hated the most take control and full advantage of him. Yurin's tremendous punches each reminded him of why he truly hates Prosokromans: each punch creates a flashback to the day his father, Abdullah Harrison died due to a trio of Prosokroman home intruders when he was turning 8. The sorrow, the guilt, the helplessness he felt watching his father die before his eyes all returned in this insignificant 5-minute training match. As he reheard his father's cries he could hear a familiar voice shout "1... 2...3!", it's Coach Carter... the only that remained in Mohammod's body at that time was not adrenaline or strength... but it was weakness and resentment.