12/16/12 - The Big !@#$ Story So Far - !@#$ing House Arrest Edition

SPYGOD.

Immortal. Superpowered. Drunk.

Highly conservative. Queer as !@#$. Out as Hell.

The man who killed Hitler with his bare hands, rescued the world too many times to count, and saved the lives of three... no, wait, make that four Presidents, mother!@#$er. FOUR.

(But, yes, had to shoot one.)

Director of The COMPANY, tasked with handling (and occasionally killing) America's Strategic Talents.


The man who just masterminded the saving of the entire !@#$ing world from an old enemy no one knew was that dangerous and deadly. 

And now... is under !@#$ing House Arrest? Seriously? 

...

Okay, obviously we need to back the !@#$ up a bit, here. Maybe all the way to !@#$ing Mongolia, or something.

But you know what happened before, right? How GORGON framed SPYGOD for the assassination of the President of the United States of America? How they then framed the United States of America for their own super-secret (and way too successful) plan to conquer the world, and then pretend to be its saviors? How they masqueraded as the friendly, technologically-advanced Imago to put the world at ease, and told them to just deal with the inconveniences (some more inconveniencing than others) because some terrible world-destroying threat was coming right for Earth?

And then, you know all the crazy-!@#$, !@#$ed-up !@#$ that happened right after... right?
 
Well, okay then.

So SPYGOD comes back from his weird, parallel-future experience with Jim Morrison's parallel-future self, in which he saves the parallel-future world, kills an evil parallel-future Jesus, and gets !@#$ing killed, himself, and then has something else happen that he really does not want to !@#$ing talk about, yet. And he's full of !@#$ and vinegar, now, and gets it into his head that he and the President of the United States of America are going to team up and save the !@#$% world, together, because he's the only rock-steady ally he's got.

(Or at least the only one he can !@#$ing boss around, now.)

Needless to say, this means SPYGOD's got to turn the President into a lean, mean, killing machine. Lucky for him, he's got a captive audience and special, somewhat-dangerous Soviet drugs. So for a few days, the poor guy gets the Matrix kung fu treatment at scenic Camp !@#$ You Up, Mongolia, only for real, and by the end of it he's actually good enough to hand SPYGOD his !@#$, for real.

Now, while that's going on, a few other things are happening, and these are all pretty !@#$ important.

One big thing is that METALMAID, who's suckered no less than Zalea Zathros (brainwashed into stupid complacency by the Imago's e-television signals) into becoming her personal !@#$ arms manufacturer, has hit upon the great !@#$ing idea of going to OUTLAND and hooking up with some super villain sugardaddy. This way she can take over the whole !@#$ world from the Imago, so she can get on with trying to !@#$ing kill SPYGOD, which she's been failing to do for a long !@#$ time now.

The plan doesn't go too !@#$ing well, unfortunately, but she does meet a cool, fellow, would-be world-conqueror calling himself the Violet Demon, and actually almost does a !@#$ deal with him. Except that, of course, that's when this creepy old !@#$ named Doctor Kyklops (who used to run with METALMAID's creator, Doctor Morbo, back in the day) decides to buy her services.

What's a cuckolded super villain to do? In the Violet Demon's case, he takes it pretty !@#$ well, and covers for their rather explosive product demonstration, so she and the Doctor can go make a deal on his big !@#$ Jacques Cousteau sea-saucer just before the Imago show up and crash the party. And she !@#$ing goes back to Africa, there to crank out more !@#$ Slaughterbots for her questionably-sane (but super-!@#$-rich) partner.

(Who, incidentally, really wants to get in her !@#$ing pants.)

While that's going on, a whole bunch of remaining heroes, strategic talents, and hangers-on are converging on B.A.S.E.C.A.M.P. 4. It's a mini-parallel Earth just like B.A.S.E.C.A.M.P. 3, where the SPYGOD SCOUTS used to have their yearly Saturnalia jamboree things. But that one got "compromised" then the Imago took over, so now, they're all in the spare backup version, with people like Mark Clutch, and Myron and Winifred (who are seeing each other, now). And they've joined forces with the Toon Nation, all acting under the commands of some blonde !@#$hole in a loud ascot named Fred.

(Oh, and everyone's taking orders from some weird, masked guy who's supposed to be the leader of the resistance. Except that no one knows who the !@#$ he is, but he's supposedly acting under SPYGOD's orders... whatever they are.)

So they're joined by a bunch of Supers from the Middle East and Northern Africa. Some of whom we've met before (The Fist, The Lion, The Wall) and some of whom are totally !@#$ing new, and might only be notable because they've !@#$ing lived in spite of the Imago hunting them the !@#$ down.

Oh, yeah, and the Green Man's there, too. The last we saw him he was stumbling around in a daze after Chinmoku did something to him in Key West, and now he's back to normal, but more !@#$ing !@#$ed-off than ever before. Which is really !@#$ scary, under the circumstances, and given what he can actually do.

And he's there to look after Thomas Samuels, who was badly maimed the night the Owl Nest was destroyed, just before 3/15. It turns out Thomas is actually his son, by way of Martha Samuels, who's the Owl, now. And given that the Green Man killed her brother, earlier in his career as a revolving-door supervillain, is really !@#$ strange.

(Hopefully someone will !@#$ing explain that !@#$ to me, at some point?)

Anyway. There's also the international super-spies, like Dosha Josh and Mikhail and everyone else, who aren't too numerous anymore. They meet up at this special Bar in the ladyboy sector of Bangkok to compare notes, mostly to talk about what happened to Israel, which wasn't !@#$ing pretty.

Only the meeting gets crashed by the Thai secret police, who are in league with the Imago for !@#$ only knows what reason. Oh yeah, and one of those crazy-!@#$ flying vampire women who have their guts hanging out of their neck when they go out hunting blood tries to take them out, and actually splashes the guy from MI-whatever. Long complicated story, especially since Dosha and Anil kind of set them all up, sort of. Luckily, Dr. Krwi the Polish, bad!@#$ vampire hunter showed up and saved their !@#$ing bacon, but now they're all on the same page, again. Maybe. 

Okay, so you got all that? I sure hope so, because here's where it starts to get !@#$ing complicated. And nasty, too.

First off, SPYGOD does a really !@#$ bad thing to the Imago's fancy space elevator, using a group of crazy terrorists and a high-tech bomb. That stunt gets a few people killed then, and then a whole bunch more slaughtered by the Imago when they go looking for answers. Of course, SPYGOD's not too !@#$ing happy about that, but it's not like he didn't know that might happen, or take precautions.

And the real !@#$ of it was that all that was just a !@#$ing distraction. The real action was going on up in China, where the President made "friends" with the Chinese Premier, who was something of a massive !@#$ing wuss. Thanks to their "understanding," which you can bet was one-sided as !@#$, SPYGOD was able to find out where some files on WWII Japanese intelligence he needed were stored, and broke in and took them.

What was in those files? !@#$ing everything. A really nasty story about Unit 731, which the Japanese set up in occupied Manchuria to supposedly study how to create and use plague weapons, but was actually a horror show butcher shop for the education of this sick !@#$ named Dark Star.

(You might remember her scary !@#$ from his bad-idea-jeans attempt to take out GORGON with a single squad and an unlucky strategic talent, last year? Old and nasty !@#$ with the power to suck your life and memories out?)

Anyway, it turns out, young and cute (but still !@#$ing deadly) Dark Star told the Imperial Japanese government a crazy!@#$ story about being an alien who could give them the kind of technology that would make them masters of the world. But they can't get down to her ship, on the bottom of the Pacific, without better tech than they have, so she offers to help them with that. Only she up and !@#$ing creates GORGON right under their !@#$ noses, which proves to be really !@#$ embarrassing to her handlers, especially when they realize their so-called space alien's actually a girl who was drowned, presumed dead, some years before...

Or was she? That's the thing, here. As !@#$ing crazy as all this !@#$ SPYGOD reads is, it makes perfect sense. It not only falls in line with everything that GORGON's been doing, all along, but it really falls in line with what they've been doing since SPYGOD decided to rid the world of its science terrorist organizations, the other year.

(And it explains why they wanted to get their hands on The Object, and why a certain city's poking up from the Pacific Ocean, right now...)

So now that he's got that information under his belt, he goes off to talk to Doctor Krwi, who just ended the vampire head woman that attacked the super-spies in Bangkok. Turns out SPYGOD did a deal with her, after the attack, and got her out of her bad, very one-sided relationship with her Thai handlers in exchange for a little favor. But you know how SPYGOD handles his favors, so the poor !@#$ is messed-up and crazy from her ordeal.

See, he had her infiltrate one of the Imago's massive, white cities to see what was going on in there. It was one of the "schools" they had all the kids in the region super-learning in, or so they said. In reality, it was a massive vampire of a building, with all the kids either having their life and memories sucked the !@#$ out of their bodies, or else hauling around the less fortunate because, having been drained themselves, that was all they were !@#$ing good for, anymore.

Yeah...

