AvengerVerse, Volume 3, Issue 4: ST - Savage Tonyman

 

LAST TIME IN THE AVENGERVERSE:

The Avenger went to Wrestlestock! Two years worth! He stopped Zealot and left him behind, then came to 2021 and made it all the way to the semifinals in the Open! Vengy, what do you think about your effort?

The Avenger came bounding in, clutching his Conquest title against him. "I think it's great!" he shouted giving the narrator that he couldn't see a thumbs up. "Duncan Ryder is a respectful guy, and he really earned that win! I'm glad I could inspire him to victory!"

Right.

"But you know what bugs me?" He asked, not caring if the narrator cared or not."

"Harsh," he muttered. "Anyway, there's so many people in this business that don't like to have fun! It makes me wonder why they're here. You can be good people, have fun and still win championships! What's wrong with treating people with respect?"

Is this because Tony Savage made fun of you?

"Oh I'll get to him," The Avenger said, a mischievous grin forming on his face. "But I just meant, everyone's so super serious. 'Oh my best friend's in the hospital!' 'Oh this guy's in a coma'! 'Oh I'm stuck in a Lifetime movie of the week!'" 

Got an axe to grind in particular or...

"Nope!" Avenger shook his head. "Just wondering!" 

That made this whole thing pointless, Vengy. 

"Aren't most of these recap segments pointless?"

Fair enough.

AVENGERVERSE, VOLUME 3: ISSUE 4

ST - SAVAGE TONYMAN

Many moons ago, well actually a couple of weeks ago, The Avenger acquired a time and space traveling device from Zealot and left him trapped one year in the past. Also there was a fire, and Zealot's probably dead, but you're not interested in that. The device, combined with Avenger's very own Multiversal remote, would enable him to travel anywhere and everywhere in time, space and reality. The problem was...

"This thing is powered by a weird gem!" 536 exclaimed, holding up the gutted time travel device to Avenger. Indeed, hooked to the amazingly small motherboard was a piece of a gem, with the wires connecting it directly to the circuits. Avenger gawked at it, then reached a gloved hand in to poke it before 536 pulled it away.

"Are you nuts?" he asked rhetorically. "You want to touch a mysterious gem without knowing how it works?"

"Of course not!" Avenger lied. He really did want to touch it. It called to him. He would dream about it that very night.

536 frowned at it, as it was no longer glowing as it had when he first opened the device up. "I think this ran out of juice, honestly. We might have to go get another. Well, you might have to. I need to keep working."

The Avenger, who was still daydreaming about possessing the gem, snapped out of it and shook his head. "What?"

536 glanced up at him. "You gotta go get another one of these or we can't power the device."

Our hero, who always wanted to do more adventures on his own but felt like his friends didn't trust him enough, was now hit with the overwhelming sense of responsibility and pressure. He rubbed the back of his head and chuckled nervously.

“You know, last time I tried to travel on my own, you and Sam said no. I got really mad, remember?” He asked, wondering if it was really just six months ago that this happened. A lot had changed and 2021 felt like doing 2020 twice. Which he kind of did in his last adventure, but that’s not relevant.

536 nodded, barely paying attention as he tinkered with the innards of the gutted travel device. “Yeah, but we were just worried about you.”

“What about now?” Vengy asked. “I mean…”

His larger companion looked up at him. “This year alone you won two titles. You helped beat the Right Hand. You kicked Zealot’s butt. You solved a murder. Face it Vengy, you’re like, an actual superhero now. No more hand-holding.”

Avenger nodded. “Right, right. Okay. So you trust me now. So anyway...where am I gonna find one of these….”

He stared at the gem, which called to him from its spot on the motherboard. Avenger didn’t realize it, but he was starting to drool a little.

“...completely uninteresting gems that I have no interest in whatsoever?”

536 glared at Avenger for a moment. Realizing that he’s asking a simple man to find something not simple he pulls out his cellphone and starts up an app. 

“Here. Go to the red dot…”

“EGAD, MAN! You put the MR on my cell phone?”

