Post by Zane on Dec 7, 2018 19:57:40 GMT -5
September 16, 2009
Chicago, Illinois
“Have a nice flight. I’d say I’d see you later, but somehow I doubt it.”
I stand silently and listen to the wind whistle through the broken window. It strikes me as odd at the time that it would take so long for a man that weighs almost four-hundred pounds to fall four floors and hit the ground. I look over at Salem, the man otherwise known as Cypress Morgan and watch him gloat under the simple white mask that he wears. For some reason at that moment it occurs to me that the mask should muffle his voice a lot more than it does. It’s a strange thing to think of after you’ve helped two other people commit attempted murder.
I hear Grevane laugh and turn slightly to look at him. The mad dog stares in wide-eyed glee, his face enveloped by a smile so wide and psychotically overjoyed that I feel myself shiver. The shiver could have been the wind mixing with the air-conditioning, although I’m not certain. Grevane giggles again and walks over to the window. He leans over to look out of it, but is roughly jerked backwards by the collar by Cypress.
“Get your head back in here.” He snaps. “We need to go. Now.”
I stand in stupefied silence as the entirety of what I’d just taken place in replays in my mind. It’s not every day that you help someone you don’t particularly like sneak into the corporate headquarters of the person whose largely directed your life for the past ten years for the purpose of murdering that person. It strikes me as an odd variation on patricide and weirdly sort of biblical. I stand pondering this, as well as why time seems to be moving so slowly when I’m jerked back into reality by a titanic “thud”. Grevane leans towards the window again, but Cypress yanks him back.
“No.” He hisses. “If you want to see him that badly, I’d be happy to throw your worthless ass out behind him.”
Christ, that sounded like a howitzer shooting a cow into a brick wall.
Don’t ask me how I know what that sounds like. The explanation would take far too long.
I turn and look at Cypress, then feel myself turn and begin to walk towards the door. Cypress turns and looks at me, then nods approvingly before he turns all the way and gives Grevane a hard shove in the same direction. Grevane snarls in protest before Cypress silences him with a brief smack up the back of the head. I look down at my watch and feel my heartbeat quicken when I notice the time.
12:56.
Four minutes until the guard’s patrol brings him this way.
I stop in mid stride and turn around. Cypress comes to a dead halt a couple of steps past me and angles his head curiously. Grevane doesn’t stop as fast and walks face first into the wall. I hear myself chuckle at the sight of it and then feel Cypress turn and look at me.
“Why’d you stop?” He asks, his voice heavy with suspicion.
I turn and walk back towards the office, gesturing over my shoulder as I head back into the semi- darkness. I hear Cypress fall into stride a few steps behind me as I hear Grevane hit the floor in the halI. I walk through the office and make a left at the desk until I reach the bookshelf. I begin to feel around on it, trying to find the release and I don’t even pause when I feel Cypress’ hand come down on my shoulder.
“What the fuck are you doing?” He hisses. "Now isn't the time to pretend that you're smart enough to read."
“Hidden elevator.” I reply, ignoring his childish insult
“What?” He asks. “The arrogant cocksucker has a hidden elevator?”
I nod.
“Yes.” I reply. “For emergencies and...dramatic entrances.”
Cypress chuckles behind him.
“Well, he just made a really dramatic exit.” He replies smugly.
I don’t reply. If can find the release, we can get out without dealing with Security. If I don’t, we’re going to be having an intimate conversation with a large group of heavily armed and extremely dangerous men take their jobs as the ones who he personal guard of the man in charge of this sprawling complex with life and death seriousness. Think of the Star Wars Imperial Guard with SMGs, Eastern European accents and an unhealthy affection for borscht.
If we’re really unlucky, we’d end up face to face with the man who leads that group. He’s the man that they all left home for out of nothing more than personal loyalty. He’s not a man I had any desire to spend any time with in the near future, because as soon as he discovered what I’d just taken part in, he’d want to remove my face with his bare hands. Damned former Spetsnaz could to it, too and I had no desire to see him bust some his “favorite hits” at my expense. Still, the thought of being in his not-so-tender care thrilled my slightly more than the man who would direct traffic for the whole thing.
The thought of his preferred means of “persuasion” makes me shudder.
“What?” I hear Cypress quip behind me. “I don’t even get a cheap guffaw for that? You’re both savages.”