So you can imagine how bad this was for the poor vampire. Once she was in she couldn't get right back out again, and the Imago showed up to beat her down. And then, when she got tired of hiding and too !@#$ing hungry to think straight, she finally gave up following orders and tried to eat one of the kids. But the building fed on her, instead, though the kid, which is why she was insane and dying when Krwi found her, and why he put her out of her misery.

Of course, SPYGOD doesn't give a !@#$, because now he's got his intel. Only Dr. Krwi has had it with his !@#$, and actually makes him give her last human victim a decent burial.

(Yeah, yeah. Super-drama. It happens in this business.)

Of course, by then SPYGOD's got another piece of the puzzle, but he's still working on the whole plan. So he goes to Russia, and abducts the former Russian President, who's been in hiding since 3/15, and "persuades" him to take him to where they warehoused the files they took from Unit 731 at the end of the War. SPYGOD figures that if he's going to find a weakness in GORGON, or the Imago, he'll find it there.

So they take the train over to Yekaterinburg, which used to be Sverdlovsk, which was a big-time closed city back during the Cold War, to go find those things, because that's where the Ruskies put them for whatever reason. Somehow, the Imago find out and blow the !@#$ out of the train, when it gets into the station, but SPYGOD knows what's going on, down the tracks, and gets them off it just before it happens. And he figures that the Chinese Premier's finked on them, which would be no real surprise.
 
(That and the Chinese Premier's got really big !@#$ing problems of his own, but more on that a little later. Promise.)

So SPYGOD and the Russian President get to an empty room, and the Imago show up, right on cue. It turns out the fink was the Russian President, all along. He confesses that he did it all so he could escape Earth's fate when that big dark something showed up to eat the planet. And the Imago cops to the fact that their "invasion" was really an escape.

Oh yeah, while all this was going on we learned, courtesy of Winifred's memories finally coming back to her, that the Imago are apparently energy-beings in metal spheres who have been taking over human bodies all this time. Mostly all those missing mentally retarded people the Imago took away "to help" early on. Poor Winifred found this out the hard way by breaking into the special death-Olympics' slaughterhouse, and she'd blocked it out, not that you can blame her.

(Of course, this means her relationship with Myron is !@#$ing borked, but what can you do?)

And while all this is going on up in Russia, the American President is trying to shoot the Chinese Premier, down in Beijing, just to make sure he doesn't get nabbed and made to squeal on them. Only he !@#$ing hesitates for one second too many, and the Imago !@#$ing show up to make sure the Premier's okay.

And get this -- that stool pigeon is so !@$#ing sure they know he sold them out to SPYGOD (because he's sure his really big !@#$ing problem told them) that he actually spills the beans on himself, Tell-Tale Heart-style. And it's all the President can do to try and shoot the poor guy, but the Imago are floating in his way, and...

Well, that's when things get weird.

You see, we don't actually know how SPYGOD got out of that empty room, and out from under yet another orbital strike from Deep-Ten, once again blamed on terrorists in league with the big space nasty.

(The Imago said the same thing a little earlier when they torched a lot of LA, trying to get The Owl and The Talon. Luckily, they missed them, but it was a near !@#$ thing, and yet another sign that the people in control of the world are not even remotely !@#$ing reasonable. At all.)

But the next thing we know, SPYGOD's in Japan, meeting with the superspies in some crazy bar where everyone dresses up like !@#$ing SPYGOD, or COMPANY AGENTS, or folks like that. He's got things he needs them to do, and whatever he tells them is !@#$ scary, even to them. And it's all part of his big !@#$ plan, which he's still assembling on the fly out of a dozen or so smaller !@#$ plans, all rat-mazed into one another in a big !@#$ing flow chart that only he gets to look at. 

After that, he hooks back up with the American President, who got to Japan earlier to deal with Mister 10, from Organization 10. Whatever SPYGOD's big !@#$ plan is, it apparently requires getting his hands on some really big !@#$, crazy-!@#$, re-purposed (or just plain stolen) E.T. weaponry, which is what Organization 10 and all its !@#$ing predecessors (Organization 9, Organization 8, and so on) have been looking after since !@#$ only knows when.

Unfortunately, Mister 10 is this crazy, Yakuza mother!@#$er with a perky young assistant, no sense of humor, and no time to waste on outside persons, especially under the current circumstances. But they somehow manage to get him to hand over use of something really !@#$ powerful and scary, mostly because the President actually knows how to !@#$ing negotiate.

(Yeah, who would have !@#$ing thought, huh?)

Oh, and while all that's going on? That creepy, old, robot-bothering super villain !@#$ Doctor Kyklops decides to declare war on the Imago with the Slaughterbots that METALMAID, got for him. Apparently, if it'd been up to him, he'd have just built his stores up to Wagnerian heights and banged his metal love toy, but The Violet Demon talked her into telling him it was time to !@#$ or get off the !@#$ pot, and !@#$ he did. Unfortunately for him, he really just !@#$ the bed, and the so-called Kyklops War was all over within 48 !@#$ing hours.

But still, that's depleted the Imago's resources, just a bit. And this is just after they got caught killing civilians on live TV after something really bad went down just outside Neo York City with the Black Card and Whisper (remember her?).

And that was all courtesy of the Masked Leader of the Resistance, who's apparently been flying through !@#$ing time and space with some weird guy. And he's been setting a number of things into motion, in places in Africa, and the Kingdom, and Neo York City, and God only knows where the !@#$ else. And none of these things they do are anything that SPYGOD actually knows about, but all of them are things that lead up to his big !@#$ rat-maze of a plan. 

(Which is really !@#$ funny if you think about it, just don't expect SPYGOD to want to !@#$ing laugh)

Okay, so you got all that? Good. Because this is where it all comes together and tries to sing a song for a  charity record.

The day comes to take back the planet, and SPYGOD's got just about every last !@#$ thing he could pull out of the bag pulled out. He's got all the strategic talents we knew about, and a bunch only he ever knew about waiting in the wings (including the Violet Demon, who turns out to have been New Man's son, all along). He's got the weird armies of the world all ready to go. He's dressed to the 9s and has his playlist all cued up, and weapons you've never even heard of before jammed into his dress every which way but sideways.

And as soon as he kills the entire !@#$ internet (which is what had all the super spies spooked) he gets ready to roll out his stolen supernazi UFO, and pull the curtain back on this massively !@#$ing powerful giant robot that Organization 10's been hiding in plain sight since whenever-the-!@#$ A.D. and march it all the !@#$ way to the Lost City, there to smash the Flier to pieces.

Of course, with any luck, it won't be much of a fight. And that's because the primary plan is for the Toons to get six satellites from the folks at B.A.S.E.C.A.M.P. 4, and then launch them into orbit just after Deep-Ten's been turned off. The satellites are going to broadcast a signal that's a more powerful version of the one that Myron used to stun anything using GORGON technology on 3/15, and with luck that should !@#$ing knock out the Imago, the Specials, and anything else they've got on hand. With more luck, they'll stay !@#$ing knocked out.

Oh, and the person who's responsible for knocking Deep-Ten out? None other than Director Straffer, himself! Turns out he didn't die when the Imago took over his weapons platform. He just jumped out an airlock and aimed himself at the !@#$ Moon, which he can do since it turns out he's as cybernetic as he is queer (which is to say, "as !@#$.") He's been hiding at what's left of Alpha Base Seven since then, and coordinating with Freedom Force on what to do next, with the stipulation that no one tell SPYGOD it's him, or that he's alive, because he wants it to be a big surprise.

(Isn't that just !@#$ing romantic?)

Which would be a great plan, if only it had actually !@#$ing worked. You see, there's some big !@#$ problems, and they're all because of other people and their big !@#$ problems. And while the Masked Leader and his weird friend might have seen them coming, apparently it was all !@#$ that had to play out, one way or another, though they could do a little bit to help out, here and there.

(If that makes any !@#$ing sense...?)

Case in point? It turns out that one of the new Arabic Supers that was teleported over to B.A.S.E.C.A.M.P. 4 was none other than Moloch in disguise. He figured he'd get there, gum up the works at a critical moment, and then demand SPYGOD come there and die in exchange for his precious satellites. Fortunately, the Green Man had an idea that he was going to be fighting to save his son, and was prepared, so this big, back-and-forth battle rages across the treehouse as the good guys try to get the satellites away and Moloch keeps attacking, getting fought back, and creating new !@#$ bodies out of whatever metal's available.

Lucky for us, they finally get the satellites away. But no sooner do they launch them than things go !@#$ed up at the moon base. It turned out that the commander of the base wasn't so keen about having Straffer show up, boss her and her people around, and make them part of a plan that, if it went wrong, might get them all !@#$ing killed. So one of her people sneaks a bomb into the place where he's working, and it goes boom, and while Straffer lives through it, his device does not. 

(Neither does Alpha Base Seven, thanks to Deep-Ten seeing the explosion. Way to go, !@#$holes. Sometimes it really does make sense to just shut up and do what you're !@#$ing told, huh?)

