You still suck

It is the moonlight through the bare window that illuminates the master bedroom in Stygian’s Boulder, CO home. Lilith and Lilah lie on either side of Stygian. Lilah is face down on a pillow, glistening with sweat in the moonlight and drawing very shallow breaths, Lilith is lying on her back, also glistening, shuddering and clutching the sheets with a white-knuckle grip, and breathing erratically. Stygian flops over from his side and folds his arms behind his head, catching his breath. He looks left.

Stygian: Lilah, you’re going to smother yourself.

With great effort, she lifts and manages to cock her head to one side and has a dreamy, vacant smile. Stygian chuckles and turns to Lilith, who rolls over on her side to face her husband, and is still shaking.

Lilith: Okay…okay…she takes a few deep breaths to gather herself…wow…you…really are…back…

Stygian: Indeed.

Stygian sits up, looking down at the two girls, still trying to find a regular breathing pattern.

Stygian: I need a cigar and a drink, you girls okay?

Lilah weakly manages a “thumbs-up” and Lilith nods. Stygian slips off the end of the bed and opens a drawer. He pulls out a pair of charcoal and black “Hef” pajamas and slips into the pants in one smooth motion as he stands up. He pulls the jacket around and knots it off as he stalks to the bedroom door.

Lilith: Don’t stay up too late. Our flight leaves at noon.

Stygian: I’ll be ready. Are you ready? You haven’t been back to Utah in 8 years.

Lilith: I’ll be fine. She sighs, reaching down to pull the sheets up over herself. She shakes her head. God, I do not want to be Dan Alexander.

Stygian: That’s okay, neither does he.

Stygian navigates to the stairs in the darkness of the house with relative ease, he relies firmly on the handrail along the balcony for guidance, still not used to the new house and he counts the stairs aloud until he hits the bottom. Once he’s downstairs he gropes his way through the living room until he hits the dining room. He runs his fingertips along a green switch, adjusting a digital slider until an output reads 65%, and the lights in the dining room come to life slowly, presumably to 65% of their functional capacity. Stygian has more than enough light to see into the kitchen. He pads bare feet on the hardwood floor, navigating to the stainless steel refrigerator, the left side of which he opens. He bypasses the reservoir of ice cubes ready-made and retrieves a white drawstring bag. Leaving the freezer open, he reaches into a cabinet, groping bottles until a familiar shape is found, and he draws down a bottle of Johnnie Walker: Black Label. He reaches into a lower shelf in the same cupboard and pulls out a clear, stout glass. Stygian sets the glass down and undoes the draw strings of the bag. He tips the bag, carefully dropping four stones into the glass and the closing the bag again. He pours scotch into the glass, half-filling it, before he replaces the bottle in the cupboard and the bag of stones in the freezer, which he finally closes. Taking his glass of scotch he moves back to the dining room and over to a small stand by the sliding glass doors. He opens a humidor on the stand and fingers down a neatly-arranged row of cigars. He flips one into the air and catches it in his teeth, chuckling.

Stygian: Never have a camera set up when I do that. He snorts. Probably couldn’t do it on camera if I tried. Aw well.

He slides open a drawer on the end of the humidor and retrieves a match before sliding it closed again. Then he grabs a shining gold cigar clipper, snips the end of the cigar like a circumcision from hell, and returns it to its place. He shifts the match in-between the fingers of his glass-holding hand and opens the sliding glass door with his empty hand. Upon realizing precisely how cold the air outside is (the scientific term is balls-freezingly cold, Stygian looks over at the couch in the living room pensively.

Stygian: Well, she wouldn’t want me catching cold before a match. I gotta think Tina will understand.

So Stygian takes glass, match, scotch and cigar and plops down on the couch.

Stygian: Let’s see…

He grabs a clear tablet form the coffee table and brings it to life with a touch. Immediately his eyes are drawn to a blinking Gmail logo amidst the sea of icons. He taps it, and is taken to his Gmail inbox to be informed he has a hit on his Google Alert for Dan Alexander.

Stygian: Danny boy, what did you do? Oh, a video. Hey, between listening to Dan Alexander talk and drinking some Black Label will help me get to sleep just fine.

