It can be something between friends, something to push each other on further than they normally would, edging each other to reveal the true potential within them.
However sometimes a rivalry can be something a whole lot more, something that stems from hatred and anger. It stems mostly from the main instance in which a man who turned his back entirely on another. A man who turned his back on everything he believed in, a man who turned his back on everything good in the world and the a man who sided with the common enemy, but gave no reason as to why he did it.
It doesn’t take a genius to realise that this is all about Jacob McKail.
The man who had always carried himself as a lone gunman.
The man who had always carried himself with such a sense of pride that he refused to ever ask for help, regardless of the situation. Hell. For a time, Jacob McKail had stood alone against The Affliction. He was a former Universal Champion, he had beaten Clinton Sage, and so it simply couldn’t be a case of fear.
Jacob McKail and The Affliction, just did not make any sense, it offered McKail nothing that he could not achieve on his own. He had proved this on a number of occasions. Where as ‘The Affliction’ they gained absolutely everything, they had acquired one of the few guys who had the potential to damage the unit.
Something that FUSE was not too well equipped to handle. FUSE has an amazing pool of talent, it truly does. Yet when it is broken down there were a handful of people who could maybe, just maybe damage ‘The Affliction.’
Most notably was ‘The Highwaymen’ headed by Rhine, a band of do-gooders who had pulled together and to their credit were slowly turning the tide in the battle, that was until McKail showed his true colours and revealed himself as ‘The Scourge, in a movement which rocked the foundations of FUSE. The revelation had left the numbers game vastly in favour of The Affliction once again and whilst they are talented collectively, the numbers would become too much, it just wouldn’t work, without some sort of change, The Highwaymen would fail.
That’s where the key lynchpins came together. The handful of other men, who had the potential to turn the tide in favour of The Highwaymen, the clichéd good guys and one of those was Ethan Frost.
Ethan Frost was a man who had the opportunity to help turn the tide, but the problem was that this war had just turned personal. Ok so the war had always been personal as far as Ethan Frost was concerned, he had been fighting The Affliction since day one., since the now departed Legacy had broken his arm at Sage’s command. From the very formation of The Affliction, Frost had sworn an oath to himself to destroy them, to do everything he could to hurt every one of them.
He had the track record, wins against every single member of The Affliction apart from El Diablo, there just wasn’t the consistency for Frost to back it up, he would win and lose in almost equal measure, the losses coming at key moments in his career, matches he really should win, such as his recent loss against Aimz. A trusted friend who had her own agenda against Lane Stevens and The Affliction. In the same instance though his hunger was not enough to push him forwards to tackle them head on.
It had taken Frost a considerable amount of time to re-find himself, to find his true personality and exactly what was missing. Whatever it was that was holding him back from striving forwards and tackling them head on.
Frost was not a leader.
He would never be able to rally the troops around him, he would never be the sort of person where people would listen to his ideas, agree that they were right, but not actually follow him to the ends of the earth, they would find something else to do. It had happened before, in the early days of ‘The Affliction’, Frost had tried to band together the best of the best to fight them.
John Covel
Jacob McKail
Ethan Frost
Fred Fusion.
What had happened there though?
It had all fallen through.
John Covel- Missing In Action.
Fred Fusion- Missing In Action
Jacob McKail- Siding with the enemy.
Ethan Frost – Standing alone against the world.
How differently could things have turned out, The Affliction could have been something entirely different, but instead nothing had changed. Sage still had a strangle hold on the Universal title and was showing no signs of letting it slip, Rhine would try as best he could, there would be no doubting that, but the odds was stacked heavily against him. Still they remained as a unit untouchable.
So it all leads to Uproar and a chance for change, for once more the tables to be turned in favour of the good guys, a chance for an old alliance that had been destroyed to be bought to a head, for reasons of betrayal to be revealed, at Uproar. Ethan Frost would face Jacob McKail and by the end of it all there would be answers
Answers as to why McKail had turned his back on everything
Answers as to why McKail hid under the mask of ‘The Scourge’ for so long.
And answers as to why Ethan Frost had finally found himself and had found exactly what he was looking for.
Ethan Frost was a few thousand miles away from Greensboro the battle ground that had been laid before him, the venue that would be torn apart by a months of pent up rage and aggression, months of frustration and anger would be realised in a flurry of fists and blood which would be splattered throughout the arena, the only real doubt in Frost’s mind right now was would he actually get there in time? You see Ethan Frost had been shipped off to Canada by STD, along with Joshua Kosidlo to represent FUSE in PRIME’s Jewel In The Crown tournament.
It had not been something which infused Frost with an incredible amount of motivation, but now he had finally got there, he had actually changed his mind. At first it had seemed as if there was a world of pressure on him with regards to this. For the first time in what felt like years Frost had been experiencing what felt like a vacation.
You could say what you wanted about Smitty, but the man truly looked after his staff, there had been no expenses spared with regards to their accommodation, the hotel was the sort of which you would find Tara Reid stumbling out of drunkenly one evening, except only classier. For the past three days Frost had been relaxing more than he had done in months, the troubles and stresses of FUSE had melted away.
Ok sure he was representing FUSE and that was important, but it was not the end of the world, Frost already knew the task that was ahead of him. Vangelus Olsig was a PRIME Hall Of Famer, he held a record for being the Intense Champion for the longest period in the company’s history. So essentially for Frost it was a win-win situation, if he managed to do the unthinkable and beat Olsig, it would shake PRIME to its very core and strike the sort of blow that STD was looking for, however if he lost, he would simply be seen as the guy who had come from another company an d tried his best.