536 stared at him for a long, uncomfortable moment. “No…, this is a tracking app that I programmed with the data of what is in the gem. I already entered the coordinates in your MR and really, the science is quite simple when you think about it. You see, the gem is made of a special material only common to a handful of universes and that material is…” 

As 536 droned on with his technobabble, The Avenger started to get lost in thought again. He pictured himself taking the gem for a nice outing. A dinner and a movie. Then maybe they would realize they had a lot in common and would like to see more of each other. Long strolls on the beach. They’d go away for the weekend at a cabin in the Poconos. Eventually they would grow closer and closer until finally Avenger got down on one knee and….

“ARE YOU LISTENING?” 536 yelled at him.

“Wha? OF COURSE I’m listening!” Avenger lied. “Go to the universe, grab the gem, don’t talk to strangers.”

“I didn’t actually say that last par…”

Avenger snatched the phone away from 536 before pressing the button on the multiversal remote and opening a portal.

“GOT IT! SEE YA!” He exclaimed, before jumping inside and leaving his friend wondering what the hell he just allowed to happen.

---(A)---

The portal ripped open the fabric of Earth #2012 and Avenger leapt out of it. When he landed, firmly, on his own two feet, he had two realizations. The first was that he truly wasn’t the same Avenger that had started on his adventure. He was still unsure of himself, but he was able to get things done. He had defeated a lot of evil and he had won a lot of matches. He was doing his best and in some cases, that was enough. 

“Wow narrator,” Vengy said, dusting off his tights. “That was a nice speech. Very Sam-like.”

That’s the nicest thing you ever said to me, Vengy.

“I’m in a good mood. Gonna get this gem and go get Sam back!” Avenger said, excitedly. But before he could get carried away with what it would be like to save his best friend, that’s when he looked around and came to his second realization. It wasn’t a hard conclusion to come to, as he stared down at the logo of Carnage Wrestling amongst the rubble of a destroyed warehouse, with decaying bodies all around him.

“Aw crap!” he moaned. “Not the Apocalypse World again!”

Back in December, Avenger was misusing the MR to go get the best tacos in the entire multiverse, on Earth #1962. It was a more innocent time. While hopping back to his Earth, he accidentally landed here to find an evil version of a pretty good guy killing this Earth’s version of the Carnage ring announcer. It was truly a dark time. 

“The darkest timeline,” he muttered, trying and failing to remember how he knew the phrase. 

He glanced around and saw that now it was no longer Carnage that had been hit by the Apocalypse that was Evil Jon Willis. The entire Baltimore of this Earth was in ruin and the sky was now orange with black, smoky clouds covering the landscape thanks to the numerous fires. 

“I do not want to be here,” Avenger said, nodding to himself. “Not even a little. This place is scary and makes me very sad.”

A building in the background lurched and then began to collapse in on itself. Avenger jumped, but quickly realized he was still alone. He hoped he was alone, anyway.

“That guy was crazy pants. And scary. Of course I don’t want him around!”

He saw a hole that led underneath the alternate version of his former home, which he was sure wasn’t there before. But before he was busy trying not to pee himself. 

“I failed,” he admitted, before walking along the rubble and trying to avoid stepping on the now unrecognizable bodies of alternate versions of people he used to work with. He wondered if this universe’s version of Avenger was among them, but decided he’d rather not think about that. He ducked his head lower as he found more scenes of destruction. A ball pit was deflated, no longer offering the ability to time travel. Truly, Willis did what he was meant to do and destroyed everything.

Well, not everything.

“Holy plot convenience!” Avenger said as he noticed a faint shimmering glow in the wall, hastily covered by a dented trash can. He kicked it aside and wrapped his hands around the gem that was stuck inside the stone and began to tug on it. The cave around him began to shake and shudder, rocks falling from the ceiling. One fell down close to our hero, but he ignored it. He wanted the gem. 

Behind him, one of the walls began to crack. The gem started to come loose from its stone prison and Avenger could feel it finally pry free. As he stared at it in wonder, the wall behind him also burst open and a large humanoid broke free. It had blond hair and a goatee and dressed in a now very dirty suit. The suit was also ripped, as this creature was much larger than a normal man. Its skin was also very orange, as if it had used too much spray-tan. It roared at the heavens as he reached for Avenger, who turned around and found that the rock that fell earlier was pinning his cape to the ground.