Stygian grabs the remote and turns on the 56” LG mounted on the wall. He shifts the input over to HDMI 3 and slides his finger along the tablet, “throwing” Dan Alexander’s video to the tv. He presses play, and sits there, slack jawed—nearly losing the cigar—with his head tilted to one side.

Stygian: Sweet fucking Christ, it’s worse than the last one. … Oh Jesus, Dan; “me and Tori are still together”, oh fuck sakes write your promos out in Word. It’ll find basic grammar mistakes! … Man, you need a writer, badly. … Or do you have a writer? … Why do you suddenly sound like Kevin kayfabe? … Is Kevin Kayfabe your writer? … Oh, serious Dan face, here we go! … Oh no, if I mention Tori one more time, I’m in trouble. … Wow, that was pathetic.

Stygian looks at the tablet’s pc clock projected on the corner of the screen.

Stygian: Plenty of time to sleep, my flight doesn’t leave for thirteen hours. I should really respond to this. No, I shouldn’t dignify it with a response. The guy just threatened to beat me up on the playground if I slipped his girlfriend a note. This jerk-off is using a laptop webcam and movie maker to make adolescent threats and post them to Facebook. I shouldn’t respond to this…

Stygian takes a long sip of his scotch.

Stygian: Fuck it, I’m bored.

Stygian starts doing that half whisper thing people do when they’re setting up a task, talking to himself.

Stygian: New Video. Synch to Premier. Use external camera. Camera GABE_HOUSE03. Stygian points to a black dome structure protruding from the ceiling just above the TV. That’s 03, right? Fuck…preview. Yeah, that’s 03. Integrate GABE_HOUSE03. Open Premier. Save as raw output? Yes. Set delay, ten seconds. Alright. I can have this up in no time.



Stygian sits in black and charcoal “Hef” pajamas in the living room of his Boulder, Colorado home. He has a half-glass of scotch, knowing him, Johnnie Walker, in one hand, and a clipped, unlit cigar in the other. He takes a swig of the scotch, whiskey stones are visible in the bottom of the glass for a split second before he sets the glass down and looks into the camera.

Stygian: How do you like that? I wired up my whole house for audio and video. It’s kind of like Paisley Park. One person in the audience over 25 got that, the rest of you don’t even know who Prince is, do you? He was a big pop star in the 80’s. Go look him up. He was like a cross between KISS and Michael Jackson, and in a good way. Anyway, Prince built this huge fucking mansion. I know this house looks big, but, you could fit five of this house in his living room. Anyway, big fuck-off house called Paisley Park. And he built the house in such a way that every room is wired for sound, and every room in the house can be used as a studio. So if Prince is taking a shit, and he comes up with a song, he can record it before he wipes his ass. And if you’ve heard pretty much everything from “Crystal Ball” on, he was recording a lot of shit, so, that explains it. Anyway, it’s not a Prince thing where I rigged up my house so that I can cut promos anytime I want. I actually don’t plan to spend a lot of time here, I’ve just been really lucky, actually. The IWF travel schedule at the end of the year was fortunately light, and it was mostly in the inter-mountain west, so I’ve been lucky to be able to get home a lot over the last few weeks. Hell, the show is in Salt Lake this week. That’s an hour flight, roughly. Stygian smiles. No it wasn’t a promo thing, it was a porno thing. I know, I know, there will be attempts made to try and get the footage. Let’s face it, I’m a pretty good, god handsome man, I get it all the time. And Lilith and Lilah…that’s Lilith and Lilah Dan…are beautiful women. I mean, you’d have to be blind not to see it. They may not be the kinds of women you would go after, for whatever reason. Maybe you’re more into asses than boobs. Maybe legs are your thing. Maybe you’re like Dan Alexander and you lose interest in them once they receive a high school diploma. Whatever the reason. But you have to admit, they’re gorgeous. I mean, Kim Kardashian isn’t really my idea of a good time, but she’s beautiful, you know. So yeah, we rigged up the house with video and audio, and someone might try to get that footage? Good luck. All of that goes to a vault buried far, far down and you need biometric security to even call up a password screen. However, it is nice that when I want to, I can use it for a promo. I get something of a professional look because the quality of even home cameras is insane, and I’m something of a wizard in Adobe Premier. I edit most of my vignettes myself, even the ones shot by IWF cameras. That’s why the all look the same, have the same feel, except with the Old Spice Guy happens by. His aura of awesome supersedes anything I could even hope to do, so I just let it go, one take, perfect every time. I edit my own interviews and I write them, and I say I write them, but really I have natural talent. I have charm, charisma, humor, presence, I really just get in front of the camera and go. I don’t need a writer. Dan Alexander should invest in a writer. Because Danny boy was mad. Danny boy was angry. Danny boy went and looked up old Kevin Kayfabe promos and copied them word for word. You want to do this, Dan? Let’s talk, then.

