The Bride of Munch Monster, Part 1 NOW: 20XX Staring down at his half-eaten barbecue sandwich, Landon sighed in his usual half-pathetic, half-sarcastic manner. "How sad is it that the closest I’ve had to a girlfriend in the past ten years is a chick from a dream who hit me up for some Zombie Viagra?" Landon’s co-worker, someone whom Landon had forgotten wasn’t used to such questions, spit a mouthful of iced tea across the table. He struggled to find some way to respond to Landon’s question, but after a few moments of hesitation and fidgeting, he let out his own sigh-- one with a far more exasperated tone than Landon’s-- and wordlessly excused himself from the table. Landon smirked and laughed to himself, amused that he was able to freak out yet another person at work who was trying far too hard to befriend him. But you know how this sort of thing goes. You only play the "hard to get" game when you’re desperate for attention. That’s exactly what Landon wants. The above encounter, the last of its kind Landon would have for quite some time, was the perfect microcosm for Landon’s adult life. Given the way his teenaged and college years played out, he never imagined that he’d end up working in a white collar setting pushing paperwork, typing reports, and generally dicking around from 9 to 5 to get a paycheck every two weeks. Considering everything that he lived through in his youth, he never figured that his adult life would turn into a mundane, banal quest to find the best way to support his game and anime habit. See, back in the day Landon was The Chosen One. Or The Legendary Hero. Or The Anti-Christ. He got called by all sorts of ridiculous, grandiose titles, all of which had all sorts of implications that boiled down to him being way more important that he should have been given his utterly normal upbringing. When he was a teen, all sorts of monstrous shit from the Dreamtime was trying to kill him, eat him, *insensitivity* him, or otherwise make his life a living hell. He was also like some sort of chick magnet and was the target of affection for all manners of girls. The catch is that almost all of these beings of feminine persuasion who pursued him also wanted to kill him, eat him, *insensitivity* him or use him to sire the Anti-Christ. Landon even hung out with a posse of modern-day wizards, techno-geniuses, gun-toting badasses, and martial artist magical girls. For all intents and purposes, the very fate of the world hinged on Landon’s decisions (Or lack thereof.), and he rather liked that lifestyle. To a point. Trying to destroy the world takes its toll on a guy. Yeah, you heard that right. "Destroy the world." But just because he wanted to destroy the world hardly made Landon a villain. When he would break out into maniacal cackling, it wasn’t because all had gone according to plan, the stars were right and he was telling some poor son of a bitch good guy "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die." When Landon would break out into maniacal laughter, he did so because of some euphoric cocktail concocted from a mixture of elation caused by his ever-growing god complex brought about by everyone claiming he was The Second Coming, and the sad reality that his immortal soul was likely damned for all of his stupid mistakes of youth. Landon may have wanted to destroy this world, and thus end the lives of almost every single living thing from the Waking and Dreaming world, but it wasn’t because he was a villain. He was The Main Character, dammit! This was his chosen destiny in life-- to hit the cosmic RESTART button and right all the wrongs that reality and its creations had made up to this point in time. Can’t blame you for feeling otherwise, since hitting that button would likely kill you dead, but-- well-- *vulgarity* it. There’s no escaping the truth with clever poetics. Landon was a villain. His whole Go Home Club, said posse of badasses that protected him and killed shit that got in his way, was also a hive of villainy. They wanted to end the god damn world. Sure, they had their reasons-- they had their logic. But *vulgarity* all that noise. Even the most irrational chaos-worshiping Old One has motivations behind their actions, but that doesn’t make their actions any less *vulgarity*ing evil. They were doing it to spite the Powers That Be and screw up their grand plan for the universe. They knew they were pawns in some cosmic game of chess, and all they wanted to do was flip the board over and start playing checkers instead-- all to spite those power-mongering bastards that controlled the universe. Consequences be damned. That’s how youth rolls, after all. But all of that was for naught. Landon and the Go Home Club fought the not-so-good fight. They battled cosmic horrors and zombie hordes and dinosaurs with jet packs and ninja mole men from the center of the earth. They reached the proverbial final level in their grand, video game-like scheme-- Only to get a goddamn "THE END" screen like the one you get for beating Rygar. Figuratively-speaking, of course. They defeated the forces of the Dreamtime that were out to conquer (and save) Earth. All the not-so-bad guys were dead, dying, or had cowardly changed sides at the last minute to save their own asses. But once the Go Home Club reached the last room in the last dungeon of the last level-- that place where the McGuffin that’s supposed to allow for the BIG RESET was supposed to be-- they found JACK SHIT. There wasn’t even a consolation home version of the game to be found or a "Yoink! Got your shit! Come and get it!" post-it note marking the beginning of a new leg of the quest. Their reward was Absolutely Nothing. It took awhile for the realization to settle in. Landon and his crew had fought shit, seen friends die, and all but ruined their young lives for what seemed to be little more than a cosmic joke. Maybe they had been played by the Powers That Be, and all of these years and events transpired just to alleviate the Great Old Ones’ eternal boredom for a brief instant of their everlasting lives. Or maybe there was no Shining Thing waiting for them at the end to begin with. Maybe it was all a delusion they created for themselves. Maybe they had crafted this elaborate game to amuse their own troubled, youthful minds and distract them from all of the awful shit they had done in the name of "youthful experimentation." None of that really mattered in the end. The "why" of the matter didn’t matter after the fact. They still knew that stuff needed to be done. They all had their personal goals in life that needed to be fulfilled. So The Go Home Club broke up. Everyone went their separate ways to do their own shit. But not Landon. While everyone else knew what they needed to do in the wake of such an epic, *vulgarity*ed up bummer like that, Landon had no *vulgarity*ing clue as to what he should do with his meager little life. Yeah, he actually had a college degree that he somehow managed to get in the middle of playing Tarot Card Poker with green-skinned women with the for the fate of Earth as the ante. Yeah, he had things he’d like to do now that his "Main Character" title was seemingly meaningless, like travel the world under some capacity that didn’t involve dodging laser blasts fired from the backs of giant trilobites at every turn. Yeah, he talked a lot of shit about how he wished his life was normal and how all he wanted to do was settle down and do nothing with his life other than exist, but deep down he knew all of that was a bunch of bullshit. After a couple of years of "reality," Landon realized that he just didn’t belong. But Landon also realized that he didn’t quite belong in that other world anymore as well. Josh and Kiran were magical monster hunters. Molly was a wire-fu ass-kicking