Post by Zane on Jun 3, 2023 22:03:40 GMT -5
Chicago
UGWC Arena, after Synergy
Zane winces as the staff doctor checks his right knee, the same knee that he’d torn both his ACL and MCL in a few years ago and the same knee that Ezra Wolf had just whacked multiple times with a hammer. That hurt and pissed Zane off enough on its own, and had that been all Ezra and his marionette Ezekiel Pax had done, they’d have a big enough and violent enough receipt coming to them. But they’d done something worse. Far, far worse.
And far, far stupider.
Zane understood how message-sending worked in professional wrestling. He’d done it often enough himself, so he tended not to take most of it too deeply personally when it happened to him. Getting one’s ass kicked because someone wanted to make a point was as old as the business itself. But what Ezra and Zeke had done…that was a bridge way too far.
Zane didn’t have many friends, not many close ones at least. Although they didn’t talk as much as they used to, Zane still considered his former cooperative partner, “Das Uberbeast” Alex Stein to be one of them. Alex had been there when Zane had some into UGWC, a confused, violent, and most of all angry and unfocused twentysomething who’d been sidelined for a couple of years because the last company he’d been with had closed suddenly. Although Zane had David Damarest as his manager and UGWC Hall of Famer Dirge as his mentor, he still lacked focus and direction. He wasn’t a wrestler so much as he was a violent force of nature. Zane didn’t think back then, so much as David pointed him in a direction and he just did. Externally the world was an uncomplicated place for him, or at least that’s how it appeared. Internally he’d never been a simple person. He’d always been a barely contained mixture of conflicting emotions that were on the verge of exploding like a nuke.
Then along came Alex Stein.
Alex understood the younger Zane. He instinctively got the younger man and his complex personality. He didn’t judge Zane for what he did and how he felt. He didn’t mock him for his straightforward approach to everything, he didn’t deride him for relying on violence as the solution for everything, and he didn’t seek to use or bend Zane to his will. Instead, Alex saw the potential under the anger. He saw the ability for greatness. He saw the future.
Most importantly he saw the person.
Zane was a person to Alex, not a weapon like he was to David and Dirge.
Although their initial period of adjustment had had rough spots those hadn’t lasted long. The two men clicked almost as if they’d been born to team together. Alex Stein and Zane Scott the singles wrestlers had become “Scott and Stein” the cooperative team.
UGWC would never be the same.
Their time together would be short, and in that time “Scott and Stein” became synonymous for their ruthless efficiency as a team, and most importantly, their unshakable loyalty towards each other. This loyalty could’ve been strained, and perhaps even broken when their success as a team catapulted Stein to the top of the list of World Championship contenders. Instead of being overcome with jealousy and bitterness, Zane had embraced the opportunity that he felt that his best friend was beyond deserving of and had loudy supported him every step of the way. Destiny should’ve had “Das Uberbeast” Alex Stein as a dominant World Champion. Alex Stein knew it. The UGWC roster knew it. UGWC Management knew it.
Most importantly, Zane knew it.
He wanted nothing more than for Alex to realize his dream and become UGWC World Champion.
Even if it meant their team would have to take a back seat. That was the nature of the business sometimes. They’d have their future opportunities. Or so Zane and Alex thought.
Mickey Dragon had other ideas.
UGWC’s resident murderous sociopath had taken an obsession with Alex. Somewhere in his head, he’d become convinced that he had to eliminate Alex Stein from UGWC. To this day Zane had no idea why. All he knew was that the lunatic had taken his best friend away from him and ruined his likely Hall of Fame career. It was a sin that Zane had never been able to make him pay for, and the guilt of that fact still haunted him.
Zane thought that Alex had blamed him for the loss of his career, and Alex’s disappearance from the world confirmed that seeming fact. Then an opportunity had come along that Zane couldn’t pass up. Through this opportunity, he’d find out if Alex really did blame him for the end of his once extremely promising career. They’d been offered a chance to face the current Cooperative Champions, and this wasn’t any cooperative team or any champions for that matter.
They had an opportunity to face “Blessed Vanity.”
“Vain” Alan Wallace and “The Blessed One” Travis Roberts.
Two men Zane had enrormous, and more importantly consequential[/i] history with.
That story could encompass an entire promo on its own. Suffice it to say, getting the opportunity to team against two of the greatest World Champions, if not the two greatest World Champions in UGWC history was an opportunity Zane couldn’t pass up. He’d contacted Alex with no expectation of success. He was prepared to be politely refused. Had that happened, Zane would’ve understood. He would’ve felt enormous regret for the lost opportunity, but he would’ve accepted it. Zane never wanted to be a reason that Alex’s quality of life was negatively affected.
So he’d asked.
Alex accepted without hesitation.
