The Truth You'll Just Have To Live With (PPV RP 2)

[The Ace]

The scene opens with some footage from Crossroads 2010 set to 'Don't Belong' by Cold.

Bates gets to the ring and lifts his brief case up and smiles, pointing at Atreyu who leans over the ropes and begins screaming at him. The ref jumps out of the ring and begins to yell at Bates to get the hell out of here but all of this is revealed to be a gigantic distraction as LORD DOMINICUS jumps the ring barrier, wearing his mask with a t-shirt and jeans. Dominicus grabs a steel chair and slides into the ring. Nelly Angel is up and turns right into the CHAIR SHOT!

Kelly Knite: What is this, return of the giant losers night?

Eric Hardy: Whatever it is, Dominicus just cost Nelly his chances of winning this match.

Dominicus tosses the chair and picks Nelly up for the DOMINICUS DRIVER!

Eric Hardy: Damn him, damn Rob Diamond and that stupid mask.

Dominicus rolls out of the ring, Atreyu is still completely focused on Bates who is backing up the ramp as Ricky Johnson comes off the top rope with the BURN OUT PHOENIX SPLASH! The ref slides back in the ring, having not seen Dominicus' attack, just in time to make the count. ONE!... Atreyu turns... TWO!... Atreyu leaps.... THREE!!!! HE'S TOO LATE!!!!

Amber Ashe: Your winner and new nCw Honor Champion.... RICKY JOHNSON!!!!!

I won't ever tell the world that I don't belong...
Please don't ever tell the world that I don't belong...

The referee questions Ace as to the circumstances surrounding Xavier’s crotch clutching, but he claims to know nothing and drags Cross away from the ropes and goes for the win with a Jackknife Cover. 1.…..2.….Cross staves off defeat by rolling his shoulder off the mat. The Ace runs his hands through his hair with anger in his eyes. He paces back and forth waiting for XC to reach his fighting stance. The National Champion sneaks up behind Xavier Cross and picks him up, performing a Spinout Powerbomb into the turnbuckles. Ace retreats to the opposing corner and builds up a head of steam before charging the trapped challenger. In a last ditch effort to stop the onslaught, Cross leaps up, putting both boots into the gut of Ace, and sending himself up onto the top rope with back flip. Xavier looks somewhat surprised to find himself on the top rope, as he looks down at the hunched over Ace. He looks up to the heavens for a moment and mouths a quick personal message to his beloved wife. With his feet firmly planted on the top rope, Cross flips through the air like an acrobat and drills Ace with The End Is Near! Cross struggles to get The Ace turned over before going for the win. 1.……..2.…….3!

Amber Ashe: “Here is your winner and the NEW nCw National Champion……XAVIER CROSS!”

Xavier Cross sits up from the pin with his hands covering his face as the referee hands him his newly won title.

Eric Hardy: “Cross has done it! He slayed The Ace and won the National Title!”

The song suddenly switches to 'Wasted Years' by Cold as the footage shows Leonard Fox awarding Ricky Johnson the Xtreme title after retiring the Honor Championship at the following Collision. This transitions into footage from Sovereign's Wired preshow where The Ace is hit with the red mist from Sephiroth Du Lac and planted into the ground with a Fallen Angel DDT, and The Ace ultimately walking away from the company after that loss.

There's a game life plays
Makes you think you're everything they ever said you were
Like to take some time clear away everything I've planned
Was it life I betrayed for the shape I'm in?
It's not hard to fail
It's not easy to win...

As footage of The Ace fades away, we are shown footage of a match between the triumphant Sephiroth fighting Ricky Johnson in an Xtreme Championship match two weeks later...

Roxi looks around and sees the table, she drags it over to the corner and lays it against the top turnbuckle, then she drags Seph over and helps him up, but as she goes to lean him against the table to set up something nasty for her husband, Du Lac grabs her for a kiss, Ricky spots this and springs back to life and just as he is about to grab his wife Du Lac releases her and sprays the Crimson Mist right in the eyes of Ricky Johnson and without a single warning delivers the NAIL IN THE COFFIN THROUGH THE TABLE! Sephiroth makes the cover.

One.. Two.. THREE!!!!

Eric Hardy: Du Lac pulled a fast one on the Johnson family and has just won himself the Xtreme Championship!!!!

Kelly Knite: In a very bloody battle too. I Loved it.

Seph stands up, the ref hands him his new belt, but he isn't done with Roxi who at the moment is tending to Ricky. Seph grabs her by the hair and slowly stands her up.

Eric Hardy: Oh god, what is he going to do now?

Kelly Knite: He can't... Not on live television... can he?