“I knew Apocalypse World was bad!” he shouted as he got up and tried to run, but he was only tugged back to the ground. The large being raised his arms in the air, and Avenger, not knowing what else to do, held the gem outward at it and yelled, “STOP!”

Then the being stopped. 

For a moment, the two shared a thought, as both of them were very confused about why Avenger was not paste right now.

“THE GEM OF MACGUFFIN!” it yelled out. “HOW DID YOU OBTAIN IT?”

Avenger yanked his cape free and brushed it off. The being lurched forward again and tried to grab the gem from him. “Stop it!” Avenger repeated. It did as it was told.

Vengy glanced at the gem, then back at the creature. Then back at the gem. Then back at the creature. This continued for a solid thirty seconds, until he asked, “Why did you do what I told you to do? Why didn’t you kill me?”

“I WANTED TO CREATURE, BUT I…” it bellowed, before Avenger held his hand up.

“Use your inside voice, Citizen!” 

It stared at him with a look of pure hatred, then continued. “The gem and I are one. Whoever wields it is able to command me for as long as it's in their possession. But know this cosplayer, the power you wield will be short-lived!”

Avenger thought for a moment. It sounded very familiar to him, just as the creature looked like a certain opponent he had coming up at UGWC Synergy. But as this was an alternate world where these things didn’t exist, we’re allowed to skirt copyright laws! Isn’t that helpful to this story?

“Lawyers are the real monsters,” Avenger said to the creature, who had no idea what he was talking about. He thought for a moment, rubbing his chin. “What’s your name?”

“NO NAME CAN SUM UP THE PURE SAVAGERY THAT I…” Avenger held up his hand to tell him to be quiet again. “I do not let my victims have a chance to name me before I END THEM. But I call myself the WARLORD OF THE DISTRICTS!”

“Okay,” our hero sighed, trying to figure out how he got into this situation. “Savage. That seems to work well in my line of work. And you look like this man I know named Tony.” He snapped his fingers. “I got it! SAVAGE TONYMAN! Or ST for short.”

“That’s stupid.” the monster said, correctly. 

Avenger glanced upward at the narrator and frowned, before looking back at the creature. “Well, I’m the one in control so I say you answer to SAVAGE TONYMAN! It’ll be perfect for merchandise!”

He glanced around and tried to think about what his next move would be. He had a walking behemoth that looked very similar to another walking behemoth under his control. There was so much they could do. So much they could achieve. But he had to be sure he had total control. And was it right to have total control of a creature? 

“Well it’d kill me if I didn’t,” he replied to the narrator. “You’d totally kill me if I got rid of this gem, wouldn’t you?”

ST simply nodded. "Until I possess that gem, I will hunt you to the ends of ALL TIME."

Avenger frowned. “Jerk.” He then clasped his hands together. “Right, so we’ve got to prove I have control of you! Go run into that wall!”

ST, apparently a warlord of some kind in this universe, proceeded to duck his head down and run straight into the nearest wall. He put a hole in the solid rock and got his head stuck, before pulling it out and crushing the rock that came out with it.

Avenger gulped. “Definitely glad I have this gem,” he said meekly. He then thought to himself again, before saying those thoughts out loud. “Okay, but you’re clearly indestructible so you would have no problem doing something that might hurt. What about embarrassing? SAVAGE TONYMAN, I demand you do the worm!”

Much like a very popular wrestler in the twenty-years ago in some other universe, ST began to hop on one leg, four times, while Avenger spelled out ‘W-O-R-M’. He then dropped to his knees, and did a very awkward, very clumsy version of the Worm. Avenger laughed and motioned for him to get up. The very ungraceful brute got up and belched, then apologized.

“Okay, I believe I have control, I won’t do that anymore.”

“Thank the Maker,” ST groaned.

“But I don’t want you killing me so I can’t give you freedom yet. So I guess you’re just gonna have to come with me so we can become friends and you promise not to kill me after gaining the power of love!” Vengy added, nodding his head enthusiastically. That doesn’t seem like a very realistic idea.

“That doesn’t seem like a very realistic idea, TREND CHASER,” ST agreed. "SOON YOU WILL BEG ME FOR MERCY!"

Avenger laughed. “It’ll be fine! Let’s go, new best friend!”

