~PART NINE~
Despite the paranoia, things seemed to calm down over the next couple of weeks. I began to recover my sanity, which in turned saved whatever sanity Jeff had (believe me when I say he wasn't born with much). Our matches were strong, and the pops from the fans towards us were getting louder and louder. I had suddenly found myself in the middle of two pretty hot feuds (one against Adam's character, Edge, for his Intercontinental Championship, the other was the beginning of the feud wth Jeff), and was actually getting the same size pops as Amy, which was hard to believe. She had upstaged me for so long, now I was upstaging her.
One Monday night, the call came. Jeff and I would part ways that night. The way they decided to do it was pretty imagnitive, actually. They put him, Adam, and I into a triple threat for the IC title. For the first half of the match, Jeff and I ran down our list of double team moves from our four years as tag specialists, effectively knocking Adam out of the compitition. Then, after wishing each other a very tense good luck, the two of us went at it.
The crowd was really into our match. We'd had only three matches between us in a WWF ring, two back in December 1999 (as part of the McMahon-Helmsley era "Destroy the Hardys" plan. One between just us, and then there was a tag match, him and Jay against Adam and I), and another in mid-2000 for the Hardcore Championship (it ended without either of us winning).People had wondered for years who would win between Jeff and I, so we made sure that it was really back and forth, leading the audience on until the very last minute. Then, I got the upper hand, scoring the Twist Of Fate, and climbing to the second rope for the Drop Shot. Raychele, who had accompanied Jeff to ringside, distracted referee Jimmy Corderas as I landed on Jeff, and my cover went unnoticed. I got up and started yelling at him, while Jeff stood up and began to wait for me to turn around.
I turned around, and Jeff immediately pulled me into a DDT, laying me flat. Jeff climbed the ropes, and got me with his Swanton Bomb, but this time Amy (who had been my valet) distracted the referee. While she did this, Jeff got up and gave me time to stand. Then Raychele climbed into the ring with a chair. Jeff spun me around and shoved me towards her, and the chair came down hard on my head. Raychele ran out of the ring, and hit Amy in the back with the same chair, causing her to fall off of the ring apron.
Jeff got the cover, and the 1-2-3. He and Raychele had screwed me out of the IC Championship. That was the end of TeamXtreme.
As soon as I walked back through the curtain, I got a bottle of water dumped on my head. I turned around to find Jeff standing there, grinning devilishly. So, I did what any big brother would do after getting soaked by his little brother. I gave him a hug.
"Damn you," he muttered, looking down at his now dry ring attire to find it once again wet.
I smiled. "I don't know what the big deal is, you dump a bottle of water on yourself everynight anyway."
He rolled his eyes. "So do you."
"I know. Why do you think I didn't really care?"
"Then why did you retaliate?"
"I didn't." He looked extremely confused. He's good with words, and very quick, so actually stumping him was quite an accompishment. And a source of major amuzement to me, so I started laughing.
As I laughed, Adam joined the two of us. "Well, looks like our little Jeffie finally got stopped."
Jeff just shook his head. "You know Matt, for someone I know so well, I just don't get you sometimes."
"That's a good thing."
"Uh-huh. Well, at least I do know enough about you to humiliate you whenever I feel like it," he said, knowing he'd gotten me good.
"Damn you," I replied, causing us both to laugh, and Adam to look at us like we were crazy.
~PART TEN~
All good things end eventually, and so did my light-hearted attitude. I had been in a remarkably good mood earlier on that Tuesday night. Jeff and I had cut some really good promos towards each other, and somehow were both staying fan favorites, despite his character's new attitude. Our inter-gender tag match (Jeff/Raychele vs. Amy/me) had been really good, and a lot of fun, with Jeff and I countering the other's every move.
I got to the back first, and waited for him. He came in, and I promptly dumped a bottle of water on him, then took off towards our dressing room. He followed, and caught up with me right outside the door.
"Payback's a bitch," he cried as he again dumped water on my head.
We looked at each other, both totally soaked, and just laughed. "We're both totally insane, you know that right?" I asked him as we stood there.