So Deep-Ten is still live, and it not only shoots down the satellites, and Alpha Base Seven, but also starts shooting at the white boxes the Strategic Talents and weird armies are attacking. Before you can even blink, a lot of SPYGOD's plan is in the !@#$ing toilet.

Of course, that's when he decides to go forward, anyway, because there's nothing else he can do, so he tells the supers to converge on the white cities he was hoping they wouldn't have to touch, and tells Mister 10 to get the giant robot up and running.  And while Deep-Ten's trying to zap Tokyo, that perky young assistant turns out to be this massively powerful android from the future in disguise. And she's using her shields to keep Tokyo and the giant robot safe, but she can't keep that up for too !@#$ long.

Still, that's enough of a ego boost to the various weird armies, out there, to make them get off their !@#$es and stop hiding under rocks and go kick some !@#$. Which starts to really annoy the Imago, as you might expect, especially since they're losing a lot of their white cities. So they come up with a really nasty plan to deal with it, which involves snagging the First Family to use as hostages, and then telling the American President to end the war, or else.

(Yeah, I forgot to mention, he got on the TV once the internet went down and told everyone they had their brains back, and the revolution was happening. Not a bad !@#$ speech, either.)

Meanwhile, back at B.A.S.E.C.A.M.P. 4, the masked leader comes through to help them out, and turns out to have been Mr. USA all along! Which is really !@#$ weird, because the last we saw him he was on Alter-Earth, and being !@#$ing disappeared by this really powerful kid with dimensional powers and really serious anger management problems. But he's here, and he's !@#$ing old, but he's still got his powers, and uses them to kick Moloch's metal !@#$ all over the treehouse.

And, up in orbit, past the Moon, Director Straffer manages to get close enough to Deep-Ten to actually blow it the !@#$ up, which is not what he wanted to do, because it leaves the planet defenseless from outside threats. But under the circumstances, there was nothing else he could do, and that really should have killed him because he was linked to it, but he found a way to get out of it. Maybe.

Of course, that really horks the Imago off, so they decide it's time to stop being so nice. They send out every last Imago they can find, including ones that are what they really !@#$ing look like (which is not !@#$ing nice to look at) and start trying to genocide the whole !@#$ planet. And that's when SPYGOD gets all these kids that got powers in spite of the suppression drugs in the water to come out and kick their !@#$es, because it's literally now or never.

(He also calls this Native American shapeshifter named Gosheven, who we haven't !@#$ing seen in forever. Turns out he's been hiding on the Flier this entire time as a big cloud of sleeping, gay molecules or something, and now he's up and running, and he finds the original New Man, who we also haven't seen in forever. And they go off hand in hand to go !@#$ up some !@#$ for SPYGOD.)

SPYGOD also gets what few heroes he can get together in the central building in NYC to go get the First Family back, without letting the President know what's happened. (And after what happened in China, can you blame him?) Lucky for those few heroes, the B.A.S.E.C.A.M.P. 4 survivors show up in the exact same place, having barely escaped that reality from the third or fourth coming of Moloch. Green Man's dead, but his son's alive, and while some of the heroes break off to get to the Ice Palace, the rest go try to find something to save the kid, who's failing fast.

After that, it just comes down to blind !@#$ing luck. Poor Thomas gets put into a medical machine, but it "uploads" him instead of curing him. Lady Gilda gets shot out of the sky but SPYGOD's able to keep fighting. White Robot's able to handle the Flier's weapons, but the Flier's about to really crank up the firing solution. But then a bunch of War Spawn from the Kingdom finally !@#$ing get there and start destroying the city and drawing the Flier's weapons off the robot. And then New Man trashes the Flier's engine room, which just takes the !@#$ fight out of it.

And, in spite of something going really !@#$ wrong at the South Pole, because they just didn't get there fast enough, Myron's able to shut off the Imago, because they were !@#$ing stupid to guard their communications circuits. He just uploaded the signal he was going to put into those satellites into their radio feed, and boom, they all fell down.

And, except for a really tender reunion between SPYGOD and the thing that had killed and become The Dragon (He !@#$ed in his face until his skull melted) that was the end of the Reclamation War.

(...*whew!*)

So, by all rights, SPYGOD should be the man of the hour, here. He should be getting showered with medals, booze, and ladyboys. He should be leading The COMPANY, again, and being hailed as the man who saved the world, and ended the pall of terror it's been living under since World War II, when the science terrorist groups that came up out of that conflict started threatening the planet's safety and security every !@#$ time you turned around.

(And he really should be getting ready to deal with that oooga-booga threat from beyond space and time that's coming here, too. Not to mention the Alter-Earth SPYGOD, who's still out there, and no longer working with his former partner, masquerading as Geri Tomorrow {see, I told you we'd get back to her, sooner or later}. And who knows what Aaron and the Beautiful Stranger are up to...?)

And instead, he's under !@#$ing house arrest with his boyfriend and his cat, and not nearly enough beer to deal with this !@#$?

Something obviously went wrong, here. Maybe he didn't do enough? Maybe he didn't do the right things at the right time? Maybe something from his past came to light, at long last, and now he's got to pay?

Or maybe the world's changed too much for someone like him to be free in it...?

I guess we're going to !@#$ing find out, aren't we?

SPYGOD. He's an !@#$hole, but he's still our !@#$hole. And when the time came, that !@#$hole was ready and willing to save the whole !@#$ world.

Hopefully, someone can now save him from it. 

(SPYGOD is listening to Welcome To The Pleasure Dome (Frankie Goes to Hollywood, the full 40 minute version) and wondering where they stashed the !@#$ booze)

12/15/12 - Hold Your Head Up, Keep Your Head Up

-  SPYGOD stands naked before the burning, twitching corpse of the Flier, strewn across the ruins of the Lost City, and knows peace for the first time in months.

He watches as cyclopean War Spawn heave and slither across the crumbling ziggurats and pyramids, searching for more paralyzed Imago to stuff into their fanged and puckered orifices. In the dying light of the setting, Pacific Sun, they become less things from nightmare, and more like weird forces of nature. Rarely-seen elementals, perhaps -- mighty knots of earth, wind, and water given both form and a voice, however disturbing. 

He turns to regard the steaming, stinking mess he's turned the Dragon into, but cannot find any sign of that grotesque act of violence left. Not even the massive, caustic pool of long-withheld god-urine remains, now, to say nothing of the battered lump of plastic, metal, bone, and brain it was so angrily unleashed upon.

All he can find is a large plastic spoon, still in its see-through wrapper. 

SPYGOD considers this, and picks up the utensil. As he looks at it, he realizes that it has become night. What he thought the last, wavering rays of the Sun are merely the great, unearthly fires that burn uncontrolled under a dark sky, bereft of Moon and star. 

The great white robot is nowhere to be seen, now. The War Spawn have all gone. Only the fires remain, casting their ominous shadows about the cracked surfaces of the Lost City.

Or is it? Now this city has changed its shape, before his eye -- becoming a single, small temple that SPYGOD remembers all too well. 

It a small and beetling thing, this temple; a throwback to a truly ancient time in a distant land that was fought over for so long, but for all the wrong reasons. Its towering, rhomboidal entrance blazes with pure white light, and strange and angry noises issue forth along with that pure and brilliant illumination.

SPYGOD doesn't so much walk over to the door as he simply appears before it. He smiles, just a little, knowing  that this must be a dream, or else a very skewed memory, and what happens next proves him quite right. 

Inside, he sees himself as he was, a little over fifty years ago -- a vision in tight black leather, with not nearly enough guns and knives at hand. He is a man who appears younger than he really is, but has the eyes of an old man who's seen too much. He's just just starting to sag in the wrong places, and really feel the weight of what he's signed up for.

Especially here and now. 

He has just shot his way through every doughty, vermillion-robed warrior monk of the temple, perhaps a hundred in all. They all attacked him, as they attacked the one who came before him -- the one he was trying to beat here -- and seemed almost apologetic about trying to kill him. But he had no such sentiments in return, and gladly shot, stabbed, and punched them all into the oblivion they claimed to be guarding against.

(Or served, perhaps? Nothing here was quite what it seemed at the time, he would later realize.) 

Now, at the end of his quest, he is carefully approaching their great and only treasure. It sits on a small dais in the center of the main room, glittering every color known to man, and many that are mysterious and incomprehensible.

The Chandra Eye, itself.

"I pity you..." the eldest monk is saying as he bleeds out, not bothering to staunch the sucking wound below his heart: "This burden you must take upon yourself. We would have stopped you, but you alone have proven worthy. For that, we can only apologize..."

"Apology accepted," the younger him says, holding a hand up to his eyes (my god, two eyes!) and reaching towards the treasure: "Now, if you don't !@#$ing mind, I got a world to save, and not a lot of !@#$ time to do it..."

"But do you know what saving it like this will mean? The burden... it will bring upon you?"

"Yeah, well, I got a bad !@#$ing habit of getting burdened. Kind of goes with the !@#$ job description."

"This is nothing like that," his dying attacker says, watching as the man's hand closes around the treasure: "Other things, you could walk away from. Once this is inside you, there is no escape. It will be you, and you it, from now until forever, and perhaps beyond."