The two teamed one more time, and it had been like they’d never stopped. It had been like they hadn’t been separated for over five years. “Scott and Stein” had rolled into their match with “Blessed Vanity” as understandable heavy underdogs. Most “experts” had expected a brutal but short match where the Cooperative Champions would put the former Cooperative Champions of years ago away in a few minutes and the fans would get to enjoy a “once in a lifetime” experience.
“Scott and Stein” were never good at following the rules.
Instead of losing as was understandably expected…
They’d won.
It was a non-title match, so historically the match didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
But “Scott and Stein” had sent a message.
“We’re still the best.”
That’d been about three years ago.
Another twist of his knee painfully jerked Zane out of his thoughts. He looked at the physician and realized that he hadn’t heard a thing the man had told him.
“I’m sorry,” he apologizes. “I zoned out a bit.”
“I noticed,” the physician replies with a grin. “Happens all the time. The long and short is that I’m sending you to the hospital to get an X-Ray on your knee. I don’t think the ACL or MCL have been retorn. I think they’re both bruised.”
Zane looks frustrated with the response.
“That little prick..”
The man looks at him patiently. “I need you to stay calm.”
“I am calm,” Zane replies a bit testily.
“No,” he replies. “You’re not. You’re understandably irate.”
“Alex…” Zane says to himself, worry heavy in his voice.
Zane finds a reassuring hand placed on his shoulder. “I can’t tell you what his injury or injuries are, but he’s in the best hands possible right now.”
Zane nods in reply, but he’s clearly still at a low boil. The physician looks at him and inspects his knee again, checking the nasty green and black bruise that’s formed. He steps away for a few moments, then walks back with a wrap. He quickly wraps Zane’s knee, then affixes an immobilization brace to it. He checks it to make sure it’s secure then looks up at Zane.
“You’re going to the ambulance in a wheelchair. I don’t want you putting any stress on that knee until another medical specialist tells you to.”
Zane nods again. “Sure.” He replies. “Whatever you say.”
“Good,” the man says, standing up. “I’ll be right back.”
He walks out to find a wheelchair without another word. Zane stares angrily at the floor.
“I’m sorry, Alex,” he mutters to himself.
“Ezra...”
Later that night
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
“I can’t believe he did that,” Zane growls to himself, angrily shaking his head. “Attack me, fine. I’m still a professional wrestler…but to assault and kidnap Alex just to get to me...and THEN possibly cripple him just to get my attention...”
Colin and Spyder enter the room, breaking his train of thought. They look at Zane, then at each other. As usual, Spyder’s face is unreadable. Colin looks far more concerned. Colin walks up to Zane and hands him a bottle of water and a protein bar. Zane takes both without comment, hammers down the protein bar in two bites, then gulps half of the bottle down in one shot. Colin can’t help but grin.
“Slow down,” he jokes. “I don’t want to make fifty trips to the vending machines, or to deal with you riding on a self-induced vomit comet because you keep scarfing down everything in sight.”
Zane looks up at him, his face gray and tired, although his eyes are anything but. Colin walks over and stands in front of him, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“It’s not your fault,” he reassures his friend and former student. “You didn’t put that idea in their heads. It’s completely on them.”
Zane doesn’t look like he believes Colin, but nods anyway.
“If you feel guilty, they win,” Spyder says, his tone neutral.
Zane snaps up and looks at the monstrously-sized man. Even after a decade of knowing him, and a few years of training under him, Zane didn’t feel like he really understood the mammoth man-mountain. He was always an enigma to everyone but Colin. That was seemingly how he wanted it.
“What’d you say?” Zane asks.
“I said,” Spyder replies. “If you feel guilty, they win.”
Zane stares at him questioningly.
“How do you figure?” he asks.
“Think about it,” Spyder explains. “If you spend the time you’re on the shelf moping about how it’s your fault that they did this, which it isn’t, then you’re not focused. You’re an easier target that way.”
“I’m never an easy target,” Zane replies indignantly.
“Settle down, killer,” Colin answers with a chuckle.
“Sorry,” Zane replies. “This whole thing just pisses me off.”
“So does getting too much ice in your drink at a restaurant,” Spyder interjects.
“You’re not helping,” Zane shoots back.
Spyder shrugs. “It’s not always a service I offer.”
Zane shakes his head in frustration while trying and failing to hide a smile with his hand, drawing a chuckle from Colin.
“That’s better,” he says, grinning. “Jim’s point is that you need your head to be in this and it’s not your fault that they did what they did to Alex.”
“Isn’t it though,” Zane asks. “If I’d given Ezra what he wanted in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“And if Zeke wasn’t lying to him and winding him up,” Colin retorts. “This would’ve never happened.”
“The boy is being lead around by his nose by someone who knows a great deal about getting people to do his dirty work,” Spyder offers. “This is a learning experience for Ezra and he’s failing the lesson.”
