He sat crouched on the leaf and twig covered floor of the woods attired in plain brown boots, olive green pants and a short sleeved black shirt. A pair of dark sunglasses sat over his eyes, shielding them from the sun. A worn looking dark green PPW cap adorned his head, casting a shadow over his face. Crouched next to him was James Spyder. He was a frightening site to behold, with his face painted in a camouflage pattern and a pair of black gloves over his large hands. His attire was woodland green cammo shirt and pants with a pair of black boots and in each hand he held a weapon. Neither of them was his trademark Croquet Mallet. He responded to the question by shrugging his shoulder and checking the evil looking knife that sat strapped to his chest.
JS: It never came up. I find a certain degree of relaxation in the entire hunt and kill aspect of it. It helps keep my killer instinct sharp.
Zale nodded silently at the response, the response not being in any way surprising to him.
CZ: I would hope so Jim, after all...not everyone hunts predators like you do. Most people hunt deer and fowl. You hunt out of control Wolves, Coyotes and predatory cats. Speaking of out of control predatory animals…who the hell let Sid loose ?
He heard the malice and loathing in his own voice and looked over at his friend but saw no evident emotion on his face. When he responded his voice was equally devoid of emotion, the remark was as matter of fact as one would be if they were talking about filling up his car at the local gas station that morning.
JS: I have a feeling that my ex-wife has something to do with that and I’m sure Dinucci helped her out somehow. . .there are times when I wish I had thrown her out of a window or something. She’s turning into more trouble than she was worth.
This time if was his turn to shrug at what his friend was saying to him, although the shrug was not dismissive, merely meant to accentuate his response.
CZ: Eh. She’s not worth the jail time.
The remark brings an amused grin from the savage looking giant who is crouched a mere ten feet from him.
JS: "Not worth the time". That sounds a lot like the problem who’s currently on your hands.
He shrugged at the remark and nodded his head, part of him agreeing with it.
CZ: Shane. Well, at this point Jim it’s turned from a simple case of a run away ego into a case of Shane blaming me for everything that’s happening to him. His anger and fear have driven so deeply into his core that he can’t even discern the reality of the situation from the twisted fairytale that he’s turned it into.
Spyder grunted at the description of the situation before offering his perspective on it.
JS: It sounds like Tre has really gotten into his head.
He shook his head at that, gesturing that while the remark was partially accurate that "partially" accurate is all that it is. His tone is assertive, but not at all annoyed or patronizing.
CZ: Well, I’m sure that Tre hasn’t helped this any but it’s not entirely accurate to blame him for all of this. This started before Tre got his fingers into Shane’ head, all Tre has done is take advantage of it. The blame for this is has to fall onto Shane’s head alone. He was stupid and arrogant enough to be pulled in by it and without his willingness to accept it this entire violent mess wouldn’t have happened.
Spyder nods his head in agreement but his eyes show that he’s both curious as to what’s actually going on in his friend’s head, even though he knows what the outcome is going to be.
JS: That’s true. Do you regret it ? I mean, I’m sure that you regret that Shane has turned on you like this...but do you regret the rest of it ?
He just sits silently for a second, staring straight ahead before he finally answers. When he does his voice expresses no regret, no sorrow, no pain or displeasure…only conviction and acceptance.
CZ: I don’t have room for regret in this Jim. Regret would make me stay my hand or not do things that I need to do in order to get his head back on straight. Everything that I’ve done and will to do him he’s brought upon himself. Regret has no factor in this equation. Everything that I do is on his head.
Spyder sat silently for a moment before pulling an evil looking knife out of a shoulder holster and examining the blade. The handle is jet black with a tightly wrapped handgrip that ends with a blood red jewel at the end of the pommel. The blade looks like something out of a demon slayer novel. It’s long and sharp with a blood groove running down the middle and a serrated edge. Odd-looking symbols run down the middle of it, parallel to the blood groove and end right before the crosspiece. Spyder examines it and smiles when the sun shines off of the polished, dark silver blade. When he resumes speaking he continues to examine the knife but his tone makes is clear that he’s still just as dedicated to the conversation as he had been.