"So it's just like Camp Rogers, again," he says, taking the eye from the dais and holding it in his hand. As he does, it shrinks down, becoming exactly the size of a human eye.

"That experience you could understand, my friend. What is to come, however, will constantly confound you. You will slowly learn what it means to be a God, one revelation at a time. And in the ages to come, you will know nothing but change... and obligation...

"And regret..." dreaming SPYGOD says, in time with the last words of the monk, who closes his eyes and slips away.

"Yeah, well, !@#$ regret," the man SPYGOD was says, searching his pockets for the right tool for the job. All his knives are rusty or bloody, and not really good at gouging...

The dreaming SPYGOD looks at the plastic spoon he's had in his hand the entire time, and chuckles darkly. He assumes the right throwing stance, cocks his arm back, and tosses the spoon in such a way that it lands in the very pocket his old self found it in, all those years ago. 

"How the !@#$ did that get there?" that one says, looking over where his future, dreaming self stands, as if he can see him, though he cannot.

But a few fevered seconds later, after he's done the bloody and irrevocable thing that spoon needed to be used for, and put the Chandra Eye in the ragged, bleeding socket that action has created, he can.

"But you didn't know what you saw, then, did you?" a familiar voice asks from right behind dreaming SPYGOD as his old self holds his head and screams: "You didn't recognize yourself, any more than you could have recognized me..."

"You...?" SPYGOD says, turning around as-

- he's shaken from dreams by the sound of a shrill and insistent alarm clock that is not is own.

His eyes crack open. His mouth sours. He reaches for the gun he normally keeps by the side of the bed for the purpose of shooting his alarm clock, but cannot find it, and wonders what the !@#$ is going on here.

Then he remembers, and would much rather be !@#$ing asleep. 

In the end, he extends his penis out of the sheets, and over to the night stand, where it becomes a giant, meaty fist and beats the living !@#$ out of the offending noisemaker. The sound the device makes in its last seconds on earth -- five considerable thumps into its demise -- is akin to a pocket video game in desperate need of new batteries.

That done, SPYGOD snuggles up to the person in his bed, trying to get back to sleep. But something's not right. The exertions of his motile manhood have disrupted the cozy configuration they were in, and now they can't quite get it back. He moves one way, the other man moves the other. He tries to compensate, so does the other.

And he'd love to wake his partner up and try to coordinate their shared movements, but Straffer looks so angelic when he's asleep, SPYGOD doesn't dare disturb him.

So he just watches him sleep, for a few minutes, smiling as he does. And then he slips out of bed, realizing he's not getting any more rest this morning, and pads naked through his new bedroom, towards the kitchen.

(Their new bedroom, he has to remind himself. Theirs.)

The halls are jam-packed with hastily-packed boxes and things, some of which are marked with where they're going to go. Remnants of an old life, and reminders of a new reality, all stacked atop one another in teetering piles one bad move from crumbling over and down.

He remembers MacArthur leaving Korea, after Truman had had enough. How that stately General had looked at his packed-up office, and then at him, and said "It's the old rule about changing assignments, son. You can't stay here, anymore, but you can always take it with you, one !@#$ box at a time."

"Good thing you've got people to carry them for you, sir," SPYGOD had said. He'd never known if the man had appreciated the joke or not. He was always hard to read, MacArthur.

On the way to the kitchen, he comes across Bee-Bee, who's sprawled atop a tall tower of boxes, snoozing next to an empty bottle of vodka. They got him a new pillow to make up for the one he lost (along with a much better gun than that old, museum piece) but the cat's turned up his nose at both of them, clearly preferring this dangerous perch, instead.

SPYGOD reaches up to scritch him under the chin, but the cat mumbles sleepy obscenities at him ("Eбут выключен, мудак...") and he decides to let the ungrateful bag of fuzz and farts sleep it off.

At last the kitchen, full of thai takeaway boxes and empty cans of Singha. They haven't properly set up in there, yet, but the important things are out. A microwave, plastic silverware, a big block of sharp, long knives.

And, most important of all, a coffee machine that's set at the same time as the alarm.

As he watches the coffee drip down into the pot, SPYGOD thinks about the dream/memory he just had. He remembers how he saw himself, all those years ago, when he put the Chandra Eye in his skull. He also remembers who was standing with him, though he didn't know him yet.

(This changes things, to say the least. Something to look into, when he has the ability, again. Whenever that is...)

Before he knows it, the pot is full. He takes the entire thing with him into the living room, and, staring at the windows with their heavy drapes, absentmindedly drinks the whole !@#$ thing down in two gulps. Then he tosses it onto the couch, and belches loud enough to make the windows shake.

"Ah, !@#$ it," he says, striding over to the drapes: "No sense delaying it."

He opens the drapes up and looks down from his high window, Life of Brian style. It's a beautiful, winter's day. The sun is shining, the air is clear, the snow is new and sparkling.

And someone down below screams "Murderer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and throws a bottle up at him.

She's not alone in this. Before he can even blink that bottle is joined by snowballs, trash, cans, and the occasional moltov cocktail. The massive crowd down there, far below his window, is screaming and baying for blood, holding up signs that scream "Murderer of children!" and "Assassin of the poor" in a dozen languages.

He can count them with ease: two thousand, five hundred, forty-nine -- six more than yesterday. He can tell they come from all over the world, based on their looks and the languages he can hear them using. He can practically smell their hate from up here.

Between the throng and the building is a line of police. They look like they would rather be anywhere other than here. One of them turns and flips SPYGOD the bird, eliciting cheers from the nearby crowd. 

And beyond them all, a solid line of news vans, and reporters with video cameras, all happy to lap this up for the constant news feed.

"House arrest, day two," SPYGOD sighs, watching them burn him in effigy, and wondering how much trouble he'd get in for putting out the fire by peeing on them.

(SPYGOD is listening to Sweet Dreams (Eurythmics, by way of Emily Browning) and having black coffee by the gallon.)

SPYGOD'S GREATEST !@#@S #6 - Beautiful Friend, The End

For a few fleeting seconds, Jim Morrison met Johnny Morphine, rock and roll messiah of the Colonies, who'd died defending its native peoples against demon-spawned redcoats with laser guns. He'd fought them hard and well for years, with blasters and songs, but sooner or later was going to come the day when his devil's luck would run out.

That was the day, right then and there. Smashed down to earth in a blue bus, bleeding to death. More laser-bored hole than not, he was still shooting and laughing at the enemy as they continued to come for him, eager to collect the million-pound bounty on his head and neck.

Then, across the worlds, Johnny saw Jimmy. Their eyes met, and he knew it was a good time to walk on. So he did.

* * *

Beautiful Friend, The End (7/3/11) - In which we talk about Jim Morrison -- ALL of them. Magic, reincarnation, and rock and roll.

SPYGOD's Big !@#$ Away Message

AGENTS!

This is a reminder that SPYGODS TALES is on !@#$ing hiatus for the next two weeks. We're going to rest our big !@#$ creative batteries with some tropical rays, winsome ladyboys, and alcohol.

Lots and lots of !@#$ing alcohol.

Until we return, we'll be playing "best of" every day or so, because it's cheap and better than dead air. Plus, you might !@#$ing learn something.

But be sure to add us on Facebook and Twitter. There may be big !@#$news. There may also be !@#$ amusing pictures of someone's cat. Or alcohol.

Stay strong, agents. If I could !@#$ing handle being a POW in Korea, you can !@#$ing handle 14 days without new SPYGOD.

Now get out of my sunshine before I use this big !@#$ flyswatter as a sex tool.

10/15/12 - The Reclamation War - Epilogue

At first, there's just the silent darkness -- total and absolute.

The Dragon is unsure how long he's floating in it. Is it hours, or days? Weeks or months? Maybe even years?

He does not care. All sense of time and space have floated away, here in the black, and with it any anxieties or fears he might have had.

He cannot hear the constant communications of The Flier within his mind, anymore. He cannot feel the rush of the winds on his body, or sense the power as it courses through him. He cannot sense the movements of those who work and toil within the aircraft he has become.

And, most disconcertingly of all, he can no longer feel the presence of the Imago within him, or sense that his Leader is near, anymore.

A lesser mind could have gone mad from this sudden, all-encompassing disconnection -- especially when he wonders how he got here, and flashes back to what little memory remains of the epic battle he just lost. Anyone else might be screaming in the hopes of being heard by some higher power, or gibbering in terror at the thought that this is death, and there's nothing awaiting but an eternity of black.

But he is no sad little soul, left to wander unawares in the world. He is The Dragon.

And he realizes that he may have finally achieved the perfect moment of Zen that accompanies the removal of all needs, desires, and distractions.

He gets the sense that he had been striving towards something, at the end of his life. Perhaps this is what he would have found at the end of that striving, perhaps not. But if this final, darkened silence is to be his new reality, then he can both accept and be content within it.

He can simply be.

Of course, that's when everything goes wrong.

