Solstice was on the horizon. That was the next pay-per-view coming up. The 7 winners would get a championship opportunity. This was for the Hardcore Championship, so it was not going to be simple. It was going to be a 7 way Hell in a Cell match. As a heel who put him out of commission, I obviously got offered a qualifying match. So did Alex. I did not need help to defeat my opponent. Suzie and Robbie went out to manage Alex. They got him to win. That secured his spot. The next week, Mark Tremor was up against Kyle Zachary, a member of The Ravagers. Both of them had tagged with Percy against us. I knew what I had to do. I went out during the match and made sure that Mark was able to get a basic schoolboy pin. Mark ended up winning the match from that. I wanted there to be a real weak link. This was the first time that I was being offered a title shot in the company. There was no way I was passing this up. Alex was also weak, but we were teammates in the same stable. Even if he was a jobber, it was better to have someone watching my back out there. We were all friends.
Chris Redfield, the other member of The Ravagers, won his Hardcore qualifier the next week. I faced off against both of them. Neither were too impressive. That did not mean they couldn't beat Will and Jamal. Speaking of them, they put their titles on the line against 2 pairs of jobber new hires in back to back weeks. The third week saw a massive upset as a guy named Jekyll Bombard won the next qualifier in his debut match in EWL. He looked like a real daredevil. The fourth week of the month saw the last 2 Hardcore qualifying matches. They were some random wrestlers that I did not really care about. Luke Rasdac and John Ender of Dynamite were named the #1 contenders for the tag titles. It was important to me. Dynamite was the team Will and Jamal won the titles off of in the first place. This was going to a rematch. Neither of them had a rematch clause in their contracts since it took this long and they still had to earn it. I wanted them to lose to my team though. Suzie would make sure that this happened. Robbie was defending against both Ceasar Fist and Barry Carlisle as well.
Quietly, the stage had been set for Child Labor. Suzie was the only member not on the card. She would be helping in the tag title match. Alex and I would work together. I really wanted to capture the Hardcore Championship. As a brand title, this would be perfect to me. Robbie also had his title match against 2 jobbers. We had a very real opportunity to dominate. Clearly, we were the most hated stable on the brand. We might have been the most hated in the entire company. Robbie, Jamal, Will and Alex were a bit sad at this turn of events. They liked winning. Winning was great. Being so hated was a major downside. This was not what they wanted when they first joined the company. Robbie, Will and Jamal could at least comfort themselves with legendary title runs. They put on another title defense as "warm up". Coincidentally, it was against Mark Tremor and one of his little jobber buddies that he found to spite us. His name was Keegan Jackson. He was no match for the team of heels though. They were defeated. This was their fourth defense. Solstice would be their fifth. I was ready.
