Inside the High Security Wing of Belleview Hospital’s Mental Health Ward, a young woman walks down the long and lonely hall.   She was wearing black pants and a green top underneath a long white lab coat, her hair, tied up in a bun.   She adjusted her glasses as she looked down on the clipboard in her hand, looking up with each step at each door as she passed them.   As she approached Frankie Kazarian’s room, she noticed a young man wearing jeans and a white leather jacket, reading the New York Times’ Bestseller, Game Change.   As she approached the man, she noticed a large stack of books and newspapers there with him, indicating he had been there for some time.  

As she approached him, she said, “You like to read, I take it?”

The man, removing ear-buds, replied, “I like to stay informed.”   As the woman looked into the window of Kazarian’s padded room, the man looked up from his book, and checked her out.   “You have a name?”

“Donaldson,” she replied.   Turning back towards the man sitting in the hall, she adds, “Doctor Donaldson.”  

“Doctor, you say?” the man replied.   “So, doctor, you been here long?”

“Not as long as you, apparently,” she replied, looking into the window of Daffney’s room.

“Oh, this?   It’s just a security gig,” the man replied.   “Shouldn’t last much longer.”

“Security, you say,” Dr. Donaldson began, “You’re a little small for security, don’t you think?”

“I may be small, but I’m big in the right places, if you know what I mean,” the man said.   “By the way, my name’s Kendrick.   Brian Kendrick.”

The Doctor turned back to Brian and responded, “Mr. Kendrick, I work in a psychiatric hospital.   You don’t really think this is really getting you anywhere with me, do you?”

“What do you mean?” Brian smiled.

“Look,” Dr. Donaldson said, taking Kendrick by the hand, “I’m flattered.   Really, I am, but…” The Doctor then twists Kendrick’s arm around, pulling him face to face with her.   “…You couldn’t handle the ride.”

As she lets go, Brian falls to the ground, trying to shake off the pain in his arm.   And while a part of him was annoyed, even angry with the doctor for ‘showing him up’, if you will, he also couldn’t help but smile as he watched her walk away.

“Be seeing you,” she said to him as she walked away.   As she made her way down the hall, she too smiled.   Not because of the fact that Brian had been the first man in some time who had not only showed an interest in her, but wasn’t scared off by her rather strong personality.   No, she was smiling because she had found what she had spent the past two weeks in Belleview looking for.   Once out of Kendrick’s sight, the young woman let her hair down, revealing streaks of green along her long, dark hair.   Dr. Donaldson was indeed a doctor, but, had anyone bothered to check her credentials, they would have found that her expertise was genetics, not psychiatry.   And if they had bothered to do a simple background check, they would have found that she held another job, one that doesn’t necessarily require a college degree or a medical license, one that sometimes calls for someone to use, for lack of a better term, a stage name, a name like MsChif.  

About an hour later, down the street in a small, seedy hotel, Raven is looking over a schematic of Belleview’s Mental Health Ward.   With him, the Amazing Red, along with Jay Lethal, known as ‘The Black Machismo’, Consequences Creed, ODB, and the Motor City Machine Guns, Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley.   Each waited, passing the time with various activities.   Red was exercising, keeping himself loose, preparing himself for an upcoming fight.   ODB had a bottle of whiskey, a shot glass, and a deck of cards, playing a drinking game with herself.   Lethal and Creed were watching TV, while Sabin and Shelley were playing with their Nintendo DS’s.   Raven looked up at his team, this mishmash of absurd proportions, and smiled.   As disorganized as this team looked on paper, these men were also considered the elite athletes of the TNA Roster, making up the current X Division.   He knew that, at the very least, these guys had no fear.   And, if this plan Raven had in mind was to have any chance of success whatsoever, he would need people who weren’t afraid to do something crazy.

There was a knock at the door, and the room fell silent.   Amazing Red approached the door, and said, “Who is it?”

“Open the f*cking door, Red!” an angry, growling voice belted out.   Red opened the door to reveal MsChif, still in her lab coat.   As she came into the hotel room, she said, “I found them!”

“No way!   You found them?!” Red said.

Alex Shelley, looking up from his Nintendo DS, noticed MsChif as she took off her coat.   Alex whistled and said, “Hello, Nurse!”