Stygian grabs a match out of his pocket, strikes it on his stubble and pulls the flame down to the tip of his cigar and puffs until the end glows cherry red, and smoke wisps from the end. Stygian takes a big puff in, and exhales a gout of smoke with a grin.

Stygian: Strictly speaking? I’m not supposed to smoke these in the house. But it’s so cold out there, that my balls literally tried to crawl up my asshole to get warm. Really I smoke so few of these; that one in the house isn’t going to hurt. I hope. Oh well, better to ask for forgiveness than permission, I always say. Danny, after the second attempt at trying to say anything relevant at all, I advise you to get a writer. Really, these pieces of drivel you tack up? They’re awful. Dan, go back to any time in recorded history where you’ve been on the air with a live microphone in your hand. The fact that you can hear a pin drop in the arena? That’s not a good thing. They aren’t showing respect, they’re bored out of their minds. That sound you always hear whenever you get the stick? It’s not polite applause. It’s the sound of twenty-thousand people heading out to take a bathroom break. Dan you’ve always been terrible at speaking. That’s why you were a big star in Japan, Ocelot, and middle of the road guy in the US. Remember, it took you longer to get a fake world title in the mail than it took you to lose the real world title. Get a writer. Please tell me these videos were things you wrote yourself. Please tell me you aren’t paying someone to feed you the unmitigated drivel you spew into your laptop lens. Because if there is someone writing for you, I know who he is. Why would you hire Kevin Kayfabe to write for you? Actually Dan, I couldn’t tell in that last video…is Kayfabe writing for you, or did he shove his arm up your ass and work you like a puppet? Kevin…why you give Dan old promos! They didn’t work for you. Do you think if they come out of a man marginally more handsome than you, that they’ll sound better? Oh no, make jokes about Lilith and Lilah. Oh no, talk about being the one obstacle who can slow me down when nobody else has. Oh no, talk about how Stygian’s all talk. Oh no, make stupid threats. Oh no, talk about all the people I’ve beaten who Stygian hasn’t had a match with yet. Jesus Christ! There are nineteen year olds in the Faroe Islands for whom English is a second language in e-feds who can write up better material. Just find someone through your twitter feed and drop a line. “Hey man, I have to shoot a vignette for a match against Stygian. He’s a natural on camera, can you at least write something so I don’t sound like a special needs kid quoting Wolverine?” Tell you what, Dan. Bring Kevin Kayfabe to the ring with you Saturday. I’ll beat the money he stole form you out of him after I’m done kicking your ass.

Stygian: Go to…what is it? @DanFnAwesome? Dan Effin Awesome? What are you, a twelve year old on X-Box Live? No, they actually come up with something more creative than Dan Effin Awesome. You know Dan, if I had the wrong twitter name? how did you get my message when I told you to go fuck yourself? Maybe because it was a metaphor and I didn’t actually bother to mention you on Twitter. Christ, I had the match of the year and according to several polls I’m the man people most want to see get in the ring with Brandon MacDonald. Not you, me. Why the hell would I want your twitter account anywhere near mine? Why would I want to be associated with the wet fart your career has become? Anyway, let’s see this shit.

Stygian grabs a clear tablet off the coffee table, and his scotch. He sips it while navigating the tablet.

