“You’re right, Cancer.”

[Up.]

[Ronnie Long.]

“Surprisingly so – I never fail to be amazed that coherent thought can penetrate your mind through all the blue smoke.  But you got it right.  I’m a cog in a machine.”

[Not really suited for slouching in armchairs like Jeff Andrews and having outgrown crouching in dirty alleyways like The Crow or whatever, Ronnie has gone for that most traditional and respectable backdrops of wrestling promo history – the good old beige cinderblock wall.]

“The Untouchables, as you know, operate as a well oiled machine.  Feel free to twist that statement into an innuendo, by the way, I’m sure Heidi could use yet another reason to twist your limbs off.  But yes, we’re a machine, and I’m the cog.”

“And yes, I do dig holes as they’re needed.”

“You probably shouldn’t be putting suggestions like that into my head, Jiles.  You just escaped being buried alive once already.  Wasn’t that close call enough for you?  Or are you on coke in addition to the weed and feeling indestructible?”

[Long is without shades at this time.  His trench coat hangs over an Untouchables T-shirt, his lower body is off camera.]

“Either way, you can call me a cog.  You’re not the first.  You weren’t around when I was teaming with Jeff and Danny Vicious in OLW and hadn’t won a World Title yet.  People really had a lot of shit to talk about back then.”

“I won my World Title, though.  And now, I’m working with three other World Champions.  So Cancer, you can call me a cog, that’s not an insult and never was.  Machines don’t work without all their parts.  Maybe I’m the cog that connects the parts to the other parts, and Jeff is the lever that starts the machine, and Kai is the gauge that makes sure it’s running right, and Heidi’s whatever part it is that takes an object and crushes it into a cube.”

[Raising his hand, Long slowly clenches his fist, pantomiming crushing something.]

“Let me explain something to you, Cancer.  I’ll give you the introductory course, then you can go get the more advanced version from Ed White.”

“Machines – machines just like The Untouchables – make things.  We are industry.  We are growth.  We are the rising black line.  We stand for more than getting wealthy for wealth’s own sake.  We’re remaking Defiance into a company where you’d never get away with stealing a battle royal, and the likes of Failsnake would never be allowed in the door.”

“And we stand for more than stumbling about on a yacht paid for entirely with someone else’s money in a stoned stupor, falling from deck to deck and overboard while tripping over his own bong.”

[Long brushes some stands of hair away from his eyes.]

“If we’re to have philosophical discussions about usefulness to our respective stables, Jiles, what do you contribute to $$Cool?”

“You heard what Jane said to Kai Scott.  Ed White works in that which is tangible. Even if ‘COOLness’ is a real thing, which I don’t believe it is, it is not a tangible, physically quantifiable thing.”

“Remember when I called you a clown, Jiles?”

“That’s all you are to S S Cool.”

“Cogs may not be glamorous, but they’re important.  Clowns are a diversion, and more importantly, they’re a dime a dozen.”

[The problem with the beige cinderblock wall is there’s only so many variations of actions you can take to break up talky dealies.]

[Long, out of new ideas, brushes hair our of his face again.]

“Now, if I can be serious and boastful at the same time for a minute.”

“You’re not a World Champion.  Unless you won it in Dream or something, in which case it doesn’t count.”

“I, however, am.”

“Your hand’s loaded with titanium, but I’ve made a career out of getting hit in the head and shrugging it off.  For the first decade of my career, that was about all anyone thought I was good for.”

“And the Untouchables have a storied history going back three decades, whereas you, White and Jane have never even teamed together before.”

“If you think Edward White can outsmart Kai Scott, you’re a fool.”

“If Jane has the nerve to even use a scissorhold against Heidi, she’s a bigger fool.”

“And you may be cooler than me, but I’ve already sent one Egg Bandit out of Defiance, frothing at the mouth and in spasms on the mat.”

[Long doesn’t have a witty closing remark to make.]

[Instead, he stretches his lariat-throwing arm out to the side.]

[For effect.]

[End.]

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