Chapter 4

"So, are you going to tell me what happened last night? I saw your rental." Randy demanded, sitting at the table in the hotel restaurant and popped a piece of bacon in his mouth.

"I don't wanna talk about it." Emery stabbed her pancakes like that had personally done her wrong, scowling at the thought of her precious laptop being destroyed by that Neanderthal. "I'll have a new laptop hopefully by the end of the day today…if they can get it shipped fast enough."

"Well, you weren't attacked or anything, right?" Randy eyeballed her skeptically and growled when she slapped his hand for trying to steal another piece of bacon. "Hey, I'm hungry!"

"Then order your own food."

"But I like yours better." Randy argued, his hand darting forward again. He quickly pulled it back with a howl of pain when he got the business end of her fork in the top of his hand, cursing under his breath. "Fine – fine." He gestured for another plate, having finished his first quite some time ago. Randy was a big man and needed more than those tiny servings they called the 'house special', which was ridiculous. "Was it Taker?" He asked quietly, knowing the man had overheard him and Paul and probably wasn't pleased at all. That was their bad and he felt like a jackass.

Emery didn't keep anything from Randy, trusting him explicitly and nodded, stabbing some eggs to pop in her mouth, chewing slowly. "That prick forced me on his bike last night and thought he'd bully me into talking to Matthew about the scripts. If he only knew the truth of the situation." Randy was the ONLY one in the entire company, besides Vince and a few others, who knew she used a proxy for the scripts and most of the ideas were actually hers. "I told him no, I'm not talking to Matthew and he needs to start acting his age and put the company first." At Randy's wide eyes, Emery giggled softly and popped more eggs in her mouth. "I'm not backing down just because he's the almighty Undertaker. Though, I do feel bad for Matthew…"

"Yeah, no shit." Matthew was going to wind up eating dirt when Taker put his ass in the grave, that poor little bastard. "You… you told him to put company first?" Randy could only imagine how that had gone over, shaking his head and sighed, balling up his fist. "He can't keep harassing you, Em." Maybe he should have words with the Deadman, swallowing hard. He could hold his own and had faced Undertaker at WrestleMania a few years ago. "Why don't I start walking you out at night?"

"I just don't understand why NOW he's coming after me, targeting me." Emery's eyes narrowed thoughtfully, pursing her lips together. "Do you think Matthew told him?" Randy shrugged in response; of course he wouldn't know the answer to that question. "I'll kill him. I'll kill that little asshole if he opened his mouth after all this time."

Vince paid him WELL to be her figurative beating post. It was awfully coincidental how Taker suddenly targeted her out of the blue. He hadn't come after her with the Corporate Ministry angle or any of the other ridiculous ideas she'd had for his character over the past 10 years.

"I think it's time I had a chat with my proxy."

"Good idea, but also… you've purposefully let yourself be seen as just an underling, right?" Randy hadn't been around anywhere near as long as she had, but she had told him enough. "Another writer, not THE writer. Also, this is WrestleMania, he's never lost one, has he?" When she shook her head, he sighed. "Yeah… he probably thinks by targeting you, Matthew will change his mind or something." Except it wasn't Matthew who made those calls.

"He can target me all the wants, it's not gonna change what goes down at Mania. The line is written, signed and sealed by Vince. There's no way he'll change his mind now. The only way Taker walks out of Mania winning the title from Batista is if he jumps script. And I don't even think he's stupid enough to do that." Emery said confidently, not seeing the hesitance in her friend's eyes. She could be very vindictive when she wanted to be and, after what that Neanderthal had done to her and her belongings, she considered his payback at its finest. "I'll handle it, don't worry. Now, tell me what happened in the meeting last night."

Putting aside his thoughts about the Undertaker and the Phenom definitely about to be breaking lines and saying fuck all to scripts, he dived into recounting the Guild meeting she had missed. They were dorks, and he really didn't care. He was a closet dork, sort of, but it was nice having someone to pal around with on the road who was just as big a World of Warcraft player as him.

