Time To Throw Down

You don't find your enemy; your enemy finds you.

Valdez, Nick, Nebraska's digital poet and video game gladiator, he's found his enemy. A rival Call of Duty clan, a group ironically known as the "Peas Brigade," led by a guy called Ferginator, who's almost famous on MySpace for his Black Eyed Peas mashups.

You don't choose your enemies, but you do choose your battles.

The Heretics, Valdez's clan, they're not your run-of-the-mill gamers. They're soldiers in the digital revolution, warriors with keyboards and controllers, fighting the conformity that chokes the soul and binds the spirit. They follow 311, living and breathing the beats, finding solace in the lyrics that speak to them, that speak them.

The Peas Brigade, they're the opposite, the other, the enemy. They're the ones who blend in, who follow the mainstream, who make noise but don't say anything. They're a contradiction, a parody, a punchline. But they're real, as real as an online persona can be, as real as a rivalry in a virtual world can get.

Here's where the story gets real.

The rivalry starts with a game, a match, a battle that turns personal. Valdez faces Ferginator, Nebraska's poet versus Black Eyed Peas' devotee. Bullets fly, insults are hurled, and something shifts, something turns. It's no longer a game; it's a war. The screen becomes a battlefield, and the basement, Valdez's fortress, becomes the war room.

Words turn to weapons, games turn to battles, and MySpace, that relic of a social network, becomes the arena.

Ferginator takes it to Valdez's turf, posting videos, calling out the Heretics, challenging them, mocking them, breaking down the digital barriers that separate fun from fight. He cuts Black Eyed Peas songs into Call of Duty montages, and it's all there on MySpace, a direct assault on Valdez's identity, his philosophy, his world.

The Heretics respond, fighting back with their own videos, their own words, their own music. Valdez stands at the helm, guiding, directing, attacking. He takes 311's beats and turns them into bullets, fires them through his videos, his mashups, his online rebellion.

The basement is no longer a sanctuary; it's a command center, a hub, a digital bunker where Valdez and the Heretics plan their moves, coordinate their attacks, fight back against the Peas Brigade.

Here's where it gets ugly.

The Peas Brigade, they're not just about the music, the Black Eyed Peas, the empty words that fill their songs. They're about power, control, dominance. They want to rule the virtual world, make it their own, make it mirror their emptiness, their conformity, their soullessness.

They attack Valdez's followers, hack their profiles, invade their privacy, turn MySpace into a battleground, a place where privacy is a myth, and decency is a joke.

Valdez fights back, not with hacks, not with invasion, not with dirt, but with words, with rhymes, with truth. He takes to MySpace, posting his raps, his videos, his rebellion. He speaks to his followers, his soldiers, his brothers in arms. He tells them to stand tall, to fight back, to throw down.

He tells them, "Fuck the Bullshit, It's Time to Throw Down."

The battle rages, days turn to weeks, weeks turn to months. The rivalry becomes a legend, a story, a myth. It's no longer just Valdez versus Ferginator, Heretics versus Peas Brigade, 311 versus Black Eyed Peas. It's something more, something bigger, something real.

It's a fight for identity, for individuality, for freedom.

Here's where it gets personal.

Valdez's parents, they see the war, they feel the tension, they hear the beats, the gunfire, the digital roar that emanates from the basement. They worry, they question, they doubt. They don't understand, they can't understand, they won't understand.

Valdez explains, he tries to make them see, make them feel, make them believe. He tells them about the fight, the war, the battle that's not about winning but about standing, about being, about existing.

They listen, they nod, they pretend to understand.

Here's where it ends.

The Peas Brigade, they falter, they weaken, they crumble. The emptiness that drives them, that fuels them, that defines them, it's their downfall. They fight without a cause, without a purpose, without a soul. They lose followers, lose battles, lose themselves.

Valdez stands tall, stands proud, stands victorious. He's not just a gamer, a rapper, a soldier. He's a hero, a leader, a voice.

The basement, that digital fortress, that war room, that bunker, it becomes a monument, a shrine, a place of victory.

Valdez wins, but he doesn't celebrate, he doesn't gloat, he doesn't rest. The battle is over, but the war, the real war, the war for the soul, for the mind, for the self, it's still raging.

Valdez knows, he feels, he understands.

You don't find your enemy; your enemy finds you.

But you choose your battles, and you fight them, you live them, you win them.

You kick it in the basement, and you throw down.

Valdez knows, and now, you know too.

Fuck the Bullshit, It's Time to Throw Down.