Seph turns her around and licks the blood of his own lips, whether it be his own from the barbed wire, hers from the kiss, or just residual from the mist, we'll never really know, but a fire lights in his eyes as he looks at the terrified Roxi.

Kelly Knite: Let her go dammit, you've won the match, let her go.

Eric Hardy: I'm not sure what he's going to do Kelly.

Suddenly Seph lays Roxi out with the Nail in the Coffin!

Eric Hardy: Another Nail in the Coffin!?

Kelly Knite: What the hell is wrong with this guy, he won the match, so now he has to go and hurt their pride? This is total bull.

---

The song fades away and we cut from the sad image of a fallen Roxi to the decedly more smug grin of the Number One Contender for Ricky Johnson's National Championship this Sunday at Crossroads, The Ace.

Sorry to distract you from your sympathetic midnight cravings or whatever the hell that was that you just wasted nCw air time, and more importantly my time with, but in case you've forgotten, this is no time to be craving ribs, your wife is pregnant - not you, so how about you actually step up and defend that National Championship that you're now so convienently fond of because I just so happened to call you out on your inconsistencies in my last promo and you have no sensible retort.

Let's cut through all the bull**** here Ricky and just get down to the facts. Yes, I have beaten you in so many multiman matches that I've literally lost count and I've lost count because I don't care about any of that as much as you seem to think I do. In fact nobody seems to care about any of that except you...every time you step up to the camera to cut me down, that is always your opening gambit.

I don't care that you're still so butt hurt over the fact that I've beaten you so many times in matches where there were other people to save you or at least help you out that you still haven't been able to get over it. That's the truth of the matter, it might be an inconvienient truth and one that you just can't stand to hear, but its the truth. and here's a few more inconvienient truths you don't want to hear but you need to Ricky...

You mock me for not having held a title since Crossroads 2010, and that somehow in your eyes makes me irrelevant, doesn't it? Newsflash Ricky, holding a title doesn't make you any more relevant by default, you have to make yourself relevant by making your regn mean something, and what exactly have you done with the belt since you've won it except showcase it in matches against cardboard cutouts and defending it against glorified comic relief characters like Curtis Kanyon, who by your logic must be just as irrelevant as I am since he doesn't have a title, right?

Like I said, having the belt doesn't make you relevant any more than it makes you a Champion, any moron can luck himself to any victory on any given night, to be a Champion the people can respect takes something more, to be the kind of Champion you only think you are in your own head takes something more. Much, much more than even you realise. However, if you insist on measuring relevancy through titles, then Ricky it must be obvious to you that like me, up until a few months ago, you were just as irrelevant as you claim I am. Like me, you too hadn't had any gold around your waist for two years before now.

Crossroads 2010, you won the Honor title, I lost the National title, and from there we both took very different roads. I started my decline and I took my ball and went home eventually, whilst you were gifted the Xtreme Championship by Leonard Fox, who turned to you, not me when he wanted somebody to ressurrect the Xtreme division, and yet all these idiots have the gall to boo me and brand me a corporate sell out? I have done my fair share of backstage politics to get ahead, I admit that, and I make no apologies for it but one thing I have never done is taken a title that was just handed to me. I've never accepted anything I didn't go out there and outright earn or deserve. I've earned all of my accomplishments, and yet I'm still the bad guy here?

Apparently its okay for you to accept titles from Leonard Fox with a big goofy grin on your face and not a word of protest, but its not okay for me to conduct simple business affairs with the man - oh no, suddenly that makes me a stooge and a lapdog...give me a break!

See Johnson, whether you want to admit it or not, you're not better than me, in fact the argument could be made that you're just like me, we've both worked for Fox, we've both had a number of transitional title runs, we're both one title away from claiming every single belt this company has ever had, and we both don't get the respect we truly deserve from our peers.

But whilst that eats away at you, I embrace it. I am comfortable with who I am, but you're not comfortable being compared to me. You hate it, it chokes you, it disgusts you, you want to show the world that you're so much better than me, you want to break through the stigma of being known by the smarter marks out there as 'Ricky Johnson: Not quite The Ace'...that's why this one on one opportunity is so damn imprtant to you, you seem to think that all it will take to stop the boys in the back from laughing at you and your smug self-importance is that one big win.

And in your mind you've painted me as the one guy who could get you over.

Get you that respect.

Get you to that next level.

I'm not going to lie to you Ricky, two years ago I probably would have been your best bet, your ideal stepping stone, two years ago I was letting my career stagnate and suffer and so many people took advantage of that, I put so many people over, most of whom are undeserving and most of whom are no longer even here. I knew going into Sovereign that win, lose or draw I was going to walk away from the company....and I did.