assassin. Lee could weave realities using PERL coding and a laptop. Mack could-- well-- he could Mack it up. They all had cool shit that they could do that was independent of their false destiny, and they could use this cool shit to keep themselves tethered to that previous lifestyle of globe-trotting adventure, death-defying action, and mass murder. Landon’s cool shit was tied to a destiny that was no longer valid. If he tried to hook up with the others and ride on their coattails it’d be like trying to use an expired credit card at Wal Mart. It’d be an embarrassing mess that’d likely get him killed long before he had the desire to croak. So there he was. Landon Hexx. A Main Character whose story ended without ever really beginning. But you know how this shit does down. There’s always some new beginning lurking around the corner. Reality loves itself some sequels. --- The rest of the day at work went as it usually did. Landon did what Landons do when they’re working-- Landon went to meetings, did a crapload of paperwork, surfed the internet on his Blackberry when the boss wasn’t looking, and avoided his co-workers to the best of his ability. Even the attractive ones--especially the attractive ones-- since they were all married or engaged and their attractiveness was a moot point from Landon’s perspective. By this point in his life, windowshopping had lost it’s allure. By the time five o’clock rolled around, Landon was already sitting in the driver’s seat of his "new" BMW, having slipped out of the office a few minutes ahead of schedule like Landons are apt to do. "This is the Hell that’s worse than the real Hell?" a familiar voice said coyly from the passenger’s seat of Landon’s car. "I can buy it." Landon laughed. "I guess it’s more like Heck when you think about it. What with the tedium and all." "Yeah. Heck sucked like that." The figure propped her feet up on the dashboard of Landon’s car. "By the way, you better *vulgarity*ing duck." The woman grabbed Landon’s head and shoved it to the floorboard on the passenger’s side of the car, making sure as to not have Landon land in her lap. As Landon landed on the floor, a putrid-looking ball of energy crashed into the front window of Landon’s car, shattering it. "Gah!" Landon screamed, in a tone he hadn’t used in ages. "You did that on purpose, didn’t you Molly?" "Word," Molly replied as she kicked open the passenger door with her boots. "Let them tail me so they’d scare the shit out of you. Wanted this little reunion to start off with a *vulgarity*ing bang." Landon sighed as he quickly crawled over to the other front seat door, pushed it open, and scrambled out. "What’s so special about this meet-up? It isn’t like I rarely see you. You aren’t Josh or Kiran. At least you stay topside year round." Molly burst out her side of the car, somehow angling her leap so that she landed on the top of the car three parking spaces away from Landon’s. Another ghastly blast arced over her head as she landed. "Despite knowing better, we’re getting the band back together," she yelled from her perch. Landon did his best imitation of an anime facefault as he lay face down on the pavement. "Getting the band back together." He had gotten his wish and he was already exasperated, but there was no time to dawdle on Molly’s proclamation. Thousands of comebacks came to mind as he started to assess his situation, but when you’re getting attacked by who the hell knows what while prone on the ground in a parking lot that’ll soon be flooded by co-workers utterly oblivious to his "true nature," Landon figured he could make snide asides once the bodies of their would-be assassins were littering the asphalt. Landon reached into his jacket pocket, inside of which was a specially tailored "hammerspace" portal. That portal was the lone artifact left from his exploits with an old friend, and said old friend would be immensely pissed off if she knew what was being held in said portal. Landon had no intention of drawing out one of the various mallets, clubs, tetsubos, and other assorted blunt objects that said pocket’s former owned so adored. He drew out a god damn gun. (Quick aside before we get to the fighting: See, back in the day, Landon was heralded by some as the latest Legendary Hero. Like we already said. The catch is that said title, Legendary Hero, has all sorts of baggage for people of certain temperaments. It’s kinda not the same as The Main Character or The Antichrist or The Grand Poobah or whatever the hell else people liked to call Landon. For one thing, it has the word "hero" in its title. Hero. As in "good guy." and to be more specific, said title is the sort of title that one sees in fantasy stories and video games with knights and shit like that. One particular friend of Landon’s, one Toni Nyght, was a video game she-nerd who was rather fond of the likes of Dragon Warrior. Nyght insisted that Legendary Heroes use swords. Only swords. Because that’s what Legendary Heroes do in these games. They run around looking for the best sword in the universe so they can use it to kill the big bad in the castle surrounded by poison swamps and metal slimes. That’s it. Nothing else can be added to the equation. No guns. No magic. No laser bazookas or cars with oil slick or orbital nuclear satellites or anything else that Landon wanted to use to make shit easier on him. Nyght insisted that Landon learn how to use a sword, because that’s what god damn Legendary Heroes do. The catch is that Nyght’s no longer with us. And as much as Landon feels sorry for feeling this way, he’s somewhat relieved by the fact that she’s no longer alive because it means he can pack some heat without being clobbered by one of her giant mallets. Because of that, it’s been ten years since Landon last held a katana, and it’s been even longer since he drew one in a full-on, real deal fight. While Landon’s about as far away from the type of guy to go to the gun range to practice his marksmanship with the good ol’ boys while dropping back some booze, it’s only been a couple of days since Landon last busted out his Wii and played himself some Duck Hunt on the Virtual Console. Guns just make a hell of a lot more sense in that context, don’t you think? Nyght would be *vulgarity*ing pissed off if she knew Landon was using her "hammerspace" as a way to carry a concealed firearm. He can practically hear her screaming as it is, and he’d give just about anything to hear that scream again when you get down to it, but Landon’s not about ready to join her in Oblivion. That’s why he’s going to bust out his trusty sidearm and use it to blow the heads off of whatever the hell it is that’s trying to off him.) "What we got?" Landon yelled as he drew out his sidearm, still prone on the ground. "Hoodies!" Molly screamed back as she backflipped off of the back of the car, narrowly dodging another fireball. "About a dozen. Deep purple cloaks. Far side of the lot. Artillery. Eldrich. Low grade Josh shit." Molly raised her arms up, blocking an incoming projectile. Landon’s mind drifted away from snide remarks and went to work on processing Molly’s info. He remained low to the ground as he poured over all of the encounters he had to put up with in the past. Hooded cultists are a dime a dozen, especially ones that liked to hurl the ectoplasmic Elder God Snot that these guys seem to love so much. Then again, few cults send out a small platoon since so few can afford to be seen out in public in such large numbers. Ain’t New World Order. They have the numbers but avoid dealing with Dreamtime monstrosities at all costs. Mole Men worship the Old Ones but they’d never wear something as tacky as a hooded cloak. Especially a purple one. "Purple," Landon whispered under his breath, and it was that color that made