MsChif, catching wind of Shelley’s statement, shot a deadly look at him and said, “Don’t even think about it, Alex!”

Walking over to Raven and the schematic on the table, she pointed at a spot and said, “They’re here.   Right next to each other!”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Raven asked her.   “They’re right next to each other?”

“Yeah,” MsChif replied.   “But we have another problem.   Seems that Hogan got wind of our plans.   Now he’s got Brian Kendrick stationed just outside their door.”

“Great,” Raven grumbled.   “Anything else we should know?”

“Nothing much.   Just that Kendrick didn’t know who I was.   Little f*ck hit on me and everything,” MsChif answered.

“Good,” Raven said.   “We can use that to our advantage.   Now that we know where they are, we can finally get on with Operation: F*ck Hogan.”

“God, I love that name,” Alex Shelley chimed in.   “Then again, I did come up with it.”

“Probably the only useful thing you’ve done so far,” Raven added.

“That’s not true… I managed to unscramble the porn channels on the hotel TV, too!” Alex said.

“Oh, yes, because I really needed to be stuck in a room full of horny guys watching porn for weeks at a time,” MsChif said.

“Don’t be such a prude!” ODB said, walking up behind MsChif with a half-empty bottle of whiskey in her hand.

 “Anyway, back to the matter at hand,” Raven began as the entire group gathered around the table.   “Here’s the plan.   MsChif, Red, Lethal, Creed, and the Motor City Machine Guns here are going to lead me into the Mental Health Ward, disguised as nurses and staff.   When get to this checkpoint here, MsChif goes into the nurses’ station to get the keys to the High Security wing on the next floor.   Once she has those keys, she’s going to get on the elevator, here.   Once she’s on the elevator, I bust out of the straitjacket, and we, meaning me and the X-Division, start a riot, making sure to block the elevator, the emergency stairway, here, and the exit, here.   From this point on, our job will be to make sure that no one else gets into the High Security Wing.   Meanwhile, MsChif will go up and spring Kaz and Daffney, lead them out through here, down the stairs here, and out this door, where ODB will be outside, waiting with the getaway car.   If all goes according to plan, the hospital security and the police will be too busy dealing with me and the X-Men here to notice anyone’s missing, leaving ODB with just enough time to drive out of the city, which, knowing how she drives, will take about 6 minutes…”

“Hell yeah!” ODB shouted, raising her bottle of whiskey and taking drink.

“There’s only one problem,” MsChif added. “Brian Kendrick.”

“I’ll go with her,” Red said.   “Me and Kendrick have some unfinished business…”

“Look, Red,” Raven said, “I know you want to stick it to Kendrick for costing you the X Title, but this isn’t the time for vendettas.   Besides, we’re only going to have maybe 10 minutes, tops, before the cops show up to shut us down.”

“I understand that,” Red said.   “That’s why she shouldn’t be going up there by herself.   Any time spent fighting Kendrick is time we lose, so it’s better if I do it.   That way, MsChif can focus on making the break.”

“He’s got a point,” MsChif added.  “We won’t have time to deal with Kendrick and make the break if I go alone.”

“And we can hold the point just fine without Red,” Chris Sabin added.   “If he thinks he can handle Kendrick, I say let him go.”

“Fine,” Raven conceded.   “Red goes with MsChif.   But, guys, we all need to keep our heads in the game here.   We can’t afford mistakes.   If anything goes wrong, one wrong move, and the whole operation is shot.   You understand?”

The group agreed.

“So what happens to us if this actually works?” Alex Shelley asked Raven.   “I mean, we go in, start a riot, and then what?”

“Chances are, you, me, and the rest of the X Division, are going to jail,” Raven said bluntly.   “But, even if we do get charged with anything, it’ll be minor, as long as we don’t actually hurt anyone.”

“How the hell are we supposed to start a fight if we can’t hurt anybody?” Consequences Creed asked.

“It’s not a fight.   It’s a riot.   There’s a difference,” Raven said.   “We start a ruckus, and, hopefully, the patients in the main wing do most of the work for us.   Once we get them going, we make sure no one gets in or out until the cops show up, which gives us maybe 10 minutes.”

“So, what you’re saying here is,” Shelley began, “you want us to go in and pretend to be nurses, escort you into a mental ward, start a riot, then get arrested, just so Redman and the Goblin Queen over there can bust out Daffney,” Shelly paused, “and Suicide.”

