Post by Zane on Aug 25, 2023 23:19:24 GMT -5
Las Vegas, NV
“You let the kid get what he wants,” Alex Stein says with an amused smile. “Let me be clear that I don’t think that you got played. We know how things work around there and this was always going to be the end result of what’s been happening between you.”
Zane shakes his head and looks down at the Cross-Hemisphere Championship, then back up at Alex.
“I’m fine with that,” he replies with a look of determination. “The kid has been effectively brainwashed into believing that I tried to end his career all those years ago. If I did that, I’d remember it and I’d have apologized for it. If he needs the Cross-Hemisphere Championship to be at risk too, fine. I’m happy to face him with that concession to his delusions there for him.”
Alex chuckles and takes a drink from his beer as he gazes down “The Strip.” Zane looks at him, then down at his heavily braced knee and the crutches that lean next to him against the table. Alex catches the gaze and pats him on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry about this,” he says, tapping on his brace. “This isn’t your fault.”
“Isn’t it,” Zane asks, looking down at it again.
“No,” Alex replies forcefully, even a bit angrily. “It’s entirely Zeke and Ezra’s fault. It’s Zeke’s fault for thinking it up and convincing the kid to go along with it, and it’s Ezra’s fault for letting Zeke manipulate him into doing it. This isn’t your fault and never was.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Zane replies guiltily.
Alex’s fist slamming down on the table jerks Zane out of his one-man guilfest.
“Stop that shit goddammit,” he yells, drawing a few stares from the people around them. “Look at this for what it is. It’s Zeke using you as an excuse for what happened to Ezra, which none of us remember. Besides, you have the evidence. Did you do it?”
“No,” Zane replies flatly as a glare comes across his face.
“Then stop with this guilt shit,” Alex answers bluntly. “The kid is getting played by his supposed ‘best friend’ and ‘mentor’. Remember, I lost my career because of Mickey Dragon and I never blamed anyone but Mickey Dragon for it. Even when I wasn’t sure what happened, I went and looked for the information I needed. Is Ezra doing that?
“No,” Zane answers, shrugging. “Not that I can tell.”
“Then stop playing into the kid’s bullshit,” Alex answers flatly. “If you found what happened, so could and can Ezra. He hasn’t... What does that say about him?”
“It says that he’s a stupid kid who’d rather be told what to think than actually try to do it for himself.”
“Not exactly,” Alex replies with a smile. “But I’ll allow it.”
Zane looks at him quizzically; “Then what do you think it means?”
Alex grins, a rare expression on his otherwise rough and bearded face.
“I think it means that Ezra is now who we were when we were him.”
Chicago
“We are the men of children, Ezra.”
Zane nods. “It took what Alex said near the end of our conversation for me to see it,” he continues. “But we really are the men who are the reflections of the children who made us.”
He sighs. “What does that mean?” He asks, rhetorically.
“I’ll get to that, but something else first.”
He sets the blood-spattered Cross-Hemisphere Championship down in front of him.
“Remember what I said, Ezra,” Zane begins as he stretches his neck. “Soon enough you'll see that the enemy has been standing next you, kid. Not across the ring from you."
He clicks something in his hand and a screen illuminates behind him. It glows softly enough that it doesn’t wash out the camera shot that’s facing him. Something glimmers briefly in the light.
“I know you haven’t thought much, if at all, about what Zeke did that ended our match prematurely,” he explains with the controller held in his left hand. He clicks the button and the video plays of Ezekiel sliding off of his back and drilling him with the low blow from behind.
“If Zeke is willing to do that to someone he’s never had an issue with just because he wasn’t good enough to put his money where his mouth is,” he pauses, looking over his shoulder. “Just think of what he’ll be willing to do to you when you stop being useful to him for fulfilling this imaginary revenge fetish of his.”
He tosses something up in his right hand and catches it. It’s the same object he’d done the same with the week before.
“Remember,” he pauses, grinning. “I have the leverage.”
The item disappears back under the table.
“I bet you’re really curious as to what that is,” he chides. “Well, let’s just say that no matter how our dance goes on Monday at ‘Chaos in Chelsea,” he explains. “We’re going to have a little movie night afterward.”
“It’ll be fun,” he quips, smirking. “I promise.”
All pretense of humor abruptly evaporates from his face and his body language changes from relaxed to hostile.
“Before that, though,” Zane says, glaring into the camera. “You have a lesson to learn.”
“You see, you probably don’t know this, and Zeke sure as hell didn’t tell you,” he continues, clicking another button that causes the lights to come up a bit more. “But you and I have had somewhat similar paths to our careers.”
“Granted my career has a bit more ‘path’ to it.”
“This is where what I said about us being the ‘men of children’ comes in.”