JS: Not that I really need to ask, but this doesn’t have to do with all of the "has been" and "washed up" remarks does it ? None of that bull is true. Shane just does that to get your goat, as I’m sure you know.
He looks at Spyder, a dark look crossing over his eyes.
CZ: It’s got nothing to do with that. It’s beyond that at this point. Shane has taken something that was no more than a small misunderstanding and blown it up into something extremely personal. He only jabbers that nonsense as a cheap attempt to get my goat. That’s no more than a verbal temper tantrum. He’s hardly the first one to say that to or of me.
Spyder nods his head and re-sheathes the knife, clearly satisfied with his inspection of the vile looking weapon. He pulls a rifle from his shoulder and begins to inspect it as meticulously as he did the knife. As he does so he speaks and there is a twinge of anger in his voice.
JS: It doesn’t seem like that’s going to change any time soon and I’d say that to a degree that he’s overlooking you. He sounds to me like he considers the Paramount Championship his already.
His listens to what his friend says to him and takes a short breath before responding calmly to what his best friend says to him.
CZ: He said it himself Jim...Shane has become an "egotistical monster" and he "loves every minute of it". He seems to think that he has everything when in reality all he has is a belt that he won from a third rate Champion in Verafai Omega and the world’s largest set of blinders pulled down over his already inexperienced eyes. He thinks he has everything...he doesn’t know how wrong he is.
He lets out a malicious sounding chuckle after he completes the phrase, clearly knowing more than he’s revealing. Spyder looks at him and nods, but his face betrays nothing.
JS: Should I get the impression that what you have ready for him may soon reinforce that fact in his already swelled head…
He looks at Spyder out of the corner of his eye but doesn’t say a word; instead he creeps forward a couple of steps and hunkers down behind a tree.
CZ: Something like that, yes.
Spyder finishes checking his rife and slings it back over his shoulder and goes into a crouch position. He stands silently for a moment just listening to the woods before speaking again.
JS: He already thinks of himself as a household name...
Zale grunts derisively at the remark before letting out a short laugh and responding. His voice carries the tone of someone who is not at all impressed by what his rival was saying to him.
CZ: Big deal. Garbage is a household name too.
A short and somewhat horse laugh comes from the mouth of the penultimate Bloodgames Champion at the remark as a twisted grin curls up in the right corner of his mouth.
JS: True enough my friend, true enough. I have to say one thing for the kid though…and it’s more than a little ironic.
He raised an eyebrow in curiosity and looked at his friend, who for once was not adorned in his regular face paint; instead his face was covered in forest cammo paint. The site of it was equally as macabre as his normal facial adornment was.
CZ: What’s that ?
The larger man turned his head to look at his long time friend and a sick looking predatory smile filled his mouth. The sight of it would have been rather frightening to someone who was unfamiliar with the man known as James Spyder, to someone like that he resembled a classic psycho serial killer. Zale knew better than that though and felt that somehow that the paint scheme really suited him well. It was equally clear by looking into the giant’s eyes that he missed the inside of the ring and the roar of the crowd, that this substitute, while fun, just wasn’t quite enough.
JS: That is that for someone who has himself totally convinced that you’re feeding him one gigantic bullshit story that he’s the one who has himself so utterly convinced of all of the bullshit that he’s been propping himself up on for the last month or so that he’s actually got himself believing all of that nonsense now. I’m amused that he expects you to "scurry" away from him when he "turns the light on". That shows a couple of incredible miscalculations on his part…and he’s not even aware of them. Of course due to the fact that he never really gave himself a chance to learn anything from you I’m not at all surprised by that. It’s been sort of amusing to sit back and watch the kid run at full speed towards the cliff’s edge with his eyes so firmly locked onto the ground that’s immediately in below his foot, utterly oblivious to the fact that he’s about to do a grade A impersonation of Wile E. Coyote. I can’t wait to see how big of a dust cloud he kicks up when he slams into reality as he’s about to.