“No time.” I reply. “His personal guard will be here shortly and I don’t feel like spending an intimate night with them...or the two men who give them their marching orders.”
Cypress responds with a derisive scoff.
“I can handle those two pussies.” He retorts.
“You're welcome to.” I reply. “I'm happy to look like a coward and live, but if you want to play up the 'tough biker' stereotype and get your ass kicked by the ten guys that come in with them, be my guest."
He grunts and I see a light flicker off of the books.
“Put that...”
My eyes fall on what I’m looking for and I stop mid statement. I grab the special book and pull it back. A second later I hear a quiet “click” in front of me and the shelf slides backwards and then to the left as it retreats into itself. The metal door it reveals silently slides open in front of us and I hear Cypress inhale sharply.
“Pretentious asshole.” He grunts.
I shrug and step in, then turn and look at him as I place my hand on the panel.
“You can either stand there and make your dick by insulting him, or you can shut up and get in here.” I reply curtly. “I don't care which one you go with, but don’t have much time.”
I look down at my watch again as I hear him growl irritably. I hear his lighter flip open and briefly smell the odor of flame. It's followed by the sustained odor of a lit cigar. I consider warning him to put it out, but I decide that it's not worth it and at the least it could provide me with a distraction once we're out of the elevator. I look up from my watch and into his glowering eyes.
“In fact, I’ll likely be hearing from his pet Russian any minute now and I’d like to be as close to ‘gone’ from here as possible when then happens.” I reply tersely. “So you can stand there and shit-talk him until his guards show up, or as I already said, you can shut up and get in here.”
His fists momentarily ball, then relax again as he laughs.
“Fuck you.” He replies, but steps in anyway.
Grevane comes scrambling at us and barely makes it in before the door slides closed and our journey to freedom begins. I would have rather left him behind.
Present Day
“I should have seen it coming then...”
Horizons 2013
Lieberjosch: Zane Scott descends the ladder and his will be leaving Horizons with his World Heavyweight Title, he almost falls to his knees, but Cypress Morgan is their to cacth him, putting his arm around his shoulders...
Vinegar: I still don't understand what he's doing here? Was that meant to be some kind of lesson? He changed the match.
Lieberjosch: Please, she had her hands on some ropes, and no energy, it was only when she saw Cypress that she got any kind of second wind, regardless of the handcuffs she would never had got him back.
Vinegar: We'll never know now, Scott raises his title into the air, the one she was so close to gaining tonight, and now she is forced to watch as her brother raises the other hand of Zane Scott in victory, and he smiles...
Covert Jay: HEART PUNCH!!!
Vinegar: I DON'T UNDERTAND ANYTHING ANYMORE!!!
Lieberjosch: Wha...Bu...
Vinegar: Cypress reaching into his back pocket and taking out a rolled out piece of paper and throwing it to Burke...who reads it and nods...before passing it to a ring boy who heads our way
Lieberjosch: The World Champion is out, but Cypress now dragging him to his feet...
Covert Jay: DEVIL'S DUE!!!
Vinegar: WHAT POSSIBLE REASON IS THERE FOR THIS![/i]
Lieberjosch: Oh my...
Vinegar: What is it?
Covert Jay: Cypress nonchalantly lying over the body of Zane Scott...
Lieberjosch: Remember when Zane Scott won the title at Outlast....
Vinegar: Yes?
Covert Jay: Burke drops to his knee's.
Lieberjosch: And on the next Synergy...
Covert Jay: Burke starts a count!
1!
Lieberjosch: Gathered a lot of allies for the celebration...
Vinegar: Oh my...
2!
Lieberjosch: And offered them all title shots...
3!!!
Lieberjosch: He put it in a contract...
Dennis: Here is your winner....and NEW UGWC World Heavyweight Champion...CCCCCCCCYYYYYPPPPPPPPPRRRRRREEEEEESSSS MMMMOOORRRRGGGAAAAANNN!!!
Present Day
“You could say that I’ve had a difficult history with UGWC Hall of Fame members.” Zane says with a crooked smile.
“Nice years ago present UGWC Hall of Fame Member Cypress Morgan enlisted my help because he and my first teacher were locked in a blood feud.”
“If you all think that Alan Wallace has ego to spare,” He says with a chuckle. “Then you should be happy that you were never stuck in the middle of a war between Cypress Morgan and the man once known as ‘The Greater Evil’. Those two men spent a good part of two thousand and nine trying to kill each other and as you’ve just seen that desire became quite literal on that warm September night.”
