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CONTINUED FROM "THE WOLF AMONG US"

After Doc, Unknown Soldier, and Trevor made it back, the good doctor knew the chances of this trip lasting very long were slim. Not only was he out and about again without the proper clearance and the good ol' "O.K." from the man in black, but his means of keeping Trevor around have changed, as well. It was difficult enough for Doc to pull off what he did anyway, but Trevor taking his own life before made it even more difficult after the fact. When they arrived, Trevor compared the pain he felt to a thousand deaths. While, he was up and able to walk around, his body didn't realize he was alive again and continued to rot away. The doctor provided Trevor with an option when it finally came up, which required Trevor to do something more disturbing than anything he would have ever imagined.

The sun peers through the clouds and gives us one last gleam of light as it lowers down below the horizon. Mastermind paces back and forth in his den while Maria stands among the many men under his command. The scowl printed on his face was like no other we've seen from him before, a mix of concern, fear, and anger. He stops in front of them all and takes a deep breath while Maria changes her look to the floor. Even the love of his life cannot make eye contact with him right now.

I have brought you all here for a very special purpose.

Each one of them stand in attention to their leader, grasping onto every word.

Several days ago, we were visited by what was once.... What I thought, a former ally.

He turns his back to them, takes a deep breath, and faces them again.

While I was fooled into assisting him once, and after seeing the outcome, there is no doubt in my mind that his intentions remain sinister.

He closes his eyes and looks to the ground.

Which was NEVER what we have been about. He used us. He abused our trust, and surely would have taken it further if his evil actions did not backfire on him. We were lucky. We were lucky to avoid an even further worse catastrophe.

He brings his attention to the nearly dozen men and begins his pacing once more.

The purpose of this meeting is to bring to all of your attention the danger that we once again face. During the doctor's visit, he requested my assistance once more, which I undoubtedly denied without much thought. Unfortunately, asking for my help was only a ploy to get close.

He directs his attention to the Chair of Mastermind across the room.

What he wanted was far more dangerous than what he asked.

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The old rust bucket of a vehicle zoomed down the lonesome highway at a high rate of speed. The car is polluted with empty liquor bottles and ash and the air was fishbowled with more nicotine than actual oxygen.

Trevor squints to see through the smoke and stares aimlessly and as he drives straight ahead. His previous wounds and ghoulish look were gone and was, what appeared to be, his old handsome self again. The good doctor sits next to him in the passenger seat, puffing away at his large cigar while enjoying the dead, barren wastelandscape around him. To our surprise, the XWF UNIVERSAL Championship rests on his lap.

Trevor's aimless stare is more of a deer in a headlights look, the same one he wore before he really got used to the doctor and his ever-so strange means of travel, among other things. He pulls the large half-empty bottle of Jim Beam that was set leaning against him and flips the loose cap up onto the dashboard. It glugs as he takes several large swallows of the liquor and it puckers as he removes it from his mouth in a gasp. He passes it over to Doc, who does the same thing and finishes the bottle off. He admires the crystal clear accomplishment before tossing the bottle behind him which crashes with the ones piled in the back already.

So what happens after Dallas, Doc?

It's hard to say, my dear Trevor. After a number title defenses already, defeating Gator in his chance at redeeming being cashed-in on and then last month against Mastermind, I would imagine in another month I will be defending against yet another poor soul. In just a few short days, I will once again show Mister Loverboy that the KING of the XWF ALWAYS prevails. I will show the world that my stranglehold on this FINE federation will-----

Doc and Trevor both slam back in their seat and the car swerves all over the road until it slides into the dirt and screeches to a halt. Trevor sits back in his seat, wide-eyed and shocked as he looks over to the doctor. Doc is just as wide eyed, but he's staring down at the UNIVERSAL Title sitting on his lap. The grin from ear to ear as the same genuine smile we've come accustomed to, times ten. He begins laughing out loud in excitement as he finally returns the look to his patient.

How the fuck did you do that?!

