The Chris Cairns Creation Trophy.

As slap-dash an award as it was, it was still an award.  It was also an award that was within John Taylor's slick but firm grasp.

Much like his newly won Champion Of Champions title, Taylor conceded that this upcoming trophy would not be globally accepted by his peers.  Monarch would dispute it and Seth Raide would follow blindly like the rebel that he is.

However, it was still an award.  An accomplishment.  Yet another accolade to add to Lord John Taylor's fabled collection.  It was worth winning.  Most definitely.  If not to simply reassert his absolute dominance by being the one to win the much sought-after title shot, it would also be a grand opportunity to exact perfectly legal revenge on QVC.

Jay Jameson would experience true independence and faith to one's own beliefs at Taylor's hands.  He salivated over that thought.  Jay Jameson, the lucky child that happened to run into Clancy McClean at the right time and happened to get all the right title shots.  The kid that, on GZW TV, professed his undying love and admiration for Taylor himself, only to turn around and assist the newly reformed QVC in a fully-fledged assault.  Oh yes, he'd pay.  Taylor would see to that.

Jay Jameson, in particular, got on Taylor's nerves.  Much in the same vein as Vernon Vanderbilt, Jameson was a young kid that got a lot for nothing.  That people like this, people with weaknesses - big, ugly, blatant weaknesses - a few months into their GZW careers are in contention for major titles, gnawed at Taylor's very beliefs...  Taylor never had it that easy.  It took him years in HKWF and two runs in GZW to get close to what he would eventually become.

The Lone Gunman.

People sometimes asked why, exactly, Taylor wore such a name so proudly.

To tell the truth, he hadn't thought about it all that much in quite some time.  Standing tall about his own independence and isolation was something he believed almost too strongly in

It wasn't that he hated people or that he couldn't bare to be around them.  At one point in his career, he had felt like that.  Over the course of a number of years, he had developed a profound hatred of man.  Common men disgusted him.  Looking at himself, he knew he'd be lying if he were to say that some of that intolerance hadn't stuck with him - it had - but there was still something more...

Something...

What was it?

He thought back to his years with the HKWF.  Perhaps there was something he had overlooked.

_____

January 2001
Hong Kong
_____

His back against the moist concrete wall, John Taylor sighed.

His performance tonight had summed up his entire decade in the Hong Kong Wrestling Federation - Solid but but not extraordinary.  Nowhere near extraordinary, in fact.

Once again, he'd played "Best Supporting" to another young upstart.  It was a young tank named Phillip Tytan this time, but it remained the same as ever.  Wrestling had simply become Taylor's job.  It wasn't even a profession anymore, it was just something he did to make money.  In his mind, he was no different to a prostitute or hotel bellboy.

He was nothing more than a self-cleaning doormat; He was paid to get trampled on, dust himself down and do it all over again.

It had been a long time since he could say he was proud of himself.  He wasn't.  He was ashamed.  Ashamed of what he did and who did it to him, ashamed of who was allowed do it to him.  He could no longer bear the sight of himself in the mirror.  His reflection portrayed everything he'd tried so hard not to become.

Faceless.  Alone.  Usable.  Reusable.  Damaged.

What pained him more than most was how truly helpless he'd let himself become.  HKWF figurehead would bark orders at him, and Taylor would obey without question.  He'd been so foolish as to allow things to get that bad.  It was his own fault, for sure, but he wished he could do something about it.  He wished there was something he could do to undo the cancerous damage to his career.  But there was nothing in sight.

Without even noticing, he'd become isolated from the rest.  Isolated from his peers and superiors.  He wasn't a wrestler anymore, he was just a tool of the HKWF administration.  He couldn't go out and wrestle a title match and genuinely expect to win - He was never allowed to.  If he'd even come close, the match would be called off or sabotaged.

"You were great out there, my lad!"

John found himself back to reality, now seated in the office of HKWF President John Profit.

"Great?" Taylor questioned immediately.  "I was a human punching bag for that kid!"

Profit, to whom Taylor had become quite attached over the last number of years, now turned sour.  "John, I never want to hear something like that from you ever again.  You are my hit man...  "HKWF's Hitman".  Nothing more and nothing less.  D'you understand me?"

