Raging Storm Raging Storm
Chapter 2: Billy F'N Rose
By: Jay Winger

Note: this is set the Thursday after "Chapter 1: It Begins."

To recap: on Raw, Rain learned from Commissioner Foley that a new guy -- Billy Rose -- had just signed his contract and was hanging around with Shane McMahon. After her tag-team match with the Storm against Kurt Angle and Trish Stratus, Rain told the Storm about Rose, prompting an unusually heated reaction from her partner. After Shane left Rose to go cut a promo, the Storm approached Rose in the VIP green room, where he then attacked the newcomer viciously. It took multiple referees and officials to pry the Storm off of Rose, and following the attack, the Storm angrily left the arena, blowing off Foley and Mr. McMahon. Vince then remarked that come Smackdown!, "there's going to be hell to pay for the Storm."

Teaser: The Storm returns on Thursday to answer for his attack, and tells everyone just why he hates Billy Rose.

Rating: R - for violence and profanity

Disclaimer: All things WWF are property of Titan Sports. The characters of Matthew "the Storm" Skinner, Rain, and Billy Rose are completely fictional. I do incorporate a few traits from existing WWF wrestlers, but for the most part, they're my creations.

THURSDAY: Smackdown!, 1 June

A pickup truck emblazoned with the Stone Cold skull and the words Austin 3:16 pulled up in the parking garage of the arena. Stone Cold Steve Austin stepped out of the driver's side as Rain climbed out the other side. Commissioner Mick Foley was there, along with Mr. McMahon. Austin scowled at spotting his long-time nemesis, but tolerated his presence for the moment. Rain looked at them both, then inquired, "Something wrong?"

"Where's Storm?" Mick demanded.

"I haven't seen him since Monday," Rain said.

"What do you mean?" Mr. McMahon asked.

Rain spread her hands. "I mean that when I got back to the hotel, Storm had left. I'm worried. He's never been like this before."

"You still don't know why he would've attacked Billy Rose?" Foley asked.

"No clue."

Mr. McMahon frowned. He looked at Mick. "Well, in the interest of fairness, I think we'll keep the Storm out of any matches tonight. Give him the night off to cool off." Rain laughed derisively, prompting a look from the Chairman. "Something funny, Rain?"

"Storm, cool off? Man, you don't know him," the Texan woman said. "Storm's obviously got a grudge against Rose, for whatever reason -- and Storm takes his grudges very seriously."

"So what would you suggest we do about this, then?" Vince asked.

"With Storm, there's usually only one way to get him past the violent stage of his grudges."

"And what's that?"

Rain smirked. "Let him beat the living crap out of the other person. Case in point -- Benoit. I was with the Storm when he was recuperating from the broken arm and everything that Benoit had given him. You should've seen the look on his face whenever Benoit was on the TV. Once or twice I had to stop him from throwing something through the set." She shook her head. "It was only after he beat him in that Submission Match that Storm finally calmed down enough to start behaving like a rational human being again."

"Damn," Austin remarked. "And I thought I had a temper."

Vince glanced over at him. "You do."

"Damn straight, and don't you forget it," Austin warned him.

Foley looked out over the garage, then started. He pointed. "I'll be damned. Look." They all turned to look in the direction he was indicating, and saw the Storm's black Toyota Avalon parked there. The Commissioner quickly went over to it and looked in the windows, then touched the hood. He stifled a curse. "It's cold. He's been here a while. Can't believe I didn't see it in the first place."

Rain and Austin shared a look. "That means the som'bitch's had plenty of time to scout the arena lookin' for Billy Rose," Austin said. "We better go find `im."

Rain nodded. She turned to Mr. McMahon. "Where is Rose right now?"

The Chairman blinked a bit in surprise and turned to her. "He's with my son Shane and Kurt Angle." He held up his hands. "Now don't get worried. I left Bossman to guard the door. Storm would have to be crazy to try and get in."

"Vince, you don't know just how crazy Storm can be sometimes," Rain remarked.

* * *

The Big Bossman tapped his nightstick against his gloved palm impatiently as he paced in front of the door to the McMahon dressing room. He hated standing around -- and especially pulling guard duty like this. It made him feel like some fat, overweight slob on pension, instead of a hardcore badass as he liked to make himself out to be. He wanted to be out roughing people up -- like that runt Crash -- but Mr. McMahon had insisted.