Doc continues to laugh, shrugging he pulls the golden pocket watch from his inside pocket and twirls it around. Trevor watches it with his eyes, astonished by what has happened.

Where are we?

He looks around and recognizes the place of limbo they've arrived in.

When?!

Doc looks down and rubs the gold plate across the title.

Well, judging by what's sitting her on my lap, I would say it's anywhere February to August two years ago.

Two years? JUST two? What kind of mistakes were we fucking talking about back there, Doc?

In August of this very year, my UNIVERSE was robbed from me and I was forced back into the dark oblivion that I despise so very much.... It's just boring there, you know?

Trevor says nothing, realizing that the mistakes the doctor was referring to were going to be corrected in the favor of Doc and not the ex-detective.

Of course, you undoing yourself just prior to that didn't help matters much either.

Trevor's betrayal isn't brought up too often. It makes for an awkwards situation and it's not like the Doc hadn't forgven Trevor. After all the adventures they've had since, you would think the good doctor has forgotten all about it. Or has he?

Doc, about that, look...

No need to explain, my dear boy. It's behind us now, you know.... Well, actually ahead of us, am I right?

The doc chuckles and more and more answers start slamming into Trevor's mind. Could Doc want to prevent the incident with the mirror all together? Doc wouldn't be the ONLY one to benefit from that could he? While Trevor thought that ending his life all that time ago would free him from the Doc's grasp, it obviously didn't and was probably a worse move than staying alive dealing with all his nonsense adventures.

Of course, I am.

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Present Day
The Mansion of Mastermind

After Mastermind dispatched his men, filling them in in the dire situation that they've succombed to, he remained in his den with Maria. Every one of the men were assigned to a manhunt to track down the doctor and do everything they can to retrieve the watch that was stolen and return it to it's rightful place within the mansion. Mastermind feared that he was too late, however, but was prepared for it.

M?

She said softly as she approached him.

What are you going to do?

I must do everything possible to stop the doctor from doing whatever he has planned. He is evil Maria and I was a fool to assist him in the past. If he uses the watch for his own means, I fear to think about what could come of it.

You have some of the most skilled men working for you to bring it back. Please, do not involve yourself. It's too dangerous.

I'm aware of the skills they have, but it may not be enough to take down the doctor. If they do not find him before he uses the watch, it will be my responsiblity and mine alone to take him down. I must do what I have to.

How will you find him if he's hidden in time?

Mastermind reaches into his shirt and pulls a large medallion from it hanging from a chain around his neck. It shimmers in the light and reflects back from Maria's sparkling eyes.

With this medallion I will follow whatever time the doctor sets to the watch. Doing so, if he shows up within a certain time period, I will know exactly where he will be.

The concerned look on her face turns to fear and disappointment. She knows no matter what there is no way to convince her love to not pursue the doctor in what is most definitely a most dangerous journey. Within the next few seconds, the world around them becomes blurry and hazy and Mastermind breaks to his knees.

Maria sobs as she realizes the time has come to say goodbye. Her body molds into the many colors that have meshed together from the enviornement. She reaches out with her hand, expressing her love with an echoing voice as Mastermind reaches out to touch her hand which blows away like if it was made from sand. Like a zip, the sound and world around him vanishes and he's left in darkness, with a glowing light shining from the medallion around his neck.

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Trevor managed to find a vessel within the first few moments of being back. The doctor and Soldier had an appointment in Scotland, where they stumbled upon a small village of folk that still lived like they were left in the Renaissance Era. A grossly fat Scotsman just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and was hit by the speeding cock-mobile that Soldier had been driving. With the man dying at Trevor's feet, instinct somehow kicked in and he got himself a new vessel to carry on living for however longer. As misfortunes continued through the doc's and Soldier's crazy actions, Trevor had to hop from one body to the next several different times. As we mentioned before, this hardly went unnoticed by the man in black, who sent his own mercenaries to take out the ex-detective and the doctor. After being hunted down and attacked along a busy highway, the doctor managed to fight off the angelic beings and protected his stay a while longer. Not a long while. The man in black caught up with them, himself, and with a single bullet destroyed everything that the doctor had worked for several months prior. It was game over again.