Stygian: You can’t see this because of the position of the camera, but I’ve got that Cloud thing, I’m seeing my tablet on my TV. It’s awesome. Okay, oh hey. @DanFnAwesome. This isn’t yours. It doesn’t have the…oh I see it. “Partially Verified?” What the hell does that mean? Wait, there’s fine print, let me blow that up. “While we can verify that this is the Twitter account of IWF wrestler Dan Alexander, we cannot verify that he is awesome.” Et tu Twitter? Stygian smirks. Ah, here’s one from Tori: “Good luck sweetie.” How cute. Here’s one from Brock? “@DCBROCKLESNAR: Everyone watch @DanFnAwesome’s last match Saturday. @The_Black_Dragon gonna destroy him.” @SWAG: “I’ll save u the bed next to mine at the icu.” That’s touching. Several fans hope I can at least beat you badly enough to send you back to Japan, if not retire you from the sport. @MarkMaddenX: “See what happens when a real star meets an IWC hero. @The_Black_Dragon finally puts @DanFnAwesome in his place.” That’s no surprise. Mark’s pretty much loved me since I did his show a year ago, and hated you since IWF started forcing you down our throats. I take it back, Dan. I should have come to your twitter a long time ago.

Stygian: Dan, really, you should start growing straw for all the straw men you work with. By the way, go back and watch my last video, Lilith painstakingly explains the Straw Man to Lilah in terms so simple, even you can understand it. The straw man isn’t you, the straw man is attacking an indefensible position that has the thinnest connection to your opponent’s actual position. Like attacking me for being 30 because I attacked you for being 29…except I didn’t attack you for being 29. I said you were at a time in your life when it was natural to be introspective and take stock. You see we have a ten-base counting system, so even though time is arbitrary and after a certain point it simply serves to remind you how many sunrises and sunsets you’ve seen, psychologically it’s a milestone when we are at the point where we mark the passing of another decade. I wasn’t implying at any point that somehow you’re older than I am at 29 when I’m 30. That’s the straw man you attacked, but it’s not what I said. I said that you had come to a point in your life where it was natural to undergo a crisis of conscience, especially when you make your life in a combat sport and you know at 30, you’ve reasonably got more days behind you than ahead of you. I also said that it was clear you were at that point in your life. I also said I had come to that point in my life as well, after being buried alive by Kaden Kessler, having Lilith question if I should still be wrestling and even consider leaving me if I didn’t take stock and decide what was important in my life. I was in the middle of my crisis of confidence when we had our first match. I also overcame that crisis. I found my path and I embarked on the next phase of my life. I won the High Impact Title and put James Shark through a table. You took the month off and teased retiring, perusing other careers, whatever. The trepidation you obviously still feel indicates that you’re still taking stock and deciding if your future is in the ring or at the least, in an IWF ring.

Stygian: The one man who is approaching this match the wrong way is you. It has been you all along. You keep bringing up the old match. You keep bringing up that somehow a match you lost is something positive to build on. A match you seem to remember differently than I do. You seem to think you were dominating that match. You were sloppy and stupid in that match. Hell you didn’t even lock your arm bar in right. I’d already countered it. I rolled my wrist and stuck my elbow in your soft tissue. If I could have rolled over I would have lifted you up with one arm and dribbled you on the mat like a basketball. Since I didn’t have that leverage, I grabbed the rope. But, my arm wasn’t hurt…at all. I wasn’t hurt at all. You’d come out full of fire and you were burning hot. I was trying to run a rope-a-dope on your ass. Your offense looked impressive on the tape, but, I was on the receiving end of it. You hadn’t inflicted much damage. You see I realized that you were burning through gas trying to go toe-to-toe with a 300 pound behemoth and I was waiting for you to start sucking wind. I couldn’t keep up with your pace, so I clammed up to save my energy for when you’d used all of yours. You’re right, I was pissed off, you got disqualified before I started throwing you around like a sack of wet cement. But hey, I won the match. Only someone as stupid as you, Dan, could think that losing a match was somehow a positive and something to build on. I know, I know, I won by DQ. Let me tell you something Dan, wrestling matches are like Oscars, enough time goes by, nobody cares how you win them, they care that you won them. Nobody will care that it was by DQ in a few months, all they’ll say is that I beat you. And don’t you give me that crap about “I didn’t care about a match with you”. Yes you did. You cared about winning. I know you did. Let me…well you won’t believe me, but now that I have your Twitter, let me send you this video about the importance of winning to a true competitor.