Zane looks at Spyder, clearly befuddled. “What lesson?”
“If you’re looking for someone to betray you,” Spyder answers. “Look to your right hand.”
Zane shakes his head and grins.
“In other words, ‘be careful who you trust’.” He replies.
“Indeed,” Spyder answers with a nod. “Ezra is going to learn that Zeke has an agenda, and when he does, the measure of his character will be revealed by how he responds to it, and what he does afterward. Right now the boy hasn’t written that chapter, but he’s running to the epilogue with breakneck speed.”
Zane looks at Colin. “Does it ever annoy you that he always knows the punch line?”
Colin smiles and looks at his mountain-sized partner in crime. “I’m used to it,” he replies. “You should hear him during road trips. He’s a real chatterbox.”
Zane looks from Colin to Spyder and back, clearly skeptical of the response he’d gotten.
“Press ‘X’ to doubt,” he replies.
Colin grins widely. “You’d be surprised.”
“No,” Zane smiles, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t be. I really wouldn’t be.”
“You’ve learned,” Spyder says with a chuckle.
“Did he just laugh,” Zane asks, astonished.
Colin shrugs. “He does that sometimes. Look on the bright side.”
Zane looks suspiciously at Colin. “What ‘bright side’?”
“I was going to make a ‘knee’ pun.” the slightly graying wrestler replies with a smirk.
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Zane answers, rolling his eyes before he looks back at Spyder. “Don’t laugh randomly like that. It creeps me out.”
“I like to keep people on their toes,” Spyder remarks, biting off a chunk of a Butterfinger bar that’s suddenly materialized in his hand.
Zane blinks at him, dumbfounded by the sudden appearance of the sweet.
“Candy bar fucking Hudini over there.” Zane quips, then frowns. “What Ezra really needs is a good slap across the mouth.”
Colin and Spyder look at him in unison. Colin looks disappointed. Spyder looks like Spyder.
“Who’s to say someone hasn’t,” Spyder inquires.
“Again with him being right,” Zane grouses.
“You should be used to this,” Colin answers with a smile. “As Jim said, it’s entirely possible that he’s already been given a ‘slap’ of some kind.”
Spyder replies with a single nod while shaking his head in frustration.
“That doesn’t mean that the words that followed it were reasonable,” Spyder states. “A slap to the face is a form of coercion.”
Zane exhales loudly and winces. “For some people, it’s a kink,” he replies. “Ezra’s kink is getting revenge for something that never happened...and injuring people who aren’t a part of any of it.”
Zane’s face reddens again as his hands ball up. He goes to leap off of the examination table but is forced back into place by Spyder’s massive hand.
“Stay,” is all he says. It’s all he has to say.
“For now he’s taking what Ezekiel said as bible verse,” Spyder interjects, drawing a confused stare from Zane and a grin from Colin.
“Was that a pun,” Zane asks. “Did you seriously just pull off a biblical pun?”
Spyder deadpans, so Zane looks at Colin. “Seriously, did he just pun?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny it,” he replies as his smirk gives away the game.
“My point,” Spyder rumbles in his perpetually and eerily calm voice, “is that young Ezra is trying to find his way while wrestling with the intense emotions that he allowed to consume him so many years ago. Surely you of all people can sympathize with that.”
Zane blinks like he’s been slapped and exhales slowly as his pallor returns to normal.
“I get that he’s being played,” he explains. “But that doesn’t justify what he did to Alex. He set Alex up, paid someone to attack him at his house, kidnapped him, dragged him here, imprisoned him in the arena, then dragged him out here and attacked him as a way to get my attention.”
He slams his fist down on the examination table, causing an echoing bang to reverberate out of the room. A few seconds later a nurse comes running in.
“We heard a loud bang,” she asks, slightly flushed. “Is everything ok?”
Colin looks at her apologetically. “Yes,” he replies calmly. “My friend here recently watched a friend of his suffer an assault and he’s still getting a grip on his emotions.”
She looks at Zane sympathetically, especially upon spotting the wrap and brace on his right knee.
“It looks like he did too,” she comments. “Do you need me to check your knee, or need anything?”
Zane nods his head. “No,” he replies calmly. “I’m ok, thanks. Just trying to stay calm.”
She smiles sympathetically. “If you need anything, please use the call button and we’ll help you. Please don’t punch the table, it sounded like a gunshot and startled the entire floor. It’s late.”
Zane shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok,” she looks over her shoulder and then back at him. “I have to go. We’ll be around if you need anything.”
“Thanks.”
She turns and leaves without a word. Colin and Spyder look at Zane.
“We should be leaving soon,” he says. “Try to sleep tonight.”
‘I’m not taking the painkillers,” Zane responds definitely, drawing an eye roll from Colin.