all the bells and whistles go off in his head. "Shit! They’re NOMICO peeps! But I thought--" Landon let his sentence trail off as he jumped from his prone position and booked it to the back of his car. That was all Molly needed to hear, since she and Landon were all too aware of the nature of NOMICO. (The short of it: A Sanrio-like company founded by a former girlfriend of Landon’s. They’re also a front for a cult of cannibals trying to summon one of the major Old Ones to Earth so that he could begin his terrible reign over the world by cooking and eating the souls of various great heroes. Call it Iron Chef Hello Killy.) What this meant is that they weren’t out to kill Landon. Molly was a completely different situation, since her soul wasn’t Grade A Angus Beef-caliber, but they wanted Landon alive. You can’t make a grand sacrificial buffet when the guest of honor is a cold, dead corpse. And with that idea in mind, Landon went to work on exploiting their gluttonous weakness. Landon glanced over at Molly, who was busy dodging ectoplasmic bolts. He stuck out his palm, motioning for her to take it easy. He then looked down at his gun, then looked back up at his friend. Molly caught on quickly and gave a quick, single not in compliance. Almost simultaneously, both of them raised their hands up in mock surrender. Landon slowly started to walk around the car, his gun still in his right hand but stretched so far above head to make it far too impractical for him to lower it and level it at his would-be captors. The art of the quick draw is not in his skill set. "Hey, guys!" Landon yelled at the top of his lungs, "I give. Take me to your leader and shit." Landon never dropped his gun as he marched towards the gaggle of cultists, seeing how they never asked him to drop it. They knew full well that if Landon dropped his gun, his cohort could dart forward, grab the gun, and start a firefight that they didn’t want. All things considered, it was better for Landon to keep the gun above his head. They found the prospect far more comfortable. The catch is that they didn’t realize that said cohort was all too capable of snatching said gun right out of the air, what with the fact that she can essentially fly and all. Sucks to be them. Landon continued his approach with a slow, deliberate pace. The cultists stood by anxiously, all too aware that something was bound to happen, but their gut instincts didn’t allow them to see through Landon’s scheme in the slightest. When Landon reached the halfway point between the cultists and his car, he motioned ever so slightly with his pistol, the cue for Molly to fly into action. What transpired was like some sort of two player reenactment of the end of Die Hard, where it’s someone else grabbing John McClain’s gun from behind his back to gun down Hans Gruber. Molly sprung off of the top of the roof of the car she was standing on and glided through the air with lightning speed. The initial shock of her move rattled the cultists long enough that they couldn’t respond until well after she had already snatched Landon’s gun from his outstretched hand and landed on the ground. She dropped to one knee and unloaded the clip, downing three of the cultists before they could utter an incantation. With their scheme played out and three dead cultists painting the asphalt red, Molly casually tossed Landon’s sidearm behind her back, and in the same motion darted towards the cultists. By the time Landon caught his pistol and reloaded it, Molly had already severed the spine of the first hapless assailant that crossed her trajectory. She flipped over the bastard’s head as he attempted to summon forth a pool of heinous slime under her feet, and as she descended behind him she leveled two palm strikes to his spine, snapping his spinal column into several pieces. The resulting blows tossed him forward into his own puddle of evil ooze, dissolving his lower body and leaving nothing but a shuddering, convulsing torso. With his gun reloaded with a clip exhumed from his coat’s hammerspace, Landon proceeded to make short work of the remaining cultists. As Molly darted to and fro between her befuddled targets, severing limbs and crushing bones with brutally-efficient martial arts, Landon made sure she was well-covered. Outlying cultists who attempted to conjure hellish creatures to fight at their side found the only thing conjured in their vicinity was a bullet in their brain, while those that attempted to use gestures to cast projectile spells found their hands riddled with bullet holes before the killing shot was delivered to their vitals. Landon was actually good for something. Sure, it basically amounted to something he learned from a video game, and it was being demonstrated on a dozen worthless minions nowhere near the level of your typical boss-type enemy, but it proved that he could be of some worth in a fight. With the fight winding down and the final cultist murdered, Molly laughed and looked at Landon’s gun. "What the *vulgarity* is that thing on your gun? If one of the guys I worked with saw that they’d probably put you out of your misery right on the spot, dude." Landon looked down at his pistol. On one side of the grip was painted a large, smiling mushroom, while on the other side was a cute blonde girl holding a basket filled with mushrooms. "You don’t remember Jennifer and Shitake-chan? Joy and I came up with them back in the day when we’d brainstorm characters and stuff." Molly looked down at the bleeding, broken corpses and laughed loudly. "Ironic, then, that you just blew away a whole mess of Joy’s minions with a gun all but created by her?" "Nah, it can’t be her," Landon said in denial. "She and I--" Landon paused as he turned around and realized that almost everyone from his office was standing in the parking lot gawking at the scene he and Molly had just created. "Um. Hi. Guys," Landon said with a nervous laugh, "Yeah. I think you can call all of this, like, my resignation or something?" Landon glanced over at Molly, giving her a "when the hell did they get here" look, to which responded with a "hell if I know and I don’t give a *vulgarity*" look. No one in the crowd seemed to be making any sort of move to, say, call the police or scream or anything. It was as if they had expected this sort of thing from Landon all along and weren’t surprised in the least. Either that or it was complete and utter shock overtaking them. Probably the latter. With that, Landon halfheartedly waved to his now-former co-workers, who now seemed to be gathering their senses based on the cacophony of screams, chattering, and cell phone buzzing, and felt a sudden sinking feeling in his gut. His eyes glanced over at his brand new (albeit used and kinda old by car standards) BMW convertible, which he just now realized was a heaping mass of burning metal, broken glass, and oozing ectoplasm. A single tear ran down his cheek. "I just bought the damn thing," Landon whined. "I drove halfway across the state to pick it up just this past weekend. Cost me an entire month’s paycheck. I had to force myself to not buy DVDs this month to afford it." "There, there," Molly said sarcastically while patting Landon on the head, "If you’re good, I’ll let you drive my car." Landon sniffed. "Really? Which one is yours?" "That baby!" Molly said, pointing at a brand new Jaguar sitting a few lanes over, completely unscarred by their previous battle. Landon grinned. "Aww yeah. That’s what I’m-- wait. I know that car. That isn’t your car. That’s my boss’ car!" Molly laughed. "Damn. I was hoping to get your hopes up more than that while *vulgarity*ing with you. No. My car’s that one." Molly then pointed at a beat-up sedan that looked like it’d seen more than a few fights similar to the one they just had