I am Apex

The sun slowly bleeds the last of its rays over the jagged outcropping of the Santa Cruz Mountains in the distance. A large hand descends over the mountains, perhaps the Hand of God, given how large it is. Or perhaps it is a forced perspective, as the hand procures a half-full whiskey glass from beneath the bottom of the shot. The camera rotates 180 degrees and pans out. Stygian sits at a stained, wooden table on what looks like the terrace of a hotel, upon which the High Impact title rests. He’s dressed in his trench coat, blue jeans, black boots and a yellow Sinestro Corps t-shirt. He tips the glass back and takes about half of it down. After setting the glass down, he resches into his coat and pulls out a long, stainless steel tube. He twirls it between his fingers while frisking himself until he finds a silver cigar cutter on one pocket, and a zippo with the “Dead Man’s Hand” engraved on it in another pocket. He twists the tube and separates it at about 4/5 of the length, unscrewing the end and raising it to his lips. He bites down and draws the tube off the end of the dark brown Cohiba. Setting the tube down in favor of the cigar clipper, he takes the cigar between his fingers and twists it, fitting the end of the Cohiba into the clipper and brining the miniature guillotine down, severing it at the back. He twirls the cigar around easily, and then flips it into the air. Catching the stoagie in his mouth and flipping the zippo open and lit in the same motion. He brings the end of the cigar to the flame and puffs a few times until it glows cherry red. With a flick of his wrist the Zippo closes and he takes a big puff off that thing. The end goes from dull cherry to bright orange, and back again before Stygian exhales a great stream of smoke and gives the camera a confident grin.

Stygian: I love it when a plan comes together.

Almost like he planned it, and he probably did, the A-Team theme plays quietly. Stygian puffs on the cigar again, reaching down to his hip and collecting his phone, the source of the music. He runs his thumb along the slider at the bottom to answer it.

Stygian: Talk dirty to me. […] Raw sewage? What the… […] I know it’s very dirty but that’s not quite what I meant. […] Give Lilith the phone! In the interim he makes a finger gun, points it at his head and pulls the trigger. how many times do I have to tell you: never let Lilah call me with your phone. When I see your number on the call ID I expect a certain level of higher brain function. […] We keep her more around for biological functions. […] And math. […] That sounds great. […] Nah, just Black Label, this little chunk of tin isn’t worth Blue Label. […] See you when you get here. I’m up on that terrace thing on the roof. […] I told her to talk dirty to me. Stygian listens intently and laughs, blowing little wisps of smoke when he does. Now that is dirty. I’ll look forward to it. […] See you then.

Stygian hits the end button, pulls the slider back to lock his phone and lets out another huge gout of smoke.

Stygian: Where was I before my wife promised to reenact all of my favorite Prince songs tonight? Ah, yes…the Black Crusade marches on. Another trophy collected, rapping his knuckles on the H.I. title, another pay per view opponent we’re never going to see again. This time someone you actually have to give me credit for. Another momentous pay-television night in the books. Another line of dominoes set up and another victim selected. But that is another month from now. New Year’s Evil…is that seriously what we’re calling this? New Year’s Evil? What, was Christmas Chaos taken? What the hell is wrong with Season’s Beating’s I ask you! What, indeed? Nothing. But hey, I’m used to this place not listening to me. That’s fine. Just keep thinking I’m…he takes a big draw off the cigar, and blows it out in a billowing cloud…blowing smoke.

Stygian: I’m really surprised anyone saw anything else on the Pay Per View past that ego trip road show at the end of it Pick Your Poison. Really? Brandon MacDonald and Corey Casey join Apex? And this matters because? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? No? Nobody knows why this is important? Neither do I? Really, am I supposed to be impressed with this arms race? Our roofie-slipping, gang-mugging, weeping-over-his-brother-who-he-probably-killed-himself world champion and a retired one-and-done curse bearer turn up and align themselves with the cast of the L word, Van Wilder and Chuck Matthews…and this is supposed to be an impressive moment? This is supposed to be pivotal? On no, they have all the belts!!! Well, not all of them. Thumbs over to his title. Oh no Apex is gaining power! On no, whatever will we do?