“Pretty much,” Raven said.

“Is anyone else here thinking this is, well… stupid?” Shelley asked.  

“Well, if you have a better idea, Alex, I’d like to hear it,” Raven said, answering Alex’s challenge.   Alex does not respond.   “I didn’t think so.   Now, do we have everything we need?”

“Got the scrubs and ID badges here, boss,” Consequences Creed said, pulling up a box onto the table.

“What about a straitjacket for me?” Raven asked.

“It’s in the trunk of my car,” MsChif said.   “Got the faulty clasp and everything.   Should be able to bust right out of it.”

“Good,” Raven said.   “Anybody have any questions?”

“Yeah,” Alex said.   “You know a good lawyer?”

“Damn it, Alex,” Raven sighed.   “What do you think?   I’m Jewish, and my mom’s rich as f*ck!   Didn’t anyone here watch WCW?”

“You were in WCW?” Alex asked, unaware that Raven had even been part of Turner’s company.

“God damn it…” Raven grumbled.  

“You don’t remember?” Chris asked Alex.   “His mom showed up and there was this whole shopping spree with Kanyon, and…”

“Oh yeah!” Alex remembered.   “They did that whole Ferris Bueller thing with him!   I remember that now.   Wasn’t the Sandman like your older brother or something in those vignettes?”

“Yes, let’s relive my humiliation as we talk, in great detail, about how my mother managed to make me look like a complete idiot in WCW,” Raven ranted.

“Well, you did bring it up,” Alex quipped.  

“And I’m sorry I did,” Raven sighed.

“Can we get back to the mission, please?” Red said, anxious.  

“Yes, let’s,” Raven agreed.   “So, this is it.   Zero hour.   Anyone who wants out better get out now, because, once this begins, there’s no going back.   You guys in?”

“Hell yeah!” ODB yelled, throwing her hand in the middle of the group.

“Me too,” Red said, putting his hand on ODB’s.

“Daffney’s all I got in this world.   You know I’m in,” MsChif said, throwing her hand in.

“Us, too,” Sabin added as he and Alex Shelley threw their hands in.

“I’m in,” Consequences Creed added, throwing in his hand.

“Oooh Yeah!   Saving the Queen Sherri, and the Mil Mascaras, just in time for the WrestleMania, Oooh Yeah!   DIG IT!!!” Jay Lethal rambled, adding his hand to the pile.

“You sure he shouldn’t be the one in the straitjacket?” MsChif asked, referring to Jay Lethal.

Raven then placed his hand on top of the pile, and said, “Quote the Raven… Nevermore.”

Hours later, at Belleview Hospital, a man in a straitjacket is lead into the hospital surrounded by five men in white hospital scrubs.   At the head of the entourage is Dr. Donaldson, the mysterious new addition to Belleview’s staff.   While virtually no one on staff recognized a single member of the entourage, their ID badges check out, and they were allowed to continue escorting the man to the Mental Health Ward.  

The entry point was secure, almost like a prison, but not nearly as harsh or cold.   The nurses’ station was behind glass, and the gate to enter had to be buzzed open from the inside.   As the entourage arrived at the entry point, the members of the entourage began to get a little nervous.   It was one thing to talk about the plan, even think about it.   But right now, moments away, with so much that could go wrong, everyone was on edge.   The head nurse came up to the window overlooking the entry point, and looked out on the group standing outside of their gate.  

Dr. Donaldson pressed the button for the intercom and said, “We have a patient, Scott Levy.   We’re supposed to take him to the High Security Wing.”   The nurse then turned back and walked away.

“What’s going on?” Red asked MsChif.

“I don’t know,” she said to him.   “They should have just let us in.   Something’s up.”

Chris Sabin, who was standing in closest proximity to the straitjacketed Raven, asked him, “Should we abort?”

“Not yet,” Raven said.   “No one told them we were coming.   They’re probably just checking to see if they have an open room.”

“What if they don’t have one?” Sabin asked.

“We leave, and think of another way in,” Raven said, calmly.   “Now, calm down.   You’re starting to look suspicious.”

The Nurse returned to the window and said, over the intercom, “What did you say the patient’s name was, again?”

