Ken Roddy slides his bright red 1989 Mustang convertible into the arrival lane at the airport, and before he can come to a complete stop Joe Jitsu heaves a duffel bag into the back and vaults over the door and into the passenger seat. Ken checks his mirrors before gliding effortlessly back into traffic. That’s the sort of friend Ken Roddy is. He’ll pick you up from the airport.
Jitsu stretches in the passenger seat. “Head straight to the dojo. I met with Master Spreeng. He finally agreed to teach me his most secret technique.”
Roddy is impressed. “I never thought I’d see the day that old Hans would decide to teach it to anyone. Why did he change his mind?”
“Master Spreeng told me that he was so proud of our accomplishments, that he couldn’t hold back. He asked me to think of it as a reward for vanquishing all of the evil in Classic Wrestling.”
Ken looks confused, so Joe carries on. “Yeah, that’s what I thought too at first. But then I thought about it. With Classic shutting down, there will be no more wrongs to right, no more evil doers to be dealt with. We’ve done a lot of good traveling the world, Ken, and we’ve won our fair share of battles, but I think this is the first time we’ve truly won the war.”
Roddy considers for a second. “I never would have seen it that way. I suppose that’s why he’s a master.”
The Mustang disappears down the road, as we dissolve to Ken Roddy and Joe Jitsu inside of a dojo, both in bright gis; Ken in chartreuse, and Joe in a royal purple. Both men cycle through a series of impressive martial arts poses, before standing and facing each other.
“Ken, we’re going to have to be careful. This is Master Spreeng’s greatest technique. It may be too powerful to use inside the ring.”
Nodding, Ken seems to agree. “If everything you’ve said is true, it may just be. But our final opponent is Holo Make. Even with the numbers advantage we have in this handicap match, I’m not sure we can take him if we hold back even a little. There are a lot of monsters in Classic Wrestling, but Holo Make is more than that. He’s a true believer. He’s not going to stop until Kane and Kanaloa are satisfied, and nothing I’ve seen from him suggests that they’re easy gods to appease.”
Begrudgingly, Joe concurs. “Fair. But I can’t show it to you and do it to you at the same time. We’re going to need someone to demonstrate it on…” Joe Jitsu smirks the smirks of a small child who’s reasonably certain he’s going to get away with something, and then abandons his poorly practiced indoor voice. “What’s that Ken? You’re thinking of settling down, and ending your quest to stop evil wherever it may be? After all this time?”
Like clockwork, a cackling comes from just offscreen. The camera whips to a black clad ninja. “Black Belts no more! Evil has once more carried the day! Fall beneath our dark inevitability. Mwuhahahahahahahaha” Only then does he see the Cheshire grin on Joe Jitsu’s face.
“Okay Ken, check this out!”
The ninja’s eyes go wide. Jitsu approaches him, turns his back on his foe, and then flips backwards into a handstand. He presses up, flipping back to his feet and then drives the point of his elbow into the vile ninja’s chest.
A bright flash obscures everything, and as our vision returns, Ken Roddy’s gi top has been blown open, his hair is on end and his face and chest are covered in soot. “Oh my goodness. That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. What does he call it?”
Joe Jitsu, triumphant, steps out of a cloud of smoke, the only evidence that a ninja had ever been there. “My friend, it has many names. The World Ender. The Ultimate Destroyer. The Vanquisher of Injustice. But it’s a work of art, and it should take the name of its creator. Ken Roddy, I present to you the greatest martial arts maneuver of all time; the Hans Spreeng elbow!”
The friends, ecstatic, leap into the air. They freeze in midair, but the audio continues.
“Hai ya!”