CCC #74 - Voting Thread

“DOOR-REE-ANNN! DEE-STRUCK-SHUN!!” Roared the announcer in a vocal styling similar to MMA veteran Bruce Buffer as the pyro ignited followed by the video montage kicking in across the giant screen. The crowd inside the TA&T Stadium cheered wildly as the Entertainment Wrestling Federation former champion walked out to see them for the first time in three years.

Dorian gazed out at the 100,000 strong capacity crowd; taking in the cheers, the boos, the cell phones flashing and just the sheer noise. Slowly, deliberately, he raised his right hand up high and let it hang. It took longer than normal but the crowd eventually quietened down. Dorian smiled as the EWF Universe hung on his every gesture. A microphone got lowered into his outstretched hand via drone, and the man billed from Eight Gate of Hades took it.

“Let’s break this f#€+!^g place!” He told them, and their response was enormous, like lightning hitting gunpowder. Dorian strode to the ring, his black cape flowing behind like it was manta ray of liquid darkness. Chants of “This is awesome!” bounced around the stadium. It was hard to pull off a genuine surprise in the internet age, but they had. Took a lot behind the scenes work and just plain old staying out of sight for six months but having the nine-time champion appear for an unannounced match at here at WrestlingMania XXX would be talked about in the same sentences as Hogan Vs Andre in 1987, Bret Hart Vs Stone Col in 1997 and Super Brawl between Hiroshi Tanahashi, C.M Punk and Furious Tongan in 2004.

It felt good to be back in EWF. The three years away was needed to clear his head, and let the animosity diminish between him and the CEO Kennedy Vincent. The EWF has been pushing Dorian to unmask something he flat out refused. He’d known other masked wrestlers who’d done that and their careers never recovered, the mystery was gone, the illusion shattered.

“I made you!” Kennedy roared, his neck jowls quivering in fury as spittle gathered in the corners of his mouth.

“No, you didn’t!” Dorian replied, or as he was known backstage Colby Good. “I worked my damn ass off to get here. The EWF helped but it was my blood, my sweat, my body that I’ve put on the line night after nigh…”

“You either take that damn mask off tonight or you’re fired!”

“No.”

“You’ll do as I goddam well say, Colby! It’ll make our ratings shoot through the roof!”

Colby looked at the man who essentially made professional wrestling and tossed the Dorian Destruction mask onto the desk. “Best of luck with that, Kennedy.”

“Don’t you walk away from ME!” he screamed. “Colby! I’m warning you! COLBY!!”

Dorian ascended the turnbuckle and stood atop it like a vampiric gargoyle, cloak dancing in the wind as the crowd went hysterical. They didn’t know he was going to be here, most of them thought he was done forever in the EWF. But cooler heads, lots of negotiating and a stroke that put Mr Vincent into a wheelchair made this happen.

Suddenly the lights went up and the reworked version of Gary Glitter’s ‘Leader of the Gang’ blasted through the stadium. Mr Vincent was here! His son Stefan pushed the old man in his wheelchair; his daughter Shauna held his hand whilst her husband and heir apparent Paul “Blueblood” Hunter was primed and ready in ring attire. Accompanying them was Panzer, the seven-foot-tall red clad monster who Dorian was meant to face in his last EWF match, and Dwayne ‘Coldrock’ Austin the new face of the EWF.

Dorian dove off the ropes and into the centre of the ring. He knew the plan was he and Hunter were booked in for a match. A lot of blustering before they threw down for eleven minutes when Dorian would place Hunter in the Elimination Press, a modified camel clutch finisher, and be declared the winner. But the extra entourage had him concerned they were going to write the script on the fly and he could be in for a legitimate beatdown.

The group approached the ring as stage hands assembled a makeshift ramp for the chair to be rolled to the ring. In the manner of emperors of old, the wheelchair was lifted on high and the four men lifted the EWF Chairman into the ring. Dorian eyed them all looking for something to give him a clue on what was happening next but they all had good poker faces. Dorian lifted the microphone to his lips.