“It’s a strange feeling to stand there and watch yourself commit a crime, all the while feeling as if you’re not actually there.” He continues. “At the time it felt appropriate, even pleasurable to betray the trust of a man who was sort of a second father to me. The look on his face when he realized that I was involved is one that I’ve never forgotten and will likely never forget.”
“I appreciate the irony of that look now.” He says with a sad downward look.
“It’s said that the evil that we do is visited back on us.” He continues as he looks up. “I’m living proof of that”
A faint smile crosses his lips.
“Back then I had everything as one of Robert’s personal muscle.” He explains. “I did evil for evil and when I had a chance to be freed of that, I performed another act of evil in order to get there.”
“That’s the thing that most people either don’t understand or don’t care about…” He explains. “The evils we do aren’t an unrelated set of unconnected incidents. They are pieces in a puzzle and every evil deed you do in some way fits in with the others until the puzzle is complete and you are nothing more than the sum of your deeds.”
“Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately....unlike a literal puzzle, you can’t clean up your work by breaking it up and dropping everything into a box that you think that you can bury in some dark closet corner.”
“You can’t.” He continues. “You don’t bury your past.”
“More often than not, in some way…”
“Your past buries you.”
“Little did I know then that Cypress Morgan would be the first shovel full that would eventually bury me later.”
He stands up and walks away. As the camera slowly swings down and begins to fade out it finally settles on a single object.
An older version of the UGWC World Heavyweight Championship sitting on a shovel with a small pile of dirt atop it.
In Your Hands 2015
Lieberjosch: “Damage, Inc!”
In the ring, both men lay in the ring. Slowly, Ooley moves over. He rolls Scott over.
Vinegar: “One!”
Lieberjosch: “Two!”
Covert Jay: “Kickout!”
Indeed, in the ring, Zane Scott has kicked out. He beats Ooley back to his feet.
Vinegar: “Pulls Ooley into the Gearlock!”
The ref moves to check Ol' Bob, but Zane Scott interrupts that idea, spinning around.
Lieberjosch: “The Purge!”
Ooley splatters on the mat. Zane drops to his knees, a moment taken to glare at Ooley before covering him. The count comes in three seconds.
Vinegar: “Zane Scott wins, but what a performance by Ooley.”
Lieberjosch: “Very impressive indeed. Ooley stood toe to toe with one of the strongest, meanest men on the planet.”
Zane pauses the TV and sets the remote down on the table. He rubs the back of his head as if he's rubbing an old pain from his past then sets his arms on the table. His expression is calm, but not overly serious.
“A lot of people consider Robert Ooley to be a bit of a comic figure now.” Zane says as he holds a ball bat up in his left hand. “I can assure you, that with or without ‘Louis’, Robert Ooley can more than hold his own.”
He looks up at the black bat and waves it in tight circles for a few moments.
“Continuing with my history of having violent relationships with Hall of Fame Members, Ol’ Bob and I have never seen eye to eye on anything.” He continues. “Much like Cypress Morgan, he and I banged heads from the second we met each other. Bob acts like a blundering loudmouth, he yells, screams, blusters, threatens and mispronounces everything. He uses ‘Louis’ like an extension of his own body and is perfectly willing to smash someone’s head in when he gets the chance to.”
“It’s a brilliant smokescreen.” He continues.
“Does that remind you of anyone?” He asks with a crooked smile.
He lowers the bat down and places it on the table in front of him, then looks down at it.
“Everything we do stays with us in some way.” He says. “Even when we think that we’ve left it in the past, we haven’t, because even if we’ve forgotten the things that we want to forget, someone else is always bound to remember it…”
“To visit pain upon us for the pain that we’ve brought to others.”
“The pain I would bring after that match with Ooley would shake UGWC to its core.”
He picks the bat up and rolls it over in his hands for a few moments before his biceps momentarily bulge and the bat snaps in two with a loud “crack”. He sits with the broken bat in ihis hands and looks from one to the other.
“Little did I know it at the time,” he continues. “But the pain that I thought I was bringing to others...”
“Was really the beginning of mine.”
He sets the broken bat down on the table and the feed cuts.
Time: Unknown
Location: The Former Office of Pain and Paradox
“It’s finally here.” Zane says as he sits on what used to be the desk of Creative Director Donovan Hastings. “The moment of truth is upon us.”
