The Impromptu Road Trip 2
Genre: Humor/Action/Adventure
Rating: T
Summary: They're at it again, although this time it's a race between two teams to get to the finish line. Egos are on the line, underhanded tricks will be played, and nothing is too sacred. Rated T for humor, language and the usual amount of stupidity.
Despite the fact that the first Road Trip took me some four years to write, I did have fun doing it, when I wasn't being plagued by writer's block, that is. The idea for a sequel popped into my head the moment I uploaded the last chapter of the previous story here at , but I decided to push it away in the event that it took me another four years to complete. But it persisted. And I sat down a few weeks ago and within an hour this first chapter was complete. So, in short, here I go again.
A few things to note: this story is set prior to Jeff's suspension, as I did want to include the younger Hardy brother in the craziness without the troubling circumstances surrounding him at the moment. However this is not meant to trivialize what is happening to him now and I hope that he gets back on his feet soon.
Note two: I will inevitably make a lot of references to the first Road Trip story, but I believe that the way I am structuring this sequel will allow readers to follow it even without having read the first one.
And with that out of the way, I give you The Impromptu Road Trip 2.
Disclaimer: All wrestlers portrayed in this work of fiction are property of themselves and of World Wrestling Entertainment (rights to names and such, if any). Any other known people, venues, brands, etc that are mentioned belong to their respective owners. I do not even have the satisfaction of owning the computer this story is pounded out on. I am dead broke, and neck deep in debt. Be kind.
Date Uploaded: 28 March 2008
Chapter 01: First One to Florida Gets Braggin' Rights
"Remind me again why in the hell we have to take a rental to the next show in Florida," Mike Mizanin inquired for about the seventeenth time since he and his tag team partner left their hotel.
"I told you," John Morrison replied, also for the seventeenth time, "We got this memo that there's some sort of mechanical problem with the WWE plane. So we're going to have to drive to the next venue ourselves."
The Miz grumbled at that. As of the moment the two of them were in the Avis rental group, checking out a couple of sedans that they could rent for their ensuing trip. It was safe to say that neither of them much treasured the idea of having to drive a few hundred miles, just so that they could arrive exhausted for a house show. But the boss hath spoken, and if they just weren't getting paid oodles of money for what they did then they would have bolted ages ago.
"You know, we should organize a union," Miz said. "One that makes it illegal to impose having to cart our own asses from one show to another, busted plane or not. I mean, don't we do enough as it is, being the ones who get beaten up in the ring every night?"
"Dude, I don't know," Morrison said with some degree of frustration. "Now, do you want the Corolla Ascent or the Camry?"
At that moment the doors opened and Paul London and Brian Kendrick walked in, both chuckling over a joke one or the other had made. They caught sight of their erstwhile rivals. "So, getting a car too, huh?" London said, making small talk.
"What else would we be here for?" Morrison answered snappily.
"Dude, it was just a question, no need to bite my face off," London said.
Before either Morrison or Miz could reply to that, Kendrick took a peek at the counter, gave a small squeak and then immediately tried to hide behind London, covering his face with an old gossip magazine from the coffee table as he did so. All three of them looked at him in surprise. "What's gotten into you?" London asked him.
"That guy behind the counter," Kendrick, or Spanky, as this narrative will now stick to calling him, hissed furtively. "Don't let him see me."
"Why?" Miz asked, baffled, looking at the rather effeminate clerk over the counter, who was in the middle of typing up something in the computer.
"Long story," Spanky said, pulling London into what he believed was a position that covered him better. "Just make sure he doesn't see me or none of us will get a rental, all right??"
This, of course, obviously led to more questions, and London was about to ask one of his own when the doors opened again and Matt and Jeff Hardy walked in. The atmosphere among the three teams tensed up at that point, as the six of them eyed each other with varying degrees of mistrust. All of them had been in matches together and against each other before and most of the instances of their meetings never ended happily or bruise-free.
Fortunately before anything nasty could be said, Matt noticed Spanky's cowering position behind Paul London. "Brian, what the hell are you doing?" he asked.
"Matt, look sharp," Spanky told him, jerking a thumb as discreetly as he could towards the desk.
Matt turned to look, and, to everybody's astonishment, immediately reacted the same way that Spanky did, this time grabbing Jeff and putting his brother firmly in front of him so that the view to his face was obscured. "What in the fuck has gotten into the two of you??" Morrison now demanded.
"Keep your voice down!" Matt scolded.
