Season 1, Episode 4 - The Microwave VII - "Domino Champloo"

Some fifty-odd years ago, the Presidential Restoration brought about a great deal of change for New England. No longer was the area of the former northeastern United States just a collection of isolated towns and warring villages; it was a modern state, reformed with a centralized government at its head. New factories belched smoke in the rapidly-expanding capital of Narragansett; engineers trained in France reopened the old Pennacook Canal with its barges; telegram lines stretched from Bangor, Maine to Windham, Connecticut.

Modernity spread from its origin in the Narrangansett district of Beacon Hill, the seat of the Presidential Administration, outwards in all directions. Those from the old world fled in its wake. Some people headed towards the seat of power. The population boom and improved technology that left a labor surplus - perhaps a nicer term for unemployment - in agriculture and weaving, among many others, led to a great migration to cities and their factories, with many newcomers settling in the Narragansett neighborhood of Neponset. After a long day at the factory, they could walk across the Kendall Bridge, built and funded by the new class of capitalists, so they could purchase, or even just look at, all the fashionable trends downtown. Maybe they could catch a ride in one of those imported Brazilian cars, see a German film in a recently-opened cinema.

For many, the world was new, modern, and exciting.

However, outlaws and brigands and soldiers too old to give up their ways, a common sight during the Warring Townships period that preceded the Restoration, searched for new lands. Their journeys brought them away from the capital, west to the frontier in the Berkshires, where modernity had not quite reached yet.

It was here, in these Berkshires townships, that the legend of Derek Domino continued to spread. The entirety of New England knew him as the mythical hero who used some sort of psychic power to unite the six states under the banner of the Presidential Administration, but in the Berkshires, the story didn’t quite finish there. In the west, the legend said that after completing the Restoration, Domino became an outlaw, not content with the sudden lack of bloodshed he so desperately craved. With his flaming sword, he brought fire and brimstone to the towns he sacked.

This town would be no different. In this isolated, little one-road town, Domino’s brigands killed most of the town’s men and imprisoned the women and children, bound for the slave trade in Upstate New York. In the town center, in the town square (if you could call it that), in front of the saloon and general store, Domino had his soldiers load up carts with the town’s grain and tobacco crops. Many of the men wiped their brows in the humid air of an Indian Summer.

One of the brigands, with his hand on his brow, suddenly squinted into the distance, a red setting sun on the horizon.

“Uh, boss, someone’s rolling into town...”

The sound of a motorcycle was unmistakable. On the road into town, both the brigands and townspeople watched as a black bike traveled towards them, kicking up dirt behind it. Riding the motorcycle was a man with flowing red hair equally matched by a flowing red cape, a X-shaped scar on his cheek. His eyes were hidden by the shadows of his black tricorn hat.

The man on the motorcycle stopped in the center of town, skidding as he brought his bike to a halt, right in full view of Domino and his gang. The rider confidently swung his leg over the bike and slid off, stretching his arms, cracking his neck, his eyes still hidden.

The gang members tensed themselves, their hands approaching their sword hilts. Even Domino stood at the ready, his hand wrapped around a woman’s throat.

The rider raised his head and everyone saw the most surprising sight in the world: an easygoing smile. The rider threw off his tricorne hat, which landed in the hands of a starstruck boy, no doubt now filled with ambition and a desire for adventure as he gazed down at the mysterious hat.

Alright, Sensei, let’s keep it going...

Woman, I'm telling this story exactly as it happened.

The rider stood right under the setting sun; the shadows covering his eyes were gone. In contrast to the easygoing smile, his eyes were green and as full as the moon. They seemed tender to the town’s women, inspirational to the town’s children, confident to the town’s men, weary to anyone who experienced war and bloodshed and the deaths of loved ones.

To Domino and his gang, those eyes meant trouble.

Domino dropped the woman, who grasped for air as she hit the ground. Domino then stood, revealing his full size, his massive sword resting across his shoulders.

“I suggest you keep moving, traveler,” Domino suggested, knowing full-well how the sun glared off his long sword.

I don’t like the innuendo there...

Quiet, Reed! Let the man finish his story!

The rider didn’t say anything. He simply took a step forward, and that’s when they all saw it: the sword on his hip. Though the blade was sheathed in its scabbard, they all saw the hilt, the metallic black, the red and green swirls that seemed to pulse with each breath.

“Last warning,” Domino declared.

“I don’t think he knows who you are, boss!” one of the brigands declared.

“I think he wants you to put the hurt on him, boss!”

“I think he does want me to put the hurt on him,” Domino declared.

The big man stepped forward, towards the rider. “Do you know who I am, traveler?”

The rider remained silent, simply shaking his head.

“I’m the man they know as Derek Domino. Ever heard of him?”