The door opened and Shane stepped out. He looked at Bossman and nodded to him. "I'm gonna go get some coffee. You want anything?"

"Nah, I'm fine," the Cobb County native replied. "But, listen, how long am I gonna be standin' here?"

"Until we find the Storm," Shane told him. "You just keep tabs on Kurt and Billy till I get back."

"Yeah, sure," Bossman said as Shane ambled off down the hall. He watched him go, then sighed heavily and paced again, drumming his fingers along the shaft of his nightstick. He glanced at his belt, then clipped his nightstick to it before removing his set of handcuffs. He examined these at length for a moment, then sighed and turned to pace again.

There was a shuffling sound behind him, but before he could whip around to face whoever it was, a pair of arms slipped under his own, grabbing him in a full-nelson. Just as quickly, his assailant lifted him, flipped his legs up horizontal, then grabbed his shoulders and hurled him to the floor. Stars swam in Bossman's vision, partially obscuring his view of his assailant -- and he had just enough time to register a pair of dark sunglasses before a boot crashed on his head and rendered him unconscious.

* * *

"So tell me about this wrestling league you ran in California," Kurt Angle asked of his new friend. Billy Rose was still showing the effects of the attack from Monday. One of his eyes was swollen and there was a wicked bruise along his pointed jaw, plus a bandage across his hairline to cover up the cuts he'd received there from broken glass. One of his hands was bandaged as well, but everything else was obscured by the red collared shirt he was wearing.

Rose smiled a bit. "Ah, you heard about that? Yeah, before I got into wrestling itself, I ran a small independent circuit out there. California Independent Wrestling. We tended to be kinda experimental in our matches -- trying out gimmicks and hardcore techniques. Stuff like that Over-the-Top-Off-with-the-Top match Lawler had with Malenko a couple years back -- we'd do stuff like that all the time." He smirked. "But hardcore. Now we specialized in that. ECW's what we aspired to be, but we didn't have the money for that."

"Neither does ECW, from what I hear," Kurt said with a grin.

"True enough," Rose replied. "Anyway, some of the guys CIW had were pretty damn tough. They'd take the most colossal beatings and get right back up and keep fighting. It was a chore sometimes to find a weakness in them."

Kurt inquired, "So you managed CIW?"

"Yeah," Rose admitted, "but I was known to get in the ring on occasion to kick some butt. Kinda like Mr. McMahon does from time to time."

Kurt snickered. "So you cowered in the face of some of your wrestlers?"

"Far from it!" Rose replied with a grin. "I could go toe-to-toe with them. I may seem like a nice guy in here," he said, leaning forward, "but when I get in the ring, all bets are off. My philosophy is: you can be as nice as you want outside, but in the ring, it's all about how much fight you got in you."

"Good philosophy," Kurt remarked.

"Thanks. You're one of the few people I've told it to. Since I sold CIW to another fed, I kicked around the independents for a while -- and I kept using that philosophy. Lures people into a sort of overconfidence when they have to face me. People assume that because I'm such a nice guy, I'm a nice guy in the ring." Rose grinned. "Wrong-o."

There was a knock on the door. Kurt looked up. "Who is it?" There wasn't any answer. The Olympic gold-medalist looked at Rose, then got up and went to the door. "Bossman? That you?" Still no answer. Kurt cautiously opened the door, only to have it shoved open the rest of the way. The Storm stood there, Bossman's nightstick in one hand. He tossed a set of handcuffs to Kurt, which he caught. The Storm rushed forward, driving the nightstick into his gut, then the back of his head. Angle went down without a sound.

Rose saw the Storm and squeaked, "Skinner!" before the Storm swung the nightstick at him. The newcomer dodged aside so the blow landed on his shoulder, but the force of the blow did knock him off-balance and into the wall. Rose leaned against the wall to regain his balance, but the Storm pinned him there as he pressed the nightstick against his windpipe.