“You’ve been through this enough that you should be able to handle that responsibly,” he answers calmly. “If you think you’re going back to the bottle too hard, let Jim or I know and we’ll come and take it from you.”
Zane starts to nod, then abruptly stops. “Who says that you’re staying with me?”
“We do,” Spyder replies flatly, effectively putting an end to the conversation.
“Oh fuck it,” Zane shakes his head in a gesture of surrender. “I haven’t food shopped in a while.”
“We’ll manage,” Colin answers.
Zane grumbles to himself but doesn’t say anything else. Colin smiles widely.
“Perfect,” he replies. “Sleepover!”
Zane glares at him. “I really don’t like you right now.”
“You’ll live,” Spyder interjects. “Now lay down until the Specialist returns and give us a few minutes of quiet.”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Don’t be a wise ass.”
Zane smiles toothily at Spyder and lays down on the table, lacing his arms behind his head.
Zane’s Apartment
Chicago, IL
Just after 2:00 am
Zane sits alone in the darkness of his room, facing out into the moonlight that spills through the sliding door that faces the river. There’s no sound from his apartment, except what could be the sound of snoring. “It’s probably Colin,” he observed to himself. “There’s no way Spyder snores.” He pauses in thought for a second.
“Come to think of it,” he mutters to himself. “I’m not sure Spyder sleeps.”
He sighs.
“Spyder says I should be sympathetic to you, Ezra,” he says to himself. “And if you hadn’t gone out of your way to hurt Alex just to get to me, I would be.”
“But you crossed a fucking line there, kid,” he rumbles angrily.
“There was a time I’d have commended your ruthlessness,” he continues. “But this isn’t you. This is Daddy Zeke pushing your buttons”
He rubs his hands over his face.
“I’m tired and I should be sleeping,” he says. “But I’ll be out for at least a month thanks to you, so I’ll have plenty of time for sleep.”
He laughs, likely in spite of himself. “You come across like a stand-up guy, Ezra, and a straight shooter, and while you and I don’t see eye to eye, I respect that about you. This company, and this business, don’t have enough of those. You’d be a breath of fresh air.”
“Instead, you’re going to let Zeke turn you into a rotten prick,” he says flatly. “He’s going to turn you into a younger version of himself, consumed with hate and obsessed with revenge.”
His head droops. “Or worse,” he says. “He’ll turn you into a younger version of me.”
“I’ve been very successful,” he comments but doesn’t sound at all happy. “But at what cost? I’m resigned to the fact that I’m always going to be hated no matter what I do because that’s what people need of me. It’s not so much me being that ‘bastard’, or whatever epithet they choose for me, it’s that they need a villain, someone to righteously loathe regardless of any meaningful reason.”
“Maybe that’s what I deserve for what I’ve done in the past,” He coughs. “Don’t let Zeke turn you into me, Ezra. You have a bright future. Don’t put others in a position where they can take that from you just because it makes them feel good.”
“There’s no hope for me, Ezra,” Zane continues, sounding a bit sad, but also extremely angry. “I’ve tried to fight who I am and be a better person, but I am who I am.”
He shakes his head and looks up and out of the sliding door over Lake Michigan.
“Ezekiel sees me as some kind of monster,” he says quietly. “Be careful that your actions don’t make imagination and reality combine.”
He chuckles to himself. “I used to be called ‘The Personification of Pain’,” he explains. “And I earned it.”
His voice grows hostile and cruel. “I was also ‘The Personification of Hate’.” there’s a slight chuckle in his voice.
“Don’t put me there again.”
“I might grow to enjoy it too much.” his tone is chilling.
“Before that happens…”
The words seemingly float out of the darkness.
“GAH!” Zane yells, nearly falling out of his chair. “Don’t fucking DO that!!”
He turns to see Spyder standing in the open bedroom door, his face framed every so slightly by the moonlight while the rest of him remains engulfed in a darkness that seems to emanate outward from him like a protective layer.
“Go to bed,” he has a tone of authority and command. “You need sleep more than anything else right now. Wrestling with your morality is unwise when one is as tired and emotionally wrought as you are.”
“What about you,” Zane asks.
“What about me,” Spyder replies.
“Do you ever wrestle with your morality?”
There’s a very brief moment of silence between the question and the answer, but it feels like an eternity to Zane.
“No,” Spyder replies. “Not anymore. I put those demons in the ground a long, long time ago.”
“How?”
There’s another deceptive silence.
“Another time, Zane,” Spyder replies with a degree of sympathy that Zane didn’t know Spyder possessed. “Now is not the time for you to be wrestling with your inner darkness. Sleep. We’ll discuss it another time.”
He turns in the door but pauses.
“I promise.”
The words wash over Zane like a wave of calm. Moments later, he’s sound asleep.
