“Simply unacceptable.”
As the scene rises up, Gavin Taylor can be seen in the middle of a media scrum. The time? Sometime after his Breakdown match against Lucas Knight – an unsuccessful endeavor. So now, clad in his civvies and being recorded on someone’s camera held just above the reporters’ heads, Gavin has been given the opportunity to explain his recent slump.
“I call myself “The All-Star” because I take great pride at being an all-star caliber athlete,” Gavin continues in a matter-of-fact tone. “These are matches that I have not only the opportunity, but the ability to win, and quite simply I haven’t been converting for whatever reason. I’m not going to stand here and make excuses for why that is. That’s just not who I am this week.”
“So what’s next?” a reporter asks. Gavin shrugs his shoulders.
“Next, I do the work and get back to where I know I can compete at a high level,” Gavin says, giving an intentionally cliched answer. “I just got to give 110% in my training and I know that I can get there. And until I’m happy with my performances, I’m suspending my year-end title shot campaign.”
There’s a shocked murmur amongst the reporters.
“Why?” one asks.
“It’s called “integrity”, Tony!” Gavin almost lashes out. “If I’m not at my best, how can I hope to be at my best challenging for the World Championship!? Besides, I have other ways of getting what I want…”
“Such as?” a third reporter interjects, hoping Gavin would elaborate.
Instead of elaboration, Gavin stands in place, his mind wandering away as he imagines his answer. This does nothing for the cameras, or for the reporters seeking the answers…
“Hello?” the first reporter tries to get Gavin to snap out of his trance, but the imagination is too deep… of course, as SCW fans, we already know the answer to this question…
Our scene opens up outside of the fabled Undisclosed Location that everyone has heard of yet no one seems capable of finding. It’s a rainy day with a few lightning strikes, but not an exceptional storm that one might see on the news. Truly, the scene is rather unspectacular. So why are we here? If it wasn’t obvious, it’s the arrival of a vehicle driven by one “All-Star” Gavin Taylor. As he pulls up to the building,. he reaches into his glove box, pulling out a piece of paper. He reads it over and looks up to the building.
“Yup,” he says to himself. “This is the place.”
As Gavin steps out of the car, he begins to think back to the conversation he had immediately prior to embarking on this trip, particularly as he retrieves a stack of cue cards from his suit jacket…
“Are you sure this is such a good idea?” Ava St. Claire, Gavin Taylor’s beleaguered agent, spoke with genuine concern in her voice. And with good reason – typically, Gavin’s personal engagements would be arranged through her specifically, if not at the very least her office. “You’re just going to drive out to an undisclosed location…”
“Not “undisclosed”,” Gavin points out, pulling the scribbled down address from his pocket to show her. “See? I have an address.”
“That doesn’t… that’s not…” Ava tries to find the words to explain to Gavin that a written address doesn’t give any credibility to what he was pledging to do. “You just accepted an invitation to speak to… what was it again? A high school rugby team?”
“Field hockey, actually,” Gavin points out, making the story somehow make less sense. “And the cheerleaders were going to sit in too.”
“That doesn’t make it better,” Ava points out. “You’re going to go to a non-school address to deliver a speech to some teams because you were asked to?”
“Yeah,” Gavin nods. “I figured, if nothing else, it would be good publicity. You know… give the “All Star Too” campaign a boost.”
“We’re still doing that?” Ava asks, genuinely confused as she thought that particular campaign died out prior to Rise to Greatness.
“Sure,” Gavin nodded. “Besides, when a representative of the local high school reaches out for guidance and inspiration, The All-Star gives.”
“How do you even know you were talking to a representative of the high school?” Ava asks again, trying to open her client’s eyes to how crazy this entire scenario sounds. Gavin brushes off her questions.
“Come on, Ava,” Gavin answers derisively. “She was clearly a school girl. She was wearing a kilt and everything.”
“Gavin, school girls aren’t the only people who wear kilts,” Ava points out correctly, but her words don’t penetrate into Gavin’s narrative. He brushes her response off.
“Come on, Ava,” he says. “We both know that’s a blatant falsehood. No one but school girls and porn stars wear kilts, and this wasn’t a porn star trying to trick me onto a set…”
Suddenly, Gavin’s eyes widen at the prospect and abject horror, coupled with potential scandal, that his imagination just presented. He quickly seeks verification. “Was it!?”
“I doubt it,” Ava says, reassuring her client that his virtue was not under attack. “But we don’t know what it could be. Why is it only concerning if it was an attempted porn.”
“Um… I’m married, remember?” Gavin points out factually. “The scandal to my name and my family’s name would be huge. Besides, how much of a dolt would I look like if I fell into a ruse that had the All-Star’s all-star exposed?”
“You call it your “all-star”?” Ava asks quizzically, not sure if she really wanted an answer, but since it was out in the universe…
“What else am I going to call it, Ava?” Gavin responds to her question with one of his own. “But we’re getting off topic… this is something I agreed to do. My word is my bond, Ava… and I have to go through with it.”
“Well if you have to,” Ava begins to relent. “Will you at least bring Jack and Karl with you?”
“My A.S.S.?” Gavin asks. “I gave them the day off. Besides, unless this is some surprise porn or a culty murder for hire plot… you don’t think…”
“If I say “just go”, will you stop thinking of outlandish situations?” Ava asks, attempting now to get Gavin out of her hair. After all, her firm would have a bit of positive publicity if it’s star client was murdered by a cult. Gavin, hearing nothing else. nods his head. “Good… then just go.”
“I’ll call you when I get there…” Gavin promises…
And true to his word, as he approaches the undisclosed location, Gavin does call his client.
“Yeah, this place doesn’t look like a high school… big fail on that one,” he admits. “Still, nothing out of the ordinary. No vehicles big enough to have any camera equipment or a kill room or anything. I think we’re good…”
“Will you give me a call back when you’re done?”
“Yeah, jeeze,” Gavin responds as though he was talking to his mother. “You’re pretty needy, you know that?”
“Just don’t get murdered or anything. We’ll talk after.”
*click*
Gavin looks at his phone after being hung up on and shakes his head. “Rude,” he exclaims.
Looking around the area, Gavin approaches the front entrance. He doesn’t feel like anything is wrong with this situation to the point that we are left to wonder how the All-Star hasn’t been lured into a murder plot a hundred times before. As he passes through the door, Gavin is already in full Gavin mode,: a big shit-eating grin on his face as he prepares to be mugged by a horde of admirers.
“Hello, everyone,” he says, extending his hand to wave at absolutely no one. Gavin is baffled, pulling out the piece of paper again as he rereads it. “This is the right place… the group must be running late.”
Walking around, he tries to get a sense of what he’s looking at. Finally, after he surveys the area for what feels like too long, he hears the smattering of voices in the distance…
“Finally..” he says, preparing to meet his adoring…
Xander Valentine?
“What the fuck!?” Gavin exclaims. Xander’s expression is equally befuddled.
“What are you doing here?” Xander asks forcefully. Gavin moves back to a wall.
“You can’t hit me from behind if there’s a wall behind me!” he exclaims, oblivious to the fact that said “wall” is a door, and that the door is opening. Gavin stumbles backwards, nearly falling onto his A.S.S… er… ass. He does, however, manage to maintain his personal stability before turning around. The smiling face of Nicole Kennick… or at least one of her… looks towards him. She claps her hands together.
“Oh good!” she exclaims. “You both made it!”
“Wait… wait… wait… wait… wait… wait…” Gavin says, hoping everyone would stop to wait. “Where’s the high school field hockey team?”
The scene closes…
"The All-Star" Gavin Taylor 