Stygian: There was only one history-changing event in this company in the last six months. It wasn’t Vincent Van Rose reforging the world title to try and abolish the “curse”, which, by the way Vinnie…FAIL! It wasn’t the retirement of the Strike Back Kid. It wasn’t Brandon MacDonald tearfully dedicating his mugging of the title to his brother, which, I’ll give you Brandon; seeing how your brother died, dedicating a mugging to him is quite fitting. It wasn’t the formation of Apex and their summary sacrifice of Shadow Demon. It wasn’t Corey Casey returning and consolidating Apex. It wasn’t even the death of the misguided Brian Hunt charade or the return of Chuck Matthews. There is only one pivotal event anyone will remember from the ass end of twenty-eleven. It was when Kaden Kessler buried me alive and Mike Nelson let my contract expire. It was when Sister Christian called me and said “the time has come”. It was when I signed my IWF contract and decided to save this misbegotten sport. It was when the Black Dragon regenerated into the Black Crusader and set his sights on this place.

Stygian: I am the power and the future of this company. By now I think I’ve proven that’s more than hyperbole. My words carry weight. Everything I set out to do so far in this company; I’ve done. I said I would make them carry Tim Patrick out on his shield, and they have. I said I would put Tyson Rowle out of my misery and take this hunk of change, and where is he? And who is the High Impact Champion? I decided, I didn’t state the goal outright, but I decided that I’d had enough of Brian Hunt and I wanted Chuck Matthews back and raising Hell, so I manipulated him into throwing out a year’s worth of work because he knew he couldn’t beat me if he wasn’t himself, and he didn’t even beat me then. If you want to know why APEX is consolidating power, look no further. It was that night. It was the night I hooked my arm around Chuck’s Hollywood Impact and slammed his head into the floor. Chuck came out full of rage and firing on all cylinders and he could only draw even with me. Chuck came out with the one thing you really need to beat me: the element of surprise. I’d nave faced Chuck Matthews before, I didn’t know what to expect, and that was the one thing he could have exploited to beat me and he failed. Chuck wants his rag-tag bunch of misfits to be the most powerful force in the company, and I showed him in one night, with one move that the Wolf and the Hawk didn’t have enough pieces to form a Megazord and beat the Crusader.

Stygian: As the trainers waved the smelling salts beneath Chuck Matthew’s nose, realization dawned on him; all the work he’d put in, all the time he’d spent pretending to be another man. All the money he spent on fake psychological profiles, faking psychological tests, all the people he bribed and all the strings he pulled to make the charade of Brian Hunt believable; all the dominoes he set up to tip over into APEX…he realized all of that was about to be undone by one man. Chuck used his intellect and hatched his greatest scheme ever—and really when you look back over all of the psychotic, depraved and brilliant things Chuck Matthews has done in his career, Brian Hunt and Apex were by far his most devious schemes—and he realized that all of that was undone by Rick Christian handing me a pen and giving me a contract. The Black Crusade started at the level Apex still hasn’t reached.

Stygian: That’s right Ashley. Brag about helping your lady love win the bronze medal of the company. Brag about how you managed to fight off such heavyweights as The Ninja, Johnny Morbid and Rosalie Knight. Yeah, there’s something to brag about. You beat the fucking Ninja. That shouldn’t even count. You beat Johnny Morbid, a man who was chewed up and spit out by a man I demolished at Pick Your Poison. You beat a rookie in her third match. Yeah, Apex sure is great. Apex is the dominant force. Please, if Apex was half what you make it out to be, Chuck Matthews would have speared Brandon MacDonald and taken that belt himself. Jason Hawk would have this he knocks on the High Impact title again, and you wouldn’t have had to run an end around on Voss to get that other belt. Chuck Matthews isn’t making a statement, he’s building an army. Ask yourself this question: why? Why is Chuck Matthews raising an army. Who is the only man who has risen through the ranks in the last two months? Who is the only man who has come to prominence in IWF since Apex launched, who has expanded his power base consistently and constantly, who has climbed the ladder and thrown guys off of it? Who is Chuck Matthews so afraid of? Who is Chuck Matthews so scared of that he abandoned Brian hunt and all the accolades and applause he was finally getting after being denied it so long? Brian Hunt finally got Chuck Matthews the one thing he wanted more than anything else: applause. It got these fans he’d fought against for so long to finally love him. They were eating out of his hand, and the world was his for the taking. He abandoned that after just seeing my name across from his on a card.

