All of a sudden the Entity had been compromised.

As a result of one of it's own hideously self-indulgent worldwide broadcasts, the majority of that power allocated to it's on-screen workforce had been shifted to one man.  The one man.

John Taylor was no fool, and he acknowledged that the Entity wasn't, either.  The power which he now wielded obviously meant nothing outside of the cushy confines of the Combined Championship Wrestling marquee.  Of that, Taylor was well aware.  It hardly mattered to him.  Already he held the majority stake of pieces in the workers side of the chess game.  As far superior as they may have been, the Entity couldn't ignore that.  The Lord Of The Coliseum simply wouldn't let them.

...And there he sat, alone in what had, since Crimson's "At Our Best", become his personal skybox in what had become, more importantly, his Coliseum.  He was clean, relatively well dressed - his medium length, dark hair slicked bback off his bony, unattractive face, a plain black dress shirt with three buttons undone and a pair of beige slacks.  He looked the part of a Champion.  More so than he previously had, at least.  Sipping on a chilled glass of 1921 Bordeaux red win, he overlooked another of GZW's non-televised house show events.  On more levels than one, the CCW Unified Heavyweight Champion felt as though he was far above the two relatively unknown, altogether unimportant curtain jerkers presently in the ring, attempting in vain to warm up the crowd of ingrates before said ingrates were to be graced by a Seven vignette or a Kaine main event.  He felt above all of them.

It was about then that Taylor came to the realisation that it was now in full swing.

The Alienation Process, of which Mychael Lord had warned him months previously, was most certainly underway.  It wasn't so bad - he was the Lord Of The Coliseum.  He was the GZW World Heavyweight Champion and the HKWF World Heavyweight Champion - when combined, he was the CCW Unified Heavyweight Champion.  On top of that, his last three victories were over bona fide superstars and former champions; Sean "Magic" Fiery, Pimp Bizkit and Nathan "T-Rex" Williams.  Accomplishing just one of those accolades has often taken men an entire career to reach.  Taylor had accomplished it all in the space of just over a month.  He'd gone from being scheduled to face James Tanner at Fallout: Collision Course to becoming The Man To Beat.  He'd gone from locker room recluse to Lord Of The Coliseum.  These were flattering thoughts, but Taylor couldn't shift the awkward weight of The Alienation Process from off of his back.

That became awkward, as he supposedly was the man to carry the company into the future.  He had GZW, certainly, and perhaps even HKWF on his shoulders, and the constant, parasitic gnawing from The Process made that all the more difficult.

On top of that, he couldn't help himself but wonder exactly what part the Entity had played in all of it.  Obviously, the body of the work done at Crimson's "At Our Best" was his own - it was he who worked down the massive Nathan Williams enough to pin his once monstrous shoulders to the mat.  It was he who beat Pimp Bizkit to the punch, both literally and metaphorically, in order to come out with a second round win.  Most importantly of it all, however, it was he, Jonathan Taylor, that took everything Sean Fiery had and given it straight back to him.  He had stared directly into the raging eye of the Desert Storm and calmed it, single handed.  The full effect of the three successive victories was more than noteworthy - Taylor had become the HKWF Champion.  He had defended the GZW Championship an unprecedented three times in one night and had become the 2004 Lord Of The Coliseum.  All of those accomplishments were his own.  He knew this.

"Humph", he sighed, taking a silent sip of wine.  Whilst he both acknowledged and praised his achievements of November the sixteenth, he was also forced to acknowledge the gnawing sensation somewhere in the depths of his conscience.  It was as though the parasites were trying to get his attention, and bring it to his sense of guilt.  Was it working?  He didn't know.  He went over it in his mind, trying to gain some conscious ground on what was clearly a subconscious situation.

Did he feel bad about winning?  No.  Certainly not.  Most definitely not.  From observation of those individuals as well as those lemmings that make up the GZW, it's workers and it's fan base, he had realised that for most intents and purposes, winning was all that mattered.  The disgrace at how Pimp Bizkit's theft of the World Heavyweight Championship at Fallout: Return to Glory, across the board, assured him of that.  No way was it that he felt bad about winning, at least...

An awkward rapping at the spacious skybox's door broke his train of thought.

"What?" He snapped, more of a demand than a question.  No vocal response came, which irritated Taylor to know end.  He couldn't stand shyness or people wasting his time.  He got up from the leather couch he had gradually warmed to and plodded across the spotless red carpet to the white wooden double doors.  He opened the left one abruptly, unexpectedly revealing his lawyer.  "Larry?"

Oddly enough for the usually talkative, charismatic lawyer, Larry said nothing.  He slowly raised his index finger to his lips as if to tell Taylor to be quiet.  This surprised Taylor.  Larry Collins looked apprehensive, his normally picture-perfect black hair was a dishevelled mess and his black suit appeared crumpled and tired.  Without saying a word, he gently pushed past his client and into the skybox.