"Oh yeah," he replied, shaking some of the water out of his currently bright red hair. He walked over to me and gave me a pat on the shoulder, and then we both went into our dressing room.
I stopped as soon as I got inside. "Holy shit," I thought aloud, fear tingeing my words.
"Oh man," Jeff said as he closed the door behind us, his words holding the same edge.
The room was a disaster. Our stuff had been thrown everywhere, and a copy of our old promo poster was stapled to the wall, our pictures slashed through. The ceiling lights had been destroyed, leaving glass everywhere. In the center of the room, a circle of about twenty large, white candles burned. In the center we found a photo of the two of us with our father that was taken after our first tag-title win in Fayetteville, NC. The silver dagger Jeff and I had found in the wall that night was stuck through our Dad's picture, and mine and Jeff's pictures had hearts cut out of the center.
If it had been at all possible, my blood would have run cold. All I could do was just stand there, looking at the obvious message being sent. "This isn't real," I semi-whispered, hoping that I was simply in the middle of some really horrific nightmare.
"This is real all right," Jeff replied, his voice a little shaky. Then we heard a banging on the door.
When the banging stopped, I looked at Jeff, and he opened the door carefully. "Well, no daggers this time," he said, beckoning me over to the door. I walked over, and he opened the door a little more, so I could see.
Stapled to the door was another note, written in blood-red ink. This time, I read the note. "The game ends in 7 days, Boyz."
"Oh, God," Jeff muttered, realizing as I did where we were headed for next Tuesday, seven days away.
"They're waiting until we get home," I remarked. Next Tuesday's Smackdown taping was in Raleigh-Durham.
We went to find Adam, Jay, and Raychele, hoping to find them before any other messages were sent. We found them in Adam and Jay's dressing room, and were about to tell them what we found, when we heard the scream.
All five of us flew out of the dressing room to find Trish laying on the floor in front of the door. She was awake, but dazed really badly. Her lip was bleeding slightly, and she had the makings of a black eye forming. Beside her was another note, this one saying 'Remember'.
As Amy, Chris, JP "HHH" Levesque, Steve and his wife, Debra, came running over, I put the note in my pocket. The four of them helped Trish into Adam and Jay's dressing room, and I stayed behind while Jeff showed Adam, Jay, and Raychele our dressing room.
I sat down against the opposite wall from where Trish was laying, being tended to by Amy and Debra while Chris and Steve went to find Vince and Shane. I felt responsible. If she hadn't been such a good friend, whoever was doing this wouldn't have hurt her.
Amy noticed my face, and pulled me outside into the hallway. "You, Jeff, Adam, and Jay have been pretty down ever since Raychele came. It's like your face falls further everyday, and now Trish was hurt, and you look guilty. You guys are like my family. Could you please tell me what the Hell is going on?" she demanded, unaware that Jeff was watching.
I closed my eyes for a second, and sent Jeff a thought. 'Well, what do I do?'
'Come up with a lie,' Jeff answered quickly, 'I'm not going to tell anyone, especially since we have no idea who the Hell is doing this.'
'Alright,' I told Jeff, and thought as hard as I could, but in the end, I got nothing. So, I told a half-truth. "Amy, Raychele has been a family friend for a long time, but we hadn't seen her in a while. When she got here, she let us know that our father was dying, which is why our faces were falling. We were looking forwards to our time off for last month, because we were going to get a chance to see him, but he passed before we got there." Amy nodded, understanding with the help of a little mind power. I hated doing that to her, considering she's such a good friend, but I needed her to believe me. "As for all of this," I continued, the fear once again in my voice, "I have no idea who or why, but Jeff and I have been made targets in someone's very sick game of cat and mouse, and they plan on ending in next Tuesday."
"In Raleigh?" she asked, slightly stunned.
I nodded. "They're waiting until Jeff and I are in familar surroundings, probably to increase the drama level."
She shook her head. "That's pretty fucked up," she said bitterly.
"You're telling me. And the one thing I don't get, is why the two of us." Now, obviously, that was utter and complete bullshit. I knew damn well why. I was the King of a species that had been deemed dangerous since it's very beginning, a form of human that had pretty much been damned by the world, and someone knew. And Jeff became a target as well because he shared my blood, and after me was the last strain of our bloodline. If something happened to the two of us, there would be no one left to rule the community, and the Vampire nation would fall to Hell.
