Gryace

In the WWE, there’s no shortage of wrestlers with one name: Cesaro, Rusev, Ryback, Stardust, Kane, Fernando, Diego, aw, fuck it, I’ve made my point. While Gryace may not have a future in a real world company, he did have a future once upon a time at Play By Web. Remember Play By Web? The place I got kicked out of? Gryace is one of the characters I’ve salvaged from there.

Gryace was invented during the time where I was transitioning between the usernames Zeal and Undertaker. If you’d like plain English, my character was active while I was arguing with the entire PBW roster over my ability to enjoy porn despite my young age. Naturally, this flamboyant martial artist didn’t get much time to shine.

While I don’t remember the name of the game he was a part of, I can tell you that the game was basically arena combat where magic and creativity were highly encouraged. In fact, the admin of that group specifically said that if anybody had a problem with magic use, those people would be kicked out of the group altogether since closed-mindedness wasn’t allowed.

Gryace didn’t have any magic powers. But he did have martial arts skills that were so powerful and so flashy, even videogames like Street Fighter and Tekken wouldn’t be able to contain him. He didn’t just kick his opponents; he kicked them while doing a hundred summersaults, fifteen tuck-and-rolls, and twenty triple axles. This guy defied gravity with every punch and kick he threw. Maybe he didn’t need a plane ticket to get to his next venue. He could just kick somebody in the ribs in America and end up in Japan in less than a minute.

Because of his ability to tell gravity to go fuck itself and his hard-hitting style in general, Gryace didn’t need magical powers. In fact, if he tried to go Dragon Ball Z on his opponents and throw a Kamehameha wave, he could be an astronaut also in less than a minute. Is there life on other planets? If you give Gryace magic powers, he would be the first to tell you.

How could a young martial artist with a world of potential be so downplayed when it mattered most? Because at the time, I was 16 years old and my writing abilities weren’t nearly as developed as they are now. In order to win any matches in this game, you couldn’t just be a good writer; you had to be a literary badass. While I thought highly of myself and believed in my own abilities at the time, it didn’t mean anyone else agreed with my massive ego. Gryace was destroyed by his magic-wielding opponent in record time. Will we see Gryace again? If I ever have another story where kicking ass is important, you’re damn right you’re going to see him again.

　

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“Even through the darkest days, this fire burns always.”

-Killswitch Engage singing “This Fire Burns”-