Taylor didn't respond.  He found that giving the silent treatment to his oppressor was something of a penance for not having the courage to step up and break the man's nose years ago.

"As I said, Jonathan, you did great out there.  You are the very best at what you do.  Maybe you're too young to see that, but-"

"I'm thirty, Mr. Profit.  Please don't feel you've still got to talk down to me."

"Please, Hitman - When have I ever talked down to you?  You know how valuable you are to me...  Your salary reflects that.  Your contract reflects that.  Deep down inside you, you know it as well."

Sighing, Taylor confessed, "It's not even about the money any more, sir..."

"It's not?" asked Profit, "Then what is it?  Spit it out, Jonathan!"

"It's everything, sir.  I'm sick of it.  I'm sick of holding back.  I'm sick of sitting it out.  I'm sick of backing off.  I'm sick of it all.  There is no thrill in what I'm doing here, Mr. Profit.  If you can even call what I'm doing 'wrestling'-"

"JONATH-!" Profit exploded before cutting out completely.  He sighed to himself and said, "Go on, then..."

"There's no competition here for me.  With all due respect, you've seen to that personally.  You've made sure that I'm either putting out second rate performances against the top brass or just winging it against the lowest of the low.  You've cut me off from the outside world, Mr. Profit.  You've put me in a bubble.  You've..."

Softly, the HKWF C.E.O. tried to butt in, "John, I-"

"No!  You cut my legs out from under me is what you did!  You've given me my own personal glass ceiling - just above my fucking HEAD!!!  You've-"

Forcefully now, Profit exclaimed, "I WAS PROTECTING YOU!!!"

An awkward silence enveloped the office.  Taylor could see instantly the look of regret on his boss's face.

"I'm sorry, John, I didn't mean to-"

"Protecting me?" Taylor choked up, finally.

"Forget-"

"Protecting me from WHAT?!  From WHO?!"

Profit gasped.  This was the first time he could recall young Taylor ever raising his voice toward him.  He said nothing.

"John," Taylor began, knowing himself that calling his boss by his first name was a step too far.  To his surprise, Profit hardly reacted.  "I'll ask you one more time.  From what or who are you protecting me?  No bullsh-"

"I was protecting you from yourself!  Why can't you see that, John?  Look at yourself...  Look past the misery and the depression and tell me what you see!"

"A... Wrestler?"

"Not just a wrestler - One of THE wrestlers.  One of the greatest ever."

Taylor laughed bitterly, "The greatest ever?  I've been here, what, ten years and I haven't got a single thing to show for it.  That's not greatness, John."

"Of course not...  Not yet.  I've been preserving you, John.  Look around.  This is HKWF, the craziest and most brutal wrestling promotion on the face of the earth.  Can you even estimate the amount of top quality competitors I've lost to injury - and worse - after some of the matches that go on here?  Can you even hazard a guess?"

"Quite a few, I'd assume."

"That's an understatement, but at least you get the picture.  I've got Monarch slowly turning insane, Sebastian Covenant on his last legs and Corrupt Seed on his way out the door to the States.  I don't have much of that kind of talent left, John.  I really don't.  Men like those are a rarity, they come one in a million.  I've lost far too many already, I wouldn't be a smart businessman if I didn't put at least a couple on hold for the future..."

"So that's what this is about, then?  You weren't protecting me from myself, you were protecting your own back side."

"Lies!  I am protecting you from your most primal urge to get down and dirty and end up with a broken neck after two matches.  I'm protecting you from your sinister urge to hurt people...  You were lucky that the Mexican authorities and the MCWO were willing to let the Ramon Amador incident be brushed away silently, but I can assure you that law enforcement doesn't work like that over here.  If you go out to one of my rings and cripple a man...  Or kill a man...  Then that falls on you, not me.  The minute you step out on your own and become one of them is the minute that I am no longer responsible for you.  If Reject or Rebellion had killed each other in that Last Man Standing match tonight, it would've been their problem - Not mine.  It would've had nothing to do with me.  I've been treating you differently for a reason, son."

