Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. Any and all original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.
A/N: It's Thursday, and I'm still shocked by what I witnessed on Monday night. I always knew a break-up was coming eventually, just as most everyone else did, but I never would have guessed it would take place this past Monday night. I'm just so heartbroken that The Shield, as we knew it, is gone. To know we'll never see the three of them entering the arena as a collective unit again is just really sad, and I was surprised by how hard it hit me. I haven't been truly upset by anything that has happened in wrestling since I was a little girl, but this brought the emotion straight out of me. My eyes literally teared up before I could even stop them, when Seth first hit Roman in the back with the chair, and I was so upset for the rest of Monday night, and for most of Tuesday as well.
I own four different Shield shirts, and I've been alternating between them this week, wearing one a day. That's how in denial I am about this whole thing! LOL! On a serious note, though, I love all three men, and I have no doubts that they will be successful in whatever they do from here on out, be it together or apart. There's been speculation that this whole thing might turn out to be an elaborate scheme by The Shield, to make it seem like they've turned on each other when they really haven't, and although I hope that's true, I don't really see it happening. If it does, that's great, but only time will tell. For now, I've come up with this short and sweet little one-shot, and I hope you will like it and that maybe it will cheer some of you longtime Shield fans up, who are equally as sad as me. Thanks so much for reading, guys. You're the best readers I could ever hope for!
Seth Rollins was likened to back-up.
He was the fallback option, the Plan B choice, and he found insult in even being referred to as a 'B' in anything. When was 'B' ever exemplary? Students were graded a 'B' on their schoolwork when it wasn't their best, and Daniel Bryan was touted as a B-plus player, indicating that he wasn't the best of the current crop of superstars the WWE had to offer. And Plan B was only an avenue explored by those who hadn't been able to make their Plan A, their first choice, work. So when Hunter approached Seth at the arena the night after Payback, straightening his suit jacket and chomping on his gum, Seth saw no reason to be anything but offended.
The cronies who normally accompanied Hunter everywhere — Orton and Batista — must have found other activities to occupy their time before the start of Raw. On the outside, Seth wore his game face, giving off the impression that he was willing to listen to any game that Hunter planned to throw at him, but on the inside, his mental wheels were turning. He was led by one half of The Authority into a vacant locker room late Monday afternoon, and they each sat on opposite ends of the wooden bench that was fixed to the floor. The two men had almost nothing in common, not in their work history nor personal lives, so it was a sure bet that Hunter needed a huge favor, if he was taking the time to talk to Seth only hours before the show was set to begin.
Not only were they not friends, they were mortal enemies, and part of Seth had expected to fall into an elaborate trap. It wasn't lost on him that Evolution craved retribution for their loss at Payback the night before, and Seth did a quick sweep of the room they had entered, wanting to make sure they were alone and that he wasn't going to get jumped from behind. He hadn't wanted to join Hunter when he had been summoned for whatever great cause Hunter was undertaking at the moment, but when his boss told him to do something, he usually caved. No sense in making the person in charge of his career even more furious than he and his buddies already had.
The fluorescent light spilling into the room picked up on a shiny object in the far corner, and when Seth's eyes had time to adjust, he followed the mass of black as it morphed into...a wooden handle of some sort? Then, he caught sight of Hunter's smirking face. Of course! It wasn't a knob, nor only a handle: it was a sledgehammer, leaning casually up against the wall, like it was a part of the discussion. How could he have been so blind as to not realize he had been pulled into a set-up! Nothing good could come of being trapped alone in a room with Hunter and a sledgehammer.
Naturally, Seth bolted, shooting up from his seat and making it all the way to the door handle before Hunter broke the silence with his booming tone. "Sit down, kid!"
"Why?" Seth argued, his gloved hand still resting cautiously on the handle. "So your buddies can jump out and you guys can attack me?"
Hunter held his arms out, motioning around the otherwise empty room, save for the two men and the opportunistic weapon in the corner. "Do you see any of my buddies around?"
"No," Seth said, drawing the word out.
"Exactly," Hunter responded, patting the spot on the bench where Seth had been sitting, no more than 30 seconds earlier. "Sit, before I make you sit."
"I hope this isn't gonna take long," Seth said. He ran his fingers through his wet hair and resumed his spot beside Hunter, still glancing around furtively, like he expected the Boogeyman to jump out suddenly, with a mound of live worms wriggling in his mouth. That ship had long since sailed, however, and he finally relaxed, pressing his back against the wall. "Look, I have to grab Roman and Dean so we can get ready for tonight. I don't really have time for this. If you're pissed about last night, we only did what we had to do. You wanted to win, but so did we, and last night was clearly our night. Deal with it."