UGWC Arena, after Synergy
Zane winces as the staff doctor checks his right knee, the same knee that he’d torn both his ACL and MCL in a few years ago and the same knee that Ezra Wolf had just whacked multiple times with a hammer. That hurt and pissed Zane off enough on its own, and had that been all Ezra and his marionette Ezekiel Pax had done, they’d have a big enough and violent enough receipt coming to them. But they’d done something worse. Far, far worse.
And far, far stupider.
Zane understood how message-sending worked in professional wrestling. He’d done it often enough himself, so he tended not to take most of it too deeply personally when it happened to him. Getting one’s ass kicked because someone wanted to make a point was as old as the business itself. But what Ezra and Zeke had done…that was a bridge way too far.
Zane didn’t have many friends, not many close ones at least. Although they didn’t talk as much as they used to, Zane still considered his former cooperative partner, “Das Uberbeast” Alex Stein to be one of them. Alex had been there when Zane had some into UGWC, a confused, violent, and most of all angry and unfocused twentysomething who’d been sidelined for a couple of years because the last company he’d been with had closed suddenly. Although Zane had David Damarest as his manager and UGWC Hall of Famer Dirge as his mentor, he still lacked focus and direction. He wasn’t a wrestler so much as he was a violent force of nature. Zane didn’t think back then, so much as David pointed him in a direction and he just did. Externally the world was an uncomplicated place for him, or at least that’s how it appeared. Internally he’d never been a simple person. He’d always been a barely contained mixture of conflicting emotions that were on the verge of exploding like a nuke.
Then along came Alex Stein.
Alex understood the younger Zane. He instinctively got the younger man and his complex personality. He didn’t judge Zane for what he did and how he felt. He didn’t mock him for his straightforward approach to everything, he didn’t deride him for relying on violence as the solution for everything, and he didn’t seek to use or bend Zane to his will. Instead, Alex saw the potential under the anger. He saw the ability for greatness. He saw the future.
Most importantly he saw the person.
Zane was a person to Alex, not a weapon like he was to David and Dirge.
Although their initial period of adjustment had had rough spots those hadn’t lasted long. The two men clicked almost as if they’d been born to team together. Alex Stein and Zane Scott the singles wrestlers had become “Scott and Stein” the cooperative team.
UGWC would never be the same.
Their time together would be short, and in that time “Scott and Stein” became synonymous for their ruthless efficiency as a team, and most importantly, their unshakable loyalty towards each other. This loyalty could’ve been strained, and perhaps even broken when their success as a team catapulted Stein to the top of the list of World Championship contenders. Instead of being overcome with jealousy and bitterness, Zane had embraced the opportunity that he felt that his best friend was beyond deserving of and had loudy supported him every step of the way. Destiny should’ve had “Das Uberbeast” Alex Stein as a dominant World Champion. Alex Stein knew it. The UGWC roster knew it. UGWC Management knew it.
Most importantly, Zane knew it.
He wanted nothing more than for Alex to realize his dream and become UGWC World Champion.
Even if it meant their team would have to take a back seat. That was the nature of the business sometimes. They’d have their future opportunities. Or so Zane and Alex thought.
Mickey Dragon had other ideas.
UGWC’s resident murderous sociopath had taken an obsession with Alex. Somewhere in his head, he’d become convinced that he had to eliminate Alex Stein from UGWC. To this day Zane had no idea why. All he knew was that the lunatic had taken his best friend away from him and ruined his likely Hall of Fame career. It was a sin that Zane had never been able to make him pay for, and the guilt of that fact still haunted him.
Zane thought that Alex had blamed him for the loss of his career, and Alex’s disappearance from the world confirmed that seeming fact. Then an opportunity had come along that Zane couldn’t pass up. Through this opportunity, he’d find out if Alex really did blame him for the end of his once extremely promising career. They’d been offered a chance to face the current Cooperative Champions, and this wasn’t any cooperative team or any champions for that matter.
They had an opportunity to face “Blessed Vanity.”
“Vain” Alan Wallace and “The Blessed One” Travis Roberts.
Two men Zane had enrormous, and more importantly consequential[/i] history with.
That story could encompass an entire promo on its own. Suffice it to say, getting the opportunity to team against two of the greatest World Champions, if not the two greatest World Champions in UGWC history was an opportunity Zane couldn’t pass up. He’d contacted Alex with no expectation of success. He was prepared to be politely refused. Had that happened, Zane would’ve understood. He would’ve felt enormous regret for the lost opportunity, but he would’ve accepted it. Zane never wanted to be a reason that Alex’s quality of life was negatively affected.
So he’d asked.
Alex accepted without hesitation.