“Park the vegetable in the corner, I’ll deal with him last!”

The crowd roared in delight at Dorian’s verbal barb. Stefan rushed forward angrily only to have Panzer and Hunter stop him. Stefan wasn’t acting either, he was angry at the attack on his father.

“Who! Are you?” Coldstone snapped, the crowd mimicking the WHO. “RuPaul’s latest drag runner?”

Dorian looked at the chiselled young man of mixed heritage. The kid had charisma and could back it up with talent. He was one of those that you just knew could easily conquer the world. It remined him or himself.

“Little boy,” Dorian stared him down. “A cold stone melts quickly in fires of hell.”

The crowd gasped at the diss, Coldstone cocked up his eyebrow in trademarkable fashion.

“I came back tonight to the EWF to take down you, Blueblood!” Dorian pointed straight at the muscular man in red trunks, goatee and shaved head. “All your online chatter, you calling out the Prince of Hell saying I’m a coward and a joke. Yet here you are surrounded by a wall of cripples, women and children! You, you are the coward!”

The crowd ate it up and Blueblood released Stefan and moved toe-to-toe with Dorian. The two had fought battles in the past; both in-ring and in the locker room. They weren’t really friends, but they worked well together when they did. There was mutual trust and respect but in the hiatus, things had changed; Paul married into the family and began positioning himself more as a businessman than wrestler. It was a smart move.

“You should go back to wherever you crawled from…,” he replied and pressed his forehead to the black studded mask before whispering through his teeth only so they could hear it. “Colby.”

Dorian glared up at Paul, who was several inches taller. He wanted to smack that Cheshire grin off his face, but he still didn’t know the game that was being played.

Dorian exhaled and hushed back. “You’re a dead man, Paul. You just don’t know it yet.”

Blueblood took up the microphone. “You want a match tonight Dorian? I’ll give you a match. How about a world title shot?”

Dorian glanced down. “You can’t give what you don’t have.”

“Well,” he smiled. “You take us all out and you can have a shot at…” The music squealed and current EWF Heavyweight champ Dervish marched out into view. “Him!”

Like a pack of dogs, the group struck. Blueblood cracked Dorian across the neck as Coldstone and Panzer joined in kicking him to the floor. The order must’ve gone out that you didn’t have to hold back because several shots were connecting. Stefan grabbed Dorian’s chin and slapped him across the mouth whilst Shauna tried to move her father away to a corner.

“Too hard,” Dorian spat blood as he caught Panzer’s leg and flipped him over. Stefan went white as the Prince of Hell raised a hand only to have Blueblood intervene. The pair traded blows and when Dorian had the upper hand, Coldstone struck. The numbers game wasn’t in Dorian’s favour.

“Corner flip,” Coldstone said as he and Blueblood grabbed and arm each. Dorian nodded, and he was catapulted towards Mr Vincent who sat frozen in the corner. Dorian used the old man’s chair to leap up onto the corner post then leap back to hit a double missile kick on the pair who’d thrown him. Panzer came to grab him, but a quick low blow and an Irish whip sent him out of the ring. Dorian quickly grabbed Stefan by the throat and the groin and hefted him over his head in a gorilla press. It was getting harder and harder to do this move due to age and injury but tonight it NEEDED to be done as it might also be the last time. Stefan squealed as he was thrown over the top rope and luckily caught by Panzer, sending them both to the floor. Coldstone made a move but Dorian was tired of this young kid.

“Sell this,” he murmured to him and hit him with a DDT. To his credit Coldstone took the hit and went down leaving a trio of Vincent’s. Shauna fled the ring shrieking and Blueblood put himself between Dorian and Mr Vincent who was kinda oblivious to what was going on. Dorian wondered why they’d brought the ailing old man out, but his presence put bums on seats and made viewership spike. Blueblood charged in with a clothesline, Dorian ducked and chased his opponent, flipping him over the rope and out of the ring. The crowd roared. Dorian slapped his chest and marched around the ring like a madman.