"I told you," the Storm growled, "don't you ever, ever call me that!" He elbowed Rose in the head -- in the process bludgeoning him with the nightstick and then threw him bodily into the corner. As Rose slowly pulled himself to a sitting position, the Storm advanced menacingly. "Billy Fuckin Rose. You got some hits comin' to ya, Slick."

Rose tried to dodge away, but the nightstick came down into his kidneys, prompting a cry of pain from him. The Storm grabbed him by the shirt front and prepared to deal a wicked blow with the nightstick when Kurt Angle ran at him from behind. He placed his head under the Storm's armpit, grabbing his arm in the process, and then his leg. Before the Storm could react, the gold-medalist swung him up and down through the coffee table in an Olympic Slam. The table shattered under the Storm, who groaned at the initial impact, but growled as he sat back up.

Then the Storm glanced at his wrist. One end of the handcuffs was clipped there, and there was a subtle smugness in Angle's expression. Evidently when he grabbed the Storm for the Olympic Slam, he'd clipped them on. The Storm snarled and lunged at Kurt, who caught him and backpedaled into the wall, holding onto him. "Billy, cuff him!"

Acting quickly, Rose rushed forward and grabbed one of the Storm's flailing arms. He twisted it into a hammerlock and grabbed the dangling end of the handcuffs. He swiftly pulled the two together and cuffed the Storm's hands behind his back. Kurt shoved him away, then slugged him across the face. With a grunt, the Storm staggered off-balance and fell backwards into the shattered pieces of the coffee table.

Kurt and Rose moved in toward him when Shane appeared in the doorway, Foley and Rain behind him. "Storm!" Rain said in surprise. She pushed past Shane and shoved Kurt away from him. Rose looked about ready to start pounding on the Storm, but then the handcuffed Force of Nature sat up and threw his shoulder into Rose's gut. Shane and Mick Foley both moved forward and separated the two, pressing the Storm back against the wall. Kurt and Rain held Rose back.

"Fucking bastard," the Storm snarled at Rose under his breath.

"Time hasn't changed your temper much," Rose remarked.

"Fuck you."

"Fuck you."

"Shut up, both of you," Foley ordered. He looked out the door at the Big Bossman, who was starting to come around. "Bossman." The former corrections officer looked up. "Go tell Vince we found the Storm." Bossman nodded and staggered off down the hall to go find his employer. The Commish turned back to the Storm. "Mind telling us why you're so pissed off, Storm?"

The Storm nodded his head at the newcomer. "`Cuz of him: Billy Fuckin Rose."

Rose sneered. "Matthew Fuckin Skinner," he snapped.

The Storm lunged again, but Shane and Mick held him back against the wall. "I told you, goddamn it, don't you ever call me that! Not after what you did, you fucking maniac!"

"All right!" Foley shouted over him. He glanced at Rose, then said, "Kurt, Shane, take Billy somewhere else. We're not gonna accomplish much with these two in the same room."

Rain nodded and released her grip on Rose as Shane went over and joined Kurt. They both took an arm and guided Rose out of the room, but the newcomer smirked over his shoulder as he left. A few moments later, Vince and Bossman showed up in the door. Mr. McMahon saw the Storm, then the wreckage in the room, and nearly exploded. "Vince, calm down," Foley said. "Storm's gonna tell us just what's going on, aren't you, Storm?" He looked pointedly at the Texan, who scowled and nodded.

"All right," Mr. McMahon growled. He nudged Bossman out of the room and closed the door. "Start talking."

The Storm frowned, strained against his handcuffs for a moment, then said, "I suppose you all know about Rose and his wrestling fed out in California?"

"CIW," Foley said.

"S'right," the Storm replied. "And like he no doubt told you, CIW aspired to be a hardcore fed like ECW. But Rose, who was the booker and the owner, wanted it to be even more hardcore than ECW. And the only way to do that was to pull off stunts that were more outrageous than anything ECW would do.

"But the stunts were so dangerous and painful that he couldn't do them right away. He had to condition his wrestlers so they could take the extra pain. So what Billy Rose started doing was looking for the most resilient and stoic guys he had, then... 'training' them for his plans." The Storm scowled. "At the time, I was wrestling under my real name -- Matthew Skinner. But Rose saw something in me, and decided to exploit it. I was one of his pet projects.