"Yeah, you just watch your tone before I grab my reinforcements," Hunter said, thumbing in the direction of his unforgotten sledgehammer. The bile rose in Seth's throat when he was reminded just how much he and Hunter weren't alone. "I have a proposition for you."
"I'm not interested."
"You haven't heard what it is yet."
"But I know I won't be interested. You can't even stand me, and you've sicced your men on me more times than I care to count. Hell, you've even beat my ass yourself, without summoning anyone's help. I can't believe you had the balls to approach me in the first place, but I guess being the boss comes with a lifetime supply of gumption and audacity, doesn't it?"
"Watch your tone and listen closely," Hunter said, curling his right hand into a fist and pounding it into his open palm. "I'm not The Game for no reason. I am who I am because I take risks, even when that risk happens to be pairing up with the enemy. I'll admit — and you'd better not repeat this to anybody — but I will come clean and say that The Shield is a tough group to get the best of. You guys have your heads together, and you're all hungry, probably because you're so young and are chomping at the bit to get to the very top of the ladder. You want to know what that feels like."
"Yeah, we all want to know," Seth replied.
"I can tell. I'm not sure how well Roman and Dean are going to fare, but what would you say if I told you I have a sure-fire way for you to make it to the top?" Hunter said. A glint formed in his eyes, one that matched the shiny black of his sledgehammer, and his evil smirk was back. "It won't take nearly as long as it would take if you were held back by those two goons you call teammates."
"I don't call them teammates; I call them brothers," Seth corrected.
"Fine, whatever, brothers," Hunter amended, rolling his eyes. "Those guys are only out for themselves, in the end. They might act like they care about you, but the second they see any chance of getting out on their own and breaking away from the group, they're going to stab you in the back. You already know their betrayal is coming, so why not be the one to stick it to them first, huh? You gotta get them before they get you, Seth. That's the greatest lesson you'll ever learn from a veteran in this business."
"They're not looking to get me, all right?" Seth said. "We all have each other's backs."
"For now," Hunter said. Then, he took his manipulation a step further. Convincing Seth to do his bidding for professional advancement wasn't working, so he had to alter Seth's way of thinking altogether, until he finally saw things Hunter's way and felt he had no choice except to leave Roman and Dean in the dust. "Everything is just peachy right now, but what happens when Roman gets a title shot before you or somebody gets in Dean's head and convinces him to go rogue on you guys? It's only a matter of time, and you must have thought about it by now."
"I have confidence in my bros that they'll do the right thing."
"Uh-huh," Hunter nodded, casually scratching the top of his head. He lowered his hand and continued. "And where has trusting friends ever gotten anyone in this business? Did Marty Jannetty ever get anywhere trusting Shawn Michaels? Did Shawn Michaels ever get anywhere trusting me? Nobody gets to the top of this company by playing nice with their friends. If you want a shot, you gotta go after it. You're better off not even thinking of your teammates as friends. Think of them as temporary placeholders, because in the end, that's all they really are."
"We all want to climb to the top of the mountain, yeah, but I don't think they would ever go as far as you're saying," Seth said. His words were tinged with just enough doubt to make Hunter confident that he was breaking, even if only the tiniest bit. The remainder of Hunter's work was cut out for him. "We're not like that. We're just not wired to think that way."
"Everybody's like that. When you share a passion and a talent with someone, your competitive nature automatically kicks in, sometimes before you can even realize it yourself," Hunter explained. "Look, I pulled you aside out of everyone else in the group because you seem to be the one who has your head on the most straight. You're going to be a huge star, even bigger than Roman, and I see something in you. I see me in you, back when I was starting out, and I want you to come over and help us out. Randy and I are already established, so we have no reason to turn our backs on you, but you had better believe your little friends do."
"I guess you have a point. You and Randy have already accomplished pretty much everything you wanted to achieve," Seth said, eyes glazing over as he stared into the distance. He set his jaw and nodded, and Hunter clapped him on the back, chuckling as he rubbed his hands together, like some sort of malevolent dictator.
"You see?"
"Actually, yes, I think I'm starting to wrap my mind around it," Seth said. To become a champ, he had to think like a champ. Hunter watched him expectantly, and he gave a curt nod. "Fine, I'm in. What do you want me to do?"
::::::::::
"In case you haven't figured it out yet, what I do better than anybody is adapt. Last night was Plan A; tonight, Plan B," Hunter gloated, twirling his treasured sledgehammer around in his free hand. Randy stood at his side, smiling as Hunter addressed The Shield from the edge of the entrance ramp on Raw. He added a final line to drive his point home. "There's always a Plan B."