"I don't know what to tell you, Matt, but whatever you need, I'm here."
That one phrase meant more to me than anything she'd ever said to me. "Thank you, Amy. Thank you so much."
She smiled, but her smile quickly faded as she saw Jeff headed in our direction, a strange look on his face.
"Matt, I need to talk to you." His voice was urgent, and sent a chill down my spine.
Amy reached up and gave my shoulder a squeeze, then walked off. I followed Jeff to an empty hallway a couple doors down. "What's wrong?"
"Believe it or not, things may actually get worse."
I looked at him as if he were insane. "How the Hell can this get worse?"
"Oh, I don't know, the thought that another Vampire may be involved?" he half-whispered, making sure no one heard him.
"What?!?" I asked as loud as I dared.
He looked me in the eyes. "Raychele, Adam, and Jay went outside a few minutes ago, so they could talk without human ears around, when they spotted one of us lurking around the parking lot. When they beckoned him over to them, he pulled out a crossbow. He fired, but missed, then ran into the night."
I began to rub my temples. I was in way, way over my head. "This is the last thing we need. An inside job." I had begun to feel very, very weak.
Jeff suddenly looked concerned. "Matt, are you okay?" he asked, worry filling his voice.
"It's just way too much to take in at once. I can't handle anymore surprises. I couldn't handle the first one, none the less all the other ones. It's just such a heavy load."
"Mattie, you're paler than usual."
"Is that even possible?" I replied, attempting a joke.
I got about half a giggle out of Jeff. "C'mon, I'm taking you back to the hotel. You need to lay down."
I simply nodded. I don't think I could do much more than nod at that point. It definitely let Jeff know how screwed up I was, though. Normally, when he suggests driving any other vehicle than his moto-cross bikes, I beg for him to change his mind, wishing to avoid lifelong injury. He can drive a motorcycle like a pro, but that boy can't drive a car to save his life.
Despite the paranoia, things seemed to calm down over the next couple of weeks. I began to recover my sanity, which in turned saved whatever sanity Jeff had (believe me when I say he wasn't born with much). Our matches were strong, and the pops from the fans towards us were getting louder and louder. I had suddenly found myself in the middle of two pretty hot feuds (one against Adam's character, Edge, for his Intercontinental Championship, the other was the beginning of the feud wth Jeff), and was actually getting the same size pops as Amy, which was hard to believe. She had upstaged me for so long, now I was upstaging her.
One Monday night, the call came. Jeff and I would part ways that night. The way they decided to do it was pretty imagnitive, actually. They put him, Adam, and I into a triple threat for the IC title. For the first half of the match, Jeff and I ran down our list of double team moves from our four years as tag specialists, effectively knocking Adam out of the compitition. Then, after wishing each other a very tense good luck, the two of us went at it.
The crowd was really into our match. We'd had only three matches between us in a WWF ring, two back in December 1999 (as part of the McMahon-Helmsley era "Destroy the Hardys" plan. One between just us, and then there was a tag match, him and Jay against Adam and I), and another in mid-2000 for the Hardcore Championship (it ended without either of us winning).People had wondered for years who would win between Jeff and I, so we made sure that it was really back and forth, leading the audience on until the very last minute. Then, I got the upper hand, scoring the Twist Of Fate, and climbing to the second rope for the Drop Shot. Raychele, who had accompanied Jeff to ringside, distracted referee Jimmy Corderas as I landed on Jeff, and my cover went unnoticed. I got up and started yelling at him, while Jeff stood up and began to wait for me to turn around.
I turned around, and Jeff immediately pulled me into a DDT, laying me flat. Jeff climbed the ropes, and got me with his Swanton Bomb, but this time Amy (who had been my valet) distracted the referee. While she did this, Jeff got up and gave me time to stand. Then Raychele climbed into the ring with a chair. Jeff spun me around and shoved me towards her, and the chair came down hard on my head. Raychele ran out of the ring, and hit Amy in the back with the same chair, causing her to fall off of the ring apron.
