Part 11
Six months later
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Hunter asked Abbie for the fifteenth time since they'd left the hotel.
They were now standing outside of the arena where No Mercy was being held and Hunter was finally due to get his WWE heavy weight title shot. She knew that he wasn't nervous over the match, just over leaving her in the locker room area - where her brother might be - while he was performing. She and Steve hadn't spoken since their fight at the hotel all those months ago and Hunter was nervous about how he might react if he saw her there with him, since this was the first WWE event she'd attended since the disaster..
"I'll be fine," Abbie reassured him. "If I run into the big jackass, he'll probably ignore my existence anyway."
Hunter leaned down and kissed her, "Yeah."
They entered the arena by the talent entrance and immediately ran into Ric Flair, who since being demoted back to being just a wrestler, was Hunter's new manager on the show.
"Ready H?"
"Aren't I always," Hunter joked back as they moved along to the locker room.
They were surprised to find that Hunter's locker room was directly across from Steve's. Flair insisted he didn't do and it was too late to change it, so they'd all just have to deal with whatever the consequences might be. So they simply entered the room, so that Hunter could get ready.
"Damnit," Steve said as he paced the length of his locker room for the millionth time since he and Debra had arrived at the arena. "Why'd they have to put that bastard across the hall from me?"
"I didn't know five minutes ago and I sure as hell don't know now," Debra replied rolling her eyes at her agitated husband. It wasn't that she didn't love and feel bad for her husband, it was simply that she'd had enough of listening to him complain about that *bastard* Triple H stealing his sister away from him.
When the knock at the door sounded, Steve threw it open preparing to yell at whomever was there. When he saw who it was he decided it wasn't worth bothering with.
"Hi," Kurt Angle said entering the locker room. "Did you hear about the card change?"
"What card change?" Steve replied eyeing his one time adversary.
Kurt sighed, "Vince really needs to get some better people. You're no longer having a match against Big Show."
"Then who the fucking hell am I having a match against?"
Kurt frowned at Austin's potty mouth, "You've been moved into the title match. It's now a triple threat. You, me and Triple H."
A sly, sadistic smile floated across Austin's features and Angle gratefully backed away and out of the locker room. After the door was closed her smiled, with Triple H and Austin beating the crap out of each other his title was fairly safe and he didn't even have to really get involved until he needed to. Smiling Angle headed back to his locker room, where his lovely wife Stephanie waited for him.
Triple H on the other hand was totally oblivious to the fact the match had been changed. At least he was until Flair barged into the locker room after a quick conversation with Earl Hebner.
"That asshole!"
"Who?" Hunter asked as he finished pulling on his knee pads.
Ric just shook his head and paced for a second before speaking. "Vince changed the card. The main event is now a triple threat for the title."
"So he's trying to protect his newest son-in-law," Hunter mused remembering the days of the McMahon-Helmsley era. "Okay, who'd he throw in?"
"Austin."
As his music hit Hunter pushed all thoughts of his girlfriend's family troubles from his mind and focused on the man whom had reached the ring before him. He could tell by the look on Austin's face that the title was the last thing on his mind, if he won it while he got to pound the enemy's face in then it was a bonus.
He approached the ring cautiously, doing his carefully planned out entrance, trying to forget about the eyes burning into him from behind and climbed into the ring. There he stood face to face and eye to eye with the man he had once tried to take out of the game, the man whose sister was the woman he was planning to propose too that very night after the match - title or no title.
Neither man blinked when Kurt Angle's music hit or the crowd chanted you suck, all they saw was each other and they planned to and wanted to do was pound each other senseless.
The second the bell rang Kurt went to step back, when both men suddenly turned and pounded on him. After using Angle as a punching bag for a few minutes they simply threw him over the ropes and went back to staring at each other.
A moment later Austin threw the first punch and Hunter reciprocated and so forth. Neither man was going to give up in this battle of mind and body and so it continued.
Backstage Stephanie McMahon-Angle watched in horror as her ex-husband and Austin beat up the love of her life, new husband - the father of her unborn child and then carelessly toss him from the ring. She'd told her father that a triple threat was a mistake and that putting Austin in it was just gonna make it even worse, but he'd told her she was just being hormonal - that everything would be fine. Well, it was barely five minutes in and already Kurt was lying on the outside of the ring unconscious.
Getting up she wandered back into the locker area in search of the one person who could put an end to all this fighting, Abbie Williams.
Abbie had of course wandered across the hall to her sister-in-law's, the second Steve had gone to the ring. She missed Debra almost as much as she had missed Steve. Talking on the phone occasionally just wasn't the same as it used to be, because she constantly had to stop herself from asking about Steve and she knew Debra was holding back from the conversation by not mentioning him. But here at the arena they simply sat side by side and watched the men they loved do battle, neither saying a word.
In the ring the fight was momentarily stopped as Kurt tried desperately to climb back in and defend his precious title, but the other two simply took a break from pounding each other to pound him, before returning to their fight. Neither man wanted to be the first to give in, like it was a crime or something. Before too long the finishing maneuvers started going off, Hunter pedigreed Austin who kicked out and Austin stunned Hunter who managed to get his foot to the rope. And that's how it kept on going.
Stephanie was not a happy woman, she had searched everywhere she could think of for Hunter's little bitch and still hadn't found her. Her last chance was that maybe Debra had seen her, but she wasn't holding her breath over it. After all if the little bitch wasn't speaking to her brother, what were the odds she was still pals with her sister-in-law. She knocked on the door and a few moments later Debra answered.
"What do you want?"
"I was looking for Abbie," Stephanie replied nervously.
"Abs, there's someone here to see you," Debra called out.
Stephanie was surprised when Abbie immediately came out, but she wasn't surprised by her reason. "Sorry Deb, I just can't watch that anymore. I don't want either of them hurt."
"Then stop it," Stephanie implored. "Go out to the ring and stop it."
"Hey, I don't know that much about wrestling, but I do know a triple threat is no disqualification," Abbie answered.
"Then help Kurt."
Abbie shook her head, "I can't interfere on anyone's behalf. Both Hunter and Steve earned the shot at the title and at each other. They need to fight it out." Then she simply closed the door in Stephanie's face.
Hunter couldn't go on much longer, but he also knew he wasn't going to surrender to Austin or Kurt. This was about so much more than a title, it was now about who was the better man. The pain was excruciating, his quad was throbbing and he knew that somehow his head had been busted wide open, but all he could do was block it out and focus on beating the other two. The only consolation he had was that Kurt and Austin were just as bloody and beaten up.
Hunter was surprised when Angle seemed to step out of the fight and somewhere in his battle weary mind he knew he was only doing so to allow Austin and he to beat each other to a pulp. However a thought briefly entered Hunter's mind - what if Angle was actually putting himself out of harms way? What if Kurt loved that bitch wife of his and was willing to toss the title away for the woman he loved sense of mind? Could he do that for Abbie?
He knew that he couldn't, if he did that he'd be giving up his dreams and giving into the man who had hurt the woman he had come to love more than life itself. So no matter what he had to go on.
