The Seed of Revolution
“I'm going to tell you something a little... embarrassing.”
“What's this all of a sudden?”
I'd just come back from lunch with Greg when I caught the serious look on Russell's face and tilted my head, puzzled for a moment. After all, the only reason I'd escaped here was to get away from Greg, who'd gone off rambling the moment he heard that Orton was still asleep.
“I'm serious, Sin. Just hear me out.”
“You're always serious.”
“More than usual.”
“F-fine.”
He had real force behind him today.
Russell fixed me with those grave eyes, and after glancing around for a moment, I ducked into the locker room. We took a seat in the empty space and started talking.
And by the time Russell finished, I felt my emotions twist into a complicated knot.
In a nutshell: he felt inferior to me.
He's saying that out loud?
No, I mean, that was a good thing, obviously. But actually hearing the sincerity behind it left me feeling awkward in a way I couldn't quite name.
“This is where I am right now. The feud with Orton isn't going well, so I feel like I'm falling behind. And on top of that — you're the one who retired my uncle, aren't you?”
“W-well, yes.”
“That honor was supposed to be mine. I know it couldn't be helped, but separate from all that, there's a feeling inside me that I can't compromise on.”
“I see...”
Should I apologize? But just as that thought crossed my mind, Russell kept going.
“That's why I'm saying this — because I want to stand on equal footing with you.”
“With my feelings?”
“What if we write this into a script? A turn heel.”
“.........”
My eyes went wide. It felt like someone had swung a hammer into the back of my skull.
The heir of the Hart family, turning heel?
Truly — no, absolutely.
It's killing me. As I'd said before, I favored scripts built on the foundation a wrestler actually stood on. Having inherited the legacy of Greg and John, I was slated to run as a babyface for the foreseeable future.
Which meant I needed an opponent.
A magnificent one — someone tied to this era, with genuine grounds to feud against me.
“...So that's what you are.”
“What do you think?”
“How did you even come up with this? It's honestly brilliant.”
“Well, obviously. I actually feel that way about you.”
“Ah...”
For a second I wondered if the whole confession had been an act — but it wasn't, which was exactly why the air between us suddenly turned uncomfortable.
Not to mention, this guy had just spent the last stretch viciously cursing out Orton, a fellow wrestler, comparing him to a dried dog turd. And it had been genuine.
Great. Now every time I look at Orton, I'm going to picture dried dog poop.
Then again, I'd had a vague sense all along that those two personalities would never mesh. Russell treated wrestling as his dream. Orton treated it as a job. So the smart play would have been to come down somewhere to the middle and talk it out — but apparently, that was a hard ask for Russell.
If it had been me, I'd have marched up to Orton and said, pull this off or you're fired, and made it happen one way or another.
Although, to be fair, the guy had been putting up decently consistent reactions lately — I'd gotten sucked back into him again. Still, handled the right way, this could turn into something spectacular.
“Sin? What's going on?”
“First things first — let's get the... dog poop. Sorry, I mean Orton. Bring him here.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Because a turn heel is boring on its own.”
With a quick grin, I pushed open the locker room door and stepped out — and right on cue, there was Orton shuffling in, muttering under his breath.
“Damn it, why's the guy who's retiring today suddenly show up and start lecturing me?”
“Orton.”
“Oh. Sin.”
“How's Greg treating you?”
“...Don't get me started. If I want my career to last, apparently I need to drill my habits into shape — the man won't stop nagging.”
“He's not wrong, though.”
Russell popped up beside me.
“You live entirely by convenience. Keep coasting like that and you'll be culled, no question.”
Uh, actually, in my past life Orton was the one who came out on top in the end.
“What's your problem?! Hey! We all gotta eat, so a guy deserves a break sometimes!”
“You take breaks every single day.”
“Do not~!”
“...O-okay, let's all calm down.”
I stepped in before the two of them could devolve into a full-on childish brawl.
“Orton, come on in.”
“What now, more work talk? Ahh, I just wanna sleep a little longer...”
“Word is the company's planning to start cutting anyone who isn't producing results.”
At that, Orton scrambled inside in a panic.
The truth was, if you knew the right buttons to press, he was the easiest one of all to control. The catch was that with Russell's personality, he'd sooner reject the whole idea of pressing buttons and brute-force his way through.
Either way.
The three of us got to work in that empty locker room, trading ideas back and forth.
“Russell Hart joins Revolution.”
“...Me?”
“...Him?”
“Yes! Isn't it great?”
“Then what about Hunter?”
“He gets ousted!”
“Why?”
“Because there's a beautiful excuse built right in. Ousting the king is what a Revolution is, isn't it?”
“I wonder what Hunter himself will think.”
“Call him! He'll love it!”
My heart was somehow pounding in the best possible way.
It was a magnificent idea. If we played it right, this script could carry the entire year after Wrestle Imperium.
The only problem was that for it to truly land, the changes had to start with today's retirement ceremony itself.
It was around two in the afternoon.
Can we pull it off?
With that thought, I immediately called Hunter. Not long after, he showed up at the locker room with Michaels, who'd been nearby.
“Now what?”
“I've got an idea that'll kill. ...Oh! Mr. Head Writer! Come here a second!”
I even flagged down the head of the writing team, who was passing by behind Hunter. Hearing the commotion, people began drifting toward the locker room one by one.
Feeling the space getting cramped, I just started the discussion out in the corridor instead.
“So, uh, Hunter. Have we settled on how your return is going to look?”
“Obviously with Revolu—”
“Garbage.”
“What?”
“You stacked up plenty of respect before you left, so let's try it as a babyface!”