“You want a shot at this?!” asked Dervish from the ramp. “At my title?”

Dorian moved to the ropes and beckoned the current champ in.

“Well, you obviously didn’t listen…” Dervish smiled as the crowd shrieked as Mr Kennedy Vincent stood up. He pulled off the sunglasses and the fake skin to make him look sick before ripping open his shirt to reveal an exquisite physique on one who was 66. Dorian knew something was going on behind him but knew how the pantomime worked, wait a little longer THEN turn around. So, he did and there was the head of the EWF looking like a greased up action figure, huffing and puffing angrily.

“You’re mine!” He yelled his neck veins and arm veins pulsing.

“This match is scheduled for one fall!” chimed ring announcer Lillian Graves over the crowd. “The winner gets a title shot at the EWF Heavyweight title.”

“Nice,” Dorian said quietly as he stalked around, the noise in the ring from the audience was the loudest he’d ever expericened in his career.

“I know,” Kennedy replied. “Now, let’s break this f#€+!^g place!”

DING DING!

The Death of Sun Tzu

The stadium was all but empty now, but an hour before, it had been chaos. The glorious, fan-filled chaos of the Planet of Wrestling- POW to its fans. Now however, it was the scene of a homicide. Officers had cordoned off the area around the ring, and cleared out any stragglers. CSI was attending to the scene around their victim, and coroners were standing by for the okay to take the body. Ringside, two detectives were just arriving to talk to POW president "Dowdy" Dotty Viper, dressed in her trademark plaid suit with checkered blouse.

"Ms. Viper, I'm Detective Paulette. This is my partner Detective Chaffin. Can you tell us what happened to..." she hesitated as she looked at her pad.

"Sun Tzu," Ms. Viper finished for her.

Paulette raised her eyebrows as she looked up from her pad.

"You know... 'The Artist of War?' He's been our biggest hit since last season." She looked at the detective with confusion; baffled that she hadn't heard of the star.

"Uh, Mary," said Chaffin. "Sun Tzu came on the scene last year. He spent the entire season systematically dismantling every wrestler the POW had. There wasn't a single signature move he couldn't counter."

Dotty smiled. "Oh. You're a fan, Detective Chaffin?"

Mary looked at her partner dubiously.

Chaffin shrugged. "It passes the time. Anyway, it drove fans nuts- some loved it, some hated it- but he took it all the way to the title. He was the world heavyweight champ."

"Was?" asked Mary.

"Well, the former champ, 'Bone Cold' Cleve Fraustin, didn't like the change," Dotty sighed. "He signed a contract just like everyone else though," she added hurriedly. "The signature moves were getting stale with the fans," she said. "Sun Tzu was scripted to beat them all so that we could come up with something else for this season. Bone Cold and The Doc beat us to it though."

"The Doc?" prodded Mary.

"My," said Dotty with real dismay. "You're really not a fan, are you Ms. Paulette?"

"Detective Paulette," Mary corrected, "and no. Do you know how many bar fights I've had to break up over Rebel 'Restler wannabes?"

Dotty closed her eyes and smiled. "Ah. The Rebel 'Restler. That takes me back," she said wistfully.

"The Doc?" Mary said again.

"It was great," chuckled Chaffin.

"Gragg," snapped Mary. Chaffin looked at her questioningly, and she said, "Do you mind letting Ms. Viper tell it?"

"Oh, please. Call me Dotty," she said with a wave. "Cleve waited until the Monday Live Lockdown, and went off script. He came down to the ring unannounced, and challenged Sun Tzu to a Battle for the Belt. We were live, so we had to roll with it. Bone Cold was relentless. He fought like he had never fought before, and he was more than holding his own. The Doc ran out from backstage though, jumped in the ring, and they brutalized Sun Tzu- nearly put him in the hospital." She nodded at her story to emphasize the severity of it.