He let out a short grunt of a laugh at the statement, both because the entire remark was entirely true but also because a part of him was disgusted by the entire situation and the remark just served to remind him of it. He looked at the giant of a man whom he’d been both friend and enemies with before and his disgust was evident in his eyes. When he spoke his voice was dripping with it, although the tone made it clear that the very same disgust that he had spoken of before wasn’t simply there out of altruism. There was definitely something else behind it, something that was perhaps a little more sinister.
CZ: He’s already teetering off of the cliff. All that’s left now is to see how many rocks and tree branches that he bounces off of on the way down. I already know what the landing holds for him, even if he doesn’t.
His friend nodded his spike haired head, the red of it barely poking through the camouflage skull cap that he had on.
JS: Yeah, I get the feeling that he’s not going to like that too much. But as he’s going to find out life is full of those "tough sh*t, those are the breaks kid" kinds of moments. He’s walked right into something that’s a lot bigger than he can even conceive of and he did it all with a big, sloppy, Kool-Aid smile glued all over his stupid looking baby face.
He couldn’t help but laugh at the remark, especially considering the person whom it was coming from. Somehow the "big, sloppy, Kool-Aid smile" remark, coupled with "stupid looking baby face" just struck him as incredibly entertaining. He almost forgot where he was and what he was doing and had to catch himself laughing out loud.
CZ: It’ll be even more stupid when he finally realizes how much he should have listened to me. He likes to compare himself to you and yet he totally fails to realize all of the little things that create such a gigantic separation between the two of you. It has always amused me that he’s constantly comparing himself to you. It’s perfect evidence of the fact that he wants to be equal to you in not only the eyes of everyone in the industry but especially in mine. He just doesn’t get it and part of me doubts that he ever will either. Even years from now when he looks back on this he’ll still scratch his head and wonder what he missed, what signs he sped right by before he was flattened by the head on collision. He’ll likely never understand why he’ll never truly be your equal. For all of his talent there are just certain things that are critical to that which escape him completely.
Spyder nodded his head and looked out straight into the woods, cocking his head and furrowing his eyebrows as if he heard something. After a couple of moments of crouching silently doing so he looked at Zale.
JS: True. The smear he leaves will be a beautiful site to see though. Speaking of smears I have a carcass that I left suspended from a tree. I have to go see what that has hooked for me. Wait here and I’ll be back in a few minutes. It can give you some time to make sense of all of that gibberish that Shane recently spewed out at you.
He nods his head at his gigantic friend and watches as he goes stalking off into the forest, even more silently than the animals that he hunts. Zale watches him go before walking down the hill and taking a seat on a log at the shore of the lake that Spyder lives on. He sits down and gazes out at the silent and calm blue waters, watching silently as a fish leaps up out of the water before flopping back down into it with a mild splash.
CZ: You know something Shane you claim that I bore you and that I’m a better sedative to you than Tylenol PM and Horse Tranquilizer combined. There’s a part of me that is curious as to how you’d know how effective that combination is and the other part of me doesn’t need that mental image in my head. The next time you decide to make a cute comparison just spare us both. Spare yourself the humiliation of cramming your foot straight down your throat with such an idiotic comment and spare me the act of having to purge such a repulsive mental image from my mind. I’ve thought of you as very much of a horses ass lately, but I had no idea that you had developed the attitude due to intensive personal study on the subject. Next time you want to say something like that just keep it to yourself.
He lets a slight smirk cross his face before shivering in a mocking manner. He leans back against a fallen log and laces his arms behind his head, crossing his legs at the ankles as he does so.
CZ: In spite of your extracurricular activities it’s nice to see that you’re trying to talk some decent trash about me for once. It’s funny that I have faced guys like James Spyder, Tre Crawford, Yoshi "Extreme" Lee, Madd Max and others of their ilk and yet never felt a twinge of fear and yet somehow you think I’m afraid of you. Go figure. The problem that you face in counter-accusing me of being afraid of you is just that…the notion that I am or would ever be afraid of you. That just doesn’t jive Shane, and we both know it. People accept what I said about you being afraid because it’s at least somewhat believable. They’d just never accept the opposite, even if the "well oiled machine" says otherwise.
