Goodbye Sky Harbour

Rick charges at Corey again but by this point Corey has recovered and is also running full pelt at his adversary. The impact doesn't go well for Leon, the smaller man, as he is sent falling to the ground when the two men collide.

He clutches his shoulder in pain as Corey starts to drag him towards one of the other crates. He hoists the detective up to his feet and leans him against the crate. Taking a few steps back, he hurtles towards Leon, spearing him through the side of the crate. Casey stands up again and laughs to himself, as he walks over to where his gun landed. He picks it up and walks back over to the destroyed crate where Detective Leon's crumpled body is lying.

“Nice try, but I'm afraid it's lights out for you, Rick.”

He pulls the hammer back on the revolver, cocking it, and slowly raises his arm so it is pointed at Leon's head.

“Night night, Detective Leon.”

Rick winces as he hears the gunshot. He waits for the wet feeling of blood rushing from the wound in his forehead, and for the noises of the world to start sounding like they are coming from underwater, and for the world to go black. None of this happens, at least not to him, anyway. Instead of all this, Corey Casey slumps to the side, a thin red trail of blood oozing from the corner of his mouth, his expression locked in the evil smirk he was wearing as he was about to end Detective Leon's life.

Corey's smirking visage is replaced by another one. One of the blows to his head had knocked Rick's vision out of focus, so he struggled to make out who it was. All he could distinguish of the man was that he was bald.

“No need to thank me for saving your life. You're welcome.”

Rick obliged the man by passing out.


“I'm not ashamed to admit that I passed out in the warehouse last night. I guess it's a damn sight better than shutting my eyes for good. Corey got the better of me and it nearly cost me my life. The strange thing is, though, when I woke up this morning, I wasn't in the warehouse anymore. I was here. At home. In bed. I would pass it all off as some sort of horrible dream, if it weren't for the compelling evidence put forward by the black eye and huge lump on my forehead to say otherwise.

The fact remains, I have no idea how I got back here, and there's a good chance I never will know the full story. I only remember bits and pieces of the night. I remember confronting Corey, then getting my ass kicked and then nearly getting shot. That's where things start to go REALLY fuzzy. The only thing I remember after that is a bald headed guy and a voice. The voice was familiar, definitely not from around Chicago. It was...foreign, but not at the same time. It was Canadian.

I owe my life to the one man I have left to deal with in order to clean up this city for good.”


It had taken Detective Leon a couple of days to recover from the beating he received at the hands of Corey Casey. As he walks down the street towards the corner of West 56th and South Newland Avenue he wondered what had happened to Corey they other night. After he passed out, he had just woken up at home but he knew for certain that Casey had taken a round to the head. No matter how evil he had been in life, even Rick thought he deserved a proper burial.

Standing on the corner is a young negro man, covered in tattoos. As Detective Leon walks towards him, the man steps in to his path.

“Yo, you want some crack?”

“No, thank you.”

“'sgood stuff, dawg. The best chyoooo.”

“I'm fine, thank you.”

The man doesn't move.

“I'll be honest witcha pal. I'm just after yo money.”

Leon smiles. “I know.”

“So, you gonna hand over the cash easy or am I gonna have to take it the fun way?”

As he says that, he flashes the blade of a knife at Detective Leon.

“Now, now, James, there's no need for that.”

“Wait up, dawg. How'd you know my name?”

“That's not important right now. James Shark, I've got a proposal for you. There's a lot of money in it for you if you help me out. And you don't even have to shiv me.”

“Man it sounds like you takin' all the fun outta it...”

Leon smiles again. “When you hear what I'm about to offer you, I think you'll be willing to forego the fun part... If you tell me what I want to know, then there's $500 in it for you.”

“I'm listenin'.”

“James, I happen to know that you've been working for a man named Brandon Macdonald recently.”

“You wanna know how to get to him, dawg?”

“No. Well. Not yet. I have a little business to take care of before I take care of Brandon.”

“Well then whatchoo want? Spill!”

“I want to know who Brandon meets with from the Chicago Police Department. Who is his man on the inside?”

James Shark shrugs. “Sorry bro, can't help ya.”

“I'll give you $1000...”

“It's Commissioner Matthews.”

Leon smiles, for a third time. He reaches in to his pocket and pulls out a roll of bills. He thumbs off 10 $100 bills and hands them over to Shark. “Well well well, if it isn't my old friend Commissioner Charles Brian Matthews. Pleasure doing business with you, James.”

“Sure.”

James Shark pockets the money as Detective Leon smirks and walks away.


Ruben Ricardo León: Respect. Respect is a word that is bandied around a lot these days. 'I respect you.' 'I respect your wishes.' So on and so forth. I think we're in danger of losing the true meaning of the word respect.

I've heard a lot of people say over the past few weeks how they respect me, for who I am, my ethics, my commitment, my desire, for whatever reason. But recently here in IWF I've discovered that it's a word that doesn't mean a whole lot anymore.

It's also something I've been finding myself balancing a lot lately. In fact, it's almost like the tables of my respect for people here in the IWF have completely turned recently. Imagine, if you will, a set of scales.

On one side of the balance is Brandon Macdonald, whom until recently was a man that I despised and had as little respect as I thought it was physically possible to. But recently, Brandon has impressed me. He's turned his life around and showed me and the world that maybe he isn't the prize jackass he was back in NLWF.

However, every set of scales has two sides, and on the other side we have the family Matthews.

Until a couple of weeks ago, I counted Chuck and Ashley Matthews amongst my closest friends. Two people that I could trust completely and two people with whom I shared complete respect.

But I guess that doesn't matter to Chuck Matthews. Because last week on Battle Grounds, he came out to our match and did something that I honestly didn't think Chuck Matthews was capable of. I thought Chuck Matthews was a lot of thing, but I didn't think that he was what he has become since he joined up with Corey Casey and formed Se7en.

Honestly Chuck, I'm disappointed. I thought you were better than that, but I guess I was wrong.

As I'm sure many of you know I have been toying with the idea of retiring for a while now, and since I lost my IWF Championship to Dan Alexander it's a topic that has come up around the León household again.

It's something I've been giving a lot of thought to over the last couple of weeks, and really, up until I walked down to the ring for Battle Grounds last week, I really didn't know what I was going to do. But I guess I've got something to thank you for, Chuck. You made up my mind.

You said last week that our match all that time ago was my crowning achievement. You're almost right. My crowning achievement is actually winning a World Championship here in IWF which, correct me if I'm wrong, but you haven't managed yet. But, in a way, you're right. Our match was one of my proudest moments. Notice there how I said 'was.'

I was proud of that match because even if I didn't win, I gave a true legend of the business, and a good friend of mine, one of the matches of his career. Hell, that was WHY I lost that match, because I wanted to give it all and a little bit more. And I thought that was why you were proud of it too. Guess I was wrong again, huh?

So why am I retiring? Is it because Chuck Matthews came out to the ring and beat the shit out of me in a match? No, it isn't. I didn't deserve to win that match and neither did Mexican Samurai. I came to IWF for one very specific reason. Because I expected it to be different. I was told that it would be a glorious land, free of egos and politics, where democracy ruled. That sounded to me like heaven. A place where I could do the thing I loved with people I called friends without all the bullshit that came with being in NLWF.

But now I look around here, and all I see is egos. And you know who the last person I ever expected to pop an ego like that, after everything that went down in NLWF? Chuck Matthews. Chuck, I had hoped that as a way of thanking you for letting me be your last opponent back in NLWF, that I might ask you to be my final fight here in IWF. But I guess you went and screwed that.

Chuck. I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed.