In Too Deep
Chapter 11

Pete narrowed his eyes angrily as the highlights from Smackdown aired during the Raw intro. It hadn't been too long since King of the Ring, and Pete was very grateful for the fact Shane was able to convince Joey to stay away from the Posse, but Smackdown was a little over the line.

A fight had broken out between a few of the WCW competitors, having been instigated by Diamond Dallas Page. Shane stepped in to try and stop it, but was grabbed from behind by Joey. After struggling for a few moments, Joey and Page grabbed a hold of Shane and tossed him into the concrete wall. Rodney was about to storm out of the room when Booker T stepped forward to try and defend his boss. Joey, of course, didn't stand for it.

"Guess Booker and Joey aren't going to be a tag team any more." Sarah had stated.

Pete sighed. Raw was going to start off with a street fight between Shane and Diamond Dallas Page. He wasn't exactly sure why, but something felt off about the match.

"You think something bad's gonna happen?" Rodney asked.

Pete shrugged. "Dunno, man. Something's just... Off."

Rodney raised an eyebrow. "Off as in 'Shane is gonna do something stupid' off or off as in 'WCW can go to hell' off?"

Pete and Sarah snickered. "Both sound good, really." Pete stated.

"Yeah... Well... Unfortunately, we can't stop Shane from doing something stupid... But... When Joey brought him to us after Smackdown was over, we should've knocked the guy senseless and convinced him it was 1999."

"Joey or Shane?"

"Shane. I can live without Joey harassing me every day." Rodney replied.

"Eh. You have a point... But knocking Shane twice as senseless as he already was would've been worse than anything we've ever done."

"It would've solved the WCW problem." Rodney stated.

"Actually... It would've made things worse. Shane would've been mad at you for lying." Sarah stated matter-of-factly, making Rodney and Pete turn to look at her.

"I think he'd be sour at the extra bump on the head."

"I seriously think Taker should stay out of the ring right now." Pete commented, raising a semi-confused eyebrow as he gestured at the television.

"Can you blame the man? The schmuck stalked his wife for like a month... I think that kinda trumps getting knocked out and having a sore shoulder." Rodney stated, waving his spoonful of peanut butter around for emphasis.

"Be that as it may, the match was scheduled to be Shane versus DDP. I don't care if Taker has more... Oh no. Shane, what the hell are you doing!?"

At that very moment on Raw, Shane was making one of the worst possible decisions he could ever make in his life by going against the Undertaker... To defend Diamond Dallas Page.

"What the fuck!?" Rodney shouted at the screen, nearly dropping his jar of peanut butter.

"I'm gonna wring him by the neck!"

"Oh God! Please don't kill him!"

"Why not?! I should, just for the sake of the fans! How could you go from wanting to kill someone one minute to wanting to protect him the next?! Respect the Undertaker, dammit! Listen to every word that man says!"

Rodney leaned into the couch, attempting to inch as far away from Pete as humanly possible. "Please don't eat me."

Just as Pete turned his attention to Rodney, he heard a very familiar voice passing by in the hallway. He stood up and stormed out of the locker-room, ignoring Sarah and Rodney's voices begging for him to mind his own business. He grabbed Shane and tossed him into the wall, then grabbed him by his jersey and lifted him off of the floor.

"What the hell are you playing at?!" Pete seethed, leaning closer to Shane and sneering in the mans face.

Shane struggled for a moment, then calmed himself and looked Pete in the eyes. "I'm assuming the role as Chairman of World Championship Wrestling for the first time since March. Don't get me wrong, Pete. I love Mark, but I can't allow him to tell me what I should be doing during my own match with one of my employees while he handles his own personal affairs. That man assaulted me one night because he thought I was stalking his wife. Now, I realize the man who was stalking his wife was the man I was supposed to be wrestling against tonight, therefore giving him more of a reason to be in the ring with him than me, but the match was signed. He should wait his damn turn instead of pretty much telling me to fuck off."

Pete narrowed his eyes and growled.

"Hey," Pete turned his head to see none other than Diamond Dallas Page standing to his left. "Put my boss down right now, or you're going to regret it."