At first, he's not sure where the light is coming from. There is a weird flickering in front of him, and that brings with it both awareness and pain.

The light solidifies, and with it the agony. Horizontal lines unfold, like an old television warming up. Shapes slowly resolve themselves, flickering and crackling.

(He has a flashback to a scene from that one, terrible western movie he watched along with SPYGOD, that one time, while pretending to be his lover. Only that was played for laughs. This makes him feel dread, once more.)

There is a brightness, sharp and painful, and then he's seeing things, once more. He sees a vast and ruined -- and eerily silent -- landscape: toppled stone temples and buildings, strewn with smoking heaps of twisted metal. Smokeless fires burn out of control, here and there, and men and women in garish, metal suits lie broken under the Sun.

Beyond it all is an ocean, roiling and vast. In that ocean he can see things moving around, just under its surface, or bobbing just above it. Wondrous and terrible things, seemingly born from nightmares inspired by the unknown depths of the wet below.

Just out of his field of vision -- which he cannot change, for he cannot move -- stands a great, white colossus, somehow standing upon the ocean, yet not going up or down with its waves. Its fists are caked with burning debris, and its baleful gaze sees all things at once.

His vision shifts again, as though someone were moving his head. And then someone is. He is picked up by hands, lifted up, and shown the rest of the landscape around him.

And at last he realizes what he is seeing, and cries out silently, in massive, Nirvana-dispelling despair.

The Lost City of the Imago is destroyed -- cracked and broken, shattered and flattened. Massive War Spawn drive their tentacles and pincers into what little remains, and pull out limp and passive Imago to shove into their massive, toothy maws.

And all around the ruin lies the sorry, smoking remnants of what was once The Flier -- what was once him. Heaps of metal and plastic smolder and buckle, and except for the occasional twitch or shudder, there is no sign of it trying to put itself back together again.

The Flier is dead. His body is gone.

And The Dragon cannot feel anything.

At some point, he wonders why he's still being held aloft. Then the hands that are keeping him up put him down on the ground, and turn him back to face their owner.

It's SPYGOD, of course.

He's still naked, and doesn't have so much as a scratch on him. He must have healed all that damage from earlier, and for that The Dragon curses him.

He's smiling, too, but it's not the kind smile, or the happy smile, or the "let's !@#$" smile. It's the smile he gives those he's just utterly and completely beaten, just before delivering the coup de grace.

The death smile. 

He's talking, SPYGOD is, but The Dragon cannot hear any of it. His eyes are working -- probably reconnected by his former lover -- but the ears are out of action, and probably strewn over a nearby heap, or buried under it.

As such, he does not hear the man say what he needs to say at this moment, though he can make out a few words, here and there. "Nice try," is one key phrase, as are "stupid," "evil," "alien," and "!@#$heads."

At some point, he stops rattling off insults and accusations, and just looks at him. When he starts up again, he seems almost tender, but The Dragon knows this is not directed at him. It's directed at the man The Dragon once was -- the dying, Chinese super-spy who foolishly threw in with GORGON in the hopes of gaining a new, healthy body, and eventually betraying them for his own purposes.

That one had no idea that the uploading procedure killed as it copied. He had no inkling, until it was too late, that the process made a new being: one made up of the memories of the original, but the mind and soul of an Imago.

And then one Dragon was dead and gone -- dust on the ground of the house they'd imprisoned him in --- and a new Dragon was alive and well, and ready to be put into action.

SPYGOD knows this, now (though how, exactly, is unknown). And now that he's no longer interested in mourning the man he loved -- at least for now -- he's gone back to excoriating The Dragon for having been born from that dead man's ashes. He's raging, screaming, frothing at the mouth. He's shaking his fists and shrieking, his face a mere inch away from whatever The Dragon is using to see with.

The Dragon cannot reply to this, any more than he can hear. He can only watch, helplessly, and wonder when the man who's beaten him will finally get it over with.

Or will he? This is the first time a takeover of the entire world has succeeded so well for so long. Will The Dragon be captured, then? Will he be nursed back to health, to some degree, and then put on trial? Will he be refitted and rebuilt, just to be torn down and executed for his role in things?

For a moment, he imagines himself on the witness stand -- proud and defiant. He will have nothing to say but the truth, and nothing to offer for defense except for the simple fact that he wanted to save his species from captivity, and then from the certain annihilation this planet will soon experience at the hands of (UNINTELLIGIBLE CONCEPT). 

He will proudly go to whatever guillotine they might make for him. He will stare into the executioner's eyes for only so long, and then stare into the distance, noble in death.

He did what he did for love, and let that be his epitaph.

He's so wrapped up in that thought that he almost loses track of SPYGOD's harangue. When he catches up, he realizes that the man isn't screaming or yelling, anymore. He's stepping back a few paces and putting his hands on his hips.

He's saying something about drinks, now. "Whiskey," "vodka," and "Scotch." "Beer," "beer," and more "beer."

And something about not having a chance to visit the bathroom since he left Tokyo...

The Dragon gasps and tries to protest what's about to happen, but he can't. He can only watch as SPYGOD reaches down, takes hold of his impossible genitals -- now unrolling just like a horse's penis -- and unleashes a heavy, steady, firehose-stream of caustic, smoking god-urine right into The Dragon's face.

It's like being washed away by a breaking, yellow tsunami at first, and then, for the first time since his Flier-body was smashed into the Lost City, he can at last feel pain. A horrible, nauseating, burning sensation as the !@#$ rushes through his eye sockets and begins to melt his living brain.

And as he feels his memories and hopes and dreams turn to runny, bloody mush in his skull -- reliving the same agony the real Dragon went through, in his last moments of life -- he can actually hear SPYGOD's black and mocking laughter, following him down into whatever true fate now awaits the likes of him.

* * *

And so -- as he sees nothing at all, ever again -- The Dragon does not see the world as it crawls back up into the light at the end of this black and red day.

He does not see common humanity rising up from fear and flight to retake their lives -- attacking those that would have killed them with any weapons they can bring to bear. He does not witness men, women, and precocious children smashing the skulls of the fallen, lest they get back up again and kill some more.

Today is not a good day to be merciful to a fallen foe.

He does not see what little remains of the strange armies his alien brothers and sisters fought against, and how they try to celebrate in the wake of this narrowest of victories. The term "Phyric" is used more than once, by some commanders who suffered much worse than others. And as for the spies who helped arrange these armies, most are simply too tired and weary to label it anything other than victory.

Today is not a good day to examine the costs too closely.

He does not see the sad, battered remnants of the heroes and strategic talents that SPYGOD and his mysterious "leader" assembled. Around the world, they stagger and stretch, wondering if this really is all over, or if they need to remain vigilant still. Some cheer, some cry, and some can only collapse in pure exhaustion, or else stare into the distance -- their minds broken from slaughter and loss.

Today is not a good day to feel like a hero.

He does not see the American President cheering and whooping it up from the safety of The B.U.I.L.D.I.N.G. in Neo York City, alternating between thanking his God and having some of Old Ben's special victory brew. He does not see how hard Ben Franklin is working to avoid saying something pithy or wise, now, knowing that it's best to let this man have this moment, as the sobering reality of what's to come will be painful enough.

Today is not a good day to be a leader of what little is left.

He does not see a group of demoralized men and women who could only stand by helplessly as the boy they fought tooth and nail to save from a monster dies under their watch -- his mind absorbed by a machine that seemed unwilling to do anything but kill his body. He does not see the disgusting thing that has just happened elsewhere in that building, while they struggled to save that boy, or the strange change that has just come over the city around them.

Today is not a good day to have not known the shape of the future.

He does not see the monster in human shape that his people bargained with, so many years ago, as he carefully slinks from these changes, unseen and unheard. He does not see that this person is still aroused from the ghastly and bloody horror he has created with his hands, a knife, and his genitals. He does not know this man's plans, or the terrible things he's about to do in their name.

Today is not a good day to be in the way of those who would shape the future.

He does not see a so-called outlaw journalist as he cries, holding the dead body of a woman he'd come to love. Neither of them saw as she walked between him and the weapon that was meant to take his life as he watched history happen, and how she did it with the certainty that comes from being in the right place at the right time. He does not see his allies and friends as they carry on the recording in his name, mourning both that loss and many, many more on this day.

Today is not a good day to have been focusing only on the big picture, and not seeing the small details.

He does not see one of the newly-minted heroes as she staggers downtown, amazed that she's still alive. He does not see the red-suited girl is so much in shock that she's having a hard time realizing how many of the new friends she made today, in battle, were not as lucky. He does not see up above her, on a tall building, where a young boy in a poorly-fitting, blue and white costume bleeds out from his nose and mouth, having given his all to keep a strange woman sniper alive. He does not see that the woman is long gone, having spared that boy's noble sacrifice next to no thought over the need to get away unseen.

Today is not a good day to have been called to one's destiny.