Roman eyed Dean and Seth in the ring, and Seth met his gaze for a fraction of a second. In that second, their eyes clicked, and the silent decision was made that they would go through with a little plan of their own. A lot of pain would be dished out to Seth's friends, and plenty of fans would run themselves into a tizzy, but there was only one way for Seth to proceed, and pain had to come before glory. Roman and Dean stepped forward, fully prepared to endure the vicious battle that the two remaining members of Evolution were about to dish out.
While the two men stared Evolution down from inside the ring, Seth backed away, raising the chair in his hand and shocking the entire audience by bringing the steel seat down on Roman's back, a sickly crack accompanying the hit. Roman crumpled and went down right away, falling into the ring ropes. Dean heard the smack and spied Roman's limp body, then stared in puzzlement at Seth, struggling to process what he was seeing. The peripheral image of Roman's falling victim to a chair shot from Seth, of all people, looped over and over again in Dean's mind, but no matter how he tried, Dean couldn't escape the torturous loop. What he was seeing was too complex for his mind to grasp, but he gained his composure long enough to go after the culprit.
Dean charged at Seth, but he was too late. Seth saw him coming and jammed the top edge of the steel chair into his abdomen, slamming it into Dean's back when he hunched over in pain. Then he gave him another shot for good measure, all while Hunter and Randy smirked, proud that they had gotten the architect of the group to join their team. Hunter had always known that Seth was the brains of the operation formerly known as The Shield, and he wanted only the best for his own stable. What better way to fill the gaping hole left by Dave Batista's unceremonious exit than to select the most powerful member of their biggest enemy's team to take his place?
Decisions such as those were exactly what made Triple H who he was. He could cast personal feelings aside at the drop of a dime to adapt in business, and that was why he consistently found himself at the top of the WWE food chain. There was nobody who understood the sheer psychology that went into being a success in the company to the extent that he did, and after Seth delivered several more chair shots to his fallen friends, he soaked in the 'You Sold Out!' chants, taking it all in stride. Seth took the unused chair and hopped out of the ring, handing it off to Randy so he could pick up right where Seth had left off in his quest to dish out the ultimate destruction on his former teammates.
Randy took damage to a whole new level with Roman's and Dean's badly bruised and beaten bodies, even going so far as ripping Roman's protective vest off before delivering another set of heinous chair shots. This was more than wanting to send a message to what remained of The Shield. Had Evolution merely been making a statement, they would have quit long ago. Their actions were about leaving broken bodies behind, to ensure that the only dominant stable left in the company by the night's end would be the newest version of Evolution. Seth had adapted, while Roman and Dean had left themselves to parish and fade into oblivion, or so it seemed.
At the conclusion of the hardcore beating, Seth posed in the center of the ring with his latest cohorts. Hunter whispered words of encouragement in his ear as Raw went off the air, but Seth had tuned them out, putting on his best stoic face. The greatest thing he could do for himself was to act unaffected in all capacities, and so he did, returning to the back with Hunter and Randy, as they were all stopped for an interview. Hunter droned on about "winning" and Seth, again, made it a point to tune him out, mumbling about needing to get changed as soon as the cameras were gone.
Hunter clapped Seth on the back and left him with a promise to be in touch later, and Randy only did so much as nod, following Hunter in the opposite direction down the hallway. Seth made a beeline to the locker room he had shared with Roman and Dean, wanting to grab his things and leave before they caught up to him, although they weren't moving anytime soon. He made his escape, dropping his head as he walked when he noticed all he was receiving was a sea of dirty looks and head shakes, everyone expressing their disgust. He even heard a few mumbled words of his being a "sell-out" from his fellow wrestlers, but he accepted the personal attacks on his character like a champ, because they didn't know the whole story.
Being despised for a brief point in time wouldn't compare to the instant gratification he would get when the entirety of his plan was carried out, and not the plan with Hunter and Randy. No, this plan was one that had been made with the help of his friends, and he rushed into the parking lot and jumped into a chauffeured car he had called for much earlier in the evening. He closed his eyes and sighed as the car pulled away, saying a silent prayer for the recovery of his friends. They would be in a world of pain when they regained consciousness, and all he had to hold onto was the bigger picture, the ultimate reason for their having endured such gruesome injuries.
::::::::::
"So that's our plan moving forward?" Seth asked, speaking aloud freely, since he had his phone conversation on speaker. Hunter had called him every day since Monday's Raw, basically laying out the plans Seth was expected to follow when the next week's Raw came around. Evolution's reign as the supreme stable was only beginning, in Hunter's mind. "We're basically going to ruin Dean and Roman, until they come crawling to you and Stephanie and quit?"
"Basically," Hunter said, his voice slightly muffled from his end of the line. "Those guys aren't like you. You were smart enough not to test us any longer once you realized how serious Evolution was about putting a stop to you, and that's a big part of the reason I chose you for the job. Dean and Roman aren't that intelligent. They've already been beaten to a bloody pulp, but they'll just keep coming back for more. They just plain don't get it."
