Goddamn, it hurt to watch that footage again.

Hunter stared hard at the TitanTron, brown eyes locked forward even as the damning video footage ended. He could feel Shawn right next to him, could feel his best friend of 17 years looking at him, staring at him.

Triple H knew exactly what Shawn Michaels was thinking, and it was eating him up on the inside. The Heartbreak Kid has been pushing the Game's buttons all night, his words a perfectly blended concoction of humor and insult. But that was how Shawn did things when he was mad...

'No, Shawn's not mad,' Hunter thought as his gaze lowered to the floor. 'He's pissed as hell.' He could all but feel the heat coming from his best friend's smaller frame, could all but here the thoughts running through Shawn's gold-crowned head.

Hunter honestly wasn't sure what he'd do if Shawn said the words he knew the man was thinking.

Taking a moment to compose himself, he inhaled deeply before lifting the mic to his lips and turning to face Shawn's condemning glare.

"Shawn-"

"So!" HBK interrupted, blue eyes glinting like cold steel, voice laced with sarcasm. "That's all it took. The worst thing that anyone could say to you...is that I am better than you."

Hunter blinked once, literally stepping away from Shawn before he did something that he'd later regret. As before, he struggled to gather his thoughts; the words he so desperately needed to say failed to arrange themselves the way he wanted.

After all, what could he say?

"It has nothing to do with that Shawn." Triple H explained, voice subdued and oddly quiet considering the circumstances. "I know you've heard, I know you've got my voice-mail, but if you want me to do this in front of the whole world, I will." He inhaled once again, trying to steady himself. "Its got nothing to do with whether you're better than me, or I'm better than you, or anything like that..."

Hunter's brown eyes narrowed further as he came face-to-face with his best friend, standing eye-to-eye with Shawn Michaels. He made a decision in that moment, and, as before, damn all the consequence.

He was going to tell him the truth.

"I'm tired, Shawn. I'm tired of it, of listening to it. Do you understand me? I'm tired of listening to people like the Undertaker talk behind your back, saying that you couldn't get the job done. I am tired of people talking behind your back saying you're a failure. I am tired of people saying that, on the way out, you couldn't do it because you were never as good as you thought you were in the first place."

Shawn flinched visibly at that, but Triple H was determined to continue. Dammit, Shawn had come out here wanting an answer, wanting the truth, and he was going to get it, whether he liked it or not.

Though the truth...It hurt Hunter just as much.

"That eats me up, Shawn," he said pleadingly, lifting a hand to his own heart, an involuntary indication of the location of his pain. "Because I'm your best friend, Shawn, and I'm also the guy who believes with every fiber of his being that you are the greatest in-ring performer of all time!"

"So," he continued, taking yet another step closer to the steely-eyed Heartbreak Kid, locking stares fully. "It kills me, it pains me beyond measure to look at you...as a...as a loser."

At that, Shawn turned his face away, expression softening. He could no longer look his best friend in the eye, stung by the harsh, the sharp-edged truth of his words.

Because, in the end, no matter what he had done, he had lost.

Hunter was talking about it killing him, but for Shawn, it was like even worse than being dead.

"That's why I'm going to do it Shawn. That's why I'm going to finish it." Triple H was determined to make his case, to plead his cause before his dearest friend. Even if no one else understood, Shawn had to understand.

'Because in the end...The reason for it all...In the end, it's all for...'

"I am going to end the Undertaker, I am going to end the Streak, I am going to end an Era! I am going to do what everyone runs their mouth saying that you couldn't do."

Shawn didn't flinch this time, and Hunter took that as a sign that he could continue, a good omen that Shawn was following his logic this time.

"I'm going to do it for me," he concluded earnestly, trying his best to convey his feelings to Shawn, to show the man just how much this all meant to him."But just as much, Buddy...I'm going to do it for you."

Having at last gotten that off his chest, Hunter felt a great weight lift from his strong shoulders. It was out there; the truth was out there. He had tried to defeat the Undertaker last year, was going to end the Undertaker this year, because of the Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels.

Not to prove to everyone who was better out of the three men, not to eliminate the only real competition he had left...not even to calm his own fears and doubts, although Heaven knows that played a part.

No... At the heart of it all, Hunter was doing it for Shawn. To put an end to the man who caused him to lose his best friend, and to give the person who meant so very much to him for so long back what he had lost two years ago.

'I'm doing it for you.'

Though Hunter felt free, almost relieved at his confession, the look in Shawn's eyes gave him pause. HBK's blue eyes had gone cold again, expression hard as he lifted the microphone to his lips, lips that were set in a tight scowl.

"Well," he began with a sardonic smile, voice dripping with venom. "Thanks for that."

Triple H was taken aback by the iciness of the reply, but dared not interrupt, unmoving even as Shawn gently touched the lapels of his jacket. He had known Shawn to get into moods like this, and when he was, Hunter knew well that the Hall of Famer was just as dangerous as the deadly Undertaker, or even the Game himself.

"I mean, here I was...I thought we had a problem. But obviously we don't. Because, like always, Triple H, in his nice suit...Triple H has everything under control. Silly me."

Again, the chilling, off-balancing smile.

"You know, last year, it hurt me. It hurt me more than you could imagine for me to have to look you in the eyes and tell you that you couldn't get the job done. And then I sat down at Wrestlemania, and I watched you go out there, and completely dominate the Undertaker. I watched you go out there, and show the world why you're the Game, why you're the Cerebral Assassin. I watched you go out there and beat the Undertaker nearly within an inch of his life.

"And then you lost. And I was right."

Now Hunter's eyes narrowed. Where the hell, he wondered, was Shawn going with all this? Did he call him out just to berate him in front of the world?

"This year," the Heartbreak Kid continued, "At Wrestlemania, Hell in a Cell, I know who's going to win. And I'll be right. Again."

Triple H glared at Shawn as he simply turned to leave. Though he managed to keep his expression neutral, inside his mind was going a mile a minute.

'What the hell does he mean by that? Does he think that I'm going to lose again? Dammit, Shawn, if I'm fighting for you, I can't lose! Don't you know that by now?'

However, Hunter didn't have long to wonder and feel hurt, because just as he was climbing through the ropes to leave the ring, Shawn rounded on him once again, feigning surprise, as though he had forgotten to explain something.

"I'm sorry...The reason I know that, is because I've been made the Special Guest Referee."

With a pat on his best friend's shoulder, Shawn Michaels simply turned and left the ring, never once looking back.

Hunter, standing silently in the ring, felt the weight that had lifted before return tenfold, brown eyes glazing over with a combination of anger, betrayal, and despair.

The burden of the future of the company, all the resistance to the madness he had been caught up in...none of that even entered Hunter's mind as only one thought played over and over again in his head, drawing him inexorably into the endless spiral of destruction that had threatened, no, was going to bring about the end of an Era:

His best friend had just turned on him.

This storyline is seriously killing me. Now Shawn's the Special Guest Ref? How is this madness going to end? I have such a bad feeling about it all...

I guess we'll have to wait and see... (anxious)

Oh, and, hey! Guess who's going to RAW in a couple of weeks! (excited) I swear, if those three are there, I'm gonna just cry on principle, lol.

Until then...

Review? :)