Jeff tried to wriggle out of his brother's reach but Matt firmly planted him where he was. "Ow, damnit, Matt, this didn't work in playing hide and seek with dad twenty years ago and it won't work now!"
"We weren't playing hide and seek then, I was letting you take the rap for whatever shit I happened to do that week," Matt snapped at him.
Jeff blinked. "Oh. No wonder I didn't have any clue what he would send me to my room about before. Wait, does that mean YOU were the one who popped the head off Mrs Cullingham's garden gnomes??"
'Hey, back to the topic here!" Miz said. "Are either of you two going to—"
He was cut off when the doors swung open again and Carlito, the WWE Champion Randy Orton and Ken Kennedy entered simultaneously, Randy in the middle of telling the other two whether their hair and makeup lady really did spit or swallow, and Carlito grinning and wondering if he should inform Randy that that wasn't a lady in the first place. Apparently Kennedy was aware of this fact as well and gave Carlito a knowing nudge.
Randy stopped and looked at the group gathered. "Hah, talk about the odd couples. Have you guys finished? Because the three of us want to get out of here as soon as possible without anybody seeing us."
"Yeah, because of that whole malfunction with the plane we actually have to rent a goddamn car and drive ourselves to house shows for an indefinite period of time," Kennedy scoffed. "It's doubly bad, especially since Vince and company still use the private jet," he scowled. "Even JBL's getting free rides from him, can you believe that? I mean, fuck Bradshaw."
"You fuck Bradshaw," Morrison retorted irrationally.
"Listen you pretty boy pinhead, piss me off and I will shove your flashy faux fur coats down your throat and have you shitting rugs for the next two weeks," Kennedy snapped at him.
"Hey, can we all just relax? Chill," Carlito said, putting himself in between the two of them. "You all read the memo; aside from driving to the arenas, Mr McMahon said that if any of us get caught fighting in public again he'll take away our clothing allowance too, and Carlito likes his threads, man."
"I can't see why; I mean, you only marginally dress better than Michael Cole," Miz told him.
"Hey, are we going to hire some cars or just stand around insulting each other?" Randy demanded, annoyed.
It was at that moment that Kennedy noticed Matt and Spanky cowering. "And what the hell is wrong with the two of you? I mean aside from the obvious."
"I really don't feel like answering that question again," Spanky said.
"Funny, you never really answered it the first time," Miz pointed out.
The increasingly growing group was interrupted once more when the doors opened and CM Punk and John Cena walked in. They stared curiously at the nine people gathered in the reception area. "Is there some weird office party we weren't aware of?" CM Punk asked.
Matt ignored his pun and grabbed John Cena by the arm, stuffing him behind a fake plant as best as he could. "Hey, man, what gives?" Cena asked indignantly.
"Remember the guy behind the counter? I'll bet you a thousand bucks he remembers us," Matt told him.
Cena looked, let out a curse and tried to hide himself as well, not faring much better behind the plastic plant than he did the first time. Kennedy looked exasperated. "All right, that's it, this is absurd. If these bozos don't want to tell us what's gotten up their shorts then we might as well hire cars and get out of here."
"Good, because I just remembered another one of Vince's brilliant solutions on saving money while making trips," London suddenly spoke up. "He suggested carpooling."
Everyone stopped and stared at each other in horror. The last thing any of them wanted was to be stuck driving beside an enemy, a bastard, or just a plain tool. And speaking of tools, at that moment the doors were flung open wide and the Heavyweight Champion strolled in, cockily displaying his title on one shoulder and a brilliant set of pearly whites in a leering grin. The latter disappeared the moment Edge caught sight of who had gathered in that area. "Great, I come here to get a car and catch the assface convention."
Kennedy let out a snarl and he, CM Punk and John Cena would have probably tackled him to the ground if the clerk at the counter didn't stand up and come over to them. His nametag said 'Gerry' and he smiled as the three who were hiding themselves as best as they could from him repositioned themselves with newfound ardor. "Have you made your decision?" he asked Morrison and Miz.
"Yeah, we decided we would go with the Camry," Morrison said.
"Hey, I never agreed to that," Miz argued.
"Well you were so busy bickering with the others that I figured I'd choose for the both of us," Morrison said to him.
"Well, if you two want to mull it over some more I'll just nip off and get more forms for the others," Gerry said helpfully. "Our clientele has doubled today with so many wrestlers coming in to rent cars going to Florida."
"You wonder if maybe Jericho ducked around like what we're doing too?" Spanky mused to Matt from behind his magazine. Matt shrugged.