“Levy,” MsChif said over the intercom.   “Scott Levy.”

“Another one of the Orlando transfers?” the nurse asked.

“Yeah,” MsChif replied.   Letting go of the intercom button, MsChif turned to Red and said, “We’re in.”

There was a loud buzzing sound, and the gate opened, allowing the entourage in.   As they made their way inside, the gate closed behind them, making a loud clanging sound which seemed to shake Alex Shelley right out of his skin.   One of the nurses in the station gave Alex a strange look, which Alex responded to by avoiding any further eye contact with her.   Once inside, the entourage made their way towards the elevator at the end of the hall, leading up to the high security wing.   Off to their right was another gate, the standard care wing, where patients were allowed to roam free, interacting with one another.   As they made their way down the hall, the X Division and Raven were slowly being surrounded by Belleview Staff.  

Meanwhile, MsChif went into the nurses’ station to retrieve the keys to the high security wing.   As she did, the head nurse approached her.

“Doctor… Donaldson, is it?” she asked.

“Yes,” MsChif answered.  

“Yeah, we’ve been taking a look at your documentation, and, well, we have a few questions about some anomalies we’ve found,” the nurse said.   As the words came out, they hit MsChif like a ton of bricks.   The jig was up.    “For instance, the fact that, well, you’re not really a psychiatrist at all, are you?”   Knowing she had few options, she grabbed the keys to the high security wing.   The nurse, knowing what MsChif was about to do, grabbed her arm and said, “It’s already too late.   Whatever you were planning, it’s not going to work.   The police will be here any minute now, and you, and your friends out there, will have to explain to them why you lied to us.”

“Out of my way, bitch!” MsChif screamed, punching the nurse in the face with a furious blow.   She made a dash outside, screaming to her crew, “The jig is up!   The cops will be here any minute!”

“F*ck!” Raven screamed.

“What do we do now?” Sabin asked.

“What we came here to do,” Raven said, bursting out of his straitjacket.   “RIOT!!!”

At that moment, the X Division started attacking the staff, trying to clear a way for MsChif to make it to the elevator.   Red took the lead, blazing the path, while Raven, Lethal Consequences, and the Motor City Machine Guns tried valiantly to keep the path cleared.   Desperately outnumbered, the X Division fought valiantly, but soon, the numbers began to overwhelm them.   MsChif tried desperately to make it down the hall to Red, but was caught by more staff, who had flooded the hall as soon as the riot began.   Seeing that she would not be able to get past them, she saw only one option.

“RED!!!” she screamed.   “CATCH!!!”   With a mighty throw, MsChif hurled the keys to Red.   As he caught them, he realized that, now, it would be up to him, and him alone, to make the break.   Red dashed into the opened elevator, and pressed the button.   Nothing happened.

“Come on,” Red pleaded, repeatedly pressing the button hoping the door would close.   As he did, five members of the Belleview Staff were charging at him.  

“It’s not going to work!” Raven shouted to Red.   “You’re going to have to take the stairs!”

Red got out of the elevator, and looked down the hall to his left, seeing the emergency stairwell.   He also saw several more staff members running towards him.

“Guns!” Raven shouted to Sabin and Shelley.   “Clear a path for Red!”   With that, Chris Sabin and Alex Shelly began making a path for Red to run towards the stairs.   As Shelley and Sabin dropkicked and headscissored everyone in their path, dodging shots with riot sticks, Red dove over and slid under every man in his path, desperately trying to make his way to the stairs.   The three met at the emergency doorway.

“Don’t worry Red,” Sabin said.   “We’ll hold them here.   You just go get Daffney and Suicide.”

Red push through the door, and Alex Shelley pulled it back shut, then jammed the lock with a riot stick he took from one of the staffers who had been attacking them.

“That should hold it, for a while,” Alex said to his partner.   The Guns, seeing another gang of staff rushing towards them, charged the men, screaming.

Upstairs, in the High Security Wing, Suicide could hear through the ventilation that something was going on below him.

“Daffney,” he called out.   “You hear that?”

In the next room, Daffney called back, “Hear what?”

“Not sure,” Suicide said.   He then walked over to his cell door and watched Brian Kendrick, who, too, had heard the noise coming from below.   Suicide knew, because, for the first time since Kendrick set up camp here, he actually looked concerned.   “How thick do you think these doors are?”