"He put me in intensive training and extreme conditions. While I was doing pull-ups or something, he'd have this ex-boxer start pummeling me in the stomach and ribs. He made me lift weights in a meat freezer, while I wearing a t-shirt and gym shorts. Another time he made me work out in a hotbox. All this so he could make sure I could tolerate extreme conditions while he was systemically deadening my tolerance for pain."

"Why didn't you just leave CIW?" Foley asked.

The Storm scoffed. "Billy Rose is a slick bastard. He had an ironclad contract. He had it set up that if I cut and run before my contract expired, I wouldn't ever be able to get a contract anywhere else. That, and he'd take back all the pay I'd been given up till then. So if I'd left CIW, I'd've been broke and unemployed. Well, fuck that.

"Anyway, toward the end of my contract in CIW, Billy Rose started to get a lot more cruel in his routine. He started looking for ways to get me even more aggressive than I already was." The Storm stretched his right shoulder. He jerked his head at it. "Pull back my shirt collar."

Rain gasped, as though suddenly realizing something. Foley and Mr. McMahon looked at her, then back at the Storm. The Commissioner reached out and stretched the collar of the Storm's shirt to the side, exposing his shoulder. To his surprise, there was a large shiny patch of skin with a few black specks in it. It was a burn scar. The Storm's jaw clenched. "The bastard put out cigarettes on me. And he cut me up a bit too. All so he could elevate my aggression in the ring. He's warped, demented. A fucking psycho.

"When my contract in CIW expired, I took my pay and split. I'd been offered a contract over in Japan, but I was still sore and not in the best of shape after what Rose did to me, so I took some time off to recuperate a bit before going to Japan. That's where I started to use my 'Storm' persona. I've been trying to forget what Rose did to me since then." He looked at them all. "You all know I let most things go, but there are some things you can't forgive."

"Why didn't you just take Rose to the courts?" Mr. McMahon asked.

The Storm laughed derisively. "Like I said, he's a slick bastard. He had good lawyers. I'd've never gotten him there. Besides, there are some grudges you'd rather settle yourself."

Mick, Rain, and Vince were silent for several moments before the Chairman said, "Well, Storm, I understand your anger toward Billy, but I can't have you stalking him like this. I want you to stop."

"Stop?!" the Storm screamed. "I just told you this guy's a sick as the Marquis de Sade, and you want me to just forget about it?"

"If you attack Rose backstage again," Mr. McMahon said, "then I'll have you fired."

The Storm scowled at him, then pushed himself to his feet using the wall as leverage. He glared at Vince. "You're a fool, if you think you can just decree that this thing between me and Billy Fuckin Rose is over. But I tell you what. In the interest of fairness, as you'd say, I'll play nice. But Rose steps out of line by a millimeter, and I'll be right there to bash that smirking face of his in."

Vince nodded, then opened the door and motioned the Big Bossman in. He took the keys to the handcuffs from him, then unlocked the Storm. The Texan rubbed his wrists, glared around for a bit, then started to leave. Foley stopped him. "Hey, wait, I've got an idea. You've got a lot of aggression built up right now, so I'll tell you what -- on Monday night, I'll put you in an eight-man tag against Kurt Angle, Edge and Christian, and Billy Rose with you and your Lone Star buddies."

The Storm scowled. "This isn't some petty feud that'll be settled by a match like that, Mick. It's gonna take a lot more than that to get me even slightly less heated toward Rose -- but it's a start." He turned his back and walked out of the room.

Mr. McMahon looked at Rain. "Did you know any of this?" he asked.

"No," she said truthfully. "I knew he'd gone through a lot of shit in CIW, but he never told me what Rose did to him." She looked down the hall after her boyfriend. "And he's right, this can't be solved with one match, or two, or three -- not even with ten. That's an old, deep wound Storm's got, and it's not going to heal that fast."

-more to come-

Next: The Storm manages to get in the ring with Billy Rose, but the charismatic newcomer says he's going to push the Force of Nature "Until You Crack."

If you have any ideas for who you think the Storm, Rain, or Billy Rose should team up with or go up against, drop me a line at jay_winger_2k@hotmail.com.