“People have been asking me what you’re up to every since you stabbed me in the back at Outlast.” He states. “You would think after all of the time we spent together over the past almost year that I’d be able to answer that…”
“And yet I can’t.”
“I can’t for a goddamned second begin to even figure out what’s going on inside your head.” He continues. “I don’t know if there’s some lingering issue that caused this that you chose to never tell me about. If perhaps our long and bloody history wasn’t really behind us when we started what’s now our former team. Perhaps ‘Pain and Paradox’ was nothing more than a long con, something that you thought up before ‘Outlast’ a couple of years ago in order to gain revenge on me for some sort of grievance.”
“I simply don’t know.”
“I don’t know because you won’t tell me.” He explains. “Instead you play chickenshit games with me. You place me in matches that are meant to do nothing more than injure me. You place me in situations where the only purpose is to embarass me somehow. Even back when I became Triple Champion, you made sure that my first major feud, that my first defense as World Heavyweight Champion, was against two men who were, at the time at least, seen as little more than jokes.”
“Sure, that’s changed for one of them now,” he says. “But no one saw that coming last year.”
“That first match up against Deimos and Rydell became a consistent point of mockery for the rest of this year.” He growls as his expression darkens. “As if who you chose to book me against is somehow my fucking fault.”
“Yet I persisted.” He continues. “And so did you.”
“At every single chance you got, you put me in situations that were made to make me look like a fool.” He explains. “You ‘resurrected’ our team by pairing me with a cardboard cutout of you and then allowed me to retain the Co-Cooperative Championships by hitting someone with a brick. While I enjoyed who I got to hit with that brick at the time, inside I hated it because I knew it was wrong. I knew it was a bullshit way to retain those championships that would do nothing but tarnish their reputation and value.”
“And I knew that that tarnish would get on me.” He growls. “And deservedly so.”
“On top of that, you went out of your way to hurt Larry just because you knew it would hurt me.” He says with growing anger in his voice.
“Congratulations, you asshole.” He replies. “Worst yet, it hurt Larry.”
"I don't mean physical pain, although your pet ghoul certainly did inflict plenty of that, too." He sneers. "No, it wasn't just that."
“What you did to him has taken his innocence away from him.” He continues as his right hand balls into a fist. “When I sat in that restaurant and listened to Larry, who before that point had always looked on the bright side, who until that point had always been the happy and calming influence who helped me stay calm when I wanted to do just the opposite, the same Larry who had always been there for encouragement, the same Larry who babysat your twins out of the kindness of his heart because that’s the kind of good man he is...”
“When I saw my Larry look down at me over a table and tell me with malice and hatred in his voice and eyes that he would have killed you if he’d had the chance to at ‘Outlast’....”
“When I saw him tell me that he wanted me to end you…”
“When I saw a Larry who I didn’t recognize it didn’t take me long to figure out what was wrong with him and what you’d taken from him.” He explains angrily. “ It was the one thing that made his character stronger than the external appearance of weakness that everyone judged him for”
“His capacity for forgiveness.”
“When I saw looked in Larry’s eyes and no longer saw that capacity....”
“I wanted to kill[/b] you.”
He takes a deep breath and slowly reasserts control over himself. His other hand balls into a fist and he slams it down on the desk.
“Because of you, I’m left with a choice that I never wanted to make.”
“I’m left to decide if I continue down the path that I’ve chosen for myself…” He says through clenched teeth.
“Or if I throw all of that away...”
“And end you.”
“I’ve been asked if it’ll be too hard for me to go down into that abyss again if it allows me to beat you, Donovan.” He pauses. “The problem isn’t that it would be too hard to go down that road again...”
He looks up, his eyes as cold and empty as we’ve seen them since before his return at “Horizons X”. They're the eyes of the Zane Scott who terrorized UGWC as a member of "The Syndicate", the eyes of the cold and merciless "doesn't give a fuck about anything but getting the job done" killer that he'd become before his leg injuries.
“It would be too damned easy...”
“And if I do that,” He says with a dark smile.
“I’m not coming back...”
He stands up and turns around. Something flutters in his hand before it settles down onto the desk in front of him. He turns and walks away, until he walks past the camera and out of frame, which leaves it to focus on what appears to be a torn version of Donovan Hasting’s cape sitting on top of a broken black bat and a shovelful of dirt.