“I’ve heard of him,” the rider answered. Nobody expected the youth in his voice, nor the playful arrogance carried by each word.

The brigands laughed.

“This is some farmer’s kid!”

“I think yo mama’s calling, boy!”

Domino took another step forward. “Then you’ve heard the legends, then? How he carried the Restorationists to victory? How he cut down his foes left and right, using his flaming sword? How he was the deadliest man to ever walk the American wastes?”

The rider smiled. “I think those stories are a little exaggerated.”

“Oh?” Domino shook his head. “You’re looking at the legend himself, kid. I’m Derek Domino.”

“You’re Derek Domino,” the rider repeated.

Domino didn’t like his tone. “You here to challenge me, kid? Would you even be a challenge?”

The rider laughed, a cheerful, confident laugh that displayed no fear. “I’m not here to challenge Derek Domino. I’m here to kick the ass of the man who claims he is.”

The townspeople all gasped. The brigands unsheathed their swords, glaring at the rider. Domino himself gritted his teeth and raised his sword off his shoulders and pointed it at the rider.

“Big words from a small man! You don’t believe me to be the deadliest man in American history?”

“Deadliest man in American history is Rambo,” the rider answered. “The only thing I believe you are, is some fatass knockoff swordsman who only has about five minutes left to live.”

The townspeople all gasped again.

Domino clenched his fist and raised it. “Will you still be that confident after seeing this?!”

Domino smashed his sword on the ground; flames sprouted around it, engulfing it in an raging inferno. Domino pointed the flaming sword back at the rider.

The rider smiled. “I’m afraid the legends don’t always reflect the truth, my friends. You see, the Domino Sword isn’t a flaming sword.”

The brigands prepared themselves.

Domino narrowed his eyes.

The rider placed his hand on the hilt of his sword.

“The Domino Sword is an electric slide!”

Before the brigands could close the gap, the rider unsheathed his sword and swung it in a wide arc, all in one fluid motion. As the sword moved, the initial lightning strike, sounding like a sharp yet airy synthesizer, loose when it needed to be but strong when the situation called for it, rolled off the Domino Sword. The shockwave struck several brigands in their chests, which were suddenly red with blood.

As multiple brigands collapsed, more advanced on the rider. The smile never left his face as he deftly dodged each strike, letting the brigands make the first move, the first step in the dance, so his counterattack came back responsive and strong. Brigands got their arms chopped off, their chests slashed, tendons spouting blood. The rider plunged his sword through the chest of one brigand; lightning emerged from the sword-tip at the end of the lunge and blew out the chest of another brigand.

In only a few moments, dozens of bloodied bodies laid scattered around the rider. The rider raised his head and stared down the man calling himself Domino.

But the man calling himself Domino wasn’t a coward. His own eyes were also ones that had seen war. He was just a young boy during the Warring Townships period. He wanted to build fountains, bring waterous prosperity to every small village in those tough times. But then his parents were murdered, he was sold into slavery, and spent five tortuous years preparing his body for the moment of his revenge.

Yet revenge carried him too far. After slaying the gang leader and all those responsible for his parents’ murder, he himself stared too deep into the abyss and became the new leader. In that position, he unleashed the same horrors that had been inflicted upon himself, continuing the cycle of vengeance that marked the Warring Townships period, if not all of human history.

Domino clenched his sword hand and charged at the rider.

It was over before it began. For years, Domino relied on his fear and size to get what he wanted; he grew rusty, and it showed in that short fight that concluded his fate. Domino lunged with the broadsword; the rider side-stepped it and slashed Domino’s belly.

Domino dropped his sword, the flames slowly extinguishing themselves. He stumbled for a moment, then fell to one knee.

He looked back at the rider.

“You...you really are Derek Domino, aren’t you...”

The rider - the real Derek Domino - looked upon the fake Derek Domino as Jesus Christ himself might have looked upon a wayward member of his flock; only temporarily astray, but they would all soon return to the void and be one again.

“I am.”

Wayne Cornwallis looked at Derek with new eyes.

“Thank you.”

Derek wiped his sword down and sheathed it.

How’d you know his name?

Reed’s got a point. He never really mentioned any of that personal stuff before he died.

Yeah, did you even know his backstory or did you just make that stuff up? I bet you made it up.

He really did thank me when he died. Don’t look at me like that, he really did! Based off that, it wasn’t that difficult to make a backstory. And since I’m the one telling the story, the one carrying his memory, it’s his real backstory now. This story is the truth in its own way.

...whatever you say, sensei. I don’t even think waterous is a real word, by the way...

Enough, woman! This is only the beginning of my story, too. We still got a long way to go. But that'll be for another time, I got a shepherd’s pie in the oven and it’s just about done. And this is the best goddamn shepherd's pie you'll ever have.