in its day. "I’ve always hated you, you know," Landon said dryly. "Ever since we were kids." "You hate all of us," Molly replied in kind as she walked towards the Jaguar. "We wouldn’t have it any other way." She then promptly pulled out a few faintly-glowing pins from her pocket and went to work on the Jaguar’s electronic lock, popping it open in a few scant seconds. "Ok, I no longer hate you," Landon said as Molly unlocked the doors. "But I think someone else may be wanting your head after this." Landon looked around the parking lot for his boss, who was fortunately not amongst the crowd of onlookers. "They can have my old car," Molly loudly quipped as she worked on hotwiring the Jaguar. Once she got the car running, she pulled out her sedan’s keys and tossed them towards her old car. "Hatred alleviated, right?" Before anyone in the crowd got any ideas about stopping them, the two booked it onto the long road to hell. Or something like that. --- FLASHBACK: 199X It was hardly the first time Landon had been invited over to a girl’s house. Molly, one of his best and oldest friends, was a girl and he’s been going over to her place since forever. But that was different, since they became friends long before all that "we have lower body appendages that slot into each other the way Lego pieces do" stuff reared its ugly head once adolescence set in. There was none of that emotional and hormonal baggage between them, at least as far as Landon knew. There very well could have been some of that tension directed towards him and he’d be utterly oblivious. That’s the way Landons tend to be. Hell, his last girlfriend, Kiran, was about as clueless as Landon when it comes to this sort of thing. She was certainly infatuated with Landon for her own silly, convoluted reasons, but when it got down to the dirty business, she couldn’t read Landon any better than he could read her. As many times as Landon went over to her place, little more than nervous eyegazing and awkward posing took place. Kiran’s older sister, Tatyana, seemed more interested in Landon in "that way" than Kiran herself, and she was only interested in teasing Landon insistently about his inability to score with her sister. After awhile, Landon realized there was no reason to get nervous while hanging out at Kiran’s place, so it was no different from hanging out at Molly’s. Save for the sexual frustration part, but that wasn’t anything new either. But Joy was different. Where his relationship with Kiran was more of a cute, innocent thing that played like two stupid kids indulging in playing house, Landon and Joy actually did things. They hadn’t gone as far as half the kids at their high school, but Landon’s relationship with Joy was downright adult compared to the toying around he and Kiran dabbled in. They kissed after a couple of dates, did the whole awkward fondling thing a few dates after that, and soon enough Joy had invited him over to her place. Joy’s parents were out of town on their second honeymoon, and since Joy was an only child and old enough to look after herself by her parents’ standards, she had the joint all to herself. It took all of Landon’s willpower to not channel his inner Golden Boy as he walked up to Joy’s front door. He held in his desire to pounce on the first thing of the feminine gender he saw, Joy or otherwise, with all of his might. His rational, sensible side was able to put the proverbial smackdown on his raging teenage hormones, allowing him to present his usual perplexed persona as Joy opened the front door. "Hey, Landy," Joy said in her usual sweet tone. She stood in the doorway, decked out in the paint-stained jeans and t-shirt she was prone to wear. It wasn’t the slinky, seductive outfit Landon had imagined she’d be wearing for their first "night without the parents," but Landon should have known better than to get his hopes up so stupidly high. Seeing Joy just as she always appeared was the final blow, allowing him to fully subside any delusions of Golden Boydom. "Hey," Landon said, taking one last calming gulp as he walked inside. "I, um, brought you these." Landon handed Joy a small potted plant filled with purple flowers. "The purple reminded me of you know who." "Awesome," Joy said as she glanced over the flowers. "Yeah, that purple is totally the same as Munch Monster’s hood." Joy set the plant down on a table next to the front door and gave Landon a big thank you hug before the two continued their way towards Joy’s kitchen. "And taking about Munchie," Joy said as Landon sat down at the head of the dining table in the kitchen, "I want to go over those sketches we were working on during lunch the other day. Tell me what you think about his new friend now that you’ve had some time to think about it." Landon flipped through Joy’s sketchbook, which had been conveniently left out on the kitchen table. He flipped past numerous pages filled with scribblings of a small, impish creature wearing a purple jester cap. The book had the creature in all manners of situations, but his expression in every situation never changed. Whether he was dancing or crying or fighting giant penguins, he always had the same dopey, goofy, smiling expression. Landon finally reached the latest editions of the sketchbook. In these drawings, Munch Monster was skipping along happily with a cute little girl. She looked like your typical stylized cartoon girl, wearing a little sun dress and smiling broadly. The only thing distinguishing her from any other cartoon gal was the mane of writhing tendrils that took the place of a cute hairdo. This being a cartoon, said tendrils seemed more like wiggly Jell-O strips with mouths on their ends, but it was a fairly peculiar design regardless. "I still like the concept. Rika the Tentacle Girl, the cutest tentacle monster this side of Yugoth. But Munchie’s design is, dare I say it, pretty damn elegant. He boils down to a few simple lines, but you get a hell of a lot of character out of those lines. Rika’s damn adorable, but she’s kinda complex in design, what with all the writhing tentacles and all." Joy sat down at the table and scooted her chair right next to Landon’s, locking them shoulder to shoulder, and peered down at her sketches. "You’re right, sweets. If you wanna be a mascot, you gotta be simple. Hello Kitty amputates her mouth for the sake of brevity, and our little baby here is nothing but a big *vulgarity*ing smiley face with a hat." Joy nudged Landon with her shoulder, prompting him to wrap his left arm around her. "What part of her needs whacking off?" "We could totally plagiarize Hello Kitty and zip her lip permanently," Landon said as he erased the face off of one of the Rika sketches. "Just make her a pair of eyes and tentacles." Joy snickered and looked over at Landon. "But if she doesn’t have a mouth, how we she do all that stuff one does with their mouth?" Joy nudged herself even closer to Landon. "She has other mouths," Landon said as he pointed at the mouths on her tentacles and returned Joy’s glance. "She’s versatile with her goods." "Really," Joy said slyly. "As versatile as this?" With that, Joy softly turned Landon’s head and kissed him. It was a short, sweet kiss-- the sort they regularly shared when the moment allowed. That is, save for the sharp prick that Landon felt as Joy’s tongue touched his own. "What the hell was that?" That’s what Landon wanted to ask after their kiss ended, but Landon felt his entire mouth begin to go numb. Talking was completely out of the question, as that numbness began seeping across his entire body. As Landon started to slump over on the kitchen table, Joy stood up from her seat and smiled broadly. From her mouth protruded a writhing mass of mawed tendrils. All of Joy’s mouths mirrored her vicious smile as Landon