He does not see another group of demoralized men and women, as far South as one can get from Neo York City. He does not see a man stare at the blood on his blistered hands as he kneels in a dark hallway full of dead genetic experiments, too stunned at the events of the day to take it all in. He does not see the no-longer-hidden leader of the resistance as he waits for news from the outside world, somehow knowing that the greater parts of his plan have worked, but also knowing that many smaller and painful failures and oversights have yet to be tallied up.

And he does not see the self-proclaimed master magician of Earth as he kneels by one of those oversights -- the  brutalized body of the President's daughter -- and is unable to assuage the anguish of her mother or younger sister because there is nothing he can do, now.

Today is not a good day to have been too late to do anything.

He does not see what little remains of Alpha Base Seven, and the sorry, imploded remnants of its once-considerable crew -- brought down by fear, jealousy, and motives that may never be fully understood. He does not see the shattered remnants of a lunar escape pod, tumbling slowly back towards Earth in time with the expanding wave of debris from what was once Earth's best defense, and then its worst enemy. He does not see the small remnant of the man that destroyed that defense, barely kept alive by what little power his craft has left to give.

Today is not a good day to have been willing to sacrifice everything for the cause.

Nearer to him, The Dragon does not see a pair of men entwined together on the molecular level, shivering in and out of phase with reality as they fight to come back to it, step by step. Nor does he see the wreck of a repurposed Nazi flying saucer -- itself repurposed from alien technology -- as it falls to the bottom of the Pacific, trailing debris behind it. Amongst the things falling down are full bottles of vodka, a silken, never-cleaned cat pillow that says "Бегемот," and an AK-47.

Today is not a good day to have been along for the ride on a plan too uncertain to write down. 

He does not see a taciturn man inside a great, white robot as he howls in despair, crying his eyes out over what he sees on the screen. He does not see the burning, mangled horror that is the center of Tokyo, and the giant pile of dead Imago that dominates its center. He does not see an android that looks like a young girl lying atop that heap -- her head at a strange angle, her eyes dark and blank.

Today is not a good day to have risked what you loved in the name of a greater duty.

He does not see a gloriously ugly robot finally return to her secret, underground base, only to find it completely bare. He does not see that all of her work is gone, all of her tools are taken, all of her Slaughterbots have disappeared. He does not see that all that remains are ten words, carefully painted on the wall by the most dangerous woman in the world:

WHEN I SEE YOU, I WILL KILL YOU

START RUNNING. 

Today is not a good day to have been reckless in planning, or untrue with one's allies.

He also does not see, in a pocket reality, a metal monster screaming as it realizes that it has no way to return to our world, and gain its revenge upon SPYGOD for the crime of existing. He does not see that the exotic components in the machine it became have burned out from the strain it put itself under, trying to follow where its targets went. He does not see its comatose, meat body lying dead in a sorry splatter of blood, bone, and feeding tubes in Dubai -- a victim of the push and pull of fighting that took place there, earlier this day.

(Today is not a good day to have been a mentally !@#$ed-up supervillain, either, it would seem.)

And The Dragon does not see the living, either.

He does not see families as they reunite and thank their Gods that they have survived. He does not see communities band together to clean up the mess, put out their fires, and tend to their wounded. He does not see leaders come back out to gather their people, or new ones step forward to be counted in the moment of need.

He does not see old friends and new allies as they clasp hands, grateful for the presence and aid of one another. He does not see the brotherhood that comes with war as it transforms the hearts of many people around the world -- setting aside old hatreds and rivalries, and creating in their place the hope for a new beginning. He does not see that the peace he and his people had falsely peddled has finally come around, at least for some.

He does not see that humanity has survived yet another attempt to subjugate, enslave, harvest, and kill it. He does not see that, while there are tears and sadness, there is also joy and hope. He does not see that from these ashes, this world can arise again -- perhaps stronger and better than the last time.

He does not see the story of human survival as it is written once again.

But he does see that today was not a good day to have been the cause of all this sorrow, destruction, and death -- for as long as it takes him to die from being !@#$ed on, anyway.

SPYGOD laughs. The pain recedes into a speck of memory. Everything goes well and truly black.

And then-

(SPYGOD is listening to Black Celebration (Depeche Mode) and having a Black Death Beer )

10/15/12 - The Reclamation War - Pt. 16

When the Imago began to hatch their plan to take over the Earth, through GORGON, they realized that they would have to neutralize SPYGOD as soon as possible.

It wasn't necessarily because of his position, his connections, or his long history. Nor was it his skills, or his abilities, or even his power set.

(It wasn't even his somewhat skewed sense of fashion, though the less serious amongst them joked that removing his utterly flamboyant optical pollution from the world could only be a good thing.)

It was simply because they knew that, when the time came, he would fight them tooth and nail in such a way that they could not ignore, much less sweep under the rug.

They thought they had him taken care of, thanks to their gruesome deception involving the American President, and the arrangement they'd made with the two beings from Alter-Earth. They figured that, accused of such a terrible crime, SPYGOD would crawl underground and bide his time, giving them just enough of it to take over the world before he could launch a plan. And even if he did show his face again, he'd have a very hard time convincing his people of the truth while they were hunting him down -- especially with False Faces in important positions.

And if he followed the trail the truth ultimately led to -- all the way to Alter-Earth -- he would surely not return.

When they learned he'd gone there, after all, they were worried at first. But then came the news that the city they'd taken the real President to was gone -- completely obliterated -- and they figured that he was, at long last, dead. And so they went forward, secure in the belief that no one and no thing could stand against them now.

And for a time, things were truly glorious. 

But then things started happening, like the high-tech bombing of their space elevator. And after they chased down the obvious culprits -- killing far too many humans in the process -- and then discovered that, while they'd been searching for them, someone had stolen key information from a lock-up in China, they realized that they had been played.

And they were quite confident that they knew who was sitting across the card table from them, sleeves stuffed full of Aces.

So they began to hunt him down, as he was, in turn, hunting them. They swatted aside annoyances with increasing levels of firepower and civilian casualties, hoping to rouse him to anger and sudden action, but he did not oblige. They laid traps along the way, hoping to snare him, but even when they did they never held onto him for long.

And then there was that strange attempt by that old, had-been supervillain to take over the world using an army of the sort of robot SPYGOD used to use for domestic help. At first, they figured it was a separate matter, but when it was all over, they wondered if it wasn't yet another costly diversion from SPYGOD, after all.

And now, not long thereafter -- seven months to the day since they took over the world -- they were in dire danger of actually losing it, again.

And here is SPYGOD, leading the charge against their own center of power.

He is surrounded by a horde of Imago -- false and true -- and being bombarded by eyebeams that should be deadly to any living being with a set of eyes. Except that he has no eyes, save for a glass copy of one and the Chandra Eye under an eyepatch. And while their beams can do massive damage to nonliving things as well, he is not letting that stop in him the least.

He has no armor, no weapons, no means of transportation. He is naked and unashamed, battered and bruised and bloody. And yet he continues to fight on -- leaping from Imago to Imago, killing each one in turn with a vicious bite to the forehead, or powerful smack upside the skull with his hands, feet, or penis, and then jumping onto the next and nearest victim.

And all the while, as the Imago are tied up dealing with him, the massive, white robot he brought out to fight flies ever closer to the Lost City, and the Flier, not even feeling the sting of the Flier's weaponry yet.

The Dragon -- perhaps the only member of the Imago's leadership with the tactical skills to know what to do next -- realizes that it's only a matter of time before the Dignitary is at their gates, and using its own strength and weapons to rain mega-powered ruin down upon them. He has no desire to see this, and so has decided to hold back on the true strength of their weapons, the better to lull them into a false sense of security, and get them close enough to feel the full bite of their power.

But as he prepares to fire these as-yet silent weapons -- sliding forward massive dark matter cannons, sending protonic missile pods out from their shafts, and aiming the mighty displacer beams -- The Dragon realizes that even this is a terrible gamble.

They may yet lose. The enemy may yet win.

And if the enemy does win, that victory can only ever be laid at the feet of the man who they tried so hard to put out of the picture, and obviously failed to do so.

SPYGOD will have won this day.

And, given their history, The Dragon will not have any standing for surrender in the aftermath.

So he waits for the crucial, critical moment, when either SPYGOD or the earth-shattering mecha he has awakened gets just close enough, and then he can make that one last roll of the-

* * *

dice, lady," Mrs. Liberty says, kicking the Imago trying to kill her right in the uterus, and smiling rather widely when she sees an entire, boot-shaped section of her metal-plated anatomy go flying out the back.

And then it's all she can do to shoot the !@#$ in the face -- the better to withdraw her foot from the sticky, bloody mess -- and then go on to the next one. 

Her partner and friend, Liberty Belle, is dead, lying in sorry pieces at her feet. She doesn't have the time to mourn her now, and that just makes her !@#$ angry.

(And the strange presence that either was or was not with them, helping them fight, hasn't been around for quite some time, so she's imagining he's dead too -- whoever he was. But imagines she'll feel sad for him, too, when the time comes.)

She also realizes she'll have a lot to mourn, in the days to come, if she survives this -- which is a big maybe, right now. The special eyeglasses she's wearing to keep the Imago from killing her with their eyebeams is probably one more direct hit from frying, and then she'll either fight blind or not at all.The guns she's been looting from dead enemies are getting fewer and harder to find.

