We pick our story back up with The Resistance walking sombrely through a hallway after Triple H's sacrifice to The Undertaker. The Dead Man is nowhere to be seen and Hunter's weak body is being supported by Stephanie and Kane. Roman and Dean bring up the behind in silence until Dean holds his friend back, waiting until the rest vanish behind a corner.
Dean shoves Roman inside the nearest room which is dimly lit. The lunatic had been uncharacteristically accepting during the events that transpired with Triple H and The Undertaker. It becomes clear he just didn't want to embarrass Roman in front of others for the verbal beating he was about to take.
Dean goes off at Roman. I mean, he's close to losing it. Why are they doing this? Why are they allied with The Neo Authority in the first place? They should be only relying on each other, not with everyone else dragging them down. He knew this was a bad idea but he trusted Roman's call and he shouldn't have been surprised when things went south.
Roman takes it silently until Dean insults him personally. "I know you don't want to hear this, Dean, but we can't beat Owens and Seth as they are now," he says with a stern calmness about him. Allying with The Neo Authority sucks, yes, but it was always supposed to be a temporary agreement. They still have the same goal.
"Until the Free Agents took it upon themselves to sabotage our plans at every turn," Dean grumbles, "The Legion want to control the WWE. The Neo Authority want to control the WWE. The Agents want The Neo Authority's head on a spike. We have nothing to do with any of this mess. No ones going to bother us if we're not attached to anyone."
"Won't they?" Roman questions.
Dean looks offended before grabbing a trash can and hurling it across the room, where it explodes against the wall, "I HATE THIS."
"I have a plan," Roman promises, "But I need you to put up with some shit a little longer. We control The Neo Authority's influence. We have allies because of them. We coordinate our assets correctly, we will dethrone The Legion."
"What I wouldn't give to break that scumbag son of a bitch Seth's nose inside his skull," Dean growls, pacing and shaking his fist.
Roman slams both hands on Dean's shoulders, "We will… Oh, we will."
So at this point Kevin Owens pretty much controls Raw by coming out on stage each week, cutting a killer promo and pulling names out of a rigged hat for matches. The Leigon has the highest win rate of all the factions by far. Seth Rollins tries to take Smackdown for his own but Cesaro challenges him for it and the Thursday night show becomes a tug of war between the superstars.
The Resistance and The Neo Authority no longer have any jurisdiction anywhere in the WWE. Triple H is weakened, Cena is unable to perform while he recovers from Sandow's brutal attack, they haven't seen The Undertaker since he showed up to steal Hunter's soul. They're often outmatched or outnumbered. They rarely get wins. The only Resistance members doing remotely successfully are The Dudleyz and Dean as he barely holds onto his USC title week after week.
Each week Dean seems more and more frazzled. His hair gets messier, his shirts are torn before he's even stepped into the ring, he looks like he hasn't had a shower or slept in days. Everyone is after his title as taking The Resistance's only Championship from them would be the metaphorical nail in the coffin of their faction. Dean can barely walk down the hallways while he half expects someone from the Leigon or Free Agents to ambush him.
The tipping point is when a certain unaligned space loving loony gets a little jealous after finding post-it notes everywhere he goes with the word 'SHINY' and 'NEVILLE' written on it. Backstage, in his locker, he even pulls one out of his ringgear during a match. Now Stardust loves a good riddle and a good treasure hunt. Furthermore he is quite upset that he has nothing shiny to wear around his waist and taking the US Title while compromising the alliance Neville is part of is clearly what the magical post-its want him to do.
On Smackdown, Dean and Stardust have a match with Roman at ringside and Stardust goes under the ring apron to reveal his trademark bag of stars. Halfway through the match he tosses the bag of glitter and shiny stars all over Dean and grabs the belt while the lunatic's trying to scratch and claw glitter from his eyes. "SHINY! SHINY! I DID WHAT YOU ASKED!" he choruses with a giddy glee. Despite being disqualified, Stardust runs mostly up the ramp before he collapses in delight, clutching his shiny prize.
Roman is immediately in the ring trying to help Dean but the glittering lunatic shrugs him off. Dean only gets just out of the ring to storm up the ramp when Seth Rollins theme hits and the Legion 2IC walks out to Avarda Kedavra superkick Stardust before taking the USC belt. Seth cuts a promo about how weak and deranged Dean is, targeting his mental state with an analysis that sounds like it may have well come straight from Owens' mouth.
Sleep deprived, anxiety-ridden and humiliated, instead of Dean attacking Seth, the lunatic does a 180 and hits a Dirty Deeds on Roman at the bottom of the ramp. Dean stumbles back, a fleeting moment where he's shocked at what he's done. Panicked, he legs it up the ramp and Seth throws the belt aside to lower into a defensive stance. Dean trips over Stardust where Seth hits a brutal Avarda Kedavra to his chin on the way down.
"It's over, Dean," Rollins cackles, standing over the sparkly lunatic while holding up his belt, "You've really lost it this time and I don't just mean your title." The Legion 2IC looks so proud of himself, pulling off a brilliant coup with no help from Owens. He's been taught well.
The Smackdown episode ends with a close up of Dean, truly broken with wide eyes filled with fear and confusion.