Stygian taps the pad fervently, again whispering to himself under his breath.

Stygian: @DanFnAwesome…attach video…from YouTube…hashtag YouPlayToWinTheGame.

Stygian hits SEND and sets the tablet down in favor of the scotch. He flicks the ashes of his cigar into an ash tray and finishes the rest of the glass, setting it down with a clank. He leans back and looks into the camera.

Stygian: You were trying to win that match, Dan, and you didn’t have it in you to beat me. Yeah, I know, I admitted to not caring about a three-way dance I had with Connor O’Shannon and James Shark. That was because I had a greater goal in mind. I sacrificed a match to attain strategic advantage. But you yourself have said that you didn’t think much of me back then, so you had no greater goal in mind, you sent no message by eating a DQ. You lost. Hell you don’t think much of me now. You think I’d be lucky just to be mentioned with Steel Angel and Sean Libby? That’s almost as funny as thinking your name belongs in the same sentence with Brandon MacDonald. You know what I love? When some halfwit has a modicum of success and it goes to his head. You won one world title in a time when the company was fledgling and new, when it was unstable, and when talent was at a minimum. You somehow think that you’re one of the all-time greats of the sport because you were another forgotten name in a line of failures before someone finally managed to bring some respectability, albeit very little, to a world title that’s been passed around more than a bong at a Grateful Dead concert. I’ve done nothing but win since I came here. I didn’t just beat a couple of guys on the way out as you put it, I’m the reason those guys went out. Tim Patrick had a grand return worked up, he came down on Battle Grounds with the Notre Dame marching band and everything. He wasn’t on his way out, he was on his way back. Then he got hit be a freight train. Tyson Rowle had been High Impact Champion for three months. There was no reason to believe he was on his way out. He wasn’t going anywhere. I PUT HIM OUT.

Stygian: Bottom line, I’m on the way up. You’re on the way down. Everyone is counting down the days until I am inevitably lifting the IWF Champion on my shoulders, running him through with the Baneblade, and ushering in the dawn of Chaos. And when I am champion, it will be chaos. It will be anarchy. I’m gonna cut the head off IWF and watch the body gadabout in a danse macabre. I’m gonna make it bad. I’m going to make everyone as crazy as I am, and I’m going to watch this place tear itself to pieces until someone mans up and rebuilds it as it should be. And I can do it. I’m going up, you’re going down. I’m one of the top names in the wrestling industry, not you. I’m the one who’s lining up for a title shot, not you. I’m relevant, not you. I’m the highest paid pure wrestler on the roster, not you. I should clarify: SBK had to retire, and Brenton Cyrus had to leave…also Chuck, Brandon and Corey don’t count. They make more money, but they get a cut of the profits since they, you know, own the company and all. But I am the highest paid wrestler on the roster who isn’t getting a cut off the top. Why? I’ll tell you why. Because that boardroom that Corey Casey talked about, the one where amongst others, Rick Christian, Johnny Styles and Johnny Electric sit? Well best I can figure, my contract expired and these guys joined the feeding frenzy, like everyone else with a wrestling promotion and the money to throw. Hell, you have to figure, since they have a hand in running the company as well, Chuck Matthews, Corey Casey and Brandon MacDonald saw the videos at one point too and they all told Rick Christian the same thing, “open the checkbook, we need this guy.” I didn’t come cheap, Dan. But I’m worth it. I’ve been worth every penny. Why? Drawing power, staying power, reliability. I’ve never taken my ball and gone home, like you did. I’ve never choked in the biggest matches of my life, like you did. I’ve sold out arenas all over this country. Hell I’ve got fans all over the world penciling me in as the #1 Contender to world titles in two companies? You couldn’t grab a briefcase from the floor to get your foot in the door. Look at the last three months, that’s the period of time I’ve been here. I’ve retired two men, hospitalized another and won the High Impact Title. You’ve thrown a temper tantrum that cost you a match and turned into that creepy stalker boyfriend that everyone in the girl’s family wants to get her away from. You threatened to slap me in the face to keep me in line…must be what you do at home. Must be why Victoria’s dropping glasses and is so obedient whenever you give her an order. “Come here, watch this video, look at this hold, go make dinner.”