He places extra stress on the phrase "well oiled machine", making sure to accentuate the mocking nature of the remark and his amusement at a phrase that’s so childishly self aggrandizing that it’s almost sad.
CZ: When I stare into your supposed soul Shane I see nothing but an empty black hole and what I smell is indeed victory...but that victory is not going to be yours and the sooner that you accept that the better off you will be. Incidentally Shane I wouldn’t record myself on tape because unlike you I have a strong grasp of who I am and what I’ve said. That is a claim that you are not able to make, even if you think otherwise. I see no need to record myself and I certainly wouldn’t sit and watch myself just for the sake of doing so. I’ll leave that to someone like you as it is much more consistent with your personality and need for incessant self congratulation and validation. Incidentally if I sound like anything Shane it’s a "Psychologist", not a "philosopher". There’s a gigantic difference there as well.
He lifts his head up, tilting his left ear as he hears two gunshots and an animalistic yell that borders on monstrous. He smiles at the sound of it, knowing full well where the yell was coming from and the mental image that accompanied it. He sat like that for a moment before looking out over the serene lake front and leaning back against his folded arms again.
CZ: Compare me to Lightning if you like, I couldn’t give a damn less. I already know that I’ve achieved more in my career on purpose than he’ll ever do by accident. Quite simply put there is no comparison between he and I, just like there is none between you and I. You have a long way to go until you achieve what I’ve achieved and left behind the reputation that I’m going to leave behind. Also, please refrain from ever calling me a coward ever again. Somehow accusations of cowardice coming from someone who’s only been able to get an advantage on me where he had three other people with him just doesn’t seem at all legit. All I did was use your own medicine against you Shane; stop pouting about it... it’s pathetic.
He absent-mindedly grabs a rock and tosses it across the surface of the lake with a relaxed, almost lazy looking side arm release. The rock skims across the top of the lake numerous times before going under with an audible “bloop” noise.
CZ: You’re right that you have everyone speaking your name Shane, they are doing just that. The problem is that when they do so there is usually a derisive comment following rapidly behind it. As has become your style you are only hearing what you want to hear and mentally editing out everything else. No one suffers from this so called "Kast-envy" because there aren’t too many people that would be envious of an obnoxious brat like you. The reason that most of them are speaking of you is because they detest your attitude, not because they want to emulate you. The best part about all of this is that people didn’t really start talking about you in earnest until you started tangling with me. Before that you were just the guy who had all the potential in the world but always showed it of by beating up on Lightning. In many respects you are still that very same person, you just possess an even greater need for personal validation than you did before and in your mind any talk of you is good, no matter what is said.
Another gunshot rang out in the cool fall air and was rapidly accompanied by another animalistic yell of pleasure. The only difference was that this one was at least an eighth of a mile from the other one and that meant that Jim was tearing all over the woods at his usual breakneck speed. Of course, Jim never really was one for lying in one place and letting the action come to him. The thought of him loping around the woods with his classic Mousin-Nagant rifle in one hand and his evil looking buck knife in the other was just too damned cool not to smile at. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, feeling the warm sunshine against his skin. The sensation was rather relaxing.
CZ: Honestly Shane, if you want to look up what I say that I’ve done please go right ahead and do so. It’s all a matter of public record. Until you match those achievements, even the ones that I made in just the first six months of my career then you have no grounds to claim yourself my better in any way…or for that matter my equal. In order to be the future Shane you must survive long enough to actually enter it. Until then you are a person with two Television Title reigns to your credit and one thus far meaningless Bloodgames Title reign to it as well. After all, had Caleb Hart actually wanted the Bloodgames Title a couple of weeks ago you would not currently be the holder of it…you’d just be another in a long line of "Ex" Champions who didn’t quite live up to Jim’s example. If you were smart you would care what I have done Shane, because a man who does not understand history is doomed to be another one of its footnotes.
He smiled as a wolf howled out a bellow of warning before its cry was cut short and drowned out in a watery sounding gurgle. Jim was clearly having the time of his life and for his part Zale was more genuinely relaxed than he had been in years.
