Washington

Six weeks ago…

Gavin Taylor had collapsed backstage following his I Quit match victory at EMERGE #14, following his attacks at the hands of his fallen foe, Drake Hemingway, and his newest revealed follower, Dante. This wasn’t the same “Dante” that Gavin had been familiar with the old SWA – clearly, this man was no “Black Teletubby from Hell”. This was a follower of purity, whatever that entailed. While he and the All-Star Security force of Jack and Karl Barker had managed to ward off the attack long enough to get backstage, it was there that the pain from the beating Gavin had just taken overwhelmed his body, resulting in his collapse. But once at the hospital, the Doctors were telling a different story…

“Is there family for Gavin Taylor here?” The Doctor emerges from the ward rooms, clipboard in hand, and looks around. As he looks for family, Ava St. Claire steps forward.

“I’m his agent, so…” she says, pleading her case, but the Doctor will have none of it.

“I need to speak to a family member against Mr. Taylor’s condition,” he says. “With all due respect, Miss, “Agent” isn’t a family designation, so…”

“Stop bein’ humble, Ava,” Jack Barker says, speaking up from his seat. “She’s that man’s sister.”

The Doctor looks over to Barker as his brother, Karl, nods in the chair beside him. “My apologies, ma’am.”

Ava, glaring over in the direction of Jack and Karl with an almost-grateful expression in her eyes, confirms the lie. “You’re just doing your job, and I don’t really like to leave professional designations, so I understand.”

“Well, Mr. Taylor is going to be fine,” the Doctor says. “The best I can tell is that his body was just overwhelmed and decided to shut down to preserve himself and begin the recovery process.”

“That doesn’t sound like a medical thing that happens,” Karl says to Jack loud enough that the Doctor could hear.

“Well it is, so don’t question it,” he warns. “And don’t you DARE Google it either! We don’t need to muddy the waters with some WebMD diagnosis of Everything-Cancer. We’ll just accept that what I’m saying is valid and real and carry on.”

“Can I see him?” Ava asks, trying to get you away from the idea of Googling the symptoms the Doctor was talking about because, seriously, don’t.

“I’m sorry, Miss,” the Doctor says, shaking his head. “We have Mr. Taylor under sedation at the moment, and he probably wouldn’t remember any of the interaction. We do want to keep him overnight and…”

“That’s okay…” Ava says, nodding reservedly. “I don’t need him awake.”

“Okay, right this way,” the Doctor says, placing a hand near the small of Ava’s back to guide her towards Gavin’s room. Jack and Karl remain sitting in the waiting room…

“Was the Doctor supposed to say all that to an open waiting room?” Jack says, tilting his head towards his brother.

“I don’t know,” Karl responds, confirming he had the same thought. “And if he could, why did he need a family member?”

 

“Right!?” Jack and Karl both muse about the manner of that Doctor. The scene cuts away from there…

 

…The door closes behind Ava, who looks to the bed and sees Gavin laying in bed. An intravenous hooked into his arm, Gavin is fast asleep. She walks over to the his bedside, sitting in the chair as she leans over in his direction.

 

“Right fucking mess we got ourselves into, isn’t it?” she asks, although she knew the answer already. “Now a monster has joined that movement and you’re here. It’s just never-ending, isn’t it? I keep waiting for some flying dog or a princess who never ages to turn up… well, besides Maddie.”

 

Ava chuckles a bit. “You know, I actually do get what you see in her,” she confesses. “You and she… you’re like two peas in a pod. So yeah, while you’re handsome, I’d never want to come between what you have with your wife. But… you have to wake up so we can figure out what to do next.”

 

It’s at that moment that, almost cinematically, a still-sleeping Gavin mutters… “We’ll get those fuckers.”

 

Ava looks over at her client, a smile forming on her face. She doesn’t know if Gavin was even conscious of what he had just said or if it was an instinctual response… but she liked what she heard. “You’re damn right…”

 

We shift away…

 

Three weeks ago…

Gavin Taylor is at home in Los Angeles, with an EMERGE camera stationed in his living-room, but it isn’t then that which is our focus. It’s a recovering All-Star pacing around with a cell phone in hand.

 

“What do you mean you can’t get this thing on until after the main event?” Gavin says, clearly agitated. “Don’t tell me that Vee nixxed it. I saw what happened… she’s not even in the building. Besides, you and I both know that Hemingway and his whole bullshit cult deserve to have some fucking karma rain down on them… yes… yes, I know I’ve beaten him in the ring twice now, but every time I do, some bullshit happens and he ends up getting the drop on me, and I’m fucking sick of it… yeah… yeah, I’ll hold…”

 

Gavin goes on hold… or so he thinks. But he didn’t have to think so for long as after no more than 5 seconds, the dial tone was heard. He looks at his phone.