With that, Vengy pressed a button on the MR and a portal opened. He motioned for ST to walk through and then followed.

---(A)---

“Um, Vengy...I said get the gem. And I know I didn’t actually say ‘don’t talk to strangers’ but I shouldn’t HAVE to.”

536 stared at the two, as they popped into the apartment they were sharing with Captain 80s (who was out riding his Falcor or whatever it was he did on Saturday nights). The menacing, hulking figure of SAVAGE TONYMAN was breathing heavily in 536’s direction, seeing an even larger version of the Avenger he already wanted to kill for no real reason other than he existed, it seemed. 

“That’s the thing, he came with the gem! It’s like finding a really scary toy in your box of Cheerios!” Avenger said, holding the gem out with his hand to make sure 536 saw it. 536 went to snatch it and Vengy pulled his hand back.

“We need that to make the device work, Vengy.” 536 lectured.

“I know,” he agreed. “But see, if I give this to you, he’ll kill me. He said so. He listens to whoever holds the gem.” 

The hulking brute behind him nodded his head. 536 sighed. 

“I’m not awake enough for this. I'll tell him not to kill you.” 

Vengy thought about it for a moment, then handed the gem over to his larger variant. 536 examined it and the glow was much stronger than the one they already had. That gem was now sitting on the table, as 536 had managed to remove it from the device while Avenger was off on Apocalypse World. Incidentally, everyone noticed just how bad Apocalypse World smelled, as the entire apartment now reeked of sulfur. Luckily, they were all too polite to bring it up. 

Avenger looked back at the monster, which just sat there staring at 536 now, taking his focus off of him. 536 seemed unnerved, but he pressed the gem to the motherboard and pulled out his mini soldering iron from his utility belt. As he bent over to light it up, suddenly there was a rumble from outside. 

“DRAKE IN A WHEELCHAIR, what was that?” Avenger shouted. “Did the Captain crash the Falcor?”

He jumped from where he was and landed at the window. He was, at first, excited at the prospect of a new adventure or possibly helping a citizen. He did love helping people, and was sometimes not happy with the fact that he had graduated from a street-level hero to one that traveled the multiverse.

However, when he got to the window, he saw a portal opening and dozens of members of a familiar group began pouring out, with weapons. 

“Aw man, not them! They were SO last season!” Avenger whined. Down in the parking lot of the apartment complex they were staying at were the last remnants of the Right Hand, a cult from Earth #161 that had previously been led by the evil version of our hero. Somehow, they not only knew where he was but when he was, and had arrived.

536 joined him at the window, forgetting to grab the gem on the way. ST glanced at it and began inching his hand over, hoping to sneak it away from them. 

“How did they even get a portal?” he asked. It was a legitimate question, but one that would go unanswered.

“Does it matter? Nobody cares about cults anymore! Sure, they were all the rage last year, but now we’ve moved onto other things!” Avenger held his hands on his hips and pouted. Even heroes got bored.

“Well, we should probably get down there and do something about it.” 536 admitted.

The Avenger’s eyes suddenly lit up. “Or!”, he began. “We could use our new best friend for good! The first step towards making him our friend is to teach him about fighting evil! ST!, I have a task for y..”

He turned back and saw ST’s hand only a foot away from the gem. Vengy gasped and jumped over the coffee table, did a somersault as he landed and grabbed the gem before ST could get it. The monster simply snapped its fingers in frustration.

“Very naughty, ST!” Avenger said, scolding him. He then turned his frown upside down before continuing. “We have a job for you! I want you to go outside and dish out some #JUSTICE to that stupid cult!”

"YES! I WILL BATHE IN THEIR BLOOD!" the creature roared.

536 tilted his head at Avenger. “Are you sure? He doesn’t seem very...stable.” As he said this, ST was drooling at the thought of violence and practically bouncing where he stood.

“It’ll be fine!” Avenger said. “This is what Sam would do! We have to give him a chance to see that our ways, not randomly killing people, are best.”

“Then shouldn’t you…”

Avenger waved a hand at 536, interrupting his question because he already knew the answer. “Go stop the cult from hurting people, ST! And NO. KILLING. Heroes do not kill!”