“I feel some sympathy for you because I can relate to you,” he explains. “We are both the products of the children who created us. I know that sounds disrespectful toward them, but it’s not. It’s an admission that even men with complicated personalities can have childishly simple motivations and accordingly try to use those who trust them.”
He puts his hand under his shirt and wraps it around something for a second, which appears to calm him. He drops his hand back to the table and resumes speaking.
“I was forged from the cruel and manipulative mind of ‘The Greater Evil,” he pauses and gestures with an upward-facing open palm. “And you from a mind that is perhaps just as dark, even if he doesn’t outwardly show it.”
“I respect Dirge for his evil more than I do Zeke for his,” he expounds. “Because at least Robert, Dirge, had the courage and the character to admit who he was upfront.”
“One doesn’t get much more honest than to refer to one’s self as ‘The Greater Evil” and embrace every aspect of that name.”
Zane turns his head and spits. “Who the fuck was Zeke?”
“Zeke hid his evil behind a visage of a wonderful and caring person.”
“He was a lie.”
“It’s who and what he still is.”
He shakes his head angrily.
“I don’t give a goddamn about his talent and his accomplishments,” he says. “We all earn those over time, and we’re as equally derided for them as we are praised for them.”
“Zeke can have his accomplishments,” Zane says, glowering. “I’m not here for those.”
“I’m here to keep him from ruining a career before it ever gets a chance to truly start,” he continues, looking down at the Cross-Hemisphere Championship.
“I was brought into this business by a wrestling legend,” he states with a headshake. “Just as your mentor is in the Hall of Fame, mine is too. In fact, there would BE no ‘UGWC Hall of Fame’ if it wasn’t for my mentor.”
“Hell, there wouldn’t be a UGWC if not for him.”
He giggles to himself, then claps so loudly that it echoes.
“Much as Zeke has used you for his own aims, my mentor did the same to me. Just as Zeke has used you as his personal weapon against me, so did Robert, aka Dirge, use me against his enemies. He pointed at someone and said ‘kill’.”
“I happily obliged him.” A malicious gleam shines in his eyes.
“Also like Zeke did with you, Dirge gave me just enough of a taste of what felt like individual success to keep me in his thrall. Just like it has worked wonders to keep you under Zeke’s control, it did the same to me. That and occasional motivation by pain. Legally it would probably be considered torture.”
He involuntarily shudders.
“It worked though,” he remarks with a shrug. “I was more of an animal or an attack dog back then. The electro-shock helped me learn how to focus. Negative reinforcement.”
“Which Zeke has done with you,” he smirks. “If I recall, Zeke has smacked you in the face a few times for not listening to him. It’s not the same as electroshock, but abuse is abuse.”
“Which is exactly what it is, Ezra,” Zane pauses and glares down the lens. “Abuse.”
His face reddens.
“Zeke is not only using you,” he rumbles. “But he’s also abusing you.”
“Get it through your thick goddamned skull that Zeke doesn’t give a single goddamn about you.” He snarls, genuinely angry. “As soon as you’re no longer useful to him, he’ll throw you away like trash.”
“In that respect, Dirge was better to me than Zeke has ever been to you.” He spits in disgust. “Eventually our relationship normalized from my being a weapon of his, a piece of property, which might I add was well paid for his skills and efforts, and set up with an education and a place to live, to being his friend.”
“Yeah, I know it sounds weird and fucked up,” he nods. “My hard work and loyalty eventually earned his respect and now he treats me like a member of his family.”
He smiles, perhaps without realizing it. It doesn’t last for long.
“Zeke may say that you’re family to him..”
“But he doesn’t show that he means it.”
He sighs.
“The thing here is, Ezra, that while I have to beat your ass on Monday because if nothing else I owe you a receipt for what you helped Zeke do to Alex...”
“I mean it when I call you one of the greatest young talents in this company, and potentially this industry."
His words are sincere, almost impassioned as if he genuinely regrets what he’s going to have to do.
“But you made the mistake of following along with the actions of a gutless coward and a selfish liar,” Zane says disgustedly. “And while my ‘father’ in this business was a liar when it suited him,”
“He was never a coward…”
“Unlike Zeke,” he fumes as his face reddens again. “Who formulated a plan that he dragged you into, and then executed with such ruthlessness that it may keep one of my closest friends from ever walking again.”
He picks up a cane and slams it down onto the table.
“If I find out before our match that Alex isn’t going to walk again because of what you two did…”
“You will never walk again.”
He lets the statement hang uncomfortably in the air for a few seconds.
“I honestly don’t want to do that,” he states emphatically.
He holds up the still-bloodied Cross-Hemisphere Championship and stares at it reverently.
“I want to defend this championship with the honor and respect it’s entitled to and leave with it.”
He stands up, picking up the championship and dropping it over his shoulder.
“Which is exactly what I’m going to do.”
He smirks.
“Then the fun really begins.”