Pete turned his attention back to Shane and leaned in close to him. "You should be ashamed of yourself, Shane," He mumbled, then lowered him to the ground. He wasn't even feeling gracious enough to straighten out Shane's jersey; he chose to shove him towards Diamond Dallas Page instead. "Get away from me. I don't even want to look at you."

"Pete," It took everything in Pete to not turn around and look at Shane. "I already apologized to Mark."

"Be that as it may... You have a lot of apologizing to do. Start with getting rid of WCW." Pete growled, then stomped back into the locker-room and slammed the door behind him.

"I take it that didn't go well." Rodney stated.

"Bite me." Pete mumbled, sitting down on the couch and putting his head in his hands.

"You shouldn't have been so violent with him, Pete." Sarah commented, taking a seat next to him and turning to look at him.

"I don't care. He pissed me off and he needed to understand that."

"His head is probably still sore, honey. You could have just yelled at him. You know that."

Pete sighed. "Yeah. I just don't care right now. I don't understand why he'd do such a thing... Especially with Mark in the ring."

"Pete, we already discussed this... Mark didn't have any business in the ring. You know that as well as I do, and I'm pretty sure Mark knows it, too."

"Shut up, Rodney!"

"Sorry..."

The Posse sat in silence for several moments, watching Raw with semi-interested eyes. All Pete wanted was a bottle of vodka and a vacation. All Rodney wanted was a ham and cheese sandwich.

The whole WCW situation got a hell of a lot worse when some old competitors from ECW showed up and interrupted a match featuring Chris Jericho and Kane, as a tag team, facing off against Lance Storm and Mike Awesome. Pete nearly jumped off of the couch when he laid eyes on the mayhem in the ring.

"This is a disaster! What the hell is that McMahon brat up to now!?" He shouted.

Pete calmed down long enough to watch as Paul Heyman entered the ring and announced that ECW was back and was also taking part in the invasion. Pete's face turned beat red at the amount of Superstars, namely the Dudley Boyz and Rhyno, defecting to ECW at the command of Paul Heyman. By the time Heyman was finished speaking, Pete was ready to blow his top. Rodney was hiding in the corner, cradling his jar of peanut butter, rocking back and forth and whispering the lyrics to Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah.'

"I think you traumatized Rodney." Sarah commented.

Pete looked over at Rodney, then grumbled. "Get off of the floor, Rod. I'm not gonna kill you."

"Praise Jesus," Rodney stated, then got off of the floor and sat back down on the couch, looking at Pete with a raised eyebrow. "What?"

"Nothing. I'm just really angry right now,"

After a few moments of calming down, Pete was able to once again focus on Raw. Vince and Shane had met up backstage, each claiming to have nothing to do with the ECW competitors being there, and each declaring they'd do whatever it takes to get rid of them. It was decided that there would be an inter-company tag team match... Five of WCW's competitors would team with five of WWF's competitors to take on the whole of ECW.

"Don't believe him, Vince!" Pete shouted at the television.

"Peter!" Sarah shouted, slapping her boyfriend on the shoulder.

"What?" He asked, putting on the innocent face.

"Be nice! You don't know what's going on right now!"

"The hell I do! Shane is up to something, I know it. Didn't we all say the longer it took Shane to put his plans into motion, the worse they were going to be? We were right, dammit! I know he's knee deep in this ECW bullshit!"

"Pete, calm down! You're gonna give yourself a coronary!"

Pete took a deep breath. "I apologize. Rod, do you have a stress ball?"

Pete held out a hand without looking and was more than surprised to see a jar of peanut butter in his hand when he finally decided to glance at it.

"Trust me. It's better than a stress ball." Rodney stated, handing Pete a spoon as he did so.

Pete narrowed his eyes angrily, but started eating the peanut butter instead of complaining. "What else could possibly go wrong tonight?" He asked.

"Hopefully, nothing."

"At least we don't have to look at Joey's ugly face." Rodney stated

"Very true. The next time I have to lay eyes on him will be too soon, in my book."

"You said that last week and he came pounding on our door three minutes later." Rodney replied, narrowing his eyes angrily.

"That was an emergency. Lord knows what he would've done with Shane had we declined to help."