The evil Warlord began lurching towards the door. It wrapped its massive hand around the handle and pulled backward, yanking the door off its hinges. The door propelled backward and barely missed Avenger and 536, but it did manage to take out the CRT television of Captain 80s. Avenger winced as ST stomped out of the room.

“It’s a good thing we have an eBay account to replace that,” 536 noted. Avenger agreed.

The two stood there, arms crossed, as they heard ST stomping down each stair on his way outside. They heard voices outside as the cult members were preparing to enter and come after them, perhaps hurting whoever they could to get there. Finally, there was a crash, and yells of fear, as SAVAGE TONYMAN descended upon them. All they could hear were signs of battle, but they didn’t really bother going to check it out.

“You think he’s killing them?” Avenger said nonchalantly. “I specifically told him not to.”

“Well you have that gem, so he has to listen.” 536 then sat down in his chair, and turned on the soldering iron to begin his work. “This seems weird. Shouldn’t we be fighting?”

“Yeah, it doesn’t feel right. But he has to learn to use his abilities to fight evil!” 

536 set down his tool as they heard the sound of glass breaking and a car alarm going off. "Well what do you want to do until he's done?" he asked.

 

"Promo for our Tony Savage?" Avenger replied, shrugging.

"Sure."

536 pulled out his cell phone and hit record, with Avenger getting into a proper pose to prepare to deliver his piece for Synergy. 

“Greetings, Citizens of UGWC! I am your friendly superhero, The Avenger! There may be other Avengers, but I’m THE Avenger because I’m real! And yes, I’m YOUR Conquest Champion. I don’t particularly like the name of the title, but it’s the only one it has so I won’t judge it too harshly. After all, judging someone you don’t know based on them not fitting your outlook on life isn’t a very nice thing to do! I’m guilty of it to, because nobody’s perfect, but we do try to do better each and every day!”

Outside, voices crying things out like, “rush him!” “he can’t take us all” “FOR THE RIGHT HAND” and other rallying cries can be heard. So can the sounds of blows landing with blunt objects and ST roaring with anger. Avenger flinches at the latter noise, but continued. 

“You know, Citizens, I called Tony Savage, my opponent for Synergy, a jerk. I realize now that I was too lenient! Because after watching his Wrestlestock speech against me, I realize he’s a BIG, FAT, HAIRY JERK! I’m sorry to react so harshly, Citizen, but you need a lesson in humility. Much like Eden, Gabriel, heck, even Johnny, you think very highly of yourself and it’s time someone taught you a lesson in manners! Since I’ve been working on my trash talk, I’m about to give you some tough love. It’s going to sound mean, and I’m sorry for that, but this is something you need to hear!”

Outside, a loud crunch could be heard, as could a blood-curdling scream. A voice cried out about how legs aren’t supposed to bend that way. 536, recording, nearly dropped his phone at the scream while Avenger visibly shivered. 

“Tony, can I call you Tony? Anyway, Tony, you claim you’re this guy who calls out bullcrap wherever you see it, right? You used a different word, but that’s what you said. Why, you’re the hero we need, not the one we deserve, because you call people out for not conforming to your style of thinking! Thank goodness you arrived, Citizen. I don’t think I know what we could have done if UGWC didn’t have yet another person on the roster making fun of everyone else and burying them because they didn’t live up to his lofty ideals!”

Avenger then leaned forward and held a hand to his mouth as though he were telling a secret. Outside, someone screamed “OW MY EYE!” 

“That’s what we call, ‘sarcasm’, Citizen! I’m being sarcastic because UGWC and wrestling in general has a whole ton of those! It’s my way of saying you’re not very original! You call me a ‘trend chaser’ but you’re out here being just like everybody else! At least superheroes are always popular. You’re just Conor McGregor-lite! You talk a big game until somebody gets a TKO against you in round one! Trend Chaser. Ha! I’ve been the Avenger all my life! You? You’re using BOTH promo styles people try to use against me because they have nothing else. It’s either ‘You’re not a real hero’ or ‘why don’t you stop every bad thing that ever happens?’ Congrats, Tony, on your creativity.”