“I don’t know,” Daffney replied.   “Pretty big, I think.   Reinforced steel and whatnot.   Usually, if you end up here, it means that they’ve given up on you.   Or want to punish you.   Either way, nobody gets out of here unless the doctors let you out.”

At this point, Suicide heard footsteps.   Looking out at Kendrick, he knew Brian had heard them, too.   Kendrick sprung to his feet, and began walking down the hall.

At the other end of the hall, the emergency door opened, and the Amazing Red, tired, and running on pure adrenaline, took a moment to catch his breath.   Between the dash upstairs, and fighting his way through 20 or so men just to get up here, a normal man, even one as athletic as Red, would be physically spent, but, no matter how tired Red was, he knew he had to keep going.   The plan had gone completely off the tracks, and the 10 minute timeframe Red expected to have had now been thrown out the window.   Now, it was up to him to get past Brian Kendrick, free Daffney and Suicide, and get them out of the building before the cops showed up, which, for all Red knew, they already had.   Never in his life had he been in a fight like he had downstairs, in the lobby of the Mental Health Ward.   No battle royal, no ultimate X, not even the X-scape cage had prepared him for this, and now, the hardest test was about to begin.  

As Red made his way down the hall, he heard a tapping noise.   At first, he thought it was footsteps, but as he got closer, the sound resembled that of a stick hitting metal, perhaps a police baton or riot stick.   As Red got to the elevator he would have come out of had he been able to use it, he turned and saw the source of all that tapping…

“Kendrick,” Red said, acknowledging his advisory.

“The Amazing Red,” Kendrick smiled, holding pair of tonfa.   “You know, I expected it to be Raven, or maybe even that bitch, Donaldson.   But you?   This is going to be too easy.”

Red, without hesitation, charged at Kendrick.   Red kicked high, aiming for Kendrick’s head, but Kendrick blocked using his tonfa, then countered, sweeping Red’s standing leg, and smacking him across the knee with the tonfa, grounding the former X Champion.

“You’re going to have to do better than that, Red,” Kendrick taunted.  

“You’re right,” Red smiled, using this moment to trip up Kendrick and get back to his feet.   The two stand off, rounding circles around one another, carefully searching for an opportunity to strike.   Kendrick decides to try and end it early, violently swinging his tonfa like a club at Red’s head.   Red rolled under Kendrick’s swing, came back up behind Kendrick, and attempted a corkscrew roundhouse, but Kendrick saw it coming, swatting Red down to the ground, then striking him across the face with his tonfa.

“You had enough, yet?” Kendrick shouted to the fallen Red.

“Not… even… close!” Red replied, rolling over to his back, kicking each tonfa out of Kendrick’s hands.   Red then gets back up to his feet, and the two begin to circle each other again.   Red looks around, taking in his environment – a narrow hallway, a long line of reinforced steel doors, all closed.   No holes.   No gaps…

“You just going to stand there, or are you going to fight?” Kendrick taunted, frustrated that this confrontation had lasted this long.  

Red runs up along the wall and jumps off onto Kendrick, driving Kendrick face-first to the ground with a Red Eye.   As Kendrick rolled over on to his back, trying to shake off the blow, Red went for a Red Star Press.   Kendrick rolled out of the way, allowing Red to land on the marble floor below him, knocking the wind out of him.   As Red gasped for air, Kendrick retrieved one of his tonfa and charged towards Red.   Red rolls over and grabs the other tonfa as Kendrick makes his charge.   Kendrick swings, but Red blocks, and the two trade club shots, each blocking the other’s attempt to connect with the wooden clubs.   Eventually, Kendrick’s experience with the weapon defeats Red’s novice luck, and Kendrick knocks the tonfa out of Red’s hand, then clubs Red in the back of the knee, dropping Red to the ground.

“All right,” Kendrick sighed, “This has gone on long enough.” Kendrick then focuses his attack on Red’s knee, beating on it mercilessly with the tonfa.   Kendrick then stands over his fallen opponent, holding his weapon in his hand, and says, “You really shouldn’t have come here, Red.”   Kendrick with one last, violent blow, smashed Red in the face with his stick, knocking his opponent out cold.

Daffney, who had watched the fight take place from her padded room, screamed, “RED!!!!”