Chicago, Illinois
“Have a nice flight. I’d say I’d see you later, but somehow I doubt it.”
I stand silently and listen to the wind whistle through the broken window. It strikes me as odd at the time that it would take so long for a man that weighs almost four-hundred pounds to fall four floors and hit the ground. I look over at Salem, the man otherwise known as Cypress Morgan and watch him gloat under the simple white mask that he wears. For some reason at that moment it occurs to me that the mask should muffle his voice a lot more than it does. It’s a strange thing to think of after you’ve helped two other people commit attempted murder.
I hear Grevane laugh and turn slightly to look at him. The mad dog stares in wide-eyed glee, his face enveloped by a smile so wide and psychotically overjoyed that I feel myself shiver. The shiver could have been the wind mixing with the air-conditioning, although I’m not certain. Grevane giggles again and walks over to the window. He leans over to look out of it, but is roughly jerked backwards by the collar by Cypress.
“Get your head back in here.” He snaps. “We need to go. Now.”
I stand in stupefied silence as the entirety of what I’d just taken place in replays in my mind. It’s not every day that you help someone you don’t particularly like sneak into the corporate headquarters of the person whose largely directed your life for the past ten years for the purpose of murdering that person. It strikes me as an odd variation on patricide and weirdly sort of biblical. I stand pondering this, as well as why time seems to be moving so slowly when I’m jerked back into reality by a titanic “thud”. Grevane leans towards the window again, but Cypress yanks him back.
“No.” He hisses. “If you want to see him that badly, I’d be happy to throw your worthless ass out behind him.”
Christ, that sounded like a howitzer shooting a cow into a brick wall.
Don’t ask me how I know what that sounds like. The explanation would take far too long.
I turn and look at Cypress, then feel myself turn and begin to walk towards the door. Cypress turns and looks at me, then nods approvingly before he turns all the way and gives Grevane a hard shove in the same direction. Grevane snarls in protest before Cypress silences him with a brief smack up the back of the head. I look down at my watch and feel my heartbeat quicken when I notice the time.
12:56.
Four minutes until the guard’s patrol brings him this way.
I stop in mid stride and turn around. Cypress comes to a dead halt a couple of steps past me and angles his head curiously. Grevane doesn’t stop as fast and walks face first into the wall. I hear myself chuckle at the sight of it and then feel Cypress turn and look at me.
“Why’d you stop?” He asks, his voice heavy with suspicion.
I turn and walk back towards the office, gesturing over my shoulder as I head back into the semi- darkness. I hear Cypress fall into stride a few steps behind me as I hear Grevane hit the floor in the halI. I walk through the office and make a left at the desk until I reach the bookshelf. I begin to feel around on it, trying to find the release and I don’t even pause when I feel Cypress’ hand come down on my shoulder.
“What the fuck are you doing?” He hisses. "Now isn't the time to pretend that you're smart enough to read."
“Hidden elevator.” I reply, ignoring his childish insult
“What?” He asks. “The arrogant cocksucker has a hidden elevator?”
I nod.
“Yes.” I reply. “For emergencies and...dramatic entrances.”
Cypress chuckles behind him.
“Well, he just made a really dramatic exit.” He replies smugly.
I don’t reply. If can find the release, we can get out without dealing with Security. If I don’t, we’re going to be having an intimate conversation with a large group of heavily armed and extremely dangerous men take their jobs as the ones who he personal guard of the man in charge of this sprawling complex with life and death seriousness. Think of the Star Wars Imperial Guard with SMGs, Eastern European accents and an unhealthy affection for borscht.
If we’re really unlucky, we’d end up face to face with the man who leads that group. He’s the man that they all left home for out of nothing more than personal loyalty. He’s not a man I had any desire to spend any time with in the near future, because as soon as he discovered what I’d just taken part in, he’d want to remove my face with his bare hands. Damned former Spetsnaz could to it, too and I had no desire to see him bust some his “favorite hits” at my expense. Still, the thought of being in his not-so-tender care thrilled my slightly more than the man who would direct traffic for the whole thing.
The thought of his preferred means of “persuasion” makes me shudder.
“What?” I hear Cypress quip behind me. “I don’t even get a cheap guffaw for that? You’re both savages.”
“No time.” I reply. “His personal guard will be here shortly and I don’t feel like spending an intimate night with them...or the two men who give them their marching orders.”