End.
“You let the kid get what he wants,” Alex Stein says with an amused smile. “Let me be clear that I don’t think that you got played. We know how things work around there and this was always going to be the end result of what’s been happening between you.”
Zane shakes his head and looks down at the Cross-Hemisphere Championship, then back up at Alex.
“I’m fine with that,” he replies with a look of determination. “The kid has been effectively brainwashed into believing that I tried to end his career all those years ago. If I did that, I’d remember it and I’d have apologized for it. If he needs the Cross-Hemisphere Championship to be at risk too, fine. I’m happy to face him with that concession to his delusions there for him.”
Alex chuckles and takes a drink from his beer as he gazes down “The Strip.” Zane looks at him, then down at his heavily braced knee and the crutches that lean next to him against the table. Alex catches the gaze and pats him on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry about this,” he says, tapping on his brace. “This isn’t your fault.”
“Isn’t it,” Zane asks, looking down at it again.
“No,” Alex replies forcefully, even a bit angrily. “It’s entirely Zeke and Ezra’s fault. It’s Zeke’s fault for thinking it up and convincing the kid to go along with it, and it’s Ezra’s fault for letting Zeke manipulate him into doing it. This isn’t your fault and never was.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Zane replies guiltily.
Alex’s fist slamming down on the table jerks Zane out of his one-man guilfest.
“Stop that shit goddammit,” he yells, drawing a few stares from the people around them. “Look at this for what it is. It’s Zeke using you as an excuse for what happened to Ezra, which none of us remember. Besides, you have the evidence. Did you do it?”
“No,” Zane replies flatly as a glare comes across his face.
“Then stop with this guilt shit,” Alex answers bluntly. “The kid is getting played by his supposed ‘best friend’ and ‘mentor’. Remember, I lost my career because of Mickey Dragon and I never blamed anyone but Mickey Dragon for it. Even when I wasn’t sure what happened, I went and looked for the information I needed. Is Ezra doing that?
“No,” Zane answers, shrugging. “Not that I can tell.”
“Then stop playing into the kid’s bullshit,” Alex answers flatly. “If you found what happened, so could and can Ezra. He hasn’t... What does that say about him?”
“It says that he’s a stupid kid who’d rather be told what to think than actually try to do it for himself.”
“Not exactly,” Alex replies with a smile. “But I’ll allow it.”
Zane looks at him quizzically; “Then what do you think it means?”
Alex grins, a rare expression on his otherwise rough and bearded face.
“I think it means that Ezra is now who we were when we were him.”
Chicago
“We are the men of children, Ezra.”
Zane nods. “It took what Alex said near the end of our conversation for me to see it,” he continues. “But we really are the men who are the reflections of the children who made us.”
He sighs. “What does that mean?” He asks, rhetorically.
“I’ll get to that, but something else first.”
He sets the blood-spattered Cross-Hemisphere Championship down in front of him.
“Remember what I said, Ezra,” Zane begins as he stretches his neck. “Soon enough you'll see that the enemy has been standing next you, kid. Not across the ring from you."
He clicks something in his hand and a screen illuminates behind him. It glows softly enough that it doesn’t wash out the camera shot that’s facing him. Something glimmers briefly in the light.
“I know you haven’t thought much, if at all, about what Zeke did that ended our match prematurely,” he explains with the controller held in his left hand. He clicks the button and the video plays of Ezekiel sliding off of his back and drilling him with the low blow from behind.
“If Zeke is willing to do that to someone he’s never had an issue with just because he wasn’t good enough to put his money where his mouth is,” he pauses, looking over his shoulder. “Just think of what he’ll be willing to do to you when you stop being useful to him for fulfilling this imaginary revenge fetish of his.”
He tosses something up in his right hand and catches it. It’s the same object he’d done the same with the week before.
“Remember,” he pauses, grinning. “I have the leverage.”
The item disappears back under the table.
“I bet you’re really curious as to what that is,” he chides. “Well, let’s just say that no matter how our dance goes on Monday at ‘Chaos in Chelsea,” he explains. “We’re going to have a little movie night afterward.”
“It’ll be fun,” he quips, smirking. “I promise.”
All pretense of humor abruptly evaporates from his face and his body language changes from relaxed to hostile.
“Before that, though,” Zane says, glaring into the camera. “You have a lesson to learn.”
“You see, you probably don’t know this, and Zeke sure as hell didn’t tell you,” he continues, clicking another button that causes the lights to come up a bit more. “But you and I have had somewhat similar paths to our careers.”
“Granted my career has a bit more ‘path’ to it.”
“This is where what I said about us being the ‘men of children’ comes in.”
“I feel some sympathy for you because I can relate to you,” he explains. “We are both the products of the children who created us. I know that sounds disrespectful toward them, but it’s not. It’s an admission that even men with complicated personalities can have childishly simple motivations and accordingly try to use those who trust them.”