"Yeah, The Doc finished it off with a double-haymaker," said Chaffin. "Then he grabbed a mic, stood over Sun Tzu, and waving a fist in the air, yelled," imitating the wrestler, "Take TWO, and calllll me in the morninnnn'!"

Dotty smiled. Mary silenced her partner with a look, turned back to Dotty, and waited.

"They used all new moves," she shrugged, "and that's what we were going for this season, so we let it slide." Mary looked incredulous, but Dotty assured her, "It's in their contracts, sweetheart. Adrenaline gets going, you can never be sure of anything, so these guys have to waive their rights to sue POW or their fellow wrestlers. That's why grudges get settled in the ring so often.

"Anyway, the Sun Tzu story was always meant to be a two-season rise-and-fall. He comes out of nowhere the first year, dominates the ring, defeating all the moves, wins the belt at the end of the season. This season, he comes back, and gets a bunch of comeback bouts."

Mary rolled her eyes. "I can't believe I'm having to learn this stuff. 'Comeback bouts?'" she asked.

"Sun Tzu looks like he's winning the first half of the match. Same reason as always- he knows their moves. The second half, his opponent throws a move of another wrestler. Sun's not expecting that, falters, and they fight a little more. Then they unveil new moves. Sun doesn't know what to do with it, and they wipe the mat with him." When Mary said nothing, Dotty added nervously, "The fans have really been eating it up. The new moves were just what we needed to put some life back into the POW."

Looking back to the body of the wrestler, Mary said, "Well, not for everyone."

"Yeah," said Dotty, disheartened. "It wasn't supposed to go like this." She shook her head as she bit on a long fingernail.

Turning back to the Planet's president, Mary said, "What is Sun Tzu's real name?"

"Oh. Kung Pao," said Dotty.

Mary took a deep breath, and twisted her neck to one side until it popped.

"Uh, Ms. Viper," started Chaffin.

"Dotty."

"Dotty," he repeated with a strained smile. "We need his real name."

"That is his real name," she said assuredly. "He had to change it legally as part of his contract. He thought it would be funny if this 'master of war' was a 'chicken' in his 'real' life. I tried to convince him to go with General Tso- more in keeping with the war theme- but he thought Kung Pao was funnier. We were paying him a lot of money to be a two-season throwaway, so I figured I'd give him that. It was a good move too," she said, nodding. "Since 'P.O.W.' is also known as 'Pow,' Kung Pao as the rising star played very well with them." She smiled, clearly pleased at the unintentional boon to the company. "And an Asian champ?" she asked. "Just the shot of diversity we needed in these times." She nodded again.

Mary blinked at her a few times, and then turned her neck in the other direction until it popped again.

"Ms... Dotty," said Chaffin. "Here's my card. Call us if you think of anything else. We may be in touch with you again."

"I can go?" Dotty asked.

"Don't leave the arena," said Mary, "but we have to tend to some other things here at the moment."

"Oh. Okay," Dotty said agreeably. "Thank you, detectives. I'll have my assistant bring you one of my cards," she added, and walked away to find her assistant.

They were just about to turn towards the body when a man stood up a couple of rows back from the ring. "Excuse me, detectives," he said leaning over the row in front of him, holding out a card. Mary leaned over the front row to take it from him. "I'm Dayton Thyme, the assistant Dotty just went to look for. Here's her card in case you need to reach her."

Mary nodded.

"If you'll excuse me, I've really got to go catch her. She's more upset than she's letting on." He smiled politely, then hurried down the row and to the aisle, rushing after his boss.

Both watching him hurry away, Gragg said, "You really don't like wrestling, do you?"

"It's not that," she said, jutting her jaw a little bit.

"Then what is it?" he asked.

Pointing a finger in the direction Dotty had gone in, she groused, "She called me 'sweetheart.'"

Gragg couldn't completely stifle his chuckle. Mary punched him in the arm. She handed the card to her partner, who put it in his shirt pocket. "Who else we got?" she asked.