Cypress responds with a derisive scoff.
“I can handle those two pussies.” He retorts.
“You're welcome to.” I reply. “I'm happy to look like a coward and live, but if you want to play up the 'tough biker' stereotype and get your ass kicked by the ten guys that come in with them, be my guest."
He grunts and I see a light flicker off of the books.
“Put that...”
My eyes fall on what I’m looking for and I stop mid statement. I grab the special book and pull it back. A second later I hear a quiet “click” in front of me and the shelf slides backwards and then to the left as it retreats into itself. The metal door it reveals silently slides open in front of us and I hear Cypress inhale sharply.
“Pretentious asshole.” He grunts.
I shrug and step in, then turn and look at him as I place my hand on the panel.
“You can either stand there and make your dick by insulting him, or you can shut up and get in here.” I reply curtly. “I don't care which one you go with, but don’t have much time.”
I look down at my watch again as I hear him growl irritably. I hear his lighter flip open and briefly smell the odor of flame. It's followed by the sustained odor of a lit cigar. I consider warning him to put it out, but I decide that it's not worth it and at the least it could provide me with a distraction once we're out of the elevator. I look up from my watch and into his glowering eyes.
“In fact, I’ll likely be hearing from his pet Russian any minute now and I’d like to be as close to ‘gone’ from here as possible when then happens.” I reply tersely. “So you can stand there and shit-talk him until his guards show up, or as I already said, you can shut up and get in here.”
His fists momentarily ball, then relax again as he laughs.
“Fuck you.” He replies, but steps in anyway.
Grevane comes scrambling at us and barely makes it in before the door slides closed and our journey to freedom begins. I would have rather left him behind.
Present Day
“I should have seen it coming then...”
Horizons 2013
Lieberjosch: Zane Scott descends the ladder and his will be leaving Horizons with his World Heavyweight Title, he almost falls to his knees, but Cypress Morgan is their to cacth him, putting his arm around his shoulders...
Vinegar: I still don't understand what he's doing here? Was that meant to be some kind of lesson? He changed the match.
Lieberjosch: Please, she had her hands on some ropes, and no energy, it was only when she saw Cypress that she got any kind of second wind, regardless of the handcuffs she would never had got him back.
Vinegar: We'll never know now, Scott raises his title into the air, the one she was so close to gaining tonight, and now she is forced to watch as her brother raises the other hand of Zane Scott in victory, and he smiles...
Covert Jay: HEART PUNCH!!!
Vinegar: I DON'T UNDERTAND ANYTHING ANYMORE!!!
Lieberjosch: Wha...Bu...
Vinegar: Cypress reaching into his back pocket and taking out a rolled out piece of paper and throwing it to Burke...who reads it and nods...before passing it to a ring boy who heads our way
Lieberjosch: The World Champion is out, but Cypress now dragging him to his feet...
Covert Jay: DEVIL'S DUE!!!
Vinegar: WHAT POSSIBLE REASON IS THERE FOR THIS![/i]
Lieberjosch: Oh my...
Vinegar: What is it?
Covert Jay: Cypress nonchalantly lying over the body of Zane Scott...
Lieberjosch: Remember when Zane Scott won the title at Outlast....
Vinegar: Yes?
Covert Jay: Burke drops to his knee's.
Lieberjosch: And on the next Synergy...
Covert Jay: Burke starts a count!
1!
Lieberjosch: Gathered a lot of allies for the celebration...
Vinegar: Oh my...
2!
Lieberjosch: And offered them all title shots...
3!!!
Lieberjosch: He put it in a contract...
Dennis: Here is your winner....and NEW UGWC World Heavyweight Champion...CCCCCCCCYYYYYPPPPPPPPPRRRRRREEEEEESSSS MMMMOOORRRRGGGAAAAANNN!!!
Present Day
“You could say that I’ve had a difficult history with UGWC Hall of Fame members.” Zane says with a crooked smile.
“Nice years ago present UGWC Hall of Fame Member Cypress Morgan enlisted my help because he and my first teacher were locked in a blood feud.”
“If you all think that Alan Wallace has ego to spare,” He says with a chuckle. “Then you should be happy that you were never stuck in the middle of a war between Cypress Morgan and the man once known as ‘The Greater Evil’. Those two men spent a good part of two thousand and nine trying to kill each other and as you’ve just seen that desire became quite literal on that warm September night.”