"It just makes you two better men than Joey. You should already know that, by now." Sarah commented.

"We know we're better men. It's just hard to accept it when Joey storms around acting like he's Jesus, even when he decides manhandling his boss will work out in his favor."

"Joey's an asshole. We discussed this a million times, already."

"Yeah, yeah. Oh, by the by... How's Danielle?"

Rodney blushed and looked down at his hands. "She's fine... We're a couple now... She wants to come to the show when we're back in her town."

"Awwwwwh! How adorable!" Sarah shouted, hugging Rodney tight enough to make him 'eep' as the air was driven from his lungs.

When Sarah separated from Rodney, she looked down and saw Pete sitting on the couch with his arms crossed over his chest. He was fuming.

"I can't freaking believe we weren't scheduled for the show tonight." He grumbled.

Rodney and Sarah looked one another in the eyes, then looked over at Pete. "It's not all bad, ya know. ECW could've chose to interrupt our match instead of Chris and Glenn's." Rodney stated.

Pete rolled his eyes. "I'd rather compete for a few minutes than have to sit around and do nothing all night."

Rodney sighed. "You, maybe. I'd rather not be screwed over on account of a failed wrestling business."

"Oh, you mean like our good friend Shane allowed to have happen to us multiple times?!"

Rodney's eyes widened. "You take that back! You know damn well that wasn't his fault!"

"Says who, Rodney!? Shane? Can we honestly believe a damn word that comes out of his mouth!?"

"Yes! Because he's our friend!"

"Joey was our friend, too!"

"Joey doesn't count because Joey is an asshole! How many times do we have to discuss this!?"

"Maybe at a lower volume so the whole world doesn't hear you."

Rodney and Pete spun around to see none other than Shane standing in the doorway of their locker-room. He was looking at them with concern in his eyes.

"What the hell do you want?" Pete growled.

"Nothing, really... Just to stop by and say I can hear you arguing near the gorilla position."

"Good. We'll kick up the volume a little."

Shane raised an eyebrow. "Listen here, Pete... I spoke to Mark and he understands it's just business. I can't stand Page; he's an arrogant bastard with a dry sense of humor. Don't think that it's my personal choice. Choosing WCW over WWF, I mean. My instinct tells me to get away from WCW. But I can't, so I have to stick with it."

Pete stepped closer to Shane and grabbed his shoulders. "Shane. You can get away from WCW. Why the hell are you acting so funny?"

"I'm not acting funny."

"You're not a very good liar tonight, Shane."

Shane raised an eyebrow, then sighed. "Yeah, well... Some nights it fizzles. Anyway, I'll catch you guys another time. I have a team to go control."

Pete allowed Shane to slip away from him, then closed the door behind the other man and grumbled to himself. "Is it me, or was he not making any sense tonight?"

"I think he's torn between something..." Rodney stated.

"You're onto something." Pete replied, then sat down and paid close attention to the inter-company match.

Pete wasn't surprised at all when the members of the WWF/WCW team who were WWF refused to listen to Shane; they were too sick of the WCW shit and too afraid of turning on Vince McMahon to go against a direct order. He was surprised, however, that the WCW competitors were getting along with the WWF competitors at first.

"Oh no."

Team WCW turned around to join team ECW in glaring down team WWF.

"You have got to be kidding me."

"I fucking knew it!"

Vince stormed out onto the ramp. "Shane! What the hell is going on!?"

Pete stood up and punched the wall, then whiled around and pointed at the television. "Jesus Christ, I hate being right! Mute the TV! I don't want to hear his bullshit excuse! I told the two of you earlier that he had something to do with this ECW bullshit! Why didn't you-"

Pete trailed off when he saw none other than Stephanie McMahon prancing down the rampway to join her brother in the ring.

"Oh my God." Sarah gasped.

"Holy shit! Wrestling God, we have a problem!"


A/N: Indeed, Rodney. WWF has a problem... Well... A bigger problem now that ECW has arrived.

I know I'm jumping around a lot, and I apologize, but I have a list of dates that I feel are most significant to the plot development of this story.

Hope you're enjoying this thus far.