finally gave in to her paralyzing kiss. --- "I wish Lee was here," Landon said dryly as he dangled above a large cauldron filled with boiling oil. "He’d be able to calculate the odds that one dude can date two girls and have both of them be chicks with multiple optional appendages." "I’m sure Kiran never used her extra arms the way I used my little friends," Joy said with a wink as she pranced around the cauldron, sprinkling all manners of Dreamtime herbs and exotic chemicals into her bubbling mixture. Landon sighed. "She never used them. Period. Nada. She may as well have been an amputee." "Then that totally makes me the winner!" Joy squealed as she twirled around and plunked down a giant mushroom into the cauldron. "Joy: 1; Frigid God Bitch: 0!" Landon groaned. "Can we not go there? If I’m gonna be boiled alive, can we at least not talk about my inability to get any? I’d like to die with some semblance of self-denial." Joy chuckled and glared up at Landon. "Alright, sweets. We’ll change the conversation. But I don’t think you’ll be digging on where I’m taking this. I wasn’t going to lay this down on you since you were going to die soon, but if you insist. You know how we talked about taking all of our cute little creations and doing some sort of Sanrio-styled mascot line or whatever? It was totally your idea, but I loved it so much that I went and put in the paperwork to trademark all of it. Under my name." Landon tried to throw his hands up in a "well, that *vulgarity*ing figures" sort of way, but his chains and other assorted bindings kept him from doing much of anything at the moment. "So not only am I gonna be cooked alive for your sick little food fetish, you’re gonna steal my shit so that I won’t even get posthumous props? Cooking me was nasty enough, but that’s just downright *vulgarity*ing evil. *vulgarity* you. Seriously. I’ve never told that to anyone else that’s tried to kill me. But you’ve pissed me off enough to say that. *vulgarity*. You." "Aww. Don’t look at it like that. Look at it as an honor. Your idea was so fantabulous that I just had to steal it. And what a coincidence that it all coincided with my needing to devour your soul? Isn’t it such a beautiful love story? I get to eat my beloved while my beloved gets to die a tragically romantic death knowing that his girlfriend betrayed his trust? And no one will ever know about it! It’s just so super lovely!" Joy continued to twirl about the cauldron, merrily tossing assorted globules, creatures, and powers into the concoction. "That-- that doesn’t make any *vulgarity*ing sense. Really? Is that the best you got? A love story? You don’t *vulgarity*ing love me. Not one bit. We’re goddamned kids. We can’t love! Yeah, we think we’re in love. I thought I was in love. But being tied up by you made me grow up real quick as far as that goes. It put it all in perspective. All we had were raging hormones and frustration. I couldn’t get any with Kiran, and you-- well-- whatever. You’re *vulgarity*ing crazy and I hate you. Can we just get this over with so I don’t have to listen to your Harlequin novel bullshit? I want the last thing I hear to be my screams, not your giggles." Joy stopped her prancing and dropped to her knees. Her back was to Landon, but he could tell by the way her head was slightly bobbling that she was crying. "I just don’t have it in me," Joy said with a sniffle. "I like you, Landy. I really do. Seriously. I’m doing everything I can to make this as easy for the both of us as I can. I love you, but I also have to kill you and eat your soul so that I can awaken my master and allow him into rise from his Dreamtime prison. But I suck at it. I suck at being a minion to an Elder God and I suck at being a girlfriend. But I have to have perspective, and that means I have to try and suck a little less at being a minion. Being a shitty minion’ll get me tossed into Oblivion. Or worse. Being a shitty girlfriend just breaks my heart." Seeing Joy breaking down, Landon saw this as his one opportunity to save his measly little life. "C’mon. You aren’t a shitty girlfriend. Well, I might not like the idea being eaten and junk, but you’re hardly a shitty girlfriend. Look at what you just said. You’re conflicted. You’re torn between duty and emotion, and while you know which decision makes the most sense, you still allow your emotions to color your view. If you can still feel that way about me despite everything you’ve told me about needing to eat me, I think that makes you a pretty damn awesome girlfriend. I just wish I’d know all of this beforehand, y’know? Maybe I would have agreed out of love for you. Did that ever occur to you?" Joy smiled slightly. "Really? You would let me eat you? For reals?" "Yeah! Of course!" Landon returned Joy’s smile. "We’re boyfriend and girlfriend. We do this shit together. For better and worse and all that. I would have needed for you to be up front with me and give me a little time to get used to it. Y’know, time to get to know you a little better and junk? Y’know what I mean? And maybe we can still do that. Let me down from here, give me a little more time to spend with you, and we’ll get back to this another day. How’s that sound?" Joy beamed, twirled around, and waved her hands. With that wave, the straps and chains gently let go of Landon and lowered him to the ground. Joy rushed over to Landon and embraced hi--- --- C-C-C-COMBO-BREAKER: 20XX "What the *vulgarity*, Landon?!" Molly harshly interrupted Landon as he recounted his past exploits with Joy as the two drove down the highway. "What the *vulgarity*. I don’t know what happened before you were tied up and dangling over that damn pot, but you know damn well that none of that shit at the end happened." Landon smiled and shrugged. "If I want to re-write history, that’s my prerogative. I’m the main character after all." "Screw that and screw you," Molly laughed. "You know damn well that--" --- THE REAL FLASHBACK: 199X "I wish Lee was here," Landon said meekly as he dangled above a large cauldron filled with boiling oil. "Or Molly. Or Josh. Or Nyght. Or Mack. Or Kiran. Hell, I’d even take Keiko right about now. That fat bitch. Anyone. Please? HELP!" "No way, Landy," Joy said with a wink as she pranced around the cauldron, sprinkling all manners of Dreamtime herbs and exotic chemicals into her bubbling mixture. "There’s no chance that any of your Go Home buddies can find you down here. We’re tucked away in a little pocket of Dreamtime that none of those morons will ever find in time. I’m sure one of them will find the place after the fact, since they’re meddling and all that, but you’ll already be in my belly long before then!" Landon’s voice started to break as he panicked. "C’mon, Joy. Babe? Hon? Sweets? Can’t we, like, talk and junk? I’m sure there’s some other way--" Joy giggled maniacally. "What? Some other way? What, are you gonna offer up one of your little friends? Gonna go all traitor to save your lame ass?" "Yes! Yes!" Landon perked up. "Keiko! Take Keiko. Or Nyght! Even Josh! You can have Josh! He’ll just reincarnate more powerful than Obi Wan Kenobi." Joy smirked as she tossed a large, squirming pill bug into the boiling concoction. "What about Kiran? Her divinity should satisfy as much as The Legendary Hero. Maybe I’ll offer her up after I go Julia Child on you tonight. Sweeten the pot and all that." "Totally eat her first!" Landon squealed. "I bet she’d taste better than me to boot. Save me for dessert. For old time’s sake? HELP!" "Oh man. Those cries are gonna be one badass seasoning," Joy sang as she twirled about, tossing more ingredients into the stew. "Fried Landy a la Whiny Bitch. Tasty!" Landon continued to cry out for help as Joy began to slowly lower him towards the bubbling oil. He could feel