“It’s a strange feeling to stand there and watch yourself commit a crime, all the while feeling as if you’re not actually there.” He continues. “At the time it felt appropriate, even pleasurable to betray the trust of a man who was sort of a second father to me. The look on his face when he realized that I was involved is one that I’ve never forgotten and will likely never forget.”
“I appreciate the irony of that look now.” He says with a sad downward look.
“It’s said that the evil that we do is visited back on us.” He continues as he looks up. “I’m living proof of that”
A faint smile crosses his lips.
“Back then I had everything as one of Robert’s personal muscle.” He explains. “I did evil for evil and when I had a chance to be freed of that, I performed another act of evil in order to get there.”
“That’s the thing that most people either don’t understand or don’t care about…” He explains. “The evils we do aren’t an unrelated set of unconnected incidents. They are pieces in a puzzle and every evil deed you do in some way fits in with the others until the puzzle is complete and you are nothing more than the sum of your deeds.”
“Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately....unlike a literal puzzle, you can’t clean up your work by breaking it up and dropping everything into a box that you think that you can bury in some dark closet corner.”
“You can’t.” He continues. “You don’t bury your past.”
“More often than not, in some way…”
“Your past buries you.”
“Little did I know then that Cypress Morgan would be the first shovel full that would eventually bury me later.”
He stands up and walks away. As the camera slowly swings down and begins to fade out it finally settles on a single object.
An older version of the UGWC World Heavyweight Championship sitting on a shovel with a small pile of dirt atop it.
In Your Hands 2015
Lieberjosch: “Damage, Inc!”
In the ring, both men lay in the ring. Slowly, Ooley moves over. He rolls Scott over.
Vinegar: “One!”
Lieberjosch: “Two!”
Covert Jay: “Kickout!”
Indeed, in the ring, Zane Scott has kicked out. He beats Ooley back to his feet.
Vinegar: “Pulls Ooley into the Gearlock!”
The ref moves to check Ol' Bob, but Zane Scott interrupts that idea, spinning around.
Lieberjosch: “The Purge!”
Ooley splatters on the mat. Zane drops to his knees, a moment taken to glare at Ooley before covering him. The count comes in three seconds.
Vinegar: “Zane Scott wins, but what a performance by Ooley.”
Lieberjosch: “Very impressive indeed. Ooley stood toe to toe with one of the strongest, meanest men on the planet.”
Zane pauses the TV and sets the remote down on the table. He rubs the back of his head as if he's rubbing an old pain from his past then sets his arms on the table. His expression is calm, but not overly serious.
“A lot of people consider Robert Ooley to be a bit of a comic figure now.” Zane says as he holds a ball bat up in his left hand. “I can assure you, that with or without ‘Louis’, Robert Ooley can more than hold his own.”
He looks up at the black bat and waves it in tight circles for a few moments.
“Continuing with my history of having violent relationships with Hall of Fame Members, Ol’ Bob and I have never seen eye to eye on anything.” He continues. “Much like Cypress Morgan, he and I banged heads from the second we met each other. Bob acts like a blundering loudmouth, he yells, screams, blusters, threatens and mispronounces everything. He uses ‘Louis’ like an extension of his own body and is perfectly willing to smash someone’s head in when he gets the chance to.”
“It’s a brilliant smokescreen.” He continues.
“Does that remind you of anyone?” He asks with a crooked smile.
He lowers the bat down and places it on the table in front of him, then looks down at it.
“Everything we do stays with us in some way.” He says. “Even when we think that we’ve left it in the past, we haven’t, because even if we’ve forgotten the things that we want to forget, someone else is always bound to remember it…”
“To visit pain upon us for the pain that we’ve brought to others.”
“The pain I would bring after that match with Ooley would shake UGWC to its core.”
He picks the bat up and rolls it over in his hands for a few moments before his biceps momentarily bulge and the bat snaps in two with a loud “crack”. He sits with the broken bat in ihis hands and looks from one to the other.
“Little did I know it at the time,” he continues. “But the pain that I thought I was bringing to others...”
“Was really the beginning of mine.”
He sets the broken bat down on the table and the feed cuts.
Time: Unknown
Location: The Former Office of Pain and Paradox
“It’s finally here.” Zane says as he sits on what used to be the desk of Creative Director Donovan Hastings. “The moment of truth is upon us.”