Stygian: What you’re going to find, Dan, is that I’m not a nineteen year old girl locked in your house. By the way, Dan, just so you know? That part where you leaned into the camera and gave me the “if you ever…” Guess what…ever. First I’d like to address your concern. You don’t appreciate my criticism of you and Victoria…by the way, Tori is short for Victoria. I’m sure you knew that. I’m really sure you knew that. Why do I call her “Victoria” instead of “Tori”. For some reason, it seems to get under your skin. It seems to piss you off. I like pissing you off, I’m about to dedicate the next several minutes to pissing you off. Plus? I like the name Victoria. It’s elegant, it’s classy, it’s sophisticated, it’s beautiful. If I ever had a daughter, that name’s on the short list. Victoria is a wonderful name. Tori is vulgar, it’s short, it’s cutesy, it’s too vapid. It’s a disgusting thing to do to a beautiful name. Somehow the grotesque “Tori” doesn’t seem to do ”Victoria” justice.



Stygian: So you didn’t “appreciate” me criticizing you and Tori. Did I hurt your widdle feels? Did Dan-Dan cry? You don’t “appreciate” it? Especially because you “have the decency to leave Lilith and Lilah out of this thing?” Yeah. You only called my wife and our lover whores. Yeah, you left them out of it, after you called them prostitutes, pretty much pissed on the vows Christina, that’s Lilith, made to each other on our wedding day, and the vows Christina, Amber—that’s Lilah— and Imade to each other in what was, for all intents and purposes our wedding to her. You pretty much assaulted the bond we’ve committed to share with one another. Look, I know not everyone understands polyamory. I get that. People mislabel it; they call it polygamy, which it isn’t. You see the three of us all have equal standing; I don’t have “two wives”, I have two equal partners. People call it swinging, which it isn’t. Nobody else is allowed in the arrangement, though we did almost allow a little wiggle room for Jaci Sovereign…mostly because she was hot and it would have mind-fucked Alexander Remington. But I digress, some people say I’m a new Chuck Matthews, fucking everything that moves. I’m not. I have a monogamous relationship with two women. That’s all it is, Dan. The girls, they’ve gotten to the point where they laugh at the “prostitute” jokes. I chuckle along with them. But you know what, I always manage to find a little something extra when someone makes that crack. 44 stitches in the back, locked in a casket and career ended, broken neck, locked in a casket and lit on fire, Baneblade off the side of the ring to the arena floor through a table. Yep, I always manage to find a little something…extra. When you can finally open your mouth again and learn to speak with a plastic jaw? Maybe you’ll think twice about opening your mouth.

Stygian: Ah, Victoria. She’s pretty, in that, 19 year old nubile way. And if I find something “extra” for you, I’m sure I can find something “extra” for her. Am I feeling romantic? Am I going to go to your house, Spartan Kick her out the window and put her in the hospital bed next to you? Am I feeling sadistic? Will I crush her larynx with a steel chair and mercifully end her career, ensuring she’ll never sing another note? Am I feeling vengeful? Will I shoot her up with some narcotic, take her to the shady part of town and leave her in the hands of a loving pimp? You know, make her into what you called my lovers? Do you know what you’re going to do to me Dan? Nothing. You’re going to be powerless to stop me. You got down into that camera, you whispered, you put on your best Jason Hawk Serious Face…in my hand are the sum total of fucks I give. Stygian holds up an empty hand. Count them. You’re going to be in traction hearing about whatever I decide to do to her on Entertainment Tonight. You’re going to be crippled wanting to get out and deliver the one thing nobody will ever get for Victoria; justice.