CZ: You want me to humor you Shane ? What do you think that I’ve been doing for all of these weeks on end ? All I can do is humor you. It’s not like any of your rantings really should be taken seriously, damn near everything that you’ve said to me for the last couple of months has been slightly beyond absurd and the diatribes get worse every day. You want to know what I see Shane ? What I see is an overconfident fool who doesn’t know what he’s gotten himself into. What I see is an extremely talented young man who’s so desperate to prove himself to everyone that he took the easy way out and sold himself to the path of easy glory instead of doing what was right for himself in the long run and earning it like all of us who are called "legends", or even "respected veterans" did. What I see is a young man whose so overcome with his own arrogance that he wouldn’t be able to see the truth, let alone accept it, if it came up to him and slapped him across the face. Most of all what I see is someone who’s completely ignorant of everything that’s going on around him. I see someone with so many enemies that he’ll be lucky to turn around in the future without finding something bouncing off of his face. The best part of all of this is Shane is that when everything that’s going to happen finally does and that nasty stab of realization becomes an agonizing tear of pain deep down in the pit of your stomach that you’re going to look around you and you’ll reach out and beg for help…
He opened his eyes and stared straight across the lake just in time to see a long figure go stalking around the edge of it on the balls of his feet. The sight of that brought him back to Shane again.
CZ: There will be nobody reaching back to help you.
He holds out his open hand as a sympathetic expression comes across his face. He holds it for a couple of seconds before his expression goes steel hard and he yanks his hand back, lacing it behind his back.
CZ: Spit all the platitudes that you like at me about "walking into hell" and all of that silly Hollywood nonsense. I’ve heard it all before, it just sounds a little bit shriller coming from you. Remember what I said Shane…if my attack had been meant to put you out of commission it would have done exactly that. What I did to you was meant to achieve something else; it’s just too bad that you’re too damned stubborn to see what that was. If you want to think that I’m walking into Hell Shane that’s all well and good, but I’ve got news for you. I’ve already been to Hell Shane. I went there, I walked around for a while, I got the t-shirt and I left. You are not the gateman of Hell. You aren’t even worthy of calling yourself the valet. Don’t tell me what Hell is before you’ve been there yourself because you have absolutely no idea what that means. Opposing an angry Shane Kast at Genesis won’t be hell for me. It won’t even be as painful as a short drive through New Jersey.
He holds up one hand and wiggles his fingers around a little bit in a puppet gesture before shaking his head disgustedly and dropping his hand back to his side.
CZ: You want to be the Puppet Master in our little conflict ? Cut your own control wires first and then worry about trying to manipulate me. We both know that you’re not going to stand on some kind of sudden honor system when our match is going on and somehow keep the Icons at bay. One way or another they’re going to be a part of this. As soon as you get in trouble I expect to see them swarming the ring at me while you sit back and smirk like making use of them is some bit of tactical genius. Don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining, I know better than to take anything you say at face value. You want my Paramount Championship and you will do anything that you have to in order to get it. I expect no less.
He lets out a short laugh before picking up a broken branch off of the ground and snapping part of it off. He tests the rest of it against the ground, making sure that it’s stable and then places his hand around the top of it. He stands at the edge of the lake and watches as a gaggle of Canada Geese lift up from the smooth surface of the lake, honking all the way into the air before they disappear into the sky.
CZ: You say that you won’t make a mistake Shane. I’ve got a little friendly news for you kid…
An evil smile comes across his mouth as he turns from the lakefront and begins striding back noiselessly through the woods.
CZ: You’ve already made every mistake that I’ve expected out of you thus far and I don’t expect that to change at Genesis. Don’t worry about walking out of Genesis with nothing Shane because you’ll leave with something.
The smile changes from a tight lipped smirk into an insane looking stare.
CZ: It just won’t quite be what you had in mind when you came in.
He turns and walks off, eventually disappearing from sight in the trees. Two more gunshots ring out in the distance before dispersing into the sky.
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