“People have been asking me what you’re up to every since you stabbed me in the back at Outlast.” He states. “You would think after all of the time we spent together over the past almost year that I’d be able to answer that…”
“And yet I can’t.”
“I can’t for a goddamned second begin to even figure out what’s going on inside your head.” He continues. “I don’t know if there’s some lingering issue that caused this that you chose to never tell me about. If perhaps our long and bloody history wasn’t really behind us when we started what’s now our former team. Perhaps ‘Pain and Paradox’ was nothing more than a long con, something that you thought up before ‘Outlast’ a couple of years ago in order to gain revenge on me for some sort of grievance.”
“I simply don’t know.”
“I don’t know because you won’t tell me.” He explains. “Instead you play chickenshit games with me. You place me in matches that are meant to do nothing more than injure me. You place me in situations where the only purpose is to embarass me somehow. Even back when I became Triple Champion, you made sure that my first major feud, that my first defense as World Heavyweight Champion, was against two men who were, at the time at least, seen as little more than jokes.”
“Sure, that’s changed for one of them now,” he says. “But no one saw that coming last year.”
“That first match up against Deimos and Rydell became a consistent point of mockery for the rest of this year.” He growls as his expression darkens. “As if who you chose to book me against is somehow my fucking fault.”
“Yet I persisted.” He continues. “And so did you.”
“At every single chance you got, you put me in situations that were made to make me look like a fool.” He explains. “You ‘resurrected’ our team by pairing me with a cardboard cutout of you and then allowed me to retain the Co-Cooperative Championships by hitting someone with a brick. While I enjoyed who I got to hit with that brick at the time, inside I hated it because I knew it was wrong. I knew it was a bullshit way to retain those championships that would do nothing but tarnish their reputation and value.”
“And I knew that that tarnish would get on me.” He growls. “And deservedly so.”
“On top of that, you went out of your way to hurt Larry just because you knew it would hurt me.” He says with growing anger in his voice.
“Congratulations, you asshole.” He replies. “Worst yet, it hurt Larry.”
"I don't mean physical pain, although your pet ghoul certainly did inflict plenty of that, too." He sneers. "No, it wasn't just that."
“What you did to him has taken his innocence away from him.” He continues as his right hand balls into a fist. “When I sat in that restaurant and listened to Larry, who before that point had always looked on the bright side, who until that point had always been the happy and calming influence who helped me stay calm when I wanted to do just the opposite, the same Larry who had always been there for encouragement, the same Larry who babysat your twins out of the kindness of his heart because that’s the kind of good man he is...”
“When I saw my Larry look down at me over a table and tell me with malice and hatred in his voice and eyes that he would have killed you if he’d had the chance to at ‘Outlast’....”
“When I saw him tell me that he wanted me to end you…”
“When I saw a Larry who I didn’t recognize it didn’t take me long to figure out what was wrong with him and what you’d taken from him.” He explains angrily. “ It was the one thing that made his character stronger than the external appearance of weakness that everyone judged him for”
“His capacity for forgiveness.”
“When I saw looked in Larry’s eyes and no longer saw that capacity....”
“I wanted to kill[/b] you.”
He takes a deep breath and slowly reasserts control over himself. His other hand balls into a fist and he slams it down on the desk.
“Because of you, I’m left with a choice that I never wanted to make.”
“I’m left to decide if I continue down the path that I’ve chosen for myself…” He says through clenched teeth.
“Or if I throw all of that away...”
“And end you.”
“I’ve been asked if it’ll be too hard for me to go down into that abyss again if it allows me to beat you, Donovan.” He pauses. “The problem isn’t that it would be too hard to go down that road again...”
He looks up, his eyes as cold and empty as we’ve seen them since before his return at “Horizons X”. They're the eyes of the Zane Scott who terrorized UGWC as a member of "The Syndicate", the eyes of the cold and merciless "doesn't give a fuck about anything but getting the job done" killer that he'd become before his leg injuries.
“It would be too damned easy...”
“And if I do that,” He says with a dark smile.
“I’m not coming back...”
He stands up and turns around. Something flutters in his hand before it settles down onto the desk in front of him. He turns and walks away, until he walks past the camera and out of frame, which leaves it to focus on what appears to be a torn version of Donovan Hasting’s cape sitting on top of a broken black bat and a shovelful of dirt.