“Look, that's...”
“I've actually been thinking about this myself.”
“Head Writer?”
“He's been a heel for what, four years now? I figured it's about time for a turn face.”
“B-but then what happens to Revolution?”
“For a revolution to happen, the king has to die. That's the rule.”
I put a hand on Flair's shoulder beside me as I went on.
“There's a prophet. And beneath him, the warriors rise up to oust the king.”
“Hmm... but wouldn't that make Revolution the revolutionaries — the good guys?”
“No, because this piece of trash is going to ruin all of it.”
I called Russell over.
“That trash would be me.”
The guy, having already heard the pitch, nodded with total confidence.
“You...?”
“Russell turns heel and joins Revolution. Doesn't that just make sense? His own uncle, Greg, just went out on a loss to his rival.”
“Hmm, that's awfully sudden...”
“Keep going.”
The head writer's face had gone serious.
And that was when I knew — Russell's idea, layered with our additions, was going to work. Everyone was throwing in their own ideas, absorbing this script with genuine interest.
Today was the last of it.
With that thought weighing on him, sentimental as ever, Greg was walking the entire arena, soaking it in, preparing himself for his final appearance. But at some point, he noticed the people around him had thinned to nothing.
Wondering vaguely what was going on, he rounded a corner — and came face to face with the last person he expected.
The chairman of the company himself. Bart Maxen.
“I never imagined the first person I'd run into while looking for someone would be you.”
“You too, Boss?”
“Yes. What in the world is going on?”
Bart clicked his tongue lightly. The 'people' he'd been looking for, of course, meant the executives — the ones he could actually discuss operations with.
Greg considered for a moment, then started calling the people he knew. But most of them weren't picking up, and his unease was growing by the second when—
“Uh, Greg?”
The only one who finally answered was the resident voice of reason on Burning Kong — Booker-Lee.
“Booker, where are you right now?”
“Right now? The young fellas are spinnin' some wild story, and man, that fantasy's so good I couldn't stop listenin'.”
“What?”
Greg's eyes went wide. Bart, watching him strangely, waited until Greg hung up before demanding an answer with a panicked face.
“What is it?”
“Everyone's... conspiring. The whole lot of them. And the two of us are the only ones left out.”
“Conspiring about WHAT!”
“Let's go see.”
Unlike the agitated Bart, Greg turned back toward the arena with an almost serene expression. Today was the day his twenty-year career would close, so time had felt strangely suspended all afternoon.
“Explain yourself, Greg.”
“Well — it seems everyone's planning to pull something grand at my retirement ceremony.”
“The show is six hours away! What could they possibly be changing at this point!”
“We used to do the same thing, sir.”
Greg smiled.
They had. Ten years ago — no, fifteen?
“Back when I was a cocky Canadian punk, the moment I had a good idea I'd march right up to you, ask for your blessing, and slap it straight into the show.”
“And now you bring this up.”
“Well, it's the kind of thing you're only allowed to say on your way out. Isn't it?”
“...I always believed you had a few more good years in you.”
“I could say the same to you, frankly. And here we are.”
“I mean it.”
“I know you do. But squeezing out the cheers of the men still in their prime was never the style of this Greg Hart.”
“That's what makes it a shame.”
Greg chuckled. Bart's words had been sincere. True, in the years after his peak had passed, Greg Hart hadn't exactly been treasured around here. But Greg knew Bart hadn't held him back out of any personal spite.
So he set the regret — and all the rest of it — aside, and let himself feel gratitude toward the boss he'd worked under for so long. Even if he could already see, plain as day, how much grief the young revolutionary carrying the new era was about to put him through.
Like a pair of old war veterans, the two men traded rambling war stories as they crossed the arena floor — and before long, they spotted a cluster of people talking at the far end of the corridor.
“Are you kidding me?! If Greg pisses himself at his own retirement ceremony, he won't be remembered as Greg Hart — he'll be remembered as Greg the Piss-Pants! Does that even SOUND like a plan to you?!”
“......”
That felt like a rather harsh thing to walk in on.
“What on earth are they talking about over there?”
“Unfortunately, I don't believe this will be a dignified retirement ceremony.”
“Will it be all right?”
“If it helps the ratings, sir.”
With a wry smile, Greg called over the one man standing farthest from the crowd, listening in from the edge — John Michaels.
“John. What is all this?”
“Ah — the whole thing's moving toward Russell Hart turning heel. The script's being written as we speak.”
“Russell?”
“Yes, though I'd get the details from the man himself... What do you think, senpai?”
“Hm. Not bad, honestly? The key will be the persuasiveness — why he turns heel.”
“And then the Revolution membership on top of that.”
“WHAT?!”
Bart shouted.
“With Hunter getting ousted. And Hunter turning face.”
“WhaaaAAAAT?!”
“E-easy, Bart. Easy.”
“And this last part is still just my own thinking.”
John Michaels stepped in close and murmured a single line to Greg.
“What if Sin and Hunter teamed up — and D-X came back to life?”
“...And you?”
“I already told you, didn't I? Going through all this... it's left me feeling cleansed somehow.”
Which was exactly why the will to come back had drained away. He wanted to leave the future to them.
Having laid his feelings bare, Michaels watched Sin at the center of the crowd, holding court with a fire in his voice, and added a few more words.
“Though his technique, his whole presentation — it'll need polishing, refining to match the man he's become.”
“You think so?”
“Yes. Because Sin isn't the delinquent from the back alleys anymore. He's a great professional wrestler now.”
And he wasn't wrong about that.
Greg and John studied Sin's figure with expressions of genuine fascination.