the eat slowly rising towards his feet. Then in his knees. When the heat could finally be felt in his upper body, the rubber on his shoes started to drip into the boiling cauldron. Joy giggled furiously at the sight of Landon’s clothing melting away and joining the succulent juices below. Just as he was scant inches away from the oil, explosions started rattling in the distance and quickly grew closer to Joy’s "inner sanctum." The final explosion rattled the entire room, and with that rattle the door leading back up to Joy’s house flew off its hinges, knocking into her mid-pirouette. The force of the blow sent her flying against the wall, and a satisfying crack echoed through the room. "What was that about eating me first?" A voice angrily asked from behind Landon. Landon knew full well that it was Kiran asking him the question, and while he was quite relieved that she was there to rescue him, he couldn’t help but feel even more intimidated by her words that he was by the threat of being cooked alive by his now-unconscious ex. With that in mind, Landon did the only thing that made sense at that moment: he feigned his own unconsciousness. "Looks like he cried himself to sleep," another familiar feminine voice chimed in. "Poor bastard even wet himself. Or is that cooking oil on his pants? What the *vulgarity*, we’re calling it piss once we get back to the others, so it doesn’t really matter, does it?" Landon recognized the second voice as Molly’s, and upon hearing her voice he had to do his best to not quip back at her with some sarcastic comment about her getting off on humiliating him. But at this point in the game he figured it was best to take his blows and not give either of his friends more fodder with which to mock him. "Whatever," Kiran said as she flashed her arms about in a series of quick gestures. When her hand motions ended, her back began to glow, and out from said glow a mass of elongated, glowing arms appeared. Eight in all. Kiran motioned to her arms in the direction of Landon and the bubbling cauldron, and the arms extended and wrapped themselves around the cauldron. The vessel sizzled, not unlike the sound one would hear when adding a frozen piece of meat into a skillet. Kiran began to pull the cauldron out from under Landon, but as she began to work her magic a mass of tentacles shot out from the far side of the room and seized the cauldron as well. Apparently Joy had performed her own feinting act and had been waiting for the right moment to strike. "Landy and I were just talking about you," Joy said, her mouthful of tentacles apparently having no ill effect on her ability to speak. "He had such kind things to say about his former gal-pal. Such a wonderful guy, isn’t he?" "You dated him more thoroughly than I ever did," Kiran said, her disgust not the least bit hidden, "so you should have realized how much of a little bugger he is quicker than I did. I cannot imagine how you would want to eat him. He is nothing but skin and moans." Every tentacled maw spewing forth from Joy’s mouth groaned at Kiran’s pun, and with that each tendril let loose of the cauldron at the same time. With all of her leverage being released at once, Kiran found the pot and all of its scalding oil flying towards her. She quickly swirled her spirit arms about, locking them hand in hand to form a wall in front of her. Rather than deflecting off of the wall of arms, the cauldron stuck to the surface and slowly slid down to the ground, not unlike one of those vending machine sticky hands hitting a window and slowly creeping down. With the cauldron effectively distracting Kiran, Joy twirled her head about and launched into a series of rapid-fire strikes with her legion-like tongue. The tendrils came from all angles, punching their way around Kiran’s mock-up of a force field in an attempt to find an opening. While Kiran’s spiritual appendages were numerous, they weren’t nearly as numerous as Joy’s tentacles. Kiran frantically motioned her arms about in a series of complex gestures, using her keen magical senses to estimate the best positions in which to lash out her arms to protect herself from Joy’s onslaught. While the appearance of Kiran’s trick may appear to be a full-on force field, it was only due to Kiran’s quick mystical wits and the human eye’s incapacity to perceive such movement in such a confined space. "A hand here, Molly?" Kiran shouted over the sound of wet flesh crashing about, "I am not sure how long I can keep this up." Kiran looked over to see that Molly was busy taking Polaroid pictures of Landon as he continued to feint unconsciousness while dangling from the ceiling. Molly looked up from taking her latest picture, shaking it as she smirked at Kiran. "Don’t you have, like, ten hands or something? I’ll let you deal with this one. Besides, I don’t have a pony in this race, since I’ve never been insane enough, or straight enough, to even think about kissing this bastard. I’ll let you two fight over who hates him the most." With that, Molly made a quick dash into the air, and when she reappeared at the entrance into Joy’s basement, Landon’s bonds had been cut and Molly was lugging him over her shoulder. She gave Kiran a mock wave of encouragement as she darted out of harm’s way. --- NOW: 20XX "And that’s how that shit went down," Molly said with great assurance. Landon nodded in agreement for a moment, but that contentment was soon over. "Wait. So you just ditched Kiran to deal with Joy? That’s not how I remember it going down. Kiran told me later that you got your ass kicked the second you busted down the door and she had to save both of us single-handedly." Molly shrugged. "Hey, I’m the main character’s best friend. I have my own prerogatives." --- The two old friends drove down I-10 westward towards the New Mexico border (Handy expository note that wasn’t necessary at the beginning of this story but may prove to be useful from here on out: They started off in San Antonio, Texas.). After their little sojourn down memory land, the road had been fairly quiet. It wasn’t an uneasy quiet that you might get when two old friends who hadn’t seen each other realize they don’t have much to talk about. Rather, it was the sort of quiet that two old friends could share together where all they needed was to hang out with each other. Not quite that feeling one has when they have a moment of silence with their true love or anything Romantic and idealistic-- it’s that sort of content that can only be shared by two buddies that have gone to Hell and back, literally, and don’t need anything silly like words to bide their time. They took shifts driving, mainly because both Landon and Molly found the act of driving to be a perfect way to clear one’s head. And with all of the nasty shit that was bound to come their way once they crossed that border, they needed all the proverbial mental free parking they could get. Just as they left the El Paso city limits and saw the first "Welcome to New Mexico" sign, as if on cue, Landon finally broke the easy silence. "That was pretty *vulgarity*ed up back there," "Really?" Molly said with some degree of surprise in her voice. "I know it’s been long since you’ve done this shit, but that was hardly anything new by either of our standards. Hoodies shooting stuff, us killing them. Don’t tell me you’ve gone soft on us." "Not that," Landon replied, rolling his eyes, "I’m just freaked out over the fact that it was NOMICO peeps trying to do us in. I thought we were cool now." Molly laughed. "We? As in you and Joy? How in the hell could you ‘be cool’ with a whacked-out psycho artsy bitch who wanted to cook your *vulgarity*ing soul and feed it to her Elder God master? Seriously, dude, tell me how you and her could ever ‘be cool’ after that." "Yeah, yeah. Sounds