"Raid, tonight. We can rent you a laptop if we need too."

"Shouldn't be a problem. I can just borrow Paul's laptop if anything." It wasn't the first time she did and wouldn't be the last, especially if Taker kept pursuing her and this war they were in. "We got plenty of gold and shit, right?"

At his nod, Emery's sky blues lit up wickedly, rubbing her hands together and finished her breakfast. Good, there'd been a guild they'd been at war with, trolls of all things, and it was time to wipe them off the map. They had stolen a great deal of their treasure, so Emery and Randy would be out for blood tonight since they were the emergent leaders of their guild. It would be fun to watch the trolls get blown up and dismantled.

"I'm riding with you today to the next area." Emery didn't bother asking, walking out of the hotel with Randy and her belongings in hand, texting Paul to see if she could borrow his laptop until her new one arrived.

As if he had a problem with her riding with him. He'd prefer it actually, now that Taker was acting like some schoolyard bully and knowing what he did of the guy. What he had heard whispered in the showers, it could and probably would escalate. Sighing, Randy ran his fingers along his scalp, keeping step with her, even as she texted with Paul.

"Um, we have a big problem, Em." Alison, one of the creative writers, announced the moment Emery and Randy walked into the arena.

"Okay, you need to calm down and breathe, Aly. Then you can tell me what's going on." Emery waved at Randy as he jogged off down the hallway, knowing he wasn't needed for this conversation.

"Nobody can get a hold of Matthew. I've tried calling and texting him all day, but no dice." Alison looked worried, her brown eyes filled with concern over their fellow coworker and friend. "He's the one who gives the approval on all of the scripts…"

"Relax, I'll handle it." The writers often came to her, when Matthew did one of his disappearing acts, and she had a pretty good idea why he was nowhere to be found. "Walk with me and tell me what the problems are." They headed down the hallway together as she listened to Alison, nodding or shaking her head for approval or denial.

Sighing, Alison began recounting everything going on tonight with the scripts. The major problem was the fact that the Undertaker had come in with a smirk and Matthew was missing. So naturally, everyone was assuming that Matthew was dead, his body buried somewhere in a million tiny pieces. Then there were so many tiny issues and usually Matthew handled those, right? She began unloading on Emery, feeling close to tears and ready to tear her hair out.

Emery had to wonder if Alison was cut out for this job because the poor thing looked ready to have a complete mental breakdown. "I want you to go take a Xanax, tell Larry you need one and then I want you to chill out. Don't worry, I got everything handled." She assured the woman, patting her back and gestured her to the trainer's, knowing Larry kept anti-anxiety medicine on hand for the rookies with first matches.

Stopping by to retrieve the laptop from Paul, Emery promised to take care of it and have it back to him tomorrow, just waiting for her Alienware to arrive. Once she was set up in an empty room, Emery began looking through the papers and scribbled notes Alison handed off to her. None of this would be happening; she would be changing every single thing and snorted in disgust, wondering where the hell Vince found these people. All the while, she tried getting a hold of Matthew, but his phone kept going straight to voicemail.

Matthew had finally been found by Taker and, when he had refused to change the line going into WrestleMania, he had gotten tossed into the trunk of his rental, minus his phone. Taker had been 'kind' enough to pop some air holes for him, but that was about it. He was DONE with this job. Emery was a cunt, doing this. She knew he took so much hell for her ideas and had even gotten his backside handed to him a few times, but never once had she volunteered to step up and claim her work. Sure, he was well paid, but enough was enough. He was done. If he had to take the beatings and the credit, then he wanted the actual job. In that trunk… evil ideas began to form.

"There a reason 'DC' is spray painted on your door out here, Emery?"