Jeff got the cover, and the 1-2-3. He and Raychele had screwed me out of the IC Championship. That was the end of TeamXtreme.
As soon as I walked back through the curtain, I got a bottle of water dumped on my head. I turned around to find Jeff standing there, grinning devilishly. So, I did what any big brother would do after getting soaked by his little brother. I gave him a hug.
"Damn you," he muttered, looking down at his now dry ring attire to find it once again wet.
I smiled. "I don't know what the big deal is, you dump a bottle of water on yourself everynight anyway."
He rolled his eyes. "So do you."
"I know. Why do you think I didn't really care?"
"Then why did you retaliate?"
"I didn't." He looked extremely confused. He's good with words, and very quick, so actually stumping him was quite an accompishment. And a source of major amuzement to me, so I started laughing.
As I laughed, Adam joined the two of us. "Well, looks like our little Jeffie finally got stopped."
Jeff just shook his head. "You know Matt, for someone I know so well, I just don't get you sometimes."
"That's a good thing."
"Uh-huh. Well, at least I do know enough about you to humiliate you whenever I feel like it," he said, knowing he'd gotten me good.
"Damn you," I replied, causing us both to laugh, and Adam to look at us like we were crazy.
~PART TEN~
All good things end eventually, and so did my light-hearted attitude. I had been in a remarkably good mood earlier on that Tuesday night. Jeff and I had cut some really good promos towards each other, and somehow were both staying fan favorites, despite his character's new attitude. Our inter-gender tag match (Jeff/Raychele vs. Amy/me) had been really good, and a lot of fun, with Jeff and I countering the other's every move.
I got to the back first, and waited for him. He came in, and I promptly dumped a bottle of water on him, then took off towards our dressing room. He followed, and caught up with me right outside the door.
"Payback's a bitch," he cried as he again dumped water on my head.
We looked at each other, both totally soaked, and just laughed. "We're both totally insane, you know that right?" I asked him as we stood there.
"Oh yeah," he replied, shaking some of the water out of his currently bright red hair. He walked over to me and gave me a pat on the shoulder, and then we both went into our dressing room.
I stopped as soon as I got inside. "Holy shit," I thought aloud, fear tingeing my words.
"Oh man," Jeff said as he closed the door behind us, his words holding the same edge.
The room was a disaster. Our stuff had been thrown everywhere, and a copy of our old promo poster was stapled to the wall, our pictures slashed through. The ceiling lights had been destroyed, leaving glass everywhere. In the center of the room, a circle of about twenty large, white candles burned. In the center we found a photo of the two of us with our father that was taken after our first tag-title win in Fayetteville, NC. The silver dagger Jeff and I had found in the wall that night was stuck through our Dad's picture, and mine and Jeff's pictures had hearts cut out of the center.
If it had been at all possible, my blood would have run cold. All I could do was just stand there, looking at the obvious message being sent. "This isn't real," I semi-whispered, hoping that I was simply in the middle of some really horrific nightmare.
"This is real all right," Jeff replied, his voice a little shaky. Then we heard a banging on the door.
When the banging stopped, I looked at Jeff, and he opened the door carefully. "Well, no daggers this time," he said, beckoning me over to the door. I walked over, and he opened the door a little more, so I could see.
Stapled to the door was another note, written in blood-red ink. This time, I read the note. "The game ends in 7 days, Boyz."
"Oh, God," Jeff muttered, realizing as I did where we were headed for next Tuesday, seven days away.
"They're waiting until we get home," I remarked. Next Tuesday's Smackdown taping was in Raleigh-Durham.
We went to find Adam, Jay, and Raychele, hoping to find them before any other messages were sent. We found them in Adam and Jay's dressing room, and were about to tell them what we found, when we heard the scream.
All five of us flew out of the dressing room to find Trish laying on the floor in front of the door. She was awake, but dazed really badly. Her lip was bleeding slightly, and she had the makings of a black eye forming. Beside her was another note, this one saying 'Remember'.