The two teamed one more time, and it had been like they’d never stopped. It had been like they hadn’t been separated for over five years. “Scott and Stein” had rolled into their match with “Blessed Vanity” as understandable heavy underdogs. Most “experts” had expected a brutal but short match where the Cooperative Champions would put the former Cooperative Champions of years ago away in a few minutes and the fans would get to enjoy a “once in a lifetime” experience.
“Scott and Stein” were never good at following the rules.
Instead of losing as was understandably expected…
They’d won.
It was a non-title match, so historically the match didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
But “Scott and Stein” had sent a message.
“We’re still the best.”
That’d been about three years ago.
Another twist of his knee painfully jerked Zane out of his thoughts. He looked at the physician and realized that he hadn’t heard a thing the man had told him.
“I’m sorry,” he apologizes. “I zoned out a bit.”
“I noticed,” the physician replies with a grin. “Happens all the time. The long and short is that I’m sending you to the hospital to get an X-Ray on your knee. I don’t think the ACL or MCL have been retorn. I think they’re both bruised.”
Zane looks frustrated with the response.
“That little prick..”
The man looks at him patiently. “I need you to stay calm.”
“I am calm,” Zane replies a bit testily.
“No,” he replies. “You’re not. You’re understandably irate.”
“Alex…” Zane says to himself, worry heavy in his voice.
Zane finds a reassuring hand placed on his shoulder. “I can’t tell you what his injury or injuries are, but he’s in the best hands possible right now.”
Zane nods in reply, but he’s clearly still at a low boil. The physician looks at him and inspects his knee again, checking the nasty green and black bruise that’s formed. He steps away for a few moments, then walks back with a wrap. He quickly wraps Zane’s knee, then affixes an immobilization brace to it. He checks it to make sure it’s secure then looks up at Zane.
“You’re going to the ambulance in a wheelchair. I don’t want you putting any stress on that knee until another medical specialist tells you to.”
Zane nods again. “Sure.” He replies. “Whatever you say.”
“Good,” the man says, standing up. “I’ll be right back.”
He walks out to find a wheelchair without another word. Zane stares angrily at the floor.
“I’m sorry, Alex,” he mutters to himself.
“Ezra...”
Later that night
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
“I can’t believe he did that,” Zane growls to himself, angrily shaking his head. “Attack me, fine. I’m still a professional wrestler…but to assault and kidnap Alex just to get to me...and THEN possibly cripple him just to get my attention...”
Colin and Spyder enter the room, breaking his train of thought. They look at Zane, then at each other. As usual, Spyder’s face is unreadable. Colin looks far more concerned. Colin walks up to Zane and hands him a bottle of water and a protein bar. Zane takes both without comment, hammers down the protein bar in two bites, then gulps half of the bottle down in one shot. Colin can’t help but grin.
“Slow down,” he jokes. “I don’t want to make fifty trips to the vending machines, or to deal with you riding on a self-induced vomit comet because you keep scarfing down everything in sight.”
Zane looks up at him, his face gray and tired, although his eyes are anything but. Colin walks over and stands in front of him, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“It’s not your fault,” he reassures his friend and former student. “You didn’t put that idea in their heads. It’s completely on them.”
Zane doesn’t look like he believes Colin, but nods anyway.
“If you feel guilty, they win,” Spyder says, his tone neutral.
Zane snaps up and looks at the monstrously-sized man. Even after a decade of knowing him, and a few years of training under him, Zane didn’t feel like he really understood the mammoth man-mountain. He was always an enigma to everyone but Colin. That was seemingly how he wanted it.
“What’d you say?” Zane asks.
“I said,” Spyder replies. “If you feel guilty, they win.”
Zane stares at him questioningly.
“How do you figure?” he asks.
“Think about it,” Spyder explains. “If you spend the time you’re on the shelf moping about how it’s your fault that they did this, which it isn’t, then you’re not focused. You’re an easier target that way.”
“I’m never an easy target,” Zane replies indignantly.
“Settle down, killer,” Colin answers with a chuckle.
“Sorry,” Zane replies. “This whole thing just pisses me off.”
“So does getting too much ice in your drink at a restaurant,” Spyder interjects.
“You’re not helping,” Zane shoots back.
Spyder shrugs. “It’s not always a service I offer.”
Zane shakes his head in frustration while trying and failing to hide a smile with his hand, drawing a chuckle from Colin.
“That’s better,” he says, grinning. “Jim’s point is that you need your head to be in this and it’s not your fault that they did what they did to Alex.”
“Isn’t it though,” Zane asks. “If I’d given Ezra what he wanted in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“And if Zeke wasn’t lying to him and winding him up,” Colin retorts. “This would’ve never happened.”
“The boy is being lead around by his nose by someone who knows a great deal about getting people to do his dirty work,” Spyder offers. “This is a learning experience for Ezra and he’s failing the lesson.”