"The Doc, over there," he said as he pointed a couple of rows away from the turnbuckle; about twenty feet from the body of Sun Tzu. "Real name Wayne Ronson."

Mary couldn't see the wrestler as a few people were gathered around him. As they walked over, she told her partner, "My nephew used to like Rulk Rogan when he first started."

"Oh yeah? He was a Rulkaradical, huh?"

"Nah, he just liked comics. So he liked Rogan because he was called Rulk."

"Ah," said Gragg with a grin.

They gradually heard sobbing coming from the direction of the group. As the detectives reached them, Mary said, "Excuse me? I'm Detective Paulette. Is The Doc here?"

The small group parted to reveal a tall, muscular man who seemed to barely fit in the theater style seat. His face was covered by his hands, and he was crying aloud while a member of the POW medical staff wrapped his ankle in a bandage.

"Are you The Doc?" asked Mary.

"Nope. Just a medic," replied the staff member. "Doc's in the training room. I'm Jimmy Palmer. How--" he stopped as he looked up at Mary. "Oh. You... you meant The Doc, didn't you? It happens more often than you think. Why, there was this one time that--"

"Hey! Palmer!" barked another wrestler. Palmer looked at him, and the wrestler growled, "She gets it! Are you done?"

Palmer looked at the wrestler nervously, then at The Doc's ankle. Putting the clip in the bandage, he said, "Yeah, Cleve, that'll do it. See the doc later, Doc. That is... y-you know what I... I'm going to go now," and Palmer grabbed his medical box and retreated up the aisle.

Looking back at the injured wrestler, Mary pushed her glasses up her nose, and said, "So you're The Doc then?"

The man drug his hands down his face until his fingertips were just below his eyes, barely quieting to blubbering sobs as he looked at the detectives.

"You don't recognize The Doc?" said Cleve rather gruffly. He wore his wrestling trunks, boots, and a leather jacket that wasn't zipped up, exposing his bare chest.

"She's not a fan," said Gragg, sticking out his hand, "but I am." The wrestler shook it firmly. "Mister Fraustin, I'm Detective Chaffin. Can you tell us what you saw here tonight?"

"Hell no, I can't tell you!" barked Fraustin. "I was backstage!" Slapping The Doc on the shoulder, he said, "Time to dry it up, you pansy ass! Tell these folks what happened."

The Doc looked up at Fraustin momentarily before his face completely dissolved into more crying and tears.

"Aw, come on, Wayne. I was only messin' man. We're all gonna miss Kung," said the wrestler.

Wayne cried harder.

"Oh, for the luvva..." Going to one knee, Fraustin put one hand on the sobbing wrestler's shoulder, and gently pulled The Doc's hands away from his face with the other. "Wayne, hey. Come on, man. No one's blaming you for this."

Wayne took a few quick breaths, then said shakily, "J-just a few million fans! Did you hear the things they were yelling as they left?"

With true compassion in his eyes, Fraustin said, "Heat of the moment... It was fresh... Hell, fans are fickle, Doc. The truth comes out about how this happened? They'll forgive you. You'll see," he said, shaking Wayne's shoulder lightly. Doc calmed visibly, and Fraustin smiled and patted his cheek.

Doc sniffled a little bit, took a few deep breaths, then looked at Mary and Gragg. He bit his lip momentarily, and clearly trying to hold back more tears, he asked, "H-how can I help you, detectives?"

"We need to know what happened tonight," answered Mary.

"Folks, we're going to have to ask you to step away while we speak with The Doc," said Gragg. As the people started up the aisle, he said, "Mister Fraustin, can I speak to you over here, please?"

Bone Cold turned back in surprise, then stepped a few rows down from The Doc, where Chaffin had indicated.