“You know what Josh, I could really get used to this.” Ethan Frost was lying casually on his double bed that had been supplied by the hotel, complete with en-suite bathroom and a television larger than his impressive home cinema back at his apartment. This truly was living, on the other side of the room reclining casually on the sofa which was another plus point of his hotel room. To begin with Frost had been reluctant about spending time with Joshua, but the truth was as time had gone on, he had really begun to appreciate his company.
Joshua was a relatively new guy to FUSE, who was cutting through the majority of the roster like a hot knife through butter, but more importantly, to Frost at least he was a genuinely nice guy. Frost tried not to form any first impressions of people so he had no preconceptions about Joshua, but as had been noted he was a good guy and had managed to take his mind off of things, things which had been getting to him quite a lot lately.
For instance his psychotherapist Claire, but that was a different story entirely, for now it was all about chilling out and preparing mentally for his upcoming matches, against both Olsig and McKail.
“I know what you mean, too bad we have to fly back straight after Revolution, still never-mind eh, let’s enjoy it while we can.” Joshua rose from the sofa and walked around the room slightly, walking over to the window which looked out over a small green park, or at least it would have been green if it wasn’t covered for a thin blanket of snow, which clung to the trees like a newborn child clinging to her mothers breast. He stayed at the window for a moment and spent a few second taking it all in, it was a whole new world up here, everything just seemed to be that much more relaxed it was an entirely different walk of life.
Frost had noted it too, as had been mentioned before this was becoming a vacation for him and he was really dreading the flight back home, returning to his troubles and the strife that his real life held, but he also knew that he couldn’t run away forever, sooner or later he would need to face up to his actions and the consequences of them, the days were ticking to where he would have to face a significant figure in his past.
McKail…
“So how do you think you will do?” Josh was now pacing up and down the room, he knew where he was headed conversation wise but wasn’t sure how it was going to end up, Frost watched his pacing for a few moments but then thought little of it before sighing slightly and sitting up on his bed.
“I’ll do what I can at the end of the day it’s Olsig we’re talking about here, he’s good, we know PRIME is trying to get rid of us early.” It was an honest answer, despite the fact that the draw had been in legitimate in every way possible, except anyone that saw the draw could come to their own conclusions over exactly how legitimate everything really was. However Frost’s mind set was stopped when Joshua jumped in once more bringing the conversation to almost a standstill.
“I wasn’t actually talking about that match, I was talking about McKail…”
A subtle silence fell across the room as the atmosphere changed noticeably, since the card for Uproar had been announced, Kosidlo had been trying to brooch the subject with Ethan, but ever time he had said something, or tried to get a little bit more information from him, Frost had closed up, dismissed everything.
“Look lets not go there alright, me and McKail it was something I had hoped to leave in the past but it’s something I’m going to have to face. It’s as simple of that. McKail turned his back on everything that he believed in and in doing so he made a lot of dangerous enemies, none more so than me.” There was a considerable amount of hatred in Frost’s voice as he spoke the words, to say that it was unreasonable anger would just be wrong though, after all that McKail and The Affliction had put FUSE through, let alone Frost, he had every right to be angry and Josh was not about to question that fact.
“I just don’t understand why he did what he did, he always seemed so level headed.” This was of course based on what Josh knew of McKail, which in all truth wasn’t all that much, but it was a valid point, Jacob Mckail had always seemed like a level headed guy, and Frost had no idea exactly what the hell was going in McKail’s head.
“He was, he was a lone gunman who didn’t rely on anyone, but in a way it’s nice to see such a change in him.” For the first time since talking about McKail. Frost allowed himself a little smile, which in all truth took Joshua back somewhat, it was strange enough to see that Frost actually cared about anything to do with McKail, what really shocked Joshua was that he was happy to see a change in McKail, he spent a good few minutes trying to figure out exactly what Frost meant before he built up the courage to actually ask him. It wasn’t that he was scared of Frost far from it, he just wanted to tread carefully was all, Frost could be extremely volatile at time, and he didn’t want to be a reason for a Frost explosion.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because the person I’m going to break isn’t the person I knew, the person I respected. The Jacob McKail that I am going to make beg for mercy means nothing to me, he’s just another Affliction target, someone else to add to my list of victories against. Anyone that sides with The Affliction will be defeated it’s as simple as that.” The look of determination on Frosts eyes as every syllable was launched filled with hate was tinted was rage and anger, an anger that he would need to transform into motivation if he was to have any chance of defeating McKail.
If Frost could get through Olsig without exploding then he would have a chance, just a chance that he would be able to score a win where it really mattered.
Against a man that had fucked him over.
But there was plenty to happen before then, the beginning of Frost’s PRIME adventure was scheduled before he could even allow himself to fully think about McKail, but it was always going to be in the back of his mind, he couldn’t allow himself to forget about him completely.
“Come on Frost, you’ve got a hall of famer to beat.” Joshua smiled at Frost, realising exactly what he needed was not to be interrogated about McKail, the two were on a quickly ending vacation what would happen at Uproar, would happen there was nothing that Frost or Joshua could say to change the events that were still to come, it was destiny, what was going to happen would happen.
“Josh….thanks.”
“No, problem.”