“Shut up, in there!” Kendrick shouted back to her.   Brian looked over the fallen Red and saw a set of keys, which Kendrick then picked up.   He looked at them for a moment, then looked back at Daffney’s door.   He realized what he now held in his hand, and smiled devilishly.   Daffney knew that look.   She had seen it before, in the eyes of David Flair as he would hold his golden crowbar, a gift Daffney had given him, and contemplated the horrific violence he was about to inflict on anyone who so much as looked at Daffney the wrong way.   Back then, such a look was comforting to her.   It meant that, no matter the situation she and David were in, he would protect her.   But now, seeing that look in the eyes of another, she now understood the horror she and David projected on everyone they had ever hurt.  

Brian Kendrick walked over to Daffney’s cell door, and searched the keys.   As he did, Daffney curled up in a ball in the furthest, darkest corner of her room, knowing she had nowhere to hide, and nowhere to go.   The door opened, and Kendrick walked inside.

“Daffney, Daffney, Daffney,” Kendrick said, relishing the fear of his prey.   “Do you know why I’m here?”

“Please, Brian,” Daffney cried.   “Don’t do this.   Please.”

“I’m here because I’m special,” Kendrick began.   “You see, when Hulk Hogan has a problem that his normal, run of the mill goons can’t handle, he calls me.   Why?   Because I’m the best at what I do.”

Meanwhile, as Kendrick taunted his prey, Suicide began kicking furiously at his door, attempting to break it down.  

“You’re never going to break through that door, Suicide,” Kendrick said, looking over his shoulder.   “It’s reinforced titanium.   The same stuff they use in maximum security prisons!”   Kendrick then noticed the air vent in the top corner of the room.   “I know you can hear me, Suicide.   And I sure hope you’re paying attention, because when I’m done with your little friend, here, I’m hopping the next plane back to Orlando, and I’m going to do the exact same thing to your wife!”

“Traci?” Suicide said, stopping dead in his tracks.  

“I knew that’d get your attention,” Kendrick began.   “She was a bitch to find, let me tell you.  Some mark in Ohio tipped us off, told us she was working at a bar just outside of Youngstown.   Morgan and Hernandez are on their way to get her right now.”

“You listen to me, Brian,” Suicide began.   “If I find out that anyone in your organization has laid one finger on Traci…”

“Save your threats for someone who cares,” Kendrick scoffed.   Suicide, furious, begins kicking as his door again and again, venting his anger and frustration on the only obstacle between him and Brian Kendrick.

“Looks like your friend over there has anger management issues,” Kendrick said to Daffney.   “You, on the other hand, you’re just… pathetic, aren’t you?   I mean, you barely wrestle, you look like something my dog threw up, you dress like an undead hooker…   You’d think a little freak like you wouldn’t be so damn popular, but, apparently, you are, and, for the life of me, I don’t understand why.   I was told something like this would happen, that people would try to break you out.   If it wasn’t Raven, or that Banshee friend of yours, Donaldson… I’m sorry, I mean, ‘MsChif’.   You didn’t think I’d recognize her, did you?   When she was here the other day, checking in on you, you really think I wouldn’t have known exactly who she was?   She’s the reigning SHIMMER Champion, and a regular at ROH.   I’ve been in ROH, honey.   And you think that some lab coat and a pair of glasses is enough to fool me, The Brian Kendrick?   Sorry, honey.   No sale.   But, then again, you’ve always underestimated people, haven’t you?   You underestimated David Flair, the son of the goddamned Nature Boy, and you think a kid like that’s going pass up on a pair of long, luscious legs for a freak like you?   Please!   Why do you think Dr. Stevie, the guy you trusted, heart and soul, for the past two years, sold you out?   Because he’s too good for you, just like David was too good for you.   Just like CM Punk was too good for you.   Just like Vic Grimes was too good for you.   Hell, even that idiot Crowbar’s too good for you!   Don’t you get it?   All you are, and all you ever will be, is the freaky little goth chick everybody feels sorry for.   That’s it.   And one day, all these idiots that you think care about you so much, they’ll move on to some hot blonde, too, just like David!”

Daffney looked up at Brian Kendrick with tears in her eyes, crushed by his words.   “Just shut up and hit me, already.”