***

Up with The Doc, Mary listened to his version of the events. "It was a Round-the-Ring match," he said quietly, no longer crying, but his voice still shaking from the adrenaline of it. "Th-that's our term for it behind the scenes. It means the match is going to spill out of the ring into the walkspace around the ring. We bounce each other off the outside of the turnbuckles, the edge of the ring, and even off the steel stairs."

"That's how Sun Tzu wound up at the stairs?" asked Mary.

"Y-yeah," The Doc said, looking at the body a few rows below. "I'd bounced his head off the stairs... choreographed, of course," he said. Then I went in for the back stomp. You know- bring the foot down on him, but mostly stomp the mat- or the floor in this case- to make it sound bigger. It's a precision move- it has to be timed right." The Doc squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then shook his head sadly. "Sun Tzu- h-he... he wasn't supposed to get up."

"I'm sorry?" asked Mary.

***

Looking at a replay of the match on a cellphone with Detective Chaffin, Bone Cold said, "Ah, man. Why'd he get up?"

"He was supposed to stay down?" asked Chaffin.

"Wayne was doing the foot stomp," said Fraustin. "That's a precise move. Ronson has to make contact with his back, but bring most of the weight down on the floor at the last second. Sun flops like a fish to make the contact look brutal. Doc's going to do it twice though, because--"

"--Because 'Take TWO'--"

"--Yeah, I heard your impersonation earlier- not bad- but yeah, because of that. Sun tried to get up after the first one though. That would've messed Doc up, and more of his weight would come down on Sun's back. We're fit and strong and all, but a blow to the back like that can still break it. Sun Tzu didn't have a chance."

"Could The Doc have stopped it?" asked Chaffin.

"It's fake, but it's still athletic," answered Fraustin, "which means adrenaline and all that. Plus we have to put on a show- we're thinking about a lot when we're mid-match. Kung wasn't supposed to get up, so Wayne wasn't expecting him to. I don't see how he could have seen it in time to stop himself mid-stomp."

"Is that how he hurt his ankle?"

"Yeah, it's easy to sprain an ankle if you make contact sooner than you're expecting to," said Bone Cold. "That's going to put him out of action for awhile. I'm sure they'll write him some backstage story while he recovers though. He'll probably have to take a beatin' from some of the guys though."

Chaffin looked at him curiously.

"You're a fan- you know how it is," said Fraustin. "It's As the Ring Turns backstage. That soap opera crap gives the matches some context." Smiling foolishly, he waves his fingers in front of him, and says, "It's all smoke and mirrors, my friend."

Chaffin chuckled.

"What?"

"It's just weird, man," answered Gragg, shaking his head. "You on TV, and you in real life seems completely different."

Fraustin scoffed. "We're playin' characters, man. Who the hell walks around calling themselves 'Bone Cold,' y'know? But it sounds better than just 'Cleve Fraustin.' Like I said, smoke and mirrors."

"Yeah, about that- 'Cleve?'"

He laughed. "Short for 'Cleveland,' where I was born. Gotta represent," he said, pounding his chest twice, then winking at the detective.

"So are you guys really enemies off camera?" he asked, indicating The Doc.

"Nah, it's mostly scripted. We have to fight each other, so sometimes real tempers flare, just like any job. We have to trust each other not to do any permanent damage though, so we're actually pretty close."

"Yeah, I noticed when you were talking to him earlier. How close?" asked Chaffin, just being nosey at this point.

"Don't be disrespectful, son," Fraustin said. "Wrestlers can't have compassion? Wayne just killed a guy. He's going to have to carry that for the rest of his life... and his career. It's going to haunt his storyline for a long time."

"Yeah," said Chaffin. "You're right. Hard to separate the fan from the detective here. It's almost like you guys aren't real."

"We're real," said Bone Cold, patting the brace on his elbow. "And we break... one way or another."

Chaffin said nothing. He just nodded.

***

"That-that's all you need, Detective?" asked The Doc.

"Yes, Mister Ronson, I think that'll do it," answered Mary.

"So... so what's going to happen now?" he asked nervously.