Stygian: Why is Apex growing and evolving in power? Why did Chuck Matthews reach out to his estranged daughter? Why did he bring on his ex-lover? Why did he mend fences with Brandon MacDonald? Why did he fish Corey Casey out of retirement? What has come along in the last two months that has been so frightening that Chuck felt he needed to stockpile weapons. Who would be able to scare the most manipulative, psychotic, sociopathic man in the company? Who would? Who could? Who else?

Stygian: This is the truth of Apex, Ashley Matthews. The whole heart of the matter, the answer to the question, the reason Apex exists…is me. Deny it all you like. Defend it with abstract concepts. I have evidence. I have history to back me up. Who else is even remotely a threat? Robbie Hart? Robbie’s ben sent home from world title matches twice in as many months with his tail between his legs. Succession came and went before it did anything. Steel Angel has proven he’s just a man underneath it all. Death Angel? Death Angel has never been consistent enough to be a legitimate threat. One man has brought the fight, has keep rising on a vertical trajectory and has shown that every word out of his mouth is true.

Stygian: Face it Ashley, this is just another instance where daddy is moving pawns around the board and positioning them where they can be of the most advantage to him. Alison Williams, Corey Casey, Jason Hawk, Brandon MacDonald, you…you aren’t Apex. I am Apex. I am the alpha and the omega of it. I am the reason all of these guns have been positioned, and I am what they’re pointing at. In one instant, Ashley, daddy saw the Black Crusade and knew it was a threat. In one month he gathered up all the artillery, and he’s not sure he has the ammunition in the can to shoot it dead. One man signed on the dotted line and took the future of this company in his hand. Daddy can’t handle that. Not that I expect you to understand. Hell, I don’t even believe you’re Chuck’s daughter. I need to see some DNA on that shit to believe that. So far nothing I’ve seen convinces me. That’s why you don’t get the level of respect your father earned from me a couple of weeks ago. You are not your father, and you haven’t convinced me you’re even his daughter. You want to convince me? I’ll tell you what you do: At New Year’s Evil, you come out for your New Blood Title match that you earned. You come out and you get the microphone and you tell Alison how much you’ve loved these last few weeks together and you get all teary-eyed when you tell her that her love means more to you than any cheap title ever would. You say you can’t jeopardize that with a petty fight. You raise her hand. You let her parade around the ring holding up her little bronze medal. Then the second she turns her back on you, you spear her in the back and tell the ref to ring the fucking bell so you can pin her. You do that, I’ll start to believe you’re Chuck’s daughter. Anything short of that? I’m not buying it.

Stygian: Apex is everything I hate about this company in a single one-stop shop. You have the world champion who talks a heck of a lot bigger game than he ever plays. You have your pick of egos. You have the sordid two-headed demon slut polluting the fucking airwaves with a very, very poorly-written and poorly acted out love story and…AND! And you have the guy just sitting back and rolling with the flow and cracking jokes every now and then. You have Jason Hawk, billed as one of the greatest wrestlers to ever set foot in IWF, who is actually one of the worst. Jason Hawk who keeps his name relevant by carving it onto whatever belt he can snatch up while nobody’s looking. Jason hawk who took the last belt he won and conveniently retired it, why? Cause that’s the only way he could retain it. Jason Hawk who no proudly carries the tag-team titles as though winning them were an accomplishment. Hey Jason, how many tag teams are there in IWF? One! Yeah, well done, buddy.

Stygian: Jason Hawk is the kind of guy I hate in this business. All he does is coast by on having the right friends. Not elite, never will be elite, but his buddies are, so he gets lumped in with them. You’re like the cook on the USS Missouri who claims he fought in the Battle of Iwo Jima. No, you were there while the men who really mattered did their thing. You’re the guy who sharpened Genghis Kahn’s sword before he went into battle. You’re the equipment manager on the ’72 Dolphins. I’m more a part of Apex, as the man it was built to stop, than you really are. Your tag team has bigger balls than you do and she doesn’t have a Y-Chromosome. Seriously, Jason, when was the last time you did anything worth mentioning? You became General Manager and went soft, and you weren’t even that tough to begin with. Do yourself a favor Jase, don’t tag in Sunday. Just do what Chuck sent you down to the ring to do, hold Ashley’s purse and make sure I don’t kill her. That’s all you’re good for. Even when Chuck was going around doing his Warren Zevon karaoke act and pandering to the idiots in the crowd, he was the balls of the team. You’re not a part of Apex, you’re not even the mascot. You’re a special needs child who won a contest and gets to hang around wrestlers and say dumb things on camera.