“Well, if you’re sure that’s what you really want,” Kendrick said, raising his tonfa into the air.   Just then, there was a loud crash coming from outside the room.   “What the f*cking hell…?”   Kendrick left Daffney’s room and he couldn’t believe his eyes.   The door to Suicide’s cell had been broken open.   Shocked and amazed, Kendrick looked around for any signs of Suicide.  

“He couldn’t have…   It’s not possible!” Kendrick said, looking at the opened door.

Kendrick then felt someone coming up from behind him.   He swung his tonfa back, and came face to face with Suicide, who had caught Kendrick’s arm.   Suicide, in one fluid motion, then breaks Kendrick’s arm like snapping a twig.   Kendrick screams, then falls to his knees, dropping his weapon.   Suicide hears the wood hit the marble floor, and looks down.   He picks up the tonfa as Daffney looks outside her door, and mercilessly beats Kendrick with the stick, over and over until both he and the tonfa are covered in blood.   For the first time in weeks, Suicide was free, free to vent his anger and hatred of Hulk Hogan on any available target, and now, knowing his wife was no longer safe, the rage that had built up inside Suicide needed to come out, and as the blood spattered off of Kendrick’s face, staining the white uniform Suicide had been forced to wear inside this prison-like facility, a feeling came over him, one unlike anything he had ever felt.   It was as if he was outside of his body, watching as someone else, someone who looked just like him, was beating Kendrick to death, and in that moment, a voice called to him, desperately trying to bring him back to sanity.

“STOP!!!” Daffney cried, no longer being able to handle the graphic violence she was witnessing.   “He can’t hurt anyone anymore!”

Suicide stopped and looked at the bloody tonfa, then, at the beaten mass on the floor, the remains of Brian Kendrick.   A look came upon his face, one of shock, perhaps, even horror, as if Frankie Kazarian, for the first time in years, had woken up and found himself trapped inside the body of a madman.   He dropped the tonfa, took a step back, then looked at Daffney.

“What have I done?” Kazarian said, no longer speaking in the growling voice that people associated with Suicide.

“Frankie?” Daffney asked.   “Is that… you?”

At that moment, the Amazing Red, who Kendrick had knocked out minutes before, began to wake up.  

“What’s happened to me?   What have I become?” Kazarian gasped, looking at the blood on his hands, on his uniform, unable to grasp what he had just done.  

“Kaz?” Red said, looking up to see the scene playing before him.   “Daffney!   Are you…?”

“RED!!!” Daffney shouted, dashing over to the fallen Red.   “Oh my God, are you okay?”

“Sure, I am,” Red said, attempting to stand up.   As his knee buckled, and he fell into Daffney’s arms, he looked at her and said, “Just a bad knee.   I’ll be fine.   Just need a minute.”

As Red said those words, a noise came from down the hall.   The Police had arrived.

“We don’t have a minute,” Daffney said, seeing the flashlights flickering down the hall.   “Come on.   We can get out this way.”   Helping Red to his feet, Daffney carried the former X Champion over to Frankie Kazarian, who was now sitting on the floor, looking at the carnage he had just inflicted on Brian Kendrick.   “Come on, Frankie!   We got to go!”

“They were right.   Daniels, Dinero… they were right.   Something really is wrong with me,” Kaz said, still in shock.

“Snap out of it, Frankie, the cops are almost here!” Daffney said, shaking Kaz.   “Whatever’s wrong, whatever’s going on in your head right now, it’s got to wait, okay?   People are danger.   Traci…”

“Traci!” Kaz said, snapping out of his trance.   “They have Traci!”   Kaz, with a determined look on his face, then got up and made his way towards the emergency stairwell on the other end of the hall.

“Frankie!   Where are you going?   We gotta…” Daffney said as Kaz ran off.   She looked at Red and said, “Come on, Red.”

“No,” Red said.   “My knee’s shot.   You’ll never make it.”

“I’m not just going to leave you here!” Daffney screamed.   “Now, come on!”

“It’s okay,” Red said.   “When I did this, I knew there’d be risks.   You go.   ODB’s outside with a car.   Should get you to safety.”

“Red,” Daffney pleaded.

“Just go!” Red shouted, heroically.   “I’ll take care of the cops.   You just get out of here, okay?”