The shitty little car chugged up the hill through, past the abandonded town, and up to the church that the doctor had recently taken for his compound. The church is run down even after the very short time that he's been there. The stained glass windows were shattered and boareded up and the steeple was partially burnt up from a recent fire along with a good portion of the roof. The car comes to a stop in front and the two men step out from each side.

Doc stands in admiration to the building with his title belt acrossed his shoulder. Trevor snuffs out a cigarette on the ground and looks up with not as much joy as the good doctor.

So, here we ARE!

Trevor says with a hint of sarcasm, which Doc, of course, ignores.

Indeed! Oh my, oh my... It's been a long, long time.

Trevor smirks.

Do you have no sense of time, old man? This was only a couple years ago.

Doc doesn't break his stare to the church as he places his hands on his hips.

It feels like a lifetime.

Together, both men climb the steps leading to the large double doors in the front. Doc pushes them and they slam open kicking up a thick cloud of dust. The chapel is destroyed from the inside. All of the pews are busted up, broken into pieces, and scattered about. Doc takes a deep breath and looks around.

It's a shame, ya know?

Trevor pushes over a pile of wooden rubble with his foot.

What's that?

It was just a great time, Trevor. My precious Asylum was going strong, the walls around my compound were solid, and the UNIVERSE was in the palm of my hand. Untouchable and everyone knew it. Loverboy knew it. Morbid Angel knew it. Gator knew it. Everyone, even my apparent arch-nemesis, to my surprise, Trax knew it.

Doc heads to the back towards the door leading to the cellar, which he used as his lair within the compound. The wooden door swings open to a dark, winding stairwell like you would see in an old castle. Doc pulls a cigar from his inside jacket pocket and lights it. The cherry from the cigar mystically illuminates the hallways like a lantern which makes it easy passage for he two men.

When they reach the bottom, there is another large wooden door that takes the two of them to push open. With a solid shove it moves to the side and they enter the doctor's former abode.

The stone floor is charred from the fire, along with all of Doc's old possessions that somehow remain there even after the burn. It's like this place quit existing after Doc took it over and after the raid, it continued to just be a blank spot on a map. No one visited, no on returned, and no one cleaned this shit up. Doc paces around admiring his old furniture and such. His desk, his books, his favorite chair. He approaches the chair and rests his hand upon it and smiles.

Turn the TV on, Doc. I wanna see what was going on in the world today.

The large 72" hanging on the wall ahead of them is just as charred as the furniture and walls and has several cracks through it. Obviously, unusable. Doc snaps his fingers and the picture lights up with a news broadcast of the fire that took place Trevor's apartment all that time ago.

Not cool.

Doc snaps his fingers again, as if switching the channel, to the match with UNIVERSAL Champion Jim Caedus and Trax that happened just a few short weeks ago.

Whatever...

Trevor wanders off as Doc takes a seat in his favorite chair to watch the match.

I'll be perfectly honest, I never really noticed Trax around here until he started barking at me personally, and even then I really didn't bother much with him. Why would I? I was UNIVERSAL Champion and he was just like every other little bug that walked through the doors around that time. It seemed like every week someone was sneaking up on the good doctor and trying to make an impact by taking out the UNIVERSAL Champ. Strange how some things never really change, hm? Except for the fact that it's Jim Caedus that is the champ at the moment, but I don't need that title to hold onto my prestige. I don't need to be holding a prize for someone to want to take me out. I just have the impact on people, I suppose. The past few weeks I couldn't take five steps without either Chris Chaos or Trax giving me the business. Does it get old? Sometimes. It makes me chuckle more than anything. Chaos can't accept the fact that I've bettered him twice now and Trax is just being Trax. Attacking someone for no reason like the superhero that he is. Wait, do they do that? What would the children think? What would the people think? How does he have fans? How could ANYone else in the world look to him for help? It's absurd, my friends. If I'm some evil mother fucker, then where are my dark corners, where are my attacks from behind, where are my interferences? There aren't any. If I haven't said it once I've said it a thousand times, my doors are ALWAYS open, my friends. Anyone is more than welcome. If I have desire a session with anyone, I make it well known. Mind games or not, call them what you want, I call it therapy. So the lights tend to be effected by my presence. What's the matter Trax, afraid of the dark or something?

