"Inevitability. The sun will rise each morning. Inevitability. The toast will always land butter-side down. Inevitability. The big fish will always be eaten by the bigger fish. Inevitability. Jackrabbit will dominate Mikey Austin. Undeniable inevitability. I don't think you's listening properly. This isn't something that needs to be talked about and talked about. Fact is, Jackrabbit could just walk away right now and the fact would remain. After everything I's gone through, I probably should. But I's won't. The 'Rabbit Fans worldwide and beyond would cry themselves to sleeps if I did. So let me ask you a likkle question instead... who calls you 'The Shark', Mikey? Is it your mummy? Your care-worker? Mikey, you're as dangerous as a waterbomb in a desert, and at Addiction Jackrabbit is in as much threat as Redemption is of getting a advertising gig with Olay or Eva is winning a spelling contest. Mikeyboy, the only similarity to a shark that you has is that on Sunday you's a fish out of water. Truthfulistically.. Truthfully, I mean.. Mikey, I actually think Prez Cee-Jay might be punishing your friendly neighbourhood Jackrabbit. Punishing me by putting me in a match with you. Punishing or humiliating. WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS!? I came into this company 6 months ago, Mikey... In my second match, I won the Pool of Blood.. In my third, I won Altitude O. I've been in Brawltopia, I've been in the Christmas Tree match. I've come out on top against people like Moxie Roxie, Greg Jackson, Nick Perry... I'm a former champion.. A CHAMPION! And who are you, Mikey? You are the guy that peoples pretend is someone else.. When they face you, they don't see your silly little masked face. They don't see Mikey 'The Shark' Austin. They see whoever it is they have a grudge with that week on this crazy merry-go-round of hatred. Do you think Trent Steel saw Mikey Austin when you walked out for Kill Trent? No, Mikey, he saw Dude Job. Do you think Landon Chase saw Mikey Austin when he dominated you last month? No, Mikey, he saw the stablebuddies he's so intent to outshine. So rest assured Mikey, when Jackrabbit is looking across the Oh-Dub-Eff ring at you, it won't be Mikey Austin that I'm driving head-first into the mat with a thunderousising Last Laugh. It will be Adam Wilson for STEALING MY SPOT in Fusion and for attacking ATTACKING DOC HOLLOWAY last week. It will be EJ Slayer for sending him down there to DO HIS DIRTY WORK in the first place! And it will be Talon. FOR EVERYTHING! For destroying my life, not once but twice, for stealing everything I was, for stealing everything I be, and for me saving his whimpering simpering life at Brawltopia. Yes, Talon, I remember.. I remembers how I pulled you from choking to death on your own saliva in those ring ropes. And I HATE YOU FOR IT! I hate that you makes me weak, I hate that I can't destroy you, I HATE THAT I LOVES YOU! But all that hatred isn't yours this week, Tal... No, that hatred is for Mikey Austin. Mikey, methinks... no, I know that you will come out here this week, you'll probably have a few words for me. Maybe you'll mock my name, or get it wrong.. mayhaps you'll calls me a "Tag Team Wrestler". Or maybe you'll say you got no grudge with me at all but that you's gonna beat me anyway! But the likelihood be that you won't even know who I am. You'll know who I am when Addiction comes to a close though, Mikey. And I already know who you be, I already know your fate. Let me show you..." Jackrabbit holds out a silver orb, within which is clearly visible a half-skull mask. The orb flickers, a darker black, a paler white, before settling back on the silvery grey. Both hands cup the orb now, fingertips trailing along the surface, and he breathes in hard. A cold look crosses his face, no sign of a smile, no hint of a laugh. Jackrabbit enters the diner. A typical American diner, families crowded around tables filled with pancakes and waffles. But here he is the only thing in color, everything and everyone else around him sharing the monochrome of the orb that he previously held. Two figures enter the diner, a girl with long dyed locks, a streak of light hair now giving way to her natural darker roots. Her companion is wearing a shirt, of indistinguishable color in this colorless would-be world, his hair combed neatly up onto his head. Vanilla and Spyke seem a little aged here, older than their usual selves. Holding hands they take a seat at one of the tables, deep in conversation as Jackrabbit circles around toward them. He says nothing, eyeing them, his hands moving quicksilver ripples through the air as he maintains the scene around them. Laughing at one of Spyke's jokes, Vanilla calls for the waiter, who approaches in his undersized apron and matching striped cap. A ketchup stain is prominent on his front. With greasy black hair and keen eyes, he looks entirely like an older version of Mikey Austin. "May I take your�" he stutters. He has forgotten his line. "Order", Vanilla helps him, bringing a snigger from her companion. "Yeah," he replies, and they order their fried food. Spyke asks for a veggie pattie, he's a vegan now, he reminds her. Jackrabbit stands behind the waiter now, behind the man that looks like an older Mikey Austin, unseen and unheard. "So far you will