He puts his hand under his shirt and wraps it around something for a second, which appears to calm him. He drops his hand back to the table and resumes speaking.
“I was forged from the cruel and manipulative mind of ‘The Greater Evil,” he pauses and gestures with an upward-facing open palm. “And you from a mind that is perhaps just as dark, even if he doesn’t outwardly show it.”
“I respect Dirge for his evil more than I do Zeke for his,” he expounds. “Because at least Robert, Dirge, had the courage and the character to admit who he was upfront.”
“One doesn’t get much more honest than to refer to one’s self as ‘The Greater Evil” and embrace every aspect of that name.”
Zane turns his head and spits. “Who the fuck was Zeke?”
“Zeke hid his evil behind a visage of a wonderful and caring person.”
“He was a lie.”
“It’s who and what he still is.”
He shakes his head angrily.
“I don’t give a goddamn about his talent and his accomplishments,” he says. “We all earn those over time, and we’re as equally derided for them as we are praised for them.”
“Zeke can have his accomplishments,” Zane says, glowering. “I’m not here for those.”
“I’m here to keep him from ruining a career before it ever gets a chance to truly start,” he continues, looking down at the Cross-Hemisphere Championship.
“I was brought into this business by a wrestling legend,” he states with a headshake. “Just as your mentor is in the Hall of Fame, mine is too. In fact, there would BE no ‘UGWC Hall of Fame’ if it wasn’t for my mentor.”
“Hell, there wouldn’t be a UGWC if not for him.”
He giggles to himself, then claps so loudly that it echoes.
“Much as Zeke has used you for his own aims, my mentor did the same to me. Just as Zeke has used you as his personal weapon against me, so did Robert, aka Dirge, use me against his enemies. He pointed at someone and said ‘kill’.”
“I happily obliged him.” A malicious gleam shines in his eyes.
“Also like Zeke did with you, Dirge gave me just enough of a taste of what felt like individual success to keep me in his thrall. Just like it has worked wonders to keep you under Zeke’s control, it did the same to me. That and occasional motivation by pain. Legally it would probably be considered torture.”
He involuntarily shudders.
“It worked though,” he remarks with a shrug. “I was more of an animal or an attack dog back then. The electro-shock helped me learn how to focus. Negative reinforcement.”
“Which Zeke has done with you,” he smirks. “If I recall, Zeke has smacked you in the face a few times for not listening to him. It’s not the same as electroshock, but abuse is abuse.”
“Which is exactly what it is, Ezra,” Zane pauses and glares down the lens. “Abuse.”
His face reddens.
“Zeke is not only using you,” he rumbles. “But he’s also abusing you.”
“Get it through your thick goddamned skull that Zeke doesn’t give a single goddamn about you.” He snarls, genuinely angry. “As soon as you’re no longer useful to him, he’ll throw you away like trash.”
“In that respect, Dirge was better to me than Zeke has ever been to you.” He spits in disgust. “Eventually our relationship normalized from my being a weapon of his, a piece of property, which might I add was well paid for his skills and efforts, and set up with an education and a place to live, to being his friend.”
“Yeah, I know it sounds weird and fucked up,” he nods. “My hard work and loyalty eventually earned his respect and now he treats me like a member of his family.”
He smiles, perhaps without realizing it. It doesn’t last for long.
“Zeke may say that you’re family to him..”
“But he doesn’t show that he means it.”
He sighs.
“The thing here is, Ezra, that while I have to beat your ass on Monday because if nothing else I owe you a receipt for what you helped Zeke do to Alex...”
“I mean it when I call you one of the greatest young talents in this company, and potentially this industry."
His words are sincere, almost impassioned as if he genuinely regrets what he’s going to have to do.
“But you made the mistake of following along with the actions of a gutless coward and a selfish liar,” Zane says disgustedly. “And while my ‘father’ in this business was a liar when it suited him,”
“He was never a coward…”
“Unlike Zeke,” he fumes as his face reddens again. “Who formulated a plan that he dragged you into, and then executed with such ruthlessness that it may keep one of my closest friends from ever walking again.”
He picks up a cane and slams it down onto the table.
“If I find out before our match that Alex isn’t going to walk again because of what you two did…”
“You will never walk again.”
He lets the statement hang uncomfortably in the air for a few seconds.
“I honestly don’t want to do that,” he states emphatically.
He holds up the still-bloodied Cross-Hemisphere Championship and stares at it reverently.
“I want to defend this championship with the honor and respect it’s entitled to and leave with it.”
He stands up, picking up the championship and dropping it over his shoulder.
“Which is exactly what I’m going to do.”
He smirks.
“Then the fun really begins.”
End.
2013, '18, '23 
2013 
- 1x
- 4x 
- 5x
- 6x