Don't be silly. He's one with the damn dark. He's especially not a'scared o' me. He told me so, himself. Which is fine because I don't really want anyone to be truly frightened of the good doctor. It would kind of go against what I'm going for here, am I right? Trax is obviously all fucked up. It's been my duty all along to fix that in my patients. You'd have to be all insane in the membrane to think that barriage of garbage spewing out of those thick lips is has any reality behind it. Call me old fashioned, but a good Lobotomy would clear that right up. About three seconds later he'll realize what fantasy world he's been living in and that sick feeling in his gut will be the first side-effect. He'll get up and look around to all of those melting faces because they're false-hero failed them. It's not shame Trax will be carrying backstage with him, because it's more of an "I told you so" story. He won't be carrying his pride because it'll be left in the ring. It won't be his dignity because I'll strip him of that long before the end. It will be hope. Disgusting, pitiful, disgraceful, beliddling, pathetic HOPE. Hope that even after that doctor has completely dismantled him and left him in a pile of himself that he has what it takes to make something of himself in the events to come. Hope that he's, just maybe, in the opposite ring of the good doctor and, just maybe, someone will be lucky enough to take me out of the equation IF he happens to reach the final match. According to him, there is no one else. There is no one I should be worried about. No Micheal Graves. No Robbie Mains. No Danny Sexes. No Outlaw Harrises. No Drezdin. I'm just covering all the ground here. If Trax is so tied up in his own damn self to realize that we're all competing here than he's just as dull minded as Peter Gilmour after he won the UNIVERSAL Title. Look around, my friend, you're far from the top and far, far, far from your next ledge.

The match continues on as Doc watches in amusement at the match that Trax has been so proud about. He watches in amazement that even after beating the UNI Champ and all, he's not included in the UNIVERSAL Match at High Stakes.

Before our session at High Stakes was finally set in stone, the Lethal Lottery Tournament took place. Anyone that knows my history in that thing knows that I've never had the best luck in regards to the men occupying my corner. Not to make excuses, but they have been the fault of my elimination the past two times I've participated. That doesn't matter to Trax though, however. He looks back at that night like he showed the good doctor something. Well, all he showed me was that Donald Trump can't take a shot to the face like he would probably claim he could. I knew that going into the match and I did everything to keep the President out of it all together. Of course, it didn't work. I'll do Trax the honor, finally, and give credit where it's due. I knew he was better than Trump, as well as Robbie Bourbon, and I knew if it came down to the spray-tanned billionaire and Mister F'n Confidence who would come out on top. If you want to hold that match against the doctor as your claim to fame, Trax, by-all-means, do so. Chris Chaos did the same thing when he actually walked away the winner after a one-on-one match with the doc, only to be reminded that one single night cannot define a legacy nor can it predict the future.

Trax seems pretty confident though, I mean, he IS Mister F'n Confidence, after all. He has all the reasons to be too, I suppose. He IS taller than I am, by a smidge. He does out weigh me by forty pounds or more, as well... Fat ass. He's just stacked though, am I right? Do colored folks have bigger hips or just bigger lips? Big-boned, maybe. I'm not that kind of doctor.... Hm.. If you would look at me through everyone else's eyes you'd see a two hundred and thirty pound bag of bones. A feeble, old man. Well, I am. What does that have anything to do with me absolutely running this circus lower class misfits? What does that have to do with me decimating everyone that crosses my path? I'm quite strict with my patients which leads me to my success. I've taken the greatest and made them the fakest and made the most feared see their breakfast. I've done things no one else has accomplished and I've beaten all of the climbers of the mountain that half of you, on your greatest day, could never even dream to compare to.