fall, Mikey. Surely you didn't think you would keep on picking up pay-checks for being pinned to the mat? Surely you didn't think to exist in a world of champions and mega-stars. Mikey, in OWF, even the jobbers are former World Champions and the midcard is packed with future ones. There is no place for you, not forever. Eventually, Mikey, you had to accept the fact you were never The Shark. You were Mikey "The Cod" Austin, at best. Bland and unoriginal. Over-fished, over-used, an endangered species. Don't worry, Mikey. It's not all bad news. After all, you will eventually remember your lines. Give it a month and you'll get your first order perfect. You'll forget to remove the pickles, of course, but they're just being pretentious assholes anyway- why can't they just use their fingers like everybody else? This is your Fate, Austin. And I will Make it. Ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaa!" The waiter takes the order back to the kitchens, his head hung low in the memory of past glories. On his notepad, he is collecting chicken wings and a veggie-burger. In his mind, he is pinning former World Champions. There is a look of derision on the face of Spyke as he watches him leave, but he turns back to Vanilla, sat across from him, and his face instantly flashes joy. He smiles at her, and reaches forward. Jackrabbit's manic laughter echoes out over the imaginary diner, unheard, but stops short as Spyke leans forward to kiss his date. The scene shatters, the diner erupts into a hundred quicksilver pieces, and Jackrabbit is left holding the capricious orb in his palms as the light within it goes out. He is no longer laughing. * * * Current alias: Stevie Guile Log entry code: 25037 Date: 13 January 2014 We didn't celebrate the arrival of 2014. We haven't celebrated New Year in half a decade, but that's the nature of being on the run. I remember the year before I met The Jackrabbit, I was in downtown Minneapolis with a girl I'd met a few months earlier. Tamsin, she was called, a beautiful woman from Turkey, I think it was. We were coming up towards midnight, and it was looking like I might get my first ever New Year's kiss. Don't get me wrong, I'd been with women before- I'd just never quite managed that New Year's kiss thing. I'm not a sentimental man, I can't afford to be- but Tamsin made me feel like one, if only for that short time. So the clock must have read about a quarter-to-twelve when the pager went. Yeah, I had a pager back then. Who didn't? I was needed, an urgent update from the Zero People on my first proper assignment. I didn't know then that it would end up being The Jackrabbit, that it would have me traipsing all over the globe following pro-wrestling companies and running from a slew of crazed maniacs all wanting a piece of what The Jackrabbit has locked up inside. I didn't get my New Year's kiss. And I didn't see Tamsin again. I wasn't even permitted to give her a call to explain. That's how it goes with the Zero People. We disappear, no one catches a trace. It's basically in the name. I defied orders now- frankly I am happy to admit that on record now, because I know no one will discipline me for this 6 years later. I defied orders and I sent Tamsin a post-card. You know, one of those "wish you were here" things. It had New Mexico on it, I think. I told her I'd had to go, had to disappear. "I can't tell you why, I can't tell you where." It could have been lifted straight out of a Liam Neeson movie, to be honest. She didn't buy it, but then she didn't really have to. Assumed I'd met another woman, as if I'd be so lucky. So I didn't get a New Year then, and I didn't get one for 2014 either. But this will be a New Year for Stevie Guile. Because I'm not going to allow this one to end like the last six have. Jackrabbit is changing, that's plain as day. He's going to be harder to keep tabs on for me, and he's going to be harder to beat for his opponents. There's just no getting around that. But it's time that Jackrabbit (did anyone else notice he stopped saying "The" lately?) learnt all about Zero People. And okay, let's be frank, it's time The Zero People learnt all about Jackrabbit. It's inevitable. * * * "It's inevitable that you's will regret seeing those words on the card last week: Jackrabbit vs. Mikey 'The Shark' Austin. It's inevitable that you's will know from the moment you jerk thems curtains that you's making a big mistake. And IT'S INEVITABLE that Cee-Jay will regret making me a show-opener, a curtain jerker.. I don't know what I done to deserve this treatment, but the only ways to show Cee-Jay that I deserves better is to make him regret putting me there.. and I does that by putting his handy-dandy enhancement guy in the emergency room. But when that happens, Mr. Shark, I want you to know it's nothing personal. But then, with you, it never is. Because nobody can care enough for it to be personal. I doesn't care either, Mikey. But don't you worry your silly likkle head.. I cares just enough to pay you some attention. Five seconds of attention, in fact. It'll be the most anybody has cared about you. Two seconds for a Last Laugh. And then one count. Two count. Three count. And then we'll be done, Mikey. And once you check out of the UC Irvine Medical Center.. you can go pretend to be somebody else's nemesis..."