Zane looks at Spyder, clearly befuddled. “What lesson?”
“If you’re looking for someone to betray you,” Spyder answers. “Look to your right hand.”
Zane shakes his head and grins.
“In other words, ‘be careful who you trust’.” He replies.
“Indeed,” Spyder answers with a nod. “Ezra is going to learn that Zeke has an agenda, and when he does, the measure of his character will be revealed by how he responds to it, and what he does afterward. Right now the boy hasn’t written that chapter, but he’s running to the epilogue with breakneck speed.”
Zane looks at Colin. “Does it ever annoy you that he always knows the punch line?”
Colin smiles and looks at his mountain-sized partner in crime. “I’m used to it,” he replies. “You should hear him during road trips. He’s a real chatterbox.”
Zane looks from Colin to Spyder and back, clearly skeptical of the response he’d gotten.
“Press ‘X’ to doubt,” he replies.
Colin grins widely. “You’d be surprised.”
“No,” Zane smiles, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t be. I really wouldn’t be.”
“You’ve learned,” Spyder says with a chuckle.
“Did he just laugh,” Zane asks, astonished.
Colin shrugs. “He does that sometimes. Look on the bright side.”
Zane looks suspiciously at Colin. “What ‘bright side’?”
“I was going to make a ‘knee’ pun.” the slightly graying wrestler replies with a smirk.
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Zane answers, rolling his eyes before he looks back at Spyder. “Don’t laugh randomly like that. It creeps me out.”
“I like to keep people on their toes,” Spyder remarks, biting off a chunk of a Butterfinger bar that’s suddenly materialized in his hand.
Zane blinks at him, dumbfounded by the sudden appearance of the sweet.
“Candy bar fucking Hudini over there.” Zane quips, then frowns. “What Ezra really needs is a good slap across the mouth.”
Colin and Spyder look at him in unison. Colin looks disappointed. Spyder looks like Spyder.
“Who’s to say someone hasn’t,” Spyder inquires.
“Again with him being right,” Zane grouses.
“You should be used to this,” Colin answers with a smile. “As Jim said, it’s entirely possible that he’s already been given a ‘slap’ of some kind.”
Spyder replies with a single nod while shaking his head in frustration.
“That doesn’t mean that the words that followed it were reasonable,” Spyder states. “A slap to the face is a form of coercion.”
Zane exhales loudly and winces. “For some people, it’s a kink,” he replies. “Ezra’s kink is getting revenge for something that never happened...and injuring people who aren’t a part of any of it.”
Zane’s face reddens again as his hands ball up. He goes to leap off of the examination table but is forced back into place by Spyder’s massive hand.
“Stay,” is all he says. It’s all he has to say.
“For now he’s taking what Ezekiel said as bible verse,” Spyder interjects, drawing a confused stare from Zane and a grin from Colin.
“Was that a pun,” Zane asks. “Did you seriously just pull off a biblical pun?”
Spyder deadpans, so Zane looks at Colin. “Seriously, did he just pun?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny it,” he replies as his smirk gives away the game.
“My point,” Spyder rumbles in his perpetually and eerily calm voice, “is that young Ezra is trying to find his way while wrestling with the intense emotions that he allowed to consume him so many years ago. Surely you of all people can sympathize with that.”
Zane blinks like he’s been slapped and exhales slowly as his pallor returns to normal.
“I get that he’s being played,” he explains. “But that doesn’t justify what he did to Alex. He set Alex up, paid someone to attack him at his house, kidnapped him, dragged him here, imprisoned him in the arena, then dragged him out here and attacked him as a way to get my attention.”
He slams his fist down on the examination table, causing an echoing bang to reverberate out of the room. A few seconds later a nurse comes running in.
“We heard a loud bang,” she asks, slightly flushed. “Is everything ok?”
Colin looks at her apologetically. “Yes,” he replies calmly. “My friend here recently watched a friend of his suffer an assault and he’s still getting a grip on his emotions.”
She looks at Zane sympathetically, especially upon spotting the wrap and brace on his right knee.
“It looks like he did too,” she comments. “Do you need me to check your knee, or need anything?”
Zane nods his head. “No,” he replies calmly. “I’m ok, thanks. Just trying to stay calm.”
She smiles sympathetically. “If you need anything, please use the call button and we’ll help you. Please don’t punch the table, it sounded like a gunshot and startled the entire floor. It’s late.”
Zane shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok,” she looks over her shoulder and then back at him. “I have to go. We’ll be around if you need anything.”
“Thanks.”
She turns and leaves without a word. Colin and Spyder look at Zane.
“We should be leaving soon,” he says. “Try to sleep tonight.”
‘I’m not taking the painkillers,” Zane responds definitely, drawing an eye roll from Colin.