Avenger nods but that nod becomes a head tilting to the right as just outside, the sound of a fire hydrant exploding can be heard. The camera tilts with him to the window, where a plume of water sprays upward. Avenger laughs nervously.

“Anyway, I find it funny that you claim you call out ‘BS’ when you’re the biggest BS’er of them all! You’re just a mean jerk who uses the need to call out other people to make himself feel better about beating them up later! I’ll give them this, at least the Eden Morgans and Gabriel Baals of the world are honest about who they are! They may not be nice people, but they don’t pretend to be. You? You use ‘calling people out’ as an excuse to get your jollies when you hurt their self esteem. I bet you were one of the ones trashing Simone Biles online for ‘letting her country down’. Yeah, I went there. How’s THAT for real life events? WE STAN YOU, SIMONE! YOU’RE A REAL HERO!”

Avenger gives a thumbs up. Outside, there are squelching noises and more screams. Avenger, hoping ST didn’t get carried away, gulps and continues. 

"You said I’m cosplay, that I dress up, that I play hero, when all you’re doing is playing a generic tough guy! You’re just like everyone else. ‘Ooh, I drink. I have fancy things, but I also beat people up and talk tough and did you know I'm the best and the smartest and most handsomest! Also I’m a better hero than you, I’m funnier, I have the best Twitter and everyone likes me the most!’ Honestly Citizen, when I first saw you I didn't know if you were real or if you were like, assembled at a wrestling-themed Build-A-Bear workshop! So, so many people are all about building themselves up and burying the little guy just so they get some shine, and that is not right!”

There are no more noises outside. The Avenger, actually getting angry for once, nearly rips off his own mask to prove a point but opts against it. Because that would be the mask. He’s The Avenger. Whoever is underneath what he wears was left behind a long time ago.

“I’ve been the little guy all my life, Mr. Savage. You claim I’m out here trying to enforce some moral code? No. Do I have strong opinions about right and wrong? Sure! Who doesn’t? That doesn’t mean I’m trying to enforce or make anyone conform. I’m out here to be a shining example. To go out there and prove that yes, you CAN live your dreams and you can be a good person while doing it! I felt awful about hurting Eden Morgan, but contrary to what you write on Twitter, she’s not ‘crippled’. She had a submission put on her in a wrestling match and I let go before any damage was done. I finished her with a Superhero Landing! But you’d know that if you actually watched the show instead of just making up stories to fit the things you were already thinking about saying to make yourself look the best! And they call ME delusional!”

He takes a moment, closes his eyes and breathes out. The Avenger normally doesn’t get this mean. Normally he tries to be respectful. But the blatant disrespect shown to him and anyone else by his challenger set him off. He finally opens his eyes and smiles.

“I’m just a kid from Baltimore that wants to do good. I’m not perfect. I’m not the best. I make mistakes. But I’ve never claimed anything else. All I claim to do is want to do good. To prove to that kid sitting in the tenth row that he can do anything he sets his heart on doing. To prove to that little girl that yes, dreams can come true. You are seen, dreamers of the World, and if The Avenger can rise from obscurity to become a champion in the ring and for #JUSTICE, so can you!”

He then stops when he hears stomping back up the steps, the unmistakable sounds of ST returning from his fight. There are groans and crying outside, as well as the sound of a portal opening back up. The Right Hand is alive, beaten and leaving. That’s all he needs to know.

“I even hope the best for you, Citizen Tony. I hope that you learn not to judge people. If you beat me, I will be the first to congratulate you! You will have earned it! But don’t sit there and treat everyone like you’re better. You’re not. We’re all just doing our best to get by and be the best versions of ourselves that we can be. Maybe you should try it instead of making sure everyone THINKS you’re the best version anyone can be.”

The camera turns off and Avenger sighs, as he put a lot of emotion into the speech. He’s drained. He’s tired. And then ST steps through the door, having caught the tail end of it.

“CREATURE...creature...your words speak to me. Perhaps I can learn something from you after all.”

The Avenger smiles, wearily. “That’s good ST! That’s all I....what is that all over your body?”

SAVAGE TONYMAN is covered in a red viscous fluid that may or may not be blood. No one is sure, least of all Avenger, who is just grossed out by random liquids. 

“For your next task, I order you to go take a shower! Hygiene is VERY important!”