Taylor tugged at his greasy ponytail, totally lost.

"I like you, John.  I see what you've got and I know how to use that when the time comes.  Whether that time comes tomorrow or ten years from now, it will come - It just hasn't yet.  You need to see that you're one of the lucky ones in this company..."  A knock on the door disrupted Profit's train of thought.  On instinct, he commanded, "Come in."

The heavy door trickled open just a little.  An alluring, powerful female voice brought Taylor to his feet, "Ms. Giovanni."

"Sit down, John."

With those three words, esteemed HKWF higher-up and right-hand woman to Profit, Fox Giovanni, had Taylor cursing himself for even thinking of standing up and greeting his other boss.  There was a quality to the petite, dark-haired woman's voice that made him forget momentarily the exact gravity of the conversation that he and John Profit had been having.  Right away, he sat down.  Giovanni remained standing, directly behind the Hitman of HKWF.  This unsettled him greatly.  What unsettled him even more was the the distinct change in Profit's tone of voice, now that they had company.

Once again composed and in control, Profit eyed Giovanni and said, "I just let our boy in on our little secret, Fox..."

"Which one would that be?" she asked with a false giggle.  Despite the laugh, she wasn't joking.

"Johnny has been expressing quite a lot of disenfranchisement toward his current cause.  I felt it was about time I told him his true purpose within this little company of ours...  Wouldn't you agree?"

"Oh, of course," she answered automatically.  Subtly running her thin fingers back through Taylor's long hair, she added, "If anything, I would've told him sooner."

"I," Taylor began, becoming all too aware of Fox's fingers.

"Now, now, John.  You don't have to say a word.  You're sorted.  You-"

"You," Taylor repeated, overcoming his nerves, "You were about to tell me why I'm one 'the lucky ones' here..."

Quickly taking a step back away from Taylor, Giovanni caught Profit eying her intently.  Knowing his intent, she said, "Of course you are, John.  Don't be so humble.  Have you seen you?  As Mr. Profit surely explained to you, there is a time and a place for you to truly break out on your own.  We can't know for sure exactly when and where that'll be, Hitman, but you've got to know that it's coming, and you've got to be prepared to hop right on when it does."

"You know something specific, don't you?"

"No," Profit quickly interloped.  Abruptly he added, "She doesn't.  She knows as much as me or you-"

"With all due respect, sir, I asked her.  And don't even try to convince me that I know 'as much as' you.  We both know that's a lie.  I know what my place has been all these years, and as such I know that I'm not exactly at the top of the proverbial food chain around here.  I understand and I acknowledge that I'm not exactly privy to as much information as, say, Monarch, but I just can't take another second of being bullshitted.  Fox, enough beating around the bush..."

Giovanni was set to pounce at the disrespect displayed by the 30-year-old HKWF mainstay, but a cutting glance from Profit quickly told her to do otherwise.  "John," she began, "I never keep anything important from you.  If you need to know something, I'll tell you.  That's how it's always been.  That's how it works.  That's how your salary stays so high, that's how-"

"Fox, please!" Taylor interrupted, a sense of desperation never before seen in his voice.  Fox sultrily waltzed toward Profit's desk and sat against it, now in between the two men.  "Tell me what's going on.  Tell me that it goes uphill from here.  Tell me where I'm going in this business!"

Abruptly and bluntly she replied, "America."

"America?"

"Everything will fall into place over there," Fox had said in a message left on Taylor's answering machine later that day.  "I won't say much more here, but just trust me on this one...  You think being isolated from the rest of them was a bad thing?  John, it pains me that you don't see how truly special you are to us.  To me.  You...  You deserve so much more than you've got in your time with us, the only saving grace we had was knowing the rewards that would be awaiting you on the other side.  John, this'll be it.  Not too long now and you'll cease to be HKWF's Hitman.  You'll be your own man - not Mr. Profit's, not anybody's.  Unless, of course, there was someone in particular you-"

The muffled sounds of a man's voice - John Profit's, Taylor deduced instantly - blurred wherever she was audibly heading.  Abruptly, she had spoken a final line into the speaker before hanging up; "I'll see you later, John."

Beep.