“You’ve been through this enough that you should be able to handle that responsibly,” he answers calmly. “If you think you’re going back to the bottle too hard, let Jim or I know and we’ll come and take it from you.”
Zane starts to nod, then abruptly stops. “Who says that you’re staying with me?”
“We do,” Spyder replies flatly, effectively putting an end to the conversation.
“Oh fuck it,” Zane shakes his head in a gesture of surrender. “I haven’t food shopped in a while.”
“We’ll manage,” Colin answers.
Zane grumbles to himself but doesn’t say anything else. Colin smiles widely.
“Perfect,” he replies. “Sleepover!”
Zane glares at him. “I really don’t like you right now.”
“You’ll live,” Spyder interjects. “Now lay down until the Specialist returns and give us a few minutes of quiet.”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Don’t be a wise ass.”
Zane smiles toothily at Spyder and lays down on the table, lacing his arms behind his head.
Zane’s Apartment
Chicago, IL
Just after 2:00 am
Zane sits alone in the darkness of his room, facing out into the moonlight that spills through the sliding door that faces the river. There’s no sound from his apartment, except what could be the sound of snoring. “It’s probably Colin,” he observed to himself. “There’s no way Spyder snores.” He pauses in thought for a second.
“Come to think of it,” he mutters to himself. “I’m not sure Spyder sleeps.”
He sighs.
“Spyder says I should be sympathetic to you, Ezra,” he says to himself. “And if you hadn’t gone out of your way to hurt Alex just to get to me, I would be.”
“But you crossed a fucking line there, kid,” he rumbles angrily.
“There was a time I’d have commended your ruthlessness,” he continues. “But this isn’t you. This is Daddy Zeke pushing your buttons”
He rubs his hands over his face.
“I’m tired and I should be sleeping,” he says. “But I’ll be out for at least a month thanks to you, so I’ll have plenty of time for sleep.”
He laughs, likely in spite of himself. “You come across like a stand-up guy, Ezra, and a straight shooter, and while you and I don’t see eye to eye, I respect that about you. This company, and this business, don’t have enough of those. You’d be a breath of fresh air.”
“Instead, you’re going to let Zeke turn you into a rotten prick,” he says flatly. “He’s going to turn you into a younger version of himself, consumed with hate and obsessed with revenge.”
His head droops. “Or worse,” he says. “He’ll turn you into a younger version of me.”
“I’ve been very successful,” he comments but doesn’t sound at all happy. “But at what cost? I’m resigned to the fact that I’m always going to be hated no matter what I do because that’s what people need of me. It’s not so much me being that ‘bastard’, or whatever epithet they choose for me, it’s that they need a villain, someone to righteously loathe regardless of any meaningful reason.”
“Maybe that’s what I deserve for what I’ve done in the past,” He coughs. “Don’t let Zeke turn you into me, Ezra. You have a bright future. Don’t put others in a position where they can take that from you just because it makes them feel good.”
“There’s no hope for me, Ezra,” Zane continues, sounding a bit sad, but also extremely angry. “I’ve tried to fight who I am and be a better person, but I am who I am.”
He shakes his head and looks up and out of the sliding door over Lake Michigan.
“Ezekiel sees me as some kind of monster,” he says quietly. “Be careful that your actions don’t make imagination and reality combine.”
He chuckles to himself. “I used to be called ‘The Personification of Pain’,” he explains. “And I earned it.”
His voice grows hostile and cruel. “I was also ‘The Personification of Hate’.” there’s a slight chuckle in his voice.
“Don’t put me there again.”
“I might grow to enjoy it too much.” his tone is chilling.
“Before that happens…”
The words seemingly float out of the darkness.
“GAH!” Zane yells, nearly falling out of his chair. “Don’t fucking DO that!!”
He turns to see Spyder standing in the open bedroom door, his face framed every so slightly by the moonlight while the rest of him remains engulfed in a darkness that seems to emanate outward from him like a protective layer.
“Go to bed,” he has a tone of authority and command. “You need sleep more than anything else right now. Wrestling with your morality is unwise when one is as tired and emotionally wrought as you are.”
“What about you,” Zane asks.
“What about me,” Spyder replies.
“Do you ever wrestle with your morality?”
There’s a very brief moment of silence between the question and the answer, but it feels like an eternity to Zane.
“No,” Spyder replies. “Not anymore. I put those demons in the ground a long, long time ago.”
“How?”
There’s another deceptive silence.
“Another time, Zane,” Spyder replies with a degree of sympathy that Zane didn’t know Spyder possessed. “Now is not the time for you to be wrestling with your inner darkness. Sleep. We’ll discuss it another time.”
He turns in the door but pauses.
“I promise.”
The words wash over Zane like a wave of calm. Moments later, he’s sound asleep.
2013, '18, '23 
2013 