You ask me why I came back Ricky, you say I should have stayed gone, that I had nothing left to prove, and maybe you're right, but just like that itch you have about never having beaten me, I came back because I would not allow the last memory of me and my nCw career be one where I was defeated by some delusional clown with fangs. I'm sure you understand that much Ricky, let's face it we're both glad the undeserving freakshows have been purged from this company.

We've both had our sense of pride hurt in this business and whereas I've let it change me, you've let it only stagnate who you are and what you could have become. You could have become great Ricky, you could have left me in the dust long ago. You could have taken advantage of every opportunity you had, especially in the year I wasn't here - but you didn't and now I'm back its finally dawning on you that I'm a real threat to whatever little modicum of success that title has given you for the last few months. So now, you're stumbling, fumbling, clutching at straws, stringing together whatever sounds half-competent in some desperate bid to make it sound like you have what it takes to beat me. Tripping over your words and asking me why I'm not chasing the World Championship instead - something you only wish I was so my focus wouldn't be on you, that my eyes wouldn't be on the prize that you know you've got a tenuous grip on at best.

You want to hold onto that title for a little bit longer, for as long as you can because you finally don't have a short reign, congratulations, you couldn't have won that belt at a more perfect time than just before the Riot, it gave you a cushion to fall back on after Roberto tossed you aside and delayed your lofty World title ambitions even further. You want the World title still and now you've convinced yourself that the only reason you're not getting your shot is because that National Championship is holding you back...you don't want it, yet you sure talk like you do whenever the mood strikes you.

How can you expect anybody to take you seriously Ricky, how can anybody take notice of you as a man worthy of the position he now finds himself in if on the one hand you don't want the title you have, and on the other talk like it means everything to you? Just how stupid do you really think the fans are that they can't instantly see through all your lies and inconsistencies. The bottom line is this, you're not defending the title because of A or B, but rather because of...

C) You have no choice!

You only want to believe that beating you is as important to me as beating me is important to you, but the simple fact of the matter is, it isn't. Beating you does nothing for me except getting these morons to hate me even more for bringing a little English class back to your nation as its champion. If you beat me however...

Woah, hold on!

Stop the presses!

Ricky Johnson finally accomplished something that makes him a little more believable. Ricky Johnson finally got the monkey off his back and beat the one man he couldn't, and guess what?

It only took him half a damn decade!

You want to know the really sad part in all of this Ricky? I actually would respect you a hell of a lot more if your promo wasn't full of the same old ramblings, some of which haven't even been funny or relevant since 2008, that I've heard from everybody else over the past few years. Reminding me that Adam Knite pwned me, telling me I'm nothing more than Steve Awesome's sidekick...really?

The fact is Ricky, I don't need to live off my former glory, because you're doing such a good job of that for me right now, I don't need to live in my past, because my past is the thing that's choking the life out of you. You're suffocating in my past whilst trying to escape your own. You want me to make you a star. You need me to make you a star. Even after five years you need me to validate your place in the spotlight - but I won't.

I'm done jobbing to the undeserving masses around here.

I'm done sacrificing my spots to the Ricky Johnsons and Sephiroth Du Lacs.

It's time to take the dirt road straight back up to the top.

Win, lose or draw, you Ricky are just another stop along the way.

It's an inconvienent truth.

But a truth you'll just have to live with.

---

Slyvia: Are you sure about this?

Kathy: Yes, mother...I am.

Slyvia: Just be careful. I know you told me it's only part of his job, but I still don't want my baby girl to end up caught in the crossfire.

Kathy: Jake would never and has never hurt me.

Slyvia: A few months ago I would have believed you, but after what I've seen him do to that sweet little Rose girl and that poor Jasmine, just for the sake of 'entertainment', I'm not so sure...

Kathy sighs.

Kathy: Bye Mom...

Slyvia: Bye, sweetheart....stay safe, and remember you'll always have a home here. I love you....

Kathy: I know. I love you too...

With that, Kathy ended the call, and put the cellphone on the bedside table before rolling over on top of her husband in bed. Kathy smiled down at him.

Kathy: She just doesn't understand how much watching you work turns me on...

The Ace brushes his wife's hair to one side with the delicate touch of a less than dangerous man, and looks deep into her eyes.

Jake: And she never will...

The couple kiss passionately.

My marriage was at a Crossroads, and rather than be divided by the paths ahead, we turned back.

Together.

Hand in hand.

Forever.

Even if nobody ever understood why.

It was just a truth they'd all have to live with.