Post by The Ace on Feb 3, 2012 15:15:10 GMT -6
September 5th, 2008
The scene opens with The Ace sat in an empty white room, his head bowed in reflection as he clutches desperately to a pale white hand in both of his own.
I'm sorry I haven't been to visit much lately baby. I just can't stand to see you like this. I know. I know. It is my fault that you are laying here now, when you should be at my side. I should have told you to stay behind...but I know you wouldn't have listened to me anyway...you're just so damn stubborn!
The Ace manages a little smile.
But I still love you. And so does Soli. We miss you terribly. Come on home to us soon, sweetie. I know you can do it. You are strong, stronger sometimes than even I can be. You are my strength and my weakness. At least in here you are safe. I can no longer put you in any danger. I can no longer have men like Falcon to be proven right. You do understand, don't you?
The Ace closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.
I promise you I will get Falcon for what he did to you...no, what I did to you...Falcon asked of me, what drug am I on. I know now that the drug is love, my love for you, Kathleen. It makes me weak, yet the addiction is undeniable. The addiction gives me strength. What gives men like Falcon the right to question the love a man has for his wife? True, I may not be able to be here as often as I'd like to be, but I am a professional wrestler. I have to do my job. Even more so because I have to take care of our baby girl on my own now. You know that. Does that make me a poor excuse for a man? Or does it make me a loving father and husband who cannot stand to see the two most precious gifts in his life suffer?
A tear strolls down The Ace's cheek.
I must admit the line has been blurred for me lately, blurred by tears. I never did thank you for giving me the gift of little Solitaire Marie Conway. But I thank you now, I just hope you can still hear me.
The Ace sighs as he turns away from his comatose wife for a moment...
The scene change is as rapid and as jarring and as unexpected as is the change from that emotionally troubled, broken Jake Conway four years ago to this one. It was hard to believe how much the man had changed in four years, slowly becoming ever darker, we saw the metamorphosis happen before our eyes, yet even today we couldn't say exactly when the beating heart of a broken man turned black and when he turned his aggression on the world.
So here we are, February 3rd, 2012, just a couple of days away from only the second Natural Selection Match in this company's history - the first happened in August of 2009 and was won not by me but by Jimmy Zane, so I knew it was not outside the realms of possibility that Nathan Webb could step up and beat me this week, just as Jimmy had done, even if I wasn't about to fold my hand infront of the camera just yet...
From behind his simple wooden table, we see The Ace sigh, as on the table was once again a glass jam jar with the cellar spider in the bottom of it, and beside that a clear glass jug of water and a small vase with a single white rose in it this time.
The Ace begins to speak.
You know Nathaniel, in spite of all your recent ramblings, you still haven't given me or the people who foolishly believe that you will beat me this Sunday any real reason as to why you made this ridiculous challenge...
You want to beat me at my own game?
Why?
Simply to prove that you can?
What will that accomplish?
Better still, what do you believe it will accomplish?
Tell me, honestly I want to know what it is that you believe here Nathaniel? Do you believe that you will end my career this Sunday? Do you believe you have what it takes to turn the dusk of my career into the dawn of yours? Do you really believe it or are you just scrambling for words and empty threats and promises you can't keep simply because you have nothing left to say? Nothing that matters anyway, nothing that will hide the fear I see in your eyes, the doubt I hear in your voice...
You want to put me out to pasture?
You want to try and use my career as a launchpad for yours?
That's fine, all I ask is that you be honest about it and not make this out to be any grand quest for retribution for what I did to you months ago or Rose a couple of weeks ago when quite clearly it isn't. I don't care if you lie to me Nathaniel, but I am willing to bet Rose cares if you lie to her, I bet the millions of people watching this right now hoping you're the man who finally gives me my just desserts care if you lie to them...
Go ahead, Nathaniel.
Tell them why this isn't about retribution at all.
Tell them why you haven't shed a tear for anything I have done to Rose?
Tell them why the cigarettes calm your fears and steady your nerves.
I'll tell them why, because unlike you I have no reason to lie to Rose or to the people who believe in you, unlike you I have no reason to try and save face here, because I'm not trying to be something I already know I am not, and will never be. I'm not trying to be a hero, all I am is the villain, and that liberates me to tell the whole world the one thing you can never tell the world...
The cold hard truth of the matter.
I know exactly why you made this challenge Nathaniel, and the truth is you didn't do it out of some need for vengeance or justice, you did it simply because you were sick of living in the dark, you were sick of everybody looking passed you as nothing special and just a mediocre wrestler at best - and then I gave you the perfect excuse to challenge me. I put you out of this company because I knew spiders really only have two choices in my world...
To be on the outside looking in.
Or to be scuttling around in the dark, ignored and inconsequential.
You weren't happy with either choice were you Nathaniel, so somehow you found your way back into the light, and you brought with you the perfect sacrificial pawn. You fed her the lies and you implicated and insinuated that my wife was somehow just as bad as me and you needed her to stand by your side, to believe in you, and more importantly to 'take care' of Kathy because you thought you had me all figured out, you were so sure that a man as cold and calculating as myself would have no qualms about using my wife to my advantage, perhaps because you had seen all the tapes of how she used to involve herself in my matches, but the one thing you didn't figure on was just how much I love her...
