[Fade in.]

 

[Christian Light is back in the promo booth again.]

 

[He’s changed from his Heritage football jersey to a Cavs Kyrie Irving basketball jersey and from blue jeans to black ones.]

 

[But the most striking change of the promo booth is the surroundings behind him.]

 

[Aside from the Heritage logo, which is visible behind Christian (aside from the mass of it covered by his body of course) is a ton of Heidi merchandise.]

 

[Two posters bookend the Heritage logo on the back wall.  Closer in the foreground, on a table stationed to Christian’s right, is a pile of various Heidi merchandise...action figures, sweat bands, keychains, and, yes, even some T-shirts.  All of it is circa Defiance Masters of Wrestling era, not Defiance Hydra era.]

 

Light:

And I wonder who I want to win?

 

But since it’s not a 100% foregone conclusion as yet, I might as well waste my breath on one of my favorite Defiants ever.

 

The Brooklyn Annoyance.  The pint-sized wise guy.  The pocket Italian.  

 

Alceo Dentari.

 

Good to see you again, old pal.  No, really, don’t mind us, we’ll just sit back and watch as you abuse and debase Defiance’s head announcer.  After all, you spent the leadup to TLC making a fool of yourself in front of the fans, so why not bully an announcer while you’re at it?

 

Then when you’re done making yourself feel bigger than you are at someone else’s expense, why don’t you come back to me and answer one simple question.

 

What’s changed?

 

[Pause.]

 

Light:

We first crossed each other’s paths in late March of this year.  That was when Cito sent me in to do some damage control on the comic book store that had the unfortunate pleasure of hosting your autograph signing, something that I was happy to rectify for Defiance.  After all, Garden City really isn’t that far from Brooklyn, is it?

 

During that time period, you tried to go for the jugular.  You tried to go for the hot button issue; my family.  

 

You took the cheap shot.

 

And where did it get you?

 

Face-down through a stack of tables as I stood above you, victorious.  Holding that above my head.

 

[Light points behind him, and it’s now we notice that the briefcase that was hanging in TLC match is backing one of the Heidi T-shirts.]

 

Light:

So you heal.  You regroup.  You persuade and intimidate your way into the team captainship of War Games.  And you smash my iPad somewhere along the way.  Once again, a cute bad guy stunt.  The iPad never saw it coming, after all.  

 

Once you get to War Games, you take it a step further, and you consummate the betrayal that almost cost Heritage the War Games match.

 

You even manage to outlast me, although that’s no thanks to you.

 

In short, you took any cheap shot handed to you and everything possible went right for you in that War Games match.

 

And you still couldn’t captain a team to victory over a shorthanded Heritage team.

 

So one has to ask you, Alceo...what’s changed in such a short amount of time that could cause you to have this much irrational confidence in your ability to succeed?  What dirty tricks can you have up your sleeve that would make a shred of difference in a match against either Claira or myself, much less the two of us together.

 

Your associates?

 

[A chuckle from the Last Nighthawk.]

 

Light:

Yet another misplay.

 

For the sake of argument, let’s call them Thing One and Thing Two.  Now, it’s clear that these guys know how to fight, since they took a beating to Sam Turner Jr.  But you, and they, made one fatal mistake.

 

You tipped your hand too early.

 

You would have been well advised to keep something like this under wraps until at least this show.   Now we know about it.  Now we’re prepared for it.  And if either man decides he’s feeling froggy...then I encourage them to jump.  I’d look forward to putting them out of the match and out of commission for the rest of the show.

 

[Pause.]

 

Light:

You have failed, Alceo.  You failed the last two times you went head-to-head with Heritage, and since then you haven’t bothered to change your game.  And as we know from Einstein: insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  You may be making strides, Alceo, but you’ve done so with shortcuts and run-ins, not technique improvement.  You may think you have this tournament on lockdown, but trust me, if you happen to luck your way into the finals, Claira and I will expose you for the fraud that you are.

 

And speaking of Heidi...

 

[Light turns and picks up a Heidi-logo keychain.]

 

Light:

Do you know that the Defiance staff found all of this stuff in Kevin Cage’s locker when they cleaned it out after his termination?  It’s funny, really.  As much of an unusual man that Kevin was...I’ve heard the term sociopath tossed around, and I’m not inclined to argue with that...he had this one fascination that united him with the rest of the world.

 

He was a huge Heidi fan, at least in appearance.

 

In that, he is united with many, MANY other people in this world.

 

[The Heidi keychain is put back on the table.]

 

Light:

Myself included.

 

Even if you haven’t spent a fair amount of time in the past putting my over as a great wrestler, I would feel compelled today and any other time to recognize your legendary talent and accomplishments in this business.  You are one of the great ones in this business, and even that may be understating things.  

 

Once you handle Alceo, it becomes a three person dance between you, Claira, and I.  Which, to be honest, has just about all the elements to be one of the best matches Defiance has ever seen.

 

I wish that our first meeting weren’t under these circumstances, though, Heidi.

 

I wish that, like my match with Claira on Heritage 8, that we got a main event, one-on-one matchup between you and me.  I wish we had the kind of hype that would keep people talking about this match a month prior, because we’d keep them talking two months afterwards.  But most of all, I wish I got a match with you that had no outside context like this whole Dane/Goldman war.  Because, despite your statement that you believe Goldman will not be an issue if you win...if you believe that, then sure, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, but there’s only one way I can be 100% sure that control of Defiance will go to Eric Dane, where I believe it belongs. 

 

That’s to win.

 

Regardless of who’s in front of me.  

 

Ultimately, I must be victorious.

 

Not you, Heidi.  Not Claira.  And certainly not that loudmouthed brat Alceo.

 

I have to win.

 

[Fade out.]

 

Light[v/o, rueful]:

I’ve worked way too hard to fail now.

 

[End.]