damn crazy, doesn’t it? At first, the only reason why she had anything to do with me was because of the whole ‘dark lord commands me to get in your pants and eat what’s inside’ bit. Even after we dated for awhile and it came time for her to do the cannibal deed, she was still all about the loyal minion thing. But after that first bit where you and Kiran busted in there and saved me, something snapped in her. Maybe one of y’all knocked some Old One wiring loose in her head or something, but she wasn’t nearly as aggressive after that. She never tried to kidnap me or anything like that. She still wanted to eat me, don’t get me wrong, but she was as rational as one could be about wanting to eat another human being’s soul. And after a few years, well, we actually kinda became friends. We kept in touch and everything. She got married, started a company using the designs she came up with when we were kids, and hit it off bit up in New York. Sure, she may have turned said company into some death cult worshiping The Munch Monster, but she was cool with me. Any time we ran into her minions back in college, she’d always shoot me an email and say it was her bad. Like, they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Total misunderstanding. I guess I was a sucker for believing all of that, but if it was all an act it went on for a damn long time. She even invited me to her wedding a couple of years ago. I didn’t go, but I did have lunch with her and the husband last year while I was off on a business trip up her way. Not a single mention of eating me. Nothing. So yeah, as far as I could tell we were cool. Granted, I hadn’t talked to her since that lunch, so--" Molly nodded. "Yeah. So. A year since the last time the two of you were ‘cool.’ A hell of a lot’s happened in the past year. A lot’s happened in just the past month, so there’s been ample time for that coolness to have worn off. And now that we’re talking about what’s been happening as of late, when was the last time you talked with Josh and Kiran?" Landon thought for a moment. "About a month ago. Probably a little longer than that. They said they were on their way to some temple of desperate something throne or some shit like that." "The Temple of the Rocket Chair Desperado," Molly said, correcting Landon’s memory. "Yeah, that was i--" Landon did a double take. "Wait. Really? That was the name of it?" "Josh said it wasn’t nearly as awesome as it sounds," Molly replied disappointedly. "But they went in there, checked it out, genocided some jet-boot wearing serpent people, and made their way to the inner sanctum. When they got there they found a tapestry written in all sorts of different languages. Sanskrit, all sorts of hieroglyphs, Dinosaur, the whole shebang. It was like a New World Order Rosetta Stone. Not that either of those bastards need something like that, since between the two of them they can read almost every damn language to ever cross a sentient being’s tongue." "And what in the hell does that have to do with anything?" Landon asked bluntly as he pulled is Blackberry out of his pocket, a sign that he obviously felt that the tomb-raiding antics of his old friends had nothing to do with his current predicament. "Josh finds some shit and all of the sudden dudes wanna kill me again? That’s hardly fair if you ask me. They should be off trying to kill Josh more often than they already do. He’s the one that ganks their asses and loots their corpses nowadays. What do I have to do with any of this shit?" "Well, I totally agree about Josh needing to have his ass kicked more often, but it isn’t the fact that he and Kiran found shit that’s got everyone shitting themselves. It’s the shit on that shit that’s *vulgarity*ing up your everyday dude shit. The tapestry was a prophesy. Or a piece of one from what we gather. That prophesy deals with you, dude." Landon scoffed. "And this is something new? I bet it’s some leftover from back in the day that no one found until now. Anyway, what’d it say?" "Josh said it was a loose translation, but the damn thing said ‘HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER!’ in every single language." "C’mon. I know shit can get weird, but did it really put it that way? No way in hell anything that old can make a Street Fighter reference." "Were talking loose translation here. Josh said he worded it that way to get your attention. He figured that was the best way you’d get the message, since said ‘challenger’ is apparently here to challenge the current player. That being you and all." "And where in the hell is he getting that from. ‘HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER’ is about as open to interpretation as anything else." "It’s just a piece of the prophesy. Apparently all manners of shit have been popping up as of late. Relics and scrolls and books and all sorts of other shit have been ‘discovered’ as of late and they all seem to be interconnected once people find more than one. I don’t have all the details, and neither do Josh or Kiran, but word is that it’s all about you. Hence the renewed ‘LOL let’s kill Landon’ shit." "But that still doesn’t--" Landon paused as he looked at his Blackberry. "Holy shit. Guess who just messaged me on Facebook." Molly thought for a moment before everything clicked. "What?! You’re Facebook buddies with the chick that tried to eat your soul when you were in high school? That’s *vulgarity*ed up, even by your standards." "Hey! Don’t get on my ass about this. I told you that I thought we were cool up until what went down this afternoon. She friended me back when there was still a ‘the’ in the site’s name. Anyway, here’s what she said." Landon tossed his phone over to Molly, who deftly caught it with one hand, never losing even the slightest bit of control of the wheel of the car. Molly glanced at the screen, and in clear blue and white the screen read: Joy Kusanagi thinks it’s super-tacky that you didn’t let her hooligans kidnap and molest you this afternoon *sad face here* "Tacky? This isn’t *vulgarity*ing haute couture, you *vulgarity*ing bitch. You’re a *vulgarity*ing cult leader!" Molly tossed the phone back to Landon. "You aren’t going to say anything back to her, are you? Unless it’s a big middle finger emoticon, I hope. And even then, who knows what kind of tracking shit she has going. Hell, I bet she already has a tail on us because you’re her *vulgarity*ing Facebook friend." Molly growled again, but all of her ranting was for naught, as Landon had already sent Joy a reply: Landon Hexx thinks that not being sacrificed is the new look this year. Very trendy. Molly saw Landon typing away with his thumbs, sighed, and turned up the car radio in an attempt to drown out Landon’s stupidity with some form of noise. Joy Kusanagi isn’t interested in following trends. She’s interesting in creating them. It’d be trés chic if you helped her be a trendsetter. Landon Hexx would very much like to continue this conversation someplace that didn’t bombard him with dating website ads. Joy Kusanagi knows you have her number *winky face here* Landon looked over at Molly as he started dialing, giving her a "Pretty please, just do this one thing for me and I’ll be your best friend" look. Molly reluctantly relented and turned down the car radio. She knew full well that if there was a trace on them, it was already well established. No harm in calling the bitch at this point in the shitstorm. The phone barely had a chance to ring once before Joy picked up on the other end, and she wasted no time jumping into the conversation. "Sweets, Landy," she said in a sickeningly nice voice that Landon knew all too well was her murderous tone, "you just gotta let me do it this time. Last time it was just a dress rehearsal. It was all playing