And the sky keeps opening up and vomiting out Imago, or Specials, or whatever those weird hybrid things are...

All around the world, it's the same thing. Groups of heroes huddle together, dealing with the last, frantic gasps of an enemy whose true power was never truly known until now. The weird armies redouble their efforts and try to protect civilians as best they can, but find themselves unable to both kill the enemy and save others from being killed by them. 

And if not them, the seemingly-endless supply of those that come after them. Over and over again.

As the numbers of the good decrease, and the numbers of the bad increase, more than one hero raises his or her head to exclaim that they could win this day, if only someone would find a way to-

* * *

!@#$ it!" Myron shouts over his communicator, as he heads into the dark bowels of the Ice Palace with only a map and a headlamp to guide him (and Yanabah to guard him): "You deal with... that, and let me deal with this, okay?"

"Alright son," Mr. USA replies from where he is, his voice weak and quavering: "Just hurry. We've already been too late, today..."

Myron grimaces. He really did not need to be reminded of that, just now.

"Hold up," the Native American woman says, capping off a pair of shots into the gloom ahead of them. There's a scream and a gurgle, and then a dwarf tumbles from a support beam, his rifle clattering to the ground just after him.

"Good shooting," he says: "Can you see in the dark?"

"I can smell things really well," she explains, kicking the rifle away from the thing as they pass it, just to be sure: "There's no more in this passage. Might be some in the room we're heading to, though."

"Alright then," Myron says: "You take point, I'll come after."

"No guns?" she asks, looking at his uniform.

"I didn't get into this business to kill people."

"Time to learn, Underman," she snorts, and runs ahead to the swinging double doors looming ahead of them. She kicks them in, and does a cartwheel with her forward momentum. There's six quick shots, and then some more screaming, and then nothing.

"Nasty !@#$," he mutters, remembering when SPYGOD told him the same thing about learning to kill, and how well that went.

In the room, there's a half-dozen dead dwarves strewn about the ground, some still twitching. All of them appear to have been shot between the eyes. Yanabah is looking at the large bank of controls on the other side, most of which appear to have been added onto whatever ABWEHR was doing, here.

The noise in here is almost deafening: electrical hums and clicking, along with the strange, water in the wind noise that massive teleportation platforms give off when they activate in series. 

"Okay, this is the energy output station for the upper level," Myron says, tossing the map aside as he goes: "So it's the logical place for them to be sending their teleport waves through. Might also be a good place to see if we can disrupt their energy supply, somehow."

"Don't talk," she says: "Do. I'll watch the door for more. I can smell them coming."

"You really are one nasty and unpleasant person," he says, sighing: "I could really use some good vibes right now."

"Ain't got none to spare," she says, walking to the door. And it isn't until five minutes of feverish and fruitless work go by -- along with a lot of shooting outside the doors -- that Myron realizes she was crying when she said that.

But he doesn't dare ask her-

* * *

why this way, paleface?" Gosheven asks his older ally, who's so angry it's a wonder he doesn't turn red and melt.

"Because it's all coming back to me now," the original New Man says, purple flecks of energy coming from his mouth as he talks: "While I was being used by them, all those months, it was like my mind was all over the ship. They were using me, but I was spying on them. I just couldn't do anything."

"And now you can," the shapeshifter says, taking a quick look down the maintenance corridor they're about to turn down, and hearing more strange groans from the superstructure: "Any idea what all that !@#$ noise is?"

"They're gearing up to use the big guns."

"You mean they haven't already?"

"Oh no, friend. Not in the slightest. All they've been using so far is the stuff that was on board the Flier when they took it over. These weapons they're calling up are the things they used the last time they took over a world, and maybe the time before that, too."

"Oh boy," Gosheven says: "So what sort of !@#$ are you intending to have us !@#$ up, then? The weapons?"

"How about the kind of !@#$ they can't afford to lose in a firefight of that scale, my friend?" the older man says, patting his ally on the back: "Their central power conductors. And I know just where they are, and how to knock them out."

"Then let's do it."

"There is a chance the damage might be so great that you won't survive," New Man warns him: "I can become energy, but I'm not sure if-"

The Native American looks at the man he rescued and just smiles: "I survived a shot to the head and turned myself intangible to fool you people. You think an explosion's going to hurt me?"

"Fair point. Just duck when I tell you."

"Oh, no worries-"

* * *

there. The robot is just within range, and SPYGOD is not far behind. 

It is time, The Dragon announces to the Leader. I will destroy him.

I cannot speak with The Motion, the Leader says: He has gone blank in my mind.

Perhaps something has happened, The Dragon says, knowing full well what has probably just occurred: Do not worry. Safeguards are in motion to protect what he was doing. They will not be overcome by the likes of what little they have to throw against us.

You do not care for him, the Leader says: Just as you did not care for The Fist, or The Sight. You care only for yourself.

I care for you, my leader, the Dragon says. And maybe, in his heart, he does not feel that it is a lie. 

(And maybe he does, but simply does not care to deal with the contradictions at this glorious, supreme moment. There will be time enough for reflection -- and further, necessary deception -- when the day is done, and the battle won.)

He flexes his muscles and aims his fingers. The dark matter shells are loaded into the cannons. The exotic explosives are armed and ready to fire. The displacement cannons are aimed and primed.

He focuses on the massive, circular iris in the robot's chest -- the place that its primary armaments will come from, when the moment comes -- and then makes ready to fire....

And then, something strange happens. 

The entire city lurches to the east, as something incredibly large and dense crawls out of the ocean and begins to attack it.

From all over the Lost City, and from cameras all over the Flier, The Dragon can see that they have been attacked by some strange, undersea creature -- the genius of all pirates' tales of otherworldly monsters from the deep. A tremendous, sanity-blasting mix of Leviathan, Behemoth, and Kraken, roiling and ripping and smashing as it goes.

A War Spawn.

And it is not alone. A half-dozen more burst to the surface and begin to attack. Then another dozen. 

Then at least a score more...

We are attacked! the Leader screams, panicking: Destroy it! Destroy them! Now!

The Dragon can only concur, and quickly shifts the Flier's weapons to aim at both the monsters and the robot.

And it's only after he begins firing at both that he realizes the massive mistake he's just-

* * *

made this decision lightly, Emperor Thurl says, knowing that SPYGOD can hear him: I tell you truly that the one you called my father feared you, but also respected you. I say to you, also truly, that I give you this gift in his name, as agreed with the one who led your troops in your absence. I hope we both understand what this means, going forward.

"Emperor, you just made a lot of dead sailors lost in the War very !@#$ing unimportant," SPYGOD says, watching the mighty guns of the Dignitary come out for the first time this battle and begin firing at -- and down -- the exotic weapons of the Flier: "And when I say something like that, it !@#$ing means something." 

Then the Overobligation is done?

"Done and dusted," SPYGOD says, tearing the head off the Imago he's riding, throwing it right through another one, and then leaping to the next: "Next time we talk, let's !@#$ing talk normalization, okay? I'm just a little !@#$ing busy, now..."

Truly I understand, the Emperor says, staring up at the darkness above his palace: Go well into battle, my ally. All our hopes are truly with you at this time. 

"Halle-!@#$ing-lulah," SPYGOD says, reaching his hands down into the bloody mess of the Imago he's riding and trying to get it to keep flying: "I could sure !@#$ing use some, Emperor. The world's gone !@#$-down in a sea of !@#$ here and now..."

He thinks to try and explain what he's seeing for a moment, but how could he really? How can he tell someone of the harsh and beautiful glory of what his eye reveals, as the weapons of the Imago attempt to rip open reality, itself?

Shells armed with exotic matter detonate not only matter, but spacetime, itself, in small, controlled bursts. Missiles that can create miniaturized atomic blasts streak towards the target. And beam weapons that put their target zones both a million miles away, and yet exactly where they are, try to create critical instabilities in the enemy's molecular structure, causing terrible implosions as they go.

Against a lesser enemy, the battle would have been over seconds ago, and the foe all but wiped from the face of the world.

But yet the Dignitary strides forward, answering the strange weapons of its enemy with stranger weapons of its own -- unleashed from behind the great iris in its chest. Birds of light and fire that intercept shells and missiles. Spirals of crystal flowers that erase beam weapons, turning them to soothing music. And green waves of power that take the damage done to the surrounding areas and clean them up, as though no battle had ever taken place here.

It is beautiful to see such terrible weapons overcome by such wonderful ones. Indeed, SPYGOD could sit on this dying Imago and watch it all day.

He just doesn't have the time, now.

"Gonna have to let you go, Emperor," he says, getting back to work in the knotty, red innards of his foe: "Hopefully I can !@#$ing make this-

* * *

work!" Myron shouts, banging his fists on the controls: "They've been locked down, !@#$ it!"

"Then unlock them!" Mr. USA replies, not sounding too good.

"I can't. Not without the code. And I bet it's !@#$ing DNA...."