Stygian: Hell, maybe the something “extra” I find for Victoria will be me. She’s not strictly my type, but she’ll be very lonely and very scared. I think Lilith, Lilah and myself could “do” Victoria justice in an intimate capacity, you know, the way you could never get Victoria off? Hey, that bed upstairs is extra wide, we had it made special because there are three of us, you know? That bed is occupied by three people who know how to please a woman, might be a new experience for Tori, sharing a bed with someone who knows how to please a woman. That’s what your threat was about, wasn’t it? That’s what this issue of yours is. You’re afraid that Victoria would see the Black Dragon and his beauties and realize that you’re five inch penis--which you didn’t refute having, by the by, of all my accusations, were I in your place I might have hit that one first—just wasn’t doing a woman like that…what’s the word? Justice. But hey, suddenly you’re gone and the three of us are offering to pick up her pieces? It’s on, man. I mean, nineteen is such an impressionable, tender age, don’t you think? All it would take was a little touch here, a little whisper there, a caress, some romance…all the things you were too pathetic to try.

Stygian: Of course, you didn’t have to try, did you? You roofied an adolescent girl and drug her back to your place. You’ve already shown how you keep her in line and all. I mean, you talked at great length how you planned to stop a seven foot tall, three hundred man with a slap in the face. Most people would see this as a simple fantasy, but I think it’s your go-to. You drugged her, you enacted Stockholm Syndrome, and whenever she gets out of line, you slap her back into it. Could it be any more cut and dried? Do I need to elaborate? Did you listen to the way she talked? She sounded like a Stepford Wife! Give me a break. You’re a worse boyfriend than you are a wrestler, and that’s saying something. It would be a blessing for her in more ways than one if I put you on the shelf and took her to Blackrock Spire. No more beatings, no more being locked in a shitty house in Thousand Oaks, no more psychological trauma. Just like I am to the IWF, I’d be the best argument for severing ties with Dan Alexander.

Stygian: Dan, the best thing, really, is for you to shut up. All you do is talk out of your ass and it never makes any sense. What was that bullshit about me sticking a dragon bust up my ass to jerk off? What the fuck were you going on about? Have you seen Lilith and Lilah? Those are the only busts I need to get an erection. Hell, they’re voracious, both of them. They border on insatiable. I get it up, they fight over it. Hell, they can’t leave a good boner alone. Christ. Sometimes I have to put my dick in witness protection around the two of them, especially if they get their hormones going! Between the two of them on a good tear? It’s amazing I have the energy to compete in the IWF.

Stygian: You know, if you were a smart man, you’d be spiking their water with a potent aphrodisiac, because let me tell you Danny boy, those two women are the only people in an IWF arena who can take me down and keep me down. Nobody else can even come close. I know you think you’re the man to do it? I know you made this great speech about being the wall in my path to the championship. You do realize that a dragon can fly over the wall, burn the wall down, smash through the wall? Let me tell you, a wall isn’t anything to a Dragon. It’s a footprint left behind as he goes on to bigger and better things. Just like you will be. A burning mess of twisted steel and shot confidence. This might just be your last match in IWF, Daniel-San. Make no mistake, you’re fighting for your life, what’s more, you’re fighting for your livelihood. I am your judge, and your jury. If I don’t think you have your heart in it anymore, I will be your executioner. I will twist you up and break you in ways that’ll make you useless as a wrestler. Because you’ve already shown that you’re a quitter. You’ve shown that when you get exposed for the marginal talent you are, when you are willing to throw temper tantrums and go back home and throw the word “retirement” out there? You’ve shown that you don’t deserve to be here. So impress me, Dan. Work hard and do something that makes you worthy of staying in my ring. Because I’m not going to let you sit around here and suck up a paycheck when you don’t deserve to cash it anymore. You’re going to lose the match, that’s beyond your control. You need to decide if you’re going to lose your career as well. How valiantly you do or do not fight your fate? That’s going to determine the difference between walking to the back and going home to Tori; or getting carted out and having me show her what a real man feels like between her legs. Get ready for your last stand; get ready: I’m your hangman. Now let me hear you scream.

Stygian throws his head back, takes in a deep breath, and blows a huge stream of smoke into the air as we fade out.