house and dress-up. But this time-- This Time it’s the real deal. We just gotta have your soul, babe!" "And that’s supposed to make it all good? That you’re really for sure ready to eat me soul? Why? What’s so special about your Cthonic hunger this time? Last time you said it was because of love or some shit like that. My friends kicked your ass to signify out breaking up, then we just became friends and you got married and, well, I thought this shit was done. Besides, wouldn’t eating me now be tantamount to, like, an affair or something now?" Joy was quiet for a second, as if she paused to make sure no one on her end of the line overheard what she was about to say next. "Aww. This is purely platonic cannibalism this time. Anyway, can’t say much here. I may be the grande dame around here, but I can’t go spouting secrets all the time. Even to you, Landy. But I can say some super-vague stuff. The stars are actually right this time. For reals. Last time they got all wonky at the end and decided to get all not right. This time, though, they’re spot-on. They’re getting it right this time." "Is that what your prophetic shit said? Because apparently Josh’s shit said something about a new challenger or something." "Something like that. We’ll talk over it later if you come in. Dinner at my place whenever you’re ready, sweets!" "Wait! But I’m the dinner! How is that going to solve anything?" "Exactly! Anyway. Gotta jet. See ya!" And with that Joy clicked off-line. "And I officially didn’t get jack shit out of her," Landon said with a sigh as he shoved his phone back into his pants pocket. "Just something vague about the stars being right this time. It’s like she’s saying the stars weren’t right back in the day." Molly thought for a moment before she got back to Landon. "Wouldn’t that make a hell of a lot of sense? We lost back then. Maybe it was because we weren’t supposed to pull it off back then?" "Can’t be that," Landon said, having already considered that possibility the instant Joy mentioned it over the phone. "I talked about that with Josh and Lee and a few others after the fact. There wasn’t a misalignment. All of the prophecies we got a hold of came true back then. It wasn’t that the timing was off. It was a matter of something else happening that *vulgarity*ed stuff up before we could pull off the big job. Like in a heist movie where the crew breaks into a bank only to find that the vault’s already been looted. Except it was as if the vault had never been there." Molly shrugged. "Whatever, man. I’ll leave the scheming to the rest of you. Just point me in the direction of what shit needs to be smashed. Molly smash good. Anyway, we should be getting to the safe house pretty soon." "Who, exactly, are we staying with?" Landon asked, giving Molly a suspicious look. "You were awfully vague when you said you knew peeps in my relative neighborhood who would be willing to help us. But since we’ve crossed over into New Mexico, ‘neighborhood’ doesn’t seem to be the correct term anymore. "When you have the whole damn cosmos at your disposal, one state away’s practically on the same damn street." "Only person I know that lives out this way is your dad. God dammit, please don’t tell me we’re shacking up with your dad." Molly laughed. "No way, dude. Last time I saw him I tried to kill him. I swore that I didn’t realize he was my mark, but he didn’t buy it. He didn’t even let me come home for Christmas last year because of it, so his place is hardly safe for me nowadays. Besides, he isn’t the only member of my figurative family that lives around these parts." "If it isn’t your dad, then that means..." Landon’s face soured big time. "Oh *vulgarity* no. Not her. Please not her. I won’t be able to sleep tonight if the two of you..." "Shut your *vulgarity*ing mouth, Landon," Molly said, glowering. "Keiko and I are, well, we’re no longer on killing terms. We’ll put it that way. Besides, she’s our only option. It’s either shack up with her or die." Landon groaned. "Death sounds kinda good right about now." The Go Home Club Will Return In The Bride of Munch Monster, Part 2 --- OMAKE: 20XX Tatyana Silverberg was a fairly pissed off woman at the moment. She’s never been one to mind a little unnecessary bloodshed in the name of getting things done. After all, she watched Landon and his little friend gun down a bunch of cultists in the parking lot of her office building and didn’t bat an eye at the sight. It may be a bit excessive and crude, but who doesn’t enjoy a little physical spectacle every now and then? No. What irritated Tatyana is the ensuing explosions that erupted from within her office building mere moments after Landon and Molly left. Also, the gunfire that blanketed her parking lot as the clean-up crews tidied up the "mess" that used to be her employees-- it was all such a massive inconvenience to keep all of this clandestine, underworld fighting under the rug. It’s one thing when some crackpot catches a glimpse of a UFO on his camera phone or when the History Channel airs a special on Bigfoot sightings, and it’s another when a few hundred upstanding citizens witness a full-blown battle between a would-be savior and/or murderer of mankind versus a death cult that wields the very sort of magic that no one’s supposed to know exists. It makes it even worse that Tatyana couldn’t give a damn whether people know "the truth." What difference does it make if people find out that some of the rules of the universe they’ve grown to know can be broken with a little foresight and effort? "And to think I’ll be saddled with this bill," Tatyana said as she lit a cigar and watched her facilities burn to the ground via a series of monitors within her underground bunker deep below the carnage. "Employees are easy to replace, but insurance premiums are a bitch." "You will be duly compensated, Ms. Silverberg," a distorted male voice echoed through the room. With that pronouncement, the monitors adoring the wall flickered out, replacing the scenes of violence with black, blank screens. "After all, it was you that kept Him under wraps for so long. Without your efforts, there is no way to know if our plans would have come to fruition." "You overstate my role in the big picture, doll," Tatyana said as she took a puff from her cigar. "I just hired the kid as a favor to my sister. Not that he needed favors to get the job, but that’s as far as I go on this arm of the conspiracy. Regardless, I’ll take your money all the same." "Also, we trust that the artifact survived the cleaning?" a different distorted voice asked. "Naturally," Tatyana said as she nonchalantly waved her hand in the air. With that sign, a door at the back of her room slid open, and a grotesque creature covered in sores and boils, yet decked out in fine clothing not unlike that of a butler’s, shambled forward. In the creature’s arms was a metal briefcase. "It isn’t a significant piece of the prophesy, but a piece is a piece. Capiche? It shall be in your hands by week’s end if I don’t have another little setback like this one." The voices went silent, and the monitors flickered back to their original pictures, a sign that Tatyana’s "employers" were satisfied with her production. "No word to your masters about the tracking device planted in your car, mistress?" the beast asked of Tatyana in a surprisingly eloquent tone. "Are you kidding, Takahashi?" Tatyana said with a laugh, "the car’s the one thing that I’ll win out on. Those bastards’ll short change me on this clean-up exercise, no doubt about it, and the life insurance policies on any damn saps I hire in the future will be a bitch, but that damn Jaguar’s insured from here to Hell and back. This time next week I’ll be behind the wheel of a 20XX+1 model. Gotta win at something, dammit!"