And how much that love changed me.
And how much her belief in me changed everything.
See Nathaniel, I had to learn the hard way to keep Kathy out of my affairs, and now it seems that I must pass on the lessons that Spike Kane and Falcon taught me onto you - don't lie and make this all about Rose, don't bring her to ring side under false pretenses. Handle your business on Sunday with me and only me, let's drop the bull**** for once Nathaniel. I am not interested in what motivations Rose believes you have for this match, as far as I'm concerned she can continue to believe you're doing all this out of some brotherly love even though you have no such ties...
I just need you to level with me here, Nathan.
You're doing this all for yourself, aren't you kid? You're doing this for the fame, the fortune, the fifteen minutes in the spotlight because deep down you're just like the rest of us in this business. You're nothing special, just another run of the mill wrestler looking to escape and channel his vices into something more constructive. You want all this to have been worth it, you want to feel vindicated, you want the assurance that you made the right choice in life when you decided to step into a wrestling ring. I've tried to tell you you don't belong in the same ring as me, I've tried to show you by trying to put you out of your misery...and still you won't listen to me.
Why?
It's because I can be beaten in this match, isn't it?
You've seen it.
Three years ago you saw Jimmy Zane put me down for a 21 count.
It can be done.
Jimmy had held steadfast to the belief that he would beat me and he did - still the match did what it was supposed to do.
It started Jimmy Zane on his road to becoming Evolutionary.
It started me on the road to becoming the Apex of Evolution.
See Nathan, the thing is, what most people refuse to believe about me is the fact that the Apex of Evolution is not just some fancy marketing moniker drummed up to sell a few t-shirts, it has a purpose, a meaning, all of which is seemingly lost on guys like you and Roberto Verona. Over the years in this business, I have earned it because I know what it takes to survive, I know how to adapt and exploit my surroundings to my advantage, and most of all I know how to force my opposition to change, to adapt...
To evolve or die.
I was once like you Nathiel, I believed the nCw World Heavyweight Championship was the be all and end all, that it was some pinnacle that would finally get me all the respect I deserved, I held the champions before me in some sort of untouchable almost saintly regard. This company will go out of its way to make you believe Xander Fulamaro is the best in the world right now simply because he has a belt that says so, and like you I bought into the hype...
Then I won the Road To The Gold.
Then I won the World Title.
Just like Xander and I realised it meant nothing, such achievements were just empty props on which to perpetuate shallow arguments and fool the world into thinking you were saying alot when actually you were saying nothing at all. I never got half the respect Xander gets despite having accomplished just as much, if not more - but that's okay, I don't necessarily need the little trinkets in this business to continue doing what I'm doing...
Evolution doesn't need gold to be heard.
Evolution doesn't need to shout its intent.
It just is, was and forever will be.
Changing the face of the company without you even realising it.
Championships are nice, and I'm hardly going to turn my nose up at one, but they are hardly the key to how the world works, they say nothing of life and what it truly takes to survive in this business. Far greater men than you Nathaniel have stood in my way and tried to make me realise what they consider to be my greatest fear...
Retirement.
They think I'm just hanging around because I'm one of these veterans who refuses to relinquish the spotlight, but the truth of the matter is I have yet to step into a single match and feel like it may be my last. You want my spot Nathan, then do what is necessary to take it...do what nobody else to this day has done.
Until then just shut up and listen.
I'm about to teach you one very important lesson about survival.
The Ace then takes the white rose and puts it in the open jar with the spider. The spider immediately starts to climb the stem.
Like it, or not Nathaniel, the rules of Natural Selection still apply even to a closed off environment such as this, only one species can survive, now you can either believe evolution will kill the rose because some arachnids can spread disease to the flower and cause it to wilt and die, or you can believe in God and pray for rain to save the rose...either way, somebody has to lose...
The Ace then takes the jug of water and begins to poor it into the jar, effectively saving the rose at the expense of the spider.
Whichever way the pendulum swings this Sunday.
One of you will evolve.
The other will die.
That's just playing the game by Nature's rules - not mine.
There is just no way that both the spider and the rose can both survive this together.
No matter what you believe in.
No matter who believes in you.
That's just how it has to be.
September 5th, 2008.
The Ace turns around back to his wife, and presses the card that used to hang around her neck into the palm of her hand as he closes his eyes...
I love you Kathy...
The Ace gets up and kisses his wife on the temple...
Fight it sweetie...I know you can...for Solitaire...for me...we need you...
The Ace turns away before emotion overwhelms him again, he heads out the door, wondering if she deserved a far greater man than he who had failed her...again...the scene cuts back to Kathy, laying there still unconscious, the card still resting flat on her palm...slowly her fingers start to twitch, and slowly they close in around the chain and the card as the camera focuses on the remarkable moment, Kathy grasps the card tight in her hand, as if drawing the strength to continue from it...the scene slowly fades to black...
So many things can change a man.
I feared that nothing would change for her.
Our love would change us both.
I believed this would change everything forever.
And it did.
I've been changed by fear.
I've been changed by love.
I've been changed by belief.
Now it was time to change everything forever all over again.