"Must be really good for business then, huh?" Randy said as he leaned on the counter.
Gerry gave him a bright smile and batted his eyelashes, causing Randy to take a slight step back. "Oh of course. Although I have to admit, we were a little wary to rent out to you guys after the fiasco that happened last time."
"What 'fiasco'?" London asked curiously, ignoring Spanky's urgent digs in the ribs to keep him quiet.
"Well it was about five years back," Gerry said, tapping his lips as he recalled it. "I was working at the Phoenix branch back then, and we rented out an SUV to eight wrestlers driving in from Seattle. They managed not to just total the vehicle but then it also blew up on the side of the freeway. After forensics were done with it they also said that there were traces of marijuana on the floor and even a bottle of urine."
"'Urine'??" Cena inquired, looking quizzically at Matt and Spanky.
Spanky colored. "Well, I had to do SOMETHING during the times we couldn't stop for a bathroom break."
Matt and Cena groaned in disgust, and even London, who had overheard, tried to pry himself away from his partner.
Gerry brightened. "Anyway, we've made it part of our company policy never to hire out to those eight again. Besides, I know them by face too, and so far I haven't seen them come in today."
Edge was listening to this and a wide grin had crossed his face, having easily put two and two together. He figured that this would be an opportune time for him to get revenge on the pigsty that he returned to after Matt, Cena and Spanky were through with his hotel room in Vegas five years ago. He cleared his throat, "Actually..."
Cena, who figured Edge would sell them out with almost no provocation, reached over and got him in a headlock, all the while still keeping his face hidden. "You open your trap, Sledge, and I'll inform them that you were in on the ride for a period time as well!" he threatened.
"You can't pin anything on me, Vanilla Ice," Edge growled, throwing his arm off.
"You implicate us, Copeland, and we'll make sure it reaches Vince that it was you who fucked up our means to make the next show in time," Matt snarled at him.
At that point Spanky had an idea and whispered hurriedly to London, "Hey Paul, what do you say we give that carpooling thing a try with the Hardys and Punk and John? I mean, it'll save Matt, John and I from showing out faces and we'll be complying with all of Mr McMahon's weird new rules at the same time."
"That's a good idea, let's go with that," Matt said quickly, nodding.
"Jesus, yeah, let's do it!" Jeff cried. "Anything to get you to stop using me as a bizarre sockpuppet!"
"I'm cool with it," CM Punk said, going over to the counter and taking one of the applications from Gerry. "We've decided that six of us are gonna take an SUV or a van or something." He glanced at the models on display. "How about a Kluger?"
"I'll check on the availability," Gerry said, popping out of the room for a bit.
"Hah, you six are going to share a vehicle?" Randy scoffed. "There's a nightmare I wouldn't want to experience."
"It beats hopping into a van with the six of you arrogant, attention-seeking, posturing bitches," London fired back.
"Who are you calling a bitch??" Carlito demanded.
"Aw, leave him alone, Carlito," Kennedy said. "He's only sore because he knows that if the six of us, arrogant, posturing bitches that we are, decided to carpool, we'd function better as a group than he and the other mismatched pansies and reach our target destination first."
Jeff burst out laughing. "You guys? Yeah right! All of you would end up trying to strangle each other five minutes into the ride."
"You and Matt will too," Edge pointed out, remembering a few road trips he had had to endure with the Hardy Boys in the past.
"That's different," Jeff defended. "We do that as a means of portraying sibling affection." Matt groaned and shook his head.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on," Cena said, still behind the plant. "I think I heard a challenge thrown up in here. Kennedy, you said that Orton, Carlito, Mr Slow-Mo and Miz, Edge and you would be able to get to Florida first over the six of us. Are you willin' to stand beside that statement?"
Kennedy gave him a scornful look. "Do I ever stutter? Of course I do."
Cena grinned slyly. "Care to put that to the test then? The six of us against the six of you. First one to Florida gets braggin' rights. We'll see who's each other's bitches."
There was a moment of silence as the two thrown together teams stared at each other over a sofa set, three on the 'face' team still trying to hide lest a security camera catch their faces. At that point Gerry returned, smiling as he said, "You are in luck. There are two of those vehicles available."
"Great, we'll take them both," Edge said, grabbing an application. "One for those losers and another one for us."
"Fantastic," Gerry said brightly. "And will you be paying for the insurance on both of those vehicles as well?"
"YES," all twelve of them said immediately, startling the clerk.
And with that the race was officially on.