As Amy, Chris, JP "HHH" Levesque, Steve and his wife, Debra, came running over, I put the note in my pocket. The four of them helped Trish into Adam and Jay's dressing room, and I stayed behind while Jeff showed Adam, Jay, and Raychele our dressing room.
I sat down against the opposite wall from where Trish was laying, being tended to by Amy and Debra while Chris and Steve went to find Vince and Shane. I felt responsible. If she hadn't been such a good friend, whoever was doing this wouldn't have hurt her.
Amy noticed my face, and pulled me outside into the hallway. "You, Jeff, Adam, and Jay have been pretty down ever since Raychele came. It's like your face falls further everyday, and now Trish was hurt, and you look guilty. You guys are like my family. Could you please tell me what the Hell is going on?" she demanded, unaware that Jeff was watching.
I closed my eyes for a second, and sent Jeff a thought. 'Well, what do I do?'
'Come up with a lie,' Jeff answered quickly, 'I'm not going to tell anyone, especially since we have no idea who the Hell is doing this.'
'Alright,' I told Jeff, and thought as hard as I could, but in the end, I got nothing. So, I told a half-truth. "Amy, Raychele has been a family friend for a long time, but we hadn't seen her in a while. When she got here, she let us know that our father was dying, which is why our faces were falling. We were looking forwards to our time off for last month, because we were going to get a chance to see him, but he passed before we got there." Amy nodded, understanding with the help of a little mind power. I hated doing that to her, considering she's such a good friend, but I needed her to believe me. "As for all of this," I continued, the fear once again in my voice, "I have no idea who or why, but Jeff and I have been made targets in someone's very sick game of cat and mouse, and they plan on ending in next Tuesday."
"In Raleigh?" she asked, slightly stunned.
I nodded. "They're waiting until Jeff and I are in familar surroundings, probably to increase the drama level."
She shook her head. "That's pretty fucked up," she said bitterly.
"You're telling me. And the one thing I don't get, is why the two of us." Now, obviously, that was utter and complete bullshit. I knew damn well why. I was the King of a species that had been deemed dangerous since it's very beginning, a form of human that had pretty much been damned by the world, and someone knew. And Jeff became a target as well because he shared my blood, and after me was the last strain of our bloodline. If something happened to the two of us, there would be no one left to rule the community, and the Vampire nation would fall to Hell.
"I don't know what to tell you, Matt, but whatever you need, I'm here."
That one phrase meant more to me than anything she'd ever said to me. "Thank you, Amy. Thank you so much."
She smiled, but her smile quickly faded as she saw Jeff headed in our direction, a strange look on his face.
"Matt, I need to talk to you." His voice was urgent, and sent a chill down my spine.
Amy reached up and gave my shoulder a squeeze, then walked off. I followed Jeff to an empty hallway a couple doors down. "What's wrong?"
"Believe it or not, things may actually get worse."
I looked at him as if he were insane. "How the Hell can this get worse?"
"Oh, I don't know, the thought that another Vampire may be involved?" he half-whispered, making sure no one heard him.
"What?!?" I asked as loud as I dared.
He looked me in the eyes. "Raychele, Adam, and Jay went outside a few minutes ago, so they could talk without human ears around, when they spotted one of us lurking around the parking lot. When they beckoned him over to them, he pulled out a crossbow. He fired, but missed, then ran into the night."
I began to rub my temples. I was in way, way over my head. "This is the last thing we need. An inside job." I had begun to feel very, very weak.
Jeff suddenly looked concerned. "Matt, are you okay?" he asked, worry filling his voice.
"It's just way too much to take in at once. I can't handle anymore surprises. I couldn't handle the first one, none the less all the other ones. It's just such a heavy load."
"Mattie, you're paler than usual."
"Is that even possible?" I replied, attempting a joke.
I got about half a giggle out of Jeff. "C'mon, I'm taking you back to the hotel. You need to lay down."
I simply nodded. I don't think I could do much more than nod at that point. It definitely let Jeff know how screwed up I was, though. Normally, when he suggests driving any other vehicle than his moto-cross bikes, I beg for him to change his mind, wishing to avoid lifelong injury. He can drive a motorcycle like a pro, but that boy can't drive a car to save his life.