"It seems pretty clear that this was an accidental death," she said with a shrug.

"Th-that's it?" he asked, almost crying.

"They're not all murders," she said. Handing him a card, she added, "In case you need to reach me. We have some paperwork to file with the D.A., but this should all be cleared up in a couple of weeks."

Shutting his eyes, The Doc answered, "If only."

Mary tapped her pen on top of her pad a couple of times before sliding it into the spiral binding. "Yeah. I wish you well with that," she said quietly. They made eye contact, Mary nodded, and then started up the aisle. She'd only taken a few steps when she turned and called out, "Chaffin! Let's go."

***

"Right behind you, partner!" Chaffin called back as Dayton Thyme walked up to him and Bone Cold.

"Detective," said Thyme, "here's my card. I know I gave one to your partner already, but they're easy to lose."

"Yeah," said Chaffin, reaching into his pocket for the one his partner had given him. "And it'll be my fault if it gets lost too," he chuckled. "Thanks." He shook the assistant's hand, then the wrestler's, and said, "It was great meeting you, despite the circumstances."

"You bet, Detective," answered Bone Cold.

Chaffin jogged up the aisle to catch up to his partner.

"Dotty's already on damage control," said Dayton as he and Fraustin watched the detectives go. "The script guys are going to be busy tomorrow, and The Doc's going to be out for awhile. What a night." Looking at the wrestler, he asked, "Are you okay, Cleve?"

Apparently lost in thought, he didn't answer for a couple of seconds. Then, he turned his head, and said, "Hm? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." As he sauntered away with a smile, Bone Cold added, "I'm going to be the champ the rest of the season."

"Damn. That really was bone cold, Cleveland," said Thyme. "Sun Tzu died tonight," he added angrily.

Cleve spun on one heal and came back angrily, thrusting a finger in the assistant's face. "Yeah! And why is that, Dayton?"

Taking a couple steps back from the finger, Dayton stuttered, "Wh-what do you mean?"

"Kung knew his stuff! He sure as hell knew all our moves! He had to! So why the hell does he get up when Wayne's giving him the Take Two Stomp?"

"It-it was an ac-accident," said Dayton with confusion.

"Like hell," Cleve hissed. "You wrote this match. You told him that was the start of the comeback, didn't you? That The Doc would be using my Kayo Kick, and then they'd get into the new moves! But you didn't tell Wayne, did you?"

"Is that true, Dayton?" Dotty asked from behind him.

Dayton spun to face his boss, momentarily at a loss for words. "I... it was an accident... I just forgot. I..."

"You son of a bitch!" growled Bone Cold. He grabbed Dayton's shoulder, spun him around, and broke his nose with a punch that sent him to the floor. "I'll--"

"Fraustin!" called Mary from the other side of the ring. "That's enough!"

Cleve backed off as the detective and her partner made their way around the ring.

"Did you get it?" Chaffin asked Fraustin.

Pulling his cell phone out of his jacket pocket, Fraustin hit play on a recording. "I... it was an accident... I just forgot. I..."

"Dayton Thyme, you're under arrest," stated Detective Paulette.

"But I didn't kill him!" protested the assistant.

"Sun Tzu died through your negligence," she answered as she cuffed him. She read him his rights, and they started up the aisle.

Guiding Thyme by the elbow, Mary stopped next to The Doc, looked at him and said, "Sometimes it is murder, but it wasn't you."

Dayton and Wayne looked at each other for a long few seconds, and Wayne finally said, "You bastard."

Thyme said nothing. He only looked away.

"Come on, let's go," said Chaffin, taking Thyme's other elbow.

***

Watching the detectives leave for real this time, Dotty said, "This needs to go away, Cleve. You're not going to be champ the rest of the season. We're going to have to come up with something else."

"Oh, yes I am," Cleve said as he walked away, "and you're going to make sure of it, Dotty."

"And why's that?" she called after him.

"Because Bone Cold said so!" he called back. "You didn't know?"