"I gotcha," Seth answered.
"Yep, I knew you would. Every single week that they show up, we're going to beat them into a couple of bloody stumps, until they finally take the hint and either stop resisting us or quit. One or the other. They can relent and admit that they can't compare to Evolution, or they can be pushed right out of the damn company, because I've had it with them."
"I hear ya. The Shield ran its course a long time ago, and I'm glad to be out of it."
"I don't blame you, Seth. Just keep doing what you're doing and you'll have big things awaiting you in the near future. I'm gonna let you go for now. I'll get in contact with you again before Monday and we'll come up with a more concrete plan, got it?" Hunter said. "Make sure to keep your phone nearby."
"You got it, I will," Seth said. "Talk to you later."
"Bye," Hunter said. The phone clicked, a sure signal that he had hung up the phone, so Seth hung up the receiver on his end, turning and nodding slowly at Roman and Dean, who were seated in adjacent recliner chairs in his living room. Roman's previous apprehension melted away, turning into a smirk, and Dean actually laughed out loud, clapping his hands together a few times.
"That idiot thinks you're completely on his side," Dean said, clasping his hands and rolling his wrists. Seth could tell he was ready to get his hands on Evolution, and in the very near future, he would get his wish.
"This is good, Seth, real good," Roman said, reaching around to his back and massaging his own twitching muscles with his left hand. "My back is still pretty sore and fucked up, but getting our asses kicked by you and Randy was worth it, just to know that we're going to have the upper hand on Evolution later on. Hunter isn't gonna even know what hit him when he realizes this was all a ruse. I think we need to keep this going for a while, though, so you can pull as much confidential information from Hunter as possible. We need lots of stuff to use against him."
"Nobody's going to believe it, especially not the fans," Seth surmised. He took a sip from his half-full can of Kill Cliff and placed it back down on the coaster. He was thankful the guys had been willing to travel to Iowa and visit him in his own domain, even after their gruesome injuries. He had offered to meet them on more neutral grounds, but the guys wanted to enjoy their days off from work in a low-key town like Davenport, so that's how their decision was made. "This is going to be one of the biggest swerves the bosses have ever been thrown. Who would ever guess that we would pretend to turn on each other, and even go so far as to physically injure one another, all for the sake of keeping up appearances and making the enemy think I'm on their side? Nobody will ever see this coming."
"Isn't it awesome?" Dean asked.
"It is," Roman laughed, cringing when he moved the wrong way and made his sore muscles contract.
"You okay, dude? I have a heating pad somewhere around here, if you want it," Seth offered.
"Nah, I'm good," Roman answered. "I can't wait to see the look on Hunter's face when we reveal all this. The Game got outsmarted, outplayed, and outdone, and he's just going to have to deal with it. Hey, you know what you still need to do, though?"
"What, brother?" Seth quizzed.
"You gotta get him to give you some insider information or something," Roman said. "He already told you he's going to be calling back, so you need to try to get him to share something legit with you. Get him to tell you exactly what he's planning on doing to me and Dean, in detail. Find out what kind of attack he's planning on us, find out where it will take place, find out the time of the attack, and any other details you can get. We're going to need them so we can start planning our counterattack."
"We're gonna fuck them up so bad," Dean said, leaning his head back against the chair and laughing maniacally. His laughter was contagious, and as a result, Seth and Roman joined in before long. When the humorous feeling passed, all three men were left staring at each other thoughtfully.
"I'm glad you came and told us on Monday that Hunter was trying to recruit you. I'm surprised he thought you would go for that," Roman said.
"Yeah, he was completely convinced that I had sided with him, and he still is. This is just too easy," Seth responded. "That's why I went right back to our locker room and told you guys what was going on. Evolution plays dirty, but The Shield plays even dirtier, and we're going to be the victors in the end. Evolution may have been the most dominant stable a decade ago, but there's a new gang in town, and we're not going down without an all-out war."
"Damn straight!" Dean said, slapping his hand on the arm of the chair. "Evolution lost the battles against us, and they're definitely going to lose the war."
"That's what they get for trying to bring me onto their team as a last resort," Seth said. Roman cut his eyes at him, and he rephrased. "Hey, look, I'm not saying I would have sided with them if I had been the first choice, man. I'm just saying that if Hunter wanted to have even a smidgen of a chance, he should have made it seem like I was his absolute first pick as a teammate. I'm not goin' over there to pick up Dave's sloppy seconds."
"Fuck that!" Dean and Roman voiced at the very same time, laughing at each other.
Seth shook his head and took another sip from his can, adding, "Yeah, fuck that."
Seth Rollins was Evolution's Plan B.
For The Shield, however, Seth was Plan A.
And Plan A always won out.