"And there's not enough of him left to get any," Mr. USA sighs: "And Doctor Power doesn't have the power to deal with that, right now."

"And, not to rush you or anything?" Yanabah shouts from the door, where she's been firing non-stop for the last few minutes: "But I'm running out of ammo, over here. And not running out of targets."

"What was that, son?" Mr. USA asks.

"My two-handed firing partner says we're about to get overrun by the nazi sex dwarf brigade."

"So what are our other options?" the old hero asks, something approaching weary defeat in his voice (which scares Myron more than he's willing to admit).

"Not a lot. Not without going down there and tearing half this base apart. And..."

"Then you're going to have to just go do it, Myron," Doctor Power says, his voice hoarse from effort and weeping: "I'm dealing with things up here. Mr. USA doesn't know a circuit board from a checkerboard, and Skyspear's... well, she's not leaving the survivors."

Myron shakes his head, not wanting to think about that. And as he does, he glances over from where he's been working.

And that's when he sees it. 

"Did you hear us, son?" Mr. USA asks after a few seconds of silence.

"Yeah, I did," Myron says, taking his broken sunglasses off, and looking at the electrical components he'd built into them, long ago: "I think I might have an idea, provided that's not locked off, too."

"What son?"

"No time to talk. Mr. USA? Get your !@#$ing mega-geriatric !@#$ down here and help guard the door. Maybe Skyspear can teleport you if she can let the two of them go for a second. Let Doctor Power do what he has to with her, okay?"

The answer he gets isn't nice or polite, but he doesn't care. He rushes over to the portion of the controls he just saw, hoping that it's what he thought it was. And he's not only delighted to see that it is, but that they didn't lock it down -- probably because they didn't think it was important.

"Can it just be that simple?" he asks himself, looking at the eyeglasses and the exposed -- and, in the Imago's case, highly redundant -- communications circuits: "Really?"

* * *

"Not really, no," New Man says, looking out at the massive field of large, glowing glass balls -- all of which seem to have something inside of them, spinning and spiraling too fast to be really seen.

DEROS, of course. 

"What do you mean?" Gosheven asks, using his powers to break and smash through the Specials that were guarding this large and cavernous room -- formerly the engine room, from the looks of things -- and keep his ally from being hit by their weapons.

"I mean I didn't think there were actually so many of them!"

"So what does that really !@#$ing mean?"

"It means that the moment I blow them up, we're both dead!"

"Even you, paleface?"

"Even me, Tonto."

Gosheven looks at him and smiles: "I was wondering when you were finally going to get one in on me."

"Not much as last words go, huh?"

"I'll take 'em," the man says, forming a large, metal wing to deflect the storm of flechettes heading their way, courtesy of the Specials' guns: "How about we both yell 'Geronimo' for good measure? Then we can be totally politically incorrect."

"Okay, that makes it official. We get out of this, you're my new best friend for life."

"Only if you buy the drinks."

"We'll take turns."

"!@#$ straight we will," Gosheven says, and gets ready.

New Man inhales and grits his teeth. Then he releases all the energy he's been storing for the last seven months in a massive, rippling wave of purple light. 

The wave goes forward, into the DEROS as they spin and purl, unaware of their fate. Each one only has a split second to realize what's happened before it's consumed by the violet fire and explodes.

And as each explodes, the energy carries on to the next, and the next, and the next, like massive alien firecrackers the size of large boulders. 

Gosheven cradles his spent ally-turned-friend in his arms and changes as rapidly as he can, hoping he can ride them both out of here. It's a slim chance, but he's been through tinier holes in his life.

Maybe the Great Spirit will let him keep his life to go with the victory, today, after-

* * *

all the weapons of the Flier are silenced, suddenly, as a great burst of fire and flame erupts from its center. 

The mighty craft begins to expand, then, as though it were a trick balloon rather than a thing made from otherworldly metal. Tendrils of light shoot out from where it buckles and bends, and debris begins to rain down from its undersides.

For just a quick second, it looks as though the battle is won.

But this is an advanced craft, by anyone's standards. It does not merely take damage lying down. It repairs, and rebuilds.

It reforms.

The light ends. The fires are extinguished. The falling parts are reclaimed and remade.

And, perhaps three seconds after it should have been destroyed, the nanites' work is done, and the Flier begins to open fire once more.

But it does so unconvincingly. Haltingly. It is nowhere near as massive or rapid as it was, just seconds before, and it gets no better.

Indeed, the craft appears to be crippled. It does not hover above the Lost City, but rather perches above its highest points -- forming grappling arms to take its weight as it settles down, unable to fire and fly at the same time. 

And that's all the invitation its opponents need. 

Before The Dragon can fully comprehend what has just happened -- and how badly things are going to go for them, now -- the Lost City is all but overrun by the remaining War Spawn, and the Dignitary now stands right beside its ultimate target.

"Enemy of this world, I call upon you to surrender!" the massive robot commands, its many, positive weapons jutting from the circular hatch in its chest and its arms raised to strike: "You have no option!"

Never! The Dragon shrieks, and begins to fire everything he has-

* * *

left to fight," Mr. USA wheezes, barely able to pull himself back through the doors, beyond which is an endless, running horde of dwarfs: "I'm sorry, Myron..."

"And I am out of ammo, now," Yanabah says, pulling out a long knife and making ready to use it on whatever comes through the door next: "So if you're going to !@#$ing do something, Underman, now would be a !@#$ good time..."

"It's done," Myron says, looking at the weird cobble-together he's just made from his glasses, the communications station, and a few odds and ends he was able to break off of other things while they were keeping him safe.

"Are you sure, son?" Mr. USA says, looking up at him: "I don't hear any difference...."

"You wouldn't," Myron sighs, sitting down and looking at the doors: "I didn't stop anything from happening. I just added a few things, that's all."

"Like what?" Yanabah demands, quickly slashing the head off the first dwarf to come through the doors: "Underman? What did you do?"

"I'm sending the signal we were going to broadcast through those satellites," he says, wondering if he should get up and fight or not: "Right now, every Imago in communication with this place is shutting down."

"Does that mean..." Mr. USA asks, but then he cocks an ear as a series of thumps come from the hallway, outside.

Yanabah looks at Myron, and then at the doors. Then she carefully walks over, knife still at the ready, and kicks one of them open.

Beyond the light of the room, just outside the swing of that door, all the dwarfs of Dr. Yesterday lie still on the floor, twitching and groaning.

"Good thing he upgraded them, then," Myron says, getting up and grabbing something two-handed and heavy: "I was afraid we were still going to have to fight through them."

"Are they dead?"

"Just stunned," he says, walking past her: "So let's take advantage of it, huh?"

"Well done," she says, smiling at him.

"Thank you," Myron says: "And please? Underman is dead. Just call me Myron."

And then he starts to bring the bar up and-

* * *

down to Earth, at long last -- one and all.

Every Special drops down, useless and still. Every False Face seizes up and keels over. Every Imago goes cross-eyed and clanks to its knees, or on its face, and every strange, hybrid monstrosity stops moving and falls to the ground, smashing open like ripe fruit when they hit.

And every new group that gets beamed in does the same -- tumbling through the hole in the air like garbage through a chute, only to land in a heap on the ground.

At first, there is disbelief. Then shock. Then joy.

And then, when that's exhausted, and cooler heads prevail, joy turns to concern that they might get back up again. 

And then anger, and the desire for revenge, take over in full measure -- giving even the meekest and weakest of survivors a chance to kill one of their would-be assassins this day.

The streets run red with stolen blood. The cities burn with fire, with anger, and with hard-won freedom.

The Imago have lost.

* * *

The Flier stops shooting. 

The Dragon curses, wondering what has happened, but then realizes that not only can he not fire, but he cannot move, either. He cannot fly the machine away, or change its shape. He can barely even think.

All he can do is hear as the Leader screams and screams, terrified like a child. 

He tries to disengage himself from the machine he is bonded to, but the thing will not obey him. He tries to howl in complaint, but he cannot be heard.

Outside, the massive white robot reaches its hands out to take hold of the Flier. He can feel as its mighty hands clutch at it, and pull it up off the Lost City. He can sense it coming to pieces under that grip.

And then he feels the strange parabola of forces as the Dignitary picks it up, holds it over its head, and brings it right down upon the city, itself.

As he goes down, just before being smashed into the ancient stone, the Dragon looks through frozen eyes, and sees SPYGOD watching him fall. The man is riding athwart a headless Imago turned into a jetpack of sorts. 

And as the Flier is driven into the city -- again, and again, and again, until the nanites cannot cope with the damage and cease working -- he is aware that SPYGOD can actually see him, somehow.

And that he is flipping him both birds.

"... and you were !@#$ing lousy in bed!" he shouts at some point, but The Dragon can no longer quite comprehend what that might mean. The damage to the Flier takes away his mind, piece by piece, until he is little more than a simpering moron.

And then there is just darkness, and the fear that comes with it.

(SPYGOD is listening to Strangelove (Depeche Mode) and having a Victory Lager)