“I was never one of those guys who liked collecting titles.  It wasn’t that I had anything against a title, I’d rather hold one than not, but…”

[The Ace of Heels sits on a peculiarly triangular platform.  Behind him, an expanse of blue water sparkles.  The August sun is bright and hot enough that it’s reflected in the sheen of sweat on his forehead.]

“Look, I hate to do this, but I have to give you a bad example before I can explain.  Does anyone remember Bryan Smith?  He was… a mid level guy, plain and simple.  He could wrestle well enough, just never well enough to break into the upper levels.  Good, but not good enough.  So, instead of holding a Television Title or its equivalent once, then the United States Title or its equivalent once, then the Heavyweight Title, he’d be a 4 time Television champ and a two time US champ and he’d do this in ten different promotions over the course of a decade, and he had this miles-long list of titles to parade around.”

“Brian Smith became his title history.”

“And he’s not the only one.  In fact, this industry is so polluted by guys with miles-long title resumes that the default response to someone bragging about a title is ‘so what?’”

“It’s not that I’ve got anything against actually being a champion.  I like the little mark in the history book and the extra money.  I just wanted a little more than that.”

[Scott raises his hand against the sun and looks off into the distance.]

“Winning the IWA Tag Titles with Mr. Dude was noteworthy.  Smashing Dude in the face, stealing his girlfriend, costing him the commissionership of IWA and destroying the first iteration of the Untouchables? That was fun. Winning the IWA Heavyweight Title was impressive.  Faking an injury then pretending to ragequit over a manufactured feud with Jack Cross, thus establishing myself as an opportunist and loose cannon? That was fun. Being a CAL World Tag Champ was all well and good.  Killing the CAL?  That was fun.”

“What I ended up getting... if there was is a CAL reunion, I get to go up to Christian Light and Rictor Arkane and Sal Paradise and Timmy Fantastico and Jack Cross and Chris Kline and Flare and TJ Killingbeck and even Jeff Andrews and say ‘CAL World Champ?  Nice.  Remember that time I killed the CAL?”

“Remember?”

[In the bright light, his smile is nearly blinding.]

“That is what I live for.”

[Scott clasps his hands together.]

“It is all well and good to live for the thrill of the moment, that moment that causes the cameras to flash, whether it’s a dive from atop a ladder or a ride on a ladder across the ring, or… standing on top of a ladder so that you’ll finally see the top of a human being’s head, in Dentari’s case.”



“I, however, would prefer to find some way to make everyone say ‘remember that time Kai Scott won the World Title in a ladder match without actually climbing the ladder?’ Just like, regardless of whether I actually end up with a title to show for it, I enjoyed earning my entry into this title match with so little effort, and that suits me better than having beaten any of my opponents in some sort of contendership match.”

“And do you know what that gets me?”

“Edward White almost does.”

“None of the rest of you even understand the level I think on.”

[The sun dips behind a cloud, and Scott’s face briefly darkens.]

“I know Python.  I know what he was back in the CAL, and I know what he became later. Apparently he’s feeling almost as nostalgic as I am.  At the rate he’s been going, I keep waiting for Shelly Hollins to show up with her trusty Thesaurus, and I halfway think he is too.”

“Alceo Dentari, short in sight as well as stature, tears his team apart and squanders his ill gotten team titles in his desperation for the World Title.  And then, he wonders why he is overlooked.”

“And Cancer Jiles, having been given a ladder ride to the gold once, seems more or less content to wait for that same ride, that same luck, to carry him again.”

“As for Edward White…”

[Fade back.]

[Kai Scott’s peculiar shaped seat is actually the edge of a half-sunken shrimping boat, white paint being eaten away by red rust, the windows of the cabin smashed out with a few scraps of olive green curtain still occasionally flapping in the breeze.]

“My presence here?”

“The truth is, little gives me the satisfaction that walking through the graveyard that is my career and examining all the fallen monuments I have built gives me.  Other people get to be the historical footnotes.  I am the sculptor.  I am the saboteur.”

[Scott stands, one leg on the sloping deck of the boat, the other on the rail, balancing easily.]

“Whether you know it or not, whether you choose to believe it, whether Eric Dane himself is willing to admit it, all of Defiance bears my fingerprints.”

“I gently pluck the strings of fate and watch what falls.”

“Shards of history in catacombs and darkened halls.”

“I gather them and then I carve my monuments anew.”

“Why am I here? I’ll tell you - It’s simply what I do.”

[Scott reaches out, towards the camera, and gently rotates it around to face the same direction he is looking.]

[A field of boats, chained together, listing, rusting in the waters of the bay, underneath the shadow of Interstate 10.]

“My name is Kai Scott: Ace of Heels”

“Look on my world, ye wretched, and despair.”
 

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