 

“Fucking really?” he remarks, unimpressed. But before he had the chance to call back, his phone started to ring. Gavin answers…

 

“Karl… is everything in place?” Gavin asks, clearly pertaining to what we now know is the plan to isolate and give Drake some karma during the show. “Yeah, they won’t let me interrupt in the ring, so we’ll just have to improvise. Be ready… I’ll give you the signal before… what do you mean the main event is just finishing? Am I getting a fucking tape delay? Jesus Henry Martin Christ! Get into position… let’s do this shit…”

 

Gavin hangs up the phone, moving to sit in front of the camera. Before the camera springs to life, Gavin smirks… “Well, asshole… you want to play? Let’s play…”

 

We all saw what happened next… Gavin got to speak to Drake Hemingway after his tag contest, and Jack and Karl Barker got the drop on him. For Gavin, it was a matter of pulling everything together. Drake would be a creature of habit, and Gavin knew he would send his goons off with Loretta to be out of the picture, so there would be no one around who could defend him. Gavin expected that, and Drake fell right into the trap, so to speak. After that night, Gavin was pleased with the results, although he would much rather have been in the building to deliver the beatdown himself. Of course, there would be time for that later…

 

Today…

Gavin sits back in front of the camera, but this time it isn’t a conversation with Drake Hemingway… it isn’t an EMERGE-sanctioned interview. It’s Gavin personally sending a message to everyone in EMERGE… after all, the person challenging him for the EMERGE RUSH Championship is still in question.

 

“You thought I was a dead man before. You thought that everything you did… the blindsides, the cheap shots, everything would be the end of me. You thought EMERGE would be “purified” of me and regardless of the fact that I ACTUALLY WON, you would be able to say that you “won”. Moral victories aren’t actual victories though, and I stand before you stronger than I was before. But you see, it’s all crap that I’ve had to deal with since I joined EMERGE. When I won the RUSH Championship, the FORMER Champion decided to lay me out on his way out the door. I haven’t forgotten what Abbattage did to me, and the day will come when I find him and drive my boot so far down his fucking throat that his grandkids shit leather!

 

But no, you thought that I would be an easy mark. A remarkably gifted athlete who was capable of great things… a World Championship-calibre wrestler… for the kooks and the crazies that populate this roster to build a name off of. After all, if one is good enough to get the upper-hand on a REAL athlete like me, and God knows where your career can go. You can use something like that to launch yourself into the stratosphere. And people have tried… oh how you have tried! But you know what? I have gotten up from every beatdown… every blindsiding… ever cheap shot from a cheaper person… and I have risen to where people like you don’t want people like me to get. Because when an ALL-STAR athlete reaches the top, it becomes a fucking NIGHTMARE trying to knock him back down! Look in the real world. Look at how many times Tom Brady has had to deal with the haters and still excelled at a top level to spite them! Look at how Sidney Crosby has dealt with people questioning his skill. I’m like that… people always want to find ways to take down the gifted athletes… but we always rise to the top!

 

So I’ll tell you what… and this goes to the entire roster… whichever one of you ends up losing the luck of the draw and has to face me, if you are lucky enough to pull off the upset and defeat me, I’ll shake your hand myself. Believe me, having THE ALL-STAR shake your hand will do more for your career than the RUSH Championship could.

 

But that’s not all you wanted me to talk about, is it? No… I know what you’re thinking. You want me to talk about what happened in recent months with the so-called “Purity” cult and their delusional leader. See… the biggest delusion that Drake Hemingway has is that he’s somehow my equal. I assure you he is not! I heard that after our I quit match, he was going out there and telling people that he never quit…

 

I take issue with that.

 

While Drake never uttered the words “I quit”, believe me: He did not have to! We beat the ever-living hell out of each other in that main event… what was supposed to be the “Final Chapter”… to the point where HIS BODY SHUT DOWN COMPLETELY! He was unable to answer ANY call, let alone one to quit.

 

DRAKE. HEMINGWAY’S. BODY. QUIT.

 

Drake Hemingway’s body quit because he could not handle the offense that I was bringing down! That won’t change, and I will never let him forget that! But now he has Dante, another seven-foot piece of crap looking to render me history. Heh… what a fucking joke THAT is. When you are the best PURE ATHLETE in the company, it doesn’t matter if you’re seven feet tall. It doesn’t matter if your body is made of fucking iron or if you shit literal gold. When you come face to face with the All-Star, you are facing a HIGHER CLASS of athlete. So Dante… buddy… you cast your lot with the wrong people. You standing behind the All-Star… you could’ve been something. Not Gavin Taylor something, but not the expendable waste of space that you’re going to end up being standing against me. So step up… instead of jumping me from behind, step to my face and I will knock you down just like the rest!

 

Washington! The All-Star is coming! And I don’t need $500 million over 10 years to entice me to the city. This is going to be your chance to see an All-Star in action! Come on out… bring your cameras… and bask in the glory of the All-Star Gavin Taylor!”