FADE IN

        Darkness. A lone locker room, void of bright lights. Patches of smoke bellow through it, creating an even denser point of view from the camera's position.

         From the back corner, music slips into the stillness. Something slow, with a driving bass line. "Can you feel the force? Can you feel the heat, rising from the load". The lyrics repeated over and over again.

         A match was struck. It lit onto something, and then went sailing across the dark stillness. It landed on the ground, burning strongly, until it was overcome and put out by lack of fusable length.

         Above the music in the background, the sound of something burning could be heard. An exhale. A patch of smoke, rising through the room. And then, a voice sounded over the setting

         "It's about to happen. Are you ready?"

         A pause. An inhale was heard. And then, again, the voice spoke.

         "It's about to happen. Are they ready?"

         With that, a click was heard, and a flash from a sole bulb burned on. Zero stood under the light, cigarette in hand, his hand slowly coming down from the overhead bulb he had turned on. The light shown what the room truly looked like. Stone white walls, with only two chairs sitting in the room. Against the back wall, a small portable cd player was operating, but other than those small items, the room was barren and void of any objects.

         Zero slowly sat back down into the chair, hunching forward, taking a drag from his cigarette. He exhaled, and looked into the camera, as the view zoomed in slowly into a frame of his face.

Zero

         "You had to get involved. This was between Havoc and I, but you had to get involved, Nocturnal."

         Zero exhaled a patch of smoke, and quickly arose from his chair, pacing back and forth across the narrow, white walled room.

        

Zero

"Thigs are even worse than this. Let's think back. Havoc gets double teamed by both Blade and Flair. They were taking my own prey. For that reason alone, those will be dealt with. But you, Nocurnal, took things a step further. When I got involved, you ran in. What did you do? You held me to let Havoc hit me. You had to get involved, didn't you?"

         He stopped. He looked back into the camera's view with an expression as if something had went off in his head. He took another drag from his cigarette, but cocked his head just slightly.

        

Zero

"Remember March 6, 1999? That was the day I first entered HEW. I had just came off a few months from the HEW training camp. And you, Nocturnal, were the HEW world champion. Look forward to over a year and a half later, and what do we have? The first time, after all that the HEW has went through, that you and I will face each other.

         Was it better off leaving us in our own seperate corners of the playing field? No one will ever know. You got involved in my corner."

         He slowly walked back to his chair, and rested his hands atop the back of it. He looked down at the seat of it, then looked to his right out of the corner of his eye. Without moving his head forward, he merely darted his eyes back forward, looking, once again, directly into the camera.

        

Zero

"See Nocturnal, my issue is not soley on you. My issues lay with Havoc, as they have for the past year. But this is not one of those bogus "respect" matches. There is no respect between you and I. Nor is it a "I got booked in this match, so here's my short promo to make something of it" match. You see, you're aligned with Havoc. J-Smooth, is aligned with Havoc. And for that mistake alone, look at Smooth now. Havoc will be the last to suffer, but I still have one person left in the equation. You."

         He reached around the chair, grapping the front part of it, and twirled it around backwards, and sat down in it. He thumped a set of dashes that dangled from his cigarette, and then took a final drag from the almost near filter of a cigarette. Throwing the cigarette down onto the tile floor, he looked back up into the camera.

        

Zero

"There's not much to be said to you, Noc, that isn't already being said by various viewers of the HEW. Some see this as a monumental match. It isn't. Some see this as something that was bound to happen one day or another. Possibly. Just as a match with someone such as Prowler is bound to happen sooner or later. But, does that mean it's an event? No. It's just another brick in the water."

         He tooked a long, deep breath, and then slowly released a sigh.

        

Zero

"You're sinking faster than the skipping stone will ever fall, and I'm here just to . . . break that current wide open."

         He put his hands together, as they dangled from his shoulders, which rested against the back of the chair. Closing his eyes slightly, and by doing so, allowing them to darken under the eyebrows, and spoke on final message to Nocturnal.

        

Zero

"You've lived, Noc. You've breathed. Now, it's time to take that last, final step. Nocturnal, it's time to die. And then, it will be you, who will need to beware the nighttime."

         Zero raised up from the chair, and grabbed the switch to the sole light. He glanced back at the camera, and then with a firm tug, the room fell back down into darkness, with just the sounds coming from the cd player being heard.

         As the camera was fading out, though, a faint "heh" was heard. And then, the view

         FADED TO STATIC