With tears in her eyes, Daffney hesitated.

“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine,” Red said.   “Go.”

“I’m sorry,” Daffney said.

“GO!!!” Red shouted, pushing Daffney away as the cops got closer.   Daffney took one last look as Red struggled to his feet before running off after Kaz.   As she turns a corner, the cops came running towards the Amazing Red.

“FREEZE!!!” the lead officer shouted to Red.   Knowing he had to buy his friend at least one more moment, Red swallowed the pain, and made one last dash up the wall, diving on the cops as they approached.   Knocking them down, Red rolled off the pile of police, got back up to his feet, and tried to run back towards the elevator.   Unfortunately, his knee slowed him up too much, and a policeman tackled Red, holding him down, and handcuffing him right then and there.  

Outside, ODB waited inside her 1969 Dodge Charger, waiting.   Suddenly, a man approached her car, opened the door, and violently pulled ODB outside, dumping her onto the sidewalk.   As she looked up, she saw Kaz close the door and drive off.

“Hey, you son of a bitch!   That’s my car!” ODB screamed, throwing her flask at the Charger as it drove off.   “God damn it!”   Just then, Daffney made her way out the emergency exit, where she found ODB screaming and cursing.

“Where’s the car?” Daffney asked.

“Some a$$hole just stole it!” ODB yelled, kicking a nearby mailbox.   As she did so, a horde of police officers surrounded both ODB and Daffney.

“FREEZE!!!” the officers shouted.   “You’re both under arrest!”

“What the hell you arresting me for?   I just got car-jacked!” ODB screamed.

“Stop where you are and put your hands on your head!” an officer ordered.

“Oh, yeah, great justice system we got here!   I get car-jacked, and you arrest me, for what?   Kicking a mailbox?!   F*ck you!” ODB ranted.

As she said that, three officers came up behind ODB to restrain her.   She tried to fight them off, but one then dosed her with pepper spray.   ODB tried blindly to fight off the police, but soon, she, too was subdued.

Daffney, who had been through enough trauma today, simply gave herself up.   The best-laid plans of her friends aside, it was simply not enough.   Raven, MsChif, Red, they all failed.   But, by this point, Daffney had gotten used to disappointment.

Meanwhile, in Harlem, the Pope, D’Angelo Dinero was at home in his bedroom, tending to a young, female member of his congregation.  

“I hope you understand, young one, Pope here’s about to take you on a journey, a journey of enlightenment the likes of which, you may not…”

*CRASH*

Looking back over his shoulder, the Pope says to his lady-friend, “Perhaps you should stay here while Pope… Pope goes see what all that noise is about.”   Dinero grabs a robe and walks into his living room to see his door kicked down, and Frankie Kazarian, manically searching the Pope’s apartment.

“Where is it?” Kaz shouted, now growling in the manner usually associated with Suicide.

“What are you doing here?   I thought…” Pope said, amazed to see Kaz trashing his apartment.

“WHERE IS IT?” Kaz said, grabbing the Pope by his robe and slamming him into the nearest wall.

“Where is what?” Pope asked.

“My face,” Kaz said to him.   “Where’s my face?”

“You mean, your costume?” Pope clarified.

“WHERE IS IT?” Kaz screamed, slamming the Pope’s back against the wall a second time.

“Hold up, Kaz,” Pope said, calmly, hoping that, by remaining calm, he’d be able to calm Kaz as well.   “Pope’ll get it for you.”  

Kaz let go of the Pope, and Dinero slowly moved back into his bedroom as Kaz followed.   As they entered, Pope’s guest covered herself up.   Dinero said to her, “It’s okay, child.   Pope’s got this under control.”   Kaz, now fully back in Suicide mode, simply stared in disgust at the girl, whom he regarded as highly as any loose woman he had ever known.   Pope opened his dresser drawer, pulled out a small bag, and presented it to Kaz.  

“I believe this is what you’re looking for,” Dinero said.

Kaz took the bag and said, “Thank you.”   Kaz set the bag down, opened it, and pulled out Suicide’s mask.   He stared at it for a moment, intently, as an uncomfortable silence filled the room.

Pope broke that silence by saying, “What are you going to do now?”

Kaz put on the mask, and, in a deep, growling voice, he answered, “I end this.”

Check back for Chapter Eleven!

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