Her head snapped up, looking at Tom, who was another writer on the team and frowned, standing up to see what he was talking about. "That son of a bitch…" In deep purple spray paint, the letters DC were painted on her door for everyone to see. "I really gotta find out what that stands for…" She grumbled, rubbing the back of her neck and waved Tom off dismissively.

"What does DC stand for? Dick Chick?" Tom groaned when she kicked him in the shin and hopped on one foot, holding his shin with the other hand. "It was a JOKE, Em!"

"Not funny." Undertaker would PAY for this!

That was all him because Mark was an asshole that way. Doubly so, Matthew was in the back of that rental and he began laughing his backside off when it was towed. Watching from the top of the building where he had come to ignore everyone while he considered the fine he had received. It was pretty hefty. Apparently, DC, or one of her friends, had tattled to Vince.

At the next area, which was Sunday, Emery decided to pay the Deadman back and found his dressing room with ease. The word DEADMAN was in black letters on the door was a dead giveaway. Nobody was here yet; Emery had come earlier and pulled the neon green spray paint out of her bag. The security was on the grounds, but hardly any were in the building. Quickly, Emery spray painted the word NEANDERTHAL in capital letters, a smirk curving her lips and made sure his door sign was destroyed by spraying over it completely. She left the arena with the evidence in tow, tossing it in a nearby garbage can along with the black gloves and went to go grab her laptop, which had been shipped to this location. It was currently waiting for her at the local post office.

The problem was… not everyone in the building was as educated as the nerdy bitch and a lot of guys didn't even know what the hell that five-dollar word meant. She would have been better off putting CAVEMAN up there.

That was where Paul came in. When he heard people asking what the hell a Neanderthal was… his prankster side kicked in and he snuck into the office. He found an outdated computer and used it to make little posters of the Undertaker's face with NEANDERTHAL on it along with the definition. Those got passed out.

Now Mark was pissed.

"You didn't, please tell me you didn't…" Emery couldn't hold back her laughter, holding the flyer in her hand with wide sky blues, shaking her head at her friend. "I can't believe you did this!"

Paul beamed proudly kissing the top of her head. "I figured you'd enjoy that." He would do anything for Emery, thinking of her as a little sister and he was annoyed the Deadman had started bothering her. Randy told him everything that'd happened and it was time for some payback.

"I'm going to put this on the wall in my room and every time I look at it, I'm going to smile." She kissed his cheek. "Thanks, Paulie, I owe you one." She walked out, laughing softly and did exactly as she said she would once she found her room for the night. Not even an hour later, the door was tossed open and an irate Undertaker stood in the doorway. "Do you mind? SOME of us are working, Neanderthal."

"You call this working?" He growled, holding a stack of those posters in his clenched fist. "This isn't fuckin' working, Emery, this is being a mega cunt."

He had found them everywhere. Taped to walls. His doors. Even in his goddamn bag! Someone had actually gotten into his personal belongings to put those there. When he had taken his bag out to his motorcycle for safekeeping, because he wasn't about to have his stuff messed with, Mark pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a very long sigh.

"They were taped all over my motorcycle." Work, indeed.

Paul had done quite a number apparently and that made her grin, unable to wipe it from her face. "Actually," She paused, turning her new Alienware laptop to face him, which showed the scripts she was working on. "I'll admit, I spray painted your door just like I know you spray painted mine. But I didn't have anything to do with the flyers. Do I know who did it? That's for me to know and you to find out, Neanderthal." Emery shrugged nonchalantly, leaning against her chair and folded her arms in front of her chest. "I guess I'm not the only one who thinks you're a bullying asshole, huh?"

"You're cute, precious, real cute. I don't think you can keep using that little poor me, being picked on bullshit anymore. You and your pals are just as bad as I am." Mark eyed the fliers. Yes, she was doing tit for tat and then crying out 'help, I'm being bullied'. He advanced on her, pushing her, with his chest, back until she was against the wall. "If I were you, I'd stop while you still have your head, DC."