Doc watches as the lights go out in the arena during the match, he snaps his fingers and the television shuts off. Standing up with a moan, he turns around and faces the kingdom that he once called his home.

Oh, sure, though... "You're part of the KINGS™", "You need the KINGS™", "You're nothing without the KINGS™!" That's you. That's what all of you sound like. You're all a bunch of complete ignorant, self-absorbed idiots if you want to keep hammering on my unionship with Theo Pryce, John Samuels, and John Madison. I'm not repeating myself and explaining this bullshit again. Fact of the matter is, in the Final Act, we have the titles, it's where they belong, and you have to admit we've definitely made this shit a bit more interesting. You little puppy dogs can play among each other in that little tournament for a bit while the KINGS™ dispatch of AX3 in the weeks to come. This is all spare fun, my friends. The Tag Team Titles happened to be thrown up in a tournament at the end of last summer, and guess what. I decided since I never bothered with the titles, why not? What I'm trying to say is friends, side-project. My focus is where it needs to be and to say that it is not will be YOUR downfall. To say that I'm not prepared, whether it's in the match against Trax prior to the MAIN EVENT or the MAIN EVENT itself is complete foolishness. I know what I'm up against because I've been here before. I know what the highest stakes are and they are NOT in involved with that silly reunion tour that Mister Loverboy is hosting. For one reason, the KINGS™ are involved. T'is alright, Mister Lane has placed himself in some pretty stupid situations before and come out alright. Just alright though. Anyway, fuck him. The highest stakes come at the end, my friends. When you roll the dice and step in the same ring with the doctor, you know the odds are against you.

Remember when Trax has won some battle royals too, though? Errr.. one, I think, for some title that doesn't exist anymore. Ghost Tank had it once, was probably more of a shockwave that he had it than Trax. You know, since Trax likes history so much you think he would've noticed how many royales I've been apart of. My first two sessions in the XWF were Battle Royals, which I won. I believe Mister Archy hosted one himself once before, as well! I did well to walk away the victor there too. Then I hosted one myself, that Trax lost. Who won that anyway? I forget? Someone apparently better than Trax. Unless he wants to keep on pressing that burden onto Robbie Bourbon. Getting beat is tough, trust me, I know. I've known nine times out of... uh.. like a hundred matches. Something like that. Have I ever made an excuse about it? Shit no. Accept it like you accept your mother's love you fucking babies. There comes a time in a man's life when he's to take on the responsibility for his own failure and when that time comes is all up to you. So suck it up, accept your fate, lick my boot, and go about your jolly little day while I do what needs to be done.

I know a thing or two about these types of events, you know, not like there's much to know anyway. Ha! But I've had my fair share of them. In fact, I think Archy still owes me a title shot for that one... Hm.. Where is that British Bloke Bastard, anyway? No matter. I have plenty chances of earning one the good old fashioned way once again. I do feel a bit guilty for making Trax a bit jealous during my shout-outs last time. I just feel it necessary to let EVERYONE aware of my plans going into High Stakes. If Trax's monkey mind can't comprehend that I can carry two agendas at one time, well, that's the reason why I'm not only walking away from our match up victorious, but why I'm also walking away the #1 Contender when the night comes to a close.

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The helicopter soars across the sky like a bullet shot from a gun. The flat farmland below seems like a reel replaying over and over again as the propellers flash continuously flash across the ground as it flies past.

The speed begins to as it reaches a lage barn with a landing strip beside it. The chopper circles around and eventually levitates to the ground. Just a few short feet from landing, the Master of Minds appears and stands by the open door gripping tightly onto the railing. As the chopper finally touches down, he stops off and is met with a suited soldier nearly immediately who salutes him in the greatest ovation.

Welcome, sir! What brings you to Dallas so early, sir?

Mastermind walks straight past the soldier with a salute of his own. He stops and turns around.

Unfinished business.

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