1.

"John, I just got off the phone with the doctors from St. Joseph's" began lawyer Larry Collins, speaking without his distinct confidence into his most well-known client's answering machine.  "The shovel wound cleared up perfectly, there won't be a scar or anything.  Unfortunately, there were complications with the tests..."

2.

"What the hell were you talking about, 'complications'?" An enraged John Taylor asked impatiently of his lawyer only half an hour after receiving his voicemail message.  Taylor had just got in from training for Crimson and the Fatal Fourway when he heard the vague 'news'.  It wasn't like Larry to beat around the bush, but all he'd left aside from the message were a few scattered twigs.

"Calm down...  It's not the end of the world, John.  You'll still be able to wrestle at Crimson..."

"Then what's the problem?"

"It's psychological...  Mental stuff.  The shot you took to the back of the head caused an inflammation of your neuro-something-or-other and one of the injections you got just exacerbated it further."

Subconsciously rubbing at the back of his head (as if to verify for himself that it was still there), Taylor fell uncomfortably quiet.  "What does it mean?"

"I'm not sure exactly, I'm afraid.  You know doctors and their-"

"No!" Taylor cut his lawyer off abruptly, "you know doctors.  I pay you to deal with these people and you're trying to tell me you don't understand what you've been told?"

"It's not so much that I don't understand it but rather that I don't understand how it would've been allowed to happen in the first place.  You were out for hours, John.  When they tried whatever the hell this was to bring you back, everything went haywire.  You went into shock.  You were spasming.  Speaking almost in tongues, so they tell me..."

"Don't you look at me like I'm crazy, Lar'."

"I'm not...  But they had to get hoards of security personnel in to bring you down."

"Down from what, exactly?"

"They don't know...  During all the excitement, some idiot managed to knock out the security camera feed.  Totally destroyed it...  Right back to a week before you arrived."

"That doesn't even make sense, Larry...  Surely they back up everything on a daily, if not hourly, basis?  That's got to be standard procedure."

"I only know what I've been told, John, and unfortunately that was an emphatic 'apparently not'."

Taylor sighed heavily, "Then what's the big deal?  I can wrestle at Crimson, I will win at Crimson...  I don't get what the big complication is?"

"The effects of the injections left you with a deep-seeded cousin of amnesia."

"Amnesia?  Get out of it, Larry.  My memory is as clear as day."

"A cousin of amnesia, as I said.  Think of it as a fifth cousin, twice removed.  You're not forgetting anything, as such, but your memory has apparently become warped.  There were minute amounts of a hallucinogen in whatever it was they gave you, and the side affects are a prolonged sensation of uncertainty and hallucination.  It affected the invisible line that draws fantasy from reality within you," Larry tried to explain.  It was hard to make a convincing case to Taylor when he truly had his own doubts about what he'd been told.  "Does that make sense at all?"

"It's bullshit."

"I don't know if it is or if it isn't.  What I do know is that it was all in the doctor's report filed during the week."

"Let them file whatever they like, Larry.  I'm out of there, it's got no bearing on me-"

"I'm afraid it does, actually..."

"And how's that?" Asked a very sceptic Taylor.

"To be frank - As long as that report says you're suffering from that, and this investigation into our friend Chester Browne is based solely on your word, it'll be thrown out the window."

Absolute silence was all Taylor could muster up.

"If you think we need to look deeper into 'classified' information, you're going to have to give me some sort of proof to hand to them as justification-"

"Fucking cunts..."

3.

John Taylor sat in his locker room about an hour before his scheduled Fatal Fourway match on Crimson.  He'd had interviewers and reporters at him since arriving, begging for even a short interview.  To each and every one of them, he'd declined.  Hearing what he'd heard at Beaverdam and then hearing his lawyer practically discard it as some figment of his imagination, Taylor wasn't quite in the mood to trash-talk.

On the small television monitor across the room, he watched one of his hand-chosen rivals, Gabriel, tangle with a bunch of nobodies.  Taylor was above every single one of them, why was what little time he had being wasted with Gabriel?  He'd already gone through what Pimp Bizkit would later call a learning curve - pointless donkey-work contendership matches for titles that were already available to anyone in the first place...  The funny thing was that he'd seen how utterly needless such matches were soon enough to get out.  Shane Ryder, Kid X and company had enough GZW experience to figure it out, but apparently lacked the common sense.

No, he wouldn't be dragged back down to any of that.

Later that night, he would have the chance to shoot right back up to where he belonged, right back up to the hot seat that he had built and customized for himself.  He was going to take it and run with it.  He wasn't going to leave that night without knowing with absolute certainty that he would be the man to excommunicate Pimp Bizkit from the main event scene he had been polluting for far too long.

He turned off the TV and checked his gloves.

4.

In the ring, Gunman punches out of the DDT position and ducks a spinning clothesline from Tytan. The Heretic Punisher turns around and is met with a quick kick to the gut followed by a single arm DDT! Gunman falls on Tytan for the cover right as Sharpe breaks away from Bane sliding into the ring.

One...Sharpe is under the ropes...

Two...Sharpe is in range...

Three...NOOO!!!!! Sharpe pulls Gunman's legs at the last minute!

Gunman stands up to counter Sharpe, but Tytan grabs Gunman from behind to roll him up.

One...

Two...and before Sharpe can break the hold, Bane grabs him from behind and hits a belly to back.

One…

Two…Gunman counters the hold and rolls Tytan up with his own pin attempt.

One...

Two...

Three!!

Crumb: LORD TAYLOR WINS!! LORD TAYLOR WINS!!

5.

Backstage after his successful Fatal Fourway match, Lord John Taylor headed straight for his locker room.  He was bloodied, but he was victorious.  It'd been a while since he felt as though he'd truly won a match on his own terms.

It'd been a while since he'd truly had a match on his own terms, now that he thought about it.

For the first time in far too long, he'd been in control.  It was a reminder of who he was and who he should be.  It was a reminder that no ill words should ever get to him, because he was - quite simply - John Taylor.  He was far too good to conform to what was expected of his every peer.

But he didn't want to talk about it.  There were interviewers all around him.  In front, behind.  Hiding in corners and lingering in doorways.  To them all he had one simple message.

"You vultures will get ten times the meal you truly deserve in the coming weeks, but tonight you must starve..."