Stygian: Seriously, I think that terrible dye-job leaked into your ears and the peroxide damaged your brain. I’m sure you’re going to run your mouth and Apex this and Apex that and a whole bunch of other things I don’t care about. Look, I know you got pulled of the short bus and given a belt because Chuck wanted a pet, so I’m going to teach you all you need to know Sunday. Repeat after me…Stygian takes another draw on the now-shorter cigar, and blows out a thick haze, the way he looks through it makes him look rather like some demonic figure, of course, knowing Stygian, that’s probably the intent…”Please Mr. Stygian, don’t hurt me. I give up.” You want to leave the ring in a vertical position wearing two boots instead of three, you say those words the second Ashley tags you in. Sure, Ahsley won’t show you her boobies, but they aren’t that spectacular. Sure Chuck won’t give you Chicken McNuggets for a while, but you’ll at least still have the teeth to chew them when he gets over being mad at you.

Stygian: the Black Crusade is bigger than you two, it’s bigger than I. It’s a lot bigger than Apex. The Black Crusade will be here long after Apex has stopped serving it. Make no mistake; Apex is serving it, even now. Putting all of the rotten eggs of the Insurgency in one basket…when I am ready, I’ll break the basket. After you’ve drawn the ire of the other wrestlers, putting yourselves over the company and the titles you hold like you’re bigger than it all. Nobody’s bigger than the history and the titles of this company, not even I. This is the problem with IWF, and the problem with wrestling as a whole. A lesbian soap opera, a family tragedy, a coalition of egos taking over the sport, putting themselves on the posters and taking up air time, forcing us to witness their depraved spectacle. Forcing up to watch a badly cast, poorly sold reality show with all the clichés and hallmarks of teen dramas and all the depth of a Stephanie Meyer novel. Apex is Jersey Shore meets Twilight and taking all of the worst elements of both. Apex is a wooden shield trying to protect IWF from a predator missile. This is the best you can offer me, Insurgency? You put all of your top names under one banner and draw the line in the sand? Apex is nothing more than what I allow it to be. Apex is a stage show to remind these people what I am saving them from. Apex is the best shot IWF has at saving themselves from The Black Crusade. Apex…he takes in a long draw and blows another thick gout of white smoke, before collecting the High Impact title and moving it to the center of the shot. He deliberately forces the name plate reading “STYGIAN” into the lens and then he smirks. Apex has already failed. This is the first. Soon, very soon, the next will be mine. Soon Brandon MacDonald will be run through with the Baneblade and sent back to the scrap heap where he belongs. The last time I got into the ring with a member of Apex…Ashley asked me what happened the last time I got into the ring with a member of Apex…well Ash, the last time I got into the ring with a member of Apex I made him realize that he didn’t have enough in the tank to put me away. I made him abandon a year-long charade and spear his girlfriend because he knew he didn’t have it in him. He knew if he took to the ring as the fan-favored shell of himself he’d degenerated into, he would be destroyed. He’d fought so long and hard to be loved by the crowd and he decided that his survival was more important. The last time I got into the ring with a member of Apex, I did psychological damage, made him check his hole card and forced him to reach out to you, Alison Williams, Corey Casey and Brandon MacDonald. The last time I got into the ring with a member of Apex I started an arms race. That’s what happened the last time I got into the ring with a member of Apex. Don’t worry about the last time I tangled, worry about the next time. I started an arms race the last time. This time I’m going to cripple it. I broke Chuck Matthew’s mind the last time. This time I’m going to cripple his daughter and kill his favorite pet. This time I break his heart.

Stygian smirks and flicks what’s left of the cigar at the camera. Fade out.