"What's going on...?"

"Shhh..." came Larry's muted response.  "Close the door."

Taylor did just that as Larry moved into the middle of the room and headed towards the large window overlooking the action in the arena.  Keeping his head low, Larry briefly glanced across the visible crowd just once before turning and swiftly taking a rigid, upright seat on the leather couch.  Taylor still stood by the door, completely bemused at his lawyer's odd behaviour.

"Larry, what the-"

"Quiet..." Larry whispered.  "Sit down."  Without question, John Taylor did as he was told.  "No...  Closer."

Taylor edged in closer to Collins, the two men now sitting just centimetres apart.

"John, it's not good.  It's not good at all..."

"What?  About Ramon...?"

Larry nodded instantaneously in clarification.

"But I thought you said you had it sorted?" Taylor asked, something close to genuine concern consuming his otherwise calm and collected voice.  "You...  You retrieved the footage from Sharrock, right?  I thought you had it sorted?  You told me you had it sorted..."

"I did tell you that, Jonathan.  I did..."

Taylor couldn't recall a single time before then in which Larry had called him 'Jonathan'.  Something was up.

"...It's not the video, John.  It's not Sharrock.  As far as we're concerned, this Sharrock never existed, and we know nothing about whatever footage he may or may not have had..."

"...but the video leaked onto the damn GZW website-"

"-was just a little variation on your standard promo.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Let sleeping dogs lies, John.  It's done as much harm as it can..."

Larry kept looking over his shoulder and glancing back at whatever seating portions were visible from his wholly poor vantage point.  He fell silent for a minute.  Taylor swallowed hard.  "I'd argue, but unfortunately your body language speaks volumes and would lead me to believe that there's more..."

Still as sketchy as before, Larry Collins stared down at the carpeted floor.  "It's Ramon..." he said with a timidity Taylor would never have expected from his lawyer.  Taylor had picked Larry because he was renowned as one of the sharpest in the business.  At that moment in time, a passer-by never would've guessed.

"What's Ramon?" Asked an impatient Taylor.  All the while he felt himself slipping out of the recently forged moulds of Lord of the Coliseum and Man To Beat and sliding into something close to mortal humanity.  For the first time in quite some time, he felt as though he was just John Taylor.

"John, the bastard-" he began promptly, although he seemed to lose his voice just as quickly.  "The sonofabitch tried to top himself last night, John."

Taylor felt like screaming, but just couldn't find it in himself to.  A whispered "What?" was all that came out.

"I only got the call a half hour ago...  Night watchman found the miserable bastard sprawled across the cement floor in his cell.  They told me he'd tried to hang himself above his bed but the stupid fuck couldn't even reach the rafter without his chair.  He fell and hit his head but wasn't seriously injured."

"...Then why the sneaking around?  The man's a selfish prick who doesn't even have it in him to properly take his own crestfallen mess of a life.  Why're you getting worked up about this?"

"...Because that's not all.  They had him out of confinement today and got some shrink in."

"And?"

"And, John...  He's putting this all on you."

"Me?" Asked an unclear John Taylor. 

"Unfortunately.  He's saying your visit last month was traumatic.  He's saying you caused a relapse or some shit...  He says you scarred him mentally.  He says you told him to kill himself...  Says you were-  Do you want me to go on?"

Taylor sighed.  "No...  Give me the worst of it, Larry...  What the fuck is he clawing at?"

"Basically, it seems as though he was milking his little day off for all it was worth.  Innocent enough.  My source says he was throwing everything out there, gave about a hundred radically different reasons for trying to do what he did..."

"His beloved throw as much shit against a brick wall mentality..." Taylor recalled with absolute disdain.

"Apparently so.  Anyway, you came up.  My source says Ramon went on and on about your little visit.  The shrink seemed less than interested, until Ramon blurted that you were...  Who you were.  Once word got out that this was a major-league American wrestling star they were talking about, the course of the conversation changed dramatically.  I hear our shrink left for a while then.  He comes back with a few guys in suits and they all talked to our friend some more...  The end result, unfortunately...  They've filed a 'suit on our friend's behalf for mental harassment and attempted involvement in a suicide.  Ramon's suing you."

"WHAT?!"

Breathless and furious, Taylor didn't know what to say.  As Larry began to repeat himself, Taylor felt like going down to Mexico and killing every single one of them.  Ramon was a vegetable, a tool...  No WAY would he be able to come up with anything so devious.  The fucking shrink and his followers were trying to make a quick buck, the ramifications of which they surely couldn't possibly imagine.

All of a sudden Taylor stopped caring about The Entity.